Book review: Man Oh Man! Writing M/M Fiction
About a month ago, I said I was giving up on reading this book, among others: Man, Oh Man! Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks and Ca$h, by Josh Lanyon. Since then, I’ve finished it. It’s way better than I initially thought, but it took a while to get over that first hurdle. It was the layout that threw me. Throughout the book, the author includes snippets of writing to illustrate point; as well as including the input of other authors, publishers, and occasionally readers for what they like to see in M/M writing. At first, I found the constant interruption by bits of fic and other opinions to be jarring, but about a hundred pages into the book, I got used to it.
It’s a good book, giving a tour de force of issues and situations peculiar to writing M/M stories, whether they be erotica, romance, mystery, thrillers, action/adventure, scifi/fantasy, etc. He does not go into the mechanics of male homosexual sex (too bad - I wanted to see that!) or kink, nor does he proscribe formulas. At the end of the book, he sums up his advice as such:
Take time to craft realistic but lovable characters - first and foremost, really think about your characters. And then start working out a plot with enough depth and conflict to carry the story of those characters the necessary distance. Think about the arc of the relationship.
Pay extra attention to dialogue, to pacing, to your action scenes whether they take place between the sheets or during a car chase. Give some thought to what your story is really about. Yeah, it should be fun, but that doesn’t mean it has to be meaningless. And don’t forget the possibilities to up the emotional ante through use of hurt/comfort and plausible angst.
And take the time to edit your work. Acceptance may not be quick and easy, but rejection is. Don’t make it easy for editors and agents to pass on your work.
Compared to other ‘how to write’ books, the author doesn’t go into detail on the basics. He leaves that to other texts. Also compared to ‘how to write’ books, he includes a lot of background on how to publish, how to be marketable, and how to make money. These were new and excellent parts for me. I would suggest it for anyone serious about writing for money and who can swallow a how-to book.
There were a few particular passages that jumped out at me:
Pg 65, “Unfortunately, you love everyone you create, so you’re no judge” [of whether the main character is believable and engaging enough to snare the reader’s interest.] I found this hilarious and so true. I love Sylar. I love Peter. But I also love Angela. And Maury. And Matt, dumb as he is. And I love my bit characters, the OCs who come in and say a few lines only to bow out of the story soon thereafter. I love them all! For a long time, I thought such love was automatic for writing a character, and then I wrote for Maya. I did not love her, even after I felt I had a strong enough muse for her.
Pg 133, “you reveal your own feelings and beliefs about relationships and society and sex and all kinds of things you may not have consciously been thinking about.” THIS. This is something I’ve believed for some time. One of my early complaints about another Heroes fanfic writer was that it was odd for them to be so taken with Sylar, a character whose main arc through the course of the show was being forgiven and redeemed, but the author in question seemed to have no sense of forgiveness, and no understanding of what redemption really meant. I don’t want people reading this to go skittering off to pore over their own fic and wonder if I’ve been secretly judging your innermost morality based on the themes you write (I have; I do; and I love you guys - who you are is on display with everything you do). I just want to agree with the author of this book that I don’t think you can’t believably write something that holds no emotional truth for you.
Pg 207, “it takes a certain amount of living before you have anything useful or wise to say in your writing.” I found this interesting, especially in light of a conversation I had with a flist member yesterday about age and experience. At its core, I disagree. I’ve seen young people (14-25) say things of great profundity; I've seen people a lot older than myself who have lived unexamined lives. And often on issues of emotion, the young have a lot of useful things to say. I imagine it’s because they are at a stage of life where emotion hits them much harder and they have yet to be ground down by twenty years of paying bills, working, stifling yourself in order to keep harmony in a relationship, raising kids, or whatever. Drama is central to good writing and I think the young probably have more of a natural talent for that than the old. I’m really talking out of my ass here, but it’s my opinion that people can be very good at a few things very young. To be very good at MANY things requires time, simply because it takes a while to learn all that stuff. An older writer who can call upon a broader personal experience can bring that to her writing and make it deeper, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be better than the writing of someone with the necessarily limited experience that comes with youth.
Pg 293, “In an interview, Neil Gaiman said, ‘Somebody like Ray Bradbury once said something like, you have a million words of crap in you and you have to get them out before you get to the good stuff.’” This made me laugh. I’ve written around two million words in pursuit of telling stories. And … yeah, I think I’ve gotten the worst crap out. Last night I hammered out a short but serviceable story in a fandom I’ve never written for. The first draft was readable and so since I wasn’t all that motivated to spend much time on it, I published as it was. I couldn’t have done that a million words ago. Just couldn’t have. I might have had the idea, but I wouldn’t have had the execution. Two million words ago, I wouldn’t have even had the idea.
Pg 293, “In order to write, you have to have something to write about.” This had a lot of different meanings for me. Not just the ageist thing from above, but also that you have to have a story inside you that’s struggling to get out. There has to be something you want to tell the world. I’m reminded of a quote from Madonna: “The whole reason I got into show business wasn’t because I thought I had a spectacular voice. It was because I thought I had something to say.” Find what's going on in your life that you have something to say about. Then say it.