I read your newsletter the second it drops into my inbox. You're a phenomenal writer and thinker, and I'm in complete agreement about the longing for depth. I feel it too.
Karen, ah! This just made my day--thank you so much. I've been seeing a resurgence of zine culture lately, and I'm thinking the return to paper and mailing and objects is coming, I'm hopeful for that. It feels like a thread of this depth-question too!
I’m not surprised. There’s something about a well-made, well-edited magazine that’s so satisfying. Getting to enjoy the sensibility of someone whose work and way of thinking you enjoy suddenly feels magically immersive. It’s wild!
Years ago I wrote "digression is 9/10ths of the law" and this piece had the full satisfaction of resonance. I think there is something so fundamental here about the way we experience the truth and make meaning. I feel it's not only important to the discussions we have around writing, but the structure of writing itself and the way we conceptualize storytelling at all. Amazing piece. So grateful for you!
Also, and then I promise I’ll stop, so many books these days are geared toward action and resolution when so much of life itself is a meandering—asking questions without having the answers. But I imagine that type of non-linearity is challenging to pitch in a book.
I think we're in a time and space where we're finally coming back around to the meander--like the next five years, I think we're going to see a resurgence of the thought-book, or like the book that demands a reader participate in its reading rather than something, say, like Real Housewives, where you can just blob on the couch and mindlessly listen to them bicker with one another, without any real calibration between entertainment and reader / watcher. It's like art happening to you, and you actually engaging. I am hoping we're returning to art that demands engagement. I do thinks those books are challenging, but the more of them we buy, the more of them that will sell.
I also think readers don't know what they want, and we should really be using what's selling (romance / romantasy / fantasy) as gateway drugs and launchpads into other work. I read so much weird stuff now. Romance and then a grief memoir and then a poetry collection and then an essay, and I want to see the industry embrace the idea that anyone who reads *could* be a reader of something else, and how to tap into those markets to lead readers in more directions than being stuck in a genre forever.
Really interesting -- and I love the recognition of the need for sensory language and embodiment, as well as space to unspool thoughts. I always appreciate the insights in your newsletter!
I do wonder/worry about the way that sometimes (often?) pitch copy veers into abstraction that leaves me with no real sense of what the book is literally about (where are the characters and what are they doing?). I also find the overly abstract pitches feel like someone is trying to tell me how I'm going to feel about the book (which I find myself resisting, as a matter of character).
Totally agree, I hate being told how to feel--it's like someone saying RELAX and expecting you to feel relaxed! LOL.
I think what you might be feeling is the way publicists have tried to veer away from the summary in the actual copy of the book (like the back summary--why am I blanking on what this is called right now? SYNOPSIS! yes!) and trying to make them two separate things. But I think good pitches have both, and of course this all depends on genre!
I loved this, Cassie. It made me think of the conversations below. Humbly offering a couple of links to in-depth writer interviews that I think do a good job of allowing time / space for richness. Both on the Short Story Today podcast. One of me and one by me.
I am so, so inspired by this and grateful for it. And I wonder if this is the reason so many of my cold pitches (for speaking engagements, mostly) didn't land-- because nowhere in the pitch lived the kind of sensuality, intensity, and intelligence that Lightning Flowers actually holds and that I can offer in conversation with a crowd.
I'll be reading this post again. And keeping you in my head when I worry my own new Substack posts are running too long and too winding.
Did you ever end up reading Doppelgänger? I have a hard time imagining it as a bratty internet book- the author to this point has written very powerfully about climate change, is considered a thought leader in the movement. Haven’t read it yet myself but it’s been on my list, I’m a big fan of her
Yes. The constant drag on depth is impoverishing and boring and not what we need in such difficult times. Depth holds attention. Keeps us aware. Thank you! .
Your over me like hives line is so great. I'm still stuck wondering whether I want the hives or not, such a fun problem to suddenly give someone. I definitely want to know more.
As to your broader point...idk. I'm at the kindergarten/preschool level with my kids, and it's a communal life of talking to kids at their level, striving to give them the structure and space to speak and find their own voice as they keep engaging the world. There IS a horror to the TV in general and the disquiet of watching someone stare blankly at a screen, and this goes back to an old horror too that reading books has the same over-pacifying effect. It's a tricky thing to critique. It takes effort to think, listen...it's built so much by example. Idk, i just think that's the main thing to focus on.
It's actually so hard on the parent-end too! I didn't realize how meaningless so many of my questions were or my answers to everyday conversation. To have true, deep conversations requires good questions and good listening and following a thread--there are just so many parts! And finding ways to say things beyond, "oh! cool!" Ya know? You have to have so much creative brain space to foster that. I feel you!
The amount of time I spend fostering and developing points of shared interest with my kids is easily as big of a change to who i am as that first year of constant newborn care was. Such a reorganization.
It’s so true. Just the sheer amount of construction vehicle names and what they do and what verbs to use in imaginative storytelling I learned in the last six months that are now forever in my brain 😂 both feel like you’re facing and owning so much you don’t know and is unknowable!
My neurodivergent brain loves depth and nuance and weird, inscrutable language and layers of emotion—-but does that writing sell? Agents love to tell me no it does not (exception for the nepotism books). I recently read Sarah LaBrie’s No One Gets To Fall Apart and loved how cerebral it is, so I took a peek at the good reads reviews and yowza: 😳. Most reviews read along the lines of—too heady and intellectual, what’s this woman talking about? Why she’s so sad? Where’s the action?
What's so funny (and shouts to Alisha for this) is that that book did SO WELL in the media? Like it's on every list, it's everywhere (and deserves to be, it's SO GOOD), but it's funny when what critics love and what readers love don't necessarily match-up. "Why's she so sad?" is such a funny thing to say about that book, it's honestly a five-star review.
I do think "sell" and SELL are two different things here and involve SO MANY factors that it's hard to say. The right agent with the right reasoning? Perhaps! It should!
I have stewed on it to try to figure out what it was exactly that has me so frustrated! I'm glad other people are feeling it too, though I hope that means the fix is coming.
I often think about how long it takes for Dostoevsky to get to the actual crime in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Dostoevsky saturates us in Raskolnikov's thinking before he murders the old woman and her sister. We need those deep, lingering early pages!
I really love this and resonate with it deeply. It's a good reminder that others are out there who honor depth and length in writing when sometimes I find myself doubting the viability, not value but ability to connect with people, of this impulse and aesthetic. <3
I read your newsletter the second it drops into my inbox. You're a phenomenal writer and thinker, and I'm in complete agreement about the longing for depth. I feel it too.
Karen, ah! This just made my day--thank you so much. I've been seeing a resurgence of zine culture lately, and I'm thinking the return to paper and mailing and objects is coming, I'm hopeful for that. It feels like a thread of this depth-question too!
I’m not surprised. There’s something about a well-made, well-edited magazine that’s so satisfying. Getting to enjoy the sensibility of someone whose work and way of thinking you enjoy suddenly feels magically immersive. It’s wild!
it’s so true!
Years ago I wrote "digression is 9/10ths of the law" and this piece had the full satisfaction of resonance. I think there is something so fundamental here about the way we experience the truth and make meaning. I feel it's not only important to the discussions we have around writing, but the structure of writing itself and the way we conceptualize storytelling at all. Amazing piece. So grateful for you!
Putting this on a post-it on my desk so I can see it everyday! Of course you wrote it, you’re brilliant! Resonance!!! More resonance!!!
I’m terrible at bits and am all about slow writing, so your essay gives me hope!
Also, and then I promise I’ll stop, so many books these days are geared toward action and resolution when so much of life itself is a meandering—asking questions without having the answers. But I imagine that type of non-linearity is challenging to pitch in a book.
I think we're in a time and space where we're finally coming back around to the meander--like the next five years, I think we're going to see a resurgence of the thought-book, or like the book that demands a reader participate in its reading rather than something, say, like Real Housewives, where you can just blob on the couch and mindlessly listen to them bicker with one another, without any real calibration between entertainment and reader / watcher. It's like art happening to you, and you actually engaging. I am hoping we're returning to art that demands engagement. I do thinks those books are challenging, but the more of them we buy, the more of them that will sell.
I also think readers don't know what they want, and we should really be using what's selling (romance / romantasy / fantasy) as gateway drugs and launchpads into other work. I read so much weird stuff now. Romance and then a grief memoir and then a poetry collection and then an essay, and I want to see the industry embrace the idea that anyone who reads *could* be a reader of something else, and how to tap into those markets to lead readers in more directions than being stuck in a genre forever.
Really interesting -- and I love the recognition of the need for sensory language and embodiment, as well as space to unspool thoughts. I always appreciate the insights in your newsletter!
I do wonder/worry about the way that sometimes (often?) pitch copy veers into abstraction that leaves me with no real sense of what the book is literally about (where are the characters and what are they doing?). I also find the overly abstract pitches feel like someone is trying to tell me how I'm going to feel about the book (which I find myself resisting, as a matter of character).
Totally agree, I hate being told how to feel--it's like someone saying RELAX and expecting you to feel relaxed! LOL.
I think what you might be feeling is the way publicists have tried to veer away from the summary in the actual copy of the book (like the back summary--why am I blanking on what this is called right now? SYNOPSIS! yes!) and trying to make them two separate things. But I think good pitches have both, and of course this all depends on genre!
I loved this, Cassie. It made me think of the conversations below. Humbly offering a couple of links to in-depth writer interviews that I think do a good job of allowing time / space for richness. Both on the Short Story Today podcast. One of me and one by me.
https://shortstorytoday.com/search?s=stocker
https://shortstorytoday.com/episodes/episode-76-nishanth-injam-the-best-possible-experience
ouuuu I can't wait to listen to these, Stanley! I usually have a line-up for my walks, so I'll add this in.
I am so, so inspired by this and grateful for it. And I wonder if this is the reason so many of my cold pitches (for speaking engagements, mostly) didn't land-- because nowhere in the pitch lived the kind of sensuality, intensity, and intelligence that Lightning Flowers actually holds and that I can offer in conversation with a crowd.
I'll be reading this post again. And keeping you in my head when I worry my own new Substack posts are running too long and too winding.
Oh that makes me so happy! Yes write the winding, and be sensual and intense—yes yes yes!
Did you ever end up reading Doppelgänger? I have a hard time imagining it as a bratty internet book- the author to this point has written very powerfully about climate change, is considered a thought leader in the movement. Haven’t read it yet myself but it’s been on my list, I’m a big fan of her
I have not (conversation was only a week ago) but Acree said it didn’t have that voice at all! It’s my fear of the voice that keeps me from things 😂
I highly recommend Doppelgänger. It’s insightful, well-developed, not bratty.
That’s three recommendations, so I think I’ll request it!
Yes. The constant drag on depth is impoverishing and boring and not what we need in such difficult times. Depth holds attention. Keeps us aware. Thank you! .
Your over me like hives line is so great. I'm still stuck wondering whether I want the hives or not, such a fun problem to suddenly give someone. I definitely want to know more.
As to your broader point...idk. I'm at the kindergarten/preschool level with my kids, and it's a communal life of talking to kids at their level, striving to give them the structure and space to speak and find their own voice as they keep engaging the world. There IS a horror to the TV in general and the disquiet of watching someone stare blankly at a screen, and this goes back to an old horror too that reading books has the same over-pacifying effect. It's a tricky thing to critique. It takes effort to think, listen...it's built so much by example. Idk, i just think that's the main thing to focus on.
It's actually so hard on the parent-end too! I didn't realize how meaningless so many of my questions were or my answers to everyday conversation. To have true, deep conversations requires good questions and good listening and following a thread--there are just so many parts! And finding ways to say things beyond, "oh! cool!" Ya know? You have to have so much creative brain space to foster that. I feel you!
The amount of time I spend fostering and developing points of shared interest with my kids is easily as big of a change to who i am as that first year of constant newborn care was. Such a reorganization.
It’s so true. Just the sheer amount of construction vehicle names and what they do and what verbs to use in imaginative storytelling I learned in the last six months that are now forever in my brain 😂 both feel like you’re facing and owning so much you don’t know and is unknowable!
Heheh, construction vehicles are the right object for that for sure!
My neurodivergent brain loves depth and nuance and weird, inscrutable language and layers of emotion—-but does that writing sell? Agents love to tell me no it does not (exception for the nepotism books). I recently read Sarah LaBrie’s No One Gets To Fall Apart and loved how cerebral it is, so I took a peek at the good reads reviews and yowza: 😳. Most reviews read along the lines of—too heady and intellectual, what’s this woman talking about? Why she’s so sad? Where’s the action?
What's so funny (and shouts to Alisha for this) is that that book did SO WELL in the media? Like it's on every list, it's everywhere (and deserves to be, it's SO GOOD), but it's funny when what critics love and what readers love don't necessarily match-up. "Why's she so sad?" is such a funny thing to say about that book, it's honestly a five-star review.
I do think "sell" and SELL are two different things here and involve SO MANY factors that it's hard to say. The right agent with the right reasoning? Perhaps! It should!
🎯
Yes. Exactly this. I couldn’t put my finger on it (the lack of depth) that has been nagging me lately but you nailed it. Thank you.
I have stewed on it to try to figure out what it was exactly that has me so frustrated! I'm glad other people are feeling it too, though I hope that means the fix is coming.
I really appreciated this, thank you for writing it. (I'm also someone who tends to read PSP as soon as I see it in my inbox.)
Kirthana, I really appreciate you saying so, thank you so much.
I often think about how long it takes for Dostoevsky to get to the actual crime in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Dostoevsky saturates us in Raskolnikov's thinking before he murders the old woman and her sister. We need those deep, lingering early pages!
Truly--take the time! I'll wait! Usually!
I really love this and resonate with it deeply. It's a good reminder that others are out there who honor depth and length in writing when sometimes I find myself doubting the viability, not value but ability to connect with people, of this impulse and aesthetic. <3
Please do it! We need more space-taking, I think! Take it up, muchness!
Loved this. Thanks for writing it.
Appreciate you saying so, Sara!