Why, Not How

Taking on a mulligan on 2011 seems to be working. Optimism levels back up and rising! Huzzah!

Answer this question, please.

I am apparently becoming (in)famous both at work and online for my abhorrence of FEEEEEEEEEEELINGS, but as far as editorial mantras go, NO FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS is a pretty terrible one to go on, as that has more to do with personal opinion than good editorial vision.

Cap’n Sweet Valley has an editorial mantra, which has served him rather well in his years as an editor and packager. His mantra is What’s the Fucking Handle?, meaning “What’s the selling point–handle–I can hold on to?” Blunt, and a little crass, perhaps, but rather effective when you’re trying to pitch the book to the editorial board and the book buyers.

The Handle is also known in the industry as a high concept hook, often given as an X Meets Y formula (e.g. THE HANDMAID’S TALE meets LORD OF THE FLIES…in space!). Nearly all the bestsellers and commercial blockbusters have a Handle, and a really simple one at that. Handles are easy to conceptualize, and are therefore easily consumed.

Of course, Cap’n Sweet Valley’s tastes do run much more commercial than mine, so What’s the Fucking Handle? is not a mantra I can necessarily adopt, nor do I want my guiding vision for a book to come down to “how will I sell it?”. (Although I see the practicality in that too. I’m not all idealism!) In addition to reading submissions for us, I do second reads for my colleagues, and I’ve slowly started to recognize a pattern in the questions I ask, which I can now refine into my own personal editorial mantra: Why? (Not How.)

Why? is a pretty important question to answer in stories, because more than Who, What, When, and Where, it gives us a reason to continue reading. Characters (Who) may be compelling, but compelling isn’t always enough to propel me through a story. The setting (When and Where) may be a time or place in which I’m interested, but sometime I’m better off reading nonfiction about those things. The plot (What) can be interesting, but if it’s such a series of actions strung out one after another, my emotional investment will wane.

Of course, Why? is one of the hardest questions to answer because unlike What’s the Fucking Handle?, it can’t always be encapsulated into a single phrase or idea. It often helps to break down the big Why? into a few smaller ones.

Why should I care?
This is a pretty important one, and often has to do with world-building (fantasy or otherwise). I find myself caring more when I see characters interact with and meaningfully affect the world in which they live, in ways big and small. In other words, this Why? comes down to What’s the Point? What’s the point in reading about a dystopian when the book doesn’t fully engage the questions it poses? George Orwell and Aldous Huxley had questions, and they explored them through their stories. What’s the point in reading a beautifully written literary novel that has no real substance to it? It’s one thing to have beautiful prose; it’s another to have that beautiful prose bring the reader to a greater understanding about the world and the human condition.

Why should you read THE HUNGER GAMES? Because it’s a phenomenal story about the atrocities of war. Why should you read HIS DARK MATERIALS? Because it’s an amazing trilogy about the bittersweet rightness of growing up and losing innocence. If you (or I) cannot answer this question, then I’m not sure I can work on the the project.

Why, now how?
Often when I ask Why? questions, I get a lot of How or What answers. Do not confuse the two; they are not the same. In the case of genre books, I am not asking logistic questions about the mechanics of your world. If I ask Why are the people in charge enforcing such terrible rules?, I don’t want the answer to be To keep the populace under control. That is not answering why. The Why would be a much more complicated response involving the history of the world, the circumstances in which this government arose, the current state of politics, etc.

For instance, in BRAVE NEW WORLD, why is society now genetically engineered into different class systems? It isn’t because they want to keep the populace under control; it’s because they believe that biological destiny produces a productive society, and that intelligent freewill is the deep root of unhappiness. There you go. That answers why. Why goes deep into the story and produces insight. I am interested in what insight you can give me about what it means to be human; I’m less interested about your flashy words or your cool-tech future world.

So that is my editorial mantra! If you ever work on a project with me, expect Why? to be the first question I ask you.

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