Getting Published
How hard is it to get a book published? Well, there are approximately 100,000 books published every year in the United States—the worldwide figure is up to a million—so it's not a statistical improbability like winning the lottery. (The winning lottery ticket in book publishing is getting on the best-seller list.)
I believe that the difference between published writers and unpublished writers isn't as wide as most people think. Sometimes the difference is as straightforward as the simple fact that they haven't been published yet. They've got both the craft and the determination, and, in those cases, it's just a matter of time. But in other cases, the difference can be measured on two fronts. As they say in sports—there's the mental game, and the physical game. It's the same in writing, and they're both equally important. The best writer in the world won't get very far if they never actually manage to sit down and produce pages. I can't tell you how many writers I know who are incredibly talented and could definitely be published—if only they could complete something. But they get defeated by the mental game. On the other hand, a writer might produce book after book, but if they don't have a certain amount of craft, it won't matter if they write a hundred books, they still won't be published. A writer needs both.
The Mental Game
There may be professional writers out there who can't wait to sit down to work, and when they do the words just spill out. Of course for these writing prodigies going back and editing afterward is effortless as well. These writers have absolutely no self-doubt or insecurity or anxiety. They laugh in the face of rejection letters and stinging reviews (I'm already straining the bounds of credulity, so proposing there is a writer who never gets any rejection letters or stinging reviews seems like it would be going too far.) These creatures may exist, but I've certainly never met one. And I suspect if they do exist, they are probably heavily medicated.
I know a lot of writers—and every single one struggles with flagging motivation, tortuous self-doubt, and repeated rejection. In fact, I think it should be part of the job description. However, as an aspiring writer, misconceptions about what it's like to be a professional writer may sabotage a potential career. I know it almost did for me.
I dreamed about being a writer from the age of eleven, but for a long time I didn't really take that dream seriously. I can pinpoint the moment when that changed. It was when a New Yorker writer came to talk in one of my writing classes. During that talk he said, "I hate writing, but I love having written." That was an absolute revelation to me. Up until that moment, I didn't know that you could hate writing and still be a writer. I thought that because writing was so hard for me, I probably wasn't a "real" writer. I thought a "real" writer must love writing. I had not yet heard the Thomas Mann quote, which seems to sum up my whole existence: "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." What I thought disqualified me from writing turned out to be a well-known characteristic.
The older I get, the more respect I have for the mental aspect of writing because, unfortunately, the struggles don't disappear after crossing that imaginary finish line (publication). Too many aspiring writers view their struggle with writing as something they have to fix or overcome before they can publish, when it may actually be—as I discovered—an integral part of the process.
The Physical Game
I remember before I was published, my perennial question for my writing teachers (which I never quite got up the guts to ask) was: "Is it my writing good enough to be published?" That was the watermark for me. It seemed like some sort of rite of passage. I thought if my teachers said my work was good enough to be published (though how they would tell me that since I never asked, I don't know) then I would be a "real" writer. That would be the true measure of my talent.
I have a different view of things now. I think getting published has less to do with talent than most people realize. For example, in my writing classes, I am continually surprised with the natural talent of so many of the students. One has an ear for dialogue. Another has a gift for vivid descriptions. A third has wry humor. There is talent galore. However, that doesn't mean I would say they could send their work out and get published immediately. They have talent—but there is almost always one thing that's missing. And it's the one thing that I think makes the difference (at least in the "physical" writing game) between writing that's likely to be published and writing that's not. That one thing is structure.
Most aspiring writers I know are baffled when they read published novels in which the dialogue is wooden, the descriptions flat, or the writing completely lacking in humor or tone. They want to know why these books are published. There is one reason: because that kind of book always has a story. And if it has a story, it also has a structure—because the two are inextricable.
Is it possible to get a novel published without much of a story? I think we've probably all read this kind of book as well: the sentences are wonderful, the descriptions are perfect, the characters are lovingly drawn, but not an awful lot happens. I have two things to say about this kind of book—first they are much harder to get published because, generally, the further you get away from story, the smaller your audience is going to be. Secondly, even if there isn't much story, these books usually still have a strong structure.
To get published, one of the most important things that you need to understand is how to go about developing a strong structure—in whichever genre you decide to write.
The good news is that this is something you can learn. The bad news is that it's not easy. I came across a quote the other day that sums it up. It said, "Easy reading is damned hard writing." Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but for me—and for most writers I know—it's hard.
The problem is that some people imagine that, as a writer, you just sit down in front of the computer (or typewriter or notebook) and the words simply pour out of you. But the writing that comes out of that gush of creativity is messy. It might contain gems of brilliance, but generally it's like diamonds in a mine—you have to excavate them. You have to dig them out of a ton of useless rock. This is where structure comes in. Structure allows you to impose order on creativity.