NEW NOVEL OUT NOW!
Be sure to check it out! (Plus other authorial updates)
Dear subscribers,
I’ve been whispering about my second project, The Taco Psychosis, in recent posts. And here it is!
It is my second novel, albeit a short one: I’m fine with people calling it as a novella since it has the spine of one. It is also my first satire. Click below to purchase your copy!
The Taco Psychosis is about an Average Joe who ends up on a much-more-than-average adventure when the umpteenth shitty taco he consumes drives him insane. And the only cure for his condition - dubbed the taco psychosis - is finding the world’s most authentic taco. But will he? And how will his home state of California - home of the world’s proudest burrito snobs - reconcile with what his illness says about them?
While both are very Californian, it is otherwise a pretty different project from Calm Before an Earthquake. And because it’s different, I wanted to use this post to elaborate a bit on one facet of my authorial vision. Something I think my small but growing number of fans would find both interesting and useful as they wonder what else to read by me.
To put it simply: I have a lot of story ideas! One reason I chose self-publishing was realism: only with my own speed, and not that of a turtleish publishing industry (assuming it liked what I wrote, etc.) would see my ideas through. And I see my projects as falling into a personal classification of “genres,” if you will. I tend to reveal where they “belong” in the subtitle or the description. Calm Before an Earthquake, for instance, is what I call a “California Tale.” Does it perfectly match the genre description of a “tale” as thousands of academics have agreed upon? I don’t know. It’s just how I go about it. It feels like a tale to me because tales, from my experience, have always possessed a kind of quaintness. And I feel like it describes the kind of barrier between “the real” and a kind of earthy, almost cultural-fantastical ethos one encounters in the novel. It’s not fantasy, but neither is it realism.
I can sometimes be a snob about people “learning how to be writers” - those who feel they need to do that in at least 95% of cases most probably aren’t born writers. But I’m also aware that I don’t know everything, and have kept my ear to the ground for certain trends that I can hone in on without compromising the independent character of my writing aims.
And one of them is: the ‘series’ is here to stay.
All fantasy readers know what I’m talking about. But for those who don’t read fantasy or who read little of it, the lion’s share of fantasy output is series-based. This is even true of classic high fantasy: think Narnia, comprised of seven ‘chronicles.’ Think The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy, with The Hobbit complementing LOTR as a prequel despite being intended as a standalone. Think The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Standalones in fantasy are rare. And most of those standalones still complement a series in some form or another.
Science fiction, fantasy’s sister genre, used to be more standalone. And still is, to an extent. Or can be, anyway. But in recent times, it too has become increasingly series-dependent. The sci-fi genre is actually a good metric in this respect if one is curious about observing the serialization of literature over time.
Fantasy excels with series’ because fantasy authors do a lot of worldbuilding. If an author worldbuilds and only uses that world for one skimpy novel, it’s almost a waste of effort. There are tricks, of course, if an author really does want to write just one novel: in George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle’s sci-fi/fantasy fusion novel Windhaven, the world is an oceanic one with only a single bunch of islands as its world. While a part of me wishes for another Windhaven-set novel despite a few shortcomings, I get it: it is minimalist worldbuilding and there are only so many stories one can find on a bunch of little rocky islands.
Not only is worldbuilding more artistically satisfying for the author if he or she can draw out a single huge story or many different stories from his or her world: it is also more financially lucrative for both author and publisher alike. If the first novel in, say, a five-novel series is successful, then most readers (I think 85% was the stat I heard somewhere) will buy the next four novels. That’s book sales times five.
While it sounds very money-driven at the expense of art - and it sure as hell can be! - it is, in fact, as much of a mercy to the author as it is a temptation to scrape butter over too much bread. Their career is more likely to succeed. The author’s concentration can be invested in a singular project, resulting in greater richness. While at the same time giving readers what they want.
And the recent data shows readers do want series.’ Something about today’s readers wants and needs a story they can invest in without it ending too soon. People don’t want to just say ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to the characters: they want to spend as much time with them as my generation spent with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In some ways, it is a logical next step from “the Great American novel” of past generations, where a large novel (I define it more by size here than genre) fits the bill. But the series is increasingly reigning triumphant. Maybe it has something to do with us being in the Netflix era? Who knows.
As someone who originally wanted to write fantasy novels - and who still does; not to worry fantasy fans, I’m working on that! - applying a kind of serialization to my work is second nature. But Calm Before an Earthquake is a standalone, is it not?
Yes and no.
What we today call literary fiction has had its own forms of what we might call “serialization” in the past. In the 19th century, most great novels were collections of serialized chapters; it was TV before TV. That solved the apparent need we have to take in stories in serialized form: The Mysteries of Paris would be serialized, and then afterward if we liked it we could buy the collected novel if we so wanted. The 20th century saw more of a focus of getting an entire novel out right away. Now we’re in the 21st century, and things have changed again.
What I have in mind for my output is a blending together of these two approaches: the novel right away, and the serialization effect but in the macro format. Calm Before an Earthquake and The Taco Psychosis are standalones; but they are also serializations of my “genres,” if you will. A gesture that maybe owes more to Emile Zola’s Les Rougons-Macquart and Honore de Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine than to The Witcher. But that is more suitable to literary fiction. Genres still have their needs with or without smartphones in the universe.
Ten years from now, I hope to start publishing complete sets (5 or more) of “California Tales,” not unlike how Pushkin Press recently published a series of different author’s writings about Venice. Calm Before an Earthquake is the first. My next Californian tale will be Stella The Pitbull. Another ten-year-old idea and one of my favorite story ideas. It might be more accurate to call my “California Tales” a cycle, rather than a series.
The same with The Taco Psychosis, except that the satire genre better fits what literati imagine the satire genre to be. (Indeed, I do count Juvenal as an influence) My decision for now is tentative, but based on where my creative juices are flowing it will be an idea I have called American Dreamland. Since satires are short, I can imagine 5 or more published together in one big, single tome eventually.
The same with my current, paid-subscriber serialization, Escape From Starshire. This is an actual series that will be part of a greater mega-cycle. Sci-fi, space opera: more the latter than the former, but hopefully with a few nuggets the more uptight sci-fi crowd can relish on their hot dog. I hope it will be in book form or in the process of becoming in book form by the end of the year.
The same as well with my soon-to-arrive third novel: Tale of a Muse that Fought an AI. This novel will more accurately fit what people imagine to be a series. “Tales of Unicity,” I call it because of its shared setting. Kind of like Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, the stories are all different but the setting is the same. As you can see, the variance between cycle and a more straight-up series differs widely between my “genres.”
Here is where I’m very interested in what fans think. (And please comment! I want to also hear from all you quiet readers who don’t usually comment, but who I know are there! :-) ) Irrespective of what my plans are, what do you think about the idea of literary fiction as a series or cycle? Do you think it’s wiser to keep bringing out story ideas for the “series’” I’ve already started, or is it safe to start more of them to appeal to different audiences? (Not everyone, after all, wants to read about California in the current year: I know that painfully well, not to worry) And do you think the art of the standalone needs to be defended?
And also: is there a “genre” you would like to see, based on my Substack output? Apart from essays: I’ve already been told that. (And I am also working on that) I have more in mind, so this question isn’t so much about readers forcing me to do something and more about prioritizing what I already have in mind.
In other words: what do you like to read? And want to read more of?
Let me know what you think. Thanks, as always, for your support! Be sure to get a copy of The Taco Psychosis! And give copies to your Californian friends: they’ll either love it or hate it!
Congratulations!
Ha! Love the title. I, too, have lots of story ideas, but I can’t pursue them while doing my other paid and non-paid work. Someday. I admire your creativity.