Apparently some evangelicals with a political agenda came to my boyfriend’s door as he was leaving for work and led their pitch with “are you frustrated with the fake news in this country? are you tired of the lies the media is spreading?”
And my boyfriend, who works for a major news organization, just slowly puts on his company jacket (with the logo clearly visible) and says “I am the media.”
Apparently they really didn’t expect their pitch to fail so spectacularly and couldn’t recover.
complete guide to writing a bestselling novel (or at least the title)
So maybe you’re stuck on that novel you’re writing, or maybe you haven’t even started it, but here’s a guide to making up a title that publishers (apparently, judging from bookshops) like. Also some tips on what your cover should be. (To be clear, I’m joking).
generic fiction bestseller:
The *insert weird occupation here* of *insert place name here*. Examples: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
The Life / Death of *insert something quirky or name here*.Examples: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Girl with the *insert literally anything you want here*. Examples: The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson, The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw, The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, The Girl with Botticelli Eyes by Herbert Leiberman
COVER: out-of-focus photo of a woman in a 1950s blue dress with her face turned away + ‘a novel’ + ‘unbearably poignant… a truly unique achievement’ (The Guardian).
‘I’m here to win the Booker Prize’:
*Ambiguously significant yet extremely vague one-word title. No ‘The’*.Examples: Milkman by Anna Burns, Possession by A. S. Byatt, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The History of *insert something unexpected here*. Examples: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes
The *insert adjective here* Children OR The Children’s *insert noun here*. Examples: Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, The Children’s Book by A. S. Byatt, The Children Act by Ian McEwan
COVER: out-of-focus extreme close-up of something that is no longer identifiable + title and author in most generic font available + ‘devastating’ (The Times).
historical fiction:
The *insert weird occupation here*. Examples: The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, Painter to the King by Amy Sackville, The King’s Witch by Tracy Borman
The *insert weird occupation here*’s Daughter / Wife / Sister. Examples: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, The Witchfinder’s Sister by Beth Underdown, The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory
The *insert weird adjective or colour here* *insert royal or noble rank here*. Examples: The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker, The Strangled Queen by Maurice Druon, The Philosopher Prince by Paul Waters
COVER: close-up of painting vaguely from relevant era OR blurry photograph if novel is about post-1900 + one word of the title in fancy italicised font + ‘masterful storytelling’ (well-known author of other historical fiction).
3000-page first book of a bad fantasy series that will have ten more books:
The Shadow of the *insert somewhat abstract noun here*. Examples: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington, A Shadow of All Light by Fred Chappell
The *insert royal or noble rank here* of the *insert something magic-related here*. Examples: Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, Lady of Magick by Sylvia Izzo Hunter, King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist
The *insert weird occupation here*’s Apprentice. Examples: The Glasswrights’ Apprentice by Mindy Klasky, The Alchemist’s Apprentice by Dave Duncan, The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice by Stephen Deas
The *insert literally anything you want here* of the Assassin. Examples: Assassin’s Price by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Blood of Assassins by R. J. Barker, Assassin’s Gambit by Amy Raby
COVER: photoshop-produced picture of tall figure in a swishy coat with a sword + everything is slightly the wrong colour, probably green + obnoxiously gothic font + melodramatic blurb.
crime/thriller/detective novel:
*Bad pun using the word ‘dead’ or ‘death’*. Examples: Dead Ringers by Christopher Golden, The Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone, Dead If I Don’t by Urban Waite, Dead Scared by S. J. Bolton, A Little Death by A. J. Cross
The Midnight *insert anything you want here*. Examples: The Midnight Line by Lee Child, Midnight Rambler by James Swain, The Midnight House by Alex Berenson, Midnight Guardians by Jonathon King
*One-word title that has been used by at least fifty thousand authors before and will guarantee that no one will ever be able to tell your book apart from other generic thrillers*. Examples: Ambush by James Patterson, The Reckoning by John Grisham, Crisis by Felix Francis, Exposure by Aga Leseiwicz
COVER: picture of a woman alone in a train station in high contrast lighting with neon lights flashing in the background + title in huge letters + ‘my heart literally stopped while reading this book and I’m writing this from the hospital’ (slightly better-known author of thrillers).
romance novel:
To Seduce a OR Seduced by a *insert noble or royal rank here*. Examples: Seduced by the Sultan by Sharon Kendrick, Royally Seduced by Marie Donovan, When Seducing a Duke by Katheryn Smith
The *insert any 18th-century male occupation here* of the Highlands. Examples: Hero in the Highlands by Suzanne Enoch, The Highland Duke by Amy Jarecki, Seduced by her Highland Warrior by Michelle Willingham
The Rake’s *insert role occupied by female or just basically anything you want here*. Examples: A Pregnant Courtesan for the Rake by Diane Gaston, A Rake’s Midnight Kiss by Anna Campbell, A Rake’s Guide to Seduction by Caroline Linden
COVER: man with a six-pack and inflated pectoral muscles and a woman in red dress with a slit all up her leg in an anatomically impossible embrace next to a castle + embossed title in a tacky font + either red or light blue colour scheme.
Excellent, excellent advice here! I wonder if the daughter/wife/sister (titles that immediately make me grind my teeth) work as well for son/husband/brother, as in: “The Cafeteria-Cook’s Son”, “The Night Nurse’s Husband”, “The Beautician’s Brother”? Also, you can’t go wrong with anything with “Paris” in it. For my autobiography it will be probably “My Wild Nights in Paris” – cover with the out of focus Tour Eiffel at night, black/neon orange colours, or “Parisian Memoirs” – cover: out of focus girl in striped t-shirt, out of focus bridge on the Seine in the background. Who cares that I spent less than 6 months in Paris once upon a time. Paris sells.
like, u know there is a degree of moderation there, right? someone has to order the books to stock in the library. a library that lets any old creep stash their hastily scribbled shota pwp in between the shelves is a library that’s going to be shut down p quick. by the police. for providing ppl with child porn. (and yes if a picture of a tree or a description of a tree can make someone experience a tree, then the same can be said about a picture or description of a child in a sexual situation ffs)
I mean there’s like a million other logistical differences, and idk who checks erotica out of a library, but hey ppl can be wild abt these things
Hooboy. Well, as a librarian who has worked in many varieties of libraries, let me… try to… respond to this from a library and librarian perspective.
1) It is true that libraries have a process to go through for accepting materials, and that there is a degree of selectivity involved–this is because libraries have limited budgets, limited physical space, and limited staff to process and manage materials.
So, yes, any random junk written and left in the library would be thrown out. Not because the library would be concerned about its liability if anyone should see it; because we like to keep the library clean and organized, and leaving stuff on the shelf is not how we add things to the collection (how would they get CATALOGUED and LABELED???) And, of course, any adult attempting to show pornography (or, say, themselves) to actual children would be Removed From The Library because this would involve actual children being harmed by an actual adult in direct contact with them. Police do not shut down the libraries where this happens. They arrest the people harming the children.
Meanwhile, libraries spend VAST SUMS OF MONEY and ENDLESS STAFF HOURS to keep copies of Fifty Shades of Gray on the shelves where children actually can find them quite readily (and have them checked out on their library cards if mom’s has too many fines). Same with Last Tango in Paris and Flowers in the Attic and Year’s Best Erotica collections. (And Bibles, which get stolen at a ridiculous pace. I don’t know why, we were just forever having to order more of them.)
In an online space, which has effectively unlimited space, where adding new material costs nothing, and where the process of organizing that material and making it available is fully automated and what labor is involved is taken on by the contributing author, literally none of those constraints apply, so more content is more content! It’s catalogued and labeled as soon as it’s posted! It cannot be misshelved. Perfect!
2) This is not to say that no physical library has handwritten erotica in its collection somewhere. Many, many libraries collect rare local works such as self-published zines, and unique items like the personal papers of notable people (San Jose State University, for instance, holds the papers of the Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society; The University of Iowa Zine Collection includes fanfic zines with erotic content; UCLA has the personal papers of Anais Nin), and doubtless some of these zines and personal papers include erotica. Because this handwritten material would be unique and its value would be presumed to lie mainly in the fact of its authorship, it would be properly collected, not in a library, but in an archive or special collection, where some archivist would dutifully folder it and make a note of what it was so future visitors to the collection could readily access it.
The main goal there would be to protect the material, not the person who might potentially view the material.
I worked in a public library which had an extensive collection of Playboy on microfilm, for instance. We kept it behind a desk where it had to be requested and checked out with a library card before it could be viewed. This was partly to prevent children viewing material inappropriate for their age–just as, say, the AO3 clearly marks adult material as such–but mainly to prevent vandalism of the material by people who disapproved of it. Several of the images on the film had been damaged by people trying to scratch them out; for the safety of the microfilm, we restricted access to it. This is also why the AO3 doesn’t allow people who dislike a fic to force it to be taken down.
This is also why most libraries celebrate Banned Books Week by eagerly higlighting works which people have ATTEMPTED to force to be removed from libraries–including work like Lolita, which is read by many as a titillating pedophile love affair. Librarians are not celebrating Lolita. They are celebrating the principle that they will not be stopped from collecting materials of interest and making them available to readers.
3) From your description of a library where children can freely access anything on the shelves, you seem to have only one conception of a library–a public library with open stacks, or perhaps a school library. There are, in fact, many kinds of libraries, with academic libraries being the most obvious foil to your description.
In an academic or university library, all authorized users of the library are adults who take adult responsibility for what they find in the library, much like when adult internet users indicate on a website that they are choosing to view adult content.
When I worked in a university library, I asked one of the librarians what do when a guy was sitting at a computer very obviously watching porn while a young woman, sitting next to him doing something text-based, seemed like she might be uncomfortable. I was told in no uncertain terms that the library’s policy was to relocate the person who was uncomfortable. The library was a repository of information and a place to access information: any kind of information, including the erotic. Under no circumstances would we curtail a library user’s access to that information.
(Unless he got his own actual dick out where people could see it, then we could call the campus police. Because, again: actual humans directly involved.)
Duke University Library Erotica Collection, 1940s-1960s (”An archive of original illustrations, sketchbooks, and erotic stories, depicting transgressive sex acts including (but not limited to) lesbian and heterosexual sex, incest, pedophilia, sadomassochistic behavior, and copulation with objects as varied as sex toys, produce, and household appliances. The stories and illustrations appear to be the work of a single individual, with nearly all narrative told from a female’s point of view. Also includes some amateur pornographic photography and magazine clippings.”)
i just think the world would be a better place if we would all take a bit of time to examine how we personally interact with stories
I, for one, am a complex network of interconnected stories stored on a meat based drive.
that is quite possibly the most terrifying way of describing a human but honestly same
That’s not scary. What’s scary is that you’re a ghost and a skeleton working together to Pilot fleshy power armor made by your mother
You know, I expected to regret making this post for entirely different reasons than I actually regret making this post.
The Discourse Derailed, 2018.
collaborative art performed by collective
Asshole Ghosts Direct Mother-Manufactured Meat Suits to Disturb Other Ghosts at a Distance Using Agitated Electrons to Modify Stories on Domesticated Sand
Steel Phoenix Studios 
