Writing popular fiction

Not only will such sessions improve your love life, they will improve your writing as well.
    No writer's block need be more than a few days long if he is determined to break it.
    16.
How long is the average category novel
? Paperback and hardcover minimums are usually 55,000 or 60,000 words, though Westerns average ten percent below this. Generally speaking, editors are more pleased with a 60,000-word minimum, but every book should be as long as it needs to be and no longer: never pad a short book just to get it up to the minimum word levels. On the other hand, realize that you will have great difficulty marketing a novel that's 40,000 words long. Usually, with a bit of thought, you can find places where the plot could be developed more dramatically, at greater length. In other words, to lengthen a short novel, add incidents, don't merely stretch those incidents already done.
    In the Big Sexy Novel, minimum word lengths may be, depending on the publisher, considerably longer than 60,000 words: as much as 100,000 and 150,000. Likewise, some Gothic publishers prefer minimum 75,000-word Gothics.
    17.
I'm a new writer, as yet unpublished. Should I choose one genre and work at it until I begin selling, or should I employ a scattergun technique and try writing for several categories
? Choose one category—usually that you most enjoy reading—and stick with it until you've built a reputation in it. You will learn the fundamentals of genre fiction and develop your style more easily if you write the same type of fiction again and again.
    18.
I'm an established writer in one genre. I want to branch out. Should I choose a single area and concentrate on it, or is it all right for me, the pro, to use the scattergun technique
? Develop your skills in one category at a time. If you're a successful suspense writer, you can't necessarily dash off a Western and Gothic and sell them first time around. Each form requires a subtly different touch which you will need time to learn.
    19.
Should I mail my manuscripts First or Fourth Class
? Because Fourth Class is cheaper, most instruction books recommend the manuscript rate. I disagree. For two years, I mailed all my scripts Fourth Class. I had to retype six short stories because the post office had mangled them. Two novel manuscripts were lost, forcing me to retype. One manuscript box, returned to me marked "Fourth Class—Special Handling" was broken at all four corners; three of the four lengths of twine that bound it were broken and twisted around the single remaining strand; most of the paper wrapper was torn away, with only the address remaining; the bottom of the box was decorated by a large, muddy footprint. That certainly
was
Special Handling! In the three years I've used First Class mail, I've never had a script lost or mangled beyond repair. The extra cost seems, to me, well worth the work and worry saved.
    20.
Can I copy a manuscript and submit it to several publishers at the same time, to save myself the extra waiting
? No. Only the most respected authors in each field can get away with multiple submission, and even they irritate editors by the practice. An editor likes to feel that you value his opinion and especially desire to make a sale to his list; he cannot maintain the illusion of a personal author-editor relationship if he knows other editors have received copies of the same work simultaneously with your submission to him. Furthermore, he doesn't want to be a buyer at an auction who must outbid other parties to obtain the piece, especially not when he is bidding for the work of an unknown or minimally established author. Multiple submissions of novels should be made only by your agent and only when he feels you've created a property with enormous financial potential.
    21.
It seems to me that writers could save time by collaborating on novels. Do you recommend collaboration
? No. The only reason for collaborating is to create a better story than either writer could do alone. Such occasions are rare. Never collaborate to save time on a story, for the collaboration-fraught with arguments, rewrites, plot discussions, and mutual criticism—always takes longer than you would have needed to do the work alone. Remember, too, that the money will be split fifty-fifty and that, in the end, your work-reward ration will be substantially less than you've come to expect.
    Writing is such a personal craft that collaboration can make enemies of friends, and turn a potentially fine