Broken

Twisted, Goresoaked Tales of Sex, Death, and Mediocrity

It's been more than twenty years now, so I guess I can talk about “Broken”.

When I was first starting out as a writer many moons ago, like many new authors, I thought I was the shit. It was 2002, and I had a few short stories out that were getting a lot of attention and praise, and I thought I was ready for my first book deal. I wasn't, but hindsight is practically omniscient.

There was a brand new micro-press called Medium Rare Books that was looking for its first big seller. So, I hooked up with a couple other authors and we put together a short story collection. It was called Broken: Twisted Goresoaked Tales of Sex, Death, and Pain. Oh, you've never heard of it? Good! Because I have spent the last twenty two years denying its existence. It was crap.

I suffered from the same hubris and over-enthusiasm I see in so many new authors today. I wanted to get my work out there as fast as possible, and I put it out into the world before it was ready. It wasn't just that it was poorly edited and full of typos. That was the least of its sins. The stories in it (and I will only speak of my own) showed a lot of promise, but also showed a writer who needed a few more years to learn and develop. By the time my first novel was published, I knew enough to know that book was shit. So, I made it disappear and disavowed its existence. I believe my co-authors re-released it a few years later with my stories removed. I know they did it in anger because they didn't agree with me that it was shit (it was) but I am so grateful they did that. It really helped aid my case when I claimed no knowledge of ever writing such a book. When anyone looked up that book now, the edition that no longer bore my name was the only thing that popped up. Thanks again guys!

I bring this tragic tale of youthful faux paus to your attention because I recently read a book that reminded me of my past mistakes. It was from a debut author and it was every bit as flawed as my first attempt at publishing. Probably more so. It read as if an editor had never so much as spilled a drink on it. Poor word choices. Grammar, syntax, and usage errors. Word repetitions and sentences that were almost indecipherable. And, it has gotten some great reviews. Broken got great reviews too.

After reading it, I wanted to reach out to the author and tell him he should really rethink letting that book be his first introduction to readers, and might want to take it down, have it looked over by a couple ruthless editors I know, and perhaps sit on it for a couple years, write a few more novels in between, and then take a run at rewriting it once his skills had improved. I thought about it, but then I imagined how well I would have received that criticism twenty three years ago, and thought better of it. I mean, who the fuck am I to be giving anyone a lecture about grammar? It has only been a few years since I stopped mixing up “then” and “than” and I am still not sure about “layed”, “laid”, and “lie”, but that's why I use editors. So instead, I am writing this broad post to all new authors.

What I want to tell you is to wait. Take your time. Hone your craft. Put your very best effort out there. And, for the sake of all that is holy and righteous, hire an editor. Not your mom or your best friend, or even a fellow author, but someone who edits for a living. It's an investment you will never regret. You will, however, one day regret putting out some sloppy, poorly edited, badly written book into readers hands. One day that will come back to bite you. When some publisher goes to look you up when your latest manuscript hits their desk, and they find - Broken: Twisted, Goresoaked Tales of Sex, Death, and Pain. That’s a first impression it may take decades to do over. Take it from me. You don't want this.

Don't despair or beat yourself up about this. I know few writers who are proud of their first published works. The exception are those who wrote three or four novels before they published their first one, or had an exceptional editor who took the time to work with them and make sure their book was the best quality before putting it out there. Both of those are extremely rare.

And here's another reason to make sure you are putting your very best out there – the longevity and viability of Extreme Horror needs you to. Bad work threatens our existence. Am I being hyperbolic? No. Not at all. Remember the 90s? 

Remember when the entire category of Horror disappeared from book shelves and writers were afraid to call themselves horror authors and instead labeled themselves “Thriller writers”? Remember when horror got buried in the bookshelves and finding a horror novel meant searching through the fiction section alphabetized by author name? Know why that happened? Because in the 80s we flooded the market with shit. 

We flooded it with bad writing with schlocky covers. We took our readers for granted, because horror was hot, and we kept feeding the reader's voracious appetite for monsters and ghoulies by shoving as much shit into the pipeline as they could handle until they revolted against this putrescent wave of noxious effluence and stopped reading horror all together. I say “we” but I was still in high-school at the time, so it wasn't me. 

Well, the same thing is now happening with Extreme Horror. The market is hot for it right now and everyone and their mother thinks they can write it. So, the market is getting flooded with bad writing once again and I fear history will repeat itself and we will kill this genre we say we love by not respecting it enough, not respecting the readers enough, to give them our best efforts, to run our books by editors and proofreaders. “And” not “or”. We have to do better or this entire subgenre will be Broken.

See what I did there?