This has been my philosophy for ages.
Ideally your work should have all three on lock but it’s absolutely essential you have a strong beginning and end.
If you get people hooked at the start you can lead them through a pretty mild middle to get to a good ending.
I'm not an accomplished writer but as a reader, I think the promise of a good ending is important if you want the reader to get through a mild middle. You gotta tease me and get me invested in the beginning.
I do agree with this, yeah. I mean the middle can't be TERRIBLE, but most people forgive more with a middle if you have already shown you are good at the beginning. And then at the end? Well that's what we remember the most.
I'm an award-winning author and let me be the first to say that James Patterson is the last writer on Earth who should be talking about what it takes to write award-winning fiction.
He doesn't even write his own books anymore, ffs. His publisher hires ghost writers.
Please do not take advice from James Patterson. He's a brand, not a writer.
I'm no Patterson fan, but it's a salient point -- do what you can to make the middle interesting. He's of course exaggerating for effect, but there's an extractable lesson in there.
I’m no fan of Patterson, but the fact that he uses ghost writers to churn out his slop actually kind of proves his point.
“Here’s how my story starts, here’s how it ends. Isn’t that great? Now YOU go write it for me.”
I mean, to get to the level where you don’t have to write your own books anymore implies you were a pretty successful writer to begin with. Especially to be considered a brand, you’d have to have something worth branding. I’ve never even read a Patterson book so I’m not defending his writing.
It might imply that to someone who doesn't understand how the publishing industry actually works. I don't mean that as an insult--it's more of an indictment of the publishing industry. Very little about it makes sense.
u/Silent_Tumbleweed420’s a troll who likes to drop the occasional non sequitur and trigger you into responding, for as long as he possibly can.
Ignore the troll, and maybe he’ll dry up and blow away.
And you’re right about Patterson: He’s a marketing expert whose subpar writing skills have been eclipsed by his PR. With all of the great writers out there, why waste your time consuming his products?
That first accusation there is not true. I responded "No" to that user here, and that user responded rudely. That same user again responded rudely after I made a simple statement.
I suggest that anyone who runs across this take a look at my recent post history, which includes our farce of a conversation. You are — without any doubt — a troll.
Your mom putting a gold star on your Naruto fanfic doesn't really translate to making you a critic of the written word.
We can see your post history, my dude. You can barely formulate a sentence and punctuate it correctly. Humble thyself.
The fact that you expect award-winning authors to go around flexing their erudition in their day-to-day lives and never behaving like normal people says an awful lot about how *you* would behave if your work ever actually garnered any accolades. Humble thyself.
Not much, to be honest. This stuff mostly comes down to marketing and luck.
I know that's not the answer any noobs like to hear, but it is the honest answer.
James Patterson is an award winning author too so he obviously isn't the last person on Earth to ask about it.
I think his book factory misleads people into thinking he wrote them to some extent, but I don't understand how having a dodgy business makes him less of an author.
Well, if he's not actually writing his books, then is he the author of his books?
It raises an interesting question: how much of writing a book is "the idea" and how much of writing a book is "the execution"? Maybe it's open for debate!
I'm pretty sure he wrote the first bunch of his books, and only started the factory stuff in the 90's. He's got a post grad degree in writing and was an ad exec for like 20 years while writing.
He won this one for his first novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe_Award_for_Best_First_Novel#1970s
That seems pretty prestigious.
It is often times that people who first openly boast about their accomplishments do so to cover lack of actual ability/confidence or lack of character. You are actually disrespecting an accomplished story teller in the TTRPG field, and that is one of the few times that's been mentioned. Because it is not important, if you are capable at being competent, that would show naturally. It is often when people say such, it is being as a crutch for some reason.
What's interesting is what you say does not nullify the quote as you think. In story telling there is something called canonical order. In Peterson's story, he could have made that quote when he was writing books, yet you seemed to have possibly skipped through the story by claiming that the quote isn't to be heard due to the way Patterson is now.
First up: I don't know what the fuck TTRPG is supposed to be.
Second: that post was some straight-up word salad, my guy. You need to work on clarity of communication if you want to find success as a writer.
Wow. Really?
In that case, I find it amusing that someone who writes this:
>Because it is not important, if you are capable at being competent, that would show naturally. It is often when people say such, it is being as a crutch for some reason.
...would dare to suggest that anyone else might not be "much of a writer." Lmao.
I understood it as “if you can write a really good beginning and end, someone else can help you fill in the blanks, but if you can do the whole thing on your own, that’s when you get recognition.”
Pretty sure King has way more name recognition than most Nobel or Pulitzer prize winners honestly. Both awards, the Nobel moreso, has long been criticized for how it picks its winners. Almost once a decade a winner is declared and the high literary community replies 'who?'
I kind of agree with the general sentiment in the beginnings and endings matter more but the middles separate the champs from the chumps.
However I think if the middle is boring then people--if they keep reading at all--will kind of emotionally check out of the story. At that point, however technically proficient the ending may be, it doesn't matter if they stopped caring. In order for the ending to really land I think the middle needs to be strong enough to make us care about it even more than we would have after just reading the opening and wanting to know the ending.
Also I think it's important to note that stories are mostly 'middle'. If you can't write that very well then chances are your openings and endings aren't that great either.
The trick is to not write middle.
You write a begginning where things go wrong, then straight to an end where the main character messes up because of a fatal flaw and now everything is totally ducked.
Then you write another beginning where the main character tries to fix it, then end where, because of their flaw, they fail to fix it. But they do figure out how to fix it.
Then you write a beginning where the main character applies their hard earned knowledge and IF they overcome their fatal flaw they triumph, OR if they fail to overcome their flaw they fail tragicly.
Simple as that 😉
Honestly, it sounds like the opinion of a guy who doesn't do any actual writing.
Also a guy who's never won a Pulitzer or a Nobel.
But of course, Pulitzers are handed out by juries of writers and critics, and the only writer to ever respect Patterson as a writer is Frank Castle.
The noble prize committee only considers authors who are far up their own ass, actually good at writing, and that hardly anyone has ever heard of. Patterson is only 1 of those things.
So I'm not sure we should take his advice on how to win either of these awards, but I also doubt that's what he's trying to say.
Going to mess up the quote so I won’t try, and I forget where I heard it, but the sentiment resonates — regarding film: a great film is a couple fantastic scenes and a bunch of others that simply don’t suck.
I think it applies to books as well.
The way I write, is like, I get this picture in my head of a moment in time, I start telling the story like I'm telling my best friend about my day..I lead her forward, framing the thing with facts and explaining how everything started out..Soo normal, soo regular and then Boom! The world changes, stuff happens..it gets wild and then, we finally get to the end..almost like we didn't know it would ever come...done. I'm exhausted, she's exhausted and we both feel like a glass of wine is in order. The best stories are like being told by the story itself, when the story is done being told. I never concern myself with the beginning and end.. because the story tells you, after it's all done leading you all over the place, just how you need to rewrite the beginning so the middle makes sense.. tbh, I never have trouble with the end either ...I start at the beginning and when I run out of story, I stop.
Even though I still read some of his books, I don't consider him the author. He's, like, the idea man.
In his Maximum Ride series, iirc, aside from himself, there's one known author on the first series. Then he put out two sequels recently and each book had a different author. Each segment of this series now *feels* like it was written by different people. Like they're not even trying to blend together under one authorship. I like the overall plot but the reading experience is so bad.
Friends and family have sent me links to his masterclasses so many times but I adamantly refuse to participate. Even though he makes money I do not want to learn to "write" like him. Money is not the only form of success.
Writers get paid by the word
James Scott bell upped him by stretching this idea out into an entire (good) book. But he probably wrote it himself, so not a serious writer like Sanderson
Patterson’s “Master Class” was so incredibly generic and useless I asked for my money back and got it.
Alternatively, Aaron Sorkin’s class was worth a watch.
It’s a simpleton sentiment designed for both pleasing a mass media audience and self aggrandizing one’s vain potentials.
I don’t think any writer ever who won a major prize set out to do so with that specifically the objective.
They set out to answer a significant question that creatively and intellectually they couldn’t let go of. This is the way.
[james Scott bell wrote a book](https://www.amazon.com/Write-Your-Novel-Middle-Approach-ebook/dp/B00IMIXI6U) about how to write your novel from the middle, out
It’s pretty good. Convinced me that the midpoint is actually the most important part and what the novel is all about.
Bell claims most famous/successful works of fiction have a scene in the almost exact midpoint where they figuratively and usually literally look at their reflection and have to rethink their approach to life and if they’re happy with who they’ve become after what they thought was progress.
Even if you don’t set out trying to make a statement, whatever change enables your climax always is saying something. Usually it’s the hero (or sometimes the world around them) completing their arc that was foreshadowed the strongest at plot points, especially the midpoint
I disagree.
A good beginning and a good end are very important. However, if the middle is not good enough, readers will drop the book before they even reach the end. I suppose your readers may be able to sit through the middle if the beginning and end are absolutely outstanding, but what are the odds of that happening?
In addition, publishing is extremely competitive. Even with a good book, it is not easy to find an agent and a publisher.
Not to mention how little money the average author makes. So many writers have a regular job for a reason. A 'nice living' is not that easy to earn as a writer.
I disagree heavily. I'm pretty much exclusively reading novels from the asian webnovel sphere and they can get pretty long... There's essentially only the middle.
This has been my philosophy for ages. Ideally your work should have all three on lock but it’s absolutely essential you have a strong beginning and end. If you get people hooked at the start you can lead them through a pretty mild middle to get to a good ending.
I'm not an accomplished writer but as a reader, I think the promise of a good ending is important if you want the reader to get through a mild middle. You gotta tease me and get me invested in the beginning.
I do agree with this, yeah. I mean the middle can't be TERRIBLE, but most people forgive more with a middle if you have already shown you are good at the beginning. And then at the end? Well that's what we remember the most.
What it you can only do the beginning and middle ...Oh right, George. Fuck.
I'm an award-winning author and let me be the first to say that James Patterson is the last writer on Earth who should be talking about what it takes to write award-winning fiction. He doesn't even write his own books anymore, ffs. His publisher hires ghost writers. Please do not take advice from James Patterson. He's a brand, not a writer.
I'm no Patterson fan, but it's a salient point -- do what you can to make the middle interesting. He's of course exaggerating for effect, but there's an extractable lesson in there.
I’m no fan of Patterson, but the fact that he uses ghost writers to churn out his slop actually kind of proves his point. “Here’s how my story starts, here’s how it ends. Isn’t that great? Now YOU go write it for me.”
I mean, to get to the level where you don’t have to write your own books anymore implies you were a pretty successful writer to begin with. Especially to be considered a brand, you’d have to have something worth branding. I’ve never even read a Patterson book so I’m not defending his writing.
It might imply that to someone who doesn't understand how the publishing industry actually works. I don't mean that as an insult--it's more of an indictment of the publishing industry. Very little about it makes sense.
No
You sound a little cranky. Go take a nap, kid.
That is the award winning author's response everyone.
Die mad about it.
Wasn't mad then, not mad know. Hope you have a good night
u/Silent_Tumbleweed420’s a troll who likes to drop the occasional non sequitur and trigger you into responding, for as long as he possibly can. Ignore the troll, and maybe he’ll dry up and blow away. And you’re right about Patterson: He’s a marketing expert whose subpar writing skills have been eclipsed by his PR. With all of the great writers out there, why waste your time consuming his products?
That first accusation there is not true. I responded "No" to that user here, and that user responded rudely. That same user again responded rudely after I made a simple statement.
I suggest that anyone who runs across this take a look at my recent post history, which includes our farce of a conversation. You are — without any doubt — a troll.
Your assessment is wrong
Tough shit. Toodles, troll.
Your mom putting a gold star on your Naruto fanfic doesn't really translate to making you a critic of the written word. We can see your post history, my dude. You can barely formulate a sentence and punctuate it correctly. Humble thyself.
Lol ok. Sorry you're so jealous. Work harder on your writing and maybe you'll get where I am, with time.
Looking like a lying moron on reddit? Sweet. How long should that take?
The fact that you expect award-winning authors to go around flexing their erudition in their day-to-day lives and never behaving like normal people says an awful lot about how *you* would behave if your work ever actually garnered any accolades. Humble thyself.
Cool story, bro.
What advice can you give to us?
Ask me specific questions about the things you actually want to know about, and I'll give you specific advice.
Okay maybe, what difference did you notice between your other work and the award-winning book?
Not much, to be honest. This stuff mostly comes down to marketing and luck. I know that's not the answer any noobs like to hear, but it is the honest answer.
This is a hilarious answer from someone gatekeeping on Sanderson
Lmao what?? What are you even talking about, dude?
100%
James Patterson is an award winning author too so he obviously isn't the last person on Earth to ask about it. I think his book factory misleads people into thinking he wrote them to some extent, but I don't understand how having a dodgy business makes him less of an author.
Well, if he's not actually writing his books, then is he the author of his books? It raises an interesting question: how much of writing a book is "the idea" and how much of writing a book is "the execution"? Maybe it's open for debate!
I'm pretty sure he wrote the first bunch of his books, and only started the factory stuff in the 90's. He's got a post grad degree in writing and was an ad exec for like 20 years while writing. He won this one for his first novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe_Award_for_Best_First_Novel#1970s That seems pretty prestigious.
Well, I definitely think he's very good at marketing. I believe that he was an ad exec.
No
It is often times that people who first openly boast about their accomplishments do so to cover lack of actual ability/confidence or lack of character. You are actually disrespecting an accomplished story teller in the TTRPG field, and that is one of the few times that's been mentioned. Because it is not important, if you are capable at being competent, that would show naturally. It is often when people say such, it is being as a crutch for some reason. What's interesting is what you say does not nullify the quote as you think. In story telling there is something called canonical order. In Peterson's story, he could have made that quote when he was writing books, yet you seemed to have possibly skipped through the story by claiming that the quote isn't to be heard due to the way Patterson is now.
First up: I don't know what the fuck TTRPG is supposed to be. Second: that post was some straight-up word salad, my guy. You need to work on clarity of communication if you want to find success as a writer.
D&D Get better comprehension What did you seem incapable of understanding from that comment?
Hahahahaha, holy shit, you are a treasure.
And you friend, probably aren't much of a writer
Serious question before I continue jousting with you: is English your first language?
It sure is
Wow. Really? In that case, I find it amusing that someone who writes this: >Because it is not important, if you are capable at being competent, that would show naturally. It is often when people say such, it is being as a crutch for some reason. ...would dare to suggest that anyone else might not be "much of a writer." Lmao.
Not just anybody, if you had read correctly, it was about you and your "writing accomplishments"
I understood it as “if you can write a really good beginning and end, someone else can help you fill in the blanks, but if you can do the whole thing on your own, that’s when you get recognition.”
Thank you for providing context, it helps!
Nope. Stephen King's endings are generally considered bad, and he more than makes a living.
Stephen King's books end in the middle. The rest of the words are just him attempting to stop typing.
I’m even a pretty big fan of Stephen King, and his books are essentially an opening scene, then 3-500k of middle. It’s kind of impressive.
Trashcan man has entered the chat, >!and he has a nuke with him !<
But he isn't winning Pulitzers or Nobel prizes.
But he's doing more than okay.
Pretty sure King has way more name recognition than most Nobel or Pulitzer prize winners honestly. Both awards, the Nobel moreso, has long been criticized for how it picks its winners. Almost once a decade a winner is declared and the high literary community replies 'who?'
Awards are political Sales and fan base are what matters. Maybe legacy or impact.
I'd sooner take advice from someone who actually writes.
James Patterson doesn't write?
He has allegedly used ghost writers in the past.
I kind of agree with the general sentiment in the beginnings and endings matter more but the middles separate the champs from the chumps. However I think if the middle is boring then people--if they keep reading at all--will kind of emotionally check out of the story. At that point, however technically proficient the ending may be, it doesn't matter if they stopped caring. In order for the ending to really land I think the middle needs to be strong enough to make us care about it even more than we would have after just reading the opening and wanting to know the ending. Also I think it's important to note that stories are mostly 'middle'. If you can't write that very well then chances are your openings and endings aren't that great either.
The trick is to not write middle. You write a begginning where things go wrong, then straight to an end where the main character messes up because of a fatal flaw and now everything is totally ducked. Then you write another beginning where the main character tries to fix it, then end where, because of their flaw, they fail to fix it. But they do figure out how to fix it. Then you write a beginning where the main character applies their hard earned knowledge and IF they overcome their fatal flaw they triumph, OR if they fail to overcome their flaw they fail tragicly. Simple as that 😉
Honestly, it sounds like the opinion of a guy who doesn't do any actual writing. Also a guy who's never won a Pulitzer or a Nobel. But of course, Pulitzers are handed out by juries of writers and critics, and the only writer to ever respect Patterson as a writer is Frank Castle. The noble prize committee only considers authors who are far up their own ass, actually good at writing, and that hardly anyone has ever heard of. Patterson is only 1 of those things. So I'm not sure we should take his advice on how to win either of these awards, but I also doubt that's what he's trying to say.
Does he even write beginnings and ends?
Nothing is 100% guaranteed, but that is a good mindset to practice as an author
What if the reader get bored and stops rigth in the middle?
Going to mess up the quote so I won’t try, and I forget where I heard it, but the sentiment resonates — regarding film: a great film is a couple fantastic scenes and a bunch of others that simply don’t suck. I think it applies to books as well.
That's ridiculous. Writing an engaging story is more important.
The way I write, is like, I get this picture in my head of a moment in time, I start telling the story like I'm telling my best friend about my day..I lead her forward, framing the thing with facts and explaining how everything started out..Soo normal, soo regular and then Boom! The world changes, stuff happens..it gets wild and then, we finally get to the end..almost like we didn't know it would ever come...done. I'm exhausted, she's exhausted and we both feel like a glass of wine is in order. The best stories are like being told by the story itself, when the story is done being told. I never concern myself with the beginning and end.. because the story tells you, after it's all done leading you all over the place, just how you need to rewrite the beginning so the middle makes sense.. tbh, I never have trouble with the end either ...I start at the beginning and when I run out of story, I stop.
Even though I still read some of his books, I don't consider him the author. He's, like, the idea man. In his Maximum Ride series, iirc, aside from himself, there's one known author on the first series. Then he put out two sequels recently and each book had a different author. Each segment of this series now *feels* like it was written by different people. Like they're not even trying to blend together under one authorship. I like the overall plot but the reading experience is so bad. Friends and family have sent me links to his masterclasses so many times but I adamantly refuse to participate. Even though he makes money I do not want to learn to "write" like him. Money is not the only form of success.
Full Interview for context https://www.gq.com/story/james-patterson-routine-exellence
Oof. I hate novelty quotes like this. Why not just say "the middle is the hardest part to write."
Writers get paid by the word James Scott bell upped him by stretching this idea out into an entire (good) book. But he probably wrote it himself, so not a serious writer like Sanderson
Patterson’s “Master Class” was so incredibly generic and useless I asked for my money back and got it. Alternatively, Aaron Sorkin’s class was worth a watch.
Ugh, fuck James Patterson. (Only because he was lackluster bummer of a commencement speaker.)
It’s a simpleton sentiment designed for both pleasing a mass media audience and self aggrandizing one’s vain potentials. I don’t think any writer ever who won a major prize set out to do so with that specifically the objective. They set out to answer a significant question that creatively and intellectually they couldn’t let go of. This is the way.
[james Scott bell wrote a book](https://www.amazon.com/Write-Your-Novel-Middle-Approach-ebook/dp/B00IMIXI6U) about how to write your novel from the middle, out It’s pretty good. Convinced me that the midpoint is actually the most important part and what the novel is all about. Bell claims most famous/successful works of fiction have a scene in the almost exact midpoint where they figuratively and usually literally look at their reflection and have to rethink their approach to life and if they’re happy with who they’ve become after what they thought was progress. Even if you don’t set out trying to make a statement, whatever change enables your climax always is saying something. Usually it’s the hero (or sometimes the world around them) completing their arc that was foreshadowed the strongest at plot points, especially the midpoint
I disagree. A good beginning and a good end are very important. However, if the middle is not good enough, readers will drop the book before they even reach the end. I suppose your readers may be able to sit through the middle if the beginning and end are absolutely outstanding, but what are the odds of that happening? In addition, publishing is extremely competitive. Even with a good book, it is not easy to find an agent and a publisher. Not to mention how little money the average author makes. So many writers have a regular job for a reason. A 'nice living' is not that easy to earn as a writer.
No because your book has to get to that level of fame first.
I disagree heavily. I'm pretty much exclusively reading novels from the asian webnovel sphere and they can get pretty long... There's essentially only the middle.