All language subtitles for MasterClass Walter Mosley Teaches Fiction and Storytelling - 10. Surviving the Publishing Industry

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, I wrote a novel, "Gone
Fishin'," and I said, well,

I want to get it published.

I sent it to a whole bunch of
agents and some publishers,

and everyone said,
wonderful writing,

wonderful characterisation,
but it's not commercial.

Can't publish it.

Can't represent it.

I later on realized--
this was in 1987, '88--

I realized that they were saying
that the two main characters

are young Black men
in the deep South, not

necessarily educated.

There are Black women
in it, but they're not

major characters in it.

There's only one white person
in it, and she's crazy.

And they said to me,
well, white people don't

want to read about Black
people, Black women don't

like Black men, and
Black men don't read,

so who's going to buy your book?

That was basically the concept.

I met a guy once who
wanted to be a boxer.

And so he was working at it.

He was working out in the gym.

He was sparring with people.

And he got in the ring
one day with a guy

who hit him in the liver.

Now, in boxing, if you
hit somebody in the liver,

it hurts.

A lot.

And he hit him, and the guy was
complaining, man, that hurt!

That hurt!

I could feel that!

That hurt!

And the guy who was working with
him said, look, this is boxing.

If you're boxing,
you're going to get hit.

If you don't want to get hit,
you shouldn't be in boxing.

Maybe you should get into
some new sport called

hitting, because it's
not going to work,

you boxing and not getting hit.

Now, there are all kinds
of critics in fiction.

There are all kinds of
prejudices in fiction.

There are all kinds of people
saying, I never read women,

I never read men, I
never read Black people,

I never read white people, I
don't read science fiction,

I don't read mysteries.

They have no idea
what that means,

like all mysteries are the same,
all science fiction's the same.

And you run into these
problems-- everybody

runs into these problems.

So what do you do about it?

You live with it.

You say, oh, yeah.

You get hit.

And that's it.

You accept that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Three ways that are good ways
to learn to be a better writer

is, one, to write every
day, every day, every day,

never stopping.

No holidays, no
vacations, nothing.

Every day.

The second thing is to
read your work out loud

so you can hear it, so that you
can understand the dialogue,

so you can understand
the sentences,

so maybe you can see
where it is not working

and where it is working.

And of course, the other thing
is that social part of it,

maybe to be in a
workshop, maybe just

to have some person that you
share back and forth with,

some way to work with
others, to actually hear

somebody reading your work.

Some people just want to
work by themselves alone,

work on their book.

OK, let's put that person
aside from the minute.

If I were writing,
I would try to find

a writers' workshop somewhere.

That makes some sense.

They're in every city.

Not these big universities
that charge you

$50,000, but a place that costs
you $200, $300 a semester.

You come in with 10 or 12
other writers, more or less

at your level.

You're reading from your works.

People are responding to you.

People are talking to you.

So what you're doing is,
you're learning more and more

about what you
want to do or what

you don't want to do from
listening to these writers.

And also, these people
are doing things.

They're meeting agents.

They go to something
like ThrillerFest,

where they teach you
how to get an agent,

how to get a publisher.

Or, you just read books that
you think are like your books.

You call the publisher,
say, who's the agent?

You call the agent
or send them a letter

and say, I would like to send
you 10 or 15 pages of my novel,

because it reminds me of this
and this and this and this

that you represent.

They will most probably
take it and read it.

And they'll answer.

They'll say something.

They probably won't
take it, but they might.

And so that's how you
go about doing it.

It's very step by step.

And the more people
you know, the more

you get introduced to
people, the more likely

you are to find somebody who's
interested in publishing you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In America, you're going to
get identified as something.

I was a Black mystery writer
when I started writing.

And so, OK, I'm a
Black mystery writer.

But then I wrote a book
of science fiction,

and publishers said,
I won't publish.

I said, that's OK, I'll
go to another publisher.

Then I wrote a non-fiction
book, and then I

wrote a young adult book, and
then I wrote an erotic book.

I write everything.

So either you change
how you define me,

or you figure out how to
sell what I've written.

Those are the choices.

It doesn't matter to
me, when somebody else

tries to define me.

There was a big fight
on the internet over

whether or not I was a
Jewish writer for a while.

My mother is Jewish, so
that makes me Jewish, right?

So a lot of people
said, well, he is.

Well, he doesn't
write about Jews.

There are other Jewish writers
who don't write about Jews,

and you call them
Jewish writers.

Well, yeah, but--

But that's their problem.

I loved the argument.

It was lots of fun.

On the other hand,
when I go to a store,

I've never seen my books in
that part of the bookstore that

says, "Black Interests."

It's just, they appear
where the mysteries appear,

where new books appear.

And that's fine, too.

It's a thing-- it's OK
if somebody else thinks

they've defined you.

The problem comes
when you believe

that they've defined you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My suggestion to you to begin
with is to write every day

and to concentrate
on doing the best

work you can to finish the
book, to make the book something

that you're proud of,
that you can understand,

that you wouldn't mind
showing to other people.

Once you start showing
it to other people,

you run into a whole
other series of problems.

People will not
want to publish it.

People will reject it.

People will say, what do
you think you're doing?

It's going to be all
kinds of rejections.

To give you an example, my--

I think 53rd or 54th
novel, I sent out,

and I got 17 rejections.

One person actually
wrote me back and said,

if I want to come in
and meet with them,

they could explain to
me how to write a novel.

Now, I've been
published for 30 years,

and this woman tells me the
stuff, you know what I mean?

But I just have to accept it.

And it's, OK, that's
what you think.

It's like the boxer.

You're going to get hit.

If you don't want you hit, you
shouldn't be sending it out,

because most people
are going to reject it.

Sometimes you learn something
from the rejections.

They give you some
information, which is helpful,

which is useful.

Sometimes you don't.

Sometimes you're
very lucky-- people

want to publish your
novel just like that.

It does happen.

You should keep sending things
out, you should keep doing it,

and you should keep the faith.

And this may be years.

I won't lie to you.

It might take a long time.

Some people never get published,
but that's the minority.

Most people, sooner or
later, do get published.

And you will then build
a career from there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I believe that if you are
interested in being a writer,

you have to figure out, number
one, what you want from that.

If what you want
from being a writer

is to write literary novels,
then you should write them.

If it's writing science fiction
novels, you should write them.

If it's writing both,
you should do that.

If it's becoming a
critical success,

you should get involved
with a university

somehow, write those
novels, and do that.

If you want to make
lots and lots of money,

you should try to write
really popular books,

and you should write the same
book again and again and again.

You're going to make
all kinds of money,

and you're going to become a
better writer, because still,

you're writing books.

But you make that decision.

I encourage you to follow
your heart in writing.

If you follow your heart,
if you do what you love,

if you get to the place
where you succeeded

at starting from the
beginning of a novel

and getting to the
end of the novel,

then you're doing
the best you can do.

You're living in the
best moment of your life.

What comes of that later is
what comes of that later.

If you decide writing this
kind of novel makes money,

or this kind of novel
makes critical success,

or I just like
writing the books,

I just like publishing
them, all of that is fine.

But before doing
any of that, you

have to follow your
heart inside of writing,

and you have to do it every day.