Clichépalooza: Now Taking Requests

What cliché(s) do you hate above all others? What example of lazy plagiarism is guaranteed to send the book you're reading flying out the nearest window? What recycled copout has compelled you to seek a refund from an author, in person?

I'd like to compile a poll of ten or so of the most egregious pills that authors hope readers will swallow, so we can vote for the Mother of All Clichés. But there's no fun in me just picking clichés at random. I don't read all that widely, outside of DSM-IV and Watchtower magazine, so I'm not familiar with the worst offenders in every genre.

Send me an email (seanlindsay@hotmail.com) nominating the clichés that make you wonder if the author has read anything in the genre at all. They can be words, phrases, characters or plot elements, and you can nominate as many as you like. (You can post a comment if you're paranoid about email.)

I'll pick the best (and by that I mean worst, or the ones I can make funny) and create a poll in the coming days.

Once voting is over, I'll tell you the cliché I hate most.

Polls

Polls are a both a fascinating insight into the morals and psyches of the peoples attracted to 101 Reasons, and a wonderful way to pad out a slow week with content that just writes itself.

If you've missed any, or you're yearning to know if you're one of the herd, all the 101 Reasons Polls are listed below.

Each poll has an Intro link, where I tried to tell people why they should care enough to vote on this bullshit topic, and a Results link, where I detail just how few people could be bothered. You could just read the Results, I guess, but the Intros contain some pertinent abuse you might otherwise miss.

(If you're one of those people who just have to feel their opinion counts for something, the polls are still open, so if you didn't vote before, or you've cleared your browser cookies, feel free to game the results. I'll update if they change significantly.)

The polls:

1. Find out if you're in your own demographic: Did you buy any books by debut authors last year?
   Intro Results Vote
    
2. I slept in most of January: Why do you think Sean's been so slow to update this month? (This entire year, really.)
   Intro Results Vote
    
3. You can't lose it if you never write it: Do you back up your writing?
   Intro Results Vote
    
4. It's Slushpile Awareness Month, all this year: What do you think of the Slushpile?
   Intro Results Vote
    
5. Because 'professional' doesn't always mean they behave like one: What's the longest you've waited for a response to a submission?
   Intro Results Vote
    
6. Because I'm shit out of ideas: What do you want to see on 101 Reasons?
   Intro Results Vote
    

More polls to come, whenever I realise it's been weeks since I posted anything.

Poll Dancing #6: The Results

As part of my overly complex, megalomaniacal plan to dominate (and eventually monetize) the under-exploited demographic of masochistic writers, I recently asked about the type of content you'd like me to spend my precious, rare-as-slushpile-talent free time to create for your ongoing amusement, like some animatronic talking monkey with the switch jammed on benign sarcasm.

Respondents were permitted to choose more than one option, but the poll service counted each choice as a separate vote, making the results statistically meaningless. At least you couldn't vote more than once (unless you're cookiephobic), so we can be reasonably sure that 50+ people voted.

The Question: What do you want to see on 101 Reasons?

The Results:

25% (45 votes) More Reasons! I'm this close to quitting, I just need a push.

6% (10 votes) More Interviews, preferably with people I've heard of.

12% (21 votes) Weekend Updates! I need more stuff to procrastinate and obsess over.

30% (53 votes) Anything, just make it funny. I find your transparent sarcasm reassuring.

13% (24 votes) Anything, just make it cruel. My ego is overtaking my self-loathing.

2% (3 votes) More Polls! I like to know I'm not the only one here.

4% (8 votes) More personal stuff. I'm stalking you, but I'm lazy.

1% (1 votes) Generic blogosphere memes, punditry and other navel-gazing fluff. Got a cat?

2% (3 votes) Give up already. You haven't saved one tortured adverb.

6% (10 votes) Would you review my manuscript?

Total votes: 178

Oh, you three people who voted for 'Give up already', you have cut me to the quick. You are the ointment in my fly. 

Although the methodology is deeply flawed, we can make up some interesting conclusions from these data.

Obviously, most of you want more Reasons, your writerly phantasies having survived #1-14 more or less intact. But can it be true that less than half the people who want funny also want cruel? (Reminds of an old Dave Allen joke, which I will humourlessly paraphrase thus: 'Hurt me,' said the masochist to the sadist, and the sadist said 'No.')

To the folks who voted for Weekend Updates, you may get your wish soon enough. To those who voted for more personal stuff, I say: pick up the damn phone. If you don't know the number, it's none of your damn business.

Manuscript review? If you think your ego can handle a serve of fresh, steaming reality from me, you may as well just keep submitting. The result is the same.

Poll Dancing #6

Well, my impromptu experiment into just how long it takes a moderately successful blog to piss away its audience has produced some solid results: Seven days, from the last highpoint (June 8, the most recent ISBD news story), when I was averaging just under two hundred visitors per day, to get down to less than ten. That's even faster than the drop in box office a Hollywood blockbuster experiences when bad word-of-mouth kicks in.

Just for fun, I thought I'd pretend that I desperately crave validation from a gaggle of smug he's-not-talking-about-me slushdwellers and the random assortment of weirdos who find their way here from Google searches. So, this week's poll gives you the opportunity to tell me what kind of content you want to see more of at 101 Reasons.

With this poll, you can choose more than one option. You could choose every option, I suppose -- but that would be statistically meaningless and redundant, just like your writing. 

Disclaimer: I absolutely will not take this into account when I choose what to write about. Maybe next year we'll look back and see how closely your expectations match my whimsy.

Poll Dancing #5: The Results

As part of the increasingly inaccurately named International Slushpile Awareness Month (now in its 8th week!), I asked readers how long they've had to wait for a response to a slushpile submission.

(It was specified that a response had to be received. Otherwise, 97% would choose the "Never" option, because they're still waiting for a response from Hopelessly Underfunded Spur-of-the-Moment Vanity Project #1 and Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions.)

The Question: What's the longest you've waited for a response to a submission?

The Results: 

14% (7 votes)Seven minutes. Nathan said No.

0% (0 votes)All my submissions come back 'Address Unknown' in a week or so.

10% (5 votes)I send a 'Fsck You!' postcard after three months.

2% (1 vote)I waited five years, only to be told religious thrillers were out now.

22% (11 votes)A year is normal, right?

31% (15 votes)I've never submitted anything. I'm still preparing my whiny complaints.

2% (1 vote)I went to the agent's funeral to ask his widow if he'd gotten around to it.

2% (1 vote)No matter how long I wait, when I call to ask I get a 'No' straightaway.

2% (1 vote)You mean since the first submission, or since the last updated draft?

0% (0 votes)I'd sent them nineteen more stories before I got the first one back.

14% (7 votes)Other

('Other' responses included specific periods (3 months and 6 months), one respondent who misunderstood the exclusion on 'Never', and one respondent who had to beat a answer from an editor. I imagine it was a 'No'.)

Total votes: 42

Shout out to Nathan's homies.

The most important result is that 31% of you have not submitted for publication yet -- so there's still hope! Stop writing now while you can still deny you ever entertained this ridiculous fantasy.

There's also a bunch of you who are fsckin' liars -- no-one submitted more stories to the same publisher while waiting to hear about the first one?

Poll Dancing #5

Hey, it's (still) International Slushpile Awareness Month, so let's find out more about what you think of the moat surrounding the Walls of Publishing.

What's the longest you've ever had to wait for a response to a submission? Note that I said response. 97% of people voting for "I'm still waiting" just isn't funny.

Vote in the sidebar.

Please note: the 'Other' option only takes about 100 characters. Your opus will be truncated.

Poll Dancing #4: the Results

As part of International Slushpile Awareness Month, I asked readers their opinions of the slushpile. Kind of an open-ended question, except I supplied the answers. With more answers to choose from, we got a record number of responses, and I think a more representative result.

The Question: What do you think of the Slushpile?

The Results:

3% (2 votes)I hate the name! Call it the Fountain of Undiscovered Genius

5% (4 votes)I hate the name! Call it the River of Unreadable Shit

1% (1 votes)It's unfair - books should be selected via Web 2.0 democracy

1% (1 votes)It's unfair - books should be selected via telepathy or nepotism

18% (13 votes)It's a mountain you have to climb to get published

7% (5 votes)It's a mountain you have to mine to find something worth publishing

0% (0 votes)I wish agents would make the slushpile their priority

16% (12 votes)I wish writers would make grammar their priority

1% (1 votes)It's a conspiracy to silence new and original voices

3% (2 votes)It's an industry-imposed tax on agents

19% (14 votes)The system doesn't always work, but it’s the best we have

26% (19 votes)Hey, as long as I don't have to read it

Total votes: 74

I don't think I even know 74 people.

Good to see that Meika is still reading. How's that web 2.0 working for you?

It's clear from these results that the only winner is ignorance. When you're not busy pouring more slop on the pile, you're pretending it's someone else's problem. I may have to poll your opinions on recycling and global warming.

Poll Dancing #4

In recognition of International Slushpile Awareness Month, this week's poll focuses on what you think of the Slushpile system. Love it or hate it, trawl it or live in it, it's as much a part of the publishing industry as paperbacks with the covers ripped off, as alcohol masking the pain of carpal tunnel, as form rejections with the words "not for us" circled in red ink.

Vote in the sidebar. Pick the answer that best reflects your opinion. I need to know how many disaffected Slushdwellers read this blog before PublishAmerica will buy ad space.

Poll Dancing #3: The Results

Following up on Aside: On the Importance of Backups, I asked readers how paranoid they were about Enron unexpectedly trading away their local power supply and turning their hard drives into paperweights.

The Question: Do you back up your writing?

The Results:

24% (9 votes)Only when I write something worth keeping.

11% (4 votes)I put a fresh backup in a safe deposit box every afternoon.

11% (4 votes)I only think to backup after a crash.

0% (0 votes)Every word I write is printed, bound and on sale at LuLu.

5% (2 votes)Doesn't Windows do that for me already?

16% (6 votes)Hang on ... Yep, I just did.

16% (6 votes)Lost work is God's way of saying "Not right for us".

18% (7 votes)Other

['Other' responses included specific backup strategies, most of which were obsessive but not funny]

Total votes: 38

Glad to see my readers have enough shame not to admit to the LuLu option. But I think in general this poll has only demonstrated one thing: Backups are not funny.

Poll Dancing #3

As a follow-up to a recent aside on the importance of backups, let's find out what value you subconsciously place on your work. Today's poll (in the sidebar) asks "Do you back up your writing?"

I'm assuming, since you're using a computer or similar electronic device to read this, that you're using a computer or similar electronic device to write. If you've developed some romantic delusion that you can only write using a battered Royal No. 10 typewriter, or that Mont Blanc pen you got as a retirement gift instead of a pension, then imagine the expression "back up" means "write/type another copy".

(I heartily advocate handwritten backups, as time spent copying is time not spent writing.)

Poll Dancing #2: The Results

Unlike Poll #1, which probed the darkest recesses of my readers' refusal to buy the books that they hope to sell, this poll only probed ... me. I could try to tell you this is really a reflection of your own obsessions, but who am I kidding, this is every side of me, measured in little green bars.

The Question: Why do you think Sean's been so slow to update this month?

The Results:

18% (7 votes)He's already run out of Reasons. He couldn't finish a sandwich.

30% (12 votes)He's reading terabytes of erotic fan fiction for ''research''.

3% (1 votes)I'm sure he's just busy polishing his ego.

10% (4 votes)Someone opened up a can of circular logic on his ass.

30% (12 votes)He's off writing a bloody novel, that's why. He's a fsckin' hypocrite.  

10% (4 votes)Other

• Real life intruded, the way it does with people who don't treat writing like the [truncated by poll glitch, or maybe embarrassment]
• All of the above?
• He's busy struggling for ideas to keep this one note joke alive.
• Herpes.

Total Votes: 40

So flattering to see that my hypocrisy ranks equally with porn addiction.

Stay tuned for next week, when 101 Reasons relaunches as 101 Reasons to Stop Fantasizing About Being a Pornographer. I'm sure the audience overlap will be extensive.

Poll Dancing #2

Still alive, still think your fiction could blind little kids. (Really, I'm surprised that President Bush didn't name you in the State of the Union address as part of the "Slushpile of Evil".)

No, I haven't entirely stopped writing about stopping writing. I'm just trying to take heed of Reason 43: You Expect Other People To Read This Shit?

I'm also learning an abject lesson this week about the priority of this blog, in comparison to other aspects of (my) life. The anonymised version will probably become Reason 56: You Have A Family Who've Given Up Humouring Your Time-Wasting Obsessions.

A poll to tide you over, in the sidebar (that's on the site to you RSS readers).

Poll Dancing #1: The Results

The first 101 Reasons poll is closed, and the results should be interesting for anyone trying to break into publishing.

The Question: Did you buy any books by debut authors last year?
Simple enough.

The Responses:

45% (14 votes)I bought a few from debut authors, but I mostly stick to familiar crap from bestselling crapmeisters

26% (8 votes)Dozens. I like to support debut authors. (Sooner or later the first edition will be worth money.)

10% (3 votes)If by "debut" you mean remaindered, marked down, found on a park bench or oops! in my pants ...

10% (3 votes)Debut authors come to me, begging for a review on my blog.

10% (3 votes)I only buy pornography new.

0% (0 votes)I only buy if the New York Times tells me to.

0% (0 votes)If it doesn't say "Book of the Film", I ain't buying.

Total Votes: 31

Now, you might think that the lesson here is that the the largest proportion of respondents only admit to buying a few books by debut authors (and that 10% have an ego problem and 20% have other social problems, and that I shouldn't write polls with five different jokey versions of the same answer). But that's only part of the story.

The real tale is in the hidden numbers. At least 250 different people viewed 101 Reasons while the poll was displayed. Only 12% bothered to click an option, and hit the Vote button.

Fair enough. There was no reward for voting.

But that means only 3% of people who read this blog actively purchase books by debut authors. (I'd venture to guess that the 88% who didn't vote aren't terribly likely to give the new guy a chance.)

When you submit your manuscript, you're hoping it's going to overcome the Everest of Ennui: the publishing industry. Agents, editors, marketers, reviewers and eventually readers - five levels of "Why should I take a chance on this?", and thousands of individual decisions not to bother.

Before asking all these people to care about another new author, maybe you should decide if you do.