At the New Yorker’s Page Turner blog, legendary publisher Robert Gottlieb predicts upcoming plot twists on Girls by re-reading bestsellers from the ’60s: “We don’t know yet how things will work out for the girls of Girls ... but if it follows tradition, at least one of them will rise to the professional top, having sacrificed True Love; one will marry the nice guy next door and settle down to domestic contentment, if not bliss; and the one who Went Bad will die tragically—in the old days, of alcohol or a car crash or suicide, perhaps today of a transmitted social disease.”
In honor of Chinese writer Mo Yan’s recent Nobel victory, Communist party officials have decided to convert Mo's childhood home into a cultural theme park. According to the Beijing News, local officials visited the Mo house last week and informed the family that they needed to renovate their home to accommodate the “Mo Yan Culture Experience Zone." On a related note, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature last week, Mo told reporters that he planned to use the $1.4 million to buy a "big house" in Beijing, before he realized that current real estate prices would only permit him to buy an apartment.
If “literary fiction” is a genre, what are its signature markers? At the Millions, Edan Lepucki posits some suggestions, including adultery, a long title, and the following format: “scene, exposition, scene, flashback, scene, cue epiphany.”
At the Believer, James Greer—a novelist, bass player, writer of screenplays, Bookforum contributor, and many other admirable things—has started posting a droll tour diary chronicling his latest adventures with the band Guided By Voices.
After being unable to break into the Brazilian book market (or even buy the domain name amazon.com.br), Amazon is toying with the idea of simply buying the country’s largest chain bookstore. With 102 standalone stores and separate publishing arms, Savaira is the largest bookseller in Brazil, and is part of a powerful publishers consortium that has stonewalled Amazon’s entry into the Brazilian market. While the most likely scenario is that Amazon will drop the plan and go live in Brazil next month, the reports—which were first picked up by Publishing Perspectives—suggest that Amazon is flirting with what Moby Lives calls the “fuck it, let’s just buy the country’s whole book market” approach.
Drafting an outline, researching the story, planning the plot, and so on: the Guardian comes up with a comprehensive guide to writing a novel in thirty days.
