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By David Rothman

Tell the truth. Do you always read the forewords of novels, particularly e-books? Or the epilogues? Do you want to cheat and just dive into the main story? And could hyperlinks help in some way?

Many editors and readers hate forewords and the like, a point that Mark Putnam, a Writing Show guest, recently made. Whoops. Both a foreword and epilogue are built into the plot of a novel I’m polishing. How to satisfy both groups—the foreword-lovers and -haters? On paper, the reader can easily flip ahead a few pages, but E’s harder, if, for example, you’re trying not to overshoot.

The real E that counts: Entice, entice, entice

But what if the e-version of my novel contained links to (1) the foreword or something similar, (2) the main story and (3) epilogue-type material. Suppose that catchy blurbs accompanied the links for the foreword and the epilogue. Then, I suspect, more people might actually read the “extras” than in the case of a paper book.

No, I don’t want to see traditional novels dumbed down or needlessly complicated. But mightn’t they be presented more skillfully in E than they often are now?

Linking into the lives of central characters

To give one more example of the issues here, what if a writer wants to explore the life of a main character in depth?

Yes, the accepted way is to scatter the backstory around in different parts of a chapter or book, so as not to slow down the main show. But with E, you need to be even more careful since e-reading devices typically show fewer words than paper, making readers less tolerant of detours from the core plot.

So might a full-length version of the character’s life story be linked to its own file, within a ZIPpish, IPDF-style container? The paper version of the book would remain the same.

Not the same as hyperlink-heavy fiction

What I have in mind is different from hypertext fiction, which relies heavily on a oodles of hyperlinks. I simply want e-novels, including “reprints” of paper books, to be packaged more attractively than many are now. And selective use of links could help. So might old-fashioned subtitles for chapters, in the David Copperfield vein. Time to go retro? And not just leave the reader with naked chapter numbers? How about dressing them up a little to tease with a few morsels of information?

Paradoxically, as e-reading hardware improves and can display more text on a page with the same ease of reading that p-books offer, perhaps some of above ideas won’t be as helpful. But even when that happens, I still like the idea of links as a way to handle forewords and epilogues and the like—with blurbs included to whet readers’ appetite.

Winners and sinners

Meanwhile, here’s a relevant question for TeleBlog community members. Which publishers are the best at packaging their offerings in electronic format, especially though wise use of internal links? And which are the worse?

And which publishers, if any, are doing blurbs to accompany the links at the front of the books or at least encouraging writers to do the same?

How about the future? Will mostly linear books in text come with Flash previews embedded to help the readers get into the plot and characters? Should they? Or will that be a sign that the material isn’t good enough to stand on its own? I have mixed feelings. What do you think?

I suspect most people will say, “Avoid the Flash and keep it simple.” But how about small drawings, at least—just like some 19th century novels?

In a related vein: Better packaging vs. the drop in media consumption

Now, here’s something related, as long as we’re talking about links and packaging and appealing to a generation with a Net-shortened attention span. Chris Armstrong, who writes an interesting e-publication blog from Aberystwyth, Wales, in the U.K., wondered about a recent TeleBlog post, What if cats were the only ones watching Steinfeld reruns? My title alluded to a report of a slight decrease in media consumption. As one cure, I recommended better editing.

In reply, Chris wrote that “surely” I wasn’t “suggesting that in order to make e-books successful we will have to breed a new generation of down-sized, scaled-down, format-ready, simplified books? With real content (information, facts, knowledge…) [be] largely replaced by hyperlinks? I would be the first to [acknowledge] the worth of adding value to e-books by linking, but not at the expense of their own, original intellectual content.”

Scatter-brained linking vs. a writer’s vision

No, Chris, whether e-books are nonfiction or fiction, I’d rather not see them dumbed down or linked in a scatterbrained way to other books. Even in nonfiction, the issue isn’t just the information in a book, but how the writer present it. While ultra-networked books have potential, at least as nonfiction, I want to preserve the line between traditional books and databases.

In fact, with inept use of the networked book concept, we could be talking about suboptimal packaging, given the confusion awaiting the reader who’d rather not just wander within a maze. I’m for optimal packaging. Although Wikipedia meets my definition of an e-book, it’s a reference work, a database in disguise, not a single writer’s coherent vision (same for a small group of like-minded writers). Here’s to packaging, and editing without sacrifices of content or individuality!

But…

That said, I think that even p-books should be edited more tightly than most are today, something I’d favor even if the Net had not shortened attention spans. Never confuse intelligence with verbosity. The Great Gatsby, often regarded as the 20th century American classic, is well under 70,000 words. Hint, hint. Granted, I don’t want Bleak House shrunken to the size of a cellphone novel, or otherwise changed, period, except for modern annotations and the rest—well, at least not if there’s risk of the abridged edition being confused in the future with a “real” one. And in the case of noninstitutional writing, I want editors to help writers realize the authors’ own visions, not simply reflect the editors’ own. But, yes, it is time to revive the craft of book editing.

Currently most or at least many of the big publishers in the States don’t even bother to line-edit in-house. Bad editing of any kind is worse than none, but maybe it’s time for publishers, in that regard, to take more risks—not editing for the sake of it, but doing so where appropriate.

Blue pencil candidates

Agree that the world needs better-edited books? Which existing works would be your candidates for the real or virtual blue pencil to increase both E and P potential? Infinite Jest, maybe? Ann Patchett has even suggested shortening Orwell? Whatever the medium, E or P, many would regard that as scary.

 
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