Some two decades after its original publication, this how-to by an industry insider is still well worth a read.
While my 2001 edition has bits about the industry that are somewhat dated, there is a lot to be learned from this book.
I met Donald Maass, once. It was at a writer’s conference, a few years after he published Breakout — which gives you a clue about how long I’ve been at this crazy business. Amazon had not yet released the first Kindle. You had only two choices, if you wanted to become a working novelist. You could land an agent. Or you could send your manuscript to a publisher and hope it didn’t get lost in the slush pile.
I was at the conference in the hopes that I’d find an agent for Loose Dogs, and I managed to schedule a pitch meeting with Maass, which felt like a huge deal at the time.
He didn’t take me on. Therefore no, I’m not typing this on a solid gold keyboard. But I also attended a talk he gave that was based on Writing the Breakout Novel, and after I got home I ordered a copy.
And then recently, I picked it up again and realized (cliche alert!) that the book has stood the test of time.
Break-out success = word of mouth
My edition of Breakout was released in 2001; there are industry bits at the front of the book that are definitely dated. But there’s also plenty of material, even in the introductory chapters, that’s as true today as ever. For example, at the time two-thirds of all book sales were going to “name-brand authors” — but even unknown novelists could potentially achieve best-seller status, because, Maass writes,
The next biggest reason folks buy fiction is that it has been personally recommended to them by a friend, family member, or bookstore employee.
“Savvy publishers,” he adds, try to seed this process via ARCs, sending out sample chapters via email, websites, etc. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And uncanny. It’s exactly what self-published writers do, today, to prime the word-of-mouth pump.
Premise and Stakes
Once the book moves from “why write a break-out novel” to the how’s, Maass tackles what he calls premise, which he presents as more of a process than anything else — a process, by the way, that you should start before you begin writing your actual novel. Maass advises that you consider a number of elements that are key to the break-out novel, like originality and gut emotional appeal. It makes for a useful checklist that, in my opinion, can help us novelists become more clear-eyed about our work (and potentially help us avoid creating problems in our novels that will be a lot more challenging to fix 80,000 words in).
The next chapter is about stakes, another thing we need to understand because it’s so fundamental to conflict. Our characters need to care about what happens to them, and they care what happens to them because there is a price to be paid if they don’t get what they want.
Time and Place
Maass then does a chapter on what he calls “time and place.” And you might be tempted to think he’s just found a new way to say “setting” but it’s more nuanced than that. There’s a section on the psychology of place, for example–a concept that fascinates me and that I try to consider in all of my fiction; I think of it in terms of places being characters that impact my human (or humanoid!) characters.
The next chapter, Characters, covers another handful of concepts that you’ll find in other craft books. For example, “dark protagonists” should not be two-dimensional, but have sympathetic qualities, and all stories are ultimately character-driven.
But there are some unique nuggets here, too. For example, one tip (which I’ve internalized since I first read Breakout) is to look for places to combine characters’ roles. In When Libby Met the Fairies(which I’ve revised and am re-releasing next month, now on sale for pre-order! $4 off!) I made Libby’s boyfriend her employer as well. That let me simplify the book in terms of cast of characters (I didn’t have to create a separate character to be her boss and work him into the plot) while also enabling me to add interesting conflict to the dynamic of Libby and Paul’s relationship. She was dependent on him for income as well as intangibles like emotional support. More better stakes!
Plot
The last third or so of Breakout mostly digs into plot. There’s a chapter on plot basics, one titled Contemporary Plot Techniques, one on elements like viewpoints and subplots, and one titled Advanced Plot Techniques.
In a way, I suppose plot is the real heart of the book, because one thing that is probably true about all break-out novels is that they are plot-driven. They are stories that grip readers from the first page and then keep them interested until The End.
And to my reading, this is where Maass’ background as a long-time industry insider pays off. For example, there’s some excellent material about types of plots (fable, frame story, facade story, visitation plots) that I’ve not encountered elsewhere. Depending on what kind of novel you’re writing, there’s some rich veins in the sections on subplots and advanced plots as well.
Theme
Which brings us to the closing chapter, which is on Theme.
“Have something to say,” Maass writes. “Allow yourself to become deeply impassioned about something you believe to be true.”
Which is interesting advice, considering that Writing the Breakout Novel is a book about crafting commercial fiction, and when we think “commercial fiction” we think about money, don’t we? We think about sales and bestseller lists and the sound of corks popping out of expensive bottles of champagne.
But it’s possible that we writers (with a lot of work and a bit of luck) can have it both ways: we can be commercially successful while also exploring Big Ideas that potentially enrich readers’ lives or even change hearts and minds.
Do you agree?
And have you read Maass’ book? What did you think?
Since someone took the time to mention in a comment that he found this blog because of my croissant diet post …
It’s been over a year now and yes. I think there’s something to it.
when people eat butter like it’s cheese …
As I mentioned in my first post, if you ran into me you probably wouldn’t think “overweight,” but my entire life I’ve had a tendency to put on extra pounds. As I’ve gotten older especially, I’ve floated at the upper end of what would be considered a good weight (based on hip:waist ratio).
I’ve kept things under control by watching carbs, periodic keto, and intermittent fasting. I work out (lift heavy things) twice a week and am fairly active otherwise. I use a standing desk to write.
But in 2018-19, everything stopped working as well. It seemed harder and harder to keep those few extra pounds from creeping back on.
So when I learned about the croissant diet, I thought, “hmmm.” Brad seems smart. He looks at the science. As a keto-literate person, I’m not shy about ingesting fats, but the more I dug into Brad’s blog posts, the more I started wondering if my issue was the kind of fats I was eating.
Keto/primal typically gives the green light to olive and avocado oils. And yes, unless you are scrupulous about keeping a food diary or updating a tracker app, it’s hard to attribute weight gain to diet with any real precision. But I was eating a LOT of monosaturated fats. Half an avocado nearly every day for breakfast, cooking with avocado oil, drenching salads in olive oil. All good for you, right?
I was eating a lot of bacon.
So I made the switch. Quit those oils entirely for several months. Cut way back on bacon (I know — eep). Cut back on chicken and pork, and when I did serve them, I’d cook them in generous amounts of butter or beef tallow. (Memory: my grandfather adding a little real sugar to his coffee after the saccharine “to take the devil out.”)
Began dousing vegetables liberally with butter and/or tallow. Started snacking on butter. See pic :)
And guys, something started going right with all this. I am down several pounds from my peak 2019 weight, and I seem to be stabilized. I’m not struggling to keep it off.
I still do all the other things I’ve been doing all along. I do a 20-24 hour fast 2-4 times/month. I don’t gorge on carbs, but I also don’t avoid them entirely. I eat bread once in a while. I eat popcorn (with butter!) once in a while. I drink beer once in a while, although I’m careful with that, favoring tequila neat or dirty gin martinis :)
Your mileage may vary.
But I’m in. And psyched that Brad is now raising low-PUFA pork. It’s about time someone did — I’ve been worried about the fat profile of chicken and pork for a long time (ICYMI, they’re both fed grains, so even organic versions tend to be high PUFA).
And I’m almost afraid to do this, because I’d rather hoard this find to myself … but the crackers in the photo at the top of this post? The are called Finn Crisps, and I found them after hunting for a store-bought cracker, any store-bought cracker, that’s not made with industrial seed oils. If you buy a case of nine boxes on Amazon the cost is under $3/box. So, not too bad. And the ingredients: rye flour, water, salt, yeast.
Writers want to support other writers, but when it comes to leaving reviews, we’re torn. What if we don’t like a book? What if we spot flaws? Fortunately there are options — if we change the way we think about “reviews.”
If you’ve ever hit the “publish” button on Amazon or Smashwords or D2D, you know how terrifying it is to put your novel out there for everyone to see — and judge.
You also know how badly you need reviews.
And as you meet other writers on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, chances are you’ve faced another dilemma: should you review other writers’ books? And if you’ve read a book and don’t like it — or, worse yet, spot what you think are flaws — what should you do? Share your thoughts publicly? Contact the writer privately? Drop the whole thing and enter the witness protection program? All of the above?
As a writer, you know first-hand how much negative reviews hurt.
Negative reviews dampen sales — and that’s not even the worst of it. Getting a negative review is personally painful for writers. It’s discouraging. No matter how thick-skinned we try to be, it feels so, so personal.
On the other hand, you also know the importance of feedback.
I speak from experience! As much as I hate negative reviews, I learn a LOT from them. I get data from negative reviews that helps me become a better writer and better understand my audience.
I’m currently doing a completely re-write of a novel based on input I got via negative reviews. Yes, those reviews tanked my rankings. I was just starting to get traction as an author, and poof. Everything I’d built was gone; years later, I still haven’t fully recovered. But when I’m done with the revision, the novel will be a better book. MUCH better. (If you’re interested in this story, by the way, stay tuned. I’ll be sharing more about it in a future post.)
In other words, there’s nuggets of gold buried in negative reviews, if you can stomach looking at them.
But that doesn’t mean that writers should use reviews to point out flaws. Especially when there are other ways to support each other. Better ways.
A New Framework: Review, Endorsement, or Critique?
As writers, we need to get more comfortable — even a little cynical — with what we all know is true. Reviews exist because the platforms where we sell our books use reviews to drive sales.
Reviews may benefit authors, too, but that’s not really why Amazon lets us post them. Amazon lets us post reviews for one reason only: because it’s good for Amazon!
Writing and posting reviews also requires us to invest time and energy. When you publish a review, you’re creating content and giving it away. Sometimes it makes sense to do that. But every minute you spend creating content to enrich the Amazon platform is time you could have spent working on your novel.
Fortunately, there are two other ways to support our fellow authors.
The first way is an endorsement. You publicly praise a book and recommend it to others.
And see what I did there? Because guess what. You can use a review to make an endorsement. But all that really means is that reviews are a vehicle for publishing endorsements. It doesn’t change the fact that reviews and endorsements are two entirely different animals.
In fact, when I stopped mixing up the concept of “review” with the concept of “endorsement,” I saved myself a ton of headaches, because the question “review or not review?” is now extremely easy to answer.
“No. Nope. And no.”
I never just “review” other writers’ books.
Instead — time permitting — I sample read other writers’ books, and sometimes buy and read other writers’ books, and then, if I really like something I’ve read, I’ll endorse it. I’ll post an endorsement (what everyone else calls a “positive review”) on Amazon. I’ll sometimes share my endorsement in other ways, e.g. Twitter.
“But Kirsten,” you say. “What if I read another author’s book and for some reason I don’t feel I can endorse it?”
Glad you asked, because that leads me to the last category: critiques.
Critiques, unlike reviews, are private. They’re feedback — just like negative reviews are feedback — but they don’t embarrass the writer or hurt rankings and/or sales.
I’m a lifelong reader and a lifelong professional writer. I’m also a self-published author who has been working on novels for over twenty years, now.
I’m far from perfect! But when it comes to novels, I’ve learned a little bit about what works and what doesn’t. And I’ll be blunt: I immediately spot serious flaws in the majority of self-pubbed novel I sample.
Am I going to buy a flawed indie-pubbed book, slog through it, and post a public review that details its problems?
Hell, no.
Because who would benefit?
Not me! I’d be taking time away from writing and from reading books I actually enjoy — not to mention the rest of my life.
And certainly not the writer! See above. Negative reviews do real hurt. And what writer wants to hurt other writers?
On the other hand, if you came to me and asked me for an HONEST critique, I’d read a few pages and don my fire suit and tell you what I honestly think could be made better. Even though, mostly likely, you won’t like it. Even though there’s a very good chance you’ll think I am completely wrong and don’t understand your book and don’t understand you as a writer or what you’re trying to do and everyone else who’s looked at your book told you it’s AMAZING.
I know you’re likely to respond that way, because that’s the way I respond to “negative reviews” (which are actually critiques … by people who have chosen to make them public).
But I’d be supporting you in a way that is a lot kinder and more useful than pretending your book is wonderful when it’s not, or telling the world I think your book has issues …
Or staying silent.
So, what do you think?
Maybe, instead of committing to public reviews, we could start offering other writers either:
A. Public Endorsements or
B. Private Critiques …
We’d be helping each other.
We’d be avoiding sticky promises that make us feel deeply uncomfortable.
I’ve have been thinking about the novel as a form. And how — despite what I once deeply believed — I no longer see the “genre” v “literary fiction” as a useful model for understanding the publishing industry.
Here’s how I see it, now.
Novels their start as medium for long, drawn-out stories, serving increasingly literate middle class audiences. Think 17th-19th century, pubbed in serial form in newspapers.
The best novelists realized the form would enable them to explore large ideas as well — for example the human condition, politics, marriage.
Next came the Modernists and as long as I’m indulging in assertions, how about this: they were hugely influences by what was going on in the visual arts (modernism, cubism) and as a result, writers started to think of novels as art. Writers approached novels as if they were a textual versions of Modernist paintings. Linear narrative was less important than evoking emotions or responses. Examples: Finnegan’s Wake, Virginia Woolf’s novels. Good times good times.
Then in the 20th century an industry grew on the shoulders of the early 20th century Modernists. The MA in Writing was born.
Novelists were no longer self-taught. The publishing industry hunted for degree’d “authors” who would uphold the Modernist ethos. Genre was sniffed at because it bypassed Modernism and continued to emphasize story, i.e. it viewed itself as entertainment and emphasized “spinning a good yarn.”
So the industry split. We had pulp and later mass market novels on the one hand and Literary Novels on the other. This is the state of affairs that B.R. Myers poked at in his 2002 Atlantic article, A Reader’s Manifesto.
But the end of the 20th Century also brought a couple other things. 1. The Entertainment Industry as we understand it today and 2. Shake-ups/disruption driven by the Internet and e-reader tech. The former influenced consumers’ tastes and entertainment preferences, and the latter disrupted the economic underpinnings of the publishing industry itself.
So publishers, their margins squeezed, shifted to a new hunt: Commercial fiction. Conceding that the vast majority of readers would prefer Dan Brown to yet another free associative Faulknerian clone.
Notice that today’s “how to be a successful novelist” industry teaches writers to create based on the architecture of commercially successful movies. I.e. the mechanics of “good” fiction is codified, more in more, in ways that are modeled on movies: structured as three acts, nadir at ¾ mark, driving the plot as beats, hero’s journey, etc.
So the question is: have we come full circle?
There are some fine novelists today spinning terrific yarns while also exploring large ideas. Off the top of my head: Ann Rice Interview with a Vampire (1976 early clue to the new direction) Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins.
So writers: if I’m correct, what does this mean for the future of genre? Perhaps this is why genre categories feel more fluid today than even 10 years ago? And what does this imply for Indie Authors who don’t care to write genre?
Can we write and self-publish breakout commercial fiction? Or will that remain impossible because the math to market to wide audiences is so crazy? (Because with genre, you can zero in on audience. With mainstream you are as @Alter_Space put it, a droplet lost in a tidal wave.)
Or as I think of it: Indies are trying to sell a P&G product on an Etsy budget.
So. Thoughts? Lamentations? Corrections? And let me know if you are an unpublished or Indie trying to play in the mainstream or literary fiction space…
I was struck by the beauty of the illustration, of course, but also by the fact that missing time crops up in so many folklore traditions, across so many cultures.
But wait! There’s more.
What if fairy tales like this one actually encode powerful secrets?
What if stories like this one are more than “just stories”?
You may be aware, for instance, that missing time crops up outside of folklore. People literally experience missing time when they stumble into certain kinds of paranormal phenomena — they have subjective experiences of time that don’t match up to the linear passage of time in “the real world.” Missing time is an almost universal aspect of UFO abductions, for example.
After a ferocious mental struggle, during which she literally tried to crawl out of the house as she could no longer walk, all went dark. When she woke up, it was hours later. She never found out what happened to her during that missing time.
— The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained is Real, Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal
Which brings me to a question I’ve been tussling with for over a year now, as I build out my Marion Flarey books — a three-novel collection that will debut when I publish Once Upon a Flarey Tale in a month or so. [UPDATE: it’s out and you can get your copy here!]
What if fairy tales hold clues to the nature of reality — and how to manipulate it?
What if they are actually templates that — in the right hands — can be used to harness and direct emotional and spiritual energy in ways that shape reality itself?
Marion Flarey seems to think so. She detects a power in fairy tales that nobody else seems to “get” (well — almost nobody!) — but that also tends to blow up in her face when she tries to wield it. :)
And here’s where — to me at least — it gets interesting.
I think she’s right.
Or put another ways: these books are fiction, but they are also true. I am not writing “paranormal.” I’m writing reality — or let’s call it quantum reality :D
Here’s what I mean, using the missing time template as an example.
If you study the template, you can feel the energy behind it. Quite a lot of energy, some negative (anxiety) and some positive (time pressure can be a powerful motivator).
In some stories, like the one Midnight Podcast shared, the energy is partly sexual. It’s about the power of sexual love-matches to make us completely forget — completely abandon — other loyalties and ties.
The handsome they like, and the good dancers. And if they get a boy amongst them, the first to touch him, he belongs to her.
— Mr. Saggarton, as told to Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs v. 1
The missing time template also warns us to be conscious about the trade-offs we make when we decide to take a particular life-path.
You can’t take two paths at the same time. Once you have invested time exploring one path, you can never get that time back. It’s gone forever.
She hastened homewards, wondering however, as she went, to see that the leaves, which were yesterday so fresh and green, were now falling dry and yellow around her. The cottage too seemed changed, and, when she went in, there sat her father looking some years older than when she saw him last; and her mother, whom she hardly knew, was by his side …
— The Elfin Grove, from The Big Book of Stories from Grimm, ed. by Herbert Strang
There’s a profound emotional poignancy, here. When we leave our birth homes, those we loved when we were children will, in our absence, grow and age and eventually die. And we’ll miss that, because we were elsewhere — we were Away.
Because of the poignancy of this trade-off, missing time is also related to death, naturally (what isn’t?): whether we permit ourselves to be aware of it consciously or not, we are all on some level keenly aware that our time on this planet is finite. Sooner or later, Mr. Death is going to knock on the door and whatever we are working on at that moment will remain forever unfinished.
The good man at the hour of death, print, London, British Museum image library
It’s scary, right? Because life isn’t fair and and the trade-offs we make, when we decide how to spend our time, are often downright cruel.
But there is one small comfort in this rather ugly mess: we have the ability to consciously shape our personal stories — the stories that, in turn, become the channels through which our lives flow.
In other words, we don’t have to be carried passively toward the inevitable penalties of Lost Time. We can recognize those penalties in advance; we can accept them with open eyes as the price we pay for a choice we consciously make.
Will this make those penalties less painful?
Rip’s heart died away, at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war—Congress–Stony–Point;—he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?”
— Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving
Nope. Still gonna hurt.
But it will make the experience of suffering those penalties one of conscious choice. We can therefore consciously acknowledge the richness of life’s tapestry, which is woven not only of beauty and joy and pleasure, but also of ugliness and loss and pain. And that’s something. It’s quite a lot, in fact …
This is what Marion is trying to do.
It’s hard for her, just like it’s hard for us.
It’s also absurd, and confusing, and funny, and has a tendency to backfire :)
But ultimately it’s as rewarding for Marion as it can be for you and I.
Because the better we get at shaping our stories consciously, the more aligned we become with our own sense of place, and our own sense of destiny.
This is one of the more recent additions to my library. I bought it last year as I began work on my current WIP, Once Upon a Flarey Tale.
As you can see from the pic, I use sticky tabs to mark parts that I expect I’ll want to review again–and there are a lot of sticky tabs in this book :)
What You Need to Know About Story (In No Particular Order!)
McKee is a screenwriter, not a novelist. But the building blocks of movies and contemporary novels are so similar that you shouldn’t let that put you off–you’ll find a lot of terrific information here that will help you tell better stories, regardless of the medium you use to tell them.
McKee is a teacher, lecturer, and consultant. Reading this book is a lot like attending an upper-level class on story-telling.
It’s hefty. 418 pages — there is a LOT here. Which is a good thing, IMO, because the more I learn about this craft, the better. Just don’t plan to finish this one in a single sitting ;)
It’s comprehensive. You’ll find everything in this book from the basics of the classic 3-Act story structure to how to develop character motivations to what makes a good title.
Story includes a lot of highly conceptual models for understanding how to make stories work. If you’re the sort of person who benefits by seeing concepts modeled visually, you’ll find a lot of tools to your liking in this book.
The Notes I Jotted Down / Passages I Flagged
In no particular order:
“Story values” are universal qualities of human experience — and they always have polar opposites. Examples are “wise” and “stupid” or “alive” and “dead.” Every scene will have at its heart some value; in ever scene, that value should change. And if the value doesn’t change, it isn’t a scene, it’s exposition — and it needs to be cut.
To avoid cliche, master the world of your story. This was a cool insight, I thought, because when you are completely immersed in that world and relating what you see, you won’t use other peoples’ commonly repeated words — you’ll use your own, the words you invent as you look around.
Research your stories in three ways: by unleashing your powers of memory; by unleasing your powers of imagination; and by what we usually think of as research — chasing down facts.
Create a finite, knowable world. “The world of a story must be small enough that the mind of a single artist can surround the fictional universe it creates and come to know it in the same depth and detail that God knows the one He created.” McKee comes back to this same idea later in this way: “design relatively simple but complex stories.” He then explains that by “simple” he doesn’t mean simplistic, but that we should avoid the temptation to proliferate characters or locations in an undisciplined way. Instead, constrain yourself to a “contained cast and world” and focus on building complexity within that world.
(Pssst … looking for a fast, free, fun read? My romcom caper novella, The French Emerald, is free on Amazon. Click the pic to get your copy!)
But at the same time, you need to create much more material than you will ever use–five times what you use, or even 10-20 times. An example from my current WIP: I’ve written fairly details timelines of each of my character’s lives, matching them to world events as well as personal milestones. Most of this will never make it into my books, but it gives me a wonderful send of fully knowing my characters.
Don’t be afraid to abandon your original premise if you discover, as you build your story, that it doesn’t work any more. (Phew!!! Because yes, this seems to happen to me a lot!)
Related: a story “tells you its meaning.” You don’t dictate the meaning to the story …
Inciting incidents should arouse unconscious as well as conscious desires in our protagonists.
“The most compelling dilemmas often combine the choice of irreconcilable goods with the lesser of two evils.” Related: “True character can only be expressed through choice in dilemma.”
Effective scenes operate at the levels of both text and subtext.
Progression in the story is built from cycles of rising action.
“When a story is weak, the inevitable cause is that the forces of antagonism are weak.”
Character dimension springs from that character’s internal contradictions. But those contradictions must be consistent. “It doesn’t add dimension to portray a guy as nice throughout a film, then in one scene have him kick a cat.”
“To title is to name. An effective title points to something solid that is actually in the story.”
What I Liked About Story
This book is so obviously the culmination of many, many years of McKee’s work, teaching the craft of story-telling. There are countless nuggets in here that writers can grab and put to use to improve the quality of our novels.
What I Didn’t Like So Much
So much of what McKee conveys, he does so using conceptual models. The danger for me is that if I get caught up in understanding the model, I lose track of my most effective compass as a writer, which is based on feel: on how I react to something I’ve put down on the page.
How about you? Have you read Story? Do you have a favorite writer’s craft book that you would recommend?
This is the text of my speech at the #RepealAB5 Rally on January 24, 2020, in West LA.
I AM A WRITER.
I grab ideas out of the air and pin them down, with words, in space and time.
And writing changes your brain.
I mean that
literally.
One of my
symptoms: I remember my dreams. Every night, at least three or four dreams. In complete
detail.
And I know
why I remember them.
It’s because dreams are the world of ideas, and archetypes, and symbols. It’s the world where time doesn’t exist. The past is now. The dead live. The dead are as vivid and real as you are here, now.
And I’ve worn away the veil between that world and this one. I’ve worn it thin, from a lifetime of moving back and forth between these two worlds, in my mind.
… Or maybe it’s not me, that does the moving.
Maybe I’m hitching a ride on Hermes. You know Hermes, right? He’s the Greek god with the wings on his sandals. His job was to carry messages back and forth between humans and the gods.
He carries
messages to us from the world of ideas, and archetypes, and symbols, and the dead.
No surprise: Hermes is the god of writing …
Something else that is no surprise:
Writers love
freedom.
When you
spend your time flying with winged sandals and talking to the dead, you learn
some interesting things about what it means to be free.
I have my
story about AB5.
I’ve lost work because of AB5.
I have my
story about freelancing.
About how I’ve always freelanced, because that’s what writers do.
About how when I walked away from full time salaried work and started to freelance full time, I tripled my income. I came into my own as a professional, respected working woman.
So yeah, the
idea that words—some else’s words—can mess with that?
It pisses me off. It pisses me off!
But I’ve been listening, very carefully, to the people who support AB5. I’ve been listening as a writer. And I’ve read the bill.
#AB5 a piece of “writing.”
Quite the piece!
5896 words.
(By the way? The Constitution of the United States – which comes to us [thank you, O Hermes!] from the dead – is 4558 words…)
But why do I care about the length of AB5? Why mention that?
One of my favorite quotes about writing is from the historian David McCullough.
“To write is to think. And to write well is to think well.”
Hmmmm…
We all agree
there are ideas out there—ideas related, somehow, to AB5—that are good ideas.
Nobody should be exploited.
That’s a very, very good idea. (“Nobody should be exploited” is four words, by the way.)
Everyone deserves fair compensation.
Also a good idea. (Also four words!)
Here’s a
sentence from AB5.
In circumstances which are in essence the loan of an employee from one employer to another employer wherein direction and control of the manner and means of performing the services changes to the employer to whom the employee is loaned, the loaning employer shall continue to be the employer of the employee if the loaning employer continues to pay remuneration to the employee, whether or not reimbursed by the other employer.
What the fuck. (That’s the writer in me, talking…) What the serious fuck …
I said a
minute ago: writers know something about freedom.
Because
there’s nothing more free than darting around the world of ideas on your winged
sandals.
But writers also know that, in this world, words are used to imprison people.
It’s no coincidence that writers are often on the front lines of wars. Or that they are often among the first to die.
Writers want to be free. Writers want YOU to be free. And when it comes down to it, to push and to shove, we will fight to keep you free.
But maybe you’re thinking, AB5? It’s not about freedom.
Isn’t it?
Let me put
it this way.
Do you wish, sometimes, that life was simpler?
I do.
I think we all do. I think we all know, in our heart of hearts, that things really should be simpler. And technology. Globalization. All those 21st century “isms”?
They don’t change what’s real.
And in our heart
of hearts, we know that. Because in our heart of hearts, we know that our true
home is anchored in the world of ideas.
And that
world resolves to only a few, simple things.
Love. Family. Peace. Joy.
Suffering … Redemption.
Longing … Fulfillment.
So why do we
submit to so many complications?
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” wrote the poet William Butler Yeats. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”
Is that … us?
Have we abandoned
the convictions that we, as Americans – as Californians – as humans – once held
so strongly about the things that really matter?
Have we let “the
worst” wear us down? Confuse us?
This is not
about politics.
This is not about the left, or the right.
In 1981, in his introduction to Unamerican Activities, a compilation by the PEN American Freedom to Write Committee, PEN coordinator Geoffrey Rips wrote about writing and freedom and control. “A government intent on controlling the economic and social realities of a country,” he said, must manipulate the written perception of those realities.
And look at
us, 39 years later.
The worst,
with their passionate intensity, are burying us with crazy words.
They’re
dumping this crazy pile of words on us. And we’re scrambling to try to
understand them. To make sense of them. To react to them.
What an awful thing.
To go from what we once were, to a people governed by awful, mixed-up, crazy words.
To wake up one morning and learn that some rough beast, its hour come round at last, is slouching toward us to be born. That because of some word salad written by lawyers, that living you were earning? That business you built?
Disappeared.
I had no interest in becoming political. I had no interest in becoming an activist.
I’ve been a freelance writer my entire life. It was my career choice. It’s what I love to do. Even when I’ve held full-time salaried jobs I have always freelanced at least a little on the side for the sheer love of it.
Being a freelance writer has enabled me to work from home, set my own hours, and maintain complete control over my working environment. I don’t have to work for anyone I don’t want to work for. I don’t have to do work I don’t want to do.
Freelance writing is a dream job. It is MY dream job.
So imagine my horror when I discover that this STUPID AB5 (Assembly Bill 5 aka “the anti-gig law”) has, in effect, made certain types of freelance writing work illegal.
Illegal? To do freelance work, of your choice, in the volume you choose?
And yes, I have already been hurt. I had a promising new client. Did a little work for them in 2019. Was discussing some new work in 2020.
Not any more.
That opportunity is now GONE.
Why? Because I live in California.
My skills, my (extensive) experience, my professionalism, my talent. It means zip in this situation.
Because I live in California, the work I would have gotten will go to someone else.
Yes, I am pissed.
And I’m going to pitch in to fight this thing. #RepealAB5!!!!!
In the meantime, I’m going to use this post to compile background to help people understand AB5, the history of AB5, and how it is impacting people like me. Creatives, sole proprietors, work-at-home women — we didn’t bother anyone, we were NOT being exploited — WE DIDN’T DESERVE THIS.
Let’s start with …
LA Times in September: Groups with “political juice” got AB5 exemptions
California’s employment law was rewritten. Many independent contractors aren’t thrilled. This is a September 23, 2019 column by George Skelton that appeared in the LA Times and — already! — pointed out how awful AB5 is. “The gig law’s advocates” Skelton wrote, think independent contractors are all being “exploited” by “greedy, heartless corporations.” (No. We are NOT.)
The article captures a bit of history of the bill’s creation and signing. It was written by (former labor organizer) Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), and “seemed to be aimed primarily at Uber and Lyft.” There’s also this tidbit …
Newsom signed the bill last week without inviting in reporters, avoiding pesky questions about why some workers gained exemptions and others did not.
… to which Skelton adds:
“A problem with AB 5 is some people got exemptions because they had political juice and other people didn’t,” says labor lawyer Brad Shafer.
Yeah, that’s just what we want from our legislators. Complicated laws that ensnare some of us, while exempting groups that have political influence :(
Skelton interviews several people who anticipated being affects, including a physical therapist, a nurse anesthesiologist, and a clinical counselor / dance movement therapist. Great. Let’s drive those people out of California /sarc off
CBS in September: AB5 is a standard for the rest of the country to follow
In a September 11, 2019 piece that essentially lauds the article for fighting all those bad exploitative corporations, California approves bill that will turn gig workers into employees, CBS/AP quote the California Labor Union as stating the law will set “the standard for the rest of the country to follow.”
New York writers, brace yourselves.
The article also notes that “Uber and other app-based businesses that rely on gig workers” were planning to “spend $90 million on a ballot initiative that would exempt them from AB5.”
Anybody have $90m on hand to exempt freelance writers? Hello? Hello?
The Fallout Begins: Vox Media axes its California-based freelance writers
The issue that cost all those freelancers their gigs was the cap on how many jobs per year you can do as an Independent Contractor, under AB5:
As it pertains to Vox, the law forbids nonemployees from submitting more than 35 pieces per year.
As many, many people have pointed out, 35 pieces a year is NOTHING for a freelance writer. If you get a gig writing blog posts, you could easily deliver 35 per month!
The CNBC piece also speculates on how many people would be hurt by AB5:
The bill has the potential to change the employment status of more than 1 million workers in California.
I bet that number is low … if anyone sees any updated figures, please drop me an email or a link in the comments — thank you!
Next Up: Lawsuits
After the turn of the year, the reality of AB5 started to hit home. People are now organizing to fight back. This article by Billy Binion in Reason magazine, California Freelancers Sue To Stop Law That’s Destroying Their Jobs. Pol Says Those ‘Were Never Good Jobs’ Anyway., describes one lawsuit, filed on December 17, 2019 by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association.
The article quotes Alisha Grauso, an entertainment journalist and the co-leader of California Freelance Writers United as noting that the way companies will “comply” with AB5 is to “simply blacklist California writers and work with writers in other states.” (Yep. Why shouldn’t they? Who wants to invite trouble from California regulators when you can easily avoid it?) Grauso also notes that the bill is particularly harmful to women.
“The reality is it still falls primarily on women to be the caretakers and caregivers of their families, and freelancing allows women to be stay-at-home mothers or to care for an aging parent,” Grauso notes. “Being made employees kills their flexibility and ability to be home when needed. I cannot stress enough how anti-women this bill is.”
This article is the first I saw that starts documenting the (horrible) responses of Lorena Gonzalez to AB5 backlash; e.g. she said the Vox jobs “were never good jobs.”
Uh, yes they were, Lorena. As was the “gig” I lost thanks to your stupid law.
And there’s also this charming gem:
“[Freelancers] shouldn’t fucking have to [work 2-3 jobs],” the assemblywoman, addressing a detractor, said in a Twitter exchange last week. “And until you or anyone else that wants to bitch about AB5 puts out cognizant policy proposals to curb this chaos, you can keep your criticism anonymous.”
What a way to treat your constituents …
The article then goes on to quote freelance writers who saw substantial damage to their income streams thanks to AB5, including one writer who lost a client that paid her $20K with in 2019. Unbelievable.
Click through and read it all. Busch does a great job of explaining what it means to be a freelance writer, how she fought to establish her freelance career (in a male-dominated industry niche) and how AB5 is causing her to lose jobs “left and right.”
Busch is also active in California Freelance Writers United so has additional insight into Lorena Gonzalez’ attitude toward freelance writers who are being hurt by this bill:
Clearly, Gonzalez doesn’t understand our business and didn’t do enough research before including us and others — like musicians, court reporters, translators and independent truckers — this bill.
During meetings with her, writers were told that the soonest anything in the law can be changed — if we can convince her to do so — is September 2020. That means ruin for many of us.
Fuck #AB5. I’m so upset. I’m sitting here crying bc everything I’ve worked for, the career I’ve created and based my entire life on, is crumbling around me and there’s literally nothing I can do about it.
My unemployment benefits are exhausted. I’m surviving with some freelance income and by selling personal items on eBay. I’m desperate for work. If nothing else, I might end up with a minimum wage job at Home Depot or another retailer, if they’ll have me. 8/9
These are the fruits of AB5, a law written with some good intention but appalling ignorance of the impact it would have on so many professions.
Thanks, Lorena Gonzelez.
Speaking of whom … guess what her response is to people like Beth?
Lorena Gonzalez “Simply Doesn’t Believe” You If You Claim You’ve Been Hurt by AB5
Well first off, Gonzalez, we freelance writers already ARE “a business.” We have to be a business to freelance, file taxes, and fufill other requirements ALREADY ON THE BOOKS in California.
What Gonzalez (probably?) means is “become an LLC instead of a sole proprietor.” But guess what?
Becoming an LLC costs money. Per my CPA: start with an $800 franchise fee. Then file Articles of Organization with the California Secretary of State ($70 filing fee). Then file Articles of Organization and Statement of Information ($20 fee) You must also “hire a registered agent in California” which costs $50-500 PER YEAR.
Your cost of doing business goes up. You’re spending (even more!) time filling out and filing paperwork (and probably providing copies to your clients) than you could have spent writing.
And worse yet …
Becoming an LLC May Not “Fix” Anything for Freelance Writers???
Yeah, file this under “holy crap.” Per attorney Nina Yblok, who is licensed to practice law in California, has argued independent contractor cases to the California Employment Development Department, and has done “innumerable” independent contractor audits get this little twist o’ the plot (emphasis mine):
AB5 covers corporations, LLCs etc. and people. This is the ONE really big change in the law, since I’ve always believed that in many cases Dynamex and Borello will result in the same determination. But in the past legally formed California corporations and LLCs, even if owned by only one person, were automatically determined to be ICs. Now they are not.
The new law governing independent contracting, AB 5, includes what can be describedas a business-to-business (B2B) exemption. But a close examination of the actual language shows that the B2B exemption is virtually inoperable.
Yep.
Curtis’ extremely thorough piece carefully documents how the bill’s vague and contradictory language makes the B2B exemption a joke. And, what’s more:
[E]ven if a service provider can establish that it meets all of the factors, misclassification liability on the hiring entity is so great that no one wants to take the risk…
THAT, my friends, is why California freelancers are being blacklisted.
First, vague and contradictory lawyer-ese makes it impossible know how to comply.
Then your clients get spooked.
Is anyone with a whit of common sense suprised by this?
UPDATE 1/18/20. OMG: AB5, the Federal Version?
So you thought you were immune, if you lived far far away from beautiful California?
Good luck with that. As predicted by media outlets like CBS (see above), politicians around the country are looking at AB5 as a model for state legislation.
H.R.2474 – benignly titled ‘The PRO Act’ was originally drafted in May of 2019 as a union-strengthening bill. In its infancy it had nothing to do with independent contractors … But this is government and with government there is never enough. Somewhere between September of 2019 and December of 2019 someone added an amendment to the behemoth employer-rights killer that was a simple copy and paste of California’s AB5.
My stomach has literally gone nauseous about this. Please, if you care about peoples’ freedom to work for themselves, call your Congressional representative and tell him/her to fight this bill!
People who don’t need protecting—professional freelancers, are seeing their livelihoods upended and destroyed.
Kos urges lawmakers in other states to hold off copying this mess.
It would behoove Democrats in other states to step back and let California figure out a way out of this mess, and let the courts weigh in, before it decides to join in, destroying the livelihoods of creative class people that, it so happens, also happen to be a strong Democratic constituency.
New Jersey lawmakers, Singer explains, tried last year to pass an AB5-like bill. And like AB5,
it was so overreaching in its scope that it targeted far more than misclassified employees. It would destroy the ability for everyone from attorneys to data analysts to work, because it made no meaningful distinction between an exploited worker and a career professional who chooses to work for herself.
The citizens of the state fought the bill last year and “managed to shut it down before the final vote.”
But guess what?
Then, on the first day of the 219th Legislative Session last week, the Senate introduced S863: new session, same old bill.
This is crazy. Seriously. What is wrong with our politicians that they think this is a good idea???
“A driver is not an independent contractor simply because she drives her own car on the job,” Cuomo said, echoing the years-old rhetoric of worker advocates. “A newspaper carrier is not an independent contractor because they ride their own bicycle. A domestic worker is not an independent contractor because she brings her own broom and mop to the job. It is exploitive, abusive, it’s a scam, it’s a fraud, it must stop and it has to stop here and now.”
To be clear, the Authors Guild fully supports employment protections for freelance journalists and authors, and will be lobbying for collective bargaining rights in 2020. Like Uber drivers, writers have no benefits and are often paid less than minimum wage. But forcing writers to work as employees, especially on a state-by-state basis, is not the way to go about it.
The Author’s Guild also warns that AB5 could affect some book-writing agreements:
There are, however, some book-writing agreements that could be considered service agreements and arguably would fall under AB-5, such as work-made-for-hire agreements and contracts where the author has ongoing obligations and the publisher has greater editing ability or control over the content.
