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Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 5, 2009 - 04:09am PT
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I have completed a novel that in part orbits around climbing. The work has been edited, copy-edited and at present a couple of advanced reviews are being written. What I don't have is an agent or publisher. To stir an agent's or a publisher's interest, I thought I'd now guage the level of interest on this site. Besides a sexy cover, what would prompt you to buy a novel with climbing at its core? Do you think that mountain literature has an inherently narrow appeal or can it extend into a broader readership? Non-fiction dominates what is written about climbing. Why is this? Would you welcome a balancing of the scales to some degree? Past threads have covered favorite climbing stories; what would you like to see in future mountain fiction?
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nutjob
climber
Berkeley, CA
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guage -> gauge
Following is a nutjob-approved checklist for good fiction. Heed it at your own peril. Please circle one (Yes or No) for each line:
Y/N : The book offers some meaning/message/insight/opportunities for reflection independent of the physical setting, the events, or the action sequences. In other words, are you just narrating a story or do you have something to say?
Y/N : Writing style and word usage is pleasing to read or enhances the mood of the story
Y/N : Plot is engaging to climbers and non-climbers alike
Y/N : Believable characters show strengths and weaknesses
Y/N : Climbing sequences and language are sufficiently accurate to keep a climber from guffawing, but basic enough to hold a non-climber's attention. For example, no Cliffhanger bolt-guns, but no need to offer a beginning aid course in climbing sequence descriptions.
In other words, make it a good book independent of the climbing; the climbing part is just scenery and action, or an opportunity for a metaphor, or a foil for man-vs-nature, or....
It's late; I'm going to bed. Burp.
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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Climbers don't want to read your book, because they've lived it.
I get your idea for a book. There is more than one book. You can record a random exchange in the C4 parking lot, and turn that into a whole movie.
My guess is, an outside guy wanting cheap insides, you are not the guy who does this sort of thing effectively.
You'd have to be on-site to get the best material. And live the life.
You either live it, or come off as a fake-oh.
You either play the hard crack climb, as it lays, or you aren't even on the score card.
100%, or be a lame-ass poser.
Camp 4 action: it's as good as it gets, for material. Live there, absconding from the Rangers, and get close into the vibe, there.
The Vibe.
Outlaw climbers are attuned to the Vibe.
This is the way a good journalist plays this card.
Anything else is just an affront to the guys in the Valley.
and, nobody gets hurt . . . . .
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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The proof is in the reading, can I get a copy?
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Delhi Dog
Trad climber
Good Question...
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Whoa Tom, as much as it may seem otherwise when you are there, the world's climbing actually extends beyond the Valley, though I understand much of your... thoughts(?). To make it sound real you have to live it...no?
"Anything else is just an affront to the guys in the Valley."
hmm...
moving on...
I'd have to say for an end of the night post, Nutjob's on the right track, and brings up some worthy points.
Besides climbers on this site, we also have climbers that are published writers, so it will be interesting to hear (read) their thoughts on this.
Good luck with the book and maybe post an excerpt or two to give us a flavor of your work.
Cheers,
DD
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skinner_ab
Big Wall climber
Calgary, Alberta
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I must have read a totally different post then Tom.
I never saw where Mark Rodell said, "I'm writing a book about climbers and climbing in the Valley.."
The one I read said "I have completed a novel that in part orbits around climbing."
Interesting though.. that all the bums in Camp4 are *gods* and there's not a poser among them.
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Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
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Topic Author's Reply - May 5, 2009 - 08:46am PT
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Thank you all for your input. I was an active climber from 71 - 93. While working in Nepal I contracted a virus that took out my left eye. Since then I have put aside serious climbs. I was a climber of no importance. Not to worry; climbing was and is an important part of my life. I write now. I wrote when I was young and now work on it hard. Again, I am a writer of no importance. However, the novel that I have just finished is important to me and I believe will interest others, climbers and the lay.
The reason for my post is simply to discuss, with climbers, how fictional depictions of climbing and climbers have and could inform us about the human condition.
I am interested in what writings that have included climbing have enriched the understanding of the climbing game and of living. I am interested in what fictional accounts of climbing have left a reader with a feeling that the sport was lessened and made small and what was lacking.
This is not at all to promote a project. I will publish this darn thing somehow. I am in the midst of this project and feel that the novel is somehow getting less important due to the rings one must jump through to be read. I am just wondering what climbers want to read about reguarding what they do and what writing about climbing can and could bring to light.
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Hey Mark,
Keep it up, man! I'm a climber, and I'm always interested in how novelists portray climbing. Sometimes they even get it pretty right. (And sometimes...well, you know... Vertical Limit type stuff, and all that.)
But I think your post is great, that you're asking good questions, and that nutjob's input is pretty much the same thing I'd say, too. Stay encouraged, and keep plugging away until someone pays attention. Post up when that happens, okay? All the best.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Mark,
I assume you realize climbing isn't a hook for the general reader. Is it too late to substitute sex for the climbing scenes? They're both about 'sending', right?
Seriously, best of luck, this is a tough climate to get a book published in.
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Salathiel
Trad climber
South Beach, FL
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Here's an unsolicited lead on an agent for you. Her name is Taryn Fagerness, she climbs hard and will at the very least give your manuscript the attention it deserves . Send a cover letter to her c/o the Sandra Djykstra (sp) agency. She is on the web. Mention climbing in your cover letter.
Good luck!
Blur
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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You should do OK if it has bolt guns.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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I like books that give you a sense of a place, with believable characters. There are many places in the world that I won't get to visit, or if I do, it will be for a short time and so I wont get the full affect. So I appreciate learning about a place through a good story.
Part of the reason I enjoyed "Into Thin Air" is that it took me to a place that I will not be going to, at least in this lifetime. The ice field was amazing. ( Yes, I understand that many thought the book was self serving to the author, but I still enjoyed it. I can look past those types of things to some extent. )
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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There are plenty of novels with climbing in them. Mountain and rock both. Take, for instance, Jeff Long (The Wall, Angels of Light) or Kim Stanley Robinson (Green Mars [the novella, not the novel] or Escape from Kathmandu) or even novels ABOUT climbing like Daniel Duane's Lighting Out or Looking for Mo. Or hell, even the Eiger Sanction.
Writing a book with climbing is basically a ticket to fail unless you're a good writer. Some of the passages in Jeff Long's books are just weird, like when the climbers are halfway up Half Dome in Angels of Light and start climbing a band of sandstone ?!
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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A good book has sex, intrigue, gets you involved in the charecters and keeps you on the edge of your seat. Kyle mills did this fairly well in a few of his books bhut it was dissapointing that he potrayed us a bunch of hard drug users. While many of us smoke and dring I have yet to meet a tweaker who was a serious climber.
The other thing that really bother me about his books was how much he dumbed down the climbing for the non climbing reader. That approach just makes it sound dumb. Keep it real and put a glossery in the back of the book so the reader can look up the words they don't know. Ever read a war story that has the hero fireing a shoulder held tube style anti armor rocket? hell NO! He cuts loose with a LAWS or an RPG and if you don't know what that is you look it up in the glossary. Same thing should hold true for biners and slopers etc..
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CascadeOtto
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Here's one I liked - check out "A Soldier of the Great War" by Mark Helprin. It's historical fiction about an Italian guy who enlisted in the Army and was sent into the Alps to fight in WWI. There is a great scene where he gets hoisted up into a hole they carved high up in a cliff for a lookout. They had two ropes hanging down to him, with a loop in the end of each, one for each foot. As he lifted one foot, the guy above would crank up on the rope a half meter or so. He'd stand up on that one, and repeat with the other rope and foot. All the way up!
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona, Spain
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[pontificate]A good novel needs to have someone's life change in some way.[/pontificate] Climbing can change your life, but I think that the only people that really understand that are climbers. So it's probably a pretty hard sell. Solo Faces by James Salter is not too bad, in a pseudo-Hemingway vein. I liked better some of his other novels that have no climbing, for example, Light Years.
For a page turner, the Eiger Sanction wasn't bad. There must be plenty of room for more of that sort of thing.
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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I've read Mark's novel. It's really well written. Mark is no poser...he's the real deal, as climber and writer. He'll find a publisher, and with a good editor his book will find a broad, receptive audience. Some of you posters are going to be embarassed by the assumptions you've made.
Follow up with the agent suggested in an earlier post, Mark. You'll get this puppy to fly, yet!
-JelloWasImpressed
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jeff_m
climber
somewhere fairly insignificant
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The Naked and the Dead has some good, desperate summit-fever climbing, and Mailer was no climber (and mainly a cook when he was in the army).
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Redwreck
Social climber
Echo Parque, Los Angeles, CA
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In Dan Simmons's "Hyperion" series -- 3rd or 4th book, I forget -- a lot of time is spent on a planet where people are living on mostly vertical rock. Lots of climbing-related action (and some paragliding too) that reads as though Simmons knows what he's talking about. Added bonus of it being some of the best science fiction I've read.
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