Book Length as Cultural Index

At the beginning of January,  Goodreads released a list of "Books of 2010," obtaining votes from users for a list of pre-selected tomes as well as a few write-in winners. And so we confirm yet again that there are too may wonderful books to ever read.

I noticed a strange trend. Most of the most voted-for books were over 500 pages long, and many of these were mere parts of a series, meaning that the entire story would run thousands of pages. For some reason, I remembered English classes in grade school, which were just one long string of students complaining about how many pages the assigned books were. When we had to read Great Expectations, only the abridged version was required. Those of us who were curious enough to read the uncut version may have received extra credit just for intrepidness.

Are these people who would read the unabridged Dickens the same ones driving the voting for Goodreads' Best Books? Maybe they consider themselves "serious readers," who have to set themselves apart by reading epic tomes just for fun.

The long book phenomenon may have something to do with publishers, whose biggest cost is actually the paper the book is printed on. A shorter book doesn't generally become cheap enough for publishers to lower the price to meet consumers' expectations. And so, publishers choose to print longer works that make the readers feel they're getting their money's worth of paper and words.

Not to mention that series become addictive, and sales of one volume in a series boosts the next volume's sales, etc.

Another trend we've seen in the last few months is the increasing popularity of e-readers and thus, e-books. Obviously, paper costs are not an issue for e-books. Publishers can cut the prices significantly while delivering less traditional lengths of quality writing. Shorter books might have a fighting chance! I think that's the logic behind Amazon's recent announcement of a new category in e-books:

"Each Kindle Single presents a compelling idea--well researched, well argued, and well illustrated--expressed at its natural length."


"Natural length" here is defined as 5,000 to 30,000 words. I've always valued economy in writing: getting the most out of each word, making extra ones unnecessary. So I welcome the advent of this new category with open arms.


Tree/House fits neatly into the Single category. I'm not too snobbish to say that I valued a fast read without excess a full two years ago, when I, a publishing pioneer, first made Tree/House available to the Kindle reading public. I've waited patiently for the novella form to again fall into favor. Thanks to you, users of e-readers, it's well on its way! 


The best-selling novella, Tree/House: Now Unveiled in Its Proper Place as a Kindle Single! Thank you so much for reading. 

"Unpredictable Factors" as an Educational Piece, Plus! Check Out My New Site

When "Unpredictable Factors in Human Obedience" was published in Bewildering Stories, I was pleasantly surprised to see it featured in Issue 414's "Challenge." The editor's observations, implied in the questions he posed, showed a degree of insight that not only flattered me as a writer, but also got me thinking about the story in completely new ways.

I now believe that "Unpredictable Factors" could be used in the classroom as a jumping-off point for discussions of professional ethics. The story presents both the education and science research sectors and would surely result in some great critical thinking. So, please suggest to the story to any rhetoric, reading or writing instructors you may know.

Here, I've adapted the editor's questions as possible discussion points.

What political or cultural statement does the story imply?

Even if Emily Mattheson weren’t a schoolteacher, she ought to know better than to do what she does. How is she characterized?

As a hardened criminal?

As a sociopath?

As a terrorist? 

As an opportunist? (As the author, I vote for this one!)

As a naive and careless incompetent? (This one works, too.)

What other endings might the story have?

Why might the author choose to avoid having the story associated in any way with her business plans?


I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I have finally been able to obtain my own domain name: www.jessicaknauss.com! When I get the site up and running, it will include book club guides and fully developed teaching tools for my fun and meaningful stories, among many other wonderful things. I am in need of some funding before this can be realized, however. Please take a moment to take advantage of the never-again-lower, limited-time price of Tree/House in Kindle edition. Or make the decision now to add the paperback to your library. As everyone knows, Tree/House is the most desired novella among book clubs. All proceeds will go directly into a fund for site hosting. Ever wanted to be a philanthropist? I will even put your name on a donor page! Thanks!

My Humble Book Club Hit is Now a HUGE Bargain, Update

Thanks to DailyCheapReads.com and the wonderful support of you, my readers, I have sold 40 digital copies of Tree/House since it was put up on the site. It's important to note that since I get a lower royalty when the price is reduced, I would have to sell 245 more copies in order to fully fund the website venture the way I would like to. But it's also important to note that the Kindle edition will remain at 99 cents only through January 31.

Anyone who's splurged for the deluxe print edition, contact me for a free bookmark and who knows what else!

I hope you enjoy the story! Leave a note on Amazon or Goodreads if you do. Thank you! I'll put you in the website acknowledgments.

My Humble Book-Club Hit is Now a HUGE Bargain

Tree/House has made it onto the amazing site DailyCheapReads.com! As of 8 pm tonight (PST, 9 pm for me and 11 pm EST), you can find the listing. Click on it and buy in Kindle edition, and you'll help these bargain-hunting gals maintain their incredible public service. If you're new to e-reading, Daily Cheap Reads has informative and easy-to-follow guides and suggestions. You'll never build a library so inexpensively again.

Click on the ad here and buy the book in any edition and you'll help me continue providing you with fun blogs and great reads.

The price will never get lower, and it's for a limited time.

All proceeds will go toward building my new site, www.jessicaknauss.com.

Tell all your friends!

Tree/House goes over really well in book clubs. Ask me for classroom tools, teachers! I'm also looking for talent to make a movie version.

Learning in College

A recent article from the AP, "Student tracking finds limited learning in college," reported on a study of university-level learning. The findings ranged all over, but focused on a potentially depressing trend in college students to just not try very hard. Because of this general lack of effort, they didn't learn a whole lot while attending these universally expensive institutions.

Failing to learn anything in college is a terrible waste of time, money, and a spot in a university program. But the only reason the study found trends is that learning is a personal effort. My anecdotal evidence is that there are not a lot of people willing to work hard for any reason, much less for something so intangible as the ability to think critically. The anecdote is supported by two of the findings cited in the article:

• Students who studied alone, read and wrote more, attended more selective schools and majored in traditional arts and sciences majors posted greater learning gains.

• Social engagement generally does not help student performance. Students who spent more time studying with peers showed diminishing growth and students who spent more time in the Greek system had decreased rates of learning, while activities such as working off campus, participating in campus clubs and volunteering did not impact learning.

In plain English: nerds do better. They do better because they have a personal commitment to making the effort to learn. The commitment makes them prioritize learning, thinking, and growing intellectually over all the cited social activities. It makes them read and write more than others, and for that reason many of them can attend more selective schools. 

I was a nerd throughout my schooling, but I never realized it at the time, because my priority was to learn and to get everything I could out of my educational opportunities. I had a few friends with the same priorities as me, and I didn't care what anyone else was doing. I never compared myself, negatively or positively, with the "popular" kids, because they obviously didn't have the core value of love of learning that I had. There was no basis for comparison. 

Whether nerds' personal commitment to learning comes from within or from something environmental is up for debate. I would suggest that, if the government is concerned with producing more smart people, someone should look into what makes those "nerds," who put out the effort to learn, want to do so. Because when it comes to learning, wanting it badly enough to work for it is the only secret. 

Music and Inspiration

As the speaker began her narrative of politics and intrigue, a piano at the front of the café began a driving, tense melody. She couldn't help but pause her story and say, "What perfect timing!" I'm pretty sure the player had not been listening to the conversation.

The musical coincidences didn't stop there. When we began coming up with sentences for a group story about the end of the world, the pianist contributed a somber dirge. The player moved on to other amusements after that, and we worked in silence for the rest of the workshop' gathering, but the incident reminded me of the role music can play in any creative effort.

The piano playing certainly influenced me to make a downbeat ending out of what the group had started. I'm permeable like that. I love music, and I find that if I'm listening to something as I write, it has an impact on the writing. On the other hand, if I write something entirely without music, the writing can come out a little bit deaf.

When I was writing my dissertation, I had the advantage of being able to listen to recordings of the medieval songs, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, as I analyzed them. My dissertation was probably the most narrative-driven thesis in the history of the university, outside of the Creative Writing concentrators.

During the formative stages of Tree/House, I read an interview with an author (I don't remember whom) who said that she needed to have vocal music in a language she couldn't understand in order to get the creative juices flowing. It couldn't be a language she understood because the lyrics would distract her with their narrative content. I took the suggestion, halfway, and began to play Cançons de la Catalunya mil.lenaria by Jordi Savall whenever I was seriously creating scenes, sentences, or characters for Tree/House. I say "halfway" because the lyrics on this disc are in historical Catalan, a language I can get the gist of in passing and understand fully when I pay attention. Did "El mestre," about a student in love with her tutor, have something to do with the creation of Franklin, the Shakespeare professor? Possibly. I can say with some certainty that the ghostly aspects of the story and the monster Franklin, post-wedding, had their origin in the chilling tale of "El comte Arnau," in which a phantasm count visits his widow and carries on ghoulish conversations with her.

Emma's naive visions of love have some connection to "El fill del rei," in which a young woman can die of romantic passion. "El testament d'Amelia" provided references to last wills and set the tone for the way Emma languishes spiritually, as if terminally ill, until she gets help. On the other end of the spectrum, the reminiscences of a common thief in "Cançó del lladre" helped me make Geraldine's previous life a pleasure to share.

Enjoy the listening samples of this enchanting disc to which Tree/House owes such a profound debt (see link at top). And take advantage of a limited-time lower price for the digital edition of Tree/House! Now only 99 cents! It can't go any lower! Seriously.

El Novillero: Alternativa, part II

I wrote this second Hemingway tribute the year after "Alternativa." I further developed the story, keeping the same characters as if it were the day after the first story took place. I think you'll notice a slight relaxation of the Hemingway features.

This story also met with great acclaim, but only took third prize in the county writing contest this time around.

A part three exists, but I'm not sure I want to include it here. Please opine in the comments if you'd like to see it. In the meantime, enjoy the further adventures of Raúl the cowardly torero.

El Novillero

It was a good bull, Raúl knew. It was large enough to impress the audience, large enough to look bad and fierce, but not so large that Raúl could not get his short arms over the horns.

But his hands shook. When he moved them, he felt that the cape was wet with his perspiration. Perhaps if he had chosen a lighter color… but it was too late now.

He looked up into the stands at Elena. She wore a black dress in the hot Madrid summer. It covered her wrists and neck and ankles. Her mantilla was black and it from a black comb. Raúl’s best friend had given Elena the comb. Two black presents. He had also given Raúl the bull.

Ernesto had been an artful matador. This should have been Ernesto’s bull. The poster showed that this Wednesday was Ernesto’s alternativa, his first fight as a full matador. But now it belonged to Raúl. It was rightfully his.

Possibly the bull did not understand this. Did it care that it belonged to Raúl and not to Ernesto? Possibly Elena did not care, either. The picadors did not care. This bull was for Ernesto, the most artful matador to have died a novillero. The most gifted torero to have died outside the ring. Possibly the audience did not know this.

What they certainly did know was that Ernesto was the best novillero to have died with stomach pains and vomiting one day before his alternativa.

Raúl shuddered. When he thought of Ernesto’s stomach pains and vomiting, he was sure that he felt the same right now. Sweat was trickling down the side of his cheek. Up in the stands, Elena could see the glistening and she was glad she did not know just how nervous he was because it had to be bad. She felt ashamed. In the hot black dress she remembered Ernesto and she wondered how it could be that he would die on the Tuesday before his alternativa. She was sitting just behind the bald critics with their sweaty shining heads and their yellow notebooks and their expensive pens. She wondered what they would write about Raúl, and then stopped because the question answered itself with looking at him.

Ernesto had been an artful matador. The day the apoderado had come to town, Ernesto had impressed him. “I come to this town,” he said, “because it is the most forsaken town in Andalusia. We all know that the most forsaken towns have the best toreros in them!” All of the rich madrileños who had arrived with the apoderado laughed with him, because if anyone knew when the apoderado had told a joke, it was he.

Raúl had thought, “Yes, it is true. The most forsaken towns have the most determined toreros because everyone knows the that the danger of the bullring is the only way to escape the poverty in Andalusia.”

Raúl had danced for the man. The sun was glaring on him and he did his best work with the heifer and the heifer didn’t scare him because she wasn’t very brave. Then it was Ernesto’s turn and Ernesto glided the cape as well as he could around the cowardly heifer and he kept his body straight and fine and he did not sweat like Raúl had, even though both of them felt the Andalusian sun on their bare backs. Raúl thought he was feeling the blisters from the heat as he watched Ernesto. And then Ernesto was done.

“That heifer will be fine meat,” said one of the rich madrileños, who was in the bull-buying business, “but she will never bear a brave son.” No one listened to him because no one listens to a person who speaks the obvious.

Ernesto had stood next to Raúl and the apoderado had breathed in their faces. “This one,” he had said, looking at Ernesto with some unaccustomed respect, “will be a fine matador. This one has art.” The madrileños and Raúl and Ernesto and the heifer waited in silence for the rest of the judgment. For this had truly been judgment day. This had been the goal of the young men’s lives. This had been the purpose of all the training, the worrying, the breathing. Here it was.

The apoderado was one inch from Raúl’s face. “This one,” he had said, “is artless. He is brave. But artless.” His yellowed eyes were staring into Raúl’s young ones. “He is determined. He will never be good enough for the ring. Never make him your understudy. He would kill his own brother to rob him of his place in it.” He glanced at Ernesto.

Raúl had never had a brother. All he had ever had was his friend.

The music was playing loudly in his ears, unlike the many times Raúl had heard it in his dreams. Distant then, it now took away his power to think. It took away Elena in the stands and it took away Ernesto. He forget that his friend was the reason he was wearing a black traje. Was this not Raúl’s alternativa? The alternativa of Raúl?

The great fighter’s hands shook spasmodically, then the rest of his body. He leaned over and vomited. The vomit was the only moisture he had had in his mouth for a long time. Perhaps there had been no moisture since that last drink with his friend, and his friend had had his last drink. Raúl disgusted himself. This was his alternativa, but only be default. The apoderado knew.

Elena watched the first matador without interest. The crowd was shouting “Olé!” and it was thundering in her ears. She looked at Raúl, waiting for his turn. The vomit had disgusted her. She wondered why she had not been not allowed to see Ernesto’s body. She didn’t think Raúl could hear the crowd at all. His heart was beating too loudly. Elena could not bear to look at him. Was it fear? Raúl had always been brave, even more so than Ernesto.

There was blood on the sand and the horses dragged the first bull away. Raúl’s sunburned body was hunched slightly. No time passed at all before they dragged away the second bull and Raúl was marveling at the trickiness of time when reason invaded his clouded head and he knew that it was his turn. “You’re up, señorito!” one of the other matador’s banderillos was saying.

“I know! I know!” Raúl answered disgustedly.

He could feel the hot red sand distinctly through his black cloth slippers as he was walking all the way across the ring. He dedicated his fight to the wife of the owner of the ring, who was sitting on the front stands, by throwing his ceremonial cape up to her. He had explained to Elena that he would have to do this because it was his first full fight was a matador. Elena was sitting in the stands and she did not care if he dedicated his fight to the queen. Only Ernesto’s fight would have mattered. She clutched her rose so tightly that the thorns drew blood in her hand.

Raúl’s arms were weakened by the vomiting and he was glad that the cape landed in the right place. The owner’s wife dutifully threw down her rose for him. He bent to pick it up and felt the acid slosh in and out of his stomach.

His arms shook in a disgusted attempt to leave his body while he was standing and waiting and the bull was let out. It was a good bull. His trained eye studied its moves while the members of his cuadrilla did the first teasing. The picadors were behind Raúl on their horses and they were ready with their pics. Men were standing by to lead the bull away in case Raúl was gored.

There it was. Ernesto’s bull was coming for Raúl. Raúl had stolen it and that was the only way he could ever have gotten into the ring.

Elena watched in the stands as Raúl did something no other matador had done before.

He dropped the cape.