Confessions of a Former Bookseller, Part I

I used to work as a bookseller for Barnes and Noble.

Yes, I did. Go ahead and start throwing rotten tomatoes and telling me how I should have worked for an independent bookstore instead.

Get it out of your system.

I admit that I worked for one of the Eeeevil national chains parodied in the movie You’ve Got Mail as Fox and Sons.

Some of the observations that I made as a bookseller at a major national chain might not hold true if I had worked at a local indy, therefore as budding novelist, I’m glad I worked at B&N. I think some of the observations may also prove helpful to other writers who would like to see their work carried in major chains across the country as well as indies.

I worked at B&N from 1994-1996 prior to the true rise of the internet. By the time I left, Amazon.com was just in its infancy and B&N did not have email access for their stores, nor was there a Barnes and Noble.com – so some of the information is dated, but I think it will still prove illuminating.

How the stores are structured

I was one of the original store hires and so I was there when the store was still devoid of inventory. We had to start from nothing to over 100,000 books on the shelves categorized and alphabetized in about four weeks time. It seemed like a task worthy of Hercules.

The store was color coded by departments and each department had its own supervisor and crew was assigned to shelve that area.

Orange: Children’s

Green: Bestsellers and bargain books

Pink: Self-help books, (popular psychology, as well as psychology text books), motivational titles, health, games and puzzles, humor, field guides, travel and cook books

Yellow: business titles, legal reference, history, religion, philosophy

Blue: fiction, reference books, foreign language, drama, poetry, anthologies, art books, How-to manuals for car repair, gardening, woodworking, needlepoint

I remember exactly the floor plan of how the store looked when we opened, and they’ve changed things since then a few times over. I don’t know if any of those color designations still hold or if the home office had decided to tinker with what was in pink vs. blue departments.

The important part of the color designation was when the books were delivered. We had several days when entire UPS trucks delivered their contents to us and we would be like the proverbial fire brigade chain setting the boxes of books in the middle of the store. All the boxes came from Ingram, and it was considered to be the Superstore start up kit.

One of the assistant managers would open a box and yell out the various colors and people would then take the box and move it to a pile. Later we would be opening the boxes and separating them for their various appropriate shelves.

After the segregation and categorizing came the alphabetizing. All with the opening date looming.

The night before we opened to the general public we had a fête for the employees and guests. Several people wore tuxedoes, and we had food and wine. It was a glorious night. I was showing my husband around and took him to the receiving room and I saw one of the supervisors doing something that I will never forget.

She was stripping the covers off of paperbacks for the first strip return.

We had not even opened our doors to the public, but we were obligated by the home office to strip the covers off books and destroy the printed content. Because the strip returns were generated on a nation wide computer system and they did not distinguish between existing stores and new ones.

Our store was opening a week before the Thanksgiving holidays and the beginning of the Christmas book buying season, and yet we still had to destroy books that we worked to get in the store and alphabetize. Books that no consumer ever had the opportunity to purchase.

I thought of it as being sacrilegious. That was just my first observation of how corporate mentality is not necessarily predicated on logic or common sense.

There are more similar observations to follow.

Conflict is Drama

That is the mantra I use when I write. It is a quote from Michael Shurtleff. It serves to remind me the reason that people turn to fiction, movies, plays, literature is to live vicariously through others who are bolder, braver, or more desperate than we are. We want to see the turning points in people's lives and not their mundane day-to-day lives.

There are many books on the market about the craft of writing, but the one that I refer to the most was not written with authors in mind. It was written for actors. Michael Shurtleff's Audition: everything an actor needs to know to get the part is a book that I have purchased probably ten times over.

Because I keep recommending it, then lending it, then never getting it returned. Recently, I decided to break that habit and I now tell people to go to our local library borrow a copy, because I know they have many copies. This is so I won't have to buy this book for an eleventh time.

Why do I love it so much? Because I learn new insights with each reading.

Michael Shurtleff knows how drama works. His intended audience is actors and helping them bring words to life, from the page to the stage. Over the years, I realized that what he tells actors what they should look for in a good script is what every writer should be putting in their literary creation whether it be for the stage, screen or book.

His lessons taught me that you should always say "yes" to love. When you wonder if a character is in love with another, say "yes." And then see what dramatic possibilities open up.

Do they want revenge? "Yes."

Is she in love with another character as well? "Yes."

Is she torn between the two lovers? "Yes." Does she feel guilt? "Yes."

Just try it. See what happens. In a myriad of ways, try to say yes to love and to wanting things.

Another aspect of Shurtleff's wisdom is the realization that the relationship on stage of friendship is all about competition. It is not about people who simply enjoy one another's company. Nope, at the heart of all friendships is the need to compete with one another. He uses examples of friends competing over who is the better tennis player, who is the wittiest, who has the better job, sexier looking spouse, etc.

And that is what you should show on the stage, or on the page.

The best example I can think of to demonstrate how friendship is about competition is the movie, "Sideways." Jack and Miles are two friends who have known each other since college and go on a weeklong trip to the Santa Barbara wine country before Jack's wedding.

The movie starts out easy going, but soon, we see that Jack and Miles have tension between them. Jack wants to screw around before getting married, and Miles would rather they play golf and taste wine. They have different expectations, and they have tremendous conflict over these differences.

Then the movie goes into a pretty dark place. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie, but suffice it to say that Jack begs Miles for his help. Miles complies, but only because the two of them have a long history together.

It is a relationship based on history, guilt, and manipulation. It is apparent that both Jack and Miles have the goods on one another. Like they know where the bodies are buried, metaphorical or literal. Those are things in the backstory that are never included in the text or on the screen, but they exist. The actors must embody this history in order for the story to work.

That is the heart of their relationship. It is not simply spending time with someone who makes you laugh.

Conflict is drama.

I love Greek Mythology and have loved it since I was a little girl. The stories are larger than life. They are filled with envy, lust, greed, betrayal, murder, matricide, patricide, fraticide, infanticide, infidelities, madness, revenge, tragedy and of course, heroism.

That is the essence and soul of drama. It is not enough to simply be attracted to someone, you must fall instantly and helplessly in love with them. It must be an all encompassing love. One that you will willingly risk your life, your fortune, your reputation, everything. You will experience love, or die trying.

People turn to drama because they want to live vicariously and make choices that would be too risky or painful to take. In Real Life people shy away from confrontations, whereas in Drama you must seek them out.

Literature and Drama requires characters who fight for what they want.

Dream big. Fight hard.

Fight to win.

Conflict is Drama.

Ohhhhhhhmmmmm.