1. Find Friends. Writing is a solitary endeavor. Preparing to publish your work, is not. Find critique partners, writing groups, classes, or at least someone your mom can pay to listen to you talk about your work (kidding, sort of).
2. Share. Give and take feedback and advice. Use kind words.
3. Take Turns. When something good happens to someone else – clap loudly. Your turn will come and you want someone clapping loudly for you.
4. Don’t Push Little Kids Too High On The Swings. Don’t scare someone just because you’ve been there, done that. We all have to acclimate at our own pace, in our own time. (And some people get dizzy on swings.)
I’m a pantser*. I should get that out of the way right now, so you understand where I’m coming from when I say I build my characters in a very backwards way—sort of like building a brick wall from the top down. Which, of course, doesn’t make a lot of sense, nor is it the best way to do things. But it’s how I roll. Please bear with me.
When I begin writing a story, I usually start with an idea or a ‘what if’ statement. Like: What if someone got hit by lightning and could suddenly hear ghosts?
So then I have to create a main character. And she or he needs to learn something and have some personal growth in the span of the book. And he or she probably needs to find someone to kiss (in my books, anyway) and encounter conflicts, and triumph over her conflicts and then tadaa! the book ends on a happy, satisfying note.
Sounds easy, right? Except, what is it that the character needs to learn? And what does she need to get past and WHO will she kiss? And most importantly, who IS she? Does she come from a good family? Does she have brown hair? Gingivitis? A facial tick? Does she twirl her hair when she’s nervous? Pee a little when she laughs? Is she a vegan? Does she hate the color red? How will she react if someone yells at her/stomps on her foot/kisses her unexpectedly?
Who IS this person?
Well the answer to that, when I begin a book, is: I don’t know. And that comes from being a pantser. I build my characters as I go, which means that halfway through the book, my character could do something or say something that makes me realize a part of her personality that I hadn’t perceived earlier. There are always little AHA! moments in my drafts, which also means that first drafts are ALWAYS ugly and messy and my characters are never as fully developed as they are after draft four (or four-hundred, as the case may be).
I personally think this is a terrible way to write and I certainly don’t advise it, but it’s what works for me AND is the best way for me to write, because A. I HATE writing outlines and character sketches and B. discovering who my characters are as they face the situations I put them in, is so much fun and is actually an organic way to figure out who they are. So it’s more work at the end because I need to go back and edit and layer in their personalities and fix quirks that I first got wrong. But like I said, it’s fun. And why am I writing if it’s not fun?
Now what about you – how do you build your characters? Do you sketch them out? Or just throw them in and see how they react to you torturing them?
*Dear Mom, a pantser is a writer who doesn’t outline, but uses the ‘fly by the seat of her pants’ method of writing. In other words, when I sit down to write a book, I have no supplemental outline, character sketches or real idea of a plot arc in my head. I usually start with four or five plot points that will happen in the book and then go from there. This may seem like a ridiculous way to write a book, and I agree, and I’m even thinking I may need to do something about it, but for the time being, this is how I work. You’re welcome for that little tidbit of insight into how your daughter writes.
P.s. how’s Florida? Come home soon – we have a party to plan.
I’m not sure when I first heard the expression, “Opinions are like…er…belly buttons–everyone has one” but it’s always stuck with me and really resonates when I’m thinking about writing advice. There are as many styles and ways of writing as there are writers, and I don’t think anyone falls into the exact same mold.
Sometimes writing advice can seem overwhelming. To see the source article I used to create this wordle, click on it.
Most advice is very subjective and should be tailored to your writer’s palate, because everyone’s is different. AND I think a lot of newer writers (and some seasoned ones) get caught up in collecting advice and rules, so much so, that their own voice (not to mention their time for writing) gets smothered.
For example, some people say you need to write every day. That may be true for some people, but not for me. I have a day job and other commitments, so I don’t feel I have the time, or brain space, to write every day, even when I’m actively working on a project. Sometimes, between projects, I don’t write for months, which used to scare me, but now I just take it in stride. I will pick it up again when I’m ready or need to get something done. I will not lose my ability to write—it always comes back. I need to trust myself and I think that goes for a lot of writing rules and advice: trust yourself and your gut. YOU know what’s best for you.
But there are a few pieces of writing advice that I think are worth heeding.
I had a very wise teacher in high school who was not only an English and creative writing teacher, but he was a published author as well, which meant that, in my eyes, a little sunbeam from heaven shone down on him. Yes, that’s right, he was my kind of rock star. You could even find his books in our school library!**
Anyway, he taught grade ten (or for you Americans: tenth grade) creative writing, which, of course, I took and loved. There was a certain amount of latitude in the classroom—I believe I sat on the windowsill for some classes and others we were allowed to go sit on the front lawn of the school, so our muses could be fed by cigarettes and Big Gulps from the Seven-Eleven next door. But being that it was a high school credit class, there needed to be an final exam; a rule mandated by our slightly short-sighted school board.
So, we had a creative writing exam. And there was one question (and only one question!) on it. And it was this:
What is the number one rule of writing?
And the answer, which everyone in the class got right, was: Show, don’t tell.
Because that was the one really important thing that my teacher thought we needed to know about creative writing. At least, it was all that he felt we needed to be tested on; we learned plenty of other things in our classes where we wrote, or improvised scenes or even queried magazines for our short stories, but that one rule is the thing that stuck with me. And it’s the rule I use every time I sit down to write or edit.
But the rest? Well I trust myself and my own gut, and so far, it’s worked out pretty well.
What about you – what writing advice have you gotten? Good/bad/ignore-worthy?
**I’m suddenly aware that this might not have been a coincidence.
p.s. Mr. Kropp, if you stumble on this post, thanks to a Google alert or some other internet alerting device, feel free to drop me a line. Your class was awesome and was definitely a highlight of my less-than-stellar high school career, and although it was a long road to get published, I credit you and your class for paving the first steps.
Let me start by saying I love writing dialogue. I’ve been told I’m good at it and have a good ear, so let’s just go with that and assume it’s true. But when I stop to think about writing dialogue and what it takes, I’m kind of stumped. I mean, it’s a great topic for us writers to talk about (ha ha – talk about!), because there aren’t many books without any dialogue and I think that’s on purpose: we are humans and we crave interaction with other people. (Even in that chunk of time during Cast Away when Tom Hanks is completely alone, he still has conversations with Wilson). We need dialogue to know what a character is thinking, to reveal what’s inside his head, both his conscious thoughts and sometimes, more importantly, his unconscious ones. Think of how much we learn from things unsaid or by how things are said. Dialogue can be so revealing of events AND characters. I think that’s what I love about it. But I know a lot of people struggle with it. I, myself, struggle with scenes with more than two people in them—so hard to keep track of who is speaking without putting onerous tags on every line! But that said, what I’m going to focus on here is the mechanics of speech as it relates to writing.
Because dialogue in writing isn’t just straight transcription of people talking. I think this is a surprise to new writers, but to illustrate, imagine two music-loving twelve-year-olds talking at a wedding about the band:
“Ugh, I, like, totally can’t, you know, believe anyone would, like, want to play a wedding gig,” Alex said.
I snorted. “Uh…like, you know. We haven’t even, like, started our band yet and like you know, oh my God, already you’re, like, too good for weddings?”
“Uh, yeah, you know. Like, no weddings or bar mitzvahs for us, my dear Lilah. Oh my God, you know. We’re going big time, you know what I mean?”
I had my doubts since we could barely play, still needed instruments, and hadn’t even had our own bat mitzvah’s yet, and so far it was only the two of us. Our dreams of having a band were still just that: dreams.
“Oh my God, you know, you’ve got quite an, uh, you know, inflamed ego, like, for someone who doesn’t even, like, own her own guitar.”
Alex held the cool glass up to her forehead and rolled it back and forth. It was hard to believe it was only May.
“Like, whatever, we’re going to be huge, if you know what I mean. And the guys are, like, going to be all over us, you know. Oh my God, like, you watch, you know. We will, like, get to choose our boyfriends from the cream of the crop.”
If you’ve spent any time with kids, you know that they use a lot of extraneous words and phrases like what I’ve written above (okay, so maybe it’s an exaggeration, but not by a lot, and I’m guessing you get what I’m talking about). It’s exhausting to read and you really want to keep this kind of kidspeak to a minimum, to spare your reader having to muddle through the extra words to figure out what your characters are actually saying (I would say the same for accents, too. Diana Gabaldon uses a Scottish accent so beautifully in OUTLANDER that it’s not at all an impediment to reading, but she uses it very sparingly and I have to think this is a very conscious thing. I would warn against using heavy accents as they can be very hard for a reader to understand and will take them out of the story in way you want to avoid).
Here’s the same scene as the one above, as it actually occurs in SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE:
“Ugh, I can’t believe anyone would want to play a wedding gig,” Alex said.
I snorted. “We haven’t even started our band yet and already you’re too good for weddings?”
“Uh, yeah. No weddings or bar mitzvahs for us, my dear Lilah. We’re going big time.”
I had my doubts since we could barely play, still needed instruments, and hadn’t even had our own bat mitzvah’s yet, and so far it was only the two of us. Our dreams of having a band were still just that: dreams.
“You’ve got quite an inflamed ego for someone who doesn’t even own her own guitar.”
Alex held the cool glass up to her forehead and rolled it back and forth. It was hard to believe it was only May.
“We’re going to be huge. And the guys are going to be all over us. You watch. We will get to choose our boyfriends from the cream of the crop.”
Sure, kids don’t speak this concisely, like, ever, but we get a sense of the voice from the tone of speech and the choice of words without bogging down the dialogue with extra words, so it’s not exactly accurate, but it works.
So tell us, do you like writing dialogue? Do you find it a challenge or hear it in your head as you write?
It’s LAUNCH WEEK for Deb Rachel’s MWF SEEKING BFF!
I finished MWF SEEKING BFF the other day, but it’s still with me, the many layers of the book sticking with me long after I closed the cover and put it down with a happy sigh. I’ll get to the Q&A in a minute, but first I wanted to talk about the two really compelling reasons why I liked the book:
1. Uh, I’m a voyeur. I think most writers are, because we need to observe people in their natural (or sometimes unnatural, because that’s fun, too) habitat and use that as our basis for character-building. We need to know how people interact so that when we go to write characters, we get it right. Have you ever read or watched on TV when a character does something you’d never believe they would actually do? How frustrating is that? (Sidebar: I NEVER bought on WILL AND GRACE that Grace’s husband (Harry Connick Jr.) would ever cheat on her and that storyline bothered me for the entire remainder of the show. Rachel – I know you’re a fan of that show, so I’m interested in what you think, but maybe that’s a discussion for another day). Anyway, MWF gave me an opportunity to watch one person, Rachel, get outside her comfort zone (and mine too, because let’s be honest, I am no social butterfly) and consciously meet strangers-52 of them-in an attempt to make friends and maybe even a BFF.
2. This book forced me to examine my own friendships in a very conscious and critical way. What do I look for in a friend? What do I need from my friends? What am I willing to do for my friends and, in the end, am I a good friend? I’m not going to get into my stuff here, but I do want to thank Rachel for providing a catalyst for this, because honestly, I haven’t given my relationships a lot of thought recently, and like anything worth having, good relationships take work and conscious effort.
So, not only did I get a bit of a voyeuristic dessert out of reading Rachel’s book, but it had a very meaty entree component: making me think and act with respect to my friendships, and for that, I have to thank her. AND I applaud her for having the sheer guts to write this book and put it out there for anyone to see. You are a much braver woman than I, Rachel Bertsche, and I commend you heartily!
Now, on to the Q&A portion of this post (finally, I know!). I wanted to know about the story behind the idea for the book, so my first query was:
I’m interested in how the idea to write the book came about as it relates to your project of going on 52 Friend Dates.
Rachel’s answer: The idea to write the book and the notion of 52 dates sort of came to me together. The concept of how hard it is to make new friends had been on my mind since moving to Chicago two and a half years earlier. I’d heard all my life how tough it is to find a romantic partner or land a fulfilling job. No one ever told me it might be hard to make new friends. I didn’t understand why this totally awkward, but probably universal, problem wasn’t being talked about. I’d even written an essay about it for a national magazine. The story got killed, but I couldn’t shake the idea. When 2010 rolled around, and I’d been without local BFFs since mid-2007, I knew it was time to do something about it. I also knew that I probably wouldn’t take action unless I gave myself a real, defined project. That’s just my style — I like rules. It’s easier for me to stick to the extreme 52-dates-in-a-year than it is for me to just say “I’ll try to go on some girl dates over the next couple of months.” At the same time, I had started toying with the idea of trying to write a book. I’d always loved “year in the life” books–AJ Jacobs and Gretchen Rubin are two faves–so I thought friendship might be something worth writing about.
So it’s almost like the discipline of forcing yourself to do the girl dates for the book kept you on track. I like that. I am also a fan of rules and little goals to keep me motivated.
And my follow up question: Is this the book that you thought you’d debut with?
Rachel’s answer: This is such an interesting question for me, because I really never had a specific book I thought I would debut with. I’ve wanted to be in publishing my whole life. I worked in magazine editorial before moving to Chicago, and started freelance writing once I settled in the Midwest. But the idea that I could actually write a real book seemed impossible for so long. Books were for Capital W Writers, and I was just little old me. It wasn’t until I had this idea that I really truly believed in and felt hadn’t been given its fair due, that I thought maybe I could write a book.
Now I feel like it is absolutely the only book I could have EVER debuted with, because it’s a topic I’ve come to be so passionate about.
Thanks so much, Rachel! And I’d just like to put out there that I would be delighted to go out on a friend-date with you any day! We’d have wine and sushi and compare mandelbrot* recipes – there would be no awkward pauses and we would surely stay out much later than either of us planned. We’d be like this:
*for any of our readers who haven’t yet read Rachel’s book or are not Jewish, mandelbrot is like the Jewish version of biscotti and it’s wonderful. Mom – do you have a recipe? Or better yet, will you make me some?
The fact that I’m here writing this blog post tells you a lot about how I feel about social media. It’s a no brainer, right? I see a lot of benefits of getting myself out there in a way that I’m most comfortable: writing.
Writers write. Writers interact with others through words, so using platforms that allow us, from the comfort of our homes—wearing pajamas, if so desired—to interact pretty much one on one with our friends/fans/networks, is amazing. To be able to post essays and even one-liners about writing or how we got our book deals or what we had for lunch is not only fun and cathartic (at least for me), but is a great way for potential readers to get to know me. Let’s face it, it’s a very crowded market these days and authors face uphill battles to get their books noticed. It’s hard to sell a book to a publisher, yes, but it’s even harder to sell a book to a reader. Especially when that reader doesn’t know you exist.
So my reasons for using social media are basically twofold:
1. I’m making friends (and finding old ones – Hi Carrie!). Seriously. I’m not the most outwardly social creature, so to be able to use my computer to meet people and share in-the-trenches stories is great for me. I’ve met some of my best friends online, and am very thankful for my online network, which, of course, includes my fellow Debs.
2. I’m networking to help find an audience for my book. I do hope I’m not too promoty, because like I said, I’m out there making friends, too. But the fact is, I need to get the word out about my book. I just hope I can do it in a non-snake-oil-salesman type way. If I can make you laugh and convince you that I’m a funny, decent human being (which my mom will tell you I am), then maybe you’ll take a chance on me and my book (which, I should remind you, is now available for pre-order).
But it’s a double-edged sword—there’s a darker side to social media. A scary side, that comes from a sense of familiarity and entitlement, because of this brave new world where technology has made it SO easy to contact authors. It’s as simple as finding their e-mail on their website or friending them on Facebook or Twitter (or maybe LinkedIn, although I’m the first to admit I have no idea what LinkedIn is for), and sending them a note asking them whatever. If you want a real eye-opener of what some authors have had to deal with, and surely still do as we get deeper and deeper entrenched in social media, have a look at this illuminating post by Lenore Appelhans , book blogger and author. I’ll wait here while you go read it (the comments are great, too, if you have some time).
Yowza, right?
This doesn’t even talk about the horror that Goodreads can be. Sure, on the surface it seems like a lovely, friendly place where people talk about books, and most times it is. But there are times when the reviews can be…er…not so nice. And I’m not talking critical reviews like one might see in the book pages of your newspaper; I’m talking full-out catty nastiness, accusing authors of not being able to string sentences together and other hateful, awful things that would tear out the heart of even the most thick-skinned author.
I’ve been warned against Goodreads by other authors and have seen some of the nastiness out there, but since my book is not available as an ARC yet (despite being available for pre-order), I have, so far, not been subject to such reviews. I’m a bit of a masochist, so I figure I’ll stick around unless it gets really awful. Stay tuned—I expect ARCs to start going out in the new year. Yikes.
And then sometimes, even if it’s not about bad reviews, it just gets awkward for authors. How much is too much interaction? Do you respond to everything or nothing? Do people get upset if you were responsive, but due to becoming busy, just don’t have the time? When is it okay to respond and when is it weird? Kristin Hubbard posted about this very recently on YA Highway, and I think it’s worth a read as well. Yup, I’ll wait.
Scary stuff, huh? Makes you really think, doesn’t it?
I could go on and on about social media and its pros and cons, but I think you get the idea that it’s a wonderful, but scary world out there for us authors. There are so many amazing tools at our fingertips, but with each new tool, comes a potentially negative side. The art is finding the balance and doing what you’re comfortable with and no more. Because I think at the crux of it, we need to be writers first and if we’re spending all of our time and energy on the media stuff, when does the writing get done?
That said, I’m going to take this opportunity to thank you for being here, because you’re proving that social media does work and can be a great way to meet people. So feel free to comment with your thoughts on social media and if you have links to YOUR blog, Goodreads page, Facebook page, Twitter account, feel free to include those, also. You can include your LinkedIn, too, although someone needs to explain it to me before I’m going to start adding people over there.
Welcome back from Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family! But now it’s back to the harsh reality of how to get your book published: and that harsh reality means you’re probably going to need to write and send out query letters to make it happen.
Oh, the dreaded query letter. Who here loves writing and sending queries?
*crickets chirping*
I know, I know.
No one is this happy about sending queries. We’ll assume she just got a full request from her dream agent. Congrats, Stock Photo writer lady!
Well, I’m here to tell you that although writing them kind of sucks and sending them out and then waiting for responses (which may end up being rejections) kind of sucks, they can and do work.
I’m living proof. Well, sort of.
What I mean is, that although I have been successful in using queries to land agents to represent me and my work, I did not have the experience of query = agent = book deal. It wasn’t that tidy for me. But in the end, it all really did start with cold queries.
And I’ve sent out hundreds and hundreds of cold queries. Actually, I figure I’ve sent probably a thousand or more queries in the many years of trying to get published. None yet have killed me or caused me real harm, other than the odd paper cut (back in the day before I stopped sending out snail-mail queries), so they can’t be that bad. Yes, there is a lot at stake and yes, it’s a different skill set than writing a novel, but I’m sorry, you’ll just have to deal with it, because that’s how most agents find a lot of their clients. AND most agents are lovely, generous and understanding people who relish finding great books in the slush pile, so if you write a decent query and act professionally, you have nothing to fear. There is a very good chance you will be rejected, but I can assure you, you will not be decapitated. See how everything is relative?
I don’t have a query for SMALL MEDIUM AT LARGE to share with you because it is the one book that I never queried agents on (this is what I was getting at above). Even though the agent who sold it was not the first to shop it, I had signed with both of those agents on other books, proving that nothing in my journey has been a linear progression, nor made any real sense, but in the end, it did all work out. However, I did send out queries on 12 other books and had a fair bit of success with them, so I do know a little something.
There are lots of great and very comprehensive query resources/blogs out there, so I’m not going to make this into a ‘what to do’ post. But if you are querying or soon to be querying, I can’t say enough about these two online resources that I used extensively in my agent hunts:
Agent Query – a searchable database which also has plenty of great resources and articles about the business, including what to do when you get an offer (I used this myself).
Query Tracker – this one is an online database where you can search for agents according to genre/agency etc and sign up to use the tool to keep track of who you’ve queried, along with the results. I found this to be an invaluable resource, replacing my onerous spreadsheets. It is always very up-to-date and even includes agents’ clients (not all, but often enough names to be representative) and links to their agency pages and searches.
So that’s pretty much all I have to say on the topic of queries, but I’m very happy to answer any questions about querying, the process or whatever. I’d also love to hear what YOU think of querying: anyone want to share stories or thoughts?
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