Category Archives: Writing 101

Written by Lara | Category: Submissions, Writing 1016 comments

Last week, the lovely Margaret Yang taught us all how to write a wonderful one-page synopsis. This week, she tackles why we writers need to just write the synopsis already and stop complaining about it. Margaret is the author of the short story Good Fences. Her novel, Fate’s Mirror, debuts today. Congratulations, Margaret, and take it away!

I went to my favorite grocery store today, which has a Starbucks right inside it, perfect for my crazy busy life. My grocery list was long, but the line for coffee was short. Feeling lucky, I ordered a tall mocha frappuccino, the kind they whip up in a blender.

“Oh not another one,” the barista sighed. “Those are hard. I’ve been making them all day. I’m here all by myself . . .” He looked longingly at the hot brewed coffee and then shuffled slowly to the refrigerator to get the pitcher of cold blender mix. “And it’s not even real coffee.”

“Never mind. Thanks anyway,” I said. I put away my money and walked out.

I raced through the grocery aisles, pitching stuff into my cart, angry because I didn’t get my frozen mocha. Sure, I would have gotten one eventually, if I’d been willing to both wait and endure the barista’s whining. I was also bewildered. It was 93 degrees outside. What did he expect people to order? If you work at a coffee bar that sells frozen blender coffees, you are going to be making frozen blender coffees.

I was putting some laundry soap in my cart when the barista walked up to me carrying a large, beautiful frappuccino with whipped cream peaks drizzled in chocolate. “There you are!” he said, handing it over. “I couldn’t just let you leave.” I apologized to him, although I’m not sure why. Changing your mind about a business transaction isn’t wrong, especially since he hadn’t started preparing it yet. I reached for my wallet to pay, but he waved me off and went back to work.

I plunged the straw through the whipped cream into the heavenly mocha below, but stopped with it halfway to my mouth. I couldn’t bring myself to even try it. What if the barista had spit in it or done something else horrible? Odds are, probably not, but why take a chance, especially since it was free? I found the nearest garbage can and dumped the whole thing.

I’ve heard that many baristas dislike making frappuccinos. A lot.

Just like many writers dislike writing synopses. A lot.

When faced with writing a synopsis, the first thing we writers do is complain. I’ve already written the entire novel! Now you want me to do what? How can anyone get the sense of my novel from something all sweetened and diluted? (It’s not even real coffee!) Plus, it’s really, really hard. I don’t want to make it. I’m here all by myself…

But I’m the customer—or the editor—on the other side of the counter. I am angry and bewildered. The barista knew when he started working that he’d be expected to make frappuccinos just as we writers know we will write synopses. It’s just part of the job, and every job has unpleasant parts. What’s the big deal? Throw the coffee and some flavoring and ice into the blender and turn it on! And if it’s lumpy, make it pretty with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

A friend of mine published her first novel with a commercial press. When it came time for the second novel, her editor asked to see the first 100 pages and a synopsis. Guess what my friend said? “Oh, not another one. Those are hard. I’m here all by myself…” My friend eventually banged out a synopsis and reluctantly handed it in without any beta reads or proofreading.

It got rejected just as quickly as I threw away my beautiful frappuccino that day in the grocery store. I doubt my friend spit in her synopsis, just like I doubt the barista spit in my coffee, but you just never know.

Written by Lara | Category: Best Practices, Writing 1012 comments

Because the book market has tightened so much, book plots and characters have to stand out in fresh and new ways. If you want to be traditionally published, it’s not enough anymore to write about a clumsy girl who loves to shop. It’s not enough to write about a vampire that falls in love with a human. These stories need added depth and dimension. An additional layer, if you will. So, maybe the clumsy shopaholic is the vampire. (Then again, I see agents these days saying they’re automatically rejecting vampire or zombie manuscripts. In a word: overkill.)

On top of all that, you also need  to write the book you love and believe in, especially because it’s impossible to chase market trends. By the time you write that dystopian romance, the market will have moved on.

So how do you toe that fine line?

It’s critical that you conduct research and keep abreast of what’s taking place in the industry. Writers Digest is a great resource, both in its print form and with its various online classes and workshops. Publishers Marketplace showcases what’s being published and by whom. And remember to hit industry-insider blogs, like those of agent Kristen Nelson.

Be informed, but also remember to write the story you’re passionate about, too. It’s a delicate dance to be sure, but I believe it’s one that’s also absolutely doable.

Written by Lara | Category: Don't Give Up, Writing 1016 comments

Author Saundra Mitchell wrote what she loved without ever thinking it would get published. (And then she got published.)

In order to pen her second novel, The Vespertine, Saundra Mitchell had to pretend like she might never get published again. She had to write the book she wanted to write, market demands be darned. It worked … eventually. Here’s Saundra to tell her story:

When my debut novel Shadowed Summer came out, I was already at work on The Vespertine. Originally, my idea for The Vespertine’s plot was to take the Salem witch trials and place them in a modern setting. The main character had visions at sunset, which put her in danger from her community. I got 60 pages in and sent what I’d written to my editor.

Unfortunately, she came back with a bunch of notes that would change what the book fundamentally was. I told my agent at the time that I’d write another 60 pages and try to consider her input. So I started over, setting The Vespertine, in a New England boarding school. It was still about a girl who saw things at sunset. But I got 30 pages in and found I wasn’t enjoying the story at all. It wasn’t the book I intended to write. So I just put it aside.

And then I freaked out for two months.

H4W: Two months?

Yes. I kept asking myself, Where do I go and what do I do? And I kept coming back to this one idea: I wanted to write a historical novel about a serial killer who happened to be a vampire.

H4W: I’m sorry, I just want to make sure everyone is getting this. Saundra said she wanted to write a historical novel about a serial killer who happened to be a vampire. Okay, please continue.

I know, not marketable, right? So I kept putting it aside and but the idea wouldn’t leave me. So finally I just said, Screw it, I’m just going to write what I love.

I started out writing a book about a girl being locked in the attic by her crazy brother. I had so much fun with it. I thought, I am writing the dumb book that makes me happy. It started out as the vampire/serial killer book, but as I wrote and wrote, I saw a different—better—idea in there about a girl coming to terms with her gifts and what society expects of her. I wrote the entire thing in six weeks.

While writing what eventually became The Vespertine, Mitchell says she simply penned a book that made her happy.

My agent was excited about it, and she sent it out wide. At first, we got rejections, so then I started revising the novel. I went through and I carved a lot of the historical language, because editors were saying it was too historical. I simplified the language. I added an extra romance scene.

Eventually, we sold The Vespertine to Houghton. I’m so happy with the book, but I know I couldn’t have crafted it if I hadn’t let myself just write the crazy story that was in my head initially. All bets were off—I said, I don’t care if this is ever published, and that made all the difference. It allowed me to draft a story that could be edited and sold.

So whatever’s in your heart—write that. Forget what the market says, what editors say, what your friends say. You can always revise crap if it’s crap that you love. But revising a story you aren’t passionate about is nearly impossible. And no fun to boot.

Saundra Mitchell is a screenwriter and author in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her debut novel Shadowed Summer won The Society of Midland Authors Book Award for Children’s Fiction, and was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best YA Mystery in 2010. The Vespertine hits bookstores in March. Learn more at www.saundramitchell.com.

Novel Beginnings

09
Jan
2011
Written by Lara | Category: Editing, Writing 1014 comments

Does your novel start in the right place?

Determining where — and how — to begin your novel can greatly affect your chances of getting noticed by an editor or agent. Because the truth is, many writers begin their novels in the wrong place. Which isn’t to say these novels aren’t good. They are. But if it takes 25 pages to get to the meat of the story, that’s 20 pages too long.

How can you tell if your novel is starting off right? First, do the first five pages of the story introduce a problem your main character is going to solve? It’s not enough if your main character simply experiences something. Readers must get a sense of what the crux of the conflict will be for your protagonist in the pages ahead.

For example, in Suzanne Collins’ bestseller The Hunger Games, her main character Katniss is up and out of bed in the first few paragraphs, solving the problem that will keep her motivated throughout the entire series: How can I help and protect my family?

Even the most challenging circumstances — death, abuse, poverty, heartache — will be disengaging to readers who can’t grasp the conflict and get a sense of who the main character is.

Noah Lukeman’s helpful book The First Five Pages also cautions against bogging down the action with descriptors: adjectives, adverbs, and details that the reader just doesn’t need. I’ve heard this called information dumping by editors and agents.

Another thing that can kill a novel’s beginning is back story. The early versions of Donut Days were especially guilty of this. I had a lot of information to convey, and so I front-loaded it into the story at the expense of the pacing. In my revisions, I worked hard to integrate this into the text more organically — both through the use of flashbacks (sparingly!) and by employing more “show versus tell” techniques.

It’s a busy, fast-paced world, and our books need to convince readers quickly that our prose is worth their time. Bait the hook well, and reel your audiences in quickly.

[Image source: Momentum Sports]

Self-Editing

14
Nov
2010
Written by Lara | Category: Best Practices, Writer Beware, Writing 1013 comments

In this New York magazine story, author James Frey launches a controversial plan to take ideas from MFA students and turn a profit. As John Scalzi points out, there’s much that is wrong with this tale. But out of Frey’s many, many bad statements and ideas listed in the text, I only want to take issue with one in particular: that writers don’t need to self-edit.

Oh, but we do.

At the end of the day, we, the authors, are the only ones who are going to be able to complete our work in a way that will make agents and publishers take notice. We can and should get help in this process — join a critique group, have a friend look at it, etc. — but ultimately only we know how to fix the problems in our books.  We created it, we gotta make it work.

Except here’s why writers don’t self-edit:

Fear. What if our work is awful? Putting ourselves out there is hard. Not a single one of us loves rejection. And our writing really is our art, which is a very personal thing. Someone saying they don’t like our main character is akin to them saying they don’t like us. Intellectually, we might all understand that to not be true — but emotionally, it feels true. And that’s enough to keep us away from other people’s opinions.

Time. Editing is difficult, not to mention time-consuming. When we’re looking at the clock, it’s easier to believe our work is fine, as is, than to realize it’s going to take us twice as long as we originally thought. Add to that the time it’s going to take for us to craft a query letter, submit our work, and wait for replies, and we’re looking at months. Maybe even years. It’s true that publishing is slow but, sadly, it’s only going to be slower if we skip the self-editing step.

That hard-to-see forest from the trees. Often, when we read our own work, we think it’s wonderful. And the parts that we might think are slightly less than perfect — well, it’s hard to know where to begin fixing them. How do we create deeper, richer characters? How do we infuse the plot with tension? How do we create a satisfying ending? There are many helpful books out there on these subjects, sure, but it’s hard to read the manual(s) and then apply the knowledge to our own writing. Which is why it’s helpful to take a step back from our work, put it away for a month, then review it with fresh eyes. These problems — and the solutions — might become much clearer with a little bit of perspective.

Ultimately, we’ll all be better writers if we flex our own editorial muscles, squeezing the bad writing out of our manuscripts entirely.**

Not to mention we’ll all be better writers if we don’t listen to a word James Frey says.

** I am in the business of helping writers, yes. But a manuscript critique — whether a writer gets it from a friend, a writing group, or Help for Writers — will always proceed much more smoothly if a writer has already done some major heavy lifting themselves.

[Image source: Bloggingtip]

Genre Jumping

18
Aug
2010
Written by Lara | Category: Best Practices, Writing 101No comments

Eileen Cook is the author of the young-adult novels WHAT WOULD EMMA DO? and GETTING REVENGE ON LAUREN WOOD, and the romance UNPREDICTABLE. She is prolific, talented, and understands that some writers just don’t fit inside a single genre box. In this guest post, Eileen offers tips on how to successfully navigate between genres — without feeling schizophrenic. Take it away, Eileen!

I write women’s fiction. And young adult novels. And some middle grade. Some of my work is romantic comedy, some paranormal, and there is some drama thrown in here and there.

I’m a genre jumper.  It isn’t that I can’t make up my mind, I write in multiple genres because I enjoy it.  More and more writers are crossing genre borders. NY Times bestselling author Carl Hiaasen writes crime fiction, non-fiction and won the Newberry award when he turned to writing middle grade novels. Children’s favorite Judy Blume also writes women’s fiction. Romance author Nora Roberts writes paranormals, traditional romance, and suspense.

If you’re thinking of trying out a new genre here are some disadvantages and advantages to keep in mind.

Disadvantages:

Practice makes Perfect:

Every genre has its own framework. In romance the reader expects a happy ending. In a mystery, the reader won’t be happy if you solve the “who done it” by introducing a new character on the final page. The more you write in a specific genre the more opportunity you’ll have to develop skills and understand reader demands.  If you divide your energy among different genres it may take you longer to master the nuances of each one.

Fractured Base:

Everyone wants to have the break out book, the book everyone is reading. However, most authors are a slow build. It takes time, and books, to build an established reader base. If you are changing genre it can also mean building that reader base all over again. You may have some crossover readers, but you shouldn’t count on your mystery readers loving your new sci-fi adventure.

Who are you?

Writing is a craft, but publishing is a business. Publishers often talk about your “brand” as a writer. Readers have expectations of writers. If they pick up a Stephen King novel they expect it to be scary. If he wrote a romance, readers would keep turning the pages waiting for the main character to have their brain eaten by a mutant zombie.  If your write in different genres you run the risk that you “dilute” your brand. For this reason many writers who genre jump use a pen name, not to hide their identity, but rather to clearly brand the type of book the reader can expect.

Advantages:

Stretch that Muse:

Writing in a new genre can be freeing. You get to stretch out to try new formats. A new genre may be different lengths, different expectations with POV, and if you’re trying out paranormal, fantasy or science fiction, you have a chance to create entire new worlds.

Bang for your Story Buck

You may have a great idea for a story or a theme that you want to explore, but you realize that telling it within the context of a different genre will give it more “oomph.”

Reinvention/Changing Marketplace

Publishing trends come and go. (Anyone remember the sea of pink book covers during the chick lit boom?) If the genre you write in has come to the end of its trend you may not be able to sell. You either have to wait until your genre comes back into popularity, or you need to venture out into new waters.

Genre jumping doesn’t mean that you have writing commitment issues. There are advantages and disadvantages to crossing genre borders- but don’t be afraid to give it a try.  There’s a whole writing world waiting to be explored.

To learn more about Eileen’s books, click here. You can also follow her on Twitter @eileenwriter

Written by Lara | Category: Writing 1015 comments

We all hear it—advice from editors, agents, and fellow writers advising us to “show, don’t tell.”

But what does that even mean?

To show you (vs. tell you) what I think it means, I decided to pull from examples from my recently edited novel, THE IMPLOSION OF AGGIE WINCHESTER.

My main character, Aggie, is Goth and her relationship with her mom is strained because of it. In an early draft, I had a sentence that told as much to the reader: My mom didn’t understand why I went Goth and never asked about it. She was embarrassed, and that was enough.

From that, we don’t get a sense of what Aggie’s mom is like or how Aggie herself feels about her mom’s attitude. And, frankly, it’s boring.

In a later draft, that section was revised to better show the complexities of the relationship:

Maybe, finally, the eyebrow ring would be the thing that would make my mom stop buying me clothes from the mall and sticking them in my closet as a reminder of what I should be wearing. Maybe now she’d grasp that I was never going to join the debate club or the track team, even though she always posted the tryout fliers on our fridge. Because at the end of the day, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t trying to help me. She was just embarrassed by me.

Here, we get a better sense that Aggie and her mom don’t talk directly about Aggie’s look, and that she’s added an eyebrow ring to her ensemble. We learn that Aggie’s mom wants Aggie to dress and act differently, but doesn’t come outright and say it –rather she sticks clothes in Aggie’s closet and tapes fliers to the fridge.

It’s worth noting that the eyebrow ring came into play after a few revisions that weren’t getting across what Aggie looked like. Initially, I tried telling this to the reader by comparing Aggie to her best friend, Sylvia: With her pale skin, dark lipstick, black clothes, and multi-colored hair, Sylvia was at least as much a freak as I was—maybe even more.

But what that sentence didn’t accomplish was what Aggie herself looked like. So, early on, I established that Aggie is Goth and a bit of a mess:

By the time I got to my locker, my combat boots were soaked and my black-green eye shadow, called “Decay,” was mixed with my mascara and all but running down my cheeks.

Here are a few more show/tell contrasts (not necessarily from my book):

Tell: The car was a beater.

Show: The dash vibrated with the roar of the missing muffler and the heater blasted cold air.

Tell: David was lazy and his parents gave him an obscene allowance.

Show: David sank deeper into the couch cushions, barely extending his hand as his dad walked by. “I need $50, Pops.”

Tell: She loved listening to old songs in the car.

Show:

Jenny cranked the volume.

“What the hell is this?” April asked over the music.

Jenny smiled and tapped her hands against the steering wheel. “A total classic. Just listen.”

Have you been called out on showing vs. telling? How did you improve your work? What tips do you have?

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