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denlm
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The Abandoned Writer
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Journal
The Synopsis Writer
I hate writing a synopsis. Here’s why: 1) There are no uniform specifications for a synopsis. Every agent has their own requirements. 2) There are no uniform specifications for a synopsis. Every agent has their own word count. 3) There are no uniform specifications for a synopsis. Every agent has their own idea of what they expect—but seldom share that vision with others.
When an agent does decide to impart his or her wisdom to us, some say create an abbreviated outline; others state The Way is paved with prose. Some decide a single page will suffice; others are happy to read two. Most claim 500 words is the max; almost as many say 800. I even found one agent who sanely declared it was impossible to write a clear and compelling synopsis in just one page or 500 words. For him, the bottom line was not to exceed 1,000. So, sad to say, you’re gonna need more than one version in your tool box… and probably will still have to edit and modify to meet each agent’s
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Journal
The Rejected Writer
A literary agent sent me a long, lovely email recently. It began by saying, “It isn’t easy saying no.” I can attest to the fact that hearing it is no warm and comfy hug either. But it’s part of the game. If we are going to pitch our work to traditional agents and publishers, we have to be prepared for rejection. It is a rare and lucky novelist whose work is picked up on the first pitch.
Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times. J.K. Rowling suffered through 12 rejections of Harry Potter. Dr. Seuss took a hit on his first children’s book 27 times. Even Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby-Dick, was turned down by multiple publishers. Bentley & Son wrote to him: "First, we must ask, does it have to be a whale? …could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens?” Selling books wasn’t much easier back then, it seems… and one way to make the book more appealing to younger audience
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Journal
The Query Writer
So, you’re ready to pitch your novel to a literary agent, eh? According to most agents, there are three things they will eye carefully before deciding if they want to learn more about you and your project: your query letter, your query letter, and your query letter.
It’s like location, location, location in real estate. No one will buy it if it isn’t located in the neighborhood they want. That’s why I spent an entire blog (The Pitch Writer) explaining how to develop a target list of prospective reps for your work. If you don’t have that yet, read no further. The following will be a waste of your time until you do.
You say you
have
a location to shoot for—you know who is looking for the kind of book you’ve written? Good. Here are the blueprints for the query letter you want to build that will show those agents you’re selling what they want to rep.
Pour the Foundation:
Think of your query as a mini version of your novel. The b
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Journal
The Pitch Writer
If you are a novelist planning to self publish, you can stop right here… or maybe not. Eight years ago, after months of pitching my first two novels into what felt like the Black Hole of agents who never responded or politely declined, I became impatient. Decided I preferred writing stories to writing query letters. Self-pub, here I come! And that worked for me. For a time. Then along came THE ONE: the novel that felt like it deserved more than I alone could give it.
So. I’m back in The Land That Time Forgot, querying agents and looking for the person who will see the same promise in
Are You Listening?
that I do. You may write THE ONE someday, too. So it won’t hurt to bookmark this blog for future reference. (Note: this article is focused on fiction or narrative/creative nonfiction, which in most cases requires a finished manuscript before you approach an agent. Other forms of nonfiction have a separate pitch process. Some of the following still applies, howeve
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Journal
The Abandoned Writer
So if you paid any attention at all to
CRLiterature
's turn at bat last year for
Publishing Week
at
projecteducate
, you may have noticed one of the ideas that
bubbled up to the surface
was that self-publishing offers writers more control over the entire process, possibly a greater share of the profits, with the caveat that it's A LOT more work, since the writer is responsible for EVERYTHING. Writing, revising, editing, formatting, cover design, marketing, etc.
On the flip side, traditional publishing is supposed to be the harder door to open, but if you get your book in that door, you are SUPPOSED to be able to focus on writing while the publisher handles the other messy stuff.
Sometimes, it works that way. But sometimes, as
denlm
writes, it doesn't seem to work that way anymore
Memnalar
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Journal
The Elevator Writer
You jump into an elevator and who should get on behind you but Markus Dohle. Don’t know who Markus Dohle is? Oh, novelist, shame on you. He’s the CEO of Random House and you could be missing out on the biggest break of your life: a chance to pitch your book to a man who leads the world's largest trade book publisher, with operations in 20 countries and sales into over 100. But you’ve only got a few floors in which to make your case.
No, this is not likely to happen, but that’s not to say you should be unprepared. In fact, it is imperative that you boil down your novel to its core concept, its seed of uniqueness, before you write another word. Why? Because in today’s cutthroat world of Big Pub any book that does not have a Unique Selling Point is never going to make it out of the slush pile and onto bookstore shelves. Even if you opt to publish it yourself, it isn’t likely to sell. Over a million books are submitted for consideration to agents and pub
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Journal
The Muted Writer
“Reacher said nothing.”
I love those three words. They explain so much in so little space: that the character Jack Reacher is a man who’d rather wade in with a head butt than carry on a heated discussion about right or wrong. You’ll find it in nearly all of Lee Child’s novels.
As novelists, we can’t go wrong by following his example. Forcing our characters to keep their traps shut can be more powerful than letting them wail or argue.
Child wasn’t the first author to use the device, however. You’ll find a similar sentence in Hemingway’s short story,
Soldier’s Home
. In it, the main character Harold Krebs returns from WWI a changed man: lost and listless. His mother nags him to get on with his life, comparing him to his successful brother to motivate him. But… “Krebs said nothing.” Still, she persists: “I’ve worried about you so much, Harold… and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all
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Journal
The Remorseful Writer
You’ve finished your novel, memoir, or literary thesis. Months, perhaps even years, of effort have gone into that first draft. How should you celebrate? With cheers and dancing? An indulgent shopping trip? The pop of a cork on a bottle of bubbly?
Sometimes, it’s with a bout of depression.
This was my fifth novel, and it had never happened before. I didn’t recognize the symptoms. I woke up each morning excited to start editing, but by noon was nursing a headache. I labored over the same paragraph for hours, never satisfied. All those clever phrases that I’d written in phase one looked trite and clumsy in phase two. I despaired of ever making this once loved story sing again. My muse was on hiatus.
What the bejesus is wrong with you, woman?
If I didn’t know better, I’d almost swear what I was experiencing was grief—an emotion I knew all too well, having buried a husband, all of my parents, and two brothers.
You’ve heard of buyers rem
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Journal
The Skinny Writer
There’s an epidemic of obesity in literature. Even if your novel is in its infancy, odds are it’s going to be beer-bellied when it hits maturity. Agents say 30 - 50% of the manuscripts they receive are fat and flabby. It’s a top ten reason they ditch a book after one chapter.
It’s not our fault. We love words, gobble them up, spread them on everything. But unless we want our manuscripts to sink into a publisher’s slush pile, we have to shed the bulge.
Your novel’s length is up to you. It needs to say what you want it to say. But, rule of thumb: most run 100,000 to 175,000 words. Your genre has an impact, too. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America cites a minimum of 40,000 words for a sci-fi or fantasy novel. Wikipedia states chapter books for children start at 16,000, mystery novels range between 60,000 to 80,000, and thrillers top 100,000.
For me, novels can never be too rich or too skinny. Rich in description, characterization, texture
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Journal
The Ramped Up Writer
I could tell you that eighty percent of people say they want to write a novel. I could also tell you that fewer than one percent of all manuscripts submitted to traditional publishing houses make it into print. But you know what they say about telling, right? It’s always more effective to show.
Come with me on a bus ride. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the record number of people crammed onto an average city bus is 229. Look! That’s our ride now. Wave! We can do this. The vehicle slows with a squeal of bad brakes and an eye-watering reek of exhaust. It lurches up and over the curb, then bounces back to the pavement with a thud we can feel through the soles of our Nikes. I can’t see the driver, can you? Bodies press against the glass on all sides, blocking the view. A shapely denim-clad derrière is squashed into the crack of the bifold door. Man, that’s gotta hurt. A face peers out from alongside it: nose, cheeks, lips and eyes collapsed tog
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Journal
The Reader Writer
Last week, I encouraged novelists to throw away the rule book, to dare to be distinctive. But as some of you pointed out, I didn’t emphasize enough that the rules are still important. It’s like learning to play any instrument; you can’t become a concert pianist without learning the scales, spending hours on fingering, and practicing, practicing, practicing. Then when your body knows what to do by rote, you can let ‘er rip. Know the rules first. Interpret them to your liking later.
There’s only one rule you are not allowed to ignore. Know your reader.
We say we are writing our novels for our own pleasure. Liar, liar, pants are on fire. If we were our sole audience, why bother to type up our stories at all? Why not just walk around talking to ourselves, pretending to be different characters?
Okay, so maybe we do do that. But we don’t do it in a vacuum. We intend others to read our completed work one day. We hope to sell it. Dream of being interviewed b
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Journal
The Fearless Writer
In 2013, Hugh Howey’s debut novel
Wool
hit the bestseller lists, was garnering attention from filmmakers, and had catapulted him onto the couches of more than one talkshow. He'd initially published the book independently as a short story, began to pull a large audience, and turned it into a full length indie novel. Simon & Schuster took notice, made him an offer, and the rest is history. As a result, Howey has been touted as a marketing genius and a savvy negotiator in the wicked world of Big Pub. When asked how he pulled it off, however, he said (and I paraphrase because I’m too lazy to track down the original article):
I wonder if people who hit the lotto get emails asking
them
how they did it.
Bottom line: There are lots of blogs out there that claim they can show you how to get your novel published—and I may list a few of those tips in the future—but despite your best effort to write a successful q
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Journal
The Wordless Writer
Bet that got your attention. A writer? With no words? Impossible, you say. Ah, but we do it all the time: craft stories using vocabulary so shopworn it's virtually invisible. We handicap our literary voices by opting for words that are ordinary, expected and dead to readers’ eyes.
Stopped. Ran. Nodded. Frowned. Old. New. Came. Went.
There are a million of ‘em: good old reliable everyday words we reach for automatically when trying to describe the action unfolding in our head. Use them, yes. Even keep most of them. Let’s not get carried away to the point of absurdity. After all, everyday words and phrases get the job done. But don’t rely on them for true impact.
Get the story down first; that is paramount. Distractions like word choice can slow you down, so the first draft is the time to use the economy pack. But when you’re ready to rewrite—you do rewrite, don’t you? Of course you do, if you take your art seriously. An
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Journal
The Ahh Writer
Famous last words. Some novels have them, some don’t. Personally, I subscribe to the theory that if you have a dynamite opening and a satisfying
ahhh!
at the end, you can get away with a lot of weaknesses in the middle. Of course, it’s best to shine from start to finish, but if you can leave readers sighing, staggering, horrified or begging for more, they will forgive you for just about anything.
Having just put period to the first draft of
Are You Listening?
, I’ve been pondering the impact my final sentences will have on readers. “Wait!” you’re shouting, “I am so far away from the end of my novel I can’t pick out the last lines using satellite radar. I’ve got plenty of time for that.”
I disagree. It is never too soon to think about where your story is going to end—and how. Having a few ideas tucked away might even be an incentive to your subconscious to hurry things along, to start
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Journal
The Rule-Breaking Writer
I’ve been thinking a lot about rules lately: How important it is to know them. How vital it can be to break them.
Show, don’t tell. Be active, not passive. Amputate those adverbs. Make your hero likable. Give your characters dimension. We’ve been taught all this and more. And rightly so, because these are the things that turn a good idea into an exceptional novel.
Most of the time.
But there’s another rule, too, expressed by a lot of authors whose works we idolize. It’s what Neil Gaiman calls the main rule of writing: “If you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like.”
That’s the addicting thing about writing fiction. Anything can happen. Want to write about biblical dragons and the birth of the world? Fly, baby, fly. Thinking about writing a “dark future comic book”—but without the anime? To borrow from Mick, “Paint it black,” sweetheart. Want to pen an autobiog
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Journal
The Midlife Writer
I used to think it was just me. I would be sailing along penning chapter after chapter with ease, all of my characters playing nicely with each other. Then BAM! A Great Wall of China would suddenly spring up. The plot sucked. The hero sucked. The villain would suck, if he or she was even worth reading about anymore.
I sucked.
Turns out, I was having a literary midlife crisis. And they can really knock the wind out a novelist. My first crisis lasted so long, the manuscript gathered dust in a file for over ten years before I found the thrill again.
Nearly every novelist I know has trouble getting through the middle of their WIP. Even the totally awesome Neil Gaiman. Apparently, he once called his agent to say he was sorry, but he was not going to be able to finish his current project. That it was awful and could not be salvaged. Would the agent please give his apologies to the publisher? The agent’s response? “What page are you on, Neil.” When Gaiman told her, she laugh
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Journal
The Zen Writer
If you’ve seen
Bull Durham
, you may get this blog. If not, you’ll just have to channel your inner chi. Remember when Annie convinces “Nuke” LaLoosh to wear a lace garter belt when he’s on the mound? What she’s really saying is to stop thinking about pitching when he’s pitching.
That.
There is a symmetry and rhythm and poetry to prose writing that in my opinion cannot be taught. Okay, sure, there are terms for the literary devices that turn a good novelist into an exceptional one: balance, contrast, alliteration, hyperbole, metaphor, imagery, symbolism, foreshadowing, oxymoron, irony—
ad infinitum
. But knowing the names doesn’t tell you how to make the magic happen. Yes, learn them. Yes, study them. Definitely practice them.
Then forget them.
When you sit down to start a draft, shut down the anal side of your brain. It isn’t needed until later when you revise and proofread. In fact, it will
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Journal
The Arrogant Writer
No one ever asks me, “What does it take to be a novelist?” They ask, “How do I write a novel?” That is an entirely different thing. “How” speaks to the mechanics of writing. “What does it take…”? That speaks to your inner demons.
I’m going to quote from
Bull Durham
again. Sue me, but Kevin Costner movies seem to have the best lines. This one comes near the end of the flick, after Nuke LaLoosh has been called up to the Majors. His catcher and antagonist, Crash Davis, gives him one last piece of advice: “You gotta play this game with fear and arrogance.” Yes, he’s talking about baseball, but it applies to any endeavor that makes us reach for more. That makes us
aspire
.
Writing a novel—a great novel—requires a healthy dose of fear. Hell, it’s going to take you months, even years to complete it—and that’s before you have to try pitching it to an
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Journal
The 30-Second Writer
Humor me for a minute. Actually, for half a minute. Open your current work in progress to its first chapter, switch your phone to its stopwatch app, hit START, and begin reading from the top out loud. When the watch gets to thirty seconds, hit STOP.
Now, take a hard look at those first sentences. If you were an anonymous buyer browsing in Barnes & Noble or sampling the opening pages of this novel on Amazon, would you want to lay your money down?
Quite a challenge, eh? The truth is, that’s about all you’ve got to hook a reader and drag them eagerly into your novel. Consider it a 30-second commercial. I worked for an ad agency for over fourteen years, and got pretty good at making a sale in a few crucial seconds. I had to, or I’d have been in an unemployment line. Think of your novel the same way. SELL, SELL, SELL. Or die, die, die.
Here’s how others have done it. Many of the best, you will note, hit the sweet spot in under thirty. Do your opening sentences me
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Journal
The Clown-Nose Writer
Unless your OC is a circus clown and you want to sound like one (and maybe not even then), examine your work carefully for Red Noses. Can you believe it? Agents, publishers and readers have the gall to judge your work by the silliest of things. Like how many times you use words that are not words, or the number of ways you use words incorrectly. I call them Red Noses. These are some of the most common. But don’t stop here. Do some research of your own.
WORDS THAT ARE NOT WORDS
Anyways.
It used to be a word. In the 13th Century. Give it up already. I’d only consider using it in dialogue, if I want the person speaking to sound flip or stupid.*
Prolly
Think Gen X invented prolly while texting? It actually dates to the 1940s, and is considered a “relaxed pronunciation contraction” (like gonna and outta). See * above.
Firstly
First, second, and third can be used as both adjectives or
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Journal
The Anal Writer
I recently stated I would be open to blogging on dA about topics of interest to writers; in particular, writers of long fiction. A few of you cheered the idea on. Okay, you asked for it.
Recently, while perusing the lit DDs on deviantART, I was startled to see typos. Yep. On more than one DD. Don't get me wrong. Typos are pesky little devils that slip past the best of us, but bottom line: if we truly value our work, we should make every effort to polish it to its brightest shine.
Proofread, fellow authors. Proof. Read. It's the one thing that can make the difference between a reader settling back to enjoy what we create, or being distracted by our boo-boos. Stephen King's "Under the Dome" had so many typo tripwires, I nearly put it aside in disgust. It also caused hundreds of purchasers to ask for their money back. True story. Publishers even added a disclaimer to later editions, stating all sales were final. And that was a Stephen King novel. King, we ain't.
Here are some tried-
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Journal
The Hellbound Writer
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Or so says Stephen King who, as a former English teacher and master of horror fiction, ought to know. If so, then I am on the fast track to the fiery furnace because adverbs are my literary vice. I have a list of them on my phone to watch for when I’m writing. I can’t seem to go cold turkey during the first draft, but I can sure as hell stomp the little devils out of existence during the rewrite.
For those of you who’ve forgotten your high school grammar lessons: “How, where, or when a thing is done is called an adverb.” They are words that typically end in “ly” but not always. Slowly. Silently. Angrily. Boringly.
Forbiddenly.
My college writing professors slammed me time and again for peppering my compositions with adverbs. Why? I often wondered. If they’re so terrible, why were they invented in the first place? What is wrong with adverbs?
Well, first of all, they are the shortest dis
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Journal
The Route 66 Writer
There are three types of novelists: those who carefully plan every plot point before typing word one; those who attack their story headfirst, relying solely on guts and spur-of-the-moment inspiration; and those who do both—plot a little, and periodically fly by the seat of their pants. You may know them by the names Plotter, Pantser and Plantser.
John Grisham is a Plotter. He’s a lawyer, too, so planning is in his professional blood. His novels are tightly written and always at the top of the bestseller list. Charlaine Harris is an unapologetic Pantser, coasting along with no idea where she’s heading. That works well for her. Her Sookie Stackhouse series coasted her into fame and fortune, resulting in 15 brilliant books. Well, 14 brilliant books. Some critics felt her panties crashed and burned in
Dead Ever After
. Most novelists, like me, are Plantsers—or as I prefer to call it, Route 66 Writers.
There are benefits to each writing style.
Plott
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Journal
The Wishy Washy Writer
Don’t you hate passive people? They never say what they really mean. They beat around the bush. Dodge the issue. Pussyfoot their way to the point. (Or fill in the blank with your own choice of cliche.) They seem to think we have all the time in the world to wait while they spit it out already.
Yet, we do the same thing to our readers every time we use passive voice in our writing instead of active. Consider the following:
“A novel that brims with suspense and intrigue has been crafted by the author.”
“The author has crafted a novel brimming with suspense and intrigue.”
What’s the diff?
Version one is longer.
Version one doesn’t get to the point as quickly as it could.
Version one tries to sound intelligent, formal, sophisticated—but comes off vague and pompous.
Version one puts the doer of the action
after
the act itself.
Version one is written in passive voice, and according to most grammarians today, is demonic and should be burn
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