The Magical Addiction of Publishing, by Jayne-Marie Barker

Awesome Mystery novelist and book/publishing addict Jayne-Marie Barker gives insider insight into the publishing process:

When I opened the letter from my publisher notifying me that they wanted to publish my first novel, I literally leapt up and bounced around the living room in ecstasy. It was the moment I had been waiting for as long as I could remember. That one second when your life long dream comes true. Naturally, ambition and hard work had got me that far, but even so, it felt like the world was smiling at me.

Publishing is an interesting business, and one you cannot possibly comprehend until you join it fully. I knew nothing about the world of publishing when the contract for 'Beneath The Daisies' was signed. I learnt, quickly. I learnt the various stages a book goes through when production commences. I learnt that the proof reader could be wrong, and that the editor was not necessarily going to say, "yes, I love your book, I don't want to change a single thing!" Life is never that straight forward.

Proof readers and editors, agents and graphics teams are all on your side, even if you don't realise it at the time! Everyone is looking for the best result, the final product, the finished book. By the time I started the round again with 'Distant Shadows', I was wiser and the whole thing felt smoother. Knowledge is a wonderful thing!

I tend to think of the production of the printed book like a conveyor belt. First, it is added to the publishers computer system. Let's gloss over the editor stage as this can vary considerably from book to book. Secondly, the proof reader reads through and marks the margins with comments, spellings, suggestions, and generally any thoughts they have whilst reading it. Thirdly, the marked manuscript is sent to the author for agreement/disagreement. This processs is repeated, the first round of changes being implemented, and then the proof reader has another go... When the revised manuscript arrives back for the second time, the author must ensure they are happy with it. This may be the last opportunity to make adjustments to the text within the covers.

The final stage of the production is the book jacket or cover as some people prefer to call it. Once the cover illustration and text is agreed between author and publisher, it goes to print... This is the final and most exciting stage, partly because as the author the job is finally completed, and partly because the release is drawing close.

Life as an author is sometimes a surreal thing. When you receive your personal complimentary copies, it's as if someone has handed you a bar of gold. It really is beyond words, which is never a good thing for an author to admit to!

The publishing industry, like most businesses these days, runs on a cut throat scale. Every book must turn its profit and make its mark on the world, but here, the world of publishing ends and that of promotion, marketing and PR commences. This is an entirely new venture for most authors. By nature, most authors are quiet thinking types. By nature, advertisers and people belonging to the world of promotion, are not. This means that authors have to learn how to market their work, how to promote and advertise it. Let's skip back to the safer domain of publishing for a moment and you'll see what I mean...

A publisher is an animal of the modern business sphere. Every publisher must compete with every other. Every book must compete with others in its genre. Every author must write another book better than the first. It's a tough world but one people can't help but fall in love with. Now there's an unusual ending for a crime writer!

Jayne-Marie Barker
www.jaynemariebarker.com

Messing with Minds

In plodding through my second novel, I've had to garner a very close relationship with a reader's expectations. They always have them, persistent through the narrative. It's like you're saying "Follow me. Follow me," and the reader decides to take your hand. If you stop, tell her you're in a forest instead of on a sand-dune, yell "Fooled you!" or just jerk her arm too hard, she's not going to be pleased. She'll probably follow somebody else and not trust you next time you call from the bookstore shelf. She might even "un-follow" you on Twitter, which as I understand things is, to the latest generation of teenagers, what a punch in the face was to all previous.

That doesn't mean you should fulfill the expectation. Quite to the contrary.

I've actually heard authors say things like "Always give the reader what they want." Or even, "Always take the reader where the reader wants to go."

Smeg. Those sound like some truly boring books. China Meiville, the only author (so far... grrr...) to win three Arthur C. Clarke awards, says something quite different: "My job is not to give the readers what they want, but to make them want what I have to give." That seems a far more ambitious task, and if you want to write interesting, award winning work, you'll need to take on the bigger challenges.

China points to a deep understanding--one of making your work impact upon the reader.

He's also speaking in terms of a very broad concept. If you're a regular reader, you'll know that my tendency as a teacher is to boil those down into something you can actually use.

It was John Steinbeck and Graham Greene who taught me most about readers' expectations in the narrative. For a little reading exercise, you might take a look at "The Moon is Down" by John Steinbeck. I choose it here because it's like 100 pages long. Each character is introduced with just a snippet of exposition, enough that you feel familiar before they start talking. Now look at how every piece of dialogue fulfills that sense of familiarity, and even makes you savour the exposition at the start. It's so constant, they would have felt like caricatures of themselves had Steinbeck done things poorly. Again, ambitious tasks are the hardest, but they pay off the most.

People's minds work along with the story, even on an unconscious level, and as a writer it's your job to understand what they're thinking and feeling. Try to think from the reader's perspective. You're trying to manipulate their imaginations.

When I taught formally I used to, at this point, get my students to pick a short story from their favourite author.  If that author didn't write short stories, I'd say "Use your second favourite. You get the idea." Now make yourself conscious of your expectation. Write it down as you go. Again, your primary focus should not be on the logic. Write what mood you're in, what you expect to feel next. Try to articulate why (there's the logic part).  Now, write a scene, the start of a piece. A shorter piece will work far better, here. You'll naturally use those same senses you've exercised. Once it's written, do the same reading analysis exercise as before.

In class I'd get students to do each others' too, of course. The internet can't quite achieve the same thing, but find a writer friend or even post in the comments below. I know some good online communities and some other subscriber might even want to correspond.

Senses need a lot of exercise, both in study and practise. Don't expect perfection right away. It's like a musician improving their aural skills. They listen to music and keep it in mind, try to hear the notes. Do the same with your reading. Rinse. Repeat. Read and write until your pre-conceptions explode, messily, and new, better ones take their place in your mind. That last bit is where the post's title becomes a pun. See what I did there? See? That's an example of doing things poorly. I didn't maintain your expectation so the reference came out of nowhere and just looked stupid.

The Horror

What a clever species we are.

I don't know about you, but Google's latest patent, "Douche-Goggles", concerns me deeply. For my writing, it's not space journeys and scientific sky-pies that interest me. It's the sociological ramifications. Our lack of regard for the non-scientific tells us more of ourselves, and the nightmares we'll walk into, than anything our tinkering engineers will concoct.

Science fiction, to me, provides infinite metaphors of our disregard for the human.

 
Now, Google's latest metaphor is a powerful one--perhaps more so than any story to which I can aspire, so I'll just sit back in awe. Watch the first video, then spot the similarity three minutes into the second.

If only humans weren't insane. Much as I love Pearl Jam, Nirvana's lyrics hit the nail on the head with, "Empathy is what we lack. Doesn't matter anyways."

To be constantly connected to our virtua-friends is to be less connected to our non-virtua-reality. There is only so much span for attention in the human mind, and only so much time in a life.

A lesser note, and one that critics actually are talking about: what will happen when everyone feels they could be constantly recorded by those surrounding them? Sociological ramifications have been proven many times to be beyond the comprehension of the thoughtless Google think tank. (There's a great Storyville documentary on Google Books, called "Google and the World Brain". I highly recommend it.)

Sadly, Douche-Goggles will still be worn by douches everywhere one day. Perhaps "Ok Glass, deploy parachute!" won't always work when douches are skydiving.

I'm Back

First off, sorry to my subscribers for the series of random posts today.  I was trying to figure out how to make multiple pages, which in Blogger, as it turns out, does not involve the multiple page options.

Second, GET IN!  I've just figured out that rather than the aforementioned involving "pages" per se, it's accomplished via post labels and a special gadget.  So much for clarity.

Third, sorry I've been gone for awhile.  I was incapacitated for a week with illness.  I wasn't sick.  I was just completely screwed.  Remember when I said about being a martial artist?  Well, I was pretty hardcore around six years ago.  I tried doing one of my old training routines and I completely did myself in a quarter of the way through.  I was bedridden.  I'm proud that I could push myself hard enough to actually damage my internal organs, but all the same it wasn't exactly wise.  I think I'll build myself up to my old level of fitness slowly and sanely from now on.

So here I am writing again, and existing on the web-o-sphere while I'm at it.

I've re-shaped the blog somewhat.  I'll still post writing advice, but I'm going to include some elements about myself.  Back when I started the blog, narrative craft consumed my entire life.  I studied it voraciously.  I taught it at Kingston University London for a year, and after moving up to the Midlands I privately tutored.  Basically I love writing and teaching.

The week before Everest by Fog started, I was sitting in a pub with my brother, who is real job haver and everything, and I told him that I had a blog and didn't know how to market it.

"You sell stories, right?" he said.

"Yeah."

"And your readers don't have anywhere to learn about you?"

"They have.  But I don't know how to market it."

"What's your blog about?"

"Erm... me... and stuff."

"Every teen-aged kid with a computer has a blog about 'them and stuff'.  What do you have to offer that's special?  Give it a theme and market around that."

Aha!  I can offer my one true obsession, and even make myself not look insane!  So off I went, and within one month I went from having 20 views per month to having 300.  Now I'm at 600 and steadily growing.  But I think it's time to move things forward.  There's more going on with me than learning the craft.

I'm studying Sociology, English and Creative Writing for a PhD come September.  I'm going to learn all kinds of cool stuff and I'll have a zillion thoughts on how to apply those things to writing.  I'm completing a novel very soon and I'm going to learn all kinds of neat stuff about the publishing industry from the inside.  My novel research dearths some pretty cool facts.  Especially when I wrote short fiction, which I shall be doing again soon, I constantly scanned about for scientific and political facts that inspire me.  Basically, there's more to me than writing advice and I shall start offering it.

For those of you who just like the stuff about writing, it's all still here.  I'll still post on a regular basis, and I'm sure it will consume the majority of my blog.  For the rest of you, the rest of me will be here too.  Everest by Fog is about "me and stuff" once more.

Chekhov's Pistol

"If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following act it should be fired.  Otherwise don't put it there."  Anton Chekhov

This is the most common quote Creative Writing tutors use as an example of foreshadowing.  One tutor of mine took it to another level, just saying that it ought to go off by the last act.  That made a lot more sense, and was actually true.  Hannibal Lecter didn't need to have his true nature revealed in Act Two, for instance.

He was going deeper into the true meaning of the phrase, and I'd like to take the interpretation a step further, into the realms of psychology.

A lot of new authors, myself included back in the day, think Chekhov should be referring to something specific.  Not necessarily a pistol, of course.  That would be stupid.  But I did think he meant the stuff you introduce at the start better be the exact same stuff you use later.

"Pluto Nash," I thought.  (Sorry to swear.)  "I've read tonnes of awesome books that don't follow that rule.  Maybe he just meant mystery novels."

But, by Eddie Murphy's career (sorry again), I was wrong.

If foreshadowing only involves specific objects, it cannot persist throughout the narrative.  Your main character is not going to have the gun attached to his face.  Think of it more like a direction of things.  In the first scene of Greene's "Our Man in Havana", Wormold is sitting with his friend in a cafe.  I don't want any spoilers, here, so suffice to say Wormold sees some stuff, has a conversation and then leaves for a reason.  All of these elements set a tone, and establish the nature of the narrative.  Otherwise Greene wouldn't have put them there.  Vital characters are introduced and everything that comes later will make the first scene feel relevant.

For about a year after reaching this understanding, I went about being right in the wrong way.  I thought Chekhov was saying that the beginning had to justify the rest.  That's true, but I was thinking in terms of rationale.  That's not the playdough an artist moulds.

Chekhov's point proves that the pistol analogy makes sense.  I think he was using a weapon simply for emphasis.  The beginning should dramatise the rest.  Click-click bang in the reader's face.

Paul McAuley said to me, "Always refer back."  As always, the reasoning is far more important than the statement itself.  A reader starts with a natural expectation:  that your book is about something and that it will carry forwards.  The first indication of the story isn't even your first sentence.  It's the book's cover.  But your main job starts with the opening scene.  Demonstrate your book's "something" in dramatic fashion, and in every bit that follows, use the drama you've built.  If you find yourself naturally referring back, take it as a good sign.

Another misunderstanding of mine was that I used to think building the drama meant I had to mix things up, change things et cetera.  You have to understand that you start out having the reader's trust, and they're trusting everything they read to feel powerfully, evocatively relevant to what follows.  When a bad novel breaks that flow it isn't just disappointing, it's jarring.  There's a difference between screwing with your reader's head and artfully manipulating their trust.

Just remember that if there's a dancing monkey on the desk in the first act, the reader expects that monkey to empower all that follows.

Yay! I'm just like Damon Knight!

We both did something stupid.

In his book, Creating Short Fiction, Damon Knight says, "I remember how hungry I was to write anything that would get published."  Knight goes on to say that he forgot, for a time, to write things he truly cared about.

Now, when I could write a structured story, I knew it.  In the past, I'd told myself many times.  I'd convinced myself and whined when things got rejected.  Every artist goes through this phase.  But honestly, when you understand dramatic structure, and you can see what the stories on the bookshelf are doing scene by scene, you truly will know when your stories look the same.

Then I went through my most annoying, frustrating malaise of all time.  This was right after I got my agent.  I was so eagre to produce anything that could get published, I lost sight of how to produce something good.

I got a bunch of frustrating rejections.  I knew my stories were well written.  The top markets rejected them and I wanted to know why.  When I say top market, I literally mean the places that publish award-winning stuff on a regular basis, so I wasn't upset, but I was curious.

The almost top markets, the ones that pay the same rates but don't get submissions from my mentors, gave me personal feedback.  They usually don't bother.  They get thousands of submissions per month and only about twenty of those get serous consideration.  "This is very well written," they always said.  "But the drama lags in the middle."  Or, "I'm just not sure it's got enough punch."  Or, "The idea just wasn't interesting enough for me."

That really pissed me off.  I always used to be complimented on my ideas.  Even when my stories were trash, I have never met a professional author or editor who didn't like the ideas.  And if I didn't like them, even better than the other published authors', I'd write different ideas.

Did I just plain suck?

Yes.  I did, at that point in my life, actually suck.  Leslie (my agent) told me I was rushing.  "You don't understand," I wanted to say.  "I'm fast!"

I was doing two things wrong.  I was trying to impress Leslie by showing her that I can write three short stories a week and still have time for chess club, my rock band, martial arts and Skyrim addiction.  Also, I was desperate.  I knew I was right on the cusp of something I'd longed for my whole life.  I'd finally found the pistol and I shot before I aimed.

Knight once said to a Clarion student, "You need to learn to sit at the keyboard and open a vein."

When I look at my three a week, desperately churned out stories (there are like 20 of them) they are well written.  They are also mostly piffle.  I can only find among them three ideas that I really like, and none that I truly love.  The story that caught Leslie's interest, I should add, wasn't all that well written by my present standard, but I did truly love the idea.  It was something I'd been trying to write about since I was a teenager.

That said, another interesting thing happened.  I sent the well written piffle to lesser markets.  Pro markets were telling me I was a good writer.  Semi-pro told me I wasn't.  Token payment markets went "Ack!  This doesn't begin with dialogue!"  Some of the most famous stories in history begin with artful exposition.

(Note:  By "artful", I mean it's exposition in motion, which is to say action is happening around it--MOST of the time.  In the works of John Steinbeck, Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allen Poe and many others, the exposition is often pure, right in your face with no action what so ever, setting the stage for the action to follow.  It's a legitimate technique.)

So the more I went down the ladder, the less people liked my work.  It seems paradoxical, but it's telling.

Now, let's not talk about the token markets.  If you're interested in writing, your journey will not end there, and anywhere that has such stringent rules about openings is not a healthy place from which to learn.  That attitude means they do not understand what a story needs.  As for semi-pro and pro, take notes.  There is something you're not doing, and even if a rejection is cruel (the guy from Pseudopod is vicious) you can use the information.  I had thought my stories were just not quite tweaked enough for a pro market.  The semi-pro rejections were confusing and they hurt, but in the end they taught me the most.  They don't normally publish really well written stuff.  Otherwise they'd be pro.  They also don't publish piffle.  Otherwise they wouldn't exist.  I implore you, write the ideas you love.  It isn't writer's block if you have to sit and ponder for a few days.  Pondering is different from playing Skyrim.  It's still an honest day's work.

The Pen should not be mightier than the Headsman's Axe

I learned a lesson today that I'd like to share with you.

This is something every writer will tell you, and I must have told myself six hundred times before now, and I'm sure I'll have to tell myself again by next week.  Hopefully by seeing my rant in text here, it'll help some people.  Hopefully hoping you people will read my rant will help me.  God I love convoluted sentences.

Elmore Leonard in Ten Rules on Writing said, "If it looks like writing, delete it."

In the past two hours I've written 1,500 words.  In the past one hour I've written NOTHING!  Zero words.  You know why?  I sat there trying to smash this four paragraph section into my second draft because I liked the way it was written and it seemed like it would make sense there.  But if it belonged there, I wouldn't have had to cram it in!

Trust your instincts, Luke.  Damn it.  That goes for all of you, too.  Trust that if it feels like you're trying to "prose" your way through something, give it a battle axe instead of a pen and chop it's f**king head off.

Another famous expression is "No tricks."  I think that's also Leonard, although I'm fairly certain Damon Knight said it in Creating Short Fiction decades before.  It's something he pounded into the heads of Clarion students.  All of these expressions have extremely vague meanings and it's one reason learning to write is such a pain in the lower quarters.  My theme here is always to trust your own interpretation, because you're ultimately teaching yourself.

So here's an unusual interpretation for you, combining both quotes.  "If you feel like you're trying to trick your reader or your story into accepting a thing, kill it and then slap your wrist."

I also hereby copyright:  "Black ink should not be mightier than the Red Line of Death."

Now back to writing.  If the next two hours provide 3,000 words, maybe I'll stop slapping my wrist.  (I've learned to do it between paragraphs.)

Ow!

Life Versus Lemons: Yum!

"I can't accept not trying," wrote Michael Jordan in the greatest book on inspiration of all time.  It's also the book's title.  You should look it up.  It's only 32 pages long.

"Success occurs when your dreams become bigger than your excuses," said Ebenezer Ghansa, Chief Instructor of the Gurkha Infantry and Senior Instructor of the world's most active and elite special forces squad, the 27th Anti-terrorist Division of South Korea.

Ebe taught me martial arts, and instilled in me the attitudes that have, I believe, helped me learn to write as much as anything. How could martial arts possibly be applicable to writing? Ever seen/read Fight Club?

This message is, hopefully, charmingly simple instead of just making me look like a smeg-head. :-)

I hope that smiley face helps.  Here's another.

o<:->   (That's an attempt at Santa with a goatie.) 

Anyway, what Ebe taught me was how to get beaten up and not care.  That's vital in martial arts.  It's not like the movies.  The fact is, no matter how good you are you'll get smacked around, and you need to get used to taking a hit.  And to get better, you need to get used to losing.  Thanks to Ebe, I've been beaten up more times than I can count.  Probably something in the four or five hundreds.  The best part was, the people who kept beating me up never got much better at it.  I wasn't testing their ability, but they tested mine, and as such I got better.  Eventually I started to win.  Amateurs learn faster than anybody.

Imagine it.  One of the most qualified martial arts teachers in the world, and all his top students have had their butts kicked more than a kid with a nazi tattoo on his face at a high school in Israel.

The point? Life is a lazy smeg. He'll knock you down, beat you up, hand you lemons et cetera, but he never gets stronger. You will. (Remember 'Arete' from the post, "To Will and to Be".) Bruises heal. Scars look cool. If you like lemons, there are countless recipes available, and you can even invent your own.

If you don't like lemons, punch life in the face. You'll probably lose the first fight, but every time you stand up you'll be a little stronger, and life will stay the same lazy smeg he always was, just standing there like a brick wall ready to be smashed down. This applies to any dream. No one is going to hand you success.

"Once you can snatch the pebble from my hand, you will be ready to leave," said the Sensei in Karate Kid.   Ebe's attitude was more, "How about I hand some pebbles to all my top students, including these Special Forces guys.  They'll beat you up with the pebbles for awhile, but once you can rip one from the odd hand you probably won't want the smegging thing anymore, because you'll have something better:  strength."

Now, I wish to make it clear that I in no way condone hurting people.

o<:->   

There.

Always remember, if you're feeling lost in the vast mire of aspirants, so long as you're one of the rare few who will keep trying until you succeed or die poor and happy knowing you at least gave it everything, you'll be in very small company, and the market isn't closed to you. (See my "Marketability Means Marketing" posts.)

Never accept not trying. Not trying is for wusses. Artists may look like geeks much of the time, but every self-made person has to know how to kick some spiritual ***.

The Mystery of Plotting and Vice Versa

Here's another great post from guest author Jayne-Marie Barker, mystery writer extraordinaire.  It's always a pleasure to have a good, proven writer here on the blog.  I know you guys enjoy her posts as much as I do.  Check out her website to get your grubby hands on some good clean books, too!  (That's an expression where I come from.  No offense intended :P)

Earlier this week a friend of mine admitted to a secret desire to write a novel, and sought my advice on plotting. My friend had written the story into a corner, the direct result of poor planning. It's an easy mistake to make, one I've made myself in the past. The fingers are keen to put the words on the page - or screen I should say - but first the foundation work must be carried out. I explained to my friend that it was like building a house. You can't start building the part that everybody sees until you've laid the foundations...

Plotting a novel has been a mystery to many but the lucky few for as long as I can remember, and will probably remain that way for years to come. Let me let you into a little secret... there isn't a magic spell, the writers on the shelves of your favourite book shop or library do not have special powers. There isn't an invisible night school where you slip away into the ether and wizards in long robes reveal the deep dark secrets of how to plot a novel... in truth there is no right way to construct a novel, you have to find a path that suits your own writing methods.

From a personal viewpoint I plan my novels quite thoroughly. I break down the story and compile a list of events. Once I have this for the main plot I repeat the exercise for the sub-plot(s) and then weave all lines into one neat line. Now for the fun part... What I have actually constructed is the story in strict date order, but that isn't necessarily the order I want to reveal the story to the reader. If you prefer you could write the events on post-it notes or cards and move them around on a tabletop... it's the same thing really.

But now... to the mystery of plotting a mystery novel. The art of plotting is the same for all books irrespective of their genre, but in a mystery there is need to tell the story in a certain way. All good mysteries reveal the information like a drip, slowly and steadily. As the reader it's my humble opinion that you want the information but it's more interesting if not everything is taken at face value, or rather you do take it at face value and then realise (hopefully close to the climax) that there was a subtle clue behind the details given. One point is vital - the reader must have a fair chance at solving the mystery - just as your main sleuth does. It would be highly unfair to produce an identical twin or new character nobody had heard of right before the end, and for that character to turn out to be the killer. Fairs fair, you must play by the rules if you want to retain your reader.

So, the art of plotting a mystery novel then. Take the usual plotting guidelines but spend extra time on the order of revealtion. Think about the pace of the novel and apply the order that best fits the uncovering mystery and furthers the story whilst keeping the plotline moving and the reader on the edge of their seat!

The above is only my opinion based on experience and personal belief. If you're a writer hoping to pen your novel this year then I wish you the very best of luck finding a path that works for you. If you're a reader then sit back and enjoy!

Copyright: Jayne-Marie Barker, Author www.jaynemariebarker.com

Making People Cry with Words

My mentor, Scott Bradfield, used to make people cry in his seminars.  People come to creative writing with high hopes of being the next Graham Greene or Earnest Hemingway, writing the next Beloved, being a creative genius.

Genius is turning fantasies into reality--a matter of effort.  We all have fantasies about greatness, but nobody starts out great (except at being a cute little baby).   Scott's first job was to shatter our egos, to show us how bad our writing was so we could start learning how to improve.

A famous editor, whom I've cited before on this blog, Thomas H. Uzzell, thought that "genius" or even "talent" were simply poor words for passion.  You wouldn't expect Beethoven to write great symphonies without first learning how to play the piano.  Like, really really well.  This takes effort.

The motivational rants on this blog are all about unlocking that passion.  My regular readers will by now know what I preach:  in the end, it saps more energy to stifle ourselves than it does to work hard.

So we've established that genius comes with hard work.  So what the smeg is "hard work" for writers?  You've all sat at keyboards before.  That's the best training.  But here's a little guidance.  Be prepared to break your ego over and over.  Nobody's perfect.  Scott made me upset sometimes, but mostly I was glad. 

Sometimes I was confused as to why my work wouldn't sell to the big markets.  I liked my ideas for stories better than most I'd read.  Otherwise I'd write about different ideas.  I knew my execution wasn't great and I didn't know why.  I couldn't convince Neil Clarke or Steve Erickson to rant about my work (although I did have the privilege of Steve doing it once, thanks to Scott).  Sitting across a coffee table having a great craftsman pointing at my manuscript and telling me why it sucked was the best thing that ever happened in my artistic education.

You can't give answers in art, but you can guide students into asking the right questions.  The first job of a teacher is to open your mind.  People will tell you that they've already penned (these people always say "penned", for some reason) the greatest manuscript of our time, but publishers just won't take the risk on their genius.  Absolute piffle.  The words of a quitter.  Most students I met on the MA and MFA had written a novel, or at least a good chunk of one, before they met Scott.  The novels sucked.  Many were good ideas.  I'm still going to re-write mine, but when I look back on my first book, my characters were name-tags, my settings were purple, and my plot was convoluted.  I can change all that now because I can see it.  And I can see it because I know what I must demand from my work.  I'd never have learned that if I didn't get a sense of the right questions.

I'm not denying that there's some crap out there.  (cough!...cough!... 50 Shades of...hack!...cough!)  But you can't rely on hype to market you, or on luck to get you published.  The fact is, publishers love genius.  It's their job to discover it, because consumers like good books, and publishers like money.  If you write good work, the market is hungry for you.

I'll try to guide you through many important questions, of course, but each of you will need a unique education, so you must first just open your eyes to find it.

Nothing happens because you're not good enough.  That's missing the point.  Your Beethoven has yet to learn the piano well enough to compose a brilliant symphony.  The original Beethoven got there eventually.  That means humans can do it and, presumably, you are one.  Never give up and be glad for every fail.  You probably earned it, and you can earn success too if you keep fighting.

A New Year Collaboration

This is one day late, but only for the traditional reasons of New Year's debauchery and hang overs!

But New Year isn't just about partying, or throwing away old calendars.  For many it's a time for reflection and resolution.  For me, it's been a crazy five months.  My career started out of nowhere, my blog got reasonably popular--high pressure excitement all around.  My resolutions basically involve not buckling under the pressure.  I'll practise what I preach and make myself thrive on it instead.

In the spirit of togetherness, I'd like to invite all my readers to post their resolutions, progress, tribulations or anything else in the comments section.  I'll even answer any questions and address any woes wherever I can.

Speaking of resolutions, for those of you interested in science fiction or fantasy, the Clarion Writer's Workshop is now open to applications.

For everyone, I'd like to re-post something that may have seemed random and gone unnoticed last time.  Watch the following video.  It's incredibly inspiring to hear such a grand success and Neil Gaiman talking about his career and sharing his wisdom of how to maintain a healthy attitude.  It's his commencement speech for the University of the Arts 2012.  Well, life is the best University of the Arts, so let's start 2013 with an inspiring summary.

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments!  Let's make 2013 worthy of a rock ballad montage.

The Silent Beginning

Another great post from guest author Jayne-Marie Barker.  Check out her website here:  http://www.jaynemariebarker.com/.  She has two books out:  Beneath the Daisies and Distant Shadows, and a third one on the way.  She seems pretty cool to me so I hope you guys enjoy her posts as much as I do.  This one reminds me of something I always (not literally) tell people:  you wouldn't expect Beethoven to write a symphony without first learning to play the piano.

 

 

It is easy to write a book… or so they say.  Almost every writer has suffered in silence at one point or another when some kind-meaning reader or enthusiast stands there telling them how lovely it must be to write a novel, and how they are always meaning to start theirs, and how great it’ll be when it’s done.

Whilst writers love to talk to readers it can be a touch irritating hearing how straight forward it must be to write a book, when deep down they know that crafting a novel is pure hard work!  If only the poor unsuspecting public knew how difficult it is to sustain the smile whilst they are being told all this.  Naturally it would be impolite to correct the reader so many writers nod along with a pleasant smile.  It wouldn’t be fair to discourage people anyway, particularly from such a rewarding job.  Yes, it is not easy, but it is well worth the hard work so don’t be put off if you’re one of the millions all planning to pen your first novel next year.

Many writers often appear to come out of nowhere or arrive on the shelves or best sellers list overnight.  In reality this couldn’t be further from the truth.  Like all professions, writers must develop their skills over time and serve their apprenticeship years.  What this usually refers to is the long stretch of time before anything they have written is ever published, but they continue to chip away, perfecting their craft gradually, hopefully learning a few new tricks along the way.  One day an agent or publisher says yes, actually, I will take a chance on you, and the writer immediately leaps into the air in disbelief at having finally jumped the first hurdle.

The beginning of any writer’s career, before their work is published, is obviously unknown to the rest of the world.  It is the silent beginning, when hope is high and ambition strong, when chances seem minuscule and nigh impossible.  It’s the toughest time, so you think, until you take the next step and you find new challenges to contend with.  This is probably true of life in general but we must plough on, if only to find out what happens!

 

Jayne-Marie Barker

Cues from the Characters for the Readers

You all know how I hate tricks, so I'll work hard here to define this one in psychological terms.

Over the past few months I've been ravenously studying the works of Graham Greene and John Steinbeck.  This is for the simple reason that they are awesome.  Greene has to be among the best craftsman in history.  They told me that back as school, so I didn't believe it (I hated school) but it's actually true.  He's phenomenal.

One thing they both do is use "props" for their characters.  By this I mean methods of representing a very strong characteristic.  Each author gives the character a strong motivation, and the motivation is frequently placed into the dialogue and actions, reminding the reader almost constantly who they are.  I'd thought of doing this before, and it had seemed unnatural, but I absolutely love doing it with my characters.

In my forthcoming novel, one of my characters is an emotionally disturbed, swiftly violent anarchist punk with severe anger problems and a bad sense of humour.  He tells jokes mainly for his own benefit and thinks he's hilarious.  It's great fun to think up bad jokes and draw strong distinctions between him and the others.  This is just one example.  I've tried to do similar things with all my characters.

Another thing I've decided upon is using physical props.  Does a character have a favourite necklace?  Does it represent who they are?  Instead of having them take "a deep sigh" or some such generic thing, why not have them twiddle their necklace while they're brooding.  If it's relevant to their character, it'll represent, for the reader, who they are.

You can do the same thing with the setting.   If they're on a snow bank, use the snow.   Have the characters brush snow off of their trousers in ways that evidence their characteristics, et cetera.

A little caveat:  everything must move the narrative forwards, too.  I'm talking about characters expressing themselves in unique ways, here, not leaping out of the story for cheap opportunism.  Another thing about Greene and Steinbeck is that everything, from the character traits to the semi-colons, serves the story impeccably.

All of this seems obvious, but take a look at how Graham Greene does it in The Quiet American, and you'll start noticing how precious few authors actually even bother, let alone pull it off.  You probably do risk being cheesy if you try, but the most rewarding, strongest things you can do for a story, in my experience, are the things of highest risk.  Try it, and if you fail, read some more and try again.

Characters, by guest writer Jayne-Marie Barker

Jayne-Marie Barker is the author of two fine novels: Distant Shadows and Beneath the Daisies. It's always great to have a guest post from someone who's clearly proven knowledge of her chops. You can find her website here: http://www.jaynemariebarker.com/. I love her idea at the end, and her overall point is superb. Implication for imagination, I like to say.  See below.

Wm. Luke Everest


How well do you know the characters in the book you’re currently reading?

It’s a question we rarely ask ourselves, but as writers, we must get to know our characters inside out if we want to attain the dizzy heights of fictional bliss.

Building a cast of fictional people in the readers’ minds can be fun and exhilarating but it takes work and dedication.  A character should appear to be a real person, all be it existing purely in a fictional or imaginary sense.  They need to have well-rounded physical appearances, quirky mannerisms to make them unique, faults and talents, accents, and appropriate names.

I find it helpful to create a personal history for each character.  This may or may not feature in the story, but it adds to their personality none the less, and helps me visualise them as real people when spinning the tale.  Just because the writer knows the tiny details about a character doesn’t necessarily mean all those minute points will end up in the novel.

It is an interesting question, whether or not to paint the picture of a character fully.  Do you, for instance, prefer to have a fully described individual down to hair and eye colour, height and additional details about their personality, the way they walk, their favourite colour, the way they react to news etc.  Maybe you prefer a less precise image, their movements likened to the slow crawl of the earth worm or their features chiseled into focus as they strain at the keyhole…. Before any writer can effectively draw a character in the readers mind, they need to understand their roles in the story, and consequently, the length to which that character should stand out from the cast.

So, I ask you, whether you are a reader or a writer, the next time you read a book have a little think about what you know of the main characters, and maybe one or two of the extras.  It could be fun, write down what you know about each character, then look back carefully and work out how much of this was actually given to you in the text, and how much you’ve plucked from your own imagination….  If a large portion is from your imagination then the writer has crafted the character to perfection – they are as you imagine them, fully formed in your own mind.  Job done!

 

Jayne-Marie Barker

Guest Post: M.R. Jordan

Here's guest writer M.R. Jordan sharing some wisdom about life in the public eye.  You may want to check out her contest, too.  She doesn't demand an entry fee, which is rare and refreshing, and she even offers to critique your first page.  Read her full guidelines here:  M.R. Jordan's Winter Writing Contest and Critique

Wm. Luke Everest



After Wm. Luke Everest sent me an email inviting me to write a guest post the first thing I did was check him out via Google. The second thing I did was read his blog. Why did I Google him? Due diligence. Thirty seconds on Google can save you a lot of heartache in the future. Imagine, for example, a stranger emails you for a guest post so you quickly dash off something and send it over. And let's say you're not a writer. Let's say you're a teacher. Well, at some point in the future the guy you wrote a post for ends up on 60 minutes to catch a criminal for soliciting underage girls.

Writers need to do their due diligence in checking out agents, publishers, and even little contests like mine. (The M.R. Jordan Winter Writing Contest and Critique in case you didn't know. It's free. )

Two years ago one of my stories was published without notification. Despite wording on the site that made me suspicious and a requirement to sign up before I could submit, I jumped without looking. I got burned, which at the time seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me. It turned out to be the best lesson I could have learned.

Anyway, don't let ambition get in the way of good judgment. If you're persistent, study writing, study grammar, study editing, and most of all, write, write, write, you'll do fine.

Tip: A writer's best resource for checking out agents and publishers is the absolute write message boards. The most efficient way is to search Google 'Name of Agent/Publisher here' plus 'absolute write.' (Thank you, Victoria Strauss, for all your efforts protecting writers from predators.)

And thank you Luke for letting me use you as a lead in to this topic.

M.R. Jordan

A Motivational Caveat

My "Unprofessional Professionalism" post seemed a little silly to me and I've realised why.  It isn't the goofy story or the models.  I like those just fine.  It's that I may have given the wrong impression. 

My point was to focus on the art, not the marketing.  I stand by that.  If you worry too much about what might sell and where, you forget to make good art.  The fact is, you don't need luck in writing.  The market is hungry for quality fiction.  If you also have original ideas, great.  That's all Leslie was saying when she told me to shut up and stop worrying about marketing.

This post is about both practicality and motivation.  Those two themes flow into each other, I believe, and it's why my other post may not have made much sense.  These are the motivations one must nurture in order to have a healthy practical attitude:  understand that if you write as well as Earnest Hemingway your work will sell, without question.  Some authors make millions while writing crap.  Good for them.  I don't want to bank on that anymore than I want to play Russian roulette.

But forget about banking.  My central motivation is to create great fiction, for the simple reason that I love great fiction.  If I can ever afford that Jaguar XR7 I long for (and indeed pay off my student loan) I'll be very pleased, but it's not the purpose of my life.

However, here's the caveat:

Take your work seriously.  Art is joyous.  To me, it's play most of the time, but one thing I've learned about doing what you love full time is that you have to take it seriously.  When I was purely focused on short stories, I found I got more done if I just wrote when I felt inspired.  I wrote faster, better, and I enjoyed life more.

Now, neck deep in a novel, I find regimenting my time more productive.  On weekdays, I make myself write for normal working hours, minimum. Usually, I want to write more. I usually start at 7 or 8 and keep going until my fiance drags me to the living room. Some days, though, I can't wait until 5:30. Some days my brain doesn't want to work at all. If it's a weekday, I remind myself how much I'd rather write my book than flip burgers or push papers.

A book is a monumental task, and daunting when mentally exhausted.  I now have to make myself rest on the weekends.   I've blitzed through fifteen, twenty day stretches before and found myself slowing down until, while it feels like I'm working hard, after writing a scene that would have normally taken me half an hour I look at the clock and two hours have drifted by.  Gusto becomes a waste of time and energy when not properly managed. 

So yes, it's a job.  It just has an artistic objective, one I've dreamed for my whole life: 

"Make good art."