For When Things Aren't Working Out

Ash had a wonderful post last week about the bravery and necessity of creating plans. Unlike her, I am and always have been a planner, not a pantser. I have made new year's resolutions without fail since I was 17 years old. For something like the past 5 years, I've broken those resolutions into quarterly, monthly, and, ultimately, weekly goals. I like check marks. I like seeing my progress. I will argue to a stalemate with anyone who tells me lists aren't important.

But, as Eisenhower says, "...I have always founds that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

We've talked about how indispensable planning is, so I want to focus on how useless the plans themselves can be sometimes.

In 2011, I had some ambitions new year's resolutions. Already a resolutions veteran, I knew I had to make actionable, measurable goals if I wanted to get anywhere. So I did. And one of the things on my list was to be able to run two miles without having to walk. I was getting married that September, and though I wasn't out of shape, I certainly wasn't in shape, either. So I joined a gym and got on a treadmill. I followed my plan.

By early summer, I still couldn't run two miles, and I'd learned something: I hated running. I didn't enjoy that time in the gym at all. I had to focus on anything else to keep me on the treadmill. My knee, which has a stress injury from doing gymnastics as a kid, was hurting me again. Instead of looking forward to meeting my goal, I was looking forward to lifting weights, which I did after my dreaded time on the treadmill.

That goal, and many others in 2011, I never met. But I learned a lot about myself in making them. At the time, I was frustrated that I didn't meet my goal, instead of happy that I learned something.

Fast forward two years to when I decided to write a novel. I made a plan: write it, edit it, query it, publish it, profit. Simple. I planned on the whole process going quickly, so I edited as little as my CPs would let me get away with. I started querying long before the book was ready. I wrote another book, edited it, queried it. I saw some small problems with how the plot was going, and knew my word count was on the short end. I decided the agent who would inevitably fall in love with my book was going to help me fix it, so why bother.

When 2016 started, I had 40,000 words of novel #3 and no agent. My goal for this year was to finish my third novel and be querying before the year was out. I finished my first draft at the end of May, but unlike with my previous novels, I decided to take the advice of basically the entire writing world and set it aside for a month. So I did. Then, as I revised, I was determined to do the best I could by this book, because it's one I really believe in. So it's the middle of November and not a single critique partner has seen my novel yet. I'm not going to be sending out my first query by the end of the year.

I need to remind myself that it isn't a failed goal. It isn't something I stopped working toward, and it isn't a story I gave up on. The unchecked box on my Resolutions page represents not giving up, but hope. I believe in this book, so I'm going to take the time I need to make it as good as I possibly can before I query it. I'm going to send out the most polished writing I can muster.

Without my plan, I would never have gotten as far as I have on this book. Every week, I write out a new micro-goal that will push me closer to sending this book to my critique partners, and ultimately to agents. Every week, I fail that micro-goal but make progress. I am not defined by that box I won't check at the end of the year, because that goal is the reason I am as far as I am, and the unchecked box is my hope that this book, with enough time, will succeed.

Rochelle Deans sometimes feels like the only writer on the planet who rushes through the writing so she can start editing. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two kids two and under. Her bad habits include mispronouncing words, correcting grammar, and spending far too much time on the Internet.

When Your One Year Plan Looks Nothing Like It Had On Your Five Year Plan Four Years Ago

When I was a freshman in college, I met an upper-classman who had a Five Year Plan. One day, he let me see it.

I got hives looking at it. Not only did his planning make me feel like a useless, going-nowhere ingénue, it made me worry that I'd never know enough or be good enough at anything to actually be able to plan anything the way he did.

I suppose all freshmen feel like that. I outgrew it, to some degree, but never got over being intimidated by the idea of a Five Year Plan.

If you're like me, you hate the idea of planning things out but know that without a plan, you'd collapse into a pile of useless click-bait clicking and Candy Crushing.

I once called myself a die-hard pantser. Give me pantsing or give me death! was my battle cry. (Not to confuse pantsing with "a pantsing". Moving right along.)

When I started writing seriously more than ten years ago (gah, wrinkles pop out just by writing that), I had no plan. I had a dayjob and two young children and a bossy dog that stole entire loaves of bread off the kitchen table. Writing was my escape from that. The hour or two that I spent a day thinking about my first novel were respite. It was legal daydreaming. The only plan was to see what would happen next.

I wrote my first novel in a series of vignettes, scenes and conversations and fun little action-packed sequences. There was no outline. There was no formula. There was no plan for what I'd do if I ever got to the words THE END.

Imagine my dismay when I did type those words and realized I had a novel staring back at me. Like bringing a first baby home from the hospital, I knew I had to do something with it, and I'd better learn how to do it--FAST.

Thus, the first plan was born: I had a book. I had the choice to do something with it or let it get forgotten in a Word folder.

My first One Year Plan was super-sketchy. I mean, if it hadn't been safely home-schooled, it would have dropped out when all the other One Year Plans made fun of it. (I also had a secret Five Year Plan, which only included World Domination, but, honestly, who doesn't have one of those?)

The OYP had vague things like Edit Manuscript, Enter Contests, Join Writers Group. They were doable. Baby steps, right? And, unlike a FYP, a OYP didn't give me hives.

There was also an addendum to the OYP that I referred to as the "After OYP", vaguely time-framed because I had no idea how long anything would take to do. Heck, the term ONE YEAR Plan in itself was vague because I never specified if it was an Earth year. (I still won't and you can't make me.) The AOYP included Seek Representation, Finish Book Two, Finish Book Three, Develop Platform, Write and Publish Poetry and Short Fiction.

I still can't say that, at the time, I considered any of this stuff an actual "plan". There were more like goals. The difference between plans and goals is that a plan has a timeframe or completion date. And there was no way I would pin myself to something like that, because I was still learning how to be a writer. I was still learning the craft and the business. You can't make a stable plan when you're still pantsing your way through it all.

So I pantsed along, making goals and changing them with things didn't go the way I'd hoped, and waded through a series of non-concrete OYPs. No failures, just redirections, and eventually, successes.

My first novel was published by a small press in 2012. It had been signed in a three book agreement the year before, after having a string of big accomplishments in the RWA chapter competition scene. The book and I had come a long way since I typed the words THE END in 2007. So had the ever-changing OYP.

No legit FYP, though, because I was still intimidated by them. OYPs were fluid and had more goals than deadlines. One thing, for sure, was that I never had a Five Year Plan that included See First Novel Published. (World Domination seemed like it had a better chance of happening first.)

Prior to 2007, I didn't have a FYP because I had no plan, just a hobby. That hobby evolved as I began placing in writing contests, getting poetry and short fiction published, and actually earning money from it all. Basically, the hobby was becoming a job.

And when you have a job, you need to have a plan. I had to get over the whole FYPs-give-me-hives thing.

We plan because if it's a job we like, we want to keep it. A lot of authors get lucky with their first book, getting it to the right place at the right time. But even those cases of serendipity had a plan behind it, as super-sketchy as it may have been.

People get lucky, but not so lucky as to have kept their work to themselves, done nothing to improve their craft, and bumped into a random stranger in the frozen food aisle who remarked, "Tater tots? I bet you're a novelist. I just happen to work for the biggest of the Big Five. Sign this, here's your advance. Oh, I also have an extra coupon for those tots. Here you go."

So I saw my first book published in 2012. I also wrote my first FYP. It was time.

Next year will be Year Five. I decided to crack open the vault and take a look back to way back then (another wrinkle just exploded somewhere, I can feel it.) In 2012, my FYP looked like this:
• Promote Book #1.
• Complete revisions on Book #2 within 6 months.
• Be ready for publication of #2 in 12 months.
• Finish Book #3 within 6 months.
• Begin revisions on #3 in 12 months.
• Attend conference within 12 months.
• Arrange library visit within 12 months.
• Plan and write new story idea out aiming for 1 new title each year.
• Get 10 poetry/short fiction pieces each year years 2 through 5.

And that was it. Some of those goals, to me, seemed pretty darn reaching.

Like, super-reachy. I mean, a new novel each year? For an emerging writer? With a full time dayjob and two middle-schoolers and a bossy dog who learned how to steal the butter while she was stealing a loaf of bread off the table?

Sure, why not? Because, although I'd pantsed my way through a slew of OYPs up to that point, I'd accomplished some pretty neat stuff.

So, now to the big question of the day: Am I following my plan?

Actually, yeah. No one is more surprised than I am.

I did see books #2 and #3 published in 2013 and 2014. I did get many short pieces published, well over the goal I'd set. I did a con and a few library appearances. And that novel a year thing, that super-reachy over-the-top goal? I did it. I sat my butt down and I wrote those books. If it wasn't for all those Plans, I might have dribbled away all my writing time on BuzzFeed and Netflix (I just discovered Royal Pains. #Boris!)

But there is a huge difference, now. I rely on yearly plans to keep going. I don't even need anti-histimines to keep the hives away when I think of a FYP. My system stopped rejecting the idea of structure when it realized structure makes me productive.

Another difference is that my OYPs are a lot more specific. In particular, my OYPs looks nothing like the vagueness of 2012's FYP. Here's why:

I've grown as a writer, indie author, entrepreneur. I learned how to network and I have a wonderful professional pool of writers and publishers who share camaraderie and resources. I'm neck-deep in the business. I can make plans because I know what I'm capable of getting done.

But I also know I'm not done learning. I'm pretty sure my OYPs are going to get more and more detailed as I learn more about publishing, promotion, marketing, and yes—writing. Writers never stop learning how to write.

And new opportunities for authors never stop coming. I listened to a podcast in August that really had the gears turning in my head. In fact, that same day I added "Participate in NYT-worthy box set" to my FYP.

Super-reachy, I know.  Especially with two teen-aged kids, a fuller-than-ever full time dayjob, and a dog that needs things reached off the table for her because she's not a puppy anymore.

But the world changes around us every day...The least we can do is develop plans that can change in time with it.

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. She's the author of the urban fantasy trilogy The Books of the Demimonde as well as WORDS THAT BIND. She also writes for YA and NA audiences under the pen name AJ Krafton. THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, her Victorian dark fantasy inspired by Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, is now available.

New Year's Resolutions that Actually Work

Statistically speaking, by the time the chips and dip are passed around at the pre-bowl game on Superbowl Sunday, as many as half of people who make a New Year's Resolution have already broken it. One month of an unused gym membership has been paid for. The dairy-free/gluten-free/sugar-free diet was replaced with an ice cream sundae by January 15th. Sure, the intention was to avoid eating out at all costs, but surely it doesn't count for a friend's birthday... or a weekend getaway... or when you're just really busy... right?

It can be all too easy to let resolutions like "lose weight" or "go to the gym more" fall by the wayside as life gets in the way. Don't let this happen to your writing goals.

All too often, I see writers with New Year's Resolutions like "sell a book," or "get an agent," or or "finish my next novel." Now, unlike "lose weight" or "go to the gym more," they are measurable goals. After all, the moment you get an agent, you'll be shouting from the rooftops! So it should count as a reasonable resolution for the year... except it doesn't.

Why not? You do not have all the control when it comes to whether you get an agent or not, and even less control over whether a book sells. Thinking that you do places all the blame on yourself if it doesn't happen, and that isn't good for your self-esteem, which writers struggle with enough. It isn't great for your writing career, either.

So, what to do? Don't set writing resolutions at all? Of course not! Just make sure they're SMART. (Specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound). With one month under our belts, there is plenty of time to re-evaluate not what we want to achieve, but how we get there.

Want an agent for a book you've already revised to perfection? Maybe your goal looks like this: By December 31, 2016, I will have queried at least 75 agents and entered two contests. I will work on my query until it shines, and tweak it if I'm not getting the request rate that I want. I can stop querying before I reach these goals if and only if I get an agent sooner.

Boom. That is a SMART goal, one you can achieve regardless of the market, or your story, or what an agent ate for breakfast the day she read your query.

"Finish my next novel" sounds like a great goal at first. I've been writing lists of New Year's Resolutions for more than ten years and I had to learn the hard way that this one isn't SMART. It turns out, books are never finished--at least not until they hit the printing press and you're out of time to revise. After realizing that I never defined "finish," I set a different goal for the next year: Work on WIP until it is ready for critique partners to review, then take their advice for another revision. By December 31, 2016, have WIP ready enough that I feel comfortable querying it. 

As you're writing this year, don't set yourself up to fail your goals. Make sure they're SMART, then implement a way to track them (I just started tracking my word count using stickers on my calendar, and it's working like magic) that keeps you accountable. Then you'll be amazed what you've accomplished by the end of the year.

Rochelle Deans sometimes feels like the only writer on the planet who rushes through the writing so she can start editing. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two kids under two. Her bad habits include mispronouncing words, correcting grammar, and spending far too much time on the Internet.

When the Publishing Business Just Isn't Into You

A few years back, a hugely successful book spoke the blunt truth that sometimes the object of your affection just isn't that into you and there's nothing you can do about it. It's a simple, yet profound notion that neither of you has a fatal flaw and the universe hasn't conspired to keep you apart. As the saying goes, it's not personal.  Every writer meets that moment when the question must be asked: Is it time to move on?

Before you decide to shelve your manuscript though, ask yourself some tough questions.

Did I query the manuscript too soon? Every manuscript deserves a break before a final edit and polish. That nay be a month, or a week, but if you haven't let your book simmer for awhile, you'll regret it later when you see a dozen ways those first five pages could have packed a better punch. This is easier to fix if you query in small batches. Yes, you've blown the opportunity with those agents that already rejected you, but there are plenty of agents out there.

And speaking of agents, did you research the agents before you queried them? Did you look at their favorite books, their current clients and their stated areas of interest? Was your query concise, professional and did it plainly lay out the protagonist and the stakes in your story? Did you do something gimmicky like writing the query in the character's voice or leading off with a hypothetical question? (If so, please proceed to "Query Help" on QT the forum right now)

Is your manuscript in a genre that's currently saturated? It really stinks if no one will touch your dystopian YA right now, but market trends have ebb and flow and you can't control it. Write something else. There will always be a place in bookstores for vampires and romance and sci-fi and a year from now, maybe you'll get a warmer reception.

Are you a tad bit whiny/needy/bitter on social media?  Being a part of a supportive community doesn't necessarily mean you have to share every indignity you've suffered while dealing with rejection. Many agents do check you out on line before making an offer of representation or a request.Make your on line presence an asset.

This is the hardest one: Is your writing just not up to par? Have you tried to objectively compare your writing to other published works in the same genre? Try reading passages out loud, which is a huge help in identifying awkward sentences.  Has your manuscript undergone scrutiny by beta readers (not blood relatives) critique partners, or published authors? Have you done a full content edit, looking for clichés, crutch words, tropes and pacing issues? It's never easy to admit that something you've created may not see the light of day in traditional publishing, and yes, great books do get rejected, but sometimes the common denominator is simply that this manuscript isn't the right one.

Every writer gets rejected. Every. Single One. Good queries and bad queries likely get the same form rejection. Before you give up your dream, try as best as you can to objectively assess the reason for your failures. Most of the time, you can fix what is wrong. Writing improves with practice. Queries can be polished. About the only thing you can't control is market trends and the wildly subjective tastes of people in the industry. Press on and never let the fear of failure stop you from pursuing your dream.

Kim English - A native Floridian, Kim is the author of Coriander Jones Saves the World and the upcoming Coriander Jones On Assignment at Sabal Palm Academy. She lives in southwest Florida with her family and an ever increasing number of rescue pets. You can learn more about Kim and her books at CorianderJones.com

Unleashing Your Creativity: Five Ways To Switch Off That Internal Editor

A writer has two main signals in the brain: create and edit.

The creator, well, creates. Stories grow and bloom and take on life. The editor and her red pen prunes and cuts and shapes. But there's a reason why I'm a writer, not a farmer, so let's lose the gardening analogy and think of this another way: think green light and red light.

Green light, go—the words flow. Red light—stop. Stop and fix, stop and think, stop and just plain stop.

And stopping isn't going to help you get your first draft done.

First drafts need to be green light, all the way. Any time your word flow hesitates, it's an opportunity for the editor to take over. You'll re-read those last lines and tweak them. You'll pause, mentally discarding phrase after phrase because they're just not good enough. The writing stops. The cursor blinks, wondering if you got up and left. Red light.

But you don't have to live at the mercy of a red light. The writer controls the signal. Like every other element of writing, it's a piece of craft to be learned.

Pro-level Green Light
One way to bask in the glow of the green light is to attain a level of competency that lets you self-edit on the fly.  In this article, Sean D'Souza discusses how writing competency leads to writing fluency, where editing happens so quickly we don't even know we're doing it. The red light is only the briefest of flickers in a stream of green.

How does a writer become competent? You write. And you write. You make the mistakes that come with learning a craft. You learn from those mistakes and you get better. Each mistake and its subsequent lesson is one step closer to competency.

But learning a craft takes a long time. In the meantime, we still set word count goals and deadlines, long before we attain this nirvana called fluency. How do we keep ourselves writing forward instead of deleting backwards...or stalling because you can't get past a sentence just because you can't get it down right?

Do everything you can to keep the red light from coming on.

I have a few tricks I use during first draft writing and each one contributes to green light streaming in its own way.

1).  Go Analog
Notepads don't have delete keys. Plain and simple.

Writing longhand gives me a change to simply write. My handwriting is smooth enough that it all blends in my periphery--I tend not to look back over the last lines as I write. If I do need to change something, I strike it through. Unlike deleting, the original word is there so I don't obsess that I made a mistake by erasing one.

Plus, I love the flow of ink. I'm a very visible-art kind of person so writing with an ink pen is akin to painting words. Best of all, I get to choose the ink color that inspires me. When I was younger, my pen of choice was a purple Pilot ballpoint. Today, I'm partial to blue ink. So much of what I read is in black and white so the mere sight of blue taps into my creative side.

Blue is also my ideal color for meditation. Calming, serene blue. Did you know that writing is, in itself, a form of meditation? Google it sometime—when you're not supposed to be writing, of course. Which leads me to another red light reducer:

2).  Remove distractions
Distractions create pauses. If you are not actively submerging in the creative flow, typing out words, focused on the story, then your brain will flip the switch to editor mode.

I have a lot of cool junk on my desk. There's a lovely collection of ravens and skulls (thanks to my endless devotion to Edgar Allan Poe) and a bunch of Dr. Who and Sherlock and Supernatural collectables (because I will go down with that 'ship) and a bunch of other nifty writer things. In fact, my desk is the reason why I don't write at my desk. Ever. Too much to play with... and if I'm playing, I'm not writing.

If I look up from the page, I might toy with a sonic screwdriver. My brain might then toy with something I'd already written. The red light comes on and the editor comes out. And that's not what I want when I'm trying to get that first draft written.

Take the time to make a list of your worst distractions. Internet. The telephone. Your hair, if you're a twister-tugger-fidgeter like me. Identify those distractions and do what you can to limit them. The less you look up from the page, the less likely you are to staunch that green light flow.

3).  Plan Ahead by Plotting
Some writers love the freedom of watching a story bloom and unfold right before their eyes, with each sentence taking them further along a path toward a new undiscovered word. That's a beautiful thing, that quicksilver taste of creativity—and it's the reason many of us enjoy writing as much as we do.

But how many of us actually sit down in from of a blank screen without at least thinking where the book is going to go? Precious few, I'd wager. At the very least, we have an idea. A hook. An anecdote. Something.

But if that something isn't big enough for a pantser to go on, it's easy to bang heads with writer's block. (Pantser? Writer's block? If that's the main problem for you, read this.)

So, plan ahead. One easy way to do that is to create your plot outline.


Seems like contrary advice coming from a pantser like me but just hear me out. If you know where the story is going, you can write more freely than if you have to come up with each and every element as you go. A little planning goes a long way in illuminating the path ahead so you don't go bumbling in the dark.

4).  Allow Necessary Roughness
A first draft is often called the rough draft. However, writers forget that they are allowed to be rough when writing them. Sometimes, we set unrealistic expectations for ourselves and our writing and feel pressured to make the first draft the only draft.

When I was in college, my freshman lit professor told me she loved my first drafts. I wasn't a budding writer or an English major. I had no thoughts about writing novels. I was a first year pharmacy student who felt more at home in the humanities department and I simply loved my reading and writing assignments. Lit classes were a brief escape from chem labs and white coats.

These days, I still haven't escaped the white coats, but I do still try to put out competent first drafts. It's a weird way to pay homage to my old mentors back in Philly—the pharmacist who writes as if her freshman lit teacher was watching. But these days, there is a big difference.

I'm not going for a grade. I've given myself a lot of breathing room. I allow myself to write imperfectly. I permit roughness in my drafts.

For instance: I use brackets (like this article describes.)  If an element makes me stumble, I close it off, skip over it, and keep going.

Skipping the unwritable parts keep the green light going. You can go back and write those spots later, after you've had time to work them out. (That's what second drafts are for, right?)

In fact, I love skipping things. In my current WIP, one chapter has only three words: SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS. The next chapter picks up the narrative once more, with actual scenes and sequences. I'm able to pull this off because of the previous tip about plotting. I know where the story is going so it doesn't matter if I have trouble somewhere.

I just gun the gas and speed past it, blasting through that potential red light. Skipping stuff can be such a rush.

5).  Avoid Criticism
It's not enough to allow myself to write roughly in a first draft. I know what I'm writing is not the final product. I know it's going to get better, and deeper, and less riddled with thinly-developed ideas.

But would someone else know that?

Beta readers and critique partners are a writer's best friends. Seriously. We all need a set of impartial eyes on our stories to see the flaws we can't. But a first draft is no place for that kind of critique.

Not only is the story not yet at a place to be properly critiqued—neither are we. A first draft is a place of discovery and experimentation, a place where creativity needs to flow unimpeded. Criticism, at this point, slams the writing light to full red. It forces us to rethink our work, to go back and change. It intentionally switches us to editor mode.

It also does something to our confidence. Even when the critique is gentle and constructive, it makes us doubt ourselves and where we thought our story was going. You might think a critique is necessary at the beginning, that it will save us unnecessary work down the road. I think that's premature. I think that there's a bigger risk of squelching a good idea before it has a chance to be fully developed. That's the worst kind of editing—it's censoring.

That's why I keep my first drafts to myself. I might give a sneak peek of a scene to one of my inner-sanctum betas, just for a taste of what I'm writing. But I never give enough to inspire criticism and I never hand a red pen over with it.

Green Light... Go!
The next time you find yourself stuck in first draft traffic, don't despair. The writer in you has the power to switch that signal and turn that red light green again. You don't need a miracle. You just need to learn how to take back that control.

The switch is all yours. Learn to use it to your advantage.

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Five Ways To Switch Off Your Internal Editor

Red light, green light: Editing vs. Writing

Improve your creative flow with these 5 tips

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. She's the author of the urban fantasy trilogy The Books of the Demimonde as well as WORDS THAT BIND. She also writes for YA and NA audiences under the pen name AJ Krafton. THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, her Victorian dark fantasy inspired by Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, is now available.

Best Writing Advice: There's No Such Thing As Talent

A writer's main activity is procrastinating. Sometimes it's useful procrastinating, like time spent letting a manuscript marinate before starting to edit. Sometimes it's the procrastinating that happens when you have a deadline (self-imposed or otherwise) that you really don't feel like keeping. I'm excellent at both.

Self-portrait in charcoal,
September 2008

Recently, I've gotten back into art as a form of procrastination. I enjoyed it when I was younger, though I was never particularly good and, like with writing, my teachers taught me how without the subject ever penetrating deep enough to matter. Thanks to a poor teacher in college, I barely passed my required art class. She noticed that I wasn't doing the techniques correctly but couldn't be bothered to teach me the right way. Didn't stop her from grading me down, though.



Thankfully, you don't have to be very good at whatever you do to procrastinate for it to be a worthwhile pursuit. So I looked up tutorials and got to work. It turns out, the writing advice I once received from a critique partner applies to art as well, and it's the most important advice I've ever received, inside or out of writing:

Flower in oil pastel,
circa spring 2009

There's no such thing as talent.

Sometimes things come easier for one person than another, but in every project you take on, something will come easier for someone else. And there is nothing that cannot be taught. A tall person might have the advantage in basketball, but tell that to 5'3" Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues, who played for the NBA from 1987 until 2002.

If something about your writing isn't working, practice. Find a critique partner (or several, or an editor) and learn what your weaknesses are. Work on them. Practice creating plots that are organic. Practice writing dialogue. Practice weaknesses in short stories until you master them, then move on to novels. Don't be afraid of writing something that is horrid and unsalvageable. Just learn from it and improve the next time.

Portrait of my daughter in colored pencil,
July 2015

The only thing that separates "experts" from "n00bs" is the number of hours put in. Sometimes those hours are spent learning. Concert pianists practice their scales and arpeggios daily. Sometimes those hours are spent on actual projects. When I paint my nails, I run the polish over my finger and move onto the next. When I get my nails done professionally, they mess up as much as I do. They just go back and remove their mistakes. They use more layers of polish to keep it on longer. When a child colors a pictures, they grab blue for the sky, green for the grass, and peach or brown for the person. When a professional artist colors a picture, they grab five different blues, three grays, a white, and a few purples for the sky alone.

The change in perspective is everything: lacking in talent means you're setting the blame externally. Lacking in practice, however, is something you can fix.

Don't use a "lack of talent" as an excuse for not reaching your goals. Call it a "lack of practice" and then get practicing.

Flowers in oil pastel
June 2015

Rochelle Deans sometimes feels like the only writer on the planet who rushes through the writing so she can start editing. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and young daughter. Her bad habits include mispronouncing words, correcting grammar, and spending far too much time on the Internet.

The Funny Side of Writing: Insert Your Topic Here

Okay, the title is not actually “Insert Your Topic Here.” It’s something along the lines of “How Humor Applies to Two of Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Basics of Creative Writing.” For the handful of people on the QueryTracker Blog Team, though, this month’s assigned title is “The Funny Side of Writing: Insert Your Topic Here,” so a handful of people got the joke before I explained it. It’s a bit of an inside joke – an extreme example of the fact that all humor is inside humor.  

Ooh, that’s much better. Forget that bit about “How Humor Applies…” The real title of this post is now The Funny Side of Writing: All Humor is Inside Humor. Plus some stuff about Kurt Vonnegut.

Humor presents an extreme example of Vonnegut’s advice: “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” There is no such thing as a joke that: (a) will not offend anyone; (b) every reader will get; (c) can be explained to those who don’t get it in a sufficiently humorous way those who “got it” won’t be bored; and (d) having traversed the minefield that is (a) through (c) on this list, anyone thinks is funny.

Humor is such an effective tool because, done right, it creates a bond between the writer and reader that makes the reader feel special. She “gets” the joke, which means she is in on the little secret the joke presents. This can happen one of three ways:

• ·         The very direct way that hopefully made the title of this article amusing to five people – The existence of an actual inside joke, like a subtle literary reference few of your readers may pick up on, making those who do feel Überspecial.
• ·       Letting the rest of the riffraff in on the joke – The explanation provided in the first paragraph of this post, which is, generally, the worst option. That said, some writers (Douglas Adams = God) explain things in such a clever way the reader feels special having received the explanation and joining the “in crowd.”
• ·         Building the humor from the inside out, first giving the reader the inside information, then making the joke it’s based on – The second paragraph of this post, which is a different version of the same joke about the title. I’m still messing around with the title, sharing the process of replacing the ridiculous one with something more descriptive, but by bringing the reader (that’s you, btw) along, I (that’s me, btw) create the insides of the inside joke: My title sucks because I cut and pasted the stupid thing. Here I am, two paragraphs in, still groping for a title.

Of all Vonnegut’s rules, or any rules of writing I’ve ever seen anywhere, though, the one I think is most important to keep in mind with respect to humor is the Fourth: Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action. If I ever form some kind of humor writing cult, THAT will be the password, and the initiation will involve writing that on your private bits in goat blood or something else sufficiently weird that it would be impossible to forget.

Now that I look at it, that is a rather long sentence. Yeah, it would definitely need to be “something else sufficiently weird.”

And I live on a farm. It’s not goat blood I’m worried about running out of.

Writing Productivity Tip: The Mini-Outline

This is a continuation on our series on tips to make the writing process and your writing career more organized, less stressful, and more effective.

The mini-outline is a thing of beauty for those of you that are plotter pantser hybrids like me. My personal mini-outline came about because the thought of writing out the arc of each chapter hurt me. But then again, so did having to rewrite my entire book. I had to find a way to define and structure the heart of my story while keeping it fun enough that I didn’t give my outline the middle finger half way through. Mine goes like this:

Characters – I always start by writing a paragraph about each primary (and sometimes secondary) character’s backstory and quirks such as, “Roberta is obsessed with grape soda and wears two pairs of underwear on road trips.” It’s also a great place for me to put a reference picture. Plus, it’s easy to give to an agent or editor as part of a proposal.

Setting – Just a quick paragraph (or more if it’s SFF) to work out the rules of the environment. The best case scenario is if I can make my setting into a character itself that my MC has to wrassle with at some point.

Themes – This is my absolute favorite. Identifying thematic layers can create more plot complexity. Also, defining the characters and situations that work within each theme generates all sorts of ideas for dialogue and conflict.

Tormenting My Main Character – To begin with, I identify my MC’s primary objective in my plot. My acting teacher always said that overarching objectives should be simple – find love, right a wrong, protect family.   

Then, I have to figure out how to systematically threaten my MC’s objective in every way I can think of. I make a numbered list of the crappiest mental, physical, and situational obstacles I can throw at her to keep her from getting what she wants. Finally, I put them in order of escalating conflict.

It feels kinda evil while I’m doing it, but it saves me from a saggy middle and from going easy on my MC when I shouldn’t. Knowing the subplots and transitions from one obstacle to another is something I like to discover as I go. I’m not a fan of squeezing every bit of mystery out of a story. But, I’m not interested in doing structural surgery on my story cause it lacks momentum, either.

In total my mini-outline is really only a couple of pages. It tackles the fun stuff, so my pantser-self enjoys writing it, yet it has enough substance to keep my plotter-self confidently on track. It’s a huge time saver.

Now, I’d like to believe that I made up this particular mini-outline, but I’m sure others have done it before me. However, I’m perfectly happy to live with the self-delusion that I’m a snowflake.

Don’t forget that our QueryTracker's 5x5x5 give-a-way has begun. FIVE winners in FIVE weeks will receive a $100 prize. Bam!

But I'm Not Making A Movie...

When I first started writing fiction, I studied craft books that focused on writing novels. What more could I want? They taught me everything I needed to know, or so I thought.

It wasn’t until I read Save the Cat by Blake Synder that I realized how much I can learn from books geared toward screenwriters, actors, and directors. I also discovered that authors with a background in cinema have an insight that could also benefit my stories.

Most of us are familiar with Writer’s Digest books. I can almost guarantee you’ve read at least one of their craft books. Michael Wise Productions is the cinema version of Writer’s Digest, and has an impressive list of books that will appeal to novelists, too. Topics range from story structure, subtext, symbolism, characterization, story lines. The best part is they use examples from well known movies and TV shows. You don’t have to suffer through an excerpt taken out of context or spend hours reading the novel. You can easily watch the show or movie in a fraction of the time.

As writers, we need to read. A lot. We read both in and out of our genre. We analyze stories, and figure out what we liked and didn’t like about them. You can do the same with movies and TV shows, and apply what you learned to your story. For example, you can study different techniques used in a movie, in a similar vein to your story, to see how the director conveyed mood (beyond the music). Then find a way to incorporate them into your writing. Analyze the symbols used to reveal characterization and plot. Study how the actors portray the characters. What kinds of physical details relating to the character or setting does the director zoom in on that adds power to the scene? Can you use some of those techniques in your story? I recommend reading Shoot Your Novel by C.S Larkin. She explains cinematography in a way that will change the way you write a scene. Some of the techniques we naturally use, but knowing them will help you gain maximum benefit from them.

In movies, the story is revealed through action and dialogue. There are no inner thoughts—most of the time. So how does the viewer get inside the actor’s head? Subtext. What do readers love? Subtext. Want to know how to do subtext well, then study movies. Analyze the difference between the great actors and the B-grade ones, then apply it your story to make it and your characters come to life.

Don’t just watch a movie for its entertainment value. Watch it. Study it. Dissect it. Just like screenwriters do.

Have you read any screenwriting books you recommend?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN and LET ME KNOW (Carina Press, HQN) are now available.

The Writer's Bookshelf: Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

This edition of The Writer's Bookshelf features an essay by Marian Perera.

One of the best books I’ve read on creating characters is Orson Scott Card’s Characters and Viewpoint – part of the Elements of Fiction Writing series from Writers Digest Books.

Card deconstructs characterization with plenty of practical, specific details and advice. How can you give a villain a sympathetic side, or hint at insanity in a character? What might happen if a hero or heroine is too attractive? How can character names be distinctive and memorable? It’s all covered, with examples to show how characters can express themselves—and therefore reveal themselves—in different ways.

My favorite of these “compare and contrast” examples is towards the end of the book, when the conflict between two people first occurs on the surface. Their thoughts aren’t given, so their dialogue spells out their problems with speech tags like “soothingly” and “nervously” to let the reader knows how they feel.

Then the scene is rewritten, with what Card refers to as “deep penetration” into the characters’ minds—and it’s so much more powerful. When I first started writing, I wasn’t very subtle about my characters’ emotions, especially in scenes of conflict. But one of the ways to separate tense, simmering drama from melodrama is subtlety, and restraining what the characters show on the surface is a good way to achieve that.  

Plus, sometimes readers like being able to read between the lines. It’s much more fun to figure out something the characters aren’t saying, and to catch a glimpse of what’s beneath the surface, rather than the writer spelling it all out.

The section on viewpoint is also excellent. Often on discussion boards, newer writers will ask about the difference between omniscient viewpoint and head-hopping, or how they can know what viewpoint would be effective for their novels. This book examines all those. From the Hemingway-esque cinematic point of view, where the “camera” is like a fly on the wall, to the more common third- or first-person perspective and the omniscient narrator who is almost a character in their own right, this book both discusses and shows the advantages and disadvantages of each. There are even drawings to make the different viewpoints clear.

Another thing I like about the examples is that they come from a variety of sources (that is, not just Card’s own novels), though this book was first published in 1988, so none of those sources will seem new. No references to The Hunger Games here. Also, the sections on Romance vs. Realism and Presentation vs. Representation can get a little complex, and I didn’t recognize any of the comedians whom Card mentioned when discussing humor.

But to balance out the serious stuff which makes me feel as though I’m back in an English Literature class, there’s a fun passage at the start where Card shows how easy it is to come up with ideas for characters, just by transcribing what a fourth-grade class came up with as he prompted them with questions (and threw roadblocks in their path). Each idea of theirs led to the next, and soon they had a story. Not a very complex story, but this was, to me, much more helpful and useful than lists where you can fill in your character’s favorite foods. Showing a character doing something is nearly always going to be more productive than thinking of what the character likes or doesn’t like—or, for that matter, what color her hair and eyes are.

On the whole, I’d recommend this book to any writer.

 

Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

 

Amazon ~~~ Barnes and Noble

Bio : Marian Perera enjoys bringing romance, science, sharks and magic together in her novels – it makes for a volatile combination. And she’s been into volatile ever since she was sixteen and read Gone with the Wind for the first time.

She was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in the United Arab Emirates, studied in the United States and now lives in Canada. With three romantic fantasies released by Samhain Publishing and more in the works, her dream is to be a full-time writer some day. She has a blog on writing and publishing – marianperera.blogspot.com – and likes to hear from readers and other writers. Her email address is mdperera@hotmail.com. 

Find Marian Pereira at MarianPerera.com and check out Flights of Fantasy

Making the Payoff Scene Count

One of our goals as writers is to create stories that keep the reader flipping pages, desperate to see what happens next. And if we’re really good, the reader will be flipping pages well beyond her bedtime. Several different elements (e.g. pacing) are used to create the necessary forward momentum. Along with these elements is The Big Scene.

The ‘big scene’ (or payoff scene) is defined as any scene that contains high drama. The intensity within the scene and the level of importance of the scene are greater than for the majority of your other ones. They are most often the turning points scenes (e.g. the inciting incident, the end of the first act, the climax). While the scene will contain heightened conflict, compared to your other ones, car chases and explosions are not required. For example, in YA, a big scene can be the first kiss, but only if the scene has been properly set up and the first kiss is importance (which is usually the case in YA). Think about some of the big payoff scenes from your favorite books. That will give you ideas of what readers in your genre expect.

When you write your payoff scenes, you need to go big. And I mean BIG. Wimpy stakes need not apply.  The same is true for your internal and external conflict. Paint layers of sensory description, theme, symbolism, subtext, emotion (without crossing into melodrama). Each will add impact to the scene and help it stand out from the crowd. Also, the characters’ actions need to be powerful. The big scene is comparable to the Fourth of July fireworks. It is the difference between a few fire crackers and the spectacular display in New York City. One is memorable; the other isn’t.

In addition to the above, you need to create the appropriate set up. When done correctly, this will guide your reader so they have an idea where the story is headed. If you have a ‘big scene’ without the appropriate set up, the emotional impact wouldn’t even be a blip on the Richter scale. You want more than a blip. You want to aim for at least a ten. You also want to use several techniques to help the payoff scene feel even bigger. One technique is the reversal. The reversal is when an event is headed in one direction and then suddenly takes an abrupt turn. A common example in romances is when the hero and heroine are in a heated discussion one moment, and kissing passionately the next.

Another technique is foreshadowing. An example of this is when the protagonist comments early in the book, when she sees a character, that she wouldn’t be surprised if one day that character’s ass is kicked in a fight. If the information is casually added into the narrative as a simple line, the reader won’t remember it by the time she gets to the ‘big scene,’ but subconsciously she will be waiting for it. The trick to foreshadowing is subtlety. If the reader sees that line and thinks, “Oh, there’s going to be a big fight at some point and the guy is going to get his ass whipped,” then you’ve failed. The reader is going to be waiting for the fight and the element of surprise will be lost. Another thing you want to avoid is heavily foreshadowing something that has no relevance to the story. If your protagonist goes on and on about her love of horses in the beginning of the book, horses had better show up later in the book and be important to the plot, or else your reader will feel cheated. And a reader who feels cheated is not a happy reader, and will be less likely to read your next story.

Juxtaposition is yet another way to add power to your big scene. Juxtaposition simply refers to elements in opposition (e.g. love/hate, happy/sad, large/small). For example, you could have a big scene occur during Valentine’s Day, when the protagonist is anticipating her first kiss with the guy she’s been crushing on since elementary school. Her emotions are high. And then she witnesses his death. The contrast between the two emotions adds impact to the big scene.

The YA contemporary novel Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry has one of the most powerful payoff scenes that I’ve read. The story is told from two points of view, but the one that leaves most people in tears is Noah’s. (Spoiler Alert) During the story, we learn that eighteen-year-old Noah has been bounced around the foster care system after his parents’ death and has been physically abused. He now lives in the mildew-filled basement of his current foster parents’ house. Before his parents’ death, he had great grades and played varsity basketball. After their death, he was forced to quit basketball, couldn’t be bothered with his grades, and developed a reputation for being a stoner who slept around, a lot.

Noah’s two younger brothers mean the world to him, but because he was wrongly labeled as emotionally unstable, Noah can only see them on supervised visits, which are far and few in between. As a result of his experiences with the system, Noah is positive his brothers are being mistreated. The emotional punch to the gut comes when Noah, after being banned from seeing his brothers, winds up being invited to lunch with the family who wants to adopt his siblings. Katie McGarry brilliantly uses juxtaposition in the scene to heighten the emotions. Unlike the foster families Noah has lived with, the brothers’ foster parents are financially stable and give his brothers the things Noah has been deprived of. The boys get to go to basketball camps and attend a fancy private school. Their foster parents love them. The boys also have something else Noah doesn’t have: a photo of their dead parents. When Noah sees that picture, few readers can make it through the scene without crying (I’m tearing up just thinking about it). The build up to that moment is worth it—no matter how many times you read the book. Without the build up, the scene wouldn’t have had the same impact. (End of Spoiler Alert)

What books have you read that have moved you because of the powerful payoff scenes? Your homework is to analyze the book and see how the author made those scenes count, and apply what you’ve learned to your own story.

(note: This article was originally posted last year on the Adventures in YA Publishing blog. It has been edited for this post). 





Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN and LET ME KNOW (Carina Press, HQN) are now available.

Dealing with Reader Expectations

It doesn’t matter if you’re published and your book is now out for review, or if you’re sending your first book to a beta reader, you have to deal with reader expectations. Most of the time it isn’t an issue. The reader has no expectations, other than they hope your story will entertain or emotionally move them.

Other times they have specific expectations that you may or may not meet. The reader might read your blurb and expect ABC to happen in the story instead of XYZ. And because of that, they give it a less than favorable review. There’s nothing you can do about it. You didn’t write the book they would have written, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Be proud of the story you did write. It’s the one that called to you and the one that you needed to bring to life. If the comments are from a beta reader, give the book and comments some distance then look at it through the individual’s eyes. It could be that you decide she was right, and you can edit the book accordingly. Or you might realize she didn’t share your vision for the book and ignore her suggestions. That’s okay, too.

It also could be that you wrote a story that went outside the box when it comes to your genre. Some readers will love this. Others will cry foul. Now obviously if you kill off the love interest, you won’t get too far calling the book a romance. There is an expectation from readers of the genre that the story will end with a happily-ever-after. When you kill off the hero, it’s hard to achieve that goal. The solution in this case is easy. Don’t call your story a romance. It isn’t. If you call it women’s fiction (for example), you have a better chance of finding the readers who will better appreciate it. But other than this, like before, be proud of your story. One thing you quickly realize is you can’t please everyone. There’s no point trying. You’ll only drive yourself insane if you do.

If you are going to go outside the box, make sure you’re familiar with the expectations of the genre first. It might be you just have to twist the tropes of the genre on the head. For example, in romance, a common trope is where the bad boy meets good girl and he reforms for her–and only for her. Some readers have favorite tropes they love to read and will pick up your book if it contains it. This is great. On the downside, they’ve read the trope so many times, you need to come up with a fresh approach to make your book memorable. There are also readers who hate certain tropes, yet for some strange reason, they still read them, waiting for a chance to tear the story apart in their review. If you’ve done the unexpected with the trope, you’ll surprise the reader and might even possibly delight her. And this could mean a positive review and word of mouth.

And then there’s the individual who reads the blurb and misses the obvious clues that your book is horror, and complains in the review that there is horror in the book. Yes, this happens more often than you realize. There’s nothing you can do about that, and that includes leaving a comment on the review about how the person is an idiot. It’s perfectly fine to think that, but it’s not okay to share that opinion with anyone—unless you want it to come back and haunt you. 

When you write a book, do you write want you want to write, or do you write to meet the readers’ expectations (or a little of both)?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer and can be found at her blog/website.  She is represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person. Her debut New Adult contemporary romance TELL ME WHEN (Carina Press, HQN) is now available. LET ME KNOW (Carina Press) will be available Sept 1st, 2014.

Fallbacks

I'm cooked. I'm cooked because one of my children ended up in the hospital on May 6th, and after the hospital stay, doctor visits, referrals to other professionals, school meetings and a step-down program, we're still not back to normal. So how does a writer keep creating under the circumstances?

They say "writers write." I don't think it's that easy. Given that nothing is easy at the moment, I'm going to say sometimes writers don't write. But we're still writers, and this is what we're doing when life gets a whole lot knottier than we anticipated.

• We write other things. That may mean blog posts. That may mean a novelist writes his first poems or an essayist experiments with short stories. It may mean that if your friendly local newspaper editor calls with a business profile on quick turnaround, you say, "Sure! That sounds like a co-payment right there."
• We edit. That novel you've had hibernating for several months, or a year, or since you were eighteen? Blow the dust off it and see what you can do. Manipulating words that already exist is a whole lot easier than coming up with ideas and creating brand-new ones.
• We end up writing anyhow while editing. You know, when you think to yourself, "Why is this scene over so quickly? We've been building up to it for ten pages, and the climax is like a paragraph." Voila: words you didn't have before
• We read. Going on "intake mode" is just fine, and if you're worried you're not a writer if you aren't actually working on words you created, reassure yourself that writers read in different ways than non-writers. Go ahead and pick up a book or two. Or six. It's research.
• We critique our writer-friends. Actually, in my case I discovered I'm much better at reading the piece than actually sending the friend my critique. (I'm very sorry, CB.)  But it keeps you going.
• We stockpile. This stress right now, this experience? It may never end up in any of your work, but it's forming you as a person and therefore it's also forming you as a writer. Stress (and even tragedy) will help you form compassion and new perspectives, and those alone will help your future work.
• We create in other ways. Ivy Reisner said on KnitSpirit that while you need to engage your spirit to write, in some ways knitting or crocheting is "pure craft." Having knit a sock all the way down to the ankle during an ER stay, I agree. You can move a hook or a needle over and over without involving your heart at a time when your heart is already working on too many other issues. So find a "pure craft" way to create: cooking or woodworking or knitting will help you be creative without taxing your creativity. 

When stressors hit, we need our fallbacks. Use them and don't feel bad. The stress won't last forever, but you'll always be a writer.

---
 Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or shoveling snow. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. 

Successful Authors Don't Keep Secrets

When I began writing, it was definitely a solitary effort. So solitary, in fact, I kept it a secret. I wrote early in the morning, when my husband was at work and the kids were asleep. No one to look over my shoulder. No one to critique. No one to criticize. Just me, and my novice efforts and my fledgling craft.

Who was I kidding? Back then, I had no craft. I just wanted to write. I had no goals, no real plans, and certainly no schooling. Those days were long before I educated myself with craft books and the internet articles. I had no regard for plot and I couldn’t have cared less for dialog structure. All I knew was I wanted to write word after word and see if they took me anywhere.

Then, one day my husband asked me who Marek was. Erp. He’d found the bits and pieces I’d been writing, a first person POV with a romantic interest. I had to set him straight real fast. Marek was a character I was writing, and no, he couldn’t read it.

I lacked confidence. I wasn’t a writer—I was a pharmacist and a homemaker. I grew up in the eighties, when only professionals got published by big companies. Stephen King was a writer. I was just a girl with an imagination too big to stay in my head.

He didn’t see it that way. He believed in me and said if I wanted to be a writer, I should just stop saying can’t, and start doing it.

So, I did.

Eventually, I let others in on my secret. I showed my scenes to my sister, cringing and waiting for her to declare it complete suckitude. She didn’t. Neither did my husband, who took my characters very seriously (and decided he hated one of them violently). I got my younger sister to read an early draft—and she finished it. That really blew my mind—that anyone would actually want to read the whole thing.

My husband and my sisters became my most powerful critique partners and my dearest lifelines. They gave me the confidence I needed to crawl out from under the rock I’d been writing under. They took the solitude out of my efforts. And they cheered when I got published, because it was a victory for us all.


Flashing forward to today... my third novel comes out in June, the third in a series that began with a character named Marek and a writer who was too cowardly to tell anyone about him. I’m no longer quite as solitary a writer and often have long conversations with my husband about the people who dwell inside my head. He daydreams about retiring from his career in pharmaceuticals so that he can be my full-time assistant. (He doesn’t realize I’d gladly hire him, even if only to shovel off my desk once a week. I tend to stock-pile it to the point of oblivion.)

The one thing he’d never do was manage my social media. You need a personality to sell books, he said, and I don’t have your personality.

While I’m sure he meant it as compliment, I took it as a painful reminder of the uncomfortable, vulnerable moments I experienced when I first showed my pages to others. I wrote in solitude because I was safe there. As long as I was writing for only myself, solitude was fine.

While writers can exist in their vacuums, authors cannot. I’m using the term author to mean someone who is writing for an audience—so, by definition, solitude can play no part of it. While there are websites devoted to authors getting their stories out to an audience (Wattpad.com is a favorite), it eventually becomes necessary for us to put ourselves out in the world, book in hand, face to face with real, live people in the hopes that they will read our work.

Once again, I’m reminded of the concepts I’d stubbornly carried with me since the eighties. Book signings and readings and tours were for real authors and big publishing houses. That would never be me. The only concession I made in recent decades was to admit the Internet was a good place to sell books, which was just fine by me. I could still hide behind a computer, no sweat. I’d been doing it for years.

But, alas. I might write fantasy, but I can no longer pretend to live in one. My illusions have been completely dispelled. Putting a book on Amazon didn’t guarantee sales, not when your book is a mere drop in a literary ocean. Having a publisher doesn’t ensure a landslide of PR, no matter who the publisher is.

I’ve read a fair share of posts from mid-list authors of big houses as well as mega-successful indie writers—and none of them are saying anything even remotely close to what my eighties-era conceptions would have had me continue to believe.

So, what’s a writer to do, other than get out there and sell my books? No one is going to do it for me.

And that, I think is where I realized my husband had put it all together for me in a single word: personality. He can’t be my voice on Twitter or Facebook, because he doesn’t have my voice. He couldn’t post to my blog any more than he could write my next book. It all comes down to personality. Readers are drawn to a writer’s voice, so why wouldn’t they be drawn in by an author’s personality?

Personality doesn’t mean being the most popular person in the room, the winning smile or the center of attention. It’s us, pure and simple, as we can only be in person.

Personality is both our strength and our weakness. While it’s our nature—and, being creative people, writers should naturally have interesting personalities—it’s also the most intimate thing about ourselves and we are protective of our privatest parts. Public speaking is not for everyone.

Conferences and their opportunities for schmoozing with the big-wigs give most emerging authors the willies, if not outright palpitations. The whole face-time thing means we can’t hide behind our computer screens anymore.

Personality and in-person go hand in hand. Bye-bye, solitude.


It's all part of the publishing game. We must learn how to write better and improve our craft if we want to be published. Likewise, we must learn how to appear in public if we want to sell our books.

Emerging authors sell more books to personal contacts than by any other route. Our first readers are our family and friends—so, naturally, they become our first customers. Using our personality to sell our books to them is as easy as blinking. However, once you try to move past the innermost circle of our audience, it gets a little harder.

So we must learn how to do it, and do it well.

My only regret is that when I started to take my writing seriously, I didn’t know enough to look ahead to the business side of things. Why would I have done that? I never crept out of bed at five in the morning because I planned to pursue publishing contracts. I did it because I wanted to write, not because I dreamed of book signings or meet-and-greets. Culturing an author appearance-worthy personality takes as much craft as completing a manuscript.

Lucky for me, I like to talk. My career in pharmacy requires me to be an expert in the field, an educator, a counsellor, and a professional communicator. When I go to book signings, I draw on the strengths I’d developed in my day job and use them to my advantage. (Bonus is I don’t have to filter everything I say. When I’m at my author job, I get to be as sassy as I want to be.)

I love to talk to readers about books, and not just my own. I get to connect with readers who like the same kinds of stories that I do. My favorite appearances have been in libraries because that’s where the readers live. The real payoff lies in knowing that I made face-time with readers who will tell their friends about my books. That word-of-mouth is what grows our audience in the beginning—and word-of-mouth spreads fastest when we’re the ones doing the talking.

The Real Secret to Success...
If you are on submission with your first book, or anticipating your first release, celebrate the first victory: the moment you took your book out of the computer and sent it to a complete stranger.

That’s bravery at its finest. Just remember, though, that there are still times ahead when you are going to have to re-prove your courage—when you have to actually go out in the world, book in hand, and tell a complete stranger what it’s about and why they should read it.

Don’t wait until your first appearance is a week away and decide to have a complete meltdown because you just don’t have the type of personality. You do have that type of personality. You just need to cultivate it.

Start close to home. Practice your pitch on family and friends. They are going to buy the book anyway—why not use the opportunity to hone your charm? Practice now means ease of execution later.

Do mini-readings where you’re already comfortable. At work, at your kids’ playgroups, at your church or community events—your neighbors and your acquaintances are perfect for pre-appearance practice. You may have started writing in secret solitude like I did—but when you have a book to sell, the time for secrets is long past.

Start small. Does the thought of walking into Barnes and Noble to ask for a book signing scare the living hell out of you? Don’t start there. Start with your local library and offer to do a reading. Bring some bookmarks to hand out and a few copies of your book. You will drive home and have that surreal moment where you go Holy cow. I just had a book signing. Then you’ll wink at people in their cars the rest of the ride because you’re all that and a bag of chips.

Barnes and Nobel just might still be there next year. You’ll get there. Don’t worry.

The bottom line is…you may write in solitude now, but you can’t stay there forever. Hone your writing craft, but don’t neglect your in-person personality. Write your pitches and read them out loud. Tell the very next person you encounter that you are a writer, and that you’d love to tell them about your book.

Don’t keep your biggest achievement a secret. Learn to talk about your book now so that the word-of-mouth you get later on will be made of good words.

Experienced authors—what secret can you share with emerging writers regarding those scary first appearances?






Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash at www.ashkrafton.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press) or stop by the Demimonde Blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com . WOLF’S BANE (Demimonde #3) is forthcoming June 2014. 

Think Before You Write

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a story in my head.

All my life, while I was busy with grade school and high school and university and work and family there has always been a stream of consciousness separate from my daily life, an alternate universe with denizens and motives and intentions of their own. Usually, it all stayed in the back of my mind while I was concentrating on my daily activities. But in moments of downtime—when I was driving, or doing housework, or before I fell asleep—I would slip over to that other world and just pick up where I left off, as easily as flipping to a bookmarked page.

I have never outgrown it.

I starting serious writing in 2004, when I actively sat down at a key board and starting putting words down and sentences together. Ten years ago, I wrote my first CHAPTER ONE.

But I realized that I had been a writer long before that. I’ve been a writer just about my entire life, even though I’ve only been typing it out for the last ten years of it.

And that’s the true nature of writing: it’s 10% typing and 90% thinking.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I could hook an electrode-strapped harness to my head to capture all my brain stories, all that 90% that streams along through the back of my head when I can’t stop to write it down. So much of what happens in my brain stories is a once and done thing—a quick and perfect and devastating exchange of dialog, an emotionally-loaded look, an action sequence that would knock your socks right off—so much of it, executed perfectly, then lost.

That kills me. Even if I were to sit down as soon as I can and start banging out the scene, it never feels quite the same as it did during its inception. I feel like I lose little parts of myself every time that happens.

I bought a voice recorder last month so that when I’m driving to work, I can just let it roll and capture all the little story bits as they pop up. Talking it out is a lot different than thinking it out, so the process isn’t perfect—but it helps.

If only I had a brain-harness. An output jack in my frontal lobe, a USB port that I can plug into my computer and just hit DOWNLOAD. It would make for awkward sleeping, probably, and would definitely itch like a bugger but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about that wonderful 90% slipping away before it can be captured in black and white.

Or…and I’m just thinking out loud here…wifi. No wires. Just thinking and watching it type itself on the screen. Like Dragon Naturally Thinking. HOW COOL would that be?

At least for a hot minute. Because if there was tech for that, then there would be a hack, and people could go around wifi’ing your brain and stealing your thoughts and the next thing you know, you’ve wearing a tin foil hat and cowering in a bomb shelter.

Tin foil hats are NOT cool. So, wifi is out. (Haven’t ruled out the USB thing yet, though.)

Until the tech is available, I guess I settle for more analog solutions. Good old pen and paper, stuffed into every purse and pocket and even the pillow case. I'd hate to miss a single word of that 90%.

What about you? When it comes to your writing process, how do you capture your own 90%?

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Think Before You Write #writingtip

Don't let 90% of your story slip away! 

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash at www.ashkrafton.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press) or stop by the Demimonde Blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com . WOLF’S BANE (Demimonde #3) is forthcoming mid-2014.