The Word Writers Dread

 

©Stina Lindenblatt

Many writers are paralyzed at the thought of writing queries. It’s like our whole future as a writer comes down to those 150 to 250 words. Blow them, and an agent will pass on your book before he even gives it a chance.

So we slave away at our query. We ask our beta readers and critique partners to provide feedback. We risk humiliation by posting it on public forums for strangers to tear apart. And tear it apart they will, often at the risk of asking you include everything but the kitchen sink. Often at the risk of either sucking out your voice or giving you a new one. Heck, they might even try to change your query to a story that doesn’t exist.

Once you’ve beaten your query into shape and shed a few tears over it, you’re now ready to send it out and refresh your inbox every 2.3 minutes.

Or are you?

We loathe writing queries, but there’s something else we loathe even more—the dreaded synopsis.

Now, I know writers who hate them so much, they purposefully exclude all agents from their query list who want a synopsis with the query and sample pages. The writers hope the agent who doesn’t request a synopsis will be the one to offer representation, and then the writer doesn’t have to create one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. When your agent is ready to pitch your book to editors, she will send out your blurb (aka query), author bio, and synopsis. Stop. Let’s rewind and play that again. She will send out your synopsis, and if an editor is interested, he will request your manuscript.

TIPS FOR WRITING SYNOPSIS

Where’s the ending?

The query should intrigue the agent or editor enough to request your manuscript. It’s like the blurb on the back cover of a book. You don’t want to reveal the ending of your story in the query. This is a major difference between the query and synopsis. If you don’t include the ending of your story in the synopsis, it’s an instant rejection.

Don’t Forget the Voice

Sample pages are not included in the submission package sent to editors. They rely on your synopsis to get an idea of your voice. A dry sounding synopsis isn’t going to win you points. Just like with the query, try to infuse voice in your synopsis.

Whose POV Is This In?

The synopsis is always written in third person, present tense, even if your book is in first person, past tense. The exception is when you reveal backstory necessary to the synopsis. Then you write it in simple past tense. If your book is in first person and you’re having difficulties writing the synopsis in third, write it in first person then change it to third. If your story is told from multiple point of views, pick the protagonist whose story is the main one, and write the synopsis based on that. It’s impossible to include everybody’s storyline in the synopsis without confusing the reader, so don’t even try.

Keep It Simple

Your story will be complex with multiple layers and characters, but for your synopsis, keep it simple. Mention only the key characters and only focus on the main points of the story. This is easy to do if your book follows basic story structure (e.g. inciting incident, first turning point, midpoint, second turn point, etc). For more information on story structure, check out Save the Cat by Blake Synder, Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hague. And make sure you show your protagonist’s character arc in the synopsis.

How long?

This varies from agent to agent. Some ask for one page. Some want up to five pages. If it’s more than one page, the synopsis will be double spaced. A one page synopsis will be single spaced. The easiest way to write one is to make it as long as it needs to be to get your main points down, then edit, edit, edit. To save time, create several synopses of different lengths, then you’re ready no matter what the agent requests.

Start Early

Get in the habit of creating the synopsis before you write the first draft. By doing this, you can ensure you have a cohesive story that moves forward, and you don’t waste time on a story with structural issues. Also, if you eventually go on to sign a multi-book contract, your editor may want to see the synopsis for your yet unfinished books.

Review your synopsis anytime you make changes to the plot. There’s nothing worse than expecting a happily-ever-after ending, as stated in the synopsis, only to discover that in the manuscript the author sent you, the hero is murdered in a tragic ending.

Get Feedback

We spend time ensuring our queries are compelling and free of errors by enlisting the help of others to give us feedback. Make sure you take the same care with your synopsis. While your agent will help you make it shine, if need be, they are extremely busy. By putting it through the same degree of scrutiny you put your query through, it will make her job easier. And that will make your agent happy.  

When do you tend to write the synopsis? Do you enjoy writing them, or do you prefer writing the query?

Stina Lindenblatt @StinaLL writes Young Adult and New Adult novels. In her spare time, she’s a photographer, a blogging addict, and can be found hanging out on her blog (when she isn’t writing).  She’s represented by Marisa Corvisiero, and finds it weird talking about herself in third person.

Finding Your Voice—And Keeping It

Each writer has a unique voice, that conglomeration of tone and word choice that makes our work as individual as we are. Strong voices stand out, catch our attention, resonate with us, and draw us into their stories. Voice gets a writer noticed and is what makes a reader react in a love-it-or-hate-it-way.

It is not enough to merely have a great story. Think of your favorite book. Your all-time favorite, read-over-and-over, spine-worn-and-dog-ear-paged book. Now, concentrate. What kind of voice does it have?

What if that book used another voice? For instance, try a layer of Jane Austen. Or Michael Crichton. Or Erma Bombeck. How would that story change? Do you still want to read it?

Think of your current WIP. Imagine it having a completely different voice. What happens to it?

Do you still want to write it? Does it inspire you to new heights?

A story without its voice is like mashed potatoes without salt. Sure, you can still consume it and it probably won't kill you but it lacks a very necessary flavor. And flavor makes all the difference.

Just as each recipe has its own unique flavor, each story must have its own perfect voice and it must be consistent throughout the story. A voice that changes half-way though will invariably confuse the reader. A voice that changes as frequently as my daughter changes clothes on the weekend (she's a touring-Cher-in-training) will baffle a reader completely and perhaps even make her lose interest in the book.

It's not enough for a writer to find that perfect voice—the writer must keep it. Consistency is key.

Writing my debut and its sequels used a voice similar to my own—the MC is just sassier and she dates a demivampire. Channeling that voice was easy compared to some of my other work and I'd jumped in and out of her POV with relative ease. I suppose part of that is because I wrote those books in chunks of free time, before work or waiting for the kids to get out of school. I was surrounded by my life and times so a layer of myself is written into the voice.

My other WIPs use different voices compared to Sophie and her saga. Although they are all fantasy novels, they are different kinds of fantasy—adult traditional, contemporary YA, militant magic realism—and they each have their own voice. None of them use a voice similar to anything I walk around with in my head all day.

Lately, I've been moving back and forth between projects, trying to keep several editors happy at once. It would be a heck of a lot easier if they were all the same kind of projects...but, no. I have to go and try to impress my husband by showing him how versatile my writing can be.

Thus, a challenge presents itself.

Fortunately, I have "blinders" I can wear so that I keep my voices straight while writing. Most times, a quiet room and a moment of concentration are all I need, but owning children and a dog and a telephone hinder those simple requirements. Good thing I've learned to adapt to my environment with the use of gentle reminders.

Certain types of music help me stay in voice. I've got a huge music collection and I can usually find the right CD for the job. Music has become an integral part of writing, to the point where I have playlists for every project. (Just in case a studio ever needs a soundtrack to my book's movie. I like to be prepared.) Movie soundtracks are also helpful since the music is often theme oriented—especially instrumentals or foreign language soundtracks, since they provide the right mood without distracting me with words.

Speaking of movies, a DVD playing in another room will often keep me focused on my tale—I chose the movie based on the genre, the actors, the sounds of their voices. It's kind of like writing in a coffee shop or some other public place, surrounded by the people and the sounds of the world I'm creating. When you're writing fantasy, you can't always take a day-trip to an alternate world and hang out with demivampires or magic-using dissidents.

My ears aren't the only assets that need to be reminded when I'm writing. Particular types of clothing can often help me maintain the right flow.

Usually, a good pair of boots will do it. I've a pair of flat-heeled Colin Stuarts that make a nice sharp clack when I walk, providing a cadence for a group of mage-born freedom fighters. My biking jacket, light enough to wear indoors, is perfect when channeling my inner repo man for a character who works for her dad at their magical pawn shop. (It's close enough to the one my character wears when she's out on a collateral recovery operation.)

And although I usually don't plan it, my kitchen aprons (yes, I wear aprons. I know. The coolness is overwhelming) remind me enough of my traditional fantasy healer's skirts that I often find myself wandering along her story lines while I'm baking or making tomato sauce.

I don't think I'll ever go so far as to pull my old Ren Faire costumes out of the wardrobe but who knows—maybe one day I'll strike upon a new idea involving Shakespeare (and the undead, of course) and I'll spend my writing mornings trussed up like a courtier. God save the Queen! (Because the zombies are coming.)

Why stop there? Scent also has a powerful effect on memory. Perhaps a scented candle or a room spray are enough to evoke the mood that will keep you rooted in the character--and keep you writing in voice. The same goes for taste--small wonder why my series' heroine is never too far from a Starbucks.

Sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell--these tips make use of my senses in order to keep hold of my writer's voice. Maybe it's cheating...but I call it craft.

When it comes to writing our stories, voice is everything. Let's hear yours--do you have a favorite method of keeping hold of your writer's voice?




Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who resides in the heart of the Pennsylvania coal region, where she keeps the book jacket for "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in a frame over her desk. Visit Ash's blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com for news on her newly released urban fantasy "Bleeding Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde" (Pink Narcissus Press 2012).

Your Character's Language

Five minutes after meeting a guy at my daughter's winter concert, he stopped the conversation and said, "Are you an engineer?"

I laughed out loud. "No, but I'm bilingual in Geek."

I explained that I was married to a Geek, and then, as it turned out, my Beloved Geek works for the same company as the gentleman to whom I was speaking. In five minutes of talking to a senior computer engineer about music theory, I'd matched my diction and conversation style to his, and he'd pegged me for an engineer.

Why is this important? Because within five minutes of reading about your main character, we should peg him or her for what he or she is, even if he or she never mentions it. This isn't "voice" in the current usage of the word, which refers more to the feeling generated in the reader by seamless, comfortable prose. Instead I'm talking about your characters speaking as themselves.

The advice we commonly hear is "write what you know," but most of the time we're not following that to the letter. Perhaps your main character is a hair stylist, and you yourself are not a hair stylist. How do you write this character convincingly?

First, you learn to speak like your character.

In the past, I've had to become bilingual not only in Geek but in Musician, Stutterer, Police Officer, Auto Mechanic, Priest, and NASCAR Driver. The languages aren't hard to master -- but that's deceptive because every subcategory of person is going to have its own lingo and its own frames of reference. In order to convincingly write these characters, you need to immerse yourself in the way people of that category speak.

And to raise the degree of difficulty, your character most likely doesn't fit into only one category: sometimes she may be speaking like a homicide detective, but at home she may be speaking like a bereaved mother, and maybe on Sundays she's speaking like an evangelical Christian. Meaning for the duration of the book, you her writer need to be trilingual.

The way to do that is not to string a bunch of cliches together. It's to learn to speak like your character; think like your character; frame reality like your character.

"But Jane," you're saying (because I can also speak Baffled Writer), "um, how?"

The trick isn't just researching the character's background and the information your character would know. You can pick up a book and learn how police investigate a murder or how a violinist tunes a violin. In order to hear how these characters speak, you need to do the following:

1) Talk to real-life people who do these jobs or fit these classifications

(You didn't need to read a weblog to know that, so we'll move on.)

2) Pick up magazines written for and read by individuals in these jobs or classifications. You'll combine facts with lingo this way and get a basic sense of usage. (At first you will be very, very confused. Just let it all wash over you. It'll begin to make sense soon enough.) Even the ads will tell you what the target audience wants, needs, and fears. 

3) Find a support group online where people of your character's description gather. And read. Read. Read. Read. Read everything you can find. Don't pay attention to who's posting and when. Absolutely do not post there yourself. But immerse yourself until you're breathing the same air your character breathes.

Online support groups are invaluable. When I researched stuttering, I googled it thinking I'd learn a couple of things, and five hours later, I had adopted a new mindset. The gift of speaking suddenly didn't seem all that natural any longer. It was a shock. It was amazing. I'd learned a dozen acronyms I'd never thought of (PWS, SLP...) and learned the most common pitfalls, problems, and issues. And how nasty people could be to those who stutter. My character improved a thousand percent.

When writing musicians, I visited violinist.com.  Support groups for violinists? Sure, why not? And the issues they wrote about weren't the issues I'd necessarily have assumed violinists face. I learned some of their prejudices, some of their pitfalls, some situations most violinists face, and their most common questions. I got to hear high-level players giving advice to newer players, and I learned from them. I learned how deeply some of them feel for their instruments.

Did I use the specifics? No, of course not. But did I get a sense of the emotional range among musicians? And did I leverage that to create my characters? You bet.

Similarly, blogs by people dealing with what your character deals with? They're a gold mine for capturing your character's mindset, lingo, language, and situations the character will find commonplace in his or her line of work.

4) Podcasts. Listening to someone talk off-the-cuff about his profession or self-categorization will give you everything you ever need to know about how your protagonist should speak. You'll hear the usage of their everyday terminology. You'll pick up not just the lingo but how it combines with their ordinary diction.

When you speak to someone directly about his profession, he'll tell you what he thinks about his profession. But when two professionals are talking with one another, they're going to be honest about the tough parts and the surprising parts. Mine this. It's gold.

Is reading or listening like this voyeuristic? In some senses yes. But it's all been posted in public by people who knew they were posting in public. So access it without guilt.

Moreover, when you're writing a character, you will want to do a good job portraying every single aspect of that character because of respect. Your characters deserve that much. When you truly respect a group or a profession, you want to show it as it is, and that means learning as much as possible about it. 

The internet gives you a window into the unpolished lives of every kind of person there is, every profession, every subcategory of human being. Leverage it to create the truest characters you can.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Guardian (Thomas Nelson, 1994), Seven Archangels: Annihilation (Double-Edged Publishing, 2008) and The Boys Upstairs (MuseItUp, 2010). At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four children. She is represented by the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Marianne Strong Literary Agency.

Writing a Query Letter with Voice

I fell so completely in love with a post from Elana's blog, that I've decided (with her blessing) to re-post it here. Elana is our resident query guru and will be presenting at the LDStoryMakers Conference this spring, along with lots of cool writers, agents and editors.

Writing a Query Letter with Voice

Voice is one of those ever elusive topics in writing. I did a post about voice on the QT blog a while back. I've read lots of things about it, sat in on voice classes at conferences, etc.

To me, every piece of writing has a voice. My blog. Yours. Whatever. It all has voice. Some are more distinct than others, but all writing has voice.

Like I said in the QT post, you can create voice through some writing exercises. And I find myself blogging in the same voice as the novel I'm currently working on. (Remember that post? Talk about embarrassing!)

So we all have it in our novels. Which means you must maintain the same voice in your query letter. Unfortunately many of us FAIL at this.

Here's my tip for avoiding the FAIL: Write the query letter from the POV of the character.

My books are almost always first person. So guess what I did to maintain that voice?

I wrote my query letter in first person.

*gasp!*

*wheeze*

*whispers* Doesn't she know the rules for writing query letters???

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. They should be done in third person, present tense.

Well, how many of you have written your novel in third person, present tense? (I'm pretty sure Lisa McMann doesn't read this blog, but she could raise her hand here.)

Yeah, no one.

So I submit that this is one reason why 99% of the writing population hates writing query letters. It's not in the character's POV. It's not even in a style of writing the author is used to.

So, dude! Why torture yourself? Change it to what you ARE used to writing in. (And then change it back.)

For me, it was first person. I can do present or past tense, so that wasn't an issue. But I wrote my query in first person, from Vi's point of view. (I did the same thing with my synopsis, BTW. I highly recommend it.)

By using Vi's narrating voice, using first person, I was able to infuse the voice of my novel into my query.

Then, really, it's simply a matter of changing the pronouns to get it back to third person, right? Right. (Okay, you'll have to do a little rearranging, but not much. And you'll maintain the voice of your novel, so it's a worthwhile trade-off.)

Query for Control Issues:

In a world where Thinkers brainwash the population and Rules are not meant to be broken, fifteen-year-old Violet Schoenfeld does a hell of a job shattering them to pieces.

After committing her eighth crime (walking in the park after dark with a boy, gasp!), Vi is taken to the Green, a group of Thinkers who control the Goodgrounds. She’s found unrehabilitatable (yeah, she doesn’t think it’s a word either) and exiled to the Badlands—until she demonstrates her brainwashing abilities. That earns her a one-way trip to appear before the Association of Directors.

Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen. She busts out of prison with sexy Bad boy Jag Barque, who also has no intention of fulfilling his lame sentence.

Dodging Greenies and hovercopters, dealing with absent-father issues, and coming to terms with feelings for an ex-boyfriend—and Jag as a possible new one—leave Vi little time for much else. Which is too damn bad, because she’s more important than she realizes. When secrets about her “dead” sister and not-so-missing father hit the fan, Vi must make a choice: control or be controlled.

And this is what one literary agent (who requested the full) said: "I found ... your writing/voice refreshing (it’s nice to see someone have fun with their text)."

What do you think? Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!

Thanks for sharing this with us, Elana!

Don't Use That Voice With Me!

Today, I'm going to talk about the voice of a novel, which is the literary term used to describe the individual writing style of an author. Voice was generally considered to be a combination of a writer's use of syntax, diction, punctuation, character development, dialogue, etc., within a given body of text (or across several works)... One author may have a voice that is light and fast paced while another may have a dark voice. (Source: Wikipedia: Writer's Voice)

So, how do you establish the voice of your novel? I've read it around a lot of publishing blogs. The voice of your novel is a deal breaker. Meaning, you need to have one. A strong one.

Most of us have a natural writing voice. It comes through in our blog posts, our informal emails, even out loud when we speak. You can write a novel in "your" voice. But what happens if you've A) already done that? or B) your voice doesn't match your character's story?

Let's explore.

Picture this: You sit down to write. You proceed to stare. Because you can't find your character's voice. Or your voice. Or any voice. This happened to me. I had a main character. He was in my head, talking away. He had a story. But he was vanilla. And while I like vanilla, I like it better with caramel and pecans and some of those peanut-butter-filled footballs. A lot better.

So how do you capture a new voice, one that isn't as familiar to you? Here are a few tips and tricks I learned as I went through this exact same problem.

Tip #1: Voice can't be forced, but it can be found. 

If you're having trouble finding your characters voice, sit down to free-write from the point of view of that character. But don't write your novel. 

What I Did: I imagined my MC in a high-stress situation, like he's been dating his best friend's sister, and his buddy just found out. I didn't worry about backstory, because I can imagine a situation like that. I simply wrote DIALOGUE my character would have with his bff. (Or do girls only have bff's?) The scene was mostly dialogue with some physical clues thrown in for emotional impact.

This showed me A) how my MC reacts in a tense scene and B) how he talks.

Then I imagined a completely different scenario. One where my character would have to convey information to the reader. Since I had just learned how he talked, I transferred that to narration. This second piece contained no dialogue whatsoever. Only narration. Establishing setting with sight, smell, taste, etc.

This showed me A) what details he might notice and B) how to move the unique voice most of us can establish in DIALOGUE into NARRATION. 

Trick #2: Choose something unique and have your character use it consistently. 

This is done to develop character, which is one of the parts of voice in a piece of writing. In Scott Westerfeld's PEEPS, one of the characters calls everyone "Dude." In Stephanie Meyer's TWILIGHT saga, Jacob always says, "Sure, sure." In Kristin Cashore's GRACELING, her narrating character begins a lot of sentences -- both in narration and in dialogue -- with "Well".

What I Did: In my first novel, my character starts a lot of her sentences with "Yeah". (ex: Yeah, that doesn't work for me. If you read my personal blog at all, you'll notice that I do the same thing.) So I certainly couldn't do that again. As I was free-writing, I seized on a word that my MC said, and now it's his "thing." He uses it in dialogue and in narration. It's not something I would've chosen on my own, but something I was looking for during the free-write session.

Tip #3: Don't go overboard.

Don't get me wrong. Voice is essential in a piece of writing. But it's essential the same way baking soda is in cookies. No baking soda = flat cookies. No voice = flat writing.

But how much baking soda do you put in? Not as much as the flour. Think about it.

So watch yourself. Sprinkle it in consistently, but don't take off the lid and dump it on us.

I might be back with another post on voice. How do you find the voice you write with?

Finding Your Voice

No, I don’t really mean your voice. I mean the voice of your novel. You’ve heard it all over the blogosphere: you’ve got to have an authentic voice, especially when writing for the teen market (which is huge right now. Did you see the announcement that Borders is making a teen section in their bookstores? Woot!).

So how does one do this?

Well, um, uh…

You’ve got to find the voice of the narrating character. Become them. Be one. This sounds deep, but it’s not, trust me.

Some people fill out character sheets. These are a good way to have all the pertinent information in one place. It’s a good start for finding the character’s voice, but it’s not really gonna get you there.

Why?

Well, take me for example. I bet you could name a lot of things about me. Hair color, eye color, height, weight (to a reasonable degree), where I work, how many kids I have, my favorite foods, color, music, things to do, birthday, etc. Heck, all you have to do is read my profile on blogger, Facebook or Myspace. Read a blog post or two, I reveal A LOT about myself. You could easily complete a character sheet on me.

Does that mean you know me?

Could you write a story with me as the narrator? If you read my blog, I bet you could. My voice is in every post. The way I talk and the way I write are pretty much the same.

And that’s where you find your character’s voice. In the writing. But I don’t mean the actual writing.

Yeah, you’re lost. Give me a second, I’ll bring you back.

I don’t think you can just sit down and start writing with an authentic voice. It usually takes me a few pages (meaning like, 50, sometimes more) to really “find” the character’s voice. Then I’ve got it. Then I just have to go back and fix those 50 pages.

So those first 50 pages don’t count as “actual writing”. It's exploratory writing, the writing you do to find the voice of the character. Once you’ve done that, you should be able to conduct a character interview. Ask your character questions, being sure to be yourself. Answer them, making sure to BE YOUR CHARACTER. You should know them so well, you know how they would sit for the interview. What they would do with their eyes, mouth, hair, hands, etc. while they’re talking.

Only then, do you really know your characters enough to write. And write for real this time. Only then will you be able to write with an authentic voice—one that is not your own, but that of your narrating character.

Try it! I conducted an interview with one of my main characters here. Do it, post it on your blog, and then be sure to let us know about it by leaving the link in the comments.

What do you think? Do you think you need exploratory writing time to find your character’s voice? How long does that usually take you? What steps do you take to find their voice?