Tag: writing

Conferences–Worth it?

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 I am writing this blog when I should be booking a ticket to Nashville. I’ve already signed up for Killer Nashville, you see, and–though I’ve paid my conference fee and for my hotel–I have yet to book a flight. I will. I’m hemming and hawing about airline prices and not yet wanting to part with the money in my savings account.  Conferences can empty wallet. I’ve yet to attend one that didn’t ultimately set me back a grand with all the travel expenses and registration fees–not to mention the cost of promotional swag. So, a natural question is, are they worth it?  I think conferences help build an author’s brand and enable writers to connect with other novelists, both of which can sell books. Though I think anyone that believes he or she will go to a conference and see a resulting spike in his or her Amazon ranking will be ultimately disappointed. Conferences are largely attended by other writers. And, though writers buy and read lots of books, they are there to sell their own work–not to spend a bunch of money on their friends’ novels. What’s more important, though, is that writers talk about other writers and, ultimately, will read and promote authors whom they respect. This community promotion can help legitimize a new author’s career and get mid-list authors noticed. Successful writers, in my experience, are very generous with their time and platforms, perhaps because they were once in a similar situation on the mid-list or struggling to get published. (I also believe that people who spend a great deal of time imagining the feelings of others in various situations might be trained to be more empathetic than the average Joe. Though, this is a theory based entirely on supposition).  Conferences also give out awards recognizing stellar books, which can be helpful for sales. And, since writers typically vote for the winning titles, it can be difficult for a novice to get noticed for such recognition if he or she doesn’t have other authors–likely met at conferences and book signings and panels–who are aware of his or her work.  So, I guess that means I should go on Travelocity.     

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What's next?

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All the writers I know are finishing a book, thinking about their next one and likely marketing another. The first book is ‘the’ book. The idea that just wouldn’t stay off the page. The next one (or 3 or 30) is a different story. I asked my fellow MissDemeanors how they approach that ‘next project’ question and here’s what I learned: Paula:  It depends on where you are in your career. I advise my clients to write the project they are most passionate about that also makes the most sense strategically. When it comes to my own writing, I try to follow my own advice! Michele:  I’m trying to follow the advice of my agent! I have been living with a new character who is demanding that her story be told and I want to tell it. I’ve been writing it and rewriting it until I feel like I am in her bone marrow. But I am also trying to temper my extreme engagement with Olivia with a sense about how her story will reach people, which means being market savvy. Like it or not, that’s part of the reality. Susan:  I think (or hope) that my next project is a sequel, so that makes things sort of simple. However, I always find myself working on a short story whenever I finish up a novel. It’s a way to explore ideas and figure out if there’s something to them. And of course, I always ask Paula! Robin:  My fiction projects usually start with real-life situations (cyber threats and attacks) that haunt me. Then I create a main character who’s often an amalgam of relevant perspectives and with a reason for that character to be the messenger. The rest of the story flows from the supporting cast. And a chat or several with Paula, of course 🙂 First drafts defy my initial plot notes every time and I don’t fight it. The characters take me in directions I didn’t expect as the story develops around them. I have a lot of fun with it. Cate: I write standalone novels so I am always grappling with what’s next. Fortunately, I feel as though another idea is always percolating. I am finishing up my fourth book and have tentative outlines for three more projects.  Books, both contemporary and classic, are large sources of inspiration for me, as is music. Sometimes I hear a song and combine it with images in my life and stories that I’ve heard and I get another idea. I also have woken up from dreams with an entire three act story (my subconscious is very busy).  I can’t wait to read ALL of your ‘nexts’! Thanks for sharing.

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It's still May. Short story month.

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 I recently spoke to a middle school class in Athens, Tennessee and was impressed by their thoughts on writing, what they were writing and how excited they were about the entire process from inspiration to words on paper to editing (which they informed me was the hardest and most important part!). In this class, and when I meet children or young adults with their parents, one of the inevitable questions is what should I do if I want to be a writer? That’s a loaded question but one of the things I usually mention is name recognition through competitions. (After all, practice and potential resume building aren’t bad for anyone.) Inevitable we talk about short story competitions. Why? There are quite a few of them. And while writing a short story isn’t easier than writing a full length novel it is ‘shorter,’ which hopefully translates into a shorter timeline for completion. While name recognition for a contest winner or short story publication is a great thing, there are other wonderful reasons to tackle the short story. Perhaps most importantly, it is a tool in development of writing craft. Short stories may be short but they have a beginning, middle and end. Their length makes it all the more critical to distill all knowledge into an abbreviated word count. A good short story will always be tight and succinct (whereas a novel can legitimately be lengthy). That leads to the part that the middle schoolers felt was the hardest and most important – editing. A masterful short story is a well edited story. This doesn’t mean that a short story edits out theme or twists or experimentation with POV or any other of the other things that writers use in full length novels. The short story provides space for everything, just judiciously. A theme is the heart of any story! Recently I asked a short story writer what was their biggest piece of advice. The answer: start the story very near the end. Are you a short story writer? Any advice? Any favorites? 

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In Jane Austen territory

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This morning I woke up to this view. If it looks a little bit familiar, it may be because all of us who’ve read Pride and Prejudice have been nurtured by Austen’s descriptions of the beautiful landscape of the South Downs.  Isn’t this glorious?                                       If you go outside, and take a walk (which I did!) you come to a forest, or a weald. Strolling through, I could just imagine Mr. Darcy walking toward me.     A few miles away, you come to a rambling old manor house. Near the manor house is a church similar to the one Jane Austen attended. Now I want to go back and read her books!  

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Being there

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 Hello from England! For the past week I’ve been traveling around England. One of the many pleasures of my trip has been seeing and smelling and touching places that I’ve only just read about. As science fiction writers know, it is not actually necessary to go to a place to write about it, but it does open up amazing vistas when you can actually be there.    Today we went to Eltham Palace, which was a significant place during the Tudor era. Here is where Henry VIII’s nursery was. Elizabeth I was a baby here as well, and her older half sister, Mary, was forced to help take care of her.  Anne Boleyn spent her last Christmas here, and some of the crimes she was accused of committing were said to have taken place here. So it is resonant. And there I was in the Great Hall, looking up at the same incredible carved wood ceiling Anne Boleyn would have stared at. It’s a huge room. The Tudors were not into privacy.  You can almost hear the commotion. Much of the building is gone, but you get a sense of the massiveness of it. Then I went out into the lawn and was wandering around and looked south and saw London. Of course,  she probably would not have been able to see anything in the 1500s. No sky scrapers then. But it gave me a sense of the geography of her life.  It helps me understand her better, and that’s the point.     

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Learning From Imaginary People

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At its best, a novel can be a masterclass on life. My favorite books have taught me about myself. More importantly, they’ve allowed me to see myself in others and recognize others in me. They’ve exposed my limited experience and asinine assumptions, and have challenged me to learn more, listen more, and become better.  Most writers I’ve met feel similarly. Often, such feelings are the source of our deep love for story telling. So, my question this week to the MissDemeanors is What Life Lessons Have You Learned From Fiction? Here are our answers.  Cate: At around age eight, Harriet The Spy helped clarify my then budding ambition to become a writer. I pretty much thought Harriet was me with a less well-guarded notebook. Catcher In The Rye’s Holden Caulfield reflected my own teenage angst and frustration with the adult world, and it made me realize that getting through life requires acceptance and change. You can’t fight everything without going nuts. Thanks J.D. Salinger. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and Song of Solomon (all of which I read in high school) helped me develop a broader sense of empathy and gave me a sensitivity to other female experiences in America. This was particularly important for me at the time as I was developing my own cultural identity, trying to determine what it meant to be biracial in America and what experiences I could and could not connect with given that my black heritage is often belied by my appearance. Recently, Margaret Atwood’s fiction has served as an reminder to remain aware of the greater political landscape in which I live. Bouncing along in my self-absorbed bubble may be bliss, but it also makes finding myself in a dystopia a hell of a lot more likely. Paula: Emerson’s essays taught me to think, the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales taught me to dream, Nora Ephron’s Heartburn taught me to laugh no matter what. Shakespeare and Jane Austen taught me that people are funny and tragic and generous and terrible and evil and noble and true. Mysteries taught me plot and red herrings; romance taught me meet cutes and happy endings. But I learn just as much writing as I do reading, especially about myself. Tell a story well and you can’t help but reveal yourself, warts and all. I just got my notes back from my editor on my new novel and I was so worried about the plot, but he said the plot was fine, though the relationship between the heroine and the hero needed work. Now that really is the story of my life. Robin: Kurt Vonnegut, Woody Allen and Steve Martin taught me to embrace absurdity. Joan Didion’s Hot Flashes warned me about what laid in store (spoiler: she was right, “flash” is a misnomer). Dean Koontz taught me that humans can be the scariest monsters. James Herriot made me want to be a veterinarian when I was 10 yrs old, until the vet treating my family’s dog invited me watch a surgery and I fainted. I second Paula’s comment – I learn more about myself by writing fiction. What I’m willing to say and what I’m not, how much better my work is when the words make me uncomfortable. I’m writing a YA thriller at the moment and I cried after finishing the first draft of more than one scene. Tracee: Reading Tolstoy made me a lifelong Russophile, Dickens secured my love of history. Mysteries taught me plot and clues and red herrings (which also apply to real life) and thrillers made me realize that I am not a thrill seeker in any way. Anything I’ve ever read has taught me that there are many perspectives and situations that are not my own – some I wish were, and some I’m thankful are not. No lesson is perfect, but fiction taught me that sometimes you don’t get a second chance – but sometimes you do. Susan: Dickens taught me that life has insane highs and lows, and you’re always better off if you can try to find some humor in any given situation. I’m reading The Nightingale now and it’s teaching me so much about bravery and the importance of knowing your values and speaking up for them. Anne Tyler, Louise Penny and Richard Russo showed me the value of community. And Agatha Christie. I always wanted to live in St. Mary Mead, and I suspect I chose my village, and Maggie Dove, for that reason. Reading has also shown me that although it’s a big world, most people are motivated by similar concerns, and I try to keep that in mind when I meet new people. Michele: I read Elizabeth George Speare’s historical masterpiece, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, when I was nine and learned that even in the 1600’s people suffered from feeling different, an invaluable lesson for someone on the brink of adolescence. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn opened my eyes to a world where people lived very differently than in the world in which I was growing up. To Kill A Mockingbird inspired a sense of social justice in me and showed me how one good lawyer can make a difference. Jane Austen taught me that romantic comedy has been alive and well for centuries and how important it is to be able to laugh at yourself. Mark Twain’s lesson was that good humor serves you well in life. Louise Penny has recently touched me and made me appreciate how comforting and inspiring a good story filled with fallible humans can be. Alexia: Alice in Wonderland and Nancy Drew taught me that girls could have adventures, too. 

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Seeking Anne Boleyn

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For the last few years I’ve been working on a book in which Anne Boleyn is a character. One of the thing that intrigues me, as a fiction writer, is that there are so few agreed upon facts about her. Even the year of her birth is up for debate. Some people say she was born in 1501, which would make her around 35 years old at the time of her death, a comparatively old woman in Tudor times. Others say she was born in 1507. The arguments on both sides are compelling (I think I lean toward 1507), but without knowing the precise details, we also don’t know precisely where she was born. We also don’t know if she was the oldest daughter or the youngest. So it’s fun to make up stories about her because you get to fill in all those gaps.   For the next two weeks, I’ll be traveling around England as part of a Tudor Tapestry tour led by Alison Weir, (who you may know because she’s written many wonderful books, among them Six Wives of Henry VIII, which was the book that sparked my interest in the whole subject. )I’ll be writing about my adventures for QueenAnneBoleyn.com, which is a fabulous site. You can also find them on Facebook. So prepare for Tudor Week on the Miss Demeanors!  

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I Can't Go For That, No, No Can Do…

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   I read a blog post a few weeks ago about a novel that had celebrated—or notorious, depending on which side of the debate you fell on—twist ending. Comments on the blog lined up in one of two columns—loved it or hated it. The haters complained the book had run afoul of one of their pet peeves: cop-out/too-convenient endings, genre switching, unconvincing characters, etc. The reactions to that novel prompted me to ask my fellow Missdemeanors:  What do you hate most in fiction writing, mystery or otherwise? What’s your pet peeve? Alexia: I hate it when a mystery author conceals a fact from readers when that fact is critical to solving the puzzle, then has the sleuth produce the fact out of nowhere, leaving readers saying, “Where’d that come from?”. For example, Snuffy Smith’s long-lost identical twin is revealed as the murderer but his twin was never, even once, mentioned/hinted at/alluded to–not even the suggestion of the possibility Snuffy might have a twin–before the big reveal.  That’s cheating. To paraphrase the rules of the Detection Club, a detective can’t have out-of-the-blue hunches that turn out to be right, can’t withhold clues from the reader, the solution to the crime can’t be chalked up to “divine revelation, feminine intuition, mumbo jumbo, jiggery pokery, coincidence, or Act of God”.(I’ll make allowances for “Act of God” if it’s a paranormal mystery and God is the sleuth.) Michele: Since you asked, and since I recently ranted about this on Facebook… I hate it when an author pulls a cheap trick at the end of a book so that the reader is unfairly surprised. It’s a variation of what Alexia has said. Instead of spinning a plot that thrilled the reader, in a book I recently read, the author purposely deceives the reader about something not central to the plot and uses it as a cheap “thrill” at the end. If it weren’t on my Kindle, it would have been the third book I’ve thrown across the room in my entire life. The author used the deception as substitute for an exciting plot twist. Years ago, I read a book while sick with the flu that had fabulous writing, a good plot, likable characters. There was no hint that it was going paranormal until at the very end, a character walked through a door. I mean THROUGH A DOOR. And don’t get me started on the one Anita Shreve pulled. At a conference, she told livid readers that she still gets complaints on what she did in one of her books, years later. (No spoilers here). Come on, guys. Play fair! Cate: I hate it when the villain is just evil. Bad people typically have a way of justifying their actions or they weren’t fully in control when they did the bad thing and now feel remorse. I HATE the sociopathic gun-for-hire killers. Fine if the writer explains how the killer got that way—a lá Grosse Pointe Blank. But I refuse to accept the bad-just-because explanation. Robin: I have 2 pet peeves in all genres:1) “Was.” I stopped reading a best seller on page 2 after counting 26 instances of “was.” Used sparingly it can be appropriate but not 26x in the first 2 pages. Whenever I see “was,” I rewrite the sentence in my head to make it active rather than passive. Overuse just exhausts me and irritates my inner editor.2) “Fortunately” or “unfortunately.” This kind of echoes your sentiment, Alexia. These statements of coincidence dropped out of thin air with no prior context will make me stop reading. Show me the build-up as characters arrive at their opinions of good or bad circumstances, or lead me to draw my own conclusions as the story unfolds. The only time I kept reading past the repeated use of “unfortunately” was Gone Girl. It fit with the character’s voice (no spoilers so I’m not saying who said it). Susan: I hate it when I get to the end of a book and can’t remember who on earth the suspects are. You could insert any name and it wouldn’t matter. Then comes the big reveal and I think, Oh. Nice. Who? Paula: I’m not a big fan of ambiguous endings. Nor endings which play out the theme of “Life is shit.” I don’t mind “life is shit but it’s all we’ve got so enjoy what you can,” but the “life is shit, we may as well all slit our wrists now” endings I find intolerable. I don’t need a happy ending, but I at least want a hopeful one. Tracee: Can I simply agree with you all? My pet peeves are variations on your themes, although the ‘life is shit’ one is really a no-go for me. Purely evil character with no deeper meaning is probably second. Honestly, I’m so fixated on making Michele tell us which Anita Shreve pulled the ‘character out of the air’ trick that I can’t focus on anything else. I haven’t read all her books, so don’t think I simply don’t remember it. I’m going to take Michele out for drinks at Malice and force her to tell me. Then maybe that will be my top pet peeve.

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Resources for writers. Oh, how times have changed.

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This blog was recently spotlighted in Writer’s Digest as one of the 101 best for writers. (And it was one of only three named specifically for the mystery genre.) It was a thrill for our group – our Andy Warholian fifteen minutes of fame!  That said, don’t worry if you didn’t see the list, or if you read over www.MissDemeanors.com if you did. There’s a lot of information out there these days. Part of me embraces the connectivity. That’s certainly why I blog with these wonderful fellow writers. Writing can be an isolating experience and staying in touch via electronic media helps. Fifty – even twenty – years ago we would have written letters. More personal? Perhaps. But also limiting. I doubt the MissDemeanors would have all participated in a weekly round robin letter. While I appreciate, and value, all of the on-line resources available today, I can’t help but also give a shout out to the old-fashioned kind. Strunk and White anyone? I still have two copies on my shelf near to hand. And the newer and hipper Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss? I keep it on my nightstand – it is truly urbane, witty and very English as the book jacket proclaims. A chance to be entertained and learn a thing or two. My point? How do you wade through “what’s out there” without merely marking everything under the sun as informative and to be read later? In my case, I stick with a few resources. Writer’s Digest being one of them. I also try to follow Jane Friedman as much as possible. After that, I attempt to keep in the loop about conferences both local and national, big and small since they are wonderful face-to-face opportunities to connect with both writers and readers. And I confess to loving Twitter – in small doses. It’s like taking the pulse of the world. And I keep my old stand bys – the Strunk and Whites of the world – at hand. When the internet crashes, I’ll be thankful they’re here. What do you do?

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How do you know when you're done?

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This is a question I’m asked frequently by my students, and I wish I had a clear-cut answer. Having an agent is a huge help in this respect because I’m done when Paula says I’m done. But how do I know I’m done enough to send it to Paula?  I have two indicators: When I reach a point when I can read through the manuscript and have nothing else to add. When I begin daydreaming about a different story. That’s usually a sign that my mind has moved on. For further insights, I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors for their thoughts and this is how they replied: Tracee: I’m done when the deadline hits (well, really once the final round of edits are finished, but those have a deadline as well…. ). That’s when the manuscript gets pulled from my fingers. Of course that kind of deadline is for work that will be published – it’s due! I’ve written many full length manuscripts that I’ve never submitted for publication. Those were also ‘completed’ but it is trickier because you can keep on and on and on editing. I’ve always stopped when I felt it was good enough for a professional to view (although that would probably mean an agent which would likely mean a few more edits before submission.). I’ve always liked to ‘finish’ things. It will never be perfect but more time won’t necessarily make it so. And that applies to most anything. Paula:Ha! With my deadline looming on April 1, I’ll be done when it’s April 1. Until I get notes from my editor. In truth, the work is never really done.  Robin: I know I’m done when Paula says I’m done 🙂 My non-fiction and journalism work has all been under deadline so the date played a major part but I stopped tinkering when beta readers previously unfamiliar with the subject matter understood the points I endeavored to make and found the message delivery entertaining. I’m looking forward to fiction deadlines when I can say the same. Michele: The same way I know when I’m done with a recipe, or a garden. When one more ingredient, plant, or word would detract from the work done. Knowing what’s enough doesn’t come easy. Alexia: I’m done at some obscene hour of the morning on the date of the deadline for the final round of edits. Even then, in my head I’m not really done. The nagging thought, “Oh, I should have…,” is ever present, circling like a hungry wolf. Or laughing hyena.
 Cate: Since I write standalone novels, I know it’s done when my protagonist’s arc feels complete. She or he has solved the mystery and the character has grown in some way. Then, I give it a few weeks and read it with fresh eyes, and if it still feels done, it’s done…. At least until my editor tells me I have to change it up. 🙂 

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