How tech is too tech?

I love sci-fi. Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark, CJ Cherryh - I was to be them when I grow up. I want to create plausable worlds evolved from our own that a reader can enjoy imagining, but with their underlying structure based in genuine science.

Who wants to read pages about interstellar traffic control besides me? It's an interesting problem, but not a thing many care about. Am I wrong?

I find an FTL dogfight fascinating - so many basic things you couldn't do, like see. In my universe, space-warping drives  too close will wormhole and both go boom. One behind the other will lose effect till far enough from the one ahead.

Mail as the only interstellar communication makes the universe ripe for frontier-folk, for colonies of adventurous pioneers, separatists and crackpots. Chemical propellant is still the most common weapon tech, but railguns and lasers and particle accelerators are only the tip of the alternative iceberg. Modifications of ion and plasma rockets as weapons are very appealing, and though a laser sword is not possible, a supercharged monowire held tight by localized field acts a lot like a George Lucas "light saber".

The problem is that the more removed from the reader's daily routine, the more those details have to be drawn out to make the scene accurate, but if the morning toothbrushing machine is just the way things are done, you don't want to dwell on things that are commonplace to the characters. If they all breathe water, the sign language they use to communicate when their vocal cords are flooded should be automatic to them, but clear to the reader.

How much is too much? Imagine an armor suit with hydraulic muscles, with pressure sensors so the harder you push, the harder it pushes. Where are the elbows in a suit with ten-foot arms when your own arm is only three feet? Is the pilot's arm even in the suit arm, or does the larger arm just mimic it?

Every variation is out there, and showing them can be fun, but the details will bore readers who don't care. Is it better to skip the minutiae that make the setting, or skip the readers who hate such details? Best is a story where details fit and don't bog it down, but that's not always possible.

Do you like sci-fi? If so, is the tech just props, or is it an enjoyable part of the story? World-building detail should be as innocuous as weather. Do you like a story with more than a passing mention of sun or rain? I love weather references that build mood and make the setting real to me. Tech references should be the same, don't you think?

NaNoWriMo 2011

Well, it's finally over.  Technically there are a few hours yet, but I finished last night, and have enjoyed the respite. ydbxmhc | National Novel Writing Month

CloudWalker is officially sleeping. NaNo's first draft is done at just over 50k words, and I'm reasonably proud of it. It needs subthread development, POV polish, stylistic revision and lots of editing, but that's stuff for the rewrite, which I won't be doing for a month or three. When I do, I expect the overall story to morph considerably, and the eventual word count to almost double.

Work is still hammering, but I've found I can still get in a couple thousand words a day if I make it a priority. My online gaming has suffered, but not as much as you might think. My twitter posts and blogging habits took a bigger hit. I hope to work them back into my schedule.

In the meantime, my wife has pointed out that this blog, while perhaps of interest to other aspiring writers, is really not very practical. I agree.

I'll be trying to come up with a new format. I have some ideas.

How the (pro)Creative Urge Changes Friendships

Creation changes your life. That holds true whether you create a book or a baby. Any new parent can tell you that having a baby means a major change in lifestyle, and that includes a change in friendships. Ditto the decision to take writing seriously.

This isn't to say parents and writers always lose old friends. It's just that your friendships will change and some will fall away. That's because most childless friends, like non-writer friends, just don't get it.

Consider a couple's first foray into parenthood. Priorities shift and resources become more scarce. Some friends resent the intrusion on your friendship and feel left out when you turn down invitations in favor of baby appointments and cuddle sessions. Some are embarrassed by your breast feeding, diaper changing, sweat pants wearing persona. A few try to ignore the changes and continue to invite you to those impromptu parties - children excluded, of course. These are also the people who'll exhaust a few minutes' patience to listen to your tales of sleeplessness only to inform you that they understand, the pup they call a "fur baby" woke them an hour early to go potty.

A few relationships will grow stronger as all parties work to maintain a place in changing lifestyles and priorities. These are the lifelong friends. You'll also make new friends, the ones who understand when you stop speaking mid sentence to stop the two year old running off the playground or insist the little one let go of the cat's tail. They think nothing of that stain on your jeans from the diaper blowout that interrupts your lunch date, though they may offer a sympathetic laugh to make sure you're aware of it.

Making your writing a priority has the same effect. Once you make the decision to get serious, you step into another world. In true bohemian style, you skip a few functions to find time to write. Deadlines loom, either self imposed or generated by the prospect of actual payment for your labors. You become that oddball with the impossible dream, yet another of those people who are writing a book.

For non literary friends, you may be a bit of an embarrassment, especially if you talk about your work in progress in front of strangers. It's like breast feeding in public. It's passe to protest, but that doesn't mean they can't roll their eyes and exchange that look with others.

Once you find some form of success, they may still have the nerve to ask a small favor to find an agent for that book they always wanted to write.

Others listen, find patience and understanding deep within and encourage you to stay connected. After all, we can't do this in a vacuum, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise. These are also the lifelong friends who'll probably stick and help us through the depression of rejection and the elation of acceptance.

Writer friends, like other parents, know your pain. They understand if you want to skip that movie because your vacation time is almost up and your deadline looms. They can talk WIPs, POV and MCs, not to mention subplots and pacing. When they are also positive champions of your work, like the old friends who cheer on your new writing efforts, they are worth more than any amount of gold.

Bottom line, don't give up on the old friendships, even as you make shiny new ones who can talk shop. Try to come out of your story and agent hunt long enough  to give them a buzz or drop them an email. Be the friend you want them to be. When a few drop by the way side because they can't see past the changes, remember the good times with fondness and wish them well.

After all, change is a part of life and relationships, the good, the bad, the past and the present. It all adds to your life experience, which can only add to your writing.

Making Time

A writer needs to write every day. I also prefer to blog once a day, and keep up with my Litopia posts, Facebook, and Twitter.

Notice that these have not all been happening lately. My day job has rudely interrupted; my family needs personal time, and as much as I love writing, they aren't going to pay for it. I do still try to get in a couple thousand words a day, though I don't always succeed.

So, accordingly, the time comes out of somewhere. Personally I need more than the normal requisite eight hours of snoozing time, so while some can come from that pool, it won't be much if I intend to maintain my health and creativity.  I've had to swear off coffee for a few days (again), as I was reaching nuclear toxicity.

So Facebook gets maybe a peek a day. Twitter maybe not even that, though I'd prefer to sit with my face in it around the clock. Obviously, this blog sometimes gets shorted.

Now here at the end of my vacation-period year I find I have too much unused time. I've arranged to carry over about a week, but the other week and half-day have to be used by 9/4. I took the half-day Tuesday and got some rest, and am taking this five Fridays.

I have so much to do around the house that I may still not get much writing done, but it's nice to think I'll get the chance.

Thanks for the Nose, Got One Already

Opinions are like noses -- we all gots one of our own.

I know you've heard it. You might even have done it yourself. Someone rides by with their music playing too loud, and a friend wonders aloud how anyone could listen to "that crap." Among my redneck friends, it's usually rap like Tupac or Will Smith. Among my black friends it's most often country, George Jones or Conway Twitty. My mom says this about Metallica and Scorpion. For my ex it was Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

Is anyone asking what this has to do with writing?

My wife doesn't care for the sort of high, hard sci-fi I love and want to write. I'm not so much into horror, her favorite. Neither is particularly partial to romance novels, though they seem to make up more than half the publishing market.

We've all caught ourselves belittling something that doesn't interest us personally. We're trying to get out of that habit, because everything has value, and something to teach us about our craft.

Ladies and gentlemen, negative commentary is not the way to support your writerly loved ones. Don't steer them away from their interests, don't try to correct their choices to a more profitable field, and don't, please don't try to convince them that vampires are hot right now and so they should write about that. If you are an author and are making more in dependable royalties than the aspiring writer, then maybe, maybe such advice might be warranted, but don't do it unless they ask, ok?

What they need is not patronizing or formulae. What they need is encouragement, honest but constructive critiques, support, honest but constructive critiques, proofreaders, honest but constructive critiques, editors, honest but constructive critiques, approval and patience and comfort, and lest I forget to mention it, honest but constructive critiques.

Perhaps you notice a theme here.

What your writing friends need is you to hold them up, not tell them all the reasons it won't work. If you do that, you should stop calling them your friends, because you aren't acting like one.

The other thing they need is actual, realistic, but gentle and CONSTRUCTIVE feedback. That means getting off your lazy high-horse and actually reading their work, which any writer with half a brain knows is a significant investment of your time and energy that they should appreciate. It means pointing out the spelling and grammar and punctuation errors, the complicated and awkward phrasing, logical inconsistencies, any clichés, and the dull scenes where they drag on about details that don't really matter.

If you don't have time and energy for all that, it's ok; just don't ask for a free copy of the book just because you're family. If you can and do give them such support, don't be surprised if they dedicate the book to you - but don't assume they will, because maybe they promised this one to Mom. :o)

And for the record, Sabrina suggested this post, who cannot abide country music or most romance.
Her idea.

OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY! CALL NOW!!!

I hate hard sell.

Ok, I'm as much a sucker for an interesting hook at the beginning of a book as the next guy, but...call me weird if you must...I don't want the whole book to be "exciting".

I like literary works. It doesn't get much better than Sojourner, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' final novel. Not much exciting happens, but the book is wonderful.  How can that be?

Yes, I do want something of interest in every chapter; in fact, on every page. It's just that "of interest" doesn't have to include explosions or cliffhangers or adolescent snits. Personally, I find really good writing to be plenty.

I hope someday to be able to write like that book. The work is subtle, but filled to the brim with anguish, joy, cruelty, insanity, loyalty, injustice, humility, and heroic sacrifice, all with no explosions.

In fact, most of the book takes place right on the single farm.  They plant orchards, and try to keep the sheep warm through the winter. The main character is a farmer who isn't very outspoken, but feeds his hogs, tills his fields, and daydreams a lot. He plays a flute. He marries the girl his older brother left behind, and they have kids. He has a buddy who's a drunk, and sometimes gypsies come set up on his property for a while. Wow! Are you excited yet?

I sat in the tub with my wife and read this book to her. We sat in the yard and read it. We read it in bed. We stopped now and then to savor the scenes, the language. We're going to use singed pages from an extra copy to decorate the house.

Then I pick up books where the writer throws me into a heated firefight, and I have to wonder why I care who wins. When it's over and I've figured out who the hero is supposed to be, there's a roaring car chase. Then a fistfight. Then the character must hide from the police, while the author narrates the deep personal relationship the character has with one of the officers by telling me "Bob had a deep personal relationship with one of the officers."

I'm sorry, but I don't want every scene in a book trying to tweak my adrenalin.  There must be pacing. There must be contrast. Too much becomes just the 7:15 train rattling my dishes, and eventually I don't even notice anymore.

What I want is an elegant turn of phrase that brings me up short and makes me realize what a character is feeling.

Pick up any of the classics. Open it at random to a few different pages. You'll likely hit some dialogue, some worldbuilding narrative, a tense scene of conflict. It's not always fever pitch.

You can't evoke real emotions in the reader until you get them to care about the characters. Ideally, a good book should hook the readers in the first page, and then reel them in as it progresses. If they aren't willing to read a few pages to develop a little rapport, then they are going to be limited to schlock.

So my job is to generate a good opening that doesn't read like a screaming infomercial, and follow it up with sympathy, depth and feeling.  That's a tall order.

Guess I'd better get back to writing.

Never Forget

Her name was Connie.  We were sixteen. I carried her photo for years.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and in many ways is still the standard against which I judge everything I see, and not just women.  Her smile was light and warmth, a flower direct from God to brighten this dreary world. Her giggle was soft and sensual, reminding us that it's good to be alive. Her adorable little button nose, her perfect skin, those deep, dark eyes that never seemed without a hint of mocking yet almost-innocent laughter...

Her birthday is December 12th. Her phone number, back before Alabama had another area code, was 2541. I can recite all ten digits with little hesitation, even now, thirty years later. I still remember the little scrap of paper torn from the edge of a notebook sheet with my kindergarden-ish scrawl of unevenly sized numbers; I carried it in my wallet for over a decade. I took it out now and then to feel the worn grain of the paper, and stared at the smearing graphite when nothing else could express my frustration.

I'd known her since we were twelve and the boys had tried to save the girls from wild dogs in the woods at camp, and she'd scornfully told us the howling was farmers' dogs nearby. We'd met at church social skates for years. At another camp at sixteen, we were the oldest there, and a natural couple. She told me I was handsome, funny. She told me how she got the scar on her breastbone running for the bus with a pencil in grammar school. We played footsie under the tables. I collected a bouquet of wildflowers for her off the lake, in a camp john-boat.

When that magical week was over and we were about to leave, I folded her into my arms and held her, standing in the sunlight on the lawn, and I heard someone say "I love you." It took me a moment to realize the voice had been mine.

Understand that this wasn't news to me; I had already discussed it with my best bud, who helped me collect the flowers.  It was just a stupid thing to say. She hardly knew me; yes, a week at camp had been fun, and yes, I knew I was head over heels, but I wasn't silly enough to expect she would be.  You have to give these things time. I knew that, but some prankster in the back of my throat just had to push out the phrase that was doing pirouettes in my brain.

She looked up at me like a deer caught in the headlights. I do remember that moment, though having played it over and over for three decades has likely distorted it a little. Even so, I don't delude myself into thinking it was a sweet smile, or a look of relief.  She was shocked.

But what she said was "I love you, too."

Now, why would she say that? Maybe, because it was true?

Well, yeah, maybe. But also maybe because it was the standard reflex response when you don't know what else to do at that rather awkward moment, when you're just hugging the fellow who has made a fun week away from normal life feel a little magical, and you want to enjoy it for a few more moments and maybe express some genuine gratitude before you get back to your your real life, with a boyfriend and whatever else. I don't blame her for what she did to me with that moment of careless confusion. It was an accident.

I still have letters I never sent. Don't get me wrong, I sent scores. I called. I even convinced her to go out to dinner with me once, but there comes a point when you need to take a hint; beyond that, a suitor becomes a stalker. She didn't return my calls and letters. I poured my heart into those reams of notebook paper, but I don't know if she read them. Eventually, I stopped harassing her with them and saved the postage, but I couldn't stop writing them. Pathetically impassioned please are still just pathetic when the recipient is merely annoyed.

She never knew the tears I wept across my grandmother's lap for the love I wasn't allowed to give her. She never knew the hearts I broke because mine was no longer mine to give. She had a baby, got married, probably went on to a normal life. I wonder if she ever even realized what she missed.

As Wesley said in The Princess Bride, "This is True Love. You think this happens every day?"

And yet, I am a better man for it. I managed to love again, in a less hormonal, more mature way, but quite sincere. I got my heart broken again, smashed and ground and scattered like broadcast planting. I played hermit for a while.

And I managed to love again.  For all the teenage drama of this post, I am happily married, and raising a son we carefully decided to bring into the world, even at my age. I can still love, still trust, and still accept that my lovely, witty and charming wife is human.  She is more beautiful approaching forty than most men will ever win, better educated with a GED and unfinished degrees in writing and criminology than most college graduates, and more practical, generous, and understanding than a schmekel like me deserves.

And she writes with me.

She has her own stories; family hardships, a failed marriage, male porn under the toilet seat to make a dense man close the lid ... She understands the value of my devotion, and is patient with my cornucopia of faults.

Why would I share all this with the world?

Because I'm a writer. It's what we do - I'm just more blunt than most.  When you read my stories, you shouldn't assume that a tale of rape is a personal experience, or any more than is one of murder - but believe the emotions.  They come from a real life with actual joy and grief, and a keen and honest eye that records those feelings, those moments, for later use.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” - Robert Frost
That's what I want in the books I read. That's what I believe readers deserve from the books I write.

That's what they'll get.

Nose to the Wheel

I work a day job in cubeville, which sometimes demands all hours of the night as well.

My wife, as a full time homeschooling housewife and mom, has it even worse.

The 11yo daughter is sick and napping in front of the TV. The wife has been ill, and just got up from her nap.  The 2yo boy was up a while before her, in a foul mood. I think something bit him. He finally settled a little, when I bribed him with fortune cookie and wonton chips, which he insisted we dump out onto the table.

I've had no opportunity to unload the dishwasher for the wife, or to throw some hay to the horses, or clean the latest deposits of goose and chicken shit out of the garage, or to bring in the grazing goat in and put out the next one.  I need to clean up the pile of hay and bird droppings I swept out a couple days ago, but may not manage before dark.

Well, tomorrow's Saturday.  Maybe then.

But I do want to sit and play World of Warcraft with my wife and daughter at some point. I'd like to spend a little time with the insufficiently snuggled Great Pyr pup, who's the size of a truck but still goofy-clumsy.

Then there's this writing thing.  We try to crank out a couple thousand words each, every day. We constantly edit. She's sending me links for new agents to query. I try (I do try) to post to this blog once a day. I'm trying to read and critique the work of friends, and of strangers as well on http://critters.org.

 Let's think about this.  Generally, people need eight hours of sleep each night. I need more; being ill lately, we need even more, but lets stick with eight for the sake of argument.  I work at least eight hours a day.

(The wife is currently "playing" with the 2yo, technically 21 months, and he's calling off shapes and numbers correctly more often than not.)

So, sixteen hours of my day are gone off the top, and usually it's more like eighteen or nineteen.  Then we add in the time for basic maintenance of living. An hour for a morning shower and dress, breakfast, hay for the horses; an hour for lunch, during which I sometimes handle some emergency shopping; an hour for supper, including some time to sit and chat as a family.  There's usually a couple of hours in the evening dedicated to maybe a movie as a family, or some Warcraft, or some other activity we can do together.

Keeping track? At the very least, we've spent 23 hours of our day.  It doesn't look good for the book.

We all know those minutes and hours never fit so neatly into the given timeslots, though.  I shave out time for trips to the bathroom, and coffee breaks, and posts to this blog.  I frequently steal hours here and there by eating at my computer, or using the wife's smartphone to check Twitter in the grocery store.  

But often enough, I push the chore off and grind through a delightful hour of pulling my hair and shuffling words, knowing that tomorrow is Saturday. I'll sleep an extra hour; I'll get those chores done, unless I manage to get completely absorbed in NOT having to spend my time at my day job, and write chapters in a new book.

Tonight, I'll stay up late and write then as well.  It's the one hobby that I don't feel is a waste of time. It's the one thing I love that feels productive, and creative, and satisfying.

So maybe one of the chickens runs in the back door every time we come in. She's a tiny bantam, smaller than a fat pigeon. We give her corn in the house, which just encourages her.

And I write a few lines of blog as she clucks around my feet beneath the table, and look forward to working on editing for HUSH, and smile as I finally get up to throw hay to the horses and finish unloading the dishwasher.

See you in the bookstore.

The Rest of the Story

(And many thanks to Paul Harvey for the phrase. If you haven't heard any of his commentary, I recommend it.)

Yesterday I poo-poohed happy endings. Give me grief and misery! But sometimes a lighter tale can be delightful, as Paul Harvey so often proved.  c.f. here.

It's a tale of a very mundane event with a quiet happy ending, and quite worthy of a short story if someone were so inclined. But why? A little boy's memory of getting stuck in the snow on a mother and son drive doesn't sound so great, but there are special circumstances. Therein lies the crux of the matter.

For him, it was likely the only time it would ever happen.

Don't get me wrong. I do like feel-good movies. I like happy endings, and I love inspirational movies as long as they aren't too saccharine.  I am not inspired by mundane events, however, unless there is something about them that makes them special.

It doesn't take much. Good writing can turn any moment into an epiphany, or an iconic memory, or a symbol for something grander.  If you'll forgive the hubris, I reference a poem I wrote for my daughters about blowing a bubble. The rhythm is perhaps too complex and easily misread, the phrasing might be too contrived for your taste, but it does illustrate my point. Blowing a bubble is something simple and cheap and easy enough we do it to entertain the children, but there is plenty of symbolism to be had.

Happy is good. I love it when the hero wins the girl. I just want him to prove to me he deserves it first. That's usually easiest done by showing me he can respond nobly to a bad situation.

Happily Ever After

...and they ate ice cream, and had babies and lived happily ever after.

The End

Hm. I'm not inspired to go out and buy the book. Heck, I don't even want to watch the movie. I'd rather subject myself to 2am infomercials pimping potato peelers that let you pull your own teeth, or at least make you want to.

On the other hand, if they're sharing a small pot of greens because that's all they have, we tend to watch to see how fairly they share it. 

If they must hide their only child because the soldiers are coming to kill the children, we wonder if this one might survive.

If they sacrifice themselves, both dying in futile gestures to save the other, we rail at the injustice -- but now we're involved.

Happy is nice, but it doesn't sell the print, and it doesn't make us remember the story or buy a copy for friends. Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions, but in general, even Disney movies have villains and injustice. 

If my heroes can make it through a book and walk away at the end healthy and happy and sane, I am relieved, but I wonder what went wrong. When they stagger away broken in body but not in spirit, supporting each other in their grief for those they lost, I admire them. I honor them. I remember them. I want to be them, though I thank my stars I don't have to go through the hell they've endured.

That's the point. A good story is always about character and conflict, and nobody walks away unscathed. If the character is untouched, we do not love them. At best, we can pity them, but they have not earned our devotion.

And again, of course, there are exceptions, but those just demonstrate the rule.  People who survive lightning strikes and falling out of airplanes without parachutes do not convince the rest of us that it's safe. They amaze us, because they beat the odds.

Break your heroes. Even if they are angry, your readers will feel something.  If you do it well, they'll curse you with their tears, but praise you with their wallets.

TANSTAAFL

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." -- Robert Heinlein

Even if you don't have to cough up cash, someone has to pay for it; and if you don't honor the debt you incur, it costs you face and reputation. You may not care, but there's still a cost, always.  Even if you just pull up wild onion by the road, it costs time and effort and sunlight and water.

You have to pay your dues.

I see people, even friends of mine, giving advice all the time. It's usually pretty good advice. I just read Denise Tompkins' blog post about synopses, and it was great.  I spoke with her the other night about the professionalism of her blog voice, how much I enjoy it, how right she usually is, and we laughed about the way a great bit of writing sometimes seems like the swan from the line of ducklings. We sweat and grieve and waffle, then finally put it out there and wait for people to point and laugh, but often the result is actually good.

I'm no expert. This blog is about our efforts to learn, to sink or swim in the world of modern publishing, but I like to think there are useful, pithy bits now and then.  I have no qualifications worth including in a query; my degrees are computers and ancient language, my job is telecom, and I've not had so much as a short story actually published and paid (technically not true, but I assure you the technicality doesn't buy gum.)

Yet I write. I offer my apparently baseless opinions. I query our book with confidence, knowing that it still has so much improvement to be made.

I'm paying my dues, and learning what I need. I'm patient, and I don't give up. In the meantime, I'm writing, polishing the book we've finished, working on the next, tossing in a few lines to others now and then, planning for the day when my backlist is long enough to earn a living.

I'm enjoying the ride. In the meantime, I borrow experience and contacts from dear friends like Denise who's plowing ahead with her Nitecliff Evolutions, and with Raising Cain, which sounds utterly engrossing.

Good luck, Denise, and thanks for the visit. It recharges my batteries to know that talent and perseverance can and do, in fact, make it in today's market.

Hiatus

Attending personal matters this week, apologies for anyone who was actually expecting daily posts.

Will try to get back into the swing asap.

Humans is the Craziest Peoples

It bothers me when people I like say things I can't reconcile. I don't want to hurt their feelings, insult or embarrass them, so I end up trying to just shut up and ignore it...but sometimes it gives me ulcers.

We've all seen it. Normal, likable folk will do something, exhibit some common human foible, and we twitch. In the hope I won't inadvertently wrong someone, I'll try to anonymize an example.

An editor and writer acquaintance who calls herself obsessive recently mentioned (in front of a broadly mixed audience including professional peers) some trouble she habitually has with a couple of homophones. That's common enough - you know people who confuse its/it's, they're/their/there, to/too/two or any of a hundred others. This was a much less common case, one of those nasty ones where the words end in -eet and -ete that stump us all sometimes.

I very briefly tossed her a couple of ways to know which to use, word associations and visual reminders. I only did that because it's the kind of thing we all need, I'd had that very problem, and many of us might appreciate the tools.  Believe me, I'm not shy about grabbing a reference when I realize I'm unsure of something. Simple enough, but her response in front of an audience was to flippantly dismiss it, claiming inability to understand or remember it, apparently intending to just live with the handicap...as a professional editor.

This is a known career writer and editor, blithely dismissing a distinctly professional foible in front of potential clients and peers? Ok, she is a smart, established career woman with a known reputation, and anyone who knows her should dismiss it as a moment's distraction (I hope), but to me it's like a professional programmer saying "pfft, what do grammar, punctuation and spelling matter to a computer?" If you know anything about it at all, you know it matters a lot.

It's like a professional carpenter saying "Wow, I only brought a sledgehammer. Oh well, it really doesn't matter."

It's like a biology teacher, asked whether a squid is a mollusk or a chordate, responding with "Like I care. Go look it up," before going back to a magazine. Anyone else would give such a response, it should be expected - but that person in that situation maybe should not. Not knowing is fine, is only human. Not caring when it's so obviously relevant to what you profess is a little harder to swallow.

I call myself a science fiction writer. I love it when people ask me about odd stellar phenomena, obscure theories, quantum mechanics interpretations or likelihood of life on other planets. Sometimes I may not be in the mood to discuss it, but I don't want my potential audience to believe for a moment that I don't *care*.

I do care. I sometimes use "it's" when I should have said "its", or "that" when I should have used "which", but I care, and if you point it out, I'll fix it. If you suggest rules to help me decide, I'll likely tell you it's absorption in the story, not ignorance,  but I'll try very hard to catch it in the editing.

I don't want my baby to be ugly because of blemishes, but if the problem is just dirt I could have easily wiped away, the fault is truly mine.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've been looking over some of my writing, and editing the mistakes that creep in when you're concentrating on moving scenes along, rather than being grammatically correct. It's time for a cup of coffee and some humble pie.

Mood and Voice

It's been a long damned day -- a long year, a long life.  If you know someone unaffected by the twitching economy, offer them a sandwich because they have nothing.  While you're at it, I'll take a PB&J.

Read the torrent of commentary on the web and it seems all anyone wants in this market is commercial paranormal romance with a gut-grabbing opening, a constant fast-paced easy read that doesn't require you have a dictionary nearby, and maybe a soft grade of paper because you're never gonna want to read such tripe again, and will probably burn through a chapter every time your bowels move, so it might as well do double duty.

Do you hear the frustration? The snarky tone? Is this edgy enough, or do I need to throw in more profanity?

---

I love doing that. String together cliché words and phrases and make something recognizable. Fun! Admittedly, it can be a bit trickier to write in a mood you don't currently share, but hey, authors are actors, playing every character in the book. Sometimes you have to get into the part!

It's like writing poetry; dirge of woe or ode to joy, we take words and weave a mood. It's what makes or breaks a story, but I have a quote for you:

"A only writer begins a book; a reader finished it." - Samuel Johnson

• Take the top section and read it with the mindset of gloom and a long face and it comes out one way.
• Go back and apply grumpy anger and it comes out differently.
• Try again with resigned humor and it shifts yet again.

The reader is under no obligation to think of what the writer was imagining. My favorite example: J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Middle Earth in which THE HOBBIT, LORD OF THE RINGS, and of course THE SILMARILLION occur, was a master of this idea.

Do Balrogs have wings? It's a topic people rage over (yes, maybe only geeks, but they are a significant market...)  Look at the argument and some discussion of each side HERE. The answer is, they do if you imagined them that way while reading the passages. Or don't if you didn't.  Your book, your world, your choice. The author did not choose to decide for you.

Yep, I really said it.

So when you buy a book, think of it as unfinished furniture you still have to paint.  The author wrote the words, but you have to give them breath and life.

The Rules of Writing

Two of my favorite courses in college were the advanced creative writing classes. I had a teacher who was very cool, and very good.  One of my favorite assignments was a short work (not a "paper" or a "story" or anything so limitingly descriptive) in which we were to break as many of the basic rules of writing as possible.

Intentionally misspell words, throw in nonstandard and inconsistent typefaces, twist the grammar and punctuation wherever possible -- but never to do so without a good reason. This assignment was to find the good reasons, and create something original but still of value.  On the other hand, any nonstandard feature that couldn't be obviously and immediately identified as intentional and worthwhile was counted off.

This was a great exercise.

Any writing endeavor should use the same tricks.  Never break commonly held rules without reason, and more importantly, without value. If your reason doesn't work for the readers, all you're doing is alienating them.

Cameron McClure posted a great article on this some time ago.

As much as I'd love to preach about it, she already did such a great job that you should probably go read that instead, but I do have to underline one point: if you *do* have a good reason and a good way to do it without breaking reader interest, then no rule is sacrosanct.

I was reading over a related post on Chuck Sambuchino's blog as well.

I notice that there's an interesting correlation between the comments and the rules.  "No dreams", says Ms. McClure, and I tend to agree - I don't want to find out after a whole season of wondering "who shot JR" that it was all a ridiculous dream sequence - but  Laurie McLean, Larsen/Pomada Literary Agents says "I dislike opening scenes that you think are real ..., then the protagonist wakes up. It makes me feel cheated."  On the other hand, I've seen good scenes that were obviously dream sequences from the start.

Elmore Leonard says

     2) Avoid prologs.

but I happen to love a well-written prologue that doesn't waste my time. When some event(s) in the past are relevant throughout the story, inform scenes from the very beginning and save a ton of flashback later, develop character and backstory without belaboring the point or depending on excessive narrative, then you could always just make them Chapter One; but when every other chapter of the book is in the present, one that is obviously different deserves a special status.

He also isn't the only one I've seen saying
     3) Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialog.
Too much unbroken dialogue makes me lose track of who is saying what, and "...said...said...said..." drives me nuts.  The problem isn't when someone uses "asked" or "quipped" or something else instead of said, it's when they do it badly. Asked is appropriate if the dialogue was a question.  Quipped indicates a tone that may not be obvious from the words in the sentence, and sometimes a character wouldn't use words that would make it clear; better to give a small guide word that clarifies a scene than to interrupt a swift banter with an explanatory sentence that forces the reader to pause the flow of action, or to misread and have to backtrack to get the proper sense of it.

Then again, as of this writing I'm not exactly a published author with royalties behind my opinions. Take it with the proverbial grain of salt, and know that if an agent says "I'd like to represent you, but I need you to fix these few little things first," you should look for me in my editing office.

Please? Maybe Just a Little Hint?

I love Twitter. :)

Yesterday I engaged in a volley of relevant commentary with non other than Victoria Strauss, whose Twitter bio modestly lists her as "Adult & YA novelist (8 books), blogger, co-founder of Writer Beware, a publishing industry watchdog group. " Note that I added the links for reader convenience.

She mentioned/quoted Jane Smith, who commented on "Linen Press to start charging £5 per submission." ( c.f.: http://www.linenpressbooks.com/blog/shock-horror-a-charge-for-submissions/1042/ ) I also exchanged tweets with Ms. Smith, and I appreciated the time and input from both these esteemed ladies.

If I could get genuine feedback from every submission, straight from the agent's own preferences, I'd happily pay the $8US. Why?

"I just want to know what I did wrong." It's the writer's perrenial plea when submitting rejected queries.  If you, as an agent, think my book is a stupid premise, or badly written, or anything else, I want to know. You can be honest without being rude, and if you can't, you really shouldn't represent me anyway. I actually do want honest critique.

I really don't want to waste my time pushing a work that's never going to succeed.  If it's got too many typo's, I could fix that, though after editing for two years if we still had rampant typos we would deserve a snarky comment like "maybe not..."

If you just don't like the voice, we could tweak that.  My wife's natural style is terse; not exactly Hemingway, but a little like William Gibson. I tend to be glib. We both welcome feedback.

On the other hand, if you think it would be fine for some other agent, but just doesn't suit your personal tastes, that's valuable info, too.  We've been told that more than once. If you have a suggestion, could maybe give us a referral, that would be gold; we haven't gotten that yet, but it seems to me worth a finder's fee at the very least, if that agent picks us up.

The paranoia whispers that they're just trying not to crush your soul...

Meh. With all that to consider, I'd call $8 cheap for an editing fee. c.f. this from Ms. Smith's blog archive:
 http://howpublishingreallyworks.com/?p=2745
I do hope Linen Press intends more than that for your money, but ...

Basically, every comment is editing.  This would just make it a little more formal. Still, a lot of my conversation with Ms. Smith yesterday repeated this very blog's points, and though there's a great deal of value and truth in it, there are also some very dangerous assumptions, especially from a writer's perspective. No matter what the agent thinks, even a someone with Jane Smith's credentials has to admit that not every agent will think the same. Admittedly, if your manuscript is riddled with flaws you aren't going to get reputable representation, but (from her blog) “I didn’t love this enough” or “this is not right for me” might be the agent's way of shooing you, but they might also be intentionally encouraging you because they didn't personally care for it but believe someone else might.

Then she pointed out something that I had missed - agents give feedback to clients, not random submissions. That's telling.  So often I read these posts and think submission = new author but that's not always so.

Yes, I understand that a smart agent would grab something they felt would sell, regardless of their tastes; but their tastes largely determine what they think will sell.  As I said in an earlier post here, agents aren't machines.  No one can magically know the market.

Rachelle Gardner's recent three minute video blog post addresses it well:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2011/07/why-agents-dont-give-reasons-with-rejections/

Honestly, as a currently unrepresented writer looking for an agent, it's tough; but once I get an agent, I really do want her to give me more time than random submissions. They earn their pay. Don't doubt it. 

Personally, I'm glad agents don't usually charge for submissions. They basically work on commission; if they think your book will make them money, they'll represent it. That seems pretty fair to me.

But I would point out that if not all agents charge for a submission, writers will skip the one that does. It's a quick way to reduce your workload, I guess...

In the end, what this means to the writer is the same mantra I've been preaching.  Do your homework; refine your craft; find a critique group, and keep an open mind and ear, but believe in yourself, or just stop wasting your time and that of the agents you query.  If you can't put in the effort and then have faith in the work, find another hobby.

Anyone out there care to comment? Please, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Could agents get away with charging for submissions? What would it mean for the industry if it became common practice?

Ugly Is As Ugly Does

First, a link: the article below addresses the all too common problem of brats in public, why we all hate them, and how you really aren't doing them any favors by letting them get away with it.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/05/granderson.bratty.kids/index.html

LZ Granderson, Contributor to CNN News, I salute you and your sentiment. I think you should also be on CBS news, NBC news, ABC News, Fox News, USA Today, Sesame Street and the Disney channel. Maybe NBC and CBS don't realize what they're missing, but thank goodness CNN is spreading your pithy gospel.

I also thank anyone who's reposted it for the rest of us; in particular, my bud Ben Baker, whose post is (for me at least), even better.

http://porkbrainsandmilkgravy.blogspot.com/2011/07/not-rassling-smackdown.html

It's all about respect, being fair, and doing what's best for everybody even when it's not particularly easy or convenient. Maybe Ben isn't on CNN.com or USA Today, but I bet is Sesame Street got a good photo they'd be happy to make him a muppet...

But I digress. *Ahem*:
<soapbox>What all of this boils down to is that it isn't the screaming brat that's to blame. It's the lazy, careless, or maybe just horribly misguided parent.  Overly Draconian is as bad as overly permissive, but too much of anything is a Bad Thing.</soapbox> 

 So...you do realize that this is still a blog about writing and getting published, acquiring fame and fortune and glory and immortality, right? Right. Thought so.  Accordingly, in the tradition of the past eighteen posts, I will freely mix my metaphors into what I hope to be an alchemist's Elixir of Entertainment while delivering some bit of pithy prose with value to someone.  For all the lead-in, today's chosen topic of pompous pontification is in fact the raging debate over e-books and self publishing.

E-books, and self publishing; a combination like cake and ice cream, and we all know how well those go together.  This wonderful option is commonly touted as the perfect alternative to traditional print publishing through an agent, which is (to stretch the food metaphor just a little further because I'm hungry and I love food in all it's wondrous diversity) the steak and potatoes of the industry.

For the record, I want the steak and potatoes for supper, and the cake and ice cream for dessert, and please don't make me choose. For those of you who want a little more info on the debate, take a look at Nathan Bransford's lovely and insightful breakdown.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/03/self-publishing-vs-traditional.html

Nathan, you rock.

So, you ask, what has one to do with the other? I'm glad you asked. What? You didn't? Well you should have, but don't worry, I'll tell you anyway.

The one thing Nathan didn't address in that awesome post was marketing.  Published doesn't mean sold. Unsold means unread, unloved, and of course, un-sold, as in, no money.  If you can't get the copies moving, it doesn't matter if you have an ISBN.

I have on a few occasions gone surfing for good new authors on e-book self-pub sites.  Ok, I did it twice.  I lost heart; so very, very much of what I saw struck me as clumsy electronic masturbation that I was embarrassed for the authors, and the signal to noise ratio was so bad that I never did find a good new author to read that way. Of course, a publisher might not market you much either...

Remember, the best marketing is word of mouth.  Get someone to tell someone, and hope it spreads.  That's the Holy Grail, right? The light at the end of this long, dark tunnel is that a certain minimum critical mass of readers will be talking. Someone will notice and blog about you; nearby radio stations will want to interview the local boy done good; reviewers in the papers will notice and tell people what they think.  Readers who talk breed more readers, and you try to hit the point where there are enough readers that some of the ones with media platforms will be among the talkers. Okay, maybe you aren't Kevin Bacon, but if you get people talking, maybe someday you could be Kevin Bacon, or at least someone who knows someone who wants to read your stuff, and who knows Kevin Bacon. After all, Kevin Bacon rocks. <nodnod>

No one will want to talk about your baby if it's really ugly.  If your book is the little hoodlum running about screaming in the restaurant and playing with the light switches, anyone who does talk will be warning off people they like. That's not the kind of publicity you want.

What kind of book is that ugly baby? It's usually the ones with the predictable, classic blunders.

• Poor grammar.
• Poor punctuation.
• Poor spelling.
• Clumsy sentences. 
• Clichés.
• Redundancies.
• Thin plot.
• Overly predictable or undeveloped characters.
• Trend chasing (please, if you're writing another book about vampires or werewolves or wizards, have a little pity on your potential agent and just try something else?)
• Hubris.

Hubris, you say? Yes.  Just because you think NASCAR is the coolest thing since the invention of the sparkplug and happen to like pie, don't assume a book about a pie chef who races is going to be popular.  What makes a book is story, characters, and the telling of it. As a story, Piérre the Pastry Chef who wins a chance to race with the big boys might actually be a good yarn if you can spin it with some wit and panache, but you, the writer, need to make it interesting. Don't just assume it is.

Too many books are published these days by people who pin their hopes and dreams on the POD market without doing the gauntlet at all.  Querying an agent is a pain, but it does inspire you to get your little duckies in a row. Let me assure you that while we are diligently querying agents for representation with a traditional print publisher, we also hope to make the work available on Amazon.com's kindle, and B&N's nook.

Don't get me wrong.  I personally know some self-publishing authors whose books were quite good. I just hope they market well, because otherwise they're putting their brainchild into the rank and file of all the really ugly kids, and they may get lost in the crowd.

But then honestly, isn't that true of the bookstore shelves as well? The only difference is that all those books have already been vetted; they've all already won at least one beauty contest.  If you're out to find a good looking kid, wouldn't you consider looking at the pageant before you scan the alley?  Honestly, when browsing for a book, don't most of us search the shelves? Unless we already have one in mind; then I usually go straight to the net.  

And that's kinda the point.

It's All in the Delivery

Mothers can tell you there's no pain like labor. Mothers with grown children can tell you they might have been wrong, that raising them is worse. They can also usually tell you that the reason it's worth it all is much more than just the payoff of a grown and respectable offspring.  If they're honest, some will even admit that one of the best parts if just trying to get the whole thing started...

"Hey, I've got an idea..."

Something has to inspire one to spend hours on end writing something that might never make it anywhere. Face it, the average doctoral thesis is over two hundred pages, where a common first novel is three hundred.

And no matter what your idea, it's always easier to make it sound stupid than to make it interesting. Every asteroid apocalypse story could be sold as Chicken Little. The hard part is telling your idea so it isn't lame, and then talking about it in synoptic brief for queries in a way that doesn't make it sound lame.

I just put our first draft synopsis (read "query template") for CADAGAR'S JUSTICE in the right margin. Comments and suggestions welcome, but one of the biggest issues is that it's a cultural piece. All the characters are from one of a few cultural backgrounds, and none are Earth-"normal". Most of the main cast are Pellans; though there's a great deal of history behind it, someone will call them "star werewolves". A couple of important players are Ptokariat clergy from a world where total personal responsibility drives a purely agrarian lifestyle, but someone will boil them down to "hick neo-Catholic atheists". All I can hope is that the crass oversimplifications are belied by the quality of the writing.

As of this July 4th, 2011, CADAGAR's is over 20k words and climbing swiftly.  Watch for updates, and happy 4th.

Love The One You're With

And there's a rose
 in the fisted glove,
And the eagle flies
 with the dove,
and if you can't be
 with the one you love,

Love the one you're with.

Love the one you're with.

(Du-doot, doot, doot,

 doot, doot, du-doot!)

I like the song.  I always thought the sentiment was a little vague, though.  Personally, I tend to think that way; polyamory makes sense to me. The problem is that so many men use it to excuse cheating. I don't condone that; if your spouse grants you leave and license to do as you please, then well and good, all is right in the world, but most don't think that way. What she doesn't know won't hurt me is criminal thinking, and you deserve to lose the house and have to pay alimony.  You asked for it.

Fortunately, books are more forgiving, at least for me.  Some people don't work that way, I understand, but personally, I like a harem.  My wife doesn't mind that, as long as it's books, so we have an accord.

That's also why "her" book is done, while all of mine are still in various stages of development.  Her pen is more of a serial monogamist, with the exception of an occasional flirtation with a short story, where mine is a total slut. I currently have more than a half dozen titles in process (one of which is always whatever she's working on), all with scores of thousands of words and significant research and planning for plot, character, setting, etc. Sounds like I'm just a love 'em and leave 'em type? No agent would want to pick up someone so flightly, who never finishes what he starts.

It isn't so. I love them all, and hope to get every one on a shelf. The few that were just flirtations are still only notes in my phone, but I have hopes; they're like names in my little black book that I occasionally linger over and consider calling, but no, I have too many in the harem already, and can't give them all the love and attention and devotion they deserve.  Yes, I will freely admit that they all suffer from slower growth because they don't get dedicated attention.

But very soon I'll get synopses and wordcounts in the sidebar for a few of them.  They're all my ugly babies, and I love them, every one.  I believe in them, have faith they can grow up to be proud books with Michael Whelan covers, even.

Ok, to be realistic, I do tend to focus on one at a time for a while. My day job interrupts, but then that's why we're hoping to sell a few books.  This is a career change.  My goal is to retire from life in cubeville and write full time, if we can just get the first few out the door. Accordingly, we prioritize, and focus primarily on whatever is most promising, but then NaNoWriMo comes around and I crank out the frame for another one. Then we go back to our best bet and polish some more.  

But I still sneak away for a few thousand words of tryst with one of the others pretty often, and when we get stuck on one, when writer's block or stubborn characters or sudden realizations of gaping plot holes with no obvious fix bring one work to a grinding halt, we can always shift for a while. We maintain productivity and get our time off from the offending work to let the subconscious chew the contentious bone for a while, both at the same time. So far, it's kept us busy, and we should have a flood of books becoming available for release in the next few short years.

Because, you see, when we can't be with the one we love, we love the one we're with. =o)

Twilight Fireflies

I walked out into the yard this evening with my family and watched the shadows darken beneath the trees as my twenty-one month old son danced in grass still wet from the afternoon rain.  Our eleven year old daughter ran through the yard in a cat mask, a string for a tail, catching fireflies and letting them go.  I watched the little black dots vanish into the darker shades behind, then blink like shooting stars for our amusement. The geese grumbled by the henhouse, and the goats stood watching us watch the show, stiocally chewing their afternoon forage.

In moments like that, a writer finds all he or she needs to build a world.

HUSH began on just such a walk through the yard in mid-2008.  My son was still a discussion, but the honeysuckle was in glorious bloom, and the sun and the breeze and our daughter playing were enough to inspire my wife.  She imagined a simple vignette, a dusty, well armed cowgirl-soldier sitting her horse to watch over the children at play.  A Catcher in the Rye, quiet and tired but ready to do battle for the welfare of her charges.  Everything else grew out of that moment.

Even if it never makes a dime, an eventuality I find hard to believe, though it's always possible - even then, it will have been worth it. I am a better person for having read the tale that she started, that we finished and polished together. May my own ideas bear that sort of fruit.

Because It Was There

"So what's up with  this blogging thing, anyway? What's the point?"

Ok, so it isn't exactly climbing a mountain, but why do we blog? Let's face it, at this point we're mostly talking to ourselves.  I know a few other people are reading, but we only have one registered follower (thanks, Ben. :)  So what's it all for?

No, we're not just stroking our egos.  The reason it looks that way is because we're liberally applying salve.  The truth is less glamorous; one of the main reasons we bother is to whip our confidence into performing shape. We're giving ourselves pep talks in open letters to the public.  We just hope that the contents might someday also be of value to other writers.

We do sincerely apologize to those of our friends who find the subject matter less than stimulating.  I know that not everyone wants to be a writer or cares about our attempts.  We try to make entries sufficiently entertaining, but the point of the website is really moral support for those trying to break into the market, such as ourselves.

Yes, we try to offer valuable advice, useful links, and consistent encouragement, but all these things are really not the only reasons. There are more mercenary thoughts behind this.

It's a public exposure.  On the right, I have arranged a query-ish blurb about the book currently being shopped.  If some agent happens to see me posting on Twitter and follows my link here, maybe they'll read the pitch and ask for pages.  Hey, it could happen.  There's no law that says they can't actively seek out a good story when the breadcrumbs lead to where it was carefully placed on the sidewalk for them to find. As we manage to get the pitch text for other books we're working on in the margin, the effect should improve. No, we're not betting little Jonny's college fund on it, but optimism has its place.

Likewise, there is always the possibility that some honest citizen who peeked at a page once and thought it was cute might remember that when a book hits the shelf, and say "hey, I like their writing.  Lemme see that..."  If he picks it up and talks himself into a sale, then it's working.  Do I think this blog will drive thousands of sales my way anytime soon? Well, no, and not only because we aren't published yet, but it's one more straw on the proverbial camel's back.  Nothing sells a book like word of mouth, but a link one can share sometimes makes that effort a little easier.

But in the final analysis, I blog because it's fun.  I love to write.  I love to put together witty phrases, and navigate logical reefs to an obscure point, and think about how the meter and rythm and content of a sentence might affect a reader toward the emotional end that I wanted.  I don't usually try to make people reading the blog cry (yet...), but a chuckle is as good as money.

We're not taking our eyes off the summit.  We plan to plant that flag; but for now, the climbing is good practice.  See you at the top.

Doing your homework

Before we started sending out queries, we did a good bit of research.

We looked up templates that stated a clear formula. There's a good example of the sort of examples you find at http://www.charlottedillon.com/query.html:

Date

Editor or Agent's Name
Publisher or Agent's Address

Dear Ms. Name, 

To start off, give the name and length and type of manuscript you are sending...

Standard fare. Ok, we started building a template.

Once we had a general description of the book that fit the formula, we started scanning sites that gave more in-depth examples, preferably lots of them. For example, my personal favorite, Janet Reid's Query Shark. Wow, what a goldmine...

But then, we realized how utterly inappropriate our query was, precisely because we were doing what so many other sites had said to do. How could that be? I mean, these were examples from experts, in writing, on the WEB for goodness' sake...

And the Peanut Gallery says "Ah."

Even I, the monumentally dense classic example of the charming nerd, eventually came to realize that this is not computer science.  There is no query-reading machine spitting out punch-cards stating YES WE WILL TAKE THIS BOOK (beeeeep), or NO THIS ONE IS STUPID (buzzzzz).  The people to whom we were sending queries were people, human beings with lives and moods and prejudices, who drink coffee and miss breakfast and have arguments with spouses or bosses or idiots on the freeway.

Oh, my.  How could we ever write a query that would work in this chaotic morass of humanity?

Well, the simple answer is, you get incredibly lucky, and just happen to send the query to the person who likes them the way you've done it and likes the idea, the voice, and the prospects of the sale.  Personally, I think you'd have better odds to just drop two years of your life on Black 13 at a roulette table.

Skip the simple answer. That's not the way real life works.  Stop trying for an easy solution.  You've spent months and months of effort developing characters, plot, setting, tension, rising action and reader rapport, researching details and honing dialogue...now you're going to balk at having to do a little more homework?

Yes, more homework.  If you're planning to send your query to Janet Reid, then for God's sake read the Query Shark blog - ALL of it - and customize your query to something that truly represents your work in the way most likely to garner her interest. Even if you aren't going to send it to her, read her blog anyway, but understand not every agent thinks the same way.  Others will dismiss your query for not doing something that she will possibly reject you for including, but you should still look at everything she has to say, because a lot of it is just good sense, and even where her tastes differ, reading it will help you find your own voice for the query itself.

If sending to an agency that always wants genre and wordcount up front, rewrite the query for them.  Put the genre and wordcount up front. Try to find out what that agent wants.  Sarah LaPolla (Big Glass Cases) says she hates prologues; if you're sending pages, consider renaming it to chapter one, or dropping it altogether for her. (Though if the book stands without it, should it really have been there anyway?)

Sending queries is stressfull. My wife and I both laugh about the send-button blues, where we sit with the mouse pointer hovering near SEND but don't click yet, giving ourselves just a few more minutes to think of that mysterious something we have inevitably forgotten.

Yet the work has helped.  We finally have a request for a manuscript, though not an offer of representation yet.  We're optimistic, but not counting chicks. We're also still working on the query, just in case.

Now if only every agent had a blog like Ms. Reid's. But then, she is the top of the food chain. ;o]

Passing the rod

Sabrina has handled the query process for Hush since we first began shopping it, but is suffering rejection fatigue, so wants to hand off the baton for a while.  I prefer to call it "passing the rod", as in "spare the rod, spoil the child".  We've been none too sparing with the rod of correction on the ugly baby, and the manuscript has prospered because of it, but apparently the regular return of "thanks, but it isn't what I'm looking for right now" from agents we really wanted eventually feels like a beating.

This is to be expected. An agent is looking for low hanging fruit, and may well pass up the fat, ripe, and juicy if it involves too much climbing and going out on a limb for a new author.  This is particularly hard on Sabrina, who was the primary contributor of the underlying idea as well as word count.  This particular ugly baby was a labor of love, and hearing professional agents say over and over "it isn't for me" is disheartening.  I do understand.

I also understand, perhaps more viscerally, that these rejections aren't telling us the work is unworthy.  That may be hard for most people to hold in mind when getting another "no, thanks," but though I've contributed quite a bit, including chapters written, plot revisions, lots of technical consulting, and editing, editing, and yet more editing, I've always thought of this work primarily as Sabrina's.  It began as a vignette in her mind, and expanded through NaNoWriMo.  Yes, we've both worked on it for over two years where we could steal a few hours here and a weekend there, but I never tire of it.

I understand why an agent might be hesitant.  If I want to be a little facetious, it's true enough with just a sprinkling of hyperbole to call it a literary post apocalyptic dystopian science fiction horror thriller with strong elements of social commentary.  That makes it a little tricky to pigeonhole.  We've been shopping it as horror, but decided we should be calling it science fiction.  I think that it might even qualify as a psychological thriller, but you have to pick a single, simple genre.  Agents don't want complicated decisions; where do we put it on the shelf?

But it's not that complicated.  The stress is all caused by the effort to artificially categorize it.  Call it sci-fi and toss it on the shelf with Zelazny and King. "Under the Dome" isn't exactly horror. Sci-fi readers are used to browsing through disparate styles and types of content. What should matter is the quality of the story.  This book, as yet unpublished, has already made its way to my top shelf of favorites.  We wrote it, and I still can't read some scenes without getting choked up and teary eyed. Admittedly, I cry at some commercials (I love that bulldog with the sign that says he's not gonna cry...), but I've been having this reaction on these same scenes for two years, and it still makes it tricky to work together on them because I try to be the tough guy, and then my throat closes and I squeak.  My wife graciously ignores it (thank you , love), and we manage to correct a word here and a phrase there.

We're not heating, hammering, and quenching anymore; we're applying oil and slow strokes of the smooth stone to get the edge clean. To switch back to the overarching metaphor, the labor and delivery are done; now we're just breast feeding and changing the occasional diaper.  It's done.

It's not the best book I've read, but if it were published, I'd give it away and buy another, as I usually do with my favorites, to people I like and think deserve them. Maybe I'm just smitten, but I think it's as good as a lot of Stephen King's work.  Better than most of Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Philip K. Dick or any of several other authors on whom I've spent worthwhile money. Unfortunately, you can't actually say that in a query if you want to be taken seriously.

Bragging? Meh. Bree did all the best parts. I just helped a lot.
Well, maybe, yeah, bragging a little, on her.

So I took over the query process.  I took the same general query and synopsis she's been using, and the first few agents she suggested.  We now have a request for the manuscript.  It's not a sale, but it is a much needed boost in our self confidence.

Sometimes, you just have to believe.

Confidence - the flag everyone can wave-r

Flagging confidence is the great enemy of the new author. How does one combat it? Apparently, the adoration of one's thoroughly smitten spouse doesn't quite quench doubts regarding the quality of one's book. :)

We all ask friends and family to proof read for us, but honestly, who has time for that? I mean, there's work, and then you have to spend time at home with your own family, and then squeeze in a little time for yourself... We do understand that, but if not friends and family, then whom do you ask?

I have several friends who read.  Most are pretty picky about genre.  Several have promised to read over the ms and give feedback, but they can't finish the four books they are already reading (each), and it's impossible to escape the pervasive attitude that this isn't really a book yet, anyway.  I don't blame them.  I just wish they'd say no, rather than leave us waiting for feedback that never comes.

We formed a critique group, but the genre interests were so diverse that it was difficult to get relevant commentary, even from diligent and well-meaning peers.  I confess, though I tried very hard, it was difficult to squeeze in time for me to read everyone else's work and give it the thorough raking over the coals that each wanted and deserved.  I was perversely flattered when one respected compatriot told me he hated me for a few days afterward, but then used some of my suggestions.  I felt I'd done my job, the hard task of telling someone the worst news. I happen to like his work a lot, but as a critic my job isn't to pat him on the back and offer blandishments, and likewise I truly appreciated every time he looked at some convoluted paragraph of my own work and told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

It really helps to get constructive criticism, but it's hard.  Bree says "our families are as supportive as a double-A bra." My family aren't voracious readers of fiction, so we haven't bothered them with it.  Hers want to wait till it has an ISBN. We shrug.

Currently we're working on getting dedicated proofreaders at http://critters.org/ where members are actively seeking works to critique, and are accustomed to reading fantasy, sci-fi and horror.  Friends and family have something invested in our emotional well-being. Critters, as critters.org folk are called, can only react to what's on the page. That's ideal.

Co-authoring. Co-Writing. Maybe Just A Payout Would Work Better...

Co-authoring sounds like a great idea, especially if the two writers are great friends and love the same genres. Right?

Maybe not. Co-authoring comes with a lot of baggage most people never stop to consider.

What is the reason for writing the book together? Do the two of you (or more) have complimentary skills? Is one writer more knowledgeable on scientific advances and possibilities while the other has a strong grasp of character development? Maybe one isn't a writer at all but has a great concept? These seem like great reasons to co-author.

No? You're both writers who happen to enjoy science fiction? That might work, I guess. That means it's time to ask another series of questions.

How will you divide tasks? If everyone involved intends to write at the same time, I can tell you there's trouble ahead. Just the editing is going to be painful, never mind the discussions (I'll assume discussions, not arguments) over plot and character.

"I'll take this chapter, you take that one," may work, it certainly sounds like a fair co-author relationship, but at the end of it, there's still that problem of a single cohesive voice, unless you're writing something very experimental. It might work beautifully if you're changing character perspectives, but I can imagine all kinds of problems with  sudden changes in tone so jarring they take the reader right out of the story.

Once you have all those kinks figured out, consider the legalities of being part of a co-author team. That can get scary and it can kill friendships. How will you divide advances and royalties? I imagine several friends in a restaurant, having just enjoyed a meal and good conversation, haggling over who ate what when the check comes. That is one annoying situation that never fails to drive me insane. Just split the bill - it'll even out the next time!

Is that something you're willing to do when it comes to your overall finances, especially concerning this baby you've worked on for a year or three?

That brings me to rights. Are you both hoping for that second edition? What happens to the rights once the publisher has finished with your book? Who has the right to blog about the book, to give interviews, etc?

It all starts to sound a little more complicated than Wouldn't it be fun to write a book together? Getting all those details ironed out in the beginning seems intelligent, as does a written contract. Hey, marriages sometimes begin with prenuptial agreements, and though I have strong feelings against such a start to a relationship that should be built on trust, I do understand the reasons some people take that route. It can save a lot of red tape and financial pain if things get sticky. Co-authoring doesn't involve nearly as many emotional strings as marriage, though some with more experience in that area may disagree.

With all the hassle involved in co-authoring, maybe it would be wiser to invest in a ghost writer, or write up a contract indicating a payment upon sale of the book. Either way, it might be best to give co-authoring a bit more thought. On second thought, make that a lot more thought.

We're far from experts on this subject, but there are some things that are just common sense to consider when co-authoring, or getting involved in any other partnership.

It's a Job

Being an agent, I mean.  They get up in the morning and brush their teeth and drive to work like the rest of us.  Imagine walking in and seeing the slush pile sitting there waiting for you.  Can you imagine the ennui? The malaise? The big sighs and noses sore from the grindstone?

So pretend it's you.  Two hundred people want you to look at their books this week and make them rich and famous.  A hundred of them can't consistently make complete sentences of correctly spelled words that are grammatically valid and properly punctuated, but you have to read those too.  You hope most of them make their errors right in the query so that you can discount them as soon as possible.

Another fifty manage to write well, but they are writing the same thing you read last week, and the week before, and every week since you started this.  Aliens are here to conquer Earth, a common Joe must carry the great magical thingy to be destroyed while being pursued by meanies, beautiful vampires are angst-ridden and trying to be loved like everyone else...can you see it?  Even if an idea is a bit different, would you have the patience to read the whole query for the unique angle?  Head for another cup of coffee and a ten minute chat by the pot with another agent who's also having trouble staying awake, and discuss the kids' soccer team for a while.

So what grabs your attention?  A query has to be worth reading.  It has to suggest something different, but not so different that it isn't clear in a page.  Maybe you spend your days looking for "High Concept", something that will sell even if it's been done to death, or maybe you toss them as trite.  Do you like sci-fi better than fantasy?  Can you honestly give every query the full focus it deserves by three in the afternoon?  Few could.

Then there are those that do catch your attention, making you laugh right out loud - not at the wonderfully witty presentation, but at the absurdity of the attempt.  Some writer has determined to stand out, and in the process has made themselves look like a complete moron.  You take the query from office to office to share the levity, but manage to send back a respectful rejection nonetheless.  After all, you are a professional.

. . .

So as a writer I sit and stare at my query letter and try to figure out how to be noticed without looking like a buffoon.  I make the letter grammatically perfect, then stress over the way it sounds overly formal.  I colloquialize, and grind my teeth over sentences ending in prepositions.  Maybe if I change this adverbial phrase to a stronger verb?

Yes, all valid considerations, but honestly, as long as the overall voice is good, should they matter so very much?  Sometimes each of these foibles is intentionally used in writing to establish a mood.  Throwing out a query for one sentence ending in a preposition is like refusing to do business with a man because of the mediocre shine on his shoes.  It's asinine and misguided. I trust a successful agent to have better sense than that, and if not, then it's probably not someone I want to work with anyway.

Mood, on the other hand, is something that is always relevant.  The mood of the agent when reading my query will matter whether they like it or not...but it's not something I can control, so I can dismiss it from my own consideration.

All I can do is try to make my own query interesting, attention-grabbing, coherent, and true to the story.  If they want the story and they like my voice, then they'll pick up the book, just like any buyer in a B&N.  If not, then I stay on the shelf and wait for the next browser, though in this case it's a matter of sending to the next agent.

This is what all writers, especially new authors, have to go through.  Wish us luck.

The High Concept Gauntlet

According to Wikipedia, "High concept is a term used to refer to an artistic work that can be easily described by a succinctly stated premise."

It also says "An oxymoron ... is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms."

Ok, forgive the jibe. I'll admit that it IS possible to create a work that "can be easily described by a succinctly stated premise" and still qualifies as art, but I'd call it the exception rather than the rule, and I'd put money that it's being sold short. "A rock the size of Texas is going to strike the Earth" is a great premise, full of potential and drama and opportunities for people to behave in a million interesting ways, but it doesn't mention anything about the characters in this particular story. Ok, meteor-doom -- even if it hadn't been done to death, what makes the story any good at all is the people this story is about, not the rock.

High Concept is a lie. It's not a "High" concept. It's a simplified premise, that's all, and in general has already been done to death. Shogun could have been stated as High Concept, virtually anything could -- "An English pilot becomes involved in the plotting for the Tokugawa Shogunate" describes the story, but says nothing about the romance, the culture shock, the Jesuits...

Every story either has elements you can't mention in the basic premise, or is pitifully monodimensional. To say otherwise isn't High Concept -- it's just high.

Sometimes Ugly is All You Got

The wife has been swamped of late, developing a nice bit of mass market fiction she's thoroughly enjoying. In the meantime, I steal the show and ramble again.

My babies are usually pretty ugly, and I have them in litters. I have three novels with significant word count, several with placeholder files, and synopses on my blackberry for SEVERAL more...

But one is full of song lyrics. Nobody explained what a massive pain it is to get licensing until I had a eighty thousand words. I'm hoping that as a second novel an agent will be willing to help me with that. There's one book tabled.

The next one is techie, a baby with green skin and antennae. I write very hard science fiction. It's what I want to read, worldbuilding details of setting, technology and politics, the variations in a non-homogenous interstellar culture... Not many want to read that level of tech.

What I enjoy writing is technical enough that few will buy it. I may be the best writer in the niche, but maybe no agent wants work so esoteric. I can "dumb it down", but what I enjoy in writing it may die in the process.

My babies are kinda ugly. I have to decide if I want to keep making them...

The Other Cheek

Sometimes, cheeky is good.

There are rules when submitting a query. Format, word count, various others... It's like a uniform. Get in line and stand at attention and hope you DO get noticed. Absolutely DO NOT pointlessly flaunt these rules. Still, more often than not, you'll probably be rejected, looked over in the rank and file. If they actually ask for a partial, you're probably *still* going to be rejected, but at least you gave it a shot.

When my stepfather was in the navy after WWII, the chaplain called an assembly before a shore leave in a foreign port. All the enlisted men filed in for the predictable turn the other cheek speech. "Boys," the chaplain said, "I know you're going to go places I'd rather you didn't, and I'm telling you that when the locals see you in that uniform, some are gonna pick a fight for no reason, so you listen to me: when they come up to you with that attitude, I don't want you to say a word to them. I want you to just turn around and punch them right between the eyes just as hard as you can...and if they don't fall down, you run, 'cause they ain't gonna."

It wasn't what they expected, but it was, strangely enough, good advice. There wasn't time to get to know each other and discuss world views. You walk in wearing your uniform, and the people either like you, your uniform and your ugly baby, or they reject you. If they single you out, then throw your best punch and don't apologize; give them the partial from the ms you've spent blood, sweat and tears on, and sell yourself like a cheap Hanoi whore. If they like it and they want it, if they go down after that one massive punch, you're glorious. If not, run, go find another bar, another publisher, another agent, and try again. With luck you'll get time for one beer and a little polish on the query between each.

The one difference is that, when you turn the other cheek, make it your backside as you sprint for the next goal, but never give up. If you get a chance to see the agent you REALLY wanted at a conference, even if they rejected you already, then go ahead, throw that second punch. Who knows, maybe the first one just missed. Just be respectful of their time, and keep your fingers crossed.

And good luck -- maybe this time a Hanoi whore with the ugly baby will be a little bit more to their tastes. ;)

The value of editing

So you've finished your manuscript. Wipe it's behind and start sending out snapshots.

That's really all a query is -- a snapshot of your ms that you hope will show a prospective agent what a beautiful baby it is and make them want to adopt it. The trouble is, while we have managed to (pro)create, we're not all necessarily professional photographers.

Writing a query is very , very, VERY different from writing a novel. You've managed maybe a hundred thousand words or story arc, rich characters the reader will love and empathize with or despise and curse, tension and drama and humor and blood-chilling moments of climactic adrenalin rush, subtle subplots and moral dilemma, all neatly wrapped up and tied with a literary bow by the end of the work. Bravo! Now sell it in two hundred fifty words.

Hm.

Stop and think about it. How many times have you idly glanced at the back of a book you've read and loved only to be incensed and indignant about the ridiculously inadequate treatment of the plot in the cover blurb? How DO you make someone really get the depth of the work in a single page of sales pitch?

For the record, the photo of the little possessed, staring, ragamuffin newborn at the top of this blog is our son Khavien. We picked that picture for a reason. He's a beautiful boy, one of the most adorable I've ever seen...and yes, I know I might be a little prejudiced on the matter, but it's been independently corroborated. =O)

It's not a flattering photo. It's not his worst, either. It's about even with what I expect most people start with for a query letter. Unappealing, unrepresentative, and unclear. How do we fix it?

I've done a good bit of work as an amateur photographer. I've been to events for amateur photographers. I can tell you a secret; for those of us who don't have years of training and experience, the best photos are selected from lots and lots and lots of utter crap. I have some of which I'm really proud, but that doesn't make me a good photographer. It just makes me persistent.

Queries don't work quite that way. The closest equivalent is to polish, edit, get some feedback, edit and polish some more... In other words, keep snapping the shutter and looking at the result till you get what you wanted, or at least something acceptably close.

Use the Agent Query link at the top of this blog, and submit your query for review on their forums. Find a writers' group and float it among them. Add punch, remove words, rework sentences. Keep adjusting and re-snapping the shutter until you believe it's as close as you're likely to get.

Then remember that no matter how lovely a picture you've made of your bouncing baby boy, some people are just not going to adopt him, because they want a girl, or a blonde, or one with green eyes. Don't complain about their prejudices; just keep looking till you find someone that will love him for who and what he is.

After all, do you really want an agent that isn't behind you all the way?