The old joke is that these two items are all you need to fix anything...
If it moves and you don’t want it to, use duct tape.
If it doesn’t move and you want it to, use WD-40.
 
I look at “Writing & Running” as the “Duct Tape & WD-40” of creative work: The answer to almost any creative dilemma can usually be summed up as either Write! or Run!
 
At least, as long as we understand the metaphorical meaning of these terms as they relate to any art form…
 
Writing = Capturing an idea and fixing it in time and space by doing creative, authorial work in our chosen field. Other examples of “writing” might include: painting, playwriting, sculpting, screen writing, songwriting, etc.*
 
Running = Unsticking our creative processes by doing a repetitive, relaxing, typically non-thinking activity. Other examples: Hiking, cycling, washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, walking the dog, showering, driving, etc.*
 
[*Please note that none of these is prescriptive. Someone’s “writing” could just as easily be designing a house or creating a lesson plan for an upcoming class. And their “running” could well be shooting hoops, or maybe puttering in the yard. Or any other version of the “creation” mindset and the “recreation” mindset.]
 
In an ideal world we would have adequate amounts of time for both, as they tend to feed into each other: Doing work can make us feel like we deserve some play, and playing can help us generate creative ideas for our work. Although I don’t think of them as “work” and “play.” I tend to view them as simply two different methods of thinking—one more conscious than the other—but equally valuable, and usually synergistic.
 
So…

• Stuck while writing? (Not “next sentence” stuck, but “next chapter” stuck.) Weeding the garden might help you grow some ideas.

 

• Have an upcoming presentation? A long walk may be just the ticket to coming up with innovative ways to frame your message. (Bonus points if it’s in a secluded area where talking to yourself wouldn’t make people look at you funny.)

 

• Need to do some serious “big picture” plotting? A solo distance run just might shake some ideas loose. (My trail-running friends will shudder at this, but I once did 20 miles on a track and came away with some of my best plot ideas ever. No distractions from traffic or terrain!)

 

• Not sure which project to tackle next? Climb into the shower and mull it over. There’s just something about water running down your body that seems to bring clarity to your thinking.

 
And on the flip side…

• You sent something new out into the universe and you’re a little (or a lot) anxious about it? Open up a Word doc—or your water colors or your drafting software or your piano—and get to work on something new. This’ll distract you from waiting for a response… and give you a Plan B if Plan A doesn’t come to fruition right away.

 

• You really want the feeling of having a completed novel under your belt? Great. Thinking about it while you’re hiking or biking is a good start, but—after all the planning and pondering—the only way it’s actually going to become a reality is by sitting down and doing the work. (Or, as the wonderful author Mary Doria Russell says, “The main thing to remember is that writing happens by doing the writing.”)

 

• You submitted a project and all it garnered was a nice, big, fat rejection? Pull up a chair and get back to work. We’re much more than our latest work, and this’ll help remind you of that.

 

• Want to become better at writing? Write, for God’s sake. Yes, reading is also absolutely necessary, and reading about writing can be helpful, but at some point you still need to put in your “half million words” (the writer’s equivalent of “ten thousand hours”*).

 
[*BTW, NFW do I think anyone’s actually required to write half a million words be a writer. You write? You’re a writer. Period. Same with the 10,000 hr. rule. But the concept exists for a fundamental reason: We get better at that which we spend time doing. You’d think this would be obvious, but we still see people who spend a lot of time talking about the book they’re going to write… maybe even more time than they actually spend writing. Unless one is a Mozart-level savant, one is unlikely to create great works right off the bat, regardless of age, education, or chosen art form. Everyone seems to grasp this concept with music—no one thinks buying an instrument automatically makes them a good musician without practice—but maybe because we can virtually all “write” to some degree, some people seem to expect that the first things they write will be on par with the work that results from significant practice. This may not always be the case.]
 
There’s a master music educator named Mike Johnston who will sometimes challenge his audience at clinics and workshops to ask him a question which cannot be answered with the word practice. (“How do I get better at double paradiddles?” “Practice!” “How do I incorporate more jazz phrasing into my improvisation?” “Practice!” “How do I play with intensity at lower volumes?” “Practice!”)
 
Same thing with writing. Want to improve some aspect of your craft? Write. Need to remind yourself that you’re a writer? Write. Want to have a completed manuscript to shop around? Write.
 
Need to refill the well with creative ideas to help you accomplish all the above?
 
Run.

 
The “Three E’s” of novel writing—as I see them—are Events, Engagement, and Execution. They form the three-legged stool on which a strong manuscript depends, and we can get in trouble if we’re leaning too hard on one while ignoring the others.
 
Let’s break this down a bit…
 
Events = The storyline aspect of your novel. The concept, the pitch, the premise, the plot. This can include the setting and time of the story—if important to the concept—but overall it can be thought of as “What happens to whom, and when.”
 
Engagement = The aspect of the story that allows you as the author to become connected to it, and which also acts as the emotional point of entry the reader needs if the story is to resonate with them. Various aspects of a story can provide this connection, but humans are hardwired to care about humans so the most visceral connection is usually through your characters.
 
Execution = Not only how you write it (style) but how well you write it (craft). Is the story told in such a way that it not only conveys the concepts in your head, but gets them across to the reader in a way that carries emotional weight? (It’s sort of like 1 + 2 = 3. How do you get events to affect a reader? Usually by focusing on how they affect a character with whom the reader has identified.)
 
Clearly these aspects are not mutually exclusive, and sometimes overlap. (Style and craft are often blurred together for me, and both can certainly affect the engagement of the reader, hopefully in an intentional way.) But to one degree or another they all need to be in the mix.
 
However, it seems like lately we might be putting more emphasis on the “Events” leg of the stool. Which can be great—I mean, who doesn’t like a well-plotted novel?—except it seems to be to the exclusion of the other two legs. Which can be a problem, as we’ll see.
 
But first, why is this happening? I think it’s a sign of the times, a byproduct of the information age. We’ve gotten used to answers at our fingertips—the quicker and soundbitier, the better. And we like things laid out in easy-to-follow listicle fashion: Do A, then B, then C… then arrive at Success!
 
This “just add water” approach doesn’t work well with the “Engagement” aspect of fiction. This is a subjective, emotional component to our writing, really nuanced and usually requiring multiple iterations to arrive at something that will actually move our readers in an emotional fashion to the point where they care deeply for our characters and are willing to follow them anywhere.
 
There’s no paint-by-numbers approach to “Execution,” either. Take everything we just said about characterization and expand it to include every aspect of the manuscript: voice, description, setting, theme, dialog, action, interior monolog, vibe, etc. There is a TON of finesse and nuance here, requiring a lot of time and energy to make it as good as it can be. Sounds like a long, hard process, I know, but (in my most humble opinion) this is the shit, right here, that will set your work apart from the myriad of other works cranked out without the care and attention the written word deserves.
 
So what’s left? “Events.” They dovetail nicely with the Boolean how-to concept of Step 1, Step 2, Step 3. And a dizzying number of guidelines are available, varying in granularity from “Have some events… and maybe a beginning, middle, and ending” to “Here are the five… or seven… or nine… or twelve (up to fifteen in some cases) essential plot events for your story!” Because I spend a certain amount of time reading online about publishing and writing, my social media feed is full of ads promising to help you “Write your novel!” A quick perusal shows that most of these teach almost nothing about the craft of writing, but are mainly a fill-in-the-blanks template meant to give you a perfectly plotted plot-ish plot (from which you magically create a meaningful work of art almost as an afterthought). One I checked out just this morning had a timeline for creating an 80,000 word novel via their method. After filling out the plot creation template, the calendar allotted you something like three weeks to draft it. (“It’s simple! You just follow the plot we’ve created, so it’ll flow from your fingertips!”)
 
Okay, it’s way too easy to burn that straw man to the ground, so moving on…
 
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with knowing exactly where you’re going ahead of the journey, including all the little way-points along the path--if that works best for you and your creative mind—but thinking a story-beat template automatically makes for a well-crafted novel is like thinking that having a cookbook automatically makes for a great meal… there might be a little more to it than that.
 
The potential problem is, if you don’t apply equal attention to the actual crafting of the thing, you’re likely to end up with a book that reads like a litany of ideas, concepts, and plot events, as opposed to creating an emotional experience within the reader’s mind that has the depth, complexity, and nuance of actual lived experience.
 
Because that last part—having the feel of actual lived experience—is what ultimately grabs the reader. And if it’s not there, having all your story-ducks in a row isn’t likely to keep the reader turning pages if they don’t care about the people involved.
 
But interestingly, the opposite can often be true: you’ll rarely see a really well written book with engaging characters fail simply due to a lack of approved story-beats. When NYT bestselling & Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead was asked about the plot of his novel Sag Harbor, he said, “Well, nothing much really happens.” Which is true. Yet the critics fell all over themselves praising it, using words like: Carefully observed and beautifully written. Delicious. Enchanting. Lyrical. Hilarious. And, perhaps most telling, He can write sentences like nobody’s business (“Execution”) and, Stokes our emotions and intellect at once (“Engagement”).
 
(Oh yeah… and people bought it. And read it. And loved it. Lots of people.)
 
I need to stop here and reiterate that I’m not saying plot is secondary or unimportant or anything of that nature. Plot is fundamental—it’s the framework upon which we build our work.
 
So why am I bringing all this up? Simply because more and more I see aspiring writers mistakenly thinking that plotting is it. That writing fiction consists of knowing where the beats lie, and nothing more. And I understand why—we’re inundated with the concept these days, because it’s far easier to sell a “system” than to engage in a nuanced discussion around the art and craft of writing. (Although there are some great books that discuss the nuances of the art form. Three of my favorites are On Writing, Bird by Bird, and Hope in the Mail.)
 
And when one of these aspirational efforts fails (for whatever value of fail has significance to you—commercially or artistically or fails to land an agent or editor) it’s usually not due to a lack of Events, but to issues with Engagement and Execution.
 
It’s pretty rare for a rejection letter to say, “The writing was wonderful and I was so invested in your character, but… I just wish more stuff happened!” (Partly because this is eminently fixable, and may result in a request to R&R… “Revise and Resubmit.”) On the other hand, “I just didn’t feel connected to the main character” (Engagement) and “I just didn’t love the writing” (Execution) are probably the two most common reasons agents and editors give for passing.
 
So… by all means, do all the event-planning and story-boarding you need to do to be able to write your book. But if things aren’t working out, don’t automatically default to thinking you somehow need a newer/bigger/better system to follow. There’s a good chance the fix may lie in giving the second and third “E” at least as much attention as the first.

Happy writing!
 

 
Much—if not all, in some cases—of the writing required of students in school is on-demand writing*. (Meaning the assignment is prescribed: write on this topic, at this length, due at this time.)
 
I understand why this might be desirable. Among other things, one instructor can assign a whole class at once, and then read & grade the assignments to a common standard (apples to apples). Sort of like having the class all read the same novel. And no one—least of all me—thinks teachers are underworked. Especially language arts teachers, where grading writing assignments is way more labor intensive than grading, say, math tests.
 
[*Full disclosure: I use on-demand writing exercises in some of my workshops, for specific reasons. I give a brief—100 word or so—writing assignment based on a given scenario, using a specific POV. Then I have them turn around and write the same scene again, using a different tense and POV, and then again. Then students read their different versions aloud and we compare & discuss the differences regarding immediacy, voice, emotional effect, etc. I’ve found that instead of just showing them the difference with examples—i.e. from the outside—it’s much more instructive for them to experience the difference for themselves, from the inside.]
 
But I think there are a couple of fundamental issues with this (similar to issues with whole-class novels), especially if used exclusively:
 
The first issue is similar to using writing prompts when trying to inspire writers…
 
Because unless designed with care to be purposely broad and vague, it hands the students the one thing they need to learn to create for themselves if they want to be writers beyond school. Which is the concept of idea generation…
 
Because in actual writing (i.e. “writing meant for reading,” whether published or not—as opposed to writing done strictly to fulfill a given assignment) the first hurdle is deciding what to write about…
 
Because in the real world outside school, most writing, for most writers, will be self-assigned. The writer decides the subject matter, the voice, the plot (if fiction), the form (if nonfiction), and how to go about saying the thing they need to say. (And not incidentally, they also have to decide when it’s “due,” which is even more important when there’s no one waiting for it. As discussed in our very first blog post.)
 
The second issue is similar to that of assigned reading. (For a deep dive into the problems with assigned reading—and how to migrate from it to a more productive reading paradigm—read Book Love, by Penny Kittle.) The first rule of having an engaged reader or an engaged writer is that they’re interested in the subject before them. And of course the best way to insure that is to let them choose the subject. So many kids are turned off by being forced to read "the classics" that it’s become a cliché about everything wrong with most English classes.
 
The same thing applies with writing assignments. When I was in 5th grade or so, we were given the assignment to write about ourselves in an autobiographical way. Then the teacher would read them aloud in class, without naming the student. (Oh my god, just kill me now.) I sort of shrugged to myself and started writing. “I was born on Mars,” I began. (I was a big science fiction reader at the time.) The point isn’t that I made the work into a “student’s choice” assignment, it’s that out of all the writing we did in elementary school, it’s virtually the only thing I can remember writing. Because I wrote something I wanted to write instead of the boring assignment I had no interest in. Everything else came and went like the peanut butter sandwiches we had for lunch.
 
Sometimes on-demand assignments are used with younger students who may not have a specific topic they feel drawn toward. We still want these students to get practice expressing themselves via writing, so we give them a topic with all good intentions. Hence the ubiquitous and painful “What I Did on my Summer Vacation” essays on the first day of school. (I once saw a younger student frustrated to tears when given the first-day assignment, “If you were a tree, what kind would you be and why?” I asked him why he was so upset, and he said he didn’t want to be a tree… of any kind! The more I considered it, the more I agreed with him. Actually sort of terrifying, when you think about it…)
 
A few mitigation strategies:
 
1. One easy thing we can do is give a range of options. (If you were a tree, or an animal, or a motor vehicle, or…) This might help students get unstuck when feeling boxed in by a narrowly prescribed prompt.
 
2. If for some reason it’s deemed necessary for all the students to write on a single topic, have a discussion/poll with the students beforehand, arising at a number of topics they actually have interest in writing about, then work through them (still allowing the broadest interpretation of each).
 
3. Even better, after making a large and varied list (as above), allow each student to select their individual topic from it for each assignment. Yes, the instructor will have to switch gears while reviewing and/or grading, but the autonomy of choice for the students should outweigh this.
 
4. And finally, consider the practice of having a list (for the ones who can benefit from a prompt), but with one of the options always being: Or any other subject that interests you. (This is analogous to ELA teachers who have recommended lists of books, with the student always having the option of choosing one of their own.) With the goal being that—as the students get older and more advanced—they are encouraged to develop and use their idea generation skills more and more.
 
Always keep in mind the question: What is the ultimate objective of the assignment… or of the class itself? If we think the objective is something like “The student is able to expound upon a pre-determined topic in written form” (or, for that matter, “The student reads, comprehends, and is able to parse the minutia within A Tale of Two Cities”) instead of something like “The student learns to enjoy writing creatively and gains skill at it” (or, “The student develops a love of—and skill at—reading”), then maybe we’re missing the broader point.
 
Because when you boil it all down, we’re teaching creativity. So maybe we should let the students practice being creative…by choosing topics and doing work that has some actual connection to them.
 
 
Happy creating!
 

 
4. Luck…
 
Maybe “luck” isn’t the perfect word here. But it’s way less clunky than, “The strategic optimization of your odds of success.”
 
Yes, there is an element of random chance at play in almost anything we aspire to. But in my experience, it’s also true that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
 
In other words, there are odds, but there are also ways to increase the odds. How…?
 
First off, you not only need to be willing to work long and hard, but smart. (And of the three, smart may be the most important. Imagine some dude who spends years on his manuscript, then simply shotguns the whole thing to every single agent he can find in Writer’s Market—literally hundreds of them—no matter their requirements or list. And each with the same cover letter, which probably starts with, “Dear Agent…” No matter what, this guy isn’t likely to ever have “good luck.”)
 
Awareness of your field will greatly increase your “luck.” Study the market—not because you’re going to write to it, but because you’re going to sell what you’ve written into it—and figure out who’s buying what. Then target the best “who” with your best “what” as intelligently and professionally as you can.
 
In other words, pay attention.
 
To agents. To editors. To publishers. To art directors (if you’re an illustrator). To School & Library marketing personnel (if you’re a kidlit author). All these people are industry gurus who work in the field every day, and have the straight info. And pay attention to authors. Including those who are repped by agents you’d like to be repped by, selling to editors you’d like to sell to, published by houses you’d like to be published by, and—especially—writing the types of books you’d like to write. (The way you pay attention to these is to read those books, of course. It’s a subject for another post, but I can’t imagine anyone succeeding in a specific genre without reading pretty widely in that genre. Yet I see the opposite of this all the time… not exactly the definition of “working smarter,” is it?)
 
Industry personnel are people. With literary likes and dislikes. And they sometimes discuss these on social media. Follow them. Pay attention to who’s repping what. PW regularly puts out roundup reports of recent book deals, including editor/author/agent/house/etc. Editors (and agents) frequently post their "manuscript wish list" desires using #MSWL. (Some may say “agented submissions only.” That’s fine. If you have a manuscript that really fits what a legit editor is looking for, this is definitely worth a mention in your query to an agent. Just get on it—these things all have a “use by” date…)
 
I had a writer describe his completed manuscript to me—a political thriller—and ask for advice on next steps. I said it sounded a lot like a certain popular TV series. He agreed it was in the same ballpark. I said, “Well, agent so-and-so’s favorite TV series happens to be that show. She tweets about it regularly. I would read three or four books she’s repped which you think are in a similar genre, then polish the heck out of your manuscript, write a brief, compelling, complimentary-yet-professional query letter, and submit to her. Then go through the same process with at least a dozen more good agent candidates. That might be a good first step…”
 
I guess the takeaway here is, there is so much useful, actionable information available these days about the workings of the publishing industry that you’re doing yourself a major disservice if you don’t do a little research before trying to place your hard-won manuscript.
 
 
4.1 (bonus) Talent…
 
This comes up a lot: But what about talent? Yes, talent is absolutely a factor, and I think we can all agree that at least a modicum of it is required in order to commit successful writing.
 
But what is it?
 
That’s an age-old question. My personal answer is that it resides somewhere at the intersection of Heart and Craft, honed with desire over time (Persistence)… and the more you apply these factors, the more likely you are to have “Luck.”
 
Some regard talent as inborn, some as a mysterious proclivity toward certain art forms, some as a gift from on high, visited upon the lucky. So instead of those vague definitions, let’s talk about other words. Facility. Skill. Mastery. And perhaps the most important… Affinity.
 
Because really, it’s largely about desire and effort, over time. You rarely hear someone say, “I don’t care at all about playing the violin and I’ve never really put any time or effort into it, yet for some reason I’m a virtuoso.”
 
I think it’s largely a circular self-fulfilling prophecy… you think you might like something so you try it, you find you enjoy it so you continue doing it, the practice helps you get better at it, which makes you like it even more, so you do it even more, so you get even better, and… Voila! You’ve acquired a certain amount of skill at it, and if you truly enjoy it (and we tend to enjoy things we excel at), you’re likely to continue the practice until you’ve gained a level of mastery at it.
 
Yes, people’s minds all work differently, and may be drawn toward different things… perhaps language, or music, or visual arts, or physical expression. And this can add to the early “you find you enjoy it” factor, making it more likely that not only do you practice it, but you also tend to think about it when not practicing it. Which adds not only to the enjoyment of it, but the facility at it.
 
Because through this you’ve developed an affinity for your chosen art form, which is a definite advantage in acquiring mastery. (People rarely get really good at something they don’t truly enjoy, which is why people who take up something as a route to fame and fortune—as opposed to having a love of the art form itself—rarely achieve success. Because the “Heart” factor is missing.)
 
 
So, that sums up our four attributes of successful writing. This is obviously experiential opinion, not concrete fact. Because writing is art, not science. And these attributes are not always separate, discreet steps—they combine to form a unified mindset which will help you get to wherever it is you want to go. They feed into each other…
 
Without Heart, you won’t have enough emotional investment to spend the time to fully invest your Craft into the story, and without Persistence, you won’t give Luck a fighting chance to come through for you.
 
Best of luck!

 
3. Persistence…
 
Okay, maybe there is a formula to this after all. My personal equation for it…
 
P = ET, where…
 
P = Persistence
E = Effort
T = Time
 
In other words, persistence is how hard you’re willing to work for something times how long you’re willing to work for it.
 
Success—even so-called overnight success—almost always comes from regular, incremental steps forward over time. Without getting discouraged to the point of permanently quitting. My take on it is that “failure” is simply what “success” looks like from the middle of the process.
 
Accept that there are going to be more strikeouts than homeruns by a large margin… that’s the nature of the game. The answer is to keep working, keep improving, and keep swinging.
 
This applies to every step along the pathway… You will likely have to query multiple times to get a partial request. Perhaps several partials to get a full. Probably more than one full to get an offer of representation. Then your agent may not land a deal with the very first editor she submits to… and maybe not with her first sublist. And maybe not with that particular manuscript at all.
 
You have to be okay with that. It’s not always fun (tell me about it) but the challenge is to reject rejection of a manuscript as rejection of you—or of your writing in general—and get back in the ring.
 
You are selling into a buyer’s market. Always have been, always will be. This doesn’t mean you won’t eventually sell. This just means the buyers will be picky… you need to find the right buyer at the right time who’s in the market for what you’re currently selling. But keep your head up, because new books are being acquired every day. And a fair number of them from debut authors.
 
Persistence also comes into play during the writing itself. Yes, you need to keep writing if you want to make it to the end, but I’m talking about after you’ve finished drafting it. We’ve already touched on revision, so I’ll just say that this is what often separates the women from the girls: the ability to roll up your sleeves (after celebrating completing your first draft!) and do the less glamorous work of making your story so strong (compelling, engaging, unique, emotional, entertaining, resonant…) that someone can’t say no to it. Not everyone will be unable to resist it, of course, but it only takes one. Our job is to keep it in the market until it finds that kindred person.
 
In other words, be persistent enough that you eventually get lucky.
 
“…the only element I find common to all successful writers is persistence—an overwhelming determination to succeed.”
            ~ Sophy Burnham
 
 
Happy persisting!

 
2. Craft…
 
I believe the single most important factor in publishing success is having a strong manuscript. (There are other factors—mostly (a) rolling up your sleeves and doing some serious, organized, thorough research, (b) querying in an intelligent, friendly-yet-business-like, non-sociopathic manner, and (c) the willingness to work with your agent and/or editor to further improve the story, once they’ve taken you on. Most of these are covered in Parts 3 & 4, coming up soon.)
 
But having a strong manuscript is by far the biggest part of it, and without it, it won’t matter how much you network and schmooze and spam. You can’t talk someone into liking your manuscript—you can only write them into liking it, by doing a great job of crafting it. However, you can easily talk someone out of wanting to read it, so pay attention to (b) above.
 
“Writing craft” can be an endless topic—and there are a lot of good books on the subject, as discussed here—so I’m only going to touch on two fundamentals: story creation and revision. In other words, the beginning and end of the novel writing process.
 
Story Creation: Many writing books, podcasts, blogs, etc. focus on the process of plot outlining, some to the point of methodically laying out prescribed beats and when to hit them. Yet many writers are self-proclaimed pantsers to one degree or another. Stephen King famously “doesn’t plot,” and I recall hearing a million-selling British thriller writer say he rarely knows where he’s going beyond the next five pages.
 
So what’s up with these seemingly conflicting paradigms? Is one method better and the other a waste of time? I don’t think so. They both clearly work well for different writers, and many (most?) of us are actually somewhere in between, sometimes going from plotting to pantsing on the same project.
 
But here’s another angle on the ‘plotting vs. pantsing’ issue:
 
They’re actually the same thing.
 
With both of them, your brain creates a plot and follows it to the end of the story. The difference being simply when the major plot points are decided upon.
 
Consider two cooks, baking the same dessert in different kitchens. (Let’s say bread pudding, because…bread pudding.) One gets out the recipe card, lays out the ingredients, follows the instructions—maybe varying them slightly according to her taste—and gets a tasty dessert.
 
The other has cooked (and as important, eaten with attention) quite a bit, and has a pretty good idea what to put in the dish to get something she thinks her guests will like. So she jumps right in, adding the basic ingredients she thinks belong in this particular bread pudding, maybe varying the spices slightly according to her intuitive sense of what will work. And gets a tasty dessert.
 
They both chose to use specific amounts of specific ingredients to arrive at roughly similar results. But in one case, the measurements were mostly determined ahead of time, while in the other, they were mostly determined during the process… which doesn’t mean they were just randomly guessed at.
 
It’s the same with plot construction. It’s not that the pantser just wildly throws stuff into the manuscript at random. It’s that they've read enough and/or written enough and/or thought about it enough that they have internalized the fundamental process of “story,” and don’t necessarily need to write it all down… any more than a cook needs to dig out a recipe to whip up a batch of waffles. But they’re still following the basic principles of good storytelling.
 
So we get to a little sub-secret: Read. A lot. In a lot of genres. And age ranges. Try to read good stories, well-loved stories, award winning stories, innovative stories, popular stories, classic stories, experimental stories. And those interesting little bastard mutt stories nobody else seems to love... but which speak to you anyway. (Those are the best stories, of course.)
 
You will absorb storytelling, and you will naturally absorb more of the type of storytelling that resonates most with you. And later, when you’re in the middle of your manuscript—whether plotted or pantsed or somewhere in between—and your brain throws out a flyer that wasn’t exactly in the masterplan, give that little bastard mutt of an idea a chance to develop into a contender before tossing it.
 
Story Revision: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a draft—my own or someone else’s—that couldn’t be substantially improved through thoughtful and thorough revision. But more important than what I think, virtually every editor I’ve seen discuss craft has said the same thing. We’ve talked about what an editor actually does in detail before, but here’s the TL;DR: Scraping a manuscript for mechanical errors—spelling, punctuation, grammar, and basic continuity--ISN’T EDITING (nor is it revision). And does almost nothing to improve the fundamental story contained within the manuscript. (Yes, you still absolutely need to do it before sending your manuscript to an agent or editor—or “pressing publish”—but that’s beside the point.)
 
Just today I heard an editor say she cringes when she sees an aspiring writer doing first-round revisions at the sentence level, agonizing over commas, etc., because at that point the priority should be revision based on story development, making the story as strong and impactful as possible… tightening up dragging sections, making scenes carry their weight and have as much emotional resonance as possible. (Plus it’s pretty inefficient to worry about commas first, when the whole paragraph or page is likely to change… or be cut entirely.)
 
I filed the following under “Important Things I Have Learned…”
 
I have learned that when I write something I think is great as-is and I give it a quick spit-shine and excitedly send it out… it doesn’t get published. With everything I’ve ever had published, I did judicious post-first-draft work before submission.
 
And… this holds true for every author I know.
 
So please learn from my mistakes—if you write something you think is awesome and you’re proud of it, resist the urge to quickly spell check it, have your friend-with-English-degree read it and give you the thumbs up, then submit it. Because it probably is awesome, and you probably should be proud of it. So you should give it the best chance to succeed against all the other (likely more polished) works it’s up against. Because after an agent has passed on a manuscript, they’re typically disinclined to ever look at it again, even if you realize the error of your ways and do the work to make it “ready for primetime.” (And with editors it’s even worse, as once an editor at a given imprint has passed on a manuscript, all the other editors at that imprint typically won’t look at it, either.)
 
So that’s my .02 on the beginning and the completion of the novel writing process. In between, it’s just a lot of good old-fashioned hard work. Which we’ll talk about next time…
 
Happy Crafting!
 

​ 
So—as one does when one is stuck at home—I’m in the middle of revisions these days. The sort of revisions where you basically know what you want to do going into it. (Things like, Make this character more complex and Give that guy stronger motivation for what he does and Make her less of a goody-two-shoes and so on.) And I have notes for what I want to accomplish—pages and pages of notes.
 
So you’d think it’d be a simple thing to effect the changes. And occasionally, it is. But the majority of them take quite a while… far longer than it took to write up the desired changes in my notes. Which is funny, because my notes are detailed—sometimes to the point of containing actual dialog and/or interior monolog—and one could pretty much copy and paste them into place.
 
Which leads us to the sticky part. The “into place” part, I mean.
 
First of all, you need to find the perfect place within the manuscript to insert the new text. You can spend quite a bit of time just trying to locate it. And if the perfect spot doesn’t exist, then you need to create it… which means further writing, just to make a space for the incoming information. And then, once the new text is in place, there’s something else we need to do…
 
We need to break out the refinishing skills.
 
I do a little antique restoration—furniture and machinery—and when you’re fixing a broken record cabinet, for example, the repair itself is by far the easiest part of the process. Hiding the repair—making it look like it was never broken—is much harder.
 
Let’s suppose the cabinet you’re restoring has a crack in it… maybe the wood has shrunk over the past century and left a gap in the middle of a panel. So you squirt some glue into the break, pull it tight with clamps, and let it dry. Voila! The break is repaired—it’s once again structurally sound. But it’s also obvious to anyone who’s really looking where the break was.
 
So you scrape off the excess dried glue. Then you fill any little gaps and irregularities with wood filler. Then you sand the joint smooth. Then you try to match the original color… or maybe that’s not possible so you strip and sand the entire thing. Then you stain the wood, which might require multiple applications to get the right tone. Then you apply the correct finish, which will almost certainly require several coats… with appropriate curing time in between each. Then you apply whatever final polish the piece requires.
 
Only then—when it looks like nothing was done at all—is it really done.
 
Which is almost exactly the same process we need to use when revising our manuscript. Assuming we don’t want the edits to be visible, that is.
 
In other words, we can’t just pry open an existing paragraph with a crowbar, shove the new information in, then duct tape it closed again.
 
Let’s say we want to go back and reinforce to the reader that our protagonist—Sara—is really bright. We could wedge it into basic description, telling the reader “Sara was short and muscular, with long, auburn curls and an IQ of 150.” Which is painfully clunky on several levels. (Personally, I almost never describe characters via exposition. It comes out in context, or through relevant dialog or interior monolog, or not at all. But my MO isn’t necessarily right or wrong—it’s just me.) The real issue, however, is that it’s simply telling the reader. Which can take the reader right out of the story. Because if Sara really is smart, we should see that organically through her actions and words and thoughts.
 
So we need to go back through the story and weave in subtle bits here and there that show the reader that Sara is really perceptive or talented or academically notable (or however you wish her gifts to manifest). Demonstrate that she’s doing really well in AP Calculus… show her beating a nationally ranked chess master… have her figure out who the thief is through sheer brainpower. But each of these scenes—and we will almost certainly want several smaller ones vs. a single big “reveal”—will have to flow naturally from the previous scene, and not just be stuck on. Then we need to smooth out any gaps in the material via multiple read-throughs, looking for any roughness or irregularities and polishing them with each pass. Then we need to check for continuity errors, making sure the timeline of events still makes sense. And of course Sara has to be relatively self-consistent throughout—not perceptive one day and oblivious the next just to make the plot work.
 
The reader needs to incrementally gain the understanding that Sara is bright through observing her doing a series of things that paint a picture of intelligence… through events that you’ve shown the reader, and are believable in the bigger context of the story and the characters contained within.
 
So please don’t just tell us that Sara is smart. That’s like gluing the broken board back together and telling us it’s fine, when we can all see that it’s not.
 
This is one of those non-intuitive cases where the more work you do, the easier the job seems to an outsider… until you finally do so much work that it appears no work was done at all!
 
At that point, congratulations—you’ve hidden all the seams. You likely won’t get credit for it (other than perhaps from your editor, who’s seen the before & after pics) but the reader will have the wonderful experience of reading a story that seems to flow smoothly and naturally… almost like the writer did nothing at all.
 
Happy hiding!

 
Ask any fiction writer what the most common question they get is and you’ll likely hear:
“Where* do you get your ideas**?”
 
[*Taking the question literally, the plausible answers are either (1) inside my head (i.e. from my imagination), (2) outside my head (i.e. from the world around me), or (3) a combination of 1 & 2 (i.e. take some event from some place and sometime in the world and re-imagine it into something else). #3 is—by far—the most common.]
 
[**FYI, writers speak of this question amongst themselves the way musicians talk about requests to play Mustang Sally or Free Bird. Just sayin…]
 
But the question behind the question is likely something more along the lines of: How do you develop the seed of an idea into a story?
 
This question is actually interesting—to writers as well as readers—because while the former has three answers (inside/outside/both), the latter has as many answers as there are writers. So I’m not suggesting that what works for one writer will absolutely work for another. We’re all different. But if nothing else, looking at someone else’s process can help jumpstart your own, different though it may be.
 
It might sound funny, but spinning a bedtime story completely on the fly—no notes, no pre-plotting, no outline—might be one of the best storytelling lessons we can have, for a few different reasons.
 
When our boys were little we would read them bedtime stories, pretty much from birth. Somewhere in there—they were maybe two and four—I opted to tell them a story instead of reading them one. (Extemporize, not re-tell a classic.) For some reason—probably because I could be as wild and goofy and stupid about it as I wanted—they enjoyed it. So I got roped into doing it on the regular. Not every night, but perhaps three or four times a week.
 
Maybe someone else could world-build a totally unique setting and character-set every night (after an 8-to-12 hr. workday) but not me... I quickly learned the best way for me was to have several serialized stories going at once, in episodic fashion, and let them pick one each night and spin a little bit more of it.
 
No plotting or outlining allowed, because you didn’t even know which one it was going to be until you were lying on the floor with the lights out and a little voice would say, “Could we hear Cousin Crow, Dad?” And you’d say, “Really? Are you sure? I don’t think so…” And they’d start yelling, “Cousin Crow!!! Cousin Crow!!! Cousin Crow!!!” and you’d be off to the races, talking about whatever trouble that crazy bird was getting into next…
 
This went on for six or seven years. A couple hundred stories a year. Easily a thousand or so by the time we moved on to “Novels at Night.” Stories where the goal was to entertain them and make them laugh, and maybe even make them think about things in a new way.
 
These stories certainly weren’t War and Peace, believe me. Mostly goofy stories about various people and creatures having adventures and getting into trouble*.
 
[*Ex: There was a young dude who worked in a science lab—I named him “Wilbur the Science Guy” in a fit of stunning creativity—who was smart but absent-minded. He really liked to eat but he really didn’t like to waste time so he hot-rodded the lab’s microwave oven so it would cook a frozen burrito in two seconds instead of two minutes, which was awesome right up until he forgot and put in a burrito and set it for two minutes. The massive over-nuking of the burrito resulted not only in an explosion that plastered the lab’s walls with stinky, slimy beans and cheese, but also created a time warp that sent Wilbur back to medieval days, where further adventures featured him trying to explain science to a stupid and pompous king who didn’t believe in science. This was twenty years ago, btw…]
 
So, a few benefits of this ad hoc storytelling process…
 
1. It encourages us to exercise our “going with our gut” story development muscles. (AKA “organic” writing.) Because there’s no time for over-thinking. The main driver is simply, “What interesting thing could happen right now?” and then riffing on that.
 
2. You get instant feedback from your “readers.” If a couple of monkey boys are bored by your story, you’ll hear about it. Instantly. And loudly. (OTOH, if they find something funny, you’ll know that right away, too.)
 
3. You tend to consider—and play to—your audience. Not that this should always be the top priority when wordsmithing, but when writing for a specific age group—whether picture book, chapter book, middle grade, or YA—it’s certainly helpful to know who’s reading, and what they may likely be interested in. (Bottom line—if you don’t interest your readers, they won’t want to read your book. It's that simple, but sometimes we forget.)
 
4. You learn to create—and abandon—ideas quickly. Like, at the speed of speech if not faster. If something isn’t working, you quickly pivot and try something else. Sometimes you’ll think of an idea and toss it before it even comes out of your mouth. This translates well to doing actual plotting on, like, an actual book.
 
Again, none of these stories were the Great American Novel. Not by a longshot. But they taught me some valuable lessons. Lessons I still use today. Lessons we could use tomorrow.
 
Because after all, isn’t the ultimate goal the same—to keep the reader tuned in and engaged in your story, no matter what?
 
Happy spinning!
 

 
I was doing a workshop for young writers recently and as usual I started with a quick assessment…
 
Who writes—or wants to write—the following:
…Short stories?
…Articles?
…Essays?
…Blog posts?
…Graphic novels?
…Journalism?
…Nonfiction books?
…Novels?
And so on…
 
The good news is I saw several hands go up for each area, and many of them went up multiple times.
 
Then on a whim I added, …and what about fanfic?
 
Lots of hands, and (even more important) lots of excitement. “Awesome!” I said, and we were off and running.
 
Fast-forward to a while later, as we’re discussing the revision process. I’m trying to give them two fundamental takeaways…
 
1. Revision can really improve our work.
 
2. Revision can really be enjoyable. (Because without them buying into #2, #1 isn’t likely to happen.)
 
The first one is pretty direct: Revision is where you can go from good to great, etc., along with explaining various reasons why virtually any manuscript can be made better with judicious revision. The teachers are nodding in agreement, and the students seem to get the idea. In theory.
 
The second one is a harder sell. I talk about how I changed my mindset from dreading revision to enjoying it. “Look at it this way: you’ve actually reached the end, and in the big picture it probably hangs together as a story to one degree or another. So the stress of wondering if you’re even going to finish the initial draft is gone. You made it! Now you get to return to your world and make it even better and—”
 
I stopped, as something struck me. “Remind me again—who’s into fan fiction?” Three fourths of the students put their hands up. “Well, this is similar.” I had their attention now, if not their concurrence. “With fanfic, you start with a world you love and characters you love and a basic story holding it all together, right?” They nodded. “So you don’t have to do the heavy lifting of world-building or character creation or fundamental rulemaking because it’s already been taken care of, right?” More nods. “So, you guys are basically saying that the fun of it is, you get to dive back into that world and improve things and add new things and just generally make it into the story you always thought it should be. Sound familiar?”
 
The room lit up with fifty or so lightbulbs turning on. Including the one above my head.
 
​It was my turn to nod. “So it sounds like… revision is doing fan fiction on your own story!”
 
And it is.
 
My views on revision changed when I began to realize it was an opportunity to go back to the world I’d created—and the characters I’d created and was invested in—and play around some more. (With credit to my child bride here, because she got over her dislike of rewriting before I did and thus helped show me there was light at the end of the tunnel.)
 
And I think a big part of this is—as we’ve discussed before—reading like a reader instead of a writer: Take some time away from the story then go through it like a fan. And as you read, keep note of the things that bore you or confuse you or that you’d just like to see done better or different.
 
Then take that punch list and go back through it as “writer you” and make all the changes that “reader you” was wishing for, making sure the transitions are smooth and natural and that none of the stitches are visible after the surgery.
 
And when you’re done… congratulations! You’ve just created some awesome fanfic based on the work of an author near and dear to you.
 
Happy Revising!
 

 
…so five minutes ago—as I write this—one of the best writers I know is working toward the end of perhaps the best thing she’s ever written, and tears are pouring down her face.
 
She notices me in the room and looks up from her laptop, eyes wide. I don’t even have to ask. “Oh, my poor little friends!” she says by way of explanation, then blinks as more tears run down her face. And—because I know her little friends too—I nod, and suddenly find myself involuntarily joining in.
 
I can think of no better illustration of honest-to-God writer engagement. And I believe pretty firmly that without writer engagement—real, gut-level, emotional involvement with your characters—it’s very hard to generate that level of reader engagement.
 
In other words, you have to give a shit.
 
And how do we do that?
 
 A good start might be to internalize the concept that caring is an emotion, not a thought.
 
The good news is we all have a built-in barometer for things like this. We don’t have to think about it—in fact, thinking about it puts us at one more degree of remove from it. An analogy might be our sense of taste. When we take a bite of something—for example, homemade hand-cranked vanilla ice cream—most of us can answer the question, “Do you like it?” without too much intellectualizing, especially if we just listen to our initial emotional response and don’t think things like, ‘Is this healthy?’ or ‘Is this considered quality food?’ or ‘Do other people like it?’
 
The same can apply to your characters. Instead of thinking (there’s that word again), ‘My character has been designed with these attributes and those personality traits and faces this specific challenge—which the reader should be able to relate to,’ maybe ask yourself the simple question, ‘Do I care about them?’ Go with your gut response here rather than an intellectual one.
 
[NOTE: This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to like them, although it can certainly help you—and readers—care about them and what happens to them. There’s a time-honored place in literature for the unlikeable protagonist, although this only seems to really work when the author sets out from page one to purposely create a fascinating-yet-unlikeable protagonist. I think the fairly common criticism of a book “having an unlikeable main character” usually means the author unintentionally created a not-very-likeable character. This is a subject deserving of its own post, but one thing that can definitely help here is the use of good betas.]
 
[NOTE #2: We should also recognize there are plenty of novels where having an emotional connection with the main character isn’t a top priority, either for the author or the reader. These could be plot-driven thrillers or humorous capers or broad historicals or any number of other types. And these can certainly be entertaining, successful works, but they’re typically not as likely to be the sort of stories readers bond with for the long haul… the type that sometimes come to be known as “beloved.” Maybe because humans seem to be hardwired to be more invested when there’s a person in the story they truly care about.]
 
So how can we raise the odds of this connection happening?
 
I think it’s largely a matter of spending time with them. I have a theory that, everything else being equal, the more time we spend with someone—assuming they’re generally good people—the more they come to mean to us. (I think this may be anthropologically tied to the human concept of “family.”) Regardless, by “spending time” I don’t necessarily mean writing a thousand page book about them. I mean letting them occupy space in your head… and in your heart.
 
When possible, spend some non-writing time thinking about them, just running scenarios through your head and imagining what they might do in various situations. Yes, this’ll also help you come up with plot ideas, but maybe even more important, it’ll help you get to know about them—and care about them—as individuals.
 
And if we invest enough time, attention, and research into our characters, they can become real to us. Not real in a “break with reality and visit the psych ward” sense. Real in an emotional sense. In the same sense that we—as readers—might care about Harry & Hermione & Ron or Hazel Grace & Augustus or Liesel & Rudy or whichever characters you’ve ever found yourself personally invested in.
 
And if you develop an emotional attachment to your characters to the extent that you find yourself springing a leak over your ‘little friends,’ take it as a sign that your readers might feel the same way.
 
Which—when you boil it all down—is the whole point of what we’re trying to do here, right?
 
Happy crying!
 

 
I think it’s important to take note of—and to celebrate—the little victories*. Including those in your writing life.
 
(*The ones that mean something to you, I mean. I’m not always a big fan of participation trophies, especially for kids. Not that participation isn’t a good thing—it’s usually the best thing—but kids generally know the score. Literally as well as figuratively. I remember when our youngest was in a “no score” beginner basketball program. The theory: the kids play, they have fun, no one keeps score, and they’re all happy when it’s over. The reality: they all keep score on their own, and it freaking matters to them. Once after a game I told him, “Good game!” and he looked at me like I was an idiot. “What are you talking about? We lost, eighteen to eight!” **Storms off to retrieve his juice box and Lunchable**)
 
But when you have a real victory—no matter how small—I think it’s good to commemorate it.
 
When our oldest was a cub scout they had a little pinewood car derby. The kids all started with identical blocks of pine and they carved, sanded, assembled, weighted, tuned, and painted their cars. Other than discussing the importance of aerodynamics and reducing friction (he was a science guy even back then), I mostly just made sure he could use a power sander without hurting himself then let him get to it. He was pretty meticulous about the whole friction thing and on the night of the derby—after an hour of thrilling elimination rounds—he took first place. He was super excited about winning. Afterward, I was expecting some sort of trophy or plaque or whatever (these things always have trophies) but there weren’t any. On the way home I could tell my son was a little disappointed, but he didn’t say anything about it. So I went out the next day and got him one. Nothing fancy—just a basic little trophy with a race car on top and the words “First Place” on it.
 
I didn’t get it so he would have bragging rights or anything (bragging wasn’t really in his personality, regardless). I got it because I think it’s good psychology to commemorate the little victories we occasionally have. It’s also nice to have a tangible reminder of the occurrence, so that afterwards when you look at it, all the good, fun, validating feelings you had at the time come back to you, reminding you… Yeah, I did that!
 
In the writing world, these sorts of things come along all-too-infrequently. Even for the successful writer, a new book deal or a new release or hitting list or winning a big award doesn’t happen every day. Or even every year. And for those of us still upward bound on the ladder (i.e. virtually all of us) they happen even less often. So celebrate them.
 
You don’t have to wait until the final end-goal is accomplished, either. You should celebrate the steps along the way. These may even be more important to recognize, because they’re the type of accomplishments that don’t usually garner outside kudos. (No one’s going to buy you an ice cream because a well-respected agent requested the first three chapters of your manuscript. So do it yourself.)
 
Some little-recognized-yet-important milestones that warrant a celebration…
 
You finish the first draft of a manuscript. (I told a writing friend once that I’d finished a first draft—he was basically a wise old cowboy type—and he said, “I’d think that might make a man want to open a can of beer.”)
 
You finish all your revisions/edits/polishing and—for the first time—you think it’s finally submittal-ready. (This is a big one, as the most important precursor to publication is a strong, finished manuscript.)
 
You do all your research and make a first-round list of agent candidates who represent works like yours, then you write/revise/polish your query letter and send it to them. (Oh yeah! Beer me! I put hope in the mail!)
 
After a number of rejections, you get a request for a partial. (Yay! Someone’s reading! This calls for chocolate!)
 
After even more rejections, you get a request for a full. (Yes! More hope! We press send and get ourselves a mocha!)
 
I’m not going to follow this all the way to, You hit list, win a Pulitzer, and get your own imprint… all within the same month. Not just because those things don’t really happen outside of the movies, but because that’s precisely my point: if we wait until “The Big Win” to celebrate, most of us are going to be waiting a long time without commemorating all the incremental victories along the way.
 
So don’t wait. Start now. Look for interim accomplishments that are steps along your path and give yourself a pat on the back for making that next step.
 
The events certainly don’t need to be tied to the specific path of publication, either. If they further your writing knowledge, skills, or talents in any way, they’re candidates for celebration.
 
Take a class on any aspect of writing? Celebrate!
 
Teach a class on any aspect of writing? Celebrate!
 
Present at a school, library, or writer’s group? Celebrate!
 
Publish an article in a magazine? Celebrate!
 
Write a piece for someone’s blog or podcast? Celebrate!
 
Interview someone for a magazine, blog, or podcast? Celebrate!
 
Get interviewed by a magazine, blog, or podcast? Celebrate!
 
Self-publish your book? You’re a hero—celebrate five times! (Because you’ve just been an author, editor, art director, publicist, and sales manager!)
 
Along with everything else, it’s good psychology. There’s nothing like a little positive reinforcement to keep us going. (And if you’re in need of external recognition, this can also serve to tip off your friends. “What’s up with all the wine and chocolates?” “Oh, that…?” *looks down shyly* “…I just finished final revisions on my contemp romance.”)
 
So yeah, recognizing and celebrating those steps along the way can give us the motivation we need to keep going along a path that is otherwise filled with way more rejection than acceptance. And besides, who doesn’t need more wine and chocolate in their life?
 
 
Happy celebrating!

 
In a moment of irony, we’re going to start this post with a pop quiz…
 
Questions:
 
1. What’s one of the biggest precursors for success not only in school, but in life?
 
2. What’s an activity that students seem to either completely love or totally despise, depending on how it’s administered?
 
3. What is the term for students perusing graphic novels, comic books, and silly picture books full of fart jokes?
 
4. What do we call it when students choose books with inappropriate Lexile scores, either well above or below the student’s assumed ability to comprehend?
 
5. What subject—as opposed to, say, math—can be forever lost to the student by too much dissection, too early?
 
Extra Credit: What’s THE terminal objective for having kids read in school?
 
Answers:
 
1. Reading*.
 
2. Reading*.
 
3. Reading*.
 
4. Reading*.
 
5. Reading*.
 
Extra Credit: Instill in them a lifelong love of reading*. Nothing more. Nothing less.
 
*NOTE: As used here, we’re referring to the common practice of sitting down with a book—fiction or otherwise, classic or contemporary—and simply reading it for enjoyment and edification. Yes, a math or history lesson requires reading, and analysis and testing of the material presented is an important part of the lesson, but the main point of reading a math lesson has little to do with enjoying the actual words in the textbook.
 
Nowhere in the common definition of “reading” is there anything about memorizing and regurgitating sections of the book in question. Nor anything about analyzing and dissecting the work in question to ascertain “greater” meaning than that contained within the words on the page. Nothing about using reading as prep for a test on the very same reading, either—a cart-before-the-horse exercise wherein the results of the test end up more important than the actual reading of the book.
 
So why do we do this? I think it largely comes from a well-intentioned desire to apply metrics to the subject. And for the more Boolean, STEM-centric subjects, yes, we often need to quantify results to measure progress. So we tend to think we need to create a methodology to dissect, measure, and test all subject matter.
 
But for the more right-brained subjects, applying this mindset often does more harm than good. (One of the banes of my corporate existence was the oft-repeated dictum, “If you can’t put numbers around it, it doesn’t exist.” Hint: people who say this might make good accountants but are almost universally poor supervisors.)
 
So, what should we do? I humbly offer three strategies:
 
1. Start with the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. The first goal of any reading program should be that the student ends up with a love of reading such that they will continue the habit going forward. If that’s all that happens, that’s a wonderful success. But if the student ends up with a correlation in their brain between “reading” and “work,” then—regardless of all the curriculum objectives you’ve met on paper—the program is a total failure for that student. (Similar to sports programs that use running laps as punishment. Way to go, coach—you’ve just created a life-long negative association with one of the healthiest activities a person can engage in: aerobic exercise…)
 
2. Be mindful of selection criteria. You’ve probably seen the recent (and infamous) “recommended reading list” from Florida’s Dept. of Education that’s almost entirely comprised of books written before I was born, let alone the students. (Imagine a list for middle graders—put out in 2019!—that starts with Black Beauty, Heidi, The Secret Garden, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Wind in the Willows, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Anne of Green Gables. And I didn’t cherry-pick these… they’re simply the first seven titles on the list. The rest are more of the same. Who in the world thought today’s tweens might relate to those?) The same issues come with using big awards as selection criteria. (A famous report on the past 30 years of children’s literature says, “The Newbery has probably done far more to turn kids off to reading than any other award in children’s publishing.”) Remember, the first objective isn’t to introduce the students to “the brilliance of the classics,” it’s to get them to love reading. Which means they need to actually enjoy what they read, especially for the first few years of independent reading. Toward that end…
 
3. Let the kids pick their reading material. Obviously there needs to be assigned reading at times (but even then, please try to select something the kids might actually enjoy reading!), but it’s hard to over-stress the importance of actually letting the students select their own books—on their own—without “guidance” or “Lexile scoring” or “recommendations” (unasked-for) or any other type of thumbing the scale. If they ask for recommendations, then yes! This is where great librarians and teachers shine—they can pair up a student with a book in a way that seems almost like magic to an outsider (when it’s mostly deep knowledge of the material—including current books—paired with a deep love of books and reading, along with serious time and effort on their part). But one of the keys to developing a love of reading is the feeling of autonomy a student gets when they choose a book that they think might actually interest them (as opposed to their teacher), make the effort to read it, and end up actually liking it (both validating their choice and providing motivation to try the process again… win-win!).
 
Speaking of the primacy of student choice, Penny Kittle—in Book Love, her book on getting students to love both reading and writing—says, “Allowing students to make choices about what they read has been presented in our profession, especially at the secondary level, as enrichment—something to do once the hard work is over. I believe, instead, that it is at the center of our work.” And, “I believe all students need to own their reading in the same way I believe they must own their writing.”
 
For many kids, reading enjoyment seems to peak in mid-late elementary grades then fall off somewhere in those tween middle school years… and sometimes never recovers. (And in schools where this doesn’t seem as prevalent, I’ve noticed they usually have deeply engaged librarians and language arts teachers.) In my own informal polling of young people, “They made us read crappy books!” and “They made it into work!” were two of the top reasons why this happens, along with basically being “too busy” for pleasure reading.
 
The busy-ness aspect is a separate subject, but if we take care of the first two issues and they actually learn to enjoy reading—and writing—then they’re more likely to stick with it even when life gets a little hectic.
 
Going back to the opening question (what’s one of the biggest precursors for success…?), pleasure reading actually has to do with a lot more than pleasure. So helping our kiddos develop a love of reading is beneficial to them well beyond the language arts arena, and well beyond school itself.
 
Happy writing… and reading!
 

 
I’m pissed as I write this. Not Brit-pissed (it’s morning and I’m at a coffee shop so… not likely) but American-pissed. Royally.
 
A writer-friend of ours posted an adorable family photo on social. Cute and casual. In it, one of the family members was reading a well-known and beloved children’s book. But after a handful of “This is adorable!” comments, someone (another writer-dude) put up a comment that basically said, “My new book such-and-such is better than this book for reasons XY&Z.”
 
And I’m all like, WTF???
 
After biting back the urge to call him out right then and there (which would only further ruin the post of the adorable family pic), I tried to figure out why in God’s name someone might do this. If it was an ill-advised attempt at humor, I could semi-sorta get it, I guess. Maybe. (As John Scalzi points out, the failure mode of “clever” is “asshole.”) But there was zero humor in it—this was just a blatant attempt by the dude to insert a plug for his book into a decidedly non-business post. (And slamming someone else’s much-loved book in the process, no less.)
 
This is by no means the only case. You’d be hard pressed on any given day to read a popular article in School Library Journal or Publishers Weekly and not see someone blurt out in the comments, apropos nothing at all, “My book ‘Three Ways to Trim Your Nose Hair’ is available on Kindle now!!!”
 
Look, I get it. Publishing is a tough business, maybe more so these days than ever. It’s no longer enough to just write something other people want to read. An author is also expected to do a lot of the publicity for their own work. (Which we’ll address in a future post.) And of course the rise of social media has magnified this paradigm by a thousand. And for those writers who are their own publisher, they’re solely responsible for virtually all of the publicity, sales, and marketing of their work. All while seeing what their peers are doing to try and sell their books. And of course, most of the writing “news” that other authors post is heavily weighted toward the relatively-rare good news about book deals and best-seller status and awards, etc., further fueling the FOMO flames licking at indie authors’ backsides.
 
So yeah, I get the pressure to keep up with whoever you imagine is your competition. (Tip: It’s actually not anyone else at all. It’s you.)
 
But don’t do it! Three reasons…
 
1. It’s just wrong. That’s reason enough right there. Friends don’t spam friends. Or see them as “sales opportunities.” Or piggyback onto their popular posts which have nothing to do with their book whatsoever. Or hijack a congratulatory comment thread about someone getting a nice promotion within the publishing industry. Or in any way insert themselves where they’re not invited.
 
2. It doesn’t work. Consider the goal of all this desperate spamming: in theory, it’s to generate sales. So, in an insanely reductive fashion, some writers think the answer is simply to shout “Buy my book!” as loudly and as often as possible. But, as should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer (my dad’s favorite phrase when I didn’t get something), this is so wrong-headed as to be laughable. Because—at some level--all business is personal. We tend to give our business to those we like and avoid giving it to those we actively dislike. Duh.
 
So don’t make us actively dislike you. Double duh.
 
It’s sort of like literary cat-calling. With the same results. (Like, when in the history of humankind has it ever worked for some knuckle-dragging loser to whistle at a woman in the street and yell lewd suggestions at her? Spoiler alert: Never.) Same with hijacking a thread to blurb your book. It’s an absolute failure path. It’s even worse—career-wise—than doing nothing, because besides (1) alienating your few remaining friends and (2) actively discouraging people from buying your book, there’s the added problem of...
 
3. It kills your rep within the industry. What do you think an agent or editor or publisher will think of you when they see you trying to hawk your book in the middle of someone else’s affair like a drunk uncle trying to convert everyone to his politics at Thanksgiving? Yup, pretty much exactly that—they’ll tag you as a flaming ass-wipe, to be avoided at all costs.
 
Similar to cat-calling, it shouts from the literary rooftops: I’m desperate, I’m self-centered, I’m driven by peer pressure, and I have no clue how real human interaction works!
 
So, what should we do to engage potential readers in the online sphere?
 
For starters, try to act like you’d want a guest to act if they were invited into your home: Be kind, be thoughtful, and above all resist the urge to see every conversation as an opportunity to sell yourself or your product.
 
Try to be the best version of your writing self. Consider the following…
 
Recommend other authors’ books. Everyone (every reader, at least) loves honest book recommendations. But we automatically discount anyone who recommends their own book, for reasons that should be obvious by now.
 
Signal boost worthy people and causes (without getting all didactic, hateful, or preachy, because who likes that?). Like the above, we want to learn about good people and good causes, as long as there’s no conflict of interest and we’re not being spoken down to or lectured.
 
Try to give helpful tips to fellow writers. Because it’s a nice thing to do. Because helping others succeed doesn’t hurt your own chances one bit. Because it increases ‘community’ and decreases ‘competition’ among writers. And because freely offering something of value (as opposed to “buy my book!”) is how you garner honest engagement.
 
Be an inspiration, not a frustration. Have you noticed how, with some people, you usually feel better after reading their posts? (Maybe grateful, maybe inspired, or maybe just lifted by a smile or a chuckle?) And with others, most of the time it leaves you either bummed or annoyed or demotivated?
 
So… which of the above feelings do you want others to associate with you?
 
Try to be that.
 
 
Happy writing…!
 

 
Several posts ago I mentioned that the best way for me to capture writing-related thoughts (rough scenes, plot points, timelines, etc.) was to staple several blank pages together and sort of free-form scrawl on them, with perhaps a wavy line between scenes as the only semi-official delineator. My theory is that this works for me because it allows my brain to believe there’s no special importance attached to whatever I’m writing.*
* Notice I used the terms “for me,” “I,” and “my brain.” Your mileage may vary. As always. 
 
I believe the creative mind functions best when it’s actively engaged in an activity without stress. Not coincidentally, I also believe the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. So when you’re doing something you enjoy—without any feelings of stress or fear wrapped around the outcome—you’re more likely to find yourself in that magic zone where ideas come more readily and are executed at a higher level. (I’d say you’ve “set yourself up for success”—and you have—except the concept of “success” is the opposite of what you want on your mind.)
 
So we might consider replacing concepts like “success” and “winning” and “stress” and “competition” with terms like play and fun and creativity and enjoyment. All of which can add up to us operating at a higher level. It’s ironic, but trying to do well often leads to doing less well. Because when you’re doing X, you should be thinking about (wait for it…) X. Or even better, you should be so immersed in doing X that you’re not consciously thinking about anything. The last thing you should be thinking about is “doing well at X,” which is not about X at all, but about the negative consequences of failing at X. Which of course takes you out of the flow of actually doing X, instead taking you down the fear path and increasing your odds of poor performance.
 
Once upon a time I was working with a team of men and women who had been doing performance drills with a spirited attitude (and great results) for a long time. Then along came an extra-important federal inspection, the cornerstone of which would be “evaluated exercises.” (i.e. more drills, only with lots of extra focus and extra observers, etc.) I gave them a pre-drill briefing, as per usual. But not as per usual, near the end of the brief a high-level administrator came in and “wanted a few words” with the team. I figured a little cheerleading couldn’t hurt so I let him talk. My bad. He proceeded to tell the team how important these exercises were, how a lot was riding on the results, how they had to do their very best, and how they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. After pulling the pin and tossing that into the briefing, he left. Everyone was dead quiet as they gathered their gear and got ready to head out, the stress in the room palpable. “Guys, hold on,” I finally said. They stopped. “This is just another drill. Just like last week or last month or last year. You guys are the best in the country at what you do, you’ve already proven that. So don’t change a thing—go out there and kick ass, like always… and have fun!” (Okay, there might have been a few f-bombs inserted here and there, but that’s the gist of it.)
 
They ended up doing well, but that’s not the point. The point is: Don’t be that administrator inside your own brain when you’re creating. While it’s natural for us to want to perform well, we ironically perform at our best when we’re not worried about performing well… and ideally, not even thinking about performing at all.
 
As creatives, we need to do whatever we can to set the stage for our muse to arrive and do his/her/their magic. And part of that hinges on putting ourselves in a worry-free/fear-free state of mind as much as possible. My experience around adult learning is that humans don’t do inductive reasoning well under stress, they don’t do creative thinking well under stress, and they don’t retain well under stress.
 
In other words, they don’t write well under stress. Especially creative writing, and especially self-applied stress.
 
One way this can manifest with writers: Someone writes a book with zero pressure while enjoying the process, and then has huge, unexpected success with it. Then—when it’s time to write a follow-up—they have all these thoughts swirling in their brain about how important it is, how their career is riding on it, how lots of people are waiting for it, how they can’t blow it, etc. Is it any wonder it sometimes takes them years—and sometimes multiple “throw it away and start over” rewrites—to finish their next work? (Which—when it finally does come out—is sometimes seen as disappointing.)
 
I can’t think of a better recipe for creative disaster, and I feel for anyone who has to create under those circumstances. They would almost certainly do better if they could convince themselves that no one was waiting for their next book, that it didn’t matter at all, and that they were just writing for fun.
 
So how can we apply this to our own writing? Three strategies:
 
1. For starters, we can consciously not think about who might read whatever we’re writing at the moment. Yeah, your evangelical Aunt Betty might not be that into your uber-dark sexy/bloody/demonic urban fantasy. And that’s fine—it’s her choice. But if that’s the story you want to tell… that you need to tell… then you have to do whatever it takes to keep her the hell out of your writing brain while you’re drafting it. Tell yourself she’ll never read it or tell yourself you’ll warn her off or lie to yourself that you’ll remove all the stroke-inducing parts during revisions. Whatever it takes. Or—better yet—tell yourself it’ll never be a book at all… you’re just writing it for yourself and it’ll never see the light of day.
 
(I know a writer who did exactly that. He wrote a ‘labor of love’ book he really wanted to write—with no plans to ever publish it because he felt it was too outside the box—but after finishing it he was convinced to submit it. He did, and it went on to become an award-winning bestseller.)
 
2. When you come to a juncture in your writing where there’s a choice between “practical” and “fun,” go with fun whenever possible. When I wrote Road Rash I actually sat down to write another book entirely. A book that made much better business sense—a non-fiction book—because I’d been there/done that and was familiar with the process. But while creating the proposal (with non-fiction the usual business process is reversed—first you sell it, then you write it… a topic for another time) the voice of a seventeen-year-old drummer started talking to me, telling me his story. It made no real sense to drop my “logical” project in favor of this novel. I had no idea if anyone wanted to represent, edit, or publish a book of this type, or if anyone would read it/like it if it were published. But I listened to that little voice and it turned out to be one of the best writing decisions I’ve ever made. And—more important—the writing of it was so much fun.
 
3. As you’re writing, remind yourself that the final result will undoubtedly be different (and better) than the story as you’re originally drafting it. This will help keep you from becoming too precious about your actual words (if you love them like a mother loves her new-born baby) or too twisted up with frustration and anxiety (if you hate them like a colony of rabid hyenas nipping at your heels). Trying to determine “how good” something is while in the middle of the creative process is like looking down a road you’ve never taken before and trying to tell what’s over the next rise. You have—at best—only a wild-ass guess, and the only rational answer is that you’ll find out when you get there. In the meantime, enjoy the stretch of road you’re on and don’t worry too much about what may show up in a hundred miles.
 
So…
 
If writing is important to you…
And if doing your best is a priority…
Then the most important thing you can do is…
Have fun!
 

 
I have half a dozen music gigs this month. Which in itself is not a big deal. (When I was younger there were times when I’d play five nights a week for months on end.) What’s different is these gigs are spread out over five different bands.
 
Two of them are my “home” bands—one a larger, full-service group, and one a smaller, semi-unplugged thing that shares personnel and songs with the larger group. With both those bands I generally know the material to the point where I can listen to the other performers, observe the crowd (always the writer, right?) and just enjoy the music and the vibe.
 
But three of them are groups where I’m not the regular drummer and don’t necessarily know the material, and with two of those bands I get only one rehearsal each before going into the gigs. Which means I need to use some pretty ruthless triage during rehearsal, because there’s no way to discuss/chart/rehearse forty-plus songs in a couple of hours. (My method is basically: Nail the big stuff and don’t stress over the small stuff. To that end I limit myself to one line of scrawled notes after each song’s title on the set list.) During these “cram before the test” rehearsals (which typically consist of us playing through the intro and a few bars of the verse, and if everything’s cool I stop and ask to move on to the next one, because triage), a well-intentioned musician may sometimes tell me, in some detail, about the little accents he or she’s playing during the third verse or the bridge or whatever. At which point I politely explain that the #1 thing I care about is having the right feel for the song. If the groove of the song feels good—to the other band members and to the audience—then the little stuff doesn’t matter so much. However, if I nail all the little fiddly bits but the feel is wrong, it’s still a complete fail from where I sit. And the #2 thing is the fundamental arrangement, especially the intro and ending. Beyond that, we just have to trust experience, skill, and intuition.
 
So for me the fundamentals boil down to (1) Soul (i.e. the groove, which includes feel, tempo, and dynamics) and (2) Substance (i.e. major arrangement elements, including starting, stopping, and any big changes along the way). All else is secondary. If not tertiary. I wouldn’t think any of this is privileged information, but you’ll still occasionally see musicians playing with their nose buried in a chart—trying to hit all the little finicky bits they were told are somehow important—but they’re not really playing the music… they’re not engaged in the performance or what the other players are doing, and thus they’re likely not engaging the listeners. (Which is sort of the whole point of playing music in public, right?)
 
I think the same thing applies to any creative endeavor, including (you guessed it) writing.
 
Regarding writing, I think of these two fundamental attributes as follows…
 
SOUL: When I think of stories that have resonated with me, what I recall is the feeling I had upon reading them (and—for the really good ones—the feeling that lingered for quite a while after). But almost never the clever little plot events, at least not in any great number. I can remember stories that moved me to tears. But… I can’t really recall all the specifics of what happened. Nor do I need to. Sure, the basic outline is there, but what’s really there are the characters and the way they made me feel.
 
SUBSTANCE: The other thing that comes to mind when thinking about a specific story is: Did it hang together as a story? If so, good. If not, not so good. And a lot of this has to do with how artfully the author brought us into the story and released us from it, and handled the major transitions in between. (More on ‘Sticking the Landing’ here.)
 
I’ve said before that for me, the soul of a story—especially early in the process—is the vibe of it more than anything else. I get a certain feeling in my brain, and I attempt to convey that feeling to the reader. (Similar to how with a slow bluesy number, you might want the listener to feel longing or loss or desperation. But if you play it too fast… boom—that’s feeling’s gone. And nothing else you might do or say or play will make up for the loss of the essential mood of the song.)
 
I see aspiring writers arguing online about whether or not this or that “content” is “allowable” in this or that genre or age range, or what the specific word count of a middle grade should be vs. YA vs. adult literary, etc. I just want to mash the Godphone button and shout, “You’re missing the point—none of that matters as long as the story’s good. If we believe in your characters and give a shit about what happens to them, we’ll buy it!” And this is demonstrably true. By far the most popular books in recent history are a series ostensibly written for school-age children, yet the books average 150,000 words (600 pages) each. (And as I write this, the current overall #1 best-selling book in the country—according to Publishers Weekly—is the new illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire… almost twenty years after its initial publication.)
 
So I guess the lesson here is don’t worry so much about the fiddly bits—the word count or genre constraints or the edginess quotient of the so-called “content.” Sure, you should be aware of current conventions (mostly because if you aren’t, you’re not paying enough attention to your chosen art form). But if you nail the all the “conventional wisdom” aspects and still have a weak story, it’s likely not going anywhere. On the other hand, if you have an amazing, unique, fascinating story which—although well-constructed—might be a little outside the box, you may find yourself with an agent/editor/publisher who also feels engaged with the Soul & Substance of your story, and subsequently a contingent of the reading public who are likewise engaged in your work.
 
Keep on rocking, keep on writing!
 

 
I spent a few days recently in the company of a few hundred other writers at a writers conference (the CCWC, named “The Best Writers Conference in the West” by The Writer magazine) and was involved in teaching various classes, workshops, and panels, as well as attending other authors’ classes. (Conferences are a subject for another time, but my short take is the right conference can do wonders to jump-start your creative talent, drive, and passion.)
 
One of the most oft-heard questions was some version of: Do I need an agent? A snap response is to look around the room and ask how many of the attendees are writers. (Hands go up.) Then ask how many of them have a literary agent. (Hands go down.) They get the point—clearly, you don’t need an agent to be a writer. But if you stop there, you’re doing them a disservice.
 
Because there’s a question behind the question, the simplest form of which is:
 
“Do I need an agent if my publishing goal is X…?”
 
Once we solve for X, we can provide a more meaningful response. The set of possible publisher targets is some approximation of the following:
 
{Self-Publish; Small Press; Mid-Size Trad Press; Big-5}
 
With the short answers being, respectively:
 
{No; Probably Not; Probably So; Yes}
 
There are exceptions to the above, of course. (My wife got her first book deal—twenty years ago—via the slush pile at a major publisher, rare then but almost unheard of today. There was no agent with my non-fiction books—at a smaller house but with distribution from one of the largest music-related publishers in the country. And my YA novel acquired an agent after an editor was interested in it.) But these are the exception, not the rule.
 
Category matters, too. You may find it easier to self-represent an academically-interesting memoir or biography to a mid-sized university press than a genre novel to a mid-sized commercial press, for example.
 
So in light of all the above, the answer to Do I NEED an agent? for some of us, in some circumstances, might be, well… not necessarily… not always.
 
But the far more important question is the one behind all of the others: Do I WANT an agent???
 
This is a completely different issue. The ‘Do I need?’ question is about your ability to gain access to your publisher of choice. The ‘Do I want?’ question is about the sum total of what an agent can do for you, as measured against any potential downside. (IOW, it’s a Cost/Benefit Analysis.)
 
So take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left side, put down “15% of net proceeds.” (It’s not always 15%, but that’s the most common so we’ll use it.)
 
That’s about it for the “Cost” side of the CBA.
 
Now on the other side, you can start making a list of Benefits. Off the top of my head, you’ll probably want to begin with the following…
 
* Going back to the original point about access, a good agent will have personal relationships with editors, and she’ll know who might be a good fit for you and your manuscript. (Let’s face it—there’s a big difference between an editor getting an email from someone she’s never met vs. discussing something with a colleague over lunch.) And of course, just the fact that you have representation supporting your book pre-vets it to editors at larger houses, opening doors that might otherwise remain closed.
 
But then, once the first hurdle is passed—acceptance of your manuscript—there are a bunch of other things an agent does…
 
* They negotiate your contract. This alone is probably worth the price of admission, as they’re deeply conversant with things like advances, royalties, rights, etc. All of which can make a big difference over the long run.
 
* Foreign rights? Film rights? Ancillary rights? I think most of us would hate to try and navigate any of these without expert guidance, let alone even have a clue about where to begin with the process of selling them.
 
* Your agency acts as a clearinghouse for payments owed you, tracking and collecting them for you and sending you your share (minus their commission). Unless you like accounting—and are IRS-level good at it—this can save you tons of time, grief, and stomach lining.
 
I could go on with several other important admin things a good agency can provide, but perhaps the most important thing of all has nothing to do with administrative tasks…
 
* The right agent can be your best friend within the industry… your constant advocate… your staunchest supporter. The right agent wants what’s good for you and your career. Period, not comma. I haven’t done an official survey but I’d venture it’s much more common for an author to keep the same agent through multiple editors or publishers than the other way around. Not to get overdramatic about it, but they can be a light in the darkness as your writing career weathers the ups and downs of the publishing industry.
 
The specifics of acquiring an agent who’s a good fit for you and your work is a separate topic deserving of a separate post, but—having said all the above—not all agents are equal. My OBFN (Obligatory Bad First Novel) landed me an agent. He was fine, as far as it went – he shopped my manuscript to various houses and occasionally touched base regarding results – but he wasn’t a strong communicator and he never really seemed invested… in me, my manuscript, or my career. You got the feeling he was just throwing things (many things) against the wall, hoping some of them stuck. My story didn’t stick. (Which, in retrospect, I’m glad about… but that’s another story.)
 
And then with Road Rash I got another agent—a wonderful agent, intelligent and caring and professional, yet a total badass—and I saw what the right agent at the right agency can do: everything listed above and more. Especially the final point about advocacy and support. (Please don’t tell her I said so, but I think she’d be a bargain at twice the price!)
 
So, for me, the answer to the question behind the question is unequivocally Yes, I want an agent in my corner. If I’m going into new territory—one where I don’t know the rules and laws, where I don’t speak the language, and where a misstep could be costly—then I’m going to want a guide. The best one I can find. And I don’t begrudge the cost, not for a second.
 
You may have a different perspective and different skillsets, and thus may arrive at a different answer. That’s fine. Just do your research, go into it with your eyes open, and be aware of the costs and benefits before you reach a conclusion.
 
Happy writing!

 
No, this post isn’t about music, but the above impromptu clip can serve as a writing analogy. It’s just a simple little groove, shot with a phone, with no rehearsal or audio processing or anything.
 
In other words, it’s the first draft of an idea, not a polished manuscript. It could undoubtedly be better were it rehearsed, recorded with decent microphones, and mixed with some processing. (In writer-speak, it needs revision, polishing, and editing.) And already I can tell how I’d “rewrite” it. (IMO it should be maybe 10 bpm slower, with a little more triplet feel “swing,” more quarter-note accents on the cymbal bell, and a little more orchestration around the kit, instead of primarily on two toms. Perhaps with a shaker overdub. And of course, it should exist within a song, serving as a support structure for other instruments and melodic ideas… it’s certainly not a complete story within itself.)
 
But still, even in early draft stages, it tells me what I need to know—does it do what I want it to do? Does it evoke a slight world-beat vibe (interesting setting)… can I hear the “song behind the song” (subplot)… does it have an implied melody (theme)…?
 
And—getting granular here—did the hi-hat add the right texture? Because what makes this little experiment work for me isn’t the obvious stuff (what the hands are doing). To me, what makes it worth exploring at all is what the left foot is doing… the slight jazzy lilt from the little hi-hat notes on the “ands” in between the quarter notes. For me, if they were absent (or—almost worse—right on the 1-2-3-4 quarter notes), then it would be obvious/plodding/boring to the point where I’d have zero interest in using it.
 
(Think of writing a story about a geeky-yet-goth girl, the adorkable guy who sits behind her in math, their insta-love, and their Scooby gang of misfits that save the world in between episodic bouts of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Yawn. Now make the characters senior citizens, but no ‘Assisted Living Rom-Com’ here—because NFW can they afford it—so they all live in a shitty little trailer park on the edge of town. With the currently-more-ambulatory taking turns caring for the currently-bed-ridden (though they all rotate through all positions sooner or later), until they’re forced to resort to crime to cover the increasing cost of their meds. In between bouts of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, of course. Because really, who’s more likely to blast Zeppelin at annoyingly high volumes—a sixteen-year-old with earbuds or a hard-of-hearing 70-something?)
 
My point is, sometimes what we need to do to find our emotional way into a story (see: Finding a Way In and a Way Out for more on this) is to change some aspect of the story to make it uniquely ours, to make it fresh, to make it resonate with us. You could age up all your snarky teen characters… by sixty years. You could take a “He Said, She Said” story and instead of showing Scene 1 from her point of view and then Scene 2 from his, you could show Scene 1 from hers, then turn right around and write Scene 1 again, only from his POV. You could tell a poignant  wartime tale of destruction and loss, but instead of telling it in the voice of the heroic child protagonist, you could have it narrated by Death, who—far from being a heartless killer—is basically a kind, introspective being who feels overworked by the stupidity of man.
 
None of these is a gimmick, any more than playing a subtle offbeat with your left foot is a gimmick. The story may work without them, but your particular slant adds an intangible quality, a certain you-ness to it that may not only feel new and unique to the reader but—perhaps more important—feel new and fresh to you… which may give you the inspiration and motivation to dive in and do the hard work necessary to bring it to fruition.
 
One of my dad’s favorite quotes was a line from The Little Prince: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” He first heard of the quote by way of James Dean (who apparently appreciated it for the way he felt it related to acting). Taking that same philosophy a step further, I’d say it applies to any creative endeavor, whether acting or music or painting… or writing.
 
So find that little thing… that invisible thing… that essential thing… that makes your story feel like yours and no one else’s. And once you add that small essence to the mix—so small others may not even be aware of it—you’ll have something amazing.
 
Something only you can do.
 
Something that is you.
 

 
Back when I was an instructor, an administrative person opined that a good lesson plan is one where any instructor can pick it up and go teach the class effectively*.
 
I understand the concept as far as it goes and think it’s definitely worth keeping in mind. But my position was—and still is—that the teacher is an integral part of the process, and it’s reductive to think that any warm body with the ability to read and regurgitate a lesson plan can step in and do an effective job… at least for anything other than the most basic of tasks.
 
Sometimes, in order to really do an effective job, specialized knowledge is required, or perhaps experience or talent or training or skill or passion or… you get the point.
 
The teacher matters.
 
Because each of them brings something unique to the table.
 
Maybe I’m thinking about this today because, as I write this, I’m developing lesson plans for a workshop I’m giving at a conference in a few weeks. And the idea that another person could just take the lesson plan and PowerPoint and give the class seems wildly simplistic, because they don’t have the same personal experiences I do, nor my particular slant on things. (For that matter, they haven’t made the same mistakes I have either.) Not that someone else couldn’t teach a class on the same subject. They certainly could. And it might be great. But it would be a different class.
 
Which brings me to my point. Which isn’t really about teaching, but about writing.
 
As writers, we sometimes get hung up on basic plot mechanics. As though the specifics of what happens to who, and when, and where, is all that matters. (If that were really the case, all we’d have to write is a detailed plot outline, delineating everything that occurs within the story, and we’d be done. I did that once. With my OBFN. Writing that detailed outline bored me so much I hated writing the actual book.)
 
So I’m here to posit that not only are the mechanics of pushing characters through a plot like pieces on a chess board  not the only thing that matters in a story, they’re not even the main thing.
 
Consider: Fully half the stories in the world are some variation on the theme of “X meets Y.  X loses Y.  X gets Y back.” (Or, as George Harrison so brilliantly put it, “Love lost or gained between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one.”) So if that’s the case, what separates a cheesy soap opera from something like The Scorpio Races or The Princess Bride or Flipped or…?
 
It’s not just what happens (or to whom, or when, or where). It’s how the story is told. It’s that special, intangible thing the author brings to the table that makes each of these stories unique and amazing in their own way, even though on the surface they’re all boy-meets-girl love stories.
 
Yes, plot certainly matters. And no, this isn’t a diatribe against crafting a tightly-constructed series of events which lead to a well-supported resolution. (Although sometimes we can take the concept of “Finding the Formula to Writing Success!!!” a little too much to heart. I’ve read how-to missives stating you’re supposed to have an “antagonist” who “wants something the hero wants, and fights the hero for it.” With this battle ideally starting 57 pages after the “inciting incident,” which is supposed to happen within the first 23% of the manuscript. And so on. What comes to mind upon reading such things is that many of my favorite books—including two of the three mentioned above—have no antagonist at all, in the traditional sense. Which is a subject for another day, but the lesson shouldn’t be forgotten…)
 
I’m typically against pontifications about how to write—and especially of the didactic “you must do this!” sort—as writing is more art than science, and we’re all a study of one. But one writing dictum I like is “Write the story only you can tell.”
 
This doesn’t mean write your autobiography.
 
This doesn’t mean write only about things with which you have direct experience, in a ‘write-what-you-know’ fashion.
 
It means tell the story in your head—and in your heart—in your own unique way. In a way no one else could. Even if it’s a “boy meets girl” story. (Or “girl meets girl.” Or “girl meets talking zebra.” Or whatever “X meets Y” makes your heart sing.) Because if you’re brave enough tell it in the way only you can tell it—even though that might feel scary, and even though you’ll be tempted to tell it the way you’ve read it a hundred times before—then you’ll have created something new and unique and fresh and original. Even though the so-called plot may be universal.
 
Which is really the best of both worlds.
 
Go be you. 

*I think I replied with something like, “Okay, the final step of my lesson plan states: Teacher takes questions and provides meaningful, informative, in-depth answers based on years of experience and training in the specific subject matter. Could you follow those instruction ‘effectively’?”
 

 
Last time we discussed some not-infrequent issues arising during free school visits.
 
I suppose one answer might be to just Grinch-out and stop doing them, but that’s no real solution because school visits – free or otherwise – are really beneficial and big fun, if done right.
 
They’re beneficial to the kiddos (inspires them to want to read and write), to the teachers/librarians (helps reinforce things they’re trying to convey like the importance of revision in the real world, etc.) and to the authors (connects them to their readership, motivates them to think about and codify their process, etc.).
 
And again, they’re just plain fun and rewarding to do. Writing is predominantly a solitary activity and it’s good to know there are actual readers somewhere on the other end of the equation, and meeting those readers and taking their questions is always nice.
 
And finally, there’s nothing like students seeing a living, breathing writer, in person, to drive home the point that yes, real people actually write books… and they can too if they put their mind to it.
 
So yeah, the benefits of school visits are legion. And it’s also rewarding to be able to occasionally help out a school or district that maybe doesn’t have the resources to swing a typical author visit. (At its best, the concept of giving should be a win for both the giver and the recipient. If it’s not, something’s askew on one end or the other.)
 
With all that in mind, we want to avoid the types of issues we talked about last time. In general, most of them can be prevented by good communication between the author and the school.
 
Good communication… before the event.
 
Here are some strategies that may be worth consideration. (And if you have others, feel free to put them in the comments.)
 
1. When donating your services, make it clear that your normal honorarium is $XXX but you’re waiving or reducing your fee to help the school out. (In other words, make them aware of your value, and that they’re getting something of real value—something schools usually pay for—even though you’re not charging them for it in this instance.)
 
2. Ask what the visit “might look like.” Get them to give you a detailed rundown of the expected preparations, as well as the activities on the day of. If nothing else, making them state it in writing or out loud will make them more likely to follow through on it. (And yes, it’s okay to ask if lunch will be served if they don’t bring it up!)
 
3. Ask what exposure the kids will have had to your work prior to the visit. I’m not saying they need to buy every student a copy of your book (as at least one well-known author requires for “free” visits) but they should have read at least some of your work in class—whether for assignment or SSR—and be somewhat familiar with you and your writing in general. This alone will make the presentation much more successful, as the students will have both interest and questions from the exposure.
 
4. Don’t be afraid to politely decline if it’s clear from their responses to the above that they don’t really value you and your presentations. This can be tough—most kidlit authors consider themselves allies of schools, teachers, and librarians. I know I do. So maybe use something like, “I can only do so many free visits per year, and I’ve learned that the students get the most out of them when the school’s willing to do some preparation beforehand.”
 
5. Be wary of places that contact you asking outright for free presentations. I’m sure there are exceptions, but it seems like most venues that contact authors asking for gratis presentations are shotgunning their requests, looking for whoever’s willing to bite. Sometimes it’s clear from their query they don’t know your work at all… you’re just another name on their list. This sort of spamming isn’t likely to result in a meaningful author day for either you or the students. (It’s a slightly different topic, but this can also apply to conferences, festivals, and workshops.)
 
6. Consider making them do some legwork, similar to applying for a grant. Maybe send them a form and have them fill out and return it, listing what they’ll be doing in advance of the day to ensure a meaningful presentation. (In a sense, it is a grant. You’re asking them to delineate the reasons their school should receive free educational services.) I heard an author on a podcast (it was “Kidlit Women,” IIRC) talk about something similar: She does two free visits per year. She has schools apply and she chooses what she thinks are the most deserving ones. And yes, she definitely has more meaningful visits after the schools go through the application process—they know the value of what they’re receiving and they really appreciate her choosing them.
 
7. Have the name and contact number of your host at the school (the person coordinating the visit) and a back-up if possible. All your communications should be through them, and they should be on hand during the visit. (Yes, sometimes situations change and life intervenes, and if you do this long enough then sooner or later you’ll end up dealing with a “substitute host.” But—assuming they’ve been briefed and the schedule of events decided upon beforehand—things should still go well.) This is par for the course with paid events, and there’s no reason to skip it just because you’re doing your presentation pro bono.
 
In the end, it’s not really about the dollars and cents. It’s about feeling like you've made a positive impact on the kiddos, and the best way to ensure that is to ensure they’re familiar with the work and—more important--engaged in the exchange that happens during an author visit. After all, you’re not there to speak at the students. You’re there to inform and inspire in an interactive manner, creating an experience they’ll take with them going forward.
 
And the way to ensure all this is to ensure the school values you.
 
And the way to ensure that is to value yourself and your work.
 
Happy presenting…!
 

 
It’s funny, yet empirically true:
 
1. The more someone pays you, the better they treat you.
 
2. The less they pay for your work, the less they think it—and you—are worth.
 
3. No one will value you—or your work—more than you value yourself.
 
Not funny in a “haha” way. Funny in a “wow, that’s strange and illogical” way.
 
If someone does a professional job and charges a professional price, that’s to be expected, right? But if someone’s willing to do a professional job and charge a reduced price as a favor (or even do it for free), you’d think they would be treated even better. But so often it’s the other way around. Which is the ‘funny’ part. I’ve seen this dozens of times, with myself and with other writers I know.
 
Kidlit authors often do “school visits,” where a school will bring in an author to give a presentation to the students. Broadly, the authors talk about things like writing and reading and the value of persistence, etc. But there’s usually a lot more to the overall presentation than that, and a lot more behind-the-scenes prep work involved as well.
 
The schools pay the author to present to their student body. And if it’s an away gig, they cover travel and lodging, they have someone pick up the author at the airport, they have someone shuttle the author between schools then back to their hotel, etc. It’s a fairly standardized thing. The author is paid per day, with a “day” typically consisting of perhaps three presentations at one or more schools (sometimes schools share an author to spread out costs) and often also including signings and lunch with staff and/or students and occasionally an associated evening library program for adults.
 
The students get a lot out of it—both inspirationally and educationally—and the staff are usually super stoked to have an author come and talk with their students. To make the most of the author’s time on campus, they’ll often make sure the kids have read at least some of the author’s work and are familiar with them, etc. (This is really helpful, by the way, as it’s much easier to keep the attention of five hundred middle grade students if they know you and your work!)
 
And the authors get a lot out of it, too—they get to interact with their readership (perhaps the best part), they get to spread the word about not only their work but about the value of books and creative work in general, and they get to inform and inspire the students regarding the writing process. And they get an honorarium. (In a field without regular paychecks and no set salary, this is more important than one might think.)
 
This is all good. But once in a while you might run across a school without the budget to bring in an author… maybe it’s a smaller local school… maybe an under-served school in another district… maybe you’re acquainted with the staff. So for whatever reason you decide to waive or reduce your honorarium for them. And sometimes, everything goes wonderfully. Especially if the school knows and likes your work and the kids are familiar with your books.
 
(There was a high school in our state which had all their incoming freshmen read my book. They couldn’t afford an author visit but contacted me about maybe doing a Skype chat… less costly but also less impactful. They were some distance away but drivable round-trip in a day, so I said I’d do it in person for free since they were featuring my book in their curriculum. Turned out to be a wonderful experience. I did three presentations to reach all their freshmen and those kids were prepared. They’d done detailed language arts projects on the book and gave really well done presentations on them to me. The students and staff were super appreciative and attentive throughout, there was a nice lunch provided, and on my way out I was given a check for travel costs, which was totally unexpected and really nice.)
 
But this only happens if the host has done the appropriate prep work.
 
And this is where free visits can get tricky. Because if the school isn’t invested financially it can impact how they invest other resources… like time and attention. You arrive only to find out the person who coordinated your visit somehow isn’t available. You’re turned over to someone who doesn’t know who you are. No librarian or language arts teachers in sight, let alone the principal. No one introduces you to the crowd, so you do that awkward ‘Hi guys, I’m so-and-so and I’m here to talk to you about writing!’ self-intro. To a bunch of blank stares. Because the kids have no clue who you are, what you’ve written, or even why you’re there. Afterward the person who was sent to fire up the AV equipment for you sort of mumbles thanks, then you pack up all your stuff and load it back into your car, looking for a Taco Bell as you start the long drive home because there was no mention of food. And as you sit there eating your spicy tostada from the value menu, you wonder, Why the heck did I even do that?
 
Of course they don’t all go like that but in my experience this isn’t uncommon, and I’ve heard several authors relate similar tales, with “Free visits just aren’t worth it,” and “Half the time I end up regretting it,” being frequent comments.
 
Here are just a few classics…
 

• A bestselling author offers to waive her fee for a local school. They say she can give her presentation… but she’ll have to work one of the tables at their book fair afterward.

 

• An author makes a 200 mile round-trip to present at a school’s family literacy program (waving his fee) and at the event—in front of attendees—the principal asks if the author can donate enough books for everyone in the audience.

 

• An author attempts to give a pro bono presentation to a large group of students who’re freely talking and passing notes throughout without intervention from the staff. The author—a former teacher—finally wades into the crowd and confiscates a note from a student without a word then returns to the podium and continues her talk.

 

• A staff member uses up half the author’s allotted time slot trying to quiet the students so the author can present. (Experienced something similar myself.)

 
And now for the punch line: When they’re paying you, those things virtually NEVER HAPPEN. The staff is engaged and super happy you’re there. The librarian and language arts teachers and principal or vice-principal are almost always in attendance… and frequently a bunch of other staff, too. The students are familiar with your work and engaged in the presentation, and they’ll have some great questions afterward. There’s almost always some sort of festive catered staff lunch, often attended by a select group of students who have a special interest in writing and/or have excelled in some relevant way. And they frequently send you off with a cool gift basket along with a check for the honorarium.
 
And yet if you give the exact same service for free, they act like they’re doing you a favor just letting you in the door.
 
Hmm…
 
So the lesson I’ve learned is, they don’t value you unless you value you.
 
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do free author presentations. I did one last week as I write this, and I’ll absolutely do more. I’m just thinking that perhaps there are some strategies we can use so the visits are effective even though provided at no charge. We’ll discuss these next time.
 
Until then, please value yourself.
 

 
Back when we were kids we used to watch reruns of Gumby on TV. I vaguely remember my brother being a fan of the troublemaking Blockheads and I seem to recall my sister liking the concept of being able to walk into books, but being the simple boy I was, my favorite was Gumby’s dog, Nopey. Who could only say one word: “Nope!” (I mean, what willful child wouldn’t identify with a cute, friendly dog that went around saying “Nope!” to everything???)
 
Fast forward a few decades…
 
When we were designing our house, a very smart man looked at our plans, said some complimentary things, then added, “You know, if you angle this wall here, it’ll improve your view over there.” He was right, but I’ll admit that my first response was to channel Nopey because we were in the mindset of “doing it ourselves,” literally starting from a sketch done on a napkin. So I rationalized my reluctance, thinking things like, but then we’ll lose a few square feet in the corner of the room. But the idea was an undeniable improvement—brilliant, actually—and it wasn’t long before we made the change. And virtually every morning since—especially those rare and wonderful mornings when we both have the time to just sit in bed and write—I’ve looked at the view from where we sit and been so thankful we took the suggestion.
 
If you have an editor working on your book—whether paying you or getting paid by you—you don’t have to take all their suggestions. (If you do, there’s probably something wrong.) But if you say “Nope!” to all of them, there’s also probably something wrong. (Namely, you’re not really looking for an editor, you’re looking for a copyeditor. Or more likely a proofreader, as even a copyeditor will have editorial suggestions regarding voice consistency and story continuity and fundamental fact-checking, etc. Whereas when most people refer to a proof reader, they’re thinking of someone acting as a human F7, just checking the basic mechanics of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.)
 
Why do I bring this up? Allow me to spin an apocryphal tale…
 
There was a man who wrote a book. And his book had some really unique and interesting ideas. And when he finished, someone suggested he should have someone with editorial skills take a look at it before he went further. So he went looking for an editor, only he had the above mindset—that editing was scraping a document for mechanical errors. (As we’ve discussed before, thinking an editor does this is akin to thinking a financial advisor simply counts your money for you.) He found his “editor,” a smart young guy who read widely, had a language arts background, and was good at putting his thoughts to paper. And he had the guy read the manuscript, with the instructions that he wanted someone to edit the story, looking for mistakes, etc. And the guy did this, finding the usual typos and wordos, etc. But the guy also had questions, suggestions, and comments. As editors do. Like, “You’ve already explored this argument earlier. Maybe consolidate?” or “I’m unclear—who’s speaking here?" or “This speech is kind of wordy—maybe tighten it a little?” or “I’m having a hard time believing the character would do that—maybe do something to increase his motivation?”
 
But the man wasn’t interested in the guy’s suggestions regarding his work, so he said “Nope!” He just wanted to make sure everything was legal (spelling/grammar/punctuation-wise) and that was all. He was unfamiliar with the concept of: “The writing is for the writer; the rewriting is for the reader.” So he corrected the objective issues the editor found and globally ignored all the subjective ones.
 
And no big surprise, when reading the subsequent result one might think (a) wow, there are some really clever, unique ideas here, and (b) this thing could use an editor. (If the reader isn’t also a writer, their version of (b) might be more like: Hmm… I don’t find this book as compelling as I thought I would. I have the vague feeling that it could flow better and be more engaging, but I’m not sure why.) But the result is the same—a manuscript which doesn’t do the thematic concept justice, because the writer was unaware that an informed, outside view will almost always yield fresh and valuable insights. (Or he was arrogant enough to think no one else had ideas which could improve his work, but it’s my tale so I’m giving him the benefit of ignorance over arrogance.) But either way, his unique and interesting ideas died a slow death, largely unread, because he couldn’t see beyond saying “Nope!”
 
There’s a vital difference between not liking/not taking a specific suggestion and roundly rejecting the idea of editorial suggestions altogether. A lesson I had to learn when I first became a manager (mostly through watching what happened to managers who didn’t learn it) was that I didn’t have to be the guy who came up with all the good ideas. There’s nothing wrong (and a lot right) with being able to say “Hey wait a minute… that’s a better idea than my idea. So let’s stop the presses and do it your way instead!” Because an effective manager should be able to recognize good ideas and use them, regardless of source. And in some sense, besides being your story’s author, you’re also its manager… tasked with making it as strong as possible.
 
Almost no one likes to be told what to do. (Including me… hence my early love of Nopey.) I get that. But—assuming the editor/beta/critter has at least the social intelligence of a starfish—their suggestions shouldn’t be treated like insults. When someone has an idea (especially one about how to help you make your work better), the first step is to forget the source of it. Next, consider the idea as an idea, with no other preconceptions or baggage. (Imagine you thought of it, if that helps.) Then ask yourself: Is it a good idea? Does it resonate with me? Does it fit the story?
 
Obviously you should conduct this evaluation with the understanding that not all good ideas are necessarily right for your book. Books have a vibe, a theme, a personality… and an idea that’s contrary to the gestalt of the work may in fact harm more than help, no matter how clever it is. Which is why you, as the author, have the final say over which suggestions to take and which to leave.
 
Just don’t be like Gumby’s dog—as adorable as he was—and automatically say “Nope!” to everything.
 

 
Disclosure: This is a craft-oriented post and might seem a bit “inside baseball,” but I believe it’s important for multiple reasons. (Just one of which: If an agent or editor gets confused about your characters within the first ten or twenty pages, it’s unlikely they’ll read further. Which should be motivation enough to get this squared away.)
 
The subject of character names has been on my mind lately as I’ve recently read a few books which had issues with it. This is one of those areas where we can have a blind spot because after living with them for a while we tend to think of our characters as the specific names we’ve originally chosen for them and we’re naturally resistant to changing things. (Yet another example of the “too close” syndrome which can plague us as writers.) The following are a few things to keep in mind regarding the naming of characters in our work, with the goal always being clarity for the reader (that person who paid for the privilege of reading our words).
 
*NOTE: These aren’t rules (because there really are no rules when it comes to fiction) and I’m not into telling anyone how they must do things. So before each of these, add “please consider the following…” or “you might want to think long and hard before you…” And please don’t send an angry message about some famous character having three different names or whatever. Again: no rules. These are just concepts to be aware of, because whatever wild thing you do with your art, you should do intentionally, not accidentally. With that said…
 
1. Don’t introduce all your characters to us at once.
I recently read a book with an early passage basically saying “… and my brother so-and-so and my little sister such-and-such and my older sister what’s-her-name, and of course my best friend next door…” I ended up bookmarking that page because I’d read a name on page 50 and think, now who was that again…? and have to flip back and refresh. Spread them out if possible—let us see them each in context, doing whatever it is that makes them unique, instead of just another name in a list of names. Closely related to this is:
 
2. Don’t define a character to us only once.
This is common due to the fact that we (as writers) usually have them firmly in mind, and separate from each other. So we intro them and move on, always certain (in our minds) of who they are. The reader doesn’t have the weeks or months of forethought (and likely written notes) that we do regarding the characters, so they need a little help. More than once—in more than one manuscript—I’ve seen an editor comment “remind us” in the margin next to me blithely referring to a character. So if you mention “My best friend Jeri” early on and then we don’t see her for another thirty or forty pages, don’t just casually refer to her again without context. You know who she is, but the reader could likely benefit from: “Of course Jeri would understand—we’ve been best friends since sixth grade, and…”
 
3. Don’t give characters multiple names.
I was again reminded of this last week as I was reading a novel where both main characters had pseudonyms. Within the book, the characters’ real names were used constantly (i.e. on virtually every page) and their stage names were used infrequently (like maybe a dozen times in the entire book). Yet the book was titled using the pseudonyms. I found myself frequently flipping back to either the book cover or the flaps, trying to remember who was who. Yes, there are exceptions to this. And characters working undercover, etc., could—and probably should—have an alias. But referring to a character on a day-to-day basis by multiple names should only be done when there’s a story-enhancing reason for it… and only when it’ll be absolutely clear to the reader who’s who.
 
4. Don’t have a massive number of named characters.
The obvious exception here would be A Song of Fire and Ice, but keep in mind GRRM has a full-time dude just to keep track of the couple thousand named characters in the series (which tells us this isn’t necessarily a goal to aspire to). For us muggles a better goal may be to have enough named characters to keep things interesting and three dimensional, but not so many that neither you nor your readers can follow the story without constantly referring to a lengthy list of cast members (which of course will tend to kick the reader out of the story—definitely something to be avoided). Toward that end, keep in mind not every character needs to be named (that quirky Uber driver we only see once, for example). And sometimes one character can do the work of two. (If you want your MC’s boyfriend to have a mom and you need an oral surgeon in the book, consider consolidating them. Besides saving on names, it can give more depth to the mom.) When introducing a new character and deciding whether or not to give them a proper name, the type of questions to ask ourselves are: Are we going to see them again? Are we—either via narrative voice or through other characters—going to refer to them again? Are we going to attribute dialog to them frequently? If no, then perhaps we don’t need to add them to the roster. Maybe an impromptu nickname instead (“geeky Uber guy”) is enough to get through the scene without adding yet another name to the reader’s mental cast list.
 
5. Don’t let your characters have names starting with the same letter (or otherwise similar).
You see this a lot. Because, like most things mentioned in this post, in the writer’s mind there’s a clear difference between the hero, Jim, and his nemesis, Joe. But—again—probably not to the reader. If you submit a manuscript with a Bill & Bob or a Jill & Joan and it makes it past your agent to an editor who acquires it, you’ll likely be changing that, regardless. Because editors know that when confronted with multiple characters, readers sometimes use mental shortcuts like, Oh yeah, that woman with the ‘V’ name… So either Valerie or Victoria is going to bite the digital dust before the story makes it through line edits. (And authors and editors aren’t immune to the potential confusion, either. I read a passage in a novel where the author was clearly talking about “Jim” [good guy] but called the character “Joe” [bad guy] and the error made it through all the edits and copy edits.) Better to avoid it altogether.
 
6. Don’t let your characters have long, unpronounceable names.
This is particularly common with science fiction and fantasy works. I get why you might not want your book which is set on another world to be populated with people named Brad & Janet or Dick & Jane. But are you sure you really want characters with 7-syllable names that sound like a rare genetic disorder? There’s a balance between the too-familiar and the incomprehensible. Think of some of the more popular characters in seminal SF/F works: Leia, Cersei, Bilbo, Xena, Deckard, Mal, Hagrid, Gandalf, Aeryn, Han, Kara, etc… These are unique enough that they don’t seem like a random group of people right off the streets of West Covina, yet are fairly easy to both pronounce and remember.
 
That’s probably enough Don’ts. Here’s a Do or two: Do give your characters names that seem to fit them, give them their own identity, and resonate with you. But also, do take a minute to look at their names from the reader's point of view.
 
And, of course, you do you.

 
There are some sayings which, cliché as they may be, are so valid we should keep them permanently posted in our work areas. Such as “Pay yourself first,” which is useful and true in so many ways, yet frequently ignored. Or maybe “Make up your bed every morning.” Which is really just a pithy way of saying, Starting every day with a small, easy-to-accomplish task has been shown to lower procrastination and increase productivity and maybe even happiness.
 
Here’s one more: “Get a fresh set of eyes on it.” (Or ears. Or taste buds. Or whatevers.) Here’s why…
 
You may have noticed that sometimes in action films, people will be shouting back and forth during an action sequence and you can’t really understand the dialog because of all the action-y noises going on. And occasionally, it might be an artistic choice (perhaps the director or sound editor is trying to replicate the frantic, unclear communication that can occur during the fog of war). But this can also happen for a much more prosaic reason: the people making it are too familiar with the material. They know every word. They’ve read the script countless times, they’ve heard the dialog when it was filmed or dubbed (probably multiple times) and they’ve heard it over and over during the mixing process. So even if the line is buried in the mortar explosions or alien laser beams or musket fire, they know what’s being said and they can still “hear” it. (Plus of course volume equals excitement, which works until it doesn’t.)
 
The fix for this is to bring in someone who’s never seen/heard it and have them watch it, then ask, “Did you understand the important dialog during the attack of the giant alpacas?” And if the answer is anything but, “Yes, I totally understood what was happening there,” the solution is not to say, “Listen again… the guy says ‘Giant alpacas are allergic to vanilla ice cream!’ which is important because the hero is a Good Humor driver. Can you hear it now?” Instead, the solution is to make it more clear, in any of several ways. (Again, assuming clarity is the desired goal here. Which, ninety-five percent of the time, it is.)
 
This applies across multiple disciplines. Especially writing. We can become so knowledgeable about the characters and back story and world building of our work that we aren’t really aware that some of what we “know” about the story isn’t actually coming across on the page. We’re simply too close to it, and when we read it we unconsciously fill in any blanks that may exist within the text. Especially on our fourth—or fourteenth or fortieth—time through the manuscript.
 
This is pretty universal. (At least, it applies to virtually every writer I’ve ever met, certainly including me.) So the safest path is to assume it affects you too, and act accordingly. Which probably includes some version of: Have someone unfamiliar with the story give it a read-through without any prior explanations from you. (Your husband or sister or friend with whom you’ve been brainstorming about the story for a year probably isn’t the best choice, in this context.)
 
Just have them read it—with zero editorializing from you—then sit them down with their drink of choice and ask them where things were perhaps unclear… where they might have felt a little lost in the plot or uncertain of the setting or stymied regarding why a character did something or just plain disconnected from the story.
 
Your job at this point is simply to capture the where and why. Where in the story were they unclear as to setting (possible description issues), where in the story did they stop liking the MC (possible motivation issues), where in the story were they unclear regarding the overall direction of things (possible plot issues), and (if they can tell you) why?
 
What you don’t want to do next is say, “Well actually, that happened due to…” because a little action-figure version of you doesn’t come with each copy of the book to explain what you really meant. All the reader will have is the words on the page, and if that’s not enough to keep them up-to-speed and engaged in your story without you filling in the gaps, then maybe a little more work is in order.
 
Standard caveats apply: This isn’t about story development. You’re probably not looking for What should I do about it?-type answers (unless the reader is an author/editor-type… and even then there are potential pitfalls--see this post). You’re just looking for spots where the words on the page might not fully convey the story that’s in your head. And of course the type of reader matters. If not your “ideal” reader, they should at least be familiar with the genre in question. (People freaking over f-bombs in a YA book likely don’t understand what “Young Adult” actually means these days, and people who don’t understand the fundamental difference between a star and a planet probably aren’t the best reader for your hard SF novel.)
 
So okay, you have a list of where things are perhaps unclear to a cognizant reader. Now what? I’d advise against the knee-jerk response of going too far the other way and hammering home whatever tidbit was glossed over. If you mention some aspect of a character or setting once or twice, that should get the picture into the reader’s brain every time they come upon it after that. Like if the first time we see it you state that the Dirty Dog Café is a rundown, funky diner on the edge of town with dingy pink vinyl booths and flypaper hanging up in the corners—some flies having been there since 1982—then you don’t need to mention it every time we visit that setting. Maybe someone can refer to it as a dive or a greasy spoon later on, but more than that can feel pedantic and/or like you’re insulting the reader’s intelligence. (Names are a separate issue which we can get into later.)
 
In brief: We need to find out what’s in our “mental story” that we left out of the manuscript, and we need to find a way to artfully put it into the written story without overkill. And without using the dreaded “As you know, Bob…” Because yes, Bob certainly already knows all about it.
 
And so do we.
 
In fact, as the creator, writer, rewriter, reviser, and polisher-in-chief, we probably know WAY too much about it. And—counter-intuitive as it may seem—perhaps the best help for that is from someone who knows nothing about it.
 
Happy revising!

 
I’ve always been a little perplexed by people not knowing how to respond—or more important, not knowing how not to respond—when a friend shows them their creative work. (BTW, this isn’t the same thing as when a beginning creative asks you—as an experienced creative—for constructive feedback on their work. But there are some definite similarities—see “Critiquing the Aspiring Writer.”)
 
And more to the point, I’ve seen people feel hurt and discouraged by thoughtless responses when they’ve shown a friend their latest effort.
 
I’ve always thought this should be an easy one—you simply imagine showing someone your creative brainchild, and you respond as you would like to be responded to. Golden rule, right? No-brainer, right?
 
Then why do so many get it so wrong?
 
A sample of things I’ve seen people say when a friend shows them their work--
 
Upon reading a friend’s latest work: “Here’s a list of the mistakes I found.”
 
Upon hearing a friend’s [finished and mixed and mastered and replicated] CD: “You could just remix it.”
 
Upon reading a friend’s early effort: “We need to talk.”
 
Upon sampling someone’s culinary creation: “Because this is actually pretty good, I’m going to tell you how to make it even better.”
 
Upon reading a friend’s published work: “I thought it had too many ellipses…”
 
Upon walking through a custom house an architect friend designed. “I’d hate to have to clean a house this big.”
 
Note that these were the initial (and in most cases, only) comments from the friend of the creator. There may be a place for constructive commentary later in the conversation—if it gets that far. Like mentioning typos, which can be useful with a manuscript (but passive-aggressive with a published book, for obvious reasons).
 
It finally hit me that many of the people responding in inconsiderate ways probably aren’t creatives, in the sense that they haven’t poured themselves into making a work of art and then had the pleasure of showing it to a friend. So they don’t really know what it’s like to be on the high end of the see-saw when the other party decides to step off.
 
Fair enough. We don’t know what we don’t know.
 
But some of them are creatives. I find wonky responses from them harder to understand. Perhaps they really think they’re somehow helping the person with their “blunt honesty”? Perhaps their worldview is such that they think pointing out flaws in someone’s work is equal to creating the work itself? Perhaps they think if they don’t come up with some pointed critiques, they’ll come off as ignorant? Perhaps this is the chance to show off their academic education? Perhaps they’re jealous?
 
Hard to say for sure. But one of the best pieces of interpersonal advice I’ve ever received is about maintaining “the assumption of innocence.” So, working on the assumption there’s zero ill will behind any of the less-than-thoughtful first responses—maybe just a few gaps in knowledge—here’s a list of things to keep in mind when a friend shows you their work for non-critiquing reasons.
 
1. Resist the urge to blurt out the first thing to come to mind. (Unless your very first thought is, Wow – this is totally awesome! In which case, go ahead and let fly.) Sure, when we read a book or listen to music or watch a film, etc., we sometimes can’t help but notice little imperfections in the production. (The drummer rushed the fill leading into the second verse. The author used “their” instead of “there.” The dialog during the film’s action scene was mixed too low. The fudge is a little granular because the sugar wasn’t fully dissolved. Etc.) The process is automatic. So yes, on some level we might take note of them, but then (if we’re adults) we “listen beyond the production” (i.e. ignore any obvious little mechanical discrepancies) because we know these trivial things aren’t germane to the big picture. Then…
 
2. Say something positive. There’s virtually always something positive you can say. If not, I’d venture you might want to either dig deeper or check your head. It can be more local than global, if necessary… if you can’t say you liked/loved/enjoyed the work (as a whole), maybe you can say you really liked X (where X is some small-yet-real aspect of the work). Or even a positive comparison with their previous work. (“Your work keeps getting better.” Or, “I liked your last one, but this seems even stronger.”) In an absolute worst-case scenario, you can always compliment the effort involved. (“I can tell how much care you put into this,” or “Good for you for finishing this—I know it was a huge job.”) But once you get beyond the false & reductive It’s not my cup of tea so it’s not good mindset, a caring, supportive person (i.e. a friend) should be able to find something validating to offer.
 
3. But don’t lie. Because they can tell. Doesn’t mean you can’t slant any positive feelings a little toward the right side of the Dislike-Like-Love continuum, but outright lies or blatant cheerleading will almost always come off as insincere and do more harm than good.
 
4. It’s not a zero sum game. This reminder is to obviate any feelings of competition or jealousy that may arise from seeing the work. Someone else producing something of value in no way invalidates your own work. And someone else’s success in no way decreases your chances of success. Quite the opposite, in fact. We all can (and should) learn from each other, feel bolstered by each other, and gain inspiration from each other. So much healthier (and in my observation, more likely to lead to success) than feeling competitive with those working in the same arena. The goal isn’t to beat our fellow artists. The goal is to beat our own previous efforts.
 
5. It’s also not a test. Remember that kiss-ass kid in school waving his hand at the teacher just so he can smugly point out his classmate’s error? Don’t be him. Some people seem to take exposure to another’s work as a challenge or a test, where they feel if they can’t come up with something to criticize, they’ve somehow failed.
 
6. It’s not your job to point out flaws. Others will provide plenty of criticism, have no fear. (Some of whom should, like agents and editors, and some who maybe shouldn’t but will anyway, for reasons discussed above.) Your job in this situation is to be a friend. Friends support friends.
 
7. Everyone isn’t you. Everyone doesn’t have your taste, skillset, or particular worldview. Don’t make the mistake of conflating This doesn’t correlate with my tastes with This is bad. (More on this phenomenon here.) You really don’t like romance novels? Fine. But that doesn’t invalidate your friend’s romance novel. So don’t feel obligated to let her know you really don’t value the genre she’s working in. How about “I think romance readers might really like this!” instead? Because friend.
 
It’s easy to say, Well, you just shouldn’t care what others think of your work. And maybe, in some hypothetical perfect world, that might be possible. But not in the real world, for the most part. Most of us who create do so because we want to share our vision of the world with others. Which means we want others to get—to understand/agree/resonate with—our view of the world. Which, when you strip all the big words away, means we want them to like it. Enjoy it. Agree with it. Maybe even love it. Because in the end it’s all about communicating, about emotional transference… trying to put the thoughts and feelings in our head into another’s head. An imperfect process at best, and of course we don’t always get what we want, yet we still try.
 
When someone blows off a friend’s work with an ill-considered response, they’re not only saying they don’t like the friend’s work, but maybe that the friend’s attempts to create are misguided to begin with.
 
And of course, when someone expresses their appreciation for a friend’s work, they’re also validating the time and energy and expense it took to create the work, which really means they’re also validating the decision to make the work.
 
The creative life is hard enough—we shouldn’t make it any harder for those we care about. A supportive community can make all the difference, as we attempt to pull each other up the slope toward a higher vantage point.
 
Go, team!