Motivation

At the same time that I celebrate my own hard-won publishing contract, I feel bad for the many, many excellent writers I know who are struggling to get published traditionally, as I did for eight long years. And I'm at a loss as to why good writers have such a hard time.

Is it that agents don't recognize good writing? I'm sure that's a possibility. After all, there are no credentials needed for becoming an agent; all you have to do is say you're an agent and put up a webpage. How do you tell an agent is even qualified?

More likely than not recognizing good writing, it that the agents don't have good enough contacts and are at a loss as to how to sell good books. I've heard over and over that agents only have narrow, specific contacts and only know how to sell certain types of books. I wonder why that is and why the contacts can't be expanded, but that's a field I know nothing about, obviously. Lots of bestsellers don't fit neatly into slots, in spite of agents and editors seeming to prefer that.

Maybe the editors at the publishing houses are to blame for not recognizing what they can sell. I KNOW they can all sell mysteries if they want to. When I tell people I'm a writer and they ask what I write, and I tell them "Mysteries," I have never once--never once!--not gotten the response, "I love to read mysteries." They often go on to lament that there aren't more being published.

There's been a lot written lately about the financial trouble that major, traditional, old-fashioned publishing houses are in, due to their failure to change their business model and keep up with the times. It's not my purpose to discuss that, but I'm sure things will only continue to change rapidly.

On a recent visit to Barnes and Noble, I found they had reduced the mystery section to one shelf, and shoved it off to the side! Other mystery readers were milling about the one shelf, lamenting with me that Barnes and Noble is no longer interested in selling mysteries. I have no idea what this is a sign of. Barnes and Noble being out of touch with mystery fans? There seem to be no lack of them. Is everyone out of touch with the readers?

Which brings me, at long last, to my topic:

Motivation.

What keeps all the good, as yet unpublished, writers motivated to keep writing, to keep seeking publication, against enormous odds? Is it the example of the few who are tapped by the major houses? Is it the encouragement of new business models taking off and succeeding? Does every writer have inspirational quotes taped to the monitor, tacked on the bulletin board, scattered on the desk, like I do?

What keeps you going?

Taxi down the runway

I'm preparing for takeoff, which is now nine months away. The same amount of time it takes to grow a baby, coincidentally.

Here's a list I was given by a published mystery author friend--things I should be doing to prepare for my book launch in May:

1) My main advice is BOOK FIRST.

That's not an issue until I get some edits to work on. The novel is written and the publisher has it. So I'll go on to the next suggestion.

2) Then...get as much PR done now as you can, a day at a time.

OK, PR now, since I don't have any work to do on the book. Sounds like a plan.

3) Guest blogs? Line them up now and write them now. Don't do more than 12 and only do the ones that are friends or have big audiences. Don't say yes to every Tina, Denise and Harriet.

It's probably too late for that. I've accepted the first three blog invites, two of them interviews. I'm not sure I can be that choosy--not sure I know 12 people whose blogs have huge audiences. But I'm very pleased with the interview that went up Friday!


The second friend who asked wants to do an interview in September and another one closer to my publication date. Isn't she smart? That will be at this blog, Writers Who Kill. The first one should go up September 8th, I think. It will be a two-part interview! Not sure when the second day will be.

A third blogger invited me and I'll do hers next week. She has a feature called Made It Moment, where a writer relates the moment they considered they had made it.


I've been reading all three of these blogs and am very pleased to be on them!

So I guess I have 9 to go. I hope I can find 9 more places to blog, besides my own.

4) Don’t do too many conferences. Do only the main ones where the audience reads your style.

That's not much of a problem. I can't afford to go to many, unless that Texas Lotto comes through for me. Before I got the contract, I had already scheduled Left Coast Crime, mostly because it's going to be in Santa Fe next spring. I was on the fence about attending Malice Domestic again, although I love the conference, have gone many times, know lots of people who attend, and have a daughter and her family close by. I'm going now, of course. I may even be able to sell some books there, if they are printed in time. The publisher says that's a possibility!

5) Hit as many bookstores as you can - close to home. Go in now, have some artwork, a postcard, a PR package. Make friends. Shop first in the store so you're not just "an author" coming to pitch a book. Buy a book. Take in bookmarks, of your book, of friends' books.

I guess I can't do that until I have a cover. Shopping in the local bookstores is not a problem--been doing that for years. But I don't have any PR material until some things get finalized.

6) Start making lists of people you know and can send an email or snail mail to a month to two months ahead of publication as a reminder. Make it so it can be a label-producing list.

Ah, this I can do now! In fact, I've been copying off the email addresses of all the people who congratulate me. I figure they might possibly be interested in a newsletter and in buying my book. After I post this, I'll bet I won't get any more emails for awhile.

I plan to send an initial email to the whole list I've collected and ask them to opt in if they'd like. I hate opt out programs and won't do that to anyone.

7) Lastly, start making new friends on twitter and FB, about 20 a day and you won't feel overwhelmed.

That's an awful lot! I think if I did that many I'd be overwhelmed. But I am trying to accumulate followers and I follow lots of people, too. Many seem to magically appear and I have no idea where they came from. But I'm glad they're following me.

It also occurred to me, when I got an email about donating items to the charity auction for Left Coast Crime, that I could now do this! Maybe. My book won't be published until two months after the conference is ended, so I emailed and asked about that. I want to donate a gift basket that contains a preorder of my book and other items people might like. I have no idea if this is good form or not. I hope the coordinator will tell me if it's not! I did ask her to.

I visited Archie McPhee's, which I just learned about a week or two ago, and found some items that would be perfect for a charity basket. Or for just general publicity give-aways for CHOKE.

Fastening My Seat Belt

I'm taking off! Finally! I'm ecstatic to be announcing that, after 8 years, 7 novels, and 441 queries later (detail below* in case anyone's interested), I have--ta da--a publishing contract! This happened so quickly, after all these years, that my head is spinning and I'm still kind of numb.

Here's how it happened for me. I noticed several Guppies being published by Mainly Murder Press. I bought a couple of the books, saw that they were nicely edited and produced--good covers even--but lamented that they only accepted submissions from writer in the Northeast US.


Then the publisher opened up to accept submissions from other parts of the country and, after only a brief hesitation, I jumped in. (See my blog from July 28th called THINKING ABOUT A NEW JOURNEY.) They were accepting submissions only until July 31st for next year, so I had to do it now or never.

I submitted to them July 26th and, voila, in sixteen short days, I became a published author. Well, an author slated for publication anyway. My first three chapters made the cut, then my whole project made it past the two readers--the next step.

The offer came in an email on August 5th. I didn't answer right away, thinking I should let it sink in and ponder what this meant.

I checked the next morning and that email was still there! I hadn't dreamt it. The email had recommended consulting my advisors, so I replied that I likely would return the contract next week.

To be fair to the agents who had partials and fulls (and in the hopes one would jump to represent me), I began emailing them. Two had full manuscripts and two had partials. I was shocked to find out, when I checked them on Query Tracker (querytracker.net), that one of them died on July 7th! So I emailed the remaining three. The one who has had my full since April 25th apologized for taking so long and congratulated me, then offered to help. She asked who the publisher was, what advance they were offering, and if I'd accepted the offer yet.

I replied with the name of the publisher and said they offered royalties, no advance, and that I hadn't signed yet because I still have several submissions out. I told her I didn't think the deal would include anything for her, without an advance, but that if she could get me something better it would be wonderful.

She said she still hasn't read my manuscript, but offered to negotiate the contract for either a flat fee or a percentage of royalties, and potentially represent future titles. Even thought she hasn't read the manuscript, she thought it needed some changes! Since the contract is non-negotiable and is clear and easy to understand (and is even posted on their webpage), I don't need any help with it (although the agent says contracts are always negotiable), I told her I would accept the offer.

Since there was a deadline for returning the contract, I asked the agents to get back to me by the 10th, but I never heard back from the others.

There remained one publisher who had a submission, so I emailed them, printed out the contract, signed it, and put it in the mail today. Whoopee!!!

My novel, CHOKE, will be out in trade paperback May of 2011. That's a beautiful sentence.

*First two novels, no records of my queries--and that's just as well

queries from my spreadsheets:

SONG OF DEATH 2002-2007, 133 agents
4 publishers
REQUIEM FOR RED, sequel to SONG OF DEATH 2007-2008, 77 agents

DEATH IN THE TIME OF ICE (queried at first as adult mystery, mostly as YA)
2008-2010, 160 agents

CHOKE
2009-2010, 65 agents
2 publishers
I'm now working on SMOKE, the partially finished sequel to CHOKE.

coming soon

Watch this space.

Short Story Structure

This is cross-posted on All Things Writing.


Members of the Short Mystery Fiction list started a discussion recently about the structure of the short story. So much has been said and written about the structure of a novel, even whole books devoted to mystery, thriller, and suspense structure, but I hadn't ever paused to consider the structure of the short story before that.

But I'm sure all short story writers should!

The first posting gave the opinion that short stories have two forms: vignette and mini-novel. The vignette, Graham Powell contended, has its action in the same place and it all happens at the same time. The mini-novel would give room for more character and plot development.

Mark Troy gave his opinion that a vignette is an expanded scene/sequel combination with the sequel being the most important part. He considers them incomplete and not as effective as the other form. Although he says he wouldn't use the term mini-novel, saying any effective story of whatever length should have protagonist/antagonist, setting, theme, 3-act plot, conflict. He said he does something that I think I will start doing: he marks the places where the acts begin and end, and marks the crisis, where the antagonist appears, where the theme is stated. I would imagine I would have to give a story at least two readings to do all that!

Graham answered that he thought his definition of a vignette story might be a 1-act tale and the other a 3-act story.

Fleur Bradley chimed in with the opinion that the vignette are stories that are like a fly-on-the-wall experience for the reader. Almost like an overheard conversation.


Then Jack Hardway/Dan said there IS a conventional short story form that has five parts, although many mystery stories don't contain all five. They are found most often in literary stories. When asked, he gave these two references:
http://www.wvup.edu/mberdine/Shakespeare/ShakDramStruc.htm
http://at-lamp.its.uiowa.edu/virtualwu/images/uploads/Writing_Fiction.pdf
If you click on them, you'll see they both reference a Freytag Pyramid. The first states the five parts as exposition; complication and development; crisis or turning point; falling action; catastrophe. It goes on to talk about other structure points, too.

The second reference says the five parts are exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.



Wikipedia uses these latter terms for its illustration (I hope it's not illegal to copy wiki illustrations).

Then Chris Rhatigan posted this statement: A creative writing teacher explained another good five-part structuring technique for short stories similar to the one Jack discussed: 1) Action 2) Background 3) Development 4) Climax 5) Ending. One thing I like about it more--especially as a crime fiction writer--is that the reader gets dropped right in the middle of the story, then you get into the history of the characters, setting, etc. So in this case the piece would have two sets of rising and falling action.


I think I like this one best of all, at least for a mystery story. I'd love to hear from other short story writers and readers on this subject! Do you writers think you use any of the above structure devices? Do you readers see them?

Thinking about a new journey

I'm been going down the same road for awhile. The road of querying agents, trying to get one to consent to represent me. And now I've begun to consider two new roads, one for novels and one for short stories.

Recently I believe I came about as close as I'm going to get. I've gotten some turndowns lately that make me think this is the end of this road. Not because the agent didn't like my work, but because she did. One agent liked my work very much, but didn't know where she could sell it. Another agent liked the project also, but didn't know what market it would fit, which is about the same thing, I think.

Discouraged by these rave rejections, I sent a couple of manuscripts to a small press that I admire. I admire them because they're putting out some pretty darn good books. True, I know some of the authors, but, because of that, I've bought and read some of the books. They're well put together, well edited, good covers, and the agent has submitted at least some of the authors for awards. I know this because they've won these awards. I plan on buying some by authors I don't know.

I'm well aware of the pitfalls of a small press, but I'm considering them against the pitfalls of a large, traditional publishing house, for which you need an agent, something I don't yet have. And may never have. The following is a post I made on a small list earlier today that prompted me to do further thinking about this, and this blog.

I've stopped to think it through. Do I really WANT an agent? An agent will try to sell to an editor at a publishing house. Maybe with success, maybe without. Then I'll be nowhere. If a sale is made, then what? I get a small advance, $5000 is the most I can hope for. If I don't spend at least twice that amount on promotion (and maybe even if I do), if I don't sell an awful lot of books, I won't earn their money back for them. Then I'll be dropped and I'll be nowhere.

There too many paths that lead right back to where I am now. So I'm looking for a new path, as I think a lot of writers are. I'm querying small presses, just beginning with this in a serious way, and would be ecstatic to be printed by one. I would be much more likely to keep getting books printed, especially if I'm not printed in hardcover, but trade paperback or ebook. I'm sure I could get dropped by a small press, too, but it's much more likely that the small press will fold on me. The latter would not be a good thing, and I might even have trouble getting my rights back, but it wouldn't damage my name like all the dead ends in the traditional world. The former, being dropped, would probably be the same as being dropped by a big press. I'd have to change my name and start over.

I'm also exploring the option of putting my short stories out myself. I'm gathering intell from people who have done this and just met a guy Monday who has put out 5 books with Smashwords and offered to steer me through the process. Other writer friends have encouraged me to do it, too. There would be NO downside to this. No one would drop me. I would print or sell electronically as many as I could, of course, and would promote as much as I can, but wouldn't be terrified that my publisher would drop me because I wouldn't have one, except myself. And if I could get a following for my short stories, I might just get a following for my novels, too. Another upside.

If this reasoning is faulty, someone please point it out! I'm deep into the considering stage at the moment and could be easily swayed.

Spreadsheets for writers, part two--plotting

Spreadsheets for Plotting
As promised, here's my second main use for spreadsheets. I know I've discussed this somewhere before, but can't find where. (If I could I'd copy it.)

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my characters and my plot and don't know what I'd do without it. Probably make a lot of mistakes, like having a person's eyes change from brown to blue, having clues talking about before they're discovered, having them discovered twice--that kind of thing.

After using several methods, I've settled on this one. I label the first worksheet "names & desc". I could call it "characters & settings" because that's what it is, but that's long for that little tab.

I dislike reading books whose character names confuse me, whose characters I can't tell apart. One reason for this is sometimes that too many begin with the same letter. This is SO easy to avoid. See those columns labeled A to Z? (And beyond, but we don't need them for this.) I type "character names" on the first line, skip a space and type "first names", skip several spaces and type "last names". Then I slap the first and last names into their columns. If left to my own devices without this tool, many of my names end up starting with M for some reason.

I'm constantly collecting names, of course, as all writers are. Off signs, TV, radio, and I even look at the fictitious people who send me spam, trying to sell me watches and drugs and, well, that other product that, as a female, I don't really need. I collect these in a spreadsheet so I can alphabetize them and, when I see that I have names beginning with A, B, C, but no Rs or Ts, I can see if there's one on that list I can use.

Below those rows I have columns headed: complete name, description, age, role, vehicle, and other columns for more description if I need it. It's surprising how soon I can forget what vehicle I had a character driving, even though I carefully picked it to make a statement about the character, of course.

At the bottom I list the main settings and describe the main features in case I forget what I put where.

The second worksheet is the plotting timeline. But I do the third one first, plot beats. I use three acts and have three plot beats per act, sort ofin general. Act I has plot beat 1, plot beat 1, and plot point for the end of the act. Act IIa has plot beat 3, plot beat 4, and middle point. Act IIb has plot beats 5 & 6, and plot point. And Act III contains plot beats 7 & 8 and the end. These are just a phrase to tell me what important thing happens at that point. There are 12 items and, if I can get 5500 words for each one, I'll have a decent length novel.

I don't always have all of them filled out when I begin, but as the story unfolds, they all get filled in.

Then I put these on the second worksheet in RED. These are the writing points I'm aiming for. They can change, of course, but if I don't have something to aim for, I have a hard time getting started. The red events go down the first column under the heading "Events". The next column is "time" and the next one, for my current WIP, is "clue or suspect", that is what does this event relate to. Sometimes I color code by theme, by clue, or by suspect so I can see if too much of one thing is bunching up.

The rest of the columns have the names of the main characters, beginning with the protagonist. I fill in more detailed events leading up to the plot points, and put details about what separate characters are doing at that point in their columns. It's easy to glance across the sheet and see if I've been neglecting a theme, a clue, or a suspect for too long. It's also easy to see if I have a character doing two things in two different far-apart places in too short a time.

I like to bold the first column and unbold the event as I write it. It's very easy this way to make sure things happen in the right progression. Especially if you decide to make a big plot change and need to shift things around.

I used to have the characters on a different sheet, but decided that I'd like them all together. Just have to do control-page-up and control-page-down to shift between my worksheets. And I use other worksheets to keep track of things specific to that project.

That's how I do it! I'd love to hear other methods or ways this one could be improved.

Image used under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation


Also posted on allthingswriting.blogspot.com