The Fine Art of Editing

Dear Readers,
Recently I broke two ribs, and I’m in a bit of a fog. I’ve reposted a favorite blog about editing. I still write for the same publisher, Severn House, and I’ve learned so much from their editors. — Elaine 

 

By Elaine Viets

Here’s one reason why I like my London publisher, Severn House: Editing.
Like most writers, I try to turn in clean copy. I’m also an editor myself. So I appreciate the masterful way Severn House edited my Angela Richman mystery, Late for His Own Funeral. The editors took care to fine-tune the sentences with small but significant changes.
Take a look at these. The way I wrote the selection is first. The edited version is second.
(1) In this first example, Angela is recalling her friend’s doomed marriage. The change helps set the scene.
Elaine: Back then, Sterling had seemed awed by Camilla’s cool elegance, and she fell in love with his humor and energy.
Severn House: When they first met, Sterling had seemed awed by Camilla’s cool elegance, and she fell in love with his humor and energy.

(2) Elaine: I walked over to him and looked right into his red eyes. We were both the same height.
Severn House: I walked over to him and looked right into his red eyes. We were the same height.
This change gets rid of a redundancy. If Angela could look the man in the eyes, then they were the same height. I didn’t need that “both.”

(3) Elaine: The cut on her forehead had been stitched. She’d have a heck of a bruise there tomorrow.
Severn House: The cut on her forehead had been stitched. She’d have a heck of a bruise there.
I didn’t need that “tomorrow.”

(4) This change makes the sentence sing.
Elaine: The child wore a pink polka-dot T-shirt and jeans, and had pink ribbons in her hair.
My editor rearranged it as:
Severn House: The child wore jeans and a pink polka-dot T-shirt, and had pink ribbons in her hair.
(5) Here’s a shorter way of saying the same thing:
Elaine: We were at my car now.
Severn House: We reached my car.

(6) Elaine: I fired up my iPad and opened up the Death Scene Investigation form.

Severn House: I fired up my iPad and opened the Death Scene Investigation form.
No need for that second “up.”
(7) Another unnecessary phrase bites the dust:
Elaine: “It’s going to be rough for a bit,” I said. “But you’ll get through it. I promise. You have a real advantage – one of the best lawyers in the Midwest.”
With that, Mrs. Ellis entered the room carrying a tray. “I’ve brought you some food, Camilla dear.”
Severn House: “It’s going to be rough for a bit,” I said. “But you’ll get through it. I promise. You have a real advantage – one of the best lawyers in the Midwest.”
Mrs. Ellis entered the room carrying a tray. “I’ve brought you some food, Camilla dear.”

(8) This small change makes for a cleaner sentence.
Elaine: I was on duty at midnight tonight, so I packed a small overnight bag with my DI uniform and added my office cell phone charger.
Severn House: I was on duty at midnight, so I packed a small overnight bag with my DI uniform and added my office cell phone charger.

(9) Elaine: Millie watched fascinated while the server mixed the ingredients together in a large glass bowl, then added the dressing and tossed the salad.
Severn House: Millie watched fascinated while the server mixed the ingredients in a large glass bowl, then added the dressing and tossed the salad.
If the ingredients were mixed in a bowl, naturally they’d be “together.”

(10) Here’s another two-letter change:
Elaine: Linda’s apartment, 615, was in the middle of the hall. I could hear the TV on and hoped Linda was home.
No need for that “on.” If I could hear the TV, it was definitely on.
(11) One last one-word change.
Elaine: I went home to my place, feeling discouraged. Chris and I didn’t have a fight. I just wanted to be alone tonight.
Severn House: I went home to my place, feeling discouraged. Chris and I didn’t have a fight. I just wanted to be alone

Most of these changes were small and subtle. Also, I don’t have to accept any that I don’t like. Some got lost in translation when they crossed the Atlantic. Like this one:
Angela says: “I was a bridesmaid in her wedding ten years ago, and we marched down the same aisle now blocked by her husband’s casket.”
The copyeditor had changed it to: “I was a bridesmaid ‘at’ her wedding.” I had to explain that if you’re “at a wedding” you’re attending it, while if you’re “in a wedding,” you’re an attendant.
Sometimes we truly are two countries divided by a common language.

************************************************************************

Preorder now! Sex and Death on the Beach will be out in paperback this December. https://tinyurl.com/r5z89jz6

Psst . . . They Secretly Want You To Fail

By John Gilstrap

Every parent has confronted some form of the same horrible moment when their child declares their desire for the unobtainable. Perhaps it’s the skinny, five-foot-four high school junior who wants nothing else in life but to be a professional football player. Or the 13-year-old aspiring ballerina who cannot walk across the room without tripping over her feet. What’s the right call here? Do we tell them the truth and shatter their dreams or smile and say supportive things, knowing that they will fail? We love them more than life itself, but coaches and lessons are expensive. And c’mon, there’s the opportunity cost of the time lost not pursuing something where they’d have a better chance of success (and which might more closely fit with the plan we’ve always had for their lives).

Do we presume failure and shut the door on their unlikely dreams, or do encourage them and hope for a Rudy moment? (If you don’t recognize the Rudy reference, stop reading right now and go watch the movie. With the family. Bring Kleenex.)

Now, let’s take it a step farther (further? I’m never sure). You’ve exhausted the carefully collected 529 Plan money to see your son, Billy, graduate with honors from a prestigious engineering school, and during the celebration dinner, he announces his plans to go to New York to try to be an actor on Broadway.

Or his plans to take a year or two off to work at a coffee shop while he writes the mystery novel that’s been floating around in his head.

I’m going to take a guess at what what your initial reactions would be:

  • Like hell you are;
  • I’ve raised an idiot;
  • Do you realize how much money we just dropped on your education?
  • You’re going to starve.

But Billy is no fool. He’s thought through all of these objections. He’ll come back with:

  • I’m only young once. This is the best time to take chances.
  • It’s just me. I don’t need a lot of money. I’ll find a way to feed myself.
  • Mom and Dad, this is my dream. If it doesn’t work out, engineering will still be there for me.

This is where you tee up the failure speech:

  • The entertainment business is brutal. It tears people up and spits them out. It’s soul crushing. (All of this coming from articles you’ve read, having never actually attempted to live the life you’re trashing.)
  • You were born to be an engineer, not a writer or performer. (Translation: We’ve spent a lot of money on our dream for you. We’ve told all our friends that you’re going to be an engineer. They’re going to roll their eyes and scoff when we tell them that you want to do this. Just as we’re doing right now.)
  • Even people who are successful can’t maintain their success. Even if you can sell that first novel for a lot of money, it might not sell through and your career could be over. Even if your first song is a hit, there may never be a second song. You don’t want to risk the humiliation of being a one hit wonder, do you?

Finally, when Billy goes forward with his stupid plan, you hope he’ll fail early and spectacularly enough that it will set his head straight. Even if you keep a good poker face, your real thoughts will likely shine through.

You will launch your beloved son into his future armed with the knowledge that pretty much everyone who’s ever loved him has their thumb on the scale for him to fail. Those aren’t the words anyone speaks, but Billy can hear the “I-Told-You-So Chorus” being rehearsed in the wings.

And in his heart of hearts, no matter what he says, Billy expects to fail as well. Let’s face it: The odds are woefully stacked against him. Of the tens of thousands of hacks who push books out every year now that gatekeepers are gone and self-publishing is easy, how many actually make enough to buy a decent meal, let alone fund a lifestyle? Ditto the thousands of members in the Screen Actors Guild who make little more than pocket change. Who the hell is Billy to think he can succeed when so many others fail?

The answer is simple. Billy is better than all those hacks. He just needs to make the world realize it.

He can start by projecting success. Billy didn’t make this shift from engineering to the arts on a whim and a desire. Yes, he has passion, but he also has talent. How does he know? Because he does. He knows when his stuff is bad and because of that, he knows when it’s good. In the arts, that’s what talent is. True talent. Having it is the key element that separates him from the dreck peddlers. It’s what separates Broadway from dinner theater.

When Billy goes to a reading or a literary event, he makes it his mission to introduce himself not just to the author, but to the author’s agent or publisher or publicist who will likely also be there. If he attends a conference, he will sit among the cadre of authors he knows he will one day join. He will work the room in a way that only a confident person can. People will remember him not for being cocky or loud or even because he had a nifty idea for a book, but because he was interesting.

The entertainment business–of which writing is a part–is a business of relationships, and people love to help interesting people.

If Billy’s smart, he will stay away from anyone who sneers at his decision to pursue his dream, taking solace from the fact that those who sneer will be the same ones who want to take selfies with him after his dream proves to be successful. Billy should make a commitment to himself never to apologize to anyone for the artistic path he chose.

Everyone who has seen any level of success in the entertainment business started as Billy. They all share the common elements of talent, drive, focus, more than a little luck, and the ability to see rejection merely as a slammed door that opened a window.

A lot of Billys quit. Most, probably. They go home to the “I-Told-You-So” concert and complain that the industry isn’t interested in new talent anymore. They’ll testify without evidence that traditional media is dying anyway. The real route to success, they’ll say, is doing it all yourself because even if they buy your book, they’ll turn on you like jackals if the book under performs.

As evidence, Whining Billy will regurgitate the one-hit-wonder trope of their friend John who was really, really good. The industry paid him a lot of money, and got behind his first two projects. They sent him on tours, and while the books were bestsellers, they didn’t earn back the money the company spent, and now nobody will return his phone calls. Poor John.

Whining Billy glosses over the lede here–that John had a hit. For a period of time, however short, he got to live the dream. He got to see his name on bookshelves around the world. And while he beamed with pride of accomplishment, the world belittled him because he didn’t do it twice.

Perhaps Whining Billy–having quit and started a garage band, or maybe gone into teaching creative writing classes–was unaware of the fact that while John was having trouble getting his phone calls returned, he was still in the game making calls.

Yes, we’re talking about me now. And perhaps it’s pure hubris, but I never stopped believing in my abilities during the dark times. I never once saw rejection as personal. I understood the quiet happy dances performed by that handful of veteran authors who’d never made a fraction of what I’d been paid for those under-performing books.

I didn’t care that large elements of my extended family celebrated my slump because it’s what I expected of them. I think they had a lot to do with my desire to escape into fiction in the first place.

That noise doesn’t matter to me. I can’t let it matter to me.

To the outside world, it looked like my slump ran from roughly 2001 to 2006, but what no one outside of my very tiny circle of trust knew was that I had made the pivot of a lifetime. I was researching and writing my first and only nonfiction book–the first book ever to receive cooperation from the Army’s super-secret Delta Force. That book became Six Minutes to Freedom, co-authored with Kurt Muse, whose story it tells, and when it was done, we couldn’t give it away to the Big Five. (Nobody cares about Central America, Special Forces is overdone, neither of us is a “journalist” and therefore we’re not qualified to write the story.) I actually had to fire my agent over the book because she refused to represent it.

That’s when I remembered that Steve Zacharias, then a senior executive (now CEO) of Kensington Publishing had always been a fan of my work. My new (and better) agent, Anne Hawkins, sent him the manuscript, and he bought it. Boom! I was back in the game, and the research for that book provided the launch platform for the Jonathan Grave series.

The success of the Grave series allowed me to launch my Victoria Emerson Series, and now my Irene Rivers thriller series. That’s thirty books and counting folks.

And Six Minutes to Freedom is slated to be released by Netflix as a feature film in 2027.

The human tapeworms who troll the interwebs either spreading promises of quick riches through self/hybrid/vanity publishing or spreading rumors of doom and misery in the traditional world are lying to you.

Talent. Relationships. Persistence. The ability to tune out the naysayers. Those are four legs on the stool that defines success in the entertainment business. We talk a lot about tying your butt to the chair and writing. Well, yes, that’s important. But you have to get out there and meet people, too. Build relationships.

Your work has been rejected? Ah, that’s a shame. Get over it and try again. And again. And again.

Or quit. There’s no shame in that. Just remember that it was your choice to quit. Dismissive agents or cranky editors didn’t make you quit. You chose to quit.

And somewhere, you left and editor or an agent hungry for exactly what you’d written. After fifty rejections, you’ll never know if you would have discovered each other on your 51st query.

Novels That Make Us Better Writers

By PJ Parrish

There are countless good non-fction books out there on how to write novels. They’ve come up in our conversations here mutliple times over the years. Stephen King’s On Writing is probably most quoted here. Sometimes for its basic advice on craft:

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

But sometimes for the personal truths he reveals that resonate with anyone facing a blank page:

I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all.

Man, I can relate to that one. Or I suspect any of you out there can who have heard variations of “When you gonna get a real job?” Or “Why don’t you write someone good?”

Another books on craft have illuminated my way through the craft caverns. I love Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat! The Last Book On Screenwriting. Because we can all learn stuff from good screenwriters. One of my fave quotes:

You can be near the cliché, you can dance around it, you can run right up to it and almost embrace it. But at the last second you must turn away. You must give it a twist.

But my favorite book on writing is Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird. This single quote helped change my writing style. It also helped me let go of my obsession with geometrically folded towels:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Okay, so I’m still anal about my linen closet but I no longer restack the dishwasher after my husband does it and when he helps me decorate the Christmas tree, I don’t rehang the ornaments after he goes to bed. I am still going to die someday, but at least I don’t fret about getting caught in old underwear when it happens.

Since I have been doing a lot of reading lately due to vacation, family business, and a bout with the RSV virus, I have also come to realize that novels have much to teach us about craft. Let me suggest just a few and what they have taught me.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This book gave me two gifts: First, that theme is the backbone of every memorable story. Beloved grapples with huge social themes rooted in our complex history, but even our modest crime genre novels are elevated when the writer moors the story in theme. Beloved also taught me a valuable lesson early in my writing career: that I didn’t have the craft chops to handle a two-story plot. Morrison seamlessly toggles between two parallel stories; I learned that I had to abandon one of my early parallel plots to make my story work. Know your limits, perhaps?

Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.

This book drove home for me what Kurt Vonnegutt preaches: Every character must want something, even if it is only a glass of water. Character motivation is one of the pillars of great fiction, and Clarice Starling is a stellar example of how “want” must go beyond the superficial. What does Clarice want?

  1. To catch Buffalo Bill before he kills Catherine. (classic ticking clock plot)
  2. To prove herself among the male FBI trainees. (classic underdog story)
  3. To impress her boss Jack Crawford (in the book a relationship is implied)
  4. To live up to the memory of her beloved sheriff/father who was killed in line of duty.
  5. To silence her own inner demons. After her dad’s death, she is taken in by a relative on a sheep ranch where she tries to save a lamb from slaughter and as punishment is sent to an orphanage. (A story she reveals to Lecter). The book ends with Clarice sleeping peacefully. (The movie ending is better, imho).

The five levels of “want” are criticial to our understanding of Clarice, as they represent a descent into her psychological oubliette — symbolically as unsettling as the horrific basement well where Catherine is kept hostage. This relates to an exchange between Lecter and Clarice regarding Buffalo Bills’ motivation:

What need does he serve by killing, Clarice? He covets. How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day.

As writers, we must know what our characters want. Not just at the superficial level. We must be willing to explore the deepest dungeons of what they covet.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I  read this book 20 years ago on a trip to Chennai, India. It was August and it was so hot the aspalt steamed at night. There was something jarring in the juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness, in the cacaphony of bright colors, noise, and relentless press of too many human beings. In some moments, the city’s chaos felt apocalyptic. The imagery of McCarthy’s book haunted me:

Hydrangeas and wild orchids stand in the forest, sculptured by fire into “ashen effigies” of themselves, waiting for the wind to blow them over into dust. Intense heat has melted and tipped a city’s buildings, and window glass hangs frozen down their walls. On the Interstate “long lines of charred and rusting cars” are “sitting in a stiff gray sludge of melted rubber. … The incinerated corpses shrunk to the size of a child and propped on the bare springs of the seats. Ten thousand dreams ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.

There is one scene I cannot get out of my head. The man and boy, surviving cannibal “bad guys,” discover a cache of canned food in a cellar. They sit in the rubble and eat peaches, a symbol of the lost world and of hope. What did this book teach me about writing? That imagery is the lifeblood of any powerful story. Not just passages of description but of that one telling detail, that can encapsulate your entire theme — peaches. McCarthy’s spare but evocative imagery taught me to be braver — and briefer — in my own descriptions. Less is more. But the “less” must be more effective.

Oh geez. I’ve flapped my gums too long again. I have four other books I wanted to talk about here, but I’ve run long. Quickly: Rowlings’ Harry Potter books taught me that a swift-flowing and sure-footed plot can make up for meh writing. Madame Bovary gave me the courage to write a male protag. (Louis Kincaid, c’est moi!) Charlotte’s Web (yes you can — indeed, must — kill off a sympathetic character).

What novels have made you a better writer?

Do FBI Profilers Mistake Writers for Serial Killers?

You might be surprised by how many traits writers share with serial killers. FBI profilers have actually profiled a subject only to discover s/he’s not a killer. They’re a writer. Here’s why a profiler might mistake writers for serial killers.

We work alone.

Writers spend hours alone, plotting and planning the perfect demise. We let the fantasy build until we find an ideal murder method to fit our plot, and a spark ignites our creativity. We’re giddy with excitement and can’t wait to swan-dive into our story.

Serial killers also spend hours alone, plotting and planning the perfect demise. They let the fantasy build, evolve, until they find an ideal murder method, and a spark ignites them to act. They’re giddy with excitement and can’t wait for the inevitable kill.

In fact, this stage of serial killing is called the Aura Phase.

Joel Norris PhD is the founding member of the International Committee of Neuroscientists to Study Episodic Aggression. In his book SERIAL KILLERS, Norris explains the serial killer’s addiction to crime is also an addiction to specific patterns of violence that ultimately define their way of life.

A writer’s addiction passion for crime (romance, sci-fi, fantasy…) writing is also an addiction the pursuit of patterns of violence routine that ultimately defines our way of life.

Still not convinced a profiler might mistake writers for serial killers?

During the Aura Phase, the killer withdraws from reality and his/her senses heightenTime stalls. Colors become more vibrant as though the killer’s literally viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. The killer distances themselves from society, but friends, family, and acquaintances may not detect the psychological change.

The same is true for writers.

Think about that shiny new story. What do we do? We withdraw from reality, into our writer’s cave, and our senses heightenTime stalls as our fingers race over the keyboard. And our worlds spring to life. On the outside we may look “normal” to family and friends while obsessing—a psychological change—over details, lots of details, details about characters, plots, subplots, dialogue, and yes, murder.

Trolling

When a killer is on the hunt he’s trolling for a victim. Rather than state the obvious, I’ll pose a question: How much time have you spent deciding which character to kill?

via GIPHY

But they looked so normal.

How many times have we heard a reporter interview a serial killer’s friend or neighbor? And they all say the same thing. But they looked so normal. I had no idea.

Now, think about the first time a friend/relative/acquaintance read one of your gritty thrillers. Stunned, they close the cover. But they looked so normal. I had no idea this was going on inside their head. Or they’ll say to the writer’s significant other, “You must sleep with one eye open.”

Search History

Smart serial killers might research things like:

• How to commit the perfect murder.
• Will my fingerprints be in IAFIS if I’ve only been arrested for a misdemeanor? For non-writers, IAFIS stands for Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Why am I only addressing non-writers? Because writers know law enforcement acronyms, like CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), NDIS (National DNA Index System), BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit), and SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).
• What’s the fastest way to dissolve a corpse?
• How long does it take to strangle someone to death?
• What’s involved in decapitation?
• Jurisdictional map of [insert state].
• How to pick a lock.
• Will a 3D-printed gun set off a metal detector?
• What’s left of a body after being hit by a train?
• Will black bears consume human remains?
• How many hours after death till rigor mortis sets in?
• Will Luminol detect bleach?
• How deep is a standard grave?

Writers, can you honestly say your search history doesn’t look similar?

An organized killer might brush up on forensics and/or law enforcement procedures to avoid detection.

via GIPHY

How many of you have pondered: Where should I dump the corpse?

via GIPHY

Let’s face facts, writers are a different breed. The only ones who truly understand us are other writers and writer spouses. If anyone deserves an award, it’s the writer’s family. I mean, c’mon, how many of you have dragged them to check out that out-of-the-way swamp to dump a fictional corpse? Or said, “Stop the car!” while passing a wood-chipper?

A writer’s “uniqueness” affects the whole family.

The other day “The Kid” called, his voice bursting with excitement. “I found the perfect place for a murder. No one around for miles. You could really do some damage there.”

Now, normal parents might be concerned by this conversation…but I’m a writer. So, I said, “Awesome! Shoot me the GPS.”

Y’know what? He did find the perfect place for a murder.

via GIPHY

Is it any wonder an FBI profiler might mistake writers for serial killers? 😀 

Traditional Publishing Advice

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s been 18 years already! Can you believe it? The Kindle came out in late 2007. So did a little device I like to call the iPhone. These twin explosions (to put it mildly) changed the world of publishing and reading—and even the culture—forever (I mean, in 2006 you never saw a mom or dad pushing a stroller in broad daylight with their face glued to a phone, as little junior or missy plays with a tablet with digital bunnies instead of looking at live birds flying in the sky).

In 2007 we had two major tragedies: The Sopranos ended and Keeping Up With the Kardashians began.

Evel Knievel, age 69, died in 2007 (shockingly, of natural causes). Tony Bennett, age 80, got married (but did he leave his heart in San Francisco? I certainly hope not).

Where were you in 2007? I was on the verge of signing a new contract with a major publishing house. Traditional publishing was my home. Back then all writers longed to make it through the gates of the Forbidden City.

Then in 2008 and ’09, seemingly out of nowhere, brand-spanking new writers publishing 99¢ Kindle books directly on Amazon started raking in huge bucks. The indie revolution had begun.

It exploded over the next several years, along with prophecies of the demise of traditional publishing. At the time I noted that reports of trad’s death were greatly exaggerated, likening the biz to Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta who was famous for getting bloodied but never going down.

And so today we have the two paths—trad and indie—firmly established, each with its own set of challenges. I have been a happy indie since 2012. It’s a joy to publish a book the moment I deem it ready. So I wonder what advice I’d give today to an author yearning for a traditional publishing contract. Let me give it a whirl.

  1. You’re going to need lots of patience. And by that I mean, lots.

Over at the Books & Such Literary Agency blog, Rachel Kent explains a typical timeline in trad publishing:

  • Revamping the proposal with your agent for submission to editors: 1–4 months
  • Agent pitching and selling the project: 2 months–2 years (sometimes longer and there’s no guarantee of a sale)
  • Contract negotiation: 2 weeks–4 months
  • Final book is due: 0–18 months after contract
  • Editorial revision letter back to author: Approximately 2 months after book is turned in.
  • Revisions done by author and sent back to publishing house: 7-30 days from the time the revision letter is received.
  • Galleys to author: 4–6 months after revisions
  • Galley corrections back to publisher: 7–14 days after receipt of galleys.
  • Book goes to the printer: 1–14 days after galleys are finalized.
  • Book ships to stores: 1–2 months after it is sent to printer.
  • Book officially releases: 1–2 weeks after stores receive the product.

Note that chilling number: It can take up to 2 years for an agent to pitch a project with no guarantee of a sale. And if the book is published, there is no guarantee that it will sell in sufficient numbers to get another contract.

If it’s still your dream to be traditionally published, that’s fine. Everyone should pursue their dreams. Just be aware of the above, and:

  1. Don’t expect the system to change for you

It’s a glacially slow and frustrating process. It is what it is. I wish it was what it could be. So does writer and former agent Nathan Bransford. He recently offered a “Publishing Submission Bill of Rights” for the publishing industry which I like very much, including:

Article 1 – If you are a publishing professional who’s open for submissions, you owe everyone who follows your submission guidelines a timely response…

Article 2 – If you are an author or agent who doesn’t follow submission guidelines, you are not entitled to a response…

Article 3 – One month for queries and two months for manuscripts is an acceptable timeline unless otherwise agreed – If you’re a publishing professional who can’t stay on top of incoming submissions you should close for submissions, get more assistance, or request fewer manuscripts. Again, it’s unfair to authors to leave them in limbo with hazy timelines…

Article 4 – “Thanks but not for me” is not only an acceptable submission response, it’s better than saying something just to say something – The submission system should reward timeliness and clarity over detailed feedback…

Article 5 – If you receive “thanks but not for me,” you are not owed further clarification. Don’t ask. Don’t bog down the process or put undue pressure on agents and editors who simply say “not for me.” If they only have a gut feeling and don’t have anything helpful to add, don’t follow-up. Just move on.

All that said, the primary advice I’d give to a young writer seeking trad publishing is keep the main thing the main thing. The best book you can write is the main thing. And don’t be a snoot about learning the craft. Learn what works, and why, before you go off and “break the rules.” And don’t think AI is going to give you any shortcuts. If you rely on it for the writing itself, it will give you a competent product at the same time it melts your brain. And competent fiction does not make fans. Unforgettable fiction does, and for that you must tap your heart and your blood, and know how to translate them through craft.

Further advice:

  • No agent is better than a bad agent. Do your due diligence.
  • Educate yourself on publishing contracts, esp. the non-compete clause and the reversion of rights clause (tie the latter to royalties, not “out of print”).
  • Don’t hang your ultimate happiness on getting published. If you don’t make it, you’ll be severely disappointed. If you do make it, your books may not sell enough to keep you inside the Forbidden City. And if you do make it to the “A List” and think you’ll be eternally and gloriously happy, read the end of The Great Gatsby again.
  • Manage expectations, write and learn, and find your joy in the production of good words.

Carpe Typem.
Seize the Keyboard.

Over to you now. What’s your view of traditional publishing these days? Any further advice you’d give our hypothetical writer?

A Covid Dream

Sitting in the back of our unairconditioned classroom one hot Friday morning, I couldn’t take my eyes off my high school English teacher, Miss Adams, as Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love echoed through my empty, echoing head.

She was splendid, and everything a sophomore boy could wish for.

Redheaded Rick Schaefer looked at me from across the aisle and raised his eyebrows in a Groucho expression. We felt the same about Miss Adams and we’d discussed her that morning while sitting in his van, listening to the radio. I figured he’d graduate and marry her, because the guy looked like he was in his late twenties when we were in junior high.

And then she made me love her more, taking my mind off losing her to Rick. “I’ll need a two-page paper fromn everyone on Monday morning.”

Groans filled the room as I considered endless possibilities. I knew I was a great writer, because I’d already been moved from reporter to photographer on our school’s newspaper staff. For some reason, evil Mrs. Pickles said I editorialized too much.

In her desk at the front of the room, Lucy, the teacher’s pet, raised her hand. “On what?”

“Anything you want to write about.”

Lucy raised her hand again. “I can’t think of anything.”

“You will. Just write down a few words–––.”

Lucy’s pale hand shot up again, but before she could voice another question, Miss Adams caught my eye and spoke directly to me in the back of the room. “Just write down a few words, and then more words will follow. Write anything you want.”

An experienced camouflage expert, I’d chosen the farthest desk from the front, and beside the window, hoping for a stray breeze, but she saw me anyway, and I’ve been thankful for that moment ever since.

I think of that bit of wisdom from a 22-year-old teacher every time I sit down to hammer out my weekly newspaper column, and it hasn’t failed me since I began writing it in 1988.

These past couple of weeks have been busy, and what with developmental edits on one manuscript, line edits on another, and finally finishing the edits on an upcoming anthology of short stories, I’d forgotten that today is the deadline for my Killzone blog.

So I put my fingers on the keyboard and started with the first sentence at the top of this page, searching for a topic. That led me to the calendar on my desk, and the realization that by the time you read this post, my 20th novel will have been on the shelves since October 21.

Comancheria is the first in the weird western Hollow Frontier series, that has already stretched to three volumes. The Sound of a Dead Man’s Laugh, and What We Owe the Dead, will drop in October of 2026 and the same month in 2027, respectively. I’m already itching to get into the next one, but I have to finish my 10th novel in the Red River series.

It’ll go quickly, because John Gilstrap and I hammered out the premise over several bottles of wine in a thousand-year-old French mansion.

My western horror novel came to me in a dream during the Covid shutdown. No, I wasn’t worried about getting sick and nothing was bothering me at the time. In fact, my stress level was way down, since we couldn’t get out of the house and all my honey-do chores were finished.

Maybe I’d figuratively and subconsciously put my fingers on the keyboard in my sleep that night.

After intense online research lasting a full fifteen seconds, I found that doctors in white lab coats proclaim that dreams typically last from 5-20 minutes, however, they can vary from a few seconds to possibly two hours. According to those guys with pocket protectors full of pens and probably a Slim Jim or two, we can have up to three or four dreams per night.

Well, that night I watched an entire movie in my head, complete with a clear plot, characters, details, a subplot, twists, and even dialogue. My eyes snapped open when it came to an end at 3:00 AM, and it wasn’t because I had to go to the bathroom.

That usually happens at 4:00 AM.

The Bride’s eyes snapped open when I woke up. I swear she’s some kind of harmless vampire. Truthfully, I can open one eye and look at her in the dark and both of her gray/green orbs will snap open as well. I don’t think the woman ever sleeps at all.

Honestly, I don’t know what color they are, because I’m colorblind, and I’m afraid to ask now. I’ll have to look at her drivers license the next time she goes for a walk.

I slipped out of bed. “I have to write.”

“Okay.” She returned to her dormant state of nighttime existence, probably adding to her mental honey-do list.

My office is just outside our bedroom door, so I closed her in and settled down at the desk.

Fingers on the keyboard, I typed the first line.

Miss Hattie Long’s husband died on their fifty-fifth anniversary and she lost much of her mind not long after.

Those words led me into a complicated plot set on the Llano Estacado in 1874. Texas Ranger Buck Dallas appeared on my computer screen, along with his good friend Ranger Lane Newsome. I didn’t have to come up with their names. They were part of the absurdely detailed dream that led to Buck’s torture, death, and a curse to walk the earth forever from a Comanche puha, Twisted Root.

Yeah, the word puha, (medicine man) was in that dream.

Here’s where the curse part comes in. Buck rises every morning with the sun, and falls dead at sunset. People tend to bury the dead, and Buck always claws his way back to the surface, pissed off and digging dirt from his eyes and ears. However, he’s a walking dead man, with a snake growing inside of his body that tends to argue with him whenever he’s in the grave.

He and Lane, after some serious discussion about Buck not staying dead as decent people should, are joined by three strange characters protecting a pregnant woman who is drawn by Miss Hattie to a magic spring in the heart of Comancheria.

By eight the next morning, I was thirty pages into the story that was the movie my subconscious created. I finished in six weeks of virtually nonstop typing.

As usual, writing is the easy part. Getting it published became a journey unto itself. After being turned down by two publishers who thought it was a strange idea, it was picked up by a western house––– that crawfished on the deal a week later.

But life has a way of leading us where we need to go. Last year I attended a panel of publishers at a writers conference (one was the crawfish) and became interested in what a gentleman from Roan and Weatherford had to say about publishing and gender-bending.

Later, he and I met in the bar, of course, (where good things happen at conferences) and in casual conversation, he asked if I had a manuscript he could look at. A week later, R&N agreed to publish Comancheria and gave me an unlimited series featuring my Rangers.

It is our hope that the blending of horror and westerns will draw the interest of younger folks, who aren’t typically readers of traditional westerns. With the death of mass market paperbacks, westerns will struggle. I believe older readers will welcome something different, quirky westerns that are outside of the William W. Johnston, Louis L’Amour, and Zane Grey estates.

Comancheria is a new idea, and I hope that Covid dream is the start of something big.

For your perusal, here’s an excellent article from Jeffrey J. Mariotte that appeared in the Western Writers of America’s Roundup Magazine a couple of years ago, providing even information on this mind-bending genre. I hope this link works. It did for me.

aug20-weirdwesterns

Oh, and thanks once again to Miss Adams, on helping me get started on this paper…uh, post.

Reader Friday-Curiouser and Curiouser

Authors are a curious species. By that, I mean we’re curious about the world around us, not that we’re weird! Ahem!

This is a link to a really cool site that will make you curiouser and curiouser. https://www.rd.com/list/weird-facts/

Image by LeeoMax from Pixabay

 

 

 

Did you know that Donald Duck’s legal name is Donald Fauntleroy Duck? True story. (From Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

And Walt Disney was the first voice of Mickey Mouse? And Mickey was the first non-human Oscar winner.

Or, how about this—Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz was originally a blonde, but the powers that were thought it made her look not so much like a Kansas farm girl.

All true.

But, here’s the one I really like, because I’m one of those height-challenged folks.

People are taller in the morning than they are at night. Really!

Courtesy of https://ar.inspiredpencil.com

“When you wake up in the morning, you’re about one centimeter taller. That’s because at night when you’re lying down, the spine stretches and decompresses. But throughout the day, the soft cartilage between your bones gets squashed and compressed…”

 

So, at least in the mornings I can claim to be tall . . . cool!


TKZers . . . what weird, random fact can you share with us this morning? And how will you write it into the story you’re working on?

 

 

Creating Buzz

Creating Buzz
Terry Odell

Buzzy Bee toyIn my last post, I talked about how the cover for Deadly Ambitions came to be. I mentioned in a response to a commenter, that with the book in the hands of my editor and an extended period before the book will go live, I need to put on my dreaded marketing hat and come up with ways to generate some buzz.

Unless you can afford to hire a publicist, I don’t think it matters whether you’re indie or traditionally published—you’re still going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Publishers don’t fork over the big bucks for most of their authors.

If you’re working with social media platforms, you’re going to want visuals, be they ads, memes, or whatever you call them. I’m not a graphics designer, so I rely on other programs.

I’ve found two resources that have helped me: Mockup Shots and Canva. (I do have paid accounts at both.) I know a lot of authors use Brush instead of Canva, but I found it too limiting since I create images for a lot more than book promo (like for my blog, newsletter, and TKZ).

Mockup Shots is very easy to use to generate images featuring your book. You plug in your cover, and it creates a huge number of choices. These are just a few.

You pick the ones you like and download them. Here are a few I picked.

Next, I take the mockups, and any images of my own I might want to use, and upload them to Canva. From here, it’s a lot of playing around with all the options and tools they offer.

My go-to design template is their landscape Facebook size, but you can choose your own dimensions. From there, it’s a matter of dragging the image(s) onto the template, and adjusting the size using the “handles” for lack of what I’m sure is a more correct term.

Next, I add the text. I have several tag lines so my projects won’t all be the same. I also have snippets of text from the manuscript. Canva gives you the opportunity to choose fonts, size, color, outline, shadows … more features than I need.

Another handy feature is the transparency adjustment. I tend to use this for my backgrounds so my text is more conspicuous. There’s also a position feature, so you can move your additions forward and backward. You go to the ‘text’ on the left sidebar and play around from there.

Another thing I like about Canva is they have people who will help you. I’ve used them. A lot!

Once I’ve finished, I download the file as a jpg (best for sharing). Rinse, repeat.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

I’m not fond of the marketing side of publishing as an indie, but at least playing around with these sorts of images is something I enjoy. Now, it’s a matter of deciding how to put them to best use. Suggestions welcome!

Oh, and before I forget. I’ve set Deadly Ambitions up as a preorder. The ‘go live’ date is January 14th, so I have plenty of time to work on honing my marketing skills.

What marketing/promotion tools do you use? Likes? Dislikes?


New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Deadly Ambitions

Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.

Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?

Now Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.

Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.

Preorder now.


Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

 

Post-Mortem on the Flathead River Writers Conference – Part 1

Attendees at Debbie Burke’s Villain’s Journey workshop

by Debbie Burke

Al Solum and Kathy Dunnehoff wearing a hoodie with her book cover

Last weekend, the 35th annual Flathead River Writers Conference in Kalispell, Montana, was like an exuberant family reunion…except there were no drunken squabbles!

With many repeat attendees, emcee Kathy Dunnehoff compared the gathering of 100 writers to the dog park: we’re off the leash of ordinary life, happy to see each other, and eager to play.

Keynote Shelley Read glowed with warmth and enthusiasm, radiating encouragement as she talked about the Cinderella story of her debut novel Go as a River. Published in 2023 when she was 56, the novel became a mega-bestseller worldwide with translations into many languages. Shelley was stunned and thrilled with how the book’s theme of deep connection to the land resonates with readers around the globe. So far, she’s toured 19 states and 11 countries.

She relates the story of her proud mother creating what she laughingly calls a “shrine” in the living room, featuring her awards and reviews. Also displayed is Shelley’s first novel, written at age nine, entitled Peter the Porcupine, a two-page school assignment that grew to 66 pages and includes a hand-scrawled copyright symbol.

During her decades as an educator, wife, and mom, Shelley describes writing her book “in the margins of my life.” The story “marinated and percolated” inside her head, taking 13 years to finish.

Shelley believes grief and sorrow in the heart are universal, spanning across all cultures. Tapping those emotions could be the “great unifier” for humanity. She urged the audience to “write as a witness” to chronicle and preserve life’s experiences for others to read and learn from.

Cindy Spiegel, Spiegel and Grau publisher, and author Shelley Read, keynote speaker

Another guest speaker was Cindy Spiegel, CEO of Spiegel and Grau, the respected independent press that published Shelley’s book and numerous groundbreaking bestsellers. Cindy shepherds books and authors in the grand tradition of Maxwell Perkins.

She spent decades in the industry leading imprints and building a reputation for high-quality books. When multiple mergers of publishing companies changed the industry’s focus solely to quick profits, in 2020 she and Julie Grau struck out on their own. Their mission is to publish books that earn money but also change the world.

Cindy chooses books with enduring themes and helps them build lasting momentum rather than publishing ones that make a brief splash on social media then quickly disappear.

She understands most authors are introverts and believes part of her job is to help them with platforms. She clearly values a strong rapport with her authors and says, “I won’t publish someone if we don’t have the same vision.”

Agent Abby Saul and publisher Cindy Spiegel.
Photo credit David Snyder

Literary agent Abby Saul is celebrating 10 years of The Lark Group, the agency she founded to represent commercial adult fiction.

She recommends before submitting to an agent that the writer “takes the manuscript as far as you can” and perfects the first 50 pages. “Make the best first impression because that is often the only impression.” She usually only reads two pages of a submission but, if she gets engrossed and finds she’s read 20 pages, “Oh my gosh!”

After Abby and a client agree to representation, she puts together a list of editors she thinks will be interested in the project. Unlike agents who only make contact when the book is sold, she keeps the author fully informed throughout the submission process. If an editor gives reasons for rejection, she lets the author know so they can make changes if warranted. She also advises them to start writing their next book while waiting for an answer. “I’ve sold books in two days or in two years.”

In a query, she likes comps but advises writers not to brag about “being the next Dan Brown.” Rather use phrases like “In the vein of…” or “For fans of…”

When asked about AI, she isn’t concerned because there is “an art to writing and AI can’t compare. Readers are smart and they’re here for real books.”

YA novelist Jess Owen, romantasy author J.D. Evans, and Debbie Burke

The conference highlights are too many to fit into today’s post. Come back in two weeks for the next installment featuring more terrific speakers including Robert Petrone talking about memoir; Jake Arrowtop, Native-American poet; Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, artist and author of graphic novels and graphic nonfiction; a panel with YA novelist Jess Owen, romantasy author J.D. Evans, and me about our traditional and indie publishing paths.

~~~

TKZers: Have you attended a recent writing conference? Which speakers impressed you?

~~~

At the conference, I gave a day-long workshop. If you missed it, you can find the same information in The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

The False Ending

“Pilots are a rare kind of human. They leave the ordinary surface of the world to purify their soul in the sky, and they come down to earth only after receiving the communion of the infinite.” – Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra

* * *

“Flying isn’t dangerous. Crashing is what’s dangerous.”

* * *

My husband and I have an audio recording of The Shepherd, a novella by Frederick Forsyth. It tells the story of a young R.A.F. pilot whose night flight in his DeHavilland single-seat Vampire jet fighter went terribly wrong.

The entire story is voiced in first person by the unnamed pilot, played on the audio by actor Robert Powell, who gives the character just the right combination of charm and mild aviator arrogance.

The book begins as the pilot explains it’s Christmas Eve, 1957, and he’s on his way from Germany to Great Britain to spend the holidays with his family. He communicates with the tower and takes off into the night sky.

Forsythe lures us into the routineness of the voyage by having the pilot relate some inflight parameters:  “… course 265 degrees, continue climbing to 27,000 feet… keep speed to 485 knots… Sixty-six minutes flying time with the descent and landing, and the Vampire had enough fuel for over eighty minutes in the air.”

He reaches his assigned altitude and continues his account of the uncomplicated journey: “Somewhere beneath me in the gloom the Dutch border would be slipping away, and I had been airborne for twenty-one minutes. No problem.”

The audio pauses for a few seconds, then this: “The problem started …”

Over the next chapters, various aircraft instruments fail because of an electrical fuse blow-out. By the time the pilot has identified all the problems, he can’t return to Germany because he doesn’t have enough fuel. He needs assistance to fly to his destination because his compass is not operational, but he can’t contact the airbase in Great Britain because the radio is out. On a disaster scale of one to ten, this about a nine-and-a-half, but he’s banking on his knowledge of the pattern of lights on the ground in Great Britain to lead him to his destination airfield.

He starts to descend to prepare for reaching the coast of Great Britain when the disaster scale hits ten. “At 15,000 feet and still diving, I began to realize that a fresh, and for me the last, enemy had entered the field.”

A low-lying fog has drifted in and blankets the earth under him. He cannot see the lights on the ground, and he can’t fly below the earth-hugging fog. He’s run out of options. He will have to keep his aircraft over the North Sea to avoid crashing into a populated area. When the plane runs out of fuel, he will bail out, knowing that will lead to certain death in the freezing waters below.

But there’s one last straw to grasp. His flight trainer had instructed the class that in a case of dire emergency (like this one), a pilot should fly a triangle pattern in hopes that a nearby air base would send up a shepherd plane to guide the wounded aircraft down. A shepherd that had radio and radar equipment which made it capable of guiding a disabled fellow pilot down to the runway even in poor weather conditions.

Our pilot flies the triangle pattern, but no shepherd appears. With his fuel gauge and his hope hovering just above empty, he spots a shadow on the fog bank. Another plane.

It’s a WWII propeller-driven fighter-bomber known as the DeHavilland Mosquito.

When the shepherd plane pulls up beside the fighter, its goggled and leather-helmeted pilot signals to fly in formation.

They descend through the fog layer while the Vampire pilot fears the worst. Gray cotton candy-like strands of cloud obscure everything except the aircraft off to his left. The fuel indicator is on zero. A cold sweat runs down his back. He is in a field of nothingness. This is the end. Then suddenly, he spots lights rushing by on each side of his aircraft. A runway! The plane settles down on the surface and rolls to a stop, out of fuel.

It seems like that should be the end of the tale. Our attractive main character faced the threat of death, fought the odds, gave up hope, but then encountered a shepherd airplane that brought him to safety beyond all odds. The reader is ready for the denouement.

But it isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning.

* * *

And to make an end is to make a beginning. —T.S. Eliot

The Shepherd is an example of a story with a false ending. The reader or listener is expecting the story to end, but instead, a new plot begins.

In an article in Writers Digest, Robert McCaw addresses the uses of the false ending.

“Another of my favorite techniques is the false or penultimate ending. In this case, the narrative comes to a neat close… There are no loose strings. The story is over, except it’s not. Instead, another chapter surprises the reader with a new and different take on the ending, often creating the opportunity to begin a new story…”

In the case of The Shepherd, the mystery begins as the Vampire pilot tries to discover who the pilot of the shepherd plane was and how he successfully guided him down. He makes one assumption after another, and each is proved wrong. The reader/listener is as confused as the young pilot.

I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s worth the read or listen to understand how to pull off this kind of effect.

* * *

We saw a movie years ago entitled Lives of Others that I think would qualify as a film with a false ending. It was a story about East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, spying on East Berlin residents. As the movie approaches the climactic moment when the Berlin Wall comes down, one of the main characters, a Stasi agent, walks away from his job. At that point, I thought the movie had wrapped up all the loose ends and was over, but it continued to reveal secrets afterward. It was very effective.

There are other novels and movies that have false endings. Some that I read about (but haven’t read or seen the movie) are The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King, and Spider Man 3.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you encountered the false ending in any books or movies? Have you used a false ending in any of your works? What do you think about this technique?

* * *