Irwin Shaw
I once told a class I was teaching that writing is an intellectual contact sport, similar in some respects to football. The effort required can be exhausting…and you are hurt on almost every play; but that doesn’t deprive you from getting peculiar pleasures from the game. — Irwin Shaw
Discuss!
Your life runs by in a hurry. In three acts, you were born, you mature, and you’ll die. Beginning, middle, and end. Classic story structure, and what really counts is what you do on your runway of life. Especially with the time you have left.
A few things brought on this post.
One—my brother recently passed away. He was sixty-nine, and there was no warning. It was a brain aneurysm which is a pre-existing condition that’s nearly impossible to detect or intervene with.
Two—I turned sixty-six yesterday. That milestone, along with my brother’s sudden death, made me reflect on what time I have left. The events put into perspective an urgency I have in continuing important tasks.
Three—I received a newsletter from Dr. Peter Legge where he outlined the Runway of Life. In a three-minute video, Dr. Legge gave me an “ah-ha” moment. I’d like to pass it along to my friends at the Kill Zone.
Peter Legge is a well-known force in Vancouver. He’s a highly accomplished entrepreneur, author, speaker, publicist, and community leader. Dr. Legge is also a motivator and personal mentor to many folks, regulars and high achievers.
The Runway of Life is a concept. It’s an abstract, yet crystal clear, look at where you’ve come from, where you are, and where you’ll end. Not when you’ll end—that’s something we don’t know so, for this exercise, we’ll make up a number.
In the video, Dr. Legge draws a horizontal line in black ink on a white background. The line represents your runway of life—your life’s timeline. On the left, he draws a zero. This represents the day you were born.
Somewhere along, he draws a figure for his age. Dr. Legge is currently eighty, so he dots an 8-0. This shows since birth to today he’s gone 80 points on his runway of life.
His final figure is hypothetical because there’s no way he, or anyone else, can know the age he’ll die at. Dr. Legge qualifies that and says for this exercise the death number doesn’t matter. “It could be eighty. It could be a hundred. But for this demonstration I’ll put down ninety.”
So, Dr. Legge jots 9-0 at the right side of his runway. Clearly, he’s used up 80 years of his life’s runway, and he expects to have 10 years left.
“Zero to eighty are gone. They’re history and they’re past.” Not so with the remaining ten still on the runway. It’s what you do with the remaining time on your runway of life that now matters.
I drew a runway of life for myself. I started at zero like everyone else. I have sixty-six around three-quarters to the right. And I picked ninety as my cash-out number. I base that life expectancy on my genealogy which has had some pretty old birds in the family tree.
I realize my brother’s last number was only sixty-nine. However, there’s a big medical difference between my brother and me. He was a heavy smoker, and I’ve never touched the stuff. Cigarette smoke is the most significant modifiable risk for cerebral aneurysm. Heart attack / myocardial infarct as well.
My runway of life looks like this:
I’ve used 66 years which is 792 months, 23,760 days, and 570,240 hours. If my calculator is right, I have 24 years left on my runway of life—288 months, 8,640 days, and 207,360 hours.
It’s what I do with those remaining years, months, days, and hours that count going forward. I have no idea what the right, right number is on my runway of life. It could be a lot lower. So, I’m moving ahead making every day matter.
I’m doing two primary things. One is keep creating content, and keep learning how to do it, for the entertainment industry (aka being a writer). The other is enjoying time with my family and friends, especially out on our boat.
And if I blend the best of both worlds, like I’m doing right now, I’ll write and learn from the chart table in my wheelhouse till I’m buried at sea by my family and friends, hopefully well past one hundred.
Kill Zoners — Have you given any thought to your runway of life? Care to share an urgency?
A couple of weeks ago, I posted here about my great fortune to score an ongoing talk radio gig on WRNR Radio/TV 10 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It’s strictly a talk format, with Rob Mario as host, and then two co-hosts, of which I am one a couple of times per week.
It’s interesting sitting on the other side of an interview. Having done more than a few of them over the years as the interviewee, being the interviewer has changed my perspective a bit. In recent weeks, we’ve interviewed a few authors. I thought I’d share some lessons I’ve learned that you might find helpful if you find yourself in the position to promote your book–or to promote anything for that matter.
Know ahead of time what the format will be.
On our show on Eastern Panhandle Talk Radio, all interviews are 22-25 minutes long, free from commercial interruption. That’s unusual in my experience for broadcast radio and television. Normally, the broadcast format runs 7-10 minutes, which requires an entirely different approach.
In shorter interviews, be prepared to deliver the vaunted elevator pitch, where you get right down the details of the book. There likely won’t be a lot of give-and take between you and the host. If there is, that’s great. Just don’t anticipate it.
Longer interviews, on the other hand, are much more conversational. If you launch right into the elevator pitch and stay with it, there won’t be much interaction with the hosts, and you run the risk of leaving little to talk about during the rest of the spot.
Anticipate the common questions and have stories to tell.
You know the low-hanging fruit: Where did the idea come from? What kind of research did you do? Which of your books is your favorite? What authors do you read? Tell us about the story.
The best interviews are with people who tell the stories behind the stories. Keep it light-hearted and entertaining. If you can make your book resonate with current events or current times, that’s always a good thing.
Another trait of great interviews is that they are conversational. Try to forget that YOU’RE ON THE RADIO!!! and concentrate more on having a casual conversation with the person across from you in the studio or on the other end of the phone call.
There’s a good chance that “radio” means TV, too.
In these days of video streaming, many (most?) radios stations also have a live feed to Facebook or other social media sites. Plan accordingly to avoid that awkward jammies and bed-head television exposure.
Send promotional materials ahead of time.
Remember that your interview is but one tiny slot inserted into a busy broadcast. People will not have had time to read your book, certainly on short notice. Be sure to send along a synopsis of the story, along with a short bio.
Suggested questions are always welcome because they give the interviewer a clue about what topics you are most prepared to cover.
In your promotional materials, be sure to include a headshot of you and the cover of your book. If there is a TV/Facebook live element, this is essential. One of the most recent interviews sent along a single image that is a combined cover and author photo. I’m going to steal that idea.
Avoid qualitative assessments of your own work.
This might just be my own bugaboo, but I find it vastly unprofessional for an author to tell the world how funny, inspirational or exciting his own work is. Just as on the page, show, don’t tell. Let your enthusiasm for the project sell the book for you.
Mention the title. A Lot.
In a standard interview, you’ll be introduced as the author of [Your Book Title], and then again as such at the end of the interview. Remember that every time you refer to your baby as “my book” or “it” you’re missing an opportunity to burn the title into listeners’ and viewers’ brains.
Always close with your contact and social media information.
Rudeness is never okay, but don’t be afraid to be a little aggressive, especially at the end of an interview. Consider:
” . . . Thanks for coming on the show, John.”
“Real quick, please visit my website, John Gilstrap dot com for anything you want to know about me or my books.”
You’re on the show to market a book, so don’t be shy about marketing your book.
What say you, TKZ family? Have I missed anything?
(I am still out of the country, folks, so here’s another old post, one of my favorites about making smooth transitions between chapters. I am wandering the countryside in Provence today but will try to check in via iPhone. No computers on this trip, on purpose!)
By PJ Parrish
Put on your waders because we’re going deep into the craft bulrushes today. I want to talk about one of my favorite micro-topics — transitions. Actually, maybe it’s quicksand we’re wading into, because if your book doesn’t have good transitions, it can sink faster than Janet Leigh’s ’57 Ford in Psycho.
We talk a lot here at TKZ about how important pacing is, and transitions go along way to creating that seamless narrative flow you need as your story shifts in time, location, or point-of view. Transitions look easy but they can be tricky to get right.
I dwell on transitions so much because I work with a co-author. Kelly and I write our books by talking out the plot then writing alternating chapters. So we don’t have the normal one-brain flow of a unified writing procedure. We always know the purpose of each chapter but often we write with no clear idea of what the links between the chapters will be. Sometimes we just leave red-ink pleas like this for each other —INSERT BETTER ENDING HERE — then we deal with links in rewrites.
I used to think this was nuts but then I read an interview with Katherine Anne Porter wherein she described her writing process as “creating scene islands” and “building bridges” between them. This gave me great comfort, knowing I could approach writing like a good engineer. Getting my chapters to flow became akin to making the long journey to Key West. It also made me think that maybe the island-bridge analogy is useful for those of you who work alone. Because the scene (and by extension chapter) is the terra firma of your plot structure and once you have that solid you can always go back and figure out the best ways to move between those plot clots.
I think some writers don’t know where to end a chapter for maximum impact. And that leads to not knowing where to pick up the next one. It is helpful for writers who struggle with this to concentrate on figuring out what the MAIN PURPOSE of each scene/chapter is, write that plot clot, and then fine tune the bridges later.
So what exactly is a transition? Well, there are all kinds. Most are straightforward and literal; some are complex and sophisticated. But all good transitions do one thing: They strengthen the internal logic of your story by moving readers from idea to idea, scene to scene, and chapter to chapter with grace and ease.
Here are some transitions I’ve identified:
TIME TRANSITION: This is when you want to move forward (or occasionally backward) in time with your story. These are pretty workmanlike but very useful in that they simply bridge time from your previous scene. Examples:
Chapter 4
It was nearly three by the time Louis met Flowers at the docks.
Chapter 7
Just over an hour later, Dagliesh had left the headland and was driving west along A1151. (P.D. James)
A word about time stamps. These are the tags you see at chapter beginnings ie “Sunday” or “November 1967” or even just “Later that day.” I have a bias against time stamps because too often they are a cop-out by a writer who can’t figure out how to gracefully weave time changes in the narrative. But sometimes you really need them, especially you thriller writers who work on big canvases. If your story is happening at two different times, time stamps help the reader move between the threads, i.e. “New Orleans, 1855” or “Kabul 1999.” Time/location tags can be pretty elaborate. In her complex novel about 9/11, Absent Friends, S.J. Rozan weaves multiple narratives together by using tags like so:
PHIL’S STORY
Chapter Six
___
The Invisible Man
Steps Between You and the Mirror
This is grad school stuff; Rozan knows what she’s doing. Another good use of time stamps is found in Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn must find a way to bring the missing wife Amy to life so Flynn alternates the husband Nick’s present-day narrative with his wife’s diary entries, all clearly marked with time/name stamps.
POINT OF VIEW TRANSITION: When you move between characters, you could just pick up with the new character’s voice. But the flow can be enhanced if you find a way to subtly link them. Here is Louis talking to a police chief about the abandoned hunting lodge where they just found old bones.
End of Chapter 6
“Nobody comes here. It’s just a broken down old dump,” the chief said.
Louis shook his head. “No, it’s important. It’s his Room 101.”
“What?”
“It’s from Orwell…1984.”
“Never read it.”
Flowers moved away and Louis looked back at the lodge. He could still recall the exact quote from the book – maybe because it reminded him of things in his foster homes he wanted to forget.
The thing in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.Chapter 7
There were thousands of them. Small, black jelly-bean creatures crawling around the plastic bin, piggybacking one another to get to that one last shred of meat on the bone.
The beetle larvae were hungry today.
This skull would be ready by nightfall.
Danny Dancer made sure the lid was secure on the bin and left the room.
By using the Orwell “room” quote we tried to lead the reader to the horror of what they were about to see in Danny Dancer’s room. Change of POV but bridged with purpose.
CONTINUED NARRATIVE TRANSITION: Here, the story simply picks up after what came in previous chapter. The main artistic choice you make is how much time elapses between scenes. It can be minutes, days or years. Here’s John Sandford:
End of Chapter 14
“He tried to hang Spivak, for Christ’s sake,” Lucas said, exasperated.
“That was just part of the job,” Harmon said. “You can understand that.”Chapter 15
Lucas couldn’t. He got off the phone, breathing hard for a few minutes, then backed off the gas.
Sometimes, the continued narrative transition can be deep in a character’s psyche. Here’s a nice transition from Jeff Lindsay’s Dearly Devoted Dexter:
End of Chapter 10
The only reason I ever thought about being human was to be more like him.
Chapter 11
And so I was patient. Not an easy thing, but it was the Harry thing.
With this transition, you the writer have to make calculated decisions on where to pick up the action and what you can leave out in the lapse. Say you end a chapter with a cop getting a call at home to come to a crime scene. Where do you pick up the thread? Do you show him strapping on the gun, getting in the car, walking up to the yellow tape? Or is it more effective to begin the next chapter with “As Nick took his first look at the woman’s body, he realized with a start he had seen her face before.” Here’s exactly such a passage from Val McDermid’s splendid A Place of Execution:
End of Chapter 11
The door to the caravan burst open and Grundy stood in the framed doorway, his face the bloodless grey of the Scardale crags. “They’ve found a body,” he said.
Chapter 12
Peter Crowther’s body was huddled in the lee of a dry-stone wall three miles due south of Scardale as the crow flies. It was curled in on itself in a fetal crouch, knees tucked up to the chin. The overnight frost that had turned the roads treacherous had given it a sugar coating of hoar.
ACTION/REACTION TRANSITION: When you have a juicy action scene it can be very effective to break at just after the action peak and open next chapter with a character-focused reaction. This is VERY useful in helping you pace your story. You shouldn’t blog down a good action scene with thoughts, regrets, musings. Save that for a quiet moment later. Action…then reaction. Here, Louis is at the scene of a police chief getting ambushed:
End of Chapter 17
“Clear! We’re clear! Get the ambulance in here now!”
Louis’s heart was finally slowing but he still had to blink to clear his head. Joe was kneeling by Flowers, and from somewhere down the dirt road sirens wailed.
He heard a whimper and looked down at Danny Dancer. The bastard was crying. Curled up like a baby and crying.Chapter 18
How could he have been so stupid? He knew that anyone who showed an abnormal interest in a crime scene was someone who needed to be treated with suspicion.
Yet he had allowed Flowers, who was blind to the idea that anyone on his island could be a cold-blooded murderer, walk into a crazy man’s line of fire.
At beginning of Chapter 18, an hour has elapsed and Louis is waiting in the hospital as Flowers lays dying. We chose this transition because the “quiet” moment of Chapter 18 provides relief for the reader after the tension of the ambush, much like letting you catch your breath after the steep drop of a roller coaster. It’s all about pacing.
DESCRIPTIVE TRANSITION: This is another way to alter your pacing. Say you had a explaining-the-case chapter with heavy dialogue between investigators. It’s often effective then to go from staccato to legato and open the next chapter with a descriptive passage. And yes, you can use weather — in moderation! It is also a good way of telling your readers where we are. Be careful using description too early in your story because they can slow things down before your plot gets moving. Here’s Elaine Viets in Murder With Reservations, opening with a description that also slips in some protag’s backstory:
Chapter 3
Helen grew up in St. Louis, where houses were redbrick boxes with forest green shutters. To her, the Coronado Tropic Apartments were wrapped in romance. The Art Deco building was painted a wildly impractical white and trimmed an exotic turquoise. The Corondado had sensuous curves. Palm trees whispered to purple waterfalls of bougainvillea.
ECHO TRANSITION: This is one of my faves, a nifty little device wherein you end a chapter stressing a certain word then use that word again as your bridge to the next. It’s like a grace note in music. Lee Child is a master of this:
End of Chapter 6
“You have to do something.”
“I will do something. Believe it,” Reacher said. “You don’t throw my friends out of helicopters and live to tell the tale.”
Neagley said, “No, I want you to do something else.”
“Like what?”
“I want you to put the old unit back together.”Chapter 7
The old unit. It had been a typical Army intervention. About three years after the need for it had become blindingly obvious to everyone else, the Pentagon had started to think about it.
THE PARALLEL TRANSITION: This can be really cool but if you whiff on it, it just looks like you’re showing off. This is used when you are shifting POV’s. It is conscious repetition of an idea, image or symbol between two chapters. Like the Echo Transition, it creates an almost musical connection in the reader’s mind, like a good hook in pop music. And it doesn’t always come at the end/beginning of chapters. Here’s the first paragraph of Chapter 1 of our thriller A Killing Song. We are in the killer’s POV in Paris as he watches his next victim:
Chapter 1
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The last rays of the setting sun slanted through the stained glass window over her head, bathing her in a rainbow. He knew it was just a trick of light, that the ancient glass makers added copper oxide to make the green, cobalt to make the blue, and real gold to make the red. He knew all of this. But still, she was beautiful.
Here is the first graph of chapter 2, shifting to the protagonist’s POV as he watches his sister dancing in a Miami Beach nightclub:
Chapter 2
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her in two years and in that time she had passed through the looking glass that separates girls from women. Whatever it was, Mandy was beautiful and I couldn’t stop staring.
This was a calculated thing for us because the book’s theme is partly about the two men whose lives spiral out of control and the fine line between violence that is driven inward and outward. (And yes, we mixed first and third POV but that’s a different post for another day.)
Two last thoughts about building bridges. First, transitions are just a tool, a part of your writer’s technique, and can learn to use them with flair and confidence. Study writers you admire. Go grab a book and open to the blank spots between chapters. Then analyze how the writer has moved through time and space, how he has bridged the gaps between his chapters. You’ll find that most of the time, the best writers adhere to the golden rule: KISS. They keep it simple, stupid. Which leads me to my last thought:
Don’t over-think this. Resist the urge to build this:
When all you need is this:
Your first job as storyteller is to just keep the reader moving between your islands. You don’t want them to stop and admire turrets, filigree and gargoyles. More often than not, a sturdy little span is the best way across.
To prepare for my first post as a TKZ member (yay!), I read all the social media posts on the Kill Zone (my little research addiction rearing its head :-)). Back as far as 2009, Joe Moore wrote Social Networking Showdown, which explored MySpace vs. Facebook, Shelfari vs. Goodreads, Crimespace, Gather, Bebo, LinkedIn, and the all-important email list. Even though some of these sites are nonexistent today, Joe’s advice still applies. And in 2011, he shared his perspective on using manners online. Which is critical these days.
The way we conduct ourselves on social media matters. Hence, why Jim made social media easy and why, I presume, Jodie Renner invited Anne Allen to give us 15 Do’s and Don’ts of social media as only Anne could, with her fantastic wit.
One year later, in 2016, Clare shared what’s acceptable for authors on social media and what isn’t. Jim showed us the dangers of social media, and how it can consume us if we’re not careful.
Through the years the Kill Zone authors have tried to keep us from falling into the honey trap of social media. Which brings me to the burning question Kathryn posed this past June: Writers on Social Media: Does it Even Make a Difference?
In my opinion, the correct answer is yes.
Working writers in the digital age need to have a social media presence. Fans expect to find a way to connect with their favorite author. How many of you have finished reading a thriller that blew you away, and immediately went online to find out more about the author? I know I have. It’s only natural to become curious about the authors whose books we love. Give your fans a way to find you — the first step in building an audience.
I’ve seen authors who don’t even have a website, never mind an updated blog. This is a huge mistake, IMO. It’s imperative to have a home base. Without one, we’re limiting our ability to grow.
There are two types of blogging: those who blog about their daily routine and those who offer valuable content. Although both ways technically “engage” our audience, the latter is a more effective way to build and nurture a fan base.
When I first started blogging I had no idea what to do. I got in contact with a web design company (just like web design company Nashville) to help me get set up, and away I went! I’ve always loved to research, so I used my blog as a way to share the interesting tidbits I’d learned along the way. For me, it was a no-brainer. I’d already done the research. Writing about what I’d learned helped me to remember what I needed for my WIP while offering valuable content to writers who despise research (Gasp!). Over time my Murder Blog grew into a crime resource blog.
Running a resource blog has its advantages and disadvantages. Be sure to look into the pros and cons before choosing this route. When I first scored a publishing deal, I realized most of my audience was made up of other writers. The question then became, how could I attract non-writers without losing what I’d built?
My solution was to widen my scope to things readers would also enjoy, like flash fiction and true crime stories. Who doesn’t like a good mystery?
With a resource blog it’s also difficult to support the writing community. Book promos go over about as well as a two-ton elephant on a rubber raft. If you decide to run a resource blog, find another way to support your fellow writers. When one of us succeeds, the literary angels rejoice.
There’s one exception to the “no book promos” rule for resource blogs, and that is research. It’s always fun to read about other writers’ experiences. Subtly place their book covers somewhere in post (with buy link). That way it benefits both your audience and the author.
The one thing we can count on is that how-to blog changes with the times. A few months ago, my publisher shared a link to an article about blogging in 2018. Because she shared the article via our private group, I’m reluctant to share the link. The gist of article is, come 2018 bloggers who don’t offer some sort of video content will be left in the dust. Only time will tell if this advice holds true, but it makes sense. The younger generation loves YouTube. By adding a video series or a Facebook Live event we could expand our audience.
It’s time-consuming to create each video episode. Hence why I had several months in between the first two episodes of Serial Killer Corner. Our first priority must be writing that next book. However, consistency is key. Weekly, monthly, bi-monthly? Choose a plan that works for you and stick with it. There are many internet marketing experts who can help make your blog become successful.
SEO — Search Engine Optimization — drives traffic to your website/blog. Without making this post 10K words long, I’m sharing a few SEO tips with added tips to expand our reach. In the future I could devote an entire post to how to maximize SEO. Would that interest you?
Tips
Most of us are familiar with the 80/20 rule. 80% non-book-related content; 20% books. My average leans more toward 90/10, but that may be a personal preference.
What should we share 80% of the time? The easiest thing to do is to share what we’re passionate about. When I say post about passion I don’t mean writing. Sure, we’re all passionate about writing, but I’m sure that’s not the only thing you’re passionate about. How about animals, nature, cooking, gardening, or sports?
One of the best examples of sharing one’s passion comes from a writer pal of mine, Diana Cosby, who loves photography. Every Saturday on Facebook, she holds the Mad Bird Competition. During the week she takes photos of birds who have a penetrating glare and/or fighting stance. On Saturdays, she posts two side-by-side photos and asks her audience to vote for their favorite “mad bird.” Much like boxing, the champion from that round goes up against a new bird the following week.
On Fridays, she posts formal rejection letters to birds who didn’t make the cut. With her permission, here’s an example:
Dear Mr. House Sparrow,
I regret to inform you that though your ‘fierce look’ holds merit, it far from meets the requirements for entry into the Mad Bird Competition. Please practice your mad looks and resubmit.
Sincerely,
M.R. Grackle
1st inductee into the Mad Bird Hall of Fame
It’s a blast! I look forward to these posts every week. As such, I’m curious about her books. See how that works?
My own social media tends to run a bit darker … murder & serial killers top the list, but I also share stories about Poe & Edgar, my pet crows who live free, as well as my love for nature and anything with fur or feathers. The key is to be real. Don’t try to fake being genuine. People see right through a false facade. Also, please don’t rant about book reviews, rejection letters, or anything else. Social media is not the place to share your frustrations.
As for soft marketing on social media, I like to make my own memes. It only takes a few minutes and it’s a great way to keep your fans updated on what you’re working on. In the following example I wrote: #amwriting Book 3, Grafton Series. I also linked to the series. Don’t forget to include a link to your website. The more the meme is shared, the more people see your name. Keep it small and unobtrusive. See mine in the lower-right corner?
In the next example, I asked, “What’s everyone doing this weekend? No words, only gifs.” Have fun on social media. The point is to engage your audience.
Folks love to be included. Plus, I genuinely want to get to know the people who follow/friend me. Don’t you? It doesn’t take much effort to make your fans feel special. Take a few moments to mingle with them. It’s five or ten minutes out of your busy schedule, yet it may be the only thing that brightens someone’s day. In a world with so much negatively and hatred, be better, be more than, be the best person you can be … in life and on social media.
Over to you TKZers. How do you approach social media?
by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell
If I may begin today with a toot (no, not that kind). A toot of my own horn. For today is release day for my seventh Mike Romeo thriller, Romeo’s Rage. (If you’re new to the series, please note these may be read in any order.) It’s there for you this week at the deal price of $2.99 (reg. $4.99). (Outside the U.S., go to your Amazon store and search for: B0BFRP7SQV)
Thank you. Now let’s talk thrills.
We of course specialize in thrillers and suspense here at TKZ. Our archives are filled with tips and techniques on such matters as the grabber opening, scenes that compel readers to turn the page, characters we care to follow, and so on.
We also frequently talk about the challenges writers face when striving to produce (see, e.g., Terry’s recent post). When we do overcome and the writing is flowing again, there’s a thrill in that. And so, too, when we put the final polish on a manuscript and send it to our publishing house, or up to the Kindle store.
And then there’s thrill of the book’s release. It’s like the start of the running of the bulls at Pamplona (as long as you can run fast, that is). It’s the raising of the curtain on opening night on Broadway, with you in the middle of the stage about to intone, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.” It’s just before you drop out of the plane with a parachute on your back, or dive off the bridge with a bungee cord around your ankles.
The thrill generally takes three forms.
I’ve experienced all three, and for me it never gets old.
Now comes the waiting, the watching. Your book is out there on its own. The initial thrill begins to fade, replaced by that onerous irritant, expectations. You’re hoping—for sales, great reviews, a bestseller list, a call from Spielberg.
You know what the odds are. The average number of novels sold by traditional publishers is in the mid- to low-four figures, unless, of course, you’re on the A or B+ list. It’s anyone’s guess about ebook sales. We do know the number of ebooks published annually is somewhere north of 4 million. Ack!
But you can’t help hoping. You’re a writer, and every writer desires a growing audience of readers who will become dedicated fans. Yet if your book doesn’t get the foothold you hoped for, the emotional crash is like a rancid tamale in the tummy. (I must be metaphor crazy today.)
As hard as it is to do, Stoic wisdom stresses the management of expectations. You simply cannot stress about the things that are out of your hands! Your hands are for typing (or handwriting). I wrote more about Stoic wisdom here.
You must manage expectations about social media, too. It’s well established now that social media is not the super-duper sales machine people originally thought it would be. Remember the early years of Twitter? Some writers were posting the same “Buy my book!” tweet a dozen times a day. “Hey! I’m reaching millions of people this way! That’s gotta sell some books!”
Not.
Of course, if you have 97 million followers on Instagram and 6 million on Twitter, like Billie Eilish, you might be able to move some books (though apparently not enough to cover a large advance).
For the rest of us, social media has its place, but not as the main driver of book sales.
So what happens when that tamale hits your gut? My advice is to cover it with ice cream. Let it hurt for a few hours, but no longer. Get back to your keyboard. For as you type, you’ll begin to feel it once more—the thrill of the new story, new characters, new plot twists and turns. And finally, the thrill of a new baby. The book is done. You’re back in the delivery room. It’s launch day again.
What about you? Do you still feel—or anticipate—a thrill on launch day? Does the prospect inspire you? Sustain you? Does it ever get old?
Or like B. B. King, are you lately singing, “The Thrill is Gone”? Are you doing anything to get it back?
I was teaching a writing class a couple of years ago and during a break, one of the middle-aged students came up to me with a question.
“Can we talk about the draft?”
“It sent a lot of people to Canada on extended vacations when I was fresh out of high school.”
“How long do you work on a draft?”
“Oh, that. Until I get through it.”
Budding Writer paused, thinking. “I mean, how long does it take you to get to the end?”
“That depends on Life. If everything lines up and I can really sit down and work, I can get a first draft finished in about three months, and the way I do it, the manuscript is pretty polished by the time I reach the end. I once wrote a draft in six weeks, but that’s rare.”
She wrote that down in her notebook, “Do you outline?”
“No.”
“I have to.”
“Well, you and I work differently. I sit down and put my fingers on the keys and start writing. The story unfolds, and I go with it through that entire session, however long it might be, fifteen minutes, an hour, or even three or four hours. Then the next morning I read through what I wrote the day before, and use that as a launch pad for the current day’s work. I do that every time until I type, The End.”
“What if your writing group has a suggestion about those pages and you have to go back and change them?”
“I don’t have a writing group, and you really don’t have to go back and change anything. Those are suggestions.”
Two deep lines appeared between Budding Writer’s eyebrows. “You just write all by yourself.”
“Yep. All alone.”
“My problem is that I keep changing things after my group makes suggestions, and I find that I spend weeks on one chapter.”
“Have you finished your first draft?”
“No.”
“How long have you been working on this manuscript?”
“About three years.”
“My suggestion is to simply sit down and finish your first draft without stopping for any more edits.”
“But….”
“Right. Butt. Put your butt in the seat and finish your first draft. In my opinion, you can come back and re-work those chapters that might be giving you trouble. You see, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. You have to find what works for you. I promise, there’s no formula, because if there was such a thing, everyone would be on the bestseller list with every book.”
“So is that’s how it’s done?”
“That’s how I do it.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking writers groups. I know many readers of this blog, and several of those who post each week, belong to such groups that offer much-needed support in writing, or simply in providing the camaraderie to discuss this strange, wonderful business we’re in, but it’s not for me. I just want to write.
Budding Writer needed that support, but it seemed as if she was caught in a loop of well-intentioned suggestions that tightened like a boa constrictor named Self Doubt until she couldn’t move beyond those few chapters.
Your first draft is just that. It’s a firehose to some as it pours out in a great torrent of words, a trickle to others as they struggle to craft that perfect sentence, but writers need to reach the end, to get it all down, however full of errors, typos, or plot kinks. Once it’s done, then you can go back and add all that’s necessary to streamline and fill out the story and make the manuscript readable. Then edit with a vengeance, but the completion of that first draft is absolutely necessary both physically and psychologically.
I understand Budding Writer’s issue. She likely juggled a job, husband, kids, dogs, bills, friendships and any combination thereof, including Life it’s ownself, putting down a few words here and there and not seeing the continuity of her work as a whole.
Then that chapter, or collection of chapters and all those suggestions began to gnaw at her and she needed to get it just right before she could move on.
It just doesn’t work that way for me. I wrote my first novel over a few fitful years, lost it to an electronic hiccup, and started over to recreate the whole thing from memory. Maybe that’s where my writing regime came from, because I hammered that second draft out within about a year.
Today I begin with fingers on the keys and get that rough draft down as the story unfolds in my mind. I follow it, pounding away at the keys as the characters develop and the story moves forward, not worrying about little details, until I get to the end.
I did all that alone, but after my first novel was released, I learned of an annual event called NaNoWriMo, which translates to National Novel Writing Month, which is sponsored by a nonprofit organization that “promotes creating writing around the world. Its flagship program is an annual creative writing event in which participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript during the month of November.”
I like the idea, though I never signed up on their website, but the premise is solid, in my opinion, and it boils down to one true thing.
Sit down and write the damned novel!
Better yet if you can do it in a month. Fifty-thousand words translates into those old mass market paperbacks of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Think Louis L’Amour, Micky Spillane, and even more recently when Nicholas Sparks wrote a short novel that did pretty well, coming in at 52,000 words. The title was The Notebook.
Robert James Waller’s blockbuster novel, The Bridges of Madison County also came in at 52,000 words. Hummm, is there a connection here?
Take a look at this list of 50,000-word novels that I lifted from WikiWrimo, they aren’t Stephen King-size doorstops, but they’ve all been pretty successful.
My own novels come in at 90,000-100,000 words, but like Mr. King, I get kinda wordy as the story progresses and the action builds. But here’s the bell I’m trying to ring. Your first draft does not have to be long. Hit that 50,000 word draft. Now you have a novel.
Then go back if you want and expand it with character development, settings, new plot twists that might occur to you, and all those seasonings that make a wonderful, successful book.
Now, put your butt in the seat and get to writing that first draft until you plow through to the end. Fifty-two thousand might be your lucky number.
By Elaine Viets
Feeling discouraged, writers? Tired of papering your walls with rejection slips?
When I feel down, I turn to the good book. Not THE good book, but a good book by Elaine Borish called “Unpublishable! Rejected writers from Jane Austen to Zane Grey.”
If you’ve been rebuffed by a publisher, you’re in good company. So was Agatha Christie. Borish says it took Dame Agatha four years to find a publisher for her first novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” – and then it sat on a desk for another eighteen months. The publisher suggested some changes to the ending, and Agatha made them. Belgian detective Hercule Poirot finally made his debut in 1920.
Agatha Christie wrote more than ninety titles, and “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” is still in print.
Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit and Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, was a hybrid author. Her “Peter Rabbit” was rejected by six publishers. She used black-and-white sketches, since she was worried that color pictures would make the book too expensive for children. Beatrix finally self-published “Peter Rabbit.” It went through two printings.
In 1901, Beatrix submitted Peter Rabbit again, and the traditional publisher politely rejected it: “As it is too late to produce a book for this season, we think it best to decline your kind offer at any rate for this year.”
The next time Beatrix submitted the book, she had color illustrations. The first edition sold out before the 1902 publication. By 1903, sales were multiplying like, well . . . rabbits. She’d sold 50,000 copies, and lived hoppily ever after.
Dorothy L. Sayers’ books were definitely not for children. “Whose Body?,” the first mystery by the rebellious Oxford scholar, was rejected by several UK publishers for “coarseness” in 1920. Today, the risque parts wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. The novel opened this way:
“Oh, damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey.
Besides that four-letter word, Dorothy L.’s first book is about the disappearance of a Jewish financier, Sir Reuben Levy. Borish tells us, “When a naked corpse turns up in a bath, Inspector Sugg is eager to identify him as Levy.” Lord Peter says it can’t be “by the evidence of my own eyes.”
And the evidence? The body was (gasp) uncircumcised.
Dorothy L., desperate for money, revised her story, making sure the body could not be mistaken for a rich man. The deceased had “callused hands, blistered feet, decayed teeth” and more. An American publisher bought “Whose Body?” It was published in New York in 1923, and Dorothy was on the way to fame and fortune. Borish writes, rather gleefully, “consider the last words spoken by Lord Peter in the last novel: ‘Oh damn!’”
George Orwell had his masterpiece, “Animal Farm,” turned down by no less than T. S. Eliot, a big deal at UK publishers Faber and Faber. Like many in the upper echelons of publishing, Eliot missed the point when he rejected Orwell: “Your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm . . . What was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.”
Another publisher, Fredric Warburg, took the book and paid Orwell a hundred pounds. Orwell had the last laugh – Borish says the book sold 25,000 hardcovers in the first five years.
Anthony “A Clockwork Orange” Burgess had a novel about his grammar school experience – “The Worm and the Ring” – rejected because it was “too Catholic and too guilt-ridden.”
Publishers outdid themselves with boneheaded reasons to reject bestsellers. Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, “A Study in Scarlet,” was turned down by the prestigious Cornhill magazine because it was too much like the other “shilling shockers” already on the market. The editor said it was too long “and would require an entire issue” – but it was “too short for a single story.” Another publisher sent the manuscript back unread. A third bought the rights for a measly twenty-five pounds, and let it sit around for year. It was published in 1887, and then brought out as a book, but Conan Doyle didn’t get any money from that because he’d sold the rights. Worse, the book was pirated in the U.S. Doyle wrote a couple of historical fiction works. Then an American editor, looking for UK talent, had dinner with Doyle and Oscar Wilde and signed them both up. Wilde wrote “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and Doyle did “The Sign of the Four.”
These writers endured humiliation, insults, swindles – and in many cases, poverty – and still went on to write books that are read today.
Orwell talked about an embittered Russian who said, “Writing is bosh. There is only one way to make money at writing, and that is to marry the publisher’s daughter.”
Obviously, we writers have to pay attention to rejections sometimes. My agent gave me a good rule of thumb: “If you get the same reason for rejection repeatedly – your plot isn’t twisty enough, or you have too many secondary characters – it’s time to pay attention.”
How many times have you ignored rejections?
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Give Yourself Permission
Terry Odell
There have been several posts recently about how to motivate yourself to write, how to increase productivity, how to “do the job.” I’d like to take a moment to look at the other side of the picture.
(Disclaimer: I’m an indie author and am not on deadline at the moment.)
Recent events—both positive and negative—have pulled me away from the current manuscript. I had a short visit with my mother, followed by a planned week’s vacation which was an organized tour, and we were on the go all the time. When I returned home, ready to tackle the WIP, my mother’s failing health had taken a rapid downturn, and I dropped everything to return to LA. My brother and I spent two weeks dealing with the funeral and trying to get her house cleared out enough to put on the market. She’d lived in the house since 1958 and apparently threw nothing away.
At any rate, all the sorting and wrapping, bagging, and packing was both physically and mentally exhausting. Although I’d intended to use “down time” to work on the manuscript (even brought my regular keyboard), there wasn’t any.
I did have one pleasant break—I met with JSB for lunch one day, and it was nice to talk about writing, and a glimmer of a spark to get back to the book flashed for a moment or two.
At first, I told myself that I had reached a “need to do some research” stopping point before I left, but I faced reality. Even with that information I wasn’t going to be able to write. Constant interruptions, distractions, and the pressure to get everything done wasn’t conducive to productivity—at least productivity that wouldn’t end up being the victim of the delete key.
I gave myself permission to set the manuscript aside and not feel guilty about it. The same went for a presence on social media. I checked emails, but set most of them aside to deal with when I got home.
While writing every day is part of the “job”, there are legitimate reasons for taking a leave of absence. When life intervenes and you have to step away, accept it. The manuscript will still be there.
Now that I’m home in my familiar writing environment, I’ll be catching up with all the “life” stuff that accumulates while you’re away, but also with easing back into the writing. I wrote a post some time ago about getting back in the writing groove, but I thought it was appropriate to repeat my tips here:
Get rid of chores that will nag.
If you are going to worry about cleaning house, paying bills, going through email, take the time to get the critical things dealt with. Otherwise you’re not going to be focused on your writing. If you’re a ‘write first’ person, don’t open anything other than your word processing program.
Do critiques for my crit group.
This might seem counterproductive, but freeing your brain from your own plot issues and looking at someone else’s writing can help get your brain into thinking about the craft itself.
Work on other ‘writing’ chores.
For me, it can be blog posts, or forum participation. Just take it easy on social media time.
Deal with critique group feedback.
Normally, I’m many chapters ahead of my subs to my crit group. If I start with their feedback on earlier chapters, I get back into the story, but more critically than if I simply read the chapters. And they might point out plot holes that need to be dealt with. Fixing these issues helps bring me up to speed on where I’ve been. It also gets me back into the heads of my characters.
Read the last chapter/scene you wrote.
Do basic edits, looking for overused words, typos, continuity errors. This is another way to start thinking “writerly” and it’s giving you that running start for picking up where you left off.
Consult any plot notes.
For me, it’s my idea board, since I don’t outline. I jot things down on sticky notes and slap them onto a foam core board. Filling in details in earlier chapters also helps immerse you in the book.
Figure out the plot points for the next scene.
Once you know what has to happen, based on the previous step, you have a starting point.
Write.
And don’t worry if things don’t flow immediately. Get something on the page. Fix it later.
What about you? Any tips and tricks you’ve found when outside world distractions keep you from focusing?
Now Available: Cruising Undercover
It’s supposed to be a simple assignment aboard a luxury yacht, but soon, he’s in over his head.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
What was a time when a seemingly random event or conversation changed your life, or way of thinking, in a significant way?