by Larry Brooks

If today’s title rings familiar, that may be because there is a new writing book out by that title (with a subtitle added: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel, by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers) .

The title at first struck me as shamelessly derivative (what’s next, The Lovely Funny Bones?), but when I investigated further I realized that it is actually clever, since the book describes how novels like The Davinci Code achieve as they sometimes do, with over-the-moon success that everyone immediately tries to explain.

With — literally — a code, no less.

The Davinci Code is, of course, a gift to cynics — Dan Brown? A symbologist? An albino assassin working on retainer for The Vatican? Really? — but the numbers prove them wrong. Inarguably so. Sometimes when a novel breaks that big it can be explained — even cynically — as some happy confluence of social temperature, marketing budget and the unbreakable Tipping Point Code (not a novel yet, just a mystery we all strive to solve), rather that what it really is: an intense application of the forces of story that make novels work. Which include a conceptually-rich premise, dramatic tension, an empathetic hero in a world of trouble, more dramatic tension, thematic weight, killer scenes, and a passable writing voice… stir in a publisher’s commitment to back it strongly, then hope the media likes it as much as that pub committee did… then pray for a little luck and a big order from B&N.

But there is always a better explanation behind the numbers. And, even in this book, it begins with the list of story attributes I just described.

Writing is a lot like love, in that regard. The principles are simple, but the chemistry remains beyond defintion. And so we dive in, do what we can with our best choices, and keep hoping we hit the jackpot.

Writers of these iconic blockbusters have done something right. I mean, really right. Saying you aren’t impressed with the writing is like saying you don’t think that Cate Blanchat is good looking… it’s not the point. The explanation goes much deeper than what meets the eye and ear, and for the serious emerging author it’s worth pursuing.

The Bestseller Code is to writing novels what sabermetrics is/was to baseball, and to the novel Moneyball: The Art of Winning Unfair Game (Michael Lewis, 2003) that broke it to the public, and popularized it with a movie adaptation starring Brad Pitt (because yeah, all baseball GMs look just like that). It is an attempt to codify the aesthetics of storytelling that go ballistic in ways that transcend basic, commodity craft — not to mention logic — to reach people on a deeper level. It actually seeks to explain the numbers as a form of algorithm that can be analytically applied to raw manuscripts to access potential for marketplace success.

I’ve attempted that same explanation myself, in my book Story Physics, which covers the same elements of craft without the ones and zeros.

The Bestseller Code presents a case that I believe fails in its aspiration — that we can predict success based on a survey and quantification of story essences… while indeed landing on the identification of the core elements of dramatic fiction that tend to whip readers into a frenzy. The authors duly observe that books come and go that score high on that algorhythmic scale (as high as the home run titles) and achieve little notice, while some novels with C-level scores end up on bestseller lists without an explanation at all.

Proving what William Goldman famously told us in his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade: “nobody knows anything.” Including the 46 agents who rejected Kathryn Stockett’s manuscript called The Help a few years ago.

So I’m not here to recommend the book, per se.  Rather…

… just to flag it for you, and to suggest that you go to Amazon, click on the cover and read the first chapter (The Bestseller-Ometer, or, How Text Mining Might Change Publishing) shown in the Look Inside feature. It is a fascinating 1500 word read, quite well written, which circles around the drain of suggesting that success can be predicted based on which boxes are checked off (something us writing guru types like to echo), instead of the more easily swallowed rationale that to achieve massive success those boxes corresponding to issues of core craft must indeed be honored… the very thing this magic algorhythem seeks to digitize.

It’s finding a publisher and a handful of reviewers who notice that’s the real math of it.

Click HERE to give it a read. Chewy food for thought, indeed.

*****

This is my last KZ post of 2016, before we break for the holidays to catch our breath and plan our assault on 2017. I wish you all a blessed season, rich and warm with family and friends, and may you arrive at the New Year story milestone refreshed, renewed and armed with a killer premise that will make Dan Brown wish he’d thought of it first.

See you back here in January!

By Larry Brooks

I bet you know a writer who isn’t shy about declaring how “bad” Dan Brown’s writing is. Or James Patterson’s. Or even John Grisham’s, among a roster of other A-list names with more readers that any of us should dare to dream.

Certainly, the shaded prose stylings of E.L. James, too.

I’m not here to argue that.

I could argue that, by the way (my guess is Ms. James is laughing all the way to the bank), at least for some of those names, but that’s not my intention here today.

Conversely, we hear much conversation about how wonderful the writing is in, say, a Raymond Chandler novel. Or in the novels of Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille or Neil Gaiman.

Or in the novel Goldfinch, by Donna Taart, who has a Pulitzer on her mantle to show for it,  (though – perhaps ironically – I will say, I haven’t met a writer who will admit to being able to finish that one…) even though critics weren’t overly impressed.

Rather than stake a position on either end of any “good writing” estimation, my mission here is to put forth a counterpoint.

It is this: While you may insist you know writers who are better than these and other authors of homerun bestsellers… I’ll also wager that you’ve never met a writer who has had a better story idea—a premise—as thematically rich and dramatically-promising as, say, Dan Brown’s The Davinci Code.

Or even as commercially resonant as 50 Shades of Grey.

I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of authors at the writing conference aren’t seeking to become the next Raymond Chandler. That’s a rare dare-to-dream.

Rather, they are looking to unlock the key to breaking into the business.

And while there is a long list of such stuff on those agendas, perhaps the most important aspect of craft in that part of the equation gets almost no attention.

Which is: how to land on a better story idea. An idea that is truly good enough.

Tell me the last time you saw that one on the conference agenda.

I can hear the outrage now… but if that’s you, you may be missing the point.

Within the polite kumbaya of the writing conversation, the unspoken etiquette holds that nobody can—almost nobody will—tell you that your story idea is weak. That it actually sucks. The focus is on your execution… of whatever story idea you deem to bring to the party.

And yet, at least half the time, if the writing itself is good enough, it is that idea that will get you rejected. Nobody dares tell you that you can’t write your way out of a bland story idea (sort of like an average Joe auditioning for the lead role next to George Clooney)… without elevating the premise itself.

This imprecise corner of the writing conversation is always compartmentalized. Only one of those compartments has anything at all to do with glowing narrative prose, the very thing you are judging when you look down your nose at Dan Brown.

Rather, the conversation breaks down with a divide between: brand new writers… working apprentice-level writers… journeyman novelists… and A-list bestselling writers.

Look closely. Only that last group can get away with a novel that is built upon a less-then-stellar premise.

And yet, only the first three are overly-focused on the tactile sound and pitch of their writing voice.

And none of them–yes, you read that correctly–totally depends on the stellar writing chops of the John Updike variety.

Let’s take those compartments one-at-a-time.

Agents and editors like to say they are looking for the next great writer. The next great voice. But upon that closer look I just asked you to take is a clearer truth: they are actually looking for the next great story.

A story that will sell.

Truth be told, agents and editors are looking for the next great homerun.

Which means, if your story idea is remotely rote or familiar, anything smelling of vanilla or promising an overly-characterized narrative that is light on a conceptually-rich premise (which is code for that dirtiest of lit school words: plot), they will most likely pass.

No matter how lyrically rich or promising your prose. The world us full of brilliant lit majors with MFAs who can’t get arrested in the commercial marketplace.

In a game full of 90-plus-MPH fastballs, beginning at the high school level, the scouts are out there tracking down the next 98-MPH heater. And yet… all of those pitchers look pretty good on the mound.  And then–to morph this story analogy toward a prose analogy–the ball needs to come in at 102-plus on that count… something that happens about once a decade.

In other words (no pun intended there), the truly great story idea/premise is not remotely a commodity proposition, while pro-level prose (90-MPH back in our analogy) absolutely is. Think about it: at a conference with 800 writers in attendance, all of them seeking a spot on the bookshelf, how many are in possession of a story premise that would keep an agent awake all night? And how many realize that is precisely what is required to break in?

It isn’t going to be your beautiful sentences, you can pretty much be assured of that.

Maybe that’s why we spend almost no time at all talking about or describing what such premises are made of. Rather, we talk about how to hammer a middling premise–without ever really labeling it as such–into something that works… which is a tall order.

That’s the wall—the towering monolithic obstacle—that all three of those first four groups (the exception being the established author with a waiting readership and the sales data to prove it) must scale: you need an idea that lifts the agent or editor out of their seat.

A premise that makes their skin itch with excitement. Deliver that, and the prose bar falls quickly to eye level, from the ceiling where you once believed it to be.

That killer story idea is not remotely an easy task, because agents and editors have, literally, seen it all. They are not easily impressed.

And yet, that should be our goal. At least until your name is David Baldacci.

We share a venue here called The Kill Zone.

Which by definition means we are writing genre novels. Not The Great American Literary Novel, ala Ms. Taart’s Goldfinch.

The math, then, takes us to the other side of the = sign: you need a killer premise. A plot. Dramatic tension along a hero’s path arising from conflict driven in context to emotionally-resonant stakes.

Don’t hear me wrong, great characterization remains important.

To argue this as anything close to a counterpoint is like saying salt is critical to the work of a great chef.

But it is not the primary mission, or even the point. Because voice alone, born on the wings of your angelic prose… will get you quickly rejected in our dark corner of the marketplace.

And therein we find the Great Abyss into which new and newer and even some frustrated experienced authors find themselves tumbling head over tookus: the premise-void, character-driven novel, sometimes fancifully described as a thriller. A book that, however beautifully narrated, isn’t driven by the same premise-on-steroids story ideas that has allowed Dan Brown to build a 55,000 square foot home with a view of the Pacific, and pay cash for it.

But what about those famous folk, you ask.

Many of which are indeed genuinely literary.

Fact is, they are held to a different standard. Which means their premises no longer must glow in the dark.

Rest assured, they too have a concept that propels their stories into the marketplace faster and deeper than a musketeer’s kill thrust. But what takes such writers to the mountain top may not be the originality and edge of their story idea.

Rather, their concept is their name.

On the benchmark for what constitutes a compelling concept, nothing says sign-me-up faster than a book with the words John Grisham on the cover. There isn’t an agent or an editor in the business who would look the other way if such a manuscript came their way (yeah, as if Grisham and Connelly are shopping for new representation) saying, “well, the writing just didn’t speak to me.”

Which leaves us with an opportunity to grow… through this realization.

As someone who trades in unpublished and unpublishable story ideas (in my role as a story coach and workshop presenter who hears pitches in the same context as the agents and editors in attendance), I can attest to the fact that a truly compelling, conceptually-rich concept is a rare and beautiful thing.

Take note: it is that hyphenated adjective—conceptually-rich—that will get you published.

Rather, too many new-ish authors are serving up middle-shelf, been-there-read-that yawns for story ideas, some of them rendered with legitimately terrific prose. Which doesn’t serve them in the least within their genre… at least until they finally do find their book in the B&N window, which will precisely because of the premise, not their voice.

Story conception and writing voice are separate core competencies. In much the same way that storytelling and self-promotion are the separate muscle groups of the successfully-self-published.

Or, rather than that commodity premises,  new writers are pitching plot-light (or void) character studies wrapped within episodic documentaries. Such as… “I spent a summer traveling the Far East just after grad school, and it changed me… my novel is about that.”

And the agent looking for the next genre-driven homerun says: “Pass.”

If you’re lucky, they might add: “Your writing is good. But you need a better story.”

But don’t hold your breath.

Note: Eat, Pray, Love was not a novel.

Too many new authors are shocked to hear this. Stop pitching stories with something similar as the premise of your novel if you want to break into the fiction business.

Learn what a novel is. Learn how, among the wide breadth of novels, literary novels are different than genre novels. And within the genres, each has certain tropes and expectations that define what readers are expecting.

The last thing an agent will do is represent a genre novel that doesn’t deliver what fans of that genre are expecting. And the last thing they are expecting is a “novel” that describes what you did on your summer vacation.

Understand that your writing voice is only one of the six categorical core competencies you need to play with the pros (the others being concept/premise, character, theme, structure, and scene development). Accept the paradox: among those six, voice presents the most reachable bar (because odds are you were decent at it from Day One, it was probably why you’ve hung out your Writer shingle in the first place), and yet, it remains a lofty bar, indeed.

And finally, stop trying to write the books that already-famous authors are already writing.

The trick, the ticket in, is to write within the expectations of your genre, or genre mash-up, but do it with something that constitutes a fresh twist, a twist on steroids, combined with massive layers of emotional resonance within a vicarious reading experience.

Learn the difference between a concept and a premise, and make sure your story idea leads deeply into both. That particular understanding is key to nailing consistently fresh story ideas that result in rich story premises. Because it is precisely that element—something conceptual—that makes the difference.

And then, pay attention to what is selling. Notice the stories that create break-in opportunities for writers you haven’t heard of, and notice the wider latitude more established authors have in this regard. The conceptual bar is lower, precisely because the name on the cover is bigger.

Do these things, and one day your prose might matter to the extent you wish it did.

Until then, your writing voice should play like fresh, unfettered air… clean and invigorating, with only a carefully-placed dash of irony or wit, uncluttered with anything that smells up the place (read: adjectives are largely toxic)… because one reader’s perfume may be another’s stench.

There is precious little out there that will lead you to a better story idea. The kind that makes agents and editors sweat. Our job is to understand what the means, and the stuff it is made of when it happens.

Better story ideas leading to stronger story premises are a product of an evolved story sensibility. That is the goal of the truly enlightened writer at any stage of the game.

Character will always be there. But mostly, giving the character something amazing and intense and emotionally-resonant to do—giving the reader something to root for, rather than simply observe—is the recipe you are looking for.

Build your sense of story around that truth, and your ticket may be destined to be punched.

*****

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By Larry Brooks

The film Arrival, starring Amy Adams as an off-the-charts brilliant but melancholy linguist with military intelligence chops, was released to theaters this weekend to stellar reviews and decent a box office.

Why, as novelists, should we care?

To state the obvious, we are storytellers. Which means we have a soft spot for good stories, period. That and the fact that critics actually liked it better than audiences is telling (93 to 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes)… this is one smart story with strings that don’t necessarily all tie up nicely at the end.

It is my contention (one of many) that as authors working deeply in genre-driven storytelling (as opposed to, say, Goldfinch or something by Jonathan Franzen, both of which/whom are scary wonderful, but not exactly ideal models for what we’re up to), we can learn a lot about storytelling from quality films in our chosen genre.

Especially when it bends the laws of story physics and lives to play another day.

The Arrival is a virtual buffet of learning in this regard.

The film is technically science fiction (very cool hovering alien spaceships occupied by creatures that look like a cross between an octopus and a circus elephant), but so much more. Before we dig in here, check out the trailer, which certainly doesn’t model the precise linear structure of the film, while absolutely selling it as a conceptual proposition.

Great stories often show up that way in trailers. Sell the concept, close the deal with the premise.

While risking bumping up against a spoiler here, let me say that the ending is a polarizing proposition.

You’ll either love it, or be confused to an extent you can’t quite recommend it. A writer’s ending, rather than from the desk of some Hollywood suit. It’s truly trippy, to say the least, and while in retrospect is cleverly and abundantly foreshadowed (within the trailer, as well), I dare say you won’t see it coming. And when it lands in your lap it’ll stir what may perhaps be a deeply buried agenda as a writer—to speculate on the true nature of things in our world. Indeed, in our universe.

While there is indeed a bona fide genre out there called speculative fiction, closer thought reveals that almost all fiction is speculative in nature, which sort of blurs the lines on the playing field of whatever genre we are working within.

This being one of the things this film models for us.

Two other key aspects of craft are modeled in the film, as well.

First: the power of a killer concept.

This film is nothing if not off-the-charts conceptual (a visual feast, at that), while remaining one of the more character-driven and achingly emotional films you’ll ever see in this or any other genre.

So I guess just mashed two facets of craft together (precisely what the film itself does)… encouraging us to think big where concept is concerned… while showing us how deeply characterized a high concept story can and should be.

The other—you knew I’d land on this one—is story structure.

The trailer is nearly all about the concept, while foreshadowing the rest of the premise as an afterthought (because, as you know, it’s not a story until something goes wrong… or as Jim Bell quoted to us not long ago, until someone shows up with a gun).

But unlike some trailers (all of which, by the way, almost without exception, show The First Plot Point of the story somewhere within; trailers become one of the fastest tools writers can use to cement their understanding of this essential story milestone), the moment when something goes wrong doesn’t show until the 2:02 mark.

Literally, that’s when someone with a gun shows up.

In this story, though, it happens at the midpoint of the movie, not the First Plot Point. And yet, it colors within the lines of both in terms of the principles that define them.

This is liberating while perhaps slightly fogging for writers who have learned the FPP as the moment when something goes wrong, thus launching the hero down the core dramatic tunnel of the story (everything prior to that moment being a setup for it).

In Arrival, fully half the movie is a setup for what turns out to be the Key Inciting Incident… which again is, quite literally in a normal sense, when something goes wrong. At the midpoint, in this story. Watch the trailer again, and note how everything changes at the 2:02 mark. The setup, as conceptual and compelling as it is, suddenly becomes dramatic, because everyone is now in danger. Before that, they were only worried about being in danger.

The core dramatic story (when bad guys come into play) starts right there… when the guns show up.

Just to be clear, the film does deliver a true and accurately placed First Plot Point (also in the trailer, at the 1:02 mark) following the first-quartile setup narrative. This is when Amy and her crew actually venture into the spaceship for the first time.

Everything is different from that point on—the narrative shifts into a new, more dramatic context—which is the purest mission of that particular story milestone (the FPP).

Except, in this case, the FPP simply escalates the tension without introducing the core dramatic element of the story (which is usually an expectation of the FPP… just not in this film). That contextual shift (danger danger danger) happens at the midpoint, when (spoiler warning, that is in the trailer, very clearly so, in fact) the military steps in and tries to hijack Amy’s higher purpose and turn the whole thing into an existential global emergency.

Here’s the great news for structure cynics and advocates alike:

The whole storytelling enchilada remains a flexible, author-driven proposition.

Yes, you still should seek to change and escalate your story with a First Plot Point that lands somewhere before yet near the first qaurtile turn (page count or running time, same standard for both)…

… but you don’t necessary need to clarify the presence of an antagonist (hint at it, at least, yes, absolutely). You can continue to escalate tension and foreshadowing until the midpoint, relying (as this film does) on the power of your evolving concept.

Then bring out the guns.

The midpoint, used this way, would be absolutely the last exit ramp for the story to take that requisite turn into more focused dramatic lane, via the introduction of the core dramatic arc (antagonist/conflict-driven; in this story, there is virtually no conflict in play at all for our hero until the midpoint, other than a paranoid military handler and, of course, those twelve massive scone-like spaceships literally hanging around).

My hope is that this alone—trailer and explanation—helps expand your grasp of story structure at the level of principle. Seeing it in play is always the best way to wrap you head around it…

… so here you go. Head to multiplex with notepad and timer in hand. Because The Arrival is a story clinic that just might blow your writerly mind as it expands it.

*****

Click HERE for information about my soon-to-be released “hardcore training for serious authors.” Freebie and discounts, too.

by Larry Brooks

Don’t panic, the sanctity of this Killzone space is not about to be compromised. I’ll get to the corset thing in a minute, but first…

I got to hang with KZer James Scott Bell this weekend, at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference in Los Angeles, held at the venerable Bonaventure Hotel, where we were both presenting workshops. He was taller than I expected, he said I was taller than he expected, which just goes to show… nothing at all. Except he’s as gracious and cool in person as he is here… that, I did expect.

The lobby at The Boneventure is like walking through a set from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. No, literally… they shot futuristic scenes for that show right here in the lobby, where I’m writing this post. Thirty years later it still feels ripe for a space station interior or a Hunger Games Capital City mall, but with a concierge and a lobby bar. (For a hoot, click HERE to watch a 25 minute documentary on this topic, including scenes shot here with actors you will recognize from much more recently than Buck Rogers.)

So about today’s title…

Hey, I never said or did that – the corset thing – nor would I. But I would quote it – am doing that now – from an unhappy review for my book, “Story Engineering.” I’m not in the habit of quoting bad reviews, but this one tees up today’s rant, which focuses on a perceived divide out there between writers who value craft, and those who don’t believe in it in favor of simply channeling one’s inner voice and demons and then percolating on it all for what could be years, all leading to a bestselling novel and the perception that this is how it’s done.

For many – newer writers in particular – they believe this because some Famous Literary Author giving a keynote told them so. Maybe that’s where this reviewer heard it:

There is another book about craft, but this is about movies wich (stet) is John Yorke’s “into the woods” (stet). And in page XV (stet) we can find : “You have to liberate people from theory, not give them a corset in which they have to fit their story, their life, their emotions, the way they feel about the world…” Guillermo del Toro. A corset Mr Brooks, yes.

Liberate people from theory. Which is like asking them to figure out the hard things out without any contextual reference points. Just try designing anything with that approach. That’s what this guy is preaching.

Liberate us from the principles that keep us from writing ourselves into a dizzy oblivion of lane changes, proselytization and over-wrought character backstories that hijack the narrative into another dimension while boring reader to tears… theories and principles that help us understand what a novel actually is… yeah, we need to forget all about those kooky fundamentals some of us have learned to value, freeing us to attempt to reinvent a form that has been around for thousands of years.

Those who write this way aren’t reinventing anything. They are simply taking the long road to get there, often backing into once they do, at that.

As a workshop guy, I actually hear this a lot.

I’m guessing that these Famous Literary Author types were fed this line somewhere in their early writing journey. They bought into it, Stephen King perpetuated it (he being one of the few who can actually tell stories this way within a reasonable amount of time) and now stand before us with the rationale that their own bestselling novel (the reason they are behind that podium, which is a legitmate counter-point to all of this) is more the product of their innate genius and a decade of sweating blood – writing and discarding words in 100K chunks while rationalizing this as the dues we must pay – rather than iacknowledging the principle-driven craft of writing (which absolutely does include how stories are structured) that would have perhaps gotten them there in a fraction of the time.

As soon as structure enters the writing conversation, from a podium or otherwise, a lens is applied by some writers, one that doesn’t clarify, but rather, clouds the issue. Because these Famous literary Author keynotes don’t believe there is a structural paradigm that underpins, to some degree (often significant) that renders stories effective. Rather, they believe they made it all up from the thin air of their brain, that they invented whatever it was that made their book great.

Hey, years of pounding on anything, if you have even a shred of literary sensibility – much less genius – will move it toward a form that finally works. And when it does, perhaps leveraging feedback that informed the story’s evolution, it will smack a lot like the very structural, craft-driven principles that they anathematize, which was available from square one for them, as it is for all of us.

Genius, this is not.

I heard one such Famous Literary Author make a quick keynote side comment about craft that went like this: “And sure, we need some craft thrown in, all those semicolons and stuff, we have to get those right.”

Yes indeed. The craft of writing a novel is all about semicolons. Which, if you really think about it, have no business being in a novel in the first place.

At another keynote I heard this spoken with a straight face (his, not mine): “I can’t wait to get to my writing desk in the morning to see what my characters might want to do today.” As if he went to bed the previous night with absolutely no clue. As if the characters are in charge of the story, not him.

They say that, too. And it’s rubbish. It’s hubris, cloaked beneath a false humility, which is what hubris-driven people do.

The book mentioned within this quote-within-a-review and its attribution is from the film world, which is imbued with screenwriting context that suggests certain story beats must appear on a certain page and do a specific thing to the story. Which is by and large true… for them. As a footnote, it is almost always a director who whines about this (as is the case here, rendering the point moot relative to structure in novels), many of which may have a thing for corsets in other contexts, who knows. It is interesting to note, too, that those directors are the ones responsible for changing a script that isn’t working, so I’m not really sure what they’re complaining about… those darn writers who ruin their movies, I guess.

As novelists, especially in deep genre, we have a structural standard that is really more suggestive localization and story management within the narrative than it is a specific target, (other than the midpoint of a story, which is labeled thusly for reasons that are self-explanatory). Novelists have more wiggle room when it comes to how to play into structure, the ability to do just that resulting in precisely what the nay-sayers are holding rallies about: allowing a story to flow in a way that makes sense, rather than jamming it into… well, a corset.

The irony is often lost on Famous Literary Author as he/she tells us how real writers go about their business.

Here are a couple of validities that arise from the calmer middle ground.

An analogy helps put a fence around what the structure conversation for novelists actually is, and is not.

Consider the world of sports. Contests unfold upon fields and courts, each of which has its own set of lines. Boundaries, within which the game is played. If the ball or the puck or the shuttlecock lands outside those lines, if someone steps over one of them at the wrong time, bad things happen. Not a total failure, per se, but a failed moment that becomes a consequence of not looking down.

Those playing fields and courts, those lines, are unassailable parts of the games that are played upon and within them. Nobody questions or ignores them. Nobody feels they can or should move or reinvent those lines, which constitute nothing short of the way the game itself is to be played.

If we are writing genre fiction in particular, the same can be said of the structural expectations that define our game. Readers plop down their money with an expectation of something, include how the story will flow. There hasn’t been a bestselling “experimental” genre novel in decades, but there have been wildly creative ones that play within those genre lines.

And yet – and here is where the corset accusation falls apart like something found in the attic of a century-old second-hand store – nobody at the professional level who is actually playing these games – theirs, or ours – claims to be constrained. Squeezed at the hip, breathless and outraged. Rather, they understand that within those lines, or upon the stage, or within our genre expectations, infinite creativity, flexibility and surprise is abundantly available. That it is, in fact, encouraged and rewarded.

Barishnikov never felt constrained because he could not dance his way off the stage and into the box seats for a foot rub. At least at the Bolshoi, he couldn’t. Roger Federer isn’t posting rants about the fact that he can’t win a point if his serve lands beyond the service line.

So who is doing this bitching and moaning, anyhow?

Too many writers have been taught that they must suffer greatly… precisely because they believe there are no boundaries or principles that guide them. And yet, such a belief becomes the main constraint on their writing. They are like teenagers turned loose in New York city with no map and no phone, with money to spend and a finite window in which to play. What to do? Well first, get lost…

This belief system is why novels from Famous Literary Authors often take years to get right. But as it is in life, if you have no principles, if you believe in nothing other than your own brilliance and unrestrained will and the freedom to make up your own rules, you have infinite ways to screw it all up.

The conversation is muddied even more by the fact that often those authors (who may have indeed recently sold millions of copies of that ten-years-in-the-making literary behemoth) can’t actually explain how they got to where they ended up. Or why it works. (The last such keynoter explained his success because his novel was narrated by a dog… literally, a dog reincarnated as a human, but with his superior dog’s world view. That’s a genius concept, by the way… and it is precisely what explains the novel’s market appeal, rather than some deeper meaning to mankind that took the writer years to understand

The irony is palpable. After all that suffering and swimming against the current of craft, after all that feedback and revision and catharsis, the draft that worked for them actually did align with the very principles of craft that were available to them at the idea stage. What to do with an idea isn’t cosmically mysterious, it’s driven by craft if you let craft guide you. One’s knowledge of craft is the means of vetting an idea in the first place.

Listen closely, and you’ll realize those keynoting literary authors are talking about process, not product. For them it’s all just one big amorphous, vapourous precipitation of ethereal pondering called writing, and for them it takes years to summon forth.

Find your truth, the keynote speaker tells us with ominous gravitas.

Dude, I write violent psycho-sexual thrillers (some with corsets involved) in which guys like you get thrown off trains to scare the locals. Tell me what being true even means in that context.

It’s lit-speak. Rhetoric. The narrative of not really knowing, but faking it until you do. If you are treading water you are not yet drowning. Meanwhile, some writer floats by in a raft called craft, tries to throw you a line, and you wave it off.

Listen to such preachings. And then hear it for what it is. Writing advice, from any source is like that old adage about fortune cookes, where you add “in bed” to the end. When someone tells you what process you should use, which process is best, add “for him/her” to the end of it.

The best process, in any genre, is one that is informed by the principles of quality storytelling.

And when someone credible talks you about craft… listen hard and then take notes. Listen and read as much as you can, and then notice how all the real craft guys are saying the same things, almost exactly by intention if not the same vocabulary applied… because that is how stories are built, no matter how you get there.

You’re in the right place here on Killzone. Oh, we love our characters, too, just as much, in fact, as Famous Literary Author. But armed with craft – including structure – we know what to do with them – we actually give them something interesting to do in a story – how to propel them down a dramatic path that asks readers to root for them, rather than just observe them outgrowing a crappy childhood.

As for me and Jim Bell and the other contributors here on Killzone, that’s us outside the conference cocktail party, hitting balls back and forth on the court that defines our game, hoping we can land a few between the lines.

*****

Permission to pitch?  It’ll be quick, I promise.

I am on the cusp of launching a new craft-driven venture, wherein I produce and market video-based training modules leveraging the clarity of the Powerpoint experience and the narrative intensity of being spoken to in a visual context. Just like in a live workshop. I’m calling it The Storyfix Virtual Classroom, and there will be many modules online very soon.

I’m inviting you to opt-in to my mailing list for this, to be among the first to learn about new programs just as they are released, and to receive perpetual discounts and other bonuses – training and otherwise – that aren’t available to non-list writers. As a further incentive, you’ll receive the first training module out of the gate: Essential Craft for Emerging Novelists, which will be designed to lop years off your learning curve with one hour of focused training.

It’s hardcore craft training for serious authors. I hope you’ll join me.

Click HERE to opt-in this mailing list, which will trigger an email asking you to confirm (through Mailchimp). It’s free, of course, and there is always an opt-out available. And I promise I won’t bomb your inbox with unrelated stuff.

Also, by clicking that link you’ll be able to see the new trailer I’ve produced for the program, which I hope you’ll agree is pretty cool. Your feedback is always welcome… this program is for you, help me make it better by telling me what, specifically, you’d like to see covered in these trainings.

by Larry Brooks

Some of you may have seen this before. If so, always worth another pass, because it’s a hoot.

If not… you’re in for a fresh hoot. This is The Hero’s Journey, as (this, I promise) you’ve never seen it presented before.

Two quick things: turn it up, listen to the “dialogue” in the film clips within. Pretty clever. And, notice the black and white portrait of Joseph Campell on the wall (he who basically invented “the hero’s journey).”

And despite all the hootiness, there’s some real meat here to learn about storytelling.  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZxs_jGN7Pg

By Larry Brooks

(If you’re a skimmer, you should know up front that there’s a payoff waiting for you at the end of this post… in the form of a handful of really enlightening movie trailers that can teach you two of the most important things there is to know about storytelling.)

The best way to really learn something from a lecture or a blog or a craft book – to really cement your understanding of it – is to go out and see it in play (within a novel, or in a movie) in the real world of storytelling.

Of course, some writers hear or read something they are told will serve them and dive right into executing it within a draft. Which is a bit like doing surgery the evening after sitting in on a med school lecture, without having witnessed that surgery firsthand.

But this point of craft is too important to not approach with the precision of a surgeon. In fact, your writing road will be long, steep and bumpy – your patient just might die on your table – until you get this one critical point of storytelling firmly implanted within your story sensibilities.

(A reminder… four movie trailers await at the end of this post that will show you this principle in play.)

One of the most important aspects of storytelling, from a structural perspective, is the execution of what many of us call The First Plot (sometimes known as the “call to action”), which is the turning point following the setup of a story (consuming the first 60 to 80 pages in a novel, or about 20 to 28 minutes in a movie) and the actual dramatic spine of the narrative. The First Plot Point launches that dramatic spine by inserting something into the story that changes everything.

Think of these narrative blocks as quartiles. The first quartile is the setup. The second quartile is the hero’s response.

Response to what, you might ask? To the critical narrative moment that divides those two quartiles: the First Plot Point.

The moment where the real drama and quest – the narrative core of the story – actually and fully begins in earnest. How the hero reacts to, attacks and ultimately resolves the problem or quest launched by that FPP moment will become the story from that point forward.

Remember: It isn’t a story until something goes wrong.

And when it does, the hero must respond (because bad things will happen if she/he doesn’t)… with some combination of fleeing, fighting, navigating the unknown, finding help, seeking information or simply surviving what at first seems like unbeatable odds and imminent danger.

The First Plot Point delivers that moment. And when properly handled, does so at the optimal point (within a prescribed range) in the narrative.

So how do we go out there and find this?

How do you see it for yourself? Study it? Prove it to be valid? Or if you’re a non-believer, try to prove it to be a false creed?

Watch a movie trailer, that’s how. Because…

Every movie preview is built around the FPP moment.

Don’t go to the movies much, you say? Good news for you: Youtube is stocked with tens of thousands of movie previews. If you own a smart TV (or Apple TV or Roku), the main menu will have an entire channel devoted to nothing but previews, with literally thousands available. Thousands of opportunities – little two-minute storytelling clinics – that will show you this principle in action.

Two of the four movie trailers shown below are adapted from bestselling novels, which means the very same plot point you are looking for exists within the novel that created it.

It’s important to note, though, that the placement of the first plot point moment within a trailer (where something goes very wrong) doesn’t align with where it belongs within a novel or script. While it may, in fact, appear virtually anywhere within the two minutes of a movie trailer, the optimal placement within a novel or a script remains in a range between the 20th and 25th percentile.

In fact, if the concept itself is the draw (rather than the premise/plot), then up to two-thirds of the trailer might focus there, before it cracks wide open with a First Plot Point that shatters the calm

One other thing to notice.  

In addition to the First Plot Point, you will also sense the nature of the setup narrative (the first quartile of the actual story… novel or script) that precedes it. Remember, no matter how much or how little of it you notice in the trailer, the setup is everything that happens before everything goes wrong (thus comprising the entire first quartile of a novel), even when some of it contributes to that pivot.

The first quartile setup is where the concept of your story, as a narrative framework, is shown to the audience.

Okay, let’s watch some movie trailers and find those FPPs.

Jack Reacher, from a novel by Lee Child

Who doesn’t like the Reacher series, right? Well, more than a few didn’t approve of Tom Cruise being cast as Reacher in the first film… but he’s back, and this preview doesn’t disappoint.

The First Plot Point is shown at the 28-second mark (out of a total running time of 1:56). Everything prior to that moment is setup narrative, in this case (because this is a character-centric story) introducing the hero and the conceptual essence of him that invests us in him before he is thrust into harm’s way.  (You may have to put up with a few seconds of promotion first…  hang in there, hit the Skip button when presented.)

That initial scene with the handcuffs? Total prologue. Other than showing us Reacher himself (thus rendering it a setup strategy), it has nothing at all do to with the plot – the premise – of the story to follow.

The Help, from the novel by Kathryn Stockett

You’ve probably seen the movie and/or read the novel. But notice how the trailer sets up the strong themes before it reveals the First Plot Point (always the mission of the first quartile of a story), which is where Skeeter (one of three hero/protagonists) is launched on her dramatic quest, which is to write her book.

Once she heads down that path, serious drama awaits everyone.

Everything prior to the 1:28 mark is part of the setup of the story (borrowing, in this case, from several places within the story’s structure), before showing us the FPP that launches them all into a quest that is as emotionally resonant as it is dramatic. That moment, by the way, happens at the 24th percentile in both the novel and the film itself… right where it should be according to the principles of story structure.

Two Versions of Tomorrowland – a movie starring George Clooney

All Hollywood movies, and their trailers, are trying to sell you an idea. Sometimes that idea is almost entirely rooted in the concept, rather than the dramatic proposition (premise) of the story. In the first of these two trailers for Tomorrowland (based on an original sci-fi script inspired by an actual Disney place, rather than a novel), the only thing there is the concept. The story itself – the drama, and the FPP that launches it, is completely missing from this version.

Check it out, then watch the full trailer (that does include the drama and the FPP) that follows… and notice the difference. That’s where the learning awaits you.

Now, in this next version, notice the something does go wrong (which wasn’t included in the previous version), shown at the 1:30 mark (the First Plot Point) of the movie).  The trailer is 2:23 in total length, so even here, it is the concept – not the drama – that is the main draw.

Too many new authors, who are enthralled with their own concepts, write a novel that resembles the first of these two versions. Which, as a fully-rendered story, doesn’t/won’t-ever work… because there is no dramatic spine/proposition (a plot) to it.

But the second version… that could have been a novel. And in that novel the FPP would not have appeared at the 60th percentile mark, as it does in the preview… it would appear in the 20th to 25th percentile mark, where the principles of structure tell us it works best.

Writers who mess with these principles do so at their own peril.

Just as writers who deny them, but nonetheless nail it in a story (and there are many) do so by virtue of their own story sensibilities, which tells them the exact same thing as does the principle they claim to deny.

Literally thousands of these little two-to-three minute writing clinics are at your fingertips. And nearly every one has something to teach you – by showing you – about two of the most critical elements of a story that works: an appealing, conceptually-driven setup quartile, leading to a story-changing First Plot Point that fully launches the dramatic spine of the story itself.

Get this right – get this principle firmly implanted in your writing head – and you will have achieved a sort of First Plot Point in your career. Only this one – your writing dream suddenly accelerated – will be wondrous, however dramatic it might feel.

by Larry Brooks

A cynic—probably not an experienced writer in this case—might offer this simple explanation: Well, that’s easy… the stories that get considered are the stories that work.

Sure kid, says the old geezer to the kid with the baseball glove… you want to pitch for the Yankees? Well, that’s easy, just crank up your fastball to 96 miles an hour and paint the black with consistency, and throw in some off-the-table breaking balls to keep ‘em honest… that’s all you need to do.

If you’ve ever played or watched the game, you know how naïve that is. And yet, with writing, far too many new writers, and even some writing teachers, advocate exactly the same clue-light approach.

It reminds me of an old Steve Martin joke: Want to know how to avoid paying taxes on a million dollars? Simple. First, you get a million dollars. Then…

Laughter ensures from those who get the joke. Those who don’t are left hanging in the silence of that imcomplete sentence, already lost.

There are too many writers out there who, relative to craft, don’t get the joke.

Best writing advice ever: never stop learning.

In his Killzone post yesterday, Jim Bell advised us to never back away from studying the craft of writing. Very powerful wisdom, that.

Here’s a subtlety to it: craft is the prerequisite to getting into the game at a professional level. With some odd exceptions (which the cynics latch onto like flies, thus inviting you to play the lowest possible odds in the writing game), nobody ever published a novel that didn’t exhibit some workable degree of storytelling craft (the lack of which is what gets you rejected).

Without it, your story won’t get through the door to the audition room. Agents will pass. Editors will fire off templated rejection slips after reading ten pages. Too many of the writers left out in the rain, wondering why their stories don’t work, haven’t yet encountered enough craft to understand why.

But we aren’t playing merely to get into the audition room.

If that’s your goal, you’re not shooting high enough.

Once inside this figurative audition room, things get even tougher. Because while there are stories out there that are fully-formed and cover all the bases… there is the occasional story that really works. That soars above the others on multiple levels.

And that’s the one they’re looking for.

The criteria for simple completion (enter NaNoWriMo if this is your only goal) is the same for both—in much the same way that every player invited to a pro tryout has a professional-level command of the game they are playing (trust me, because I’ve been there, the guys pitching in the minor leagues throw every bit as hard, and the home runs travel every bit as far, as the guys playing in the major leagues); the punchline is that only a fraction of them will go home with a contract.

You want to be the writer who goes home with a contract.

But beyond simply being considered, in writing the criteria for greatness is found in nuance, details, and the artful application of emotional storytelling power.

Which leaves us with this truth: it is the degree of comprehension—leading to, in rare cases, an elevated story sensibility—applied powerfully and artfully to a story, that separates the complete from the astonishing.

And thus, defines the difference between them.

Every professional in every arena operates from this perspective. They are striving to be the best, not simply to get a seat on the bus.

I know, get it… when you are one of those writers out in the rain (believe me, I have a closet full of umbrellas myself), a seat on the bus seems like success itself.  For the time being, it seems like enough.

But trust me on this, once you get there, you’ll want more.

Here’s the rub: the criteria for breaking in, and then, once published, breaking out (elevating above the midlist into the front window of the bookstore) is exactly the same. It is driven by identical standards and elements and essences of craft.

Agents and editors are looking for home runs. Not just another book to take up space on the B&N rack.

Which means that, as you sit alone at a desk hoping to write a story that will land you an agent that will land you a good publisher who will propel you onto a bestseller list… know that David Baldacci is sitting alone in his writing space working toward the very same end-game criteria and qualitative height that you aspire to.

The only difference, beyond the certainty that he will publish the book he’s working on, may be that he knows the focuses and benchmarks of craft and all its corners and nuances better that you know them.

But—this being the good news, the best news ever—you can fix that, over time.

The point of all of everything we do and learn as writers, stated simply, is to elevate the nature and power of our story sense.

Call it talent, if you prefer. Either way, it’s discerning a killer idea from a vanilla one, and knowing what goes where in the story, and why, to what degree and in what form, better than the other guy… or at least, at a high enough level to earn the respect and shock and awe of all who will read your story.

It’s knowing when and how to break the rules, rather than breaking them without an informed context that rationalizes doing so.

Talent is nothing other than a command of craft to an extent that it informs one’s story sensibilities.

Consistently successful authors, as well as those who break into the business in a big way, have all got it where story sense is concerned. (A caveat here, especially with newly successful writers, is that the book in question may have taken years of work and craft-building before it reached a break-in level of quality.) When you seek to understand what “it” is—a quest that you, as a new writer, absolutely should commit to—you will discover that “it” begins, grows from and depends on, a foundational context built upon the core, imprecise yet inflexible, universal principles of storytelling craft.

If you know what those are, keep going. If you don’t, stop writing and begin studying. Writing is practice and application… both of which require a base of knowledge from which to draw.

Some might wonder what principle-driven story sense even means.

And yet, it’s all out there, waiting to help you raise your game.

Jim Bell breaks the craft of storytelling down into seven primary categorical buckets (with several terrific books that deliver a deep dive into all of them):

1. Plot, 2, structure, 3) characters, 4) scenes, 5) dialogue, 6) voice, and 7) meaning (or theme).

This covers it nicely.

In my work as a writing teacher/speaker/practitioner, I break it all down into 12 categorical buckets (with three bestselling writing books that do the same):

1) concept, 2) premise (they are different essences; the sum of the two equals plot), 3) character, 4) theme, 5) structure, 6) scene execution, 7) voice, 8) dramatic tension, 9) optimal expositional pacing, 10) vicarious experience, 11) hero empathy (rootability) and 12) narrative strategy.

Randy Ingermanson, author of “Fiction Writing for Dummies,” packages it all within a model called The Snowflake Method, and guess what: it’s the same principles.

Because there really isn’t a variation to be found among people who know what they’re talking about.

There isn’t even a shred of contradiction, and very little variance, in these approaches. Each covers the full roster of the craft we are pursuing. You’ll notice that my list adds the forces that make a story better… and yet, those same forces reside at the core of the elements we have in common, as well.

The enlightened writer will be exposed to and engage with craft in all its various presentations.

When you experience these messages from a variety of credible sources (the person leading your critique group… maybe, maybe not), you’ll soon see the commonality and the overlap. Craft is craft… you don’t get to make it up as you go, and it isn’t different from teacher to teacher, even when the parts are labeled differently.

When you get it you’ll see that it’s the same basic core principles being examined and applied, every time. And that it’s the same stuff that all those famous authors and screenwriters you admire are using… and when rendered from an evolved sensibility driving it all to the page, it is what has made them famous in the first place.

Craft awaits you.

It’s like gravity… it doesn’t care what you call it. Yet it governs all that you do… just as it governs all that the nay-sayers do… and it will kill either of us if we forget to respect it.

by Larry Brooks

It’s amazing that nobody has compiled such a list, at least that I know of. Sometimes a little morsel of writing wisdom is so rich, so illuminating and powerful, it doesn’t require a lecture or a blog post or a book.

I’ll try to hold to that here, after I lay one on you.

I bet you, too, can think of a handful of powerful writing tips just from this prompting.

Often I kick off my writing workshops by asking folks to jot down their all-time favorite writing tip, and then open things up for a lively discussion.

Almost all of the tips offered are powerful–except the one that says there are no rules or principles, just make up  your story as you go along… that one can be downright lethal–so the discussion focuses on the context of why these tips work, and what brought the writer to that particular career-changing realization.

Not all writing tips are golden, though,

Some require a deeper discussion to be fully understood. Not because they are overwhelmingly complex, but because at a glance they can be misleading. (Too many writers operate from that at a glance context.) I can think of at least one popular writing book with a title like that, suggesting “truth” that is, in fact, context-dependant and nothing other than a risky opinion (“hey kids, do it like I do it!”). The book itself is actually fine (in fact, it contradicts the title; it ends up being more about process than what makes a story work), adding to the confusion even with the best of intentions.

There is another tip, though, that transcends opinion to become holy writ. I’ve seen it work wonders for writers who have struggled to move forward without ever really wrapping their head around it. With a more open mind, though (and yes, it’s a shame that we sometimes need an open mind to see that which is simply, obviously and always true, in writing and in life), it can change your writing journey the moment you see it, provided it parts the curtain of your understanding.

This one is especially true for genre fiction, so us Zoners should paste it onto our monitors, because it will never fail us. It is this:

It isn’t a story until something goes wrong.

This connects to so many principles of storytelling.

And yet, newer writers in particular get stuck writing about something–a character, a place, a time, an issue, all without plot-driven conflict or antagonism other than the hero’s inner issues–rather than writing about something happening in the context of something gone wrong for your protagonist, launching the hero on a dramatic quest that unfolds under escalating pressure from antagonistic opposition, threat, urgency and emotionally-resonant stakes.

You can start with something going wrong, and add character, setting, theme and structure from there.  Of you can start with character and/or there and look to add conflict–something has gone wrong–to it.

But no matter how you start, you can’t finish until something really does go wrong.

What is your favorite writing tip? id you hear it because you needed to (one of those when the student is ready the teacher shall appear moments), or is it a baseline truth from which you have always written?

Did you hear it because you needed to (one of those when the student is ready the teacher shall appear moments)? Or is it a baseline truth from which you have always written?

******

On another note… I’ve launched a new website in support of my new relationship-salvage book, Chasing Bliss. You can check it out HERE (including an in-depth author interview).

By Larry Brooks

Sometimes at night, lying wide-eyed in a bed of regret, I imagine a headline that reads like this:

Former Mid-List Hack Succumbs to Anxiety During Self-Publishing Push, is Hospitalized and Delusional.

Even that much publicity really is a delusion in the self-publishing realm. And the hospital part, that’s just fiction. But the PTSD is real. Sort of.

It all started with this crazy idea to write a book that matters.

I know, completely nuts, right? I’m just a writing guru-type wannabe tugging at Jim Bell’s coattails, a novelist with six mainstream-published (and republished) books nobody in my audience has ever heard of… who am I to think I can write a non-fiction book about love and relationships that will make a difference to anybody?

Right away I knew what was wrong with that plan. I don’t have Ph.D. behind my name on the cover. Publishers love Ph.Ds. I would be writing from the school of hard knocks about lessons learned and the scars to show for it.

Not a memoir though. This would be a bona fide how-to, one that breaks down the relationship proposition into its component parts in much the same way I’ve done in my three writing books.

That’s when it came to me, the moment of no return: I’d do it anyway. I’d self-publish it, just like what everyone else out there seems to be doing. And—this is being the strategic cherry on top—l’d find a credentialed doctor-type to write the foreword and put their name and MD/PhD on the cover with mine.

I found two, actually. And while I thought the book was pretty good, as did my wife (a pretty important endorsement considering the topic), it was when those two professionals confirmed my suspicion  (that it is good, and that it matters) that I actually began to visualize something big.

Big plans, big dreams, big ambitions. Just like every other ex-midlist author who takes the leap into the self-publishing darkness.

Writing the book was rewarding. And easy when compared to the steeple-chase obstacle course of actually getting it self-published.

That’s when the crazy began.

Two things reared their heads immediately. I’m not all that technically-savvy, and my proofreading skills sort of suck. Both would haunt me through this process.

The plan was: hire an editor, then a proofreader. Because that’s what I’d read, and it made sense.

Of course I ignored that. I rationalized that a non-fiction book wouldn’t require outside editing (because I am, in my day job, an editor of sorts) beyond what would be obvious to my eagle-eyed wife (the queen of cutting), and that she and I could do the proofing (she’d proven herself in this realm), thus saving about 500 bucks along the way.

And then it all went South.

A writer friend offered to proof the manuscript as a favor. Wouldn’t take my money. Meanwhile, both my wife and I would undertake multiple proofing passes (her list of notes was well in excess of 100 recommendations for cuts, changes and corrections), including submitting the thing to Grammarly, which is an app that bolts onto MS Word and promises to find anything an editor might identify as “iffy.” For free.

Grammarly found 1,244 “issues” among the 288 pages of the manuscript.

That’s when the anxiety really kicked in.

Meanwhile, my proofreading friend got back to me, after investing much time and energy into the project. I opened the file… nothing was there beyond the words themselves. No red ink. No notes. From that I assumed she’d actually changed the manuscript, fixing typos and doing little edits, all of which would remain invisible (and thus, useless, a waste of her time) unless I did a line-by-line comparison. Which meant, I would have nothing to compare to the editing my wife and I were doing.

After a few days of squirming, working through those Grammarly catches (among those 1,244 “issues” were less than 50 actual typos and about a dozen questionable wording choices—if, that is, you are a middle-grade English teacher—leaving 984 “issues” that escaped me, things like “potential misuse of dangling participle” or some such nonsense.

I never really listened to my English teacher about that stuff, and I wasn’t about to go there now. Grammarly… out.

When I worked up the courage to ask my friend where the edits were, she told me (with much patience) that they were in Track Changes. Which I’d heard of. Which I’d actually used during the editing process with Writer’s Digest Books on myhree writing books.

Thing is, though, those manuscripts had arrived with Track Changes already open.

And on this manuscript, on my new computer with its new Windows 10 operating system and its brand new MS Word 8.1, which I’d never seen before and looked to me like a page from Pravda, there was no obvious way to find and open Track Changes.

Google didn’t help.

Oh, it was there, all right. I just couldn’t find it. And thus, couldn’t access her edits and comments. Which were plentiful and astute. When I finally did find it (with her help after my humiliating confession), and after I’d implemented all sorts of edits from Grammarly, my wife and from my own proofing, thus began another pass to cross-check and implement from those four different sources.

All this took about two insane weeks, neither of which I’d planned for. My day job as a story coach went on hold and my clients were getting impatient, I was eating like crap and couldn’t sleep… my God, this was a wonderful experience so far.

During this time I had been going back and forth with the cover designer, after purchasing a generic version that was really killer. You wouldn’t think adding titles and my name and the back copy would be that hard. It wasn’t, actually, but then came the next curve ball.

Createspace needs to know the exact interior page count to calibrate the width of the spine. Actually, the designer needs to know that first. It’s a different number than the manuscript pages, this is the actual number of book pages. So with my book in about five simultaneous stages of revision, the cover had to sit on hold until I finally received the first proof copy of the paperback from Createspace.

Which was several unexpected hurdles away, consuming about two more unplanned weeks.

When you finish writing a book you are impatient to get it out there. Brevity of release ramp up is one the attractions of self-publishing (versus the full year or more a publisher will make you wait), so I was itchy to get this up and running. With all those typos and fixes in place, I could smell the finish line.

This was the raw grist, the sum and total, of the emotions that were making me crazy.

Upon finishing what I thought was the final draft of the manuscript of CHASING BLISS, I went to the Amazon author site, set up the book and submitted it to their online formatting tool. It looked like a bored cat had been playing with the space bar, separating paragraphs and inserting inexplicable white space everywhere. Of course that was my fault, using the wrong keys in the wrong way, imparting secret coded messages to the formatting gods… because that’s what writers do, we use the keys on the keyboard.

Couldn’t get it to work. I had been told I could skip paying a formatter and do it myself, correcting these issues myself and resubmitting until I got it right. Maybe. But I couldn’t see that finish line.

And so, following trusted advice (which I should have done earlier), I found a formatter on Fiverr.

Eighty bucks for three versions: Kindle/mobi, Smashwords/epub (which covers bookstores and iBooks), and a locked-down PDF for the paperback inside the Createspace template. It took five days to get the mobi back from my Fiverr guy, with a note (from a land far, far away) to “please check manuscript.”

Right. Got it. Did that, with the same Amazon previewer. Resulting in the same chaotic lack of symmetry spiced with random acts of white space. It was as if the formatter hadn’t even touched it.

Sent it back to him. A day later he said it was fine. Try it again.

Same outcome. Pass the Tums.

Another day later he asked what previewer I was using to do these checks,, as if there was a choice among previewers. Turns out there was. He sent a link to another stand-alone previewer, a deluxe version, which allowed me to see an accurate visual layout in all three formatted editions. Which, when downloaded there, looked beautiful and perfect to my anxious eyes.

I downloaded the mobi to Amazon and hit the Publish button within five minutes. Five more minutes it was in the Smashwords system.

Next day I anxiously bought the first copy of the Kindle. Started reading. Found three typos in the first one hundred pages.

Now, you would think you could just open the mysterious “mobi” file (or the ePub file, which is different) and simply correct the typo, right? But no, that’s too easy. So I googled how to do this, and I ended up with a video by Hugh Howey, who is the king of all things self-publishing and way smarter than me. He explained that you had to download two other pieces of mysterious software, neither of which was “mobi,” open it in one, then open it the other and somehow magically merge those files, and then you can make the changes, and then convert it all back to mobi. Somehow.

Somehow.

Easy right? Yes, if you went to M.I.T. The narration of this process sounded like a Boeing engineer explaining flap resistance coefficients to an FAA inspector.

Wasn’t gonna happen.

So I went back to the format guy who was out there somewhere to ask if he could do these corrections. Two days later, a simple, “yes, tell me corrections.”

Did that. Two more days later, I get the files back. Good to go, all three typos fixed. I checked them on his magic previewer, and it looked… wonderful.

Back to Kindle. I downloaded the updated version, which they would swap out for the one already published in twelve hours. Meanwhile, I logged on at Createspace, opened an account (not as hard as I anticipated), and downloaded the formatted manuscript.

Surprise: they needed to send me a proof copy (which I had to pay for) for my approval, before the actual publishing process could begin. That would take three to five days. This was like being in labor (I imagine), and the doctor telling you not to push for three to five days until they can get you into an empty O.R.

The proof/ARC finally came. It was like opening a Christmas present. The cover was beautiful. Hope returned in a rush of anticipation.

I began to read. My heart sank. I am embarrassed to confess what I found. But I will, because that’s why we’re here. Piece by piece, my brain shattered into 95 little pieces.  Because…

Ninety-five more changes were required.

I sh*t you not. Not all of them typos, but awkward moments in the narrative, missing punctuation, and little opportunities for upgrades. It was as if the process had gone back in time and deleted everyone who had set eyes on the thing.

Back to the formatter dude. Offering him more money to get me out of this mess. Another 80 bucks–he sort of had me– which I happily coughed up. I compiled a summary of the changes, with very explicit (I thought) instructions on what was to be changed, and how.

Got a message that it would take 8 to 10 days. By now I would miss my target release date by about a month (good thing nobody was on the edge of their seat out there). All because I didn’t hire a professional proofer, and couldn’t find the Track Changes done by my very generous friend, who was as good as one.

Five days later the changes arrived. With questions, because he said my instructions weren’t clear. I clarified and sent it back him, consuming another three days.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the ultimate test of a writer’s patience, spiced with the certainty that it was all my fault. And, that my subcontractor was on another planet.

Got the changes back. Checked the magic previewer. All looked well.

Back to Kindle to upgrade… except (and this one is hard to swallow), over 50 copies had by now been sold. Fifty people swallowing 95 mistakes or weaknesses. Turns out that Amazon promises that when you submit a revision to a Kindle book, it will automatically update for all who already have the book on their device (provided a specific setting has been made on the device). So not to worry, at least my reader/buyers would get the corrected version, though for many it would happen after they’d read the flawed version.

As I write this, it has been three weeks since the corrected version went online on Amazon. And I still haven’t yet received an “automatic update” on the three devices I use for Kindle books. And yes, I had the proper selection.

Amazon has no explanation. Actually, they won’t even answer my inquiry on this.

Now it was time to submit another version of the manuscript, the clean one, to Createspace for the paperback. Which required another cycle of sending a proof copy (which I again paid for), three days later.

You’d think this was over. It wasn’t.

I found two more typos. Big whopping ones that would have required me to be in a coma to have missed.

Back to the formatter. Three more days. Twenty more dollars. I received the corrected versions, read them front-to-back twice on the magic formatter, and did yet another round of resubmissions to Amazon, Createspace, and Smashwords (which had for this entire time refused to accept me into their “premium” level because the resolution on the cover wasn’t adequate; so as this proofing chaos was going down my cover guy, who had gone AWOL in whatever off-shore land he lived, finally got to and fixed, claiming he’d sent that version to me already)… thus electing not to receive another printed copy, in favor of using Createspace’s online previewer to make sure those final two fixes were, in fact, fixed.

They were.

I had my shrink and my pastor on speed dial by now.

So the book is done.

I won’t promise that it is glitch free, but so far so good.

Meanwhile, I’ve already heard from two people that believe the book will save their marriage, and a reviewer who says it is the best book she’s read in… well, she didn’t specify that window. And another couple who, upon merely hearing about the book, had a Major Conversation and have decided to reinvent their relationship.

The book is comprised of several lists that might rock your world:

• Ten reasons HE is going to cheat on you.
• Ten reasons SHE is going to leave you.
• Five common every-day scenarios that almost always create problems.
• Seven realms of relationship that always apply, and will either make or break you.
• A list of really dangerous questions to ask each other, but if you have the courage and the ability to work through them, they might just change everything for you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my trip to the funny farm. I’m better now, calm and reflective, looking forward to getting back to writing fiction with a new novel I’ve promised my wife I would write.

At least I’ve written something that matters.

And at least now you know what you might be getting into if you opt for self-publishing. Hire a pro to proof your stuff, or find a friend like mine who can do that. Hire a great cover designer and formatter that is not only good, but responsive and fast. Avoid the temptation to do-it-yourself, unless you know that you really can.

Your book is worth it, after all.

*****

Check out the new website for the book (70% done) at www.chasingblissbooks.com. Check out the really cool (and really intimate) author interview (by Sue Coletta, also available on her website) under the INTERVIEW tab.

Available on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, iBook, and in paperback from Amazon.com or Createspace.

Or, your bookseller can order you a copy.