Category Archives: Writer’s Digest

Before You Submit

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James Scott Bell

The May/June issue of Writer’s Digest has a sidebar from YA editor Anica Morse Rissi, wherein she gives nine things you can do to elevate your manuscript before submission.

The list is right on, not only for getting a manuscript ready to submit to agents or editors, but also if you’re considering self-publishing. So I’m going to give you the tips with my own commentary on them.

1. Revise, revise, revise.

As the author of a whole book on the revision process, I’m not going to quibble with this one. You can, however, become “revision obsessed” and spend way too long on a project. In my book I give a process for getting over that, but you can just as well come up with one of your own, so long as you eventually send your work out. Not too soon, but not too late, either.

2. Start with conflict and tension.

This is perhaps the most important tip of all. Some of our highest traffic here at TKZ has come from posts on what to do — and what not to do — on first pages, as well as the numerous first page critiques we’ve done. Search those out in the archives. Now, conflict or tension does not have to be “big.” It can really be any sort of disturbance to the Lead’s ordinary world.

3. Don’t start with backstory.

An obvious corollary to #2. Backstory is best when it is delayed, although little sprinkles can be added to the first pages for depth. Just make the action primary up front.

4. Give the readers something to wonder about.

Mystery, unanswered questions, portents, threats. All good at the beginning and, indeed, throughout—so long as you are prepared to give satisfactory answers (unless you write for Lost, of course, then you can just keep on raising questions).

5. Avoid explaining too much, too soon.

A corollary to #4. My rule for the opening is act first, explain later. Readers do not need to know everything you do about the setting and characters at the start. They will wait a long time if there’s something dynamic and disturbing going on at the beginning.

6. Make sure your story has plot arc and emotional arc.

This is another way of saying that you need to give us the stakes inside the character, as well as outside. One way to do this is via internal conflict, which is the battle between two strong but opposing desires in the character. In High Noon, the town marshal must battle his desire to do his duty as a lawman versus his desire to keep his new Quaker bride (the producers raise the stakes nicely by having the Quaker bride look exactly like Grace Kelly).

7. Read your dialogue out loud.

This is a great practice. You hear it differently than you read it. An alternative (my own preference) is to have Word read it back to me in speech mode. Either way, you’ll catch things to change every time.

8. Use adjectives, adverbs and dialogue tags sparingly.

As far as adverbs, do a search for LY words and kill as many of those pests as you can. For dialogue tags, use said and asked as your defaults, and only when needed to figure out who’s speaking. Resist the urge to use things like he growled or he expostulated.

9. Make sure your details matter.

All details, and I mean every one in your manuscript, should do “double duty.” Not just describe, but describe in a way that sets the tone you desire. Details can characterize, foreshadow and carry motifs. In other words, don’t waste them.

To these fine suggestions, I would also add the following (from my chapter on “The Polish”)—go over each chapter and see how much you can cut from the beginning and the end. You’ll be amazed at how much faster your chapters grab, and how you’ll be left with a feeling of momentum after each scene.

So what other things do you do before you submit?

NOTE: I’ll be conducting a series of webinars for Writer’s Digest this month. The first is on novel structure. Would love to have you drop in!

How to Write Your Last Page

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James Scott Bell

It’s been a heady couple of weeks doing first pages here at TKZ. So I thought, just to catch our breath and balance things out, maybe we should go the other way for a moment.

What about your last page?

I love the Mickey Spillane quote: “The first page sells your book. The last page sells your next book.”

How true that is. How many times have we begun a novel or movie, only to be let down when the book is closed or the credits roll?

I love beginnings. Beginnings are easy. I can write grabber beginnings all day long. So, I suspect, can you.

But endings? Those are hard.

Why? First, because with each passing day another book or movie has come out, another ending has been rendered. So many great endings have already shown up. We who continue to write have the burden of trying to provide satisfactory surprise at the end when so much ending material is already out there.

Second, our endings have to tie things up in a way that makes sense but is also unanticipated. If the reader can see it from a mile away, the effect is lost.

I like what Boston University writing teacher Leslie Epstein said in a recent Writer’s Digest piece (“Tips for Writing and for Life,” WD March/April 2010). When asked if a writer must know the ending before he starts, Epstein says, “The answer is easy: yes and no. One must have in mind between 68 and 73 percent of the ending.”

Epstein’s having a bit of fun here, but his point is solid. If you have the ending 100% in mind, you’re in a straitjacket, unable to let your story sufficiently breathe, or twist, or turn.

OTOH, if you don’t have any idea where you’re going, you could easily fall into the meander trap, or the backed-into-a-corner trap.

There are some very helpful techniques for writing a great ending. Joe Moore discussed some of these last month. Type “endings” in the search box in the upper left of the blog, and you’ll get other thoughts by my blog mates. And I’ll humbly mention that I have also treated the subject in Plot & Structure.

But rather than focusing on principles, today I want to offer you my own personal approach to writing endings. It’s called Stew, Brew and Do.

Why is it called that? Because I made it up so I get to name it.

Here’s how it goes:

Step 1: Stew.

I spend a lot of time at the end of a manuscript just stewing about the ending. Brooding over it. I’ve got my final scenes in mind, of course, and have written toward them. I may even have written a temporary ending. But I know I won’t be satisfied until I give the whole thing time to simmer. I put the manuscript aside for awhile, work on other projects, let the “boys in the basement” take over.

I tell myself to dream about the ending before going to bed. I write down notes in the morning.

Step 2: Brew.

When I am approaching the drop dead deadline, I continue to outline ending possibilities. I will have files of notes and ideas floating in my head. When I know I have to finish I use Brew in both a practical and metaphorical way.

I take a long walk. There is a Starbucks half an hour from my office. (In fact, there is a Starbucks half an hour from anyplace in the world). I put a small notebook in my back pocket and walk there and order a brew—a solo espresso. I down it, wait a few minutes and then start writing notes in the notebook.

Then I walk another half an hour, to another Starbucks (I’m not kidding). There I make more notes. If I have to, I have another espresso. I am a wild-eyed eccentric at this point, but I do have ideas popping up all over the place.

Step 3: Do.

I go back to my office and write until finished.

Well, it works for me. I like most of my endings, but they were very hard work to get to. But hey, that’s good. If this gig was easy, everybody’d be doing it, right? Be glad it’s as hard as it is. Your efforts will pay off.

So what works for you? Do you find endings hard? Or do they roll out of your imaginary assembly line fully functioning and ready to go?

What are some of your favorite endings? Or better yet: what endings, to movies or books, would you change?

A Sense of Where You Are

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James Scott Bell

I’ve been playing basketball most of my life. When I was a kid, falling in love with the game, I happened across a book called A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee. It was a profile of Bill Bradley when he was one of the best college hoopsters ever, nearly leading lowly Princeton to the national title.

What impressed me was Bradley’s work ethic. He practiced for hours a day, in all sorts of weather, perfecting his shots, his moves. He even spent considerable time on the classic hook shot, in order to have a complete game.

So the summer between seventh and eighth grade I had my dad put up a basket on our driveway. I practiced every day, sometimes in the rain, sometimes into the night with the driveway lit up by a single floodlight.

I got books on basketball technique from the library and taught myself the proper way to shoot a jump shot. I learned you have to keep your elbow in, not flared out. I learned to give the ball a perfect spin. In fact, I became the deadliest shot in the history of Parkman Junior High School. In further fact, I was All League in high school and played a year in college. In furthest fact, had I been a couple inches taller and about five seconds faster, I’d be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Larry Bird? Pheh.

But I digress.

The other morning, as is my wont, I was shooting around a local park when I got into doing some hook shots. Now that’s one shot I worked on a little bit when I was younger, but never really developed into something deadly. My specialty was the 15 – 20 foot jumper, and that’s what I practiced most.

But this day, for some reason, it occurred to me that as I had taught myself the proper way to shoot a jump shot, maybe I ought to take another look at the hook. So I started to experiment with a different release point, looking for another feel. And in about five minutes I happened on a slightly modified shot, but that modification made a huge difference. The hooks started to fall.

I felt like a kid again, with the joy of discovering a new technique that works. After all these years, I had a stronger hook shot with only a few adjustments.

I bring this up because I get this feeling as a writer, too. I still get excited when I put a new spin on a technique and it works. That’s why I continue to read books on writing, Writer’s Digest magazine, blogs and lots and lots of novels, seeing what works, trying stuff out. My philosophy is if I learn just one thing, or get a new view on something I already know, it’s worth it.

Don’t ever think you have arrived. When you think that, even if you’re multi-published, you start to atrophy. There are authors who once cared about the craft but now just mail it in, because they have an established following.

Don’t let that be you. Respect the craft, and keep at it.

In his book, McPhee described Bill Bradley’s ability to throw up a shot with his back to the basket – no look – and make it most of the time. When he asked Bradley how he could do that, Bradley replied, “You develop a sense of where you are.”

Know where you are, writer, and how you can get better. Then practice. That’s really the secret to succeeding as a writer. Maybe the only secret: practice –– day after week after year.

What about you? Do you have the same excitement when you learn something about writing that works? Do you practice enough? Even when it rains?