by Annette Lyon
This past weekend I attended writing conference and sat in our own Josi's class about building your own writing community. It's a topic I hadn't thought much about as a topic, but when I stopped and sat back, I realized just how important it is.
I'm sure Josi will do a much better job of explaining it another time (please do, Josi!), but for now, I want to mention it and encourage writers to build their own communities.
You'll have many types as your career progresses, and they're all important in their own way. I can safely say that without some of mine, I wouldn't be where I am today.
Networking Opportunities
For me, the start here was with the League of Utah Writers and my local chapter meetings. Look around where you are to see if there's a similar organization where you live.
From chapter meetings, I branched out to attending LUW's annual conference (boy, was I terrified for that first one!) and then their spring workshops. I made several writer friends I'm still in contact with today.
I learned a ton, but even better, thanks to some of those contacts, I ended up landing in my next type of community:
Critique Group
I joined a group with several aspiring, but unpublished, writers. Over nine years later, we're all published, several of us are award-winning, and we've all got writing careers and deadlines.
But it's more than success our group has brought; it's also provided us with emotional support. There are some things only other writers understand, and those are the things you can share around the critique group table. I know I get antsy and on edge if I miss too many weeks of meetings. I need my group to keep me in balance.
Online Communities
These encompass a lot of things:
E-mail lists made up of lots of writers who are in the same market you are.
Your blog and the blogs of others you read and the relationships you build through them.
Online critique groups, forums, and other organizations you belong to.
Online marketing efforts.
Social networks.
And more.
These can all be amazingly powerful in many ways. My online communities have given moral support, provided answers to research questions, and brought me many friends and professional contacts.
The longer I'm in this business, the more I see that those who are willing to give and help each other out are the ones who will succeed the most in the long run.
Keep in mind that how you present yourself to some of your communities is critical. My critique group doesn't mind if I occasionally whine and throw a pity party, but you won't see the same kind of thing on my blog, where I need to maintain a bit more professionalism. Whining isn't a way to make people want to buy my books.
By the same token, be aware of how you present yourself in blog comments, at conferences, and in other professional interactions.
With blogs and e-mail in particular, you might be trying to be funny but come across in a way you didn't intend, because tone can be hard to interpret correctly in those venues.
Always be genuine and honest in every community. Be yourself. But that doesn't mean publicly criticizing someone else in your market or otherwise demeaning another person.
As Josi said in her class, publishing is a small sandbox; play nice.
What you put out will come back to you in spades, whether it's positive or negative. It's definitely worth sending out the positive.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Flawed (but Redeemable) Characters
by Annette Lyon
I consider myself lucky that I learned this lesson relatively early on: Make your characters likable.
The lesson for me was shortly after I joined my critique group. I read a chapter of my work in progress, and everyone around the table agreed on one thing:
My heroine was really unlikeable.
She was in a somewhat embarrassing situation, so I had her a bit defensive and trying to explain herself. She came across as rude and nasty.
I had no idea until they pointed it out, but after that meeting, I was able to stand back and see that they were right. I changed several scenes to make sure that she was sympathetic and that the reader was compassionate toward her, not annoyed or turned off.
With a few exceptions where anti-heroes actually work (think: Artemis Fowl), your hero and heroine need to be good, likable, people whom your readers can relate to and root for.
Let's use the romance genre as an example. In the classic format, boy gets girl, loses girl, and then gets girl. Ideally, the reader roots for them to get together, is dismayed when they're separated, and then rejoices when they finally commit and live happily ever after.
Your reader won't engage in that way if your heroine is whiny and snobbish or your hero is so arrogant he deserves to be left at the altar.
On the other hand, your characters can't be perfect, or we won't care about them. They need to be human. They need flaws.
But make them too flawed, and the reader hates them. So in a sense, you as the writer have to walk a narrow tightrope: How much of a flaw is too much?
Romances often have the hero and heroine despise one another at the outset. It usually works, but in that case, neither can be so despicable that the reader won't ever overcome their own dislike. The reader needs to see their flaws to understand why they hate each other, yet at the same time be able to see past the same flaws and want them to be together.
The classic example of a writer who pulled off this type of character arc is, of course, Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice. We pretty much sympathize with Lizzy for the entire book, while Darcy comes across as pretty darn arrogant and irredeemable. Yet Austen made him human, and oh-so-redeemable when we see him in his own element at Pemberly.
Suddenly we know he's not only a good man, but a likable one. We start to think that maybe Lizzy was a bit off in her initial judgment. From there, of course, the more we learn about Darcy and the more we see his noble actions, the more we like him, so that by the end of the book, we're thrilled that he and Lizzy finally get together.
If we hadn't seen Darcy at home, if we hadn't learned about his relationship with his sister and how kind he is to his staff, and if weren't given good reasons for his earlier stiff behavior and prejudices, or learned about how he secretly saved the Bennett family honor, the story wouldn't be the classic it is today, two hundred years after its publication.
A romance I read recently, however, narrowly missed being chucked against my wall because of this very issue: the characters were unlikeable, not only toward each other (which, as we've discussed can work well), but to the reader. For the entire book.
By the end, I figured they were both so annoying that they deserved each other.
On the flip side, I read a remarkably well-written self-published romance that handled the hero and heroine perfectly. In the beginning, they had a dislike for one another, and for good reasons. They both had flaws (quite big ones) and issues they each needed to overcome. But none of the flaws were irredeemable, and none were too big. They were both very sympathetic characters, so well-drawn, layered, and human that they became quite real to me, and I believed the story.
Here's one of the biggest compliments I can give a book: there were times I got so engrossed in the story that I almost forgot there was a writer behind the scenes pulling the strings.
The other book, however, never let me forget for one minute that a writer had put the words together. One big reason was that the characters were so annoying that they never became real to me. They were caricatures, cardboard cutouts.
I won't publicly say what the first book was, but since the second one was so good (in spite of some minor line-editing issues) I want to give it some props.
For a good, flawed, very redeemable, and likable hero/heroine pair, read Seeking Persephone, by Sarah M. Eden. (It's a Whitney Award finalist for Best Romance, and in my opinion, it deserves the honor.)
It's definitely worth your time.
I consider myself lucky that I learned this lesson relatively early on: Make your characters likable.
The lesson for me was shortly after I joined my critique group. I read a chapter of my work in progress, and everyone around the table agreed on one thing:
My heroine was really unlikeable.
She was in a somewhat embarrassing situation, so I had her a bit defensive and trying to explain herself. She came across as rude and nasty.
I had no idea until they pointed it out, but after that meeting, I was able to stand back and see that they were right. I changed several scenes to make sure that she was sympathetic and that the reader was compassionate toward her, not annoyed or turned off.
With a few exceptions where anti-heroes actually work (think: Artemis Fowl), your hero and heroine need to be good, likable, people whom your readers can relate to and root for.
Let's use the romance genre as an example. In the classic format, boy gets girl, loses girl, and then gets girl. Ideally, the reader roots for them to get together, is dismayed when they're separated, and then rejoices when they finally commit and live happily ever after.
Your reader won't engage in that way if your heroine is whiny and snobbish or your hero is so arrogant he deserves to be left at the altar.
On the other hand, your characters can't be perfect, or we won't care about them. They need to be human. They need flaws.
But make them too flawed, and the reader hates them. So in a sense, you as the writer have to walk a narrow tightrope: How much of a flaw is too much?
Romances often have the hero and heroine despise one another at the outset. It usually works, but in that case, neither can be so despicable that the reader won't ever overcome their own dislike. The reader needs to see their flaws to understand why they hate each other, yet at the same time be able to see past the same flaws and want them to be together.
The classic example of a writer who pulled off this type of character arc is, of course, Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice. We pretty much sympathize with Lizzy for the entire book, while Darcy comes across as pretty darn arrogant and irredeemable. Yet Austen made him human, and oh-so-redeemable when we see him in his own element at Pemberly.
Suddenly we know he's not only a good man, but a likable one. We start to think that maybe Lizzy was a bit off in her initial judgment. From there, of course, the more we learn about Darcy and the more we see his noble actions, the more we like him, so that by the end of the book, we're thrilled that he and Lizzy finally get together.
If we hadn't seen Darcy at home, if we hadn't learned about his relationship with his sister and how kind he is to his staff, and if weren't given good reasons for his earlier stiff behavior and prejudices, or learned about how he secretly saved the Bennett family honor, the story wouldn't be the classic it is today, two hundred years after its publication.
A romance I read recently, however, narrowly missed being chucked against my wall because of this very issue: the characters were unlikeable, not only toward each other (which, as we've discussed can work well), but to the reader. For the entire book.
By the end, I figured they were both so annoying that they deserved each other.
On the flip side, I read a remarkably well-written self-published romance that handled the hero and heroine perfectly. In the beginning, they had a dislike for one another, and for good reasons. They both had flaws (quite big ones) and issues they each needed to overcome. But none of the flaws were irredeemable, and none were too big. They were both very sympathetic characters, so well-drawn, layered, and human that they became quite real to me, and I believed the story.
Here's one of the biggest compliments I can give a book: there were times I got so engrossed in the story that I almost forgot there was a writer behind the scenes pulling the strings.
The other book, however, never let me forget for one minute that a writer had put the words together. One big reason was that the characters were so annoying that they never became real to me. They were caricatures, cardboard cutouts.
I won't publicly say what the first book was, but since the second one was so good (in spite of some minor line-editing issues) I want to give it some props.
For a good, flawed, very redeemable, and likable hero/heroine pair, read Seeking Persephone, by Sarah M. Eden. (It's a Whitney Award finalist for Best Romance, and in my opinion, it deserves the honor.)
It's definitely worth your time.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday Mania--Query Letter
One of our readers submitted a query letter. Feel free to make comments, but please keep them constructive.
Critique Archive 0020:
Re: Book Proposal Request
Dear XXXX:
I am seeking representation for my Christian novel, The Blood Oath complete at 85,000 words. I am enclosing a synopsis and the first three chapters as a sample.
I am a member of the League of Utah Writers and the American Christian Fiction Writers associations. Often God’s most effective form of instruction is our trial. In The Blood Oath, the readers are able to vicariously experience Edwina McCullough’s crash course in Christianity 101.
Edwina is trapped in the despair of her “darkest night” when she is jolted by an angelic visitation from Evangel who persuades her to view her life from the vantage point of potential instead of the avenue of defeat. After the visitation, Edwina is determined to live her life differently.
When Edwina and the members of the Calico Club discover the Lewis/Todd blood oath, they set out on a quest to honor the pledge on behalf of their deceased club member, Karla Lewis. When their car breaks down and they become marooned in the desert town of Fortunado, their two week trip turns into a two month odyssey.
The members of the Calico Club plus one, Gabriel, emerge profoundly changed from their experiences in Fortunado. Unfortunately, only three of them are able to continue the quest and ultimately find Zion, the heir to the promise.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of this proposal. I look forward to hearing from you soon. The book’s scripture, “Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20)
Writer’s name
Enclosures:
3 Chapters
Synopsis
SASE
Critique Archive 0020:
Re: Book Proposal Request
Dear XXXX:
I am seeking representation for my Christian novel, The Blood Oath complete at 85,000 words. I am enclosing a synopsis and the first three chapters as a sample.
I am a member of the League of Utah Writers and the American Christian Fiction Writers associations. Often God’s most effective form of instruction is our trial. In The Blood Oath, the readers are able to vicariously experience Edwina McCullough’s crash course in Christianity 101.
Edwina is trapped in the despair of her “darkest night” when she is jolted by an angelic visitation from Evangel who persuades her to view her life from the vantage point of potential instead of the avenue of defeat. After the visitation, Edwina is determined to live her life differently.
When Edwina and the members of the Calico Club discover the Lewis/Todd blood oath, they set out on a quest to honor the pledge on behalf of their deceased club member, Karla Lewis. When their car breaks down and they become marooned in the desert town of Fortunado, their two week trip turns into a two month odyssey.
The members of the Calico Club plus one, Gabriel, emerge profoundly changed from their experiences in Fortunado. Unfortunately, only three of them are able to continue the quest and ultimately find Zion, the heir to the promise.
Thank you in advance for your consideration of this proposal. I look forward to hearing from you soon. The book’s scripture, “Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20)
Writer’s name
Enclosures:
3 Chapters
Synopsis
SASE
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Paper-Thin Conflicts
by Annette Lyon
Want to annoy your reader?
One of the best things you can do is to have a story that, structurally speaking, might as well be a sitcom: it's episodic. That means every chapter has its own new (shallow) problem that gets resolved by the end of the chapter (or so).
That kind of weak plot is enough to make this reader want to throw a book across the room.
While it's common to have chapters that have their own sub-conflicts and sub-plots getting resolved, you always need a bigger, over-arching problem that carries the book from beginning to end.
Yes, we want to know if Luke will get out of the trash compactor alive, but we also have that Death Star thing to destroy by the end of the movie.
Yes, we wonder what Harry will do with Norbert the dragon, but if he doesn't save the Sorcerer's Stone and face Voldemort at the end of the book, we have no story.
And sure, it's nice that Belle and the Beast have a beautiful date in the ballroom, but if the spell isn't eventually broken, who really cares?
If you don't have a big conflict, one that's complex and, well, BIG, I'm sorry, but you aren't writing a novel. Or at least you're not writing a good one that readers will care about.
Conflict is the engine that drives the plot. You need enough of it to push the story from page one to the very end. That means the problems must be deeper than, "Dang. We had a misunderstanding."
At a workshop several years ago taught by Janette Rallison, she made a point that's stuck with me: If your conflict could be resolved by a single conversation, it isn't big enough.
Of course, stories with these kinds of paper-thin conflicts never do have the two characters talking it out, even if they could solve the problem in about fifteen seconds by doing so.
A common place for these kinds of thin conflicts is in romance. The basic romance formula requires the boy to get the girl and then lose the girl before getting her back again for good. Too many would-be writers use a thin excuse for getting the hero and heroine apart: a simple misunderstanding.
So the story has a series of misadventures that drag the story on, one minor blip at a time, for a couple hundred pages or so, until the sad little misunderstanding is fixed.
Misadventures and misunderstandings work for episodes of Hannah Montana, but they aren't going to work for your book.
With a thin conflict or series of thin conflicts, you'll lose your reader, because there's nothing driving them to keep reading. They lack the, "Oh, no! What's going to happen next?" or, "How will they ever fix that?"
As our own Josi likes to put it: Get your character up in a tree. Throw rocks at them. Throw bigger rocks. And even bigger rocks. Now set the tree on fire. Then make your character find a way down.
Ask yourself:
Is my character simply up in a tree?
Or have I set the tree on fire?
Get your conflict blazing. Keep us wondering whether (and how!) your character will find a way down. Intense conflicts don't have to be of the James Bond action variety. A solid internal conflict can do the job just as well.
No matter what it is, the conflict must be big enough to carry the story and keep readers interested so they won't chuck your book against the wall.
Want to annoy your reader?
One of the best things you can do is to have a story that, structurally speaking, might as well be a sitcom: it's episodic. That means every chapter has its own new (shallow) problem that gets resolved by the end of the chapter (or so).
That kind of weak plot is enough to make this reader want to throw a book across the room.
While it's common to have chapters that have their own sub-conflicts and sub-plots getting resolved, you always need a bigger, over-arching problem that carries the book from beginning to end.
Yes, we want to know if Luke will get out of the trash compactor alive, but we also have that Death Star thing to destroy by the end of the movie.
Yes, we wonder what Harry will do with Norbert the dragon, but if he doesn't save the Sorcerer's Stone and face Voldemort at the end of the book, we have no story.
And sure, it's nice that Belle and the Beast have a beautiful date in the ballroom, but if the spell isn't eventually broken, who really cares?
If you don't have a big conflict, one that's complex and, well, BIG, I'm sorry, but you aren't writing a novel. Or at least you're not writing a good one that readers will care about.
Conflict is the engine that drives the plot. You need enough of it to push the story from page one to the very end. That means the problems must be deeper than, "Dang. We had a misunderstanding."
At a workshop several years ago taught by Janette Rallison, she made a point that's stuck with me: If your conflict could be resolved by a single conversation, it isn't big enough.
Of course, stories with these kinds of paper-thin conflicts never do have the two characters talking it out, even if they could solve the problem in about fifteen seconds by doing so.
A common place for these kinds of thin conflicts is in romance. The basic romance formula requires the boy to get the girl and then lose the girl before getting her back again for good. Too many would-be writers use a thin excuse for getting the hero and heroine apart: a simple misunderstanding.
So the story has a series of misadventures that drag the story on, one minor blip at a time, for a couple hundred pages or so, until the sad little misunderstanding is fixed.
Misadventures and misunderstandings work for episodes of Hannah Montana, but they aren't going to work for your book.
With a thin conflict or series of thin conflicts, you'll lose your reader, because there's nothing driving them to keep reading. They lack the, "Oh, no! What's going to happen next?" or, "How will they ever fix that?"
As our own Josi likes to put it: Get your character up in a tree. Throw rocks at them. Throw bigger rocks. And even bigger rocks. Now set the tree on fire. Then make your character find a way down.
Ask yourself:
Is my character simply up in a tree?
Or have I set the tree on fire?
Get your conflict blazing. Keep us wondering whether (and how!) your character will find a way down. Intense conflicts don't have to be of the James Bond action variety. A solid internal conflict can do the job just as well.
No matter what it is, the conflict must be big enough to carry the story and keep readers interested so they won't chuck your book against the wall.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Beauty Out of Context
By Julie Wright
Several years ago, the Washington Post convinced Joshua Bell, a world acclaimed violinist, to dress in simple jeans and a t-shirt and to take his $4,000,000 Stradivarious down into the subway to play for the masses. The experiment was to see if people recognized great art out of context.
Within 45 minutes, 1097 people passed by the violinist playing his little heart out. Only seven people stopped for any duration of time to actually listen. Joshua Bell is a man who can fetch seat prices of $100.00 for merely adequate seats in a symphony hall and much more for good seats. Joshua Bell is a master. Only 7 people stopped for beauty, recognizing it for what it was.
What has this to do with writing, and more importantly with you?
I recently heard an editor say that they don't normally take middle grade work, but if Neil Gaiman walked in, they would never refuse him simply because his protagonist's were a little young for this imprint. They could say this because they know Neil Gaiman. He's been declared beautiful by literary standards.
But what if he showed up looking like everyone else? What if he came in out of context? What if he came through the slushpile as an unagented author without the Newbery sticker? Would they recognize him for who he was? A few might . . . but I'd bet most wouldn't. (and by the way, I loved The Graveyard Book)
The point is that you may be the next big thing--stamped with the approval of the literary world. Your manuscript may be beautiful, but not recognizable exactly yet. Don't obsess or let it get you down. Joshua Bell stood in the masses and played beauty. Few actually stopped for beauty. It's not to say the music was any less beautiful down there in the subways, but that out of context, it was harder to see, harder to pay attention to as the people scurried about with thier lives. The world just works like that.
Life gets out of balance and the subjective nature of art makes rejection inevitable.
Take a moment to view the entire article as it is beautiful in its own way and deserves to be read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews
Several years ago, the Washington Post convinced Joshua Bell, a world acclaimed violinist, to dress in simple jeans and a t-shirt and to take his $4,000,000 Stradivarious down into the subway to play for the masses. The experiment was to see if people recognized great art out of context.
Within 45 minutes, 1097 people passed by the violinist playing his little heart out. Only seven people stopped for any duration of time to actually listen. Joshua Bell is a man who can fetch seat prices of $100.00 for merely adequate seats in a symphony hall and much more for good seats. Joshua Bell is a master. Only 7 people stopped for beauty, recognizing it for what it was.
What has this to do with writing, and more importantly with you?
I recently heard an editor say that they don't normally take middle grade work, but if Neil Gaiman walked in, they would never refuse him simply because his protagonist's were a little young for this imprint. They could say this because they know Neil Gaiman. He's been declared beautiful by literary standards.
But what if he showed up looking like everyone else? What if he came in out of context? What if he came through the slushpile as an unagented author without the Newbery sticker? Would they recognize him for who he was? A few might . . . but I'd bet most wouldn't. (and by the way, I loved The Graveyard Book)
The point is that you may be the next big thing--stamped with the approval of the literary world. Your manuscript may be beautiful, but not recognizable exactly yet. Don't obsess or let it get you down. Joshua Bell stood in the masses and played beauty. Few actually stopped for beauty. It's not to say the music was any less beautiful down there in the subways, but that out of context, it was harder to see, harder to pay attention to as the people scurried about with thier lives. The world just works like that.
Life gets out of balance and the subjective nature of art makes rejection inevitable.
Take a moment to view the entire article as it is beautiful in its own way and deserves to be read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?hpid=topnews
Monday, April 6, 2009
THE Teen Writers Conference
Precision Editing Group is proud to be a sponsor of the first Teen Writers Conference held in Utah.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Weber State University
Ages 13-19
Registration Information:
http://www.teenwritersconference.com/
Conference Chair: Josi S. Kilpack
Contact: info@teenwritersconference.com
Contact: info@teenwritersconference.com
Parental Permission form required for ages 13–17
$39.00 Registration fee (includes lunch)
Enter the Writing Contest!
$39.00 Registration fee (includes lunch)
Enter the Writing Contest!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Congrats Josi & Annette!!
To Our BLOG Followers: We'd be happy to post a congrats and a cover of your book when you have a book release! Keep us posted!
With that in mind: Congrats to two of our senior editors, Josi and Annette!
Each of them had a book come out recently.
Josi's Lemon Tart was released January 2009:
Annette's Tower of Strength came out in March 2009:
With that in mind: Congrats to two of our senior editors, Josi and Annette!
Each of them had a book come out recently.
Josi's Lemon Tart was released January 2009:
Annette's Tower of Strength came out in March 2009:
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