Kelli Stanley: From Small Press to Big Success

Interview by Heather Moore

Welcome, Kelli, to our writing blog. We’re excited to hear about your writing journey and how you went from getting your first mystery novel, Nox Dormienda: A Long Night for Sleeping, published with a smaller press to landing a contract with a major publisher for City of Dragons.

Heather: First of all, congratulations on your starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist for City of Dragons! Pretty amazing to say the least. But first things first . . . I recently read your award-winning mystery novel, Nox Dormienda (an Arcturus mystery) and really enjoyed the classic Roman noir setting. Tell us about the beginnings of your publishing career with this first book.

Kelli: Heather, thank you so much for having me over! It’s an honor to be here at Writing on the Wall. And thank you very much for the kind words! I wrote NOX DORMIENDA just a few years ago when I was in graduate school, earning a Master’s degree in Classics. It was the first novel I ever tried to write, but I’d written “stuff” my whole life, from poetry to screenplays. I wanted to do something creative with my degree—and my life. My choices were really to either go forward in academia, pursuing a Ph.D., or try something new. So inspired by the success of writers like Stephen Saylor and Lindsay Davis, I took the plunge and wrote NOX, which combines my love of noir and hardboiled fiction and film with the history and culture I’d spent so much time studying.

Contrary to expectations, I found an agent immediately—the first agent I queried, in fact. However, she moved out of the country and I was left—in my graduating semester—with very few prospects. That was a scary time, let me tell you. And to compound the stress, I was operating in a vacuum of ignorance. I knew no one in the community, I wasn’t a member of any organization—no Sisters in Crime, no Mystery Writers of America. I’m kind of mule-headed (some in my family might say VERY mule-headed, lol!), and I just didn’t feel comfortable investing any money in myself if all this publishing stuff was a pipe dream. So I wasn’t sure what to do. My former agent suggested I submit the manuscript to Five Star, a small, library press—they get their books reviews and it seemed like a good place to start. I thought to myself, “Just get a toe in the doorway.”

So I sent the book to Five Star and I was accepted. And it was at that point that I started to actually believe in myself, and promptly tried to make up for all the lost time and join organizations and learn as much about the industry as possible. After this start, you can imagine my surprise and gratitude at NOX winning the Bruce Alexander and becoming a Macavity finalist last year.
Heather: That must have been a thrill to have NOX in such a prestigious way. You have written a sequel for Nox Dormienda, but that’s not the next book coming out. City of Dragons was picked up by Thomas Dunne/Minotaur and will be out February 2, 2010. How did you find your agent for this book and how long did it take to secure a publishing contract?

Kelli: There are a lot of characters and plots roaming around in my head, and I never planned to just focus on Rome—too limiting. My true love is mid-century America, particularly the 30s through the end of World War II. So I planned to write a novel with a female private detective, and I was going to set it in 1939, at the San Francisco World’s Fair—the Golden Gate International Exposition.

Now, once I realized that it would be very, very difficult—almost impossible—to get my first series picked up by a major publisher, I knew that writing another series would provide me a fresh chance. Fortunately, I’d written CURSED, the sequel to NOX, in just a few months—before I submitted NOX and while I was waiting to figure out what to do with my life.

So I wrote CITY OF DRAGONS. The book became darker, set in 1940, and while the Fair plays a role—and is actually the setting for a Miranda Corbie short story that’s coming in the FIRST THRILLS anthology in June—Chinatown is the backdrop.

In the meantime, I was without an agent, and knew I’d have to go through the tortuous process of finding one. A friend recommended her agency, I sent them my work, and found the absolutely best agent in the world—Kimberley Cameron, of Kimberley Cameron and Associates. I finished CITY OF DRAGONS a few months after NOX was published, and Kimberley put it on the market in the second week of January, 2009. The market fell out and I was petrified it wouldn’t sell. But three weeks later we had a deal with Thomas Dunne/Minotaur, and believe me—I couldn’t be happier. I adore my editor and my publishing team!
Heather: I’ve heard Kimberly Cameron is an excellent agent. Congratulations. I think every writer was holding her breath when the market went south. But you are one of the survivors. The cover for CITY OF DRAGONS is stunning, so kudos to your publisher's design department. What are some of the key things or mottos that you believe have attributed to your success as an author?

Kelli: My family, number one. They’ve believed in me from the beginning, and help prop me up through all the self doubt. And the generosity of this community—the crime fiction community—is unbelievable. I have been helped and supported by so many people … and one of my goals is to be able to give back in any way I can.

I also think it helps that my expectations are fairly realistic—I want to write full-time. That’s it! And I recognize that publishing is a business—that writing is a business, and that authors really need to look at themselves that way.

And, of course, perseverance counts the most. You just can’t give up, though there have been times that I’ve thought I should.

Heather: Perseverance is even more important than ever. The typical writing process can take years from writing, to submitting, to a book release. I think it’s important for novice writers to understand that the success we see splashed in the newspapers and magazines has been a long time in building up. What are your writing habits—and how long does it take you from idea to completion of a novel?

Kelli: I hold a day job, so writing has to be worked in around everything else. And though I use a loose outline, the plot also develops as I write—characters come in I don’t expect, etc. I prepare a certain amount of research ahead of time, too, but also research specifics as they come up. So all in all, I’m usually a fairly fast writer, but how long it takes to get to the finished product depends, like everything else, on other demands: day job, personal and family life … and certainly, all the editing, marketing, etc. that goes into launching a new book.

Heather: Like the rest of us, you are juggling many things. Gratefully, the internet has given authors instant access to self-promotion. How important is internet presence (websites, blogging, social sites) to your marketing?

Kelli: Enormously important. The internet is where most people receive their news, their impressions of what might interest them. The trick is to figure out what—of the million on-line opportunities out there—might work. I wish I had the answer! Social networking is fun—and when you spend a lot of time staring at a page, it’s great to take a break and connect with friends and readers. But—the downside—it can be an enormous time drain. So you have to constantly remind yourself, again, that you’re a business, and you don’t have time to harvest your crops in Farmville.

Heather: LOL. The other day I deleted about 30 requests for Farmville and finally blocked it. Based on your experience, would you advise an unpublished writer to submit first to small publishers or to find an agent?

Kelli: Unpublished writers, in my opinion, should ALWAYS seek an agent first. Even with a small press, agents will recognize a one-sided contract when they see it. If I’d had an agent when I signed my contract for NOX, we could have bargained for a much better deal in terms of length of ownership of rights, etc. All kinds of things you don’t think about—or at least I didn’t, because I didn’t know any better. An agent will protect you from getting taken advantage of because you want something—to be published—very, very badly. That’s their job, and they can and should be a writer’s best friend.

That said, it takes time and perseverance to find the right agent for you. Think of it like a marriage—you wouldn’t fly to Las Vegas together on the first query letter, so take the time to research the agents you submit your work to, take time to ask them questions. Research their reputations, email their clients. It’s a personal relationship as well as a business one, and it needs to click.

Heather: Research is so important. I had an agent once send me a contract and only after the fact did I do the research. Every author I contacted told me NOT to go with that agent. It would have saved me a lot of time and heartache if I’d done the research in advance. What additional advice would you give to those dreaming of becoming published writers?

Kelli: Take a piece of paper and paste this to your computer: Butt in Seat. That sums up what you have to do … sit there and focus and finish the book. Don’t send anything to anyone that is unfinished. Finish it, have done with it, make sure you’re happy with it, but don’t endlessly tweak it, either. Then start the query process.

And don’t repeat the mistake I made. Join Sisters in Crime, join International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America! You’ll learn so much, and all of it will help. You’ll meet writers who might blurb your book when you get your contract, you’ll meet agents, you’ll learn about the industry. If you’re serious about being published, you have to be serious about the business, and these organizations will help.

Heather: Excellent advice. Tell us about the book(s) you are working on now.

Kelli: Right now, I’m working on the sequel to CITY OF DRAGONS—the working title is COUNTRY OF SPIDERS, but that may change. I’ve got a Miranda Corbie short story called “Children’s Day” coming out—it’s a prequel to CITY OF DRAGONS—in FIRST THRILLS: HIGH OCTANE STORIES FROM THE HOTTEST THRILLER WRITERS, the next ITW anthology. It’s full of stories by stellar writers and bestsellers like Michael Palmer and Jeffery Deaver next to stories by “up-and-comers”, and it’s edited by Lee Child—so you can imagine how thrilled I am to be there! The book comes out June 22 from Tor/Forge.

And the impossible did happen! My editor bought the sequel to NOX, so both series are now with Minotaur. CURSED should be out maybe at the end of this year, maybe early next year—I’m not sure yet. Meanwhile, I’ve got my hands full with the second Miranda book and launching CITY OF DRAGONS!

Heather: Congrats, Kelli, and thanks so much for taking time out of your busy promotion schedule! You can read Chapter 1 of CITY OF DRAGONS here. Also, visit Kelli Stanley's website for upcoming events, reviews, book trailers, interviews, and more.

Kelli: Thanks a million, Heather—it’s been absolutely wonderful to be here, and good luck to all your Writing on the Wall readers for success with their projects!

What's the Point?

by Annette Lyon

Yes, I know you love your characters and that they're real to you, but we don't need every single detail about their lives. After they get home from work, do we really need to have a 4-page scene with several of them sitting around discussing what they ate for dinner?

You'd be surprised at how often I come across that kind of thing in my freelance work: long, exhaustive scenes that serve no absolutely point (besides, maybe, as a substitute for Ambien). They may be well-written on the sentence level, but they accomplish nothing.

The entire section could be deleted, and from a story standpoint, you'd never know it.

As a writer, it's easy to inadvertently drop in useless scenes. Like I said, we love our characters. They're real, at least in our heads. And just about anything they do is interesting . . . to their creator.

But you've got an audience to keep entertained. That's why every scene needs to accomplish something. Preferably, more than one something.

Here are six potential goals for a scene:

1) Advance the plot.

This is one of the most important goals for a scene. If the story isn't moving forward, a reader is going to get bored. Keep the story moving, progressing, advancing.

2) Create or show conflict.

Tension is what propels the plot. Without conflict, you have no story. Conflict holds the reader's interest. Plus, it's what most of your story should be based on anyway, right?

3) Set the setting.

Few scenes should have this as a purpose exclusively, but it is a valid one. Often we need to see and experience where the characters are, especially in genre books where the location is just as important as the rest of the story, such as in historical, science fiction, and fantasy works. Just don't belabor the setting. Make sure something else is going on as well. Eight pages dwelling on the unusual sunsets, architecture, or clothing get old.

4) Reveal character.

Do this through actions, thoughts, and dialogue of your POV character as well as their interpretations of others' actions and dialogue. Use this one a lot.

5) Show back story.

I mention this one with a bit of trepidation, because too many writers go, "Yippee! My purpose is to show back story!" and then we end up with long sections of info dumps, making the story stall and the reader fall asleep. Show back story in snippets and with a purpose. Never halt the story and then go into a 5-page history of a character. BORING.

6) Lay groundwork for later plot.

At times, you'll need to set-up a location, event, or something else that'll show up again or be relevant later. Same goes for foreshadowing. Just don't get too carried away here. Make sure you keep things interesting.

As a general rule of thumb, try to make every single scene accomplish at least two of the six purposes. If a scene isn't doing at least one of the six, delete it. It's fluff, and you don't need the scene.

If it's doing one of the six, see if you can add another one or two to punch it up.

Another good idea is to aim for the vast majority of your scenes to have at least one the purposes be either #1 or #2 (advance the plot or create conflict). Then add another one, say character or setting.

Don't try to cram all six purposes into a single scene. That's overload, and readers like that just as much as they like fluff (they don't).

As you read over your work-in-progress, note your scenes and the why. You might not have written the scene with a why in mind, but you can go back to see if there is one now. If not, revise and put one in.

Bottom line, every scene needs one of two things:

1) A purpose

OR

2) The delete key.

I Love You . . . But You're Boring

By Julie Wright

It's a song, I Love You But You're Boring by The Beautiful South. Sometimes it's more than a song. Sometimes, it's your manuscript. Worse . . . sometimes it's mine.

So what happens when you wake up and realize you no longer love your manuscript? (well, I mean, you love it, but it's just so boring)

Do you try to figure out how to break up with it? Or do you muddle through and hope the relationship will improve with time?

I usually muddle through. Years ago, my grandma taught me that life is sweetest when you finish what you start. And by the time I get to the end and then go back through the book for edits, I can't seem to ever find that uninteresting, lacking-in-spark place where I'd fallen out of love. I know it was there, but much like a fight in real marriage, I can never seem to remember what it was about, or why it bothered me so much.

Other authors call this moment of disillusionment "The sagging middle." Usually this occurs when you've written out your original idea and come to a road block (or writer's block if it makes you feel more professional about your situation).

How do you get out of it?

-Move the plot forward.
So often we get caught up in writing the story, that we forget to write the story. If the scene you're writing isn't moving the plot forward in some way, or developing that character, you might not need that scene. And you might want to replace it with a scene that DOES move the plot forward and develops your characters.

-Build on conflicts.
Some authors get so panicked about the moment where they look at their manuscript and think, "Dude, that's boring." that they cut out the scene of conflict, assuming that it's the conflict that isn't working. But unless you're SURE the conflict is at fault, rather than cut it out, build on it. Make it stronger, deeper, scarier, richer. Put your characters in greater peril. Maybe put a traitor in their midst--something that will increase tension and conflict.

-Build your character
This ties into the other two but gets its own place on the list because this is important. You know how people are always saying garbage about trials and stress are character building? Well, don't punch them out just yet, because it's true. It's true in fiction too. By building the conflict and moving the plot forward, you force the character to act and react to the new situations. You force them to grow and make hard decisions. You build their character. People, even fictional people, with strong character are certainly NEVER boring.

So take my grandma's advice and finish what you start, even if that means muddling through something far removed from the honeymoon phase. It really is sweet to reach the finish line.

100 Followers, Conferences & Other Updates

Today we officially have 100 followers! Welcome to Writing on the Wall if you are new. As a quick introduction, we are a group of freelance editors who work under the umbrella of Precision Editing Group, LLC. What sets us apart from other editors? We're all published authors, so we know the writing journey inside and out. We also believe in mentoring, thus the beginning of this blog.

We don't have a Monday Mania submission today, so here are some updates.

We've started posting a few Writers Conferences on the sidebar. Obviously there are hundreds of conferences each year and we can't post them all. An excellent source is Writer's Digest. Also you can google writing chapters in your area.

Each year there is a free fantasy/sci fi writers conference in Provo, Utah, called LTUE (Life, the Universe and Everything). PEG editor Julie Wright, will be teaching a couple of workshops, as well as Lisa Mangum, editor for Shadow Mountain (which has put out NY Times Bestselling Authors), and Brandon Sanderson (NY Times Bestseller). There is an impressive line up this year. Conference dates: Feb 11-13, 2010. Check it out here.

Congrats to Josi Kilpack (PEG Editor), her newest book Devil's Food Cake comes out any day. We're happy to announce book releases for our blog followers. Just let us know!

Coming this Friday: An interview with award-winning writer, Kelli Stanley, author of the upcoming City of Dragons. She'll share her writing and publication journey of how she went from publishing her first book with a small press to landing a publishing contract with a major publisher.

Pronouns Hate Apostrophes

by Annette Lyon

I know, I know. This one is so easy to confuse, which is why I'm writing about it. I've gotten this question a few times, so I thought I'd address it.

Daniel's coat and Megan's shoes need apostrophes to show ownership. As a result, we're used to adding the little curly mark to tell people that the car's tire is flat or the cat's litter needs to be changed.

So it's SO easy to let the little squiggly bugger sneak in where it's not welcomed and where it doesn't belong: in a possessive pronoun.

In English, we have two pronouns in particular that tend to get an apostrophe shoved into them incorrectly on a a regular basis. It's so common that many people don't even realize it's incorrect. After all, Mrs. Smith's class gets an apostrophe. So does Mom's car.

When I'm taking the dog to the vet, why don't I say mutt is getting it's shots?

Or when someone drops a dirty sock on the floor, why isn't it correct to ask who's it is?

Because possessive pronouns don't take an apostrophe. They are special: they're already possessive. Adding an apostrophe makes it redundant.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The apostrophe turns the word into a contraction, giving the sentence a meaning you didn't intend.

Taking the sentences above:

The mutt is getting it's shots.

When a word has an apostrophe, it's usually a contraction of two other words, like do and not creating don't, or can and not making can't.

In the same way, IT'S comes from IT and IS.

So what you are actually saying is: The mutt is getting it is shots.

Come again?

The same thing applies to who's and whose.

Think of the apostrophe as a big, red flashing light that warns you:

This is a word that originally came from two words. It's NOT a pronoun.

Let's take the other commonly mistaken pronoun:

WHO'S is a contraction of WHO and IS.

Look at the sentence above, and you'll realize it doesn't make sense when you pull the contraction apart:

Who is sock is this?

Okay . . .

For me, an easy way to remember the rule is to focus on that apostrophe and imagine it elsewhere. Think of possible replacements. Could they fit? In other words, what other other possessive pronouns fit?

His

Her

Our

My

Their

Note how none of them have an apostrophe. But hey, let's try adding one:

Hi's

He'r

Ou'r

M'y

Thei'r

Um, no. That doesn't work. So ITS and WHOSE don't get the apostrophe either.

Not even when you're adding an S, such as, "Is this sweater yours?"

Still NO apostrophe. Same with OURS, THEIRS, HERS, etc.

Pronouns hate apostrophes. Say it to out loud. Say it again. And again, until it's ingrained in your mind.

Wash and repeat.

Top Ten Query Letter Mistakes

By Julie Wright

I went to lunch with one of my favorite authors last week, J. Scott Savage. Going to lunch with him is like being put on a battery charger. I always leave him feeling better about myself and the things I want to accomplish in my life. He made a comment that bears repeating:

If you succeed at everything you do, you probably aren't trying challenging enough things.

I concede the point, Mr. Savage. And this should feel like good news to those of us who are consistently tackling mountains. At least we know we aren't complacent.

Writer's Digest did a top ten list on query letter mistakes. I read through the list and got a few chuckles from it, wiped my brow in relief that I never have made any of those mistakes, and then wondered if they got the list right. While they are dead on with some of them, there were other mistakes that weren't mentioned that certainly deserve mentioning. So I made my own list. I borrowed a couple from theirs which I will note with a asterisk so you know where I blatantly plagiarized.

1. Beauty is only skin deep: you wrote your query but have a coffee cup stain on the paper, or you printed it out on paper that smells like day old soup. Or if you sent an e-query, your formatting gets lost on the way to the agent's computer and now looks like a jumbled mess, or your signature line has a cheesy picture of your cat in it. Remember the importance of first impressions. The moment they look at your query, you want their first impression to be good. You don't want them remembering you as the author whose query smells like soup.

2. Thy humble servant: I know it seems like it a good idea to confess your lack of experience but agents and editors don't want to know that you have no idea what you're doing even if you do think humility might win you brownie points. If you have no publishing credits, fine, but don't write things like, "This is my first book ever and though I don't have any publishing credits, I'm really hoping you'll give me a chance." Be confident. You wrote a book! You should feel accomplished.

3. Cut the cheese: I'm not talking about passing gas here, I'm talking about literally cutting the cheesy stuff out of your query letters. Don't spray your pink query letter paper with perfume. Refrain from cutesy statements, but let your personality shine. I know that seems contrary, but it is a balancing act and can be done successfully if you are careful not to put in too much information. Don't be chummy, don't be cutesy, don't be cheesy.

4. Say it isn't so: If you have a friend who's an author who might endorse your book, but who hasn't actually agreed to endorse your book, don't mention it in your query letter. If you are querying an agent and mention that an editor from some big publishing house has expressed an interest in the manuscript, you had better be telling the truth. The publishing industry is small and you'd be surprised at how everyone seems to know everyone else. Don't fib to make yourself look better.

5. Flattery will get you everywhere: It seems like a great idea to flatter, butter up, or schmooze an agent or editor, but there is a wrong and right way to go about connecting with the person you're writing to. Know their real names and their real genders. Don't assume an agent named Chris is a guy. Chris could be short for Christine. If you want to impress them, then prove you did your homework by knowing their name, their client list, the things they are specifically looking for right now. That is far more flattering than saying, "I think you are totally awesome and know we will be the very best of friends!" Editors and agents aren't looking for a BFF. They are looking for writers.

6. You aren't the only fish in the sea: Do not tell an agent that you have also queried twenty other agents. Don't send them snarky replies if they send you a rejection. Chances are good they know the twenty other agents and they will all go to lunch and swap horror stories. Be professional and respectful. These are real people with real memories--real long memories.

7. This is my first novel and it's 150,000 words: I know you feel pretty cool having written that much. And it IS cool that you wrote that much, but for a first time author, no publisher wants to commit resources to print that many words. Most adult commercial fiction is between 75,000 and 100,000, and YA is between 60,000 and 80,000words. Try hard to edit your manuscript down to fit into those parameters. It stinks to edit out words that you feel are brilliant, but far better to edit out a few so the rest can actually be read.

8. Typos: check, recheck, and check again. do not send off a query letter with a typo in it. It's only a page. It's imperative that this one page is completely clean. I know manuscripts will inevitably have a few typos, but it is your job to make the editor's job easier. Don't give them reasons to say no. *

9. This is Oprah's next favorite!: Don't tell the agent/editor that you are the next Twilight, Harry Potter, Oprah pick, or that you will definitely sell a million books because you are so brilliant. I said earlier to be confident, but that doesn't mean be cocky.

10. Boring: If you query letter is boring and reads like a third grade book report, then what is the agent/editor supposed to expect from your actual manuscript? Don't have one long paragraph for your story synopsis in the query letter, but break it up into three to four line paragraphs. That helps make it less daunting visually. And remember to keep it interesting. Think of what kind of book jacket blurb would attract you and compel you to make a book purchase. You want your query letter to hold that same sort of excitement.

The Anatomy of an Author

By Julie Wright

An author is defined as the person who originates or gives existence to anything. It is understood that typically, "anything" refers to a written work. Not always, but typically.

It's hard for people who aren't authors of written work to understand those of us who are. How can that happily married woman write steamy romances? How can that nice young man who is so helpful and thoughtful write about serial killers and sci fi monsters? How could she write about child abuse? How could he write about drug addictions?

And they assume that in some dark part of our lives as authors, we've lived these things personally. And some of us probably have.

I haven't. I make it all up. But I know there are a great many people who secretly believe I have had a baby out of wedlock and have given it up for adoption. They also believe I was abused as a child.

It's not true. My parents were (and are) incredible people. I've been spanked exactly once as a child and I deserved it. And though I threaten to put my kids up for adoption, I've never actually done it. But I was able to write about these things because I believe one of the things that makes artists who they are is their sense of curiosity. To create something from nothing, we must be able to view that something from all angles--to understand it completely. It means we have to be interested in things--all sorts of things--even if we have not experienced those things for ourselves. This is why Annette Lyon and Josi Kilpack have spent time researching books about murders and dead bodies, why Heather has researched the middle east and the different factions of political control there, and why I've researched abortions, adoptions, and sexually transmitted diseases.

We also have a sense of beauty--of the fantastic. We notice it, breathe it in, and let it alter us--if even for a moment.

While on my book tour with Josi Kilpack, we traveled through forests, deserts, rain storms, snow storms, and ocean side communities. It was beautiful. But we were very short on time between signings so there weren't a lot of stop-and-smell-the-roses opportunities offered to us. So I resigned myself to taking pictures out the window as we sped by.

So here we are--artists who are curious and so easily struck speechless by beauty and yet we're also a little egocentric, because we not only believe that people will WANT to read our work, we believe they will PAY for the opportunity. And we find that when we are rejected, or given a poor review, we become almost irreparably depressed.

What other profession out there is so emotionally exhausting?

So why do we do it?

The answer is found in the definition of who we are: An author is defined as the person who originates or gives existence to anything. We are creators and by so being must create.

So when your neighbors start avoiding you because they realize you write books about the inner workings of demons, or your family stops calling because you've been acting moody over a rejection, don't feel too bad. Because there is a group of us out there who understand you're still a nice, normal person.

We know you can be a nice person and still write about murder, or that you can be a loyal spouse and still write romances. We know this about you because you're an author, and all of this is simply the anatomy of an author.

The Mirror That is Our Writing

By Julie Wright

I eavesdrop. I've confessed this before, but I've been doing it a lot again lately so figured I was due for another confessional. I HAVE to eavesdrop when I'm working on a book because I have a problem I call speech reflection.

My writing is a direct reflection of my own language and speech patterns. I have to edit out a lot to change that, but first drafts are so transparently me. And so I resort to eavesdropping on other people's conversations to save myself from my own voice. If you listen to people--really listen, you'll find that no two people sound alike. Their word choices, their cadence and beat, their stutterings, ramblings, and hesitations all reflect on who they are. Like snowflakes, no two are alike.

In so many ways, my writing is like a mirror. It is a reflection on who I am even when I try hard for it not to be. My own persona sneaks into all the characters I write, whether they are the good guys or the evil guy. It's frustrating.

And in some ways, it's unavoidable. They tell us to write what we know and sometimes we just can't help but listen to them. But there are things we can do to find our own characters speech patterns and voices.

These are the things I try to do:

--Eavesdrop. You thought I was kidding, didn't you? No seriously--eavesdrop. Go and listen to other people's patterns of conversation.
--have a complete picture of what your character looks like. Some authors I know cut pictures out of magazines to identify their characters. This keeps them solidly in their head. If your character is always shifting in your mind on how they look, how can you pin down how they sound?
--remember your character's age. A two-year-old speaks differently from a ten-year-old, who will speak differently from a twenty-year-old. Don't forget to check the nuances of speech in different ages.
--know where your character comes from. New Englander who says "wicked?" Southerner who says "fixin?" Know their accents, and the vernacular of the culture they were raised in.
--take out phrases that anyone who's met you could pin point as something you'd say.

I have books in the past where the character sounds just like me and I cringe over it. But I've confessed the sin of speech reflection and am daily working on eradicating it from my writing life. So if you notice this in your own writing, feel free to go eavesdrop. People don't mind. They really don't. If they did, they wouldn't talk so loud.

2010: Looking Forward

by Heather Moore



I literally gained ten pounds writing my most recent book. It wasn’t really that I ate more chocolate (although that could be true), or ate more fast food to cut back on shopping or cooking time (although that might be true as well), but as I became so caught up in finishing the project, it seemed that every spare moment was be used in writing, not exercising.

This week, I managed to go running (30% running/ 70% walking) three times. This is a record since probably, oh, August. Because it’s freezing in my city, I dragged my 12 year old with me to the local rec center to run the track. Monday was quiet there, Tuesday was busier, and by Thursday it was packed.

As we maneuvered ourselves in and out of other eager runners, I told my daughter, “It will stay packed like this through January, then by the first week of February only a few will remain.”

Ah, the New Year’s Resolutions, and the initial burst of energy and determination that fades almost as quickly as it starts. I have seen this lately with many writer friends. Queries have been sent out in a flurry in November and December, many times unpolished. Rejections have already filtered in, and discouragement has set in. One of my friends, after four rejections in just a few weeks, completely gave up.

It’s hard to stay motivated and positive as we write and submit. We might spend a weekend researching agents and by Monday morning we have submitted to six or eight of them. But in a recent WD article, agent Ann Rittenberg says she receives 3,000 queries per year, and 75% are for novels. Of that, 90% are for first novels, meaning 2,000 queries are for first novels. Ann says that “80 percent of those query letters about first novels never should have been sent” (“Submitting Your Novel: Basics of a Solid 3-Paragraph Query,” Writer’s Digest, January 2010, 62). Ann also says that many of those queries are for types of books that she doesn’t represent, or it’s obvious that the writers “were not ready to be published and the books were not ready to be agented.” (ibid)

But what if we are ready? We’ve finished the book, gone through revisions with trusted editors, written a powerful query, and we are still receiving rejections? Do we stop going to the track? Stop running altogether?

Looking forward to 2010, my advice is:
1. Use rejections to improve your work. Slow down a little and put in the right effort to submit to the right agent. Researching agents and/or publishers will be worth your time.
2. Understand that the submitting process is a waiting game, which means that you need to have more than just one writing goal.
3. Stay open to ideas and options. There are many genres and avenues you can get published through.
4. Don’t just set "be all, end all" writing goals, but set back-up goals when you reach that left turn.
5. As we know, writing is not for the faint-hearted. It’s wonderful to create, but there will come a point when you feel as if you are slugging through the muddy marshes of revising.

James Michener said, “Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don’t want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don’t want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.” (as quoted in WD, Jan 2010, 46)

Will you still be “running” in February? I hope so!