How to use this Page

Kelly and JJ kick off NaNoWriMo month! This week they talk about how to find an idea to write into a novel, and some tips about how to start writing.

What a Gchat conversation between Kelly and JJ looks like.

JJ had to draw this, of course.

Show Notes

It’s all JJ, all the time this week!

• How to Find the Right Idea to Turn into a Book
• How Do I Come up with An Idea?
• Perspiration vs. Inspiration, Or What I Learned from a Month of Inktober

Some Tips and Tricks

1. Keep a journal to write down scraps of ideas, or Story Seeds
   • Character
   • Premise
   • Plot
   • Match any of the Story Seeds together for a novel–need at least 2 to start writing
2. If Story Seeds aren’t coming:
   • Write a list of your favourite books
   • Identify which tropes are contained within them (visit TV Tropes as needed)
   • Divide the tropes into Character, Premise, and Plot
   • Pick 2, see if it sparks anything and start writing
3. Start telling yourself the story—DON’T START WRITING YET—write a “long, shitty synopsis”
4. Figure out the inflection/turning points of the first act
   • Inciting Incident: the thing that changes the status quo
   • The Point of No Return: the moment the protagonist takes action and becomes personally involved
5. START WRITING

Troubleshooting

• Describe your character using three adjectives, without describing their sex/gender, ethnicity, looks, or profession/occupation.
• Specificity helps. BE SPECIFIC.

Books Discussed

• Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
• Second Sight by Cheryl Klein
• Ash by Malinda Lo
• The Martian by Andy Weir
• The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
• Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson (and please read this review of the book by Debbie Reese, who is a librarian and Native American)
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer
• Enhanced e-editions of Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
• The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Off-Menu Recommendations

• The Great British Baking Show
• Crimson Peak
  • The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• The Babadook
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Black Swan
• Single White Female
• Saw

That’s all for this week! Next week we’ll have another pep talk for you, plus answering your questions! Comment with any questions you have for us about writing, drafting, motivation, etc. or send us as ask through Tumblr.

Stephanie: It’s the beginning of November, which means NaNoWriMo has just begun!

I love the idea of NaNo. I love that it’s a race to write fast, and one that everyone can win. So instead of competing, people are rooting for one another. A wide array of authors give inspirational pep talks. Strangers write together in coffee shops. Friendships are formed as people participate in group writing sprints.

NaNo is fun! And I think this is a key reason why it is so enduring. I don’t know about all of you, but whenever I’m feeling particularly stuck, uninspired, or that everything I’m writing is really garbage-y, I think it’s because I’ve forgotten to have fun with it. And I believe it’s nearly impossible to write a story others will love if you’re not feeling any love as you write.

So Stacey and I have put together a list of, Seven Ways To Bring The Fun Back Into Your Writing:

1. Fall in love with words again.

Stephanie: When I was younger, being the super-cool kid that I was, I sat in my room a lot and read my thesaurus. I loved discovering new words. I’d highlight the ones that sounded most interesting then write little stories around them. Sadly, my teachers often informed me I was actually using many of these words incorrectly—but that’s another story.

The point of this story is, I made an effort to uncover new words as if they were treasures to be found. I’m not sure when I stopped (probably around the time I started making friends), but lately I’ve started hunting for words again, and listing all the lovely words that I’d been neglecting. It inspires me—like finding the perfect party dress and deciding to throw a party because of it. Now it’s even easier to re-discover words with awesome sites like thesaurus.com.

Some of my most recent favorites include:

Arsenic, Rancor, Lurid, Insidious, Velveteen, Ephemeral

I’m also a big fan of McGraw-Hill’s Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions.

This book also has a thematic index. For example, if you’re searching for a term to use in place of liquor store, you’d find: candy store, comfort station, filling station, guzzelry, happy shop, headache department, headache house, juice house, leeky store, LIQ, oasis, thirst-aid station.

2. Commandeer your setting.

Stacey: Stand up, and wiggle your shoulders. Roll out your neck. Now make fists and pump them toward the heavens and say, “I am Master of my domain!”

Now sit back down and examine the world you’ve created. How can you make it better? Don’t settle for what’s ordinary, or expected because when we do that, we put readers (and ourselves) to sleep. Make it more vivid, more memorable. How? By not just adding a crooked door to the cottage, but creating an emotional connection between the crooked door and your character. Maybe every time your character sees the door, she remembers how her dad kicked it down when her mom locked him out. Or maybe the door is always threatening to fall. You can create a lot of layers, and have even more fun with your writing, by commandeering your setting.

3. Let Your Imagination Leap Out Windows.

Stephanie: A couple weeks ago a former student of mine sent me this lovely quote:

Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; if the door wasn’t opened to it, it jumped out the window. –Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

When I read this I pictured a bored woman jumping out of a window. But I believe the author is really saying that writers should shrug off anything confining them and take bold daring risks that will bring them to frightening and dangerous places. This goes beyond breaking rules. It’s simple to say, “I don’t care  about what everyone says, I’m going to start my book with my character waking up.” But mining deep within yourself, to find a subject that will not only force your reader to see some facet of the world through a different lens but stretch you as a writer, that is something else entirely. This might not be ‘fun,’ but it’s definitely exciting.

4. Find Reasons To Celebrate:

Stacey: I think sometimes we’re running so fast, we forget to stop at the rehydrating stations. Celebrations are one of the ways we can rehydrate, along with eating and sleeping and laughing. I book a spa appointment every time I turn a draft in on time—my own private pat on the back for making my deadline. And speaking of celebrations, Stephanie and I are preparing a celebration for our one-year anniversary on Tumblr because it’s basically an excuse to be merry and giveaway an awesome stash of books.

5. Pick a Theme Song

Stephanie: I know a lot of people do playlists, which are also awesome, but playlists usually encompass a variety of emotions. A theme song should be your anchor to one distinct feeling, which you are excited about threading throughout your entire novel.

For the first book I wrote, Hoppípolla by Sigur Rós was my theme song. It was whimsical and beautiful, and it made me think of make-believe things come to life. Whenever I felt as if my writing was stale, I would put that song on and it reminded me of what I was attempting to achieve.

6. Get into a good story.

Stacey: Nothing helps me rediscover the joy of writing like reading a good book, watching an awesome film or play. When I’ve reached a roadblock, sometimes just reading the words of others inspires me to go back and kick some roadblock bootie. Great stories I’ve experienced recently:

• Phantom of the Opera musical (made me want to write a tragic love story!)
• The movie The Martian (plotting brilliance)
• Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton (the evil scheming ballerinas!)

 7. Participate in NaNoWriMo.

We know the month has already started, but it’s not too late to join in the fun.

Now it’s your turn! We’d love to hear any tips you have that might help put the fun back into writing!

A while back, author Malinda Lo tweeted a story where she came across a woman who told her that she deliberately left her character’s race ambiguous so the reader could decide. Malinda’s response was that the woman should define her character’s race clearly.

@malindalo I think what white people don't understand is that whiteness is not a race; it is erasure of ethnicity. It's the absence of race.

— JJ (@sjaejones) September 3, 2015

Bear with me here. I’ll explain my comment to Malinda in a bit.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’ve actually broached this topic a few times, particularly when it comes to describing a character physically. I’ve been fairly adamant about wanting to know straight away if a character isn’t white, although some people take umbrage with that.

Needing to know a character’s race or ethnicity “right up-front” with “irrefutable textual evidence of a character’s not-whiteness” smacks of prejudice. Why would anyone assume that every character is white unless she is told otherwise?

Look. Being identified as non-white is not prejudicial…unless you have a problem with non-whiteness. There is theoretically is no value judgment on being black, Korean, biracial, or gay. Theoretically. Being ethnically non-white is a fact; facts don’t have value judgment. We, as humans, assign value judgments to neutral facts.

Author Linda Sue Park wrote in a comment in a discussion with the Cooperative Children’s Book Center about the concept of a race neutral character.

I am not black, but as a nonwhite I can attest that my race is an everyday issue. For Asians such as myself, it has negative ramifications far less often than for blacks in daily U.S. life, but not a day passes that I do not confront the question in some form. This is perhaps the single most difficult aspect for those of the majority complexion to understand: There may be moments or even hours when my Asianness is not at the surface of my thoughts, but NEVER a whole day, much less weeks or months.

She also very succinctly why people—even and especially non-white readers—read “white as default” in her blog post here.

I want to deconstruct the idea of whiteness a bit.¹ “White” isn’t a race; it’s a cultural construct. Caucasian is given as the racial designation, but not all Caucasians are “white”. For example, the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa are Caucasian…but they are not considered “white”. Neither, for that matter, were the Irish or the Italians at the turn of the early 20th century. Slowly, as these cultures became more assimilated to the “mainstream”, they became white.

This is what I meant when I said to Malinda that “white” is the absence of race. “White” erases all traces of Other. When people talk to me about living in a “post-racial” society, I have to focus all my efforts into not rolling my eyes so hard they fall out of my head. White people might live in a post-racial society; the rest of us do not. We cannot.

My dad is white. My mother is not. Because she is not, I am not. Because my features are more hers than my father’s, the world sees me as Asian. This is not something I ever “forget” or don’t think about.

My partner is also multiracial. His father is Goan-Indian, his mother is white. He is white-passing. Because his features are more his mother’s than his father’s, the world sees him as white. He has to constantly “prove” he is not.²

I describe myself as Asian. But white people don’t generally describe themselves as white; they have the privilege of not having to think about it. That’s why I will always, always read a character as white until told explicitly otherwise, and why I will never be able to see me in a racially “neutral” character.

Because white is the absence of color.

Hey all, Hannah here! Last week, I spoke in depth about how to summarize your novel for a query. The month before, I gave some tips on little ways to take yours to the next level. Today, I’m going to go into a bit more depth about some of the larger mistakes I often see that might give agents a reason to reject a query.

This is a hard truth: many agents receive hundreds of queries a week, and yours will, someday, be among them. When an agent reads so many queries every day (if they are lucky enough to find the time among all of their other responsibilities), it sometimes becomes easier to find reasons to reject a query, rather than reasons not to.

The number biggest reason a query gets rejected, aside from simply not fitting an agent’s list or tastes? A query that betrays poor to no research. So without further ado, here are some mistakes I regularly see that tell me a querier has jumped the gun.

Mistake: Telling instead of showing.

Yes, this is true in queries as well as fiction. Every so often I’ll see a query that has a very short summary, often even more like a logline, detailing the very broad plot points of the story, followed by many paragraphs explaining character motivation and themes.

For example:

When a girl and a boy are thrust into an emotional situation, they are forced to confront the realities of friendship and go on a search for the meaning of life.

I wanted to write this book because the themes of lost love and identity speak to me, and, as someone who has experienced a terrible breakup, I felt I was the best person to tell this story. Michelle and Tony are best friends but I wanted to drive an emotional wedge between them in the form of a third love interest.

Etc.

This tendency comes from not knowing how to summarize your story. Rather than over-explaining to the point of confusion, the story is under-explained to the point of being too broad. Anyone who still doubts their ability to summarize their novel well should check out last week’s post for guidance. Because an agent should be able to tell quite clearly from the stakes you outline in the summary what your character’s motivations are.

Mistake: Explaining this is the first book you’ve written/that it’s recently completed OR calling this your debut/yourself a debut writer

This is a mistake because it highlights you as possibly inexperienced whether you are or want to be framed that way. It isn’t pertinent information – it changes nothing about your story, how you summarize your story, or anything within your bio. The only thing it does is tell me that there’s a possibility you haven’t done your research.

There is no need to point out if this is your first book or your fiftieth. Let the work speak for itself.

Mistake: Confusing “personalizing your query” for “restating the submission page on the website”

This actually a very easy mistake to make. We often see advice that suggests personalizing a query by telling the agent why you chose him or her. This shows the agent that you didn’t just mass email your query – you took time and put thought into who you contacted.

But what I often see instead of “I noticed quirky, adventurous middle grade on your #MSWL, and felt my manuscript fit the bill”, is: “I went to your website and saw that you are looking for thrillers and upmarket fiction and romance and that you enjoy working with new authors. Therefore I am emailing you.”

Here’s the thing: the agent knows what’s on the website. Don’t waste valuable query space repeating it. That space should be for you and your story. And if you don’t have something more specific to personalize with, that’s okay! If you chose the agent based on what the website says he or she wants, just start with your hook and go from there.

Mistake: Naming more than three characters.

A long, confusing summary often gets that way when too many characters are named in a query. The moment you name a character is the moment you tell a reader that character is important. Perhaps you have more than one main character – maybe you have five, or seven! It doesn’t matter. Pick your most important character, the one whose struggle your book is ultimately about, and focus your query on him or her. After that, only name those who absolutely must be named in relation to the summary. If you can help it, try not to name more than three characters. The person reading your query will (hopefully) be far less confused.

One of the things I struggled with when querying was exactly this problem – knowing who to name and who to leave out. But trust me: it can be done.

Mistake: Using bad comp titles.

This one is actually really hard to get right, in my opinion, and if you aren’t entirely certain, just don’t use them. Do they help? Only if they’re spot on.

Using books that are huge sellers/extremely well-loved is generally a no-no. Why? Because comparing yourself to J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins or Stephen King goes back to the haughty or poorly researched issue. It’s much safer to use titles that do/have done well enough and are known, but not so huge that you look arrogant or ignorant of other good books. It’s also generally best to use something more current – more than a couple years old and they begin to lose relevance.

See? Told you it was tough.

Another question I sometimes get: can a querier use TV shows or films as comp titles? The answer is…yes and no. Tread lightly here. I wouldn’t use more than one TV/film comp title, and if you do, it’s often helpful to balance it with a book title. Lots of agents feel differently in this category – some hate when queriers use TV/film titles, and some really like it. If you aren’t sure, do your research. Check out an agent’s twitter, interviews they have done, etc. If there are no answers to be found and you aren’t 110% certain of the titles you’ve chosen? Skip them. This is another area where it’s best to err on the side of caution.

It’s true that there are writers who make mistakes like these and still get agents. All of publishing is subjective – what bothers one agent may not bother another. The format one agent loves, another might hate. But being informed and well-researched shows in a query, no matter who you’re querying. And that is far more valuable than you realize.

Once again, I hope this has been useful. Good luck to everyone in their querying endeavors!

Hey guys! Hannah here. Last month, I posted some tips on little ways to take your query out of the blah zone. JJ and Kelly also posted an awesome podcast on the query process.

When giving query advice, a lot of us take for granted that you’ll know what we mean when we tell you a query must have a short synopsis of your story. We also take for granted that you’ll figure out how to do this in 300 words or fewer. I’d like to talk a bit more about what goes into creating a good, cohesive summary that will entice an agent to read more in just a few paragraphs.

You’ve probably seen a lot of advice that tells you a good query is comprised of a hook followed by a summary of your story, ending with a bio and a few sentences on why you chose the agent you are querying. Structurally, this is sound. But when you have a sprawling epic with many perspectives, or even a quietly complex contemporary, it can be tough to know how best to distill your story into a summary that makes sense.

What I usually see in the slush is this: a summary that goes over many of the big points in the plot but rushes through due to lack of page space and direction. The agent reading might miss key plot points, or have no idea what that made-up word is. Maybe the summary began too deep into the story, and the agent is confused by the list of events. These questions are distracting for a query reader, and can bring them out of a query quick.

So how do you summarize your novel and do it well? We have a tendency to think we must somehow shove the entire plot into this tiny space. But that isn’t actually the case. The best summaries (even the sprawling, epic ones) contain these: your inciting incident, your main conflict, the plan, and the stakes.

Before we get into the summary, let’s talk about the hook. There are two reasons why your hook is so important. Number one: It’s the hook! Okay, that one is obvious. It’s designed to give agents a peak into your character that entices them into reading more. Number two: if done well, it should help you cut huge swaths of fluff from your summary.

A good hook tells us about the character and the conflict in one go. I’m taking this example of a hook from Erin Bowman’s post Querying: The Do’s and Don’ts (thanks, Erin!), to show you what I mean:

Gray Weathersby is counting down the days until his eighteenth birthday with dread, for in the primitive and isolated town of Claysoot, a boy’s eighteenth is marked not by celebration, but by  his disappearance.

We know who the main character is, we know something personal about him when the book opens, and we know what his conflict is going to be. I’m intrigued to keep reading.

Next: What is an inciting incident? This is that moment when the status quo is no more, and the character is forced to take action. This is a step I often see skipped in queries, resulting in a strangely disjointed summary.

Figure out what the inciting moment is for your character, and tell us about it. For example, a precious jewel is stolen from a museum—this is the catalyst for the Private Eye to enter the picture and solve the mystery. Or, your protagonists loses her job and instead of applying elsewhere, chooses to fulfill a dream and travel the world. Tell me about the moment when everything your character thought she knew is turned on its head.

Now that your character has been called to action, tell us what needs to be accomplished. This is where you flesh out your conflict. We don’t need each and every detail; just enough to show us what the protagonist must overcome. The P.I. must now solve the mystery of the stolen diamond—but a nefarious gang will stop at nothing, including murder, to prevent it from happening. And, the more the P.I. digs, the more he unearths about a political conspiracy (give some detail on that conspiracy) attached to the diamond theft. The World Traveler has all of her money stolen in a foreign country. The hostel where she was staying burns down with all of her worldly possessions. Maybe she, too, stumbles into a political conflict she knows nothing about.

So what are your characters going to do about it? They have decisions to make. These decisions are informed by the stakes. For a lowly P.I., getting in the middle of a nefarious gang AND a political conspiracy might not be worth it. So tell me why he gets involved anyway. Is he blackmailed? Does he have a personal tie to a person or plan within the gang or the conspiracy? Tell us why he MUST solve the murder, and what is at stake for him if he doesn’t. For the World Traveler who has lost everything, tell us how she plans to get home, what she must sacrifice to do it, and what happens if she fails. Is her father dying back home? Is her sister getting married? Is her house set for demolition? Why is it important for her to overcome this conflict?

A note on fantasy: it’s very tempting to try and give all the backstory about the world, its magical systems, its government, or its religion. These are things you’ve worked hard on – your story is not the same without these elements. But if character IS story (and it is), then the most important thing is to make us understand your character’s struggle at the most basic level. Leave the made-up words and the complicated hierarchies out of the query.

When you look at the summary in this way, you can see that even sprawling epics can be broken down into short summaries. These components make up the heart of the story, and that’s what an agent wants to see in a query.

I hope this has been useful! If anyone is interested in a Part Three, let me know below!

Hi all! Stephanie here, with my good buddy and fellow pub-crawler, Stacey Lee! Today we are talking TITLES.

Stephanie: If you’re a writer, chances are you’ve had to come up with a title. And if you’re a writer with an agent or editor, chances are, at some point, you have either been asked to change your title, or you will be asked this in the future. And, like so many other facets of writing, changing a title is far easier said than done.

Stacey: All three of my books have had title changes. The original titles weren’t bad, but they didn’t make it through the gauntlet of tests set forth by the publisher. The name must be memorable and evocative, there cannot be any similar competing titles, it can’t be trendy, it must be a title that sales and marketing can rally behind, etc. At the time of writing this, I am pressing a headache bag to my head because of the pain involved with brainstorming titles.

Stephanie: So, we have come up with a list of nifty tips that will hopefully make this potentially painful process much easier, and hopefully fun!

Stacey & Stephanie’s Tips on How To Create an Awesome Title

1. Look through your MS and see if there are any words or phrases that stand out.

Stacey: Even better, have a friend go through it for you. After reading your manuscript two thousand times, a pair of objective eyes may be able to see something you can’t. This is how Under a Painted Sky got its title. (Shout out to fellow writer Virginia Boecker for finding it for me!)

2. Create a Word List For Your Book.

Stephanie: I always start with words that reflect my genre. I felt this was especially important for when I was querying, because I wanted agents to immediately know what genre what my book was.

For example, if you are writing a space opera, start with nouns like Galaxy, Universe, Moon, Planet, Stars, Comet. Then move onto adjectives that reflect the feel of your book, Twisted, Warped, Broken, Fractured, Hopeless, Insidious. See how these brief lists show that this is going to be a dark space book?

During this phase no words should be off limits, although it’s a good idea to take a trip to your bookstore (or scroll through lists of upcoming books on Goodreads) to see if there are any overused words. You don’t want your title to go unnoticed because it sounds too familiar.

For speculative writers, there’s an interesting post on Tor.com about the most commonly used words in fantasy and sci-fi books.

3. Look at poetry. Revisit Shakespeare.

Stacey: For Outrun the Moon, this is exactly what I did. Poetry lends itself to beautiful titles; you will find unique and evocative ways of expressing things and words you never thought of using. Start with a symbol or theme in your book. For Outrun The Moon, I Googled words like ‘survival,’ ‘earthquake,’ ‘catastrophe,’ and ‘earth,’ together with the word ‘poem.’ Also, there’s the side benefit of getting to read poetry (admittedly, not all of good), which apparently makes you smarter. I reread Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and forgot what a cool poem it is.

4. Write down a series of brief (or not so brief) sentences that you feel encompass your novel/an aspect of your novel.

Stephanie: One of my favorite titles is The Day the Crayons Quit. Not only is it clever and fun, it tells you exactly what this picture book is about. This book could have just been called Crayons—it’s an easy to remember title, and there are pros to short titles (short titles are easy to tweet), but there can also be benefits to coming up with a longer sentence.

And even if you don’t use any of these sentences, the great thing about this step is that it can reveal fresh new ways to approach your title. Most books are about more than one thing. Think of your major plot points, characters, and themes, then write a short sentence for each one. For this step, don’t start by focusing on word choice, think more about the message each line conveys, then go back and substitute any overused words for more evocative choices.

5. Play the Title Game.

This is where our good old friends the index cards come in. You also may want a sharpie, because everything is easier to read when written in sharpie (we especially like ones with pretty colors).

Now, remember the list we had you write for number two? Pull it out. Write every word on it’s own index card. Once you’re done, make sure there are an equal number of adjectives and nouns, then separate them into two groups. Now make a list of conjunctions and propositions. If you haven’t included any verbs, toss in some of those too—and make sure to keep these piles of words separate from your nouns and adjectives.

Once you’re done, randomly deal out your index cards. We usually start by pulling out an adjective and noun. Then toss in a word or two from my other piles and see what happens. The key to making this work is keeping it random so that every time you deal out the cards new, fresh titles are generated.

When you finish it should look something like the picture below.

In case you couldn’t tell, these titles are for an unwritten book about killer clowns from outer space

6. Be Ready To Let Go.

Stacey: Sometimes, even after you think you’ve come up with the perfect, evocative, watertight title, it still may not fly. A book is collaboration; you’re trying to put out a great story in the best ‘package’ possible, and that may mean letting some things go.

7. Now That You’re Done, Don’t Forget to Google Your Title.

Also, make sure to look it up on Goodreads, Amazon, and IMDB. Books are listed on Goodreads before they are listed on Amazon, so it’s always good to make sure that your fancy new title is not the same title Suzanne Collin’s or John Green has chosen for their next book. It’s also a good idea to check out IMDB, in case your book is ever optioned for film.

Those are top title tips! Now we’d love to hear from you. What advice can you share when coming up with a title?

Hi All! It’s Julie!

I’m currently in drafting mode, working on the sequel to my debut, IVORY AND BONE. I’m definitely a planner (as opposed to a pantser,) and I’m working from an *extensive* outline. But even the most thoroughly planned novel doesn’t always flow onto the page without a hitch. (Okay, let’s be realistic. No novel flows onto the page without a hitch!) Often, when I’m struggling to translate a scene I’ve held in my mind into prose on the page, and it’s just… lying there, devoid of life… I’ll discover that the problem is a lack of stakes. Either nothing’s at risk, or there’s a lot at risk, but no one really cares. I have found that if I fix the stakes, I can often fix the scene.

You’ve probably heard that, to keep your reader’s attention, you need to keep raising the stakes. This is sound advice, but it’s also pretty vague. What does it mean to keep raising the stakes? Should you start with dismally low stakes so you have somewhere to go? If you start with life-and-death stakes, do you have to end with save-the-world stakes?

Both of these assumptions seem reasonable if you only look at the superficial meaning of the adage to “keep raising the stakes.” Higher mountains! Bigger guns! I wish it were that simple, but I’ve learned by trial and error that there’s a lot more to it than that. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

There is always something important at stake, even at the opening of the story.

One of my favorite stories to use as an example is the original Star Wars, both because IT’S SO GOOD and because most people are familiar with it (because IT’S SO GOOD!) In that story, Luke learns about some high stakes that are at play when he sees the holographic message from the princess. “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” implies some very high stakes, especially when the call for help has been hidden on a droid by a desperate prisoner of a ruthless empire. And yet, in response to that original plea, Luke Skywalker says No. The stakes are high, but not to him. Instead, the stakes that matter to Luke—the higher stakes in his world—are the needs of his family on the farm. But as soon as that family is taken from him by that same empire, he is ready to fight.

So the stakes for Luke at the opening of the story may seem small in the grand scheme of things—“help the family,” does not have the same magnitude as “rescue the princess.” Except it does to Luke, because it’s his own family at stake.

So don’t start with dismally low stakes, because no one wants to read about things that don’t matter. But you can start with stakes that matter intensely and fiercely, but on a smaller scale.

Here’s another example. At the opening of The Wizard of Oz, the stakes for Dorothy are that she must protect Toto. The life of a dog may seem like smaller stakes compared to some of the challenges Dorothy will face later in the story, but not to Dorothy at that moment. When Dorothy runs away from home to protect Toto, the stakes are very high for her. They will get higher—and in a lot of ways, they will get wider and broader—but she will never get away from her need to protect her dog.

Which leads me to…

No matter how big the stakes become—even when they grow to save-the-world level in size—the stakes need to stay focused on something “small” for the reader to care.

Let’s look at Star Wars again. When we meet Han Solo, his motives are all self-serving. He needs to save his own skin. Granted, these are life-and-death stakes—they are significant—but he’s not striving to save the galaxy from the evil empire. But later, after he’s achieved his goal and gotten his reward, he comes back into battle and helps to—quite literally—save the world (err… galaxy.) But he doesn’t do this because the stakes have escalated and he’s been sucked in by the bigger, world-saving stakes. He does it because of the smaller stakes—the need to save his friends. Specifically, when he returns he acts to save one life—Luke’s. The stakes have both grown and shrunk, but it’s the smaller stakes that make Han act.

Han even jokes at the end that he couldn’t leave and let the others get all the credit and all the reward! This joke works because those things really were at stake in the scene—someone will get the credit for destroying the Death Star—but we know these stakes didn’t play a part in what happened. Credit and reward once motivated Han, but they no longer do.

Which leads me to my final lesson learned about stakes…

Stakes are always going to depend on what matters most to your character.

Luke’s family, Dorothy’s dog, Han Solo’s friends. You can tell the most fascinating story with life-and-death, save-the-world stakes, but if the reader doesn’t feel that something matters to your character, she won’t care about your story.

I’ve learned this in a very hands-on way, by re-writing a scene over and over, frustrated by a lack of energy or excitement on the page. I’ve added more danger—higher heights to fall from, sharper blades to dodge. I’ve learned that a fight, no matter how fierce, is dull and boring if we don’t feel the weight of the thing the character is fighting for.

So yes—the adage to raise the stakes is a good one. This is what a writer should do. But it only works when the reader understands what matters. Then raise the stakes by putting that thing that matters at greater and greater risk.

The Wizard of Oz starts out with Dorothy trying to save her dog. Then the story raises the stakes. We are introduced to more characters and situations that matter to Dorothy, and those things—along with her dog—are put at greater and greater risk. In the end, she’s still trying to save Toto—plus a whole lot more—from a much more dangerous situation. And we care, because it all matters to Dorothy.

How do you feel about stakes? Do you find them to be a tricky part of writing? Do you have any methods or techniques to share? Please join the discussion in the comments!

Guys. Queries are hard. This is an undisputed fact of the agent-acquiring process. These days a lot of agents ask for the first 5-30 pages of your manuscript when you query, because it’s so much easier to tell if a story is good by reading, well, the actual story. But the query is the hook—the bait that gets the agent past that first page and into your story.

I read queries on the daily. A lot of them. As a literary assistant, it’s one of my many responsibilities. I need to be able to tell, just from that one page, if your book is something the agent and I will want to read. I need to see just how I would pitch it to an editor. And I need to see that you know your stuff. Have you done your research? Or did you scribble off a quick note and hit SEND ALL?

The queries that stand out are either very good, or very bad. But there are a lot of queries that get stuck in the middle—that strange wasteland of almost-there, but just not quite. Chances are, a lot of you are in that boat. Most of us, even those who have agents, have written blah query letters. And I know PubCrawlers are smart. You have done your research, much of it on this very website. I don’t need to tell you not to send attachments, or not to write your bio in the third person. I don’t need to tell you not to call your manuscript a future bestseller, the most unique piece of fiction ever written, a story that will apply to all of the audiences that ever existed!

So I’m not going to talk about the basics. You guys KNOW the basics. I’m going to talk about those little things that maybe don’t seem problematic at first glance. But fixing these can go a long way toward helping the viability of your query overall

1. Don’t start your letter with all the details about how you came to write this book.

Writing is exciting. How you came to be a writer is exciting. The fact that it’s your first, or second, or millionth novel ever is exciting. But they are most exciting to you—in a query, these things clog up your first paragraph and waste valuable space. Before he or she has ever met you or read your work, an agent doesn’t care how you got started writing. As much as it matters to you (and it does matter!), it’s best to leave it out. It will not change how he or she feels about your story.

2. Be careful creating “atmosphere” before launching into your hook.

It can feel gimmicky. Unless your setting is basically a character itself, it’s best to stay away from this method. For example:

Castle Pelimere is deep and dark, inhabited by angry spirits and on the verge of certain doom. For a hundred years it has stood, and now, thanks to the Everlasting Nothing that has circled its walls for centuries, it is all about to come crashing down.

Jody Brody is a teenage pickpocket with no other skills and no other prospects. When Castle Pelimere needs a hero, Jody steps up to the plate.

I know, I know—this is a very obvious example. But it serves the point—character is story, and when I’m scanning through queries, I’m more interested in Jody Brody the pickpocket than the plight of Castle Pelimere.

3. Don’t relate two unrelated ideas in your hook.

You would be shocked how often I see this. Shocked, I tell you. An example:

Marty Schmarty is not your typical jock—he’s been taking ballet since before he could walk, and he’s better than half the girls in his class. But when he’s offered a football scholarship to his dream school, he learns what it really means to be part of a team.

Again, another extreme example. But writing a good hook is a huge part of the battle when it comes to queries. A good hook can make me perk up and pay attention. In this case, the writer has written something that “sounds hooky” and “adds character”. It makes me pay attention—then has no pay-off. Marty’s a pro at ballet, and this is set up as a key quality—then is not mentioned again.

4. Be confident…to a point.

There is nothing wrong with being proud of the story you wrote. It takes a huge amount of confidence to query a book (we’re all writers here, we can admit this). But it’s not up to you to decide whether your writing is of the same caliber as authors you have emulated or been inspired by, or if it’s beautifully lyrical or powerful and gritty—that is for your readers, and that includes any agents you are querying, to decide.

5. Be wary of the false choice.

Technically, a false choice refers to a situation where two choices are given as the only possible option—even though more choices may be viable. In this case, I’m using to describe it as a situation given in a query, wherein a character has what appear to be two choices—but only one of those choices is actually viable. Still with me?

Okay, so you’ve laid out your hook, given a short synopsis, and now it’s time to present the dramatic question. Your character must do x or y. But when you present a false choice, it becomes clear right away which path your character will and must choose. At first glance, it isn’t always clear you’ve presented a false choice. For example:

Jake must choose between saving the woman he loves from the mob and escaping to the Bahamas, or turning himself in and confessing to his crimes, even if it means her death.

Maybe turning himself in might be the right thing to do, but unless this is a morality play, the choice here is not actually black and white. When questions like this are presented at the end of a query, I can’t help but roll my eyes—I know what Jake is going to do. He’s going to choose the Bahamas. And if he doesn’t, then you need to do a fantastic job of setting up the why within your query. Again, the above is extreme example, but I encourage you to take a look at the stakes in your own query and find out whether what you’ve presented is a real dilemma, or a false choice. I want the questions you present to make me go, “MUST READ AND FIND OUT THE ANSWER!”

So the gist of these suggestions comes out to: Make me want to read your book. Seriously, give me no other option. You wrote a whole book. You know how to put words together on a page—this is just a different kind of writing. One that forces you to think about how to condense what you’ve written, and lay it out in a way that is tight and enticing. I promise you—it is doable. It’s hard, it’s often confusing, and sometimes it can take multiple drafts to get right. But it can be done!

I hope this is useful, and I wish everyone who is currently writing their query, Good Luck!