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by Deren Hansen
With all the frustrations endemic to publishing, we generally do well to remember that it is a business and, whatever happens, we shouldn't take it personally. The form rejection your query received doesn't mean you're a bad person who should never be allowed to put pen to paper again. It only means that the agent wasn't compelled by your query.
But as with many things in the world that are more nuanced than black and white, there is another level at which you should take it personally.
Howard Yoon, in an interview at the Guide to Literary Agents blog, said:
Take everything personally. If you get rejected, take it personally. Do better. Find out ways to improve yourself so that you don’t get rejected again. Fix your cover letter or your proposal or your writing. Trash your concept and start over. Don’t blame the industry or the market or the system. Take it upon yourself to improve YOUR chances.
He also said: And when you get accepted, take it personally. Congratulate yourself. Treat yourself to a celebration. You earned it. You deserve it.
"But," you may ask, "isn't that completely contradictory? How can you both take rejection personally and not take it personally?"
Ah, herein lies another Zen riddle.
You must not take it personally in any debilitating sense: don't allow a rejection to make you query your worth as a writer--or a person. Don't let the agonizing lack of response dampen your dream.
At the same time, you must take it personally in a constructive sense. Don't comfort yourself with the thought that a rejection is evidence of an agent's lack of vision. Instead, take responsibility for the fact that your query didn't work and ask what you can do to make it better, or to do a better job of finding agents who are likely to be interested. Or perhaps your story isn't as compelling as it could be (or another might be more compelling). In the end, the only question that matters--and the only aspect of the process over which you have control--is the question, "What can you do?"
[And sometimes the answer--perhaps the most difficult answer--is, "stay the course and be more patient."]
by Deren Hansen
Annette Lyons discussed, "
The 2 Sides of a Good Writer" in a post at the
Writing on the Wall blog, and identified the writing versions of the
Hatfields and McCoys: the storytellers and the word smiths.
If we peel away the petty jealousy for those who collect royalties when we collect rejections, the complaint that someone broke the "rules" and still succeeded often comes down to storytellers and wordsmiths complaining about each other.
How often have you heard writers complain that a best-selling author tells a good story but is a terrible writer? How about critiques that someone writes beautiful prose but the story doesn't go anywhere?
You might say that storytelling vs.word smithing simply echos the distinction between commercial and literary fiction, where the former is all about the story and the latter is about how the story is told. But that observation only speaks to the stereotypes.
The deeper point is that storytelling and word smithing represent two fundamental approaches to the way we share narrative information. Storytelling is about selecting and presenting the best bits. Word smithing is about telling a bit well enough that it's interesting in its own right.
So, does this mean we have to choose sides?
Those of you who have been following for a while know that I don't like dichotomies unless they lead to a synthesis. The real answer is to make peace between the Hatfields and McCoys and strive for a good story, well told.
by Deren Hansen
I once heard
Julie Wright say,
"Don't beat yourself up. The publishing industry will do it for you."
Which, of course, reminded me of
Bob Dylan's, "Everybody Must Get Stoned," and my own comments about the
great chain of rejection that is the publishing industry.
But I think there's more to this than a lets-feel-good-about-ourselves moment.
To begin with, there's clearly a difference between self-criticism and beating oneself up. Where the latter is about grief spirals and pity parties, the former involves a realistic assessment of where you are and constructive plans to improve.
There will, naturally, be people who hate your work and loath you, often for reasons entirely beyond your control. But the number of unambiguous foes, who would gladly beat you up if given the chance, is dwarfed by the vast majority of people who inadvertently beat you up because they need an excuse to not pay attention to you.
You can understand this behavior in terms of the query problem. An agent who gets thousands of queries a year when they might realistically be able to take on one or two new clients doesn't open each query hoping it will be the one. They're looking for the quickest way to determine if it's something they can safely ignore. It's nothing personal. It's simply the most rational way to deal with an avalanche of material.
So beyond the simple psychology of a positive attitude, if you don't believe in yourself, who will? If you're not your own best advocate, who's going to do it for you?
by Deren Hansen
In the past, there was a clear line between traditional and vanity publishing because it was difficult and expensive to set oneself up as a publisher. Now that anyone can be a publisher, the electronic pioneers wonder if traditional publishers bring any value to the table.
It's a good question--and I don't have any answers. But I want to point out a structural truth that's getting muddled in the agony and ecstasy of the invasion of the e-readers.
We often talk of all the gatekeepers we have to get past in order to get published. I've even heard the phrase,"vetted by publishers"--as if publishers where somehow the guardians of all that is good and true. But our sloppy language contributes to our confusion about the role of publishers.
The problem is that we've confused gatekeeping with advocacy.
Advocacy is an important element in maintaining the social fabric. A too-evident self-interest triggers alarm signals in the
fairness centers of our monkey brains and we become deeply suspicious of the proposition. On the other hand, if a nominally disinterested party champions someone's cause we take that as an indication that the case has merit. That's why there are times when we need lawyers and agents.
The role of publishers, in
the market that is publishing, is advocacy through investment. Talk is cheap. Putting your money where your mouth is by investing a substantial sum in a book says something. Of course there's no direct correlation between the amount invested and the quality of the book. But if publishers are rational economic actors, a non-trivial investment implies an endorsement--perhaps it's worth our attention if the publisher was willing to contribute so much to the project.
The new world of frictionless, costless e-publishing changes the nature of advocacy. Some people have done well as self-publishers because they've cultivated a legion of on-line advocates. But that same lack of friction has attracted mindless hordes of content-farmers, with automated systems that spider the web for articles and spew random compilations as e-books, who can make a fortune even if people buy only a few copies of each book.
My point is that regardless of the form, whether traditional publishers or social media reputation networks, our structural need for advocates doesn't go away in the digital world.
by Deren Hansen
When authors tell the story of how they came to have books on the shelves in the bookstores, they often talk about how they "broke into" publishing. Perhaps that's why we don't laugh when people say that
publishing is like a high-security facility.
And because of
the way we tell stories (i.e., we skip the boring bits), it's easy to hear "breaking in" as synonymous with having "arrived."
What does it really mean to break in?
It might mean many things. The one thing it doesn't mean is that you've made it.
In terms of the market that we call publishing, it means that you're now a player.
At the most fundamental level, it simply means that someone is willing to make a non-trivial investment in your work.
- Getting an agent, for example, means that he or she is investing their time and energy because they believe they can land a contract for your book and get paid.
- Getting a contract means that the publisher is investing real money, both by financing your advance and through the cost they will bear, in your book.
- Getting readers who will buy your book means they are investing some money and, more importantly, time in your story.
Breaking in only means that you're invest-able. There are no guarantees, for any of the parties involved, that the investment will pay off.
As with many things in this delightfully perplexing industry, "making it" is really a euphemism for "starting a whole new game."
by Deren Hansen
It's both tempting and comforting to think of publishing as a system.
Systems, after all, have rules which, if followed, produce consistent results.
As aspiring authors, we study examples of things that worked, from pitches and queries to hooks and books, driven by the faith that if we can just figure out and follow the rules, we too will be published.
But publishing isn't a system.
First, there's no governing body to agree upon and enforce the rules. [Jane Friedman, a publishing industry veteran, has a blog called,
There are No Rules to make this very point.]
Second,it's not consistent. I've heard people wryly characterize publishing as a high-security facility and would-be authors as infiltrators. If an author breaks into the facility, there's a big celebration, and then the guards seal the breach and add extra security measures to make sure no one else can ever get in that way again. It's a bit cynical, but there's an important element of truth in that story: it's different for everyone.
So, if publishing isn't a system, what is it?
"I know this one," you say. "Publishing is a business."
That's a much better characterization, but it still falls short. "A business," implies organization, perhaps even a degree of centralization. The fact that the big six publishers are all located in in New York certainly looks like centralization. But publishing is more than New York (sorry, Big Apple), and is not well enough organized to call it, "a business."It is, in fact, many businesses.
The best characterization is that publishing is a market--not a commodities market (i.e., you can't replace writing with corn and have the same market), but a market just like the market for goods and services where you live.
Open markets are about the things being traded, but they're also about the relationships among buyers and sellers. Why do you patronize certain stores and not others? Likely because the people at the stores you like have done something for you, like remembering your name or giving you a discount.
In the context of a market, where customers can freely choose among vendors, following "the rules" doesn't guarantee that customers will buy from you. Will, for example, a restaurant that follows all the "rules" of good restaurants always succeed in a market where there are plenty of restaurants to choose from? The "rules" might be necessary for success, but they're not sufficient to ensure success.
Clearly, if you want to participate in the market, you have to offer competitive goods or services. The "rules" of writing help define what it takes to produce a competitive novel. But once you're in the market, the game changes to one of relationships. So stop wondering why no one has recognized the merit of your novel and get out and meet some people.
by Deren Hansen
I've heard a number of published authors say they had a major crisis of confidence when they started their second book. They're haunted by the fear that they had only the one book in them and will never again be able to produce anything as good.
Why are writers susceptible to such fears?
Putting on my amateur therapist goatee and breaking out the bubble pipe, we have not one but two potential pitfalls awaiting us when we finish a project. The first is psychological and the second structural. They're a nasty pair because they feed off of each other. If you're not careful, you'll find yourself immobilized.
The Psychological ProblemIn other professions, one can use a title only after a significant and demonstrable achievement. Lawyers have bar exams. Doctors have medical school, and internships, and residencies. Many other professions can't be practiced without a license. It's natural to assume that a published book is the writer's equivalent of professional certification.
Then there's the arduous process of turning ideas into prose, polishing the manuscript, and persevering through the publishing process, and you have every right to think that you've accomplished something significant. When you've done that, it's natural is to believe that you've learned something and are better at what you do.
The net effect is a tendency to believe that now you're good. You may have given yourself license to suck when you were starting out, but you're beyond that now, right? So you bang out the first few pages of the new project and ... they're not very good. And suddenly you have to question everything you assumed about your new identity.
The psychological trap is believing you've become something different than you were when you started your first project.
The Structural ProblemThe more fundamental mistake is to forget the process by which you created your first book--the multiple drafts, the rounds of revisions, the hours spent agonizing over a key word or phrase.
You'll only succeed in depressing yourself if you compare your new project to the book you just finished. A project that's only a month old will always look primitive compared to one you've revised and polished for a year or two.
If you must compare something, compare first drafts. Chances are you'll find that the first draft for your second project is better than your first draft for your first project.
So What Can You Do?Doctors, who have real credentials, practice medicine. Writers would do well to follow that example: we should see ourselves not as a someone who possesses some expertise but as someone who practices the art of refining words into stories through a patient process.
by Deren Hansen
As a musician, I have a problem.
It's my own fault, really. And it goes all the way back to those childhood practice sessions I either skipped or muddled through until I'd done my time.
You see, when I play, what the poor folks forced to listen hear is nothing like the music I think I'm playing.
It's like the illusion that the moon on the horizon is much bigger than the same moon riding high in the sky. You might swear that it really does look bigger on the horizon, but if you take a picture of the moon in each position (taking care, of course, to keep the camera settings the same) and measure its size, you won't find any significant difference.
Fortunately, there's help for people with my musical affliction. It's called audio software. With a composition package I can set down the notes and refine them until what comes out of the synthesizer matches the music in my head. While this doesn't guarantee that another person will have the same emotional reaction to the music, it does guarantee that my lack of technical proficiency no longer creates a gap between what I intend and what they actually hear.
We have a similar but more subtle problem as writers. In this day, when the vast majority of writing passes through computers, the legibility of our writing is rarely a problem. We take it for granted that most people will see the same words we put down on the page. If they see the same words, they should understand the same things when they read those words, right?
Meaning arises from interpreting the words and the ideas you associate with those words. What may seem like a perfectly innocent statement to one person could have offensive connotations for another. We say reading is subjective--that readers bring their own baggage to the story--without appreciating how deeply true it is. If you stop to think about it, it's a miracle that we understand each other as well as we do.
All of which is why we think (though most of us are too polite to say it) that our writing is better than most other peoples: we know what our words mean when we put them down. With another person's writing, all we have to go on are the words on the page.
One of the reasons we might call other people's writing bad is if we can make no sense or get nothing meaningful out of it. It doesn't matter what they intended the words to convey. It only matters what you get out of them. This is why, no matter how certain you are of your writing's perfection, you need editorial feedback--you need to hear how other people react to your words.
The music in your head may be astonishing and sublime, but no one will ever know it if they can't hear the same notes.
by Deren Hansen
I enjoy British sitcoms more than American ones.
There I said it. And I'm prepared to face accusations of a lack of patriotism or, worse, elitism.
Part of it is the cultural distance: it's easier to believe people across the pond are like the ones I see in the programs because I don't rub shoulders with many counter-examples. Cultural distance is, however, even more important on a structural level. The British programming with which I'm most familiar has come through the good offices of various PBS stations, who presumably have selected from among the best programs.
I also confess a weakness for the language. Between the accents and the slang, viewing British comedies is a more engaging experience because it requires effort on my part to follow along. Their writers seem to have a particular gift for articulate, literate, sarcasm.
But I think the most important reason is the format. Thanks to the commercial interruption, American sitcoms have two acts, where their British counterparts have only a single, longer act.
In addition to forcing the story into two acts, the American format requires the first act to end on a strong enough note to keep the viewer's interest during the commercials. Then the second act must bring down the tension in order to have enough runway to build to the climax of the story. In other words, the story has to have two high points: a false climax at the end of the first act and the narrative climax at the end of the second.
In contrast, British sitcoms can spend the entire half-hour developing the characters and building the narrative tension toward a natural (in the sense of having only one climax) resolution.
This is why there's some truth to the generalization that British comedies are driven by character, while American comedies are driven by caricature.
Of course my point here is not to argue for English superiority but to show how structure effects storytelling.
If you haven't seen any British sitcoms, you owe it to yourself as a writer to compare and contrast. It's an eye-opening exercise.
by Deren Hansen
Rebecca Talley recently offered helpful advice on creating backstory for your characters in a pair of posts at ldspublisher's blog. (See
part 1 and
part 2.) While character questionnaires might be a good place to start, Rebecca encouraged us to dig deeper.
She suggested we consider:
- Narratives about major events in your character's life.
- Interviews with your character.
- Lists of events that affected your characters.
- A web or mind-map connecting your character with events, people, feelings, etc.
- A collage of representative images with notes about their significance to your character.
As I thought about her suggestions, I had an epiphany: backstory is story.
Think about how you understand yourself. When you're getting acquainted with someone (and they with you), do you give them a resume that lists your accomplishments? Resumes may be useful in a job interview but that's not how we interact with people and, more importantly, that's not how we think about ourselves. Once we get past the small talk, we start trading stories about ourselves.
Ask yourself:
- What stories do your characters tell about themselves when they meet people?
- How do they tell those stories?
- What stories do your characters choose not to tell about themselves when they meet people?
- Are there situations in which they would tell the stories they usually avoid?
- What stories do your characters tell themselves about themselves?
Action reveals character. The stories they choose to tell and the way in which they tell them speaks volumes. If you haven't nailed the voice, ask your character to introduce themselves to you. More generally, don't ask how your character would react, ask how they did react.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
How long should you keep pursuing a project?
When does tenacity cease to be a virtue?
How do you know when to set one project aside and invest your energy in something fresh?
During the
2011 WriteOnCon, agents on one panel mentioned projects they'd shopped for years (as in four or five) before finally making a sale.
That surprised me. My impression from comments by writers and agents is that they generally shop a project for a year or so and then, in the interest of maximizing return on effort (or because they've exhausted their list of potential editors), move on to something else. But even with a labor of love, the author needs to move on to other projects to give the agent new material to submit while continuing to shop the the first project.
Then again, I've heard a number of people characterize publishing as basically a game of persistence: if you keep showing up, you'll eventually get a turn. But no one ever specifies the kind of persistence that pays off. Do you refine and polish your master work--there are a fair number of classics that were decades in the making--or do you persist in producing new projects until you find that one that resonates?
The common answer is that it depends on you and your situation.
The common answer is neither comforting nor helpful.
If you were a rational economic actor, you would watch for the point at which the opportunity costs of not doing something else approach the sunk costs already invested in the project. Or, in colloquial terms, you'd stop when you realize you're throwing good money (or effort) after bad.
I once read about a couple who had adopted a rule of three for major expenditures. If one or both of them thought they should buy something they'd postpone the decision to see if they still thought it was a good idea. They would do this at least twice on the theory that if the idea came up three times then it probably was something they should buy.
My advice, if you're wondering whether to hold or fold a project, is similar (and not unlike the advice to let a draft cool before undertaking revisions): set the project aside for a season. If it's easy to forget, then it's time to be done. If it won't let you go, then you shouldn't let it go either.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Two weeks ago the thirtieth incarnation of
Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE), the BYU symposium on science fiction that has morphed into the largest (and least expensive) writing conference in Utah, convened. This year the conference was held at UVU to handle the crowd.
I always find conferences like this a bit frustrating at the structural level: at best you can only participate in about a third of what's going on. But what they don't mention in the brochure is that there's as much going on in the dealers’ room and in the halls and lobbies as in the sessions proper.
This year I had to officially give up trying to attend every session that sounded interesting because I participated as a presenter.
I learned several things from being the one at the front of the room:
- There are a surprisingly large number of people who don't simply tolerate but actually have an appetite for abstraction at 9:00 am.
- No green room is large enough when Larry Correia and Robert Defendi are holding forth on military history.
- Hydration is critical if you have to speak for more than a few minutes
- There are an awful lot of professional writers within the orbit of the Wasatch front (LTUE 30 had nearly 150 guest, panelists, and presenters)
- There are even more people who have the constitution and stamina to be pleasant on the third day of a conference that runs at least three sessions for twelve hours a day—with no meal breaks.
- Brandon Sanderson is a Martian.
I suppose that last bullet point requires a bit more explanation.
First, let me state, for the record, that Brandon is charming person—generous and gracious with fans and aspiring writers alike. In our few interactions, he's been the very model of how a writer should behave in public. If you've never seen Brandon at a signing or on a panel, you should go simply to learn from the way he handles himself in public.
Brandon was one of the people I hoped to meet at LTUE 30. Other than the excellent panel with Tracy Hickman, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Brandon, I never saw him at the conference—which wasn't a surpirse: Brandon is a busy man. Brandon's Writing Excuses partners, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinett Kowal are also busy people (something I confirmed in brief conversations with Howard and Mary).
But as with the Tango, where it takes two, part of the reason I missed Brandon is because I was busy, too.
Largely because Brandon is practically a Utah county neighbor, I anticipated that we might someday strike up a professional relationship. At one signing, for example, I joked that I was there as part of a cunning plan to score a guest spot on his podcast in two years.
What I realized during the conference is that I'd made the same mistake as the owner of a local franchise who thinks he should pal around with the CEO of a major corporation because they both run a business.
Brandon and I currently have non-intersecting orbits. He already has his slate full of professional relationships. So do I.
During one of the battles of the Civil War, a subordinate rode up to General Grant, gave his report, and then asked if the general was worried about what the confederate general might do. "No," replied General Grant, "I'm worried about what I'm going to do."
I'll bet you didn't expect the second best piece of networking advice to come from the Civil War.
The corollary to last week’s post sharing the best networking advice ever is that the way
by Deren Hansen
How many of us wouldn't jump at the chance to be a professional writer?
How would it be to spend our days wrapped in a comfy smoking jacket, pipe in hand, dispensing pearls of prose to eager readers?
Oh, wait, that's the fantasy writer (not the writer of fantasies). You know better.
You know that professional writers work hard at writing, revising one book, drafting another, and outlining a third all at the same time. You know that professional writers work constantly at promotion in every venue, both real and virtual, they can find.
You know all that, and you think you're up to the job.
But do you know how many of your private prerogatives you'll have to give up?
One of the things you must give up as a professional writer is your public opinions. That's not to say you don't have opinions, simply that you're no longer at liberty to share.
Why?
Because professionals must work with everyone.
The mantra of the consultant is,
I'm a professional.
I don't have problems.
I don't cause problems.
I solve your problems.
As a professional, you don't have the luxury of not liking someone, particularly in an industry as small as publishing where there's a real chance you might have to work with them at some point in the future.
In a panel on professional comportment at
LTUE,
Tracy Hickman said, "There's only thing you can be sure of: you never know who you're talking to, so treat everybody as important."
In the same panel
Howard Tayler reminded us of the 2010
Dr. Who Christmas episode where the doctor, in response to someone who says another character isn't important, replies, "How fascinating. I've never met anyone who isn't important."
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Sandra Tayler, speaking at the 2011
Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE) conference, addressed the perennial question of finding balance. She said you can balance your life by paying attention (as in at least 10 minutes a day) to the five things that are most important to you.
I've amplified Sandra's five things to illustrate the technique.
Source of InspirationThe word inspire comes from Latin root that mean, "to breath into." Many creation stories have God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Amorphous Essence of the Universe breathing life into creation.
What is it that breaths life into your writing, your work, and your very existence?
What fills you with joy in being?
Whatever it may be, take time each day to reconnect with your source of inspiration.
Important RelationshipsFor good or ill, humans are social animals. Much of our sense of who we are is a function of those with whom we are close. Put another way, much of what we do is motivated by the people with whom we have the most important relationships. Some have pursued their art at the expense of those relationships and wound up with no one to share it with when they won the prize.
Take time each day to acknowledge and nurture your important relationships. Not only will you have more support right now, you'll likely have someone to appreciate it when you succeed.
Health and WelfareAs Count Rugen, in the
Princess Bride, says, "
If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything."
Take time to take care of yourself.
WritingIf you are serious about writing it should have a high priority. While writing every day is an important habit, the point here is that you ought to do something related to writing each day to keep in touch with your passion.
"Something only I care about."Sherry Wachter, writing on
The Blood Red Pencil, talked about the importance of
a room of one's own. That is, how having a project of your own makes it easier to compromise when you're working on someone else's project. Taking time each day to do something only you care about is essential if you don't want to lose track of yourself amid all the demands placed upon you.
Balance = The Things that MatterYou can think of this as the plate-spinner approach to personal balance. Like the performer who runs back and forth spinning up the plates that are slowing down, taking time each day to at least touch the five most important things in your life will go a long way to helping you find balance.
And don't think of it as balancing your life. The job of balancing an entire life is overwhelming. Sandra Tayler said, "Balance the day and the year will take care of itself."
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Agent Jessica Faust offered
excellent advice on responding to revision requests from agents.
She wrote her post after @agentgame tweeted, "I've gotten back revisions on an overly fast turnaround that damaged the book rather than making it better."
Jessica says she understands why authors might be anxious to respond quickly (e.g., fear she'll lose interest or hope to appear responsive), but cautions:
"getting it back to me quickly isn’t going to do you a damn bit of good if what you send back is in even worse shape than the first version. If you think it had to be perfect before, now it has to be even better than perfect. There aren’t many second chances in life. When you get one, use it wisely."
I found the second of her suggestions for handling a revision request particularly illuminating:
"Remember that revisions to a submission are only just the tip of the iceberg. Revision letters to my clients can be pages and pages long. I’m not going to spend that time on a submission. Therefore, you have to carefully read between the lines. Look at what I’m saying and then beyond that, and fix it all."
I encourage you to read the entire post.
In the spirit of using second chances well, there's another reason not to rush your response to a request for revisions.
We advise writers to let some time pass between completing a draft and diving into revisions so that they can approach their work with fresh eyes.
There's a similar dynamic with readers: over time the specifics of a story fade into a general impression. The agent who asks for a revision clearly wants to see the project again. Why squander the opportunity to have them take a second look at it with fresh eyes?
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
I recently suggested that
Genre is no more or less complicated than identifying your audience. Put another way, genre is a crude, pre-Internet way of approximating, "customers who liked this also liked these others."
The problem of categorization doesn't go away in the coming e-book utopia where we won't be limited by traditional bookstore shelving constraints. In fact, the always-on world of digital media multiplies the opportunities (or demands) to know what other books your is like.
So, how can you confidently determine the genre of the book without reading every other genre? The good folk at
Book Country have produced an
interactive genre map. (The example here is only an image.) Click on a genre to see a list of representative books.
One of the ways to use the map is as a guide for your reading. Once you've chosen which of the five general genre feels most like home, go through the sub-genres and make sure you've read at least one book in each list.
Still not sure where your book belongs because it's a thrilling romantic mystery set in a future where a technological society battles medievaloid magic users? Try the exhaustive, pair-wise comparison exercise: for each pair of genres, if you can only choose one, which genre best characterizes your book. Then tally up the winner for each pair. The genre with the highest score is your primary genre.
I should point out that the genres in this map are for adult fiction. Young Adult and Middle Grade books can be classified in similar terms, but were, until recently, all shelved together. Barnes & Noble now has different shelves for YA genres like paranormal. In other words, while genre boundaries aren't quite as strictly drawn in children's literature, you can't ignore the question.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Motivational business rhetoric is full of old saws like, "if you can't measure it, you can't improve it." While true in straightforward situations, like how many widgets per hour come off an assembly line, as we stray from the well-ordered fields of the purely quantitative realm into the qualitative wild lands, metrics become more nebulous--and in some cases do more harm than good.
So, in full knowledge of their debatable benefits, let's look at some of the text metric tools you can use to improve your understanding of your manuscript.
Word count is the most important metric for queries.
Microsoft Word 2010 has a running word count in the status bar. With earlier versions,
File|Info (Alt-F, I) brings up the
Document Properties dialog where you can view the
Statistics tab. (The same dialog is available in Word 2010 via
File|Info|Properties|Advanced Properties.)
OpenOffice/LibreOffice has a
Word Count item in the
Tools menu.
Metrics are most useful for comparison. You can use the tools at
Renaissance Learning to look up the word counts of published books like yours to see if your manuscript is in the right ball park.
There are a number of other web-based tools like the
word frequency and
phrase frequency counters at
writewords.org.
The good folks at
UsingEnglish.com have an advanced text analyzer for members in the
Tools area. They offer everything from overall readability to word and phrase frequency.* It's a rich resource geared toward educators. There is no charge to register and by doing so you can store and compare up to twenty texts.
Textalyser.net is a simpler site that offers a similar set of metrics and doesn't require registration.
And if that's not enough, you can have the
Gender Genie predict the gender of the author implied by your text.
While none of these tools will guarantee publication, it's worth your while to see what insights you can glean. At very least, run some representative chapters through the tools that show word and phrase frequency and see if you have a problem with pet words.
One final caution: while it's highly unlikely that anyone will appropriate your manuscript if you enter it in one of the web-based tools, there's no need to analyze more than a few chapters to get a good sense of what's going on with your text.
* UsingEnglish lists the following features for their advanced text analyzer: "General Statistics, Readability Ststistics, Word Analysis (Distribution, Length, Frequency, Word Cloud, Hard Words), Phrase Analysis, Lexicon Analysis, and Graded Text Analysis."Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
I started playing with computers when green screen, character-mode displays were state-of-the art (I preferred amber over green, but that's another story). Then the original Macintosh (yes, that's what they were before they became hip enough to afford a three-letter name), splashed onto the scene with a full-time graphical user interface (GUI).
A few years later, folks from the English department at the University of Delaware published a study in which they argued that the quality of freshman papers written on a Macintosh was lower than those written on PC-class computers with character-mode displays. Oh, the papers produced on Macs looked better with well-laid-out text and proportional fonts, but (so the authors of the study claimed) the content of those papers was less well-thought-out than the papers composed without graphical blandishments.* They suggested that this was because the students tended to believe that their papers were good (and more importantly finished) because they looked good.
The study and its claims were controversial. But I think there was a kernel of truth in the observation that there's value in a writing system that gets out from between you and your words: that removes even the little distractions like formatting.
Of course, now that we all use graphical interfaces the point may seem moot or at best hopelessly retro. Perhaps, but there are several applications for various platforms that give you a full screen with nothing there but your words in a console font.
I use a package called
WriteMonkey on my Windows systems.
Having an editor in which I can focus entirely on my words helps me use my limited writing time well.
You can, of course, achieve a similar effect with the
Full Screen mode in your standard word processor. Perhaps it's the retro angle, but I enjoy the Matrix-like way in which the black background fades away and the glowing words float in prose-space.
Of course, life is never as simple as it should be and
WriteMonkey has its drawbacks, most of which come back to the fact that it is a
text editor, not a word processor. This means that you get plain double quotes instead of the nice opening and closing quotes that Word supplies as you type. Also, Write Monkey doesn't convert a pair of dashes into an em-dash (again, like Word).
I turned this liability into a feature: after writing about a chapter with
WriteMonkey, I import the text into Word and use the fact that I need to correct the quotes and em-dashes as an excuse to edit the new material.
For those of you who prefer Macs, I understand that
Writeroom provides similar functionality. There's also
JDarkRoom, which is written in Java and should run on your platform of choice.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Since the advent of personal computers, one of the perennial issues is backups. Elsa Neal at
The Blood-Red Pencil, for example, discusses some
quick and easy techniques for backing up your work, among which her favorite is to email your files to another account.
Backup is one of the few areas where more really is better, both in terms of frequency and techniques. As Elsa mentions, you can back up to another folder on your hard drive, to an external hard drive, to a thumb drive, to a shared location on a local network, and to a web service. If you want a more permanent record, back up to write-once media like CD/DVD ROM. The best practice is to use several different devices and methods instead of relying on a single kind of backup.
So far, so good. There's nothing revolutionary here. It's good advice that we'll likely honor more in the breach than the observance.
But all of that was simply to pave the way to telling you about a web service with which I'm quite taken called
DropBox.
You see, I have a problem. I like to write on several different computers. I've dealt with this problem by using a thumb drive to move files among the various computers. That works well when I'm in the middle of drafting a manuscript and have only a few files to manage. But it becomes burdensome when I'm working with a larger number of files.
Enter
DropBox. It's a folder that stays synchronized across a set of computers and a password-protected web service. Change a file on one system and you'll find the new version of the file ready for you on the second system.
DropBox is primarily a synchronization service, not a strict backup. It does offer a 30-day history of file changes, but it won't help if you need to keep older versions of the files for the long term. That said, if you chronically fail to keep your resolution to backup your work, DropBox is a good way to guarantee you have the latest copy of your files in more than one place.
Oh, and best of all, DropBox is free for the first 2 GB.
Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
In an early episode of
The Appendix, a writing podcast,
Robison Wells, Sarah Eden, and Marion Jensen discussed choosing a genre.
Marion Jensen said, "When you pick a genre, you've got to pick something that you like. It's kind of like picking a career."
That's right, writers. No pressure. Just like the end of high school when well-meaning people like guidance counselors and parents say, "Now that you've spent your life listening to us tell you what to do, it's time for you to make a decision, oh and by the way, this decision will have life-long consequences."
Choosing the genre in which you'll write is a critical decision only if you succeed.
Why?
Because with each book you publish you create precedents and build expectations among your growing circle of readers. It's not that you can never try anything different, but imagine the hue and cry if J. K. Rowling decided she wanted to write gritty detective stories full of graphic sex and violence.
The advice about picking a genre is better understood in terms of setting up shop someplace where you're comfortable because you could be spending a lot of time there.
One of the reasons this seems like a big deal is because genre is to kind as veal is to beef. This is another in a long series of cases where we have two words in English with the same meaning, but the Latinate, or more specifically French, version sounds more sophisticated.
Repeat after me, "Genre means kind." It's nothing more or less complicated than deciding what kind of books your book ought to be shelved or grouped with.
And why does that matter?
Because you're hoping to take advantage of recommendation engines, whether human or automatic, that will suggest someone might like your book if they liked something similar.
Put another way, in terms of
publishing being a market, genre is shorthand for your audience.
That's why you must decide on your genre: you must
know your audience and their expectations.
Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Claiming that your book will stand out from the rest because no one publishes good books any more is one of the first things agents mention when asked to list elements of queries that mark you as an amateur.
I don't know about you, but I have a twinge of guilt each time I read a list like that because, try as I might, I can't exorcise the opinion that my book is better than most others.
Now before you rush to get your torches and pitch forks, let me explain the epiphany I had as to why this heretical opinion is both true and false.
TrueAs a writer, you have to believe that your book will be better than most other books in its neck of the publishing woods, otherwise you can't justify the effort it takes to write and polish long-form fiction. If you believe that others are producing better books than you ever could, why torture yourself when you could enjoy their offerings?
"Wait," you say, rising up in righteous indignation born from proper writerly humility, "there are masters whose inkwell I'm not worthy to refill."
The problem here is the word, "better," because it implies a single comparative dimension when novels can be good in many different ways. The "better" you have to believe in as a writer is that you have something to
add to the conversation in terms of both the story you want to tell and the unique way in which you can tell it.
FalseBut, as a writer, you also have to understand that you're writing for an audience--a paying audience--and that their opinions and tastes are all that matters when it's time for money to change hands.
So, how do you know what your audience wants?
Short of conducting your own interviews and surveys, the best thing to do is forget about "good" and "bad" and pay attention to the books that people are actually buying.
Which brings us full circle: the problem with claiming your book will stand out is that you're saying you know better than the market and everyone, including the agent you've queried, involved with it.
Truce?What can you do to keep your head from exploding?
Believe in your secret heart that your book will be better as you write. And if you've mastered showing instead of telling, your readers will discover how truly superior your manuscript is for themselves. Remember, it's a secret that just might be true if you never tell it.
Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
Authors often wince when they come to understand just how much they need to promote their work. I confess to being in that camp, particularly when it sounds like we're expected to go out and convince people to read our books.
That's why I was quite taken with Kevin Smokler (co-founder and CEO of
BookTour.com) and his idea that promotion is fundamentally an expression of
gratitude. In that vein, I want to thank Nick James, who blogs at
The Spectacle and posted the following
"I think the word “promotion” sends a shiver down many people’s backs. At its worst, it connotes a situation where an author is more or less trying to shove a product down readers’ throats. Very few people want to feel like salesmen. And not everybody is skilled in that area. That’s why Kevin’s definition struck me so strongly.
"Promotion, he says, is primarily “an opportunity to meet people who are interested in your book and thank them for their interest.” Or, more succinctly, it’s “an expression of gratitude and graciousness.” [source]
On Nick's recommendation, I listened to all of
Dan Blank's interview with Kevin Smokler at
We Grow Media. I recommend you do the same. Kevin has a number of interesting things to say about the changing role of the author in book promotion and about the industry in general.
I'm going to add the phrase, "Promotion is an opportunity to meet people who are interested in your book and thank them for their interest," to my list of mantras.
Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.
by Deren Hansen
On of the ideas I picked up from a biography of the Buddha is the
Zen notion of the monkey brain. The first image of a monkey brain that springs to mind is likely that of a frenzied simian bouncing around the cage of desires in which Buddhists would say we are trapped. There's clearly good writing advice to be mined from this image about creating a writing space, whether virtual or actual, where one can be free from distractions.
But I found another, intriguing association with the phrase, "monkey brain."
I came across a study that showed
brown capuchin monkeys have a strong sense of fairness. The monkeys were trained to trade pebbles with researchers for food, usually pieces of cucumber but sometimes grapes. If pairs of monkeys made the trade and one of them got a better deal (i.e., grapes), the other would throw a fit.
Does this sound familiar?
What if I replace, "monkey," with, "writer," and, "researcher," with, "publisher?"
More familiar now?
This isn't a rehash of my advice to, "
keep your eyes on your own test," though the points are related. No, this is about your basic expectations.
The fact of the matter is that the business of publishing is grossly unfair.
Your options are to throw a fit and go sulk in the far corner of your cage, or to transcend your monkey brain--particularly the part that keeps oh-so-careful track of how fair the situation is--and keep writing.
Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.
In My Mailbox is a weekly feature hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. Here, we post books that we have bought, borrowed, or received.BORROWED
BOUGHT
by Deren Hansen
In geometry, you need two points to define a line, and a minimum of three points to have a trend. I sensed a trend when I came across theses three pieces of advice about queries in the course of a single day:
Holly Root, of the Waxman Literary Agency offers the following
advice on what matters in query:
"Write the best book you can, then the best query you can. Submit written materials to agents. The worst they can say is no so don’t worry about fine-tuning that to the nanometer, just look for the right ballpark (i.e., alive, still in the business). Then press send."
Michael Bourret had a similar post titled,
Queries: It's not about the details And then Nathan Bransford (formerly of Curtis Brown) chimed in with
Get the Big Stuff Right:
"I was thinking I'd discuss how if you just familiarize yourself with agent blogs and use your best judgment and act in good faith and send the best query you can you're going to be fine and there's no need to sweat the tiny details."
Nathan goes on to say,
"It is about the details in the sense that we are actually making a decision based on a short letter and maybe some sample pages and so of course it's about the details."
Here's his list of things to sweat:
- "Overall look - Around the right length, a reasonable font, 10 or 12 point font, broken into reasonable paragraphs, no fiddling with margins, pictures, indenting, colors, etc. Just a clean, professional-looking letter. Don't sweat if it's a little long or a little short, and definitely do not start messing around to try and make it look creative or different. When it comes to letters, "creative" tends to look "insane." It's like showing up to a job interview in a clown costume. When you're formatting your query: wear a boring suit."
- "The description of your work. Get. This. Right. Get it right. Get it right, get it right, get it right. Get it right. Sweat this. This is what we care about. We're looking for a good story idea and good writing, and you want both to jump out in the query.
- Annnnd, we're done!
One of the things that sets us apart as novelists is our ability not to lose sight of the big picture. We may agonize over a word or phrase, but we (the ideal we) keep in mind the role of those words in the scene and the role of the scene in the larger story.
In a similar vein, we need the ability to see the bigger picture on the business and marketing side of the endeavour. (Or we need an agent to do that job.) I suspect that one of the subtle differences between a pro and a wanabe is that pros don't lose sight of the forest and obsess about a particular tree.
Deren blogs daily at The Laws of Making.
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My favorite art breaks rules. That's true of books as much as other art forms. Now, sometimes the breaches are just something less than great writing. Sometimes the rules aren't really rules at all. Other times, the rule breaking is a writer going big.
Plus, there's plenty of room in the literary world, like there is in other art forms, for works that are purely meant to entertain. I read both literary classics and more plot-driven entertainment, and enjoy both. I prefer well-written books with great stories and aim for that middle when I write, but there's room in my life for books all along the (mostly imaginary) spectrum.
When I see this debate I quote my favorite movie Pirates of the Caribbean when Barbossa says, "First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner."
And that sums up writing rules.