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I spent the weekend with Simon and Schuster editor Alexandra Penfold and one of her authors, Laura Schaefer.  Laura’s latest book, The Teashop Girls, is out and fabulous!  I reviewed it for Dane County Parent and will post that soon.

Alexandra Penfold and Laura Schaefer

The best part of any conference or workshop is reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.  We had a small group of 23 smart and knowledgeable writers, many who are already published.  I learned just as much from them as I did the presenters, which is a testament to our enormously talented chapter.  Wisconsin Writers Rock!

 Thelma Godin and Sara Akin

 Michael Kress-Russick and Zach Loveland

 Sharon Addy and Kate Heling

The weekend started with Alexandra having us spend some time on a character study.  Not necessarily your main character, it could be any character. You know the drill - describe your character, where s/he lives, their family situation, friends, fears, goals.  We all know great novels start with a great character. 

What’s interesting about character studies is that most of what you discover won’t end up on the printed page.  But, the secrets you uncover will add a depth to your characters emotional development that will resonate throughout your novel.  It’s vitally important that your reader care about your character.  Otherwise, they might not keep reading. 

Some of Alexandra’s questions I had never thought of before:

·       Who is your character’s best friend?  Why are they friends?  (It was the second part of this that I found very intriguing.)

·       If your character got $20 for their birthday, what would they do with the money? 

·       What is your character’s most memorable experience?  Why?

At all times you should be thinking, how would your character feel about this, react to that?  Stay true to your character.  I was excited about what I discovered and immediately started jotting notes about what I could add to flesh out my mc. 

We did a meaty first pages session (actually about a page and a half). 

 
First Pages Session
 

You can really learn a lot from this exercise, but you have to pay attention.  It’s not something that uses a step-by-step instruction manual.  I love hearing everyone’s beginnings and then thinking about ways to make them even better.  I’m taking those ideas and applying them to my own manuscript, and not just the first page but to every scene.

It’s difficult to summarize this exercise except to say it gets you thinking like an editor.  Did you find the mc’s voice appealing?  Did it hold your interest?  Was the language and word choice engaging and appropriate for the character?  Did the opening scene have enough description?  Dialogue?  Did it pull the reader in?  First pages are tough!  Maybe that’s why we revise them over and over and over . . .  or is that just me?  J

One more note about first pages, or more accurately your first scene.  Oftentimes it’s hard to know where to start a novel.  TIP:  begin on the day when things are different.

Chapter endings are important, too.  One way to end is on a hook.  Something so suspenseful the reader can’t possibly put the book down and compels them to turn the page.  Sometimes a chapter should end for emphasis, like putting a period or exclamation point on what just happened.

Revising an entire novel can be overwhelming.  Take your time and really think about the revisions you want to make.  Work on developing one character at a time.  Add suspense or conflict in a different round, plot development in another.  This makes it more manageable.

Alexandra and Laura took us through the many revisions of TSG’s first chapter.  They shared Alexandra’s editorial revision letters to Laura and we even got to hear Laura’s agent’s pitch to Alexandra.  A good behind-the-scenes look at everything.

      
Alexandra and Laura                                      Alexandra Penfold          Laura Schaefer

Laura also gave us a dialogue exercise.  Shhhh, I’m secretly admitting that I worked on revising my first scene instead.  Laura, if you’re reading this, sorry!  But, but, but, I had some ideas from first pages and I just had to get started!

In my current round of revisions, I’m switching from third person to first.  It turns out that Laura also went through this revision with TSG, so I’m in good company!  I like the way I can get into my character’s head in first person and it’s working much better for this particular novel.  Though, I sure wish I would have realized that from the beginning!  *sigh*  Live and learn.  J

An aside:  a question came up about using song lyrics.  It’s very expensive – around $1,000 per line.  Yikes!  You have to go through the music publisher to get the rights, not the artist.  But, titles aren’t copyrighted, so you can use those.  Good to know!

On Sunday we discussed grass-roots marketing.  Long gone are the days when an author can sit back after getting published and shout, “Yes!  I have arrived!”

Alexandra has a marketing degree and started out in publicity.  She had a lot of good ideas.  Workshop participants also added their ideas and strategies.  Did I mention how brilliant our Wisconsin writers are?  Some marketing and publicity ideas:

·       Get a website!  Have excerpts, reviews, activities, teacher’s guides, discussion questions, interview your characters and have them answer questions.  Kids love this!

·       Blog, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr - Web presence is a must.

·       Vistaprint.com is an online printer and a great place to order business cards, postcards, bookmarks, etc.

·       Do a book trailer.  Post it on Youtube.

·       The publisher’s publicity department should put together a press release and contact bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble to set up signings.

·       You should contact your local newspapers, news channels, schools, magazines, clubs and organizations, librarians, book reviewers.

Laura does all of this.  Wow!  Both Alexandra and Laura are open and super friendly.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with them, especially since Alexandra bought several different kinds of Michael’s Frozen Custard and shared them with us.  J 

Happy Writing!

Judy


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Alexandra Penfold, RA Pam Beres, ARA Judy Bryan (Moi) and Laura Schaefer



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