Wednesday 27 August 2008

Writer's Market and GLA

"Radio, play my favorite song..."
-The Smashing Pumpkins, I of the Mourning

I'm taking the day off blogging, more or less, in an attempt to try and get through as much of my remaining summer research as possible.

...but I did find this interesting post at the Guide to Literary Agents blog that describes a bit of how that book and Writer's Market are put together. If you're not familiar with these books, they're great tools when you're looking for representation or a place to sell a short story. I've spent hours in front of various copies of them with a highlighter picking out where I was going to submit to.

Anyway, long story short it's interesting to get a glimpse of how they put those books together...and I'm becoming more and more convinced of the wisdom of subscribing to their online database when the time comes for me to start submitting again.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Updated!

"Dear Lord, you just took so many of my people and I'm wondering why..."- The Game, My Life


Updated the sidebar links in the blog today, so go check out some of the new highlights if you're interested, and definitely go check out Tor.com, which is an awesome fantasy blog I picked up this summer that's run by Tor.

In other news, I'm finally submitting my WoW fanfic story today...in four parts, because it's too long, and I ran into an interesting moment.

The story isn't perfect. It's not the best thing I've ever written, and it's not earth-shattering. But it's not bad, either, and I really don't see the potential for it to get much better. I told the story I had to tell, and it's time to cut my losses on it and move on.

This is interesting for me because it's something I haven't done a lot of with my writing. My novel, as I've said, has been rewritten a bunch of times, and fiddled with even more often than that. I refuse to abandon it because I love it too much, and I know that the story is solid, even if my execution isn't always there.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this, but I guess my point is that it's worth taking the time to evaluate which of your writing projects really matter to you, and which are okay to leave imperfect.

Monday 25 August 2008

Writing again, Yay!

"I like girls, they like me." -Gym Class Heroes, Cookie Jar


Ok, back from the woods and in front of my computer again, with no loss or gain of life as my boss always orders on these trips. Hazah!

And now I'm settling back into school, and that means it's almost time to start writing again. Yay!

I don't know if I've posted about this before, but I basically put my novel on the shelf for the summer while I was working in publishing and doing my summer research---collecting ideas and working on other projects as I prepare for what will hopefully be its last rewrite.

And now it's almost time for the rewrite to begin! Yay! In celebration of that, I'll share a tip or two on my writing process when it comes to something like this.

1.) I make a big list of ideas and changes I'd like to make to the novel (and, if necessary, the later books in the story arc as well) sorted by book and chapter. I do this because there's no way in hell I'd remember everything if I didn't write it down.

2.) I go through and make any small changes on that list, like switching vocabulary around.

3.) I go through chapter by chapter and make the rest of the changes, editing and fiddling as I go. This is often a circular process, as I tend to make changes in Chapter 12 that must be set up in Chapter 7 and eliminate something I had previously hinted at in Chapter 3, so it takes awhile. I can bang through a few chapters a day if I'm really cruising, but I shoot for one a day.

4.) I go back through and read the book from beginning to end, making sure continuity works and I'm happy with everything.

5.) I sit on the manuscript for awhile, maybe go write a short story or get some neglected schoolwork done.

6.) I print the whole thing off and sit down with a red pen to make changes. Hopefully there are no major ones to be made. If there are, I go back to step 3.

7.) I implement the changes and start sending copies of the novel to all the people I've met recently who are like "Wow, you wrote a novel? Can I read it?" in the hopes of getting at least some useful feedback from one or two of them.

8.) Unless I get serious negative feedback, I start submitting.

Sound like a lot of work? It is. Sound time-consuming? It is. But I love it anyway, because I love the stories I tell and I want them to be as great as they can be.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Apologies in Advance

Quote of the Day: "It's like I've waited my whole life for this one night. It's gonna be me, you and the dance floor."
Chris Brown- Forever


...but I won't be posting for the next week or so. I'm leading a wilderness pre-orientation trip for freshmen at my college and therefore will be a.) incredibly busy and b.) away from the internets.

So in the meantime, feel free to peruse the links in the right-hand sidebar for some of my favorite old posts and some other blogs that I personally find to be both enlightening and entertaining.

See you in a week!

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Synopses Part Deux

Quote of the Day: "There's a face I know too well, I see it every time I look in the mirror." -Eve 6, There's a Face


Okay, time for Synopses Part Deux: Length.

Lesson #2: Keep it short. Really, really, ridiculously short.

I'm sure you've heard this before. Any google search for "How to write a novel synopsis" will give you this advice. What I hadn't realized before this summer is the reason for it: at some point, someone will probably have to write what's called a "Reader's Report" for your book. And on that reader's report will be a place for them to write a synopsis.

And that space will be less than one single-spaced page long.

Yeah, I know. Ouch, right? Try having to do it at work. I spent longer writing the synopses for some submissions (the good ones, that had a lot going on) than I did reading the submissions themselves. It's a learned skill. Here's the rub: if you can learn it, you will make it easier for a person who wants to recommend your book for publishing to do so, because rather than having to take their own time and write a synopsis for your book, they will be able to start with yours as a base. Win.

Hopefully that's convinced you of the why behind condensing your masterpiece into a teeny, tiny, barebones ghost of its former self. Here are some tips on how to do it--the ones that helped me as I was struggling to learn the skill at work.

1.) Each chapter should be condensed into 2-3 sentences. A micro-paragraph, if you will. You will only be able to do this if you're focusing on one character and plot arc, so like I've said before, pick one and stick with it. The others will still be in your novel, and your reader will still fall in love with them. They will get mentioned elsewhere in the reader's report as a reason for why you should be published. Your work on them will not be in vain.

2.) Focus on salient plot details, and forget the setup. Did Swashbuckling George shoot his best friend in the back for betraying him? Write that. Do not feel the need to add that he found his best friend in the back of a dingy inn in the pirate town of Deadmanschestdale. The first part is what matters to the plot. The second bit is unnecessary, and while it's only a few extra words, and they help to set the scene and give a hint of what your writing is like, over time they add up and bloat your synopsis.

3.) Focus on tone more than direct quotes or excerpts, which also have a bloating tendency. Is the chapter funny? Make its micro-paragraph funny. Is it serious? Make it serious. Is it suspenseful? Make it suspenseful. The tools you have learned as an author can be put to use here, but you need to do it judiciously.

Hopefully this stuff is helpful. There's a lot to be learned about writing a good synopsis, and as I write more of them, I'll post more little tips and tricks that I've learned. You can be sure to expect a rehash when I write the one for my own book. :-)

Monday 11 August 2008

Where Was This Five Years Ago?

Taking a break from synopses today (don't worry though, there's more to come) because as I was doing my daily blog-reading, I ran across this over at Tor.com.

To sum up, it's a story about a camp for high school kids dedicated completely to world-building, where they got advice from published authors and even a videogame designer. In short, people who build worlds for a living.

There was advice in that little article that I hadn't heard before, even after all my years of trying to learn how to build worlds from as many sources as possible. And that was just in the article. I can't even imagine the head start those kids are going to have on writing sci-fi/fantasy.

Absolutely amazing opportunity for them, and one I wish had been around when I was their age. I went to the Iowa Young Writer's Studio, and that in and of itself was a great experience, but it wasn't focused on sci-fi/fantasy, though my professor there did a much better job of advising me on writing it than any of my highly touted professors since have, and I would loved to have had a more specialized experience.

Really cool stuff out there.

Thursday 7 August 2008

The Importance of Synopses

Quote of the Day: "I'm a lucky man, with fire in my hands..."
--The Verve, Lucky Man


This post kicks off what I think will wind up being a few posts about synopses, as I've had all summer to read them and write them as part of my job, and I've learned quite a bit.

Lesson #1: Focus on who and what the story is really about.

Your synopsis needs to be about the same character and plot your book is about. If it's not, the person reading your submission will quickly become confused and frustrated by one or the other. If they take the route of reading the synopsis first, they will wonder why the first pages of your book are dedicated to a character or characters who aren't really its main focus. If they read the book first, they will be confused about why your synopsis has nothing to do with the characters that they have become interested in (hopefully) while reading your sample pages.

This is one of those "Can't help you but can hurt you" kind of things. Your synopsis and your book are supposed to be about the same thing. Doing this right merely satisfies the requirements of a synopsis, it doesn't earn you any extra points with the person reading your submission, but doing it wrong can really hurt you. And as an incidental, your book should kick off with the main character and main plot. It may be tempting to kick it off with a subplot or secondary character, but trust me, it's more confusing than cool or unique. I've tried it, I've seen it tried, and it just doesn't work. If you want to make that experiment, feel free, but don't expect much success.

I understand that it can be hard to get down who your story is really about. I mean, part of what makes it good is all the different stories inside it, right? All the different character arcs and interesting subplots? Shouldn't those go in the synopsis too?

And what I've learned over the course of the summer is that the answer is no.

Get the reader interested in one story, one plot, because that's what you have time to do. The others will come out when they read the manuscript. Trust me. Don't feel like you have to cram everything that's good about your novel into your synopsis. When the person evaluating it finds extra good stuff in the manuscript it works in your favor. When they get confused by your synopsis it doesn't.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

The Line Between Fantasy and YA

Quote of the Day: "Into the pastures of our minds goes my nearly beloved and I."
--The Wallflowers, Nearly Beloved


So many things to blog about today! But not to worry, I'm saving most of them up to be released in a user-friendly, easily digestible format rather than cramming them all down your throat.

We'll start with another thing I learned at Tor yesterday, when I finally had the chance to ask an Editorial Assistant who deals with fantasy about where the line between Fantasy and YA Fantasy is drawn. Her answer?

"Good question."

Initially she suggested theme, but in the course of our discussion we discovered that since a great deal of fantasy deals with the quest of a hero, which typically involve a lot of steps that are very YA in theme (Youngish person discovers something new about themselves, has to learn how to use it, deal with the changes it brings about in their life, and eventually triumph either because of it or in spite of it. Sounds like puberty, eh?), and some YA fantasy deals with very dark, "adult" themes, theme doesn't really work as a criterion.

So finally she hit upon complexity, and I agreed entirely. YA fantasy tends to be simpler than adult fantasy. The worlds are less detailed (or at least tend to spread the detail out over multiple books rather than hitting it all at once), and the novels are shorter and tend to focus more on one particular plot, or two or three, rather than some of the sweeping, sixteen-characters-with-their-own-plot, full-of-intrigue epics you'll find without the YA designation.

Personally, I don't see this is as a value judgment. Lack of complexity does not make something inherently worse. See the music of Nirvana versus the music of Mozart. Both are incredible. One is more complex, but there are things that Nirvana's simplicity can accomplish that Mozart, for all his orchestra and musical brilliance, can't. Sometimes a more single-minded focus can reveal nuances of one particular plotline or story that would get lost in the more complex machinations of another book.

Either way, I'd love to hear opinions on this one. Complexity as the barrier between YA and adult fantasy---sound about right?

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Slush Like Fine Wine?

Quote of the Day: "Bee-bop-bop-ba-da-bo!"
--Scatman John, Scat Man

Today I had the absolutely incredible, mind-blowing opportunity to tour Tor, my own personal Holy Grail when it comes to the publishing industry. I learned a boatload, met some wonderful people, and had a very enlightening lunch with an editor and three editorial assistants. I'm still processing all I've learned, so expect more of the gems of wisdom they dropped on me as the week continues.

But for today we'll start with an interesting fact the editor told me, and an amazing term that as far as I'm aware Tor has coined themselves: they "age" their slush.

Apparently they're good enough at staying on top of slush that they could have very short turnaround times if they so chose--but in the past when they've gone for that approach authors have refused to believe that their submissions were actually read and re-submitted, leading to a lot of wasted time and postage overall. So now they "age" their slush in piles based upon when it was submitted, and it was generally agreed upon that the best vintage is about 3 months.

I was amazed because the situation made perfect sense (I can easily imagine jilted authors assuming that their submission must have simply been rejected summarily, because it's so good that if anyone read it they would love it), despite its utter absurdity. Only in publishing, friends, only in publishing...

So moral of the story, if your submission got rejected, it got rejected. Don't resubmit or you'll ruin the short response times for the rest of us!

...also Tor is awesome and I got more free books than I know what to do with.