From Mary's Pen

Through the window frame

2011-01-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

Have you ever read a book that stayed with you? Have you ever met someone new and been sharply reminded of a character? Those authors wrote characters who seemed so real, they made the leap, at least in your subconscious mind, into reality. They came to life.

By the very nature of fiction, the nature of the media through which we convey the musings of our minds, our characters are limited. Our view comes through a window, and is sometimes distorted... limited... by our own lack of understanding, by the edges of our paradigm. Our stories give our readers a glimpse, a section, of our characters and their world... but to achieve depth, our characters' world must be larger than what we merely see. Our characters must seem real.

Limited characters have their uses. Cameo characters don't need to be fully developed. Characters who enter a story for a moment, the cashier your heroine buys her carton of milk from, the by passer on the street who notices your villain's odd facial tic, need be little more than cardboard cut-outs, faces we catch a glimpse of in passing, easily dismissed and easily forgotten.

Main characters, however, must have more depth, tangibility, a feeling of reality. Your reader must be left feeling if they met the character on the street, they would recognize them and greet them like an old friend. The better you know your characters, the better your portrayals will be. Like an artist, you must study your subject before you begin to paint. Character outlines, character interviews, and lists of characters' traits can help you get to know your fictional people better, but to write truly memorable characters, you'll need to come to an understanding of their motivations, their feelings and fears, their emotional depth.

Take your hero for example. The basic Hero is dashing, strong, honorable. He or she faces danger with a knowing, grim smile. The horse is white, the hair is groomed and flowing, and the teeth are straight. In short... the basic Hero is... boring.

Take that same Hero, and make some changes. Maybe your Hero is a custodian in an elementary school who is minding his own business when a disturbed student unleashes gunfire in a crowded cafeteria.
Maybe your Hero is an executive who has an opportunity to help his young assistant deal with her unplanned pregnancy.
Perhaps your Hero is a youth who must travel through the jungles of a tropical setting to retrieve needed medical supplies for the village leader, a man who has bullied her family her entire life.

What motivates each of these characters to follow their Hero Journey?
How does the custodian react to the shooting, and why? Does he throw himself in front of a child instinctively because she reminds him of his younger sister who perished in an accident when he was a child?
Does the executive help the young woman because his own mother was a struggling single parent?
Does the young woman make the journey to help the chief to uphold the honor of her father?

Strong characters must have strong motivations. Understand what drives your character, what makes them unique, and you will write characters your readers won't soon forget.

Happy writing!

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

Fifteen Fictional Characters

2010-11-30T05:51:00.000-08:00

A friend recently posted a note on Facebook with a challenge:

"Don't take too long to think about it. List fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you."

I smiled, reading her list, as I nodded to old acquaintances and wondered about those unfamiliar to me.

Presumably, if you're reading this blog, you've chosen writing as a career, or at least an obsessive pursuit. While making lists like this has become almost cliched in our information-saturated digital world, the exercise has a deeper value for writers.

Recalling the characters who influenced your decision, your calling to become a writer can help you discover the qualities within those characters that made them so appealing. Characterization is the creation of memorable characters, and melds with word choice and sentence structure to form the elusive quality of writing known as "voice". Like art students studying the masters, writers can learn the craft by examining the characters who left the pages and took up residence in their imaginations and memories.

My own list could stretch far past the required fifteen, but for brevity's sake, I'll limit myself to three examples.

1) Frodo Baggins J.R. Tolkien's famous Hobbit.

Frodo traveled into the darkest parts of his world, carrying the token that could destroy all he loved and held dear, with one purpose in mind: destroy the Ring.

What impresses me about Frodo is not his courage or his tenacity, though those qualities are part of his character, but his simple, practical understanding of himself and his place within the Fellowship. He never thought himself a great Hero, rushing off on his white horse to single-handedly slay the dragon, or in this case, the evil wizard bent on taking over the world. In fact, he would laugh at the very thought.

He assessed his strengths, faced his weaknesses squarely, and was content to allow others to fulfill their roles while he did his best to carry his own burden. He was loyal, brave, and had a deep understanding of what was at stake. His practicality and humility gave him depth and made him a memorable, lovable character. He was... is, a true Hero.

2) Leonardo Hamato, Ninja Turtle.

Anyone growing up in the '80's through the early 2000's might remember the corny, goofy, pizza-guzzling Green Machine known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While the iconic '80's Turtles were typical of cartoon characters at that time, joking, talking to the audience and battling comical villains, the 2003 incarnations were older, wiser, and far more aware of the very real dangers lurking in their fictional version of New York City.

They still battled evil. Donatello still created incredible inventions from junk-yard scraps, but in the 2k3 version (as it's known among fans), characters suffered injury, and in one infamous alternate-universe episode, the beloved heroes died in a final battle against their nemesis, giving their lives in order to save a world which had rejected them.

Leonardo, in particular, stands out to me for his loyalty, his strong sense of honor, and his single-mindedness. While the Turtles actually die in the alternate reality of "Same As It Never Was", in another episode Leonardo makes a decision that, save for a last-instant miraculous rescue, would have resulted in the deaths of himself and the entire family. In the aftermath, Leonardo faces his own decision with guilt, frustration and a depth of rage that is rarely examined in children's programming. Because Leonardo's reactions to trauma are real, he is believable. The devil, as always, is in the details, and so is the characterization.

3) The Tao "TJ" Jones, from the book Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher.

Chris Crutcher remains one of my favorite authors for teens. He tackles issues of social justice head-on with the unapologetic, clear-eyed voices of his teenage characters. What makes his creations so unique is their passion. Each of his characters has something they hold dear, whether it is social justice, as in the case of TJ Jones, or loyalty to a friend like Eric "Mobe" Calhoun from his book Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.

TJ's self-admitted pigheaded refusal to back down from a fight, combined with his calm acceptance of his tragic past and his constant pursuit of justice, not for himself, but for those around him who are weaker or less able to defend themselves, make him a character the reader cannot ignore. He is stubborn to a fault, angry and often impulsive. Some of his testosterone-fueled teenage follies may seem outrageous to more sensitive readers, but above all, he is memorable. Love him or hate him, you will never forget TJ Jones.

TJ is a great character because he's passionate. Never, dear writer, back down from what your character believes in for fear of offending delicate readers. A character without passion, whether hero or villain, is a character without motivation, without fire, without the necessary fuel to drive the plot forward to it's full, heart-pounding potential. Without TJ's passion for justice and family, the book's conclusion would have been gutted of its intensity and power.

When I look back at the characters who have stayed with me over the years, I see three recurring traits:

1) Each character was involved in a larger story. Something was at stake, whether it was the fate of the world, the safety of family, or justice for the victims of small-town bullies. If the character had made a different choice, in each case, something precious would have been lost. Each character was needed, and each responded to the need, answered the Call.

2) Each character answered a call that forced them to press beyond their limits. Each lost something precious and had to respond to that loss, either by continuing with the Hero's Journey or by giving up. All good stories involve seemingly-insurmountable challenges. All good stories include the loss of something the character cares about, and all good stories result in the growth of the character through the journey.

3) Finally, each of these characters had unique traits that made them the only one who could answer the Call. Each had particular passions. For Frodo, carrying the Ring meant defending his beloved Shire, even if it cost him his life. For Leonardo, his honor bound him to protect the people of Earth, sacrificing everything he loved. TJ Jones risked everything in the defense of the helpless, and in the end had to learn to live with enormous loss.

A Treasure worth sacrificing for, a Journey of challenges, failures and triumphs, and a Passion. Those are the three ingredients to creating characters your readers will never forget.

~*~*~

"For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day."

2 Timothy 1:12 KJV

Romancing the Muse

2010-11-19T05:06:00.000-08:00

Every married couple should go on at least one romantic get-away. It's a chance to reconnect, to make memories, to laugh over the cheese-ball ploys of over-priced hotels (like hot-tubs shaped like giant champagne glasses.)

Romance is essential to marriage. Couples who forget to enjoy one another, who forget how to have fun, fall apart under the stress of day to day life. They forget why they married in the first place, and fall out of love. Their marriage crumbles under the stress of mundane every day and they drift apart, wondering where the excitement went.

Last week I talked about "selling out", writing for no other reason than to earn a paycheck. Now, it's perfectly possible to write what you enjoy writing and be paid for it. That, dear Writer, is the best of both worlds, but, like a good man who's not gay or married, those happy coincidences are sometimes difficult to find, especially for the new writer who is still dipping their toes in the ocean.

Many experts, bloggers, and authors of writing books tout the discipline of writing every day. They nod solemnly and remind us that the route to success is paved with hard work. No one gets there by standing still. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. While all these adages are true, and the experts' advice is sound, it's possible to fall into a rut of trudging along, married to the drudge of writing for money.

While setting goals is important, the happiest couples are those who find the fun in every day, who are playful and spontaneous without forgetting the need to get out of bed and go to work every day. Balance is the key, and the secret to balance is finding your spark, the writing you love, whether it's publishable or not, and making room for it in your writing life. Maybe you love to write poetry, or songs. Maybe you secretly enjoy creating new scenarios for favorite characters from your childhood (Writing about characters from books or movies you've enjoyed is not plagarism unless you try to pass the characters off as original. Fan-fiction has a legitimate place in a writer's toolbox. It's not publishable, except for sharing on websites committed to the genre, like Fanfiction.net, but it can be a lot of fun, and wonderful practice.)

Whatever it is that you love about writing, seek it out. Pursue it. Court it. Romance it. Even if it's just a secret affair, wholly separate from your "legitimate" writing, it will stimulate your motivation and keep your Muse enchanted.

Falling behind

2010-11-15T04:59:00.000-08:00

As of right now, I am 8,641 words behind to make today's word-count goal. How did I fall so far behind? How did a strong start, consistently making more than goal every day, turn into being almost 10,000 words behind?

I could say life got in the way. It would be true. As I mentioned in my last entry, life has been quite chaotic in our household for the past two years.

I could say I lost motivation. Also true. Most people do in their first two weeks of NaNo. Writing a book in a month sounds like an exciting challenge, and it is... until you realize just how much work it is to write a book, and begin to understand the enormity of the task you've set yourself to accomplish in just thirty days.

I could say a lot of things, but the honest-to-God truth is... I took a break to write some very boring articles for a content provider. Articles that needed several revisions to meet their standards. Articles that I felt nothing for, no passion, no fire, not even an inkling of interest. Why, then, did I write them? Because I needed the money. In short, I sold out, and I'll do it again.

In the first, heady freedom of writing, of putting pen to paper and setting the soul free to soar to new heights of imagination and creativity, I never dreamed I would sink so low. In my fantasies, Writing meant producing brilliant books, reams of precise, witty prose that would have readers smiling and nodding or gasping in pleasant shock, and editors flocking to my door, checkbooks in hand. I imagined life as a wildly successful writer and never considered mundane issues like buying groceries or paying a mortgage. Surely those things would take care of themselves. I'd have an Agent, and she would wave her wand, magically increasing my bank balance, far outstripping the creditors with their grasping demands.

I would live the dream, ascend to the Ivory Tower, live upon bonbons and hot chocolate while I did nothing all day but create. Life, in my dreams of being a Writer when I grew up, looked good. Too good to be true, in fact, and it was.

Any working writer reading this is grinning by now, if not rolling their eyes and chuckling. The Ivory Tower is a myth. There are no fairy-tale endings, dear Writer, save perhaps for the rarefied few who reach truly dizzying heights with their profession, like JK Rowling and Stephen King, and even they put in their time toiling in the fields before being invited into the fairy castle world of success.

It is important, Writer, to decide early on where your journey will take you. Certainly you should be aware that Adventure might find you along the way, and always be willing to change course if the occasion arises, but having a plan, and knowing your destination helps avert disappointment and regret down the road.

First, decide, is your aim to make a living at writing, or to make a difference? Essentially, there are two kinds of writers: The kind who write what suits their fancy, who are willing to consider, and sometimes actively pursuing, publication, but who balk at writing anything but what they want to write. Those are the writers who write little stories for their children, perhaps write an opinion column for a local newspaper, who keep a blog or write novels which then sit in a drawer. Often these writers find small, local publishing success. They aim to make a difference with in the circle of individuals touched by their own lives. They find writing satisfying, fulfilling and necessary. They fill a niche, answer a need, and are content.

The second breed of writer views their writing as a business and their words as a product. They read the Writer's Digest Market Guides over breakfast and spend the afternoons preparing submissions. Their days are balanced between actual writing, and the sale of their writing. They are constantly seeking new markets, new avenues, new revenue streams. They attend conferences, talk to editors, and read magazines with an eye for style and word counts, always considering the new spin they could put on a topic, a new angle that might spark an editor's interest. They are working writers, writing as much to make a living as to create meaningful content. They find writing satisfying, fulfilling and necessary. They fill a niche, answer a need, and are content.

It is possible, even desirable, Writer, to fall between the two categories. Most writers are not in the business strictly for money. We are a strange breed, pursuing a craft that neither pays well nor garners great recognition. Chances are good, a hundred years, or even a year from now, that what we've produced will have been recycled into mulch, long read, digested, tossed aside and forgotten. The articles I wrote this week will be used on a website that might last a month, or six. When it disappears into the digital ether, so will the words I worked so hard to produce.

Why, then, do I write? Why do I keep toiling away here in the foothills, knowing that the Tower among the clouds is beyond my reach, knowing the submissions I send out might never return to me with a golden invitation marked "Acceptance", my ticket into the fairy-tale land of Advances and Royalties?

I write because I enjoy writing. I write because constant submissions haven't yet gained me entry into the royal ball, but I've been invited to other, smaller gatherings. I've made a total of $480 writing for Seed.com, AOL's content provider. Not bad for the 12 articles they've purchased from me. 61,273 people have seen those 12 articles. For a writer who'd like to Make a Difference with my writing, those are impressive numbers. By writing articles for Seed, my circle has gotten that much bigger. For a writer trying to make a living, Seed pays reasonably well for the work I do.

I've made a bit less writing for Pure Content. The work is sporadic, but when Seed has been slow, sometimes Pure Content picks up some of the slack. I also write for a small, hometown newspaper, the Tioga County Courier. The pay is abysmal, but I get the satisfaction of seeing my byline in print and writing about issues that affect my hometown, my neighbors, my circle.

Writer, first decide your dreams, then pursue them. If you would be a novelist, attend classes, join a critique group, go to conferences and schmooze with editors and agents who can help you along your way. Children's author? Join SCBWI. If you would be a journalist, join a professional organization like The Society for Professional Journalists. Learn to read magazines and newspapers and analyze their content. Write articles and submit them. Find your niche.

Second, don't let your niche become your rut. Branch out. Write novels. Write articles. Write short stories, write poems. Just write, and write something new every single day. Writers, dear Writer, write. They find writing satisfying, fulfilling and necessary. Do you want to achieve success as a writer? It's simple: Fill a niche, answer a need, and most importantly; be content.

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

PS Two days after writing this post, I committed to a writing marathon, completing 10,374 words in a single day and catching up with the daily goal. That was two days ago, and today I am 3,264 words behind again because yesterday was cluttered with children's birthday parties and taking my daughter to a musical. Once again, life has stalled my writing, but I am unconcerned: I will catch up. This is the writing life. I live my life, I fill a niche, answer a need... and I am content.

Flooding out

2010-11-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

Upstate New York isn't known for it's weather. Sure, we have crazy-cold winters, but there are states that boast colder temperatures and deeper snows. We have the leaves in the fall, but Vermont's the place everyone flocks to when the colors come out in the trees. We don't have baking heat in summer like Texas, or tornadoes (usually) like Alabama.

Still, living in the valley as my husband and I do, Spring sometimes brings showers of blessing... which occasionally overwhelm us.

Normally our little creek meanders lazily past the house, content to offer minnows and crawfish for the kids to catch as they splash happily through its gentle depth. It's a quiet neighbor, peaceful... until it rains. Then it turns into the guy neighbors talk about years later, "He was always such a quiet man. I never would've known he had 20 bodies buried in the back yard..."
Our quiet, peaceful little creek can turn into a rampaging river in minutes, and in hours it can become a flood.

NaNo, during the first heady days, seems like a challenge, but doable. "I can handle this," the Writer thinks, as the heady euphoria of having written takes hold. "I'm prepared, it's only 30 days after all. I can do this!"

Like a kayaker approaching the rapids for the first time, the first-time NaNo writer is often full of confidence, certain they are ready. If they've put in the time training, if they've made a real commitment, if they've planned and conditioned themselves for the long haul, they're right. If not... well, let's just say you can't go through the rapids without getting wet.

I started NaNo's first week on goal, meeting my daily word counts with ease, even exceeding them some days. I was right on... and then came The Call. The one every parent dreads: "Come pick up your son." And my heart sank.

For various reasons, my son has had trouble in school these past two years. A LOT of trouble in school. Trouble that led to his being suspended for a full calendar year last January. That's right. The school saw fit to kick my fourth grader out for an entire year. We had a home-tutor, appointments with a counselor... Let's just say it was a long, difficult process. But, in their benevolence, the school decided to allow him to come back in September. A fresh start. A new year, in a new building (he moved up a grade, and so out of the elementary he was attending), new staff. For the first three months, he was like a rocket, flaring toward the skies, dazzling us all with his success. The outcome was sure, we were already patting him, and each other, on the back, the champagne was approaching the ice... and then I got The Call.

Fellow NaNo-ite, sometimes life derails us. As writers, we walk a delicate line between Life and Writing. We long to write... we would happily immerse ourselves deep into the glory of the page, reveling in the creative process, lost to all else around us, but if we do not occasionally come up for air, we find ourselves drowning. We are odd creatures, you and I, like air-breathing water dwellers. We live in writing, we must, it is our sustenance, necessary to our very being, and yet without coming out of the writing sometimes, without surfacing, we would not survive.

Because my son has suffered through two years of the worst public school has to offer, my protagonist will come into contact with a school counselor who will change the course of her life, driving the plot in a new direction and wrapping up several of the conflicts I was uncertain could be resolved.

Life fuels writing. We write because we must, but if we would continue writing, we must also live. Dear writer, do not despair when life drags you to the surface. Take a deep breath, live at the top for as long as it takes, before diving back in. You will find your energy renewed, your writing freshened, your muse inspired. Be a dolphin. Don't just surface for air, leap up, race to the surface and grab hold of life, immersing yourself in the experience of air and light and sound. Revel in your experiences, live them fully and without reservation. When you return to the deep, dark places writing takes you, the oxygen you take in will sustain you and breathe life into your words.

When the floods come, ride them out and see where the waters take you.

Happy writing!

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

~*~*~

"God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."
-The Psalms of David, 46:1-3

Gloves on a fence post

2010-11-03T04:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes writing seems to make as much sense as gloves on a fencepost. Yet, we keep on putting words down on paper, keep on weaving dreams, keep on telling our stories. Why?

Because, for the writer, writing is like breathing. It's natural, necessary, and if we stop, we no longer live.

NaNoWriMo is a writer's marathon, a high-speed endurance race that can test the limits of our discipline. Why enter? Why push ourselves to write a 50,000 word novel in only 30 days, especially the 30 days preceding a major holiday season for most of us? Why write a book at all? Why put a glove on a fencepost?

Right now, there are 172,000 people running the NaNo marathon. So far, we've cranked out nearly 200,000,000 words. No, that's not a typo. Two hundred million words, words no one's read in the particular order they're laid down in before. 172,000 new books by 172,000 authors, each with a different reason for why they write what they do, each adding a new voice to the literary chorus.

The farmer who picked up an old leather glove from the side of his road and stuck it up on a fencepost was aware of the value of the pair and he hoped the owner would come along and find it. He put it out there in hopes of helping someone else. Pointless? Perhaps. Unless you happen to be the owner of the other half of this expensive pair.

Why do we put our books out there? In hopes of reaching someone, in hopes of giving them something they need? Perhaps we just like the look and feel of what we've written and want to show it off a bit. Maybe someone will come along and retrieve our offering, and maybe not, but we'll keep putting those gloves on the fence posts, and hoping, one day, they find their way home.

~*~*~*

For those brave souls working toward the finish line, here is a daily total word-count goal guide to help you know if you're on track for 50,000 by the end of November:

Nov. 1: 1667 words
Day 2: 3334 words
Day 3: 5001 words
Day 4: 6668 words
Day 5: 8335 words
Day 6: 10,002 words
Look that, six days in and you're over 10,000 words!! GO YOU!
Day 7: 11,669 words
Day 8: 13,336 words
Day 9: 15,003 words
Day 10: 16,670 words
Day 11: 18,337 words
Day 12: 20,004
And now you've broken 20,000! You're really rocking now!
Nov. 13: 21, 671 words
Nov. 14: 23, 338 words
Nov. 15: 25,005 words
Half way there! Way to go!!
Nov. 16: 26,672 words
Nov. 17: 28,339 words
Nov. 18: 30,006 words
Another 10,000 words gone... you're in the home-stretch!
Nov. 19: 31,673 words
Nov. 20: 33,340 words
Nov. 21: 35,007 words
Nov. 22: 36,674 words
Nov. 23: 38,341 words
Nov. 24: 40,008 words
Look how far you've come! 40,000! There's no stopping you now!
Nov. 25: 41,675 words
Nov. 26: 43, 342 words
Nov. 27: 45,009 words
Nov. 28: 46,676 words
Nov. 29: 48,343
Nov. 30: 50,000
Fireworks! Light show! Chocolate martini toasts! High-fives all around! It's time to celebrate, you've DONE IT! It's been a long, hard 30 days, but here you are, with your book in hand. Congratulations, AUTHOR! You made it to the finish line.

Best Foot Forward

2010-10-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

NaNoWriMo. It sounds like some obscure third-world country's dictator. General Nano, at your service.

In many ways, NaNo, as it's affectionately known to its victims, is a dictator, taking over our lives for four weeks. We labor late into the night and rise early to churn out work at a ridiculous rate, chained to our computers, fueled by coffee and chocolate. We become slaves to Nano, "Wrimos" for a month.

A word to the wary uninitiated: Run.

Run while you can, before you are sucked in, enticed by promises of cake and productivity. The lure of having written, after all, is what motivates many of us, through rejection after rejection, through the endless search for suitable markets, through resolving every plot hole and the difficult task of ignoring the encroaching housework in order to finish the next chapter.

The thrill of having written... is there anything like it? That, dear Writer, is the promise of NaNo: At the end of the month, if you apply yourself, if you work as hard as you can, and then harder, if you follow the program to its painful, exacting letter, you will have written a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month of November.

A novel in a month. 1666.6 words a day for thirty days. Fifty-thousand words in all.

Imagine, while others are bragging about the Black-Friday sales they raided, being able to say, "Oh, yes, November was a good month for me, too. I wrote a book."

Not "I intend to write a book". Not "I have this great idea for a novel..."

"I wrote a book."

The most beautiful four words a writer can say embody the delirious pleasure of having written.

Thank you, General Nano. We are your willing slaves, one and all.

~~~

NaNoWriMo Fun Facts:

National Novel Writing Month is a real, official month. Not a holiday, mind you. Who in their right mind would spend a holiday making themselves insane trying to crank out a novel? It is, however, a chance to finally put pen to paper, to kill off the Procrastination Monster and to fulfill what is for some a life's dream: writing their first book. At best, you will come out of November's challenge with a renewed sense of what you can do when you put your mind to it. At worst, you will be a little further along in this journey called writing, and you will have participated in a rite of passage. (or is that a "write" of passage?)

Nano began in 1999, with only 21 participants. In 2008, there were 119,301 adult participants, 21,683 of whom reached the end-goal. 1.6 billion words were written.
Additionally, 600 classrooms participated in the Young Writers program. That's 22,ooo children who were writing right alongside their adult counterparts.

Nano sponsors in-person writing events! Find your region, click the link, and join the fun.

Keys to Successful Submissions

2010-08-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

Where To Begin

You've come far, Writer. You've overcome that initial fear of beginning. You've sailed past the euphoria of those first chapters, overcome the solid wall of uninspired drivel that tried to impede your progress through the central climax of your novel, you've agonized, sweated and slaved over the shocking finale. In short, you've written a book.

Now what? Now, dear Writer, the revisions can begin. The re-reading, the editing, the sharing with a critique group (You DO have a critique group, don't you? If not, here's an Article from Harold Underdown's site, The Purple Crayon that can help.) The re-reading until you're certain every single word, every phrase, every scrap of dialogue and poignant look between your characters has earned its place, is worthy of inclusion in your epic narrative.

You’ve revised, you say? You’ve polished until your manuscript shines with life and freshness? You’ve banished the stray apostrophes and whipped your passive verbs into frantic activity? You’re certain that this… THIS is the story you wish to send out into the world, to submit to an editor’s critical eye? You’re certain you’re offering your absolute best work, and you’re ready to take the publishing world by storm?

Congratulations, Writer! It’s time to submit your work.

But where? And how? And to whom? How can you be certain your manuscript will land on the desk of the editor who will take your baby lovingly into her arms and lead it as it grows into your first blockbuster?

Marketing Secret: Conferences

Hopefully if you’re dedicated enough to have completed a novel, you’ve already begun attending writer’s conferences. Conferences are amazing places for networking, for meeting the people who will become friends and allies as you travel through your writing career. Remember that not all allies will become friends, nor will all friends become allies, but it’s important to have both in this often-lonely industry.

The first, and perhaps most important place to seek out markets for your work is through personal contacts. As a new writer, you have a far greater chance of selling your first book to an editor who has met you and invited you to submit work to his or her publishing house. Common sense dictates that it’s harder to say “no” to someone you’ve met than to a total stranger.

I must, however, disclaim the above advice with one warning: Do not presume too much. If your book is not polished within millimeters of its life, if it is not your absolute best work, or worse, if it is not a novel the editor in question’s house is in the market for, don’t submit.

A writer essentially has a two-part job. First, you must write the book. Second, and of equal importance, is the marketing of your book. Send your gothic vampire romance to an editor or agent who’s publicly proclaimed she’s not in the market for gothic romances and is sick and tired of the myriad of vampire novels landing on her desk, and you’re marking yourself as a rank amateur.

A tip: Search the editor's name. Does she have a personal blog? A search revealed one agent's dislike for prologues: Elaine English's comments on prologues.

Market research is essential if you intend to find success as a writer. Submitting without first studying your intended market is like firing a shotgun at a moving target with the faint hope that one of the tiny pellets might connect. Chances are, your shot will go far wide of the mark unless you take careful aim and plan your shot.

Research leads me to the next potential source for markets:

Writer’s Guides

The most common and well known is, of course, The Writer’s Market, produced annually by Writer’s Digest Books. For those who prefer a search-able online database to paging through endless listings on paper, there is WritersMarket.com. For about $6 a month, you can subscribe to the online database, or if you’re unwilling to give up the comforting weight of an actual book, consider purchasing the Deluxe addition of Writer’s Market. It comes with a free 1-year subscription to the online database.

Once you’ve found your potential markets, study the guidelines carefully. Some publishing houses are region-specific. For example, Thistledown Press is open only to Canadian writers. Writers residing elsewhere in the world would do well to save themselves the postage.

The Internet has streamlined the writer’s once-arduous task of market research. Almost all publishing houses now have websites, and Amazon.com and others offer summaries and cover-copy of the books the house has published, all available within a few clicks. Study the books the house has published in the past. Sample a few pages (Amazon offers the opportunity to browse the insides of most new books in their listings.) Will your book line up on the shelves with the novels the house currently offers, or would it be out of step, out of place, out of tune? It’s important that you understand how your book fits in with the publisher’s other titles. Otherwise, you’re wasting their, and your, time submitting.

Let’s Review

In conclusion, dear Writer, the steps to publishing are simple:

1) Write the book.
2) Revise
3) Revise
4) Revise again
5) Consider having a professional edit your work. Be sure you’re offering your absolute best to the reader.
6) Begin collecting names of potential publishers
7) Study the markets
8) Once you’re certain you’ve found the place, the perfect home for your book, you’ve studied the market, you’re familiar with their list, perhaps you’ve met the editor at a conference…
9) Submit
10) And, dear Writer, when you receive the first of what are sure to be many rejection letters, return to Step One and begin the process again.

Because the final, and most important step to publication success is:

11) Persist.

Happy writing!

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary

First Book Blues

2010-07-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

“I found a pen; another person found a scrap of paper; a third person, the words. “Dead End,” we wrote and left it on the side of the road for the next traveler to find and perhaps turn around in time.”

-A Prologue from For Sarah by Annie Harmon

Writers leave notes. Yes, Writer, what you're doing is as important as a child's musings which will go on to become The Diary of Anne Franke, and as fleeting as the list you made for last week's trip to the grocery store. You never know if someone will pick up the note, publish it and pay you millions of dollars for the privilege… or if it will just blow away, lost among all the others on the remaindered table, or worse, never leave your desk drawer and so never have a chance to be read.

Finishing the first book is perhaps the worst first a writer can face. Writing is like having kids. When you have the first one, especially in the middle of the night when the baby is squalling and you’re exhausted, it's hard to imagine wanting to go through the process again.

Even in the good moments, when the little darling sleeps or coos and you’re full of pride and delight, it’s hard to imagine loving another child as much as you do the first.

You’ve struggled past the rocky beginning, perhaps edited and rewritten and rethought. You’re coming down from the euphoric high of the writing that flowed as the middle came together. All of a sudden, you realize it’s almost over. All this hard work, all this effort, will be put to the test. You’ve journeyed and laughed and gasped with your characters. You’ve come to know them and love them. Once you write the final sentences, and print out the manuscript, the boundaries of the sheltered world you’ve shared with them will be defined, and it will be time to decide to send them out into the bigger realm, to see if they will soar, or fall flat with a dull thud on the bottom of some editor’s trash can.

You start to sweat. Fear overtakes you. What if this was the only book you had in you? What if it fails, and all that effort has gone to waste? What if you succeed and you are expected to write another one? What if your book turns out to be a one hit wonder, or a never-has-been, collecting dust in a slush pile?

Never fear, Writer! Soon the next child, the next idea, comes along, and captures your heart in a whole new way. And you learn, and you grow, and you do a better job the second time around, or maybe just a different job, but you are getting better with practice.

The bad news is, I don’t have any magic bullet or secret formula to help banish the terrible phantom of firsts. (Though quantities of good chocolate, taken internally, do seem to help.)

The good news is it gets easier. Exercise produces fitness, and the more you work out, the stronger your writing muscles become. Having finished a book, you know that you can indeed write a book. It's no longer just a pipe dream, some childhood fancy. You are capable, Writer, and potential breeds responsibility.

No matter how wrung out and sick of writing you feel you are by the time you type that last sentence, it’s not over. Chances are, you have more books in you, maybe more books about the same characters, maybe a whole new book that you'll be just as excited about and into as the first one. Don’t be afraid to follow your characters past the “end” of your book. Writing more about the same characters, you may discover you’ve written a sequel. Or perhaps a new character will emerge, sparking a whole new story. No writing is ever wasted.

I can't be dishonest. Labor isn't easy. Finishing that first book is a tough process. All I can say, as a mother of two kids and the writer of several books is, it's worth it. In the end, when all is said and done, it's worth it.

Happy writing.

Rejoicing in the day

-Mary

Telling the Truth Through "Lies"

2010-06-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

Bruce Coville* once said: "I make my living telling lies to little children."

He went on to explain that the "lies" he tells in his fantasy fiction expand the mind and let kids see a whole new world.

For some beginning writers, writing fantasy might feel like "lying". They feel the need to point out the discrepancies between the rules of the world they're creating and reality. They forget that the point of good fiction is to entice the reader to enter in to a separate reality, to leave their preconceptions behind and move into the writer's world for a time. The fantasy world must not be intruded upon, if the spell is to remain unbroken. Reality must not interrupt the fantasy the author is creating.

The backbone of good fiction is truth. A believable fantasy starts with a skeleton of rules. The laws of physics in a fantasy world, for example, might be different from the laws of physics in our own world, but they must be adhered to or the fantasy starts to fall apart. There must be reasonable limitations.

Even fantasy needs to make sense, needs to follow rules- laws of physics and rules of social behavior. Those rules don't have to be the same as our rules, they're very flexible. They just need to be consistent. If your character has a super-power, he must also suffer from kryptonite, a weakness that makes him relatible and human enough for your reader to identify with.

Take Piers Anthony's character from his novel Ogre, Ogre, Tandy. Her ability is throwing temper-tantrums:

"Desperate, Tandy wreaked her ultimate. She threw a tantrum. Her body stiffened, her face turned red, her eyes clenched shut, and she hurled the tantrum right at the demon's fat chest.
It struck with explosive impact. The demon sundered into fragments, his feet, hands and head flying outward. His tail landed on the bed and lay twitching like a beheaded snake."

A real-world temper tantrum would hardly have such a devastating affect, but in Xanth, Anthony's fantasy world, a temper tantrum is a formidable weapon to wield.

Tandy's weakness lies in the guilt she feels after throwing a tantrum, and the fact that a tantrum, once thrown, takes time to recharge. Tandy's weaknesses make her a sympathetic character, one to whom readers can relate.

Bryan Davis** writes
“We have within us a craving, a deep desire to commune with a power greater than our own, yet many of us crawl along in life without even a glimpse of our hidden passion. There has to be a reason for living. There must be a Camelot, a hidden Utopia where we can rest from our personal campaigns. Fantasy opens our eyes to a better place, a shining city we do not yet know.”

Write for the reader who is searching for that city, and you will find the common thread that runs through the hearts of men. We are all searching for something more, something unseen. We long for adventure. Write to that need, and you will write fantasy readers crave.

Happy writing!

Rejoicing in the day,
-Mary
~~~

*Bruce Coleville is the award-winning author of The Unicorn Chronicles series, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, I Left My Sneakers In Dimension X, and many other brilliant books for middle-grade readers.
~

**Bryan Davis is the author of Dragons in our Midst, Oracles of Fire, and Echoes from the Edge, three family-friendly series of mystery and adventure.