Chuck Wendig on Outlining

Wendig, as always, entertains and illuminates.

Today's topic is outlining during nanowrimo, which I'm certain--because you are most intelligent and perceptive--you are aware is not of use only in November, nor is it only for those who are writing 50,000 words in one month.

How to Help the Art Department

If your book gets picked up by a major publisher with an art department, you may get asked to give some info for the art department to use when designing your cover.

You may get asked the same by smaller publishers, or by a cover designer you hire.

Different ones will approach it in different ways. But it is common to be asked for some kind of input. I found this particular example of an author--award-winner Mary Robinette Kowal--influencing her cover to be very interesting, and think you might, too.

I also love her headshot/pr photo.

Writing About Characters with Disabilities

I hope you all read this. It's got really valuable insights on this subject, and even if you aren't writing about characters with disabilities [and if not, why not?] it will probably ping some things for you, and the way you approach your characters.

Plus, Sherwood and Rachel are simply awesome people and writers. They always have so much to offer.

Nanowrimo Is Right Around the Corner!

And the Sachse Public Library in Sachse, Texas is doing some fun and useful things to help participants get started and stay on target to win this year's nanowrimo!

First up, I'll be speaking on October 13 to help this year's crop of writers get started early--legally! Nope, you can't start writing ahead of time, but you can do some fun things to get organized, inspired, and ready to go at midnight on November 1.

 

Click to get a bigger copy to read. 

I hope to see you there! Are you nano-ing this year? Have you nanoed in the past? How'd it go for you?

He Said, She Said -- Dialogue Tags

Sorry I haven't been sharing writing links with you lately. The Writer's Fun Zone is is a good site for you to explore, and today's post by Jami Gray is a good one.

When do you use tags (he said) and when do you use action (she glared)?

Check it out!

And whatever else you're doing--keep writing!

Breaking All the Rules

You know how they say you have to know the rules before you can break them? Mary Robinette Kowal has a few words to say about that, and I think they're worth reading, whether or not you've read Ender's Game [which I haven't].

Excerpt:

In 2005, I was fortunate enough to attend Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. I had read his books Characters and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, but his boot camp itself was a transformative experience. Before boot camp, I felt as though I could write a good story by accident, and afterward, as though I could write one on purpose.

Card explained the rules and how fiction worked so clearly that it had gone from being a mysterious process to being something repeatable. After the camp, I pulled out my battered copy of Ender’s Game and re-read it because I wanted to see how he applied the rules that he just taught us.
I was stunned. 

Card breaks the rules all over the place. Pretty much every piece of wisdom I’d received in his boot camp, he took and inverted at least once in the book...

A Cautionary Tale

I stress that when you sign a contract with a publisher you need an agent. There are so many ways a publisher can take advantage of you, and no matter how nice or professional or respected your editor is, that editor has a responsibility to the publisher to present their contract without caution or advice to you. They represent their bosses. They are paid by their bosses. They have no control over the contract.

Today Roxanne St. Clair writes about a small clause that is costing her thousands of dollars and much heartache. And I'm sure many agents allowed that clause to pass without realizing its danger, because it was in the early part of the century and electronic books weren't a Thing like they are today.

But there were many other clauses that her agent did catch, that other agents struck from contracts to protect their writers' money [because they were protecting their own money, too, since the only pay they get is a percentage of the writers' money].

You need an agent or a very good intellectual properties lawyer who specializes in NY publishing contracts.

Here's just one reason why.

A Couple of Links to BVC

Something that has come up in class lately:

Do you write about horses? Do you know the subject inside out?

This is a book you might find extremely helpful.

Available here or on
Amazon or where other ebooks are sold.

How far can a horse travel in a day? What does a horse eat? When is a brown horse really a sorrel (or a bay, or a dun)? What do tack and withers and canter mean?

In this long-awaited and much-requested book based on her “Horseblog” at Book View Café, author and horse breeder Judith Tarr answers these questions and many more. She looks at horses from the perspective of the writer whose book or story needs them as anything from basic transport to major plot device, and provides definitions, explanations, and links and references for further research–leavened with insight into the world of the horse and the humans who both use and serve him.

How fast can a horse run? What happens when a foal is born? How have humans and horses evolved together over the millennia? And above all, what mistakes do writers most often make when writing about horses, and how can the educated writer avoid them?

Here is a guide to the fine art of getting it right.

You can find Judy's books here at BVC, and also where other ebooks and print books are sold.

Also, I've been asked about Doranna Durgin, whose fiction is often about dogs and horses, both of which she knows a lot about.

Not your average glamour shot.
 (Stacy Keach with Miss P, from the 
Westminster site.)

She regularly blogs at Book View Café. You can find her dog-blogs here, in reverse order, most recent first.

Her most recent post is about Miss P, the recent Best of Show winner at Westminster.

Doranna shows beagles at agility trials so has a real affinity for the breed.

You can find Doranna's books here at BVC and also where other ebooks and print books are sold.

Entries on dogs by all BVC authors.

Entries on horses by all BVC authors.

About Writing Women

Kate Elliott, whose writing I love, has knocked this one out of the park. Read it and think about it and incorporate it into your writing.

At the most basic level, one-dimensional, shallow, and cliched characterization comes about because of poor craft on the part of writers whatever the gender of the characters. If a writer can’t be bothered to dig deeper than a commonly deployed trope (defined as a literary or rhetorical device), their characters aren’t going to be well drawn.

If the clichés and tropes they use belong to a subset of character types that is currently valued and commonly agreed upon as “typical” or “realistic” in the popular culture of the moment, then some readers may not notice the shallowness or cliché because it is a portrayal they EXPECT to see and have seen a thousand times before.

Its very familiarity comforts and feels right.

[skipping some really strong examples you should read for yourself]

The Evil Seductress With Her Sexually Tempting and Irresistible Wiles; The Slutty Girl Who Pays For Her Sexual “Freedom” With Her Life; The Girl Too Ugly To Get Married; The Passive Bride who will either Be Crushed By Life or who will Find Her Strength; The Withering Old Woman Who Hates Her Youthful “Rival” Because There Is No Meaning For Women Beyond When They Cease Being Sexually Attractive to Men; The Peaceful Matriarch Whose Nurtures All Because It Is The Essential Nature of Womanhood To Nurture.

They write themselves.

This is why I feel it is important to carefully examine your women characters as you conceive and begin to write them. Consider if they are individuals or types. Sometimes the cliché or the “type” might work well in a plot; there can be reasons to use two-dimensional characters in certain roles. But be sure you’re doing it deliberately, not unthinkingly.

Much, much more here.

My head exploded.

But fortunately Chuck Wendig's head exploded first and he shared his admittedly foul-mouthed/penned but spot-on reaction to a former creative writing professor's true confessions about his students.

And I think you'd benefit from reading it.

Here.

Editing Explained

A book acquired by a traditional print publisher goes through several stages of editing.

Self-published books need the same.

Welcome, Basics classes of Winter 2015!

I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight and tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, let me share this for you and for everyone else following this blog.

ConDFW is coming up in a couple of weeks, Feb 13-15, and it's going to be fun, as always.

Early registration for hotel and conference ends Jan 31.  Check it out!

In addition to many other fascinating presentations, The Cushing Memorial Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection will be represented.

And I'll be there participating on panels, reading from my books, and signing.

I hope to see some of you there.

Write Like Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway's 1923 passport photo

Some writers begin with a character in their heads who won't shut up until the writer starts writing, and then hopefully, still won't shut up.

Some writers begin with a "what if" that captivates them in amazing ways, and makes them want to play with the idea as it tangles and untangles and leaves the reader in a puddle of amazed delight.

Whatever is in your head, you may sometimes find yourself sitting in front of the keyboard unable to find the words to begin.  Sometimes a writer gets frozen by the blank page.

Here is some advice that begins with Hemingway, spins off to McKee and beyond.

Great advice, whether it's something you do before writing a word of your novel, or something you do a few chapters in when the first burst of energy has burnt through.

But How Do I Keep People From Stealing My Ideas?

This is one of the biggest newbie fears, and the one pro writers worry about least. In classes I've given examples of how seemingly unique ideas all got bought within weeks, from writers who don't know each other and have no idea other people came up with similar.

I sometimes tell of a writer friend who was convinced an acquaintance 'stole' her story premise, rewrote it, and sold it to a different publisher, because the acquaintance's book came out a couple of years later and did start off in a different location but with the same sequence of events, not particularly going off in its own direction until about chapter ten.  But when I mentioned this to a mentor, my mentor laughed and said, "If you're going to use the oldest chestnut in the genre, don't be shocked that others use it, too."

My friend was convinced that her idea was new, but it wasn't new at all. It was new to her, but people who had been reading for many years had seen it before. And before. And before. It still made a good story, but it wasn't unique, and it's doubtful that the acquaintance stole it.

This comes back to me after reading the following on agent Kristin Nelson's Facebook page:

And it never ceases to amaze me when I see trends in that query inbox. It's like suddenly all writers have hit on the same concept independently. 

This month's zeitgeist? Young adult stories where the main narrator has to train as an assassin in order to protect a family member or the whole fam. 

Just in the last 3 weeks alone I've read over a dozen query letters with this theme.

And there ya go. No new ideas. In publishing what sells is how YOU write it. What you bring to it that's new and fresh. 

So, are you writing in 2015? If not, why not?