Month: March 2013
It’s here! The second book in WU contributor Anne Greenwood Brown‘s bestselling YA series, DEEP BETRAYAL (Delacorte), released March 12, and it has all the elements that made her first book LIES BENEATH so compelling: conflicted characters, high stakes, nail-biting tension, and a paranormal slant. From the flap:
It’s been thirty days, two hours, and seventeen minutes since Calder left Lily standing on the shores of Lake Superior. Not that she’s counting. And when Calder does return, it’s not quite the reunion Lily hoped for. Especially after she lets her father in on a huge secret.Then dead bodies start washing ashore. Calder blames his mermaid sisters, but Lily fears a new predator has come into the lake. As the body count grows, everyone is pointing fingers. Lily doesn’t know what to believe—only that whoever’s responsible is sure to strike again. . . .
We are thrilled to be able to bring you a Take 5 mini interview with Anne to have her share more about her novel.
Q: What’s the premise of your new book?
LIES BENEATH (the first book in the trilogy) was an evolution story about a merman who became a man, but DEEP BETRAYAL is a murder mystery at heart. On a thematic level, it explores the many ways in which we are betrayed by love: Calder’s desire to connect to a father figure steals him away from Lily; Pavati’s inability to fulfill her promise to Jack betrays his expectations for a happily ever after; and a paranormal version of a mid-life crisis steals Lily’s father away from the family.
Q: What would you like people to know about the story itself?
I’d like people to know that this series is not about Disney-esque mermaids.
Read MorePhoto by stephcarter
We’re thrilled to introduce you to our newest contributor, Bill Ferris. Bill was one of the over fifty applicants for our humor columnist position, and–as we told the funny finalists who were not Bill–we fell in hard love with his voice and quirky sense of humor. Welcome, Bill!
The fragrance of coffee and overpriced pastries wafts through your favorite cafe. You choose a table with a clear view of that cute barista whose chai tea you can’t stop thinking about. Trouble is, every singleton in town has the same idea. If you want to impress your coffee crush, you’ve got to let her know you’ve got more than good looks and charm. You’re a writer, the sexiest and coolest of all professions. Since she’s avoiding eye contact, you’ll have to make it obvious.
1. Dress to impress. Don a T-shirt commemorating an author whose image you want to portray (Hemingway–I’m a tough guy with a sensitive side and a drinking problem; James Joyce–I like to tell people I read James Joyce. I am also a drunk). Gentlemen, catch her eye by sporting…well, a sport coat, the kind with those swanky elbow patches. Ladies, try on some big librarian glasses. Hold your hair in a bun with a number two pencil, then whip it loose like you’re in an ‘80s music video. To make sure he sees you, do this every fifteen minutes. Both sexes may accessorize with berets, scarves, or pipes–but never more than one. You don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard.
2. Talk the tahlk. Nothing speaks to a life of culture, travel, and literature like an accent of indeterminate origin. George Plimpton was a nobody until he ditched his south-Georgia twang for a Mid-Atlantic posh the envy of boarding-school headmasters nationwide. Homebrew your own signature speech patterns by fusing Katharine Hepburn’s old-time Hollywood with Hagrid’s West Country accent. Your beloved may ask you to repeat yourself, which totally counts as witty back-and-forth.
Read MoreThis month, I’ve been dipping my toes into the water of a brand-new project, taking the first steps on the looooong road that will eventually (I hope!) lead to a finished novel. I actually love this part of the process. Doing loads and loads of research reading, letting myself daydream as I read (or do dishes, or watch my six year old practice handwriting), racing to my computer to type notes into my ‘ideas’ folder as they occur to me. It’s a little like decorating a Christmas tree at this stage of the game. Every day I unwrap a few shiny ornaments–a setting, a plot twist idea, a deeper understanding of the hero’s emotional baggage and journey– and tentatively decide where they might hang. I don’t have a vision of the whole tree, not yet–I may not until the moment when all those shiny ornaments are unwrapped and hung and I type ‘the end’ at the close of my first draft. But it will come.
One of those shiny ornaments that I haven’t quite gotten unwrapped (I swear I will give up on this metaphor before you’re all thoroughly sick of it!) yet is the narrator’s voice. That will come, too, I know–it always does, when the time is right. There are many guidelines–many very good– out there with tips on how to strengthen your narrative ‘voice’, but to be honest, I don’t typically use any of them when I’m writing or outlining. For me, there’s an element of almost magic in uncovering a character’s unique voice and style of narration. At some point in my reading and research, the main character’s voice simply starts sounding loud and clear in my head. A lightening bolt strikes, and that’s the moment when I know I’m ready to start typing.
Which is great, but not especially predictable or helpful in terms of giving other authors advice on how to find their own voice. I really enjoyed Lisa Cron’s post here last summer on the subject of ‘unmasking the muse’. Essentially, Lisa suggested that the creative force that drives our writing isn’t some external ‘muse’ beyond our control, that even when it seems a question of magical lightening bolts striking and bringing characters to life, it’s really our amazing subconscious minds at work. So this time around, I thought I’d try to pay attention and delve into the process a little bit more. Where exactly do these voices come from, these characters’ voices that we hear so loud and clear when we’re telling a story? How do we make them striking and unique and ensure that they come alive on the page?
Read MoreImagine it’s a beautiful Saturday morning and a friend from work stops by and asks if you want to go hiking — something she’s never suggested before.
You think for a minute. Do you want to go hiking? You have no feeling about it, one way or the other. Absolutely nothing comes to mind to help you decide, so you just blink at her in uncomfortable silence. She wonders whether you’re on drugs, and the next day at work no one will look you in the eye.
Could that scenario happen? Of course not. Unless you are on drugs. Or, in classic movie style, have just been conked on the head and are suffering from amnesia.
Instead, what would happen is that your cognitive unconscious would instantly rip through relevant memories of the past and thoughts of the future as you make your decision . . .
“. . . There was that time you went hiking with your Girl Scout troop when you were nine. You rounded a bend, saw a sheer cliff, panicked, sat with a thud and inched back down the trail on your tush, whimpering. It was a mortifying way to find out you’re terrified of heights and since then you haven’t climbed so much as a stepstool.
But the last six times your friend asked you to do something you blew her off, and she might suspect that you don’t like her.
Besides, you don’t want her to think you’re a coward, or worse, not fit enough to head into the hills. She’s been so gung-ho since she got into shape that she’s been a little smug. But sheesh, it’s not like she did it to make you feel pudgy. Even though it does kinda feel personal. Maybe blowing her off is a good idea.
Then again, there’s that new cute guy in the office who seems to be single, so a little toning might be a good idea. And who knows, you even might get into better shape than your smug friend, and that would sure show her….”
Some of these thoughts would be conscious, some would not, and you’d process ‘em all so fast that your friend wouldn’t even have time to register your hesitation before you said, Sure! I’d love to go hiking!
The point: We evaluate every decision through the lens of everything that’s happened to us up to that moment. Whether or not we consciously ponder each memory, our prior experience is always at work just below the surface, shaping our worldview and driving our action.
As Faulkner so famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
This isn’t a metaphor, it’s a fact. It’s how our brain processes information. We make every decision based on how experience has taught us to decode the present.
You know who needs to do the exact same thing?
Read MoreI’ve always been an inveterate collector of antique and vintage books, on all kinds of themes and subjects: fairy tales (amongst which a treasured 18th century edition of Madame Leprince de Beaumont’s tales, including my favourite, Beauty and the Beast); travel guidebooks (so useful when writing historical fiction); old crime novels; household hints and cookery; bound copies of old magazines, such as Charles Dickens’ Household Words—the edition which I’ve got includes the first, serialised appearance of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White. I collect them ‘for fun and profit’, as the old saying has it: because I love old books and magazines, and the undiminished, vibrant life that comes so strongly off their yellowed pages: but also because they are so very useful to me in my work as a novelist. And now I’m collecting in an area very close to my heart–authorship–and it’s proving to be utterly fascinating: for not only do these old books provide an intriguing glimpse into the writing life ‘back in the day’, they also show quite clearly that despite all the many technological changes which have flowed into the everyday lives and methods of authors, in fact many, many things stay the same.
In the past, I’ve come across many passages in old books and magazines that deal with authorship and the publishing industry, such as Anna Dostoevsky’s fascinating description, in her posthumously published 1918 book Reminiscences (about her life with her famous writer husband, Feodor) of how the couple, wearied of low publishing returns, promises of promotion that never happened, and exorbitant discounts demanded by booksellers, decided that they’d do better self-publishing his latest novel, the huge, extraordinary, Demons, also known as The Possessed. Anna gives a blow by blow account of how they went about it, and reports on the huge success of the venture, both financially and exposure-wise (they put together a canny publicity campaign that was the equivalent of a ‘viral’ social media push today, causing a huge buzz about the book before it even hit the streets). So successful was it that lots of other authors, including a certain Tolstoy, rushed to ask them their advice on self-publishing! (Yep, nothing’s new under the sun.)
But passages like those, fascinating as they are, are only isolated pieces in books on bigger subjects. What I was looking for to start my collection of old authorship books were those that concentrated on that subject in its different variants. I’ve only started seriously collecting them very recently, but have already found some real gems.
Read MoreBefore becoming serious about writing, I spent many years as a professional musician, a career I still continue to pursue. As I got deeper into writing fiction, and began devoting myself to trying to carve a path towards publication, I couldn’t help but observe that these two vocations – music and writing – have a lot in common.
For instance, success requires dedication, sacrifice, countless hours of practice, and some luck. Disappointments and obstacles abound, and the vast majority of your friends and loved ones won’t understand why you do what you do. The industries themselves are in upheaval, making it terribly hard to strategize and figure out the right move (and easy to become mortally fearful of making the wrong move). Chances of economic success are incredibly thin, and there’s no middle class, no 401K, and you can bet there’s no health plan. And no matter how hard you work, there will always be others who seem to succeed effortlessly, without any apparent skills or redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Oh, and there are also some downsides.
But being the historically glass-half-full guy that I am, today I’m going to look at one of the upsides, and focus on something that both music and writing share: an incredibly powerful resource that is available to every single one of us, which can definitely increase our chances of success, no matter how far along we are in our journey. Sound interesting? Then read on!
Read MoreLately I’ve had several clients come to me with the same problem—they want to make a point more than they want to tell a story. That’s fine for essays, blogs, even non-fiction books, but fiction is not the best place to make an argument, not unless you want to join the ranks of propagandists.
Of course, propaganda can sometimes change the world. Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought the brutality of slavery to life in 1852 and inspired many to join the abolitionists and, later, the Union army. People fought and died because of that book. But today, kids are only likely to encounter it in history classes. No one’s reading it for fun anymore.
On the other hand, Huck Finn also changed the world, undermining prejudice by introducing readers to Jim. Yet Twain’s book is still read in literature classes. And for fun.
So what’s the difference between propaganda and a novel that broadens your readers’ minds?
Respect for your characters, for starters.
Read MoreOver the past few months I’ve spoken to two authors who’d signed with the same, well-reputed PR firm for a book launch campaign, paid a considerable amount of money and then…nothing. Barely a review or author interview to show for the firm’s initial promises and excitement.
(For the record, this was not one of the wonderful PR firms plugged into the Writer Unboxed community.)
Each of them told me – with quite a bit of emotion – about their disturbing experience: a positive, promising initial meeting followed by months of waiting for potential press coverage that never panned out, then finally, a barrage of lame excuses including, “It’s because of your book.”
One of these authors became my client, and before we started work I asked to see the list of media outlets said firm had contacted about his middle grade fantasy novel. To my surprise, the list contained no fewer than 4,000 entries, which is far too many and implies that proper targeting hadn’t been done. Case in point: the list included publications such as General Dentistry and American Cowboy.
The second author was unable to obtain a copy of her press list at all, having been told it was “proprietary.”
Needless to say, this makes my blood boil. It’s deeply unfair to the authors who placed their trust in this firm, it’s disrespectful of authors in general – taking advantage of their earnest hope and vulnerability – and it’s an insult to all the devoted, hard-working publicists out there who go above and beyond to generate results.
It also brings to light something that absolutely has to change: Many – possibly most? – authors simply have no idea what they should look for when hiring a PR firm. Nor do they know what’s “normal” or what they should expect from this relationship.
So here’s my laundry list of must-haves in determining whether the firm you hire to publicize your book is up to par, and in understanding whether it’s doing (or will do) what it should for you:
1. Set reasonable expectations up front
A good PR firm will not sell you promises, ensuring you that it can get you into Oprah orThe New York Times, for example. In fact, the publicist you work with should explain, up front, what you can potentially expect from your campaign – and what you cannot.
2. A detailed work plan
Going into a campaign, you know what you want: news and reviews! But how is your publicist going to accomplish this? He or she should be able to tell you, step by step, what the execution plan is. Personally, I like to include this in a work schedule so the timing of each step is clear.
3. Accessibility
Read MoreWhen I was about 6 or 7 years old, one of my favorite things to do was make paper dolls. I’d collect some good paper and a new box of crayons and spend the next several hours (sometimes days!) happily coloring and designing an entire world full of paper dolls and, of course, their wardrobe. Filling in the details of the wardrobe could be a bit tedious, so that is when I inevitably began telling myself the story of these dolls’ world and who they were and what was going on in their lives. The thing is, what I remember most vividly about that experience is that sense of becoming utterly lost, not only in the world I was creating, but in the act of creating. It is still to this day one of my most cherished memories.
A more recent memory is watching my own two kids at their play, building castles with blocks, or Lego spaceships, or playing with those little plastic army men—and being struck by how utterly they too lost themselves in that process. It was no longer a game, but about building a world, a reality, filled with characters they were making up on the spot. Most children with a blank piece of paper and a new box of crayons can transcend time and space in a similar way—through the act of creating.
I think it is often so easy to forget that these creative pursuits we engage in are supposed to be fun. They should bring us joy. But when we become obsessed with getting published or are hunkered down trying to meet the next looming deadline, it is all too easy to forget that.
And I think the work loses something in the process. Or at the very least, the process itself becomes diminished.
This has become painfully clear to me over the last few weeks as I knuckle down, trying to stay on track to meet my deadline for Book Three, all while preparing for the publication of Book Two, writing guest posts and extra content for upcoming blog tours and guest posts, and preparing for a real, live book tour, conferences, and workshops I’ll be attending all next month.
It is safe to say that any concept of creative play has fled the room. And I realize that this is one of the (many!) challenges facing working authors—how do we hold on to our sense of creative play?
Read MoreEarlier today, we made the decision to pull a post by one of our esteemed contributors, Juliet Marillier. Backlash over her essay, reflecting on personal disappointment over a reader’s letter, had grown, and people came to us with concerns. However due to the time zone differences for Juliet, who lives in Australia, she was unable to respond to those concerns throughout the day. In the end, we felt it in her and everyone’s best interests to remove the post, allow Juliet time to absorb the conflict, and respond. She has done that now.
She asked us to let you all know that she’s sorry if her post upset or offended anyone. That was not her intention. She regrets the choice to show the reader’s email in full, as she deeply values her relationship with her readers.
We value our relationship with our readers as well—our WU community—and we value our relationship with Juliet, who has been with WU since 2007.
We’d like to remind everyone that our moderators retain the right to delete comments deemed offensive or inappropriate. If you’d like to ensure that your comments are posted, please refrain from personal attacks and digs, and engage in courteous debate. It also seems a good time to remind everyone that one contributor’s views are not necessarily shared by the other contributors at Writer Unboxed. Each contributor’s views are his or her own, and each contributor has an invitation to share those views here.
Thank you, and write on.
Read MoreWhat’s your most meaningful relationship? Quick, write it down.
Did you write down a relationship with a person? That’s great. Now, keep listing relationships that are important to you. Write down as many as you like. When you’re done have a look at your list. Are one or more relationships that matter to you relationships to non-living things? Chances are that’s true.
We have relationships to all manner of things: music, animals, towns, careers, sports teams, food, the past, and even our own writing. We also have relationships to aspects of ourselves, for instance to our fears, our dreams, our sins, our suffering, our beliefs and ideals. We have relationships with time, the Devine and death.
Here’s the thing about relationships: they’re unique to us, they matter and they change. Just as our relationships to others evolve so do our relationships to things that are abstract and intangible.
Look at it this way: Do you feel the same today as you did in childhood about your Barbie dolls or Lego blocks? No. Your toys today are different. Is your passion for Van Halen, blue eye shadow, shoulder pads or Jägermeister the same as in your younger days? No. You’ve moved on to jazz, minivans, Ann Taylor and Ribera.
As for me, don’t get me started about hair, coffee, books or the European Union. It’s complicated. Ask me a year from now and I likely won’t say what I’d say today. That’s the point. My relationship to those things is changing.
So it is with characters. Their relationships to non-human things are as dynamic as their relationships to other people. How can we measure those changes? It’s done by capturing evolving feelings, opinions and perceptions. Here are some approaches to developing a deeper connection between your protagonist and his or her subjective world…
Read MoreTherese here. I’m so pleased to introduce you to today’s guest, author Allie Larkin. I’ve been lucky enough to meet Allie in real life (IRL!), and I can tell you she is down to earth, extremely funny, and a true storyteller. Her second novel, Why Can’t I Be You, is as entertaining as Allie herself. It’s the story of a woman who is mistaken for another person, who then decides to slip into that person’s skin for a while before ultimately recreating herself. Said Romantic Times Book Review:
This is a fun and quirky read for anyone who always wondered what it would be like to live life in someone else’s shoes. Readers will likely identify with the main character, and will definitely enjoy the crazy ride along the way thanks to Larkin’s breezy and light writing style.”
Allie’s here to share some of her savviest public speaking tips with us. Enjoy!
Don’t go on TV with your fly open, and other tips from me to you.*
Remember that movie where Brendan Fraser spent 35 years in a nuclear fallout shelter before he was thrust out into the real world?**
Writing a book reminds me of that. The time we spend working on our novels is anti-social time spent in pants with elastic waistbands. Then the book comes out, and all of a sudden our jobs change. After months (or years) of purposeful brooding and solitude, we’re in the spotlight, out in the world, promoting something that probably still feels a little bit private and so very dear.
It’s culture shock, and my first time around, I longed for advice. So here are some tips to help you brave the great big world of book promotion and real pants:
Own your expertise. You are the leading authority on your book. No one else in the world knows as much about your characters or your story as you do. Don’t be nervous about answering questions. You have the answers.
Picture the audience in their clothes. For the love of all that is good in the world, ignore the age-old advice about public speaking and underwear. People in their underwear will either gross you out, leave you feeling more awkward, or make you think, ‘Damn, they look good!’ None of those scenarios will help you speak better in public. Picture the audience as a group of good friends. Chat with them accordingly. And if you need to, practice your reading in front of a group of friends ahead of time.
Read MoreNothing scotches believability faster than a character who doesn’t sound right. Much of the time these are mistakes of vocabulary, like a third-grader who uses the word “disenfranchised” or a hardened felon who says “Darn tootin’!” But just as important, or even more so, is the question of metaphor.
(As I write about this, I’m going to use “metaphor” as a category that includes both metaphors and similes. The difference between them is a question of grammar, not concept. And although I am without question a grammar stickler, I think dropping the distinction makes sense for exploring their use. Otherwise things get all cluttered up, saying “metaphor/simile” every time, and it gets as messy as a roomful of toddlers who’ve skipped their naps.)
A lot of writers probably come to this realization automatically, but I didn’t. I had to learn it. One summer at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival I went to an Elevenses lecture by Sands Hall. I don’t remember if this was the main focus of her talk, or just one topic among many, but it has stuck with me utterly. She was talking about using two narrators in her book Catching Heaven and that one of the ways she made sure their voices were distinct was that each was using metaphors appropriate to her experience. The sisters had led different lives, so of course when they reached in their minds to compare one thing to another, they were drawing on different pools of knowledge.
My little mind: blown.
Read More- « Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next »
