If I Knew Then What I Know Now
By Keith Cronin | July 10, 2018 |
The author before and after learning how to use a semicolon
I get approached from time to time by aspiring new writers, asking for advice on how to get started. The longer I’ve been doing this, the harder it gets to answer them. At this point I’ve been in the game nearly 20 years, so how do I condense what I’ve learned into a quick conversation or a brief email? And what if they are interested in a completely different type of writing than the kind that has made me as rich and famous as I currently am? (Hmmm – now that I think about it, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. But I digress…)
So how to advise them? Do I lecture them on the ever-changing industry? Warn them of the dangers of reading the works of Clive Cussler? Or simply hand them a dog-eared copy of The Elements of Style and turn around and run? Depending on who asks, it’s hard to determine which advice would be the most useful.
When in doubt, fire up the time machine!
I’ve been binge-watching the old Stargate SG-1 TV series recently, and several of the stories focus on time travel, a concept that has always fascinated me. In a couple of episodes, the main characters manage to pass messages to versions of themselves who are living in a different time.
This got me to thinking: what kind of messages would Current-Day Keith send to Past Keith?
After considering obvious nuggets like “buy stock in Amazon” and “don’t enroll in Trump University,” I started thinking about what I would tell Keith The Writer From The Past (or, KTWFTP). Since SG-1 episodes usually incorporate a ticking clock or some other increasingly urgent complications, I decided to ramp up the pressure, and limit myself to five pieces of advice. Here’s what I came up with to share with the younger (and yes, hairier) Keith.
1. Know your genre – and its conventions.
Probably the biggest – and hardest – lesson I’ve learned as a writer is that genre matters. Historically the genre of a book just wasn’t something I thought or cared about – as a reader or as a writer. But after writing one hard-to-categorize manuscript after another, the first message I would pass on to KTWFTP is to pick a damn genre already. It will make things SO much simpler.
Why? Genre simplifies things by setting expectations. It helps an agent sell your book. It helps a publisher market your book. It helps a reader choose your book.
And if you’re self-publishing, it helps YOU market your book, which is utterly crucial. In an era when anybody can publish anything, you need a way to make your book stand out to your potential readers. For self-published books, currently one of the most powerful marketing tactics is to get your book listed in a well-established promotional vehicle like BookBub. But here’s the thing: just as in conventional publishing, which many tend to view as adhering to an “evil gatekeeper” model, there’s no guarantee BookBub will accept your book. They are picky about the content of the books they promote, and IF they accept your book, the fees they charge can vary, based on – wait for it – the category your book fits into. Dang, looks like those pesky gatekeepers are hard to avoid, even in self-publishing.
On top of all this, with each genre may come an accompanying set of conventions and expectations, which might include the acceptable length for your book, and even some rules for what can or cannot happen in your story – e.g., the HEA or HFN (Happily Ever After or Happy For Now) endings required for most types of romance novels.
I know, I know – all this talk of rules can really go against the grain for an artistic soul eager to express his or her unique vision. Believe me, I get it. And hey, the reality is that you can write anything you want. But if you actually want to sell what you wrote, ignore the rules of genre at your own peril. Been there, done that, and no, I didn’t get to quit the day job.
Okay, I think I hear my Stargate clock ticking away, so let’s move on to the next message-to-self from Time Traveling Keith.
2. Give your story an antagonist.
This is another area where I definitely need to up my game. While there are bad or evil characters in my fiction, I’ve historically not been very good about creating a single identifiable “bad guy” for my readers to root against. I’ve posted about this before here at WU, and hypothesized that my own lack of a personal nemesis (other than Clive Cussler, of course) could be why it didn’t occur to me to create one when writing a story. Yet nearly every book, TV show or movie that I like has a clear antagonist. More importantly, that antagonist is often a VERY memorable character, so not inserting one into my story represents a major missed opportunity.
For the writer, a powerful antagonist can really amp up the conflict in your story. And for the reader, a clearly identified antagonist can make it MUCH easier to get emotionally invested.
So a key lesson that 2018 Keith wants to share with my younger (and okay, thinner) self is: give us a bad guy. (Or girl. Or shark – preferably with lasers.)
3. Go big or go home.
I love stories where the action is big, bold, even – for lack of better word – cinematic. But for some reason, I rarely have the nerve to write that way. Instead, I tend to “write smaller,” probably because I’m concerned with being realistic. But in doing so, I sometimes limit the impact of my stories. And that’s something I want to change.
If you’ve ever attended one of Donald Maass’s mind-blowing workshops, you’ve heard him exhort us to write about characters who say the things we wish we had the nerve (or the wit) to say, and who do the things we only dream about doing. As he states in his excellent book Writing the Breakout Novel, “The characters in your story will not engross readers unless they are out of the ordinary. How can it be otherwise? In life, ordinary folks do ordinary things every day. How much of that do we remember? Precious little.” By contrast, Donald observes, “In life and in fiction, when people act in ways that are unusual, unexpected, dramatic, decisive, full of consequence and are irreversible, we remember them and talk about them for years.”
For years.
It’s easy to dismiss that kind of advice as only appropriate for action thrillers or superhero dramas. But even in the smallest, most intimate and least superheroic situations, there’s no denying the fact that people are still capable of actions that are unusual, unexpected, dramatic, decisive, full of consequence and irreversible. So why not have your characters do things like these? After all, as Donald points out, “We read fiction not just to see ourselves but also to imagine ourselves as we might be.”
4. Obey the laws of cause and effect.
This is a lesson I wish I had learned sooner. I’ll confess that there have been scenes in my books that exist primarily because I thought to myself, “Hey, self – this would be a cool scene to have in my book.” From studying other books and movies I admire, as well as the never-ending series of writing how-to books to which I’m addicted, I’ve learned the importance of causality (a two-dollar word for the relation of cause and effect) in fiction.
Why does this matter? Your plot will feel far more tightly structured – and far more believable – if each action is caused or impacted by some other action or element of your story.
Conversely, a lack of causality can badly undermine your story. As an example, in an effort to follow my own “go big” mantra, I was brainstorming an idea in which a secondary character suddenly pulled a gun on some of my other characters. And I came up with a plausible reason for him doing so. I congratulated myself for ramping up the tension, and thought I had done a good job of matching the way one of my favorite comedic authors had given one of his novels an adrenal jolt with a sudden and unexpected gun scene.
But then I went back and re-read the shooting passage in that author’s book, and realized that the gun-wielding character had appeared as a direct result of something the protagonist did earlier in the book. In my own brainstorm, the character showed up because he was angry about something else entirely, and my protagonist just had the bad luck to be in the same building at the time. Causality FAIL.
In his landmark book Story, screenwriting guru Robert McKee takes the position that causality “drives a story in which motivated actions cause effects that in turn become the causes of yet other effects, thereby interlinking the various levels of conflict in a chain reaction of episodes to the Story Climax, expressing the interconnectedness of reality.” Highfalutin words, I know, but McKee makes a solid point, and I recommend his book for those interested in story theory. (By the way, did you know that highfalutin is one word, not two – and doesn’t need an apostrophe on the end? I didn’t, until I researched this post. You’re welcome.)
For a compelling – and far more down-to-earth – lesson on causality in storytelling, check out what the creators of South Park have to say on the matter. I’ve posted this video before (and yes, it’s safe for viewing in mixed company), but it’s definitely worth another viewing.
5. Be able to describe your book in one or two sentences.
Before you protest, I can say this with complete confidence: the simple reality is that EVERY writer at EVERY stage in their journey – from unpublished newbie to NYT bestseller – is inevitably going to be asked, “What’s your book about?”
This can be maddeningly difficult to answer, since you’re trying to express in just a few sentences what it took you several hundred pages to convey in your manuscript. But I can tell you from experience, when you don’t have a concise way of describing your book, you will lose your audience – fast. That might not sound like a big deal, but consider this: your agent could be having the same challenge describing your book to a prospective buyer. Not good.
So my big takeaway – and I emphasize that it’s MY takeaway, for Keith of Nowsville to pass on to YesterKeith – is that I want my next book to be VERY easy to describe. Yes, folks, I have drunk the “high concept” Kool-Aid, and have resolved to write a pithily describable book next time around. But I’ll delve more deeply into high concept in some future post. (Oh, and for extra points, try saying “pithily” out loud without sounding like a drunken Sylvester the Cat. But again I digress…)
Okay, but what if your story simply isn’t high concept? I still recommend that you put some effort into distilling it into a sentence or two, acknowledging that there’s no way to capture your whole story. So, if you can’t encompass the story in its entirety, what if you simply try to highlight the most intriguing part?
For example, maybe you could describe the “set-up” – the basic challenge being faced by your main character(s) early in the book. Or maybe focus on the climactic conflict – the big obstacle your character(s) must overcome to bring your story to its end. In either case, you’re not capturing your whole story, but perhaps you’ve included enough of a taste to whet the appetite of the agent or potential reader to whom you’re speaking.
High concept or not, this stuff is hard – believe me, I know. Time and time again I found it extremely difficult to describe my debut novel, which focused on two brain-damaged stroke survivors, but often in a humorous way. Particularly in a face-to-face conversation, try telling somebody you’ve written “a funny book about brain damage and stroke,” and imagine the stone-faced looks you’re going to get – jeez, talk about a “tough room.” That’s why next time around, I’m determined to write something that’s easier to talk about.
Food for thought…
I share all this in the hope that it might be helpful to both experienced and new writers. For experienced writers, maybe this will make you think about some hard lessons you wish you had learned sooner; for new writers, perhaps this will offer some food for thought and possibly a few shortcuts (or at least an express lane) to some concepts that might otherwise have taken several years – and/or several manuscripts – to figure out.
Again, I’m not saying these five messages apply to all writers. These are just what iPhone-Toting Keith would say to Way-Back Keith. That said, I hope at least some of these resonate with you, or get you thinking about something else you wish you had known when you were first getting started.
How about you?
Imagine you can travel back in time and share just five things with you-the-new-writer. What would you tell YOU? Please chime in, and as always, thanks for reading!
[coffee]
Author of the novels Me Again (originally published by Five Star/Gale), and Tony Partly Cloudy (published under his pen name Nick Rollins), Keith Cronin (he/him) is a corporate speechwriter and professional rock drummer who has performed and recorded with artists including Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, and Pat Travers. Keith’s fiction has appeared in Carve Magazine, Amarillo Bay, The Scruffy Dog Review, Zinos, and a University of Phoenix management course. A native of South Florida, Keith spends his free time serenading local ducks and alligators with his ukulele.
Great list, Keith!
“Know your genre” and “Be able to describe your book in one or two sentences” go hand-in-hand, in my experience. These are not limited to self-publishing authors, either. If you can’t easily describe your book, you douse the spark of imagination in a reader before page one. That’s a weakness that’ll hurt while speaking at a conference or book event, and it’s a weakness your publishing team may face, too. Weak description = weak sales.
Diana Gabaldon, author of the cross-genre, mega-hit novel OUTLANDER, has said she dealt with the challenge of representing her book by first asking would-be readers what they liked to read, then tailoring her responses to their replies. She owned every spin, too. So whatever you do, do it with confidence.
Your South Park post is one of my all-time favorites here at WU, by the way.
Wow, this is a powerful point:
“If you can’t easily describe your book, you douse the spark of imagination in a reader before page one.”
Thanks, Therese!
Keith, thanks for this wonderful post. It’s hard to single out the best part, so let me just comment on No. 1, genre conventions, and No. 5, compact description of book. Both remind me of sonnet structure. A sonnet has 14 lines, but who complains about that supposed restriction? Not at all. The structure provides a handy container into which the poet can pour anything at all. It’s the same with successful genre novels, many of which have fine literary qualities–and whose authors, I suspect, have happily embraced the form as a useful container. Similarly, the compact description is an organizing principle for the writer and one of the best ways to attract a publisher and an audience.
BTW, my mother was a southerner, so I have always known “highfalutin.” Also “ledlowstoketchmeddlers.”
Great observation about the “container” that the sonnet form provides, Anna – thanks for that.
But I gotta ask: what the heck are ledlowstoketchmeddlers? :)
Usually it’s what we’re having for dinner or dessert, or whatever the parent doesn’t wish to divulge right now. Intended to discourage the child from asking any more questions, it is a snare or trap “laid low to catch meddlers” and said quickly as all one word, with the second and fifth syllables firmly accented.
Keith –
When you are on your time travel route please swing by and deliver a copy of your list to 2008-me.
Good stuff.
Thanks!
PS- Please include the Amazon tip as well
I’m on my way, Tom. But if I try to convince you that 8-track tapes are coming back, please ignore me.
Great post Keith.
I have to admit, there is a small part of older me that would tell younger me not to start writing at all. Of course, the larger percentage of me, the parts that LOVE to write, would fight to the death….
Dee
LOL, Dee – when traveling back in time to advise my younger self, I can definitely see including a comment along the lines of “Are you SURE you want to do this whole writing thing? I mean, like, really REALLY sure?”
Spot-on advice all around, Keith. And I’m not just saying that because there was some overlap with a recent blog post of mine titled, “Letter to My Younger Writer Self.” ; )
I’m an especially fervent proponent of your “Give your story an antagonist” suggestion. Readers love to hate a complex nemesis, and sometimes even hate to love them. Personally, I brake for antiheroes.
And another big amen to your “Be able to describe your book in 1-2 sentences” advice. A single “um” or “er” when asked about your novel at a party or on a plane or in group therapy is enough to lose a potential reader forever. That’s why I never leave the house without a loaded elevator pitch for each of my books.
If I may be so bold, here are just a couple of wisdom nuggets from my aforementioned “letter to younger me,” intended to help aspiring writers avoid some of the early mistakes I made:
MAKE FRIENDS WITH MEAN PEOPLE WHO KNOW HOW TO WRITE. These folks will tell you straight out when your essay or story or novel sucks, and will provide you with specific reasons why so you can get better. Now, I’m not saying you need to surround yourself only with talented and brash a-holes, but it’s important to have at least two or three in your life at all times. At the risk of sounding cocky, you can count me as one of those a-holes.
DON’T VIEW OTHER AUTHORS IN YOUR GENRE AS “THE COMPETITION.” As much fun as it is to sit alone in a room for days on end putting imaginary people through living hell while cursing writers who are more successful than you, you shouldn’t. At least not that last part. Writing is not a “you against the world” endeavor. Get out and connect with other authors, particularly authors who write the same kind of stuff you do but better. Why? Because those folks have fans, and those fans may very well enjoy your writing. Readers aren’t monogamous. They’re not faithful to any one author. They have “a type,” and will give just about any author who fits that type a go. They’re like cheerleaders who sleep with everyone on the team, except they’re more literate and have fewer STDs. So go ahead and join forces with authors in your genre. Network. Collaborate. Ride coattails. Such socializing and schmoozing may seem like a lot of work, but thanks to a little thing called the Internet, you can now become instant best friends with hundreds of writers just like you without having to leave your lonely little room.
__
Thanks for the excellent post, Keith. I’m going to take my own advice now and connect with you on your preferred social channels!
Regards,
gl
Thanks, Greg. I freaking LOVE the “make friends with mean people who can write” idea. When it comes to writing, I don’t need unconditional love; I need somebody who’s not afraid to point out that I have the literary equivalent of broccoli in my teeth.
Regarding your second point: I have a competitive nature, but I tend to look at other authors more as stylistic role models than competitors. But maybe that’s because I have not yet represented any serious competition to the ones I admire.
But I strongly agree with you about the potential for networking, community, and genuine friendships that we should explore among our fellow writers, particularly in this interweb-enabled age.
I love your comment. And I need more mean friends!
“They’re like cheerleaders who sleep with everyone on the team, except they’re more literate and have fewer STDs.” — HA! LOVE THIS!
Wonderful provocation to mental mulling this morning, Keith. Thanks for that.
As I’m working through all of the scenarios, there was a niggling at the periphery of my every thought. I was thinking of pieces of advice I could impart to get that handsome and spry (hey, I can recall him as I like) early version of writer-me to figure out how to make his first trilogy work; how he might have shed that ridiculous ego more swiftly, how he might have gotten through all of those rewrites without all of the angst and hand-wringing, etcetera. But here’s the niggle. If those things had happened, I wouldn’t have started my WIP. I wouldn’t have ended up where I am.
That thought left me feeling uneasy. I mean, I’m pretty sure I am meant to be here. I’m pretty sure that without the difficulty, I’d still be all naive and cocky, and still have lost my handsomeness and spryness. Yeah, it’s not a pretty scenario to imagine.
As I came to what seemed a mental roadblock, my wife appeared in my office door. “Who’s up on WU?” I told her it was you, and she said, “Oh good,” (knowing that you’re always entertaining) “What’s it about?” I told her, and she immediately says, “So you’d tell beginner you that this takes a loooong time, right? That you should just cool your jets and settle in for the long haul.”
“Something like that,” I said, wishing I’d gotten there so simply, and thanking the writing gods that I have her in my life.
Vaughn, you raise a VERY good point about how everything we go through contributes to our current state, without which we wouldn’t have ended up where we are.
But sometimes I can’t help but wonder if I couldn’t have gotten there a LITTLE sooner, with perhaps a little less wheel-spinning and fewer wrong turns along the way.
Still, when I rewind, I usually can justify the choices I made as being the best-informed and best-intentioned decisions I could have come up with at the time. Well, except for that whole polyester slinky shirt phase I briefly went through. Those were dark times…
Hi Keith. Great post. “An author in early middle age discovers a flaw in the time-space continuum that allows him to slither back and educate his childhood self on how to avoid all the pitfalls waiting to happen to him when he gets old enough to foolishly decide to become a writer.”
In the beaten way of WU friendship, please mentally MapQuest this time-space flaw to me ASAP.
You say you wrote yourself into trouble by writing comedy about brain-damaged stroke survivors. I wrote my way there in a suspense novel about a charming Mexican illegal (there’s a third rail for you) who is doing well in Florida by assisting senior citizens who want to die–even when they change their minds (third rails #2 and #3).
All I will add to your witty, highly useful post has to do with the matter of the one-two sentence description. The writer needs to remember that what she wrote is one thing, but a marketing pitch is something else entirely. The point isn’t to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, but to create a spark of interest in an agent, a potential reader, etc. In other words, the writer must kick her own ego out of the way, and focus on the person being pitched. What will she/he respond to? How can the work in question be applied to that person?
I’m at work on a complicated story, but think I know how to present it in simple terms with wide appeal = high concept. This concept will have just one purpose: to keep someone from slamming the door. End of story.
Thanks, Barry – this is a GREAT observation about brief book descriptions:
“The point isn’t to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but, but to create a spark of interest in an agent, a potential reader, etc.”
Amen to that. And I’ll get right on the task of sending you my time travel tools – as soon as I can remember where I put them.
Hi Keith,
Great post! That video on storytelling by the writers of South Park is on my list of all-time-greatest writerly advice ever given.
Here’s what my current self would tell my past self: Go with your gut. If a passage, a scene, or even a phrase ‘feels’ wrong or not quite up to snuff when you read it, then it likely is not ‘right’ or ‘up to snuff.’ Fix it before you send it out (to the agents, the publishers, the public) because there is no forgetting or start over with the ‘better’ version after you give them something they can say ‘no’ to.
Thanks, Jeanne!
I totally agree about trusting your gut. There are times when – even if I can’t figure out what I did wrong – I just KNOW I didn’t quite nail a scene or a chapter.
As tempting as it is to just want to be DONE with a piece of writing, you’re absolutely correct that we should never send out something that we don’t feel right about.
Crap, this writing stuff takes patience. Who knew?
Oh, Keith, you nailed this post. Thanks for helping me start a conversation with my pre-digital self who thought she wasn’t ready yet. For decades she thought that! She’s been waiting to read this post today, in the midst of work on the long-awaited project. Perfect, timely boost for me, for real.
Thanks, Mia –
I hope you and your pre-digital self have a fruitful conversation!
This was great, Keith! All good advice. I often struggle with identifying my antagonist until I’m well into the novel, and the writing goes much faster–and the story improves–once I have it nailed down.
Also, I need GO BIG on a sticky note on my computer. ;-)
I learned to write with cause and effect from Dwight Swain’s TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER, and often I get blocked while writing, it’s because I forced something to happen because I thought it’d be cool, but it doesn’t make sense based on previous events.
Anyway, lots of great advice and reminders for newbies and seasoned writers alike. Thanks!
I’m still taking my first steps, but if I could tell the Bjørn from ten years ago one thing, it would have been “you need to write the novel first, and THEN practice the acceptance speeches for inevitable prizes”.
Hey, Keith:
We recently decided to add a panel on this subject at the upcoming Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference. How fortunate — for me! I fully intend to steal your best material.
Seriously, the things you mention aren’t just for beginners. I struggle with several of them still, even though I “know better.” The antagonist issue arose in the WIP — I had him waiting off in the wings. Why?
Thanks for the wonderful post.
Keith, all of this is crunchy stuff and high wry too. I need to fully absorb and implement the “create a real antagonist” and “go big” notions because I often create an inner-struggle antagonist (as mealy-mouth in fiction as it sounds here) and I go medium rather than big.
Maybe I can combine both of those needs and have a demonic Kareem Abdul Jabbar as Godzilla? Hmm.
Oh, you forgot #6: “Don’t put that in your mouth.”
#5 will be the death of me.
That is all.
Keith, I enjoyed your post. All good advice. But only five things? Lol. I’d tell my younger self to trust my gut more and not worry about perfection so much. It is unattainable. The work has to be as good as you can make it and then let it go. Also, have more kids–this time with them goes fast and you’ve been a productive writer-mama. They will give you more material than you know what to do with. Haha :)
Love this post, Keith. Food for thought.
I’m also a big, big fan of STORY. I pull it out every single book to test myself, see where I am. Which reminds me–it’s probably time for the negation of the negation.