Posts by Anne Brown
Once upon a time (because that’s how all good stories start), the title of my work in progress was: LATEST BOOK. I considered submitting it that way. It was ironic. Poignant. It begged a deeper question of philosophical importance. Maybe.
Or maybe the truth was: While I am rarely a victim of traditional writer’s block, I am a frequent victim of title paralysis (or TP, for short). As a result, I once consorted with the most dubious of online resources for book title ideas. I regret if this post only adds to the pile.
Upon my first experience of being TP’d, I Googled “title generator.” Doing so, I got a handful of websites that offered helpful algorithms for generating book titles. It is really quite simple. They ask a stymied writer to insert two adjectives, two verbs ending in -ing, and two plural nouns. They don’t specifically tell you to use words that have anything to do with your novel, but I dug deep and got clever like that.
My WIP was a Young Adult romance with thriller elements, set in a cold Minnesota winter. I typed in: cold, dangerous, shifting, helping, friends, enemies. After that, I hit “title me,” and the site shot out ten possibilities. Ten! That was eleven more than I had!
I immediately took the title generator’s advice. At that point my manuscript was titled: DANGEROUS FRIENDS BY COLD ENEMIES. Catchy, right?
Apparently not.
Next up: the Wordle technique. Wordle.net is a website where you can paste large blocks of text from your novel, or even your entire manuscript, into its search window. You hit “Go!” and the website analyzes your most-often appearing words and gives you something that looks like this:
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Let’s talk about literary allusion. For some of you, it may be a literary device you haven’t thought much about since tenth grade English, but it is a technique that I love as a reader and turn to often in my own writing to inform a character, to enrich a scene, or to evoke emotion.
First. A refresher. Literary allusion is a quick reference to something or someone of historical significance–whether real or fictional. “A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones.” (Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)) But the success of an allusion in enhancing the new tale depends on how well-seated the old tale is in the intended audience’s collective psyche. For example, a writer would have greater success with an allusion if it were made to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” than if it were made to Leonardo’s “Ginevra de Benci.” Most, if not all of us can immediately call to mind Mona Lisa’s secretive smile, but what of poor Ginevra? Hers is a face that has been lost to the centuries.[pullquote]Most, if not all of us can immediately call to mind Mona Lisa’s secretive smile, but what of poor Ginevra? Hers is a face that has been lost to the centuries.[/pullquote]
Consider this excerpt from Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep (2013): “Danny strolled to the town common, sat on one of the benches in Teenytown and took one of the bottles out of the bag, looking down on it like Hamlet with Yorick’s skull.” It is a successful allusion because it adds meaning to the scene (the bottle is a symbol of the shortness of life, just like the skull) and because it informs the reader about the character of Danny (the bottle has been his longtime acquaintance, just as “Poor Yorick” was to Hamlet).
So it is good to remember the general rule: that allusions should recall something commonly accessible. But like most rules, don’t be afraid to break this one because allusions can also be
just about having fun.
Read MoreAwhile back, I attended the three-day Story Masters Workshop, given by James Scott Bell, Donald Maass, and Christopher Vogler. I highly recommend it, and you can check out more information about their workshops here. Vogler’s expertise is movie scripts. One of the things that I found most interesting about his presentation was his 12-stage hero’s journey, which suggested that every well-plotted and well-paced story had a “crossing over” at approximately the 25% mark, and a “near-death” at the 50% mark. His case in point: Star Wars. At the 25% point, Luke “crosses over” by leaving his Aunt and Uncle’s farm, and at the 50% mark suffers a “near death” when he’s caught in an intergalactic trash compactor.
If you have read my posts before, you know how fond I am of mathematical approaches to plotting. You can check out my mathematical formula for kicking out a fast first draft here. Clearly I was intrigued by Vogler’s premise, but I wasn’t able to tap into the high-testosterone crime/thriller movie examples he was using: Casablanca, The Godfather, etc. Believe it or not, with the exception of Star Wars, I hadn’t seen a single one of the movies he cited. It made me wonder if the formulas he was promoting were as applicable to the Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction my kidlit colleagues and I were writing, as they were to the thrillers and crime movies he used as his examples. As a result, I took it upon myself to put his formula to the test.
I picked random books off my bookshelf, checked how many pages were in the novel, divided by four, then opened the book to the 25% and 50% mark to see if there was, in fact, a crossing over scene and a near death scene. In my not-so-scientific study, I looked at approximately twenty novels and, for the most part, Vogler’s markers held true. The following three novels were typical of the results.
Read MoreThere is no one way to write a series. There are, however, some practical considerations that will save you time and frustration as you take off on your journey, particularly if you intend to pursue a traditional publisher. Some of these tips I learned from agents and editors; others I learned myself (the hard way) and offer them up to save you some of my own frustration.
Series Potential. Let’s assume you have written a book and now you’re wondering if your book has series potential. One obvious consideration would be if you have a main character who can go on more adventures or solve more mysteries. Or perhaps there are minor characters or story threads left hanging that deserve their own development.
Another clue might be your word count. For example, the average YA novel is about 80k, though the range is probably more like 60-120k, depending on the sub-genre. If you have written a 300,000 word YA novel, you may have really written three books in one. I say may because 300k words is indicative of one of two things: either you have a multi-storied story, or you have a lot of “fat” that needs to get cut. Don’t mistake one for the other. If you do truly have several arcs going on, consider breaking each arc into its own novel.
Staying Consistent. After you finish Book 1, create a series “Bible” (3-Ring Notebook) where you can keep a list of story details for easy reference.
For characters, keep track of their birthdays and ages. Note their speech tics, nervous habits, eye color, and clothing styles. If a character has scars, record where they are located because you don’t want them to move around over the course of the series. Also, write a paragraph on each of their back stories
For each building, draw a floor plan, indicating the decor, flooring, furniture, kitchen, and the location of windows and what direction they face (you want to make sure a character doesn’t watch the sunrise and sunset from the same window). Know if the kitchen counters are marble, tile, etc. If they are tile in Book 1 and marble in Book 2, your readers will notice.
For cities and towns, create a map with distances between places noted in miles/kilometers because you need to know how long it should take a character to get to each place by car and by foot. Again, know where north is so you know where the sun rises and sets.
Time Lines are important too, particularly if the story stretches over many years. You need to track how someone ages through the book, how the seasons are changing, and how long someone’s hair should be in Book 2 if she cuts it two-thirds of the way through Book 1.
Cart Before the Horse. After making Book 1 the very best it can be, write the synopsis for Books 2 and 3, then most agents recommend that you move on to something new and unrelated. In other words, don’t go on immediately to write the subsequent books.
Why?
Read MoreConfession: For me, the scariest part of a writer’s conference is the cocktail party. There’s no structure. No speaker. No handouts. Instead, hundreds of people who are used to spending long hours at a keyboard in coffee-stained jammies are let loose into a hotel ball room and left to fend for themselves. There are a few, you can spot them right away, who relish these things. But for many of us, it’s a struggle. Here are some practical tips for tackling those introverted road blocks.
Step 1: Prepare in Advance
Step 2: Practice Your Small Talk
Read MoreOn the eve of my debut YA novel, Lies Beneath (Random House/Delacorte), launching itself into the world, I am, as my mother would say, “completely and utterly discombobulated.” I don’t know what day of the week it is; I forgot to pick up my kids; I stored the milk in the pantry.
It’s like driving in my car, arriving at my destination, then looking around and realizing I have no memory of how I got there. All the scrapped drafts and bitter tears are gone, leaving behind a certain surprise at finding myself where I never dreamed I’d be. It is a humbling place, which begs not only the question of how did I get here, but when will the black-suited man show up at my door to tell me there’s been some mistake?
Don’t get me wrong. There was certainly a lot of hard work and a lot of thankless hours at the computer. But there were also many, many strokes of dumb luck along the way. Any one of these small opportunities could have easily escaped my notice, or shrugged its shoulders and taken a completely different path, leaving me with yet another manuscript collecting dust under my bed. And that’s the message I want to share.
Read MoreI like a good list. Nothing says “accomplishment” like a checked box or a crossed out To Do. I dare say lists are my closest companions. Several months ago, I did a WU post on “How to Kick Out a Fast First Draft.” In many ways, that step-by-step method was an example (or symptom) of what I’m talking about.
Of course, as I said then, you can’t tackle the rewrite with a list. That part is an art that will not be rushed. It’s the time of inspired sleep, hot baths, long walks, chocolate, and maybe a drop of wine. It’s the stage of epiphanies. And–because I can not address it with a list–it is, for me, the most uncomfortable time of the writing process. It’s the swampy unease. So much so, I won’t talk about it here.
Rather, I’ll get back into my comfort zone and on to my next list:
THE FINAL REVISION
▢ 1. FIRST LINES
You’ve heard it said, your book must start with a killer first line. I’d go so far as to say that the same should be true for every chapter. Focusing in on the job of sharpening those lines is more easily done if you cut and paste them onto a single page. Work with them without the distraction of the rest of the book. Work and re-work until they each sing or zing or do something other than lie there flat and lifeless.
▢ 2. REMEMBER THE RUSSIAN
Read MoreWhen I was in eighth grade, I had really bad hair. It was thick and curly and I had no idea what to do with it. Worse yet–I had swimming first hour. This meant that no matter how semi-normal I was able to look when the first bell rang, by the second bell my hair had taken on a life of its own, expanding to something three times the size of my head.
Why do I tell you this? It’s a metaphor for writing.
The fact is, we all start out with the raw materials but somehow, in the beginning, we’re awkward and gangly. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. Then someone (probably Mom) comes along and says the most paralyzing words in the universe:
“Just be yourself, honey.”
If you’ve survived Junior High, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The oft-repeated phrase, Just be Yourself, only compounds your insecurity problem because (1) you have absolutely no idea who you are; and (2) you are now convinced that everyone else has it figured out, and you’re the only one lost and wallowing in an apocalyptic identity crisis. (Bear with me. I’ll get to the writing soon.)
So you start to experiment with different versions of yourself to see what sticks (preppy, goth, cheerleader, Bohemian, egg head, motor head, Dead head, pot head), successfully achieving one thing: a photo album that will make your future children wet their pants.
For me, however, I achieved one more thing: I learned not to be afraid of experimentation. Which was a good thing, because when I started writing seriously I had no idea what I was doing. I had a lot of raw materials: a great idea, a firm command of subject/predicate, and an overactive imagination, but no idea what to do with it. With no clear direction, it was like Jr. High déjà vu, all over again. So I did what I’d done before: Experiment.
Read MoreA couple months ago, fellow WU guest blogger Sharon Bially interviewed me about writing, working, and mothering. She asked if I had any “tricks.” I mentioned that I did: I write fast. Since then, I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I do that, and some even wonder if I should. Because I love to hear about other writers’ processes, I thought I’d throw my method into the proverbial ring.
Fair warning: My process will not appeal to many of you. (Any pantsers out there?) This is not a let’s-see-where-the-characters-take-me method. And you’ll notice I’m not going to say anything about artistry, or the wonder of crafting a beautiful sentence. These things are hugely important to me, but I leave that for revision, which is a critical distinction.
When I talk about writing fast, I’m not talking about a fast re-write or a fast revision. (There’s no such thing.) This is about quickly putting a story on the page from which the painstaking work of rewriting and revising can begin. So, without further ado, buckle your seat belts. Here we go.
THE FRAME.*
Every genre has a standard word count. MG may be 45k. YA may be 75k. Commercial fiction may be 90k. Fantasy may be 120k. Figure out your word count, and divide it in half (more on that later). For this example, I will use the YA standard and come up with 37,500 words. Then apply these percentages:
There once was a plot line hard hittin
But the writer was best known for quittin’
“No time to write,” she did fret
No one objected, I bet
So she never got anything written.
Ahem. So. Now that these lines have demonstrated that your competition for poet laureate is at a safe distance, perhaps you are primed to discuss a more uncomfortable subject regarding lines. More specifically, deadlines and goal lines. Bear with me.
The Emotional Divide.
The most often cited origin of the term “deadline” is the line that, if crossed by a prisoner, allowed the guards to shoot at will. Perhaps that’s why writers facing a deadline feel they are “under the gun?” Goal Lines, on the other hand, are something we simply strive for (in sports, for example).
In short, while we seek the goal line, we are instinctively repelled by the deadline.
The emotional divide between the two types of lines is amplified by something we human beings value: control. This is probably the only time when the published author envies the unpublished writer. The writer has a goal line, set by him or herself. The published author has a deadline, set by someone else.
But the virtue of the goal line, as I see it, is also its chief defect. While a deadline must be hit or else we are . . . well . . . dead. A goal line is something we try to reach. We say we’re trying to reach a certain goal. Well, trying just isn’t going to cut it, mister. May I go so far as to suggest to you that goals can be our downfall?
Read MoreTen years ago, a movie called PAY IT FORWARD hit the theaters. The plot was based on the notion of repaying a favor not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people, and so forth and so on until the world was revolutionized by peace, love, and happiness. I got to say, I like the concept. It appeals to my idealistic side, as well as that part of me that says, “Hey! I could really pull something like that off.” And then it occurs to me. I see this happening every day in the world of publishing.
(*insert sound of tires screeching to a halt*)
“What?” says the unpublished writer. “I just got three new rejections in my inbox. I’m not feeling the love just yet.”
“Pssh,” says the best-selling novelist. “I just received a 40-page editorial letter for my third novel, and my kids have the chicken pox. I don’t have time to do good deeds.”
Well, with all due respect, I’m suggesting that none of us can afford not to.
It’s no secret that marketing has fallen more and more on authors’ shoulders and, because most of us have no formal training in marketing and public relations, it’s this concept of paying it forward that is an overlooked and undervalued marketing tool for writers. What I’m trying to say is, supporting the writing community is a FREE and POWERFUL tool for self-promotion.
Use it.
“Okay, okay,” you say. “I get your point. So, how do I do this?” Paying it forward is something we can all do because no matter where we are in our writing careers, there’s always someone just one step behind, hungry to learn. Here are some ways to “pay it forward” that I have experienced from both sides of the fence.
Offer to Review Another Writer’s Query Letter: Sure it’s time consuming, but the goodwill that spreads about you after helping out a fellow writer is like butter on a griddle. Believe me, people talk. This goodwill equates with better name recognition, loyal fans, and . . . in the end . . . more dollars in your pocket. (Of course, the peace, love, and happiness doesn’t hurt either.)
Follow Other Writers Back on Twitter (even those who aren’t on the NYTBS)
Read MorePlease welcome Anne Brown to WU. Anne was one of our finalists in the hunt for a WU Unpubbed Writer. We know you’ll love her essay on, “THE BATTLE OF THE QUERY AS TOLD BY ONE IN THE TRENCHES” as much as we did. And visiting her blog, I just learned she recently had her first creative essay published by Literary Mama! Congrats, Anne!
Enjoy.
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“My story is about a man, a woman, and two dogs. It’s a modern-day retelling of Pride & Prejudice, except the characters of Jane and Mr. Bingley are a tad hairier than in the original.”
Confession time. That is an honest-to-God excerpt from the first query I ever wrote. And, yes, I actually sent it out the door. Ten times.
You probably won’t be shocked to learn I received ten rejections, and you’re probably wondering why you’re reading a post on queries from someone who’s unpublished. Well, thankfully, I’ve made some progress since that abysmal beginning. Although I’m still waiting for the life-changing phone call from Dream Agent, I am finally winning the battle of the query and getting more requests than rejections. Here’s a strategy that has helped me go from public humiliation to killer query.
Step One: Pull Out Some Quirk
Most agents seem to like some degree of weird. So don’t let their first impression be déjà vu. For example, rather than introduce your main character as a middle-aged high school teacher, focus on a weird quirk or trait, such as: “Mary Olson is a middle-aged drama teacher with a paralyzing fear of heights.”
Step Two: Stir the Pot
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