Posts by Jael McHenry
Last week, I read a fantastic book. Good news, right? As writers we are all readers first, and there’s an unmatched joy in disappearing into a well-written book, or we wouldn’t be reading in the first place.
However, sometimes, reading a fantastic book pushes me into a downward spiral. I’ll never write that well, I tell myself. I’m not good enough. Whatever I’m working on now is a mess.
(Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t, but when that kind of dark mood descends, there’s no reasoning with me. It isn’t about the truth, anyway.)
To keep that sort of thing from happening, there are writers who forbid themselves from reading at all while they’re writing. Or they have rules around it: nothing in my genre, nothing during the first draft, nothing that has anything in common with what I’m working on. There are others, like me, who focus their reading habits in the other direction: I like to read other books whose topics or time periods overlap with what I’m working on, just to know what else is out there and see how others have tackled some of the same challenges I’m facing in my draft.
It’s up to you, of course. Only you can write your book, and only you can decide what sort of reading helps or hinders you along the way.
Read MoreAs writers, storytelling is our business and our art. It’s our core skill. Writing is about putting words together to create a coherent tale, taking our readers on an unexpected journey, and delivering a satisfactory conclusion at the end of that delightful ride.
You know what doesn’t cohere as cleanly? Life.
I’m not one of those writers who believes that you absolutely must struggle to be a “real” writer, but the truth is, many of us do struggle. Fiction rarely pays the bills. The real world is a world of day jobs and freelance work, deadlines and utilities, and a host of needs always tugging, tugging, tugging us in different directions. If you’re looking for an agent, it’s extremely rare to get offered representation on the very first try. If you’re self-publishing, you might put your heart and soul out there only to hear a resounding silence in return.
In that environment, it’s tempting to begin storytelling about ourselves.
How many publishers rejected the first book in the Harry Potter series? The exact number varies, depending on your corner of the internet, but that story is such a common one. Faced with rejections ourselves, we want to hear that amazing success can come following repeated rejection.
Can it? Yes. Does it? Only sometimes.
Read MoreThere are those who say writing the query and/or the synopsis of the novel is harder than writing the entire novel. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I’ve always hated writing synopses. I stopped minding queries when I realized I didn’t need to pack the whole novel into a paragraph, just supply enough of a teaser to make someone want to read more. But synopses? Well, the point of the synopsis is in fact to summarize the entire novel, and no mistake. That’s why synopses exist. Plus, I hate giving away the ending, and there’s no way around it in a synopsis.
So, along with many, many other writers of my acquaintance, I was a synopsis-hater.
But this latest synopsis I’ve been working on, I love. So what changed? And how can you set yourself up for synopsis-writing success?
Don’t rush it. I’ve spent the last six months pulling together research, and plotting, and developing characters. So now that I’m actually putting that together in an organized format, the words come easily. If I’d tried to write this same synopsis for this same book three months ago, there would have been fits and starts. Mostly fits. This way it comes spilling out, and I know how A becomes B becomes C, and it’s just a matter of how much detail to go into about each letter.
Don’t limit yourself. A one-page or three-page synopsis is a maddening thing, nearly impossible to achieve on a first draft. So don’t try to do it in one draft. Write it until it’s done, however much space that takes on the first go-around. You can always edit later. You can take it from 10 pages down to three, but in order to figure out what goes in that three, it’s better to put it all in and then figure out what needs trimming away.
Balance plot and character.
Read MoreIt’s not uncommon, especially among those of us who are both writers and moms, to compare books and babies. For a while there was even a blog called Book Pregnant. In my experience, having one go-around with each, books and babies are different in a whole lot of ways.
But as I prepare for the arrival of my second baby (likely later this month) and my second book (a decent interval afterward, thank goodness) I’m reminded of some similarities between the baby part of life — the labor — and the book part of life — the launch.
You can never really be ready for either, in my experience. But if you’re looking to launch a book into the world, you could do worse than to take a few lessons from labor.
To wit:
Find the line between education and obsession, and stay safely on this side. Labor stories and launch stories can both turn into horror stories. And there are plenty (thousands! tens of thousands! and then some!) of people, especially on the internet, who are happy to tell you their stories in stunning/gory/boring/excr-uc-ia-ting detail. In the book launch realm, it makes a lot of sense to research what your options are for all the different things you could do during the launch period for your book, but you will never, ever be able to do all of them. So don’t go alllll the way down the rabbit hole. When you reach the end of the internet it’s likely you will have read an equal number of people avowing that something was the worst decision they ever made — or the best. Gather information and then use your own judgment; that’s really all you can do.
Choose your team wisely. Especially if it’s your first time, you’re going to need some people on your side who’ve been there before. A combination of amateurs and professionals is usually best, since they’ll provide different types of support. In labor, who do you want with you?
Read MoreEven before my first book came out, people were already asking about my second book, and the questions haven’t stopped. Which is pretty great — far better for people to be interested than not! But I haven’t been able to give a good answer.
I’m working on it.
The research is taking a while…
I’ll be sure to let you know.
But there were delays and setbacks, and an extended pause for baby-having, and then when the book was ready to sell we took a left turn with it, and so now the answer is both more and less clear.
My second book is coming out within the next year, but I really can’t tell you much about it. At least not in this forum. It won’t have my name on it. Instead, it’s being released under a pseudonym, and this feels both tremendously odd and totally like the right choice.
My first book, The Kitchen Daughter, is set in contemporary Philadelphia and narrated by a cooking-obsessed young woman with Asperger’s whose parents have just died. My second book is completely different — set more than 100 years in the past, with a bold and shifty narrator, zinging with action and plot and unexpected twists. So my agent and I made the decision to offer it to publishers under a pseudonym, reaching out for a different readership (and reserving the option to make the “second Jael McHenry book” more like the first, for continuity’s sake.)
As I said, I think it’s the right choice, and I’m thrilled. It’s another debut, where I can use what I learned from the first debut, but starting with an external clean slate.
It just feels…
Read MoreThe internet has done lots of amazing things for writers; it has also created lots of opportunities for us to be aware, at all times, of exactly what we’re missing.
May is a prime time for writers’ conferences. Just this past weekend, there was the DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) Writers Conference, and Muse and the Marketplace took place in Boston. If you’re on Twitter, you probably saw the #muse14 and #dfwcon hashtags flying by. Both were full of writers getting together to learn about the craft and the industry, meet agents and editors face-to-face, and just hang out with other writers and talk non-stop about writing in a way that most of us don’t get to do in our everyday lives.
If you’re at these conferences, that’s fantastic. If you’re not at these conferences, every tweet is a reminder that you’re missing out. That can make you feel lonely, sad, and above all, jealous.
So if you get jealous of all those lit-partying, networking, panel-attending conferencegoers, here are a few ways to tame this particular green-eyed monster.
Next time, maybe you should go. Getting all riled up about one conference you’ve heard good things about doesn’t mean that you should attend that particular conference. But it might help you channel your enthusiasm into some research. Certain conferences are more or less helpful depending on where you are in the process — if you haven’t finished your novel, for example, you really shouldn’t sign up for a conference focused on pitch sessions. So if you find yourself wishing you were at X Conference, find out more about X Conference — and Y Conference, and Z Conference. That way you can figure out what works with your budget and goals, and plan ahead for next year. There are lots of local conferences that aren’t as well publicized as the national ones, but still offer similar opportunities, without the price tag for travel. Go looking for them.
Read MoreA writer friend of mine recently moved offices, and in doing so, had to downsize his book collection. He purged several dozen books about writing. Offering them to a group of us fellow writers, he wryly noted, “Take what you want, but remember, if reading books about writing was enough to make someone a successful writer, I would have been published long ago.”
Whether or not writing can be taught at all is an ongoing debate; whether or not one can learn it from books is too. I know many writers who absolutely swear by books on the topic that they feel helped them make a major leap forward in their writing, and just as many who’ve never read a single writing book and do amazing, wonderful work.
As to whether you should read about writing… well, that’s your own choice. There are certainly writing-focused books out there with great content, and I hope people will share their favorites in the comments. But there are plenty of coal-knobs out there with the diamonds, for sure.
So when you’re looking at how-to books on the writing craft, just keep two things in mind:
Most books about writing are written to sell books about writing. One of the books I picked up in my writer-friend’s book purge absolutely insisted that editors at publishing houses no longer edit, nor do agents really have much time to do so either, and only books that are pretty much 100% ready to publish will be successfully picked up for representation and sold. This certainly isn’t my experience; I have yet to hear from a fellow novelist whose publisher, large or small, didn’t give at least some creative input to the manuscript, and I do hear plenty of stories from those whose novels underwent major rewrites after they were bought by the publisher, with positive results.
And who were the writers of this book, whose premise was that editors at publishing houses no longer edit? Why, funny you should ask. They were freelance editors who had once worked for publishing houses, but now sold their editing services and led editing workshops for aspiring writers. Hmmmm. Mighty coincidence, that.
Now of course this principle has exceptions.
Read MoreLast week my Twitter stream lit up with reviews and excerpts and analysis of a book called MFA vs NYC. It wasn’t quite a #sharknado level of traffic — closer, perhaps, to #amtrakresidency — but it was still undeniable: something about this book was grabbing the attention of writers all up and down the line.
But what I think we need to talk about today isn’t really that book. It’s the perception of that book, and my worry that writers will see the dichotomy MFA vs NYC as some sort of choice we’re all forced to make.
Jennifer Weiner very smartly put it this way:
https://twitter.com/jenniferweiner/status/438488230292619264
Writers: you do not need an MFA. You do not need to live in NYC. As a matter of fact, although I think all paths to writerdom are valid and there is nothing to gain by telling other people what to do, if you said to me “I want to move to New York and live by my wits alone so I can be a real writer!” my immediate reply would be OMG DO NOT DO THAT YOU ARE NUTS.
The funny thing is, I have to admit: I have an MFA. And I live in NYC. (Worse, even; brownstone Brooklyn! Ready the pitchforks and kale!) And yet neither had much at all to do with my road to publication, and I would not necessarily recommend either to writers looking to a) write an amazing book and b) get that book into the hands of as many readers as possible.
Read MoreWhen you’re writing just for yourself, you’re in control. Of everything. You control what your characters do, what they say and think and wear, what happens to them, where their story begins and ends. Every aspect of the story is completely in your hands. It’s your book. All yours.
When you work with a publisher, that changes.
All of a sudden, you’re not alone. You have a team. Other people are weighing in on decisions, if not outright making them for you. And the good news is, they’ve done this before and you haven’t, so their decisions are generally coming from the right place, based on knowledge and experience. The bad news is, you may not always agree with them, and when it comes down to it, you’re almost certainly going to lose control.
I don’t want to use my space here this month to make an argument about whether that’s good or bad, about whether an author’s loss of control is an argument for taking another route to publication. What I’d like to do, instead, is share my experience, and give you some tips for a) claiming the control that you can, and b) totally being okay with being out-of-control when it’s called for.
About a year before my debut novel The Kitchen Daughter came out, my agent raised a flag: the publisher was thinking about bringing the book out as a trade paperback original instead of hardcover. My first reaction, of course, was panic: What does that mean? Don’t they think the book’s strong enough to sell in hardcover? Is there any way in the world I could make back my advance if this happens? We’ve got to stop it!
My second reaction, somewhat more level-headed, was: I’ve got to find out more about what this means.
Step 1: Do your research.
Read MoreYou are a novelist.
You’ve never told anyone, not in those words. They haven’t asked. Or maybe you have said it, out loud, and gotten strange looks in return. They ask you if you’re published, and if you’re not, the expressions on their faces shift almost imperceptibly. It isn’t real to them the way it is to you. They want you to prove it.
But, published or not, you’re a novelist.
You’ve written one novel, or three, or five. They are sitting in drawers or, more likely, on the hard drives of computers that have already gone obsolete. You’ve had false starts and lousy endings. You’ve written page after page and trashed it all. You’ve wondered how it’s really done. You have been slaving over the same topic for the past 10 years or just the last three weeks. Or maybe you haven’t even started yet. Maybe you just know you have it in you.
You can be a novelist.
You’re going to try harder. You’re going to put yourself out there. Every day. You’re going to work on that book, worry it like a dog with a bone, word by word and line by line, until it can’t get any better. Until every corner is smoothed and every surface is polished. Until it’s a gem. It’s Rushmore. It’s Notre Dame. It’s a work of art.
It’s a novel, and you’re a novelist.
Success isn’t that far away. You can smell it. You can taste it. People who don’t write any better than you do are making money doing what they love. People who made the right connection. People who were in the right place at the right time. Don’t begrudge them their success; they have nothing to do with you. You are your own person, writing your own words, working toward your own goals. Don’t be bitter. Don’t be angry. Be focused. Be self-centered in that good way, in the way that means you are wholly dedicated to perfecting your own craft, executing on your own plans, diligently moving forward, ever forward.
Being your own novelist.
Read MoreFinally, it’s December! If you participated in November’s National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, you probably spent most of November sweaty and caffeinated, hermited and muttering, pushing yourself to write 50,000 words between November 1 and 30.
So, first things first: if you successfully completed NaNoWriMo – congratulations! It’s a huge, huge accomplishment.
Second, don’t you dare think of doing anything with that draft in December. Don’t look at it. Don’t edit it. Don’t even open the file. And certainly do not even THINK about querying agents with it or putting it up on Amazon.
That’s right, it’s NaDoToYoNoMo: National Don’t Touch Your Novel Month.
All over the web you can read lots of opinions about whether or not NaNoWriMo is a good idea. I happen to love it. But whether you’re experienced or new, whether it’s your first NaNoWriMo or your fifteenth, whether you never expected to write a novel or whether it’s been your lifelong dream finally achieved, here’s the cold truth: your novel is in first draft form. It is not ready.
That doesn’t mean your accomplishment is any less amazing. What you’ve got is a work of art. But it’s not the best you can do, not by a long shot, and the only way you’ll be able to see what the difference is between how good it is and how good it could be is to let it sit.
Put the novel down. Step away.
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