Posts by Kathleen Bolton
Last week we interviewed successful literary agent Evan Marshall and his partner editor Martha Jewett on their unique software edition to Marshall’s bestselling guide to plotting novels, THE MARSHAL PLAN. This week, we asked Evan and Martha to talk a little bit about what they look for in strong submissions and where they think the commercial fiction market is heading.
Evan and Martha are also giving a few goodies to WU readers! Leave a comment in the post for your chance to win one of two copies of Evan’s forthcoming mystery novel, CITY IN SHADOW (available to residents of the U.S. and Canada only, please).
Also, in partnership with NaNoWriMo, they are offering a fantastic opportunity:
2 Grand Prizes:
Click HERE for the official rules and details on the submission. This is a fantastic opportunity to get a professional critique on your first chapters and synopsis from people who know the industry inside and out.
And now, enjoy part two of our two part interview with Evan Marshall and Martha Jewett.
Q: You both saw a lot of bad writing in your professions as literary agent and editor. What are some of the most common mistakes writers make? What made you immediately stop reading a manuscript?
A: Some of the worst mistakes fiction writers make are:
Read MoreThe foundation of writing a novel is plotting, and there are a plethora of books on the subject. One of the most popular methods comes from literary agent Evan Marshall. His book, THE MARSHALL PLAN, has been popular with novelists for over a decade because of its down-to-earth usefulness in helping novelists construct their plot. Marshall’s literary agency, The Evan Marshall Agency, represents NYT and USA Today bestselling authors. He’s also a novelist in his own right (more about that in a bit). So he knows a thing or two about compelling fiction.
Evan has teamed up with Martha Jewett, an award-winning business book editor at McGraw-Hill, to create a unique writing software based on his bestselling book, The Marshall Plan®. The software is a step-by-step program which takes the user through plotting their story. Additionally, Evan and Martha have created a webportal called Write A Novel Fast, which offers a ton of useful information for novelists. We were intrigued with their platform and asked Evan and Martha if they’d like to be interviewed for Writer Unboxed readers. Happily, they complied.
And because winning things is fun, Writer Unboxed readers have a chance to win a copy of Evan’s forthcoming mystery novel CITY IN SHADOW. Two winners will be chosen at random. Leave a comment in the interview, and your name will be entered in the drawing. Only residents of the U.S. and Canada are eligible.
Please enjoy part one of our two part interview with Evan Marshall and Martha Jewett, co-creators of The Marshall Plan® software for novelists.
Q: The Marshall Plan® is a popular fiction writing craft book on most novelists’ bookshelves. Why did you decide to turn The Marshall Plan® book into a software application?
A: Our plan’s highly structural approach lends itself beautifully to software. For instance, when you change any of a number of factors such as word length, whether or not to include a romantic interest, whether to make your antagonist visible or invisible (as in a mystery), the program instantly recalculates and presents a new template, with all story points in place. Previously, with the book and workbook, all of this had to be done manually. Over the years since the book’s publication, many people wrote to us asking for a software version, and we were thrilled to deliver it.
Q. The Marshall Plan® for Novel Writing software promises to help writers take their ideas and turn them into a useful manuscript template in 30 days or less. Can you explain how the software application gives users an advantage over other methods to help writers develop their stories?
A: Other methods give vague advice that leaves authors at a loss as to what exactly to do! Our plan takes you through the process of conceiving and structuring a novel from start to finish.
Read MoreIf you are a Twitter user, you may have noticed #SpeakLoudly trending over the last 48 hours. That’s because Laurie Halse Anderson’s highly-regarded YA novel Speak, which was awarded a Printz medal of honor, is the target of banning. Yes, my friends, ALA’s Banned Books week (Sept. 25 – Oct. 2) is coming up, and there’s a reason to spread the word like never before.
Laurie Halse Anderson blogs eloquently about the banning on her website. She details the mind-boggling efforts of a Missouri pastor to get Speak, which is about a teen’s struggle with the aftermath of a brutal rape, labeled pornographic so it will be banned (it’s incredible to me that people actually think rape is pornographic instead of a crime, but there it is). YA Librarian also offers an excellent summary of the situation and how teens connect to Halse Anderson’s book, as well as more links.
You can support the #SpeakLoudly effort by adding a Twibbon to your Twitter avatar: https://twibbon.com/join/Speak-Loudly.
Before she became famous as the girl who loved a vampire, Kristen Stewart played the protagonist Melinda Sordino in the film version of Speak, and she’s terrific.
If you’re so inclined, please feel free to SPEAK about #SpeakLoudly on your own social media networks. And we encourage you to take a look at the ALA’s webportal to see the other books targeted for banning and support those authors as well.
Read MoreI don’t watch a lot of television these days, but one show I do make time for is Mad Men. I think it has the smartest writing on television. Each episode is a master craft of character-driven writing. Just when I think I can predict which way creator/showrunner/writer Matthew Weiner is going to take the storyline, I’m thrown a curve which leaves me breathlessly going “I didn’t see that coming,” followed by “Why didn’t I see that coming? It was all there, right in the characters.” For me, Mad Men has become essential viewing, and I always harvest a nugget that will help my own writing.
[If you don’t watch Mad Men, you should start. Seriously.]
This past week, an episode aired which will surely be nominated for an Emmy. Called The Suitcase, it was basically a payoff of three seasons of character building for the lead protagonist Don Draper, and his protégée/female work counterpart Peggy Olsen. At the start of the episode, they are both ruining their lives, Don with his drinking, Peggy by putting her personal life on the backburner for her job as one of the few female copywriters in the advertising profession. But by the end of the episode, both had come back from the abyss, saved by the other. And no, there wasn’t a shred of romance involved between them. Don, who was avoiding a phone call to find out that the one person who loved him unconditionally was dead, spent the episode getting progressively hammered until he was literally on his knees vomiting his life away in a toilet. Peggy chose work over her boyfriend, humiliating him because she was unwilling to leave an unfinished ad campaign to meet him for a romantic dinner. Both reached out to the other across the divide of gender, work politics, and human frailty to bond in a way that will have repercussions for the future.
The lesson I drew from this episode was this:
Read MoreHey gang,
I’ve been out of town on a personal reason, but I had to go to Target and look what I found! Totally made my day. Congrats, Therese!
Read MorePlease welcome Inara Scott back to WU. Last month, Inara guest blogged with us, and the response was so good, we asked if she would do a Take 5 interview with us on her debut THE DELCROIX ACADEMY, which releases tomorrow. Enjoy!
Q: What is the premise of your new book?
Dancia Lewis is a girl with a dangerous paranormal gift — she can make things happen just by imaging them. The problem is, when she uses her gift, people always end up getting hurt. Dancia tries to make herself invisible, hiding from the world in an effort to avoid using her powers, but when she’s recruited to attend Delcroix Academy, an exclusive boarding school, all bets are off. Suddenly, she’s got the hottest guy on campus and a dark, troublemaking best friend vying for her attention. But why has the most invisible girl in the ninth grade suddenly become so popular? What’s really going on behind the gates of Delcroix Academy?
Q: What would you like people to know about in this story?
Read MoreTidbits on the publishing industry from around the ‘web.
Barnes and Noble is being put up for sale. What’s happening? This from The New York Times:
For years, Barnes & Noble has been battered by large shifts in the publishing industry and the retail environment. Book sales have moved toward big-box stores like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target, and away from mall-based stores like B. Dalton, which Barnes & Noble acquired in the late 1980s.
One of the chain’s main stock holders may be interested in purchasing the store outright, but there are still plenty of question marks in B&N’s future–including predictions of store closings in the range of 10-15%. More news later this month.
We received this note from WU community member and semi-finalist in our unpubbed contributor contest Barb Mountjoy:
I would not be qualified for your Unpubbed position any more–I got a novel contract!
The book is The Elf Queen, the first in the Clan Elves of the Bitterroot fantasy series set in the western Montana area. The book comes out in September from Dragonfly Publishing, an indie press. I’ve got Elf Queen merchandise available at CafePress, a Web page going up soon at www.lyndialexander.com (my pseudonym for this series), and I’m already working on Volume Two.
The Elf Queen is available at digital portals like Amazon and Qoop. Congratulations Barb! We’re thrilled for you!
And speaking of publishing opportunities, here’s one that is pretty incredible. Penguin Books — yes, that Penguin Books — is throwing the doors open to unsolicited manuscripts for a limited time.
Read MoreAs promised in our squee post earlier this week, contributor Sophie Masson found time to squeeze in a Take 5 Q&A on her new release THE MADMAN OF VENICE as she traveled back from Paris to Australia. Congratulations, Sophie!
TAKE 5 with Sophie Masson
Q: What is the premise of your new book?
It is 1602 and 17 year old apprentice and would-be writer Ned Fletcher travels to Venice from London with his employer, merchant Matthew Ashby, Ashby’s widowed sister Mistress Quickly and Ashby’s lovely daughter Celia(with whom Ned is–apparently hopelessly!–in love. They go to investigate two mysteries: what is happening to the cargoes belonging to Ashby and his fellow London merchants, which have been targetted by pirates; and the disappearance of a young Jewish girl, Sarah Tedeschi, who has incurred the wrath of a powerful Venetian aristocrat, the Countess Montemoro. They find much more than they bargained for..Lots of danger, excitement, adventure, romance and a touch of comedy in a very Shakespearean-influenced mix!
Q: What would you like people to know about in this story?
Read MoreIn 2000, just as I was starting to get serious about pursuing a career in fiction, I attended my first writer’s conference. Out of all the seminars and talks I went to, the one that was the most lightly attended was the one on e-publishing. The editors for Ellora’s Cave, St. Martin’s e-press (which folded a few years later), and a few others were pitching the concept that e-publishing was viable and was welcoming to authors who were writing books that “colored outside the lines” a little.
I remember our response too. The hidden eyeroll. E-publishing was surely a fad, we agreed after the seminar. Here today, gone tomorrow.
As digital books continue to gain market share, one of the country’s oldest mass paperback publishers is abandoning its traditional print books and making its titles available in digital format and print-on-demand only.
Dorchester Publishing Inc., a closely held book and magazine house, said it is making the switch after its book unit sales fell 25% last year, in part because of declining orders from some of its key retail accounts, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart declined comment.
Woah.
I believe this is the beginning of smaller presses going solely to digital in the coming months. Like the transition from CD to downloads for the music industry, the digital revolution is moving swiftly.
“By the end of 2012, digital books will be 20% to 25% of unit sales, and that’s on the conservative side,” predicts Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of the Idea Logical Co., publishing consultants. “Add in another 25% of units sold online, and roughly half of all unit sales will be on the Internet.”
What will this mean for writers?
Read MoreJust a quickie driveby post for a WU squee! We have early word from dearauthor.com that valued contributor Barbara O’Neal has won a RITA award for her book THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS! Her category was Novel with Strong Romantic Elements.
Blogmama Therese Walsh’s novel THE LAST WILL OF MOIRA LEAHY was also nominated for Best First Book, and while I will remain silent on the GRIEVOUS TRAVESTY that it was passed over for the award (lol, my own humble opinion), the positive news is that a nomination in this tightly contested category is also an honor. THE LAST WILL OF MOIRA LEAHY releases in trade paperback this week and is a Target Book Club recommendation. More on that later.
For now, congratulations to all RITA nominees and winners!
Read MoreNewsy tidbits for writers from around the ‘nets.
Am I the only one who hasn’t yet heard of the viral website I Write Like . . . ? If you are like me, one of the last to know, I Write Like analyzes a sample of your writing and determines which famous writer you most write like. It’s FASCINATING. Apparently, I write like Stephen King sometimes, and then other times I write like James Joyce. I Write Like also has its own blog, which is full of writerly tidbits. Which writer do you write like?
From our mailbox, we got a note from Sarah Sypniewski about a new online writing school:
“Hey there Kathleen and Therese,
I’m helping to get the word out about a new online writing school. Might be of interest to your followers…What’s cool is that the classes are a little grittier than most traditionalschools…we offer things like rock and roll writing, sex writing, etc…in addition to the traditional stuff…And for your own benefit, our Facebook page and Twitter feed has weird daily writing prompts. We have a lot of fun watching what people come up with…feel free to join in on the fun!”
The Basement Writing Workshop boasts an impressive staff of writers, a collaborative philosophy, and a willingness to let writers explore alternative genres. If you are looking for an edgy alternative to online writing courses, the Basement Writing Workshop could be for you.
As always, change, when it comes, comes fast. Just a few years ago we were wondering if the digital revolution in publishing was a fad or here to stay. Welp, it seems like e-books are definitely here to stay, according to the NYTs:
Amazon.com, one of the nation’s largest booksellers, announced that for the last three months, sales of books for its e-reader, the Kindle, outnumbered sales of hardcover books.
In that time, Amazon said, it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no Kindle edition.
The pace of change is quickening, too, Amazon said. In the last four weeks sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcover copies. Amazon has 630,000 Kindle books, a small fraction of the millions of books sold on the site.
The NYTs also links to a 2009 article debating whether reading books digitally is good or bad for the brain.
Read MoreToday’s Take 5 interview is with internationally bestselling crime novelist Karin Slaughter. You may remember that Karin guest posted with us in June.
Her latest release, BROKEN, is another page-turning suspense novel. Set in rural Georgia, when Dr. Sara Linton returns home to Grant County, Ga., for Thanksgiving, she hopes to steer clear of the police, especially Det. Lena Adams, whom she blames for the murder of her husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver. Yet when college student Allison Spooner is found dead in a lake and a local boy, Tommy Braham, is arrested for the murder, Sara reluctantly agrees to consult. The investigation soon spirals out of control after Tommy dies in custody. When Sara calls in Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent Will Trent from Atlanta to take over the case, the local police greet Will’s arrival with suspicion. Will must weigh Sara’s personal vendetta against Detective Adams with the facts of the case, which grow more confusing the deeper he digs into the small county’s secrets.
Enjoy!
1. What is the premise of your new book?
The book opens with a suicide case that quickly turns into a homicide investigation. Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is called in to figure out exactly what happened to the victim as well as a suspect who was injured in police custody.
2. What would you like people to know about in this story?
I hope what they find when they read the book is that I’ve given them a real page-turner. I always write my books on two levels–one for sheer enjoyment, and the other to tackle some social issues. In Broken, I talk about rural poverty. We hear a lot about urban poverty but we don’t hear much about people living in the margins of small towns. There are not many safety nets for these people, and I wanted to draw attention to that fact.
3. What problems and challenges do your characters have to overcome in this story?
The biggest challenge to Will is the insular nature of small towns. I grew up in a small town, so I know that people tend to hide the worst parts of their personalities. Will is also caught between two women–Detective Lena Adams and Dr. Sara Linton–who don’t really get along. What he finds out is that they are both right and wrong about each other. As a writer, I like that you can’t trust the narrators 100%. That adds another level of mystery I can play with.
4. What unique challenges did this story present you, if any?
Read More“Are you insane, Bet?”
Not exactly the reaction I’d been hoping for when I made my proposal to Will, I’ll grant you. Still, I tried to tell myself it was a start. At least my idea was now out there, loose in the world.
Turn the clock back a minute or two . . .
“Perhaps,” I said, feeling the smile stretch across my face, “there is a way we can help on another out.”
“Such as?”
“You will go into the military, while I will take your place at school.”
This little passage from Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s new young adult release THE EDUCATION OF BET illustrates how a master storyteller can craft a hook, provide backstory and clearly outline the character’s goals in less than ten sentences.
Craftsmanship, a clean writing style and touches of humor are what make Baratz-Logsted’s books addictive. Her skillset also allows her to hop between genres with ease, whether it be a historical YA as in THE EDUCATION OF BET (set in Victorian England), or a chick-lit novel.
Last week, Baratz-Logsted revealed a little bit of her writing process and how she is able to write successfully for different genres. This week she talks about the inspiration for her latest release and the YA market.
Please enjoy part two of our two-part interview with Lauren Baratz-Logsted.
Q: You don’t shy away from dark themes for your teenage audience. CRAZY BEAUTIFUL, for example, deals with loss and self destructive behaviors. Have you ever had an editor tell you to “dial it down?” Should writers worry about getting to “real” for teens?
Lauren: Short answer to your second question: No. Look at the world we live in. And teens growing up, in the age of the Internet, are well aware of what’s going on in that world. Pretending that awful things don’t exist serves no one, just as pretending that wonderful things don’t exist serves no one. It’s a complex world, with both pain and joy. The thing to remember is that the teen audience covers a Grand Canyon of years in a person’s life, roughly from age 13 through high school. What’s appropriate for an 18-year-old to read might not be the same for a 13-year-old but the publishing world, bookstores and libraries are very good at channeling whether something is for barely-teens or almost-adults. Now I’m trying to think about if an editor ever asked me to dial anything down. In the original version of The Twin’s Daughter (Bloomsbury, August 31), there were a few more overtly sexual scenes that my editor wanted me to tone down so we could expand the audience to include the younger ages of YA. I immediately agreed because while the scenes were – I hope! – sensitively rendered, they were not critical to the plot or point of the book.
Q: Do you think that the YA market is more accepting of “alternative” themes and topics than adult genres might be? The reason I ask is that many of our readers who cannot be published in the adult market because their platform doesn’t fit this or that often move to YA and find success.
Lauren: I do think the market is much more accepting in YA.
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