Business
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
When you’re in front of an audience, mistakes will happen—you can count on it. From the audience, I’ve seen presenters reassemble pages knocked to the floor after a fumbled page turn. Seen authors squint and scrunch their faces as they try to focus while reading pages from a cell phone. Seen others scroll, scroll through their iPads after one touch from a shaky hand sent it haywire, mumbling all the while, oh no I flipped too far, hold on…
Each of these anxiety-producing incidents could have been avoided by printing out needed pages in a font large enough to see at a glance and then placing them within easy-to-turn page protectors in a small binder. Add a little self-deprecating laughter and you can turn a strained silence into an enjoyable event that will inspire your audience say, upon leaving, “That was great. She was just so…real!”
Unless, that is, fear of public speaking is always along for the ride, waiting for its chance to ambush command central and ruin your moment to shine. I know—it’s happened to me.
I was 19 years old and warming up beneath dim work lights, just before the curtain rose on my first college dance concert. All was well until I heard the stage manager say he was opening the house—and suddenly, my body rebelled.
My heart flopped like a fish out of water. My breath…my breath…too shallow. My mouth too dry. I sought a drink of water and then threw it up. Why had fear yanked me off balance now, when I’d finally graduated from studio to theater?
With the audience filtering in, I had to get a grip—fast. I only had twenty minutes! I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and removed the exclamation point: I had twenty minutes, and I needed to make good use of them. I did not want the grim set of my lips or a glassy stare to suggest that I had forsaken the privilege of engaging with this audience. Nervous performers inspire only one question: If you’re so miserable, why are you putting yourself—and us—through this?
So, while standing backstage, fifteen minutes to go, testing my balance and falling, I asked myself: As an audience member, what would I want for the price of my ticket?
The answer came quickly. Even more than athletic prowess, I wanted a peek inside the heart and mind of someone who has a deep reverence for what they do. I wanted their passion to challenge me, inspire me, and make me feel seen.
For me to express my love for dance, I needed to reframe my studio experience, where energy emanating from my muscles hit the mirror and reflected back judgment. I needed to trust that my muscles knew their craft. I needed to purify the negative energy churning in my gut so it could emanate from my heart and move straight toward the audience members I hoped would be positively affected by it.
Five minutes before curtain, I realized that my focus shouldn’t be on me at all. It should be on what I could do […]
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As the years go by, the average age of debut authors seems to get younger and younger. There’s plenty of reasons why this is great: the YA genre embracing authors who are the ages of their characters, the removal of societal assumptions that younger people can’t contribute to art in a meaningful way, the increase in opportunities for younger writers to access helpful resources, etc.
Conversation about this reality would stop there if two things didn’t start to emerge from this trend: 1) the publishing industry skewing notably toward younger writers to the point of sometimes completely shutting out older writers (meaning older than—gasp—30, 35 tops) for consideration for agent representation, publication, awards, or reviews, and 2) the assumption that the younger a writer publishes, the more “naturally gifted” of a writer they must be, and therefore a better writer than those who debut older.
I’ve taught plenty of creative writing courses, and nearly all my older students have expressed an identical concern: That because they’re older, they’ll be largely ignored by the industry both pre- and post-offer. Worries about age have even hit some of my younger students. On their end, they’ve been fed the assumption that since younger equals better, they must land a book deal right out of the gate. If they don’t, they’re failures, will soon be “too old” to publish in a way deemed meaningful, and they should just give up if their path to publication isn’t a breeze from beginning to end.
That’s just not how any of this works. As someone who’s publishing his debut, The Lilac People, at an apparently older age—To paraphrase a petulant Frasier Crane: I’m not yet “of a certain age,” I’m smack dab in the middle of “not a kid anymore.”—and spent over a decade collecting rejections from various projects, I want to set the record straight about the benefits of publishing older.
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Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? Good for you! And good luck! May your resolutions prove easy to enact and the year ahead be a year of fulfillment.
Resolutions and goals are good, but today I have a different New Year’s challenge to bring to you. It’s a list of questions, the point of which is to help you refine your moral inventory as a storyteller. “Moral inventory”? What is that, a step in some writing addiction recovery program?
No, it’s a way to clarify your view of our human experience. And why is that important? We’ll get to that. But first, the questions. For each of the following questions, choose and write down the option which you feel best represents your own outlook and your overall view of the human experience. Make a list.
Here’s the catch: the answer “both” is not allowed. For each question, choose one option only. Don’t think too hard. Go with your gut. The option that weights strongest for you is the right option. There’s no judgment. Results are private.
Ready?
The Questions
The Mirror and the Arrow
Done. You should now have a list of words that are associated with how you fundamentally see yourself and our human experience. I’m particularly interested in your answer to the final question. Why? Because it tells me the unconscious intention underlying your stories. It says whether your stories are mirrors or arrows.
Those terms represent the two primary aims of fiction, which are either to 1) reflect our condition and tell us who we are, or 2) show us our possibilities and point us to who we can be. Those contrary intentions in turn tend to lead to two fundamentally different story types: stories of fate or stories of destiny.
In stories of fate, adverse conditions befall. Things happen to main characters. Such characters do not, at first, have pre-existing power. By contrast, in stories of destiny main characters have inherent agency, which is the pre-existing ability to bring about needed change. They are presented with a task.
Fate characters are challenged. They are trapped but, eventually, feel hope and find a way. They struggle, survive, gain strength, endure, heal, overcome guilt and achieve forgiveness, especially of themselves.
Destiny characters are charged and appointed. They know what to do but it isn’t easy. They already have the needed skills and tools but, at some point, those fail. They face their fears and find courage. They fight, prove themselves and triumph.
Now, if I know you, you may well be thinking: How come a story can’t do both? Why can’t a character be both victim and hero? People […]
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Please welcome back today’s guest: author Alison Hammer—who is half of the writing duo Ali Brady; the USA TODAY Bestselling author of romantic, heartwarming, funny novels including The Beach Trap, The Comeback Summer, Until Next Summer, and Battle of the Bookstores. Their books have been “best of summer” picks by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parade, and Katie Couric Media. Alison lives in Chicago and works as an advertising creative director. She is also the Founder and Co-President of The Artists Against Antisemitism, and the author of You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me.
The duo recently released a holiday novella—and Alison is here to share the story behind the story and tell us how letting go of the rules and trying something new was just the spark they needed.
Creativity can come in many forms—including the way you tell and share a story.
This October, my co-author and I found ourselves faced with something we haven’t really had before: a break. Instead of rushing to start our next project after we turned our Summer 2025 book in, we had some time to think about what we wanted to do next and even (gasp!) try writing something just for the fun of it.
Like millions of other people, Bradeigh and I both loved the Netflix series NOBODY WANTS THIS. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a hot rabbi (Adam Brody) who falls in love with “shiksa” – a non-Jewish woman (Kristin Bell).
This past year has been a difficult one for the Jewish community, so it was REALLY refreshing to see the general public get so excited about a Jewish story. (And yes, I know there has been some controversy around the depiction of Jewish women in that series…but that’s another topic for another day.)
While our Ali Brady books have always featured Jewish representation, the success of that show inspired us to try and think of a way we could tell a story that elevated the Jewish experience even more. Once we realized the first night of Hanukkah was on Christmas day for the first time in twenty years, a story was born.
A CREATIVE APPROACH TO WRITING
When Bradeigh and I are writing a full-length novel together, we usually spend a few weeks working on the plot and the characters, getting to know their personality and their story arc. Then we take about five or six months to write the first draft.
For this story, we had about one month total to write, edit and publish it. Which meant we had to shake things up and rethink the way we “always” did things.
Instead of our usual few weeks, we spent an hour one evening brainstorming and coming up with the characters, a loose plot for the story and a title—ONE NIGHT, TWO HOLIDAYS—and then we started to write.
While we knew the general beats of the story, we didn’t have time to make our usual chapter-by-chapter outline. So Bradeigh had the idea to lean into the fun of it and treat the writing process like improv.
One of us would write a scene then post it in our shared doc. Then the other person would read the pages (we tried to […]
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I understand that everything we believe, deny, desire, fear, choose, and do is shaped, in some way, by what took place in the past—yet I’m not a fan of backstory in novels.
Think about it. When we meet someone for the first time “in real life,” we get clues about their history and the events that shaped them from the information we receive right then and there—how the person reacts, moves, speaks. We aren’t handed a long biography. We don’t need it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
This was underscored for me—just as I was getting this piece ready for posting, in fact—when I went to see an excellent new film called Conclave. Without getting into the intricacies of the plot, I’ll just say that it depicts the psychology and relationships between several Cardinals who aspire to be chosen as the next pope. As the story unfolds, we see their ambition, overt or suppressed, their strengths and weaknesses. What we don’t see, except in one instance, is anything about their past, before the conclave began, and how they came to be the sort of people they are now. Why not? Because the story doesn’t need it.
So too, when we meet a character in a novel. As a reader, our information comes from the character’s behavior in the scene. In most cases, there’s plenty of information, at least for the moment. Where does she sit or stand in the room? What does she notice or avoid? When the dessert tray is passed around, does she grab the biggest piece or wait until everyone else has one? Is she the one who tells the joke, laughs loudest, looks confused, or rolls her eyes in irritation?
As we watch the scene unfold, do we need—or want—to know about her early experience with an impossible-to-please mother, duplicitous ex-husband, or snarky junior high school rival? Of course not. We might, later, if there’s a story question that this information would shed light on. If so, then her memory of the past event will need to intrude into the forward-moving story in that very scene.
I’m using the word intrude, because a shift into the past is an interruption. If the reader’s immersion is interrupted, it had better be for a good reason. Which means: it had better be necessary, right now.
Narrative necessity
“Narrative necessity” comes from the characters, not the author. In other words: backstory information shouldn’t be presented simply because the author wants to tell the reader stuff that she thinks it would be helpful to know—e.g., to convey a character’s “origin story” as a way to justify her motivation and goals.
Rather, a memory intrudes into a story for two reasons:
If we think of remembering as a link in a causal chain, not as a way to convey information to the reader, then it’s clear that remembering is an active event, not a passive one. The act of remembering—along with the emotion and insight it brings—enables the character to do something that she needs to do, in order for the story to move along.
How, then, can we portray those […]
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Novel openings don’t always start with a bang. Or at a run, such as in the example I analyzed in last month’s post. This month, thanks to a suggestion by community member Barbara Morrison, I’ll look at how three other types of openings invite the reader into the story—and at the end, leave one for you to dissect.
Hit the Ground Walking
Character movement can create the sense that the reader is merging into a story that’s already in progress. Like last month’s example, the character here is moving—but slower. Here’s the opening of The Girl in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian, set in the spring of 1923.
Ada smelled the swamp before she reached it. The mingling of sulfur and rot worked with memory to knot her stomach and burn the back of her throat. She was returning with little more than she had taken with her a year before, everything she counted worthy of transporting only half filling the pillowcase slung over her shoulder. It might have been filled with bricks, the way she bent under it, but mostly it was loss that weighed her down. The past few days had swept her clean of hope, and a few trinkets in a pillowcase were all that was left to mark a time when she had not lived isolated in this green-shaded, stagnant setting. When she was a little girl, she had believed she loved this place, the trees offering themselves as steadfast companions, the wildflowers worthy confidants, but passing through now with eyes that had taken in other wonders and a heart that had allowed an outsider to slip in, she knew she had only been resigned to it. As she was again.
In addition to putting the protagonist in purposeful motion—Ada is is not meandering, but showing agency by pursuing a goal—this opening creates story movement by:
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Today’s “ad post” is also a valuable blog post written by our own Barry Knister, detailing his experience with two editors while preparing his novel, Someone Better Than You, for publication. Enjoy!
Deciding to work with an editor is a major decision. It costs money, and calls on the writer to do something analogous to what all good parents must do: love their children enough to let them go (at least until they come home and move into the basement).
That’s what the writer does when she turns over her baby to an editor. This person will get to know the fledging novel or memoir, but usually with no knowledge of how it came to be. That means, when the baby comes home, the writer must will herself into a kind of amnesia, in order to absorb and respond to the stranger’s reactions.
That’s why I urge writers to read a report, but to then put it aside for a week or more before going back to it. Otherwise, they risk acting or reacting on impulse.
Recently, I worked with two editors on my forthcoming novel, Someone Better Than You. By coincidence, both people are past editors for Penguin. In every respect, working with these editors led to improvements in my novel. I acted on most but not all of their suggestions, and what follows is my attempt to summarize the process.
RONIT WAGMAN
I first hired Ronit in 2020 to read and report on the full manuscript of what was then titled Ashley and the Jell-O Hour. Although she liked the story (“the world of the novel and the characters that dwelled in it felt deeply authentic to me”), she had several major criticisms.
AGENCY
In the version Ronit read, my main character Brady “Buzz” Ritz is a retired newspaper editor. His life is upended when he publishes a book of his anonymously published satirical columns. He blunders mightily by publishing the book’s second edition under his own name.
In this first version, Brady’s book comes about through the actions of others. The editor of Grumble (the little magazine that first published his column) talks Brady into developing a book of his work. Ritz’s best friend from his newspaper days gets an agent friend to find a publisher. Most importantly, the best friend shames Ritz into using his own name for the second edition.
As Ronit explained, I had made my main character the passive pawn of others. Someone else pushes him to develop the book, and someone else arranges for it to be published. Most importantly, someone else is responsible for Ritz publishing the second edition under his own name.
Ronit’s guidance led me to make Ritz less a passive actor, and more the responsible agent for his story. He still gets the idea for the book from his editor, but as Ronit pointed out, no agent would take on such a manuscript from an “anonymous” writer—because no publisher would be interested in such a book.
So, I replaced a commercial publisher with a university press whose editor has the freedom to publish something by an unknown writer. I also got rid of the idea of a second edition. Once I made these changes, I was free to make Brady responsible for the […]
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I have some homework for you.
For 2025, I want you to really think about two things: connection and purpose.
Try to…
Consider how you will…
Describe yourself…
Describe your writing…
What influences your work…
What do you want readers…
Answer this question honestly…
If you have questions, you can always email me – am@getredpr.com – or drop a comment below. Wishing Writer Unboxed readers a very happy and healthy holiday season.
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Hello from Bisbee, Arizona. Have you been? Everything here is named Copper Queen This-or-That, after the played-out copper mine outside of town. Today you mine the antique stores for copper kettles, cast iron skillets and Western wear. There are historical hotels and outstanding meatloaf.
What am I doing around here? Teaching at a writers’ retreat, naturally, at a ranch deep in the southern New Mexico desert. The land around is vast and empty, a dried-up prehistoric seabed where now you can walk and hear nothing except your crunching footsteps. At night the Milky Way hazes serenely in the velvet black sky. It’s a place to hear your inner thoughts. Day or night, nothing moves.
Which brings me to manuscripts, and this week’s students. As is often the case with developing fiction writers, there are recurring issues in manuscripts as well as skills to impart, ranging from stronger narrative voice, to scene shaping, to emotions on the page, to micro-tension and more.
However, primary among the topics to tackle is the one that I term sequential narration. What that refers to is the tendency of newer fiction writers to spin out a story as if it is a transcript of the movie in the mind, a flowing visualization that walks alongside the main characters from the opening moment in time to the concluding moment in time.
The most obvious shortcoming of sequential narration is that it produces lulls, pages that present low-tension business such as lengthy arrivals, traveling between scenes, domestic humdrum, and so on. For the most part, those things are presented visually in the belief that anything that a protagonist might be doing matters if we can “see” it.
Summary—the collapse of time—can help with that, but that trick masks a misunderstand about what it is that conveys to readers that a story is progressing. What accomplishes that is not entirely what we “see” any more than it is the passing desert, seen through a car window, that gives one a sense of making progress over the land.
Drive along Highway 80 and you’ll understand what I mean. One mile of desert is very much like another. The desert going by is dull. After a short while, one’s sense of movement arises not from the car rolling along, mile by mile, but rather from road signs, monuments, far-off mountains, tiny towns and the thoughts in your head.
Newer writers believe that it is the plot events that provide a feeling of story progress. That’s true, in part, but another sensation of story movement comes from inside, including—and perhaps most importantly–from readers’ experience of human moments. Every time we “get” it—meaning not what a character feels but what a story moment feels like—then we inwardly take a step forward.
Call it emotional beats, if you like, but this kind of movement arises not from what characters are going through, but from what readers are going through. And one thing that readers can go through—if you make it happen—are human moments of recognition and connection.
Human Moments
In creating moments of human connection for readers, there are several variables. The first is narrative distance. However, it doesn’t matter how “close” we are to characters or not. What matters is whether what you are writing about on any given page produces […]
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As a connoisseur of writing how-tos (and yes, I had to look up how to spell connoisseur – and okay, “addict” might be a more accurate word), I have read a TON of them. And while I find valuable nuggets in nearly all of these books, lately I’ve noticed that many recent writing how-tos are essentially sharing slightly different flavors of some very similar core information.
So when I encounter a book about writing that offers some new (to me, at least) ways of looking at the craft, I sit up and take notice. My gushing ode to Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This in this 2020 post is an example.
I just finished reading another such departure from mainstream writing how-tos: The Intuitive Author, by WU’s own Tiffany Yates Martin, who, in addition to being a wonderful writer and editor, is also an insanely good teacher and public speaker. Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Tiffany’s sessions or events, take it. And if you’re an author who speaks at literary conferences, trust me: you do NOT want to follow Tiffany. She’s that good.
Having seen Tiffany’s amazing presentation on backstory at WU’s brilliant 2022 OnCon, I knew what an extraordinary editorial mind she has, and how good she is at getting under the hood to amp up and improve your writing at multiple levels. So with The Intuitive Author, I guess I was expecting a book full of deep analysis into the mechanics of writing, along with some sophisticated editorial techniques. Instead, much of the analysis she offers in the book leans more towards the psychology and strategy involved in pursuing – and ideally, enjoying – the life of a writer.
I quickly realized I was not reading The Average Writing How-To, and I dove into the book with my curiosity piqued. (And yes, I had to double-check whether it was “piqued” or “peaked.” Got it right the first time – yay! Hey, it’s the small victories. But I digress…)
In short, The Intuitive Author is filled with insights and perspectives quite unlike those offered in the vast majority of writing how-tos currently on the market. And reading Tiffany’s book made me think about another writing how-to I’d recently read that takes a pretty big departure from most conventional writing wisdom: the provocatively titled Kill the Dog: The First Book on Screenwriting to Tell You the Truth, by author and screenwriter Paul Guyot.
What does this Guyot dude have against dogs, anyway?
Nothing, actually. Instead, the animal Guyot truly hates – and is taking a not-at-all thinly veiled swipe at – is the cat. Specifically, the cat in the well-known “Save the Cat!” series created by the late Blake Snyder.
If you’re not familiar, Snyder’s initial Save the Cat! book (STC to the cool kids) burst onto the scene in 2005 with a VERY structured set of templates for storytelling, which he reverse-engineered from studying many successful movie scripts. Targeted at aspiring screenwriters, Snyder’s methodology offered a compelling framework for them to adopt […]
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I’m guessing, given Tuesday’s election, most of us have been living in a world of, shall we say, heightened reality the past few days (if not weeks, or months). So, with no desire to diminish the importance or impact of that reality, allow me to offer a bit of a diversion, one I’ve had planned for some time: here’s an interview with Rachel Howzell Hall, known for her bestselling thrillers, about her turn to romantic fantasy with her latest book.
Rachel has been on a bit of a tear lately: her most recent previous novel, We Lie Here, was both a bestseller and nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Before that she had three bestsellers in a row, What Fire Brings, What Never Happened, and These Toxic Things (also nominated for the Anthony Award, the Strand Critics Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award), with And Now She’s Gone garnering nominations for the Lefty, Barry, Shamus, and Anthony Awards.
With so much success in the thriller category, why jump ship and climb aboard an entirely different genre? I asked her that question (see below).
Meanwhile, The Last One, which comes out December 3, has garnered significant pre-publication praise:
The Last One can be pre-ordered now at Bookshop.Org, Amazon, B&N, Google Books, Kobo, Apple Books, or at your favorite local bookstore.
How did your agent (and/or editor/publisher) respond when you proposed a book so different from your past work?
Actually, it was my agent Jill Marsal who first reached out with the possibility of collaborating with publisher Liz Pelletier. I was thrilled at the opportunity—Liz is a genius. She was preparing to launch a new imprint from Entangled called Red Tower, filled with high-concept ideas she wanted to bring to life. I was honored to be one of the writers she thought would be a good fit for the project.
I get the feeling that this is a book you’ve been wanting to write for some time—have I got that right? If so, what kept you from getting to it sooner? How long did it take to imagine it, plot it out, and then get it down on the page?
I didn’t realize I wanted to write this book until I actually started. I was pretty intimidated by the idea of tackling not just one, but two new genres. I had never written a romance, and I had never written a fantasy. However, I soon discovered that I still had a lot to say—things I’d expressed before in mystery and crime—but now I had the opportunity to explore them in a world I could entirely create. A world without rules, until I made them.
I was offered the opportunity in July 2022 and began writing. I […]
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Writers often ask me why, with all of Writer Beware’s warnings about bad actors in the publishing world, we don’t also provide recommendations or endorsements of the good guys. “You’ve got this gigantic list of scammers on your blog; wouldn’t it also be helpful to recommend reputable agents and publishers?”
There are several reasons why we don’t do this.
Writer Beware has a very specific purpose: to document and expose schemes, scams, and pitfalls that target writers, and to educate authors on how to recognize and avoid them. As far as we know, we’re the only organization with this exclusive mission. In other words, we aren’t a general-purpose resource: we are quite narrowly focused. We are also a small, all-volunteer team, with limited time and resources.
Also, one size does not fit all. Agents, publishers, etc. have widely varying areas of interest and expertise, and the best agent or publisher or freelance editor or cover designer for one writer might be the worst choice for another. Lists of “good guys” won’t necessarily be very useful, depending on what you write and what your publishing goals are (not to mention, they are incredibly time-consuming and research-intensive to compile and maintain; did I mention that Writer Beware is a small team?). It really is better for writers to do their own research and vetting, armed against scams and bad practice with the tools and knowledge Writer Beware provides.
Finally, recommending or endorsing any particular publishers, agents, etc. risks raising questions of conflict of interest. How do you know, one of Writer Beware’s many haters might inquire, that the agents on that “good guy” list didn’t pay to be there? Of course this would not be true—Writer Beware doesn’t even accept charitable donations—but we want to avoid all possibility of such questions arising. (This is why, when scammers want to discredit us, they have to make stuff up—such as that I own my own publishing company and am badmouthing competitors).
So I can’t suggest which agents to query, which publishers to approach, which self-publishing platforms to consider. What I can do is try to cut through some of the fog and noise of the internet by recommending reliable resources to help with your publication journey. The internet is a goldmine of information for authors, but it is also a swamp of fake facts, bad advice, and scams—and it can be very difficult to figure out which websites are reliable and which experts are actually experts.
Following are a few of my favorite online resources. Some you’ll no doubt already be familiar with, but hopefully you’ll also discover something new. (And of course Writer Unboxed would be on the list, if I weren’t already here!) Most of the resources are free, but some require subscription or a membership fee. Writer Beware receives no consideration or compensation for mentioning them.
GENERAL RESOURCES
The Writer Beware Website. http://www.writerbeware.com/ The Writer Beware blog is WB’s most high-profile online presence, but many people don’t realize that we’re also a very large website. While the blog covers scams and publishing industry issues in real time, the website is a resource for general advice and warnings, designed to empower writers to recognize and protect themselves from schemes and […]
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By Ann-Marie Nieves with Randy Susan Meyers
Today’s post by Ann-Marie Nieves of Get Red PR features her perspective on marketing and the opinions of Randy Susan Meyers, her friend and client.
Will it be dueling points of view or simpatico? Read on to find out.
We are all marketers.
I know you don’t believe me. I know it feels safer to say, I can’t do this because I’m not a marketer.
You can continue to say…
I can’t.
I won’t.
I’m not.
It’s my publicist/marketer/publisher’s job.
But it’s your story. It’s your brand. So it’s your job too.
And letting the value of marketing rest solely on someone else’s shoulders is not enough to sustain you.
This advice isn’t exclusively about accepting that you need to get involved with spreading the word; I’m not saying get over it.
I’m asking you to open your arms wide and embrace your compelling story.
A few weeks ago, author Randy Susan Meyers wrote about choosing joy in marketing. Here’s how she fully embraced her story:
From Randy:
Years ago, I heard the words that guided my career regarding (for me) the most vexing and challenging part of publishing a book—marketing and publicity:
Wisdom from literary agent Sorche Fairbank, speaking at a writer’s conference, became my mantra when facing the after-the-writing part.
Nobody will care about your book as much as you—not your agent, editor, husband, wife, mother, or father.
Nobody.
My literary agent, Stephanie Abou, became my other source of wisdom on taking responsibility for spreading the word—how to do what my publicist and marketing folks could not.
She urged me to, starting that day, move beyond relying on my writer circle and spread the word among friends (from past and present), family, alumni from any school I’d ever attended, camps, and houses of worship. Please do not rely solely on folks you are on contact with on social media.
I pretended I was throwing the largest giant wedding, bar mitzvah, and christening and prepared the most extensive guest list in history.
I even included old boyfriends. Hey, everyone’s curious about their exes, right?
Trusting my agent, I moved beyond my natural inclination towards quiet privacy and tracked down email and physical addresses. I designed postcards, wrote emails, and crafted a message that (I hope!) shared my news with a ‘letting you know’ tone that I might use to share any fun, good news. (I’m getting married! I became a grandma! I joined Habitat for Humanity!).
People responded with warm excitement. Nobody scolded me.
Okay, that’s a lie. One FB alumni group member scolded, “This isn’t the place for selling things.”
But he was always a jerk.
There are miraculous things only publicists can manage and things they can never do—and vice versa.
Now, with my sixth novel releasing (The Many Mothers […]
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan
To study writing craft is to learn techniques that support your reader’s perception of its reality. When done well, this provides your reader with an immersive experience.
When done too well, the reader assumes it is the author’s lived experience.
At least that’s true when the writer is a woman, claims B.D. McClay. In a recent New York Times essay, “Sally Rooney Deserves Better Than This,” McClay writes of Rooney (Intermezzo, Normal People): “She’s come to understand herself as having been selected for the role of the voice of a generation by a capricious literary establishment, a role she has neither encouraged nor enjoyed. She believes this has a lot to do with how young women are catapulted to positions of hypervisibility and not anything in particular to do with her books.”
If it were up to Rooney, McClay reports, she’d prefer to divorce her own life from the discussion of her work.
Ah, wouldn’t that be nice, to let your novel stand on its own as do other artworks, allowing readers, critics, and history to make of it what they will without you having to detail every aspect of its inspiration. But that is not our current promotional reality.
Those of us who love the art of story are drawn to the way it inspires us to seek universal truths about issues such as justice, societal responsibility, and how to emerge intact from the thorny interplay between love and loss. But these days, it is often the case that those attending promotional events and book club discussions—despite the fact that what they had chosen to read was fiction—want the facts. What aspect of your life inspired your story’s events? Who inspired this character? Which events really happened?
Don’t they understand that fiction relies on creativity? Or do they ask so as to unlock its mysterious alchemy?
Noting a “tendency to conflate female novelists with their characters,” McClay opines that there seems to be an inequality at play—the assumption that women aren’t capable of using their imaginations to explore, through story, the themes of interest to them.
While I’m not usually quick to hop on the misogyny train, McClay may have a point. Can you imagine someone sitting in a bookstore audience, circa 1900, asking L. Frank Baum which real-life harpy was the inspiration for his iconic villain in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—even though, in his introduction, he claimed that his novel was written solely to “pleasure children today”? And I can testify that not one reader attending Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 talk in our local bookstore asked him if he’d ever been a flight attendant who woke up covered in the blood of the dead stranger he’d slept with the night before.
Of course genre, not author gender, could be at play in those examples. In her Times essay, McClay quotes interviews in which Rooney claims that she is “not all that interesting.” In a review for USA Today, Clare Mulroy writes that in Intermezzo, which follows two brothers in the aftermath of their father’s death, Rooney continues her exploration of what it means to be […]
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