A Massive Headache And An Inbox Full Of Rejection

One day last week, I got a massive headache and decided to go to bed early. But, before I went, I thought it would be a good idea to check an email account that I don’t look at every day. You know what I found in my inbox? Rejection letters. Lots of them.

I’ve been writing for years, and getting rejected still hurts. I’ve sent enough rejection letters to know that the rejection is just one editor’s subjective opinion, but that doesn’t change how rejection feels. It feels like someone is confirming that I really do suck as much as I believe I suck. It makes me feel like I’m wasting my life on something futile. It shakes the microscopic amount of confidence that I have in myself as a writer.

However, as I deleted my latest batch of rejection, I realized that I wasn’t as devastated by these letters as I have been by past rejections. When I got rejections as a teenager, I would get so angry at myself that I wouldn’t write for weeks. I’ve matured a lot since then, but I think the biggest difference is in the number of projects that I’m doing. I have a lot going on, and I’m super excited about some of it. The rejections didn’t hurt as much this time because I could easily shift my focus to the other projects. I didn’t have time to dwell on the sucky-ness of rejection.

So, I think the moral of the story is to write more after rejections, not less. It’s hard to be upset about one rejected project when you have a dozen other projects going on.      

NaNoWriMo 2014

If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, you should have written at least 11,669 words by the end of today. No pressure or anything.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out my post about last year’s NaNoWriMo.

I’m not participating this year because I have too many other projects, but I just wanted to say “Good luck” to all the crazy people who are trying to write a novel in a month.

Now, go write.

Colorado Gold Conference 2014

Why was there no blog post last week? Because I was at the 2014 Colorado Gold Conference and didn’t pay the hotel for the use of the internet.

The Colorado Gold Conference is put on every year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This year, the conference was September 5^th – 7^th at The Westin in Westminster, Colorado. As always, the conference was amazing. The sessions were helpful, and the hotel was very nice.

Maybe I’ve been taking writing classes for too many years, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t find general craft sessions at conferences very interesting. I did go to sessions on dialogue, tension, and character development at Colorado Gold, but I liked some of the genre-specific sessions much better. This conference had genre-specific sessions about the Victorian era, science, the brain, witchcraft, sex, more sex, even more sex, violence, and more violence. It was awesome.  

Writing conferences are usually overwhelming for me. I’ve never been very good at taking notes, and I learn so much that everything jumbles up in my brain. This isn’t a bad thing. I remember what I learned when I need to remember it. But, it makes it a little difficult to write a review of the conference.

I learned one fact that clearly stands out in my mind: Murderers often bite their victims. It’s an animal instinct that takes over when people kill each other.

Out of all the sessions I attended, that fact is the only thing that I clearly remember. I learned it in a session called Dying to be Here: Techniques of Murder and Mayhem. The session was aimed at mystery, horror, and thriller authors. I have no idea when I’m going to use this information, but it sure is yucky.

If you go to a writing conference, try to attend some genre-specific sessions, even if you don’t write that genre. They’re pretty interesting. And, if you live near Colorado, check out the Colorado Gold Conference. It’s one of the better conferences that I’ve attended.    

Why Your Writing Is Being Rejected

You’re probably sick of hearing me talk about it, but I’ve spent the past year reading submissions for an anthology. So, I’m going to write about rejection today.

There were several editors who worked on this anthology. Every week we all read the same batch of submissions. We met to discuss the batch at the end of the week. In order to remember what I read, I kept spreadsheets with the title and author of the submission as well as my reaction to the submission. I was looking for something on my computer yesterday, and I found the spreadsheets. For some reason (boredom), I decided to look over the spreadsheets. I started noticing trends in my reasons for rejecting submissions. I noticed that there are some very common mistakes that writers make that lead to rejection. (Or, at least, rejection from me.)

I decided to take a sample of about 250 rejected submissions and make a pie chart of my most common reasons for rejection. The submissions were a mixture of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Most of the submissions were rejected for multiple reasons, but I always put my biggest reason for rejection first in my notes. I only put my biggest reason on the chart.

Here is my (admittedly crappy and hard to read) pie chart of rejection.

Not Quite Ready – 1.07% - These are the submissions that were very good, but they weren’t quite as good as the accepted submissions. We couldn’t accept everything. Some good stories had to be rejected because they just weren’t quite right for us.

Lacking Emotion – .56% - The submission felt flat. I didn’t feel anything for the characters or their situation. Or, I didn’t feel anything while reading a poetry submission.

Boring – 6.54% - I read past the first 3-5 pages of a story, but then I got bored. The story felt long, meandering, or slow. It didn’t hold my attention.

Not Unique – 7.01% - I’ve read too many pieces (published or unpublished) that are similar to this one. There is nothing in this submission that is unusual or unexpected.

Poorly Written – 4.91% - I can tell that the author is a beginning writer or a non-English speaker. The piece is extremely unpolished and difficult to read.

Doesn’t Fit Submission Guidelines – 35.75% - You know how a lot of rejection letters say, “Your piece is not what we are looking for right now”? That’s this category. These submissions didn’t fit the theme of the anthology well enough for me. They just weren’t what we were looking for right now.

Too Simplistic – 1.87% - The author took complex human emotions; a complex situation; or a complex political, social, or environmental problem and oversimplified it.

Why Did I Read This? – 1.4% - When I read a submission, I want to feel like I got something out of reading it. I want to be entertained or enlightened. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of reading these submissions.

Other – 4.91% - These rejections didn’t fit in any of the other categories. Many of the submissions in this category just didn’t match my personal taste. For example, I didn’t like an author’s choppy writing style, or a nonfiction piece was too informational and didn’t have enough of a narrative.

Predictable – .47% - Within the first few paragraphs, I knew exactly how the story was going to end. I always skipped ahead to see if I was correct. With these submissions, I was correct.

Nothing Happens – 18.22% - Nothing important happens within the first 3-5 pages of a story, or nothing happens at all in a poem.

Confusing – 14.72% - Something in the submission was confusing, unclear, or needed more explanation for me to fully understand or appreciate it.

Lacking Character Development – 2.57% - The characters were underdeveloped.

Psychology For Imaginary People

Over the last few years, I have been reading a lot about psychology. Mostly I’ve been reading about it because it interests me, but I think that having some knowledge of psychology can be helpful for writers. Your characters might be more realistic if you understand what makes real people function.

One of the things that I’ve been reading about is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This is a questionnaire that reveals how a person sees the world and makes decisions. For example, is the person extraverted or introverted? Does the person prefer to think problems through or improvise solutions quickly? Does the person prefer to base decisions on feelings or logic? There are sixteen possible types that are each referred to by a four-letter abbreviation. None of the types are good or bad. The test just shows the ways that a person prefers to deal with the world.

Fictional characters, like real people, all see the world in slightly different ways. If you are struggling with character development, the Myers-Briggs types could give you a blueprint for creating a realistic person.

I’ve noticed that different versions of the questionnaire will give you slightly different results. Every questionnaire that I’ve done says that I’m either ISTJ or INTJ. Here are links to two different versions of the questionnaire:

Questionnaire 1

Questionnaire 2

With fictional characters, it might be more helpful for authors to just read about the sixteen different types.

I’ve heard that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is more accurate than many other psychological questionnaires. For fiction writers, an understanding of the types may help you create characters with realistic strengths, weaknesses, and ways of responding to the world.  

What Are Writing Workshops Really Like? (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote about what in-person writing workshops are really like. This week, I’ll talk about my experiences with online workshops. A lot of what I wrote about last week also applies to online writing workshops, so please check out that post. These are just my experiences. Yours might be different.

The Format

Online writing workshops vary a lot in how they’re run. Sometimes you post your writing on a website and wait until somebody critiques it. Sometimes your writing is emailed to the workshop members, and the critiques are emailed to you. The number of critiques that you’re required to write totally depends on the workshop.

My Experience

One of the best decisions that I made in my life was joining an adult online writing workshop when I was a teenager. I was just starting to get serious about writing. Almost all of the writers in the workshop were much better and more experienced than me. Most of them were extremely kind, patient, and helpful. They corrected all of my beginner mistakes. I learned so much from them that when I started taking beginner writing workshops in college, I felt like I was ahead of the other students. I already knew what the professors were teaching because I’d already learned it in the online writing workshop. It definitely made me more comfortable in the college-level workshops. I also probably got better grades than I would have if I hadn’t been in the online workshop for years before I started college. The online workshop was great for a beginner like me. For a writing workshop, it was also very inexpensive. I think it was $47 a year back in the early 2000s.

It’s difficult to find a good online writing workshop that doesn’t cost a ton of money, especially if you’re an experienced writer. Most of the free workshops that I’ve come across are made up of inexperienced writers who are just starting their writing careers. These free workshops might be great for beginners, but they might not give experienced writers the help they need. I’ve seen a lot of critiques of experienced writers that say, “This is a great story. There isn’t anything wrong with it.” That always makes me wonder if the person giving the critique isn’t experienced enough with writing to see the problems. That kind of critique also isn’t helpful for the writer. I ended up quitting the writing workshop that I joined as a teenager because as I became a better writer, the critiques became less and less helpful. I still wasn’t a good writer, so if I wanted to keep getting better, I needed to find a different writing workshop.

I tried a few other inexpensive online writing workshops, but I still wasn’t getting the help I needed. For every great critique, I was getting two or three that just said, “This is a good story.” Writing workshops can be time consuming. You have to write and revise your own writing as well as critique other people’s writing. There are often strict due dates. I did learn a lot from critiquing other people’s writing, but the critiques that I was getting weren’t worth the work that it took to participate in the workshop.

By far the best online workshops that I’ve done were run by colleges. A lot of colleges offer online classes, including writing workshops. The workshops are led by professors. The workshop members are taught how to write good critiques, and the critiques are often graded, so there is incentive for the workshop members to do a good job on them. I almost always got helpful critiques from college online writing workshops. The only drawback to these workshops is the cost. They’re usually several hundred dollars. You might also have to apply and be accepted to the college before you’re allowed to take them.  

The moral of the story: if you find an online workshop that fits your needs and gives quality critiques, then join it. Good online workshops seem to be rare beasts.

The Trolls

A lot of online writing workshops don’t have a workshop leader who keeps tight control over what’s happening. In many cases, anyone can join an online workshop, and the workshop leader doesn’t read the critiques unless somebody complains about something. There are often trolls in these workshops who join just to cause trouble, give cruel critiques, and upset people. Be prepared to get a few troll critiques in an online workshop. Either ignore them or report them to the workshop leader.

The strangest thing that ever happened to me in an online workshop? Nothing too bad has ever happened. I once got a religious sermon instead of a critique. The person who gave me the sermon then flooded my inbox with Bible quotes. When I was a teenager, I got a very detailed critique that compared my writing style to cat food. According to the critique, my writing style was chunky, unappealing, and not something that you want to look at very closely or for very long.

So, that’s online writing workshops for you.

What Are Writing Workshops Really Like? (Part 1)

I think it was Stephen King who said that a bad writing workshop does more harm than good.

That’s totally true. I’ve been in writing workshops at several different schools, at a nonprofit adult-education organization, and online. I’ve been in good workshops and bad workshops. This blog post is just about my experience. Yours might be different. I’ll talk about online workshops next week. This week’s post is about in-person workshops.

The Format

At an in-person workshop, the members’ written pieces are distributed a few days or weeks before the workshop. Before the workshop, every person writes a critique of the piece being workshopped that day and puts notes in the piece’s margins. Most workshops have rules about the length of the critique: I’ve written critiques that were anywhere from a paragraph long to several pages long.

On the day of the workshop, bring your critique and your copy of the piece with the margin notes. Usually, everybody sits in a circle or at a long table so that you can all see each other. The author is then asked to read part of the piece out loud. After that, the author isn’t allowed to speak anymore. The author sits silently and takes notes during the workshop. The author isn’t allowed to explain or defend their work. The workshop itself is just a conversation about the author’s work. What’s good about it? What isn’t working? What’s confusing? There is often disagreement in workshops, so the author has to decide which comments to listen to and which to ignore. Usually, if more than one person brings up the same issue, then the author should listen to them.

At the end of the workshop, the author is sometimes given a few minutes to ask for clarification about anything that was brought up during the workshop. All of the workshop members give their critiques and notes to the author. And that’s the end.

The Critique

A lot of workshops have strict rules about how critiques need to be written. Be nice. Always explain why you like or don’t like something about a piece. Some workshops allow you to point out problems in a piece but not make suggestions about how to fix the problem. Critiques are written in “compliment sandwich” form. Start and end the critique by praising something in the piece. Keep the criticism in the middle and try to layer praise and criticism.

Your Writing

What type of piece should you submit to the workshop? Something that fits the guidelines of the workshop (most of them have page limits and genre requirements). Pick something that you’re open to having criticized. If you pick a piece that you’re really attached to, you might get your feelings hurt. The piece is going to be criticized. It’s probably going to be criticized a lot. It’s usually helpful to pick something that has problems that you don’t know how to fix. The workshop can help you sort out the problems.

The Nerves

Will you be nervous on the day that your piece is workshopped? Yes. Is there anything that you can do to be less nervous? Probably not.

The Good Workshop

Good workshops are amazing. They’re probably one of the most helpful things that you can do for your writing. If you’re stuck on a piece, a good workshop will get you unstuck. You’ll leave a good workshop feeling great in an “I can totally handle this” type of way.

In a good workshop, everybody is respectful. They understand that the pieces are works-in-progress and not finished pieces. A lot depends on the workshop leader. The leader should keep everything under control and know when to change the subject so that everybody doesn’t start harping on the same point. It can get annoying for the author when everybody keeps pointing out the same problem over and over.

The Mental Hunger Games

Bad workshops are very, very bad. I’ve seen people cry during workshop. I’ve seen people storm out of the room during workshop. I’ve seen heated arguments. I’ve seen a workshop leader scream at the workshop participants. I’ve heard stories of walls being punched, objects being thrown, desks being tipped over.

I quit writing for almost a year after a bad workshop. I was discouraged and no longer interested in anything that had to do with writing. The workshop was so stressful that I felt physically sick on workshop days. I couldn’t get out of the workshop because I needed the college credits.

The biggest problem with this particular workshop was the competitiveness. I’m not competitive at all. Being “the best” is nice, but I’m at a writing workshop to learn and get help. Writing workshops can breed competitiveness because you get to see everybody’s work. Sometimes you can’t help comparing it to your own. At this workshop, some people were tearing down other people to make themselves feel better. Someone called a story “Stupid shit” in front of the author and everyone else. Someone tried to spread a rumor that one of the women in the workshop was a prostitute. There was a lot of trash-talking in the hallway before and after workshop. There was a lot of crying. People were terrified to submit work to the workshop because it was all criticism and very little praise. Some workshop members would praise your story to your face before workshop and then say horrible things about it during workshop. It was all very childish and exhausting. The workshop leader yelled at us but didn’t do much to stop it.

The strangest thing that happened to me during that workshop? I was on Yahoo! in the middle of the night, and an IM popped up. It was from one of my male classmates. It said, “You’re a horrible writer, but at least you have a damn fine ass.”

So, that’s writing workshops for you.

Authors on YouTube

I didn’t have time to write a proper blog post this week, so I’m posting some inspiring YouTube videos from authors. Who couldn’t use a little inspiration, right? (Sorry people who are reading this blog on a mobile device. I still haven’t figured out why videos don’t work. So no inspiration for you.)

 

 

 

 

 

On Mary Sues

 

I have never written fan fiction or wanted to write fan fiction, but over the last year, I have been reading it out of curiosity.  The first time that I scrolled down to the comments of a fan fiction piece, I saw this comment:

"Your main character is a Mary Sue!"

My reaction to that comment was “Um, who’s Mary Sue?”  I had a college degree in fiction writing, I had been to writing conferences, I had been to author readings, I had attended workshops, I had read dozens of books on writing, I had turned down an offer to tutor at a writing center, and I had edited for a literary journal.  I had never heard of a Mary Sue.  I’m willing to bet that a lot of writers, editors, and professors have never heard of a Mary Sue.  If they knew about Mary Sues, they would’ve taught me about them, right?

According to Google, a Mary Sue is a poorly-developed, unrealistically-perfect, idealized character that represents the author.  The author turns himself/herself into a character and inserts that character into an established fictional universe (such as the Harry Potter universe or the Star Trek universe).  The fictional author-character interacts with the established characters in that universe in some way. 

Judging by the volume of “Your character is a Mary Sue!” comments, Mary Sues are common and undesirable in fan fiction.  If you Google Mary Sue, there are quizzes that will (supposedly) tell you if your character is a Mary Sue.  While reading fan fiction, I saw authors arguing with commenters and denying that the Mary Sue label fits their characters.  I saw authors begging commenters not to call their characters Mary Sues.  I saw authors apologizing for the fact that their characters are Mary Sues.  I saw authors creating intentional Mary Sues.  I saw a lot of disagreements between commenters over whether or not a character is a Mary Sue.  The Mary Sue label seems to be subjective and applied often.

I decided that you have to be ballsy to put your fan fiction on the internet.  Writers have to have thick skin, but some of those Mary Sue comments are just nasty.  It made me wonder if there are aspiring writers who are so paranoid of creating a Mary Sue that they don’t write.  I also wondered if there are aspiring writers who have quit writing because of the Mary Sue comments.

I’m not sure how to answer those questions, but I really hope that Mary Sue paranoia doesn’t stop anyone from writing.  The fact that I’ve made it this far in my writing/editing career without hearing about Mary Sues makes me think that they’re not something that professional writers spend much time thinking about.  If you enjoy writing, then write.  Don’t worry about Mary Sues.  Constructive criticism is great, but it seems as if some people on fan fiction sites are just trolls who enjoy starting arguments.  Don’t let them discourage you.  Write your story the way that you think it should be written.  Trust your writer instincts.  Now, go write. 

 

    

Character Development Exercise

 

I’ve always been slightly baffled by “Interview Your Character” exercises.  If you’re not familiar with these, they’re lists of questions for an author to answer about their fictional character.  The lists usually contain questions such as, “What’s your character’s favorite ice cream flavor?”  And, “How did your character learn where babies come from?”  These exercises are entertaining, but do they actually help with the story?  In my opinion, they don’t.  The fact that my character prefers chocolate ice cream isn’t helpful because it isn’t relevant to the story.  In the type of fiction that I enjoy, characters are usually too busy fighting for their lives to stop for ice cream.  Knowing their favorite flavor doesn’t help me.

I did some thinking, and some Google-ing, and some fiction-writing-reference-book checking, and I tried to come up with a character development exercise that would always be relevant to a writer’s story.  Here’s what I came up with. 

The most realistic characters in literature are the ones who seem to exist separately from the plot.  The characters do not exist solely to move the plot forward.  The plot is something that happens in the life of the character.  That character existed before the plot happened, and if the character survives the plot, he/she/it will continue to exist after the plot is over.

So, this is the first step in my character development exercise:

1.       Separate the character and the plot.

Who was this character before the plot happened?  Who would they be if the plot never happened?  What strengths/weaknesses/personality traits are they bringing into the plot? 

Harry Potter can be used as an obvious example of a character who brought traits into a plot.  The first time that Harry comes to Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat considers his personality and debates about whether to put him in Gryffindor or Slytherin.  The reader learns that Gryffindor students are brave and chivalrous, and Slytherin students are ambitious, cunning, and resourceful.  Harry possessed all of these traits before being told that he was a wizard.  If he’d never found out that he was a wizard, he’d still have these traits.  They are part of his personality.

The next two steps in the character development exercise are about human behavior.  A lot of human behavior is driven by two things: desire and fear. 

Think about your character separately from the plot and answer these two questions:

2.       What is this character’s greatest desire? (Not directly related to the plot).

3.      What is this character’s greatest fear? (Not directly related to the plot).

If your plot is about a character who needs to kill an evil overlord, their greatest desire shouldn’t be to kill the overlord.  The desire and fear should be much deeper than that.  They might be so deep that the character doesn’t even realize that these things are determining how he/she/it reacts to certain situations.  Once again, think about the character before the plot happens.  It might be helpful to go all the way back to the character’s childhood.  How was the character raised?  If the character had overbearing, perfectionist parents, the character might be terrified of failure.  This could make the character scared of trying new things because there’s a possibility of failure when anything new is attempted.  On the other hand, it could make the character rich and powerful because the character puts a ton of effort in to everything that he/she/it does in order to avoid failure.

What if your character was orphaned as a child?  This could cause a desire for love and acceptance, and that could lead to the character getting involved in an abusive relationship.  The character desires to feel loved so badly that he/she/it will settle for a relationship with someone who takes advantage of the character.

Here’s the last step in this exercise:

4.       Look at the events in the plot from the character’s point-of-view.   

The plot will reveal your character’s greatest desires and greatest fears.  It might be so subtle that the average reader doesn’t notice, but you (the author) should notice the desires and fears being revealed.  Different characters will react to the same situation in different ways because their behavior is being driven by different desires and fears.  A character who desires happiness may have no problem leaving a job that he/she/it hates.  A character who fears failure may be reluctant to leave a crappy job because he/she/it might fail at finding a new job.

If it helps, you can do this for each character and major plot point:

This character desires ___________, so when __________ happens in the plot, the character will have this reaction: _________________.

This character fears ___________, so when __________ happens in the plot, the character will have this reaction: ________________.

NaNoWriMo

Happy NaNoWriMo!  If you’re participating, you should have at least 13,328 words written by the end of today (if I did the math correctly).  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month.  Every November, writers from all over the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. 

Instead of participating in the writing this year, I was going to do National Novel Editing Month and try to cut 50,000 words out of a novel.  I’ve only cut 3,600 so far.  I have a feeling that I’ve already failed at NaNoEditMo.

Last year, I did succeed at writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  It was a fun experience because I only had to worry about the word count.  I knew that the novel would be a complete, unsalvageable disaster that no one would ever read, but it was liberating to be able to write without worrying about the results.  I totally agree with John Green in this Vlogbrothers video from 2009.  (If you're on this blog's mobile site, you might not be able to see the video.  I still haven't figured out why.)

 

Happy NaNo, and don’t be afraid to suck.  Now, go write.

Editorial Philosophy

This was originally a school assignment, but I found it interesting because I’ve never thought about my personal editorial philosophy before.  It helped me understand my reactions to certain pieces of literature.  I thought that it might also be interesting to authors, so I’m posting it here.  I know that I’m not the only person who has these opinions.

 

~*~

 

There are many elements that I look for when determining whether or not a story should be published.  The first is imagery, which seems simple because most stories should have it, but I’m the type of person who thinks in pictures and whose senses are closely tied to memory.  When I look at the hundreds of books on my shelves, in my drawers, and spilling out of my closet, I often don’t remember the names and backstories of the characters.  Sometimes, I don’t even remember the book’s plot.  What I do remember is the imagery, and when I think about the story months or years after reading it, the imagery is always the first thing that comes back to me.  I can take a book off my shelf and say, “This novel has a scene of a mother and daughter walking in a river,” or “This literary magazine has a story where a man puts wood carvings of people on his fireplace mantel.”  I want stories that have strong imagery because those are the ones that I remember and want to read over and over.

 
Since I enjoy reading a piece many times, I look for writing that will hold up to multiple readings without becoming uninteresting.  I like stories with layers.  I love to read a story a second or third time and see things that I missed the first time. 

 
I want to read about characters with intricate pasts, complex motives, believable desires, and psychological depth.  I prefer main characters who are active, not just reactive, and definitely not just victims.  I like characters who take control of their lives and make the events in the plot happen.  I don’t want to see them only reacting to events that were created by circumstance or by less-important characters.  Some reaction is fine, of course, but I also want to see the character doing/creating/causing something.  I get annoyed by characters who are victims and nothing else.  If a character is being bullied or targeted by bad guys, there has to be a good reason.  I want to see the character do something to change the situation and not just mope around feeling sorry for himself/herself.

 
I enjoy reading many different types of stories, but I most often find myself being drawn to stories that are quirky and unpredictable.  I have heard people say, “There’s no such thing as an original idea,” and maybe that’s true, but I definitely think that there are original combinations of ideas.  I love it when I read a story and see some combination that I’ve never seen before or think about something familiar in an entirely new way.  I want stories that entertain me as well as make me think and keep me guessing.  I have very little tolerance for predictability.  It’s disappointing to guess the end of a story, flip to the last page, and discover that I’m correct.

 
I look for stories that make me feel something.  I’m always happy when some element in the first few pages of a story makes me sit up and pay attention.  I want plots that make me so curious that I can’t put the story down until I find out what happens next.  I want to feel the tension that comes from reading faster and faster until I find out what happens.  I also want characters that I can care about.  The characters don’t have to be likeable or be good people, but they have to be intriguing enough that I care about what happens to them.  The best stories are the ones where I care about the characters so much that I’m anxious when they’re in trouble, and I’m happy when they achieve their goals.  I have read so many stories that involve breakups and makeups, death and destruction, plans thwarted and battles won that I sometimes feel as if I’ve become emotionally numb to those types of stories.  I always appreciate it when an author gets me invested enough in the plot and characters that the story’s events have an emotional impact on me.  

 
I don’t have as much experience with poetry as I do with novels and short stories, but I’m most drawn to poems that play with language and sound beautiful when read out loud.  I also like poems that are able to say a lot with very few words and have strong imagery.

 
I prefer nonfiction that has a narrative and is both entertaining and educational.  I want to learn something without feeling as if I’m learning something.  I’ve never enjoyed reading a textbook.

 
I have a love/hate relationship with memoirs because there are so many poorly-written ones out there.  It seems as if anyone who is slightly famous or had something slightly interesting happen to them publishes a memoir, even if they’ve never written anything before in their life.  I dislike memoirs that are self-indulgent.  I’m reading the book because I want to hear a good story, not because I want to hear about the awesomeness of the author.  I enjoy memoirs that skip some of the “I,” “I,” “I,” “Me,” “Me,” “Me,” and focus on being entertaining and educational.

 
That’s my editorial philosophy as of right now.  It will probably change in the future.  Thanks for reading it.  

 

How To Fail At Writing

 

Disclaimer: this post is my opinion.  Feel free to disagree in the comments.

~*~

I was researching the reading habits of the American public (a very depressing topic), and I came across this comment at the bottom of one of the articles:

“I write paranormal romances, so I read everything except paranormal romances.  I don’t want my writing to be influenced by other paranormal romance authors.”

I’m sorry, anonymous internet poster, but this is a horrible idea.  If you want to write paranormal romances, you should be reading every paranormal romance that you can find.

Here’s why:

Genre conventions.  Paranormal romance is a genre, and like any genre, readers of those books have expectations that the book needs to meet.  What traits do paranormal romance readers find appealing in heroes/heroines?  Does the main character in a paranormal romance tend to be a man or a woman?  How does the typical “boy meets girl” scenario go in a paranormal romance?  Do paranormal romances differ from regular romances in any way besides the paranormal element?  Do paranormal romances have traditional happily-ever-after endings?  How big of a role does the paranormal element have to play to satisfy the reader?  What are some common paranormal elements found in the genre?  Does one of the main characters have to be non-human?  Does the paranormal element typically cause conflict between the hero and heroine? 

I don’t know how to answer these questions because I don’t write paranormal romances, and I haven’t read enough of them to learn the genre conventions.  A paranormal romance writer should understand the conventions.  They should know what the readers expect.  The only way to learn these things is to read paranormal romances and see what other authors are doing to satisfy the readers.

Writers also need to be reading within their genre to make sure that what they’re doing hasn’t been done to death.  Maybe readers have seen your story too many times before.  What you think is original might be cliché to someone who reads the genre.  Maybe the market has been saturated with vampire romances, or mermaid romances, or whatever romances for the last few years, and publishers aren’t publishing those types of books right now.  You won’t know these things if you’re not reading.

Finally, being influenced by other writers isn’t a bad thing.  A lot of great ideas are sparked by reading, and it doesn’t hurt to study the work of successful writers.  So, please read within your genre.  It won't kill you.

 

 

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I haven’t given you an update on All The Things recently.

All The Things = 19 books.  I somehow managed to acquire more books.

I’m currently reading A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.  I bought the book because of the title only.  I had no idea what the book was about.  Turns out, it’s a really good book.

Semi-Coherent Writing The Rockies Notes

Writing the Rockies = awesomeness.  If you haven’t heard of it, Writing the Rockies is a conference that’s held on the campus of Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado.  This year, it was July 25 – July 28.  The conference offers sessions on popular genre fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and publishing.  Attendees can go to different sessions or focus on one area.

The college campus is beautiful.  I wanted to take more pictures, but every time I wasn’t busy, it was either dark or raining.  It’s raining hard in this picture:

The college has an organic garden, parking spaces reserved for fuel-efficient vehicles, and wants you to sort your recycling in to a hundred different categories, but it waters its lawns during a downpour.  I found that amusing.

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The conference came at the end of my two-week residency at the school (I was there working on this.  Please submit).  I didn’t get much sleep during the two weeks because my on-campus apartment was loud, hot, and buggy.  By the time I got to the conference, I was in exhausted zombie-mode.  However, the conference was amazing.  I loved it.  I took about 6 pages of notes, and some of them are actually coherent.

I went to all of the publishing sessions and all of the keynotes.  Here are a few of the things I learned:

1.        Many authors don’t understand what a publishing company does.

A publishing company usually doesn’t print books.  They hire book-printing companies to do that.  Publishing companies find books that will stand out in the marketplace, provide authors with many different types of editorial advice, design the cover and the interior of the book, work with retailers and book distributers, help build the author’s brand, market the book, and handle the legal stuff, such as copyright protection.  Random House explains it all better than me.  (I'm not sure why the videos aren't working on the mobile version of this blog). 

This means that if you want to self-publish, and you don’t want your book to look self-published, you have to either learn how to do all of these things yourself, or you have to hire somebody to do them.  On a slightly-related note, I also learned that the average self-published e-book sells 75 copies.

2.        Social media is important.

One of the authors at the conference said that her publishing company required her to have a website, a blog, a LinkedIn account, a Twitter account, and a Facebook account with at least 5,000 friends or 5,000 “likes.”  All of these social media sites need to be updated regularly by the author.

3.        Press kits are a thing.

I’d never heard of a press kit before.  They can be created by an author or by a publishing company.  The press kit that I saw was a folder which contained a flier that advertised the book, an author bio, and author interview questions with answers.  The press kit is given to anyone who is reviewing the book or interviewing the author.

4.        Find your people before you write.

Authors can start promoting their books before the book is written.  If you write mysteries, go out in real life or on the Internet and find other people who write mysteries.  If you write about cycling, go find cyclists.  Make friends.  Get involved in conversations.  Make some real connections.  Don’t just try to promote your unwritten book.  That could get annoying.  When you do write and publish the book, you’ll already have an audience.   

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My favorite part of the conference was getting to hear pitches for possible anthology stories and poems.  We had an office (okay, it was a classroom) with our names on the door (okay, the names were on a piece of printer paper that was taped to the door), but it was still really cool.  Authors came and talked to us about their stories or poems, and we gave them feedback.  I enjoyed hearing everybody’s ideas.  There are a lot of creative people in the world.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.  If you’re in the Gunnison, Colorado area, I highly recommend coming to Writing the Rockies.