Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 122

5 WordPress Themes for Professional Authors

Today’s guest post is by Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader (@thDigitalReader).

When it comes to websites, one of the first decisions you have to make is your choice of theme or template.  A theme sets the tone for your site. It defines the site, and is the first clue users have about a site’s purpose.

When an author chooses a theme, they need to pick one that both captures a visitor’s attention and helps the visitor find—and buy—the author’s work.

If you’re getting ready to set up your author site, or you’re in the mood to refresh or rebrand the site, then you should consider the following themes created specifically for authors or that can be easily adapted.

1. Writer

This theme was built for the writer who wants a platform where they sell their work. It is complex and highly customizable, and not for the author who wants a simple blog. Fortunately, it also comes with a set of demo data which lets you see the full feature set.

Check out the demo at Ancora Themes, and if you like what you see then you can buy the theme at ThemeForest.

2. Published

Published is much simpler than the last theme. It is designed for authors who want to promote their books first and their blog second. It features book landing pages which can link to all of the major ebookstores.

You can see the theme in use, find the demo at Original Themes, and buy it through Creative Market.

3. Flatsome

Flatsome is one of those themes which wasn’t built for use by authors but actually works very well. I found this theme through an author I know, and his site looks great. It is simple and clean, and fast.

UX Themes has the demo on their site, and you can buy this theme at ThemeForest.

4. Book Landing Page

If you need a simple one-page site for your book then this is the theme for you. This free theme is mobile-friendly and quick to set up. You can launch your book less than ten minutes after installing the theme.

You can find the demo and download the theme at WordPress.org.

5. SKT Launch

SKT Launch is a one-size-fits-all theme. It works for authors who’ve just finished their first book as well as for authors who have a long backlist. It is a simple, flexible, and adaptable theme which authors can use to sell direct to readers or just promote their work.

The demo is on the SKT Themes site. There’s a free version of this theme on WordPress.org, and SKT Themes also sells a Pro version with more features.

What WordPress themes do you use or recommend? Please share in the comments. 

Note from Jane: If you’re looking for WordPress help, check out Nate’s services for authors.

The Value of Writing Retreats

Today’s guest post is by writer, editor, and teacher Melanie Bishop (@melbishopwriter). She is hosting a memoir writing retreat in Carmel-by-the-Sea this January.

On a foggy morning in September of 1994, a staff member at Hedgebrook drove me and my stuff to the ferry. I was leaving Whidbey Island, leaving my little haven—Waterfall Cottage—after a glorious three-week stay. I hate crying publicly, but I was sobbing there in her jeep.

“Am I the only one who cries?” I asked.

The road we drove was lined with thorny vines, their blackberries fat, purple and wet, like an offering.

“Are you kidding?” she said. “Everyone cries on their last day.”

She went on to say that most women have never experienced such unconditional nurturing, so of course it’s emotionally wrenching to say goodbye to that.

What exactly was I saying goodbye to? The all-female environment? The great new friends I’d made? The dinners prepared by a chef—salmon from the market and corn plucked moments before dinner from their garden? The way they wouldn’t even let residents help with the dishes?

It was all of it:  the chopped, perfectly-sized logs for the wood stoves in each cottage; the bath house’s windowed room with the huge clawfoot tub and floating candles; the carefully placed benches and vista points—Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier in the distance; the fact that my cottage had once housed Tillie Olsen. I was sleeping in her same bed, writing at the same desk, reading in the same comfy chair, graced by her coming before me in this space. I’d been offered all this as a gift.

The first full day, all I could do was sit in awe of my exquisite surroundings. The Quaker carpentry, using pegs instead of nails; the numerous places in the cottage that invite one to sit and ponder, read, rest; the plates and bowls made by a local potter; the stained-glass window by a local glass artist; and the woven blanket by a local weaver. I thought that first day that some mistake had been made—that I’d been invited due to a clerical error. Surely I hadn’t earned the privilege of writing where Tillie Olsen once wrote. Surely they would knock on my door at some point and say so sorry, we thought you were someone else. But the only knock on the door was the cook, like some Little Red Riding Hood coming through the woods, delivering lunch in a basket.

The first week, it seemed all I did was sleep. Again, I asked one of the staff if this was abnormal, this napping all day, after a nine-hour night of sleep in the cozy loft bed. “Some women sleep the whole time,” she said. “For some writers, that’s what’s most needed—rest. And that’s okay.” I’d come after several years of full-time college teaching. I did need rest. Another resident was the mother of 4-year-old twins, and this was her first respite from being a mom. She was also sleeping a lot. But neither she nor I wanted to blow this insanely valuable gift of time. I wanted to leave the three-week residency with a stack of pages, thick and crinkled with my own handwriting.

By the second week, I got busy. I got over being alternately awestruck and exhausted and I put pen to paper. I read books. I wrote long, hand-written letters. I made fires in my wood stove. I went on long walks. I got drunk with goodness on ripe, roadside blackberries, my fingers and tongue stained a deep purple-black. I still took one nap every day. (There were spaces in the cottage that begged you to do so.) I left with 75 new pages.

The takeaway here is the word “nurture.” As women, we fall into the role of nurturer easily and naturally. Even those of us who aren’t moms, will find other arenas where the nurturing skills are exercised. For me it was teaching—a profession involving non-stop caring and giving. What my first residency experience taught me was the power of allowing myself to be on the receiving end of such nurturing. When your every need is anticipated and met; when everywhere you look, someone has had the forethought to create environments so aesthetically pleasing as to be artistically inspiring; when they ask you prior to arriving to name your comfort foods, so that when you inevitably have a difficult day, they can make this food for you, it exceeds your understanding of the verb to nurture. We’re wired to believe we don’t deserve such generosity, even though we’ve regularly dished it up for others.

Why must writers schedule time for residencies and retreats?

In doing so, we honor an annual appointment with writer self-care. We put nurturing on the calendar or it may never happen. Other stuff will always get in the way. Whether we design our own self-funded writing retreat, or we apply, compete and are awarded a stay at a residency, whether it’s two days or three weeks, we commit to nurturing our writer-selves. We deserve this.

I worried that having Hedgebrook as my first residency experience, I might have set myself up for later disappointment. No place would ever measure up to the nurturing I received there. But I’ve since been to Hambidge, Ucross, Playa at Summer Lake (twice), Djerassi, and back to Hedgebrook again. While Hedgebrook sets the bar beautifully high, every residency exceeds my expectations—they just do it in different ways. Every residency is a gift—a place to live in a beautiful location, meals, a balance of solitude and companionship, and perhaps most importantly, their underlying belief in you as an artist. The residency says: You are worth this.

Of course, I don’t get around to applying every year and many times my applications have been rejected. (I’ve yet to be accepted at either Yaddo or MacDowell.) On those years, it’s up to me to plan my own writing getaway. I’ve taken up residence in the empty homes of friends and writing acquaintances; rented low-cost studios, for $30/night, at Arcosanti; shared the costs of a VRBO rental with a close writer friend, so we could collaborate on a screenplay; and bartered with a client for repeated stays at Boulders Writing Retreat, her family’s home in the Redwoods.

Whether the retreat is in the form of an awarded residency, a friend’s generosity, or a place I pay for, I can rely on a productivity I never experience at home. I’ve finished screenplays, started novels, finished novellas, come up with journals full of notes for future projects, busted out 99 pages of a draft in a single week, unraveled messes that at home, were mystifying. It’s the single focus afforded by retreats that makes them so productive, and the change of scenery, the new ways this place stimulates your senses. It’s the “room of one’s own” Virginia Woolf espoused; the time to rest, think, walk, ponder and just be; and the faith that, as writers, we deserve this. Hedgebrook planted this idea of faith in my head, in 1994. I’ve believed it ever since.

To learn more

To understand the important distinction between residencies, retreats and conferences, see this piece I wrote for The Writers’ Retreat Newsletter.
For the most comprehensive and up to date listing of residency opportunities worldwide, see Alliance of Artists Communities

And here’s piece about a fun retreat I did in Montana with a former student and fellow writer

Note from Jane: Melanie’s upcoming memoir retreat in Carmel-by-the-Sea is available in solo or group options, starting this January. Find out more.

What Is a Hybrid Publisher?

Over the last year, I’ve received more questions than ever—usually from journalists—asking me to explain “hybrid publishing.”

This is a confusing term to discuss, because you will hear different definitions or descriptions of hybrid publishing depending on who you ask and what their agenda is. The term has become popular among companies that wish to put a new, “innovative” face on a very common, age-old activity: charging writers to publish.

Here’s what I think most people can agree on: Hybrid publishers combine aspects of traditional publishing and self-publishing. Beyond that, however, it is challenging to define what such companies have in common. They have extremely varied business models, methods of working with writers, and approaches to marketing and distribution.

Making matters more complicated, “hybrid authors” are not authors who work with hybrid publishing companies. Instead, that term describes authors who both traditionally publish and self-publish. A good example is the thriller novelist CJ Lyons. So don’t confuse hybrid authorship with hybrid publishing—they’re two completely different trends.

Varieties of hybrid publisher

While is nearly impossible to generally describe hybrids, here are some rough categories you’ll find in the market today.

Editorially curated. While authors typically subsidize the costs of editing or publication, the publisher doesn’t accept every author who walks through the door. As a result of their selectivity, the publisher usually has better marketing and distribution. Examples include She Writes Press and Greenleaf Book Group.

Crowdfunding driven. Publishers such as Inkshares and Unbound require the author to raise a certain amount of money from their readership before they are granted a deal, which then closely adheres to a traditional publishing process.

Assisted self-publishing. Authors pay to publish, and there is little or no discernment in what types of authors are accepted.

Traditional publishers with a self-publishing arm. Some traditional publishers—usually small presses you haven’t heard of—may offer author services or assisted self-publishing.

These last two categories can be the most questionable in value. In the case of assisted self-publishing or publishing services (called “vanity presses” in the old days), these companies adopt the moniker of “hybrid publisher” to look more innovative or attractive to authors. They’re not really a hybrid publisher unless they can point to what they do that offers a traditional publisher’s value—such as selectivity in acquisitions, editorial guidance and vision, and distribution and marketing muscle that can’t be secured on your own as a self-publishing author.

In the case of small presses with a self-publishing arm—which may not offer great professionalism to begin with in their traditional operations—they may be using paid services to prop up their business and also to position themselves as progressive. These can be the most frustrating “hybrids” of all, since they might be identifying themselves primarily as a traditional publisher and be listed in market guides such as Writer’s Market, but could use that as a bait-and-switch: Oh, sorry, your work doesn’t meet our editorial needs for our traditional publishing operation, but would you like to pay for our hybrid publishing [or self-publishing] service?

I recommend running in the other direction if that happens.

How to evaluate a hybrid publisher

So how do you tell if you’re just being sold a bill of goods by a hybrid publisher? Here’s what to consider.

A good hybrid will have some method of curating or selecting what projects to take on. In other words: They consider the market potential of your work and its ability to succeed. If they appear to take anyone and everyone, then you’re better off evaluating the best self-publishing service to use. Don’t kid yourself about leveling up to a hybrid. (So-called hybrids aren’t averse to playing to your ego to get your business.)
A great hybrid offers the potential of bricks-and-mortar distribution—whether to bookstores or other retail channels. They might not be able to promise it, but if they’re actively working with a distributor or retailer—and they have a catalog of titles for marketing purposes—that’s a good sign. A self-publishing author can easily get distribution through online retail, via Amazon and Ingram (distribution fees are zero or little for online retail), so the more the hybrid invests in marketing and distributing print editions, the more they’re offering something you may not be able to accomplish yourself.
A good hybrid works with you both pre-publication and post-publication. The relationship doesn’t end once the book is done. (However, you may have to pay fees to continue the relationship.)

I further discuss what to look for here.

To summarize: The best hybrid publishers conduct some level of gatekeeping, offer value that the author would have a hard time securing on her own, and should also pay better royalties than a traditional publishing deal. (Fifty percent is common.) If the hybrid publisher presents itself as little more than “Here’s a package of services you can buy,” then it’s most likely a dressed-up self-publishing firm.

When Brevity in Storytelling Is Bad

Photo credit: _.Yann Cœuru ._ via Visual hunt / CC BY

When I advise writers on their manuscripts—especially when I’m looking at their first pages—the most consistent feedback I have is: Cut. I constantly question: Do we need this detail? Does this information have to come right now? Can we wait on this back story? Why is this description relevant?

Also, it can sometimes be easier to cut something if you can’t see how to fix it. Just remove the offending bits, job done. But too many cuts can deaden a piece. You know how doctors used to think that bleeding you out would resolve your health problems? Sometimes cutting a piece of writing is just like that. You’re not helping, you’re weakening.

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, fiction writer Josh Weil discusses when brevity is not your best friend in telling a story:

We’ve all been there: a moment when something of such import happens that the space life allows for it seems too small. For me, the time my grandfather broke free of his dementia to speak last words to me was like that. The time I came home to an empty apartment and knew my marriage was over was like that….Unfortunately, life doesn’t let time expand to hold these things the way they warrant. Luckily, writing does. I call it breathing room. And I think it’s one of the most underappreciated (even at times derided) ideas a creative writer can employ.

Read the full essay.

Also in the latest Glimmer Train bulletin:

On the Impoverished World by Silas Dent Zobal
Valerie Laken: From an Interview by Peggy Adler

Turning Our Lives into Fiction by William Luvaas

What One Feels Compelled to Write by Antonya Nelson

How to Smartly Evaluate a Small Publisher

Photo via GregMontani via Visualhunt

For any author interested in a traditional publishing deal, one of the first questions you’ll face is: Do you need an agent?

If you want to be published by one of the “Big Five” publishers—the New York houses that represent the large majority of what you’ll find in your average bookstore—then you do need an agent.

But if you can’t find an agent to represent you, or if your book isn’t appropriate for the Big Five, you’ll quickly run into the following quandary: How do you evaluate the merits or ability of a small publisher without an agent or other publishing professional to guide you? For someone without industry experience, it can be hard to tell the difference between a quality operation and one that’s hardly better (or no better) than self-publishing.

Years ago, when I worked for Writer’s Digest and Writer’s Market, it was safe to say, “Stick to the publishers you find in Writer’s Market”—since it would only include publishers that offer traditional contracts (the kind that pay writers).

However, as the publishing industry has changed in the digital age, small press activity has proliferated, especially small presses with a variety of publishing models, both traditional and pay-to-play. That means you’re more likely to find listings in Writer’s Market with hybrid approaches—meaning they charge writers for their services. So this again raises the problem of how writers can smartly evaluate their choices.

Here are the criteria I use to evaluate small presses. Note this applies to trade or mainstream presses, and academic/scholarly presses may have different expectations or standards.

Does the small press offer paid publishing or “hybrid” services?

If so, then their business model may rely on charging writers for services rather than selling books to readers. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, realize that such publishers may have less motivation to acquire books that have a good sales outlook; they may accept nearly any book where the author is willing to subsidize its publication. Are you OK with an assisted self-publishing or hybrid publishing arrangement? Or do you prefer a publisher that is very selective because it must focus on projects that have a good chance at survival in the marketplace?

Do they ask you to pay for standard editing, design, marketing, and promotion?

If so, they’re not a traditional publisher, but a hybrid publisher or a publishing service. Traditional publishers, regardless of size, pay the author. The only expenses the author should incur as part of the traditional publishing process relate to indexing, permissions costs, or possibly making editorial changes beyond the timeframe allowed by the publisher.

Are you asked to buy copies of your own book as part of the publishing deal?

A professional publisher, regardless of size, shouldn’t require authors to purchase copies of their book. Period. Again, this is a sign that the publisher’s business model relies on an author’s investment in the project. Furthermore, a traditional publisher should offer the author free copies upon publication.

Will there be a traditional print run?

A print run equates to an investment—someone is taking a financial risk on your book’s success. Having a specific number of books printed anticipates sales and marks confidence that the book will be actively stocked in bricks-and-mortar stores.

Some small presses rely strictly on print-on-demand printing and don’t invest in a print run. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this—it’s a way to reduce risk and economize—but it also means your book’s sales and visibility will rely on Amazon and other online retail channels. Don’t expect to see your book on physical bookstore shelves when working with such a press. Hopefully, the press is upfront about this fact and doesn’t pretend otherwise; if so, that’s a red flag.

Who is their distributor?

The more professional and sales-oriented the press, the more likely they will have a formal distributor. To figure out if a small press has a distributor, visit their website and pretend you are a bookseller (or other retailer) who wants to order and stock the publisher’s books. Look for a page with bookseller info or trade accounts info. If you can’t find anything, check their FAQ, about page, or contact page. You should be able to find out who their distributor is, or who handles orders from retailer accounts. You should find phone numbers or another way to place an order. If all the sales information simply directs people to Amazon, then the small press probably doesn’t have a formal distributor, or likely uses print-on-demand distribution via CreateSpace, IngramSpark, and/or Lightning Source.

Small presses that talk about having their books distributed via Ingram, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Baker & Taylor, and so on aren’t necessarily of good quality. Any self-publishing author has the same access to the same outlets, for free.

What marketing and promotion support do their titles receive?

Ask what the service’s baseline marketing plan is for each title. Does it send out review copies? Does it submit the book to media outlets for coverage? Some small presses are operated only by one or two people and don’t have full-time marketers or publicists. This isn’t necessarily a deal breaker, but they will be limited in what they can do to support your work. It’s also helpful to study recent titles they’ve published on Amazon and see if there’s much review activity.

Yes, you can judge the books by their covers

Evaluate the quality of the publishers’ cover designs—and interior designs as well (try using Amazon’s Look Inside feature). Are the designs professional and comparable to other titles in the genre? Do they inspire confidence in the book?

And perhaps judge them by their website

If the publisher’s website looks poorly designed, out of date, or amateurish, that’s not a great sign—although, to be fair, book publishers are somewhat notorious for having bad websites.

If you’re willing to forgive bad website design, consider who the website seems to speak to or focus on. Is it trying to lure in authors, or is it trying to showcase its work—its books? The more it’s catering to authors, the less likely it’s a publisher you want to work with. You want a publisher focused on selling books, not author services.

Does the press list advance and royalty terms right on their website?

If the press is able to tell you upfront what your specific advance and royalties will be, that probably means they offer you a take-it-or-leave-it publishing contract.

Professional publishers, even small ones, usually negotiate every single author contract, and each book has different terms. However, this creates a lot of administrative effort and long-term accounting responsibility, which “mom and pop” presses are ill-equipped to handle. While it may seem great that the financial terms are transparent and standard across all books, this isn’t done for your benefit. It’s for theirs.

Is the contract not really negotiable?

I’ve often helped authors evaluate small press contracts, suggesting changes to be made, and just about every single time, that small press will come back to the author and refuse to negotiate on terms. That’s not a good sign, as every publishing contract ought to be negotiable. When a small press resists even reasonable changes, it may be because their lawyers told them never to change the contract, or they don’t really understand their own contract (more common than you’d think), or they’re simply inexperienced and afraid.

Factors that may not mean anything


Number of titles published per year: A press can do a terrific or poor job regardless of how many titles they handle. However, a higher number of titles brings with it more marketing, promotion, and administration. Be wary of small presses that put out dozens or hundreds of titles each year with a very small staff; that’s a give away they’re not investing much in each title, or that they’re primarily working as an assisted publishing service rather than as a traditional publisher.

A statement of author friendliness: Don’t be lured in by flowery language about developing personal relationships with authors or helping fulfill your dreams. It may appeal to you, but it has little bearing on how good the company may be at the business of publishing. The more the publisher talks in cozy language about you and your work, the less professional they likely are. (Sorry, but good publishers tend to leave you feeling a little cold; that’s why there’s a continuing love-hate relationship between authors and publishers.)

An online storefront: It’s nice if the small press is able to sell direct to readers, but that’s not where most sales will happen. Amazon is the most important channel.

How to conduct research on a small press

To find out what other authors have experienced, Google the name of the publisher and add the word “scam” at the end. You’ll find conversations and warnings if there have been poor or questionable experiences with the press.

For more advice

Publishing with a Small Press: Straddling the Indie-Traditional Gap
Better Than Fall Back: The Small Press Option
Not All Hybrid Publishers Are Created Equal
The Key Publishing Paths: 2016

 

Pushing Up Against Your Limits

There are many (too many) analogies drawn between writing and sports: exercising your creative muscles, learning how to go the distance, and pushing up against your limits.

At the risk of adding to the pile of cliches, over at Writer Unboxed, I write about long-distance running and compare it with lessons learned in the writing life.

Read the full post here.

Your Novel’s First Scene: How to Start Right

Photo credit: tableatny via VisualHunt / CC BY

Today’s post is an excerpt adapted from A Writer’s Guide to Beginnings by Paula Munier (@PaulaSMunier), recently released from Writer’s Digest Books.

There are a number of tricks to making sure that you get your story off to a hot, hotter, hottest start, no matter what your genre. I know, I know, all of you people out there who are writing literary fiction are thinking, “I don’t need a hot start to my story.” Well, think again. Even beginnings for literary stories must aim for, at minimum, a slow burn.

I live in the Northeast, where winters can be brutal. (As I’m writing this, New York City is digging out of some two feet of snow.) When I moved here a dozen years ago after nearly twenty years in balmy California, I learned that the secret to staying warm as the thermometer plunges is to keep the fires burning on all fronts. I discovered the cozy beauty of cashmere sweaters, fingerless gloves, and glowing woodstoves.

But I also learned that sometimes you have to break down and leave the house. Go begin a journey, even if it’s only to the grocery store—which means venturing out into sub-zero temperatures to a frigid vehicle that may or may not start. It was a cold prospect I dreaded, until I happened upon two spectacular tools: remote car starters and heated car seats.

With a remote car starter, you can start your car from inside your warm house, wait until your automobile is revved up and ready to go, and then slip into a warm seat in a warm vehicle with a warm engine and hit the road. This is a beautiful thing.

You want to do the same thing with your story. Every reader starts a story cold, and you want to warm the reader up to your story as quickly as possible. You want the reader to slip into a warm seat in a hot story with a blazing beginning and take off for parts known only to you, the writer.

The good news: There are literary equivalents to remote car starters and heated car seats. Let’s take a look at these, one by one.

Start With the Scene That Introduces Your Story Idea

This is the easiest and most efficient way to get your story off to its hottest start. So if it’s at all possible to begin this way, you should, just as Peter Benchley did in the first scene of his classic horror novel, Jaws. Yes, the terrifying film was based on the equally terrifying New York Times bestseller by Benchley. The details of the novel’s opening scene and the film’s opening scene differ—the couple in the book are a man and a woman sharing a beach house rather than a couple of teenagers at a beach party—but the action is the same: The woman goes for her last swim in the sea while her drunken companion passes out. And there we have it, the big story idea of Jaws: a monster great white shark terrorizes a seaside resort town.

Start With the Scene That Foreshadows the Story Idea

If you believe that it is not possible to start your story by introducing the story idea, then you can do the next best thing: Start with a scene that foreshadows the story idea. For our purposes, a foreshadowing is an opening scene that prefigures your story idea.

The most famous example of this might be the opening of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in which the three witches appear as a bad omen, especially for Macbeth. Many fairy tales begin this way as well. In Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty, a king and queen who’d waited years for a child celebrate their new baby princess’s christening with a celebration. They invite the seven fairies of the kingdom to the feast. But an eighth fairy shows up, one long thought dead, and she curses the baby. This is the scene that foreshadows the day when, years later, the princess pricks her finger and falls into a long sleep … and, well, you know the rest.

To use a more contemporary example, consider the tender and funny New York Times bestseller The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. In the opening scene, thirty-one-year-old book saleswoman Amelia Loman is stepping off the ferry to Alice Island, on her way to her first meeting with A.J. Fikry, owner of Island Books. She takes a call from Boyd, her latest “online dating failure,” determined to let him down gently, only he’s insulting, apologetic, and finally, weepy. Finally, she tells him that it would never work out because he’s “not much of a reader.” She hangs up and remembers her mother’s warning that “novels have ruined Amelia for real men.” And as she nearly walks right past the purple Victorian cottage that is Island Books, Amelia worries that her mother might be right.

In this scene, the foreshadowing is subtle but clear: Amelia needs a man who reads, and she’s about to meet one who may seem unsuitable in nearly every other way save that one … but still, the possibility for romance is there.

Start With the Scene That Sets Up the Story Idea

We’ve seen this one a million times. Think of the opening scene of the original Star Wars, in which Princess Leia hides the plans for the Death Star in R2-D2, setting up the story idea.

In Jeannette Walls’s shattering memoir The Glass Castle, she opens with a scene that begins with the unforgettable line, “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a dumpster.” She goes on to describe this encounter with her mother, setting up the rest of the novel, which tells the unsettling story of her harrowing childhood, beginning at the age of three.

Beware of Too Much, Too Soon

Even when you’ve got an opening scene that either sets up, foreshadows, or introduces your big story idea, that scene can still fail to capture the reader’s attention. One of the main reasons so many opening scenes fail is because the writer tries to tell too much about the story too soon.

Tell is the critical word here. The writer is telling—rather than showing—us the story. Many scenes are overburdened with backstory, description, and the characters’ inner monologue, which leaves little room for the action that should be driving the story forward.

Remember: What the readers need to know to read the story is not what you needed to know to write it. Because the beginning is usually the first part of the story that you commit to paper, you are just getting to know your characters, setting, plot, and themes. You’re exploring your characters’ voices and histories, your setting’s idiosyncrasies, your plot’s twists and turns and detours and dead ends, your themes’ nuances and expressions. You’re thinking on paper, stretching your way into your story, and that stretching is a critical part of the writing process, but just as stretching before you run is paramount, it’s not part of the run itself. It’s preparation.

So you need to go through and trim the parts of your opening that are obscuring the action so you can get to your big story idea sooner. You need to prune back your writing so that the inherent drama of your story idea is highlighted.

If you’re finding it difficult to edit your work, then try this trick. Print out your opening pages, and go through them, marking up the text in different colors to distinguish between backstory, description, and inner monologue.

Backstory: This is wherever you talk about what happened in the past, before the present action of your opening scene began—childhood memories, past relationships, etc. Mark these lines/paragraphs/sections in blue.

Description: These are the lines/paragraphs/sections where you describe your setting, expound on theme, detail backstory, etc. Mark these lines in pink.

Inner monologue: These are the parts where you record your character’s thoughts and feelings. Mark them in yellow, and underline the sections in which your character is alone as well.

I know that you’re tempted to skip this exercise. But don’t. You only have to flip or scroll through it to know where you should edit your opening scene. This is one of the most useful exercises you’ll ever do and the one my students, clients, and writing friends always most applaud me for.

Turn to Page 50

For many writers, their story’s warm up lasts about fifty pages (or around the 15,000-word mark). That’s why I say to writers whose openings are slow, boring, obtuse, or otherwise unengaging: What happens on page fifty of your story?

Page fifty is where many stories truly begin. Turn to page fifty in your story, and see what’s happening there. What’s your protagonist up to? How does that relate to your story idea? Don’t be surprised if this is where your story really begins. And don’t be reluctant to toss out those first forty-nine pages of stretching if that’s what it takes to get your run off to a good start.

If you enjoyed this post, I highly recommend The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings by Paula Munier.

How to Write a Great Story: A Roundup of Best Advice

Over the last five years, I’ve had the good fortune and privilege to feature storytelling advice from many bestselling authors, as well as editors and agents. Here’s a round-up of the best and most popular advice on writing craft and technique I’ve featured since 2011.

Developing Strong Story Concepts


The Big Reason Why Agents and Editors Often Stop Reading by Paula Munier

How to Attract a Readership Based on Concept Alone by Matt Bird

Craft a Compelling Novel Concept by Larry Brooks

How to Build a Compelling Novel Concept—Something With a Kicker by C.S. Lakin

How to Tell If Your Story Idea Is Mediocre—and How to Improve It by Laurie Scheer

Character Development


Internal Dialogue: The Greatest Tool for Gaining Reader Confidence by Elizabeth Sims

A Fatal Flaw in Weak Descriptions by Rachel Starr Thomson

Plot and Structure


How to Tell If Back Story Is Sabotaging Your Novel by Roz Morris

How to Effectively Handle Time Shifts in Your Story by Lisa Lenard-Cook

Building a Believable Chain of Events in Your Novel by Steven James

Writing Suspenseful Fiction: Reveal Answers Slowly by Jane K. Cleland

4 Big Pitfalls in Story Openings by K.M. Weiland

Point of View


The Basics of Point of View for Fiction Writers by Joseph Bates

Using Multiple Points of View: When and How Is It Most Effective? by Jordan Rosenfeld

Scene Building


The Fundamentals of Writing a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld and Martha Alderson

How to Write a Great (and Not Schmaltzy) Love Scene by Jessi Rita Hoffman

Setting


How Writers Can Craft an Effective Setting by Mary Buckham

What are your favorite writing craft & technique articles? Share in the comments.

Negotiating Editorial Control in Publishing Contracts

Today’s guest post is from writer and Sidebar Saturdays blogger Matt Knight (@mattknightbooks).

One of many worrisome areas for writers negotiating publishing contracts is who has final word when editing a manuscript for publication. Publishing agreements define the right to creative control over the manuscript in the editing clause. Typically, that right goes to the publisher. They need flexibility to prepare the manuscript for publication to their satisfaction. They have an editorial style to fit, a publication schedule to adhere to, and cannot be hamstrung by an author refusing to compromise.

But for us writers, seeing our creative endeavors sliced by a scalpel masquerading as a red pen can be nerve-racking if not down right devastating. We have honed the prose. We have toiled over the plot. We have painstakingly developed the characters. No wonder we want to be consulted over changes to our manuscript. What if the edits shift our vision for the book, or are based on bad commercial decisions, or eviscerate the manuscript’s voice?

Being published is part of the writing dream, so what can a writer do when publishing contracts give creative control to the publisher?

Simple. Ask for contract language that will achieve a partnership between the interests of the publisher and the writer.

If you are one of the Stephen Kings of the writing world, requesting mutual consent for editorial changes, or even full editorial control, will be easy. If you are not, do not fret. You might not get full editorial control as a debut author, but you can bargain for language that provides a more balanced approach for editing the manuscript and who has final say as to what appears on the page.

Typical Editing Clauses You Should Look For

If you have not seen an editing clause before, here are a few examples of the standard verbiage found in publishing contracts.

Publisher has the right to make any editorial changes in the Work as it deems necessary
Publisher has the right to edit and revise the Work for any and all uses contemplated under this Agreement
Publisher has the right of final approval of Author’s manuscript
Publisher shall, in its sole judgment, make editorial changes to the manuscript, including but not limited to, style and substance, without Author’s consent

In addition to the broad language above, some editorial clauses detail what the publisher is entitled to change—capitalization, punctuation, grammar, typographical errors, spelling, format, content, or subject matter. Some provisions add language allowing the publisher to omit giving an author notice of any changes.

Under all of these examples and permutations, the end result is the same—the publisher has the right to revise a writer’s manuscript without consultation, approval, or notice. Such open-ended provisions give the author no rights and no protection. Imagine receiving the first copy of your published book only to be blindsided by unknown changes—a new title, a character’s name changed, a gratuitous sex scene added, the plot substantially altered to fit an unintended market—with no way to fix the problems.

How to Negotiate Editing Clauses

If you are faced with an editing clause that gives all the power to the publisher over the style and content of the manuscript, ask for changes. Many publishers are willing to negotiate.

Below is a range of options for revising an editorial control clause to achieve a more balanced editing partnership between you and the publisher.

Publisher will not make any changes to the manuscript without written consent from Author.
Publisher can make routine copyediting changes and correction of grammar and spelling, but no changes to content without Author’s prior written consent.
Publisher and Author will agree on all manuscript changes. Neither party will withhold or delay consent unreasonably.
Publisher shall have the right to edit and revise the Work for any and all uses contemplated under this agreement, and the Author will have the right to review and alter the editing so that the edited Manuscript is reasonably and substantially acceptable to the Author.
Publisher will consult with author about changes to the manuscript, and Author will not withhold or delay consent unreasonably.
Publisher will consult with Author about style and content changes in the manuscript but Publisher has the final decision.

Some examples push editorial control toward the writer, some still favor the publisher. It is up to you to decide how restrictive or flexible you are willing to be with creative control. While cooperation and mutual consent should be the goal standard (because competent editors will improve a manuscript), at the very least, you should demand to be consulted about all changes in the manuscript, whether for style or substance, and that the content not be inherently changed without your consent.

Additional Points

Publishers, in an attempt to avoid amending the editing clause, might tell you their normal practice is to obtain an author’s consent for major changes in the manuscript. If that is true, then the publisher should have no problem amending the contract to reflect that normal practice.

Impasses do happen, even if the publisher and author use best efforts to reach an agreement on editorial control. Contract language can be added to allow the publisher to refuse to publish the manuscript instead of unilaterally making changes the writer does not want. That way, the author will not be dissatisfied with the published book, and is free to find a suitable publisher.

I have heard about, but not seen, editing clauses that require an author to pay for outside editorial revisions should the author refuse to edit the manuscript to the publisher’s satisfaction. Do not agree to this type of contract language. Ask the publisher to remove it. Editorial expenses are a cost the publisher should absorb.

Negotiating Your Own Contract

The decision you make today about your publishing contract will have long-term effects on your book and career. That said, you may want to let an agent or lawyer with publishing law experience negotiate on your behalf. It is often hard for us writers to be objective when it comes to protecting our creative endeavors. We have a personal stake in the process and sometimes find it difficult to comprise.

If you are determined to negotiate your publishing contract, then do your homework. Study the fundamentals of contract negotiations. Understand the lengthy list of publishing contract rights. There are many resources to help in that regards—The Writer’s Legal Guide, The Writer’s Legal Companion, The Self-Publisher’s Legal Handbook, and Contract Companion for Writers, or if you are a member, the Authors Guild.

Compromises are inevitably when negotiating a contract, so be prepared by knowing what you absolutely must have and what you can do without.

How to Attract a Readership Based on Concept Alone

Today’s guest post is adapted from The Secrets of Story by Matt Bird, published by Writer’s Digest Books.

Ultimately, concept is far less important than character when it comes to determining the overall quality of your story, but your audience is attracted to your story based on your concept alone. Does your concept have what it takes to draw people in, at least long enough to introduce them to your wonderful characters?

The key here is to picture strangers. They have enough stories already, thanks, and they don’t need a new one. What concept will win them over despite their apathy?

Misconception: It’s easy to write a simple story, but it’s more ambitious to write a big, complicated story.

Au contraire: Writing a clean, lean, simple story is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

When stories are first born, they’re always big and complicated, but simple stories are more powerful and meaningful. Think of Blaise Pascal’s famous postscript: “I’m sorry for writing such a long letter, but I didn’t have the time to write a shorter one.”

Writers are always inclined to make their stories bigger and more complicated than anyone else wants them to be. Luckily, there are gatekeepers to cut us off at the pass. Editors chop novels down to size. Theater directors chop out scenes that don’t work. Producers slice the fat out of screenplays. They take sprawling, complicated messes and find the lean, simple story hiding inside.

Ghostbusters was sold to the studio in the form of a forty-page treatment. It was set in the future. New York had been under siege by ghosts for years. There were dozens of teams of competing ghostbusters. Our heroes were tired and bored with their job when the story began. The Marshmallow Man showed up on page 20. The budget would have been bigger than any movie ever made, and far more than anybody was willing to spend.

So why did the studio buy it? Because it liked one image: a bunch of guys who live in a firehouse slide down a pole and hop in an old-fashioned ambulance, then go out to catch ghosts. So the studio stripped away all the other stuff, put that image in the middle of the story, spent the first half gradually moving us from a normal world toward that moment, and spent the second half creating a heroic pay-off to that situation. That’s it. That’s all they had time to do.

A few years after the success of Ghostbusters, one of the writers/stars of that movie, Harold Ramis, found himself on the other side of the fence. He wanted to direct a script called Groundhog Day, written by first-time screenwriter Danny Rubin.

This was a very similar situation: In the first draft of that movie, the weatherman had already repeated the same day 3,650,000 times before the movie began!

Everybody loved the script, so Rubin had his pick of directors, but most of them told him up front they wanted him to rewrite the story to begin with the origin of the situation. Ramis won the bidding war by promising Rubin he would stick to the in medias res version.

Guess what happened? By the time the movie made it to the screen, Ramis had broken his promise. The final movie spends the first half getting the weatherman into the situation and the second half creating the most heroic payoff.

Clean, lean, simple stories are more meaningful than stories about permutations of permutations of permutations.

This is why so many modern stories are impossible to care about—they aren’t luring the audience into the world anymore. They aren’t building these concepts block by block, and so they aren’t building any identification. They’re just dumping robots and monsters on us, an act which leaves us feeling flattened. But if writers are going to rediscover how to create beloved stories from scratch, then they’ll have to understand the power of a streamlined story that invites the audience along for the ride.

Misconception: You want to write the most interesting story you can dream up.

Au contraire: You want to write the most interesting story you can personally identify with.

You have to force yourself to stop asking whether an idea could or should work and start asking the most important question of all: Do I know how to make people identify with this character as the story begins?

Once you start asking that question, all of the not-good-enough ideas begin to fall away. You may have an idea and think, It’s cool! It’s commercial! It’s high concept! I can see the poster! I can see the lunch box! Or you may have another idea and think, It’s profound! It’s a devastating allegory for the modern world! The ending will be gut-wrenching! And all of these things are good.

But none of them will do you any good if you can’t make people identify with your main character as the story begins.

Big high-concept ideas are great, but it remains absolutely essential that you do the following:

Choose a setting you know well, through direct experience or tons of research.
Create characters you can make an audience identify with as the story begins.
Write about problems that powerfully resonate with your own, directly or metaphorically.
Write dialogue in voices you know well.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s a huge asset to start with a cool idea. After all, if you only prioritize these four aspects, then you’ll end up writing about you and your friends hanging out behind the Dairy Queen. You need to think bigger than that, but you can’t totally abandon those relationships, those problems, and those voices you got to know behind the Dairy Queen, either.

Or, to put that another way: “Write what you know” does not mean that you should write about the particulars of your life. It means that you should write about the emotions you know, only you must project them onto a bigger canvas.

Misconception: A great concept will write itself.

Au contraire: All stories are “execution dependent.”

A great idea is worth its weight in gold. There’s just one problem: An idea doesn’t weigh anything, so it still equals $0.

Don’t get me wrong, a great concept opens a lot of doors, but you need to be aware that the potential buyer is probably overvaluing it. You can sell them the sizzle, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that there’s a steak underneath.

The lure of the great concept is that you can start with an initial idea so damn interesting that you can flub the execution and everybody will still love it. Publishers and Hollywood studios have been pursuing this goal for years. This is why they try more and more to presell books and movies to audiences before critics ever get to see them. Who cares what the critics say? You’ll want it even if it’s crappy!

But this is an impossible dream. Nothing is execution independent. No idea is good enough to factor quality out of the equation.

If you enjoyed this post, I highly recommend taking a look at The Secrets of Story by Matt Bird.