Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 149

Getting an Anthology Published: Q&A with Margaret McMullan

While I was a creative writing undergraduate, most of my writing classes were with two professors, and one of them is author Margaret McMullan. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, often seeing each other at AWP. A couple years ago, she reached out to me to contribute to an anthology of women writers remembering their fathers.

Fast forward to today, and the book was just released by McPherson & Co. It’s received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, a favorable review in Kirkus and Foreword—and on May 23, a nationwide book event will take place in nine different cities simultaneously, when the contributors will connect via Skype to discuss their work. (Publishers Weekly covered the unique nature of this event.) I’ll be speaking and signing at New Dominion bookstore in Charlottesville.

In advance of the event, I asked Margaret if she’d answer some questions about the process of getting the anthology published, because I knew it wasn’t an easy road. At one point, she reached out to me for advice on finding a publisher, but my leads didn’t pan out for her. But she didn’t give up.

Jane: Were you already aware of the publishing industry squeamishness around anthologies when you set out to create this anthology?

MM: I was not aware of the industry’s “issues” with anthologies, and I suppose I should have considered the market more before I set out on this particular writing project. That’s Writing 101, right? And it’s what I’m always telling students to do.

But this project felt so clearly right. I just had to do it, and I’ll admit, I became obsessed. I sent out queries to all the women writers I loved or whom my father had loved. I messaged them by email, Facebook, and handwritten letters. When I wrote to these women about the project, I asked them simply, “Tell me about your father.” I think with most of them, the assignment just clicked. They saw the heart and soul of this book from the start.

The turning point came when Alice Munro called and said, “Yes, of course you can reprint my essay.” I was just stunned that her publisher had forwarded my letter to her in Canada! Other writers followed. Lee Smith led to Jill McCorkle and so on. There was a snowball effect.

Jane Smiley was the last on board. I had the wrong email address for her, and I tried one last time. She said, “Give me the weekend,” then, on Monday, she sent her essay “No Regrets.”

I know you’ve worked with an agent for many years now. When you went to her with this project, did she try to sell it at all, or were you on your own from the beginning?

She attempted to get this project to several New York publishers such as Norton, but nobody saw any money in an anthology, which was bizarre to me. They said that anthologies had run their course and I thought, well, when did that happen?

At one point, my agent asked me if maybe there was a better way to honor my father. There are, in fact, many ways to honor my father, but this book was the best way, and besides, this was no longer just about my father anymore. There were all these great writers who had written new work for this collection. I really felt I had a responsibility to them and to see this collection through to publication.

During your search for a publisher, when you and I discussed this project, you’d already been through a few near acceptances. You demonstrated such resolve to find a publisher for this book, when most people I know would’ve been crushed and stopped submitting. Was your attitude “It’s just a matter of time before I find the right home?” Or were you close to giving up?

This collection was with three different university presses. The first went out of business, another said they couldn’t afford it, and the last went through a “reorganization.” Each university press editor or editorial board wanted to make the collection specific to their region—all Midwest authors for instance, or all Southern because that was their market. Makes sense.

All of the presses were concerned that this collection was too “mass market.” This fear did not make sense to me. Why not have a successful book for all to read? None of these presses planned to pay the authors. The vibe I got was that we should all feel privileged to be with a university press.

I approached several mid-sized presses. The editors talked more openly about money and marketing. There was also one person making the decision to publish or not. There were no committees or board members to answer to.

The book’s original working title was Our Fathers. Joyce Maynard suggested I change it to something less religious sounding. After Bruce McPherson of McPherson & Company took the manuscript, he came up with the title Every Father’s Daughter.

The university presses put me through a lot of hoops, and I worked so closely with the editors, I was pretty devastated when all the plans fell through. I “took to bed”—not for a day or a week as some of my Southern great aunts have been known to do, but for a few hours at least. I felt so sorry for myself. It was pathetic. And then I just got good and mad. I always tell my students how anger is helpful because it can propel you to action. Self-pity is worthless. I got out of bed and went back to search for the right publisher.

How did you end up reaching out to McPherson & Co.?

When I went back to the drawing board, I searched the internet for the umpteenth time. I came across an article about midsize presses, and, in the comments section, I saw that someone had written, “Don’t forget about McPherson & Co.”

I looked up McPherson & Co. and found a Wall Street Journal article. McPherson had published Jaimy Gordon’s novel Lord of Misrule, which won the National Book Award, and the article was about how a small press deals with that kind of sudden recognition. The publisher, Bruce McPherson, also talked about everything he did to get that book published and to get it to readers. This was clearly a publisher who adored everything about books and publishing. He loved the process.

You always have a feeling, you know? I had a feeling then that this one was going to work out.

The following week, three other presses got back to me with offers, but the best one by far was McPherson & Company. It was a perfect fit.

Find out more about Every Father’s Daughter—available in hardcover only.

Are Literary Journals in Trouble?

My publishing career started at an undergraduate literary journal, The Evansville Review. When I became editor in 1996, it was the first paid editing job I held.

In no small part due to my fond memories of that time, and my belief in the power of literary journals, I gave up a tenure-track university job to work for one, the Virginia Quarterly Review—which I had read and admired from afar after Ted Genoways transformed it into a cutting-edge, award-winning publication.

I’m no longer at VQR, but the literary publishing community remains important to me, even if it is something of a love-hate relationship. (Literary types remain far too obsessed with and focused on the print artifact, as well as too quick to separate art and business—or believe they must be antithetical to one another.)

Earlier this week, Michael Nye of The Missouri Review published a piece at their site, Stubbornly Submitting to a Literary Magazine Is Good. He writes about a staff discussion, where one editor explained to an intern why they wanted writers to keep submitting after getting rejected multiple times:

… [G]etting rejected by a magazine repeatedly and then, finally, getting work accepted is, actually, fairly normal. It’s a little frustrating for an editor, she said, when a writer submits to us five times and then just stops and we never get the chance to read the writer’s work again. To emphasis this point, she noted that TMR has published several writers who sent manuscripts to us for over a decade before we published their work.

I posted a link to this piece (and quoted it) at my Facebook page, and I did not expect the conversation that ensued. Some comments were positive, but the majority were negative.

“Well, I got tired of banging my head against the same walls in a system that wasn’t working great for me.”

“If you reject my work for years without serious encouragement and some fine tuned explanation of why, there are other fish in the sea.”

“I don’t really understand how his example is relevant or encouraging. It seems more like a what not to do to me, rather than a what to do.”

“Stories moldering in an endless submission queue do no one any good, including the author.”

“I still think I might better spend the next ten years beating water with a stick—at least at the end of that time I’d have toned arms, instead of a publication in a magazine no one is ever going to read.”

“Well, note to editors of Missouri Review: This writer’s going indie!”

“Screw that.”

In the comment thread, I betrayed my bias toward traditional publishing when I mentioned that I found the piece encouraging rather than discouraging. Aren’t we all preaching how writers need to be persistent? That they need to let rejection roll off their backs?

But clearly this wasn’t the only takeaway for the community of writers—some professional and accomplished—that I reach via Facebook. (I should add here that more than 80 people liked the post and 13 shared it at last count, so it’s getting positive attention, too.)

In defense of literary journals, they can only publish a handful of pieces in the span of a year, out of thousands and thousands of submissions. They often operate on a shoestring, are in danger of losing what little funds they have, and mostly spend their time trying to stay afloat and carry out vital functions (like publishing a magazine).

Also, the kind of work that literary journals publish is largely noncommercial—e.g., short fiction, poetry, personal essays. Such work can have little objective importance or value when it’s published outside of the recognized literary ecosystem.(This is not a value judgment, but an observation.) Anyone submitting to a literary journal who doesn’t understand this from the outset is ignorant of the game that’s being played. While it’s possible to build your reputation through self-publishing, either in print or digital, the literary community highly values editorial selection and “standards,” not self-publishing.

I titled this post “Are Literary Journals in Trouble?” because I would never have been able to fathom the response I saw to Nye’s post even five years ago—even though I’ve written essays about this exact problem! I’ll quote from my most recent piece (published in this anthology):

If a publication only reaches a few thousand people at best, then its influence and prestige must far outpace its actual reach to matter to writers and the broader culture. Even if very few read the publication, and it is a failure in commercial respects, people need to have heard of it and equate its name to respectability and exclusivity.

That game is starting to fall apart because, in the digital age, literary journals premised on great literature must now play the exclusivity game even harder, to the point of absurdity, and manufacture what is ultimately a false scarcity. The number of places and opportunities to get published has never been greater; the cost of distributing and publishing work is falling to zero; most writers can get read more widely by publishing themselves online than in print. Literary journals, even if they don’t acknowledge it themselves, are often protected far more by legacy and long-standing reputation than by somehow producing the ‘best quality’ literature.

I go on to discuss that literary journals have done little to move beyond their gatekeeping function. Instead of clinging to the scarcity model, they should create more opportunities for publication and engagement, with themselves as the leaders and moderators in the community. When the number of visits to a publication’s submission guidelines page is greater than that of any of its content—but there’s no interaction with those writers, and in fact writers are simply asked to pony up for a subscription—that sets up a dynamic in which the people who should value you come to either hate you or ignore you. And that is exactly what is happening.

Unfortunately, given how some journals can barely keep up with basic operations, I’m not sure how many will be able to experiment with additional roles, responsibilities, or publishing models.

That Overused Word “Community”—But Why We Still Have to Talk About It

by Richard O York / via Flickr

I’ve just wrapped up another semester at the University of Virginia, where I teach digital media and publishing. Many of my students undertake 10-12 week publishing projects that involve generating content from scratch and trying to get attention for it. The ones who gain traction are inevitably those who feel more comfortable reaching out to people through social media, or trying to spread the word through influencers in their network. (In the case of UVA, everyone talks about “getting Dean Groves” to participate in some way. He must be bombarded with innumerable requests for his time. Sorry, Dean Groves.)

At the end of their project, I ask students to reflect on what they might have done differently, and the responses are almost always identical (even though I tell them exactly what their response will be on the first day of class):

I should’ve posted more often to my friends [via social media] what I was writing.
I wish I’d done a better job connecting with people who could’ve helped.
I didn’t start spreading the word soon enough.
It was so hard to get readers, I wish I had tried different tactics sooner.

Early on, I recommend they identify people who might take a natural interest in their content or the goals of their project—identifying the online or offline community who cares.

Similarly, writers trying to build a platform are often advised to “engage with the community,” or “be an authentic member of the community,” or “share valuable content with the community.”

This advice is mostly a cliche now—meaningless and empty words. What does it mean to “engage with a community?” Even I have a hard time putting it into concrete terms. It’s probably easier to describe what it looks like when you try to platform build without paying any attention whatsoever to community.

1. Are you blogging in a complete vacuum?

Writers often receive the misguided advice to blog. (I discuss that in-depth here.) Even worse, they’re given no instruction on how important it is to research and understand the community they’re about to enter. That doesn’t mean you need to know and meet every blogger out there (or comment regularly), but you should identify every blogger already well-known for the topic you’ll focus on. If you’re blogging about literary fiction, you better keep an eye on sites like The Millions or Large-Hearted Boy, among dozens of others.

Why is this important? Because your early traffic will likely come from other bloggers or sites in the community, and you should be talking about or sharing their stuff, engaging on Twitter or elsewhere, and offering your own perspective on topics they cover. This helps them become familiar with you long before you might ask them for a favor. (See No. 3 below.)

Bloggers who acknowledge the importance of community often do link round-ups and point to valuable content elsewhere (these sites know when you link to them and send them traffic). Even if your footprint is small, being a thoughtful literary citizen is a first step to becoming a blogger (or online writer) anyone pays attention to.

What was my first community-driven initiative? Best Tweets for Writers, a weekly roundup of the best tweeted links I found, sharing other people’s compelling content. That’s how I began building a meaningful presence through my blog—and also through social media.

2. Are your social media posts bereft of any mention of other people or organizations?

When you just tweet or post your own stuff, you’re missing an opportunity to be noticeable to others in the community. When you show up only to talk about yourself, like at any party or social function you’re missing an opportunity to be helpful or to develop a relationship with a like-minded person.

For some writers, this is simply a lack of knowledge about social media tools; they’re too new to the platform to understand how to “work the room” with effectiveness. For example, you need to use Twitter handles when talking about people’s work if you want them to notice your tweet. Or you need to use hashtags common within the community when offering particular tips. You have to tag people on Facebook to make sure they know a conversation is happening around a topic they’re interested in (or mentioned in). You shouldn’t do these things nefariously, of course, only when merited. (See No. 3.)

3. Are you making an ask without any engagement beforehand?

This happens all the time on social media. Someone uses my handle, or posts on my wall, or otherwise shouts in my ear—in the hopes I might look at their work or share their stuff.

But there’s no prior relationship. I’ve never heard of them in my life.

Sometimes writers think social media “networking” is about bugging people to help them. But if you want to ask a favor, it’s far better to warm up your connection first. Retweet or share their stuff. Comment on their blog. Offer something useful to them. Act like a real person who cares beyond the favor you plan to ask later. That’s the best way to ensure that when you ask for help, your “target” doesn’t feel used.

4. Are you in a big rush?

I receive a lot of consultation requests from people who want to build their platform and “break out big” … within the next three months. Or from people who realize very belatedly that it can take a village to properly launch a book, and are now scrambling to get attention … months after their book has launched with disappointing results.

When gurus talk about building platform, mainly they’re talking about your ability to sell books—because you’re so highly visible. Unless you have some important connections to speed you to success—or the benefit of timing or luck or accidental celebrity—then the most important requirement for building platform successfully is TIME.

If you lack the time or patience to see results, you’ll end up doing all kinds of crazy Hail Marys, or engaging in bad behavior on social media. You’ll look for shortcuts that probably don’t pay off, or you’ll pay too much to reach people who ultimately don’t care about what you do.

But when you’ve understood the value of community long before you need to put it to work? When you’ve spent years in genuine and sustainable conversation with people—at both “real life” events and online? Then you’ve authentically “engaged the community.”

When You Have Lots of Unpublished Writing in Boxes

The Googly / via Flickr

Today’s guest post is by Lisa Bennett (@LisaPBennett). Read her earlier post, 3 Insights to Writing About Social Issues.

My mother kept meticulous files full of articles and brochures about the places she wanted to travel to, although there was no indication she would ever get to any of them. My father was deeply uncomfortable leaving home and wanted to venture no further than the garden out back or the workbench in the garage, and she lacked the daring to strike out on her own. As a teenager, I looked on my mother’s files with disdain and, later, with pity. How sad, I thought, to just move papers about and never really do the things you want to do. How tragic, to lock up a life in a box.

Many years later, I came to see that I too had much of my life in a box. I had—and still have—file cabinets and straw baskets and big black binders and cardboard boxes and computer files and even their backups. These files are filled with my writing. Writing about falling in love and having my heart broken; about adventures in sex and sexuality; about getting married and heading to divorce; about becoming a mother and holding my children in my arms for the first time and, later, worrying about the complex and unstable world they will inherit; about caring for my beloved mother when dementia struck, witnessing the awful progression, being with her when she took her last breath, not knowing how to go on, and finding a way to go on; about my struggles with confidence and other secrets and lies; about my spiritual questing, my deep love of life, and my fear of dying before I wholly and fully live; about friendship and the beauty of yellow tulips in a vase; about the miracle of having just the right people appear in my life at just the right time, and longing, longing, longing—to break free.

The walls we construct (what Doris Lessing called The Prisons We Choose to Live Inside) may crumble of their own accord but usually, I think, something else happens. We stay stuck. A little light shines in. Or, one day, we find the courage to scale the walls, peek over and take the plunge. That is what I think we secretly most want to do. And it is what I am doing now—since I began a project several months ago to review all my unpublished writing, identify what may be worth sharing, turn them into publication-ready pieces, and send them out.

This work stops my heart and fills it at the same time. I mean to say it terrifies me. But feeling this terror is better than feeling the deadening of my spirit that comes from keeping it all locked up. Because this, in the end, is what I have to give: Words about life, my life, and the common threads that unite all our lives—the experience of longings and disappointments, successes and failures, love and loss. And in an age when it seems as if we are all expected to sell our work and ourselves, with a bright shiny ribbon on it and a promise of here is how you too can find success, happiness, and love—it takes a bit of courage, I think, to offer one’s bare truth. But then again, it is the simple truths—offered by writers, often in books of limited commercial appeal but timeless value—that have meant the most to me. It is what we writers do: conjure the words that help people understand, maybe just a little more, our shared and uncontainable experience of life. But it only works when the words expressed in private are let out into the world and given a life of their own.

5 On: E. E. King

In this 5 On interview, Elizabeth Eve King (@ElizabethEvKing) explains why she became E. E. King, the importance of protecting oneself as an author, effective humor writing, and more.

E. E. King (Elizabeth Eve King) is a performer, writer, biologist, and painter. Ray Bradbury called her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought provoking.” He added, “I cannot recommend them highly enough.” She’s won numerous awards and has been published widely. Her books are the novel Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife and the short story collections Real Conversations with Imaginary Friends and Another Happy Ending. The Feathernail and Other Gifts, the first in a series of children’s fantasies, will publish in 2015 (Eldritch Press).

Her most recent publications are in the anthologies Only Disconnect (Third Flatiron Anthologies Book 12), Darke Phantastique, Gemini Flash Fiction Award, and Best New Writing 2015 (Grover Prize Finalist). She will be artist in resident at the master museum of artist in Bermuda in 2015.

She’s lived in Mexico and has done extensive work with monarch butterflies; has worked with children in Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain, and butterflies in South Central Los Angeles; and has lectured on marine biology in the South Pacific.

She loves to rescue baby animals, garden, and scuba dive.

5 on Writing

CHRIS JANE: When you started writing under E. E. King, it was so people wouldn’t know you were female. What brought you to that decision?

ELIZABETH EVE KING: Firstly, it was because Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife was written from a male voice. Oddly, many of my adult novels are.

Two, people tend to take religious poking, and science fiction, more seriously (or comically) if it comes from a male.

And lastly, if anyone wants to call for a jihad against the religious mockery in Dirk, they will hopefully target Edward Edger King. Sorry Ed.

When attempts at humor writing fail, what is the writer usually doing wrong? Is there a key element that determines whether the humor will elicit a laugh or a pitying cringe?

Humor is in the funny bone of the observer. However, one of the things that makes humor work is the unexpected. It’s the twist of words or events that you don’t see coming. It’s also a key element in horror, suspense, and mystery.

I personally like some message in my humor. The banana peel may or may not be funny, but it’s more likely to be funny if it’s a giant genetically modified banana. The guy who slips is the evil inventor, and he falls into a vat of fertilizer. Feces are funny.

Also, humor needs to be brief. It’s economy of language. Prose can be lengthy—but not humor. Humor is tragedy tap-dancing. It’s common sense on acid. It’s the well-padded barrel that enables you to survive the Niagara Falls of life.

What writing advice does it make you twitch to see experienced writers giving new writers?

Mostly it’s thinking that their way is the only way. I think most writers give good advice. But there is such a thing as following your muse. Not everyone works from an outline. Not everyone figures each detail out. If you do, that’s great, but the road less traveled is not the same for everyone. That’s why it’s less traveled.

Between the final page of the first draft and turning in the manuscript—whether to an agent, a publisher, or a publishable file—what is your editing process like?

Ugly. I have been known to divide my novels into bits and then reassemble them. I have one at a publisher’s now that I disassembled and put back together more times than I care to count. The last one, now at my agent’s, turned into two books. The problem is you can over-edit and lose the flow or feel of the original.

I asked Ray Bradbury about editing. He said. “Stop reworking. Throw it up and throw it out there!”

He also said, “Throw it up in the morning and clean it up in the afternoon.”

However, I rework and edit a lot more than I used to. I tend to start at the beginning and then go back to the beginning a number of times before I edit the end.

Your short stories, novel, and novella together cover a range of ideas, many of them spiritual: religion, the afterlife, good vs. evil. What inspires your subject matter?

I am interested in reality vs. belief. We see only a small percentage of available light waves, yet persist in trusting that what we see, or hear, is real.

I’m interested in different perceptions of reality. Your dog sees and perceives a different world than you do (especially if you don’t have a dog) but it is no less real. A lot of my work has a biological/scientific base.

I think that most of the world’s problems are caused not by racism but by speciesism.

Religion creeps in because so many people believe it. I never really thought about it, but your question makes me realize that all my work deals with conflicting perceptions of truth and sometimes-imaginary dogs.

5 on Publishing

A book like Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife, which pokes fun at religion (but each religion equally), seems like it would be an easy sell in some circles, and a tough sell in many others. What kind of obstacles did you come up against in your publishing and/or marketing efforts, if any?

Once again—ugly. I went though a number of agents. My agent tales are a good example of how humor is tragedy, or at least not funny, when it’s happening, but makes an amusing story if you survive. Many publishers, especially the big ones, shy away from conflict. It was at least two or three years before I found a publisher.

I have a new edition with Eldritch Press coming out this year. The publisher is including a lot of material that was cut by my previous publisher. I’m quite happy about that.

What was the most painful, embarrassing, or unexpected rejection you received on the road to publishing, and what did you learn from it?

Well, there was the very big agent who took me on and wouldn’t talk to me. All of her other two hundred clients were rich and famous, so I was always on hold. After a year of that, she quit to start an erotica online press.

There were also agents who wanted tons of rewriting and, after I had butchered my work, didn’t want it.

I’ve learned that you have to believe in and protect yourself. I think many writers, myself included, have signed contracts that rob them blind, deaf, and dumb because they get desperate. It’s a hard lesson.

There are a lot of unethical publishers. I recommend The Absolute Water Cooler and Writer Beware. They are places where writers can check out publishers and agents before they sign.

Also, if a contract is too lengthy, and you do not comprehend it—get legal advice.

What marketing tactic did you think would be a sure thing that ended up being not so effective?

I did a few shorts for Dirk that I thought would garner more hits. Maybe if I could have done one a week as I had planned, that would have worked, but I lost my editor.

I also thought offering giveaways would be more effective.

You seem very actively engaged in promoting your own work. Videos, interviews, articles … How do you allocate time for writing and marketing, two efforts that require completely different kinds of creative energy?

Yes, and I should do more. Of both.

This makes me think of your question about writing advice. There are people who have a strict schedule and know what they’re doing every hour of every day. I have more of a laissez-faire attitude. Not that I don’t try to find opportunity. I do. But I really try to take advantage of every opportunity that is offered. I go to readings, conferences, etc.

When I am writing short stories, it’s more an inspirational flow than writing a novel. A story bites you and you write till it lets you go. You can’t do that with a novel. A novel is more like an infection that lives in your blood for a year, or however long it takes. I find doing interviews a welcome escape. Also every experience teaches you different things. For example, I learned a lot by answering your questions.

Unfortunately self-promotion is necessary these days. I also use SocialOomph so that when I am writing I can cut, paste, and schedule tweet quotes daily. I don’t know if this brings readers, but it’s not time consuming.

Why did you decide to self-publish The Adventures of Emily Finfeather, and how did that experience differ from that of publishing with the presses that released your other work?

Emily Finfeather is a tale for mature children (nine and older) and immature adults. The extensive vocabulary is explained by footnotes. Footnotes live at the bottom of the page and give you extra information, misinformation and/or facts about some parts of the story. The footnotes were/are humorous and tell their owns short tales, about flying cars, thieving clams, and revolutionary ostriches.

A publisher who had already taken some of my work said she wanted Emily. Instead, she came out with her own children’s book that used “footnotes from a fairytale world.” I decided to rush to print.

I wanted to come out before she did. I did. I was fortunate to have the help of a wonderful friend and illustrator in formatting the book. But, there are still places that won’t review you and etc. if you self-publish.

Self-publishing works for many people, but I prefer working with a good publisher if I can. It’s more than enough to write, edit, and publicize.

I feel like I am just starting to reach my stride in having the opportunity to work with some great presses.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

How to Plot and Outline Without Using a Formula

by procsilas / via Flickr

Note from Jane: Today’s post is adapted from the introduction to Book Architecture by Stuart Horwitz (@book_arch).

I founded the company Book Architecture 15 years ago because I was tired of being called a “book doctor”—as if I had some kind of magic pill or syringe I could inject into a manuscript that would cure all of its ills. It doesn’t work that way; at least it doesn’t if you’re not using a formula.

Writers everywhere need help building something beautiful, solid, and original, and that takes a method.

The method I’d like to suggest has three main concepts:

Scene
Series
Theme

1. Scene

If you can find your 99 scenes, and if you can put them in the right order, then you will be all set. That’s kind of a joke, but I’ve seen it happen. Please note: 99 is a placeholder. You might have 72, or 138, etc. But when we think of our scenes as comprising a certain number, and therefore separate from each other, we can get the flexibility we need to move things around, to discard some and brainstorm others.

Your scenes are where things happen, and because something happened, your scenes are where something changes. Your scenes are where you “show, don’t tell,” where you use description and dialogue, but they won’t be animated at the level of the full-length narrative, unless you use series.

2. Series

What is a series? Let me first tell you what a series is not: it is not an interrelated series of books in the same genre that have a lot of the same characters. (It is related to that, but we don’t have to worry about that right now.)

Series here is defined as: The repetition and variation of a narrative element so that the repetition and variation creates meaning.

You may have heard repetition and variation applied to art in general: the use of melody in music, the architectural pattern.

Repetition and variation of a narrative element—what is that? A narrative element is anything that can be identified in a reader’s mind as something discrete, for example, a person, a place, a thing, a relationship or a phrase. In fact, the repetitions and variations of series are how a person becomes a character, how a place becomes a setting, how a thing or object becomes a symbol, how a relationship becomes a dynamic, and how a repeated phrase becomes a key to the philosophy of the work.

Repetition and variation of a narrative element creates meaning. The repetitions and variations of each series form individual narrative arcs.

Writers need to gain the skills to have these arcs interact, intersect, and collide—to braid these threads of series into a whole tapestry. All of your series should be about the same thing, because your book can only be about one thing. And we call that one thing our theme.

3. Theme

Your book can only be about one thing. One student asked me, “What about two things? Can my book be about two things?” You know those students. To which I replied, “Yes, provided that those two things are about one thing.”

This is as close as I get to a should. You should be able to say what the theme of your work is in one sentence. You don’t have to worry about whether that one sentence is a cliché. Better to spend your time worrying about whether you believe that one sentence.

“It’s not how you fall in life, it’s whether you pick yourself up.”

Do you believe that? I do. The originality comes from the clothing that you put on the theme, such as:

“How a girl goes from being a drunk crying lesbian to just being a drunk lesbian.”

When you get your theme, you can arrange your series around it, and then use what repeats and varies to drill down to the level of individual scenes to see what your work is still missing, what has to go, and what kind of opportunity you really have in front of you.

Scene, series, and theme. A relatively simple way to think about writing. There are many good books on the market today on the subject of scene. My use of theme is original in its application but not its definition. Series, though, fills a void in the writing world, and it has produced attention, a little controversy, and some a-ha! moments for writers.

There are many different types of series, as I mentioned before.

Character series: when a person repeats and varies, they become a character
Object series: when an object repeats and varies, it becomes a symbol
Phrase series: when a phrase is repeated, it becomes the message or the mantra of the work
Relationship series: when two or more individuals evolve a dynamic
Location series: when different scenes take place in the same locale, adding extra significance to it

There is, of course, an event series as well, but here we have to be careful or we’ll end up privileging these events above all other aspects of the work. We’ll call the events a plot and make everything else take a backseat.

When I work with writers, they all want to talk with me about their plot. “What is this plot you speak of?” I ask, and they say something like, “You know, everything that happens … the important parts … the stuff that comes together, and you know, means something.”

When we talk about plot as separate from the characters, the symbols, the locales, the dialogue, and the philosophical introspection, what we are doing is privileging events over everything else. But nothing exists in a vacuum.

Writing guides that treat everything separately make returning to unity that much harder. I don’t want to sound like one of those people who think they’ve found the answer while everybody else is wrong. I just feel that current approaches to writing structure will inevitably box you in. Nowhere is this more true than for the subject of plot. Everybody says pretty much the exact same thing. There is a “universal story” that we all must adhere to: narrative should be divided into a “three-act” structure of conflict, crisis, and resolution. Within these three acts, there are more specific landmarks such as the first “pinch point,” where we are reminded of the antagonistic force, or the “midpoint,” where we get a twist that sends the main character into a new world.

It looks like this:

This is good stuff to think about, just as long as we don’t all use it at the same time and create a bunch of narratives that resemble each other because, you know, we all used the same formula. A lot of great books use this formula, but a lot of great books don’t.

Because we have our series, we don’t need a formula. By tracking our series, we can straighten out 99 percent of what is wrong with our work. I’m serious; that figure is probably low. You can evaluate your series arc to ensure consistency with your various throughlines, become aware of any gaping holes, and create moments of emotional impact.

Want to know more about this method? Check out Book Architecture by Stuart Horwitz.

Incorporating Someone You Know Into Your Novel

photo by Adam Tinkham

Whether or not you believe in that old cliche “Write what you know,” most fiction writers at one time or another are led to create characters who aren’t really fictional at all, but based on someone they know or have studied. Christine Sneed (@ChristineSneed) found herself in such a situation when writing a novel about an artist. She writes:

Within two weeks, I was visiting Susan’s studio … She is very modest about her work, despite its moody brilliance, and it wasn’t hard to introduce her into the narrative of Paris, He Said … What I spent more time thinking and worrying about was how I could make Susan the fictional character compelling in ways that kept the narrative moving forward.

Sneed goes onto explain the trickiness of including a friend as a character in one of her stories, and warns that if you can’t portray someone you know personally in a positive fashion, you will probably lose this friend and/or be sued for libel. Read more about her experience in the latest Glimmer Train bulletin.

For more writing advice from Glimmer Train writers, check out:

I Want You Bad: Can Nice People Make for Good Characters? by Lillian Li
Narrative Arc in the Novel by Courtney Sender

New Class From Jane: Online Writing and SEO

When I first started working in book and magazine publishing, I had no experience or skill with online writing or SEO (search engine optimization).

Today, after 10+ years of writing for digital media, I see how many mistakes I made along the way. (There were a lot!) But I improved slowly over time.

Most writers tend to make the same mistakes I did—but they’re not hard to fix, once you learn the basics of how online search works, and how to pay attention to a few critical areas of your website, blog, and social media accounts.

Whether you’re an author, freelance writer, or blogger, it’s more important than ever to understand these issues, since it affects how and when people find you online. Otherwise, you can waste a lot of time developing a site or content that no one ever sees or acts on.

In partnership with Writer’s Digest, this Tuesday I’m teaching a 90-minute class on how to be a more effective in your online writing (for your website, blog, and social media) and how to grow your audience and traffic over the long term.

You’ll learn the principles of strong online writing combined with the proper use of keywords, to meaningfully increase how many people discover your work. We’ll cover the basic vocabulary and tools related to good SEO—all discussed in a way that anyone can understand, even if you don’t have a technical background.

We’ll also cover the basics of using Google Analytics combined with keyword research to improve your content strategy and help develop a long-term editorial calendar.

This session covers:

The do’s and don’ts of writing for an online audience
How to write post headlines that get clicks and shares
The basics of SEO (search engine optimization) that anyone can understand
How to effectively use categories and tags with blog content
How and why to use images—and where to find them for free
How to use insights from Google Analytics to improve your website or blog over time
What free and paid tools are available to help you improve SEO

Who should attend this class?

Anyone new to online writing or blogging
Writers or authors interested in blogging
Anyone who hasn’t seen a payoff in their online writing/blogging
Freelance writers who are writing for online-only publications
Authors who aren’t sure how to get more site traffic
Creative professionals seeking to build traffic to their site
Businesses interested in blogging to build site traffic

How does the class work?

It’s a webinar-style class, broadcasted via the internet with live audio delivered through your computer speakers or over your telephone. The live webinar’s visual presentation is displayed directly from my computer to your computer screen.
I will answer all questions asked during the session in real time, or in writing after the session if we run out of time.
If you can’t make the live event, you can still register and get access to the recording of the event for a full year afterward.

Register now for the May 5 class ($79)

How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book

by freeside510 / via Flickr

Preface from Jane: Inspired by a recent post at Mike Shatzkin’s blog on literary agents, I’ve put together this comprehensive post that summarizes advice found elsewhere at this site.

When writers ask me “Can you find me a literary agent?” they don’t realize it’s kind of like asking me “Can you find me the right spouse?” This is a research process and decision that’s best conducted by you. I think you’ll understand why by the end of this post.

Understand Your Work’s Commercial Potential

There are different levels of commercial viability: some books are “big” books, suitable for Big Five traditional publishers (e.g., Penguin, HarperCollins), while others are “quiet” books, suitable for mid-size and small presses. The most important thing to remember is that not every book is cut out to be published by a New York house, or even represented by an agent; most writers have a difficult time being honest with themselves about their work’s potential. Here are some rules of thumb about what types of books are suitable for a Big Five traditional publisher:

Genre or mainstream fiction, including romance, erotica, mystery/crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, young adult, new adult
Nonfiction books that would get shelved in your average Barnes & Noble or independent bookstore—which requires a strong hook or concept and author platform. Usually a New York publisher won’t sign a nonfiction book unless it anticipates selling 10,000 to 20,000 copies minimum.

To better understand what sells, buy a subscription to PublishersMarketplace.com and study the deals that get announced. It’s a quick education in what commercial publishing looks like.

If your work doesn’t look like a good candidate for a New York house, don’t despair. There are many mid-size houses, independent publishers, small presses, university presses, regional presses, and digital-only publishers who might be thrilled to have your work. You just need to find them.

Decide If You Really Need a Literary Agent

In today’s market, probably 80 percent of books that the New York publishing houses acquire get sold by agents. Agents are experts in the publishing industry. They have inside contacts with specific editors and know better than writers what editors or publishers would be most likely to buy a particular work. Perhaps most important, agents negotiate the best deal for you, protect your rights, ensure you are paid accurately and fairly, and run interference when necessary between you and the publisher.

The best agents are career-long advisers and managers.

Traditionally, agents get paid only when they sell your work, and they receive a 15 percent commission on everything you get paid (your advance and royalties). It is best to avoid agents who charge fees other than the standard 15 percent.

So … do you need an agent?

It depends on what you’re selling. If you want to be published by one of the major New York houses (e.g., Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster), then you more or less need to have one—and want one on your side.

If you’re writing for a niche market (e.g., vintage automobiles) or wrote an academic or literary work, then you might not need an agent. Agents are motivated to take on clients based on the size of the advance they think they can get. If your project doesn’t command a decent advance, then you may not be worth an agent’s time, and you’ll have to sell the project on your own.

How to Research Literary Agents

As Mike Shatzkin suggests, PublishersMarketplace.com is the best place to research literary agents; not only do many agents have member pages there, but you can search the publishing deals database by genre, category, and/or keyword to pinpoint the best agents for your work. Some other resources to consider:

AgentQuery.com. About 1,000 agent listings and an excellent community/resource for any writer going through the query process.
QueryTracker.net. About 200 publisher listings and 1,000 agent listings.
WritersMarket.com. About 400 to 600 agent listings. $5.99/month subscription fee.

Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents blog is also an excellent resource for news and views related to literary agents.

Selling Fiction vs. Nonfiction

If you write fiction, the agent will want to see the full manuscript (assuming you’re an unpublished or unproven fiction writer). If you write nonfiction, the marketability of your idea and your platform often matter as much as the writing, if not more so. You have to prepare a book proposal that’s essentially a business plan arguing why your book will sell in the current market.

Read the Agent’s Submission Guidelines and Submit Your Materials

I recommend you first finish (and polish) your manuscript or book proposal before submitting. I meet many writers who are very excited about having a story idea, but unless you’re in a situation where the timing is absolutely critical, finish the work first. Be confident that you’re submitting your best work. One of the biggest mistakes new writers make is rushing to get published when there’s no reason to rush.

Okay, let’s assume you’re ready. Every agent has unique requirements for submitting your materials. The most common materials you’ll be asked for:

Query letter. This is a one-page pitch letter that gives a brief description of your work. Here’s my 4,000-word definitive post on writing a query for a novel.
Novel synopsis. This is a brief summary (usually no more than one or two pages) of your story, from beginning to end. It must reveal the ending. Here’s how to write one.
Nonfiction book proposal. These are complex documents, usually twenty to thirty pages in length (minimum). For more explanation, see my comprehensive post. 
Novel proposal. This usually refers to your query letter, a synopsis, and perhaps the first chapter. There is not an industry-standard definition of what a novel proposal is.
Sample chapters. When sending sample chapters from your novel or memoir, start from the beginning of the manuscript. (Don’t select a middle chapter, even if you think it’s your best.) For nonfiction, usually any chapter is acceptable.

Important: Almost no agent accepts full manuscripts on first contact. This is what “no unsolicited materials” means when you read submission guidelines. However, almost all agents will accept a one-page query letter unless their guidelines state otherwise. (If they do not accept queries, that means they are a completely closed market.)

After you send out queries, you’ll get a mix of responses, including:

No response at all, which means it’s a rejection. Don’t sweat it—this is normal. Move on.
A request for a partial manuscript and possibly a synopsis.
A request for the full manuscript.

If you receive no requests for the manuscript or book proposal, then there might be something wrong with your query. If you succeed in getting your material requested, but then get rejected, there may be a weakness in the manuscript or proposal.

How to Choose the Right Agent

1. What’s her sales track record? This is usually the number-one sign of whether you have a good agent. Evaluate her client list and the publishers she has recently sold to. Are the publishers she sells to the types of publishers you consider appropriate for your work? Are the advances her clients command in the “good” range for you? Keep in mind these factors can be somewhat subjective and are also based on your genre/category and your own sense of author identity.

Bottom line, ensure that your agent has experience and success in representing the type of work you’re trying to sell. Most agents will list current clients on their site, or you can find agent-publisher deals reported at PublishersMarketplace (subscription required).

A note about new agents: Sometimes it’s easier to get represented by a new agent who is trying to build a roster of clients. If you’re a new author with a potentially small deal who wouldn’t interest an established agent, then a new and “hungry” agent can work out just as well. Even if an agent’s track record is still developing, take a look at her previous experience in publishing. For example, was she formerly an editor? Or consider the experience and reputation of the agency she is associated with. If she’s working at a solid agency with a track record, and/or has a long work history with the New York houses, these are good signs. Just make sure she hasn’t been trying to develop her list for a very long time.

2. Does her communication inspire confidence? If an agent treats you professionally, that’s a good sign. Timeless signs of professionalism in agents: they get back to you in a timely manner, they communicate clearly and respectfully, their business operations aren’t cloaked in secrecy, they treat you as a business partner.

Unfortunately, the biggest complaint I hear from agented but unpublished writers is they can’t get a response from their agent any longer—or there’s poor communication about the status of the project. A good agent doesn’t leave her clients in the dark for extended periods and will offer clarity about each stage of the process—no loose ends, no vague reports.

That said: I have observed some unpublished writers who seem to be very demanding and have expectations outside the norm. What does demanding look like? Expecting to call your agent at any time and have a discussion, expecting daily contact, or expecting near-instant response. Remember: agents work for free until your book is sold. Their most immediate responses go to their established clients—the ones bringing in the revenue.

3. What’s her level of enthusiasm? Do you get the feeling that the agent genuinely believes in you and your work? While agents are certainly interested in a sale, they’re also interested in projects that excite them and clients whose long-term careers they feel proud to represent and help manage.

While it’s not possible to put a quantitative measure on enthusiasm, think of it this way: your agent is going to be handling your publisher contracts, negotiations, and other financial matters (including payment to you) for the life of your work. You need to trust her completely. She champions your cause to the publisher throughout the life of the book’s publication and resolves conflicts. You’re entering into a meaningful business partnership, and fit is important.

What to Expect from a Good Agent

A good agent will have a conversation with you about any rejections he receives from publishers. If your agent has a good relationship with the editors/publishers he’s querying, then he’ll be receiving meaningful feedback that he can share with you. You can then discuss how your book or the proposal could be repositioned to sell. However, his time or energy might be exhausted if he believes the project would take far more work and retooling to make a sale that’s not worth his time. Or, he might not believe you’re willing to reposition the book.
Don’t assume that your agent isn’t good enough if your book didn’t sell. But agents should have an open and frank discussion with you about the rejections received. You also have a right to know what publishers were queried, especially after a long period of time has passed. You may also ask for the rejection letters, though your agent is under no obligation to provide you with the specific contact information of editors and publishers.
Did the agent help you improve your query, pitch, and/or proposal? A good agent will improve the query/proposal package. There might be a handful of authors who can put together a crackerjack proposal, but they are few. An agent should be ensuring the pitch or proposal is primed for success, and this almost always requires at least one round of feedback and revision.
Your agent MUST know his way around a book contract. A good agent understands where to ask for more money or rights, and knows if a client is getting the best deal possible. (If an agent passes you a publisher’s boilerplate contract to sign with no changes, you may be in big trouble.) Many authors like to have an agent who is an “attack dog,” but primarily an agent needs to understand how to protect your rights (by changing or inserting the right contract language) and prevent you from signing an unfair or substandard agreement. Agents know the industry norms, when those norms are changing, and when to push for more. However, they also understand that not everything is about money—sometimes it’s better to partner with a publisher offering a smaller advance. A great agent advises you on the pros and cons of the deals you’re offered.
A great agent is an author’s business manager, mentor, and cheerleader. Agents are also there to hold your hand when things go wrong with the editor or publisher. They prop you up when you’re down, they celebrate your successes publicly, they look for opportunities you might not see, and they attend to your financial best interests as well as your big-picture career growth.
People in the industry should recognize the name of your agent. If you can’t find any online mention or reference to your agent, and he’s not a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR), that’s a red flag. Check his track record carefully. See who he’s sold to and how recently. One thing you needn’t worry about too much is the size of the agency; this doesn’t necessarily correlate with the quality of the agent or the size of the deal you can expect.

Are All Agents Created Equal?

Yes and no. As Mike Shatzkin points out, there are potentially hundreds of agents capable of selling any particular book. What tends to be most important is chemistry between agent and author, and the agent being invested in the author and her work. Shatzkin says,

The same agent is not equally good for every book they might represent. Enthusiasm matters. Happening to have strong connections with three editors who would just love this particular book matters. Having belief that [you] can be groomed into a prolific author over time would matter. In other words, the agent who made the most deals for the most dollars last year might not make a better deal for [you] and this book than somebody who had done half as well.

For more excellent information on how to tell a good agent from a not-so-good agent, check out Writer Beware on Literary Agents (or, go straight to the section on Amateur Agents).

Final Note

If you’d like an in-depth guide on getting published, consider my book on the topic: Publishing 101: A First-Time Author’s Guide. 

Thinking Beyond the Book to Tell Your Story

by citymaus / via Flickr

This June, I’m proud to be the keynote speaker at The Writer’s Center Publish Now conference, held in Bethesda, MD. I recently wrote a blog post for them, discussing some of the themes that will inspire my talk about the future of publishing.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

It is possible to thrill at a beautifully written passage that fundamentally shifts how we see ourselves and the world, and at the same time acknowledge that the physical form of the book, as well as the ebook, doesn’t always fit into the multi-faceted digital network we’re immersed in on a daily basis.

This is why I try to help writers think beyond the book. Consider the story or message you wish to share, rather than focusing on the container. There has been so much aspirational focus on writing and publishing a book without consideration of the many other ways we can write, publish, and share ideas in the digital age.

Click here to read the full post.