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How to Use a Long-Form Synopsis to Plan Your Novel

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author, editor, and book coach Julie Artz (@julieartz). Download her Tent Pole Scenes Outline template (discussed below).

Years ago, author Jen Malone mentioned in an #mglitchat discussion that she sends out a rough-form synopsis to critique partners during planning stages with the expectation not that they’d heavily critique it, but that they could ask 10–12 “what if” brainstorming questions to get her creative juices flowing. I thought it was a fabulous idea, so my critique group tried it. The results were amazing—this tool is now a permanent part of my toolbox and it can be part of yours too. Here’s how.

Draft your long-form synopsis

Unlike the 500–1000 word synopsis that often goes out to agents or editors with pitch packages, this one is meant to be messy. There’s no set format, length, number of named characters, or any of the things that tend to strike fear in the hearts of writers when creating that other type of synopsis. Instead, think of this type of synopsis as a brainstorming document. It’s a dumping ground for all the things you’d like to work into your new story based on the prewriting you’ve already done on your concept and characters. It covers all the major characters, the main plot and character arcs, but also the subplots, the twists, the unexpected turns.

Step One: Put whatever you know about the story down on paper, but make sure you at least have the following:

Age category (MG, YA, adult)GenreYour “what if?” big-picture ideaProtagonist’s story goalAntagonist’s story goalProtagonist’s change arc

Step Two: Now it’s time to start to fill in the gaps and shape this into something with some story logic in it. I use the Tent Pole Scenes Outline to start my brainstorming on potential story structure. It’s based on classic fairytale structure (with a dash of Aristotle) for this. Not because I only tell fairytales, or because I think Aristotle’s three-act structure is the only way to tell a story, but because this familiar format helps me tease out my plot from all the various threads floating around in my mind.

Once Upon a Time (ordinary world)But then…moment everything changed (story problem)It was awful until (confrontation)…Then the hero figured it out (climax)…And they all lived happily ever after (resolution)

Step Three: The first draft is likely to be a total mess. And that’s OK. The point here is to capture everything you know. Now read through what you’ve written and make a list of questions you need to answer before you’re ready to send this to your writing pals for their round of “what if?” questions. Answering those questions might involve looping back to look at craft resources you have on hand around character, plot, world-building, genre and age category. That’s normal—take the time you need to really feel good about this step. Keep taking passes through the document until you’ve addressed everything from steps one and two above.

Your resulting document should be somewhere in the range of 3–7 pages. If you’ve written 20, that’s too long to share with your critique partners. Go back through and pull out extra details and store them elsewhere. You want something high-level enough that you can read it aloud during a critique group without everyone getting lost or starting to scroll Twitter.

Note: It can be tempting to send this to your pals even if you know there are plot holes. Don’t do that! Take care of all the low-hanging fruit on your own so that they can really focus on deepening the work you’ve already done.

Share your long-form synopsis

Once you’ve got a solid working draft, it’s time to share it with your critique partners or a trusted writing friend. Be clear up front that they’re only allowed to ask clarifying questions (for example, “tell me more about what you mean here,” not “don’t you think you need XYZ?”), brainstorming questions that begin with “what if” (What if that cat was really a magical jellyfish? What if that boy character was really a girl? What if the antagonist was also the love interest?), and comp title suggestions (oh, this reminds me of Goonies!).

Getting nitpicky about character names, plot points, or other details is not helpful at this stage. Set expectations up front and only share with people you trust to hold to the guidelines you’ve established. The results are bound to jump-start your creativity and take your story to places it might not have gone without this technique.

Refine your long-form synopsis, an iterative process

The long-form synopsis is a living document you’ll revisit during planning, drafting, and revising your novel. So take the feedback you get up-front and spend some time thinking it over, reading potential comp titles that weren’t on your radar, looking for ways to freshen any tropes that were identified, and otherwise filling in any logic gaps.

If you lean toward the “pantser” end of the planning scale, this may be the only planning document you complete before you start exploratory writing. If you’re more of a planner, you may move from this into a more detailed outline. I fall somewhere in between—I do a lot more detailed character work and world-building preparation before I start drafting, but I don’t go so far as to write a detailed outline. Find the approach that works for you and go with it. It may not be the same from story to story and it certainly won’t be the same from writer to writer. Take what works and add it to your toolbox.

But no matter whether you’re a planner or a pantser, hang on to your long-form synopsis and revisit it periodically as you draft. It can help you track big-picture changes you’ll inevitably make while drafting and help you plan how changes you’ve already made will affect what comes next. Then, when you get that first set of developmental edits, whether it’s from a critique partner, your agent, your book coach, or an eventual editor, you can play with making larger structural changes at the high level via your messy synopsis instead of having to spend months revising the manuscript before you know your changes are going to work. The long-form synopsis is an excellent way to communicate with whoever is on your writing team about your planned changes so that you can get their input without them having to read a full manuscript or decide deep into the process that they don’t like your approach.

Have you ever tried using a long-form synopsis to plan a novel? I’d love to hear about your experiences with this technique in the comments.

Why Prologues Get a Bad Rap

Today’s post is by editor Tiffany Yates Martin (@FoxPrintEd). Join her on Wednesday, Nov. 30, for the online class Powerful Prologues.

“Always avoid prologues!”

“Agents hate prologues.”

“Readers won’t read a prologue.”

The advice in the writerly ether concerning prologues is vast and … well, not varied. Most of it revolves around telling authors simply, “Don’t.”

Yet riffle through a handful of books on the shelf at any bookstore and you’re likely to see at least a few prologues—many of them in bestselling books and classics.

So what gives? Is there a cabal of rogue prologuers defying the injunction? A secret password certain authors get that allows them to break this inviolate commandment?

Are prologues okay or aren’t they?

As I say in my book Intuitive Editing, like sharks, snakes, or bears, prologues aren’t inherently bad; it just depends on how you encounter them. A well-drawn, well-used prologue can set a story up and even become a definitive part of it:

“Two households both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

These first two lines of Shakespeare’s prologue sonnet can only ever evoke the entire story of Romeo and Juliet.

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Just these few words in the signature opening crawl of the Star Wars prologue can set fans’ hearts fluttering (ask my obsessed husband).

But prologues have developed their dangerous reputation because often authors fall into one of several common traps in using them that diminish their effectiveness.

Why prologues fail

Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each unsuccessful prologue is unsuccessful in its own way, but what they have in common is often that they are used as some form of “cheat”—shortcutting the actual work of storytelling to circumvent potential pitfalls.

This type of prologue abuse can take several forms:

The backstory dump

Authors may use a prologue as a chance to “bring the reader up to speed” on backstory they feel the reader needs to know to understand or invest in the story. This can result in a slow, backward-looking beginning that can fail to hook readers.

As an editor I often suggest that whatever backstory may be essential to set up the story or characters may be more effectively woven in as context as authors plunge readers into the present-moment main story and move the action forward.

The exciting-event preview

Often a result of the writing advice to start en medias res, this type of prologue opens right in the middle of fervid action that may or may not directly relate to where the main story starts. I call this the “Stick with me—I promise it’s going to get good!” prologue—when an author knows his first chapter may not have a strong hook and tries to make up for it by slapping something more exciting in front of it.

This can often take the form of a dramatization of some story event later referred to in the main story, something that happened in a character’s past, or even a “sneak peek” at a high-stakes scene from later in the book that the author randomly sticks at the beginning like a “coming soon” film trailer.

The bait-and-switch

In this type of prologue faux pas, readers are drawn into the story laid out in the prologue, only to start the “real” story in chapter one that seems to bear no direct connection to it. This can feel like an annoying piece of misdirection that may leave readers disconnected from the main story as they busily try to connect the dots, or simply feeling unmoored, uncertain of what the story is actually about.

The preamble/stage setter/dramatis personae

Like the description of settings or list of characters at the beginning of a play, this type of prologue mostly concerns itself with establishing something: a setting, a tone or mood, a world, a key event, a character or characters. Used unskillfully, this can result in a dry, static story opening that lacks a hook or forward momentum, and may have readers bored and putting the book down before they even get started.

The rabbit hole

The reader turns the first page of the prologue…and then another…and another…and another…and before too long they’re paging ahead to see when the story actually begins. The endless prologue risks losing reader engagement, or taking them so far down a path that may not reflect the story they thought they were reading from the description or synopsis that they give up, frustrated.

Prologues that successfully break “the rules”

What can make prologues so maddening is that many of these techniques can actually work very well, used proficiently and according to genre expectations:

The Star Wars and Romeo and Juliet openings cited above, for instance, are actually backstory dumps—but they follow prologue best practices for creating a strong hook: they’re brief, essential, and set up pivotal story stakes and conflict.Mysteries, suspense, and thriller stories often use a seeming “bait-and-switch” opening scene—for instance, a character who meets an untimely demise—to set up the central plot, like the hunt for a serial killer.Tolkien commits rampant scene setting, backstory dumping, and rabbit-holing in his Lord of the Rings prologues (he has four!) that establish the Hobbits, their pipe smoking (!!), the Shire, and the Ring, respectively—and in damned lengthy fashion.

Using a prologue effectively and well means being aware of what makes them work—and what makes them fail. It’s understanding how to make them essential, intrinsic, and give them a powerful hook and forward momentum; as well as how to meet current reader, genre, and market expectations.

A prologue can open the door to your story and entice the reader in, or throw up a barrier that delays or prevents their engagement. If you learn to use them deliberately and effectively, there’s no need to fear this potentially powerful tool for your stories.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on Wednesday, Nov. 30 for the online class Powerful Prologues.

Write a Sympathetic Villain Your Readers Will Love to Hate

Today’s post is by story and writing consultant Neil Chase.

When most people think of villains as they are writing a novel, they think of evil, heartless characters who are out to destroy or conquer the world. While these types of villains can, at times, be amusing, they can also be one-dimensional and uninteresting.

A great villain should have complex motivations and evoke sympathy from readers. Here’s how to build one.

Weave an intricate backstory.

For your story’s antagonist to be truly effective, they need to have a well-developed, and perhaps even tragic, backstory.

Just as your story’s protagonist should be more than just a one-dimensional character, your antagonist should be a fully formed individual with their own motivations, fears, and desires.

The best villainous characters have a deep, rich backstory that makes them relatable and ultimately human. Here are some ideas for interesting villain backstories:

The villain could be someone who was once a hero, but circumstances (or choices) led them down a dark path. They might be haunted by regrets for their evil actions, and their fall from grace only makes them more dangerous.The villain could be someone who was born into a life of crime. They might have never known anything else, but they’re not necessarily happy with their lot in life. There’s always the possibility of breaking free from their criminal past, but they would need someone to show them the way.Another option is for the villain to be an outsider who doesn’t fit in anywhere. They might be rejected by society and use their powers for evil as a way to get back at those who have wronged them.Finally, the villain could be motivated by something other than money or power. They could be driven by revenge, love, or even a cause they believe in. No matter their motivation, they’re sure to be a force to be reckoned with.

A great example in literature and film is Frankenstein’s Monster, a creature made up of random body parts and shunned by the world as a result. His hatred of humanity is understandable, given his tragic history and desire for little more than sympathy and companionship—both of which are denied to him at every turn.

It begs the question: who is the true villain in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster or its creator?

By giving your antagonist an intricate or tragic backstory, you’ll make them more believable and give them greater depth and dimension. Also, by understanding your antagonist’s backstory, you’ll be able to better craft scenes in which they interact with your protagonist.

Give your villain a personality.

As an antagonist, your villain stands in the way of your protagonist’s goals and must be defeated for the hero to triumph. As such, you must give your villain a strong and distinctive personality. Why? Because a well-developed villain makes for a more suspenseful and engaging story.

Think about some of the most memorable villains in fiction: Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, Professor Moriarty, and The Wicked Witch of the West. These characters have unique motivations, histories, and quirks. By contrast, a generic and one-dimensional villain is immediately forgettable.

If you want your story to be gripping, make sure to put some thought into making your villain someone who readers will remember.

Explore the villain’s motivation.

To create a three-dimensional antagonist, one must understand their motivation.

What drives them to do evil?Are they acting out of greed, power, passion, misguided love, or revenge?Are they misunderstood by others in the story?

By exploring the backstory and psychology of your antagonist, you can craft a more nuanced and sympathetic character. For example, In Stephen King’s Misery, Annie Shaw is a woman so utterly alone that her main coping mechanism is reading the fiction of her favorite author, Paul Sheldon. So when fate brings Paul into her life through a car accident in a blizzard, she’s overjoyed to take care of him and to read his latest novel.

She loves Paul’s main character, Misery Chastain, so much that it’s both heartbreaking and understandable when she doesn’t take it well that Paul intends to kill off Misery in his latest work. Everything she does to Paul, as a result, is justified and right in her twisted mind, as it serves to save both Misery and Paul from himself.

Make them attractive in some way.

Your story’s antagonist doesn’t have to be a traditional bad guy. In fact, making them attractive in some way can make your story more interesting. Perhaps they’re physically attractive, or they have a winning personality. Maybe they’re just really good at what they do, and your protagonist can’t help but be impressed by their skills.

Whatever the case may be, giving your antagonist some redeeming qualities will make them more three-dimensional and ultimately more compelling.

A great example is Hannibal Lecter, from Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs, a cannibalistic serial killer who is thoroughly evil and yet so brilliant and charming as to gain the sympathies and trust of the story’s main character, Clarice Starling. In reality, he manipulates her to effect a prison escape, but we, as the audience, are as swayed by his manner and charms as Clarice.

Readers will be more invested in the conflict if they can see both sides of the story, and an attractive antagonist is a perfect way to achieve that.

The difference between villains and antagonists

Every story must have some sort of conflict to move the plot along. This is typically accomplished through the use of an antagonist, who works against the protagonist to create obstacles and further the story.

In many cases, this antagonist is a villain, someone who has bad intentions and is perhaps even cruel or overtly evil. However, this is not always the case.

In some stories, the antagonist may simply be a character with different goals or objectives from the protagonist. This does not make them evil, just different. And while they may cause difficulties for the story’s protagonist, they are not necessarily bad people.

Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is an example of an antagonist who is not villainous. Though he makes Harry’s life difficult, he works to protect the boy from the story’s true evil.

Likewise, certain protagonists can be villains as well. For example, in American Psycho, Patrick Bateman is not only a terrifying serial killer but the main character.

Therefore, villains are not always necessarily antagonists or vice versa.

Parting advice

Show readers that the villain has been dealt a difficult hand, and they’ve had to make some tough choices along the way. Give your villain some personality, and maybe a unique physical characteristic, and enjoy the process of creating your bad guy! If you can make readers feel empathy for the villain, at least in some way, they will be far more invested in the story’s outcome.

How to Free Yourself from Endless Revision

Photo by barbourians

Today’s post is by author Audrey Kalman (@audreykalman).

Participants in November’s National Novel Writing Month challenge are cautioned not to rush their work out the door. Indeed, it’s wise not to send the draft completed on November 30 off to agents or editors on December 1, like an overeager chef serving a partially baked cake. Typing “THE END” is just the first of many steps in getting a manuscript ready for the prime-time glare of the submission spotlight.

Plenty of writers fall to the other end of the spectrum, though. They finish a draft, then a round of self editing, a round of critique group input, another round of self-editing, a round of professional editing, a round of rewrites, a round of beta reading … and round and round and round for years. These are the chefs who tinker endlessly with the recipe, leaving the dinner guests to expire from hunger or search for another meal.

The writers who get their books into the world are those who find a middle ground. The scenarios, diagnoses, and solutions here can help if you tend toward the tinkering end of the spectrum.

Situation: A dead engine

Diagnosis: The story driver isn’t clear.

You start with a fascinating premise, interesting characters, and a vivid setting. You dive in excitedly. Then you stall, often 50 to 75 pages into a book-length work, or halfway through a shorter piece. You set the work aside for a little while, only to hit the same wall when you return to it. What’s going on?

You haven’t grasped—using whatever method works for you—the impetus that drives the story. Different methods call this driver different things: the story engine, the story spark, the story problem. What drives the story is synonymous with neither plot nor character motivation but rather represents a skillful braiding of the two. Whatever the name, it’s the story’s underlying logic, the question that keeps readers turning pages. It’s the key not only to your reader’s experience but to your experience as a writer. Will you write forward with confidence or hesitate at every junction?

Many contributors to this site have written excellent pieces on story drivers, including Tiffany Yates Martin, Angela Ackerman, Susan DeFreitas, and Heather Davis.

Solution #1: Set the work aside. Your initial inclination that you simply need time and distance for the way forward to become clear may be the necessary prescription. Sometimes returning with fresh eyes is enough, although if you find yourself writing, rewriting, and polishing Chapter One while remaining unclear about where the rest of the book is going, it’s time to try something different.

Solution #2: Shake up your brain by leaving your comfort zone. Sometimes you need an outside force to reawaken or reconnect with your creativity. The shake-up method worked for me. After five or six attempts to finish a short story whose theme, characters, and setting I felt deeply connected to, I simply couldn’t figure out where I wanted the story to land. So I used Rytr, an artificial intelligence story generator, to come up with several endings. Some were hilarious; others were absurd. But one idea sparked an inspiration that turned out to be the key to bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion.

The shake-up possibilities are limited only by your imagination. A few ideas:

Change writing locations. Write in another room in your house, in your car, or at a coffee shop.Ask a trusted writing buddy to outline the rest of the story for you (and offer to return the favor sometime).Meditate on the story.Engage in a dialogue with the story and interrogate it about what it wants to be.Rewrite the story as a poem.Write each plot point on an index card, throw the cards in the air, pick them up randomly, and reassemble them in the new order.Situation: There’s always more—or different/better

Diagnosis: Psychology is holding you hostage.

As you review the first draft of your memoir, you have a flash of insight about your relationship with your father. Realizing you’ve minimized a pivotal life event, you incorporate more of your father into the next draft. Then you remember the reverberating shame of the incident in which Mrs. Smith ridiculed you in front of your third-grade class. The next edit includes Mrs. Smith. Then you begin to wonder if the structure is right. Maybe it would be better to organize the book around themes rather than images or to narrow the slice of time you cover. Back to the drawing board you go … and next thing you know, years have passed.

You will learn things during the course of writing and revising a first draft that absolutely need to be changed and incorporated into subsequent drafts. There are legitimate questions to be asked about a book’s content and structure that come to light only during the writing. Going through this cycle a few times is perfectly normal and approaching the writing itself as a journey of discovery can be enormously fruitful and emotionally satisfying. But those whose aim is to get their work into the world don’t want to remain in the loop forever.

If you find yourself going over the same ground with your book for years—and find yourself distressed by the process—the problem may not be the book but the deeper concerns you are trying to work out through the book.

Solution #1. Examine your motivations. Ask yourself why you are writing the book. Go beyond surface-level answers like “to share my story” or “get it published.” Maybe it’s “to understand why my mother abandoned me” or “to heal the relationship with my father.” For fiction writers, the answer may have to do with your themes. Then recognize the book’s role in this process. Writing the book can contribute to your understanding or healing and in some cases can do much of the work in this department. But if you find yourself stuck, you may be relying on the book to do a job better suited to a professional.

Solution #2: Call in the professionals. Consider working with a mental health professional, especially if your story is personal or deals with a subject like abuse or trauma. Revisiting life events with the help of a therapist may free you from cycles of revision that can happen when you’re using your book to work through past pain. You could also find a skilled book coach who can help you gain perspective on how life events may be influencing your writing process. Whatever the route, an outsider’s eyes and ears can reflect and echo your challenges in a way that leads to clarity—and being able to finish your project.

Situation: FOFU (fear of finishing up)

Diagnosis: Your book is more than a book.

Book-length projects take time. During the months or years you work on a manuscript, it becomes central to your creative life. You tend to it, nurture it, and get frustrated with it as if it were a child.

When your book-child is ready to leave the nest and go out into the world, it’s natural to feel the impending loss and attendant grief. But if your thirty-year-old book is still living in the basement because you haven’t let it go, you need some tools to loosen the strings.

Solution #1: Work to decouple the book from your identity. Unless we’re saints or Buddhas, even the humblest of us have some part of our identity entwined with our books. That’s a lot of pressure to put on 85,000 words. Process writing—writing about your writing—can be extremely helpful for meta-level writing challenges like this. Schedule some time to reflect. Who will you be without the project that has consumed you for so long? How do you imagine feeling when you finish? What can you do to embrace those feelings?

Solution #2: Accept the good-enough book. Your book will never match the Platonic ideal of your imagination, just as a child will not grow into exactly who their parents think they will become. Nor will it satisfy all readers. The book will be flawed and lumpy and beautiful. And that’s okay. Let go of the need for unachievable perfectionism and for appealing to everyone.

Solution #3: Get excited about your next project. If you don’t have your next writing project in mind already, begin to dream about it. Take a creativity recharge weekend or journal about your ideas. Maybe you plan a sequel, or maybe you’re headed in a completely different direction. An enticing new project waiting in the wings can motivate you to finish.

Solution #4: Find your support system. Writers need champions and cheerleaders to get us through those dark nights of the soul when the inner critics howl. Find fellow writers who can remind you of why you’re writing and help subdue the internal voices insisting that your book won’t be worthy unless you work on it for another five years.

Parting thoughts

There are as many reasons for having trouble finishing a book as there are writers in the world; these are just a few. If you can stick with writing your book for exactly long enough—but not too long—your book will reward you with the satisfaction of becoming what it was meant to be.

Finally, recognize that unless you are suffering, there is no reason to “fix” the problem of revising and re-revising and revisiting your work. Books take time. Time to gestate, develop, grow, and be refined. Plenty of famous works took years or decades and countless drafts to come to life. There is no timeline but your own.

How Big of a Problem Is “Head Hopping”?

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It’s a place to bring your conundrums and dilemmas and mixed feelings, no matter how big or small. Want to be considered? Learn more and submit your question.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Legacy Launch Pad’s Bestselling Book Bulletin. Sign up to receive a bulletin every Thursday morning that includes one answer to a publishing question, one publishing tip, one publishing resource and one bit of publishing advice.

Question

I am a professional writer and former journalist, but I’m new to writing fiction. I’m wondering whether I’m guilty of “head hopping,” or of author intrusion, by allowing the reader to peek into the thoughts of minor characters of the story. If this is the case, is it a problem or is it the natural role of an omniscient narrator?

—Ready to Revise

Dear Ready to Revise:

I’m so glad you asked!

It’s natural for those new to writing fiction to revel in their ability to enter the mind of different characters in the story. It feels like a superpower, and it is: No other storytelling mode offers you the ability to enter into the point of view (POV) of the story’s characters in such an intimate and revealing way.

But like so many things with fiction, it’s important to realize that what’s fun for us as writers may not be fun for our readers. And that, like many things we admire in the work of our favorite writers, we may not yet have the chops to do these things well.

Yes, revealing what’s in the minds of minor characters is indeed a privilege of the omniscient POV. But the omniscient POV is an advanced technique, and therefore not something I recommend to those just starting out with fiction.

I’ll explore both of these in more detail, but first, an important distinction: When we talk about “head hopping,” we’re not talking about a story with multiple POVs. Rather, we’re talking about a story that includes multiple POVs within the same scene, without benefit of a line break or chapter break. “Head hopping” is what happens when an inexperienced writer fails to do it well.

Here’s why “head hopping” can be no fun for readers.

It can be jarring. Imagine cruising along in a story at top speed (we read fiction fast, in part because we feel like we’re really in the mind of the POV character, living the story), and then suddenly, it’s not clear whose head we’re in, or even what’s supposed to be happening.

For example, consider the following:

John perused the menu. That burger sounded good, but then again, he was trying to watch his weight—his wife was right, he wasn’t getting any younger, and Dr. Sykes had been warning him for years about his cholesterol. Maybe the salad? But then he’d be ravenous at his four o’clock.

All these finance guys always spent forever looking at the menu but then always ordered the same thing. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so stereotypical. Erik smiled, marshaling his patience. “Would you like me to come back?”

That second paragraph is likely to give your reader whiplash, because it’s not clear whose head we’re in—or even who Erik actually is (the server).

You want readers to read quickly, because that’s part of what creates what John Gardner called the “vivid and continuous dream” of fiction.

Reader whiplash destroys that illusion, forcing the reader to back up and reread to figure out what’s going on. And if your reader has to stop and reread just to figure out what’s going on, chances are they may stop reading altogether.

It can come off as self-indulgent. It takes cognitive energy for the reader to process the fact that they’re switching POVs, even when it’s done well (see below). So if you’re choosing to switch, the reader will assume that you have some important reason for doing so—that there’s something important that can only be revealed through the POV of this other character.

In the fiction of newer writers, that’s often not true. They’re switching POVs because they can. As a reader, that tends to feel self-indulgent—like the writer is just showing off and wasting our time.

How can omniscient POV be done well?

Here are my guidelines for the omniscient POV, should you feel your story warrants it—and that you have the chops as a writer to pull it off.

Make sure you have a real reason for switching POVs. In order to “earn” a POV shift, you need to reveal something from that POV that’s important to the story.

This might be something about the plot that the main POV character can’t see, or can’t know. Or it might just be an important outside perspective on one of the main characters.

In the example above, say, it might be the fact that the main POV character considers himself unique, but to this server character, Erik, he’s just like all these other guys who work in finance who frequent his restaurant for lunch.

Clearly “hand off” the POV. This is a technique you’ll see advanced writers use when they engage the omniscient POV (Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto is a great example): the person whose head we’re in encounters a second character, or looks at them, or thinks about them, then in the next paragraph, we take the POV of that second character.

I think of this as the “hand-off”—a technique that clearly signals that we’re moving from the perspective of one character into another, and gives us a clear line of demarcation for the switch (the paragraph break).

Put the name of the new POV character in the first line of the new paragraph. By doing this, you ensure that there’s no sentence from the new POV that could be read as originating in the POV of the old one.

Here’s how all that might come together in my example from above:

John perused the menu. That burger sounded good, but then again, he was trying to watch his weight—his wife was right, he wasn’t getting any younger, and Dr. Sykes had been warning him for years about his cholesterol. Maybe the salad? But then he’d be ravenous at his four o’clock. He glanced up at the server, whose name tag said Erik—he was slim, in his twenties. Probably never even thought about his weight.

Erik smiled, marshaling his patience. “Would you like me to come back?” All these finance guys always spent forever looking at the menu but then always ordered the same thing. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so stereotypical.

I hope this helps you revise—and helps all newer writers avoid the sin of “head hopping.”

—Susan de Freitas

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Legacy Launch Pad’s Bestselling Book Bulletin. Sign up to receive a bulletin every Thursday morning that includes one answer to a publishing question, one publishing tip, one publishing resource and one bit of publishing advice.

3 Key Strategies for Effective Fiction—Derived from Neuroscience

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Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach. She offers an online course, Story Medicine, designed to help writers use their power as storytellers to support a more just and verdant world.

If you’ve read any of my other posts for Jane’s blog, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that, when it comes to story, I am a total geek.

So it should surprise no one that I am a super fan of the work of story coach Lisa Cron, who’s done so much to explicate the ways that reading fiction—reading stories, period—intersects with what we know about how the human brain works.

If you haven’t read her work, I say, run, don’t walk, to your local bookstore or library (or navigate to your favorite online retailer) to pick up your copy of Wired for Story and Story Genius. Her work has been absolutely pivotal to me as both a writer and a book coach, cutting through the vague and often impractical advice I received in the study of creative writing, revealing what a story actually is and how it actually works.

I’m also a big fan of the work of Lisa Zunshine, who likewise explores fiction through the lens of brain science—but from a different angle, that of the study of literature.

For those of you who haven’t read the work of either of these authors—or who may find yourself intimidated by the science part of neuroscience—I thought I’d provide a few key strategies for fiction writers derived from what we know about the human brain, and the human brain on books.*

1. Reveal vulnerability

The neurotransmitter oxytocin is known as the “bonding chemical” for a reason: It’s released when we make a new friend, fall in love, or even (studies suggest) see an adorably cute little kitten or pup.

The same thing appears to occur when we observe a character in a moment of vulnerability—because sharing intimacies is something we do when we’re involved in the act of social bonding.

Maybe this character puts up a brave front but secretly feels lesser in every way than her best friend (My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante).

Maybe they’ve just lost his mother in a horrible explosion, and his dad is MIA (The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt).

Maybe he’s adopted someone who’s lost their parents in a terrible car crash and has absolutely no idea how to be a parent (“The Would-be Father,” Charles Baxter).

Whatever it is that makes your protagonist feel vulnerable, it’s the same thing that will make us feel for them—and care about their story.

2. Raise questions

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward, as well as memory and learning.

Because, as it turns out, learning things is super adaptive, and helpful in terms of passing on your genes. (Just like sex—which, you know, also feels good. Because science.)

Dopamine is released when we become curious, because that sends a signal to the brain that intriguing information is headed our way. Information that might just reveal something new about the world, and prove potentially useful in our lives. The brain loves to learn, and curiosity sends the signal that learning is about to occur.

That’s why raising questions in fiction is such a strong tactic for getting your reader hooked at the beginning. (What’s that weird look about? Who is that strange man? Why is this character lying?)

It’s also why raising questions is one of the strongest tactics for keeping your reader engaged with the story all the way through: when we’re curious about something, that curiosity compels us to keep turning the pages to find out what will happen next.

3. Use the senses

You know that magical feeling of being transported by fiction—the sense that you’re no longer reading the story, you’re living it?

Basically, when we’re caught up in a story, our brains can’t tell the difference between what the POV character is experiencing and what we’re actually experiencing ourselves—the same way our brains can’t tell the difference between dreams and reality.

This is because of something called mirror neurons, which essentially map an action we’re seeing or reading about, such as running or walking, onto the same parts of our brains that are active when we ourselves are running or walking.

This is why we’re often told to use the senses, and to be very specific when we describe what our characters are doing or seeing in our fiction: because doing so is the secret to getting your reader to map the experience of the POV character into their own brain.

This is especially important when it comes to scene—the place in fiction where the illusion of actually living the story is most complete, and we’re most fully transported into the world of the story.

These three strategies may seem simple, and in many ways they are, but I’ve seen again and again how effective they are in fiction, regardless of genre.

They’re also really useful for those working with story forms that don’t necessarily follow traditional forms—because as long as you do these three things, chances are, you’re going to draw your readers in, keep them engaged, and provide them with a compelling experience.

Now it’s your turn: What is it that makes your protagonist vulnerable?

What questions are you raising at the beginning of your story?

And what are the best strategies you’ve found for really making your reader feel like they’re there, in the world of your story?

* Please note that while I am inspired by the authors noted here, any inaccuracies contained in this article are my own.

A Primer on TV & Film Adaptation for Writers (Where the Rules Change Often)

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Today’s post is by Jeanne Veillette Bowerman (@jeannevb) of Pipeline Artists.

Hollywood is an odd place and ever-changing. If your literary agent or publisher wants to pitch your book to producers, managers or networks, they need to know the rules—or at least, the rules of the day.

But don’t get too stuck on them, because … you guessed it … they’ll change. Often.

Back in the day, an agent or publisher could pitch your book over the phone or mail a copy off for consideration. Now, the execs prefer a little more detail and insight before considering your story for an adaptation.

The million-dollar question: What does Hollywood want in a story?

Truth is, sometimes they don’t even know until they hear it. It’s a gut check of something that’s not only marketable, but also gives them tingles when they read the logline.

The elements of a great pitch package

Unless your rep has a personal relationship with a Hollywood executive, they’ll need a formal pitch package, which includes a logline, short synopsis, treatment, and possibly a pitch deck.

By no means is this list a rigid formula. As noted above, the rules change constantly, and each executive and company have different preferences. I know many who decide just on the logline alone.

Unlike the literary world, submission requirements are not always listed on the company’s site. One size definitely does not fit all, but if you have the following materials, your team will be ready for any question thrown at them.

Logline

This is the most important part of your pitch and the hardest to write. A compelling logline alone will make or break your chances. Oftentimes, an exec will read the two-to-three sentence logline and decide from there, regardless of the pitch package you’ve spent countless hours creating. I know. A lot of work for potentially no gain, so spend the time to create a standout logline.

Synopsis

A synopsis tests the concept’s strength, so don’t just use the blurb on the back of the book. Boil it down for them, without getting into the weeds. Keep it high level, showing complex characters, lots of potential for conflict, and a strong ending.

Treatments

These used to be more commonplace for both selling a feature screenplay or a book for adaptation. A treatment is just a lengthy synopsis of the book, usually 5 to 25 pages long, depending on the complexities of the story and the type of adaptation you’re pitching (feature film, TV series, limited series). Basically, it’s a well-written outline of the book. Even though they are not always needed, it’s helpful to have one in your back pocket.

The Book

The goal is always to get them to read the book, but don’t expect a high-level exec to read it. They won’t. They’ll pass it onto an assistant or someone in their coverage department to read and give them the bottom-line notes—pass or recommend.

Pitch Deck

Rather than craft a video to pitch an adaptation, it’s common to use a pitch deck (slideshow). Canva is a fantastic resource, full of free images and tools. The purpose of the pitch deck is simply to make it easier for the execs to get a feel for the tone of the book. These execs are visual people and pictures grab them. A slide deck can do the job of a video pitch for a lot less money, time, and aggravation.

Do you need the screenplay written in advance?

Yes and no.

Unless the author understands screenwriting, they shouldn’t write the script, especially when pitching a TV series. A pilot script (the screenplay for the very first episode) requires deep understanding of screenwriting, as you’re building the entire world, introducing characters, plus telling a compelling story in just 60 pages. That requires great understanding of the craft.

But … yes, you can write the script, even if it’s not great.

I know that seems counterintuitive, but developing a story costs a lot of money. If the execs have even a bad script for a great book, pre-approved by the author, the cost savings are astronomical. They already know what the author is willing to cut without a battle. Then, they simply hire a professional screenwriter to finish the job. In the ideal world, it’s not about control. It’s about a great story being told in a different medium that the author loves, too. If the author hates the adaptation, they’re less likely to promote it to their fan base—a fan base Hollywood is counting on to purchase movie tickets.

So, if you have a solid screenplay, it can greatly improve your odds of selling the rights. Plus, you then get at least a “Written by” credit, which means more money. That’s one of the reasons my company helps the novelist craft a solid script for submission to executives. (See the Book Pipeline Adaptation Contest.) Writers learning how to crossover into other mediums—whether it’s poetry, short stories, novels or scripts—only makes them more valuable as an artist. It never hurts to have as many tools in your toolbox as possible.

If your book isn’t a best seller or overflowing with glowing reviews, don’t panic. Of course it’s definitely worth mentioning if you have a robust amount of positive reviews. Strong book sales would definitely help, too. But if the producer doesn’t like the concept, they won’t care how many reviews or sales it has.

Parting advice

Like many industries, Hollywood is built on connections. You often hear, “It’s who you know.” While every author needs assistance connecting with a decision maker, be wary of any small press claiming they can help pitch the books they publish via a “sister” arm of their business. This possibly comes with a fee. Some of these operations require lots of book reviews, an angle to get the authors to encourage friends to buy and review the book that they themselves published and profit from. So take a deep research dive into anything that feels off to you. Trust your gut. There are a lot of scams out there.

Selling a story to Hollywood is much harder than getting a book published. After all, it costs millions of dollars to produce a TV show or feature film. But it only takes one “yes.” Do your research, surround yourself with a great team, find people who understand the industry and craft who have a track record and solid reputation, and you’ll dramatically increase your odds of success.

How to Write Your First Paragraph

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Today’s post is excerpted from the book The Linchpin Writer: Crafting Your Novel’s Key Moments by John Matthew Fox (@bookfox).

The first paragraph of a book is quite possibly not only the most important impression a reader will get of your book, it’s also the gateway for you to figure out where to start telling your story. And if you can identify the right place to start, you’re far ahead of the curve.

I went through my bookshelves and read the first paragraph of over a thousand books. This actually takes less time than you would think, and I would highly encourage you to do it with your own bookshelf. After all, most books have three paragraphs per page, so if you read a 333-page novel, you have read about 1,000 paragraphs. I mean, if you really want to become an expert at something (and first paragraphs are an excellent thing to excel at), then why not study a wheelbarrow’s worth of the best examples?

I wanted to do several things:

Find similarities between books. Did a number of books employ a similar strategy for the first paragraph?See whether there are any ways you shouldn’t start a book.Learn powerful strategies for book openings.

I don’t like studying first sentences of books—a sentence really doesn’t give the reader enough information or the writer enough room. And besides, you’ve probably seen a thousand articles about famous first lines, and they all quote the same twenty, and you think, Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not Fitzgerald or Hemingway, and this doesn’t help me write my book.

But a paragraph! Oh, a paragraph will give you enough direction to write your book, and your reader enough of a first impression to know whether they are excited to read more.

So to learn how to pull off the linchpin moment of a first paragraph, we’re going to dive into the four critical components of first paragraphs:

CharacterizationEnergy/toneMysteryEmotional bedrock

If you’ve got those four, there is a near bulletproof chance you have a splendid first paragraph, one that will make your readers yearn for more.

Remember Jonathan Safran Foer? He burst onto the scene as a 23-year-old wunderkind, publishing his first book to breathless praise and a lucrative advance. But what stuck with me was the way he talked about how he found his first paragraph. He was describing his process for writing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, his second novel, and every day before he started writing, he’d read everything he had written up to that point. As he progressed further and further into the novel, this became more difficult. Sometimes he spent over an hour or two or three reading and editing previous writing before he got to the point where he wrote new material.

And he discovered that when he read the beginning of his book, the prose didn’t pop. He didn’t find the energy until he got to this paragraph, ten pages in:

What about a teakettle? What if the spout opened and closed when the steam came out, so it would become a mouth, and it could whistle pretty melodies, or do Shakespeare, or just crack up with me? I could invent a teakettle that reads in Dad’s voice, so I could fall asleep, or maybe a set of kettles that sings the chorus of “Yellow Submarine,” which is a song by the Beatles, who I love, because entomology is one of my raisons d’être, which is a French expression that I know. Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I’d train it to say, “Wasn’t me!” every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, “Ce n’étais pas moi!”

So what did Foer do? He deleted the first ten pages of his manuscript. They were all just flotsam and jetsam, and they prepared Foer to write the actual first paragraph of his book, but they weren’t the first paragraph itself. Foer’s actual first paragraph was pretty deep into the book, but he was ruthless with his writing and killed his precious early words.

What does a first paragraph like this do well? First of all, it reveals the essential human relationship at the heart of the book. Oskar misses his father, who died on 9/11 in the Twin Towers, which is why Oskar wants to invent a teakettle that reads in his father’s voice. If you haven’t read the book, you don’t realize that connection, but Foer is already preparing you emotionally for the heartsickness this boy harbors for his dead father. This is the emotional bedrock of the book.

Also, the paragraph sets the tone and energy for this book. This paragraph zings! It’s got all the high-wire tension of an electrical line, just sizzling and crackling with voltage. Try reading it out loud. It fairly begs to be read quickly and after nine cups of coffee (which might be how Foer wrote it!).

Pay attention to the punctuation. The abundance of question marks fuels the energy—the first two sentences are questions, which accelerate the reader toward the answer.

And there are also two exclamation marks toward the end. What’s more, when Foer does calm down enough to end a sentence with a mundane period, that sentence is more winding than an Alpine road.

Lastly, the paragraph accomplishes a tremendous amount of characterization. We can tell this is a precocious child. Precocious because he’s cracking jokes in French and musing about sentient teakettles, and a child because he’s making fart jokes. So we have a wonderful mix of high and low culture, which is a fair approximation of Oskar’s personality. Just on the basis of this paragraph alone, I could talk to a lineup of kids and pick Oskar out.

In a very different vein, let’s look at Anne Enright’s opening to The Gathering:

I would like to write down what happened in my grandmother’s house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen. I need to bear witness to an uncertain event. I feel it roaring inside me—this thing that may not have taken place. I don’t even know what name to put on it. I think you might call it a crime of the flesh, but the flesh is long fallen away and I am not sure what hurt may linger in the bones.

Now, many writers start their books with a mystery. But Enright starts with two mysteries!

First, the mystery of what happened in her grandmother’s house long ago, and, second, the mystery about whether it did or did not happen. The narrator seems confused. In fact, she states her uncertainty twice, just to make sure the reader gets it.

Also, right from the beginning, Enright starts to give away the mystery. Enright calls this event a “crime of the flesh,” which both withholds information (we don’t know exactly what happened), but also gives us good guesses about its sexual nature. Beginning writers often believe that creating mystery means withholding 90% of the information and giving the reader 10%; while the opposite is true: you should give away 90% and only withhold 10%.

Don’t underestimate the amount of characterization happening in this first paragraph. This is an exceptionally careful narrator. She’s worried about the hurt in the bones that this story might cause others. She wants to write it down, but hasn’t actually done so out of worry. She believes this event has happened, but also worries that it didn’t. This is not an impulsive character but an exceptionally thoughtful, slow-to-act character who moves methodically and prudently.

For a third example, let’s put Raymond Chandler under a microscope by checking out the first paragraph of The Big Sleep:

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

What’s the most important word in this paragraph? The word that does more to convey this narrator’s personality than anything else? I would argue it’s “sober.” As if being sober at eleven o’clock in the morning is an accomplishment.

Also, because he describes his clothing in such great detail, we know he’s proud to be well dressed. But why is he proud? Because just like the “sober” line, he’s excited that he’s not in rags or naked. He has a low bar for success.

In the hands of a lesser writer, the book would go into Philip Marlowe’s backstory to establish a point in time when he was in rags and drunk. But Chandler wisely starts the story at a point right when he’s put together, and his amazement and pride at being halfway presentable communicates Marlowe’s typical status. This is compression at its finest—always look for ways to accomplish more in a shorter space.

Now if I would buttonhole this first paragraph into a category, it would be “Description.” I usually tell writers to avoid descriptive openings, especially when they’re describing the natural environment. But this description succeeds for two reasons. First, it’s the description of a person, not the weather or a place. Second, and more importantly, the last sentence opens up the main action of the book: “I was calling on four million dollars.”

He’s making a house call for a rich client. This is the action of the first chapter, and it’s going to start the mystery of the book. Essentially, a good description paragraph that opens a book will always use the last sentence to launch the reader into the action. A good rule of thumb is look squint eyed at any paragraph that is 100 percent description. Use the last sentence as a bridge to get away from mere description and tease the reader with impending action.

Think about it: the last sentence of your first paragraph is the springboard from which you launch into the rest of your book. It’s the very first break in the book, and thus the first chance readers have to stop reading. Don’t let them.

What’s the emotional bedrock of this paragraph? It’s his conflict with himself. Remember there are three levels of conflict that every book needs:

Conflict with othersConflict with the world (a big-picture issue like poverty or injustice)Conflict with oneself

With Marlowe, his conflict with others is the cases he’s trying to solve, the conflict with the world is his quest for justice, and his conflict with himself is overcoming his self-destructive alcoholism. So the emotional bedrock is that the reader sympathizes with a hero who isn’t perfect. We like flawed protagonists. So right from this first paragraph, our emotions tilt toward this guy.

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Thankfully, the strategies for your first paragraph are uniform across all genres. Yes, Chandler’s writing a crime novel, but no matter what you’re writing, you can learn from him. If you look at any well-written romance, mystery, literary, YA, sci-fi, fantasy, crime, thriller, historical, or horror novel, you can mine those first paragraphs to find techniques for your own books, even if you’re writing in a vastly different genre.

Learn from everything. Yes, everything. I’ve found that even genres looked down upon, like erotica or fan fiction, can teach a serious writer about pleasuring the reader and fulfilling reader expectations. Don’t be snobby—be a vacuum.

The Secret Sauce to Being a Good Writer

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Today’s post is by author and editor Michael Mohr.

Honestly, the No. 1 thing is: Ignore 99.999% of the industry fluff you hear about online. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony I am demonstrating here.) It’s not that people online are trying to fool you on purpose, necessarily, but rather that they all have their own agenda. (And, frankly, bottom lines.)

Here’s a controversial opinion: Writers are born, not made. You heard me right. Let me unpack that.

If you’re a natural-born writer, then you’ll write your ass off either way. If you’re not, no amount of classes or workshops will change that in a fundamental way. To be clear: Sometimes it takes “real” writers years, even decades, to succeed.

A great example is my good writer-friend Allison Landa, whose memoir, Bearded Lady: When You’re a Woman with a Beard, Your Secret Is Written All Over Your Face was finally just published by Woodhall Press after a 17-year (yep!) journey to publication, which had begun while she was still in the MFA program at St. Mary’s.

This doesn’t mean that because you have the internal drive to write but haven’t pumped out profound prose that you “aren’t a writer.” It probably means that you simply have to try harder or in more efficient ways. But sometimes, sadly, yes, there are people who wish they were writers, who enjoy writing sometimes or even often, but alas are not writers for one simple reason: They don’t have that deep, driving force which animates their lust for communication with other human beings via words on the page.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Not everyone is meant to be a teacher or a doctor or a lawyer. Not everyone, ergo, is a writer. In our contemporary culture of constant uplift and positivity, I think what sometimes gets lost is the torn, ragged flag of reality. Because some people are writers and others aren’t doesn’t make this statement pretentious; on the contrary (as Dostoevsky would quip), it makes it honest. (Of course, just my humble opinion.)

The second thing about being a writer is: My God, read a LOT. I mean A LOT. And in multiple genres.

Here’s a gold quote from Stephen King’s classic memoir/writing instruction manual, On Writing: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

This is a tough one, isn’t it? Especially in the frenetic, busy landscape of contemporary life. Besides your day job, you have kids, a mortgage, or rent, student loans, podcasts, TV shows, friends, enemies, and of course the insipid omnipresence of everything ONLINE, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, etc. Choose your poison, really.

My point is: We are blanketed in and constantly pounded at by distractions. It’s incessant. The crucial key here is: Find the time to read. (And to write, of course; you’ve got to write as often as you can.)

I read all the time. In the morning after I get up and before doing my freelance editing work. While dog-walking (my side-gig) via listening to Audible on my earbuds, and at night before bed. I read everything from a history of the Civil War (just finished, Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson) to collected essays (Feel Free by Zadie Smith, 2018) to novels (Lost Souls by Balzac) to collected letters (Vincent van Gogh: A Life in Letters) to short story collections (Homesick for Another World: Stories by Ottessa Moshfegh) to memoirs (Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates) to controversial books on race such as John McWhorter’s Woke Racism (2021).

The point is to absorb literature and good writing. A process of literary osmosis. You won’t suddenly become Kafka, but you will start to feel more fluid in your ability to put words down on the page and in feeling filled with glorious, precise language which starts to feel more and more accessible where it wasn’t before. Many have said that great writers are great readers with ambition. (And ego.) I think this is absolutely true.

I remember seeing Jennifer Egan speak just after Manhattan Beach came out, at Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley. She said something lovely, and I’m paraphrasing but it was something like this: The writing process for her involves intensive research and reading on the subject for a long, long time until she “feels pregnant with the prose” and dumps it all out onto a rough draft. I love this and feel similarly. Reading inspires you; it makes you jealous and want to write your own work, enter your own imagination, set your own linguistic cadence and rhythm, locate your own voice. If you want to write, a certain portal of entry is to start with reading.

When I read, I use half a dozen different color highlighters and a black “precise V7 Rolling ball pen” to circle and underline and mark and create marginalia which I often return to later. I read both lazily and for pleasure but also with my writing and editing brain on, looking to see what a writer did here or there or anywhere. I want to open the hood and take the engine apart. That’s the editor inside of me. That’s why I not only write but edit books.

The third thing writers need is a thick skin. Yes, we’re mostly all sensitive, smart, independent people and our writing is our “baby.” (To keep the Egan example going.) But, being sensitive, and writing largely in isolation, writers can sometimes be deeply and profoundly offended by an editor’s comments. To be sure not all editors are of equal quality. And you should slowly and scrupulously choose which editor to hire for your work. (And make sure you check their qualifications, experience, testimonials, etc.)

That said, once you find the right editor: You have to trust them. You’re often not going to accept every single suggestion, and that’s fine and good and normal; at the end of the day, you’re the author and it’s your work.

However, most of the time the editor knows best. Mainly because (a) they do this for a living, and (b) they are an objective, non-emotionally invested pair of eyes. This is a problem I see often as a book editor. Newer writers too often want things done fast, cheap, and all at once. But that’s not how editing works. Not good, serious, professional editing anyway. You’re going to pay some money for quality editing. Some of the suggestions will probably make you angry, frustrated, hurt, feeling rejected.

My advice: Take some deep breaths, get your bearings, pause for a while, honestly consider the feedback, and then proceed.

Remember: Besides your friends and family, when a book comes out it’s mostly going to be consumed by non-emotionally attached, objective readers. They don’t care about your sensitivities or feelings. They want depth and entertainment. You don’t hire an editor to hold your hand and tell you you’re a genius. You hire an editor to tell you the truth. Yes, they should always do it kindly, respectfully, without animus or judgment. This isn’t a moral exercise. This is the preparation of the writer for The Real World of Books. This is going to involve some surgery (sometimes a lot of it) on your manuscript.

In 2013 I interned for a literary agent for nine months—about a year before I’d started finally getting my writing published and was making a little money. I learned a lot from that agency. Eventually I began publishing a blog about it and then started my freelance editing career, which was slow-going until I got a fairly famous client (Christian Picciolini) at which point I more or less took off.

I have a degree in writing. My mother is an author and used to write for a national magazine. My uncle is a novelist, and two cousins are writers, one for a video game company and one as a travel writer. So, you might say it’s in my blood, my DNA.

But not everyone shares this familial background. Some are judged and mocked for even just the desire to write. Many are told they have better things to do with their time and that writing isn’t capitalistically feasible (aka: You won’t make any money).

But this brings us back full circle to the start of my essay: True writers will find a way to write. I know mothers who get up at 4:30 a.m. and write for an hour before waking their kids, then go to a 12-hour shift as a nurse. I know CEOs who write in the middle of the night. I know lawyers and doctors who have somehow found the time to do what they love. Because if you honestly love something (or someone), you make the time. We all know that. We all have a zillion excuses for why we can’t do A, B or C. But if you fall in love, you create the time. You find it, magically. You expand your ability to work.

So, what are you waiting for, writers? Get out there and WRITE!

20 Reasons Why Everybody Should Write Short Stories

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Today’s guest post is by Elizabeth Sims (@ESimsAuthor). Join her on Nov. 16 for the online class Short Story Writing for Publication.

1. Short stories force you to practice economy of language as well as of plot material. Let’s see, the limit for the contest I want to enter is 2,500 words. How can I write my scenes with maximum impact and minimal words? Which of these many elements I just brainstormed on is the most compelling? Which are kind of weak? Nothing tentative or irrelevant can stay in. That’s a tremendously fun challenge.

2. A blank page is a blank page, but if you know it’s page one of 400, that’s one thing. Page one of 10 is quite another. You can have a complete draft of a short story done by teatime on Thursday!

3. You can try out different genres easily with short stories. Have you written a couple of paranormal novels, and you’re wondering what it’d be like to write an historical mystery? Write a short story! Middle-grade fiction? Give it a try! Via short story, it’s so easy to dip a toe into the unknown. You’ll see how it feels to you, how well you’ve done, whether your appetite is now satisfied—or whetted for more.

4. Apart from trying out different genres and ideas, short stories let you experiment with different forms and voices at low cost. First person? Third omniscient? Even second person? Mixed, right in one story? What the hey, give it a whirl. See how it feels.

5. When you write a short story, you’re joining a great old traditional practice, rife with imperishable names: Ray Bradbury, Katherine Anne Porter, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, Frank O’Hara, George Saunders, Joyce Carol Oates, Anton Chekhov, Flannery O’Connor, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sherman Alexie, Zora Neale Hurston.

6. Speaking of tradition, it’s easier to rip off a classic short story than a novel. Bear with me, I’m not advocating plagiarism! All I mean is, you can study a great short story for structure, and see how you might be able to mimic it with your own material.

7. If things are going poorly as you’re drafting a novel, it’s hard to abandon ship, even if you feel certain all is lost. The sunk-cost fallacy, right? Many of us have been there. But if things are going wrong in a short story, it’s much easier to toss that draft aside and figure, “Oh well, maybe I’ll get back to it someday.” Or not! You can forget about it without much angst.

I might add, the ability to throw away bad drafts is a skill in itself—a strength, really, come to think of it. You have to be strong! Because writing is emotional. We get attached to the pages we write, naturally. But if you can develop a more or less dispassionate approach when evaluating your own material—well, that’s how a professional does. A professional knows there’s more where that came from!

8. With a short story, you can go any length, from flash fiction to something in the thousands of words. If your story keeps growing, let it fly and call it a novelette or a novella. Maybe your story will keep growing all the way to novel status, who knows?

While we’re at it, here’s a general guide on length and terminology:

Micro-short story (aka flash fiction, sudden fiction, etc.): 5–100 wordsShort-short story: 100–1,000Short story: 1,000–5,000Novelette: 5,000–10,000Novella: 10,000–40,000Novel: 40,000–infinity

9. If you’re established to some extent, you can use a short story as an easy giveaway to tempt readers towards your longer works. Especially if you’ve got a few books in a series going, a short story or novelette featuring your main character can be fun to write and fun to giveaway through your website or newsletter.

10. Another thing that applies to writers of series: If you decide you want a “book zero” in order to supply backstory and whatever other goodies you’ve thought of, you don’t necessarily have to write a whole novel. A short story or novella could easily serve that purpose, and can be published quickly on any of the current digital platforms.

11. A short story is a break from the demands of a novel, which can get to feel onerous. Writing a short story in the midst of a tough slog in a novel can change your mental scenery and freshen the wind at your back.

12. You don’t need an agent to sell short stories, whether to the prestige literary magazines like the Hudson Review and Prairie Schooner, the genre specialty magazines like Suspense and Asimov’s Science Fiction, and even mainstream outlets like Harper’s and the Atlantic.

You’ll find that lots of established, big-name authors of novels like to write short fiction for magazines, so the possibility of finding yourself in good company is high.

13. There are a ton of short-story contests out there. One of my early efforts came in 12th in the Writer’s Digest contest, which gave me a huge boost in confidence. I got nothing more from it other than seeing my name and story title in the magazine, but it was a credential.

14. Short stories can be farmed out to anthologies. Sometimes an author will be asked to contribute a story to an upcoming anthology, which is cool. But you can simply get together with other writers and put together your own anthology. To make marketing easier, choose a theme for your collection. (Rather than Stories from the Hometown Writers Group, think of something like Bone Chilling Tales, or Stories of the Kitchen or suchlike.)

Another thing on collections: Even if some of your stories have been published in magazines, you can publish a group of them on your own, because magazines (generally speaking) only buy rights for their one-time use.

15. Short stories tend to be more successful at open mike reading nights than chapters from novels. The audience feels satisfied after hearing a complete little story.

16. In a similar vein, a short story is easier to bring to your critique group than a chapter from a novel. It’s a complete entity and easy for the group members to grasp and evaluate. If membership in your group is changeable, all the more so. Newbies won’t have to be brought up to speed on your novel project.

17. Short stories accommodate short attention spans and are easily translatable to the small screen, to podcasts, and to new media no one’s thought of yet.

18. You can easily publish a short story on any of the online publishing platforms. Sure, you can self-publish novels too, but publishing a short story is like running a fast market test. You can try out metadata tags, titling, supplemental material, whatever you want. Who’s reading this? Anybody leaving a review? What are they saying about it?

19. Another thing about publishing individual short stories: you can try out pseudonyms! Want to publish something vastly outside of your current wheelhouse? Want to publish a new concept anonymously? Use a pseudonym and see how it goes. I might note, lots of erotica authors use pseudonyms. Just saying.

20. Life is short. Stories are short. There’s something profound there.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, please join us on Nov. 16 for the online class Short Story Writing for Publication.