Tudor Robins's Blog, page 33

Backstory and Starting in the Right Place

In some ways, these are two separate topics but, for the purposes of this post, I want to address them together. I hope it will all make sense to you by the end!

So, backstory. The books I read as a kid were all about the backstory. If you’ve read The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden, you know what I mean. Those first few pages that always told you everybody’s name and age and hair colour and how they came to be in the story. I’m not dissing these stories – without them I would have run out of books to read! – but I did start to skip those parts of the books pretty early on.

I was recently interviewed for my local paper (yay! Kitchissippi Times!) and the writer, Denise, asked me about backstory. My answer was that I believe we should get to know characters in a book the way we get to know new people in our lives. Generally, this is slowly, gradually and naturally. First we’re introduced, so we know their name. If it’s somebody in a school / activity setting, we might then find out who their kids are. After some time we might find out where they live or what their job is. After a while of knowing them, they may start to reveal some personal opinions – maybe they strike up a conversation about Senate reform … or the Senators – either way, very telling. Then, usually after some significant time / acquaintance, if they’re going to be a friend, we might get to know something difficult about them. Their child has a learning disability. They have experienced a significant illness. They’re in the process of separating from their spouse.

This is the way most real relationships develop. And in this way, we gradually form opinions about that person. Sometimes, with a certain revelation, we may modify our opinion about that person. I think, as much as possible, we should get to know characters in a book in the same way, and, it’s important for writers to let the reader get to know the characters – form their own opinions and change them as the story grows.

A few weeks ago I bookmarked a Q&A piece with the writers of The Good Wife. I really enjoy this show. I think the writing is fascinating, so I was interested to see what the writers had to say. This question, in particular interested me:

Can we get some backstory as to what exactly Alicia and Will had at Georgetown and why she fell for Peter?

And the answer was, I thought, really instructive:

Well … the backstory exists. The only way we can write characters is to know what happened to them. But the backstory is boring without some dramatic rationale for its regurgitation. It needs a pressing need within the plot. To use an example: There was a lot of what you might call backstory in the John Noble episode about his character, but what made it not play as backstory was that there was a pressing need for it: Alicia needed to review her time with John Noble to find out who the killer was.

They also go on to point out that, if they tell you the backstory now – just for the sake of it, but before it’s essential to the forward momentum of the story – then it’s done. It is what it is. The term they use is that it’s “baked” into the story. Then, in the future, if they ever need to make a different twist or turn, they either always need to be faithful to the backstory already revealed, or they have to ignore it and change it, which soap operas don’t seem to mind doing but isn’t really the hallmark of great storytelling (and readers / viewers tend to find it annoying and disingenuous). Something to keep in mind if you think your story might ever be a series. You might want that leeway down the road.

Turns out this backstory post alone is long enough without me getting into “Starting in the Right Place” today. I’ll pick that up in a later post and reference back to this one.

Today’s recommended takeaway? “Backstory is boring without some dramatic rationale for its regurgitation” – courtesy of the minds behind The Good Wife.

 

 

Yes and no … continued

This week Carrie Snyder wrote a blog post based on an article about creativity. The gist of it is that truly creative people say no to things so they have time for their creativity.

Carrie said she was annoyed by this article and I was too. I was going to write a response in Carrie’s comments but I realized I had far too much to say so here goes.

There seems to be a myth these days that creativity is a delicate creature. It requires constant nurturing. We must be quiet and tiptoe around it.

Creative people ditto. There are blogs I can’t even look at because they throw around words like “nurture” and “support” and “gather” with a liberal sprinkling of “energy” and, I’m sorry, but that’s just not for me. If it works for you – great. Fantastic. Seriously, go for it. But I’m of the “just do it” school of thought.

Maybe it’s about getting a journalism degree instead of an MFA. Maybe I don’t know what it is. But I don’t think I – or my “art” – is a fragile thing. I don’t think we can be snuffed out that easily.

I think it’s essential to get out and do things. Collect creativity fodder. Living life is a bellows for being creative. You need to see, do, hear, think, experience things to have something worth saying. This I do believe.

That’s why, this morning, I stopped writing, left my laptop and rode my bike up to my sons’ school. Because Spartacat was visiting! Holy heck, this was one cool assembly.

* as an aside - for all those parents who think they are too busy, or important or just above the rules to sign into the school – SPARTY signed in. That’s right; I scrawled my name on the visitor sign-in sheet right under Sparty’s. Fantastic! *

I didn’t stay long. I didn’t see the whole thing. But I saw all the kids run up and press their faces to the glass in the gym doors. I saw them file in with their classes. I saw the teachers all wearing red and black and even rigging up some pretty passable maternity Sens wear (seriously, there is some pregnancy going on in our school – I’m afraid to drink the water).

I saw Spartacat run in and pump up those kids and I listened to them yell “GO, SENS, GO!” and it was great.

And if I don’t use that – or a little piece of it – in something I write in the future, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.

So I say YES to creativity and to doing stuff and to living life. YES.

(although there are some, specific, things to be said no to and maybe I’ll address that in another post)

 

The Official Move

Objects in Mirror now exists as an actual entity, a book, a thing you can hold and read.

And so it’s time to complete the move to making this the official site for all things OIM.

It will look a little different when you visit it from now on. Some people love change, and some hate it and some just need a while to get used to it.

The thing I like is that there are many, many new things to check out and read on the new site.

So, please, click around. Explore. Tell other people about it if you like.

I’ll still be blogging, but the blog won’t be the first thing you see. However, you can click to it, and we think if you’ve been subscribed to it, new posts will still come to you. Also, you now have two ways to come to the site, the existing www.tudorrobins.ca or, also,  www.objectsinmirror.ca.

See you on the other side!

 

Book Trailer

I have a book trailer! And you can view it on YouTube. I hope it makes you want to read the book…

Now, of course, there’s a story behind this trailer and some of you may want to hear it. Some of you may want to make your own book trailer. So here goes.

(1) In the beginning

I never thought I’d have a book trailer. It seemed like those were for other people. People with big, fancy publishers who can throw marketing / promotion dollars around. Or people whose husbands / children / close relations or friends have video expertise and can do this stuff for free.

But the thought was there, niggling in my brain. What if I could have one? What if it was possible? I’ve heard lots of kids in the age group this book is targeted at talking about book trailers.

I decided it was worth exploring so I did what people like me do – mothers, writers, school volunteers - we ask for help. I asked some savvy friends for help.

I got lots of support and many ideas, and I got referred to Souad Daou. Talk about a stroke of luck.

(2) Moving forward

Neither Souad, nor I, had ever created a book trailer but Souad had all the relevant technical and creative expertise, and I’d written the book so, in theory, we were the two most qualified novices to tackle this project.

It took quite a while just to get going. I watched many, many book trailers and liked some, while I found others looked unprofessional. Many were too long. Many trailers used techniques I felt would be overreaching for our budget. The idea of actually shooting our own video was out, as far as I was concerned. If you’re not a pro it’s just too easy for that to look “wrong” and, also, I don’t (personally) like trailers where an actor plays any of the characters, as I feel it takes away the reader’s privilege to have that person look just as they imagine them in their head.

So Souad kept asking “what do you want it to look like?” and I kept saying “I’m not sure” and sending her a ridiculous number of links to book trailers I liked – all of which were completely different one from the other.

(3) Gathering momentum

I finally found a book trailer I really liked that I actually thought we could do! So now I had some guidance for Souad. We figured out a series of linked images would work fine. We were on our way!

So these were the steps:

Write a script. As if writing a synopsis of my book, and then a shorter synopsis, and then a longer synopsis, and numerous summaries, all different lengths, for the website and for flyers, etc., etc., wasn’t enough, I now had to write a script. Nothing to do but get it done. In case you’re interested, it’s 58 words long. Yup, 58. That’s it.
Find music. Actually I had found the music before I even met Souad. My friend Debora recommended getting royalty-free music from a site like Triple Scoop and it really didn’t take long for me to find the perfect piece of music there. It really set the tone for the whole trailer so it was great to have it early on.
Find images. Both Souad and I shopped iStockphoto for these and, at the same time, Lynn was looking for images to use on the website. In the end we were able to use almost all the images on both the website and for the trailer, and I found a discount code online, so I got all my images for just over $100.
Let Souad do her thing! This is where I knew I needed help. The trailer looks simple when you view it, but Souad had to link those images together, run the text over them, line up the music and do a million small things I can’t even imagine. It’s amazing what goes into a 45-second trailer!

I was very impressed the first time I saw it – and that was without the music. But I could also immediately see where certain things weren’t working; many of them around my script. What looks right on paper, doesn’t necessarily look right standing alone against an image.

The other learning curve was around rights / licenses, etc. Souad and I were both very cognizant of wanting to use the music and images in a legal, ethical manner. Even though we paid for them, we weren’t always sure of the details of the wording in the contracts. The good news is both Triple Scoop and iStock were incredibly fast at getting back to us to clarify that, yes, our use of the work was covered under their licensing agreements and to wish us good luck on the project. I was impressed with the customer service at both places.

(4) The Finished Product

We went back, and forth, and back, and forth. Finally we just needed the cover image. We got that and Souad dropped it into place and it was done!

Then Lynn uploaded it to YouTube for me and now you may view it…

I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about the book trailer process, or to hear about your experience making a book trailer (or even just watching trailers!).

 

 

 

More On Agents

I’ve talked before about my decision to remain unagented and why I’m happy with it. Today I got an email making me want to expand on a specific aspect of the agented / unagented debate.

First, to take a step back, if you read as many publishing / literary blogs as I do, you’ll know there’s a raging debate out there about getting an agent / not getting an agent. This debate is pretty much on par with the traditionally publish / self-publish debate. It’s not always polite – it’s not even always accurate – but it is a hot topic.

And an interesting thing has happened – very recently too (from my perspective) – in the face of all the questioning, analysis and – yes – attacks, agents are beginning to make an attempt to justify their existence / place in the publishing process.

Major disclaimer – unless otherwise stated here, I’m talking in generalities. I’m not talking about this or that fantastic (or terrible) agent – I’m talking about my personal, and general, impressions of the landscape.

So, this justifying feels new to me. And, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. The first time I looked around at agents, too many agencies had a basic message along the lines of, ”We’re very busy, we’re quite important, you aren’t likely to find representation through us but, if you really want to, you can try.”

At the time I remember thinking “Good for you if you have enough clients, so if you really don’t want any new ones, just say so.”

(Again, disclaimer, some agencies / individual agents were very welcoming / polite / professional but I felt they were the exceptions.)

And, now, we see agents publicly stating why they’re still relevant and why writers should seek representation. It’s an interesting change.

The latest of statements was the one I mentioned above – the one that arrived in my inbox this morning. This is from a person who I have come to deeply admire and respect and who seems to me to be, not only incredibly business-savvy, but to love books and to genuinely want to help people. I’ve mentioned her many times before on this blog – her name is Rachelle Gardner and you can read the post in question here.

However. I can’t agree with Rachelle on one particular aspect of her post. I may or may not agree with the other points she makes, but the one I really take issue with, is the explanation of the benefits of having an agent for writers who have already secured a publisher. Rachelle says, even if you already have a publisher in place, you can still use help talking to your publisher about:

writing your book,
dealing with several rounds of editing
having your book cover designed
possibly having your title changed
promoting your book in cooperation with the publisher’s marketing department
launching your book

Rachelle makes the case for an agent being the go-between / facilitator / contact for all these issues. Which, maybe (depending on your personality) sounds nice. Except, is it worth 15 per cent of what you’ll earn from the book? Think about it. To some people, it may be – good for you – as long as you go in with your eyes open, that’s great. For me it definitely isn’t.

Let’s take just one example out of this list – the book cover issue. This is one lots of writers worry about and some end up very unhappy with their covers. Here’s the story of my cover.

1) A loooong time ago, when Red Deer first expressed interest in my manuscript, I started doing my research on them. I asked my local children’s librarian about them. I read many of their books. I learned all I could about the people who worked there. I felt their vision was in line with my vision. When it came time to sign a contract with them, I trusted them – not because of blind instinct, but based on research – to edit, create and design a book we’d all be proud of. I also understood that, bottom line, I didn’t have the final say on my cover and I was OK with that – it was part of my decision when publishing traditionally.

2) I saw the first version of my cover. I loved it. I really did. As I suspected, Red Deer’s design esthetic was in line with mine. But there was a small technicality in the image they had used that made it somewhat inaccurate. So – what to do? Grin and bear it? Fall to pieces? Ask somebody else to deal with it (keeping in mind, I’d first have to explain the technical inaccuracy to that person so they could, in turn, relay it to my publisher)? No, I …

3) … emailed my publisher! What a concept. I explained what I just said above – love it, small issue, suggested solutions, etc.

4) They fixed it. If they hadn’t, I could have lived with it. But they did. Yay!

That was not worth 15 per cent of my proceeds on this book. In fact, that interaction was rewarding and helped cement my relationship with my publisher.

Of course, that’s just one example and maybe I have the world’s only reasonable publisher, and so on and so forth. Still, for me, I’ll say if you have some basic professional skills (and I assume if you’ve secured a publisher on your own, you do) and if you have some basic writing skills (and I assume, if you’ve written a book, you do), I think you can actually talk to your publisher directly about issues of concern and you don’t need to pay an agent to do that for you.

The other part of this is the assumption that every agent is a good negotiator and every agent is professional and, while I very much believe Ms. Gardner and many others like her, are, not every agent is. You want to be very, very careful who represents you. Only you own your image, but somebody working on your behalf can ruin it for you.

Here are a couple of thoughts I have if you have already managed to get your work published yourself but you feel you might like some help:

A) Ask an agent if he will lower his fee for this particular project. Unlike unplaced projects where the agent is taking a chance, if you have a deal lined up, the agent knows she will be getting a cut. In that case, I think it’s reasonable to suggest a 7.5 or 10 per cent fee, rather than the standard 15. Of course, if the agent represents future projects, which still need to be placed, you can negotiate a separate fee for those.

B) Hire somebody you trust and pay them for the work you need done. Figure out exactly what you need support with and hire an outside firm, family member, or somebody you find and interview, to do that work for you. Pay them fairly per task or by the hour. Then you know how much of their effort / attention you’re getting. An agent has many, many, many other clients and has many other things to worry about. This is why when Ms. Gardner says “An agented author is never alone on this publishing journey,” I have to respectfully disagree. Rachelle Gardner’s clients may never be alone, but I know several agented authors who find it easier to reach their publisher than their agent. If you want direct accountability, hiring somebody yourself may be the answer.

I could talk about this all day, but this post is already too long. If you have thoughts or questions, please share them in the comments!

 

A Great Way to Start the Morning

A post in which I write nothing about writing…

This morning marked the start of our school’s spring KM Club.

And, yes, this means I have to get the kids out of the house 40 minutes earlier than usual – which is a pain. But…

I’m always, always, reminded how worthwhile it is. Starting with our crossing guard who shows up early (like me, 40 mins early) to safely cross the gaggle of kids who head up to school early for KM club. Thank you crossing guard!

To all the parent volunteers who don terribly unattractive safety vests and line the sidewalk around the school yard as well as standing at the Start / Finish line to mark laps on hands with washable markers and sign kids out after the run is over. Thank you parent volunteers!

To Mme. H who always, and every week, walks with the kids through the laps – they love it. Thank you Mme. H!

To the kids who nearly kill themselves before school – competing with one another and with themselves – some rack up seven or eight marks which, on our .5 K course means up to four kilometres run before school. Also to the kids who amble along and chat with their friends. Thank you runners!

KM Club is an initiative started a couple of years ago at our school, and one I highly recommend to other schools. The benefits are myriad, and I will forget some, but here are a few:

Everyone is welcome. JK to Grade 8. No try-outs. No cuts. Friends run together. Siblings run together. Parents often run with their children.
Including his walk to school, my son had logged 3K before school started today. Pretty good.
Kids get to school on time! This isn’t a huge problem at our school, but if yours has a lateness issue, having a reason for kids to be on the premises early is useful.
Minimal investment required. Some markers. Some clipboards. Vests or even bright tape would do. Mostly parent volunteer time.
Teachers can use KM Club in their classes. In fact, just this morning my son’s teacher (the above mentioned Mme. H) looked at the marks on his hand, said “If you have five and the course is .5K, how far did you run?” Often the collective kilometres are tallied and the kids’ progress marked out on a map. One year we tried to complete Terry Fox’s marathon. Lots of ways to link running to learning.
Many extra-curriculars piggyback on KM Club. Cross-country and track, for example, will hold two practices per week then require participants to also do KM Club.

Try it! You might like it…

 

What’s new?

I’m writing a new book, that’s what.

And, as the lyrics on my friend Debora Dekok‘s website say, “I’m in my moon phase, my pink days …” - I’m in love with this project.

It has me happy, dreamy, inspired and excited.

This is how good things are with this project right now; I have The Fault in Our Stars sitting right here, in my very house, waiting for me, and I’ve been waiting to read it, and I’m sure I’ll adore it, but I haven’t started it because my current project is giving me everything I need.

I’m posting this now so I can come back and remember feeling this way when I’ve sent this project out for critique and have received a seventeen-page revision letter that I have to somehow make good on.

It’s always good to remember it started with love.

My Music at Work

I am not musical. I can’t play an instrument. I tried to play the flute in grade 7 and could never get a sound out of it. My music teacher was very kind and kept insisting I must have a “bad” flute, and urging me to sign out another. I knew it wasn’t the flute(s) and, eventually, I wished he would just admit it as well.

As for my singing, well, let’s just say it’s great when I’m the only one listening. A (very long-ago) boyfriend once told me he knew he was starting to like me because he didn’t even mind when I sang along to the radio in the car.

So, musical – no. Influenced by music – absolutely. Immensely. Music can make or break my day and the right music definitely makes me want to write.

I can’t listen to music while I write. I really prefer not to have any other noise around me when I write. But it does help if I get a chance to listen to music I love at regular intervals.

So, what’s on my writing playlist? To keep this post to a reasonable length, I’m going to focus fully and completely (get it?) on bands / singers I love 100 per cent – can listen to any of their songs at any time, and they will always inspire me. There are many, many, many individual songs by countless different singers I also adore, but, you know, I don’t have all day to write this post.

Here’s my list:

No surprise – anyone who’s read this blog for any length of time will know I adore, worship, bow down to The Hip. Everything about The Tragically Hip makes me happy. The lyrics (even when I don’t completely understand them), the music underlying them, and Gord Downie’s voice. Aaah … Gord Downie’s voice. Their latest album – Now For Plan A – was released the same week I got my first round of edits back on Objects in Mirror and that CD became the soundtrack to my revisions. Particularly “We Want to Be It”. I played that track over and over, and it reminded me not to be half-assed about my edits. To jump in, not hold anything back, throw out whatever needed to be thrown out and re-write. The ferocity of Gord Downie’s “Drip, drip, drip” fired me up over and over again.

Sarah Harmer. There’s definitely a Kingston theme here. I love Sarah Harmer. I love Sarah Harmer singing with The Hip on “Now For Plan A”. I love Sarah Harmer’s smart, strong lyrics and I love her haunting voice.

Catherine McLellan and, here, particularly I’m going to reference Church Bell Blues. Every single song on this album wraps me up, carries me away and makes me want to write, write, write.

There are more. There are so many more but I’m going to end, for today, with Jimmy George. Jimmy George was not just a band – it was a time and a place in my life. Jimmy George was being able to go down to the Duke of Somerset, pretty much any night and know at least half the people there. Jimmy George was having the time of my life (or one of them) and not even knowing it until it was all over. I remember dancing on the street, under the stars, outside the Duke on a warm summer night – I don’t even know if it was a Jimmy George night, but the memory of their music is all wrapped up in my memory of that evening. I remember seeing Jimmy George play in Deep River. I have no idea how seriously the guys in the band took their music. They mostly seemed to be having fun with it – and their fans – but they wrote some killer lyrics. Every single time a Jimmy George song comes up on my iPod, there’s at least one line that makes me shake my head with the cleverness of it. To pick just one track, “My Final Days With You“, always brings a smile to my face. I mean, who doesn’t want to hear someone say they hope they spend their final days with you?

So, two questions for you this week:

1) Does anyone else out there have any Jimmy George memories to share?

2) What’s on your writing playlist?