Amy Sue Nathan's Blog: Women's Fiction Writers, page 3

Day 23 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Finding Comps for Your Novel

DAY 23

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

FINDING COMPS

Many agents want you to include “comparable” novels in your query. Even agents use comps when they’re pitching your books to publishers.

This serves two purposes, it lets the agent know what to expect, and also tells her what you think of, and want for your book. Hopefully that’s the same thing.

Think about these things when looking for a comp, and consider positioning the books as ones with which you share a readership.

SETTING, VOICE, PLOT, THEME, CHARACTER

I recommend using well-known novels (and I’ve used movies). THE LAST BATHING BEAUTY was pitched as Dirty Dancing meets How to Make an American Quilt.  I have some lesser known comps in my back pocket, but these are the most recognizable, right? That’s what you want. Stoke memories. Paint pictures. Create intrigue.

Ways to find your comps:

Read often
Find beta readers who read widely
Check “also boughts” on those books’ Amazon pages
Write a kick-a$$ elevator pitch and ask a writers group if it sparks a specific thought
Watch movies set in the era and place with similar themes or plots
Consider an author’s body of work as well as just one book
Trust your gut, it’s your book

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 22 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – How Do You Research? Before, During, After?

DAY 22

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

RESEARCHING WHILE YOU’RE WRITING

In the comments the other day, Gillian asked how I integrate research into my writing process. Do I do it before, during, or after?

The answer is D. All of the above.

My first three novels required minimal research as contemporary novels set in places I’d lived or created. I certainly Googled along the way so details were accurate. And yes, I would step out of my story to research as I wrote. Did that result in some detours? Most definitely, but the immediacy worked for me as I built the story.

My fourth novel was a horse of a different color (10 points if you get the reference. Points redeemable for, well, nothing).

THE LAST BATHING BEAUTY required (requires) a significant amount of research. I started with cursory searches online, and then traveled several times where I collected memories, took photos, conducted interviews, and purchased items that would remind me of my trip. I then purchased books online, and with each book I spent time reading, highlighting, and note-taking. All this was while I was developing my story, mostly in my head. I felt I needed an education to start writing this book.

But I continued compiling research as I wrote — and took many detours to find it. I set up folders on my laptop as well as Pinterest boards, since collecting photos was most helpful to me.

I loved having access to a clothing catalog (a PDF which I purchased online) while I was writing. The time it took to find that catalog served me well, since I can access it while I’m writing to “choose” clothing for one of my characters in 1951.

I’m in the revision process now, and while I may have thought my research was done, I still double-check things, and am busy polishing and adding additional details.

My next novel will require ample research as well. My plan (should I get the go-ahead) would be to research as I create a working outline.

Hope that helps in giving you an idea for researching your own novel. My best advice is to start with what you think you’ll need most, and keep adding!

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 21 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Revising Your First Draft

 

DAY 21

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

REVISING YOUR FIRST DRAFT

I write light. That means my very first drafts are scant, and I have to go back and fill them in. I think of it like a deflated balloon that I fill with its air — more words.

I wrote about that on Writer Unboxed, a long time ago. I don’t think I’d yet signed with my first agent!

https://writerunboxed.com/2010/10/24/what-color-is-your-balloon/

I sometimes think that REVISION is the wrong word to use when working on a first draft. For me, it’s REWRITING more so than revising. My finished novels change so much from start to finish, I’m rarely “simply” revising until I’ve rewritten the novel twice. Maybe three times. But that’s me!

Whenever you’re tackling you first draft revisions I’d recommend keeping a BIG PICTURE LIST nearby and going through the manuscript to layer in your changes one or two at a time, then go back to the beginning and starting again.  For example, if you want your protagonist to be more emotional, work on that throughout. Need more conflict? Do the same. Fresher dialogue? Yep. Stronger plot points? That too.

This method allows you to keep moving and make progress with fewer chances for stalling.

When it comes to revisions think DOMINOES.

With revisions, the more things change, the more they change.

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

 

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 20 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Non-Linear Writing in Stories and in Practice

 

DAY 20

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

WRITING BACK AND FORTH AND BACK AGAIN

I’m so glad a few of you suggested topics for #30DaysofWritingAdvice. Today you can thank Terri for asking about non-linear story structure and writing practice.

I can speak best to writing practice, since I will, at times write whatever scene comes to me or that I need to figure out. I almost always write the last scene before I get to the end. That’s the way I know where I’m going. My last scene, quite honestly, sticks with me more than any other as time passes.

I think probably the best use of a non-linear writing practice is to avoid writing slumps — or what you may call writer’s block. When I’m procrastinating, or am uninspired, or frustrated, or particularly challenged with a spot in the book — I go to another spot in the story and write a scene. It inevitably gets me back on track.

Another time I wrote “out of order” was in a WFWA Donald Maass workshop. Don’t shy away from opportunities to write something different than what you’re working on in your book at that time. It allowed me to develop ideas that I’d just been thinking about.

In terms of a non-linear story-structure, my only experience right now is The Last Bathing Beauty, which has two timelines throughout the book which add up to one story. It’s not an every-other chapter structure, I basically told enough of the story in the present, to warrant filling in the story in the past. Each timeline tells its own linear story, and together it tells a bigger story. the chapters in the historical timeline don’t so much serve as flashbacks but as what makes the present day storyline possible.

I don’t know if that makes sense — and it was a bear to construct, I’ll be honest since it was building two separate stories that together told another story.

I’m staring down an editing deadline now (May 13) and if that sounds like a lot of time I assure you IT IS NOT!

If you have any questions about what might be gibberish here — just shoot me a quick question in the comments and I’ll answer.  (Of course if you concentrated, deep, advice on your story,  you can hire me!)

More post suggestions welcome, folks!

HAPPY PASSOVER & HAPPY EASTER!

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 19 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Who Do You Write For?

 

DAY 19

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

WHO DO YOU WRITE FOR?

On Day #19 here I’ll admit I Googled to see what writing advice category it might be fun to explore. I tend to skew to the actual WRITING here, which I now realize is uncommon. Most of what I found is more like GO YOU and BUTT IN CHAIR and DON’T GIVE UP. All great stuff but NOT what I was looking for. I have ELEVEN more days of this project and it might as well be  A THOUSAND so help me out and tell me what you want to know!

What I did find online is advice I disagree with. Shocker.

Someone suggested writing for the reader and not for yourself.

Since I am my own ideal reader, I disagree. I also disagree because you can’t write a book (in my opinion) to please an unknown entity with unknown baggage. I write for myself because frankly, I am not egotistical enough to think I am unique. If something interests me, resonates with me, it likely is going to do the same for someone else somewhere. I’m not so different from you or you or you.

I also don’t write to teach a less or express a moral. It’s not wrong if you do, but I’d find it exhausting. I write to tell a story and to untangle things for myself. Again, I’m probably not unique. If I like it, someone else probably will too. Of course I want readers. I want lots and lots of readers, but it’s not the reason I sit down to write. It’s also not because I have to or I have a muse or a calling. I like to write because it’s hard work that challenges me and when I’m done I have a freaking book!

Ok, not your normal writing advice post but it’s what I’ve got today.

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 18 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Creating Kicka$$ Secondary Characters

 

DAY 18

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

Creating Kicka$$ Secondary Characters

Keep these tips in mind when creating your secondary characters.

Secondary characters (not townspeople) must have their own arc.
BUT, they are in the novel in service to your protagonist’s story as well as to themselves.

Here are a few ways you might look at secondary characters for women’s fiction, specifically–as an antagonist, confidant, sidekick, supporter. I’m sure there are more, but that’s what pops to mind before coffee! Have any to add?

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 17 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – An Emotional Checklist

 

DAY 17

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

Emotions You Can Relate To

When writing women’s fiction — or any kind of fiction — you want to tap into emotions. How better to get your reader to turn the page, right? Here’s a list of emotions you can peruse to see if any hit the sweet spot for your characters.

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

 

Praise Moses and Pass The Matzah: A Passover Primer

Passover 2019 begins Friday night, April 19th. This post is really old but so is the holiday.

The Easter Bunny and his entourage are back at the mall, and that means one thing to me.

Passover is coming.

Passover, the eight day celebration of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt, is my favorite Jewish holiday, although I’m not sure why. It entails cleaning and more cleaning and then cleaning some more, and that is my least favorite thing to do. It also involves macaroons, so perhaps that explains it.

In Hebrew, Passover is Pesach — PAY-SACH. The end of the word is that Jewish guttural throat roll that sounds like you’re a cat with a hairball. It does not sound like the “k” in Saks or the “ch” in, chosen, as in — people. But I digress.

The first order of business in my household when I’m getting ready for Passover is to plan a Seder (SAY-der). A Seder is the holiday meal that revolves around the retelling of the Passover story through symbol, prayer, song and food. Think Thanksgiving on steroids but without the stuffing. I invite friends who are like family and we sit around the table and squeeze an otherwise four hour long ordeal into a modified fifteen minute yet comprehensive poetic version of the Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston without any love affairs or Technicolor. It goes something like this…they tried to annihilate us, we whipped ’em, let’s eat.

During the planning process, I am also faced with the quandary of how to best observe the entire holiday, not just the Seder part. While I don’t change dishes or buy all foods that are “Kosher for Passover,” many Jewish families do. But, during the eight days we do not eat bread or anything that has obviously “risen” and in my house that’s basically just bread, cake or anything we deem to be fluffed up. My own internal debate as to whether Oreos without the middle are flat enough to be eaten on Passover is as of yet, unresolved.

To make room for Passover foods in the house and for the holiday, in our heads, we begin by eating all the chametz (it’s the “ch” sound again), or leavened products in the house. Certainly we could sell it all for a dollar, as is customary, to a non-Jew, but eating it is more fun. We then perform the ritual dusting with the feather to ensure that all the chametz crumbs are gone from the house. The problem is, in my cabinets we need a full feather duster. In Passover as in life, every family has their own rules.

With the cabinets cleaned, the shopping ensues. I arrive home from the grocery store with boxes of matzah, matzah meal, matzah farfel, matzah flour, matzah cake mix and a case of macaroons. I store it all on top of our spare refrigerator in the laundry room right in front of the leftover matzah from 2006, 2005 and 2004. Matzah lasts forever.

And while some of that (new) matzah packed in my kids’ lunches might spark comments among their classmates, I always include extra, because it seems to be the hit of the cafeteria every year.

It’s a time when my kids wear their religion on their sleeve, so to speak. They share a bit of Jewish culture at the lunch table where their friends can taste it, for real. That’s the reminder in one full swoop that they’re different and the same, at the very same time. They’re sharing bland and binding crackers, but part of a rich and colorful heritage of which they are both educated, and proud – and then they go off math class.

Even when I make light of it, it’s pretty heavy duty.

The fact that my kids know what to expect, and therefore, expect it, is very reassuring. They remind me about everything from making homemade matzah to the Passover mac ‘n cheese to our aversion to gefilte fish to who gets to search for the Afikomen (a hidden piece of matzah) during the Seder to the silly props on the holiday table to a debate on why or why not beans or pasta or rice are eaten on Passover.

So I guess the best part of Passover, aside from the macaroons, is the unfailing recurrence of every part of it every year, making it a week filled with our own family traditions.

And for me, that’s enough, or as we say at the Seder—Dayenu!

(Originally published on Imperfect Parent years ago when my kids lived at home and I was bit more ambitious with holidays. This year, it’s me, the dogs, and vegetarian matzah ball soup! Also, my new fave—homemade macaroons!)

EDITED TO ADD: I now live in Philadelphia and am more flexitarian than vegetarian. I still make macaroon and a killer peach kugel!

Amy xo

 

Day 16 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – Endings that aren’t The End

 

DAY 16

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

Endings In the Middle

Have I gone crazy? NO! I’m talking about endings of scenes and chapters and how it’s our nature to want to wrap them up neatly.

DON’T YOU DARE.

When you’re coming to the end of a scene or chapter, keep in mind your reader won’t keep reading unless you give her no choice. I like the word cliffhanger but I don’t mean it in a literal literary sense.  Just try leaving enough off, or leading the reader enough to make it that she is drawn to what’s next. Not just curious — compelled.

You know that “one more chapter” feeling you get when you’re reading? THAT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. Everything in a good book is INTENTIONAL.

SEE YOU TOMORROW!

Amy xo

WANT ME AS YOUR PRIVATE WRITING COACH?

Day 15 – 30 Days of Writing Advice – When Writing Is Taxing

 

DAY 15

This month of daily writing advice will include tidbits, tips, and sometimes tricks. This isn’t a replacement for editing or book coaching, it’s meant as a jumping off point for exploration and thought! I hope it helps! ~Amy

Amy xo

When Writing is Taxing

I love my jobs as an author, editor, and writing coach. Oh, and workshop instructor.

But when I was under deadline to finish my manuscript by April 1 (a good problem to have) I worked 10 hours a day usually 7 days a week for three months. I had a lot to do and not a helluva lotta time.

Now I’m diving into edits for and I have 28 more days for my first round.

So what kind of advice do I have that I try to follow myself?

Take breaks. That’s right. To move forward sometimes you have to STOP. 

When I was deep in the writing process, I programmed my Alexa device to remind me every hour to take a ten minute break. Did I always do it? Nope! But sometimes I did and it was more often than I would have without the reminders.

My situation may be unusual. I live only with my dog Mitzi, so while I do have to walk her she’s not a spouse or a child. Those walks are longer than a 14 year old dog’s,  if memory serves.