It's Fall - do you know what your next book is?

by Alexandra Sokoloff

 Fall is my favorite season. Maybe it’s that Halloween thing, maybe it’s the “back to school” energy, maybe it’s the Santa Ana winds that were so much a part of my life growing up in Southern California that I made them a character in The Space Between, maybe it’s just that you get a jolt of ambition because it gets cooler and your brain returns to some functional temperature.  

Because it’s sort of ingrained in us (whether we like it or not), that fall is the beginning of a new school year, I think fall is a good time for making resolutions.  Like, about that new book you’re going to be writing for the next year or so. 

Myself, I have so many books to finish right now that I can’t let myself think about any new ones until I get at least ONE more done.  I’ve taken the idea of multitasking to a near-suicidal extreme.  But I’m not complaining – not only do I have a job, I have my dream job. 

However, given what I blog and teach about, I am aware that this is a perfect time for OTHER people to be thinking about THEIR new books.  Because, you know, it’s September, but November will be here before you know it.

I’m sure many if not most here are aware that November is Nanowrimo – National Novel Writing Month.  As explained at the official site here, and here and here, the goal of Nanowrimo is to bash through 50,000 words of a novel in a  single month.  

I could not be more supportive of this idea – it gives focus and a nice juicy competitive edge to an endeavor that can seem completely overwhelming when you’re facing it all on your own.   Through peer pressure and the truly national focus on the event, Nanowrimo forces people to commit.    It’s easy to get caught up in and carried along by the writing frenzy of tens of thousands – or maybe by now hundreds of thousands - of  “Wrimos”.  And I’ve met and heard of lots of novelists, like Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) Sara Gruen (Water For Elephants), and Lisa Daily (The Dreamgirl Academy) who started novels during Nanowrimo that went on to sell, sometimes sell big.

Nanowrimo works.  

But as everyone who reads this blog knows, I’m not a big fan of sitting down and typing Chapter One at the top of a blank screen and seeing what comes out from there.   It may be fine – but it may be a disaster, or something even worse than a disaster – an unfinished book.  And it doesn’t have to be.

I’m always asked to do Nanowrimo “pep talks”.   These are always in the month of November. 

That makes no sense to me.

I mean, I’m happy to do it, but mid-November is way too late for that kind of thing. What people should be asking me, and other authors that they ask to do Nano support, is Nano PREP talks.

If you’re going to put a month aside to write 50,000 words, doesn’t it make a little more sense to have worked out the outline, or at least an overall roadmap, before November 1?   I am pretty positive that in most cases far more writing, and far more professional writing, would get done in November if Wrimos took the month of October – at LEAST -  to really think out some things about their story and characters, and where the whole book is going.   It wouldn’t have to be the full-tilt-every-day frenzy that November will be, but even a half hour per day in October, even fifteen minutes a day, thinking about what you really want to be writing would do your potential novel worlds of good.

But you know what?   Even if you never look at that prep work again, your brilliant subconscious mind will have been working on it for you for a whole month.   (Cause let’s face it – we don’t do this mystical thing called writing all by ourselves, now, do we?).

So here’s my topic for the day, and possibly for my next blog as well:

How do you choose the next book you write?

I know, I know, it chooses you.   That’s a good answer, and sometimes it IS the answer, but it’s not the only answer.  And let’s face it – just like with, well, men, sometimes the one who chooses you is NOT the one YOU should be choosing.  What makes anyone think it’s any different with books? 

It’s a huge commitment, to decide on a book to write. That’s a minimum of six months of your life just getting it written, not even factoring in revisions and promotion. You live in that world for a long, long time.  Not only that, but if you're a professional writer, you're pretty much always going to be having to work on more than one book at a time.  You're writing a minimum of one book while you're editing another and always doing promotion for a third.  

So the book you choose to write is not just going to have to hold your attention for six to twelve months with its world and characters, but it's going to have to hold your attention while you're working just as hard on another or two or three other completely different projects at the same time.   You're going to have to want to come back to that book after being on the road touring a completely different book and doing something that is both exhausting and  almost antithetical to writing (promotion).

That's a lot to ask of a story.

So how does that decision process happen? 

When on panels or at events, I have been asked, “How do you decide what book you should write?” I have not so facetiously answered: “I write the book that someone writes me a check for.”

That’s maybe a screenwriter thing to say, and I don’t mean that in a good way, but it’s true, isn’t it?

Anything that you aren’t getting a check for you’re going to have to scramble to write, steal time for – it’s just harder. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, or that it doesn’t produce great work, but it’s harder. 

As a professional writer, you’re also constricted to a certain degree by your genre, and even more so by your brand. I’m not allowed to turn in a chick lit story, or a flat-out gruesome horrorfest, or probably a spy story, either. Once you’ve published you are a certain commodity.  

If you are writing a series, you're even more restricted.  You have a certain amount of freedom about your situation and plot but – you’re going to have to write the same characters, and if your characters live in a certain place, you’re also constricted by place.  Now that I’m doing a couple of paranormal series, I am learning that every decision is easier in a way, because so many elements are already defined, but it’s also way more limiting than my standalones and I could see how it would get frustrating.

Input from your agent is key, of course - you are a team and you are shaping your career together. Your agent will steer you away from projects that are in a genre that is glutted, saving you years of work over the years, and s/he will help you make all kinds of big-pitcure decisions.

But what I’m really interested in today is not the restrictions but the limitless possibilities. 

How DO you decide what to write?

And even more importantly – How do you decide what to READ?  

Because I have a theory that it’s actually the same answer, but we’ll see.

Happy Fall, everyone!

- Alex

The Central Action of a story

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I haven't written a craft post in a long time, it feels like.   Actually, I wonder if craft posts annoy a lot of the Murderati readers.   Sometimes you all seem much more interested in the angst posts.  I like that about this place; it's better than therapy.   Notheless, I'm all out of angst for the moment and am reverting to craft.

As I've posted here before, I'm not one of those readers who feels any obligation to finish a book I've started.   In fact, I very often sit down to read with ten or twelve books in front of me, and read the first few chapters of each before I settle on the one to read.    Much like an agent or editor, I'm sure.    If I like the opening, or the plot description, I'll give it a few chapters.   If not - discard.   On to the next.  

This is a great way to get through that pesky TBR pile, as you can imagine.

Now, this is a useful exercise for authors and aspiring authors, on a whole lot of levels.

First, it really does put you in the shoes, or chair, and mindset, of an editor or agent.  Do you really think an editor or agent, with their hundreds of TBRs a week, is giving anything their full attention (unless it's an auction, and their job depends on making the right decision about a particular book)?  

Of course they're not.   They'll start giving a book their full attention for the very same reasons YOU would - because it's their genre, it's a subject or arena that they're interested in personally, and it's well-written enough to suck them into the story.   The first two reasons are completely subjective, nothing you can do about that.   The third is completely within your control.

But - it's important for aspiring authors who are in the midst of the submission process to remember that a lot of book choice is purely, completely subjective.   And if you keep in mind that a lot, in fact most, editors and agents will discard your book simply because it doesn't appeal to them personally, you can both detach yourself from the trauma of being rejected (which you will be, repeatedly) and understand why you almost always have to make SO many submissions to score an agent and a publishing deal.

This read-and-discard exercise is also good for published authors.   It reminds me that all over the world people are doing the same thing with MY books - I get a few seconds to win them, minutes if I'm lucky, and am just as likely to be discarded as not.   More likely, actually.   For me, it's a big reminder that my most likely readers are going to be my REPEAT readers - the ones who will give me more than a few cursory seconds, who are actually looking for my books because they already know they like the genre I write in, the characters and story worlds I create, and the themes I explore.   That's a good thing to remember in a marketing sense, too, I think: Serve your core audience first.

And of course a main reason to do this is to remind yourself what hooks you about a book.   Which is going to be different for different people.   But what hooks YOU is likely to be what hooks the agent and editor you end up with, and subsequently your readers. 

It can be style, it can be suspense, it can be sex, it can be action, it can be narrative voice, it can be a character's voice... for some people it's a first line (that would not be me, I couldn't care less about the first line of a book, and in fact have been known to discard books on the basis of a too-cute or trying-too-hard first line.    I do care about the opening IMAGE.).

But if I'm liking the way a book goes enough to keep going through a chapter or two, I'll tell you the next thing that is absolutely crucial to keep me reading.

I need to know pretty quickly where the plot is going.  I want to know the author knows, and I want the author one way or another to tell me, so that I know there's a direction to all this, and I can relax and let the author take me there.    If I don't get that within the first few chapters, I get uneasy that the author has no idea where the story is going, and I toss the book.   It makes me crazy.

When I teach writing workshops, I find this is one of the hardest things for new writer to grasp.   In fact it is very, very often nearly impossible to get a new writer to describe the overall action of their story in a sentence or two.  Sometimes this is because there IS no driving action, which - in genre fiction, anyway -  is a huge problem.   But sometimes there's a perfectly clear action of the storyline, the writer just hasn't realized what it is.   Once they are able to identify it, a whole lot of extraneous scenes often can get cut, or brought into line with the action of the story, creating much more tension and suspense.

So this is why I use movies so much to teach these concepts - first because they're a more common frame of reference; there are almost always so many more movies that everyone in a room has seen than books that they have read in common.   But also because movies are a stripped-down form of storytelling and it's easier to remember and identify the main plot actions.

Last week I ended up watching 2012 (okay, so I'm a little behind).

Now, I’m sure in a theater this movie delivered on its primary objective, which was a rollercoaster ride as only Hollywood special effects can provide.   I was watching it primarly because I love apocalypse settings and John Cusack, not necessarily in that order.   But this is a movie I most likely would have walked out on in a theater, I'm definitely not recommending it, just found it a good illustration of some concepts I am always talking about.

I’m not going to be critical (except to say I was shocked and disturbed at some of the overt cruelty that went on in what was supposedly a family movie), because whether we like it or not, there is obviously a MASSIVE worldwide audience for movies that are primarily about delivering pure sensation. Story isn’t important, nor, apparently, is basic logic. As long as people keep buying enough tickets to these movies to make them profitable, it’s the business of Hollywood to keep churning them out.

But even in this rollercoaster ride of special effects and sensations, there was a clear central PLAN for an audience to hook into, a CENTRAL ACTION that drove the story. Without that plan, 2012 really would have been nothing but a chaos of special effects - as a lot of movies these days are.

PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION (which I've talked about before, here and here) are integrally related, and I keep looking for ways to talk about it because this is such an important concept to get.

If you’ve seen this movie (and I know some of you have…), there is a point in the first act where a truly over-the-top Woody Harrelson as an Art Bell-like conspiracy pirate radio commentator rants to protagonist John Cusack about having a map that shows the location of “spaceships” that the government is stocking to abandon planet when the prophesied end of the world commences.

Although Cusack doesn’t believe it at the time, this is the PLANT (sort of camouflaged by the fact that Woody is a nutjob), that gives the audience the idea of what the PLAN OF ACTION will be: Cusack will have to go back for the map in the midst of all the cataclysm, then somehow get his family to these “spaceships” in order for all of them to survive the end of the world.

The PLAN is reiterated, in dialogue, when Cusack gets back to his family and tells his wife basically exactly what I just said above.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happens – it’s not only Cusack’s PLAN, but the central action of the story, that can be summed up as a CENTRAL QUESTION: Will Cusack be able to get his family to the spaceships before the world ends? Or put another way, the CENTRAL STORY ACTION: John Cusack must get his family to the spaceships before the world ends.

Note the ticking clock, there, as well. As if the end of the world weren’t enough, the movie also starts a literal “Twenty-nine minutes to the end of the world!” ticking computer clock at, yes, 29 minutes before the end of the movie.

(Remember, I’ve said ticking clocks are dangerous because of the huge cliché factor. We all need to study structure to know what NOT to do, as well. Did I talk about the clock in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, yet? Great example of how to turn a cliche into a legitimate urgency.)

A reader/audience really needs to know what the overall PLAN is, even if they only get in a subconscious way. Otherwise they are left floundering, wondering where the hell all of this is going.

In 2012, even in the midst of all the buildings crumbling and crevasses opening and fires booming and planes crashing, we understand on some level what is going on:

- What does the protagonist want? (OUTER DESIRE) To save his family.

- How is he going to do it? (PLAN) By getting the map from the nutjob and getting his family to the secret spaceships (that aren’t really spaceships).

- What’s standing in his way? (FORCES OF OPPOSITION) About a billion natural disasters as the planet caves in, an evil politician who has put a billion dollar pricetag on tickets for the spaceship, a Russian Mafioso who keeps being in the same place at the same time as Cusack, and sometimes ends up helping, and sometimes ends up hurting. (Was I the only one queased out by the way all the Russian characters were killed off, leaving only the most obnoxious kids on the planet?)

Here’s another example, from a classic movie:

At the end of the first sequence of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (which is arguably two sequences in itself, first the action sequence in the cave in South America, then the university sequence back in the US), Indy has just taught his archeology class when his mentor, Marcus, comes to meet him with a couple of government agents who have a job for him (CALL TO ADVENTURE). The agents explain that Hitler has become obsessed with collecting occult artifacts from all over the world, and is currently trying to find the legendary Lost Ark of the Covenant, which is rumored to make any army in possession of it invincible in battle.

So there’s the MACGUFFIN – the object that everyone wants, and the STAKES – if Hitler’s minions (THE ANTAGONISTS) get this Ark before Indy does, the Nazi army will be invincible.

And then Indy explains his PLAN to find the Ark - his old mentor, Abner Ravenwood, was an expert on the Ark and had an ancient Egyptian medallion on which was inscribed the instructions for using the medallion to find the hidden location of the Ark.

So when Indy packs his bags for Nepal, we understand the entire OVERALL ACTION of the story: Indy is going to find Abner (his mentor) to get the medallion, then use the medallion to find the Ark before Hitler’s minions can get it.

And even though there are lots of twists along the way, that’s really it: the basic action of the story.

The PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION – or CENTRAL ACTION, if it helps to call it that instead, is almost always set up – and spelled out - by the end of the first act. Can it be later? Well, anything’s possible, but the sooner a reader or audience understands the overall thrust of the story action, the sooner they can relax and let the story take them where it’s going to go. So much of storytelling is about you, the author, reassuring your reader or audience that you know what you’re doing, so they can relax and let you drive.

So here's a craft exercise, if you want to play along.   For practice take a favorite movie or book (or two or three) and identify the CENTRAL ACTION - describe it in a few sentences.   Then try it with your own story.  

For example, in my new book, BOOK OF SHADOWS, here's the set up: the protagonist, Homicide detective Adam Garrett, is called on to investigate a murder of a college girl which looks like a Satanic killing.   Garrett and his partner make a quick arrest of a classmate of the girl's, a troubled Goth musician.   But Garrett is not convinced of the boy's guilt, and when a practicing witch from nearby Salem insists the boy is innocent and there have been other murders, he is compelled to investigate further.

So the CENTRAL ACTION of the story is Garrett using the witch and her specialized knowledge of magical practices to investigate the murder on his own, all the while knowing that she is using him for her own purposes and may well be involved in the killing.

If you're working on a story now, at what point in your book does the reader have a clear idea of where the story is going?   If you can't identify that, is it maybe a good idea to layer that in so the reader will have an idea where the story is going?

And for extra credit – give us some examples of movies or books that didn’t seem to have any central action or plan at all. Those negative examples are sometimes the best way to learn!

Or just tell us today - What hooks YOU about a book?   What will make you toss it across the room and go on to the next?

(And Happy Solstice on Monday, everyone... use the Force.)

- Alex

The Story I'm Not Supposed to Tell (But Always Do)

by Rob Gregory Browne

My writer friends warn me that I should never talk about how I got my literary agent. 

Why? 

Because I didn't have to go through the hell they went through, and they assure me I'll be jumped if I tell the story. 

You see, I was lucky enough to -- as William Goldman put it in Adventures of the Screen Trade -- jump past all the shit.

Years ago, I won an international screenwriting competition sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences that opened up all the Hollywood doors and got me a screen agent.  The next thing I knew I had a deal at Showtime and life was good.

Fast forward as my career took a slow, steady nosedive and I wound up writing cartoons.  And I don't mean The Simpsons.

When that finally dried up (taking my desire to write along with it), I shuffled around for awhile, wondering what I was going to do.

My screen agent left agenting, became my manager for awhile, then finally moved on.  After a couple more years of banging my head against the wall with a new agent, I decided screw it and went out and got a nine to five job, figuring I was done with writing for good.

Oh, if only it were that easy.  As the writers in the crowd know, you're not done with writing until it's done with you and before I knew it, I started to get the bug again.  So I finally wrote the novel I'd always been threatening to write -- working sporadically over the next three or so years until it was done.

Once it was finished, I thought I had something pretty special, hoped I wasn't deluded, so I contact my former agent -- the first one who had quit agenting while I was still her client.

You see, this former agent -- whom I'll call Marion (mostly because that's her name) -- had a LOT of connections, and I figured if anyone could help me get representation for the book, it would be her.

So I sent her an email, asking if she'd be willing to read the book.  She answered immediately and said, "Of course."  I fired off the manuscript and a week later she called me and said, "Do you mind if I send this to a friend of mine in New York?"

Well, that friend happened to run Trident Media Group and a couple weeks later a hot young agent there -- whom I'll call Scott Miller (mostly because that's his name) -- called me and said he'd like to represent me for this book "and anything else you want to write."

About three months later we had a deal with St. Martin's Press.

You see why my friends warn me not to tell this story?

Please don't jump me.

Believe me, I'm not gloating when I tell it.  I'm a very lucky, lucky guy.  But if anyone thinks I didn't pay my dues, be assured that I spent many, many years getting kicked around in Hollywood, so I paid my fair share.

(And the great thing is, is that I've been able to return the favor, so to speak, by recommending a couple of writers to Scott)

So what's this got to do with anything?

The REASON I'm telling you all this is because that aforementioned agent -- Mr. Miller (is that really his name?) -- has graciously agreed to answer some questions for us, and give us some insight into the agenting process.

Before he can do that, however, I need a nice, fresh set of questions to ask him.  So I want to ask YOU what YOU'D like me to ask Scott.  I'll cull the best questions, talk to Scott and do a nice little write-up about him next time.

So imagine this:  You're an aspiring writer.  If you could sit across from one of the hottest agents in New York (meaning you-know-who), what would you ask?

In the meantime, I'd love to hear "how I got my agent" stories from the writers in the crowd.  Everyone's way in is different.

Until next time...

Are literary agents necessary?

This is the kind of question that can get a person into trouble, isn't it?

After months of going back and forth with my agent about my new manuscript, a little frustration comes naturally. After rewriting said manuscript completely at least once more, revising it again, and cutting out nearly 60 pages from the original work, I'd have to be brain-dead not to wonder if I was doing the right thing.

Why did I listen to many of my agent's suggestions?

Well . . . some of his points made incredible sense to me. On top of that, I respect his knowledge and sensibilities about the genre. And I’m hungry to be a better and better and better writer.

The members of my critique group thought I was insane to do all that to a manuscript that they thought would've sold anyway. They urged me to send out the book myself. I'm sure several of my cohorts on the ’Rati would've had the same advice.

Yet, I made the decision to listen. In the end, will all that mishmoshing result in a sale?
I'm waiting to see.
My agent has had tremendous success with other writers; we're both hoping he will with me.

In the meantime, my question remains: Are literary agents necessary?

When I was learning the business side of writing, everything I read and learned about the industry would've answered, "YES!"

It seemed like an immutable law, as much a given as the sun rising in the east and dogs liking liver treats.

Sure, there were tales about people who’d gotten published without an intermediary, but those were the exceptions, the stuff of myth.

Then came 9/ll, the anthrax scares, and the word on the street was that publishers wouldn’t open anything from anyone they didn’t know. In this new and paranoid environment, agents became even more essential.

However, quiet success stories continued to make me wonder about conventional wisdom. One that comes to mind right away is Pati Nagle who negotiated a three-book deal with Del Rey. She used an entertainment lawyer after the contract was offered.

Her answer to my question would be "NO!"

So which answer is right? Which would benefit the many writers -- the ones reading our blog for advice -- that are striving for publication right now?

IMHO, people need to really weigh the pros and cons of seeking literary representation in their careers. As Toni wrote yesterday, they need to look at what makes the most sense for them.

Below are two lists to begin the conversation. I note the pros and cons in no particular order -- and am sure I've missed many in both categories -- but hope that we can examine this question frankly for everyone's benefit.

Pros

1. Contacts: access to -- and attention from – editors who make the real decisions in publishing
2. Business advice
3. The abililty (to potentially) negotiate larger deals than a writer might do on his/her own
4. An advocate for the author to the publisher—editors and accounting
5. Legal and other specialized knowledge about the industry and trends therein
6. Up-to-date knowledge of the good, bad and the ugly about the publishers themselves
7. Current knowledge of the movements of editors across imprints and houses
8. Editorial advice (at least I like that in my agent)

Cons

1. It’s often more difficult to get an agent than it is to get a publisher
2. Time wasted researching and querying to find a good, reputable agent
3. Another block between the writer and the publisher/editor
4. Loss of income to a “middle man”
5. Potential pressure to write what you don’t want to write
6. Dishonesty/lack of transparency in money/editor querying
7. Lack of enthusiastic representation or, worse, misrepresentation
8. Personality or ethical conflicts

What do you think?

Are agents necessary?

Why?

__________________________________________________________________________________

A program note:

Tim Hallinan will be my guest at Murderati next Monday, August 17. He’s written a provocative piece “Bleak is the New Black” that I think will spark a fascinating discussion. Please stop by and make him welcome.