Wordcraft – Blogging: easy as a message in a bottle

Recently a friend asked me, as friends do from time to time, how to go about writing a blog. The best thing I can tell them is that blogging is like sending messages in a bottle. Don’t send one and stop, waiting for the ship to find you. Don’t send one, hoping you’ll get rich and famous overnight. Keep the messages coming.

I only started writing a blog because the instructor of a writing class I went to told us that all writers must participate in social media. She refused to consider the excuses -- that writers are the most introverted and socially awkward of so-called professionals, a claim backed by extensive research (which I’m making up as I go along) indicating that as a group, we rank lower in interpersonal skills than sociopathic basement-dwelling computer hackers. I started with Facebook; went on to build my own website, now mercifully demolished, from a box. Then I tried blogging.

There are lots of websites that support blogging, but why not start with a free site like this one at Blogger or Wordpress, which may be more popular with writers, at least writers I follow.

It was so easy, no worse than setting up a Facebook account. Of course, I was doing everything completely and totally wrong. I learned this the first time I typed in my own URL and Google told me it couldn’t find it.

Fortunately, a few months later the DFW Writers’Conference  included a class on blogging, taught by Kristen Lamb, a tiny blonde, martial-arts chopping dynamo out to prove to writers that we can overcome the weaknesses of our blogs. Which she knew because she had been there. 

In general, it’s safest to let Kristen speak for herself through her blog, which she will, even if I could manage to slap zip ties on her wrists and gag her with duct tape, because that’s the kind of woman she is. But I’ll mention her first rule: forget the natural writerly tendency to try to fade into the background, hiding behind some blog title that’s supposed to sound cute but actually is just stupid, like mine, which has required years of therapy and massive doses of mind-altering drugs to overcome. Kristen admitted, like a motivational speaker at a 12-step program, that she had done this herself, but had overcome by relentlessly rebranding her blog as (gasp!) Kristen Lamb’s Blog. Google it. It works.

Kristen’s second rule of blogging is to rip any thought of ourselves as “aspiring writers” right out of our frontal cortexes. Ouch! (But don’t you feel better now?) “Aspiring” is for sissies. We’re writers. So we write, and we feed our blogs by writing. Often. Writing regularly and often in itself puts little bread crumb trails on the Internet that lets search engines like Google’s find us. In the meantime, we should link, link, link like crazy to our blog’s URL. Google’s bloodhounds are out there sniffing.

Somewhere along the line I heard that the simple act of writing regularly helps us write better. It’s true, although it helps if we write intentionally and with no more than moderate amounts of the above-mentioned mind-altering drugs.

We also need a theme for our posts, indeed, for our entire blog, maybe for our entire lives. (Theme being something I learned even more about from another amazing DFW Conference speaker this year, Disney Jr. channel’s photo mom, Me Ra Koh.)

I can’t remember whether Kristen ordered us to include images with our blog posts or whether I learned that on my own, but do it. Any image, even the craziest, immediately draws more attention from web surfers. Internet guru James Gaskin, who I met at another writers’ group confessed that he got a cat just so he could post cute cat pictures with his blog.

Like James, I take most of my own pictures or download them free from sites such as Wikimedia . There are sources of clip art pictures, some of which you have to pay for. Remember to play right with copyright rules or you may find FBI agents knocking on your door. And they’re way less good looking in person than in the movies.

Wordcraft – Get a head start on summer writing contests

Is everybody ready for a new round of writing contests? Some of these are associated with writing conferences, but with deadlines significantly earlier than the conference. So though I’ll address conference dates in a future post, for now, here are the deadlines for some worthwhile and fun writing contests or workshops with writing critiques, and what they offer. I mentioned some of these early this year, but a timely reminder may be in order.

image: wikimedia commons

April 30: DFW Writers’ Conference, already notorious for terrifying (but thankfully, anonymous) contests is teaming with WRiTE CLUB for 10 weeks of writing bouts. To begin, contestants must submit a 500-word writing sample in any genre (even poetry) by April 30. Right – that’s day after tomorrow! See www.dlhammons.com/p/write-club-2015.html for guidelines.

May 15: Sword & Sorceress anthology. Annual anthology inspired by works of Marion Zimmer Bradley. Stories should be of the sword and sorcery type, with strong female protagonists. See www.mzbworks.com/guidelines.htm for complete guidelines. No contest fee.

June 1: Mayborn Writing Competition entries in personal essay, reported narrative and book manuscript. This competition is held in connection with UNT’s Mayborn Literary Narrative Nonfiction Conference. For information, contact writing contest coordinator Sarah Whyman at maybornconferenceinfo@unt.edu/

June 15: ArmadilloCon writing workshop. ArmadilloCon is the Austin, Texas, literary science fiction conference. This is for stories of fantasy, science fiction or horror, with small group critiques led by professional writers and editors in the field. Fee of $79.50 includes membership in the conference, scheduled for July 24-26. For guidelines, see http://2015.armadillocon.org/writers_workshop#submission/.

June 15: 2015 FenCon Young Author short story contest. Open to writers in grades 3-12. No contest fee. See www.fencon.org/page/young-author-contest for details. And see the rest of this post for more about writing at FenCon, the annual science fiction/fantasy convention in Dallas, Texas.

June 30: British Fantasy Society’s Short Story Competition. No contest fee for BFS members, £5 for nonmembers. Contestants do not need to be from the UK: PayPal will happily convert your currency if necessary. I can’t resist adding this since competition judge Allen Ashley posted his list of story likes and dislikes at the blog of UK writer Deborah Walker, http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/. Complete competition guidelines at www.britishfantasysociety.org/the-bfs-short-story-competition-2015/

July 17: Registration for writers’ workshop at FenCon, the annual science fiction/fantasy convention in Dallas. Registration is limited to 20 participants, with cutoff July 17, or when the workshop is filled, if earlier. This is a four-day workshop with USA Today bestselling author Jaye Wells. Registration for the workshop is $25 plus FenCon registration. (Membership fee not yet available, but typically $50). See www.fencon.org/page/writers-workshop for details.

July 20: FenCon short story (science fiction or fantasy) contest. No fee for first story submitted by FenCon members, $10 for nonmembers or for additional stories (up to three) from members. Winner and first two runners-up receive cash awards and membership in next year’s conference. See www.fencon.org/page/short-story-contest for guidelines.

(Why all the entries for FenCon? Honest, I don’t get paid to do publicity for the Con, I just think it’s a great deal for the money. I’ve used critiques from the workshops and writing contest to polish several stories for publication, including my last year’s second place story contest winner, “Planet, Paper, Space,” due out in June.)

Wordcraft -- Spawn of the QueryShark, part II

Last Monday I gave readers a recap of the query letter contest run by the DFW Writers’ Conference and my prize as a contest finalist--a critique from literary agent Donald Maass of a query for my real novel. Today, fellow contest finalist Kim Moravec offers her query and critique as well, hoping others can learn from her experience. For more about Kim, follow her on Twitter: @kmoravec314. See the AgentQuery site she references at www.agentquery.com/.

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I was particularly excited to be named as a finalist in the DFW Writers Conference Query contest, thanks to my rewrite of a hypothetical query letter for Finnegan’s Wake. It meant that Donald Maass, New York super-agent and author of Writing the Breakout Novel would critique my query. And dammit, it was a good query. I’d spent a lot of effort learning to write queries, and this particular one had undergone some intense critique over at the AgentQuery website. That is not to say that every critiquer there liked it. There were some who thought the plot was confusing and frankly, unbelievable.

To be noticed by an agent in a sea of thousands, the query must be short, snappy, and crystal clear. Faced with an 80,000-word novel, it is difficult to tease out the critical threads that will both make sense and fascinate an agent. My plot, in particular, relies on a couple of bizarre turns of fate that do have a basis in reality (I do my research, honest) but don’t follow the tropes common in modern fiction.

This is the final query I sent to Donald Maass, with his comments: 

 

Finnegan may live in a bowl of water, but don’t let his ten-second memory fool you. This psychic fish will tell you the winner of the Super Bowl – for a fee.

DM: This confused me right away. I had to read it over twice to figure out that Finnegan is actually, really a fish. Call me naïve, but in a query I come in expecting to read about a human. Maybe try a different way into this clever conceit? Something like, “Can a psychic fish predict the winner of the Super Bowl? You bet—for a fee. That’s just one of the successful scams that teenager Rain Wooten runs online.”

Finnegan is just one of the many online scams teenager Rain Wooten uses to fund her dad’s undercover FBI activities—that super-top-secret, not-quite-legal work that keeps the nation safe in dangerous times. She also hacks the dark underbelly of the internet, looking for evidence of the next major terrorist attack.

DM: This is unusual and interesting, but…uh, doesn’t the FBI have plenty of money to run undercover investigations? Would they really hire a teenager to run online scams? (Imagine the Congressional hearings!) I know you’re setting up a twist but the synopsis at this point is far fetched and working against you. So, maybe play on that very far-fetched quality something like this: “…keeps the nation safe in dangerous times—or so Rain believes.”

Then, when her scams attract the attention of the real FBI, Rain discovers her dad never worked for them. He’s nothing but a con man – keeping her earnings for himself and killing anyone who discovers the truth.

DM: That’s a fine twist but is it really possible that a talented teen hacker wouldn’t figure out that her dad isn’t really an FBI agent? Really? I’ll accept that he’s a talented con but you need to show me a smidgen of proof here to alleviate the oh-come-on feeling I’m getting.

But the terrorists Rain’s been hunting? They’re real. No one with a badge believes her anymore, and unless Rain abandons her desire for revenge [DM: Revenge against whom?] and finds the bombers before the end of the day, one hundred thousand people at the State Fair of Texas will die.

DM: Cool story but this query is heavy on plot, light on what it all means for Rain. I’d like to feel something for her. How does she reconcile to the discovery that her dad is a crook and murderer? Is that even possible?

FINNEGAN’S AWAKE [DM: Cute title!] is a 78,000 word YA thriller, loosely inspired by British conman Robert Hendy-Freegard, who impersonated an MI5 agent for more than a decade. The math and computer hacks throughout the book are informed by my career in computer science.

DM: Ah, nice. The professional close to the query is brief and good.

Donald Maass is an incredibly polite critiquer, and there's a lot of little gems for me to take away from this (he liked the title, yay!), but the upshot is that this is a query that is short and snappy, but not crystal clear.  Ironically, it echoes some of the harsher comments I received from that unhappy critiquer at AgentQuery.  After researching the comments he'd left for others, I'd decided to ignore his comments because I sensed a troll.  It goes to show, even if you don't like the delivery of some criticism, you ignore it at your cost.

When Robert Hendy-Freegard's victims were discovered, they were living in extreme poverty, malnourished, isolated, and terrified.  Despite her technological knowledge, Rain begins the story in a similar state, and I think this is perhaps the key thread that is missing from the query.  By the end, her single-minded moral code and ability to endure discomfort helps her save thousands of lives.  I just have to figure out how to weave that in without preaching or telling.

And, oh yeah, I should probably mention that Finnegan is a fish.

(Next Monday, mystery writer/instructor Daniel J. Hale takes a journey through the plotting of a novel.)

Wordcraft -- The 21st century’s changing fiction

“What’s happening with fiction in the twenty-first century?” author/agent Donald Maass asked the writers who turned out for his workshop at this year’s DFW Writers’ Conference. “I started to notice changes a couple of years ago when I looked at the New York Times hardcover bestseller list.”

The names of the authors, primarily of thrillers were, for the most part, familiar. What was different were the numbers indicating how long a book had been on the bestseller list. The numbers generally were small, usually single digits, indicating short durations on the list.

But when he looked at the bestseller list of trade paperbacks, the venue for books first published in hardcover, he found books that had been on the bestseller list “40 weeks, 44 weeks, even 111 weeks.” What he also noticed was that “these books with long legs were books that had been published as literary. Literary fiction selling at bestseller levels?

“Nothing can explain why these books are successful except people are having an amazing reading experience and telling their friends. Buzz doesn’t last two years. It’s the book itself that doing that. I started reading to find out what these books are doing. They’re beautifully written. And they have a great story.”

What does he mean by a great story? It’s not necessarily nonstop action. The prompts he gives us for writing great story include suggestions like “writing the thing you’re afraid to write down because it’s too painful, too scary, too wrong, too inappropriate. What’s the moment when your protagonist says the thing you can’t say? Can you write it that straight, that direct, that undiluted?”

Maass isn’t more than average in height. He’s slightly built, okay looking but no head turner, the kind of guy you’d pass on the street without a second glance. And probably many of us at the workshop, many of you reading this, have read his books--Writing the Breakout Novel (with its companion workbook), The Fire in Fiction, and the newest, Writing 21^st Century Fiction. But he’s standing in front of us, so intense he’s electric, pushing us to do these exercises, right now. We write, mostly in notebooks because we’re afraid of running our computer batteries down in a room with limited power outlets. We write about the scary, the painful, the inappropriate.

We do the same for other emotions. “Don’t just name the emotion,” Maass tells us. “Describe the experience of having this emotion.”

He goes on. “Let’s take some of this emotional work we’ve been doing and build an arc, the change a character goes through. How can that transformation, the complete change in a human being infuse the whole story? What is the protagonist’s worst habit, failing, blind spot? Where does this flaw humiliate your character? If you’re got that already, try to make it stronger.

I find the room almost unbearably warm. Others complain it’s too cold. Problems with the thermostat, or symptoms of our own inner turmoil? And wait, we haven’t even gotten to the beautiful writing part.

“Pretty words, lovely images are often what we call beautiful writing,” Maass says. “But there are better ways. Write in it generic words. Now create another event that’s the same thing, but smaller.”

We write more, about locations, time, characters. What does any of this have to do with beautiful writing?

“We’re creating parallels and reversals,” Maass says. “Things that associate in the readers’ minds.” As do symbols. “Go to the climax,” he tells us. “Pick one object there, one thing your protagonist would particularly notice. How many times can you plant this image, this object in this novel?

“It’s not all about lovely imagery. When you give readers a great reading experience, what you’re actually doing it giving extra layers of meaning. When you start writing from a place that’s personal, when you let go of the fear or embrace the fear and let it guide you, you’re writing twenty-first century fiction.”

(Next Monday--about that scary stuff? How about this for scary--I’ll show you the sample query letter I submitted to Maass. And what he said about it, and what I learned.)

Wordcraft -- What agents & editors hit the gong for

One of the most anticipated events at each year’s DFW Writers’ Conference in Hurst, Texas, is the Gong Show. That’s the chance for writers to submit sample query letters anonymously for feedback by literary agents. Each agent has a small gong at hand. As the mellow baritone of reader George “The Voice” Goldthwaite intones each entry, agents may strike their gongs at the point in the query where they would stop reading if it appeared in their inboxes. If queries elicit three gongs, as they usually do, the reading ends, and the agents explain what provoked them.

Last year, for the first time in the history of the conference gong show, a writer avoided gonging out. This year, two avoided the common fate, two writers who have taken past gong show lessons to heart, crafting their queries to avoid the pitfalls. Goldthwaite was able to read one query from start to finish with only two gongs. And one, one golden query, made it all the way without drawing the sound of even a single gong.

What worked? What didn’t?

“It was so different I had to hear how it ended,” was the consensus of agents about the no-gong query, for the story of an elderly gardener who finds her precious tomato plants uprooted by a vintage Bentley conjured through an alien transport system. In a world overpopulated by stories about paranormal beings, teenage angst, and magical objects, this was something new.

The other query to escape gonging out, although by a narrower margin, was a young adult historical fantasy set in China. And every agent on the panel who handles fantasy wanted it. The query letter “went into clichés occasionally, but it worked,” said agent Donald Maass. Eddie Schneider of JABberwocky Literary Agency said he struck his gong because of some lack of clarity in the query letter, not because of problems with the underlying story, “which sounds awesome. I would be delighted to take a look.”

That lack of clarity and descent into clichéd statements, in fact, were two of the most common problems agents cited. Even some queries that received the dreaded three gongs had fans among the agents. But in most cases, if the stories behind the queries didn’t sound as wonderful as the Chinese fantasy, a signal for writers to polish their queries, and possibly their manuscripts.

Other common complaints included flat characters, excessive back story, and lack of apparent conflict in the plot description.

And then there was the “seen too much of it” complaints. These included ghosts, demons and the afterlife; magical objects; “chosen one” protagonists; boarding schools for wizards or other paranormal beings; and anything to do with mermaids, which agents say they see too often or know to be already clogging the publishing pipeline. And to that list, add extraterrestrial beings. Unless, of course, they mess with a crochety gardener’s tomato patch.

In addition to Maass and Schneider, panel participants were Emily M. Keyes of Foreword Literary, Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency, Laura Zats of Red Sofa Literary, and editor Amanda Rutter of Angry Robot Books, who says, no matter how her colleagues feel, she’s “still on board for vampires, werewolves and angels.”

(Next Monday -- more from DFW, including tips from agent Donald Maass’s pre-conference workshop based on his latest book, Writing 21^st Century Fiction.)

Wordcraft -- Writing contests fast and furious

Writing contests aren’t what I expected to blog about today. But while going through my notebooks and inbox, I found a slew of contests with looming deadlines. Readers, you won’t get rich or famous from winning any of these, but they look like great fun and they cost little, sometimes nothing. Besides, I found what has to be the most dramatic picture ever of a writer at work for illustration. Click on the image from wikimedia commons for a look at the whole painting by Ilya Repin.

January 15 -- That’s right, the day after tomorrow. DFW Writers’ Conference “celebrating the classics” query contest. Choose a classic novel (for this purpose, at least twenty-five years old and still in print), write a query letter for it, and email your entry by midnight, January 15 to editor@dfwcon.org/.

No entry fee or membership required. Finalists will get to submit a query letter for their own work for critiques by Donald Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. If you need help finding examples of classics, try the Adventure classics preview at this site (although not all of my examples meet the age and other criteria of the conference). For examples of what to include in a query letter, see 
http://dfwcon.org/2013/11/25/celebrating-the-classics-query-contest/.

January 15 -- Houston Writers Guild “Judge a Book by Its Cover” contest. This is for romances (in several sub-genres) published in 2013. Fee is $15. Winner gets a full-page ad in the April 2014 Romance Writers Report.

Also from HWG, 2014 manuscript contest for unpublished manuscripts in several genres, including literary fiction and memoir. Fee is $20 for first entry from guild members, $30 for nonmembers. Additional fees for multiple manuscript submissions. Deadline is March 1, 2014. Cash prize and meeting with editor for first place winner in each genre.

And finally from HWG, the Guild is taking submissions for science fiction stories of not more than 8,000 words for an anthology. Top entry receives $50. For information about contests and the anthology, see http://houstonwritersguild.org/.

February 1 -- The First Line magazine lists the opening sentences for all of its 2014 quarterly editions. The first: “Carlos discovered (fill in the blank) under a pile of shoes in the back of his grandmother’s closet.” Due date is February 1 for the spring edition. No fee to enter. For more information, see 
www.thefirstline.com/.

February 21 -- Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest offers writers in nine different literary categories chances for professional feedback and publication. Fee is $55 for League members, $65 for nonmembers. Entries accepted via www.writersleague.org/.

Also from the Writers’ League, entries for the Texas Book Awards (formerly knows as the Violet Crown Awards) are open through April 25. Entry fee is $45 per title for WLT members, $55 per title for nonmember authors, $65 per title from agents and publishers. For online entry form and information, see www.writersleague.org/112/Book-Awards-Contest/.

February 28 -- The Red Line lists two themes for its remaining editions of 2014, Bodies (February 28) and Escape (April 30). No fee for entry, 50 pound prize for the best in each category. For more information, see Duotrope's Digest or
http://overtheredline.com/.

Finally (for now) Carve magazine editor Matthew Limpede asked me to mention its creative writing workshops in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, offered through the Creative Arts Center of Dallas. Readers made Limpede's discussion, “An editor’s take on short stories” (May 13, 2013) one of this blog’s most popular posts. And yes, Carve will open its annual Raymond Carver short story contest April 1, running through May 15. For information about the magazine, classes and contests, see
http://carvezine.com/.

There will be more posts later about upcoming summer and fall writing contests. Feel free to let me know about anything else I’ve missed.

Wordcraft -- Weird and wonderful writing contests

Some homing beacon draws notices about writing contests to my files. I often avoid contests because of the four-letter word “fees” attached to them. But these are mostly fee-free, and not something you’ll find on writing research sites. I'll list them in order of deadlines, some looming imminently.

-- August 1 is the extended deadline for the FenCon short story contest offered through the science fiction/fantasy convention meeting in the Dallas suburb of Addison this fall. Winners can win cash and publication in the convention’s program book. First entry is free for FenCon members (and yes, you may buy a membership if you like). First entry for nonmembers is $10. Full disclosure, I am a longtime FenCon member who actually made it to the top 10 entries once in this contest and managed to sell a few stories from tips picked up on the convention’s workshops. For details, see www.fencon.org/story/html.

-- August 1 is also the deadline for the fall writing prompt contest offered by The First Line magazine. Entries must use the magazine’s designated first line, in this case, “There must have been thousands standing in the rain that day.” No fee, no genre limitation, and you may win money or other goodies. While you’re at it, take a look at the prompt on line for the winter issue, with submissions due November 1. I found this after the magazine’s editor published a book review in the Dallas Morning News. I have no information about the publication except what’s on its website, which, however, looks interesting. See www.thefirstline.com/submission.htm/.

-- September 1 -- The first ever Prompt-A-Palooza Writing Contest from Free Expressions, the company of professional editor Lorin Oberwetter and associates. Your complete short story (1,250 words) must use a prompt from the dozens offered on the site’s blog. No fee. First and second place winners get cash and credits on the sites workshops and editorial services.  See
www.free-expressions.com/.

-- September 3 is the deadline for the new DFW Writers’ Conference short story contest. Special criteria -- your story must open by writing the first paragraph of YA author Jonathan Maberry’s upcoming book. No genre limits, no fee. The winner gets a free ticket to next spring’s conference.  See www.dfwcon.org/.

The next contests are for limited demographic groups, but are dear to my heart. And of course -- they’re fee-free!

September 15 -- Fourth Annual Literature + Medicine writing contest, sponsored by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas. Workers active in health care fields, including pre-med, medical students, residents and interns, may compete in the categories of essays, poetry or short stories, based on their experiences in medicine, working with patients, delivering difficult news to family members and balancing work and personal life. No fee. Cash prizes to winners in each category and to a grand prize winner. I’ll also recommend the hospital’s conference October 24, with New York Times best-selling author John M. Barry. Details at www.texashealth.org/litmed./

-- November 1-December 13 is the time to enter the annual Thanks-Giving Square Expressions competition on the theme, “I am grateful for the values of sports.” Competition is open to students worldwide from kindergarten through grade 12. Art and essays on the theme must be submitted by the students’ teachers. Cash prizes to students and credit for school supplies available to teachers. For information, see
www.thanksgiving.org/.

March 31, 2014 -- The deadline on this one isn’t so urgent, but I’ll mention it while I’m dealing with contests. It’s the State-Fish Art contest sponsored by conservation organization Wildlife Forever. U.S. students in grades four through 12 must submit an art work and essay. Only a drawing is required for students in kindergarten through grade three.  See www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/visitorcenters/tffc/education/fish_art/.

Wordcraft -- Bringing sanity to your synopsis

The good news from my interviews with literary agents at last month’s DFW Writer’s Conference was that several wanted to see pages or chapters from my novel. And oh, was I prepared for that. I’d thrown my whole heart, not to mention computer, into polishing those opening chapters shiny enough to flash heliograph messages.

The bad news -- some agents also wanted a synopsis of the novel. Considering that I’d been to at least one agent panel and read any number of blogs in which agents all but swore on their grandmothers’ graves that synopses were a waste of time, I hadn’t written a synopsis worthy of the name. With hands I hoped didn’t tremble visibly, I wrote “synopsis” on the agents’ business cards and staggered from the room.

Maybe you’re thinking -- she wrote four hundred pages but she’s scared to write a one-page summary telling what the whole thing is about? Except if you’re thinking that, you’re not a writer who’s ever tried to cram four hundred pages into one.

Fortunately, Facebook friend and fellow writer Kathleen M. Rodgers had posted a link to “How to Write A One-Page Synopsis,” from Susan Dennard’s blog Pub(lishing) Crawl. I’m here to tell you that following this “three rules of thumb, eleven-point method” gave me a coherent one-page (single-spaced) summary within an hour or two. I haven’t had responses yet from the agents, so I can’t guarantee this will get you offers of representation. But it saved my sanity and it can save yours.

First -- the rules of thumb. Number one -- Dennard advises against naming more than three characters in a synopsis this short -- the protagonist, antagonist, and relationship character. I admit -- I broke this one for a couple of secondary characters. With words at a premium, it took less space on a page to use a one-word name than the two word description, “protagonist’s mother.”

Second rule -- Tell the ending. Right, spoilers and all.

Third rule -- Do not include sub-plots unless you have enough space. This one I bent. One agent had said she wanted to know if there were subplots. I sacrificed a single sentence to convey the biggest one briefly.

The eleven steps will be familiar to anyone who’s read Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (although the nomenclature differs slightly) or any works dealing with three-act structure. They are: (1) opening image; (2) introduction to the protagonist, including his/her desire; (3) inciting incident; (4) plot point one; (5) conflicts and character encounters; (6) midpoint; (7) winning seems imminent, but. . . ; (8) black moment; (9) climax; (10) resolution; and (11) final image.

Weirdly enough, I got stuck figuring out what the midpoint was. In desperation, I thumbed halfway through my printed manuscript. And found what I needed.

If you’ve written any story at all, something major has happened halfway through the pages. If nothing leaps out at you from the exact numerical center, flip back or forward a few pages. Picking random examples from what’s on my nightstand -- it’s the place in Wuthering Heights where Catherine dies; where Tita of Like Water for Chocolate refuses the summons of her abusive mother; where the narrator of The Island of Dr. Moreau learns the extent of what the mad scientist has done. You will know the midpoint of her novel when you see it.

Susan Dennard applies this with examples from the movie Star Wars, which will also give you a much needed laugh. See her complete explanation at www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/04/17/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis/.

For more about my generously-sharing friend, Kathleen M. Rodgers, and her work, see her author page at www.facebook.com/.

Wordcraft -- What happens at a crime scene, II

Earlier in this blog I reported from a writer’s point of view on the procedures involved in forensic investigations. Today I’ll conclude that discussion from this spring’s DFW Writers’ Conference by noting what the professionals involved in such investigations have to say to writers -- and whether it’s possible to commit the perfect crime, at least on paper.

For starters, it’s not all about DNA, including what autopsy surgeon Dr. Tasha Greenberg, autopsy surgeon and Tarrant County deputy medical examiner calls “the CSI effect.”

Although Greenberg believes the situation may improve “as people get better educated in science,“ in some cases, “juries were not convicting if we didn’t have DNA evidence.” Reminding the audience that DNA is contained in body tissue including fluids, Greenberg asked us to consider the situation of a person shot from a distance of several -- perhaps a hundred or more -- feet. Without the killer’s personal presence on the scene, there’s not going to be DNA evidence from the killer.

And then there’s the time required for forensic testing. Although TV necessarily wraps up fictional cases within an hour, professionals such as forensic death investigator Amy Renfro must often explain to families of victims “that science isn’t instant -- you can’t do toxicology in a day.”

Or Greenberg with “autopsy reports the next day, but I can’t put that out in a vacuum” of an ongoing investigation.

So how can a writer kill a character while keeping the cause of death mysterious?

“Probably poison,” Greenberg said.

“Barium is wonderful,” Dr. Robert Johnson, chief toxicologist for the Fort Worth medical
examiners office. “So are heavy metals.”

Just don’t use cyanide, he warned. Its distinctive scent is something most people would notice.

In fact, for anything chemical, awareness of smell is essential. If you’re a writer looking for a likely bomb component, remember that bombs need both an explosive and an initiator, according to explosives expert Dr. Guido Verbeck, and check the smell of both. (There are standard texts for these.)

And not every death outside what the pros terms “controlled conditions” -- such as in a hospital -- will even get the benefit of a medical examination. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit that because of a family situation and a novel in progress, I was interested in the possibility of the cause of death, even a violent death, escaping detection, and of possible concealment of the victim’s identity.

In counties without a medical examiner’s office, Greenberg said, elected justices of the peace may choose to rule on identity and cause of death, apparently accidental death, without referring cases to a regional medical examiner. Even when deaths are referred for examination, “we don’t do a complete autopsy on every case that comes in. It’s a matter of judgment if there’s no evidence of trauma.”

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If I’ve piqued your interest in the DFW Writers’ Conference, consider registering for the 2014 meeting, with horror/thriller writer Jonathan Maberry as keynote speaker and special workshop leader Donald Maass. Early ticket prices now through Labor Day, September 2, 2013, are $295. See http://dfwcon.org/.

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(I may drop information from the DFW Writers’ Conference into this blog as time permits, but next Monday, I hope to report on Khaled Hosseini’s appearance in Dallas in connection with his new book, And the Mountains Echoed.)

Wordcraft -- The short and the short of it

“I had my first story published in the seventh grade,” author Lou Antonelli told his audience at the recent DFW Writers’ Conference. “The trouble was, I did it instead of my French homework.”

Possibly chastened by the story’s reception, Antonelli concentrated on journalism until ten years ago when he started writing short stories again. By the time the program for this spring’s DFW conference was printed, he’d sold seventy-six stories. By the first day of the conference, that figure got updated to eighty.

You’ve seen a lot of his stories if you read Daily Science Fiction. Or Asimov’s Science Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine, or Greatest Uncommon Denominator, etc., etc. And the number is probably higher by now, since he’s listed new sales on his blog.

After last Monday’s post on short stories from the perspective of an editor, I wanted to give readers a take from the standpoint of an author, although I’m finding it hard to do a straight job of writing without tossing in Antonelli anecdotes, like the bait and switch he pulled on his homework assignment.

Or witticisms like “a short story has all the things a novel has -- beginning, middle and end -- and that order is important.”

I’ll attest to that, having once written a story in flashback, with the end at the beginning. It managed to get published (actually, twice) but the fact is, I’ve never tried it again.

Which is one of the great things about writing short stories -- we can try out a lot of different things. As Antonelli said, this time in apparent seriousness, “If you got to learn your writing craft, the short story is the place to do it.”

He echoed editor Matthew Limpede’s advice from last Monday about the need to hook the reader, in “An editor’s take on short stories,” May 13, 2013.

Some of us might think the first challenge in writing a story might be to have an idea, but Antonelli discounted that. “Ideas are the easiest part. Don’t fret over the originality -- there’s only so many plots in the world.”

The real first challenge for a writer, he said, “is to get the reader to turn the page.”

And for that, “humans have to be at the center. It’s the relationships that are important -- why should I care about this guy or this girl?”

Incidentally, Antonelli often used the term “conceit,” in the sense of an arresting metaphor, instead of “idea.” Despite his insistence on the human element, “conceits,” he mused, “have a way of getting a story going, like the grain of sand in the clamshell.”

And once we, the writers, have formed pearls around our grains of sand, “don’t give the editors an excuse to kick you out,” he said. “It’s better not to send a cover letter than to send a stupid one with a typo,” especially since your contact information should be on the story copy itself.

For more about Antonelli and his writing, see
http://louantonelli.blogspot.com/.

And oh, you wanted to know where to find story markets? Since his writing is usually somewhere on the edge of science fiction or fantasy, he likes the free site, www.ralan.com/.

(Next Monday, I’ve got room for one more DFW con post before moving on. The con had something new this year -- forensics experts who love to talk to writers. But you tell me which you prefer -- writing craft or knowing what really happens when somebody stumbles across a corpse?)

Wordcraft -- Beating the gong

It was an historic moment at the closing of this weekend’s DFW Writers’ Conference, in Hurst, Texas. The finale was the loved and dreaded gong show -- a panel of agents and editors hitting gongs to signal the moment they’d stop reading anonymous query letters from writers. It was three gongs and they’re out for every query, except one. For the first time in the contest’s history, official reader George “The Voice” Goldthwaite got all the way to the end of a letter without being gonged into silence.

Winning writer Seth Skorkowsky of Denton doffed his anonymity to accept the audience's applause for the query about his novel, Damoren.  (There's an umlaut over the "a" in the title, but I haven't figured out how to get my laptop to write umlauts yet.) 

And whether from second thoughts or the charm of reading the query read in Goldthwaite’s mellow baritone, an agent who had previously rejected the writer announced his willingness to reconsider.

The show’s grim discipline may be paying off. None of the other twenty-two chosen queries beat the gong test, but after hearing them panelists asked even losing authors to send them material for consideration.

Panel members were Lou Anders, editorial director of Prometheus imprint Pyr; Uwe Stender of TriadaUS Literary Agency; Louise Fury of the L. Perkins Agency; Katelyn Detweiler of Jill Grindberg Literary Management; and Alice Spielburg, representing her own agency. Agents in the audience also were allowed to gong as they wished.

Reader Goldthwaite and moderator Russell Connor were members of the DFW Writers Workshop (DFWWW) which sponsored the conference.

Query letters are written inquiries from writers trying to gain representation from literary agents. The letters typically include information about a story’s genre and word count and a brief synopsis to demonstrate the writer’s style and degree of craft. Even a successful query doesn’t guarantee an agent will represent a writer, only that she’s willing to look at extended samples of his work.

Query faults that repeated turned agents and editors off was vagueness -- the lack of specific information about the plot, its protagonist or conflict; as well as failure to pinpoint the story’s genre, that is, which shelf it would occupy in a bookstore. “A book marketed toward everyone is an automatic gong,” one agent said. Others gonged a story that claimed multiple genres -- mystery, young adult, and science fiction.

Panelists also disliked overwriting -- “fifty adjectives in ten lines,” one agent said. Anders added, “one hyphen plenty, two hyphens too many, three hyphens left the building.

They also gonged queries felt to be “gimmicky,” such as the metafictional concept of a story about a writer writing a story; implied threats (“it‘s childish -- if you want to threaten me, do it in person”, Stender said); clichés; and stories that simply didn’t grab them.

“People read to be transported out of the ordinary,” Anders said, “and so many pitches are telling me how bored (the characters) are.”

On the other hand, “it’s possible to be a good writer but a bad query writer,” a panelist said, noting that she’d heard a particular query directly from the author and found it much better than it came off in the letter.

Moderator Connor also said he’d heard the novel behind one of the queries and it was much better than the query implied (and no, he said, it wasn’t his own).

For those of us who may be better at writing stories than at summarizing them in query letters, one hope for finding an agent is to meet more of them in person. And DFWWW has a deal for us -- discounted registration for its 2014 conference next May, available through May 31. For details, see
www.dfwcon.org/.

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Favorite incentive one author gives herself for writing regularly: “I tell myself, if this sells, I can get another tattoo.”

Wordcraft -- Rollins on thrillers, part II

Last Monday, bestseller writer James Rollins spent much of his discussion of thrillers last month’s DFW Writers’ Conference describing a story’s hero -- the protagonist. But as important as the hero, is his or her antithesis -- the antagonist, the “dark mirror” of the hero.

(Because of the limitations of the English language, from here on I’ll speak of the antagonist as male, although we can all name a dozen great female antagonists.)

There was weeping and gnashing of teeth among thriller writers, I’ve heard, when the Soviet Union imploded. Because a good antagonist -- a good villain -- is more valuable than rubies. Which is why alternative history writers resurrect Nazi German, the Soviet Union, even Genghis Khan. And why writers of serial suspense only kill their bad guy stand-ins, never the ultimate bad guy, who’s too valuable to waste.

“The creation of the antagonist is as important as the creation of the main character,” Rollins emphasized. In fact, the “antagonist must be smarter, more resourceful,” than the hero. Just as the protagonist is the hero of your story, the antagonist is the hero of his own story. He “should not be bad for the sake of being evil. The antagonist, in his own head, should have a reason for what he does.”

Shakespeare’s Iago says he’s bad because he wants to be? We don’t believe him for a minute -- obviously he’s lying. He’s bad because he’s consumed by jealousy. And how do you tell when a character, good or bad, is lying? Well -- are his lips are moving? We all lie, if only to ourselves.

See last week’s discussion of heroes, write them in reverse, and you’ve got your antagonist.

So now you’ve got your protagonist, your setting, your antagonist -- you’re finally ready to start your story. But where?

“With action,” Rollins says. “In the first sentence, you want to set up a question in the reader’s mind.” Introduce your main character as soon as you can, ideally on the first page.” (Just don’t use a hook so powerful you, as the writer, can’t live up to it.)
And give your protagonist a personal stake in the outcome. “Saving the world is great, but saving your teenage daughter is more personal,” Rollins said.

And while we’re talking about writing tools -- just what is the difference between surprise and suspense? Rollins looks to movies for an example. If two characters are in a restaurant talking about dessert and their table blows up, that’s a surprise. If instead, in the same scene, “you show that ticking time bomb” under the table, that’s suspense, because the readers/viewers now know something the characters don’t know. And worry about it.

And because suspense is holds more powerful interest for readers than surprise, he recommends seventy-five percent suspense to twenty-five percent surprise in a story. That way, not only characters but readers are shocked when the event happens.

(Next Monday -- It’s hard to imagine a writer better versed in either surprise or suspense than Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road and No Country for Old Men, among other books. Guest blogger Dallas-area writer Jim Dolan discusses the Gothic elements in McCarthy’s fiction.)

Wordcraft -- James Rollins on writing thrillers

Surprisingly affable for a guy whose bestselling thrillers rack up astounding body counts, James Rollins divulged his writing secrets not only to me, but to everybody at the recent DFW Writers’ Conference. I didn’t even have to threaten to reveal his hidden identity.

“I’m going to give you very practical tips that will sound cheesy,” he told the audience at his “Putting the Thrill in Your Thriller” seminar. Cheesy or not, they apply even if you’re not writing a thriller that, like his most recent, The Devil Colony, involves exploding a monstrous volcano beneath one of America’s favorite tourist destinations.

The first tip -- have an idea. But how will we know if it’s a good idea? “If you can describe your story in less than twenty-five words, you’ve probably got a pretty good story. The less words you can use to describe the story, the stronger it is.” His favorite was a two-word pitch he once heard: Jurassic Shark. (Sorry, it’s already taken.)

And have a market or platform in mind. Make it something of universal interest. As mentioned a couple of paragraphs above, the end of the world as we know it usually gets people’s attention.

Oh, and you’ll need a main character. Make that character bigger than life, using Rollins’ definition: someone who “does or says something we wouldn’t do or say.” It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. His example was the character James Stewart played in the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, a bumbling tourist who witnesses a shooting. The police tell him to move along. He doesn’t.

Ready to start writing? Not so fast. “There’s no thrill in that thriller if you don’t establish sympathy.” And Rollins went through a list of sympathy-inducing characteristics. Just don’t lavish all of these on a single person.

The first sympathetic characteristic -- expertise (especially helpful with otherwise unlikable characters); followed by, a sense of humor; kindness to those less powerful
(bonus points if the main character is kind to kids, the elderly or animals -- cheesy, maybe, but true); undeserved misfortune; being an underdog; or having the sympathy, respect or affection of other characters.

You’ll also need a setting for your book. “For thrillers, as a general rule, you‘re looking for an exotic location.”

But Rollins’ definition of exotic is taking readers “someplace they’ve never been” -- as simple as going through that door marked “employees only,” or wherever else will drop readers down a rabbit hole into an unknown world.

(Next Monday -- Rollins continues with a discussion of the all-important antagonist, openings, and the difference between surprise and suspense. Oh -- and his hidden identity? Maybe not so hidden, since you can find his legal name, James Czajkowski, on the copyright pages of his books.  To contact him, or read his own blog, see www.jamesrollins.com/. )

Wordcraft -- Gonged for a good cause

Among the most-anticipated events at this past weekend’s DFW Writers’ Conference in Hurst, Texas, was the Gong Show. There were also a rousing keynote speech, informative classes, and chances to “pitch” to literary agents -- that is, persuade them to take a look at a piece of writing with the hope they’ll represent the author to publishers.

But nothing thrills writers more than hearing their work, or that of their colleagues, ridiculed over a public address system.

The original Gong Show was a 1970’s TV review of amateur talent whose judges ended performances in front of a nationwide audience by striking a gong. The DFW conference’s version was less brutal, although the conference’s 2012 chairperson, Jason Myers, said some writers left in tears last year. (I saw no tears this time around.)

The show’s real purpose is to demonstrate something of immense help to writers -- what kinds of writing samples and query letters agents like, or more especially, dislike, receiving from writers.

Participants dropped a query letter or the first page of their novels into a box anonymously, for later reading before a panel of agents serving as judges. A sample continued to be read until at least three agents struck their gongs, and then explained their decisions.

There was some variation in tastes. One dazed but happy author of a memorably-gonged nonfiction query lived to see four agents in the audience -- not on the panel -- ask for samples of his work.

But no others were so lucky. What follows is a compilation of brutally honest comments, which I’ll leave without attribution, for the safety of the agents involved.

The biggest turnoff was any use of clichés -- of words, phrases, or situations. Please
pledge after me never to open a novel, or a query letter, by having a character awaken from a dream. Agents invariably considered this a failure of imagination. A sample comment: “I really loathe novels that start with ‘I woke up.’”

Also getting the gong of death: novels starting with descriptions of weather, no matter how dramatic. And agents found clichés in things I’d never think of, probably because I haven’t read thousands of unpublished manuscripts. An agent who deals with young adult (YA) fiction gonged for novels opening with a character’s move to a new place. Think demons who whisper temptation over the heroine’s shoulder have never been done before? They are, an agent said, “the modern version of ‘a dark and stormy night.’’

Other dislikes cited more than once were “boring,” “didn’t thrill me,” and “predictable” writing.

But although an agent said, “I look to reject because I’ve got 2,000 queries behind yours. You really have to make it pop,” authors also got the gong for “overwriting,” “trying too hard,” and “purple” prose. One agent, for instance, gonged a novel whose character “peeled her face” off a window pane in the opening page. After all, in some genres, face peeling can be a literal event.

Finally, an agent advised sidestepping the repeated crime of “creepiness,” even in the opening of horror novels, with a memory aid that may offend the weak of stomach, but spare others the heartbreak of rejection. It is: to avoid “the three p’s -- pee, puke, and pooh.” After all, dear protagonist, if we don’t know you yet, we don’t want to meet you first in that condition.