Status seekers and storytellers

From The Fire in Fiction: passion, purpose, and techniques to make your novel great.

By Donald Maass

A friend highly recommended this book months ago, and I bought it right away, but am only now getting around to reading it. And should probably read the whole thing before posting about it. But I can’t help myself. I wanted to jump online and at least mention some very helpful passages from the Introduction.

In said intro, Maass discusses what sets apart lackluster books from those that “effortlessly lift off”,where the authors are “at the top of their game.” He says that in his thirty year career, he’s seen authors fall into two broad categories, “those whose desire is to be published, and those whose passion is to spin stories.” He calls the two groups “status seekers” and “storytellers.”

He writes, “Some want to know how to make their manuscripts acceptable. If I do this and I do that, will I be okay? When I hear that question my heart sinks a little. That is a status seeker talking.

A storyteller, by contrast, is more concerned with making his story the best story that it can be, with discovering the levels and elements that are missing, and with understanding the techniques needed to make it all happen.”

And about writers further on in their careers, he says, “. . . status seekers will grumble about publishers, spend on self-promotion . . . and expound as experts on getting ahead. They change agents, obsess over trunk projects, write screenplays. . . . Story tellers are different. Storytellers look not to publishers to make them successful, but to themselves. They wonder how to top themselves with each new novel.”

I’m ashamed to admit I’ve had my own poisonous moments of being a status seeker, of choosing to tangle myself in the webs of HOW TO. How to query, how to conference, how to network, how to avidly follow the market. Which I think is understandable, especially when you’re first starting out, trying to get your work published. But Maass’s perspective was eye-opening for me. Or maybe it’s heart-opening. Because underneath all those tangles, what I really care about is the story. And I don’t want to lose my focus on it.

Betsy Lerner has a blog!

How did I miss I this? I know I’ve been away for some months, but she’s had it for over a year. And it is MADE OF AWESOME. Much like her fabulously helpful and heartening book, THE FOREST FOR THE TREES. Which is one of the few books about the writing/publishing biz that I didn’t donate to the local library’s book sale after I read it. Except I think her blog might be even funnier. Definitely one of my new faves.

It’s over on my blogroll but here’s another handy link: Betsy Lerner: The Forest for the Trees.

Sold a short story for middle graders

First, let me say the dust is beginning to clear in my family life, things are stabilizing and getting much better. So I’m able to rev my writing life back up.

Now that NO ONE is reading this blog due to my absence, heh.

But in addition to my SCBWI article being published while I was offline, I also sold a story to Story Station. It’s called “Ghost Walk in Gatlinburg.” Can you guess what it’s about? Huh? Can you? Or click the link and read . . .

IF YOU DARE.

 

My “Lessons from Project Runway” article

(In the recent SCBWI Bulletin) I have to pop in to thank everyone for the comments on it. Thank you so much. I can’t wait until my life clears a bit and I can click over and read your blogs.

Unfortunately for me, my article was published at the same time as a major crisis occurred in my family life. I haven’t even cracked the cover of that issue of the Bulletin, and wasn’t able to read your comments here on my blog until today.  But they cheered me, shining little gleams of light into one of life’s dark moments, so thanks again for taking the time to make them.

Woops! Hiatus

This blog is on one! And I didn’t even realize it until I got another comment recently. (thanks, Tracy!) Summertime and some other things are bustin’ out all over and keeping me away from Our Beloved Internets. But I shall return! “I’ll be bahk.” In about a week, I think, I’ll have enough time to post my oh so compelling thoughts about writing.

Another bad thing about rejection

The other day, I wrote about how rejection can be actively good for writers, can really help teach us important, vital things about our work.

That’s the new place I’m in, for the most part. I’m learning all the time from my previous rejections. I feel like, in a way, I’m suddenly learning, seeing big lessons that I wasn’t open to (for whatever reason) earlier,  about what makes stories work or fail. I read books that I know were rejected a lot before publication and now I sometimes understand why. At least, a little better. As opposed to a year or so ago, when all I could see was the good stuff in the manuscript, and I was fuddled as to why it got rejected so much, when it had so much worthwhile going on.

Although I still think, as I wrote some time ago, that one of the worst things about rejection is that they can rob you of the fun.

But rejections also confuse me. Perhaps they always will. And I think it’s one of the very worst things about them, they can throw you off, throw you so hard that it’s painfully difficult to get back up.  When you’ve written something you know has a lot of merit, and agents or editors even tell you it has a lot of merit in various ways, and it gets repeatedly rejected while mediocre manuscripts get published, it can be confounding in a damaging way.

And THAT’S when you have to turn your blind eyes. All the old saws about perseverance– that’s when you need them handy. Keep going, keep writing, keep submitting, but if you aren’t learning anything from your rejections–ignore them. Because this is a publishing business that says it wants page-turning, compelling fantasy stories with a fresh, inventive world, and characters you care about, that then repeatedly rejects something like Cindy Pon’s SILVER PHOENIX  . . .

…WHICH HAS ALL THOSE THINGS.

And I’m picking that title almost at random. We all know many stories of compelling manuscripts that struggled to break through the publishing gate.

So learn what you can from your rejections, be open to learning from them. But if they make little to no sense, try to tune them out. And above all, keep writing.

In fantasy, it’s all about what the bad guy wants

Writers are often told to ask themselves what does their main character want. What does he or she want in a big overarching, through-the-whole-manuscript way, and also what does he or she want in this chapter, in this scene, in this moment. And to keep in mind the concomitant questions of what then gets in the way of what your main character wants. What obstacles do you, the writer, put in his or her way? How will he or she overcome those obstacles?

Blah, blah, blah-de-blah.

Just kidding! I think these are useful questions. It’s just that they’re referred to SO MUCH. Plus, I love some books that aren’t driven all that hard by WHAT THE MAIN CHARACTER WANTS AND WHAT THEN GETS IN THE WAY.

But I’m drifting from my topic.

I realized recently that in fantasy fiction, what the main character wants is NOT usually the engine powering the story. It’s all about what the antagonist, the Big Bad Guy (or Gal) wants. And the more specific and particular the villain’s desire, the better.  Voldemort wants Harry dead. Darth Vader wants to crush the Rebellion. The Cylons want to exterminate humanity on Battlestar Galactica. The Master on Buffy The Vampire Slayer (first season) wants to be freed.  Sauron wants one special, sparkly ring.

And stories where the antagonist’s desire is less specific, or more diffuse, are often weaker overall.

So lately, I’m asking myself more questions about my bad guys and gals. Who are they and what do they want. That is, ahem, after I actually put a bad guy in one of my manuscripts. Yes! I wrote a fantasy novel that doesn’t have a Big Bad (although it does have plenty of conflict and obstacles.) But that’s a topic for a different post.

Nathan Bransford frightens me

Ha HA! Not really, of course. He’s much too charming.  But last week, he posted a post to his blog that was equal parts inspiring and disturbing. The Friday Nights Lights post. Did you see it?

I’ve never seen that TV show, although I enjoyed the book it’s based on. And I also enjoyed Nathan Bransford’s go-get-’em talk: We got a big submission Friday night, and the publishers out there are going through some hard times. They want to see your submissions sparkling! They want perfection, and as the literary agent of this here team I aim to give it to ‘em! It’s time to look deep inside yourself and step up yer game!

A lot. It dovetails with the way I’ve been feeling about my work lately, wanting to go deeper, to open up, pull out the stops, yay team, go, go, GO!’

BUT (and I’m unsure how to change the font size over here on WordPress so everyone can see my big butt– yes! the same old joke! AGAIN. Because that’s how I roll.)

I am disturbed, troubled, saddened by Mr. B’s statements: Publishers right now want the surest of sure things that are so sure it beats surety over its sure head. And agents have to adjust what they take on accordingly.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this news either, but there are very few sure bets in this business. So editors have to be really really really really really really convinced that they want to invest in a project in order to take it on . . .

Am I troubled for my own manuscripts’ sake? Nah. Not really. I’m troubled as a reader, not so much as a writer. My father is an artist– a painter, as well as ceramicist — and one of the vital things I learned about all art forms from him is that art, especially great art, stands out in a unique way. Is pretty much the opposite of “the surest of sure things.” It’s fresh like ice water, a little painful. It’s hard to understand maybe at first glance. It breaks rules, surprises expectations, defies them even.

And how can it possibly break through in a publishing environment as cautious and fearful as this?

Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison booksigning

Last night,  I attended my local Joseph-Beth bookstore’s Supernatural Summer Tour, featuring Melissa Marr, Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison:

These are the first YA novels for Kim Harrison and Kelley Armstrong, which is perhaps why I wasn’t familiar with them. ::squints suspiciously at the kids in the back of the blog whispering “or maybe it’s because you’re clueless, Dot”::

Someone told me Kim Harrison is local to the Cincy area, which is perhaps why all the seats for the pre-signing Q and A were taken a full 30 minutes before the authors appeared:

If you’re not aware of it, this is a somewhat conservative area of the country, so I was surprised to see a man in a kilt at the signing

I found out later that he’d attended a previous signing by Kim Harrison and she’d asked him to wear his kilt next time.

And that’s all I know about that.

Melissa was the author I was most interested to hear, having followed her writing journey since reading an early short story of hers in Tim Pratt’s Flytrap. And I wish I’d gotten a better pic, but I was pretty far back in the crowd:

On to my notes from the Q and A–

The only other YA booksigning I’ve attended featured Holly Black and Cassandra Clare and I don’t remember them once being asked the famously tried (and tired) question, “Where do you get your ideas?” But last night, all three authors were repeatedly asked this, either in general, or more specifically, eg, “Where did you get your idea to use tattoos?” That one was for Melissa Marr and she replied that she’s obsessed with them; she sees tattoos as stories without words.

Kelley Armstrong was asked where did she get the idea for a main character that sees ghosts and she replied that she thought it was very creepy, plus a great power to give a teenager because it’s something no teen would want.

Both Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison frequently mentioned adding elements to their fiction for the uncomfortable-making factor, things the characters would hate to have happen, things that would make their main characters unhappy. Kim Harrison even mentioned killing a character because it (I forget if it was a he or she character) made her MC too happy.

They were asked what kind of input they were able to give on the covers of their books. (I was thinking was it “please make mine a lot like that one” because look up there! How similar they are!) Melissa Marr said that even though she’d been told authors don’t get to have any say on their cover, she was asked to submit “iconic images” which she did, and also she picked models she thought would work. Kelley Armstrong answered that she was told what the cover would be, in fact she had to change an element in her story, make the necklace blue instead of whatever color she initially chose, because Marketing thought blue would be better. And Kim Harrison said she fell somewhere in between, that she got to make a few suggestions.

The last question came from a cute teenaged girl who was probably around 14. She asked “What inspired all of you to become Authors?” I had a wicked hope that one of them would say, “For the cold hard cash.” Or “because I want to be famous” or maybe “I see this as my first step in World Domination.” But Kelley Armstrong said “Because I LOVE stories. That’s really all.” And Kim Harrison said, “Ditto.” And Melissa Marr added that her family didn’t have a TV when she was growing up, so stories were very important to them.

Rejection can be an active good

Many writers realize that it’s sometimes a passive good, like when an agent turns you down and then you learn something about that person that makes you go “WHEW!” Also maybe “Ew!”

And I think most writers learn early that rejection can inspire you to get better and better.

But I’ve lately learned that rejection can teach you things about your writing, like a . . . like a . . . like a teacher!

Last year, I received a rejection that was so surprising and disappointing that it resulted in me quitting for a while. It was one of the hardest I’ve ever received because it was preceded by a lot of positive talk– love for my manuscript, an almost imminent offer of representation. I don’t want to go into detail because this post is about the fruit the rejection bore, not the way that agency does things, etc. But when they turned me down, they gave me some reasons that didn’t make sense at the time. Or if they made sense, it was because I thought “huh! they must want me to be a literary writer, which I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

But because it drove me to quit writing, it also drove me to examine everything I’ve ever written, studying it hard for weakness and strength. I now think I have a much better idea of what I do well, of my particular, peculiar voice as a writer. And also, perhaps more importantly, they really helped me see a problem in my work. A place where I need to open up more, go deeper, whatever metaphor you use for getting to the heart of what you can do as a writer. And I don’t know if I would have learned these things, if not for that particular rejection. Shockingly (at least it’s a shock to me) I am grateful they turned me down.

Thinking about marketing hurts my brain

Not that I have to think about it much yet, ha! But the business side of writing has always fascinated me. I think it would even if I weren’t a writer. So I think about these things. And the current debate about the impact of online marketing confuses me.

Some of my writing friends know authors who say they definitely boosted their sales by heavy-duty online promotion, such as blog book tours.  But I’ve also heard numerous editors, agents, and writers at conferences, or elsewhere, say that writers should do as much online marketing as they have time for, but they don’t think it bumps up sales much, if at all. And I’ve heard the same about traditional forms of marketing–booksigning tours, postcards, etc. I’ve been told school visits can turn a children’s writer into a “name” author, and I’ve been told that only word of mouth will do that. I had an agent tell me that sometimes when a publishing house throws a ton of marketing money at a title, they can turn it into a bestseller, but sometimes that same ton of money is for naught and the book tanks.

Which of these things is true? Are they all true? Does it depend on the title? The timing? The author’s hairstyle? What?

Writer Tess Gerritsen recently wrote about the online marketing question.  At first, she thought traditional forms of marketing were more effective.  But then, she was persuaded that the old forms of marketing are on their way out.

Huh!

Listening to your inner Jerome Robbins

Last week I saw two things which on the surface didn’t seem connected, but turned out to be entwined. First, I attended a local high school’s Spring Chorus concert. The performances from the various choirs were good, but when the number of singers was small — the soloists, duets, quartets, etc. — various weaknesses were apparent. Mistakes were even made. But the students didn’t seem to mind a bit; they beamed throughout, unfazed by hitting wrong notes or forgetting phrases. I thought the teachers must take the warm-hearted, make them feel good about themselves, approach.  As opposed to the stricter, more demanding type. You remember, the ones who can make you cry.

I was bothered by the mistakes, but wondered if perhaps they were worth the students having a good music education experience. I thought hmm, maybe for this age group it’s better to have them feel good about performing. To be confident and happy.

A few days later, I watched the American Masters episode on PBS about dancer/choreographer/director Jerome Robbins. Which is well worth watching for a lot of reasons, but what I want to discuss here is how I was struck by how many of his dancers and actors commented on how demanding he was. How hard he pushed. How he was never satisfied, either with their work, or his own. One actor told a story about Robbins directing him in Fiddler on the Roof. After dress rehearsal, Robbins told him his performance was so weak that as the director he felt sorry for the other actors, and it made him want to walk out of the theatre. The actor said those comments hurt him deeply, but also way down deep, there was little voice that said, “you know, he’s right.” And after he recovered from the sting, he focussed on improving his performance, and got much better in the role.

I think all creative people can benefit from that kind of painful, demanding expectation. I know I’ve received comments on my fiction that stung so much I almost couldn’t see they also had merit. But like that actor, deep down inside I could hear a little “yes, yes, there’s something to this” voice. I want to open up to that voice. Listen hard for it. And then push myself hard to make my work better.

Do I dare to write a post?

I shall wear white flannel trousers and . . . um, walk upon some toast?

See what happens when you slip out of the blogosphere for such a long time? You come back mangling T. S. Eliot.

I stopped posting to this blog for a number of reasons. For one, I stopped writing fiction for a while. But the more relevant reason is that I realized how very much of my creative energy, in addition to my time, I’d poured into either writing posts, or email, or comments, or just hanging out online. Reading hither and thither and justifying it by calling it research.

But now! In the past few months, I have not only fired up the fiction kiln, I think I’ve finally FINALLY found a way to balance my time online with all the rest of my day.  And now that I’m writing stories again, and mulling the writing of stories, I want to post to this blog about it because I don’t seem to be able to do it without talking about it.

Although I think I’ll be talking a lot less about publishing and getting published and all THAT, because that way rantiness lies.

And now that I’m mangling Shakespeare in addition to Eliot, I believe I’ll close.

The problem with teenagers

Ha! Look at that subject line! There are so many things popping in to my mind with which to make fun of it, myself, and of course, teens. Not the least of which is it should probably read ONE of the problems . . .

But my latest challenge is that my son gets riled and also how-could-you hurt, if I tell him to do stuff. Like, “MO-OM! Why are you always lecturing me? I KNOW! I’ll do it! You don’t have to tell me all the time! You don’t even have to tell me!”

I respect that he wants to be in control more and that he’s growing up, blah-blah-blah. But if I DON’T tell him . . . Can you guess?

HE DOESN’T DO WHATEVER IT IS THAT NEEDS DOING. So then I really nag and lecture.

It’s a vicious, hopeless circle.

(and I promise I’ll have more substantive posts one day. Say . . . around August 25th. Not that I’m counting the days until the next school year ALREADY.)

What would you give up?

My kids were playing this game at breakfast. If you had to live the rest of your life without . . . TV or candy, which would it be? That kind of question. So my nine year old son started asking me, “Mom! What about you? Would you give up . . . coffee or wine?”

Wine.

“Okay, then how about . . . coffee or . . . movies?”

Coffee. I would hate it, but there’s always tea, right?

My five year old daughter added one, “How about movies or flowers, Mommy?”

Ack! That was hard, but I said movies, because I would still have books.

So I asked my son, “How about you? TV or candy?” He chose to give up TV, without hesitation. “Candy or movies?” He would give up candy! I was a bit surprised because he has the classic obsessed kid sweet-tooth. I almost held my breath as I asked “Movies or books?” He said, “ALL books? Every kind?” I said, “Yes, would you live the rest of your life without movies or every kind of book?”

“Oh, I’d give up movies. Definitely.”

Go, books! Woo!