Month / April 2022

by Matthew

No Cheat Days

Writers should write every day. Right? Eh, I have a few thoughts…

Not a picture of me. But we all make that face some days. I know I do.

If you’re not ready to write (go read my post on understanding your process), sitting at the computer or your notebook and attempting to pound out word count for the sake of word count is not the most productive thing you could do with your time. Sure, seeing those numbers go up is gratifying, but if your first time quality sucks, you’re really only creating more revising work for yourself later while wasting the “writing time” you have today on words you ultimately have to throw away.

I put “writing time” in quotes, because you can still be productive with those minutes or hours you have in your schedule, even if you’re not adding word count to your work in progress. Have a list:

Writing Things to Do When Not Actually Writing

  1. Think about your work in progress. If you pants like me, then you should be doing this on the regular, “writing time” or not. I may not have an outline written down, but I do know where my scenes and chapters are going, what the character arcs are, how the climax fits, etc. If you’re a plotter, then examine your outline, make sure the setup you had originally still fits what you’ve written down.
  2. Read. Educate yourself on the craft of writing, or just read a novel and pick it apart as you go. Identify themes, arcs, subplots, things you would improve, etc. Understanding the methods other authors use to craft stories you love can only help you do the same.
  3. Take a class. Early on in the process of writing my first manuscript, I realized I needed some training. SMU in Dallas had a great program (sadly now shuttered) called The Writer’s Path, where people from all walks of life would come together to learn from published authors and faculty about writing. I came away well-prepared. You can too!
  4. Read your own stuff. If you have an outline that you are betrothed to, make sure your writing is going to get you to the altar. If you’re pantsing, make sure the voice is appropriate for your genre and age group, and your characters’ actions are internally consistent.
  5. Revise. Here’s where some of you will disagree heartily with me about editing while writing the first draft. If you’ve read my post on process, then I’ve stated my case there. First time quality matters.
  6. Research agents. If you’re planning to enter the query trenches with your manuscript eventually, it doesn’t hurt to build your to-be-queried list as you go. There are a TON of agents out there, but only a small percentage of them are going to be interested in exactly what you wrote. You need to spend your querying time on them, and no others. Read my #1 lesson from querying.
  7. Research self-publishing. If you’re going the other route, then you’ve a lot of work ahead of you. Find your editor(s), cover artist, learn layout, research Amazon vs. everyone else, create a budget strategy, etc.
  8. Find a local writing group or critique partners. If you have those, converse with your compatriots or review their material. If you don’t make time for them, they’re unlikely to make time for you.
  9. Find a conference to attend. Better yet, find several. You can find online-only or in-person events. There are plenty to choose from. I’ve had solid success with pitches through Writing Day Workshops. Dallas has a great event in October called DFWCon. Most of these conferences aren’t free, and pitches cost even more, so mind your budget. But you can learn a lot about all facets of writing, get material reviewed, meet new writing buddies, and speak directly to agents. There is no better way to get through the slush pile than to step around it entirely. I have had *way* more interest in my stories from pitch sessions than I’ve received in responses to unsolicited queries. Way more.
  10. Social media. Use sparingly. Interacting with the writing and reading communities is great if you’re doing it to an end. Build your follower list. Make connections with critique partners or editors or artists. If you’re entertaining yourself and not much else, you could use your writing time better.

So there you have it. Lots of ways to be productive as a writer in those times when the words aren’t coming.

Get to work! M

by Matthew

Stealth Lemon Juice

Whilst preparing a marinade for tonight’s grilled chicken, I cut my finger. What does this have to do with writing fiction? Consequences!

Because I was in a bit of a rush, I elected to cut the soon-to-be-juiced lemon in my hand, rather than take the safe approach and use a cutting board. Thusly, when the nice and sharp knife deftly cleaved the lemon in twain, it went into one of the fingers that was holding said lemon. I appreciate your concern, but the cut wasn’t too bad.

Right when I did it, my immediate thought (as the finger bloomed red and the scent of lemon wafted into my nose) was, “Well that’s gonna sting.” But it didn’t. Told ya the cut wasn’t that bad. Wash hands, apply a bandage, and finish cooking, right?

So that’s what I did. Flattened and scored the chicken, tossed it in marinade, and into the fridge it went.

And that’s when the pain started. It wasn’t immediate, as expected. Just a five-minute Alexa timer late. But when it hit, I found all the colorful metaphors I could muster. And, more importantly, the stealth lemon juice forced me to acknowledge the error of my ways.

Choices have consequences.

As a character on the journey of making dinner, I made a choice to cut corners. Who doesn’t want to save a little time in the kitchen where they can? The consequence of that choice was excruciating — albeit brief — pain in my finger. And I didn’t save any time in the end either. Did I learn my lesson? Definitely. Next time I go heroically up against the nefarious evil of the dinner menu, I will bring my cutting board.

Part of the point of the Trials, Allies, and Enemies phase of the Hero’s Journey (or the first half of Act 2 of the three-act structure) is to teach our protagonists lessons. Cross the Death Star chasm with a Stormtrooper’s utility belt and a kiss from the princess for luck. Knock out the troll in the bathroom to save Hermione. Solve the riddle to get the first key to the easter egg that saves the OASIS. These challenges help our protags grow into the heroines and heroes we need them to be to triumph over lemons (or evil, your choice).

Naturally, as we humans go through the course of our lives, we learn from our mistakes. But I think better character growth in stories happens when a hero has to deal with the unintended, and (hopefully) delayed consequences of their actions. Here are a couple condensed examples from my own stories.

In Dangers to Society, the four protagonists each have quirky superhuman abilities. One of them (Steve) can distinguish truth from lies. Another (Ben) can manipulate minds to believe any manner of things. So, I had Ben subtly use his ability on Steve (and others) for something frivolous, just out of convenience. Chapters on, I had a side character casually say something in front of Steve that was in direct contradiction to what Ben had done. This triggered Steve’s ability and caused a cognitive dissonance between the lie Ben placed and the truth Steve heard. It wracked Steve’s brain and risked his health. Ben had to deal with that. He also learned something about using his ability from this encounter. Steve learned something for his arc as well (about Ben), though he wasn’t aware of what it was at the time. The results of the consequences collide later on in the Ordeal phase.

In The Pentathax Contingency, my current work in progress, one protagonist is escaping a planetary conflict in the opening chapter. In my head he’s a bit of a young space scoundrel type, and to create conflict for him as he was escaping, I destroyed his ship (naturally). So he needs another one. He finds an available ship with a testy pilot getting ready to depart. In a bit of a Han Solo vs. Greedo I-live-or-you-live standoff, he shoots the guy simply to escape from the planet. Wasn’t personal. Motivated by survival, and a choice I can see a lot of us making, were we the young space scoundrel type fleeing a planetary conflict. Later on (when I get around to writing it), he’s going to have to cope with the fact that the pilot he killed was a close family friend of our other protagonist (and potential love interest). Oh my, the consequences of that.

An airlock will be involved.

These are the kinds of darlings we get to keep. If the tests you put your protagonists through don’t matter in the end, they’re not worthy of your story.

Make ’em count. M

by Matthew

Process Your Process

Hello again! Thanks for dropping by to read my ramblings.

Today I thought I’d ramble upon my writing process. I am (as of 4/16/22) in the early throes of the first draft of my fourth manuscript, tentatively titled The Pentathax Contingency (henceforth referred to here as TPC). It’s a YA sci-fi story.

I’m working on the fifth chapter, about 10k words into the story as a whole (out of 75k or so I’d guess), and have been around that number for a couple weeks now. When I’m at my most productive, I can do 3-5k a day. So as I sat there one night, not doing much with the story other than rereading and tweaking the already done chapters, I asked myself why.

I didn’t immediately know. I love writing, and I like my plan for this story, but I’m not in love with TPC. Not the way that I love the first three manuscripts I’ve finished. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason.

When I thought back to those first three manuscripts, I found a commonality: I had hovered around at the exact same spot in the story for all three. I got inciting incidents locked in. Refined the voice. Little bit of worldbuilding and backstory, and then… paused. Tweaked. Edited. Revised. But then I worked my way through that blockage and powered through 106k, 128k, and 56k words to cross those finish lines. Why?

Like our heroes, I had crossed the threshold. Accepted the call to adventure. Understood the stakes and the payoff. And I’m not quite there yet with TPC. So why is that?

Well, I’m a pantser. I write as I go, without much of an outline or plan written down. Perhaps I’m a little bit of a mental plantser (planner+pantser), if I want to be perfectly accurate. I think about my stories a ton. Like all the time. Probably to the detriment of remembering things I should probably remember. Rarely does a shower go by where I don’t have a eureka moment for my current work in progress. As a result, I (generally) know where my stories are going, both in the coming chapter and overall. And I do know where TPC is headed. Protagonists and side characters are established. Antagonistic force is known and introduced. Climax setup is there. Have some ready subplots to add depth and complexity as needed.

But I’ve not crossed the threshold yet. I’m not ready to write TPC.

For one, I’m not quite certain I have the voice yet. It’s told in first person from two different points of view, and so far, each protagonist has had two chapters to establish their way of telling their side of the story. They’re different enough, and I think it’s young enough for YA, but they’re in space and commanding spaceships with the fate of the planet at stake, so a certain maturity is required as well. Things just don’t feel quite right yet. So I tweak. In addition to the voice, I think the way my brain thinks it likes to have little details in the narrative already lined up for use later on. Be that characters or names or technology or conflict or whatever. With all that stuff as ready as it can be, I don’t have to go back and find the right spot later when I have that idea. I wait to have the idea, put in the clue or character or whatever in the opening scenes as needed, then it’s ready when I need it. So I tweak.

What reasons might the little alien driving my subconscious have for writing this way? First and foremost, I think I’m inclined towards first time quality. The idea of writing THE END and parking a story in the drawer for a month, only to come back to it and tear it completely apart to fix stuff isn’t appealing to me. So I edit as I go. I make micro revisions in situ. By the time I finish a first draft, I’ve been over the story dozens of times and it’s already 95% ready to query. I like that.

Of course, the manuscript goes to an editor. Things need clarifying, grammatical foibles are found, inconsistencies in world building get identified, and — my specialty — overly long and complicated sentences are highlighted. We fix those. And we revise again. And again, until those issues are no longer present. Takes a few times, but those are easy fixes. The story comes out of the gate developmentally sound and needs no surgery. That’s what the little alien driving my brain is telling the rest of me to do. So far, I’m pleased with the results.

Now during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), this approach probably doesn’t fly if I’m to hit the 50k word goal. But outside of that event, I find I don’t mind the nights where the daily word count doesn’t rise by thousands. Still feels like being productive as I’m honing the early chapters into fine-edged steel.

I think it helps us as writers to analyze our writing processes, because, like our stories, they are unique. Every approach to creativity is different. But every new story is an adventure for the writer. Because like our heroines and heroes, every time we commit to finishing a story, we are crossing the threshold. Apparently, part of my writing process is making absolutely certain I am fully prepared for the journey before I step over that line.

Don’t get me wrong on TPC, I’m close. Very close. I’ll get there any day, and then the words will start flying. I expect the first draft to be done by the end of May. But for now, I don’t want to jump into the Millennium Falcon and fly off until I’ve given the droids their oil baths, I understand the structure and history of the Galactic Empire, the vaporators have been turned off, and I’ve had one last glass of blue milk.

Keep writing! M

by Matthew

Lessons from Querying #3

Why writers must follow a literary agent’s submission guidelines

The numbers are against us, my friends.

Attend any writing conference where an agent is speaking, and invariably they will let slip how many new queries they get per week. The number you’ll usually hear is “hundreds”, and I’ve heard “thousands” more than once as well. That’s a lot of email to filter through.

An agent I follow on Twitter recently just reopened to queries and was tweeting about her slush pile (that’s the collection of unread queries waiting for their attention). In just a few hours after reopening to queries, she had 150 fresh queries waiting. After she had gotten through those 150 queries, she had requested materials from two. That’s not a great rate of return (and I think 1 out of 75 is kind of high actually). By the second day she had over 450 new queries waiting. Now she probably had a queue of people waiting to send her a query, but still. That’s a lot of work waiting for someone who’s not going to get paid for nearly any of the time they spend on it.

Most veteran agents spend 90-95% of their effort on existing clients. That doesn’t leave a lot of time during the day for queries. Let’s say the agent above gives thirty minutes a day to her slush pile. That’s 150 minutes. Enough for a minute per query, for just the first day’s haul. But for the entire week’s intake, she has less than a minute per query. A lot less. If she’s getting 1000 queries per week, and holds fast to the 30 minutes per day, that’s just 9 seconds per query.

Certainly, stories that look promising will take more time than that. What is the agent to do? Look for anything that makes for a quick rejection. So, today’s lesson is…

Follow submission guidelines to the letter.

Submit your query to the wrong place? Reject.

Get the agent’s name/pronouns wrong? Reject.

Submit when the agent is closed to queries? Reject.

Attach a Word doc when the agent wants copy/pasted text in the body of the email? Reject.

Submit more than the requested sample pages (AKA sending your whole manuscript when the agent wants one chapter)? Reject.

Have weird/bad manners? Reject.

Submit something that the agent doesn’t represent (this is always mentioned somewhere: their MSWL, Publisher’s Marketplace, or the agents/about us page on their agency’s website)? Reject.

Open by saying your manuscript is the best thing ever put to paper and you’re going to make them a trillionaire? Reject.

Get out on the wrong side of bed in the morning? Reject.

Why do agents cull with such abandon? Simple statistics. The odds of them finding something they’re going to love so much they want to represent it are already astoundingly low (see my Lessons from Querying #1 post). The odds that story they fall in love with will have been submitted by someone who breaks submission guidelines? Even lower. Because personalities matter, as well as the writing. A writer who can’t be bothered to follow submission guidelines is more than likely going to be harder to work with, and less likely to get past the traditional publishing finish line. And agents are already busy enough to have to deal with someone like that.

By clearing out all the flotsam and spending next to no time doing it, a literary agent preserves precious seconds per query that are better spent on something that has a higher likelihood, no matter how small that increase, of being something they want to represent.

Don’t make it harder for an agent to fall in love with you. Your story won’t get even a first glance if an agent ends up chucking your query out the window because you couldn’t follow the submission guidelines.

Be thorough. M

by Matthew

Lessons from Querying #2

Hello again. Gonna attempt to make this blog a twice-a-week habit. Should be easy enough with the lessons from querying series. There are plenty to share.

Today, we shall discuss the very first thing I learned from the very first literary agent I ever pitched, which was at the DFW Writer’s Convention (aka DFWCon) in 2018, before the world went nuts. Since that point, I’ve heard this same advice from agents a zillion times, so you can take this one as written in stone (with a few exceptions mentioned toward the end).

When pitching/querying a novel, especially a debut novel, you must have a standalone story. It must have a beginning, middle, and end. The goals of the protagonist and threats of the antagonist must be resolved. In short:

You shouldn’t pitch/query the first book of a planned trilogy, or first volume of an open-ended series.

Here’s why:

Publishers are far less likely to be interested in an open-ended work of an unproven author. It’s simple risk/reward math to them. They don’t know if your story will sell. And if you don’t have an established track record of productivity, they don’t know they can count on you to produce sequels in the timeframe they want. Subsequently, agents are far less likely to be interested in representing said work.

“But Matt, I’ve already written the whole trilogy. Won’t that save them a lot of time?” Time, perhaps. But publishers think with their checkbooks first. They don’t want to buy three books when they don’t know if the first book will sell or not.

In addition, as a traditional publishing hopeful wanting to be productive with your writing time, you don’t to spend time writing sequels to books that don’t go anywhere with a publisher or agent. Write three entirely different stories and query them all. Yes, querying sucks at your soul, but your odds are better (very, very low x3 > practically nil x1).

If you plan to self-publish said series if you don’t get anywhere with an agent, then the advice is generally reversed. You want to have a series of books queued up for planned release at Amazon or wherever, as that tends to boost your sales. Lining up multiple books takes advantage of the “You may like…” and “Other readers purchased…” marketing algorithms online booksellers employ. And you want to take advantage of those, because they are time-limited. My focus (at the moment) remains with traditional publishing, so we’ll leave the advice on self-publishing at that for now.

Back to writing standalone stories vs. a series. It is entirely fine and, in some genres encouraged, to leave elements in your worldbuilding and subplots that can turn a standalone novel into the first of a larger story. If you do happen to have a successful debut novel, your publisher will most definitely be interested in your follow-on stories with a now-established audience.

Exceptions? Of course. If you have a million followers somewhere. If you’re a celebrity or known politician. If you write like Amanda Gorman. If you check all the boxes of a publisher’s flavor-of-the-month acquisitions binge. If you happen to query the exactly right agent at the right time that happens to have a great relationship with exactly the right editor and that editor’s publishing house’s cards all line up for you at exactly the right time. Long odds to line up all of those ducks in a row.

Success in traditional publishing has long odds already. As writers we must do what we can to improve our chances. Don’t make it easy for an agent to say no to you in the slushpile phase.

“So Matt, what happened with that first pitch session?” It was a polite decline. She gave no further reason than I had admittedly written the first book of a trilogy. The quality of the plot or characters or worldbuilding didn’t matter. I didn’t pass that first hurdle. I learned that lesson quickly and altered my pitch to the other three agents I met at the conference that weekend. All three requested materials. When I got home, I spent a furious week fixing the story before submitting my queries to those agents. I adjusted the ending, tweaked the goals, the antagonist, and trimmed the various subplots that were intended to further the story into books 2 and 3. I never got any further with an agent than the initial requests for materials from those pitches, or from unsolicited queries (which usually provide zero actionable feedback), so it’s entirely possible I didn’t de-trilogy it enough.

That manuscript is now on the shelf, biding its time. I still love the story. It’s the one that got me into the passion of writing in the first place. It’ll get attention again some day. Now that I’ve completed two more manuscripts (both entirely different stories), I suspect the quality of the writing wasn’t where it needed to be to catch an agent’s eye. We’ll talk more about that in an upcoming post.

Keep writing! M

by Matthew

Lessons from Querying #1

Long time, no post. Eh, blog? Those longer analysis posts are fun, but certainly time-consuming. I’ll keep up with those at some point in the future, but to get my duff back into the blog, I thought (at the behest of some critique group friends) I would start a series of short posts that share various lessons I’ve learned throughout my time attempting to query the novels I’ve written. Some brief facts to set your mindframe:

As of March 31, 2022:

I have written three novels, two adult, one middle grade, all various forms of contemporary fantasy.

All three have been edited and revised vigorously. Reviewed with critique groups as I was writing them. Bounced off beta readers. They’re all within the expected bounds of word count. The voice and subject matter are appropriate for their target audiences.

All three have been queried. The two adult I have shelved for now and am focusing on querying the MG story while I write my fourth novel (YA sci-fi).

I do not yet have representation from a literary agent. But I am still hopeful.

The MG story has received three full manuscript requests, all from pitch sessions at (virtual) conferences, as well as over a 95% request rate for materials from agents I’ve pitched. None have requested more material, though there are dozens of unrejected queries still floating out there (fingers crossed!).

None of my unsolicited queries have received anything other than a rejection. Most do not get any kind of feedback other than a form response that apologizes and says “it’s not for me”.

Despite my lack of success, I feel I’m close. The MG story has had some very positive responses in the rejections. Literary agents sometimes refer me to colleagues or other agent friends. I get compliments. “Writing is strong” and “fun elements” and “twist on tropes” have been common. What’s also common? “I didn’t fall in love with it.” What’s the lesson here?

Writing and reading are subjective exercises. Hence, agenting is a subjective profession.

This means two things: Writers (should) write what they enjoy reading. Agents will (generally) only represent stories they love. If you query an agent, and that agent doesn’t love your story (or have dollar signs spin through the whites of their eyes), that agent will not offer you representation.

They may compliment you on your writing. They may point out things they liked, or an area of improvement. If an agent takes the time to send you anything other than a form rejection response, that in itself is an uncommon thing.

But, if they don’t connect with it first as a reader, beyond being a professional wanting to represent it in the confounding quagmire of traditional publishing, they aren’t going to offer you representation. Doesn’t matter if you wrote Harry Potter or Pride and Prejudice. If that reader doesn’t care for wizards and magic or proper English manners and the search for self, that reader isn’t going to offer you representation. Simple as that.

Not every reader will enjoy your book baby. Consequentially, not every literary agent will love it either. Doesn’t mean it’s not good, or not a potential bestseller. Just means that particular person you queried isn’t going to rep you. That’s not the end of the world — it’s the wrong needle in the haystack.

Keep looking! M