by Matthew

The Call of the Writing Conference

Thinking about attending a writing conference? Here’s what you can expect!

Well I’m mostly recovered from my respiratory infection, so it’s time to talk Writing Conferences! The above photo is from the Hurst Conference Center, which is the site of the DFW Writer’s Conference (aka, DFWCon). After missing 2020 and being online-only last year, DFWCon is going in-person again October 8-9, 2022. Check it out here if you’re in the area and interested. I plan to be there! Favor the online thing? Check out Writing Day Workshops‘ online events, they do one every month (though they will resume in-person at some point in the future).

The 3 Sides to Every Writing Conference

Listed in order of importance (my opinion): Pitching, Classes, Networking

PITCHING

One of the two big reasons to go to a writing conference is the opportunity to pitch to agents. As I have discussed previously in my Lessons from Querying posts (1, 2, 3), getting representation from a literary agent is difficult. Like hitting a 100-mph fastball difficult. So finding any avenue to help you through that process will greatly increase your chances, and there is no better way to do that than in-person pitch sessions with an agent.

Why? Well in that 8 to 10-minute window, you’re given the opportunity to cross several agent hurdles at once:

  • Did you write something that is of interest to the agent?
  • Are you passionate about writing and what you’ve written in particular?
  • Did you throw your story together, or put some real effort into the crafting of it?
  • Are you a one-and-done author, or do you have a long-term writing career goal?
  • Are you rude, insensitive, bigoted, or possess other personality flaws that might prevent you from crossing the finish line with a publisher?
  • Do you seem like someone that would be fun/easy to work with?

The wrong answer to any of those is an easy reject for the agent, so it also helps them skip to the ultimate end in the event you pass the first hurdle that would have gotten you past the slush pile into deeper review.

I’ve had way more success in getting agent interest in at least reading my material from pitches than I have through cold querying. I imagine practically anyone would have the same experience, unless they’re failing one of the sanity checks in the list above.

So here’s the downside to pitches: they’re expensive. Some conferences give you a pitch as part of your conference fee, others don’t. They’ll all let you buy more, which can range from $10-$30 per session. Want to talk to ten agents? $300. That’s more than many conference fees. And you’re going to want to go to several conferences. The cost will add up fast. Why talk to that many? Because you’re still up against the odds of numbers that even if you talk to the single-most-likely agent to want to represent your work, if the timing isn’t right (list is full, they rep a similar manuscript already, they don’t have a publisher resource that would want it), you won’t have success in getting representation. A wide net is required.

And I’m gonna reveal the elephant in the room: not all agents you talk to at a conference are there to take on another author. Some of them are there simply for the additional paycheck. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of the machine of the publishing world. Agents don’t get paid for all the up-front effort they go through in scouring the planet for works to represent. They get paid for the fraction of those works that actually get published. And they’ve got to pay the bills like anyone else, so they’ll come to these conferences, go through a bunch of pitch sessions, not actually request materials from anyone, and just collect a check in the end.

Now to be fair, most agents are there to find new authors to rep. I’ve only come across a couple of these bad-faith agents in the dozens of pitch sessions I’ve done, but they’re easy to identify. They don’t ask questions about you or your work, but instead go straight into a planned spiel about the effectiveness of your pitch and ways to improve it. Sometimes they won’t even say that they aren’t interested. I just smile and take whatever feedback they deign to provide and move on.

What to Expect During a Pitch Session

Depending on your conference, pitch sessions last 8 to 10 minutes. You’re going to know who you’re pitching to ahead of time (because you’ve requested/paid to pitch to that particular agent), so you’ve already done your research. You requested that particular agent because they said they rep the kind of thing you wrote. You know their manuscript wishlist, which is typically listed on the conference website, but can also be found elsewhere on the Internet (#MSWL on Twitter, manuscriptwishlist.com, Publisher’s Marketplace, or the agent’s agency website).

When the pitch begins, spend 30-60 seconds talking to the agent as if they’re a human being. Ask how they’re doing, mention a shared hobby or pets or their Twitter feed, or a book they liked on their MWSL that you’ve also read. Be sociable. This helps check boxes from the list above. They’ll probably invite you in short order to talk about your manuscript. I won’t go into the what’s and how’s to pitch your manuscript here, but spend 4-5 minutes talking about your story, then leave the rest of the time for the agent to ask questions.

If they like you and what you’ve discussed, they’ll request pages. Some will have you send it through regular query channels. Most will have a dedicated means for you to skip ahead of the slush pile line (these are the agents that are taking the pitch sessions most seriously), usually a special Query Manager link or separate email.

If they pass, and some will because you will inevitably find yourself barking up the wrong tree on occasion, graciously accept any feedback they provide and then get yourself ready for your next pitch. Because you’re not going to pitch to just one agent, are you?

CLASSES

Anyone who has yet to become a represented and published author still probably has a thing or two to learn about writing stories and/or the publishing industry. The second big draw of a writing conference is all the various breakout room classes you can attend to drink from the proverbial author firehose. Here’s a sampling of various sessions you can expect:

  • Query letters
  • Query dos and don’ts
  • Hooking readers with your opening pages
  • Compelling dialogue
  • Crafting believable characters
  • Avoiding the “mushy middle”
  • World building
  • Author platforms and social media
  • The life of a literary agent
  • Self-publishing vs. traditional
  • Non-fiction book proposals
  • Workshops where you read your first chapter or query letter and receive feedback
  • Agent Q&A panels
  • Agent “First Page Gong Show” panels

Large conferences like DFWCon will typically also have a keynote speaker (usually a known published author) in a big audience space like the picture above. The rest of the classes will be in small, 20-30 person breakout rooms.

Most conferences will have some variation of the above. Depending on the size they’ll have some, all, or even more than the above to choose from (like genre-specific workshops for say thrillers or romance). Once you’ve gone to a few conferences, you’ll find the vast majority of the advice inside any one of the sessions is the same, so the return you’ll get from these classes will diminish over time because you will presumably have already been taking the lessons to heart and applying what you’ve learned to your craft and your queries.

The “Gong Show” panels are where a handful of agents will sit and listen as a moderator reads an anonymously submitted first page from a conference attendee (submit yours if you’re brave!). Each agent raises their hand at the point when they would have stopped reading and rejected the query, and if enough agents raise their hand, the moderator will stop reading and then discussion will ensue. These panels are the most useful conference session to me (having attended many conferences in the past few years), as they provide insight from a handful of agents as to what the publishing world is looking for right at that very second. It also reveals the sheer subjectivity of the matter when an agent starts reading a prospective manuscript. Very easy to identify flaws in your own approach to the first page when the agents are all raising their hands at the point when they would have stopped reading. Usually in an hour, the panel will get through 10-12 submissions, and typically only one or two make it through the full page read without most or all of the agents raising their hand and the moderator stopping early.

NETWORKING

Here’s where the online and in-person conferences diverge, as there is limited-to-no networking taking place during online conferences. If you’re like me and find it hard to walk up to random strangers and start making small talk, you won’t find this a huge loss. Online conferences usually lean on social media as the forum for attendees to talk to each other (with limited to middling results).

Big conferences like DFWCon have networking time in the evenings where authors, agents, and others can meet and mingle. Adult beverages will be on offer. The prospect of having time to talk to agents outside of a short pitch session is attractive, but in my experience the opportunities for this are few. Most agents don’t attend the networking hours, and those that do are mobbed. There are hundreds to thousands of writers at these conferences and maybe a couple dozen agents tops. The numbers are not in your favor to get quality alone time with an agent, much less the one that you really want to talk to that reps what you wrote. If you have a positive pitch session with an agent and can arrange to meet with them at the networking event ahead of time, then great. But don’t count on it.

What can you expect to get out of the networking time? You’ll find a few freelance editors and cover art designers milling about, handing out business cards and looking for prospective clients. If you’re in the market for such services, avail yourself. But the vast majority of people there are writers, just like you. If you don’t have a solid group of writers you work with for feedback and accountability, then this could be a good chance for you to find some new peeps.

Attend, rinse, repeat.

There you have it. Now all you gotta do is find a writing conference to attend and get your butt in the chair. Hope to see you there! M

by Matthew

Gone Viral

Hi everyone. I’ve not vanished off the face of the Earth, but I have contracted a rather stubborn non-COVID respiratory infection that has had me sidelined for over two weeks now. I am slowly improving and hope to have some new stuff for you soon, including my reaction from an Evening with Neil Gaiman here in Dallas as well as lessons learned from a recent writing conference. Stay tuned!

by Matthew

Remain in Character, Characters!

Actors work hard to remain in character for their films. Some, such as Daniel Day Lewis (above, in Gangs of New York) go so far as to stay in character even while not shooting, to maximize their approach to authenticity. As writers, we have to make sure the characters we are putting to the page remain just as true to who and what they are.

I’m in the car quite a lot and have developed a pretty voracious audiobook habit whilst driving. To improve my own writing, I go through 1-3 books a week at 1.5-2x speed to analyze every story I can cram into my ears. If you’re an audiobookphile and haven’t checked out the Libby app, I highly recommend it. Because it’s free. All you gotta do is connect it to your local library account, and you’ll potentially have access to thousands upon thousands of audiobooks, courtesy of your (already paid for via taxes) library. I can’t imagine my Amazon bill if I was paying Audible for all the audiobooks I go through in a year. Sheesh.

Anyhoo, I digress. I started a new audiobook today (from a bona fide publisher) and a couple hours in got smacked into the face with one of my worldbuilding pet peeves, a failure to keep a character in character. It’s something that many, many writers do without thinking, and (apparently) many professional editors miss during editing.

A character said something they shouldn’t have said.

I don’t mean the character misspoke, or accidentally revealed a secret, or anything like that. In this story, a YA sci-fi tale, the protagonist heard and felt an unfamiliar rumbling and compared it to thunder.

What’s the problem with that? Well, our hero lives in space, on space stations, and has her entire life. In this book’s fictional universe, the people do not have a terrestrial existence. I imagine it’s possible she would have learned of thunder through school or film or whatever. But would it be so ingrained into her speech patterns that she’d use it in a metaphor to describe that rumbling? Noooooooooooo.

Her life is spaceships and space stations. She lived among all manner of noisy, mechanical things. The rumbling could have sounded like an off-balance pressure regulator. Or a T34 Interlocking Phase Inhibitor. Or the ore tumblers at the refinery on Thrackas VII. We’re in space. She’s in space. Stay in space!

Am I being picky? Sure. I imagine plenty of readers would blow right past that and get on with the story. But not everyone. At 60+ audiobooks a year, I’m not exactly the most discriminating of consumers. But in almost every story I’ll hear a detail or two that just makes my inner worldbuilder sad. And this detail pulled me out of the story enough to want to write a blog post about it, so I imagine there are plenty of others out there whose Spidey-senses tingle every time they come across a mistake like this.

I’ll give you a couple more examples.

I did a deep-dive developmental edit for an epic other-world fantasy story for a writer in New Zealand a while back. Ten percent of the way through the entertaining tale, we’re well into the worldbuilding of a chaste anti-magic brotherhood in pursuit of an unknown magic-user among them. Low tech. A castles, swords, carts, and horses affair. A brother hands the hero a plate of food to be delivered to the head of their order. In the first person narrative, the hero describes the plate as mostly vegetables, with the only protein being a wedge of cheese.

The problem there? The word ‘protein’ is something that didn’t come around until the mid 1800s. Over a millennium after the scientific development period of the story. Yes, the story was set in a world other than Earth, but there was absolutely nothing in the writing to indicate that science had developed any farther there than it had here for the level of technology at the time.

The levels of science and technology matter in your writing, even if you’re doing something with medieval knights and castles. Because your characters have to remain in character, in both deed and word. Your knight in shining armor can’t name his speedy horse ‘Turbo’ any more than he can drive a Corvette to save the princess or use a rocket launcher to defeat the dragon. Likewise, he also can’t consider cheese as a part of a group of protein-rich foods because he can’t know about such things. The science to understand what a protein is has yet to be invented.

Later on, still a young man, the hero says he “slept like a baby”. Perfectly normal phrase, one I’m sure we’ve all used at some time or another. Except given the existence the reader is presented with, the orphan hero would have had exactly zero interactions with a baby or parent-of-a-current-baby figure his entire life. He would not be comparing anything, even sleep, to that of a baby, because babies are just not on his mind. Sure, he knows what a baby is, but there are many better ways to skin this cat. I mean, skin a razor-clawed gnurffle.

Colloquial phrases like these are opportunities to instead add depth to the world building. He slept like Old Man Shaw’s toothless guard dog Fezz. He slept like he had eaten three helpings of Father Dooba’s delicious autumn pheasant stew. He slept like he had bathed in the vat of Healer Burdock’s numbing balm she keeps locked in her secret pantry. Pick something in-world, to keep your reader in-world.

In short, we’re building entire worlds here, people. Don’t lean too much on ours, intentionally or otherwise, lest your characters briefly leap out of their boots into a different time or place!

Vigilance and creativity, my friends. M

by Matthew

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 8/10 Rings

If you’re anything like me, you enjoy a good time at the movies. Marvel movies scratch that itch for me, and millions of others. The sheer enormity of the MCU is mind-blowing, and generally even the subpar outings for Marvel (Ironman 3, Eternals) are better than anything their peers are throwing at the screen.

But when Marvel gets it right (Avengers 1, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Thor: Ragnarok), they completely knock it out of the park. Rare is the cinema experience when you leave a theater and can’t imagine any way to improve it without picking tiny nits, and Marvel has given us a handful of these.

So today I’m going to discuss Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings because 1) my daughter watched it this morning on the tail end of a weekend sleepover with her friend, 2) Marvel got oh so close to that hallowed upper echelon with this one, and 3) we can talk about why they didn’t and how they should have done things differently. Because with one major failure, they get an 8/10 stars/mystical kung fu rings/freshly baked banana bread muffins from me. Yes, I made muffins this morning while the kids were watching. So good. I ate like four. Diet starts again tomorrow.

Anyhoo, SPOILERS AHEAD.

I will skip a full recap of the plot and assume you’ve seen the flick. If you haven’t, bravo for continuing to read, but seriously go watch it. It’s a good movie, very entertaining. Just not perfect.

I REPEAT, SPOILERS AHEAD.

First, let’s chat briefly about what Marvel got right, because they, like they usually do, nail most of it.

  • Casting – Simu Liu as our hero Shang-Chi is a compelling lead, and while the depth of his acting may not reach Ben Kingsley’s Shakespearean level, Marvel films don’t really call for that. Awkwafina is great as the goofy comedic sidekick Katy. Meng’er Xiang is fierce and imposing as Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing, and every bit the fighter he is. Tony Leung is dispassionate father Xu Wenwu that boils with rage under the surface. Lots of great side characters too.
  • Action – lots of it.
  • Music – solid.
  • Comedy – plenty, from a number of places.
  • MCU tie-ins – Nobody does tie-ins to other films better than Marvel, and they drop a few doozies in there with the inclusion of Benedict Wong’s Wong (first seen in Dr. Strange), the Abomination from way back in the Incredible Hulk movie (with Edward Norton), the return of Ben Kingsley and the “fix” they did to his character Trevor Slattery from Iron-Man 3, and then the requisite post-credit scene featuring Wong, Bruce Banner, and Captain Marvel.

Now let’s talk character, because I think this had the opportunity to be one of the better character growth arcs we’ve seen in a Marvel movie.

Shang-Chi (as Shaun) is hanging out in San Francisco with Katy, enjoying life as a parking valet, but not really doing much with himself or caring to. We learn he’s been in hiding, avoiding his father Xu Wenwu, warlord of the Ten Rings criminal organization (first used with poorly-received audience misdirection in Iron-Man 3). Wenwu wants his son to return to the Ten Rings (and wants Shaun’s half of a jade pendant). Shaun doesn’t want that. So right there is our opening want/need, full of family history and drama. Great.

Our hero, now Shang-Chi, meets up with his sister Xialing after losing his necklace in the introductory fight with Wenwu’s goons. She’s pissed at him for running off and abandoning her after their mom died when they were younger, and they fight. Deeper family wounds, remorse for Shang-Chi. He has to come to terms with her, because she has the other half of the jade pendant, which when paired with his will provide their father with access to their deceased mother’s mythical home of Ta Lo. So they have to work together. All of this is great!

Naturally, they’re captured by Wenwu and brought back to the Ten Rings compound. And now our hero meets our villain. Again. For the first time (on screen).

The classic comic book villain The Mandarin! Wasn’t he in Iron-Man 3? No. No, he wasn’t.

Blessed with a thousand years of life by the ten rings, Xi Wenwu has led a vicious life as leader of the Ten Rings crime organization, up until the point when he (when trying to get into Ta Lo the first time) meets Shang-Chi’s eventual mother, guardian Ying Li. They fight, she kicks his butt, they fall in love. A bad guy is reformed into family man. The rings are set aside.

All is well until Wenwu’s former life catches up with him and Ying Li is murdered. Wenwu reverts. Shang-Chi (as a youngun) is caught up in the violence and eventually flees the Ten Rings syndicate rather than joining his father’s ways. Tragic villain, wounded past established. Marvel is checking all the boxes so far.

Let’s skip to the end. Marvel is setting us up for a son vs. father showdown, right? This is what our minds have been led to believe will be the final, ultimate confrontation.

And we get it. Shang-Chi heeds his mother’s lessons and becomes his own man, rather than the killer in his father’s footsteps. Father and son fight. Shang-Chi wins control of the rings as they battle and cows his father into submission. Power stripped, the villain is due to see the err of his ways, or meet a tragic comeuppance after reconciling as the Elixir payoff of Shang-Chi’s journey. And we get both of those.

But then, we get this…

Wha wha what? The Dweller-in-Darkness, a soul-sucking corrupted dragon thing. Ta Lo has been holding it behind a mystical dragonscale door to save the world from doom. It had been whispering (somehow) to Wenwu via Ying Li’s voice and convinced him she was still alive. So he came to let it out, mistakenly believing it was his wife. And just as Shang-Chi defeats Wenwu, the Dweller breaks free. It sucks out Wenwu’s soul, and now Shang-Chi has to clean up the mess.

Enter climax #2, and while it’s a rousing fight, it has absolutely nothing to do with Shang-Chi’s journey from wayward youth on the run from his criminal father into becoming his own man. The emotional connection for the audience falls flat, because subconsciously we know that everything our hero has been working for and toward for the past two hours doesn’t matter in the slightest because now he has to defeat some dimly-lit monstrosity he didn’t even know existed a day ago. Sure, he had to complete his character arc to win the ten rings in order to gain the power to defeat this new villain. But the Dweller wasn’t Shang-Chi’s antagonist in this movie, his father was.

All the way up to this, we are not educated as to why Wenwu must be kept out of Ta Lo, only that his pursuit of the mythical realm was folly and he would lead it to destruction. We are not told why during the build-up of the story, and only learn of the ultimate threat after Shang-Chi and crew make it to Ta Lo. Way too late to be introducing the audience to the ultimate villain of the story. It has no ties to Shang-Chi. It has no connection to Wenwu, other than using him to escape. It has nothing to do with the whole story until it gets out. Then we have to defeat it or the world is doomed. Just meh.

I don’t possess an ounce of comic book knowledge, so it’s entirely possible this storyline was pulled straight from the pages. Kinda feels like a few mashed together though, and here they threw one too many in right at the end.

When I watched this film in the theater for the first time last year, as Shang-Chi battled the Dweller, I thought to myself “this is totally unnecessary”. I was ready to anoint this movie as another masterful standard-bearer for Marvel, and instead the whole thing fell flat on its face on the dismount. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of the better Marvel films for all the great work they did leading up to the second half of the climax. But it’s not on the podium.

So how could Marvel have fixed this? I have three ideas:

  1. Connect Wenwu’s want (return of his wife) with the intentional release of the Dweller. In his ancient texts, Wenwu translates something that makes him believe the Dweller is in possession of Ying Li’s soul and freeing it will also free her. Shang-Chi learns of this midway through, remembers lessons from his mother regarding the Dweller (needs to be added), and suddenly stopping his father has overt save-the-world implications. When he can’t stop his father in time, his failure directly leads to the Dweller’s release, and now the need to defeat the Dweller to save the world is fully Shang-Chi’s to own to complete his growth into hero.
  2. Turn Wenwu into the Dweller. Shang-Chi wins the rings, but won’t kill his father because he still loves him, even if it is the right thing to do (will have to add the inevitable killing of his father mandatory in the growth phase of the arc, which they avoid here to keep Shang-Chi from becoming like his father). Still desperate, Wenwu makes a final deal with the devil and with some mystical MacGuffin (the audience needs to be made aware of this thing earlier on, even if Shang-Chi isn’t), joins forces with the Dweller, giving it corporal (and horrible) form. Shang-Chi is given the final kick in the tail he needs to defeat his father once and for all. Fight ensures. Rings are used with deadly intent against his monster-father and the arc is completed and world saved.
  3. Beef up the fight with Wenwu at the end, but leave it with the father’s defeat. All of the emotional angst and turmoil we’ve invested ourselves in will be satisfied, and the journey will be whole. Save the escape of the Dweller for the end credits scenes, and you’ve got an easy direct setup for Shang-Chi 2.

I think #1 is best, but would have made an already long movie even longer.

There you have it. Did you see Shang-Chi? What did you think? Do you agree with my assessment of the film’s unnecessary second climactic battle? Leave a comment!

The ultimate lesson here? Begin your heroes’ journeys with the end in mind! M

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