My First Battle Scar

Well, it's official: I've received my first rejection letter. While this doesn't really change anything, I suppose it tranfers me from the group of "I want to write a book" to the group of "I wrote a book and I'm trying to get it published."

Personally, I'm good with rejections. (After attempting to find a teaching job, or any job really, in this economy, you get used to it.) What I was sad to read was how many agents won't respond with a rejection email, but only respond if they're interested. The reason? Too many heated and nasty emails in return.

To all those people who can't seem to take rejection well: shame on you. With many popular agents receiving up to 100 queries a day, there is no way they are going to accept everyone. The agent business is subjective and no, not everyone is going to fall in love with your work. Treat others how you want to be treated. This is the motto I live by, and hold my students to, and maybe you should try the same.

If you can't take rejection, and refuse to believe there is a way to better your writing, then maybe you should rethink your goals.

And to all agents who have received the aforementioned nasty emails, I'm sorry you had to put up with it. Please do your job and know that at least this aspiring author will respect your decision, no matter if it's a rejection or not.

Query Update: I tweaked my letter and sent out my first real wave. Now I wait.

Breaking the Synopsis Myth

You've done it. You've finished your manuscript to a bright polish. You even managed to put together a decent query letter, but then you realize what you still have to do: the synopsis. People tend to debate whether the synopsis or the query letter is more difficult, but after finishing both, the query letter wins hands down.

But, but, but...

Well, let's take a look.

For those of you who aren't aspiring authors, here's a little glimpse into the world of publishing. Now, I'm not in publishing, nor have I been published yet, but I offer you my many, many hours of research in a short blog entry, free of charge.

When you want to find a literary agent, you know, a person to help with your career, manage contracts, find a home for your book, etc., there is a process. First, you finish your story. If you haven't, don't even bother unless you're lucky enough to be someone like Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon or Janet Evanovich. Once that's done, and edited to a high gleam, you need what's called a query letter. A query is a short pitch of your novel, usually around 250 words, that should give the plot and tone, yet can still invoke the "awesome-ness" reaction. In other words, you want people to be knocking down doors for your work. I've talked about queries a bit before here.

Some agents also require a synopsis--this is the plot of your novel in about two pages. Now, everywhere I went, I read how difficult it was. How nervewracking. There was no way anyone could write the plot of their 300+ page novel in two pages! Even I fell into this trap, putting off the synopsis day after day and instead spent my time researching. The research wasn't helping, until I came across the most relevant and helpful sentence this morning on Nathan Bransford's blog. Simply, it says:

A synopsis needs to do two things: 1) it needs to cover all of the major characters and major plot points (including the ending) and 2) it needs to make the work come alive.

That single sentence caused a lightbulb to turn on inside my head. If I had only seen this advice a week ago, I would've had the synopsis done without all this dread inbetween. I abhor formulas, which was mostly what I had found until today, but this advice just worked for me. I sat down and an hour later, I had a finished synopsis of 1,400 words and just a tad over two pages. I'm pretty pleased with it, actually. A few subplots were left out, but it's for the best.

So, if you're at the stage where you want to find an agent and try getting published, don't fret over the synopsis. The query letter is hard, I won't deny it (mine took a month to get where I wanted it), but after that, the worst part will be the waiting and the rejections. Don't fear the synopsis.

On a side note, I sent my first query letter today.

UPDATE: I have since written another synopsis, just over a page and it was kind of fun. You read that right: I enjoyed it.

A Unique Idea from a Strange Conversation

A little over a week ago I had one of the most entertaining conversations I've had in a while. My best friend needed a break from her three sons, and after her husband came home, she came over to hang out. What followed was a three hour conversation about the impossibilities of romance novels.

Now, I will freely admit that I'm addicted to paranormal romance novels. I devour authors such as Gena Showalter, Kresley Cole, Sherrilyn Kenyon, JR Ward, etc in a matter of days, if not hours. For some reason the fantasy aspect (vampires, werewolves, immortal warriors) makes the romance novel more believable to me. I know, I know, there is not a plethora of 6'6" men with six packs and drop-dead gorgeous faces, but the main point of fantasy is that it isn't real. You say there's an underground culture of vampires? Sure. Does the Greek goddess Artemis go around granting acts of vengeance? What the hell. It is fantasy.

Of course there are some patterns that emerge, no matter if the romance is paranormal or other. Those of you who have read some will know this, I'm sure. Things like the man always pleases the woman first and is okay with waiting for his own pleasure. Or the woman can handle 10 hour long marathons with an immortal warrior without getting tired or feeling sore. Etc, etc. Now, these patterns sparked an idea in my head: why has no one ever written a fill-in-the-blank romance story?

Imagine it: you choose certain numbers, places, objects, a la Mad Libs style, and get your own personalized, semi-ridiculous romance adventure. It would be nothing short of entertaining.

Maybe some day I'll attempt it, but what holds me back from writing paranormal romance novels instead of fantasy with romantic elements is my family. They would buy the book and read it, and I can't say I'd feel comfortable having my family read sex scenes and wonder what is real or made up. I'll warm up a scene when the romantic peak comes, but I'll leave the details to your own imagination.

Of course if fill-in-the-blank is too much of challenge, there's always Choose Your Own Adventure possibilities as well. That way if you don't like how the story ends, it's your fault.

Unique Expectations of Fantasy

When I was a teenager, and even into my early twenties, I loved reading fantasy. Reading is a form of escapism, and what better form of escape could there be but to visit a made up world? I devoured some of the more lengthy series by Terry Goodkind, Melanie Rawn, Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Haydon.

And then one day, I stopped. It was a combination of factors, such as moving from Japan to England and starting graduate school, that brought it about, but I stopped reading fantasy. When I did have time to read, it was either Diana Gabaldon or Jane Austen. When I finished grad school in the UK, I then went to grad school in the US. By the time I was done, I realized I had free time again, which meant I could start reading for fun once more.

For a long time I focused on historical nonfiction, which makes sense since I am a certified history teacher. But eventually I wanted easy-to-read fiction. I wandered the aisles at my local bookstore and a cover for one of Karen Marie Moning's Highlander books caught my eye. And thus my interest in paranormal romance was born.

After a while I realized something: I was writing a book that would be termed "fantasy" yet I hadn't read any pure fantasies, aside from one attempt at Robin Hobb's newest series, in years. True my work is closer to paranormal fantasy, but I knew what I needed do: buckle down and research some new fantasy titles and read them.

I managed to wade through Richelle Mead's Storm Born without too much trouble. Was it a little slower than I liked? Yes. But at least the writing was to the point, and the story a nice length. I tried another book (which I won't name because of the negative review I'm about to give) that seemed closer to my own story: fairies lived below 17th century London. Now the premise of the book was interesting: a dragon was banished to a "star" that turned out to be Halley's comet and 50 years later, the fairies must find a way to defeat the dragon or all of London will be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the writing was long-winded. There were too many scenes of no importance and the writing got on my nerves. (Odd, considering how several reviewers praised the writing as an example of what fantasy should be.) In my opinion, the writer was more concerned with world-building and plot than character development. For example, you have a character who is always calm and collected, and then boom, for one scene only, she's yelling and out of control. The events didn't merit the over-reaction in any way.

This all got me thinking: Why do readers accept long-winded prose and lack of tension in fantasy novels? Any other genre, with the possible exception of literary fiction, would throw the story out or require some serious editing. But not necessarily in fantasy. Some of the masters can create necessary tension, but even Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing, while beautifully written, lacked tension most of the time. I grew bored of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series a long time ago for that exact reason: nothing was happening. And as much as people will disagree with me, JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is too slow-paced for my tastes.

You may be saying that world-building takes a long time and requires all those hundreds of extra pages. But if that be so, why can Anne McCaffrey or Richelle Mead create fully engaging worlds in under 400 pages? It requires focusing on what's necessary to know, not what's "nice to know." I'm begging fantasy authors: please take out the unnecessary and draw me in. I want tension, not flowery descriptions.

Broad Tapestries

Today I finished my big edit of "Book One" (still don't have a title) and started writing "Book Two." As the story ended on a cliffhanger for the first book, I thought about the influence of writers on my own style. Sure, I read a lot and have more than a handful of favorite authors, but do any of them really influence me? For the most part, no, they don't. Good writing makes me happy, end of story. Of course, there is one author I've been reading since I was 13 years old who definitely influences me to this day: Anne McCaffrey.

For those of you who don't know, Anne McCaffrey is most famous for her Dragonriders of Pern series. There are few authors who make you think you're reading fantasy only to discover it's really science fiction. (I dislike spoilers, so I won't go into specifics. But if you're curious, type in P.E.R.N. into a search engine, complete with the periods, and you should find out right quick what I'm talking about.) As you read the first book, Dragonflight, you realize the sheer number of characters introduced and think to yourself, "Doesn't this go against every how-to rule of writing?" Well, too many characters can be confusing if it's not handled correctly, but McCaffrey writes in "broad tapestries." For a better idea of her writing style, read the following quote:

I write in broad tapestries, interweaving characters lives, leaving the little details to the reader unless the details are important.

I have this scratched on a piece of paper I've kept since high school for a reason: this is my favorite style of writing. If you're going to create a whole world, it becomes more interesting with a variety of characters. Also, leave out the unimportant stuff. I don't want to know the description of every item in the room or read about you walking around the garden alone unless something is going to happen. SKIP the unnecessary, but DO include more points of view to help flesh out your world.

My own writing style reflects this, so if you're looking for elegant descriptions of rooms and clothing, or lots of irrelevant conversation, you may not like my stories. But if you do like stories that span longer amounts of time and leave room for your imagination to handle the little details, then mine might be worth a read.

I've always dreamt of Anne McCaffrey reading one of my stories, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Query Education

Since you're thinking it, let me ease your mind: I'm not talking about part of the XML computer language.

Okay, okay, that probably wasn't the first thing that came to your mind. If you were thinking of query letters, as in the letters aspiring writers send in to try and snag an agent or get published, then you'd be right on the money.

I'm less than 20,000 words away from finishing my first edit of my complete manuscript. While I'm waiting for my volunteer readers to finish, I decided it was time to start learning the best way to write a query letter. There are books on the subject, of course, but most of those focus on good ol' fashioned snail mail queries and most agents rely on email queries these days. But never fear, after a minimal amount of searching I found THE website for query advice (actually it's a blog): Query Shark.

Query Shark is run by an actual literary agent who critiques various drafts of query letters. Now, the beauty of this site is that the Query Shark is brutally honest, which can be amusing at times, but always helpful. After you read some of the posts, you begin to see patterns and detect glaring mistakes. (DO NOT put your address at the top of an email query. The Query Shark gets upset when this happens.) Once I finish reading the archives, I'm faced with the task of writing my own query letter. I cringe at the idea because I don't like "selling myself." I picked up some modesty whilst living in Japan all those years and it doesn't look to be going away anytime soon.

Read a few posts from Query Shark and then read an "example" query here that highlights everything you could possibly do wrong. I laugh every time I read it, so enjoy!

And to be honest, I'm actually looking forward to sending out queries and hearing back. I think my first rejection letter will be the equivalent of a solider's first battle scar; it may hurt like hell at first, but you learn from it and move on, thankful to be alive to take on the world.

TXT Classics

Interacting on a daily basis with young people often leads to interesting conversations. For instance, I never would've read, "Diary of Wimpy Kid" if it weren't for my middle school students. The same goes for, "The Lightening Thief" of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. But yesterday something unique came up in conversation: How long will it be before someone writes a book in text shorthand? Unlikely, you say, but something similar has been done before to great success in Japan.

The book I'm referring to is, "Densha Otoko," or "Train Man" in English. A geeky Japanese man unexpectedly saves a beautiful woman on a train from some thugs. She thanks him and a strange relationship begins. At first the man is nervous beyond belief, but through the encouragement of his friends, he finally wins the girl. Now, the story of a man saving a girl and they fall in love is nothing new, but what makes this book unique is how the man receives encouragement. His friends are from an online messageboard/forum and the language used throughout the book for their "conversations" is a combination of emoticons (symbols used to create faces that represent emotion) and online Japanese shorthand. The book was a hit and a popular mini-series quickly followed.

It's only a matter of time before something like Train Man happens in English.

The question about a book in texting shorthand got me thinking and I've set myself a challenge: translate a paragraph or two from a classic into texting shorthand. I'm not sure how long it'll take, or when I'll finally get around to it, but I think it's worth trying once.