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This post, by Scott K. Andrews, originally appeared on his site on 10/15/07.

or ‘Why I spent ten years being pointlessly annoyed at Neil Gaiman when I should have been doing something useful instead’

Way back when, I was an aspiring comic book writer living in Toronto. I used to hang out with talented and successful people like Salgood Sam and Ty Templeton, and I spent my every spare minute planning huge 100 issue comic book arcs, pitching for this that and the other, and writing spec scripts.

Those were heady days. After one comic con I found myself sat between Alex Ross and Ty, opposite Jill Thompson and Mike Mignola, nattering about obscure English comedy records and “Bal-Ham, gateway to the South!” I felt comfortable and at home, and a little over-awed.

I was briefly on nodding terms with a few superstars of the genre, so it was surely only a matter of time before I got my big break and joined the gang proper.

Surely.

I was cocky, too. I used to cold call editors and pitch storylines to them down the phone. You’d be amazed how successful this approach was. Well, I say ‘successful’, I had some very nice conversations and never got hung up on, which has got to be good, right…?

So anyway, I heard that Sandman, Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus, was coming to an end, but a spin off book, The Dreaming, was in the works. This would feature multi-story arcs by different teams, all set in the Sandman universe. This was a perfect thing for me to pitch to.

I decided to eschew the simple method of writing down a proposal and posting it, instead I cold called the editor of the book, Alisa Kwitney, and pitched to her down the phone.

Alisa was absolutely lovely, and she listened to my pitch, was very encouraging, and told me to write it up and post it pronto. It might be a goer, she thought.

The pitch was in the post a day later. I called her the week after that and, deep joy, she loved it. She actually said to me that it was one of the very best pitches she’d ever received. A few days later, another conversation, and she told me that Karen Berger loved it to.

She was keen to commission the tale, and would be letting me know for definite as soon as Neil Gaiman had taken a gander at the pitch. It was a formality, I was assured, he never said no; she simply didn’t send him things he was likely to reject. I should relax and wait for a confirmation call.

Done, dusted. I was made. This was my big break. I would be writing a story arc for a major book at last.

In the meantime another cold call, this time to the guy editing a series of TV tie in novels, went very well, and he agreed to consider pitches from me once the Dreaming gig was announced, coz then he could sell me to his bosses as a successful comics bod. He sounded very positive and led me to believe that a commission wouldn’t be that hard to secure. Fab. All I needed was the promised confirmation and I’d as good as got a novel in the bag as well. Laughing.

And so I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Three months later I finally got through to Alisa, who sounded a bit embarrassed. Neil had rejected the pitch, she said. Sorry.

What, rejected one of the best pitches you’d ever had? Why? How? What?

 

Read the rest of the post on Scott K. Andrews’ site.

This post, by Susan Bearman, originally appeared on Write It Sideways.

Writers write. But writers also read … at least we should.

My own to-be-read pile is officially as tall as my house, so I’m as guilty as the next writer of neglecting the reading part of my life, but this is a mistake.

I once heard that authors write only half of a novel; readers write the other half, and every time a book is read (or reread) it is rewritten.

 

I think this is brilliant and I wish I knew who said it first. It reminds us of the unique synergy between writer and reader (who usually don’t ever meet) in creating the world of the story that only starts on the page, but is transformed into something greater and completely new as the words are read.

But how can we use our reading to make our writing better?

1. Renew Your Love of Reading

Do you remember the first book you ever loved, perhaps one that was read to you over and over again as a child? Or the first book you read all by yourself? Or that love story you read as a teenager that made you fall in love with falling in love?

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.” — Ernest Hemingway

I’m wiling to bet there isn’t a writer, dead or alive, who hasn’t been transformed by reading. But when was the last time you got lost in a wonderful story?

If you believe, as I do, that writers do half the work and readers do the other half, then the act of reading is an act of writing.

Maybe we need a new word to describe this phenomenon, but for right now, make a writerly commitment to enjoy reading on a regular basis. Make a date with the library or that pile of books on your nightstand, and rediscover the joy of reading.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes three more specific points about how reading can improve your writing, on Write It Sideways.

This post, by Moriah Jovan, originally appeared on her site on 3/6/11.

The last year or so (by my completely unscientific method of measuring time, which is to say, “It feels like a year, what, it was only a week, it wasn’t a year? It felt like a year…”), there have been increasing conversations across Romancelandia about whether writers (especially those writers who are not Nora Roberts) should review books and give them less-than-glowing reviews.

It’s coming to a head now.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

Eh, I don’t really care about reviewing books from Romancelandia. There are A LOT of books and A LOT of romance readers, and so other people do that just fine. More to the point, I don’t really care to review, because some books seriously just piss me off and then my head would explode online and that’s always a mess to clean up. Actually, the only books I really want to write about are the ones that piss me off, and so that would skew my blog the other way, making me look like a recidivist toxic bitch.

Oh. Wait…

Anyway, I’ve reviewed some books. I’ve pretty much stopped reviewing books, except for a notation here and there on my Reading List. I’m on the fence about the “be nice and also it could wreck your career” versus “I’m a reader too and I have a right to review honestly and fuck you if you don’t like what I say, especially if I paid money for your book and spent time I could’ve been making money to read it.” I just hate feeling taken advantage of by a bad book, in both money and time.

 

Read the rest of the post on Moriah Jovan’s site, and also see this follow-up post on the same site.

This post, by Avil Beckford, originally appeared on The Invisible Mentor on 3/26/12. Indie authors and micropresses are forging new trails, and as such, most are obliged to self-mentor, whether they know it or not.

Numerous survey results tout the benefits of having a mentor. However, many of us will never be a part of a traditional mentoring relationship. So what do you do? Simple, you mentor yourself.

Self-mentoring is not a new concept, and according to Dr. Marsha L. Carr from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, “Self-mentoring occurs when the achiever (mentee) is willing to take the initiative while accepting responsibility for his/her own development by devoting time to navigate within the culture of his/her environment in order to make the most of opportunity to strengthen competencies needed to enhance job performance and career progression.”

That means that you are responsible for your own professional development.

Becoming a Self-Mentor

To mentor yourself, you have to know yourself, it’s a journey in self-awareness. You have to know your strengths, weaknesses, needs, values, limitations, passions, how you respond in various situations, and what’s really important to you. A good place to start is to conduct a Personal SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis, and do the mentoring needs assessment from the DIY Mentoring Program, Episode One.

After you have identified your needs, you have to go out there and identify ways to fill those needs. That’s not easy to do, and that’s why it requires commitment on your part. Self-mentoring is an important concept, and the Invisible Mentor is designed to help you mentor yourself, but it requires action on your part. You have to take the information and use it for your professional development.

Self-Mentoring on The Invisible Mentor Blog

To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Interviews, while you are reading them, answer the following questions:

1. Are their similarities between the interviewee and yourself?
2. In what ways can you use the information?
3. In what ways would you respond differently from the interviewee?
4. What are your five takeaways from the interview?
5. After reading the interview, what is one concrete action you can take?
6. What are five things you have learned that you can use in your job?

To get the most from The Invisible Mentor Profiles, while you are reading them, answer the following questions:

 

Read the rest of the article on The Invisible Mentor, and also see this follow-up post from the same site.

This article, by Madeleine Crum, originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 3/30/12.

The cover of Castle Freeman Jr.’s sixth book, a collection of 12 stories set in the rural North East, has a few eye-catching elements: The image is of brittle grass and a rickety, abandoned home, an aesthetic matched by the rough texture of the cover.

More unusual, though, is the price tag situated above the bar code. This book costs $0.00.

 

"Round Mountain" is one of seven novels published so far by Concord Free Press, which, as its name implies, is a nonprofit that creates free printed books that can be requested via their site. The only condition is that the reader donates to a charity of their choice and passes the book along when they’re finished. The organization has so far raised over $260,000 for various charities including Planned Parenthood, local libraries and hurricane relief funds.

Its other titles include "The Next Queen Of Heaven" by "Wicked" author Gregory Maguire and "Give and Take," the fourth book by the press’ founder, Stona Fitch.

"My book was about generosity. It’s sort of a latter day Robin Hood story. This jazz player steals diamonds and BMWs then gives them away," Fitch told The Huffington Post on the telephone from the organization’s headquarters.

Although "Give and Take" was bought by a major literary imprint in 2007, the book was "abandoned" when Fitch’s editor left the industry. Faced with the choice of ditching or self-publishing his story, he instead decided to open his own company, employing the philosophy of a nonprofit farm he works with, which grows produce to donate to local shelters.

"My agent told me not to open the press. A lot of friends said I’d make a fool out of myself," Fitch says. "[But] writers have to be activists. I’m very much an activist. You can’t wait for publishing to figure it out for you."

Nestled above a bakery in Concord, Mass., the company takes pride in their humble philosophy and alternative to mainstream publishing houses. Three-and-a-half years in, Concord Free Press has published just six books using its unusual model.

 

Read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post.

Submitting work for publication is a complete lottery. But it’s a lottery we can stack in our favour. The simple fact is that publication comes from a variety of efforts. I wrote a piece before about what I considered the essential factors in success. It basically boils down to dreams, talent, determination, friends and luck. All of which you can develop. Or, as my writerly friend Angela Slatter said recently, you have to appease “the Gods of Writing (also known as Fear, Famine and F**k-you).” You’ll see a post from Angela soon, where she says that, and you’ll know what I’m on about.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: post contains strong language]

Anyway, the reason I bring this up now is because I had an experience recently which helps to highlight how we can develop those essential criteria of success. It comes down to interpretation, and seeing through the incandescent veil of ego to the reality behind our work.

I recently had a short story submission rejected by an editor who said, and I paraphrase, “This is a great story, but I felt the lack of an explanation of the relationship between X and Y let it down.”

Fair enough, thought I. That’s something to consider. After all, we should always carefully consider any editorial feedback we get. We don’t have to take any advice, but it behoves us to at least consider the comments. I reread the story. Thought about it. Put aside my internal princess and accepted that perhaps the editor had a point.

I addressed the point, developed, within the story, the relationship between X and Y, in order to smooth out that narrative issue. I sent the story out into the wild again.

The next editor rejected it. This editor said, and again, I paraphrase, “Great story, really enjoyed it, but I felt it slowed down with the unnecessary explanation of the relationship between X and Y.”

My first reaction, naturally, was something like, “What the shit, editors!? What the fuck is wrong with you people!? Can’t you decide on what you want? Can’t you see the beauty within this story, the exquisite nuance of X and Y and what that means for my protagonist?”

That, of course, was my internal princess throwing a hissy fit, wearing her biggest veil of incandescent ego. The only way we get anywhere in this game is to give that aspect of ourselves a moment’s freedom (so we don’t explode, and always in the privacy of our own boudoir), then rein it in and say, “Calm the fuck down and have a proper look.”

The truth is, I’m sure both editors are right. I’m the one with the problem. Editor A was right that the relationship between X and Y needed better explanation. It’s not a romantic relationship, by the way, simply the nature of two characters and how they affect and reflect each other and therefore the protagonist.

Editor B was also right. Not because that relationship didn’t need to be explained, but because I probably made something of a hack job of doing it. I can choose to be prissy about it, or I can choose to be a grown-up and learn from it. Develop my craft. Improve my story. I choose life.

So I need to develop that aspect of the yarn in a better, more professional way. I’ll work on that now and hopefully editor C will see the shining gem that I’ve polished into existence and offer me buckets of cash to publish it. Maybe not, but we have to keep believing or we’d just curl up and die. Or go and get a different job. And honestly, hard and unforgiving as it is, being paid to make shit up is the best freaking job in the world. What’s important is learning and growing and never thinking we’re some special snowflake.

So now I’m off to sort that story out. And then get back to editing the next novel, which was recently eviscerated by the aforementioned Angela Slatter. Man, that woman is a harsh critter. But she’s also an excellent writer and knows her shit. Off I go to learn some more.

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

This post, by Howard Tayler, originally appeared on Inkpunks on 3/14/12.

Howard Tayler is the writer and illustrator behind Schlock Mercenary, the Hugo-nominated science fiction comic strip. Howard is also featured on the Parsec award-winning “Writing Excuses” podcast, a weekly ‘cast for genre-fiction writers. Howard’s artwork is featured in XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, a role-playing supplement by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, as well as in the board game “Schlock Mercenary: Capital Offensive” coming in May 2012 from Living World Games.

His most recently published work is Schlock Mercenary: Emperor Pius Dei. He lives in Orem, Utah with his wife Sandra and their four children.

“Satisfactory Sub-plots.” That might seem like a nice, narrow topic, but I think it’s still too big. If I’ve learned anything from three years of fifteen minute podcasts, it’s that a tight focus is king. So I’m going to talk about character sub-plots, which are probably the most satisfying kind anyway.

We’re going to do this with pictures. Hopefully that means that what would otherwise be a giant column of tl;dr will keep your attention all the way to the end. Also, this will allow me to talk to you about why I do things they way I do them while simultaneously showing you exactly what I did.

First, a helpful dichotomy: a sub-plot either ends with the character achieving their objective, or failing to achieve their objective. This is particularly useful when you want to create something gritty that has a happy ending. Your main plot can be resolved to everyone’s triumphant satisfaction, while one or more sub-plots end in disaster. This juxtaposition (success in the main plot :: failure in a sub-plot) can also let you create a moment of true heroic sacrifice in which one or more characters give up achieving their own goal in order to save the day.

Let’s look at what I did while I talk about why I did it. The examples are going to come from Longshoreman of the Apocalypse (one of 2010′s losers for the Best Graphic Story Hugo Award), and will feature two characters: Aardman and Para Ventura. I’ll try to do this with as little back-story as possible, without contaminating the sub-plot with a discussion of the big plot. Why? Because if the sub-plot can tell a story without the big plot, it’s probably a solid story.

We’ll begin with introductions. Both of these characters enlisted with the company towards the beginning of the book. Here’s Aardy’s first appearance.

Read the rest of the post (which includes illustrative — no pun intended — comic strips!) on Inkpunks.

This article, by Karen Daily, originally appeared on aikenstandard.com on 3/14/12.

Schofield teacher on leave after parent complains of ‘pornographic’ book

 

 

Read the rest of the article on aikenstandard.com.

This post, by Chuck Wendig, originally appeared on his terribleminds site on 3/6/12.

1. A Series Of Word Choices

Here’s why this matters: because both writing and storytelling comprise, at the most basic level, a series of word choices. Words are the building blocks of what we do. They are the atoms of our elements. They are the eggs in our omelets. They are the shots of liquor in our cocktails.

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

Get it right? Serendipity. Get it wrong? The air turns to arsenic, that cocktail makes you puke, this omelet tastes like balls.

2. Words Define Reality

Words are like LEGO bricks: the more we add, the more we define the reality of our playset. “The dog fucked the chicken” tells us something. “The Great Dane fucked the chicken” tells us more. “The Great Dane fucked the bucket of fried chicken on the roof of Old Man Dongweather’s barn, barking with every thrust” goes the distance and defines reality in a host of ways (most of them rather unpleasant). You can over-define. Too many words spoil the soup. Find the balance between clarity, elegance, and evocation.

3. The “Hot And Cold” Game

You know that game — “Oh, you’re cold, colder, colder — oh! Now you’re getting hot! Hotter! Hotter still! Sizzling! Yay, you found the blueberry muffin I hid under the radiator two weeks ago!” –? Word choice is like a textual version of that game where you try to bring the reader closer to understanding the story you’re trying to tell. Strong, solid word choice allows us to strive for clarity (hotter) and avoid confusion (colder).

4. Most With Fewest

Think of it like a different game, perhaps: you’re trying to say as much as possible with as few words as you can muster. Big ideas put as briefly as you are able. Maximum clarity with minimum words.

5. The Myth Of The Perfect Word

Finding the perfect word is as likely as finding a downy-soft unicorn with a pearlescent horn riding a skateboard made from the bones of your many enemies. Get shut of this notion. The perfect is the enemy of the good. For every sentence and every story you have a plethora of right words. Find a good word. Seek a strong word. But the hunt for a perfect word will drive you into a wide-eyed froth. Though, according to scholars, “nipplecookie” is in fact the perfect word. That’s why Chaucer used it so often. Truth.

6. No One Perfect Word, But A Chumbucket Of Shitty Ones

For every right word, you have an infinity of wrong ones.

7. Awkward, Like That Kid With The Headgear And The Polio Foot

You might use a word that either oversteps or fails to meet the idea you hope to present. A word in that instance would be considered awkward. “That dinner fornicated in his mouth” is certainly a statement, and while it’s perhaps not a technically incorrect metaphor, it’s just plain goofy (and uh, kinda gross). You mean that the flavors fornicated, or more likely that the flavors of the meal were sensual, or that they inspired lewd or libidinous thoughts. (To which I might suggest you stop French-kissing that forkful of short ribs, pervhouse.) To go with the food metaphor for a moment (“meat-a-phor?”), you ever take a bite of food and, after it’s already in your mouth, discover something in there that’s texturally off? Bit of gristle, stem, bone, eyeball, fingernail, whatever? The way you’re forced to pause the meal and decipher the texture with your mouth is the same problem a reader will have with awkward word choice. It obfuscates meaning and forces the reader to try to figure out just what the fuck you’re talking about.

8. Ambiguous, Like That Girl With That Thing Outside That Place

Remember how I said earlier that words are like LEGO, blah blah blah help define reality yadda yadda poop noise? Right. Ambiguous word choice means you’re not defining reality very well in your prose. “Bob ate lunch. It was good. Then he did something.” Lunch? Good? Something? Way to wow ‘em with your word choice, T.S. Eliot. To repeat: aim for words that are strong, confident, and above all else, clarifying.

9. Incorrect, Like That Guy Who Makes Up Shit When He’s Drunk

Incorrect word choice means you’re using the wrong damn word. As that character says in that movie, “I do not think it means what you think it means.” Affect, effect. Comprise, compose. Sensual, sensuous. Elicit, illicit. Eminent, immanent, imminent. Allude, elude. Must I continue? Related: if you write “loose” instead of “lose,” I cannot be held accountable if I kick you so hard in your butthole you choke on a hemorrhoid.

10. Step Sure-Footedly

Point of fact: the English language was invented by a time-traveling spam-bot who was trapped in a cave with a crazy monk. Example: The word “umbrage” means “offense,” so, to take umbrage means to take offense. Ah, but it also means the shade or protection afforded by trees. I used to take the second definition and assume it carried over to the people portion of that definition. Thus, to “take umbrage” meant in a way to “take shelter” with a person, as in, to both be under the same shadow of the same tree. I used the word incorrectly for years like some shithead. If you’re uncertain about the use of any word, it’s easy enough to either not use it or use Google to define it (“define: [word]” is the search you need). Do not trust that the English language makes sense or that your recollection of its madness is pristine. It will bite you every time.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 15 more things writers should know about word choice, on terribleminds.

This article, from Writer’s Digest, originally appeared on that site on 9/5/08.

At the Maui Writers Conference, bestselling thriller writer Steve Berry says there are eight key rules that all writers must know and follow:

1. There are no rules. You can do anything you want as long as it works.

2. Don’t bore the reader. You can bore the reader in a sentence, in a paragraph, by misusing words, poorly choosing words, using the wrong length, etc.

3. Don’t confuse the reader. Don’t misuse point of view. Don’t do too much at once.

4. Don’t get caught writing. Don’t let you, the author, enter the story. (E.g., “And he never would see Memphis again.” How would anyone other than the author know that the character would never see Memphis again?)

5. Shorter is always better. Write tight. It makes you use the best words in the right way.

 

Read the rest of the article, which includes 3 more tips from Steve Berry and numerous links to other related articles, on Writer’s Digest.

One of the best things about the modern world of publishing is that there is more good stuff available, and it’s easier to get hold of, than ever before. Small press and boutique publishers are springing up everywhere and, along with indie and self-publishers, they’re giving the “big six” more of a run for their money than ever before.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

I think this is great, as it really does give an outlet for pretty much anything. There are still gatekeepers in the form of all the hard-working editors at those small and boutique presses. Hopefully there’s still control in content from the self-publishers, as they should be employing editors and proof-readers and cover designers to make their work the best it can be. Of course, a lot aren’t and, whether indie, small press or big six, there’s an awful lot of shit out there.

So, this is where everyone else steps in. That’s you and me, the readers and consumers. I’ve blogged before about readers as gatekeepers and this post is an expansion of that. In part, this is simply a reminder of that post – you’re a reader, so you have the power to share the good stuff by reviewing and/or rating it on Amazon, Goodreads, your blog and so on. Keep doing that.

But the expansion is this – do your reviews regularly and honestly. If you see a book on Amazon and it has ten five star reviews and nothing else, it’s altogether possible that it’s really that good. Or it’s equally possible that ten friends and family of the author posted a review and nothing more. A lot of value is added to a book when there’s a variety of reviews and ratings. A book with ten reviews that are a mix between three, four and five star reviews is a lot more likely to be something reviewed by a variety of people who actually read the book. You can read their comments and get a real feel for the book that way and decide if it’s going to work for you. That’s kind of thing is far better for authors.

I can understand not wanting to give a bad review. That’s fair enough, and if you really hate something you can just choose not to review it. If you feel you want to review and mark it poorly with only one or two stars and explain why, then that’s great too. If you’re clear about what you didn’t like, others can get value from that. What pissed you off might actually attract another reader with different sensibilities. The honesty of a range of reviews from a variety of readers is far better for an author than just a few dollops of glowing praise that won’t really move anyone reading them.

So please, don’t forget to review. It takes hardly any time, it’s incredibly easy with places like Amazon and Goodreads, and it’s invaluable for authors. If you enjoy their work, think how much time and effort was involved in making it and spend a few of your own precious minutes clicking a star rating and typing a few words of opinion. It doesn’t have to be much at all, just a couple of comments about why you did or didn’t like the book and the author will love you for it. Be honest. If I get a three star review and, “I liked this book and would recommend it. Not the greatest thing I ever read, but worth your time” then I’m as happy as Larry. (Who is Larry, anyway?)

Of course, I much prefer four and five star reviews, because I love it when people enjoy my work enough to praise it that highly. But any review is helping me out one way or another.

Review everything. Review honestly. Be a pal to all the authors.

 

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Think about the plot of your most recent novel, or work in progress. If you had to summarize the plot, at any point in your recap, would you find yourself saying the word, "coincidentally"? Or the phrase, "it just so happens that…" ? If so, there’s something wrong with your plot, your characters, or both.

I was recently with a young friend who was watching the movie, Zookeeper. In the beginning of the movie, the somewhat shlubby but kind and sincere protagonist asks his super hot, super shallow girlfriend to marry him, in a carefully orchestrated, horseback-riding-on-a-beach at sunset scenario. She not only turns him down, but tells him she’d actually been intending to break up with him because he’s just a zookeeper and she can’t accept it. Apparently she wants a more worldly and wealthy guy. At this point, I tuned out for a while to focus on something else.

My other task done, I came back to the movie, where a wedding reception was in progress. Shlubby guy was there with his smart, gorgeous co-worker. Hey, do you suppose he’ll end up realizing she’s a better match for him than the super hot, super shallow girl at some point before the end? I could write a whole different post on predictable retreads of tired rom-com cliches, but that’s not the topic for today.

I asked who was getting married, and my young friend explained it was the shlubby guy’s brother. Suddenly, the super hot, super-shallow girlfriend was doing an elaborate dance with some other guy at the reception. I asked what she was doing at the shlubby guy’s brother’s wedding. My young friend explained that the super hot girlfriend was one of the bride’s closest friends, so she was invited to the wedding and came with her new fiancee.

"So," I asked, "it just so happens that the super hot girl who dumped this guy in the first scene was one of his brother’s fiancee’s best friends? Isn’t that kind of a HUGE coincidence?" She replied, "Yeah, you just have to go with it."

Actually, you don’t. And neither do your readers. It was obvious not only to me, but to an 11 year old girl, that the only reason the super hot girlfriend was a friend of the bride was so that she’d be in the wedding reception scene, making shlubby guy jealous and prompting him to his next ill-advised round of hijinks intended to win her back.

It’s possible that I missed a flashback in which it was shown how the brothers began dating these besties, but even if there was, it would be very tacked-on and serve only as an excuse to get the super hot ex to the wedding—where of course, there were lots of wacky, slapstick physical comedy set pieces.

Wouldn’t it have made much more sense to have shlubby guy run into the ex and her new man somewhere in public, or at a gathering in the home of a mutual friend? After all, if they met at some point in the past they should run in similar circles, or still have one or two friends in common. Of course, this wouldn’t have allowed for the presence of the giant ice sculpture and aerialist equipment that played crucial roles in the shlubby guy’s public humiliation, but those also had "coincidentally" written all over them. Seriously, who hires a Cirque du Soleil -type aerialist to perform at a wedding reception?!

If the only reason a character DOES something, or IS something, is to set up a later scene, the writer is sacrificing plot and character integrity for the sake of his own convenience, and straining the reader’s credulity.

Some might say that Zookeeper also features talking animals, and therefore it’s asking too much of the writers to expect much in the way of plot or character integrity. But look at the movies The Golden Compass, Stuart Little, Ratatouille, Cars and Finding Nemo. Talking animals, cars and fish DIDN’T strain credulity in the least in these films, and it’s specifically because the writers paid very close attention to plot and character integrity. It’s possible to be fantastical and comic, and even a little slapstick, without resorting to the "coincidentallys". If anything, the harder it is for your characters to get where they need to be, the richer your plot (and characters) will be by the end of the tale.