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Writer Question: How Do I Cut Text from My Novel and Not Lose My Soul?!

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This post, from Moonrat, originally appeared on Editorial Ass on 11/5/09.

I got a reader question recently, and (coincidentally) was, um, "approached" by a would-be author at a lit party the other night with a very similar question (although he did not word it nearly as nicely as you did, dear anonymous polite reader below). So it seems to me this is on a lot of people’s minds lately.

 

Dear Moonie,

A newbie (me, unfortunately) is having a bit of an issue with her MS. Cuts need to be made (my darn novel is a porky 130,000 words). But every time I start cutting out my protagonist’s funny little comments or thoughts that don’t necessarily add to the plot, I feel like I’m betraying and/or losing my beloved character and replacing her with a streamlined, made-for-the-market version of her. On top of that, the only person who’s seen my work says that the things I’m cutting really are unnecessary and need to go to make it more "effective."

As someone who’s probably dealt with many authors in this dilemma, do you think I’m just being overprotective of my character, or is there merit to my madness? At what point should an author listen to her gut over the advice of more experienced writers?

Best,
XXX

First, dear Newbie, kudos to you for identifying that 130,000 words is probably too long (and not taking affront, like the gentleman I encountered at that event last week, who insisted not a word of his 280,000-word ms was unnecessary). For those who want further discussion re: word count, I refer you here.

Now, Newbie, I identify three separate issues in your question:
1) volume
2) character integrity
3) trusting your gut over advice

I shall address these in order.

 

Read the rest of the post on Editorial Ass.

Me — Interesting?

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I now have the information about the other authors that will be with me at the Nov. 15th book signing at the Lemstone Christian Bookstore in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This week I visited the store to talk to the owner about the book signing. While I was there I found out what I needed to know to report accurately about the authors. Kent Stock, Marion, Ia, from "The Final Season" fame has written "Heading For Home." His story about being a successful coach, teacher and business man. Karen Roth, San Antonio, Texas and formally from Cedar Rapids, Ia has her second book out. "My Portion Forever". Her first book is "Found On 16th Avenue". She writes about growing up in Czech Village in Cedar Rapids which last year was in the devastating flood.

　

　

When I can get the Internet to cooperate with me, I’m back writing blogs on a new monitor the size of a small television instead of the very small, ten year old screen I was using. I can’t believe what a difference screen size makes when I’m staring at it for a long period of time. Not that there is that much wrong with my eyesight as long as I wear my glasses. The fact is I’m feeling great, busy and full of purpose. It took a visit with a young neighbor girl to get me thinking about the generational gap between her and me and to bring this gap into prospective.

　

When I answered the phone one evening recently, I had to ask the caller to repeat her name. I want you to know I’m not hard of hearing. I’d heard right the first time, but I was too surprised to believe I had. It was the fourteen year old neighbor who lives in seeing distance of my home.

It seemed over night I watched her change from baby to toddler to an energetic child to a bashful preteen that didn’t speak when she came with her father to visit. Now a teenager, she was still very quiet this summer with a look on her face that said she would run for home if we spoke to her.

Her father described her as his Tomboy. Her attire was a shirt and jeans. Dresses were for a rare occasion. Most likely an occasion deemed appropriate by her mother. She went with her father to the barn to help with chores until she was old enough to do them on her own. Her love of animals led to her taking care of a flock of sheep and a horse. She worked with a lamb so she could enter the sheep exhibits at the county fair.

Out of the blue, she called me and got right to the point. "I have to write a story about someone for English Lit. I want to interview you for the story."

Not comprehending why she would call me for her assignment, I said, "Okay, but why me?"

"Because I think you’re interesting," she said.

I must admit I was baffled by that statement. We set up a time for her to come late one afternoon after school on a day between cheerleading practice and a football game. In walked a young woman who over the summer had grown a foot taller than me. Her long, dark blonde hair was styled. She had on makeup. Best of all, she was smiling as if she was happy to see me. Her father had told us a few weeks earlier he had lost his Tomboy. He was having trouble adjusting to the fact since the change happened suddenly. Now I saw first hand what he meant.

We sat at the dining room table so she could spread out the contents of the folder she carried. First thing she said in a very direct manner, "I can make the interview short and write three pages. That won’t get me an A." As she shuffled through her papers to get organized, she continued, "If I talk to you longer and write 5 pages, that would get me an A. I would rather get the A. It’s up to you how much you want to tell me. The teacher said not to talk too much if you would rather I didn’t stay long."

I told her she could take all the time she needed. Why would I want to rush her when I finally had her talking to me. I wanted to get to know her. I said I would do my best to answer her questions, but I warned her she might have to spice up her story. I was pretty sure I wasn’t interesting enough to get her that A. I offered to go over the story so we could do just that, spice it up. I could even proof read it for her while I was at it to make sure she got the A. She said she couldn’t let me do that. The teacher told the students to bring the stories to her so she could give them pointers on making the stories better before they turned the final product in.

"So where do we start?" I asked.

"From the moment you were born."

"That is going back a long ways. We may need a lot of time," I warned her.

Reading from a list of questions, birth was the first question the teacher had furnished to help the students with this story telling process. The girl wasn’t sure how some of the questions applied to me, but I encouraged her to ask me anyway. Once I elaborated enough that I unwittingly answered the next question.

I fear I was born in a much earlier generation than the teacher. Maybe she thought the students would pick someone more her age to interview instead of someone who could have been the girl’s grandmother. I came by that impression when I was asked the question, "How did the arts and craft movement play a part in my life or did it?"

Through my mind scrolled my childhood years in the Missouri Ozarks. Nothing about my early life was an arts and craft experience, but I was determined to give her an answer. Once in awhile we went to a western movie on a Saturday night in a vacant lot next to Schell City’s car repair garage. As for crafts, my family was in to crafts, but the main objective for being crafty was to make money. My father built flower baskets, with a log cabin look, from twigs. My mother made crape paper roses she dipped in paraffin. Back in the fifties, we didn’t have plastic or silk flowers. My younger brother and my part of this work was after supper. Mom gave us boxes of Kleenex in different colors. We folded a couple Kleenexes in accordion folds and wrapped a wire around the middle. The ends with the fold had to be cut off, then we carefully pulled each fragile layer of tissue paper to the middle. When we were done, we had a carnation. The flowers were arranged in a bouquet in the log cabin baskets and sold to neighbors for Memorial Day decorations to take to the cemeteries. Any basket left we spent the day delivering to cemeteries for our relatives. This story was noted. Maybe she could figure out a way to work it in.

Two hours and several pages of notes later, the girl gave me the last question. The time had passed fast for her and me as well. Since we never had really had a conversation I doubt she was prepared for how much I can elaborate on a subject when given the chance. However, she left happy with her interview and eager to turn it into a story. I asked her to let me know if she got that A.

According to her father, who came over recently to tell me after a talk with his daughter, she had been nervous about talking to me. By the time we finished, she was excited to relate to her parents all the experiences I had shared with her. Her father says she is very impressed with me. That is a two way street. What were the things she found most interesting about my life? It wasn’t that I write books and have been a CNA. What impressed her was the fact that I can vegetables we raise. She had me show her my pressure cooker and explain the process. The other thing was that I have for years did my own vet work as much as possible for my flock of sheep and goats. Though she takes care of sheep, she had never thought about giving shots or helping during a difficult birthing and all their food comes from the grocery store. Wow! I could do all that. Not what I would call interesting. These are things I have done for years. Just part of life as a person who lives in the country.

It didn’t matter that she wasn’t impressed when I said I was an author. I found this bashful Tomboy had turned into a polite, articulate, caring and lovely young woman. I told her to come back and visit any time she wanted, and I hope she does. Maybe I can get her to help me can green beans.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Nov 15 Fay Risner Book Signing Lemstone Christian Bookstore, Cedar Rapids, Ia

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Book Signing Announcement

On November 15, Keystone author Fay Risner has been invited to a book signing at Lemstone Christian Bookstore located in Collins Plaza Mall across from Linndale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from one to three p.m. Risner will talk about the two books the store sells for her – "Open A Window – Alzheimer’s Caregiver Handbook" and "Hello Alzheimer’s Good Bye Dad" the story of her father Bill Bullock’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.

　

I’m excited to be invited to this book signing at the Lemstone Christian Bookstore. The owners have been planning this event for months. The main hitch was trying to set a date that three authors could commit to.

 

Other authors at the book signing will be Kent Stock from the movie "The Final Season" the story about Norway, Iowa’s baseball team and Karen Ross from Texas with her newly released book about growing up in Czech Village in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Sorry that I don’t have the name of either of their books, but will share those titles next week along with my story about meeting these authors.

I’d been forewarned for months that a book signing was coming soon, but a week’s notice has me rushing to plan my portion of the event. First I am very glad to have email. I alerted friends and family.

With such a short notice coming in on Saturday, I don’t expect much publicity to be done. I know the local weekly paper has a Monday noon deadline. Monday morning was going to be a busy morning for me between a dental visit and errands. I don’t own a cell phone which might surprise most people. That means while I was driving I couldn’t call the newspaper. That’s why I emailed my book signing article in to the office on Sunday. Also, I emailed a daily newspaper at the county seat.

Next, I made up a flyer to put up on every bulletin board in the area. That will catch people going to the bank, telephone office, post office, library or the local nursing home.

I plan on arriving at the bookstore early Sunday with a copy of each book. The bookstore has a supply, but I want customers to be able to see my books while they are speaking to me. "Hello Alzheimer’s Good Bye Dad" has a 1947 picture of my parents on the cover. The customers that will gravitate toward me are ones who are facing Alzheimer’s with a family member, or they fear the disease is in their future. What better way to sell a book than to come face to face with someone who was a caregiver (me) and see first hand what a healthy, youthful man (my dad) looked like before he fell victim to the disease. Plus, I share some of my family’s experiences that are in the book.

To pick up the book "Open A Window" and hold it long enough to read the reviews on the back doesn’t explain stories within that tells of the battles people faced with Alzheimer’s. I can convey that verbally in person much better. I just sold both these books to a dental tech. She read a potion of "Open A Window" before my last visit. She told me what she read made her cry because it reminded her of her grandmother’s struggle. Holding the book doesn’t make a customer feel emotions or empathy. Reading about the people in my book does that. In order to learn more about Alzheimer’s disease and understand what happens to people who have it, you have to buy the book and read it.

I’ll let you know next week about my book signing.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Publishing: How does the "mix" affect writers?

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Here’s a question for publishers and literary agents.  This morning, NBC featured yet another book tour interview.  This time it was a non-fiction (I’m assuming) tell-all from a former Miss California and gay-basher who, by the way did make a ….sex….tape.  Oh No! Not that!  Maybe she wrote it, maybe it was ghost written after her agent explained the money to be made, who knows?  It raised a question for me, immediately. 

I assume that publishers work with a finite number of books they can produce in any given year.  The number must be based upon market conditions and costs.  I do know that re-prints of existing books tend to be a hard decision if they’re not selling well — that makes sense, financially.  I also know that if a publisher produces both non-fiction and fiction, the mix proportion is probably determined in accounting ultimately.  They probably leave a certain amount of wiggle room, to take advantage of instant opportunities that come up — like this new hardcover tell-all that the world clearly needed (insert sarcasm here). 

You can’t fault the publisher for the amazing appetite for garbage the market seems to exhibit.  After all, BIG publishing is not a non-profit organization. Some smaller ones are, much to their chagrin, and not because they don’t work at it.  My heart goes out to them, as they really are trying to keep the art of literature alive.

My question concerns the impact to new authors and unpublished authors.  If there is a fixed number of books that can be published any year, doesn’t each book produced to take advantage of a perceived short-lived celebrity — like this new hard cover — reduce the chances for a publisher assigning a slot to a new author?

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but looking at the industry from the weary eyes of running a small business, it seems that the only answer is that for every 15-minute celebrity tell-all, one less real work of important writing must be overlooked.  With mainstream publishing still pounding the table, insisting that they are the "gatekeepers" of quality and good taste, the field seems to be getting mored tilted all the time against new authors, especially fiction writers that only write well.  Maybe we should all do sex tapes?

I’m tired of the old, tired publishing fable is that they will gladly publish a new writer’s work…if it "good enough".  Market conditions are part of the mix, and given what I’ve read and heard about, the definition of "good" changes constantly.

Am I wrong?

Type Spec Can Lead To Revisions….

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Here’s one for you Indie Publishers and Authors out in the ether.  Choosing the right type SIZE is critical for your book.  I knew that.  I really did, but I chose the wrong size anyway, and it’s embarassing!

When you design your book, of course, 12 point type would be wonderful for everyone concerned, assuming that the number of pages and the cost of each book were not important.  12 point is very legible, even for folks with vision issues.  It does, however; increase the length of the manuscript.

Increasing the length of your manuscript, post editing, will increase the cost ofthe printing of the book.  I decided early on, that I wanted to keep the retail price of the book under US$12.  It still really rankles me that a trade paperback from an acknowledged author will set you back $14 to $16!  I guess my memories of $4.95 pulp fiction read while younger are to blame. 

Anyway, I didn’t think it would make sense for my first novel to cost the same amount as a blockbuster, so I adjusted the design.  I forgot — I guess lost in the crack between my desk and file cabinet — that you need to tailor the book for your readers.  My readers are interested in Irish Heritage, Celtic culture and archeology.  They’re also a bit older, let’s say, than most readers of upwardly mobile urban vampire novels. 

10 point type kept the original book cost down, but made reading tough for older readers, so I gave in after a few really great readers suggested larger type. Thanks to POD technology, I can issue a new, larger type edition without missing too many beats! I’m also very happy to report that the new revised edition only runs 32 pages longer — the equivalent of 3/32" of spine width.  No major cost increases have resulted.

I’m going to offer to exchange earlier editions at my cost, which should make somebody happy.  Well — at least I’ve learned something!  When choosing type point size ALWAYS consider the age and vision of your primary readers. Always.

The new edition should be available on Amazon in 10 days or so, and I’ll announce it here and on my website. 

Target Practice: Creating your own marketing plan…

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While waiting, this past week, I had to learn to lay a brick floor – repetitious, but very satisfying when you’ve hung up the rubber mallet and swept up the last of the sand. In a similar way, a writer with a story needs to repeat a few simple steps, to be sure that when the story becomes a book, and the book is published, it will be found by the right readers.

 

 

 If a writer has publishing their work as one of their goals, then these steps may well be as important as the agony of learning how to write by producing unavoidable dreck. Also repetitive, but ultimately satisfying. The first step is to ask yourself, just who is going to want to read this story. Who needs to read this story. (OK, if you write non-fiction, you may not think of your work as a story, but in fact, it is a story. It is the story of your involvement in following the material information, and the subsequent story of how it affects the reader. Readers always like stories) Asking who will read it is the critical starting point to developing a Marketing Plan. Indie Authors can always pay someone to write a marketing plan for them, but it won’t be anywhere near as effective as the one you prepare — mentally, within yourself.

Your Test/Focus Groups

You may know several readers who would want to read your work. The initial group usually involves family members and friends, whose criticism may not be all that useful. They may enjoy reading the work immensely, but it would be almost impossible to separate out their feelings for you, the intricacies of your relationship with the actual reading. At least it is a beginning, and I’m sure they have all been curious for some time.

Among them, may well be readers who want to share the book with the next circle of friends, or with a specific friend, and when that happens, you have a great opportunity. Ask why. Why would this interest this person. What kind of person is this? What are their interests, their background? Everything you can discover will help you begin to separate your perception of your own work from first-born child to new product.

Split Perceptions

Creating this split in your perception is very important to letting your work tell you who to market it to. Writers don’t always write “to order”. Many fiction works seem to create themselves, and what you have when finished can be as much of a surprise to the writer as to the reader. You will always approach your first-born with love. The love that eventually teaches you to use a firm hand in guiding your writing into the beautiful expression it can grow into.

New product.

You’ll need some time to develop a realistic definition of just what kind of book you have written. This will tell you, if you learn to observe, who will want to read it, and who will be willing to pay for it. If you can list the attributes of your writing as you see it, then compare it to information you have gleaned through open discussion (which friends and family members will undoubtedly feel all too willing to engage in), you may be surprised at the outcome. Your book may, in fact appeal to a different reader than you had in mind, assuming you did have a reader in mind, besides yourself! If this realization comes, it will be invaluable, so guard it carefully. It will be your road-map to marketing your new product.

Expand Your Test Group

The next step is to begin to broaden the reader-interest circle outward so that you can gain understanding of the interests of readers you don’t know. Keep in mind the fact that Agents and Publishers will be in a very outer circle at this point, and, for the benefit of your sanity, concentrate on readers. There are four easy places to get ideas about readers. More specifically, how your book will appeal to them – or not. Libraries, Booksellers (bricks and mortar as well as online) and Reader’s Forums. Some of you may belong already to writer’s groups or reading clubs.

Librarians Don’t Bite

Start at your local library. Try to spend a few days there, off and on, if you have the time and your day-job allows. Watch what kind of books, similar to yours are checked out or taken out of the stacks to actually read. Anyone who will take a book out of the stacks and sit is either dodging home or work, or is a really committed reader. You’ll want to speak with the librarian, asking questions about the authors and books they see moving out of the stacks and if any in a similar story-line or genre to your work, are being read repeatedly. See if any books like yours are in the stacks and if any reader reviews are available on them. If you have access to reader reviews, watch what comes up frequently. How are the reviews similar? Positive comments as well as negative are important to your understanding of why these people checked out or read this book. When reviewers agree, the information is critical to being able to either craft your work, or to target your book’s market effectively.

Nothing is Free

This same research activity can be carried out at bookstores. Try to get a meeting with the bookstore owner or book buyer if at all possible, and try to get their take on books like yours. Their perceptions gathered day-in, day-out are really important. Ask them about the kind of readers you’re tentatively going to target. If they have any tips or suggestions, have them written in stone. Find out what other kinds of books your target reader will buy in addition to your type of book. This will give you a clear idea of how broad interests can run. It’s important to find out if there is content in your story that will hold a reader’s interest in several areas at once. If possible, strike up a conversation if you see someone ready to purchase or seriously considering a book like yours, but don’t interfere with their decision-making. If you pester too many customers, it’s good way to get thrown out of a bookstore! Be sure to support your local bookseller. Even if all you’re doing is gathering marketing research, buy a book anyway, every time you go in. They make great gifts!

Forums

The research that can be gathered in online writer’s and readers forums is also very useful, especially if your book appeals to the online generation. In my case, to target readers for my work, I have to also look offline, where most of my kind of reader resides. If you also write in a genre that may not be as appealing to younger, or more tech-savvy readers, then you’ll need to realize at some point, that your research will have to be more directed to where they are, not just online.

Another consideration to your interaction online is that most people will respond to questions differently face-to-face, than safely protected behind a keyboard and monitor screen. Keep this in mind as you look for similar comments and ideas that run through discussions. It is the similar points that may either be people adopting and promoting the prevailing attitudes of that particular forum, or real gems of information. Learning the difference will take some time and mean learning how to put frustration aside – at least it did for me! You’ll have to jump right in and get involved directly to get the full measure of what I mean.

The Right Approach

After you’ve spent some time gathering information in these ways, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of who your reader is. Now you’ll be able to position your book in the right places either physically, or online. This way, you’ll target your market, and get more bulls-eyes than if you simply threw your books into the air to see where they came down. This is what happens if your book is just put out there, with little consideration as to who is actually going to see it, especially in the net universe.

A Plan Emerges From the Rubble…

Follow your reader’s interests, and they will lead you to the most effective venues to showcase your book. This constitutes an effective, well-researched marketing plan and it cost you only time, observation and conversation, not lots of dollars. Most Indie-Authors, like me, have little extra left at the end of the month to pay other people to do what we can do for ourselves, if we take the time to learn to do for ourselves.

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Next week: Creating an effective showcase ad, now that you know who to show it to.

 

Creating Your Villain, tips from Donald Maass

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This post, from Debby Atkinson, originally appeared on the Type M For Murder blog on 10/21/09.

It’s Debby this morning, just returned from Bouchercon, where Sisters in Crime sponsored a terrific seminar, titled SinC into Great Writing. The headline speaker was literary agent Donald Maas, who gave so many great tips on improving our WIP’s that I couldn’t write fast enough. Here are some of his suggestions about how to create a stronger antagonist.

Think through your novel and ask yourself who it is who most impedes your protagonist. Is it your villain? Maybe, but maybe not. Get to know your villain and/or antagonist. What does he do? What kind of job does she have? What kind of haircut? How does he dress? Fastidiously, or like an aging hippie? Is she married, does she cheat on her husband? How many kids? Any quirks? Beware of cliches, though.

Now put this person in a situation where he or she demonstrates the exact opposite of the portrait you’ve painted. If he cheats on his wife, have him shower her with love and respect in a certain situation. Have a fussy person show up unkempt and disheveled. Show insecurities, have her be hard working, let him examine his own limits.

Examine her world view. Is it correct in some ways? How? What people in your novel agree with him? Who in history has seen things the way your antagonist sees them? Has it been good or bad? Show some good qualities in the antagonist: respect for authority, working for what she believes in. What writing or philosophy justifies his thinking? What are her religious values and how does she demonstrate them? You can even use a bible passage, and Maass named a reference book called the Thompson Chain Reference Bible to help find appropriate ones. (I’d never heard of this. I guess it’s like Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations for the Bible.)
 

Read the rest of the post on Type M For Murder, and see these related posts on the same site.

Why Creating A New Habit Is So Hard

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This post, from Alex Schleber, originally appeared on his Business Mind Hacks blog on 9/30/09. It seems particularly apt with so many Publetarians trying to get into the habit of writing every day to complete their NaNoWriMo novels!

Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.com recently writes in his post The Habit Change Cheatsheet: 29 Ways to Successfully Ingrain a Behavior:

3. Do a 30-day Challenge. In my experience, it takes about 30 days to change a habit, if you’re focused and consistent. This is a round number and will vary from person to person and habit to habit.

Often you’ll read a magical “21 days” to change a habit, but this is a myth with no evidence. […] A more recent study shows that 66 days [may be] a better number […] But 30 days is a good number to get you started. Your challenge: stick with a habit every day for 30 days, and post your daily progress updates to a forum.

The reason why it takes at least around 30 days to form a new habit is a process in the brain called "myelination".

It’s the process of your mind forming a certain kind of sheathing around the neurons involved in a habitual thought or behavior, which acts in a way like electrical insulating tape: It makes the electrical impulses travel faster, thereby speeding up the functioning of the entire neural network involved.

Myelin is a whitish substance that actually gives the brain its typical color. Now before your eyes glaze over about this Brain Biology 101 stuff, think about why this is so important for all manner of changing old behaviors into new ones:

When a mental block of any kind is released, or on old way of doing things is unhinged, the new neural network connections that formed to make this happen are extremely tender at first. "Green shoots" are rock solid by comparison.

This is why a new behavior feels so difficult at first: It isn’t ingrained yet.

Due to the lack of the myelin the signals are traveling slowly and precariously. But if you keep at it and thereby keep tracing the new path, your mind will get the message and "grease the groove" of that neural network. Until the speeds are up to 200 times faster!

Only problem is, it takes at least 30 days to complete myelination to the extent that the new habit is really starting to become a habit. Anytime before then there is the danger of the new habit formation being abandoned. And of course, the myelination process may continue for quite some time after the first 30 days.

Read the rest of the post, which includes a link to a related article by Daniel Coyle, on Business Mind Hacks. And hang in there, NaNoWriMo’ers: by the end of November, you’ll have a completed novel and an ingrained writing habit!

Why You Need To Fail

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This article, from Peter Bregman, originally appeared on The Harvard Business Publishing site on 7/6/09. While it was originally written with business executives in mind, the information presented here is equally helpful to authors who are struggling with setbacks—who are, after all, businesspeople too.

"Peter, I’d like you to stay for a minute after class." Calvin teaches my favorite body conditioning class at the gym.

"What’d I do?" I asked him.

"It’s what you didn’t do."

"What didn’t I do?"

"Fail."

"You kept me after class for not failing?"

"This," he began to mimic my casual weight lifting style, using weights that were obviously too light, "is not going to get you anywhere. A muscle only grows if you work it till it fails. You need to use more challenging weights. You need to fail."

Calvin’s onto something.

Every time I ask a room of executives to list the top five moments their career took a leap forward — not just a step, but a leap — failure is always on the list. For some it was the loss of a job. For others it was a project gone bad. And for others still it was the failure of a larger system, like an economic downturn, that required them to step up.

Yet most of us spend a tremendous effort trying to avoid even the possibility of failure.

According to Dr. Carol Dweck, professor at Stanford University, we have a mindset problem. Dweck has done a tremendous amount of research to understand what makes someone give up in the face of adversity versus strive to overcome it.

It turns out the answer is deceptively simple. It’s all in your head.

If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because failure is proof of your limitation. People with a fixed mindset like to solve the same problems over and over again. It reinforces their sense of competence.

Children with fixed mindsets would rather redo an easy jigsaw puzzle than try a harder one. Students with fixed mindsets would rather not learn new languages. CEOs with fixed mindsets will surround themselves with people who agree with them. They feel smart when they get it right.

But if you believe your talent grows with persistence and effort, then you seek failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mindset feel smart when they’re learning, not when they’re flawless.
 

Read the rest of the article on The Harvard Business Publishing site.

What Is NaNoWriMo?

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This post, from Chris Baty, originally appeared on the NaNoWriMo site.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

Read the rest of the post on NaNoWriMo, the official site of NaNoWriMo, which provides many useful NaNoWriMo tips and articles as well as a NaNoWriMo writer discussion forum. Publetariat Editor’s Note: NaNoWriMo fun fact: Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel, Water For Elephants (soon to be a major motion picture), began life as a NaNoWriMo novel. 

Hi folks

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My name is Brent Robison and this summer I published my short story collection, The Principle of Ultimate Indivisibility.  Looking forward to learning here!

My publishing company: http://blissplotpress.com

My blog: http://brentrobison.blogspot.com

 

Writing Formulas As Guides

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This article, from Gloria T. Delmar, originally appeared on the Philadelphia Writers Conference site in 1998.

The idea of "writing to formula" turns off many writers. But the fact is, that most writing does indeed fall into certain broad "concepts" or "plans." It’s not counter- productive to understand these accepted schemes for making a piece of writing make sense for the intended reader (and first, the intended editor). Don’t let yourself get locked into seeing formulas or concepts as negative; the reason they’ve been defined is because they work–and that’s positive synthesis.

Mathematical Patterns Applied to Fiction

1+1=2
 This equation represents the "satisfying" or "happy-ending."
At least three-fourths of all modern, commercial short stories and a large percentage of longer stories, are written on this pattern.
1-1=0
 This equation represents the "unresolved" or "fitting punishment ending."
A much smaller percentage of "literary" stories follow this pattern.
"1" represents basic emotions:
 love, hate, fear, anger, courage, security, greed, piety, pride, honor, generosity, miserliness, honesty, good, evil, friendship, ambition, desire, patriotism, etc.
or conditioned emotions:
parental love, sacred love, profane love, etc. (ETC. for all basic emotions.)

To make a strong story, you need a strong conflict between two emotions. You can match two simple emotions, two conditioned emotions, or a simple emotion and a conditioned one. Though the + or – signs in the mathematical pattern might be read as "versus" the "plus" and "minus" concepts reflect the nature of the problems and conflict, and forecast the outcome.

Short Story:
Single viewpoint character: entire story takes place in a short period of time;
Single plot: focuses on a single theme.
Novel:
May be single or multiple viewpoint (but one viewpoint per scene); story may take place in a short period of time or range over years; may have main lot plus several sub- plots; may focus on a single theme overall, or include more than one.

Aristotle’s Rules of Tragedy

amagmorsis:
revelation of true identity of person previously unknown.
catharsis:
arousal of pity and fear to enlarge spectator’s outlook.
hamartia:
called "tragic flow" inherent defect in the hero.
periteteia:
shift of the tragic hero’s fortune from good to bad.
verisimilitude:
"resemblance of reality" in drama or non-drama.

Read the rest of the article, which includes The Who What When Where Why and How formula, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Deadly Sins of Writers, on the Philadelphia Writers Conference site.

Grisham Spills The Beans…

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I just got up after watching a short segment of the Today Show.  Usually there’s not much of interest for me anymore on NBC mornings, but this morning, Matt Lauer, interviewing John Grisham about his newest book, a collection of short stories, turned from the standard book tour interview to a hard question.  It dealt with a recent Court case involving writers who are fed up with the retail sales tactics of  a few giants and box stores.  In John Girsham’s case, his hard cover new book, with a list price of $24.00 is being sold at Walmart and Amazon, among others, for …$9.95.

Matt Lauer wanted to know what Grisham thought of the case, which uses the language "predatory sales tactics".  Grisham admitted that it wouldn’t affect him much in the short term, but when he considered the long-term effects, the interview got interesting.  Mr. Grisham, openly pronounced that for new or future writers, this practice will make it very hard to impossible for them to be published.  There is nothing made when a book that costs the publisher a certain amount to produce is sold for way less than what its cost.  To paraphrase, he indiacted that in his opinion, this kind of tactic will shake the industry to it’s knees, eventually. Even when the sales quantities are considerable, the margin has disappeared.  The margin is what fuels publishing’s ability to test new authors work.  It gives them the room to provide publishing homes for new voices, and without it, there will be little attention given to emerging writers. 

It turns out, according to Mr. Grisham’s comments, that the business of selling books has a great deal more impact on whether your book will be published than many of us believed. 

Massive discount tactics have already destroyed the once-great American Department Store Retail culture.  There are no more merchants out there at all, just perpetual motion operations that desperately must keep the goods moving or perish — similar to the old notion of how sharks swim forward all the time to stay alive.  It’s about time that a respected author turn some of his attention to some of the ills that are in the process of destroying publishing as we know it.  He also spoke of the pending collapse of many publishers and established book sellers who wil be unable to compete with the box stores and online merchants.  This is already happening in spades.

He closed, by saying, that his book, "is worth $24." 

Readers should be willing to pay someone for their creative work, and if it means paying the author directly, that day may well come.  That bodes well for Indie Authors who can produce a high-quality product at a reasonable price…and can hang in a bit longer, until the dust settles.

 

#fridayflash: Pets

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“Honey, if you don’t feed it, it’ll die like the last one.”

“But Mom,” Garrett whined, as only an eight year old can, “every time I go near the cage it goes crazy and tries to escape. Or kill me.”

She finished rinsing the dishes, dried her hands and turned to face him. “You have to approach it slowly and speak to it in a soft, reassuring voice. If you’re nice to it, it’ll learn to trust you.”

Garrett sighed and looked doubtful. “It’s just mean, Mom.”

“No, it’s just frightened. Try to look at it from the other side. How would you feel if you saw your mom and dad die, then someone grabbed you, took you away from your home and put you in a cage in a strange place?”

“I didn’t mean to kill the mom and dad, it was an accident.”

“I know, and that’s why you’re trying to take care of…what name did you give it?”

“Freckles.”

“That’s why you’re trying to take care of Freckles, to do the right thing.”

Garrett laid his head on the table and began tracing invisible patterns on the wood with an index finger. “Freckles hates me. He hates me the same as all the other ones did.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” She took a seat next to Garrett and lifted his chin in her hand. “Nobody could hate you.”

He smiled, only a little.

She let go of his chin and straightened in her chair. “Now, how’s Freckles’ leg doing?”

“I dunno, I can’t get close enough to see.”

She stood and clasped Garrett’s hand, pulling him up. “Come on, let’s go check it out together.”

They left the warm kitchen and crossed the large, chilly expanse of overgrown field behind the house. When they reached the faded barn, she pulled a key from her pocket and fitted it to the lock. As the door swung open, Freckles let out a caterwaul.

“Freckles?” she asked, gently. Kindly.

Inside the cage, Freckles looked a mess. He was very dirty, and it was obvious his crushed leg was beyond repair. She stooped to kneel next to the cage and carefully reached in to stroke Freckles’ head. Freckles snatched her hand and bit her, hard enough to draw blood.

She withdrew with a yelp. “Freckles! Bad!" she yelled. "Bad boy!”

“See?” Garrett asked. “He’s mean, like I told you.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, shaking her head with regret and applying pressure to her bleeding hand. “And I don’t think that leg will ever heal.”

“Do we have to—”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I think so, honey. I’m sorry, but it’s the humane thing to do.”

Garrett hung his head and began to cry softly as she crossed the barn, lifted the rifle from the wall and loaded it. Seemingly aware of what was going on, Freckles let out a low, keening wail.

She returned with the gun and pointed it at Freckles’ head. Garrett turned to leave as Freckles’ cries intensified, but she reached out a hand to stop him. “Garrett, if you’re going to keep catching things and bringing them home, you need to understand what it means to take care of them. Even if killing them is the best way to take care of them.”

Garrett turned back and stood next to her, facing the cage. She leveled the sight at Freckles’ temple and pulled the trigger.

In the millisecond between the trigger pull and the bullet’s entry into his small skull, Freckles yelled, “NOOOOO!!!!!” Then he slumped over onto the hay, lifeless, his mouth and eyes still wide with terror.

Garrett burst into tears and she clutched him close, rubbing his shoulder. “Aw, Garrett. I’m sorry.”

She knelt down, cleared the stray hairs away from his eyes and wiped his face with her sleeve. “This one just wasn’t meant to be.”

The next morning, Garrett’s dad came to his bedside at dawn to wake him. “Buddy?” he asked, gently shaking the boy awake.

Garrett roused enough to prop himself up on an elbow, rubbing his eyes. “What?”

“I’ve got a surprise for you, buddy. To help you forget about Freckles.”

Garrett swung his feet out to the floor and into his boots, suddenly awake and alert with excitement. As Garrett stood and shrugged into his coat, his dad continued.

“This one’s name is Julie, and she’s very nice.”