Pop Open Some Bubbly

By Peg Brantley, Writer at Work, Stumbling Toward Publication

Pop open some bubbly and celebrate with me.

Thursday afternoon, which was three months and two days later than planned, I finished the first rough draft of a manuscript I thought would be easy to write—because I'd already written it. A simple little rewrite. How hard could that be?

That was way back when. I shouldn't have bothered to ask the question. It only took me about two days of "rewrite" to understand I needed to make it into an entirely new story. Ahh . . . there's a reason I referred to it as the first rough draft. (For more on what I learned about the process, check out Suspense Novelist.)

Gag me, but I was cool. I'm always down with making something better. But between you and me, faster would have been good.

Gayle's post on Thursday hit home, and not in a good way. Well, kind of . . . because the woman is funny. And spot-on. But I sat at my desk with these last few scenes to write, and they were like spreading cold butter on a thin cracker.

These scenes were so clear in my head. Bingety, bangety boop. Done. Well {gulp}, then I had to write them—the very last few scenes. And they needed to make sense. As I said, cold butter on a thin cracker. The only thing that made me finish was the way I'd told God and everybody I would. Pride before the crumbled cracker, so to speak.

When I finish a manuscript (this is my third, or is it my fourth?), there has always been a little postpartum thing going on. But not this time. I have another completed story that's been sitting there—a good one, I think—waiting for me to begin the long, laborious process of editing it. I can't say the finish line for this one made me want to launch my lunch, but it remained a little evasive. Maybe it's that other manuscript that froze my progress? Is it too late to hurl?

But I'm done with this first draft of this one story, and happily reporting that little fact to you.

I took the rest of Thursday off. Sort of. And Friday I intend on doing a little organization before getting back to work.

And bring my butter to room temperature.

A novel timeline

By Gayle Carline

When I tell some people I'm an author, their first response is, "You know, I'm going to write a book someday, when I've got the time."

Others actually think it's amazing that I told a story in so very many words and got it published.

So for those of you who are going to write a book someday when you have the time, and for the rest of you who wonder how we do it, here is the history of a novel:

The Idea. It strikes like lightning and it is brilliant. BRILL-ee-YANT. What if a man/woman/person is found behind/on top of/underneath a piano/antique store/museum display, having been killed with a baseball bat/cannon ball/pickle fork? But there's a twist - a twist only YOU can write.

The First Fifty Pages: You realize there is a degree of difficulty in your idea. The person you want to be the murderer is refusing to be portrayed as a prim, yet cold-hearted librarian. You know that you need to set up X here so that Y can happen in the last act, but nothing is cooperating and your plot is already trying to de-rail itself. Order must be restored for you to continue, so you stop writing long enough to research where exactly a pickle fork would have to be inserted to kill someone. You spend a few hours on Facebook and call it "re-grouping."

The Slide from the First Third to the Mid-Point: Order has not been restored, but you have accepted the new plot offered by your characters. (Secretly you plan to kill them all off and start with new characters on the next book.) Now the problem is, you're bored. Every sentence you type sounds like, "Blah blah blah, blahdy blah blah." Ennui makes you want to chuck the whole thing and start over, but giving up sounds cowardly. Your choice is to slog through the blah, in hopes of redemption during editing, or hit one of your characters with a heavy object. Hint: there is no wrong answer here.

The Mid-Point to the Second Third: The mid-section spike in action and revelations has you invigorated. You have a clear idea of where this story is going, but you need to be careful to lay out the clues in the right order. You begin to make lists of who has to find/say what. These lists begin to invade your other lists. (You DO make lists, right?) Suddenly you're in the grocery store trying to find a dry cleaning slip from 1994 in the bread aisle. It's not there.

The Last Third: This is the home stretch, and by that I mean it stretches infinitely. The action is there, the reveal is there, you've got all the characters in the room, and - the damn book won't end. You spend three weeks writing "the last 20,000 words" because it seems you're always about 20,000 words from finishing. Just keep writing.

The Wall: Suddenly you hit it - The End. All that's left is a little post-coital wrap-up. Do you end it upbeat and perky, with everyone standing around the water cooler, laughing? Do you give it a noir, downer, "forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" ending? Again, no wrong answer here, unless your last line is, "Tomorrow is another day."

Et, voila! You are finished. Except for the months you'll spend editing, the months you'll spend waiting for an editor to edit, writing a great query letter that sells the concept, weeping for joy when you sell it for a big advance, weeping with sadness when you realize you hate the cover art and the title they gave it. After that comes promotions and marketing, and pretending you're still in love with your book, even though you're distracted by a new Idea (a brilliant one).

And that's all there is to it. Easy, right?

Libraries, Nook Readers, and Amazon

By L.J. Sellers and Andrew Kaufman

L.J: In response to one of my blogs about enrolling in the Amazon select program, which requires exclusivity, a librarian posted this comment:
"As a public librarian and a Nook owner, I see another side. We are struggling to offer ebooks and eaudiobooks to our patrons without any increase in funding while still keeping up our print collections for patrons who have not jumped on the ereader bandwagon. We have to deal with everything from publishers who won’t sell to libraries at all, publishers who charge libraries up to 10 times the price of what an individual pays, publishers who limit the number of times the item we purchase may be used, etc. We have access to one company (Overdrive) who will maintain our ematerials, but we are bound by their policies or we can go independent, but the costs and knowledge base required are so astronomical that it currently isn’t possible to maintain our own ematerials. Seems like everyone is trying to figure out the best way to do this.

...It worries me when I read that some of you want to be Kindle exclusive. As I said, I have a Nook and I don’t want to switch to an Amazon ereader for many reasons. It worries me that some day there might be only one ereader and we would all be at the mercy of one company. None of you mentioned selling through Overdrive and I wonder your thoughts on that.

Please know that the library community wants you to make money. We are author’s biggest champions and want you to flourish in whatever medium is popular at that time."

Andrew’s response: I actually struggled for quite some time over the decision to make my work exclusive to Amazon, and the reasons were exactly as mentioned above. I didn’t want to keep people from having access to my work simply because they owned different e-reading devices, didn’t think it would be fair. In addition to that, I believe competition among companies is of benefit to all.

Unfortunately, at the same time, I also noticed that my sales on Nook and other e-reading devices had been progressively dwindling down to practically nothing. In addition to that, on Amazon—the place where I make the lion’s share of my earnings—my sales were also showing a steady decline as the market became flooded with more self-published authors than ever. I was sinking all around and at one point, wondered if I could stay afloat. I soon came to the realization that if I didn’t have readers, I wasn’t going to survive as an author, something that’s as vital to me as breathing. I had to do something.

As independent authors, we face a particularly difficult challenge because odds are stacked against us. We carry the stigma that our work is inferior to traditionally published authors. We also don’t have the kind of wide distribution channels that mainstream authors have, nor do we get cash advances to rely on. We make our money one book at a time, one reader at a time. In short, it’s up to us and only us to ensure our work gets read, and we have to do what we can do increase the odds.

After releasing my new novel, one that I’d worked tirelessly on for more than two years, and after seeing that it was beginning to fall through the cracks, I knew I needed to take action. I believed very strongly in it and knew I needed to do whatever I could to ensure its success. Select was an opportunity to do that, to breathe new life into it, to give it the exposure it needed. In all honestly, was my only option. I took it.

Do I feel badly that readers with Nook and other devices are being penalized? Absolutely. However, I also realize that the decision to go exclusive is not forever; it’s for ninety days, and I can most certainly make my work available to the others after that if there’s a demand for it.

L.J.’s response: I also feel badly for Nook readers, but I’m running a small publishing business that supports my household, and I had to make a profitable business decision. I hope Nook owners will take their case to B&N and ask them to make the changes that will allow self-published books to be discovered. Without that, most indie authors aren’t making money on Nook and have little reason to stay.

As for library patrons, I would love to make my books available to them, but unless I donate them, it’s nearly impossible. Even when I had a small publisher, libraries didn’t buy my books, despite my great reviews and the thousands of dollars I spent sending out promotional material.

As for Overdrive, they don’t deal with individual authors. Even my ebook distributor, which handled hundreds of authors (all with five books or more) had difficulty accessing Overdrive. The other consideration is that indie ebooks typically sell for less than five dollars, and digital files never wear out or need to be replaced, so the library market holds little profit for indies. Still, if the opportunity were available, I would donate ebooks to libraries just to expose new readers to my work. But I have no idea how to make that happen or if libraries can even accept donated ebooks.

The bottom line is: Amazon is the only company that has ever supported my work and helped me access readers, so they have my loyalty.

What are your thoughts on this hot-button topic? 

Nextel Phones and Other Annoying Things CSIs Deal With

It’s a funny thing but when I hear a Nextel phone squawk I get an instant urge to bash the little black box with a sledgehammer. Overkill? Maybe, but these feelings have been conditioned into me from years of call-outs. Some criminalists work shifts (usually days, mids, or graves) and aren’t routinely subject to call outs. They work their eight or ten hour shift and then they head home turning the baton over to the next shift. Other criminalists, like me, were on call. That means that if a crime occurs after hours you’re jolted from your sleep to schlep out into the night.

Criminals don’t keep an outlook calendar so it’s hard to predict when a call out may occur. That uncertainty can lead to a restless nights sleep. A CSI may work a 10+ hour day, go home to deal with issues around their house, and an hour after putting head to pillow that damned Nextel erupts like a screeching owl. Hence my urge. I was reminded of this the other day when visiting some former colleagues in their lab when one of their Nextels went off. I was surprised that, even after three years absence from law enforcement, those old emotions bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me.

The reasons are deeper than simply losing a well deserved night’s sleep. After all, call outs should not come as a surprise to CSIs. We know what we are signing up for and we accept the fact that we may be called out at the most inconvenient times such as holidays, birthdays, important events, and intimate moments. What erodes our morale, in part, is when the call out is for something petty or simple. Imagine getting called to respond only to place an article of clothing into an evidence bag. Something every fifth grader could do. In one case I had a patrol officer dust for prints, develop a print, place the lifting tape over the print and then called me out to lift the tape off the item because they were suddenly overcome with fear that they would damage the print if they proceeded.

I’m not bringing this up simply to complain. All law enforcement professionals have to deal with things that annoy them and CSIs are no different. I merely suggest that authors take note of these issues and incorporate them into their story lines. Authors are pretty good at incorporating the “big” conflicts law enforcement professionals deal with like getting shot at, divorce, or crashing cars. As in life though, many of our most trying moments don’t come from the one big event but from the accumulation of the little conflicts.

Think of events in your own life. You may be able to handle a blown tire, having a valid credit card denied, or accidentally knocking over a large display in the grocery store and still have a pretty good day. But stack all those things together and your mood can go from pleasant to pissed in no time at all. Little things that can annoy the criminalist include spilling an entire jar of fingerprint powder onto a victim’s nice carpet, locking your keys in a crime scene vehicle, and hearing the squawk of your Nextel at midnight! So when laying out your story consider how these “little things” might affect your character’s demeanor.

Developing Your Story Using Software Applications

by Ian Walkley, author of the action thriller, No Remorse   

Does anyone still use a typewriter or write their stories by hand? 

I’m something of a software application junkie, and if there is something out there that claims to help writers write, plot, develop characters, improve vocab or whatever, I’ve probably tried it. Pity there’s not something to help debut authors get published. 

Anyway, I thought I’d give a quick overview of some of the apps available for writers and aspiring writers. But I do want to emphasize that these applications can only ever facilitate the writer’s journey. It is the writer that must determine the story’s route, the travelers, and the destination.

Scrivener’s corkboard provides flexibility with chapter and scene structure.

While I used Microsoft Word to write my first novel, No Remorse, I’m enjoying using Scrivener to write my second. I bought it because I was getting frustrated using index cards. I would spread them out on our dining table, only to have to collate them at mealtime. I had previously tried Curio, which is great for brainstorming and mindmapping, but doesn’t offer flexible index cards, and Throughline, which has index cards but is very basic (and stopped working when I upgraded my iMac to the Lion operating system). Scrivener is a Mac application that has recently become available for Windows for only $45. It has a word processing function and allows easy restructuring of chapters, brainstorming, plot structure, character data sheets and many other great features.

For character development, I use Character Writer. It gives prompts on demographics, appearance, personality, relationships, dialogue and psychology. There is an Enneagram personality typology option, which helps with the understanding of character motivations and behaviour. My only beef is that Character Writer doesn’t automatically update the overall description when I edit one of the sub-categories.

For plot development, I’ve tried lots of different apps, including Dramatica Pro, which I had trouble understanding and seemed to limit my options. It also stopped working when I upgraded my iMac to the Lion. (I’m still cursing Apple about its Lion “downgrade”).

I also use a fairly inexpensive app designed for movie scripts, called Contour. It allows me to fit my story into a classic three-act plot structure. With about 26 plot points, Contour is useful for identifying where to place obstacles to confront the protagonist, and add plot twists.

If you’re just starting a story, you might consider Storyweaver, a program from the co-creator of Dramatica, Melanie Anne Phillips, which uses a series of prompts to help build the story. I haven’t used it from scratch, but I might give it a try next time.

For vocab, I have Master Writer, which offers some helpful extensions to a traditional dictionary/thesaurus, including a pop culture reference, but is a little on the expensive side for what it offers.

And finally, if you’re considering converting your story into a movie, there are two apps that will help with the screenplay layout: Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter, which is the one I use.

There are, of course, many other products competing out there for the writer’s dollar, most easily searchable and most offering trial periods for free.

Of course, if your computer screen starts to make you feel like you’re Captain Kirk in Star Trek, there’s always the default—good ol’ MS Word, which is somewhat configurable and has a dictionary and thesaurus. You’ll probably end up using this to format your story into a document to send to agents and publishers, most of whom now require the manuscript to be sent by email. That pretty much rules out a typewriter or hand-written manuscript. 

These days, I can barely hand write enough to scrawl a greeting in one of my books. What I’d like to know is, how the Dickens did writers manage before computers?


Thanks to Jodie Renner, my editor, for inviting me to be a guest blogger here today.

  Ian’s debut action thriller, No Remorse, is available at http://www.amazon.com/No-Remorse-Ian-Walkley/dp/0980806607/
and will be available FREE as an ebook in a special Amazon promotion for two days only, on February 1 and 2, at the above link. 
If you don't have an e-reader, you can download the free Kindle reader for PC or iPad or phone at: 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

Is Amazon Select Really The Big, Bad Wolf?

By Andrew E. Kaufman

I woke up Wednesday morning to a barrage of emails. It appeared an independent author’s sample anthology, to which I belong, was being taken down. The reason was that it violated the terms of Amazon’s new Select program (several of the authors are enrolled in it). The anthology offers excerpts from our books, and according to the exclusivity agreement, enrolled work cannot be distributed digitally elsewhere. This includes excerpts shown on websites (that's right folks, if you're a Select author and running excerpts from your book on a website or anywhere else, you may want to take them down).

Word of this sent the emails a flyin’.

Very quickly, the discussion turned hostile with lots of anger aimed at Amazon and its Select program, as well as the authors enrolled in it. Some complained that they were being punished because of the actions of a few. Others insinuated that Amazon is underhanded, manipulative, and self-serving. One person even went as far as calling them an “evil empire.” There was even talk of staging an indie author boycott of Amazon. For my part, I chose to stay out of it. I didn’t agree with much of what was being said and felt the facts were being skewed.

Now I realize I'm going to take some flack for this, but I'm having a hard time understanding all the anger directed at Amazon. I mean, let's face it--we wouldn’t even be here having this discussion if it weren’t for them. There would be no indie movement, no platform to showcase our work, no audience to read our books. Many of us would still be on the outside looking in, trying to break through those iron-clad gates, the ones kept locked up for years by the mainstream publishing industry.

Amazon helped us find our audience much more than any traditional publisher ever did. They gave us a platform, then they gave us the tools necessary to make money at it, offering an unprecedented seventy percent royalty for our books, something previously unheard of with traditional publishers. 

In short, they let us in and put the power where it belongs: with the readers. 

As for  the Select program, I don’t understand the anger there, either. Amazon isn’t forcing anyone to enter exclusive deals; they’re offering them an opportunity. The program is completely voluntary. Those who wish to enroll are free to do so; those who don’t, can go on with business as usual, selling their books wherever and however they wish. For those who do choose to go that route, they're being compensated with cash which Amazon has taken out of their own pocket.  Many authors would still jump at the chance for an exclusive deal with a publisher, and yet they're balking at the idea of doing the same thing with Amazon.

Amazon isn’t evil; it’s a business just like any other. Lest we forget, they invented the e-reader. Everyone else jumped on board after that with their own versions. Is anyone faulting them for trying to cash in on the craze? Of course not—it’s business. So what’s so wrong with Amazon trying to stay competitive in a market they created? I say, nothing.

Are they forcing a monopoly?  I doubt it. Even if Barnes & Noble goes under, the Nook will likely live on under another name, and there is this other company called Apple, who, when I last checked, is getting ready to launch their own digital publishing platform. And I'd say they have the muscle to be a formidable competitor.

Why I Love Conventions

By C.J. West

Last weekend I visited the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas as a volunteer for Mystery Day, several panel presentations by current mystery writers. This morning I was thinking about how energized I am when I come away from these meetings and wondered why.

For those of you who’ve never been to an ALA meeting, the exhibit floor displays everything from books, to furniture, to technology, hundreds of booths with hi tech displays offer anything you’d need to open a library save the bricks, mortar and plumbing. Major publishers display thousands of books, but very few authors have a presence. If you’re an author and you rent a booth at one of these shows, be prepared to give away lots of books. Publishers come with cases of them and offer them free by the hundreds.

My focus for the day was a room in the back corner, arranged with a stage and about 50 chairs for panel discussions.

You’d think I’d be tired of listening to panels by now. A few years ago I started going to conventions to meet people in the business. I was always that kid in school who followed the rules, so when I started attending conventions, I sat in the audience for panels, lots of panels. That's what's on the schedule during the day, so that's what I did. I’ve listened in on some great conversations and I’ve seen more than a few fall flat.

The success of a panel in my eyes comes down to two factors. A panel needs either a rock star or a fantastic moderator. A rock star needs no explanation. Certain writers like Tim Hallinan, Dennis Lehane, or Charlaine Harris can carry a panel no matter who is asking the questions. The only thing that can spoil a panel with a rock star is a newbie who hogs the conversation.

Absent a rock star, a moderator makes or breaks the panel. The irony is that the moderator does the most work by far and receives almost no credit whatsoever. Anyone can ask:

“What’s your writing process? Or schedule? Or office space?”

“Why is (insert main character name here) fun to write?”

“How much research do you do?”

Blah. Blah. Blah. Heard it all before.

I admit if you’ve never heard an author panel before, the answers would be interesting. After 50 times, not so much. 

I was really impressed at last year’s Bouchercon by the job Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik did coming up with unique ideas for panels. They helped the moderators and authors put on a brilliant show. A great panelist can also make a panel fun. JoAnna Slan told a story about a dead armadillo that she turned into a table lamp. I’d heard the story. I knew she was going to tell it. I still couldn’t help laughing.

But not every panel can have an armadillo-turned-table-lamp story. Even if it could, it’s important to have someone driving the ship on an interesting course the rest of the time.

A great moderator takes a topic and gives the writers fodder for thought. The discussion gets the writers to share great ideas about their latest book, the writing life, and society in general. It’s these ideas that inspire me when I get back to my desk.

So tell me, do you notice moderators ? Who’s your favorite?

Research, or Where I find My Ideas

A guest post by Kit Sloane.

When I decided to make my female protagonist a feature film editor, I had no idea what this would mean to me, research-wise. I’m lucky that my daughter (and cover artist for all 9 books, through 3-different publishers) is part of this Hollywood business as an art director and production designer. Thanks to her, I’ve been able to learn some of the complexities of film production. I’ve met people who work in this fascinating field, as well as gone to location shoots and watched, but mostly, I’ve listened.

At the time it just seemed a neat idea to have Margot O’Banion, this shy, wall flower type personality, involved in mysteries. As time has gone on, she’s become romantically involved with a distinctly UN-shy writer/director, my co-protagonist Max, and they have had adventures in Guatemala, Panama, the UK, and, of course, the wilds of California—all places I’ve been and were colorful enough to make me itch to include them in a story. Like the “Golden Ladies” of British mysteries, location is another character in my books. One terrific, unintended, consequence of this choice for my character’s profession was that I could place my stories anywhere in the world. Film people travel!

When we think of a movie we usually look first to who’s starring in it or, maybe, who is directing. But behind the finished product, there are weeks, sometimes months and months of pre-production. It takes hundreds of different people to get a movie made. These people are all highly trained and their fields range from electrician to construction to designer to makeup artists to writer and director. Each facet is distinct. Each person on every crew is working toward one thing, a completed movie.

Needless to say, these are highly sought after jobs. Networking is used extensively. If you have a poor working reputation, word quickly gets out. Good, efficient, on time workers reap the rewards. Competitive? Ohmygoodness. Many of these crews have dozens of “interns” lined up just hoping to help, ignoring the 17-hr. workdays. Unpaid, of course. All of them hoping for the experience of making a movie to put on their resumés. 

So when I’m visiting on soundstages or on location. I cruise the sidelines and stay out of everyone’s way. I have managed NOT to trip over miles of cable spread over the floors or knock over any of the horribly expensive lights. So far, so good!As I mentioned, I’ve found nearly all my ideas from listening to these busy people. From “First you’ve gotta have the money,” the basis for Location, Location, to the sentence that struck a chord for my new one, Close-Up.

A year ago my daughter, the production designer, was working on a commercial shoot for a very fancy product with a very fancy fashion photographer. I lurked. Positioning myself near the cameras, the TV monitors, and the director, I stayed in the shadows and waited. The sets, of course, are brilliantly lit, but the shadows that surround them are dark and perfect for eavesdropping…

As we all stood there, watching the set being completed, the diva makeup artist ran up to the director/photographer and said, “Ohmygawd! I couldn’t make her up. She came in already done.”

The director/photographer never took his eyes off the lighted set in front of him and replied, “I know. It’s Jenny’s work. I recognized the eyebrows.”

The eyebrows. That just struck me how utterly detail-oriented these professionals are. And what a lovely clue for a story. The eyebrows.

So I wrote Close-Up about the ins and outs of trying to get 15-more minutes of fame for a group of “mature” actors, 75,000 words all from a spark fanned by that one remark.

I think that reading my standalone series is like eavesdropping. The reader is behind the scenes, grappling with the tensions and anxieties of a high powered business. The fact that sometimes even the most intelligent people make some really poor decisions plays right into a suspenseful mystery.

So if you like inside stories with colorful characters in interesting locations, give the series a whirl. Don’t be like that NY editor who once told my agent, “Who really wants to know about Hollywood, anyway?” I often think of her during the Academy Awards show!

***************

A graduate in Art History from Mills College, Oakland, California, Kit has published short stories and many articles on the art of writing and the writing business. She served as first fiction editor for Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. She especially enjoys lecturing about the writing world and mentoring new writers. A long time member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Mystery Women of the UK, she was named one of Mills College’s Literary Women in 2007. Kit and her professor husband live on a small hilltop horse ranch in Northern California's sublime wine country.