Richard Krawiec on Writing and the State of the Publishing Industry in 2010

Posted on by May 13, 2010


KrawiecApril201003smaller Many writers approach the process of manuscript
submission using the same strategies writers used in 1990. Rapid, recent
changes in the publishing industry render those strategies ineffective. Author,
editor, and writing coach Richard Krawiec spoke about the publishing
industry on 8 April at the Raleigh Writers Morning Out, sponsored monthly by
the North Carolina Writers Network.

"The publishing industry has ceased to serve the needs
of the writer," he said. "The industry isn't looking to buy books.
It's looking to reject them."

That news didn't surprise me. However his next revelation
was a puzzle. The decision to publish one manuscript over another is no longer
made by senior editors at publishing houses. That decision is now made by
people in a publisher's sales department.

Apparently senior editors are skittish of championing
publication of a manuscript. If the book bombs, the editor fears that the sales
department will say that the editor failed.

This scenario invites a number of questions. There's the
matter of how an editor's job has morphed. Writers know that they cannot expect
a publisher's editor to extensively line-edit their works, as editors did decades
ago. But if editors now have quit championing favorite books, what exactly
does an editor's day job entail? If sales departments are making yea-or-nay
publishing decisions, on what criteria do they base their decisions? Who in the sales department reads the books they're promoting?

Krawiec admitted that there was an element of flukiness
playing into the publishing success of several authors that he'd edited. Also,
each of these authors had worked hard, often investing thousands of their own
dollars to grab the right person's attention and achieve the break they needed.

Some talented authors, like Heather Jacks, have yet
to get their big break, despite hard work and talent. Jacks, who has written a
collection of humorous essays entitled MILF Notes, has taken orders for
hundreds of copies of her work and obtained cover blurbs, thus proving to
industry professionals that she knows how to hustle the book. Still no sale for
her.

For those in the audience who'd just started the submission
process, Krawiec emphasized that you don't get a second chance with agents and
editors. If you establish that you aren't professional (ex. a poorly written
query letter, an amateurish attitude), you cannot return to those
agents and editors. The memory lingers.

When folks in the audience brought up the issue of how to
find time to write during their busy days, Krawiec insisted that to be
successful in this business, you have to be willing to write without the luxury
of time. And you must be willing to revise. He likened a manuscript's first
draft to a lovemaking quickie. You do it for yourself. But when you devote time
to subsequent drafts, it's like taking time to explore the skin of your
partner. You've made the conscious effort to turn your manuscript (or your act
of lovemaking) into art.

Krawiec's message was clear for those who seek publication.
Stay abreast of changes in the industry, adapt to those changes, and present
yourself as a professional.

Writing Thrillers: Two More Principles That Guide Jeffrey Deaver

Posted on by May 12, 2010

At the 1 May SkillBuild in High Point, NC, bestselling
author Jeffrey Deaver cited three principles that guide his writing.
Last week, I discussed his first principle: Don't write something that
readers don't want to read. Remember the liver-flavored toothpaste
analogy?

That first principle of Deaver's seems simple enough and
logical. But most writers, especially at the beginning, write what they
want, never mind that it doesn't hit the spot with anyone else. That's the best
way I know to create a product that will appeal to no one except your mother.

Deaver's other two guiding principles embody the same logic
and simplicity. Beginning writers often ignore these principles, too.

Write what you enjoy reading. In genre fiction,
romance accounts for the largest percentage of sales. You might be tempted by
these impressive sales figures to try your hand at romance. But if you're a
science fiction fan, and you've never been able to finish reading a romance
because the heroes and heroines always aggravate you, what makes you believe
you're going to complete the first draft of a romance?

Each genre has its own rules. The rules by which a work of
science fiction is deemed acceptable by its readers differ greatly from the
rules in romance. One way you learn rules of writing within a genre is by
reading many books within that genre, informally studying what makes the
stories work. An added benefit of writing what you enjoy reading is that it
sustains you during the slump times of your career. So many factors that
determine your professional success in publishing are out of your direct
control. Make no mistake. This job is difficult.

Know your craft. Here Deaver refers to grammar,
punctuation, and spelling, plus basic rules for plotting and characterization.
Many beginning writers let these basics slide. They're under the mistaken
impression that editors at New York City presses are standing by with red pens,
waiting to correct errors that writers themselves could have and should have
corrected. Sixty years ago, publishers' editors might have made these sorts of
large-scale line edits. But in the 21st century, it's up to the writer to
ensure that his or her craft is polished by the time the manuscript undergoes
the submissions process.

Since this task can almost never be undertaken without
assistance, Deaver recommends investing in titles like Eats, Shoots &
Leaves, Woe Is I, and The Chicago Manual of Style for your
personal reference library. You do have a personal reference library, don't
you?

I also recommend the following aids to polishing your
manuscript:

Online workshops and conference workshops that deal
with craft can be enlightening. During the years that I've been blogging, here
are the online craft workshops that I've taken:

You can derive insight into the trouble spots in your
manuscript from interactions with the members of online and in-person
critique groups. But when your critique group members cease to be able to
spot errors in your work, it's time to move on — either to a more advanced
group or to an editor that you hire.

More and more writers whose works are close to being
publishable have opted to hire a professional editor like Chris Roerden. Professional editors can be pricey, but if your goal is to lock down a
publishing contract, it's worth paying an editor to help you find the little
things that are throwing off first readers in publishing houses.

Here are Deaver's three principles again:

  • Don't write something that readers don't want to read.
  • Write what you enjoy reading.
  • Know your craft.

What'll it be for you? Ignore the principles and carry on
with your writing as a hobby? Or adopt a professional approach to your writing
and apply these principles?

The Ins and Outs of Paranormal Forensic Investigations

Posted on by May 11, 2010

About fifteen years ago, I wrote three manuscripts in a
mystery series with a psychic detective and a contemporary setting. The
sentiment I heard from editors and agents at conferences was, "People aren't
reading about psychic detectives. What publisher would buy into this
idea?" Not unlike the sentiment expressed by an executive from a major
technology company in the mid-1970s: "But who would want a computer in
their home?"

Obviously psychics haven't swarmed the publishing
industry to offer guidance with publishers' long-term business plans. Crime fiction with a paranormal twist has been selling well
for at least a decade. I have
no intention of seeking publication for those three manuscripts about the
psychic detective, but I've been developing the idea for another series that
deals with paranormal and police investigations.

The release of the movie Ghostbusters in 1984 made
parapsychologists laugh at themselves with all the gizmos used by
the characters. That movie may also have stimulated the current interest in the
paranormal, brought it out of the realm of nutcases and into mainstream
fiction. If we fast-forward to 2010, we find that there's a lot of
(non-crackpot) information to learn about paranormal investigations.

TV shows
like Ghost Hunters expose viewers to scientific approaches toward
understanding the paranormal. These days, if you write paranormal crime fiction, and you
expect to be taken seriously by editors and agents, you must toe the line
with what the "experts" say. Where do you start sorting through this overload of
information? How do you sort through it?

Last year, my book Camp Follower finaled for the
Daphne du Maurier Award, presented each year by the Kiss of Death chapter of the Romance Writers of America. I received a certificate for a
free online class through the chapter and cashed in my certificate this past
March on "Paranormal Forensic Investigation," led by Katherine
Ramsland. The elevator description for the course is "Ghost Hunters
Meet CSI," and it provides students with an excellent foundation in
secondary research: the type of research that's already been interpreted by
others when it reaches you.

Ramsland showed how the disciplines of paranormal
investigation and police investigation are converging. Many paranormal
investigators today believe that the spirits of murder victims may linger to
see justice done. These paranormalists use technological devices like those
seen on Ghost Hunters in attempt to access the "other side,"
shed light on cases. Of course, police detectives are skeptical of
"woo-woo," but sometimes they'll reach out to the paranormal
community for leads on a cold case.

Since anyone can finagle facts to "substantiate" a
pet theory, Ramsland's guiding principle for paranormalists is that they must
try to disprove a hypothesis, not prove it. What's left if you're unable
to debunk an incident? Facts for a solid, interesting hypothesis.

Ramsland discusses different scientific disciplines that support a murder investigation, the type of equipment that
paranormalists would use, phases of a "ghost" investigation, the
typical procedure for a police investigation, and the various types of psychic
abilities. She also recounts cases that blended a traditional police
investigation with a paranormal investigation.

Due to the nature of the course, it doesn't encourage the
type of interactivity between students and instructor that I've received in
other online courses, like Mary Buckham's body language course. But in
exchange, you receive a good summary of the background that inspired the
exciting and diverse genre of paranormal crime fiction.

Obviously secondary research doesn't tell you everything. If
you're ready for the kind of research that allows you hands-on experience with
both paranormal and police investigations, here are my suggestions for ways to
go deeper:

  • Take a Citizens Police Academy course through your local law
    enforcement agency. A comprehensive, multi-week course will give you a good
    idea of all the hats that cops wear and how they do what they do, including
    crime scene investigation. You will get hands-on experience. Your
    ride-along may even turn out to be exciting if a chase for a fugitive heats up.
  • Attend workshops for writers that include an FBI or CSI
    track, and go to those lectures. You'll learn from experts how some of the
    scientific disciplines that Ramsland mentioned — like entomology, handwriting
    analysis, and anthropology — help solve crimes.

NOTE: You can combine the above two by attending Lee
Lofland's Writers Police Academy. It'll be one jam-packed but fun-filled
weekend.

  • Make the acquaintance of a team of established paranormal
    investigators in the TAPS family, such as Haunted North Carolina,
    and go through the stages of a ghost hunt with them.
  • Attend reputable workshops or symposiums, such as the
    Paranormal Research Symposium, featuring paranormal specialists. Talk
    with the specialists who lead the sessions.

Have fun!

Writing to Sell: Chris Roerden Says Get an Attitude!

Posted on by May 6, 2010

A fiction writer can improve his or her craft by
studying books like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, taking courses that teach
elements such as plotting and characterization, and hiring an editor. Just as
important as craft is a writer's voice. Unlike craft, voice cannot be taught.
It can only be found.

Agents and publishers agree that the presence of a
distinctive voice is what compels them to accept one manuscript and reject
another that's equally polished. If you ask twenty industry professionals to
define voice, they probably won't agree on one definition. But they will agree
on what voice is not. Literary agent Jim McCarthy comments,
"There's a lot of stuff out there and much of it sounds familiar."

How do you create a manuscript that compels an
industry professional to accept it for publication?

Editor Chris Roerden presented "Showing
Versus Telling: When to Use, and How the Writer's Voice Affects
Publication" during the SkillBuild last Saturday in High Point, NC.
Roerden stressed that before the elusive voice can be found in a piece of
fiction, the writer must do the time developing craft, polishing the mechanics
of the manuscript. For reasons that I cited in my blog entry two days
ago, this means that the odds are against your voice emerging in your first
completed manuscript.

Deal with it. Move on. Write another manuscript,
and another.

Harness the beasts of grammar, punctuation, and
spelling. Figure out how to create page-turner plots and three-dimensional
characters. Then, says Roerden, make sure that each of your characters,
especially your protagonist, has an attitude. This attitude
distinguishes one character from another, reveals their personalities. Finding
attitude in your characters is a crucial step toward finding your voice.

Don't expect to skip the labor of developing craft
and jump straight into voice. It doesn't work that way. Your voice is what you
find while you're on the journey of developing your craft. This means that no one
can guarantee when you'll find your voice. But unless you actually start the
journey and assume the responsibility of improving your craft, you're
guaranteed to not find your voice. If you're wise, you will never stop improving your craft.

To emphasize the importance of attitude, Roerden
provided excerpts from published works. She contrasted them with an unpublished
piece that read very much like Jim McCarthy's familiar "stuff."
Attitude sprang at me from the published excerpts. I discerned no attitude from
the unpublished piece. It was without flavor.

Attitude drenches publishable manuscripts. Attitude
doesn't wait several chapters to manifest, often grabbing readers from the
opening lines. Attitude is present in all genres. In the following examples of
attitude from the opening lines of novels, notice that each conveys a unique
author voice.

  • "It was one hell of a night to throw away a
    baby."     In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming.
  • "All children, except one, grow up." Peter
    Pan     by J. M. Barrie.
  • "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced
    that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party
    of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."     The
    Fellowship of the Ring     by J. R. R. Tolkien.
  • "1801 — I have just returned from a visit to
    my landlord — the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with."     Wuthering
    Heights     by Emily Brontë.
  • "It's hard to be a larva." Nor Crystal
    Tears     by Alan Dean Foster.
  • "You don't know about me without you have read
    a book by the name of     The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no
    matter."     The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Each example of an opening line above
delivers on its promise of what the reader can expect in attitude and voice for
the remainder of the work. Attitude and voice require momentum. They permeate a
manuscript. You cannot fake them by concocting a clever, attention-grabber
first sentence. If you haven't developed your craft, you won't be able to
sustain the momentum of that first sentence. Agents and publishers have seen
this "bait and switch" plenty of times.

There's no shortcut to finding your voice. Take the
time to polish your craft. When you're ready, attitude and voice will find you.

Share an example of a memorable attitude and voice
in the opening sentence of a novel you've read.

Writing About Crime Scenes: Lee Lofland Laughs at “CSI”

Posted on by May 5, 2010

Here's another installment from that marvelous
SkillBuild that I attended on Saturday 1 May at the High Point Public Library in High Point, NC.


LoflandSkillbuildMay2010-small  Former police detective Lee Lofland
updates his blog "The Graveyard Shift" regularly to expose
errors in police procedure. He's especially fond of skewering those errors he
spots on TV shows such as "CSI" and "Castle." For two hours
last Saturday morning, he kept the audience entertained over glaring TV goofs,
with the occasional cop escapade from 
his own experience thrown in.

Writers tell Lofland, "But I saw it happen
that way on TV!" This is one of his strongest motivations for educating
people otherwise on his blog. Here are some of the blunders he cites as
regularly showing up on cop TV:

  • Positively identifying from the size of the bullet
    wound what caliber bullet was used
  • Reading 'em their rights while they're being
    handcuffed
  • Unauthorized arrests by CSI techsI don't watch police procedure TV.

Seems that every
time one of those shows is turned on in the house, I spot an outrageous
scenario like the following:

  • The CSI woman arrives at an outdoor murder scene in
    makeup, heels, and a silk blouse displaying generous cleavage. Her coiffure is
    perfect despite a brisk breeze and an air temperature near 95 degrees. She's
    sunk half of her latest paycheck on a manicure. And the dead body she must
    examine is ripe.
  • The CSI lab, equipment, and computer software
    interfaces look like they were lifted from the set of "Star Wars."
    Test results are available within minutes. Someone, somewhere in the world has
    an exact match for the fingerprints or DNA on their database. And they're eager
    to share.

I have an undergraduate degree in Microbiology, and
I spent seven years in science laboratories, indoors and outdoors. I'm also a
graduate of the Gwinnett County Citizens Police Academy, and I've spent
plenty of time interviewing cops. Here are some of the realities that I learned
from those environments:

  • CSI techs are trained as scientists. It's ludicrous
    for scientists to dress up pretty for hands-on, everyday tasks. Whether you're
    culturing bacteria or collecting evidence, it can be messy work that entails
    the use of more protective gear than gloves. And why wear nail polish? Acetone,
    the active ingredient of polish remover, gets used in the lab often.
  • Test results take lots of time: time for enzymes to
    work, time for bacteria to grow, etc. My guess is that the screenwriters who
    award speedy test results to TV police procedural heroes derive their
    inspiration from those quickie hematocrit and urine tests their doctors perform
    at annual physical exams.
  • The final folks to receive funding for
    shiny, new equipment are usually those who work in government-run laboratories
    (ex. CSI techs). Need a centrifuge or an incubator? Negotiate sharing one with
    another department. Better still, since those folks have often adopted a
    scarcity mentality from having their funding cut each year, unearth a centrifuge
    or incubator from storage. It'll likely be broken, so you'll have to fix it.

Of course, none of the above realities form the
basis for glamorous cop TV.

And isn't it exciting when the TV investigator
makes an arrest based on the meticulous collection of cool forensic evidence?
But that isn't a reality, either. As Lofland pointed out during his
presentation, most crimes are solved when investigators talk with people,
witnesses. Not by analyzing collected evidence.

I found this last point interesting, reassuring. In
the late 18th century, when my current series is set, there was almost no
forensic evidence to evaluate. No DNA, no fingerprints or ballistics analyses.
I'm often asked how I can write convincing crime fiction without the tools of
modern forensics.

I do so because some things never change. Then, as
now, most crimes were solved when an investigator talked with witnesses. Also,
people of the 18th century were better at observation than we are now, better
at supplying an investigator with details he needed to resolve a case.
Centuries ago, folks had no text messaging to distract them. No automobile or
railroad to speed a journey. No television or electricity to keep them occupied
at night.

The challenge of creating crimes that can be solved
without modern forensics liberates me to focus on human nature in my fiction. I
enjoy that. I've read too many contemporary crime novels that substitute
forensics techno-babble for good plotting and characterizations.

But if you're writing contemporary crime fiction,
and you must have the ins and outs of forensics, I suggest that you start with
your local police department. If they offer a citizens police academy program, sign
up! Citizens police academies usually run for a number of weeks. (Mine
lasted nine weeks.) There's a lot of material to cover. Among other things,
you'll learn how many hats a uniformed police officer has to wear every day in
the line of duty.

If you're unable to attend a citizens police
academy, don't despair. Lee Lofland has organized the first annual Writers
Police Academy, scheduled for 24-26 September 2010 at Guilford Technical
Community College in Jamestown, NC. It's a crash-course citizens police academy
and promises to be an action-packed, fun weekend. Find out the realities of
CSI, accident reconstruction, arson investigation, fingerprinting, and a whole
lot more. Experts like a medical examiner and an ATF special agent will make
presentations. And so will thriller author Jeffrey Deaver. Register
online.

What's your favorite TV police procedural goof?

Writing Thrillers: Jeffrey Deaver Says Quit Offering Liver-Flavored Toothpaste!

Posted on by February 24, 2017

On Saturday 1 May, I attended a SkillBuild in High Point, NC. This event, co-sponsored by the High Point Public Library and the Murder We Write chapter of Sisters in Crime, showcased excellent workshops by Lee Lofland, Chris Roerden, and headliner Jeffrey Deaver. To do justice to the power of these workshops, I won’t attempt to squeeze accounts of them into a single blog entry. So stay tuned to my blog for scoop on this SkillBuild.

Jeffrey Deaver“People Don’t Read to Get to the Middle: Writing a Page-Turning Thriller” was the title of the workshop by Jeffrey Deaver. This bestselling, award-winning author discussed the principles that guide him when he writes, and he shed light on the process by which he produces his thrillers.

“Who brushed their teeth this morning?” Deaver asked the audience. Following a show of hands, he produced a series of questions. “Who used mint-flavored toothpaste? Who used cinnamon-flavored toothpaste?” He drilled down to make his point about Guiding Principle One by asking a final question: “Who used liver-flavored toothpaste?” Of course, no one uses liver-flavored toothpaste. The manufacturers of major toothpaste brands are smart enough to not produce a product that no customer wants to use.

Writers are also manufacturers of a product. They should be smart enough to not write stories that readers don’t want to read.

Writers should continually perform market research and ask themselves, “What do my readers want?” then write clear, coherent stories for their readers. Easy for Jeffrey Deaver to say. He isn’t caught up in the angst of finding an agent or publisher

Here’s what Deaver means with his first guiding principle. If you’re a writer, and you want to create fiction that’s saleable, throw your ego out the door. This business isn’t about you. It’s about writing to your audience. Deaver counts himself very lucky to be making a living off his writing. He achieves that by understanding what his readers want, then giving it to them. He cannot afford to cave to his ego.

Literary agents and publishers often cite the fact that few first manuscripts are saleable. There’s a reason why they aren’t. Most of the time, that first novel isn’t for readers. It’s for the writer. It’s autobiographical and strokes his or her ego by bringing out all the personal baggage.

What is this baggage? Misery over being unpopular in high school, misery over being raised by parents who failed to meet your expectations, and so on. To deliver a story about baggage, your first novel becomes a plotting and characterization debacle that undermines delivery of a story with appeal to a broader audience.

In other words, your personal baggage on the page is liver-flavored toothpaste. Nobody wants to buy your liver-flavored toothpaste. Deal with it.

Understand that there’s nothing wrong with writing an autobiographical first novel. You’ve heard the saying that there’s a novel in everyone? That’s the autobiographical manuscript, and it’s great therapy to write it. Furthermore, actually completing a first draft is a major achievement! Most writers never get that far. Congratulations if you’ve finished a first draft.

However, if you’ve completed that first manuscript, and you have your cap set on this writing business, your next step toward making a living as a professional author of fiction will almost always be to put that first manuscript away on a shelf or in a drawer and start writing your next manuscript. With each successive manuscript, you leave more autobiographical baggage behind, and you acquire more of the craft of writing.

Almost every published author has a bunch of unpublished manuscripts stashed away. I shoved away two unpublished partial manuscripts and nine unpublished completed manuscripts prior to finishing my tenth manuscript, my award-winning first novel, Paper Woman. I ditched the autobiographical baggage in my partials and first finished manuscript. The subsequent completed, unpublished manuscripts are where I developed my craft, learned the business of understanding my audience, and became publishable.

Heck, yes, this takes time. Decades in my case. Maybe you won’t take decades to create a publishable manuscript. But you must still invest in that time-consuming learning process if you want to be published. Painters, composers, and sculptors don’t expect their first creations to sell.

People often ask me whether I plan to return to my unpublished manuscripts and fix them, make them saleable. No. Like many authors, I’ve cannibalized pieces of some of them. But each one is, as a whole, a tube of liver-flavored toothpaste. They’re bombs that I wouldn’t inflict upon my readers, kind people who have so many options for how they spend their leisure time, and they choose to spend it in my fictional universe. I’m grateful for them.

How many tubes of liver-flavored toothpaste do you have shoved away in a drawer?

**********

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“Body Language on the Page”

Posted on by March 9, 2010

In February, I participated in Mary Buckham's online course and discussion, "Body Language on the Page,"
with the Guppies. The last online class I'd taken with Mary was
"Plotting with the Mythic Structure: Creating Surefire
Plots that Sell", in January 2007. She now offers this
fabulous course through a lecture packet from her web site. I've been fortunate
to meet Mary twice in person: when she came to Raleigh in October 2008,
and last summer at the RWA National Conference.

The goal of "Body Language on the Page"
is to help writers discover ways to clue readers in on a character's emotional
state through movements of the character's body (ie. nonverbal communications)
— without "telling" or interpreting. Mary's lectures make extensive
use of well-documented cues that humans present in their faces, torsos, arms,
legs, etc. when they're feeling emotions such as attraction, revulsion, fear,
anger, and curiosity. Mary also covers clusters of cues that inform readers by
structuring a more rounded picture than individual signals might accomplish.


Probably the most difficult concept to grasp in
this course is recognizing the difference between choreography and body
language. Body language shows evidence of deep emotion, the kind of emotion
that slips out involuntarily, despite our efforts to conceal it. In that
respect, Mary's definition of body language is akin to the "visceral"
response that Margie Lawson teaches students to recognize in her online course
"Empowering Characters' Emotions." In contrast, choreography
is a more conscious, controlled response, even though it may carry some
emotion.


Regardless of whether you label the deep emotional
responses "body language" or "visceral," they're
involuntary, unconscious. Use of this level of response with characters leads
to more powerful writing. That's what we're after here: knock-your-socks-off
writing.


I highly recommend "Body Language on the
Page" for craft building. Thanks, Mary, for an excellent course!


This month, I'm taking another online course,
"Paranormal Forensic Investigation," with Katherine Ramsland
as instructor. I'll report on it in April.