3 Steps to Overlording Your Plot Forward

Writing is a lot like being an evil overlord. Your readers are your subjects and you have control over them - you control their emotions, their bedtimes, and their day dreams. You create new crushes and new frenemies for them. So. Much. Power.

Here's the great part about this: you can use your readers to help you BEFORE THEY EVEN EXIST.

Whaaaat?!

That's right. While you are still in the process of writing, you can channel your readers to help drive the plot forward. How? It's as easy as 1-2-3!

1. Know who your readers are. Are you writing for children or adults? Men or women? Adventurers or homebodies? (Caveat: people who are not your "intended audience" will read and love your book. I don't think there are books out there that are exclusively for one group of people and that no one else could enjoy. That is not where we're going here. But having an idea of the target audience is going to help you, not only during your writing time but also when it comes time to query that sucker.)

2. Answer this question: What do my readers want to see next/see more of? Do they want a confrontation between your protagonist and antagonist? Do they want your MC and her crush to end up with some unexected alone time? Do they want to learn more about the diabolical workings of the King? Once you know what your readers want...

3. Give it to them. Or don't. This is the part where you get to play evil overlord (mwa-ha-ha!). Your minions have made their requests and, like God, you can respond in one of three ways: Yes, No, and Wait.

        A. Give them the Yes. You want your readers to enjoy this, afterall. You want them to get their wish of crush-ey alone time. Give it to them...sometimes.

        B. Give them the No. Have you ever wanted to throw a book through the window out of frustration or cried when a favorite character died? Sometimes aswering with "No" is the best way to evoke personal response from your readers and get them truly invested. Afterall, in a world of "yeses," where would the story be?

        C. Tell them to Wait. Your MC is going to end up with Crushey-Mc-Crusherson. But not now. This is where you get to build suspense and tension, and your plot will grow for it.

So there it is, Friends. Three easy steps to Overlord your plot forward. If you're ever stuck, try using this process. Better yet? Keep a list of things you think your readers want and plan out what their answers will be (Yes, No, or Wait). You might get some new devilish plot ideas while you're at it!

Happy writing!

Currently Reading: Enders by Lissa Price
Currently Listening To: Alias Soundtrack, Season 1

The Online Writing Community Acronym Dictionary

There is a beautiful online writing community that I have recently found and am quickly falling in love with. It is amazing to connect to other writers, editors, and book lovers! I have been visiting blogs, vlogs, and twitter feeds just basking in all the great information and support that is available. But there is a bit of a secret language going on in these places, so I decided to create a dictionary to help out any other newbies like me who may feel a little lost.

General Terms:

ARC: Advance Reader Copy. This is when readers get their grubby little mitts on a book before it's officially released (the lucky ducks!)

CNR: Closed No Response (I have also heard people call this: Closed No Rejection?). This is a term used during querying when an agent doesn't respond to your query at all and you decide to close out the "open" status on the query knowing they will likely never respond.

CP: Critique Partners. These are the people who help make your rough work into awesome work and kindly point out which darlings need slaying. And vice versa, because turn about is fair play.

ER: Email rejection. When an agent emails a rejection to your query. (Be strong!)

EQ: Email query. When you sent a query via email to an agent, then crossed your fingers, toes and eyes and prayed for a good response.

FR: Full request. When an agent you queried requests to read your full manuscript (Congratulations!)

MC: Main Character

MS: Manuscript

POV: Point of View. The point of view your story is written from

PR: Partial Request. When an agent you queried requests to read a portion of your manuscript (congratulations! Here's hoping for an upgrade to a full after the partial!)

QT: Querytracker.com. If you are planning to query agents, ever, visit this website. You can read up on the agents, hear other author's experiences, and (you guessed it!) track the status of your own queries.

WIP: Work in progress. This is whatever project you are current working on (aka: your baby)

Age Ranges:

A: Adult

MG: Middle Grade

NA: New Adult

YA: Young Adult

Genres:

CB: Chapter Book

NF: Non-fiction

PB: Picture Book

R: Romance
SFF: SciFi (Science Fiction)/Fantasy
UF: Urban Fantasy

I'm sure this isn't exhaustive, but I hope it is helpful! Let me know what I missed...perhaps a part two will be in order!

Happy writing!

Currently Reading: Enders by Lissa Price
Currently Listening to: House Carpenter by Nickel Creek

My 2015 Resolutions (No, they're not late.)

I never was big on New Years' resolutions. They always felt disingenuous
to me. What I do like is making resolutions on my birthday. It's more personal. It means something to me. And, friends, yesterday was that day.

So here we go: 

Resolution #1: Finish my first draft and first edit of Silver Gray [the title's going to change]. 

This is a rewrite of the first book I ever finished. The initial draft was over 200,000 words long.

Let me give you a little perspective: the average young adult book (like this one) is 55,000-70,000ish words long. We're talking something that's three times the average...and I guarantee you most of those 200,000 words are completely unnecessary. Hence: rewrite.

In fact, I'm keeping very little of the original, even down to plot. Many of the characters are sticking around though. (I spent 200,000 words getting to know them. I can't let them go now.) So even though I'm calling it a rewrite, it's more like a brand new creation.

Resolution #2: Have an idea ready to go for book #4 
Once I finish the first draft of Silver Gray, I'll need some time before I can look at it objectively enough to edit. I don't want to waste my time during the cooling phase, so I'm going to get my idea tank filled up for the next project. I have a file on my computer full of ideas already. Maybe I'll flesh out one of those, maybe I'll come up with something new. Who knows? Such wonderfully free possibilities. This resolution will probably result in me watching a lot of great documentaries (one of my favorite sources for inspiration).

Resolution #3: Secrets secrets! I can't share this one publicly (yet) but I will when the time is right.

25 years old. A quarter of a century. I plan to make it a good year.

Who doesn't love a good dragon selfie?

Permission for Blank Space in Your Writing

We've all done it. You're writing along, happy as a lark, when suddenly you hit a detail that brings you to a shrieking halt. It could be anything - I need the name of a small city in Italy! I need to know how to escape handcuffs! I need to know who the Prime Minister was in 1963! - and all of a sudden instead of writing, you are sucked into the vortex that is Google.

Don't do it!

I know, it's tempting. I know, "it will only take two minutes," but if you are on a roll, keep writing. Because if you stop to find the name of that charming Italian city, you will never get back to the great scene you've cooked up to happen there. Write the scene, then go back and add in the details.

I recognize that there are some plot points you MUST research before you can write. That's okay. Research. Research your little heart out. Not only is it something you can do, it is something you should do. But research on research time.

The last few chapters of the most recent book I finished was rife with sentences along these lines...
After MC arrived in TOWN, X miles North(?) of where she had been, she realized she had even further to go. But the taxi ride onward would cost at least XX dollars(? find currency of this country?) and she had only XX in her pocket after the last trip.

No, that is not a REAL sentence from what I was writing (Yikes. No.). But you get the idea. Sure, I could have taken the time to find the town, the distances, the monetary amounts, but I could easily continue writing without those details, so that's what I did. The details can be filled in later during times you have set aside for editing or researching, but not during the time you are trying to write.

Give yourself permission to leave blanks and question marks. I promise, once you finish that first draft, going in to fix them is a piece of cake. (Not to mention a wonderful way to make you feel like you're taking leaps and bounds in the editing process. Always a win.)

NaNoWriMo 2014

This year was my first time attempting (and winning!) NaNoWriMo. For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It is an event where writers from around the world attempt to write an entire novel (or at least 50,000 words of one) between 12:01am on November 1 and 11:59pm on November 30. No small feat, especially considering many of those writers are juggling full-time jobs, school, kids, etc. then you throw Thanksgiving in there just to keep things interesting.

There's actually a bit of debate about the benefit of an event like NaNoWriMo. Some argue that it gives people "permission" to stop writing the rest of the year. Some argue that anything produced during NaNo is absolute rubbish so the exercise is useless. Others argue that NaNo gets new people interested in writing, that it brings community to the otherwise solitary activity and that it forces people to turn off their "inner-editors" and just get words down on paper.

Now that I've done it myself, I feel I can legitimately present my opinion on the matter. So, here are a few thoughts on my NaNo experience...

1) A lot of what is produced is truly rubbish.
Really truly. When you are writing just trying to get your 1,667 words in for the day (the amount needed to finish on time), sometimes you just aren't "feeling it." And it shows. When this happens to me my writing becomes a seven-year-old's retelling of the school day. "And then, and then, and then..." Sometimes you lose track of your plot but keep writing "because 1,667 words" and your character's names have changed because you forgot them and they're not doing anything at all related to what's supposed to be going on and your dialogue is stilted and your descriptions are mundane and you know what? That's okay. Even when you aren't doing NaNo a lot of what you writing in draft #1 is rubbish, so why not just get it over with in one fell swoop. It's like ripping off a band-aid. Just get it over with.

2) Writing during November means nothing if you're not going to write in December (and January through October too).
"Saving up" all your creativity and writing time for November would be like training for a marathon once a year instead of everyday. It just doesn't work that way. If you're going to put the effort into doing Nano, you'd better be prepared to put in the effort the rest of the time as well.

3) Nano did virtually nothing for my "community" feel.
This is mostly my fault. I could have done the online write-ins. I could have connected with more Nanoers on Twitter. Heck, I could have gone to the real life meetings in the Twin Cities. But I didn't. I'm not sure if it would have helped or hurt honestly. However, it was nice to know that on those days when 1,667 words seemed impossible I knew there were others out there feeling my pain or celebrating with me when I topped 3,000 in one sitting. That was nice.

4) Nano gets words on paper.
Or rather, participating in Nano gets words on paper. I can guarantee you that I would not have written anywhere near 50,000 words in November if I hadn't participated in Nano. That alone makes it worth it because even if no one else ever reads what I wrote, I wrote. I practiced. I trained. And one day I'll finish my marathon and I know that Nano will have been just one more training exercise that helped me get there.

Writing Advice: Writing Through (or Around) Sticky Situations

When writing, I feel like the first three-quarters of my job is just setting up a situation to be as sticky as possible. The last quarter is getting the situation unstuck in a satisfying way.

While working my most recent project, I hit a spot in the story where I got stuck. Stopped in my tracks, nowhere to turn, back against the wall, stuck. And I stayed stuck for literally years. I loved my story, I knew my characters were where they needed to be, but I had no idea how they were going to get out of their sticky situation.

Finally, out of pure frustration, I started writing around my problem. I had my characters go do other, unrelated things. I let them talk about the problem with each other. I let them get as frustrated as I was.

I knew that the majority these scenes wouldn't make it into the final cut (though a few snippets sneaked their way in). I was clearly wasting time and clearly ignoring the looming plot problem, but it felt good to be writing and it felt good to give my characters room to roam. Then, one day, BAM. Of course. Problem solved.

I knew who was going to live and die, I knew how, and I knew what had to happen to get out of the sticky situation. Writing that last bit came very easily after that.

So, that is one bit of writerly advice for getting unstuck and (perhaps) beating writer's block (which, by the way, are two different things). It worked for me, so maybe it will work for you!

What do you do when you get stuck or have a seemingly unsolvable problem in your writing?

How Literary Agents Are Like Realtors

Recently, I've had a lot of people asking me questions like, "So how many publishers have you submitted to?" which makes me think it may be beneficial to explain in a little more detail exactly what's going on with this whole process... (Hint: The answer to that question is "none.")

Right now I am sending out query letters to literary agents. This means I email the agent a brief letter telling them about my novel. (No, I do not send them my novel outright.) Then I cross my fingers (and toes) and pray that they will respond asking to see either a portion of the manuscript or (even better) the full thing. More often than not, I can expect a form rejection politely declining. This past week has been especially full of rejections (by which I mean I've gotten three, which isn't so bad really). Nonetheless, to keep my spirits high, I have turned it into a cheer. Both my mom and mother-in-law used to be cheerleaders...how could I not? Re-Rejection! Re-Re-Rejection!

The good news is I still have two fulls out to agents, so there's hope!

Think of literary agents like Realtors and the book like a home you want to sell. The agents are there to help "stage" your book and make sure that it is as presentable as possible. They are there to help determine where your book fits into the current market and then will present it to potential editors and publishers. After that, they are there to negotiate your contract and ensure you get the best price possible for your book and that your best interests are respected in the contract.

Just because you get an agent does not necessarily mean that your book is immediately published (in the same way that getting a Realtor doesn't mean that your home is immediately sold). But it DOES mean you've got the right person on your team to get it there!

So, no, my book is not getting published (yet! Though that is the end goal!)
But yes, I appreciate you asking about the process, even if the you ask the "wrong" question! In a journey wrought with re-rejection, it's nice to have a few rah-rah-rahs from the sidelines.