Story Sensei

My previous article on pitching to editors and agents was in informal settings. This is more targeted information about when you have an appointment to speak to an agent or editor. Because you have several minutes, the purpose of an agent/editor appointment at a conference is more than just pitching. It’s a chance for you to learn about the agent/editor’s personality, and if they’re someone you want to work with. This is very important. A business relationship is more than just professionalism—it’s how personalities work with each other, kind of like a marriage. Therefore, use your time wisely. I’m going to break this down into writer experience level, because I agree with Randy Ingermanson when he talks about Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior level writers . (If you haven’t read his article yet, please do so before continuing with this one, since I’ll be referring to it.) For Freshmen, Sophomores, early Juniors: My suggestion is not to officially pitch your story at all. I’ve h...

(reprinted from Camy's Loft blog) The ACFW Conference is only a couple months away! I’m totally excited about the awards ceremony. Besides the Genesis contest winners, ACFW will also announce the Book of the Year winners, the Mentor of the Year, the Editor of the Year, and the Agent of the Year! Today I’m very happy to have my agent Wendy Lawton with me. Wendy is one of the nominees for Agent of the Year, and I heartily hope she wins it! Wendy Lawton, me, and Debbie Macomber You've attended various conferences over the years. In your opinion, what makes ACFW's conference stand out from the others? The content is focused entirely on fiction, the presenters are knowledgeable and approachable, the atmosphere is fun and friendly and the attendees are among the best prepared anywhere. Any advice you'd like to offer to a 1st time conference attendee? I'd love for attendees to remember that building a writing career is usually a slow process. It takes a number of meetings,...

I got this tip on backstory from Brandilyn Collins: Any knowledge you give to the reader has to cause the reader to ask more questions. Let me repeat that: Any knowledge you give to the reader has to cause the reader to ask more questions. What that means for you as the writer is that any narrative or backstory has to be very carefully chosen and given. Any narrative or backstory has to have a very specific purpose for the story, and that narrative or backstory should work to make the reader ask more questions about the character or storyline. You want to foster that sense of “What’s going on?” for the reader that will make the reader keep reading in order to find out. For example: He sidled up to Anna, two hundred pounds of male testosterone, smelling faintly of tobacco and whiskey. “Hey, good lookin’, want some company?” She saw through his rough-and-ready façade. He worked for the Evil Triumvirate. She had crossed three state lines to try to escape them, but they’d found her at la...

Flashbacks can be great things because they show backstory in real time, versus just narrative (which is “telling” rather than “showing”). However, they tend to slow the reading flow—either with the content of the flashback or the initial transition into the flashback. So you have to place and use flashbacks very judiciously. 1—Be careful about WHEN you go into flashback. Since the transition will slow the reading flow, specifically time your flashback for when you want to create a lull in the reading pace, maybe after a tense or conflicted scene. 2—Be careful about HOW you go into flashback. The best thing is to have the flashback triggered by a very significant event in the story. Don’t just morph into a flashback from a scene that’s already meandering, or else you could lose reader interest. 3—Make the flashback as CONFLICTED and TENSE as you can. The transition is already going to slow the reading pace, so make the flashback powerful and vivid to keep the reading flow going smoothl...

One great way to show emotion is with contrast. You can contrast the character’s emotions to another character, or maybe the surroundings. The man’s gaze didn’t waver, and she shivered in the hot noon sunlight. She turned away from the child’s sunshine smile, sodden and shivering from the thunderstorm in her heart. Contrast can both intensify the emotion and enable ways for you to be creative in your emotional writing. Don’t fall back on clichés (like I did in the first example above, although the second example isn’t too bad). Be original and richly emotional at the same time.

(Part One is here .) When I first started going to conferences, I had the Hello down pat, but couldn’t think of what to say after that. I had to learn the art of conversation, but I discovered it’s actually not that hard. More than a list of questions to remember—which you won’t remember when you’re nervous and meeting people—here are a few tips on how to keep the conversation going. Keep up with publishing news. This is useful for conversation with editors, agents, and even writers. You can ask editors questions about their publishing house based on information you might have read, or you can ask the agent questions about a certain genre market. For example, there were several personnel changes in a specific publishing house in a short period of time, and I had read about it. I chatted with an employee for that publishing house at a conference and asked her how things were going, if things had settled into a routine, if the personnel was replaced yet, etc. Keep yourself well informe...

I am not a natural extrovert, but I exert myself when I’m at a conference because I want to meet people. However, since I’m not naturally an extrovert, I had to teach myself how to meet people at a booksigning, or while walking the floor of ICRS, or when mingling with writers at a conference. These are a few tips for writers who are introverts like myself. Much of it is simply common sense or common politeness, but it’s good to reiterate here so you are aware of specific things to avoid doing, and specific things to exert yourself to do. DON’T go up to chat with someone you know if they’re talking with someone else. Be sensitive. They might be in an important conversation with their agent/editor/publicist/marketing director. If they wave hi to you but go on talking to the other person, definitely don’t crash their conversation—just keep walking past. However, if they pause the conversation to give you a hug or say a few words, then it’s fine for you to approach them. DON’T gush...

I'm at ICRS until late next week. Also, any particular writing craft or business topics you want me to cover on this Story Sensei blog? Camy

Sometimes a scene will seem flat. It might be because you need to add more emotion to the scene. The richness of physical description, character actions, dialogue, thoughts. In his book, Techniques of the Selling Writer , the very first thing Dwight Swain talks about is emotion , because it’s one of the important aspects of fiction writing. No matter if you write action, women’s fiction, suspense, or chick lit, emotion is the key factor in any scene. Whether it’s your hero’s dogged determination and rush of adrenaline as he runs from an exploding oil refinery, or it’s your heroine’s angst and frustration at her matchmaking, meddling mother. Emotion is what drives the character, and rivets the reader to the action or drama on the page. When you read your scene, what emotions do you feel? What emotions do you want to feel? Focus on the emotion and write it—write what matters to you, what you want the reader to care about. Ramp up the emotion in your scene to give it depth and vitality.

First person internal thoughts also tend to be a lot of backstory, which slows down the reading flow. It might be fun and quirky narrative, but it’s still a backstory dump however you look at it. Mom ran off years ago with the family lawyer, and while I can’t say Dad was all that great, the lawyer was worse. She finally clued in when she found him groping his admin in his office one day. Mom, being Mom, told him, “I have decided to seek new legal representation.” And then she walked out. Anyway, the entire incident has made her gunshy about hiring any lawyers, which is why she now bothers me to bother my boyfriend, who will give her free legal counsel without the inconvenience of actually paying for it. Gasp! The cure for this is the same as in third person POV: a) Give only snippets of backstory, not a whole bunch at once. b) Mention backstory only when it’s absolutely vital to the current action. c) Make a character absolutely need to know—that way your reader will also absolutely ne...

In first person POV, especially, writers have a great deal of narrative and internal thoughts. While that narrative tends to have some conflict in it, too much narrative means less movement in the scene. And you can’t really substitute true conflict (action and dialogue) with the conflict in a long paragraph of internal thought—the scene drags and meanders. I look at the call waiting. It’s my mother. Mom has this annoying habit of calling right when I’m about to watch CSI . Even though I’ve told her again and again that she can’t call on this particular night at this particular time, she blithely ignores me. I might as well be talking to the cat. And at least the cat answers with a polite meow. Mother barely acknowledges I’ve spoken, much less what I’ve said. All this narrative is more “telling” than “showing.” Instead of all this internal thought, why not show the information in action and dialogue? I look at the call waiting. It’s my mother. I stab the TALK button. “Mom, it’s CSI ni...

In a lot of the chick lit entries I judge in contests, first person POV is not done very well. Since the reader is reading first person, the reader should actually be in the character’s skin and experiencing the scene through them. People like writing first person POV because it’s easy—but it’s actually rather difficult to write with power and vibrancy. While each writer has different strengths and weakness, in general, the entries I judge lack enough conflict and action. Not much happens, and there isn’t a lot of tension. In first person POV, this is a common problem because it’s so easy to fall into internal thoughts and narrative instead. “Do you want a cookie?” I hand the plate to Amelia. She’s a size two. I wish I was a size two. I eye a couple of the chocolate-laden golden-brown goodies. Just one won’t hurt me. Amelia glances at the plate, then goes back to sorting through her charm collection. “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” Her charms fascinate me. She’s had some for generations...

Randy Ingermanson interviewed me for his Advanced Fiction Writing blog. Randy has done a wonderful service to all writers with his blog. His Advanced Fiction Writing ezine was already a terrific resource, but his blog is even better because he welcomes and answers questions from writers. He is a true writing mentor, in every sense of the word. His questions had mostly to do with branding, so if you’re a writer wondering about branding yourself, check it out!

Clichés are not just in phrases (“he ran his fingers through is hair,” “her heart pounded”). Clichés can be larger scale—your characters, your setting, your plot premise. The problem is that often, these larger scale clichés are not so easily realized. For example, there are a LOT of pastor heroes in Inspirational romance. Editors were commenting that they’d like to see less stories with pastor heroes. However, as a writer, unless you heard the editor say this at a conference, you wouldn’t know. So how can you find these things out? You should be reading extensively in the genre in which you’re writing. Why? So you can discover what’s already been done in your genre, so you don’t repeat it. If you haven’t read many Inspirational romances, but you’re targeting Steeple Hill, you wouldn’t know that there have been a lot of pastor heroes in the past few years. However, if you’ve been reading Steeple Hill novels, you would know that. You don’t have to read every single title that comes out,...

Does your hero run his fingers through his hair? Does your heroine bite her bottom lip? Or maybe your hero squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose when he’s frustrated. Maybe your heroine’s gut clenches or she swallows hard when hearing bad news. Perhaps your hero clenches his jaw, or sees red. Perhaps your heroine feels ice water in her veins when she’s shocked, or a fluttering in her chest when she’s excited. Cliches—DON’T. Don’t use the same gestures or descriptions for your characters that you’ve read in dozens of other novels. BE ORIGINAL. The heroine’s heart doesn’t pound—it does a combination triple-axel double-lutz worthy of Michelle Kwan. The hero doesn’t feel his stomach drop—he’s a hanging victim with the clunk of the trapdoor ringing in his ears, waiting for his feet to register that he’s dangling in mid-air. A great resource for original descriptions is literary fiction (if you can read it). But don’t copy them—use it as a jumping off point for your own u...

One of the best things I got out of the seminar taught by New York agent Donald Maass is to add tension to absolutely every single sentence in your manuscript. I can see some of you gaping. Close your mouth. It’s true. He had us pick a random page in our manuscripts and then pick a random paragraph. We had to add some sort of tension to every sentence in the paragraph—whether internal or external. It changed the energy of the writing immediately. I could see that just from that one paragraph. I changed the tension in every sentence on the page, and the difference astounded me. The scene was so much more charged, crackling with energy and vitality. Basically, it increases the level of conflict in the scene, and conflict is what keeps a reader reading. Conflict keeps a reader’s interest. While we like to avoid conflict in real life, in fiction, it’s gold. You don’t have to remember to add tension to every sentence in your rough draft—just lay the words down. Don’t think too much or analy...

Your plot should have a definite inciting incident that signals when the story begins. In Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, the inciting incident is when Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood. In Violet Dawn by Brandilyn Collins , the inciting incident is when the heroine discovers a dead body in her outdoor hot tub. In The Restorer by Sharon Hinck , the inciting incident is when the heroine is suddenly transported into an alternate fantasy world. In Over Her Head by Shelley Bates , the inciting incident is when the heroine discovers the body of a drowned young girl the same age as her own daughter. In Split Ends by Kristin Billerbeck , the inciting incident is when the heroine moves to Los Angeles to become a successful hairdresser. In The Reliance by M.L. Tyndall , the inciting incident is when the church is blown up and the hero believes his wife was killed, when in reality she’s been kidnapped by pirates. In each of the above examples, something has happened to change the...

Some synopses I read have a lot of conflict against the character, but not necessarily many obstacles against the character’s external goal. There’s a significant difference. The primary conflict and tension in a story should be things that work directly against the heroine’s external goal. They shouldn’t be just annoyances here and there. The conflict should be focused against what the heroine wants to accomplish in the story. For example, Sarah is a pop music singer whose external goal is to get her picture on the cover of Rolling Stone. Her mother’s getting married for the fourth time, and Sarah really doesn’t want to be involved in all the planning for something that will probably only last a year or two. Their strained relationship erupts in arguments every few weeks. Sarah’s dog is sick, and she has to go to the vet all the time. The bills are adding up. This new guy in town is cute, but Sarah’s interested in her career and not a relationship. In the above conflicts, none of them...

Even if you’re a seat of the pants writer, try doing a sketchy outline. Many of my friends sell books on proposal, which means they write three chapters and an outline of the book, not the entire manuscript. When their publisher okays the proposal, they write the book based on the outline. Sometimes the book changes from the outline, but just having the outline can help a writer focus their story better. A sketchy outline can be as simple as four sentences— One sentence for the character’s beginning world, and the inciting incident that starts them on their external goal. One sentence for the middle, and the kinds of things that will directly obstruct the character’s external goal. One sentence for the climax and the black moment. One sentence to explain how things wrap up at the end. See? Very sketchy, and very simple. Yet sometimes even a sketchy outline will help a writer in amazing ways as they write their book.

One of the key elements of a good climax is some sort of sacrifice. The main character sacrifices something precious for the greater good. Whether she sacrifices her external goal, or her life, or something equally important, the climax should see her giving up something that matters to herself. Sometimes it’s to do the right thing—she gives up her external goal or her life in order to do something infinitely more noble. Sometimes it’s because she has no choice—the villain is going to kill someone else or take away someone else’s livelihood if she doesn’t comply. Sometimes it’s more emotional—the hero faces a deep-set fear in order to do something for someone else. Or perhaps the hero takes a risk in order to accomplish something for someone else. Whatever you decide, your character should give up something extremely precious and important at that climax. Why is this important? Because in sacrificing something, the hero has reached the Black Moment, where All Hope Is Gone. And in sacri...