On Losing A Contest

Recently I had a friend email me (yes, contrary to popular belief I do actually have friends). She was in wound licking mode, having received contest scores on her submission that blew a cannonball right through her writerly sails. I hate it when that happens. Why do we give so much power to nameless "experts?" Why do we live and die by the criticism of others?

And why do we assume the best writing will win an award in the first place?

Here's the deal, folks . . . writing is subjective. That means what one person loves, another will hate. That's how art is. I can look at a piece of contemporary vomit on a canvas and walk away feeling like I've just viewed the results of an artist who slugged back one too many beers. But others will look at the same picture and feel all warm and squiggly inside, and it just might inspire them to pick up a paintbrush themselves.

Before you go hanging the Negative Nelly name placard around my neck and lock me in the stocks, I'm not naysaying against contests. Awards are great, but the vast majority of writers never win any. As in zero. As in el big fatto zippo. Nada. None. Just because you lose a contest doesn't mean you're a crappy writer. All it means is that you lost a contest. End of story.

Awards are not your validation that you're a writer. Your written story is your validation that you're a writer. Go ahead and lick your wounds, but then get back out there and write.

Price of Privilege

It's a rare book that pulls me out of reality and immerses me in a story world so much that I'll willingly park my heinie on a chair and allow the world to go by. It's an even rarer author who writes so beautifully that my eyes get all watery and I want to throw away my laptop because I know I'll never be able to pen such haunting prose. Price of Privilege by Jessica Dotta is just such a book.

Here is a taste of some of the word pictures taken from the story . . .

Thus we were caught up in our daily affairs like dogs running at full speed, when reality finally pulled hard on our leashes, catching us by surprise.

I felt as though I were walking over a slippery beam as I crossed the chamber on Isaac's arm.

Tormented eyes searched mine. It seemed as if, on the other side of an unreachable shore, Isaac was silently screaming and pleading for help behind his polished mask. Then his eyes went vacant as if something vital had died inside him.

This book took guts to write. It's not an easy thing to kill off a beloved character (don't worry, no spoiler as to whom), nor is it a piece of cake to expose layer after layer of hurt caused most often by verbal but sometimes physical abuse. Make no mistake, this is not a light read. That being said, this trilogy is on my keeper shelf because the story and the characters demand they will not be sent away.

If you love historical fiction and really want to get a feel for Victorian England, from the pulpy street view to the upper echelons of society, then run -- don't dawdle -- to the nearest bookstore and snatch yourself up a copy.

It's Normal to Feel Like a Loser

So you're writing a novel, la-de-dah. Typing away like a rock star. Day after day after day.

After day.

And then, out of nowhere, whap! A horrific thought slaps you upside the head, yanking you out of the story and paralyzing you so that your daily word count takes a serious nosedive. Suddenly you wonder if you're an author, that maybe all the things you write are just slobbery bits of drivel bubbling out of you. Panic sets in. Perhaps you're not a for-real writer. Maybe you're an imposter. A poser. An orangutan mimicking kissy noises in front of a mirror. Or worse -- maybe the zombie apocalypse really did happen and you're nothing but a body operating on rote memory because shoot, if you read what you've written, those words certainly look like a person with no brain wrote them.

Or maybe you're just a loser.

Never fear, little writer. I'm here to tell you that you're not a loser. You're normal. Every writer hits this point at some time in every single manuscript they write -- and sometimes more than once. Hating your writing and feeling like pond scum is par for the course. Why?

Because creation is the process of making something out of nothing, and that something takes blood, sweat, and tears to mold into a beautiful masterpiece. 

Think about this . . . Babies don't pop out of their mothers all smiley faced and swaddled in fluffy rubber ducky blankies. They come out screaming and howling, all mucked up with oobie-goobies and require a good cleaning and lots of love. You don't think that mom had second doubts during the heat of labor? She'd have packed up and gone home at that point if she could.

That's how it works for your story, too. Don't pack it up. Press on through the birth pains. Push out that ugly butt story so that it can be cleaned off and wrapped up into a beautiful book cover.

The only way out is through, folks, no matter how you feel. Take your hand off your forehead (yes, I see that big "L" you're making with your forefinger and thumb) and get those fingers on your keyboard instead.

Amateur Hacks

"Criticism is easy to do, but rarely worth listening to, mostly because it's so easy to do."
~ Seth Godin

If you're bent on writing a scathing review here's a piece of advice: have someone else read it before you post it, or you might end up looking like an idiot.

Case in point . . . I received a review on Goodreads the other day from a disgruntled reader who wasn't happy with my latest release, Brentwood's Ward. The big grump was all about the clothes on the cover model because the reader thought it looked like she was wearing a kid's coat. Uh . . . no. That "kid's coat" is called a spencer and was all the rage in Regency England, making the model's clothing period appropriate. Chalk up a point for the amateur hack who wrote that review.

Critical reviews are a necessary part of the literary game and are useful for authors to grow in their writing skill. But (and I've always got a big but) writing a critical review takes a bit of finesse. Here are some pointers so the next time you feel you need to point out shortcomings in a book, you won't look like a fool.

5 Things to Do When Writing a Disparaging Review

1. Attack the writing, not the writer.
If you feel the writing is schlocky, using way too much telling versus showing, employing an overkill of adverbs, or whatever, then go ahead and say so. But don't go beating up the author by calling them ugly names or slurring their mother. It's the writing you didn't like, not the writer.

2. Be honest and fair.
Okay, so you hated the hero and went into a rage because the dog got killed off. But if you really think about it, you did kind of like the plot twist at the end. Don't just be a hater. Be fair and say what you liked as well.

3. Be humble.
Writing and reading are subjective. What you think is a stinker of a tale is another reader's favorite. Newsflash: you are not God. State your opinion in a winsome manner.

4. Be specific.
Sweeping statements aren't useful to the author or to other readers. What exactly did you not like about the book? Spell it out.

5. Edit.
If your review is full of grammar or spelling errors, no one will take it seriously.

There you have it. Follow those rules next time you must blast a book so you don't end up looking like an amateur hack.

Do You Live in a Well-Read City?

I live in Minneapolis, which is known for several things . . . crazy liberal politicians, the shopping mecca Mall of America, and it's the land of 10,000 lakes (and a corresponding mosquito population). Theater is big here, but apparently not reading. Minneapolis did not make the cut of the top 10 well-read cities in America.

Did yours? Read on to find out.

A recent study done by the mother of all booksellers -- Amazon -- measured sales for both print and Kindle formats from April 2014 through April 2015 and here are the results:

10. Louisville, KY
9. Denver, CO
8. Albequerque, NM
7. San Francisco, CA
6. Austin, TX
5. Washington, DC
4. Tucson, AZ
3. Las Vegas, NV
2. Portland, OR

And in the number one slot where the most readerly beasts reside is Seattle, WA.

So, did your city make the cut?

Pitching Pointers

It’s writers conference season. That means there’s a whole lot of angst-filled author wannabes out there, biting their fingernails down to stubs . . . which makes it super hard to type anything.

Not that it’s scary to go to a conference, mind you. The real terror sets in when it’s story-pitching time. Sitting across from a god-like agent or editor who can crush you faster than the bat of an eyelash—or fast-track you to stardom—is a bit daunting. But never fear, little writers. I’m here for you, and today we’re going to talk a bit about your pitch, your one-line, your grabber . . . whatever you want to label it. Here’s the deal: you need to be able to tell your story in one sentence, and that sentence needs a few elements to reel in that editor.

3 Pitch Perfect Pointers

Snarky

Not as in sarcastic, but as in ironic. The best pitches are those that incorporate the opposites attract theory because whammo! Imminent conflict instantly grabs a person’s attention. See if you can find the irony/snark in the following:

A 17^th century tale of adventure on the Caribbean Sea where a roguish yet charming pirate captain teams up with a young blacksmith in a gallant attempt to rescue the Governor of England’s daughter to reclaim his ship.

The irony here is a pirate is going to save a proper lady, and yes, it’s Pirates of the Caribbean.

Succinct

Every word counts in a pitch, so make the most of them. Yeah, you’ll sweat buckets of blood while working this out, but in the end, it’s worth it because you’ll be able to state the soul of your story in one sentence while other wannabes will babble themselves into oblivion. Example:

A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea.

There you have Titanic in 18 words.

Cinematic

Paint a picture in the listener’s mind so that they can visualize your novel, and I guarantee you, you’ll make an impression. Keep it simple and use common words that everyone’s had experience with. Example:

A cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife when her office building is taken over by terrorists.

Can’t you just see the tough-guy cop taking on the masked, heavily armed bad guys? Shoot, I can even see the wife hiding underneath a cherrywood desk, and I’ve never even watched Die Hard.

If you incorporate these three tips next time you write a pitch, you’ll be a step ahead of the rest of the writerly bunch. Sure, you’ll still have nails gnawed down to the quick, but even so, you just might land yourself a contract.

Save the Cat!

Those who know me well know that I hate cats. Yeah, I realize that statement alienates fifty percent of the population, but cut me some slack here. I grew up with a feline demon from hell who looked for opportunities to jump out of nowhere just to take a chunk out of my flesh with his sharp pointy teeth and used my bed as his litter box.

Nevertheless, my new favorite writing craft book is Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. Technically it's a screenwriter's how-to but the principles are spot-on for fiction writers as well. It doesn't actually have anything at all to do with cats, crazy cat ladies, kitty litter, cat naps or catsup. The title comes from a principle all great stories should have . . .

"Liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story."

And that is accomplished by "saving a cat," so to speak. This is the scene, somewhere near the beginning, wherein the reader meets the hero and the hero does something heroic -- like saving a cat. This act defines who the hero is and makes the audience like him.

Need an example? In my current WIP, the reader meets a law officer whose assignment is to go undercover to figure out who the traitor is. That's the first scene, which lets you know who he is and what he's doing. The second scene shows him noticing a scam artist taking the last coin from a young boy at a carnival game. He exposes the scoundrel and makes him give the boy his money back. What's not to love about that heroic act? Bonus: this principle works for heroines as well.

Think about the stories you love most. Did the hero (or heroine) do something that endeared you to him/her at the beginning of the tale? Chances are your answer is heck yeah. Next time you set out to write the Great American Novel, start the story with a cat-saving incident. Your readers will love it.