We’ve all heard it. Sometimes we groan, sometimes we delight, depending on the situation and where you are in your publishing journey. You’re at a Friday evening neighborhood barbecue when the man down the street approaches you, cautiously, but also sort of expectantly, too:
“Can I pick your brain?”
As we grow in our careers, the demands on our time triple. No, quadruple. These requests seem to come fast and furious and even the most generous spirited among us feel the need to preserve our time, energy and creativity for our own writings. A few months ago, in a closed writer’s Facebook group, a fairly successful author posted this article on how to handle these requests. I thought it was brilliant. I thought the Friday Morning Solution was incredibly practical, allowing for only those who are the most committed to follow through. If you haven’t already, you should read it and follow it! Set those boundaries, girl (or guy)!
My next thought, immediately, was, “What if I’m the brain picker? Not the pickee?”
I posed the question in the group to my friend. “How do you ask to pick someone’s brain?" I want to read that article. Her answer? “I try not to.” This astounded me. How do we learn? Yes, the internet. Yes, books. Of course, read them. But nothing beats the question, “Tell me something about your job that no one knows." If your main character is a doctor, this question is your best friend. But, how do you get the answers?
Successful, prolific authors have made an art out of asking for the “brain pick”. We talk to cops, lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists. For Binds That Tie, five chapters take place in a courtroom. I have never, in my life, been in a working courtroom. I’ve been excused from jury duty four times. Then how did I do this? I talked to lawyers. Specifically, criminal defense attorneys.
If everyone is so maxed out on time, how do you go about asking, without being the person that makes everyone groan?
If possible, call, don’t email. Talk to their administrative assistants, leave your name, the purpose for your call, how much time you’d like to have (I always say a half hour), and most importantly, be available when they call you back. You are asking THEM for help. You must work on their time. It is not a privilege, to them, to be a source in a fiction book by a writer they’ve never heard of (and they’ve never heard of you or me, let’s be honest!). Do not ask them to call you back between two and four on Wednesdays and alternating Fridays. If they call at midnight, answer the phone and grab a pad and pen.
“Thank you so much for calling me back. I’d love to pay you for your time, what is your consultation rate?” This should be your very first sentence. Most experts will not take you up on it. But some will! I paid a grief counselor $100 for research on Thought I Knew You. Invest in your writing career. You want your imagined world to be woven through with truth and authenticity. Pay the $100. If the fee is too high, say “I’m sorry but I’m not able to manage that expense at this time. Thank you so much for the call back.” And try someone else. Do not try to get one quick question in for free. Do not try to push them into a lower rate. Take your lumps and move on.
Prepare ahead of time. Do as much reading and research as you can before you get on the phone. Get the basics down and use the expert only to fill in the gaps. The little known stuff. The tips and tricks of the trade. You do not need to call a lawyer to find out about the Pennsylvania penal code. A person is not a substitute for the elbow grease of research. I always try to get a bit of that into my first question so that the person I’m talking to knows I’ve done my research. I’m a professional. “Can you explain the difference between 907(a) and (b) of “Possessing instruments of a crime” to me? How would sentencing differ?” as opposed to “What if my guy has a gun?”
Be specific. This works hand in hand with #3. If you are prepared, you’ll find your questions are naturally specific. This also allows you to get more detail into your work. The more small details you get right, that ring true, the more you can play with the suspension of disbelief in your narrative.
Ask the right questions. Some good ones I always like are:
Tell me something about your job/profession that is not common knowledge?
What are the worst parts of your profession?
What are the best parts?
Are you willing to share a time when you failed?
Do you have a greatest success/achievement?
Sometimes you get more information from experts by asking them personal rather than professional questions. In some ways, this also makes it fun for the expert! Everyone likes to share their professional achievements. Let them brag a bit, most of the time they’ll inadvertently slip little useful nuggets into their stories that will bring your characters to life.
Ask them if you can record them. Most phones have an app, either native or downloadable that will allow you to record the conversation. When you’re done (and the work is written, edited and about to be published!), be sure to delete the recording as a courtesy. And remember, in most states, it’s illegal to record phone conversations without consent so be sure to get that consent on the tape.
Using this guide, I’ve never had one expert say no. They are always impressed, excited to be part of a fiction book. Sometimes, you sit in a defense attorney’s office for three hours while he tells you all his book ideas. Sometimes, they’ll set a timer and cut you off mid-sentence. Other times, you’ll take a Philadelphia homicide cop for coffee and he will BRING YOU BULLET CASINGS that have been flattened by a car at the scene and it will be a great day in this new, fun, career of yours. When done properly, I’ve found that talking to experts is one of the greatest perks of the job.
Happy brain picking, everyone!
Have you successfully picked someone's brain for your writing? Whose brain—you don't need to give a name, a profession works—would you like to mine for information for your WIP?
ABOUT KATE
Kate Moretti is the New York Times Bestselling author of four novels and a novella, including Thought I Knew You, While You Were Gone, Binds That Tie, The Vanishing Year, and Blackbird Season. Her first novel THOUGHT I KNEW YOU, was a New York Times bestseller. THE VANISHING YEAR was a nominee in the Goodreads Choice Awards Mystery/Thriller category for 2016 and was called “chillingly satisfying.” (Publisher’s Weekly) with “superb” closing twists (New York Times Book Review).
Kate has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for twenty years as a scientist and enjoys traveling and cooking. She lives in Pennsylvania in an old farmhouse with her husband, two children and no known ghosts. Her lifelong dream is to find a secret passageway. Visit her website at www.katemoretti.com.
Does it speak well for women, or badly, that while the classic Hero’s Journey involves 12 steps, the innovative Heroine’s Journey involves 13?
Is that because women take longer to reach their happily ever after? Or does it mean they have more fascinating avenues to explore than men?
Actually, either gender could follow either journey. It started with mythologist Joseph Campbell…
…discovering that all the world's great legends tell a similarly-structured story. This hero’s tale:
(1) begins in the Ordinary World. He receives some kind of
(2) Call To Adventure and at first he
(3) Refuses The Call. But then after
(4) Meeting With The Mentor, he decides to embark and
(5) Crosses The Threshold into a special world. There he meets up with
(6) Tests-Allies-Enemies, and this prepares him to
(7) Approach The Innermost Cave where he faces an enormous challenge, the
(8) Ordeal. He prevails and earns his
(9) Reward, then starts traveling
(10) The Road Back home -- except along the way, he comes up against his
(11) Final Challenge-Resurrection, at which point he ultimately triumphs so now he can
(12) Return With The Elixir.
All perfectly good stuff that's beloved and used by thousands, or maybe even millions, of novelists and screenwriters who've read Christopher Vogler's summary of this lineup called The Hero's Journey.
But one screenwriter, Kim Hudson, kept wondering why that system didn't quite work for feminine archetypes…so she created The Virgin's Promise (a fabulous book, by the way).
Recognizing that every character who embarks on a journey of emotional growth isn't necessarily a virgin, nor a woman, she also calls it The Prince's Promise. But with either name, you get the impression that this protagonist is someone who hasn't had — at least not yet — a whole lot of room to explore the world.
And Chris Vogler loved Kim Hudson's premise. He wrote that the two systems, The Hero's Journey and The Virgin's Promise, work nicely for characters in the same story because the ideas are complementary rather than conflicting.
Which means if you already love the 12 steps followed by the hero, that won't interfere with using the 13 steps followed by the heroine. (Or the prince; whatever works for you.)
This character’s story opens in the:
(1) Dependent World, where she's busy paying the
(2) Price Of Conformity. But then along comes an
(3) Opportunity to Shine, and as she tries this new behavior she even
(4) Dresses The Part. It gets tricky balancing her
(5) Secret World with the dependent one, which soon
(6) No Longer Fits. Only after she gets
(7) Caught Shining and can no longer be her old repressed self does she finally
(8) Give Up What Gets Her Stuck, which results in such upheaval that she sees her
(9) Kingdom In Chaos. No longer able to live her former life, she
(10) Wanders In The Wilderness until at last she commits to
(11) Choosing Her Light and becomes her true self, which means
(12) Re-Ordering her world. So now, at last, the entire
(13) Kingdom Is Brighter.
Looking at just the labels for each step, it sounds a bit woo-woo. But when put into practice, it outlines a genuinely plausible path for a heroine whose greatest challenge isn’t related to desperate criminals and evil sorcerers and ferocious dragons, but rather to her children.
Her co-workers.
Her friends.
Her parents.
The kind of challenges that most of us face throughout our lives.
There’s sure nothing wrong with books where all the excitement comes from criminals and dragons. That’s why The Heroine’s Journey will probably never be essential to writers whose books focus solely on hard-core mystery and physical danger.
But for novelists who care about what’s going on inside the characters as well as outside…these 13 steps are gold. Because such a heroine is usually involved with other people who (often with the best and most loving intentions in the world) want her to stay where THEY think she belongs, rather than where she discovers she can truly become her best self.
We'll get into more detail on that next month at my WriterUniv.com class on "The Hero's Journey, For Heroines," but meanwhile I'd love to hear about ANY of the 13 steps above you’ve already seen a character taking. You might’ve included some in your own books without ever using those labels, or you might’ve noticed them in a movie or other story.
What do you think, faithful WITS followers? Have you used the Hero's Journey, or The Virgin's Promise in your stories? (wittingly or unwittingly). Tell us what you think!
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One person chosen from today's commenters, who describes any such step, will win free registration to the September class, and I’ll look forward to walking through whatever heroine’s journey you’d like to explore!
ABOUT LAURIE:
After winning Romantic Times' "Best Special Edition of the Year" over Nora Roberts, Laurie Schnebly Campbell discovered she loved teaching every bit as much as writing…if not more. Since then she's taught online and live workshops for writers from London and Los Angeles to New Zealand and New York, and keeps a special section of her bookshelves for people who've developed that particular novel in her classes. With 42 titles there so far, she's always hoping for more.
I belong to several Facebook groups where people ask for and support the members in productivity, goal achievement, ownership and intentionality. Many of these are focused on writers, so when reporting on what the goals are, there are often people who say they want to create a solid outline for a WIP.
Nearly every time I see someone indicate this is their goal, I see a dozen replies of, “HOW?”
I tried to write as I went once. It was a red-hot mess and I swore I’d never do that again. And yet, I like the feeling of allowing a character to really guide me to where she wants to go, to reveal secrets and hopes in a way that I can’t anticipate until I really get to know my character, and I’ve never been able to get to know them well from filling out a profile for a story bible, and I’ve yet to come across a character sheet that really lets me get to know my characters.
So, I outline, leaving spaces and opportunities for what my characters will share as we journey through the book together.
The first thing to acknowledge is that there are LOTS of resources already out there for people who want to learn how to outline. Here are a few of my favorites:
* This was an absolute miracle in helping me plot my current WIP
But what I always have to do, after I know my characters and the places that are important to them, is ask myself three things:
Where is my character at the start of this novel?
Where do they want to be?
What is preventing them from progressing?
That’s it. And that’s hard. Where I tend to write (and read) mostly character driven works, the where is usually referring to a mental or emotional state more than a physical location. Do they start broken? Do they start with the idea that they have everything going for them? Is there something in their life, big or small, that, if able to attain, they could check the box of being content?
Once I know this, I can go to one of the resources I listed above and consider what kind of story the resource was intended to help with, and what kind of story I’m writing. If using any beat sheet, I can often learn a great deal about my character by understanding what kind of activity would qualify as her fun and games. For a character I previously wrote, it was redecorating a space. For a character I’m writing now, she destresses by jamming out to Janis Joplin.
Then I start thinking about conflicts. I’m of the opinion that a character can’t just be pushed around (literally or metaphorically) and hold a reader’s interest. We want a character to fight back, to be willing to fight, even a little, for where they want to be by the end of the book. But someone who tries something and always gets it is jerkishly annoying.
Again, I don’t always know exact details of how my character is going to deal with these complications – that’s for them to tell me. This is one of the reasons I refer to my kind of outlining as connect the dots outlining. My job in the outline is to get the big things into place, and see how detailed the picture gets when I’ve written my way from one dot to another, have this the end, and can sit back and look at the whole picture.
But an outline isn’t meant to JUST assist in drafting.
After I have drafted to the best of my ability, I go back again, this time really paying attention to who is doing what when, where they are growing, if they are playing an important role to the story AND if what I said they were going to do is what they do. For this, I break out my colored sticky notes and give each main character one. I jot down 10-15 words of what is happening at a particular time and group them together by chronologically.
This is a do or die time for my characters because if their color only shows up once or twice, they either need to reveal that they are essential to the story or they’re out. The son who is only there to whine about missing his dead mom? Gone. The two best friends who say the same thing, drink the same thing, wear the same thing but have different names? Kill one.
Side Note: Almost every pantser I’ve talked to has said they create outlines, timelines, character profiles, etc. once they are done with the first draft so they can have a concrete understanding of the story they created.
Then I go back to my original outline and see if there were plot points that I thought were important when I first started and if they still are. Sometimes, in the act of drafting, I forget things. Sometimes they needed to be forgotten. But then I am keenly aware of the structure and the goals of the story and the characters and the role of the setting so that when I embark on revising, I am focused.
How does my outlining process resemble yours? How about differences?
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About Tasha
Tasha Seegmiller is a mom to three kids and coordinator of the project-based learning center (EDGE) at Southern Utah University. She writes contemporary women’s fiction with a hint of magic, and thrives on Diet Coke, chocolate and cinnamon bears. She is a co-founder and the managing editor for the Thinking Through Our Fingers blog as well as a board member for the Women's Fiction Writers Association. Tasha is represented by Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
