Writers in the Storm

Piper Bayard

It’s December—the month after National Novel Writing Month. We blink our eyes and search around like the lights just came up in the bar. Or maybe our expressions are more like that look a cat gets when a kid puts a paper bag over it for a few minutes and then pops it off again. We gaze about in a bit of confusion and relief and wonder what the heck just happened. More importantly, we wonder what happens next.

First, if you made it to the 50k line, I say, “Congratulations! Woot! Woot!” Give yourself a pat on the back. Now get back to work on word 50,001. If you started writing but fell short of 50k because life is what happens when we’re making plans, I say, “Congratulations! Woot! Woot!” Give yourself a pat on the back. You’re further than you were. Now get back to work and finish your manuscript. If you started writing and fizzled out, I say, “Congratulations! Woot! Woot!” Pat yourself on the back. You tried. Now open up what you started and get back to work.

You notice that “get back to work” theme I’ve got going on here? That’s because “winning” Nanowrimo is not about reaching 50k. That’s quite an accomplishment, and I do offer a hearty salute to all who met that goal. But it is not the end. It is only the beginning.

Nanowrimo is not about word count. It’s about focusing our choices and behaviors long enough to develop new habits. Because the fact is that if you ask any professional author if they are doing Nanowrimo in November, they will tell you that every month is Nanowrimo. We “win” Nanowrimo when we use it as a tool to direct our energies and reach further goals.

So what are those further goals? To answer that, we have to know why we write. For a few of us, it’s because therapy is too expensive. For others, it’s to leave behind our stories for our children and grandchildren. For some, it is to become the next James Rollins, Tom Clancy, or Danielle Steel.

Whatever the reason we write, we need to be honest with ourselves about our goals in order to know what comes next.

For those who are writing for therapy or to leave their stories behind as a piece of history, the journey can continue at a leisurely pace, with or without editing, agents, publishers, or tackling the learning curve of self-publishing. I wish you deep fulfillment, and I commend you in your efforts to leave behind a message that could enlighten your future generations.

And then there are the rest of us—those of us who dream of book tours, movie deals, and big fat checks. For us, the temptation is great to stare at those Nanowrimo manuscripts and admire them. We want to coddle them and tweak them and offer them to all of our family and friends, as if we were showing off our baby. And was there ever a more beautiful baby?

Yes. There was. It was the baby that got edited, rewritten, edited, rewritten, proofread, edited, rewritten, sent to an agent, edited again, and sold. That was the more beautiful baby.

So the first thing to do after Nanowrimo is to get over the “baby” idea. Most of us don’t sell our babies on Amazon.

Hard, cold fact: writing may be an art, but publishing is a business. It’s a beautiful world when our art is in harmony with the demands of business. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. How we adjust to that fact of life is where we each find our own way.

Regardless of how the art stars align with the earthy nature of business, the process of getting your novel ready for publication requires certain elements.

1.  Let your work rest.

Unless we actually have an agent or editor chomping at the bit for the manuscript, we should let it sit a year while writing more books. At a bare minimum, we should wait two weeks.

It’s excruciating, but we all know we need to do it, and it always pays off. That’s because working on a manuscript is like driving across the country. If we don’t blink and change our focus from the road to the landscape at times, our minds zone out, and our vision gets blurry. When we stare at a manuscript too long, like the road, we stop seeing it.

And when I say let it sit, that includes making our friends, relatives, and beta readers wait until after the next step. I know. It’s agonizing, but trust me. You will thank me in the long run, and so will they.

2.  Read the manuscript through again and edit it. It’s not right for us to ask others to read our work when we haven’t even read it through ourselves.

3.  Time for the beta readers.

When we are confident that the manuscript is the best it can be without external input, it’s time to send it to beta readers. When the beta readers send it back, no matter what they say, the only appropriate response is to thank them for their time and efforts. Never argue about their comments. Remember that their purpose is not to give us strokes and affirmation, it’s to ferret out the holes in our plots and prose that readers on the open market will find with a vengeance.

4.  Evaluate beta reader feedback with an open mind and weigh it carefully.

If we disagree with an isolated criticism, that’s fine. We move on. However, if more than one person says the same thing, it’s worth deeper consideration even if we do disagree. Ultimately, we are the masters of our own pages, but part of that mastery is subduing our egos for the sake of the task at hand.

5.  Edit again based on beta reader feedback and polish the manuscript until the sun reflecting off of it could drive airplanes off course.

6.  It's time to call in the professionals.

If you plan to self-publish, find an excellent editor for a substantive edit and a line edit. The good ones cost, but they are often worth every penny, as their feedback is invaluable and usually applicable to future projects.

If you don’t have someone in mind, ask around. Don’t hire a personal friend unless that friend is a professional editor with an excellent reputation—someone willing to slaughter all of your little darlings and make your novel presentable to the public at large. Someone who shows no mercy. Friendship is friendship, and business is business.

If you plan to go traditional, I still recommend hiring an editor, even though an agent and many more editors will give you input during the journey to publication. No agent wants to read unedited work.

7. Rewrite the content of the manuscript again based on the recommendations of the professional editor.

8. Send the manuscript back for the final line edit.

Make sure the editor uses the Chicago Manual of Style or some other equally acceptable authority. Don’t let anyone convince you that it’s okay to punctuate from the heart. It’s not. A good line editor will cite the rule for every change they make.

9.  Clean up the manuscript after the line edit.

10. Enter the publication channels.

If self-publishing, hire people to do the cover, the layout, the uploads, the marketing, etc., or learn to do it all or in part on your own. This is no small time investment, but the knowledge can be emancipating. If going traditional, send out those query letters.

See the previous Writers in the Storm article by popular ninja mystery writer Susan Spann on How to Find Your Agent Match. The only thing I would add to Susan’s excellent post is that you should not wait for an agent’s response before querying other agents. It is our right to query as many agents as we like. It’s up to them to give us a timely response. We would die staring at our mailboxes while waiting for some of them to reply, and many of them never will. Even if an agent has requested our full, unless they have specifically asked for an exclusive, and we have specifically agreed to it, we are under no obligation to give it. It is, however, professional courtesy to keep them updated if we should sign with someone else.

Next step? If you haven’t done it already, start another book. It can take a long time to land an agent, and publishers can be even slower. Don’t wait. Move on, because for every writer, ultimately, it is not about 50k in a month. It is not about whether we are published this week or ten years from now, or whether we self-publish or go traditional.

At the end of the day, it is only about ourselves and the page. That is the bond that keeps bringing us back. We may start writing in November, but we keep doing it every month, because it’s who we are.

Good luck to each of you, and may your muses be generous!

 

Do you have additional tips on how to keep going after NanoWriMo? What are you doing this month?

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ABOUT PIPER

Piper Bayard is an author, a recovering attorney, and the managing editor of the Social In Worldwide network. Her writing partner, Jay Holmes, is an anonymous senior member of the intelligence community and a field veteran from the Cold War through the current Global War on Terror. Together, they are the bestselling authors of the international spy thriller, THE SPY BRIDE. You can find Piper at BayardandHolmes.com.

Susan Spann

While authors often obsess about getting any agent to represent them, in reality, writers should be concerned about finding the right agent—the one whose personality, business habits, and expectations are a match to the author’s own.

The author-agent relationship is a partnership. Like any business relationship, its success is heavily dependent on the partners’ ability to work together effectively – and authors can increase their odds of finding an effective partner by researching agents in advance, asking proper questions when an agent shows interest in representation, and being willing to refuse an offer if the agent isn’t a proper match for the author’s needs.

Effective literary agents match the author in three important areas:

-- Personality

-- Business and Professional Style

-- Nature of the Agency Relationship

A significant mismatch in any of these areas will cause tension on both sides, and reduce the effectiveness of the author-agent partnership.

Authors in search of an agent often point out that the agent, not the author, gets to decide whether or not to offer representation, and that the author can only decide among the agents who do make offers. While that’s true, the author chooses which agents to query or pitch, which means the author has the power to decide—up front—which agents (s)he is interested in working with. Authors should take the time to research agents thoroughly in advance, and query only those the author believes would be a proper match.

What should an author look for in an agent? While your specific list may vary, based on your personal and business needs, here’s a brief overview of the relevant categories:

PERSONALITY

Successful business partnerships are based on mutual appreciation, respect, and complementary personalities. While a personality “match” does not require (or always lead to) a friendship outside the business, if you don’t respect your agent as a person, you won’t work well together.

Some authors form personal friendships with their agents, while others remain on professional terms. Query agents whose style (as observed in conference settings, in interviews, and on social media) match your preferences, and don’t waste time on querying agents whose personalities clash with yours—no matter how famous they are or how many authors they represent.

BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL HABITS

Writing is a business, and successful business partners need to have similar business habits and attitudes.

I prefer email to the telephone, for business correspondence. My agent does, too, which streamlines our communications and makes us a more effective team. When researching agents, look for information about the way they conduct their business, and query the ones whose business habits seem a good match for your own.

At a minimum, your agent should behave in accordance with industry standards:

1. Agents should not charge fees for reading manuscripts or considering queries. Professional literary agents receive a percentage-based commission on contracts the agent negotiates with publishers (and others) on the author’s behalf.
2. Agents should act professionally in public and on social media. Before you query, watch the way the agent behaves in public (including the Internet). Read the agent’s website, social media feeds, and interviews. Don’t query anyone whose behavior is unprofessional or a poor match for your own. Note: the agent will (and should) expect the same of you. Be professional in public, even before you’re published.
3. Agents should have stated procedures for queries and responses. Agency standards differ. For example, some agents respond to all queries. Others don’t. While the agent has the right to choose the manner in which (s)he does business, authors have the right to query the agents whose processes they prefer.

NATURE OF THE AGENCY RELATIONSHIP

Even within the industry standards, literary agents conduct their businesses in different ways. Authors should query (and sign with) agents who structure their agency relationships in a manner that meets the author’s needs (and wishes). Here are some questions to ask when evaluating an agency or agent:

1. Does the agent represent all the genres you write? Some authors stick to one genre, while others write (or hope to write) different types of books. When querying agents, think about your entire career . . . not just the manuscript you’ve finished now.
2. How many authors does the agent represent? Too many authors chase a “famous” agent or agency instead of seeking an agent with the time and passion to represent the querying author’s works.
3. How well (and quickly) does the agent communicate? This can be difficult to learn before you query, but it should be high on your list of questions when you get an offer of representation. If you prefer the telephone but your agent works through email (or the opposite), the relationship will suffer tension. You can’t expect an agent to change the way (s)he operates for you, so find an agent whose methods match your (reasonable) needs.
4. Does the agent represent authors on a “book by book” or “whole career” basis? And will (s)he terminate the representation if your manuscript doesn’t sell? Make sure your understanding of the relationship matches the agent’s, and that you understand the type of representation being offered.

Make sure your expectations are reasonable, given industry standards—and then find an agent who matches as many as possible. Remember: the author-agent relationship is a partnership, and functions best when authors and agents have complementary personalities, similar business habits, and compatible goals.

Remember: you can’t control which agents offer representation, but you can and should choose carefully when constructing a query list. The more research and effort you put in up front, the higher the likelihood that you will not only receive an offer of representation, but receive it from your perfect agent match.

What’s most important to you in an agent? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

About Susan

Susan Spann is a California transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business, and is also the author of the Hiro Hattori (Shinobi) mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo. Her fourth novel, THE NINJA’S DAUGHTER, released from Seventh Street Books in August 2016. Susan was the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2015 Writer of the Year, and when not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. Find her online at http://www.SusanSpann.com, on Twitter (@SusanSpann), and on Facebook (/SusanSpannBooks).

 

Tiffany Yates Martin

(In the past two months, I've shared my revision process with you here at Writers in the Storm as I've moved through the suggestions Tiffany has made. Today, she shares what she does in her job working with authors, like me, as a professional editor. -Fae)

My husband doesn’t want me to be on HGTV.

I’ve been a junkie of the station ever since it debuted, and every time we’ve been at a housing crossroads—whether it’s deciding whether to sell and buy something new, or considering renovations—I toss out my dream of one day being on the receiving end of the magical transformations on Love It or List It, or Fixer Upper, or Property Brothers, only to have him knock my pie out of the sky like a champion skeet shooter.

His reason is always the same: The “after” reveals may look fantastic, but in the way a stage set does: pretty on the surface, but in rushed TV production schedules, the underlying structure may not necessarily be constructed well enough to support it in the long run.

I know he’s right. But it looks so pretty.

The same mind-set often happens to authors in the editing process. I see a good number of manuscripts with appealing stories, intriguing characters, well-written prose. These are among the trickiest edits—for me and for the author—because on the surface everything actually looks pretty good.

But often something is still “off.” There’s something underneath the initially appealing surface keeping the story from being as effective and satisfying for the reader as it could be.

This was the case in my recent work with Fae Rowen on the first of her Keep Sphere series, Finding Athena. Many of you who know Fae and her writing may already be familiar with the quality of her work. In Athena she has a good, original romantic sci-fi tale, and the writing chops to have created a very readable, enjoyable story.

I often work with authors the way I do with publishing houses—in a three-pass editorial process that allows us to do a deep-dive inspection of every corner of the story. In three separate passes, we have the chance to hone the manuscript into a final product that’s not only aesthetically polished, but built rock-solid, and that’s how Fae and I worked on Athena.

We tackled some foundational story structure issues in pass one—we worked a lot on developing character, honing the plot (which induced Fae to kill some well-loved darlings), and addressing world-building elements and other stylistic issues.

Fae revised like a rock star, and came back with a second pass that seemed to have addressed many of the areas I mentioned. We polished a bit more, and both of us expected pass three to be fairly straightforward—often by this point in the process the manuscript has been progressively built out in each preceding pass, and we’re in the final stretch of finishing touches.

Almost every one of my beloved HGTV makeover shows has the moment where, after the crew knocks out a wall or a ceiling or a fascia to achieve their fancy computerized rendering of the final design, something unexpected is revealed: construction shortcuts, deterioration, inadequate support. Sometimes improving one area reveals hidden problems in another.

In Fae’s case, the more deeply she had fleshed out and developed one key element of the story—her fascinating protagonists—the more clearly it revealed another element that still needed attention: their individual arcs and how they were developed in the plot. She’d done wonderful work, and if we’d stopped there things would have looked pretty darn good on the surface. But the structure wasn’t as solid as it needed to be to create a story as impactful and effective as we both believed was possible.

So I dug really deep in the story on my last edit, and our pass three, which I often return with only a smattering of embedded notes, came back to Fae with a full complement of queries in the manuscript, and another extensive editorial letter—4,500 words’ worth this time (and that’s after a 4,800-word first-pass ed letter).

I knew this might be deeply daunting for her, after all the work she’d done already—to be approaching the manuscript yet again with the same level of feedback and revision suggestions we’d started with.

Luckily Fae happened to agree with the feedback, which matched her vision for the story (remember—an edit, like everything else in any creative field, is somewhat subjective, and ultimately the story belongs to you, the author), but rather than being discouraged by the amount of work still to be done, she jumped back in with both feet—and both brains.

Almost all writers find it easy to access the creative, dreamy, visionary right brain. It’s practically the definition of an artist or storyteller. Editing often poses a greater challenge to authors because, to a degree, it’s a left-brain activity, applied to a right-brain process.

One thing I try to do as an editor is to offer specific ideas and “tricks” for authors to access that side of their brains—exercises I’ve found useful for taking a logical, methodical approach to a creative, more numinous endeavor. In Fae’s case, I made several specific suggestions for defining each main character’s arc, and for clarifying the plot to make sure it held together and that every scene moved the story—and each character’s journey—forward.

As Fae has written in her previous posts about our work together, this isn’t always (or ever, really) a painless process. But, as a mathematician, she tackled it logically, creating a worksheet for herself on character arcs from the exercises I’d offered, and executing the “X-ray” for the plot I’d suggested to take an objective look at whether each scene furthered the story and the characters’ journeys.

It’s a longer and more involved process than either one of us was expecting at this point. But Fae’s investment in this story—not only of her time and the expense of a professional edit, but her emotional investment in telling this story, capturing her vision on the page in the best, most effective way she can—sent her back to the studs, and she was willing to do the work.

At the end of it, she’ll still have a story with all the “curb appeal” her talent and skill had created from the first. But what lies behind the HGTV-pretty will be meticulously constructed and solid—not just appealing on the surface and in the short term, but a creation with real substance, that will endure.

Have you faced an edit that felt especially daunting before? What techniques did you use to approach the actual revisions—and to keep your spirits from flagging?

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Tiffany Yates Martin has worked in the publishing industry for more than twenty years, currently through her editorial consulting company, FoxPrint Editorial, helping authors hone their work to a tight polished draft. As a developmental editor she works both directly with authors as well as through major publishing houses. Visit her at www.foxprinteditorial.com, or on Facebook  or Twitter [@FoxPrintEd].