Here’s my space:

My office is a second bedroom in the house.  I do most of my writing at a desk, working on a desktop computer with a rather small flat screen.  The desk is full of chaos, because my brain is a bit “out of sight, out of mind,” and if I don’t want to forget about something — story outline, bills that need paying — I have to keep it right there where I can see it.  I know how to find everything, honest!  Stuff I want to keep out of the way, but still visible, I pin to the bulletin board.  My goal lists and project lists go there.

I put a lot of fun things in my office — I like having it be a warm and happy place, so that I like spending time there.  Lily the dog usually naps under the desk, which is lovely.  And my life-size cardboard Thor is quite the inspiration to me, I must say.

For a stretch of time a few years ago, I wrote a bunch on my laptop, spread out on the sofa.  I finished a couple of novels this way, because sitting at my desk was a drag and I had to change location to get things done.  Then I invested in a much better office chair — and I haven’t left my desk since.  That was a great lesson for me:  good, comfortable equipment, can make a huge difference.  Uncomfortable equipment makes me fidgety, and I won’t get work done.  So, invest in the good stuff, keeping in mind that what works for someone else may not work for me.

Lately, I’ve been trying to shake things up a little, to make working on the road easier and more productive.  I’ve done a bunch of traveling over the last three years, and I’ve learned that it really cuts into my output.  I’d like to change this, if I can.  I’m not fond of carrying a laptop with me, and I usually don’t — it’s the issue of comfort, again.  The laptop, while it has its uses, drives me bonkers, so I usually leave it at home.  This year, I’m going to try something else:  I got an iPad and a Bluetooth keyboard to go with it.  The keyboard is the size of a standard laptop keyboard, and works great.  (I never had a problem with the laptop keyboard, it was lugging the damn thing around that I didn’t like.)  I found a word-processing app that’s compatible with Word, which is what I usually use.  So far, I’ve found that this setup is much more portable than a laptop.  I don’t have to take it out of my bag to go through airport security.  I can set it up on my lap without feeling the need to move to a desk or table.  I even brought it to a coffee shop once.

Writing space and location is another one of those variables that really does make a difference, and it behooves us to experiment to find the arrangement that makes us the most comfortable and productive.

A while back, it was suggested that I write a series of Genreality posts about short fiction.  I’m still getting my feet beneath me when it comes to blog series and I’m never really sure if I’m giving you all anything new to work with, but I’m happy to oblige.

So for the next several weeks (excepting our theme weeks here, of course) I’ll be talking about short stories, how I write them…and why.  Please know going in that this is really for you all, so if you have things you’d like me to speak to please drop me a note or comment below and I’ll incorporate it into the Living Document that this meandering series is bound to turn into.

I get asked pretty frequently about whether it’s better to break into print with novels or with short fiction and, really, the answer is going to be different for every writer.  I think both paths can work just fine but I think which path works for YOU is something only you can sort out.  Queue music for my first digression….

DIGRESSION ONE:  A lot of times, this question is being asked along with a whole pack of other questions that come down to that Mystical Quest for the Magic Bullet of How to Get Published Quickly and Well.  And there are really aren’t any magic bullets.  Most of the time, it’s a simply LOT of writing in the midst of rejection, learning in the midst of trying, meeting people who help along the way because of their experience or their work in the biz, and just staying at it.  Eventually, you write the right story for the right market and the right editor at just the right time.  And sometimes, you get to the point beyond that where the editors ask YOU for stories.  But the hard truth is, some just won’t get there.   Others will.  There’s no way to tell which one you are until you either achieve your goal…or quit (and even quitting is sometimes just a long break.)

END DIGRESSION MUSIC.

So that aside, I broke in through short fiction.  I had sold probably a dozen small press sales before I won Writers of the Future in 2005.  I had probably twenty or twenty-five stories out by the time my first novel came out in 2009.  Why did I go that route?

I can assure you that it wasn’t a well-crafted strategy on my part.  It started back in 1982 or 83 when I read Ray Bradbury’s essay “How to Keep and Feed a Muse” and knew I had to be a writer.  I idolized Bradbury, and he’d broke in during the pulp age with…short stories.  And many of the other gods in my pantheon were also short story writers.  So in my youngish Trailer Boy brain, it seemed to me that Real Writers started out with short stories.  It’s obviously not true.  But that’s what I thought and I started writing out short stories, first in longhand and then, later, with my little blue Royal manual typewriter.  I’d already amassed a handful of rejections before I wrote my first stories on my Dad’s TRS-80 and his Apple computer.

I used the library’s Writers Market and even ordered sample copies of some of the magazines.  I read Writer’s Digest.  I wrote, revised, submitted, wrote, revised, submitted.  Then, at 17, I gave it all up to join the ministry, sometime after burning my D&D books (gasp) and before tossing my S&G LPs (oh my).  By the time I quit, I’d gotten my first  rejection that read “if you can find a way to address the issues in this story, I would like to see it again….” (a rejection that stung at the time but in later years, I saw it for the rewrite request that it was….)

So initially, I came to the short form because it’s how my heroes did it.  Later, I stayed because I enjoyed the trick and game of it.  And even later, I stayed in those comfortable waters because I was TERRIFIED of anything longer and was convinced that I couldn’t write novels.  Now…I do it because I enjoy it, can use it to point toward my longer works, and– from time to time — make a little money from it.  In the beginning, though, it was just the love of storytelling.

So if you enjoy it, I think it can be a great way to break in.  I don’t know that your goal need to be so focused as that initially, but I do think the extra time I spent in short stories really did help sharpen my novels.  So I say write them if you love them.  Invest the time in learning how to do it as well you can.

QUEUE MUSIC FOR SECOND DIVERSION:

But…when you’re just starting out, you really can’t expect much in the way of money.  I think most of us out there know that already, but just in case….  I came back to writing as an adult in 1997.  That year, I invested very little — paper and stamps and ink cartridges and time — and made nothing but gained skill.  In 1998, I wrote even more but also invested in attending two conventions — World Fantasy and Orycon.  My investment grew but no sales meant no money; I gained skill.

I made that first sale in late 1999, followed by a second and third in 2000 and 2001.  A fourth in 2002.  All the while continuing to invest in hitting local conventions, giving readings, being on panels, meeting people, making friends.  I spent far, far more than I made in payment, but what I gained in relationships and experience was priceless.  And the cash side of it stayed pretty much the same until Writers of the Future.  After that, better paying markets started buying my work.  In 2006, I wrote my first novel on a dare, riddled with anxiety and convinced it was The Worst Novel Ever (TM).  And in 2008, I signed my contract with Tor for all five volumes of the Psalms of Isaak.  The writing provides pretty regular income now as long as I’m producing and these days, I write far fewer short stories but when I do, they’ve nearly always been asked for by an editor.  But I absolutely still need a dayjob and I’ve invested myself in my writing career for fifteen pretty solid years.  I have no idea when I won’t need that dayjob.

This isn’t a complaint whatsoever.  And money can be made by writing.  But the love has to come first because that’s what keeps you at it before you’re seeing much return on your investment.

END DIGRESSION MUSIC

So if you enjoy short stories, write short stories.  Invest the time and energy — the practice — to get good at them.  And if you don’t really know, you might tackle both.  Spend half a year writing a novel and half a year writing six short stories…or a dozen if you can.  But for the next several weeks, let’s pretend that you’re going to write short stories for a while.

Here’s YOUR homework:  Post a question to comments that you’d like me to tackle.  Or if you’ve read any of my short fiction, post which story of mine you’d like me to dissect as we ease our way into how and why I do what I do when I’m writing a short story.

That’s all for now.  Trailer Boy out.

Related posts:

1. Novels and Short Stories….
2. In Praise of Short Stories
3. Writing Short

When you’re a series writer, as I’ve been, there is a certain pressure on you to “prove” you’re not a one-trick pony. A writer friend of mine who has only written one series so far was lamenting a critical response one reader had given to an anthology we were both in, where we’d each chosen to write stories set in the world of our respective series (which, for me at least, had been a deliberate marketing choice).

Her: “Look! She says she wonders if we can write anything else.”

Me: “Well, that’s silly. Obviously she hasn’t read my other series.”

(We shall leave for another time the endless paragraphs I might write about the disservice we do ourselves as writers by paying too much attention to random bloggers or Amazon posters who don’t even fact check their reviews.)

But I understood my friend’s response, and, had I only published one series, I might have had the same one. When you have been writing in a series, your readers get comfortable. You don’t have to sell them on new premises, new protagonists. They know your characters and world like old friends. They get suspicious if you stray, like you are somehow cheating on them. (Look at what happens to poor George R.R. Martin whenever he dares to write anything not Song of Ice and Fire-y!) And, thanks to this brave new world of the internet, authors can see them speculating as to the validity of the new work before it even hits the stands.

A not-insignificant part of my reader mail is requests for more books in my series. With the killer unicorn series, it makes sense, as those books are unfinished and I last left my heroine, Astrid, in a pretty tough position. But I also get a lot of mail begging for more secret society stories. What happened to Amy and co. AFTER they graduated?(My usual response: “They lived happily ever after.”)

When you write a series, you know what your fans love about it. “Hey, everyone loves Bonegrinder so I’m going to make sure I put more Bonegrinder in the next book.” You can play to expectations, and you can play with expectations as well. (Think of the fan frenzy surrounding Dickens and JK Rowling killing off beloved characters!)

But writing a series allows the author to have familiarity with the criticism as well. By the end of my secret society books, I had made up a veritable bingo card: “There aren’t any all-boys societies anymore” “I expected them to be really taking over the world and stuff” “Why do I want to read about elite Ivy Leaguers?” I had started on my bingo card for the unicorns, too. “I can’t imagine unicorns being killers.” “What does virginity have to do with unicorns!” After a while, you know what your detractors are going to say, and can shrug it off.

This week, my first non-series story hit the stores: “Foundlings” in the anthology Brave New Love (Fellow Genreality author Carrie Vaughn has a story in there, too.) This story is unconnected to either of my other series and it’s also unconnected to the standalone book I have coming out in June. Speaking of THAT book, thanks to an ARC giveaway my publisher did at ALA Midwinter, I’m starting to get responses to it as well.

And despite the fact that I know I’m not a one-trick pony, that I have published two series set in two very, very different worlds, I’m nervous. These upcoming books are not secret societies. They aren’t unicorns. I hope they’ll appeal to my current readership, and intrigue folks who haven’t tried me before. But because they’re new, I have no idea what people will like (or dislike) about them. I hope they like the things I liked — the things that drew me to writing these stories in the first place. But because they’re out there, and because they’re standalones, my part in the story is done. I can’t respond to readers the way I could with a series, giving them more of what they liked about the first. Unlike series, they don’t have siblings who can support and balance them. They’re only children, with all the benefits and drawbacks that status can bring.

Related posts:

1. Fear
2. The Fear of Writers
3. The Fear Whisperer

Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.

Honestly, I’m not quite sure what that means since print books can be, and some are, updated as new editions are released. More importantly, a book is a book.  The issues in the debate about ebooks versus print books aren’t really about one being a book and the other not.  They’re both books.I guess Franzen can pretend that’s not true, but I don’t know how he would make a compelling argument for his position. The real issues in the ebooks versus print debate are about delivery (how you get it) and the bundle of rights given to the reader (what the reader gets – i.e., can you turn it into a used book store or give it to friends).  We can talk about those, especially the latter since it deserves some discussion, but the book, the actual book I buy in print, is the same as the one I download to my kindle.  If the book is only available in digital that doesn’t make it any less of a book.  it simply means someone decided the delivery will be digital only. Again, and this warrants a repeat, regardless of how you get them books are books.

I really think the “ebooks are the devil” argument has more to do with fear of change than anything else.  For some reason, and I’m not exactly clear why, there are folks out there who are terrified that the rise in ebooks will mean the end of reading as we know.  As if democracy will fail, societies will crumble and people will lose the skill of writing things down.  I just don’t see it. Seems to me the availability of ereaders has opened more people up to reading.  I know that’s what happened in my house.  My husband is not a big reader, or I should say he wasn’t until he got his Kindle Fire. In the past, he’d read a book every now and then, most of them based on real-life events, like books by Erik Larson. Then he got the ereader at the end of last year.  He started out downloading some $.99 books just to try them.  Then he found The Hunger Games and raced through it. Then he started downloading books he’d heard about from…somewhere.  He now emails me from work about books he’s seen in the Wall Street Journal or online and asks if I’ve heard of them. There are a few books I’ve found because of him. He’ll try anything at all – popular fiction, literary fiction and self-published wonders. He does not have any book bias or snobbery issues. Buying books for fun is not something he did before.  He does it now. And I could not be happier about the change.

My theory about ereaders boils down to this: the sky isn’t falling.  It’s expanding, opening to more options for authors and readers.  If people are like me, they buy print and ebooks and try things they never would have tried before.  That can only be good for anyone who loves books.

Related posts:

1. Our Book.
2. Read an E-Book Week

While we stress the importance of not making the entire conference about your pitch, we also understand that it’s a big reason why you are going to a conference is the opportunity to get your work in front of editors and agents. Before we get into some techniques of pitching, lets take a look at an example Bob uses during his Write It Forward Presentation.

Pitching the Johnny Cash Way

When Bob teaches Write It Forward the first film clip he shows is from the movie Walk The Line (click to watch on Youtube).  Here’s the dialogue below and an adapted excerpt from his book Write It Forward.  It’s the scene where Johnny Cash has a one-on-one with a producer (agent) and is, in essence pitching.  Here is the dialogue, with Bob’s comments in bold parentheses:

Johnny Cash singing a cover of an old gospel song—within 15 seconds he is halted:

Producer (read agent): Hold on. Hold on. I hate to interrupt… but do you guys got something else? I ‘m sorry. I can’t market gospel (read generic vampire novel, clichéd thriller, whatever). No more.

Johnny Cash: So that’s it?

Producer: I don’t record material (rep a book) that doesn’t sell, Mr. Cash… and gospel (a book like that) like that doesn’t sell.

Johnny Cash: Was it the gospel or the way I sing it? (was it the book or the writing?)

Producer: Both.

Johnny Cash: Well, what’s wrong with the way I sing it?

Producer: I don’t believe you.

Johnny Cash: You saying I don’t believe in God?

Bandmate: J.R., come on, let’s go.

Johnny Cash: No. I want to understand. I mean, we come down here, we play for a minute… and he tells me I don’t believe in God.

Producer: We’ve already heard that song a hundred times… just like that, just like how you sang  it.

Johnny Cash: Well, you didn’t let us bring it home. (you didn’t get to my hook, climactic scene, whatever)

Producer: Bring… bring it home? All right, let’s bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying… and you had time to sing one song (write one book), huh, one song… people would remember before you’re dirt… one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth… one song that would sum you up… you telling me that’s the song you’d sing? That same Jimmie Davis tune we hear on the radio all day? About your peace within and how it’s real and how you’re gonna shout it? Or would you sing something different? Something real, something you felt? Because I’m telling you right now… that’s the kind of song people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain’t got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believing in yourself.

Johnny Cash: Well, I’ve got a couple songs I wrote in the Air Force. You got anything against the Air Force?

Producer: No.

Johnny Cash: I do.

Bandmate: J.R., whatever you’re about to play… we ain’t never heard it.

Within fifteen seconds of singing the song he wrote, the producer knows he is looking at a star.

What did Johnny Cash do right in his pitch?

He Tried

We hear the scary statistics all the time about the slush pile and about the odds of successful self-publishing. You can’t let that stop you. There are people who won’t query because they’re afraid of rejection. In essence, they’ve just rejected themselves. We heard a very weird statistic: 90% of people who have a one-on-one with an agent at a conference and get a request to send in their material, never do. There are many reasons for this, but the #1 barrier is fear. Why even do the one-on-one if you are never going to follow through?

He Overcame Fear

Johnny Cash walked in the door even though he was afraid. Bob’s Write It Forward book and program focuses on ways to overcome fear.

He went even though his wife didn’t think he had it. There is a scene earlier where he and his band-mates are on the porch playing and Cash’s wife storms off and locks herself in the bathroom. She tells him he’s wasting his time and he needs to get a ‘real job’. Some of us have heard the same thing, haven’t we?

He Didn’t Quit

He stayed after being rejected. Most people think rejection is the end. It’s actually a beginning. Use rejection as motivation. Rejection is an inevitable part of a writer’s life. He stayed. He got hit with a double rejection: not only was the song not good, his singing wasn’t good. How would you feel if someone told you not only was the book not good, your writing wasn’t either?

He Was Respectful

Even though he was angry, he was respectful. You never know where and when you will meet that agent or editor again.

He Questioned

He asked questions. We watch people pitch agents at conferences and few ask questions. They’re so focused on pitching, they aren’t using the time as a valuable learning experience. When Cash asked what was wrong, he got a response that allowed him to focus.

He Listened

Earlier this year Bob got some a rejections on a manuscript. Looking back, he remembered his agent making a comment when Bob was first talking about the idea. Bob didn’t listen carefully enough to what she was really saying, because in retrospect, what every editor said in the rejection letter was what she had said two years ago.  Listening for the real message is a key skill successful people have.

He Mined His Platform

Cash used his PLATFORM and tried again. We’re always hearing the buzzword Platform. A lot of people feel they don’t have one. You do. If you watch the movie, note the look on Cash’s face when he’s singing the gospel song about his “Peace Within”. He’s not peaceful. He’s angry. That’s his character arc in the movie: finding peace within. So when he finally sings the song he wrote, he’s singing an angry song. Because his platform right then is anger: over the death of his brother; the fact his father blamed him for it; and he hated his time in the Air Force, being away from his girlfriend (and losing her). Basically, he used his real self and mined his emotions. That’s your platform.

He conquered his FEAR. He not only walked in, he stayed, he succeeded.

He CHANGED. He walked in with one plan, but when it didn’t work, he quickly changed that plan.

Bottom Line

Remember that the agent and editor is just a person like you.  They’re pretty much numbed out from hearing dozens of pitches.  Understand their point of view.  Give them something interesting.  Have a dialogue.  Don’t be nervous.  It’s a conversation, not the end of the world.

Also, being very honest here, most of them tell everyone they talk to, to send in a submission.  Several reasons for that.  One is the 10% factor mentioned earlier.  Another is they don’t want people to get upset with them with an outright, face to face rejection.  So you’ll get the chance, usually, to send your material.  Focus on making a personal connection.

Related posts:

1. How To Prepare for a Writers Conference
2. How To Prepare for a Writers Conference II
3. Pitching The Johnny Cash Way

I’ve had several conversations in the last week with other writers that surrounded the subject of doubt demons, dealing with stress, and career paths. I’m sure part of it is that January was fast coming to a close, and if they’re anything like me they’re thinking… “Damn, time is just whipping by…again.” and if others are like me they’re thinking maybe they need to revise their goals for the year. But I think the other part of it, the bigger part, is that we’re writers, and no matter how much you write, how many sales you have, or how well your last book did, we still have doubts.

It’s funny because I know me and my friends fight these demons off to somewhat regular intervals, and I often hope that someday I’ll get to that point where I don’t doubt my skill/talent/or drive anymore, but I doubt it. Yes, there’s another doubt.

Because it seemed to be such a prominent topic of conversation I figured I’d share some thoughts of my own, as well as some that I’ve seen elsewhere that have stuck with me.

Carrie Vaughn’s post a while back called A NYT Bestseller has a meltdown really hit home with me, not just because of what she said, but because of who she is. I’ve been a fan of Carrie’s for years, and think she does a fabulous job on every Kitty novel, as well as her other stand alone’s.

The truth of it is, we all have doubts, and it’s not always a bad thing. Doubts are very bad, when you let them cripple you, or worse yet, stall you altogether. Doubts are bad when you give in to them and let them take over. But I believe if you acknowledge them, and consciously work to run right over them on your way to the finish line (whatever that is in your case) that they can be a both of a good thing because doubts mean we care about what we’re doing. That we’re not just churning out the same thing again and again in some sort of formula that once worked and we think will work again.

Like most things in this often crazy business, doubts are all about how you use them.

If you want more reinforcement that you’re not alone in having self doubt…check out this articles, that quote’s some pretty well-known authors voicing their doubts, and gives some great advice for dealing with doubts.

I’m going to leave you today with a couple of steps from a post I found on romance writer Kelly Wolf’s blog
1. Keep writing. You won’t want to, but you can. It’s all in your head. Really. Just do it.
2. Read a book on your craft.
3. Write some more.
4. Check out blogs by your favorite author or other writers with information on your craft.
5. Write again.
6. Read. And then read some more. Remember why you love books.

Want to read more… click here 12 Step Program for Writers Doubts by Kelly Wolf.

Related posts:

1. Don’t be Second-Guessed

Oh, you’ll find individuals who have a fairly strong narrative in their real lives, those who try to live by consistent values and appear logical from one moment to the next.  But I promise you, there are going to be moments when you see people do something so illogical that it will make your brain hurt.

As a writer, this is the stuff of dreams.  If you are writing comedy, then the election season is  your goldmine.  Or was that tragedy, I forget some days.  Regardless, you should never be short on characters, motivations or reactions when you write.  If you don’t believe me, take your favorite writing device and casually stroll through a department store or better yet, grab a beverage and sit in the food court of your local mall.  Within ten minutes you’ll see enough to fill a novel with secondary and perhaps, main characters.  It’s better than television most days.

Now, here’s the trick.

You can’t use that stuff as it happens.  No one will believe it.  We humans are just too whimsical and capricious to be used as is in a story.  See, unlike your day job, your dating life, or even a trip to the grocery; fiction has to make sense.

I can hear some of you out there gasping and examples of fairies and dragons are just popping to mind faster than you can write them down in the comments section of this post.  Yes, we write about stuff that doesn’t exist.  Sometimes we take things that exist and twist them around to be different than what they really are.  But the one thing we also do is proceed with internal consistency.   I don’t care what logic you use, but if you tell me the Bobby turns green on Tuesdays in the first paragraph.  When I see a green skin tone next, it damned well be Tuesday.

See, the characters in your books and stories can be wild men but no matter what their motivations, no  matter what their appetites or fears, they must behave with a level of logic that your readers can follow.

Every action must be aligned with the behavior this character has portrayed before, or ample justification must be shown as to why this individual would suddenly start behaving in a way that is different from what you as the author has shown.

It’s a balancing act.  I’ve critiqued a lot of stories over the years, shorts all the way to novels.  I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve had an author tell me, “but that’s the way it happened.  I wrote that based on real events.”

To which, I have to inform them that real life is too crazy for fiction.  Fiction must follow a logical thread if you want to keep your readers engaged and if you want them to finish reading the piece.

Don’t get me wrong.  Be gonzo, write some avant-garde story that would make your high school English teacher cringe in his cardigan.   But if you do not have the characters act with an internal logic that the reader can follow, you will lose them.

So, be a people watcher.  Eaves drop on conversations and experience the drama of real people from time to time.  It’s where we get our juice.  But when you put that down on paper or pixels, make sure your darlings can follow the bread crumbs back to their first introduction and your readers will gladly follow you into the apocalypse, or the next general election, depends on your threshold of pain.

Related posts:

1. Do Good Fiction Writers Makes Good Non-Fiction Writers?
2. How factual should your fiction be?
3. Thesis Statements for Fiction

Today, I want to chat briefly about advice.  Over the course of your writing career — from way back in the very earliest days when you’re pushing for that first sale all the way up to your glory years of multiple books in print and more books under contract — you’re going to need advice.

You’ll need it early on when it comes to getting to the place of writing compelling stories and novels that are publishable.  You’ll need it when it comes to how to best find an agent or a publisher.  You’ll need it when you bump up against something in your career that you’ve never bumped into before.

I’ve asked for a LOT of advice over the course of my writing life…and I’ve always gotten it.  Hell, I just sent off notes this morning and made some calls yesterday to get a bit.  The need for help as we go along our merry way never really completely goes away.

A few things come to mind when I think about asking for advice.

1.  Am I Asking the Right Person the Right Question at the Right Time in the Right Manner?

I think about all of that.  Is this the person who really can help me…and if I’m not sure, am I asking them who they might know if they are the wrong person?  How much research have I done to see if there is advice elsewhere already waiting for me to find it thanks to Google?  Have I really thought about the question and am I asking it clearly?  I’m asking for a piece of their time and experience — am I offering them the best venue for them to answer in?  Email?  Phone?  A lunch meeting?  And am I mindful of the other things going on in their lives?

2.  Am I Open to Their Advice Even If I Don’t Like It?

This is a big one.  Sometimes we ask but we have an answer we already want or believe to be so.  I know people who, upon not liking the advice, just go asking more people and more people until they hear what they want.  I try — and do not always succeed — to listen and ask questions and gain an understanding of why the advice is what it is.  This applies to story feedback especially.

3.  Am I Placing Too Much Importance on Any One Person’s Advice?

Advice is…advice.  If I’m asking for someone to give it to me, I should know why I’m asking but I should also know that it’s one person’s opinion, usually based on their experience.  They may or may not be giving me the best advice for my situation.  Often, if I’m asking a handful of people, I’ll gauge it based on what the consensus of the group seems to be.  And I try to go outside of the box (which somewhat ties in to asking the right person.)

And a few things come to mind when I think about giving advice:

1.  Was I Asked?

I usually don’t appreciate unsolicited advice as much as the advice I ask for.  Though sometimes it’s just what the doctor ordered.  But when giving advice, I try really, really hard to only offer it up when asked.  And if I’m going to offer unsolicited advice, it’s  usually good to ask, “Hey, can I give you a bit of unsolicited advice?”  Though you have to be careful with that because few people are going to say “Well, no, Ken, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t.”  And you have to be careful about just assuming that a person thinks you’re the right one to give them advice.

2.  Do I Have Any Meaningful Advice to Give (or Know Someone Else or Some Other Resource That  Could Better Help) in this Instance?

Sometimes people offer advice where they have no experience — they have a hard time saying “You know, I really don’t know.”  And they make it up.  I try hard not to do that.  For example, I frequently get asked about how to query for an agent or publisher and I truly do not have much experience there.  It serves the asker better for me to point them toward others or toward the vast array of information available on the web when it comes to that.

3.   Am I Delivering the Very Best Advice for THAT PERSON (not for me) in as Helpful and Clear a Manner As Possible?

Sometimes, we project onto others what we ourselves wished we’d known.  And sometimes that’s good advice…and sometimes it’s not.  Not everyone is the same.  For example, telling everyone that they should only submit to pro-level paying markets isn’t really good advice if the person is cranking out fifty stories a year.  They can afford to hit a broader range of markets.  And how we say something is important — I try to make sure that when giving advice, I’m up front that their mileage may vary.  And I try to make sure I’m delivering it in a way that helps and doesn’t hurt.  The truth is, once we get to a certain place, some people really really listen to every word we say.  Our expectations for ourselves based on who WE are can be easily misinterpreted into perceived expectations for everyone or for that person who is asking us for advice.

And in it all, whether asking or being asked, take it with a grain of salt.  Stay courteous and friendly.  Don’t take it personally if it’s not what you want to hear or if they can’t help you.  Be grateful — thank them for giving the advice and thank them for asking you for it.

And now that I’ve given you all a bit of unsolicited advice on asking for advice…I’m out!

Have a great weekend!

Related posts:

1. Don’t Take My Advice
2. Tidbits of Advice
3. The Best Advice I Ever Got

“I said that it felt like cheating, to me, to try to add an explanation to something I’ve already written. I got my chance to write what I wanted to write. If I didn’t do it well enough for my readers to understand what I was trying to say, it’s not fair for me to try to take a second shot. When it comes to talking about what I am writing next, I told people that I think it’s teasing to drop hints about a book… for five years at a time. If I wrote books a little faster, I might be a little more willing to talk about what’s in them ahead of time. But I don’t, so I won’t.”

Boy, do I admire her restraint. I don’t think I can do that.

Early in my career, a book club chose my book to read, and they invited me to their house to discuss it. In the grand tradition of crappy middle school English teachers who seek to extinguish all pleasure in reading (“Please list the meanings of the following symbols found in the short story you were assigned”), the most common question I got was, “What did you mean when you put XYZ in the story?”

I was a literature major at college. I’d studied New Criticism, in which we’d learned that the book must be it’s own thing, separate from what they called “the intentional fallacy” — i.e., what the author meant. All that stupid stuff from middle school about deciding that X symbol meant only Y and nothing else? Poppycock. The book meant what you decided it to mean.

At least, that’s what I’d learned.

I tried to do the whole Mona-Lisa-smile, “What did you think it meant?” thing — no dice. The book club members were extremely frustrated. They had not invited me to the house and fed me dinner only to get non-answers out of me. They had the author, in their midst, a luxury afforded to few readers. And dammit, they wanted answers.

It changed my thinking significantly. Yes, I do a disservice to readers if I have this expectation that they can only understand what I’m doing if I’m standing over their shoulder. The book must be able to stand on its own, because only a miniscule percentage of reaers are going to get tot eh point where they track an author down and ask. But if they have — if they’ve bothered to invite you to their house and feed you pasta and iced tea, or if they’ve dragged themselves to a booksigning or festival for the sole purpose of meeting you and asking  — if they want to know — shouldn’t you play along and tell them?

I decided to play along. I created “spoiler threads” on my website upon book releases, where readers could go and discuss the book and ask questions. I answered them.

But the ease of the internet has made the pendulum start swinging the other way for me. It’s one thing if I verbally tell a group of people in a book club something. It’s very much another if I start answering questions, in writing, of every person who fills out a contact form on my website.

Once, I got an email from a reader with over a hundred questions in it. This reader wanted to know absolutely every plot trail of every character and every feeling that every character had throughout the entire book. She wanted confirmation of things that I hoped were obvious. Stuff the equivalent of:

• After Mr. Darcy was so sweet to Elizabeth and her relatives when he met them at Pemberley, THAT’S when she decided that maybe he wasn’t the asshole she thought, right?
• Was Lydia ever jealous of Lizzie when Wickham was paying her attention at Meryton?
• How long after they got married did Darcy and Lizzie have a kid?

And so forth. These are questions that fans want to know. Entire industries have been created in fanfiction (both the free kind and the stuff that makes money — like all those Jane Austen sequels) to answer these sorts of questions. Indeed, I’m partial to that kind of stuff myself. My favorite scene in the 2007 remake of Persuasion is the scene in Lyme where Captains Wentworth and Harville discuss the trouble Wentworth has gotten himself in by flirting with Louisa Musgrove. You always know there’s a scene where his friends are like, “Look, you moron, her whole family thinks you’re getting married, so if you’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” It was nice to see it performed.

But Jane Austen is dead. We’re all just fans making it up as we go along. That’s different.

For what it’s worth, I wrote the reader back and told her to pick five of her most burning questions.

I have also seen the intent to stay “true” to the author’s vision, based upon something they wrote, backfire enormously. The case in point is the new “ordering” of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Now, children are introduced to the series NOT through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but through a prequel, written many years later, and written, (in my opinion as a published Narnia scholar ) in a more mature tone and with the expectation that readers are familiar with the world and the stories published thus far. However, one time, Lewis wrote a response to an eleven year old child in which he says he agrees with the child’s contention that the books should be read in chronological (not publication) order, and now, that’s how they publish them.

But upon reading the actual letter, I find that conclusion appalling. These are Lewis’s words:

“I think I agree with your order [chronologically] for reading the books more than with your mother’s [order of publication]. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone reads them.”

See? It’s doesn’t matter! Great! Let’s not fix what ain’t broken! I know that I, for one, will not be giving my daughter The Magician’s Nephew before TLTWaTW.If this is what Lewis really thought (and he doesn’t sound so sure himself, even in the letter) then he was wrong.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s fine to answer reader’s questions — but it’s not fine for the reader to treat the author’s intent as gospel. They have to make their own decisions, because even though it’s the author’s book, the author might not know everything. And when it leaves their hands, it takes on a life of its own.

Having said that, let’s talk about my newfound love for Octavia Spencer.  [Note: this will eventually relate back to the first paragraph. Stick with me for a second.] In case you don’t know, she’s an actress. She won the Golden Globe and is nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Help.  She’s talented and just looks like a happy person.  For some reason, whenever I see her I smile. But none of that is the reason for my Octavia love today.  I love her today because when asked by People magazine in the “Star Picks” section about her favorite author, she said this:

I collect books about murder mysteries, but my favorite author of thrillers is James Patterson. I’ve probably read all of his and Patricia Cornwall’s.

The part I find so refreshing is how real the answer sounds.  It doesn’t come off like some PR-packaged response that was first tested in a research group.  In this feature in People, the actors frequently say things like, “I re-read my James Joyce collection every week or so.”  Now, not to put down actors or James Joyce, or to question the combination of the two, but you see a James Joyce type answer enough times and it’s hard not to be skeptical.  Maybe all of Hollywood does read Joyce exclusively, but I’m thinking probably not. I’m betting people read across genres and that some read popular fiction, though it would be hard to get that from reading this feature on a regular basis.

So, congrats to Octavia Spencer for her awards and for not being afraid to tell the truth when she answers a question about the books she reads.  I’m guessing she doesn’t feel any guilt either.