Photo by MILKOVÍ on Unsplash

Happy New Year, PubCrawlers! I know this last year was tough on most of us, so here’s to keeping the faith that 2021 will be better!

Are you the type to set resolutions? Personally, I’m a goal junkie. I’m always focused on that next hill I want to climb. (I honestly get a real rush from crossing things off a list. It’s a thing I find a lot of writers have in common. I’m sure some of you know what I mean!)  Because I enjoy working toward goals, I always have a few resolutions as we kick off a new year. Here are three I want to focus on in 2021:

• More words per day. Some writers focus on this metric more than others. For me, word count is important. It keeps me on track. When I’m struggling, my word count per day goes down. It’s the first indication that something’s wrong and needs to be adjusted. When a manuscript I’m working on starts to go astray—either because the main character is not quite right or the pacing is lagging or whatever the reason might be—I unconsciously slow my progress. If I let myself slide and don’t address the problem right away, I can get farther and farther off track. In the new year, I want to work harder at maintaining my daily word count goal, and run some diagnostics on the manuscript right away when it starts to lag.

• Silence (or at least quiet down) my inner critic. Before I published Ivory and Bone, I’d written three other books, so when I&B came out, I had four completed manuscripts under my belt. All of them were written without ever thinking about what someone might have to say about them. Now, I find myself thinking about reader reaction as I write. That’s a privilege, right? It comes with being published and having readers. But it can really dampen my creativity. In 2021, I want to silence that voice in my head, at least until the first draft is down.

• Share more of myself with my readers. If you know me in real life, you know I’m a talker. Most of my friends are a bit surprised when I say I’m introverted. That’s because there’s a huge difference between talking and talking about yourself. I’m naturally private, but the truth is, readers like to know about an author’s writing life, especially the struggles they’ve had to overcome. Other writers, like the community here on PubCrawl, naturally want to hear those stories. We all struggle, and I think it’s empowering to know we’re not alone in that. So expect more of that from me this year! I’m hoping to post here on PubCrawl regularly this year, as well as on my author Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, and my author newsletter. (You can sign up for my newsletter here: http://www.julieeshbaugh.com/)

So again, Happy New Year, fellow writers! May 2021 be a happy, healthy, and productive year for us all! If you would like to share your own writing resolutions in the comments, please do! I’d love to hear what you are working on!

Without beating around the bush, let’s get to the age old question that has been often asked and answered to death – do you need an English or creative writing degree to become a writer?

Almost every published writer would be quick to say no. Your parents will probably be happy to hear that too, and you can focus your roughly four years of college on something more “marketable.” After all, in this economy, who can take the chance?

And to a certain extent it is indeed true that you do not have to be an English major in college or go to an MFA Program to become a successful writer. Many established writers have been astrophysics majors and have gone to law college before writing our favorite books. In a world where we are constantly encouraged to double major and do multiple things for a truly interdisciplinary curriculum (which has diabolic capitalistic motives, but that’s for another day), it may seem wise to not focus on something so particular as creative writing. On the other hand, there is the whole idea that writing can never be taught in the traditional sense, and that you just read and write enough until you develop the skills through trial and error.

But it is also a take that is very centered around the belief that writers are equipped with enough resources to just…start writing. I am an international student in an American university studying English and Creative Writing. Growing up in my high school in Sri Lanka, I was taught English as a purely functional language. It took me college classes to actually learn some key structural, linguistic, and formal elements of storytelling. Yes of course, writing is a talent and a passion that cannot be taught in the way that a science class is taught, but creative writing classes cultivate the setting and provide the opportunity to truly challenge and learn the depths of your own writing and voice.

Creative Writing classes break down the essential writings about writing and create a workshop setting that encourages and challenges writers to give and take (and sometimes not to take) feedback. You learn how to write from everything you read, and the access to selected and personalized readings is an invaluable privilege. Personally, my creative writing classes have been the push I have needed all my life, to let aside my fears and actually open up my writings to be read by other people.

And there are so many little things that are inherent products of academic settings. Having to work on strict deadlines have shaped my writing discipline – and pace to be honest – and has given me the chance of valuable mentorship. At the University of Iowa – which is where I go – I have attended very niche writing classes that has introduced me to genres and writing styles that I would have never attempted otherwise. (I had to write a body horror piece for a class that terrified me of myself and my mind, and am currently taking a class on biographical fiction, that honestly teaches me something new in every session)

Now I am not ignorant of the privilege that I do have in the opportunity to take these classes all the way in another country – and so many writers like me around the world have been struggling with the very lack of resources and encouragement that is often taken for granted in American high schools and colleges. What I am trying to insinuate rather is that discounting the wealth of knowledge and exclusive benefits of creative writing classes is actually fostering the myth that writing is easy. Flash news, it’s not. If it is indeed easy, then it might be time to take a look back at your academic settings and trainings and then realize that you might have had privileges that not a lot of people have around the world.

Creative Writing classes are amazing, and I would recommend one take as many as you can without hesitation. But I also believe that a lot of these exercises, settings, and workshop experiences should be truly normalized across curriculums, or at least made more accessible to aspiring writers, before being discounted so easily as unnecessary.

Mishma Nixon is a reader, writer, and book blogger originally from Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is currently a junior studying English and Creative Writing at the University of Iowa, and her interests lie in diversity in children’s literature, and elements of postcolonial and transnational experience in kid lit. When she’s not reading and writing, she loves to watch sad movies, drink an unhealthy amount of tea, and binge her favorite sitcoms. You can check out her blog here, and follow her on twitter @chasingfaes.

Okay fellow writers, time to go out and build a fanbase from the ground up in order to catch people’s attention and get published! Except, you don’t have anything published yet, so how exactly are you supposed to build a fanbase?

Hmmm….

I know what you’re thinking, writing is hard enough without the pressure to build a platform. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that these days, not only are we required to improve our craft as much as possible, we are meant to be out there building up a platform…somehow.

Thankfully, there are websites out there that let you do both.

Years ago, a writing friend told me all about the site she’d just discovered, something called Wattpad. She told me how she updated chapters weekly and how she had hundreds of people reading along and commenting each time she updated. At the time, I had to admit to myself that the idea of someone reading what I wrote was actually really scary. But she said everyone on the platform was supportive, and that she’d been having a blast writing new updates to her stories, and I thought it sounded fun.

So in 2011—nearly a decade ago!—I signed up and started posting a new chapter every Wednesday. Slowly, ever so slowly, the number of readers began to go up, and up. Today, in 2020, I have over 100k followers on the platform. Wattpad has been with me through every up and down of the publishing industry. I have used it to get feedback, make friends with other writers, and discover readers who love my work.

There are quite a few websites out there where you can post your work and gain a platform before publication, and if this is something that appeals to you, here are a few things to consider.

Don’t expect instant results

It takes time for people to find you. Use this time to perfect your craft, and to connect with other writers on the platform. Read as much as you can. If you’re on a website like Wattpad, you may find other published writers, like Beth Revis, have uploaded helpful novellas of writing advice. Explore the site and read as much as you can.

In the meantime, make sure you are utilizing the site properly, post regularly, and at the best times for maximum engagement. Make your cover and blurb as eye-catching as possible. Learn how to write a hook and a compelling copy to describe your story. Pay attention to what you’re doing and how the numbers respond (you have analytics at your fingertips, use them!). In short, learn how to draw people in, and this will serve you well for the rest of your career.

Use the platform to improve your craft

Pay attention to replies. What are people saying about your writing, plot, characters? Sometimes the comments won’t be helpful, and sometimes you’ll find a thoughtful critique that hits home and improves your writing. Don’t be afraid to reach out to these people and make a connection. Help one another out. Make friends with fellow writers in order to swap critiques.

You can find beta readers this way, and mentors who will help you with your craft.

Give more than you take

Make sure to reply to every comment when you’re first starting out. Not only does that up the interaction on your story, but it engages your readers and makes them more likely to hit the “follow” button. Also, get out there and find other stories you love. Find ways to involve yourself in the community there, comment and share, give advice where you can, participate in contests and prompts, or trying running your own.

Learn to take the bad with the good

One of the most valuable things Wattpad gave me was learning what comments to pay attention to and which to ignore. When to recognize good advice, versus trolling. There are times when someone will comment because you have offended their ego in some way, or saying something nasty makes them feel good about themselves. And then there are times when you’ll realize that your own ego is getting in the way of learning something new about writing, and that you’ll have to chill out and take the advice in and find some way to apply it. Both things happen, learning to differentiate between them is very valuable.

Writing, often in real time, on a platform of millions, tends to expose you to every kind of critique imaginable. You learn fast, and then once you do publish, Goodreads doesn’t seem quite as daunting.

Make friends, not connections

Join an online writing platform in order to find fellow writers and make friends. Never set out with the intention of ‘making connections’. People aren’t stupid, they can tell when you’re hovering around like a shark scenting blood because you’ve marked them as some kind of “opportunity” instead of a human being. Don’t go into relationships demanding something. Yes, you do need people, you need your fellow writers now, to help you develop your craft, and you will need them later, when you’re struggling to get published, or when you do get published and get an absolutely blistering review from an online publication of one sort or something. You will lean on one another. You will cry to one another, and you will talk one another out of quitting multiple times over.

And yes, you will absolutely help one another. You will send their manuscript to your agent, or they will subtly mention you to their editor during a lunch. But that will happen because you are friends, and you have been through some serious crap together, not because you made a “connection”.

Find good writer friends and you can’t go wrong. Find good writer friends, and they may just save your sanity over the length of this whole “writing career” thing.

And lastly, don’t sweat the numbers

I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to watch the “reads” numbers, or the number of people who follow or “fan” you. A handful of hardcore fans are hugely valuable. Even if you only get ten dedicated fans, those fans are for life. They will buy every book you put out, they will hype you to their friends, they will message you and tell you how much they love your work and make a bad day into a good one.

When you first join a site like Wattpad it can be hard not to obsessively track reads, followers and votes, but try to remember you’re in this for other reasons. To improve your craft, to give back, to make friends. And if you do all that, it’s very likely you’ll collect a following of dedicated readers on the way.

E. Latimer is the author of the Young Adult fantasy novel WITCHES OF ASH AND RUIN (March 3, 2020; Hachette/Little, Brown) and a Middle Grade novel, THE STRANGE AND DEADLY PORTRAITS OF BRYONY GRAY (Tundra Books), which was nominated for the Red Maple Fiction Award. She lives with her partner in Victoria, British Columbia, and in her spare time, she makes silly vlogs with the Word Nerds about writing, and reads excessively. You can find her online at elatimer.com.

Julie: Thanks for being my guest today, Barbara! Can you start by sharing how you became a literary agent?

Barbara: Quite frankly, my husband announced one day in 2007 that it would be the perfect career for me, as my “two favorite things are reading and telling people what to do”. I mean, he wasn’t WRONG.

That being said, I then took the invaluable step of tapping every relationship I had in order to set up informational interviews with both editors and agents in order to feel out what side I would gravitate towards. It became very apparent very quickly that my education and skill set fit ideally into the agenting side. I then decided to pursue female owned literary agencies which represented genres I was personally interested in. When Irene Goodman reached out to me for a job interview, that was the crack in the door that I shoved my entire weight against…and I exploded through that door nearly 13 years ago and the rest is history.

Julie: FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK is based on a column you’ve been writing for Writers Digest magazine for many years. How has the publishing industry changed over the course of time you’ve been writing the column?

Barbara: Ah! This is a great question, there are so many things that have changed for ALL of us over the last 7 years, amirite?!? However a key fulcrum from which I enjoyed watching the industry pivot was when the door opened wide on e books and self publishing. It has been such an exciting time to see all of the different ways artists are getting to reach their audiences and I continue to see growth and enthusiasm in these areas all the time. The questions I received at the magazine reflected this influx clearly and it was fabulous watching how the industry flexed and expanded against that backdrop.

Julie: What inspired you to translate your column into book form?   

Barbara: Honestly, it was casual- a conversation over a couple of beers with my previous editor, the extraordinarily talented Tyler Moss.  I have been so lucky to work with a slew of editors over the years like Jessica Strawser (now my client!) and Tyler and now Ericka McIntyre and Cassandra Lipp, so I had a solid foundation of work to build from. With the deft hand of book editor Amy Jones, the work started to take a clear shape and form- which was wonderful as I ended up delivering the book in October of 2019…for a publication date in January 2020! All of the things I used to yell at my clients about time management came right back around to nibble my hindquarters, but we got it done.  My hope is that FYSA becomes another tool in the writer’s shed for folks to help demystify the publishing experience, and to continue to encourage authors to step into their storytelling with confidence and find that publishing path.

Julie: Thank you Barbara! I personally feel confident FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK will become one of those must-own books for aspiring and emerging writers! 

PubCrawlers, If you’d like a peek at the what’s inside the book, here’s an excerpt:

Dear FYSA,

Someone in my writers’ group is at the same publisher as I am. We write in similar genres, we are about to have our third books published. Lately she is passive aggressively making comparisons about our careers, her advance, what the publisher is doing for me versus what they are doing for her, and it is causing tension in the group. And also, secretly, why I am writing to you? It is working. I am starting to feel like she is getting the best of everything. What do I do?

Sincerely,

She’s Under My Skin

Dear Skinny,

[Opens bottom desk drawer.]  [Bends down out of sight.]  [Straightens up.] [Expressionless, presses air horn in an ear-shattering bray.] [Bends down.] [Straightens up.] [Places megaphone in front of mouth.]  [Slight feedback.]

“KEEP. YOUR. EYES. ON. YOUR. OWN. PAPER.”

Every story is different, right?  And careers themselves are stories. So why would any career be the same? Every single one of my authors has these days. Every. Single. One. Where someone is getting more of something, whether it is an advance or a marketing placement or publicity angle. Sometimes I get angry emails. Sometimes I get weepy phone calls. Sometimes both.

The world teaches us at a young age that there is only one first place in whatever we are competing in. However, that is just not the case in publishing. Someone can get an advance of $40K, earn it out in the first six months, and get five figure royalty checks for the next four years, while someone else got a six-figure advance and then … that was it.

Who is first place there?

Someone could hit the Times list first week of publication with twenty-three hundred copies sold and then drop off to 250 a week for a few months and then seventy-five copies a week the rest of the year, then vanish, while someone else could never hit the list, but sell fifty-two thousand copies in their first year.

Who is first place there?

Someone could get on the Today show and sell fifteen hundred books that day, someone else could speak at their sorority alumni event, sell four hundred copies, and then get asked to tour college campuses and speak at their house events and sell 250 copies per visit over fifteen visits.

Who is first place there?

Someone could have Barnes and Noble request four thousand copies of a special signed edition of their novel, and the publisher ends up shipping ten thousand total to all vendors, while someone else gets an initial order of two thousand copies from B&N, two book clubs of fourteen hundred each, three subscription boxes of 900 each, and an indie order of six thousand.

Who is first place there?

You are not going to get everything you want, not in life and certainly not in publishing. And I can 100 percent guarantee you she isn’t either. And—color yourself shocked—she might be exaggerating what she is getting. But even if she isn’t—you keep your eyes on your own paper. Tell your agent you feel needy and scared. Ask specific questions about things you’d like to see/have. Be prepared to hear, “You’re not there yet.” Or “The Publisher didn’t budget for that.” But at least you’ll get them out there.

And let’s be honest, anyone who is pass-agging at you is terrified of you for some reason. Next time she says something, what if you went totally bananas on her and just told your truth? “Gosh, it sounds like you are crushing it. It’s fun to have you ahead of the rest of us to pave the way. I still feel nervous sometimes. Can I ask you a few questions? Like, what is the one thing you still wish our publisher was doing for you? What is your one dream ‘get’?” Turn the conversation away from what she has and into a learning experience of what is still out there to get. That way you all can all scribble madly on your papers, too excited about what’s still out there to peep at anyone else’s.

From FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK by Barbara Poelle, published by Writer’s Digest Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Barbara Poelle

Barbara Poelle is Vice President at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, representing a variety of genres but focusing on suspense, thriller, upmarket and young adult fiction. Her book Funny You Should Ask: Mostly Serious Answers to Mostly Serious Questions about the Book Publishing Industry based on her Writer’s Digest column of the same name, arrives in bookstores Jan 14, 2020. You can visit her at funnyyoushouldaskbook.com or irenegoodman.com/barbara-poelle

Hello! I am doing a series that is all about revising books and I hope you’ll check out the other posts.

This is the fifth and final part of the series. You can find the first part here, the second part here, the third part here, and the fourth part here.

Last month, I talked about getting feedback from your team and fellow writers you trust. Today, I want to talk about what happens when you get published, enter the public eye, and start getting feedback… from everyone else!

This is the part I felt least ready for when I got my book deal, after hearing so many horror stories and cautionary tales from experienced author friends. Here’s a disclaimer: I can’t tell anyone else what to do. I don’t know you or your preferences, or how you prefer to handle reviews as an author. I have friends who avoid reading their reviews completely, and I also have friends who go and seek out all of their worst reviews on purpose because they want to know what people are saying.

For me, personally, I choose to never read reviews, whether they are good or bad. I never search for my name, I never search for my books, and I refuse to visit my works on Goodreads or Amazon or other retailer pages because allowing strangers’ voices to get inside my head hurts me and my ability to write. Even great reviews mess with me because the reader’s expectations will always differ with my plan and my vision for the book. Again, it is impossible to write a story that universally pleases the whole world, so I protect myself and avoid all of that.

Every time I talk about this, there’s always some condescending person who butts in to say, “Well, little lady, you need to toughen up. You shouldn’t have chosen this career if you can’t take constructive criticism.”

Here’s the fallacy in that: reviews online are not constructive criticism. Reviews are opinions that readers share with other readers to help them decide whether or not to read a book. Feedback from random strangers on the internet will not help me be a better writer, especially when I have a team of publishing professionals to help me with that. I can most certainly take constructive feedback, but I must limit it to the people I trust, otherwise I will be trying to listen to every single person in the world.

So, you do you. I will say that the number one rule that should apply to all of us is: Do not engage with reviewers online. By that, I mean attacking or arguing with them, trying to correct them, attempting to explain why they misunderstood, etc. Just don’t do it. Even if people tag me in a review or an Instagram post, I don’t read any of it. Sometimes I will say “Thank you for taking the time to read and review!” to show my appreciation, and then I move on.

As an author, I promise you will always be the bad guy if you engage negatively online. There’s an imbalance of power wherein you have protection and often greater visibility, and the reviewer does not. Also, it’s inappropriate to try to stifle someone’s opinion, no matter how much it hurts your ego. They have every right to think and speak however they like about your work because it doesn’t belong to you anymore. It’s theirs now, and that’s the deal we make when we get published.

Oh, and this is another thing that is up to you, but I prefer not to be readily available via email or DM. I used to have an email form on my website, but took it down after I experienced harassment, and since then I no longer engage with readers in private spaces. And anyway, I’m an adult who writes for young people and want to maintain professionalism and caution when it comes to interactions with the teens I value and respect. If any important communication comes up, it can go through my agent and publicist and they will discuss with me if necessary.

That’s it!

As I said, I’m not here to dictate how anyone writes, revises, or handles the public aspect of being an author. But I hope that this series will jump-start ideas about how you want to deal with both craft and the business side of writing, and give you a bit more insight into how one author thinks and handles her career.

Thanks so much for tuning in!

Hello! I am doing a series that is all about revising books and I hope you’ll check out the other posts.

This is the fourth part of the series. You can find the first part here, the second part here, and the third part here.

Today’s post is all about how to make the overwhelming revision process seem more manageable!

Last month, I discussed the importance of getting eyes on your work. I want to dig in a bit deeper with regard to feedback today. At writing workshops, I often get asked: “How do you know what advice to take and what to leave?” Learning how to receive constructive criticism, what to do with it, and which pieces of advice resonate (or don’t) with you can be tricky sometimes.

So here are a few reminders for you:

• Remember that this is YOUR book.  No one knows it like you do. No one understands the exact vision of this story that lives inside your head.
• Think of the feedback as suggestions meant to help your book improve.  Nobody should be telling you that you have to do something.
• You do not have to do anything you don’t want to do. In the end, if this book gets published, it is going to have YOUR name on it. So make sure that whatever edits you choose to do will turn it the story you want to tell.

All that said, I want to talk about the two extreme types of reactions to feedback.

#1: You are so defensive and stubborn that you refuse to listen to anyone.

I once taught a workshop where I was asked to critique the students’ writing samples. During the workshop, they each had the opportunity to sit down with me and ask questions about the critique. One person brought a list that refuted my entire critique, point for point. Every suggestion was challenged with “I don’t need to do that” or “That wasn’t what I was intending” or “The character seems unclear because I don’t explain them until page 250, so you’ll have to wait until then,” etc.

They didn’t want to even consider what I had suggested or listen to anything remotely constructive about their book. This was an instant red flag that told me this person was not ready to have an agent, let alone an editor.

It is going to be very hard to write a good book if you don’t want to hear anyone else’s ideas. I understand that even the kindest critique hurts sometimes, but refusing to consider it negates the benefit of having your work read by other eyes. So much of writing is a gut feeling. If you tend to be sensitive and defensive about critique, take a little time off to mull over the advice and see if it still doesn’t resonate with you afterward. It’s fine if it doesn’t, but at least you gave it a chance.

#2: You are so eager to please that you try to take every piece of feedback.

This is another red flag that would tell me someone wasn’t ready to get published. The #1 rule of writing is: you cannot make EVERYONE happy. There’s that saying: “You could be the sweetest, juiciest peach in the world, and somewhere out there will be somebody who hates peaches.” You will never, ever, EVER write a book that is universally loved, no matter how talented you are or how amazing the story is.

But you have to know your own worth. You have to be confident in your story and your vision because again, you know it best. Being a writer is all about balancing pride in your work while recognizing that you can always get better.

If you take every single piece of feedback, you will get confused and lose the heart of your story — not to mention, it’s virtually impossible to please everyone. I’ve gotten feedback from one agent that said “Your book needs more romance,” and feedback from another agent that said “Tone down the romance; that’s not your focus.” It would not be possible to take both of these pieces of advice.

Do not be afraid to admit that feedback doesn’t resonate with you, even if it is from an expert like an agent or an editor. They’re just people, too, and you know your book best. The same advice applies here: take a few days to let feedback sit and let your gut decide whether the suggestion rings true with you before you apply it.

Here is what I do when I get feedback, no matter who it’s from:

• I sleep on it. I take the time to step away from the book and the critique, and I let the comments sit. Sometimes I’ll give myself 24 hours, and in other cases, I’ll give myself a weekend or even a whole week.
• After the necessary time has passed, I make a list of everything the person pointed out. No emotions, no judgment, no defensiveness. It’s just a grocery list of the things they have suggested, from big to small.
• I look over each bullet point on that list, one by one, and ask myself three questions.
  • Do I agree with this suggestion?
  • Do I think this suggestion will make my story better?
  • How doable is this suggestion?
• Based on my answers to those questions, I decide what to do. Sometimes I flat out don’t agree with a comment, BUT I take a good, hard look at why the person said that. Maybe they missed my point because I didn’t explain it well enough or wrote unclearly. See if another fix can be applied, because there is always a reason for each piece of critique.

• I think about whether the suggestion is going to change my book COMPLETELY. Will I end up with a better product if I make that huge, rippling change? Or will I have a book I didn’t want to write in the first place?

Being deliberate and thoughtful about feedback, as well as keeping an open mind, will help you understand how people are reacting to your story. That’s what critique really is: a look into potential readers’ minds and what they’re thinking as they encounter different aspects of the book.

So, once you figure out what pieces of the critique resonate with you, what next? I like to break the book up into workable chunks: specifically, chapter by chapter, as I mentioned in the second post of this series on revision. What is helpful about getting multiple people to critique your work is you can see which chunks or sections have similar feedback. Are they all commenting “WOW!” on one particular scene, or are they all saying that it moves too slowly?

One good rule of thumb I use, if all my CPs are saying that one scene isn’t working for them, is asking myself:

• What is the point of this scene?
• What does this scene accomplish?
• Does this scene move the story forward?

Asking myself these questions helps me either pinpoint what needs to be fixed OR decide whether this scene needs to be in the book at all. (I know, it hurts!)

I hope these tips on taking feedback, applying constructive critique, and tightening up your book will help make the revision process seem more manageable!

This is the fourth post of a five-part series on revisions. Here’s the schedule for the remaining post:

Monday, December 16: In the Public Eye – I’m going to talk about handling feedback and reviews as an author and a public figure, and how to deal with your book being out there and all the opinions/viewpoints that ensue!

I’ve been a middle school teacher longer than I’ve been an author. While 2019 marks my debut year, it also marks my twentieth year teaching middle school literacy. Juggling these two careers is challenging, but I also benefit from the overlap between both roles. What I’ve learned being an author helps me teach writing better. And what I’ve learned as a teacher has made me a better writer. Some of the principles I use to write YA fiction, I learned from teaching and spending my days with young adults.

Young adults are in the early stages of figuring out who they want to be

These early stages of self-discovery have always been one of my favorite parts—and one of the most challenging parts—of teaching. Because while some teens have a clear vision of who they want to be, they struggle to be that person consistently. I keep this in the back of my head when I’m creating characters, especially when I consider “what a character wants” vs “what a character needs.” Those two ideals always conflict, especially during adolescence.  Another favorite activity involves filling in the following blanks: My main character is ___________ until _____________. “ Lia is strong until she gets near crowds and her past traumas overwhelm her.” Or “Lia is savvy until she can’t figure something out and her obsessive, reckless nature takes over.” Both exercises help me define my characters’ personalities and how they will react in challenging situations. Naturally, once I figure out their triggers, I love to push them to their limits. Obviously the journey of self-discovery can last a while. I turned forty-one this year, and I’ve finally figured out who I am. Still, there is something very appealing about creating characters in the beginning of it.

Young adults are often influenced by outside factors beyond their control

By the time a student arrives in my classroom at 8:30 a.m., their availability to engage and attend to my class has already been influenced by hundreds of factors. This is because their story begins before my first encounter with them as their teacher. Breakfast, for example, can have a dramatic impact on their frame of mind: whether they ate, with whom they ate, whether their company was in a cheery or foul mood during breakfast, whether they had to make their own breakfast, whether they had enough food in the cabinets to make breakfast. The list is endless. I love to consider this when my characters—especially my secondary characters—enter a scene. They are walking into that scene with a back story that began well before that scene takes place and often times with young adults, the external factors impacting their day or frame of mind are beyond their control. The decisions of adults in their lives—parents, guardians, teachers—play an influential role in YA stories. This allows writers to develop characterization through the teen’s reactions and attitudes to the limitations placed on them.

Young adults need and want exposure to dark topics handled responsibly

Many of my students over the years have faced dark challenges. Others have witnessed friends and loved ones battle them. I’ve seen so many of those teens turn to books and stories as a coping mechanism or a way to make sense of their own experiences. As authors, we have to keep those readers in mind. It’s our responsibility to write about dark topics with authenticity, but without the sensationalism or glorification of the topic. If you write about suicide, for example, you have to consider your audience. You will have teenagers reading it who have thought about suicide, attempted suicide, lost a loved one to suicide. Because of it, you have to consider what those readers will take away from your book.

Young adults tend to be both more reactive and more resilient than adults

Adolescent behavior often comes down to brain science. Teens are more likely to take risks and act impulsively because of brain development. But taking risks and impulsivity don’t have to be negative qualities. In fact, heightened risk-taking and impulsivity can develop a character’s heroic qualities as we often see in YA fiction. These qualities can also make for exciting, active characters, as long as it isn’t at the risk of intelligence or maturity. More brain science to consider while writing characters: the adolescent brain is also remarkably resilient. Recent studies have emphasized the importance of connections in fostering resiliency. The more a teen connects, the more resilience they demonstrate, especially after trauma. That makes your secondary characters pivotal in your main character’s arc.

Young adults need diverse stories told from authentic perspectives

As a teacher, I need stories to reflect the diversity in my classroom. I want students to see themselves represented and reflected on the page, and I’m so happy when I find strong books told from diverse perspectives that I can put on my shelves. That said, teens deserve authenticity. When my students choose books hoping to see themselves on the page, they feel the deepest connections with the characters who have been created by authors with similar experiences. Authors should tell the story they want to write without shying away from difficult topics. But authors also need to ask themselves if they are the right person to tell that story. I made sure when creating Lia that her struggles felt authentic because they reflected my own experiences with anxiety and PTSD. If readers see themselves on the page in my book, I want their connection to be valid and authentic.

Having both teaching and writing in my life gives me a heightened understanding of my students, my audience, and even my own children. While it can be chaotic, I find myself constantly learning and striving to be better because it’s what young adults deserve.

Kimberly Gabriel is the author of EVERY STOLEN BREATH (November 5, 2019; HarperCollins/Blink), a fast-paced and immersive Young Adult thriller that shows just how hard one girl–who is struggling with both her father’s death and debilitating asthma–will fight back, knowing that any breath might be her last. She started writing in fourth grade when she penned, bound, and gave away books of terrible poetry to family and teachers as holiday gifts. Today she is an English teacher in the suburbs of Chicago who still squanders all free minutes to write and uses it as the best scapegoat for her laundry avoidance issues. You can visit her at www.kimberlygabriel.com

It can be difficult to write about some things, and some of us are drawn to writing about difficult things, but that doesn’t mean we need to suffer for our art. Here are five things to remember when you decide to write something that, one way or another, evokes intense emotions.

Come up for air (or Netflix), but remember to go back in.

I write dark shit. An entire collection about loss and grief, and a novel about a polygamist commune that practices systemic child abuse. I had different personal stakes in each book, and some of my research into predominant polygamist cults would literally leave me nauseous and exhausted. There were times I just had to put it down, go on a walk, or take a night off and binge watch The Office. I would wait until I just couldn’t take it anymore, but I wish someone had told me to quit just before that point. Over time, I’ve learned to be more aware of how I am feeling as I research and write, and to leave it when I started getting to that point of utter despair, but not there yet. I think coming up for air before you are choking makes it less scary to dive back in the next day.

Remember your responsibility.

We live in a world that values compartmentalization (see: work/life balance). As if when I sit down to write, I am in a vacuum and only use my experiences and knowledge in a calculating way to better my craft. But I recently watched interviews with Ernest Gaines and Toni Morrison and was struck that they both talked about being acutely aware of their responsibility to real people, in both cases people from their past, when they wrote. Gaines has made it his personal mission to return to the plantation where he grew up and reclaim and care for the unmarked graves of his family. When writing about difficult topics, no matter what they be, think of this responsibility as a mooring. When I was writing about suicide, I thought of all my loved ones who have suffered dearly as a result of suicide. I wanted to represent their pain, but also the complexity of that kind of grief. When I was writing about polygamy, it was difficult in a different way. I wanted to reveal some of the potential for violence embedded into the religion, but I also wanted to show the characters not from a point of view of pity, but as people with agency who believed in their culture, like the people I met during my research—I felt to do otherwise would do an injustice to my subject. Staying focused on these real-world connections and experiences helped me when I would hit a difficult point in my writing.

Look to loved ones for their experience, and their support.

If you are writing nonfiction about an experience that others close to you shared, ask them about their experience too. They may have a totally different account than yours, reminding you that the truth is subjective, and everyone has their own version of what happened. Don’t look at this as a weakness, but rather an invitation to explore the complexity and polygonic nature of your subject. My husband and I have very different memories of our shared experience of his father’s suicide. None of them conflict, but they do point to appropriately different experiences. He was in the midst of the nightmare, and I was more a witness to it. Writing or thinking about the event or subject from different points of view might help you to understand it more. And talking with others gives you the opportunity to let them know you are diving into some difficult territory, and might need a little extra support.

Be aware of the effects of PTSD, so you can recognize them for what they are, and move through them.

After my father-in-law’s suicide, which was an event shrouded in mystery with many odd details, when I tried to explain to people what had happened my throat would literally close. As I talked, my inner monologue would say, “They don’t believe you.” It wasn’t until later when I read about trauma and writing that I learned how normal this experience is. And yet, I don’t think it’s a reason to quit writing. Instead, take breaths, take a walk. Think about writing sentence by sentence. When I finally wrote an essay about that experience, I wrote it in fragmented form, writing just one bit at a time. I would write just small concrete memories, one line at a time, over days. Later, I arranged them all in a way that to me felt like an accurate reflection of the experience. And then I hid it away for the longest time, until I was ready to enter into the dialogue that I knew the piece would start. It’s important to acknowledge that whatever your process is, however long it takes you, is fine.

Believe in the importance of what you are doing, and know that it might help others.

Ever since I read Beverly Clearly’s Ramona as a kid, I’ve believed in the value of the private readerly connection one can have with a text that is talking about that thing no one talks about. In my case, I wanted to write about grief and loss in terms that surpassed clichés and to uncover some of the nuances of the experience. I believed, and hope I’m right, that someday someone might read this book and feel a kinship with the sentiments it expresses and perhaps even feel less lonely in their own experiences. Similarly, I hope in writing about polygamy I draw attention not only to communities fraught with very real problems but also to the people whose lives are affected profoundly by their belief system. This hope that writing is a beacon in the night, or mechanism for change, acted as a buoy for me when the writing got tough.

I think all of the above are important, because it’s important to take care of yourself. But also I hope these tips give you courage to tackle that thing you’ve been avoiding writing about because writing difficult topics can in fact be a way to take care of yourself. Not shying away from something because it’s painful or challenging can be a way to turn something hard into something manageable, a way to create a narrative around a traumatic event (a story that you can live with), and even a conduit for healing.

Sadie Hoagland is the author of American Grief in Four Stages, a collection of stories that explore the inability of our culture to communicate grief, or sympathy, outside of cliché. Her novel, Strange Children, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. She has a PhD in fiction from the University of Utah and an MA in Creative Writing/Fiction from UC Davis. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alice Blue Review, The Black Herald, Mikrokosmos Journal, South Dakota Review, Sakura Review, Grist Journal, Oyez Review, Passages North, Five Points, The Fabulist, South Carolina Review and elsewhere. She is a former editor of Quarterly West, and currently teaches fiction at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she also lives with her family, and they do their best to eat beignets whenever they can. You can visit Sadie online at sadiehoagland.com.

Hello! I am doing a series that is all about revising books and I hope you’ll check out the other posts.

This is the third part of the series, and you can find the first part here and the second part here.

 
Welcome back! Today I’m going to be talking about how to get eyes on your work. To lead in, I’d like to share some realities of getting published:

• Your book no longer belongs to you.
• Almost anyone in the world can go online or into a store and buy it.
• Readers will bring their opinions, baggage, and life experiences to your book.
• Some may even read your book with the sole intention of not being happy with it, no matter what. This is what I believe the kids call “hate-reading.”

Can you do anything about this? No. The definition of traditional publishing is to lose control.

However, you do have one thing you can control, and that is to write the best possible book you can. I tell you with complete frankness that my debut, FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS, was the best book I could have written at that point in my life and career. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But knowing that I did the best I could made it easier to let go of the things I couldn’t control.

Revising and giving the world your best book is the only thing you can control.

In order to do that, you need to get other people’s eyes on your book. Here are a few different types of readers you may decide to seek:

• Critique partners (CPs): These are fellow writers with whom you exchange manuscripts. You read each other’s drafts and help each other out, and this will hopefully be a long-term relationship.
• Beta read: This is a person who reads your work, but an exchange isn’t necessarily expected. Generally, I think of these as readers you bring on when your book is VERY close to querying and/or submission.
• Expert read: This is an expert you hire (and pay a fee) if you’re writing about an experience that is not your own. For me, this is both mandatory and worthwhile. I don’t think anyone would dare write about a complicated medical procedure without getting a medical professional to read it for accuracy and authenticity, and it’s the same exact idea for someone else’s lived experience or culture.

I’m going to talk about CPs. To me, they are people who are going to hopefully stick around for the long term. I have had mine since my pre-agent days all the way up to now, with soon-to-be three published books under my belt, and these folks have truly helped me become a stronger writer.

What kind of CP should you get, you ask? Here is my take:

• This depends on your personality and experience level
• Find a CP you trust who knows you, your personality, and your preferences
• Some writers are more sensitive and need people who will point out what they did well and VERY gently tell them what they could do better
• Some writers have dragon skin and want the absolute brutally honest truth

I fall somewhere in the middle. I want my CPs to be completely honest with me when something is not working, but I feel it’s important for them to do it in a constructive way. Constructive criticism is given with an eye to helping you and your book get better, while destructive criticism is meant to tear you down, whether it’s jealousy or competition or something else. I have had many CPs over the course of my writing life, and have experienced both types.

Finding a CP is like making friends or falling in love; you want someone with whom you are compatible, someone who makes you better and builds you up. And as with friendship or love, this process can take time, and you will find some relationships that just don’t work. This is normal and okay.

Here are some basic guidelines for finding a CP:

• They should be at about the same experience level as you. It can be frustrating to swap manuscripts if you’re an advanced writer and your CP is just learning the basics of grammar. Likewise, it can be stressful if you’re just starting out as a writer and your CP is far ahead of you.
• They should have about the same ambition level as you. Some people just want to write and swap manuscripts for fun, with no serious eye on publishing. This is totally valid and okay! But there can be a disconnect if YOU are serious about getting an agent and a traditional book deal, because you’re looking for higher-level edits and someone to commiserate with. A CP who is on the same leg of the journey and understands what you’re going through is invaluable.
• They should be someone you trust. This comes with time. I’ve heard horror stories of CPs stealing stories, telling other people your secrets, and so on. I advise swapping a few chapters at most when starting out with a new person. Give them a trial before you commit fully.
• They should respect your preferences, whether you want kindness, brutal honesty, or something in between. Keep in mind how I differentiated constructive criticism from destructive. Your CPs and writer friends should always seek to help and build you up. There are people in whom publishing brings out the absolute worst, so be cautious. This takes time to find out, so take care who you entrust with your stories, your time, and your mental and emotional energy.

Now that we’ve covered all that, where might you find a CP or beta reader? You could try a number of different places:

• Social media: I’ve met so many of my closest writer friends and CPs on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and blogs. If you chat with someone and find yourselves to be like-minded, it could be the start of a great CP relationship! Exchange a few pages or chapters and see what happens.
• Online writing contests: I found a lot of my CPs through communities and contests like Pitch Wars and #PitMad. If you’re involved with either of those contests, look for folks who write in your age category and see if they’re up for swapping a few pages to start.
• Local writers’ and readers’ groups in your community: Check your local newspaper or the bulletin board at your local library or university for literary events. Attend them and meet fellow bookish people. There is sure to be at least a couple of other writers you might be able to swap projects with!
• Similarly, go to book festivals: Check out SCBWI, which has chapters in different parts of the U.S., and local book festivals. For Boston, off the top of my head, I can think of the Boston Book Festival and the Boston Teen Author Festival. See if there’s anything like that in your area and meet people when you’re in line for the same author or attending the same panel.

I hope this post helped shed insight onto the importance of finding CPs who can help you take your book to the next level!

This is the third post of a five-part series on revisions. Here’s the schedule for the remaining posts:

Friday, November 22: Making Edits Manageable – I’ll discuss what to do when you get your edit letter (and how that sense of fear and dread when you get it is NORMAL) and how to break it and your book up into chunks, to make the whole process a little bit more enjoyable for yourself in addition to being productive.

Monday, December 16: In the Public Eye – I’m going to talk about handling feedback and reviews as an author and a public figure, and how to deal with your book being out there and all the opinions/viewpoints that ensue!

Hope to see you in November!

Stock photo via Pexels

I talk about author websites on Twitter Dot Com fairly often (as do my rockstar friends Patrice Caldwell and Dahlia Adler, both of whom you should be following for brilliant advice), and for a good reason.

As someone who is involved in the industry as an agent, they’re so wildly important.

They serve as a landing page for you, as a writer. And down the line, when your book is out in the world, a personal author website allows librarians, booksellers, readers, conference organizers, reviewers… the list goes on, but a website basically lets everyone who is involved in making a book successful get to know you. They can check our your homebase. See what you’re all about.

Whenever I dig into this, I often hear from writers who don’t have a book out yet, and are wondering why they should have a website now. Is it necessary? If you don’t have anything to promote yet, why have a website up?

Well, there are a couple of reasons, especially if you’re writing non-fiction.

So let’s talk about building a personal website, for you, the soon-to-be-published author. This post is for those of you PRE-book. Maybe you’re out there querying, or preparing to do so. It’s a good idea to have a site ready now, and it’s a lot less complicated and work-intensive than you might think.

Fiction

Look, one thing that hangs up a lot of writers when trying to launch a personal website pre-book and pre-agent, is the idea that they don’t have anything to talk about yet.

Let’s relax on that front. Because even if blogging isn’t quite for you, having a personal website isn’t all about that. Nothing says it has to be an active page. It just has to be a present one, that showcases who you are.

If you don’t want to blog or create a whole community around who you are, that’s fine. You can keep the website simple with a handful of core things.

• About: Who are you, as a writer? As a person? Don’t overthink this. Just dish a little bit about you and your life outside of writing. My favorite author bios from querying authors don’t just dig into their books, but discuss fun little tidbits about their life. I have a cute dog. I play video games. I live here, I’ve traveled there. How do you introduce yourself to new friends? There’s your bio.
• Blog / Updates: This section isn’t for everyone. Not everybody wants to blog frequently, and you know what? That’s okay. But if you want to post from time to time about your writing process, what you’re ready, and the like… go for it! Just don’t feel like this is an absolute must.
• Contact Info & Social Links: Make it easy to get ahold of you, and to stay updated. Have a newsletter link (“but I don’t have anything to talk about yet” “YOU WILL!”), links to your social media platforms.

And there you go. That’s literally it. Your first author website can seriously just be a single page website if you want.

Examples? Sure.

Using Wayback Machine, I went to a few of my authors’ websites who are debuting next year, and pre-book, their websites were pretty simple. In fact, they’re still pretty simple, and that’s what makes them effective.

Adam Sass is the author of Surrender Your Sons (Flux), and his pre-book author website just had a nice landing page and a bio.

That’s it. Look how simple this is!

Under Adam’s books section he talked about what he was reading, even had a Goodreads library linked, and then later… he got to add his book. And look at that bio!

And let’s take a look at Mike Chen.

The author of Here and Now and Then (Mira) and the forthcoming A Beginning at the End (Mira) and some other fun upcoming books, Mike’s also a web designer! His playfully nerdy website showcased his personality in a fun way, and this was all long before his book.

Does your website have to be complex and designed like this? No, but it certainly gave me a fun introduction to Mike as a geek. Your site’s layout can be as simple as you need it to be, from an example like Adam’s, or clean and simple author sites like my own, or a writer like Nita Tyndall.

So there you go. Pre-book, pre-agent? A landing page that just tells us a little something about you, is an easy thing to put together, and doesn’t require that much.

Non-Fiction

Here’s where having that pre-published-book author website matters so much.

When you’re working on non-fiction, whether you’re writing on pop-culture, personal or critical essays, memoir, cookbooks, you name it… you want to show your platform in your pitch. Showcase that you’re the expert in whatever it is you’re writing. And while your personal website might not necessarily be part of your platform (unless you run a blog that pulls in tens of thousands of visits every week, or you’re a food blogger with your own dot com), what it does do is showcase that expertise in a single, easy-to-access location.

When your non-fiction query hits an agent’s inbox, we’re going to want to visit your personal website. And it’s there, that we should be able to find your clips and bio pretty easily. Working on a collection of essays? A pop-culture book? Awesome. Your homebase should showcase your work, in your bio and a roundup of your publications, to show off your expertise.

Sure, you’ll bring this up in your query letter, but having an easily accessible portal where someone who potentially wants to work with you can find your stuff, isn’t just good advice for pitching around a book. It’s good advice for anyone writing essays, articles, etc. period.

Look, I can ramble about this all I want, but I feel like examples are going to be a bit more helpful. Let’s check out a few author websites that showcase this well, from writers I’m lucky enough to work with.

And while these are published non-fiction authors, their websites are largely the same from when they were pre-book.

Brianne Hogan is the author of Friendship Signs (Adams Media), and when she sent a query my way, it was really easy to see her expertise as a non-fiction author right away on her website.

And you can still see that now.

Right away, on her website, under her writing section, she digs into her clips.

Right off the bat, we know Brianne has written for some huge places, like The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Elle, HelloGiggles, and more, and further down, she showcases those articles in an easy-to-click-through way.

Do you have to break down everything by category like this? No, but it sure looks nice! Remember, these are just examples of this being done well. It’s not a step by step guide for what you have to do.

Take Sam Slaughter’s website for example.

The author of Are You Afraid of the Dark Rum? (Andrews McMeel), Sam is an accomplished spirits writer, with clips published everywhere, from Thirsty to InsideHook to Chilled, he writes in all the places you’d want to see someone writing about cocktails to be.

And his clean, simple author website showcases that really easily. Nice and simple, in a long list that breaks down the outlets where he’s been published and some of the sample pieces. You can visit his website here, and check out that clips page here.

And the last example, is Mary Kenney. Mary’s a non-fiction author who you likely know from her work in video games. Right away on her splash page, she digs into who she is, and the website hands out details regarding her platform, clips, and credits in her industry.

Honestly, it’s pretty perfect, and the way she dished out everything about her credentials and platform is what helped me find her for whatever the secret thing we’re working on is.

So! Using those three examples, it’s pretty easy to see what a solid website looks like for the up-and-coming non-fiction author:

• Bio Page: All about you! Your bio, which talks about who you are as a writer and an expert in your category. “WRITER has written for X and Y, and can be seen featured on Z” and so forth. Sam, Brianne, and Mary all have great author bios, that you can check out via those links.
• Clips & Publications: A page that breaks down where your articles, essays, recipes, etc. have been published. You can check out Sam, Brianne, and Mary’s via those respective links, where they list all their pieces.
• Contact Info: A way to get in touch with you. Keep it simple. Your email address, and maybe dish your social media links. Make this easy to find.

While Sam, Mary, and Brianne all have extra links on their websites, to their books, press, different freelance services, advice, those three core pages are the most important.

No book yet? No problem. You’re writing non-fiction, so you already have the publishing credits. You should be showing them off.

In chatting with my friend Erik Hane (are you listening to Print Run, because you should be), he brought up how “having a website inherently makes you look more professional and together, all the more reason to have one before the book.”

Show you’re serious.

-#-

And there you have it.

Launching a personal website pre-book, is a great way to introduce potential agents and editors to who you are, and can easily be put together in a day or two.

Now go. Stop overthinking it, and get your launchpad ready.