In The Matrix, Neo is given the choice between two pills. The red will wake him up from the simulated world and bring him to the truth; the blue will allow him to keep dreaming his life away, forever entombed by blissful ignorance. 

About twenty years ago, by way of his book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield gave me the red pill, shattering my perception of the artistic world, and ultimately, destroying my life. 

As a product of the remarkable output of such tormented souls as Kurt Cobain, Tom Petty, Jerry Garcia, Hemingway, and Jackson Pollock, I came up with the flawed belief system that the truest art could only arrive during brief flashes of genius that surfaced during prolonged bouts of suffering. As a budding writer, I embraced the idea that I wasn’t tortured enough to create anything great—or great enough to create anything great—so I toiled in a state of wanting to create but unable to do so, at least not on a regular basis.

I’d tell people I was writing a book, but in truth, I was piddling. I was only putting pen to page when the muse danced with me, and that wasn’t that often. In my mind, that was because my suffering wasn’t exceptional enough. 

There are a lot of us out there “writing a book.” We might make such a claim at dinner parties. Perhaps we have a sincere intention. Maybe we’ve started the process and are mulling over titles or potential premises or even begun research. Or, we’ve actually begun and attacked the blank page.

Then there are writers who are completing books and moving on to the next.

For those in the first camp, listen closely. The latter group knows the secret. In The War of Art, Pressfield lays out what I believe is the most essential piece of advice for becoming a writer and, it turns out, the most dangerous. He writes:

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.” 

His basic message is: DO THE WORK.

I remember closing the book and thinking, Hold on. I don’t have to be hit with inspiration to write? I don’t have to live in this tortured place and wait till my tears are ready to twist into letters? …

After traditionally publishing three bestselling books, I’m often asked: How do I get published? My response is not often what inspiring writers want to hear. They want me to tell them exactly how to do that, give them a three, five, or even ten step answer, and once they’ve completed those steps. Bam! They will become a traditionally published author.

Of course, that’s not what I tell them. Because there’s no one way or guaranteed path to publishing. If there were, many of us would have followed those steps. Am I right?

So, how do I answer that question?

With the simplest answer I can give: Write a good book.

I love watching writers’ faces when I say this. I love watching how my response moves through them. Some frown. They frown because it’s not what they want to hear. Some look confused. Because they’re not sure how to decipher my meaning. Most laugh. They laugh because they think I’m being funny.

The truth is I’m being serious. I mean it. How can inspiring writers get published?

Write a good book.

Few ask me how to do that. If they did, I would explain to them that very few things in publishing are within their control. You can’t control if an editor acquires your book or if you land your dream agent. The only thing that an inspiring writer can control is the book they write, and that starts with a great idea.

I read once that most books die before the first word is written. Why?

The book idea sucks.

I know the word suck is a strong word to use here but let’s for a second define it. Merriam Webster defines sucks to be objectionable (undesirable) or inadequate (not good enough). So yeah, that’s the best word to use. I am a writer after all.

I asked my agent about what I read and she agreed. She told me that she rejects 97 out of 100 queries. Why?

The book ideas suck.

You can’t write a good book if your book idea is weak, she said. When I pressed her about this further, she told me that most books lack a strong hook. A good hook = a good book.

So, what’s a good hook? A hook is a compelling premise or “elevator pitch”—often a sentence, paragraph, or scene—designed to immediately grab the reader’s attention, create curiosity, and …

I do. At times I burn for one or another of those ways of writing. You’d think I’d be at peace with it after all these decades, but I tend to beat myself up over my process. Writing a book is extremely hard, and some part of me always thinks there must be an easier way.

A house is being built across the street from me. It’s a beautiful lot with a gap in the forest and dunes that opens directly onto the ocean, so I’ve been curious to see how they’ll orient the house for the best views. As I walked by yesterday, I saw the posts for what will be an expansive deck on the second floor. Good choice.

It’s taking a long time, this build, and I love watching the evolution. I grew up in suburban housing developments where houses were constantly being built, and I never tire of watching a house slowly become itself. This one has a modern mid-century appeal, with an angled roofline and many windows.

What I noticed this morning as I passed was one of the builders standing in the shell of the garage, examining something over the door. They’d just framed what looked like a covered walkway to the house—wise in this climate—and he was testing something with great concentration.

And I realized that his job and mine are very much the same. The project is enormous, but today’s job was simply to make sure this one thing was exactly right. Yesterday, it was pouring concrete footers and setting the posts for the deck. Tomorrow, who knows? It might be something I can’t see at all, but it matters to the eventual finished house.

The house and my novel are at almost exactly the same stage. The basic structure is there: the outline, the window shapes, a few doors. There’s still a lot to do, but I know what’s going on now, and I can see where all the rooms will go.

A novel is as complicated as a house, with dozens of systems that …

Did I feel manipulated? Yes. Will I have the same reaction the next time I hear that song, cliché as it has become? Probably.

I’m not such a sucker with prose. I remain dry eyed through at least ninety percent of the books I read. A few make me ugly cry; I’m looking at you, Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune and Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler.

I can usually keep the embers of my hyper-empathy banked enough to draw readers toward the warmth without singeing any eyebrows. For fifty pages, seventy pages, I can plug along in ‘Shelby mode’ as I build to an emotional turning point and then…

Sarah taps on her microphone.

In the arms of the angel…

It doesn’t happen every time, thankfully, but it does happen. If I’m lucky, it’s the original version of the song. If not, it’s the soulless instrumental version one might hear while on hold with an insurance company.

There’s a special kind of gut punch that comes after spending days, sometimes weeks, crafting a pivotal scene only to hear one of the following from a trusted beta reader:

• I’m not feeling this as deeply as I’d expect to.
• I see what you are trying to do, but something’s off.
• Pathos, pathos, pathos.

I’m sure many of you have been on the receiving end of at least one of these comments before. It’s frustrating to bleed all over the page only to be told you need to clean up the mess and cut deeper next time. It can be hard to know where to even start when feedback is vague. Here are some things to consider, and tips for moving forward.

I’m not feeling this as deeply as I’d expect to

This one is a doozy, especially if the scene includes a tragedy that should cause big emotions in anyone with a beating heart. The death of a spouse. A missing child. Walking in on …

They say publishing is a marathon, not a sprint? But what does that mean? When it comes to writing and publishing a book, everything feels like a sprint. Below are some of my tips for making the marathon less daunting.

DON’T STOP WRITING

Sitting down at the computer or in front of a notebook is both the hardest and easiest thing about writing. I know it can be hard when people are online posting the numbers they wrote that day. Often it’s in the thousands, and that is great for them. If you can put in a couple thousand words in a day, that is wonderful.

But it’s not always realistic.

Everyday life gets in the way, far more often than we want. It’s on those days that getting the thousand-plus words is impossible. But even putting in a few hundred words is just as important as those thousand-word days. So long as progress is made, it’s all that matters.

And it’s not just the writing that you can’t stop. It’s the books. Ask any author who has published more than twenty books what their secret is, and they will tell you it’s because they didn’t stop writing. When they were finished with one novel, they went on to the next, regardless of its publishing status. They keep going.

THE BOOK LAUNCH

Publishing a book is a huge undertaking. In the days and weeks leading up to that moment, there is a lot of anxiety, preparation, and a constant go-go-go to ensure everything is ready to launch properly.

When the day comes, you might get a congrats from your publishing team if you are traditionally published.

You’ll definitely get congratulated by your mother, regardless of whether or not you are independent or traditionally published.

And then…crickets.

My first two books debuted under the shadow of COVID. There were no launch parties, no in-person book signings. It was the age of sourdough bread and masking in isolation. I learned quickly that a book launch is all about what you make it.

My husband and I created a sort of ritual. We would show up to bookstores where my book was in stock and sign them, followed by a really nice dinner. Since I actually get to have book events with this launch, do you know what I did when the initial flurry of attention ended? I took a nap.…

Shannon Hale’s 2020 statement about first drafts and creativity has always made sense to me:

“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”

For the past two months, I have wanted to write about a specific issue that some of my recent reads have cracked open for me but I need more time to corral my unruly ideas. I can’t start building the sand castle of a meaningful post until I have finished shoveling, but the size of this particular sandbox keeps expanding. The bigger my sand pile grows, the more I realize that this castle deserves to be constructed with care. I don’t want to do a thoughtless or offhanded job of it, and so I beg your indulgence. Give me a pass on your expectations this month. I hope you will find it worthwhile next month.

More than that, help me write my next post. The topic of my interest is satire and #ownvoices. I know the hashtag is no longer in vogue, but I hope we all agree that we still need diverse books. In that context, when is it okay to make fun of groups of which the creator is not a part?

As an example, please consider Exhibit A: The Book of Mormon musical. Next month I’ll circle around to Exhibits B, C, and D.

The Book of Mormon, a musical satire, has run for 15 years on Broadway and has had sold-out runs in many other markets, including multiple times in Salt Lake City. When I was in London several years ago, adverts were plastered on all the city buses, and tickets were sold out for the dates I was in town. I finally saw it myself about four years ago. I laughed, hard. I also cringed, a lot. Despite my personal desire to be open-minded, despite my determination not to be offended by strong language, I was a little shocked and a lot uncomfortable during a song that consisted of a group of African villagers singing “F— God” to Mormon missionaries.

The shock and discomfort was the point. Satire uses exaggeration and ridicule to draw attention to something that deserves critique. A classic example is Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” a 1729 essay in which he appears to make the case for Irish parents, …

Please welcome multi-published author Denny S. Bryce as our guest today! Denny reached out recently eager to share what she’d discovered about story architecture versus story structure–and if that doesn’t sound like a Writer Unboxed article, we don’t know what does!

Denny is the bestselling, award-winning author of six novels, including her latest–WHERE THE FALSE GODS DWELL. She is also an NPR book critic, an adjunct professor at Drexel University, and a freelance writer who has written for Harper’s Bazaar and USA Today. A member of the Historical Novel Society, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Tall Poppy Writers, she explores themes of love, family, resilience, and the complexities of identity, as well as issues of race, class, and gender. Currently residing in Savannah, Georgia, she is an avid fan of genre television, dance (in all its forms), and a variety of music styles, including jazz, R&B, and classical. You can learn more about her and her work at www.dennysbryce.com.

Without further ado–let’s rethink how to build a story. Welcome, Denny!

Think of this article as me preparing for my Netflix documentary about how I discovered story architecture…

I had written 70,000 words in chronological order. My dirty first and second drafts started in one decade and ended several decades later. I loved the story, the main characters, and their journeys together and apart.

The scenes worked. The chapters intrigued. The characters were compelling. So much good, but something big wasn’t working. What could I do?

Now, a confession…I am a plotter. I adore outlines, Excel spreadsheets, Aeon Timeline, scene cards, and Scrivener. I live for plot structure. My best writing buddies are inciting incidents, midpoints, black moments, climaxes, and resolutions. Still, my manuscript was screaming at me—something was missing.

And it was not about rewriting. I had to reimagine how to tell this story.

Here’s what I already knew: plot structure is the chain of cause and effect, or what happens. But architecture is how the novel is built. Or let’s take it a step further. Plot answers one question: What happens next? Architecture answers another: When should readers experience each part of what happens?

You might say, “Duh.” But I got excited.

So I said, “Okay.”

Now, if my book is a building, it requires architectural design, the creative and technical process of planning, sketching, and developing the layout, form, and functionality of physical structures.

Contrast that with story…

In my world, however, the to-do list is in over-drive.

As the finance controller for an affordable housing non-profit with a fiscal year-end of June 30, I am effectively chained to my desk from June 1 through August 31. The board wants to see year-end financials. State and federal grantors clamor for their annual reports. And it’s fiscal audit time. As you read this, I’m working to complete nearly 200 reports and spreadsheets the auditors request during the frantic weeks of mid-July to late August.

Mine is a vocational path that has seen a dizzying number of twists and turns since my first W-2 employment in 1985 when I donned a brown polyester Dairy Queen uniform. Years spent traveling the world, first as an English teacher, then developing study abroad programs for university students before pivoting to the wine industry. The coolest title I had was Cellarmaster when I managed the wine collection of a historic resort. Now, without any formal training in accounting, I’m navigating a $14 million budget, becoming well-versed in restricted assets, ground leases, new market tax credits, and mortgage discounting.

Without belaboring the profoundly obvious, work is a central component of our lives. We dream, train, we educate ourselves—often emerging tens of thousands of dollars in debt—all in service of answering the question: “What do you do?” (shorthand for “How do you spend most of your waking hours, day in and day out, for fifty-plus years?”). Work defines our social lives, dictates our financial stability, and reflects our core values or family history. It determines where we land on the sociocultural strata, how we spend our leisure time, or if we have any leisure time at all. If we are fortunate in our choices and opportunities, we spend that time doing something that stimulates, challenges, and fulfills us, at least some of the time.

Given the central role day jobs play in our lives off the page, what about our characters’ lives?

Consider how these novels transform a character’s job into a major plot element:

• Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air reveals the existential crisis of a rootless “career transition consultant”—the man corporate executives hire to carry out mass firings. The closer he gets to his

We’re delighted to bring you an advance look at the newest book from WU contributor Diana Giovinazzo. DAUGHTERS OF NAPLES releases this coming Tuesday, July 21st, and is receiving some wonderful advance praise, like:

“Richly detailed and full of danger and suspense . . . deftly depicts sisterly dynamics and movingly portrays the courage of women fighting for their families and their homeland.”—Library Journal

Ready to hear more? Here’s Diana!

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

DG: It’s the story of three sisters: Leta, Marcella, and Bianca who while living in fascist Italy, get caught up in the events leading up to the infamous Four Days of Naples. An event where the people of Naples rose up and pushed the Nazis out of their city.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

DG: At the heart of this book, it’s a story about sisters and the hard decisions people have to make in the middle of a war.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

DG: Each of the sisters have their own journey:

Leta, the eldest has to learn that she can’t control everything. Her sisters are adults who can make their own mistakes.

Marcella, the middle sister, has to gain confidence in who she is as a person apart from what others expect from her. She can’t always be the peacekeeper.

And finally, the youngest, Bianca. Her ideals can only get her so far, particularly when the real world settles in. Life can’t always be black and white.

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

DG: This was the first novel that I have written that was based on a specific event, so there was a lot more freedom to create a narrative all my own. It was at times scary, and other times, it felt like I was no longer tethered to a leash.

Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

DG: For me, I think the most rewarding aspect is proving to myself that I am not a one trick pony. That I am able to successfully grow my writing.

Congratulations on your new book, Diana! Thank you for sharing this intriguing sneak-peek.

WU Community, you can learn more about Diana and her new novel on …