The Magic of DOON & The Booksellers

I’m old enough (young enough?) that when I was little, I saw Disney princess movies in the theatre. I remember loving Ariel but being terrified of Ursula. I remember dreaming of having a library like the Beast’s and of visiting a quaint little French village like Belle’s. I have loved The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and fairy tales ever since.

Last week, a friend and I had tickets to see The Book of Mormon at the Aronoff Center in downtown Cincinnati. The show started at 7:30, we had dinner reservations for 5:30 at an elegant restaurant called Boca, and we arrived downtown around 4:30. With about an hour to spare, we decided to stop in The Booksellers of Fountain Square bookstore.

I’d been to The Booksellers once before prior to the Bengals playoff game against the Chargers. I had an extra hour that day, too. I loved it the moment I stepped inside. The smell of coffee greeted me along with the comforting scent of new books. The walls were painted a soft green and the shelves were chocolate brown. I wandered through until I reached the YA section near the back. This is the first place I took my friend last week. 

We were looking for a specific YA book—the name of which is irrelevant at this point—when I spotted a different one. This one had a green cover, a dark-haired girl in a gorgeous red gown standing on a bridge and facing away from me, and a fairy tale castle nestled among mountains in the background. DOON by Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon. The cover was beautiful, but what also drew my attention was a small sticker in the bottom left corner of the book. The Booksellers of Fountain Square Autographed Copy the sticker said. I picked up the book. Inside, Carey Corp had signed her name and added the message Cross the bridge! That was enough for me. This book was mine. 

I showed the book to my friend because I knew she loved fairy tales—I’d once let her borrow ENCHANTED by Alethea Kontis and THE TREACHERY OF BEAUTIFUL THINGS by Ruth Long. Luckily, we didn’t have to fight over this signed copy because there were two more on the shelf. We each bought DOON before settling down with some coffee to wait for our Boca reservations. Boca was delicious and The Book of Mormon was hilarious, but the most important part of that evening was our discovery of DOON.

I finished DOON on Wednesday and the thing that strikes me most is that it’s about two American girls, best friends, who find an enchanted bridge that allows them to cross into the fairy tale kingdom called Doon. I’d like to say that my friend and I, two American girls, found an enchanted land that day last week, but what we really found was an enchanted bookstore and an enchanted book.

The closest I’ll ever get to Doon may be a high school trip to Scotland, but that doesn’t matter—I gave DOON a five star rating on Goodreads. I loved this book. It’s a fairy tale. It’s about best friends and handsome princes. It takes place in Scotland and Carey Corp and Lorie Langdon capture the Scottish accent so well that the word dinna will echo in my head for days. It’s about an evil witch, true love, danger, and happiness. Its end is both—spoiler alert—perfect and heartbreaking.

If you like fairy tales, YA, hot guys, or best friends, you should read DOON. You should also stop by The Booksellers (if you live in Cincinnati or are lucky enough to pass through) and see if you can find your own magic there. I, meanwhile, will dream of visiting Doon while I wait for DOON’s sequel.

Humor? Are you sure?

One of my critique partners and I have been slinging names at each other’s main characters for the last week or so. I called his MC an ass and he called mine a buzzkill. To be fair, I started it; to be honest, we’re both right. His MC is trying to be funny and charming, but comes off as a jerk. My MC is always brooding, dark and gloomy, and reminds me of Angel in Angel. Any Whedonites out there? Anyone remember how annoying Angel was? Or was that just me?

I helped my CP by pointing out where his MC went wrong and why it bothered me so much. He’s made changes since then and his character comes across better, though sometimes his humor and thoughts still border on ass-ish. I told him I like it this way. It makes me laugh, and that’s good thing.

As for my buzzkill MC, my CP suggested I add some humor. It’s funny that he said this. A Pitch Wars mentor told me she didn’t pick my MS because it didn’t have any humor in it; another of my CPs has a ton of humor in her MS; and, few days ago I finished reading Mindy McGinnis’s NOT A DROP TO DRINK and I remember she mentioned in her acknowledgments how one of her CPs helped her add emotional accessibility to her MC. That’s part of what my CP was trying to tell me—my MC wasn’t likeable as she was. She needed to have more depth, which will help readers connect to her and enjoy the story more. Therein lies my CP’s request for humor.

Problem is, I don’t do humor. Seriously. (Sorry about this adverb, CP!) For those of you that read my blog, have you laughed at anything I’ve written? I’m horrible at telling a joke—whenever I try, it falls flat and anyone listening stares at me. If I’m not trying to tell a joke but if I’m trying to be funny, my words come out tainted with sarcasm, which also kills the humor. Then there are the times when I don’t mean to tell a joke or be funny, but everyone laughs at me anyway even though I have no idea why.

I also have trouble getting into comedy on TV and in movies. There are very few comedy TV shows that I like because most of them just aren’t funny to me. The exceptions are The Big Bang Theory, Friends, and…well, I can’t come up with anything else off the top of my head. As for movies, a huge example is that I don’t find Will Farrell funny, which I think is a rare thing. The only movie I like him in is Stranger than Fiction, though I think this is more because of his interactions with Emma Thompson than because of his humor. Other than that, I don’t laugh at Will Farrell, not in Talladega Nights, not in Elf, not in The Anchorman. The same is true for a lot of comedic actors—Will Farrell’s just the first one that came to mind.

This isn’t to say no movies or TV shows are funny to me. My humor’s darker than average and I prefer serious subjects. Still, there’s no denying that there are entertaining lines in movies like Love Actually or The Avengers (Whedonites!) and in TV shows like The Vampire Diaries and (more for fellow Whedonites!) Firefly.

So maybe after all of this, you can see why when my CP told me to add humor to my book and main character I wanted to say, “Humor? Are you sure? Don’t you know me at all?” Thing is, he doesn’t really know me. We met online and we email back and forth, but we live hours apart so it’s not like we’ve ever met for drinks or anything.

Still, my CP has got a point. My MC needs to be more accessible. I’ve started to dig through my MS, searching for opportunities for something funny. I’m hoping that what I’m adding comes off as funny and not something awkward that doesn’t at least make readers smile. I’ve found several scenes that might work. I’ll find more. After, I’ll email my MS to the CP who pointed out this flaw, as well as to the one who excels at making her MC funny. And after that, my MS will be that much better and will have a better chance of catching agents’ attention.

Query Fear

I wrote in my last post (This Isn’t the End) that I’m giving up contests so that I can focus on querying. It’s a good call—I still believe that—but I’m hesitant to start sending out queries. It’s not that I don’t think my MS is ready. One of my CPs says over and over how excited she is for me to query because she thinks my MS is in a great place and she loves it. It’s not that I don’t know how to query. I’ve done that before with a different MS. It’s also not that I fear rejections. Again, I’ve queried before and I know how this works. So what’s the problem?

I’m scared to query.

I love my MS, my CP loves my MS, and it’s ready to be queried. The problem is I don’t know if agents will love my MS. It didn’t do well in contests, though I know those things are so subjective that they’re not representative of the way agents will react. Or is that not true? Agents are subjective, too. I’ve gotten rejections where the agent basically said my (other) MS wasn’t right for them. That doesn’t mean my MS was bad; it means they didn’t love it enough to represent it. Agents spend so much time with your MS that they have to be passionate about it. You have to find the right agent at the right time. So is there an agent out there who will be passionate about my MS like my CP is? I don’t know.

There’s only one way to find out, of course, and that’s querying. Still, I’m hesitant.

I’m also analytical and think far ahead—maybe too far ahead for my own good (though not far enough to be good at strategic games like chess). What if agents don’t like my MS? What then? There’s always the option to query again, but a lot of blog posts and online articles I’ve read state that this is an iffy option. Some agents don’t like to be queried an MS they’ve already rejected even if it’s been over a year and you’ve made significant changes. Not to mention that if they didn’t like it the first time but are amenable to querying again, what’s going to change their minds about it the second time?

If rejections happen—and yes, I know they will—and if I reach the point where no agents offer representation and if I decide against querying again, what’s my next option? Well, there’s the MS I queried this past fall. It needs a lot of revisions, including in the query and a new beginning (see my post Let’s NOT Start at the Very Beginning for more on that). I don’t know, once I’ve made changes, that agents would even recognize it from the first time around. So there’s that…except that I’d be querying again.

My other option? I start over. I write another MS. I have a file folder full of more story ideas, a few of which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I pick one and write it. I send it to my CPs and make revisions, I write a query and ask others to help me make it better, and then I query that MS. This option would take me at least a year, probably more. *headdesk* We writers use this phrase a lot on Twitter. It’s for embarrassment, for those hopeless days, for the feeling in your gut that you have to keep going no matter how much you don’t want to at that moment. Writing and prepping another MS is a ton of work and there’s no guarantee that it’d be worth it.

But I’ll say what I’ve said many times before—I want to be published. I’ll do what it takes. I’ll quash my query fear, I’ll query this MS, and I’ll see what happens. Then I’ll decide what comes next.

This Isn't the End

I hate cold. Any temperatures below fifty Fahrenheit and I want to either hibernate or fly south for the winter. It’s not surprising then that I’m not a fan of snow—it has to be cold to snow. Plus, in Cincinnati even a few snowflakes can mess up traffic so bad that it can take me two hours for the twenty-three miles from work to home. Let’s not forget that for the past three days my neighborhood’s roads have been covered in some kind of ice-snow amalgam that makes me slide at least once per trip. Sure, sliding’s fun the first two or three times, but after that it’s not so fun anymore.

This isn’t to say that I only have bad things to say about snow. Snow’s pretty when I can stay inside by our fire and cuddle up with a good book. It was also amazing a few summers ago to hike to the snowline on Mt. Rainier. Overall though, I wish snow were something that happened at warmer temperatures.

If I’m not fond of cold, winter, and snow, you’d think I’d be all for summer sun. You’re partly right—I do love when it’s warm out. There’s nothing more satisfying on a summer’s night than to sit on our desk and watch the sun set or to go to a Reds game and not have to worry about how many layers I should take. Still, my relationship with the sun is tenuous. I’m fair-skinned so I burn easily. One time in Ireland, when I was on the Aran Islands and it was sunny, I smeared on some stick sunblock. Turns out, I didn’t rub it in right, so I ended up looking like a red and white zebra. Embarrassing at best. I hated the sun for a week.

Yes, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m ranting about sun and snow. Truth is, I found out this morning that I didn’t make it into Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood’s Sun vs. Snow contest. I’d like to blame it on the fact that I’m not overly fond of sun or snow—but we all know that had nothing to do with it. My MS just wasn’t right for them or the contest. It’s subjective, I know, but that doesn’t make me feel much better. I want to ask why they didn’t pick me. I want to know what’s wrong with what I wrote. The answer could be there’s nothing wrong—it just wasn’t what they wanted. Still, it’s getting hard to believe that. It doesn’t help to see the success of writer friends. (See my post from last December called The Hard Stuff for more on this.) All I keep thinking is lyrics to Bon Iver’s Holocene, which I had on repeat this morning. I was not magnificent.

There’s an upside to Holocene, however. I can’t begin to tell you what the song might actually mean—poetry and me, we don’t get along so well—but other lyrics are I could see for miles, miles, miles. I feel a positive connotation when he sings these words. That helps keep the hope alive.

Hope is so important for me in this process. I renamed my blog a few weeks ago to include the words hope and grit because I don’t think I could make it through this without them. Hope is what keeps me entering contests and thinking that someday my dream will happen. Grit is my determination to keep moving forward, to learn from everything I experience, and to never give up, not until I get a book published. After all, a girl’s gotta have a goal, even if it’s a longshot at best.

Right, so, what now? I ask myself this after every contest. What currently helps with my hope is an email I got on Tuesday. It made my day—though that’s all the details you’re getting unless you’re one of my CPs. What helps with my grit is that losing this contest isn’t the end. I haven’t begun to query my MS, but I’m thinking it’s about time for that, or at least time to stop with contests and start serious preparations for querying.

So I’m thinking I’ll start Lent a little early this year and give up contests. I’ll cheer on my writer friends who made these recent ones and hope for their success. I’ll hunker down and keep at it, just not through contests, not for now.

Lucky Number JEIL1TZZ

As you know, I like to reflect on contests after they're over. On a whim last Monday, I sent my first 250 words to the Authoress's January Secret Agent contest. The winners were revealed yesterday afternoon...so here's my reflection:

The contest was simple. The number of entries was unlimited and the fifty winners would be drawn by a bot, ensuring no human bias (or work) in the selection. The secret agent, the rules also said, was interested in historical fiction, historical romance, and all genres of YA. I had a feeling the secret agent would be more selective than any genre of YA, but that didn’t mean he/she wouldn’t want mine. There was no way to know how many other people would submit and the rules were clear that I could only submit once (at least for awhile, anyway). Still, I was waiting for Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood’s Sun vs. Snow contest. No harm could come from entering, so I did.

Moments after sending my entry, I received an automated response from the Authoress’s email telling me that JEIL1TZZ was my lucky number.

Later that night, the contest winners were posted on the Authoress’s blog. I started scanning the list, searching for that key J at the beginning of my lucky number. No such luck, I thought as I read down the list—until a few from the bottom. There was number JEIL1TZZ. I was more stunned than anything.

By Wednesday, my first 250 words were on the Authoress’s blog for anyone to read. Let me repeat that because, wow. MY FIRST 250 WORDS WERE ON THE AUTHORESS’S BLOG FOR ANYONE TO READ. I’d entered a contest, made it past the first round, and now my words were on the web. Again, wow.

As a part of getting into the contest, I had to comment on at least five entries. Since I’d submitted in YA sci-fi, I searched the list for those first, seeking out the ones that were somewhat similar to mine. I treated those first, precious words like they belonged to one of my CPs and told them what I liked and what I thought might need some revision. Other writers did the same for mine.

Then came the waiting. The contest was vague about a lot of things, one of which was how long until the secret agent would pop by and review the entries. I figured that wouldn’t be until the weekend. Turns out, I was right.

The secret agent’s identity—Taylor Haggerty—was revealed yesterday morning with a promise of winners to soon follow. I didn’t need to see the list of winners to know my entry wouldn’t be among them. Ms. Haggerty’s short bio mentioned that she was looking for historical fantasy, friendship stories, and contemporary with unique settings. My MS fit none of those. True enough, when the winners were posted yesterday afternoon, my entry was not among them.

While it would have been nice to be chosen, it’s hard to be disappointed when you know your MS wasn’t what the agent wanted. That’s the thing about a secret agent contest—you never know what the agent’s interests are. At least when querying you know you’re sending your MS to an agent that wants your genre. That increases your chances of success.

So, no worries. I’m pressing on. I’m taking the comments from my fellow winners and changing the necessary things. I’ve entered my MS for the Sun vs. Snow contest. Even more, I’m looking forward to the days when I will query.

I'm the mouse & that's my cookie (strawberry?)

I’m dashing this post off in a few minutes because—as you’ll soon understand—I have THINGS TO DO.
 

Confession: I have a problem. I need a group like the AA where I can go, sit in a chair circle, and say, “I’m Tracy. I’m addicted to books.” I can picture everyone rolling their eyes, but that’s how I feel right now. Let me explain. I’d lean forward in my chair and say, “It all started back when….” I’d tell about this PB called The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood. It’s about this mouse that would do anything for a strawberry but is terrified that this bear will get to it first. It’s the first book I ever loved and I’ve loved a great many since, I’d say.

Okay, okay, this AA thing may be a little over the top. Let’s go with something simpler, like the PB If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff. Are you familiar with this book? If not, go read it now. It’ll take you, like, ten minutes. I haven’t read it in years, but I remember the gist. You give a mouse a cookie and that mouse is going to want ALL THE THINGS. This is me and books. I start and I don’t want to stop until I’ve finished.
 

It’s bad enough that I have this problem with published books. It took me only a couple of days to read Elizabeth LaBan’s THE TRAGEDY PAPER. I finished it two days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. Yes, it’s that good. Read that one, too—though it’ll take you awhile longer than ten minutes.
 

I also have this problem with my CPs’ books. My first CP’s MS, I read it in one day, just twelve hours, a mini marathon over winter break. I liked it that much. I didn’t want to put it down, plus I was having a great time making comments to let her know what I was thinking, what I loved and what I thought she needed more of (like the MC’s hot crush). I’d read a few chapters before that day and she’d read a few of mine—we had to make sure we were right for each other—but when she sent me the full MS, I was in until I finished.
 

Know what? IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN. Yesterday I was reading a few chapters from another CP. I’d read a few before and had liked it, but what I read yesterday hooked me more. I was in and I wanted it all. I warned my CP that I had a habit of devouring books. I warned him what happened with my other CP. He didn’t mind, I guess, because within a few hours, his full MS was in my inbox. He gave me a cookie with those first few chapters and I wanted all the rest. My appetite for good books is insatiable.
 

The problem now? I have plans for today (part of why I’m dashing off this post as quickly as I can), but what I really want is to spend the day with my CP’s MS. I want to do what I did with that first MS and not stop until it’s over. But it’s not winter break. I don’t have a full day. I’m seeing my family today and then the next five days I have to make flavors. I feel like my CP has given me the cookie and offered me everything else, but all my other obligations are withholding that everything else, taunting me that I can’t go to the ball until I finish my chores. Too many analogies? How about one more? I feel like I’ve seen that red, ripe strawberry but the big hungry bear is about to get to it first. So I’m going to post this post, and then I’m going to do what I have to do so that later, if I’m lucky, I can read.

Acting Lessons

One of my CPs and I have been talking these last few days about how important all five senses are when writing. What we’ve learned so far? It’s hard for both of us to incorporate all senses in every scene. Since I started working for a flavor company, I’ve had less trouble with writing taste and smell—spending all day, every day learning what chemicals make what scent or flavor is like doing writing exercises for forty hours a week. But that’s just taste and smell. What about the other senses? My CP said I make it look so easy and natural. It may look that way, I assured her, but I still have to work at it.

Her comment got me thinking. How do I know how to write all five senses? I’ve already answered about taste and smell. But what about the others? From reading, obviously…but that’s not all. What else?
 

It was Cora Carmack’s awesome NA series LOSING IT, FAKING IT, and FINDING IT that answered the question for me. I read all three of these last week (and if you’re interested in NA, I highly recommend them). It took me awhile, but I eventually connected my CP’s question with Carmack’s novels. The MCs in these three novels were college students who met through their theatre classes. One reason I connected so well with these characters? I took theatre classes in high school.
 

I took so many theatre classes in high school that I lettered in theatre. You might be laughing at me and thinking, “Aren’t letters for sports? What high school gives out letters for theatre???” Mine. If you want proof, here’s a picture of my letter jacket:
 

I don’t remember the exact requirements for my letter, but I know I took at least one theatre class per year (probably per semester). I also was involved with most of my school’s productions, a play each fall and a musical each spring. If you want proof of this too, here’s a picture of me onstage (in The Curious Savage by John Patrick):

Yes, I know. I had bangs then. My bad hair, however, is not the point. The point is, I learned so much about writing from my theatre classes, plays, and musicals. I didn’t act in all of the plays and musicals—I student directed some and worked on the crew for a couple of others—but I spent a lot of time studying words, people, motivations, reactions, feelings.

The key thing to know about a script is that the lines are about all you get, aside from a basic scene setting and a few stage directions. There’s nothing in a script to tell you how to say each line, where to stand in relation to other characters, how to react to them, what your character is feeling. You have to figure these out—you have to create them on your own. Sometimes, our teacher or director would tell us these things, but most of the time we were on our own. Sometimes, we even had to write our own scripts.

So yes, I spent much of high school doing theatre. This is where I learned how to pay attention to every character in a scene. Any person onstage can be seen by the audience and therefore has to remain in character at all times.  Some characters have very few lines, but that doesn’t make them any less involved in the action than the characters that dominate the dialogue.
 

I didn’t realize this until my CP and I discussed the five senses, but when I write I picture the scene as though I’m sitting in the audience, watching my characters move around a stage. I know where each of them is. I can tell you what each of them is thinking and why they’re thinking it.  I know what they’re saying, what they’ll do next, and how they’ll react to what the others are saying and doing. As much as working for a flavor company has taught me about taste and smell, high school theatre classes taught me about see, hear, and feel. My writing today is better because of the things I learned through my acting classes years ago.

Let's NOT Start at the Very Beginning

Back in August when I took a Writer’s Digest agent one-on-one class, the agent reviewing my materials told me that I was starting my MS (FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE) in the wrong place. My writing was great, she said, but the beginning of my MS had to be where the beginning of the story was, which wasn’t necessarily at the beginning of the action. She called it the inciting incident. I understood what she meant—at least, I thought so at the time—and I took to revisions. I cut out the first 10K of my MS, starting the story in different setting, a different point in the MC’s journey. I felt comfortable with these revisions. I was sure the new beginning would hook an agent.

No such luck. If you want to know about my experiences querying, you can read my blog entries from last fall. In summary, I had some success, but not much. I got requests, but didn’t get an agent. I put FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE aside and picked up another MS instead (my completed WORLD’S EDGE, which I decided to contest and CP before querying). I couldn’t let FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE go, however. It bothered me that I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t had much success. I thought maybe it was my query, which I still think is true—although I know how to fix that now. Still, it wasn’t just that. The agents that wanted partial and full requests of my MS had obviously liked the query enough. So what was the problem? My writing?

Turns out, my writing wasn’t the problem, either. (Well, I don’t think so.) Turns out, I’d heard what my class one-on-one agent had told me, but I didn’t understand it. I didn’t nail the inciting incident and therefore my story still wasn’t starting in the right place. I know the right place now, and it’s because of my CPs.

Yes, I put FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE aside. No, my CPs aren’t reading that MS. They’re reading my other one, WORLD’S EDGE, the one I have yet to query, the one I hope will be THE ONE. So how did they help me with FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE? Two of my CPs had the exact same problem, though at the time I didn’t realize that. I just knew reading their first chapters that something wasn’t right. It took me longer than it should have to realize what was happening—they weren’t starting in the right place. Their stories were telling me things that I needed to know, things that were essential for future events, but they weren’t grabbing my attention and making me want to read more, more, more. I didn’t realize this was their problem—I didn’t connect it back to what I’d thought I’d learned in August—until a couple of days ago.

Saturday I read through the first five chapters of the MS of one of my CPs. During the first four chapters, I was loving her writing and her MC’s voice…but something was nagging me, telling me that something was missing. When I reached the fifth chapter and found what I’d been looking for—the inciting incident—I was so excited that I wanted to jump up and dance. I wanted to run to her and tell her I’d found it, that I knew what to do to make her MS better. I sent her a long email in which I told her how much I loved her writing, but that she was starting her MS in the wrong place. I told her that she could ask the other CPs in our group, but that if I was right, she was going to have to make a lot of revisions. I told her it would be worth it. I told her that I’d help her, read her revisions, and that all of this was a GOOD THING.

Even before I hit send, I was worried what she’d think when she read my email. Worse case scenarios started running through my head—I am a writer, after all. I’ve never met her, but I could picture her in tears, ripping up a printed copy of her MS and throwing it out the proverbial window, never to be touched again. Like I said, worst case scenarios. After I hit send, I freaked out and avoided my phone. I didn’t want to know what she thought.
But I couldn’t avoid my phone or her email forever. A couple hours later, the suspense was driving me crazy, so I opened her email. It was long and I couldn’t tell right off if that was good or bad. Her first words were hesitant…but then came her reaction. She was grateful, thrilled, and wanted to know if I would read her revisions. Where, she wanted to know, had I been before she started querying? And me? I was so relieved—and not just because she was okay with my suggestion.

It was about two thirds of the way through her email that I realized I needed to heed my own advice. I’d changed the beginning of FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, but it still wasn’t starting in the right place. I know where to start it now. Part of me wants to grab FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE and get on those revisions; however, most of me knows that I’m so busy with work, CP reading, and WORLD’S EDGE revisions, contests, etc. that I can’t go back to FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE right now. I have to focus on WORLD’ S EDGE, but I’ll keep FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE in mind, just in case WORLD’S EDGE things don’t go the way I want them to. I’m also taking what I’ve learned and looking closer at WORLD’S EDGE, hoping to do this one right.

What I’ve learned is that Maria in The Sound of Music is WRONG. The very beginning is NOT a very good place to start, not when you’re writing a novel that you want to get published. You have to start at the point in the story where everything that happens after is inevitable. You have to start at a point that will grab the reader and make them want to read every other page. You have to start your story where the story actually starts.

At #PitMad's End

After Pitch Wars, while getting wrapped up in working with my CPs, I forgot about #PitMad. Last Saturday, one of my CPs asked if I was doing the Twitter pitch party. I dug through Brenda Drake’s blog to find the details, thought about it for a couple of days, and decided…why not? So in about 36 hours, I prepped my pitches. Yesterday, I participated in #PitMad. Though it’s not exactly a contest like Baker’s Dozen or Pitch Wars, I still learned a few things from the experience.

Before I get to those things, I’d better tell you about #PitMad. I don’t want to confuse readers who aren’t also Twitter writers. #PitMad is short for Pitch Madness. It was yesterday from 8am to 8pm and only on Twitter. Within one tweet (140 characters or less, including the hashtag #PitMad and the MS’s genre) writers could pitch their book(s) to agents, editors, and publishers. Any agent, editor, or publisher who liked the pitch and wanted to see more could favorite the tweet. The writer could then email them their requested materials (query, synopsis, chapters) and then wait and see.

Because the pitch party lasted twelve hours, each writer could pitch their MS up to twice per hour. I decided to pitch every forty-five minutes. Then, I checked with other writers to see how many pitches they were going to use. Several writers suggested several pitches would be best, given that while one pitch might not catch an agent’s eye, another pitch (presenting the MS from a different angle) might. I decided to go with three pitches, alternating between them.

One thing I learned from this experience? PITCHES ARE HARD. It’s tough to squeeze something coherent that makes your book sound awesome into 140 characters or less. I struggled. I sent some versions to my CP and she sent me suggestions back. We repeated as necessary. In the end, these are the three pitches I used:

Hazel’s letting a parallel world destroy her so she can save her boyfriend’s roommate, with whom she may be falling in love. #PitMad YA SF

All Hazel wants is a normal teenage life, but a parallel world’s warping her reality & will kill her if she can’t find out why. #PitMad YA SF

Hazel’s going crazy—or wishes she was. Black beasts from a parallel world devoured Ethan and now they’re coming for her. #PitMad YA SF

I don’t know if these are great; I read so many that I loved on the feed that I have a hard time being constructive about mine. Still, they worked—I received two requests from small publishers and I’m thrilled. It’s one thing to play the game, but it’s another to see results. I’m still debating submitting to these publishers, mostly because I haven’t queried my MS yet and I’d like to first see how agents react to it. Even if I don’t submit to them now, I’ve made a note so that when the time’s right, I can submit to them later.

The love for my pitches didn’t end with publishers. Another part of #PitMad was that other people were welcome to retweet any pitches they liked. This, theoretically, made your pitch more visible to any agents, editors, or publishers looking at the feed—it increased your chances of success. The best part about yesterday? So many of my Twitter writer friends retweeted my pitches. Plus, I found new followers: they retweeted my pitches and I retweeted theirs. ALL THE TWITTER WRITER LOVE—it’s just another reason why Twitter is amazing. I’m so glad my CP encouraged me to participate in #PitMad yesterday. It’s another experience I can tuck under my belt or paste on my jacket like a Girl Scout badge. Every experience gets me one step closer to my goal, and that’s a good thing.

CP Love & Lessons

Back in November before we’d submitted our Pitch Wars contest entries, a Twitter writer friend asked if I’d look over her query and first few pages. She said I could also send her my materials. Together, we’d hopefully strengthen our pitches. From the first few sentences of her query, I was interested in her MS—partly because I had experience with the main plot of her story and partly because I liked her writing. Since then, we’ve been exchanging pieces of and eventually our full manuscripts, sending comments back and forth and making changes. Though we’ve never defined our relationship as such, we’re critique partners and she’s awesome. I love her MS.

When the Pitch Wars mentees were announced and I wasn’t one of them, I wrote a blog post saying (among other things) I wanted another critique partner. Another Twitter writer friend sent me a message and asked if I wanted to join her CP group. My answer was (of course) yes. We had a rough start with the holidays and this cold that seems to be spreading sicknesses faster than we can get over them, but our group now has at least five members, with the promise of a few more once Pitch Wars is over. We’ve traded our first chapters and are delving into our chapter twos. I love reading their stuff.

How much do I love everything my CPs are sending me? Well, more than I love my MS. Sure, yes, that sounds bad. Let me clarify. I love what I’ve written and I’m hoping this MS is THE ONE; however, I also love reading what other writers have written. I can tell them what I’m thinking as I read…whereas if you do this with published authors, you might just end up with a restraining order. I get to make comments and say I LOVE THIS for all these reasons or this might work better if you did this. I haven’t critiqued since my senior seminar in college. Back then, our professor had us print copies of our pages, we’d collect them from his office door, read them, and then discuss them around our tiny table at our next class. I liked it then too, but somehow I forgot about it in the intervening years. Now, I enjoy critiquing so much that I’d rather read what my CPs have written than work on my own MS. It’s FUN.

Why don’t I want to work on my MS? For starters, I feel like that’s much more work and far less fun. Also, as much as I want this MS to be THE ONE, what if I get it ready, start querying, and nothing comes of it? And then, of course, there’s the worry that when I read my CPs’ comments, they’ll say that my writing’s bad or that the story isn’t one that’ll sell (and an agent isn’t going to represent a book that won’t sell). Sure, yes, they won’t put it quite like that, but you get the idea. Overall, I’m more eager to help them than to help myself. When I have a few spare evening hours, I jump at the chance to read more of something my CPs wrote, all the while pretending not to see their emails to me.

Regardless, I need to make more time for my MS. This is the biggest thing I’ve learned since starting this CP experience. This lesson is so important to me that I want to write it in all caps (though then I fear it’s not as important to you readers and you’ll wonder why I shouted it at you). I need to get over my fears—or at least tuck them away in some dark corner where I can’t quite see them—and read my CPs’ comments. Even more, I need to remember why I need these CPs. Soon, with the help of these five(+) people, my MS will be even more awesome. My chances of getting an agent when I start querying will be far better than any chances I’ve had with the contests. And that’s another reason I love my CPs.

I HAVE TO READ!

My family didn’t believe me when I said I wanted books for Christmas. (Okay, honestly, I wanted an agent, but that wasn’t something anyone could buy me and my newest MS wasn’t ready pre-Christmas to submit to agents. The next best thing was books.) My family looked at me like I was crazy. I tried to explain. I tried to say, “I’m a writer. I want to be published. I HAVE TO READ!” but for some reason this didn’t make sense to them. It’s a lesson I learned in college.

I took a yearlong writing seminar my senior year, in which the goal for us five students was to write one long project. That, however, wasn’t our only assignment—our professor also told us to read, read, read. He said that in order to be a good writer, you had to read ALL THE TIME. It wasn’t optional. Even though I was writing a novel for his class, even though I was taking 17 credits (or more) each semester, he shoved books at me and the other four students. Some were ones he thought we should all read. Others, he picked for each of us based on what we were writing. It didn’t matter that I was already swamped without the addition of writing a novel. It didn’t matter that I was also neck-deep and sinking in Quantitative Chemical Analysis (why, oh why, did I think that would be easier than Inorganic Chemistry???). He expected us to read and he checked up on us.

In college, as I wrote through the wee hours of Friday nights and read through the parties of Saturday nights, I didn’t know that what I was writing was a YA novel. My professor probably didn’t know it, either. He was older—long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and thick rimmed glasses through which he studied me in our one-on-one writing meetings—and had probably never read a YA novel in his life. I don’t think that I had either.

As a kid, I was obsessed with Sweet Valley and The Baby-Sitters Club. In high school, I moved on to the classics, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Pride and Prejudice, Catch-22, and A Farewell to Arms among my favorite. College came with its own reading list: science textbooks, poems, short stories, tomes like Ulysees, and all the books my professor put in my senior hands. I had no frame of reference for what I was really writing. Of course, I was watching TV shows like Dawson’s Creek, Roswell, Smallville, Gossip Girl, etc. and LOVING THEM. Why did it take me so long to realize that my novel was like these TV shows? Why didn’t I discover YA books until after I graduated college? I don’t know.

Confession: The first YA book I ever read just may have been Stephenie Meyer’s TWILIGHT—I blame the super pretty cover that snagged my attention one day while I was walking through a bookstore. The second—Jenny Han’s THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY—was handed to me by my young cousin. I was hooked. Here, finally, was what I needed to be reading. Here, finally, were books that mirrored my writing. (Though of course I still find time to read other books, too.)

Since I discovered the YA world, my writing has vastly improved. I know, finally, know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I may never have gotten there if it hadn’t been for my professor who insisted that, above all else, I read. My family, though perplexed, listened to my Christmas wishes and the stack of books I received is about half my height. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go read.

PIVOT POINT & Subplots

Back in high school when I was looking at colleges, people constantly asked me what I wanted to major in. Whenever I answered that I wasn’t sure, that I was deciding between some kind of science or some kind of English/writing, people always looked at me funny. It was like they couldn’t understand how the two connected, as if that was the point. Many suggested I write science textbooks. They were missing the point—by a long shot. Others asked what I thought I’d do with a writing degree…and then they answered the question for me. Their most common answer was teach. Ha. These people didn’t know me at all. I don’t have patience to teach and the thought of thirty-on-one always terrified me.

Even though teaching was never my goal, sometimes I read books that make me think, “Yes. THIS. If I were a teacher, if I could choose my own books, I would use this one in my class.” Today’s book choice? The YA book PIVOT POINT by Kasie West.  The lesson? Subplots. Kasie West’s book is full of clever, intertwining subplots that have me hooked. I have fifty pages left and I can’t wait to see how she resolves it all. So why am I writing this now instead of reading the book? Because once I start reading again, I’ll have to read until I finish and I might not blog after, especially if the end’s as good as I’m hoping.

PIVOT POINT has so many subplots that I can’t help but speculate about the ending. The main plot? Addie has the ability to see into her future when she’s faced with a decision. She can experience what it would be like if she made each choice, and she remembers each once she’s finished searching her future. Her parents tell her they’re divorcing and force her to make the choice about which parent she’ll live with. She looks at both options, delving six weeks into the future. Though she experiences each future independently, the book’s chapters alternate between them.

Each subplot is present in each possible future, but Addie’s experiencing them separately and can’t see, as I can, how they connect. I want to list the subplots here so I can draw you in the way PIVOT POINT captured me. In fact, I tried to list them. I’ve deleted those paragraphs because I can’t begin to compare to the actual book. When I think about what Kasie West’s query must have been, I wonder how she expressed it all in so few words. I want to read it. It must have been amazing.

I’m not saying this clearly. This is one of those times words are failing me and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m having a writing off day or if PIVOT POINT is so good that it’s left me speechless. I’m fumbling through my explanation as though you’ll understand what I’m saying. All I’m doing is confusing you. Am I confusing you? I hope not. I love this book and I want to convince all of you YA readers that you should borrow it, buy it, READ IT. I want to study it, learn from it, improve my writing because of it. Kasie West builds so much tension and the closer I get to the end, the more I want to know how it ends. How will she reconcile so many pieces? I can’t tell you because I haven’t read it yet, though as soon as I post this, I’m going to. Read it. See why, if I were a teacher, I’d use PIVOT POINT to teach students about subplots. I hope you like it as much as I do.