Just for fun, I thought I’d post ABE Books’ Literary Character Quiz. Who did you get? I got Sherlock Holmes. I am not unhappy with this result.
I can actually see this as pretty helpful when building your own characters. Put them in the quiz and find out who is most like them in literature., and then tweak your characters accordingly. Feel like your character is too much like that more famous one? You can fix that. Want to increase the resemblance? You can do that too.
I’m not usually one for rom-coms. Of course, I have nothing against them per se — and I’m a complete romantic sap in real life. But your average romantic comedy usually doesn’t appeal to me because they’re generally quite predictable and need to be based around some central element that makes them stand apart. Continue reading
So yes, I have an apprentice.
By the way, Rebecca hates this reference now.
Rebecca’s not to be confused with an intern. I don’t make her do any of my work, and I don’t provide any college credits. I do, however, occasionally assign homework.
One of the first things she learned was that an editor must know how to write. An editor must try her hand at writing, because there is no way to really understand how a story works without playing around with it yourself.
An editor, essentially, needs all the skills of an author: language, plot, character, research, setting — whatever it is, an editor must know how it works. The one thing that isn’t truly necessary is creativity. That spark possessed by all storytellers that makes them not only craft a great story, but want to tell it too.
Now, most editors actually are writers, if not published authors. (I’m joining the ranks of the latter group next year.) The job of an editor, however, is not to come up with the story in the first place. We make it better, and that means we must be experts in the art even if we don’t produce it ourselves.
And that brings us back to the matter of writing. There is always a story to tell. We practice this all the time, sometimes without knowing it. We just have to hone the skill.
I’ve told Rebecca that I don’t need to see her homework. I’m not even making her write. I just strongly recommended it. She’ll be attending my workshop (having done the grunt work of setting it up . . . okay, I guess I do make her do some of my work!), and I told her she’ll learn more about editing if she’s also got a story to apply things to. She’ll get her chance to practice critiquing other stories, including my own, but it’s important to have something to work on even if you’re never going to show it to another living soul.
I’ve encountered bestselling authors who tell me they get burned out on stories. I tell them pretty much the same thing every time: burnout and writer’s block can very often be cured by the same thing: starting another story. Both can come because the current work-in-progress is taking up too much real estate and you need to rest so you get a fresh perspective. Anyone who writes knows that this can be easier said than done, because we’re always writing in our heads.
So you just start a new story, something you don’t intend to be “serious.” Fanfic is a great tool for this, for example: no pressure, no stress of creating characters or settings, just writing and clearing the cobwebs. Or take your characters and put them in a different situation, even if it doesn’t make sense in the context of your story. What happens if your characters encounter something funny? What if your characters’ parents had an adventure that they never knew about? What happens if your characters have a day off — what would they do?
Artists keep sketchbooks to doodle in; writers keep a notebook or computer folder for the written equivalent. All artists need to relax and fiddle with their art to practice, to refresh themselves, or just for the sheer fun of it.
Never let yourself feel pressured unless you yourself want the pressure. Sometimes we work better with a deadline; other times, we just need to relax and let the story flow. You discover a lot about yourself and your art that way.
Well, sort of.
I just got word from my apprentice, Rebecca, that the administrivia has been settled. I’m officially teaching an extracurricular writing workshop this fall at my alma mater, Christendom College. It’ll be on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:30. Continue reading
Over at Minimum Wage Historian today, we have the story of Jackie Robinson. If you don’t know who he is, click the link. If you know who he is, you’ll be clicking the link anyway.
I remember reading his story for the first time when I was in sixth grade, and I didn’t understand it. I literally could not comprehend the idea that someone wouldn’t be allowed to play baseball because of skin color. I don’t mean that I just didn’t “get” it — I mean that I read the biography I was given in class and didn’t notice anything different about him. I concluded the other people were just mean. It was literally years before it finally clicked and I realized Jackie Robinson’s story was the first time I’d ever read about racism.
You’re at a convention, doing what everyone at such an event does sooner or later: waiting on the elevator. While engaging in small talk with the lady next to you, you find out she’s a senior editor at your favorite publishing house. You decide to pitch your book to her. Problem is, you’ve only got a few moments while you both step into the elevator — and she’s probably heard pitches about books just like yours. Can you describe your novel in thirty seconds and still make it interesting? Continue reading
I did not give this post a more obvious name, because then I would have to list an eighth habit of highly productive writers: avoiding C&D letters from people who have successfully trademarked the phrase “7 Habits.” (No, really.)
This is a long post, but it’s also a complex topic. I thought about splitting it into other posts, but I figured that keeping it in one place was better for you than padding my post-count.
Being a professional creator is a different job from, well, pretty much every other job. There are no set hours, no set workspace, not even a single set of rules that works for everyone. It’s a job that requires dedication and persistence, and the development of particular habits that may, in Aristotelian splendor, grow into virtues.
It’s a job where success is not measured in time spent, but rather your output; so if you’re trying to get paid for your work, then you know that every moment you don’t spend working is a moment you won’t get paid for later. Taking a sick day doesn’t mean your coworkers have to pull your slack — it means you don’t get anything done. Period. It’s not just a good idea to maximize your productivity. It’s vital.
I’ve collected some habits below that may work for you. I guarantee that not all of them will. It’s an easy guarantee because some of them are contradictory — but that’s the nature of being a professional creator. Some things that work for you won’t work for anyone else.
Because of that, I have another guarantee: there is something you can do to maximize your productivity that is not on this list. Finding it is up to you. I’m just giving you some suggestions to try.
I’ve had this blog for more than seven months. I’ve averaged about three or four posts per month. That’s bad enough, but in all that time, I’ve kept putting off telling you about Writing Excuses.
Writing Excuses is an award-winning weekly podcast (two time Parsec, two time Hugo nominee, also nominated for a Podcast Award) that covers creative writing. It’s a bit over five years old now, and its archives are nearly 100 hours deep. If you listened to an episode every day starting now, you’d finish in just under one year (counting the new episodes that will be released weekly over that time).
Does that sound daunting? Don’t worry. Each episode is only fifteen minutes (well, okay, sometimes they run over) long — because, as they say, “you’re in a hurry, and we’re not that smart.”
The “in a hurry” part is correct. It’s hard to make time when focusing on writing, because you really have to treat it as a full-time job. Most of us already have full-time jobs, or in many cases two or more part-time jobs. Some of you are in college, which is more than a full-time job. (Hint to you college students: if you’re not devoting about sixty hours a week to school, you’re either not a full-time student or you’re in some really easy classes.) The podcast format makes it very easy to listen to a full episode, maybe two, during your commute, while you’re on your lunch break, or while you’re cooking or doing your dishes or vacuuming the house. (Though you might need earbuds for that last one.)
The “not that smart” part is . . . debatable. These guys are good. The podcast hosts are New York Times bestselling fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson (yes, that guy who finished The Wheel of Time and wrote the Mistborn series), supernatural horror novelist Dan Wells (author of the seriously wonderful John Cleaver novels, starting with I Am Not a Serial Killer, which deserves a review from me sometime), professional puppeteer and historical fantasy/alternate history novelist Mary Robinette Kowal (author of The Glamourist Histories; she joins the podcast full-time in Season Six), and science fiction cartoonist and humorist Howard Tayler (who writes and draws the award-winning and record-breaking Schlock Mercenary).
I’ve met all four in one way or another (the first two in real life, the other two via webcams, Facebook, and email). They know their stuff and they’re great to talk to. I’m not saying I agree with everything they say, mind you; just 99%.
Well, okay. 98%. That’s my final offer.
Give them a listen. Even if you don’t write fantasy, horror, or science fiction, you’ll find plenty to learn from them.
Over the last few months, I’ve been surprised to encounter several people (including established authors) who don’t know the distinction between alpha and beta readers. As a consequence, this got put into my Stack of Stuff (aka the list of “Gee, I should write a blog post about that” topics).
The most common definition I’ve encountered among authors, fellow editors, and laymen was that an alpha reader was the first reader, and everyone else who read it before publication was a beta reader. That’s wrong; not completely off, mind you, but wrong. I was a little surprised, but it makes some sense that people would think that just from the names. There are other distinctions, though, even among people who know the origin of the two terms.
That same origin might be the cause of some of the confusion, though. The two terms come from software testing, where alpha testing is done during development by professionals while beta testing is conducted with members of the general public. The fact that “alpha reader” and “beta reader” come from something so tech-based might make the terms seem a bit arcane to people not already steeped in this stuff, and the vast majority of people I’ve talked to who didn’t know the definitions weren’t people who considered themselves geeks.
Of course, I learned about the definition so long ago that I can’t even remember how it first came up, only that I knew it was a while before I connected it with “beta test software” and the like. So who knows? Tracking the differences in my friends and coworkers has been interesting, but hardly conclusive. And probably boring to most people, so let’s skip ahead to the meat of the matter.
When you’re looking for an alpha reader, you’re looking for someone who knows about writing. You might ask experts in fields you’re writing about (law, history, medicine, engineering, astronomy, whatever) to read parts of your book before it’s finished, but they aren’t alpha readers. An alpha reader is examining your story, identifying parts that work, making suggestions about parts that don’t, and generally giving you semi-professional feedback. Your alpha readers are generally reading along as you write and rewrite the first few drafts. They generally have to know something about writing themselves, so most alpha readers are either writers and editors or they’re close friends and family who know you and your writing very well. (The most common non-professional alpha reader seems to be the author’s spouse. That probably won’t surprise anyone.)
Like with software companies entering beta-testing phases, you want a beta reader when you feel you’re almost ready for publication. It might not be quite done, but you feel most of what is remaining is a matter of polish and line-editing. You don’t necessarily have everything phrased the way you want it, but you’re done moving chapters around and changing the ending. Your writing might need some work, but your story is finished. That’s when you get your test audience: trusted friends, significant fans, people who would be normally reading the sort of thing you’re writing. They’re a sampling of your audience, and as such they don’t need to have any professional writing knowledge. You just want to make certain that your target audience likes your book.
Oh, that doesn’t mean you can’t have beta readers looking for mistakes, whether they be typos or factual errors. That’s actually encouraged most of the time; in fact, publishers and authors alike, when they send out something to be read, will usually only mention proofreading when they don’t want you to do it.
So where does an editor fall in all of this? That was another source of confusion among people I talked to. The simple answer is that an editor — meaning your editor — is in a different category. If you’re submitting a finished manuscript to a publisher, you’ve probably gone through both alpha and beta reading first. You might have even hired a freelancing editor at some point. You might be discussing ideas with your editor before you even start writing. An editor can come in at any point in the process. Our job as editors is to help you build, create, shape, and entertain. Depending on the project and where you are in it, your editor might be dealing with abstract plot sketching or something as specific as figuring out what word-choice habits a bit character might have in chapter twelve.
But as vital as my job is, I’m only one person — and as I repeat so often I sound like a broken record even to myself, even an editor needs an editor. Cultivate your alpha and beta readers. They’ll catch things that you and your editor miss. They’ll have ideas that you and your editor wouldn’t think of. Usually they won’t be what you want; only you can tell your story, after all, but even knowing what will not happen helps when you’re not certain what will happen. Bouncing ideas off your readers as well as explaining to them why their suggestions won’t work will improve your art.
Novel Ninja 
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