Monday, January 27, 2025

Don't Go Down The Rabbit Hole

I remember a student I had in a research class I was teaching some years ago. He had this great project he was writing on, but he ran into a huge problem. He would get distracted. He would find a piece of research and instead of just getting what he needed, he suddenly felt the need to go and research that small tidbit of information a bit more. I am sure you can see where this is heading to. When he dove into that next layer, he found something else that needed more investigating and he was immediately following that white rabbit down the rabbit hole. 



While this might be fun as a hobby, this is a ten week long class and there is a grade attached to this project. You simply cannot do that. 

As a writer, the same thing applies here. You have deadlines. You cannot waste time just researching random things. More importantly, you cannot get in the habit of putting things in your books that are not important to your story. 

When you are writing, there is a lot of information you will gather about the time period you are writing, the characters, the setting and the events surround the story. YOU need that information. BUT that does not mean your readers need that information. You have to put filters on your writing and give the readers information on a NEED TO KNOW basis. Before you give them that information, ask yourself it it advances the story. Is all of that information truly necessary? Can it be summed up in a single sentence? Do we need to really know the modiste and her entire history with the Ton and the peerage over the years, or simply, "she was the person you went to and the dress was a gorgeous blue that matched her eyes."

Think of it this way. All of those words you are wasting on information that slows the story down and distracts the reader could be better spent developing your characters and building their storylines.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Interesting Trends on Query Manager

I was reading through Query Manager submissions this week and I found an interesting trend. Nearly every submission (not counting those where the submission wasn't even romance or women's fiction which, remember, I only acquire!) all were stereotypical, trope-ridden and elementary.

Let me explain... Most of these stories involved plot lines you would see beginning writers playing around with just to learn plot. Girl goes to big city only to find her crush is now a lead singer in a boy band (which of course she did not know even though they were known world wide). Women's fiction piece of the main character moving on after a divorce (of course) and goes on a road trip... hmmm, where have I heard that one before? 



To add to this, there were numerous just pitching stories that were clearly things that I don't represent or demonstrate a lack of knowledge in the business. BTW 350,000 word story for Harlequin is not going to work.

But here was the best one. Author pitches story. Tells me the story already had an agent once before. Previous agent made a recommendation on making the story marketable. Author refused and stated that clearly the agent did not know what they were doing so now it is off to find a new agent. Hmmm, do I want to work with someone who is not willing to change. Again, BTW, I would have suggested the same thing.

I also had three addressed to someone else.

There is nothing wrong with Query Manager, but please note, you do still need to do your research Don't just sit there and hit submit to everyone who happens to be acquiring.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

We Don't All Like The Same Thing

What a lot of writers seem to forget about professional writing, editors and agents, is what they know from their own person lives. Not everyone likes the same thing. 

If you sign with an agent, it means that agent totally loves your story and your writing. It connects with them. They see a future for your writing and that story. So off they go, and they start to promote that story to all of their editor friends telling them how amazing you are.

But it doesn't always work out.

Why? Because we all have different tastes. Sure, I loved the story, but maybe it didn't work with that editor. Does it mean that the story is bad and is destined to fail? Absolutely not. This is just the subjective variable of this business.

This is really a tough thing to wrap our heads around at times. Writers tell me this all of the time at conferences when they just don't understand why all of their Beta-readers love the project and it is going no where. Why do they keep getting those rejections?

Simply because it didn't connect.

Let me also say, there are a lot of times when rejections show up simply because of bad timing. The market has shifted. The editors just signed a couple of books that are similar. 

All I can say is, "Welcome to the world of publishing!"

Monday, January 20, 2025

How Much Conflict Is Too Much Conflict?

While I love critique partners and certainly do believe that every writer needs these people in his or her life, sometimes, these people create more problems than the help they provide. OK, maybe I can't blame the problems ENTIRELY on them but they are one of the big contributors. 

I am talking about adding conflict to the story.

This often starts up when someone says, "Yes, but why did this happen in the first place...?" or "But they need to have a reason to..."

So you add conflict.

Sometimes, writers will also start to add conflict to "make the story interesting." Again, not exactly the best approach.

Conflict does drive a story. We want to see that character overcome those obstacles to get to that end goal. However, when you start to add too many conflicts to the story, things become unmanageable and unbelievable. What is worse is that your readers will get to the point where they cannot connect with the story. This last part stems from a literary criticism concept called Reader Response Theory. In essence, the reader brings meaning to the story.

Let's take women's fiction as an example where I see the most of these problems. A classic is that it is a contemporary women's fiction and the main character is now at a point in her life where she is an empty nester. Now what? This is something people can connect with. But the authors often look at this and believe this storyline is not enough so they add more. 

Instead of just making her an empty nester, they add in a divorce to a husband (who was cheating on her and, heck, why not add in has now discovered he is gay), a daughter who is pregnant with a band that only plays in local bars, a son who is now doing drugs, and her boss has just fired her because someone has falsely accused her of skimming money out of the till. 

Slow down now. A reader simply cannot connect to all of this. One yes. All no.

When it comes to conflict, I often like to make an analogy to cooking. You can go to one of those mall feed your face buffets and eat a lot but not know what you ate, OR, eat a nicer restaurant, eat a smaller portion that is fully packed with flavor and looks gorgeous. Which will you remember?