The Year of Writing Dangerously

Friday, April 20, 2012

Randy Ingermanson ("The Snowflake Guy") on THE HUNGER GAMES

Well, that vacation was a bit longer than I intended. Anyway, here I am back in harness and ready to introduce you to Randy Ingermanson, a.k.a. The Snowflake Guy. Randy is also the co-author, with Peter Economy, of Writing Fiction for Dummies. I always enjoy Randy's e-zines--his sense of humor is one of his great strengths.

Here is a reprint of what Randy had to say about The Hunger Games. (I was amazed to discover that I've read every breakout bestseller he mentions, except for THE SHACK!! What about you?)

3) Creating: The Magic of The Hunger Games

I believe that every novelist should be reading the current bestsellers.

You should definitely be reading the bestsellers in your own category.

You should also be reading the massive breakout bestsellers that are selling millions of copies per year, even if they aren't in your category.

Every novelist should read THE DA VINCI CODE. Every novelist should read THE SHACK. Every novelist should read the Harry Potter series and TWILIGHT and THE LOVELY BONES and THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

These should be no-brainers. If you want to write for the modern reader, then you need to have a feel for what the modern reader actually reads. Yes, even if you think popular fiction is crap. Even if you write literary fiction. Even if all your favorite authors died in the 19th century.

Every novelist should read THE HUNGER GAMES. I've taught on the craft of THE HUNGER GAMES at a couple of recent conferences and was shocked to see that many of my students hadn't read it.

Seeing the movie isn't enough. Any novel has interior monologue and interior emotion that the movie won't capture. Any novel has a voice that generally will get muzzled or lost in the movie. Any novel has scenes that will be dropped when adapted to a screenplay.

Once you've read any of these novels, you may find it useful to analyze them -- to figure out what makes them tick.

THE HUNGER GAMES is a great book to analyze because it's extremely well written (not all mega-bestsellers are). I can almost guarantee that if you analyze THE HUNGER GAMES, you'll immediately see ways to improve your writing.

I generally use my well-known Snowflake method to analyze a book. Many writers (but not all) find the Snowflake helpful in designing their story before they write the first draft.

But anybody should find the Snowflake useful when analyzing a story that has already been written. Why? Because most of the steps of the Snowflake correspond to time-tested methods of analysis that writers have been using for hundreds of years (in some cases for thousands of years).

The ten steps of the Snowflake are summarized here:
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/art/snowflake.php

The first step in the Snowflake is to summarize the storyline in one sentence. This is sometimes called your "elevator pitch." The one-sentence summary of your novel will serve you well as a selling tool forever.

Here is my one-sentence summary of THE HUNGER GAMES:

"A 16-year-old girl volunteers to take her sister’s place in an arena where twenty-four teens will battle each other to the death."

That's 25 words, which I consider the upper limit for a one-sentence summary. I prefer to see a one-sentence summary in the range of 10 to 15 words.

The goal is to tell the main idea of the novel in as few words as possible. Shorter is always better, if it captures the story.

The shortest one-sentence summary I've ever seen is the summary for my friend Tosca Lee's forthcoming novel ISCARIOT. Here it is: "Judas".

That's one word and it tells you everything you need to know about Tosca's book.

The purpose of a one-sentence summary is to tell people whether they're interested or not. That's all.

Notice that I didn't say that the purpose of the one-sentence summary is to sell your book. That would be crazy. Most people are not in the target audience for your book. If they're not in your target audience, they probably won't like it, and there's no reason you should want them to buy it.

You want a one-sentence summary that immediately gives the hearer enough information to know whether they're in your target audience or not.

If you like suspense fiction, then the one-sentence summary I gave above for THE HUNGER GAMES immediately tells you that you're going to love this story. If you don't like suspense fiction and the thought of teens killing teens makes you sick to your stomach, then you'll probably hate the story.

A one-sentence summary should hit emotive hot buttons. Notice the hot buttons I hit in the summary above:

* "A 16-year-old girl" -- All adults can remember being 16. It's generally a crazy mixture of really great things and incredibly horrible things. This is automatically a hot button.

* "volunteers to take her sister's place" -- Self-sacrifice is always a hot button for readers. Most
of us are only altruistic when it doesn't cost us much. But we would like to be altruistic on a heroic scale.

* "arena" -- This has been a hot button ever since the Romans put the first two gladiators together.

* "battle each other to the death" -- Single combat to the death is wired into our emotive genes. The idea was already old when David faced Goliath three thousand years ago. You may wish we were more civilized than that, but we aren't.

A great one-sentence summary is focused. Notice what I left out of my one-sentence summary. Not a word about the romantic subplot. Not a word on politics. Not a word on the dystopic future. All of those are great elements, but they're not central.

The central story is combat to the death in an arena. Less is more when you're writing a one-sentence summary of your novel. You achieve perfection in a one-sentence summary when there is nothing more to remove.

One final point about your one-sentence summary. It should focus on what happens early in your story.

It will often focus on the so-called "inciting incident" -- the incident early in the story that kicks
your characters out of their ordinary world. That's what I've done here.

It may sometimes focus on a disaster that happens as much as one quarter of the way into the story. Rarely will you need to tell anything beyond that in a one-sentence summary. You don't want to tell too much.

Your purpose in writing a one-sentence summary is to create a "story question" in the mind of the hearer. A "story question" is always of the form "Will she or won't she _______?"

In THE HUNGER GAMES, the story question is "Will she or won't she survive the arena?"

Your story question depends crucially on what category you're writing.

In a mystery, the story question is generally, "Will he or won't he find the murderer?"

In a romance novel, the story question is almost always, "Will she or won't she marry That Guy?"

One thing your one-sentence summary should NEVER do is to give away the ending. The one-sentence summary is a selling tool. It ignites curiosity. It never satisfies that curiosity.

The whole point of a one-sentence summary is to get one of the following two responses:

* "Sorry, not interested." (This will be the most common response. Sorry, but most people just won't care one peanut for your novel.)

* "Wow! That sounds cool! Tell me more!" (This is the response you should expect from your target audience, and from nobody else.)

There is a third response you may get from your one-sentence summary:

* "Hmmmm, sounds pretty good." (If you are hearing this, then you either don't have a story or you haven't yet figured out what it is. "Pretty good" is a death sentence for your story. You want people to love it or hate it. If your one-sentence summary is "pretty good" then kill it or fix it, but don't keep it.)

We've now got a one-sentence summary of THE HUNGER GAMES. Have you written a one-sentence summary of your own novel? Does it do the job? Can you make it better? Should you kill it and create a new one?

Next month, we'll look at the large-scale structure of THE HUNGER GAMES -- the so-called "three-act structure."

Your homework: If you haven't read THE HUNGER GAMES, read it before next month and then summarize it in a paragraph of no more than five sentences.

This is harder than it sounds. A lot harder. Unless you're a professional novelist, you'll find it almost impossible to write a one-paragraph summary that does the story justice.

My challenge to you: Try anyway. It'll be good for you. Hard work makes you strong.

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 30,000 readers.
If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Does Reading Make You Fat?

From (my beloved) Shelf Awareness: Cookies and Pretzels and Wine, Oh My!

Response to our editorial about snacking was overwhelming, with salty snacks taking a slight edge over sweet. While we were mildly shocked at the librarians who eat and read, we were pleased with the suggestions we hadn't already thought of. For your reading and snacking pleasure, here are just some of the many comments we received.

Eliza Langhans sent a great line to begin with, from Amanda Filipacchi's novel Nude Men: "I am a man without many pleasures in life, a man whose few pleasures are small, but a man whose small pleasures are very important to him. One of them is eating. One reading. Another reading while eating."

ME: I don't eat while reading, though I do drink--usually tea. It seems I may be missing out, but if I did start to snack on the page, my waistline would be even thicker than it is now! Do you snack while scanning stanzas or coursing through chapters? If so, what's your nibble of choice?

And now for a brief word from our sponsors: I'm off on vacation, as it's "Spring Break" in these parts. Look for a resumption of regular programing on Friday April 6th. Till then, happy snacking!

Friday, March 16, 2012

What's Your Pet Grammar Peeve?

I'm not a grammar dragon, but there is one mistake that makes me blow fire. (The following explanation comes from the Gotham Writer's Workshop Newsletter:

Gotham Books

by Patricia T. O'Conner

What a difference an apostrophe makes. Every possessive has one, right? Well, not necessarily so. It (like he and she) is a pronoun—a stand-in for a noun—and pronouns don’t have apostrophes when they’re possessives: His coat is too loud because of its color, but hers is too mousy.

Now, as for it’s (the one with the punctuation), the apostrophe stands for something that has been removed. It’s is short for it is, and the apostrophe replaces the missing i in is. The parakeet is screeching because it’s time to feed him.
Here’s how to keep its and it’s straight:

If the word you want could be replaced by it is, use it’s. If not, use its. (There’s more on its and it’s in the chapter on pronouns.)

NOTE: Sometimes it’s is short for it has, as in: It’s been hours since he ate.

-----------------------------------------------

IT WIT
An itsy-bitsy problem
Used to give me fits.
Why use an apostrophe
With it’s but not with its?

The answer to this little quiz:
The longer it’s stands for “it is,”
While the its that’s less impressive
Is the one that’s a possessive.

-----------------------------------------------

From Woe Is I, Third Edition by Patricia T. O'Conner

Me again: The other day I was approached to be part of a blog tour. On the very first page of the work I spotted an "it's" instead of an "its." I declined.

What is your peeviest grammar peeve? Have at it, and a most splenetic Friday to you!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Seth Godin Speaks. What do you think?

I must admit that I'm not too familiar with Seth Godin. But according to his interviewer, Jeff Rivera at Digital Book World, he is arguably one of the most successful bloggers and thought-leaders of our time. (And I thought that honor went to Matt MacNish!)

I'll link to the whole interview, but here's bits and pieces of what he says:

About publishing: I think we’re going to see consolidation, fire sales, layoffs and a lot of uncomfortableness … Not happy, but true.

Rivera: When do you see the book publishing industry being completely unrecognizable as we have come to know it? What will it look like instead?
Godin: Big advances for midlist authors are the first to go. Second: all the hard-working people in the book production chain, because the lack of scarcity makes it hard to pay them to do the work they do. Mostly, though, I think it’s a fading of the power of a published book to influence the conversation. (My emphasis) When anyone can publish an ebook, anyone will.

Rivera: The role of literary agents has changed in the last few years and it’s changing even more. What can literary agents do right now so that they remain apart of the equation instead of lost in the digital eBook dust?
I’d start by redefining what you do. I don’t think the goal of the agent is to maximize the size of the advance (which is what it was, as evidenced by what agents talked about and how they got paid). I think the goal going forward is to represent every element of an author’s impact on the world, including their permission asset, the way they build a following, the approach to building a tribe.

He goes on to say this about writers:

An author starting out today needs to pick herself, establish a niche, become truly the best at it and relentlessly and generously give it all away as a way of leading and making a ruckus.
It takes a long time, but it’s still faster than waiting for Binky Urban and Knopf to find you.

Rivera: Many authors hear your message about being willing to give away their books for free, or to focus on spreading their message but their question is: “I’ve got rent to pay so how do I turn that into cash money?”
Who said you have a right to cash money from writing? I gave hundreds of speeches before I got paid to write one. I’ve written more than 4000 blog posts for free.
Poets don’t get paid (often), but there’s no poetry shortage. The future is going to be filled with amateurs, and the truly talented and persistent will make a great living. But the days of journeyman writers who make a good living by the word–over. (My emphasis.)

Journeyman writer in the new publishing age
(Actually "The Death of Chatterton" by Henry Wallis)

Rivera: If writers shouldn’t presume they will make money directly from book sales, what other opportunities exist for them indirectly so they don’t have to flip burgers?
Godin: Depends on what you write! The Grateful Dead certainly didn’t depend on CD sales.
Are you a chef? A public speaker? If you’re a mystery writer, can you find 1000 true fans to pay a hundred dollars a year each to get an ongoing serial from you?
It’s not the market’s job to tell authors how to monetize their work. The market doesn’t care. If there’s no scarcity of what they want, it’s hard to get them to pay for it.

Sounds Darwinian, doesn't it? It all goes back to whether, and how, an artist or a creative type should be paid for their art. If you have time, try to read the comments on the article too. Lots of agents (Wendy Strothman, Peter Riva, Jeff Herman, Jenny Bent, and Deborah Schneider among them) chiming in.

What do you think of Godin's suggestion to give it away for free and therefore build a following? Creative or Crazy?

Friday, February 24, 2012

Are Writers Nicer Nowadays?

Image from Jonathan Hilton.com

The other week, my Beloved Shelf Awareness had this piece by their regular columnist, Robert Gray, in which he wrote about how the internet was forging strong bonds between writers. Are those titanic feuds (Truman Copote vs. Gore Vidal, Mary McCarthy vs. Lilian Helman, John Updike vs. Salman Rushdie, and Norman Mailer vs. just about everybody) a thing of the past? What do you think about writers behaving buddy, instead of badly?

Here's Gray's column. It's a good one. Enjoy!

It isn't fair to begin a column about friendship and mutual support among writers with a mean-spirited, if mischievously delightful, line from Gore Vidal, but I do so only to establish counterpoint: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."

The view from my Facebook window tells me otherwise. Although the Internet can be a den of the über-snarky, it is also a haven where writers are building friendships (the real kind, not the FB kind) with their peers.

The recent publication of Jessica Keener's fine debut novel Night Swim prompted me to pay closer attention to the enthusiastic support she received online from authors whose work I admire, including Patry Francis (The Liar's Diary), Susan Henderson (Up from the Blue) and Leora Skolkin-Smith (Hystera), among many others.

I like this trend. It feels like evolution. It's so... anti-Vidal. I wondered what they thought. I asked.

"Over the past five or so years, with the surging growth of the Internet and bloggers, and the birth of an online private forum for writers called Backspace, I began to connect with writers in a much more supportive way than I had ever experienced before," said Keener. "The online medium fostered a wonderful world of pen palship. What writer doesn’t enjoy crafting a letter or passing a note?

"As I see it, the Internet nurtures reading and responding--a give and take in words. In the process, I discovered many writers I might never have met sitting in my office at home. I became a regular follower of Susan Henderson's Litpark, thrilling over the variety of writers and artists she hosted. I found writers whose work I respected and who sweated as I did over the language of heartache. E-mail exchanges between writers I'd never met became increasingly confessional and intimate and ultimately led to in-person meetings. When I finally met Susan and Patry Francis (in New York, at a Backspace Writers Conference) as well as M.J. Rose--whose blog about publishing and marketing I'd been reading for months--I began to see that I was surrounding myself with a supportive community of writers, peers willing to care for each other professionally and personally."

Francis noted that when she started submitting her work to agents, "I was suffering from an extreme case of writerly isolation. I viewed loneliness and fierce rivalry as occupational hazards." Gradually she discovered online alternatives, "and eventually the tangled, marvelous, distracting, infinitely fascinating world that is social media. There, counter to stereotype, I found an incredibly large-hearted and generous community. No one embodies that spirit more than Jessica Keener. Her willingness to give of herself, to offer encouragement, nurture, constructive criticism when requested, and enthusiastic support to others is truly unique."

Or perhaps not so unique anymore, if what I've seen online is any indication.

Henderson said she met Keener when they were both on a fiction panel with an editor "I’d been rejected by for years. And that’s kind of at the heart of writers' journeys, this marriage of success and failure, throughout our career. Here I am invited to sit beside an icon on this panel and yet I’m remembering those letters he wrote me. So that’s one of the immediate places we bonded, and that idea was at the core of why I created my blog LitPark, because it’s hard to be alone with all the rejection and self-doubt and still believe you’re on a path to publication. The self-doubt can eat you alive.

"When a writer lands a book deal, there's almost always a long story behind it--a story of multiple revisions, hair pulling, rejections, thoughts of quitting, and in the end, pure stamina, sometimes decades of stamina. Often when you read a little blurb about an author's debut novel, you know that debut is actually her third or fourth--the others just never saw the light of day. And I think it's knowing this that's behind the joy and celebration we feel when our friends finally achieve what had seemed impossible."

Although they had communicated online, Keener said she only recently met Skolkin-Smith, who observed that, as "the field of publishing becomes more narrow (in terms of only a few brand names getting print reviews and the rest of us authors dangling on a thin hope that we will be read at all), I honestly don't know what I would do as an author lost in the shadows without the support and recognition of people I've met in literary cyberspace. On blogs and social networking sites, it feels like a new cyber landscape is defined by a passion for literature, and in no small way the new connections made possible now have transformed both reader and writer. I am grateful, alerted to the miracle of words in a new light, a new way."

Keener summed up the view from my Facebook window nicely: "The writing business is nerve-wracking and for a long time it was incomprehensible to me. This has changed. As my peers and I exchange experiences, my sense of control and grasp of the business side of things has shifted significantly for the better. As for the writing itself--that struggle and challenge will remain personal and mysterious and unique, but the sting of isolation is gone. Even now as I write, new friendships that exhilarate and inspire are forming."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)

Monday, February 13, 2012

Origins Blogfest: I was a 4th Grade Writer

1972. I was in Mrs. Benz's 4th grade class at the Intercommunity School of Zurich. Mrs. Benz was a tough teacher, and we learned a heckuva lot that year. One thing I really wanted to do was write a story that she would think worthy of inclusion in the school magazine, because Mrs. Benz didn't let any old flotsam and jetsam represent her classroom.

I wrote what I thought was a great tale, of three girls wandering into a haunted house. Mrs. Benz got out her editorial pen. I went back and rewrote. This happened a couple more times. Finally, I passed muster. The piece was sent off to the magazine. But now I had to hold my breath. Would it be included?

I remember when the magazine came out. Shiny white paper. Flags of the nations on the front. And there, on page 43, with the unassuming title--"A Story"--was the first published piece by 9 year-old Michael Gilmartin.

40 years on, I still have my copy. I see I was very keen on adjectives. (The final line reads: "They broke into a run and never came back to the old, grimy, smelly, romantic house.") I also used words like picturesque, eiderdown, cobwebby, and luxuriously.

That first sight of my words in print, my byline, meant there was no going back. I don't think I thought I was going to be a writer, any more than I thought I was going to be an astronaut--but I realized I loved to write, and loved the thought of others reading my words. That feeling has never left me, even though my decision to try and make writing a career came almost 20 years later. That dream, born from the first dream, lives on.

The Origins Blogfest is the brainchild of DL Hammons, who along with Katie, and Alex, and Matt are co-hosts for the blogfest. For the list of all participants, just click on Origins Blogfest!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens!

Mr. Dickens' birthday is today. He's 200. Now, having read English literature at university (as the British say; in America, I'm an "English major," which sounds very military; however, at least I'm not the French lieutenant's woman...) I have read my share of Charles Dickens--although it's been a while. In honor of the great man's bicentenary, I leave you with this article from my beloved Shelf Awareness. And also with an invitation. I intend to read one of Dickens' novels this year, in his memory. If you were going to do the same, which one would you read?