Proper Care & Feeding of Your Critique Partner

by Mindy McGinnis

I've talked quite a bit on the blog about my journey to publication, but I'll do a quick summation. I had been writing - and failing - for about a decade before landing Adriann Ranta as my literary agent. After that, I was on submission with NOT A DROP TO DRINK for a solid six months before getting picked up after a whirlwind auction. I was still rather stunned about my change of fortune - and honestly, still am.

Quite a few people have asked me why it took so long for me to get published. Even in this self-confidence-slaying business, ten years is a pretty long haul to seeing my name in print. And honestly, I don't mind it when people ask why my journey was such a long one because it gives me a chance to lay it all out for anybody else who might be making the same mistakes I did.

And my biggest one was that I didn't want to listen to anybody.

Obviously, I was a genius. Obviously, I deserved to be published. Obviously, my book was the best thing that ever happened. Obviously, anyone who didn't realize that was an idiot. Obviously, I had never had anyone else read my stuff because it needed to go straight to the biggest editor at the biggest publishing house, and then straight to press.

And obviously... I was an idiot.

I truly did write a book and not even edit it, or show it to anyone else for their advice. I just wrote an incredibly bad query and started sending it out. I was rejected - with good reason - left and right, and I bemoaned the state of the publishing industry and their inability to recognize my talent.

All of that could've been avoided if I'd found a good crit partner, listened to their advice, and begun to grow exponentially as a writer as a direct result. But because I was convinced I was a genius and terrified someone would steal my incredibly original idea (it wasn't), I never took that step. And that's the reason why I failed (miserably) for a good long while.

So the first piece of advice I give anyone who asks me for it, is to find a good crit partner, which is immediately followed up by, "How?"

I found both of my CP's (RC Lewis and MarcyKate Connolly) by using a writing community called AgentQuery Connect. I am very attached to AQC, as it is a positive and helpful (not to mention free) environment. But there are plenty of other great writing sites to meet CP's at, and I encourage everyone who has met their significant writing others online to share where in the comments.

Granted, it wasn't love at first sight. I met RC and MK fairly early on in the forums, but we didn't actually start exchanging manuscripts with each other regularly until we'd been on the boards with each other for a year or so, if I remember correctly. I have had other CP's that had come and gone - some more or less helpful than others - before I met these two and we became the wood glue in each other's fiber board.

I want to hit on the fact that it wasn't easy, and that I didn't find true love right off the bat. I know a lot of people get discouraged after a few bad (or just less than helpful) experiences, but you can't give up on finding a CP because of a few bad apples. Finding a great CP is just like dating - there are going to be some clunkers before you're all, "Marry me!"

And once you've found someone that is a good fit for you? Again, it's not that different from dating.

• Support your CP. They're entering a pitch contest and need you to look over something in the next few hours in order for them to hit the deadline? Do it. You'll be in the same situation one day.

• Reciprocate for your CP. They leave detailed comments in your ms, along with their reactions as a reader and thoughts as a writer. Don't reward their hard work on your behalf by responding to their ms with, "Speed up the middle, Make the mom more likable, and shave off half your dialogue tags."

• Listen to your CP. So they aren't relating to your MC? Well, damn them! Wait a second... you trust this person's judgement. And maybe one of the reasons you have an insta-flare of protective writer ego is because deep down, you know they're right.

• Realize your CP is human. Which means they're not always right. In the end it is your ms, and if they think something should be phrased differently or they don't like a particular piece of dialogue, definitely consider their opinion. But that doesn't mean you have to always agree. Trust me, my CP's and I read draft after draft of each other's work, and we do see when one hasn't taken the other's advice on the little stuff -- and it doesn't matter. 

• Respect your CP. Don't send them your 120k first draft and ask them to find all the problems for you. Always edit before you hand anything off to your CP. It's not their job to catch your mistakes - it's their job to catch the ones you missed in edits.

• Value your CP's time. Likewise, if you shaved a few dialogue tags and sliced an unnecessary word here or there, don't send your CP your entire ms and ask them to re-read and give you their thoughts. Only ask for an entire draft overview if you are re-shaping plot, changing character motivations, or making other big changes. Later on in the relationship you may make smaller changes and ask for an overall read - at their discretion - but don't throw this at their heads right away. It'd be like being married for two days and suddenly demanding five children, right now.

There are other Do's and Don'ts in the CP relationship world, but these are the biggest ones I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments!

_________________________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

How Waxing Your Eyebrows Is Like Editing

by Mindy McGinnis

Waxing doesn't feel good. Neither does editing. But don't you feel improved when they're both done?

I'm blessed with a head of dark Irish hair, which is great until my eyebrows start trying to mate with my hairline. Eyebrows are kind of like those support words we use in our writing - a less kind phrase would be "crutch words." Those words don't seem so bad at a glance. They're like that one little hair that escaped you and is hovering off by itself to the left of where you actually wanted your eyebrow to end.

But then the little follicles spot that solitary solider, and they send out a rescue party. Pretty soon you've got scouts going out to check the terrain. They report that it's okay, so the recovery team goes out and you know what? It's actually pretty comfortable out there. So they stay. And then the commanding officers think they might as well fill out the ranks and pretty soon the entire army has reappeared, marching right out across your face like the wax never happened.

Letting your brain get comfortable with using the crutch words is a dangerous business that leads to a manuscript in desperate need of a slashing. Or a waxing, as I've taken to thinking of it.

I'm very aware of what my crutch words are - just, then, that. Those are four-letter words to me in more ways than one. So how do you identify your own crutches? There's a great free tool to help you out.

Wordle can be incredibly useful in your editing process. It creates a word cloud based on the text that you paste in. Here's what Wordle made for me, based on the first 20 pages of NOT A DROP TO DRINK:

I'm pretty happy with that. Not only are my main characters prominent, but if you look at the larger (more occurring) words you can get an idea of what the book is about, even if you haven't read my query. Even better, I don't see my crutch words in there. That means I did a good job of rooting them out. 

Give Wordle a shake and see if it can help you identify your crutch words, then pour the self-editing wax on and rip 'em out by their roots.
________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 9, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13, The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

Character Interviews

by Erin Cashman

Some writers fully outline their book before they even put a word on the page.  Each chapter is detailed.  The cast of characters is set. A friend of mine who does this spends a long time on this process, and then writing the novel comes fairly easily to her.  Others start writing, and have no idea where they are going to end up.  I’m somewhere in the middle.  I usually know the beginning and the ending, but I like to let the characters tell me how I should get from Chapter One to The End.  I have conceptualized my main character and important secondary characters, but often around page one hundred or so, they have much more distinct voices and personalities.  I stop there, and go back to the beginning, adding depth and layers. This has worked out really well for my writing process.

When I finish my first draft, I put it down and walk away for a couple of weeks, and when I go back to it I take stock and really look at my main characters and their journey.  Usually their transformation – whether it be small or significant, is apparent. But sometimes my characters can be a little cagey.  It sounds strange, but I feel like they are holding something back, and I don’t know them as well as I could.  And so I interview them, as if I was a reporter, and I knew every detail of their story.  Here are some of the questions I ask:

• What is your deepest desire? 

• What has shaped and influenced you?  How has the tragedies and traumas in your life effected you? How does it influence how you see yourself, and others?

• How do you view yourself?  Within your family?  Within your peers?

• Describe yourself in three words. 

• Define yourself.  When all of your fears and doubts are stripped away, who are you?

• At the end of your journey, where you proud of yourself?  Did you accomplish your goal?  What would you change? How could you have done better?

As I play interviewer to my character, I am often surprised by the answers.  But once I write them down and review them, I have a much keener understanding of my character.  I use this information to drive my revisions, and hopefully, by the end, I have a much more developed character.

Erin Cashman is the author of the Young Adult novel The Exceptionals

What's In Your Diaper Genie? Revisions: How to Get the Crap Out of Your Book

by Mindy McGinnis

I recently finished a massive revision. When I say revision I mean that I took a deep breath, popped the top on the Diaper Genie and dug in to try to figure out what was making everything stink so bad.

It's not easy to be critical of your own babies. But there also comes a time when we have to be realistic and acknowledge that fact that, hey - babies can stink. And there's usually a very good reason why the nursery doesn't smell as awesome as it did the day you brought brand new baby home.

Here are some tips for getting the crap out of your baby:

• Take a good hard look at your plotting. Are you introducing major points a little late? Sure, you thought it would help build suspense and give a nice one-two punch combined with Plot Point #2, but are you sure you aren't just asking your readers to slog through 100 pages of backstory before they get some kibble?
• Be realistic about what you're asking your reader to bring to the table. Yes, you know that what Character #1 said has some serious underlying implications, but of course you know - you planted them there. Make sure you're not asking your readers to dissect every little sentence in order to create Ooh and Aah moments later on. Sure, in retrospect it might make you look like a plotting genius, but if it's too vague it'll just look like you can't write organic dialogue.
• Be realistic about what your reader is bringing to the table. It might seem like a counterpoint to #2, but it's not. Don't try to control every aspect of the scene in order to force the reader to visualize your character or setting exactly the way you do. You provide the canvas, but let them do the painting. Over-explanation and detailed information dumps about appearances and / or settings is just going to make them wonder if somebody else's watercolor might be easier to digest.
• Filler smells bad. No, really. Anybody who just made the jump to solid foods can attest to this. There are plenty of words you simply don't need. My biggest offenders are just and that. Do a Ctrl+F on these words in your ms and then read the sentence aloud to yourself without those words. Nine times out of ten, you won't need them.
• Duh. If you're writing in first person, little phrases like I see, I think, I feel are extraneous. For example, "I see my mom picking her nose over by the window." If this book / scene / chapter is from 1st POV, it's implied that the reader can only see it if the narrator does. "My mom is picking her nose over by the window." Look at that! You cut down your word count!

These are just a few of the problems I encountered when I looked back at a manuscript I finished years ago. Although, it seems I haven't learned much because I used the word "just" in the sentence right before this one. Pssttt! Read it again, leaving "just" out - see! It still makes sense!

___________________________________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 9, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, From the Write Angle, The Class of 2k13 and The Lucky 13s. You can also find her on Twitter, Tumblr & Facebook.

Continuity & Copyedits

It's amazing to me the things that slip past my writer's eyes. I expect the first edit to catch all kinds of problems - changing a character's name midway through the book, starting a sentence one way only to end it in another, random periods, comma splices (err... a couple hundred of those), and various "mis"spelled words that are actually spelled correctly - like a misplaced "the" instead of "he," and vice versa.

It happens. It's expected. By the second or third editing pass and a few critique partners and beta readers' feedback there are still an amazing amount of flubs that eek by. Little bittie bastards, I call them. Minor things that spell check won't catch and my brain (and the CP's and betas' too, apparently) seem to auto-fix as we read. For example, I had an errant spotting of the mythical item called "lip floss" instead of "lip gloss" hanging out in a YA ms that had been through... well, I won't tell you how many smart people had read that thing and never caught it.

Then the agent passes through and catches a lot of those little bittie bastards, and usually the agent passes through it again to catch the little itty bittie bastards. At that point we all feel pretty secure, and the ms goes out on submission. Hopefully it gets picked up (hooray) and then the editor jumps in.

I've talked before about the editing process when you've got a real pro on your side, so I won't go into that here. Once your ms has passed through the editor it should look amazing, right? It should have a nice veneer on it like an Edwardian teak desk, right? Well... sure, it kind of does.

But there are times when that desk looks awesome but perhaps it's missing a drawer. Sometimes really, really obvious things that completely undermine a scene have slipped past you, your CP's, your beta readers, your agent and even your editor.

How can that be? Hopefully it's because all the people above were so lost in your storytelling that they simply accepted what you're saying and rolled with it. Lost in the moment, they didn't realize that the moment didn't have any right to exist in the first place.

My example - my copyeditor found a spot in NOT A DROP TO DRINK where my MC is finally letting her emotional walls down and taking a moment to study the face of a sleeping friend in the flickering shadows of firelight. Awww... it's really sweet. It's pretty much the first time she has acknowledged to herself that she actually cares about another human being. It makes people tear up, which I guess blurs their vision a little, because they forget that the scene is taking place in a concrete basement, it's past midnight, there's a blizzard outside, and they just shut the door to the cast iron stove a paragraph above so.... technically my MC can't see jack shit.

Yeah... need to fix that.

_____________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut NOT A DROP TO DRINK - a post apocalyptic survival tale will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Find a Good Critique Group

by Brenda Remmes

              I’m always surprised at how many people tell me that they don’t want anyone to read what they’re writing until they’re completely finished.  Most agents say they don’t need to read more than five pages to tell whether they’re interested in the rest of the manuscript.  You’re hoping they’ll get through at least the first three chapters.  My thoughts are you might as well get those first five pages out there as soon as possible for some feedback so you don’t make the same mistakes throughout the rest of your writing.

               I was very lucky to fall into an excellent critique group on my first try.  That doesn’t always happen.  Critique groups are different.  Whether you wish to start a group on your own or attend one already in existence, here are my rules of thumb.  1)  Look for some members where at least a few people have already published or have some professional experience in publishing, even if it’s in the local newspaper.  There’s no better educator than experience.  2)  Stay clear of family members and friends.  They tend to be too kind.  You need honesty that is cushioned with respect and appreciation for the work and method involved in writing.  3) Establish the guidelines for participation in the group.  Everyone should be writing something.  Meetings should be regular.   Submission requirements should be consistent.

               Here is the way my critique group works.  Our group has ten members.  Average attendance is about six, which is a good number, because it means each person can submit for every meeting if they wish.  Larger groups allow people to submit only every few months.  We have a coordinator who e-mails reminders before each meeting.  We meet twice a month for two hours.  Anyone who wishes to submit may do so four days prior to the next meeting by e-mailing to every member up to ten pages (double-spaced in submission format) of whatever they are writing.  Participants are asked to critique each piece prior to the meeting.  I stress the word “prior” because this is a point on which a lot of critique groups differ.  Some critique groups read the submissions at the meeting.  We have found it much more effective to individually critique the submission before the meeting and then discuss it at the meeting.

               We are not an “editing” group.  While we may note misspelling or grammatical corrections on our copy of the manuscript that we return to the author, this is not what we come together to discuss.  Our role is to make comment on the character development, plot and background stories.  “What worked for me when I read your piece,” and “What didn’t work so well.”  During this process, I have learned that my weakness is my inability to give enough descriptive detail to a scene.  “I can’t see this scene in my head, yet,” is the critique my group makes.  “What’s in the room with them?  What noises are going on in the background.  Are there certain smells I should be aware of?”  Incorporate all of the senses, not just the visual.  The group will often give me ideas and make suggestions of what might work.

               We remain respectful of each individual’s efforts and their particular genre, recognizing that we don’t have all the answers by a long shot and reminding one another that what one publisher may not like, another might love. One of our members joined another group in addition to ours where they worked specifically with children’s books.  She shares what she learns from them. 

We continue to remind one another that one person’s opinion does not an absolute make, but we suggest that if two or more people raise the same issue, it might be something the author wishes to consider.  In the end, the author always has the final say on whatever they choose to write.

               As for me, there is no doubt in my mind that I would not have made it as far as I have at this point without the insights and recommendations from my critique group.   I would have wasted valuable time submitting one manuscript  after another to agents without understanding why they got rejected.  I now have a contract on a book.  In addition, I have a new group of friends, who remain kind and compassionate in regards to my writing.  More importantly, they’re not afraid to challenge me to do better and continually improve my writing skills.  

Illustrations:   rudall30, Yury Shchipakin/ Shutterstcock.com

Why Does It Take So Long To Publish A Book, Anyway?

by Mindy McGinnis

Delivering that first book into the world is a lot like waiting for the baby to drop. You're tired, you're stressed out, and you're really, really sick of people asking you when it's going to happen.

Unfortunately, the gestational period for a book tends to be longer than nine months for most of us. In my case, NOT A DROP TO DRINK won't be released until nearly two years after I signed my contract. Why?

Good question. There's actually a good answer.

Large houses plan their publishing lists far in advance. Smaller houses have a quicker turnaround time, so the gestational period of a book can vary widely house to house. Beyond that factor though, there's the step-by-step process that the author and editor go through, typically about a year in advance of publication date.

Revisions: This is a large-scale, big-picture, here-are-some-things-to-think-about letter from your editor, typically called the "edit letter." In my experience the revision involved a hard look at the timeline of the plot, getting certain plot-accelerating events to occur earlier in the narrative, and a restructuring of the first fifty or so pages came hand in hand with that. Other considerations at this stage are overall theme, narrative style, character development, etc. Your edit letter can be anywhere from 4 - 20 pages long, and the editor usually gives the author a fairly large time frame to work in, sometimes as long as six months. Also, once you do one revision, you're not necessarily done. Sometimes the author will go through several revisions.

Line Edits: Once the big picture is in a place the editor and author are both happy with, you move on to line edits. This is where the editor looks hard at details like lines of dialogue that don't necessarily ring true, little inconsistencies that weren't necessarily caught when doing revisions, and maybe even looking at scene and chapter breaks for better locations. Again, authors and editors usually go through more than one line edit, with a nice window of a few weeks.

Copy Edits: Now the book moves into the hands of the copyeditor, who checks for continuity - was your character wearing a red shirt at the beginning of the scene, but walked out of it wearing a blue one? - punctuation, spelling errors that slip by (a "he" when it needs to be "the"), sneaky homonyms (their, there, they're), and other little things that smart readers are going to catch. Copy editors are angels with red pens and sharp minds.

(Keep in mind not all houses go through the editing process in the same way. Some editors like to do line edits hand-in-hand with revisions. It varies.)

At this point the author might feel very much like a soon-to-be-mother hauling ass towards the finish line. We're ready for this to happen. We're ready to make the delivery. Please, I'm quite sick of gestating this thing in my (mind / uterus).

But... too bad. You still have to go through first pass pages, the awesome fun of cover art (a process in and of itself) and marketing, finding authors (hopefully of your dreams) to blurb your book. The good news is that you're not in it alone. Much like giving birth, there are plenty of people who have been doing this for a long time, and they're here to walk you through this intimidating process.

I've only highlighted the first three phases of the editing process here, as I'm only that far myself. I don't feel qualified to speak further. But, as you can see my book is still only on the beginning of the road to publication, and I'm a year out.

I'm looking forward to the next year, the next phase. Seeing my cover develop through the fantastic art department over at Katherine Tegen is going to be a thrill, and all my debut author friends say holding their first pass pages in their hands and seeing their book - looking like a book! - is the WHAM! moment for them that really punches home that they're going to be an author.

I can't wait to feel like one too. :)
__________________________________________

Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut dystopian, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Edit Cave

by Mindy McGinnis

I've heard a lot of people talk about the Edit Cave, as if it were some secret hideout that writers can go to with fancy butlers who bring us our soup and neat gadgets to distract us with when we need it.

I wish.

Well, besides the fancy gadgets (can you hear me, Twitter?) I totally want a dark cave I can crawl into, dragging my edit letter and brick of an ms with me. It'd be lit only by my laptop screen, and I'd have lidless eyes and extra appendages when I crawled back out. But I'd have my solitude, I'd hit my deadline, and there would be nothing from reality to slide into my time and demand my attention.

But... just try going to Google Maps and typing in "Edit Cave." It doesn't exist. Unfortunately there isn't anyplace we can go for this magical dark place of alone time where our brains are free to exist only in the worlds we've created. Reality is a bitch, and a really high-maintenance one that demands a lot of face-time.

If I had my way I'd eat MRE's and not bathe while in the metaphorical edit cave, but that's not the case. The real world needs me to be responsible and be a good citizen, go to the pool and the ice cream festival, the student graduations and family birthday parties. Instead of the blank "I left the stove on" stare, I tend to have the "I left that character mid-scene" look. It's pretty hard to spot unless you're another writer.

So what do I do? My edit cave is only open during the hours of 10 PM to However-Long-I-Choose-To-Punish-Myself AM. In a way, it really is a dark fortress of solitude, as you tend to loose daylight during that time. While at first I thought I would hate only allowing myself these stolen hours, I soon figured out it's what works for me, and my brain has adjusted.

Yes, I'm sleep deprived. Yes, I'm not the earliest riser. Yes, I tend to be a bit grumpy anytime before noon on the days following Edit-Cave-Isolation. But the revision is going well - ahead of schedule, in fact - and I'm well on my way to becoming one of those people who thanks their editor for making their story stronger in the acknowledgements.

I still wouldn't mind a butler.

Mindy McGinnis is the author of NOT A DROP TO DRINK, a YA dystopian coming from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins Fall, 2013. You can find her at her blog, Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire, Twitter and Facebook.

So you found an agent? Yay! Welcome to hell.

So, you’ve found an agent! Good job! Stop reading now, and come back when the euphoria passes.

[Author’s note: As with much of what I have to say about publishing, please bear in mind that at this point my sample size = 1. This means that my experience could ultimately resemble yours, but it could also be wildly different. With any luck, you’re the next Stephanie Meyer.]

Hey, welcome back! Okay, now that you’ve come back to earth, you’ve probably figured out that while finding an agent is quite an accomplishment (not to mention a necessary first step), it isn’t the end of the road; in fact, it’s just the start, and the agony of waiting is about to get much, much  worse. Not only are you contemplating the prospect of getting published, you might even be paid for it!

Remember when you said, “I’m not writing for the money.”? Well, now you are, and unless you are made of sterner (or more ascetic) stuff than I, the dollar signs will start dancing before your eyes very soon. (For awesome blog posts about advances, go here and here.)

The process of finding a publisher can move at the speed of light, or at a glacial pace. The catch is that even when things move at the speed of light, they feel glacial. The time between when your agent sends your book to editors and you finally hear from them is going to be one of the longest you’ve ever experienced. You will come to think of hours as days, and days as months. Your average weekend will last an eon.

Once your agent gets your manuscript, she will send it out to editors. There are different schools of thought on how widely to send a manuscript. If an agent is not entirely sure that the book will sell, she might test the waters by sending it to a few publishers to see what they say. The thinking here is that if everyone comes back with a resounding “Not just no, but Hell No!”, you can revise the book and resubmit elsewhere.

The worst fate that can befall your book at this point is for your agent to submit a book that is not yet ready to lots of publishers; if the book doesn’t sell you you’ll have burned a lot of bridges. Be sure to talk with your agent about the number and kind of presses where she will send your work, and ask her to explain why she is using that strategy. In my case, Josh thought my MS was more or less ready to go, and sent it to about a dozen presses in all.

Once your agent sends out the MS, the best thing you can do (other than go for a long trip away from any sort of communication device, to include carrier pigeons) is try to manage your expectations. While amounts a press will offer vary, they tend to be pretty low (or at least lower then you probably want!) for first time authors.

If my experience is typical (again, keep the sample size in mind), your agent will send your MS to editors who like the kind of fiction you write, and as a result you will receive a lot of positive feedback right off the bat. If an editor loves your book, he will “get additional reads” from other editors and then take it to the editorial/acquisitions board. The editors goal is to build a wave of support behind the book even before the board meets. Cue the dancing dollar signs.

Here is where the trouble starts. Publishers are risk-averse these days, and many of these secondary readers will look for reasons not to publish your book. To make matters worse, the process is incredibly subjective, so virtually any reason to reject a book is good enough. Among the reasons I received were:

• Set too far in the past. Readers want their historical fiction more recent than the 1600s. Yes, tell that to Hilary Mantel.
• The suits up in marketing couldn’t decide if it was a mystery or women’s fiction.
• Too much mystery, not enough midwifery.
• Too much midwifery, not enough mystery.
• Too commercial.
• Not commercial enough.

(Yes, for every editor who thought there was too much [fill in the blank] there was another who thought there was too little. That’s the nature of the beast.)

The point is that the initial interest is not necessarily indicative of a forthcoming offer to buy the book.

But once you receive that offer, the fun begins, because – the waiting isn’t over.

Sam Thomas is the author of The Midwife's Tale coming soon from Minotaur/St.Martin's. You can learn more at his website, like him on Facebook (or in a coffee shop if you run into him there), and follow him on Twitter.

Rabbit Test, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Me

When I was invited to join this group, my mind immediately went to the movie Rabbit Test.

Remember that piece of classic cinematic triumph?  I thought not.

No one remembers Rabbit Test, and that’s probably a good thing.  The movie was a box-office flop for a variety of reasons, but the biggest was the fact that no one wanted to sit around for 90 minutes and watch a pregnant man make jokes about morning sickness, mood swings and the constant need to pee.

For those of you who are hopping over to IMDb right now to look up Rabbit Test, I’ll spare you the trouble.  The 1978 comedy was directed by Joan Rivers, starred Billy Crystal in his first movie role, and carried the unforgiveable tag line “The story of the world’s first pregnant man…it’s inconceivably funny.”  The setup is simple: Billy Crystal has unprotected sex with a woman and winds up pregnant.  It could happen to anybody.  What’s unexpected is how unfunny the movie turned out to be—even with cameos by Paul Lynde, Michael Keaton, Jimmy “Dy-no-MITE!” Walker, and Roddy McDowell in drag.  Critics were not kind; Janet Maslin wrote in the New York Times, “Whenever one does laugh, it's in spite of the movie, rather than because of it.”  Ouch!  I guess the world wasn’t ready for a knee-slapper about a pregnant man.

Eighteen years later, the world had softened its bias somewhat when Arnold Schwarzenegger decided not to terminator his pregnancy in Junior.  He and Danny DeVito mugged their way through another movie about “the world’s first pregnant man.”  This time, it was a research scientist (Schwarzenegger) who didn’t know what to expect when he was expecting.  The movie poster carried a familiar tag line: “Nothing is inconceivable.”  The box office for Junior was a bit more boffo, thus clearing the way for more feel-good flicks about preggo men.

Which brings me to me.  What’s a Hairy Chest like me doing in a nice place like this?

The Book Pregnant group was founded on the idea that, as writers, we all carry our stories, our characters, our paragraphs around inside us like prenatal passengers.  Right now, if you’re gestating a short story, an essay, a poem, a novel, a memoir, or even a book on the history of Pez dispensers, you are “with book.”  Your mind is swollen, your wrist joints ache, your feet need to be rubbed, and you’re distracted by the constant need to pee.  That’s right—we’re all about metaphor around here.  This blog is founded on the principle of symbolism.

But it’s a true metaphor, isn’t it?  As writers, don’t we constantly bear the weight of imagination and language?  Doesn’t it wear us down with distraction and fill us with delight in equal measure?  As a real-life father of three, I know from experience that my wife had her share of Good Days and Bad Days (along with Ice Cream Days, Mashed-Potatoes-and-Gravy Days, and I-Wish-We’d-Never-Had-Sex Days).  One minute, our work-in-progress is the happiest joy we’ve ever known; the next minute, it’s an insufferable beast of burden.

But then the day comes when we get the happy news: our manuscript is headed for publication.  We get the news not from our OB-GYN, but our agents, an editor, or the mailman who hands us a creamy-white envelope with the return address of a magazine where our work was under consideration. O frabjous day!  Callooh!  Callay!  We will be published!  We will deliver our words and they will grow and go out into the world to make us proud.

That’s when the real waiting begins.  Here at the Book Pregnant blog, we’ve come together as debut authors who have been sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting to be moved from Labor to Delivery.  We’ve commiserated, held back each other’s hair when our colleagues leaned over the toilet in bouts of morning sickness, and have given our share of foot rubs.

I—along with Sam, Wiley, and Robert—am proud to be among the pregnant men of the group.  If I were to turn sideways for a profile views, you’d marvel at my belly bump.  Strangers are always coming up to me and shamelessly asking, "Can I touch it?"

I conceived my book Fobbit—a dark comedy about war—seven years ago while I was in Iraq.  It wasn’t what you’d call an immaculate conception.  In fact, it was downright messy.  My thoughts were scattered, the scenes were hither and yon, characters were undeveloped.  It wasn’t even a novel.  It started life as a journal which I thought would eventually grow into a memoir about my time as an untested soldier at war.  It didn't take long for me to realize the world didn't need another boring, bland-as-vanilla Iraq War memoir.  So I spiced it up with fiction, injected some steroids, and watched it turn into an entirely new and different baby.

But kids have a way of surprising you, don’t they?  What you think is just an energetic fetus turns out to be triplets.  So it goes with my novel.  Over the past nine months—since I got the news from my gyne-agent—it has been reshaped by draft after draft of edits and revisions.  When it’s eventually delivered in September of this year, Fobbit will look nothing like it did when it first started as a mere embryo of an idea.

By now, I’ve probably pushed the pregnant metaphor too far.  You might even say it has stretch marks.  (Okay, I’ll stop.)

But really, I’m happy to have found this community of writers “heavy with book.”  When I got the Book Pregnant invitation, not only did I think of Billy Crystal’s absurd belly, I also remembered one of my favorite writing quotes I’ve been packing around for years (since my undergrad days at the University of Oregon in the 1980s) in that virtual battered and scuffed journal held together by rubber bands.  It goes like this:  “I was with book, as a woman is with child.”  That quote is from a dude—Clive Staples Lewis (C.S. to you and me).  And he certainly knew a thing or two about carrying a book to full term, didn’t he?

The Importance of a Great Editor

by Erin Cashman

            I began my writing career in elementary school, always jotting down stories and poems. It has always been my dream to be a published author, but my father encouraged me to go to law school, so I could support myself. I took his advice, and stopped writing anything except legal briefs and memos for several years. And then one night I had the strangest dream, and a story popped into my head.  I just hadto write it down. I finished it a year later, and sent it off to agents and publishers, convinced I would realize my dream. Three years and thirty rejections later, I put it aside and started fresh.  I wrote a middle grade adventure novel, certain that this one would be published. Wrong again. And then I wrote The Exceptionals. I sent it out to only ten people; pretty sure it would notbe published. About a month later I got a call from my fabulous agent, Erica Silverman of Trident Media. She was so enthusiastic about the book and she offered to represent me. I was absolutely thrilled! I was so excited to finally have an agent, especially one as talented as Erica, and to be at Trident. The very next day, Pam Glauber, an editor from Holiday House called, and said she read The Exceptionals and loved it, and Holiday House wanted to publish it. I couldn’t believe it! As Erica and I discussed whether to take Holiday House’s offer, or to submit it to other publishers, I kept thinking about how much I liked Pam when we spoke and communicated through email.  This was one of the major reasons we went with Holiday House. 

I really had no idea how important an editor is to an author, or to a novel. I thought they crossed some things out, and wrote in the margins – like a graded paper in college. Although an editor does do that, a good one does so much more. Pam really helped shape the book. In her first editorial letter to me, she pointed out that I had too many characters. A couple would have to go. I thought it over, and she was absolutely right. Since each of the characters had a purpose in furthering the plot, I had to do quite a bit of re-writing! I painstakingly went through her letter, edited, edited and edited some more, and sent it back to her.  Surely I was almost done, right? Wrong. Pam went through the manuscript again, in detail. She pointed out parts where the plot dragged and secondary characters that were not memorable enough. During one conversation Pam told me that one of my characters, Billy, needed to be more than just a good big brother, and suggested that he play a sport. I mulled that over for a couple of hours, trying to decide what sport fit his personality. And then it occurred to me – since The Exceptionals is about a school for students who have “special” abilities, shouldn’t his sport involve that?  I came up with the idea of the Telekinesis Tournament, or the TT, which many readers have said is one of their favorite parts.  

With each draft, the novel improved. I would often call and run an idea by Pam, or send her two versions of a scene and ask her advice. When the line edit came (which is the novel with the editor’s notes written on it), she not only corrected or crossed things out, but she also jotted things in the margin, like: “I loved this part”, or “this was so suspenseful”, or “I couldn’t stop laughing”.  She was always very kind and encouraging. I learned so much from Pam, and I know my writing improved through the editing and re-write process. I was very fortunate to have such a great editor for my first novel.

The Best Piece of Writing Advice-Thanks to My Mentor

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

                                                    

All my life, I’ve turned to books for advice and answers to my how-to questions. During my first pregnancy, I read everything I could get my hands on about what to expect while expecting. I carefully studied every chapter in books about taking care of newborns and toddlers. When I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning my own horse, I bought books on backyard horse-keeping, training, and equine first-aid. I turned to books when I planted my first garden, bought my first flock of chickens, and brought home a lamb and baby goat in the back of my car. (That’s a story for another day.)

Years later, when I decided to get serious about writing, it was only natural for me to turn to books again. My favorites are “Bird-by-Bird” by Anne Lamott and “On Writing” by Stephen King. While trying to figure out the mysterious process of crafting a novel, I read about plot, character, style, structure, word painting, the importance of character naming, and how to find your muse. And I wrote.

After transcribing the first messy draft of The Plum Tree from several legal pads on to my computer, I tinkered with the beginning, lengthened the middle, finalized character names, and incessantly changed my mind about descriptive words. I tried to use what I’d learned in books to turn misplaced plot points and confusing flashbacks into a manuscript; hopefully a manuscript someone would want to read someday. But there was something else I needed to know. Was my writing any good or was I was wasting my time? Unfortunately, the answer couldn’t be found in books.

Having graduated from a tiny high school (400 students in K-12), I knew I had a lot to learn if I really wanted to revise and try to sell a novel. After all, I'd never taken a creative writing course, there were no local writers’ groups, and I didn’t go to college. I didn’t know any authors, editors, or creative writing teachers. The only place I had to turn was the Internet.  

I will be forever thankful that my search led me to William Kowalski, award-winning author of Eddie’s Bastard/HarperCollins. With my heart in my throat, I emailed him, asking if he would read the first ten pages of my manuscript. I’d never shown my writing to anyone, and now I was going to send it off to be critiqued by a complete stranger! Yikes! When he emailed the next morning, saying I write better than most college graduates he knows, I started shaking. I couldn’t believe that someone, let alone an award-winning author, thought my writing was good!

Over the next four years, William Kowalski became my editor, teacher, mentor, and, I'm honored to say, my friend. He taught me about style, structure, voice, and more importantly, how to be a storyteller. He was surprised by how fast my abilities improved, and the more I learned the more I wanted to know. It was an exhilarating time for me, discovering the skills I needed to turn my dreadful first draft into a real, live novel. I read his emails and devoured his comments like a sugar-charged kid ripping open presents on Christmas morning. Of course there were times when his edits and comments felt over-whelming, but he had warned me to read through them a few times, let them digest, then tackle them one by one. It was a necessary lesson on patience; priceless when it came time to work with the editor from my publishing house.  

My mentor’s faith in me and my work bolstered me during difficult times and pushed me to believe in myself. I taped his letters of encouragement above my desk and read them often. He taught me more about writing in those four years then I could have learned from a hundred books. One of the best pieces of advice he ever gave me (mentioned in his article about receiving the same advice from his mentor) was: Always Return To the Right Foot. This advice makes sense if you’ve ever been in the military. When the command, “At ease!” is given to a soldier, he is free to do anything: slouch, pivot, yawn, etc. But his right foot must never leave the ground.

The plot of a novel is that right foot. As novelists, we’re free to wander off in any direction, to taste the homemade bread and sweet jam or explore the castle ruins, as long as, sooner or later, we return to that right foot: the part of the narrative that makes the reader keep turning the page, that answers that all-important question: And then what happened?

What happened for me was this: I worked like a dog to transform The Plum Tree and get it in tip-top shape. Then I sent out large piles of query letters, found an agent, and sold my first novel.

I owe everything to William Kowalski. Somehow, he turned a small-town girl with no creative writing experience into a soon-to-be published novelist. Words can’t describe my gratitude. With his gentle guidance, unending patience, and immeasurable knowledge, he taught me how to return to the right foot, and in the end, changed my life.

The Rules

By Julie Kibler

photo credit Dori Young

My recent first round of edits while under contract has shown me that sometimes the best route from point A to point B is breaking a rule.

You know … “The Rules.” The ones that say how we’re supposed to write. (There are also plenty of "rules" for pregnancy, right?)

This has come as a bit of a shock. We’ve had these rules drilled into us for so long, fully believing they are critical to whether we find an agent, get a book contract, wow the world.

Of course, they always say it’s okay to break the rules at times, but if you are going to break a rule, you better break it well. What does that mean, exactly? How will we know? Oh, you’ll know. You’ll know. Right.

I tried really hard to avoid backstory while writing Calling Me Home. Backstory, according to millions of articles and blog posts about querying your first novel, is anathema. Suicide, really. If your first few chapters, especially, contain backstory, you might as well quit now.

Then, as I was completing my revisions for my editor, I worried and worried and worried over this one point in my story that just wasn’t coming together, and I realized I needed a flashback. (Thanks to the suggestion of someone in a really great online group I belong to ... not mentioning any names … BOOK PREGNANT!)

My kneejerk reaction was, “NO! NO BACKSTORY!” I had totally discounted flashback in the attempt to follow the rules. I inserted what ended up feeling like a really nice section that rounded out a relationship I’d been trying to flesh out in the moment, when what these characters needed was history. We’ll see what my editor thinks. 

On another note, I was shocked to find my editor calling for more of this, more of that, with very little cutting of something else. WHAT? I thought. If I do THAT, my manuscript breaks the 100K word barrier! Oh, nooooo! Run away! Run away! I was being so legalistic, I thought I must lose a word for every word I added in order to stay below that holiest of all word counts.

Guess what? I turned in an edited manuscript that weighed in around 103K words, even while I had pinched it so hard, you could hear the words screaming as I knocked them off the page. And the world hasn’t fallen apart yet. Again, I’ll let you know what my editor thinks later. And, ultimately, that story is stronger, deeper, longer, and brighter, I hope.

This has been a good reminder to me that writing rules are almost always about the spirit of the law, and not the letter of the law. Remember that—when you’re finishing your masterpiece, when you’re querying your first-choice agent, when you’re getting ready to go on submission for the first time. (When you're pregnant and gaining 32 pounds instead of 30.) In the words of someone else, I can't remember who ...

It’s about the story, stupid.

(p.s. It is now a month after I wrote this. My editor loved the revisions and nary a word was mentioned about word count!)