Taking the Next Step: Becoming a Published Book Writer
The crazy world of publishing can be a scary and confusing place for a new book writer, and it can be nice to get a little bit of guidance on how to navigate around things like writer guidelines, publishing houses,literary agents, and such. While most first time book writers think the hard work was done once they typed the end at the bottom of the last page, it turns out that there is still a whole lot left to do. For those who want to see their words in print, this article will help offer some advice on how to get moving in the right direction.
First of all, let us assume that the book writer is not interested in trying to self publish, and let us focus instead on how to shop the manuscript around to those whose job it is to do such things. One of these people is the literary agent. A book writer does not have to use the services of a literary agent, but sometimes having one on your side really is an asset.
This person will know the appropriate markets to send the manuscript and will have the expertise to negotiate a contract with a publisher on the writers behalf. In return, of course, he or she earns a portion of the negotiated fee. For this reason, it is in the agents best interest to get the book writer the most money for the project. Unfortunately, finding an agent to represent an aspiring author can be almost as daunting as finding a publisher would have been!
When trying to secure a publisher, book writers should consider using all of the writing resources available. This includes publications like Writers Market and the information distributed by the publishing houses themselves. A little early research can save a lot of time in the long run. A novel writer who sends his manuscript to a childrens book publisher has not done himself, or the publisher, any favors. Nothing annoys publishers and editors more than receiving manuscripts that just do not fit their genre.
In addition to finding the right publisher, it is also important to be sure that the work is sent to the right department. Since there is a high rate of turnover in the publishing world, it is always a good idea to double check that the envelope is addressed to the current editor of the department. This can be accomplished with a quick, polite phone call to ensure that the editor is still with the company and that the name was spelled correctly on the website.
One other important tool for the book writer is the proposal. While some publishers request only a short query letter from writers, others are going to insist on seeing an entire proposal. Many writers make the mistake of sending their whole manuscript, but the writer guidelines will very often stipulate that they only want to see the complete proposal.
We say only, but creating a book proposal is a big endeavor that will likely take much of a writers creative writing skills in order to appropriately sum up not only the book itself, but also the market into which is would be released. It is an interesting mix of writing fiction and creative marketing. There are a lot of writer resources out there to help create a strong book proposal that will have the publisher asking to see the entire manuscript.
It is true that fulfilling your dream of becoming a book writer can really be a labor of love. The unfortunate reality of getting that book published, however, is that it is just plain labor. With some hard work and determination, the above suggestions can help turn an amateur book writer into a published professional writer.
Caterina Christakos is the author of several how to books and childrens novels. To learn step by step how to get past writer’s block, find the write outlet for your book and write your own children’s book in 30 days or less go to: http://www.howtowriteachildrensbook.com
The Backstory, Or: Just Where The Heck Does It All Start?
If you have decided to write a novel, the story that exists within it extends way beyond the book itself. This ‘backstory’ is what helps give your book depth: here are a few points to keep in mind about the ‘past’ of the book you’re writing.
A novel may encompass any period of time, from an hour or two to many centuries. Yet this span of time, no matter how great, is finite; it has a beginning and an end that coincide with the start and finish of your book. Yet we all know that time itself is limitless – so what happened to make your story happen?
This act – the incident that sends your hero or heroine zooming along their roller-coaster ride through your book – is not the start of your story, though it is the event that starts your story. Let me try to explain this, on the face of it, baffling statement.
The event that starts your story is the one that turns your lead character’s life upside down. This event, decided upon by you, can be almost anything, depending on the story you wish to tell – aliens land and invade earth; he or she loses their job; war breaks out unexpectedly; they are kidnapped and have to escape – virtually anything at all. Its sole reason for happening is to jump-start your story into life and set the ball rolling – without it, there would be no story to tell.
Yet the story doesn’t start at this point. You see, your story is made up of two main elements. The first is your plot – the second is your characters. In order for these characters to be believable and to have ‘life’, they cannot just spring into existence from nowhere. Now I realise that your characters only have the life you give them but you, in your book, are only writing about a certain part of their life – not usually all of it (unless you are writing another Forsyte Saga!).
It therefore follows that your characters must have had a ‘life’ before we meet them within the pages of your book. All of them were born somewhere, grew up, went to school, fell in love, got married, had kids – the normal, everyday things that happen. Or maybe not. Maybe that even-tempered guy who in your book runs a floristry business once did time for robbery. Or that little old lady who you have decided will sell coffee in the mall was a member of the French Resistance during WW2.
Crazy? Hey, much crazier things have happened, believe me! The point, however, is that suddenly these two characters have added depth. They now have a ‘backstory’ – something that happened to them in the past that shapes their life now. It’s imperative that all your main characters, certainly, should have a comprehensive backstory, or there’s a chance that your story may lose it’s reason for being. Imagine:
Chris bangs open the batwing doors in the saloon, stalks inside and comes to rest in front of Bart. ‘Your time’s up, pal’ he snarls, pulls out a big .45 revolver and shoots Bart dead. Dramatic, yes – but why did he do it? People don’t usually behave this way, even in times when life was counted as cheaper than it is now. However, consider this:
Chris has known Bart for years. Maybe Bart stole something belonging to Chris? Land? A gold mine? A girl? He’s given Bart many chances to make amends because once, years ago, they were good friends. Bart won’t give the thing he stole back and just recently he’s added insult to injury by stealing something else belonging to Chris. Result – Chris shoots him dead.
This embryonic plotline shows how Chris and Bart’s backstory is essential. Without it, the scene above would have had one man shoot another for no reason we could think of – baffling for a reader and, in the end, uninteresting. As the opening scene in your novel it would also be mystifying but, when the backstory is fed to the reader, the reason becomes clear.
The backstory to a character – and the way each character relates to another – is the mortar that cements the bricks of your novel together. Bring your characters to life by giving them a past and you will ensure that your readers will see them as real people. Once this happens, your readers start to care about your characters – and you have the makings of a novel that no-one will be able to put down until the last page!
Steve Dempster writes articles for the web and works of fiction. If you would like to get the know-how a novelist needs, visit his site at http://www.howtobeawriter.co.uk/page11.html
If Failure Is A Dirty Word – It Pays To Know How To Clean It Up!
The flip side of the success coin is failure. In our culture, failure has almost become a taboo subject – and yet failure simply means lack of success. Learning from failure to gain the success you want isn’t magic – it’s called planning. In writing this is crucial, so let’s have a look at some pointers.
Planning is the key to success in many walks of life and in most careers and writing is no exception. If you are planning who to write for, have the correct target market, write the correct sort of material for that market and most importantly NEVER GIVE UP – then eventually (maybe the next story?) you WILL make the breakthrough!
Motivation of the self is not easy – I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by pretending it is. This is one reason I advocate going to a good writer’s group – the support you receive may well make all the difference between becoming a published writer and throwing in the towel in disgust!
Surveys have shown that over 70% of people questioned have put ‘writing a book’ in their all-time top ten of things to do in life. What they don’t show is how to go about doing it! Look at this way: Learning to drive a car is quite an achievement – being in charge of and responsible for over a ton of metal on the move is a serious business.
Yet millions of people can drive cars, despite the learning curve that it involves – so why can’t they write that longed-for book? The answer lies in one word: tuition. Someone actually teaches you to drive that car – how it goes, how it stops, how to make a left turn, when it’s safe to overtake – the list goes on and on. In fact, learning to drive is SO difficult that the real surprise is that so many people manage to do it at all!
So where do you find these tutors? Driving instructors fall out of the trees everywhere you look – but who is going to teach you how to write your book?
Above I mentioned writer’s groups. Belonging to a good one, where members aid each other and help is always at hand, is pure gold. But what about the times you can’t attend, or it’s not group night? There you sit; despondent and demotivated, realising that writing can be a very lonely job indeed. Maybe you turn to a ‘how-to’ book – maybe you look inside yourself for inspiration.
The point is that if your work is planned from start to finish you should never, ever dry up. So-called ‘writer’s block’ usually occurs during the writing of a book because you have hit a point where the plot is falling apart (due to lack of planning) and your back is against the wall with nowhere to go.
If, however, you plan your work in advance this won’t happen as all the bugs get ironed out of your story before you actually write it. You have probably heard the old mantra ‘fail to plan, plan to fail’? Well my mantra is ‘plan your finish and finish your plan’!
It really is that straightforward. Not easy – very few things that are worthwhile are easy – but achievable. Also, when you have an end in sight it’s so much easier writing your story – after all, you know just how close you are at any given time to that cliffhanger ending! So planning is the the key to overcoming failure – it unlocks the door to good practice in writing your story and lets you get on with the writing without having to worry about the plotting – because you did that already!
In summary, always treat failure – that rejected story for instance – as an opportunity to question your working methods. Did you indeed write the correct sort of story for your potential readers? Did you plan everything out about your story before you started writing? If you didn’t do either of these – put it right next time and the chances are far higher of that acceptance letter hitting your doormat!
Steve Dempster writes articles for the web and works of fiction. If you would like to get the know-how a novelist needs, visit his site at http://www.howtobeawriter.co.uk/page11.html
Short Stories Vs. Novels
Short stories have not always found their place in great literature. Thanks to great writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov and others, short stories have received great notoriety.
Short story writing is a unique art and vastly different than novel writing in form and purpose. Where novel writing is complicated, has many things going on and creates a world of possibilities, short story writing focuses on a quick, powerful impact.
Charles May wrote, “If the novel creates the illusion of reality by presenting a literal authenticity to the material facts of the external world, as Ian Watt suggests, the short story attempts to be authentic to the immaterial reality of the inner world of the self in its relation to eternal rather than temporal reality.
“If the novel’s quest for extensional reality takes place in the social world and the material of its analyses are manners as the indication of one’s soul, as Lionel Trilling says, the field of research for the short story is the primitive, antisocial world of the unconscious, and the material of its analysis are not manners, but dreams.
“The results of this distinction are that whereas the novel is primarily a social and public form, the short story is mythic and spiritual. While the novel is primarily structured on a conceptual and philosophical framework, the short story is intuitive and lyrical. The novel exists to reaffirm the world of ‘everyday’ reality; the short story exists to ‘defamiliarize’ the everyday.
“Storytelling does not spring from one’s confrontation with the everyday world, but rather from one’s encounter with the sacred (in which true reality is revealed in all its plenitude) or with the absurd (in which true reality is revealed in all its vacuity).”
Thus writers of short stories take a different approach and use different techniques than that of novel writers. Rather than looking at the outward world for familiar like the novel, the short story looks at the inward world of the individual and tries to defamiliarize the outside world. By doing so the short story is a powerful way to point out individual and social misunderstandings.
As a result the reader of short stories can focus on the pivotal climax of the short story as the peak of what the author is trying to get across. The art is to see the short scenes before the climax and how the make the pivotal moment happen in such a short amount of time.
Being that the short story is short, authors need not concern themselves with unnecessary details that will distract from the authors goal. When writing short stories it may be appropriate to write and write and write, then cross out half of what has been written. This will help eliminate unnecessary, distracting details.
Short stories are not novellas either. Novellas are simply short novels and they strive for a similar effect of a novel. Some longer short stories may resemble a novella because of length but; the intent, design and focus is different.
The short story gives glimpses of lives and events; whereas, the novel or novella encapsulate entire lives and multiple events. Some short stories span whole lives, showing different glimpses of a life. This is different than a novel or novella because, the short story will show certain events that work toward its aim and focus.
Christopher Anderson is the owner and founder of Heliand Publishing. He is currently accepting short story submissions in five genres: Literary Fantasy, Modern Mythology, Religious/Spiritual Literature, Medieval Literature and Psychological Literature.
http://www.heliandpublishing.com/