Backstory

Backstory is any part of your story that happened before the action starts. It is tempting when you begin to write to include everything you know about your character and your story. If you know it, you think your reader will want to know it too. And they do. But not right off the bat.

My agent, Rachelle Gardner, gives an excellent discussion of backstory on her blog, so I'll leave the rest to her. Click here and find out how to weave it in so you leave your readers wanting more.

http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/

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Making Characters Believable

The story whirring inside your head may be incredible. Your grasp of language and word-choice may be eloquent and gripping. But if you overlook one important element, your book will not hold the interest of a reader. It took me a while to get a grip on this element, and I most likely still have a ways to go. But the most important element to include in your writing is that your main character must be authentic.

Don't make the mistake of thinking you must give a complete physical description, similar to a police lineup. A few clear physical hints are good, but it goes beyond that. The reader must connect with your hero right from the start and that is far more difficult to achieve than it looks. Why is it that we instantly bond with some people, but others remain strangers at a distance? Watch television interviews with either celebrities or average Joe's. Why is that sometimes we're laughing right along with the person, and other times we snarl a bit?

It usually comes down to the likability of the person and that can translate a hundred ways. What makes a person likable?

Often it is their flaws. We all have them and it's nice to read about a character who has them too. They can't be TOO flawed, or they wan't be likable enough to be the heroes. Even a villain can be successfully used as a main character when he's seen as a whole person. When we know and understand the reasons he does what he does. We may not agree with him, but we keep reading to see what else he will do.

Heroes cannot be boring. Your normal, everyday life may be boring, but who would want to pay $12.99 to read about it? Even boring people can have fascinating events that propel them to react out of character and then the person is no longer boring. It is acceptable to portray your hero as an average guy, but put him immediately into a situation where he must do things an average guy wouldn't do. That action makes him above average, and therefore, interesting.

One of the mistakes I made early on--and tend to keep making--is to create a dull character who is a victim of her circumstances. Bad things keep happening to her and forcing her into situations where she does not wish to go. That is all right to a point. However, I tend to habitually make her too passive. I am learning to give her some spunk right off the bat. She should make a choice that puts her in harm's way, rather than have it always fall on top of her. We admire people who do courageous things, even if it's not the right thing. People who act, rather than re-act. And that action---in a good book--is what causes all the trouble.

See if you can create a character who is flawed, but likable, and have him/her jump into a situation for a good reason, that creates problems. Once you have a likable character, then you have the makings of a good book.
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Understanding Point of View

One common mistake among beginning writers is the failure to really understand point of view (POV). Novels published earlier than the eighties often confused point of view and we were used to it.

Current trend though, insists that authors stay true to the viewpoint character and not switch back and forth at random. Point of view is most easily illustrated by thinking of your keyboard (or pen or whatever you write with) as a movie camera. Picture looking through the viewfinder. Whatever you can see and know from there is your point of view.

For example, you may see that Jim is wearing a bloodred turtleneck and his face is downcast. You cannot, however, see what Jim is thinking, know why he picked that turtleneck unless he told you, or what he plans to do later. If your viewpoint character walks into a room, "see" that room through his eyes. Stop short of explaining things which cannot be known by the viewpoint character at that moment.

Is is entirely permissible and often desirable to switch points of view throughout your novel, adding texture and depth by looking at the situations from other viewpoints. However, there should be a clean break--a chapter break, leaving a double line of space, etc.--so that the reader knows you have switched characters. You cannot tell what Marla thinks and what John thinks in the same paragraph.

Yes, I know you've seen it done. So have I. Occasionally it works or is willfully overlooked when done by the masters. But neither you nor I are masters yet, so don't try it!

Camy Tang is the author of several romance books as well as a very informative blog for writers called The Story Sensei. She does a fantastic job of explaining Deep POV, which helped me tremendously.

Click here to learn more tricks for creating believable fiction.
http://storysensei.blogspot.com/2005/11/deep-point-of-view.html

How Long Is It?

When you begin to interact in the world of writers, there are a few terms that are taken for granted, ones that you should know and use easily.

First of all, manuscript length is measured in words, not pages. The number of pages the published book will have can vary greatly and is not evident in your unfinished manuscript. The typical paperback fiction--excluding romances and sagas--is between 70-100,000 words. This can translate into anywhere from 200 to 600 pages, depending on the printer, how chapters are divided, typeface, etc. Your computer-generated word-count is sufficient in explaining the length of your work.

Publishing avenues also vary greatly and you should understand the difference. Typically when asked if you've had a book "published," people mean "by an established, royalty-paying publishing house." Countless print-on-demand publishers, vanity publishers, and self-publishing options exist and can be an acceptable option for a writer--as long as you understand the limitations. Don't be fooled by the fancy ads on the Internet that advertise for "authors." Authentic publishing houses do not have to advertise. They are inundated with more manuscripts than they can possibly evaluate.

So if you are searching for a mainstream publishing opportunity, and the offer looks too good to be true---it is. If you have to pay THEM, it's not traditional publishing. These for-profit printers will pump you up with confidence that your book is fantastic, but the sad reality is, if you've got the bucks, you've got the book. Don't be sucked into this avenue unless you have a sure-fire way to market, promote, and distribute your book. The vanity publishers won't do this for you because they don't have any more clout than you do. The publishing world gives no credit whatsoever to a self-published book unless you have proven sales of tens of thousands of books.

There are reputable self-publishers out there, just be very careful who you're giving money to. If you're in a rush to get your book published and no traditional route opens up to you, it may be because the book doesn't have as much sales potential as you believe it does. The self-pubs won't give you the quality of editing found in the mainline houses and unfortunately, it usually shows in the quality of books produced.

That Dreaded Grammar and Punctuation

Ugh. Thought we were through with high school English class! I just want to write what I feeeeeeeel...The editor can clean up my spelling and grammar mistakes....

If you've ever said that, or even thought it, (No, I won't ask for a show of hands.) give yourself one swat. Now repeat after me: "I will not turn in shoddy work. No editor alive will like my story that much."

Like it or not, proper use of the English language is essential if you want others to enjoy your work. The fun part of fiction writing though, is that many of those pesky rules you learned in English class can be tossed aside. Sometimes. Tightening of your work often requires eliminating wordiness, and much of English grammar is wordy.

My favorite rule to break--and as a grammar snob, it took a while to accept this!--was the use of incomplete sentences. In fiction, especially close POV and snappy dialogue, using complete sentences is cumbersome. That's not the way we think or talk. Good fiction should be a very close reflection of reality, or at least believable fantasy. We don't speak in Auld English Syntax anymore, so neither should your characters, unless they happen to be uptight English grammarians. Like me.

The Bible of the publishing world continues to be The Chicago Manual of Style. If you don't own a copy, get one! And get familiar with it. The more you write, the less you will have to rely on it. The rules will become second nature. Especially if grammar was not your strong point, you need a reference guide more than you think you do.

You absolutely MUST learn the differences in the spelling and use of homonyms. (Ex: Don't use "their" when you meant "they're.") Mistakes like that leap off the page at editors and mark you as an amateur.

Another pet peeve amongst the writing elite is the use of (!) If you tend to be a high-strung dramatist like me, you will pepper your first manuscript with exclamation points. After all, we have to be sure the reader understands how intense, emotional, scary, perverse, disgusting...etc. the situation is.

WRONG! Readers hate them!! Exclamation points are annoying! See?!

One trick that helps tremendously is one I learned at a writer's conference from a successfully published author. He said he got over his fixation with exclamation points by using the Find/Replace feature in Word, replacing them with periods. Then as he did his edits, he had to justify every one. Usually the best option turns out to be rewriting the sentence with stronger verbs, or tighter writing that speaks for itself and doesn't require the dreaded (!)

Fine Tuning Your Manuscript

"Do NOT hand in your first draft!" I tell my middle school writing students.

They grin at me, clueless, and I know what they're thinking. "She won't know if it's my first draft or not. It sounded pretty good to me when I finished typing."

Oh yes, I do know. They are always so surprised, as though I'd magically peered into their houses and watched them whip the story out of the printer the night before class.

We authors are the WORST critics of our own work. When we read our story, we see what we think we said, not necessarily what's on the page. Learning to set creativity aside for awhile and pick up the red pen is a learned skill. It's not all about the grammar and punctuation either. Proper editing can make the difference between a ho-hum story and one that sings from the pages.

An excellent and often recommended source is the book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown & Dave King. You can find it on Amazon quite cheaply here: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256235816&sr=1-1

Just as I can tell when my students haven't done the refining they should have done, any agent or editor can tell at first glance whether you know what you're doing. Don't kill your wonderful book by neglecting so many of the simple tricks that can set your work apart from the masses cluttering the desktops. Learn to edit your own work.

The Query Letter

Writing a good query letter is almost as important as writing a good book. The reason is that your god book will never make it to an agent or editor's desk without being preceded by an excellent query.

The purpose of a query letter is to whet the readers interest in your book. Do NOT try to tell the whole story. That's for the synopsis. The goal is to capture the editor's interest in a single page, let her know a bit about you and your writing experience, and give her a taste of the fantastic book that prompted the letter. Notice, I said a taste. Not a mouthful.

Some things you should NEVER do for ANY reason:
Promise that your book is the next DaVinci Code.
Say that God told you to write it and told her to represent it.
Drone on and on about your personal life.
Make the query longer than a page.
Use tiny font so you can get more in.

The basics of query writing are detailed more clearly in my agent's blog. Click here, learn the ropes, and happy querying!
http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-to-write-query-letter.html

Writing the Query Letter

Another great resource for writing query letters has been written by New York literary agent, Noah Lukeman. I cannot overstress how important that first impression is, so there's no way you can "over-learn" it. Check out Mr. Lukeman's site and FREE download for sharpening your query skills. http://www.writeagreatquery.com/

The Fiction Proposal

So, you've finally done it! Weeks, months, maybe years of studying the craft, the market, the business of writing professionally and...Now what?

The uninitiated usually leap into the submission process with painful naivete, assuming that anyone who reads this precious bundle of words will be as swept away as you were in writing them.

So you print out that last page, or as is more common now, you save the finished draft in your computer file and start hunting for book publishers.

It's a bit daunting at first, realizing that publisher after publisher doesn't even want to SEE your baby if you don't have an agent.

An agent? you think. Do I need an agent? Surely I can do this myself.

And you can. Sometimes. But it's difficult, you finally realize, to be taken seriously or to get your manuscript looked at by those overworked, overwhelmed editors who may hold your future in their print-stained hands.

So you start shopping for an agent and discover WOW. It's as hard to get an agent as it is to find a publisher who will fall in love with your beautiful words. You think you've mastered the query letter, so what might you be doing wrong?

Here's a tip: Every agent has his or her own specialized preferences for the types of books they want to represent as well as the manner in which they want to recieve queries. DO NOT IGNORE THEIR STATED PREFERENCES. Before clicking send on any query, it is absolutely essential that you first research that particular agent, their submission standards,and whether or not they represent your particular kind of book. It is amazing how ingorant we writers are when we first decide to pursue publication. You must do your homework. There is no easy hop from writing your book to finding a publisher. Skipping any of these steps is a sure-fire way to be rejected again.

The link below from the Steve Laube Agency is an excellent resource for learning to write a successful book proposal. Although specific to his literary agency, this guide is still a standard for most agents and will at least help you get in the door.

Most writers hate the thought of condensing thier 80,000 word novel into a 2-3 page synopsis. We actually hate every section on this proposal, but get over it! Whine and stomp all you like, but if you're serious about the business of being a professional novelist, you'll hush up and learn to do it. As I tell my 13-year-old Algebra student: "Stop skipping steps! It doesn't work and you're setting yourself up for failure."

So writers, stop skipping steps! Click on the link and get started! Good luck! http://www.stevelaube.com/guidelines/

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