Tuesday, June 23, 2009

BYU WIFYR 6-7: Krista Marino, Edward Necarsulmer IV

Plenary: Krista Marino from Delacourt Press, “What I need to buy your book”

Editor/author relationship is like dating:
Trust, Mutual Passion (for the book), Open Communication, Not calling night and day

Liken it to “He’s just not that into you.”
Publishing can make a lot LESS sense than dating can.

I can only speak about my own rules. But each house/editor is different. So here’s my publishing philosophy.

4 things I need in order to acquire a project. Some you can control; some you can’t.

1. I need to connect with protagonist. Authentic voice, real characters.
2. Something different: plot, character, setting or format.
3. Something I can’t forget.
4. I need to understand the project: what author is doing, who readership is, how packaged.

In a relationship, you might date someone who is great but you don’t get each other, no chemistry.

Examples: books I’ve just acquired.
In these books, I found all 4 elements in first few pages of each project.

[She read a lengthy section from each book.]

3rd person narrator can give a story an old-timey feel. Very appropriate for a “classical” book.

About one book: “Author presented such a collection of questions that I couldn’t stop reading.”

*****************************************************************************
Friday Plenary Session, Edward Necarsulmer IV (agent, McIntosh and Otis): “The Role of the Agent in Children’s Book Publication: Navigating Author and Illustrating Careers Through Good Times and Bad”

(economy . . . ) It’s more important than ever that you write your book.

My philosophy of children’s books: in this world today, being a kid is great, but there are hard things about it. Everything is a public experience. But books are the last bastion of the private, the last thing a child feels is his or her own. As this world gets more confusing and insane.

People I represent: Donald Sobel (Encyclopedia Brown), Old Yeller, Madeline L’Engle, AnnDee Ellis

A Day in the Life of an Agent, from Submission to Publication

You guys get up the guts to send me something. I read it. I feel a reaction to it (gut—which is really all we have to go on, so don’t be daunted by rejections) (btw, I get more rejections than anyone). I feel like I’m falling in love. (Agent/author relationship is like a good sexless marriage—not without troubles but nothing that can’t be worked out.) I call you, say I liked what I saw, ask for the next three chapters. I read it, and if the feeling builds, I’ll request the entire ms. Chances are that if I’m that far, my heart is in it. My mentor said agenting is like learning a foreign language. At one point you begin to dream in it. As an agent, when you read something you feel something for, the names of editors begin popping into your head.

An agent is up on the publishing scene, knows likes and dislikes so he can make a match.

I like a more personal relationship with my clients. That affords honesty. Ex: AnnDee sends me her novel and I’m having a hard time getting to it, I can tell her the truth (“I had to go visit my aunt this weekend”).

Anyway, then I decide I’d like to take you on. Then I’ll give you a call, and we’ll chat in great length. Sorta like an interview. We discuss what you want in an agent, what you require in communication, how you feel about editorial work. Also other things like who else I represent, whether we have a film department. I explain that agents take 15% commission.

How can an agent help you?
-selling your book domestically
-foreign translation rights
-television rights (btw, imo agencies with in-house film/television departments are best. If the agency farms it out to Hollywood, children’s stuff doesn’t get the attention it deserves in L.A.)
-“agency” in dictionary means “to have power in a situation.” I negotiate with houses and I carry my agency’s reputation with me, so I carry weight.

Now we are at work on the ms. An editor’s favorite word is no. Because they’ve got to clear their desk. My job as an agent is to help get your ms in shape so an editor won’t say no, to do the basic things that will help them read on.

We get it in shape, and it’s time to send it out. I have probably already dropped your name to editors by now at lunch or whatever. I’ll talk about the editors/houses with you and how they’ll meld with you personally and editorially.

2 kinds of submissions: exclusive and multiple.
Exclusive is very effective.

The #1 reason people leave their agents is lack of communication. I think that’s terrible. Writing can is a solitary profession. If you write to me, upset, I can at least write you one line from my blackberry. I’d like to be there to talk you through writer’s block, if I can.

I’ll call an editor and say I think it’s a perfect fit for her, and ask, “How about a three-week exclusive?” Or we might do a multiple submission—3 or 4 houses to start.

I cultivate relationships with editors, so that when I get a rejection, I get specific feedback about why things didn’t work.

My submission guidelines: 5 pages if it’s a novel; entire ms if it’s a picture book. Include BYU on the cover.

(He told a success story that got snagged after 12 strong rejections. Lesson: don’t give up!)

If we have multiple offers, we discuss them. I consider myself a “best offer” agent rather than a “highest offer” agent. A healthy advance that earns out is much better than a big advance that doesn’t earn out. (That makes it a one-hit wonder.) We look at all factors, such as rights. I do a cost-benefit analysis in my head about what I can probably get for it. There’s no reason to retain rights that you can’t easily exploit. We make these decisions together. I can include a bonus in the contract for if it wins an award. I’ll tell you about each editor I’m considering and how I think they’ll match with you, and I’ll make recommendations.

So we find a good editor. Then the tough stuff starts—I negotiate your contract.

Once we have a contract, I become a voyeur. I get cc’d with the communication between you and the editor. If I don’t think you are being treated correctly, I’ll step in. Agents are professional pests/bad guys. You need to have a working, creative relationship with your editor. If you hate the cover, it’s easier for me to say it than you.

In about a year your book is ready to come out. I start working on your next book.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

BYU WIFYR 4: Dandi Mackall

Dandi Mackall: “VOICE, the Secret, Mysterious Ingredient to Masterpieces” (btw, Dandi has written--and published--hundreds of books. I do not exaggerate.)

Quote from Julia Barnes: “It is easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren’t writers and very little harm comes to them.”

quotes from her book, Kids are Still Saying the Darndest Things as an example of how kids speak. They say things a certain way that is identifiable as a kid. “My dad’s the boss of our house. Until Grandma comes over. Then he’s just one of us.” Why do you have mothers? “She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.” “Thou shalt not suck on a marker, because the colors come off on your teeth and everyone will know you did it. Plus, they don’t taste that good.”

Strong voice? People used to tell me, “It’ll come to you. You’ll get one.”

Without the good voice, a lot of manuscripts are interchangeable, regardless of the plot.

Regardless of the song, you can pick out your favorite singer because you know that voice. Or authors—Hemingway, i.e.

Good news: you HAVE one. You don’t have to discover it—just uncover it. It’ll come if you relax, but there are things you can do that will help.
-Be authentic. Write things that are true to you.
-Realize that you have a voice that no one else has, that is totally yours.

In addition to authorial voice, every book you write has its own distinctive voice.

I used to just get an idea and start writing. Lately I won’t start writing until I can hear the voice of that character.

How do you get to that voice?

1. Play. Make a “vomit draft.” You can go wherever you want to go.

Write a character monologue when you’re stuck or before you start your story.

The good stuff is in your subconscious, a compilation of what you’ve experienced, read, what you believe and care about. Your subconscious can bring it out into your book. You have to trust yourself to get there.
Do it by doing exercises. In exercises, you’ve got nothing to lose. Play with your novel, get at it from different angles.
Take your character with you in your head and think all day, “What would she be doing right now?”
Your first sentence can give you a good idea of voice. (She read some of her favorite first sentences.)
PLAY. Go back home tonight and write twenty first sentences. You’ll hear a new voice and it will make you want to start a new novel.

2. We all have the same tools—words. Edit. Choose the right words to make the voice you want.

About her book about playing baseball: “I had to research to get some of the language right.” (Book was full of baseball jargon.)

C. S. Lewis: “Don’t use adjectives, which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you’re describing. Don’t say it’s terrible/delightful—make us say it to ourselves as we read about what you’re describing.”

Use metaphors and similes that work. These give you maximum mileage for your words.

3. Hone in the POV. It’s your secret weapon, the one thing writing can do that visual media can never do as well.

You can use the character’s thoughts to improve voice. Example, Dandi’s book about the horse-lover girl. In her thoughts, this girl compares everything to different kinds of horses.

The way the character sees things (reporting on them in their thoughts).

Show the story through the eyes, the senses, the touch, feel and heart.

4. Find the piece of you that’s in every character. Then the voice is more authentic.

Frozen moments: Remember your moments that have frozen in your memory (like 9/11). These might be little tiny moments. Grab those, translate them and give to your characters.

Quote from ???: “All a writer has to do is to arrange the pieces that come your way.”
Give us the voice in tiny, frozen pieces that are arranged for power.

Monday, June 15, 2009

BYU WIFYR 5: Cherie Earl and Carol Lynch Williams

Cheri Pray Earl and Carol Lynch Williams: “You’ve Got a Suspicious Stain on the Seat of Your Pants and Other Points of No Return in the Adolescent Novel”

Gateways where what you’ve already written propels your story forward.

Something happens from which there is no return—your life is never the same after. (Cheri walking down the hall in high school with a stain on her pants. There is a persona that begins, but because of the way it is, it cannot survive through the thing that happens. In this way, character drives plot.)

1. Getting from beginning to middle, and from middle to end through “doorways of no return.”

2. The doorway from Beginning to Middle: Create a scene early in the beginning where the lead is thrust into the main conflict in a way that keeps him there.
EXAMPLE: Lead stumbles upon an important secret or has a professional or moral duty to push forward.

3. Ask yourself, “Can my lead walk away from the plot right now and go on as he has before?”

4. Middle to End: Something has to happen that sets up the final confrontation

5. Usually some major clue, piece of information, huge setback or crisis, hurtles the action toward conclusion—usually with one quarter or less of the novel to go.

When does a novel start? When something is new. Something different happens today than has happened before.

Inciting incident: character makes a choice (in response to circumstance) that moves us into the main conflict in the novel. What choice could she make that would push her through a doorway to such an extent that things would never be the same again?

Samples of these doorways from This is What I Did by Ann Dee Ellis and A Dance for Three by Louise Plummer.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

BYU WIFYR 3: Lisa Hale

Lisa Hale, “Putting the Novel Together, Bit by Bit”

Began with some song by Barbra Streisand about life and being criticized by editors/critics. (Sundays in the Park with George?????)

What keeps us from writing (also from Sundays in the Park with George) (answers in parentheses): I’ve nothing to say (Look at what you want, not at where you are, not at what you’ll be. Have faith, you’ve done a lot already. BELIEVE.), I don’t know where to go (move on, just keep moving on, make steady progress, enjoy the journey. DO), I want to make things that count, that are new (stop worrying whether it is new. Keep moving on. Forget the critics. Forget others’ expectations. MOVE), What am I to do? Fear and struggle of creating. (I chose and my world was shaken, so what? Let yourself make mistakes. FORWARD.)

Believe. Do. Move. Forward. (Forward means going through the mistakes. You have to go through them to get better.)

Look to narrative structure to get out of your pickle.

Julius Epstein—a reason Casablanca was successful. He told a screenplay writer how to write a screenplay in 3 sentences:

Act 1: Get your guy up a tree.
Act 2: Throw rocks at him.
Act 3: Get your guy outta the tree.

This summarizes narrative structure. Problem, intensification of problem, solution.

It’s much more powerful if your guy does something to get himself up the tree. The guy’s character traits cause the problem. The diff. betw. having character walk down the street and an anvil hits him AND character chooses to walk under scaffolding. Character is integrated into the action.

Character causes the problem, causes complications for himself, and then solves the problem.

Act 1 is the EXPOSITION. Identify characters (age, gender, etc.) and make us care about them. Bring character close to us. Create character in a way that we connect with them or are intrigued by them. Evaluate how quickly you’re bringing in conflict—this is a time to let us know who this person is. Sets up expectations for the reader. You set up rules. (Note: once you set these rules up, you can’t break them.)

End of exposition is when the INCITING INCIDENT happens. This is when the character gets himself into a pickle.

Act 2 is the RISING ACTION. Story becomes more complicated. We go deeper. Things go from bad to worse. Tension grows (like a rubber band being pulled back). This is where the character gains skills, tools (could be knowledge), and relationships (helpers) to help her through the story. Keep it character-centered. (Example, character chooses to resist the obvious solution because it would hurt someone else.)

Act 3 begins with CRISIS ACTION. This is where the character HAS to act. But before this, the character has to cause the crisis to happen. Character uses the tools, ideas, helpers to get out of it. Not only what they gained in the middle, but what was already in them from the beginning helps them solve the problem. Then FALLING ACTION and RESOLUTION.

I like to draft by going all around the plot line, jumping around by scenes (writing scenes from each section). I ask myself lots of questions while I’m writing.

In Star Trek, in Exposition, Kirk is chased by police, goes fast, car goes down and Kirk hangs on. Parallel scene later: when he jumps down on a drill (during Act 2). Action in Act 2 is more believable and authentic because we saw it before in Act 1. Or something could repeat in resolution, bring the story full circle. We like repetition and variation in the repetition. It’s satisfying to read. You can put in repetitions in lots of ways. (Story starts in a bedroom, ends in another bedroom. Lemon taste works through the book. If it’s very noticeable and overt, it’s probably too much.)

Rising action is usually the biggest part of the book. Exposition is about 3 chapters. Act 3 is short.

Look at writing in small units.
Is there something in your story you could have less of? Is the detail too prominent?
Is there something you should develop. Can you repeat some of the most interesting actions.
Would a perspective change help? How about an alteration of how the details are presented?
Which details are included? Which withheld? Appropriate?
Look at repetitions (characters, action, details), similarities between parts, connections.

Do 2 things simultaneously: 1) develop plot line. 2) develop scenes, details. This helps you know characters. These are the actual building blocks of the book.

1. Diagram your novel in those three parts.
2. Make sure your character is integral to all of those things.
3. Write, write. Write what you can. Label the scenes so you can go back and put them in.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

BYU WIFYR 2: Martha Mihalick

Monday Plenary: Martha Mihalick, Greenwillow (imprint of Harper Collins):
“Behind the Glasses: What Editors are Looking For”

Greenwillow: part of Harper Collins. PB to YA. 35 books/year. 9 person team, only 3 editors. Looking for new talent.

What I ask myself when I read a submission: Do I like this? If yes, I have to know why (to tell the department, acquisitions, potential buyers).

3 things grab me: voice, character, plot. Usu. one of these things is the big standout. In Ida B., it was the voice. In Soul Enchilada, it’s the plot.

What does “strong writing” mean?
Attention to language. No clichés, no over-use, attn. to adj.s and adv.s.
Attention to sentence structure. Does it vary? Rhythm, pace.

Voice
The way you tell your story.
Language, structure, imagery/themes.
Opinion or perspective.
If ms sounds like it could be told by anyone, I lose interest. I want story told by someone who has an opinion.
Does this voice fit the story that you’re telling? Does it make sense for it to be told that way?

Character
Does this character seem real?
Flaws and virtues, depth. Do flaws and virtues drive the plot?
Rounded supporting characters, especially the antagonist.
Revealing details in a variety of ways: through actions, friends or enemies, objects or possessions, and opinions. (What do these things tell about that person?) (Who’s their favorite musician? What TV shows do they watch?) A character shouldn’t have just one quirk to define them or make them memorable. Use some surprising details that make him more than a stereotype.

Plot
Every book should have two. Internal (emotional) and external (physical).
Protagonist must have something at stake.
These first two things should intertwine, bounce off each other, but not parallel each other.
Character-driven.
Not predictable.

Authenticity. Listen to your characters. Make sure they sound like intended age range for audience. Be honest. Read aloud and listen.

Other questions:
Who is the audience?
What are the hooks? What makes it stand out from others in bookstores? How to get it to readers?
Is there anything else like it out there? If not, why not? If so, how is it different, fresh?
Does it fit with the rest of our list?
Do I have a vision for it?

“What I’m really looking for is a writer who is smarter than me.”

Acquisitions of mine:
Do Not Build a Frankenstein by Neil Numberman.
[no title yet] by Leah Cypess. (She was more comfortable with an agent, so we gave her some suggestions and she got one.)

Monday, June 08, 2009

BYU WIFYR

Continuing my tradition, I now present to you Part 1 of my report on BYU's Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference!

How, you may ask, can I possibly give you the first installment when the conference was ONLY TODAY? Because this year I got smart and took my laptop to the conference, so my notes are already electronic! Yay for me!

I will not, however, present them all to you at once. No, I will give you a little tidbit at a time.

This year I am in Louise Plummer's Advanced Novel workshop. I warned her that anything she said can and would appear on my blog. I don't think she believed me. She'll learn . . . And besides, it serves her right for thinking that that picture of me shows me SLEEPING. It does NOT. It shows me READING. TELL me that the rest of you picked that up--please?

But I am not going to give you Louise's class first. Today I will give you Lael Littke's class. I want to do her first because of how tickled I was that she quoted my friend and sometimes-blog-reader Stephen Carter! And she quoted him more than once! Yay, Stephen! So from here on out, the voice is Lael Littke's.


"The Story Question and Other Good Stuff" by Lael Littke

If you get the good foundation, you’re off and running.
Storytelling should start with a story question. Someone with a problem. (A journey is always good—character has to make a journey of some kind and encounter difficulties.) We have a destination, a personal problem (internal), and a lifeline that will save her at the end.
Then figure out what the obstacles are, opposing forces or villain.
Story must start near the beginning with a story question. There’s a difference between idea for story and story question.
Stephen King in On Writing—good story ideas come from nowhere. Your job is not to find them, but recognize them as they show up.
How do you recognize them? I don’t know.
How do you start the book after you got an idea? Hemingway says as soon as he gets an idea, he cleans the refrigerator. I mop the floor. Someone else tells herself that if she doesn’t write, she has to iron.
I once got a great first line (“It was raining on the day I died”, but didn’t know what to do with it. I started asking what if. (Formula for creating a story: what if?) So I asked, “What if she only had a mild case of death?” Which led to a near-death experience story.
So I had an action level. Then I had to figure out an emotional level, a psychological level (internal problem, as Martha said). Mine: Will Janeen, who has always been known as a good girl, come to realize that each of us is made up of good and bad.
My teacher, Helen Jones, made us write the story question in one sentence—good exercise.
Story crafting.
Stephen Carter: “Just as there is a craft to engine design, architecture, and artificial sweetener formulation, there is a craft to story structuring.” [Go, Stephen!!!! You got authors quoting you!]

Rules for writing a novel:
1. Be able to state story question in one sentence. (Ex: Gone with the Wind: will Scarlet get Ashley? Charlotte’s Web: will Wilbur survive? 3 Little Pigs: will the wolf eat the pigs?)
2. The stakes have to be high.

Story is really over when we see the answer to the question.

3. What’s the theme? the nugget of truth we get from the story? Aha moment. What did the character learn? This doesn’t need to be stated in the book—better to show than tell. (In Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte states it herself near the end, about lifting up her small life by helping someone else. 3 pigs: build strong. Build your character strong and the wolves of life won’t be able to hurt you. Gone with the Wind: you can spend your whole life chasing something you don’t really want.)

What editors don’t like: bad beginnings, too long to get there, wordiness, poor plots without freshness, undeveloped characters, no point or meaning.

I used to get stories back with the notation, “too slight.” They lacked a point, didn’t say something.

Helen Jones: Every story should contain at its core a reason to be. Editor: “A story should add up to something.”

Stephen Carter, “The Author Bunny Exposed,” false idea of waiting for the bunny to leave a story for you.

Lael: apply the seat of your pants to your chair and work.
How do you go about setting up story question?

Your character wants something. Set up obstacles to keep them from getting it. A friend of mine uses the term DESPITES: “Will the little engine be able to pull the train DESPITE the fact that the other engines have refused the job and the little engine is considered inferior?” Your story must have enough DESPITES to get through the middle. Middles sags without enough despites.

What could the DESPITES be? A personal trait that holds him back. A circumstance. Nature. Antagonist. (I once heard an editor say, “Your story is no stronger than your villain.” Nietschze: what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. Purpose of antagonist: to help main character grow through struggles.) Time (Maybe character needs to accomplish something before time runs out=Suspense).

Rules can be broken if you write well enough. Helen Jones used to say, “You have to understand your structure, and then you can depart from it if you wish.” Example: Sausage story: incidents that are connected but don’t add up to anything (example: Diary of a Wimpy Kid).

Isaac B. Singer on why I write for children: “Children read books, not reviews. They don’t . . . . They love interesting stories. When a book is boring, they yawn openly.”

Helen told us stories should deal with one of 7 basic needs:
1. Live and be healthy
2. Love and be loved
3. think well of oneself
4. to be well thought of by others
5. to belong
6. to feel secure
7. to have something to look forward to.

Make sure your book deals with one of those basic human needs—becomes stronger and has more tension.

Cast your character into a boat without oars; include a lifeline.

Give your character an important problem.

End: your character has achieved the goal or come to realize something about it. (These are 2 basic kinds of stories.)

Helen’s rules you can’t break:
1. Character must solve his own problems. (No deus ex machine.)
2. Kid readers don’t want to look at the forest; they want to meet the bear.

Cartoon, Snoopy has written, “Suddenly, a shot rang out.” Lucy: “It’s important to choose right words. Is suddenly the best word?” Snoopy corrects: “Gradually, a shot rang out.”

Story of developing a story in a tough high school. She had come up with an idea (what if escalator kept going). Asked, where would it end up? (Hell) What kind of character would you put on it? (Murderer. No, that’s predictable for Hell. What’s unpredictable? How about a sweet little old lady?) Why is she on there? What did she do? (murder! No, that’s predictable. What else? Shoplifting.)

My best writing advice: PERSIST. PERSIST. Stephen King: READ READ. I say, WRITE WRITE.

Quote from Ann LaMott in Bird by Bird.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

What's next

Here’s a little excerpt from “Work Libido” by Chase Twitchell, in Dog Language.

Gamblers and poets share
a passion for what’s next: the flush
disguised as a boat with a hole
(that’s poker talk), or a rift
in the poem, a soft spot that yields
the sticky perfume of pine pitch,
like burned honey but resinous,
spicy, antiseptic, a conduit straight
to childhood with its ferns
incompletely unfurled,
their not-quite-mature spores
glistening like caviar among green feathers.
And to the little diamond snake that slithered
round my neck (but only for a while).

I love that image of the soft spot in the poem. But even more, I love her statement that poets have a passion for “what’s next.” I’ve always been WAY too interested in what’s next. I have been thinking that it is an inheritance from Eve. Women, I hypothesize, just have an inherent tendency to keep "what’s next" on their radar, while the men are content to sit with their feet up happily clutching the remote control and a beer (or, er, gummy worms, as the case may be). I imagine the conversation in the Garden of Eden going something like this:

Eve: Adam, have you thought about what’s next?
Adam: You mean, the half-time show--? Or what?
Eve: No, I mean after this.
Adam: After what?
Eve: This. This place. This hanging out stuff. There’s got to be something else, don’t you think?
Adam: What for?
Eve: I’m just—I don’t know—itchy. Restless. We’re not GOING anywhere. Shouldn’t we be planning something?

Etc., etc.

So, anyway, I assumed it was a female thing. But Chase Twitchell (who is a female) thinks it is a poets thing. What do you think?