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Writing Excuses 20.01: Welcome to 2025!
 
 
Key Points: Tools, not rules. Lenses. Who, where, when, why. What and how, execution, later! Back cover copy: Who, conflict, setting, hook. Who am I as a writer? Not resolutions, but questions and intentions! Metaphors! Tools in writing as spices in cooking. I never metaphor I didn't like. 
 
[Season 20, Episode 01]
 
[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.
 
[Season 20, Episode 01]
 
[DongWon] This is Writing Excuses.
[Mary Robinette] Welcome to 2025!
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Mary Robinette] It's a whole New Year. So we have an exciting season prepared for you. This season is going to be very focused on your toolbox. One of the things we've been saying for a couple of years is that it's about the tools, not the rules. So we want to make sure that you have a really nice set of tools to use this year. We're going to be looking at a couple of specific things. We're going to be thinking about these tools in terms of the lenses that we use to approach a story. So this season, you're going to be looking at questions of who, where when, and why.
[Howard] Where's what?
[Mary Robinette] What and how are going to be things we look at in a later season, because we're going to be looking at lenses this time, and what and how are more about the execution. So while the lens does affect the way you use things, this is what we're going to be focusing on.
[DongWon] The execution comes at the end.
[Mary Robinette] The execution… Yes.
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] Dum dum dum. Then, I've got some other exciting stuff that I'm going to tell you about when we get to the end of this episode for things to look forward to for later in the season. But, right now, I wanted to say, since we're at the beginning of 2025, and this is our twentieth season, which is…
[Dan] Yay!
[Mary Robinette] Wild. We want to talk a little bit about the lenses that we're using in the way we are thinking about the next year coming up for us all individually.
[Erin] It's funny, I really… So, I love the… Just to get a little bit back to, like, the who, not what, where, when, why, and how. This is a framework that I love to think about when I think about writing. Because it's something that lets you make sure that you're not missing any aspect of writing. Like, who are the people in your story? What is the way… Like, what is happening? Where and when is that going on? Why are you even telling this story? And how are you going to get it across? But I also think that you can use that in your actual life. Like, who are the people that you want to, like, be a part of your year? What are the activities that we want to be doing? Like, where and when… Like, are there places that you want to go, are there perspectives from the past or the future that you want to bring into your life? Then, how are you going to get there? So, I don't know if I have an answer to it, but it just occurred to me that, like, maybe I should be thinking about the who, what, where, when, why, and how of my own life.
[DongWon] Yeah. I really love that. I mean, in the… In 2024, I relocated, I moved across the country, and so, I found myself in a new location. And thinking of the who is like a very important question for me right now as I'm looking to build a new community. Right? Find new friends and find a way to start developing roots in this new location as I look towards the future and try to figure out what's next for me.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I also had a big move in 2024, that was not entirely an expected move. We had to move to help with some family stuff. For me, one of the things that is really exciting is also thinking about the why of things. Sometimes the why is not a thing that is in your control. This is a thing that a lot of times, as writers, we let… The why can be both empowering and also a barrier. So, for me, it's like, okay, so I've… The why has happened. What or who can I find now? How can I embody the place that I'm in, in my writing career, and all of these other aspects?
 
[Howard] Three years, I've had this formula for writing back cover copy. Which is character, conflict, setting, and hook. And I just realized that those mapped very cleanly onto who, who's the character, conflict, character when a thing happens, where is it happening is the setting, and hook is why should you buy this book.
[Laughter]
[Howard] It maps perfectly. It's not that mapping it, and this I think reflects right into why we play with these tools instead of rules… Maps perfectly into helping me rethink my code for back cover copy. Because, especially with hook, it's not the why of the story, it's the why of the decision to get the reader to buy the book. Because that's what back cover copy is for. So, by applying another layer of words to a tool that I thought I already understood, I actually understand it better and am better prepared to apply it.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I'm really actually extremely grateful to you for saying that, because I've been trying to figure out how to explain hooks to people forever. I mean, why do we care, why do we want to invest, is like, oh! That is way more actionable than…
[Howard] Yeah, the word hook…
[DongWon] I like that it's a why in terms of the story, too. It's why is this story. Right?
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] Like, the hook should be the thing that is motivating and pulling you into the story, both in terms of your relationship to the reader, but in the story itself, too.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] I think. So…
 
[Erin] Something that I'm thinking about which takes it away from this conversation and back to me…
[Laughter]
[Erin] Is…
[Dan] [garbled]
[Erin] No, I've been thinking a lot, like, just to be, like, completely real, I… What I'm thinking about currently is who am I as a writer. I write a lot of different things, I write games, I write short fiction, I write in different genres, in different… I write scripts sometimes. And it's like, who am I? Because that's when, for me, the lens comes into play. When I am writing, what am I focusing on? Am I focusing on my own work, my focusing on another people's IP? Like, in my focusing on which… Why? Because they pay me? Love you all.
[Laughter]
[Erin] But, really, thinking about that and thinking maybe the beginning of the year is like who are you as a writer?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Because I think you can sometimes get into a kind of, like, a snowball rolling downhill where you're just dealing action after action…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Because it's the action in front of you.
[DongWon] Yep.
[Erin] But you're not actually thinking about, like, why am I taking this action as opposed to a different course?
 
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, beginning of the year is a time that everyone's talking about New Year's resolutions. Right? We're all thinking about, like, what do we want to change for this year? What are our goals for this year? But what I love about this approach of tools, not rules, is it's stepping away from resolutions, which I always struggle with because then it's like, oh, if I didn't go to the gym seven days a week by the end of January, then I've failed at life, and now I feel terrible. But, like, instead of thinking about what are the specific concrete goals, thinking about these questions in terms of who am I, reflecting on that, how do I want to be in the world, how do I want to engage in my creative practice? And then, when… What are my expectations for this year in a certain way? And so shifting away from, like, concrete resolutions that you have to stick to to practices and tools, I think, is a really lovely way to think about it.
[Mary Robinette] That gets back to that Dolly Parton quote that you love so much, figure out who you want… Who you…
[DongWon] Figure out what you're good at, and then do it on purpose.
[Mary Robinette] Okay.
[DongWon] Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose. That's what it is.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose.
[Yeah]
[Mary Robinette] Last year, I set… I didn't set a resolution, I set an intention, which was… I picked a word. Stability. Which…
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] Very laughable very fast.
[DongWon] How's that worked out for you?
[Laughter] [garbled]
[Mary Robinette] But what was interesting was that within the chaos that was happening, when I was offered a choice, which I… It was like, how can I find stability within this?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Thing that is happening? That allowed me to find stability even though last year was fairly chaotic. And I think this is also true, like, when you're thinking about your writing. I talk a lot with students about thinking about what is the intention behind this, what is the why, who are you telling the story for, and thinking about that as a… Is just a word. Sometimes I have people who will just write down what is the emotion you want people to leave the story with? They can have different emotions during the story, but what is that… Where do we linger when we get to the end?
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, I think, approaching the year with intention, approaching your work with intention, all are incredibly important. And then, like, having that thing to focus on in terms of, like, where are you trying to get people to, where are you trying to get yourself to? Right? I think all that can be really, really important things to be bringing in as you're looking down the road at this year.
[Mary Robinette] So, why don't we take a little break. You all can listen to our lovely sponsors while you also think about what and who you want to be.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Take a little bit of thinking or intention, and we're going to talk to you more.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, friends. The 2025 retreat registration is open. We have two amazing writing retreats coming up and we cordially invite you to enroll in them. For those of you who sign up before January 12, 2025… How is that even a real date? We're off… [Background noise... Friend?] As you can probably hear, my cat says we've got a special treat for our friends. We are offering a little something special to sweeten the pot. You'll be able to join several of my fellow Writing Excuses hosts and me on a Zoom earlybird meet and greet call to chit chat, meet fellow writers, ask questions, get even more excited about Writing Excuses retreats. To qualify to join the earlybird meet and greet, all you need to do is register to join a Writing Excuses retreat. Either our Regenerate Retreat in June or our annual cruise in September 2025. Just register by January 12. Learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats.
 
[DongWon] Heading into the new year, we're all thinking about what our intentions and goals are. It's hard not only to set your targets, but to live up to them. Especially as writers and creative's in a world that doesn't always seem eager to support you financially. That's why building your financial literacy and starting to work towards a stable financial base is an important aspect of developing your writing career. We talk a lot about the creative tools you need, but peace of mind about your bottom line will give you the space to pursue your goals and develop the career that you want. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing, so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids, and your retirement. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns let you invest with the spare money you've got right now. You can start with five dollars or even just your spare change. Head to acorns.com/WX or download the acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today. [Garbled inaudible]
 
[Mary Robinette] So, I said that we were going to be talking to you about some other additional exciting things. We've been talking about setting intentions. We've been telling you a little bit about this idea of the toolbox. I want to talk to you also about another thing that we're going to be doing deeper in the season. That is, we're going to do another deep dive. So, last season, we picked five works and we broke them apart looking at different aspects of a toolbox. This season, we're going to be talking to you about toolbox all year, and then at the end of the year, we're going to apply all of the tools we've talked to you about to a single work. That work is All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. I want us to talk a little bit about why we are picking… Not just… We don't have to talk about, like, why is it All the Birds in the Sky, but why are we picking a single work to bring the lenses to?
[DongWon] When I was an undergrad, I was an English major, and one of the most useful classes I took was a class on Literary Theory, on Critical Theory. Which was very dense and very difficult, but I enjoyed it very much. One of the things I took away from it was we were moving through all these different modes of analysis, about post structural or gender studies or critical theory and all these different ways, and what was so helpful to me was understanding that each one of these was a different lens through which I could examine this work and take away different things from my reading and understanding of the work. So why was… It wasn't necessarily that I felt a need to attach to one particular school of thought, of, oh, we need to think about this in terms of powers and economics, we need to think about this in terms of gender, or whatever it is, or language. All those things were useful, and in using, in picking and choosing different lines of approach, was giving me a more holistic understanding of the text. And figuring out what I was taking away from that text that made it meaningful to me. Right? So, obviously, we're not applying critical theory here, but as we're approaching using these lenses, being able to take a single text and kind of through parallax, show you all these different perspectives on it, hopefully, that'll give a really complete picture of, like, ways that you can think about your craft, ways that you can think about your intention, and how to manifest that on the page.
 
[Howard] We're going to be talking about the metaphors, as well, metaphors for our tools. And I just arrived at the perfect lens metaphor for this exact thing, because I recently went to the optometrist. And there's this part at the optometrist where you're looking at the picture or the words or whatever, and there flipping the little lenses in front of you, and they're saying, okay, which is better? Three or four? Three or four? Four or five? Four or five? Imagine them doing that where between three and four, they switched the picture. No! That's not how you develop your lens. That's how you get a headache and get confused. By focusing on one book… Sorry to use the word focus in conjunction with lens, but by focusing…
[Dan] No you're not.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] I… It over burdens the domain a little bit. But, by focusing on just one book, we will get a sense not only for how each individual tool works, but also for how the tools work differently. How the who is different from the where is different from the when.
[Mary Robinette] It also lets us see the places where there is a convergence. One of the things that I enjoy doing, because I am a nerd, is sometimes taking a piece of text and highlighting… Going through and saying, okay, let me take a look at all of the places where the author is using physicality. Now, let me go through and look at all of the places where the author is using emotion. Let me look at the places where the author is using focus. Often, the same line will get highlighted more than once. This is one of the things that we can do when… We kept talking about this in between episodes last season, that some of the books… Like, oh, we could have also used this book to talk about structure. We could have also use this book to talk about voice. So, taking one book that has a bunch of things going on in it, allows us to say, look, you can use all of these tools at the… I talk about layering a lot, and seeing all of these tools being used in a single work, I think it's going to give us some great opportunities for you.
[Erin] I also think it avoids… Or hopefully it avoids… One of my biggest fears as a teacher, which is that you give people a lot of tools and they feel very overwhelmed. I almost feel like it's like somebody was like I really want to make a great chicken soup, and asked a lot of people, like, how should I season it? And one person's like, aw, man you gotta add turmeric. It's great, and it does cool things. It makes your chicken soup yellow. Somebody else is like, make sure you get salt in their. Someone's like, but it's got to be spicy. What about pepper? All those people could be right, like. Eventually, you could end up with an entire spice cabinet full of cool spices that would make your chicken soup better. But if you put all of those spices in one chicken soup, it's a disaster. Because you don't know, like, okay, for this situation, or, like, this is the flavor profile I'm looking for at this moment, I should use these six spices. Oh, no, I'm in a different situation, let me use these for. So I think that, like, sometimes I always feel like just a person throwing spices at students…
[Laughter]
[Erin] And saying, like, hey, use this. And, like, not really telling them, okay, here's how we can actually combine them in interesting ways, and here's places where this one might work and this other one might not.
[DongWon] We can talk all we want about how turmeric is delicious and used in these cases. But until you taste a dish that has turmeric in it, you'll never understand exactly how to apply it. Right? So what we want to do is not just tell you here's the recipe, but also, let's take a look at the final dish. Let's all enjoy that together and then unpack a little bit why it works.
[Howard] I really love looking at food as a writing metaphor. We should do an episode…
[Laughter]
[Howard] We could do an episode that does that.
[DongWon] Oh, interesting. You like metaphors? Do we like metaphors here?
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah. In fact, in our next episode, we're going to be talking about writing metaphors just a little bit.
[Erin] I never met a four I didn't like.
[Howard] Oh, my gosh.
[Mary Robinette] Erin. You are sitting next to the door. I will point that out.
[Laughter]
[Howard] [garbled and we have a door]
[DongWon] [garbled airlock 25]
[laughter]
[Mary Robinette] So, I do… Since I am of the cast, and I am one of us that has read all of All of the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, I just want to tell you why I suggested this book in particular. It uses more than one POV. The characters start out very young and they age through the course of the book. So you get to see the different lens of… That age brings to a characters interaction with things. It is both science fiction and fantasy. It's basically two kids, they both start as the kind of prototypical protagonists of ah, yes, the tiny genius who discovers this, and the other one is ah, yes, the tiny magical gifted girl. And then their stories meet and intersect in ways that are incredibly delicious. It also has a very strong voice, it's very voice-y. But that voice changes through the course of the story, because the characters change through the course of the story, and it's also a beautiful, harmonious whole. It goes places you do not expect it to go. I loved it to bits. So I pitched it to everyone as we should use this one, it does all the things. It is All the Birds in the Sky. So, get ready. We're going to be doing that deep into this year, but you can start reading it at any point. We'll give you warning, but it is going to be all spoiler all the time when we get to those. So, I just want to wrap us up before we get to homework by having each of the hosts tell us a tiny bit about an intention that you have for the coming year.
[Dan] Well, one that I am working on is I am trying to focus more on character as I write the who. I have been the story structure guy for such a long time that I worry that I'm falling into ruts. So I'm trying to change the way that I write, just to shake things up.
[Mary Robinette] I am, in 2025, as we are recording this, which for transparency, we're recording in 24. I'm going to be out from contract for the first time since I sold Shades of Milk and Honey. So my goal this year is to write a book that's just for me.
[DongWon] I love that. Kind of on a little bit of a parallel mode, for me, it's looking at 2024, like I said, I've relocated, I'm kind of in a new location and kind of stepping back and looking at my career, I'm very lucky that my career is, like, it feels like it's in a very solid place right now. I have a place where I have certain things that have worked really well, and kind of feels like I have a foundation that I can make a couple new moves. So, looking at, in 2025, what areas, in terms of my role as an agent, that I want to move into and try to take on some new projects and consider some new things. So it's been a real period of building and growing and then, like, trying to, like, stabilize the past few years, was me like really trying to like firm things up a little bit, so I have a little bit more of a foundation to build on, and feel like it's time for some new moves.
[Howard] You should talk to Mary Robinette about choosing stability as a word.
[Laughter]
[DongWon] We're moving, so we really need to grow. That's what it is.
[Mary Robinette] Oh, yeah.
[Erin] Ooo.
[Howard] There was this discussion online a few days before we recorded this episode about what it takes to be a web cartoonist. I expressed a long, and I think, very profound opinion about that. Which is, basically, you create a comic and you put it on the Internet. Boom! Done. What does a writer do? They write. Boom, you're a writer. Painter? You paint. Web cartoonist? Make a cartoon and put it on the web. I've been a web cartoonist for 20 plus years except… I'm not doing that now. I'm… So this whole… The idea of a resolution being not what you're going to do, but who you're going to be? I am currently at a loss. So, rather than resolving on who I'm going to be, I'm going to resolve on what I'm going to look for. What I'm going to look for is an answer to that question, because I need to hurry up and find it.
[Erin] I think, for me, I work a lot, as we know, and so I think that I want to embrace play as an intention for 2025. And really… And I think part of answering that question about who I am as a writer is playing a little more, in all the different spaces that I enjoy, and trying to figure out what, like, brings me the most joy, and then go from there, and the work will follow.
[Garbled]
[Mary Robinette] This is so good.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, the homework that I have for you, dear listeners. We're going to be talking about tools this year, and I want you to make a list of the tools that you already have in your toolbox. Then, as an intention, I want you to think about an area that you want a tool for. Then, over the course of this year, we're going to try to help you find that tool.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 18.44: NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started
 
 
Key Points: NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words. How do you get started? Writing your opening? Meet the characters and set promises for the readers. Confidence and authority, voice! And information! Promises to me, to motivate me! Voice, character, or setting. Voice driven or action driven? Hook the reader! Write a little, then ask what excites me about that. Do some freewriting, meet the character or setting or voice, before starting. [If you don't start, you can't finish.] Give readers reasons to care, to connect. Think about who, what, when, where, why, and how. Breadcrumbs, not infodumps! Character stakes, what is at risk. Where are we, who are we with, and what genre is this? Within 13 lines, what is the character's goal? Remember, Nano is a time to play, to try out things. Dive in!
 
[Season 18, Episode 44]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] NaNoWriMo Week 1 - Getting Started.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Mary Robinette] We're going to be talking about National Novel Writing Month. All month, in fact. For those of you who haven't participated in this, National Novel Writing Month is a month-long challenge in the month of November, where you attempt to write a novel or 50,000 words, depending on how you want to define that. So what we're going to be talking about is what you need to do in order to try to have something that's vaguely coherent at the end of the month. These are tools that you can use the rest of the time when you're working on novels or short stories, but we're going to talk this week about getting started.
[Pause]
[Erin] So, how do we do that?
[Laughter]
[Erin] I mean, it's like…
[Mary Robinette] Surely, someone else will start talking now?
[Erin] That's often the problem…
 
[Dan] Getting started is hard.
[Mary Robinette] Getting started is hard. So, in getting started, what we're talking about on day one is that you're going to be writing your opening. This is where you meet your characters and you set promises for your readers. So we're going to be talking about both stuff that you need to establish, but the order in which you establish things is very much up to you. So, what do you all find are some, like, consistent things that make an opening, like, that first page?
[DongWon] I personally really love openings. They are my favorite part of the book. As a literary agent, I'm mostly looking at openings as I'm going through queries and new projects and things like that. So, for me, the thing I'm looking for in that first page, in those opening sections, is a sense that the author knows what they're doing, and they're going to take me on a journey that I'm excited to go on with them. Right? So, projecting a certain amount of confidence and a certain amount of authority in those opening pages are really important. Some of the best tools to do this is with your actual voice. The words that you're using and the sentence structure that you have is a great way to bring readers in and project that kind of confidence that you are going to be telling us a story that we're going to be excited to read. That can be everything from word choice to sentence structure to a kind of musicality and rhythm that you have in those opening sentences. But that really needs to be balanced with all of the information that you need to give to your readers. Right? It can't all just be voice-y beautiful prose, you also need to be communicating a ton of information in those opening pages.
[Howard] I'm a sucker for a good first line. It can take a long time to write a first line that you're happy with. Often, the first week of NaNoWriMo is not a great time to grind on that.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Howard] Caveat. If the first line is good enough to excite me, the first line might be good enough to continue to excite you. So, I always try and fill my first page with things that are not just promises to the readers, but are promises to me, to get me motivated, to remind me how much fun this story's going to be.
[DongWon] Right. This is Nano. You're not here to make perfect prose, you're not here to make sure everything's super refined and edited to perfection, you're here to get words on the page. Right? So, I'm telling you this as ways to think about what your goals are for the opening, but don't stress about anything that I'm saying right now.
[Dan] Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned voice. Voice is one of the 3 things that I try to do in an opening. You don't need to do all of these 3. Really, your goal is to hook the reader and get them interested. The way I think about it, you can do that with a really great interesting voice, or with a compelling character, or with a fascinating world or setting. One of those 3 is going to grab that reader in the want to learn more about it and come on in. If you can do all 3, that's even better, but…
[DongWon] Yeah, you can only do…
[Dan] Do one of the 3.
[DongWon] Some combo of those. Right? It's not going to be pure voice. If it was pure voice, then they're like, "What is this story about? I'm out." If it… But you want to have character in their. It's sort of like you're readjusting the levels to sort of fit the story you're trying to tell.
[Mary Robinette] So, I find that what you're talking about, I see as kind of 2 different paths into a story. That you can have something that's kind of voice driven, where the voices doing all of the lifting and carrying, or you can have something that's action driven, where the character is in the middle of doing something. That… There's overlap between those 2 things. Like, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, nobody is doing anything. It's all voice driven. Whereas, if you look at the beginning of Ghost Talkers, using my own novel, that begins with a character saying, "The Germans were flanking us at Delville Wood when I died." Ginger Stuyvesant was sitting with the spirit circle… I don't remember the rest of my actual lines…
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] But she's in the middle of doing something. But it is that hook, that both of these have different ways of hooking the reader and pulling them in.
 
[Erin] I would say that you may not know which of these you're doing because it is Nano and you're just trying to figure it out. So one thing that I find really fun during Nano is to write a little bit of a beginning and then go like, "What could this be? What excites me about it? Like, what about the voice that I've just written is really interesting? What about the action that's happening is really intriguing?" It's a great way later in the month if you get stuck to go back and look at what are 2 or 3 things that I was really excited about, like Howard said, right at the start, that can continue to motivate me when I'm not sure, like, where I went or how the story has taken a twist or a turn.
[Dan] Well. One thing that I do, and I've talked about this on the show before, but I still do it, and I still think it's valuable, is I will do free writing before I start a book. I will write some dialogue, let a character talk for a couple of pages. Or I will describe the world. I will describe my favorite aspects of the world, the part of the setting that gets me excited. I will try to write something and nail down a tone of voice, or find a weird turn of phrase. Never intending to actually use any of this in the novel, but just to kind of get me into the right headspace so I can hit the ground running when the actual writing starts.
[Mary Robinette] I do something similar, that I will often do a couple of exploratory attempts. Sometimes I am planning for it to be the first chapter, but it's just me saying, "What is this? What is going on here?" Much like Erin does, also. It's just like is there something here that excites me? For those of you who are doing NaNoWriMo seriously, all of these exploratory attempts count towards your total word count.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Save them. No writing is wasted.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Mary Robinette] One of the things about Nano is that it really teaches you that no writing is wasted. When we come back from our break, what were going to be talking about are some of the pieces of information that you're going to need to pass to your reader. But, right now, let's take a brief break.
 
[Mary Robinette] NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, and it's time to start planning. If you're aiming for 1600 words a day, it's easy to de-prioritize eating. But you need to keep the brain fueled. During Nano, I turn to meal kits. Hello Fresh makes whipping up a home-cooked meal a nice break from writing with quick and easy options, including their 15 minute meals. With everything pre-proportioned and delivered right to your door every week, it takes way less time than it takes to get a delivery. I find that stepping away from the keyboard to cook gives my brain time to rest. I love that with Hello Fresh, I can plan my meals for the month before NaNoWriMo begins, and then, I can save all of my decision-making for the story. With so many in season ingredients, you'll taste all the freshness of fall in every bite of Hello Fresh chef crafted recipes. Produce travels from the farm to your door for peak freshness you can taste. Go to hellofresh.com/50WX and use the code 50WX for 50% off plus free shipping! Yeah, that's right. 50WX, 50 for 50% off and WX for Writing eXcuses. We are terrible with puns. Just visit hellofresh.com/50WX and try America's number one meal kit.
 
[Howard] It's the first week of NaNoWriMo. It is time to get started. I'm going to throw a couple of aphorisms at you. You must be present to win. You miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at. [Sigh] If you don't start, you'll never get to finish. I speak as someone who has never actually won at NaNoWriMo. I've started it several times. I think one time, I actually got 30,000 words in on a project. But I've never actually completed something that I would consider to be a first draft of a novel during NaNoWriMo. Do I feel bad about it? No. Do I feel in the least bit conflicted about encouraging you to start NaNoWriMo? Absolutely not. I am giving you permission to start and maybe fail. Because that happens to the best of us. I don't want to suggest that I'm the best of us. There are way better than me who have failed at NaNoWriMo. But you miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at. Sit down at the keyboard and write something. Let the words flow, or let the words don't flow. Because until you try it, you won't know whether or not you can do it. [Sigh] I've heard it said that the limitations that affect most people are what they believe their limitations to be, rather than what their limitations actually are. So, whether or not you think you can finish NaNoWriMo, I think you should start.
 
[Mary Robinette] Right. So. Now that we're back, what I'd like us to talk about is some of the information that you want to try to get to the reader early, early in your novel or short story. One of the reasons you want to do that is that part of the promises in all of those things is that you're giving the reader reasons to care and to connect. Readers are desperately trying to ground themselves at the beginning, and they will grab hold of any piece of information that you give them and begin to build a world. So you want to make sure that you are giving them information in order to build that world in their head.
[DongWon] One of the biggest mistakes I see in openings is not giving enough information. Right? A lack of information density can make for an opening that feels incredibly slow. It's just not pulling me into the world. It's not giving me information about the character and not giving me a sense of what the shape of the story is going to be. So, the way I always talk about opening pages is I want them to be like a layer cake. Right? Where there's so much stuff put into those opening pages that are giving me a sense of world and character and all these things. So one way to do that is to kind of play with your voice a little bit and play with time and interiority and perspective to be able to give us lots of different pieces of information from lots of different angles as quickly as possible.
[Erin] Sometimes I actually like to think about this is literally the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Like, these are the things that your reader's going to want to know in the beginning. You don't have to give them all in one sentence. Though, if you can, that's exciting. But, really, I like to think about when am I answering like, who. Who is this happening to? What. Like, what is actually going on at this moment? When and where is our setting. Like, when and where are we? Then, for why and how, how is a lot of tone. Like, how is this story going to be told? Is this humor, is this a light touch, is this like dark and foreboding? Like, how is the story being told? Why is a little bit of sort of the if there's any theme that I want to put in there, that I want to seed early on. Sometimes, I'll actually go through the pages of a story and be like when our each of these elements clear? If one is clear very, very far down, then, am I doing that for a reason? If I'm not, can I bring it up, and at least suggest what's going on so that it doesn't feel missing?
[Howard] On that point, or to that point, I love the idea of descriptions as being either additive or corrective. I see corrective as inherently problematic. If I've given you some description, you're going to start building independently of me continuing to write things. If I lead you in one direction and you keep running in that direction, but that's not what is actually happening, the next piece of description I give you is corrective instead of additive. Every time you do that, you are breaking a trust with the reader. Now, in a humor novel, you can absolutely get away with it. In fact, it's a fantastic technique. But, I started thinking about it in this way, where, yes, I want to order things, the who, what, when, where, why, but I also want to make sure that if I start people down a path, I don't let them run far enough that I have to correct my description later.
[Dan] I think it's important to point out… We don't want to freak you out with this thought that you have to explain everything in your first couple of pages. That's not what we're talking about. Think of it as providing evidence of what's going on, rather than providing us answers for what's going on. You don't need to explain your entire magic system, for example. But you do need to give us the information that pertains to the scene itself. If your first scene is a fight between wizards, then, yeah, we need to understand some of the magic system. If it's not, you can just drop hints here and there, give us some breadcrumbs, and explain the rest of it later.
[DongWon] One thing I always say is that I need character stakes in the opening scene, I need some sense of, like, what's at risk here. The other thing I always say is these can be lies.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] This goes a little counter to what Howard was saying, but this doesn't have to be your main character's biggest problem. This can be a minor set of stakes that they need to get through for this scene, that will then lead them into bigger inciting incidents. Right? So, I need a sense of the shape of the story. Don't feel pressured to communicate your whole novel to me in this moment. I just need a story, a subplot, a little something for me to chew on that's going to pull me into the rest of the book.
[Howard] Coming back to additive versus corrective real quick. If you tell me someone is desperately trying to get a hold of someone else, but can't, and you don't tell me why, I… Well, if you tell me because my cell phone has no charge, then you grounded me in the 21st-century. If you tell me that I can't get to a pay phone, whatever, then you grounded me maybe a couple decades earlier. Or smoke signals or whatever. I need to know if we're in Civil War era or 21st century fairly early on with the descriptions end up being very, very corrective when you deliver them.
[DongWon] This brings me to one another point is to be a little careful of metaphor in these opening pages. Because everything… I don't know anything about your world, so sometimes somebody… I'll run [inaudible into fantasy?] where somebody puts a metaphor in and I'll think, "Oh, literally, people are fish in this world." Not they were like a fish in this moment.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] You know what I mean? You can take stuff that is completely wild because I am… It's all open skies for me. I don't know what it is I'm engaging with yet. So, those metaphors can be taken incredibly literally in those opening pages. So, something to be a little careful about.
[Mary Robinette] I… I… I'm going to give like some metrics for a really mechanical way to do this. For people who like rules and are feeling freaked out. I want to be really clear that this is exercise stuff, this is not books must be written this way. But if you're like, "I don't know, this is too much." Using Erin's idea of who, what, where, why, I do something very similar. That is, I try to make sure that my character's… My readers know where we are, who we're with, and something about the genre or mood. I count when as part of the where. I try to do that within the first 3 sentences. So that I'm just like giving… And it's not that… When I say who, it's not that you have to know my character's entire back story. It's just giving a little bit of an idea of whose eyes we're going to be looking through, who we're going to be connecting to. Then, within the first 13 lines, I try to make sure that we know something about my character's goal. The reason I say the first 13 lines is an entirely mechanical and mercenary thing, which is that it's about the first half page of a manuscript, and that's about how long you have to hook an agent or an editor when they are in the slush pile. So if you can give them something that your reader… Your character wants. To DongWon's point, it doesn't have to be the big thing, but something that's, like, somehow thematically linked. Like, if we're going to be on a big quest later, they're just looking for the remote control right now. But something that they want.
[Erin] Let's say 2 things about that. One is that I think those small things, like looking for the remote control, build the trust that Howard was talking about earlier. You show that, like, I'm going to show you something and I'm going to deliver on it. Then you don't have to deliver on it as quickly the next time, because you've built that trust. But also, to be like a chaos gremlin…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] Like, in opposition of what you're saying, I also feel like one of the things that's nice about Nano, it's, like, a time to play around and find out what…
[Mary Robinette] Yes.
[DongWon] Surely.
[Erin] And find out what happens if you break all these rules. Do you want to write 50,000 words where no one knows where they are the entire time, including the reader? Hey, go for it. You may find out that you've discovered a new way of writing fiction, or you may find out that it's confusing and you need to go back and add that in. But this is a great time too, like, play around with what you're doing and how you're doing it.
[Mary Robinette] I actually completely agree with that. So we're in great shape. And, I think, that we've set you up to begin your first nano day. Hopefully. So, dive in. All of the words you count write.… All of the words you write count! Now, we're going to give you a little bit of homework.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, your homework assignment is that I want you to write 2 different openings. The first one is going to be more action driven, where your character is doing a thing. The 2nd one is going to be voice driven, where you are ruminating on something and kind of just exploring voice. You may wind up using neither of these, both of them count. You can do them in any order you want. But explore 2 different ways of opening that novel.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Mary Robinette] Do you have a book or a short story that you need help with? We're now offering an introductory tier on Patreon called Office Hours. Once a month, you can join a group of your peers and the hosts of Writing Excuses to ask questions.
 
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Writing Excuses 16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book
 
 
Key points: How do you start a novel? What kind of first page do you need? How do you keep them from throwing the book away? Three sales tools, the cover, the jacket copy, and the first page or first paragraph. That first experience is what closes the deal. Make sure you don't bury the good stuff 30 pages in. Procedurally, give yourself the freedom to write the bits you think you will love, and what leads into that. Then, later, see if you have a hook, and go back and write that. The opening needs to communicate to the reader what kind of rollercoaster they are getting on. Set the hook and pull people into your story. Don't start at the beginning! That's often boring. Start with the interesting part. Don't jump too fast to the big action, though. You may want to use an ice monster prologue, or cold open. Think musical theater overtures!
 
[Season 16, Episode 27]
 
[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Nobody Wants to Read a Book.
[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And I don't want to read your book.
[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] And you can't make me.
[Mary Robinette] That's Howard.
[Chuckles]
 
[Dan] So this is the start of our new intensive course, brand-new subject with a brand-new teacher. Dongwon, tell us very briefly a little bit about yourself and about what we're going to learn about for the next two months.
[Dongwon] Yeah. So, I'm Dongwon Song. I'm a literary agent with the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. I do mostly science fiction and fantasy for adults, YA, middle grade. Some graphic novels [garbled] as well. So, we're going to be talking about here how to start a novel. The importance of first pages, some of the techniques that really work, and we're going to sort of break down different aspects and then get into some examples over the course of the next few episodes.
[Dan] Awesome. We're excited. Dongwon's also kind of the fifth Beatle, so to speak. I think…
[Chuckles]
[Dan] You've been in more Writing Excuses episodes than anyone except the four core hosts. So, we're always happy to have you.
[Dongwon] I've done a couple of them. It's always a delight to be here, so thank you.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. As you were asking him to introduce himself, I'm like, "I'm pretty sure these folks know him by now."
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Well, take it away.
[Dongwon] I get a lot of emails that say I know you from Writing Excuses. So it's quite lovely. But…
 
[Mary Robinette] Tell us about first pages, because we've got novels to write and we have to convince Howard to read them.
[Howard] Good luck with that.
[Dongwon] Well, so I picked a slightly controversial title for the start of this one, which is Nobody Wants to Read a Book. I pulled that from a quote that crossed my feet recently. There was an interview with this legendary comics writer, John Schwartzwelder, who's mostly known for his work on The Simpsons. I'm going to read you the quote that was in this interview that was in the New Yorker. It's "Nobody wants to read a book. You've got to catch their eye with something exciting in the first paragraph, while they're in the process of throwing the book away. If it's exciting enough, they'll stop and read it." This just like perfectly encapsulated how I think about the way you need to start a book. You sort of have to assume that the person who's picked it up is not interested in what you have. Because in that moment, but they're really doing is trying to make a decision about am I going to invest in this book. I think we think about that in the bookstore in terms of like I'm going to pay $20, $10, five dollars, whatever it is. But really, the thing you're asking them to do is to give up hours of their life to spend with your words and your story. There's a lot of things people can be doing with their time. They could be playing video games, they could be hanging out with their family, playing with their kids. So to get them to do that is a really big task.
[Mary Robinette] True story. Andy Weir gets a ton of ARCs. He got mine and was literally in the process of throwing it away. Like, it was in his hand on the way to the trashcan. Like, the trashcan was below it. He read the back cover copy and he's like, "Hang on a minute. Apollo era science fiction? That sounds like my jam."
[Dongwon] Because, I think… That's a great example, because you really have three major sales tools to convince a reader. One is the cover of your book, right? Whatever shiny image is on there tells them this is the genre, this is the category, this looks cool to me. I like this painted Dragon, right? You have your jacket copy, which, as Mary Robinette was just talking about, is like that opportunity to be like this is what the book's about in a really concrete way. But, I think the thing that really clinches it, the thing that closes the deal is they open it and they read that first page and say, "Yes, this is for me. This is exciting. I like this voice, I like these words." So, really, if you think about it… I never encourage you to think about your audience as like a hostile engagement, but in this one case, if you think thinking about it on the way to the trashcan like flying out of their hands, how are you going to grab them in that moment, is such a useful way to approach it. So, I think, when you're thinking about that, as you're going into the publishing process, it's not just readers in the bookstore, right? It's agents, it's editors, it's really everyone in the process. When I'm looking at queries, I look at your pitch, and that is the first thing. But the thing I almost always do, even if I don't like the pitch, 90% of the time, unless it's like something truly terrible, I will scroll down and just read the first few sentences. Just to check, just to see, do you have the thing or not. Right? So, often times, even if I don't like the pitch, if I like those first lines, I'm going to dig in more, I'm going to read that whole sample. I'm [inaudible] right? That is really the opportunity for me and so many people like me to make your case as clearly as possible of why you should be… Why I should be spending this time with you. Why I should be investing all this time and energy into reading your project, in your book, and probably going forward.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the things, when I was… That was super instructive when I was… Before I had started selling novels was I had this children's book, and I let a friend of mine… A friend of mine's wife was an editor at a major house. She's like, "Well, let me take a look at it." Because I was sitting in… We were in a green room situation, and she's like, "Well, hand me the manuscript. Let me take a look at it, and I'll show you how I read things." She's like, "I want to make it clear, this is not me reading your manuscript. This is me demonstrating how I do it." She started reading it. She read about the first page. Then she scrolled ahead real fast and she said, "Yeah. So, I always jump ahead 30 pages because what I find is that most debut authors bury the good stuff 30 pages in."
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] "Because the first part of the book is actually them writing their way into figuring out what the book is. Then they don't cut it later."
[Dongwon] Absolutely.
 
[Howard] Procedurally, the thing that I was going to offer, the tool that I use… I have a reason that I want to write a book. I have a reason I want to tell a story. There's something about it that has hooked me. Often, my first sessions of writing are an effort to articulate that so that I remain hooked. Those are rarely really good first pages. They're usually a voice, a couple of chapters in or something. So I allow myself the luxury of writing some of the bits that I think I will love. Then, writing the beginning material that leads into that. Then, at some point, I have chapters, I have scenes, I have material, I have whatever. Much of which deserves to be cut, because it's a draft. But this discussion of what are the words that I want to put on the page that will prevent Andy Weir from dropping the book actually into the garbage… What are the things that will hook a reader? I don't lead with that. Because coming up with that bit first is really difficult. But, once I have voice and worldbuilding and character and whatever else, the hook, whatever that hook is going to be, has often revealed itself and it's not what I would have thought of at first blush.
 
[Mary Robinette] Which I think is a great segue for us to talking about our book of the week. Which is, The Last Watch by J. S. Dewes. I'm going to just… I'm going to give you a word picture of the cover. The cover is a deep black infinite space with words, The Last Watch, Advanced Reader Copy. But there's a spaceship that is in the process of exploding. There's a diagonal stripe of brilliant blue white light. On one half, the ship is exploding, and on the other half, it's perfectly sound. Then, the blurb is, or the tagline is They're Humanity's Last Chance. So, this is the first line of the book, and this is part of… Or the first paragraph of the book. You'll be getting a lot of these this episode, but this is part of why I was like, "Well, I'm going to keep reading this."
 
“Spread your legs and bend over.”
 
Cavalon’s face flushed. Actually flushed. Embarrassing Cavalon Mercer was a feat few could boast. He was a little impressed.
 
He looked over his shoulder to grin at the guard, but the sour-faced man narrowed his eyes and jabbed Cavalon’s hip with his shock baton. A jolt of electricity shot along the nerves of his leg.
 
“Spread ‘em, soldier.”
 
[Mary Robinette] So what's fun about this, and part of the reason I was like, "Oh, I'm in," is because of… She's just great with the voice of the character. He's snarky all the way through. She's also good at unexpected turns. Like, that paragraph goes… That opening goes several different places that you aren't expecting it. The entire book is very much like that. It is not a predictable read. I just… It's space opera, it's great fun. It's also heartbreaking and super fast-paced. Like these poor people, I think… Anyone who lives to the end of this and… There's… Spoilers. People die in this book.
[What!]
[Mary Robinette] Anyone who lives to the end of this book has got to be just packed with PTSD. But… They have snarky breaks. I'm getting there.
 
[Dongwon] I mean, I think that's a great example, because so much of what you want to do in the opening of a book is to really communicate to the reader what kind of roller coaster ride they're getting on. Right? You want to tell them up front this is the kind of book you're going to be reading. So communicating that it's snarky, there's going to be twists, there is a sense of fun, but also there's a real sense of menace and violence, right? That paragraph gets all of those elements across in very little space which is exactly what you need to be doing. We're going to talk about this more in detail later, but, like that first paragraph, that first page needs to be doing so much work. It's going to sound really intimidating as we talk about it, like, "Wait, how do we get all of those things in there," but there are techniques to do this and there are ways to do this. I think the more you think about how do I put more into this opening page without overwhelming the reader, the more successful you're going to be at like setting that hook and pulling people into your story.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's so tempting to get right into that, right away, but I know that we're going to be talking about these tools as we get deeper in.
[Dongwon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] So, let's, I think, continue to focus on it from a reader experience. Which is, as you're saying, the things that cause people to toss a novel away.
[Dongwon] Well, one thing I wanted to hit on, and, Mary Robinette, you and Howard are both touching on this, is a thing that I say a lot is, that the beginning is a terrible place to start. Right? Where the story begins for the characters is often incredibly boring for us as readers. Because nothing's happening yet. Right? Where the characters are starting their story, they're entering into the situation, so they're not in a place that's intrinsically interesting. There aren't any stakes for them yet. There's no tension for them there yet. So one thing I like to think about is how do you skip that proverbial 30 pages ahead, how do you skip to the part where the book is really happening now, and then backfill the information that you need that got the characters to that point? Which is, start at the interesting part. Start with the interesting, don't start with the beginning.
 
[Mary Robinette] By the same token, you can start too quickly. One of the pieces of advice that I got specifically for murder mysteries from Hallie Ephron was that mostly the most common thing that she sees is that people start with the body drop, and that you actually have to take a little bit of time to let people see what normal is like before everything starts going completely sideways. So it is this fine line where it's so tempting to start mise en place, which is… Or mise en scene, which is what this book does, where we are right in the middle of action. But this action that he's right in the middle of sets promises, but it's not the big action that is driving the book itself. It's these breadcrumbs that you want to lay.
[Dongwon] Yeah, the tension in that scene feels like it's a microcosm of what's going to be happening, right? There are stakes in that scene of he's under threat, he's being shocked by the baton, he's under some kind of investigation. But we as readers already feel that this is going to be a small thing inside of the greater space of the story. I think being able to communicate that is one of the ways to be really effective.
 
[Dan] There's a principle that I talk about a lot, that I refer to as the ice monster prologue, which I stole from the first Game of Thrones book. Not that he calls it that, but that's where I came up with this. Because sometimes I think you're right and I would say most of the time, you need to jump ahead, skip those 30 pages and get to where the story gets good. But a lot of the time, especially if what you're telling is an epic, you want to take a lot of time to establish the character and establish their life and let it breathe before things really get big. So, think about, for example, the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope. Like, if we started with Luke, we would be on a farm in a desert and there would be a good half hour before anything really interesting happened. So instead, they start a little bit before that, and we get a big space battle in the star destroyer and people shooting and droids escaping. It's only about 10 minutes, but it helps us… It establishes that promise early on, like, stick with me. Were about to go to the boring farm stuff, and it's obviously… It's not boring. But just don't worry. This is the kind of story that has space battles in robots and lasers in it. You just have to trust me while we get through this early farmboy sequence.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. James Bond actually does the same thing with the… It's called a cold open.
[Dan] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Where he is wrapping up another mission. Because if you actually start at the beginning of this mission, it's a lot of office building.
[uh-hum. yup.]
[Dongwon] Law & Order is the other great example of you always start with that cold open of… You do have the body drop, but then you can wind back to the detective getting coffee or starting their whatever it is. Prologues are their own huge topic, but I think these are great examples of ways to quickly establish stakes and tone before you get into the characters going about their lives in a very… More gradually warming up to them and warming up to the world.
[Howard] In a… Procedurally, for the writer, I think it's useful to look at musical theater overtures. If you've ever listened to one of those, those overtures will always have elements of some of your favorite pieces in the whole musical, strung together in this sort of medley that then leads into our first scene. That can't be written, that can't be composed until the rest of the musical has been written. That's how hard these first pages may be for you to write.
[Mary Robinette] Metaphorically speaking, the other reason that that's a good example is that the overtures were originally composed literally to get the audience into their seats. They were there to play while the audience was sitting down. So…
[Howard] Oh, wait. Early Apollo era trombone?
[Chuckles]
 
[Mary Robinette] So I think that that brings us to the end of the episode. Which means that we should give you some homework to prepare for next week. Dongwon, you have that for us, don't you?
[Dongwon] Yeah. So, what I want all of you to do is to go back to the last three books that you read. Sit down and read that first page. Read the first paragraph. Read that first line. Then sit down with a notepad and take notes in a very literal way about what did you find exciting about them. What works for you and what didn't work for you? What works about a first page is very subjective. So I want you to think about why did I decide to keep reading this or what almost made me throw this book in the trash. Right? What almost kicked you out of the experience in that way? I think as you start to be really analytical about that, you'll be able to take some lessons and apply that to your own work.
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 15.07: Creating Chapters
 
 
Key Points: How do you make chapters? Feeling! Some people create them, others chop things into chapters. Chapters have a beginning, middle, and an end, like a short story. Chapters have a miniature arc of action. Chapters are like episodes, climbing towards a finale. Chapters interlock, forming a part of a book. Take your outline, which describes scenes, and think about what scenes can be combined into a single chapter, thematically or emotionally. Pay attention to the page turn! The chapter break forces a new beginning. How do you begin and end chapters? Do you do cliffhangers or not? Chapter titles, first lines, first paragraphs may signal what a chapter is going to be about. The beginning of a chapter is like the first line of a book, a place to grab the reader and pull them into reading more. Use cliffhangers sparingly. Try to use cliffhangers with a promise of what you are going to get, rather than just question marks. Pay attention to genre, thrillers need tension. Make your chapters rewarding, but keep your readers wanting more, too.
 
[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode Seven.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Creating Chapters.
[Victoria] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Victoria] I'm Victoria.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Brandon] We are, again, taking questions that we have been given and creating episodes around them. This one is a common question we get asked, which is, how do you make chapters? How do you decide where to break your stories up, and how to divide them up? I get this a lot, like in Q&A sessions that I'll do and things like that. It's always kind of hard to answer, because it's not a thing I studied. It's not a thing I ever looked at in anyone else's books. It's just a thing that I just started doing, and it just felt natural. I talk to a lot of writers, and that's how it goes. Right?
[Victoria] Yeah, it's hard to sit here and think about what are the mechanics or what are the rules. I feel like we're going to be able to talk about a lot of our personal guiding principles, but not necessarily any codified guidelines for something like this.
[Dan] Yeah. Although the good news is, based on what we're saying, listeners, you can take away that, at the very least, this isn't something that matters is much as you think it does. Right? You can kind of fake your way through it until you get a feel for it, and it will turn out better than you expect it to.
[Howard] We had a difficult time naming this episode. I think… I just realized the disconnect for me is that I don't create chapters, I chop things into chapters. I had a thing that is… I have a thing that exists, and I am deciding where the breakpoints are. Rather than saying, "Wow, I need a chapter here." As we prepared for the recording sessions today, we have a craft services table with food for us. I got to unwrap a block of cheese. That block of cheese is probably way less interesting than the novel, but it needed to be cut into chapters, it needed to be cut into pieces so that Howard didn't just walk away with a fistful of cheese. That's the way I think about it. These are…
[Dan] I mean, he still did, but…
[Howard] Well, that's because cranberry wensleydale is crack.
[Brandon] See, it's interesting because I do create chapters. I'm not taking the whole and just chopping it up. When I'm creating an outline, one of the things I'm doing is I'm… I'm just getting it all on there. But when I sit down for the day's work, I say, "All right, what do I need to achieve today? How can I form a chapter out of that? How can I have a rising action, how can I have questions be answered, how can I actually create something that feels like it has a beginning, middle, and an end?" Basically, I'm going to create a short story set in the world that is a continuation of other short stories.
[Howard] So, your chapters take shape after the initial outlines. I don't want to suggest that I do chapters when the final prose is done. Yeah, I'm the same way. In that I outline, but I don't outline to the chapters. They take shape later.
[Victoria] I think I'm in Brandon's camp here in that I don't like thinking about how hard it is to write a book.
[Chuckles]
[Victoria] A book is a very long, very daunting thing. What my plots do is essentially function like a series of escalating episodes. I treat each chapter as a short story, as a short story of kind of interlocking stories. Almost like a season of television than a movie. So when I'm approaching a chapter, whether it's a short chapter for middle grade or a longer chapter for a fantasy, I make sure that I have a miniature arc of action happening within that chapter. I want to fulfill certain promises. I want to not only move my characters from A to B physically and emotionally, but I almost wanted to feel like an exciting little episode that does something in the interest of climbing the steps toward my finale.
 
[Brandon] Yeah, the great thing about this also is once you learn this with chapters, like… I don't want to imply this isn't important to learn. That's not what I was meaning at the beginning, because I think it is. But it's something you can pick up on your own. The great thing is, once you start to learn it… People ask, "How do you create a thousand page fantasy novel? How do you create…" I've got Stormlight Archive which is two arcs of five in a 10 book series, and each… It gets, like, that is way easier than learning to create chapters, which you do over time, practicing, at least I did. Once I got able to interlock these scenes, basically episodes, I could be like, all right, these 10 episodes make a part of the book. Three of those make an entire novel. Three of those make a super arc through a series. Then you start to do this, and the chapter is where that all begins for me.
[Victoria] I do the same thing, I think. Shades of Magic is broken into something like 10 parts, each part has maybe 5 to 6 chapters in it. Each part is functioning as almost a season arc. The entire book is like a TV show. Each chapter within the arc is like an episode of the season. I know that I want to create a certain pace. But also, I do this from a complete self-preservation standpoint of I would get completely overwhelmed if I couldn't break it down into a substantial… Like substantially a smaller piece. On top of that, I like the satisfaction of a chapter that feels like we go through all of the emotional beats that I want you to. I wanted to feel… I have books where I have had a one-page chapter. I'm not saying you can't do that, to a different effect. But in something like… The longer the format, the more daunting it is, the more I recommend that writers begin to think of them as many, many bricks in a wall.
[Dan] When I started, my chapters were basically just how much can I write in one day. Which is why in Serial Killer, every chapter is about 2500 words. Because that's what I was doing back then. That's still my most successful book, so maybe that's a good way to do it. But, like, by the time I got to Makeover, which was like my 16th published book, I had… I'd become much more of an outliner. So when I create an outline, it's this big massive thing that tells me scene by scene everything that's going to happen. Then I will look at that and go, okay, which of these scenes need to be combined into a single chapter? Which is a little different than what you're talking about, at least narratively. Because there's not a single thread of storyline that goes from the beginning of this chapter to the end, because it will have two or three different scenes and possibly different viewpoints in it. But I try to do that in a way where they're all thematically linked together, or where there is an emotional through-line through it. So we're going to talk about this aspect of the story or the world or the technology or the magic. We're going to see one character deal with it, and then a different character deal with it in a different way. They will inform each other. That will form a chapter.
 
[Howard] Chapters and prose really are the one place where prose and comics share a structure, and that is the guarantee to page turn. With comics, you're always writing to the page turn. Because there is a visual reveal that is huge when you turn the page. With prose, you never think about that because you don't know where the pagination is going to be yet. With electronic publishing, you know even less. Except for the chapter break. You are… I have yet to read an e-book where I was forced to see the beginning of the next chapter while I could still see the end of the previous chapter. For me, that's huge. Because it means there is this psychological shift tween that thing I just read and not being able to read anything… I'm making the gesture, turning the page with my hands… And now there is all new information all at once. That is… I think that's important to think about, because even if they're just pushing a button to do it, you, the writer, now have a moment of physical puppetry control over the reader. You know they're doing anything. What can you do with words in order to make that more effective? I probably just made it a lot more difficult for everybody, didn't I?
[Dan] No. That's actually brilliant. I've never thought of it in those terms, but I can look back… Even that first one, at Serial Killer, and see places where I did that. Where, hey, you need to be… "I'll see you in the morning." Then the chapter break is, "By the time I got there, they were already dead." You can do tricks like that. That's… Now I'm going to have to think about that and try and do it on purpose.
[Chuckles]
 
[Brandon] Let's stop for our book of the week.
[Victoria] Yeah. So, the book of the week is Docile by K. M. Sparza. It's a debut novel, coming out in April. It's a really, really fascinating examination of consent under capitalism. It is a slight near future alternate history in which our debt crisis has reached a point in which people are selling themselves into kind of an indentured servitude for a variety of functions. In order to forget this part of their lives when they do choose to sell it… In order to erase their family's debt, they take a drug called Dociline. It's about two young men in the story. One who has decided to sell his family's debt off, and with it, himself, and has decided to refuse Dociline because of what it did to his mother. The other one is the one who buys his contract and is the heir to the Dociline Empire. It is about an examination of consent, of really, really interesting gender and sexuality, a lot of fascinating themes, and also, just a delightful read.
[Brandon] Excellent. Docile by K. M. Sparza.
]Transcriptionist note; Google Books says Content warning: Docile contains forthright depictions and discussions of rape and sexual abuse.]
 
[Brandon] Coming back to this, let's talk about… One of the other questions asks about how we begin chapters. I want to talk both about beginnings and endings. Because, thinking about it, where I break a chapter is often based on where I began a chapter. Because chapters work very well for me if I have some sort of note I can hit again near the end to signal, hey, we've completed this arc, or a character's looking for something, the character finds something. It's this MICE quotient thing Mary Robinette likes to talk about, I'm using very instinctively in creating chapters. So, how do you begin and end chapters, and then, kind of a question of this, if you want to talk about… Sometimes you want to end a chapter on a cliffhanger, sometimes you don't. What's the difference there?
[Victoria] Um… Go ahead.
[Dan] So, when I wrote Zero G and started my middle grade series, I wanted to give chapter titles. Because that's kind of a very good middle grade thing, I always loved chapter titles when I was a kid. That enabled me to set things up… This chapter is about X. Like, you know that right off the bat because there's a title that tells you. I realized, in the process of doing that, that that's kind of what I had previously been using first lines or first paragraphs to do. As a way of signaling a little more subtly this chapter is going to be about this character trying to do X. Some way of setting up, here's what you're in for, this is my promise, this is my establishing shot.
[Howard] Chapters, for me, are… The first line of a chapter is an opportunity for me to revisit the experience of the first line of the book, because often the first line of the book gets so much attention that, for me, anyway, the pros ins up far more refined. Not purple necessarily, but every word is exactly in place. I try to give that consideration to the beginnings of chapters because I see those as decision points for the reader. The… A lot of times, when I'm reading a book, I will turn the page to a chapter and realize, "Oh. Oh, this character. I'm not all this interested in this point of view." But, if there is some turn of phrase or some something right there at the beginning, to reward me for having turned the page… I'll muscle through it. But I'm a bad reader.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] Don't write for me.
[Victoria] Yeah, because I write my chapters like short stories, I do put the same amount of emphasis into the beginning and end of each chapter as I would the beginning and end of the novel. I also really… I love it, like I come out of a poetry background, I love the challenge of trying to distill, not necessarily a premonition of what that chapter's going to be, but I write multiple perspectives. For me, that opening line of each chapter is a way to instantly ground you in the voice. Because I don't mark it. I don't start the chapter by telling you whose perspective it's in. So I'm relying on the moment of perception. I write it from third person, so it's just a close third. But the moment of perception at the beginning of the chapter can tell you so much about the person that you're following, about the things that they notice, not only what they're going to be going through in kind of a hinting way, but just where their emotions are at, where their mind is that, all those things. Then, yes, like Brandon, I am somebody who because I write them like short stories, and one of my favorite things in short stories is the full circle moment, I love finding a way to echo by the end of the chapter where we are at. Then, every now and then, I try really hard not to overuse the cliffhanger ending because I think it gets tired. I think you have to use it sparingly. I think there's a difference between having enough tension to make you turn the page and having a dum dum dum moment.
[Brandon] Right. I've… We've talked about this before on the podcast. I've… The further I've come in my career, the more I've disliked the cliffhanger that says, "And he went to open the door and…" dum dum dum. I've liked the cliffhanger that says, "And he opened the door and his ex-wife was there." Right? Like, the cliffhanger that promises you something rather what you're going to get rather than promising you a question mark. When you can make those work, I like them. I do like to use chapters occasionally to force the page turn. I think you do have to use those, particularly in epic fantasy, you have to use it wisely. The longer your book, the fewer of these, I think, you can actually use. Which is counterintuitive. But if it's a short book, it's… You feel less guilty making them read it all in one or two sittings. If it's a long book, that will get exhausting.
[Dan] Well, that's what I was going to say, too, is, in addition to book length, consider the book genre. Writing in thrillers, you want every chapter to end on something tense. Maybe a cliffhanger, maybe not, but if you ever get to a point of rest where your reader can say, "Oh, okay, everything's cool. No one's in danger right now, I can go to sleep." You're writing your thriller weirdly.
[Victoria] Yeah. So, I have a big fantasy series that I feel like behaves more in these epic ways, where you have to use them sparingly, where every chapter really functions like an episode. Then, I have a series wherein I wanted to feel like a comic book without pictures. In that case, it is the chop, chop, chop of the turn. It is treating every chapter like a moment. In that case, there is more grouping of chapters into a smaller arc. But it's about… You can use brevity to the same effect that you can use length. You can use any element, like we're obviously talking a lot about the opening line and the ending line, but every aspect of a chapter is the utility that you have, from the voice to the length to the paragraph formatting, everything that you choose to do. To how many scenes you want, whether you want to have scene breaks within the chapter or not. I think it's about setting rules and expectations for your reader. It's really weird if every chapter of your book is like 30 pages long, except for two, unless those two moments are affecting something that is extremely dramatic.
 
[Howard] Episode five of season two of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, one of my favorite episodes, and it structures for me, it outlines what I kind of feel like a perfect chapter is, because, all of the threads come together in this moment of triumph, and then we get a POV and realize, oh, wait, that wasn't all the threads. Oh, a bad thing happened. End of episode. Page turn. So it's enormously rewarding, and then there's this piece at the end. It's not that it's super short, there's this piece at the end which absolutely draws me further in. Yeah, my philosophy on chapters is that I want every one of them to be rewarding. I want people to be excited that they read that, but I want to leave them wanting more, so that the next chapter is something they'll turn to.
[Victoria] Well, I just want to say, I think rewarding is a key word here, because rewarding is different from dramatic. Right? Like, I think there's a cheat code sense that if you want the chapter to be the most exciting version of itself, for the most rewarding version of itself, you have to end in this like dum dum dum, whether implied dum dum dum or actual dum dum dum. Sometimes, the most rewarding thing that a chapter can do is give you the equivalent of a full meal, and then the promise of something new. I think it's about also… It's about balance. It's about varying it between those things.
[Dan] So, just last week, I read Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, which is part of the Tiffany Aching series, one of my favorite ones. There was a chapter in there with a funeral. It ends with the funeral. There's no cliffhanger whatsoever. There's absolutely nothing to drive you forward. It is completely final. But. The way that the ending was written was so beautiful. It was this perfect capstone to the dead person's life, to the survivors moving on and still going forward, that I couldn't wait to read the next chapter. Because I'm like, "This is so beautiful. How can I not be reading this?"
[Brandon] Curiously, the Terry Pratchett young adult novels use chapters and his adult novels don't. There's no chapters, they just are scene, scene, scene, no numbers. I've always found that very interesting. Why he chose to do one way or another, I'm sure he answered at some point.
 
[Brandon] We are out of time for this episode. Although I have some homework for you. I would like you to take something you've written, and try moving the chapter breaks around. See how it feels to you to force yourself to end in the middle of what you thought was a scene. How to add more onto your chapter and end there. I bet you will find that you're doing this pretty naturally, that you're already creating these arcs. But maybe you'll learn something interesting about your writing and be a little more intentional about it. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.
 
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses 6.5: Query Letters

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/07/03/writing-excuses-6-5-query-letters/

Key points: a good query letter has a really strong description. Target a specific editor. Describe the genre and give your title. The plot synopsis shouldn't tell us every detail, just the most interesting things. It should reveal the hook, the genre, and the audience. The hook is what will keep us turning pages. Avoid telling us that we will keep turning pages, show us something that makes us want to turn pages. No marketing speech. Remember, no one trusts the salesman. The core is a good description that makes you want to read the book. Keep it simple and short. Make sensible comparisons. "A great query letter, then, is one that is going to pique your interest, and tell you just enough to make you want to read."
Mr. Postman? )
[Dan] All right. Well, I think we have a fairly obvious writing prompt for today to close off with. Write a query letter based on whatever your current project is. Describe it very succinctly, give a good synopsis, try to hook an agent's attention, and see what you can come up with.
[Sara] And practice it a lot.
[Howard] In a mirror.
[Dan] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

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