wetranscripts | Entries tagged with pitch

Writing Excuses 20.04: Metaphor 1 -- Puppetry

From https://writingexcuses.com/20-04-metaphor-1-puppetry

Key points: Puppetry as a metaphor for writing. Focus, breath, muscle, meaningful movement. Voice means different things. Puppetry has mechanical style, aesthetic style, and personal style. Genre! Meat actors and puppet actors. Lots of styles of puppets, lots of genres and subgenres and mashups. Space opera, horse opera, and horses can't sing! Building a puppet. What kind of puppet? Some key questions, what size is the audience, what's the budget? Then do a drawing, a rough sketch, a thumbnail sketch, what is the vibe? Work in layers. Pitches. Found object puppets. Focus for thoughts, what is your character looking at. Breath, emotion, pacing. Muscle, internal motivation. What is driving your character? Meaningful movement, actions and body language.

[Season 20, Episode 04]

[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 04]

[DongWon] This is Writing Excuses.

[Mary Robinette] Puppetry as a writing metaphor.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] Today we're going to be talking about my favorite subject, puppetry. So the idea that we've got for you with this, and we're going to be doing this all season, is that the lived experience that we all have affects the way we think about writing. You've heard me talk about puppetry for basically 17 seasons now, since I first appeared on season 3, episode 14. But I wanted to do kind of a deeper dive into actually thinking about it as a metaphor, as a way for you to also begin thinking about things in your own life you can use as writing metaphors. So. This is going to be a lot of me talking, but...

[chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Everybody else is going to chime in at some point.

[Dan] Eventually.

[Mary Robinette] Eventually. So, in season 13… Season three, episode 14, I talk about the four principles of puppetry. Focus, breath, muscle, and meaningful movement. I talked about those as a way to think about character. What I also want to talk about is the way to think about puppetry as thinking about… How it informs the way I think about genre, how it informs the way I think about the lens that the… The voice with which we write. So I actually want to start by talking about voice. Since we're talking about lenses. I think that there's this wonderful thing in puppetry that writers can use. So you've heard people say, oh, it's very important to develop your voice, and, don't worry about developing your voice, your voice will come naturally. I love the voice of this. So we use the word voice to mean three different things. When you're talking about puppetry, you talk about the style of puppetry and that means three different things. There's the mechanical style, there's the aesthetic style, and then there's the personal style. So, the mechanical style is literally are you using a marionette? Are you using a hand puppet? Is it a giant body puppet? With writing, that mechanical style would be the like first person third person, YA, which has a different mechanical style… Middle grade, in particular, has a different mechanical style than adult. Gaming has a different mechanical style than prose. So what style of writing are you doing? Then, aesthetic is what does it look like? Does it look like a Muppet? Does it look like something that's handcarved from Appalachia? Does it… What does it look like? For writing, that is… Does it sound like it's Jane Austen? Does it sound like it is from the Bronx? Does it sound like…

[DongWon] Elmo Leonard.

[Mary Robinette] Elmo Leonard. Then, the personal is that if you hand the same puppet to two different puppeteers, it looks like a different character. Which is why when Steve… After Jim Henson died, and Steve Whitmire took over Kermit the frog, everybody kind of freaked out. Because there are just subtle differences, even though it's obviously hitting the same mechanical and aesthetic, because there's these subtle differences that affect the choices that the performer makes. That… That is the same thing that means you as a writer are the only person who can write the book that you're writing.

[DongWon] Which is such an important thing to remember. Because we all kind of tend to freak out with this horrible burden of influence that we feel from other authors and other versions of stories that we've read. But my Kermit is going to be different from your Kermit. My monomyth coming-of-age story is going to be very different from your monomyth coming-of-age story. Or whatever it is that we're writing. So, remembering that you are an important ingredient in your work I think is really vital.

[Howard] There's a flipside to this. The fear that people are going to read what you're writing and just hear you. If you've ever watched a puppeteer on stage sitting visibly right next to the puppet and performing the puppet. They vanish. They vanish completely. It's surprisingly easy for us, as writers, to vanish into our prose. It doesn't make our voice go away. But we can disappear.

[DongWon] I think one thing that's really important about having your own personal voice. Right? The thing that is really intrinsic to how you write, how you think, how you speak, is… There's a term called anxiety of influence. Right? This is when you are so concerned of, like, oh, no, I've replicated a plot from Star Wars. I've replicated a beat from this, or a worldbuilding element from Tolkien or whatever it is. The reason why it's okay to do that, the reason why… Not just because it's impossible not to, because you absorbed the things you've read and there's only so many stories and so many things, but because it's all going to be filtered through your natural voice. It will be transformed into something that feels different. Right? So when we say that you want to lean into and enhance your voice, this is the [thing] we're talking about, this natural style that you have that will… Everything will be rendered through it and therefore feel different if you allow yourself that kind of distinctiveness of the way you think and write.

[Dan] So, bringing this back to puppetry, I just watched a documentary about Jim Henson called Idea Man, which was wonderful. One of the interesting things in there is when they were talking about how he and his wife were just barely getting started. The reason that Kermit as a character took off was in part because the hand was so visible inside the puppet. Not only did it make it more malleable and you could do a lot of facial expressions, but the… You watched those early things and you can see the fingers inside of Kermit's head. That was something that they liked about it. That it made the puppet so particularly expressive of the puppeteer, that that personal style came through really strongly.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that it… It's difficult to remember now, because all of us have grown up with Sesame Street and with the moving mouth, hand and rod style being the predominant style. But when they started doing that, the predominant style was marionettes. The huge puppeteer at that time was Bill Baird, who was a marionette-ist. You've seen his work if you've seen Sound of Music. He built those marionettes, although the children did actually do the performance. But the… That look was the look that everyone was influenced by and mimicking. Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, those were also these rigid, rigid figures. Then Jim Henson comes along with these incredibly malleable figures, and almost all of puppetry you see now on television is moving mouth puppets. But you can see the difference between, even though they're all using the same mechanical style now, and they're all… Everybody has been influenced by Henson, you can see the difference in different designers as they're working. I think that that's really exciting, like, when we get so wrapped up in the idea of the original idea. It's not that, it's the execution of it.

[DongWon] Well, what's interesting there is you have an intersection of mechanical voice and sort of your natural voice. Right? Because the mechanical voice in this case is allowing for different emphases on natural voice.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] You can see the performer in a different way than you can in marionettes. I mean, in marionettes, you will still have that natural voice, I'm assuming. But, as you're saying, in terms of being able to see the hand in the puppet… Very unsettling way to put that, by the way… Letting the mechanical enhance the natural, I think is a really wonderful way to do it. So, when we talk about fiction being voice-y, it is because you have this intersection of these two elements.

[Mary Robinette] So, all of these things are one of the reasons that I love using puppetry as a metaphor. So, now we're going to talk about a different aspect of puppetry to use as a metaphor. That's talking about the genre. So, for puppetry… Puppetry and science fiction and fantasy I feel like have a lot in common, in that we are both sort of the redheaded stepchild of our parent genre. So, puppetry is a form of theater. Puppet actors are actors. We think about ourselves as actors. The disparaging thing we talk about people who are not using puppets is that they are meat actors.

[Dan] Nice.

[Mary Robinette] Because we're performing with puppets, they're performing with meat. But the thing is that underneath that, there's this umbrella. So, there's this umbrella of puppetry, like we have an umbrella of science fiction and fantasy. Then, within puppetry, we have hand puppets… And these are all the mechanical style that you used to move the puppet. So you have hand puppets, you have rod puppets, you have shadow puppets, you have body puppets, and you have string puppets. Hand puppets, Kermit the frog.

[Howard] The Muppets are hand… Mostly hand puppets.

[Mary Robinette] The Muppets are hand puppets. But so are the puppets on Mr. Rogers. Those are also hand puppets. So anything you put your hand inside. Rod puppets are any puppets that's worked with a stick. That goes from Sicily and rod marionettes to [way angolek?] You guys can look these things up.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] They're amazing and beautiful. But the one you've probably seen, Slimy the Worm on Sesame Street. And also Rizzo the rat. Those are both controlled with a literal stick up their ass.

[Dan] And you thought I was making…

[Laughter]

[Dan] Bad metaphors here.

[Howard] Oh, Rizzo, I'm so sorry.

[Mary Robinette] Anyone did not deserve it, it would be Rizzo. Then you've got shadow puppets. Or screen puppets, they're sometimes called. That's anything where the… You've got… You're looking at an image on the screen. If you…

[DongWon] [Parawalkers?] is one example.

[Mary Robinette] Perfect. If you've got… You've probably done a shadow puppet where you've done the dog with your hand. It's one of the oldest forms of puppetry, but you can also do it with overhead projectors. There's a… So, like, within each of these, you get to drill down again. Then we got string puppets, which are marionettes, but they can also be cable control, for instance, in the original Little Shop of Horrors, the giant puppet is a cable controlled puppet. Those are mechanical cables that people are actually moving. That's also a string puppet. Then, body puppet is any puppet you put your entire body inside.

[Howard] Jack not name, Jack job.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Big Bird, Snuffy. So, within all of those, again, you can drill down further. It's the same thing with science fiction and fantasy, where you have science fiction, but then you also have space opera, you have near future, you have far future. What's interesting is the mash ups. So, we just mentioned Kermit the frog. Kermit the frog is actually a mashup that had never happened before. It is a mashup… Well… Shouldn't say never happened before. But it's the mashup of two styles that are not commonly mixed. Which is hand puppet and rod puppet. Rod puppets did not exist in the European vocabulary of puppetry until the early 1900s. That… They were brought over from Asia, from specifically Javanese puppets. Without that, that mingling of, that conversation between these two different cultures, these two different styles of puppetry, we would not have Kermit the frog, we wouldn't have the type of puppetry that we experience today. I think it's the same thing when we're talking about science fiction and fantasy. Like, steampunk. Is steampunk fantasy or science fiction?

[DongWon] Um… Who cares?

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Right. Exactly. It's a mashup.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Howard] Is the Swedish chef a hand puppet or hands? Because he's got a pair of human hands.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] He's got a pair of human hands.

[Howard] And… Who cares?

[Chorus of yeah]

[Howard] I just want to watch him.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] But it's also… What I love is you talk about the lineages of puppetry too, as you're talking about new genres. Right? If where the rod puppetry comes from and it goes back to… Space opera. The reason it's called space opera is it comes out of a genre called horse opera, which is a type of Western. Right? So, the dominance of westerns as pulp fiction in the early twentieth century then transitions into spaceships and ray guns as technology evolves, as we enter slowly the atomic era, and then the horse opera becomes space opera.

[Howard] My brain… Oh, my gosh. You said horse opera, and the first thing I thought was that's ridiculous, horses can't sing.

[Laughter]

[Howard] And space can?

[Mary Robinette] Right.

[DongWon] Anne McCaffrey made it happen. Yeah, we've got The Spaceship Who Sang. Right?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] But, that goes farther back into opera tradition. Right? It literally was called horse opera because it was taking the high stakes and melodrama from opera, translating it into the American West, and all of this. So, all of this is… Genre is about legacy and tradition as well, and the ways you can combine them is so novel and exciting.

[Mary Robinette] I think that this is a good opportunity for us to pause. When we come back, we're going to talk more puppets.

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[DongWon] I always recommend writers have their own websites. It's important to have a place on the web where you can make sure people can find your press kit, upcoming releases, and bibliography. Even if you've not published yet, being out there and establishing a digital identity is incredibly important. So, when Kinsta reached out, we thought they'd be a good fit for our audience's needs. They take care of the technical stuff so you can focus on your writing. Kinsta provides managed hosting for WordPress, offering lightning fast load times, top-tier security, and unmatched human-only customer support. They offer you complete peace of mind by ensuring that your WordPress sites are always online, secure, and performing at their best. Kinsta provides enterprise grade security, and it's one of the few hosting providers for WordPress with SOC 2 and other certifications that guarantee the highest level of security for your website. And Kinsta customers can experience up to 200% faster sites by simply moving there WordPress sites to the platform. They even have a user-friendly custom dashboard called my-Kinsta that makes managing your site or multiple sites a breeze. My-Kinsta is packed with a range of features that simplify site management, including tools for cache control, debugging, redirects, [garbled] location, and even CDN set up. And thanks to their unlimited, free, expert led migrations, Kinsta ensures a smooth transition from other hosting providers so you won't experience any downtimes. Plus, their 24/7, 365, human-only support is available in multiple languages, ready to assist with any inquiries regardless of site complexity. Ready to experience Kinsta hosting for yourself? Get your first month free when you sign up at kinsta.com today. It's the perfect opportunity to see why Kinsta is trusted by thousands of businesses worldwide to power their websites. Visit kinsta.com to get this limited time offer for new members on select plans. Don't miss out, get started for free today.

[Mary Robinette] All right. Do we want to move on to more puppet things.

[Yes!]

[Mary Robinette] Okay. So we're going to…

[DongWon] I just want to pause and say this is so delightful and so fun to dig deep into this topic. I mean, it… You brought this up over and over again throughout the show, but, like, to get it all in one place, I'm finding very delicious to go through one of the host's minds and how they think about it and approach it and all these things.

[Howard] The thing that's missing from the whole legend, the whole mythos of Writing Excuses, is video of Brandon, Dan, and Howard…

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Slack-jawed as Mary Robinette who we'd never had as a guest before guests, and talks about puppetry, and all of our minds explode at once. It was delightful.

[Mary Robinette] It was, I have to say, pretty satisfying.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] But it is… Like, the reason that I brought up puppetry was… In that episode was that you all had asked me about… Something about the way I thought about writing. In my background in puppetry has affected everything about the way that I move through my writing career. So, the next thing were going to talk about is actually building a puppet. It affects the way that I think about writing. So, I see a lot of writers who get very hung up on, oh, I can't get my opening right. So, when I'm building a puppet, I sit down and I first have to think about what kind of puppet I'm going to build. I have to answer these questions about the style of puppet. I have to answer those questions first. And those questions are informed by a lot of different things. They're informed by what size is my theater. They're informed by who my audience is going to be. They're informed by my budget. And that affects… And this is before I actually get to the building part, which we will also talk about. But that affects my conception. For me, as a writer, when I sit down and think, oh, I'm going to write. Sometimes I do just free-form and right in the same way that sometimes you just doodle as an artist. Sometimes you just say here's some stuff, I'm going to slap it together and see what happens. But when I'm building something for a show, in the same way that I'm writing something for a themed anthology or for a contract, I think about what is the size of my theater? Am I writing a short story or am I writing a novel? Because that's going to affect all of my proportions. I think about the audience. Because that's going to affect the stylistic choices that I make. And, I think about my budget, because my budget for writing is my number of words. If I have a really small budget, which is, like, a 3000 word story, I cannot afford to have a lot of sets. Because every set costs words.

[DongWon] This is… So when I often talk about publishing advice and writing advice, one thing I say frequently is you have to hold to opposite ideas in your head at the same time and learn how to live in that contradiction. So, the reason I bring that up is in this case when it comes to writing your book, I firmly believe that you should not think about the market, you should not think about the world, you should just focus on the story you want to write, the book of your heart, all of that. Also, the contradictory advice of what you should do is think about the market, think about the industry, and think about what you want your book to look like in a certain way. Exactly, who's your audience, what's your target word count? If you're writing space opera and you write a 60,000 word novel, sorry, you didn't write a space opera, you wrote a short science fiction novel. Right? So to hit certain genre markers and to hit certain expectations of your audience, you do kind of have to frame things up in a certain way to set those expectations.

[Mary Robinette] So, what's interesting is that when I'm thinking about audience, I'm not thinking about markets. Because, specifically, because I come out of children's theater, my audience are not the people who are buying the tickets. So I'm thinking about will this be funny for a third grader? Will they get this reference? Will they be worried about this? Is this too scary for them? Then, later, I have to think about how do I get their parents to buy a ticket?

[DongWon] Right.

[Mary Robinette] But I don't think about how do I get their parents to buy a ticket when I am designing a book.

[DongWon] Right

[Mary Robinette] When I'm coming up with a show.

[DongWon] Maybe that's a useful distinction between thinking about audience when you're starting to craft versus thinking about audience when you're getting ready to pitch. Right? Because those are two very different stages of the project.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] With two very different mindsets and approaches. When you start thinking too much about the marketing and the publishing framing, I think that can infect…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Your work in a way that can be limiting. But I do think it's important to think about who do you want to read this book. Who's this book for, on some level.

[Howard] I think one of the challenges that many writers… New writers, old writers, established, published, whatever… Many of us face is the discovery right about the time, and I'm going to lean into the puppetry metaphor in ways that may not work, right about the time that you're hot gluing the last bits of whatever to your hand puppet, and you realize, oh, wait, this hand puppet actually needs to be eight feet across and be driven by cables, and I need to now go rewrite my whole book, because I've discovered something about it that says this structure isn't right, and I didn't know how to build Audrey 2, but then I saw a book or read a thing or learned a thing, and now I know, oh, my goodness, there's this whole structure that I didn't know how to use that's the structure I really needed for my book, and I just finished hot gluing a thing…

[Mary Robinette] We are 100% going to talk about this. And I'm going to actually, unless someone else wants to talk about audience, I'm going to use that as my segue. So, I've been talking about the decisions I have to make before I start building. When I start building, the first thing that I do is I do a drawing of what I want it to look like. This drawing does not include what it looks like on the inside. But after I've got this kind of general, like, this is the vibe that I'm going for, then I have to sit down and I have to start thinking about the interior structure. And I work in layers. So I will draw the body parts that are going to be there. I will draw, like, where does this have to fit? I will draw those things, and then I will start putting layers on top of that to figure out what I need. Then, after I've got that sketch, that's not the puppet. I've got that sketch, and then I have to build. Most of the time, if I've got a puppet that's like a papier-mâché or something, often, I have to start with building an armature. Then I put clay on the armature, and I do additive and subtractive sculpture, where I'm putting clay on and then pulling it off, and I'm slowly refining it into the shape that I want. Then I do a mold. Then I papier-mâché into that. Then I have to send it. Then I get to do my painting. Then I get to glue all of the details on. If I just jumped straight to the sculpture, frequently it would collapse, frequently it wouldn't have a spot to put my hand. So, when I'm writing, what I often start with is that I start with… You'll hear me talk sometimes about a thumbnail sketch. Which is a term that comes out of my art background. Which is just a little drawing, just a little bit, like, this is the vibe. That, for me, with writing is sometimes it's a log line, Jane Austen with magic, this is the vibe. Sometimes it is a paragraph of asteroid slams into the earth in 1952. There's a lot of chaos. Then ladies go to space. It's just a very rough sketch. Then I will unpack that, then I start to move towards my armature, which is my outline or my synopsis. But the thing that… The thing, for me, is that at every stage of that, I am discovering something new, and I know that, I'm going to discover something new in every stage. So, having gone through that with puppetry, when I'm doing that with writing, it gives me this freedom, because I know that I don't have to be locked in. I know I'm still going to be making discoveries. And particularly as a writer with ADHD, it gives me a bunch of, oh, you did that, now you get to do this next thing. Knowing that there's still going to be discovery.

[Howard] I have never… Not even one time, while writing, given myself third-degree burns with a hot glue gun.

[Mary Robinette] I… Um…

[Dan] You're missing out.

[Mary Robinette] Missing out. Yeah. I have two different spots from puppets. Two different third degrees from puppets. Yeah. Yeah, one of the things that I do like about writing is that it is significant… I am injured significantly less.

[DongWon] I mean, we could consider carpal tunnel to be a form…

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Of a hot glue burn. So…

[Dan] One of the… Sorry, go ahead.

[DongWon] Not at all. [Garbled] more joke.

[Dan] One of the great things about starting with that thumbnail sketch for me is that it helps me pitch the story later on. If I have a really succinct starting point, if I know what the core framework or skeleton of this story is, I know what the vibe is, then it's so much easier to tell it to people. And I know… I can pitch a John Cleaver book or I can pitch one of my cyberpunk books really easily, whereas my Partials series, I didn't start with that, I started from a completely different direction. And to this day, what, 15 years later, it's hard for me to summarize in one sentence or even one paragraph, what that book is.

[DongWon] Yeah, and when I work with a client, my… One of my favorite stages is this first stage, where were coming up with the pitch. Right? There pitching me on ideas, a couple sentences, a paragraph, whatever it is. And then we just start, like you were saying, like, accreting more and more layers on to that as it develops into something richer. But you gotta have that pitch out of the gate, for me, at least to feel really confident that this project is going to work at the end of the day.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And I want to say that just because I tend to work that way, there are also times and joy in working the other direction. Where you're like, here's a bunch of ingredients that I have, is a bunch of materials, what can I make out of that? There's something in puppetry we call a found object puppet, where you make a puppet come to life with… Using the mechanical principles of how puppetry works. If anyone has ever seen me do the puppetry demonstration live in person, you've seen me do scarf dragon, where I take a… Just a scarf, and turn it in. But we do this with, like, newspaper, shoes, water bottles, whatever it is, we just like, well, put these objects together.

[DongWon] There's a photo on the Internet somewhere of Mary Robinette menacing me with a napkin puppet that is very delightful to me. But, yeah.

[Mary Robinette] There's a… I also have fond memories of that.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Any time he gets to be menacing. There's a wonderful puppeteer named Paul Zaloom and I think you'll be able to find some of his work on YouTube. But he does found object puppetry where he will glue different pieces together. So, sometimes that's fun. Sometimes you do the drawing and then you're like, okay, but what structure has to be under it to support that? So it's not that you have to always start from the inside, but it is the what is the vibe, what am I going for, and that I can work in layers.

[DongWon] Well, there's one last element of this and I know we're running long, but I kind of wanted to bring this up. As you're talking about building, there's a thing that, as I've been in the industry longer and longer, one of the things that has been most useful to me is to step back and remember that a book is a physical object.

[Mary Robinette] Sometimes.

[DongWon] That we… A lot of the time. Not always. Right?

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] But, like the core of what the publishing industry is is a physical goods business. We print books, we ship them to thousands of stores around the country, and then those are sold by hand to a customer.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? Yes, there are e-books, there are audiobooks, there's a million other things that branch off from that. But the original business…

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Is stuff. The commercial heart of the business is the physical business. Right? So, sometimes remembering that what you're making is a physical object in the way that you are thinking about building a puppet and what that means for the space that you're in, the shape that you're in, the materials you're using. I think there's a very, very useful metaphor to remember that a book is a thing that you want to hand to a person at the end of the day.

[Mary Robinette] When I did the translation for the Hildur Knutsdottir, the Night Guest, one of the things that she was very specific about is that there are some chapters that are only one sentence long, and she was very specific about which side of the page that sentence was on.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Dan] Um… When we're talking about physically building puppets, I'm remembering another thing from this Henson documentary about Rowlf the dog. He was, for a long time, the breakout Muppet. Before Kermit, before Sesame Street, he was the big one. That was pure experimentation. Their guy who was their main Muppet maker cut a basketball in half, more or less because he wanted to see what he could do with it. And he ended up… That's why Rowlf has this giant kind of spherical looking head with this enormous mouth, because he was built from a basketball cut in half. That kind of experimentation, where you don't have a plan in advance, you just have stuff, and you have ideas, and you want to see what you can put together… Some of my best writing I've ever done comes from that kind of let's see what happens.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm going to… Because I just need to hit the focus… Those things… Because in episode 3-14, I did not have a good way to talk about muscle and I do now.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] So, focus indicates thoughts. What your character is looking at is what your character is thinking about. It's whatever they notice. Sounds, scents, touch. That's what is important to the character, that's the thing that is in front of their brain. Breath indicates emotion. So, breath and rhythm are closely related. If you walk into a room and you are breathing rapidly, it reads differently than if you walk into a room and take a very big sigh. But those are both mechanically breaths. For on the page, that your sentence structure. How long your sentences are, along your paragraphs are. Those affect the way your reader… The pace in the way the reader feels about it. Muscle, which is the idea that the puppet moves itself… In writing, I've started calling this internal motivation. What is moving your character? What is making your character make choices? Because you want it to… You want all of those things to appear to originate from inside the character as opposed to having the puppeteer's hand reach on stage and move a prop. And then meaningful movement. When your character moves, when their doing body language, that body language is as important as the dialogue. So those are the things. Everything else you can… Most everything else we talk about in 3-14, if you want to go back and listen to that. Thank you all so much for joining me on my let me talk about puppets.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] I could actually keep talking about it. But those were… Those are the things that shape the way I approach writing. Because it was such a huge part of my life for so long. So we're going to be talking about this kind of thing all season. We've got other metaphors that other people are going to be bringing to you.

[Mary Robinette] Right now, I have a little bit of homework. And oddly, I just want you to watch a puppet show. If you can find a live puppet show, in person, that would be amazing. Go to puppeteers.org if you're in the United States. That's puppeteers of America. You can look for your regional guild. Most of the time, they will list shows that are happening. If you're not in the United States, you can look at unima.com. There's a… unima is the oldest continually operating arts organization in the world. It's Union de la internationale de la marionettes. I'm saying this very very badly. But you can again find a puppet show near you. And if you can't do that, check YouTube. There's so many fantastic amazing puppet shows. But look at… Watch a puppet show, and I specifically want you to watch something that's not the Muppets. Just so that you can see how many different amazing styles out there… Are out there.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go watch puppets.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 16.4: Networking

From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/01/24/16-4-networking/

Key Points: Networking isn't just getting to know editors, agents, and publishers. It's also how you relate to the greater community, and how we all build that community. Volunteering lets you see how it works, and lets you shape things, too. Conferences, writing groups, anthologies. Remembering names! Don't just try to imitate other people, think about how you normally relate to people, and then expand on that. To meet an author, start with common ground, small talk, and pay attention to what is interesting about them. Don't just chase famous authors, watch for peers, too. Editors and agents? Remember, the work comes first. Be aware of the demands on their time. Pay attention to them as people. Let them pitch to you! What are they working on, what are they doing that is exciting to them? Be ready to talk business if they ask. Practice your pitch, your elevator talk. Make genuine friends, don't just follow your task lists. If you aren't comfortable, walk away.

[Season 16, Episode 4]

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses.

[Mary Robinette] Networking.

[Erin] 15 minutes long.

[Brandon] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're part of a five person network.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Brandon] I'm Brandon.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Dan] We are going to talk about networking today. We are delighted to have both Erin and Mary Robinette with us, instead of switching back and forth like they have been throughout this course. Networking is a really valuable part of any business, and certainly also of our business. Brandon, this was… This is your class. This was your suggestion. What do you think we need to know about networking?

[Brandon] Well, I thought I was good at this until I met Mary Robinette.

[Laughter]

[Brandon] Right? Like, for me, networking was getting to know the editors and keeping my little black book of editors and agents and publishers. Then I met Mary Robinette, who introduced me to the idea of networking with the greater community and building the community. I knew I wanted to have an episode on this in the Master Class, even though I don't consider myself an expert in this particular area.

[Mary Robinette] That's very flattering, Brandon. I think one of the…

[Brandon] Mary Robinette, you know everyone.

[Mary Robinette] Here, I'll put in a plug for being on the board of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. But in all seriousness, volunteering is one of the best ways to network within a community. It allows you to see how things are working. But it also allows you to shape… And this is not just the random plug that it seems to be. One of the things that you will hear across organizations is that when you want to get involved with something, one of the best things you can do is to volunteer. It's because of what I just said about the… Seeing how things… How the sausage is made, but also getting to shape the sausage. This metaphor is going downhill very fast.

[Laughter]

[Dan] Delicious shaped sausage. One of the things, because we also… I mean, one of the reasons that our podcast is what it is, is because of networking. We all met each other… I've known Brandon forever, but the rest of us met each other through various professional outlets and conferences and book tours and things that we started doing together.

[Brandon] How did we meet, though, Dan? We were both volunteering.

[Dan] We were both volunteering on a science fiction magazine. That's true. It was a student run magazine, so I guess it wasn't professional, but even so, we met through the industry. Then, because this podcast became what it became, we started doing our own writing conference, the Writing Excuses Retreat, that happens every year. Erin is the person that we have asked to kind of lead that, because we met her when she was a scholarship recipient at that conference. She's incredible, and impressed our socks right off.

[Mary Robinette] I met her…

[Dan] Now she's kind of running the show for us in a lot of ways. And, to bring this back around, the most valuable thing that our students get out of the conference that we run is not us, it's the opportunity to network with each other. We have seen so many writing groups form, we've seen anthologies come together, we've seen people get married because they met on our retreat. There's a lot of really great networking opportunities at every level of this industry.

[Howard] The value of networking is something that we could all anecdotally establish and reestablish and reestablish. I don't think it's in question. For me, the hardest part with networking is… Was, I'm better at it now. I had a terrible problem remembering names, and I've been to three or four GenCon Indy events where I was sitting next to Tracy Hickman, so there were bazillions of people at the booth. I kept introducing myself to people who I'd met last year. I realized every time I was doing that… One, every time you do that, oh, I should already have remembered your name and I've forgotten it and I feel bad, I'm actually micro-aggressioning all over them by having dropped them into this index space in my brain that says well, clearly, you weren't worth remembering. I hated that about myself. So I started trying to find ways to make my brain work differently. The tool that I picked was back in the before times when I went to restaurants all the time, looking at my server's name tag and using their name and conversation and just teaching myself new name, new face, might never see them again, but the name is important. I got a lot better at it.

[Mary Robinette] I dealt with the same problem from a totally different way, which is that I just removed the pieces of casual small talk from my conversation that would betray whether or not I remembered someone.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] I no longer ever say, "So nice to meet you." I say, "It was good talking to you." The reason is because I, at this point, meet so many people, and have learned that my brain just… Like, I have made efforts. But I don't hold them… And I'm starting to learn that I have a little bit of face blindness. Not terrible, but enough that I will see someone that I have spent… Like, had dinner with. I met my assistant three times before I remembered her. Not as my assistant, I want to be clear.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] But… One of those included a multi-hour dinner. So… It's… I find that the way my brain works, it's so contextual that I have better success at modifying my language than at modifying my brain. Erin, what are the tricks that you use? For networking and moving around in these social spaces?

[Erin] Well, the first thing I'd say is that what I love about both of the examples that you all just gave is that they're all about knowing yourself. I think that one of the biggest pitfalls of networking can be the assumption that there's like a way that you have to do it. You see other people networking in a certain way and think, "Well, I need to replicate that. This person's shaking everyone's hands in the place. I'm going to do that." Instead of thinking, like, how do you relate to people normally when you're not trying to do anything, when you're not trying to get anywhere careerwise, just in your life. And then figuring out how can you slightly expand that. So, like, how can you work on that in a bigger space? So I am a slightly extroverted person, which in the writing world makes me an extremely extroverted person.

[Laughter]

[Erin] So I… And I love karaoke, so I will go to karaoke bars and talk to random people. So I know about myself that I'm okay with just going up to a stranger and making conversation and am pretty nonthreatening. So, because I'm a small person in my face somehow says I won't murder you, I'm able to go up to people and kind of just strike up conversations at a bar or at a reading, in a way that others may not be able to.

[Mary Robinette] And then later murder them.

[Erin] Mary Robinette…

[Laughter]

[Erin] Well, now it's going to be harder.

[Dan] Thriller warning.

[Laughter]

[The murder…]

[Howard] Later step in the business relationship.

[Mary Robinette] Murder them with song. Murder them with song. That's what I meant.

[Dan] I have personally been murdered by Erin's singing at least twice.

[Mary Robinette] But murdered in a good way.

[Dan] A very good way.

[Dan] I want to pause here for our book of the week. Mary Robinette, you have that. It is The City We Became.

[Mary Robinette] Yes, I do. Yes, I do have that book. So, The City We Became is N. K. Jemison's latest, as we record this. I went in not knowing what to expect. It is a love letter to New York and all of the boroughs. It is a coming-of-age story about a city. Also, intrigue and… Just, it's social commentary and action and magic and it's so good. Very much its own book. But it's also… One of the things that I love about it, and one of the reasons I suggested it for this, is that it is very much about building your community and found family.

[Dan] Wonderful. That is The City We Became, by N. K. Jemison.

[Dan] So, as we continue our discussion of networking, one thing that I know our listeners want to know is how to do it. How do they approach authors? How do they approach agents? How do they approach editors? Let's start with authors. Somebody wants to meet an author. How do they do that?

[Mary Robinette] So, one of the things that I always suggest is a lesson that I learned from my mom. Which is that when you go up to someone, her philosophy… She was an arts administrator. Her philosophy is that the other person is always more interesting than you are, and that when you begin a conversation, you shouldn't begin it with business. That you should begin it with some common ground, some small talk. Small talk exists to basically say, "Hello. I am not a threat." So, what I do when I'm approaching someone or when someone is approaching me, the thing that I try to do is find that common ground. So it's things like, "Oh, the elevators are running really slow." Or, "Man, how's the…" I will actually now, especially when we are all in Zoom land, say, "How is the weather where you are?" We have a conversation about weather. But it gives us this moment when we are people and we are not doing business. If I know anything about the author, or if I hear anything in their conversation that I am also interested in, I try to steer the conversation in that direction. Because saying the other person is more interesting than you are does not mean that you have to fawn over them. What it means is that you live in your own head. You experience it all the time. Anything that's coming from them is new and interesting. You can… Like, if I know someone has an interest in cars, I don't have an interest in cars, but we do have a 1952 MG-TD that I have a great deal of fondness for. So I steer the conversation towards classic cars. Then we have some common ground. Then, afterwards, I become the one person that they didn't talk about the publishing business with, and I stick out in their brain more.

[Dan] Brandon, what are your thoughts on this?

[Brandon] I just wanted to throw in the reminder that getting to know authors does not… The best thing that I did, early in my career, was identifying people that were writing great books who weren't published that I could make a bond with and that could be my… Ended up being, like, my friends for life in the business. I'm kind of talking about Dan. Right?

[Chuckles]

[Brandon] But people like Dan, where both of us were in the same state in our lives. But Dan was writing these really great stories, and I knew Dan was somebody I wanted to know because I thought he made my writing better. Knowing people like that in your… Like, it doesn't necessarily… Networking with other authors doesn't have to mean going and approaching famous authors. It can mean knowing people from your community so you have a group to grow with as you all kind of start to learn these things together.

[Erin] Yeah. I'd say it's important to put as much time into like networking and building community even more with your peers as your heroes. Because ultimately your peers are going to grow with you in the field, but also, because in a group, there's… You don't want to be known as the person who's like looking for, like, oh, who can I network with that's going to like move me up in the world. You want to feel like you're genuinely interested in other people. A lot of… I'll say, I didn't set out this way, but I've gotten a lot of opportunities in my own career from friends and peers who I just met because I wanted to meet them and they were interesting and I liked what I knew they had written. But then, later on, as careers start to develop, you never know when somebody might be able to, like, throw something your way that they're not able to do, for example. So I think it's really important to, like, just care about the people around you and not get too much in your head because you're in a professional writing space and forget who you are as a person, which is a cool person who, theoretically, knows how to relate to at least some other people in the world.

[Dan] Yeah. That's my kind of primary source of author networking right now is throwing people jobs. If somebody comes to me about a freelance thing, I need someone to write this RPG adventure or whatever it is, and it's not a job I can take on, I will always try to suggest three or four other people instead. So instead of just saying no, I do this, I'll say, "Please go look at these people. They do excellent work and you may not have heard of them." That has been really valuable as a way of kind of spreading that love and building relationships both with the authors I'm recommending and with the publishers that are talking to me.

[Dan] Now, what about with editors? This is something that is maybe a little more immediately valuable to an aspiring author. How do you build networks, how do you get to meet editors and agents? Let's throw them both in there.

[Mary Robinette] So, ultimately, I'm just going to remind people that in terms of selling a book, it still comes down to the work.

[Dan] Absolutely.

[Mary Robinette] So, what you're looking for with these conversations with agents and editors is a better understanding of the field. It's not… You're not going to make a sale because of your relationship with an agent or editor. It might help a little bit. It might cause them to do a more sympathetic read, but the work itself has to be there. But when you're talking to an agent or editor, there's something that I call the hierarchy of time, which is the idea that how many people want a piece of you affects how valuable your time is. It has nothing to do with your actual merit as a human being. It has nothing to do with any of that. It's not that some people are worth more than others. It's just… The hierarchy of time is someone who's… As Brandon was talking about earlier in a previous episode, knowing how much your time is worth. Some of that is how many people are trying to take that. So editors and agents have a lot more people wanting pieces of their time than an early career writer. So they stand higher in the hierarchy of time for that reason only. So when you are talking to them, I think it is helpful to remember that. So that when you are having a conversation, that you are contributing to their enjoyment. And I don't mean sucking up, it's just that… Because everyone is trying to get a piece of them, it is useful if you can share… You can be amusing. I don't mean like, "Hello. Here is the joke that I have prepared to tell this editor." But actually paying attention to them as a person and as a conversation.

[Brandon] One of the things that Dan and I found is that if you're doing this at a convention, which is where we normally did it, actually going to that editor's panels and going in afterward and approaching, at appropriate places like at parties or things, those editors to ask them about the panel, things that they said. That was really handy, because, number one, it gave us more information. This is what we were looking for. These are the experts in the field. Number two, it was a conversation starter about something we knew they want to talk about, and it is a way into a conversation. The other big one was always we wanted to know what books the editor was working on and why they were excited by them. Because this, number one, gives us information again about the field, but it also is something that every editor I've met wants to talk about because it's exciting for them. Because they love these books. Because they want to sell these books. You're actually letting them pitch to you in that case, which is helpful for them because maybe they'll get a sale off of it. But it's also helpful for you because you probably should go by those books to find out what the editors in the field are really excited by right now.

[Dan] Definitely.

[Erin] I think it can be very inspirational. There's nothing… I love hearing editors talk about the books that they're working on and how much they love them. At a time… If you're like in the slog of writing and it's like oh, it will never end, seeing what the part of the process that you can get to and thinking, "There's so much excitement. Editors want to be publishing great work." is a great way to, like, for me at least, give me a little boost and get me back in front of the computer or the page.

[Mary Robinette] One thing that I also want to say in terms of agents and editors is, while you should go in and plan to treat them like a person, and they are your peer, they're not a target… Is the thing we say on the Writing Excuses cruise all the time. At the same time, be ready to talk business if they ask. So have practiced your sales pitch, your elevator pitch. Know what you are actually writing. Do that homework so that when it comes up, you can talk about it without going, "Well. I mean. It's kind of a… Fantasy…"

[Chuckles]

[Dan] She's saying that because she's heard me pitch books before.

[Mary Robinette] I have. Hey, I'm really loving Ghost Station, by the way, which is not a fantasy.

[Dan] Thank you very much.

[Mary Robinette] Hey, look at me networking. So, that's the kind of thing that you can do, is just be prepared. What's Ghost Station about?

[Dan] Ghost Station is a Cold War spy novel about cryptographers who are on… In West Berlin about two months after the Berlin Wall was built in 1961. So, that's what it's about.

[Mary Robinette] Good job.

[Dan] Thank you.

[Howard] Ghost Station is a cold start to a good pitch that… Okay, I'm on my game.

[Dan] That was awesome.

[Mary Robinette] Thank you for demonstrating, Dan, why it's important to practice your elevator pitch so that when they ask, "So, what are you working on?" which will inevitably be a topic of conversation, that you can actually answer it smoothly.

[Dan] In my defense, if you ask me what I'm working on, I've got a much better answer. I haven't had to pitch Ghost Station to anyone in a year or more. But, yes. These are all good things to remember. Howard, you've got something? Looks like you want to say?

[Howard] I may be coming at this from an established position of luxury or whatever, but I find that networking as a I am networking is really arduous. I'm an introvert, I'm not an extrovert. I like having genuine friends. I find that the most… I make friends by meeting interesting people and talking to them and listening to them and I love that. I have… Lately, anyway, I have zero task lists in my brain. No must meet the following people, they must be able to do the following things. None of that is present. I just… I like having friends and being genuine and meeting people. I think it was about 15 years ago, I was at Comic Con and got to meet Steve Jackson for the first time. It actually would have been more than 15 years. 17 years ago. He was a fan of my work. Suddenly we had conversations that had nothing to do with what we were doing. Then, at one point he talked about online sales, and I realized, "You know what? I was talking to Scott McCloud the other day, who is a web cartoonist and who… Understanding comics," and I said, "Steve, Scott McCloud is the expert, and I think he's right here at this convention. Let's go find him." So I got to introduce Steve Jackson to Scott McCloud. What did I get out of that? Well, my friend Richard took a picture. It made it look like I was in the middle of a brilliant discussion between these two luminaries in their own fields. But, ultimately, what I got out of it was this is a fun conversation. Steve talked to Scott talked to Steve, and I was kind of in the middle of it. They're just… They're good people and I like them. If I ever need, really need to meet an editor, what will probably happen is I'll talk to Erin, Mary Robinette, and say, "Geez, I've got this thing, and I don't even know what to do with it. Maybe it needs an editor." One of my friends might say, "Oh. There right here at this event." And walk me over and introduced me, because we're friends. It's nothing… It's not transactional at all.

[Dan] That is…

[Mary Robinette] All of that is…

[Dan] One of the things I love about the publishing industry is that for the most part, it is a friendly industry full of people who want to help each other. Having worked with Hollywood, I could tell you how rare it is to be in a friendly industry full of people who want to help each other.

[Mary Robinette] I actually want to say that that is something that is very true of science fiction and fantasy, and some of the other genres. There are genres that that is not true. So just take that under advisement a little bit. Erin, did you want to chime in on that?

[Erin] Yes. Just one other thing to take under advisement, not to put a bad negative spin on anything, but also remember that, like, networking is great, but you are important and your own safety and comfort is important. When you get into things where there's hierarchies of time and power, sometimes people… If something is making you uncomfortable, if you don't feel good about a conversation you're having, you can walk away. It will not kill your career. It won't do anything. The most important thing is for you to be okay with what you're doing and the people that you're around.

[Dan] Yes. That's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you very much for that.

[Dan] Mary Robinette, you have homework for us.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So the homework that I have is that I want you to think of… Think of and do five things. I want you to think of five things that you can do to help someone without getting credit. It doesn't have to be completely anonymous. But I'm talking about doing things like quietly signal boosting something, a donation, fulfilling a wish, beta reading for someone. You get thanked for beta reading, but you don't get like big public credit for it. So things that you can do to help other people. Because the biggest thing with networking is the old aphorism, a rising tide raises all ships. So how can you help that tide rise?

[Dan] Fantastic. Thank you very much for that. This is Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.

mbarker

Writing Excuses 14.17: It's Like "Car Talk" meets "Welcome To Nightvale"

From https://writingexcuses.com/2019/04/28/14-17-its-like-car-talk-meets-welcome-to-nightvale/

Key points: Comp titles, or comparative titles, are titles that a book reminds you of. Who is this book for? E.g., a pitch like X in space. Or traditionally two books, with your book in the overlap. Not the sum or combination, but the intersection. Comp titles early in the writing process can help you refine your book. Comp titles can define genre and category. Think about the elemental genres. Comp titles can help identify your audience and target a market. Consider the set dressing and structure when picking your comp titles. Comp titles is not just A meets B, you can say which elements you are referring to. You can also throw in a wrench with a third element to give it a twist. Be aware that readers may not understand the shorthand of comp titles. Use comp titles as the base of longer explanations. Comp titles are a clarifying exercise, to help identify the core elements of your story. Beware the comp titles that have been overused, like Harry Potter.

[Mary Robinette] Season 14, Episode 17.

[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, It's Like "Car Talk" meets "Welcome To Nightvale."

[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.

[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.

[Dongwon] And we're not that smart.

[Howard] I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Dongwon] And I'm Dongwon.

[Howard] We are talking about comp-titles. Those things that you cite when you are trying to describe the thing that you've created in terms of other people's stuff. Dongwon is back with us this week. Dongwon, in your line of work, agenting, you use comp-titles kind of a lot.

[Dongwon] Comp titles is how we think about the universe. So, comp titles are, just for clarification, it means comparative title. So any time you're talking about any given book, what you're usually doing in the back of your head, if you're a publishing professional, is automatically coming up with the one to two to three titles that this book reminds you of. Part of the reason you're doing that is, in publishing, one of the main questions is who is this book for. The way we talk about that is we use other books as a proxy. So if your book is like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, then that tells you something about who this book is for and, hopefully, how many copies it's going to sell.

[Dan] Yeah. I just sold... at time of recording, I have just sold a middle grade to Audible, based almost entirely on the pitch, Home Alone in Space.

[Dongwon] Hell, yes.

[Dan] That is working everywhere. The editor's taking that around the company and says, "Hey, can I get some resources?" "For what?" "Home Alone in Space." "Yes. Here's all the money that you need." So a really good comp title can have incredible value.

[Mary Robinette] That is basically how I sold my first novel. It was Jane Austen with magic. Then I also have Thin Man in Space.

[Dan] Which I've wanted to read for so long.

[Dongwon] I will point out that every example of a comp title that we've given so far has been one book with an extra element. That is one way to do a comp title. But most traditionally, what you really want to do is have two different books. In the Venn diagram, the overlap between book A and book B is where your book lives. Right? So, the ones that we've been giving so far can be really useful just to give a feel for what the book's going to read like, but it's not telling enough yet about who this book is for in terms of the audience. That's sort of an interesting gradation that you'll see [garbled]

[Howard] The first time I ever had to come up with a comp title for my work, I was making a pitch to a media guy who, of course, never got back to me because that's the way a lot of these things work at Comic Cons. I described Schlock Mercenary as it's like Babylon 5 meets Bloom County. Babylon 5, science fiction that pays attention to story, science fiction that remains consistent. Bloom County, comic strip with short serial elements.

[Mary Robinette] So in that, is Schlock Bill the cat?

[Laughter]

[Howard] If you pay close attention, both Schlock and Bill the cat have mismatched eyeball sizes.

[Ooo!]

[Howard] So the answer to your question is not no.

[Laughter]

[Howard] My work is not just highly derivative...

[Chuckles]

[Howard] It is markedly and easily identifiably derivative.

[Dongwon] We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Which is one of the things that I think is interesting about comp titles is that... I find that when I come up with the comp titles early in my process that it also helps me sort of refine what it is that I'm working on. That sometimes it's like, "Oh, yeah. This is an element out of that Venn diagram." So as we're going through this, I kind of want to talk about what we mean by the Venn diagram of where the two books overlap. You're the one who introduced me to this idea, Dongwon, so I'm going to put you on the spot and make you explain it.

[Dongwon] So the Venn diagram is really useful. I think the way people think a lot about A plus B is they tend to think that it's the combination, it's the full territory defined by book A plus book B. That's the wrong way to think about it. What you're doing is, you're looking at the narrow overlap between those two books. One of the reasons this is really useful in pitching, for example, is it does a lot of the work to define genre and what category your book is before you start telling people the details of your book. So if you start saying that it's Star Wars meets Jurassic Park, then you already know that this is for someone who likes dinosaurs and laser swords, right? It's not... The combination of those two things, it's you're putting the laser swords into a park full of dinosaurs or something to that effect.

[Howard] It's also worth calling back to our... Oh, was it Season 11, Elemental Genres? Calling back to the Elemental Genres. Let's talk about Star Wars and Jurassic Park. It will not always reverse engineer this way, but if you are talking about Jurassic Park because there are cool monsters and it is a horror story in which there is a sense of wonder, and you're talking about Star Wars because Campbellian monomyth and swords. Then, if those are the elements in your story, Star Wars meets Jurassic Park is a great way to say which elemental genres you are using. But it could also be dogfighting spaceships meets biological technology that hasn't actually gone wrong...

[Dongwon] I'm now picturing raptors learning how to use X-wings. It's a really delightful image.

[Mary Robinette] I would totally agree the heck out of that.

[Dongwon] There you go.

[Dan] Now Mary mentioned, Mary Robinette mentioned earlier the... That it's often a very good idea to come up with this comp title, this comparison early in your process. One of the reasons that that can help is it can help you identify your audience and it can help you target your market a little better. I sold my YA cyberpunk to the editor, to the publisher, using "This is Veronica Mars meets Bladerunner." Which is great, but he's my age. It very quickly became obvious as we started figuring out how to market this in the YA market that when we sold this six years ago, there were no good well-known cyberpunk properties for teenagers. We tried everything we could think of. Today it would be easy. Because we have... There's a new Bladerunner movie that's been very recent, there's all these other cyberpunk things that are popping up. We've... I use it now, I usually pitch it as Overwatch. But six years ago, if I'd taken the time to think about it, I could have identified maybe... Maybe there isn't a slot in the market for this. Which is what turned out to be. It was a very poor seller because the market... I was maybe two or three years before the market was ready.

[Dongwon] And yet… Sorry.

[Howard] I just… I wanted to pause for a moment for a book of the week, because that sounded like a nice point to transition. Except Dongwon had a thought and I didn't want to step on it.

[Chuckles]

[Dongwon] I'll say my thought really quick. Dan has stumbled on, I think, one of the reasons why publishing can be a very conservative business sometimes. It's one of the flaws in the system. It's how we think about things, but it's one of the issues is if there isn't a prior example that's been successful, it's very hard to do something that is very new and very different from what has come before. Now there will be breakout moments when that thing happens, and you get to do this big new thing. But often times, there are a number of books that preceded it that didn't get traction. Often, when somebody says, "Oh, this is a brand-new genre," that's not actually true. That work has been happening, it just hasn't been selling particularly well.

[Howard] Well, that's kind of a down note to talk about a book that we want to [inaudible]

[laughter, yeah]

[Dan] A positive spin on that particular thought is that my kind of tepid reaction to cyberpunk actually paved the way for the new Blade Runner movie to be a big success.

[Chuckles exactly]

[Dan] That's where I'm going to go with this.

[Dongwon] You provided a lovely steppingstone.

[Howard] Who's talking about Arkady Martine's book?

[Dongwon] I believe that is me. So, our book of the week is Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire. It's a brand-new space opera that's just out from Tor Books. The comp titles that I'm using for this book would be that it is John McQuarrrie meets Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice. It is a political murder mystery set in the heart of a future massive galaxy-spanning empire. A young diplomat is sent to the heart of this empire because her predecessor, she discovers, has been murdered. She needs to prevent her tiny nation from being annexed by this empire. It's a really wonderful fraught political thriller full of massive world building and a very sort of complex view of how people interact and how empires work which is where the Ann Leckie part comes in. It's a wonderful read, and I hope you all enjoy it very much.

[Howard] Outstanding. That was A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine?

[Dongwon] Yeah.

[Howard] Available now?

[Dongwon] It should be available now.

[Howard] Should be. Because we record these things in advance…

[Chuckles]

[Howard] And our listeners never get tired of us talking about this weird time travel thing that we do.

[Mary Robinette] Actually, according to some of our listeners, they really do get tired of it.

[Laughter]

[Dan] Will cut all this out.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] It is absolutely available now.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. So one thing that I wanted to kind of circle back to about when we're talking about the comp titles and how to pick one is that there's kind of two things that you're looking at. One is the set dressing of the thing. The other is the structure of the thing. So the set dressing are things like Jurassic Park, if we think of Jurassic Park and the set dressing of that, we think of dinosaurs, we think of a park. But the structure of Jurassic Park is thriller and horror. So when you're picking your comp titles, I think it's imp… I think that it's worthwhile making sure that you're trying to find a comp title that has both axes in alignment with what you're picking. Otherwise, if you're like, it's like Jurassic Park, but it's all gentle and soft. Unless your other comp title brings the gentle and soft into it, you're going to wind up sending a false message [garbled]

[Howard] It's like Jurassic Park meets Gummi Bears.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Then I think people… But see…

[Dan] Ooo, yeah.

[Dongwon] Then your raptors are just bouncing around the park. That's [unsettling, upsetting]

[Dan] I'm digging that.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, but that…

[Howard] That sounds just delicious.

[Mary Robinette] That could be like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man version of…

[Dan] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] [garbled] rampaging Gummi bears.

[Dongwon] One thing to point out when talking about comp titles is you don't have to just say it's like A Meets B, right? You can say different things about it, right? So you can say it's the voice of A and the world building of B. Or you can say it's the plot of this meets this set dressing element. An example I just gave for the Arkady Martine, John McQuarrie is providing the elemental genre, it's a thriller, it's a political thriller. Then Ancillary Justice is providing voice and setting, more than anything else. One I talk about a lot is Marina Lostetter's Noumenon, which is… I talk about it as an Arthur C. Clarke big idea story as told by Octavia Butler. So it gives you this is old school big idea science-fiction, but told with this contemporary voice that has a cultural focus.

[Dan] Yeah. Another thing you can do is add a third element to throw in a twist. My Partials series, we marketed that as this is The Stand meets Battlestar Galactica, starring Hermione Granger. That third element can kind of be the wrench that helps the other two twist around.

[Dongwon] Dan is very good at this game. I'll point that out.

[Laughter]

[Howard] I'd like to take a moment and leash this just a little bit. Because in my experience, I'm excited to hear if it's at all universal, the comp title tool does not work well with large bodies of readers. If I go to the customer and tell them this is like Star Wars meets Jurassic Park, they do not have necessarily the vocabulary, the syntax, to know that I'm not saying the nostalgia you have from Star Wars and the nostalgia you have from Jurassic Park, you're going to get both of those in this book. When I've seen people try and pitch their books in that way, often hand selling, it feels fraught. Whereas if you're having a conversation with an agent or a publisher or an editor or a bookseller, they speak that language and they know exactly what you're doing.

[Mary Robinette] I think that you're right that if you do a shorthand, if you just toss it out just as those two comp titles to the average reader, they don't have the insider shorthand. But I also think that if you use those as the basis of a longer sentence, that it is very, very useful. It's one of the things that… With the… The way I talk about Calculating Stars to readers is I say, "So, it's 1952. Slam an asteroid into the Earth, kicking off the space race very early when women are still computers. So it's kind of like Hidden Figures meets Deep Impact." They're like, "Oh! Oh, sign me up for that."

[Howard] See, that is a… For me, that is a perfect pitch. Except not… Perfect pitch has a different…

[Laughter]

[Howard] It is an outstanding elevator pitch for a book because it goes very, very quickly, and at the end, you have planted a hook. That, for me, is one of the most important parts about these comp titles is that it's supposed to give you a bunch of information, but also invite you to ask a question. Which is, Hidden Figures meets Deep Impact, how bad does it get?

[Mary Robinette] Well, the other thing is that I'm also focusing… Using that initial sentence, I am telling the reader which parts of the comp titles to focus on. So I do… It's like you have to decide what is important and why you picked that comp title, and then set it up when you're talking to a reader.

[Dongwon] Also, the comp titles are really a clarifying exercise. It helps you to focus on what are the core elements of your story that you want to be telling to other people about the book that you've written. So, once you have your comp titles in mind, all of your copy, your longer pitch, that can descend from that. So even if you don't end up using the actual comparative titles when you're talking to a reader, if you meet them on the street or in a bookshop or whatever it is, you still have in your head the target audience in mind that is shaped by those overlapping properties.

[Howard] Dongwon, I think that's a great place to phase into our homework, except Dan's telling me he wants to say something.

[Dan] There's one important thing I want to point out before we leave comp titles.

[Howard] Go.

[Dan] Which is in line with thinking about your audience. Especially when you are pitching this, when you are presenting this to an agent or an editor, keep in mind that they have already heard four bazillion of these. So don't use the really obvious ones. Don't use Star Wars, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones. Because they've seen those so many times.

[Dongwon] Well, the thing I want to add to that, just a little bit of clarification about why those are bad, is because the comp title's a proxy for the audience. So if you say Harry Potter, what you're saying is my book is for every human who's ever existed on the planet.

[Laughter]

[Dongwon] That's not useful information. It made plot wise be correct or it may have elements that are correct. So you can cherry pick an element, you can say starring Hermoine Granger just because that's good shorthand for a character. But you can't use Harry Potter as a comp because it doesn't tell me anything useful. You're only… Your Venn diagram is a circle of the human population.

[Howard] I think that that's probably the places in which I've seen the hand selling fail. Because if you tell me it's Harry Potter meets Jurassic Park, I don't believe you.

[Laughter]

[Howard] That's not the result that you wanted.

[Howard] We have homework.

[Mary Robinette] Your homework is to come up with six comp titles. Now, what I'm going to recommend is that you take some work in progress and you come up with three comp titles that are from works in progress, and that you come up with three additional ones that are for work that you have not written but you just think would be a cool combination. Literally, the Thin Man in Space, which we have just sold to Tor at the time of this recording, that began as a comp title. I had the comp title before I had anything else. So, six comp titles. Three for existing works to help you clarify what you're working on, and three as an initial brainstorming for something that you might want to write.

[Howard] Once you've got those three that you might want to write… [Garbled may be planted]

[Dongwon] [garbled]

[Howard] It may be time to write it.

[Mary Robinette] In fact, you may be out of excuses. Now go write.

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Writing Excuses 11.50: Hand-Selling Your Book to Potential Readers, with Michael R. Underwood

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/12/11/11-50-hand-selling-your-book-to-potential-readers-with-michael-r-underwood/

Key Points: Hard selling can poison the well. Don't do it. Start with a conversation. Questions are good. Get them to talk about their favorite books, then pitch something similar. Find out what problem they have, what they are interested in. Set up your table in clusters. A big backlist or working with other authors can help you meet their interest with something that matches. But find out what their problem is, and then suit your pitch to that. "What do you like to read?" and "What kind of fun are you looking to have with a book?" Be enthusiastic! If you have a big backlist/series, prime yourself to talk about a good entry point to get past paralysis of choice. Try out different pitches, and then think about what worked and didn't work. Get the book in their hands. Your pitch is a story you are telling to an audience of one, make it a good one! Don't forget the economic pitch -- sales bundles, special deals, etc. Build relationships, don't force today's sale and lose a long-term reader.

( A special deal, just for you... )

[Brandon] All right. I'm going to call it right here. But Michael, you said you have a writing prompt for us.
[Michael] I really love looking at the sociology of science fiction. I think this is may be related to a prompt that Mary has given, so I'll apologize if it's a little bit of a retread. When you have an idea about like oh, say, here's a cool technology. So, come up with a cool technology. Then, to figure out who your protagonist is, look at who has the most to gain and the most to lose, and how it will change any given industry. Then you can find a protagonist there. From that, you've created a couple of points, and go forward. Write an outline or write a story.
[Brandon] Excellent. Well, Michael, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
[Michael] Thanks so much for having me. That'll be $20.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] And the audience from our Writing Excuses cruise. Thank you guys.
[Whoo! Applause]
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Current Mood: flickering

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Writing Excuses 11.44: Project in Depth, GHOST TALKERS, by Mary Robinette Kowal

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/10/30/11-44-project-in-depth-ghost-talkers-by-mary-robinette-kowal/

Key Points: Catalog pitch and sales pitch are often different. Catalog pitch is to get readers, sales pitch is the emotional core of the story, with spoilers. Even though you know an event is coming, when it happens can still be a surprise. Changing viewpoints, letting a character explain why he's a slimeball, can make them more real. Watch for the tension between who a character wants to be and who they are. Sometimes you can split a conflict into parts and play them at different points in time to misdirect the reader. Just because a story deals with horrific things does not mean it has to be a horror story. It depends on how the main character views things. Pay attention to what matters to the character. Emotionally powerful moments often combine two conflicting emotions at the same time. Also, telegraph that this moment, this goal is coming well ahead of time. Writing combines craft and internalized practice, and working on specific things at specific points. Use your revision to find and fix overused stuff, or places you left vague. If you know you overdo something, replace it with a different piece. You can keep a style book to help you with the colors of emotions, or other fine points! Don't be afraid to use friends and 7 point plot structures and other tools to help with outlining, and to help fix places with problems. Remember, your reader only sees the final version, they don't see the drafts and drafts. Don't judge your first draft by anyone's final version, even your own.

( A whole lot of words... )

Current Mood: drippy

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Writing Excuses 11.41: The Editor's Wishlist, with Navah Wolfe

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2016/10/09/11-41-the-editors-wish-list-with-navah-wolfe/

Key points: On Navah's wishlist, we find character first. A good character, with a distinct, unique voice. Are the characters interesting? The characters must feel real. A trick: if your main character was a side character in someone else's story, would they still be interesting? What's the best pitch? This-meets-that, IF that captures the heart, the emotion, and not just the set dressing. Lady bromance, or friendships. Ensemble stories. Dislikable characters that you fall in love with. Aka lady bro heist with Jaime Lanister. Unreliable narrators with a good payoff. Closed room spaceship mysteries. Heists. Epic fantasy with a lady protagonist. Remember, editors and agents are people -- talk with them first. Then mention your lady bro heist from a closed room spaceship with an unreliable narrator.

( Go right to the source... )

[Brandon] All right. To bring us out, Mary's going to give us some homework.
[Mary] All right. So, Navah talked about the this-meets-that and looking for the emotional heart of those things. So I want you to write two different pitches for your work in progress. Whether that's short story or novel. One of which is basic this-meets-that. So think about the emotional heart of your piece and pick a film or book or some other touchstone that has that same emotional heart. Not the set dressing, but the heart. Then I want you to do a second pitch, but this time I want you to think about the set dressing. So, Orphan Black, people who have the same face, that is set dressing. The emotional heart is about sisters. So think about those two things. Look at those two pitches. Then see which one fits your story best, and whether or not, in fact, what you need is a third pitch which is a combination of those two.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Current Mood: stained

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Writing Excuses 10.51: Q&A On Sharing Your Work, with Daniel Jose Older

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2015/12/20/writing-excuses-10-51-qa-on-showing-your-work-with-daniel-jose-older/

Q&A Summary:
Q: What's the best way to meet editors and agents at conventions?
A: Hang out at the bar. Panels! Listen, then talk. Let them bring up business. Ask what they are working on. Do your homework first -- find out who is going to be there, what they've worked on. Don't try to do the whole pitch in person. Get their card and ask if you can send something.
Q: How do you write a query letter?
A: Clear, concises, and precise. What is your story, who are you? One page! Character, conflict, setting, hook. One cool concept that makes people want to know more. What are you most excited about? If it is urban fantasy, make sure it says, "Someone is killing all the were-pigeons."
Q: Should I mention my freelance articles? What do you mention as credentials in a query letter?
A: Legitimate credentials, a little bit about yourself, and mostly about the story. Present it correctly. Relevent credentials. Bio is over-thought and least important. Slim bio is okay.
Q: What about self-publishing?
A: Not covered here. Will try to get a podcast about it.
Q: Can you submit to more than one publisher or agent at the same time?
A: If they don't say No Simultaneous Submissions. Queries, even sample chapters, may be simultaneous. But full submissions, read the instructions.
Q: After you have made revisions, can you resubmit to an agent who rejected you?
A: Send them a query, but probably not. Unless they asked for the revisions.
[Note: There's a lot more stuff in there! Read the transcript for details!]
( Questions, answers, and more! )
[Mary] To do that, I have some homework for you. You need to write a query letter. What I want you to do is this. This is your basic format. You're going to have an introduction paragraph. Then you're going to have a summary of your novel paragraph. Then you're going to have a tiny paragraph that is relevant biographical information about yourself. Which can just be this is my name. It can be very, very short. But I want you to do this twice. The first time, I want you to write that summary for a book that you love that is not the book that you wrote. So that you are thinking about the things that Howard mentioned, character, conflict, setting, hook, with someone else's work. Then I want you to apply that, those lessons to your own work. Write the query, the summary, as if it is a book that you love that someone else has written. Because it will help you to get focused on it and not quite be so flaily and trying to describe all of it all at the same time.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

Current Mood: goofy

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Writing Excuses 6.19: Pitching

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/10/09/writing-excuses-6-19-pitching/

Key points: three pitches, one line, three paragraph, deep conversation. Adding more words to a pitch that's failing will sink it faster -- stop. What's it about? Not a plot synopsis -- what kind of book is it, who would like it. Make them say, "Tell me more." Three paragraph -- one concept, something interesting, something cool. Make them say, "I want to read this book." Deep conversation -- let the other person talk about what they find exciting, what they find interesting. Practice your pitches with friends and family.
( Batter up? Three strikes... )
[Brandon] All right. Howard, you've got a...
[Howard] I've got a writing prompt. Take three of your favorite books. Go ahead and look at the back cover copy if you want to. Take three of your favorite books. Write one of each pitch for each of those books, so you're writing nine things. You're learning to pitch somebody else's stuff. Then, and here's the hard part, you need to make one of your friends read one of those books by using those pitches.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go pitch.
[Howard] To actual other people.

Current Mood: headache

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Writing Excuses Season Two Episode 31: The Most Important Thing Brandon Learned in the Last Year

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/05/10/writing-excuses-season-2-episode-31-the-most-important-thing-brandon-learned-in-the-last-year/

Key points: Gimmicks cannot compensate for bad writing. Gimmicks may sell some books, but good solid writing keeps readers coming back. Excellent writing is enough of a hook to carry a book. The trick is to write really good writing. Once readers crack the book, the writing has to carry it. Focus on the writing first.
( Go, go, gadget gimmick, go! )
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. It is my delightful responsibility right now to point at Brandon and asked him for a writing prompt. Brandon?
[Brandon] Have a person who's got the greatest gimmick ever for a book that they're going to write the story, but then in real life that thing happens to them. Whatever it is they're going to write their book about, that's just going to be this wacky crazy gimmick, it happens to them.
[Dan] [garble]
[Brandon] Thank you for listening.

Current Mood: finger-licking good
Current Music: Waitin' On A Woman, Brad Paisley

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Writing Excuses Transcripts

Entries tagged with pitch

Writing Excuses 20.04: Metaphor 1 -- Puppetry

Writing Excuses 16.4: Networking

Writing Excuses 14.17: It's Like "Car Talk" meets "Welcome To Nightvale"

Writing Excuses 11.50: Hand-Selling Your Book to Potential Readers, with Michael R. Underwood

Writing Excuses 11.44: Project in Depth, GHOST TALKERS, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Writing Excuses 11.41: The Editor's Wishlist, with Navah Wolfe

Writing Excuses 10.51: Q&A On Sharing Your Work, with Daniel Jose Older

Writing Excuses 6.19: Pitching

Writing Excuses Season Two Episode 31: The Most Important Thing Brandon Learned in the Last Year

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