Writing Excuses 18.47: NaNoWriMo Week 4 - Climaxes, or OH MY GOD NO

Nov. 22nd, 2023 07:08 pm
mbarker: (Fireworks Delight)
[personal profile] mbarker
Writing Excuses 18.47: NaNoWriMo Week 4 - Climaxes, or OH MY GOD NO
 
 
Key Points: Making the turn from opening to closing. Beware the three-quarters mark! Switching modes, from opening questions, introducing new problems, etc. to solving problems and wrapping things up. Treat yourself with candy bar scenes! Switch from yes-but to yes-and. Keep track of the questions and promises from the beginning. Use the MICE Quotient! What's the impossible choice the character faces here? Concentric circles of nested problems! Write yourself notes. Leave notes in square brackets. Ask your writing group what you forgot. Ask yourself what new goals your character has.
 
[Season 18, Episode 47]
 
[DongWon] Hello, writers. Whether you're doing NaNoWriMo, editing your newest project, or just desperately trying to keep up with your TBR pile, it's hard to find the time to plan and cook healthy and nutritious meals to keep you energized on these jam-packed days. So, I'm here to tell you about Factor, America's number one ready to eat meal delivery service. They can help you fuel up fast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef prepared, dietitian-approved, ready to eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time, eat well, and stay on track with one less excuse to keep you from writing. This November, get Factor and enjoy eating well without the hassle. Simply choose your meals and enjoy fresh, flavor-packed deliveries right to your door. Ready in just 2 minutes, no prep and no mess. Head to factormeals.com/WX50 and use code WX50 to get 50% off. That's code WX50 at factormeals.com/WX50 to get 50% off.
 
[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 18, Episode 47]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] NaNoWriMo Week 4. The three-quarter mark. Making the turn from opening to closing.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Erin] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Dan] And I'm Dan.
 
[Erin] Today, we're going to talk about, as we move from the opening part, the gallop away of writing through NaNoWriMo, to the end. Which is near. But my question for you all is what is the difference between the way that you write when you're starting something in the way that you write when you're ending something? Because we're going to be transitioning between these two. What are we transitioning between?
[Mary Robinette] So, this is a thing that it took me forever to figure out. Why I always bogged down at the three-quarter mark. I think it's because you're switching modes. So, for me, what I find is at the beginning, I am opening questions, I'm throwing out possibilities, I'm making things worse. I'm introducing new problems. At the end, I have to start solving problems and wrapping things up. It's like the difference between when you arrive on vacation and you've got a bag and you just open it and you pull your stuff out, and then when it's time to go home and you have to somehow get everything back into the suitcase. It never goes back into the suitcase the way you think it's going to. But also, you don't want to. Because you just want to keep pulling things out. So, for me, it's the difference between asking questions, in a general sense, and answering them.
[Erin] That makes sense, but it almost sounds like it's the anticipation of that ending part. So, like, it's not the last… You're not throwing the things in the suitcase yet, but you're figuring out what you're going to wear the day before the last day, and you're like, "Oh, gosh. There's stuff all over this hotel room."
[Chuckles]
[Erin] All over this cruise cabin, and at some point, I'm going to have to do it. It can almost make you not enjoy the thing that you're doing right now, as you're like thinking ahead to what's coming.
 
[Dan] One of my favorite stories about writing is an interview Neil Gaiman gave when he was writing… I think it was Coraline, it might have been The Graveyard Book… He said that he hit this point in the book where he just hated everything, the book was not working, the characters didn't work, the story was terrible. He called his agent and he said, "I'm sorry, I don't think I can write this. It's awful." She laughed and said, "Oh, you're at the three-quarter's mark aren't you?"
[Chuckles]
[Dan] "You call me every single time and give me the same thing. Keep going, you'll be fine." A lot of it is just our tendency to get inside of our own heads and to think I'm almost to the end of the tight rope. Of course, I'm going to fall off these last few feet. No you're not. You're doing great. We have to… Like Mary Robinette said, start answering questions instead of asking them. Asking questions is so easy because we can ask anything we want. That's a problem for future Dan...
[gasp]
[Dan] But then…
[DongWon] Now you're future Dan.
[Dan] Now I'm future Dan, and some jerk asked a bunch of questions. I have to find not only answers, but good answers that make sense and pull all the threads together that I've been carefully laying out and make them into this beautiful, beautiful perfect ending. It can be incredibly overwhelming even if it isn't actually difficult. It's just it looks like it's going to be so hard.
[DongWon] I can't tell you how many times I've had that exact same phone call…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Where I told my writers, "It's okay. You're most of the way through a book. You're two thirds, you're three quarters. It just feels not great sometimes when you're there." I do think it's really interesting to hear from your perspective why that is, that making this turn from rising action, where you get to be introducing things, and now you start having to answer the questions that you've asked. Right? So, I guess my question for you guys is how do you start answering those? Right? Like, how do you start bringing people moving away from each other and having to have them re-intersect, having your villains and your heroes, your antagonists, romantic interests, whatever it is, start actually reaching the point that they're on their collision paths and start colliding?
 
[Erin] I think that's a great question. But, actually even before that, just to kill this metaphor of the vacation, is that there's something nice about like you've got the outfit that you feel really great in for that particular day, and it's that you want to find something that you can treat yourself with in this part of the book. Like, there's something at the three quarters mark that you get to do, which is that the big huge explosions, whatever those are, whether they're literal explosions or emotional explosions, like those get to happen at this moment. There's a person that I know calls them candy bar scenes. The scenes that you're sort of waiting for that are rewarding yourself. So, if you think, yes, I do have to bring everything back together, but also, this is the part where I get to open and eat this candy, it's a way to keep yourself excited while you answer that question of how you're going to pull everything back together.
 
[Mary Robinette] I think that's a great idea. I've talked before about how there's scenes that I've been waiting to get to. Like, just eager to write. One of the tricks that I use is that I shift the way that I'm handling try-fail cycles. So, up to about this point, I've been doing the yes, they succeed, but something goes wrong. So if you think about yes as a progress towards a goal, and no as progress away from a goal. Reversals. But you think about and as a continuation of motion, and but as a reversal. So, I switch from going yes-but to yes-and. So I start giving my characters bonus actions. Like, we're trying to break into this safe. Does it work? Yes. And there's also this other piece of secret information in the safe that we weren't expecting to find. So I'll give them bonus actions. With the no, it's like are we able… If, instead I'd been like, are we able to get into the safe? No. But in the process of doing that, we accidentally set off the alarms, which is now preventing the cops from getting to us. So we have extra time. So, like that, giving them that tiny bonus action, I start sprinkling those in. So when I'm starting to move to the end and I can sort of feel story bloat happening, I will look at it and be like, "Okay. How can you give them success and a little bit of a bonus action?" If  I want to keep the tension going, then I give them no and then a little bit of a bonus action.
[DongWon] I love this idea of candy bar scenes. This plays really well into what you're saying in terms of switching from one model to the yes-and. Because there should be joy as you're heading into the climax. There should be emotional resolution. Right? I was thinking about the Spider-Man into the Spiderverse. Right? Where before you get to the big climactic battle, there are all of these like incredibly heartfelt emotional scenes that lead to this... one of the most triumphant scenes I've ever seen in cinema, when Miles like finally owns his own power and does an incredible jump off the building. That's such an iconic shot. It's like you have these incredible emotional highs in that that come from getting to have… The candy bars of his dad telling him that he loves him and he's proud of him and all these things. Of him believing in himself. Like, we've been going through it with him for so long and so hungry for that, that by the time we get that treat, it's a whole feast. It's such a powerful moment. So, I think when you're thinking about how to go into… We started by talking about why this is also hard. This doesn't make it easy necessarily, but I love this idea of framing it as a treat for you, the writer, a treat for the character, and a treat for the audience. This is the reward we've been hanging out for this entire time.
[Dan] It always helps me to remember that so many writers are also bad at this.
[Laughter]
[Dan] Right? We talk so much about movies. How many action movies have you seen that have two acts, an hour and a half, whatever, of brilliant dialogue and funny stuff, and then Act III is just a gunfight or a chase scene and then it ends? Right? Like, most of the Marvel movies are this way. Incredibly interesting questions in Winter Soldier about the… Where's the line between safety and security? How far can we push this? What are we going to do? What's the answer to this question? At the end, the movie doesn't answer that question, it just has a big fight scene. But then, one of the ones where they did it really well was in Endgame. Where, yes, the 3rd act is a giant fight scene, but it is filled with these candy bar scenes, these character moments. That's when we get on your left, and all the people show up. That's when we get Avengers Assemble that we've been waiting 23 movies for. That's when we get all these little heroic stand up and cheer moments. So it's not just a fight scene, it's more than that.
[Erin] And, at this moment, we're going to take a break. When we come back, more candy.
 
[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 my decision-making for the stories. With so many in season ingredients, you'll taste all the freshness of fall in every bite of Hello Fresh's chef crafted recipes. Produce travels from the farm to your door for peak ripeness 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.
 
[DongWon] Hey, writers. You're doing a hard and difficult thing. I'm sure at this point it feels like you've been doing it forever, and will be doing it forever. That said, I'm not going to tell you it gets better. I'm here to tell you that you can survive this. Doing hard things is hard. That's okay. Making art should be hard. Especially in the middle of it when you're past the initial rush of starting and you can't yet see the finish line. It's like walking a very long way. When you're doing something like that, I think a lot about the mile markers. For me, they're a blessing and a curse. They remind me of how far I've come, and how far I have to go. For me, surviving any kind of endurance activity requires focusing on the present moment. Thinking about the next step that's in front of me and putting out of my mind how far away the end is. So, sometimes I try to ignore the mile markers. To refuse to acknowledge how long I've been walking and how long I will be walking. But the problem with that is it means I forget to have joy in the process. I forget the mile marker means I've accomplished something great, I walked another mile. I took another step. If the answer is to be truly present in the moment, that also means honoring what it means to have made it this far. So, I'm asking you now to stay in the moment. I want you to celebrate today's word count. Don't focus on the total. Focus on the accomplishment. Focus on what you've done. I know it's hard. I know it's long. But you've come this far, and I'm so proud of you for doing so. You've got this. Keep taking that next step. Keep putting the next word down and keep going. I'll see you at the end.
 
[Erin] All right. So we are back from our break. I actually want us to answer… Sort of answer a little more the question, DongWon, that you asked earlier before we got distracted. Which was how do you actually start bringing things back in. So you're treating yourself, but you can't treat yourself so much that you forget the story that you're telling. I think one way, actually, is to be more explicit about the questions that you're asking. Because I think what happens in those action movies, Dan, that you were talking about is that sometimes the story gets so excited by the treats that it forgets the questions that it's set up in the first half and actually doesn't think to answer them because there's so much like, "Oh, I've gotta do this," or, "I've gotta get to the ending." But you forget that you left out the questions about safety and security, or these bigger thematic issues. So, I'm curious, how do you keep track of like the promises that you made at the beginning and sort of how to make sure that you're keeping track of them as you move towards the end?
[Mary Robinette] I mean, this is why I lean on the M.I.C.E. Quotient so much. Because it… Usually, there's a fairly clear question-y kind of thing at the beginning and… So, like… I often describe this area of the book is one of the places where the character has to face an impossible choice between their goal and a failure state, or between which goal they're willing to sacrifice in order to obtain the other. So, like, if they're afraid of heights, they're absolutely going to have to go out on a ledge right now. So, I will often look back at what I have at the front of the book. Part of my mechanical process, which is harder doing Nano, but I will often pause at the three quarters point and read through what I've already written. Then keep going with the pieces I'm excited about, knowing that some of the stuff I've written I'm going to discard because it's less exciting to me. So it's less candy. But, for me, those are some things. The other thing, for me, mechanically, is something that Dan taught me, which is the 7 point plot structure. This is the point where I'm going to look at Dan meaningfully…
[Dan] Oh.
[Laughter]
[Dan] I was excited for you to just talk about how smart I am for a while.
[Mary Robinette] so, yeah, the 7 point plot structure is specifically… There's the point where, right around in here, the hero finally has all of the tools that they need in order to solve the problem. So, recognizing… It's like, "Oh. This is something that I can do on purpose. I can look for what does my main character need? What are the problems? What is the goal and the failure state?" They're going to have to make that impossible choice. Then, like, what tools… we're coming up on that impossible choice. What tools do I need to have in their hand so that when they get to that choice, they can make it?
[Dan] Yeah. I love to think of these choices specifically as like kind of concentric circles of nested problems. The example that leaps to mind is The Nice Guys. That's probably my favorite detective movie ever. So we start with this kind of outside problem. Here's a weird mystery, we need to solve it. Then, we introduce, here's this detective who's an absolute mess and his daughter doesn't respect him. Then we introduce here's this other detective who the daughter thinks is probably a bad guy. Then we're going to resolve those in opposite order. In the final fight scene, we get Mr.… Is it Haley or Holly, whatever his name is… If you kill that man, I will never speak to you again. Of course, at this point in the movie, that means something coming from this 12-year-old girl. We love her. She's the best character in the story. So he leaves the person alive, and we get… We've tied off that inner circle. He has proved himself a good person to this girl. Then we tie off the next one. Ryan Ghosling succeeds, he saves the day, he doesn't screw up for the first time in his life, and his daughter smiles at him. Okay. We've got that respect. Then, at the very end, we tie off the whole thing, we've solved the mystery, we know what's going on. So if you think about it in those terms, of there's not just one conflict, there's several, you can nest them like that and then solve them in reverse order. That gives your ending a lot of structure that you might not have known was already there.
[DongWon] This really ties into one of the things we were talking about last week when we were discussing raising the stakes, which is introducing multiple threads of stakes. Right? This gives you the opportunity to build to your… Keep increasing the tension and ratcheting things up, even though you're closing things off, because if you do have those nested stakes, if you do have that multiple thread, your heroes can defeat a mini bot, have an emotional resolution. The big conflict is still coming, the last sort of act of this is still playing out, but you have these beats to give you those candy scenes, to give you those points of resolution. The more you have those little things closing off, that is a signal to your audience that, okay, we are in the denoue… Not denouement, but we're making the turn here. Right? We're in the three quarters mark, we're moving towards the big climax here. So giving people those little signals can be a great way to build tension as well.
 
[Erin] This can be difficult, definitely, all of this during Nano because you're just… You're moving at a pace. You're going really quickly. But one thing that I like doing during a Nano project is actually writing myself notes about what threads might be or what the concentric circles might be as I'm going. So, like, at the end of the day, I might write, like, one note of, like, the coolest thing that I randomly wrote that day. Like, I'll be like, "He [garbled smashed?] the spider."
[Laughter garbled comments]
[Erin] Maybe that doesn't come up again because I forget about it but then when I get to that three quarters mark, I can't do the thing Mary Robinette was talking about, where you read the whole book, but I can read back a page of very slightly incoherent notes, and be like, "Oh, yes, that is a spider…"
[Chuckles]
[Erin] "This is a chance for me to like make that kind of come back."
[DongWon] Erin, I'm not sure about this Spider-Man reboot. I know it's like any other one, but this one might be a little tough for me.
[Dan] I'm hoping this is part of the "the house is full of bees" universe.
[Laughter]
[Erin] It is.
[Mary Robinette] That's why it's so traumatic for him. I do a very similar thing during Nano because, as you say, I do not have time to read through the whole thing at this point. But I… All through the process, I am leaving notes for myself in square brackets. So I will, at this point, just look for any note that I have left for myself to see, like, what great idea I had earlier that I'd totally forgotten about by the time I get to this. Because you've probably left something to yourself, a note someplace. It doesn't make any sense. That's okay. You can still, like, try to fold it in here.
 
[Erin] Yeah. Even if you haven't left a note to yourself, a lot of times people work collaboratively during Nano so if you have any friends that you're working with in your writing group, you can ask them, "Is there something I was mentioning like 2 weeks ago maybe…"
[Laughter]
[Erin] "That you haven't heard me say anything about recently?" They'll be like, "Yes. There was a spider dead." You're like, "Yes. The time is now."
[DongWon] That's what it was.
[Erin] Spider dead and the bees.
[Laughter]
[Dan] That's one of the reasons I find writing group so useful, is because if there's something you forgotten about, they haven't. Because you have asked this intriguing question and they really want to know the answer to it. They'll be like, "Why haven't we ever gotten back to his dad being a spider?" Like, "Oh! Yes! Don't worry, I have some really cool plans."
[DongWon] Again, all of the things we're talking about our big structural tools. Right? These are stuff that will be as useful to you in editing and in drafting when maybe you are trying to hit this insane deadline every week of getting certain words out. But, hopefully, all of this is at least giving you some framework and some ways to think about, "Okay. How am I approaching this week of work?" Right? Now that we're in week 4, how am I thinking about the words I'm going to get down on the page?
[Mary Robinette] One of the other things that you can do, particularly as a Nano thing and if you're discovery writing, remember way back when we were talking about objective and super objective, one of the things that will happen to the character is that their goals will shift as they change. So you can look at it now and say what new goal does my character have based on their new understanding of who they are. Because… Like, it still needs to be tied to that super objective and to those initial opening questions, but, like, what is their new solution? That will often help you get towards the final final climactic battle because the new solution is an easier thing to solve. Or their new… Like, oh, this is what I can do. Their new goal is an easier thing to solve then whatever thing they have been continually failing at.
[DongWon] Right.
[Erin] This sounds like a great point to get some homework.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, this is a trick that I picked up from Dan. Which is, read through what you wrote the session before. Not the day, not everything, but just the session. So if you wrote for 10 minutes, that's all you get to reread. You can make minor edits if you're adding words. But you can't cut anything because it's Nano and every word counts. Use brackets to make notes to yourself about stuff you want to go back and plant earlier, things that you are going to need for your character to solve what's coming up, but you don't have to actually go back and do that right now. You're just going to use this as a launching pad to move on.
 
[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 interactive 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 18.22: On Mentorship: Sending the Elevator Back Down

Jun. 4th, 2023 11:30 am
mbarker: (ISeeYou2)
[personal profile] mbarker
Writing Excuses 18.22: On Mentorship: Sending the Elevator Back Down
 
 
Key Points: How do you break into publishing? Well, when you do, hold the door open for someone else! Dismantle barriers. Build a cohort and take the world by storm. Get more voices in the room. Talk about the paths in the forest. It's not just how to break in, it's how to keep going. Listen! There may not be a solution, or a magic secret. Boost people. Share advice. Begin your practice of solidarity now. Keep an eye on your bandwidth. Practice things you're not good at. Inspire people by pointing out what they are good at, and challenge them by pointing out things they need to improve. Be available and be excited. Recommend people! Put your oxygen mask on before assisting others. Not everyone has to be everything to you. 
 
[Season 18, Episode 22]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] On Mentorship: Sending the Elevator Back Down.
[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 holding the elevator...
[Laughter. What! Wait, you're not supposed to do that.]
[Dan] That's a misuse of the metaphor.
[Howard] I pushed all the buttons. What are we supposed to be doing?
[DongWon] All right, we found the problem. So we solved ours. Episode's over. No? I wanted to…
[Mary Robinette] [garbled] a time machine.
 
[DongWon] So, after a few episodes, last few episodes, of talking about working in publishing, what it's like to be in publishing, one thing that's kind of come up a few times is both the perspective of, like, how do I break into this industry as someone coming into it from the outside, but also, sort of, what is the experience of being a marginalized person working in the industry. Again, a lot of this will apply to writers. I'm talking about it specifically from the perspective of working in the industry. Obviously, I am a person of color, I'm a queer person of color, I've had my own experiences in the industry. I've been very fortunate in most of my interactions and had a number of privileges that I think helped me get ahead in certain ways. So, one thing that I think about a lot is how do we make this industry more inclusive. How do we create opportunities for people who don't have the same backgrounds as everyone else in the business, who don't have the same privileges as everyone else, and who may be aren't even in New York City. Right? I mean, the geographic location of most of the industry is a huge barrier to people breaking into it. I mean, you go back to when we were talking about networking, how do you network with publishing people if you're not in a place where publishing people live. Right? So this is where I start thinking about what are the explicit structures we could put into place to accomplish this. That's where mentorship comes into play. This is where the metaphor of sending the elevator back down comes from. Right? It's holding the door for the person behind you. It's not just I got in, close the door, holding the elevator on the top floor is enough…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] No, I know that's not what you were saying, Howard. But it's how do we make sure that structurally we're not just creating opportunity, but we're explicitly inviting people in.
[Howard] It's the opposite of the how to break into comics metaphor that was used years ago and has stuck with me, which is, every time someone breaks into comics, everybody who's already in asks, "How did you get in?" Then they look at wherever that hole is in their secure facility and they patch it up so no one else can use that one.
[Well, and…]
[Howard] You want the opposite of that.
[Dan] Yeah. Back when I was breaking into publishing, that was the exact metaphor that people would use. I remember David Hartwell talking about that on a panel at World Fantasy. That was a common sentiment. I take it is a good sign in the industry that that sentiment seems to be changing. That it's more about figuring out how to let more people in rather than trying to keep people out.
[Mary Robinette] That was one of the things that, when I was on the board at SFWA… For new listeners, that's Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association… Is that we made a shift in our mandate, kind of internally the way we framed it, when we were talking about the requirements for membership. That what we wanted was to be not gatekeepers, but gate openers. That meant adjusting the membership requirements to make it easier for people to join. So, like, we… That's the point when… I just want to be clear that it's not me that was doing that, that was a group effort. But thinking about, okay, what are the barriers that keep people from getting in? What can we do to dismantle that barrier?
[DongWon] Exactly.
 
[Erin] I think that one of the things with this… I love the metaphor of the elevator, but sometimes it makes you think that you have to, like, be at the top floor. You have to be in the penthouse, before you can sort of send the elevator back down. But sometimes you can just hold it for people who are coming in at the same time that you are.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Erin] Like, actually work with your peer group as well too, like, give each other opportunities. See other people as part of a collaborative cohort of creativity that's going to take the world by storm, not as competitors who are all seeking to get to the same place and have to drag each other down in any way.
[DongWon] Right. I mean, I think you're hitting on one of my problems with the metaphor, as much as I do use it, is a lot of times when I'm reaching out to my peers for mentorship in some way, either me looking to someone for an assist or me reaching out to someone else to assist them, it's not that I'm seeing myself as I'm up here and you're down here, it's actually ICS is peers and I want to help you out. Right? I know that if I help you out, you'll probably help me out in the future. Right? There is that community aspect, there is that collaboration aspect of this place will be better for us if there are more voices in the room. Right? If there's more opportunity created by other perspectives being there. If I'm the only one in the room, is so, so difficult to speak up about certain issues. I remember, back when I was an editor at Orbit, I was working with a South Asian woman, [Debbie Palai]. Just having that extra voice in the room was so transformative to me, so that when I would say, "Hey. I think this is an issue." Or, "Hey, I think this is cool. I'd love it if we did more of that." Even if she didn't say anything, there was someone there who had my back. Right? So I think being the only voice in the room versus their even being just one other person, it makes such a difference in your ability to speak up, to get things done, and to make a difference in that way. So, for me, there is a self-interest in it, too. Right? I… I think I'll be able to do my job better if there are other people I can talk to who see the world in a way that's closer to how I see it.
 
[Mary Robinette] The metaphor I use is not elevator, it's a path through a forest. That where I am in my career, I'm on a little bit of a rise and I can see back over the path that I've been on. I can tell people about the obstacles that they're going to hit on their path. But everybody's starting from a different point.
[DongWon] Right.
[Mary Robinette] Everybody's coming from a different house. So if there's two people who are coming from the same neighborhood, they're going to be able to give each other advice that I can't give because I didn't walk that path. I can talk about, like, there's going to be the forest of despair but I don't know the specific boulders. I can give you bouldering techniques… I can't, actually, by the way…
[Laughter]
 
[Howard] I think it's key here to recognize that… In our episode title, we talk about mentorship. The things that I, is a 55-year-old mediocre white male who landed a cartooning career through sheer luck 20 years ago… The things that I can tell you about breaking into the industry are probably irrelevant. The things that I can tell you about working every day and learning how to craft a joke and learning how to work through pain without further injuring yourself and a million other things that I learned over that time period… Those have value. As a young creator, as an aspiring creator of anything, you often will feel the need to jump straight to how do I break in. But I have to offer as a mentor would be I don't know how to break in, but here's what you need once you've cleared that. Here's what you want to have in your backpack when you drop, Tom Cruise style, on the cable into the secure room. Whatever. So, as a mentor, I love talking about craft, and I always feel very uncomfortable when someone asks me, "How do you get to be Internet famous?"
 
[DongWon] Well, I think Mary Robinette and Howard are hitting on really important things. That mentorship isn't about like teaching someone, "Here's the 10 steps you need to do to break in." Right? You don't know what path they're coming from, you don't know where they're starting from, and also, the paths have changed a lot. Right? What I see in the writing community mentorship is a little awry is when I see a writer being like, "This is how I did it, so you have to do it this way. These are… This Is How Things Are," capitol letters. Right? Versus, a lot of times, when I'm in a mentorship role with somebody, so much of it is just me listening, honestly. It is transformative. This kind of is going back to what I was saying earlier about having two people in the room, it is so transformative just to be able to have someone to complain to. Right? Complaining is a huge part of mentorship. Right? Because solidarity is a big part of it. Just the emotional awareness of, man, someone else is going through it. Someone else is experiencing things like I've experienced. They may not have a solution, because, you know what, a lot of times there isn't a solution. A lot of times we're talking about big structural stuff, and there is no like, "Oh, here's the secret. If you say this one thing in a meeting, suddenly things will get better." You know what I mean. That just doesn't exist. We're working against huge entrenched patterns that have been there since… For decades and decades and decades.
[Erin] I love that you said the word solidarity, because I think mentorship is a practice of solidarity, but there are so many other practices of solidarity that you can be doing all the time.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Erin] Even if you feel, "Hey, I'm not in a position to mentor," you can always be bringing people's names up in rooms where they're not. You can be talking up what other people are doing. You can find a piece of advice and share it with someone else. There's so much to be said, I think, about beginning your practice of solidarity the minute you are living life at all. But, in this industry, the minute you start out, be in solidarity with others some of those people may have more experience with you… Then you, some may have less. Some may have the same. But when you're doing that, I think for one thing, it's, like, it helps your soul.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Erin] To be in solidarity with others. I think it helps other people to want to be in solidarity with you, and it means that as you move sort of through your career, it's not so much like, "Oh, I've got to a point, how do I reach?" You've been reaching the whole time.
[DongWon] Some of my favorite things that I've managed to do on sort of that front, are things that the person who got that opportunity or got that gig or whatever it is, never knows that I was involved at all.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] No idea that I said something or advocated for them or even just was like, "Hey, have you thought about that person?" You know what I mean. It's my favorite thing to do. It's just like I see somebody doing something cool who I feel like could use a boost in one way or the other, and I'm going to talk that person up because I'm excited that they're there. Right? I think I default to mentorship as the way to think about this, which is sort of this explicit hierarchical relationship. You're right, I want this to look as much like neutral aid as it does, and solidarity as it does, that sort of like top-down way. Corporate structures have given us mentorship, but, what I would love for us to have our stronger connections with each other, and we all help each other out in this flow. Right? The people who've mentored me, I have turned around and help them back. Right? That's the thing that is beautiful to me about the system, is I have such gratitude for the people who were looking out for me, who taught me certain ways, who introduced me to certain opportunities, and then I was able to advocate for them and provide opportunities for them later. On that note, I want to take a break here and when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about how do you actually build those relationships, how do you actually execute on providing solidarity, providing community, providing mentorship to folks.
 
[Erin] So, I'm excited because this week's thing of the week is a newsletter from, I'm going to call a frienditor…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] Someone that I sort of see as a peer, but so knowledgeable and amazing, who is Suyi Davies Okungbowa. He has an amazing newsletter called After Five. So we've been talking about newsletters and talking about learning and he has such brilliant things to say about craft. It's like a once a month newsletter and you're like, "How did I not think of this?" You can read what he's reading and actually see his writing, but I also just love the way that he thinks about how to support each other, how to find healing and inspiration, how to, like, figure out story ideas. So, absolutely go and check out Suyi Davies Okungbowa's After Five newsletter.
 
[DongWon] So, while we're talking about mentorship and solidarity, one thing I want to focus on is how do we actually do this. One thing I want to flag is to keep an eye on your bandwidth. There have been times where I've gone so hard on trying to, like, help people out, producing a mentorship program, this that and the other, that I actually dropped the ball and wasn't able to provide the support that I think some folks needed in that moment. It's a huge regret for me of, like, I didn't execute on the things that I wanted to be doing. It forced me to step back and really look at what I was doing and how I was doing it. I think it made me really think about, like, okay, what's the ways in which I can be most effective at boosting the people I want to be boosting.
[Howard] In craft terms, I'm a big fan of the focused practice model, which is the idea that we tend to practice the things that we are already good at. We need to practice the things that we're not good at. When I'm given the opportunity to look at someone's work, and they asked for feedback, I try to inspire them by telling them this is a thing that you're already good at, and challenge them by saying this is the thing you need to focus on. I well remember someone bringing me a portfolio and I went through it and my first thought was, "Wow, these renders are all awesome. This is amazing. What… Oh, there's no backgrounds. Oh! Here we go." I was able to say, "Hey, you're doing great work, but all of these are white space pictures. You need to show us that you can draw backgrounds. Whether it's a forest, or cityscape, or whatever it is." So, from a mentoring standpoint, and again with bandwidth in mind, I try to come down to those two things, so that I can say something encouraging and something directional and send them on their way, so that I haven't signed up to be their tutor.
[Mary Robinette] So I… I find… I've done mentoring both in a very structured formal way with puppetry we would do internships where you'd come, you would have an internship project, there was this whole thing. I've done the thing where it's like you're going to be my mentor for a year and… But I've also done much more informal, what I think more of as nurturing than mentoring, which is just being available to answer questions. That a lot of times if you're like one year, even a month further along your career path than someone else, you can answer questions.  Being available and being excited to share that knowledge with them, that's a gift. The other things that I've found that I can do that are very low impact are introducing people to each other, who are… Would be good to have a cohort. It's like, "Let me introduce the two of you so that you have someone to run with." Then, I also keep, not any kind of like super formal Rolodex list, but I keep a list of people that I think should be signaled as to they're not getting the attention that I think that they should get. Because I can't… It shouldn't always be me. So that I get invitations to do things, and if I'm turning it down, I'll say, "Here's some people that you should look at." But also, if I'm accepting, I will say, "Here's some other people you should think about inviting." I keep a list for the same reason that you were advising us earlier to think about comp titles for books. Because the ability to think in the moment of who is… There's smart people, but who are they? It's really easy to just reach for your close friends. But reaching for someone who's like just let me make a little bit of a gap for you here.
[Dan] Yeah. I do the same thing. I love that. One of my favorite things in the world is recommending somebody else. I said in the previous episode I get invited to a lot of anthologies. I love being able to say, no, but please reach out to these people. I keep a list because if I don't, I find myself recommending the same two people every time.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah, exactly.
[Dan] I don't want to do that. I want to make sure that I am helping as wide a net of people as possible.
[DongWon] Essentially, after the last few years of isolation and not going to cons and things like that, because we were not able to, I find my list is getting shorter right now. I'm in this moment of like, oh, I've got to start reaching out to people and this is part of the cycle to, is realizing that that Rolodex of people that you're looking to boost, who you're like who's coming up, who's doing cool stuff. A lot of that requires a very active way of being in the world, of making sure that you're meeting people and being really intentional. I think as we get farther and farther along in our careers, it gets harder and harder to make sure that you're making that space for people and that you're being aware of what's going on. Whenever I send out a submission, I really try hard to keep at least one junior person in the mix. Right? As my friends become more and more senior, and as we're longer and longer in the business, that means I'm submitting to executive editors, publishers, more. But I also want to make sure there's at least an associate on there somewhere. Right? Somebody… It's a way for me to keep an eye on who's the new talent, who's coming up, who do I like interacting with, how do they respond. Also to make sure that those people are getting opportunities. So they're going into their editorial meetings being like, "Hey. I got this cool submission." I cannot tell you what a difference that makes for a young editor to be like this cool project is coming to me and came to me directly. So what are ways that you can use your institutional power to make sure that other people are getting attention and… That's not the only reason I do it, I don't send it to people who I don't think are interesting. Right? Like, I have to think you're cool at the base for me to send you a project because it is my client's work. But it is a thing that I try to make a deliberate practice as well.
[Dan] I'm in a leadership position on a huge role-playing game project right now. A couple of months ago, the kind of lead designers came into us to present their list of these are all the people that we've vetted and that we think would be awesome that we want to hire for this project. I thought I really want to get Erin on to this project. I'm going to make sure to take a moment and recommend her. She was already on the list!
[Laughter]
[Dan] It was so great. They showed the list, it was like Erin Roberts. I was like, "Oh, well. My job here is done. This is wonderful."
[Mary Robinette] Now you need… Now there's an opportunity to recommend somebody else.
[Dan] Which I did, and now we got her on the project too. So, it's… I love doing that. It's one of my favorite parts of being in this industry.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
 
[DongWon] So we spent a fair time talking about why we all think it's important to mentor other people, to make space for other people. What's the flipside of that? Who were the people who been toward you, how did you find that, was it a deliberate thing? Did somebody just pluck you and just be like, "Hey, I'm going to take care of you now," or did you seek those people out over the course of your career?
[Mary Robinette] So… It's interesting because, like, most of the… There are people that I definitely think of his mentors that were in the writing community that were in no way, shape, or form did we have any kind of formal mentor relationship. It was just someone that I looked to as … Mmm, every time this person talks about how to move the world, I feel like a better person. What I find for me is that that… The best mentors are not the ones who are talking about the nuts and bolts of the craft. The advice that I got… Like, some of the best advice that I got from my puppetry mentor, which was a formal relationship, was, again, about the way to move through the world it's like when something goes wrong, he's like, "Someday you're going to look back on this and laugh, so you may as well laugh now." That has been, like, such a part of how I move through the world. Same thing with writing. It's like… The person for me that comes immediately to mind is Connie Willis and Jay Lake. Those two people just basically made room for me to enter a conversation and made sure that I was introduced to the people around me, and then gave me room to talk, to feel like I belonged. That was… Being able to just feel that is something that it is difficult when you're entering a new space. I was lucky because I was coming from an established profession where I understood how to make space for myself. But if you're coming in brand-new and much younger, or from a marginalized community, making that room for people and making them feel valued, is, I think… That, for me, has been the greatest gift.
[Dan] Yeah. At a very early World Fantasy Con that I went to, I was in an elevator with Connie Willis. She introduced herself. It was so… In hindsight, it was so clearly a I know what I'm doing, I know that your new, let me reach out and help you. I was too starstruck to do anything other than, "Hi, I'm Dan. It's nice to meet you." Did not do any kind of follow-up, left the elevator as quickly as I could. I look back at that and think, "Ah. What opportunities did I miss out on?" Because she was such a helpful part of the industry.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Dan] I missed that.
[Mary Robinette] She's still… I mean, she's…
[Dan] On the other hand, when I Am Not a Serial Killer came out, Tor brought me out to BEA. They do those huge signings where they just throw free books at people and people get in line. I was sharing the booth with Kevin J Anderson and Patty Garcia, who at the time ran PR for Tor. Had the opportunity basically to impress them both. I clearly know how to talk to people. I know how to sell my own books. Then, for the next several years, the two of them would at every opportunity… Here, let me explain something to you that you don't know. Let me invite you to this opportunity that you don't have. Both of them, I'm incredibly grateful for, for that.
[Howard] Okay. Dirty secret… DongWon, when you asked the question, "Who have our mentors been?" I had to think about it and think about it and think about it. I realized, "Oh. That's why I don't have a good answer." Fairly early in the part of my career where I was figuring out what I was doing, I got roped into doing this podcast with Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells.
[Laughter]
[Howard] And had Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells, and then Mary Robinette Kowal and at times… You know what, I'm not going to try and laundry list the guests, because we've had so many guests. Had all of those people as unwitting mentors and I'm a sponge and I just listened and listened and listened, and tried to carry my own weight by restating things in a way that was funny. I cannot overstate how valuable that has been for me. No, this isn't a great path for you, fair listener, to go get mentors. But then again, those people that were talking during the podcast… You can listen to them too.
 
[DongWon] I want to… I know we're running a little long, but I want to flip things a little bit for one last minute, which is, Erin, you were talking about framing this less as mentorship in a hierarchical way, more about solidarity and kind of a community driven approach. So, to flip the question a little bit, like, what does that mean for you, how do you find these spaces or have you found those spaces? Or is that a thing you're still looking for?
[Erin] Yeah. Actually, I was, as you were asking that question, I was thinking, like, I feel that I've had a very… Like, I'll probably insult 20 mentors right now, but…
[Laughter]
[Erin] I don't feel like direct mentorship relationships and a lot…
[DongWon] Especially Brad out there, who's very hurt why you don't appreciate his advice.
[Erin] Brad! But, like, a lot of like fairy godparents and people who have done me a solid on a particular day. I have some really cool friend groups where we all are in different… We're doing different things within fiction writing. You know what I mean. So, like, I'm… May know a little bit more about teaching. This person's published a bunch of novels, so they will tell me what it's like doing a publisher. This person is, like, does a lot of audio. So, kind of similar to what Howard was saying, like, it's by… Whenever I meet somebody, everyone has something to teach you. That's the way that I try to approach life. I think maybe because of that, or just the luck of the draw or that I don't look threatening, like, people teach me things. I feel like I've learned a lot from a lot of different people, and then try to teach where I can. Like, I think in trying to approach it that way, it's been great. I will say the thing about solidarity is it's amazing. It can also be, and this is just sort of a warning, especially for marginalized folks, put your oxygen mask on before assisting others. Sometimes you can want to be so much in solidarity with others that you lose yourself in the process. Because you want to help everybody, then you're like I'm tired and I've lost who I am and what brought me to the table. Which is why I think it's as important to think about what you bring to the solidarity table, and some of that is your own creative power. Which means sometimes you gotta shut the door and write the work, and then come back refreshed so that you can be part of sort of a mutual community.
[DongWon] I remember that the more that you build a place for yourself and the world, the more firm your footing, the more you're going to be in a position where you can help people out in the future. Right? Putting your mask on first is always a metaphor that I really love, because it means that if you take care of yourself, that is an act of solidarity and kindness to other people, so that they don't have to take care of you. That's another part of it, too. Right? If you're in a position where you are cared for, and in a position where you can help other people, then I think that's a beautiful thing and that's a way to be part of a community, and maybe our first responsibility of being part of a community.
 
[Dan] There's a point I really want to make before we're done. Going back to what Howard said about Writing Excuses. It seems ridiculous in 2023 to suggest, "Oh, you need a mentor. Just be on a podcast with Brandon Sanderson." But you gotta remember, when we started this in 2008 or whatever it was, Howard was the most financially successful and most famous guy on the podcast. By a significant margin. I wasn't even published yet, and Brandon only had one book out. This was before Wheel of Time, this was before everything. So, a lot of the solidarity that were talking about, it doesn't have to only point up. Look around you at the other people that are with you. Look more for talent than for success, because you never know where your peers are going to be 10 or 15 years from now. Finding that solid support group of people who will eventually be in a different position than they are right now is a really, really, I think, crucial part of finding that mentorship and support.
[DongWon] Well, one thing is that I think you might be at home sitting there being like, "I haven't done anything. I don't have any experience in me yet. I don't know what I can give back. I don't know what I can teach at this point." I just want to remind everyone that sometimes one of the kindest things you can do, one of the most helpful things you can do, is just sit there and listen and take in what someone else is saying, and say, "I'm really happy for you," or, "I'm sorry that happened." Right? I think being able to bring that into a conversation is such a thing that can be really inviting and help someone on their road in a way that isn't about explicitly, "Here's some advice, here's me teaching you how to do this thing."
[Erin] I would say, I know we're running late, but I think that the important thing about community, too, is that not everyone has to be everything to you. I think sometimes one of the reasons I like sort of solidarity over mentorship is that sometimes a mentor, it's like that person has to be like cheering you on and the person you can complain to and giving you a job. But, like, sometimes you can have… It's like when you're going out on the town, you've got that friend who you call up when you want to go to the club, because they're great for that. That might not be the same friend that you have a deep conversation with over coffee the next day.
[DongWon] Totally.
[Erin] Having all of that in your writing community, seeing what it is that you think you need out there, and then looking for people who can give that to you and who need things from you that you can give to them, I think really makes your community powerful and strong, and makes your writing career a happier one.
[DongWon] Know which group chat is for talking shit and which group chat is for advice.
[Chuckles, laughter]
[Howard] Oh, dear.
 
[DongWon] On that note, Mary Robinette, I believe you have our homework.
[Mary Robinette] Yes. So your homework this week is to kind of think about some of the areas of publishing. But think about one thing that you can do that will make someone else's path easier. Something that doesn't have to be a hard lift for you. I'm not asking you to come like, go out and start a charity or something like that. But some small action that you can take that will make someone else's path easier. Then do it.
 
[Mary Robinette] In our next episode, DongWon talks about when you should tell, not show, and Erin explains how she lets her students guide the learning. Also, Howard tells you when you shouldn't put a frozen turkey in a deep fryer. Until then, you're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 16.10: Paying It Forward, with Kevin J. Anderson

Mar. 12th, 2021 11:02 am
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Writing Excuses 16.10: Paying It Forward, with Kevin J. Anderson


From https://writingexcuses.com/2021/03/07/16-10-paying-it-forward-with-kevin-j-anderson/

Key Points: Paying it forward... helping one another out, sharing information, share what you have learned. One-on-one mentoring, and fostering a community. Forming friendships within structures. Find your tribe! One of the pitfalls of mentoring is that the rules change every week. Pay attention to the people around you. Treat them as peers. 

[Season 16, Episode 10]


[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses, Paying It Forward, with Kevin J. Anderson.

[Dan] 15 minutes long.

[Amal] Because you're in a hurry.

[Howard] And we're not that smart.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Amal] I'm Amal.

[Howard] And I'm Howard.

[Mary Robinette] We are joined today by our special guest, Kevin J. Anderson.

[Kevin] And I'm Kevin.

[Giggles]

[Mary Robinette] Hey, Kevin.

[Amal] Hello, Kevin.

[Mary Robinette] So, Kevin has published more than 165 books, 50 of which have been national or international bestsellers. He's written novels in Star Wars, X-Files… You may know him from Dune. Then, his original work, like the Saga of Seven Sons series, the Terra Incognita fantasy trilogy, and then he, like, edits anthologies, he has a publishing house called Wordfire. Generally speaking, he is very involved in the industry and has done a lot of mentoring as well. So we thought we'd bring him in today to talk with us about the idea of paying it forward.


[Mary Robinette] So, Kevin, do you want to describe what paying it forward means?

[Kevin] Well, I kind of want to come up with what right at this moment, as we're recording this, if not for the pandemic, I would be in my last day wrapping up our 12th Superstars writing seminar.

[Mary Robinette] Right.

[Kevin] Which would have like 370 [garbled] on it, and we've done it for 12 years. It was founded with me and my wife, Rebecca Moesta, with Brandon Sanderson, Eric Flint, and David Farland. We got together because we were talking with one another about business stuff and then intellectual property and copyrights and contracts. We realize that nobody taught us this stuff. We had to learn it, and we had to make mistakes and screw things up, and then we would rapidly go, "Dave, don't do this," or "Brandon, watch out for this." We realize that there needed to be some more stuff in the industry where we would help one another out, that we would go to our colleagues and our fellow writers and just kind of share information. That was what started our first Superstars. So we held it in Pasadena, then we moved to Las Vegas, and then Salt Lake City, and then we've been in Colorado Springs ever since. But we just felt like we wanted to like share what we learned. This would have been our 12th year.

[Mary Robinette] So, Kevin…

[Kevin] Go ahead.

[Mary Robinette] I was just… You said… Talking about sharing what you know and sharing the info. Can you talk about, like, why you felt like that was important?

[Kevin] Well, when… Every year when I do this, it feels like the greatest thing ever. Even though it really takes a lot of time. As you said in the introduction, I've got a lot of books I'm doing. I've got a lot of comics. I'm working in film and TV and all kinds of stuff. I got back to thinking about all the people who mentored me, when I was starting out. There were some big-name people who, for some reason or other, kind of took me aside and steered me in the right direction. Terry Brooks was a huge help to me. Dean Koontz was an enormous help to me. Harlan Ellison was a big mentor. I remember one time, after spending hours talking with Dean Koontz and him giving me advice, I wrote him a letter afterwards to thank him. I said, "I don't understand why you spent so much time paying it forward in helping me. Why me in particular?" He said, "Oh, I help a lot of people, Kevin, but you're just one of the only ones who ever listens."

[Laughter]


[Howard] Fun fact. On the third Superstars event, when you came to Salt Lake City, Brandon and Dan and I all came up… Mary Robinette was there. That was when we pulled Mary Robinette aside and said, "Hey. We are really, really Y-chromosome poisoned, and maybe… You're awesome. That one episode you did with us in Season three, the puppeteer episode." At that point, was still the most talked about episode we'd done, and we were like two seasons past it. So we extended the invitation to Mary Robinette to join us. So, Superstars, bringing people together, directly impacted what we became in the years that followed.

[Mary Robinette] Well, this is an interesting point, that one of the things that you do with Superstars is that you're not just doing individual one-on-one mentoring, that you are fostering a community. So I think that there's a couple of different ways that we can think about the idea of paying it forward. There's the one-on-one, the individual mentorship thing, and then there's also the community building aspect. I think that we've all been involved in that in one way or another. Amal, you've done some community building as well, but I'd love it if you'd share with us some of your perspectives on that.

[Amal] Yeah. Absolutely. One thing I was thinking about as you were talking to them, was just how much when I… So, I teach creative writing now in a university as well as having taught at other very community forward institutions like Clarion West or like Viable Paradise and stuff. But the first thing that came to mind as you were talking was having started a magazine called Goblin Fruit when… Many years ago now. But I started it with a close friend, partly because we had been reading poetry magazines and thinking we can probably do this thing too, and make a space for a different kind of poetry that we wanted to see flourish alongside what we were reading. But we had no idea about how to go about it. We would read them, but we didn't know how to actually make one. Mike Allen, who was behind Mythic Delirium at the time, and who has since changed Mythic Delirium from a magazine into a small press publisher and so on, was enormously generous with his time and with his… Just kind of sharing perspectives on how to run this. Terri Wendling was enormously helpful… Someone who, like, we had been so admiring of for all sorts of reasons, and she was… Like, people who basically we had no sense of as peers, but rather of people to whom we looked up and stuff, being generous with their time absolutely enabled us to do this. Once we launched, we in this case being Jessica Page Wick, Oliver Hunter, and myself. Once we launched Goblin Fruit, this community built up around Goblin Fruit, but then managed to, within a few years, had other people decide they wanted to start their own poetry magazines, like R. B. Lemberg and Shweta Narayan started Stone Telling that had a totally different perspective. Or, well, related, but different perspective on what kind of poetry they wanted to create. Once those structures were built, they… It's the whole thing about build it and they will come, right? So people started pinging off of each other, sparking off of each other, forming friendships within these structures of poetry magazines and reading each other's work, and going on to collaborate in other ways as a consequence. So there's just this feeling that once you love something and you want to share it with people, that that simple act kind of kick starts a whole beautiful chain reaction of people talking to each other and sharing with each other. That just continues to blow my mind. It's the thing, when I talk to my students now, I say that the one thing that you can't really be given in a class… Sorry. There's a lot of stuff that you can be taught in a classroom that you can just kind of figure out on your own, but one of the things that is just difficult to find on your own is a cohort, or is a sense of community. So, like, actually taking part in building those structures seems like just so crucial to have in these conversations.

[Kevin] At Superstars, we call it the tribe. It's like a tribe mentality that we all sort of get together. We very much feel that the rising tide lifts all boats, and that if we all sort of help each other, especially now, with indie publishing and bookselling and publishing taking so many different turns, that you can't just go buy a book that says how to do it. That everything changes weekly. One of the other kind of big important ways that I'm working on paying it forward is I'm running this whole Masters degree program at Western Colorado University on getting an MA in publishing. They hired me a couple of years ago just to take this thing from scratch and create it. They gave me no curriculum. I just had to make up what I thought people needed to know in traditional publishing and in indie publishing. Look, my publishing house has released 300 books with 100 authors. In the traditional publishing, I've published 140 some traditional books of my own. So I kind of have the experience. Of course, I couldn't be hired until I went back to college and got my own MFA because that's a qualification to teach. But I did that, because I thought it was important to do this right. I wanted to have the students learn, like, practical stuff and do hands-on things so that they could actually do it when they had a Masters degree, rather than just esoteric things. So I developed the program where these… We teach lectures on traditional publishing and copyrighted bookselling and printing and distribution and cover design and all that stuff, but what they actually do, hands-on, is we get funding from Draft2Digital to have a professional anthology that they edit. So they spend… They create it, they send out their solicitation. This year, the students got 535 slush pile submissions that they had to go through. At the beginning, it was kind of funny, because they were all dedicated, they wanted to do the right thing to these authors, they wanted to read every single submission straight through…

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] That's noble.

[Kevin] I told them at the very beginning, I said, "No, that's not going to happen." No, they were determined. After like a month, they started… In fact, within six days, one of my students wrote back and said, "You weren't kidding. These are terrible. Most of these are terrible."

[Mary Robinette] Still noble.

[Kevin] So, they went through them and it really got to the point where, toward the end, when they had 100 stories piled up to read, they go through the first paragraph or so, and they'd go, "Nah, this isn't going to make it." They learned, as writers, what they're up against…

[Laughter]

[Kevin] In the slush pile. Even if you just do a polite cover letter, you're up in the top 10%. Even if you do… Like, a thing without typos on the first page, you're in the top 10%. So they… This was their job for their masters degree. They read the slush pile. They had a budget. They had a specific you-can-only-spend-this-much money, you can only buy this many words. Then they had to argue over the… Do we have too many funny stories or too many intense stories?

[Chuckles]

[Kevin] Do we have all male writers, or do we… All this stuff that they had to work on. They really got to the point of, like, pragmatic stuff, of we don't just get to accept everything we like. You had to really fight over things. Then, after that, they had to write the rejection letters, and they had to write the contracts, and they had to go through the copyediting with their assigned authors. They designed the cover. They go through… They lay out the book, they release the book, they publish it. So when they graduate, that's sort of their… It's a one year program. So, at the end of their year, this book comes out with their names on the title page as the editorial board. We… Our first one, called Monsters, Movies, and Mayhem, got a boxed, starred review in Publishers Weekly, and they're all thrilled about that. So it's… So I'm really happy to be… See, it's my cohort of students. I'm in my second one now. They have real, practical stuff they're doing.


[Mary Robinette] That's fantastic. I think that's a great segue for us to talk about our book of the week. So, the book of the week is, of course, something that our esteemed guest would like to tell us about. So, I'm sorry to make you keep talking, Kevin…

[Laughter]

[Kevin] Well, that's usually not that hard.

[Laughter]

[Kevin] Because when I write… I write the 700 page books, so it's obvious I'm not a man of few words.

[Mary Robinette] That's okay, we're used to Brandon. These are… 700 pages is short.

[Kevin] Well, my… I call my fantasy book, this big doorstop thing, I call it one half of a Brandon Sanderson unit.

[Laughter]

[Kevin] So it's not quite that, but it is… I've got this huge epic fantasy trilogy. The first one was called Spine of the Dragon, and the second one called Vengewar, which just came out. They're from Tor, they're in hardcover. I have already delivered the third and final book in the trilogy. So for those of you listeners who don't want to start anything because you don't know if the author's going to let you down, well, I've already turned it in. It's already done. All three books are there, so you can go pick… It's sort of… Two continents at war and dozens of different main characters and dragons and monsters and sword writing in romance and religion and philosophy and a little bit of humor here and there. So… Your typical book.

[Dan] The thing I love about Kevin is that every time I talk to him, he has a brand-new trilogy I didn't even know about.

[Laughter]

[Dan] Like, you are shockingly prolific.

[Kevin] Yes. Well, Mary Robinette was saying, "Is this bio still up-to-date?" It was like three weeks old. I went, "Well, it's actually not, but I can't spend all my time updating."

[Laughter]

[Dan] All right. So, that's Vengewar, right? Is the newest one?

[Kevin] I'd like people to read Vengewar, so Vengewar together, it's two continents clashing over stuff.

[Mary Robinette] Sounds great.


[Kevin] I also want to throw in that on my website, wordfire.com, I have a whole section on the publishing MA. So if you want to see some links, a little more background on that, that… And a picture of me with my beard, which I don't have the full beard anymore, but since this is audio, you can't tell that.

[Mary Robinette] It's a very luscious full, full beard. I mean, it's almost Gandalfian right now. That's exactly what I'm seeing in this thing.

[Dan] Gone full [inaudible]

[Kevin] You're looking at Howard.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] Oh, right. It's so easy to confuse the two of you.

[Dan] Easy to confuse bald guys.

[Mary Robinette] Something that I wanted to draw attention to for our listeners that everyone has talked about in, is that there has been a mentor that has helped. Then, rather than attempting to thank the mentor through some concrete action, we pay it forward by then turning into mentors ourself. Which is the… I think at the heart of what it means to pay it forward. And very much part of the science fiction and fantasy community in particular. So, one of the things that we've been talking about is ways in which we've been helped. But if we want to turn around and help other people, I mean, not everyone can go and start a writing seminar. But there are small ways that we can help. So, what are some of the ways in which we can begin to serve as mentors, and what are some of the kind of pitfalls to mentoring, the things you have to sort of watch out for?

[Kevin] Well, one of the pitfalls to mentoring, especially when I'm talking about publishing and how to get an agent and how to break into the publishing world is the rules change every other week. So my experience when I broke in is just not relevant to anybody. So when I tell them how I got my agent, well, that's interesting, but it doesn't help them very much. So that's one of the pitfalls. But mentoring is one thing, but being a tribe is kind of another thing. I think you should help one another. It's great if you can have Terri Brooks explain to you how to deal with crowds and a book signing line, but I think more… It's your own cohort. Find writers who are at your level of writing and then you help each other out. If things like… Like, last week, as we're recording this, last week would have been LTUE. We… I mean, we would all go there. I'd see most of you there, and would help all these other writers, and they would help each other as well. If you hear about something new that changed on Kindle Unlimited, then share it with other people, because there is no… I mean, you can't just get the newspaper that tells you everything that changed in publishing this week. We listen to Writing Excuses. We listen to various podcasts just to keep up.

[Dan] That's one thing that we noticed very quickly with the Writing Excuses Retreat. We kind of went into this thinking that the instruction that we would provide to the students would be the most valuable part, and realized almost immediately that, no, it was the relationships they formed with each other and the networking that students were able to do. In the six years we've been doing it, our conference has spawned so many writing groups and so many different support groups. Even at least two marriages that I know of, but that's beside the point.

[Laughter]

[Dan] So, yes. Finding ways to support each other at your own level of skill and your own level of professionalization is still super valuable.

[Mary Robinette] Amal, you…

[Howard] A simple example that I like to share. About five years ago, I was at Gen Con Indi, visiting with my friend, Lar deSouza, who is a cartoonist of… He is an amazing cartoonist.

[Amal] He's so great.

[Howard] I was talking to him and I said, "Yeah I… How do you do it, Lar? My hand hurts all the time." He handed me a pen and said, "Draw." So I drew, and then he said, "Okay, stop. You're gripping too hard and you're pushing too hard." I said, "Yeah. I know that. I don't know how to stop." Then he handed me a brushpen that I'd never seen before and said, "Take this. Just take it. It will reward what you're doing, you'll figure it out." I said, "I tried brushpens. I can't do them. I've never made them work." He said, "You're ready for them now. Just go. It'll make this work."

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] It's the cartoonist's version of wax on, wax off?

[Howard] It was the cartoonist's version of wax on, wax off. No lie, that five minute discussion saved my hands, took my art to a new level, and it happened because Lar, in the role of mentor, didn't expect anything from me, but he knew exactly what he was talking about. He knew exactly how to watch what I was doing and say, "Oh, this is the problem. You're trying to make these kinds of lines with this kind of a pen and you're working too hard at it and the fix is this and you know everything you need to know to make this work. Now go." When I mentor others, I look for those moments. I look for the times where I can see, "Oh. Oh, you're doing that thing that used to leave bruises on my fingertips," or, "You're doing that thing that made me forget names of characters," or whatever. So I offer those little things. It's not a permanent mentoring relationship, it's let me give you the peace of help that you need to let you take yourself to the next level.

[Amal] So, this is super interesting to me. I feel like that we've been circling around something that I'd like to highlight a bit from what you've all been saying, because thinking of what Mary Robinette's question was, about, like, potential pitfalls of men touring, I feel like you've all talked about actually addressing the thing without necessarily naming the pitfall, which is that it is very easy to kind of calcify in an idea of oneself as a mentor, and to think that your experience is going to be a definitive one in some way. So, like the fact that, Kevin, that you just recognize right off the bat that like, no, actually, things are constantly in flux, is to me something that is crucial. Recognizing that things change as… And one of the things that changes is your degree of authority, your expertise. That that's always kind of in relationship to a landscape that's shifting around us. I just… I love that recognition, and also the fact that a mentor relationship doesn't need to be permanent, it can be permeable instead. But I mean, it seems to me, Howard, that, like, Lar is as much a peer as he is a mentor in so many ways. There are plenty of things that you could probably share at those crucial moments and stuff. That makes your relationship a more lateral one, rather than a hierarchical one. That also, like, I love this idea of trying to think of paying things forward as not like a top-down relationship, although often we are forced into those positions. There's another metaphor that I've heard people use, which is sending the elevator back down. Where, basically, like if you have managed in your career to ascend to a certain height, then you send the elevator back down in order to try and lift somebody else and stuff. That still kind of assumes a very vertical structure of people rising through something. But when we talk about community  and we talk about cohorts and relationships and stuff, it is a lot more horizontal, it is a lot more lateral. So, yeah.

[Dan] Thank you for bringing that up, Amal, because that's really great. I wanted to talk about that, too, that, for example, Kevin and I. I met Kevin 12 years ago when my first book had just come out, I Am Not A Serial Killer. I was at the BEA in Manhattan, and we were at a signing. So I sat down for my little scheduled signing, and realized that my Tor publicist was sitting behind me, and that I was sharing a table with Kevin. I thought this is amazing. I'm going to impress their socks right off. I was just on point and I was trying to be as personable as possible and as professional as possible, just to impress them and try to build some networking that way. What I realized very quickly is that, first of all, I didn't need to try quite as hard. Second of all, what Kevin was doing was just already paying attention. He was on the lookout for rising talent, and immediately was treating me as an equal, rather than as a student or as an underling or anything like that. That is what I have tried to do is these two things. Number one, pay attention to the people around me. And then two, treat them as peers. I have had a lot of authors that I work with tell me that I am one of their favorite teachers to work with because I treat them like A rather than like a student or a minion or something like that. Having that equal relationship and recognizing that we are all together, we are all on the same level, has… It's not only helped me professionally, but I've gotten so many more friends that way.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I completely agree. That's something we say at the Writing Excuses retreats all the time, that we are all peers, we're just at different points on the career path. That's something also that I think for people who are wanting to ask for help but are afraid to, to remember that people who are farther along the career path are actually helped by the questions, because it helps us to keep from calcifying, by having things pop up, it's like, oh, yeah, I haven't thought about things from that angle, or, I guess things have changed. The landscape has changed, or let me articulate what it is that I do, which then helps me do it better. Or sometimes just someone helped me, let me help you. So there's a lot of different reasons and ways that this pay it forward can help both individuals and the community at large.


[Mary Robinette] Now we have some homework, which, I think is Howard.

[Howard] Absolutely. This is one of my favorite exercises. It's a life hack, as much as anything else. Sit down and make a list of the people who have influenced you personally, who have personally interacted with you in ways that maybe it was full-on mentoring, maybe it was a kind word that pulled you out of a professional bind at some point, maybe it was someone who, like me and Lar deSouza, gave you that piece of critical information that let you take it to the next level. Make a list of the people who've been influential, and write yourself a little note about what they did. Then, stage three, write them a note. Maybe you're going to email them, maybe snail mail it, maybe it's a direct message via Twitter. But find a way to say thank you. Most times, as Kevin has pointed out, when we mentor, we're not doing it because we expect to be thanked or credited in any way. But I gotta tell you, we love hearing from people we've helped.

[Mary Robinette] Just as a note. When Howard says write to someone, he's not asking you to write to us.

[Howard] No. Nonononono. Not us. Unless… In fact, explicitly leave me off the list, so I don't have to feel bad about making you write a letter to me. Find the people who have helped you and thank them.

[Kevin] Howard, thank you for all that you've done for me.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Thank you, Kevin, for everything that you've done for us, too. And all of you. And thank you listeners. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go thank someone.



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Writing Excuses 16.6: Building Your Brand

Feb. 9th, 2021 10:44 am
mbarker: (BrainUnderRepair)
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Writing Excuses 16.6: Building Your Brand
 
 
Key points: Branding for your audience, staking a claim in the writing industry. What do you do really well that makes you stand out? How can you avoid being locked into a series? Make the fans follow your writing, not the series. What makes your writing unique? See what people are responding to. Your brand isn't necessarily the whole soul of your writing. The articulation of your brand isn't necessarily the message you want the fans to internalize. Take the highlights of your work, and turn them into pitches. Expand your brand into different genres. 
 
[Season 16, Episode 6]
 
[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Building Your Brand.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Brandon] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Dan] Awesome. We are back here in our intensive course on publishing business, and we're going to talk about branding and what kinds of things we need to think about. What do we mean by that, Brandon?
[Brandon] So, this is something that I have come to realize I think about a lot more than most of my writing friends. Which is, when I was breaking into the business, and even still, a major idea in my head was how to brand myself to my audience. How to stake a claim on a part of the writing industry or part of the continuing dialogue or great discussion that is the publishing… A genre. Right? I very deliberately wrote a bunch of books and decided what it was that I did really well that made me stand out. I made that a major feature of my career. What this allowed me to do… My goal from the get go, I looked at the careers of a bunch of different authors and I identified some that… Whose career path I didn't want to follow because they would often talk about being locked into a series, a certain series, and being only… People only wanting to read that one series from them. Then there are other authors, Neil Gaiman is a great example of this, that whatever that author wrote, the fan base went and read. I realized Neil Gaiman had done a really good job of branding Neil Gaiman as a writer, rather than branding Sandman or branding any other thing, it was whatever Neil writes, people are going to go read. Nora, N. K. Jemisin, has done a really good job of this recently in saying this is what she writes and the feel of her writing and whatever she puts out, we're going to go read. Because we are into her writing, rather than branding to a series. Whereas some places that this happens the other way, a lot of YA writers I noticed accidentally fall into the series becoming the brand. So it becomes very hard, for instance, for Suzanne Collins to get another series or get people interested in something else. I have some other YA friends whose names I'm not going to mention because I don't know if they want me talking about this with them, but have released other books, not in a series that they are well-known for, and they just vanish. Even though these authors can demand huge advances and lots of attention when they write in their series, anything else they try just fails. I think this is partially a branding failure rather than their other books not being good, because I've read some of these other books, and indeed, they're very good.
[Dan] Yeah. I suspect that some of that, with YA specifically, is just the nature of the YA audience that has a very specific kind of blockbuster mentality that we don't see often in others. But this branding issue is definitely there. I've done this myself. The first year that I was on twitter, my twitter handle was John Cleaver. It was Howard, I think, that finally convinced me to change that out and become Dan Wells instead and really work about building my own brand as me. It's especially… I feel kind of especially stupid for doing that, because in terms of my actual books, I did make a strong effort to make sure that my second book series was as wildly different from my first as possible. So even if you're thinking about this in some areas, it's still an easy mistake to make in others.
[Brandon] Indeed. One of the things that really helped me in this was deciding what made my writing unique. Another… Pointing back to N. K. Jemisin, this is something very easy to see in others. Sometimes it's hard to see in yourself. What does Nora write? Nora writes stories that are in the traditional fantasy tradition but that are using modern literary techniques borrowing from literary fiction. Kind of making a blend where you have the characterization and pacing of traditional genre fiction and the literary styling of literary fiction, and kind of marrying these two together. Each book or series she writes finds a different way to marry a different type of literary flourish with a different type of science fiction or fantasy. The series that won all the awards was, hey, she's going to do a really cool magic system and marry it to somehow second person voice, right? Which is just like so literary, and it worked. For me, my branding, the thing that I did, is I said, "I'm going to be the magic system guy." I was writing a new world with every book I was writing during my early years. I really fell in love with writing these kind of rule-based magic systems, kind of sometimes called hard fantasy. I don't know if that term actually really works. But the idea is that you're going to get a really interesting take on magic that's very rule-based in every book of mine you pick up. I was able to pick that because I had written a bunch of books and known whatever I end up writing, this is something that I just naturally put into every book that I try.
 
[Erin] I would say, if you don't know that about yourself, you might be like, "I don't know, I'm just trying to write the things. What is my brand?" As you start getting work out there, either publicly or even with your own critique groups, is to look at what people are responding to. Sometimes you can learn your brand by having sort of other people put a mirror up to you. I, for example, I write a lot of racy dark work. I don't know that I would describe myself that way naturally, but when people over and over again are like, "Oh, no. Erin, I'm so excited about your next racy, dark thing," I'm like, "Oh. Maybe that's…"
[Chuckles]
[Erin] "A thing that I can cut out for myself." If you're all saying this and it's not in opposition to what I write, why not embrace it? I would also say some parts of your brand, you can't control. As a black writer, there are going to be certain maybe assumptions or things that people might put on you based on who you are that affects the way they see your writing. So not everything that someone sees in you, you have to necessarily claim as your brand. But it's good to know how people see you and decide what of that you want to maybe lean into and what of that you want to push back against.
 
[Brandon] That's really smart. One of the things that I want to mention that that kind of jogged in my brain, Erin, is this idea that the brand doesn't have to represent the whole soul of your writing. Honestly, like when I branded myself as the magic system guy, I made some deliberate choices on that. But in reality, behind the scenes, I'm like, "I really don't want to be the magic system guy. I want to be the really great characters guy." Right? That's what I think every writer wants. I want to be known for writing great stories. I don't want to be known for this little niche. But the way that marketing works, the way that writing works, the way that the minds of fans work is they kind of notice things that make you stand out. Hopefully, we're all doing great characters. So the fact that you do great characters who… Like, one of the things that's really great about Mary Robinette's writing is she has mature relationships between adults who legitimately love each other. That's not going to be in every book she writes. But it's a hallmark of her career. She's like, "I'm going to show how relationships can actually function." Because a lot of writers write dysfunctional relationships, because that's a source of conflict. Where she has actively said, "You know what, good relationships are also a source of conflict. I'm going to deal with these things." It's a hallmark of her writing. Doesn't mean that great characters aren't, but that's something that stands out. So the thing that stands out about you doesn't necessarily always have to be the thing that you're thinking of as the soul of your writing.
 
[Howard] There's a marketing 101 concept here that I've talked about before, but I think I need to reiterate. That's the idea that the articulation of your brand… I'm the magic system guy… The articulation of your brand is not the message that you actually want to be received at the subconscious level by the market. The subconscious level that you as a writer who wants to make money want to deliver to the market is, and I'll use my own name because of course I'll use my own name, "Oh, Howard Tayler. That's the guy who I buy all of his books." Okay? That's the message. Now, I can't come out and say, "I'm Howard Tayler. I'm the guy you want to buy all your books from." Now, part of my articulated brand is humor, and self-deprecatory humor. So I can actually get away with saying that thing and people will laugh. But that's not the same as the message being internalized. So what you need to do when you are building your brand is understand that at one level there are the things that you are articulating about yourself. I write jokes, I write humor that's in dialogue rather than situational comedy type things. Science fiction. I'm kind to people online. I try not to be a jerk. These sorts of things that I articulate about myself are things that get distilled down to the reader, and as they absorbed them, some of those readers will be like, "Oh, my gosh, it's a Howard Tayler thing. I just want that because I love his stuff." Others will be, "Oh. It's all silly. I don't love it. I'm not buying his stuff." The value there is that… And again, this is marketing 101 stuff… You really don't want your brand being in the wrong place. I don't want people who hate funny books to pick up my stuff and then be mad. Because now someone has a super negative association with me, which is that I wish I hadn't spent money on Howard's book.
 
[Dan] We, much later than usual, are going to stop for a book of the week.
[Howard] Sorry.
[Chuckles]
[Dan] That's okay. I'm actually throwing this back to you, Howard. Because you have our book this week.
[Howard] I do. I do. The book is called Blowout by Rachel Maddow. You're probably familiar with Rachel Maddow's brand as a commentator on MSNBC. Blowout is a nonfiction exploration of the petroleum industry written by Rachel Maddow, and she narrates it. I loved the book. I mean, as a… At a high level, the meta of we have a commentator who is doing a book and this is an extension of the brand, that's all well and good. Understanding the way the petroleum industry influenced current events, influenced historical events, is not something that I had in my head until I read that book. It was fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. The audiobook is narrated by Rachel Maddow, which, she's easy to listen to and that's part of her brand.
[Dan] Okay. So that is Blowout by Rachel Maddow.
 
[Dan] Now, we don't have much time left, but I do want to ask a question. I love the way this discussion has been going, I love what Erin said about having other people help you find your own kind of brand identity. One thing that was pointed out to me several years ago that I had never intentionally done and had not seen on my own is that all of my main characters in all of my books across the six or seven different genres that I write, the one thing they all have in common is that they are all obsessed with an expert in some very specific niche of knowledge. I had not done that on purpose, but it's absolutely true. Even in my historical fiction that came out earlier last year. So, what I have not yet figured out is how I can take that piece of knowledge and turn it into a useful marketing message like Howard was just saying. So, Brandon, what advice can you give us of how to turn your brand into a marketable thing?
[Brandon] So, one of the things to do is watch… Erin mentioned this… What are people saying about your work. What are they saying as the highlights of your work? You, as a writer, are going to have to come up with pitches to sell your work. When you are sitting on a panel, when you are even just writing a blog post, you're going to have to give a three sentence pitch on each new thing you do. One of the ways that you can start making this a brand for you is incorporating these things into your pitches. So that your fans know how to talk about your books. If you were provided these pitches, then they will kind of start picking up on them. It's kind of this feedback, back and forth.
[Erin] I would say panels… The mention of panels made me think that if you are somebody who goes to… Who's able to go to conventions, they're a great way to… If you're able to speak on panels, number one, see where people place you is a good way… Sometimes it's random, but if you're on like 10 panels in a row about like unreliable narrators, maybe that's a thing that people associate with you. Two, you can try to ask for panels or on a panel, like, talk about the things that are within your brand or that mesh up with your brand.
[Brandon] Yeah.
[Erin] It's also a great way to kind of try out some ways of talking about it. Because most people are just going to absorbed the panel and go about their merry way. So you can kind of hone your messaging a little bit while trying to convey information about writing as a whole.
 
[Brandon] You can also kind of expand your brand. If you want to put something like I am the magic system guy, right? Well, magic system guy really focuses on fantasy. I wanted to write science fiction, and even I wanted to write some detective stuff. I thought a lot about how do I expand this to match what I'm doing in these other genres. So I actually have a couple of brandings. One is the Cosmere. I have an interconnected universe. So when I started doing my science fiction, I'm like I'm going to be doing a little bit of that. But there's also this idea that more than magic system, it's like these rule-based speculative elements that I was able to apply to my detective fiction. Because it's a… There's a magic system, even though there's no magic in the world. The way that the person approaches solving crimes is very like one of my fantasy novels, even though there's no actual magic involved. So being able to expand that brand and know how you can talk about these things in different genres is also really handy. Mary Robinette's another good example of this. Instead of branding as historical fantasy, she's now branding as I take some sort of cool historical item and then I change one thing. She's doing like a larger alternate history sort of thing rather than just doing fantasy. Now she's got science fiction in that and things like that. So you can still have… You can expand these things and make them umbrellas and cover a lot of things. Dan, you're… You talk about you've got specialists in your stories. Well, I mean, specialists, a lot of different types of genres use specialists. If you could find a way to say, "I do deep dives into topics…" Michael Crichton made his whole career about a team of scientists get together and have a problem. That works in a medical thriller as well as a science fiction as well as… He did the great train robbery, which is a heist, all with a team of specialists get into shenanigans.
[Dan] That is a very good point. Lots of good things to think about here. We encourage you all to work on this.
 
[Dan] We're going to give you some homework to help you work on this for yourself. Brandon?
[Brandon] Yeah. So your homework is to do something Erin was talking about, actually, is to go to your friends. You may not have readers yet, you may be newer, you may not have readers you don't know, but you hopefully have a writing group or you have alpha readers and beta readers. You have been sharing your work with them. Have them make a list. Impose upon them, hopefully it's not too much of an imposition, but say, "What are…" Ask them to write down the things that stand out for you as a writer in their mind. Do this with a couple of people. Because it's so hard to see in yourself. See what different connections and themes are showing up time and time again in those lists that your friends are making.
[Dan] Fantastic. This has been Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 16.4: Networking

Jan. 27th, 2021 02:10 pm
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Writing Excuses 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.
 
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Writing Excuses 16.03: Publishing Pitfalls

Jan. 20th, 2021 02:18 pm
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Writing Excuses 16.03: Publishing Pitfalls
 
 
Key Points: There are people out there who see aspiring writers as someone to make money off of! $50 reading fees? Remember, money flows toward the author. Beware of people who see you as a mark. Talk to other writers. Check Writer Beware and similar sites. Pay attention to the groups you join, you may not fit there. You may need multiple groups for different reasons. Accountabilibuddies! In indie publishing, you need to make business decisions. Think of yourself as two different people, a writer self and a business self, and make sure you are using the right one for the situation.
 
[Season 16, Episode 3]
 
[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Publishing Pitfalls.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Brandon] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Dan] Welcome back to the third episode of our intensive course on the insider business of publishing. We're very excited to have with us Erin Roberts on the show. Erin, can you very quickly remind our listeners who you are?
[Erin] Sure. I am a short fiction writer primarily. Early in my career, so excited to share that part of the publishing world. I've had stories published in Clarkesworld, Asimov's, and a few other places here and there.
[Dan] Fantastic. Well, we're excited to have you on the show.
 
[Dan] We're going to talk about publishing pitfalls this time. Things that inexperienced and sometimes even experienced authors fall into, mistakes that we make. Brandon, what are some of the things you need to warn us about?
[Brandon] Well, the big overarching theme for this episode is going to be to teach you to realize and recognize the fact that a lot of people out there see you as someone to make money off of as an aspiring writer. Or as a new professional. I point to an example of this in my career. Before I knew what I was doing, and I thought the way to get an agent was just to buy a book of agents and start submitting to all of them, I submitted to an agent who wrote back… Or, no, I didn't… Yeah, I just went to the website and they said, "Send your book along with $50 to our agency and we will consider you." I just lost 50 bucks. Right? They had a reading fee, and I'm sure they made a nice bunch of money off of being in whatever list that I had read on agents who took science fiction and fantasy books. They cashed my check, and I only got taken for 50 bucks. It's not a big deal to get taken for 50 bucks. But I'll tell you, when I was later on at a convention and someone said, "Watch out, there's a lot of agents out there who will put on their thing send us 50 bucks and we'll consider your book, and they're making their money off of people sending them 50 bucks rather than actually selling books," I felt like a total loser. Because I'd just been taken in, hook, line, and sinker by these people.
[Dan] Yeah. Now, there are, and I'm sure that we'll get into this a little bit in the show, there are certainly people that are not out to get you. There are absolutely legitimate writing conferences and editors for hire and things like that who are doing valuable work for the money that they get from you.
[Brandon] Yes.
[Dan] We're talking more about the hucksters, who, like you said, they make all their money on jilting you out of yours.
[Brandon] Yeah. The phrase that was commonly used when I was breaking in was money flows toward the author, and that any time you are writing a check to someone, you need to stop, consider, and decide if this is someone you should be sending money to. Normally, early in my career, people would say, "just never, never write a check to anyone." That's not the case anymore, because as indie publishing has become a much more legitimate way to make a career as a writer, there are lots of good places that you should be spending your money if you are an indie author. Indeed, there are a lot of good conferences and conventions that you have to pay to get in. That's not a bad expense. So this episode is to talk to you about the mistakes that new authors often make specifically relating to shortcuts that you are offered towards publishing that often can just either waste your time or your money. The first one I want to talk about is people who see you as a mark. Now, this doesn't actually have to always be someone who has your worst interests at heart. It can also be someone who just doesn't know what they're doing, right? Looking at the agency I submitted to, years later, I went back and looked at them. They were out of business. I don't think this was someone who was there to look at authors as marks. I think this was someone who thought I'd be a pretty good agent. I spent years as, say, a real estate agent. I know how to interact with people. I know how I… I sell houses, I should be able to sell books to publishers. But how do I make any money? Well, I probably should charge these authors a little bit upfront because we're in this together. So I need to know if they're serious or not. So that's probably how they came about having is like that. But the problem there was not that I necessarily was taken in by a con artist, I was taken in by an agent who had no idea what they were doing, and, indeed, could not further my career at all.
[Howard] You know how you tell if an author is serious about something? If they hand you a book. If they've written a whole manuscript, this is someone who's serious about something. A real agent knows that.
[Brandon] The easiest way… I mean, agents are one of the easiest ones to determine if they're legit or not. Because if they're a legit agent, you should be able to go to the bookstore and find new books represented by that agent. Authors who are represented by that agent, who include new authors that the agent is actively discovering. Not just the states that the agent is representing. If you can't find… If that agent hasn't released in the last five years, if they don't have new authors that are releasing books with the publishers you want to publish with, then that's just not an agent to send to.
 
[Dan] Now, Erin, you have published in some pretty high profile short fiction markets which is the kind of thing that typically makes someone a mark or predatory agents or publishers. Have you experienced any of this? People coming after you because you're kind of starting your career?
[Erin] I have had some people reach out to me because, as you should do, like, I have a writer website with how to contact me because legit people will also contact you. So, things come in, and some of them are, "Oh, this is actually a really great opportunity," and other ones where it's like, "Oh, I did a little research and no one seems to have heard of you. You're an agent, like you said, that doesn't seem to have any clients or any clients who have published books." So a lot of it is doing research. I also say one thing I really like about the short fiction world is that there's a really great community there. Talking to other writers is a great way to know, like, if you're dealing with something that is legit. Not everyone knows everything, but a lot of times asking people, "Have you heard of this agent? Have you heard of this editor? Do you know any experiences with this person?" can be a way to try to weed out folks who maybe don't have your best interests at heart.
[Brandon] When I was a newer writer, one of the places, and I would assume it's still there but I can't say… I haven't been there in years, was Predators and Editors, the forum, where there was generally a thread about every small press, every legit press, and a lot of threads about non-legitimate presses and agents on those forums. I went there a lot during the early part of my career because I had no idea who was legit and who wasn't.
[Dan] Awesome. I just looked them up, it looks like Predators and Editors is kind of in transition right now.
[Brandon] Okay.
[Dan] But there are other sites like Writer Beware that are still doing very similar work. So there are places to do this research.
 
[Dan] Let's pause for our book of the week, which is actually not a book. It is a channel that Brandon loves and wants to tell us about.
[Brandon] Yeah. This isn't maybe the best topic to slot this in, but I wanted to give a shout out to a YouTube channel called Noah Cadwell-Gervais. Noah Cadwell-Gervais, he does long form essays about videogames. Really long form. The sort of stuff that is terrible click bait, that YouTube does not optimize for. He'll have a four hour YouTube video that he'll do on some in-depth look at a series. He recently did The Last of Us where… The thing about Noah is, he's just an excellent writer. I listen… Every episode when I listen to, I write down multiple phrases that he said that I think, "Man, I would love to have come up with that." He talked about writing in a recent episode where he said, "Writing is about editing, and it's super hard to walk into a room with your two favorite paragraphs and a bullet for one of them, knowing you're only going to walk out with one of those paragraphs."
[Chuckles]
[Brandon] I'm like, "Man, that is a metaphor." That is just a brilliant way to use words. He's really good at it. He writes these all out ahead of time, and then reads them and puts over footages, and even if you're not interested in the games themselves, he has a really interesting take on video games. So I wanted to give him a shout out. I think that his channel is doing fine, it has more subscribers by a little bit than mine does, but he certainly isn't as watched as he deserves. So give it a look. It's really fun to watch people writing in other mediums and in kind of new media ways. I learn a lot from the way he crafts his prose for his video essays.
[Howard] You know, if you walked into a room with two paragraphs and you've only got one bullet, you're not editing hard enough.
[Laughter]
[Dan] One bullet and a machete. So that the paragraph that survives is a lot smaller when it comes out.
 
[Dan] Now, one thing that we were talking about in preparation for this episode is the idea that there are many different kinds of writers that are looking for different things. Part of the pitfall can be misidentifying which group you're in, or really just kind of accidentally stumbling into a group rather than choosing that deliberately.
[Brandon] Yeah. When I was early in my career, a lot of people recommended several local writing groups that I go and try out, because I was looking at writing groups and things. I found that each writing group had its own kind of theme, and some were not necessarily themed the way that I wanted to do things. Like, I was very gung ho about writing novels and publishing in the novel field very soon. I was looking for a writing group of people who would read a lot and who were also very aggressive about their publishing careers. I found a lot of well-established groups that were support groups for friends, for people who were not necessarily as aggressive about publishing as I was. I found I was a really bad fit for those groups. I've heard of other people getting in some of these groups and kind of adopting the mindset of the group, which can be a bad thing for helping you achieve your goals as a writer.
[Erin] I would say that it's… A lot of it, you can have a lot of also different groups that you belong to that feed different parts of your writer's soul. Like, we contain multitudes. So, as long as you know what that is doing for you. So, like, I have a group of friends that is more of like a just how are we getting through the day, like, have we made it through 2020, type of like let's just all commiserate group. But I don't use that group as a way to push me forwards. That's more of a group that's a way to make me feel comforted and that I do the work. Then I have groups that are more about critique, group accountabilibuddies where I'm riding with someone and it's about getting the time into do the writing. As long as I know what each of those is, it completely works.
[Howard] Accountabilibuddy.
[Erin] Yes.
[Howard] Accountabilibuddy. I'm going to say that word a couple of times, and then maybe write it down in the liner notes. Accountabilibuddy.
[Erin] Everyone should have at least one in my opinion. But, yeah, as long as you know what the people are and you're not going to one group for something that they're not going to provide for you, I think it can work. But the problem is when you think one group maybe is going to do all things for you. Or you don't recognize that they're not in the same place as you are.
[Dan] Yeah. I… This isn't just about groups, either. This is how I divide up a lot of my alpha and beta readers when I send out a book. Because I need to be able to send it to someone who's going to give me a meaningful, useful critique, but I also need to be able to send my books to someone who is going to tell me that it's awesome and make me feel good about myself, even when it's terrible. One of the groups, we've kind of hinted at this, I want to be a little more explicit. There are absolutely writing groups out there that are not really treating writing as a professional career or as a professional outlet, it's more of a supportive community. I would wager that a big chunk of you wonderful listeners fall into that category. So I want to be clear that we're not trying to bag on that. If you are writing in a way that gives you joy, then you are doing it correctly. If your goal is to make money, then that's a different goal than just having some fun Friday nights with your writer buddy. So that's why it's so important to know which group you're in.
[Brandon] Yeah. Writing groups are this kind of their own special pitfall in that you can find one that matches your career goals, but the type of feedback you're getting is detrimental to your writing style and to your writing psychology. So, we have several other episodes on that. But just be aware, it's okay for a writing group to be a good writing group, but a bad fit for you.
[Dan] Now, that said, I bet a lot of our listeners maybe didn't realize that they were in the wrong group until we said it just now. So take this opportunity to take stock of yourself. Maybe one of the reasons that your aspiring career dreams are stalling is because you've slotted yourself into the wrong kind of community. Howard?
 
[Howard] Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about the publishing pitfall for indie publishers. I say the publishing pitfall. There are a million of them. Because when you are an independent publisher, when you are indie publishing, you have become the publisher, and Amazon, for instance, really is the distributor. As the publisher, you are now being asked to make partnership decisions for who am I going to hire to copyedit my book. Who am I going to hire to do cover art for my book? Who am I going to work with to help me build a promotional campaign around my book? This is a fantastically fraught space, especially if you have never in the course of your career doing other things, never had the opportunity to, for instance, administer a job interview or say no to someone who wants money. These are life skills that if you haven't developed yet, indie publishing is a space where even if people aren't looking towards you as a mark, you are a mark. You are going to hemorrhage money and time until you figure out how to make the decisions correctly. When Sandra and I decided to do, and this was a decade or more ago, the Schlock Mercenary iPhone app for reading the comics via iPhone, we put together a very simple application which was, "Hey, if you'd like to build an iPhone app, show us an app that you've done and come to us with a business plan for how you'd make money with this app." We had dozens of people show us apps that they'd made, some of which were pretty shiny. Only one person came to us with a business plan. That was Gary Henson. We don't have an iPhone app anymore because reasons. But Gary is now running the Schlock Mercenary web service. Because I set up a threshold where I knew I'd only be doing business with somebody who understood that this was a business.
[Erin] Yeah. To that point, I think a piece of advice that I've always loved is the idea that you've got your writer writer self and your business of writing self, and to really think of those as sort of two different people inhabiting your body, and that sometimes you need to turn things over to the businessperson and sometimes you need to be focusing on the writer person. In the short fiction world, a lot of times that'll be like, "You can write as many lovely stories as you want," but your businessperson's going to have to be the one being like, "When do I need to submit them, and to whom? And, like, in what order?" I think that continues in indie publishing, your businessperson is a huge part of what you're doing.
 
[Dan] Absolutely. I wish we could talk about this all day, but we do need to be done. Brandon, you've got some homework for us?
[Brandon] Yeah. So. One of the best websites that was really helpful to me when I was breaking in, and it's still being maintained and supported by SFWA is Writer Beware. If there's a single best resource to watch, it is probably them. They explain a lot of these pitfalls in much more depth than we can cover. Particularly, indie publishing as it was becoming a thing, it was really hard, and still is kind of difficult, to determine who is a legit editor, freelance editor you should pay, and who is someone who is out there to try to feed you into this vanity press loop, where you pay for editing, they send you to a publisher, a publisher recommends another editor, who then you pay for editing. The publisher gets a kickback, and then you… You could end up in this loop forever, spending tons of money. Vanity publishing, which is different from indie publishing. Learning the difference will help you, if you go to Writer Beware. So our homework is spend some time familiarizing yourself with Writer Beware and other resources like it on the Internet that will help you see who is trying to take advantage of you and who is a legitimate editor that you may want to hire.
[Dan] Fantastic. Well. This has been Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 15.51: Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Nar

Dec. 23rd, 2020 11:33 am
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Writing Excuses 15.51: Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan
 
 
Key Points: Prescriptive advice, suggestions about how to do it, are going to come your way. But when do you look for it? Until you show me you can articulate your reactions in a way I understand, I may not accept your advice on how to rewrite a scene. Tell me how you feel, then tell me how to rewrite the scene. Arrange your readers by the type of advice you want. Subject matter experts, sensitivity readers, tell me what's wrong and how to fix it. Most readers, just tell me your reaction. Editors, suggest how to fix a problem. When you get feedback, you decide whether to accept it or not. Follow your vision. How do you find people you trust to tell you what to do? Professionals. Agent, editor, writing group. Organizations can help, but you have to pick and choose. Audition, or vetting, process. Start with media you both consume, and see what they think of that. Reactions, fresh perspectives, the feedback echo chamber... stay true to your vision. You know how to fix your story better than anybody else. But be open to brilliant ideas from someone. 
 
[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode 51.
[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with Mahtab Narsimhan.
[Howard] 15 minutes long.
[Mahtab] Because you're in a hurry.
[Brandon] And we're not that smart.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Mahtab] I'm Mahtab.
[Brandon] And I'm Brandon. Which I keep telling you and I'd like you to take that feedback.
[Chuckles]
 
[Dan] So, we talk all the time about how to give feedback, how to construct a good writing group, how to train your alpha and beta readers, and one of the points we hit on a lot is that what you're looking for in that feedback stage is reactions rather than specific prescriptive advice. But, as one of our listeners pointed out in an email, asking this question, "Prescriptive advice is incredibly valuable and we all do it and we all get it." So, we're clearly not saying ignore every suggestion that comes to you. What we need to talk about now, then, is how do you decide which pieces of advice you're going to listen to and which ones you're going to discard. When should you actively seek out that kind of specifically prescriptive feedback? So, first ideas, like, when do you seek it out? At what point do you say, "Hey, I need you to answer this question for me?"
[Howard] Approaching it from a different angle, until I have gotten reader reactions from someone and they been able to articulate their reaction to me in a way that I understand, I'm not going to accept feedback from them. If someone hasn't yet told me that this scene made them feel a certain way, I'm not ready to accept their feedback on how to rewrite the scene. I want to know that you can tell me how you feel before you tell me how to rewrite the scene so that you feel what you're supposed to.
[Brandon] Yeah. That's a good piece of advice. Although one thing I do is I kind of arrange my readers by what type of advice I want them to give me. For example, when I use a subject matter expert… I recently wrote a story about someone who's paraplegic. I went and I hired several people to read this story. To them, I said… They were paraplegic and I said, "I want you to tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it, specifically, how this differs from your life experience in the life experience that you know other disabled people have. I want you to tell me." For other readers, though, I say I just want to know your reaction. I want to know if my characters are working and my story's working. The way you help me with that is by telling me your just feedback emotionally. I'm looking for different things from different people. From my editor, I want them to tell me what they suggest I do to fix a problem when they've noticed it, because I might not take that, but there's a much better chance that I will take it when it comes from an editor who really knows what they're doing.
 
[Dan] Let me follow up on that subject matter expert thing. When you've got feedback from them, how much of that feedback was just kind of the mechanics of daily life of a para… Someone who is paraplegic and how much of that was the story or the characterization are broken, and here's how you can fix those? Because that seems like it kind of straddles that line between subject matter and storytelling.
[Brandon] It was actually weighted toward the latter. I would have thought it would be weighted toward the former. But those things are very easy to fix. When someone says, "I usually keep a pole next to me so I reach things and pull them across the desk to me," that's like, "Oh, that's really handy. I will do that. That's an easy fix." But when they say something along the lines of… A piece of feedback I got on this piece which was really helpful was all of them noticed… They say, "We work in a community. We talk to other people." A lot of people write… When they write a story like I had done, they talk about this person in isolation, which is not how we do it. It makes it seem like this person is the only person who is paraplegic in the whole world. That's very common. I hadn't realized that's what you do, but of course, you're part of a community. I'm part of a community of writers. I'm part of a community of people who share a faith with me. I'm part of a community of people who are parenting. We look for people who have a shared life experience so we can help each other. This is something that I had done flat-out wrong that required a really big revisitation of how I was viewing the character and the story because it was just… It was flat-out wrong. That sort of thing was a harder revision, but it was also more surprising to me, and it's the sort of thing that needed a subject matter expert to explain to me.
[Mahtab] Okay. I would call those instead sensitivity readers. I mean, that's what happens when you're writing a piece, middle grade YA fiction, and your writing someone with whom you don't share the identity or a marginalized status or what have you. I mean, you just… You do not have a similar background. That's when you get someone who we call like a sensitivity reader, who's going to look at your story and tell you, "Okay. This is what it is," or "This is what you need to think about as you write." You said, Brandon, they're not in isolation, but sometimes when we're writing from an outsider's perspective, we almost make that kind of an issue story or the issue with that character is their disability or whatever. Sometimes having someone with that background read it often gives you a whole different perspective because they do not see it as an issue, because they're part of a community where this is not the center stage. You can get other feedback from it, but just coming back to your point, Dan, as to when do you seek feedback. When I've taken a story to a certain level and I do no more with it, is when I would actually send it out to my critique group. One of the good things is I have a group that has different strengths. Someone is really good with the big picture perspective. So they would like really look at the forest. There are some who actually look at the trees, and they go down to the bush level, and they will absolutely look at the pacing and the plot and the characterization. So that's when you take the feedback from these people which is… Each one gives you a different idea or a different facet of what your story is. Then once it comes back to you, I think the onus is on you, and it goes with your gut feel of should I accept this feedback or shouldn't I. If it does not fit with your vision, no matter who's given it to me, I would probably not follow it.
 
[Dan] Okay. I want to pause now for the book of the week, which we get from Howard.
[Howard] Yes. It's not really related to the topic, but I really, really enjoyed Dan Rather's book What Unites Us. Dan Rather has been a fixture in American and, let's be honest, world news broadcasts for… I want to say 50 years, at least 40 years. His experiences… It's kind of a retrospective of the way he sees the American nation and the people who are in it. I really loved it. I needed it when I listened to it. I don't know if you do, but the audiobook was quite good, and that was the way I experienced it. So I can't speak to reading the words on the paper with my own eyeballs and brain.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] That's for other people to discover. But the book is called What Unites Us by Dan Rather.
[Dan] Thank you.
 
[Dan] Now, the common thread between all of your comments in the first half of the episode were heavily kind of focused around this idea that you have curated your groups of people that you get feedback from and that you… When you look for specific feedback, you are trying to get it from specific people and for specific reasons. So let's talk just really quick about that. How do you find these people that you trust… Not talking about specifically subject matter experts or sensitivity readers, but just, in general, how do you find those people and how do you decide, yes, I trust what this person is going to tell me to do?
[Brandon] Well, with beta readers in particular, them, it doesn't matter, right? Because I'm not asking them to tell me what to do. So, people who tell me what to do, that I let… That I'm looking for, are professionals. Right? Which is a different sort of thing. I find my beta readers, generally, they are people who have been long-term friends, people who are active in fandom, or people that other beta readers have recommended. We do that a lot. We try to add a few new people every book that I do and not have everyone do every book, right? So we shake it up. It's just a process of watching who makes astute comments on forum posts about the books, who are active on our Facebook posts, those are the people I look for. But for alpha readers, they're giving me direct, fix this, I'm generally only looking at like my agent, my editor, or my writing group for that.
[Mahtab] I think, for me, I join a lot of organizations, and again, we've got forums, so you can connect with people on the forums and say, "Okay, I'm looking for… I'm looking for a critique partner," and everyone kind of just exchanges emails and then goes for it. In case… That's how I started with, but then, over the years, I kind of got closer to a group of people because they write similar stuff that I do, and I like their work and they like my work. So we kind of broke off and formed our own groups. But if you're looking at the children's section, SCBWI, CANSCAIP, these are the… I guess for the US, it's SCBWI, you join those groups, there are areas where you can exchange information and find critique partners. I would say, start out with maybe a chapter or two, see what the feedback is like, see if they're on the same wavelength as you are, before you go deeper down the rabbit hole, and then become good critique partners, because sometimes… What if you're not at a similar level or if the level of feedback that you're getting is not what you're looking for? Then that relationship or that critique is not really helping you. So you also have to pick and choose. Don't just say yes to anyone who says they're going to give you feedback.
[Dan] That kind of audition process, so to speak, I think is really important. Because, we've talked before about how to find fellow writers and form your little groups and things, but going through that kind of vetting process, of saying, "Okay. You know what, I really like your feedback," or "You're giving me feedback that I don't think is valuable," that's a big step. It can be difficult to say, "You know what, this relationship isn't working. I think we should break up."
[Howard] There is… To my mind, there is an easier and much lower pressure way to get to that point. That is to socialize… And I guess Zoom may be the way that we're doing this for the foreseeable future… Socialize with people right and who consume media that you consume, and talk about the things that you're consuming. If Dan and I both sit down and talk about The Mandalorian, and I say, "Oh, my gosh, it's my favorite Star Wars ever, because it's like a cowboy movie Star Wars," and I don't know what Dan's going to say about it. But if Dan's feedback about Mandalorian makes me feel like the two of us watched a completely different show, he's out of my group.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Because… Not because he's wrong, but because connecting might be so very, very difficult. Initially, for seeking feedback, I want to get feedback from people whose critiques I'm able to understand. We both watched a movie and we both agreed, "Wow. The protagonist fails to protag for the entire first act, and by the time the second showed up, we were… We didn't like him anymore," and we both get that. Oh, yes, this is someone I… Because when they critique my work, I'll be like, "Oh. Oh, yes. You're right." And when you prescribe something to me, I'm more likely to get it. Now that, that initially is going to create kind of a bubble, and you want to branch out from that. But start friendly first, I think.
[Mahtab] Yes.
 
[Dan] Yeah. It is a very tricky line to walk, because you don't want to get into that feedback echo chamber. I always really value opinions that are different from my own. Because that, I think, is going to help me look for new solutions and new answers. But on the other hand, someone who is constantly suggesting ideas that don't fit with my style at all, that's not going to be valuable to me. So, it all comes back to this idea of just very carefully deciding who you're going to talk to. Well, I guess, who you're going to get that prescriptive feedback from. The person whose ideas are super different from mine, yes, give me all your reactions. Please. But when it comes to how am I actually going to change this, that's when I do tend rely on people who have similar sensibilities to mine.
[Brandon] Or, I would add, the further someone gets in the professional field of writing and storytelling, the more it seems they are able to help a story become a better version of itself, rather than trying to push it one direction or another. That's not to say that all agents and editors are perfect at this, or even all writing group members, but I've noticed that people who write a lot… For instance, Dan tends to be better at looking at one of my books and saying, "Here's what I think you're trying to do. Here's how to make it better." Where there are other people who are longtime writing group members of mine who like my books, who often give good feedback. But if you give them a book that's outside their normal reading comfort level, they'll give bad feedback on it. Where I've never gotten bad feedback from Dan, because as an industry professional, he reads a lot of things and even things he doesn't like, he can say, "Here's how I think you can make a better version of this thing that I don't necessarily like." Which is a really great skill for a storyteller to learn, I think. But it is not something you can expect from your average even writing group member, I think.
[Dan] I want to print up business cards that say, "Dan Wells. I will help you make a better version of a thing that you're doing that I don't like, even though you're doing a thing that I don't like."
[Mahtab] Where do I sign up?
[Laughter]
[Mahtab] But just very quickly to say something about what you said, Dan, was sometimes you can get that same feedback from the same group that you're with. So getting a totally fresh perspective, even if it does not gel with your own thinking, I think is very valuable. But at the end of the day, you have to decide am I taking it or leaving it, and that decision rests entirely with you. So you just stay true to your vision. No matter who gives you feedback.
[Dan] Yeah, well and…
[Howard] One of… Sorry. One of the things that Brandon said, the ability to say… As a critiquer, the ability to say, for instance, it feels like in this scene you are presenting me with a red herring and you want me to feel doubt about this and you want me to become convinced of this. If that's the case, you need to punch this bit up more and punch that bit down a little bit in order to adjust the balance. But if this isn't meant for a red herring, whatever, then ignore everything that I said. I will give feedback like that to Bob all the time, because I don't know where Bob's book is going. But I will tell him this is my response and this is where I think maybe your levels need to be set. Bob will smile and nod, and I have no idea if he's going to take my advice or not. But he knows what to do with it.
 
[Dan] So, as a final word, I suppose more than anything else, I just want to give you as a writer permission to get prescriptive feedback, to take suggestions from other people. Don't feel like we have told you you're not allowed to. I do believe that at the end of the day, you know how to fix your story better than anybody else. But that doesn't mean that someone is not going to come along with a brilliant idea that will solve your problems for you. That does happen, and absolutely be open to those experiences.
 
[Dan] So, let's end with some homework from Howard.
[Howard] Okay. Bear with me.
[Laughter]
[Howard] You're going to want to do this with a friend. Okay? Step one. Each of you prepare a quick written critique of a movie. Maybe one… I mean, they can be different movies, but something that you've watched and has problems that you're willing to critique. Now. Share your critiques with each other, swap them. Now you take the critique that your friend gave of this movie… Oh, and when you wrote the critiques, you anonymized it, you didn't say like character name, you just say like protagonist or antagonist. Anyway. So you get this feedback from this movie. Now. File as many of the serial numbers off as you can. Set it down next to your manuscript and treat this bit of random, utterly random, feedback as if it was aimed at your manuscript. Why are you doing this? So that you can see what absolute nonsense looks like with regard to your manuscript AND so that you can have the broken watch is right twice a day experience of "Oh, my gosh. That thing that you said about the phantom menace applies to my book."
[Laughter]
[Howard] Oh, no. It may seem really weird, but by doing this, what you're going to do is refine your filters for the sort of feedback you receive and it's going to knock you out of the box and maybe make some of your writing better.
[Dan] I really like this homework. I think it is a cool idea to teach you how to sort through the value of a bunch of feedback. So, cool. Anyway, that's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening. This is Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses, now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 14.38: Volunteer Opportunities for Writers with Jared Quan

Sep. 25th, 2019 01:05 pm
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Writing Excuses 14.38: Volunteer Opportunities for Writers with Jared Quan
 
 
Key points: What do writers volunteer to do? All kinds of things! Leaders, treasurers, secretaries, teachers. Conventions, writing groups, organizations, fanzines, everybody needs volunteers, and you may be just the right person. To help getting resources and putting skills to use. Institutional memory, historians! Reading slush. Be a zero first -- come in, help maintain the status quo and understand it, then help make positive changes. Most writers don't need a volunteer intern. What do you get out of volunteering? First, be excited enough about it that you are willing to volunteer. Second, don't go in looking for exposure or a chance to meet your heroes. Do go in to learn about other people's problems, and ways to help solve them. Interns want to advance their career, volunteers want to change the world. Volunteering in science fiction/fantasy fandom -- if Isaac Asimov can help staple fanzines, you can too. 
 
[Mary Robinette] Season 14, Episode 38.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Volunteer Opportunities for Writers with Jared Quan.
[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry. 
[Howard] And I want to volunteer.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Dan] I'm Dan. 
[Howard] I'm kidding.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] That's your best one in a while, Howard. Nice job. We're live at LTUE science fiction convention.
[Whoo! Applause]
[Brandon] We have special guest star Jared Quan. Jared, tell us a little bit about yourself.
[Jared] For sure. So, I'm currently a volunteer on five nonprofit boards. I work four jobs. I have five children, one of which has been in a heart transplant for about a year now.
 
[Brandon] You offered this opportunity to us to talk about volunteering, which is not something we've ever even approached on the podcast. So, I'm really excited for this. So I just want to say, like, "Writers volunteering? You have writers volunteering for you? What do they do?"
[Jared] They do just about everything. Thankfully. Actually, every convention, every writing group, every small or large writing group needs volunteers in order to succeed. So, writers we have fulfilling roles from leadership capacities to treasurer to teaching classes. Depending on what's needed at the time.
[Brandon] Awesome. How do writers find these opportunities? How do you find these writers?
[Jared] Well, writers often times hide themselves away in small basements…
[Laughter]
[Jared] So we go through the streets, beating wild gongs, and have them come out of their free will. Oh, we post opportunities. We put them online. We have them come out to our groups. We let them know what opportunities are available. Writers, often times, very curious about things, will occasionally volunteer themselves out. Very hesitantly…
[Mary Robinette] I'm just going to_what he's saying, that everybody… Every organization needs volunteers. Like, I am… I do a lot of volunteer stuff effectively with Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. So, at the time of this recording, I am currently running unopposed for the president of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Which means, by the time you're listening to this, I will likely have been a year into volunteering for this organization. Aside from two employees, everything that SFWA does is volunteer run.
[Dan] A lot of people ask, because Utah has so many writers, so many best-selling writers, such a massive and successful writing community. My answer is always that it is people like Jared. It is the people who are organizing all of these fellowships and writing conventions, and all of the support groups. It's the volunteers who are forming that very supportive community that helps create all of these writers and give them the tools that they need to succeed.
 
[Mary Robinette] Wait a minute. You said five boards?
[Jared] Yes.
[Chuckles]
[Jared] Yes. Five boards. All with the blessing of my wife, thankfully. So I'm on the Cultural Arts Society of West Jordan, which is the West Jordan Arts Council. I serve with the South Jordan Arts Council, the Eagle Mountain Arts Alliance, the League of Utah Writers, and Big World Network. So I'm very diversified on my opportunities. Now, I used to volunteer on other boards, like the Association of IT Professionals, as well as some other city boards. But five tended to be my limit.
[Laughter]
[Jared] It might be a little different for everybody else. I don't recommend that everybody rush out and try to get on to five boards. Try one out first. See how that goes. Then see if you can expand from there.
 
[Brandon] So, on average, like, I don't know if there is an average, but like what is some examples of some of the things you do on some of these boards? Talk a little bit about the challenges that these boards have.
[Jared] For sure. When it came to the League of Utah Writers, I was a two-time president. In its 83 year history, the constitution would allow for a president to serve one term, be a president-elect president, and then they move to past president. I was very fortunate, the board had voted to amend the constitution to allow me to be the president for a second year in a row in its 83 year history. So, I was very honored to have that. But then it was because I was leading over the group of volunteers, and trying to figure out the best way to utilize their resources and help them both find the resources they were looking for and put their best skills to use. There's other instances, where, with the Eagle Mountain Arts Alliance, where I'm on their grants and fundraising board, where I have to go out there and try and help get the funding for the arts to be successful, which can be very difficult. Getting authors, we often refer that to like herding a bunch of chickens. That same thing is exactly true when it comes to getting them to volunteer for things. We have many very dedicated, hard-working volunteers, and many that want to be dedicated, hard-working volunteers, but most of the time, they try hard. We really appreciate them, regardless.
 
[Brandon] Mary Robinette, you have served for SFWA before. You were the treasurer, I think?
[Mary Robinette] No, god, no.
[Chuckles]
[Brandon] You were something else.
[Mary Robinette] Secretary.
[Brandon] Secretary. That's what it was.
[Mary Robinette] And vice president.
[Brandon] What did you do? Like, what were some examples of things that you participated in?
[Mary Robinette] So, I was the secretary, and then the vice president. My role, as the secretary, was to make sure that communications went out to the members in a timely fashion, and then to take minutes. We have since usually, I believe that the current board actually has someone else to take minutes. So they don't rely on a secretary who can type fast. Which, weirdly, for a group of writers, is actually difficult to find sometimes. Then, as the vice president, I supported the presidential… The president's initiatives. So that's involving helping set policy. Then, I also did volunteer coordination. Which, at the time, with SFWA, was paired with the vice president. But the reason that it was paired with the vice president was that originally the vice president was someone who enjoyed doing volunteer coordination. So then that got linked. I also enjoyed doing volunteer coordination. But subsequent vice presidents have not, so there is a separate volunteer coordinator. I think that's one thing that you should know when you go to volunteer for someone, is that you should know what it is that you enjoy doing. The other thing that I say is also to look at things that you want to improve on, because this gives you a great opportunity to practice things and do some good.
 
[Howard] One of the things that I've noticed with a lot of volunteer organizations with which I've interacted mostly from the outside is the absence of a strong institutional memory. That, from year-to-year, things will change. Something got done really well one year, and then it's like they forgot how to do it all together. The thought that I had, and I'm running this past you, I'm vetting this idea with you, writers who want to volunteer might consider volunteering as historians. Creating institutional memory, perhaps, by documenting things that are working and things that are not.
[Brandon] Mary?
[Mary Robinette] I have so much to say about this. So, the thing is that most of the time actually people are documenting these things. That's what the minutes are. The problem is training incoming board members to actually read those minutes and to look at the institutional history. So, a lot of boards solve this problem by having an executive director who does not turnover. That is a paid position. SFWA has an executive director, who's Kate Baker. Then, the associate Executive Director, Terra LeMay. They are the only two employees. But they exist predominantly to provide institutional memory. We also have an operations policy and procedure manual for exactly that thing that you're talking about. But you do have to train incoming board members to read those.
[Jared] Exactly. That's part of the problem. I mean, people really want to jump in there and volunteer. Sometimes you train them really well, but they're just not very good natural leaders. Sometimes they're just tremendous leaders. But when it comes to volunteering, I think the most interesting question for people is typically like, "Why would I volunteer? Why would I give up gobs of my writing time to go out and volunteer?" It's not a completely unrewarding piece when it comes to volunteering. As it turns out, it's very rewarding. Often times, it gives you access to tons of resources and opportunities that you would never have had the opportunity for hedge you not volunteered.
 
[Brandon] Let's go ahead and stop for our book of the week, which is Changing Wax.
[Jared] Yes. Changing Wax, it's my favorite book. It's a… Kind of like an homage to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. It's a world ruled by dark and light, dictated by a book of magic. The book's become so powerful, it lets the leaders of those two factions know exactly who's going to kill them, who's going to end their reign. So it's a story about how sometimes you meet your destiny on the road to escape it, as well as a story of unlikely heroes pursuing it.
 
[Brandon] Awesome. So, I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention while we're at a science fiction convention that one of the great ways for writers and fans to volunteer is to get involved in your local science fiction convention. Most conventions, like LTUE, are fan run, fan created. They need tons of volunteers. These conventions provide avenues for aspiring writers to meet other writers, to listen to panels, and things like this. I mean, it's not the only thing that cons do, they do a ton of things. But, me personally, my entire career was helped greatly by the people who were willing to volunteer and run conventions. Something I have a lot of experience with was also volunteering on a science fiction fanzine. The local fanzine at my university… Although we wouldn't call it a fanzine, we called it semi-pro-zine, because we did pay a few cents…
[Chuckles]
[Brandon] But, really, it was the same sort of thing, where it was, "Let's gather as a community. Let's try and help other writers by giving them feedback. Let's create something. Let's see what it's like to publish." I tell you, if you're an aspiring writer, going for a little while and sitting and reading slush and learning how a zine works. Even a semi-pro or very small magazine. It will help you understand the business and the industry so much. It's one of the most foundational things in me becoming a professional writer, was me seeing what other aspiring writers were writing.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, I want to talk to people who are thinking… Listening to this going, "Oh, I think I may want to start volunteering for something. That's a great idea." I'm going to talk about something that Chris Hadfield says in his book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. He talked about becoming an astronaut, and that his goal, the thing he wanted, was to be exceptional. That, if you're an astronaut, that's kind of one of the drives. But that what he actually learned was that he needed, when he came into a new situation, to aim to be a zero. That sounds offputting at first. But what he meant was that you come in, the situation is stable. You can either be a positive force or a negative force, or you can be neutral and you can help maintain status quo. When you first come into a new situation, you don't actually know exactly what the status quo is. So you can try to make changes that are actually making things worse. Or you can just try to help maintain the status quo until you understand it, and then you can aim to be a force for positive change. So, one of the things that I recommend when people come in… Usually people come in and they're like, "I want to change everything. I want to shake up the system." It's like, "Come in. Just work with the system for a little bit." Figure out why things are that way before you start diving in and trying to change things. Just aim to be a zero for a little bit.
[Jared] Absolutely. I think that's one of the best things you can do, is get into the… To see… Because sometimes from the outside you have an assumption of why they don't have a resource or why they're not doing something so well. But when you get in there and volunteer, you can kind of get to see it firsthand and go, "Oh, I get it. The reason they don't have that is because it costs $10,000 and nobody has that right now." It's being able to see those things and then apply the right type of advice or work towards something so that you can help them accomplish it.
 
[Brandon] So, kind of along these lines, this is an odd one to say. I get a lot of people asking me if I need a volunteer intern.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] I don't know if that's happened to you guys on the panel, but I get this a lot. I understand this instinct. You're an aspiring professional writer. Often times, in many fields, they'll say, "Well, go intern," or things like this and whatnot. The problem is I don't need interns. I'm sitting by myself, writing my books. The things I could use you for as slave labor will not be helpful for you in your publishing. In fact, it would be irresponsible of me to take you on as an intern and have you do that because, as an intern, I should be teaching you. In fact, many cities and states have laws on what you can have an intern do and how much time they should be spent in learning. I hire people to do those things for me, rather than just using the free intern labor. So I feel really bad. People often ask if they can do this. I do know that a lot of publishers take interns. So you could try that. But generally, asking writers if you can intern for them is not going to be very fruitful.
 
[Howard] One of the things that you said earlier, Jared, the… You asked the question, "What am I going to get out of this?" My response, when we're talking about volunteering, is that the first answer needs to be I need to not feel like I'm getting anything out of it. I need to be excited enough to do this that I'm willing to volunteer. The second piece, and I feel like this is pretty critical. If there's an opportunity for exposure, or an opportunity to meet my heroes who are doing whatever, I need to never let that be the driving force. Because it's probably going to incorrectly shape the way I behave. So what is it that I'm really getting out of it? The answer that I would give is I am going to learn the shape of other people's problems, and then find ways to solve them.
[Jared] Absolutely. That's the best answer you can give. There's… As a conference organizer, having worked with volunteers across different organizations, nothing drives you more nuts than somebody who comes in just wanting to talk about themselves, wanting to brag about themselves, wanting to like insert themselves next to like their hero. I get it. I mean, I have heroes that I've… Could have had the opportunity, had I manipulated a situation, to be next to. But it's a byproduct. A reward is just a byproduct. It's not just filling your… You will be rewarded, but it's not going out there just because you're going to be rewarded. That's just something that naturally comes, eventually.
[Mary Robinette] Just to draw a line under that. I think one of the big differences between an intern… With puppetry, we do intern all the time. Because there's a direct exchange there. But the big difference between an intern and a volunteer, or even between an effective volunteer and an ineffective volunteer, is that volunteers do come in because they want to change the world. Even if it's just a small microcosm. An intern is trying to advance their career. Someone who's coming into a volunteer position to try to advance themselves is coming into it for the wrong reason. It's not that you can't also have that as a byproduct. But it can't be the driving force, because your priorities at that point become the wrong priorities.
 
[Brandon] I think I'll just close this out with one of my favorite stories I've ever heard about volunteering in sci-fi fantasy fandom. It was when Dan and I were at one of our very first conventions we were going to as aspiring writers. One of the World Fantasy conventions. I can't remember which one it was at, but we were sitting in the audience listening. They were talking, the topic became volunteering at conventions and volunteering on fanzines. One of the authors there shared a story, where when they were a bit younger, they somewhat chagrinedly said, "You know, I got my very first professional sale. I sold to one of the magazines. I suddenly thought I've made it. I am now a pro. I have crossed the lane, so to speak. Their friends at the con are like, 'Hey, do you want to come help us put the fanzine together?'" They said, "Well, you know, I'm a pro now. So I don't think I need to be involved in this anymore." At that moment, Isaac Asimov's head poked out of one of the rooms and said, "Hey, we're out of page 17. Can you send some more down?" This author felt like an utter fool. Our entire community is advanced by people volunteering and pitching in and together making science fiction fantasy fandom happened. So I want to say thank you to everyone who's here at the convention, and particularly those who have volunteered. Give yourselves a round of applause.
[Whoo! Applause]
[Brandon] In some ways, you're volunteering here by being our studio audience for us on our podcast.
[Laughter]
 
[Brandon] Jared, I want to say thank you very much for coming on. Do you have a writing prompt for us?
[Jared] Yes. Absolutely. The writing prompt, my wife Lisa would be remiss if I didn't kind of give this as a prompt, is to actually go out and do a little bit of research on the writing organizations or groups that are in your area, and what activities or events they have to see where there might be a volunteer opportunity.
[Brandon] That is the perfect writing prompt to have at the end of this podcast. So, thank you very much. You're out of excuses, now go write.
[Mary Robinette] Or volunteer.
[Brandon] Or volunteer.
 
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Writing Excuses 13.38: How to Find and Use Alpha Readers

Sep. 26th, 2018 01:29 pm
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Writing Excuses 13.38: How to Find and Use Alpha Readers

 
 

Key points: Alpha and beta readers? Alpha readers, you trust to read a rough draft, to be honest and give you helpful feedback. Beta readers read a more polished version and you get their feedback. Or, alpha readers are industry professionals, while beta readers are test audience. Alpha readers are agents and writing groups. "You'll have your own definitions." Alpha readers understand the form. Where do you get them? Writing conferences. Book clubs. Face-to-face or online critiques? For alpha readers, back-and-forth, face-to-face is better. Beta readers, online feedback is okay. Don't forget targeted experts! Be aware that bad critiquing can ruin books! To get the right feedback? Make sure you and the other person can argue and articulate different opinions and understand what the other person is saying. Send it to the right people. Ask your readers to just give you their reaction, you will diagnose the problem. Look for people whose strengths complement your weaknesses. Use tiered questions, get their reaction, then drill down for specifics. Put pins in the good parts! Use targeted beta readers, who are as close to the character's experience as possible.
 
( Who wants to read this? )
[Valynne] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Valynne] I'm Valynne.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] I'm… Um… I haven't actually finished today's chapter yet.
[Chuckles]
 
 
[Brandon] Valynne, you were going to define for us alpha, beta readers, that sort of thing.
[Valynne] I think sometimes people call them… Use that… Use alpha beta interchangeably. To me, on alpha reader is generally maybe one person whom you trust to read what you're writing. It's not polished, it's just rough draft. You throw it at them, they tell you what they like. You trust them to be honest and trust that they will give you feedback that is helpful. Beta readers, I would say, I like… I consider a beta reader someone… It's at the… Your manuscript is at the stage where you've gone through, you've done some edits, you've polished it a little bit more, and then you're sending it to beta readers to get their feedback. These people can be other writers in a critique group, it can be family members, it can be friends. I think it's good to have someone who is going to give you honest feedback and good feedback such as other writers in a critique group.
[Brandon] We'll talk about how to get that out of them.
[Chuckles]
[Valynne] Then, also, have a cheerleader. Someone who just loves everything you write. I think writing can be hard, so it's nice just to have someone who tells you what things they absolutely love about your writing.
[Brandon] So, today we'll talk about kind of alpha and beta readers. Because you'll have your own definitions, listeners. I have a starker line between them than Valynne. Alpha readers are industry professionals. Beta readers are test audience. For me. So, for me, if you are my agent, you're an alpha reader. You are reading a book before it's done to give me feedback. A beta reader is, you probably aren't an industry professional, you're a fan, you read the book to just give a reader response when it's in a close to finished form.
[Dan] That's kind of how I split them up as well. Because the two groups give very different kinds of feedback. There are people that I use as beta readers that I know if I send them my first draft, all the advice and all the feedback they give me is going to be weird, and often going to be wrong. Because they don't know how to read a first draft. They will identify big problems that I know are big problems and they will start suggesting solutions. That's not what I want. Instead, I send it to my writing group and to my agent.
 

[Brandon] So, let me ask you guys this. Where do you get your alpha and beta readers?
[Valynne] I think that one of the best ways to find critique groups, for example, is to go to writing conferences. Any… You're already among people who write and a lot of times are people looking for critique groups. You can do critique groups online. You don't necessarily have to live close to each other. So, I think that's one of the nice places to find someone to…
[Brandon] So, let me ask you this. Do you usually use… Do you do in face critiques and Internet critiques, or do you do only Internet critiques? How's it for you?
[Valynne] When I first started writing, I used to do a critique group once a month. We would bring pages, we would sit… Everyone would come to the critique group with those pages read, and we would talk about… Give… Go person by person, give the feedback. These days, it's really hard to find the time to do those kinds of critiques, so we are still critiquing each other's work, but sometimes it's more a full draft of something that's about to go to print or something like that. So a lot of it is more online now.
[Brandon] Dan, where do you find them, and is it in person, online for you?
[Dan] My group right now is… My alpha readers are my agent, who I found by querying an agent. Then 2 other authors that I have just met at writing conventions over the years. Wendy Tolliver and Matt Kirby, who are both fantastic YA authors. We got together and formed a writing group. So that was just kind of networking interactions at conventions. A lot of… Like what Valynne's talking about. That's all in-person stuff. My beta readers, I've got a group of about 6 to 8 people that I will send every draft to once I think it's ready for public consumption. That's all online, and they will give me feedback online. I will also, for every book, have a group of kind of targeted experts that I feel like I need specific advice from. That changes book to book, but I think I can talk about that later.
[Brandon] We'll talk about that after the break.
[Howard] For me, alpha is in person, and beta can be in person but functions fine online, asynchronously. Alpha… And that, for me, that's the distinction. It's got to be completely synchronous communication with alpha because there's so much back and forth. When I'm critiquing Bob Defendi's work, often what I am telling him is I think this is what you are trying to accomplish with this chapter. I get the sense that that is what this chapter is for. I feel like it didn't do that job because of this section right here, it's kind of confused me. Bob can then respond and say, "Oh. Well, wow, it's really weird that you got that idea."
[Laughter]
[Howard] And off he goes. That kind of feedback we have to go back and forth, because when Bob brings it, he knows there are things in here that are broken and I need my alpha readers to identify them, and the alpha reader… Brandon, as you said, industry professional alpha reader needs to be somebody who understands the form well enough to be able to say, "I know what this chapter should be trying to do because of the form that I know that we're working within."
 
[Dan] Now, this, I think is dangerous. All of us use industry professionals for alpha readers because we are industry professionals at this point, and it is invaluable. Over the years, I have come to appreciate how important it is to have that back and forth conversation, when I can say, "Okay, this character doesn't work at all and I think it's for these reasons. What do you think?" And then the person, the author, will say, "Well, actually, this is what I intended." Those are very important. But I remember when we, Brandon and I, had our writing group in college. We were trying to do that and we didn't know what we were talking about, and we ended up ruining some books.
[Brandon] Yes.
[Dan] Which I think is maybe just inevitable and part of the learning process, but it is something to watch out for.
[Brandon] It's way more dangerous for discovery writers, I've found, than for outliners. My books didn't get ruined, but I ruined books. Because I said, "Try this." Then they did, and it was the wrong thing entirely. Let me say where I've got mine, and then I want to dig into this question. My alpha readers are still my writing group, the same group that I started with Dan in college, but then he moved away.
[Dan] Ha Ha! I became too big for you. [Chuckles]
[Brandon] We approached Eric James Stone, and they still meet in my house every week in person. In person's really important for me. I have about 70 beta readers. We'll use a group of between 20 and 50 for each book. We do an online Google spreadsheet that goes… That is chapter by chapter with questions for them to fill in. The beta read for Oathbringer ended up being 600,000 words of comments.
[Howard] Comments? Ha ha. Yep.
[Brandon] Fortunately I didn't have to sort through them. I have people that sorted through and pulled out the important ones.
[Dan] I don't have people, so my process is a lot simpler.
 

[Brandon] Let me ask, this one's really important. That gets us into, and you guys are going to appreciate this. How do you get the right feedback from a critique group or from alpha beta readers? How do you get them to give you what you need and not ruin your book?
[Howard] One of the things that I've learned through experience just in talking with people is that I can tell if somebody's going to be a worthwhile critique if that person and I can argue about a book that we have both read and articulate different opinions on the book and understand where each other is coming from, even though we had different responses to it. It's one thing, "Oh, yeah, I loved this book," and then it's just how much we loved this book. But if we are each picking at a different aspect of the book… You know, if you sit down with your friends and have a book club with them where you are reading books together and allowing yourselves to critique the books, you will find alpha and beta readers in that crowd, I think, pretty quickly.
[Dan] When I… One of the things that I try to do is make sure that I am sending it to the right people. So, for example, when I write a horror novel, I will make sure one of my beta readers is Steve Diamond, because he knows that genre inside and out. So I know that the comments I'm getting from him are going to be the kind of comments I'm looking for. Where is when I write like my cyberpunk stuff, I don't usually send it to him, I'll send it to somebody else. So that's kind of an early level just filtering system. Beyond that, I always tell my beta readers, not my alpha readers, just to give me their reaction. Don't try to fix this problem, just point it out to me. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, and why. Then let me… You tell me the symptoms and I will diagnose.
[Valynne] The other thing that I like to do is that I am very aware of my weaknesses as a writer. So I like to give it to people whose strengths are opposite of what mine are. I think that is really helpful for me because I know there are things I just miss. If it were up to me, I would write a book that was straight dialogue all the way through. I love writing dialogue, and half the time, my editor is saying, "Where are these people standing? What are they doing?"
[Chuckles]
[Valynne] "What are they wearing?"
[Laughter]
[Valynne] I'm just not good with details like that. So I think it's good to… You know, other people have other strengths. Ultimately, we want to be strong in all the areas, but we still have our own strengths, and so I have someone who is really good at pacing, I have someone who is really good with character development, and that's… If I'm struggling with a particular thing in a book, that's how I send it out to a beta reader.
[Dan] Now, with… Very quickly, when we have those face-to-face conversations with alpha readers, I use Wendy and Matt, and I will sit down and I will ask them tiered questions. "I'm not very happy with this scene. Do you like it?" I won't tell them why I'm not happy. Get their reaction first. Then they'll say, "Oh, yeah. There's something wrong with that." I'll say, "Well, I think it's this. What do you think?" Just kind of get deeper with every question. So that I'm not leading them on, but I can drill in specifically.
[Brandon] We've found… It's very useful to get general reactions from a group, and then ask specific questions. That's a big difference between alpha and beta readers, to me, is alpha readers I can go and say, "All right. This is obviously broken. Why do you think it's broken?" Beta readers, I would never do that.
 

[Brandon] We have to stop for our book of the week. Howard, you're going to tell us about Death by Cliché.
[Howard] Yes. Actually, Death by Cliché 2, Wrath of Con. That's spelled c-o-n. Our hero is trapped in a role-playing game. Like in the game universe, not stuck at the table on Thanksgiving. Trapped in the game universe, and the players, he discovers, are at a convention. But that's… What convention they're at is actually irrelevant, what's relevant is the adventure that's happening in the story, and the horrors of what happens when someone has an artifact that lets them control the weather.
[Brandon] Can I pick up book 2 and read it?
[Howard] Yeah, you can pick up book 2 and read it now. It's… I'm currently offer reading, I think, book 5 for Bob.
[Dan] Do you need to have read book 1?
[Howard] You don't need… Oh, sorry, that's the question. You don't need to read book 1. You don't need to read book 1. It reads very nicely as a comedic fantasy novel.
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Somewhere, Bob is shouting, "Yes, you have to read book 1!"
[Howard] But you should buy book 1.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Because supporting living authors.
 

[Howard] One of the things that I wanted to bring up about that whole series from Bob is that our writing group has changed over time as he's written these. What we found is that Sandra is the one he's going to for character motivation and often sensitivity reader issues, and I'm the one he's going to for wordsmithing, joke-smithing, the setups of the funny bits. The most critical piece that we've discovered as we've critiqued is that when there are things that we love, we put smiley faces in the manuscript because… Not just because Bob needs to be told, "Yay. You're a good writer. See, this part didn't suck."
[Chuckles]
[Howard] But because when you are editing, it's easy to lose track of the things that made a chapter wonderful. We want to put pins in those so that they don't get broken during the edit process. That was long, sorry.
[Brandon] That's all right. Bob's a good friend of a lot of us here. We like him. He's funny and his books are funny. So you should all go read them.
 

[Brandon] You mentioned the term sensitivity reader, which Dan mentioned to me has been… kind of people have been shifting away from that.
[Dan] So, sensitivity reader is a phrase that became popular because as we started focusing more and more on diversity, and I know that Valynne wants to talk about this, so let me just say very quickly. We started… The idea is, if you're going to write about say a black person and you are not black, you are going to want to have someone who is read it so they can make sure that you are presenting their culture and their background correctly. However, we're not… Kind of the nomenclature is moving away from sensitivity to targeted beta reader, because really, it's just the same thing as I suck at writing cops, so whenever I write about police, I have two friends who are police officers or family of police officers that I give it to them and say, "Make sure that I got this right." It's the same thing in dealing with another culture or another ethnicity or another religion or whatever. So, just using one blanket term for all of them is a little more common now.
[Valynne] I think that the word targeted is very important because I think especially when were talking about writing diverse characters, we often tend to approach it like it's a paint-by-numbers, which it's not. It's not I know a Japanese person, I'm writing a Japanese character, so this Japanese person I know can represent the entire Japanese culture and everyone in it. For example, I was talking to Brendan's sister-in-law this morning and explaining that I am fourth-generation Japanese. What that means is that I do not speak Japanese. I am pure Japanese, but I do not speak Japanese. My experience is vastly different than someone who is first-generation Japanese whose second language is English. So, targeted means that when you're writing a character, try to find beta readers that are as close to that character's experience as you can get. Because you need to understand like the generation of the character, the geographical location of the character, and how that affects the character. There are so many things that make a huge difference. So the more accurately you can target that to beta readers, the better chance you have of not offending anyone and just presenting it accurately and with respect.
[Howard] At this point, fair listener, you probably recall several episodes we've done this year under the general heading of What Writers Get Wrong About, with that whole idea that as a writer, unless you have a subject matter expert, whether that's an astronaut or a police officer or a third-generation Taiwanese person, you are likely to get things wrong unless you have offer readers in that demographic who can help you get things right.
[Dan] Now I want… What Valynne said about being very specific is very important. I recently had a really interesting experience. I went down to Guadalajara for the book fair there, because I've got, among other things, one of my book series is about a Mexican-American hacker. The Bluescreen series. I used to live in Mexico. I have a lot of friends in Mexico, and importantly to this story, I used my Mexican friends as might targeted beta readers. They are not Mexican-American, they are Mexican. So the character ended up feeling very authentically Mexican, and the books have been huge in Mexico. The Mexican-Americans, like the Latino population here in the US, haven't really picked them up because it doesn't ring true to them. It rings true to Mexico, because that's who I used to make sure I got it right. So specificity is important.
 
 
[Brandon] All right. Let's go ahead and do our homework which Valynne is going to give us. You wanted someone to do this. Right?
[Valynne] Homework is to take something that you have already written. Identify something within your manuscript that you can send to a targeted beta reader for.
[Brandon] And then do it.
[Howard] And then send it to them.
[Brandon] All right. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 5.33: Alpha Readers

Apr. 23rd, 2011 12:02 pm
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses 5.33: Alpha Readers

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/04/17/writing-excuses-5-33-alpha-readers/

Key Points: Don't look for a secret backdoor. Do look for and cultivate alpha readers. Alpha readers can read your book while still in draft, and encourage you to make it better. Beta readers, on the other hand, can read your completed work and help you polish it. Alphas should help you write YOUR book, not the book they would have written. Alpha readers need to give you the kind of feedback that is useful for you. Encouragement, ripping, whatever it takes. Beware the proofreader! Fine as beta or gamma, but alpha readers need to take a broader view. You find alpha readers through a process, not magic -- like good friends.
( Who's your friend? )
[Brandon] Okay. I'm going to do our writing prompt. If you didn't hear me coughing furiously after Jordo muted my mike, I have a cold still. So I'm going to give you the writing prompt of people who get possessed, catch colds. That's why we catch colds, is any time you have a cold, you're possessed. Go from there.
[Howard] Gesundheit.
[Jordo] [inaudible -- Means all new things?]
[Brandon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
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Writing Excuses 5.20: More Dialogue Exercises

Mar. 1st, 2011 01:01 pm
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses 5.20: More Dialogue Exercises

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2011/01/16/writing-excuses-5-20-more-dialog-exercises/

Key Points: Make sure characters have different personalities. A little banter goes a long way. Practice and good writing group comments can help. Think about how to evoke character and make it interesting. Beware narrative and description forced into dialogue. Keep the dialogue natural. Short, the way most people talk. Trust your readers to make connections, to put things together and figure out what is going on and why.
( exercises by the listeners )
[Brandon] I'm going to read those. We'll just skip the writing prompt. I'm just going to end this by reading some Saberhagen. All right?
[Dan] OK. Nice.
[Brandon] Hear me, for I am Ardneh. Ardneh who rides the elephant, who wields the lightning, who rends fortifications as the rushing passage of time consumes cheap cloth. You slay me in this avatar, but I live on in other human beings. I am Ardneh, and in the end, I will slay thee, and thou wilt not live on.
Hear me, Ekuman. Neither by day nor by night will I slay thee. Neither with the blade nor with the bow... neither by the edge of the hand nor with the fist... neither with the wet nor with the dry.

The next line is him dying.
[Dan] Sweet. Talk about promises to the reader.
[Brandon] Yeah. There we are. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.
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Writing Excuses Season Three Episode Five: How to Take Criticism

Feb. 15th, 2011 09:59 pm
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses Season Three Episode Five: How to Take Criticism

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/06/28/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-5-how-to-take-criticism/

Key points: Insults are not criticism. Don't defend your work. You don't have to believe or accept reactions, and you don't have to change your work. But other people do have the right to their reactions. Watch out for the turd in the bowl of oatmeal. Rejection letters are trophies for submitting your work. Sometimes, you just have to give it a try and see.
( All the lonely words... )
[Brandon] Writing prompt. I'm going to go ahead and do this one. Let's have you write a story about a critic who is the hero, instead of the villain. We always want to make the critic the villain. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
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Writing Excuses Season Two Episode Five: Writing Groups

Feb. 5th, 2011 01:46 pm
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Writing Excuses Season Two Episode Five: Writing Groups

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2008/11/10/writing-excuses-season-2-episode-5-writing-groups

Key points: when your thing is being workshopped, shut up. Heisenberg's Law of Writing Groups: whenever you interact with your readers, you are changing their reactions. When you are workshopping someone else's piece: Be descriptive, not prescriptive. Start with good things. Then talk about large issues that would make you put the book down and stop reading. Next talk about big problems. Last, if there's time, touch on the paragraph and sentence level issues. But make sure you let the writer know what they did good and how you reacted. Be willing to discard three out of four suggestions to find the real problems.
( many words )
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