Writing Like You Want to Be Read

One of the hardest things for many writers to grapple with, in my experience, is to shift their mindset from thinking of their book as a creation that expresses their artistic vision to thinking of it as a product that people will want to buy.

Novels: From Creation to Product

For fiction writers, this shift needs to occur after the first good, solid draft, the draft where all the plot points are in place and the characterization worked out — at that point, the writer needs to quit thinking so much of his artistic vision and to think more about the potential reader: what will readers need to get the experience the writer intends? Having a good editor will help an author hone their work so that it provides all the little incentives that a reader needs to keep reading: prose that flows smoothly, free of awkwardness of expression; realistic but well-crafted dialogue; adequate and carefully chosen description, etc. All of these decisions need to balance two questions: "What do I want the reader to experience? What's the best way to produce that experience?"

But the writer must also start thinking about how to find those readers once the book is finished: crafting compelling book descriptions, querying agents, pitching the book to publishers, etc., and generally thinking of a product that needs to be marketed and sold. In other words, the writer needs to start developing a marketing mindset, thinking of the book as a product that must be sold.

Nonfiction Book Proposal

Writers of nonfiction books need to start thinking about their book as a product much earlier in the process, because many nonfiction books find publishers on the strength of a book proposal alone — even before the book has been written. The book proposal is similar in form and intent to a business plan: the writer must describe what they intend to produce and convince the publisher (or perhaps just an agent) that it will be a marketable product. In other words, the author must "sell" the publisher on the idea of the book, before it's even written.

It's impossible to writer a compelling book proposal without the necessary shift from the writing to the marketing mindset. This article by Brian Klems describes the essential elements of a good book proposal, with emphasis on how to make sure you are selling your idea, rather than simply suggesting it. And you do have to "sell" — you must sell yourself as the ideal author for the book you are proposing, sell book as something that a sizeable number of readers will need or want, and sell the publisher on the idea that your book can help them turn a profit.

The USP

If you are writing, or thinking about writing, a nonfiction book for publication, here's a shortcut to developing this marketing mindset. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP) that will make a publisher want to publish your book can be summed up in three basic questions:

• Why you? (What experience, background, and skills make you uniquely equipped not only to write the book, but to help promote it once it's written?)
• Why this book? (Who needs to read this book? How will your book provide benefits not available from other books already in print?)
• Why now? (What makes this book timely? How does this book fill a gap in a publisher's lineup, or in the market more generally?)

Writing a book proposal before you even start writing your book can be an excellent way to start thinking about your target readers, and the benefits you want your book to provide. Even if you intend to self-publish, a book proposal will help you get into a marketing mindset, so that when your book is ready for the world, you can be confident that there will be readers waiting to read it.
 
Taking a book from creative concept to marketable product is a complex task, and involves a lot more than simply sitting down to create in words. While it's easy to get overwhelmed by the demands of marketing (which many writers fear will suck all the fun out of writing), would-be authors need to keep in mind that the whole point of writing for publication is to produce something that readers will want to read. And, unless you intend to self-publish, it also means producing something that publishers will want to publish.

If you'd like some help with this complex task, find a good writer's group. The Dallas/Fort Worth Catholic Writers Group welcomes writers no matter where they are in the process — struggling with a concept? Working to produce a good draft? Polishing, refining, revising? Or querying, publishing, marketing? We meet once a month, on the first Tuesday (details here) and welcome all comers. Our next meeting is Tuesday, September 5. If you have a piece you would like to have critiqued, bring several copies to share.

If you want to make sure you never miss a meeting, contact Nancy Ward  to get on the email list. You can also sign up to receive all blog posts by email. Just fill in the form in the right-hand sidebar.

The Discovery Draft: Permission to make a mess

It's time for our "first Tuesday" meetings — midday at Sacred Heart Books & Gifts in far north Dallas, evening at the University of Dallas in Irving, November 1 at the usual times. Why not bring a sample of something you're working on for peer critique? Don't worry about bringing something that's already polished — you don't need to impress us. In fact, you'll get much more benefit if, instead of bringing a polished draft, you bring a discovery draft.

5 Things to Do Get Out of a Writing Rut

Has your writing gotten stale? Are you having trouble moving ahead with a project you are working on – or wish you were working on? Maybe you need a little help getting out of your rut. Here are some techniques to refresh yourself and your writing.

5 Ways to Get Out of Your Writing Rut

1. Journal. If you’re suffering from writer’s block, it’s probably because of some anxiety or dilemma about what you are writing. Spend some time writing about what you think is causing the problem, and brainstorming ways past the problem. I do this when I’m planning a new scene or trying to bring a character to life – I just write about what I want to achieve, or why I’m having trouble achieving it, and often find that a solution comes to me quickly. This kind of journal writing is low-risk (no one but you will see it), and often frees the mind to explore possible solutions without anxiety. And it gets you writing. Block gone!
2. Read. Sometimes writers just run out of ideas. But ideas aren't something we manufacture out of thin air -- they come from our creative mind applying itself to a given task. One often neglected way to stimulate our creative mind is to feed it some good reading material. Read just for your own entertainment and amusement – a great way to stimulate your writer’s imagination. Or, if you find you are making writing progress, but find your writing flat, clumsy, or uninspired, try reading a book or article on the craft of writing, and use the advice to polish your current work-in-progress. Sometimes we spend so much time writing we forget that great writers are always great readers first.
3. Imitate. Not only is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s also a great way to learn from other writers. Pick something by a writer whose work you admire and try to imitate it as closely as you can. Do you like their fun, punchy style? Try it! Do you admire their moving examples? See if you can come up with some of your own. Maybe you like the way a favorite writer gets right to the point. Try revising something of your own to be similarly direct. Great writers and other artists have honed their skills by deliberate imitation for thousands of years, and you can, too.
4. Ramble. Working smart is better than just working hard. Smart writers remember that creativity often happens when we are not trying to force ourselves to write. So take a ramble – not in your writing but in the great outdoors. Go outside, pick a pleasant path, and just walk at a leisurely pace, enjoying the scenery and letting your thoughts run free. This is my favorite way of getting out of a writing rut. I always return to my keyboard not only refreshed but refocused, as if my unconscious was working on my writing problem while the rest of me was enjoying a pleasant perambulation. Other physical activities, such as crocheting or mowing the lawn, can also allow your mind and your body to un-kink, leaving you refreshed and restored.
5. Sleep. While we’re on the subject of letting our unconscious mind help us out, I’ve got to mention my favorite one, sleeping on it. When I'm having trouble getting my thoughts straight – or coming up with ideas– right before I go to sleep at night, I just remind myself of what I want to tackle in my writing project the next day and, almost always, I wake the next morning with a fresh idea that I can’t wait to get to work on. Sometimes I keep my Kindle tablet beside the bed so that I can jot ideas down before I even get out of bed. In fact, most of my best ideas and solutions to the most tedious problems spring to mind right after a good night’s sleep. I bet it will work for you, too.

As it happens, there will be no meeting of the DFW Catholic Writers Group in May – the fourth Tuesday meets at the University of Dallas have finished with the end of the spring term, and the usual second Tuesday meeting at Half Price Books will not take place this month.

So why not use the extra time to refresh your self? Then come to our next “second Tuesday” meeting, June 14, at Half Price Books and show us what you’ve been working on. We look forward to seeing you then. Here are the details of time and place. We hope to see you there!

If you want to make sure you never miss a meeting, contact Nancy Ward  to get on the email list. You can also sign up to receive all blog posts by email. Just fill in the form in the right-hand sidebar.

What Pet Rescue Saga can teach you about writer's block

Writing can be a lot of fun, but only if you learn
the strategies that will help you meet your goals.

I have a guilty pleasure, and its name is Pet Rescue Saga. I started playing this game on my Kindle several months ago, as a way to give my mind a break from constant writing, planning, and planning to write. I’ve never been one to get addicted to mindless games, but I’ve found this one is a a pleasant way to kill a few minutes while I let my mind spool down to an idle hum.

Seasoned writers will tell you that a little “down time” is necessary from time to time, to let your creative mind work through all the problems encountered while the rational mind was beavering away at your Work-in-Progress. I’ve found it very helpful, when I get stuck or bored or otherwise at an impasse, to take a long, leisurely walk, or get a good night’s sleep, or even play a little Pet Rescue. Often, afterward I find new ideas pop into my head about how to move ahead with my writing project. Not only does the game give me a pleasant break, however; it has also taught me some important things about the writing process.

Having a plan helps

When I first started playing Pet Rescue Saga, I paid little attention to what I was doing. This game is a variation of the tried-and-true “match three” sort, with a few extra twists thrown in. On the face of it, it’s pretty easy and mindless. A lot of people think of writing that way — you know what you want to say, so you just right it. Easy-peasy, right?

Not really. When I started with this “mindless” game, I played mindlessly, using the “poke-poke-poke” method. I gave little thought to the goal of any particular level, and didn’t bother to work out a strategy to meet that goal. Not surprisingly, I didn’t make a lot of progress playing this way, any more than I meet my writing goals by doodling on the keyboard. Doodling has its place — particularly when you’re just trying come up with ideas, but writing by the seat of your pants is not likely to get you very far in the long run. For that you need some kind of plan. You need a strategy for achieving your writing goal and for overcoming any obstacles that may get in your way.

Working around the blocks

You can run into a lot of obstacles if you write without a plan.
But there are strategies for getting around writer's block.

One of the key features in Pet Rescue Saga are the iron blocks that often get in the way. The goal of each level is to “rescue” the little pet avatars by getting them to the bottom of the screen. The iron blocks can make that impossible. They can’t be destroyed by matching, and they can gang up on you and bar any further progress. Writers, of course, know all about being “blocked” — that awful feeling that you know what you want to achieve but you just cannot seem to get there. Perhaps your mind goes blank as soon as your fingers touch the keyboard. Or maybe you reach a point in your writing where every word you write seems to take you off in the wrong direction, and you want to give up in frustration.

When that happens, take heart. Maybe what you need is just better planning and creativity to get around your blocks. Much as I can plan ahead and maneuver around blocks in Pet Rescue, when I'm writing and find myself stuck on a particular section, I often get unstuck if I switch to a different section. Or I might spend some time in my writing journal thinking through what’s hanging me up and why — often just by asking “what’s blocking me here?” I can uncover problems that I hadn’t been consciously aware of. Once they are discovered, it is a lot easier to work around them than it is if I just sit at the keyboard staring at the screen, determined to blast through my writer’s block by sheer determination. That strategy doesn’t work any better  when I’m writing than it does when I’m playing Pet Rescue Saga.

When you get stuck, regain your perspective by remembering what your overall goal is, and looking for new ways to get there.

Using obstacles to your advantage

In Pet Rescue Saga, as you advance you find that the game keeps presenting new kinds of obstacles. One particularly insidious one that cropped up about the time I passed level 100 was something I call “virus balls.” These are prickly-looking, bilious green things that multiply by transforming nearby blocks into more virus balls. When I first encountered them, I nearly despaired. Each turn there were twice as many virus balls, and that many less of the colored blocks I needed to match in order to create a path to freedom for the pets. How can you possibly win in a situation like that?

A little creativity can help you
turn obstacles into advantages.

Instead of giving up, though, I kept trying, and eventually I noticed something encouraging. The virus balls could be destroyed by matching, just as the regular colored blocks could. It took me a while to figure out how this knowledge could help me, but eventually I realized that sometimes it was easier to let them proliferate on one part of the screen, while I worked my rescue magic on another part. Then, when I had wall-to-wall virus balls, I could destroy them all with a single click, clearing the way for the pets to drop to the bottom of the screen and escape.

In this way, I took an apparent obstacle and made it work to my advantage. Believe it or not, writers can do something similar. When you run into apparently insuperable obstacles that keep proliferating and won’t go away no matter how you obsess about them, it might be better to focus on something else for a while. Sometimes just letting go of the obsession allows your creative mind to come up with solutions. In fact, often the “virus balls” that seem to be eating up your writing project may simply be roadblocks thrown up by your own subconscious mind, trying to steer you toward another part of the writing process that needs attention. In Pet Rescue, I sometimes found myself so intent on destroying the virus balls that I forgot that my real goal was to free the pets; once I re-focused on that goal, it became clear to me how the virus balls themselves could help me reach it.

Sometimes, a change is as good as a rest

If your present writing project gets stale,
try taking a little side trip into something different.

There’s a good reason games like Pet Rescue Saga, and its sibling, Candy Crush are so addictive — the game designers seem to have a good idea of how the mind works and what we need to keep us going. One of the things I like best are the little “alternate realities” built into the game. In Pet Rescue Saga, as the player progresses from level to level, his avatar travels along a path through an enchanting, fantastical landscape. Occasionally, though, in one corner of the screen, a little symbol appears which, when clicked, takes you off the path to a little island where you can follow a different path for a while (these island visits are only available for a couple of days, then they disappear). Visiting the island is always an optional side trip, but when the opportunity arises I always take it. I find it refreshing to take a break without actually quitting, and the island path is always short, pleasantly challenging, and loaded with extra rewards. I find that when I return to the main path I am more than ready to plow ahead on the long, winding road of the main game.

About two and a half years ago, I began my first big fiction-writing project, a science fiction novel that I hope will be the first of a long series. As much as I enjoyed writing that story, it was a long slow, slog, and the longer I worked at it, the farther away seemed the day when it will be ready for publication. Finally after three and a half full drafts, I wondered if I would ever finish that book, but I didn’t want to be a quitter. I needed something to refresh me and renew my enthusiasm for this mammoth project, so I decided to put it aside for a while and write some short stories, projects that I could finish in a relatively short period of time. I desperately wanted the satisfaction of seeing a project, even a small one, to completion.

So right now I’ve got the first draft of one short story finished (”literary”), another story plotted and planned (mystery), and as a result I find that I’m getting all sorts of exciting new ideas about my science fiction novel and series. It seems I have discovered for myself what the designers of Pet Rescue Saga already knew — that sometimes it’s better to take a side trip rather than abandon the journey altogether. If you find yourself wearying of a long, involved writing task, try doing what I did — work on something else for a while. Don’t quit writing, but put aside the project that’s gone stale and pick up something that will let you breathe new life and enthusiasm into your writing. You won’t be abandoning the long slog, you’ll just be taking a little time “on the island.”

It’s more fun with friends

Find a writing group, in person or online, for mutual support
and to keep your writing game fresh.

One of the reasons games like Pet Rescue Saga have become so popular is that, in this age of social media, they allow you to connect with your Facebook friends, compare your scores to theirs, and ask them for extra lives when you are stuck on a tough level. Of course, you’re not really with your friends — you are glued to your tablet or smart phone, just as they are to theirs, perhaps in another city or even another country. Still, just knowing that your friends are enjoying the same game makes it a little more fun.

Writing is, of its nature, a solitary business, but sometimes it can be too solitary. I find that, just like Pet Rescue Saga, my writing journey is more enjoyable, and I make more progress, when I get together with writer friends from time to time. I just joined an online writer’s workshop to connect with mystery writers, and this Tuesday, July 14, I’ll be attending the monthly meeting of the Dallas/Fort Worth Catholic Writers Group. All Catholic writers in the area are welcome. Here are the details of time and place. Maybe I'll see you there.

If you want to make sure you never miss a meeting, contact Nancy Ward  to get on the email list. You can also sign up to receive all blog posts by email. Just fill in the form in the right-hand sidebar.

The Truth About Becoming a Writer

For thousands of years, writers who wished to be
great knew they had to revise, revise, revise.

In the two or half years or so since our Catholic writers group was first formed, I’ve seen a lot of would-be writers come and go. All of them had valuable experience and insights they wanted to share with the world through their writing. When I think of those who attended for a while and then drifted away, I wonder if they are still writing, even if they no longer attend our meetings. I hope so. But I suspect some became daunted when they began to realize that writing is a lot more difficult and complicated than they realized, or perhaps not as much fun as they imagined in their initial enthusiasm.

I can understand this. When I first jumped into writing a novel, I knew I had a lot to learn, but I was confident in my basic writing abilities and eager to get started. Now, more than two years later, I’m still learning. In addition to gaining skills in characterization and plotting, though, I have learned (or re-learned) some hard truths along the way about the writing craft, facts that each writer must deal with along the way if he or she is to persevere and succeed. Here are some of them.

Good writers are made, not born.

Brett Favre did not throw a touchdown pass the first time he picked up a football, Thomas Tallis did not make the angels sing the first time he hummed a tune, and Flannery O’Connor spent years revising her work to produce the weird, wonderful tales for which she is famous. They all may (or may not) have been loaded with natural talent, but even they had to devote years to developing their skills. They learned from others with more experience, and heeded expert advice in order to improve, and then they practiced, practiced, practiced. The rest of us must do the same. It requires a lot of humility to become a good writer.

Learning to do anything well takes time.

Probably the most useful thing any of us can learn is this: learning takes time, and it involves a lot of failure. Did Mozart walk away in disgust the first time he hit a clinker? Even Shakespeare was once a schoolboy, learning how to write a decent sentence. Every experienced writer will tell you that your first draft, no matter how carefully planned, is likely to be pretty awful, but that’s what revision is for. The first draft is like that lump of clay the potter throws down on his wheel — it has to be shaped and reshaped before it reaches the perfection the artist envisions. It takes a lot of perseverance to become a good writer.

It's not as easy as you think.

Learning anything new is uncomfortable at first. Learning to write is not as simple as learning to swim, it’s more like learning to build a bridge, or to dance the lead in Swan Lake. A lot of different skills have to be learned and practiced endlessly, a lot of basic principles need to be internalized through that practice. It’s hard at first, but gradually what seemed complicated and unnatural gets into your mind’s “muscle memory,” and you’ll be able to do effortlessly those things that, when you are starting out, must be done deliberately with great care and a lot of painful toil.

You should start small and build your skills, and your confidence.

Remember those projects you made in junior high art or shop class? The soap dish painfully modeled from clay, the wooden plaque you made for Mother’s Day? Your teacher knew that you needed to start with something small, so that you could enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that would spur you to take on bigger challenges. I’ll bet the greatest cabinet maker probably started out learning to plane wood and create a single dove-tailed joint. Many beginning writers would do well to start with small projects — a paragraph or two for the parish newsletter, a well-crafted blog post — before taking on more complicated ones. After two and a half years of working on my first novel, I realize that I probably should have started with a short story. So I’ve put the novel aside for a while, and I’m devoting my creative energies to producing a good short story suitable for publication.

Writing is a process, not an event.

I’ve written about this before on this blog, but I’ll mention it again now, because this is the biggest mistake inexperienced writers make — they quit before they are finished. I used to run into this attitude with my students: “I got it turned in on time, so I’m done.” But my job was to teach them not just to meet deadlines, but to write something worth being read, so I had to walk them through the whole writing process, which often took weeks: first comes invention, when you discover what it is you want to say, and how you want to say it, then drafting and revising, learning to see what is working and what isn’t, what needs to be trimmed out and where you need better details or more explanation, how your ideas can be better organized to make a clearer point, etc. And only after that has been done should you worry about grammar, spelling, punctuation, and all those other nit-picky details  that put the final polish on the piece. If you try to skip parts of the process, it will show.

This is another reason I put my novel-in-progress aside for a while. I could see that I would need to write at least one more complete, fresh draft before I would be ready to revise and polish — the process seemed that it would never end, but I really, really wanted to finish. I need the feeling of finishing the process, but I knew I couldn't rush it — so I set the manuscript aside and started something new (much shorter), and have been using what I learned from novel-writing to draft and polish my short story. In this way, I hope that taking the time and care to produce one well-developed, carefully polished short story will help me make the next draft of the novel my last.

Sure, I could have done what too many people do these days: I could have set some arbitrary, self-imposed deadline for myself and scrambled to meet it, convincing myself that the book was done (in fact, I did that, when I submitted the third draft to a prize competition last year). I could have said my novel was “good enough,” and self-published it on Amazon. But I know it’s not yet ready for prime time. I’ve stepped away from it to be able to return to it with a fresh perspective, to be able to see it with the “fresh eyes” that are so crucial to recognizing any remaining deficiencies.

If you want help getting fresh eyes on  your own Work-In-Progress, or help and encouragement with any part of the writing process — or if you’ve already learned these “hard truths” about writing and can share your experience with others — you should think about joining a local writing  group, such as the Dallas/Fort Worth Catholic Writers Group. Why not join us at our next meeting, Tuesday, June 9? Here are the details of time and place.

If you want to make sure you never miss a meeting, contact Nancy Ward  to get on the email list. You can also sign up to receive all blog posts by email. Just fill in the form in the right-hand sidebar.

Writing: It's a process, not an event

“Writing is a recursive process, not a one-time event.” That’s what I used to tell my college students, back when I was teaching at a state university where “teaching the writing process” was a prescribed core component of  freshman composition classes. I don’t know how many of my students really internalized the truth of that dictum, but it’s an idea that has stood me in good stead in the years since I turned from teaching to writing full-time.

My whole writing process is represented here:
pre-writing, writing, not writing, re-writing.

It’s a Process

Every process has discrete steps or stages of development. For writing, generally, these steps are: pre-writing, writing, re-writing. (I’m actually going to throw in one more step, which I call “not writing.”) Every successful writer goes through all four parts of this process, although some of them may be completed only mentally, not in writing. In this article and subsequent posts, I’d like to introduce the different parts of this process and share a little of my own experience with them. Feel free to throw in your own two cents’ worth, too, in the comments section at the end.

Recursive

Recursive just means there are parts of the process that you’ll find yourself going back over as your work progresses. This is perfectly normal — writing an article or a story is not the same as completing an algebraic equation. The different parts of the process flow into one another, often in unexpected ways. This is because writing is a creative process, drawing on the imagination as well as intellect, and your mind will come up with new ideas as you go along. You need to be prepared to capture and make use of those ideas, even if they occur to you at inconvenient moments. Just jot them down and go back to them at a more convenient time.

My Process So Far

As I prepare to write Draft 4 of my Neverending Story first novel, I’m learning just how “recursive” the process really is. Since finishing Draft 3.5 (that’s my third full draft, with the beginning and end completely re-written), I’ve realized that before going ahead with the next draft, I need to revisit some of the earlier parts of the process.

You see, as I’ve been writing (lo these many months), I’ve been discovering new gaps in my original idea, feeling the need to find new depths in my characters and their interactions, and realizing that the next draft can’t simply spackle over the holes in previous versions. The whole thing needs to be re-imagined, re-organized, and the next draft will need to be freshly written, virtually from scratch.

Some of the gaps and deficiencies of the earlier drafts are due simply to the fact that I’ve never written a novel before, and I’m learning as I go. That’s okay, because I know that writing is a recursive process. Even though I developed my main characters through a careful process, way back at the beginning, I’ve now seen them in action and come to know them better — as well as realizing the ways in which I don’t yet know them well enough. So I’ve been going back and “interviewing” them to find out what really makes them tick and why they do the things they do. Similarly, although my original plot outline was basically sound, I now see that it needs to be revised because, as I’ve gotten to know my characters better, I’ve had to reevaluate when they would do what, and why, so the plot needs a little tweaking as well. It’s all part of the process.

Next time, I’ll talk about the first part of the writing process. In the meantime, if you’re in the Dallas area, why not join us for one of our twice-monthly meetings? Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 27, 7 p.m., at the University of Dallas, and the following one will begin at 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, November 11, at the Half Price Books flagship store in Dallas. Click the “Where & When We Meet” tab at the top of this page for details.