April 25, 2024 · 1:07 PM

My Twenty-Year Journey

Almost exactly twenty years ago, when I was thirteen years old and finishing up middle school, I wrote my first “book.” I put it in scare quotes because I’m sure the word count didn’t even approach 50,000, and also it was a book written by a sheltered thirteen-year-old horse girl with self-esteem issues. So it was by no means a good book. BUT it was the start of me wanting to write. I caught the bug, so to speak.

Incidentally, when I was teaching, I let my creative writing students read the first page of my thirteen-year-old self’s book and then roast me. You know, as a team-building exercise.

I don’t believe in fate or any kind of higher power. Or… I tell myself I don’t. But the fact that it’s been almost exactly twenty years… and I got this fortune out of a fortune cookie right after I started querying Falling for the Protagonist that said “Quiet faith will bring you boundless rewards soon”… Folks, I think my brain really wants to believe in fate.

Anyway, I have a literary agent now. And, folks (again), the impostor syndrome hit immediately. I didn’t even have a chance to let a single happy tear flow gently and poignantly down my cheek before my brain went numb with fear. It was a mental paralysis unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. What if I never wrote another book? What if I wasn’t as good at this as I thought? After all, I’d written many books in the past, and only two of them have been good so far. That’s not exactly a confidence-bolstering number.

A very frazzled mini Bex yelling "I forgot the alphabet! How many R's in hurricane? What even IS a book??"

I’m not saying this to earn what I can only call congratulatory pity, where you’re both patting my back and also going, “You poor dear,” at the same time. I just want to be as honest as possible about my experience. I also caught the teaching bug a long time ago, so I’ve always wanted this blog to be at least somewhat instructive and informative in nature.

Two bugs introducing themselves to each other as the writing bug and teaching bug respectively.
(yes I know “bug” in this idiom refers to a germ or sickness, but that’s not fun to draw)

Fortunately, the happy did eventually make an appearance. And boy is it cool. This is just so cool, guys. I started this blog when I was nineteen years old (still somewhat sheltered and at least partially a horse girl), and my writing journey has been fraught with twists and turns. Though I started writing twenty years ago, I didn’t start thinking seriously about getting published until I was around sixteen. Still, that’s a long time to be trying without success. So in that other post when I said, “Hang therein“, I meant it! This industry is fickle and stressful, but there is no time limit on success.

So how did this happen? I queried over 40 agents, and as I said in the above linked Hang Therein post, the rejections started coming in. This is Normal and Expected, but of course it hurts! Especially since I believed in the idea with all of my Disney-Loving, Happily-Ever-After-Craving heart! But THEN one day in February, my younger son woke me up at like 5:30AM, and as I was doing the sleepy zombie shuffle downstairs to make him a snack, I checked my phone.

Kate Rizzo of the Greene & Heaton agency in London had requested the full manuscript. I was so sleepy that I genuinely had an experience that I’d previously thought only existed in fiction: I questioned if I was dreaming. To be fair, I had had dreams in the past where I’d gotten good news from an agent. (Waking up from those dreams sucks by the way.)

The last time I had an agent, it was because I had interned for her, and I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with ADHD. So when she offered me representation, I said yes immediately (Thanks, impulsivity) even though I didn’t think we’d be a good fit. I had no idea that I could tell her I’d think about it, query other agencies, etc. I do not mean to badmouth my previous agent! I am so grateful to her for giving me and Hellbound a chance, for believing in what we could do, and for doing the best job she could for the book. But we weren’t a good fit. It’s okay to admit to yourself that an agent doesn’t feel like a good fit to you.

Anyway! Kate had requested the full manuscript. This is something not every writer knows, so I will say it plainly: A full request is good news because you are potentially one step closer to the goal, but it is not a guarantee of representation. An agent can and will reject a full MS if they read through it and decide the book isn’t for them after all. Typically, if this rejection happens, you will get more than the boilerplate email template rejection. The agent will give you a critique or summary of their reasoning for rejection.

Anyway, it is very hard to be extremely happy while simultaneously preparing yourself for rejection. Especially when rejections from other agents are still rolling in. I started to ask myself, “What are the chances that all these other people are saying no, but this one person is going to say yes?” (Spoiler Alert: The chances are pretty good. Because, as far as I can tell, that’s often how finding representation works; in a sea of disinterested fish, you find that one fish who is interested.)

I managed to handle the wait, but I don’t think it was easy to live with me at the time.

You already know how this story ends, so I won’t drag it out. Kate read the book, we chatted, she offered me representation, I took some time to think about it (Take that, ADHD!), and then we chatted again. It was during chat number 2 when I accepted representation.

And now I have a literary agent 20 years after I wrote The Dreamcatchers Dream Walkers.

I swear I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but I also have to point out that having representation is not a guarantee of publication. The entire publishing process is a rejection factory.

A factory pumping out the word "NO" over and over again on a conveyor belt.

I understand this well, especially after my journey with Hellbound, and I’m only pointing this out because I don’t want anyone out there to be like, “Congrats on getting published!” I’m not published yet, but I’m certainly not trying to bring the mood down by pointing that out. The mood is great. The mood is moodtastic. Because, regardless of eventual publication (or lack thereof), it is so exciting and wonderful to have someone believe in you and your work. And, hey, if not this book, Kate and I can try another one! I’m looking forward to documenting my progress through this blog. I’m glad I impulsively decided (Hm… okay, you win this one, ADHD) to start it back up even though no one blogs anymore. I like having a record of where I’ve been and what I’m doing writing-wise.

If you’ve read this far, thanks! Wish me luck!

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April 17, 2024 · 1:59 PM

Strong Concepts

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the term “strong concept.” It is at once easily definable and as inscrutable as Big Foot’s daily schedule. What makes an idea a strong concept? I hope everyone will agree with me when I say: Every strong concept is an idea; not every idea is a strong concept.

Lately, due to developments that I can’t talk about yet (but OH BOY get ready!), I have been mentally poring through my seemingly unending list of book ideas and trying to figure out which ones can actually be made into a solid story with a beginning, a middle, and even an end.

Something I’ve come to understand is that I often have ideas for scenes that really rock my socks, but just because I have a good scene in mind does not mean that there is a world outside of that moment. It doesn’t mean the characters in the scene are three-dimensional. One good scene certainly can’t carry an entire book. (Unless, I guess, that book was written by Stephenie Meyer. Even then, if I had been given the chance to edit Twilight, it would have turned out differently.)

For example, I have this one scene in my head. A woman walks into a PI’s office and enlists his help to find the man who is going to kill her… at some point in the future.

The backstory for the scene is in my head, too, so I guess it’s really two scenes. See, the woman has a very specific psychic ability–the first time (and only the first time) she touches someone, she gets a brief glimpse into that person’s future. She can’t control what she sees, how long the vision is, or even how far into the future she sees (could be a day, a year, ten years, or any other length of time). One day, she bumps into someone at a coffee shop and the glimpse she gets of his future is terrifying because she sees herself from his perspective as he’s about to stab her. By the time she recovers from this vision, the guy is long gone, and she only has a vague idea of what he looks like. Even worse, she can’t help but shake the feeling that he’d orchestrated that contact, like he’d known exactly what would happen to her and exactly what she’d see. Hence, hiring a PI to help her find him before he finds her.

But… then what? Who is this woman? Who is the PI? Do I even know how PIs work? I mean… I watched Jessica Jones and read The Dresden Files as well as Nora Roberts’ Hidden Star. So… no. No, I don’t know how PIs work. Do I know how to write a competent mystery? I mean… Hellbound has one. But I can’t say I went about constructing that particular mystery in a structured and logical way. Plus, the building blocks of that one were relatively simple. A mystery for adults? One that has to carry an entire novel and involves psychic phenomena? That might be out of my wheelhouse.

Is this a Strong Concept? Hmm… no. I don’t think so. Could it be? Okay, yes. It certainly could be. With some real work put into the setting, the characters (including the villain!), and the plot, I think it could transform into a Strong Concept. But right now, it’s an idea. And I’m not sure it’s an idea that merits the work it would take to make it into a Strong Concept.

Here are some questions I ask myself when I’m trying to determine if I have an Idea or a Good Idea:

  • Why do I want to tell this story? Is there a message the events and characters I’m toying around with will send? Is there something that a stranger could gain from reading about these people and events? Some sort of anchor in the real world and the Human Condition? Along similar lines…
  • Whom am I telling this story for? (It’s tempting to write an entire book just for myself that speaks to my own needs and grievances and hopes and dreams. But my biggest goal is to write for an audience, so if I find myself saying, “I want to write this for me”, I shelve the idea.)
  • What are the characters’ personalities like? Are they more than just cardboard cutouts that I’m moving around from scene to scene?
  • Can I write this book? Do I have enough knowledge and experience to make this story believable? Or will I come off as ignorant and incompetent as I attempt to play in a space I’m completely unfamiliar with?

Feel free to weigh in. What makes an idea a Strong Concept? And what makes you hit Pause and go back to the drawing board?

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March 15, 2024 · 11:17 AM

I Don’t Want Your Protagonist to Be Me

Have you ever put a book down without finishing it because you find the main character(s) insufferable? I found myself doing that with an enemies-to-lovers romance I picked up the other day, and I had to ponder for a while why I had found it so intolerable. The book switched between the two love interests for narration, starting with the female lead. (I’m not going to name the book or author in this post because there’s no need to trash an indie author, y’know? She self-published. Good for her.)

The female lead spent the first two chapters complaining about literally everything in her life. Her car. Her job. Her own inability to arrive anywhere on time. Her coworkers. Her customers. The new owner of the restaurant she works at (who happens to be her love interest). She’s just this fountain of negativity from page one.

But the thing is… she’s just like me. Cynical. Sarcastic. Negative. Grumpy. Prone to complaints.

Mini Bex looking angry and saying "I'm not being cynical! I'm being right!"
I’m at the airport so I have to illustrate my blog however I can.

So why don’t I like this character? She’s just like me, so I should be able to see myself in her and relate to her, right? I’ve even had some pretty terrible experiences as a server, so this should be right up my alley.

This truly baffled me even as I put the book down, knowing I’d never pick it up again. But after a long discussion with my loving husband, I managed to weed out the truth.

I don’t want your book’s protagonist to be me. I don’t want the book to be a mirror. I don’t want to feel interchangeable with the protagonist.

I want to be friends with your protagonist.

That’s the difference. It seems like not much would change. After all, many of my friends are cynical and sarcastic, too. But if I meet someone for the first time and they spend the entire time they’re around me complaining until their lips turn blue? Yeah, I probably won’t end up inviting them to grab coffee later. I don’t even complain until my lips turn blue on first meeting someone, and I’m a champion complainer. I have the awards to prove it.

A drawing of a blue ribbon, a trophy, and a medal, all dedicated to being good at complaining.

Although, the trophy could be shinier. And the blue ribbon is made out of really cheap material. Come to think of it, the awards ceremonies always go on too long. I wish they’d cut out one of the speeches. Just one. Is that too much to ask??

The fact of the matter is, it seems (emphasis on seems; I’ll never know for sure if this is true) the author of this book had some personal feelings to vent RE: working in a service industry. Those problems and complaints might be universal, but it all has to do with presentation. Many forms of media are sought out for their ability to provide some kind of catharsis. But when you’re writing fiction based in any way on your own negative experiences, you have to ask yourself: Who is this cathartic for? Me or my thousands of potential readers?

If the answer is just you, maybe some ideas need more workshopping. You have likely had negative experiences that are relatable to the masses–air travel gone wrong, serving a demanding customer at a store, Thanksgiving dinner–but just having your character lament being in one of those situations over the course of many pages does not automatically make them relatable. (And yes, at this point I have become aware of the irony going on here. I am spending this entire blog post complaining.)

I will reiterate: Your protagonist should not be a reader-surrogate. Rather, they should be someone the reader wants to be friends with. After all, what is the reader doing if not hanging out with your character(s) for dozens of pages?

The exception that proves the rule is, of course, Catcher in the Rye. (American Psycho was too obvious to use in this case. Plus, who am I to judge if you like Patrick Bateman’s style?)

I want to talk about the concept of “saving the cat,” and how all this relates to some edits I need to make to one of my own books, but I’ve already gone on too long.

Next time!

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