Writing advice for writers who want to write children’s books. These articles are full of actionable and proactive advice for those who want to write and sell fiction in the children’s book marketplace. Topics range from picture books to young adult novels, and all of these articles are full of writing advice on how to craft and publish children’s fiction.
Two quick-and-dirty nuts-and-bolts dialogue tips for dialogue formatting. But dialogue in fiction has many rules to follow. Writers are always curious about formatting dialogue, or how to write it better. Why? Literary agents and publishers are always looking for examples of sharp, smart dialogue that’s a distillation of real life, or real life enhanced (Read more about writing realistic dialogue here.) This is a very nuanced topic, above and beyond the scope of one post, but here are two dialogue tips that you want to make sure you follow.
“Oh, hello, Susan. Would you like to hear my best ‘Your Mom’ joke? Or is it ‘your mom’?”
Two Simple Dialogue Tips
First, if you are addressing a character by name, the standard formatting includes a comma before and the capitalization of the name. An example:
“Would you like this disgusting tennis ball, Gertie?” (My dog’s favorite question.)
Second, if the character happens to be the parent in your story, you need to make an important distinction. Are you addressing them as Mom or Dad (as if it is their name), or are you referring to them as a noun? I see this all the time in manuscripts. Here’s an example that makes the distinction clear:
“Do you have a mom, too, Mom?”
Here, you can talk about “a mom” or “her dad” or “his mommy” all you want, but it is lowercase. The second you use it to address a character, just as you would a name, it becomes capitalized. A quick proofread will tell you if you’re on the right track. If not, commit this simple dialogue formatting rule of thumb to memory. (Ready for more dialogue tips? Maybe about dialogue tags? Now we’re getting into the real meat of this very important topic.)
Dialogue writing can be tricky for even the most seasoned writer. Not only do I proofread every manuscript for errors like these as your book editor, but I’ll give you bigger picture creative feedback on your work.
I’ve written a lot about how to write dialogue, and now I want to introduce the idea of how to write a scene — specifically, keeping a scene going and picking the right time to interrupt the narrative flow. What’s the best time to insert information, description, dialogue tags, or action? (Read about types of dialogue tags here.)
How to write a scene: when do you insert description, dialogue, or action?
How to Write a Scene: Pick the Best Moment to Insert Info
If your answer is, “Uhhhh, whenever I think of it?” then congratulations, you’re like most writers. But just because you think of inserting something into a scene at a certain moment doesn’t mean that’s the best moment.
We’ve all had the experience, I think, of reading a manuscript (our own or a critique partner’s) and getting involved in a scene. Great! We’ve all also gone with the writer on a tangent when they interrupt the scene to insert some kind of block of text, right? Then the scene restarts with a rejoinder or response–“I completely agree with you,” she said–and…wait a minute! What were they talking about? You scroll up madly to reconnect the conversational thread.
Dialogue is Key When Writing Scene
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: how to write a scene is about the dialogue. It’s not about the dialogue tags. It’s not about the actions or gestures that accompany the speech. It’s not about the description of the cafeteria around the characters who are speaking, unless it just so happens to break out in a food fight and interrupt them. It’s about what’s being said. Or at least it should be.
Whenever you interrupt the narrative flow, you best have a good reason (check out how to write an interruption). This is not the time for big blocks of text that derail the reader’s attention and train of thought. This is not the time to establish part of the setting (which you should’ve done as we were entering the location) or reinforce a character’s personal appearance (which you should’ve done when we were meeting them the first or second time). When we hunker down for a scene, think of it as an express train that makes very selective stops. It should stop for things that are important to the plot, first and foremost. If that food fight is going to happen in the middle of the scene, then, yeah, by all means stop the dialogue. If the mean girl comes to harass everyone, then include it.
Go With the (Narrative) Flow
But there’s a time and place for all sorts of other distracting information, and in the middle of a scene usually isn’t it. By being selective and figuring out how to write a scene, you are gaining control over your prose. The more writers practice, the more organized they become. They realize that there’s a natural ebb and flow to good writing and that it’s perfectly fine, desirable even, to be strategic in handling where and how you introduce different character and plot elements. For now, you should be vigilant about not disrupting a piece of dialogue’s train of thought. That’s an easy fix and it helps instill good writing habits.
Hire me for fiction editing. I will comment on all facets of your manuscript, including the narrative flow of your individual scenes.
This post relates to notes I’ve found myself giving to writers about juicing emotion from their story premise. The theme is the same: You’ve done all this work, created this thing, so why not make it truly emotional fiction?
If you’ve got a story premise that’s loaded with the high-stakes potential for emotion, you have to make your protagonist walk through that fire.
Does Your Story Premise Live Up to Its Potential?
The novel premise note that originally elicited this response was a scene with high emotional potential that, for some reason, didn’t live up to its potential. Rather than becoming a sensitive life wire of emotion, the character drifted through, basically, the climax of the story with all of the interiority and sensitivity of a crash test dummy. (For all those who are new to my story theory rhetoric, interiority meaning having access to your character’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions. This is possible to accomplish in either first or third person.) There was the potential for emotional fiction in this intense scene, but the writer wasn’t going there.
GO THERE
More and more, my advice to writers can be summed up as: GO THERE. If you set up a story premise with a really unique element, exploit that element to the fullest and design as many plot points around it. If you’re writing a grief story and there’s a lot of potential for your protagonist to hit rock bottom, have them crash into it at high speeds. If you’re writing a love story, give us that moment when he loses himself in her eyes entirely and becomes vulnerable for the first time ever. There are a million story opportunities for your characters to become a raw nerve.
As a group, writers–and don’t think I’m insulting writers here, this sentence could just as easily read “humans”–like to play it safe. They have their pet storytelling techniques, their favorite plot twists, their go-to phrases, their easy physical clichés that they deploy instead of having to write about the messy world of emotions. But the writer’s job isn’t to play it safe. It isn’t to tread the familiar path, because the familiar path isn’t going to electrify readers (read more here about how to write emotions in a story). Artists in general search for the truth of the human condition by getting out of their comfort zones…and by taking their audiences with them.
When You Play it Safe, You Shortchange Your Readers
If you yourself are unwilling to GO THERE, your reader’s potential to suffer, triumph, and understand diminishes. I’m constantly impressed by how many manuscripts scratch the surface in precisely those moments when they should be plunging in. Interiority flourishes during a boring classroom scene but is oddly silent when it’s time to visit Dad in the hospice, for example. Or we spend a lot of time on happy emotions but completely sidestep anything negative. (Reverse this dynamic for a dystopian manuscript!)
Let me get down to it: The scene that feels the hollowest in your manuscript should either be cut or you should screw your courage to the sticking place and GO THERE with it. Especially when the events transpiring call for high, noble, intense, painful, or otherwise uncomfortable emotions.
An Example of Playing it Safe
To call upon a book outside the kidlit canon, this was my biggest problem with THE MEMORY KEEPER’S DAUGHTER, an insanely successful adult novel by Kim Edwards that came out in 2005 and was incredibly successful. (SPOILERS) While it’s definitely emotional fiction, there is one glaring missed opportunity, a moment begging the author to GO THERE that was never realized. Briefly, the story is about a husband who immediately realizes that one of his newborn twins has Down’s syndrome. This is another era and he quickly spirits the girl away to a nurse, then lies to his wife, saying the second child died. Flash forward many years and the secret is close to coming out. Just as I was expecting the BLISTERING reveal and ensuing confrontation between husband and wife, the husband dies suddenly. The wife finds out another way and rages at his memory.
I know plenty of people who loved this book. But I really, really, really would’ve loved to see the scene where husband and wife stand naked before the truth. It’s one thing to rage at someone’s memory, it’s another to confront him in the flesh. And not just him, but the past and the future. I would never call this author a coward, but I wondered what kept her from GOING THERE and giving us this highly emotional scene using both characters, not just one.
Unleash Those Feelings
So if you’ve got a story premise that’s locked and loaded with the high-stakes potential for emotion, don’t just skirt around it or do the next best thing. It’s going to be challenging, because you have a lot wrapped up in these characters and part of you probably wants to protect them, but you have to think of the most emotional points in your plot as an invitation to unleash those feelings without holding back. GO THERE.
Hire me as your freelance book editor and I’ll help you GO THERE in your novel premise.
A reader wrote in over the weekend to ask about a nonfiction children’s book vs. an article:
I wrote a nonfiction article for a kids’ magazine. I sent it recently, haven’t heard back yet. Because I’m completely fascinated with the subject I wrote about, I sat down and wrote a different story on the same subject that ideally would be a nonfiction children’s picture book. I’ve sent it to just one agent a few days ago. No here’s my dilemma: I know all the “first-time rights” and “all-rights” lingo, but I’m wondering that, 1. does it apply because the mag article is different than the picture book story, and 2) in the 1-in-billion chance that the agent wants to pursue my book, do I need to jump up and shout- wait!- a magazine might publish a different-but-same-topic article I wrote. I feel like this could be potentially sticky…and I’m just wondering if there’s any justifications for my worries.
If you’ve written a nonfiction children’s book and article on the same topic, pay close attention to the text and make sure that you’re not publishing a close replica.
Nonfiction Article and Nonfiction Children’s Book: Are the Texts Close Replicas?
Rights to a book are pretty heavily connected to the text of a book. A lot of authors publish a nonfiction article in their subject area before writing a full-length book about it (and lots of people pitching nonfiction book proposals are told “This is more of an article” because there’s not enough meat in their topic/angle to support a full book).
In a nonfiction article and nonfiction children’s book scenario, you could wander into a bit of a gray area because I’m imagining that both texts will be shorter and will cover a lot of the same information–i.e.: both overview biographies or both simple explanations of a scientific principle, etc. This is where you will want to pay close attention to the text and make sure that you’re not publishing a close replica.
Strategize Your Approach
If your nonfiction article and nonfiction children’s book angles are very different, like one is an overview and one covers a much more specific area of the subject, you have nothing to worry about. But if the topics are close and lightning happens to strike twice in the form of a magazine acceptance AND a book publishing opportunity, there is nothing wrong with strategically delaying the article until you can share your concerns with an agent or editor (I cover some of this etiquette in my post about having more than one literary agent). As opposed to the book manuscript and publishing plan with your acquiring editor, the article will be a lot easier to edit in a way that still meets the magazine’s purposes.
Communicate Openly
A larger point deserves to be made here: If you have a magazine editor, agent, or book editor on the hook and they like your work or area or expertise (in the NF world especially), there is nothing wrong with communicating openly, asking thoughtful questions, or attempting to get that person to work with you if something like this should come up. Your nonfiction article editor might be perfectly willing to publish a slightly different piece or time the piece differently (delay it while negotiation is in process, run it closer to your nonfiction children’s book publication date to build momentum, etc.) in case you happen to get a book contract.
Potential Positive Career Step
The good thing about this potential scenario, of course, is that being published in various venues on a subject will help you leverage yourself as an expert on a certain topic. As you build your career, you’ll actually want to seek out these types of situations and get your name out there. I know some of these questions are stressful, but try and think of this as a potential positive, because it very easily could be!
Working on a nonfiction children’s book? Hire me as your creative nonfiction editor and I’ll help guide you through gray areas like this.
Writers, one of the most valuable query letter tips I can give you is not to put the cart before the horse in terms book rights for film. When I was a literary agent, sometimes I’d see writers who’d say, “I have such and such project that would make a great app. And then this other project just screams to be developed into a touring ice show. Finally, I can just see the face of my third protagonist plastered on everything from stuffed animals to t-shirts.”
Horse firmly in the lead; cart follows behind. Apply this idea to your query letter and omit any discussion of book rights.
Query Letter Tips
There’s a lot to be said about focusing on your project as a book idea rather than a multiplatform publishing idea. I saw enough of this type of pitch that I want to drive home one of my query letter tips: it’s okay to simply have a book that’s going to make a good book. In fact, that’s the point of trying to query a book.
1. It’s About the Story, Not the Book Rights
And let me just add to what I’ve already said by emphasizing that nowhere is it stated that every single book idea will get ancillary rights or products. When you look at the sheer number of things that get published every year, a much smaller percentage goes on to merchandising opportunities, movie rights, video game licenses, and all of the other things that some aspiring writers dream about.
I think that all this talk of apps really got people’s imaginations going. “It’s going to be a book AND an app, guaranteed,” one thinks, “because everyone is talking about apps!” Then that “and…” mentality spread to theme parks and licensed coffee tumblers and international editions. I get it. But it’s very important to remember that most books don’t get apps, or film rights, or entertainment deals.
2. Avoid Requirements
That’s the danger of REQUIRING anything on your publishing journey, whether it’s a trilogy of books in order to tell your story or a read-and-play app that plugs into your premise. The more you require, especially as a debut, the fewer incentives you’re giving a house to take a chance on you. Your “and” turns into their “but,” ie: “We really see the potential for this book idea BUT they’re pushing us for a trilogy or ancillary rights and I’m just not sure that we can make that kind of investment.” (Learn the elements of a query letter.)
3. Tone Down Expectations
Require less, open your mind to telling your story in the simplest way possible, and celebrate the book rights that roll in. It’s often a fun and happy surprise when Hollywood calls or a comic book edition is picked up, and it can pay a month or more of your rent. Yay! But it’s not guaranteed and it’s also not the end all and be all. Keep it in perspective. That’s the best way to establish market savvy and tone down your expectations, thereby becoming a writer that many more people would be willing and excited to work with.
Hire me for query editing and I’ll help you nail the tone and content of your letter.
Explanatory writing is so tempting. Everyone knows the feeling of loving a joke so much yet having it fall flat. Then, instead of accepting defeat, explaining to everyone how the joke works and why it’s so brilliant. If you’re me, you might also strongly imply that your audience is somehow deficient for failing to laugh.
If any of you have heard me speak or taken one of my middle grade or young adult webinars, you may remember the lame Twilight vampire/”high stakes” joke that I try and shoehorn in every time. It has met with a tepid response from Idaho to Japan but I keep on trying because, well, I’m convinced that one day I’ll fall upon the perfect audience that will get it.
Do you get it? I mean, really get it? Because the joke is…
Explanatory Writing Is Unnecessary
If you’re in the “explanatory writing” boat with me, we all need a wake-up call. Sometimes a bit of cleverness or specificity doesn’t have the payoff you’re seeking. This doesn’t just apply to jokes, of course. I see this explanatory writing phenomenon at work especially in people’s imagery.
An example from the actual literary canon (rather that some stupid made-up thing that I wrote last minute) that has always bothered me: “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich. This has literally vexed me FOR OVER A DECADE.
Adrienne Rich is a wonderful poet, may she rest in peace. And this is poem reproduced widely in many school texts and taught all over the place, which is a testament to her talent. But the work itself is rather–please excuse the obvious pun–heavy-handed. I’ve included a link so you can read it, above.
Uncle’s wedding band is heavy on Aunt Jennifer’s hand. Her hands are ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. She’s desperately stitching a bunch of tigers. The tigers are not afraid of any men. The tigers are free, ironically, while Aunt Jennifer is caged. Etc. etc. etc.
Avoid Redundancy in Writing
Here Rich is explaining the joke in writing, so to speak, over and over again, in case you didn’t get it the first three times. She’s writing theme with a heavy touch to make sure you know exactly where she’s going with the poem. In this case, I can let it go (I guess!) because the image works with the story that the poet is telling. Wedding bands, hands, etc. all tie into the symbolism of a woman feeling trapped in a marriage.
There are times when writers are just as insistent about images, however, and the image isn’t successful to begin with, like my lame vampire joke. This is something to watch out for in your own work. If you catch yourself dipping into explanatory writing, you may be picking either the wrong image or something so specific that it’s not going to be resonant enough.
Avoid Heavy-Handed Imagery
Some less-than-graceful examples would be these stupid made-up things that I’m writing last minute:
The sound of the children’s laughter bounced down the hallway like a tin can full of quarters bouncing down a concrete staircase.
It was her turn to go up and give the science presentation. Nerves shot up Nellie’s spine like that feeling she always got when breaking down a cardboard box and feeling the brown paper surfaces rasping against one another.
These are not successful images to me. The first one is off because the two things being compared have very little connecting them. The writer may have once heard the perfect tin can full of quarters and it could make total sense to her to compare it to children’s laughter, but it’s more likely that the link exists only in her head.
The same idea goes for the second image, and here it’s like the writer is trying very hard to describe exactly what this type of nervousness feels like but it’s too specific to have that frisson of recognition or universality. (For more writing tips, check out: Writing Descriptions or How to Write Emotions in a Story.) I happen to hate anything the results from pieces of cardboard touching one another, but that’s me, and my personal biases may not belong in the scene about Nellie’s science presentation.
Aim for Organic Humor and Imagery
The examples convey a feeling of jamming a square peg in a round hole. The writer is working hard, but it’s coming across as heavy-handed. Sweat is blooming on her brow. She really wants you to get it — hence the explanatory writing. Oftentimes, though, the best images, jokes, turns of phrase, etc. are more simple and organic than that. Keep an eye out for instances where you might be explaining the joke in writing at the expense of your true meaning and goal in the moment.
Are you working hard and not getting anywhere in your writing? Maybe you’re working too hard. Hire me as your developmental editor, and I can help you decide where to best apply your creative energy.
I’ve done several posts on writing conferences (some are here). If you’re wondering what to bring to a writers conference, the answers may surprise you. What I want to hammer home to writers about to go to their first or their hundredth writer’s conference is that it’s all about what you make out of it, much like writing-related programs and work experience. Many people go to conferences in the wrong mindset, and it can impact their experience in a bad way.
Wondering what to bring to a writers conference? A great attitude. But your laptop probably wouldn’t hurt…
Writing Conferences Are an Emotional Rollercoaster
For example, they put a lot of emphasis on their pitch session, thinking that whether or not they get a request will mean the conference either was or wasn’t worth the money, respectively (advice on how to pitch a book here). Or they enter a conference-sponsored contest and hang all of their hopes on winning. Or they expect to corner a visiting agent or editor and sell them on the book. In their search for what to bring to a writers conference, they print off ten copies of their 300-page novel. It’s very rare that these American Idol moments happen at conferences, and expecting them is setting yourself up to have a bad time should the stars not align.
But before you think I’m trying to talk you into shooting low at writing conferences, remember that it’s very rare indeed for the stars to align. And even if you make a connection with an editor or agent, it’ll most likely be long after the conference when they’ve finally had a chance to read the manuscript they requested from you at the event. Because that’s how it has always worked for me: I request and read later, not at the table, while the writer is nervously staring at me.
What to Bring to a Writers Conference? Realistic Expectations
Your primary job at writing conferences, therefore, isn’t to walk out of there with a book deal (though I can’t swear this has never happened), it’s to be cool, personable, and open to the experience. Most importantly, it’s to be without agenda. I know this sounds lame. You are paying a lot of money to be there, you’ve likely taken time off work or away from your family. You have a manuscript burning a hole in your hard drive. You don’t yet understand that publishing moves slower than molasses unless you’re one of the very few debuts that’s destined to set the world on fire. While it’s important to have a dream and a strong motivation, it’s more important not to only be there in obvious service of it.
This means chatting with your tablemates at lunch about things other than you project (though you can definitely discuss it). Maybe you’ll find critique partners or learn about another genre. This means introducing yourself to visiting authors, agents, and editors without immediately launching into your pitch. (Most of my most successful writing conferences have yielded writers who chatted me up about something random, had a good sense of humor, and were very casual-yet-professional about getting a card and following up with business later.) This means using your pitch session as a fun practice exercise in distilling your ideas instead of The End All And Be All Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity you might think it is. What to bring to a writers conference? A sense of humor and a casual vibe.
Writing Conferences Are Just a Piece of Your Success Puzzle
Expectations are hard in that they’re always present and always tied to emotion. Writing expectations, especially, because they have to do with something so personal and creative. But everyone has a different path to publication and a different path once a published writer. Any of my clients will tell you that having a book out in the world is great but (and there’s always this but) nothing like they expected or imagined.
The house is late in processing your payment. Your book does unexpectedly well or poorly. You get questions from readers that blow your mind. Your book gets banned because of one word from a school library. Your next book isn’t picked up or you end up scrambling to write a sequel because of demand. Your editor leaves. You switch houses. Your house announces a huge merger with another house. And on and on and on. Everyone is in a long learning curve together in this publishing business, and every time I think I’ve seen or heard it all, a new story emerges that changes my perspective on it.
The best way to go to writing conferences is to temper your expectations, be casual and professional, make a good impression by being friendly and curious, and take as many notes as you can on sessions that interest you. I recommend conferences 100% but I have been to hundreds of them and can tell you now that one isn’t going to change your life. That’s not to say that you won’t get an idea, have an “aha!” moment, or meet someone who is going to be part of your journey. Go into the experience with your head in the right place and be open to anything.
Describing plot in a query letter can be tricky. Many writers stumble over the “meat” of the pitch. One of my favorite notes to give because it make so much sense to me is “A situation is not a plot.” You need to think about premise vs plot, and make sure you’re describing you story’s plot in your query.
(Though Stephen King is quick to absolutely disprove me by giving the opposite note here, ha! Proving once and for all how subjective writing advice can be. As the author of a book of writing advice, I’ll be the first to admit it.)
Fill this page with your query “meat.” Sounds gross, but I’m about to rock your world. Get your mind out of the gutter!
This note applies especially to queries and I wanted to remind everyone to concentrate on specific plot points in their pitch letters as 2013 and all the make-your-dreams-come-true querying gets underway.
Are You Listing or Are You Describing Plot in a Query Letter?
Here’s an example of what not to do when describing plot in a query letter:
Emma wants to be normal so badly, but she can’t. Between a cheating boyfriend, an abusive father on his way out of the family, and a rivalry with the most talented softball player in school, she has no time at all to discover that the tattoo she got over spring break is giving her secret powers.
Sorry for the lame example, but I rather like the idea of a tramp stamp giving you a little more than you bargained for. Maybe it’s my childhood memory of that one episode of the X-Files when Scully gets that snake tattoo and all hell breaks loose? Wow. Blast from the past. Anyhow…
Sell the Reader on Your Query Letter
This query is fine and I see it a lot in the slush. But it’s not the best it can be, and that’s why I’m calling it out here. What’s missing? A specific sense of plot. This query gives us a fine idea of everything that’s going on in Emma’s life, but it doesn’t really do any of the heavy lifting to connect the dots. It’s like dumping the jigsaw puzzle of your plot pitch in front of your reader and saying, “Well, there it is.”
When you’re describing plot in a query letter, you’re not just selling the reader on the hook of your story or how marketable it might be, you’re also selling them on your story itself.
Here, we don’t know if the father is going to be the main secondary plot (giving it a darker, more contemporary realistic shade despite the tattoo element), or the boyfriend (giving it a more romance flavor), or the softball rivalry (making me think it’s going to be a school-heavy story). If I’m left to reassemble the pieces of Emma’s situation in my own head, I could find three very different books in there.
Structure the Pitch, Don’t Ask the Agent to Do the Work
That’s a problem. You want to not only give us the elements of your story but arrange them in such a way that your plot pitch shines, guiding the reader even more into the specific world and events of your unique novel. A successful example of describing plot in a query letter would go like this:
Just as her abusive father is on his way out of the family, Emma discovers an uncomfortable secret: that tattoo she got over spring break is giving her the ability to see people’s futures. And she doesn’t like what it forecasts for her relationship with Rufus when she predicts his cheating on her at prom. From there, it’s one catastrophe after another, especially as she races against time to best her softball rival before the last game of the year determines who gets a coveted scholarship. As her power predicts doom and gloom for everyone around her, Emma has to do everything she can to secure her own future.
Okay, now I know that the father isn’t really going to be a big part of it, and the boyfriend’s cheating is more of an incident for the first third. The main thrust of the plot will probably be the rivalry, ending in a championship at the climax. The story feels much clearer to me now that the plot pitch is guiding me along instead of throwing me in the deep end of situation. This is a nuanced distinction, but an important one.
I spent five years as a literary agent, and I saw tens of thousands of queries. Hire me be your query letter editor, and I’ll help you avoid common traps and rise above the slush.
Katie Van Amburg, a recent college graduate, wrote in a few weeks ago and wanted to know what she should be doing next to move towards getting published. Should she get an MFA? Should she work at a publishing house? These are some of the “next step” questions that a lot of writers have when they’re looking around and wondering if the writing that they do in their rooms is going to be enough to speed them toward their writing career goals.
Getting published: How do shepherd your manuscript from being a thing on your hard drive to being a book in people’s hands?
Is taking the next step and working at a publishing house or getting an advanced degree for you? Well, as a lady who has done both…
The Best Way to Approach Getting Published Is…
This is a tough answer to hear but it’s necessary: There is no magic bullet when it comes to getting published. I worked as an intern at Chronicle Books in San Francisco, and it was wonderful. I learned a lot. I also got an MFA degree and wrote a thesis, which was a completed fiction manuscript. Again, I learned a lot. But working at Chronicle didn’t get me automatically to some new level as a writer, and neither did the MFA. Neither ended directly in a publishing deal. I published a book this year but it took into consideration all of my publishing experience. And everything I wrote for Chronicle or for the MFA certainly must’ve played a role, but at the end of the day, the sum of all my experiences came out on the page.
Writing isn’t a linear progression. There’s no “go get your medical degree, then do a residency, then…” path outlined for it anywhere. That can be liberating, but it can also be scary because there are so many variables and fewer tangible results when you’re working towards your writing career goals.
If you do any of these things, you are doing them for YOU and to grow as a writer, not to get brownie points on your resume. Remember that. If you expect to wake up the morning after your MFA thesis is accepted and somehow be changed, it’s not going to happen. (Sorry to say, but it’s sort of like publishing a book. When I got the deal, I called Andrea. The first thing she said to me was, “That’s great, but just don’t think it will change your life.” At first, I thought she was being a bummer. Now I know she’s right. That one thing will not change your life…unless it becomes a megaselling hit and makes you lots of money. Most books are all about what you got out of writing it and then all about what you do with them. Waking up on publication day is like waking up on any other day.)
The Ball is in Your Court
However, if you think a structured, workshop-based program will help you with getting published, apply to an MFA and get everything you can from it. If you want to see how a publisher works from the inside out, go intern at one or work for a literary magazine or read for a literary agent. But don’t expect either of them to be more than what you make of them.
Sure, good programs and good publishers will furnish you with mentors and experiences you’ve never had before. And there’s a lot of value in that. But there’s usually no benchmark with something like this. The lessons and realizations (and then the energy and courage to use those insights when you’re back at the page) mean the ball is in your court. All of these things are just individual steps, it’s up to you to put them together into a ladder and climb it towards your writing career goals.
You need an outstanding manuscript to catch an agent’s eye. Hire me as your freelance book editor and I’ll help you polish your work.
Alex wrote into ask the following question about writing flashback:
In your webinar you briefly hinted that you weren’t against the idea of using flashbacks in creative writing but I have listened to lots of other tutorials (through Writers Digest and others) that suggest flashbacks are a big no-no. What is your view? If they manage to still keep the forward momentum of the book, then could they still work?
Hold on to your mystical time compass, because we’re heading into a flashback!
Why Flashbacks in Creative Writing Have a Bad Rap
The reason that flashback in creative writing have a bad rep is that they’re often overused or used without much skill. That’s why so many people have been recommending that writers avoid them: because we’re sick of seeing this technique butchered.
But a well-written flashback at the appropriate time in a manuscript can tactfully weave in backstory to flesh out the present moment without bogging you down in an info-dump and stalling action.
Remember, most fiction is a balance of action and exposition in writing. When you use flashback, you are taking us out of the present moment to introduce information. Pacing stops. Action stops. You have to keep that very much in mind and, first and foremost, keep flashbacks short. (Additional tips on writing backstory here.)
Writing Flashbacks Intelligently
Second, they should be pertinent to the action at hand. If your character is having a fight with their father, you may want to include a flashback that flies counter to the present moment in order to enrich our understanding of the daughter-father relationship. But don’t then go off on a tangent and string together five memories plus a memory about the mother, to boot. That’s excessive.
So not only does the length and style of flashback count, the information contained therein is important. It really needs to add something to our understanding of the present moment, or our sympathy for the character, or our understanding of the world which you’re building (for books with fantasy elements) or a historical period (like a flashback for the sake of contrast to the excess of the Roaring 20s if your character is now suffering through the Depression).
Sustain the Present Moment
Third, you don’t want to keep yanking the reader out of the present moment for too many flashbacks. You should use a light touch, to the point where the reader may not realize how many flashbacks you’ve employed as you take them through the story. Pick only the most important information to go into flashback and you should be fine.
Finally, you want to be especially careful when you’re approaching how to start writing a book. I’d avoid flashbacks in the first chapter, if possible, because you want to hit the ground running with a really strong sense of the present moment in a novel. If your present moment is constantly being interrupted by flashbacks, the reader (who is brand new to your story) may not get an adequate foothold in your narrative and get as involved as they should be.
Use a light touch and keep them relevant, and flashback in creative writing can be your friend!
Struggling with flashbacks in creative writing? Hire me as your manuscript editor. I’ll help you balance your action and information in a compelling way.
