Sounds simple, but anyone who’s forging their way through a manuscript knows how easily jobs, family obligations, self-doubt, or something wholly unexpected can get in the way. Setting up a routine, knowing when and how to get to the page, having strategies for carving out space and quiet: these are the most important things you can do for yourself as a writer. Try one (or several) of these time-tested writing routines and discover your most productive self.

GIVEAWAY: Ariel is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Please note that comments may take a little while to appear; this is normal).

Guest column by Ariel Djanikian, who was born in Philadelphia and
currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and
daughter. Her writing has appeared in The L Magazine and The Paris
Review Daily. THE OFFICE OF MERCY (Feb. 2012, Viking) is her
first novel. In a starred review, Booklist called it, “[A] horrifically brutal,
compelling debut. . . . A grim muse on a future with shades of The
Hunger Games, Djanikian’s first offering should attract readers voracious
for this popular subgenre.”  Find Ariel on Twitter @ArielDjanikian
and at arieldjanikian.com.

1. Write two hours a day

It’s a goal that many of us have, and it’s a worthy one: make writing a part of your daily routine. If you can do more than two hours, that’s wonderful, if you can only do less, that’s okay too. The trick is to write for the same amount of time every single day, and to be dogmatic and consistent about it. Another strategy that gets repeated a lot—even in fiction!—is to write five hundred words a day. See the writer-protagonist in Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, who dutifully writes his “daily five hundred” for twenty years, uninterrupted by love or war.

2. Write when you’re hot

Practice pays off, but if the daily grind really isn’t your thing, then follow your instincts. Write when you’re ready to pour whole chapters/stories/volumes out onto the page. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has spent his career considering the behaviors and thought processes of creative folks: writers, scientists, comedians, mountain climbers, visual artists, musicians, chess players. The common link? An emphasis on entering an “ecstatic state” while engaged in their chosen art form. With that in mind, while you’re on a hot streak, and can feel yourself engrossed in a project, go with it, and keep on going.

3. Use a Playlist

I have several friends who swear by this method. Just like you’d do for an exercise routine: make up a playlist of your most inspiring or mood-specific songs, enough to last the duration of your writing session. Music may even affect your work in ways you didn’t expect. As Dan Chaon said of his 2005 short story collection, You Remind Me of Me: “I notice whole passages…that were strongly affected by some of the stuff I was listening to as I wrote, bands like Sparklehorse, Red House Painters, The Innocence Mission, Julie Doiron, Yo La Tengo, Idaho, The Eels.”

(Read some great advice for first-time novelists.)

4. Keep a notebook (or take notes on your smartphone)

This is a good option for those on the move, and for those who write best in short, quick bursts. These days, there’s a temptation to share your brilliant thoughts in real time. But hold some back. Carve out a secret world for yourself where your ideas can incubate, amass, connect, and flourish.

Most well-known notebook keeper and advocate? Joan Didion.

5. Work in your head

This is the anytime/anywhere solution. Just don’t forget to (eventually) record your ideas in a more tangible form! “I can write anywhere,” Hilary Mantel has said. “I long ago learned to write and polish a paragraph in my head.” On a similar note, see this lovely piece by Silas House, on the importance of always maintaining a writerly view of the world.

6. Wake up early / Stay up late

These methods are flip sides of the same coin, with a shared goal: solitude. Discover those odd hours when the world is mostly quiet and still, no ringing phone, no self-replenishing inbox, etc.. Because when it comes down to it, writing is between you and the page. The knowledge and the story are already inside you; everything else is a potential distraction.

(Do you need multiple agents if you write different genres?)

7. Read for inspiration

Most writers read voraciously, but this is different. When you’re in need of a refreshing burst of language—or perhaps when you’re hunting for a certain voice or point of focus—it can be incredibly helpful to surround yourself with other people’s books. Mary Gordon has stressed the value of this pre-writing ritual: “There’s a funny period before I really get started in a work—you know how dogs run in circles until they can figure out the exact spot where they need to lie down? I’m kind of like that until I can find the writer whose tone of voice really gets me going…A favorite poem or prose passage can be the perfect tuning fork.”

A fan of fiction? The Write Great Fiction Series
has 5 awesome books at one discount price.

Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:

• How to Find the Perfect Writing Spot.
• Literary Agent Interview: Jeff Ourvan of Jennifer Lyons Literary.
• How to Find Beta Readers and Peers to Review Your Book.
• Sell More Books by Building Your Writer Platform.
• How to Write a Novel Synopsis.
• Literary Agent Interview: Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary.
• Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and how to write a query letter.

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

DETAILS

The 2013 Agents & Editors Conference is from June 21-23, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Austin, in Austin, TX.

WHICH AGENTS WILL BE THERE?

• Ken Sherman (Ken Sherman & Associates)
• Brooks Sherman (FinePrint Literary)
• Sarah Davies (Greenhouse Literary)
• Stacey Glick (Dystel & Goderich)
• Meredith Kaffel (DeFiore & Co.)
• Emmanuelle Morgen (Stonesong)
• Kirby Kim (WME Entertainment)
• Penny Nelson (Manus & Associates)
• Taylor Martindale (Full Circle Literary)
• Marcy Posner (Folio Literary)
• Rita Rosenkranz (Rosenkranz Literary)
• Susan Schulman (Susan Schulman Literary)
• Becca Stumpf (Prospect Literary)
• Rachel Vogel (Waxman-Leavell Literary)

This is an amazing array of agents. If you want to see all the genres & categories each agent represents check out the official conference agent page.

WHAT ELSE?

You can read a bunch of conference success stories here (writers who found agents and publishers at this event). Although the big draw to this event is all the attending agents who take meetings with writers, don’t forget that some editors will also be there, and the event has informational writing sessions on topics including how to get published, query letters, e-books, social media/marketing, and more. Plus, Austin is just a great city to roam around in if you like nightlife and local music.

I Will Speak At These Great Writing Events in 2012-2013:

• June 22-24, 2012: Crested Butte Writers Conference (Crested Butte, CO)
• July 26-28, 2012: Midwest Writers Workshop (Muncie, IN)
• Aug. 2-8, 2012: Homeric Writers Retreat & Workshop (Isle of Ithaca, Greece)
• Sept. 13-14, 2013: Chicago Writers Conference (Chicago, IL)
• Feb. 14-17, 2013: San Francisco Writers Conference (San Francisco, CA)
• April 5-7. 2013: Writer’s Digest Conference East (New York, NY)
• April 19-20, 2013: Kentucky Writers Conference (Bowling Green, KY)
• May 17-19, 2013: PennWriters Conference (Pittsburgh, PA)
• May 23-26, 2013: Writers Guild of Alberta “Words in 3D” Event (Edmonton, Canada)
• June 6-7, 2013: Clarksville Writers Conference (Clarksville, TN)
• June 7-8, 2013: Carnegie Literary Center “Books-in-Progress” Conference (Lexington, KY)
• June 21-23, 2013: Agents & Editors Conference / Writers League of Texas (Austin, TX)
• July 5-6, 2013: Hunt Country Writers Retreat (Middleburg, VA)
• Fall 2013: Writer’s Digest West Conference (Los Angeles, CA)

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

(Read advice on How to Start Your Novel Strong.)

Loretta Torossian is a public school teacher in New York City.
She is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers
and Illustrators (SCBWI). VOICES IN THE WAVES, her YA fantasy
about a sheltered island girl who is catapulted into a dark water
world fraught with danger when her little sister is snatched by
sea beasts, is currently on submission. Connect with her on Twitter.

My road to finding an agent began before I was looking for one.

Seven years ago I decided to take my writing more seriously and I attended my first SCBWI conference. During the conference I had the opportunity to show my work to an editor from a big house. My first two pages were polished and the editor loved it and asked to see the rest. But the rest of my novel needed work. Lots of work. Lesson learned. Never show anything to anyone, especially a professional in the industry, until it’s all done. She rejected it, of course. And I’d blown my chances of this editor ever wanting to see anything from me again.

Back to Basics After a Lesson Learned

After this lost opportunity, I knew that if I was serious about getting published I had to develop my craft and polish my style. I also learned that it wasn’t easy to catch an editor’s eye. I needed an agent. My goal – the next time any professional sees my writing, it needs to be my absolute best work. I embarked on a journey through four online critique groups, many SCBWI conferences and workshops, online Writers Digest tutorials, this amazing GLA Blog, a Mediabistro advanced novel writing class, many books on writing, and in-person critique sessions with writer friends I met at conferences. I poured over the Writers Digest Guide to Literary Agents – heavy volumes full of insight and submission guidelines. I own one for every year for the past seven years. Throughout all this, I kept writing, revising, and improving my craft. My writing passion occupied most of my evenings and weekends. I’m surprised my family hasn’t disowned me yet. I’m lucky.

A “Boot Camp” Might Just Do the Trick

In the spring of 2012, Writers Digest offered a unique online tutorial called Agent One-on-One Bootcamp. In this workshop, the agent, Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary, would help the attendees polish the first ten pages of their novel. I’d attended other Writers Digest tutorials prior to this, all very helpful, but we’d never been given the opportunity to resubmit our revisions to the agent who was holding the workshop. This was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

(Read an interview with literary agent Paula Munier.)

The tutorial was beyond my expectations. Paula blew me away with her knowledge of the industry. Her love of words and story structure were apparent throughout her presentation. Her revision comments brought out the best in my writing. I have to admit I was really intimidated to submit my work to her. What if she hated it? What if it wasn’t good enough? But I’d invested my time and money in this workshop for a reason. Let’s face it. No matter how great the novel is, if the beginning doesn’t catch a professional’s eye, they’ll never bother to look at the rest. Maybe I thought I was nearly there. But was I really? This would be my test.

After Paula’s initial presentation, we were asked to polish our first 10 pages and submit to her. She would take a few days to read our work, then she’d send us her comments and we’d have about a week to use her comments to revise our work and resubmit to her. If at this point she was interested in seeing more she’d let us know. When, after a final polish based on her workshop, I sent in my first ten pages, I think I bit my nails down to the quick (a terrible habit).

Two days later I received an e-mail from her and had to read it twice to make sure I’d read it correctly. She had sent me her comments, but in her e-mail she asked me if I have an agent. She liked the story even before I did any revisions! I spent a few days revising my first chapter based on her comments and sent my revisions to her. Within a day she emailed me asking to see the rest of the novel. Three weeks later (longest three weeks of my life) I had a contract. I think I screamed like a little girl and danced around my kitchen – something my family (and my dog) had never seen me do.

Now, my novel, Voices in the Waves, is out on submission. It’s a waiting game that I’m more than happy to play. Patience, after all, has been my biggest lesson on this journey. You hear stories of people landing agents or getting publishing deals so quickly. But that hasn’t been my journey. Lesson to learn from me is this: never ever give up. Even when you think your writing is awful. That you’re not good enough. That you’ll never catch an agent’s eye. Those are self-deprecating thoughts that will never get you anywhere. Trust me, I know. Maybe your journey won’t be as long or maybe it will be longer. If you feel passionate enough about writing, you’ll be patient and keep working hard until one day you find yourself so excited that you’ll do something your family has never seen you do – like screaming like a little girl (or boy) and dancing around your kitchen.

(Find more young adult literary agents.)

Writing a novel for children? Literary agent
Mary Kole, who runs the popular KidLit.com
website, has a new guide out for writers of
young adult and middle grade. Pick up a copy
of Writing Irresistible Kidlit and get your
children’s book published.

Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:

• What’s In a Title? Everything.
• NEW Agent Seeking Clients: Rachel Dugas of Talcott Notch Literary.
• Find Out What Writing Events Host Literary Agents as well as Sessions on Pitching.
• Discussing Credentials in a Nonfiction Book Proposal.
• Literary Agent Interview: Lori Perkins, Founder of L. Perkins Associates.
• Sell More Books by Building Your Author Platform.
• Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and how to write a query letter.

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

This time around, the challenge is to write senryu, which is a variation of the haiku. As with haiku, senryu are most often 3-line poems containing 17 (or fewer) syllables–often in a 5-7-5 pattern. Senryu does not include a cutting or seasonal word, and it’s usually about human issues (not nature, as is the case with haiku).

In fact, many people write poems that they call haiku that are really senryu. So in a way, it’s a form of poetry that is often suffering from identity theft and mistaken identity.

OK, so that’s the form.

Here are the guidelines for competing in this challenge:

• Write and share original and previously unpublished senryu in the comments below (on this specific post).
• Deadline for entries: May 31, 11:59 p.m. (Atlanta, Georgia time).
• No entry fee.
• Include your name as you would like it to appear in print (just in case you’re chosen as a winner).
• Speaking of winners, the top senryu (and maybe a few extra, since the form is so short) will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest magazine in the Poetic Asides Inkwell column.
• Anyone and everyone (from any location on the globe) is encouraged to participate. It’s free and fun.
• Note to new poets: You’ll have to register on the site (don’t worry; it’s free) to comment. And for your first few comments, you may have to wait for one of us editors to approve your comment. Don’t worry; we’ll get to you–and then, after that first approval, you should be good to go into the future.

Good luck!

*****

Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer

*****

Publish your poetry!

Learn how with the most recent edition of Poet’s Market. Click to continue.

*****

Check out some other recent poetic posts:

• Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 220.
• Karen Rigby: Poet Interview.
• S. Thomas Summers: Poet Interview.

This installment is with Linda Epstein of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency in NYC. Before joining the agenting world, Epstein was Community Relations Manager at Barnes and Noble, where she set up author readings and signings and organized book groups and book fairs. As well, she not only co-edits The New York Bookwoman, the newsletter of the New York chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, but she leads workshops about publishing at Hofstra University. She also blogs. Find her on Twitter.

She is seeking: Accessible literary fiction, upscale commercial fiction, vibrant narrative nonfiction, some fantasy, and compelling memoirs. She also accepts middle-grade and YA fiction. Her nonfiction areas include alternative health and parenting books, cookbooks, select memoirs, and the right spiritual/self-actualization book. She does not accept: Bodice-rippers or anything with dead, maimed, or kidnapped children; thrillers; horror; romance or traditional science fiction..

GLA:  How/why did you become an agent?

LE:  A few years ago I looked around and said, “Wait! I forgot to follow my dream!” You see, when I graduated college, back in the Pleistocene era, I worked in publishing for about 5 minutes but then a bunch of stuff sidetracked me. Lots of life happened between then and now, but I’ve always been a voracious reader and writer. About four years ago, after working at a bookstore and then trying to get an entry-level position in publishing for a long time, I became the oldest un-paid intern in Manhattan. I did that for a couple of years and learned everything I could about agenting. Now I’m happy to say I’m following my dream.

GLA:  What’s something you’ve sold that comes out now/soon that you’re excited about?

LE:  Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg is coming out this June (2013) from Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. I am so excited about this book for a bunch of reasons. First of all, it’s the first book I ever sold. Second of all, it’s well written, poignant, very funny and a great story. Third of all, it’s about an out gay teen—kind of the poster-boy for a normal, accepted gay kid—who switches to an all-boy prep school and doesn’t tell anyone he’s gay because he’s tired of being pigeonholed by his sexuality. I’m so proud of this book, and of Bill, because I know it will make a difference for so many kids (gay or straight) who may feel trapped by other people’s perception and expectation of who they ought to be and what they ought to feel about who they are. And it’s a fantastic read.

GLA:  Besides “beautiful writing,” and “distinct voice,” what are you looking for in literary fiction right now and not getting?  What do you pray for when tackling the slush pile?

LE:  What I’m looking for but not getting enough of is a new story told in an amazing way or an old story told in a new way. I know it sounds cliché, but really that’s what I want.

Specifically, I’d love to get more historical fiction and serious adult literary fiction. I’d also love to get more really well-written middle-grade stories that don’t talk down to readers. And I’d love to get a totally heart-breaking YA story that doesn’t have death or maiming in it. When I tackle the slush pile, I pray for people to follow my submission guidelines and not query me with things I specifically have stated I don’t represent.

(Look over our growing list of literary fiction agents.)

GLA:  Talk to us about your interest in books with spiritual/religious themes. What draws you to these pieces? And what are some titles already out there like this that you wish you’d repped, so queriers can get a sense of your taste?

LE:  I’m usually drawn to books that fall left of center or totally off the beaten path, books that question our assumptions about religion or spirituality or take a new look at issues we take for granted.

Some books that I didn’t represent, but that I loved reading, are Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book, Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, Dalia Sofer’s The Septembers of Shiraz and Nicole Krauss’s The History of Love. Also, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Mermaid Chair and an old favorite, The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

GLA:  You lead publishing workshops at Hofstra University. Ever sign a student? Or been stalked by one, LOL?

LE:  I haven’t signed a student yet and I haven’t been stalked by any (that I know of). Two of my most amusing clients both stalked me on Twitter, though. But besides fantastic stalking skills, they both happen to be phenomenal writers. And pretty funny people.

WD’s “Securing an Agent Kit” is a smart buy
for the serious writer. This special kit has 5 great
products — including the GUIDE TO LITERARY
AGENTS — bundled together at 74% off. You’ll
get expert instruction on pitching, query letters,
researching an agent, and much more.

GLA:  What is the biggest query mistake you’ve encountered—this week?

LE:  Just this week, somebody queried me with a YA fantasy, and in the place where they should have put their professional bio or a few sentences about themselves, they had taken on the persona of their main character and said something about her instead. Then signed it with her name. And the email address was in her name. If I hadn’t actually been kind of interested in the manuscript, I would have just deleted it. But instead, I wrote a (kind of snarky) reply about how off-putting it was to receive this, and how, if they wanted to re-query me properly, I would consider their work. They replied with an apology, an explanation and a proper query. So I requested a full!

Queries are business letters. Agenting is business. Publishing is business. I try to be nice and friendly and funny and all, but the bottom line is that I expect those with whom I work to be professional and take what they’re doing seriously.

(Tips on Writing a Query Letter.)

GLA:  You say you find some magical realism entertaining. What would knock your socks off here? What is too much?

LE:  I’m one of those crazy people who really sees magic in the world. I don’t mean that in a psychotic way, of course. But what knocks my socks off is when a writer can infuse the real magic that is out in the world into the story in a way that genuinely touches and inspires me. It’s only too much if it doesn’t work for the story—if it’s gratuitous.

GLA:  You’re also intrigued by steampunk. How do you find the market for steampunk these days?

LE:  I think steampunk is pretty cool, but again, if it’s all about clockworks, goggles and airships, it just doesn’t work. A good, fresh story set in a steampunk world is what I’m interested in. If the writing is excellent, I think there’s a good market for steampunk.

GLA:  How editorial of an agent would you say you are?

LE:  I’m very editorial, very hands-on. My clients know I’m going to rip apart their manuscripts and send them back for revision. Usually a number of times. I’m not really an editor, though, so it’s up to my clients to be able to do the work they need to do. I try to offer as much support and guidance as I can, but ultimately it comes down to them.

GLA:  Will you be at any upcoming writers’ conferences where writers can meet and pitch you?

LE:  Yes. Some places are for pitching, some for meeting and some for both. So far this is what’s on my calendar (but you can check my blog theblabbermouthblog.com for updates and/or changes to this):

• March 21, 2013: NYC Women’s National Book Association Query Roulette
• April 6, 2013: Writer’s Digest Conference Pitch Slam
• May 3-5, 2013: New England SCBWI
• May 23-25, 2013: Backspace Writer’s Conference
• August 2-4, 2013: Willamette Writer’s Conference

I’m also putting together a 4-day writing workshop/retreat with a colleague of mine. It will either run this summer or fall in upstate New York. We are still working on securing the venue. If anyone’s interested in finding out more about that, they can e-mail me at writingyogaretreat [at] gmail.com for more information.

GLA:  What is something personal about you writers would be surprised to hear?

LE:  I have satellite radio in my car, which I like to play REALLY loud. I switch between 70’s on 7 and the “alternative” station, and both are a perfect fit.

GLA:  Best piece(s) of advice we haven’t talked about yet?

LE:  Follow your dreams: make a plan, educate yourself, work hard, don’t take anything personally, keep your fingers crossed, try to have fun and don’t have any expectations.

Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:

• Literary Agent Interview: Michelle Johnson of Inklings Literary. She Seeks New Writers.
• Find Out At Which Conferences Agents Will Take Pitches From New Writers.
• Writing Historical Fiction Based On A Family Story.
• Write the Book You Want to Read.
• Sell More Books by Building Your Writer Platform.
• How to Use Storyboarding and Plotting Techniques On Your Novel.
• Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and how to write a query letter.

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials for one year. You do not have to attend the live event to get a recording of the presentation. In all WD webinars, no question goes unanswered. Attendees have the ability to chat with the instructor during the live event and ask questions. You will receive a copy of the webinar presentation in an e-mail that goes out one week after the live event. The answers to questions not covered in the live presentation will be included in this e-mail as well.

ABOUT THE CRITIQUE

All registrants are invited to submit the first 250 words of their manuscript, plus a one-paragraph synopsis and/or a query letter. All submissions are guaranteed a written critique by literary agent Katharine Sands. Katharine reserves the right to request more writing from attendees by e-mail following the event, if she deems the writing excellent.

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

Literary agents are always on a treasure hunt. But few writers know what it takes to make an agent yell, “Eureka, I’ve struck gold!” A first glance is all that most writers will get before the agent moves on without ever reading further, and that first glance needs to be a “Eureka” moment. This live webinar will cut through the mystery of getting an agent to want YOU.

Literary agent Katharine Sands will show you the best ways to showcase your writing as a bold, new entry into its category and yourself as a potential author with an intriguing book poised to spring forth. Katharine will explain hooks, selling points, and engines so that you will be able to sum up your entire book with a two-line description—and that’s gold! She’ll dive into best practices that will allow your pitch to either give off sparks or create a moment or pose a provocative question. She’ll show you how you can avoid ‘Querial’ Killers: the easy-to-fix mistakes writers make when querying agents. And, of course, she’ll talk (in detail) about the All-Important-Page-One. Sign up for the webinar here.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• How to make the perfect pitch
• How to deliver the flavor your book to whet the reader’s appetite for more
• How to keep the momentum going through the All-Important-Page-One
• How to start in a logical place—yet from a compelling perch
• How to identify the most exciting elements that illustrate your work
• How to encapsulate (in clear core points) when proposing a book
• The five key takeaways you need to entice an agent/editor
• How to amplify your chances for being selected
• What to do—and what not to do—when summarizing your book in 200-250 words. You want the neurons in the agent’s mind to decide, “Yes, keep reading!”

INSTRUCTOR

A literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency, Katharine Sands has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Recently contributed “Grey is the New Black” to Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, a nonfiction look at the cultural phenom of the bestselling novel. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks, which might be at issues, life challenges or popular culture. When reading fiction she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling, and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.

Sign up for the webinar here!

Use the submission form below OR email your submission directly to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com.

IMPORTANT: If you experience trouble with the submission form, please email your submission directly to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com within the body of your email (no attachments please).

Unfortunately, we cannot respond to every entry we receive, due to volume. No confirmation emails will be sent out to confirm receipt of submission. But be assured all submissions received before entry deadline are considered carefully. Official Rules

Entry Deadline: July 15, 2013

Your Story Entry Form

For this week’s prompt, write a late poem. I know, I know–how original! But seriously, write a poem in which someone or something is late. Yeah, there are a LOT of directions to take this prompt, whether you take it there on time or not.

Here’s my late poem:

“meeting”

he slides in under the door
and floats silently beneath
the conference table and up
into his seat (previously
empty and making only
the slightest squeak) so
that no one realizes he
was never even there

*****

Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer

*****

Then, read some other poetry posts:

• Karen Rigby: Poet Interview.
• Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 219.
• S. Thomas Summers: Poet Interview.

GIVEAWAY: Jennifer is excited to give away a free copy of her latest novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

Guest column by Jennifer McMahon, who grew up in suburban
Connecticut, and went to Goddard College. She is the bestselling
author of Promise Not to Tell, Island of Lost Girls, Dismantled, and
Don’t Breathe a Word. Her newest novel is The One I Left Behind
(Jan. 2013, William Morrow), which received starred reviews in
Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. She lives in Vermont with her family.
Visit her website or connect with her on Twitter.

2. Begin with character. Make her flawed and believable. Let her live and breathe and give her the freedom to surprise you and take the story in unexpected directions. If she’s not surprising you, you can bet she’ll seem flat to your readers. One exercise I always do when I’m getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper and start with, “I never told anybody…” and go from there, writing in the voice of your character.

3. Give that character a compelling problem. Your character has to have something that’s going to challenge her, torment her and propel her forward. At the heart of every story is conflict – whether external or internal, make it a good one, and remember that this problem is going to shape your character, leaving her forever changed.

(Learn How to Start Your Novel or Book.)

4. Make things happen! You can have the greatest characters in the world, and write beautifully, but if nothing’s happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly. In my books, I make sure something important to the plot is happening in each scene. And if there’s a scene in there that isn’t helping to move the story along in some vital way, I cut it, no matter how great it is. When I’m editing, I’ll go scene by scene and write a single word sentence describing the action on an index card. Then I lay the cards out and I’ve got the bare bones of my story. I can see if things are moving forward, if I’m throwing in enough twists and turns, and if there are scenes that just aren’t pulling their weight.

5. Make it believable. Ah, you say, but you sometimes write stories with ghosts and fairies – how believable is that? It works if you make it believable in the universe of the book. In Promise Not to Tell, I came up with rules for the ghost – things she could and couldn’t do. I gave her a history and compelling reason to return. Readers hate cheap tricks. Don’t pull the evil twin routine in the final hour. Don’t bring in a new character at the end to solve the protagonist’s problem for her. She’s got to resolve things herself, for better or worse.

6. Stick with it the project. You’ll be tempted to give up a thousand and one times. Don’t. Finish the story. Then work twice as hard to revise it. Do your best to get it out in the world. When it’s rejected by agents and publishers (which it will be) keep sending it out. In the meantime, write another. Then another. Trust me, you get better every time. You’re not in this writing business because it’s easy. It took me four books, two agents and seven years to get my first novel published. It was a long tough road, but so, so worth it in the end!

7. And lastly: Ignore the rules. (Including mine.) Everyone’s got advice and theories; people want to pigeonhole you, put you in a genre with its own rules and conventions. I think the work comes out better when we leave all that behind; when the only thing to be true to is the writing.

GIVEAWAY: Jennifer is excited to give away a free copy of her latest novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

Agent Donald Maass, who is also an author
himself, is one of the top instructors nationwide
on crafting quality fiction. His recent guide,
The Fire in Fiction, shows how to compose
a novel that will get agents/editors to keep reading.

Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:

• Your Job is to WRITE, Not Worry.
• NEW Literary Agent Seeking Clients: Michelle Witte of Mansion Street Mgmt.
• The Advice I Need Most As a New Writer (But Never Got).
• 5 Pieces of Advice I’m Glad I Didn’t Take.
• Sell More Books by Building Your Author Platform.
• Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and how to write a query letter.

Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.

We’re not pleasantly intrigued, we’re baffled—or annoyed. The dreamlike illusion we’ve enjoyed up to that point has been ruptured not in some Brechtian breach of the fourth wall, but through plain bad writing. We scratch our heads, thinking: The character just wouldn’t do that.

As writers, we don’t ever want our readers to feel that kind of disconnect—but that doesn’t mean our characters should be neatly and easily defined, either. Pushing our characters to their limits, in fact, is what makes for compelling fiction.

So how, then, can we determine the limits of what’s believable in how a character behaves?

—by David Corbett

Character in Context

In life, when someone we know acts “out of character,” the subtext is almost always: Something must be wrong. The strange behavior, we assume, must be the result of some strain of which we’re unaware.

Sometimes we learn the person has a health problem. Sometimes we learn he was under the influence. The intoxicant may be drink or drugs, the pressure of fear or the rush of love (or some other kind of rapture), but the result is the compromise of the person’s inhibitions.

In the most unsettling cases, we come to realize we don’t know the person as well as we thought. The behavior we found puzzling resulted from an aspect of personality we simply didn’t know, recognize or understand. (This kind of revelation isn’t limited to others. You may even have shocked yourself on occasion, behaving in a way that made you think: Where the heck did that come from?) One great advantage reality has over fiction is that it doesn’t have to make sense. It just happens. In the case of real people, there’s no stopping the movement of time to say: I don’t buy that.

The great challenge of fiction is creating characters who feel logically, emotionally and psychologically consistent—who make sense—but retain the enigmatic power to surprise.

It should come as no shock that the trick is to learn from real life.

Just like their real-world avatars, characters who defy our expectations are almost always either:

■           Under a strain
■           Feeling free of some customary inhibition
■           Revealing something about themselves they’ve previously concealed.

Put otherwise, the key factor in the seemingly strange behavior is normally one of the following:

■           Conflict
■           Permission
■           Deceit/Disclosure.

Conflict: I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to.
When the principal motivator for the unexpected act is conflict, the character enters the scene with a strong desire and a plan for achieving it, only to run smack into an equal—or overpowering—counterforce. As the character learns his plan is insufficient, ill-conceived, even ridiculous, he tosses aside this element or that—or pitches the whole thing overboard—and is forced to adapt and improvise.

The limits of what the character can do in the service of improvisation are defined first by the parameters of her mental and emotional makeup. But those parameters acquire elasticity depending on the depth of the character’s desire, the ferocity of the opposition, and the stakes.

For example, in the film Three Days of the Condor, Joseph Turner (Robert Redford) is a mild-mannered analyst. But when he returns from lunch one day to discover his co-workers murdered, he kidnaps Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) as he tries to find a safe place to regroup. Turner’s not “the kind of guy” who under any other circumstances would abduct a woman. But his behavior is believable because his adversaries are ruthless. He’s not acting as he might; he’s acting as he must. And the real key to the credibility of his otherwise out-of-character behavior is that he himself acknowledges the abnormality of what he’s doing.

Likewise, in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is desperate to find not just a resting place but a home with her sister, Stella. It becomes obvious, however, that Stella’s heart and home now belong to her husband. Blanche struggles harder and harder to get Stella to come out and say it—“my home is your home”—using flattery, nostalgia, guilt, sisterly simpatico, humor, but her efforts continue to fail. Finally, there’s nothing to do but something wildly out of character; Blanche tells her sister the unvarnished truth: “You’re all I’ve got in the world.” But, being Blanche, she can’t help but add a little manipulative dig: “And you’re not glad to see me.”

These scenes work because the characters don’t improvise wildly; they start with the familiar, using tactics they know well. The level of strangeness rises in sync with their desperation as the conflicts build and those tried-and-true methods fail.

The scenes also succeed because on some level the characters express or recognize the unusualness of what they’re doing. Turner apologizes. Blanche quickly reverts to form.

Permission: As long as you say it’s OK.
Drink doesn’t just steady the nerves. It grants the drinker tacit permission to let her inhibitions down, act as she pleases and say what she feels. And the “uncharacteristic” behavior is usually something that, when the person is sober, is kept under wraps.

Returning to Streetcar: For Blanche, drink isn’t just an intoxicant, it’s an indulgent friend who assures her it’s all right: She can return to her fantasy world of romance and mystery and forget the scandalous realties that have rendered her homeless, penniless and the subject of scorn.

Looked at more broadly, the role of permission reveals how much we frame our conduct around our circumstances. Propriety, duty, conformity, habit—they limit what we believe we’re allowed to do or say. But then we go on holiday—wherever, however—and the rules of gravity no longer apply.

In the film Rachel, Rachel, Rachel Cameron (Joanne Woodward) is a middle-aged spinster in a small Connecticut town. She lives wrapped in a straightjacket of righteous conformity—until a man shows up and she falls in love. She takes her holiday right there at home, finally letting herself feel the pleasure she’s been denying herself for decades.

Here the issue isn’t adaptation in the face of present conflict. It’s exploration or discovery of a suppressed, unsettling or even dangerous side of the personality that’s been there all along, just unexpressed. But that raises the question of why it’s been unexpressed, and that often leads us to past conflict.

You won’t know how far you can push a character’s liberated feelings without exploring her backstory: Why has this side of her personality been denied? When was the last time she demonstrated it? What happened? Who in the character’s past enforced that prohibition? In answering such questions, envision a crucial scene: a self-absorbed parent ignoring a long-anticipated performance; a judgmental teacher launching into a tirade over an innocent mistake; a so-called friend mocking the latest love interest. Let that one vivid scene stand for a history of abuse, neglect or being shut down.

And when the suppressed behavior at last finds expression, keep that internal naysayer in mind. As when faced with present conflict, the character might not suddenly leap from the familiar to the unrecognizable in one reckless bound, but instead experiment, her boldness growing with her confidence. Then again, the behavior she’s kept under wraps may escape with explosive force, as though to destroy the image of that person who, for years, has been saying over and over with insidious force: no.

Deceit/Disclosure: That wasn’t really me.
Here the inexplicable conduct hasn’t been repressed—it’s been deliberately hidden. Of the three types of surprise behavior we’ve covered, this one lends itself best to a sudden, big reveal. It’s also the easiest and most straightforward to portray.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, Marguerite St. Just is baffled by what’s become of the brave, charming man she married. Sir Percy Blakeney has become a parody of himself, playing the part of the slow-witted dandy. Ultimately Marguerite discovers the foppery is a disguise, intended to conceal Sir Percy’s role as the leader of a band of noblemen dedicated to saving the lives of aristocrats facing death under the Reign of Terror.

In Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the gentile Maxim de Winter erupts in inexplicable bursts of caustic temper that take on such a menacing aspect that he seems increasingly likely to crack apart. In the story’s crucial revelation, he at last confesses why this is—his wife Rebecca’s death wasn’t an accident after all.

Once we know the puzzling behavior results from something that has been concealed, we accept it readily, unless for some other reason it feels unbelievable. The paraplegic may very well get up and dance, but if he does, it better be magic or deception at play. Anything else is just bad writing.

If I did this more often I’d be better at it.
Regardless of what’s prompting your character to reach her limits, strange behavior shouldn’t come easily. Characters who demonstrate instant skill or comfort with something they’ve never tried before reside largely in the realm of shlock. The less familiar the behavior, the clumsier and more uncomfortable it should be. Trying anything out of the ordinary means complication, difficulty, intensified focus. Portray that in your scenes, and you’ll increase tension, enhance suspense and intensify reader empathy.

The Role of Contradictions

What much of the behavior we’re discussing exemplifies is the capacity of human beings to be contradictory.

Simply stated, a contradiction is something about a person that piques our interest because it betrays what we expect, given what else we know or observe about him.

Once you train your eye to look for contradictions, they crop up virtually everywhere, expressing a paradox of human nature: that people do one thing and exactly the opposite; they’re this but they’re also that.

In Jungian psychology, this largely unexplored, contradictory aspect of the personality is referred to as the Shadow. Psychic wholeness requires integrating into the conscious personality the nebulous traits embodied in the Shadow, and a great many stories are premised on exactly that kind of self-realization.

That said, some of the contradictions that prove useful in characterization are not psychological at all, but physical: the bully’s squeaky voice, the ballerina’s chubby knees. But the most interesting contradictions always reflect something internal, even dispositional: A man is both garrulous and shy, outgoing but suspicious, brutal but childlike. Omar Little from the TV show The Wire isn’t just a shotgun-toting vigilante; he’s also an openly gay man who treats his lovers with startling affection and tenderness. The effect: We never know which half of the personality will assert itself in any given situation. That’s suspense—the best kind.

Some contradictions are behavioral: We feel divided—optimistic and yet wary, accepting and yet guarded. Other contradictions reflect the need to act properly in a variety of contrasting social situations: the dinner table, the office, the stadium, the chapel, the bedroom. We feel differing degrees of freedom to “be ourselves” in each of these environments, depending on who else is present.

Beyond purposes of verisimilitude, contradictions serve two key dramatic purposes:

■           They defy expectation and thus pique our interest.
■           They provide a straightforward method for depicting complexity and depth. Specifically, they provide a means to portray:

•    Subtext (the tension between the expressed and the unexpressed, the visible and the concealed)
•    The situational subtleties of social life (“I must be many things to many people”)
•    The conflict between conscious and unconscious behavior
•    Suspense (we want to know what the contradiction means, why it’s there).

But again, there are limits to what is credible. Contradictions that seem implausible may enhance a
comedic portrayal—the mob boss with the Yorkie, the cop who’s terrified of cats, the chain-smoking nun—but they can undermine a dramatic one if handled carelessly. Ask whether the contradiction draws you, the writer, toward the character, or permits you an emotional distance. If the latter, you’re “looking at” the character rather than emotionally engaging with her, and the characteristic you’re considering is likely not working. If you can justify the contradiction, root it in backstory and unearth scenes from your imagination that reveal how this character developed these seemingly irreconcilable inclinations, it will become less conceptual, more intuitive and organic.

Emotion, Intuition & Trust

The temptation when writing scenes in which characters do the unexpected is to stop and explain what just happened. Many writers think, not without some merit, that to leave things incomplete, ambiguous or untidy is just sloppiness. Though there’s much to admire in this sort of rigor, in the realm of characterization it’s sadly misplaced.

Where rigor is necessary is in how vividly, creatively and comprehensively we conceive our characters. We don’t get to know someone new through a recitation of biological data; we get to know her through interacting with her—especially during emotional or demanding times. So, too, we get to know a character by engaging with her in meaningful scenes that reveal the most significant aspects of her life: her wants and contradictions and secrets and wounds, her attachment to friends and family and her fear of her enemies, her schooling and sense of home, her loves and hatreds, her shame and pride and guilt and sense of joy. As important as a character’s choices and motivations are in any scene—what she does and why—they don’t exist in a vacuum.

This way of understanding the character—relying on emotionally significant scenes, not information—allows us to engage with the character on the level of intuition, not intellect. This permits us to envision our characters clearly and feel as though we’re in dialogue with them, observing them as we observe a dream—not controlling them like marionettes. And it’s precisely “plot puppets” that most routinely exhibit traits that feel “out of character.”

Readers shouldn’t be vexed by a character’s behavior, but they should never feel entirely comfortable, either, or they’ll be several steps ahead of the story at every turn.

Explaining your character kills her. Whatever she does, the reader or audience needs to feel her actions arise not from some single, explainable source, but from the whole of her personality. And the deeper you understand that whole, the more likely you’ll be able to portray convincingly the unexpected in her behavior.

So where is that fine line between being puzzled by behavior and finding it contrived? The answer lies in letting the behavior emerge from the character, not the writer. We need to create enough of a vivid intuition of a character that the possibility for real, unpredictable, unpremeditated action on the character’s part seems credible. And this requires envisioning the character in emotionally demanding scenes, filled with conflict, pathos and risk. In the end, it’s not so much a question of how far the character will go, but how thoroughly you’re willing to connect with her.

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