J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter was turned down 12 times.

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight was rejected 14 times.

Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries went through three years of rejections.

Louis L’Amour got 200 rejections before being published.

Agatha Christie went through five years of rejections.

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help was rejected 60 times.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks got 24 rejections by agents before being picked up.

25 agents rejected The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Dr. Seuss’s And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street was rejected 23 times before it was published.

Donna Jo Napoli had 14 years of rejections before her first book was picked up by a publisher.

Madeleine L’Engle’s Newbery Award winning A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times.

Pearl Buck’s Nobel Prize winning The Good Earth was rejected ten times.

Robert Pirsig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was rejected 121 times.

Bestselling Danielle Steele was rejected 31 times before a publisher accepted her first book.

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen was rejected 140 times.

Richard Hooker’s M*A*S*H, first a book, then a hit TV show, was rejected by 21 publishers.

The rejection slips collected by William Saroyan stacked up to about 30 inches high, which is estimated to be 7,000 rejection slips. In 1940 Saroyan himself rejected the Pulitzer Prize.

Here are some actual rejections:

“You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character,” said one publisher, rejecting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s manuscript of The Great Gatsby.

A rejection of The Diary of Anne Frank stated, “The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.”

Louisa May Alcott was told, “Stick to teaching,” when she submitted Little Women.

Here’s a link to more literary rejections if you’re interested.

These days it’s fairly easy to skip the possibility of rejection and self-publish. In my opinion, the best route is to try traditional publishers and agents first. You might get some very valuable feedback. But self-publishing is also a good option as long as you 1) make sure your writing is the absolute best it can be, 2) get editorial feedback, 3) realize that most self-published authors sell very few copies of their books. Writer who decide to self-publish are in good company. Even when self-publishing was not as easy or respected as it is today, it was the last resort for some authors whose books are now classics, including Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit), the poet e e cummings, and Edward Fitzgerald (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam). Traditional publishers keep their eyes on self-published books that sell well, and they’re not shy about making offers if they think a book will earn them a profit. After all, publishing is a business, so the bottom line for publishers is . . . the bottom line.

Happy Writing, Happy Reading! See you next blog.

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them and learned a ton!)

You might think that making characters do the smart thing, the reasonable thing, is a no-brainer. But amateur writers often force characters to do things for the sake of a story line, not because it’s the logical next step for the character to take. The truth is, the character isn’t created by the story; the story is created by the character. What if a writer wants to write a story in which a character breaks into a house? Then the writer must begin with a character who has a motive to break in and would logically, smartly (in his mind anyway) make that choice. The action grows out of the character.

So we’ll assume we have a character who has a motive to get into a house. Take the next step in logic: We people do whatever comes easiest. The easiest way to get into a house is to open the door and walk in. So if the door is unlocked, why would a character crawl through a window? A writer should either make the logical choice or make the choice logical. If the character does something the hard way, the writer had better let the reader know why.

Let’s change scenarios and say a character wants to get to the opposite side of the lake. The easiest way might be to drive around. No wheels? Take a speed boat. Need to be quieter? Row. There’s no boat, no oars? So borrow a boat. Or wait for a time when a boat or car is available. Or call a taxi. Oh, all right already, forget crossing the lake. Maybe it’s not that important anyway.

If we want a story to be believable, two things are clear: 1) The character must have a strong enough desire and motive to do, get, or avoid something. 2) The stakes, tension, and suspense rise when it’s impossible to do, get, or avoid something in the easiest way. (This, in a nutshell is a plot. Desire + motive + obstacles.) So let’s say the character desperately needs to get across the lake as soon as possible to stop her crazy aunt from driving to Mexico with her sister’s baby. No wheels. No boat. She’ll swim. (Hmmm. Why doesn’t she call the police? We’ll need a good reason for that too.)

So the first question to ask is, “What is the easiest thing for my character to do now?” He should make that choice unless he has a motive to do otherwise. We’ve seen that a smart person might not make the easy choice. So, “Why wouldn’t he do the easiest thing?” It’s the writer’s job to make sure the reader understands why the character does not take the easiest, most logical course of action. Once the reader understands, she sees the situation in a new light, and the action is now logical.

Why does this matter? Because when a character’s choice doesn’t seem logical, the reader is thrown out of the story. I don’t want to give a reader a reason to stop reading. As a reader and show-watcher myself, I’ve experienced being thrown out of a story. “Why didn’t she just tell him?” I ask. Or “Why didn’t they just question the butler?” Or “Why didn’t they just Google the address?” Writers should show readers why a character’s unusual choice was the logical one.

That said, sometimes a writer intentionally withholds the character’s motives for doing or saying something illogical. Why? Mystery. Most good stories contain some element of mystery or a secret to be revealed. Not revealing motives can increase tension and suspense. But in order for a lack of logic to work, the writer first must gain the reader’s trust. In other words, the reader has to believe that the writer will reveal the logical motive later in the story. And the writer must not violate that trust. Before the end of the story, the writer must reveal the motive, the why, the logic of what previously occurred. It must all make sense by the end.

So writers, what’s the easiest thing for your character to do next? What’s the smart choice for that character? And why?

Now I’ll do the smart thing, which also happens to be the easiest: Happy Writing, Happy Reading! See you next blog.

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them and learned a ton!)

A Timeline is a tool that helps me keep my story logical and believable. In fact, my publisher required me to send in timelines for the Angelaeon novels so my editors could compare them to my manuscripts and make sure I didn’t slip up. Slip-ups can be as simple as writing, “The next they headed for Navia,” when in fact it was two days later. Or worse, having a character appear in a scene when logically there’s no way he could have arrived in time to be there. Logistics. A writer has to keep track of where characters are, even when they’re offstage.

So when I say every character should have an alibi, I mean that every character who is not in the scene should (in the writer’s mind and the reader’s) be elsewhere. Not just – poof – disappeared only to return – tada! – later when the writer needs her again. To be believable, these characters should seem like real people (or other sentient beings), which means they truly will be elsewhere, somewhere logical, when they are not in the scene. And the writer should know where.

A Timeline not only helps me keep scenes and “onstage” characters moving in a logical progression, but also enables me to discover alibis. Where are the “offstage” characters? What they are doing? And why (motive)? Answering these questions sometimes gives me ideas I can weave into my story. At the least, having a Timeline and knowing alibis help me avoid major mistakes in logic.

For example, in Throat of the Night while Melaia, Serai, and Jarrod are climbing the stairs in the overlord’s tower, where is Hesel? What is he doing? What about Trevin? Livia? Benasin? Yareth? Lord Rejius? They should all have alibis, and I should know what the alibis are, because what these characters are doing will tie into the story as it moves along.

The actual Timeline that I send my publisher does not have the alibis. The alibis are simply my writing tool, a subset of the Timeline. What I send my publisher contains only the scenes and the “onstage” characters. Here’s part of what went to my editor:

Eye of the Sword Timeline:
The time span covered in Eye of the Sword is just short of three months. Book 1, Breath of Angel, ends toward the end of autumn. Book 2, Eye of the Sword, picks up the next summer.

Day #1:
Chapter 1- first part of 4:
Afternoon:
Trevin finds Dwin at Drywell.
Trevin and Dwin brawl with Dregmoorians.
Trevin makes his way back to the stables at Redcliff.
That evening:
Trevin attends banquet in his honor.
Trevin goes to the king’s quarters with Melaia.
Trevin walks Melaia back to her room.
Trevin and Dwin argue in their own quarters in the temple.

Next day:
(Day #2)
Last part of Chapter 4 – 5:
Trevin at the stables.
Trevin appointed comain.
That evening:
Trevin attends the celebration in his honor.
Trevin to Melaia’s apartment, meet with Jarrod and Serai.

Next day:
(Day #3)
First part of Chapter 6:
Trevin at the stables, Nash found murdered.
Trevin and Pym travel north.

And so on through the whole book.

So . . . if you’re reading my blog when you should be doing something else, . . . I’m happy to be your alibi.

Until next time: Happy Writing, Happy Reading!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them and learned a ton!)

What you found is probably summary. A full-fledged scene should be action (dialogue counts as long as it’s not just talking heads). So – and this is IMPORTANT – if you find a section that does not fit the PASTE model but it’s supposed to be an important scene, then you have summarized something that needs to be shown in action. Rewrite it so that it is a true scene. But if the section simply bridges from one action scene to another, or if it prepares us for the next important scene, then it is narrative summary, the kissing cousin of scene.

“Scenes are those passages in narrative when we slow down and focus on an event in the story so that we are ‘in the moment’ with characters in action,” writes Sandra Scofield, in The Scene Book, a Primer for Fiction Writers. In contract narrative summary “Comments on some aspect of character, setting, or event (or on life in general) before entering the scene . . .” Think of a time in a movie when the camera has pulled back to show a long shot of a landscape or city skyline, then moves in to the house or street where the next action is about to take place. In a novel, summary does the same thing.

My new favorite writing book is Writing for Story by Pulitzer-winning writer Jon Franklin. It’s an older book (it mentions the typewriter – Google the definition if you need to), but the advice is rich and well worth multiple rereads. Franklin divides narrative into transitional, preparatory, and climactic. Transitional summary is a bridge (perhaps the shortest would be “meanwhile, back at the mother ship . . .”). It “tells.” Preparatory summary, as its name suggests, prepares the reader for the action to come, and that action is what Franklin describes as the climactic narrative (not to be confused with the climax of the story). While preparatory summary can tell or show, climactic narrative always shows the action, never just tells about it.

The use of these three types of narrative creates the pace of the story. Transitional summary often functions as a way to slow the story down when we need a break from the fast pace of action. It also orients the reader to changes in setting or time, character and mood. (A flashback is one type of transitional summary, but should be used only when needed to push the plot forward.) Preparatory narrative, notes Franklin, usually follows transitional and may be telling or showing. If it can be action (showing), it should be.

When I’m PASTE-ing, I note transitions by jotting down the oh-so-creative word, transition. Then I note a description of some kind. Here are two examples from Throat of the Night. The first is pure transitional summary (told, no action). The second is transitional summary (told, no action) moving into preparatory narrative (shown by action). Both move into major action scenes.

Transition (summary, told), chapter 11: Cave tunnels, Trevin and children following the stream that leads north out of the Dregmoors.

Transition (summary, told), chapter 15: Trevin, Livia, Benasin next morning approach guarded Navian gates. Preparatory (shown by action): Subdue the guards and the approaching malevolent; enter Navia.

Transitional summary and preparatory narrative are usually fairly short, but they feel slow. Sentences may actually be longer in these sections, perfect places to foreshadow events to come, plant clues, describe characters and locations, and give definitions or explanations. Once a high action scenes begins, no reader wants the story to pause for an explanation or description.

You can see that mixing transitions, preparatory narrative, and full scenes, gives a story a pace of its own. To visualize it in context of the plot arc, think of the transitions (telling) as the valleys, the preparatory narrative (telling or showing) as the foothills, and the high action scenes (showing) as the mountain peaks. The story then rises and falls, with each rise a bit higher as the story builds to the highest peak of all, the climax.

I’m not an expert at this. I learn more with each novel I write, and this process is what currently works for me. Each writer has to find his or her way through the process, so my way may not work for you. But if you’re a writer, I hope it helps you find your way. If you’re simply a reader, three cheers for you! I hope this helps you enjoy novels even more.

So, until next time: Happy Writing, Happy Reading!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them and learned a ton!) http://tinyurl.com/onzkqkt

Note: I created this template using ideas from a variety of writers. I wish I could remember who they all are, but I can’t. As we all do, I take advice here and there, try it, keep what works, add my own spin on it, and use it the way it works best for me. That said, here’s my template, annotated for you, and showing the P-A-S-T-E I’ve talked about:

SCENE # __: (Labeled by setting location and time or chronology, for example, Auditorium #1, first rehearsal. This is the first E of Environment. Hint: It helps to make a separate timeline and include the day number here.)

Inciting Incident: (This is crucial. Except for the first scene, all scenes must be a consequence of something that occurred in an earlier scene. Cause and effect operate all the way through the novel. For the first scene, the inciting incident happened previously and caused the conflict that starts the novel.)

Characters: (Protagonist, Antagonist, plus any secondary characters important to the scene.)

Entrance Emotion: (This is the second E: Emotional environment.)

Goal (for each major character in the scene): (Hint: Characters come into the scene with different agendas. Yes, a character who supports your protagonist may want what the protagonist wants, but why? Her goal may really be to “support her friend.” Or to “get this over with and go to lunch.” Or to “gain admiration.”)

See-saw: (the back and forth of the conflict; what Robert McKee calls “beats,” the “exchange of action/reaction” for example, action: character one makes a threat, character two laughs at the threat. That’s one see-saw. Back and forth we go through the scene as the characters try to bring the situation into balance – as each one perceives what balance is.)

The Turn: (the turning point or tipping point of the scene)

Resolution and Exit Emotion(s): (Again the E of Emotional Environment. The Exit Emotion should be different from the Entrance Emotion. If there has been no change, rewrite the scene or toss it. A scene is about change. Karl Iglesias suggests that with each scene, writers ask, “What three ways have I reinforced the characters’ feelings through verbal and nonverbal communication?”)

Okay, that’s the template. Now here’s an example from Throat of the Night.

Scene #4: Trevin’s room at the temple; Night of Day 8 (on my timeline)

Inciting Incident: Trevin has promised Melaia that he will get the third harp.

Characters: Trevin, Dwin, Jarrod

Entrance Emotion: Trevin is determined to get the harp, but disappointed that Melaia won’t let him go to Eldarra first.

Goal: Trevin – to get Dwin to accompany him into the Dregmoors
Dwin – to relax with his brother at the end of a hard day
Jarrod – to maintain control of a situation that seems to be getting out of control

See-saw: T. asks D. to go with him to Dregmoors – D refuses because he’s on the trail of a turncoat – T comes up with a plan to go to Eldarra first, without M’s knowledge – J agrees with T’s plan but urges him to travel with the returning caravan – T urges J to take care of M and watch for an informer – D. chides T for telling J because everyone is a suspect

The Turn: T decides to go to Eldarra (without telling Melaia) before entering the Dregmoors, but he’ll have to leave tomorrow. A secondary turn: D suspects everyone. (revelation and foreshadowing)

Resolution and Exit Emotion(s): Trevin heads to the palace to tell Melaia only that he’s leaving tomorrow. Worry, guilt over deceiving her, regret that he has to leave so soon, and hope that all will work out.

The PASTE for this scene:
Trevin (P) asks Dwin (A for the scene) to accompany him, and when D refuses (S), he decides to go by way of Eldarra (T), which causes a mix of emotions (E) including worry, guilt, regret, and hope.

I suggest that you break down every scene this way and ask of each scene, as Jordan E. Rosenfeld suggests, “what aspect of the larger plot problem will you set into play?” I like to create as much of this template as I can before writing the first draft. It becomes my outline and guides me through the novel (although I keep it flexible, changing, adding on, and deleting as I go). I’ve tried it the other way, too, creating the template after I’ve written the first draft. Either way it’s a good tool to help in revision.

So that’s how I PASTE a novel together. It’s hard, hard work, but for me, it’s fun hard work.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them and learned a ton!) http://howtothinksideways.com/shop/?ap_id=karynhenley

Nine months ago I received my agent’s critique of my contemporary YA manuscript, The Summer of Layla Kate. She wrote, “There is so much to like about this story . . . but I think it is missing one crucial thing – emotional impact.” She went on to ask questions, nudge my muse, and encourage me to revise the manuscript. Her honest, astute critique sent me on a quest to discover how to write with emotional impact. Nine months later, after sending my agent the drastically rewritten manuscript, I received her email: “I am crying . . . I can’t stop reading Layla Kate.” Which was her way of saying, You did it.

I’m still not an expert at emotional impact, but it’s such an important element, especially in contemporary novels, that I’m going to share with you what I’ve learned.

First a Writing 101 guideline that’s worth a reminder: Avoid telling the reader how the character feels. In other words, She was sad. He was worried. She was angry. These do not evoke emotions in a reader. Instead show the character’s body language or actions (She slumped to her chair. He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he paced. Her fist struck the table, making the teacups rattle.) This is “show, don’t tell” at its most basic.

But even showing emotion won’t impact readers if they’re not invested in the character’s hope, desires, and dreads. Writers have to make the stakes for this character credible and important. That’s why we sometimes hear the advice: choose as your protagonist the character who has the most at stake, the most to lose. Which I did. But my character’s emotional struggle was tied to backstory, and backstory is usually most effective when revealed later in a novel, which is where I put it. In this story, though, I needed to let readers know very early what the character was struggling with, so they could feel it with her. Then throughout the story I could ratchet up the stakes.

I also learned that the pacing of a story controls emotional impact. As an example, think of jokes. A joke is a mini-story built around a set up and a punch line. If the set up is done right, the punch line evokes an emotional reaction – surprise, delight, laughter. Emotional impact in a novel is also created with a set up leading to a punch line (climax), which evokes a strong emotional response in the reader: tears, trembling, a gasp, a sigh of relief. One reason my story lacked emotional impact was that the pacing of the scenes was wrong. I had placed several major emotional “hits” in different places in the story, which weakened the overall impact. In revision I consolidated the “hits” so they met at about the same point in the story. Then I wove threads through the plot and subplots to set up the hit.

I learned to grow emotional response at the scene level as well. A scene is a mini-story, so a scene creates emotional response the same way: set up and punch line. To pace the set-up, emotion must start at its weakest and grow to its strongest – and it’s shown through dialogue and action.

For example, in my manuscript, I wanted to end one scene with my protagonist feeling so frantic that she runs from the situation. So I noted the way her emotions would escalate. At the beginning of the scene, she’s apprehensive. Then she becomes tense, then anxious, edgy, scared, alarmed, overwhelmed, frantic. Then I decided how to show this escalation in action and dialogue. She escalates from shifting in her seat to glancing at the clock to feeling her belly clench to placing a shaky hand to her forehead. Her voice chokes, she feels light-headed, leans over with hands on knees, clenches fists, can’t think straight, shouts, looks around crazily, shoves her way out the door and runs. I didn’t use all these actions, and I added appropriate dialogue, but I built from weak emotion to strong in the scene.

One book that helped me on this journey was Writing for Emotional Impact, a book on screenwriting by Karl Iglesias, who says writers are in “the emotion-delivery business.” Our job, he says, is to evoke emotions in our audience. Another helpful book is The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. They catalogue emotions along with how they’re shown in body language and interior sensations.

A scene is about change. It must move the story forward. So as you evaluate each scene in your novel, note the emotional state of the protagonist at the beginning of the scene and at the end of the scene. If there has been no change, rewrite the scene or toss it. In my next blog, I’ll show you specifically how I break down my scenes to make sure they’re pulling their weight.

Meanwhile, Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

(As always, I recommend any of Holly Lisle’s writing courses. I’ve taken most of them – so much practical advice and fantastic writing tips!)

In my last blog I said that a good PASTE can help you create this huge mosaic of a novel, not only at the macro, whole-story level but also at the micro level of scene. While your PASTE will guide you through your novel (your mosaic), beginning to end, each scene (each tile in the mosaic) should also have the identical components:

Protagonist + Antagonist + Struggle + Turn + Environment

I also explained that for the micro level, I made a small tweak in the PASTE. At the level of scene, the macro Turn-on (the unique wow! of your story idea) becomes simply the Turn, which is similar but more suited to the micro. Today I’ll explain how PASTE works for scenes.

Like tiles in a mosaic, each scene presents a small part of what eventually becomes a whole picture. In general a scene is a unit of a story that occurs in one specific frame of time or in one specific location, often both. When the time shifts or the location shifts – or sometimes when the trajectory turns and continues in a different direction – one scene ends and another begins. A scene has a beginning, middle, and end. It’s kind of like a mini-story. But its purpose is to move the whole novel forward, so the scene has to be the consequence of what happened before, and also the impetus for what comes after. Otherwise it’s just stuck into the story and doesn’t do the job you need it to do.

So let’s get to the PASTE. Protagonist and Antagonist are fairly self-explanatory. If you are telling the story in first person or close third, and you’re using a single point of view, the P of your whole novel will be the same at the scene level. The Antagonist may change, though. Although the general A is still the same, at the scene level, the opposition to P may be a door she can’t unlock. Or a traffic jam when he’s in a time crunch. Whatever causes the conflict in that scene is the Antagonist of the scene.

If you’re using multiple points of view or an omniscient style (a storyteller’s distant third), both the Protagonist and Antagonist may differ at the scene level from the P and A of your whole novel. Yes, the overarching P and A are still there, but your P may not even be in the scene. Someone else may be pushing the P force forward. The A force would be whatever opposes the P force.

Struggle is, of course, the conflict between what P desperately wants (or desperately does not want) and what A desperately wants (or desperately does not want). At the level of scene, I view this struggle as a See-Saw. Or a Swing. Or a tug of war. You can actually go through the entire scene breaking it down into P says or does this (tipping the balance his way), then A says or does this (tipping the balance her way). The scene see-saws all the way through: tip toward P, tip toward A, tip toward P, tip toward A. In fact Thomas Kaufman says, “When a character does something, he or she is trying to restore a balance to what is seen as an imbalance.” So in the scene, tip to P, tip to A, tip to P, over and over again until the scene Turns. The Turn in a scene is the climax.

Jeff Arch says, “Writing a scene is about purposely creating some kind of tension, taking it to the breaking point and then letting it break – that’s the only way that growth, or any kind of movement, is going to happen.” The Turn is the breaking point.

Robert McKee says, “We can turn scenes only one of two ways: on action or on revelation. There are no other means.” Holly Lisle gets more specific. She says we can turn scenes with a Disaster, a Discovery, a Revelation, a Connection, Foreshadowing, or a Twist. If you want to analyze it, you can sort each of Holly’s Turns into one of McKee’s categories, either action or revelation. At any rate, this is the moment at which the road takes a turn, either a gentle curve or a sharp hairpin. But either way, it’s best if this Turn is something the reader – and often the protagonist – did not see coming. The Turn leaves us with questions: What’s around this bend? Where does this new direction lead?

Of course, all of this occurs in an Environment, which at the scene level is a very particular place and time, with very specific props and sensory details.

There’s another E to think about as well. But I’ll get to that in my next blog. And I’ll show you how I break down my scenes to make sure they have what it takes to move my novel forward.

Meanwhile, Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

Protagonist + Antagonist + Struggle + Turn-on + Environment

In last week’s blog I demonstrated how I use PASTE to create a pitch for my novels. I also said PASTE can serve as much more than just a pitch. So let’s explore PASTE a bit further.

The pitch, of course, is something you do when the novel is finished. But the PASTE pitch can carry more than its weight, starting at the think-stage. I write my one sentence pitch even before I write the first draft of the novel. (Actually, in the novel-writing process, I write the pitch before, change it during, and tweak it when I’m done.)

That may sound strange, but my pitch actually helps me write my rough draft. And it’s a lifesaver as I do rewrites. Plus it’s a great help with scene building – and rebuilding. For my rough draft, PASTE is my blueprint, my map, my GPS. True, when you’re just beginning to develop your rough draft (or outline, if you’re an outline writer), you don’t know exactly how your story will develop. But if you mix a tentative PASTE, you’ll have a good idea of how to start, because these are the minimum requirements to begin a novel:

Protagonist: Who is the story about? (Who has the most at stake?)
Antagonist: Who or what opposes the protagonist, stands in his/her way?
Struggle: What is the conflict? What’s in the middle of your story’s tug-of-war?
Turn-on: What makes your story unique? What makes it intriguing, fascinating?
Environment: Where does it take place: setting, time, culture? What’s the mood?

All your answers will be tentative; they may or may not change, so hold them with a loose hand. The key here is not to turn PASTE into marble. At this stage, it’s wax or clay. It guides my writing, functioning as a reminder of where I intended to go with the story, but it’s pliable, erasable, and changeable. If the story takes me in a different, better direction, I change the PASTE to reflect that.

But back to the rough draft: As soon as you can list the elements of your PASTE and form them into a sentence or short paragraph (as I showed you in last week’s blog), you can post your PASTE beside your desk and refer to it as you write. It will remind you of what your original intention, and if you get off track, your PASTE can get you back on track. Or if the new track is more promising, you can mix a different PASTE. Either way, this tool will help you write. (Hint: Anytime you rewrite your PASTE, don’t delete the old one. You may decide you want to go back to it.)

So a good PASTE will help you create this huge mosaic you’re working on. But not only at the macro, whole-story level. It’s also useful at the micro level of scene, because each scene (each tile in the mosaic) should have the following components:

Protagonist + Antagonist + Struggle + Turn + Environment

You’ll notice that I made a small tweak in the PASTE. At the level of scene, Turn-on becomes Turn. But more on that in next week’s blog, when I’ll explain how PASTE works for scenes.

Meanwhile, Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

A query letter is usually the first of your writing an agent or editor sees. (Unless they’re scouting self-pub’d work, which is another subject.) If you’re at a conference and meet an agent or editor face-to-face, your pitch may be verbal. This is sometimes called the “elevator pitch,” because novelists have been known to quick-pitch their books to agents or editors in an elevator – to a captive audience.

In a written query, you have about a paragraph (a short one) to persuade the agent that your manuscript is worth reading. In a verbal pitch, you have three minutes. Either way you have to work fast and make the pitch intriguing. So it helps to present your novel in a nutshell of 30 to 50 words. That’s basically one sentence, which can function as both short paragraph and elevator pitch. In fact that one sentence can do much more than just pitch. It can be a GPS as you write your novel and a PR hook after publication. Learn to write “the pitch,” and you’ll have an amazing all-purpose tool. (I’ll explain this in depth in next week’s blog.)

Writing a pitch can be a frustrating process. It’s almost harder than writing a novel. At issue: How do you condense hundreds of pages of story into 50 words or less? It took me a long time to figure it out. I learned partly through trial and error, partly by watching PR experts pitch my published novels, and partly through the advice of others writers. Holly Lisle explains the basics clearer than anyone I know, but other writers also helped me formulate my process.

How: Start with the basics. I use the acronym PASTE so that my pitch can function not only as a way to sell my novel, but also as a way to write and revise my novel. If you get the How down, your “pitch” can do a tremendous amount of work for you. (That’s next week’s blog.) So how to write the pitch?

Protagonist + Antagonist + Struggle + Turn-On + Environment

Protagonist and Antagonist are fairly self-explanatory. This is your main character and the person or thing that stands in the way of the main character’s goal in this story.

Which brings us to the Struggle. What’s the main issue that pits protagonist and antagonist against each other? What’s the face-off? What’s the big deal that puts them toe to toe, hands fisted?

The Turn-On is a term specific to my agent-editor pitch. (When I use the pitch for other jobs in the writing process, I change it to simply “the Turn.”) The Turn-On is the intrigue factor. The allure. The “you-must-read-this.” It’s the special zing that makes your story different from all others in a fascinating way.

Environment includes setting, but is broader. It’s the entire milieu of the story. Magical? Historical? Everyday contemporary? Southern U.S.? Europe? Otherworldly fantasy or sci-fi? Environment can even indicate mood. As you write your pitch, touch on the setting and also write in the same tone you use to write your novel.

Okay. Now jot down your bare bones P + A + S + T + E. Expand that into a 30 to 50 word sentence (go for 30). Hints: You don’t have to put PASTE in that order. And sometimes the environment is obvious in the description of the other four factors. Write at least three options for your pitch. Actually, do yourself a favor and write six. Or eight. Or even ten. The seventh or ninth may be the best of the bunch.

Here are some of my pitches. See if you can find the PASTE in each:

A young priestess stumbles into a feud between immortal brothers who destroyed the stairway to heaven, trapping angels in her world, and discovers her destiny entwined with the payment of an ancient debt required to secure the angels’ release. Breath of Angel

In a world of shadows and angels, a man of low rank sets out on a dangerous quest to prove his loyalty to the king and his love for the princess, but finds himself face to face with his own guilt and a truth that will affect the fate of the world. Eye of the Sword

In a world in which even friends cannot be trusted, a princess and the kingsman she loves must fight the Firstborn immortal’s destructive bid for power and restore the angels’ stairway to heaven. Throat of the Night

Why do I use the PASTE acronym? How can this type of pitch carry more than its weight and be an all-purpose tool for you? Stay tuned. I’ll explain next week.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

If you’ve been following my Facebook posts, you’ll know that my agent accepted my contemporary YA manuscript, the one I’ve been working on for – well, it seems forever. Now she can submit it to publishing houses, so I’m hopeful that I’ll have good news on the publishing front in the next few months. Then the work on that project will begin again as I tackle revisions requested by an expert editor. Writing is the most difficult fun I’ve ever had.

Now that I’ve successfully written four novels, three published and one on its way, I know the drill, and I’m becoming more comfortable with the process. It’s interesting: writing each novel, I have come – multiple times – to a sort of stuck place. Not the infamous Writer’s Block, but more of what I would call Writer’s Pause. It’s as if I’m crossing a stream by jumping from stone to stone. I come to the end of the stones, but I’m not yet across the stream, and it’s too far to jump to the other side. Pause. What now?

I have to admit that the pause can turn into panic, which can turn into the dreaded Block. But now that I’ve experienced this several times within each novel, I see that it’s a normal part of the process. At least it’s a normal part of my process. I come to a place where I don’t have the answer to a plot problem, or the scene isn’t working, or I need a twist and can’t think of one, or the emotional impact is missing. The temptation is to think I’m stuck and I’ll never get unstuck. Remember the old Sesame Street segment with Guy Smiley at the piano, trying to finish writing a song? He ends up banging his head on the keys, saying, “I’ll never get it. Never. Never.” Which is silly, because the kids know exactly the word he needs to complete his rhyme.

But the panic of “I’ll never get it” is real, and it’s a threat to a writer’s sense of self, because how can you call yourself a writer if you can’t write? The thing is, it’s only a pause. It’s temporary. I’m amazed at how the Muse takes her time, “musing” over which stone I should jump to next. But she always comes through. Maybe the pause lasts overnight. Or for a day or two. Maybe even for a week. But there’s no need to panic. Panic just shuts down the system. Take a deep breath, enjoy the view of the stream, and wait. The next stepping stone will appear.

Here are four suggestions for what to do when you Pause:

1. Trust the Muse – or if you prefer: Trust the Process. As the Beatles sang, “There will be an answer. Let it be.”

2. Encourage the Muse – or the Process. Stay mentally connected to the place in the plot, character, scene, or wherever you’ve paused, and ask every relevant question you can think of. Write down answers and ideas, and avoid jumping on the first idea you have. Dig deep. Get six ideas; better yet, ten. Think back through what you’ve already written and see what threads you left untouched – maybe some bit of dialogue, or a minor character, or an object you wrote into a scene – anything might lead to the next stepping stone. Holly Lisle calls these “toys.” In previous scenes, what toys did you leave lying around that you can now play with?

3. Read. Listen to talk radio, like All Things Considered. I’ve often had an “aha” moment reading or listening. If I keep my eyes and ears open, someone often sets out my next stepping stone.

4. Learn to be comfortable in the questions. Sometimes I just leave a placeholder – three question marks or maybe a note: [Need something solid here]. Then I jump to a stone farther away, which leaves a gap that will need to be filled. But as I work on what I’m fairly certain I want and need later in the book, the Muse often hands over exactly the stone I needed to fill the gap.

Benjamin Disraeli said, “Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.” I don’t know about genius, but I know about writing a novel, and it’s not best done as fast as a Tweet or an Instagram. When it comes to thoughtful thought, sometimes you have to wait for the next stepping stone to appear.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com