Category Archives: Craft

It is Thursday and Sammy the Shame Sloth has slowly retreated to his tree limb of doom. He’ll return some day when someone needs some shaming. Something tells me it won’t be long.

Before we get to my Craft Thursday post, I have a couple of cool things to share.
First, I finally posted the soundtrack to SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL. If you click on “Extras” above, you’ll find links to all the soundtracks for the series thus far. Please note, though, that you need iTunes to access them.


January 19, 2012

Also, the awesome readers at Fresh Fiction voted SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL the Fresh Pick for today. Sabina’s been called a lot of things, but “fresh” is typically an adjective used to describe Giguhl. Either way, I’m thrilled.
By the way, if you’re an avid reader, you should check out their awesome newsletters to stay up to date on all the new releases in every genre. Those ladies know their business.

Now on to Craft Thursday.
So this week I tried something new that I thought all of you might find useful. Have you heard of Pinterest.com? It’s an online vision board web site. You can create themed boards for any topic or theme your little creative heart desires. I have one for cool houses I want, gardening, fashion, books I’ve read and want to read, cool quotes and, most importantly, book inspirations.

I’ve been keeping a running board going with images that spark story ideas for me. Sometimes they’re random images and sometimes they’re a set of images that I’ve posted there for a proposal I’m actively working on. But a couple of days ago it occurred to me that I could use it to collage a book I’ve already written.

Background: Back in the olden days (four years ago), when I started writing RED-HEADED STEPCHILD, I decided to make a collage to help me visualize Sabina’s world. The exercise was partially motivated by the fact I’m a pretty visual writer (I see the story like a movie in my head), but also because it was fun and I got to look at pretty pictures.

Back then I posted a bunch of pictures I’d cut out of magazines and printed off the internet to a big black poster board. Some of the images I chose on purpose and some were just cool snapshots that I liked the look of but didn’t really know where they fit in the story (Inevitably they ended up in the story because the subconscious is a tricky genius).

But that was four years ago. You can imagine that this poor paper and glue-stick craft has not held up well in the pit that is my office. But then I realized I could just recreate the collage on Pinterest. Not only could I keep it for myself for posterity, but I could also share it with my readers as bonus content.

Maybe this all sounds too frou-frou to you. Maybe you consider yourself a real writer who doesn’t need all this folderol and accessorizing to make your worlds feel real. But some of you might. Some of you are frustrated and feeling stuck. You’re shoving words on the page just to say you wrote something. You’re stuck.

You forgot to have fun.

Always remember Jaye’s first rule of writing: If it ain’t mostly fun, you’re doing something wrong.

So shake things up. Try a collage (paper or virtual, your preference). Go to the drug store and stock up on random magazines and sit your butt on the floor and cut out anything that delights or intrigues you. Toss those bad boys on a piece of poster board. Don’t be afraid to get glue on your hands. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Don’t worry about it making sense. Collage and exercises of its ilk are meant to bypass your rational mind and speak directly to the girls in charge. In my case the girls in charge look a lot like Thelma and Louise. They drive their convertible through my subconscious, shooting up the joint and having sex with alluring ideas that manifest in the form of Brad Pitt.

Anyway, the point is: Have some fun for chris’sakes! This is writing, not doing taxes or clipping your toenails or organizing your coupons. You’re a badassed word slinger. A creator or worlds. A mother trucking god of the page who shoots word lightning from your fingertips.

And a badassed creator who slings word lightning can make a goddamned collage is she wants to!

If you’re looking for ideas, feel free to check out my boards at Pinterest– HERE. But don’t feel like you have to follow my example (lawd help you if you do). Let loose. Get freaky. But most of all, try to have some fun.

Pop quiz time!

Now hold on–don’t go away. I promise there’s no maths involved. But there may be cookies.

The Problem

Six months ago, Jimmy finished his first novel. He started writing it because he turned forty and god dammit it was time to shit or get off the pot. It took him nine months to write the first draft. Because Jimmy wanted to do this right, he also relied on a critique group to help him whip his Steampunk Western into shape. He didn’t balk when they said his characterization was flat and his dialog stilted. He sat back down and did his best to remedy these issues. Then he asked his good friend, the English teacher, to help him hunt down typos and grammar issues. While he was working on revisions, he also diligently read books and blogs on publishing. He follows several agents and editors on twitter. He made lists of agents who rep his genre and editors looking for books like his. He’s paid attention. He’s done his homework.

Finally, the time came and he sent out ten query letters–perfectly formatted and error-free. He’d vetted his letter first, naturally. Much to his delight he actually gets a few requests for partials and even one for a full manuscript. He went to writing conferences and pitched in person even though it made his bladder feel like a bowling ball in his gut. More requests followed.

But then the rejections started rolling in. “… competent writing, interesting premise, but I just didn’t fall in love.” Soon his inbox is filled with Dear John, It’s not you, it’s your book letters. But he’s a figher, this Jimmy. Every rejection is like waving a red flag at a bull. He digs his heels in, sends more queries.

Only to receive more rejections.

After six months, the bitterness starts to creep in. The disillusionment. Those idiots in New York wouldn’t know a good book if it bit them in the ass! MY critique groups loved it! The agents who read it said it showed promise!

The quiz, my friends, is this: What should Jimmy do next?

A. Keep sending out queries–it only takes one yes!

B. Do more revisions. If it just keeps working on it, it’ll get there!

C. Who needs New York? Jimmy should sell that glorious bastard of a book himself!

D. Why are you asking us stupid questions? I came here for answers.

While none of these choices are wrong, none of them is exactly right, either. The proper answer in my opinion (and yes, most writing advice is just the opinion of the answerer) is actually choice E.

Choice E goes like this: Jimmy needs to put that book in a metaphorical drawer and get to writing a new book.

But, but, but … Jaye he put so much work into that book. He did everything right! He researched and revised and, and, and …

Hush, my pets. I hear you. Writing the first book is tough business. The learning curve is steep. And when you manage to finish it and most of the feedback you hear is encouraging, it’s easy to fool yourself into thinking your apprenticeship is complete.

It most emphatically is not.

When I finally got the call from my first agent–the one who eventually sold RED-HEADED STEPCHILD in a preempt–his first question to me was, “How many books have you written?”

I told him RHSC was my third completed novel.

His answer? I”m paraphrasing, but it was a lot like, “I thought so. You can always tell when someone has a few books under their belts.”

I see some of you sneering. “It might have taken YOU three books, but it will only take me one. My mother said my first novel is genius.”

No, honey, it’s probably not anywhere near genius.

Look, I won’t lie–I have several friends who sold their first novels. It does happen. But here’s the dirty little secret: The minute you get a publishing contract you suddenly have several people expecting you do do a repeat performance on demand in front of an extremely critical audience with money on the line and potential legal repercussions if you fail.

So why not give yourself the gift of time to hone your craft before your throw yourself into the show? The struggles of the amateur–the dues paid–prepare you for being a professional. All those rejections and the critiques you need to mercilessly pursue prepare you for the slings and arrows of editors, reviewers and readers who do not love you and won’t say nice things just to spare your feelings.

Besides, you may love that book now, but I guarantee that in five years you’ll read it and wish someone had slapped you upside the head and stole it from you so you couldn’t make an ass out of yourself.

Like I’m about to do.

To illustrate my point about first books, I thought I’d share you with you some samples from the first projects I ever attempted. My stomach is churning about this because I’m mortified. But then I reminded myself that I talk a lot about people allowing themselves to be a novice and these are merely early examples of my own apprenticeship mistakes. But feel free to point and laugh because they are, indeed, pretty embarrassing. But then that is the whole point of this exercise.

The first example is a novel I didn’t complete (and you’ll see why in a moment). It was supposed to be a historical romance, but I couldn’t ever decide on a historical time period or country for the setting. Also? There are gypsies, which is why my working title was GYPSY WOMAN. Jesus.

Samantha sat at the table in front of Ila with a barely concealed grin on her face. The old gypsy was focusing on the tarot cards she was laying on the table in front of Sam. Why her maid insisted on this foolishness was beyond Sam. But she knew Ila meant well and plus it was kind of fun to pretend that the old woman’s predictions might hold a grain of truth. Of course she knew that her fate was already sealed and that she had no choice in the matter. Focus on the reading, she told herself. Outside the tent she could hear the sounds of merriment. She listened to the sounds of tambourines and drums for a few second before Ila was ready to interpret the meaning of the cards on the table.

“I see a man,” she said. “He has dark hair and light eyes. He is not what he seems.”

“Well that’s helpful,” said Sam, ignoring Ila’s look.

Ila drew in her breath sharply and smiled before she said, “My dear this second card is very lucky—it usually signifies true love.”

Sam snorted and received another disgusted look.

Cue my own disgusted look. I want to go back in time so I can slap myself.  So far we begin with a huge swath of backstory, followed by cliches, ridiculous repetition of names, and completely anachronistic dialogue. I wrote this 11 years ago.

The second example is from the first book I ever completed, a projected titled THE ART OF LOVING A VAMPIRE. I wrote it in 2006 and received something like 20 rejections before I moved on. I’m so, so glad I did. To wit:

Sydney Worth muttered to herself as she climbed the ladder. A sadistic man must have invented high heels, she decided.

Three-inch heels weren’t her first choice of footwear, but she didn’t really have a choice. Two weeks earlier her boss had made a snide comment about her sensible flats. She loathed giving the man any more ammunition against her, thus the pointy-toed torture devices which currently clung to the tenth rung.

After she steadied herself, she used her glove-encased hands to straighten the frame of the Gainsborough landscape.

Most curators relied on maintenance staff to handle routine tasks like this, but not Sydney. The European gallery was her domain. She felt responsible for making sure it looked its best.

Besides, she liked getting out of her small office and spending time with the art. It calmed her. And with a boss like Marvin Stiggler, she needed all the calm she could get.

“Jorge, is it straight?” she called out to her assistant, who was supposed to be helping her.

Nothing.

She sighed impatiently.

“Damn it, Jorge, is it straight or not?”

“It looks pretty good from here,” a deep, very un-Jorge-like voice responded. Her female parts went on red alert.

Every writerly instinct you have should be on red alert, along with Sydney’s lady parts. This is shit. Better shit than the first example, but still pretty stinky. Not only do we see proof of why I abandoned the romance genre in favor of urban fantasy–I can’t seem to resist horrible cliches and purple prose in romances–but also writing that is forced and self-conscious. I have no confidence in my voice as a writer here and thus relied on cliche and a “cute meet” to cover the obvious flaws. Now, I will say I seem to have worked out some of my pacing issues–not starting with dense block of text is a definite improvement. And there’s a spark of … something here, but it’s not good.

Now I’d like to share with you an example from SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL, which was written in 2011–six years after I wrote my first completed novel.

Blue lights flashed off the undersides of leaves. Off the tall brick buildings. Off the stoic faces of New York’s finest. The cops formed a tight circle around a tarp-covered body next to a Dumpster. Its lid gaped open like the mouth of a shell-shocked witness.

After three months on a steady diet of bagged blood, the aroma of a fresh human kill hooked me by the nose and dragged me toward the crime scene. The humans around me could smell the stink of trash and acid rain and gritty city. But they couldn’t detect the coppery scent that made my fangs throb against my tongue.

Delicious. Seductive. Forbidden.

Bright yellow police tape cordoned off the entrance to the park. Spectators gathered in a tight clutch on the sidewalk along Central Park West. Their morbid curiosity clung to their faces like Greek tragedy masks.

I shouldn’t have paid any attention. I shouldn’t have stopped. And I definitely shouldn’t have pushed my way to the front of the crowd.

But the blood called to me.

What a difference six years makes, right? Whether or not this is your cup of tea writing-wise, I think the improvement over previous attempts is pretty obvious. I’m comfortable in my own words now. You might notice that unlike the previous tow examples, this excerpt is in first person pov. I didn’t figure out that it was the most natural POV for me until my second completed novel, which I called my close-but-no-cigar book because it got a ton of requests and positive feedback but ultimately failed to win over any editors.

Looking back, I can see the trajectory of my writing skills clearly. With each book I learned new things about my writing and myself as a writer. I needed time to play and experiment without constraint. And like it or not, the instant you land that golden egg of a contract your choices become limited.

So, please, grasshopper, don’t force it. Foster patience. Give yourself permission to be a novice. Put that first book aside and write something else–or better, several somethings else. After you’ve done it awhile you can decide if you want to go down the yellow brick road to a Legacy publishing contract or go your own way. But not now. Now you need to keep the faith and give yourself time. Trust me, it’ll pay off in spades down the road.

Happy Craft Thursday! Today I’m going to tackle a reader question. Miss Bliss asked:

“How do you figure out chapter breaks? I mean…I am kind of baffled by the overall structure of an entire book. Do you have a certain page amount you think it should be? Or does it have to do with a certain amount of plot advancement?”

So chapter breaks … The crux of this issue comes down to pacing. I write very fast-paced stories, so my philosophy for chapter breaks is of the “get in late and leave early” school. Meaning I start each chapter in the middle of action and leave at a moment of high tension. The way I think about it is if I want to go “Duhn duhn DUNH!” at the end of the chapter then I’m going the job right.

Every author differs on the issue of chapter length. Typically, my chapters tend to be about ten pages long. They get longer as the book progresses, but in general I break my books into ten page sequences. That rhythm works for my style of story telling. And yes it is very much about rhythm. Shorter chapters speed up pace and raise tension. Longer chapters slow it down. Neither way is right or wrong. A lot depends on your genre and whether your books are plot-driven or character-driven.

I actually don’t decide on my chapters until the book is pretty far into the process. My first draft is a collection of scenes that I write mostly out of order. Later, I decide how many scenes to include in each chapter to maximize the pace. Other writers I know meticulously plot out each chapter and don’t deviate too much from the initial plan. Still others write the book straight through and then insert chapter breaks.

So I guess my answer is: It’s up to you.

Authors are constantly having to keep track of rhythms in their writing–from word choice to sentence construction to chapter breaks to plot structure. To decide how long or short your chapters need to be, you need to be aware of the experience you want your readers to have. I want my readers to keep turning pages. Therefore, I make sure that the end of each chapter makes flipping that page irresistible. But this isn’t appropriate for every genre, so other authors use different criteria for when to end a chapter.

If you’re still unsure, I’d recommend you pick up books by your favorite authors and pay attention to where they end their chapters. Chances are good you’ll start to recognize their own patterns once you’re paying attention.

Thanks for your question, Miss Bliss!

If anyone else has a question, leave it in comments and I’l try to tackle it on a future Craft Thursday. Happy writing!

Last week, I noticed a link posted by the very talent Rachel Vincent, she of many wonderful urban fantasy and young adult novels. Rachel belongs to the Deadline Dames blog, a group of savvy and kick ass writers. They had this great contest for their readers wherein they posted three pieces of flash fiction and readers had to guess which of the Dames wrote each story. Reading each great piece, I was reminded of my own past as a flash fiction writer.

But let’s back up a minute. Some of you might never have heard of flash fiction. Basically, they’re super short stories, ranging anywhere from 250-1000 words (definitions vary). Flash is a wonderful exercise in writing tight. When you have to tell a story in as little as 250 words, you learn very quickly to make very word count.

I was first introduced to this form of writing by Jason Evans, who runs the
Clarity of Night blog. Periodically, Jason runs flash fiction contests, where he posts a picture for inspiration and people submit 250-word stories related to the theme picture. A wonderful community of writers has grown around Jason’s contest and the competition is friendly but fierce. I participated in Jason’s first contest (called “Two Lights”), as well as six others. Later, once I was published, I guest hosted the “In Vino Veritas” contest, and I also contributed a Sabina Kane flash piece just for fun to the “Ascension” contest.

Besides the friendships I made by entering those contest and the excellent practice writing those stories gave me, I will be forever in Jason’s debt because one of my flash pieces, “I Can Dig It,” eventually became the first chapter of RED-HEADED STEPCHILD. Some of the details changed in the process, but the spirit of the piece–the elements that intrigued me to know more about this character–remained.

Up until I wrote that story, I had written two paranormal romance novels. While I enjoyed the process of writing them, I always felt like something was off for me. But then Jason posted that picture. I remember the day very clearly. I was driving down the road, pondering what I’d write when suddenly a voice popped into my head. She said, “Digging graves is hell on a manicure.”

And Sabina Kane was born. Sabina wasn’t a romance novel heroine. She was brash and ruthless and blood-thirsty. I fell in love with her instantly. Telling her story was my first foray into urban fantasy.

Five years later, the line that inspired that flash fiction piece has stretched into hundreds more. I just completed my fifth Sabina Kane novel, and during the course of writing them, I’ve managed to turn two additional flash fiction pieces into scenes for the series (“Faery Rings and Broken Dreams” and “Blood Will Tell”).

Obviously, I’m not saying that if you write flash fiction you’re guaranteed to become a multi-published author. But it certainly won’t hurt your chances.

Writing flash, in addition to forcing me to write tight, is an incredibly freeing exercise. Because of the short form, it’s easy to experiment with style and voice. The other thing that’s interesting is, if you enter a flash contest like Jason’s, it’s eye-opening to see how many different directions writers will take the exact same inspiration. This is a critical lesson in being a writer. No two of us will handle material the same way. Even if it’s been written about a thousand times before, it’s never been written by you.

I would submit to you that if you are stuck for ideas, writing a piece of flash fiction can uncork the genie’s bottle. Free from the expectations of longer form fiction, you can really play. And if you’ll recall, I believe play is essential for creativity.

So the next time you’re floundering or putting off working on your book, pick a random image or word and using it as a prompt for a piece of flash fiction. Or enter one of Jason’s contest and open yourself up to the generous and helpful feedback of the community there. You never know what will come of it. That one little 250-word scene might shake up your subconscious–or it might end up being the scene that inspires you to write a book that will begin your career as an author. You never know until you try it.

For those interested, the links below will take you to all the flash fiction I posted at Jason’s site.
“Emancipation”
“Going Back to Basics”
“I Can Dig It”
“It’s Not So Bad”
“Werewife”
“Faery Rings and Broken Dreams”
“Phoenix Rising”
“Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars”
“Blood Will Tell”

Have you ever tried flash fiction?

This week, an aspiring author friend contacted me to ask whether I thought a market exists for a certain type of book. I don’t begrudge the question. I’ve been there, too. Wondering if it’s worth putting so much time and energy in a project that’s doomed in the market. It’s not an unfair or unnecessary question. But it does miss a larger issue.

It’s so easy to get sidetracked by the noise. Between the internal critic who likes to tell you you’re a hack or you’re wasting your time and the cacophony of voices shouting about the publishing industry, it’s so easy to lose your nerve. That is, unless you are always mindful of the number one rule for all writers. Ready?

You control the words.

You don’t control the market. You don’t control readers’ preferences. You don’t control the publisher or the prevailing format in which your stories will eventually be published.

You control the words.

Chasing genre trends or writing based on what you think will be popular, is a sure way to either fail or get lost in a shuffle. So I would submit to you that your goal should not be to follow trends, but to start them. And you do that by writing what turns you on. You do that by writing in your true voice. You do that by exploring the shadowy edges of your own fears.

Look, I get it. It’s scary to do those things. No one wants to prod the wounds of their psyches to entertain others without some kind of assurance or safety net. But you know what? Everything is a gamble. It’s all a huge game of chicken. That’s terrifying but also incredibly thrilling.  If it was easy and safe, it wouldn’t appeal to the daredevil in every writer. The perverse voice in our minds that urges us to share our truths. To say the things in our fiction we wouldn’t dare say in polite company.

My challenge for you today is to let go of the things you can’t control and embrace those things you can. You control the words. That means you can either be a disciplinarian who forces the words to behave and line up in a neat row that will fit into someone else’s formula of what is a sale-able story. Or you can set fire to those words and let them burn up the page.

Either way you may fail. That’s truth. Not sure about you, but I’d prefer failure come on the heels of a period of passionate work than one in which I wrote something on someone else’s terms.

You control the words. Let that empower you. Don’t let the bullshit noise of the market and the doubt in your head prevent you from kicking ass on the page. Time spent worrying about a contract for a book you haven’t even written is a huge waste of time and energy. But you know what’s never a waste of time? Writing.

Go write your ass off. The rest will sort itself out.

When most people hear the word “outline” they think of those dreaded roman-numeraled jobbies from high school. You know the ones. If you’re like me, the thought of those subsets and highly logical left-brained exercises give you the shakes. If you’re not like me, they give you a sense of order and linearity, and perhaps even control over your ideas.

I sat on a panel last weekend at Fencon about how to take an idea through to an outline. I’ll admit I had some trepidation going in. I don’t outline in the traditional sense, and the idea of talking for an hour about them sounded about as appealing as, well, outlining. However, during the course of the discussion something occurred to me: Everyone has a different idea of what an outline actually is.

For example, I’m often asked if I’m a plotter or a by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer (aka a panster). The short answer is I’m neither but sometimes I’m both. If you’ll remember in my last post, I advocated resisting the urge to impose structure on your ideas too early in the process. That is because when I sit down to write a story, I focus first on accumulating ideas. I write scenes or images that I see very clearly. These little nuggets are like the shiny stones in a kaleidoscope. I get them down and then I spend a long time shifting them around, looking from every angle to find the vein of gold that will lead me into the heart of the story.

Usually, once I have pondered and shifted these stones around for a few weeks, I start putting them in some semblance of order. I do this by using a tool more often associated with screenwriting: a storyboard. This is not the same as a storyboard used by advertising people or animators to show images. Yet it is inherently a visual exercise.

Here’s how it works. I begin by writing the the main idea or goal of my core scenes on Post-It notes. Those are placed on a poster board in approximately the location I see them fitting into the story. The board has been divided into four horizontal sections. The top section is Act One, from inciting incident to the first story turning point. The middle two sections represent Act 2, which is the longest act and contains two turning points. The third section, obviously, represents Act 3.

When I begin laying out my scenes I may only have about ten or twelve beats, or scenes. Most of my books are around thirty chapters, each with one or two scenes. That means a book requires anywhere from thirty to upwards of maybe forty-five scenes. But now that I have a skeleton for the story with my initial 12 or so scenes, I can start playing with the white spaces. Using more Post-Its, I connect the dots between my existing scenes. Usually, I also use different colors Post-Its for different subplots or major elements. So, for instance, in the story board shown above for GREEN-EYED DEMON, the main plot is blue and another element I was keeping track of is green.

After I get my main scenes on the board, it’s kind of like planning a road trip, where each Post-It is a destination. I know, for example, I need to get from Dallas to Atlanta in the first act. Maybe I have a couple of stops on the way already mapped out. This is where I figure out whether I want to add a detour to see the world’s largest ball of twine or if I’d prefer to take the scenic or more direct route.

I can assure you that this method is not easy. It’s circuitous and non-linear and can be quite frustrating. But it reflects how I think about story–in a visual, right-brained sort of way. Often times, I don’t know what I want to say until I’ve figured out what I don’t want to say by writing lots and lots of scenes that won’t make it into the final story. The story board helps me rejigger my plot on the fly. It also allows me to know with a quick look if my pacing of any of the story elements is off. And because I use short one-line descriptions for each scene, it also allows me enough leeway for inspiration to strike while I’m writing. It also allows me to write the book out of order, which means that I’m always working on scenes I’m excited about on any given day. When the first draft is done, the board also allows me to reorder scenes easily and then apply those changes in the document.

As I was sitting on the panel last weekend, I realized that while I don’t plot or outline in the traditional sense, my storyboard is, nevertheless, a visual outline. They might not work for everyone or make sense to anyone else who sees them, but they work for me.

Part of becoming a writer is figuring out how your mind processes story. I figured out a long time ago that trying to impose linear plots on my ideas results in formulaic story, so I shun any tool that pushes me in that direction. But some writers’ best work comes from linear thinking. Roman numerals get them excited and that’s okay, too.

I guess my point is that there are as many types of outlines are the