Margin Call and the value of a dive bar chanteuse

A client of mine and I were thrashing out ideas for a book recently, and I used the movie Margin Call as a comparable title.  My client had not seen the movie so we both retired to our respective sofas to refresh our memories.

I really love that movie. It's an absolute study in pacing and tension.

We reconvened the next day, extolling the movie again, when my client made a very interesting observation.  He said the movie is tense because the movie's gaze (ie the viewer) never turns away. There is literally no break in the main story line; no subplot, no segue for character development.

He said that's what makes the movie work, but it wouldn't work in a novel. It would be too short for starters, and the pacing would be too relentless. It would be claustrophobic.

Aha!

I stopped to think about what he said.  If you've seen Margin Call (and if you haven't you should! Right now!) you'll realize that we know next to nothing about the characters. We know Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) is a former rocket scientist ("the money here was more attractive" is one of my favorite lines.) We know Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) has a dog that's dying. We know Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) got fired that morning cause it's one of the very early scenes of the movie. And we know what Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) spends his money on.

As far as character development, it's so subtle you have to really think about it.

This is a forward motion, no pauses to breathe movie.

In a book, you need to give your reader pauses to breathe and characters that are more than one-dimensional

A book is a marathon, Margin Call is a sprint. At 107 minutes it's an Olympic paced sprint too.

So what's the point here? Don't leave your writer's notebook on the desk when you watch movies. I've learned a lot about pacing from watching movies. Both Margin Call, and another favorite Heat.
I've often mentioned that one of the best books about writing is actually a book about jazz: Waiting For Dizzy by Gene Lees.

Movies, and other art forms, can show you a lot about craft and style and discipline. It's not goofing off if you go to the movies, or go to a dive bar to hear the chanteuse. It's actually work, and I'll write a note saying so to your skeptical spouse as needed.

your writer's notebook?

Do you keep a writer's notebook?

A notebook is an essential tool for remembering great phrases and paragraphs you read. I've kept one for years and thumbing through it reminds me of the books I've read and loved. Actually writing things down by hand helps it stick in your brain too.

[It was when I found myself writing things from TRICKSTER in my notebook that I first fully realized what an extrordinary writer Jeff Somers is.  Don't ever tell him of course. We like to torture him with wry observations about his character and cats, not confuse him with compliments.]


Two things I added to my notebook yesterday came from Evan Lewis's new story in the upcoming May 2015 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

 
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Judging by the old man's hands, I'd have tagged him at sixty. The confidence and economy of his movements might shave ten years from that, but the truth was in his eyes.  Those eyes had seen Lincoln shot and Caesar stabbed, and were probably watching when Cain killed Abel.  Now they were watching me.

I fished for a way to begin. "How well do you know Portland?"

The Old Man's shoulders rolled in a noncommittal way. "We've cuddled," he said, "but never kissed."

What's the most recent thing you've written in your writer's notebook, or jotted down to remember as great writing?

Question: so, how do you do it?

My question is, hopefully, simple. How do you do it? The daily posts on your blog, Facebook, and other outlets? How do you manage the torrential downpour of queries *(let alone dealing with the ones who don't read the QueryShark forums and responding to the ones who do)? How do you manage to do all that and maintain connections with your clientele while shopping their books around to publishing houses/editors who also require a certain depth of connection with you? Even on vacation, you put SOMETHING on for us to look at, completely flying in my smug little face when I thought for sure you'd not put up anything while on vacation or at ThrillerFest. All the while, I cringe at having a definite daily word count!

We aren't even talking about reading or how you manage home life *(which I have a growing suspicion that you must live in a hovel under your desk at the office).

Lastly, as a fun little tid-bit, what kind of shark are you anyways? Keep ripping up the seas!

How do I do it?
Time goblins. I buy the minutes you squander from a team of traveling goblins who steal those extra minutes and resell them. I don't have 24 hours in a day; I have 36.  Every time you come to your senses after drifting off into some sort of vacant stare, well, thank you. Those are now my minutes, and I intend to use them to torment you.

Do yourself a favor

If you write crime fiction of any kind, you must subscribe to Crimespree Magazine.

There's no better place to read reviews by real readers, interviews, and opinion pieces by crime writers.  It's absolutely essential.

One of the (many) reasons it's essential reading for crime writers is the reviews of front list books.  You must be reading in your category, and the reviews at Crimespree are a good way to find out which books those are.  They aren't just the best sellers from the big names.  The coverage is wide and deep.

An annual subscription is $38. Bi-annual is $72.

Don't tell me you can't afford to subscribe.  You can't afford NOT to.

Get the obvious out of the way!

 The 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar 

(hat tip to Kelly Cogswell for the link!)

Writing tips from R.L.Stine

I particularly like the first half of Tip #5!


I subscribe to the newsletter published by The Strand magazine (you should too!) and I got this there.

An idea I hope catches on!

The story behind this is here at Biblio Buffet.

Honestly I think this is the one and only thing I don't love about living in NYC: there's no way to have one of these in my "front yard"

My front yard looks like this:

If you are a writer, watch this

20 minutes or so. You will not regret it!

(tip of the chapeau to Gary Corby and Anne Bingham for this)

"Be relentless"

FSG recently posted an article by Sarah Manguso "How to Have a Career: Advice to Young Writers."  

I definitely like the relentless part ("Work".) And I really REALLY like the part about pretending not to know who the ad hominem attacker is (Enemies.)

What do you think?

A new wrinkle in the query game

There I was bright and early on Sunday morning  July 1. I'd forgotten it was the day I reopened to queries. You guys had not.

Bing, bang, bong. 10 queries in 10 minutes.

Funny thing was though, I forgot to send a form reply.

Instead I answered each one.

And then I got this:

I know you get a lot of crap from writers for sending personal rejections, so I wanted to say THANK YOU. ... I know this rejection probably took you less than a minute to write, but it has really helped me out. Please continue to make little differences like this in the lives of authors- for every one author you get who snaps at you for it, there will be another ten of us who are truly grateful. I have other works in progress. Expect to hear from me in the future if I ever have something that's a fit for you!

well, you had me at thank you of course. It's always a pleasant surprise not to get yelled at for rejection.

And then it occurred to me that there were probably a lot more people like Miss Z here who were glad to hear more than "no" and weren't going to shriek bloody murder.

How to reach those folks?

Here's the idea: One night a week, probably Friday or Saturday night, between 9pm and 10pm (Eastern Shark Time) I'll reply individually to queries received during that time slot.

The queries get a reply NOT to be confused with feedback. There might be some feedback, but that's not the point of the experiment. The point is simply to reply individually, not via a form letter.

The queries need to be for realz. No querying western haiku just to try to get a reply.

I'd like to ask for no crazy replies, but I think we just need to let the chips fall where they may.

What do you think of this? Comment column replies welcomed.

Get a book, make a donation

Concord Free Press does something that used to be very unusual.
They give away their books. Free.
Before the "free download" marketing strategy, giving away books was pretty rare.
Concord Free Press has been doing it for a while longer.

Here's "the catch" (and I put that in quotes for a reason; it's not one)

You make a donation. To a charity of YOUR choice.
Then tell Concord Free Press about it.**
AFTER you get the book.
They trust you to do the right thing.

I like that a lot.
(I like that alot too)

Here's the bigger "catch": this is the ONLY way to get these books, and there are only 3000 copies printed.
And they're really good books.

Here's the one that will be available starting tomorrow, 9/15 errrr...10/15 (thanks to an eagle eyed commenter for that!)

A HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN PRAYER (a novel) by Lucius Shepard.


More info available at the Concord Free Press website.



**(the list of donations is pretty interesting reading in and of itself)

The times they are a'changin', yes indeed

For as long as we've had websites and electronic addresses for writers, it's been a truism that most agents won't clink on a link, won't go to a website, won't do anything but read queries to find new work.

That's still 85% true (I made up the number but what ever it is, it's less than the 99.5% it was two years ago.)

What changed? Twitter and Facebook arrived.

Here's what that means to you:

I follow 224 people on Twitter.  I see everything those 224  write in general; everything they write to me (@janet_reid); and everything they write to people I follow (those 224 folks again).

But, I can also see, if I want, people who write to me or about me by clicking on the "Mentions" tab.  And I see a couple tweets a day from people I don't know, and often it links to their blog, or their site, or something that ...ta daaa... I click on.

So, yes, you're more likely to see a shark swimming in your backyard pool now than you were two years ago.


Here's why knowing this is important. You want to  BE READY.

(I've yammered about Being Ready before--this is the electronic equivalent)

If you have pages of your novel posted on your website, you should also have what could be thought of as an introduction, an overview.  It might be your query. It might just be a paragraph that gives me the time period of a historical novel. It's a brief statement that you use to answer the question: What is your book about?


I've gone to hundreds of websites in the last year and looked at 20-25 books posted there. Almost no one has an intro. It's like standing in a forest. I can see the trees, but I don't know where I am or which direction to go.

Think of the overview as giving me a map.

I know I know, one more thing.  But, if it gets your work read, if it makes serendipity and luck work in your favor, you'll do it.  Won't you?

If you're a writer with a book on submission that hasn't sold (yet) read this

CJ Redwine is one smart cookie.  I remember when her very first novel was making the agent rounds. I read it. So did two good friends of mine. Two of us knew it was perfect for the third. And it was.


I've always had a bit of a softspot in my heart for CJ. I loved her book.  I watched from across the bar as time marched on and the book didn't sell.

And then, she got a deal.  She was over the moon. Her incredibly talented marvelous agent Holly Root was over the moon.  And the two of us who'd kept an eye on CJ: yup, we were over the moon too. Naturally we celebrated with drinks. 

CJ has some cogent insight into this process here on her blog.  If you're in her shoes--an author with an agent and an unsold book--what CJ says here will give you some valuable perspective.

Plus how could you not want to read a blog post that has this picture on it

If you're a writer, read this.

I found the link to this post by Ira Glass on the DorothyL list (thanks Bonnie Riley). 

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.

But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit.


Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this.

And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.

Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.


It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile.


You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Baked Goodies

I'm at CrimeBake this weekend, one of my favorite conferences.  It's well run, the writers are deliciously tasty (chum!) and I like the hotel bar (a lot!)

My usual plan at CrimeBake is to hang out in the bar and see what brave writers swim into view.  Yesterday was no exception.

Writer: I'd like to talk to you about my novel.

Me: Dive in, I'm glad to hear about it.

Writer then regales me for three  minutes about a novel that could be written by anybody, and is clearly based on his professional experience as a successful executive in an industry that many of us might consider less than enthralling.

some segue chitchat then:

Me: I can't help but notice your wristwatch.  Is it for sailing?

Writer:  No, it's about... then proceeds for three minutes on a topic that IS enthralling, full of tension, intrigue and historical anecdotes.

Me: So, why aren't you writing about that?

Writer: umm...


If there's an object lesson here, it's this:  Writers hear "write what you know" and a lot of people who are starting to write take that to heart and write novels that are thinly disguised renditions of their workplace and the people they'd like to murder there.

I'd like to offer up this alternative: write what you're passionate about.  It's your passion that I'm interested in.

Writing a novel for National Novel Writing month?

This post from Toni McGee Causey back in 2008 might help.

So, whadda ya know?

Today, my answer is "not much" since a truck rolled to a stop on my head and is now unloading elephants for the circus. Thankfully my nose is imitating the Boulder Dam so I don't have the olfactory element of the elephants to contend with.

The silver lining is this is the perfect excuse to not leave the house, and thus roam around the Internet.

Which brings me to one of my favorite blogs "You Don't Say."  In a recent post John E. McIntyre offers up career advice for a student.  One thing on the list is "be knowledgeable." I think that's very good advice.

Right now I know too much about elephants and noses.  Tomorrow, I hope to know a lot more about something much more interesting.

What are you knowledgeable about and did it help your writing?

So, they told you you had to have a blog

I found this blog through one of my Twitter pals and was immediately struck by the idea how much easier this format would be for writers than trying to dream up blog topics all the time. Club up with three or four other writer pals and all of you discuss one book.

For starters, it moves the discussion off you and for some of my clients that's a huge plus since they are shy and writerly and all.

For second, it's of more universal interest than the usual "here's what I had for breakfast today"--of course, I'm totally interested in what you had for breakfast if you're my client but you want an audience of more than one person!

For third, the people who write the books you're discussing (and agenting/editing/publishing them) will find your blog. Of course this means you have to write cogently and leave off the personal diatribes (this writer SUX!) for this to be an advantage, but I'm not too worried about that with most of you.

And you don't have to discuss front list books; you can discuss books you think should be classics, books you've been afraid to read; books that you failed to understand in high school but now get...there are a lot of books to choose from!

Food for thought.

And hell yes I want to read the book the Three Guys discussed on Friday. I wonder if I call up Reagan Arthur tomorrow under the guise of pitching her something fabulous I can sweet talk her into sending me an ARC?

Celebrate the 4th by celebrating the foundation of democracy

The foundation of democracy is knowledge.

Access to knowledge is free in this country. It's called the public library.

What better way to shoot off a firecracker or two (metaphorically) than by helping out the libraries in Iowa that have been devastated by floods and tornadoes.

If you care to give, here's how to do so:

(From the DorothyL list)
The libraries affected by the floods do not want book donations, however monetary donations are welcome and may be sent to the following:

Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation
500 First Street Southeast
Cedar Rapids, IA. 52401

Here are some pictures of the situation there.



Friends of New Hartford Public Library
P O Box 292
New Hartford, IA. 50660

And some pictures of the situation there too.

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