First Thursday Preview

You don't get much more First Thursday than the first of the month. We have a full agenda this time, including discussion topics and business news.

We'll be reviewing pieces from Sandy, Cynthia, Jerri Lynn and Zack, and Joe's piece from our last get-together, if he's able to attend. A reminder that Brian will not be coming, so if you haven't read his work yet, you've gained a two-week reprieve.

Of course, Brian was to moderate our topic on overcoming an author's fears -- that is, the fear of leaving oneself fully and completely on the page. We will hold the discussion anyway, either in open forum or with a new moderator, so please bring your thoughts, and more importantly, your feelings, on the subject.

Remember, we'll be meeting in Crandall, the small room next to Holden. Other details: 7-9pm, Crandall Library, with optional social afterwards to really explore those author fears.

Interview With Zackary Richards, Part II

This is part two of my interview with novelist Zackary Richards...

What been your greatest reward as a writer? Fan letters from kids telling me how much they loved Frostie.

Greatest frustration? Receiving rejection letters that state the number of submissions they receive is so large they are unable to consider any new work at this time.

Which of your works are you most excited about? Right now I’m really excited about the Noon series. Even though I’m halfway into the second book, I have several ideas for the third and a spin off featuring a gunslinger in Greenwich Village.

Are you shopping your work to agents, small publishers, big houses? I’m contacting anybody willing to look at it. Unfortunately, the market is saturated and getting noticed is harder than ever.

Any advice to those who have trouble sitting down to write? Writing a book is like eating an elephant. At first it appears impossible yet, if you eat a bit of it each day, every day, it eventually gets done.

What has been the biggest benefit of joining the GFWG? The honest and fair critiques I received over the years from its members, Kay Hafner’s steady leadership and John Briggs' udicious editing which has greatly helped me improve my craft.

Zackary Richards is the author of the young adult novel Frostie the Deadman (Amazon; Barnes & Noble) Born in the Bronx, he started writing at age 10, discovered the guitar at 14, and became a professional musician in the vibrant Greenwich Village scene of the 1970s.He is currently shopping the YA novel Half Moon Falls and the adult science fiction work Noon. He lives in Lake George. Visit him at ZackaryRichards.com.

Interview With Zackary Richards, Part I

This is the first in an ongoing series of interviews with GFWG members, some published, others looking to break in. We start with veteran member Zackary Richards.


Zackary Richards is the author of the young adult novel Frostie the Deadman (Amazon; Barnes & Noble) Born in the Bronx, he started writing at age 10, discovered the guitar at 14, and became a professional musician in the vibrant Greenwich Village scene of the 1970s.He is currently shopping the YA novel Half Moon Falls and the adult science fiction work Noon. He lives in Lake George. Visit him at ZackaryRichards.com.



How long have you been a member of the GFWG? 8 years.

How long were you writing before that? I started writing in 1993.

What is your primary interest as a writer? To communicate my ideas in a fashion that people find interesting and entertaining, but most importantly that they feel it was worth the time and the money they invested.

What or who influences your writing? Do you feel like your Bronx background bleeds through? My writing style is heavily influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain and Stephen King, because he never ceases to amaze me. As for my Bronx background, I’m sure some of it comes through, especially in the dialogue. Like they say, you can take the boy out of the Bronx but you can’t take the Bronx out of the boy.

What inspired Frostie the Deadman? My daughters built a snowman behind our house, but I was working in Albany. I left in the dark and got home in the dark and wasn’t able to see it until the weekend. By then it had melted and became this frightening, twisted gargoyle. The girls were disappointed but I started the book the next day.

How did you come to be with Nicholas K. Burns Publishing? Frostie won the Writers Voice award for YA Fiction and was being considered by Scholastic for publication. They turned it down because they weren’t interested in a stand alone (a book that cannot be turned into a series). The same day I received the rejection, Burns Publishing announced they were expanding into the YA market and were looking for manuscripts. I sent in Frostie and they loved it.

Walk us through the experience. How long before they agreed to publish you and the contract was signed? Nicholas Burns called me personally and said he was very enthusiastic about Frostie and wanted it for his new YA line. He sent me the contracts and after a few changes my lawyer insisted on, we had an agreement. After that they would send me the galleys with the corrections and changes they wanted and in two months we had a finished product. Nicholas personally oversaw the cover artwork, and I was very pleased with the results.

How long before your book was on the shelves? About five months after I signed the contracts (interviewer's note: this is extremely fast. The average is 18 months-2 years).

How many cities did you hit in your book tour? How many stores? Burns Publishing set it up and I hit just about every major city in New York except New York City itself. And about thirty five stores. I had a great time.

Give us your favorite story/anecdote from the tour? In Utica, a boy came up to me after the signing and said what he liked best about the book was that he felt he knew Josh and Winks (the central characters). He said they talked and acted like he did, and he wished they were real so he could hang out with them.

How did you come to be involved with SUNY Press? Strangely, through my performances as a singer/ songwriter. I was playing a club in Glens Falls and this older couple came up to me after the show, bought my CD, told me they loved my music and asked when my next CD was coming out. I explained I had stopped songwriting to focus on trying the get Half Moon Falls published. When I told them it was a YA novel they told me their son was a Lit professor at SUNY Albany and might like to see it. I called, we talked and he asked me to send it in.

You're very prolific. How often do you write? What is your writing schedule? I write every day, or at least try to. Still, I’ll throw out eight pages for every ten I write.

How long does it take you to finish a novel? My novels usually run about 600 pages. From start to finish about 18 months. (interviewer's note: YA Frostie was 222 pages).



We're going to leave you on this call to write more. Part II of this interview will be posted Tuesday, March 30th.

Accepting Editing Advice

A writer once told me, after I edited her piece, "You're absolutely write in everything you said, but that's not the story I want to tell." She and I were at a loggerhead--I was trying to make her piece commercially viable, she was invested in the story as it was. In the end, it was moot: the story was never finished and became neither art nor product.

But she exercised an author's fundamental right--deciding what revisions feel right. This goes far beyond what your high-school English teacher offered. No one can argue against correcting misspelled words or bad grammar (unless writing in the vernacular), but what of potential improvements to pacing? Character development? Readability? Structure? Big changes that require huge revisions.

Focus on the two types of editing: Line Editing and Developmental Editing.

1. Line Editing. Just that: editing a manuscript line by line, focusing on minutiae, from misplaced commas to factual errors, accidental changes and scene development. It's a thorough going-over, a beating of sorts, of a manuscript.
2. Developmental Editing: The big picture: story arc, character interaction, chapter placement, even philosophical import.

Make sure any critique you receive improves the story you want to tell, both in what you're saying and how you're saying it. Maybe the piece becomes a work of art, maybe it becomes commercial trip, and maybe, with a good editor and a good author's eye, it becomes commercial art.

5 Common Editing Mistakes

1. Wordiness. Jack and Jill went up the hill, not Jack and Jill went up the side of the hill. It’s a half-cup, not, it’s half of a cup. Formality of speech/dialogue. Avoid stilted phrases. Can you act your dialogue? Have someone else speak it, or record it and play it back. Avoid being reflexive. Galahad had the strength of ten because his heart was pure, not Galahad had the strength of ten men, but that was because he had a pure heart. Make it flow from word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph
2. Use Active Verbs. Avoid Had/Have, Would/Should. We had gone through tough times should be We went through tough times. Or, We had survived the Depression, so this would be easy should be We survived the Depression; this was easy. Passive phrases often replace emotions. She would have stayed up all night tells us nothing of its importance. It leaves it to the reader to empathize. She wanted to stay up all night. Or needed. Or was driven. Go through your story and circle active verbs, then underline the passive. Which do you use more? Can you change your passive verbs? Should Jack and Jill went up the hill be Jack and Jill sped up the hill?
3. Seemed. The sky seemed a brilliant blue. He seemed to limp. Be assertive/definite/paint a picture for your reader. The sky was a brilliant blue. He limped. Only OK in first-person narrative, but even then be careful. There are substitutions. He seemed pensive could be I knew him well enough to know his pensive look. Replace every seem, seems, or seemed and see how it looks.
4. Repetitiveness. Same words and concepts get used over and over. Find synonyms, respect your reader. If something is extremely important, devote more time to it when it is introduced and then refer to it. Or, if it gains importance, build upon it every it's mentioned. Find and important word and count how many times you use it in a story, chapter, page. Don't use a thesaurus unless it's absolutely necessary. Too often it will sound like you're using a thesaurus.
5. Logical inconsistencies. He fell out of the tree, which broke his arm. We know what you mean--the fall broke his arm, but it could just as easily mean that the tree broke his arm. He broke his arm when he fell out of the tree.
   

Don’t be afraid to cut anything. Don’t be afraid to move anything. I have cut some of my favorite lines out work because they didn't fit. Sometimes they get moved, occasionally they pop up in other work. Think, I’m a writer, I can come up with other good lines.

Find sentences and words that leap out at you, that strike you as particularly good. Find your favorite word or phrase. Why does it work for you? Should you do more of that? Can you do more of that?

Good luck with those second drafts!

Writing an Author's Bio

If anyone wants ideas or suggestions for submitting an author's bio, here are some pointers:

1. Draft three or four sentences in third person, focusing on your writing credits, interests, and accomplishments.
2. Use a broad stroke if need be. If you're new to writing, add what genres interest you, what you're working on now, literary influences, etc.
3. A picture is optional, but always a nice touch
4. Links to anything you've published, if available. This includes amazon, bn, or any other website selling your work
5. A link to your website, facebook page, or any other site where readers can follow/contact you.

Some of this may be putting the cart before the horse, so use your discretion. Make yourself sound as interesting as you do in your work.

Thanks! Brian looks forward to receiving all your bios in bulk...

Third Thursday Review

It was a fun, business-oriented meeting last night that saw two new members sit in and a third return after a seven-year absence. All the details for those not in attendance or needing a refresher:

We welcomed Crystal, who works in fantasy and mystery, and Bill, who writes children's books. We also welcomed back David Friske, who, well, who's been away awhile...

Before we got to the critiques:

• Brian put in a request for bio information to put on this blog (I'll have more on this today or tomorrow).
• I conducted a quick primer on common editing mistakes (the full body of which will be posted here in the next few days should you want a copy).

We finished by critiquing novel selections from Zack and Billy, plus Montana's resubmitted poem. We also worked over memoir slices from Sandy and Cynthia, who finally returned after a long illness (welcome back, Cynthia!).

Next meeting, when we'll be just down the hall, we'll be reviewing fiction from Brian and Zack, plus the ongoing memoirs of Sandy, Cynthia, and Jerri Lynn. Brian will moderate a discussion on overcoming writing fears (related to his recent post) and Alison will tell us what she learned from the Jon Katz seminar at LARAC.

The group will also be experimenting with a new submission format to help offset the costs incurred by our novelists. Zack will submit his April 1 chapter through email. General comments can be forwarded to the author (i.e., "I liked it," "Great ending!" etc.), while more in-depth edits can be printed out and scrawled upon. Other writers will continue to submit hard copies. Just a reminder: PLEASE BRING 12 COPIES from now on as the GFWG is growing in leaps and bounds.

Should make next meeting in the small room a bit cramped. Maybe a sweat box. Good thing we like each other...

Well, looking forward to getting to know some of you better. See you then!

Third Thursday Preview

Time for our second meeting this month come. We'll be reviewing novel slices from Zack and Billy, and a resubmitted poem from Montana. This reflects a recent change in GFWG policy in which we'll let authors resubmit if substantial changes have been made. Finally we'll get to see how writers reshape pieces, how they change, what advice they choose to use. Rounding out the critiques are previously submitted memoirs selections from Sandy and Joe.

I'm scheduled to do a presentation of the 5 Most Common Editing Mistakes the Group Makes. For those who don't make the group, that will be posted here shortly after the meeting.

We may also see a new member or two who contacted the group and the possible return of David Fiske, a member of the group some seven years ago who now has the chance to come back.

Hopefully our production remains strong after a small slowdown at the last meeting. I'm sure we can do it. The weather's only been nice for a few days!

Details: Thursday, March 18, 7-9pm, in the Holden Room at Crandall Library. See you there!

"Always start your story with action"

"Always start your story with action" is oft-given advice. Jane Friedman at Writers Digest blog thinks you should tread carefully in this regard.

Good Writing Means Not Holding Back

Writer's Digest blog has a good piece entitled "Transforming fear and breaking through the writing wall." It explains how good writing is less about "bells and whistles" and more about taking risks and leaving your emotional comfort zone. It can be read by clicking here.

A Tidbit on Ebooks

Not sure why this subject continues to fascinate me, but I think it goes beyond money. We're watching a new economy unfold, that's true, a new way in which people commit their resources, but... it's ebooks are representative of a new way of viewing that economy. Walmart reductionism in microcosm, a change in technology taking over another art form. But with all that said, here's something I came across in passing:

1. Ebooks represent 3-4% of a publisher's total sales.
2. Authors get 25% of the sale price. Publishers, to their credit, give them 10-15% more of the profit than with traditional books because the retail price is so much lower. Even so, the Bottom Line: Authors make 70 cents less per book, after the increase. (All those accusing authors of being greedy should take note.)
3. Despite lower prices and increased author's percentages, Publishers make roughly $1.00 more per book. However, that is only because advertising, marketing, tech support, etc., are paid for by the hard copies. If that money were taken from ebook sales, publishers would make far less.

Another interesting fact -- a Princeton University study found that students who used e-readers retain less information than those using traditional textbooks. Guess you can't highlight a Kindle. No idea how that information will affect the textbook trade, which has been slow to embrace the new technology anyway.

Of course, ebooks are harder to share, swap, or borrow, meaning additional purchases could put more money in an author's pocket. For now, though, it's a losing proposition for authors. So, welcome, writers, to the world of musicians and filmmakers, who have suffered for years under advances in file swapping, illegal downloads, and electronic transfers. Frank Zappa said "Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." Or maybe making something for nothing. Of course, I think there's a good chance this won't be as rough a road for authors as for other artists, but even smooth roads go uphill sometimes.

First Thursday Review

A somewhat small gather this meeting, as Sandy and Joe had previous engagements, and illness claimed a few others, but neither rain, nor snow, nor 2/3 membership slows us down... We covered a great deal of business early on, though we skipped the individual writer updates. Kay gave a brief overview of Author's Voice (see two previous posts -- more to come), and we discussed the effectiveness of the critique changes so far and whether an author can submit a piece after its been critiqued (yes). Among Kay's proposals are brief presentations from members of various writer-related topics and the business itself.

We reviewed the submissions from Zack, Billy, Alison, Montana, and Michelle, and paid a surprising amount of attention to formatting and appearance. Two novels, two poems, and one personal essay. Still good variety.

Alison also picked up homework. She will be attending the Jon Katz workshop at LARAC and will be reporting back to us when she returns.

Next month, we'll be reviewing pieces from Zack (novel), Billy (novel), and Montana (poem). Throw in previous subs from Joe and Sandy and we'll have enough to fill up the hour. Still, for the first meeting since we switched from monthly to biweekly, production has dropped. We'll have to keep an eye on this.

See some of you in two weeks!

First Thursday Preview

It's First Thursday time, which means, unlike Third Thursday time, there will be parking in Glens Falls. Which is good. We have a lot to get to at this meeting.

We'll be reviewing the next novel selections from Zack and Billy, a brief bio from Alison, and poems from Montana and Michelle. And just a reminder -- the pieces from Sandy and Joe are not due until the 18th.

The GFWG will be going through another format moderation, this time no introductions and no out loud reading, save poetry. I'm happy about the first, not sure about the second. Briefer than usual introductions will be saved for meetings with new members. Instead of the 12-year-old go-round, we'll be discussing the business of writing. Not our writing, but the actual business side, from tips to trends, motivation to markets. Kay has brought up discussing my recent posts on Author's Voice and seeking volunteers to present other writing topics. There may also be a review of a conference critique I received from Cartwheel/Scholastic editor Rotem Moscovich (thank you Rotem!). Given that we only have five critiques this biweek, we should have time to cover everything.

Oh, and we had someone else express interest in the group, as well, a children's book author. Don't know if that mean pic books, chapter, YA, etc., but it would be nice to have her on board. I could use the company!

See you all there!

Details: 7-8:55pm, Holden Room, Crandall Library.

Author's Voice, Part II

There are many techniques to developing voice. The first two are essentially different sides of the same coin, 1A and 1B: Syntax and Diction.

Syntax runs the gamut of language, from the vernacular to the formal, Twain to Austen. It's rare that any author uses highly stylized, formal English. Even in period pieces, where antiquated terms and phrases might be used, a certain informality in tone that makes the piece far more readable. Complete slang, or perhaps more accurately, a complete copy of everyday speech, also makes a piece more readable. After all, a story needs some sense of direction and flow -- life and language meander a bit too much to be copied to the printed page.

The question facing the author, of course, is what end of the spectrum to approach?

Certain authors use essentially the style time and again. It's their style; it's representative of their comfort zone. They may experiment a bit early in their writing efforts, but once locked in, stay locked in. They generally expect to write the same book over and over again. Sue Grafton can't make X look much different than A because that's the formula and voice she's established, and to stray will leave her readers disappointed. Even experimental authors may be trapped by a certain syntax their readers expect.

Generally, however, the story -- and wants the author wants to say with it -- is best for determining syntax, and that's true even within genres. A traditional whodunit murder mystery cannot contain the gritty street language of the hard-boiled detective novel. Let the story determine syntax.

Diction, or 1B, involves word choice. How fancy or simple should the words be? How big, small, descriptive, plain, and so on? Diction flows from syntax. Carefully read and re-read. Does diction -- and beyond that, punctuation -- fit the syntax. The story? Its purpose. Diction, with its complement in punctuation, will give syntax shape after syntax gives it life. It will shape the narrator's voice, dialogue, character impressions, pacing, and so much more. Keep these two tied together. Diction should nestle inside syntax or they ball fall apart.