The Paranoid Writer

This is a subject matter most people tend to shy away from because no one really wants to admit they are in this paranoid category. However, if it is never pointed out or identified they may never reach his or her goal of becoming a published author. With that said, let’s get down to business.

The Paranoid Writer

What do you do when you complete your final draft of your manuscript? Do you immediately seek friends and family to read it to give their opinion? On the other hand, are you so confident that you hold a masterpiece in your hands that you want to submit it immediately to an agent or publisher? After several days, weeks or months, you’ve found that you’ve done absolutely nothing. Why? Because you’re afraid someone will steal your story. You’ve become so paranoid of that notion; your book is collecting dust in a desk drawer or closet.

Signs of a Paranoid Writer:

• You want to copyright it before it is read by anyone
• You join a writers group but won’t let anyone read it
• You won’t allow anyone beyond your spouse or close family member to look at it
• You start every conversation about your book with, ‘I’m hesitant to let anyone read…” or “I’m worried about someone stealing…”
• You write inside your query letter to the agent/publisher that you are worry about them stealing your work
• You avoid joining a writers group because you don’t want anyone to steal it
• You won’t even talk about the premise of your book to anyone

Questions you should ask yourself when hesitating:

• What’s the point of having a masterpiece if no one will ever see it?
• Do you really think that an agent or publisher wants to work with someone who’s going to constantly question their motives?
• Am I really so arrogant?

What can I do?

• First of all, there’s nothing wrong with a little paranoia. It’s very possible that there are people who would steal your story. Just don’t become so paranoid that your novel will never see the light of day.
• Get in your head that copyrighting the manuscript ahead of time is not only a waste of time (I’ll explain later) but may hamper your chances of getting it published; unless of course, you self publish your novel.
• A good writers group affords you the ability to do some needed editing. When self-editing, it is easy to missed minor mistakes, especially when the author has read his own manuscript half a dozen times already. Friends and family tend not to be honest with the author and keep their real opinion to themselves. A writers group can offer honesty.
• Publisher/agents will not work with authors they deem too much trouble to work with; it is neither appropriate nor condone to mention in either query letter or if you should make it that far, too say during a phone conversation.
• Lastly, if you won’t talk to anyone about what you have written, how can you test the waters to see if there is an interest in the subject matter you have written?

If any of the above does not help you at all, then perhaps you should consider self-publishing.

Note:

Copyrighting – There are a couple of problems with copyrighting your manuscript before it is contracted. Number one, if any type of modification occurs within the book, the author must copyright it all over again with the changes. Two, publishers/agents are reluctant to work with an author if he has already copyrighted the book. Three, as soon as the author has written anything into the manuscript, it is considered copyrighted and is legally binding in a court of law. As long as the author has proof that he possesses the original, he is protected. (Never submit your only copy of the manuscript)

8-Point Checklist For Successful Fiction

June 4, 2007
Before you start writing and definitely before you send your manuscript off to an agent or editor, think about the following eight elements of your work.

1. Is your main character proactive?
It's okay if your main character is a victim at the beginning of the novel, but they need to actually be doing something to solve their problem(s) by the end. And by the same token, the solution should come about as a result of their actions. The days of damsels in distress being rescued by the hero are over. Damsels rescue themselves. They might be hanging off a cliff by their fingernails or tied to the train tracks, but they'd damn well better be the primary reason they escape. That said, if you foreshadow a rescue properly, it's okay to have help. As those great sages, John, Paul, George and Ringo once said, we all can use a little help from our friends.

2. Are you using good verbs?
Verbs do all the heavy-lifting in our writing. Kill your adverbs and use good verbs. Your main character doesn't go get his mail. He plucks it from the mailbox, retrieves it from the post office, etc. Your car doesn't come to a stop. It rolls to a stop, lurches to a halt, or glides to rest. (And as for adverbs, your car doesn't need to roll smoothly to a stop if it can glide, does it?) You can solve at least half of your writing problems by replacing weak verbs with strong, active verbs.

3. Are you trying to entertain?
Shakespeare wanted to fill up his theater. Nobody at the Globe was saying, "Ooh, let's go catch Bill's play with all that beautiful language and the deep themes about action and inaction." Nope, they were saying, "Hey, I hear there's a great play with lots of swordfights, ghosts, murder, intrigue, sex and romance. It's called 'Hamlet.' Let's check it out." Entertain first. All that theme, message, blah, blah, blah comes second.

4. Is the length right?
If it's a first novel and it's 200,000 words in length, it's too damned long. Each category of fiction novel has an expected length. Romances tend to run short. Mysteries tend to run in the 70-90,000 word range. Thrillers overlap from the 85,000-120,000 length. There are a lot of factors here, but most beginning writers don't think too much about the fact that longer books cost your publisher more to produce. They're thinking about that when you send them a 150,000 word mystery; they're also thinking, nobody will buy it, it's too long.

5. Is there a market?
Okay, you want to be an artist and not worry about the market. I'm happy for you. Go away. You don't need to read anything about writing because you're probably going to self-publish and hand-sell books out of the trunk of your car. Original is good. Too original means the publisher's never seen it before and will probably say, 'hell, it's interesting, but who will buy it?' There are exceptions. And trends. Currently, there's a market for mixed-genre novels, those werewolf-time travel-romance novels. Go figure.

6. Did you start in the right place?
We're a short attention span group of readers. Did you start your novel in the right place? Lawrence Block often said you should flip your first and second chapters. What he meant is, if your first chapter is backstory and the action starts in the second chapter, start with the action--or in the middle of the action (in media res is the technical term) and fill in the backstory later. Many, many unpublished novelists start at the wrong place. Take a hard, cold look at your beginning and see if you've started at the right place.

7. Does your ending satisfy?
Are all the threads tied up? Does the reader come away feeling... something? Anything? Mickey Spillane once stated that the last chapter sold the next book. Believe it.

8. Is there conflict?
This is right up there with the right verbs. There are basically two types of conflict: internal and external. External are all the things that happen to your main character. That could be the murder they're trying to solve, the bad guy they're trying to stop, whatever it is that keeps the main characters from falling in love, etc. Internal conflict is whatever fears and/or problems your character must overcome to attain their goals. Ideally you have both. You can get away with just external in some sorts of fiction, but it's better if your character has to overcome something internal. I interviewed Michael Connelly (hear the name drop?) a couple years ago and I commented that one of the things I found most interesting about his main character, Harry Bosch, was he brought his own conflict with him just by the way he interacted with people. Michael said, "Have baggage, will travel. Yeah, Harry does bring his conflict with him, doesn't he?"

If you ever, ever hear an agent or publisher say, "Lacks tension," what they're probably referring to is lack of conflict (or in some cases, your verbs aren't active enough).

I hope these are helpful.

Cheers,
Mark Terry

Spooky is "In": The Return of the Gothic Novel

An inherited house with a seeming life of its own . . .a young woman with a troubled past. . .a dark family secret that will not stay buried . . .

These are the classic makings of the traditional gothic story, a type of story that continues to thrill readers to this day. Dating back to the 1700s, gothic novels are suspense novels that frequently contain a romance element and a tinge of the supernatural. Readers love the combination of romantic intrigue with bumps in the night.

There is a clear distinction between gothic novels and horror novels: gothic novels have more to do with psychological horrors, horrors of the mind, or of family secrets, not so much the full-fledged creatures or serial killers of horror novels. They also deal with societal issues such as the rise of cities and how humans cope with modernity and science. Also, these novels get really popular during eras where there is considerable upheaval in the world, such as now, where people tend to reach for stories set in the past. Look at the box office success of recent films such as “The Others,” “The Illusionist” and “The Prestige,” all with elements of the supernatural.

I am a longtime fan of these stories, and my novel, Dark River, is part of this “resurrected” trend. Gothic novels never quite go away, but industry trends spotlight some fiction sub-genres over others. The past decade saw the rise of the crime procedurals, and all books with movie tie-ins. Romances were popular, as well, and still are. But gothics are always there, too, just lurking in the shadows.

While my new novel fits within the gothic tradition, Dark River is a modern gothic, even though it takes place in the past. Compared with early gothics in which young heroines were at the mercy of unseen forces and met destructive fates, Dark River’s heroine, Isabelle Fontaine, is reminiscent of the heroines in more recent novels of beloved authors of my youth. These two authors, Barbara Michaels and Phyllis A. Whitney made their heroines of the 1970s and 1980s spunky. My heroine, Isabelle, is concerned with getting to the truth of her family’s legacy, despite the great danger to herself. She refuses to leave the house until she solves the mystery.

Gothics will always be with us. We all have deeply hidden fears and desires, and gothics allow us to walk through the darkened halls of the characters’ psyches, thereby walking through our own. And it’s just plain fun to see how they [the characters] get out of their predicaments.

Heather Buchanan has always loved gothic stories. Inspired by a series of local articles about the little-known truth of an unknown dead woman buried at Ste. Anne Catholic Church of Detroit, Heather embarked on a ten-year odyssey to bring Dark River to life. An award-winning author, Heather is currently on the faculty of Lansing Community College, Schoolcraft College, The College for Creative Studies and Wayne State University, respectively.

Chris Roerden - Don't Murder Your Mystery!

On May 24th, 2007 at 8PM EDT Author Access spoke with Chris Roerden, an Agatha-award winningauthor and editor with more than four decades of experience.

Her latest book is called"Don't Murder Your Mystery: 24 Fiction Writing Techniques To Save Your Manuscript From Turning Up D.O.A." She shared invaluable tips on how not to submit a manuscript,how to work with an editor, and many classic mistakes made on the first page and firstchapter that turn a possibly good book into unreadable mush.

Not just for Mystery writers,this is a must for all fiction writers.

Listen to the f-ree podcast at http://authorsacces s.com/archives/ 52RSS podcast feed: http://authorsacces s.com/tinc? key=kBapKfgp

Ebb & Flow

May 7, 2007

I received my royalty statement on Saturday from my publisher (Midnight Ink) via my agent. (Finally). As royalty statements go it was reasonably straightforward. It was not accompanied by a check. That may or may not be coming in the near and/or distant future.

Here's what I mean. This royalty statement was for one book, The Devil's Pitchfork, my first book with MI, and the book came out October 2006. The royalty period that this statement was for runs from July 2006 through the end of December 2006. (And then you get the statement 3 or 4 or 5 months later and the money whenever). Therefore, any books that we might have sold after January first won't be accounted for until, well, whenever the next statements comes out. And that's sometime, uh, later; probably sometime in September.

Here's the deal. The next book, The Serpent's Kiss, comes out July 1, 2007. Therefore, sales for Serpent won't be on the royalty check/statement that comes in September either, because that's for the period January 1, 2007 through June 30, 2007. Monies for that, assuming there are any, will come... later.

Here's the deal part 2. I was paid an advance for both of those books. It wasn't astounding. Before I can get royalties, I have to have sold enough books to have paid off that advance. We actually probably have sold enough of The Devil's Pitchfork to pay off the advance, so, whenever we actually flow through to the proper royalty period, I should get some royalty money.

More of the deal part 3. Except, interestingly, I have sold French language rights for The Devil's Pitchfork. Because of my contract with MI, 50% goes to the publisher and 50% goes to me. (Don't nag me about this, I don't want to discuss it). The French language rights, I'm happy to say, were twice what MI paid me for the advance. In other words, the French language rights have paid off my advance for The Devil's Pitchfork, which means that we should automatically be into royalties... whenever they get accounted toward the sales and translated into a check, which is submitted to my agent, which then comes to me, and...

By the way, there are at least two other foreign language rights deals pending for both The Devil's Pitchfork and The Serpent's Kiss, but I can't really give any specifics because, a) I don't know any specifics, and b) my publisher seems to want to treat the details of foreign language rights deals like state secrets until the checks clear. (Don't nag me about this, I don't know why).

Anyway, the point is that there is an ebb and flow to the money aspects of publishing. As Rockefeller was known to have said when asked what the stock market would do, "It will fluctuate." Fluctuate, I sometimes think, is a euphemism for "be unreliable."

As a fulltime freelance writer, I pay a lot of attention to the tides of money. I have bills to pay--mortgage, car payment, insurance, and yes, that oh so important business Visa bill that pay for so much of the marketing/promotion for the novels. Multiple revenue streams is good, or at least, one good, large reliable revenue stream is good.

Last year I sent out about 200 invoices. This year, so far, about 10. I'm having a better year financially this year than last (which was pretty damned good, knock wood) but my business has changed. Now I'm doing fewer projects (often large projects) for more money. It's a toss-up if it's better. It can be a little disconcerting to get half of your yearly in come in the first three months of the year, and requires a significant amount of fiscal thought and responsibility.

What's my point? Well, sometimes novelists (aspiring or otherwise) think, "If I only get that big deal I'll be all set."

Hmmm. I'm no longer sure what a "big deal" is. It would take more to dazzle me than it used to, but hey, I'm willing to be dazzled. Come on, dazzle me.

I was just informed Friday that the publication date for the third Derek Stillwater novel, Angels Falling, which was originally scheduled for a February 2008 publication date, has been moved back to May 2008. What that will do to the tentative pub date of the 4th book, The Valley of Shadows, which is--as far as I know--scheduled for November 2008, is totally unknown to me, and, I wouldn't be surprised to find, to my publisher.

See what I mean? Hard to plan your finances around a moving target.

I pulled together some math for the would-be aspiring novelist. Congratulations, you've just gotten a $100,000 book deal. Here's what's likely to happen.

You'll get $33,333 on signing the contract. Your agent gets 15%. The government gets, approximatley, 28%. So what you'll have in your pocket is about $19,000. Then, depending on what your contract says, you'll get the next third when you turn in the first 100 pages. That could be very quickly, or, just as likely, you send it to your publisher, they read it at their leisure, they agree it's okay (or don't and ask for a rewrite) and submit an invoice to the comptroller who deals with these things the 15th of every month and they got it on the 16th, then they'll eventually cut the check and send it to your agent who is on vacation, or loses it, or it never get there at all, then he or she sits on it for a few days until they can get to the bank, then they send you your chunk, and you take out the taxes and put the rest in your... well, probably in your checking account, because you've got bills to pay, and your publicist wants some money to set up signings for you, and and the printer wants $500 to make up postcards, and there's going to be $1000 postage and the plane tickets to ThrillerFest are $380 and the hotel is $200 a night and you've got to eat and the entrance fee is...

Ahem. And you've got to complete the remaining 300 manuscript pages and get your publisher to sign off on it and they've got to cut the check, and wow, where did all that money go, it's all gone, I need another contract, I need another advance, my publisher's list is crowded they want to postpone the publication date for the second book by four months and...

Well. It's pretty cool. It just takes some getting used to.

Cheers,

Mark Terry

HURT HER!!!!

I read a slew of suspense and romance novels. My addiction to reading is probably far worse that Donald Goins heroin addiction. (That was a low blow, I know).

In any case, I guess you're wondering why I titled my piece Hurt Her.

In all the books I've read, I rarely see the writer hurt the female in the book. Now there are some that have this tough female that "can take it just like any man," but I've really never seen a really gracious woman get really hurt.

Even though women can withstand pain far better than men.

So why is this?

Just like life, we (writers - male and female) tend to protect the fragile woman, but I don't think we should. If he can take a bullet, so can she in my opinion.

I'm not opposed to putting my female characters in great danger and hurting them even if they are pregnant, which the person trying to hurt them may or may not know.

A goal is a goal with the antagonist - hurt them. Not just him, them both of them (because usually I'm writing a romance and the couple comes together to defeat the foe).

In Stone's Revenge, I did receive angry letters at the way my hero treated my shero. William Stone was the son of a serial killer and affection to him was when his father slapped him around, beat him within an inch of his life and then locked him in a closet. I didn't see how I was going to get him to "be nice" now that he had met Abigail, the woman he was destine with, so how did the reader expect me to come up with a believable start to the relationship that had William coming out smelling like roses? It was in his nature to be mean, so I had to make their initial contact fit for William, not Abigail.

One reader said the partial forced sexed scene went a little bit too far and she could never understand how a woman could fall in love with a man after he did that.

I guess she's never had wrestle sex, LOL.

(I know that was crude.)

I stick to the nature of characters. I don't change just to make the reader happy.

Hurting my female protagonist is not some sick desire to make women suffer, (LOL) it's a desire to stay true to my story.

With this mixed with sticking to my character's nature has garnered me an unexpected success and a large following of readers that know when they open up my books, I will be true to the story til the end.

Allow Me to Introduce Myself

My name is Humpty, pronounced with an "umpty" . . . OOPS! I'm sorry, wrong Blog. Let's try that again.

My name is Michael C. Lee, but my friends call me "Mike". I am a former command officer with the Detroit Police Department. After 20 years of service, I jetted up; opting for the trappings of civilian life. That's right, I spend a great deal of my time these days as a husband, and a father. Incidentally, I am a cherrleader's dad, so I guess that would make me a cheerleader, too- get it? (You see, my daughter's a cheerleader, so I cheer for her when she's cheerleading . . . oh, forget it). I am an adjunct instructor for ITT Tech, and am also the former Chair of their School of Criminal Justice in Troy. I write as often as I can OR whenever I am hit with the urge to do so.

My first book, Chandler Park Drive, (named for a street in Detroit) intrduces the reader to the central character, Denard Blake, a Detroit Police Narcotics cop. The story takes place in Detroit and at the height of the War on Drugs. Denard and his comrades work with the DEA to bring down a local drug lord. Denard has to juggle his police life with a complicated personal life that includes a wife and a sultry mistress. In the end- as one reviewer put it- there will be more twists and turns in this story than the actual Chandler Park Drive itself.

I am currently finishing my second book entitled, Overturned. Denard Blake is back as a sergeant with DPD Homicide. His investigation into the murders of a young woman and her two small children leads Denard and his courageous crew to Thelmon Kirkwood. Kirkwood is a first-time convicted felon working dilligently to get his drug conviction OVERTURNED. Like Chandler Park Drive, this story is long on: action, dialogue, sex, suspense, intrigue, and surprise. It is a gripping tale that will have you laughing, crying, and sitting on the edge of your seat.

I look forward to interacting with such a distinguished group of crime/fiction writers. Take care, and if I haven't met you yet (in the flesh, that is), I look forward to meeting you in . . . THE LITERARY WORLD. HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HAAAAA!!!!!!