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LifeWriting Articles
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Written by Steven Barnes
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Friday, 27 August 2010 21:44 |
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The Lifewriting™ approach to your writing career demands a relatively high creative output. It isn't designed to coddle people who nurse a single story for years before sending it out. But students often protest that they simply don't come up with many good ideas, and that the ideas they do generate are appropriate for novels. In my opinion, basic ideas have no intrinsic length. The TREATMENT of an idea has an intrinsic length. The Civil War can be treated in a one-page story, on in a library of books. It all depends on the skill and intent of the writer. Let me tell you a story: When I was in college, I knew a woman who wanted to be a writer. She told me that she was working on a short story, and I said "great." A few weeks later, I asked her how the story was going. She said "It's getting a little long—I think it's a novella." "Great!" I said. A couple of months later, I asked her how the novella was going. "Well, it's getting a little long, I think it's a novel!" "Wow!" I said, although a warning bell was tinkling at the back of my mind. A couple of years later, I asked her how the novel was going. "Well, it seems to be turning into a trilogy," she said. Hmm. I made optimistic sounds, and left it at that. A decade later, I was traveling on the East Coast, and knew I'd be passing the town where this lady lived. My wife and I stopped in to visit. Just because I have a masochistic streak, I asked how the trilogy was going. There was a pause. Then, sheepishly she said, "I got tired of it, and put it away. But just a couple of months ago I started working on a new story. It's good! But" she said, as I knew she would, "it seems to be getting a little long…" That is so sad. My friend had encountered one of the stealthiest forms of writer's block: to be able to write, but not be able to finish and submit. It serves the same purpose to an insecure subconscious: it prevents you from suffering rejection. After all, the idea is so bright and appealing when it enters your mind! The process of actually slogging your way through multiple drafts can be a joy-killer. Short stories are a perfect means to combat this. A short piece employs all the same basic tools that will be used in a novel, with a crucial difference. In the time it takes you to write a hundred thousand word novel, you can write twenty to forty short stories, and you'll learn vastly more about your craft in the process. Also, because you are going through the complete arc of generating story, planning, researching, writing rough draft, polishing, and submitting, you find out where your technical and psychological weaknesses lie. And yet another advantage: if you write a story a week, or every other week, you don't need to cling desperately to an idea, thinking it is the only good idea you'll ever have. But how to generate ideas? Here are some suggestions: 1) Keep a dream diary. A little digital or tape recorder at the bedside works great for this. Just tell yourself before sleep that you will briefly awaken after a dream and dictate the essence. In the morning, transcribe. 2) Search the newspaper. Make an exercise of looking through the various sections of the paper, looking for odd or interesting stories. Imagine how it would be to be the people caught up in these situations. What story would capture the essence of their lives? 3) Read books and watch movies. Imagine grafting the end of one film to the beginning of another. When a book falls apart, come up with a better ending—and write it. 4) Create modern versions of favorite old fairy tales. Have fun with this—remember, it's just practice! 5) At the next family reunion or gathering, get the old folks to talk about their youthful days. 6) Go to a playground and watch children playing. Really notice the power games, the sharing, the crying, the laughter, the struggles and triumphs. Every single child, every day, has a story to tell. 7) Mine your own life. Learning to walk, to talk, to drive, to win, to lose. Your first fight, your first kiss, your first job, the first time you got fired. There is really no end to the possibility. All you need is a belief in your goals, and the recognition that any individual story is just a step along the way—not some soul-searing win-or-lose proposition. Have fun! Dark Dream 906 Ashworth Pl Glendora, CA 91741 US |
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David Farland
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Written by David Farland
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Friday, 27 August 2010 21:43 |
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I’ve had several questions about agents in the past few weeks, and I’ve grown weary of them. So I’m going to write one little article, and then not talk about it for awhile. I realize that new writers are joining the list every day, but they’ll just have to wait. If you read a lot in the industry, you know that Dean Wesley Smith has talked extensively on the notion that you don’t "need" an agent to sell your books. He’s right. You don’t. If you’re a beginning writer, in most genres you can sell without an agent. If you’re a seasoned writer, even more doors open for you. I know writers like L.E. Modesitt that have perfectly good careers without agents. Unfortunately, many new writers lack self-confidence, so they’re looking for something to boost their egos. Approbation from a seasoned agent or worthy professional might help, but I fear that sometimes giving compliments is like putting a band-aid over a gushing carotid artery. It doesn’t help much. The new writer keeps fishing for more and more compliments, when what he or she really needs is to calm down, look at things rationally, and find self-confidence from within. Having an agent shouldn’t be a simple status symbol or ego boost, it’s a working relationship between folks in the publishing business. So you don’t need an agent at all. You especially don’t need a bad agent. A very few agents are nothing more than criminals, offering to represent authors for outrageous sums of money. I was contacted a couple of years back by a young man who had only $9000. He wasn’t sure whether to use the money to finish his college education or pay it to an agent in Denver who offered to represent him. I told him to finish college. In truth, most agents are honest, but agents can be bad. bad for various reasons: some have poor negotiating skills and will sell an author’s work too quickly for too little money; others have poor taste; others just haven’t established the contacts you need, and so on. In fact, there are agents that might just be a bad fit for YOU, and they can be perfectly fine for others. But then there are the good agents and the great agents, and though you don’t "need" them to have a career, you definitely want them and you should seek them out. Here are a few reasons why: First, a good agent will have worked for several years in the industry and will have built up a long list of clients. This list will first include editors who trust the agent’s taste well enough to give a new manuscript a favorable read. If my agent tells a publisher, "This book is a potential blockbuster, and the auction starts at a million dollars," then several publishers will listen. If you tell those publishers that "the auction starts at a million dollars," the chances are excellent that they will laugh at you in derision—even if we’re talking about the very same manuscript! An agent will not only have relationships with editors, but he’ll know which ones match your tastes, which publishers can offer the best advances along with the strongest marketing capacity, and will be aware of other intangibles at a publisher. Beyond that, the agent has connections to foreign agents who will sell your work. My agent, Russell Galen, for example, has Danny Baror sell his foreign rights, and if I recall correctly, Danny has contracts with a dozen sub-agents. So Danny might cover the German territory himself, but he’ll send my book out to agents in France, England, Italy, and so on. Each of those agents also has contacts in the industry. You might get a little agent in Romania who knows every single publisher in his region—and he’ll send your work on to other publishers beyond, say to Bulgaria, Croatia, or Yugoslavia. Your Italian agent might send works to Israel, or Pakistan. So when you work with an agent, you are entering a network of contacts. My agent knows dozens of editors across the U.S. His foreign agents know literally hundreds of editors around the world. When I work with my agent, I’m suddenly hiring not just one man, but a small army. Beyond that, my agent knows more than just editors and other agents. A good agent will also work with a Hollywood agent or lawyer, so that you can get some expertise there. My agent also knows dozens of independent movie producers, and so he can recommend my work to them. He may also have contacts in the videogame, or other places of interest. Very often, if times are hard, an agent might recommend an author for a job. Beyond all of that, a great agent will have publishing expertise to offer. Some agents take a real hands-on approach to manuscripts and will try to push their authors to write on par with or better than the best in their fields. So you might get writing advice or your agent might help you map out a career path, as you both look for ways to maximize your potential income. You will also benefit from the fact that an agent can often negotiate better contracts for you than you can yourself. He should know the publisher well enough so that he knows what to watch for in the publisher’s contracts, and he should be able to handle tough negotiations better than an author—who frequently is so desperate that any offer sounds like a good offer. An established agent might have helpful contacts for you besides—do you need a publicist? A coach? A book doctor? Your agent might have a list of such contacts. Then of course you may have real problems with your publisher from time to time, and it helps to have an agent talk on your behalf. For example, a friend of mine recently had a book cover that was rather bland, so his agent called the publisher and fought to get a new cover, which boosted sales immensely. Having your agent handle small things like that frees you to spend more time being productive —as a writer. So look for an agent. When you find one, be good. Treat them as a partner in your affairs, showing the courtesy and respect for their help. But be aware that your goals as an author and your agent’s goals may sometimes be at odds. An agent gains the trust and respect of his or her publishers by knowing the markets. If you write a book that is substandard, one that doesn’t enhance your reputation or the agent’s, then the question arises for the agent, "How hard do I push this book?" Let’s say that you’re writing a bestselling fantasy series, making a million dollars a book. Suddenly you as an artist get a yearning to switch genres and write a little science fiction novel. Should your agent sell it? Should he put it up for auction and demand a million dollars for it, knowing that in today’s market it might not make $50,000? To do so would be to damage his own reputation while encouraging you to throw away a career that you’ve spent years building. The sensible thing, of course, is for the agent to try to reason with you, talk you into making yourself more money. Thus, most agents when put in that position will try to discourage the author from changing course, and that’s where many fights between agents and authors begin—as an argument over a proposed change to a career course. I’m not going to advise you on what to do there. Your taste in stories will likely grow and change over the course of a career, and you have to learn to balance that with your monetary needs and reputation. Recognize also that opportunities will come to you outside of your agent’s connections. As you begin to write, you may well find that you’ve garnered millions of fans—and some of them will come to you with unique and exciting opportunities. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve outgrown your agent. It just means that you network is expanding. So look for a great agent, and try to build it into a great partnership.
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