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If Gatsby Can Do It
“Gatsby 1925 jacket” Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of The Great Gatsby via Wikipedia
In a lot of ways, writing a novel reminds me of The Little Engine That Could. The author must plug along, muddle through the tough parts, and then once it’s polished, keep propelling it forward through marketing. It takes a lot of effort. No wonder a lot of books flop.
I’m sitting on a nearly finished, highly polished “first of the trilogy.” It’s easy to worry that this sliver of my creative mind will be a flop. So many questions of doubt–if someone gives me a chance on the first book, do I have what it takes to write the second and third? Or, if I do, what if I put all that time and energy in and the first book flops, and no one ever reads the second and third? As with my last post, I know where that doubt arises, and it’s a temptation I must overcome, but nonetheless, I find myself searching for encouragement, that publishing can be a real possibility.
Yes, I know I could always self-pub, but traditional publishing is on my bucket list.
Of course, I’ve not actively queried or made a huge effort to promote at this point, so it’s really just a fear of the unknown.
Anyone relate?
I love NPR’s Fresh Air, and stumbled upon this little gem from September 8, 2014, a 38-minute interview with Maureen Corrigan regarding her book, So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures.
Here’s a quote from the NPR article describing the reception of the book in its time:
The literary readers — people like Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, Gilbert Seldes, who was a critic and reviewer of the time who really got Gatsby — they loved it. …
The popular reviewers read it as a crime novel and thought for the most part that it was maybe just OK. There’s a famous headline for a review of The Great Gatsby that came out in theNew York World, and the headline reads, “Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud.”
Fitzgerald died having no idea of Gatsby’s future success. Another quote, from Corrigan’s book:
What happened to me, a former high-school apostate (idiot), is exactly what happened throughout America, broadly speaking, in the 1940s and ’50s; like me, those midcentury critics and readers gave Gatsby a second chance and were knocked out.
According to the article, what happened was World War II. Publishers printed thousands of copies of books and sent them to soldiers overseas, hoping to give them something to distract them from the fear of war. And as we all know, Gatsby exploded into a powerhouse story.
What’s interesting to me is how well that worked as an unintentional marketing strategy. It makes me wonder what strategies I might take with my books in the future to promote and propel them.
Since I write YA, what if I purchased several copies of my own book to donate to school or church libraries? Maybe I could drop some copies off in the hospital waiting room or send them to local doctor’s offices?
Friends of mine have suggested promotional bookmarks, and offer tips about distributing them. It would be easy and cheap to print tons of them and send them out to high school English teachers.
I think, in these days of self-promotion, success comes down to how hard you want to work for it. Even for traditionally published authors.
This interesting article addresses self-promotion, from The New York Times Sunday Book Review, by Tony Perrottet. He goes through the history and points out that even back in the day, many of the greats had to engage in self-promotion to sell books.
So, perhaps I’ve written a flop. Maybe you have, too. But that old proverb comes to mind:
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Don’t Like What Your Kids Are Reading? Join the Clean Shelf Movement.
Working in a school, I always hear complaints from teens that their parents don’t want them reading certain books. And, more often than not, I find them reading said books.
I know there’s a lot of controversy over to ban or not to ban, and I have no intent of getting into that here. But what I do want to discuss is the power of our influence over what our children choose.
I stopped by a big chain bookstore today for a few minutes after a doctor’s appointment, and spent some serious study of the Christian fiction titles, disturbed to find NONE of the teen books I read this summer were there. I asked the guy for help finding Revolutionary, the third in an awesome YA Christian series, Anomaly, and it wasn’t in stock on the shelves. In fact, they don’t even have a shelf dedicated to Christian teen books. The guy said if they’d carried the book, it would be located with the rest of the teen fiction.
Well, I was floored. For one thing, how am I as a YA Christian fiction writer supposed to market myself in a big chain bookstore if they don’t even have a stand-out place for my books?
But for another thing, how are you as a parent going to direct your teens to stories that will move them in the same ways that secular books do if they can’t even find them?
I’m ready to start a revolution. Let’s call it the Clean Shelf Movement and beg big chain bookstores, high school and middle school libraries, public libraries, etc. to offer a shelf in their facility dedicate to “Inspirational Teen Fiction.” Perhaps, even another shelf beside it, “Inspirational Teen Nonfiction, where they can find spiritual self help books that relate to them. Don’t like what’s out there to offer them? Be the solution. Write one yourself. I’ll help you learn how. The thing is, our teens are really struggling to find inspiration in today’s world. I know this because I see it painted on their faces every single day in my classroom. They’re hungry for this, and they don’t have an avenue.
Research YA Christian authors. Some of my favorites are Jenny B. Jones, Krista McGee, Shannon Dittemore, Melody Carlson, and TONS of indie authors that you’ve never heard of, like my friend Angela Castillo, who’s written two great speculative books for middle grades. You’ll find hundreds of books to choose from in many different genres, from Ted Dekker’s Chosen, to the ever-popular Chronicles of Narnia.
I can hear the skeptics now. Some of what they read might contradict the doctrine taught at my church. Okay, I’ll concede that Christian fiction novels are written by authors of many different faiths, but one thing to note is that the guidelines they have to follow do not permit pushing doctrine in the extreme. You might come across a practice here or there that you disagree with, but you will not find books trying to turn your kid into one faith if they belong to another. I know because I’ve read most of them.
Second, if you don’t 100% buy in that it’s you’re responsibility to teach your children what must comprise their faith, and give them the tools to dismiss false doctrine in fiction as fallacy, you’re in danger of losing their soul anyway. They need to learn to hold observations up to Biblical standards and search whether these things are so.
And third, most importantly, you’d better believe they are getting a doctrine contrary to what you want them to receive in some of the mainstream teen fiction they’re currently reading. Check out this list, available on Amazon for free. They could have some of these on their phones and you’d never even know it.
Though I’m not yet published, it’s my understanding that the guidelines of the Christian Bookseller’s Association, which most inspirational publishers follow, do not permit gratuitous acts of sex or coarse language. They do not allow writers to proselytize their distinct faiths or write “preachy” stories. You won’t find things like condoning boyfriends sneaking into bedrooms to stay overnight while the parents are blissfully unaware. So, you can bank on your teen getting a clean book that won’t fill their minds with sinful behaviors that they emulate.
So, how about it, people? Write a letter to your local bookstores,public libraries, and school libraries. Research Young Adult Christian Fiction authors and include their names, book titles, and ISBN’s. Better yet, purchase some of these books, read them, and donate them. I bet you won’t find a lot of the titles there. Ask them to join in the Clean Shelf Movement, and create a space to market Inspirational Teen Fiction in a visible location, and keep titles stocked. Then support them. Go write, buy, check out, and read.
We’ve got this, people. We’re not powerless. We can have better choices if we ask for them.
Small edit: Here’s a list of Christian Fiction authors, provided on Jill Williamson’s website.
A Novel is a Highway, Always Under Construction
This picture is one of my favorite stretches of road, a little country drive that winds its way along train tracks and a river. Peaceful, relaxing, and a great distraction from day-to-day drama–until it rains hard and the road washes away. The right side of the road is continually needing to be rebuilt and resurfaced.
It’s a good metaphor for life and a great one for editing fiction. I’ve been sitting on a “finished” novel for about two months now, in the revising process, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to step back and quit editing. It seems like with every read I find a part of the story that’s bumpy, or there’s a plot hole, or a big section that’s completely washed out from something I rewrote in another place.
Which begs a question–how do you know when it’s polished enough? And how do you get there?
I’m not the only person who’s ever asked that question–in fact, a Google search hits up several bloggers offering their own bit of advice. Author Carolyn Jess Cooke likens it to that scene in Forest Gump where he takes the football and runs with it. She talks about finishing when it pleases overall.
In the writing forums I’ve participated in, this question comes up a lot, and the answer is usually the same. You don’t ever truly finish editing. At some point, you have to just let go and go for it. Right now, I run my chapters through Editminion, which gives me a good overview of weak writing, prepositions and such. Then I exchange critiques with partners, and they usually pick out the big plot issues. I do a little revision and send the chapter on to my freelance editor. I make most of the changes she suggests, and do a final read using the following techniques.
1. Create a Wordle of each chapter. Wordles are AMAZING! The only negative is they’re a public document. The way a Wordle works is to analyze each word in an excerpt of text and size the words in accordance to frequency. For example, here’s a screenshot of my Wordle for the first chapter in my WIP. You can tell it’s a Christian Fiction because of the size of the word church, for example. Part of the scene happens in the church. But some other words that stood out to me–phone, eyes, shoulder, face–how many of those could be overused?
2. Search for commonly overused words with Microsoft Word’s Find feature. This article has a great list. My bad habits are back, going, reach, look, saw, eyes, etc. Lots of repetitive words.
3. Search for “ly” with the Find feature. Most of the time, these can be cut. I’ve never found an adverb I can’t write around, although I do sometimes use them in my writing. I aim for about one per every 1000 words, which comes to about two or three per chapter (YA).
4. Read through to find places to add sensory details. Can readers smell your setting? If there’s food, have you described it in a way to make their mouths water?
5. Do a line-by-line read-through for show/don’t tell. Can readers pick up the emotion in each scene? Did I just say anger washed across a character’s face, or did I describe what that looked like?
But I still don’t feel “finished.” Novel, under construction. Somebody’s going to have to take this thing away from me 🙂
What are your strategies? How do you know when you’re finished editing?
Lessons from the Classroom for YA Writers
I wish I had started out as a writer first, then a teacher. I think my first few years would have been much better. Writers tend to notice things about people that others don’t.
That said, I’m thankful for the time I’ve spent trying to sell curriculum to resistant young people every day, because I think it makes me a much better writer. Here are five things I’ve learned:
1. Teens respond better to active, engaging material than passive.
In the classroom, this translates to hands-on activities and interactive models, such as the potato gun above–one of my all-time favorite projects from some of my favorite students*. In writing, this means drawing them into the action and letting them experience it as the character. They don’t want to just stand by and let you tell them a story. They want to think, feel, taste, smell, touch, fear, rejoice, and be.
2. Teens thrive on relationships.
They want to have them, hear about them, talk about them, dissect them–it’s a challenge sometimes as a teacher to get them to stop thinking about relationships long enough to teach them something. You might think I’m only talking about romantic relationships, but it’s more than that. They thrive on building strong relationships with the adults in their lives, even the elderly. They are interested in watching how two teachers interact with each other, or how a mother interacts with her baby.
That’s why I feel like it’s important to consider the relationship dynamic between ALL characters, not just the main ones, and adding in a few details to show appropriate behaviors between people. Maybe someone holds the door open and someone else thanks them. Perhaps an older couple is walking by in front of them, holding hands. Sadly, a lot of kids do not have good role models to imitate. In Christian fiction, especially, we need to keep that in mind.
3. Teens are smarter about life than we think.
I’ve critiqued a lot of aspiring YA writers, and one of my pet peeves is how they sometimes try to explain every little thing. It’s like they think teen readers won’t know the meaning of words or understand the history behind an event. Believe it or not, teens are usually pretty up-to-date on current events and fairly knowlegeable about history. After all, they get three years to study it in high school. I’ve had some great intellectual discussions with students about surprising topics over the years.
They also have experienced more than we might believe–pain, loss, joy. In fact, many of them could teach us a few things about coping.
We have to be careful to not make characters too naive. In a recent discussion with a group of young readers, we talked about the Princess Diaries and how frustrated they were with Anne Hathaway’s character being inept at so many things. While most of them liked the movie, they didn’t find her character relatable. Their average/awkward is a lot different from the way Princess Mia was painted.
If we’re not careful, we could write characters that might come across as an insult to today’s savvy teen readers.
4. Teens have short attention spans.
It’s been my experience that teens lose focus after about 10-15 minutes. In my classroom, I have to find creative ways to throw in hooks every so often to pull them back in. And honestly, I think that’s true for a lot of adults, too. I’ve seen a lot of students take books back to the library before finishing them. Instead of being a story they couldn’t put down, it was something easily dismissed. At the very least, a writer should put a hook at the end of every chapter. You’re not going to keep them turning pages with a bunch of info dumps, either. They’ll just flip through and skip pages to look for the next action scene.
5. Teens are brutally honest.
One thing I love about working with high school students is that you never have to worry about what they’re thinking. If they love an assignment, they’ll tell you. If they hate it, you’ll know. So, hard as it may be to handle their blunt feedback, if you’re going to write YA, you might consider having a couple of teens read your story before submitting, and REALLY listen to their advice.
*Photo used with permission.
Monica Mynk 
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