Why to Read Your Work Aloud

Take the time to read your work aloud.
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I just read a blog post by agent Janet Reid about misspellings and typos in query letters. You’ll want to check it out because it is pretty funny. She has a list of forgivable errors as well as those that are so heinous that she cannot forgive them.

One of her solutions to avoid this is to read your query letter aloud. Not only do I read my queries, I read manuscripts.

I use Word’s Read Aloud feature under the “Review” tab. It seems silly to have the computer read to me, but when I try to do it myself, I forget to read aloud! By the time I’m three or four sentences in, I’m reading in my head. Why go through all of this trouble? For three reasons.

Catch Mistakes

When I read my work aloud, I catch mistakes that I missed both on screen and in print. It might be a typo (chose vs choose). Or it might be repetition. This doesn’t mean that I’ve typed the same word word twice in a row. It might simply mean that I’ve used it too often in a single paragraph or I’ve repeated certain facts or transitions on the same page. Why are these things more obvious out loud? I have no idea. I’m just glad that they are.

The Beauty of Language

Something can be technically correct and still be clunky or awkward, much like the word awkward. I catch these things when I hear my work. I’m also more aware of the beauty of language and turns of phrase when I hear things read aloud. At first, I thought that was just my imagination but it is something my critique group has confirmed. They’ve noted my tendency to play with sound even in tween nonfiction.

Voice

Voice is all about sounding like yourself. When I write about certain things, I need to be careful. Archaeology and history sometimes send me back to academia. Soon, I fall prey to what my husband lovingly calls aca-da-babble or academic babbling. It is convoluted and wordy and uses ten thousand-dollar words when much simpler text would do. But when I read my work aloud? I can fix these things and I sound like me!

So if you are having troubles developing your voice, read your work aloud. It can also help you catch mistakes or simply create text that flows. Try it and see what it does for you.

–SueBE

3 Must Haves for a Personal Essay

Chapter 8 is all about the essay.

Two of my writing friends are top notch essay writers. Hi Ang and Ann! They are always encouraging me to try this form. And I’ve been dabbling in writing micro-essays. But before I could get started I needed a feel for what essay writing is all about. And that takes me to the number one MUST.

Forget What You Learned in School

These are not the persuasive or compare and contrast essays that you learned to write in high school. Five paragraphs? Throw that out the window. You might want to hold onto the narrative essay – essays that tell nonfiction stories but only if you do one thing and that’s number two.

Make It Personal

This is writing from your own personal perspective. Author intrusion? There is no such thing because you, the author, are the character, but with a twist. What’s that twist? The you that is the character is an earlier version of you as the writer. There are things that you don’t know at the beginning of the essay.

But it is you. That means that the thoughts, feelings, and observations are all your own. That’s why these pieces of writing touch writers so deeply. But there is something else as well.

The Big Change

By the end of the piece you have to reveal how you grew. What did you learn? What did you unlearn? How have you changed?

For me, this is the hardest part. I much prefer to write about moments when I was clever. When I showed the world and life what I could do. And those moments are fine. But save them for your girlfriends and your family.

When this clicked for me, I learned what was wrong with 99% of my early attempts. Why 99%? Because in my imperfection I may have accidentally done it right one time with no idea what I was doing.

This is vital because it is another reason that these pieces touch readers so deeply. You grew. You changed. That helps them believe that it is also possible for them. You can have a clever moment but it isn’t going to be the point of the essay.

If you write it in five paragraphs? Who am I to say it can’t work?

–SueBE

Choosing an Author Photo

For some time, I’ve had a hand drawn portrait of myself on my website. I’ve been playing with the idea of replacing it with an actual photo. So today I did some research to help me select the right photo.

The first thing that I discovered is that there is no right photo. Depending on what you write and what the photo will be used for, any number of photos can work. But I also discovered some advice that just left me shaking my head.

According to some publicists, you should:

• Have recently made a trip to your stylist.
• Only wear the most recent, trendy eye glasses.
• The camera should be as high as possible (ie not shooting up at your chin).
• Have a background that stretches off into the distance which is dandy if you just happen to have a cathedral or some such lying around.
• Be seated on only the most contemporary, stylish furniture.
• Your clothing must be classic and tailored.
• Your photo should reflect your personality.

As this little project launched, I thought that the biggest problem would be that the photo can reflect my personality or I can wear tailored clothing. I’m really not a tailored kind of girl. I’m a Doc Marten’s kind of girl.

Whatever. I picked out one outfit with several variations including two different hair styles. I decided against makeup because (ahem) I couldn’t actually find my mascara. I knew how I wanted to pose because I knew what look I was going for.

And then I saw the result. It didn’t look quirky as had the examples. It looked ridiculous. Scratch that plan.

The only image that I liked out of the first batch has a camera angle that was too low. It may have been the best of a mediocre lot but it wasn’t good. But from there I could replan and shoot #2 took place. I’ve included my two favorites.

I’m 90% certain that I am going to use the photo where I am wearing my navy jacket. I had to laugh because you notice a multitude of things in a photo that you don’t notice in life. For example, where is there a paper towel tube on the bookcase? As you can see, I cropped it out above but I had to laugh. How long has that been there? And why?

I saw absolutely no advice on paper towel tubes when I was doing my research on author photos. Come to your own conclusions.

–SueBE

Imposter Syndrome

“I’m not a real writer.” “Everyone is going to find out that I don’t belong here.”

These are the kinds of thoughts you might have if you are having issues with imposter syndrome. It is something that most of us go through. After one sale, we can’t make another and we wonder if we’ve been faking it.

Or maybe you haven’t made that first sale. How can you be a writer with no sales? I’ve known a lot of writers who struggle with this especially when they are trying to get a family member to help with child care to give them time to go to a conference or write. “How can you put so much into a hobby?

But there’s another aspect to imposter syndrome. How can I really belong if I’m not like everyone else?

The reality is that publishing needs a wide variety of writers. And I mean this in terms of ethnicity, gender identification, religious belief, political stance, and more. Publishing needs a wide variety of writers because we are producing books for a wide variety of readers.

When I started writing for young readers, virtually everyone I met at conferences and other events was a teacher or a librarian. Then there were the people who had grown up among the movers and shakers in the publishing world.

I came from a family of readers but no one wrote. One aunt was a photographer. Another painted. But neither was involved in publishing.

Still, I believed that my perspective was valuable, so I persisted. So let me say this to you – your perspective matters. Your persistence matters. Somewhere out there is a child who is much like you were. There is a child who will find your thoughts and expression of those thoughts compelling. There is a child who needs what you have to say.

Be yourself. The world of publishing needs you.

–SueBE

Outlining Made Easy-ish

Yesterday, I sat down to outline my cozy and . . . where are my story notes? I’ve been making notes for months. I named the aerospace company and the town. I named my main characters and some of the backstory characters! I’m not sure why I had so much trouble finding this because it was right there in my folder. My husband said I just needed to eat lunch first.

And apparently he was right. Because when I came back from lunch, there was the file. I opened it up and things started coming together.

If you aren’t familiar with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat system, there are 15 story beats. I’ve always found it tricky working from #1 the opening scene to #15 the closing scene. Actually those two are pretty easy but I tend to get lost in between.

When I took a class called Cracking the Beat Sheet, I learned to start with the 6 Pillar Beats. These are the Opening Image, the Catalyst, Break into 2, the Midpoint, Break into 3 and the Final Image. It isn’t just that these beats are important, the play off each other. Figuring them out provides the framework for the rest of the story. With my story notes, I was able to pull them together quickly. Now that I’ve got those done, I’m ready to fill in the remaining 9 beats.

Once I have my 15 beats, I’ll briefly outline my scenes. I’ll need to know what is the goal? What keeps Franny from achieving it? And what her new goal is? Some scenes will be pretty defined in the story beats. But I’ll need from 36 to 40 scenes total. The scenes will be divided among act 1, the beginning of act 2, the second part of act 2, and act 3.

Because I’m writing a mystery, I really need to create this list. I need scenes that relate to the mystery. In these scenes I’ll explore the murder and attempts to catch the killer. But I’ll also need scenes that center on my character’s life in her new home. It will take some planning to weave all of this together.

Thus, the outline.

–SueBE

Story Stakes: Does Your Story Have What It Takes?

Are your story stakes high enough to matter?
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“Your story stakes have to matter.”

That’s the sort of advice that fiction writers hear all the time. But how can you know when you’ve succeeded? It all starts with identifying the stakes in your story.

First things first, what are story stakes? The stakes are what is at risk for your character. What will the character gain if they succeed? What will they lose if they fail?

Not every story has life-or-death stakes. For a picture book, it might be enough that the character wants to spend the night in their own bed without calling for mom and dad. But for a young adult novel, it may be literal life or death.

One way to know that you’ve created strong story stakes is if your story engages your readers. Do they stay with it from beginning to end? That’s a good sign.

If on the other hand, you’ve been told that your story doesn’t have enough tension? Then you may need to raise your stakes.

One way to do this is to combine external stakes and internal stakes. In your young adult novel, the main character may be trying to evacuate their town as a fire advances over the mountain. That’s an external stake. But what if the main character doesn’t know where her little brother is? How can she make sure he is safe and get everyone moving at the same time?

Another way to raise the stakes is to make sure that your character’s actions have consequences. Earlier this week, I blogged about how to keep your story from feeling contrived. One way to do this is to make sure there are causal links. What your character does in one scene has an impact in the next scene.

Speaking of scenes, it can also help to raise your story stakes if you make sure that each scene has a goal with . . . can you guess . . . something at stake. As you can see, it isn’t an easy thing to build a strong story with stakes that matter. But in truth? That’s going to be something that separates your story from those that don’t work, including those written by AI.

–SueBE

Free University Level Courses

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It’s no mystery that I love to take online courses and that my tastes are varied. I take history classes, paleontology, and archaeology. Occasionally I take philosophy and once I accidentally signed up for an chemical astronomy class (or something like that).

Not only do I learn a lot in these classes but I come away with ideas for stories and articles. The kids are starting school next week so I was wondering what six classes I would register for if I was a full time student. Here is what I chose.

Classic Children’s Literature

This class is being offered by Hillsdale College. The professors challenge students to fully experience these books as literature, putting aside any notions gleaned from movie adaptations. The books include Beauty and the Beast, The Snow Queen, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Aesop’s Fables, Winnie-the-Pooh, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Treasure Island, and The Wind in the Willows. You can find out more about this class here.

It has been a long time since I’ve read the majority of these books and I would welcome the opportunity to read them again.

The Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food

This psychology course is offered through Yale. Admittedly, I’ve never taken psych but I’m interested in issues related to food, nutrition, and how we think about food. The description lists discussions of taste, aversions, food as comfort, and the politics of food including sustainable agriculture and organic farming. You can find out more about it here.

The book High Conflict included a section on organic farming. I’m eager to learn more about how it impacts the politics of food.

Women Making History: Ten Objects, Many Stories

Taught through Harvard, this history course focuses on the women’s suffrage movement and how history is shaped through what has been archived. As a historian, I often find myself wondering how what we know is shaped by what has been preserved. You can find out more about this class here.

I have to admit that part of my curiosity is simply what ten objects they explore. But after reading fiction about this time period, I want to dive into historic fact.

Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science

One of the many things that fascinates me is kitchen chemistry. In this class, chefs will reveal secrets behind signature dishes and then chemists will explain the science. Topics include: how molecules impact flavor, the role of heat, and spherification. You can find out more about this Harvard class here.

I’m not sure if this class has a hands-on component but that could be problematic. I loathe shopping and have no interest in buying kitchen gadgets I don’t want. I have enough gadgets I actually use!

The Principles of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior

I’ve had evolution through anthropology and paleontology so it would be interesting to experience the topic through a biology class. Topics include transmission genetics, genetic drift and so much more. There are something like 36 recorded lectures. The in person course included two exams and a paper. Because this is a recorded course, the exams are available along with the answers. You can find out more about it here.

I think the last evolution class I had was on teaching evolution and how to explain the concepts accurately and appropriately. My hope is that this class would include some recent findings.

Philosophy, Science and Religion

This is actually a series of three courses, starting with Science and Philosophy. You can find out about this University of Edinburgh class here. When I was in college, the anthropology department offered a class, Magic, Science, and Religion. I never got to take it but as I understand it discussed how a topic could be explored through any of these three area, depending on the culture. This course grouping, offered through Coursera, looks at whether these ways of studying the world are incompatible or if they can be mutually supportive. This intrigues me deeply!

I would start with Science and Philosophy. If that class proves interesting, I would take the other two courses in future semesters.

I suspect this would be quite a course load with a lot of reading but a lot of fascinating material. And I do plan to take these courses but not simultaneously.

There are so many interesting free courses available. What topics interest you? What classes would you take?

–SueBE

Avoid Creating a Contrived Story

Step One Don’t populate your story with two-dimensional characters.
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Yesterday I was poking around, reading book reviews, and trying to decide what to read next. One reader called a book that I was considering contrived. Yes! That was the exact word that I needed to describe the book that I was reading.

But why? What is it that makes a story feel contrived?

2-Dimensional Characters

Characters that are flat and don’t feel real can be one problem. Because they are flat, the writer often assigns one or two traits to each character. Blane is a jock who is strong and a natural leader. Eugene is a genius and an inventor. Bethany is gorgeous and perpetually perky.

Play to these traits and nothing else and you are going to create a story that feels forced.

Overly Emotional Characters

Another way to create a contrived story is to create characters that bounce from one emotional outburst to another with no consequences in between. When I read a story like this, I wonder if the author is trying to use high emotion to build tension. But constant high emotion that brings no reaction from fellow characters doesn’t feel real. As a result the story doesn’t feel real.

Episodic

Sometimes a story feels contrived because it feels overly episodic. This means that one scene follows another with no cause and effect connection.

This happens. Then this happens. And then this happens. Things to badly when the author needs things to go badly. And then things go well because the author needs things to go well.

Instead the reader needs to be able to see how events in one scene naturally cause or lead to the next scene.

Unlucky Bad Guys and Lucky Heroes

Stories also feel contrived if the bad guy makes ridiculous mistakes vs getting caught because of the hero’s skills and abilities. But the hero can also be ridiculously lucky. All is lost until, the hero puts her hand in her pocket and finds whatever it is that will save the day.

Lucky things and unlucky things can both happen. But if this is what drives a plot forward the story is going to feel contrived.

Instead, build on the character’s skills. Have one scene lead to the other. Create causal connections whenever possible. Avoid creating a contrived story by not forcing it to go where you want it. Instead, built it scene by scene.

–SueBE

Review of Yvonne Morgan’s Gypsy for God

I may as well admit this up front. When I started reading Gypsy for God by Yvonne Morgan, I thought it was a memoir. I was so impressed by this woman who had picked herself up after loosing her job at fifty and starting a new career as a travel agent.

NOTE: I have no clue why I thought this novel was a memoir. Author – Yvonne Morgan. Main character – Kathleen Johnson. What can I say? When I’m wrong, I don’t mess around.

Gypsy for God is a novel about a woman who is forced to retire. She feels useless and directionless, only perking up when she and her husband take a weekend trip. With his encouragement she looks into becoming a travel agent and makes this into a reality.

On one of their overseas trips, she sees a bedraggled child and is shocked when the hotel staff apologizes that “it” has disturbed her enjoyment. She desperately wants to help the child and worries that mentioning her sighting to the staff may have brought a bad result.

Eventually she finds a way to help children, matching up Christian groups that want to help with organizations in need. I loved this part of the story! Personally, I think it is vital to partner with local organizations who know the culture of the area as well as the unique challenges that the people there face. It is so different than having American Christian groups come in and impose their solutions on a situation.

I also really liked the parts of the story that focused on discernment which is such an important part of prayer. I honestly don’t think that I’ve read any other story that dealt with discernment.

I did find the character’s interactions with her husband tiring. So often he was beyond negative to the point of being snappish about her enthusiasm to help. She’d get upset and cry and then presto-chango she would get over it and they were all lovey again. Yes, real couples fight, but there was something about this that just felt like it was there to create story tension.

This is a good choice for Christian readers who like inspirational fiction and exotic settings with lots of high-class travel. Check it out and see what you think!

–SueBE

2 Picture Book Myths

Don’t let a myth bring your publishing journey to a halt.
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I’ve been watching some of the sessions from the recent SCBWI conference. It’s always interesting to hear what agents and editors day vs what authors and illustrators believe. Two of the things that I’ve heard comments on this year involve picture book publishing.

Author/Illustrators Have an Edge

This is one that I’ve been wondering about lately — Do authors have a chance or do you have to be an author/illustrators to get a contract?

The editor/agent panel as a whole said no, this is not true. They are just as willing to sign someone who is only a picture book author. But you have to bring them a top notch manuscript.

This is Sue talking here — But that means that you need to write the story with illustration in mind. There need to be strong illustration possibilities and you need to leave space for the illustrations. The illustrator needs to be able to add to the story. Study picture books and magazines to see how each type of writing is paced.

You Need 5 Picture Books Before You Attempt a Sale

A lot of writers seem to think that you need to have 5 picture books before you approach an agent for representation or an editor for publication. I know where this came from because I heard the agent actually say it.

Again, the agent/editor panel said no. Yes, they want to know that you’ve got the ideas and talent to create more than one manuscript. But five or even four is not essential. One of the speakers actually said that when an author approached them with a body of work of this size ready to go, they get nervous. They know that changes are that the author is going to want them to attempt to sell every manuscript at the same time and that just isn’t how things work.

Sue here.

So what does this show us? There are definitely agents who only want to represent author/illustrators. And that’s understandable because then they get a larger commission. If you only write and don’t illustrate, you’re just going to have to avoid those agents. It’s a lot like a picture book author having to avoid houses that only publish YA. You need to find the right fit.

And there’s at least one agent who only wants to see your work once you have five manuscripts ready to go. But there are a lot of agents who don’t feel that way.

When an agent or editor tells you what they want, that’s what you’ve been told. What that one person wants. It may be representative of an industry standard but there’s a very real chance that it’s just a personal preference.

–SueBE