Tag: writing advice

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Know your stuff! The Importance of Research

There’s this piece of advice that floats around writing circles that I absolutely hate. “Write what you know.”

I hate it for a couple reasons.

For starters, it’s become a means of gatekeeping. People use it to tell people they shouldn’t write a character of a gender or sexual orientation or race that’s different from their own. People also use it to tell others not to write characters in a situation that they’ve never experienced, like mental illness or extreme poverty.

And I hate that.

It completely negates the fact that we can learn. We can do research and broaden our horizons and grow as human beings.

We can come to understand other people in ways we didn’t before, and books are a wonderful way to do that.

“Write what you know” also limits what a person can write in other ways.

If authors only ever wrote what they know, every character would be a bookworm of some sort, and the fantasy/sci-fi genres wouldn’t exist. Magic isn’t real, and aliens aren’t officially recognized as real, so no one “knows” them to write them. Same with zombies or super-advanced technology.

And then there are the hobbies and things that people could never write without first diving into them.

So, instead of, “Write what you know,” I’m an advocate for research.

For example, if a character is a mechanic, learn a little bit about cars.

It won’t hurt you to know how to change your oil. (And knowing how doesn’t mean you can’t just pay someone else to do it.) It won’t hurt you to know that if a pully on the motor is bent, it might shred the serpentine belt (over time), which fucks a lot of shit up (goodbye power steering and engine cooling, for instance).

It also doesn’t hurt to know that Stop Leak is a thing, but most mechanics would recommend replacing the head or the head gasket rather than using it because it’s more of a band-aid than an actual fix, and could leave you stranded on the side of the road later on with all the fluids draining out of the engine. (Personal experience from my days as a broke ass college student taught me that one.)

If a character is an archer, you probably need to research archery.

It won’t hurt you to know that the extended arm will ache more than the arm drawing the string if you hold for too long (same tension because of the whole equal and opposite reaction thing, plus the weight of holding the arm and bow out away from the body), or that double jointed elbows might mean the string clips your elbow on release if your elbow is at full lock.

If a character suffers from depression, you probably need to know about intrusive thoughts and the complete and total lack of energy that sometimes holds a person in an existential crisis on the couch, stopping them from doing things they know full well that they need to do while simultaneously making them feel like shit for not doing those things.

If a character is a lesbian, you should probably do some research and learn that not all lesbians have a high sex drive or fit the typical “butch” stereotype. And they aren’t lesbians just because they haven’t met the right man.

My point is, these are things you should learn, things you should research.

Not things that should stop you from writing a character the way they’re supposed to be written.

This doesn’t mean you have to be an expert in every hobby your character undertakes (unless the character is supposed to be an expert and that knowledge affects the story). At least get the basics, though.

Do your characters (and real people) justice.

Research appropriately.

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Editing Your Manuscript To Death: Knowing When To Stop

Editing a manuscript is a long and (sometimes) grueling process. It’s a necessary step, because no manuscript is perfect.

But how do you know when to stop?

How do you keep from falling into an endless cycle of revisions?

Write the whole book first.

Don’t edit your first chapter five times instead of writing chapter two. This is a good way to never finish the book.

There are exceptions to this. Some people can make editing as they write work for them and still finish books. For instance, I edit as I go, but only minimal edits (fixing misspelled words as I type them, things like that). Sometimes, I’ll stop progressing to go back and make a change earlier in the manuscript, but only if it’s a pivotal thing, something that I need to do because it alters the character arcs or plot.

Everything else gets tacked on at the end of the manuscript with a note that says, “Add such and such to this specific scene.”

That’s enough to convince my brain to let it go for the moment while ensuring that it gets fixed after the book is finished.

If you’re wondering if your first chapter is good enough for you to stop editing it and write the next chapter, the answer is yes. Write the next chapter.

Once the book is finished, if you fall into a cycle of fifteen to twenty rounds of edits, and you’re unsure whether it’s done, try these:

Step away from it for a little while.

If you’ve pored over your book time and again, and you don’t know if needs something adjusted or removed or added…

Step away from it for a week or more.

Coming back with fresh eyes is insanely helpful for seeing things you didn’t see before, or for realizing that you were overthinking.

Hire a pro for at least one round of edits.

Please. At least one round of editing needs to be done by a professional. I promise, they’ll see things you didn’t, and it’ll help you get some peace of mind.

Accept that there will always be a typo or two (or ten) left scattered throughout the book.

A book is the product of a human, and humans are incapable of perfection. I believe the industry standard is somewhere around 1 typo for every 10,000 words, but obviously you’re not going to count them. If you could find them to count them, you’d just fix them.

But if you feel like you’re close to that point, as long as you’ve done story and grammar edits in addition to hunting for typos, you’re probably good.

When in doubt, have someone else (someone you trust to be honest with you) take a look.

Honestly, you should have someone else look at your book before publication, no matter what. Be it critique partners, alpha readers, or beta readers, you need other people’s eyes on your work.

Your brain will fill in words where they’re missing because you know what’s supposed to be there. Other people don’t, so they’ll like see these things.

Your brain will also fill in backstory and world building because you know what’s supposed to be there. Again, other people don’t. They can show you what you’ve missed. (Or what you’ve overexplained.)

Or tell you when they think it’s ready and that you’re just doubting yourself unnecessarily.

Doing this before sending your manuscript to a professional editor could actually save you money. Every problem fixed before the pro gets their hands on it means one less thing for them to find, and thus, potentially fewer rounds needed with a pro.

But basically, when it gets to a point where all you’re doing is taking out a comma or addressing a typo once every ten (ish) pages, or better yet, when you get your manuscript back from the pro and can scroll through ten (ish) pages between corrections, publish that bitch!

Stop tearing your hair out hunting the four typos that slipped through seven rounds of edits.

(Btw, seven rounds is my average for editing, including the professional edit and a sweep with Grammarly. Older works got more to bring them up from my early writing abilities to my current abilities.)

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Front and Back Matter: Important Things to Include in Your Book

Getting our books just right is hard sometimes. But there’s a really easy way to make it look more professional and potentially drive readers to your next book (or to review the book they’ve just read).

The secret?

It’s all those extra pages at the beginning and end of the book. The front and back matter.

Here’s a little list of things to include (or consider including) to take your book up a notch.

Front Matter

Pretty Title Page
This one isn’t necessary, but it does give the book a little something extra. In a few of my own books, I’ve put a page with the cover art but in black and white (printing in color drives the price way up), the typography off the cover, or a completely different design specially made for that page.

*Don’t include in ebooks. Different screen sizes from one ereader or app to another could cut the image off and make it look bad.

Regular Title Page
This one should be in there, whether you have a pretty title page or not. It’s easy to read and provides a good place for signatures.

Copyright Page
An absolute must. Include the copyright claimant, the copyright year, the ISBN, and the statement that the rights are reserved. If you want to, you can include the copyright registration number. If you’re not sure how to word all that, you can look at the books you read to see how they did it and take cues from their copyright pages.

*If you’re in a country that requires it, don’t forget to register your copyright.

Dedication
Optional, but nice. There are a lot of ways to format these. Sometimes a simple, “To Mom,” works, but you can get elaborate if you want to. There have been a lot of these floating around the internet that are more like… warnings for loved ones that shouldn’t read it.

Table of Contents
These aren’t 100% necessary, but a lot of readers really appreciate them. And as long as you have all your chapters/section headings marked as Headings in Word, it’ll format the table for you when you insert it. In the ebook format, you might want to set the table of contents up with hyperlinks to make things even easier for your readers.

Map
Not a necessity, but again, a lot of readers really like these, especially in high/epic fantasy.

Front or Back Matter

Other Books by This Author
I’ve seen these at the front of the book and at the back of the book. Either way is fine. If it’s an ebook (which means you can include hyperlinks) maybe put it at the back with something along the lines of: On to your next great read with…
If you’re publishing your debut novel, don’t stress about not being able to include this. Self-publishing means you can always update the files later to include this page.
If you have multiple books out, please please please include this! It’s free marketing for your other books directed at someone who already said yes to one of your books. Not including this is a wasted opportunity.

Back Matter

Thank You Page
Thank your reader. They just spent a ton of time in your world. They gave you and your characters and your creation their energy and focus. Thanking them gives the book a slightly more personal feel.
This page is also a great place to ask that they leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon.

Acknowledgements
This one isn’t a necessity, but it could be a nice little finishing touch. Whether you had a co-writer (who might have their own acknowledgements page to include), a developmental editor that really helped you from the start, supportive friends and family, a team of beta readers that went above and beyond, patreon supporters, or a group of writer friends that kept you going, this is a great place to mention them.

Afterword
Again, not necessary, but sometimes good. This is just a place to review some things that took place in the book, maybe compare themes to the real world, explain why something is the way it is, or address your reason for writing the book in the first place.
Two of my books include an afterword (though in one it’s called A Letter from the Author). One focuses on sexual abuse, its after effects, and the needs for better treatment of victims and stricter punishment for offenders. The other talks about suicide and includes the number for the suicide helpline. One that I’m currently writing will have an afterword that includes information about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and memory deficits/time misperception in survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
These are pertinent to the books they’re placed within.
Yours don’t have to be so heavy.

About the Author
You definitely need one of these. Tell a little something about yourself, list awards if you’ve gotten any, and provide a website or social media platform for readers to follow you. Don’t go overboard with links though. Just a dab’ll do ya.
(So, no more than three or four.)
And these links should not be four pages long with random letters and symbols and numbers. Provide clean links or even simply usernames for certain platforms.

Teaser of the next book in the series
If this is a series, you can include a small excerpt of the next book to try and lead your reader through. The first chapter is usually a good amount.

Pick and choose which of these are best for you and your book. Have fun with it, and good luck with your publishing journey!

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

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Kindle Unlimited: Pros and Cons in Self-Publishing

Publishing is like walking through a minefield. Some of the mines hurt. Some of them are more like a jack-in-the-box. Others actually hand out rewards in a non-explosive way.

But which of those categories does Kindle Unlimited fall into?

For those who don’t know, Kindle Unlimited is something you can only enroll your ebook in (through Kindle Select) if you publish through KDP and only KDP. Paperback and hardback can be published through other publishers, but the ebook has to be specifically through KDP and enrolled in Kindle Select.

Now, that does eliminate some potential sales and readers on Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play Books, etc. But 72% of people reading ebooks do so on a Kindle or Kindle app.

Putting your book in Kindle Unlimited does alienate 28% of ebook readers, but it also opens up a whole new market for you.

You see, if someone subscribes to Kindle Unlimited, they can read as many books from the program as they want. They pay the monthly subscription fee, but nothing else.

So, programs like this are where you tend to get your reading “whales,” the truly big fish, the people reading so much that not having a monthly subscription just doesn’t make sense financially. And voracious readers are what writers want to find.

Now, how do you get paid if your book is in Kindle Unlimited?

KDP pays you per page read (they call it KENP). So, if a person reads your entire book, you get paid for all those pages. If they read fifteen pages and never come back to it, you still get paid for those fifteen pages instead of forfeiting the royalty if they had returned a regular ebook or just read the sample and never bought the book.

So, there are some positives there.

The amount you get per page read varies from month to month. KDP does some calculations, figuring up what the total income of the Kindle Unlimited subscriptions were worldwide and breaking it down across the total number of pages read. And they give bonuses to the people who whose books were read the most.

What does that mean for you?

Typically, the amount paid per page is pretty low. I’m talking fractions of pennies per page. But it adds up over the course of a book or two or a full blown series or your entire backlist.

Kindle Unlimited is really good for people with a lot of books out or with a big series and good readthrough rates. Because then, when a reader finds one of your books and loves it, they can immediately read through all of them. No further purchases on their end, but more royalties for you.

Enrolling in Kindle Select also means that you can run price promotions on KDP, lowering your price without sacrificing your royalty percentage or even making it free for a certain number of days per quarter.

And since Amazon now owns Goodreads (yep, they sure do), you can still run a Goodreads giveaway while enrolled in Kindle Select. I emailed them to make sure.

But you can’t sell it anywhere else.

No Nook ebooks. No Kobo. No iBooks.

Not even on your own website.

As long as it’s enrolled, your ebook can only be available for Kindles.

So, though there are a lot of pros to enrolling in Kindle Select to get your book into Kindle Unlimited, there is a very real drawback. You just have to decide whether you want your ebooks wide or strictly through KDP.

But rest easy. If you decide you don’t want to be in Kindle Select, you can unenroll and go wide. Or you can release your ebook with wide distribution through another self-publisher and later on, unpublish it with the other publisher to enroll it in Kindle Select.

If that’s your plan, I recommend that you publish the ebook through KDP and the other publisher simultaneously, that way the Amazon listing is unaffected when you unpublish with the other publisher. That way, you don’t lose your reviews.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

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6 tips for writing better dialogue

Dialogue is important. I think we can all agree on that.

For me, it’s one of the first things that come to me when working on a story. The characters have conversations in my head, and the scene develops around them.

It’s one of my favorite parts of writing, honestly.

So, today, I want to share some tips to help you get your dialogue down in a way that’s easy to read and feels natural.

Said is not dead.

Said/says are viable dialogue tags, but a lot of writers seem to think it’ll make their writing boring somehow to use “said” instead of “whispered” or “spat” or “hissed” or any of the other million dialogue tag options.

But there’s a reason said/says is kinda the standard.

It’s neutral.

Aside from the fact that it’s just the basic action of speaking, it’s virtually invisible. The word said is a background word, something most readers don’t notice unless the book is just dialogue heavy and there are no other tags attached to dialogue.

Things like “crooned” or “shouted” are more active. They change the way the dialogue is interpreted. The reader has to actually engage with that word to interpret the things your characters say appropriately.

And though it may be an infinitesimal difference in reading time, there is a bit of a difference. Refusing to use “said” means that every time a character speaks, there’s that little split second delay of applying the manner of speech to the words spoken. Not only does that add up, it gets annoying.

So, said/says should probably be your primary dialogue tag. Others should be sprinkled over the manuscript.

Certain grammatical rules don’t apply to speech.

People do not speak with proper grammar. We say “towards” instead of “toward.” We use contractions, saying “can’t” instead of “can not” most of the time.

This should be reflected in your characters’ speech patterns unless you’re writing a character who’s unbelievably proper.

Or if you’re writing a historical regency romance.

Go easy with the slang.

Just because we don’t speak properly doesn’t mean every other word should be a slang term. Slang happens and should be a part of your dialogue (though it should be customized to the world/characters).

But it shouldn’t sound like a parody where someone is trying to be cool and failing miserably.

Dialects/Accents can be distracting when typed out.

It’s unbelievably tempting to type things up according to a character’s accent or dialect. But there is a risk associated with that.

It can be distracting or difficult for people who don’t use that dialect to understand.

But they might also be the thing that really defines the character (if done well).

As with most things in writing, it’s all a matter of doing it well. Every rule can be broken (if you do it well). Every trope can be subverted or embodied with great results (if done well).

And accents and dialects are no exception.

Get it right, and it might be the thing that makes a character relatable or endearing or swoon-worthy (depending on what you’re writing).

New paragraph for a new speaker.

For the love of everything that’s still good in this world, start a new paragraph when you switch speakers. It gets so hard to keep track of things when there are multiple speakers in one paragraph.

And it’s such a simple fix.

Just hit enter.

Personally, this is something that will make me stop reading a book. If I can’t tell who’s speaking, I can’t keep track of the characters’ motives, fears, or relationships. And the characters are the main reason I read.

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Garbage Days: A New Writing Tradition?

I’m thinking of trying something, and I wanted to share it in case it might help someone else out there.

I’m going to call them Garbage Days.

Basically, I want to sit down and write literally anything. A short story, something new, an alternate ending, stream of consciousness, a random character description that’s been rattling around in my head…

Anything.

Things just feel so cluttered sometimes, and I’m always paranoid that I’ll forget the details. It gets a bit distracting at times.

So I think having a Garbage Day every now and then might help.

I guess if you don’t want it to sound so negative, you could call it Spring Cleaning or some other prettier name, but I tend toward blunt and sarcastic, so Garbage Day works for me. Lol.

I’m not sure how often to do this or when I’ll actually be able to start, but I’m kinda excited to see what the hell will come out of it.

Will you be adopting Garbage Days as a writing tactic?

Find me on Goodreads.

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The Importance of Description (and three tips for doing it well)

I often rage about overly-detailed books. I don’t like being bogged down with unnecessary information.

But you can’t strip it all away either.

I mean, you could, but the result may not pull your readers in.

It’s a fine balance, and the line lies somewhere different for everyone depending on style and genre. But no matter what, you need some scene descriptions. Your characters probably don’t exist in a void. They interact with things around them, and those things interact with them.

If they’re outside, the wind might tousle their hair.

If they’re in a kitchen, they might lean against the counter while talking.

These little things that might feel superfluous are important because they connect the character, and thus the reader, to their world. It means that, instead of floating in a dark nothingness, the characters have mass. They take up space within a world, even if it’s a made up one.

That gives them weight. It makes them more realistic and thus, more relatable.

So, while you don’t want your reader to feel like you’re suffocating them under red velvet curtains layered over lace sheers that pool on the white marble floor whose mineral veins streak and sparkle from one ornately wrought wall to another…

You do need some detail to make sure the character feels grounded, in a literal way.

But how do you do it without overwhelming your reader?

Broad strokes first.

Maybe their eyes drift over the forest before them, rising to the mountain range behind it. Or maybe they’re looting in the apocalypse, and enter a trendy office space with colorful furniture.

These general notions give the reader an idea of what’s around the character without slowing things down or becoming overwhelming.

Sprinkle in some details.

Don’t info-dump. Instead, add a detail every so often, punctuating dialogue or movement with it.

When I enter a room, I don’t often stop in place to take in every detail down to the fabric a certain item of clothing draped over a chair is made of. Most people don’t.

These things are noticed slowly over time, if at all.

Show it through the lens of your character.

Instead of describing the room in the aforementioned (and dreaded) info-dump and then saying that your character is walking through it, maybe say that their footsteps echo in the cavernous space, boots thudding against the stone floor. That gets the action and some description taken care of in one sentence without bogging anything down.

Or instead of detailing worn down furniture and then describing your character’s anxiety, show them worrying ceaselessly at a loose string on the threadbare couch.

Showing what the character interacts with directly really helps to anchor them.

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Maintaining Sanity During NaNoWriMo (and writing for deadlines)

NaNoWriMo is intense. This is my first year trying it, and it’s one hell of an undertaking.

But here are a few ways to maintain your sanity.

(And these tips work outside of NaNo, too.)

Move around.

Go for a walk to get a change of scenery. That might be all you need to get past a bit of writer’s block.

It also helps reduce the risk of blood clots.

So, at the very least, you should get up and move around once every half hour or hour.

These breaks also give your eyes a chance to rest since staring at a screen for a long time can cause headaches (which never help anything).

Have a snack and drink at the ready.

You know you’re going to get all settled in, start typing, and then need something to drink. Then, you have to move the cat off your lap, unplug the laptop, set it aside, and haul yourself out from under five blankets.

Okay, so the details of that scenario are just personal experience, but you get the gist of it.

It’s always frustrating to have to get back up once you get into the groove, so just make sure you have a drink and a snack on hand.

Water is probably the best choice for that drink, btw. Most people I know walk around partially dehydrated all the time, and much like staring at a screen for a long time, this also causes headaches.

Try a different font.

It sounds silly, but sometimes typing in a different font can actually help. It just breaks things up, keeps it fresh.

I alternate between Comic Sans, Calibri, and Times New Roman so my brain doesn’t get used to any particular one.

Minimize distractions.

Some distractions can’t be avoided (small children don’t always listen and just might interrupt you despite all your attempts at privacy), but most can.

Either turn the tv off or switch it to something you won’t get caught up in. Sit in a room by yourself if you need to.

If you can’t leave your phone alone, turn it off or leave it in another room.

And no social media. That’s for break times, not writing sessions.

Let go.

Writing is supposed to be fun! So let yourself enjoy it.

Yes, NaNoWriMo is a marathon.

But don’t let it ruin writing for you. Give yourself permission to miss a word count goal for the sake of enjoying your writing process.

Letting yourself relax into your writing sessions might actually end up being the thing that helps you reach your goals anyway.

Find me on Goodreads.

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Creating a Fictional Language: Things To Consider

Whether you’re new to writing or a veteran, creating a language is a daunting task. It’s a world all unto itself.

Language is usually a fluid thing that adapts and changes over centuries, even more so now that the internet has forced nearly every aspect of life into hyper-evolution.

But when creating a language from scratch for our books, we don’t exactly get centuries to perfect it. (Not unless you’re secretly a vampire.)

So, to help break this herculean task down into smaller pieces, I’ve put together some tips and things to keep in mind while creating your language.

Admittedly, I’ve only made one language for my series, The Regonia Chronicles, (and I’m still filling out the dictionary now that I have the things below ironed out) so this is not a comprehensive guide to language creation.

More like… a jumping off point.

Alphabet

Your language does not have to have the same alphabet as ours. Much like English vs. Chinese vs. Arabic, there can be some major differences.

So, your language will likely have its own alphabet, especially if it’s on a different world. And those unique letters can represent any sound.

Maybe they have a letter that’s a combination of v and k. That combination may not happen much in English, but their language is different. Maybe they have a letter that represents a “tick” sound.

Just keep in mind how you’re going to write these things for people who don’t speak that language to understand. In the book, it’ll likely have to be spelled out in the language you plan to publish in, unless there’s meant to be a language barrier.

When creating mine, I sidestepped the language barrier with technology (that particular story is a distant future sci-fi epic). The tech fits into the plot and world and helped me avoid having my characters make awkward attempts to mime their meanings.

And since the characters understood things with the help of their tech, I could just type everything in English.

But you might need to consider a means of communication if there is a language barrier.

Common sounds

Every language has specific sounds/letters that get a lot of use and others that are rarely used.

In English, A, E, L, M, N, and S are incredibly common. But Q, V, W, X, and Z aren’t.

That’s inevitable and should be considered when making a language.

Though honestly, it’ll probably happen by accident. When creating my language, I learned quickly that there are certain sounds/groupings of sounds that I gravitate toward.

Should it be Phonetic?

Do the letters always make the same sound? Are there ever silent letters?

English and French are particularly bad about both of those things, but Spanish and Japanese seem to be very phonetic.

English is so bad that I think only four letters are 100% true to themselves at all times.

And I hate that.

My language turned out very phonetic, partly because I hate how changeable the English alphabet is, and partly because the race that formed the language is a very logical race. They would never stand for something as varied as English.

But if your characters live somewhere that has blended cultures and languages, there will be inconsistencies.

Word order

Not all languages put the words in the same order. Some put the adjective after the noun (Spanish), some before (English).

And with your language, you can mix your word order even more. So long as it follows a pattern, you can put the verb first and the person doing the action at the very end of the sentence, strange as that would be to do if you tried it in English.

Grammar

You need grammar rules. They don’t have to be the same as ours, but you need to have them.

Do your people use conjunctions? Do they use commas or some similar punctuation? Do they put ‘e’ before ‘i’ instead of the other way around?

Do they have their own special grammar rules that we don’t have?

Verb Conjugations

How do you show past or future tense? In English, we add -ing or -ed (though as with everything in English, there are exceptions), but that doesn’t have to be the case for yours language.

And Spanish verb conjugations get even more complicated than that, conjugating for the noun they relate to as well as the tense.

For mine, keeping with the logical society that formed the language, I kept it straightforward. A prefix for past tense, a suffix for future tense.

Showing Posession

Is this as simple as adding a punctuation? Or does this require an additional word?

(For mine, I decided to cut this completely. The society that formed the language didn’t have personal belongings, being something more of a hive mind society, and the society that adapted the language just goes by context when placing the person with the object.)

Plural

Showing plural can be a complicated thing. Some languages pluralize only the noun, while others pluralize the adjectives too.

You could do either, neither, or make the entire sentence plural.

But you need to decide how to show pluralization. It doesn’t have to be adding an ‘-s’ or ‘-es.’

Specific phrases for culture

The culture will likely be woven throughout the language. Idioms (24/7), curses (bloody hell), and pleas for help (please, god) that are common place in our world likely won’t apply in your language.

They’ll have different religions to influence their speech patterns, as well as different views on time and life, in general. Their language will reflect that.

For my formative culture, they didn’t have turns of phrase, couldn’t be bothered with them. But the culture that adapted the language is more emotional and individual. They value sound and music, so they have many expression relating to that.

Evolution

This kinda goes hand in hand with the above section, but it’s more than just one culture adapting someone else’s language.

Older people will likely speak differently than young people. Words in ancient texts might make no sense to someone reading it a thousand years after it was written due to changes in the meaning, usage, or connotations.

Now, go forth and make up words. Be patient with yourself. It’s a lengthy process.

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Are You Querying Too Early? How to prepare yourself for the trenches.

Though I ultimately chose to self-publish, I did take a run at the query trenches. There are a lot of reasons for agents and publishers to reject a book, even if it’s a good book.

One thing you can do to up your odds of getting your manuscript accepted by an agent or publisher is to make sure you’re actually ready to submit it to them.

How do you know if you’re ready?

Here’s a little checklist.

Finish your book first.

Partial books and outlines are not ready for submission. (Not unless you’re already famous for something else.)

Almost every writer I know has unfinished books lurking on their computer that may or may not ever get finished. It happens. A lot.

Sometimes the author loses steam with the project. Sometimes a new story idea distracts them. Sometimes the aspiring author just decides they don’t want to write at all anymore.

And agents and publishers know this happens.

They will not accept submissions for incomplete manuscripts because they don’t want to even risk wasting their time.

Do a couple of rounds of self-edits.

Submitting a completely unedited manuscript only hurts your chances. You need to look through it, make sure your characters are consistent in their behavior and appearance through the book, check for plot holes, that sort of thing.

Anything you can fix before submissions will only up your odds.

Have beta readers go through it.

You need other people to look at your book. After spending tons of time in that world/with those characters, you know exactly what’s supposed to be on the page. Your brain will fill in the gaps.

A beta reader can find those gaps, those places where you didn’t explain a concept that you understand (because you created it). They’ll find plot holes. They’ll find things that your characters do (or don’t do) that just don’t feel consistent with their personality.

And it’s so much better for them to find these things (so you can fix them) than for an agent to find them (and reject your book for something that could have been addressed).

Research Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing.

Traditional publishing is not for everyone. It works for many authors, but not all.

Querying is a grueling process. Going through it only to realize months (or years) later that self-publishing is the better route for you personally… is a waste of time and effort.

Do some research before submitting to any agents or publishers to make sure this is the right path for you. Weigh the pros and cons of both.

For me, self-publishing makes more sense, but that may not be the case for you.

I’m willing to take on the extra work of formatting and metadata and copyrights and lining up editing and cover art in exchange for the creative control allowed by self-publishing.

But if the idea of that extra work makes you cringe and you just want someone else to handle it (even if it means they get the final say over what they book looks and reads like), then traditional might be better for you.

Look into it for yourself.

All of the above steps are necessary early steps whether you go with self-publishing or traditional publishing, but from here on, it’s specific to the query trenches.

Research publishers and agents.

There are so many out there, but they don’t all want your book. Each publisher and agent has a network in place for books of a specific genre, a specific age group, specific tropes, etc.

Furthermore, they don’t always accept submissions.

Many have specific dates/times of the year where they open for submissions. Agents can only work with so many authors at a time (varies from agent to agent), and publishers only publish a certain number of books a year (varies from publisher to publisher depending on the size of the company).

Some publishers only accept submissions from agents, not directly from authors.

So do your research here. Compile a list of places to submit that accept your genre, age range, level of gore, level of sexiness, tropes, etc.

Submit to the ones you can. Set reminders in your phone to submit to places that open later in the year.

Prepare your submission materials.

Every single agent or publisher has a whole slew of things they want submitted alongside the manuscript (or a portion of the manuscript). Take the time to get these right.

If you don’t include a cover letter when they specifically requested one, they might not even bother to read your first page.

If you don’t format your manuscript how they want it formatted, they might not read the first page.

If you give them a three page synopsis instead of a one page synopsis (Because you already had a three page one and surely that’s good right? That’s giving them extra.) they probably won’t read the three page synopsis. Or your manuscript.

These submission materials are basically like a job interview. They’re seeing how well you pay attention to basic guidelines, how much you’re going to fight and try to slide by with stuff they don’t let fly. After all, anyone they offer a contract is going to have deadlines and things they have to do (to the agent/publishers standards) within that time.

But these materials are also meant to show them if your book is a good fit for them and make it as easy to digest as possible. They look at thousands of manuscripts, and they have to be able to pick out the ones they want relatively quickly.

Making their lives difficult probably won’t get you a book deal.

Personalize the submission materials.

Show them that you actually looked at their website, their catalog of books, the authors they work with. (Which you should do to see if your book is actually a good fit for them.) Show them that you did some research, that way they can take your submission seriously.

Check out Query Shark.

This website has a lot of help for getting a solid query letter. Don’t just submit yours to them for critique though.

Read through the ones that have already been critiqued/revised and apply the advice to your own query letter.

You can find those here.

Subscribe for sneak peeks and updates on my upcoming books (and get a free short story).

Check out my gritty, literary sci-fi and fantasy books here.

Want to help fund this blog and my writing efforts? You can support me directly here.