For those unaware, #1lineWed is a weekly writing-related Twitter event hosted by the Romance Writers Association’s Kiss of Death Chapter (@RWAKissofDeath). The rules are simple—each week, @RWAKissofDeath will post a new “theme,” and writers post a line from their manuscripts that relates to that theme. Simple enough. So why is this a great writing exercise?  Well, in the words of Stephen King: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

It is a common desire for fledgling writers to want to “stand out.” Often, this desire manifests itself as needlessly complicated writing. I’m certainly not above it – I still have issues sending my darlings to pasture. But step one in solving any problem is identifying it, and that’s where #1lineWed comes in.

Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters; “#1linewed” with a space takes up ten characters, so suddenly you’re down to 130. You’ll be stunned by how little room that is, but also how much you can pack into it if you’re cognizant.

Here’s a personal example. One week, the #1linewed theme was “sweet.” I located the following passage from my manuscript that seemed on-point:

“The voice of his mother echoed in his ears. It had been so long since he heard her voice. Too long. He had forgotten how similar his mother’s voice was to Carrie’s: both voices were sweet, steady, and calm. Both voices were like sedatives for his frenetic thoughts.”

This passage is almost 270 characters long, so I almost ignored it. But then I decided to experiment to see if I could get the character count down. After several iterations, I succeeded:

"He had forgotten how similar his mother’s voice was to Carrie’s: both were sweet and calm, sedatives for his frenetic thoughts." #1linewed

— Jason Huebinger (@JasonHuebinger) December 21, 2016

This passage is half the length, but much more impactful. And while it would take a very long time to take this approach with an entire manuscript, developing an eye for darling slaughter is critical to success as a writer.

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— Jason Huebinger

Like many other writers, I like to write with music. In fact, I <em>have </em>to write to music as silence distracts me.  Because of this, I’ve found that I associate certain songs with my novel FATE’S PAST.  So, without further ado, the following is a list of a few of the songs I listened to while writing FATE’S PAST:

Cloud Atlas Soundtrack — “End Title”

I will always think of FATE’S PAST when I hear this song because it was on repeat for much of the initial drafting. There’s just something about the progression of “End Title” that I enjoy while writing–I’ll often find the pace of my writing to build along with the tempo of the song.  This is still my go-to writing jam.

Explosions in the Sky — “The Winner Is”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub3XNWPmlGE

Similar to “End Title,” “The Winner Is” has a nice progression, though it builds faster and is shorter than “End Title.” The violin section always gets my creative juices flowing.

Arctic Monkeys, “Do I Wanna Know”

I wrote the climax of my book while listening to “Do I Wanna Know.”  Its aggression and sexiness sets the mood nicely for late-night writing.

Grizzly Bear, “Two Weeks”

This was my “revisions” song–its calculated pace and soothing harmonies helped the mind-numbing process.

The Neighborhood, “Sweater Weather”

I discovered this song (and The Neighbourhood) as I was putting the “finishing touches” on FATE’S PAST.  I also listened to it as I was querying, so it will always have a special place in my heart due to its connection with such an immutable time in my life.

Well, those are a few of the songs that would be on FATE’S PAST’s soundtrack.  Later, I’ll post the songs that I’m now listening to while drafting my current work-in-progress.

How about you?  What are some of your favorite “writing” songs?

Before reading the below, check out my first entry on this topic: Writing Resources — Pre-drafting

Okay, your manuscript outline is in your hands, and you’re ready to begin the wonderfully tortuous process of writing your first book!  So you write a sentence.  Then that sentence becomes ten sentences.  Before you know it, a chapter is finished!

But is it really finished?  I mean, you’ve read it several times, and it seems to read well…yet how can you be sure?  This question is especially relevant for writers like me, who did not obtain an MFA.  For example, there may be significant mechanical issues with your writing that are a cinch to correct, if you do so early.  And luckily, there tools that will help you identify significant problems with your writing.

THE “SHARE YOUR WORK” SECTION OF ABSOLUTEWRITE.COM

I would say I present this recommendation with a grain of salt, but a “grain” is far too insubstantial.  Let’s just say you should approach the “Share Your Work” section of Absolute Write with a boulder of salt.

Here is the problem with SYW, and AW in general—there is no guarantee that the person critiquing your work knows what he or she is talking about.  Often, these inexperienced writers cling to certain clichés they’ve learned, such as “don’t use –ly words!”  And unfortunately, the criticisms can be overly harsh.  For instance, I shared a section of FATE’S PAST on the forum, and one poster told me it read “like a first draft.”  I had just finished wiping away my tears when, two weeks later, a publisher offered me a contract.

With all that in mind, brilliance can be gleamed from SYW if you approach it in an educated way with thick skin.  Namely, many professional writers post on AW and are willing to help the aspiring masses.  And oddly, the experienced writers seem to know how to balance positive with the negative.

It is often easy to figure out who you should really listen to as they will have high post counts and their signature blocks may contain links to their published works; other times, however, the author is a bit more subtle.  But hang out in AW enough, and you’ll learn the who’s who.

A few mechanical notes: AW will not let you post on SYW until you have posted fifty times; also, they have blocked people from SYW who signed up for AW and rushed through their first fifty posts to reach SYW.  I’d suggest allowing the posts to come naturally—sign up for an AW account, post an introductory message in the New Members section, say “hello” to new posters, and respond to a few posts in the Novels sub-forum; before you know it, you’ll have sailed past your fifth post, and you’ll have a better understanding of the AW world and those who inhabit it.

PRO WRITING AID

I’m all about free tools that help improve your writing, and Pro Writing Aid is one of the best.  As I said before, I do not have an academic background in writing, so I embrace any resource that may help me identify issues I’m not seeing.  I can proofread a manuscript a million times, but if I’m unfamiliar with a certain editing rule, all that proofreading will be for naught.

And that’s where Pro Writing Aid comes in.  First, go to this website.  Then sign-up for a free account.  Once you’re registered, you are able to post sections of your writing into the text box, and after clicking the “Improve My Writing” button, the software will give you an editing breakdown of possible issues.  For example, the following are a few of my favorite features of Pro Writing Aid…

• It will analyze your sentence length and specify if your sentences are generally too long or too short.
• The “writing style” check looks for passive verbs, hidden verbs, and repeated sentence starts, all of which can bog down your writing.
• A “sticky sentences” check will analyze whether your writing has too many “glue” words that can slow your reader down. Glue words are the 200 most used words in the English language.
• Pro Writing Aid will analyze your diction and give suggestions of simpler ways to present your ideas.
• The overused words function will highlight where you have utilized certain words too many times.

There are many more helpful functions, but the above examples illustrate certain problems that are not easily recognizable with a simple proofreading.

Another great feature of Pro Writing Aid is its compatibility with Word.  The Word plugin is excellent; but, unless you purchase a subscription, you can only access the plugin for fourteen days.  My advice would be to use the free website tool and then download the plugin when you are doing your final proofread.

Or, like me, you can pay for the service.  Admittedly—and perhaps obviously—I am a Pro Writing Aid fanboy, so I purchased the “Lifetime Premium” option, which allows me to download the plugin forever on an unlimited number of computers.

You can find out more about Pro Writing Aid’s premium options here:  https://prowritingaid.com/en/App/Purchase.

That’s it for now!  Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for my next post, in which I will describe three more resources that will help you draft an award winning manuscript!

You can find Part One of this entry here:  Part One

Genre Associations

Genre is something you should think about as early as possible in the writing process.  Do you want to be a genre writer, or do you want to be a pure literary fiction author?  Or does your book lay somewhere between the two extremes?  I posit that, as a debut writer, you have a greater chance at landing a publishing deal if your book at least has a genre hook.

Of course, it’s not a requirement that you know exactly where your book fits before you finish.  I didn’t realize until after I finished FATE’S PAST that I was writing a horror novel.  And had I known my horror proclivities going in, I would have joined the Horror Writers Association (“HWA”) much sooner.

For any aspiring or established horror writer, the HWA is a great organization.  If you are unpublished, you can still join as a “contributing” member—and trust me, there is nothing wrong with that level.  It is less expensive and you are provided access to most of the perks—you get to post on the forums, receive the Imailer, join the database of other horror writers, etc.  Best of all, you get to vote on the Bram Stoker awards, which recognize superior achievement in a host of different horror-specific categories.

For more information about the HWA, visit their website:  http://horror.org/.

In any event, to the extent you can identify the genre of your book and get plugged into that world, you will be in a better position to market yourself to agents and publisher.  Here are a few more genre specific writing organizations you may want to research…

• Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Awards: Nebula.  The SFWA is a bigtime player with nearly 2000 members worldwide.  The eligibility requirements are high—a “qualifying sale” is a prerequisite to qualify as an affiliate member.  Notably, they now allow self-published and small press writers to join as long as the minimum income requirements are met.
• Romance Writers of America Awards: RITA.  Like the HWA, you can join as an “associate” member if you do not meet the requirements for general membership.  For more information on membership levels, visit http://www.rwa.org/p/cm/ld/fid=521.
• Mystery Writers of America Awards: Edgars. Unpublished mystery writers can join as an “affiliate” member.

Three Comparable Works

Yes, I realize your book is a unique butterfly; so is FATE’S PAST.  But as the saying goes, “pride cometh before the fall.”  I will say this—I had much greater luck pitching FATE’S PAST once I decided to list three “comparable” works in my query letter.  That’s not to say the works I listed were similar—they were merely comparable.  Comparable in structure, writing style, themes, whatever.  Indeed, the Publisher Marketplace press releases often contain such comparisons:  “Blogger and freelance copywriter Kathy Parks’s THE LIFEBOAT CLIQUE, pitched as MEAN GIRLS meets LIFE OF PI, to Claudia Gabel and Katherine Tegen at Katherine Tegen Books, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Mollie Glick at Foundry Literary + Media (NA).”

Bottom line, agents and publishers are looking for books that will sell.  And their jobs are made much easier to the extent they can compare your work to a few books with a history of sales.

To be clear, you don’t even have to compare your book to those of the same genre.  For example, I listed Neil Gaiman’s THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE as a comparable title, which is far from a supernatural horror novel; FATE’S PAST and OCEAN, however, contain many of the same thematic elements.

Ok, so you’ve identified three comparable works.  Great job!  What now?  Well, read the books, of course!  But beyond reading, learn about the works—research what inspired the authors.  Find out how the books were marketed.  All this information will help you increase your knowledge base and improve your chances of eventually getting published.

Twitter

I will draft an entire blog post (or two) about why Twitter is a necessity for aspiring writers.  But for now, let me say that: if you are an unpublished writer, join Twitter.  Now.  And after you join, get plugged into the Twitter writing community—follow writers, agents, and publishing houses.  Soon, you will gain followers of your own; and when you do sign a publishing contract, you can use your Twitter page to cross market your other social media platforms—for example, you can send direct messages asking that new followers “like” your Facebook author page.  You can tweet about your new blog posts.  You can inform your followers about the release date of your book.  Twitter is a great introduction to the power of social media and the perfect gateway to enhance your other social media marketing endeavors.

Twitter can even help you get published—every so often, Twitter hosts “pitch” parties, where unpublished and unagented authors tweet their manuscript “pitches.”  If an agent or publisher likes a pitch, he or she will “favorite” that tweet.  The largest pitch party is “#pitmad,” and you can find more information about it here:   http://www.brenda-drake.com/pitmad/.  As for suggestions on who to follow on Twitter, here are a few of my favorites…

• Paulo Coelho
• Neil Gaiman
• Jon Winokur
• Carly Watters, literary agent with PS Literary.
• Guy In Your MFA / Dystopian YA Novel (hey, Twitter doesn’t always have to be serious)

So, you’ve decided to write a book.  You have a great hook, memorable characters, and a detailed outline.  The entire story is in your head and now comes the simple process of putting those thoughts down in a coherent and unique manner; oh, and then convincing a publisher that your book has the potential to turn a profit.  What could go wrong?

There is nothing more exhilarating and daunting than staring at a blank page and considering the possibilities it presents.  Few things are also more overwhelming, especially for a newbie author.  And even if you have Faulkneresque potential, without the proper guidance and tools, such potential will remain just that.

With all that in mind, I thought it may be helpful if I outlined a few of the resources I utilized when writing FATE’S PAST.  This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, and I will update if and when I discover more handy assets.

For simplicity sake, I will divide this entry into three sections: pre-drafting, drafting, and post-drafting.  Each of these three processes possesses its own challenges that must be overcome.

And so, let’s dive in with a few pre-drafting resources I believe can be valuable to any aspiring novelist.

Stephen King’s ON WRITING

ON WRITING is my writing best friend, my constant literary companion.  My wife gave it to me before I started writing FATE’S PAST—apparently, she googled “best gifts for an aspiring writer;” Google sure nailed that one.

I read ON WRITING twice before writing FATE’S PAST and a third time when I hit a writing roadblock on what was then page 110.  For those who have not read it, ON WRITING is part autobiography, part “How To” guide, and both sections are equally valuable to an aspiring writer.  King’s tone is perfectly on-point—learned without seeming pretentious, simplistic without being pandering.  King utilizes second person point-of-view throughout much of the book, and he talks to the reader as a pupil—he respects your journey, but wants to let you know that you have a hard road ahead.

I’ve found that certain parts of the book truly resonate with different readers.  For example, my favorite section involves King’s desire as a young writer to someday own an ornate writing desk.  Then, when King finally is successful enough to obtain such a desk, he spent six years sitting “behind the desk either drunk or wrecked of [his] mind . . .”  This is a beautiful and adept metaphor as well as a reminder that a writer must always keep his or her feet on the ground.

ON WRITING is also one of the most quotable books I have ever encountered.  Indeed, it contains my all-time favorite writing-related quote:

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair–the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.”

Here are a few other memorable quotes:

• “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
• “The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
• “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
• “Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
• “To write is human, to edit is divine.”
• “It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
• “Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.”

Honestly, ON WRITING is like The Big Lebowski of novels—immensely quotable from start to finish.

Publishers Marketplace

I had a hard time deciding if this belonged here or in the “Post-Drafting” section.  Truly, it belongs in both—after finishing, PM is a great researching resource; before starting, PM is a great motivator.  I decided to put PM here as it is a nice introduction for any new writer to the publishing world.

In short, PM is a database of publishing professionals: agents, publicists, and writers.  But more so, it is a database of what these professionals are doing: PM highlights what agents are selling, and what publicists are buying.  With enough analysis, one can decipher distinct patterns in what genres are selling well, but do not let these patterns deter you, for there is always a market for a well-written book.

The only problem with PM is that it is littered with many industry-specific (and even website-specific) terms that may confuse a layperson; the following is a non-exclusive list of such terms:

• The monetary worth of a book “deal” is divided into the following category: “nice” deals ($1 – $49,000), “very nice” deals ($50,000 – $99,000), “good” deals ($100,000 – $250,000), “significant” deals ($251,000 – $499,000), and “major” deals ($500,000+).
• “Auction.” If a manuscript attracts enough interest from publishers, an agent can organize an “auction,” whereby publishers will bid on the rights to the book.
• “Pre-empt.” If, however, a publisher has such a strong interest in a book that it does not want said book to hit the auction, that publisher can come in before the auction with a strong deal and “pre-empt.”

Let’s apply these terms to a recent deal entry on PM: “Molly Prentiss’s TUESDAY NIGHTS IN 1980, set in the vibrant downtown New York art scene in the era of artists such as Koons and Basquiat when art – and the commercialization of it – collide, and following the twin trajectories of an Argentinian artist on the rise and the prestigious art critic who discovers him, to Alison Callahan at Scout Press, in a major deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Claudia Ballard at William Morris Endeavor (NA).”  So, Molly Presentiss’s agent, Claudia Ballard, organized a book auction for TUESDAY NIGHTS IN 1980, but Scout Press pre-empted this auction with a two-book deal worth over $500,000.  Yay for Molly!

By nature, I am easily distracted.  That’s not to say I am always distracted—I float between the extremes of profound fixation and flighty indifference.  I’ll pound out 1,000 words in thirty minutes and then spend an hour researching the history of New Orleans.  I’m not sure what all that says about me, but I’m past the point of caring.  And I doubt I’m the only writer with such proclivities.

The point is, when you’re seriously writing a novel, you will face a multitude of distractions.  Beyond the obvious examples like internet and television, it’s easy to overthink outlining, proofing, and structure, though these activities are at least productive.

But you’ll also discover other, less productive distractions that come with the writing process.  For example, after writing the first few pages of a manuscript, you may find yourself on Publishers Marketplace researching recent publishing contracts of debut writers.  Half-way through, perhaps you’ll discover websites like QueryTracker and AbsoluteWrite and spend way too much time on both.  And as you’re nearing the end, you might finish your agent query letter and post it for critique on QueryConnect before you complete your first manuscript draft.

These types of distractions are double-edged swords—they can waste precious writing time, but they also may act as motivators.  Reading the success stories on QueryConnect can be exhilarating, and Publisher’s Marketplace proves that it is possible to make a living as a writer.  The key is moderation; you cannot allow yourself to scratch a work-in-progress because a random poster on AbsoluteWrite criticized your writing as too “passive.”  You cannot be discouraged by the angst in the comment section of QueryTracker.  One will encounter a great deal of negativity about the publishing process on the internet, for writing is a long and arduous path; and as you’ll discover if you spend any time on the websites I mentioned, there are no guarantees that your book will find a publisher.

While writing FATE’S PAST, I fell victim to these distractions, but one took the cake—I could not stop thinking about titles.  The fixation began with a gentle suggestion from Yasmin, my then-girlfriend now-wife, that I should change my working-title (which I will not reveal).  In passing, she mentioned that she “did not entirely like” my working title; of course, I heard her say, “That title is terrible, you idiot.”

I almost dismissed her suggestion out-of-hand.  I thought, What does she know?  She loves the Twilight books for crying out loud.  I have found that it is common for writers to discount criticisms of non-writers, which is absurd considering that the vast majority of a writer’s audience is non-writers.

But, as always, my wife was right.  I realized that she was right even as I was mentally dismissing her suggestion.  And after I (reluctantly) accepted her advice, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find the “perfect” title for my work-in-progress.  I read scripture, analyzed famous quotes, and googled “how to create a title for a book.”  I drifted between obvious clichés like CLOSING THE CIRCLE to esoteric biblical references such as PRIMAL CAUSE.

At one point, my working title was THE TORMENT OF ATONEMENT—in retrospect, I don’t think I can imagine a worse name if I tried.  I really don’t.  I even mentioned that terrible title to a friend at a party, and although his words in response were gentle, his face said, “Wow, that is the worst title I have ever heard.  What is wrong with you?”

And my poor wife had to sit through each suggestion.  She had to nod and smile as I explained how I came up with each one and why it would fit.  And after each suggestion, she would merely comment, “Why don’t you keep writing and see what happens?”  In actuality, this response meant, “Yeah, no.  Keep trying.”

But I couldn’t just “keep writing.”  It isn’t in my nature to casually dismiss my fixations.  And so I kept going.

I had to juggle my pursuit for the “perfect” title with planning a wedding.  Yasmin and I both love wine, so we decided to get married somewhere in Sonoma wine country, which necessitated a trip to California to research venues (and by “research,” I mean gawk at beautiful vineyards and drink incredible wine).

During the trip I got a lot of writing done.  I write well in airplanes, and I had downtime while Yasmin was doing a hairdo “run-through.”

As Yasmin was getting her hair did (as the kids say), I was writing in a little wine bar in downtown Santa Rosa.  A couple glasses of nice pinot noir in, I wrote this sentence:  “Cameron approached his fate’s past.”

I do not know from where the line came, nor was I intending to find my title when I wrote it.  But after the line was on the page, I stared at it.  “Cameron approached his fate’s past.”  I read the sentence aloud twice.  I deleted and rewrote it.  But I could not escape the truth—I had found my title.  And I had not found it through research, Google, scripture, or divine intervention.  I had found my title by writing—nothing more, nothing less.

I remember thinking, Dangit, Yasmin is never going to let me hear the end of this.

Later that evening in the hotel room, I decided to run my new title by her.  The conversation went something like this…

I said, “I think I have my title.”

“Oh?” she replied.  “What is it?”

“Fate’s past.”

“I like it.  How did you come up with it?”

“It just came out as I was writing.”

She nodded knowingly.  “Well, I like it.  It works.”

And the title does work.  In the end, Yasmin’s advice to “just write” was the best advice I received throughout this entire process as it allowed me to naturally discover my title.

So if I learned but one lesson about writing on this journey, it was this: at first, focus only on the page, for it holds all the answers.