Writer’s Digest Presents…

“FULL CAST: How to Enrich and Expand Every Character in Your Novel from the Leading Man to the Background Extras.” 

1 p.m., EST
Thursday, May 16, 2013

(If that time doesn’t work for you, don’t sweat it. The whole thing will be available to watch and rewatch for a year or so.)

Every novel is driven by character. We fall in love with heroines, cheer for heroes, and loathe our villains. Characters draw us in, and through them we experience our favorite stories. Without a compelling cast, even the most engrossing tale can fall flat. What makes some protagonists iconic, while others go up in smoke? How can we create rich motivations without burdensome back-story, or nuanced supporting characters without stealing focus from our protagonists? How can we populate our novels with an unforgettable ensemble our readers will love? The answer involves giving your characters a great blend of relationships, history and motivations.

And, also, learning a ton of cool stuff by signing up for this webinar.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• How to create an unforgettable ensemble of empathetic, unforgettable characters

• How to develop compelling motivations to drive your story

• How to craft rich histories to inform your characters’ journeys

• How to intensify relationships, creating intimate, intense connections within your tale

• How to lend nuance and depth by creating “mini-arcs”

• How to employ impressionistic details to bring background characters to life.

And there’s MORE. What? Yes. There is.

Everyone who attends is invited to submit a query letter for their novel. Every query is guaranteed a written critique by yours truly.

So, an amazing class, Q&A, and personalized query critique, all from the comfort of your living room / boudouir / computer dungeon? Yep. I can promise you this will be the greatest thing you’ve ever done that involved the word “webinar.”

So sign up!

I got to chat with fabulous Greenhouse client Michelle Schusterman, author of I HEART BAND (and, I hear, a steel-drum maestro). Check out our back and forth on Sarah’s Blog.

I just received a super exciting email from Candlewick. CHERRY MONEY BABY is a Junior Library Guild Selection! For those of you who don’t know the JLG, check them out. Over 3,000 manuscripts are submitted by publishers each year, and only an nth make the cut. I am so honored to have CHERRY selected.

Things we can learn from the CHERRY MONEY BABY cover.

1. There is a girl with sunglasses on the cover.

2. There are trailers involved.

3. There is perhaps a girl named Cherry in it? And maybe something to do with money? And a baby. Definitely.

4. Awesome. Cars.

5. It was written by me. Or someone with my name.

6. Actually, hell, let’s just read the synopsis okay?:

Hollywood glitz collides with workingclass aspirations in this satirical tale of an impulsive starlet and a sharp-witted small-town teen.

Cherry Kerrigan loves her simple life, her family’s tiny trailer, even working at Burrito Barn. Forget college — she’s marrying her sweetheart from next door. But here comes Ardelia Deen, a glamorous starlet who sweeps Cherry into a world of fast cars and penthouse parties. Now Cherry’s small-town life just seems so . . . small. When Ardelia drops a bomb of an offer — one involving a baby — Cherry knows her life will change forever, no matter what she decides. John M. Cusick focuses his signature wit on Hollywood royalty and the wide-eyed dreams of Small Town, U.S.A. in a novel about discovering who you are . . . and changing your mind.

Coming September 10th! Pre-Order Now!

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Greenlight Bookstore

-Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things

(Spent the predawn hours rereading my favorite author. Feeling good.)

They say the only true love is Geek Love.

Well, they don’t, but they might after this party.

So you know how I co-manage that totally rad magazine, Armchair/Shotgun? Well A/S is jazzed to co-chair this scintillating Lit Crawl event. You should join us, as well as the discriminating bon vivants on the list below, at PowerHouse Arena on April 1st.

The $15 admission includes one drink and a $5 credit at the powerHouse Arena. Proceeds benefit Lit Crawl NYC. Featuring a lineup of bookish guests, including Emma Straub (Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures) and Teddy Wayne (The Love Song of Jonny Valentine), and an Event Committee of editors, publishers, and publicists from the lit world.

Purchase tickets here.

Or, if you’re into the whole social media thing, see the Facebook event.

Geek Love Event Committee:

Co-Hosted by Emma Straub & Teddy Wayne*

Co-Chairs:
Paul W. Morris, PEN American Center
Suzanne Russo, Lit Crawl NYC

Justin Alvarez, The Paris Review
Elissa Bassist, The Rumpus
Amanda Bullock, Housing Works Bookstore
John M. Cusick, Armchair/Shotgun
A. N. Devers, Writers’ Houses
Fernanda Diaz, OR Books
Mark Doten, Soho Press
Rachel Fershleiser, Tumblr
Katie Freeman, Riverhead Books
David Goodwillie, American Subversive
Brigid Hughes, A Public Space
Maris Kreizman, Slaughterhouse 90210
Michele Legro, Lapham’s Quarterly
Andrew Lloyd-Jones, Liars’ League
Halimah Marcus, Electric Literature
Lincoln Michel, Gigantic
Richard Nash, Small Demons
Steph Opitz, Council of Literary Magazines & Presses
Stephen Pierson, Canteen Magazine
Sarah Reidy, The Other Press
Tom Roberge, New Directions
Rachel Rosenfelt, The New Inquiry
Benjamin Samuel, Electric Literature
Evan Simko-Benarski, Armchair/Shotgun
Rob Spillman, Tin House
Hannah Tinti, One Story
Karolina Waclawiak, The Believer
Joel Whitney, Guernica
Greg Young, The Bowery Boys

* You may enjoy Master Wayne’s author drink review with A/S, here.

As you may know, the awesome website YARN (YA Review Network) occasionally publishes short stories of mine. Last month they did my timey-wimey anti-love story, 700 Years in Heaven.

In addition to short-fiction and interviews, YARN also creates lesson plans around their publications. This month, their Japan-themed curriculum features Abandon Changes: A Girl Parts Story, originally-posted in 2011.

It’s super neat, as a writer, to see your stuff used to teach. I’m flattered to be included. The lesson plan looks super cool (I wish we had stuff like this when I was in high school). Check it out.

Thanks YARN!

I just received a query letter. The introduction was personal. The author mentioned following me on twitter, having taken one of my writing webinars, etc. Always good to include such details if you can.

The synopsis was succinct, describing the protagonists and their conflicts. Okay well done.

Then in what I’ll call the “About the Author” section, this author did something novel. Rather than a long, overly-detailed c.v., she broke her “bio” into two sections: Some Interesting Things About Me, and Some Writerly Things About Me. The latter detailed, in brief, her writing credits. Good to know.

Some Interesting Things About Me was what caught my eye. The author included two or three just…well…kind of interesting autobiographical facts, totally unrelated to her writing, her project, or the business at hand. They were succinct enough not to distract, and also gave my brain something specific and personal to associate with the author. Even though I ultimately passed on this particular project, I’ll remember this person. She will stand out the next time she queries me (which I hope she does). Oh yeah, the ___ lady.

Whacky and gimmicky queries don’t work. Agents have heard every joke and we’re rarely won-over by attention-grabbing snark or goofiness. Your writing, your project, speaks for itself. But you do want your query to catch the eye. So maybe next time, after your short synopsis, try including one bizarre or interesting fact about yourself. Just one. To this agent, it won’t read as gimmicky, but personal, and it may get my eye to linger those few extra precious seconds. Will it sway my decision? Probably not. But it won’t hurt either.

—

Image via http://fusedlearning.com/

Yes, I know. There’s something wrong with me.

I also love writing. But I love it in a deeper, less freewheeling way. Writing doesn’t come as naturally. More like pulling teeth. My muse is stingy, and if I only wrote when I felt like it, I wouldn’t have written a word since seventh grade.

And so, for nearly a decade, I’ve treated writing like a job. By which I mean sitting down at a regular time, five days a week (I always shoot for six, usually hit somewhere around four). You do it when you don’t feel like it. You do it when the muse isn’t present. You even do it when you’re feeling under the weather. You don’t make excuses. You set the appointment and you keep it, damn it.

But maybe writing shouldn’t be treated so brutishly. Maybe writing shouldn’t be treated like work. Work is the meat n’ potatoes of your week. It’s the everyday thing. What you do when you’re on. But maybe writing should feel a little separate, not like a job, but something more like, well…church.

I’m not a religious guy. I went to church when I was a kid, and that was it. But when I did attend, my understanding was that church was a time to put aside the weekly concerns, the getting-by stuff, and focus on something that was not the everyday, but more fundamental, more important, more basic. It was a time to check in with oneself, to put aside a few hours to prioritize something deeper, more personal, quieter, and away from the outside world of production.

I used to want to bring my writing into harsh daylight. To force it to take the bus, teach it to thrive under halogens. To toughen it up in the workplace. But now I want to treat writing more delicately. I still want to write everyday (some people go to church everyday right?), but when I sit down at my writing desk, I refuse to do so mechanically. I want to stop what I’m doing, stop life, stop work, stop job, and get in touch with something that’s a little more personal, a little more Kumbaya I guess, but essentially a little more special than work.

Maybe my passion for my job is why I’m sensitive to the difference between Work: something I love, and Writing: something I love that requires more of me than intelligence and effort. It requires I be a little quiet, that I make time to— hell, indulge in— a little silence. I will allow writing to be an important and sacred (there, I said it) part of my life. Something that dives deep to the root of me, who I am, not just as a worker, but as a human being, as a creature sensitive to the universe and sentient. Not just a pair of hands and a brain, but an animal with a soul.

Stephen King said come to the page however you want, but do not come lightly. There’s a difference between every day and everyday. Make space. Make a space. Make it count.