Frequently Asked Questions about Writing

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Can I ask you some questions about writing?

 

Of course you can.  Check here first, in case I've already answered it, but feel free to e-mail me if I haven't. (naomi.kritzer{at}alumni.carleton.edu) Heck, feel free to e-mail me if I have, but you want me to elaborate. Or argue. Or whatever. Getting to be the Experienced, Published Author who gets to hand out advice is still really a novelty to me and I get a kick out of messages seeking my wisdom.

 

I've just finished a novel.  What do I do now?  I want to get it published, but the whole process seems so overwhelming.

 

There are two schools of thought on the next step.  Some writers will tell you to find an agent; others will suggest that you submit directly to publishers.  Orson Scott Card, in his book on SF writing (which is one of the best books I've read on the subject), suggests getting a publisher first.  I got an agent first.  There is no clear right answer for most writers.  I've seen people succeed both ways.

 

Having an agent doesn't guarantee a sale in any case — at best, it usually speeds up the process a little, because (a) editors will read and reject your manuscript faster when it came from an agent, and (b) an agent should know which editors are most likely to like your book and thus will put it on the most congenial desks first.

 

Anyway, many SF/F publishers will consider unagented works.  Maureen McHugh's first novel, China Mountain Zhang, was bought out of the slush pile at Tor.

 

Regardless of which route you go, the manuscript should be as good as you can possibly make it before you submit it anywhere.  I'm in a critique group, which has been incredibly helpful to me.  There is a long-running online workshop called Critters at http://www.critters.org ... They are short-story oriented, but they have a procedure for exchanging novel critiques if that's what you need.  You can also recruit beta readers, opinionated friends who like to read the kind of book you wrote.  Orson Scott Card's book has a section on creating a "wise reader," someone who will say things beyond "it was good, I liked it!"

 

Okay, I've decided to try to find a publisher first.  I don't know anyone in the publishing industry.  What now?

 

Here's what I'd suggest.  Go to a bookstore and look for books that you think are similar to yours in some way.  (Urban fantasy, military SF, whatever you wrote.)  Take particular note of books that have been published recently (in the last five to ten years).  Write down the names of the authors and the publishing houses.  Flip through the books to see if there's an acknowledgements section that mentions a particular editor.

 

You now have a list of publishing houses and possibly editors that handle books similar to what you've written.  You can find the addresses and submission policies for those publishing houses in Writer's Market (probably available at your local library) or on the web.

 

Many publishers don't want you to send in your whole manuscript; they want you to query.  I don't give advice on queries because I hate writing them. There are whole books about them, so you should be able to find some good advice from someone else.

 

I want to look for an agent.  What now?

 

See the instructions above about going to a bookstore and looking for books like yours.  Only, when you're looking through acknowledgements, write down names of agents.  You'll end up with a number of authors whose agents you don't know.  There are two ways to find out.  The low-stress way is to Google up those author's web pages and see if they say anywhere who represents them.  The efficient way is this: find out the phone number for the publishing houses (they're in Writer's Market or Literary Marketplace) and call them up.  And then say, "Can you please tell me which agency represents [author]?"  They'll most likely be happy to tell you, because for all they know, you're Steven Spielberg's assistant wanting to negotiate for movie rights.  When you're done, you'll have a list of agencies that represent work like yours.  There's a book called Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents by a guy named Jeff Herman; this will have contact and submission information for most of those agencies. Again, you'll have to query people, and you'll have to look elsewhere for good advice on that.

 

IMPORTANT WARNING: There are an unbelievable number of scam "agencies" out there.  Never, ever pay a reading fee or a marketing fee or any other up-front fee: a legitimate agent will make money by taking 15% of whatever he or she makes for you.  A few legitimate agents charge some of their business expenses to you, but again, that will ALWAYS come out of the check you get from the publisher — not out of your checking account.  You can find some useful information on the web on identifying and avoiding scam agencies; check the web resources section, below.

 

Do I have to have a whole, complete novel before I can get an agent?

 

Yes.  At least for a first-time author, it has to be done, polished, and as good as you can get it.  (Within the bounds of sanity.  Sometimes you just have to say, "Okay, I'm declaring this monster done" and send it out.  I spent a year rewriting my novel repeatedly and probably could have done it for another year if I hadn't gotten a nudge to send it to an agent.)

 

Who is your agent?

 

Jack Byrne.  His website is at http://www.sff.net/people/jackbyrne/.

 

How did your book get published?

 

In 1997, I joined a writers' critique group, the Wyrdsmiths.  One of the other women in the group, Lyda Morehouse, had just landed an agent, Jim Frenkel.  So I knew Jim through Lyda.  When I finished my novel, Jim asked to see it.  I sent it off to him in the spring of 1999, and then he sat on it for a year.  (This is an unusually long response time for an agent.)  Jim offered me representation in the spring of 2000 and I accepted.  Jim sent it to Roc, which rejected it, and Warner, which rejected it.  Then he sent it to Anne Groell at Bantam, who accepted it.  I got a call from Jim on September 20th, 2001 — my daughter's first birthday, which was kind of a neat coincidence. 

 

A few months after that, Jim was hired full time by Tor (he'd been working as a consulting editor for many years, but as a contractor rather than an employee) so he became partners with Jack Byrne.

 

Would you like to read my novel/short story?

 

I wish I had time to, but I have enough other commitments (my own writing, critiquing for the Wyrdsmiths, my two-year-old…) that I have to say no.  If you need feedback on your writing — and I know I certainly do — I would urge you to join (or start) a writing critique group.

 

How long did it take you to write your novel? 

 

I started writing the book that ultimately became both Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm in the fall of 1997; I finished it six months later, in February of 1998.  Then I spent about a year repeatedly rewriting it. 

 

What is the usual turnaround time for magazines?  How do you know when to send them a note asking if your manuscript got lost in the mail?

 

Turnaround times for magazines vary a LOT.  F&SF has the fastest turnaround times in the industry (or at least they used to).  There are other magazines that have average turnaround times of well over a year — which I find so frustrating that I don't usually submit to those markets.  Check out http://critters.critique.org/blackholes/ — this is a response-time tracker for magazines and book publishers.  In addition to seeing the minimum, maximum, and average response times, you can click on the magazine name to get all the data for that magazine, which is really useful for magazines that let stories pile up for months and then deal with them all at once (Realms of Fantasy does this, or at least used to).  One month would be fast for almost any magazine but F&SF.  Two to three months is standard.  Six months is kinda slow but not unusual.  Twelve or more months is inexcusably slow.  That's for magazines.  Books can take a lot longer.

 

Using the Black Hole as a guideline, I will usually query if I suspect a story has gotten lost.  Some editors will tell you that if you haven't heard within a certain time frame, to assume the story got lost and send another copy (I believe that's what the Asimov's guidelines say).  On a few occasions, I have given up and withdrawn a story. 

 

You're not supposed to send out stories to more than one market at a time (without permission).  I know writers who do it anyway.  I don't — it just doesn't seem worth it.

 

I've written a novel … but it's really long.  How long is TOO long?  I read that anything less than 80,000 words or more than 110,000 probably cannot be sold.

 

Well, my own novel is a good counterexample to the theoretical 110,000 maximum.  When I started submitting it, it was 170,000 words.  I had an agent accept it at that length and market it at that length.  And Bantam bought it — and had me split it into two books.

 

Now, you can hit a point where a book is probably honestly not sellable as a single novel.  A 400,000 word book, for instance, would be absolutely huge.  But you might be able to split it into a trilogy.  Or you might be able to take a portion of the novel and break it out into a single, shorter book.  It is more difficult for a first-time author to sell a ten-volume epic fantasy than it is for, say, Robert Jordan.  But don't assume it's hopeless.

 

And even if you can't sell your epic now, remember that you might be able to sell it next.  Because you are going to write more books — right?

 

Did you draw the picture on the cover of your book?

 

Short answer:  No.

 

Long answer: I have never had the patience to develop my drawing skills.  (I don't think anybody is "artistically hopeless," as some people claim to be; drawing is a learned skill, not something innate like left-handedness or perfect pitch.  Most Americans draw like ten-year-olds because that's how old we were when we quit drawing for fun.)  Anyway, to draw or paint a picture like the one on the cover of my book is way beyond my artistic skills.

 

Did you have any say in your cover art?

 

When it was done, my editor sent me a copy in the mail and said, "like it?"  I said, "YES!" (I love my cover art, actually!) but if I'd said "No, I hate it" I think her response would have been something like, "Oh.  Bummer."  Authors get pretty much no say in their covers.  Well, really famous authors might. But weenie first-time-novelists like me are totally dependent on our editors and our publishers' art departments to get us good art.  Luckily for me, I have a great editor (Anne Groell) and she got me great cover art.

 

Do you like your cover art?

 

Yes.

 

How and when did you start writing?  

 

I started making up stories when I was very young; I started writing them down when I was nine or so; I started occasionally finishing stories when I was twelve or thirteen; and I first submitted a story to a magazine when I was fifteen.  I got serious about writing in 1997, two years after I'd graduated from college, and started writing much more regularly and sending things out much more diligently.  And, I sold my first short story in 1999 (it appeared in 2000).

 

What do you think that you do, that so many other people don't, that allows you to be published in magazines?

 

Well, I haven't read anyone's slush pile so I can't comment on what other people do.  But I can tell you a little about some of the things I had to figure out before I started selling my stories.

 

1. In all my successful stories, character change is central.  Marion Zimmer Bradley used to give this standard "formula" for a good story: "Joe has his fanny in a bear trap, and this is how he gets it out."  When I wrote stories this way, they never sold anywhere, because the real story, for me, is "Joe has his fanny in a bear trap, and this is how he is changed by his attempts to get it out — whether he actually succeeds in getting it out or not."  In many cases, I was able to turn a mediocre (or bad) story into a really good one by identifying the real protagonist — the person who actually has a key, critical choice to make, and consequences to face — and rewriting it from that person's viewpoint.  

 

2. In most of my successful stories, there's a theme.  Orson Scott Card has short story about a man who molested his daughter, who is now being pursued by this demonic creature that looks like a possessed human fetus but with really sharp teeth.  I can't remember whether it gets him in the end or not.  Anyway, in his commentary on the story, Card notes that the creature is GUILT personified, and thus of course the word "guilt" never appears in the story.  I found this whole idea, that the theme should be there but you don't spell it out, to be pretty illuminating.  I don't know if my themes are necessarily obvious to my readers, but they definitely strengthen the stories.

 

3. I write a lot — every day, when I'm working on a novel (or as close to it as I possibly can).

 

4. I send my stuff out faithfully.

 

Had you been writing for a long while before you started to get published?  

 

Yes, especially if you count from the first story I sent out, when I was 15.  Or the first fantasy story I sent out, when I was 17.  I wrote sporadically through college and for the first two years after I graduated.  In 1997 I joined a writing group and got a lot more disciplined, and two years after that I started to sell. 

 

Have you noticed that it's been easier for you to publish now that you've sold other short stories and novels?

 

Yes.  Absolutely.  I still regularly get rejection slips, but if I've completed a story and revised it and I'm happy with it, I send it out with a fair amount of confidence that it will sell somewhere.

 

I'm pretty sure it's not JUST because I'm a better writer than I used to be, because I've dusted off a few of my earlier stories that I was still happy with, and sold them.

 

Nonetheless, I do think that the short SF/F markets are extremely open to newcomers.  I received a great deal of encouragement from some of the pro editors, early on.  And editors really will buy good stories from anyone at all.  There are people who are convinced there's some secret handshake, or you have to sleep with someone, or whatever, and that's not true at all.  I'm not going to claim that publishing is a true meritocracy where stories are bought or rejected 100% on merit, because the fact is that some names on the cover will sell a whole lot of copies.  Steven King could probably sell his grocery lists, if he wanted to.  But there's a genuine openness to newcomers. 

 

Have you ever had writer's block?

 

Not exactly.  At times I've had to put away a story because I couldn't get it to work, or because I couldn't figure out a decent ending.  And at times I've had a serious lack of discipline.  Or I've had something going on that really got in the way — I didn't write while pregnant with my first daughter because when I had morning sickness, I just wanted to go lie down, and then when I got over my morning sickness, my hips started to hurt and that was exacerbated by sitting for extra hours at the computer.  (To some extent, this was a lack of discipline, but I figured I had a really good excuse.) 

 

I also realized at some point that I have to stay totally away from RPGs (role-playing games) if I'm going to write at all.  If I'm gaming, that's where my creative energy goes; I have another outlet for "play," one that's a lot easier than writing, and I don't write at all.  This is also true for Lyda Morehouse and Kelly McCullough (both members of the Wyrdsmiths) and I know it's true of other writers as well. 

 

Can you recommend some good web resources for writers?

 

Sure!

 

I want to start a critique group.  Can you give me some advice?

 

Sure!  There are a couple of ways to recruit members.  You can put up notices at any SF/F bookstores in town; you can set up a session at a local con where people looking for writers' groups can find each other; you can post on the Speculations Rumormill.  Meeting places can be very easy or very hard to find, depending on your requirements.  A lot of groups just rotate around the members' houses, though if you're recruiting a bunch of strangers, I'd suggest a public meeting space for at least the first few weeks.  The Wyrdsmiths have never been able to do the house-to-house thing because four of us have cats, and one of us is deathly allergic to cats.  We've had a hard time finding meeting spots because we meet on a weeknight and need a place that's quiet, smoke-free and open until ten; that can be remarkably hard to find in our town and we've moved a bunch of times.

 

The basics are "find some other writers" and "figure out a time and place to meet."  Beyond that, here are my thoughts on critique groups:

How do you find time to write when you have two young children?

 

As of this writing, my daughters are almost five, and almost two. I stay at home with them full time. And I have to say, first of all, that it was way easier to find time to write when I just had a regular 40-hour-a-week day job. My schedule was very predictable and my evenings were my own, and that's when I wrote.

My husband is very supportive. Two evenings a week, he tries to get them out of the house for a couple of hours. On weekends, he tries to get them out of the house for longer. I also try to write after the girls are in bed, though my younger daughter is a night owl so that can be remarkably difficult. I find time here and there. Sometimes my younger child will nap while my older daughter is on a play date with a friend.

Anyway, the short answer is that it's hard.

I sent you e-mail and you never answered it. Are you a jerk, or flooded with fan mail, or what?

 

Ugh, I feel awful when that happens. I try to answer all my non-spam e-mail promptly. I don't get that much of it. However, I do get a flood of spam and if you had a subject line that looked spam-like I probably deleted it unread. (You probably didn't send me e-mail with a subject line about PEN|S ENLARGMENT MORTGAGE REFI C|AL|S INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY NIGERIA, but lately I get lots of spam with blank subject lines, or subject lines that say things like FYI, which could be real mail but never is.) Also, sometimes I want to give a question a bit more thought and intend to come back to it and then don't. If you sent me mail and I didn't answer you, please don't hate me. Just e-mail me again and hopefully I won't flake on you a second time. Unless you send me mail with a subject line about C|AL|S or HOT !!BARELY LEGAL!! GIRLS WANTING TO CHAT or A BUSINESS PROPOSITION FOR A REPUTABLE PERSON SUCH AS YOURSELF in which case, well, I'll just delete it again, sorry.

That's it for the FAQ for now. If your question wasn't answered here, feel free to write: naomi.kritzer{at}alumni.carleton.edu.

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