Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What? (PAX Prime 2013 Panel Notes)

 

August was a fun month of weddings, traveling, and general mayhem. I sent off some queries to agents for the novel I'm trying to sell; did a *lot* of reading in my subgenre (YA High Fantasy); and got ready for Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, where I, as usual, had a blast. I didn't catch con crud, thankfully, but I went back to the dayjob on Wednesday and am still catching up on sleep. Regardless, the convention was worth it. So many good things happened. It made stuff like receiving rejections on queries while *at* PAX just a tiny bit easier. I even took some notes!

And that's what I have to share today.

Before we go any further, yes, I am aware of the recent kerfuffle. (Understatement? Perhaps. But I like to keep things polite here.) As for how I feel about it? Let's just say that M.C. Frontalot, brilliant nerdcore hiphop artist and someone I have admired since meeting him at PAX '09, said it best.

So with that in mind, let's talk about non-standard representation in video games. Or rather, the lack thereof...

Everything We Know is Sexist. Now What?

Regina Buenaobra (Community Manager, ArenaNet); Jessica Price (Project Manager, Paizo Publishing); John Sutherland (Writer, VidGameStory), Anna Megill (Narrative Designer, Airtight Games), Matthew Moore (Game Designer, ArenaNet, Cameron Harris (Editor & Story Consultant, Freelance), Tom Abernathy (Writer & Narrative Designer, Freelance) 

Note: Matthew Moore was kind enough to give me a copy of the slides from the presentation, so the following notes include those, but also include a lot of the elaboration that happened at the panel. I was delighted that all of the panelists encouraged me to share this. 

Note from the Panelists: We are about to present opinions that are our own and not necessarily those of our employers (even when they probably should be)

What’s the problem?
-    Sexism, for one …
-    Though we’re also talking about issues of race, sexual orientation, etc.

Problem:
-    The 2012 game player gender (market) is 55% male, 45% female.
-    The gender of protagonists in games from 2012, however, is 51% male, 45% choice, and only 4% female. (This number is closer to the number of people working in the game industry.)
-    The potential game player market in the US is 51% male, 49% female.

Human beings have a tendency to do their creative work from their own thoughts, needs, and life experience.

When recently creating a game, one panelist sought ideas for vignettes for NPCs, and every suggestion was sexist. The people making the suggestions resorted to stereotypical situations without even being aware of it.

Why do we care? Why should we?
-    Lack of diversity in general.
-    There’s a creative side to it as well: new takes make it more interesting.
-    Creative consequences of the same old stuff: boredom, lack of expansive information. Not unrelated.
-    Who’s making these games really has an impact on how they get made and the broadness of the vision.
-    We don’t want to read and see and experience the same thing again and again and again. That won’t happen if we keep relying on our tropes.
-    Hollywood is telling fresh perspectives of stories.
-    Stories about a straight, white, male are getting old.
-    The gender of protagonists in movies from 2012: 65% male, 19% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The gender of protagonists in books from 2012 is much better: 43% male, 41% female, and 16% mixed ensemble.
-    The TV market is getting better, splintering, targeting small groups and bringing those to life. And they’re reaching wide audiences because of it.

Why else we should care: Video game dollar sales are slightly, steadily down from 2010.
-    Not growing.
-    Not reaching out to new audiences.
-    Probably because they’re not trying new things.
-    We don’t want video games to become a niche medium.

Furthermore: Lack of diversity in viewpoints, characterizations, plots, story structure, etc. limits the potential of games as an art form.
-    Game consumers are artistically malnourished.
-    Art that gives its power to  move us is commonality, but also diverse experiences.
-    Sexism hurts everyone.
-    It hurts men too, because the typical male protagonist presented is a man who’s physically strong, the ideal man. Marketing executives point to and justify how much money that stuff makes and assume the game will sell better with it.
-    On a professional level: Paternity leave, child care issues; sometimes men have issues that are perceived as falling in the female realm that aren’t extended to them because they’re men and not women.
-    We need more interesting characters with diverse backgrounds. It doesn’t make it easier to make them if we stick to the tropes.
-    If you like shooters, they are still making them. The number of action and shooter games offered at the launch of each new X-Box has increased.
-    Most importantly: Making more types of games doesn’t mean less of games people already like (the core game types) will decrease. Just that it makes more options available to consumers.

So, what should we do?

1.  Check our assumptions and our perceptions.
-    Look around at the crowd in this room, at the number of people here. How many are women? Turns out that there were 3 men for every 2 women were present at this panel. (Even though most attendees thought there were either more women, or that it was a 50-50 split.)
-    This is important because our perceptions of what is fair are now off.
-    Geena Davis Institute: “We just heard a fascinating and disturbing study, where they looked at the ratio of men and women in groups. And they found that if there’s 17 percent women, the men in the group think it’s 50-50. And if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.”
-    In games, even when the lines were divided equally, the men had the more important lines. That’s the first step you have to take.
-    Use the Bechdel Test: Find a movie with two women talking and if it’s not about a man, then that passes the test. Observation. How many of them actually pass? Games pass it even less. Think about this test. Do you have women in it, do they have names, do they talk to each other? Is it about a man, a relationship, parenting, shopping? This is a good rule of thumb, the lowest bar you can clear, when dealing with diversity in video games.

2.  Read, watch, and play things made by people who aren’t like us.
-    The canon English literature: almost all of it is by men. Shapes how we write. This becomes problematic because even women learn how to write women from men because our perception has been shaped by male writers. Literary voices have been shaped by male writers. It’s been changing. The best way you can learn to write those characters is if you learn from the horse’s mouth. So, read people who aren’t like you.

3.  Learn to recognize tropes.
-    Trope: A literary or narrative device.
-    Cultures have common sets of tropes. Tropes have baggage.
-    A trope is not evil or bad. They can be useful. Just use them mindfully.
-    Do it in a way that subverts the trope, or defend to your league so they know why you’re using the trope as is.
-    Marketing wants quick story hooks.
-    The more you know what a trope is, the better you can put it into a game and sell it and make your vision happen.

4.  Ask ourselves why we like the things we like.
-    Rather than just mindlessly liking them.
-    What is it that you actually like about it? Can you get things without mindlessly importing all the details (like with pulp)?
-    The presenters aren’t saying these stories can’t be told, just that we need to think about this stuff.
-    And think about who the perceived audience is. Who is the character designed to appeal to?
-    (Aside: Google “Lawrence Croft”)
-    (Aside: Google “100 Sexiest Men Alive”. Turns out they’re not the muscle-bound men we see in video games.)

5.  Improve our work!
-    Try to be inclusive (even when we are afraid we’ll suck at it.)
-    Look over your work. Does everyone have to be (straight, white, male, etc?)
-    Make sure you interrogate yourself while you do your craft.
-    Practice “flipping” exercises with gender, orientation, race, etc. What happens if this character is a man / woman / different race / gay / trans / etc?
-    This has often resulted in stories that are more moving, more interesting.
-    Experiment with trope subversion.
-    Constantly ask yourself, is this what I want it to be, or is this just intellctiual comfort zone stuff, tropes too well worn, or The Unexpected Choice? That moment you take readers/customers in a direction where they think they know you’re going, then change trajectory: it’s important. If you do that, you’ll constantly be surprising people. And the more you do it, the less you’ll find yourselves having to revise your choices.
-    Show your work to people from different groups to critique.
-    Friends, family, people you trust. Generally you can recognize the broad strokes. But words have baggage. E.g. Calling a woman “frigid”, or an African American person “articulate”.
-    Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good”.
-    Complaint from male writers who don’t know how to write women so they don’t bother trying
-    Writing anything is this: trying to make something knew, exploring the scary white page and trying to fill it up with stuff.
-    If you are not secure expressing the experience of those you don’t know much about, get to know them.

6. Address issues.
-    Support inclusivity; be an ally to undeserved groups and those who are working for change.
-    If you see it,  you don’t have to be the person being victimized to take that issue on.
-    Speak up when something is troubling.
-    Listen to the people who are telling you it’s a problem, and do something about it.
-    Address the issue vs. trying to appease the people coming to you. Not “Should I put in more women characters”, but “Fix the dialogue.”
-    Be aware. If you’re the creator, it’s hard to step back and look at what you’re doing, but it’s worth it.

Choosing the Right Words (ConCarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

    Choosing the Right Words: A Magical Words Panel
David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson, Faith Hunter, Misty Massey

The Magical Words Team – Created MagicalWords.net, a group blog that discusses writing and publishing issues for fantasy authors, with a focus on traditional publishing. (Come check them out! It's a great community.)

Choosing the right words: You see a lot of times people writing, and you think, really, you used that word? You don’t have to choose the right word the first time Important that you get it right when you finally turn it in. Important to paint an accurate picture of what you’re trying to tell someone about. Choosing the right words is vital, to tell a story and get across an idea that’s clear in our heads that accurately enters the readers.


Recommendations:

MM: Don’t just rush out and buy a thesaurus to fancy up your writing.

DB: Has a dictionary and thesaurus and uses them regularly.

FH: Uses the online stuff (e.g. Dictionary.com/Thesaurus.com) and highlights a word if it doesn’t satisfy, then comes back. Moves on.

DBC: Can’t move on to the next sentence if the sentence writing isn’t kind of satisfying. Has to know right away. Checks definitions of words to be sure of meaning; checks dates words was in use first because otherwise it doesn’t jive. E.g.  “paranoid” is a 19th Century word. A medieval character could feel panic, unease, but not paranoia.

FH: Can’t have dialogue with historical characters talking the way we talk, because they didn’t talk  like that.

FH: Words to use all the time: he said / she said. (Aside: when dealing with copy editors, writing “stet” is Latin for “let it stand”, when the editor suggests a change. Also use sparingly, unless the copy editor has done something atrocious with your work.)

MM: Also don’t use he said / she said after every single line of dialogue. Identify who’s speaking. Break it up. If you’ve set up who’s talking and the order, then it’s more about the dialogue and less about the reader figuring out who’s saying what.

DB: You can also use facial tics, actions instead of “said” (Elaborated on this MagicalWords post).

FH: This is especially good if you have more than two people talking. She writes dialogue then goes back to add in gestures, tics, and saids.

MM: if two people are of same gender, use names.


What to avoid?

MM: Avoid said-bookisms – the term for elaborate words like rasped/snarled/griped/opined, etc, used in place of “said”. Don’t use them.

DB: Dune has a terrible case of said-bookisms. But they were in fashion at the time. Same with Tigana (Kay), which does head-hopping. Omniscient narrator. Again, they were in fashion at the time.

FH: It’s happening more again, but possibly because editors have less staff to work with. More stuff to throw against the wall.

MM: Avoid purple language/prose. Flowery old-fashioned language you’d see in Austen or Dickens. The  most pretentious words. Sometimes there’s a moment for that, but most of the time you don’t want it. You want the writing.


DB: What about word choice in narrative context?

MM: In a fight scene: not slow. Words should reflect that the scene is fast, brutal, sharp, quick. Quick sentences, quick words, strong words. Likewise, tender scenes: not typically fast. Soft, gentle, hot. Not brutal or sharp or hard.


Audience: Depends on what website you’re looking at.

FH: Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, when she finally gets with Ranger: six lines, very effective. Nothing graphic, absolutely short and sweet.

MM: If you’re going to write, you’ve got to read. Even if it’s just “I can do better than this.” You’ll come across the kind of writing that’s like what you want to do, and you can emulate.

DB: There is no right way to do this. Depends on the character, the story, the scene.

FH: The emotional connotations of the character change.

MM: “Her hair fell like grace exhausted to her shoulders.” – William Gibson – The words that make your heart respond are the words that you should use.


Audience question: Going back and double-checking your words: How often do you go back and go, “Oh, that doesn’t work?”

Everyone: All the time.

FH: If something’s wrong, and she doesn’t know what it is, she’ll come back to it.

MM/DB: Hits a place, can’t find the right word, will not move forward without it.

FH: Yes, especially when the scene is emotionally explosive and needs the character to deal with emotion.


Audience comment: Reading your work aloud – when the reader uses different word than what you’ve written down, that’s often the right word.

FH: Reading aloud, especially if someone else is reading it, can help you spot errors.

MM: Regardless of who’s reading it, sometimes hearing it aloud helps you figure out what needs work.

MM: When using words, know what they mean, know how they’re pronounced. The reader will hear it in their head. If you’ve used a word that doesn’t flow how you’ve decided it sounds and they’ll throw the book. Don’t use Nubian draped across the couch when you mean Afghan. Also don’t use a phrase wrong like “begs the question”, instead of “suggests the question”.

DB: Or Phelps’ “loss of words” instead of “loss for words” – ‘could of’ instead of could have – Remember we don’t write how we speak. Be sure what you’re writing is grammatically correct or that the grammatical problems are consistent across point of view so that voice comes across and is clear.

FH: Author’s narrative and character speaking – shouldn’t overlap all the time.


Audience question: What about word choice based on the book’s target audience?

FH: Don’t dumb it down.

MM: Kids will either go to an adult, look it up, or take the word as “I don’t know” and move on. It exposes kids to these words.

DB: Kids would rather confront word challenges than be written down to.


Audience question: With editors being stretched thin these days, does the onus then fall to us to put out the best we can?

FH: Yes, they do think the  onus is more upon us. The opportunity to use independent editors is there now, look for it. Put out the best you can. Outside editors are way more in use, especially for the self-publishing market.


Audience question: Does the influx of terrible self-published fiction

FH: Readers coming back to traditional publishing because they can get better quality. The backlash is now driving people back to traditionally pub work.

DB: Learning to be an effective editor of your own work is an absolutely essential part of being a writer. Recognize your crutches, words you repeat without thinking, look at your writing fresh, finding ways to correct yourself, is so important. Internal editor is valuable, too.


What’s the best ways to spot flaws?

DB: distance from manuscript – puts away for as long as he can (4-6 weeks), different format (digital to printed paper), read aloud also helps – changing the experience and not just replicating the writing – also, go back and read old work. You’ll find 1) it’s not nearly as bad as you think, there’s good stuff there; and 2) you’ll recognize fundamental flaws in your writing that go way back that you can now look for.

MM: Great to have a writing network – find out what strengths your writing friends have, and exploit them.


What about slang and real life references?

FH Books have longer shelf life than they used to

MM Tech goes in and out, so do popular businesses. If you put these things in, they might not be there in five years.

ES: Can use the reverse of that if you’re using the refs to ground a period piece (eg. Ready Player One).

MM: If you’re writing in a fantasy world, don’t make the slang twee – super ultra sweet. Make sure slang has a basis in your world, and sounds like a world you’d spit out. Otherwise it sounds contrived.

DB: Cursing done well can be absolutely poetic.

Tiger-Milking 201

 

 

So, it's been awhile since I updated this recipe. However, my tiger-butter making techniques have changed since I posted about this last, mostly for one reason:

This fudge has become *very* popular.

It's crazy to be saying this, but I think I went through nearly 15 kilograms of white chocolate melting wafers  between October (when I make a batch for SIWC) and June (when I cart another batch to ConCarolinas). This is typically a holiday treat, but here we are at the beginning of August, and I was invited to an online release-party last Thursday for A.J. Hartley's DARWEN ARKWRIGHT AND THE SCHOOL OF SHADOWS and I shared the above pic. Hey, why not? For me, writing events aren't complete without sharing my signature treat.

My point being, I had to hone my skills in order to produce quickly, efficiently, and still come out with this awesome edible art that looks gorgeous but doesn't take away too much from my writing time. So here's the updated recipe [and for variants and allergy-friendly versions, click here]:

Laura's Tiger Butter

Supplies:
1-2 baking sheets with edges, depending on size of sheet and desired thickness of tiger butter
Aluminum foil

Ingredients:
4-5 cups white chocolate melting wafers
1/2 cup milk chocolate melting wafers
1 1/4 cups regular peanut butter, smooth

TIP 1: Please note that the above supplies and ingredients are for a *single* batch. Given the treat's popularity and the demand for it, I tend to make it in much larger double-batches. (Doubles, I can manage. I tried making a quadruple batch once. That was not a good idea because I was racing around trying to catch the fudge before it all set. Lesson learned.)
  
TIP 2: Before mixing, ensure that the kitchen is warm, as colder conditions can make the freshly melted chocolate set too quickly.

TIP 3: Best if made on a full stomach.

TIP 4: Better if made in an empty house before certain sweet-toothed partners can "sample".

1. Line the cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Previously, I said waxed paper, but I found that it stuck sometimes. With foil, the finished product came away much more easily. Okay, the fact that I was out of waxed paper the first time I tried this and was forced to give it a shot may have been an impetus for the switch, but I am pleased with the new technique.

2. Next, melt the white chocolate wafers with 1 cup of the peanut butter. If you are blessed enough to own a double boiler, congratulations. Since I, like a lot of folks, don't, I melt it directly on the stove in a stainless steel pot on very low, stirring frequently so that the sugar doesn't crystallize. If it does it makes for crunchy tiger butter, and the smoothness of the product is one of its selling points, IMO.

3. Once the mix seems to be nearly there, melt the milk chocolate wafers with 1/4 cup of the peanut butter, also on low, also stirring frequently. This smaller mixture melts a lot faster than the white chocolate behemoth, which is why you should wait to start it until the white is nearly ready. 

4. Pour the melted white chocolate into the pans first, being sure to evenly (at least sort of) distribute the mix between the pans. Be sure to spread the mix to the edges of the pan. Over four pans with my double batch, I can usually get a nice, regular but not too thick result.

5. Then, pour the milk chocolate over the white in lines (as globby as you like).

6. As quickly as possible, drag a spatula through the lines, swirling the milk chocolate in the white to create fancy random designs, as shown in the above photo. Do not over-swirl, as the chocolate eventually blurs together and messes up the design. Unless you like blurriness. Maybe that's your style. When done, if the surface of the mixture seems uneven, give the pans a gentle horizontal jostle so that the chocolate flattens out.

7. Place finished trays in freezer. This is to help the chocolate set quickly. In a pinch, the fridge could work, but not for the next three steps.

8. After waiting at least an hour (though more doesn't hurt) while working on your novel or query letter, or while catching up on your reading, remove from the freezer and place in a plastic bag.

9. Then drop the pan on the floor.

10. Now that the fudge has been artfully shattered, break the rest of the pieces into more manageable bites. (If you don't approve of violence, or decided to go the fridge route, a sharp knife drawn through the hardened candy works, too. But hey, this is art, right? And every artist's interpretation is different.

11. Variations:

a. Depending on how much of a swirl or blend you want, you could change the white chocolate / milk chocolate ratio. This will change the flavour.

b. Likewise, changing the peanut butter / chocolate ratio will also change the flavour. I like a nice balance that isn't *too* heavy on the PB, but isn't too light, either. In the previous rendition of the recipe, I used unsweetened/unsalted peanut butter for the milk chocolate portion, but frankly (and this goes back to the mass production situation in which I now find myself) I didn't find it made enough of a difference to bother. Gourmands and picky chefs, feel free to go to town with it.

I love to joke with people who make comments about the finished product. When asked how long it takes to make it, I answer, "Oh, I slaved over it for a day and a night." After their requisite sagely nod, I add, "I'm kidding. It takes half an hour."

12. Arrange neatly on a platter (see above).

13. Share!

Agents and Editors (Concarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

Hey everyone! I've been working on a few projects lately, but I am really excited to say that today's post means a lot to me, because that's exactly where my writing goals have been focused at the moment. Ahh, the terrifying thrill of sending out queries! The part I'm looking forward to this time is the lesson I had to learn the hard way: Just because one agent rejects you, doesn't mean you have to give up, go back, and fix everything. Not that I minded terribly, because in the case of the novel I'm querying, I realized that a lot of work *did* need to be done. But seriously, one rejection does not a failed manuscript make. That's a lesson that this time, I'm going to apply.

 

This panel had a slightly different focus from last year's Agents and How to Find One panel. It was also useful to have (mostly) different presenters talking about the same subject, and to get a current refresher on things. 

Agents and Editors
Carrie Ryan, Gray Rineheart, David B. Coe, A.J. Hartley
Moderator: Edmund Schubert

Agents

With the way the landscape has shifted, some are questioning why we still need agents, what’s the future? Why do you feel an agent should still be considered? What should you be looking for in an agent?

DBC: If your goal is to be traditionally published, a publisher won’t look at you as an author unless you’re represented. The fact that you have an agent gives a certain cache to the quality of your work. Also, agents can look at contracts, subsidiary rights, foreign rights, etc. One trend in traditional publishing these days that agents can help with is basket accounting: if you sell a series, the books can be accounted book by book so you see royalties book by book, or not until the entire series has earned out (basket). Separate accounting used to be the norm, but now basket accounting is. Agents are also getting into electronic publishing because they recognize their own obsolescence is looming.

AJ: Simply for management of multiple income streams, especially if you have lots of books from different publishers. Helpful to have all that stuff funneled through an agency. Agents often see themselves as author-career management. Has self-published his backlist through his agency. It helps to keep all the things together.

CR: If you go for traditional publishing, you need an agent. A lot of authors are artists and not business people. We (writers) are not the best business people, so it’s important to hire someone who can be that person. Lots of houses won’t accept unagented submissions. She has lots of author friends who didn’t have agents when they signed, who gave up rights they shouldn’t have, contracts they regret signing. Agents go beyond the power of negotiation. No agent is better than a bad agent, but the negotiating aspects of the contract, the little things they catch that have big impact are huge. Agents know this stuff and go to bat for us so we don’t have to deal with it.

DBC: Most important about an agent: when he (DBC) has a business-based dispute with his editor, his agent handles it. This keeps the author-editor relationship good. Also, it’s an artistic relationship about the content, to make the books the best they can be.


No agent is better than a bad agent: What should you be on the lookout when deciding who to sign with, and what should you be careful about?

CR: Had a friend with a question about a new agent. The new agent has no sales or anything on her site that says how that agent is better than the author. So CR suggested to her friend questions to ask the agent: What are some of your favourite books from the last year? How do you feel about certain rights? If the agent can’t answer those questions, then why are you going to pay them money if they’re in the same boats?

AJ: Some agents are not professional – copyists – not professionally-dependent on selling your stuff. Research and find what they have sold, who they work with, who they represent, which editors they routinely lunch with. A New York agent isn’t necessarily the best or only option these days, but personal communication and connection with editors still matters. It’s where stuff gets done.

DBC: His agent left her agency in New York to go to Atlanta, but that agent is conscious and goes to New York every few months still. Also, authors often switch editors, but you can stay with an agent for your entire career.

CR: It is common to switch agents. What you need at the beginning of your career isn’t necessarily the same as what you need as your career progresses.

DBC: If you switch agents every few years, you might get a reputation.

AJ: You can switch agents if you’re very successful. If you’ve a represent for being difficult to work with, you won’t be re-signed.

CR: Agents who are starting out can be  hungry, looking for submissions – so research, who was their mentor? Where did they learn to be an agent? Check Publisher’s Marketplace – $20/month, provides info agents and their deals. See if the agents are selling, and who are they selling to? Just one publisher or many? Do they represent your genre? YA and MG?

ES: Define boilerplate.

CR: Boilerplate: the starting contract that every pub house starts with that favours the publisher. Agents negotiate it down.

ES: Some represent only some genres, but not all.

AJ: Has one agent for everything, but a separate film agent.

GR: Baen still looks at unagented submissions. Has seen a lot he can compare from authors submitting on their own compared to what’s come from good agents to what comes from not-so-good agents. There is a marked qualitative difference in what comes to them. Not just that he’s met the agent and knows it will be good quality, just that he recognizes the difference. E.g. a bad agency that would send multiple query letters. He has checked Writer Beware against some agents. This is a business, and some agents don’t deserve the title because they’re not representing their clients.

AJ: Any agent who wants money from you is a dead giveaway that they’re not good.

DBC: Same if they refer you to a book doctor.

CR: Money flows to the author. Also, agents often work as editor. They went through several versions and rewrites before sending her manuscript to an editor, and that made a remarkable difference.

ES: A lot of current agents are former editors. They know the industry. (To GR): You have the most current experience for searching for an agent. How should people go about doing that?

GR: Agencies have guidelines just like publishing houses have guidelines. Some want a certain number of chapters or pages, some want an outline, some want a synopsis. READ THE GUIDELINES and conform to the guidelines. Usually an agent will look at a cover letter, synopsis, and a few chapters, and then decide if they want to see more. They’ll ask for an exclusive if they want to see more. Partials can be sent out to multiple, but the moment someone wants to see more, they get an exclusive for as much as a month or three (definitely not more than six), and then you say, “someone else is looking at it” to further requests. BAEN is interested in reducing backlog and reducing slush pile. Hasn’t yet been successful.

CR: Posted on how to research agents at Magical Words.

AJ: Has heard that agents are lazy and will use every available opportunity to reject your manuscript because that makes their life easier. Your job is to make it as hard for them as possible to say no. Even if they say send a query, ALWAYS send a sample. You need to get your work in front of their eyes. If they glance at it, there’s a better chance of them wanting to see more.

GR: They don’t reject if guidelines aren’t followed to the letter. They’re looking for a great story.

AJ: Yes, but agents are looking for any excuse to reject the book.

ES: It’s a factor of volume. After six months of rejection, he realized that agents weren’t rejecting the novel, they were rejecting the query letter. Re-sent queries even to agents he’d subbed to before (assumed they wouldn’t remember him six months or a year later, you can go back), and got a great response rate.


Audience Question: is exclusivity longer than six months a red flag?

CR: Don’t give them exclusivity longer than a month. To spend six months waiting on one agent is a long time in your career.

ES: Check Writer’s Market – no financial info, but will show who represents what. $15/mo.

GR: These are great places to start, but once you have the agent, search their website, that info should be more current than whatever is listed on the directory site.

ES: And if they don’t have a website, that’s a red flag, too.

DBC: Search for agents who represent the same kind of stuff you write. And acknowledgements of books, because authors thank their agents.


Audience Question: Is it helpful when agent hunting, to conveniently have someone else interested in the work?

CR: Can help, but it’s more important about the strength of your work. Be specific.

AJ: And sometimes the agent has difficult selling the work.

CR: And if they have difficulty selling it, they should try to work with you. That’s something to ask – what do they do if that book doesn’t sell? Will they work with next one?


Audience Question: When you supply an outline, how do you know that outline won’t be stolen?

DBC: They’re not. Sorry, nothing is interesting enough for that.

AJ: You can’t copyright an idea.

DBC: And if you give the same idea to five authors, you’ll get five different novels.


Audience Question: Are there any genres you don’t need represent for?

ES: If you’re self-publishing online or only writing short stories. Who are you looking to publish with? How are they selling your work? If an agent thinks they can make money from your work, they’ll sign with you.

CR: Harlequin is an example of a publisher who’ll publish you without agent.

AJ: And you can technically go to an agent after the publisher accepts you.

GR: BUT not all publishers are like that. BAEN will drop you if you go and get an agent. They’re negotiating with whoever initiated the relationship. To do so is taken as a bait-and-switch.

ES: But BAEN is the only pub that seems to do that.

CR: There’s an exception to every rule.


Editors

ES: So, about editors.

AJ: In all his experience, his best experience has been with acquisition/developmental editors. Gets edit memos from them. Editors definitely still edit.

CR: The copy editor goes through and finds tiny errors, keeps details consistent. Grammatical, syntax, inconsistencies, anachronisms, etc.

DBC: His copy editor comes back with copy edits and a style sheet. Terms, names, places, anything unique to book, so that typesetters can make sure that all the words are as they should be. Stylesheets are like a world bible. Invaluable.

ES: “Line editor” and “copy editor” are pretty much interchangeable.

ES: As short fiction editor: works in acquisitions, not much developmental editing, but also does copy editing.

GR: Every house is different with which editors do what and who consults with whom. BAEN books – the editor in chief makes the final decision about acquisition.

The Unfair Folk (ConCarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

I'm sure you don't need to hear about  my crazy month of parties, traveling, and computer issues. (Though I narrowly avoided sending my laptop off for needless repairs when I realized that the fix had partly to do with all the accumulated cat hair. Which we will not speak of right now. Seriously.) And above all, woven through that were more revisions. Revisions that lead to hour-long conversations about the nature of my main character's magic, the flaw with middle books in some fantasy trilogies, and the plausibility of stairs on ships. Among other insanities. So I'll spare you the details, except to say that barring final feedback from my critique partner, I'm ready to get back to querying. Yay!

But I will say this: the process of doing an intense revision with a critique partner who knows how to kick butt has been *awesome*. I learned a lot in the process. I paid attention to whether or not my main character was driving the story. I remembered to factor in the advice about making sure that at least three of the senses are engaged to enhance description. And I kept an eye on the flow. What I'm saying is, I feel really good about this.

Meanwhile, please enjoy more notes (at last, as usual, sighhhhh). I feel no shame. But guilt? Um ... OH HEY LOOK AT THE PRETTY NOTES ABOUT FAERIES!


The Un-Fair Folk
Emily Leverett, Misty Massey Kalayna Price, Janine K Spendlove
Moderator: James Maxey
JM: How did we get from Oberon to Tinkerbell?

EL: It’s changed with time. In the medieval version of Orpheus’ tale, his wife gets kidnapped by faeries; Orpheus is a king who dresses as a minstrel and faeries are evil, creepy. Then a few hundred years later, we get Shakespeare with Oberon and Titania who aren’t very nice either and mess things up. Then in the Victorian era, it’s twee faerie things; then they became cute and fluffy much later on with Disney and the like.

Regardless, if you want to meet fairies: fall asleep by a river under a tree at noon.

MM: For a very long time, people believed that the faeries are really there. Some people still do. For so long we’ve believed they’re real, so in story we’ve needed to make them more friendy, less harmful. It was an attempt to make them less terrifying as the modern world came in slowly and our understanding grew.

EL: The rise of childhood as an actual thing may have contributed. Maybe the creation of children’s stories led to the sanitization of previously-darker tales.

KP: There’s lots of research on Victorian era faeries; she (KP) has researched faeries elsewhere. Often there are different names for the fae. There’s the story of humans being caught in the endless dance, and a darker story with vampire mythology that as they dance, the beautiful women slowly cut them apart and drain all their blood. There are lots of dark creatures in the older mythologies, but they by the time you get to Victorian folklore, some were bad luck but became good luck. Oral tradition has so many variations.

EL: Stories got attached to morals, and become moral tales.

JM: Neil Gaiman reclaimed faeries-as-evil: presents them as beautiful, interesting creatures in a variety of shapes and form, with an element of the uncanny and terrifying underneath, if you cross a line. Say the wrong thing, turn the wrong direction, eat the wrong food, and you’ll pay the price.

Disney and J.M. Barrie aren’t to blame. Faeries represented the ignorance of what is making nature tick. Suddenly we didn’t have to attribute strange noises in the ground, in the air, to supernatural forces. With a scientific world view , faeries stopped having the sinister aspects.

Because science has become so rational, Arthur Conan Doyle believed that two girls had taken pictures with faeries. Even today in Iceland, you have to have people familiar with the fae to survey the land and confirm it’s okay to build a road. They even build little churches for the faeries to come and be converted.

JM: So why does the belief persist?

EL: Because it makes the world more interesting. It’s a boring world without faith or belief. Some of it is desperation. One of the darker sides of faerie beliefs was the concept of changelings. They had instances of that in renaissance and medieval history. Probably it was a child with Down Syndrome. It’s okay to kill a changeling, not a child. Bad things, ugly things happen, and it was a way to cope. Even today we want a way to cope.

KP: Faeries were also used to explain things like SIDS.

MM: Ancient beliefs are very hard to let go of. It’s easier sometimes to still say, “it could be faeries and not science” – we can’t always see the science. And part of us will always go, “What if I’m wrong about not believing in this?” Often it was used as an excuse – the faeries did it.

JM: These were myths from the past that people believed. Future people might think that we actually believed in Santa because we have a lot of Santa stuff  around. And what would they think if they read our fiction?

EM/KP: [Amusing, too-fast-to-log discussion about Santa being raised by elves]

JM: What’s difference between elf, faerie, brownie?

KP: From a writer’s standpoint, anything

MM: Brownies are tiny; fae, human sized, elves are not necessarily fae

EL: Elves were popularized by Tolkien. Lots of his stuff about elves comes from Norse Myth.

KP: And lots of fiction based on elves has modeled them after Tolkien.

JM: From a purely fantasy perspective: One of the common aspects of faerie myths is that they were the original inhabitants of land that went into hiding when mankind took over. How much of this is scientific memory of more advanced cultures coming in and taking over from the tribes, the aboriginal inhabitants? We’re now advanced enough to recognize they’re people, but what if we once saw aboriginals in body paint and thought they were supernatural beings? Made them into myths? It’s a way to explain it. The same thing is true with the tree folk. Did we impose powers and abilities on them?

JM: Ancient ruins: There’s still something haunting about lost worlds, something out of place, the separation of time but being in the same space. Often true of the faerie world: time shifts.

EL: The Ruin (poem) about a roman bath, a former civilization – the poem talks as if those people had magic, and what is lost is a true loss.

Audience question: How much of the beliefs about the Fae came from the old myths of Baccus, Odin, etc?

KP: very good chance, especially since myths were revived in the renaissance. Most of these stories came from the oral tradition, which is hard to track.

EL: The environment affects the mythology – e.g. Japan has lots of water ghosts, not desert ghosts

JM: This panel is about elves and faeries in lit – what reading would you recommend?

JS:  Loved C.S. Lewis’ dryads, naiads, etc. in the Chronicles of Narnia. Gateway in childhood.

KP: Katharine Mary Briggs wriote several good books on specific stories and an encyclopedia on this subject – presents different types of fae; also recommends reading Child’s ballads – stuff he collected. Also: for classic tales – Thomas Knightley’s study of romance in the Victorian era

MM: Very impressed by the YA: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Her faeries are terrifying critters. (also gorgeous cover art). Also, Lady Cottingly’s pressed fairy book. (a parody)

JM: Gaiman’s Sandman dips into faerie realms, astonishing stuff; also, the movie Pan’s Labrynth (horrificly violent, about the brutality of war).

EL: Hellboy 2 plays with faeries, too. Faerie magic appears very  differently in medieval and renaissance lit. Seconds gaiman. (esp the midsummer night’s dream story). LKH’s faeries are fun (though very non traditional). Medieval Arthurian legends deal with magic, and so does Chaucer – lots of medieval romance (quest narratives). Beowulf: Grendel, Cain, and Fae. Also, critical book: The Faeries at the Bottom of the Garden.

Aud: With the Victorian stuff, Andrew Lang’s colour fairie books?

MM: Current fairie books are drawing from older literature, but making it their own, too.

JS: Yes, whatever works for the story.

Audience: What about Spencer’s Faerie Queene?

EL: Stay away from that. He’s awesome but the story is about flattering Queen Elizabeth 1 and it’s a Christian allegory.

Audience: Teen section of library – the Faerie Path series. Talks about faeries good and bad clashing.

MM: In some mythologies, the summer court and winter court do clash a lot.

KP: Also Seely versus unseely. Different types depending on where you go in the world and what decade you’re in. Oral traditions change faster.

Aud: More writers are using more original tradition – is that a backlash against Disney?

JS: No, but it is a realization growing up that not all faeries are Tinkerbell (not that she was very nice if you read the book) – more of a discovery of everything else that faeries could be. We're leaning more about faerie lore, people are rediscovering it, and we want to play in that world.

MM: Writers want to do something different, too. There's nothing really new out there, so we take what we have and reinterpret in our own way to *make* it new and fresh.

JM: Once you go back and start researching, you find that almost everything has a very dark origin.

KP: John Harntess’ Black Knight Chronicles – deals with Faeries in Book 2.

EL: Yes, some of it is a bit backlash, but also, in urban fantasy especially, things have generally gotten darker. The economy has crashed, 9/11, and other stuff. We were headed that way darker, artistically, as a way of dealing. Hartness' book is comic. We may be back on the swing towards more lighthearted soon, as times change once more.

The Future of Print (ConCarolinas 2013 Writing Panel Notes)

 
I love having a birthday party. I've done so every year since high school. Not because I'm trolling for attention or presents, but because it's fun, and it falls at a good time, coinciding with the end of the school year and all. It's an annual excuse for a party. These days, it's also an annual excuse to clean our house ...

(I kid, I kid. We also clean at major holidays and when expecting relatives.)

The past three years, it's also fallen the weekend after ConCarolinas. Since I go mostly to see all of the Magical Words authors and community members who can make it, and to attend the writing panels, it feels like the best birthday present I can give myself. We even have a party there, too, and it's a blast. Especially when one inadvertently plays bouncer and successfully discourages would-be crashers with the words, "sorry, we're just writers". But hey, that's another story.

So, here I am, finally recovered from the jet lag and the celebrations. I'm sharing the following notes first. It was a Sunday, but as was emphasized during this panel, the publishing industry is currently in flux. Big changes are happening on a nearly-daily basis. So while they couldn't guarantee that this info is still valid beyond the hour of this panel, I think they're a great snapshot of things as of a week ago, an excellent discussion, and definitely worth thinking about. Enjoy!

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The Future of Print
Faith Hunter, David B. Coe, Stuart Jaffe
Moderator: Edmund Schubert

Is Print Dead?

SJ: This is one of the most fluid times of publishing. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow – this is a snapshot of *right now*.

Print won’t die completely, it’ll shift to what types will survive and what won’t. Theatre in the 1800s was a dominant form of entertainment, a lucrative job. Then came movies and TV. Theatre didn’t die. It just provides a different medium. What it provides is a different experience. The theatres able to survive were the ones able to adapt and change. Youtube and TV can do the little things much better.

There will be a rise in hardcover and quality because the people who collect paper are going to still want it. Mass-market paperbacks were invented for people to consume and throw away. For people who didn’t care, they just wanted the story. E-readers do that now:  they’re cheaper, faster, and serve the purpose of mass markets. In some ways, even serve it better.

FH: It takes a publisher about $28,000 to put a book through the system, not counting the cost of print. Once they get their money back, they could change the price, but they won’t.

SJ: The big news from last week (i.e. week of May 26th): Self-publishing when it first started was written off as an economic model that wasn’t viable. The returns system was difficult. Stores were only allowed to order and return books in set quantities. Last week, Baker & Taylor announced that they will accept one-copy orders and returns. Now a self-published author can get their single title on the shelf. This is a direct outgrowth of Print On Demand.

FH: We’re not just going to see bookstores anymore. Big bookstores are going to be gone. Everything will be done online. Small presses have shifted to e-books. They’re making money with this and loving it.

DC: Tectonic changes in the industry means dog-eat-dog among booksellers, publishers, and distributors, and everyone is fighting with everyone. E-books loosen the grip of big publishers.

SJ: Took him a year to stop thinking of self-publishing as a stigma. Really, truly at the beginning of the line are writers who want to write, and at the end of the line are readers who want to read. People in the middle either help or hinder. Every writer is different depending on what they want from their careers. What’s helpful for one dream may be a hindrance for another.

ES: In the next 10-20 years, Print On Demand machines will come down in price and you might be able to buy a book that way. Stores won’t need to maintain an inventory. Instead of bookstores, there might just be kiosks.

SJ: Also, e-books are a first world problem.

FH: The phone is an equalizer. Anyone with a cell phone will be able to read e-books.

SJ: When big bookstores disintegrate, and they will, there won’t be a thriving indie market, but there will be a niche market. Bookstores will exist in some way or another. Like the theatre. People who figure out how to make it work will do so.

ES: Just as big box stores pushed out mom and pop stores in the 90s. Nature abhors a vacuum, and there will be a rise of mom and pop stores that *have* figured out how to do it.

SJ: We are at the the prototype stage of a star trek replicator. 3-D printers are now an industry disruptor to any object sold anywhere.

DC: But won’t that cause unemployment and then people won’t buy our books?

SJ: People pay for our talent.

FH: New jobs will come from the shift. This happens every decade. Invention will always create change.

SJ: Publishing may look very different, but it will continue. And without writers, the chain can’t happen, regardless of whatever’s in the path between writer and reader. It’s our job to navigate these waters.

FH: The same thing happened to music.

ES: The mode of distribution has shifted.

SJ: There aren’t as many quadruple-platinum musicians, but more musicians are making a living. He (SJ) is now putting food on the table with his self-published books.

ES: But more people have more options, and making a living isn’t happening as much, and only the ones who have mastered the distribution are really making money.

DC: Midlist authors’ earnings have been on a steady decline. Authors are working harder, producing more, publishing more and are making less.

FH: But often making more money in percentage sold as e-books. Greater percentage as more books sell.

ES: E-books are also opening up options for books once considered dead.

SJ: Amazon stated their own imprints because they were trying to accomplish things with publishers and not succeeding, and then finally decided to do it themselves. Authors they think are good, they’re acquiring.

Audience Question:  This is also impacting libraries. You’ll have centrally located libraries. E-publishers are already making inroads on “first sale” – treating it not as a physical books but as a license. Thoughts?

FH: This will help authors in the short run because they will see more money, but they will see less fans. We need to turn the used-book buyer to the buyer of something affordable.

DC: With the Kobo, a Canadian* company, you purchase, not license, the book. Kobo could force Amazon to stop doing the licensing.

* At this point, I have to interrupt these notes to say how loved and welcome I feel. There I am, sitting in the front row, rapidly typing notes, and one of the panelists joked, “But everyone knows you can’t trust Canadians.” Because as far as I know, I was the only Canadian in the room, and the panelists (MW alumni all) knew that, too. In hindsight, I should have replied, “Hey, at least when we take over the world, we’ll say ‘sorry’ after,” but it was Sunday morning, sleep was beyond me, and I was too busy laughing with the rest of the audience. Good times. ^__^

ES: Amazon and Kobo are fighting outside of the US, and Amazon isn’t always winning. This could be a major game-changer in the future.

*cough* Our takeover will be swift and polite.
 

Audience Question: What about piracy?

SJ: "Sure, pirate it. I get exposure. [As a self-published author] Getting people to know I exist is hard work for me." People who pirate stuff will only ever pirate anyway, so you’re gaining a reader. Or they can’t get it any other way. Exposure leads to greater readership in the long-run.


Audience Question:  Will e-publishing change word count and book length for getting books onto shelves?

FH: It already has.

DC: But some books are best at shorter lengths, anyway.

SJ: Writes shorter fiction; is now able to sell the novels for the size they’re supposed to be, rather than adding unnecessary subplots. Also, there will be a rise in short stories sold via e-book.

DC: The 49 cent short stories.

FH: The business model is always going to be in a constant state of flux.

Agents and How To Find One (ConCarolinas 2012 Writing Panel Notes)

 

This was one of those panels that was basically a conversation, and well worth listening to.

Agents, and How to Find One

Carrie Ryan, Gray Rinehart, Gail Z. Martin, Edmund Schubert

ES: The process is changing. Bare bones mechanics, how did you get your agents and why?

GM: Unless you're a contract attorney specializing in pub law, you need an agent. If you don’t know the biz, you need someone to protect you in the lang run. Recommends the Writer's Digest guide to literary agents. Lists everyone who claims to be an agent. AAR – Association of Author Representatives – start there. They have a code of ethics. Find an agent that handles your type of fiction. See who they represent. See what they want – send them what they’re looking for. Write the best cover letter, send it out, get rejected (etc). Don’t take no for an answer. Sometimes it’s not your book, it’s your cover letter.

CR: Found an agent by querying. Started reading a lot of agent blogs. Nahan Bransford, Kidlit, Mary Cole; lots of agents blogging about the industry and how it works; Literaticat, Went for an agent bc she wanted a trad pub career. The agent has the relationships with the editors. The agents know who’s looking for what, can get it read quickly. Part of what you’re looking for is someone who has those connections. Go for someone who has the relationships. Contract terms is a huge deal. Signing without an agent can get you screwed over. Also, an agent manages your career. They take care of issues. You should be on the same side of the table as your editor. When there has to be bad blood, the agent takes the fall for it. Agentquery.com, querytracker.com, publisher’s marketplace (when you’re ready to query, it's worth $20 a month) – you can see who’s selling to which and how much they sell and who they sell it to. You can find how to write a query letter. If you’re getting form rejections on your query letter, there’s a problem with your query letter. 50 pages, problem with the 50 pages. Full, problem with full.

GM: Tor will take queries but won’t take manuscripts.  Agents, good agents, act as a level of filter. Honest agents only make money when you do. They get a commission from your sale. If the pubs didn’t insist on only agented submissions, they’d be overwhelmed with stuff not ready for prime time. Agents won’t take you on unless they think you’re ready for prime time. Also, most agents came from being an editor in the publishing industry.  Often just got downsized. Often have a lot of connections. New York agents matter. Gotta have an agent where the publishgin is happening. Some non-New Yorkers have the connections, put the time into keeping those relationships.

ES: Increasingly there are agents in California. There are other avenues, but still. There are sadly a lot of people who want to get published, so there are people will take advantage.

GM: For those trying to get published and hitting a wall, there are book doctors and book shepherds. They’ll take on the manuscript to analyze it, have a responsible reviewer read thourhg and make agents, even pitch people to agents. Eg. Randy Pizer. Reviewers give feedback. This is a paid service. You'll be paying someone who does know because they’re legit can be useful. Remember, the money should flow to the writer. There are a lot of pub houses who don’t pay much of an advance anymore, but it’s still a one-way flow. Publisher to author.

CR: Advance: front of money based on how they believe you’re book will sell. Once you earn it out, you get more. Things are clearly defined in the contract.

ES: Used to be a lump sum, now doled out in thirds, one upon acceptance, one upon final, one when the book is released.

GM: Once you’ve earned out your advance you get your royalties.

GR: The average advance is not a lot of money. Typically $5-6K, but better in YA.

GM: The publishing industry has been hit by the economic downturn. Advances are smaller. A bigger advance means they have more faith in you. If you get a huge advance and you do poorly, it can be detrimental to your career.

GR: You should be wary. Check sites like Writer Beware and Predators and Editors – there are warnings about the bad ones.

ES: Agents’ role is that they’re there to protect the writer. (So long as we’re talking about traditional publishing).

GM: Small presses – different approaches. Doesn’t mean they’re a rip off.

GR: Absolute Write water cooler – lots of people willing to vent about bad agents (but take it with a canister of salt because it may be badmouthing).

CR: Take all the info, take bits and pieces, figure out what works. Beware of signing with an agent selling their first books. See what they represent.

GM: Ask authors about agents. There's a personality component, too. See who you have chemistry with. If you talk to enough people, you’ll see who you want to direct thigns to first. Agens will take you based on whether they can do a good job by you, and whether it fits, if there’s no conflict of interest.

CR: The personality aspect is so vital. There are plenty of agents you might not work well with. Read their blogs and twitter. You’re entering a business relationship and you don’t want to get into it lightly. You don't want to just sign with someone because they accept you. And you can change agents. Check them out. Get valuable info.

GR/CR: No agent is better than a bad agent. Has seen submissions from bad agents on the Writer Beware list.

CR/GM: Track reocord.

GR: Be careful to see if it’s a new agent striking out. See if they’ll copy you on correspondence.

CR: New agents are hungry. All agents want to find good things. Young agents extra specially. If the new agent doesn’t have a lot of experience, look at the house – they’ll have mentoring, the name of the house they’re with. What contects do they have, what mentors? A young fresh agent isn’t necessarily a bid thing, but they need to have support.

GM: You should have a good relationship with them, a good rapport. Not just that you are the content generator and they sell the book – this should be a collaboration. They should be able to tell you how your book is doing.

ES: CR, why did you change agents? Why would someone consider changing?

CR: People have switched at every level. Lack of communication is a big reason. A few weeks for response on a full instead of six months. A month is okay. Depends on where you are and how fast you want to go. People also switch agents based on where they want to be in their career. Writers leave agents because of communication. Also if the agent is not with them based on where they are in their careers.

GM: Sometimes agents die, retire, leave the business, go to jail – something to thik about when you sign the contract with the agent. You should have something in the contract about parting ways civilly. What your obligations are. If they die, do you pay their estate?

CR: You should always have a way to sever with notice. It's easier if you have it written out. Here’s where I am, here’s the problems I’m having, can we resolve the problems we’re having? If you sever a relationship, don’t list the reasons why. Say, I’m sorry we have to part ways, and that it’s not working out. Agents are still responsible for the commission.

GM: Subsidiary rights – ebooks, games, audio, foreign rights, tv rights – that matters. If your publisher doesn’t have the capability to do the e-book or audiobook, your agent will rep those rights. Especially if you have your heart set on movies/tv/etc, it's good to know what experience they have and how they handle those things.

Have a conversation with them about how much they’ll do, how much they’ll be personal assistant, career manager, advisor? Things have changed.

CR: Some agents will edit before they send out, career plan with you, continue to manage once you’ve sold … and some don’t. Some just sell it and they’re done. If you get an offer from an agent, ask to speak with their clients.

GM: Your agent is not your shrink, fininacial planner, or bail bondsman, but you can come to them with career, book questions. They’re not being compensated for that time, just paid in commission. You won’t call them every day or even every week.

GM – Example: An agent – Ethen Allenburg – just does fiction. Gave him first right of refusal for Nonfic. Went for John Willik, who specializes in nonfic biz books. Different connections in the publishing industry. Might need an agent who specializes specifically in film/television, for example.

CR: If your agent doesn’t handle it, chances are they’ll have a colleague who will. Or if there’s an agent they know who handles it, they might recommend them.

GR: Don’t submit multiple manuscripts at once. Send them your one best thing and let it speak for itself. Simultaneously submit queries to multiple agents, though.

CR: However, may be a partial request exclusive request. Ask how long for exclusivity – 30 days, 60 days? If you get an offer, tell others that you got one.

GR: If you have an offer, different between offer and request for a full ms. Guve a dreama gent the time. Asolute write – people will recommend. Don’t treat partial requests the same as a full. Partials may not be read more than a page or two.

GR: You want to be treated professionally, so treat others professionally. Extend certain courtesies if you want them extrended to you.  No hard and fast rules

GM: If an agent says, “I liked this but: make some changes”, then do soul searching. Look at feedback and see if changes made she’ll handle you. Do you think the book is fundamentally better even if she doesn’t represent me? You can say no if it’s not the book  you wrote. The book can be stronger and better because of that feedback. These are professional people – take that input. Even if they don’t buy it from you.

Personalized feedback is great in a rejection!

Having an online presence is good, too.

The Editor's Work is Never Done (ConCarolinas 2012 Writing Panel Notes)

Fitting for the end of the week, on this drowsy Vancouver Friday afternoon, I've got notes from last year's ConCarolinas writing panel on editors. Here's some great info to consider about the editing side of writing, and what editors are keeping an eye out for when looking at your work.

* * * 

The Editor’s Work is Never Done

Faith Hunter, Edmond Schubert, Edward McKeown, Allen Wold, Mason Lavin

Allen Wold – Writer’s workshops

Mason Lavin – Breathless Press (ebook erotica)

Faith Hunter – Written 20+ books as a writer so far under two names, but for the first time she’s just negotiated with Kalayna Price her first anthology, and they’ll be the editors of an anthology with big names. Is learning to be an editor

Ed Schubert – Edits Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show

There are different kinds of editors:
1.    Developmental – does your story make sense ? Characters? Arc? Language? Char stay true to self? The acceptance is step 1.
2.    Copyediting – do your chars eyes stay the same colour? Same name? Formatting? Spelling? Copyeditors not their job to do developmental.
3.    Line-editing.

What an editor does:

EM: Helps the writer tell the story in their voice their way. But keeps continuity, char, story. Are characters acting like real p eople, in terior logic?
AW: line editing in writer’s workshops. First draft as raw as it can be (and all first drafts are crap)  let’s people know if what they’re working on is worth working onl Litle tiny details necessary for a beginning writer to learn. Then encourages ppl to submit. Looks at finished stories, too. Will shed blood if asked.

Sometimes there are authors so big that their editing turns to crap.

The truth is, everybody needs to be edited. We all need to be edited.

You could hire a developmental editor if you want to, but the acquisitions editor might ask you to change everything again.

Order of Events:
1.    Have a polished novel.
2.    Submit to agents (conferences, slush, etc)
3.    Acceeptance by agnent
4.    Edit letter from agent (preferable)
5.    Agent submits to editors of choice (auction sometimes, but not common)
6.    Acquisitions developmental editor at pub house looks at it. Keeps track of publishing schedule.
7.    Rewrite for developmental editor.
8.    Second developmental/line editing letter. Sometimes a third happens. (Sommetimes you have to fix one problem before you can go onto the next).
9.    Line edits
10.    Copy edits

When ES buys short stories:
-    Ideally it's gone through a lot more beta readers, conferences, conventions first
-    He's looking for something close to done as possible
-    He does as much developmental and line editing as he can, simultaneously
-    Most important, he keeps in mind that the story is *the writer's* story. He’s simply in the polishing business.

AW: The best editors don’t need a lot of words to  he good editors can pinpoint in just a few words exactly what’s wrong.

ES: No one can edit themselves.

ML: Sometimes you have to work with them a lot before the story's good to go.

ES: If the problem is convoluted, there's lots more work involved, so he's more likely to reject the story.

FH: What do you have to say about editing?

EM: All of it’s solicited. Language of displomacy (tis isn’t working). Does more hand-holding. Doesn’t matter if he likes the story, looking for whether the story is well-done and valid to his anthologies.

AW: Editors should be diplomatic. Has had firsthand experience at an editor being undiplomatic.

ES: Editing is a very subjective process. Unless you get multiple editors or agents telking you you hae the same problem, take things under consideration but don’t live or die by it. A form rejection just means it’s not right for that editor on that day. Feedback is rare. 10% if that. Perosnalized rejections are awesome.

EM: Like a party – if one person says you’re drunk, slow down a bit, if two, slow a little more, if three, take the lampshade off your head and stop

ML: Encouraged to give personalized rejections. Have learned the hard way whyh editors don’t respond. It’s not a conversation. Follow guideliens.

Make sure you pay attention to submission guidelines! Follow them! Do it anyway. Whatever their reasons may be. If you give them an excuse to dump your story bc they didn’t follow the guideliens, that’s an excuse to dump them. Guidelines exist for a reason, whether you agee with them or not.

ML: Erotica has content guidelines. Pay attention to content guidelines.

ML: IF you write YA, don’t submit to adult call. If you write audlt,, don’t submit it to a YA pub.

FH: If you do something aggregious to a publisher, they’ll meet at cons. Same thing with stalkers. Editors and authors communicate. Don’t bug them if they’re chatting alone with each other. If  you’re asked for an exclusive, tell them you’ve sent 3 chapters to X, and give the name. And say, :”I’ve sent x quewries out bout I won’t send more”. If someone else wans it, say “Y has it, but I will if I hear back”.

The number of people who give you free editing is dropping. So very rare.

Are agents doing editorial work now?

FH: Dif agents do make suggestions, esp. after submitting after face to face at a con. Agents appraocehd that way often explain why the story it is less sellable. Lucienne does a lot of that.

ES: Lots of editors leaving pub houses bc of cuts. Agents with an editing background. Ackin to dev editing. Still looking for the stuff that’s close to being ready. Lots of ex-eds being agents and using their ed background to help their new work.

AW: Will throw out stuff if the first page or first lines are bad.

EM: Editors are not gods, maybe not good writers, but they’re good *readers*.


What is your process?

EM – looks for someone that is solid, has social skills, willing to be worked with – if it can’t get through your writing group, you shouldn’t be sending it out. Duty of writer is to listen to the critiques. No arguing with critiquers. Also, um, no arguing with editors. Unless you plan to be in the living room of everyone who reads to explain yourself, it needs to be fixed.

ML: Don’t argue with editors. But it can lead to discussion of “But I want to keep thjis” “Then you need to fix this or that” and better edits have come out of it.

ES: (In addition to above) Thinks: Is it good? Are they good to work with?

NG: The qualities: Good, fast, friendly – you can get away with two of them, but don’t be a pain in the ass.

ML: Don’t panic and tell them two days before the deadline that you can't make the deadline.

AW: You can ask for an extension but don’t turn it in late.

Do you have any final words?

EM: “Blessed are the flexible, for they should not be bent out of shape.”

AW: When you get an edit, you can do one of three things – do what the ask for, disregard, or find another way.

ML: Don’t take it personally. And don’t quit just because you were told no.

FH: It's a numbers game. Get the right product to the right person at the right time. Work on another piece, and if it doesn't work, try it again somewhere else

ES: Thank you.

Urban Fantasy (ConCarolinas 2012 Writing Panel Notes)

What's this? More notes?

Yup. Just in time for ConCarolinas 2013, which is happening next weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you're in the area, I recommend this convention. I for one can't wait! 

I found a few more sets of notes I never posted, so I'll share them in the days leading to the con. First up: a look at Urban Fantasy.

Urban Fantasy

David B. Coe (D.B. Jackson), Faith Hunter, Kalayna Price, Diana Bastine, J.F. Lewis 
Moderator: Gail Z Martin

How do you think in the last few years Urban Fantasy (UF) has  morphed or changed, or has it stayed pretty static?

DB: UF has been expanding, even though publishers' marketing geniuses have been making the book covers all the same. That does the authors a disservice because every series is vastly different (even when certain tropes are the same) – not everyone is writing the same book. Urban fantasy’s covering a *lot* of the fantasy section these days.

JL: UF has changed a bit. His pen name is his initials so that the reader can assume he’s female.

KP: UF really took off in 2005, first. Can trace it back to Bram Stoker, even though it really started to hit with Anita Blake in ’93. It stays true to the magic, but we kick a lot more ass now.

FH: We're not seeing new bad guys, new creatures. Still the same vampires, werewolves, and occasional mythological creature. Still the same “kill the bad guy” book, but introducing a few new characters. However, there has been much more crossover.

DBC: Thinks that there is and has been a conflation of what we used to call dark fantasy and what we call UF. We don’t really talk about DF anymore, it’s UF. Epic fantasy was driving the market 15 years ago, and had recently transplanted SF as driving the spec fic. Now UF is driving the spec fic market. Partly because female readership in the genre is way way up and UF has strong female characters (and male, but definitely females) Spec fic used to be about geeky pimply boys reading that, and now the readership  is vastly diverse.

GM: Agrees in the change in readership. Now looks at the attendance of conventions, UF market, female authors in the field, and now it’s vastly different from what it used to be.



What makes UF Urban? Why  Urban instead of small town or Rural?

DBC: Distinguishing itself from medieval pastoral fantasy. The landscape of the settings geared toward happening in cities. No matter what time period. If the landscape has an urban, seedy feel, rather han pastoral, it’s urban.

FH: A certain modernity, modern cultural feel to it at first. But now it also has expanded to mean urban, for other time periods. Now you can get historical urban fantasy, and not get bored with it.

KP: Not enough people to eat in the other places. The city is not completely necessary. Sookie Stackouse is UF, even though it’s set in a a small town. It’s about the feel.

JF: What makes it UF is putting monsters alongside the every day. The familiar setting and the unfamiliar monster.

DB: There's a certain different feel when it’s set in a city. It has a grity feel. There’s a certain edge to a city environment.

DBC: Charles de Lint used to be called UF, now it’s Magical Realism.



Going back to the idea of the city as a setting, as a character in the books, how do you think the flavour changes and what elements does a city bring to the story? What are the things that happens in a city that people can’t get anywhere else?

FH:  Really good food. Local culture. Adds an element you don’t have in a rural setting. The microbeers, the music. The choices are almost unlimited in the city.

DB: There's so much going on after dark in the city. There are places open all night. People are out and about 24/7. You have so much more of a culture happening after dark, when these stories take place.

DBC: A degree to which fantasy has transformed from quest literature to survival literature. The characters are under siege from page one, and a city environment can be threatening, so fraught with danger, that survival stories become so compelling.

GM: The infrastructure. The subways, the abandoned subways, building styles, mixed people and buildings and bacgrkounds and heritage – not likely to get as much of that in a small town, yet places where there's all of these things can be part of the story.

JF: Affects the story – e.g. population control for vampires



Audience: In a city everything’s packed in closely together. So many chances to be attacked out of nowhere. 

DBC: There's a certain claustrophobia.

GM – More chances for things to go wrong. In a city, more chance for anonymity. In a small town, everyone knows everyone. In a city, you don’t know the guy next door.


Audience: There's much more collateral damage and innocent people hurt.

Audience: Also, you can visualize these real cities it’s been set in.  You can see taste and smell it even if you haven’t been there.

DBC: Madeline Robbins – The Stone War -  a MUST read. A story about a post-apocalyptic new York. Turns it into the most terrifying place imaginable, even for New York.

GM: UF has bled into other areas. Like the show: Life after People.

Audience: Also, the crime element. Generally there's more crime in a big city because there’s more opportunity and more places to hide.

Audience: More bad stuff happens and people don’t seem to care as much.

GM: An alien invasion will happen best in NY because nothing phases them!

KP: A city as character offers much more crossover opportunity, such as film noir. The potential is extremely high.


Audience: Hot, graphic – where do you draw the line between UF and Paranormal romance?

KP – if romance is central to the plot, it’s PR – if killing the bad guy is central to the plot, it’s UF.



Audience: With all the things in the city and the city as a character itself, does it pose a problem in the plot?

FH: Where it takes place is much less important than what takes place in the scene. The city only comes into matter when the scene requires it. (e.g. if you're going to drown someone, that requires nearby water).

DBC: Overwhelmingly character driven. (FH: No, I just blow things up.) DBC – if the world is serving as a distraction, that’s a sign for him that he’s getting away from what his story needs.



Audience: Since UF is set in cities, how much research  is required? Do we have to have lived there?

KP: Doesn't write about real cities. She makes imaginary cities. She wants to make what can happen, rather than what can be there.

GM – Ficticious cities in a fictitious world.

DB – Also depends on how specific you need to be. The specificity of where things are in the city aren’t needed (like where is a pub located) – it depends, do you need to be specific?

FH – the French quarter constantly changes, so she gives herself freedom to change names of pubs/bars, etc – but she keeps the street names.

DBC – Writing novels set in Boston in 1765 (The Thieftaker series, under his pen name D.B. Jackson) presents problems, too. He’s found books about the time and place.  He’s researching extensively.

GM: No matter how much you research, your readers always know more and will be quick to point it out to you.

RA: Go to Youtube. Lots of people make driving videos these days.



Audience: Do you pick places for foreshadowing?

FH: Always.



Audience: There always seems to be a hateful relationship with the protagonists and law enforcement.

JF: It can happen. It does in his void city series.

GM: Depends on how you set up your series. Do people know about the supernaturals?

KP: Agreed.  Depends on your worldbuilding. Consider it part of the worldbuildig. You should.

GM: And sometimes, the people keeping the peace get it wrong.


Audience: Can  you change details? Blow up a landmark?

DBC and FH: Will change details as needed.

FH: It’s my N'awlins. Not the real N'awlins.

GM: Creative change. If you live in that city, you can laugh because those things aren’t there.



Audience: Obviously, the smells are big, important, part of the feel of being there.

DB: Yes, you can tell what cetain places smell like. The smells are different. Cities smell different. Smells are vital, are important. They really ground the reader in the feeling of being there.

GM: If you’re reading a book set in a city and have some experience with that smell, it’s gratifying if you’ve been there and you know because the author got it right. Adds another element of realism.

GM: Also, certain technology, behaviours can date things. Yes, it’s definitely useful to use a generic term rather than specifics. Specifics date and confuse.


Audience: Is it always going to be the case that humans have no chance? Can the police force get lucky?

KP: Your protagonist should be the only one who can solve the problem thoruhg great effort and change, and otherwise it’s someone else’s story.


Audience: So many humans. Humanity bands together.

GM: The human element: yeah, we’ve got opposable thumbs and we’re adaptable.

DBC: Yeah, but the hero is the one who overcomes through taking the road less traveled, unconventional thinking.

GM: We’re adaptable and on our good days we can do pretty darn well.