Readers are like fish. Smart fish. Fish who know authors are out to get them, reel them in, and capture them for the rest of their sea-going lives. Like all self-respecting fish, readers aren’t caught easily. They aren’t about to surrender to the lure of your story unless you present them with an irresistible Hook.

Naturally, our discussion of story structure begins at the beginning, and the beginning of any good story is its Hook. Unless you hook readers into your story from the very first chapter, they won’t swim in deep enough to experience the rest of your rousing adventure, no matter how amazing it is.

What Is the Hook?

The Hook comes in many forms. Stripped to its lowest common denominator, it’s a question. If you can pique readers’ curiosity, you’ve got ’em. Simple as that.

The beginning of every story should present character, setting, and conflict, but in themselves, none of these are the Hook. You’ve created a Hook only when you’ve convinced readers to ask the general question, “What’s going to happen?” because you’ve also convinced them to ask a more specific question—e.g., “What scary reptilian monster killed the worker?” (Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton) or “How does a city hunt?” (Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve).

Writing a good opening scene can be tricky. Not only must you engage readers, you must do so with a scene element that creates and foreshadows everything to come. The most obvious way to do this is to think of the Hook as setting up cause and effect for the next thing that happens, which will create a new cause for a new effect, and so on throughout the story.

You can also go deeper by considering how the Hook operates within the larger pattern of story structure and how it relates to other structural beats. Particularly, consider how you can design a Hook that foreshadows the First Plot Point. As the first major turning point in the story, the First Plot Point (which ends the First Act and begins the Second Act about a quarter of the way into the story) is the first moment that requires significant foreshadowing.

It is important to understand the protagonist will not become inextricably engaged with the story’s main conflict until the First Plot Point. Because the First Plot Point is such a big moment in the story, it requires setup. The entirety of the First Act is about foreshadowing this moment. Therefore, although the Hook should be causally important in leading up to the First Plot Point, it will not likely involve the protagonist directly with either the main plot goal or the main antagonist. Rather, it will begin crafting the milieu and motive that will lead to those encounters. We will talk more about the First Act in next week’s post.

Foreshadowing in your story’s Hook need not be explicit. It can be as simple as setting the tone or, more practically, setting up the pieces that will set the main conflict into motion. The intent is to create a solid line of cause and effect beginning with the Hook and leading to the First Plot Point. This ensures your story’s opening will be pertinent and effective in pulling readers into your main plot.

Another approach, which can be used simultaneously in some instances, is to start thinking about your story’s finale. The two halves of a story mirror each other, with the beats in the first half setting up and reflecting the beats in the second half (something I talk about in my book Next Level Plot Structure).

Consider what your story’s Resolution might be. How might the events of your story’s first chapter reflect the events of your last chapter? This might be very obvious in that the initial circumstances are entirely reversed by the end. It might also be that your character returns to the same setting in the end to witness how it has or has not changed. This mirroring can be extremely subtle and still be effective. At this point, you can use it merely to help inspire a solid beginning scene.

3 Techniques for Hooking Readers

You can use many different techniques to create a Hook that both engages readers and sets up your story. Following are some of the most efficacious options, which can be used in combination with each other or any of a myriad other approaches.

1. Open In Medias Res

In medias res means “in the middle of things.” It describes the technique of creating a Hook that plunges readers right into the center of the action. The idea is to avoid the unnecessary throat-clearing of telling readers about the characters and the story world and to instead create a dynamic scene that shows readers who your characters are, what they want, and what kind of entertaining action they will be engaging in throughout the story. Depending on your story, the “action” may be fist fights and car chases, or it may be relational drama and witty banter.

There are many misconceptions about in medias res, particularly that it means cutting to the middle of the structural story with the protagonist already immersed in the main conflict. However, even in sequels that pick up wherever a previously developed plot left off, the full structure must still be present to create the story arc. The function of the Hook remains the same even in stories that begin with the intensity of the action already dialed to 10. The Hook will always set up and lead into the subsequent structural beats of the Inciting Event and First Plot Point, which in turn create the main conflict for this particular story.

2. Open With a Characteristic Moment

In most stories, the strongest opportunity to hook readers is the introduction of your protagonist. This central character should be the primary reason readers are interested in this story. You want to introduce your protagonist in a Characteristic Moment. This is a scene designed to show readers who this person is. In almost all instances, this does not mean showing readers your protagonist going through a normal daily routine. Rather, craft this scene around a scenario that shows readers how your protagonist reacts to an interesting and pertinent situation.

Not only should this situation initiate the line of cause and effect leading to the Inciting Event and then the First Plot Point, it should also showcase your protagonist’s pertinent strengths and weaknesses. If your protagonist’s wit or strength or kindness will be important to the story, create a scene demonstrating these traits. Likewise, if your protagonist’s shyness or short temper or moral grayness will be pertinent, showcase those. This is also your opportunity to introduce important and entertaining relationship dynamics, which will allow you to immediately get the dialogue flowing while also setting up crucial supporting characters.

3. Open with the Scene Goal/Conflict/Disaster

When identifying the most interesting moment to begin your story, you can hack scene structure to help you choose. The three basic elements of scene structure are Goal, Conflict, and Disaster. Depending on your story, emphasizing any one of these aspects can help you find your story’s best Hook.

Opening with a scene goal can help you craft a solid Characteristic Moment, showing exactly what your protagonist wants. This can then tie into the larger plot goal that will develop later to inform your entire story’s throughline. Emphasizing the scene goal can also create an immediate sense of momentum for the scene, ensuring your protagonist starts out in motion, moving toward something.

However, if you instead choose to open later in the scene’s structure, you will automatically gain some benefits of in medias res. Beginning with the scene conflict allows you to skip right to the heart of the moment and show readers what type of action will be most prevalent in your story and how your protagonist deals with adversity. After getting into the action, you can then step back and offer any necessary information about what led to this moment.

Finally, opening with the scene’s outcome means you’re opening even deeper in medias res, after the character has encountered difficulty in overcoming the conflict to reach the goal. Depending on the nature of your story, this outcome might be quite tense and exciting, but it might also simply offer context as you immediately introduce the character’s next goal.

Learning more about scene structure (which I talk about in the second half of Structuring Your Novel) can help you decide which of these options might be best for your story’s Hook.

Where Does the Hook Belong?

The Hook should be present as early as possible in your first scene. However, the hook must be organic. Teasing readers with a killer opening line (“Mimi was dying again”) only to reveal all is not as it seems (turns out Mimi is a Broadway actress performing her 187th death scene) not only negates the power of your Hook, it also betrays readers’ trust.

Stories contain many hooks. Indeed, you don’t want the impetus and curiosity created by one hook to die down without planting the next hook. This is true for every scene in your story. However, when we consider the Hook as a specific structural beat, we are talking about the first hook. Not only must the Hook pull readers into your story, it must also offer the first domino in the row of dominos that will create your plot.

The Hook takes place at the 1% mark in your story, the very beginning. A witty opening line can sometimes be enough to create the initial question that piques reader curiosity. However, don’t overvalue the opening line. Most stories use the opening line as part of an opening paragraph that plants the Hook in a more deliberate and leisurely manner. Depending on the pacing and tone of your story, you may even be able to introduce the Hook more slowly toward the end of the opening scene. This requires skill, since you have to trust readers to be patient enough to get that far.

Examples of the Hook From Film and Literature

Now that you know what a structural Hook is and where it belongs, let’s consider a few examples. I’ve selected two movies and two novels to use as examples throughout this series so you can follow the story arc as presented in popular and successful media. Let’s look at how the professionals hook us so effectively we never realize we’ve swallowed the worm.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813): Austen begins by hooking us with her famous opening line:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

The subtle irony creates a sense of conflict from the very first and hints that neither the wife in search of the fortune nor the man in search of the wife will reach their goals so easily. Austen deepens the pull of her Hook into her opening paragraph by further highlighting the juxtaposition of her opening statement with the realities of her plot. She deepens it still further throughout the opening scene, which introduces the Bennet family in such a way that we not only grow interested in them, but also learn both the thrust of the plot and the difficulties of the conflict.

It’s a Wonderful Life directed by Frank Capra (1947): Capra begins with a framing device that hooks viewers with a sneak peek of the Climax. The movie opens at the height of the main character’s troubles and has us wondering why George Bailey is in such a fix that the whole town is praying for him. Next thing we know, we’re staring at an unlikely trio of angels, manifested as blinking constellations. The presentation is not only unexpected, it succinctly expresses the coming conflict and stakes while engaging us with specific need-to-know questions.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (1977):

The opening line to this award-winning science-fiction novel is packed with hooking questions:

I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one. Or at least as close as we’re going to get.

Just like that, Card has us wondering how the speaker is watching and listening through someone else’s mind. Who is “the one”? What is “the one” supposed to do? And why are they settling for a “one” who is less than perfect? Card then builds into a scene that introduces his unlikely hero, six-year-old Ender Wiggin, just as his life is turned upside down.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World directed by Peter Weir (2004): As a brilliant adaptation of Patrick O’Brian’s beloved Aubrey/Maturin series, this film is unorthodox in many ways, not least in its non-formulaic tone and plot. Nevertheless, it demonstrates structural integrity, beginning with a stark opening that shows the morning ritual aboard the man-of-war HMS Surprise. Aside from arousing our natural curiosity about the unique setting, the Hook doesn’t appear until a minute or so into the film when one of the midshipmen spots what might be an enemy ship. The film carries viewers through a few tense moments of uncertainty and indecision, then, almost without warning, plunges them into a horrific sea battle. We are hooked almost before we see the Hook coming.

Top Things to Remember About the Hook

1. Hooks should be an integral part of the plot.
2. Hooks don’t always involve action, but they always set it up.
3. Hooks never waste time.
4. Hooks almost always pull double or triple duty in introducing character, conflict, and plot—and even setting and theme.

Your Hook is your first chance to impress readers. Plan your Hook carefully and wow readers so thoroughly, they will never forget your opening scene.

Stay tuned: Next week, we’ll talk about the First Act.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! What Hook begins your story structure? Tell me in the comments!

Related Posts: Part 1: 5 Reasons Story Structure Is Important

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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Why is writing emotion so important in our books, whatever the genre? How can we create an emotional connection between our readers and our characters? Roz Morris gives her tips in this episode.

In the intro, how to get your indie book into schools [Self-Publishing Advice]; Did my bestselling book turn out to be a financial failure? [Tiago Forte]; How to Build a World Class Substack; Why did The Atlantic sign a licensing deal with OpenAI? [The Verge]; Like It or Not, Publishers Are Licensing Books for AI Training—And Using AI Themselves [Jane Friedman]; and my personal update post-Covid.

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Roz Morris is an award-nominated literary fiction author, memoirist, and previously a bestselling ghostwriter. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker, and writing coach.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Why is writing emotion is so important?
• How can we create an emotional connection between our readers and our characters?
• How to write layers of emotion
• Using description and dialogue to evoke feelings in the reader
• “Show, don’t tell” when writing emotion
• Learning to lean into our intuition and trust more
• Using your own emotions and experiences in writing
• How and when to use a beat sheet

You can find Roz at RozMorris.org.

Transcript of Interview with Roz Morris

Joanna: Roz Morris is an award-nominated literary fiction author, memoirist, and previously a bestselling ghostwriter. She writes writing craft books for authors under the Nail Your Novel brand, and is also an editor, speaker, and writing coach. So welcome back to the show, Roz.

Roz: Hi, Jo. It’s so great to be here again.

Joanna: Yes, and you have been on the show many times before over the last 14 years.

Roz: I feel like we’re old timers, gosh.

Joanna: Oh, we are so old timers, but that’s because you’re so good at this, I wanted you back. The last time was in January 2023, when we talked about how to finally finish your book, which was a super popular episode. Though, given your many creative projects, what have you been working on in the last 18 months? Give us an idea of where you are in the creative cycle.

Roz: Well, just after that, I did an audiobook of my third novel. Then I was playing with ideas for another novel, and they sort of settled a bit, but I couldn’t figure out really what I wanted to do. Then another novel idea came along, and that’s starting to incubate.

Meanwhile, just as a kind of amuse-bouche, I’ve been writing a follow-up to my travel memoir, which is Not Quite Lost: Travels Without A Sense of Direction. So I’ve rather got the taste for writing little memoirs of un-adventures. I just really like them as a way of storytelling.

Joanna: Oh, that’s funny. Un-adventures, I do love that.

The audiobook, did you narrate that?

Roz: No, I didn’t. I managed to get back my narrator who did my first two novels because she just had such a good take and understanding of the material. She really wanted to do a third one if there was a possibility, so that worked really well.

Joanna: What about the travel memoir? Have you done that as an audiobook yourself?

Roz: I haven’t, but if there is an audiobook that, I want to do it.

Joanna: Yes, you must. You’ve got such a lovely voice. I do think memoir is one of those things, and your Nail Your Novel books as well. I think that these are some things, the nonfiction side, that we can do as authors more easily, I think.

Roz: I think so. Also, people get used to hearing the real us on podcasts like this, on videos that we appear on, when we speak in real life, and that sort of thing. So our genuine voice is really important there.

Joanna: Absolutely. Well, people should look forward to that at some point. Anyway, into our topic for today, we’re going to focus on writing emotion into our books, both for fiction and also for other genres like memoir and narrative nonfiction. So just to set the scene—

Why is writing emotion so important?

Roz: Well, readers love to feel. They absolutely wants to care about what happens. They love to be involved in what happens. Reading is a really intimate thing to do if you think about it. It’s just you and the author’s words, and yet it sort of goes into you and creates pictures and emotions.

So being in control of the emotion you are writing is a really important writing skill.

The emotion you write is closely linked to the genre. You have to know as a writer what emotion the reader of your genre is seeking.

Are they seeking thrills, or shivers, or a bit of romance? Do they want to be scared? What kind of scariness? Do they want a cozy level of scary? Or do they want something really dark that is something that speaks to them deeply? All that comes from writing emotion. Understanding what emotion the reader is looking for is the key to understanding your genre.

Joanna: It is fascinating. I was thinking about this because in my book Desecration, I wrote an emotion that I have never experienced, and some people did experience that themselves.

I was crying when I was writing it, and people did write to me that it was emotional for them. So I guess for me, I felt that was something I wanted to write about, but that I haven’t necessarily experienced, even though I kind of did as I was writing it.

Can we write about things we haven’t experienced ourselves?

Roz: We absolutely can. I did that with my novel Ever Rest. It has a lot about the grief of losing a companion, a close friend, a lover. I’m very lucky—I’m going to touch some wood right now—I’m very lucky it hasn’t happened to me, but I managed to find genuine place to understand the emotion.

Then, shortly after I published it, a reader contacted me and said her husband had just died and she was reading my book. I thought, oh, heavens, this is a real test.

She said, “You’ve got it. This is what I needed.” So we can seek understanding and empathy of situations we haven’t personally been in if we are perceptive, and truthful, and looking for the reality, and be sensitive.

So we can write things we haven’t personally experienced, but we can write them from a place of wanting to understand them. Here, actually, beta readers can be very important because you can bounce something off a beta reader and say, “Can you just look at this and check I’ve got the truth?”

Joanna: And of course, for my genre fiction, I was just thinking how ridiculous that question was as I was saying it. Like in my Catacomb, which is a horror book—I can’t say much without being a spoiler—but there are lots of things in genre fiction, in fantasy, also in romance, there’s lots of things that people haven’t experienced that they are writing about.

I guess it’s more cathartic for the reader because the reader doesn’t actually necessarily want to experience that either.

Roz: Yes, but they do want to feel this authenticity there. If you think about the word author, it has the word authority in it. They want to feel you are guiding them securely and with complete confidence through an experience.

Joanna: So let’s come back to that caring about what happens that you mentioned, and creating that emotional connection between a reader and our characters.

I know in a previous life you wrote some thrillers, and I obviously read thrillers. Sometimes I get really annoyed because I’m like, I really don’t care what happens to this character, it’s just action on action.

How do we create that emotional connection between a reader and our characters?

Roz: Well, that’s such a good point to raise because no matter what you’re writing, you want to make the reader care. Not necessarily care whether the person that they’re reading about lives or dies, but just care what happens next.

What you have to do is show why something matters. A mistake that I see in a lot of manuscripts that I’m given, is that we don’t understand why something matters. It’s as if I can feel the writer thinking, “Well, the reader will just assume it matters.”

Well, no, they won’t. They actually have to be educated at the start of the book about why a particular situation matters. Then much later on, they will understand why it matters, and you won’t have to do nearly so much explaining.

Then you can just get on with showing them things. They’ll know the characters as well as they would know a friend. They’ll think, oh, my goodness, that will really matter.

Joanna: I guess we need some more examples there in terms of some concrete ways. I think the word educating, although I know what you mean, to some people it might be sort of like, “Oh, do I need a big info dump about the backstory of this person and why this particular thing is so important?” So maybe just—

Give us an example of how educating a reader might work without an info dump.

Roz: Yes, that’s a very good point. You don’t have to do an info dump, you can actually just put in a few details that give context.

So for example, you might have a person looking out of the window, and they see a strange car drive up and stop near their house. They might think, “Oh, a strange car has driven up beside the house.”

Some writers might just leave it there, but a writer who is taking a bit more care about educating the reader—we’ll use that phrase—might linger a bit longer on what the person’s concerns are.

So this person looking out of the window and being worried might say, “A black car, I haven’t seen that car before. I was always told that when so-and-so’s people came, you wouldn’t recognize them.” Now that sets up worry, and you can see they’re worried. You can see they’ve got something in their past that they’re trying to run away from.

That will make the reader curious as well. They might think, oh, I’m maybe ready for a bit more about this. Now, you might not have to put that information in immediately. You might leave it until a couple of pages later, or you might say a little bit more there and then.

What you’ve done is you’ve shown a specific worry, a specific concern, about why that car has attracted this character’s attention.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. The specifics of the situation are really important. Now, some people will worry about this likable character thing, as in—

Does a character have to be likable for us to care what happens to them in the story?

Roz: Not necessarily. They have to be curious about what will happen. They have to care what happens next. They don’t necessarily have to like the character, but they often have to see something that will make them a bit intrigued.

For instance, there’s a play I was just reading about called Skeleton Crew, which is by Dominique Morisseau. It’s about workers in a car factory in Detroit in the 1980s. To begin with, they’re all just working, they’re getting along, they’re being their tough everyday selves.

Really interestingly, in the descriptions of the characters, the author has put a little line about what, very deep down, they’ve got going on inside. So one of them always hoped she was made for better things. One of them always thought, oh, there’s something really bad inside me and I know it will come out in the end.

One of them always had this faith that the world would be a really lovely place and would be really good to her in the end. Those little pieces of information are under everything they do.

If you can then show that in their everyday lives they have some of that coming out and maybe influencing what they do, that might give them a little hint of vulnerability, which is very appealing to readers.

If readers see that someone has got something they care about, or something that might hurt them, something they’re protecting themselves against, while they may not necessarily be likable, the reader might understand that there is a piece of vulnerability in them.

That can make them very likable, even if they seem to be just ordinary, or in fact, maybe a bit badly behaved.

Joanna: Yes, the example I love to give is Succession, which is just one of my favorite series. Have you seen Succession?

Roz: Oh, I gobbled it up. When I was about to watch the last season, I watched all the others again. They are a brilliant example of characters who have all got this layer of vulnerability inside them.

Life could go badly wrong for them, and if you can give a hint of someone who is on the edge of life going badly wrong, that will count a long way towards making the reader just care about what happens to them, even if they wouldn’t like to have them as friends.

Joanna: Yes, and there’s not very many likeable characters in Succession, but boy, do you care what is what is going on there. I do think there’s so much emotion in that series. If people haven’t seen it, it really is a masterclass in subtext, as well, of like a family drama. Fascinating.

So let’s just dig down on the layers of emotion. You’ve talked before about the emotions we want readers to feel, but it’s not just love, it’s not just fear.

How do we dig down on those layers to make it more nuanced?

Roz: I think we have to approach every character as an individual. What we might do is consider, as we were talking, about the layers that they have underneath them.

We might have things we know about the characters that the characters don’t know about themselves, but they create a consistent pattern of interesting behavior.

We want to show interesting behavior and things that matter to them. So love might be a thing that matters to them, or feeling secure, or getting revenge. There are lots of big emotions that might come out of quite small, but very deeply seeded beginnings.

So if you look at the various deep seeds that you have in the characters and see what each person might do because of that, that can give you a lot of nuance.

Joanna: What about bringing in the various aspects of an emotion in a book?

So for example, if it is love of a partner, let’s say—you and I are both married—love of a husband is one aspect of love. But should people be incorporating elements of love of children, or of parents, or pets, or money, or a love of other bad things as well, to kind of bring some nuance to it?

Roz: What you often have in a narrative that’s got love as a theme, for instance, is a number of ways that love could be expressed in other ways in the story. So you might have good love and bad love, if it’s romantic love, for instance. You might have loyalty that isn’t romantic. You might explore an emotion in a lot of different ways.

If you give the reader lots of ways of experiencing that emotion, then that will add up to a thematic picture that makes them feel, oh, this book is about love or this book is about revenge.

Joanna: I’m coming back to your mis — un-adventures you called them. Un-adventures, not misadventures. The travel memoir, for example, and of course, I’ve written a travel memoir too, Pilgrimage. I certainly didn’t go into that with an emotion in mind. Did you go into yours with an emotion in mind?

If people are writing memoir or narrative nonfiction, how should they think about emotion there?

Roz: It was interesting. With that memoir, I had a series of stories and they were just personal diary entries. When I thought I might make these into a book, I had to see how I would make them interesting in any way to anybody who wasn’t me.

So what I did was I found that there were ways in which they were telling me something bigger about life. There were things that I wanted to bring out of them to show other people.

So for instance, the funny ways people behave if you go to a holiday town out of season. You just feel like you’re strangers, and you’re aliens, and you’ve wandered in there, and people treat you in a really weird way. It was a very small thing, but I found that interesting, the emotional effects of oh, this is how people treat you. That was just one of them.

Another one was there’s this country road that we really liked traveling. I was thinking, well, why does this really appeal to me? Does it appeal to anyone else? So I started digging and thinking, well, this appeals to me because there’s a real sense of history under the car wheels. So then I went on from there.

I looked for things that would take me to wider human experiences.

Not just my own particular experiences, but I started with the particular. Then I looked for things that were more widely recognizable.

Again, that’s what we can do in stories. The particular is very important. You can’t really get a reader to engage with generalizations. They need to see something specific and particular. So a particular character having a particular problem, a particular worry. Worries are really good for getting people curious.

Then from that they start to think, but wait, I know how that feels. I would hate to be in that situation, or I’d love to be in that situation. That’s another possibility.

So you start with something particular, and then you kind of work out how to make it something that a lot of people can understand and connect with. Connecting is another really important concept.

Joanna: As you were talking there, I was thinking about being an outsider in a town. I did a lot of solo traveling in my younger days, and I am kind of obsessed with this idea of the outsider, actually. Then I was thinking, well, what’s the name of the emotion? Is there one word? Or is it that we are actually looking for feelings, as you say?

Roz: I think it’s feelings. I think we don’t have to pin down a name. Maybe there is one, like loneliness-freude or something.

It’s more that we want to evoke the feeling. We don’t have to find one word for it, what we have to do is make the reader feel it themselves and understand what we’re feeling, what we’re noticing, that makes us feel like the outsider.

Here’s where description is really useful because you can use description to plug the reader into the specific emotions that are creating this whole experience. So for instance, you might be walking along thinking, “The sun is shining. It’s got no business to be shining because I’m about to do something that I’ve been dreading.”

Therefore, there’s a point in telling the reader the sun is shining. It wasn’t just, oh, the sun is shining because I’ve got to say something about what the day looks like. It’s that the sun is shining, and it’s making me realize that I don’t feel joyful at all.

On the other hand, if it’s raining and the sky is completely gray, but you’re thinking, “I don’t care because I’m just having such a brilliant time. I’m soaked to the skin, but I don’t mind because this place is just so refreshing. it’s zinging all my senses.”

Again, that’s a use of description, and it’s specific. It’s specific to a particular experience, and it involves the reader in what we’re feeling. So description is really important. You don’t have to know the word for it, the one word. What you do have to know is all the feelings you want the reader to understand when you drew their attention to a particular thing.

Joanna: Yes. Well, a few things to expand on there. So the first thing is how the character is feeling. When I re-edited my first novel, I did find that I’d written “feel” quite a lot. So, “Morgan felt something,” instead of describing more descriptive stuff around that, more details.

So maybe you could talk about “show, don’t tell” and having characters say, “I am angry,” or, “Ross was angry,” as opposed to what else.

How do we do “show, don’t tell” with emotion?

Roz: Well, “show, don’t tell” is a very important dramatic principle. It gives the reader an experience. You could say, “She got wet,” or you could say, “She walked along the street. The rain trickled down the back of her collar, it was freezing cold. Even her shoes were absolutely sodden and squelched with each step.”

That’s also, “she got wet.” That’s you understanding what it feels like to get wet. But the telling version is, “She got wet.”

Now, it’s a question of emphasis. Sometimes you don’t need the reader to feel what it’s like to get wet. Sometimes you just need to know she got wet, and then you move on because something else is more important. Sometimes it’s important to dwell in that moment and give the reader the experience of getting wet, or feeling angry, or noticing something.

Often when we self-edit, we come to a passage and we think, oh, should I give the reader more of an experience here? Or should I just gloss over it because it’s not so important?

It’s often quite hard, actually, first of all, to know when you’re showing and when you’re telling, and when you should show and when you should tell. You can look for certain phrases like “she felt,” and “she got angry,” or “she got calm.”

If you look for phrases like that where you’ve kind of been a bit distanced, you could ask yourself, would I like to see what it’s like if I just delve a bit more into the immediacy of the moment? So describe the feeling of anger, which might be someone saying, “I couldn’t stand it if she happened to mention such and such,” or something like that.

Joanna: I think that’s a good tip, actually. So really, when we talked before about the one word, so anger, and love, and grief, these are kind of the one words. If you find those one words in your manuscript, as well, “she loved him,” that can have so many deeper meanings that you really would want to expand in a lot of situations.

As you said, it is really hard, isn’t it? Especially for newer authors to know—

When do you just expand everything into “showing, not telling,” and when do you just gloss over that?

Do you have any other tips there? Because you also edit other people’s manuscripts, don’t you?

Roz: Yes, I do. It is a question of just thinking, how much do I want the reader involved in this? Or does it not really matter?

Sometimes you can just say, “They drove to Denver,” and that’s enough. You don’t have to tell the reader what it was like driving to Denver, but if it might enhance the manuscript to do that, have a go at telling them what it felt like to drive to Denver.

Sometimes in editing my own work, I’ll think, should I expand that or not? So I’ll try expanding it, and occasionally I’ll think, yes, that did work better. Or occasionally I’ll think, no, I don’t really need to dwell on that very much.

So sometimes you just have to experiment and think, is there more to find out about this that would actually make the book a better experience and would give the reader the experience that I am directing them towards?

You always have to be very conscious of where you’re directing the reader’s attention.

Joanna: Yes, it’s interesting, that “going home to Denver.” Immediately, in my mind, I was thinking of someone going back to maybe their childhood home in Denver, and that feeling that we all get when you go back to your childhood home.

Then that made me think that you’re not quite lost because you do go back to a childhood home. So again, it’s so interesting what comes up.

To me, as a discovery writer, this is the process. It is, what does it spark in your head, and is that something you want to tap into even further?

Did you mean to write nostalgia into that book?

Roz: I discovered it was there. That’s a really good point. With that particular piece that you’re talking about, I discovered that my childhood home had been knocked down. I was just seized with the need to write about it.

Then I thought, well, why will anyone else care about my childhood home? So I had to make each point something that I hoped people could understand and follow my feeling through.

So, yes, I just got this powerful sense of nostalgia, and I just wanted to explore that. Childhood homes always got that from everybody. It’s interesting that you picked up on that when I when I said, “Drive back to Denver.”

We all have our own resonances that we pick up on and emotions that we’re interested in.

That’s part of the delight of reading, that we get something very particular from a particular author, and another author might say something completely different about an experience. Again, that’s why particular is very important.

Joanna: Yes, and this comes to intuition, which I’m pretty obsessed with at the moment, in terms of trusting that story intuition. I think sometimes writers overcorrect themselves. They might think, oh, that wouldn’t be the thing to write here.

If you’re feeling any sensation, or draw, or curiosity to this thing, then that’s something you should write about.

You’ve been writing for a long time and you work with a lot of authors, how can we lean into that intuition and trust more?

Roz: I think it’s essential to do that. That’s where our style comes from. That’s where our originality comes from. It’s what moves us. I talked at the beginning about how the emotion that a reader gets is the genre, and that comes from what you are interested in and what you respond to as a human.

Joanna: Then I guess the other side of it is being careful, especially with emotional topics. You talked about grief before. Grief is obviously a big one. Relationships or family home can be very emotional.

How can authors use their emotion and their own experiences in their writing without getting overly dramatic or perhaps even hurting themselves in the process?

Roz: There are two aspects to this. There’s one aspect of how deep can you go while protecting yourself, and only you know that.

You can get yourself a safe space where you can just experiment on the page. No one else needs to see it, no one ever will need to see it, and you can just write without judgment. Just letting whatever comes come, and you can get rid of it, you can decide not to use it.

If you do this very emotional kind of exploration, you can get better and better at it in terms of just seeing what comes and then deciding, I may use this, I may not. It’s just something I’m doing privately between me and the screen.

If you’re writing something that is destined to be in a book which other people will ultimately read, remember, you can self-edit. Remember, all drafts are rough in some way. There are things that we sort out at all different stages of the writing.

So you might get the plot right first, or you might get the general style right first. There might be particular scenes that you’re always editing right up to the end because they are difficult for you to get right. No one else needs to know about all that, it just comes out to the reader perfectly in the end.

So you can edit any number of times. You can decide to try going deeper into a scene, you can then decide no, there was too much of that, but I might keep some of what I discovered as I was writing it. Discovery writing is a good phrase here, that phrase of yours. I think we can discovery edit.

Joanna: Yes, that’s interesting. Maybe the “on the train to Denver” situation, you might have just written that in your first draft, and then on your second pass you might actually realize that nostalgia is an important part.

It’s funny, again, what comes up in your mind. It made me think of Stranger Things. You know, Stranger Things, even though it’s a horror/sci-fi, actually, a lot of its success comes from nostalgia. There’s been a sort of revival of the 80s, and I know you’re a Kate Bush fan.

Roz: Absolutely.

Joanna: That song, was it “Running Up That Hill,” is that the song? It went to the top of the charts again, after something like 30 years. Bless her, she’s an independent artist.

Roz: She is the very epitome of independence. She absolutely set me on the path to being the kind of creator I wanted to be.

[Kate Bush] wrote what she was interested in, and she produced it herself, and yet, she’s an absolute icon for me.

Joanna: That song is so interesting because I wasn’t so into it at the beginning. Then I watched Stranger Things, and what they did with that—again, using TV, obviously, not a not a book, but a lot of people will have seen it—hooking nostalgia and care for that character. I think it’s Max, the character, and also the horror.

It’s a masterclass on how to mix various emotions into something much more powerful.

Connecting something to a song—and although remember everyone, you can’t use lyrics in your books, don’t use lyrics—but that kind of emotional resonance we get when we mix all that together, it’s just so powerful.

Roz: It is. Resonance is an important word. I was talking at the beginning about educating the reader and making them understand what a character feels about a particular thing.

Later in a book, as I said, the reader should know the characters well enough to be feeling alongside them, as though they were friends. So it has such powerful resonance, it’s like a song coming back.

They know, and they get the feelings, this instant rush of feeling. “Oh my goodness, if that happens, this will be awful.” Or, “This would be a dream come true.”

Joanna: Yes, another thing I was just thinking about there was the juxtaposition of emotions in genre. For example, in horror, you will often get a lighter scene, even some humor, to detract from the horror side of it.

I guess, again, Stranger Things would be a good example of that. You mentioned before being in control of the emotion—

You have to be really manipulative, don’t you?

Roz: Totally manipulative. I often think that writing is a conjuring trick that the writer is doing with the reader’s mind. You’re absolutely right that we have to vary the emotions and the pace and the intensity.

You need to give the reader a rest, otherwise they just feel remorselessly bludgeoned by strong emotions. So the scene where things are a bit calmer, and quieter, and maybe a bit humorous, is very important for just giving the reader time to recharge before they’re ready for another big thing.

Joanna: I mean, thinking again, Shonda Rhimes is really good at this. I mean, obviously, she’s a screenwriter and the showrunner. Bridgerton, she does it so well in Bridgerton.

Also, Grey’s Anatomy is the other one I was thinking of. You got this harrowing, people dying and everything, and then there’s some kind of light emotion that will make you laugh. I find that really hard though.

I find it very hard to put those lighter notes in darker books. Any tips for that?

Roz: Yes, I learned to do this a very long time ago when I was writing thrillers. I devised a system for figuring out exactly what I was doing with the emotion in each scene. It’s in my book Nail Your novel, the original one.

So I make a thing called a beat sheet. It’s a very detailed outline of the entire book, and I note all the emotions going on in the scenes. From that, I can see whether I’ve got enough of a variety of emotions, and also pacing as well, just to make sure the reader doesn’t get worn out before their time.

Joanna: That beat sheet, do you create that beforehand?

Are you an outliner, or do you do that later?

Roz: I am an outliner because I like to know where I’m going. I also give myself permission to veer off piste if something seizes me in the writing, and I think, oh, this is the true direction, I now have to do it. Then I might adjust my outline.

I find that if I write completely off into the sunset, I do get lost. So I do need to kind of pull the reins and bring myself back in.

I tend to make the beat sheet once I have got a finished manuscript. Then I use that to see what I should move around, what I should turn up. It’s a really good way of disassociating myself from the scene-by-scene words on the page and seeing what I’ve got.

Pacing is really important for emotion because you want to make sure that the reader is getting the right information. I keep using this term information, but you are giving the reader information.

You’re just giving them information they care about, and they want to know, and they’re really curious about. So you have to sort of be careful about the order you do all that in and how you handle it.

Joanna: Just to encourage everyone listening, this sounds complicated, but I do think that at heart, we are human, we are emotional.

So if you are writing with that authenticity, like you mentioned, or you’re making up that authenticity, because I haven’t been in many of the situations I write about, but I feel like you can use the editing process to fix this up. You’ve given a number of tips there.

I do want to come back to a couple of things. First of all, setting an atmosphere in emotion. So I want to come back to the example you gave earlier, the car outside on the road and the person looking out the window.

How can we use setting and atmosphere to enhance the emotions?

Roz: If I was writing it, I would think about what the weather was like and how that seemed to enhance or contrast with the worry that the character was feeling. I’d start with the character’s emotion, what are they feeling?

Then I’d have something like the sun glinting off a windscreen and think everything looks very normal in the street, but it’s actually not because there’s this really worrying car. I’d use the setting there to apparently be showing normality, but also highlighting the anxiety that the character is feeling.

Again, as I said, if you’re trying to provoke the readers emotions, description is really important for that. It should always be as relevant as possible for what the character is feeling, what you want the reader to be interested in.

Description for its own sake, that’s boring usually. Description for the sake of highlighting an emotion, or contrasting an emotion, or showing something impending, something worrying coming towards you for instance, that’s always really interesting to the readers.

You have to think, what will the reader be interested in?

Joanna: Yes, and certainly genre plays a big part, as you mentioned. So, for me, there are storms on the horizon or the clouds that are black in the distance. There’s lots of words for different colors you can use that are quite suspenseful, or quite horror, or quite thriller.

It would be very different if you were writing romance. You would use the weather and the setting in a different way. In fact, coming back to Stranger Things, they do this in the upside down. You might have a dead tree instead of a tree in bloom, and with flowers, and leaves and things.

So using that setting to portray the genre and the emotion at the heart of the genre, I think can be really powerful. Sometimes I feel like people worry, oh, I can’t have a storm coming or black clouds because that’s cliche.

As a reader, I see that as a signal of the story, and I almost expect that. Like if you’re going to give me a horror novel with a climax, and there’s no rain or thunderstorms or dramatic weather, then I might be disappointed.

Roz: Yes, and it’s so genre specific as well. So if you’re writing a haunted house story, then a crash upstairs is really a sign of trouble. If you’re writing something cozier, then a crash upstairs is the wardrobe collapsing.

Joanna: Because the cat jumped off in a funny way.

Roz: Exactly. So all these noises, all these scene setting details, have their own vocabulary in different genres.

Something else that’s really important is the language you use. The language is so evocative. By itself, a word can create a whole feeling. If you use a word like squash, you wouldn’t really use that if you wanted to be serious or dark.

Joanna: Unless it’s Halloween, and it’s like a pumpkin squash.

Roz: Even then I would probably say gourd because of the shape of the word. Every single word creates an atmosphere.

Joanna: I also wanted to ask about authors who might struggle to tap into their emotions, or they kind of know what they’re feeling, but they don’t really know how to describe it.

What are some ideas or tools for people who are struggling to name or write about what they’re feeling?

Roz: First of all, that struggle is really interesting. Embrace it, because it shows that there is something you want to do, and you want to find out how to do it.

I often find myself thinking, I’m not describing this well and I’m not quite evoking this as well as I would like to. So I read other people who’ve done it well, and obviously not to copy them, but just to see how they did it.

So much of the stuff we read, we have no idea really what the author is doing with us, we just know they’ve done it. It’s good to just go and study something that works on you really well. Think, what vocabulary did they use to make me feel that? What setup did they use earlier in the text, or maybe in the whole book, to bring me to this feeling?

So that’s really important. I often find I just want to go and read somebody, even though I know what the book is and what’s going to happen. I’ll go back and read it and think, how did they do that particular thing? There’s always something to learn from a book you’ve enjoyed.

The other thing is, it’s practice as well. Don’t be afraid of writing something that’s bad at first. As I said, it’s private for you, nobody’s going to see it. All sorts of artists in all disciplines do roughs, where they’re doing rubbish before they get to something that’s good and usable.

Just experiment, and you’ll get better at it, you’ll get faster at it.

You’ll get to the stage faster where you think, okay, this is usable, or that’s not going anywhere, so I won’t do that anymore. It’s practice really.

Joanna: Yes, and as you say, noticing how other people write things, and then how you feel, and then more nuanced stuff. So again, I was just thinking of The Crown, which is a fantastic series.

There was one scene, I didn’t even notice it but Jonathan, my husband, did. In one scene, I think it was with Diana and the rest of the Royals, there was a basket of snakes, like a basket of stuffed snakes, like right there on the screen.

I didn’t even notice it, but it was one of those almost subtext atmosphere things that your subconscious would have noticed and felt a particular way about. Like you obviously would feel scared of a basket of snakes, or you’d feel like that whole thing about betrayal.

There’s so much there that’s rich that you might not have even noticed the first time around. If anyone is going to now watch The Crown, keep an eye out for that. I mean, that’s a real advanced technique.

Roz: I will definitely keep an eye out for that. I haven’t got to that bit of it yet.

Yes, that is an advanced technique, something like that. It apparently looks like they just put something there because they had to put something there, but they didn’t, they thought very carefully, what am I going to put there? I’ll put a basket of snakes, great.

Joanna: Yes, I love it. We can do that in our writing. You can just have something, like you walk through a room, but the things you write about that the character sees, some of those are going to give that kind of impression as well.

Roz: They will notice things that seem to be significant to their state at the time. As I was saying with the weather, they’ll notice if it’s making them uncomfortable, or they’ll notice if it’s making them feel life is good. They’ll notice something odd, like there’s a basket of snakes in the corner, why?

Joanna: What kind of house am I in?!

Roz: Something we haven’t talked about is dialogue, because —

If you really want to get the reader involved, which emotion is all about, dialogue is a great way to do that.

You can get the reader to a state where you can have a few characters talking, and they are reading between the lines. They understand what something means to one person and what it means to another person. They understand if there’s an awkward pause, that this might mean something. It might mean there’s a danger area.

Dialogue is really important for getting across emotion and getting the reader immediately involved in the intensity of an emotion that’s going on.

Joanna: Yes, and again, I’ll come back to Succession on that. I actually heard that the writers’ room, they actually filled with playwrights. Ones who were really used to doing dramatic theater which, of course, is dialogue heavy.

So I thought that was really interesting because in live theater, you don’t get to do so much in terms of special effects, or changing the scenery, and all of that kind of thing. So the words have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. I definitely struggle with dialogue more than anything.

Any tips for emotion in dialogue?

Roz: I do find that I have to go over dialogue scenes again and again. That is because I love getting the nuance of it exactly right, and the performance.

What I often do is I take a lot of the verbal words out that the characters are saying to each other, and I try to put in more gestures and silences and maybe a little bit of something in the environment that seems to enhance what’s going on. Say, a picture on the wall that a character notices and thinks, “Oh, that thing is so ugly.”

That’s actually saying something about what they’re feeling about being in the scene with that person. I love all those subtleties, but it does take a lot of time to get a dialogue scene right. So it may be that you’re just doing them properly.

Joanna: Well, there have been lots of tips today.

Where can people find you and your books online in order to learn more?

Roz: You can find my website, that’s probably the easiest way. It’s RozMorris.org.

Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Roz. That was that was great as ever.

Roz: Thank you for having me.

The post Writing Emotion With Roz Morris first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What’s the single most overlooked, misunderstood—and yet important—part of storytelling? If you read the post title, you already know the answer is story structure.

Twelve years ago, I shared the series “Secrets of Story Structure” on this site. That series became the basis of one of my best-known writing-craft books, Structuring Your Novel. That original series and the book that followed were founded upon my journey as a writer, particularly my burning need to understand how story worked. What is story anyway? And which principles and patterns could show me how to write stories that hung together, created seamless arcs, and, most importantly, resonated with readers?

Like most young authors, I was eventually told the answer to all these questions was “structure.” When I began exploring what that meant, I had no idea how monumental a journey I had just embarked on. I expected story structure to teach me how to write great stories. What I didn’t foresee was that it would also change my entire perspective of life itself.

My basic question, “What is story, anyway?” had a much bigger answer than I anticipated. This is because, of course, story is life itself. Story is a reflection of the cyclical patterns and psychological arcs we experience throughout our lives. When we examine the structural patterns that create resonant stories, what we find are the landmarks of life itself.

When we structure a story, we are trying to create a faithful facsimile of real life. This is what grounds a story’s verisimilitude, whether it is hyper-realistic modern fiction or the most fantastical and archetypal of fairy tales. The foundation of solid story structure allows audiences to suspend disbelief and identify with the story world, even if that world is filled with bizarre and unfamiliar details.

Writers often discuss story structure as if it were something we arbitrarily impose upon a story when really just the opposite is true. What we call “story structure” is the shape of life itself. As writers, it is our job to uncover this shape from within our story ideas and to polish it until it touches a point of universal resonance within every member of our audience, no matter how different they may be from us or from each other. Although the simplicity of certain plot beats, by themselves, are not enough to achieve this crystalline resonance, they are the first step.

Writers initially come to story structure for many reasons. Sometimes it is with the explicit purpose of creating that crystalline resonance. More often, it is because we’re trying to write something entertaining, realize we have no idea how to do it, and want guidance. Whatever the case, story structure offers writers a roadmap to writing solid plots. It lays the groundwork for compelling character arcs and themes, taps into the resonance of the collective consciousness, and even deepens our understanding of life.

Although the foundational principles I shared in the original version of this series remain the same, I have learned so much about both stories and life in the past twelve years. I felt it was time to revisit the incredible importance of this information, to polish its rough spots, to add new information, and to correct a few areas where I have refined my perspectives.

I was inspired to revisit this series and, for those who prefer the book experience, to create a revised and expanded second edition of Structuring Your Novel (the book teaches scene structure too). I have also just released a “sequel” Next Level Plot Structure, which goes even deeper into principles of story theory, chiastic structure, and the deeper meaning and purpose of important structural beats. I hope you will enjoy joining me over the next few months as we update this important series and take a deep look into the secrets of story structure. My wish is that you will be able to use this fundamental knowledge to write easier, better, and deeper stories!

What Is Story Structure?

Most uninitiated writers have two different reactions to the idea of story structure. Either they think it’s great but too mystical and lofty to be understood by common mortals. Or they think it’s formulaic hooey that will sap the art right out of their books.

I started somewhere in between—in the “huh?” camp that didn’t even realize there was such a thing as structure. From there, I progressed to reading complicated outlines that left me shaking my head. If that was structure, then it seemed my story would practically be written for me before I even came up with a decent idea. Thanks, but no thanks.

What I didn’t know is that even as I subjected the idea of story structure to my ignorance and ridicule, I was already structuring my stories without even realizing it. In the following years, I was introduced to many theories of structure representing the inevitable components found in good stories whether their authors deliberately structured them or were just lucky enough to wing it on their own good instincts.
The macro level of story structure that I present in this series is a happy medium of the two: ten plot beats that, when arranged correctly, give both authors and readers the biggest bang for their buck.

Foundational story structure creates nothing more than the arc of a story. It does not tell the writer what events must happen at certain beats, only what those beats need to represent to create a functional arc. Although specific beat sheets can sometimes be helpful (especially when dealing with genre formulae), this over-specification can distract from the beautiful simplicity of what story structure really is.

And what is it?

1. Story structure creates a foundation for the plot that mirrors the arc of psychological transformation. It ensures the story contains all the pieces required to make sense while eliminating the temptation to create redundancy.

2. Story structure creates pacing.  Standard plot beats divide the story into eight (ideally) equal parts. Although structural timing will be stressed throughout this series, what is most important to understand is that it exists to create pacing, which in turn exists to control the audience’s experience of the story—to keep them engaged and invested in every moment.

Over the next eleven weeks, we will be exploring, beat by beat, the most important moments in story structure:

The First Act (1%-25%)

1. The Hook (1%)

2. The Inciting Event (12%)

3. The First Plot Plot Point (25%)

The Second Act (25%-75%)

4. The First Pinch Point (37%)

5. The Midpoint – Second Plot Point (50%)

6. The Second Pinch Point (62%)

The Third Act (75%-100%)

7. The Third Plot Point (75%)

8. The Climax (88%)

9. The Climactic Moment (99%)

10. The Resolution (100%)

5 Reasons Story Structure Is Important

Over the next few months, we will explore the mysteries, fallacies, and opportunities of story structure. For now, let’s consider a few reasons every author should care about structure and why none of us should fear it.

1. Structure Is Required in all of Art

Dancing, painting, singing, you name it—all art forms require structure. Storytelling is no different. To bring a story to its full potential, authors must understand the form’s limitations and how to arrange its many parts in the proper order to achieve maximum effect.

2. Structure Does Not Limit Creativity

Authors sometimes fear story structure will inhibit their creativity. If your book follows a specific road and observes certain pit stops, won’t the story be written for you? This is not the case. Structure presents only a shape—the curve of the story arc. It allows us to be concrete and confident in creating that arc, ensuring its effectiveness.

3. Structure Is Not Formulaic

Another fear is that if every story has the same structure, won’t every story ultimately be the same? This isn’t any truer than is the idea that because every ballet incorporates the same movements, every ballet must be the same. Structure is only the box that holds the gift. What that gift may be varies as wildly as the wrapping paper that hides it.

4. Structure Offers a Checklist of Must-Have Elements

Don’t we read how-to books (and blogs like this one) because we want to discover and remember all the elements that make up a successful story? Structure is nothing more than a list of those elements organized in one tidy package.

5. Structure Solidifies Mastery of the Craft

Learning to consciously understand the techniques you’re probably already instinctively using will broaden your understanding and tighten your mastery of the craft. When I first discovered the intricacies of structure, I was amazed to realize I was already incorporating most of the elements in my stories. Learning about these elements allows you to strengthen your raw creative instinct into purposeful knowledge.

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Ready to open up a whole new world of storytelling? Structure is exciting, comforting, and liberating all at once. Whether you’re discovering the ins and outs of story structure for the first time or just brushing up, I hope you’ll enjoy our journey into the most salient and crucial moments in the creation of a story.

Stay tuned: Next week, we’ll talk about the Hook.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! How do feel about the idea of story structure? Tell me in the comments!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

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The post 5 Reasons Story Structure Is Important (Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 1 of 12) appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

How can you lean into intuition and curiosity to embrace discovery writing? How might serial fiction fit into your business model? KimBoo York gives her tips and more in this interview.

In the intro, BookVault now has integration with PayHip; 7 lessons learned from 5 years writing full-time [Sacha Black, Rebel Author Podcast]; My author timeline; List of money books; Crowdfunding for Participation, Profit, and Payment [Self-Publishing Advice]

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy, and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach, and a podcaster at The Author Alchemist and Around the Writer’s Table. Her latest book for authors is By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• What is discovery writing and how does it differ from plotting and outlining?
• How trust and intuition guide discovery writing
• Where to begin the discovery writing process
• Adding layers during the writing and editing process
• The “penny drop” moment of discovery writing
• Embracing the process that works for you
• Differences between a serial, a series, and a novel
• Platforms and marketing for different genres of serials
• Building a business model based on ‘you’

You can find KimBoo at HouseofYork.info.

Transcript of Interview with KimBoo York

Joanna: KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach, and a podcaster at The Author Alchemist and Around the Writer’s Table. Her latest book for authors is By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing. So welcome, KimBoo.

KimBoo: Thank you so much, Joanna. You know I am thrilled to be here. I’m very excited.

Joanna: Oh, good. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

KimBoo: I’m one of those bog standard, ‘I wanted to be a storyteller since I was a kid.’ I loved reading as a kid. I loved telling stories. I think I got into fanfiction when I was like 10 years old, which was like after the original Star Wars. We’re talking in the 70s, because I’m old, Joanna, so this was a long time ago.

In the modern era, let’s say, I got back into writing original fiction, again, through fanfiction. I came into fanfiction during a very rough time of my life, in about 2007/2008. I wrote a lot, and doing that got me back into the habit of writing regularly. I had given up on it throughout the 90s because I just kind of decided nobody was ever going to publish what I wrote. The publishing industry was just too hidebound, didn’t want people like me.

Eventually, some friends of mine got published, got their original fiction published, and they were like, you could do it too. So I did eventually get published by a small indie publisher in 2011.

I eventually went totally independent, self-published later. I got the rights back to my books and republished them, and I’ve kind of just been rolling on ever since.

In early 2023, I really rejuvenized my author career. I realized the way things were going. As you and I talked about before the recording started, serial fiction is a huge growth area right now, and because of my experiences in fanfiction, I love the serial format. So that really just got me back into the game. So that’s where I am right now. I’m trying to make it all work, juggling a bunch of plates.

Joanna: Okay, wow. We’re gonna come back to the serial side because I definitely want to talk about that.

I do just want to mention the fanfiction. I feel like this is something that doesn’t get talked about very much. Given that you did quite a lot of it before writing your own stuff, just remind people what is the legal aspect of fan fiction. In terms of—

Can people publish what they write in fanfiction worlds?

KimBoo: So the straight legal answer is no. You can’t make money off of fanfiction. There’s a lot of people who are doing gray areas in that, I do not recommend it. Fanfiction is a hobby, fanfiction is a pastime.

There’s been some legal contest of it. I’m in the US, so that’s where the copyright laws I’m familiar with. It differs by country, as you well know, Joanna. So, no, you can’t make money off of fanfiction. It’s a hobby.

That said, there’s lots of places where you can share your fanfiction. There’s Archive of Our Own, quickly known as AO3, which is basically a repository where people can post their fanfiction that they’re working on. That is huge. I think that’s like the third biggest site in the world right now. It’s massive.

So there’s a lot of community there, which I think is the most valuable aspect of fanfiction. In fact, I am now working on a book called Out From Fanfiction which chronicles my own journey, and also gives people advice on how to morph from writing fanfiction to original fiction. They’re not the same, but fanfiction can be a great learning ground for you if that’s your passion.

Joanna: I think that’s great and really important to say. It’s good for us to remember too, as we create our own original characters. It’s like you kind of want to encourage people to love characters enough to write about them, but not to publish books about them.

I’d be really interested in that book when it comes out because I feel like a lot of people get started there. Let’s get into the current book on discovery writing. So let’s define that.

What is discovery writing? How does it differ from plotting or outlining?

KimBoo: So a lot of times people describe discovery writing as the absence of. Like you are not using an outline, you are not using a summary, you are not planning it out ahead of time.

I find discovery writing, in a more positive description, is that you’re leaning into your curiosity. So you’re not deciding ahead of time what happens to your character specifically.

You might know that your character’s going on a trip. They’re a pirate, and they’re going to go pirating around the Caribbean.

You don’t know specifically like where they’re going to go, or how they’re going to get there, and what they’re going to encounter along the way. You don’t know because that excites you as a writer.

So you get into it because you’re like, “I want to know what happens next!” So that same rush that a lot of people get when they’re reading a story is a foundational aspect of using discovery writing as a technique.

That’s one of the things I really push in my book is that discovery writing is a technique. It is a technique you use with outlining, using story beats, without any of those things. It’s a technique that you can hone and improve upon over time by practicing it. So that’s kind of the short version of what I think discovery writing is and how it can be useful to writers.

Joanna: I love this. I do think your book is fantastic as a discovery writer. Well, as I was saying, I wrote a chapter on this in my How To Write a Novel book, but you’ve got a whole book on it.

At first, it was funny because I was like, how has she done a whole book on this? As you said, you actually do go through various levels of techniques and all that.

I do want to come back to this positive choice, as in it’s not like the thing that’s left over if you don’t do plotting. I feel like almost that’s the same as being an indie author. So many people have this sort of, “oh, I can’t get traditionally published, so I will self-publish.”

In the same way, this is like a positive choice for a career, this is a positive choice— Well, although I say that, I often feel like I have tried to plot, but it just is not me. So perhaps—

Is there something more innate about being a discovery writer?

KimBoo: I think there is in some way. Joanna, we both know people who do outlines. Some people do like a one sentence outline for each chapter. Some people have 30-page outline treatments. That’s per author, that’s how their brain works.

I did work in disability services in higher education for about 10 years. One of the most valuable things I took away from that experience working with people and students in the college environment was everybody’s brain works differently.

So I do think that there is a certain level of inclination for people like us, that that is how our brain works. We need that dopamine serotonin rush of curiosity to get us into the story.

I hear a lot of writers, and it was certainly my experience as well, that when they wrote an outline, and it was a great outline for a great story, their brain kind of felt like they could write the story because they had already thought that it was written. Like it was already over, there was nothing left.

I’ve tried, like you, I’ve tried using outlines. Every time I do, I either don’t write the story at all because I’m just like, well, that’s done. Or I try to write it according to the outline, and then I go off script completely because my curiosity takes me in a different direction.

So I think there is a certain level of inclination there. Then again, you know, I have used outlining and reverse outlining. So outlining is a tool that I use, it’s a technique that has been helpful for me in writing my books, but I am more inclined to discovery writing.

Joanna: Yes, I agree. It’s very interesting. We’re all different, but actually, you and I are quite similar it sounds, in terms of our writing.

You mentioned “the rush” before. I was thinking about this —

That moment of synchronicity comes, and you didn’t know where it was going to happen, but at some point, the story just makes sense.

I also write out of order, which makes it even more of a discovery process, I guess.

It’s like I just don’t know how these things are going to connect, but at some point, something happens, and it does connect. You have a whole section on intuition, so how do we trust this process? Like, can we learn more skills? Or do we just have to trust that we’re going to make it?

KimBoo: So the answer to that question is yes, because you do have to lean into trusting the process. I think this is the hardest part for all writers, right? It’s just sitting down and doing the writing and trusting that words are going to come. That is an important part of it.

I do think that honing that skill is something that you can actively work on in practice. Like as much as I want people to read my book, my book can help you, but it’s not going to write your books for you. So that’s the catch 22 we are always in.

I know Becca Syme, you’ve talked to her before. [Check out the interview I did with Becca on intuition here.]

If anybody has not read her book on intuition, I do highly recommend it. Intuition is something that you can build on and improve and create a foundation of understanding that works with your discovery writing instincts to help you write better off the mark.

There’s nothing that can’t be fixed in editing, as they say.

The more you practice discovery writing consciously as a technique, and the more you build up your intuition by studying your craft, and fixing problems, and talking with other writers, and then getting critiques and editing, the stronger your discovery writing will be.

Somebody like Dean Wesley Smith who’s famous for his discovery writing, the pantsing, whatever you want to call it, writing into the dark is what he calls it. He can sit down and write a short story, like front to back, without much editing at all, because he’s just been doing it for so long.

So I do think it is a skill you can build up. The bad news is you have to do it by actually writing.

Joanna: Or the good news, because that’s the fun of it. You mentioned Dean Wesley Smith, I love Dean. He’s been a mentor for me for many years. It’s funny, I still disagree with him on editing.

So he kind of says you don’t need an editor, you just need like a proofreader. I’ve “only” written like between 40 and 50 books now, and Dean has written like 400 books over the last four decades. So I feel like they are tools, as you say. Editing is a tool, really, to improve our work.

Let’s just go back to the beginning. You and I know what we mean by this, but you talk about practicing it as a technique. So just explain, like someone is staring at the blank page—

How does someone start with discovery writing?

KimBoo: So one of the easiest ways to do it is to ask yourself, “And then what? What next?” It’s very improvisational in nature.

So if you know anything about theatre improvisation, the big thing for them is, “Yes, and.” My version of that is, “What next?”

So you’re sitting there, you have a character in mind, and they’re there at a coffee house, sitting down and drinking tea. You know there’s got to be some kind of meet cute or inciting incident. Like you know that, but what is it? What is it going to be?

So you sit there and you think, well, what next? What would be the most dramatic thing that could happen?

Oh, well, maybe a dragon falls through the roof. Or maybe the tea shop gets held up at gunpoint. Or maybe somebody sits down and says, “Here’s the secret code that we talked about earlier,” and your character doesn’t know what’s going on.

So trying to charge up that creativity and lean into it, rather than saying, “Okay, so now this person has to have this. This is what has to happen next.” Just ask yourself, what could happen next? What might happen next? Lean into that, and then write.

Sometimes you’re going to end up going back and saying no, that wasn’t what happened next, and something else needs to happen. You’re not going to know that until you start the writing process.

Lean into the curiosity by asking yourself, what next?

What’s most dramatic thing that can happen next? What’s the saddest thing that can happen next? What’s the happiest, most joyous thing that could happen next? Just kick those gears into motion, I think is the easiest way to go about it.

Joanna: Yes, and this is interesting too, because I feel like our author voice is related quite a lot to our sense of curiosity and who we are.

So you mentioned a dragon falling down from above or whatever. That is never, ever, ever going to happen in one of my books as J.F. Penn because I don’t do dragons. What’s more likely is the character is going to fall through the floor into a crypt full of bones underneath.

KimBoo: There you go.

Joanna: There you go, and there’s an idea. That only kind of came to me through the person in the cafe.

Now I wondered, and I haven’t prepped you with this question, but in my head, I see that person in the cafe, and I see them falling into the crypt, and I can see the crypt. Like I could physically describe that for you because I am a very visual person.

How is that for you? I feel like I hear from some people they hear voices, so they hear dialogue. I never, ever, ever hear dialogue. I struggle with dialogue, but I think I’m pretty good at visual description. So talk a bit about that and how—

These choices we make creatively are based on our voice and how our brains work.

KimBoo: That is such a great observation that you made. Like for me, dragon falling through the roof would totally be what happens. Whereas for you, it’s they fall down into a crypt.

I would never have that falling into a crypt, like I would never do that. So our experience in what interests us is what comes to the fore when we start leaning into that curiosity.

I do find it interesting because I am very visual, but I’m also audio. When I write, to me, and I know there are some writers out there like this, I’m watching a movie with audio, it’s not just the scene.

So I’m very good at dialogue, and sadly, not quite as good as descriptions, which is ironic because I can see it in my head. For me, it’s very much watching a scene unfold, and then like being in the movie theater in the dark, and eating popcorn, and seeing what’s going to happen next.

I do know that there are some discovery writers who don’t have that kind of visual cue. They usually do have, as you said, audio cues. They’re listening to something, the characters talking, or they just have an idea that springboards into words on the page.

It’s very unique for each author, and I think that forms your author voice and builds upon your intuition.

What you know works for you, and what works for you as a reader, is what will come into play as a discovery writer or somebody who’s using discovery writing as a technique.

Joanna: We should acknowledge that some people do not see anything. I’ve had several people on the show who have no mind’s eye, as such. There’s nothing wrong with anyone. However you are experiencing the world is up to you.

I think what’s fascinating as writers is that what we see is the end product. You would have absolutely no clue how that got from the person’s head to the finished product.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a discovery writer or a plotter, or you dictate, or whatever you do, it literally doesn’t matter. It’s going to be the same in the future.

The other thing I was going to mention was layering, or Dean Wesley Smith uses circling. I think I kind of circle. So for example, I will circle back and add dialogue.

Even while I’m writing the scene, it will be like, okay, write, write, write, write, write all the stuff I can see, and then oh, yeah, I guess I better go back and put some dialogue in if there’s two characters, or some emotion. I definitely have to go back and add emotion. So how do you do this?

How do you add these layers?

KimBoo: So a couple of things I talk about in my book are techniques, or approaches, rather, to discovery writing. There’s the recursive style, which is what you’re talking about with circling. So you’re laying something down, and then you recursively go back, you reread it, you add elements to it as you go along.

Sometimes, for me, I get far enough into a story that when I go back, I realized that something that I put in there earlier actually is very important for this later scene. So my brain is laying down those layers as I go, sometimes without me even knowing it.

There’s also the bridging technique, which I think is something you use as well. I don’t use it as much because I do write out of order a little bit sometimes, but it’s not a mainstay for me as a technique.

You do bridging. You have these out of order scenes, and then you bridge between them. The creativity and the curiosity comes into play for people who use that technique, by wondering how they’re going to get from one thing to another.

It may seem like those two points are so disparate that they can never be connected, but you know they can. So you’re curious yourself in building and weaving all those images together to create a story.

So a lot depends on what you’re comfortable in writing and how you lay down those things. The more experience you get, I think a lot of times your subconscious is more engaged and layering down things for you.

The recursiveness of discovery writing is a feature, not a bug.

That’s one thing I try to tell people. It’s like going back and reading what you’ve already read, or going back and adding things to what you’ve already written, is you building up the foundations to continue with the creativity and the curiosity.

You may even go back and lay down things that you’re not really sure you have an answer to yet. That’s where the trust comes in.

You’ve got to be able to trust your intuition and your instincts as a discovery writer to know that, well, either I’ll come back and cut that out, or that is something that I will come back to for some reason that I don’t even know yet.

Joanna: Yes, that’s happened a lot. I think the other thing for me is —

My first self-edit is very important, in that I know that there will be some problems.

That first draft which I print out and I do it by hand, there’s often a lot of arrows, or move this to A, or move B to C.

I write out of order, so that actually happens quite a lot. It’s like, oh, I need to write another thing here, or why is this here? So there’s a lot of moving things around and restructuring.

To me, that’s part of my process. Again, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s just the way I do it. So how do your edits go? Are you cleaner in the edit, like Dean?

How do you do that edit?

KimBoo: I’m a little bit cleaner in the edit, but that’s because I’m a heavy recursive writer. So I go back, and I will re-read two chapters behind before I even start writing. So I do a lot of on-the-road editing, in a way. When I finally get to the end, I rarely have to move scenes around.

I would say the two-thirds mark is where I always end up with problems. That’s where things start collapsing in on themselves, and I have to do a full edit of everything I’ve written so far.

So I’m doing a lot of editing as I go, which is funny to me because people like you are like, “This is my third draft.” Then I’m just like, this is my first draft of the book, but it’s like the 45th draft of this particular scene.

So as a recursive writer, I do a lot of editing as I go. That’s not true for all recursive writers, as you point out, Joanna, everybody’s process is valid. That’s just how my brain works, I need to have the back end pretty well structured in order for me to keep going forward into the unknown.

Joanna: Yes, and actually, earlier you mentioned reverse outlining, which I also do. I also, like you —

Probably around 50%, I sometimes just lose the plot entirely. At that point, I will reverse outline.

I’ll just write the chapters in a few lines as to what the hell’s happening.

I do often have to reread the whole thing at around 50%. So I guess in a way, that’s almost where you are, but I don’t do much, and then I suddenly have to do a bunch of it.

Then the penny drops, and then I know how to move on.

So again, I think that’s quite a normal part of the process, isn’t it?

KimBoo: It is, and I love the phrase that you use, “the penny drops.” With so many discovery writers I talk to, there always does seem to be that moment somewhere along the process where the penny drops, where it all just comes together.

Joanna: That’s the fun bit!

KimBoo: That’s the part I love for. I’m like, “Oh, now I get it!” Sometimes it’s frustrating because I’m not there yet. I’m like, I know the penny is going drop at some point, darn it, but I’m not there yet.

Joanna: Yes, and I love that you have that too. I call that synchronicity, what Carl Jung calls synchronicity. That is the moment when you realize your intuition has been right all along and that you were going to get there.

Probably that’s the biggest lesson for people listening is, I mean, it takes time to trust this. I think it was probably only when Becca wrote that book on intuition that I finally accepted my writing process.

It was probably over a decade of trying to deny my process. How about you?

KimBoo: Same, exactly the same, Joanna. That’s one of the reasons I wrote this book. I was talking to a good friend of mine Gina Hogan Edwards, she’s a historical fiction writer. We were talking about process and she’s very into outlining.

I encouraged her to use discovery writing techniques, and it really opened up her writing in a lot of ways.

I wanted to be able to take away that stigma. I wanted to be able to say, look, this is just another technique. This isn’t bad.

You aren’t a bad writer. You’re not a terrible person for not having an outline at the start, like pre-planning.

It did take me so long, and I felt so broken. I would write these outlines, and then I wouldn’t be able to write the story. That’s just a terrible feeling. For anybody who’s gone through that, I totally get that. It did take me a long time.

Coming back to fanfiction, one of the breakthroughs for me was when I was looking at my fanfiction at some point, this was 2018, 2019, 2020, I don’t remember exactly when. But I realized that most of the fiction I wrote, and certainly the most popular stories I’ve written in fanfiction, were all written by the seat of the pants.

I started realizing maybe this is my technique. Maybe this is how I can get back to writing as a professional author who enjoys my work and enjoys the stories that I’m writing.

It’s the penny drop moment. I was just like, oh, I’m already doing this. Maybe I should apply this to my own original fiction and see what happens, so it took a while.

Joanna: As we’re talking, I am wondering if the reason plotting is considered so much more acceptable is that when you submit to a publisher or an agent, you generally submit three chapters and an outline of a book. Or if you already have a traditional deal, for the next book, they’ll want an outline.

It’s so funny, I talked to someone the other day about this, and she was like, “Oh, if you’re going to submit, you do this.” I’m like, well, I couldn’t do that because I have to finish the book before I can do an outline. So that’s just crazy. So I mean, it just struck me as we were talking, what do you think? Do you think that’s why it’s become so much more acceptable?

The assumption is that you will do an outline.

KimBoo: I think that’s part of it, but I would go back further than that. I think that a lot of times when you look at people who are teaching creative writing historically, in the 20th century and throughout those years, discovery writing tends to be the first thing that a lot of new writers do.

They have an idea, they sit down, they write a story. Oftentimes, it’s not a very good story. Then they go to try to get education, they try to learn how to do the craft.

So all these teachers and educators are looking at these stories and go, “See, this is a bad technique. You need to outline first, and then you won’t have these problems.”

So I think it was like kind of a problem solving method for a lot of creative writing teachers to really hone in technique onto newer writers. Then it just expanded.

Yes, I think the traditional publishing want those outlines because they’re hedging their bets. For them, it’s a business, they want to know what the full story is before they invest any money in it. So I think it’s a lot of these elements at play.

As you were saying earlier with indie publishing and self-publishing, the times have changed. So now we can talk about these different techniques.

We can say that there are ways that a person like you, Joanna, can make a whole career writing a lot of books using this technique and be successful on your own terms, without having to conform to the way someone else wants you to present your work. That’s certainly a privilege for us to be living in an era when that’s true.

Joanna: I literally have not outlined or plotted any of my books!

KimBoo: That’s awesome. I love it.

Joanna: I think it was Rachael Herron I talked to about this. I was having a private conversation, and I was like, “Oh, why can’t I just change?” She was like, “Look, you’ve managed to write all these books. What is even the problem?”

KimBoo: Exactly. That was kind of my thought. Then I’m like, wait, hold on, I’ve written all these stories just doing it this way. Maybe I can keep doing it that way.

Joanna: Yes, like you’re not broken. So I hope that this has really helped people listening. Of course, it might be interesting to people who do plot. There’s nothing wrong with that either.

KimBoo: They’re okay people too! You can’t help yourselves, you just have to outline. We get it.

Joanna: Yes, fair enough.

I do want, while you’re here, I’m also interested in your other book for authors which is Become an Unstoppable Storyteller: How to Craft Compelling Serials. Now, I don’t read serials, so I don’t even try to write serials, but I know many people are interested. So first up, tell us—

What is the difference between a serial, a series, and just a novel?

KimBoo: So the very basic rule of thumb, and I just want to start by saying that these categories are very flexible. You know, these are all modern categories, there’s just so many different ways to tell a story. My rule of thumb is that a serial consists of a story with nested story arcs.

Now, you can have a novel series that has nested story arcs, but generally a novel itself has a story arc. It’s either the three act structure, the seven act structure, save the cat, or the hero’s journey. That is the main structure.

The individual character arcs in a novel will dip and turn, but they all adhere to that one main story structure. With some novel series, or what I would call a legitimate serial, there could be a very long story arc while there’s smaller story arcs within it.

Of course, the best example that we can give for this these days is a television show. Like you have something, like Game of Thrones or some long running show, that has big story arcs that go across multiple seasons even. Then you have the smaller story arcs that are the monster of the week, or the dragon or the week, or the killer of the week, whatever that might be.

Those individual story arcs kind of exist not quite independently, but they do exist within the larger story arc and feed into it, but aren’t necessarily the same as larger story arcs. So that’s a very short and definitely incomplete description of how I would describe serials.

Some serials, for instance, One Piece, which is popular right now because the live action, that’s a manga that has over 1000 volumes. These types of stories can go on, and they’re just searching for the one piece.

They’re searching for thing, that’s the whole long story arc. But you have the shorter story arcs that are just absolutely brilliant that rest on that longer story arc.

Joanna: A lot of people hear about the success some people are having on serial platforms. I get this question all the time. Should I just post my chapters on serial platforms, like take my finished novel and just post chapter by chapter on a serial platform?

I generally say no, because most serial chapters are not the same as actual chapters in a book. As you say, you need to keep people reading through. So what do you think about that?

Can you take just any novel and post it on a platform for serial writing?

KimBoo: Absolutely, you can. A lot of romance writers do that, and I use romance writers because they’re certainly the biggest ones who are taking advantage of that.

They treat it as a funnel to their books. So when you have a novel, and you’re splitting it up, and you’re posting the chapters, you’re serializing it. It’s not a serial, but it is being serialized. If people are comfortable with that, it can be a great way to funnel readers into your book ecosystem, into buying the books.

I would stress:

Know your own business model, know your own comfort zone, and know your readers. Serial readers and book readers don’t always overlap.

So you can grab some serial readers with a serialized novel, and they may not buy the book. You may get some people who will look at a serial and go, I’ll wait until it’s done and buy the book. Then you’re going to have some overlap.

I think it’s possible, but again, I really caution people to know your own business model, what you’re doing. Know your audience, are they people who read serials at all? For instance, like the thriller novel demographic, they’re not big on serials.

Joanna: No, not at all.

KimBoo: Not at all. If you are writing like LitRPG, or you’re writing romance, some form of romance, yes, you can get a big readership serializing your work. Just be aware of how that feeds into the whole ecosystem that you’re building for your business.

Joanna: What are the main platforms for selling serials?

KimBoo: So Ream is a new up and coming one. I’m on Ream. I really like their approach, and I like what they’re doing. A lot of people look at it and see there’s a lot of romance authors there, but it is for all genres.

For instance, my friend Gina that I mentioned, she’s actually serializing her historical fiction novel. It’s not romance at all. She’s doing that on Ream. So there’s a lot of opportunity there on Ream, but there are other platforms.

Some authors are on Patreon, which has its own issues, depending on what you’re writing. Some people self-host it, which you can do these days, of course with WordPress, you could do it on Wix, you can do it on Kajabi, you could do it on Squarespace.

There are a lot more options for writers these days to either self-host their own subscriptions or use other platforms to do it. There are a lot of different platforms out there.

I will say this, that these days, platforms like Wattpad, Royal Road, Inkitt, they have their own specific demographics. Like on Royal Road, it’s very much fantasy and LitRPG. Wattpad is still heavily romance oriented.

If you’re going to be giving away free chapters on those platforms, then look carefully at the demographics. There’s so many options these days, and I do go into that in my book Become an Unstoppable Storyteller, different options for posting.

There’s still Vella and Radish, which are ways to get money, but it’s more like the Kindle Unlimited model. People are subscribing and you’re just getting a piece of the pie in that model. So it just depends on what your tolerance level is for how much control you have over your property.

Joanna: Yes,

Definitely read those contracts! And when we say contracts, people, we mean the terms and conditions when you upload a file to a site. That is a contract.

KimBoo: Yes, absolutely yes.

Joanna: There are some difficult ones, let’s say. We are recording June 2024, you could go to one of these sites now and it might be fine, and then you upload another book in a month’s time and it might be different. So I think it’s very important to look at this.

So you mentioned the demographics are different, you write different kinds of books and serials.

How are you marketing serials differently than you are marketing books?

KimBoo: So with books, I’m much more focused on—I’m not running a lot of advertisements right now, but I’m gearing up to do that for the last half of this year. I’ve been busy for this last year, putting all the pieces in place for my own business model.

So for books, I’m going to be using things like Facebook ads more. For instance, The Queen’s Aerie, which is a love triad, fantasy romance novel, I did serialize that. I actually serialized it early access on Ream for paying followers.

I then, much later down the road, put chapters up for free on Wattpad, and Inkitt, and Archive of Our Own. So people can go read the whole book for free.

Then I will be doing advertisements for buying the book itself, and possibly doing a Kickstarter down the road for doing an audio version or a special bound edition for it. So there’s a lot of different ways I’m trying to funnel people into my author ecosystem.

I know you’ve talked to Joe Solari, and he’s somebody I really admire. Much bigger brain than I have. One thing I took away from a lot of his lessons is to be aware of all the different ways you could reach out and reach your audience.

So I do have a Substack, The Scriptorium, which is my blog. There I focus less on the fiction and more on the nonfiction, which is something else that I write, because nonfiction people aren’t going to be on Ream.

I know that if I want to reach other authors to talk about my books on writing and my craft books, Ream is a bad place for that. I need to be doing it on my Scriptorium blog. There’s just a lot of moving parts on something like that, but I think I will be using advertising for my books more than I would be doing for my serials so far.

Serials as a popular format subscription platform, particularly, are still very new. So I think there’s still a lot of poking and prodding by authors who are using subscription models on what kind of advertisement actually works well. I haven’t seen a lot of success on that yet.

So we’re still relying heavily on organic growth, which is not ideal, but we’re figuring it out.

Joanna: These are kind of a borrow model, aren’t they, with a serial, or they pay a micro payment, or they get it as part of their subscription. So it is kind of difficult to get the return on investment with, say, a Facebook ad. Unless, I guess, it’s a really long thing or, like you say, like a book one in a series.

I think it’s so interesting, this kind of splintering effect. There’s so many platforms for different types of readers and consumers, because you could also do audio serials, audio fiction. So let’s just mention podcasting.

You’ve got two podcasts. How does this fit into your business and your marketing?

KimBoo: So here’s the thing that I think when I get back to talking about knowing your own business model. So my business model is not niching down, my business model is not “I write dark romance, and that’s all I do.”

My business model is me, as a person. Me as a writer and the voice that I bring to my stories.

I want people to read my stories because I wrote them, not because they’re a love triad fantasy with dragon shifters. So for me, it’s a lot about personal marketing.

The Author Alchemist Podcast I started a long time ago when I had a completely different business model. I’ve morphed it a little bit to talk more about mindset, process, and productivity, which is a new tagline for it.

Because I am a productivity coach, I talk to a lot have authors and creatives about what it takes to be productive and what kind of productivity tools you can use. So I’m focusing more on that on The Author Alchemist side.

The Around the Writer’s Table, I’ll be honest with you, that’s a fun gig. That’s me with two of my best friends. We all had great conversations around writing and creativity, and so we started that because we just wanted to share what we were talking about. So that’s more of a vanity project, really.

I do love what we’ve talked about. I encourage people to go listen to that because we’ve covered some fascinating topics. That one doesn’t quite fit into my model so much, it’s just something that’s fun and gets my voice out there. That’s kind of how it is.

I really think that, and you’ve heard me mention this a lot in this conversation about business models, and I know in one of your earlier podcasts you were talking about Spear of Destiny and how you’re doing Kickstarter, and then you’re also doing preorder.

The preorder, of course, is available later. People who sign up for the Kickstarter are going to get the book earlier. To me, that really represents what we’re talking about when we talk about splintering. It sounds like a negative term, but to me, it’s like it’s reaching readers where they are.

There’s some people who aren’t going to support your Kickstarter, they’re just not. There’s some people who love preorders, and so they’re going to go and do the preorder. There’s some people who just want the audiobook, they’re just going to wait for the audiobook.

So you, of course, have multiple different versions of audiobooks and different ways people can access audiobooks.

It’s all about reaching people where they are.

So when I look at my business model, which is selling me as an author and my voice, it’s less, “Oh, here’s a podcast on the side.” It’s, “Here’s something that people can get to know me.”

In fact, I’ve started doing a daily short on YouTube called Coffee with KimBoo, where I just talk about what I’m going to be doing that day. It’s just to get people to know me as a writer and be interested in me. So that’s my business model, and that’s not the business model for other people.

Joanna: It’s pretty much my business model!

KimBoo: Not everybody, but certainly the two people in this virtual room right now.

Joanna: I think it’s interesting, I do feel this is more and more important. You know, I’ve said many times now to double down on being human, and kind of proving that you are a human.

We’re all weird in our way, and some people like us, and some people don’t. That’s fine.

I was thinking about my use of social media the other day, and I was thinking, you know what, I am using social media now more as a proof that I am human. Posting photos and kind of things like that much more than I used to.

It used to be more about like marketing or whatever. Now it’s sort of evidence that I’m human. So I love that Coffee with KimBoo idea. I don’t want to do it myself, but I think that’s really interesting. For people listening, doing more of that, more about you, I think is a really good idea. So we are out of time.

Where can people find you, and your books, and your podcasts online?

KimBoo: I do have an online hub. I call it a hub, but it’s a website. It’s HouseofYork.info. So that’s House of York, all one word, dot i-n-f-o. You’ll have links there to all my books, there’s a section on my books. There’s a link to all my podcasts, and also my podcast shows. So any interviews I’ve done are on that page as well.

Also to join my online membership club for writers called 1 Million Words Club. It’s on Discord, and it’s focused more on productivity and process than craft. So it’s a little bit different, but we have a great group of people there. So you can find out all about that at HouseofYork.info.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, KimBoo. That was great.

KimBoo: It’s been wonderful, Joanna. Thank you so much.

The post Intuitive Discovery Writing And Serial Fiction With KimBoo York first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How can you make sure your manuscript is ready for submission to an agent — or for publication if you go indie? What are the benefits and challenges of traditional publishing? Will they really do all the marketing for you? Renee Fountain talks about these things and more in today’s interview.

In the intro, Referencing and citations [Self Publishing Advice]; will.i.am on the WSJ talking about AI, music and media; Behind the scenes of Pilgrimage [BookBrunch]; how a chapel visit in Zambia led to a published short story [X @mwanabibi]

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Renee Fountain has more than three decades in the publishing industry, including being a literary agent, a developmental editor, and story analyst. She is the president of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management and founder of Gryphon Quill Editing.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Main issues seen with manuscript submissions
• Is your manuscript overwritten?
• Tips on pacing
• What is developmental editing?
• Key elements of a pitch package and query letter
• Will traditional publishers do all the marketing for you?
• Using an agent to get a TV or film deal vs. going indie
• Dealing with rejection
• Cash flow management in traditional publishing

You can find Renee at GHliterary.com or ReneeFountain.com.

Transcript of Interview with Renee Fountain

Joanna: Renee Fountain has more than three decades in the publishing industry, including being a literary agent, a developmental editor, and story analyst. She is the president of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management and founder of Gryphon Quill Editing. So welcome to the show, Renee.

Renee: Thank you very much. Great to be here.

Joanna: Yes, indeed. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you, how you got into the publishing industry, and what you do now.

Renee: Well, I’ve loved books since I was a little kid. I was that kid getting yelled at for reading under the covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be sleeping.

So after a bunch of boring jobs, I wanted to do something I love. So I was living in San Diego at the time, and Harcourt Brace was the only publisher there. So I thought, I’m going to do that. I started in the very boring division of accounting guides before landing a coveted spot in children’s books. I eventually moved back to New York City, just in time for 9/11. So that kind of dashed my hopes of growing my publishing empire.

Now I’m wearing a few hats. I’m a literary agent—when I did come back to New York, I did go with Simon and Schuster eventually. So now I’m wearing a few hats.

I’m a literary agent. I’m a developmental editor, working with writers in my private business. I’m also on the faculty of Manuscript Academy, working with writers there. I’m also writing reviews for Kirkus Indie because it’s one of the few ways I get to keep my own writing skills sharp while dipping my toe in the indie pool.

Joanna: A portfolio career, as they call it.

Renee: Sure, why not?

Joanna: I say I’m a multi-passionate creative, so don’t put me in a one-genre box! Now, when you pitched me, it was really interesting. You said,

“I get a lot of manuscript submissions that are just not query ready.”

I was like, oh, my goodness, that is a super juicy topic. So let’s get into that. What are the main issues you see with those manuscript submissions?

Renee: Mostly it’s the writing, whether at a line level or the overall story structure. It could be the writing isn’t strong enough yet or the word count may be too high for the genre they’re writing. It’s mostly due to loose writing, bad pacing, excessive description, or the scene goes on way too long.

Or what I call “story for story sake.” Just telling the reader a lot of stuff that doesn’t really matter in the big picture, no matter how interesting it is. You’ll know if you have that if you take out that section and it still makes sense. So it’s just a lot of things just aren’t quite gelling yet.

I’ve talked to so many people that are just like, “Well, I want to work on a new project, so I just need to get it out there.” Like it’s a time limit, and you’ve got to shove it out the door. You really don’t. You really need to take your time.

Joanna: There’s a few things to come back on there. I want to address the word count first because this is really interesting, and people don’t really understand why word count is an issue.

Could you talk a bit more about word count for some of the most common genres and why it’s a problem if it goes on too long?

Renee: I hear a lot of talk about they say that for my first book, I shouldn’t exceed X amount of words. Well, if your story holds it, then it’s fine. The problem is when you say, “Oh, Renee, I’ve written this 150,000-word romance.” It’s like, mmm, probably not.

I mean, I know you wrote it, but you probably have a lot of stuff in there that doesn’t need to be there. So genre in general has a word count that you should kind of be shooting for.

A thriller can be done between 70 and 90, depending on the story. Fantasy is one of the few things that are going to go above 100. That’s really what we’re looking for. You know, you talk about red flags when you see a query, it’s like if I see 150,000-word romance, I know there’s a problem.

Joanna: So back in the day, I understood it to be that word count was very much about spine size. So you mentioned there thrillers, 70,000 to 90,000. I write thrillers, but I write shorter thrillers than that. I mean, 70 would be the highest.

When most books are sold online, how big a deal is spine size?

Or is it more about, for example, editorial budget for 150,000 words is much more than a 60,000-word book?

Renee: Well, I mean, with George R.R. Martin still getting published with his microscopic font in his giant 1000-plus page books, like I say, he’s still sticking in genre, but I don’t know how much times have changed now.

Editing in the Big Five, they really want you to do all that heavy lifting before it gets to them. Things have evolved, it’s changed.

I never really thought of it in terms of spine size so much as what the story tends to hold. So if you’ve ever seen 150,000-page romance, that’s quite the book. You have to imagine it’s overwritten.

Now, opposed to going the other direction of having something where the word count is too small. Like if you said, “Renee, I wrote this 52,000-word romance,” or whatever it is, the problem becomes pricing at that point. They really like the sweet spot of around 70. They really don’t like it under that because of the pricing issue.

Joanna: Yes, this is so funny. I feel like we’ve been so boxed in with pricing because of Amazon’s $9.99 cap as well. I read a lot of nonfiction too, and nonfiction can be shorter and readers will pay more. It really is only a fiction issue with pricing, I think.

Renee: Yes, you expect nonfiction to be a slightly lower count. Somewhere in the 60s and higher, depending on the topic. I think where nonfiction comes in is that you can be more direct in whatever it is, the issue that you’re talking about.

It can also go higher. If it’s a narrative nonfiction, you’re going to another 320-page, 350-page book. So it all varies within there too, but yes, they can hold a lower count.

Joanna: Well, let’s come back to the word ‘overwritten.’ You know what that means, but it’s very hard to know what it means when you’re the author.

What are some ways that an author could analyze their own manuscript to find whether or not they have overwritten?

Or you mentioned story for story sake. How do people know that they have these problems without working with an editor first?

Renee: Well, I think with a lot of stuff with authors, it’s tough. You can be a great writer, but you’ve been working on it so long, you can’t see the forest for the trees anymore, and your brain fills in all the gaps.

So sometimes it’s hard to see it for yourself, and that’s where you get a fresh pair of eyes. Whether that’s a professional editor, or whether that’s another author that you admire, that their books are good.

Anybody who understands pacing because that’s where it’s all going to come into, the fact that you have the story for story sake. You’re writing this long scene, and you’re describing everything on the person’s desk and everything on the walls, trying to “set the scene,” but none of it is really that important.

You’re giving the reader a lot to remember and think about. Whereas if on that desk was a secret relic, that magical thing, yes, you’re going to say, “among the pens and the other stuff, you’ve got this relic.” That’s the part we’re going to remember.

The idea is if you take some of this extraneous stuff out and the story keeps moving forward, like you’ve not missed it. If it’s like you had to know about this part, you of course, don’t take that stuff out.

It’s when you take the stuff out and nothing is missed and the story is still whole, that’s when you know you’re just giving a lot of information.

I’ve read books where the information was fun, I enjoyed reading it, but in the real big picture, it didn’t have anything to do with it. It was just taking up a lot of real estate for no productive reason.

Joanna: You also mentioned before, that feeling of ‘just get it out there.’ I totally understand that. I mean, sometimes we’re just sick of our own books.

Interestingly, as self-published authors, obviously we can just upload, publish, and it can be selling the same day. So there is a sort of positive sense of getting it out there more quickly.

What tips can you give us around patience or coming back to something with fresh eyes after waiting?

How can we do that? Is it just a matter of leaving it aside for a time?

Renee: Yes, and actually, I wrote an article on that on my Substack of how patience pays off. In the sense that with you guys, and especially you, Joanna, that have had a lot of books out there, you know what to do here, and you know when your stuff is finished.

These first-time authors a lot of the times are like, I just have to hurry up and get this published. They don’t realize that you’re just detracting from the possibility because you don’t get a second bite at the apple.

Usually, when you’re tired of that project, or it’s not quite right, or you haven’t sent it to an editor, or as I said, other person that can give you actual feedback, put it in the drawer for a little while.

I mean, this is why painters turn around their paintings so they don’t look at it for a couple of days, and when they turn it back around, they can see where the improvement needs to be made.

So there is no deadline to rush it out the door as a traditional publishing person because no one will pick it up because it’s not ready. You knew that when you did it, but you were just hoping that someone would love it enough to fix it. That rarely, rarely happens.

Joanna: You also mentioned pacing a couple of times.

What are some tips around pacing?

Renee: Well, that’s hand in hand with the overwriting and bringing scenes that last way too long. You’re getting mired down in all these details that really aren’t moving the story forward or enhancing your story in any way. So that will drag down the pacing.

So if I’m slogging through three or four pages of what’s on a person’s desk, only to have someone walk in say, “Hey, would you like that glass of water now?” and they leave the room, what was that for?

I’m not saying that everything has to happen in a split second. I can appreciate the slow burn, but there’s that fine line between just having the words there just to have them, rather than having them be productive and add to the story.

If you’re spending a lot of time writing about things, introducing a character, “Oh, he was bullied as a child. Now he’s got these dark thoughts,” and on and on. Then all of a sudden, he’s gone. You never see him again. He just got off the school bus, and you decided to tell me all about this person who got off the school bus, but he doesn’t show up again.

If you take that out, it doesn’t affect the story. You leaving it in, I’m reading this, and that’s kind of slogging the pacing a little bit.

Joanna: I feel like the biggest shift of this, certainly for me as a writer who’s been doing this a while now, is changing my head from my author head to a reader head. Obviously, as an editor, you’re acting as a reader as well.

So how can we do that? I mean, I guess we’ve talked about getting some distance. For example, I’ll tell you how I do my own self edits. I will print out my draft two pages to a page, so it looks more like a book. So you can fold it up, and it would be like a book.

Then I hand edit with a pen on paper, and I scribble all over it. The font I use is different, so it’s not on the screen. So this kind of helps me disconnect.

Have you got any tips for other people to change your head around?

Renee: I think that’s a great tip. It’s a matter of stepping away, getting some fresh eyes, and then doing something like that, or reading it out loud. If you’re reading it out loud, especially with your dialogue, that’s a great way to fix dialogue that’s going on too long, or is too on the nose, or whatever.

If you read it out loud, then you can see that you’re going on and on and on about something. Then you’re like, well, I can say this so much more succinctly and have way more impact and not lose anything in the story as a whole.

Joanna: Yes, it is difficult. Again, it’s very interesting, I think it takes a number of books before an author can be more confident in their voice.

How have you seen authors develop their voice over the years? Is it a matter of developing creative confidence over time?

Renee: Yes, I absolutely do. I have a client that I’ve worked with a number of times. He’s a veteran, and his writing feels like it’s more cathartic for him. It’s a lot of very angry stuff. It’s not necessarily well thought out, etc.

Then a couple months later, I’ll hear from again. A year later, I’ll hear from him again. He’s like, I wrote this new romance thing because he’s got it all out of his mind. This stuff was way different, and that’s what I would tell him.

He’s like, do you think we should submit the other stuff? I said, you know what, step away for a little while and go back to it. Then you’ll see that you got out what you wanted to say, but maybe now you know how you want to say it a little bit more gently, a little bit more productively, if you would.

He’s done that, and he’s come back and said, you’re right. He realized it was not ready to be to be sent.

Joanna: That takes some maturity.

Renee: You’ll get that with your practicing of writing. The more you write, the more mature you get. I mean, I can see how my writing has changed. I was reading stuff from 1985, and I was laughing. I’m like, oh, my god, what was I thinking?

Joanna: In 2022, I rewrote my first three novels which I had self-published in 2009/2010. I was like, I’ve become a lot better writer, and because those three novels were the beginning of a 13-book series, it felt important to rewrite.

It’s funny, you said earlier, you don’t get a second bite of the apple or whatever, but as independent authors we do. We can do that. I think you meant if you’re pitching an agent. Although, people get their rights back, don’t they, and often rewrite things.

Renee: Well, that’s a road that can’t go back to the traditional. That’s the same thing as an indie writer, you cannot pitch most—I’m not saying every—most agents, including myself, cannot take anything that’s been previously published in any way.

Whether it was just online or whether it was out there online but didn’t sell anything, I can’t have anything. In traditional publishing contracts, it’s going to state that this has never been out there.

Now, if it’s been a long time and you have rewritten 80% of the book, it’s different then. It’s the same with the second bite at the apple for when you’re sending to an agent.

Do you know how many times it’s very frustrating for an agent to get, “Here’s my manuscript, I hope you’ll love it.” Then literally a week later, “Oh, I redid a whole bunch of sections. Here’s the new one, try this one instead.” Someone has done that to me like four times, and I’m like, no, I can’t.

Then there was times where I’ve gotten one that said, “I sent this to you last year. You gave me some great notes on it. I wanted you to know I completely rewrote it. Will you look at it again?” That is usually very okay to do it that way.

Joanna: Right, we’re going to come back to the agent stuff. Let’s just talk about developmental editing because you do that. I feel like the word editor is so difficult because it can mean so many things.

What does a developmental editor do that is different to a line editor, a copy editor, a red-marks-all-over-the-page editor?

Renee: Well, a developmental editor could still give you red marks, but they look at the whole big picture. I can’t help myself from line editing because I’ll see it and I’m like, no, that’s not right. So I’ll do a little of that as well.

Otherwise, they look to see that the story starts in the right place, the scenes are all necessary and productive, like we talked about before, meaning they serve a purpose to the story and move the story forward, back to pacing.

They often see where the story can be improved by moving some things around, adding or deleting things. If something is said a certain way, you can say, hey, what if you said it this way? Or what if you told that in dialogue? Or what if you showed it this way?

So that’s what they do, it’s just like moving things around. Where line editors and copy editors are down to the nitty gritty of grammar, continuity, cohesiveness of style, consistency, making sure the words used relay the intention that the writer was trying to.

I took a copy editing class through the University of Chicago, and that was very not for me. You have to keep a style sheet. There’s a lot of technical things that go along with it. It’s a completely different animal.

Joanna: Yes, I think you have to go with what your strengths are and seeing that story as a whole.

It’s interesting, you said ‘checking whether the story starts in the right place.’

I feel like some people won’t understand what you mean by that. So could you expand on that?

Renee: Sure. I just read one recently where I got all this information, all this preamble, and nothing was really happening. There was no inciting incident, nothing was really happening in like the first 10 pages.

Then by the time I got to chapter three, some major event happened, and now it was off to the races. I said, you might want to bring that in the beginning and less preamble of where nothing was going on.

As an agent, I can read within the first five pages to see voice and style and everything like that. So you’ve got to get to certain benchmarks, or you’ve got to stop turning the pages because it’s taking too long to get there. Like I said, fine line between slow burn and bad pacing.

Joanna: Yes, and even if it’s a slow burn, you’ve got to hook the reader. So I read fiction on a Kindle, and I’m pretty much a three click on a Kindle Paperwhite. So I mean, that’s not many pages.

If I download a sample, I’ll know pretty quickly whether I want to read something. Then if I get to the end of the sample, I will usually buy the book because I am hooked in.

That inciting incident, something happening, is a genre specific thing. The reader has to know, this is the book I want to read now.

Renee: Well, yes. You’re showing that this character is going to go on a journey to get a want and a need, and we’ve got to know what sets them on that journey.

You’re going to want to know that within a certain period of time, or we’re just reading about these people’s lives, and it’s not really going anywhere.

If you’re, as a reader, sitting there and you’re a couple chapters in going, what’s happening, where’s this going? It’s harder to say that if you’re reading like a finished book, as opposed to submissions that come in. I’m talking about traditional again.

So there’s certain kinds of rules that are adhered to, in a sense. I mean, not hard and fast. You know if the rules are meant to be broken. Yes, it’s tough. Okay, so once the manuscript is in shape, many authors want to pitch an agent.

Joanna: What are the key elements of a pitch package that authors need to put together in order to make it through the first mass delete of an agent’s email pile?

Renee: A strong query letter is key. I’m actually going to be teaching a masterclass at StoryFest in South Carolina on this because it’s the first thing that gets you noticed. It’s one of the basic things, but it takes a lot of practice and patience to get it just right.

So you want to have your strong query letter. Keep it to a single page, 250 to 350 words is best. If it takes more, that’s fine. Succinctness and showing that you can tell your story and give all this information shows that you’ve tightened your writing up.

If I’m reading a three-page query letter, I’m going to guess that their manuscript is overwritten as well. So it’s very important to have that.

I’ve created a helpful template for query letters that can be found on my site under the resource tab. That’s free for anybody to use. I did a proposal one as well and it kind of walks you through the process.

That brings me to synopsis. You should have a one- to two-page synopsis on hand in case an agent asks for it. I always ask for them. It’s because you’re going to invest a lot of time reading these books.

While the voice and the writing seem great, four or five hours into this book, you don’t want to suddenly see that it goes off the rails, and suddenly there’s a donkey flying through the air throwing glitter everywhere. Then you’re like, wait, what just happened? You don’t get the time back.

So when I’m reading, and I see the voice and the structure, and everything is all lining up, I like to look at the synopsis to see the story arc itself, to see how it’s going to play out. Sometimes I can see errors there and say, listen, that doesn’t really track.

I may read forward before I make my assessment, they just maybe didn’t write the synopsis as strong as they should. I’ll still read forward to see if it actually played out in the manuscript.

If you’re a nonfiction author, strong query letter and a strong proposal is very key. Like I said, templates are under my resources if you want to take a look at that.

Joanna: Just so people know, what website should they be looking for there?

Renee: It’s ReneeFountain.com.

Joanna: Great, we’ll come back to that at the end. Just on the query letter, let’s just cover a bit more detail now. So obviously, we need to talk about the story or the nonfiction project, whatever it is.

Should we also include elements of our sales, our platform?

Like I’m an established indie author, or there might be newer indie authors than me, but should we be including that information as well, to kind of talk more about the author? We’re always told we should talk about author platform, basically.

Renee: Yes, you should.

Indie or traditional, it’s understood that you are going to be the marketer of your book. You’re going to do most of the heavy lifting.

Traditional publishing will do like very basic stuff, but it’s up to the author.

When traditional publishers are looking at a book, if you have a strong platform, if you have a lot of high sales, that will get you absolutely looked at. So definitely showing that you have a strong platform and high sales is great.

You can say, “I’m a successful indie author making my traditional publishing debut,” and go on after that in your letter.

At the end, you can talk about your sales, but your sales have to be fairly high. You know, 3000 is great, I would be very impressed with that, but publishers want to see it as high as possible.

At the converse of that, if you don’t have any sales or you don’t have a high platform, take the time to start building your platform more. Your followers, your social media, all that for your reach.

Just because you don’t have any sales, don’t let that stop you. Everybody starts somewhere. So if it’s not impressive, don’t talk about it. If it is impressive, absolutely. Put it in red, put it in big giant letters.

Joanna: Yes, but start with the story. So I guess, “I’m writing to pitch this project. Here’s a bit about the story. Then here’s my platform. If you’re interested, let me know.”

Should we pitch multiple agents at the same time?

Renee: Yes, but not in a way that you’re just throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. Research the agents.

Joanna: What are some tips for finding a good match for a book and an author?

Because there’s a lot of agents out there.

Renee: It’s simply the research. Whether you’ve read a book that you really like, and you’re like, this is just like mine, or this is the type of book that this agent handles. Look in the acknowledgments, find out who the agent is for that book.

Look on Publishers Marketplace, Manuscript Wish List. I think Writer’s Digest provides some guidance. I thought I saw something from Reedsy not too long ago where they put up the agents.

I wasn’t among them, by the way. I stay off the grid. I don’t use QueryTracker or other similar sites, because they’re probably a good place, but that’s not the way I work.

Attend writing events like PNWA, or Killer Nashville, or whatever fits in your genre, to see their list of agents. They post them up there, who’s attending, what they’re looking for. Then you can go back for the last two or three years, and I think you can garner a lot of information that way.

Joanna: Yes, I mean, it’s better to pitch five agents you’ve heavily researched than just scatter-gunning twenty-five.

Renee: It’s not good to just throw it out there. Also, too, remember you want to work with this person. Maybe there are agents that you’ve identified from past things that you’ve been doing, or books that you’ve seen, or other authors, so pitch them first.

Maybe you have your top five, or whatever it is. Then pitch ones that are relevant to what you’re doing. Don’t pitch a military agent your romance book.

Joanna: Yes, very important.

Are agents and publishers open to indie authors pitching?

I mean, you mentioned there, if you have a good platform, mention it, if you don’t, don’t mention it. But are they open to it? I mean, obviously even if you don’t mention it, you’re going to have to mention it when you have a conversation.

Renee: It’s not something to hide at all. I’m just saying what will kind of work for you and what will work against you. Saying, “I’m an indie author. I didn’t do very well, and I have no sales.” You don’t want to lead with that.

Joanna: Not a good start.

Renee: Absolutely, agents are open to it. Just like I said, you can’t pitch a book that you’ve already published. Unless you said, “Listen, I published this. I sold 50,000 copies.” Then they’ll be very interested.

You hear about those Wattpad sensations were they had a million Wattpad followers, and then I think it was Simon and Schuster who swooped in and grabbed her. So it all depends, but yeah, you should absolutely go out there, just not with a previously published book.

Joanna: Yes, I think that’s really important. The other thing is, you mentioned before quite briefly, that you are the marketer. I feel like a lot of authors turn away from being an indie author these days because they don’t want to do the marketing.

What sort of marketing can a new author expect with a traditional publisher?

You said they do a little bit. What is that little bit?

Renee: They have a group of reviewers that they’ll send it to. They might include it in some kind of round up. They’re not going to send you on a book tour, you’re not going to go on signings.

You don’t know how many times I get these submissions that say, “I just want to go with a traditional publisher because I want them to do all the marketing for me.” Well, that doesn’t work.

Again, your platform, that’s why it’s important to raise your numbers. They want you to have a ready-made audience who’s already interested in what you have to say and what you’re writing and a fan of your work.

They want you to go on podcasts, and be a guest on a podcast, or a blogger, or something where you’re talking about your book. Some people have access to television shows, and they go on there and talk about their books.

I had a sports agent who would be invited to talk about sports, and then he’d say, “And then here’s my new book.” So you still have to do the main heavy lifting.

Sometimes traditional publishers will say, depending on what your book is, maybe they’ll have a set of magazines that would work well for a piece that you could write an article on, or something to that effect.

Again, it’s only when you’re frontlist. It’s only leading up to your launch. Then they’re onto the new frontlist book to give them the attention. So you’ve really got to try to get the irons in the fire yourself as well. It’s an unfortunate part. I didn’t say it was easy.

Joanna: No, it’s not easy either way. It’s funny, because I feel like traditionally published authors think going indie is the easy way, and indies often think, oh, I’ll just go traditional because then I won’t have to do marketing. So there are pros and cons either way. Given what you said—

What are the benefits of going traditional?

Renee: I was going to ask the indie people that question!

Joanna: But from your perspective.

Renee: I think for a lot of people it’s kind of a goal for them. It’s kind of fun. I mean, not for nothing, having bragging rights of saying St. Martin’s took my book, that’s great. That’s quite a feather in your cap. I think you should do that if that’s what you want to do.

I always tell my clients, the publishing landscape is tough. It really is. I will try so long, sometimes it takes me two years to sell their book, depending on what it is. I will do everything I could, send it out, get some feedback.

Then when I say, listen, I think I’ve exhausted all my possibilities, at least they have the option of self-publishing, a smaller press, going to a hybrid, whatever they want to do to get their book out there. I believed in that book enough, and I’d love to see it out there too.

So you got your bragging rights, the nice feather in your cap, something that I think is wonderful.

You’re also looking at the other side. You’re giving up a big piece of your pie. You’re still doing a lot of the marketing. You may have better distribution the other way.

I don’t know about in the UK, but we don’t have many brick and mortar stores and more. They’ve all been reduced to online. I think there’s a couple of Barnes and Nobles left, but this still happens. There’s still airports and all that you could try to get your book into. I think there’s definitely pros and cons to both sides.

Joanna: Yes, indeed. One of the other things I was considering around this is film and TV rights because your agency looks at that. I mean, there are agents who have relationships with film and TV agents or studios. Is that a better way to go, as well?

For example, I pitched to a person in TV a while back, and they said, “Well, why isn’t your literary agent doing that for you?” I was like, “Oh, well, I’m doing it myself because I’m not with an agent.” So do you think that it’s a benefit to have an agent do that?

Is there a better chance of getting a film or TV deal that way?

Renee: I think some of them require it. Just like the Big Five requires you to have an agent, it’s because they don’t want to deal directly with the author.

So that’s why they want to have the intermediate of an agent to make sure you have representation, make sure that you have someone saying, “They said this, but really, this is what’s gonna happen.” So that’s the pro to having an agent, to do that kind of stuff.

For the most part, film and television, I don’t know if like Amazon Studios doesn’t require an agent or some of those that have popped up in the last few years.

Film and TV, for the most part, are going off of a great story. A lot of times it could be high sales figures that catch their eye, but it also has to do with what’s working at the time.

Hallmark, Lifetime, they’re always looking for new stories that fit their profile and demographics. They want an agent to send them their stuff.

When I was optioning books for film and TV at Harcourt, I was obviously only working with my own books, but I would have celebrity managers calling me up going, “Do you have a female-driven vehicle?” She was representing Cher, and it’s like, well, I’ll see what I have.

When I was a scout for CW Television Network, I looked for the story and what was interesting, whether it was indie or not. It could have been a magazine article, but whatever worked for adaptation.

So I was doing double duty back then, running a book review site. So I was reading all sorts of different things. So in that aspect, just because you’re an indie author, doesn’t mean you can’t pursue that avenue.

There are some agents that just do—like I don’t represent the script, so I don’t go the other way—but there might be some other agents that take your indie book and sell for film rights. We tend to work with just the books that we represent when we do that.

Joanna: Then just coming back to something you said earlier. If you take on a manuscript, for example, it might take a few years, or it might not even happen.

What stops a publisher from publishing a book or taking on a book?

Is it just their list, they don’t want that kind of book right now? Or a timing problem? Like if it’s gone past your level of quality, there’s this next level at a publishing house.

Renee: It could be a lot of things. A rejection by them would be, “This doesn’t quite fit in my list,” or “I have something similar,” or what I always hear the same is, “Paranormal doesn’t sell.” I’m like, it doesn’t sell because you guys won’t take any.

Joanna: It’s selling pretty well for indie authors!

Renee: Exactly. It’s like, well, maybe take one and see how it sells. I understand there’s tropey stuff, and I found a werewolf one which I usually don’t take. I say please don’t send me witches, warlocks, werewolves, vampires, zombies.

I read one from one of our indie authors, actually, she came in as an indie. I thought she put a nice twist on an old trope. It came close at Macmillan, but didn’t quite pass the finish line. You know, it happens.

Joanna: What should an author do with these rejections?

I mean, I find being an indie author very empowering because you don’t have to ask permission. Any success and any failure is entirely my fault, basically. No one’s in control except me, so I can just keep trying to make things happen.

Obviously, the same as anyone else, some books sell better than others. That’s kind of the way it is. So I feel like I’ve never experienced the kind of rejection that people get submitting to agents or to traditional publishing. So how can authors deal with that?

Renee: It’s tough.

It’s tough not to take it personally, but I have to tell you, do not take it personally. I’ve seen them pass on brilliant writing and brilliant books.

It’s either because they were so overwhelmed with the work on their plate already that they have their stable of agents that they want to look at, or they just weren’t in the mood. I don’t know, but it is not personal.

Like I said, if it comes to me, and I’m like, this kept me interested and really thought this was great, and then I send it out, I’m dealing with the rejection along with everybody else. It’s like, this is really good, did you read it?

That’s what happens when we’re in a subjective industry. My fantastic is someone else’s meh.

Joanna: Yes, exactly. It really is, isn’t? As a reader, you know, someone can say, “Oh, this is an amazing book.” I’m like, oh, no, not for me.

Renee: “I couldn’t put it down.” Then you’re like, “I can’t pick it up.”

Joanna: Exactly, and sometimes I’ll try books because they’re just so popular. Then I’ll be like, I don’t understand why this is so big.

Renee: Sometimes we have conversations, my partner and I, and she’s like how did this get out there, but this won’t go? Well, it’s like, listen, we don’t know what kind of blackmail is happening out there.

Joanna: What the hell is going on?!

Renee: What dirt people have on the other?! I don’t know. But again, it’s subjective.

Joanna: Yes, and it’s always changing. I feel like the other piece of advice is to just write another book, because as creative people, that’s what we do. I feel like the more ideas I have, the more ideas I have. The time problem is getting everything written.

I have two particular projects I am thinking of pitching, but I love to move on so fast.

I was thinking, like let’s say this project I’m working on right now, let’s call it the vineyard book, if I finished that, and then I pitch an agent, it might take, I don’t know, six months—maybe never, obviously—but let’s say it takes six months to get an agent.

Then it takes six months to a year, you said two years, to get a publishing deal. Then it takes a publisher a year or two years to get the book in the world. Is that about right?

Renee: Well, some of it. Depending on how quick you get an agent, that’s the first step. Then for it to go to publishing, you can hear back sometimes within two weeks of “no, thank you,” or it could take a year.

So it’s somewhere in between two weeks and a year that you’ll hear back, depending on who you’ve sent it to and how much stuff is on their plate.

Then, if you do get, “Yeah, we’d like to greenlight this,” and when I said it took me two years to sell something, it was because, again, it’s timing. We talked about it, it may not be right now, but maybe it’ll rewrite later.

So it just took me two years that we sold it, finally. Then she wrote her second book with them. So it’s just finding the haystack, then finding the haystack with the needle in it, you know? Then if you get a book deal, right now they are backed up to where it’s taking about two years to pub, unless they fast track you. Although I haven’t seen that lately.

Joanna: You can get some money on signing, but then you get paid on publication.

Renee: Correct. It’s half on signing, and usually the other half on publication.

Joanna: Yes, so just keep that in mind, people, in terms of cash flow management.

Renee: Okay, not on publication. Let’s just say on accepted final manuscript.

Joanna: But they’re in control of that, they can just send it back with some more issues. That’s not up to the author.

Renee: We don’t usually try to drag it out.

Joanna: It’s so interesting. Like, why are we in this industry, Renee? It’s so hard!

Renee: Because we love it!

Joanna: We love books!

Renee: Back to one of your other points, too, is your first book may not be your first book published. It’s like, “I love your voice, I love your writing. The story, not so much. Send me your next project.” That’s what I’ll tell them. Then the next one might be a really great story, and then you send that one out.

So they get their foot in the door, you get published on the second book you wrote, or third or fifth or tenth. Then you get that first one out there, and then the publisher—if it sells through, you have to sell through because you won’t get your second book in there if it doesn’t.

Now they’ve sold through, and they ask what else are they working on. Then you go, “Here, I have these other options for you.” At that point, they’ll be more apt to edit you or help shape up what it is that you sent.

Joanna: You mentioned ‘sell-through’ there. Can you just explain that?

Renee: Sure. Let’s say when you sell it, let’s say you were given a $5,000 advance. There’s a price for your book, and you get a percentage of that wholesale price. So it’s not retail, unless it’s negotiated that way, but let’s just go with wholesale numbers.

So you get the couple of points on the wholesale price, and that goes against your advance. So you have to sell X amount of books at your 8%, usually, depending on what you negotiate, and that goes towards that $5000. Then when you sell enough and that $5000 is paid off, then you start seeing royalties.

Joanna: Yes, I think that’s really important too. The word advance means advance against royalties, and yet people lose track of what that actually means.

In that case, it’s really interesting because here in the UK, I have one author in mind in particular who got a massive, massive deal, like really, really huge, and then we never heard from her again.

Whereas I know other authors who started on much lower advances, but sold through like multiple, multiple times. Then the next time, they got a better deal. It’s hard to know which way is a better way to go.

Renee: Yes, it is. As an indie author, you’re not used to getting an advance anyways. So if it was a matter of between getting a lower advance and knowing that you could sell through and getting your royalties, there really is no difference, right? So it’s six of one, half dozen of another.

If you don’t know that you’re strong in the marketing aspect. I’ve had authors come to me from like St. Martin’s and whatever, and they didn’t take his next book because they didn’t sell through. Then he came to me without me realizing that, and then I found out real quick why. I sold the book, and they did nothing.

Joanna: I guess the other thing is —

Don’t be an idiot and treat people nicely, because it’s not that big an industry really, is it?

Renee: You put your book out there, you always have to be selling, you always have to be working at it. Building your platform, getting the word out. I’m not that kind of person, which is why I’m off the grid. I’m by referrals, usually only, or when I go to events and meet people. That’s how I build my list.

It’s always trying to get your book out there. Obviously, if you sell through, like I said, you’ve got it made.

Also, what helps selling through that advance is if your book is right for other countries. They’ll sell foreign rights, and all those other things get an advance as well. That goes to pay back the advance that they gave you so you can earn out faster.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, we’re out of time. I do want to just ask—

If people want to pitch you, tell them what you are looking for?

In terms of clients for editing, or whether or not they can contact you.

Renee: Well, I’m usually into like really great writing, really good voices, and really great stories. I mean, it’s more easy to tell you what I don’t take. I’m not a big fan of the post-apocalyptic depressing books, or erotica, poetry, westerns, the vampire, zombie, etc. as previously said.

I find it very difficult right now for fantasy, like with elves and magic and that other world, for me. There’s a lot of other agents out there that do very well with that. I just find that that’s not really my thing.

I do enjoy great chick lit, although the editors don’t seem to. I love humor, if it makes me laugh, especially. Thrillers, mysteries, all that. Also, I don’t do children’s books, even though my career was in that. I don’t take picture books or middle grade. I do handle YA. Again, it’s got to be based on story. You know, that’s the clincher.

Joanna: Nonfiction? Memoir?

Renee: Oh, absolutely. I do a lot of nonfiction. If you guys go to my agency site, GHliterary.com, you’ll see the book covers that we’ve done. I’ve done a lot of nonfiction.

If you go to ReneeFountain.com, under the tab of my work you’ll see a lot of the books that I helped get out there, and worked on proposals with the authors, and edited the books, etc. I think that’s a great place to start there because it kind of hones down to specifically me more on that site.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Renee. That was great.

Renee: I appreciate your time. It was great to be here.

The post Preparing Your Manuscript For Pitching Agents With Renee Fountain first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Hooray! Today, I am so happy to be sharing with you not one but two book launches—a revised and expanded second edition of Structuring Your Novel and a brand-new “sequel” Next Level Plot Structure. (And be sure to check out the giveaway for a Freewrite Alpha at the bottom of the post.)

If you want to write a story that works (and that doesn’t have you pulling out an unreasonable amount of hair), plot structure is the foundation upon which everything is built. Once you learn to recognize and understand the structural underpinnings that create a story’s arc, you can turn your imagination loose on your own stories, “knowing that you know” what you’re doing.

Structuring Your Novel is one of the most important books I have ever written. It was based on my cornerstone blog series “Secrets of Story Structure,” which I will be re-publishing starting next week (so if you’ve already read the first edition, you can catch up on the most important updates for free).

Structuring Your Novel continues to be one of the books I hear about most often from writers who are celebrating their successes in finishing and publishing manuscripts. When the book reached its official ten-year anniversary last year, I was inspired to revisit it, to update some information, add three new chapters (on the Inciting Event, Midpoint, and Third Plot Point), and just generally spit and polish it up a bit.

While working on the second edition, I realized how much I’ve learned about structure in the past decade. I wanted to share the nuances, theories, and understandings of structure that have helped me fall even more in love with story and to understand how and why plot structure works on a deeper level. However, because Structuring Your Novel has become such a mainstay for so many writers (80,000 and counting at this point!), I didn’t want to change it too much. So I decided to create a sequel!

Next Level Plot Structure compiles my last decade’s worth of discoveries and teachings about story theory and plot and scene structure. Specifically, it looks at how all of structure—from the macro level to the micro—can be constructed as two halves that mirror each other.

Not only does this create built-in foreshadowing and solid plots with cohesive set-ups and pay-offs, it also offers incredible opportunities for deepening character arcs and leveraging the built-in symbolism and meaning found within the plot beats themselves.

I am so happy to celebrate the second edition of Structuring Your Novel with all of you. Thank you for embracing it and making it a part of your writing journeys for the past decade! And I am ecstatic to get to share Next Level Plot Structure as a thoroughly up-to-date exploration of all my favorite ways to write stories that explode off the page and screen to remain with audiences for their entire lives. I can’t wait to hear about the new stories you will write with these books!

Where Can You Buy The Books

You can purchase Structuring Your Novel (Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition) at the following links:

• Amazon USA e-book (affiliate link)
• Amazon USA paperback (affiliate link)
• Amazon UK
• Amazon Canada
• Amazon Australia
• Amazon Japan
• Kobo
• Barnes & Noble
• Apple Books
• Epub Direct From My Site

If you have already read the first edition, I would totally appreciate it, if you’d consider leaving a review on the new one! Creating a new edition meant losing the thousands of reviews the book collected over the past decade. I would totally appreciate it if you’d help me rebuild the review section!

Also, in case you’re wondering, I am planning to update and create a second edition of the Structuring Your Novel Workbook next year sometime.

You can purchase Next Level Plot Structure at the following links:

• Amazon USA e-book (affiliate link)
• Amazon USA paperback (affiliate link
• Amazon UK
• Amazon Canada
• Amazon Australia
• Amazon Japan
• Kobo
• Barnes & Noble
• Apple Books
• Epub Direct From My Site

(Audiobooks are hopefully coming later this year!)

More About Structuring Your Novel (Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition)

Is Structure the Hidden Foundation of All Successful Stories?

Why do some stories work and others don’t? The answer is structure. In this 10-year anniversary edition, you will discover the universal underpinnings that guarantee powerful plot and character arcs. An understanding of proper story and scene structure will help you to not only perfectly time your story’s major events, but will also provide you with an unerring standard to use in evaluating your novel’s pacing and progression.

Structuring Your Novel will show you:

• How to recognize and create powerful plot points at the right moments throughout your story.
• How to determine the best methods for unleashing your unique and personal vision for your story.
• How to identify common structural weaknesses and flip them around into stunning strengths.
• How to eliminate saggy middles by discovering your “centerpiece.”
• Why you should NEVER include conflict on every page.
• How to craft a solid line of amazing scenes that create your story’s dramatic arc.

Revised and expanded with updated information and three brand new chapters, this second edition will help you join legions of writers who have learned how to write masterful plots.

Story structure has empowered countless bestselling and classic authors. Now it’s your turn!

More About Next Level Plot Structure

Elevate Your Storytelling with Expert Plot Structure

Unlock the secrets of compelling storytelling with Next Level Plot Structure, a brand-new guide from K.M. Weiland, author of the popular Structuring Your Novel. This comprehensive resource delves deep into the intricacies of plot structure, revealing the rich vein of narrative techniques and philosophical underpinnings that have shaped storytelling throughout history.

• Delve beyond plot beats to explore deeper symmetry and symbolism in story.
• Discover how every plot beat and scene is composed of two mirroring halves, contributing to the narrative arc.
• Introduce readers to chiastic structure, a mesmerizing mirroring technique that unites the two halves of a story.
• Master the dual beats of each major plot point to create dramatic scene arcs.
• Explore innovative ways to structure scenes to keep readers engaged and eager to turn the page.
• Examine the symbolic significance of a story’s four “worlds” and their influence on plot and character arcs.
• Evade formulaic story structures by understanding the deeper meaning and purpose of each plot element.

Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, Next Level Plot Structure provides invaluable insights and practical techniques to help you take your storytelling to new heights.

 

Enter to Win

To celebrate the launch of Structuring Your Novel and Next Level Plot Structure, I am giving away a Freewrite Alpha (value $349).

Description of Freewrite Alpha:

Alpha is a dedicated drafting device for anyone who wants to write without the distraction—or temptation—of browsers, email, or notifications.

Get in writing flow and develop more prolific writing sessions by separating the drafting and editing processes. When it is time to edit, your drafts wirelessly sync to the cloud for export into your software of choice.

Push your productivity forward and tap into writing joy.

To Enter

Winners will be announced Monday, July 15th (via email and on Instagram). Enter below! (Note: no purchase is necessary to enter.)

Good luck to everyone in the drawing, have fun, and thank you for helping me celebrate the launches of Structuring Your Novel and Next Level Plot Structure!

Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, or Spotify).

___

Love Helping Writers Become Authors? You can now become a patron. (Huge thanks to those of you who are already part of my Patreon family!)

The post Launch Day! Two New Books for Writers (+Win a Freewrite Alpha!) appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.