Ask Teresa and Additional Nuggets from Dave Farland

I'm having a chat with my very good friend and crit partner Teresa Frohock on for an interview late next week. Teresa is the author of "Miserere" by Nightshade Books, which was released July 1st. You may have seen a review of Miserere on Tor!I'll be happy to ask her your questions if there's anything you'd like to know. She's a smart lady and so is her agent, Weronika Janczuk of Lynn Franklin Associates, so ask away.

Now, a few more nuggets from Dave Farland, as promised. You guys are all getting his Daily Kick, right? And you know about http://www.authoradvisory.blogspot.com/, where Dave hosts author interviews via conference call (Elana Johnson, Gail Carringer and Lisa Mangum, an editor at Deseret Books, are recent guests. The archived calls are available as MP3s)

And at http://www.davefarland.com/, you can join a writer's group based on genre and experience.

Dave looks at things a little differently. He really didn't talk much about the mechanics of writing, instead focusing on how the story incites emotion and audience analysis. Good stuff.

From my notes-

• Think about story as an exercise in stress induction/reduction. Put the reader thru hell then pull them back out safely. Writer is the sadist, reader is masochist. Reader has to feel it’s safe stress. You can’t touch the reader too deeply. (ie- He had a friend who read a book about a broken romance, but woman had real life situation, and couldn’t finish reading it.)

• All of us have some things that we can’t handle/too close to home. Conflict too big.

• Some conflicts are too small. Ie- poor little rich kid doesn’t interest him.

• Female writers will sometimes have hero get in an argument and feel bad. Not enough conflict for him. "Feelings hurt" may not be enough conflict.

• You can’t write a story that everyone will like.

• You HAVE TO take your story to a successful conclusion. Slice of life isn’t satisfying. No ambiguous ending! Ie- Inception. He hated it!

• Writing about evil is not the same thing as being a proponent of evil.

• Don’t critique the author, crit the work.

• Ask yourself- How am I different from the other writers in my genre, how am I similar?

• Often a reader will find experiences read in a book more important than real life. Stories are that important.
 
Okay, that's a cut and paste from my notes, all things Dave talked about in a half hour or so of class.The last point there really made me think- Dave said there were many times in his life that he ONLY remembers in relation to what book he was reading. True for me- I remember reading "Fire" and "Dragonfly" last year at the beach, but not what we ate or if the kids got sunburnt. Is it true for you?  Don't forget to leave a question for Teresa. Let's make her work!
Glutton for Punishment?

David Farland's Professional Writer's Conference

Or, How Dave Ruined Movies as Entertainment, Too.

Last week, my sister and watched "Second-hand Lions," a coming-of-age story about a young man,Walter's, attempts to find a place in this world after his mother drops him off with his wacko uncles (Best line in the movie is when Walter and his mom first arrive and Uncle Hutch asks the other brother "Did you call for a hooker?") Great movie.

I couldn't help pointing out Walter's first try-fail cycle as he begs his mom not to leave him and she drives off anyway. Later I pointed out how Uncle Hutch is a classic hero- impetuous, brave to the point of foolishness, loves only one woman his whole life, and brings a sword for his enemy to fight him with, because as we all know, a real hero would never take advantage.

At which point she told me to go away. I held my tongue after that, but oh, the plot points I dissected and the tropes I picked out. I can see how it might get really annoying. Dave suggested that we study movies when studying plot because it's so much faster than reading a book. Interesting, right? But it works.



Our class. Dave is standing behind Kevin (guy with gray hair), wearing a black shirt. I'm in the black and white shirt. 

 I can't cram a whole week's worth of classes into a blog post, even a week's worth of posts, but here are a few nuggets:

1. Editing isn't about subraction. It's about making what you've written better so that it works. Not that you'll never have to cut anything, but if you cut the things that aren't working and forget to replace them with something better, you get an over-edited story with no life.

2. If you ever get a chance to seel rights to Hollywood, don't fall for taking money on the back end. Movies NEVER make money, the money just changes pockets.

3. It's fun to laugh. I've never really gotten to know a group of writers in person before, and everybody was so funny and quick. It was awesome to be around people who can zing your funny bone with a one-liner. We seriously laughed more than we did anything else.

If you have a chance to go to an intensive workshop like this, I highly recommend it. The instant feedback from the group was great. I was a little nervous (haha- shaking in my boots is more like it), but everybody had positive and helpful things to say. Not that you can listen to everybody's advice about how to improve your story, but it's really good to get a range of reactions so you can understand how your story is hitting people.

I made some new friends, some of whom I expect to be around a long time. Dave himself was amazingly generous with his time, and I could feel how much he wants his students to succeed.

And he's hysterical. For instance, early in the week he talked about what twisted advice Hemingway gave, like telling a woman that he always writes standing up. Painters do that, but you can't write like that for long.

Dave gave his opinion that Hemingway said that to thin out the writers that were dumb enough to believe it. Dave said that Hemingway learned to write in the trenches as a war reporter, and possibly felt that if someone couldn't learn to write in the comfort of their nice safe home, then they had no business writing.

On the last day, Dave opened the floor for questions, and expressed disappointment that none of us had asked him what sort of desk he wrote at. His eyes twinkled, and he said that the real secret was to write standing on your head because all of the blood rushing to your brain would really improve the writing. Good times. 

On our two movie nights, we watched "Avatar" and the new "Star Trek" and Dave gave commentary on the movies, explaining the hero's journey and plot elements- like the reveals in Star Trek- "Surprise! It's Captain Kirk! Surprise! It's Spock! Surprise! It's Bones!" Tons of fun.

Dave isn't doing any classes for the next few years, but if he starts them up again, I highly recommend heading out to St. George. Plan for an extra few days so you can see Zion National Park and the dinosaur run.


There were writers from all over- North and South Carolina, Alaska, Idaho, Texas, California, Connecticut, Utah, Montana. I could be missing some, but you get the point. Ages ranged from 19 to about 60 years. Almost everybody was fantasy or sci-fi, and there were people literally from all walks of life. Several people who'd worked in Hollywood as writers or producing plays, some teachers, some stay-at-home moms and even a S-A-H dad. Some were already involved in self-publishing online. Some dreamt of holding their books in their hands and nothing else was even tempting.

I'm going to post a few of the "wowsers" comments that Dave made on Wednesday. I hope Summer is going well for you guys! Happy Writing!
Glutton for Punishment?

Sky writing

I apologize for not getting this out yesterday, but I'm sick and have the same bedtime as my kids until I feel better.

I did some brainstorming on marketing. Skywriting is my favorite. How I would love to look up at the beach and see my first scene written in one mile high letters (that's the size of the letters, not the altitude. Really.) It's almost dramatic enough for this writer's ego. Perhaps if the entire throng of beachgoers were taking notes, slack-jawed and/or teary-eyed…Oh. Hello. I forgot you were here. Ahem. Sorry about that.

I said last time that the average person is exposed to 30,000 advertisements a day (according to marketing guru Steve Whigham). How do you get your book to stand out among all of those? And WHAT has to stand out? Do you need a bright yellow cover? An Oprah's book club sticker? (Yes. Give her your soul. She will sell a lot of books and your soul will get time with Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil, so your soul will be self-embracing and in a happy place, surrounded by Oprah's favorite things.)

Let's talk about Oprah's book club. Love it or hate it, a recommendation from Oprah sells. Why?

Steve claims that 95% of decisions are emotional (based on brain-imaging studies- more below on this.) So how does Oprah make us feel? I notice four basic responses.

1. Loyal Oprahites- want to be able to send her emails about the book, detailing how the book changed their lives, their children's lives, their neighbor's life. These people consider Oprah a close personal friend and REALLY want to meet her. They take her recommendation as seriously as if she were their priest/minister/best friend/psychiatrist/medical doctor rolled into one. They have learned how to read because Oprah suggested it.

2. Casual Oprahphiles- tune in every once in a while, maybe thumb through her magazine in the checkout. She says some interesting things and most of it is pretty good. These people have read at least one of her other book picks- possibly because their book club picked it- and they're willing to give her recommendation a chance. They like how they feel after watching Oprah- grateful that their life isn't so messed up, hopeful and ready to put their life in order, serious about fixing the ills in the world, etc.

3. Oprah Indifferents- Think, "Crap. She recommended another book. Everybody is going to read it and be talking about it, so I should, too." A lot of 'book people' may fall into this group. (In a parallel example, the buzz around Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" has made some people read it, just so they could weigh in) This is, as are the rest of my Oprah categories, merely conjecture.

4. Oprah Reactionaries- WILL NOT read a book because she recommended it-but they won't be buying the books, so I only mention them. But they exist, as evidenced here.

Notice that these categories are related to identity (If I read these books, I am a good, caring person. Oprah said so.) Reactionaries have an opposite though equally strong emotion, which I will call non-identity. (I will not become a sheep in Oprah's herd.)

So you can send Oprah emails every day until she asks you on the show, you can drop leaflets from planes (think propaganda drops during WWII), stick flyers on people's windshields, tables at cultural events like fairs,tattoos, blogging, spamming, become best friends with the indie (independent) bookstores within a twelve-hour drive of your home, etc. Lots of people spend a lot of money looking at what motivates people to buy.

Did you know supermarkets use video of customers to measure time spend in a store, time standing in the aisle waffling about what to buy, observing what products people go straight for (and thus should be advertised outside, since by the time they get inside the decision is already made)?

I've wondered why they stick books like "Coffees of the World" and "The Ultimate Tulip Guide" in the entry way at Barnes and Nobles. Marketing people call it "decompression", and the purpose is to ease us into the shopping experience, to let our brains adjust. I think they use those books to give us some easy decisions. To give us confidence that we are in control. It reminds me a bit of a lobster trap. Here's another trap-

"Often a customer struggling to decide which of two items is best ends up not buying either. A third "decoy" item, which is not quite as good as the other two, can make the choice easier and more pleasurable, according to a new study using fMRI carried out by Akshay Rao, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota. Happier customers are more likely to buy. Dr Rao believes the deliberate use of irrelevant alternatives should work in selling all sorts of goods and services, from cable TV to holidays." (From this article in "The Economist")

So, the ideal situation would be to have a table with your book, the bestseller comp book, and a decoy book, like "Famous Quidditch Matches in Hogwarts History" or "The Life and Times of Dr. Carlisle Cullen". You'll have some fans that will pick the decoy, but most people want to relive the emotion of a golden book. They've already read the golden book, the decoy is out, and that leaves your book. Which looks pretty interesting, actually. In his email newsletter, "Daily Kick in the Pants", David Farland says this:

"In fact, most purchases that most active readers make are based upon the fact that the book resonates with other works that they have enjoyed. The readers almost never make a conscious connection, but it is there.

"As I mentioned the other day, we choose the category of fiction that we do because we are looking for a certain type of controlling emotion in our work. The word "genre" doesn't really explain what we're doing when we choose our fiction. Instead, the sections in the bookstore ought to be titled "Wonder, Romance, Drama, Intrigue, and so on...

"Sometimes the resonance that induces us to buy a book comes from the cover. My own fantasy novels have covers by Darrel Sweet. Sweet of course is famous for doing the covers for Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan, two of our best-sellers of all time. So when readers look at my novels, they are immediately reminded of books by those authors."

I can see what he means. The publishers are very aware of cover art and what it conveys- hence the recovering of Wuthering Heights to look more like Twilight. More on this Tuesday, including how to make a living as a bum. Really. It's a good gig.

What emotion do you read for? Some possibilities- Adventure (like Dan Brown), romance (Stephenie Meyer), humor(Dave Barry), wonder(J.R.R. Tolkien), drama(Jodi Picoult)? Does it change?

What did one book say to the other one?
I just wanted to see if we are on the same page
Glutton for Punishment?