Stacia Kane

For those of you who haven’t yet heard, yesterday Galleycat published a rather ridiculous opinion piece about how agents are unnecessary and they don’t do anything and they’re just evil old vultures and blah blah blah. The same crap we’ve heard before, in other words, although I find it fascinating that this piece was written by someone who last year–obviously unaware that I already had an agent and two book deals–offered to query agents on my behalf for the low, low price of $500.00, and yes I still have that email exchange saved. He’s perfectly entitled to run such a business and I’m not calling him a scammer, but it’s interesting, isn’t it?

Agent Miriam Goderich rebutted it here very nicely. So, I’m sure, have others, but I’m about to add my voice to the chorus simply because that’s the way I roll, baby.

Do you need an agent?

Yes. Yes, you fucking do.

Period.

Okay, sure. If you’re planning on having a career in epublishing, you probably do not need an agent. If you’re planning to self-publish, you do not need an agent. There’s nothing wrong with either of those things. I started out in epublishing, without an agent, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I’m glad I did it and am grateful to Ellora’s Cave for treating me so well and enabling me to make some decent cash. Working with them was a pleasure for me.

But–no offense–I wanted more than that. I wanted books on shelves. I wanted advances. I wanted a bigger career. I wanted to move out of genre romance/erotic romance; not because I didn’t enjoy it or don’t enjoy it (writing and reading), but because the more of it I wrote the more a little voice inside me told me it was simply not quite the right fit for my voice or the kinds of stories I wanted to tell.

To accomplish those things (aside from moving away from writing romance, which of course is a huge genre in all forms of publishing: ebook, mass market paperback, trade paperback, hardcover, audio, whatever) I needed an agent.

Here’s what fascinates me (and infuriates me) about the original Galleycat article (aside from the fact that its author apparently also runs a website devoted to helping writers self-publish; again, legal, but certainly interesting). It’s this paragraph here:

One published author who asks to be unnamed disagrees, “What do you need an agent for anymore, really? Why? To negotiate a meager advance? You can’t get them on the phone anyway. You’re stuck promoting the book yourself because publishers don’t put any marketing dollars into your book unless you’re John Grisham. I don’t see the whole point when I can hire an attorney to negotiate my publishing contract for a flat fee or just upload the book to Kindle myself.”

Let’s take a look at these points, shall we?
Read the rest of this entry »

This article originally appeared, in a slightly different form, over at Emily Veinglory’s EREC blog. Then last summer it was published in the September issue of Lady Jaided, the Ellora’s Cave online magazine. But it occurred to me this evening that I’m quite proud of this little piece, and it should be on my site. So here it is.
Read the rest of this entry »

So having had my unscheduled little rant on Monday about the importance of critique, and a little bit about why having your work critiqued is important, let’s discuss today why it’s important to critique. (I know you guys are waiting for the Mean-assed examples, and for more nitty-gritty stuff on how to critique etc., and we’re going to start that next week. I want to get the theory down first as a sort of base.)

We all know getting critique can improve our work. Critique partners or beta readers can ask questions we didn’t realize were there, or point out weak areas we didn’t see. They can helps us show not tell or clean up dialogue or whatever, depending on our own individual skill levels.

But what often seems left out of the gotta-get-a-crit race is how important it is to critique others, and how that process helps us become better, more critical, more thoughtful writers.

How many times have you bought a book because it looked promising, only to discover, a chapter or two in, that it wasn’t at all? For whatever reason, it didn’t appeal to you. Maybe you thought the characters were wooden and insipid, or the writing didn’t sparkle, or the plot was cliche, or too many characters were introduced at one time and you never could keep them straight because they all seemed exactly the same, or maybe the writer kept using the word “unctuous” over and over again until you wanted to slap him or her in the face repeatedly with a bowl of oxtail soup.

There’s almost nothing in the world more disappointing than a bad book.

But bad books can teach us a lot. Bad writing can teach us a lot. Because your work came from you. Yes, we can and should learn to distance ourselves and be objective enough to see it as a piece of work separate from ourselves. That’s important.

But the way to learn that distancing and objectivity, the way to learn to take critiques, is by giving them.

When it’s someone else’s doc open on the screen, we’re not emotionally attached to it. We can view it for what it is: a piece of writing. Not somebody’s “baby.” (UGH.) Not somebody’s soul. Not their heart. Just a piece of writing, which can be judged on its own merits.

Does that mean we can forget that it’s a real human behind that piece of writing? No, of course not, and as we’ll see when we get to the mean-ass crits, it’s very possible to really hurt someone. Comments like “This sucks. Give it up,” are no help to anyone, especially not–surprise!–you.

Because when you look at something and simply dismiss it, you’re not learning anything. You’re not putting on an editor monacle and really studying why something doesn’t work. And sure, sometimes a piece will have so many problems you don’t know where to start.

But most won’t, at least not if you’re finding appropriate partners. Most will be close. And what you’ll learn in trying to make them hit the mark will teach you how to fix your own work.

Maybe the word “was” keeps leaping out at you in this particular piece. And it irritates the fuck out of you for no discernible reason (this happens. See my “unctuous” example.) It drives you do crazy, in fact, that soon all you can see is “was.”

Then you open your own book. Lo and behold, you have “was” strewn about like crayons on a playroom floor. Oops! Maybe you should try to rework some of those sentences, huh? Figure out a way to show all those things you “was”ed instead of telling them?

(That’s not to say “was” isn’t useful or should never be used. It’s just an example. But we should be careful about “was”ing.)

Here’s an example:

The night was dark. (Hey, it’s an example. Shut up.) Lucy was walking down the street, past the pub, which was filled with drunks playing darts. Lucy shivered. It was so cold outside, and her feet were (ha!) so sore. She was desperate to get home, but it was still so far away.

Now. This is not great. It’s rather dull. And something feels off about it, at least to me. There are a few issues with it, but all those wases jump out at me first. So how do we eliminate them?

We figure out how to show the dark, cold night, the pub drunks, Lucy’s desperation and sore feet, without telling them. Perhaps we try something like this:

Lucy pulled her ragged jacket closer around her shoulders, but it didn’t help much. The wind cut through her like shards of ice, whipping around the lonely buildings to shred her soul. Up ahead home waited for her, warm bright rooms and her mother’s smiling face. But here on the street only the echoes of her footsteps kept her company.

She passed through the square of pale gold light on the street made by the pub window. Inside men shouted and laughed, lifting pints, slapping each other on the back when one of them hit a bullseye. If she only had some money, she could walk in and have a drink too, defrost her aching extremities by the gentle coal fire.

Now. This isn’t great either, for another reason. Can anyone tell me what it is? Go on, critique this paragraph.

When you’ve done that, think about it. You’ve just read this opening looking for flaws. You’ve been specifically looking to find something wrong. You’ve (hopefully) taken your undoubtedly very warm feeling toward me (ha) out of the equation and examined the openings just as openings, and tried to decide the following things:

1. Is it well-written on a basic level? (i.e. are there no obvious grammatical flaws or spelling errors; is the character named Lucy throughout, does it make sense, etc.)

2. Is it well-written on a more advanced level? (Are the sentences clunky; are words repeated; do all the sentences start with “she” or “it” [that's one of my personal bugbears].)

3. Did you get a sense of character, place, and/or time from it?

4. Most importantly, would you keep reading?

There’s more, of course, and we’ll get to it in time. For now, take a look there and tell me in comments what your thoughts are. And be honest! You’re not going to hurt my feelings.

In fact, as a bonus today I’m going to offer the sum total of my wisdom on accepting critiques. Keep repeating this to yourself:

My work is not me. My work is not me. My work is not me.

Have fun!

Okay. I had a different post planned for today, but I’m in a mood now, so I’m going to rant a little bit. And maybe when I’m done ranting we’ll get to what I actually planned, which was different from what I originally planned. Muahaha, the nefarious twistiness!

Here’s the thing. A critique partner or beta reader will do different things for everyone. I personally think that the better we get and the more confident we get, the less we actually need critique and the more we just need a second pair of eyes; this is something I’ll be discussing later.

There’s another name for this beta reader person, once you’re published. That name is EDITOR.

See, when I write a book, and make it as shiny and perfect and clean as I can–and yes, I am the judge of that–I send it to this person who works at my publisher. That person is called an “editor,” and that “editor” will actually read my book, every single page, and will then point out things that perhaps aren’t clear, the occasional pacing issue, or simply an area my “editor” would like to see expanded or feels was expanded too much. Maybe she (my editors so far have all been women) feels I didn’t hit a certain emotional place hard enough. Maybe she feels I hit it a little too hard, and the scene has become a bit depressing–or rather, more depressing than usual, ha.

What’s my point? My point is that A) Working with beta readers or critique partners is a good way for some of us to get used to dealing with editing suggestions (I never had a problem doing so, and I love edits, but some do); B) Every single book on the shelves–every decent book–has been through this process and has thus had at least one other person making suggestions to the author, suggestions we usually take; C) That that extra pair of eyes is necessary to make a book the absolute best it can be; and most importantly D.

D is that it is my job to make my editor’s job as easy as possible.

How do I do that? By turning in the cleanest, tightest manuscript I possibly can. I accomplish this by working hard. By writing and rewriting, editing and editing, by thinking of hardly anything else for weeks on end. I accomplish this by neglecting my family so I can write, reread, edit, change, rip out, add in, polish polish and polish some more.

And I accomplish it, when I’m done with all of that, by sending the ms out to a few people I trust, to see if they spot anything my editor might spot. Anything I can fix before I turn that book in. Any slow spots or areas where I know the story so well I forgot I was writing for people who don’t, and so have neglected to fully explain a character’s reasoning or whatever.

My book is one of dozens my editor may be working on at any given time. I want to make her job easier. If I may, I’m going to tell you something one of my editors once said to me: That she was looking forward to my ms because she knew my work would be clean and tight, that it wouldn’t require a lot of heavy lifting.

That’s the kind of shit I live for, people. And that’s why I have beta readers–aside from the simple fact that it’s FUN to share your work with your friends, and that often in exchange you actually get to read their mss too! I love my friends and I love their work. Why wouldn’t I want people I trust and admire to read my books? Why wouldn’t I want to read theirs? Do you have any idea how good it feels to actually be able to discuss your work with someone? And if all that reading fun means I also get to have a reputation with my editors for turning in clean work? (Which I would have anyway, as I generally change very little based on my betas’ comments?) So much the fucking better.

Once you’re contracted, one you’re published, it’s not just about you anymore. It’s about the people who depend on you, too. It’s not “asking a committee” or wimping out. It’s the business of professional publishing. Period.

But that does bring me to an interesting point, the one I originally planned for today, which is, who the hell is giving you such crap advice?

Here’s the thing. Finding people willing to crit you is good. And a lot of this is covered when you see theirs; you get an idea of their skill level and thus how reliable they actually are.

But some people post work online, like in the Share Your Work forum on AW or any number of other places. And those are great places, they are. But watch who you listen to.

Not everyone who offers you comments will know what they’re talking about. Some people get bugs up their asses about silly things that don’t matter. Some people will argue based on nothing. (Years ago I posted an excerpt from a historical. I got excellent feedback, and really appreciated it, except the one or two people who insisted my years of meticulous research were incorrect. This also happened in a nightmarish way later and elsewhere, at a place that no longer exists, but that’s not really a story I can share here.)

My point is, yes, you need to trust yourself, and you need to be careful who you listen to. Just because someone sounds like they know what they’re talking about doesn’t mean they do. Just because they have several people who agree with them doesn’t mean any of them know what they’re talking about. Check their credentials. Are they published? In your genre? By whom? For how long? Do they normally make sense? Step away from the work and the crit for a while and come back to it.

Does it still seem unreasonable? Forget it. Don’t take every bit of advice you’re offered. Learn to pick and choose; it’s part of the process.

.

Be gentle with me today, everyone. I spent an hour this morning with the Hair Butcher of Alpharetta, and am feeling a mite traumatized. I should have realized something was wrong when I saw her Laura Ashley-esque dress and little wedge heels; this woman would not understand what it means to want to look like a whorish punk rock Barbie. And no, she did not. The good news is, apparently I’m a better hairstylist than I thought, as all she really did (at first) was to trim–barely–the layers I myself cut. It was when I explained I wanted MORE layers that the trouble started. But oh well. It’s only hair. It grows. And I can put enough gunk in it to fix it in the end.

Anyway. Enough about me.

As I said the other day, I have plenty of crit submissions; six or seven, I believe. I am going to try to do them all, interspersed throughout instead of at the end. Thanks so much to all who submitted.

So. Last time I gave you all a bit of background on my fantastic crit partners. Today I’m going to talk about finding partners, a bit, and next week we’ll start doing the crits and talking about how what we need from crits changes as our skills develop. Next week we start getting into the nitty-gritty, in other words.

Kait Nolan left a link in comments on Monday that I want to post here. It’s Crit Partner Match and it looks pretty good to me.

But it occurs to me that with the exception of Anna, none of my critique partners were found specifically to be critique partners. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Crit Partner Match service–I think it’s incredibly clever, actually–or any of the other services about which I’ve heard good things, like CritiqueCircle.com.

My suggestion? Join Absolute Write. Or any other writer’s forum that has beginning and professional writers as members; that has a good mix. Romance Divas is another, if you write romance. As with any forum, AW or Divas are not for everyone. Hang out for a while. Join some conversations. Get to know people a bit.

For the love of all that’s holy, do some research before you join such a forum. Don’t join a forum called (to pull a name out of my mullet) “Professional Writers” or some such faff without checking the members out. Are they actually pros, or are they all self-published? Are they PA “authors”? Do they actually know what it means to be professional, in other words? What kinds of people do they seem to be? This may be simply a quirk of mine, but I avoid any forum where I see more than one member discussing their own God-given talent. Or offering to trade Amazon reviews. Or discussing promo ideas like slipping bookmarks into their utility bills so “the person opening the envelope sees it.” (Those are all opened by machine, AFAIK, anyway.) Do you know what I mean? You want a cp who knows what the hell they’re talking about.
Read the rest of this entry »

So, here we have the final act. It’s the easiest to write, but the hardest to write about; at least, I think so.

Again, before we go further, remember: this is my way, and the way of a few writers I know. It is NOT the way of every writer I know; it is not the only way; it is not an iron-clad rule or something which requires complicated flow charts (although the post Patrice Michelle linked to in comments for the last post, which was a post she wrote about, essentially, keeping a flow chart, is a great post and a great method for people who can work that way) or strict word-count deadlines (I’m using a 90k book as an example, and ending the acts at 30k, 60k, and roughly 90k, but you may vary by as much as 10k words or whatever and that’s fine). No secret gun-toting Writing Police are going to show up at your home in the dead of night and arrest you for not doing this or not doing it properly or whatever.

These are just guidelines. It’s the way I keep the story from getting away from me and the way I keep my pacing on-target. It’s not something to obsess about. It’s not something to force yourself to do. As Patrice said, if you’re writing your first novel or your second or you’re still feeling your way through this writing thing (which we all are to some extent, really, no matter how many books we’ve written), don’t get all tangled up in this. You can always go back later and see how you’ve done and fiddle with it then.

Okay?

So. We’ve now written our first act, in which we laid out all of our clues and introduced our main characters, and we ended that act with a bang. We’ve written our second act, where we deepened our mysteries and conflicts, and added depth to our subplots. We also ended the second act with a bang; hopefully a hell of a big one, which turned everything around, but again, this depends on the book.

Our third act is about solving our problems. Whodunnit? What happens with our detective Jennifer’s grandma in the home and her ex-lover? Does she end up with him again, or is she suddenly realizing she’s got a thing for one of the cops or the drug dealer or whatever? What deadly jeopardy is Jennifer in–or about the be in–when the second act ends, and will she survive act 3? Will anyone? In comments to the last entry Patrice and I discussed how the information a character receives shouldn’t come easily. It’s not true for everything but for most of it; well, that’s where your story actually comes from, right? The difficulties and complications of getting necessary information and/or aid? It wouldn’t be a very interesting book if in Chapter Four Jennifer found an eyewitness who told her exactly what happened, and then they just went and caught the Bad Guy, right? (Unless you’re going for courtroom drama, of course.)

Anyway. Patrice suggested that sometimes information is paid for in lives, or in giving up things which are important to the characters. And that’s very true. So the question of whether everyone survives to act 3, and whether everyone will survive act 3, is a pretty big one. What is your MC going to lose in the climax? What will she gain? Is what she gains going to be worth it?

I digress. The point is, Act 3 is where everything comes together. All those subplots we started, and all those clues we planted, all those threads we expanded on? It’s time to wrap them up.

And it’s fun. The tricky thing about the third act, though, is making it fun and interesting for the reader as well. Oh, sure, they’re going to be interested in your climax and the solution to the mystery or resolution of whatever the conflict is. (Personally, I adore those big Agatha Christie-esque “drawing room” scenes; I don’t need a lot of action, I just want to read those slowly and savor them.)

But they’re not very fashionable anymore, so usually what we end up with is a big action-filled climax, and I love those too. But you have to have raised the stakes high enough. And you have to keep enough tension going, enough conflict going, that it doesn’t feel like you’re ticking things off a list.

I generally up the pacing in the third act, which I think helps; shorter scenes. More active ones. A little less internal monologue. The reader feels the tension building, even if they’re not conscious of it; they know something is coming, because the shorter scenes move the book along faster, and of course they’re aware of how far into the book they’ve gotten, but it’s pacing and increasing conflict which really works magic when we near the book’s climax.

To me the third act is like knocking down dominos, for lack of a less-cliched image. I’ve set all these things up; I have loose threads waving in the breeze. Now I start grabbing them and tying them together.

In act 2 we had Jennifer place her grandmother in a nursing home, which happened to be run by the mother of one of the victims. Now is the moment when one of the nurses at the home can make a casual comment which rings a bell in Jennifer’s head; perhaps Jennifer realizes the nurse had a heretofore unguessed motive to kill the first victim. And the second. (I feel guilty making a nurse the Bad Guy, btw; my mother is an emergency room nurse. Sorry, Mom. For the record nurses are AWESOME.) And of course, she had access to the drug which killed them both.

Now Jennifer has to figure out how to get out of the room and call the police. Perhaps the nurse twigs on to Jennifer’s newfound knowledge? And insists that she take Jennifer’s grandma to get a spongebath or something? And the director of the home, who of course has no idea, backs her up. Now Jennifer’s grandma is a hostage, and Jennifer knows the nurse will kill her. Maybe the nurse thought Jennifer had figured it out before, and slipped something into Jennifer’s drink.

This is all well and good; we have a climax. But we have other subplots which need to be tied up, and we need to do it before we get into our climax; not all of them, necessarily, and of course if we’re writing a series we need to leave some open-ended questions, but some of them.

How you do this is up to you (hey, I warned you the third act was hard to write about.) For a 90k book, I generally start the real run-up to my climax at around 70k; in the above example, this would be when Jennifer arrives at the home. That way we’re around 75k or so when she gets drugged and solves the mystery; it gives us some room to play. Your runup may be longer; my climaxes tend to be longer, involving as they do complex rituals and secrets and abandoned asylums full of zombies.

But if you’ve set up your first two acts properly, really, the third will essentially write itself. Honestly. You’ll have some scenes and resolutions in mind; you’ll have arranged events in such a way that logic will move you smoothly from one scene to another. And that is extremely important. The last thing you or anyone wants or needs is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it climaxes, or one where everything just falls into place and it ends up being more of an anticlimax than a climax. We’ve all read books like that, where we fly through 320 pages of excitement and then the hero shoots and kills the bad guy and that’s it.

You don’t want to do that. You want to make sure you planted enough seeds, and grew them, in the first two acts, that there’s plenty of stuff to work with at the end. You want to try and tie at least one subplot directly into your climax; in PERSONAL DEMONS I had the msytery of Megan’s past; it was a minor point throughout the book but without it the climax never could have happened, and it figured prominently therein. In our Jennifer example, without Grandma and her poor health we wouldn’t have solved the murders. Perhaps Jennifer’s ex is involved here somehow too? Maybe he calls her and she says something, an old private joke, which warns him she’s in trouble so he can call the cops? However you do it, the key (IMO) to an interesting and fulfilling climax is to bring as many story threads as you can into it, and end them all with the biggest bang you can muster.

Here’s the thing about structures like these. Whether you’re using a three-act structure or a four-act structure or a twenty-two-act structure (NO, I’ve never heard of that and know nothing about it, ha) is that at some point, you have to stop setting your book up.

It has to stop. Your book cannot be 300 pages of setup, a climax, and an ending. Well, okay, if you want to look at it a certain way, that’s what all books are, but you know what I mean and don’t pretend you don’t.

The longer your subplots are part of your story, the more interesting and surprising and satisfying their resolution will be for the reader. The more danger you put your MC in, the more exciting the climax will be for the reader.

A book where subplots and plots do not carry through all the way feels episodic; it’s not a story, it’s a selection of vignettes. This why I stop adding new subplots to the book after the first third (again, I may make an exception if a new character is introduced, but chances are that’s actually more of a setup for the next book). Because at some point you have to work with what is already there. You have to deepen and expand what is already there. You have to sink into your story and work at it from the inside, rather than throwing more stuff at it from the outside.

And that’s the other big thing (aside from pacing) this structure does for me. It forces me to work with what is already there. I can’t write a deux ex machina, because I have to work with what is already there. I can’t veer out of the story and suddenly decide to change the focus, because I have to work with what is already there.

It keeps my books focused. It keeps my mind focused. It keeps my pacing even and makes sure my middles aren’t long saggy stretches of not-much-happening. It gives me discipline, and discpline is tremendously important for a writer.

So there you go. Like I said, I think the third act is very difficult to write about, because what it essentially boils down to is ‘finish the book’. Pick up the seeds and hints and clues you dropped and make sure they have a solid place to land. Make sure you keep the tension high. Make sure you use everything you can in the climax. Remember that if you’ve written your book logically, so your climax and resolution will also come out logically.

And then you have a book.

Questions? Thoughts?

First, thanks to everyone who responded to this last week! Your questions and feedback were very much appreciated.

Patrice Michelle brought up an excellent point at Fangs Fur & Fey, though, and it was one I failed to stress adequately in my little disclaimery thing. Guys, this is NOT the only way to write books, and it is NOT something you should get hung up about. Seriously. It isn’t. Even I, who loves doing this with my books, do not look at it as gospel.

From Patrice’s comment:

For new writers, the goal is to just write the story and then once it’s written, go back and look at advice like this to see if it can help you tighten and streamline your story to give it the most impact to readers.

And this is exactly true. Just as there is no magic bullet to finish your book, there is no one exact right way to write. If stuff like this bogs you down, don’t do it. If it feels too tight, don’t do it. You can, as she said, ignore this while writing and go back later once it’s done and see how it works for you. But please don’t ever think that because you handle things differently, you’re not “doing it right.” Whatever works for you? That’s what’s right. Period.

For me this is just a way of keeping track and making sure I’m pacing correctly. When I hit 30k words, have I put in all my basic clues? Have I laid the groundwork? Have I given myself plenty to work with and expand later? Are all the characters introduced who need to be, is the basic set-up of the world and story clear?

And there’s a little more to that as well; simply being 1/3 done is a little achievement. Writing a novel is hard work. When you first start out it can seem daunting. But once you get through the first 30k, you know you can do it. You only have to do another 30k and you’ll be in the end zone. And that’s a good feeling.

So. Last week I mentioned pacing. Anyone who’s spent any time reading about writing is familiar with the phrase “sagging middle.” The sagging middle hits all of us at one point or another; it is, basically, the long stretch of book from, well, 30-60k words or so, where…not much happens. The story falters. The characters start spending too much time thinking or talking and not enough time doing.

This is also, to put it bluntly, where characters start acting stupid. This is where, in our eagerness to have *something* happen, we send our characters alone into dark alleys, or have them pick fights with each other, or any number of things. Bad things.

It is my firm belief that the main cause of the sagging middle is pacing, and that the main cause of pacing problems is failure to allow for structure. There are other reasons, of course; too much telling is a big one, too. But I’m assuming you all know the basic rules of writing (such as they are) and so are not writing a book that’s nothing but a big long infodump.

We have pacing problems because we have inserted too much information into our first Act, and we have pacing problems because we have not given ourselves enough clues to work with.

It sounds like an oxymoron, I know. But let’s go back to last week’s example, Jennifer the detective with the elderly grandma and the just-ended relationship.

Our story started when a body was found. Let’s say there was no obvious cause of death. Now, using the three-act structure, we can make a decision; do we want to find out the cause of death before the act ends, thus giving ourselves the second act to explore it? Or do we want to wait, maybe pile up at least one more body?

It’s up to you and the story you’re telling. But if you’re not thinking in terms of using Act One for clues and Act Two for expansion, if you’re not using that first act to thoroughly ground your characters and their world and introduce some issues for them to deal with, you may find yourself with no choice but to give us a cause of death, simply because something has to happen next. If you’ve gotten too deeply into your subplots in the first act you may not have room to add complications to them in the second act, either.

Here’s the thing. If in the first 30k you have introduced plenty of characters and situations, the second act will essentially write itself, and I’ll tell you why.

Because of logic.

Your entire second act is simply adding more complications and doing what would logically come next.

For example. At the end of Act One Jennifer finds another body. In the beginning of Act Two she learns cause of death. So what would Jennifer logically do next? She would start studying/researching that cause of death. Let’s say it was an overdose; a particularly pure, new form of heroin. Okay. We learned a little about our first victim in the first act (because we were planting clues). So we know the victim was not an IV drug user; that’s a dead end.

To gran a few examples from mid-air, Jennifer might now logically start talking to drug dealers or users. That could be a nice suspenseful scene, her interview with a tough local drug dealer. That could have enormous complications that might effect the main plot; it could draw some new people into the case, perhaps, or cause jennifer problems with the police.

And we have her grandma. The poor lady might have a stroke at the end of Act One and thus be in the hospital. The plot if to some degree resolved; Jennifer knows that her grandma can no longer safely stay with her. But that introduces new complications; Jennifer has to research homes and residences. Perhaps she decides to kill two birds with one stone, and go to the residence where the first murder victim’s mother works? That might provide us with a nice way to tie those subplots together later, right?

So already we have some action for the second act; we’re meeting drug dealers and having wary conversations with them–perhaps a flirtation, depending on what kind of book this is?–and we’re getting involved more closely with a victim’s family and trying to find a place for grandma and expanding conflict with the cops. When we add that to researching the second victim and trying to find connections between them–perhaps they went to the same college, and Jennifer can go there and discover they had a class together? we’ve got a good 15-20k or so worth of action.

Any time you get stuck in writing that second act, every time you feel the story flagging, you have only to stop and think back or look back at your first act. What seeds did you plant there that now need to grow a little? Maybe in the midst of all the turmoil with meeting scary drug dealers and putting her beloved grandma in a home, Jennifer’s ex shows up and wants to get back together, there’s a complication. Maybe the college connection falls through but it’s there that Jennifer gets another idea for a possible motive, one she needs to explore. Your Bad Guy should show up again, for whatever reason; let Jennifer interact with him/her, however briefly. Let her feel close to or uncomfortable with the BG.

Your second act is all about expansion and information. Otherwise known as “the plot thickens.” The second act is where a new clue or two turns up; the second act is where you might illustrate a connection between one of your subplots and the main plot.

And remember, nothing should be easy; we need conflict on every page! You don’t want Jennifer to just meet someone who tells her who the Bad Guy is in exchange for money; you want them to tease her with the info, make her perform tasks, put her in danger. Information should be a reward or compensation, never (or very rarely) a given.

There are two other things I like to do/check with Second Acts. One, just as the first ended with a bang, so should the second. An even bigger bang (sometimes literally, heh heh; see below). I used Silence of the Lambs last week, so I’ll mention it again here; Dr. Lecter’s escape comes right around the end of the second act.

The other is, by the end of the second act, I like to leave the reader with no idea how things are going to work out, or who the bad guy is. I like to know, at the end of the second act, that all of my main threads are still loose but are closing in on each other; I like to be in a position where there’s only one more big clue, or one more fact to be uncovered, before everything falls into place and we’re ready for the climax. I like to think of someone reading to that point and thinking there are so many open holes there, there’s no way they can all be resolved by the end.

Now, I write UFs with thriller-y, mystery plots; you may write romance, in which case the end of the second act is right about where you’ll put your big sex scene and have it make everything even worse. (The end of the second act is a place I tend to put sex scenes as well and always have, and I’m not alone. I think most romances or UFs with romantic elements do the same; it’s usually a bit past the halfway point, so anywhere from 50-60k words, but again, that’s not set in stone and of course if you’re writing a more heavily erotic story you may well have had sex all throughout.)

But the end-of-act-2 bang should put everything in jeopardy. It should leave the reader doubting they’ll get a happy or even a decent ending. It should raise the stakes exponentially.

So, to sum up (and I realize this segment was a bit longer and wordier, sorry, but I think I covered everything I needed to):

*The second act should be about expansion and information.
*The second act is the logical next step of the first; I always think “What would they do next?”
*The second act is where you watch your first-act seeds grow. Don’t forget them!
*The second act is where everything gets deeper and more complex. You can solve a msytery or two and that’s fine, but you should bring some new ones in to replace it, or have the resolution of one question only bring up more questions.
*The second act is a good place for sex scenes
*Nothing should be easy; good information or realizations are worth paying for. Keep the conflict high, don’t let that middle sag!
*The second act must end with a very big complication; just as the 1st-act-end raised the stakes or made the problem more personal or trapped the hero/ine into solving the mystery, so the second should make it clear there is no out, this is very dangerous, and they have no choice but to follow through. Thus setting us up for Act Three and the climax.

So, any questions? Anything that doesn’t make sense, or needs expansion?

So, first, sorry. I didn’t post on Monday. It was a Bad Day. I’ve been having a lot of those lately, but Monday was particularly Bad and I honestly just couldn’t get my head around anything well enough to blog. So, sorry about that.

Seriously, is this month over yet? It’s been AWFUL. One of the worst months I’ve ever had; I feel bruised all over from the beating it’s given me. Part of it might be the Mercury retrograde; part of it might just be that it’s January and the weather is a neverending stream of miserable (and has been for two years.) Whatever it is, I just want to go crawl under the covers and hide.

But of course I cannot. I have kids to raise and a novel, a short story, and a proposal to write. So, no hiding for me. And actually, although it’s been a slow month, the novel is coming along and so is the proposal (haven’t started the short yet) so I feel good about that; I’m 25k or so into the third Downside book, which I’m calling CITY OF GHOSTS for now (although I’m not sure how unique that is, so we’ll see if I get to keep it. It might end up being something like UNDERGROUND GHOSTS or maybe GHOSTS UNBOUND. Don’t know. Reminder to self: Google “City of ghosts” and see what you get.) Shame, really, as it’s the perfect title for what I think is going to be a kickass book; I’m actually extremely pleased with it so far, which is nice. I have a couple more clues to drop in this first third and my subplots are simmering along nicely.

See, here’s what I do. I separate the novel, in my head, into three parts; assuming a 90k book, which of course it won’t be exactly–the final version of UNHOLY GHOSTS is about 98k; UNHOLY MAGIC before edits is about 101k. So we’ll see. Anyway.

It occurred to me that this particular way of structuring a book might interest some of you, so here’s what I’m going to do. This Thursday and the next two I’m going to outline my basic method; feel free to ask questions at the end of each post and I’ll answer them the following Thursday, and we’ll do a little summary at the end.

So. Why would you want to do this? Why would you want to structure your books this way? What is the benefit of it?

I can only answer what the benefit is for me, and how it helps me organize my thoughts and work, and the ways in which I feel it’s improved my writing. Honestly I think most of you probably do this anyway, either consciously or unconsciously.

I’m not an outliner or planner. I start my books with a couple of characters and a problem which needs solving. Occasionally I’ll have a couple of ideas for Big Scenes in my head, but that’s really it. An idea excites me and I start writing, period. If you are an outliner or planner, this may not be necessary for you or, again, you probably already do this. And as with any other writing advice I give, this is my way and only mine; it’s not in any way a “You must do it this way” or “This is the best way”. But I mentioned my little structure elsewhere and a few people really liked it, so I thought why not share it a little more widely.

Also keep in mind that if your projected word counts are shorter, you will of course need shorter thirds, and especially remember this is not set in stone. Every book is different. Every book will have its own needs. You do not have to do this the way I do in order to write well, not at all, not remotely.

So. Here is what this does for me:

**It improves pacing. Separating the book into three 30k chunks, and knowing basically what purpose each chunk has to serve, gives me a structure on which to hang my wild imaginings (hee). Also, because of the way each “Act” is set up, it draws the reader into the story at a predictable pace and keeps the flow of information steady.

**It gives me a much stronger first draft. You pantsers know exactly what I’m talking about here. By the time our book is finished we have so many clues we need to go back and add, so many changes that need to be made, it’s like rewriting the book. But keeping the structure in mind makes it easier for me to fit in anything I might need; I know where the additional info needs to go or from where it needs to be removed.

**It means I’m not cramming to fit things in at the end, or left with too many loose ends.

**It eliminates the problem of the “sagging middle”. I believe the sagging middle is a pacing/information problem; sagging middles occur when too much information is given in the beginning of a story. By structuring my books this way I make sure there’s plenty of action throughout.

Assuming a book is 90k words, by the end of the first third–or 30k–I need to have all my basic information in place:

*Who the major players are. The bad guy needs to be introduced here, even if–as is usually the case–the reader is unaware that s/he is the bad guy. Hell, I’m not usually aware at this point who the bad guy is, especially given how much I enjoy my red herrings. So I usually set up two or three likely suspects here. I can always edit later to strengthen or remove the connections, once I figure out who the Baddie really is. We also need, of course, the main characters.

*The basic plot. What is the mystery or problem we’re solving? A lot of people will tell you this should be in the first chapter, and they’re not wrong. The sooner the better. But I’m also a fan of the Indiana Jones opening, whereby the first chapter is an intro to character and action that clears up events which occurred before the book’s opening. So I feel that as long as we introduce the issue in those first three chapters, we’re good.

*At least one subplot, hopefully two. They don’t have to be delved too deeply into in the first 10k or so, but by the end of 30k they should be (and we’re going to go into the structure of each act itself as well). But the basic stage needs to be set early, in this first act. For example, in PERSONAL DEMONS, Megan’s interview with Brian. We also met our Ultimate Baddie in those first chapters and added our little subplot with the vision of the Yezer’s house on the astral plane. And of course we met our romantic lead as well and (hopefully) had a nice little attraction/irritation vibe going fairly quickly, at least by the end of that 30k.

ALL THE BASIC CLUES NEED TO BE IN PLACE BY THE END OF THE FIRST ACT.

This doesn’t mean at all that by the end of the first act the mystery would be solvable. Oh, no. Not at all. But everything that comes later has to build on what’s already in those first 30k words. No deus ex machinas for us; we need to lay our groundwork.

For example, let’s say we’re writing a murder mystery. It can be set in any world, from “normal” to total fantasy.

For example, let’s say we’re writing a murder mystery. It can be set in any world, from “normal” to total fantasy.

So, in the first 10-15k words we want to introduce:

Our main character
Sidekicks, if any
The mystery itself
The bad guys
The world we’re in
Our basic clues

Is the murderer out for revenge? Then we might want to mention, in that first section, how many people loved (or hated) the victim. Out for money? Then we mention how rich (or poor) the victim was. We might introduce some physical clues here; the bloody knife or gun, say. Or there may be no obvious cause of death, and we introduce the cause at the very end of this act (we may even wait until the second act, but if that’s the case we should have a lot of other stuff going on.)

And in the second 15k or so we want to start exploring the word, pick up a few additional clues, and get to our first Major Complication (beyond the basic plot-laying one).

Every act ends with action and deepening conflict.

Well, technically, every sentence, ever scene, every page, needs to deepen conflict, of course. But for the sake of our structure we’re going to focus on Major Conflict.

To go back to our murder mystery, let’s say our MC is Jennifer, a private detective. The subject of one of jennifer’s investigations turns up dead, and she decides to work with the police–or behind their backs, perhaps–to solve the crime for whatever reason.

It’s a pretty basic plot and one I think we’re all fairly familiar with.

So our first act is the dead body, the introduction of Jennifer and her frenemies on the force, the world, whatever. And we pick up info here and there, and perhaps we learn that Jennifer is debating whether to put her grandmother in a home, and Jennifer’s just broken up with a lover, and Jennifer needs a new car, or whatever.

We’ll probably have some excitement in those chapters, and some uncoverings. But it’s right around the end of that first act that things go from bad to worse. Jennifer is attacked at her home. Or a witness is found dead. Or she’s kidnapped. Or the police tell her in a very shady way to get the heck out of their investigation.

Whatever the plot is, the end of the first act is where you generally put:

*A major action scene
*A major complication

Preferably at the same time. That first 30k has to encourage the reader to keep going; you want the end of that act to be an “Oh crap” moment, you know what I mean? I tend to think of those, and of those major action scenes, as “beats”, and each act should end with or right around a beat.

This isn’t to say at all that you shouldn’t be having those moments as you go, because of course you should. But the end of that first act is where everything rolls on its side; it’s where the MC finds him or herself in jeopardy somehow or where someone else is put in jeopardy (like, for example, the kidnapping of Catherine Martin in Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs, to pull an example out of my–ahem–hat. The abduction, in fact, occurs on page 104 of my copy [I just went upstairs and grabbed it], which is 352 pages long, and is especially masterful there as just a few pages before Harris showed us the autopsy of a Buffalo Bill victim. Thus at the end of that book’s “first act” we have a graphic representation of how different this killer is; we have a significant clue in the throat larvae; and we have the abduction–so we know exactly what is waiting for that girl.)

The end of the first act is where the stakes jump higher. It’s not just an investigation anymore; this time it’s personal, if you know what I mean. Something Bad Has Happened. It’s going to happen again, unless we stop it. There’s often–again, as in Silence–a time factor introduced here too. Either way, this is where everything that’s come so far raises to a fever pitch, and the reader is (hopefully!) left breathlessly anticipating the second act, where everything gets deeper and more complicated.

Remember, none of this is set in stone. All stories are different. It’s just a guideline.

So. Any questions? What do you think; is this a structure you use? Do you keep these things in mind as you work?