WEbook Blog: A Writer's Resource

Q & A with James Brogden - Part II

Last week, we posted Part I of James Brogden's Q&A with WEbook. James recently signed a book deal with award winning indie press, Snowbooks. Last week, James gave us a ton of great info about the writing process and development behind The Narrows. This week, James tells about what happened when the book was finished, and it was time to start looking for a publisher. 

Once you completed The Narrows, did you query traditional agents first? How did you choose the agents that you contacted? Did you receive any feedback?

I went through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook with a highlighter, picked every single UK-based agent who said that they considered fantasy, science fiction, or horror, and started sending out samples. To date the feedback has been universally ‘thanks but no thanks’, but I’m hopeful that with The Narrows being published, agents will look more favourably on my next project.

How did hear about WEbook? What was your experience with PageToFame?

I heard about WEbook purely by accident – I teach Media Studies and I was researching the concept of user-generated content and the different uses of social network sites for my students, and came across a newspaper article about the way writers are using the internet to collaborate and self-publish. I wasn’t interested in self-publishing, but I followed up the reference to webook.com and thought that if my submission was successful then it would be something else I could mention in a letter to agents. If Snowbooks hadn’t picked it up then that’s exactly what I’d be doing right now.

PageToFame’s greatest strength lies in the objectivity of readers’ feedback. There are other sites where writers engage in a lot of favour-trading, promoting work which in some cases is pretty dreadful, but there’s nothing in it for webookers except, I guess, trying to rate like a publishing pro, so that keeps it more honest, I think. It can be a frustratingly slow process at times, though.

How did you first hear about Snowbooks and what drew you to submit The Narrows for their consideration?

Just straightforward, cold research and a methodical approach to submitting samples. They were listed in Writers & Artists as being interested in genre fiction, and when I looked at their website I found that they are one of a very small minority of publishers who will consider unsolicited manuscripts. I was impressed by the amount of explanatory detail they went into about their submissions process, and even though I knew this meant it would take a long time for them to get through the slushpile to my MS I felt that they were the kind of people who would give it a fair read. In my original email I even used WEbook as a selling point, as the Narrows was at 92% in Round 2 at the time. Hopefully that made a difference.

What was the submission process to Snowbooks like? 

It took just over four months to hear back from them, which is not unusual (I just recently got a rejection letter from an agent I approached over a year ago, which was a lovely surprise, especially since I’d forgotten that I’d even written to them by that time), and by a weird coincidence I got their email on exactly the same day as the email from WEbook telling me that The Narrows had made it to the Agents’ Showcase.

Once they made the offer things went very quickly; I had a contract in my hands three days later. They were particularly helpful with this, recommending that I join the Society of Authors to take advantage of their free contract-reading service. They’ve produced a very detailed and helpful author pack explaining the timetable of their publication process and giving clear instructions as to what they need from me at each particular stage, and my editor Anna has been great at answering my questions and keeping my paranoia to a mostly manageable level.

What’s been your favorite part of working with Snowbooks so far?

Oh look, everything. The whole thing. This is all a completely new adventure for me, so even little things like going back through the MS to change all the double quotation marks to single ones is fun because it’s getting me one step closer to having my first novel published. I would say that if anything, their embrace of technology is the thing I value most; I don’t understand why in this day and age there are still publishers who won’t accept submissions by email, for example. Just from reading their blog you can tell that they’ve got a good handle on the directions that modern publishing is moving in.

When will The Narrows be published? We can’t wait to read it!

It’s available for pre-order from Amazon (released January 9^th 2012), so save your Christmas book tokens. And watch out for the Winter Solstice in the meantime; that’s when the monsters come out of the Narrows

That's all from James for now. So keep your eyes peeled for The Narrows in 2012. Congratulations James!

Q & A with James Brogden - Published Author

WEbooker James Brogen recently locked in a publishing deal with award-winning indie press Snowbooks for this horror/high fantasy novel, The Narrows. We're always happy to share the success story of a writer who's found a home for their book, so we're doing a two part question and answer series with James so he can share some info on his path to publication. 

We'll kick things off with a bit about The Narrows and James' writing process. In parts two, James will talk more about how he connected with Snowbooks. 

Tell us a bit about your novel, The Narrows. What genre best describes it? What’s the basic premise?

The Narrows is an urban fantasy novel with elements of horror, high fantasy and even a touch of dubious science fiction thrown in. It’s a bit of a mongrel, basically, but that’s entirely in keeping with the subject matter. The basic premise is that the Narrows are strange shortcuts through a shadowy otherworld lurking behind the alleyways and wasteland areas of the city, which are used by a community of vagrants and scavengers – called Narrowfolk - to travel and trade.

In their own words, the Narrows are places where the skin of the world is thin. The problem is that someone or something is closing the Narrows and kidnapping the Narrowfolk for arcane sacrificial purposes, and the story follows a young man from the ‘ordinary’ world who finds himself involved in this when he accidentally saves a Narrowfolk girl from abduction.

What inspired you to write this story?

I once held a job as a sales assistant in a big shopping centre in Birmingham, where the long shifts often had me commuting home by train late in the evening, and having read far too many horror novels than was good for me I naturally wondered what sorts of creatures were sitting out there in the darkness besides the tracks, watching my nice, bright, sane carriage going past with their flat eyes. One night my imagination upped the stakes and made a young homeless girl haul open the door next to me and climb up into the carriage, and of course I needed to know: who was she? Where had she come from? What was she running from? Everything in The Narrows spooled out from there. That scene appears in Chapter 4, and is probably the only part of the novel which has survived the endless rewrites and revisions pretty much intact.

The core of the story is an idea I had about a ley-line being like a length of rope buried in the beach; a child yanks the end of the rope and the whole length of it thrupps out of the sand. What would that be like on a geological scale and what would it do to anybody whom it hit? It got hooked in my brain and gave me the mechanism for how the Narrows work.

Tell us about some of the characters. Do you have a favorite?

All of the characters for whom I have any sympathy are the ones who recognise that they are in some way incomplete  – Andy as the everyman character having to deal with being catapulted out of his normal world; Bex for arguing the toss with everybody about everything and never taking no for an answer; even Carling, the main antagonists’ psychotic henchman, for embracing the truth that being a monster doesn’t necessarily have to make him evil. The antagonist, a geomancer called Barber, is evil because he has no doubts about the righteousness of his cause. I have no time for fundamentalists, whatever they believe in. I like doubters.

There’s also a number of supporting characters including an ex-policeman, ‘Rosey’ Penrose, who I enjoyed sticking in a campervan with Bex on the motorway and just letting them bicker; a couple of young 50’s era lads who are an experiment in what would happen if you put the Famous Five in a John Wyndham novel; and a pseudo-Celtic warrior called Edris who is there for a bit of high-fantasy, demon-fighting hack and slay.

As I said, The Narrows is a bit of a mongrel, genre-wise.

What was your writing process like? How many drafts did you go through before you felt it was “done.”

This is quite embarrassing. It took me a hell of a long time. All I’ll say is that I completely ditched it and started again from scratch in 2006, after realising that the reason it was taking me so long was that when I worked on a computer all I did was go back over and over the same scenes tweaking little bits here and there and not actually getting on with the narrative. I heard somewhere that Neil Gaiman writes all his stories in notebooks, so I decided to give that a go, and I found that it worked a lot better. I physically couldn’t go back and change the ink on the page (beyond a certain amount of scribbling), and so I was forced to move forward.

Also, they’re a lot more portable and I’m not particularly disciplined so it’s good to have one to hand when the mood or idea strikes. I’ve had to fit writing around having a family and a busy teaching career, so that’s my excuse.

‘Semi-chaotic’ probably best describes the process. I have a rough idea in my head of ‘acts’, where I want the story to be at the end of a certain act, and maybe one or two set piece scenes based on a particularly striking line of dialogue or image, like the rope-in-the-sand, and I’ll often engineer events to fit that hook without any clear idea of where to go next. The best I can do after that is just try to imagine what a person would realistically do given the circumstances.

In this I’m helped tremendously by having spent years of my life playing role-playing games with my friends. There’s absolutely no greater tool for me as a writer to have come up with what I think is a lovely watertight plot and then have real-life people playing characters who walk straight through the holes I didn’t know were there.

Once I’d filled 4 big journalists’ spiral-bound notebooks I burned a month typing it all up, revised once for major plot points and added/deleted scenes, once again for typos and fine-tuning the language, and decided that was enough. I was happy with it, I’d written a story which pleased me, and figured that if somebody wanted to publish it then that would be a bonus.

Stay tuned for more about James' story in the next post later this week. In the meantime, check out more on The Narrows on Amazon and Facebook.

About James Brogden:

James Brogden is a teacher of English in Worcestershire, UK, where he liveswith his wife, two daughters, one cat and far too much lego. When he's not writing or trying to teach children how to, he gets out into the mountains whenever he can, exploring the remains of Britain's prehistoric past and hunting for standing stones. Fortunately they don't run very fast. 

The Season of Stories

I am ecstatic for the holidays. Not because I love giving or receiving gifts or the parties or even the slacked-off work schedule. (Okay, maybe the latter.) I heart the silly season for the drama. I can’t wait to hear about the person who dirty-danced with their boss at the holiday party. The uncle who went MIA on Christmas, but actually just got drunk and fell asleep under his bed. The family politics revved up for yet another holiday drag race. This is entertainment. This is fodder for future stories, a time to gather material for the long winter ahead.

Writing a Novel: Experience vs. Imagination

Some of you might remember that I was casting about in search of ideas for my next novel. Eventually, I broke through by researching the germ of an idea, which inspired a legitimate plot, characters, and a range of settings. Afterwards, I realized all I needed was a bit more research and I could sit down and begin outlining and yes, ultimately get to the beautiful slog of a first draft just in time for the start of winter (my favorite season to write).

How to Market Your Novel, Starting with the Query Letter

I have this fantasy. It goes like this: I’ve published my first novel. Naturally, it receives great critical acclaim followed by brisk sales. My heretofore naïve publisher decides that they were horribly wrong about not sending me on a publicity tour, which they correct immediately. I find myself in an NPR studio, probably in D.C. (where I’m about to move!). After we talk for a while about my wild success and limitless talent and potential, the discussion veers towards the writing game and the faith required to do it against such odds.

I’m asked to give advice to the great unwashed masses of struggling writers and I do of course (being magnanimous, and now rich). I mean, I was just one of them after all. More or less, I say the same thing every writer who talks about writing says: You’ve got to write the book you want to write. If you don’t, you’ll never get published. And then I think back to when I was a book editor, and add: But you have to be aware that acquiring editors are hugely concerned with selling to a particular market and marketing in general. Their jobs depend on it sometimes.

John Meils on The Power of Research in Novel Writing

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In a perfect world, we’d all sit down with our best idea and write, write, and write some more. After say, six months to two years, we’d give birth to a shiny healthy manuscript that was complete, well-rounded, and ready for publication. Indeed, this works for some. For the rest of us, however, our imaginations need a little help. 

While writing my first novel, I needed to learn about life in colonial Connecticut. To do this, I visited a few local libraries in the area where I wanted to set my novel. What I found was a trove of invaluable information that not only helped me with setting, but inspired a range of back stories for my novel that I never would’ve dreamed up on my own. Moreover, I could only have found these old newspaper clippings and local histories in these little town libraries. After only two research trips, I not only had a wealth of information to backstop my story, but a surprising surge of inspiration to carry it forward.
 
For those who’ve been reading my last few columns, you know that I’m zeroing in on an idea for my next manuscript. I live in Peru at the moment, so I plan to set the story here, which has been a challenge. I grew up in Connecticut—the setting for my last manuscript—so it wasn’t difficult to nail the place. The background research was fairly minimal. It’s different here, obviously. But in a sense, my research has worked almost exactly as it did before.

To wit, my next story will revolve around a kidnapping in South America. But where exactly? Why? Who’s involved? Now that I’ve been in Peru for a couple months and traveled a bit in the country, I came to see that mining and oil exploration is booming here and has caused all kinds of tension with indigenous communities. Then there are the politicians, many of whom are corrupt and benefit hugely from kickbacks and other graft related to the mining and oil boom. Essentially, there is a triangle of tension in Peru between the indigenous population, multinationals, and oil companies—one that could serve as a perfect backdrop to my basic idea of a tourist kidnapping.

This past weekend I was touring a gold mine (yes, literally) in the northern Peruvian Andes. (FYI, my girlfriend does aid work—that’s why we’re in Peru and why we're at the mine.) During the tour, I came to see that, though the damage done by mining companies to the environment is horrific, many of them do a good job of helping the communities directly impacted by their mining. As it turns out, much of the tension and problems that Peru has with mining companies and the communities affected by them are stirred up by local politicians and aggressive foreign environmental groups, both of whom often use violence and intimidation to achieve their ends. This was unexpected, which immediately made me think it’d work well if woven into my original idea.

The trip, from a research standpoint, was a huge success. By the time I returned home to Lima, I had the basic characters and plot for my next manuscript set. All I need now is a locale, which I’m fairly sure is going to be in the Amazon (but that’s another trip, and story, altogether). More to the point is how, for a second time, a simple research trip took my ideas in a whole new and more defined direction. Yes, they ultimately led me to realize that I need to do more research before I begin writing, but my planning process took a huge leap forward.

This week’s question: Is research important for your writing and if so, how do you go about doing it?

—JohnnyM

John Meils is currently finishing a first novel, tentatively titled The Warring House. He has written for Elle, Men’s Health, and MyTango.com, among others. To learn more about him, visit johnmeils.com.

To continue the research discussion, head to our Reality Check Forum. Or, sign up for WEbook here.

Finding Ideas for a New Novel

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Every few years, a writer or prognosticator of some repute declares the death of something monumental: originality, fiction, physical books, etc. Last week, Wired magazine declared that the “Web is Dead” on the front of its print edition (though they first released it on their website, go figure). As I troll around for a new idea for my next manuscript, I can’t help but wonder if there are any left. Clearly, if I listen to the “wisdom” of those “in the know,” I’m in trouble. If new ideas, print and now the web are all dead, well, I guess there’s no point in even trying to write, yeah?

I certainly can’t write a love story now that Romeo & Juliet has been written. Can’t write a road trip book after Don Quixote (which was totally ripped off by Kerouc in On the Road and Che Guevera in The Motorcycle Diaries, fyi). I’d try my hand at sci-fi but after Neuromancer and, frankly, anything by Philip K. Dick, what’s the point?

I’m not black but I couldn’t write a story about race anyway, because it wouldn’t be as good as Invisible Man (which certainly “inspired” White Teeth by Zadie Smith) or, dare I even say the words, To Kill a Mockingbird. Ditto on being Jewish, because Philip Roth already has the market cornered on that! I’m a white American male, which might be the hardest “genre” of all. All I have to do is come up with a sweeping epic that compares to anything that Faulkner, Hemmingway, Updike, DeLilo, Ford, Foster Wallace and/or Franzen has written. No prob. Will get right on it.

Or, I could simply remind myself that the book business in the U.S. did almost $24 billion in sales in 2009, according the Association of American Publishers. Which means, erm, “it” (books, print, web, originality) is very much alive. Sure, overall sales were down by a few hundred million, but given the economy that’s hardly surprising. And a lot of publishers are already announcing quarterly profits up from last year. Which leaves me back where I started—in search of an idea, a new one, if that’s even possible.

Here’s what I think: maybe there aren’t any wholly new ideas. There probably haven’t been since before there was even written words. People have been falling in love, having adventures, fighting wars, ripping each other off, imagining the future and dealing with crazy families since forever. And yet there are new stories to tell every day. Because the way I tell it will be very different from the way you tell it, even if we’re trying to spin the exact same yarn. And my experience, imagination and voice are what make my story original. And what is originality anyway, but perhaps a new way to spin an old story?

Which still leaves me where I started—in need of an idea. Perhaps all I have to do is find a great classic book to “inspire” me towards realizing my next story. Got any suggestions?

This week’s question: Where do your best ideas come from?

—JohnnyM

John Meils is currently finishing a first novel, tentatively titled The Warring House. He has written for Elle, Men’s Health, and MyTango.com, among others. To learn more about him, visit johnmeils.com.

Writing the Second Novel

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I’m torn. Having recently completed (for now?!) my first novel, I’m scrounging around for another story. I have ideas, lots of them. One is about a guy who gets kidnapped in the Amazon. I’d also like to write a heist story. Or maybe something political and environmental—like about an evil mining or petroleum company that gets their comeuppance after stepping on the little guys for too long. Perhaps another family story—like my last one—only this time instead of making about fathers and sons, it’ll be about a pair of brothers who come together after a lifetime of being at loggerheads.

I got it! The story will be about a guy who tries to free his brother, who works for an oil company, from kidnappers who are holding him to get the company to stop drilling in the rainforest, only the whole thing is a ruse to swindle a fortune in ransom money from the aforementioned multi-national by the brothers, who are in on it together with the kidnappers?

Right…so maybe I need to think about it more. But for how long? And when do I know that I’m ready? That my idea is good enough to begin writing?

For my last manuscript, I started with the following notion: A guy goes back to his hometown after a long time away and finds trouble upon his return. I didn’t have a clue, frankly, about what I needed to do to get the story to the finish line. I knew only that I wanted to write a fictional account based loosely on the town where I grew up. I had no plot and one undefined character. But I was sure this was what I wanted to write so I sat down and started writing.

The result: a mess of a first draft. I managed to come up with a plot and a cast of characters, but both were riddled with holes. I wrote a second draft and didn’t really improve the plot, only the writing. Upon confirmation of this from just about everyone who read it, I put the manuscript away for almost a year. I didn’t start it again until I had a meticulous outline that addressed the myriad flaws in the work.

This time I think I’m going to have a better sense of the story, the characters, the setting, the pacing, etc. before I begin. I’m hoping that I won’t have to write as many drafts this time (though I will, if necessary). I feel like I’m better prepared to execute my next manuscript—if I only had a more concrete idea of what it would be about. Which tempts me to proceed as I did last time, by picking an idea based on a single sentence and plowing forward to let the story find itself? It worked for me once (I hope), but I wonder if the process needs to be so arduous. I’m thinking maybe I should settle on my idea, research it like crazy, let it change and evolve in my mind and then write a hugely detailed outline before I even think about putting fingers to keyboard.

Honestly, I’m not sure. I need your help.

The question(s): What’s your process for getting from idea to execution? Do you let the story tell itself, plan every detail before you begin, or somewhere in between?

—John

John Meils is currently finishing a first novel, tentatively titled The Warring House. He has written for Elle, Men’s Health, and MyTango.com, among others. To learn more about him, visit johnmeils.com.

Writer John Meils: On Patience During the Query Process

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I finished my novel. Really, I did. It’s okay to hate me a little. If I was reading this and I hadn’t finished my novel, I’d curse me too. Here’s another reason to despise me: A well-respected agent is currently reading it.

At least I think he is.

I gave it to him two weeks ago. We know each other a little, so after he read my query he asked for the whole manuscript. I haven’t heard from him since. So about now I should panic, right? I mean, I started this thing four years ago. I wrote more drafts than I care to admit. I’m ready for my eye-popping check followed by a celebrated publication. I am fully prepared for rocket-like sales followed by another hefty advance for my yet-unwritten second novel. Oh, and a movie deal. Can’t forget Hollywood.

Am I delusional? Absolutely. Does that mean none of this will happen? No, but. I’m still checking my email too much. I’m still fishing for compliments from people who’ve read my manuscript and told me it was good. I was a book editor once. I should know better. The publication process is typically slower than a snail on holiday. When I was an editor, I made agents wait while I did frivolous things. I’ve asked authors to re-write their manuscripts wholesale months before publication. I’ve taken years to prepare a single book before releasing it to press. Yet I expect the publishing world to stop because I’m finally ready.

Maybe this is payback for past transgressions. It’s possible. I was a decent editor but by no means the best. I figure I’ll give the agent in question another week. It’s August, after all, and the publishing world practically shuts down this time of year. Or it used to anyway. I’ve debated sending the agent an email. You know, one of those “How’s it going?” missives. But that would be annoying. That would indicate I might not be the ideal author to work with and I don’t want to give this agent the slightest reason to fret signing me as a client.

So I sit and wait. Sort of. I’ve recently moved to yet-another new country, this one for a while. I’ve got stuff to do—learn a language, plan my next novel, buy sheets and towels. While I’m doing this of course I’m thinking about when I’ll check my email next. How could I not? I was impatient to finish the book (which cost me my first agent). I was impatient while plotting and re-drafting the book (which undoubtedly cost me an extra draft or two). Now that I think about it, I’ve been impatient all along.

We all are, aren’t we? This is funny, I think, or ironic. Because writing (and publishing) if anything is a game of patience. Rush your writing and it suffers. Show your work too soon and its flaws will leap off the page. We all love to write first and foremost and yet the great shiny beacon of publication is usually at odds with producing our best work.

Here’s the question: What do you do to slow yourself down when trying to produce, pitch, or otherwise get your work published?

John Meils is currently finishing a first novel, tentatively titled The Warring House. He has written for Elle, Men’s Health, and MyTango.com, among others. To learn more about him, visit johnmeils.com.

Beach Reading

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I am in a rut. I haven’t read a book that I truly loved in too long. You know the kind I’m talking about—a book that won’t let you put it down, one that you recommend to everyone you meet, that you might not lend because you know you’re going to read it again. 

This is my fault, I think. Since deciding to write full-time years ago, I’ve gravitated towards high-brow literary novels. You know the kind I’m talking about—a book that makes you feel unworthy as a writer, one that you talk about with your more literary friends but don’t recommend, one that you’ll happily lend out because you didn’t even finish it and will never touch it again.

There are reasons why I torture myself with the likes of Updike, Roth, Pynchon et al. I wasn’t an English major in college and then came to the writing game late. As such, I feel like I have to compensate by flash frying my brain with writers of exceptional talent. Over this past weekend, I was at the beach with a large group of friends and more than half of them were reading one of the books from the Stieg Larsson trilogy (The Girl with/who…). If you haven’t read them (like me), they’re crime novels, good ones apparently. Good enough to sell 40+ million copies worldwide as of this spring. 

Because I haven’t read any of Larsson’s books, I was left out of the conversation all weekend. Currently, I’m reading Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon. It seems like it will be a good book but after 100 pages I still don’t know what’s going on. There’s a set of twins, one schizophrenic the other not, a guy with a severed hand, and a couple who moves to the Midwest for mysterious reasons. It’s very well written. But, with all due respect to the author, I’m quite sure it hasn’t sold 40 million copies worldwide.

Which reminded me of an important lesson for my own writing: plot is king. As writers, we all love literary acrobatics—a well-turned metaphor, one-word sentences, shifting POVs—but readers love story. And if you want to get published, you’ll learn sooner or later that the customer is always right. Ask any agent or editor and they will tell you that a good story can overcome bad writing (but rarely the opposite) any day.

I learned this lesson painfully. When I turned in an early draft of my most recent manuscript to my agent at the time, I was very impressed with the quality of my writing. I’d worked hard to make it flow. I played with sentence structure and variation. I felt like an artist. My then-agent read it in a week and called me to tell me that we were parting ways. I was devastated. When I asked why, she bluntly told me that she didn’t buy the plot; she didn’t believe that it was remotely conceivable and therefore couldn’t sell it.

It was a hard lesson, but one that I took to heart. I dedicated the next two drafts of my manuscript to re-working the plot, adding elements, turns and arcs that made it both believable and compelling. I added a murder. I stripped away characters that didn’t add to the story, cut scenes and dialogue that didn’t advance the plot. I simplified language and made the structure linear. 

The result, I hope, is a much cleaner and gripping story, one that serves the plot and not the prose. Because, as much as I’d like to write like Dan Chaon, I’d rather sell like Stieg Larsson.

The question this week is: How do you make—and keep—your story plot-driven?

—JohnnyM

John Meils is currently finishing a first novel, tentatively titled The Warring House. He has written for Elle, Men’s Health, and MyTango.com, among others. To learn more about him, visit johnmeils.com.