Timothy's Thoughts

We say that publishers don’t care about platform with fiction. In theory, a great story is all that matters, but hey, if you happen to have a loyal following then even better. For a while now, I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain this. At first, I thought that we might look at fiction platform as different from non-fiction platform . You may recall that the non-fiction platform is composed of expertise , recognition and public interest . My thought was that two are these are missing from the fiction platform and then I realized, it isn’t that they are missing, they are non-issues. Look at expertise and recognition . If a novel were true, we would expect the author to be a recognized authority concerning the events. Since the novel is made up by the author, he is the recognized authority. There is nothing he can do to increase his expertise or the recognition of it (aside from telling more people about the novel). That means that any weakness in the platform is in the...

A fter writing yesterday’s post, I began to think more seriously about trying to define what kind of novels I write. Some people refer to this as an author’s brand . I’m not unlike most authors. I looked at various genres and said, “I could write that, if I tried.” While that may be true, I went back and looked at all of my previous novels, the manuscript that’s still buried in a slush pile somewhere, the tale I pulled the pug on because I felt it was too far removed from what I write and my current work in progress (WIP). I asked myself how these are similar to each other and how they are different from what I see from other authors. The common thread in all of my novel length fiction is that they are all about families. It goes a little farther than that. All have a healthy church family that provides a moral center and a support structure, though some of the characters are hostile toward that. So, if you’re wondering what I write about, I write about families . Let’s look at the spe...

L ast time, I briefly mentioned the idea of building success rather than having a defining event to catapult us to success. The story is told of a man and his wife entering a hotel on a story night, looking for a room. The night clerk told them that all the rooms were booked, but they could have his room. When the couple departed the next day, the man thanked the clerk, saying he was the kind of person who should be managing a hotel. Months later, the clerk received a letter from the man, inviting him to come manage a hotel the man had built, the Waldorf-Astoria. I tell that story because that is essentially the model for the publishing industry. Writers tell their success stories. “I received fifty [insert whatever number you like] rejection letters and then I received a call from an agent and the rest is history.” Some bristle when someone calls them an overnight success. “But I spent years perfecting my craft.” Every aspiring and wannabe author is looking for an agent or editor to ...

Y esterday, Rachelle Gardner had a post about what writers can learn from the Susan Boyle phenomenon . She offered two lessons. One, the impression we make early on is the most important. I remember taking a career development class in junior high. One of the things I remember is something about the first twelve being the most important in an interview. We walk in the door and the first twelve seconds forms the first impression. A decision will likely be made in the first twelve minutes, though the interview may go on longer. The point is that we never get a second chance to make a good first impression. The second lesson Rachelle mentioned was that it is the work that matters most . That one’s a little bit of a stretch, I think, as you will see in a moment. Yes, Susan Boyle can sing. She can sing very well. The problem is that looking to Susan Boyle for advice on how to succeed is a little like asking financial advice from a lottery winner. There was once a man who had done quite well...

I was looking at future releases and I came across Watch Over Me by Christa Parrish and I thought, that sounds formiliar , but I knew I hadn’t seen it before. So I went back and I found Cry in the Night by Colleen Coble. I have read neither book, but when you read the descriptions you see similarities between both books. The premise is identical. A rescue worker takes in an abandoned baby when the parents can’t be found. It is only upon closer inspection that we find that the problems are different. What that tells me is that it is the premise that makes a story unique, not the problems the characters face. If we nobodies hope to get any notice, it isn’t going to be through presenting manuscripts with similar premises, but different problems. The development of the premise is the place where we can achieve the greatest gains in developing a good story.

W e call it the advance and it can range from $1 all the way into millions of dollars. Many are in the thousands of dollars range. With all the other changes that are taking place in the publishing industry, publishers are messing around with the advance as well. Not that long ago, Chip MacGregor was complaining about Random House wanting to pay the advance a year after the book releases Previously, I have said I don’t like the concept of the advance because it puts the author in a position of owing the publisher. If the book doesn’t earn out, the author will be unable to repay the debt. That is if you view the advance as something the publisher pays the author in order for the author to live while completing the work. We could also look at the advance more like an earnest payment. By paying an advance , the publisher is promising to publish the book, but if they don’t the author walks away with the earnest money, much like when an offer is made on a house people ...

Three sentences: The old tractor climbed the hill and disappeared down the other side. I saw ol’ Bob on that old tractor of his, just as he was going over the hill at the Abernathy place. Didn’t you see it too, when that tractor went over the hill? We talk a lot about Point of View (POV). From a technical standpoint, all three sentences have a different POV. The first sentence is Third Person POV. The second sentence is First Person POV. The third sentence is Second Person POV. But let’s ignore the technical meaning of Point of View and consider the scene and the camera angle . In each case, it wouldn’t be hard for us to imagine that the speaker stood on a hill over looking a valley, looked out and saw Bob driving his tractor over a hill on the other side. Neither the scene nor the camera angle have changed and yet the three sentences sound completely different. Lest we think Point of View is the only thing at work here, let’s add two more first person sentences: When I saw Bob ...