Carol

another obstacle that I found to be limiting with the first person perspective was the inability to give the reader information outside of the main character’s knowledge. I grew concerned that I would not be able to adequately hold the reader’s interest or create a sense of worry for the main character by breaking away from their storyline for short periods of time.

Certainly there are limitations to strict first person POV that one has to deal with. You mentioned a number of concerns here, some of which are related and some not.

1. giving the reader information outside the POV character’s knowledge

2. holding the reader’s interest

3. breaking away from that (POV) character’s story

4. creating a sense of worry in the reader

First off, #2 should not be dependent on #1 or #3. If you create an interesting character, and a strong vivid supporting cast, complex relationships, and interesting events surrounding that character, ie. a good story, you can hold the reader’s interest. Your POV character – no matter first or third – should be someone we want to spend time with. Someone with a complex personality, not perfect, with interests, attitudes, likes, dislikes, beliefs, superstitions, whatever makes a person human (or not, as the case may be.) Someone who learns and is capable of change. Sometimes the first person narrator is not the true protagonist, but only the person who is telling the story of the true hero or heroine. (I tried that with Transformation, and it ended up the narrator WAS the heart of the story, but those things can happen…) First person is certainly not appropriate for every story.

Skipping to #4, because it is so important: You’re concerned about creating a sense of worry in the reader. Rightly so. Dramatic tension is a critical part of storytelling. Rising tension grips readers and forces them to turn the next page, to stay up a little later because they can’t put the books down. It creates the drumbeats in the background, the spooky music.

Giving the reader information that the POV character doesn’t have is ONE device that can enhance dramatic tension. But you could rephrase the basic idea as: Lack of information creates tension. Tension is raised when a person in a dramatic situation lacks critical information and knows it. This is the key to many mysteries and suspense stories – things keep happening and the protagonist doesn’t know where the hammer will fall next. It is a sense of inevitable danger. It’s why amnesia has always been such a beloved storytelling device. (Note I am not touting amnesia as the key to dramatic tension, only suggesting why we love it!)

Example: if you’ve read (or seen) Touching the Void, the story of the two UK climbers in the Andes. One breaks his leg in a terrible storm and the other, to save his own life, is forced to cut the rope. He climbs down, assuming his partner is dead. The guy with the broken leg doesn’t die, and the book tells how he crawls out of a crevasse and all the way back to camp with a broken leg and no water. One of the greatest points of tension in this book is that the guy crawling doesn’t know whether or not his partner has broken camp and left the area. Switching out of his POV would actually KILL tension.

So what if you want the POV character to be “innocent,” unaware of her lack of information? Then you have to add the spooky music other ways. Warnings. Concerned friends or colleagues. Other events that the reader might be able to pick up on. The risk here is making your POV character seem stupid or incredibly naive – both turnoffs. But consider which is more dramatic…having a piano fall suddenly on your hero’s head or having him see the piano dangling and the rope fraying and knowing his foot is caught? Consider whether we really needed to know what dangers Frodo was to face or the entire history of the Ring before he set out on his journey? There was plenty of spooky music playing.

Back to #1: As to giving the reader information outside the POV character’s knowledge, consider what and why you need that to happen. Would it ruin the story for your character to know or learn this info? (Often learning is a more interesting process anyway!) Think about how you would handle this in a third-person story. Switch POVs? Well you can certainly do that in a first person novel, too. Multiple first person narrators can be quite as effective as multiple third person POVs, as long as you keep readers informed as to which head they’re in. Would you have switched to a temporary omniscient voice? Mmmm…valid, certainly, but not a technique that produces the same intimacy as a close third or first person POV. Again, consider carefully what the reader really needs to know, and whether the story tension depends on your protagonist being deprived of that knowledge.

As for # 3 – breaking away from the first person character’s story – you can certainly do that with multiple narrators as well. It can be a great story development technique to show an event from one character’s perspective, and then the same event from another’s perspective. Or to keep several parallel plotlines going and have them merge in a cataclysm. Again – just keep it clear whose head we’re in. One of my great writing challenges was when my first person narrator chose a course of action that changed his personality late in a book. All of a sudden I wanted nothing more than to see him from another viewpoint – but it was much too late in the day to introduce another POV. After I worked on it a while, I realized that everything I wanted to show could be reflected through another character’s dialogue and body language as observed by my changed hero. The POV does not have to understand what he is observing. Only react. It worked.

Some people move from a first person narrator back and forth to a third person story. I’m sure that can work, too, though I can’t cite examples that I particularly like.

In summary of this wandering post: To be successful with first person POV

- Pick your viewpoint character carefully; and don’t be afraid to challenge yourself with tricky situations!

- Consider multiple first person narrators for a story that depends heavily on events outside a single character’s direct experience

- Create strong, vivid additional characters so that your narrator is not living wholly in his own head, but bumping up against and reacting to interesting personalities

- Consider all ways to create dramatic tension;

- Lack of information does create tension, but consider whether the reader actually needs to know the info before your POV character does;

Hope this all makes sense! I’m sure many of you have additional ideas.

Carol

When writing a first person short story is it possible to over use the words, “I” and “myself” when actually referring to yourself. Is there anything else you can write in it’s place?

Yes, it is possible to overuse I when writing first person, just as it’s possible to overuse he or she in third person or any other word that gets stuck in the brainpan. Unfortunately I seems to glare in readers’ eyes like undimmed headlights, and ruin their appreciation of my own personal favorite storytelling “person.” It’s certainly something I have to watch. If you can’t see it for yourself, try reading your work aloud (always a good technique anyway) and listen.

You’ve said that you are conscious of the problem and work on varying your sentence structure, but here are a few other things to consider.

1. Search for instances of I thought, I felt, I saw, I heard, I knew, and the like, as well as the ubiquitous, I said. Many, many of them are unnecessary and can be deleted. You are telling the story from this person’s point of view. Of course the sights are things he sees; the sounds are things she hears. The narrative voice incorporates your POV character’s thoughts. No need to hammer it home.

Unless you have some particular need for emphasis, you can change
“I heard the nightingale singing.”
to
“The nightingale sang.”
(or something more interesting!) and we’ll know you POV character is the one who heard it.

2. Try to recast an I-sentence with some other noun as the subject. Often the effort will produce something more interesting and reflect your character’s “voice.”

You could replace:
“I didn’t believe Gerald was telling the truth.”
with
“Gerald couldn’t tell the truth if his granny were on fire.”

3. You can also “tone down” an I-sentence by leading with a modifying phrase.

You can reshape
“I had lived in awe of Kajetan’s magic throughout my boyhood.”
as
“As a new student, a boy of fifteen, I had lived in awe of Kajetan’s magic.”

4. Make sure your character is focused on external events and not overly on herself/himself ; remember, the narration itself can reveal your character.

“I had ever reveled in nature’s glory.”
could be
“The dew hung on the leaf tip, poised to…”

or
“I watched the prince riding and knew he was the lord for me.”
could become
“The prince rode as a man worthy of his destiny. My heart swelled.”
or
“The prince sat his horse like the First Outlaw. Any dude with a heart would follow him over a cliff.”

OK, you get the idea.

Any more techniques out there?

As for use of myself, it should be very rare anyway. Make sure you’re not using myself when me or I or is correct or when nothing at all would do just as well.

Incorrect: “He argued with Jim, Slim, Tim, and myself.”
Correct: “He argued with Jim, Slim, Tim, and me.”

Myself can be used as a reflexive pronoun when I is the subject of the clause, such as:

“I injured myself.”
or
“I grumbled to myself.”

But why not just “I grumbled?” Is anyone else there?

But if myself is popping up everywhere, perhaps you can recast the first example as:
“I sliced my finger to the bone.”

Myself can also be used (and overused!) for emphasis.

“I myself must tell the tale.”

Hope this feeds thought…

Carol

I look back at the Lighthouse books – and my other two series – and see how complex they are, and I am absolutely daunted at beginning again. It is no wonder that so many authors find themselves going back again and again to the worlds they’ve created.

But then I start twiddling with my notes, and before I know it, I’ve started and ended a war in the distant past, and filled out a sketch of the nature of magic in Sabria – because the conflict in this series derives, in part, from the nature of magic, the differences between popular belief, manipulated perception, and truth. And Real Soon Now, I’ll commit by writing the first chapter. I had to know enough of the world and characters to write the book proposal – which was very hard for an anti-outliner like me. But I’ll flesh it out only enough to write the first chapter. I write sequentially and spirally – ie. I start at the beginning and write through to the end. Each day I begin writing by revising what came before. No real drafts at all. But that’s what has worked before, and I’ve got to have that jump off the cliff faith that it will happen again.

If anyone is interested, I’ve decided to record the daily bits of this particular development cycle on my personal blog, Text Crumbs. Join me there, if you’re interested in the sordid details.

Cheers to all. Don’t Panic.
Carol

I didn’t take long to consider my answer. The chance to travel to a part of the world so wrought with history and consequence doesn’t come every day. I had met my publisher, Rani Graff, and the multiple award-winning translator of Transformation and Revelation, Didi Chanoch, at the Glasgow WorldCon, and when these two great guys and Naomi Wiener, the foreign guest coordinator for ICon, promised to meet me at the plane, take me touring, show me a great time at the con, and send me safely home again, I jumped. (Besides, I’ve never done a GOH gig, and I thought I ought to grab the opportunity.)

I was actually surprised that almost everyone’s first reaction was: Are you really going to go there? Some were worried for my safety. Some have problems with Israeli history or politics.

I would hate the thought of people not visiting our own country because they judged us all by our national government. And no matter what my personal views on Israeli/Palestinian history or politics, I wasn’t going to become wiser or more intelligent about the issues by not going. And I sure didn’t like the thought of refusing because I was scared I’d be blown up.

I read the US State Department site that advised American citizens to stay out of the West Bank and Gaza and avoid places where large numbers of Americans gather. As the convention is conducted mostly in Hebrew (with the exception of the Guest of Honor events and the film festival!) I doubted there would be large numbers of Americans at ICon. Naomi assured me that most of the convention guests would speak excellent English, which was really a good thing as the sum total of my Hebrew comprises shalom, toda, and mazeltov!

Truly the most nerve wracking part of the anticipation was the shoes I had to fill. Last year’s GOH was Neil Gaiman. Ouch. And before him? Tim Powers. 2004, Guy Gavriel Kay. And in 2003, the man who put ICon on the map for North American authors – Orson Scott Card. Holy moly!!!

So how was it?

What an awesome time! Indeed Rani, Didi, and Naomi, whom I came to call my “minders,” met me at the airport. They allowed my to deposit my luggage in a charming Bauhaus-style hotel in downtown Tel Aviv, then whisked me off to the 4000-year-old port of Jaffa to walk off the long airplane hours and eat hummus and St. Peter’s fish while overlooking the Mediterranean.

We spent a total of four days touching the country itself – Caesarea, the Roman port city built by Herod the Great, the Crusader port of Acre, the Sea of Galilee at sunset and with the full moon rising, a drive through Haifa. On one day we did the fortress of Masada – where the great silence of the desert swallows up the voices of tourists – and a float in the Dead Sea – one of those touristy things that everyone does for a good reason. There is just nothing like it. (I call such things “uniquities.”) And then a full day in beautiful Jerusalem, being trampled on by representatives of all three great monotheistic religions, while finding a lovely peace sharing a meal with new friends on a rooftop in the old city on a golden afternoon with a soft breeze blowing. Jerusalem is a wholly and holy unique place.

And, oh yes, then there was ICon itself. We began with a preview night at a local bookstore, where I began to meet the passionate, energetic people of the Israeli fantasy/sf community. Besides drinking wine and being introduced to many of the con volunteers and bookstore patrons, two Israeli authors, Shimon Addaf and Hagar Yanai, and I gave a brief preview of a panel called “Conquering Fantasy” in which we were to talk about war and occupation as a continuing element of fantasy literature. Even after such a brief discussion, I could tell that this was going to be a great discussion.

ICon runs for 6 days during the autumn holiday of Sukkot, when schools are out. The similarities with North American conventions? Lots of card players, RPGs, non-stop films (the ICon internation film festival component is becoming very prestigious), lots of purple hair, and some costumes (though no masquerade.) Lots of things going on at once. Lots of literary programs. Attendees that are far better read in “the literature” than I am! Many friendly people. Many people who are just there having a good time and could care less about a GOH.

The differences? The attendees are almost entirely under thirty. They can house many students hostel style in a nearby high school, which allows lots more young people to come. This fantasy/sf community is definitely young. Most of the presentations are in the form of single presenter lectures, rather than panels. As these are conducted in Hebrew, I didn’t get to many, but many of the subjects are similar to those we hear. Rather, in between my own events – which consisted of the opening ceremonies (run by a comedy troop who were funny even in translation), a talk & reading, GOH interview/Q&A session, a writers workshop with 15 eager aspiring writers, and the Geffen Award presentation – I sat in the cafe area of the convention venue and just talked to attendees. Some were aspiring writers and wanted to talk writing, some just wanted to talk about the books. Everyone wanted to talk about my impressions of their country. Many wanted to talk American politics. (Our own voters should be so informed!!) I found it interesting that gender issues were a big topic. I really enjoyed talking to two young women who had just completed their military service. Conversation was just terrific and no matter how much they apologized for their English – they were all quite fluent.

One of the highlights of the con experience was my publishers’ dinner, where I got to meet such interesting people as the young woman who has translated all of Harry Potter into Hebrew. She’s midway through Book 7, and invariably people said “Why are you here and not at home working?” I was also privileged to meet the man who translated Tolkien into Hebrew. I have nothing but admiration for people who do this – such a responsibility, and such talent.

Well, I could write about it all night. The upshot is that it was an honor and a privilege to attend. Fantasy readers are special people the world around. If you ever have the opportunity to attend ICon, do. Best if you speak the lingo to go to the lectures, but not a requirement to have a great time.

Carol

First off – writers who put themselves through such a ordeal must be commended. To open your work – yourself – to critique in front of an audience is courageous. Indeed, in this case, the potential rewards were significant – reviews by a couple of excellent agents and freelance editors.

The results? For the enthusiastic audience and the writers themselves some valuable writing tips, (so they told us!) For the three judges brain fatigue certainly. Listening so carefully to eighteen readers without benefit of printed pages, while coming up with comments both diplomatic and meaningful was intense. But the effort was rewarding as well. Several writers demonstrated a truly excellent grasp of concept, characterization, plot movement, description, tension – all the elements of story. To be able to award them even so small a “leg up” was a pleasure. One writer showed us a superb “voice” – the bitter edgy angst of a young bipolar male – but the author didn’t quite know how to get this character into a story. How fun to match this person up with a writing coach!

Even those who didn’t make it into the winner’s circle showed some grasp of the craft – pleasing narrative, original ideas, sensual imagery. The deficiencies that kept them out of the roses were clustered in a couple of areas. We’ve talked about most of them here on Deep Genre, but I thought it might be useful to review notes “from the field” as it were.

First and foremost: getting into the story.

Most readings were openings – which for a two-minute reading was generally (though not always) the most useful selection. Many openings consisted of extensive rumination over past conflicts, several were lengthy character exposition that had nothing to do with the conflict of the story, and one was an extended metaphor that introduced the first character only in the last line. As a writer friend of mine puts it, “One character on stage thinking is not a scene,” thus rarely provides a dynamic opening for commercial fiction.

Another opening problem: meaningless activity parading as an “active” opening. Dialogue does not necessarily equate with action, especially banter accompanied by internal monologue that has no relationship to the matter of the story. Nor does mere frenetic activity serve the purpose, unless it somehow introduces us to character or essential conflict. Even palpable danger does not ensure a successful opening if the reader has no context for the conflict and no reason to care about those involved.

And one more problem: the persistent use of dreams or car accidents as opening scenes. We saw at least four examples. Careful, careful, careful, fellow writers! Only touch these overused opening tropes if you have a truly fresh approach. (We heard one that certainly did. But I won’t tell. I hope he gets it published.)

The writers were supposed to give a log line, a one line “elevator pitch” to describe the thrust of their story before beginning to read. Out of eighteen candidates, less than a third gave anything near a concise, coherent description of a story. A few of those who did give a good description, read nothing in those first two minutes that evoked any particle of the log line. Give it some thought. I certainly am. One of the benefits of critiquing is how it causes us to re-examine our own work!

Carol

Question from a young writer:
I have recently noticed that while I write in the third person, I tend to insert a characters thoughts directly into the text (as if it was the narrator speaking), and generally model the narrator voice after whichever character’s POV it is at the moment.

Am I wrong in doing this? When I’m writing it and reading it, it seems to flow, but if I take a little step back and think about it, it doesn’t make sense for the narrator to be saying something the character is thinking.

At the same time, it seems cumbersome to put in something like:

‘Can’t he figure out that I’m trying to sleep? Honestly, the absolute nerve of him… I should get u- NO! I won’t…(etc.)’ she thought.

especially after describing the scene, setting, and whatnot.

William,

Nothing at all wrong with making the narrative “voice” be the POV character’s voice. This is a very intimate point of view which can be quite satisfying and involving for the reader–very like first person. You are eliminating the middle-man, so to speak. And you are correct that incessant use of “she/he thought” can be jarring. (The same thing with “I thought” when writing first person.)

A few caveats (with all the usual disclaimers about how anything can work if it is done masterfully enough. But you did say this was a beginning writer…):

1. To be true to your intimate POV make sure that you hold to that POV throughout the section and don’t let omniscient observations creep into your narrative. That is, keep focused through your character’s eyes, avoiding things like visual self-details, attribution of unobservable motives and feelings to other characters, and reference to events outside your POV character’s knowledge.

2. I know there are some here who decry the use of italics for direct thoughts, but I think this is a great example of where they can be useful. Otherwise, if you are writing in third person, simple past tense, and the character’s thoughts are in first person, present tense without such delineation, the text can seem a jumble. You say your words read smoothly, then likely you’re doing a good job of this already. Try reading the section aloud, as well.

There are lots of ways to give the reader a sense of immediacy and intimacy. One way is by avoiding prediction, such as “that was the last time he ever made that mistake” or “it was to be many years until she understood how she had hurt him.” These kinds of phrases come to us easily, and, depending on the style of the narrative, can flow beautifully. But they do remind the reader of the distance from the events. Another way is through a slight deviation from correctness. Though I write in simple past, I will occasionally sprinkle in some “immediate” references such as “last night” instead of “the previous night” and such like through my narrative, as if my narrator were reliving the events even as he or she was relating them.

I’m sure others have suggestions as to how to make third-person narratives more immediate.

Have fun.

Carol

…and today the first of the twins, Flesh and Spirit, has been released. Whew!

You can check out the “Our Books” section for more or see my website for more info.

Now back to our regularly scheduled…

Carol

I have one author who writes the first half of a one chapter story in the first person singular, and then in the second half, she changes to write in the first person singular of the opposite character. When I told her it was confusing, she lashed out at me about how she was a teacher and it was correct writing.

OK, I found myself writing a long answer to this question and decided not to bury it at the bottom of the My First Novel pile, because first person narration is dear to my heart. I love the feel of living an adventure so close to one of the participants – both reading and writing. Before Transformation was published, I never knew there were readers who held an antipathy to first person. Many of my all-time favorite books are first person, and, I suppose, what bad first person books I’d read would have been bad no matter what “person” they were written in! But since I’ve been reading more pre-published fiction, I understand way better. (And I’ve a few other pet peeves to go along with bad first person, but I’ll leave them for another time.)

So on to Lynn’s query…

There is certainly nothing technically wrong with multiple first-person narrators. It is no more “incorrect” than using multiple third-person points of view or present tense or omniscient POVs or whatever else. For those of us who love first person done well, multiple narrators can alleviate the biggest downside of writing first-person narrative, which is getting only one character’s view of the action. All of my nine books are in first person, and I have used multiple narrators in four of them.

Of course, as with any technique, you have to work at it. Here are a few things I concentrate on:

- first and foremost, I always make sure the reader is clear about whose head we’re in. I only switch at chapter breaks, and I always delineate the speaker in the chapter head. Some writers switch at scene breaks–or even more often, which gets dicey, in my mind–but I prefer using a chapter break, even if it means variable length chapters. On the other hand, I do try to minimize switching, giving a sequence of chapters in one voice, and then one or more in another. But, of course, the storytelling must ultimately decide this. I would like to think that my characters and their voices are distinctive enough that they are instantly identifiable – but every reader is different and I don’t want to pop them out of the story by leaving them confused.

- during revision time, I always work to minimize the use of “I”. This is true no matter whether I have a single or multiple narrator. Using POV characters who are naturally good observers can be a real bonus. They can reveal their thoughts and feelings, not only by speaking them directly in narrative, but by what they observe, how they phrase it, and how they react.

- I don’t wait too long to introduce the reader to alternate narrators. (I did this once, and heard about it!) A reader can get highly invested in a first-person narrator and can feel betrayed at a late switch.

- I never do simple repeats of scenes. If my two narrators give me alternate views of an incident, I always make sure to minimize the repeat of the action and unfold additional events in the second telling. This is a really fun way to deepen and enrich a story, giving lovely plot twists.

- I try to avoid characters indulging in excess navel gazing. Pages of nothing but self-examination are boring, no matter whether they’re written in first or third person.

I’m sure there are many other techniques other writers can add to these.

The upshot is, don’t tell your person she’s wrong. Try to figure out what it is that grates –the confusion, the uncertainty, repetition, drowning in thoughts, or whatever–and present her with your reactions. There are many ways to tell a good story.

Carol

So, published writers: Do you think that a person who has reached a certain skill level will get published if they are persistent enough to find someone who likes their style? (And that if you keep getting rejected, you might want to think about revising further?) Or can even someone who is genuinely skilled and is sending their novels to the right markets with good query letters still not get published simply because they don’t have the right connections or some other ‘luck-based’ thing?

And so to my own answer,

Will everyone who deserves to get published get published?

Alas, no. Would that it were true. But there are many reasons a deserving work won’t hit the shelf. Here are two biggies:

1. Not getting the book in front of the right person. You might be submitting to “the right market”, but it’s tough to look at the Literary Marketplace and pick the perfect editor or agent who will love and fight for your book. The more your work falls into the cracks between genres, the harder. There is always an element of subjectivity to an editor or agent’s choice of projects – when they see literally hundreds of deserving works a year, of course they will choose ones that evoke their own deepest responses. Hearing pros in person at a convention or conference might help. But sometimes editors or agents will say one thing in a panel discussion about what they’re looking for, and then go right ahead and take on something that doesn’t fit what they said, just because the work hits the right chord. (I can witness to this one!) And you DO want an editor or agent who loves your work, because that’s the only way you’re going to negotiate the minefield of publishing.
2. Vagaries of “the market,” ie. an editor loves it but can’t sell it to her bosses because “that kind of book” isn’t selling. And, of course, just because something is skillfully written does not make readers buy it! (Silly readers…) Maybe the book hits a subgenre that’s lagging or oversold – rollicking adventure, Arthurian, fairytale retellings, chicks in chainmail, or whatever.A good friend of mine wrote a terrific novel that had three publication offers several years ago, including one from one of the big NY houses. Through vagaries of bad agent advice and ill luck, she went with a small publisher that went bankrupt right as she held the bound galley in her hand. By the time all this was untangled, the subgenre had gone “out of style” and this most deserving book still languishes.

Is it a matter of “having connections”?

No. Many authors come from virtual nowhere. I am a software engineer/mom who took up writing for fun as my kids got older. I had never been to a convention, never met a published author. I didn’t go to Clarion. I can name a number of other published authors with similar stories — people who wrote for the love of it, and then started looking into the business when they saw what they did as good. Often the break does not happen with a first book. (See persistence!)

Is there an element of luck?

Certainly. Having your work land on someone’s desk before another author’s gets there. Winning a contest that your ideal editor is judging. Writing in the sub-genre that is ready to hit the bigtime right when you’re ready to market the book (and no, there is no magic way to predict what that might be). Acquiring an agent who can tell you exactly what a particular house/editor is looking for. Networking and learning the business are critical skills. And, to my mind, not the easiest.

If you keep getting rejected, could it be a sign you need to revise?

Certainly it could be. Note, I’m not saying it always is — you might be JK Rowling, dealing with those who Just Don’t Know. But most rejections are for cause, not because the editor hasn’t met you. So how do you know what to do, assuming you are not getting comments back with the rejections? One of the first things an author must learn is to step back from his or her own work and read critically. No one writes perfect prose. Beyond basic grammar, spelling, and usage (eg. lie/lay or infer/imply) – faults that some naive writers believe acquiring editors will magically overlook (NOT!) – are those greater quagmires of plot and character development, dialogue and exposition, tension and conflict.

The big problem here is that most of us are blind to our own faults. We are so close to our own work that our minds fill in the gaps. We know what our heroine intends. We know why the villain does evil things. We know where people are standing when the fight begins. Sometimes you must look through someone else’s eyes to get the proper distance to see plot holes or awkward prose or flat characters. This is why many, many well-established authors still have first readers or critique partners. So find people to read your book – serious readers/writers, not friends, not family, not beginners. These people are not going to rewrite your work, but observe and report the gaps you can’t see. Applying craft, ie. revision, does not destroy art!

Does persistence make a difference?

Absolutely. A woman I know had one genre novel published years and years ago — a western. She wrote all sorts of things after that — romance, women’s fiction, mainstream, western — and was rejected over and over again. But she kept writing, trying, learning. Year before last, she wrote this little cozy mystery…and BOOM, she became a Booksense bestseller, has sold at least seven books, and is now being released in hardcover. Another fellow I know, wrote and submitted umpteen fantasies, only to be rejected. He switched to YA, and is now on his second contract. Again, these are just a few of MANY such stories.

So, the bottom line, Debbie and all: Keep writing. Study your craft. Find your voice. (So often the difference between a skillfully written book and one that sells is the uniqueness of the author’s storytelling voice. Which is another whole essay.) Learn the business. Write stories that you enjoy. And enjoy the writing, too.
Carol