Day 2: Twitter & Social Media Marketing

Before I get started on my next set of notes, I need to know if the new Amazon links have annoyed everyone else or is it just how my system is set up? Right now, everytime I come to my site I have to click on a popup window six times before it will let me do anything. I’ve noticed a drop in comments since I tried using the links and if the links are why there’s a drop, they’re not worth it!

This was a talk given by Janet Lane who is definitely more Twitter-savvy than I. Almost everyone is. LOL. That said, she gave us a two-page HANDOUT of Applications  and ideas for marking Twitter work for you. I haven’t had time to implement any of them, but I will. I promise! Applications she mentioned:

• Twitpic.com Lets you share photos on Twitter.
• Tweetdeck.com is a realtime application that allows users to monitor information from several social media into one concise view. (Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?)
• Digsby.com is a social networking tool that alerts you to events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.
• Twittercounter.com is like the CPA of Twitterworld, where you can glean such stats as the top ten followed Twitter users, who has the most followers, friends and tweets. In every time zone.
• Twitterfeed.com allows you to feed your blog into Twitter. You provide the URL of a blog’s RSS feed and how often you want to post to Twitter. Twitterfeed does the rest. Halleluiah.
• Twitterholic.com will help you find out who the most popular twitter users are.
• Twhirl.com connects Twitter and other social media sites, notifies you of new messages, cross-posts and shortens long URLS.
• Twitturly.com tracks and ranks what URLs people are talking about on Twitter.
• Twtpoll.com is a feedback tool that helps you to create and distribute polls on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

That’s part one of my Twitter-repeat performance of Janet’s talk. I’ll do the rest in a few days. Final notes and suggestions include: Save social media networking for your end-of-day activites (assuming you write in the mornings). Fix your wallpaper on Twitter so that it mimics what you’ve got on your blog. You do have a blog, right? Retweet when you have nothing to say. If you don’t, you’re not doing your followers any favors and they can stop following you because you’re such a lump. (Ok, the lump part is what I wrote in my notes, and not what Janet said!) To look up topics within Twitter, do a search for your topic like this: #literary agent.

Anyone else have awesome Twitter suggestions? It might take me awhile to get the hang of Twitter, but I will try. 🙂

Day 1: Ginger Clark on Agent Dos and Don’ts

Yes, I’m STILL on Day 1. Can you tell why I needed to recuperate when I returned? These are some of my notes from Ginger Clark’s talk. She’s a straight forward, no nonsense speaker and had some great suggestions.

She suggested thinking of your query letter as a business letter. It should have 3-4 paragraphs including setup, main characters and conflict. Send it to Ms. Clark, but don’t bother with “Dear Agent,” folks.

This was a fascinating idea I’d never considered: Email yourself your query to make sure it comes through without the odd ### mark. Those oddities can happen for a lot of different reasons and sometimes we have no control over it anymore than we can dictate how someone else’s computer works because that’s what’s causing the marks. The end user’s settings can change how they view your email. However, if you copy and paste your query from a main file (admit it, you do) you need to make sure you’re not sending hash marks instead of quotations, etc. Know that any unusual formatting such as italics, bold, etc. will disappear. If it’s imperative that the agent know those words need setting off, consider upper case. However, use it sparingly. UPPERCASE MEANS YOU’RE SHOUTING.

Always follow the directions for querying listed on the agent’s website. In Ginger’s case, she said sending your ms in the body of the email is fine and so are attachments, but I will ask you to re-read the opening sentence of this paragraph. You only have one chance to make a good first impression.

There’s a lot of hysteria in the mind of a writer when they’re submitting. The agent requested my ms! Must send it out. I’ll just finish the last chapter and hit SEND.

Thou shalt not do this. Don’t edit the last chapter and hit send unless it’s your umpteenth edit of your umpteenth rewrite. Polish. Perfect it. The agent wants to see your best work, not your fastest. To quote Ginger Clark: “Do revisions for however long it takes.”

Ginger did say she likes exclusives, which also means you should let her know if someone else has it on their desk. She recommended hiring an accountant after publication. Since I’m hopeless with  calculators, checkbooks and all things numerical, this sounds marvelous.

Once your ms has an editor’s interest, try to cc your agent and editor on your emails and I liked Ginger’s suggestion to have your agent proof your emails. I’m the Queen (or Empress) of ending great relationships through a poorly written letter. Just remember, the recipient cannot see your facial expression or body language, so be concise and take a conciliatory/”teach me” tone in letters to your professional contacts in general. (One study states that 7% of our meaning is carried by our word choice. That means your emails and letters have lost 93% of your intended meaning.) If your editor has managed to piss you off, contact your agent, not your editor!

A few last tips: Don’t spend your massive advance on self-promotion. It’s not worth the return. Don’t blog about the submission process, your impatience, etc. This is where your writing network and email come in handy. Don’t put your frustrations on a public board where agents and editors you’re submitting to can read what a whiner you are. 🙂

For my next blog: Day 2. (Ooooh!)

Day 1: James Scott Bell’s Tools for Dialogue

Yes, this was a back-to-back talk given by Mr. Bell after which, my brain exploded. I’m still picking up pieces.

This is one small portion of his talk and since it doesn’t require diagrams, I thought I could share it without too much difficulty. (He does like diagrams.) Each of these tools are things we need to practice in each scene that has dialogue – and that means every scene for most of us.

1. Orchestration of Conflict: Keep the possibilities for conflict coming. Mr. Bell mentioned a scene in “Casablanca” where we see Rick, the Frenchman and the Gestapo agent talking about the war, Rick’s stance, etc. Throughout the scene, there’s an unspoken, but rising threat from the Gestapo.

2. P.A.C.: This stands for
P=Parental or authoritarian style of motivation.
A=Objective/Adult
C=Childlike, emotional motivational style.

Mr. Bell mentioned how you can watch the dialogue between Oscar and Felix in “The Odd Couple” go from one character being the authoritarian, to the adult to the child and how, given different situations, Oscar and Felix change roles. This keeps the scenes believable, dynamic and snappy.

3. Curve the Language: Write a line of dialogue, then swap words out and make it more threatening.

4. Turn Exposition into confrontation within dialogue. For the sake of a quick demonstration, please forgive me for using an excerpt from my own ms. The following scene has been posted here before. It’s a confrontation that happens between my villain (Hu Xiongli) and a minor character who is the head of the Butchers Guild:

“Tell me, Guild Master, has Tong Zhang written requesting money and food yet?”

“He has.” Wu crumbled more of his rice cake into the waiting mouths below. “You ought to know I cannot deny a guild member his rights-“
“I do. How long have you held your office, Yang Wu?”
Wu stiffened. It was the slightest of reactions. A flick of rice cake. A tic of facial muscles. Yet the implied threat was received. Now the enticement.
“You can deny him whatever you wish,” Xiongli said. “He is a traitor to the Empire and should be denied.” Silence reigned for a moment as Xiongli let his words sink in. Then he turned to Wu again and allowed the painted, friendly expression to return to his face. “You and your guild would be compensated.”
“A traitor to the Empire is still not a traitor to his guild, Lord Hu.”
“Ah, but if he is not a traitor to his guild, then what Empire does the guild serve?”

I do not baldly state anywhere in this scene what the threat to Yang Wu is. I leave that to the reader’s imagination. However, thanks to the scene’s setup, the reader is aware of recent capital punishments and an assassination attempt on Xiongli’s life that’s made him both bloodthirsty and jumpy. Both men are tense and each line is designed to show their struggles and desires as well as convey the importance of the guild.

5. Avoid Direct Response Dialogue: Don’t do things like: “Sally, do you want ice cream?” “Yes, Daddy. I want ice cream.” Answer questions with questions, non sequitur responses, etc. For example, “Sally, do you want ice cream?” “Why did you kiss Mrs. Tanner, Daddy?”

6. Go with the flow. Use dialogue without tags and beats. It’s liberating.

7. Minimize dialogue. When revising, copy and paste to a new file, then compress. Add beats for dialogue, and make sure your characters talk the way people really talk. We don’t always say, “Do you want ice cream?” Sometimes we’ll say, “Want ice cream?” or “Want some?” Yes, I am ice cream-obsessed.

8. Silence. Don’t make every response audible, but make your beats meaningful.

9. Tags. Mode and feelings should be evident from your verbiage. Beats go before dialogue. This helps identify the speaker, for one thing.

I remember trying (and failing) to understand Chemistry and despairing because my future father-in-law was my instructor and I so wanted to impress him. Years later, I confessed my confusion and he was disappointed I hadn’t said something at the time. He had other methods of explaining chemistry. He said if I hadn’t understood one approach, I might have grasped a different one. To me, James Scott Bell’s talk was helpful because I need to remember to THINK about these things as I write and not write by “feel.” What about you? Is approaching writing from this angle helpful?

Day 1: James Scott Bell On Plotting

Folks, if you ever get a chance to hear Mr. Bell speak, run, don’t walk. He’s not only an entertaining instructor, he makes even the most difficult concepts easy to digest.

I can’t convey everything he discussed because I never learned to take dictation and my notes are consequentially spotty in places. But I did manage a few gems:

On plotting: Plot should always have death as the ultimate stake:

1. Physical death is obvious and probably the most commonly used obstacle
2. Professional death – lose the case, lose your profession. He used “Silence of the Lambs” as an example.
3. Psychological death – we become less of a person if we lose. I use this to a degree in my story as my character is tempted to kill someone who has betrayed him – someone he looks on as family – but he can’t do it because family is what my hero is about. To kill this beloved traitor means the villain has won and my hero has lost what makes him who he is. So instead, he forgives the traitor and adopts him instead. However, there’s still physical death at stake in my novel.
   The place where you see Psychological Death as a stake most often is in Romance.
   In a Romance, the lovers must obtain their loved one or they become less than who they otherwise might be. Check out “Pride and Prejudice” and you’ll see it. I had one friend comment this morning that it’s a sad commentary on our society that we have to obtain someone else to be fulfilled and complete and that’s not what I’m getting at. It’s not a commentary on society particularly. It’s a comment on Romance in that modern Romance is required to have a happy ending. If it doesn’t, it’s probably a tragedy or the first part of a series. It’s not a Romance.

Hope that’s insightful to you all. As you can see, it did make me stop and think about my work and what the stakes are. What sort of death do your characters face?

Crested Butte: Day One

Wow. I survived the weekend. I feel like I’ve been on a reality T.V. show. Ya know the one where they strand you in the Rockies for four days. There are four teams of writers and each team is lead by a published author, editor or agent and you ALL have to get out of the mountains without killing or pissing each other off. Seriously, though, it was an AWESOME event. Thanks so much to Theresa, Barbara and all the wonderful volunteers who make it happen every year.

I met so many great authors and Ginger Clark, agent extraordinaire. She gave me several wonderful suggestions and permission to query later on. By the way, I won second place in the competition, which was better than I’d expected, so I’m tickled pink. I hope to go back again – maybe not next year, but who knows? If I do, I’ll remember to pack more bottled water. And oxygen. My four-year old came downhill with a nosebleed. For me, it wasn’t physically hard except for the sleep deprivation. It was 2 1/2 days of non-stop learning that felt like four days. My head’s so full it will take me days just to blog about all of it, but I hope to give you briefs on each of the talks I attended. If I’m lucky, I’ll start that tomorrow. As of Tuesday night, it’s time to play Mommy/Wife and prepare a meal.

I wish it could be something like the conference’s poached salmon, but at least it won’t be marmoset on a stick. After all, we left the camera crew behind us at 9,000 feet.