Blog
Welcome to the Busybird blog, where you can find helpful articles, updates, industry news and more. Make sure you stay up to date by signing up to our newsletter below.
Time to Assess
June 23, 2016
My book is going to be a bestseller!
We hear that more than anything.
Why’s it going to be a bestseller? Because it’s such a brilliant idea? Because it’s so beautifully written? Because you’re going to will it to be so?
You know what? You’re not the only one to think these things.
And if it were as easy as all this, publishers – with all their resources – would release nothing but bestseller after bestseller.
They don’t, because the reality is lots of brilliant stories and beautifully-written books disappear into obscurity. Others never see publication. There’s no certified predictor as to what makes a bestseller. And it’s folly to think that the potential behind your concept is going to win over an audience. The best you can do – and the formula that publishers follow – is to give your book the very best chance of succeeding by making it the best that it can be.
One of the means to achieve this – and a much more inexpensive alternative to a structural edit – is a manuscript assessment.
The simplest way to think of a manuscript assessment is that it’s a comprehensive book report of your manuscript.
You’ll get a breakdown that looks at the following things:
- Structure: does your manuscript evolve logically? Even if it has some innovative structure – e.g. flipping between timelines, or rotating through an assortment of characters – is it cohesive? Are there areas it needs greater development? Or where information could be dealt with earlier/later? Structure looks at the way the story is delivered and whether it’s effective.
- Plot/Content: a fiction assessment would examine plot, whilst a nonfiction assessment would explore the content. Are these sound? Within the manuscript, how do these unfold and function? Are they coherent? Are they convincing? Will the reader invest in them?
- Characters: an examination of the characters and how well they work. Do they need to be more dimensional? Are they rounded enough? Are they believable? Are they motivated? Are there too many characters?
- Your Writing: a look at things like your use of Point of View (POV), clarity of expression, grammar, your use of tense, etc. The assessment won’t list every specific instance where something is wrong or needs work, but will give you examples so you know what to look out for when you revise.
- Your Punctuation: as with the above, you will be provided examples of things to look out for which you can address through revision.
- Title: does your title fit your manuscript?
I don’t need any of this – my [PARTNER/PARENT/SON OR DAUGHTER/FRIEND/FRIEND WHO IS A TEACHER/NEIGHBOUR/DOG] read it, and they think it’s great!
Well, this might be the case, but how comprehensive was the feedback? Was it as extensive as, ‘It’s good’ or something like that? How constructive was it? Were these readers in any way biased (one way or another) due to their relationship with you? Relying on people with whom you have any sort of relationship is always fraught with risk.
A fresh perspective from somebody who
- has no connection to you
- is trained to look at writing analytically
- does this for a living
is often the best way of identifying what does work and what doesn’t work in your manuscript.
However, before you do this, be prepared to hear anything. Lower your expectations. We all have them. We all want to believe that our manuscript is great! That it’s going to blow everybody over! That it is going to be the next bestseller! But even authors who’ve written umpteen drafts and delivered their manuscript to a publisher are going to get extensive structural feedback about what they need to address in revision. You cannot go into this thinking your manuscript is infallible, because you’re always going to be disappointed.
So if you’ve written a manuscript and are thinking about sending it out into the world, STOP. Do you really think that your manuscript is the best manuscript it could be? Or is it that you’re so immersed in it, you need fresh eyes to identify what you should be looking at next?
If that’s the case, a manuscript assessment could be the way to go.
Discourtesy
June 16, 2016
If a publisher asks you to submit three chapters, a synopsis, a cover letter, and to format it all in purple Wingdings, that’s what you do. The publisher sets the rules. You’re required to show your respect for them, as well as showcase your own professionalism, by doing exactly as they ask. Don’t believe your brilliance will floor them and convince them to overlook the fact you’ve decided to send them ten chapters formatted in Comic Sans.
If a journal accepts your story, then three days later changes their mind and rejects you (and this has happened), grin and bear it. You have every right to be frustrated. You have every right to be angry. You have every right to rant privately to your friends that this journal is full of imbeciles who are grossly incompetent. But in your interaction with the journal, remain polite and respectful.
There’s no need for discourtesy, irrespective of the circumstances. It’s not going to get you anywhere and will just foster resentment. Also, the Australian publishing industry is small. Piss off the wrong person, and you could develop a name for yourself. So learn to handle adversity with dignity and graciousness.
This is something you should apply regardless of the circumstances. Unfortunately, in our experience, it hasn’t always been the case. We’ve had authors who’ve been rude and aggressive, who’ve behaved with a sense of entitlement, and as if we exist only to serve their whims and respond to their tantrums. One author was outright vitriolic, even though all her issues were a result of her lack of communication with her own PA, rather than anything we’d done. How this woman could operate in a professional capacity is mind-boggling.
We have our own etiquette – whether you’re submitting to one of our anthologies, attending one of our workshops, or wanting to self-publish. We establish parameters, which we ask clients to work within, because it gives them the structure to compartmentalise their project, as well as helps put resources in our hands with a methodology that ensures we can serve our clients’ needs and produce the best outcome possible. That all sounds terribly wordy: simply, we ask you to do things our way because we know what we’re doing, and our way makes it easier for everybody in the long run. Other publishers and journals will be the same. Everybody has their own way of doing things.
You’re going to encounter problems, hiccups, and detours. That’s a reality of life, let alone the publishing industry. The people you’re dealing with might have seemingly strange guidelines, or they might make mistakes. Again, that’s something you’re going to encounter in life. But don’t think blowing up is going to change anything. It’s likelier to produce the opposite outcome.
Think about how you deal with adversity.
Think about how you deal with the everyday.
And ask yourself if you need to do anything differently.
Off the Page
June 9, 2016
When you’re writing a story, often the question is what should you and shouldn’t you include? Many of us would love to include everything. But this doesn’t necessarily make for entertaining reading. A newspaper editor once told me a fact I’d left out (of an article I was writing) was interesting, but added nothing to the overall story, so it was a good choice to leave it out. This is something you need to ask yourself: is what you’re including adding to the overall story?
Now that can happen in a number of ways. The information might drive the plot, or help with characterisation or setting. Some might argue that any extra information might help with those things – additional information, the argument might be, could offer depth. We could throw in that the protagonist, as a child, owned a three-legged dog. Interesting, no? But here’s the question: how does it contribute to the story? What is it telling us about that character that we need to know? Is it providing context to the decisions they make or they person they’ve become? If it doesn’t have any bearing whatsoever, it’s most likely unnecessary. A better way to think about this if you cut something, and the reader wouldn’t notice it’s been cut – that they don’t feel they’re missing anything – then it doesn’t belong there.
Every sentence should drive the story forward. Each sentence should evolve from the one prior, unless you’re going after something stylistically jarring, e.g. two friends having coffee at a café, when a car accident occurs outside. In this case, there’s no direct evolution from one scene to the next. Instead, we use the abrupt shift to interrupt the established scene. But if that’s not your intent (and, honestly, stylistically this is a device you’d use sparingly), think about how your story unfolds, and the framework of language you use to construct that.
And, in doing that, keep also in mind what you’re not including. As an editor, one of the things I encounter most is authors leaving pivotal scenes off the page. Instead, we get characters referencing something has happened (either in narrative, internalisation, or dialogue), or characters functioning on the crest of some momentous change, yet which we don’t see.
Let’s take the first example: if the characters are referencing something important that happened which we didn’t get to see (as readers), ask yourself why hasn’t that been included? Ask yourself why you’ve decided it’s of greater significance to show people talking about the scene rather than showing the scene itself. There might be legitimate reasons, e.g. in a detective story, the detective might talk to witnesses, who are telling him about a crime. Usually, though, we’d want the big scenes to play out in front of our eyes.
In the second example, a character might’ve experienced an epiphany – only we don’t see the epiphany itself, but pick up after they’ve decided to make some meaningful change in their life. But isn’t the epiphany important? Shouldn’t we see that transformative journey that takes our character from who they were to who they decide they want to be? Shouldn’t the reader be put in that character’s shoes so they can experience their metamorphosis?
Conflict drives storytelling – not conflict in regards to characters arguing or fighting or trying to kill one another. But conflict that compels change within the character and tiers their arc over the course of the story. We all encounter it in our everyday lives. Obstacles compel us to make decisions. Do we do this or do we do that? This drives us to make the decisions we do. Our characters should face the same choices.
Think about those moments you’re not sharing with us, those moments that exist either between chapters, or simply between pages. If you can map that there is a BEFORE in one case and an AFTER in the next, but we don’t witness anything between, ask yourself why you haven’t included that. There might be a justifiable reason. Or it might be you’ve skimmed to get to where you want.
Learning Your Craft
May 26, 2016
Stimulus is important in a writer’s development. You need to be constantly exposed to new information to evolve. Obvious avenues are residencies, workshops, and schooling. Here, you should be flooded with new information that challenges what you know and compels you to grow. Experience is another great teacher. As writers, you’re writing about things that happen in life. Even if you’re writing something fantastical, you’re still dealing with life – just in a different setting. So, as writers, you should be constantly searching.
Books on writing are another invaluable resource, although some might break the craft of writing too precisely into a science. But they brim with information. And that’s what you thrive on. You don’t have to apply everything you learn – ultimately, you find your own way, your own voice, your own style. If there was one way of writing, reading would be boring. Instead, you are all unique, e.g. Cormac McCarthy relies on sparse description, whilst Inga Simpson’s writing is rich in detail. You all have your own way of doing things.
And you can only learn your own way by doing. This means sitting down and writing. Nobody is going to write a masterpiece first-up. Your first or second or even twentieth or thirtieth story mightn’t work because, for all the information you digest, you still have to apply it to learn how it’s executed, and how it’s executed through the filter of your own style. So you have to write.
Instead of being fearful you’re going to get it wrong, that things won’t turn out, that it might be an unmitigated disaster, you still need to do it, because it’s part of your development. You might think it’s a waste of time to write a story that’s filled with plot-holes, where the motivations are shallow, and the characters are one-dimensional, but it’s not (a waste of time) because through the act of writing, you learn that the story’s filled with plot-holes, the motivations are shallow, and the characters are one-dimensional. Next time, you’ll be conscious of addressing that. Again, it’s a learning experience. You cannot succeed without failing. That doesn’t just apply to writing, but everything in life.
Still, you might feel trepidation. You might be unsure of your abilities, and – for the moment – be unable to participate in workshops or schooling. You mightn’t be able to go away on a big holiday and enjoy a whole new assortment of experiences. You might just be living a normal everyday life. So what do you do?
Read.
Reading is one of the best teachers you can find. Writers who aren’t readers are neither bright nor respectful – not respectful because if you’re not reading other authors’ books, why should anybody read yours? As for not being bright, it’s reading that teaches us about structure, plot, characterisation, voice, grammar, punctuation, and more – all the components that constitute a book. You can learn through osmosis, or make a concerted effort to examine why a book works (for you) and, in doing that, you can begin to understand the parameters that must frame your own stories.
Even movies and television series can teach us these lessons, because they’re still about stories – whilst there’s profound differences in the requirements between writing prose and screenwriting, there’s also similarities because you’re still storytelling. You still need structure, you still need plot, you still need characterisation. So, outside of reading, you should watch movies, watch television series, and ask yourself how and why the stories work or don’t work for you, how you’d address the issues, and how you’d do it yourself.
Then take that information and apply it to your own writing.
And write.
The Great Novella 2016 Shortlist
May 16, 2016
Thank you to everybody who entered Busybird’s Great Novella Search 2016.
There were so many great entries – so many great novellas and short story collections. Whittling down the entries to a shortlist was near impossible.
But here we go …
Danae Bosler (Vic) – ‘Bellwether’
Danae Bosler is a writer and campaigner based in Melbourne. She has been published in Overland, National Times, The Guardian Online and The Conversation. She has a Masters in Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing from Melbourne University.
Sean O’Leary (Vic) – ‘Drifting’
Sean O’Leary is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. His fiction, non-fiction and interviews have been published in Quadrant, FourW, page seventeen, Bravado, Takahé, Wet Ink, Famous Reporter and @ www.crimetime.co.uk. His second short story collection will be published by Peggy Bright Books in 2016.
CH Pearce (ACT) – ‘Fastred and Dobrogost’
C.H. Pearce is a writer and illustrator. Trained as an archivist and historian, she lives in Canberra with her partner and her three rats, Didi, Gogo and Lucky. She has published articles and short stories for which she has won awards including the Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award in 2015.
Dan Spicer (NSW) – ‘Lure’
Dan Spicer was born in 1983. He has lived in Australia his whole life. He is obsessed with Call of Duty and Battlefield video games. He also likes going to the movies, and his dream is to have one of his stories turned into a Hollywood movie.
Aleks Terauds (TAS) – ‘Paradiso’
Aleks Terauds is a retired senior public servant (principal scientist) who, after spending over twenty years writing science fiction (ministerial briefs, etc), is now returning to his childhood love of less speculative fiction.
Catherine Watkins (VIC) – ‘The Dancing Man’
After completing a Phd in Australian multicultural fiction, Catherine is concentrating on writing short fiction or novella length fiction. She was highly commended in the open section of the 2015 Alan Marshall Short Story Award.
Thank you to everybody who entered.
The winner will be announced at a little ceremony at Busybird Publishing, 30th June, 7.00–8.30pm.