Hey, James Patterson Stole my Plot!

Plot theft. It tends to be on the minds of a lot of new writers.

You were planning to write that book some day. You had this brilliant plot. Now that *#%! Patterson/Nora Roberts/Stephen King has written a bestseller with the exact same premise.

Or the story is eerily similar to the one you pitched to an agent at a writer’s conference.

Or you're sure your plot will be stolen if you talk about your book online or in critique groups.

What should you do?

Nothing.

Writers have a lot to be wary of these days—bogus agents, inexperienced editors, overpriced coders/designers, scam publishers, draconian contracts, trollish critiquers—but plot-purloiners should not be high on the list.

Consider the old saying: “There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them.”

Experts don’t agree on the exact number of narrative plots, but there aren’t many:

• · In the 19th century, Georges Polti listed 36 Dramatic Situations.
• · In 1993, Ronald Tobias counted 20 Master Plots.
• · In 2005, Christopher Booker compressed the list to Seven Basic Plots.
• · The legendary agent who used to blog as "Miss Snark” said there were six.
• · I found a 2010 article in Author Magazine that listed only five.

The number seems to be shrinking, but everybody agrees it is finite.

So—no matter how original your story feels to you, somebody has probably told it before.

Maybe a bestselling novelist like James Patterson.

They didn’t steal it. They thought it up just the way you did.

It’s amazing how often an idea that sprouts in your brain from the seeds of your own imagination can take root in other people’s brains at the same time. Human minds often respond in similar ways to prevailing news stories, music, weather patterns or whatever—and end up generating similar thoughts.

Evolutionary biologists call this phenomenon a “meme.” The term—from the Greek mimema—meaning something imitated—was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. He observed that certain stories, melodies, catch phrases and fashions can flash through a whole culture in a short amount of time, changing and mutating as they go. Darwin and Wallace simultaneously came up with the theory of evolution while on different sides of the world. Newton and Liebnitz simultaneously invented calculus.

This explains why we can’t copyright ideas. Everybody has them. Very often the same ones at the same time.

Unfortunately, new writers don’t always realize this, and we can embarrass ourselves with plot-theft paranoia. That’s why you never want to mention copyright in a query letter. It red-flags you as an amateur.

Of course, if you’re having severe anxiety about it, you can indeed copyright your magnum opus, although it’s not necessary under current copyright laws. And if you’re really sure nobody ever thought of mixing classic 19^thcentury fiction with B-movie paranormal creatures, you can even copyright that logline for “Silas Marner meets Gremlins.”

 Just don’t mention this to industry professionals.

This is because delusions about the uniqueness of story ideas can get pretty off-the-wall.

Victoria Strauss at WriterBeware wrote last year about some guy who was trying to sell his plot idea on eBay for ten million dollars. He said, “It can be compared to stories like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Indiana Jones…and will bring in endless fame and money to anyone who takes it.”

And he’s not the only starry-eyed doofus who’s combined delusions of grandeur with total cluelessness about the effort required to actually write a novel or screenplay.

In the thread of the same post at Writer Beware, children’s author Kathleen Duey said, “I have been approached so many times by people who want me to buy a story, or who are willing to share half the proceeds if I will just do the writing. I never know what to say. I am not rude, but...really? Try that split on any other kind of business person. ‘I think that a colony on Mars would be awesome and I am willing to give a 50% share of all eventual proceeds to anyone who can make it happen.’ I am always careful to walk away, if that's what it takes, to keep anyone from telling me the idea…just in case I ever write something similar by accident.”

I’ll bet a lot of writers have been approached in a similar way. I sure have.

I have a feeling this delusion is as old as writing itself. I imagine Virgil probably met a guy at the Emperor Augustus’s orgy who said, “You’re a writer? Hey, I’ve got this idea for a book about a guy who sails around the Mediterranean. Meets up with big storms. Monsters. Some hot nookie. You can write it down and we’ll split the proceeds 50-50.”

I hope Virgil had a good lawyer.

Kathleen Duey’s instinct to run is a good one. These people can get scary. (They’re more likely to resort to lawsuits than murder, but I used it as a plot device in my comic mystery set at a small publishing house: SHERWOOD, LTD.)

When somebody approaches me with this “proposition,” I say, “the going rate for ghostwriters is $50-$100 an hour. I don’t provide that service, but I can get you a referral.”

Thing is--most writers have plenty of story ideas of our own. Our biggest fear is not living long enough to write them all.

But what do you do when somebody big like Patterson does publish a book that’s similar to yours? Even if they didn’t literally “steal” it, you can feel kind of ripped off.

Don’t despair. Memes can work in your favor. If you’re writing the final draft of your version of your Silas Marner/Gremlins mash-up, and somebody else comes out with a Silas Marner/Poltergeist  mash-up, you’re now part of a trend.

Readers tend to be sheep. If the first book is popular, they’ll want another. And if yours is better, you’re way ahead. It’s not about being first.

You can be pretty sure you’re not.

I’ll bet some guy told Virgil when he first pitched the Aeneid, “a lost dude sails around the Mediterranean after the Trojan War having adventures? Sorry, that’s been done. Haven’t you heard of that Homer guy’s story, the Odyssey?”

Hey, Virgil stole Homer’s plot!

I suppose he did--in a way. But it doesn’t seem to have hurt sales for either of them for the last couple of millennia.

It’s the telling that makes each story unique. And that’s going to be true of your story, too. It’s not about the plot. It’s about the writing. Nobody can steal that.

You should be more worried that your plot has been overdone.

Unfortunately, memes have short life spans. So it's important to keep up with what's selling in your genre. You need to know when the reader-sheep have moved on to greener pastures..

I'm not telling anybody to abandon a WIP with an well-used plotline. But be aware you're going to have to work a little harder to make it stand out. I thought I'd never want to see another vampire movie, and then Dark Shadows came out. And I laughed my head off watching Vampires Suck last night. You can always take something tired and make it fresh with humor. Or Johnny Depp.

Here are some overdone plots I see agents and readers complain about:

1) The thinly disguised memoir/rant

• The Health-Crisis Survivor: The protagonist has cancer, lost a loved one, or has a disabled child—and after much agony, learns what’s important about life. Heart-wrenching, but misery won’t sell books unless you’re Joyce Carol Oates.

• My Terrible Childhood: Child abuse is tragic stuff, but after somebody has seen 1000 versions Bastard Out Of Carolina, she gets calluses on her eyeballs.

• Days of Wine and Roses: Too many addicts have twelve-stepped before you. It’s hard to make a story of  “I was soooo f***ed up” sound fresh. Journal about it, and use your insights in other work.

• The Government Sux: Most of what you’re ranting about will probably be old news by launch date, even if you self-publish. This is why we have blogs.

2) The wish-fulfillment road-trip fantasy

• Me and Bobby McGee: Unappreciated husband leaves soul-stifling life for the freedom of the road. He picks up a sexy hitchhiker who teaches him what’s important about life and some nifty things to do in bed. Been there, read that.

• Thelma and Louise: Unappreciated housewives leave soul-stifling lives for the freedom of the road. Sounds fun, but we all know how it ends.

• Zen and the Art of… Same story, with motorcycle/sailboat/classic Corvette.

3) Obvious or copy-cat plot devices

• Grail Quests: J. R. R. Tolkien provides some pretty stiff competition in the “searching for a magical object” category. If you saddle this old warhorse, make sure it takes you somewhere wildly original and/or funny.

• Wardrobing to Narnia: I’ve seen a lot of agents kvetch about the proliferation of “portals” in SciFi/Fantasy queries. Pop your characters to fantasy worlds by magic toaster or something.

• The Chosen Hero: the ordinary Harry Potter-type kid who doesn’t know he’s the anointed hero destined to fight the Evil One and save the school/civilization/planet. Old when young Arthur pulled the sword out of that stone. 

• Improbable high school love fantasies: Dorky new kid in school attracts the most popular kid of opposite sex. Been done. With sparkles. Just once, we’d like to see dork meets dork.

• Creatures of the Night: The curtain has fallen on werewolves and vampires.

• The Da Vinci Homage: If your hero has found a secret code or artifact that holds the key to a shocking revision of ecclesiastical history, you’d better set it on Mars or reveal the fetid meatballs at the Pastafarian heart of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or you’re going to have a hard time.

• A writer writing a novel: We’re told to write what we know, which is probably why most writers try this one. But you’ll do better with a story about your day job at the laundromat.

On the other hand, oldies can be goodies in the right hands. Nothing was more tired than the English boarding school melodrama before J. K. Rowling put her spin on it.

The way to avoid this is to read books in your genre before you start. It’s essential to know what’s out there. You may think you’re the first person ever to think of mashing up B-movies with classics, and unless you look at your local bookstore shelves and see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you won’t know it’s been done, and you’ll think “Seth Grahame-Smith stole my plot!”

***

What about you, scriveners? Have you ever had your brilliant plot show up in somebody else’s book? Have you had somebody try to sell you a plot or use their plot and split the proceeds 50-50? What did you do? Have you tried to write a book with one of the overdone plots? (I sure have: writer writing a novel—still have it in a drawer.)

You can Still Sign up to Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD

HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic PAY IT FORWARD, and 19 other published and forthcoming books) is coming out very soon! 

This is not another book on self-publishing or a how-to-write book. It’s about how to be a writer: navigating the perils of the industry and keeping up with the latest information to save you time and money.

If you want be eligible to win a signed FIRST EDITION of Catherine’s iconic novel, PAY IT FORWARD, all you have to do is leave your email address in the comments or send me an email.  You can write it like this to avoid spam annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com. Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com  

The official book launch and drawing will be on July 14^thin San Luis Obispo, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 

The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. (But you don’t have to be there to win the first edition.)

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The Slow Blog Manifesto...and 8 Reasons Why Slow Blogging Will Help Your Career, Your Love Life, and Protect You From Angry Elephants

What is the Slow Blog Manifesto?

It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy. You can read the Slow Blog Manifesto here. Slow Blogging is modeled on Alice Walker’s “slow food” movement (the opposite of McBurgerish “fast food.”) The point is quality over quantity.

Todd wrote:

“Slow Blogging is the re-establishment of the machine as the agent of human expression, rather than its whip and container. It’s the voluntary halting of the light-speed hamster wheel dictated in rules of highly effective blogging.”

He urged people to write a few thoughtful, well-researched posts a month rather than daily blabber. A number of influential journalists, technicians, and academics joined his movement. It built steam until mid-2008, when it merited an article in the New York Times. 

It’s a principle that’s caught on. I see a lot of publishing industry bloggers cutting back on their number of posts—even uberbloggers like Nathan Bransford and Jane Friedman.

But unfortunately, not everybody has got the message. This week I saw a post on a popular writing blog telling new authors they should blog every single day.

I couldn’t disagree more. I think new authors, especially, need to limit their distractions. Yes, authors absolutely need social media these days, but we shouldn’t give it any more of our writing time than absolutely necessary.  (Especially since we are all supposed to write 12 books a year—more on that nonsense in another post.) 

Also, in order to get a readership in this saturated blogosphere, it seems to me we should be stressing quality over quantity. People don't want more stuff to take up their time.

If you aren’t quite sure what to blog about, check out How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?   in my "How to Blog for Authors" series.

BTW, you’ll find all of my "how to blog" posts—plus a huge amount of helpful, positive information in the new book I’ve written with Catherine Ryan Hyde: HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—And Keep Your E-Sanity! Which will debut later this month. (Shameless plug below.) 

See below for more info on the launch!

I didn’t start out to be a Slow Blogger. 

When I started this thing three years ago, I was simply too busy bloodying my knuckles on the doors of the publishing industry to have time to post more than once a week.

But now, largely thanks to this blog, I’m about to launch my sixth book in a year. Tenth if you count anthologies and singles. ( But no. I don’t intend to make a habit of that.) The blog has won dozens of awards—and even made the list of finalists for Best Publishing Industry Blog in the Association of American Publishers/Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. (Many, many thanks to all of you who voted for us!)

I did this without blogging more than once a week. In fact, thanks to a wonderful blog partner (the spectacular Ruth Harris, who joined a year ago) plus some fabulous guest bloggers, I usually now blog only twice a month.

Which is why I get really annoyed when I see new authors getting hammered with advice to blog every day.

Don’t. Just don’t.

Need more reasons?

1) A slow blog has a longer life-span.

The average life span of a blog is three years. But you want your writing career to last longer than three years, don’t you? A neglected blog hanging in cyberspace is worse than none.

Of course some people can blog brilliantly every day. But I don’t know a lot who can sustain that pace AND write book-length narrative every day.

So you’ve got to plan a blog that’s going to beat the odds. A slow blog is more likely to do that.

Think marathon, not sprint: slow blog.

2) You reach more people by commenting on other people’s blogs than by madly posting on a blog nobody reads.

Author/publisher/social media guru Bob Mayer pointed out on his blog recently:

 “One of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.”

Yes, an author needs a blog—it’s more dynamic than a static website (and free) so it’s the best way to interact with readers and fellow writers. But it’s not your best sales tool, especially when you’re starting out—it’s more like your Internet home. If nobody knows you, they won’t come and visit.

Think of it this way: would you reach more people by sitting in your basement making a thousand signs, or by making one sign, standing in a public place, and getting it filmed for a clip on the nightly news?

So use your blogging time to visit other blogs, and only post on your own blog when you have something to say that you can tell people about on other blogs. Then they’ll come visit. See how that works?

Get your sign on the nightly news: slow blog.

3) Busy people are less likely to subscribe/follow a blog that’s going to clutter their email inbox/rss feed every day.  I sure won’t. I don’t read ANYBODY’S blog every day. I’d be so glad if they’d only send notifications of the good ones. Or—even better—only write the good ones. (Which, um, is called “slow blogging.”)

When you write mostly good posts, people will know a visit to your blog is a valuable use of their time and they’ll spread the word. Then maybe an agent or publisher will visit and like it so much they’ll ask you to send them a novel and you’ll end up published. That’s what happened to me—twice. Seriously. Both my publishers contacted ME because they liked this blog.

So if you want to get published, slow blog.

4) Everybody has bad days. When you have to think of something to say on the day you got that nasty/clueless review/rejection, your emotions are going to leak out. 

You’re going to write what you really think about that agent who has hair like Medusa and the literary taste of an orangutan. You’re going to call that agent Monkey Medusa on your blog. Then it will turn out she wasn’t actually the agent who rejected you. That was a different one at an agency down the hall. Monkey Medusa actually loves your book and was about to offer you representation. So she visited your blog to find out more about you and got seriously offended and you lost your big chance for a major book contract.

If you don’t want to lose out on a major book contract, slow blog.

5) Nobody can come up with that many interesting posts. When you slow blog, and you don’t have anything to say, you don’t have to say it.

But if you succumb to pressure to blog every day, you’re going to blather-blog. You’re going to talk about your stupid boss who’s been acting like b***  in heat since the hot new guy joined the department. And it will turn out your boss’s husband is an aspiring writer who subscribes to your blog, so he’s going to dump that b***. She’ll be so mad she’ll fire you. You will not be able to get another job in this economy and you’ll lose your apartment and end up moving in with your girlfriend who will be so PO’d at you for blogging all the time, she’ll break up with you.

Don’t blather-blog and wreck your relationship: slow blog.

6) Writing nonfiction—which is what you should be writing on your blog—uses a different part of your brain from fiction.

When you’re on a roll with a novel, and have to stop to write something perspicacious on the subject of sentence structure, you can stop that flow dead. Maybe you won’t ever get it back. Maybe you’ll have to give up your writing dream and join the circus. When you join the circus, you could get stepped on by an angry elephant.

Don’t get stepped on by an angry elephant: slow blog.

7) You write narrative--remember? The blog is supposed to be about getting your name out there as a creative writer. It’s an aid to your serious writing, not a substitute for it.

If you spend every day working on your blog, you’re going to neglect your novel. When you neglect your novel, you’ll forget why you wanted to be a writer. So you’ll accept that promotion at work where you have to work all hours with no overtime because you’re management now. You’ll wake up one day and discover you’re middle-aged and have nothing to show for it, so you’ll buy yourself a very fast, very expensive car. But you’ll be so exhausted from all that work that you’ll drive your fast, expensive car off a cliff and die in a fiery crash.

Don’t die a fiery crash: slow blog.

8) Trying to blog every day is impossible to keep up, so you’ll constantly feel guilty. Guilt is bad for your mental health. When you feel guilty you eat/drink/smoke too much and then feel guilty about that too.

See where this is going…?

My apologies to the people who write the Direct TV commercials for the “don’t do this…” silliness.

But seriously: slow blogging rules.

Yes, I am aware these comments aren’t true for everybody. There are always the superpersons who can do it all—and I’m in awe of them. But if you don't have tights and a cape in your closet, don’t succumb to the pressure.

Two examples of successful slow bloggers are:

The insightful Nina Badzin, whose thoughtful, eclectic blog has become wildly popular. In fact, her essays now appear in the Huffington Post. She’s recently discovered she’d rather blog than write fiction. (The world needs more thoughtful essayists, so this is a great thing.) But she continues to blog once a week.

My publisher, the esteemed Mr. Mark Williams of International fame, sometimes doesn’t post for six weeks. But when he does—he always informs, entertains and tells us stuff we never knew we needed to know. So his Alexa rating is higher than most daily bloggers.

And the late, great pseudonyminous agent, Miss Snark was all for slow blogging, too. In spite of all the pressure to “build platform,” she advised new writers to always put their writing first:

“Your job is to write…
…There's a lot to be said for sitting down with your ownself and writing. Nothing, literally NOTHING replaces that. Focus. You're wasting time.”

Tell that to the idiots who say you have to blog every day.

****

Win a Signed First Edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD

HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, which I wrote with my mentor and favorite author, Catherine Ryan Hyde  is coming out very soon!  

It contains my entire “how to blog for authors” series and a whole lot more stuff I’ve discussed on this blog and elsewhere, plus wisdom from Catherine’s popular workshops and seminars. We have material you won’t find in any other book for writers.

It’s not a book about how to write, but about how to be a writer. It’s about how to cope with the increasing pressure to do too much, and learn what advice to listen to, what to ignore, and how to make the choices that are best for you personally and professionally.

Mark Williams international Digital Publishing will publish it in ebook and, a few weeks later, in paper (available the US and internationally.) Although Catherine is mostly published by Big Six publishers, we decided to go with a small, nimble international publisher, because with the business changing so rapidly, a traditionally-published book would be out of date by the time it went to press. But the people at MWiDP will be able to update the book every six months.

So as an added perk, when you buy the book, you will automatically be signed up for those updates and you’ll be able to download them free. Plus we will supply information for an international as well as a US audience. 

On the official launch day, we will hold a drawing, and the winner will receive a signed first edition of PAY IT FORWARD.

If you’d like to be eligible for the drawing, just sign up for our email list—which we will use only for important notifications about the book. All you have to do is leave your email address in the comments. You can write it like this to avoid spam "annerallen (dot) allen (at) gmail (dot) com." Or send it to me at annerallen.allen@gmail.com (Some of you signed up in January and February, so you’re already in the running.)

The official launch will be on July 14^th in San Luis Obispo CA, at a Digital E-Authors seminar Catherine and I are teaching with radio personality Dave Congalton and his group of very knowledgeable tech and writing professionals. 

The one-day seminar will be held Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the Sands Inn & Suites, in San Luis Obispo, CA “the happiest town on earth” (according to Oprah.) So if you live in the area, or you’re planning a vacation on the Central Coast, Register at: Digital Age E-Authors. 

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How to Write a Publishable Memoir: 12 Do’s and Don’ts

They say we all have a book inside us—our own life story. The urge to put that story on paper is the most common reason people start writing. Adult education programs and senior centers everywhere offer courses in “writing your own life.” Memoir is the most popular genre at any writers conference.

Unfortunately, it’s the hardest to write well—and the least likely to be published.

Agent Kristin Nelson once blogged that she’s seen so many bad memoirs that she cringes when she meets a memoirist a writer’s conference. Author J. A. Konrath offered the simple advice: “Unless you're one of the Rolling Stones, don't write anything autobiographical.” Miss Snark pronounced, “every editor and agent I know HATES memoir pitches…I'd rather shave the cat.”

But memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love, In the Garden of Beasts and Townie: a Memoir, top the bestseller lists.

In this age of “reality” TV, there’s a huge audience for shared real-life experience. Readers are hungry for true stories: look how angrily they reacted to writers like James Frey and Herman Rosenblat, who passed off fiction as memoir.

So keep working on that masterpiece-in-progress. But hone your craft—brilliant wordsmithing and/or stand-up-worthy comedy skills help a bunch—and follow some basic dos and don’ts:

1)     DO read other memoirs. Before you put pen to paper, it’s a good idea to read some currently selling memoirs. See what works and what doesn’t. Know the genre and the market

2)     DON’T write an autobiography: An autobiography is a list of events: “I was born in (year) in (place) and I did (this) and (that.) Mr. Konrath is right—unless you’re Mick Jagger, nobody cares. (Except your family. Don’t let me discourage you from self-publishing a chronicle of your life as a gift to your descendants.)

3)     DO tell a page-turning story. A book-length memoir is read and marketed as a novel. It needs a novel’s narrative drive. That means tension and conflict—and ONE main story arc to drive the action. Most memoirs fail from lack of focus. Choose a basic storyline, like: “Orphan kids save the family farm during the Depression,” or “A cross-dressing teen survives high school in the 1950s.”

4)     DON’T confuse memoir with psychotherapy: Writing a book about a traumatic personal event may be cathartic for the writer, but there’s a reason shrinks charge big bucks to listen to people's problems. Put the raw material in a journal to mine later for fiction, poetry, and personal essays.

5)     DO remember that a memoirist, like a novelist, is essentially an entertainer. A memoir may be nonfiction, but it requires a creative writer’s skill set. Always keep your reader in mind. Never fabricate, but only tell what’s unique, exciting and relevant to your premise.

6)     DON’T expect a big audience for medical journaling: If you or a loved one has a serious disease, chronicling your experiences can be invaluable to those suffering similar trials. To the general public—not so much. You may find it’s best to reach your audience through online forums, blogs, and magazines. (See #6) Remember that publishing is a business, and no matter how sad your story, if it’s not an enjoyable read, it won’t find an audience.

7)    DO consider non-book formats to tell your story. Beginning writers often make the mistake of jumping into a book-length opus. It’s smarter and easier to start with short pieces—what a writer friend calls “memoiric essays.” Nostalgia and senior-oriented magazines and blogs are great venues for tales of life in the old days. Some niche journals and websites focusing on hobbies, pets, disablities, veterans, etc. even provide a paying market. These will also give you some great publishing credits, and you won't have to slog for years before reaching an audience.

This is one area where BLOGGING can provide you with a fantastic forum. A new blog I love is by Tony Piazza, a veteran of the film business—and mystery author—who has insightful stories about every Hollywood star you ever heard of. 

8)     DON’T include every detail because “it’s what really happened.” Just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s interesting. Your happy memories of that idyllic Sunday school picnic in vanished small-town America will leave your reader comatose unless the church caught fire, you lost your virginity, and/or somebody stole the parson’s pants.

9)     DO limit the story to an area where your experience is significant and unique. If you gave birth in the mud at Woodstock, dated Elvis, or helped decipher the Enigma code, make that the focus of your book. I knew a musician who worked with of some of the great legends of American music. His memoir of those jazzy days was gripping, but because it was buried in his “happy ever after” life story, he never found a publisher.

10)   DON’T jump into the publishing process until you’ve honed your skills as a creative writer. Unless you’re only writing for your grandchildren (nothing wrong with that—but be clear in your intentions) you need to become an acomplished writer before you can expect non-family members to read you work. Even the most skilled editor can’t turn a series of reminiscences into a cohesive narrative.

NOTE: There are ghostwriters who specialize in memoirs, so if you want to get your story into book form and aren’t interested in becoming a professional writer, you can hire one. Many editing services offer ghostwriting—a more expensive process than editing—but worth the cost if you don’t enjoy the writing process. I’d recommend using a memoir specialist like YourMemoir.co.uk., which looks like an excellent service.

11) DO look at small and regional publishers. A national publisher may not be interested in stories of the vanished ranch life of old California, but a local publisher who has outlets at tourist sites and historical landmarks may be actively looking for them. Another plus: you don’t need an agent to approach most regional publishers. A good example of a memoir that found a home at a regional press is Anne Schroeder’s Branches on the Conejo,Leaving the Soil after Five Generations  (Another perk of being with a small regional press is that the book can still be in print after a decade.)

12) DON’T get discouraged. Ann Carbine Best, an award-winning poet, knew she had a story to tell that would help thousands of women who shared her experience. Unfortunately, most publishers thought her subject matter was too niche and controversial to be a blockbuster. But with a small press, she found a welcoming audience for In the Mirror, her memoir of a doomed marriage.

If you’re working on a memoir, polish your creative writing skills, remember publishing is a business, keep your reader in mind--and you’ll avoid the cringe-making amateurishness that agents, editors and readers fear.

What about you, scriveners? Do you read memoirs? What is likely to make you pick one? What are your pet peeves in memoirs? Memoirists--any advice to new writers who are working on theirs?


WE HAVE A WINNER of the signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's wonderful novel, WALTER'S PURPLE HEART. I assigned every address a number went to the random number generator at Random.org to select the winning number. 


The winner is Cathryn Leigh! Congratulations, Cathryn! CRH will contact you to get your snail address. 


Cathryn, and everybody else who signed up for our HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE  launch newsletter, you're still in the running for the signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel, PAY IT FORWARD.


INDIE CHICK fans:  This week's exciting episode comes from Sarah Woodbury, author of some wonderful historical novels set in medieval Wales. I predict we'll be hearing more from Sarah, who out-did me by publishing no less than seven novels last year. Her inspiring piece is here. 

This just in!! The paper version of THE BEST REVENGE--the first of the Camilla Randall mysteries--is now available from Popcorn Press! Only  $9.95 

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Hooks, Loglines, and Pitches: What Every Writer Needs to Know

Some nice news: This blog has been nominated for the Top Writing Blogs Award by ECollegeFinder.org !


If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to start sending that masterpiece out into the marketplace, you’re going to run into words like “hook,” “logline,” and “pitch.” The terms come from the film industry, but they’re becoming standard in publishing as well.

So what do they mean? Are they just sexy terms for a synopsis? 

Not exactly. The distinctions often blur, but here are the basics:

LOGLINE is a term that once applied only to screenplays, but has been creeping into the literary world. It consists of one or two sentences describing the story’s premise, like a film description in TV Guide:

Here’s the basic formula for a logline:

When______happens to_____, he/she must_____or face_____.

“When Dorothy Gale gets tornadoed to Oz and accidentally squashes an unpopular head of state, she must find a wizard to help her get home to Kansas, or be killed by the ruler's evil sister and some nasty flying monkeys.”

A HOOK is longer—a paragraph or two giving the characters, premise, and conflict, like a book jacket cover blurb. (Skipping the cover blurb accolades. Self-praise doesn’t just sound narcissistic, it screams “clueless amateur.”)

The hook should be the main component of a query letter to an agent, editor, or reviewer and is essential for your back copy or Amazon blurb.

“The Wizard of Oz is a middle-grade fantasy novel set in a magical land where much of the population suffers from self-esteem issues. When Dorothy Gale, a Kansas farm girl, arrives via tornado, she accidentally kills the ruling witch.

The witch’s powerful sister wants Dorothy dead, but Dorothy only wants to get home, which she cannot do until she finds the right traveling shoes.”

Or you might want to try the “Hook Me Up” formula of the late, great Miss Snark (I suggest stating the setting first, especially for fantasy or sci-fi.)

X is the main guy; he wants to do_____.
Y is the bad guy; he wants to do_____.
They meet at Z and all L breaks loose.
If they don't resolve Q, then R starts and if they do it's L squared.

Don’t take the “bad guy” reference to mean you need to make your novel sound as if it has a Snidely-Whiplash-type villain. The antagonist can be anything that keeps the protagonist from his goals, from a wicked witch to the hero’s own addictions. If you want to read more on antagonists, Kristen Lamb has a fantastic blogpost, “Introducing the Big Boss Troublemaker.”

A PITCH can contain either or both of the above. You can make a pitch in writing or in person. It tells—in the shortest possible time—what your book is about and why somebody should buy it. This is what you memorize before you go to that Writers’ Conference, hoping you’ll get trapped in an elevator with Stephen Spielberg or an editor from Knopf.

When composing your pitch, you want to answer these questions: Who? Where? What’s the conflict? What action does the protagonist take? What are the stakes? How is it unique?

To get started, it's fun to play with Kathy Carmichael’s clever “pitch generator” This is fun and amazingly useful. I’m so glad to find it’s still going strong after six years.

Here’s her generator’s pitch for the Wizard of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is a (x) word fantasy novel set in the magical land of Oz. Dorothy Gale is a Kansas farm girl who believes a legendary wizard can help her get home. She wants to return to Kansas to be with her Auntie Em. She is prevented from attaining this goal because her transportation vehicle is sitting on a dead witch, she’s being attacked by flying monkeys and her traveling companions are a little dim.

Hooks, loglines and pitches should all be composed in the present tense, starting with title and genre.

None of the above should be confused with a SYNOPSIS, which is a detailed run-down of the complete plot. (But not too detailed. Lots of submission guidelines ask for a one-page synopsis these days. More on that in another post.)

In all three, you also want to convey the tone of your book:

You can have a humorous logline:

“When the romantic adventures of a southern belle are interrupted by an icky war PLUS her goody-two-shoes-BFF steals her boyfriend, Scarlett whips up a fabulous outfit in order to seduce Mr. Wrong, who in the end, doesn’t give a damn.”

Or punch up a coming of age story by emphasizing high-stakes conflict:

“With his life in constant danger from the monstrous carnivore Snowbell, young Stuart must fight for his life, and prove once and for all whether he is a man or a mouse.”

Or go for the thrills by emphasizing the most dangerous scene:

“Marked for death along with his companions, a toy rabbit must learn to cry real tears in order to save himself from being thrown into a burning pit by the boy loves.”

Or give the overall premise:

"When the adopted son of Kansas farmer discovers he’s a strange visitor from a another planet, he tries to save the world, one clueless girl reporter at a time, in spite of opposition from an assortment of megalomaniacs armed with green rocks." 
(What is it with heroes and Kansas?)

When you’re composing, don’t forget to weed out clichés. Here are some overused phrases to avoid:

• little did he know
• comes back to haunt her
• race against the clock
• web of deceit
• determined to unmask
• wants nothing more
• spins out of control
• torn apart by
• vows to expose
• world falls apart
• forced to confront

Whether you’re writing a logline, hook or pitch, remember that less is more. Keep it short. And keep working on it. These few words are as important as any you’ll ever write.

It’s a fun game to play with classic stories. Anybody want to jump in with loglines for their favorite books? (or your own?) I’d love to see more!

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Next week we have a very special guest. Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay it Forward, will be talking to us about her personal experiences with rejection. Catherine has also announced she is giving one of her special limited-enrollment workshops on the weekend of February 4th. She'll be teaching the secrets of self-editing. Every participant will get personal editing advice on a WIP from Catherine as well as the members of the group. The workshop will be held in her own studio in gorgeous Cambria, California. In true "Pay it Forward" spirit, she's only asking that you pay what you can afford. This workshop will fill up quickly, so contact her soon if you're interested. Further details at ryanhyde@cryanhyde.com.  If you don’t live on the Central Coast, there are lovely places to stay in Cambria, so consider a weekend vacation. One of my favorite places to stay is the Cambria Pines Lodge —very affordable at this time of year. It has gorgeous views and gardens and is only five minutes from Catherine’s home (no, I don’t get any perks for recommending them.)

Indie Chick Anthology fans: Read Prue Batten's story about her encounter with an amazingly clueless agent on the Indie Chicks page.

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