Aran Jane: Writing the Sprint, Not the Marathon

by Aran Jane

I read as widely as I can — books of all types: literature, genre fiction, biographies, history books, academic books, art books. I read Internet news feeds, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes, basically, anything I can get my hands on. 

When something catches my eye — and it could be anything — I begin turning it over in my mind to see if I can use it to tell a story. Then I cast about for a protagonist. With The Water Column, it was an article in the Chicago Tribune (and a follow-on article that appeared in the NY Times) about two fatal falls from Chicago high-rises that happened in the late Eighties. The Times headline read: Two Men, Two Women, and Two Deaths. I wanted to write a detective story and cast against type, so I decided my protagonist had to be a woman. 

Once I have a protagonist in mind, I start outlining the structural and dynamic skeleton of the story. With a grand argument story, I focus on four sequences of story points, each within a single perspective: the Main Character’s perspective, the Influence Character’s perspective, the Objective story perspective, and the Relationship story’s perspective. My approach is somewhat unique in that I do all my writing in the car. My lovely wife, Sheri, a PICC nurse, sees patients all over Southern California, traveling from Los Angeles to San Diego. We're a team: she places the PICC lines; I do the driving. 

In the breaks between conversations on the road, when the two of us are lost in thought, I work out the plot points in my head. When we reach our destination, Sheri goes in to see her patient, and I grab my computer and set to work. 

I typically get maybe an hour at each stop, if I'm lucky. We average three to four cases a day. Some days, we get slammed and see five or six patients over twelve hours or more. It all depends on Sheri's caseload. That works out to three-to-four hours of actual writing, five days a week. Occasionally, I get lucky and get to write five or six hours a day. But that's rare. 

Kris Kristofferson wrote a song that comes to mind, "The Pilgrim Chapter 33."  There's a lyric line that says: "I'm a walking contradiction, partly truth, and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on my lonely way back home." 

Since I have so little time, I cannot afford to waste it writing a story that ends up, in Kristofferson's words, "taking every wrong direction." The way I manage to avoid that problem is by using a software program for screenwriters and novelists called Dramatica Story Expert. Dramatica allows me to build a comprehensive outline. By the time I start writing the prose, I can do so with absolute confidence, knowing that my story will make a complete argument without any plot holes. It’s a hat trick, I know, but it helps me get from driving Miss Daisy to writing behind the wheel.

Aran Jane is an author whose novels are billed as imaginative, thought-provoking suspense thrillers, incorporating futurist technologies and the paranormal among more general interests in physics, metaphysics, philosophy, politics, and espionage. The Water Column releases February 25.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

Derrick Flynn should be dead, but he’s up and running instead. He’s just survived his second chance encounter with the infamous killer Splitlip, a man assumed dead for decades. I think your hook is actually the second sentence, and I would consider striking the first. Splitlip is a great name for a villian, and the fact that it's Derrick's second encounter is intriguing. Also, cutting the first line will eliminate the echo (word repetition) of "dead."

Several years ago, Splitlip killed Derrick’s dream of developing his magic abilities when he murdered his mentor. This is first mention of magic, or indication that this is anything other than a contemporary thriller. Get the presence of magic into your opening para. Also, why can't Derrick just get a new mentor? Derrick’s superiors chalked the death up to a botched spell--untested sorcerers become erratic and delusional when they can’t control their magic--and expelled him from their group. Okay, so it's not so much that the mentor died that Derrick can't develop his abilities, it's that he was blamed for the death and banned. Again, I think you're giving information in a backwards fashion. It was a bitter pill to swallow, made worse by the fact that even his elder brother Alek, a sorcerer himself, didn’t believe him either. Believe him about what?

Now, those woes and doubts dissolve in adrenaline and glorious affirmation as Derrick runs from his would-be grave. Splitlip’s reappearance means redemption--if he can catch or kill him. It’s a chance he won’t let pass; but it’s one he can’t take alone. Definitely confusing. Somehow Splitlip still being alive is evidence that Derrick was not at fault for his mentor's death... but I have no idea what the connection is.

Alek agrees immediately when Derrick requests help, even though he hasn’t taken a bounty in years. How does a bounty come into this? Eager for his acceptance, Derrick sees this quick consent as the first step to regaining Alek’s trust, and perhaps even earning his esteem.

Only when they’re miles away from home does Derrick learn Alek’s true reason for wanting to help--to resurrect his late fiancee Cecily--and it threatens more than his shot at redemption. So... Alex actually just wants to find Splitlip so he can help resurrect his dead g/f? How does that threaten Derrick's goals directly?

CECILY'S KNOT (fantasy, 130k words) Holy word count. That's high. Even for a fantasy realm. As a debut trying to break into a very competitive marekt, you'll need to get that lower. Ideally under 100k may appeal to readers who enjoy Tad Williams' rich worlds and Patrick Rothfuss' mellifluous style. This debut novel is written as the first of a four part series, but could be adapted into a standalone story. You definitely need to push this as a standalone with series potential, rather than the other way around.

Your story sounds quite cool, and I like the concept, but your query is suffering from too much assumed knowledge. You'll see above that most of my critique revolves around needing clarification, or not knowing enough in order to draw the right conclusions. Get more explanatory info in there; we don't know this story. You do. It's possible to answer my questions and keep this concise.

E. Latimer On the Anxiety of Submission... Your Fourth Time Out

If there's one thing that many aspiring writers have few clues about, it's the submission process. There are good reasons for that; authors aren't exactly encouraged to talk in detail about our own submission experiences, and - just like agent hunting - everyone's story is different. I managed to cobble together a few non-specific questions that some debut authors have agreed to answer (bless them). And so I bring you the submission interview series - Submission Hell - It's True. Yes, it's the SHIT.

Today’s guest for the SHIT is E. Latimer, the author of Witches of Ash and Ruin, and The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray. She lives on Vancouver Island, and her breakout success on the online writing platform, Wattpad.com, has resulted in a fanbase of over 100k followers, with over 20 million combined reads. She also vlogs weekly on the Word Nerds Youtube channel, and spends the rest of her days reading, writing and consuming too much tea.

How much did you know about the submission process before you were out on subs yourself?

I had actually been on sub several times before my first YA, Witches of Ash and Ruin sold. The first two times were failed attempts year ago, with my first agent. The third time my new agent sold my MG book. So technically this was my fourth time out, but the process is so secretive that it STILL feels like I don’t know as much as I’d like.

I obsessively researched online every time I went out, and it’s so funny because I read a LOT of these Submissions Hell interviews. I was desperate for any small scrap of info about what other people’s sub process had been like. It makes you feel less alone for one thing, and gives you an idea of what you might expect.

Did anything about the process surprise you?

Yes, how UNCOOL I was about the whole thing. I expected my second time out on sub after selling my MG, I would just sit back and sip tea, be totally calm and collected. Like I was some kind of old pro at this.

Turns out, I’m really really not. I was just as antsy and anxiety-ridden this time around, and actually I had a better idea of the process and what hoops my witchy little book was having to jump through, so if possible, I think I was MORE neurotic.

I really didn’t see that coming.

Did you research the editors you knew had your ms? Do you recommend doing that?

I did, a little obsessively. I’m ashamed to admit it and I absolutely do not recommend anyone do this.

Next time I’m out on sub I’m absolutely not going to do that.

Narrator: She will.

What was the average amount of time it took to hear back from editors?

It used to drive me nuts looking up “average times” for sub to last, because it varies so wildly. And in my own career thus far, it has too. The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray sold in 10 days, which is basically lightening speed for sub.

Witches of Ash and Ruin took longer. I got the call from Hannah Allaman from Disney after it had been out on sub for roughly two weeks. I think. It wasn’t actually an offer initially, just a chat, and then I waited in suspense for exactly thirteen more days (yes, I was counting, why do you ask?) before I got the news that the offer had come through.

What do you think is the best way for an author out on submission to deal with the anxiety?

Write something else. I really cannot emphasize how important it is to focus all your attention and energy into a new project. Don’t just sit there refreshing your email like I did, that way lies madness.

If you had any rejections, how did you deal with that emotionally? How did this kind of rejection compare to query rejections?

I dealt with rejections badly the first two times I went out on sub and failed. The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray was a little better, because we got some good feedback too, but it still stung. It was just too much on top of the emotional drain of being on sub. I knew that about myself this time, so I didn’t press my agent to send the rejections. I knew who had passed on Witches of Ash and Ruin, but I didn’t ask her to send the actual feedback.

When I was querying I used to respond to each rejection by flinging another ten queries out into the world, as a kind of “hah! You can’t stop me!” but you obviously can’t do that on sub. You just have to sit there and wait. It feels a bit more powerless, which is why I stress how important it is to work on a new project.

If you got feedback on a rejection, how did you process it? How do you compare processing an editor’s feedback as compared to a beta reader’s?

Sub feedback is a tricky one, because it’s often along the lines of “we have something similar on our list” or “we don’t know how to market this one”. Of course, there’s sometimes practical advice about voice, or characters, but by the point of sub, my agent and I have edited the project so many times, that I tend to let the feedback collect and not look at it unless I need to reassess things when it doesn’t sell.

A beta reader is very different. You’re in the thick of it with them. You’ve got a project in motion and you can change things. Nothing is set in stone yet.

When you got your YES! how did that feel? How did you find out – email, telephone, smoke signal?

My agent called me. She was in New York at the time, I believe. But she’s got a UK number, so we had a bit of a hassle trying to connect, and of course I was practically bouncing off the walls because her email had said “good news, can I call you” and I was pretty sure I knew what it was about.

I like to think I kept my cool on the phone with her, but once I was off I screamed and did a few laps of the house.

Did you have to wait a period of time before sharing your big news, because of details being ironed out? Was that difficult?

I had to wait a few months for this one, but honestly it was nothing compared to the wait to announce The Strange and Deadly Portraits of Bryony Gray (six months) so I wasn’t too impatient this time around. And as much as it’s completely maddening to have to wait, it does make it all the sweeter when you can shout it from the rooftops.