Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

Lately I’ve been blogging through the slides from my workshop on Motivations and Reactions that I gave at the recent ACFW conference. Today I’ll continue into the theory part of the workshop (only a few slides) which I hope makes good sense, now that I’ve given some examples to show what can go wrong.

Slide 21: The Basic MRU Structure

• Motivation–outside the POV character
• Reaction–inside the POV character

Randy sez: You can always tell whether something is a Motivation or a Reaction by asking whether the focus is inside or outside your Point-Of-View character. If it’s outside, then it’s a Motivation. If it’s inside, then it’s a Reaction. Now let’s look at each of these in turn.

Slide 22: About The Motivation

• The Motivation is shown in real-time, it is not a summary of what happens over an extended period of time.
• It is objective–what a videocam would record
• It is external to the POV character
• It need not make any reference to the POV character. You don’t need to say, “Jack saw…” or “Jane heard…”. Just show the reader what Jack saw or Jane heard.

Randy sez: A couple of comments are in order here. You don’t have complete liberty in showing a Motivation. You should only show what the POV character can see or hear or smell. Imagine that there’s a videocam on the POV character’s shoulder. Your Motivation shows what the videocam can capture. If there’s a bandit creeping up noiselessly behind Jack, then the videocam won’t see it and you can’t show it to your reader. But if that bandit steps on a creaky board, then the videocam can hear it and you can let the reader hear that sound. And then Jack can react to it. It is superfluous to keep saying “Jack saw…” or “Jack heard…” because the reader is smart enough to know that. Don’t waste words telling the reader what they already know.

Slide 23: The Reaction

• The Reaction is shown in real-time.
• It is subjective–using the POV character’s mental state as a frame of reference
• It is internal to the POV character
• Three primary parts:
• Feeling
• “Reflexive” or automatic actions
• Speech and Rational actions

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Randy sez: When I talk about “feelings” I mean interior emotive reactions. You show those first (usually) because they happen very fast (usually). If a tiger wanders into your office, within a tenth of a second, you feel an enormous adrenaline rush. This happens before you have time to move, speak, shoot, or call Sarah Palin. It happens FIRST so you show it FIRST.

When I talk about “reflexive” actions, I’m speaking informally, not in the technical biological sense. Technically, if you touch a hot stove, your hand will reflexively jerk away before you even feel the pain. But I’m not talking about that here. In the rare case of a true reflexive action, do show that first–even before the feelings. But in normal situations, you’ll have an emotive reaction and THEN you’ll have an automatic response (that you don’t have to think about). That can happen in less than half a second. If you’re a trained hunter with your gun in hand, when the tiger walks into your office, you’ll feel that rush of fear but your hand will quickly be pulling your gun up and you’ll be aiming and firing without much rational thought required. If you’re not a trained hunter, you’ll have to think about all that stuff and your response will be much slower. And the tiger will have a nice lunch.

When I talk about speech and rational actions, I’m talking about anything you have to think about. Talking is (usually) rational. You might squeak out some meaningless word in fear, but that’s not rational, and that would qualify as a “reflexive” word. Interior monologue is also rational.

The key thing here is to get things in the right order. If your POV character’s Reaction has a Feeling AND a Reflexive Action AND a Rational Action, then put them in that order. Then the reader doesn’t feel like you’re jerking them around. The sequence will feel normal.

If you show the Rational Action first and THEN show the Reflexive Action and THEN show the Feeling, it won’t feel right. The reader will probably not be able to explain why it doesn’t feel right. Most readers aren’t trained in the analysis of MRUs. But their gut still tells them when it’s not quite right. You want your reader to have a Powerful Emotional Experience. So give them an experience that feels as much like reality as possible.

We can summarize all this in the next slide, which is the last one on theory:

Slide 24: The Reason for the Structure

• Split Motivations and Reactions into separate paragraphs simply for clarity.
• The Motivation shows what the POV character sees, hears, smells, etc.
• The Reaction shows what the POV charactfeels, thinks, does, etc., in the correct order
• Feelings are fastest–show them first
• “Reflexive” actions are second fastest
• Speech and rational action are slowest

Randy sez: That’s enough on theory. Tomorrow, we’ll look at some examples of scenes that are TOLD and scenes that are SHOWN. Some of these simply can’t be rescued. Some of them need a little tweaking.

When we finish going through my examples, I think it’ll be useful to work through some of yours. So look through your work to find an example of a few paragraphs that you want critiquing on for Motivations and Reactions. In a few days, I’ll ask you to post those here and we’ll analyze them then. (Don’t jump the gun, please! Wait till I ask for examples.)

See ya tomorrow!

Last week I began a series of articles that recap everything I said in my workshop at the ACFW conference. The topic of my workshop was “Those Pesky Motivations and Reactions” and the goal is to flesh out the theory with some examples. If you want the theory, you can read my article “Writing the Perfect Scene“.

Today, we’ll pick up with a couple of fight scenes, one that is SHOWN and one that is TOLD. As we’ll see, there is just no rescue for the scene that is TOLD. You can’t tweak it to make it better. All you can do is throw it away and write a new version that SHOWs it. Both of these scenes are by the same author and appear in the same book.

Slide 17: Irwin Shaw: Rich Man, Poor Man, p. 18

Tom snaked in and hit the soldier with a short left hook to the head and went in deep to the belly with his right. The soldier let the air out of his lungs with a large, dry sound as Tom danced back.

The soldier swung a slow, heavy right hand at Tom. Tom ducked under it and dug both his fists into the soldier’s soft middle. The solder bent almost double in pain and Tom hooked both hands to the face. The soldier began to spurt blood and he waved his hands feebly in front of him and tried to clinch.

Randy sez: This scene is SHOWN very nicely. Tom is a young thug who has picked a fight with an older, bigger, and stronger soldier, just for the fun of it. Tom is a brilliant street fighter and he quickly takes the soldier apart. The bystanders are awed into silence.

I have paragraphed the scene exactly as Irwin Shaw wrote it. In the next slide, I’ll color-code the parts that show Tom acting (in red) and the parts that show the soldier acting (in black). Notice that there is a very clear dividing line. First Tom acts, then the soldier acts, then Tom again, then the soldier again. The action see-saws back and forth. The effect is that you can see this scene in real-time as it develops.

Slide 18: Irwin Shaw: Rich Man, Poor Man, p. 18

Tom snaked in and hit the soldier with a short left hook to the head and went in deep to the belly with his right. The soldier let the air out of his lungs with a large, dry sound as Tom danced back.

The soldier swung a slow, heavy right hand at Tom. Tom ducked under it and dug both his fists into the soldier’s soft middle. The solder bent almost double in pain and Tom hooked both hands to the face. The soldier began to spurt blood and he waved his hands feebly in front of him and tried to clinch.

Randy sez: This fight scene is beautifully shown (if you like that sort of thing.) If you don’t like that sort of thing, it brilliantly displays an appalling act of violence. But the point is that you can SEE the action.

The only thing I would recommend to improve it is to insert paragraph breaks each time the color-coding changes. The reason is that (just like with the dialogue examples we saw in Lesson 2) breaking the paragraph aids the reader’s eye in discerning who is the actor. Strictly speaking, it’s not necessary, but it helps. Anything you can do to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience is money in your bank account.

Now let’s look at a poorly done fight scene. In this scene, Tom is a bit older but no wiser, and he is now working at an upper-class gym as a sparring partner for wealthy men. In this scene, a rich jerk named Greening has been sparring pretty harshly with Tom’s boss, who finally asks Tom to take over. The boss knows Tom is going to tear Greening up, and Tom is eager for a bit of brutality, since it adds meaning to his crummy life. Here’s the scene…

Slide 19: Irwin Shaw: Rich Man, Poor Man, p. 297

They fought without stopping for the usual two-minute break. Greening fought controlledly, brutally, using his height and weight, Thomas with the swift malevolence that he had carefully controlled all these months. Here you are, Captain, he was saying to himself as he burrowed in, using everything he knew, stinging, hurting, ducking, here you are Rich-boy, here you are Policeman, are you getting your ten dollars worth?

They were both bleeding from the nose and mouth when Thomas finally got in the one he knew was the beginning of the end.

Randy sez: The above scene is TOLD, not SHOWN. We can’t see them “fight without stopping”–not in real-time anyway. That is TELLING. Note the use of adverbs: “controlledly” and “brutally”. Note the use of continuous-action verbs (they usually end in “-ing”): “saying” and “stinging” and “hurting” and “ducking” and “bleeding”. Note the use of passive verbs: “was saying” and “were bleeding” and “was the beginning of the end.”

Is the passage well written? Yes. Shaw is a master storyteller. It apparently suited his purpose to summarize this fight scene in narrative summary, which is very efficient, rather than SHOW it and use up half a page.

But in my view, it doesn’t suit the reader’s purpose, which is to have a Powerful Emotional Experience. The reader wants to feel those punches, smell the sweat, jab Greening in the jaw, and make the bastard bleed. Why? The reader just does, that’s why.

Note that you simply can’t tweak this scene here to SHOW the action. If you want to SHOW it, you’ll have to rewrite it completely. To see this, try color-coding it so that your eye easily picks out Tom’s actions and Greening’s actions. You can’t do it. In the language of fiction teacher Dwight Swain, there are no “motivations” and no “reactions”. (We’ll define those terms soon.)

Now let me summarize what I believe should be the structure of an action scene, and you’ll notice immediately that it’s very similar to the structure of dialogue.

Slide 20: The Structure of Action

Action has a somewhat more complex structure that many writers these days violate:

• Each character gets a new paragraph when he takes an action.
• Each action should be shown in real-time, not summarized. Avoid “continuous action” verbs that end with “-ing”.
• Use verbs, not adverbs, to specify the actions.

Randy sez: These rules are not nearly as universally observed as the rules for dialogue that we gave in Slide 16. But they should be! Few writers these days have their dialogue scenes stamped with “SHOW DON’T TELL” because most writers use the standard structure for dialogue. But many writers have their action scenes stamped with those very irritating words, and the reason is because they don’t use the correct structure for their action.

Remember: The purpose of structure is NOT to limit you. It’s to help you help the reader. The reader wants a Powerful Emotional Experience. By choosing a suitable structure that gives subtle visual cues, you help the reader do that. And you help yourself by spotting right away when you are TELLING instead of SHOWING.

Tomorrow, we’ll get very explicit about exactly how to structure your scenes for maximum effect. We’ll define “motivations” and “reactions” and analyze the parts of each.

See ya tomorrow!

Yesterday, I began working through my talk on those pesky “Motivation-Reaction Units” that I gave at the recent ACFW conference. Today, I’ll continue on and get into some examples.

Slide 12: Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, p. 61

In this slide, I show an example of dialogue that is harder to read than it should be. There are no quotation marks. There are no paragraph breaks when the speakers change. In the example, taken from a courtroom scene, Charles Darnay is on trial for his life on charges of spying. Darnay is innocent, but the prosecutor has brought out a false witness who testifies against him. Now Darnay’s attorney begins the cross examination and neatly makes mincemeat of him:

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn’t precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtor’s prison? Didn’t see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtor’s prison?–Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true.

Randy sez: This dialogue is quite funny, but much of the punch is lost because the formating is done so badly. The important fact to notice is that this IS a dialogue. You can see this easily in the next slide where I color-code the words spoken by the two speakers. The attorney’s questions are in black; the witness’s answers are in red. You now see the back-and-forth of the dialogue visually on the screen.

Slide 13: Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, p. 61

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn’t precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtor’s prison? Didn’t see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtor’s prison?–Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true.

Randy sez: Notice how much better this dialogue would work if only Dickens had taken the trouble to add a little structure to it — quotation marks, proper paragraphing. Now look at the extraordinary difference it makes when Dickens does exactly that, only 2 pages later. In this next example, the prosecutor is interrogating a witness very unfairly, trying to get him to “recognize” Charles Darnay as the gentleman with whom he had shared a carriage ride a few years earlier:

Slide 14: Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, p. 63

“Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of the two passengers?”

“I cannot undertake to say that he was.”

“Does he resemble either of these two passengers?”

“Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.”

“Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them?”

“No.”

“You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?”

“No.”

Randy sez: There is a bit of humor here, but it’s not nearly as sharp as in the earlier passage. Note that this bit of dialogue is quite a bit easier to read than the previous one. Why? In a word, structure. This passage is structured properly with quotation marks and paragraph breaks. In the next slide, I’ll color-code this dialogue as I did before, and you’ll see that the color-coding is completely unnecessary, because the structure already does all the work.

Slide 15: Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, p. 63

“Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of the two passengers?”

“I cannot undertake to say that he was.”

“Does he resemble either of these two passengers?”

“Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.”

“Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them?”

“No.”

“You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?”

“No.”

Randy sez: As I said earlier, the structure imposed on this by the author makes the color-coding superfluous. The back-and-forth of the dialogue is obvious by the form on the page. The reader doesn’t have to work as hard. The reader can enter more easily into the fictive dream. That’s what you want to do — make it as easy as possible for your reader to get lost inside your story.

Slide 16: The Structure of Dialogue

Dialogue has a simple structure that few writers these days would violate:

• All words spoken by characters are in
  quote marks.
• Each speaker gets his own paragraph.
• Dialogue tags are used when needed. These can be simple attributions or action tags.

Randy sez: The purpose of this structure is to provide the reader with visual cues that enable her to understand the dialogue more easily. No writer would consider this structure as “limiting” or “artificial”. The structure is just there to enhance the reading experience.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a couple of action scenes. One of these is well-done and one is poorly done. The odd thing is that the same author wrote both scenes, and they appear in the same book. But one is well-structured and the other is badly structured, and that makes an enormous difference to the reading experience.

See ya then!

Last week I taught a one-hour workshop on those pesky “Motivation-Reaction Units” at the ACFW conference in Minneapolis.

Today, I’d like to begin a multi-day series in which I go through my lecture notes for those of you who weren’t at the conference. This will allow me to present the last few slides of my talk, which was ingloriously cut off when I ran out of time. My talk had 35 slides. The first two were just a title page and copyright notice, both far too boring to show here.

Slide 3: Preview

Before I define what “Motivation-Reaction Units” are, let me give an overview of the workshop. My talk has four main parts:

• Your Primary Goal In Writing Fiction
• Dialogue
• Dialogue Plus Action
• Real-World Examples

Slide 4: “Show, Don’t Tell”

The most infuriating advice an editor can give you is “Show, Don’t Tell.” Why? Because they are TELLING you to “Show, Don’t Tell,” rather than “SHOWING” you how to “Show, Don’t Tell.”

The second most infuriating advice is to “Leave out the parts that people don’t read.” Yeah, great. Which parts are those?

In this workshop, I’m going to SHOW you how to “Show, Don’t Tell.” I’m also going to show you which parts people don’t read. It’ll then be up to you whether to leave them out or not. But at least you’ll know what they are.

Slide 5: Your Primary Goal As A Novelist

I believe that your primary goal as a novelist is to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience. If you do this, then you can do anything else and your reader will follow. You can be teachy and you can be preachy and nobody will complain. If you fail to give your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience, then nothing else you do will be right. Ted Dekker and Karen Kingsbury and J.K. Rowling and Stephen King give their readers a Powerful Emotional Experience. You should too.

Slide 6: When To Show, When To Tell

If you have a scene that gives the reader a Powerful Emotional Experience, then all is well. Show this scene. If you have a scene that does not give the reader a Powerful Emotional Experience, then you are a vile, scurvy dog and your scene ought not to live. Kill it and tell it somewhere, as fast and as efficiently as possible, but only if it needs to be told. Otherwise, consign it to the flames of Perdition.

Slide 7: Dialogue and Action

There are two main kinds of things you need to be able to show well. You can mix and match these, or you can show them separately. But you must master these.

• Dialogue
• Action

Slide 8: A Word About Structure

All literary forms have structure. Here are three common structures:

• Haiku: 3 lines; a word picture in 5-7-5 syllables, no rhyme, no rhythm
• Limerick: 5 lines, must be funny, AABBA rhyme scheme, typically 8-8-5-5-8 syllables in anapestic rhythm
• Motivation-Reaction Unit: outside/inside

The haiku and limerick structures really don’t need any explanation. You already know these structures and can easily recognize them. The Motivation-Reaction Unit actually has a simpler structure than either of these: what I call “outside/inside”. We’ll discuss in enormous detail what this means later in the lecture.

Slide 9: Is This A Haiku?

Haiku doesn’t rhyme
At least, not most of the time.
It’s five, seven, five.

We took a vote in the class to determine whether the above is a haiku. It has 3 lines. The lines have 5 syllables, then 7, then 5. So it nominally has the structure to be a haiku. However, this is not a word-picture. It doesn’t fulfill the role a haiku is suppose to have. So it’s not a “real” haiku.

Slide 10: Is This A Limerick?

There once was a poet named Ran
Whose poetry wouldn’t quite scan.
He said, “I try hard…
But I guess I’m no Bard…
Because I always have to cram as many words in the last line as I possibly can!”

We took a vote in the class to decide if this is a limerick. It is clearly close: it has 5 lines, with the right rhyme scheme (AABBA), the right meter (anapestic), and almost the right number of syllables in each line. But the last line has way too many syllables. Is it a limerick? The class decided that it is–because it’s funny, which is the reason a limerick exists. The point of this limerick is that it doesn’t scan. It’s self-referential. This is definitely a limerick.

Slide 11: Structure Is Not Enough!

The “haiku” I wrote has the right structure, but it is not a word picture–it fails to meet the objective.

The “limerick” I adapted doesn’t quite have the right structure, but it’s funny–it meets the objective.

Moral: If you have a choice between getting your MRU structure right and giving your reader a Powerful Emotional Experience, do the right thing.

Tomorrow, we’ll continue with an analysis of two dialogues in A TALE OF TWO CITIES, by Charles Dickens. We’ll show how structuring your dialogue can make it far more readable and help create that Powerful Emotional Experience.

See ya then!

Wow! I had such a fabulous, extraordinary time at the ACFW conference! I was up past 1 AM most nights talking with writers, agents, and editors and I loved every second of it. I got home Sunday night and spent most of Monday catching up on email, bills, and sleep, of course.

I gave a talk about those pesky Motivation-Reaction Units on Friday. It didn’t go very well. The talk got started late because it was right after a keynote talk that ran a little long. Then (DRAT IT) I could not get the PowerPoint display machine to work with my laptop, so nobody could see all the cool color-coding I did in my notes. And then I ran out of time, so I couldn’t show the last few slides of my presentation.

I’ve decided to work through my entire workshop here on my blog over the next few days. MRUs was going to be the next subject anyway, so I might as well do it so I can cover all the material my way. I’ll begin this series tomorrow and it’ll continue until we get through all my notes. I will also include a link tomorrow to the PDF file with all my notes.

Today, though, I thought it would be fun to just give a lightning review of the conference, with a few pictures. I didn’t take a camera (dummy me) so I am relying here on the generosity of several folks who sent me a few pictures, mostly from the Awards Banquet.

By the way, the ACFW conference is sponsored by the American Christian Fiction Writers, an organization of over 1700 writers around the world. It is, of course, a niche conference serving the special needs of writers in the Christian publishing niche. (Many of the very best conferences are niche conferences, serving romance writers, mystery writers, SF&F writers, etc.) This year’s ACFW conference had almost exactly 500 attendees, including faculty.

Here’s a rundown on how the conference went:

Wednesday, September 17:
The joint meeting of the Advisory Board and the Operating Board began at 3 PM and ran past 8 PM. I serve on the Advisory Board, along with Colleen Coble, Brandilyn Collins, Rachel Hauck, Gail Martin, and Deb Raney, so the AB can be roughly described as “five Snow Whites and one very tall dwarf.” Our job is to provide some sort of wisdom and continuity to the organization, since we are all multi-published authors who are well-known in the industry.

The Operating Board has seven elected members, led by the president Robin Miller, and they do all the real work. I have been constantly impressed by their hard work, dedication, and executive skill.

By the time we finished the joint board meeting, the lobby of the hotel was teeming with many arrivals. I hung around there meeting many old friends (and meeting some new ones) waiting for my buddy John Olson. He arrived after midnight, about 3 hours late, thanks to an airplane that lost a few parts (luckily on the runway). John said he was surprised that they bothered to switch planes, since after all, you only need the landing gear for a few minutes of the flight.

Thursday, September 18:
I got up early and dragged into Margie Lawson’s earlybird class. I’ve talked about Margie a few times in my e-zine after taking her online courses. But I had never met her until today. Margie is a dynamite teacher. If you’ve ever heard her speak in person, you’ll know what I mean. The class ran from 8 AM until 2 PM, with a break for lunch.

A quick word on Margie: She is a psychologist with many years of experience in counseling. In the last few years, she has made an enormous splash among novelists with her Deep Editing class and her Empowering Character Emotions class. I absolutely love her work. There are two writing teachers who’ve astounded me with their insights. One was Dwight Swain, author of TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER. The other is Margie Lawson. You can find out about Margie’s courses on her web site.

Here is a picture of Margie teaching her earlybird class at ACFW this year.

Here is a picture of Margie and me at the Awards Banquet. I had a chance to spend some time getting to know Margie at the conference and talking about fiction with her. I was delighted to learn that she’s a huge fan of my e-zine and blog and she considers me the expert on those pesky Motivation-Reaction Units.

After the earlybird class, I went to the faculty orientation meeting at 2 PM and then to the kickoff meeting for the official beginning of the conference at 3 PM. After that, there was quite a long agent’s panel discussion, involving about 12 agents. After dinner, there was an editor’s panel with again roughly a dozen editors on board. Afterwards, I met with my own agent down in the hotel bar for an hour and a half or so to do a bit of strategic planning. I ended the day, as usual, by hanging out with friends till well after 1 AM.

Friday, September 19:
I went to the bookstore right after breakfast and bought a copy of John Olson’s book SHADE, which has been getting a lot of buzz after a very strong review in Publisher’s Weekly. John was my co-author on two novels several years ago. He’s got a Ph.D. in biochemistry and quit his job a few years ago to write full-time. He was a director at a bioinformatics company in the Bay Area. I spent the morning in John Olson’s advanced track on “Writing the High Concept Novel” and it was terrific content. I am finally starting to understand some of the things John used to talk about when we were writing together.

In the afternoon, I taught my workshop on Motivation-Reaction Units and then went to a workshop on author-publisher relations that was co-taught by Allen Arnold (the head of the fiction division at the mega-publisher, Thomas Nelson) and one of his authors, Denise Hunter. This is the sort of information I wish I’d known when I first got published about 10 years ago. Allen has enormous enthusiasm for fiction and works closely with his team of authors.

The last workshop of the day that I went to was Rachel Hauck’s talk “You Write Like a Girl” — about how women can write more convincing male characters. I was the only guy there, and I mainly went to give Rachel some moral support, since I taught a workshop on this subject four years that people still talk about. A few of the ladies were teasing me about coming to this workshop, but I explained that the Manly Guy is secure in his gender identity and doesn’t worry about whether he’s the only guy in a workshop for women.

Dinner this evening was not provided by the conference — it was a chance to go eat somewhere with friends. I went out with several friends to TGIF, which was packed with a zillion other people from the conference. I’m afraid we misbehaved ourselves. When the waiter accidentally brought us an extra dessert, we took it over to uber-agent Chip MacGregor’s table and sang him Happy Birthday. Chip had his birthday back in June, so we were a mere hundred days late. He ate the dessert anyway.

After dinner, we reconvened to the hotel bar which was doing a brisk business. I had a nice talk with Tosca Lee, an author friend of mine who works for the Gallup organization coaching business people on how to use their employees. Recently, I took the Gallup “StrengthsFinder” test, which is available on their web site for a small fee. (If you buy the book “StrengthsFinder 2.0″ by Tom Rath, you can take the test for free.) Tosca helped me understand my own strengths and what sort of people I’ll need to make alliances with who can compensate for my areas of weakness. The Gallup theory is that you should focus on doing things in which you are strongest and out-source your weaknesses to others. You can read all about this in the StrengthsFinder book. Google it if you’re interested.

Saturday, September 20:
I went to the second day of John Olson’s major track on “Writing the High Concept Novel” and really enjoyed it. John has many years of experience in speaking and he is not only very entertaining but he also has absolutely terrific content. He and I have quite different theories on how to create fiction. I think this is why the novels we wrote together did so well–the books got the best of me and the best of John.

After lunch, the entire conference was bused over to the Mall of America, where Barnes & Noble was putting on a gigantic booksigning. Over 100 authors were signing books, and they had two separate areas where they were continuously interviewing authors. B&N has a large bookstore there in the mall with books by all the authors, and the bookstore people said they hadn’t such a day of business since they had in one of the folks from Motley Crue.

When I got back to the hotel after the booksigning, I went to Judy Gann’s talk on how to market your book to public libraries. I’ve known Judy for several years and she has great info on this. She is a librarian herself and she’s put together a nice strategy for authors to get the word out to libraries about their books. Since there are over 16000 libraries in the US, that represents a very important market for authors, not to mention the fact that libraries can be a great place for word-of-mouth publicity on a book.

I also went to Chip MacGregor’s workshop on branding. I’m not bitter that Chip made several jokes about me, even hinting that I’m mentally unbalanced. Not bitter at all. Not one tiny bit. As readers of my blog know, branding is a hot topic for novelists. But is it required for success? No, according to Chip. It can be helpful, but there are successful authors with very broad and diffuse brands. It was a great talk, actually, and I AM NOT BITTER AT ALL.

The highlight of the conference was the awards banquet. In the last couple of years, the ladies at the conference have made quite a point to get fancied up. The guys are still lagging a bit here. Chip MacGregor showed up in his tuxedo kilt, but I’m afraid most of us Manly Guys threw on our suits at random and just showed up.

ACFW sponsors two main sets of awards, both of which command quite a lot of respect in the industry. The “Book of the Year” awards are for novels published in the last year. The “Genesis” awards are for unpublished novels, and the winners of the Genesis contest often see their books published not longer after winning. I was delighted to see that one book had to be withdrawn from the Genesis contest–”Rooms” by my good friend Jim Rubart. He withdrew it a few weeks ago because he sold it to a publisher this summer. Congrats, Jimbart!

I didn’t take a camera to the conference, but a couple of friends emailed me pictures that they had taken with me at the awards banquet. As you’ll see, we guys have a ways to go to catch up with the ladies.

This is a picture of me and Angie Breidenbach at the awards banquet. A year ago, some of the wicked ACFW writers did a skit mocking the members of the Advisory Board and Operating Board. Angie played the role of “Randy Ingermanson, Snowflake Guy.” As you can see, she bears a striking resemblance to me. Angie is the one in the red dress.

This is a picture of me and Tosca Lee at the awards banquet. Tosca claims that this is the photo of me in which I was SMILING. Since I am genetically incapable of smiling in front of a camera, I think she accidentally got the wrong sort of mushroom in her pizza, but we’ll humor her.

I’ve gotten to know Tosca a bit over the past year, and have found her to be super-intelligent and very witty. After looking at her picture for a couple of nanoseconds, you will not be surprised to hear that she was Mrs. Nebraska in 1996 and 1998 and was a first runner-up for Mrs. America. You can forget all the “dimwit and snooty” stereotypes you’ve ever heard about beauty queens. Tosca is brilliant and is not the least bit stuck up. All the proof you need for that is the fact that she is willing to hang around with uber-geeks like me.

When I got home from the conference, I was thrilled to get an email from Tosca with great news — Publisher’s Weekly has just given her a glowing review for her forthcoming book HAVAH, which will be out in October! I read HAVAH for endorsement earlier this summer and found it to be even better than her DEMON book, which came out a year ago. Despite the deplorable lack of exploding helicopters, HAVAH gives the reader a powerful emotional experience. It also made me think. I thought it was fabulous. And get this — Publisher’s Weekly gave it a STARRED review. Getting a starred review is a rare accomplishment for any writer, and is very rarely seen for Christian novels. Kudos, Tosca! I’m proud to be your friend! There is going to be a lot of buzz about this book as it rolls out.

You can find out more about Tosca and her books DEMON and HAVAH at her web site.

Sunday, September 21:
After breakfast and the final keynote talk, my roommate John Olson and I packed up and headed to the airport. Leaving is always a sad time at a conference, because there is never enough time to say goodbye to all our friends. At the airport, I finally persuaded John to autograph my copy of his new book SHADE, which is just now getting into stores. John thought it’s silly to autograph a book to me, since I’m his oldest friend in the industry, but I made him do it anyway. The book will be so much more valuable on E-bay with his signature on it.

On the plane, I napped a bit and read a bit of SHADE. Let me tell you a bit about this book. John wrote it about 10 years ago and took a proposal to the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. The proposal had the phrase “vampire mythos” in it. When editor Steve Laube saw that phrase, he told John, “I wouldn’t touch this book with a 60-foot pole.”

You might think that’s a pretty stiff rejection. But as a result of that, John became the buzz of the conference. Everybody was talking about his “vampire novel” (which actually has no vampires in it.) Editor Karen Ball heard about it and met with John. They became great friends and Karen began what would be a ten-year mission to get the book published. During those ten years, Steve Laube (of the 60-foot pole) bought a few other books from John. Eventually Steve became John’s agent. Finally, a year or so ago, Steve sold John’s “vampireless vampire novel” to Karen and the result is SHADE.

The moral of the story is that rejections are not final. Good things can come out of rejections. It’s not personal, it’s business. For a very small fee, Steve Laube will be happy to sell you an authentic 60-foot pole.

In any event, as John’s writing buddy, I read SHADE at a physics conference in 1999. I finished it about 1 AM and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep, so I turned on the light and checked in the bathtub for vampires. (They hide there sometimes.) I checked under the sink. I checked in the medicine cabinet. (You probably know about mirrors.) Then I went back to bed.

But I still couldn’t sleep, so I turned on the light and checked the room thoroughly again. Then I went back to bed.

But I STILL couldn’t sleep, so I made one last check. Those vampires can be sneaky little devils. After an extremely careful check, I went back to bed.

BUT I STILL COULDN’T SLEEP. So I turned on the light. And left it on all night. I can’t sleep with the light on, so I was a wreck the next day. But the point is that I survived the night.

All that was ten years ago. I’m now halfway through SHADE and you know what? It’s scarier this time. It’s better written. (I’ll take credit for that. John learned everything he knows from me. Ya heard it here first.)

Bottom line: SHADE is probably the spookiest book you’ll read all year. DO NOT read this book if you can’t take spooky. It also takes a bit of brain-power to “get it.” DO NOT read this book if you are a shallow reader who won’t “get it.”

You can find out more about John Olson and SHADE at his web site.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow, we’ll start working through my workshop notes on Motivation-Reaction Units. See ya then!

I think my next topic on this blog will be those peaky “Motivation-Reaction Units.” That is clearly one of the most requested items on the wish list of my loyal blog readers. Also, since I’ll be teaching MRUs at the ACFW conference this week, the topic is going to be fresh in my head. Since I’m flying out for the conference tomorrow, I think today I’ll content myself with answering some of the numerous questions that were posted here last week that can be answered quickly.

Daniel wrote:

How about an article on how to outline a book before writing?

I remember reading something on your site somewhere that said all a writer needs is a good word processor and spreadsheet program and to dispense with the expensive, so-called writing software that’s on the market.

So, how do you begin this process? I have some ideas that I want to flesh out. (OK. They’re driving me absolutely bananas!) I can’t get my head around them in any kind of tangible form or them out of my head. I’ve tried note cards. I’ve used up I don’t know how many legal pads. I’ve got a copy of JKR’s ouline for the first half of HP5 and I know that’s the sort of thing I need. But how to go about it? How do I break up the various characters/groups/plot points/etcetera so that they fit into an outline? Is there an order to the madness that helps make it all fit together somehow?

Randy sez: The quick answer to this is the Snowflake method. This is how I do my pre-novel preparation and it’s the tool that uncounted numbers of writers around the world do it. Not everybody wants or needs to do preparation before starting writing, but if you need to, then the Snowflake may well work for you. If only a part of it works for you, just use that part. If you need to adapt it, then adapt it.

A heads-up for the future: I am currently working on a software product to make the Snowflake method a snap to work through. More details on this as I get closer to finishing it. This is my next major personal goal–to get “Snowflake Pro” finished and out the door. And it will have a major new feature that I won’t disclose right now.

Amy wrote:

My biggest craft-related problem (today) is keeping all the “science” straight. My story is set 60+ years in the future and takes place on the moon. I know I need to invent “future history” but I still want to the science of it all to be plausible. This story is for kids ages 8 to 12 so I can’t get overally technical but it still needs to be “real.” How much leeway with the science do I really have here? Can I take current theory on moon colonies, use of lunar resources, etc and twist them to make it work for my plot? Is it ok for a scientist to read my book and say “that could never happen because…” or do I, as the author, have permission to stretch reality here? I wouldn’t ask this question if I were talking about characters or location… but SCIENCE just doesn’t seem like something I can fool around with very much!

Randy sez: Oh, go ahead and fool around with it! What will it hurt? The truth is that even the best scientists have trouble predicting where science will lead us 60 years from now. Sixty years ago, (1948), few if any scientists foresaw nanotechnology, quantum computing, personal genome sequencing, the Web, personal instant cryptography on demand via public/private keys, or a zillion other things that my kids take so much for granted that they’re barely aware that these things exist. They’re just part of the landscape. When I started graduate school back in 1980, nobody I knew owned a computer and the height of computing power were the Cray supercomputers that cost hundreds of dollars per hour. I just bought a laptop for $1000 for my daughter, who’s heading off to college this week and it has more computing power than one of those Crays, and is massively easier to use. So take what you see today in science and stretch it way far. Back in the 1980s, Carl Sagan wrote a science fiction novel (CONTACT) which proposed the idea of using wormholes for rapid space travel. It prompted his friend, Caltech physicist Kip Thorne to take another look at wormholes and that prompted a cottage industry in teleportation papers in physics journals that lasted several years.

John wrote:

A craftey issue of mine is detail. I don’t like over detailing things, but this leads to what I believe is under detailing. Quite often my characters are in tense situations and its all speed and action and no time to really slip in details of the environment etc. At least that is how it feels to me. How do you deal with that in your novels?

Randy sez: In tense, high-action sequences, you have zero time to work in details about the environment. You work in those details by varying the pace and putting in the details in the slow segments. You of course don’t want an entire novel going at light-speed. The reader must be allowed to breathe. Pacing in fiction is a fine, fine art, but it boils down to this: “faster, slower, faster, slower…” The proportion that is faster will depend on you, but if you make it 100%, then nobody will read your book and if it is 0%, again nobody will read your book. How do you set the proportion? Easy. Write it at the proportion that you personally like it. I guarantee that there are other readers like you who will like your choice. There may not be very many of them, but there will likely be enough for you to build an audience.

Before I quote Camille’s question, let me define two acronyms. “GCM” stands for “Goal Conflict Motivation” and it is a common method of analyzing a scene (which unfortunately I have never mastered, since I learned my scene analysis elsewhere.) “PEE” is the very unfortunate acronym for “Powerful Emotional Experience” which is a phrase I pioneered long before I realized what acronym might one day replace it. Since I believe that creating a Powerful Emotional Experience in your reader is your primary goal as a novelist, I am going to stick with this terminology, despite that acronym.

With that said, Camille asked:

I know narrative summary can be effective when done right. How do you know when to use it, and what are some ways to do it beautifully? I know every scene should have a GCM and create a PEE - so if the events I need to show aren’t enough to warrant a scene, what are some ways to slip them into a summary?

I’ve also heard that a scene is also necessary if it moves the story forward, reveals more of the character, gives important information to the plot. But I probably should not be stringing too many scenes together which don’t pack some GCM or PEE, right?

Maybe it’s a pacing issue? I have a 48 hr period of time in the middle of my 360 page novel that spans 90 pages. Is that a problem?

Randy sez: A scene needs to have a point to it. The point is always to provide the reader with a Powerful Emotional Experience. If you can think of no Powerful Emotional Experience that your scene should prompt, then you don’t have a scene, so slit the throat of that passage. Your only other real option is then to summarize it efficiently using “narrative summary.” Here you are on your own. My advice is simple but rather useless: “If you are going to use narrative summary, then be brilliant.” Unfortunately, I don’t know how to teach you to do that. I am always trying to learn how to teach things, so if anyone knows how to “be brilliant in narrative summary” then email me with your secrets. Sorry, Camille, if this seems like a non-answer. This is why I rarely use narrative summary.

Martha asked:

I’d like a discussion on the importance of the author stating the protagonist’s goal for the story at the beginning of that story/novel. Doesn’t making the goal clear up front give the story forward momentum and spine? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Randy sez: This is a good idea, but it’s not always possible, for the following reasons:

1) Most characters, being real people, are hopelessly self-deceived about their real motivations or they don’t spent enough time thinking strategically so they don’t have a well-formulated Big Goal.

2) A story is about extraordinary events in a character’s life, so even if he knows what his goal is at the start of the story, that goal is often changed radically by the extraordinary events that overtake him. For example, in STAR WARS, Luke Skywalker can imagine nothing better than being allowed to apply for the military academy for next year. It never occurs to him that running across the galaxy to rescue Princess Leia TODAY and destroying the Death Star TOMORROW are even on the agenda.

3) A goal is often rooted in a character’s backstory. Explaining the goal may therefore require giving the reader a big chunk of backstory in order to make the goal intelligible. No reader will put up with that, so therefore you can’t do it right off the bat.

What’s the solution? Easy. Right away in the book, make clear the protagonist’s immediate goal. This is a short-term goal that can be easily explained and can be won or lost within a single chapter. You don’t need much backstory for this. (You don’t, so don’t tell me you do. You DON’T.) In that first chapter, you deny the character that small immediate goal, and you do it catastrophically. This leads to a new goal and a new one, and then before you know it, the character has formed a new goal–the main goal of the book. Now you are launched.

Lois asked:

Camille’s question about pacing is also intriguing. Instead of 48 hours, my issue is needing to jump several years at a time. Is a date at the beginning of each chapter enough to cover that? In order to keep myself moving, I’ve simply dated and written each chapter as it develops, without worrying about transitions. On later readings I can go back and insert transitions if they seem necessary to clarity.

A date is good and will cover a big chunk of the problem. You may also need to insert a bit of narrative summary to fill in any important details. Or you can do it in interior monologue or in dialogue, being aware of the hazards of both of those. In general, filling in these gaps is backstory, and you ALWAYS need less than you think you do and you can ALWAYS it put in later than you think you need to.

My next blog will pick up on MRUs again. I’ll try to cover at least some of the topics in my ACFW lecture and then we can do some examples. Since tomorrow is a travel day and my duties at the conference start Wednesday, I will likely be blogging very sporadically or not at all until next Monday. Conferences are simply nonstop action for 15 hours per day, and finding a minute to blog is very hard.

I guess my loyal blog readers are wondering what I’ve been up to all week.

Answer: working on my deck while the weather’s good. Here in the Pacific Northwest, a deck doesn’t last many years unless you maintain it, because of all the rain. So we’ve been working on cleaning our deck during odd moments through most of August. But we’ve also been waiting for a solid week of sunshine to arrive so we could seal it. You don’t want to seal in the moisture right after a rain, and August has been alternately hot and rainy.

Well, that week has finally arrived, so I’ve been pretty much working nonstop outside to get it all done. We have a large deck, probably around 1500 square feet, and there’s quite a long section of railing around one part of it. I’ll try to post a picture of it here when we get it all finished.

Today is going to be hotter than normal, and we’re within a few hours of finishing it up, so I’m going to wait till mid-afternoon to go out and work. Which gives me a few minutes right now to blog.

I’ve been reading through all the comments that my loyal blog readers have left in response to my question about what we’ll be talking about next. There are a couple of clear contenders–MRUs and “voice” are topics of high interest. And there are some questions that I can answer in a paragraph or two.

I have a couple of non-craft items to talk about just for today:

First, some of you might be interested in an article I wrote recently. It’s got rather an odd title, “Jesus and the Numbers” and it’s about the work I’ve done over the past year and a half on probability calculations on the alleged “Jesus Family Tomb.” As some of you know, I’ve become one of the world’s leading experts on this issue, and I was one of the referees assigned to vet the official statistical journal article by the documentary group that started the whole brouhaha. So my article has a few reflections on that whole experience. Marcus Goodyear, one of my loyal blog readers here, was the editor who asked me to write this article. Thanks Marcus!

Second, my friend Sue Brower (senior fiction editor at Zondervan Publishing) has sent me word of something that will be of very high interest to unpublished novelists who are wanting to break into the Christian publishing market (which has been growing very rapidly in recent years). Zondervan, in conjunction with the Mount Hermon Christian Writing Conference, are sponsoring a competition for a novel by an unpublished writer. The winner will receive a $10,000 contract with Zondervan. This sounds like a FABULOUS opportunity. All the details about the contest are on Zondervan’s web site here. Zondervan is a great, great organization. I believe that my two best novels (PREMONITION and RETRIBUTION) are the two that I published with Zondervan.

OK, I have lots to catch up on, because I’ve been letting everything slide all week while I work on that pesky deck. I’m going to play catchup for a few hours, then go hit the deck and hope to get it finished today. Tomorrow, I’ll answer some of the questions that have shorter answers.

See ya then!

We’ve been talking about writing conferences and about agents and editors for quite a while now. I think it’ll soon be time to move on to a new topic. I’ll try to answer any pressing questions that are still not answered.

Tim asked:

So how do you pitch a book series instead of just a stand alone novel. Most of my novels are part of a bigger series, so how would I got about doing this?

Randy sez: Pitch Book #1 in the series as if it were a standalone novel. (Assuming it stands alone. If it’s one long story in seven volumes, like the Harry Potter series, then you need to make that clear up front.) At some point in the conversation, the agent or editor will probably ask if you have anything else. Then you say that you have ideas for other books in the series. This is normally considered a Good Thing. Then they know you aren’t a one-trick doggy.

Heather asked:

So would people agree it is generally a bad idea to mention the word “series” as a first-timer, unless handed an appropriate lead-in, as alice was?

Randy sez: It’s not so much a “bad idea” as “an irrelevant fact.” The first thing you need to do is show the agent or editor that you can write a book. One book, start to finish. Once they see that, then they’ll naturally be interested in followons. Tom Clancy’s first book featured Jack Ryan, who then featured in Books #3 and on. (Book #2 was RED STORM RISING, a co-authored book that stands alone from the others.)

Jack Ryan has proven to be a durable player who could carry the ball for a long time, occasionally handing off to Clark, but usually doing most of the work. And Jack, (as Sarah Palin may possibly do) became an out-of-the-blue vice president. Jack even made it to Prez, allowing Clancy to show how things “ought to be done” in his opinion. The one thing Jack Ryan couldn’t do well was to wear a bikini. There is a PhotoShop-faked picture on the web of Sarah exhibiting that very skill and holding a gun. The photo is funny, but it would look simply stupid if it featured Jack Ryan.

Heather asked a second question:

actually, I am curious about this because I wonder whether to go for a series as I would like (which would develop the story so that the “meatiest” parts are in subsequent books), or, if a series deal is thought to be more unlikely for a newbie, then changing the story so that everything important is encompassed in the one book (and possibly sacrificing telling the story exactly as I had envisioned). has anyone grappled with this conflict before?

Randy sez: Write the first book as well as you can without cramming it too full of the meat. If it does well, then those meaty parts will make it in to the later books. One only has to look at Harry Potter, where the meat gets juicier the further you go. My kids and I are almost done reading the series aloud together. There is a 30 page section of backstory just before the end. This is the place to put the backstory–just before the extraordinary, incredible ending.

A novice writer puts the backstory at the beginning when nobody cares yet about the character. This is why JK Rowling is worth every dime she earns. She puts the backstory at the tail of about 3000 pages of story, and NOW it all makes sense. Every detail of the story now has a clear place.

James wrote:

I’m really seeking advice for how to go about finding the RIGHT agent/editor for your genre & someone you’re comfortable with in the on-going process of making it all happen? Especially for an unknown.

Randy sez: The first thing is to know your genre and know your niche. Then look for agents who cater to that niche and who like that genre. My niche is Christian fiction, and my genre is suspense. So if I needed an agent, I’d go to a major Christian conference, such as Mount Hermon or the upcoming ACFW conference and talk to those agents who do suspense. If I had a mystery for the general market, I’d go to a major mystery writers conference, such as Bouchercon. If I were writing a romance, I’d go to RWA.

So ask yourself: What books do you like to read? What authors do you love? Can you find out which agents have represented these authors? Can you find which agents represent these kind of books? Of course you can. Authors often thank their agents in their Acknowledgments section of their books. They may link to them on their web sites. The reference book WRITER’S MARKET lists zillions of agents and tells you exactly what they want. If you go to the web sites of those agents, you may find out what conferences they go to. Or you can search for conferences near you and research the agents that’ll be there.

You need to do your research, but it’s easier than ever to do that research. When you sit down to your appointment with the agent, you will make things massively easier on yourself if you can show that you have a clue who they are and what they do. It is extraordinary to see writers sit down to an appointment with an editor or agent who caters to a genre or a market niche wholly unrelated to what the writer is writing.

Hannah wrote:

I have a question regarding not finding an agent. What are your views on being an agent to oneself? For me and for many of my European colleagues finding an agent is just not an option; we have to talk to the editors first hand at all times. So, my question is, how do you become your own agent?

Randy sez: If an agent’s not an option, then it’s not an option. Fifty years ago, many American authors didn’t have agents. Now most do. There are some books on how to be your own agent. Check Amazon for exact titles. It’s been a long time since I considered this option.

Karen asked:

Hmmm all very interesting. Knowing that the ideal situation is probably to develop relationships at conferences, can email also work if you are on different continents? I’m not at that stage yet (realistic expectations!), but assuming that when I am ready, I don’t make it over the ocean, is it likely that I would have any luck via email? I’m guessing (hoping) the answer is that if the writing is good and I’ve done my research and chosen the right agent/s, it is likely. I wonder though, how to get their attention (professionally) in a mail box that’s likely full to the brim of people they do know…

Randy sez: Yes, email can work. It’s not as good as in person, but it can work. Remember that agents probably hear from zillions of people every day. Many of the writers who query them are spammers, just blasting out shotguns full of email queries. If you’re going to shoot out a query by email, use a rifle. Study the agents and send each one a personalized and short query that makes it clear you’re a professional who respects them as a professional.

Kim asked:

Do publishers prefer to work through an agent or directly with an author?

Randy sez: I’m not an editor, but if I were, I’d prefer to work with somebody who understands the business, knows how to negotiate, plays fair, and gets back to me promptly. This describes most agents (but not all of them) and some writers (not as many as we like to think).

Typically, the agent’s job is to do those things that you don’t do well. Most agents will not get between you and the editor when you’re working through the editing phase.

The one exception is if a problem arises. If you know you’re going to miss your deadline, call your agent and let him deliver the bad news and negotiate a solution. If the editor is asking for outrageous changes, call your agent and let him show the editor the proposal and remind her what the contract says. If the marketing department is backing out of spending all that money they promised in the contract, call your agent. The agent’s job is partly to be the bad cop so you can be the good cop.

I think I’ve now caught up with all agent questions. Let’s turn to something new. What’s your biggest craft-related problem in writing fiction? Post a comment here and I’ll read through them to decide what I’d like to talk about next.

Yesterday was Labor Day here in the US. I spent a good share of the day moving all the stuff around in my office so I could fit in my new filing cabinet.

The bad news is that things are still in disarray (a polite way of saying that it looks like the cats spent the night in my office driving tiny bulldozers all over the place) and I can’t find anything.

The good news is that the next issue of my humor column went live yesterday. Once again this month, Sam the Plumber speaks out on an important topic for all novelists. And I reveal an extraordinary new use for pipe wrenches.

I’m having a bit of trouble typing today. (To see why, read the column.)