L.

PENELOPE ON AUTHOR-RUN PODCASTS | ROADMAP TO

WRITING A SERIES

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS SINCE 1920

FIND SUCCESS
IN 2022
WRITING SUCCESSFUL
HISTORICAL FICTION

FROM FAILED DRAWER NOVEL

TO RAVE-READY REVISION

WHY TO WRITE AND

SELF-PUBLISH SHORT FICTION

KNOW YOUR WORTH

WHEN FREELANCING

WHAT AGENTS WISH

WRITERS KNEW

POET RAYMOND
ANTROBUS ON
DEFINING SUCCESS
W D I N T E RV I E W
JAN/FEB 2022
WritersDigest.com
Lisa Jewell
THE BESTSELLING NOVELIST
DISCUSSES CREATING THRILLING
PLOT TWISTS AND DEVELOPING
CHARACTERS IN HER 19TH NOVEL
 OPENING
K EY NOT E S P EA K ER
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NAACP Image Award in Literature. Since the publication
of Night Song in 1994, she has been leading the charge for
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FIND SUCCESS IN 2022

28 46
RESEARCH AND WHAT AGENTS
STORYTELLING FOR WISH WRITERS
SUCCESSFUL KNEW
HISTORICAL FICTION 22 literary agents share their
insights about querying, the
Bestselling historical novelist Janie Chang
agent/author relationship, and
asked six fellow novelists to share their tips for
the industry so writers can find
finding and writing stories from the past that
success in 2022.
will resonate with today’s readers.
BY RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE
BY JANIE CHANG

32 52
DIG IN OR CUT PLAYING THE
YOURSELF FREE FREELANCE FIELD
Part of making your freelance
Drawer novel or potential bestseller? Seven
career a success is knowing how
writers share their tips for revision success and
to determine the benefit each gig
how to know when to move on.
brings to your résumé. Here are
BY ANDROMEDA ROMANO-LAX
four tips to help you make the
right moves.
36 BY CASSANDRA LIPP

TAKING THE SHORT TACK

WITH SHORT FICTION
Traditional markets aren’t the only paths to COVER PHOTO © ANDREW WHITTON IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

success for short stories. Here are six reasons ON THE COVER
why self-publishing could be the way to go. 12 L. Penelope on Author-Run Podcasts
BY MATTY DALRYMPLE 4 0 Roadmap to Writing a Series
4 6 What Agents Wish Writers Knew

40 2 8 Writing Successful Historical Fiction

3 2 From Failed Drawer Novel to Rave-

“EYES ON THE ROAD!” Ready Revision

Much like a cross-country road trip, writing a
series can be quite the journey. Here are five
tips to get your readers safely to the final
destination and enjoy the ride along the way.
BY E. L. TENENBAUM
3 6 Why to Write and Self-Publish Short
Fiction
5 2 Know Your Worth When Freelancing
18 Poet Raymond Antrobus on Defining
Success
6 0 WD Interview: Lisa Jewell
 JA NUA RY/FEBRUA RY | VOLU ME 102 | NO. 1

INK W E L L

8 EDIT LIKE A SURGEON: Nonfiction writers have

56 specialized goals and editorial concerns. Here

are tips to make your writing clear, accurate, and
HOW LAW SCHOOL MADE impactful.
BY JENNI HART AND DON VAUGHAN
ME A MORE BUSINESS- 10 PLUS: Worth a Thousand Words • Is Podcasting
SAVVY WRITER Right for You? • Poetic Asides • 5-Minute Memoir
Law school, like an MFA program, isn’t the CO L UM NS
right choice for every writer. But being open to
unexpected opportunities may have profound 18 WRITERS ON WRITING: Raymond Antrobus
impacts on your career.
19 MEET THE AGENT: Michael Longclaws • Javelin
BY MICHAEL LA RONN
BY KARA GEBHART UHL

2 0 LEVEL UP YOUR WRITING (LIFE): Where Should

Your Characters Be at the Beginning of Your Story?
BY SHARON SHORT

2 2 WD 101: Twelve Foolproof Ways to Fail as a Writer

BY STEVEN JAMES

2 4 INDIELAB: Deciding to Self-Publish

BY WHITNEY HILL

2 6 BREAKING IN: Debut Author Spotlight

BY MORIAH RICHARD

6 6 FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK: How do I map out the

second half of my book?
BY BARBARA POELLE

6 8 ALL ABOUT THE PITCH: Mining Your Life for

60
6 Story Ideas
BY ESTELLE ERASMUS
THE WD INTERVIEW:
EW:
7 0 YOUR STORY: Water Ways #112
LISA JEWELL 76 BUILDING BETTER WORLDS: Introduction to
The New York Times bestselling British author Map-Making
discusses creating thrilling plot twists and BY MORIAH RICHARD
developing characters in her 19th novel, The 7 8 PUBLISHING INSIGHTS: 4 Business Magazines
Night She Disappeared. BY ROBERT LEE BREWER
BY AMY JONES
8 0 CONFERENCE SCENE: San Francisco Writers
M FA W ORK B OO K Conference; Let’s Just Write! An Uncommon
Writers Conference; Don’t Let the Tired Win Out
7 3 WHEN ONE IDEA JUST ISN’T ENOUGH BY KRISTY STEVENSON

BY JACQUES DENAULT 8 8 POTPOURRI FOR THE PEN

PLUS: 4 From Our Readers 5 Editor’s Letter 6 Contributors

Writer’s Digest (USPS 459-930) (ISSN 0043-9525) Canadian Agreement No. 40025316 is published bimonthly, with issues in January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October, and November/
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FROMOURREADERS
WD posed the question to readers on our website: “How do you define
success, and how has it changed since you started writing?” Readers
responded:
“I define success as finally being able to do what I’ve
dreamt of doing since I was 10: writing for a living. …
From 2020 to 2021, I’ve completed nine feature-length
screenplays, a television series, and a horror novel at
116,000 words. … In one year, I’ve placed in over 300
film festivals across 30 countries on six continents in six
different genres! … Success hasn’t changed my routine
because writing is what I have to do. My greatest moment
will come when I can sit in a theater, watch what I’ve seen
inside my mind play out on the screen for all to enjoy,
then I will feel at peace.”
—Kevin J. Howard
“When I first fell in love with telling stories, I thought
success was being a household name. Selling millions of
books. I thought of being published and people standing
in line for the next book release. … My idea of success
now is being able to tell a story the reader can live and
not just read. To let them feel the emotions in a story,
not just read the words. To be able to touch someone’s
life in such a profound way it changes their perspective
and outlook.”
—Lorraine Hughes
Watch our blog (WritersDigest.com/resources/write-for-us) for the next question we ask, and answer for a chance to be
included in a future issue of Writer’s Digest!
4 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
“As a playwright, I used to consider ‘success’ to be win-
ning the Pulitzer Prize for drama by the age of 30. Then it
was a Broadway production. Then one at a large regional
theater (which I actually got). Since then, with the way
COVID’s halted productions and clogged up the new play
pipeline, it’s getting the occasional reading or staged pro-
duction and actually finishing a new project. As you get
older and wiser and more savvy about the business, you
realize that in many ways it’s a crapshoot, that you can’t
control who produces what. You can only control what
you write and how well you write it.”
—Jerry Slaff
“Initially, success meant having a bestseller. Then, it was
being published. Now, it’s about no longer censoring
myself when I write.”
—Lexa (@LexaPenndari)
“I always thought it would be a great success for me if
few words of mine gets printed on a magazine. After
two decades, around three of my articles got published.
Despite not being paid, [it makes me] very happy and
[more] proud than the job that pays me.”
—Mr. Anu (@BountyForBuddi)
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: VLADIMIR KONONOK
“Success used to be becoming a writer popular enough to
get my work turned into a movie. Success is now just fin-
ishing a whole book whether anyone reads it or not.”
—Elizabeth Bautista (@TheWriteLiz)
 EDITOR’SLETTER
AN ACTIVE INTEREST MEDIA PUBLICATION

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Amy Jones

SENIOR EDITOR
Finding Success in 2022
Robert Lee Brewer
“Persist.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen
MANAGING EDITOR
Moriah Richard “Write what you love.” —Chris Bohjalian
EDITORS
Sadie Dean
“It does get easier.” —Lisa Jewell
Michael Woodson
“Be gentle with yourself.” —Min Jin Lee
ART DIRECTOR
Wendy Dunning
These are words of advice taken from WD
EDITORS-AT-LARGE
interviews with award-winning and bestsell-
Ericka McIntyre
Tyler Moss ing authors. Notice, though, not a single men-
Jessica Strawser tion of their status, prizes, or advances—in
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS other words, their success. And while status, literary awards, and money can
Jane K. Cleland, David Corbett,
Bob Eckstein, Jane Friedman,
be indicators of a successful writer, one must actually sit down and write for
Steven James, Barbara Poelle, any of those things to happen. That’s what all of these pieces of advice have in
Elizabeth Sims, Jeff Somers,
common: they all boil down to putting words on the page.
Kristy Stevenson, Kara Gebhart Uhl,
Don Vaughan For you to find success in 2022, you must first decide what you want to
MARKETING DESIGNER
achieve: today, this week, this month, this year. Because success is all rela-
Samantha Weyer tive. What may be a commonplace activity for one writer may be a milestone
COMPETITIONS MANAGER
activity worthy of bringing out the bubbly for another person. And that’s OK.
Tara Johnson That’s how it’s supposed to be. When you have setbacks along the way, it’s
VP GENERAL MANAGER normal to be disappointed or frustrated, but with enough time, that setback
Taylor Sferra might result in a new skill learned or a new opportunity that could change
your writing forever.
WRITER’S DIGEST In this issue of WD, you’ll find articles to help you succeed, no matter your
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goals. If it’s to figure out whether that mess of a novel you’ve got sitting in a
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writers.digest@aimmedia.com article will offer questions to ask yourself. Michael La Ronn’s essay about how
going to law school helped his writing career will help you consider whether
BACK ISSUES an unexpected opportunity might be just the push you need. Or, if you’ve
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with WD’s Managing Editor, Moriah Richard. In each column, she’ll tackle a
facet of world-building that will help you answer questions about your work-in-
progress and create a more pleasurable reading experience for your readers.
PRIVACY STATEMENT
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self as a writer in 2022, remember, the first step on that road is to keep writing.
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CON TRI BUT O RS

RAYMOND ANTROBUS was born in London to

an English mother and Jamaican father. He’s a Cave
Canem Fellow and the author of To Sweeten Bitter, The
Perseverance, and All The Names Given, as well as
children’s picture book Can Bears Ski? He is the 2019
recipient of the Ted Hughes Award as well as the Sunday
Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year
PRESIDENT HOME GROUP
Award and became the first poet to be awarded the
Peter H. Miller
Rathbone Folio Prize. His first full-length collection, The
Perseverance, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, PRESIDENT MARINE GROUP
The Forward Prize, and was a 2020 notable poetry collec- Gary DeSanctis

tion in The New York Times. CTO

Brian Van Heuverswyn
JANIE CHANG writes historical fiction with personal
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erations of recorded genealogy. She grew up listening
about life in a small Chinese town and tales of ancestors VP FINANCE
Stephen Pompeo
who encountered dragons, ghosts, and immortals. Her
first novel, Three Souls, was a finalist for the 2014 BC VP EVENTS
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with her husband and Mischa, a rescue cat who thinks the
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Edit Like a Surgeon
Nonfiction writers have specialized goals and editorial concerns. Here are tips to
make your writing clear, accurate, and impactful.
BY JENNI HART AND DON VAUGHAN
M
ost writers know the
importance of self-editing
their work before sub-
mitting it to an editor or publisher.
However, even established writers
sometimes struggle to understand
exactly what the editing process
should entail, and how to know when
they’re successful at it.
It helps to think of self-editing
not as abstract or arbitrary, but as a
series of actionable steps, each with
a defined purpose. This will allow
you to approach your draft with con-
fidence and precision—much as a
surgeon approaches a patient under-
going an operation.
MAKE A PREOPERATIVE
APPOINTMENT
Just as a surgeon evaluates a patient
prior to surgery, a writer must first
evaluate the whole of the story with
an initial top-to-bottom read and
then create a plan to address appar-
ent problems. The goal is to cut with
intention and precision without
damaging healthy “tissue,” meaning
8 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
passages that flow well and effectively
advance the narrative.
Additional readthroughs may be
necessary as the writer addresses less
obvious issues, with greater specific-
ity during each attempt. In this way,
a good manuscript becomes a great
one, healthier, if you will, from top to
bottom. Here are questions to guide
you through the iterative stages:
• DOES THE LEDE PARAGRAPH
ENGAGE THE READER AND
ENTICE THEM TO CONTINUE
READING? There are countless
ways to begin a magazine article,
but the opening paragraph must
immediately grab the reader and
make them want to know more.
An anecdotal lede is one effective
way to introduce a topic; an evoca-
tive quote or statistic is another.
You’re striving for what old-school
journalists called a “Hey, Martha!”
As in, “Hey, Martha, wait’ll you
read this!”
• ARE THERE OBVIOUS MISSPELL-
INGS OR GRAMMAR ISSUES? The
finer details of a written piece,
such as spelling, punctuation, and
sentence structure, are critically
important, but not for the reasons
you may assume. Rather than
attending to them with perfection
in mind, your goal is two-fold.
First, you must strive for clarity.
Will the reader reach the end of
each paragraph fully understand-
ing what you intended to commu-
nicate? And second, your writing
should provide a smooth experi-
ence for the reader. Misspellings
and incorrect word choices (your
versus you’re or the wrong there/
their/they’re, for example) func-
tion as speed bumps in your man-
uscript, slowing comprehension
and pulling the reader’s attention
away from the narrative.
• ARE QUOTATIONS USED TO
THEIR GREATEST EFFECT?
After interviewing an espe-
cially insightful source, it can be
tempting to want to relay every
last word to the reader. That isn’t
your job as a writer. In a typical
 interview, you’re looking to your
source to provide understanding
and depth on a general topic—
or for their unique perspective.
The interview, however, isn’t the
story; it’s only the foundation.
As you analyze, synthesize, and
summarize the general con-
tours of the interview, listen for
the most helpful, poignant, or
impactful statements from your
source and work those direct
quotes into the piece as needed.
You’re doing the cognitive work
for the reader by summarizing
or paraphrasing the bulk of the
interview, perhaps supplemented
by independent research or addi-
tional interviews. By carefully
selecting direct quotes that serve
a purpose, you create a better
experience for the reader and
keep the narrative flowing.
• IF MATH IS INVOLVED, DO THE
NUMBERS ADD UP? Ensuring
numbers are correct is an essen-
tial part of self-editing, because
if they aren’t, the integrity of the
entire article may be called into
question. No matter how confi-
dent you are, check and recheck
your figures.
• IS THERE TOO MUCH REPETI-
TION? Writers are often unaware
of their overuse of certain words
or other writing tics. As you self-
edit, watch out for the repetitive
use of particular words or phrases,
as well as words that are repeated
too frequently within a single
sentence or paragraph. Effective
writing requires an expansive
vocabulary and strong grammati-
cal skills; shake things up with
your word usage.
• DO THE FINAL PARAGRAPHS
BRING THE NARRATIVE TO A
SATISFYING CONCLUSION? Few
things rile readers more than
an article with an unsatisfying
conclusion, because it suggests
they have wasted their time. Your
final paragraphs should wind up
any loose ends in the narrative,
answer all pertinent questions,
and bring the reading experi-
ence to a thoughtful end. The
reader should feel they have been
entertained and informed, which
means every word from the lede
paragraph through the final sen-
tence must advance the main
premise or theme; anything that
doesn’t is extraneous. How you
end a particular piece depends on
a variety of factors, but there are
several potential options, includ-
ing a general wrap-up of the issue,
an exploration of what the future
might hold for the topic, or a per-
ceptive quote from a source.
GET A SECOND OPINION
When facing a particularly challenging
or uncommon procedure, surgeons
will often consult with colleagues prior
to scrubbing in. Writers can take a
similar approach by joining a critique
group, engaging beta readers, or ask-
ing a fellow writer for feedback.
As you edit your own writing,
you may find the most helpful
suggestions come from those you
consider your “target market” or
ideal reader, but keep in mind that
feedback from a reader with an
outside perspective can help ensure
your story has wide appeal.
Seeking feedback from a diverse
group of readers will also help you
avoid the “curse of knowledge.” This
can pop up when a writer with deep
experience or interest in a particu-
lar area mistakenly assumes others
share their familiarity with the topic.
Unless you’re writing for a trade
journal or other specialized publica-
tion, you should consider the needs
of the average reader. Otherwise,
you risk alienating or frustrat-
ing your audience. To ensure your
message has broad appeal, include
necessary context as you introduce
the topic; explain any concepts that
may be unfamiliar; and avoid jar-
gon, acronyms, or initialisms that
are unique to that field or fanbase.
By explaining complex or technical
ideas early on, you can proceed with
confidence as you craft the remain-
der of the article.
Increasingly, readers are seeking
authenticity when it comes to issues
of diversity and inclusion. A non-
fiction writer’s lived experience can
limit their capacity to tell a story with
the fullness and nuance required.
If your project could benefit from
a broader perspective on issues of
race, ethnicity, gender, disability, or
mental illness, be sure to interview
or cite sources with relevant experi-
ence or training in those areas. In
their recent editions, most major
style guides have expanded recom-
mendations for avoiding stereotypes
and writing for inclusivity, so consult
them when appropriate.
MAKE TIME FOR A
FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENT
A patient needs time to heal, and
your edited draft will likewise benefit
from some time and distance. Several
hours will work in a pinch, but a
night or two spent on other activities
will give you valuable perspective, let-
ting you re-engage with the manu-
script as a newcomer might. Here are
additional tips for the fine-tuning
stage of self-editing.
WritersDigest.com I 9
 • INTRODUCE VARIABLES. After
you’ve read a manuscript from
top to bottom a few times, your
eye will no longer catch what-
ever typos or other issues remain.
Look for different ways to read
while line-editing, such as chang-
ing the font, reading a printed
version versus onscreen, reading
aloud, or reading from back to
front. All of these will force you
to view your work from a novel
perspective and help catch any
remaining errors.
• DETERMINE IF PORTIONS OF
THE TEXT SHOULD BE SENT TO A
SOURCE FOR A FINAL FACT-CHECK.
This is especially important if the
topic of your article is complex
or new to you. But check with
your editor first, because some
publications have strict guide-
lines about sending draft articles
to sources. Make sure your source
Worth a Thousand Words
“Don’t worry—I’m just here for your manuscript.”
Bob Eckstein is a New York Times-bestselling author and cartoonist. He teaches writing
and drawing at New York University, and his two new books are All’s Fair in Love & War: The
Ultimate Cartoon Book and The Elements of Stress.
10 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
understands that you are sending
them the article for a fact-check
only, not a rewrite.
• BE BRUTAL WHEN EDITING FOR
LENGTH. If your draft is running
long, begin at the beginning. In
aiming for a more literary or art-
ful tone, a writer may front-load
an article with unnecessary his-
torical background or a meander-
ing inventory of sensory details.
Consider instead an introduc-
tory paragraph that gets right to
the point. As you work your way
through the rest of the draft, ask
whether each passage or sen-
tence contributes meaningfully
to the story. Pay careful atten-
tion to adverbs and adjectives, as
they are often unnecessary for
clarity and comprehension. For
example, a source who “excitedly
exclaimed” could just as well have
“said” the thing.
If, on the other hand, your article
could use plumping, be judicious
about what you add. Instead of select-
ing material randomly from your
research notes or interview tran-
script, consider further research or
an additional source who can con-
tribute fresh ideas or an alternate
viewpoint. As you integrate recent
findings into your existing draft, be
sure to provide context, comparison
or contrast between the original and
new material, and include appropri-
ate transitions between paragraphs or
sections. Overlooking this step can
lead to writing that is disjointed and
abrupt, so take the time to soften any
rough edges.
An editor will often assure a hesi-
tant writer, “If I’ve done my job well,
you won’t even know I’ve been there.”
The same may be said post-surgery.
Removing the bad, repairing the bro-
ken, and leaving behind the smooth-
est, least noticeable scar: this is how
most patients gauge their surgeon’s
skill and expertise. Likewise, plan-
ning and precision as you edit your
own work will add nuance, clar-
ity, and dimension your readers will
appreciate, especially when the read-
ing experience is seamless.
Jenni Hart is a North Carolina-based writer
and editor whose feature articles, profiles,
and essays have appeared in a variety
of magazines. In addition, she creates
marketing content for businesses and
provides copy editing and proofreading
services for nonfiction authors.
Don Vaughan is a freelance writer based in
Raleigh, N.C. His work has appeared in Boys’
Life, Writer’s Digest, Military Officer Maga-
zine, Encyclopedia Britannica, and MAD
Magazine. He is the founder of Triangle
Association of Freelancers (TAFNC.com).
Is Podcasting Right for You?
Authors weigh in on what running a podcast has done for their careers and what it
can do for yours.
BY L. PENELOPE

W
ith audio as the fast-
est growing part of the
publishing industry and
audiobook sales experiencing double-
digit growth for the past nine years,
there are few publishers or authors
today ignoring the benefits of audio.
The growth in listening lifts many
formats like the proverbial rising tide.
Podcast listenership is also growing
by double digits. And though the for-
mat has been around for nearly two
decades, according to many, it’s just
hitting its stride.
In 2018, marketing guru Seth
Godin pronounced that “podcasting
is the new blogging.” As an author
looking for new ways to reach your
audience or a new creative outlet, Will Knauss created the “Big Gay The duo was frustrated with the
podcasting just might be something Fiction Podcast” in 2015 for fans misinformation they saw spreading
you want to try. of gay romance. According to Jeff, online among new authors and saw
“In 2015, there was no podcast out the podcast as a way to educate and
THE CONCEPT there focused on the genre, so we give back to the writing community.
I caught the podcast bug in March decided to take the plunge.” Author “We want to have honest conversa-
2019 after being an avid listener for Nicole Falls created “#fallsonlove” to tions about everything from how we
many years. At the time, I subscribed highlight Black indie romance. She write, to the community, to how the
to a handful of shows on publish- interviews Black romance authors books actually get made, all through
ing, marketing, writing craft, book and provides commentary on the our personal experiences.”
reviews, and author interviews. I con- genre and industry. “By nature, I “The Mermaid Podcast” host Laura
PHOTO © GETTY IMAGES: PHOTOGRAPHER, BASAK GURBUZ DERMAN

ceived of my podcast, “My Imaginary
Friends with L. Penelope,” as a way
to document my journey as a writer
and keep track of my progress. I
thought readers might like a behind-
the-scenes perspective on an author’s
life, and so my solo show was born.
However, there are as many reasons
to start a podcast as there are authors
and books.
Romance authors Jeff Adams and
am a connector and I really enjoy
making space for and amplifying the
works of people who I think are dope,”
she says.
Spotlighting underserved portions
of the reading community calls to
some, while others focus on writers
as their primary audience. Zoraida
Córdova and Dhonielle Clayton,
hosts of “Deadline City,” wanted to
demystify the publishing industry.
von Holt, who writes romance as
Laura Lovely, created a show that
is entirely unique. Her podcast is
designed for people who not only like
mermaids but also fantasy, creativ-
ity, mythology, women’s history, and
more. And her goals were broad. In
addition to creating a platform to
market her writing, Laura “wanted to
interview interesting guests, espe-
cially historians or academics, and

12 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

showcase the different communities
that intersect with mermaid lore.”
THE STYLE
A podcast can be anything from a
single person talking to the common
interview format to a multi-host or
roundtable discussion, an NPR-style
audio magazine, a dramatized radio
play, or any combination.
Romance authors Xio Axelrod,
Avery Flynn, and Roan Parrish
started the “Dear Romance Writer”
podcast in 2021, a Dear Abby-style
show where they answer listener sub-
mitted questions and offer “question-
able advice” on matters of the heart.
According to Parrish, “When we first
began, we were just three authors
during a global pandemic who
wanted something fun, social, and
not written.”
THE BENEFITS
As a marketing vehicle, podcasting
creates a close connection between
the host and their listeners, fostering
engagement and often likeability. “I
listen to podcasts while I’m driving or
gardening or cleaning,” says Parrish,
“so they’re integrated into my life in
a very intimate way—as intimate as
someone’s voice in your ear.”
And though the number of pod-
casts continues to grow, you can still
stand out since relatively few authors
are doing it. While none of the pod-
casters interviewed found there was
a measurable way to track the impact
of their show on sales, most felt
that their efforts were a net positive.
Many report anecdotal evidence of
readers saying they’ve discovered the
podcaster’s books via their episodes.
Elodie Nowodazkij, host of “A Self-
Published Author’s Diary,” believes
podcasting helps with name recogni-
tion and adds more visibility to her
novels. While von Holt says, “I think
podcasting is more of a long game
for an author. I think it definitely
builds community and influence,
which can help you sell books, and
it plays to my relationship-building
strengths, which helps me network ...
and sell books.”
Those who interview others
report their guests see an uptick in
sales after a podcast appearance.
According to Falls, “I would go to
reader events and undoubtedly some-
one would come up and say, ‘Oh my
goodness, I love the podcast! You put
me on to X; I’d never heard of/read
them before listening to them on
your show.’”
Jeffe Kennedy, host of “First Cup
of Coffee,” warns that prospective
podcasters should view their efforts
as “something worth doing because
we enjoy it” but not to think of the
potential return on investment “as
that can be crazy-making.”
THE HOW
Speaking of investments, there are
the equipment costs which can be
minimal or extensive. Nowodazkij
says, “I have a microphone that I
use for narrating and use when I
do interviews/conversations but
otherwise, I only use my phone and
master/edit with a free program
called Audacity. So, if you have a
smartphone and a computer, you can
actually start podcasting without an
additional investment.”
As for the cost in time, that can
be anywhere from the approximately
two hours per show that I spend on
my 20– to 25–minute episodes to the
8–10 hours hosts like Adams and von
Holt report spending on theirs. It all
depends on the style of show, length,
and number of people involved. “I
had to fight a lot of perfectionism to
get my first episodes out. I eventually
gave up on striving for sophistication,
and now I just try to do my best.
Done is better than perfect!” von
Holt says.
THE WHY
So, why undertake this journey into
podcasting? The bottom line is you
need to enjoy it, and you certainly
won’t know if you like it until you
try. I’ve thoroughly loved the past
three years of podcasting. And while
sometimes I covet other formats and
long to talk with fascinating people
about their writing process, I stick
to my diary format, sharing the ups
and downs of my writing week with
listeners, celebrating my wins and
lamenting my troubles.
Whether your goal is to
introduce new artists and authors,
educate, entertain, advise, or
simply explore, podcasting can
be a satisfying creative outlet that
hones communication skills and can
potentially earn you some money
via sponsorships, patron pledges, or
book sales—though most agree that
shouldn’t be your primary goal.
If you’re looking to start a podcast,
the top tips from author podcasters
are to be consistent, create meaning-
ful content, and talk about something
you love. Then your words can live in
listener’s ears for as long as your sto-
ries live in their hearts.
L. Penelope (LPenelope.com) is the award-
winning author of the Earthsinger Chronicles.
The first book in the series, Song of Blood
& Stone, was chosen as one of TIME
magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All
Time. Equally left and right-brained, she
studied filmmaking and computer science
in college and sometimes dreams in HTML.
She hosts the “My Imaginary Friends”
podcast and lives in Maryland with her
husband and furry dependents.
WritersDigest.com I 13
 No matter what you write, a bit of poetic license can be a
valuable asset to any writer’s arsenal.
BY ROBERT LEE BREWER

POETIC FORM: IMAYO

The imayo is a Japanese form that was originally written to be sung, though
there are no rhyming or subject constraints. The form has only the following
guidelines:
• Four lines
• 12 syllables per line
• A caesura (or pause) between the first seven syllables and final five in
each line
Need more Here are a few examples by Poetic Asides readers:
writing ideas?
“Vehicle” by Bruce Niedt
In this example, the poet
Battling The warranty’s expired—harder to get parts.
uses a mix of dashes and
Everything falls apart now, piece by piece by piece.
writer’s block? Not even duct tape will help—repairs are futile.
commas to create the
caesura in each line.
“Well,” my doctor reassures, “you’re just getting old.”

Story too “As Summer Slips Past” by Linda L Stead

predictable?
Bend your story in new
directions using 40 Plot
Twist Prompts for Writers
by Robert Lee Brewer.
Visit
WritersDigestShop.com
to download this PDF and
jumpstart your writing.
leaves blaze in golden glory—summer shifts to fall
This poem uses dashes
and plays around with
into frosted nights I walk—crickets sing goodbye
enjambment while slid-
lullabies into the wind—that carries me home
with wild geese above me—calling out for theirs
ing from one season to
the next.
“Boys and Girls” by Debbie Abbott
It’s also possible to break
I was attracted to boys
the 7/5 split into indi-
—until I wasn’t
vidual lines (making
I fell in love with a girl
—until she left me
eight lines total). In this
example, the poet uses
I found a new long-haired man
each seven-syllable line
—then I cut him loose
as a set up for the five-
I married a gay Elvis
syllable punch line.
BREWER ILLUSTRATION © TONY CAPURRO

—then left the building

Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of WD and the author of Smash Poetry Journal.

SHARE YOUR POETIC VOICE: If you’d like to see your own poem in the pages of Writer’s
Digest, check out the Poetic Asides blog (WritersDigest.com/write-better-poetry/
poetry-prompts) and search for the most recent WD Poetic Form Challenge.

14 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

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Auditioning for a Burger King Commercial Taught Me
How to Handle the Travails of Publishing
n his book Wealth of Words,
author Amit Kalantri says, “All
my problems bow before my
stubbornness.” I relate to this senti-
ment. As a writer, all my rejections
bow before my stubbornness.
I remember my first non-
publishing rejection. It was a Saturday.
A couple of talent scouts descended
on a shopping mall, perched at desks
behind rigid dividers. They were
casting for commercials, the large
sign had said.
“Do you want to do it?” my mom
asked. I was 12 and an avid theater
kid. I shrugged, nervous. It could be
the shot of a lifetime.
Mom led me over to the growing
line of children waiting to be seen by
the scouts. They asked us, one by one,
to say a line about Burger King hav-
ing the best food ever. I remember
breaking into a dripping sweat when
it was my turn to deliver lines.
When it was over, they sent us
on our way with barely a thank you.
I wasn’t called back, but I was OK.
There’s something about standing
before talent scouts at 12 years old,
with curly out-of-control hair, a face
full of zits, and teeth covered in metal
brackets that toughens a kid.
My first rejection prepared me for
a lifetime of trying to break into what
seemed like impossible fields. And
as I moved away from theater and
acting aspirations to become a writer,
the editorial passes became only
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Submit your own 600-word essay reflection on the writing life by emailing it to wdsubmissions@aimmedia.com
with “5-Minute Memoir” in the subject line.
16 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
5-MINUTE MEMOIR
BY CHRISTINA WYMAN
slightly more syllabic: “Thank you for
your submission, but not a right fit
for us.”
Rejection soon defined my
attempts to publish as naturally as
coffee defined my mornings. I’d shoot
off essays and short stories into the
abyss. Sometimes I’d receive a form
rejection, but most of the time, my
submissions were met with silence. I
was never rattled. Within minutes of
each rejection, I’d submit my piece to
another outlet, unphased.
I eventually broke into a couple
of magazines that didn’t pay but
offered exposure. My “Why Are All
the Teachers White?” essay was pub-
lished with Education Week and won
a BlogHer Voices of the Year award. A
little-known magazine published my
micro-fiction titled “Guilty” about
parenting and social class differences.
I was proud of these small successes.
When an acquaintance graciously
offered to share my middle-grade
fiction with an editor-friend who
worked for a major children’s maga-
zine, I shook with anticipation. This
introduction could mean my first big
writerly break. My rabid indifference
toward rejection flew out the window.
Writing for children was as much in
my bones as performing had once
been. I waited with bated breath for a
week before I received a response.
“I’d encourage you to reconsider
writing for children,” the feedback
said. “Your work doesn’t offer enough
hope.” She copied our acquaintance
on her response. I was embarrassed
and shattered. This rejection cut in
a way that so many others before it
had not.
I stopped writing children’s lit-
erature for a while, but my stories
stubbornly found their way back to
my fingertips. I pushed the editor’s
feedback from my mind but was pri-
vately consumed with thoughts about
whether my work would find an
audience in this lifetime. Or would
it die an unremarkable death, as that
Burger King audition had?
Five years after that experience, I
continued churning out stories and
was desperate to up my essay-writing
game. During the pandemic, I took
a writing class with a well-known
essayist and novelist. My Washington
Post article, “I am insecure about my
face. For me, masks are liberating,”
was born in this class. It was my first
published essay in a major outlet.
Exactly five months later, I landed
a book deal. I am now officially a
writer for children. My spouse and I
celebrated over a dinner of burgers
and fries. WD
Christina Wyman is a teacher and writer
living in Michigan. Her work appears in
Marie Claire, Elle, Ms. Magazine, The
Washington Post, and other outlets. Her
first children’s book, Jawbreaker, is under
contract with Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(2023), and she can be found on Twitter
@CBWymanWriter.
 EARL
Y-
DEA BIRD
DLIN
E:
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,
2022
SELF-PUBLISHED

Book
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Win $10,000 in cash, national acclaim, and a trip to New York City!

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• $10,000 in cash
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book in Writer’s Digest
• A paid trip to the Writer’s Digest
Conference in New York City!
OF 8 CATEGORIES:
• Early Readers/Children’s Picture Books
• Genre Fiction
• Inspirational/Self-Help
• Mainstream/Literary Fiction
• Memoirs/Life Stories
• Middle-Grade/Young Adult Books
• Nonfiction/Reference Books
• Poetry Chapbooks

Ready to accelerate your self publishing success? It all starts when you enter today!
www.writersdigest.com/writers-digest-competitions/self-published-book-awards
WRITERSONWRITING
Raymond Antrobus
On (Subjective) Success
I
n 1953, Spanish poet and Nobel
laureate Juan Ramón Jiménez
wrote his last book, Time
and Space, while living in exile in
America. He wrote it as an “inner
monologue” of poetic autobiogra-
phy. It’s written in a stream of con-
sciousness, an attempt to capture his
“inner cinematography.”
Despite the (high art) literary
premise of the book, in the prose
fragments, Jiménez shows us he is
not above snobbery, bravado, and
petty grievances. He gives a D. H.
Lawrence poem a backhanded com-
pliment (“I like his poem more as
an aesthetic representation than as
a poem”) and accuses a number of
his (right-wing) peers of hypocrisy
for praising and appropriating the
poetry of Lorca and Machado, “two
poets whom (the right-wing dicta-
torship) had killed.”
I bring up Jiménez and this book
because he (a prolific author of 70
books) was taking stock of his life
and died four years after writing
Time and Space. He says something
that had me pondering something
I rarely hear (conventionally and
publicly) successful people admit.
It chimed with what Teju Cole said
when asked how he feels about his
literary success: “It’s not to say I did
not take pleasure in winning some
of those [awards]—but … they seem
like indictments.”
My father used to have his own
slant on a Jamaican proverb, “the
higher the money climb, the more
he bare him ass,” and it’s true. With
18 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
public success comes scrutiny. The
day after I won the Ted Hughes
award in the U.K., an article was
written about me in a tabloid, berat-
ing the decision to award a poet that
“had no poetic license to smear Ted
Hughes’s name.” In The Perseverance,
I redacted a Ted Hughes poem
that dehumanizes deaf children.
Winning that award was the ulti-
mate poetic justice, but it was the
first time I’d seen something publi-
cally written and published against
me and my work. It rattled me in an
unexpected way. I had developed
no emotional armor for this, and
I found myself spiraling as I saw
an online pile-on. Accusations of
tokenism and patronizing opinions
of my work as “accessible to a fault.”
In Fragment 5 of Time and Space,
Jiménez writes, “To write against
others, against me, is a natural
thing and I deserve whatever is said,
except lies and calumnies.” This
offered me some solace. The literary
landscape is as harsh as many indus-
tries; you can choose to tune out the
noise, but as long as your work has a
presence, it’ll be part of the accumu-
lated noise.
That brings me to Time and
Space as a project. Jiménez says he
could only write the book in such
an open way in his later years; it’s
essentially a lifetime of musings and
resentments. For now, as a writer
not yet in his late years, I find myself
trying to redefine success as some-
thing quieter. We are in danger of
setting ourselves up for feeling like
failures if we don’t define what suc-
cess is (on our own terms).
Thinking back to when I was
writing poetry privately, before any
desire to be published, when I wrote
to quiet everything around me,
when whatever splurged onto the
page did not require an audience’s
acceptance or validation, when
success was an internal experience
because I was my own judge, I knew
when I had written something nec-
essary to me. With the world tempo-
rarily tuned out, I would sometimes
feel aligned with an inner radiance
and float with a mixed feeling of
accomplishment, a kind of soulful
emptiness. I felt clarified, lucid, and
renewed to have understood some-
thing in myself.
Strange that one has built a career
from this practice. Stranger still
that there’s a literature and publish-
ing industry that can feel like the
opposite of a successful (spiritual
and joyful) writing process. Like any
industry, it’s full of noise, bitterness,
competition, and hurt people who
want to be heard, but if you succeed
in having moments when you can
tune out and return to your note-
book in one peaceful piece, then
surely, you deserve some award. WD
Raymond Antrobus (RaymondAntrobus
.com) was born in London to an English
mother and Jamaican father. He’s a Cave
Canem Fellow and the author of poetry
collections, To Sweeten Bitter, The
Perseverance, and All The Names Given,
as well as children’s picture book Can
Bears Ski?
MEET THEAGENT
BY KARA GEBHART UHL

Michael Longclaws
JAVELIN

M
ichael Longclaws was born in Flint, Mich. and Vincent Schilling,
raised by two loving grandparents. author of Unspoken:
The Systemic Effort “I am working on a
“My grandfather was my greatest role model to Cut Out the proposal by Keith Ellison,
growing up,” he says. “He taught me the importance of com- Native Tongue the Minnesota Attorney
munity and how important it is to help others.” (Viking, forthcoming) General who led the
prosecution of Derek
Longclaws studied at Michigan State University. He is Chauvin in the George
half-Black, half-Ojibway, and an enrolled citizen of the Floyd murder case.”
Long Plain First Nation.
“As far as I know, I’m one of the only half-Black, half-
Indigenous people in the publishing world,” he says. “So,
I do what I do to help elevate the voices of Black and “Spelling ‘Michael’
as ‘Micheal’”
Indigenous people and get their voices heard.”
You can submit to Longclaws via Javelin’s site,
JavelinDC.com/literary. CLIENTS
“Cc’ing several
literary agencies at
“Some of my favorite the same time in a
things to do are camping, mass email”
watching anime, and
tutoring.”
“Not getting
to the point
“My family, for the QUERY PET of the pitch”
endless support I’ve PEEVES
received.” ABOUT ME

“Helping Donald
Glover with an
BLOG: MOST DREAM autobiography”
D&D Beyond PROUD OF PROJECT
(DNDBeyond.com)
DRINK:
Taro milk “Submissions that
with boba intersect race and
LIVING AUTHOR: politics/history”
Ta-Nehisi Coates
SEEKING

“Subjects surrounding
FAVORITE
DEAD AUTHOR: food justice, science,
J. R. R Tolkien and media”
PITCH
WRITING TIPS
TIPS “Keep the pitch
“Pay attention to
QUOTE: feedback you get concise.”
“Think lightly about your writing.” “Write about
of yourself and
something that
deeply of “If you have an
inspires curiosity or “Personalize
the world.” online following,
“Always have someone edit, interest for you.” pitch queries
—Miyamoto highlight that.”
even if it’s yourself.” (we notice).”
Musashi

Kara Gebart Uhl is a writer, editor, and author of The Curse of the Nannau Oak, forthcoming from Lost Art Press.

WritersDigest.com I 19
 LEVELUPYOUR
WRITING(LIFE)
Advice and tips to boost your writing skills.
BY SHARON SHORT
Where Should Your Character Be at
the Beginning of Your Story?
W
hat’s at stake?
That’s the key
question writers are
exhorted to ask about their charac-
ters’ motivations.
And it’s a great question! After
all, if nothing is at stake for the
main character, there is no story. For
example, Jocelyn, a police detec-
tive, really likes her job. Nope, move
along, nothing to see here.
What if something’s at stake, but
it’s mundane or predictable? Sure,
there’s a story. But is it one readers
will really care about?
Probably not. That’s why we need
big stakes for our protagonists. The
weight of literally saving the world
doesn’t have to be on their shoul-
ders, but figuratively, it should be.
For example, the protagonist’s career,
an important relationship, or even
soul should be on the line:
• Given the outcome of her last
case, Jocelyn must solve this
crime for the sake of her career.
• Jocelyn is invested because it
involves the disappearance of a
friend’s niece.
20 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
• Jocelyn’s detective work has,
over the past few years, had
a huge impact on her faith in
humanity.
Of course, the writer of this story
could use all three stakes to up the
tension for our Jocelyn.
But … here’s an interesting ques-
tion. At the beginning, is Jocelyn
on a (figurative) mountaintop with
everything to lose? Or deep in a val-
ley with everything to gain?
If she’s on the mountaintop:
• Successfully solving the case
will end the gossip that Jocelyn
just got lucky on her previous
high-profile case and set her on a
sure path to the promotion she’s
always coveted. Failure will mean
losing all she’s gained so far.
• Success will ensure Jocelyn
maintains her relationship with
her dear friend; failure will jeop-
ardize the friendship.
• Through her work, Jocelyn has
come to believe in the general
goodness of others. Success will
solidify that belief; failure will
endanger it.
If she’s in a deep valley:
• After botching her last case,
Jocelyn is weeks away from
being pushed out of the
force. Success will redeem her
career; failure will ensure her
destruction.
• Jocelyn’s friendship cratered
years ago; success will help heal
old wounds, while failure will
ensure there’s no hope for revi-
talizing the friendship.
• Jocelyn has come to doubt the
general goodness of human-
ity. Relying on the help of others
to solve the case will renew her
faith in humanity; failure will
permanently embitter her.
Of course, Jocelyn needn’t be
on a mountaintop or in a valley
in every area. She could be at
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: FRANK RAMSPOTT
the top in her career and in her
friendship but struggling with her
view of humanity. Or any other
combination. In fact, if she’s on the
mountaintop in one or two areas
but deep in the valley in the other
one or two, she will become a more
nuanced and textured character.
 These questions and scenarios
can apply to any genre. Does your
protagonist have something to
prove by thwarting the dragon, res-
cuing the space travelers, stopping
the ticking bomb, or finding true
love? Or will they risk all if they
don’t complete those quests?
Whether your protagonist starts
on a mountaintop or in a deep val-
ley also shapes their backstory and
relationships with other characters
as you consider other important
questions. How did your protago-
nist reach the mountaintop or fall
into the valley? Because of personal
choices, family background, societal
inequities, or a mix? And answering
these questions can help you dis-
cover the inner journey your protag-
onist needs to take over the course
of your story. The answers can help
you discover your story’s underlying
theme as well.
Knowing whether your protago-
nist will start in a mountaintop or
deep-valley position also directly
impacts who might have become a
friend—or foe—along your pro-
tagonist’s path to either status.
Pondering this can help you figure
out allies and antagonists for your
protagonist, and from there, envi-
sion plot points.
Keep in mind, no matter whether
you choose mountaintop or deep
valley for the condition of your
characters at the beginning of your
story, go extreme in either direction.
Well, somewhat.
Yes, give your characters a great
deal to lose! But keep in mind that
if your character starts out truly
having it all—so much money and
power that they could either just
buy or strong-arm their way out of
a problem—then you’ll lose readers’
interest. Even the most powerful
characters at the beginning of a
story must have some vulnerability,
both so they’re truly threatened and
so they’re relatable.
Or, yes, give your characters
a great deal to gain! But keep in
mind that readers want to root for
characters, not just feel sorry for
them. Resist putting your characters
in such a deep valley that the
chances of them climbing out are
unrealistic. Give them at least a few
tools that will help them succeed, so
long as they wield them in clever,
surprising, or interesting ways.
AND NOW WE TURN TO YOU,
DEAR WRITER.
How do you choose where you
want your protagonist to start: on a
mountaintop or in a valley?
The answer is, of course, another
question: Which starting point most
interests you? Which will help you
most clearly explore a theme that’s
important to you, or share your own
point of view about life? For exam-
ple, do you worry about what it
might be like to lose everything you
hold dear? Then you might want to
explore that with a “mountaintop”
character who has it all, only to have
it all threatened.
Or are you fascinated by stories
of those who start out at a disad-
vantage, but overcome it—or even
turn it into an advantage—in order
to prevail? In that case, consider
exploring what happens to your
story if your protagonist is, at the
beginning, a “deep valley” character.
Finally, let’s apply the “moun-
taintop” or “deep valley” question to
your writing life.
Are you on a mountaintop,
succeeding in, for example, a style
or genre?
Or do you see yourself as being
deep in a valley, struggling with
a specific aspect of your writing
project? Discouraged by feedback
from your writing group or a
particular publication?
So, the question then becomes,
what is at stake for you? If you’re on
a mountaintop in one area of your
writing life, are you comfortable
staying there? Or is there an even
higher mountain you’d like to climb,
experimenting with other genres
or subgenres? Expanding where
you submit your work to include
tougher markets? Welcoming the
feedback of a writing coach or
developmental editor?
Or if you’ve just encountered a
setback, how can you pull yourself
out of that valley? Perhaps you can
pause and consider what you’ve
learned from the experience. Or
ask other writers you trust for
their perspective.
In our stories, our characters tend
to follow one arc, either rising or
falling. But as writers, we will have
many mountaintop and deep-valley
experiences—over and over. The key
to a healthy, and long, writing life is
to enjoy the mountaintop moments,
give ourselves time and grace to
recover from the deep-valley set-
backs, but always see both as oppor-
tunities to reassess, learn, and grow
as writers. WD
Sharon Short (SharonShort.com) is
the award-winning author of more than
a dozen novels, most recently in her
Kinship Historical Mystery Series, inspired
by Ohio’s true first female sheriff in
1920s Appalachia, published as Jess
Montgomery (JessMontgomeryAuthor
.com) by Minotaur Books. She also hosts
the podcast “Tea with Jess: Chatting
with Authors & Artists.” Find Sharon on
Facebook @SharonShortAuthor or
@JessMontgomeryAuthor.
WritersDigest.com I 21
 WD101
Making sense of the publishing world.
BY STEVEN JAMES
12 Foolproof Ways to Fail as a Writer
W
hether you’re just now
launching into writ-
ing or you’re an old
pro, here are 12 surefire ways to fail
this year as you pursue your dreams
within the writing world.
1. COMPARE YOURSELF
TO OTHERS
You’ll be tempted to compare other
authors’ sales figures, reviews, likes,
comments, shares, bestseller list
status, and so on, to yours. But play-
ing the comparison game will tend
to either devastate your ego (if you
don’t think you’re measuring up) or
unnecessarily inflate it (if you look
down on others).
Be warned, quitting it will be
tough to do. Most of us have spent a
lifetime playing it, ever since elemen-
tary school when we asked our class-
mates, “What’d you get?” when the
teacher handed back the graded tests.
Bowing out of the comparison
game will require you to stop look-
ing outward for affirmation and feel-
ings of accomplishment and start
charting your course inwardly, with
the quiet satisfaction that you’re not
in this life to see how well you mea-
sure up against others. You’re here
22 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
to live an extraordinary life, regard-
less of what others do with theirs.
2. FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR
FIRST DRAFT
Be ready to revise your work, even
if you were totally in the zone when
you wrote it. Nothing can skew
your perspective like infatuation
with your AMAZING!! first draft.
Sometimes you may need to go
through a dozen revisions—some-
times more. Be prepared for that.
Yes, write when you’re on fire. Yes,
let your fingers fly across the key-
board or your pen smoke across the
page—absolutely!—but then take a
deep breath, step back, look at your
work objectively, and do whatever it
takes to improve it.
3. PURSUE PERFECTION
If you try to write the perfect article,
the perfect blog post, or the perfect
book, you’ll never finish it, submit it,
or publish it.
Being a perfectionist will hold
you back from achieving your true
potential. Perfectionists work from
a place of fear rather than confi-
dence. They want to be safe rather
than chance failing. As you strive for
excellence, be aware that perfection-
ism will try to strangle you with its
impossible demands. Pull free and
leave it behind.
Perfection is the enemy of a com-
pleted manuscript. No matter how
good you are, perfection will never
be within your reach, but excellence
is. Pursue that instead.
4. SETTLE FOR LESS THAN
YOUR BEST
While perfectionism is one trap,
mediocrity is another. If you’re not
going to be a perfectionist, maybe you
should just settle for being mediocre?
Why bother giving it your all? Why
not phone it in or do just enough
to get by? Well, because our work
reflects our priorities. If something is
worth doing, it’s worth doing well.
Offer the world the best that you
ILLUSTRATIONS © GETTY IMAGES: SUDOWOODO, GMM2000
have. Rage against mediocrity. Write
worthy projects.
5. SECOND-GUESS YOURSELF
You may have advocates on your
side—agents, editors, publicists,
readers—but in the end, you’ll need
to be the one who believes the most
passionately and wholeheartedly
in your project. You’re the one who
will need to be ready to champion it
toward completion and publication.
Write with poise and confidence.
Believe in yourself. Stick with the
fight and persevere.
6. WAIT FOR INSPIRATION
TO STRIKE
Don’t wait until the conditions
are right before diving into your
project or you’ll never get started.
You can always find one more oh-
so-good-sounding excuse to put off
your work.
If you insist on finding inspira-
tion, odds are you’ll never get to
your project. And if you require
balance in your life before writing,
you’ll never get started either.
This is your work. This is what
you do. You write.
So, stop planning to write. Stop
preparing to write. Stop plotting and
outlining and researching. Write.
Let it be your daily exercise, your
nightly ritual, the pastime that you
cannot help but pursue.
7. DWELL ON THE PAST
Don’t look back. Don’t wonder what
might have been if only you’d done
things differently—started writing
sooner, gone with a different pub-
lisher, chosen a different agent, and
so on. There’s no use thinking along
those lines.
Here is where you are. Now is
when it is. The future is full of pos-
sibilities, the past is not. Focus on
today, without staring back over your
shoulder at what might have been.
8. BASE YOUR SELF-WORTH
ON FEEDBACK
Remember, notes and critiques
apply to your work and not to your
value as a person.
Be receptive to feedback, but
remember that your worth doesn’t
come from something that you pro-
duced but rather from your intrin-
sic value as a human being—no
matter what other people might say
or think about what you’ve writ-
ten. Whether you hear compli-
ments or criticism, let it bounce
off your chest. Don’t rely on it for
self-esteem or your self-image will
remain at the mercy of other peo-
ple’s fickle opinions.
9. STICK TO YOUR OUTLINE
Some people prefer to write organi-
cally while others prefer outlining
their work. Whatever your approach,
it’s vital to remain amenable to the
characters as they reveal themselves
to you, as you feel a tug to take your
story in a fresh direction, or as new
ideas unfold before you.
Responsiveness to your story is
just as important as any planning
you might do. Don’t let your pre-
conceptions of what the story might
be straitjacket what it’s becoming.
Remain receptive to new ideas and
new possibilities. Discovery is a vital
aspect of the creative process. Don’t
shy away from it even though it
might be a little intimidating to you.
10. TRY TO BE SOMEONE
YOU’RE NOT
You’re hilarious? Awesome. Be
hilarious. Just don’t try to be funny
if you’re not, well ... funny. You’re
clever? Good for you. Just don’t try
to be clever if you’re not. Or literary.
Or thrilling. Or anything at all.
Let your own uniqueness, your
own voice, come through in your
work. Original, stirring writing
doesn’t come from imitating the
masters (or anyone for that matter),
but from uncovering your own
distinctive style.
Let your writing ring with
authenticity and honesty from the
deepest part of who you are and
write in a way that only you can.
11. START TOMORROW
Here’s what you’ll be tempted to tell
yourself: “There’ll be plenty of time
someday to begin this project. It’ll
be so much easier when the kids are
out of diapers or after they start kin-
dergarten or after I’ve finished grad-
uate school or when I finally retire.
Then, then I’ll pull out this notepad
of ideas and finally start writing
my book. Then, when I finally have
more time on my hands.”
Ditch those “Someday ...”
thoughts. Tomorrow isn’t guaran-
teed to any of us. Today is all that
you have. Make the most of it.
12. PLAY IT SAFE
Put yourself out there. Yes, the odds
are stacked against you. Yes, you
might fail. And yes, if you strike
out, people will say, “I told you so.”
So, be ready for that—some people
live just to say those four words. But
who cares? What does that matter
to you?
Take the risk. Here comes the
pitch. Your moment has arrived.
You’ve got this. Go ahead. Swing for
the fences. WD
Steven James is an award-winning
novelist and popular conference speaker.
He has learned all of these lessons the
hard way and hopes you won’t have to
repeat them. His latest novel is the near-
future thriller Synapse.
WritersDigest.com I 23
 INDIELAB
New rules. New strategies. New paths to success.
Deciding to Self-Publish
W
hether you’ve been que-
rying for a while or are
still considering how to
get your book into the world, self-
publishing might have crossed your
mind. The great thing about self-
publishing is that technically, it’s
open to anyone and provides oppor-
tunities to those who have decided
not to pursue traditional paths. But
what do you need to know before
deciding to jump in?
MINDSET
The first thing to know about self-
publishing isn’t how to get a book
published. It’s the mindset needed
to be successful at it.
Many writers turn to self-
publishing after having spent some
time in the query trenches. With
months or even years invested in
writing and finding a home for a
manuscript, self-publishing might
feel like a consolation prize—a way
to get something out of the process.
It’s natural to be disappointed by
not finding an agent or a home for a
book out on submission to publish-
ing houses. At the same time, self-
publishing isn’t a consolation prize;
it’s a business decision and should
be treated as such.
Being a self-publisher means
having an entrepreneurial mindset.
The fact that self-publishing lacks
the gatekeepers of traditional
24 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
publishing doesn’t necessarily mean
it’s easier to succeed; it’s only easier
to get your words made into a book.
Succeeding at self-publishing
means being ready to try and fail,
repeatedly. It means acting deci-
sively and staying focused on solv-
ing problems, rather than being
dragged down and discouraged by
them. Finally, it means understand-
ing people: what they want and
need, how to talk to them, and how
to promote yourself and your work.
The last important thing to
remember about the mindset of a
self-published author is that this is a
long-term game. It might take dozens
of books before you’re able to quit
your day job. Perseverance is key!
GOALS
OK, so you’re committed to the long
haul. Next up is deciding what you
want to get out of self-publishing.
Is quitting your day job to write
full-time the goal? Or is writing
something you’re happy to do as a
one-off project or as a side-gig?
Goals could be less about
finances and more about feelings
as well. Maybe you don’t care how
many books you sell, as long as you
get all three books in your trilogy
published. Maybe you’re passion-
ate about increasing representation
for an identity or intersection you
belong to.
BY WHITNEY HILL
Whatever your goal is, write it
down and sit with it. Is this some-
thing you’d be happy to spend a year
on? Two? Five? More? How do you
feel about it? If there are conflicting
feelings involved, consider whether
those are good (e.g. nervous excite-
ment) or bad (dread about taking
on so much for so long).
This circles back to mindset. You
don’t have to—and probably won’t—
feel good about the self-publishing
process all the way through. But
working through any difficult emo-
tions and identifying the root sets a
stronger foundation for future success.
Once you have your goals figured
out, think about how to measure
success. Setting some targets for
yourself in advance helps with stay-
ing objective during the low points
in the process, when you may feel
like you’re getting nowhere. If your
big goal is “to quit my day job,” what
are the smaller milestones that build
up to that?
For example:
1. Write and publish one book
ILLUSTRATION © WRITER’S DIGEST: JASON WILLIAMS
2. Increase visibility with three
podcast appearances
3. Earn $500 per month from
book sales
4. Write and publish five books
5. Earn $1,500 per month from
book sales
And so on.
 As you can see, milestones can
repeat themselves with bigger tar-
gets. These targets also help guide
the steps in your publishing journey
so you keep moving forward rather
than saying, “I’ve published the
book, now what?”
RESOURCES
You’ve considered your mindset and
goals. What about resources?
Resources might be time, money,
support from friends and family,
your work experience and educa-
tional background, community con-
nections, and so on. What are all the
things you could leverage to drive
your self-publishing journey, and
where do you need more?
Think about this from two angles.
First, the time aspect. If this is a
long-term game, how long do you
have resources readily available for
now? How will you gain more to
maintain momentum or expand (for
example, from e-books into audio-
books)? What kind of timeline are
you working on?
Second, consider the goals aspect.
Bigger goals—like winning awards,
hitting a bestseller list, or joining a
membership group with a book sales
requirement—might require more
resources. Good editing, gorgeous
covers, and big advertising cam-
paigns don’t come cheap, even when
you can do some of the work yourself.
SKILLS
Speaking of doing some work your-
self, now is a good time to think about
what skills you’re bringing into a self-
publishing endeavor. Self-publishers
aren’t just responsible for the writ-
ing, they need to be able—and even
excited—to wear multiple hats.
As noted earlier, choosing to self-
publish is a business decision. So,
let’s talk business! In a traditional
publishing house, there will be a
variety of departments, including:
• Editorial
• Accounting
• Legal
• Marketing
• Sales
• Publicity
• Information Technology
• Art and Design
• Production
Different people are responsible
for editing and formatting books,
creating and maintaining the web-
site, planning business strategy,
developing marketing campaigns,
managing social media and public-
ity, getting the book into bookstores,
and so on. In self-publishing, that
all falls to the author to arrange.
Are you ready, willing, and able
to take on any of those roles your-
self? Successful self-publishers are
able to honestly evaluate which
skills they bring to the table and
which would be better outsourced.
This also circles back to the previ-
ous step. For those hats you’re unable
or unwilling to wear, what additional
resources are needed to produce and
market a quality product?
PRODUCT
You may be surprised to find the
product—the book—at the end of
this process. That’s not because it’s
the least important item, but rather
because if you haven’t gone through
the above steps to determine if
you’re ready and willing to self-
publish, there’s not much point in
thinking about what you’ll publish!
That being said, once you are
committed to the self-publishing
path, it’s important to think about
what you’re actually going to sell.
Yes, a book is that product. But in
what format(s)? What genre? What
age group and audience?
There are also other products
or additional content to consider
which might bring affiliate or spon-
sorship opportunities in addition to
more income, such as:
• Courses and workshops
• Podcasts
• Social media influencer platforms
• Speaking gigs
• Other formats, like graphic nov-
els or tabletop games
Many writers rely on multi-
ple streams of income, which is a
smart business consideration. If
one retailer or income source slows
down, more are available to stay
afloat. Not everything listed above
will make sense for every author,
and some authors may have other
ideas. The important thing is to
think about not only the formats for
your book, but also what you can
produce in addition to a book.
Self-publishing is a great alternative
to the traditional route. That said,
deciding to self-publish should be a
business decision taken with careful
consideration. Going in prepared
with the right mindset, setting goals,
evaluating your resources and skills,
and thinking about what products
you’ll sell will go a long way toward
setting yourself up for success.
Good luck! WD
Whitney Hill (WhitneyHillWrites.com) is
the author of the Shadows of Otherside
fantasy series. The bestselling first book in
the series, Elemental, was the grand prize
winner of the 8th Annual WD Self-Published
E-Book Awards and a finalist in the Next
Generation Indie Book Awards. You can find
Whitney hiking in state parks or on Twitter
and Instagram @write_wherever.
WritersDigest.com I 25
BREAKINGIN
Debut authors: How they did it, what they learned, and why you can do it, too.
Xavier Navarro
Aquino
Velorio
(Literary fiction,
January, HarperVia/
HarperCollins)
“In the wake of Hurricane Maria, a
remarkable group of survivors
search for hope on an island torn
apart by both natural disaster and
human violence.”
WRITES FROM: Always from home:
Puerto Rico. But I currently live in
Indiana. PRE-VELORIO: I was previ-
ously publishing stories in literary
magazines while working on a novel
about sibling trauma and famil-
ial legacy (which I’m still working
on). Also, writing poetry that may
never see the light of day. … For the
longest time after the storm, I wrote
more poetry than fiction.
TIME FRAME: I wrote a full draft in
five weeks while in an artist resi-
dency. ENTER THE AGENT: I met
my agent at the Sewanee Writers’
Conference. The conference has a
signup form for attendees to meet
with agents and/or editors. Funny
thing was, I almost didn’t meet with
her that day. I was having a rough
morning and didn’t think I had
energy for the meeting. … Lesson
from that experience: do your best
to show up, you just never know.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: How important
26 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
it is to have a team that understands
your vision. How essential it is to be
surrounded by people who under-
stand what you want to achieve with
the work, and how defining feedback
is when channeled in that direction.
WHAT I DID RIGHT: I still feel like I’m
trying to break in. I don’t think it
stops. The publishing process and its
aftermath are constant states of stub-
born belief in the importance of your
work. WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE
DIFFERENTLY: Persist. That seems to
be the universal truth in most things
that deal with trying to get your voice
heard. But also learn to celebrate
every accomplishment, however
small it may feel. The adage “the jour-
ney is the reward” holds some weight
when working to get your writing out
there. PLATFORM: I write and teach
at a university. The “platform” I leave
to others more skilled at such things.
ADVICE FOR WRITERS: Two, actu-
ally. “Write the damn thing” by one
of my mentors, Jonis Agee. But also,
the poet Roger Reeves once told me
about honesty in your work. How
essential it is. I think about that often.
NEXT UP: A book I’ve been picking
BY MORIAH RICHARD
up and letting go for about four years.
I need to finish writing the damn
thing again and again. WEBSITE:
XavierNavarroAquino.com
Nita Prose
The Maid
(Mystery, January,
Penguin Random
House [U.S.]/
HarperFiction [U.K.])
“The Maid is about a socially awk-
ward hotel maid named Molly
whose orderly life is turned upside
down when she finds a guest dead
in his bed and rapidly becomes the
lead suspect in his murder.”
AQUINO PHOTO © JAYLEEN SANTIAGO DÍAZ PROSE PHOTO © DAHLIA KATZ
WRITES FROM: Toronto, Canada, in
a home that is, at best, moderately
clean. PRE-THE MAID: I work in pub-
lishing (Vice President and Editorial
Director of Simon & Schuster
Canada). I’ve been an editor and
ghostwriter for many years, working
with a range of fiction and nonfiction
writers who’ve taught me everything I
know about the craft of writing. TIME
FRAME: It took four short months to
set down the first words of the book
 to the final ones, but it took over 15
years of work in publishing to learn
the craft needed to tell this story.
ENTER THE AGENT: When I finished
The Maid, I submitted it to a handful
of agents I hold in high esteem. One
was Madeleine Milburn. … She read
it and wrote me the kind of response
all readers dream about. In her P.S.,
she said, “We’ve been staying at a
friend’s house, and there’s a picture by
the bed that has made me smile every
morning. See attached. It felt like
serendipity when I read your manu-
script!” I opened the attachment
and fell apart. It was an inspirational
quote that read: “Everything will be
OK in the end. If it’s not OK, it’s not
the end.” I knew that line so very well.
I knew it because it was the closing
line of my novel. BIGGEST SURPRISE: I
am very aware that publishing—and
a writing career in particular—is
a rollercoaster ride with exhilarat-
ing peaks and horrifying valleys
where your stomach drops out from
under you. Now, though, I’m riding
that rollercoaster myself rather than
coaching others on how to survive
the journey. WHAT I DID RIGHT: I took
my time! I’m not a young writer.
I’m in my late 40s, embarking on a
new career that really feels like the
same old career, just spun in a new
way. WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIF-
FERENTLY: So far, not a single thing.
PLATFORM: As an editor, it has been
my job to remain invisible behind the
scenes while I push my authors into
the light. It’s been challenging for me
to break that habit and actually step
out of the shadows. … I must say that
the book community has been unbe-
MAY PHOTO © MIKE COOPER
lievably supportive, and I’m hum-
bled by that response. ADVICE FOR
WRITERS: The only way to become
a writer is to be a reader first. Read
diligently, widely, and voraciously—
especially in your genre. The lessons
will seep in over time and make
you a stronger writer. NEXT UP: I’m
terrifically excited that Universal
Pictures snapped up movie rights for
The Maid and that Academy Award–
nominee Florence Pugh is set to play
Molly. … That, and working on my
next novel, which, fittingly, I’ll keep
a bit of a mystery for now. WEBSITE:
NitaProse.com
Nikki May
Wahala
(Contemporary fiction,
January, Custom House)
“A subversive, modern
taken on friendship, family, culture,
and revenge. Wahala follows three
Anglo-Nigerian best friends and the
lethally glamourous fourth woman
who infiltrates their group.”
WRITES FROM: Dorset, England
PRE-WAHALA: I’ve always written—
from angst-filled poetry as a spotty
teen to content on mindfulness for
blue-chip clients at my advertis-
ing agency. I’ve dreamt of writing
my own book forever, one that had
people like me in it—mixed-race
and middle-class. But life (and work)
kept getting in the way. TIME FRAME:
Two years from start to finish, but
the manuscript spent nine months
of that hidden away. The inspiration
came from a long (and loud) lunch
with friends at a Nigerian restau-
rant in London. I wrote the open-
ing scene on the train journey home
and had a first draft six months later.
… Two edits later, I entered a literary
competition. Winning gave me the
confidence to query agents. ENTER
THE AGENT: I queried six agents on a
Wednesday morning. Within three
hours, I had a request for the full
manuscript, and three days later, I
had six offers. This was in February
2020, just before lockdown in the
U.K., so I was able to meet them in
person. I clicked with the whole
team at Madeleine Milburn, and now
I’m rep’d by Liv (Olivia) Maidment.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: I’ve learned that
writing is just the start—editing is
where the real work happens (and
editing can feel endless). The kind-
ness and generosity of fellow writers
has blown me away. I’ve found my
tribe and they are lovely; this is where
I want to be. WHAT I DID RIGHT: I
was naïve. I didn’t know that blend-
ing genres was “against the rules.” I
just wrote what I wanted to read, an
entertaining story about three flawed
women, vengeance, and family legacy
with a killer ending. Unwittingly, I hit
the sweet spot. WHAT I WOULD HAVE
DONE DIFFERENTLY: I’d have made
life easier for myself! A carousel of
three alternative POVs was chal-
lenging, getting in and out of their
heads was hard work, and continu-
ity was a nightmare. But now that’s
done, I can’t imagine telling the story
any other way. ADVICE FOR WRIT-
ERS: Read. And then read some more.
Reading is the best way to master
writing. Read in your genre, read out
of it. And if you get stuck, read some-
thing incredible to remind yourself
why you’re doing this. Oh, and don’t
write safe. Safe is boring. NEXT UP:
I’m busy working on my second book,
Brown Girl in the Ring. It’s the story
of two cousins and is loosely inspired
by Mansfield Park. It traipses through
different timelines and delves into
the thorny territory of race, class, and
prejudice. But at its heart, it’s a story
of love, grief, and finding your place.
WEBSITE: Nikki-May.com WD
Moriah Richard is the managing editor of
Writer’s Digest. Follow her on Twitter
@MoriahRichard93.
WritersDigest.com I 27
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

RESEARCH AND
STORYTELLING
FOR SUCCESSFUL
HISTORICAL FICTION
Bestselling historical novelist Janie Chang asked
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

six fellow novelists to share their tips for finding and writing stories

from the past that will resonate with today’s readers.

BY J A NIE C HA NG

28 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

“I
t must be easy writing historical fiction. You
already know what’s happened.”
That comment always makes me laugh. When
you write historical fiction, you wonder what really hap-
pened. According to historian Patrick Collinson, “It is
possible for competent historians to come to radically
different conclusions on the basis of the same evidence.
Because, of course, 99 percent of the evidence, above all,
unrecorded speech, is not available to us.”
That 99 percent leaves a lot of gray areas.
Happily, those gray areas are where historical nov-
elists get to play. That’s where our imagination fills in
what might’ve happened behind and between recorded
accounts. It’s where we invent the characters, relation-
ships, and motives that history books can’t supply. The
challenge—and enjoyment—of writing historical novels
lies in successfully weaving a story that meshes what’s
known with what might’ve been.
THE RIGHT INSPIRATION
As storytellers, we find sparks of inspiration every-
where—history books, novels, films, a chance comment,
or footnote. As history nerds, we dive into research
and identify the spaces where sparks ignite into story.
Since it can take months or years to complete a manu-
script, what’s most important here is passion for your
topic because it has to sustain your interest while you
write the book your characters and their stories deserve.
According to bestselling author Erika Robuck—whose
upcoming novel, Sisters of Night and Fog, releases
March 1, 2022—it feels as though you’ve been handed
a mission.
“My subjects from the past issue a call to me and I
respond. In that response, I pour myself into under-
standing my characters—real or imagined—through
extensive research and yes, prayer, so that my writing
contributes to their redemptions.”
I tend to research off and on for about six months,
reading widely to obtain an overview of the historical
period, then digging deeper to understand specific
lives and moments. Then I put together a synopsis of
five to seven pages and get down to writing! There’s
always more research along the way because it’s
impossible to know in advance what other details the
story demands. Was Chanel No. 5 available in 1918?
During which year was the Shanghai Hospital for
Women and Children established?
By now, it’s no surprise to me that women are not as
prominent in the historical record as their male col-
leagues. The silver lining is that with some digging, a
famous incident told from a female point of view offers
a fresh story, something Kate Quinn, New York Times
bestselling author of The Rose Code, The Huntress, and
The Alice Network, actively seeks out.
“I look at a historical event, and I ask ‘What were the
women doing?’ Because the answer is almost always ‘More
than you think!’ Women’s deeds are rarely front and center
in the historical record, but they’re there—you just have
to go hunting around the edges, in the nooks and cran-
nies. Most of the narratives I found about Bletchley Park
seemed to center on the male codebreakers. So I asked
myself ‘What were the women doing?’ and that’s when I
discovered that of the nearly 9,000 personnel employed
there in 1945, nearly 7,000 were women!”
Tangentially, a seemingly minor character at the
periphery of a famous incident could prove worthy of
a novel.
“I found Thelma Furness in a movie directed by
Madonna called W.E. of all things!” said Bryn Turnbull,
internationally bestselling author whose second novel,
The Last Grand Duchess, releases Feb. 8, 2022. “The
movie referenced a moment when Thelma, who was
mistress to the Prince of Wales at the time, asked
Wallis Simpson to ‘take care’ of him while she was away.
Initially, I thought Thelma was giving her friend Wallis
the go-ahead to pursue Edward but once I jumped down
the research rabbit hole I realized it wasn’t the case—and
that Thelma had a much bigger story to tell!”
Even when you have a solid outline for your novel,
be flexible. It’s practically guaranteed that some unex-
pected tidbit will shove your plot sideways—usually for
the better. This happened with my third novel, which is
set in 1937, when dozens of Chinese universities evacu-
ated their campuses to get away from invading Japanese
forces—an experience my father lived through with
his classmates and professors. They reached the safety
WritersDigest.com I 29
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
of central China after months of walking through war
zones, then finished their education at temporary
wartime campuses.
It was a story I’d been wanting to write because the
evacuation of Chinese universities was an event almost
unknown to Western readers. But while skimming
memoirs by the alumni of a university, I came across a
totally matter-of-fact mention about how those students
walked 1,000 miles while transporting a priceless library
of ancient books.
My original synopsis went out the window as I
investigated this sizable tidbit, altering plot and themes,
not to mention the novel’s title, which became The
Library of Legends.
GIVE READERS AN IMMERSIVE
EXPERIENCE
Apart from inspiration, research gives us the details that
make the world of our story come to life. History books
offer names, dates, and locations of events. But novels
need characters and relationships, conflict and redemp-
tion, risks and rewards. This is where the “it must be easy,
you already know what happened” comment makes us
shake our heads.
Historical fiction is often set during times of social
and political transition because change creates oppor-
tunities for our characters to show who they are as they
deal with conflicts both internal and external. If you
want their responses to seem plausible, it’s important
to establish how gender, education, social class, belief
systems, occupation, and a myriad of other factors have
shaped your characters because otherwise, readers will
judge their behavior by contemporary values.
So in a process not unlike world-building in specula-
tive fiction, we explore the minutiae of daily life to layer
the landscape. How did men and women dress for differ-
ent occasions? What kind of medical care was available?
How was mail delivered and how often? What did food
cost? What level of schooling could a girl expect? Would
a stove burn wood or gas? Oil lamps or candles? Was
there running water in this part of town back then?
Memoirs and diaries are wonderful sources but even
here, we can’t find everything. Diarists tend to docu-
ment unusual and memorable events but not the ordi-
nary things they took for granted—the very things we
fervently wish to know. USA Today bestselling author
of Bringing Down the Duke, A Rogue of One’s Own, and
30 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
Portrait of a Scotsman Evie Dunmore’s hunt for mun-
dane but essential specifics led her to Oxford.
“When I researched the first women at Oxford, there
wasn’t much online. So I went to Oxford and found much
of the information in a small stash of documents in the
Lady Margaret Hall archives. I skimmed 40 years’ worth
of correspondence between people who supported allow-
ing women to sit the full exams and those against it. These
primary sources really helped me understand the prevail-
ing attitudes and the very real anger the proponents felt. I
sat there in my nook saying ‘Yesss, girl!’ to some Victorian
lady I’ll never meet. That’s when they really became alive
to me. It helped immensely to feel my characters as fellow
humans rather than imaginary friends.”
We always hope we’ve succeeded at conjuring up the
past but it’s only through readers’ feedback that we can
know. Comments such as “felt as if I was right there” or
“I didn’t want to leave the world of this book” make us
glow. History nerds that we are, we love when readers
comment that our books have taught them something
new and now they’re interested in that period of history.
Think of historical fiction as the gateway drug that turns
readers into fellow history-lovers. After all, it’s how many
of us got started!
WHEN HISTORY MEETS THE PRESENT
It’s especially gratifying to me when readers of Chinese
descent comment that my novel has taught them some-
thing about China’s past. But it would be hard to beat
New York Times bestselling author of The Women of
Chateau Lafayette and My Dear Hamilton Stephanie
Dray’s amazing experience when a reader wrote that her
novel provided their family with new insights about a
famous relative.
“In my career, I’ve had some very rare opportunities
to contribute to, or correct, the historical record, and I
have come to treasure these moments, some of which
have brought me close to tears. One of the most recent
discoveries happened during the writing of The Women
of Chateau Lafayette when I found some letters at the
New York Historical Society and uncovered a 100-year-
old secret love affair between World War One hero-
ine Beatrice Chanler and a French officer. This helped
Beatrice’s family discover that she’d been lying about her
identity her entire life and that she was actually a much
more extraordinary woman than anyone knew. Bringing
lost heroines to life and telling their untold truths
 EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE A SOLID OUTLINE FOR YOUR NOVEL,
BE FLEXIBLE. IT’S PRACTICALLY GUARANTEED THAT SOME
UNEXPECTED TIDBIT WILL SHOVE YOUR PLOT SIDEWAYS
—USUALLY FOR THE BETTER.
has become a nearly spiritual exercise in empathy for
me, rewarding beyond compare.”
It’s no coincidence that Erika Robuck also uses the
word spiritual to describe the experience of research that
led to an unexpected outcome—contact with the family
of one of her subjects.
“Research is a spiritual process with many strange and
wonderful rewards, not the least of which comes when
my subject’s living relatives reach out and say things like,
‘I never really knew him/her until I read your book.’ This
is the true and priceless reward, and it outweighs any
other kind of success.”
I consider historical novelists lucky because research
gives us wins that don’t depend on conventional defini-
tions of success. It doesn’t mean we ignore the publish-
ing industry’s success metrics, but it does mean we can
always count on the satisfaction that comes from learn-
ing about some heroine’s quirk or unearthing an incident
that slots neatly into our storyline. Perhaps this lends us
a bit more resilience when we face a challenging market.
BEWARE THE MOVING TARGET
OF SUCCESS
There came a time when I realized that with each
achievement—signing with an agent, another book sale
to a publisher, award nominations, bestseller list—I was
mentally raising the bar. What about the Booker? Or
the New York Times list? When would one of those film
options make it to production?
That way lies madness.
One of the few things authors can control is the qual-
ity of our writing. So now with each book, I push myself
to improve, to try something outside my comfort zone.
Hone the prose, switch point of view, set a dual-timeline
plot, or use multiple characters to narrate the story. And
while we can’t control them, Kate Quinn believes it’s
good to be aware of market trends.
“The best quality I can think of to nurture success is
adaptability. Yes, you need to work hard at your craft; yes,
you need to have a certain degree of talent for your craft;
and absolutely yes, you are going to need a dose of good
luck—all of those things are necessary to succeed! But
beyond all that, be adaptable. Markets change, the pub-
lishing world changes, readers’ tastes and trends change,
and you must be willing to change with them if you want
to carve out a place at the top and stay there.”
Success to me now means writing a better novel than
the previous. It’s doable and not crazy-making.
“When I first started writing I told myself the work/
life balance was overrated,” said Eliza Knight, USA Today
bestselling author of The Mayfair Bookshop, available
April 12, 2022. “At some point, I realized the fallacy in
that. Balance is the only reason I get things done now
because my creative brain is much likelier to produce
meaningful, compelling words when everything else is
aligned. I live by a detailed daily schedule, and a quar-
terly goal board, which gives me sanity, and the ability
to say yes or no to various tasks/activities. Structure has
given me the power to succeed not only with my writing
but at this beautiful thing called life.”
You’ve probably noticed this article includes insights
from several author friends. I’m grateful for their advice
but I especially love these words from Bryn Turnbull, a
reminder that sometimes the success you hope for is
something you’ll never witness personally:
“Your novel might become someone’s favorite book
or a bestseller. It might be the book that changes a per-
son’s outlook on life, or it might bring two new friends
together. Whatever the outcome—whether it’s read by 10
people or 10,000—that moment of possibility, to me, is
the most wonderful thing in the world: to hold in your
hand, success in all its myriad forms.” WD
Janie Chang left the high-tech industry to write historical fiction.
Her latest book, The Library of Legends, was a Book of the Month
Club selection and a Canadian bestseller. She lives in Vancouver,
Canada, with her husband and Mischa, the rescue cat known as
HRH Queen of the Universe.
WritersDigest.com I 31
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

DIG IN
OR CUT
YOURSELF
FREE
Drawer novel or potential bestseller? Seven

writers share their tips for revision success and

how to know when to move on.

BY AND RO MED A R OM AN O- LA X
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

32 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

T
he Great Gatsby, as we all know, is a classic novel
about a “beautiful, intense” 11-year-old Catholic
boy, set in the Midwest in the 1880s. Oh, wait. You
don’t remember that part?
That’s because after two years of uninspired drafting,
F. Scott Fitzgerald set aside the slow start and some of
the religious themes, embracing an altogether differ-
ent timeline and setting, shrouding Gatsby’s childhood
in mystery. Gatsby is now so synonymous with the
Roaring ’20s and Long Island that it’s hard to imagine
Fitzgerald once thought to root the reader in a different
time and place.
That’s the problem with reading published novels
to learn how to write them. We see only the final,
polished draft.
We happen to know part of Gatsby’s possible origin
because it remains in the form of a short story called
“Absolution,” even if the main character is a mostly unfa-
miliar proto-Gatsby. But not every flawed early draft is
preserved so publicly.
Andre Dubus III is prolific, with seven books to his
name and another two on the way. “I’ve had the same
habits forever. I write mornings, five days a week. Do
that, and every few years, you have enough for a book.
But sometimes,” he laughs, “you throw it all out.”
One of these novels, he tried to write three separate
times, for three years each. To make sure you’ve done the
math, he spells it out: “Nine years!”
The intended novel was based on his childhood in
the 1970s, living in a mill town plagued by gun violence,
raised by a single mother. “It always fell apart. I realized
only years later that fiction works better if I go farther
afield from my life experiences. That’s when imagination
tends to show up for me.”
In this case, the more authentic expression of Dubus’s
material came in the form of his lauded 2011 “accidental
memoir,” Townie. “I don’t exaggerate when I say that 90 to
95 percent of whatever I put out into the world rose from
the ashes of what failed or from what I wanted to write.”
THE GARDEN IN WINTER
Fertile ash piles, compost heaps, a garden in winter …
we can find many names for that place where our unpub-
lished manuscripts are stored.
Regardless of one’s optimism, most authors agree that
setting aside a finished draft for a significant amount of
time before revision is a key step. For Dubus, this resting
time takes “six months, minimum.”
Matt Bell, author of the novel Appleseed and a forth-
coming craft book about writing and revision, Refuse to
Be Done, distinguishes between the two kinds of time
that must be put between you and your completed rough
draft: “lived time” and “art time.”
Lived time, he writes, is just what it sounds like: one,
two, or six months—whatever it takes to get to the point
where you aren’t thinking of your book anymore. Art
time is the time you spend writing something else.
The difficulty of getting distance from our manuscripts
is compounded when we’ve already revised a tricky manu-
script many times. In the case of my novel Annie and the
Wolves, I had already repeated the set-aside, pick-it-up-
and-see-it-anew process several times when I decided to
call it quits. The novel seemed unsalvageable. The themes
still fascinated me, but my execution had flopped.
Luckily, before storing this failed novel in a digital
folder, I quick-drafted several possible new first chap-
ters, each one freer than the last, until I ended up with
a different narrator, inciting incident, and primary set-
ting. Creative impulse satisfied, I buried this strange new
iteration and forgot all about it.
When I stumbled upon the document seven years and
two published novels later, I read the first pages with no
memory of how I’d come up with this opening or where
it was supposed to go next.
It was almost like I’d discovered that one dying plant
had thrown off a healthy side-shoot, and all I had to do
was separate that new growth and keep feeding it. My
“page-one rewrite,” with only a few scenes recycled from
the old version, resulted in a new Annie and the Wolves.
WritersDigest.com I 33
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
WARMING AND WATERING
If you don’t already have a plan or the sort of acciden-
tal restart described above, consider this advice from
Allison K. Williams, author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit
Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book: “Start small, by
‘touching’ the manuscript almost every day.”
This daily priming of the subconscious works for
revision—especially if stakes are kept low. Williams
recommends reading one page at a time, thinking about
the project briefly on the bus or in the shower, or even
making a playlist that brings back the mood or voice.
Novelist and short story writer Clare Beams agrees
with the gentle approach. She marks up a printed manu-
script with handwritten notes because they feel less per-
manent and “less scary” than anything typed.
Ideally, interest and energy will grow. Give it time, but
not forever.
TRANSPLANTING
Are you ready to go big? If so, transplanting—into a
new setting, era, or genre—is one tool of many worth
considering.
Three-time novelist Christina Lynch recently survived
the vertigo of a vast timeline change. Her last novel, The
Italian Party, about an American couple living abroad
in Siena, was set in the 1950s. For her next novel, she
selected the near future—2041 Italy. Three-and-a-half
years of research and writing later, her agent loved it, as
did her editor. But her publisher had a suggestion: Might
she consider resetting it a century earlier?
One thing helped Lynch face the enormous task: calling
a screenwriter friend for moral support. As a former com-
edy writer, Lynch knows that radical rewrites are common
in the movie and TV business.
“Well, what do you think?” her friend asked.
Lynch let that question sink in until she was ready to
tell herself, “Let’s set aside the pain and the fear of how
much work it would be, and just look at it from the per-
spective of story and point of view.”
She plunged in and found that she liked her new
pages. In seven months, she had a dramatically differ-
ent novel with the same main characters, themes, and
emotional impact, even if the action was in the past and
many new incidents had to be invented. The original
iteration made use of the near future as a warning to
modern readers about fascism and technology. The new
iteration, currently titled Bon Vivant, uses the past to
deliver the same warning, less overtly.
34 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
GRAFTING
Often, our beginning pages are nothing more than
warm-up—the attempt to find the right language or a
character that comes to life. But for some writers, the
opposite happens. A book that starts out promising
fails to thrive. That was the case for Gin Phillips, author
of Family Law, who has been working on Fairhope, a
historical novel, for 10 years, coming back to it several
times in-between writing four other books.
Phillips says, “I think sometimes you find the core of
your book quickly—you know exactly what the distilled
essence of the story is. Other times, you have characters
and world and ideas, but that crucial core eludes you.”
Phillips doesn’t mind setting aside a big manuscript
and taking a break. “If I’m having multiple days of find-
ing myself unexcited about opening a manuscript, I put
it down. When I feel excited about it again, I’ll pick it up.”
Meanwhile, some of those breaks have been wildly
productive. It was while “cheating” on Fairhope that she
quickly wrote Fierce Kingdom, a breakout thriller about
a mother defending her child during a mass shooting at
a zoo. Motherhood is central to both books, but in other
ways, they couldn’t be more different. Fierce Kingdom
formed in her head “with no effort.” Fairhope’s ending
has been more elusive, but her most recent breaks have
left Phillips feeling reinvigorated.
Unless you’re the type to hop from one project to the
next, never finishing anything, the takeaway from this
author might be: Don’t worry so much if you’re working
on two or three things at a time. It’s possible that healthy
rootstock will graft to newer ideas (second and third act
plot developments, for example) when those ideas come
to you.
Assume your garden is abundant and that harvest
times vary. Phillips advises, “Just see what draws you
most when you sit down in the morning.”
PRUNING AND COAXING INTO BLOOM
No article about revision can avoid the truism that less is
often more. Clare Beams spent seven years writing and
revising The Illness Lesson, her debut novel about a mys-
terious affliction visiting the female students of a 19th–
century school. Part of the menacing plot involves an
imaginary gothic novel set years before the novel’s main
storyline takes place.
Originally, Beams planned to use a novel-within-
a-novel structure, using substantial excerpts to reveal
backstory. She had fun writing these passages. It took
time to recognize that the reader didn’t need them.
One-sentence epigraphs from the imaginary novel now
impart the same atmosphere in surprisingly few words.
Strategic cutting wasn’t Beams’s only big change to
the manuscript, however. Like Phillips, she confesses
that sometimes she gets off to a great start and then finds,
beyond the midpoint, her novel “going off the rails.” In
the case of her first novel, avoidance was part of the
problem: “I didn’t want to write the hard part.”
The Illness Lesson heads in a disturbing direction
involving a treatment for the psychogenic disorder
afflicting the novel’s young characters, requiring some
scenes the author wasn’t looking forward to tackling. In
an early draft, Beams “halfway wrote” the dark scenes
and then sent her two main characters off on a road trip
in which a chance encounter led to a key revelation and
hurried climax via ineffective dialogue.
She admits the early draft was akin to a cheesy TV
mystery—nothing at all like the final version. “I knew
something felt wrong, but I pressed forward making
those sentences nice and shiny.” She wasn’t surprised
when her agent told her, “This needs to be weirder and
more itself, and the ending isn’t right.”
DEEPENING OR STAKING
Maybe nothing in your novel needs major moving
or cutting, only deepening and strengthening. When
a novel seems solid, it may nonetheless receive that
dreaded note, “Just couldn’t fully connect with the char-
acter.” Writers and their allies will sometimes think the
problem is with the character herself. A less-considered
possibility is that it’s simply a technical issue involving
point of view.
If you realize your grasp of your character’s psyche is
slippery, return to square one. Minor changes to POV—
like switching from third to first—are good to try, but
it’s important not to switch only the pronouns. A fully
redrafted POV will impact voice and change the infor-
mation we have about a character, possibly triggering
changes to story as well, especially if early drafts didn’t
organically emerge from the character’s deepest, truest
perceptions and likely choices.
When it comes to characterization, even small tweaks
matter. Picture just the right stake added late in the pro-
cess, in time to hold up a nearly mature plant.
One of the best editorial notes Phillips ever received
was that the main character in Fierce Kingdom was too
uniformly likable and heroic. Adding a two-page scene
in which the narrator has to make a decision about res-
cuing a baby successfully complicated the picture and
sent new ripples throughout the novel. Phillips calls it
“one of the times I really felt like a specific revision made
a major, measurable impact.”
FRUIT OR FAILURE
What if after lots of changes, your novel still seems
blighted? How do you know when to redraft again or
when to give up on a novel altogether? You can ask logi-
cal questions, such as Does this work still give me joy?
Am I learning from this process? Will my next idea trans-
form the novel, or am I just watering something that’s
undeniably dead?
If the mere thought of burying an old manuscript
deep without any intention to unearth it feels like a huge
relief, then pay attention to that feeling.
Most authors have unpublished manuscripts—or at
the very least, digital files containing dozens or hundreds
of cut pages. Beams had an entire novel, begun in
graduate school, that took eight years to write. With
each new draft, in addition to short stories she was
publishing, Beams continued developing as a writer,
moving away from strict realism and toward a style that
is more magical or surreal. Even though her agent still
speaks fondly of that first unpublished novel, Beams is
less sentimental. The first novel “lives in a drawer for a
reason that I couldn’t see at the time. Now I’m grateful
that book isn’t published.”
At the same time, knowing that long-term projects
can so easily end in nonpublication hasn’t made Beams
proceed more cautiously—in fact, the opposite. “I’ve
had to learn as a fiction writer to not plan everything to
death and to allow myself to deliberately not know what
I’m doing.”
Dubus says something similar: “Very few of us know
what the hell we are doing. I like getting lost.” That’s one
reason he allows himself to overwrite in the first place,
trusting that words—and the process of revision—will
take him where he needs to go, including to the places
that resist a gardener’s impulse for order. WD
Andromeda Romano-Lax is a book coach and the author of
Annie and the Wolves, chosen by Booklist as a Top Ten Historical
Fiction Book of 2021, as well as four other novels that have been
published in 11 languages. She lives on a small island off the west
coast of Canada. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @romanolax.
WritersDigest.com I 35
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

TAKING
THE SHORT
TACK WITH
Traditional markets aren’t the only

paths to success for short stories.

SHORT Here are six reasons why self-

publishing could be the way to go.

FICTION BY M ATT Y D AL RYM P L E

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

36 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

A
s a reader, some days I find myself with a free
half hour and want a quick escape into a fictional
world but don’t want to find myself mid-story
when my time is up. Some evenings, I contemplate my
to-be-read pile and know that I don’t have the energy to
dive into a novel. Sometimes my hunger is not for the
full banquet of a novel-length work, but a little snack of
entertainment. At those times, what I want is a piece of
short fiction.
Many consider the period after World War II to
have been the last heyday of short fiction in the United
States, with powerhouse publications like Collier’s,
Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker, and Scribner’s handling
both the editorial and the printing and distribution
efforts required to get these works into readers’ hands.
My father had short fiction published in Collier’s and
Cosmopolitan in the ’50s, and I treasure my copies of
those beautifully produced issues.
As a writer myself, I would be proud to follow in his
footsteps as a traditionally published short fiction author,
and I would certainly love the cachet of being able to
cite such publications in my résumé. However, I have
chosen not to pursue the traditional short fiction market
for three reasons. First, it offers only so many slots and
better-known authors will claim most of those. Second,
although my father might have been willing to wait
months for responses to his submittals, I’m not as patient.
Third, even if a publication offered me prorates for one of
my stories, the effort-to-earnings ratio, factoring in the
time it takes to identify those publications and prepare
one’s submissions, is not appealing to me.
Beyond these specific reservations, the traditional
short fiction market feels too ponderous for my creative
and business goals. As I often do, I find an apt metaphor
in the nautical world. The traditional market is a cargo
ship: a boon for those who can access its goods but slow
to answer the helm and liable to cause havoc for any
skipper caught unawares in the ever-changing winds of
the marketplace.
Does this mean that the benefits of short fiction are
closed to me and to those who share my outlook? Not at
all. There are plenty of opportunities for us to reach short
fiction readers. Online retail, distribution, and social
media platforms mean that individuals can distribute
and promote short fiction easily and affordably. Those
options feel less like a cargo ship and more like a nimble
sailboat, vessels that can navigate constricted spaces and
make progress against a headwind using a maneuver
called the short tack.
NAVIGATING NARROW PATHWAYS
In sailing, to take a short tack means to maneuver using
rapid and frequent changes of direction. Sailors might
choose the short tack when sailing in a narrow waterway
where a long tack would run them aground. For writers,
the equivalent might be limited time or creative capacity.
Short fiction came to my aid in such a circumstance.
After I completed my second Ann Kinnear Suspense
Novel, The Sense of Reckoning, I had a story idea I
wanted to pursue that didn’t fit into Ann’s world. I
assured my fans that I would be back to Ann as soon as I
got this story launched.
However, that story turned into a trilogy: the Lizzy
Ballard Thrillers. As I worked on the second and third
Lizzy books, I wanted to give the Ann fans something
to tide them over until I returned to her story. Trying to
write a third novel in Ann’s world while I was deep in
Lizzy’s would stretch my creative perspectives too far. I
wanted to stay narrowly focused on Lizzy, but I felt com-
fortable stepping out of that world for a few “short tacks.”
I used those times to pen several Ann Kinnear Suspense
Shorts, retaining one as a reader magnet, publishing the
remainder as standalone e-books, and contributing one
to an anthology benefiting a local library.
OPTIMIZING THE SPEED OF YOUR CRAFT
Sailors know that several short tacks can provide
more speed than one long tack over the same distance.
Similarly, an author can likely produce more content
with short fiction than with long fiction, especially since
short fiction rarely involves the plotting complexities of a
novel-length work.
Frequent release of short stories keeps you front-of-
mind with your fans. But don’t let the relative speed of
creating them lead you to think of these works as “just”
short stories. Apply the same care in crafting a short
WritersDigest.com I 37
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
story as you would in crafting a novel and bring the
same attention to its launch. Any work, regardless of
length, deserves a bit of fanfare. Notify your newsletter
subscribers, promote it on social media platforms, and
hold a live or virtual reading. (This last may seem coun-
terproductive in terms of sales, but far from dissuading
readers from purchasing the e-book version, my read-
ings always spur the purchase of my stories, even months
or years after their initial launch.)
TAKING HOME THE SILVER
The goal of the racing sailor is to “take home the silver”—
i.e., to win the trophy—and we short fiction authors
value silver for our efforts as well.
The income stream generated by my Ann Kinnear
Suspense Shorts is small. That said, not only does it
start as soon as I publish the story, but I can imag-
ine that 20 short stories of 4,000 words, each available
for 99 cents, might well earn an author more than one
80,000-word novel. If you’re writing both novels and
shorts, sales of one will spur sales of the other. Just be
sure to clearly differentiate the two on the retail plat-
forms: through the pricing (I price my shorts at 99
cents, versus $2.99 or $4.99 for my e-book novels), the
series name (e.g., The Ann Kinnear Suspense Shorts),
and an explicit call-out in the description.
The couple of hundred dollars I’ve earned from sales
of my short stories doesn’t yet reach traditional market
prorates of 8 cents per word. However, once I have a
polished work in hand, the only tasks standing between
me and earnings are formatting the e-book, getting a
cover, writing a description, and uploading it to the
retail platforms.
Furthermore, I make those sales with very little pro-
motional effort. Most of my promotions for the short
stories are quick hits on social media related to the sea-
sonal theme of the story: a post-Christmas promotion for
Close These Eyes, which is set on a frigid January night on
Mount Desert Island, Maine, or a February promotion
for my Valentine’s Day-themed All Deaths Endure. And
the standalone e-books are not the only money-making
opportunity. Once I have 12 stories, I plan to create yet
another piece of content: a collection to be titled A Year of
Kinnear with one story set in each month.
For all these pieces of content, I’ll continue to receive
royalties for years to come, earnings that I feel confident
will ultimately exceed what I could have earned in the
38 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
traditional market. All this from content that originally had
reader relations, not income creation, as its primary goal.
FORMING YOUR FLEET
You can also use short fiction to build and strengthen
your connections within the author community, or to
“form your fleet.” Short story anthologies offer opportuni-
ties to connect with other writers in your genre, to reach
their fans and followers, and to introduce your own fans
to those writers’ works.
Being asked to join a traditionally published anthol-
ogy is a tremendous honor, but I have found these
opportunities difficult to find without contacts within
the ranks of anthology curators. However, enterprising
writers don’t have to wait to be invited to participate in
someone else’s anthology—we can curate our own.
Writers’ groups or critique groups offer a pool of
potential contributors. It goes without saying that the
writers you approach for your anthology should have
demonstrated skill in their craft, but there are other fac-
tors to assess as well. For example, will they be willing
to accept editorial input and to share the limelight with
their co-contributors?
As you consider possible contributors, document your
plan for the anthology and share it with them to ensure
alignment on expectations.
What are the financial goals of the anthology? If the
goal is to make money, then you’ll need to balance the
upside of having many contributors, and the additional
fans and followers they’ll bring, against the downside of
having to divide the royalties among all those authors.
Will all contributors receive the same percentage? Will
you take a higher percentage as compensation for your
curatorial work?
What is the theme for your anthology? If you belong to
a writer’s group that focuses on a certain genre, consider
building the anthology around that genre. If the timing
of the anthology’s release is important, consider a theme
based on the date: love stories for a February release or
stories of vacations gone awry for a summer release.
How long will the anthology be available? A long
period will result in a small but steady payout that
will accumulate over time. Limited availability will
generate buzz.
What are your plans to promote the anthology, and
how active a role do you expect the contributors to play?
What material—images for social media posts, text for
email newsletter announcements—will you provide, and
what material do you expect contributors to create?
How will you handle distribution of royalties? Barring
inclusion of a marquee name, the proceeds are likely to
be modest, and you must ensure your time investment in
support of the anthology is commensurate with its earn-
ing potential. Fortunately, platforms like Draft2Digital and
PubShare can automate the distribution of royalties, even
enabling you to allocate different percentages to differ-
ent contributors—for example, to entice a better-known
author to participate by offering a higher percentage.
Perhaps most importantly, do the potential contribu-
tors have the required rights to their stories, and will
they retain those rights for the period of time you expect
the anthology to be available? I learned the hard way the
cost of not setting this expectation in advance.
Years ago, I published an anthology of crime fiction
featuring stories from five authors. The per sale proceeds
would be small, but I expected the anthology would
repay our efforts—and especially my efforts as the cura-
tor—over the many years we would be reaping sales.
The anthology had been available for only a few
months when one of the authors let me know that her
publisher was repackaging her books in a way that
required her to withdraw her story. I could have repub-
lished the anthology, minus her story, with a new title
and cover, but considering the work needed and the
costs for a new cover design, I decided against it. I could
have avoided that disappointing outcome by being
clearer in advance with my potential contributors about
my expectations regarding the availability of the stories.
Are you looking for ways to form your fleet not only
with readers and fellow authors but with the wider com-
munity as well? Generate goodwill by donating the pro-
ceeds from your anthology to a charitable organization
or local library.
CREATING A SCALE MODEL
Shipwrights create scale models of vessels so that they
can work out details of the boat’s expected behavior
and characteristics before embarking on construction.
Similarly, you can use short fiction to test the waters of a
new creative direction.
Perhaps you’ve been writing cozies but are hearing
the siren call of thrillers. Craft a short story in this new
genre and share it with your current readers to get a
sense of whether they’ll be interested in following you in
this new direction. Reach out to readers familiar with the
new genre, perhaps through a beta reader program, and
solicit their input to discover whether you’ve made the
transition successfully. If you find you need to make a
course correction based on this input, you’ll be glad you
learned that lesson with a piece of short fiction rather
than with a longer work.
Trying out a new direction with a piece of short fic-
tion will also ensure that it will hold your own inter-
est. If you’re tens of thousands of words into a novel in
your new genre and you’re finding it more enervating
than energizing, you may force yourself to plow ahead—
not wanting to “waste” all those words—when a better
option would be to cut your losses and return to work
that inspires you. Experimenting with a piece of short
fiction allows you to dip your toe into those waters, and
to regroup if they prove inhospitable.
GETTING YOUR CREATIVE
ENGINE STARTED
Perhaps the very familiarity of your current work has
left you adrift in the creative doldrums. Short fiction can
provide a remedy.
Step back from a work whose engine has died and
take a short tack with a piece of short fiction. Because
the time investment for a short story is low, you can
approach it with less angst. Because the stakes are lower,
you can bring a sense of adventure and lightheartedness
that may be what is missing from your work in progress.
Wrestling with your novel-length work might feel like
trying to maneuver a freighter across a storm-tossed lake,
while embarking on a piece of short fiction is more like
a jaunt across the pond in a sailing dinghy—a refreshing
break that revives your creative energy.
Whether your goal is to navigate the constraints of time
and creative energy, speed your ability to provide fresh
content to your readers, build a community among read-
ers and fellow writers, or regain your creative momen-
tum, taking the short tack of short fiction can put fresh
wind in your sails. WD
Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers and the
Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels and Suspense Shorts. Matty explores
the writing craft and the publishing voyage via The Indy Author
Podcast and her books The Indy Author’s Guide to Podcasting
for Authors and Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and
Connecting With Readers Using Short Fiction.
WritersDigest.com I 39
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

“EYES
ON THE
ROAD!”
Much like a cross-country road

trip, writing a series can be

quite the journey. Here are 5

tips to get your readers safely

to the final destination and

enjoy the ride along the way.

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

B Y E. L. TE N E NB AU M

40 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

W
riting a novel is like embarking on a road trip.
There’s a beginning, middle, end, and—more
importantly—a journey occurring all the
while. The usual hope is that the end will see the charac-
ters in a better place, but the destination can be anywhere
as long as the journey logically leads there. Having the
freedom to go any place, however, doesn’t mean we should
hit the road without any plan at all.
Whether writing detailed outlines or typing off the
cuff, a general idea of destination before beginning
makes a real difference in the success of the overall
journey. Even if some “sightseeing” has to change, some
vision of where the story is headed helps decide the best
or most necessary routes and avoid what may be time-
wasting detours. Knowing the final destination, even
without a clear picture of everything that will happen
along the way, keeps us in tune with which way stations
must be reached to remain on track.
Series writing works much the same way, as there are
two main aspects to it. One, the overall journey of the
character/plot which will unfurl over the course of the
series, and two, the significant points reached in getting
there, aka, the arcs of individual books and characters
within the series. No matter what happens, no matter if a
protagonist progresses or regresses in their development,
no matter how a plot twists and turns, a logical major
point must be reached by the time a book is done. Over
the series, these points combine to achieve a larger pic-
ture, a horizon to guide us in moving forward.
There are several important “tips for an epic road trip”
in series writing. The selected tips can keep an author on
the road not only for plotting a series’ overall route, but
also in developing the world, the characters, and the plot
it will travel through.
TIP #1: FOLLOW THE MAP
Obvious as it may seem, know where you’re going! Series
can feel inconclusive, books incomplete, if you lose sight
of where you’re heading and why. Maintain a clear vision
of where you want the overall series and main charac-
ters to end up, even if tweaks or changes are needed
along the way. Keeping the destination in mind helps in
actually getting there. Ask yourself if the scene/charac-
ter you’re about to include is a necessary part of your
route. Does it move the story forward or is it a nonbene-
ficial detour and distraction? Does it keep you on course
toward your final destination, is its inclusion for good
or not, and is it something that will help your charac-
ters/series in the long run? Don’t indulge yourself over
some personal checklist of scenes/characters you always
wanted to write, unless you logically tie them into the
progression of the story.
Once you figure out your final destination, figure out
the “major sights” you want to hit in getting there, which
is how you map out the route. These major sights are
plots for individual novels and also destinations for each
installation in the overall narrative of your series. When
setting out on a road trip, you can have an exact itinerary,
or you might be open to exploring whatever catches your
eye along the way. However, having some idea or basic
foreknowledge of things you’d like to see will help bet-
ter plot your course, because there are so many possible
routes to a single destination. Decide on the one you pre-
fer, then write accordingly.
WritersDigest.com I 41
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
EXAMPLE: My End of Ever After books are a five-book
companion series of various fairy tale retellings. Before
setting out, I had to make definitive decisions about
what my approach would be, because there are so
many different ways to retell these already frequently
retold stories. I decided that the series would be writ-
ten in memoir-style (as my editor called it), with each
character looking back at the well-known story and
filling in the parts left out over the years. This set the
basic storyline for each book because it had to follow
the original tale, even as the reasons, the setup, the
before, after, and in-between iconic moments were
going to be different. Binding myself to that decision
created the structural map which guided me through
writing the series.
TIP #2: KNOW THE RULES OF THE ROAD
The Rules of the Road are the rules of your universe
and are vital for maintaining the logic and consistency
of your series. We must keep faith with our readers
by being honest about the rules our characters and
universes are playing by, even if we don’t reveal all of
them from the outset. Whether the world is imagined,
historical, or contemporary, there are rules giving it
structure and dictating characters’ actions and decisions.
People living hundreds of years ago had no way of
sending instant messages to someone who wasn’t with
them. How does this affect a mystery? Travel? Business
dealings? War? What about a friendship, specifically
if someone moves away? These same rules apply to
socioeconomic, topographic, geographic, and every
other element of setting.
For fantastical or sci-fi worlds, even though we make
up the rules, we still have to follow them or risk losing
our readers’ trust bending them on a whim or without
care for the logic of the universe. In constructing these
types of worlds, a great benefit is knowing much more
about them than will appear on paper. For example, if
magic is extremely rare in your universe and only very
few can wield it, what does that look like in actual num-
bers? Do only 10 people have an affinity? Thirty? One
thousand? Do they congregate in one area, are they
social, spread out? Even if this information won’t make
42 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
it onto the page, it’s important to know for the struc-
ture of the story and will affect who your characters can
or will meet and what it takes to meet them. Greater
knowledge of the road and alternate routes grants
greater navigability.
Once the rules are set, think about how they may help
or hinder your characters. What does being born into
a particular class mean in your universe? What does it
mean to have a particular skillset? What does it mean to
live without it? To cooperate? To differ?
BONUS TIP: Writing a series bible, similar to a show
bible used for TV, can be very helpful in keeping track
of all these important details. Create a profile for each
character and note general strengths, weaknesses,
distinctive traits, even backgrounds and projected arcs.
Include a few lines about major plot points, important
systems, distinctive features of your universe.
TIP #3: KEEP AN EYE ON THE TIME
This tip not only relates to the actual pacing of each book
and overall series, but also the general timeline. To reach
certain destinations at the right part of the journey, we
must time ourselves accordingly. Keeping a color-coded
timeline in a spreadsheet can be very useful in estab-
lishing story consistency, especially for nonlinear or
companion series. We can’t get stuck in the slow lane
of prose, or the journey begins to drag. We can’t go too
fast in action, or our readers might feel lost or give up.
Sometimes we slow, sometimes we speed up, but usu-
ally we keep a steady, forward pace. Note that the middle
books of a series must be important parts of the journey
and more than just a bridge joining the first book to the
last. Even if one or more have to be a “travel” book, think
of all the worst things that can happen, then figure out
which of those are useful for the development of your
characters’ and series’ arcs.
Another significant aspect to bear in mind is the accu-
mulation of knowledge, skill, relationships, and the like
as the series progresses. Does it take the entire series to
learn a particular skill? Well, there should be some notable
highlights, triumphs, and setbacks along the way. What
might a character learn about other people and how might
that affect future dealings or decisions? A once-naïve
 WHETHER THE WORLD IS IMAGINED, HISTORICAL,
OR CONTEMPORARY, THERE ARE RULES GIVING IT STRUCTURE
AND DICTATING CHARACTERS’ ACTIONS AND DECISIONS.
character cannot stay naïve forever or readers could grow
frustrated or no longer care, so mistakes must lead to
knowledge which informs behaviors in later books. A
character might also learn something important to help
reach the final destination, but if the finding doesn’t
appear until the second or third book, think of how that
affects what can be included in the story before that.
EXAMPLE: Something as mundane as changing a tire,
maintaining a spacecraft, fixing an axle, or stabling a
horse can become perilous, suspenseful, significant
with just a few key adjustments. Is roadside assis-
tance or cellphone service available? Did part of the
road wash away? Tension increases with approaching
predators or incoming asteroids or teetering on the
edge of a gully, then seeing how characters react
to imminent threats or setbacks. Graham Moore’s
bestselling Last Days of Night centers around the fight
over electrical currents and lightbulbs. Lightbulbs! Still,
skillful pacing created a page-turner. The story being
told is second to how the story is being told. Almost
every book can be boiled down to any of several
familiar themes—family, faith, freedom, friendship,
etc.—so distinctiveness and engagement are depen-
dent upon our telling.
TIP #4: DON’T OVERSTAY THE
VISITOR CENTER
One of the trickiest parts of a road trip is learning just
enough information to make a trip interesting and
enjoyable without getting stuck at the information booth
or bogged down by too many options. Knowledge is nec-
essary for decisions, not just in the overall progression
of the journey, but also in knowing the right route to
take. What benefits does one route possess over another?
Which type of route will you risk considering the results
of each? More important is spacing information for
readers, so they can understand the world you’ve created
without feeling they’re writing the tour guide textbook
with you. Often, the second book of a series turns into
an information dumping landfill, slowing the momen-
tum built up in the first book. Be cautious about balanc-
ing information and journey progression, even though
you will understand and appreciate your universe better
the more you write about it and will want to share that.
Remember, even if you’re driving a big rig, there’s still
limited space for extraneous guidebooks!
In many ways, information can be broken down into
three categories: immediate, deferred, and hinted.
• Immediate information—for example, magic exists—
should be relayed concisely and efficiently. Showing
magic instead of explaining magic is one route, as the
whys and hows can be slipped in between the lines
of action. Can we find out about a character through
overhearing a conversation or catching a glimpse in
the mirror instead of writing out detailed descriptions?
Can we learn about events through news headlines or
office memos? In museums, how many visitors read
every line of packets and guidebooks and how many
more prefer to skim posted placards, gleaning just
enough to know what they’re seeing?
• Deferred information occurs later in a book or series
entirely, so save it for then. This information includes
any sort of expansion of the universe or skillset
but, because it isn’t necessary now, should not slow
down the story now. The most important note about
deferred information is that it cannot contradict what
was previously established unless there’s a logical mis-
conception or missing information.
• Hinted information is needed later but set up now.
Don’t give it too much attention before its scene, but
do drop careful hints or offhand references so the
eventual full reveal will make sense. Hinted informa-
tion also includes introducing a certain skillset now
WritersDigest.com I 43
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL, THE PRECIOUS BOBBLEHEAD
ON THE DASHBOARD, IS KEEP THE PROMISES YOU MADE
TO YOUR READERS.
that’s needed to bail out a character later, a quick scan
of a room to plant the seeds for a future escape, or
even showing signs of a certain weakness or tragedy or
vista that will affect decisions down the road.
EXAMPLE: In my upcoming Royal & Piper trilogy,
LightForce is a magic system wielded by royals. In
one chapter, a king is unintentionally spotted using
LightForce in a certain way, a hint planted early of
something bigger to come. When a protagonist in
dire straits unwittingly unleashes LightForce to similar
effect, she describes the unexpected skill in greater
detail then. The reader, however, recognizes this
power, which avoids a sudden deus ex machina, too.
TIP #5: AVOID SCENIC ROUTES, BUT
MAKE GOOD USE OF STREET VIEW
Some readers appreciate very detailed descriptions of
settings. Some viewers appreciate long sections of cam-
eras panning incredible scenery. Most don’t, however, so
try to balance providing enough description to give a
tangible sense of place without expounding on the docu-
mentary version. Envision the “street view” feature over
the relative plainness of a standard map or as compared
to a scenic route. Street view gives enough shape and
color to quickly grasp place without pulling over for a
plethora of photos, most of which won’t make the album.
Save the brakes for more important “major sites,” as in
defining character moments or scenes which require a
reader’s full attention.
Another element to bear in mind is who’s driving and
how that affects the view. Is your story in first person?
What can that character see or not from such limited
perspective, and what sort of misunderstandings might
come up? What might that include/exclude from your
descriptions? Maybe your characters take turns driving,
as in, the story is told from multiple perspectives. Each
44 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
perspective should be different and each driver should
have a distinct style of driving. One might be reckless,
speeding, weaving, distracted; one might follow every
rule, never driving a single mile over the speed limit,
both hands firmly affixed to the wheel. Caution! If read-
ers are there for the characters as much as the story, be
careful about changing point of view or leaving out a
well-loved protagonist which brought them to the story
to begin with. If your series begins as a certain charac-
ter’s story, make sure that character stays even as you
expand the universe. If that person has to fade out, make
sure you properly set up a “replacement” or consider a
spin-off instead.
EXAMPLE: Lynne Kelly’s wonderful Song for a Whale
is told from the protagonist Iris’s point of view, but a
few brief chapters are written from the whale’s POV.
This changes the style of telling, not just because a
whale is an animal, but also because it’s under water,
interacts differently, and doesn’t understand the world
the same way as a human.
The most important rule of all, the precious bobble-
head on the dashboard, is keep the promises you made
to your readers. If they’re told we’re taking them on
a certain kind of journey (whatever genre or arc that
includes), then we must ensure that’s exactly where we
go. It’s the primary reason they came along for the ride,
after all. WD
E. L. Tenenbaum (ELTenenbaum.com) is an author of several
novels (including multiple series) and co-host of the “Oh My Word!”
podcast. When not reading or writing, she enjoys talking about
writing and has been a visiting author at schools around the world.
 CRITIQUE AND
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WHAT
AGENTS
WISH
WRITERS
22 literary agents share their

insights about querying, the

agent/author relationship,

and the industry so writers can

KNEW
find success in 2022.

BY RYAN G. VA N CL EAV E

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

46 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

I
n January 2021, I moderated an Ask Agents panel for
the Florida branch of the Society of Children’s Book
Writers & Illustrators. On a whim, I asked, “What do
you wish writers knew that would make your job easier,
happier, or better?” They had answers. A lot of them.
For this article, I decided to greatly expand the pool
of agents and then ask them all that same question. Here
are their answers. Taken together, it provides a pretty
handy pathway to success as a writer.
FINDING AN AGENT
“If an agent offers to sign you and you think they’d be a
good fit, then sign immediately. Don’t play games and
say you want to hear from other agents first. If they show
enthusiasm and desire, why wait?”
—Victoria Sanders (Victoria Sanders & Associates)
“Treat your agent search like a job search. Write a concise
query letter. Take on a professional tone. Deliver your
pitch as precisely and compellingly as possible. It’s not
that we want you to jump through hoops for us; it’s that
we get a lot of queries and we need to make decisions
quickly. Being cute or friendly doesn’t help.”
—Howard Yoon (Ross Yoon Agency)
“If you send your query and then notice a typo, please
breathe easy. Agents are looking for good books we
can sell. We’re not going to hold a misplaced comma or
one misspelled word against you. A dozen errors in a
query might signal a larger problem to us, but we want
you to succeed and won’t reject you over the occasional
technical hiccup.”
—Naomi Davis (BookEnds Literary Agency)
“Make sure your opening pages really hook agents. You
want to really grab the reader in those first few chapters.
We receive queries where authors will say ‘this gets good
in the middle’ but the problem is most editors won’t read
that far if the beginning doesn’t really grab them.”
—Jill Marsal (Marsal Lyon Literary Agency)
“Don’t be surprised if responses indicate we’ve seen/heard
of a plot/story like yours—as agents, we receive tons of
submissions and hear about book deals all the time.”
—Steven Chudney (The Chudney Agency)
“I would emphasize the importance of the cover letter. In
the deluge of proposals and manuscripts, a concise pre-
sentation of the book idea remains a high priority.”
—Rafe Sagalyn (ICM Partners)
“People think of agents as ‘gatekeepers,’ but if that’s so, our
wish and our job is to open the gates, not shut people out.
We hope that every query letter we receive might come
with a book we fall in love with. But as in love, our con-
nection with a book depends on tastes and timing, and
liking something doesn’t necessarily mean we’re best
suited together. For me, sending rejections is one of the
worst parts of my job.”
—Kate Johnson (Wolf Literary Services)
“I wish writers kept better track of who they queried. I get
duplicate queries often. I also wish they were more care-
ful with writing their query letter. Nothing turns me off
to a query faster than saying something like they are que-
rying because of something on my website. Yet, I know
there is nothing like that on my website. Or that they’re
querying me because I am looking for a genre I don’t
represent. If they find out about me from some other
site, they need to look at my site for current information
about the genres I’m representing and how to query.”
—Dawn Dowdle (Blue Ridge Literary Agency)
“As for the writer/agent ‘fit,’ it has been said that the
client/agent relationship is like a marriage—there has
to be trust and respect. It always helps if a writer and
agent can meet, or these days, Zoom, before deciding to
work together.”
—Vicky Bijur (Vicky Bijur Literary Agency)
WritersDigest.com I 47
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
THE WRITER/AGENT RELATIONSHIP
“Before signing an agreement to work together, have at
least one conversation. Both parties should come to it
with questions. For the agent, it’s questions about the
author’s expectations related to the relationship and the
deal, motivation for writing the book, and knowledge
of the publishing process. For the author, it’s why the
project caught the attention of the agent, how much the
agent will (or will not) help improve the proposal and
manuscript, and whether the agent will participate in
helping to drive sales of the book. The author may have
a zillion other questions, depending on how much that
person knows about publishing.
“After that conversation is over, both parties should
have a good idea of whether or not they enjoy each other
and communicate with each other well enough to have a
positive, productive partnership.
“If you come away from that conversation and want to
run to your BFF or spouse and complain about any part
of the conversation, do not sign the agreement. Unless
you’re joyful at the prospect of working with this person,
forget it!”
—Maryann Karinch (The Rudy Agency)
“I wish writers knew to cc their agent on communications
with their editors (at key moments, at least), and that
we don’t automatically know when things like manu-
script acceptance, cover finalizing, pub date changes, and
reviews happen.”
—Erin Murphy (Erin Murphy Literary Agency)
“I wish writers knew that agents are here to guide them
and protect them; when they go off and agree to requests
from publishers or others in media without consulting
with us, they often hurt themselves and alienate the very
person who is trying to help. Writers need to trust that
their agents are working in their best interests.”
—Jane Dystel (Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)
“Having a literary agent doesn’t give you a 100 percent
guarantee that you’re going to get a book deal. It simply
means that it increases your chances.”
—Leticia Gomez (Savvy Literary Services)
48 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
“As an agent, it’s helpful when writers can articulate
their goals and dreams beyond ‘I want to be as suc-
cessful as possible,’ because success can mean wildly
different things to different people. One author might
dream of speaking to sold-out auditoriums around the
world; while the next might want to hunker down in a
cabin off the grid to write their next masterpiece. One
person’s dearest wish is another person’s stressful night-
mare. It’s OK if you don’t know exactly what you want,
but take some time to daydream: In an ideal world,
what kind of author would you like to be? Having an
individualized vision for your author life, and being
able to articulate that vision in a granular way, will be
helpful both to your agent and to you as you embark on
your career.”
—Sarah Gerton (Curtis Brown, Ltd.)
“Most agents have a genuine love for authors, books, and
publishing. We are rooting for you! We are here to advo-
cate for you—it’s not an adversarial relationship! That
said, agents aren’t mind readers, and agents typically
have many clients, so as in any relationship, good com-
munication is key. If you’re having an issue or you don’t
understand something, it’s best to talk with your agent
rather than letting your frustration build up. Your agent
is highly motivated to help you be a success, so do every-
thing you can to help them do that.”
—Rachelle Gardner (Gardner Literary)
“I wish writers knew that clearly stating their needs and
goals does not mean they are demanding or difficult; it
means they’re sharing their expectations, and that’s a
crucial element of any professional relationship!”
—Victoria Marini (Irene Goodman Literary Agency)
“Agents don’t get to sit around and read all day—I wish
we did!—and the volume of reading we need to get
through ebbs and flows (but mostly flows). We edit and
give our clients feedback, we review contracts, we write
pitches, we submit manuscripts, we have meetings with
editors and clients and potential clients, we chase pay-
ments, we smooth over issues that pop up along the long
and winding life of a book. And then, we get to read. So,
slowness doesn’t mean a lack of interest, only a lack of
time. Please be patient.”
—Kate Johnson (Wolf Literary Services)
THE WRITING LIFE
“Put in the work, write something every day, and read
Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. I recommend this
book all the time and the principles and ideas he dis-
cusses are applicable to more areas in our lives than
just writing. Overcoming self-doubt and self-sabotage
are fundamentals that I need to work on daily as do
many! It’s a quick read and one that I think you will
revisit often.”
—Pamela Harty (The Knight Agency)
“Be ready to adjust your goals as your circumstances
change and as you grow as a person. If you’re adaptable,
setbacks don’t turn into dead stops, and you won’t trap
yourself into a career that doesn’t fit anymore based on
goals you set years ago. Your agent can help you to evalu-
ate your current situation, consider where you want to go,
and figure out the best way to get from Point A to Point B.”
—Sarah Gerton (Curtis Brown, Ltd.)
“Don’t give up. Publishing isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s
a slow process and rarely happens overnight. I often say
that it’s an amazing time to be an author as there are
more opportunities than ever before including traditional,
hybrid, and self-publishing. Don’t be afraid of rejection
and remember it’s very subjective. I have seen some tough
passes for my clients often closely followed by an offer. At
the end of the day, try to remember that publishing is a
business and it’s not personal even though I do under-
stand how very personal your writing process is.”
—Pamela Harty (The Knight Agency)
PITCHING AND PROPOSALS
“As a literary agent for nonfiction books, I look for my
clients to understand that publishing is a business and
their book proposals should incorporate well thought
out and deliverable marketing plans that will sell their
book. The best ones demonstrate concrete relationships
and provide social media stats and potential schedules
for promotion at publication.”
—Marilyn Allen (Allen Literary Agency)
“Patience is a virtue! Pitching is a process and can some-
times go for as short as a few weeks and as long as years!
It really depends on what’s working in the marketplace,
the current shape of the material (and if it can stand
some revision), the publisher’s publication schedule,
and the editor’s bandwidth to read submissions. So, be
patient. A slow yes is better than a fast no.”
—Latoya C. Smith (LCS Literary Services)
“For nonfiction writers, their author platform is key, so
they should really develop that and make it as strong as
possible along with the proposal.”
—Jill Marsal (Marsal Lyon Literary Agency)
THE INDUSTRY
“The decision to acquire your book is not a one-person
decision. It takes a village to acquire and publish a book.
An acquisition editor alone does not have the power to
make an author a publishing offer. Even if he or she falls
absolutely head over heels in love with the book proposal
or manuscript, they still have to get permission from
their editorial board to make you an offer.”
—Leticia Gomez (Savvy Literary Services)
“Landing an agent doesn’t necessarily guarantee publi-
cation. You’re a step closer, of course, but no agent can
guarantee a sale, no matter how high-powered they are.
Agents make educated guesses based on experience, but
publishing is a subjective business. There are some proj-
ects agents can’t sell, no matter how hard they try.”
—Linda Camacho (Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency)
“Sometimes the difference between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ is
timing. If the market isn’t responding to a project, it
might be better to shelve it and try again when the mar-
ket changes, instead of trying everybody all at once. In
WritersDigest.com I 49
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
the majority of cases, we can’t go back to an editor or
house that’s already passed on a project.”
—Tracy Marchini (BookEnds Jr.)
“One of the exercises I ask my nonfiction clients to do
is to pull together a budget that will include the antici-
pated costs of travel for research/interviews, permissions,
a collaborator, photographs/illustrations/charts, and
transcription, among other living/writing expenses. This
budget is usually generated early in our proposal devel-
opment process.
“Having these potential expenses outlined upfront ...
sets up a conversation about advance expectations that
is important for the writer and agent relationship. It is
a conversation much better to have well before evalu-
ating publishers’ offers. Also, the writer running those
numbers is important to understanding if the project
can be completed as envisioned or needs to be modified
depending on the advance level and delivery date.”
—Joy Tutela (David Black Literary Agency)
“One of the most frequent complaints an author has is
that a particular bookstore is not carrying his or her
book. The fact is that no one can force a bookstore
to carry a book. Stores have limited shelf space, and
presumably the sales rep from the publisher tried to
convince the account to take the book but didn’t suc-
ceed. Obviously, this is not an issue with Amazon, which
carries all books.”
—Vicky Bijur (Vicky Bijur Literary Agency)
MARKETING, BRANDING, AND
PROMOTION
“Don’t be someone you’re not. If you don’t feel comfort-
able on social media, don’t force yourself to Tweet or
post on Instagram because you were told you needed
online followers to get an agent and a book deal. Be
yourself. Your readers will find you.”
—Howard Yoon (Ross Yoon Agency)
“As you’re starting out on your career as an author, take
some time to reflect on questions like: If you had to
50 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
rank, say, money, fame, critical reception, creative free-
dom, and career longevity in order of importance—what
would your priorities be? How many books do you want
to write a year? How active do you want to be on the
conference circuit or on social media? Do you have any
author role models whose careers you’d love to emulate?
What about their trajectories appeals to you?”
—Sarah Gerton (Curtis Brown, Ltd.)
“At the end of the day, the shelf life of your book ulti-
mately and solely depends on you.”
—Leticia Gomez (Savvy Literary Services)
I’ll end with two tips that come from my own experience
with agents—over my 20-plus-year career as a writer, I’ve
had five agents, after all. I’d like to think I’ve learned a
few agent-pleasing things:
• Once you secure an agent, learn to employ
TIP #1:
this question: “How can I help?” I’ve used this to
good effect, whether it’s about cover letters, promo-
tion ideas, or submission strategies. Even if their
answer is “Nothing at the moment,” they really seem
to appreciate having a client willing to pitch in, even
after the manuscript is “done.” Writers and agents
have a success-based relationship—we’re on the same
team. Writers who want to just drop off a manuscript
with their agent and expect everything to “just hap-
pen” afterward aren’t great team players.
• TIP #2: Be patient. While it sometimes feels like you
should have more manuscripts on submission, get
responses sooner, earn more sales, and have a higher-
gear to your career, these things take time—even
with the help of a quality literary agent. Resist firing
off irritated 2 a.m. emails to your agent or even just
whining about them to writer friends. Give it time,
and then give it a bit more time. If you need things to
happen fast, you’re in the wrong industry, folks. WD
Ryan G. Van Cleave runs the creative writing program at Ringling
College of Art and Design. He’s the author of The Weekend Book
Proposal (WD Books) and more than 20 other books.
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 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

PLAYING THE
FREELANCE
FIELD
Part of making your freelance career a success

is knowing how to determine the benefit

each gig brings to your résumé. Here are four

tips to help you make the right moves.

BY C AS SAN D RA LIP P

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

52 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

W
hen stay-at-home orders were issued in March
2020, I found myself trying to buy food in a
crowded grocery store after shoppers panic-
bought most everything off the shelves. I knew of enough
substitutes for everyday staples—sour cream for eggs, bak-
ing soda for any household cleaning product—to not walk
out of the store empty-handed. I felt a sense of pride as I
picked up a bottle of tea tree oil face wash, knowing that
the essential oil’s antibacterial and antifungal properties
could sub for hand sanitizer.
It’s times like these that I’m grateful I spent a year
and a half editing articles for a content mill for a mere
80 cents a pop. After telling people that I worked as
an editor for a content mill, most asked if it was like a
puppy mill. I can’t speak for puppy mills because I have
no experience with them, but I can say that the reputa-
tion of content mills isn’t much better. There are several
content mills in addition to the one that I worked for,
but the idea behind them is all the same: It is a website
or company that pays freelance writers very low rates
for cheap website content, which is usually purchased
by businesses to be published on the company website
or blog in order to pick up search engine traffic. The
low rate paid to writers (and, in my experience, edi-
tors) means that to make a decent living, you must work
as fast as humanly possible. I would venture to say that
like the puppies, content mill contributors are also mal-
nourished. I could only afford the cheapest, unhealthiest
foods on my content mill wages until I discovered Aldi.
While this is one of the worst freelance jobs I have ever
taken, I learned quite a few valuable lessons about know-
ing my worth as a writer, editor, and freelancer that I’d like
to share so that others might avoid the mistakes I made.
1. JUST … STAY AWAY FROM CRAIGSLIST.
Like most terrible jobs, my work for the content mill
started with Craigslist. A few months after my college
graduation, I heard mostly radio static after applying
for all the jobs I was remotely qualified for on Indeed,
LinkedIn, and every other more reputable job listing
site I could find. Once I exhausted all those job listings,
I looked at the job listings under writing/editing on my
local Craigslist page.
Most were vague enough to seem appropriately
sketchy for Craigslist. Nestled between listings from a
“cosmetology student” searching for clients to give free
pedicures to and companies looking for writers who
would accept “payment” in the form of having a new
published clip for their portfolio, I found a listing for a
freelance editor position that paid actual money. After
submitting my cover letter and résumé, I was invited to
take an editing test and later hired (without being asked
to submit paperwork for tax purposes—another red flag).
I blame my naïveté on the fact that I was just begin-
ning my freelance writing career and knew precious little
of anything. I hadn’t yet heard of AllFreelanceWriting
.com, FreelanceWritingGigs.com, PitchWhiz.com, and
C. Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers newsletter. There
are plenty of websites that publish legitimate, paying
freelance editorial job listings, many of which are listed
in WD’s Annual 101 Best Websites for Writers in every
year’s May/June issue.
Another great avenue to begin your freelance writ-
ing career is by pitching local or regional publications—
depending on your locale, there may be more than one
magazine serving your area, as well as a state magazine,
an alternative weekly newspaper, and a daily newspaper.
WritersDigest.com I 53
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
WHILE NOT STARVING OR GETTING EVICTED ARE ALSO
SATISFACTORY REASONS TO TAKE ON A JOB, THE WORK WILL
QUICKLY BECOME A STRUGGLE TO GET THROUGH EVERY DAY IF
THERE ISN’T A BENEFIT TO YOU OTHER THAN THE INCOME.
I wrote some of my earliest articles for Cincy Magazine
and Northern Kentucky Magazine—which both paid
and resulted in a new clip I could link to when pitching
new publications.
2. A BAD PROJECT WILL CONSUME YOUR
TIME, ENERGY, AND IDENTITY AND
OFFER NOTHING IN RETURN.
At the 80-cents-an-article rate, I had to edit close to 1,000
articles per month to meet my basic living expenses.
That meant getting through at least 30 articles a day,
reading and correcting commas like the wind.
Because the content mill accepted articles about most
any topic, I learned quite a bit about every random sub-
ject the contributors wrote about. I could tell you 10
ways to rearrange your patio for the spring, although
I had no patio nor could I afford furniture. I had the
miraculous ability to read technical articles about things
like blockchain that I only partially understood and still
identify incorrect or missing punctuation. In the middle
of getting rid of every extra space between the sentences
of an article about how to bring your dried-out Play-Doh
back to life with a few pumps in the blender and some
hot water, I found myself cursing every two-spaces-
between-sentences writer and shouting, “How has my
life come to this?!” I lost track of where my plethora of
useful information ended and I began.
The lesson here is that for any freelance writer or edi-
tor, every job you take on must serve more than in the
monetary value. Building up your résumé or portfo-
lio are other obvious reasons to take on jobs, but look
for other ways that the job will serve you—such as the
opportunity to learn a new skill, writing about a topic
you’ve long wanted to report on, gaining connections
in an industry you’d like to work in, or even providing
54 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
valuable research or firsthand experience on a subject
you’re considering making a part of a novel.
At the end of the day, there was no benefit to my work
at the content mill other than (barely) paying the rent.
While not starving or getting evicted are also satisfactory
reasons to take on a job, the work will quickly become a
struggle to get through every day if there isn’t a benefit to
you other than the income. These benefits may vary from
writer to writer, and there are probably far too many to
list here, so I’ll conclude with the advice to look for a
win-win situation of both income and benefit in every
freelance gig you add to your busy schedule.
3. IF WRITING FOR FREE OR A VERY LOW
RATE, IT MUST BE FOR A GOOD REASON.
Similar to the above lesson, there should only be very
select circumstances that you chose to work for free
or for a lower-than-average rate. The advice is often to
never work for free, and this advice works in most cir-
cumstances. However, there are certain caveats to this
rule that might end up helping your freelance career in
the long run.
For example, many reputable publications and liter-
ary journals either don’t have the budget to pay writ-
ers or pay only a token rate. The submissions page of
McSweeney’s states that the amount they pay contribu-
tors is “low enough to disappoint,” yet I’d submit to
McSweeney’s in heartbeat because it’s a dream publica-
tion for every humor writer. To me, a small payment
or nonpayment for a piece I worked hard on is worth it
because listing bylines in a well-known publication in
your bio can catch the attention of editors and agents.
If submitting to a publication that pays nothing or
very little, be sure that you retain the rights to your work,
or the rights revert back to you after a short period of
time (one year or less). You might want to include your
work later in an essay collection, anthology, or book of
short stories and don’t want to run into any trouble with
permissions. If a publication’s guidelines state that they
will retain the rights to your work, then they should
be paying appropriately for those rights. For example,
McSweeney’s does not retain the rights to your work,
while their competitor The New Yorker will—but their
Shouts and Murmurs column is one of the higher-paying
markets for humor writing.
Volunteering for a cause you believe in may also be
an adequate reason to offer your skills for free, but this
is another case where you should look for multiple ben-
efits to your work. For instance, I once worked an unpaid
internship writing articles for a nonprofit dedicated to
ending global poverty. At the time, I couldn’t find any
paid editorial work due to my lack of experience, so the
internship avoided a gap in my résumé while at the same
time I learned search engine optimization (SEO). And I
couldn’t find a better reason to write for free than to help
spread awareness of the causes of poverty around the
world and what ordinary citizens can do to help alleviate
these issues.
The more benefits a job has for you, the better it is
to commit. Likewise, the fewer benefits a freelance job
offers, the easier it is to say no.
4. FIND PROJECTS THAT SATISFY YOUR
CURIOSITIES AND PUSH YOU TO
IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS.
The low pay I got for each article I edited for the mill
meant that I had to get through them as quickly as pos-
sible in order to earn something resembling minimum
wage. On some days, I edited as many as 60 articles,
which was only possible once I made a game out of it.
My creative ways to save time, such as editing the short-
est articles first or sending articles back for simple revi-
sions that I could have done myself, felt like the Rainbow
Trail shortcut in Candy Land. In the game of editing
articles as quickly as possible, there was no time to make
simple changes without falling behind. If a job feels like
the chocolate factory scene from “I Love Lucy,” then it’s
probably time to move on.
An article I rejected for poor grammar came back
with the note, “You’re not real editors, by the way. Get
bent!” and I found myself thinking that, although rude,
the writer wasn’t wrong. I was no longer improving my
editorial skills or even engaging with the text I was edit-
ing; I was simply trying to get through the day. This was
another red flag I ignored for far too long.
A freelance job worth taking will keep you engaged.
A project should be challenging enough to stretch your
limits as a writer or editor so that you strengthen your
writerly instincts or gain new skills—for example, ghost-
writing a middle-grade chapter book series when you’ve
only written adult mysteries—but not so challenging
that you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin,
such as pivoting from proofreading cookbooks to writ-
ing an instruction manual for car mechanics.
In my content mill game, reaching the end of my
queue each day didn’t feel like arriving at the candy
castle and looked more like closing my laptop out of
sheer exhaustion, dry-eyed and lacking the motivation
to do anything else for the rest of the day. It drained my
mental energy, making it seem insurmountable to seek
out and apply myself to other work that would have been
more rewarding.
A project that drains your energy and motivation is
the licorice space on the game board that causes you to
lose a turn—in other words, it should be avoided at all
costs in a successful freelance career.
While working freelance offers a great amount of free-
dom to work on your own schedule, select only the
projects you are most interested in and define success
on your own terms. However, the endless possibilities
can also be intimidating for writers who aren’t quite sure
of the direction in which they’d like to move. Trust your
gut feeling, follow these signs of which freelance projects
to avoid, and you’ll reap the rewards that freelancing has
to offer. WD
Cassandra Lipp is the former managing editor of WD and current
producer of the Oddheader YouTube channel. Her work has been
published in The Belladonna, Little Old Lady Comedy, Greener
Pastures Magazine, Points in Case, and Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets.
WritersDigest.com I 55
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 02 2

HOW LAW SCHOOL

MADE ME A MORE
BUSINESS-SAVVY
WRITER
Law school, like an MFA

program, isn’t the right choice

for every writer. But being open

to unexpected opportunities

may have profound impacts on

your career.

B Y MI CH A EL LA RO N N
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KLAUS VEDFELT

56 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

“H
elp me understand something,” a fellow
writer asked me over coffee, scratching her
head in confusion. “You’re going to law
school, but you’re not going to be a lawyer?”
I had heard the question so many times that answer-
ing it was second nature.
“That’s right,” I said.
“Why waste all that time, money, and energy?” she asked.
“So I can be a more business-savvy writer.”
Then, my friend’s head exploded (figuratively).
In August 2017, I enrolled in a well-respected law
school with no intention of practicing law or sitting
for the bar exam. I kept my grueling 9-to-5 job that
demanded 50 hours per week and frequent travel. I
was also raising a toddler, writing five to 10 books per
year, and hosting a YouTube channel and two podcasts.
Somehow, I managed to do all of this and still make it
through my law coursework.
In May 2021, I graduated, and, as promised, I am not
a lawyer (and do not hold myself out as one), and I am
not sitting for the bar. People ask me on a weekly basis
what the heck I was thinking.
Why would I make such a life up-ending decision and
sacrifice so much money, time, and effort?
This article is about my journey and the lessons
I learned, and how my willingness to take a big risk
resulted in big rewards for my writing career.
THE “WHAT’S NEXT?” DILEMMA
I was one of those people who always wanted to go to law
school but never got around to it. I graduated from col-
lege at the height of the Great Recession, and many of my
friends who went to law school didn’t find jobs for years
after they graduated with JDs (Juris Doctor degrees).
Naturally, that put me off from pursuing a law degree.
In the “real world,” I work in insurance, and I have
had a satisfying career there. My bosses always asked me,
“Michael, what’s next in your career?”
I never had an answer for them. In the corporate
world, it’s expected that the ambitious pursue higher
education (read: MBAs) to get promoted, but the very
idea of an MBA bored me—I’m a fiction writer, after all.
One afternoon, I received an email from an admis-
sions counselor at a local law school asking if I was inter-
ested in a new law program they were starting. She sold
it as “a law degree for people who don’t want to practice
but who want an understanding of the law.” The degree
was called an MJ—Master of Jurisprudence.
I looked it up. It turned out that this type of degree
was laughed at in the legal community. Most self-
respecting lawyers would never take you seriously. You
didn’t get to do internships at prestigious law firms, you
never saw the inside of a courtroom, and you were not
an attorney after you graduated.
Yet, a little voice told me to explore the opportunity.
I attended a college visit. As the admissions counselor
walked me around the campus with its vast green spaces,
swaying flowers, and tall buildings, I couldn’t “see”
myself there. Then, the counselor handed me a catalog
and said something curious: “This is an abbreviated law
program. You can take any electives you want.”
In a random twist of fate, the first course I turned to
in the catalog was Copyright Law. Copyright is, of course,
how authors make their living …
My mind raced. “Any electives?” I asked.
The little voice whose whisper I heard before was
yelling enthusiastically now. I remembered that my
employer offered a tuition reimbursement program. A
few days later, my boss agreed to pay for the entire pro-
gram, which sealed the deal. I enrolled immediately.
AND THEN, THERE WAS COPYRIGHT LAW
I saved Copyright Law for my final year of law school.
I thought having a better understanding of the law
would be more beneficial since the class was advanced.
I find copyright fascinating. Yet, many find copyright
to be a difficult, labyrinthine topic. It is.
That said, authors who understand copyright can
create opportunities for themselves out of seemingly
thin air.
WritersDigest.com I 57
 F I ND S U CCE S S IN 2 022
Everything (and I mean everything) you write is an
endless bundle of possibilities. Take this very article. I’m
licensing the words to the good editorial team at Writer’s
Digest, but I still own the copyright. As such, I could also
turn this 2,000-word idea into:
• A reprint in another magazine
• An audio recording
• A YouTube video
• A short film
• A full-length book
• A paid speech
• And more!
My only limit is my imagination, and law school
helped me learn how to turn my imagination into
income. That’s why love copyright, and that’s why I was
as excited as a kid at Christmas when I walked into my
copyright law class on the first day.
The class was intimidating. The professor was a
practicing intellectual property lawyer who specialized
in copyright. I was the only master’s student in a class
full of JD candidates. Boy, did I get some funny looks
when the class did introductions, and I told everyone
that I was there to learn copyright for my indie
publishing business.
The professor assigned a thick, 700-page murder
weapon (erhm, book) full of landmark copyright cases.
I devoured the entire book and analyzed all the cases in
one month. I became an avid student of copyright.
SUGGESTED READING
You don’t have to go to law school to learn copyright.
Here’s a quality reading list that will cost you less
than $50:
• The Copyright Handbook: What Every Writer
Needs to Know by Stephen Fishman
• The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-
Atlantic Battle by Peter Baldwin
The Copyright Handbook is written by a lawyer
and covers the basics of the law that you need to
understand.
The Copyright Wars covers the history of copyright
and how famous authors and artists used copyright to
build long-lasting legacies.
58 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
Every week, the professor would ask if anyone
spotted any “copyright issues” in the wild. Most of the
students were only taking the class to satisfy an elective
and didn’t have an interest in copyright, so they were
not interested in this exercise. I would wait patiently for
someone to bring up a topic, and when no hands went
up, I would use the time to ask the professor a boatload
of publishing questions. Every class was essentially a free
legal consultation.
My professor and I got along so well that he’ll be the
lawyer I will call when I have copyright issues in the
future. What a great connection!
Just as the little voice in my head told me at the begin-
ning of this journey, the copyright law class was worth
the entire cost of admission to the program.
BUT THERE WAS A COST
I won’t sugarcoat my experience. It was amazing in every
way, but I had to make real sacrifices.
First, I spent a lot of time away from my family. I’m
fortunate to have an amazing wife who tolerated the 5
a.m. mornings and study sessions late into the night.
Second, I put myself under an extraordinary amount
of stress that I don’t recommend to anyone. I thrive
under high pressure, but the level of study combined
with everything else going on in my life at the time was
not for the faint of heart.
Third, while my employer paid for the program, I still
had to pay for books, and they were not cheap.
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL’S FREE
RESOURCE
Did you know that Harvard Law School published its
Copyright Law class for free on YouTube? Look up
“Harvard Copyright X.” Taught by Professor William
Fisher, it offers several hours’ worth of helpful copy-
right lessons. Professor Fisher even shares a mind map
you can use to keep all the different concepts straight!
Fourth, and most importantly, all that time I spent
studying was time I could not spend writing fiction. My
writing was the biggest casualty on this journey. Every
semester cost me fiction words—words that I could
have sold, words that readers were waiting for, and
words that would have helped me sharpen my writing
craft faster. They were also words that could have led to
 IF ANYTHING, I HOPE THAT THIS ARTICLE TEACHES YOU
TO LISTEN TO THAT LITTLE VOICE WHEN IT WHISPERS TO
YOU. IT KNOWS WHAT IT’S DOING, AND IT MEANS A FUTURE
OPPORTUNITY MIGHT BE COMING.
opportunities that might have brought me closer to my
long-term writing dreams faster.
At the beginning of this journey, I told myself that the
costs would be worth it in the long run. I didn’t know
how, but I knew that the information I would learn
would help me tremendously and give me an advantage.
I had faith that I’d be able to make it work.
During my final year of the law program, a plot twist
happened.
HOLLYWOOD CAME KNOCKING
I received an email from an illustrious individual in
Hollywood inquiring about the rights to one of my works.
Suddenly, an opportunity was staring me in the face.
Pre-law school, I would have taken the deal and then
probably died of joy.
However, my (abbreviated but thorough) law train-
ing taught me to view the opportunity with a discern-
ing eye. I walked away. Ultimately, I avoided signing
a contract that could have hamstrung my career and
taken the rights not just to the work in question, but to
all my books.
Imagine if I made that mistake. I can guarantee
you that it would have been more costly than what I
sacrificed to achieve my degree. The universe works in
funny ways.
Do I recommend that you attend law school to get the
same education I received? No. My degree was highly
specialized, and this path is too much time, money, and
effort for most writers. Your time is best spent writing;
all I did was take advantage of an opportunity when it
presented itself.
If anything, I hope that this article teaches you to lis-
ten to that little voice when it whispers to you. It knows
what it’s doing, and it means a future opportunity might
be coming. You might find that amazing things happen
when you obey that little voice.
When I visited the law school campus for the first
time, I spotted an opportunity and acted on it. The
writing life is no different—opportunities are all around
us. We just have to learn how to recognize them.
Opportunities don’t look the way we think they will.
Sometimes, they will look like the writing opportuni-
ties you’d expect—a movie contract, for example. Other
times, they will appear as if they have nothing to do with
writing—like law school. The key is cultivating a willing-
ness to explore opportunities, even if you don’t know
where they will lead you.
CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING
QUESTIONS WHEN THE
OPPORTUNITY ARISES
• Will this opportunity still allow time to focus on
getting words on the page?
• How will this help me further my goal of doing X?
• Is there a financial upside or downside to consider,
and will that pay off in the long run?
• If this opportunity doesn’t end up helping my
writing, will it be beneficial in other ways?
As for me, my degree has already paid for itself, and I’m
a much better writer and businessperson for it. Now,
when people ask me what I was thinking by going to law
school for a degree that doesn’t let me practice law, I just
smile and tell them I did it to save my fiction. WD
Michael La Ronn (MichaelLaRonn.com) is the Amazon-bestselling
author of more than 60 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-
help books for writers. He also hosts the popular weekly YouTube
channel “Author Level Up,” where he publishes writing advice
videos and writing app tutorials.
WritersDigest.com I 59
THE
WD INTERVIEW
Lisa Jewell
L
isa Jewell has found her sweet spot. After writing a
few rom-coms, then sliding into family dramas, her
books now land solidly in the psychological thriller
category. And she’s not going anywhere.
“I’m settling here,” she says. “It was destined that I
wasn’t going to write a thriller for my first novel, and I’m
quite glad I didn’t—now. But this is where I was meant to
be, and this is where I’m going to stick.”
And why wouldn’t she? The success the British novel-
ist has found throughout her 19 novels is impressive. The
Family Upstairs was an instant New York Times bestseller
and was followed by Then She Was Gone which spent
more than a year on the same list and sold over a million
copies. Combined, her books have sold more than 5 mil-
lion copies in 29 languages.
Now Jewell is out with her a new novel, The Night She
Disappeared, about Tallulah, a missing teen mom whose
own mother, Kim, will stop at nothing to find out what
happened. It has all of the hallmarks readers expect from
a Lisa Jewell blockbuster: more twists and turns than you
can count, red herrings galore, complex character moti-
vations, and an ending you won’t predict. Jewell knows
the importance of a strong ending in a thriller, saying, “It
comes down to such minute decisions in the end. ... It’s
a strange one because, for me, the ending is absolutely
everything when you write a thriller. I’ve just read so
many thrillers with disappointing endings and I couldn’t
bear to put a book out there that had a disappointing
ending. So, I have to take a deep breath and hope I’ve
chosen the right outcome for my characters.”
But before we could talk about endings, we had to
start at the beginning, with the inspiration for The Night
She Disappeared.
I always love hearing where you get your ideas
for new books because sometimes it’s just a quick
60 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
passing moment. Where did the idea for this
particular book come from?
Well, it wasn’t quite as picturesque or poetic as some of
my inspirations look. The Family Upstairs was inspired
by a woman I saw when I was on holiday in the south of
France. This one was a bit more prosaic than that, but it
still has the same feeling of, I’ve just had an idea, and now
I want to write it really badly. Somebody said the words
“boarding school,” and I suddenly knew that I wanted to
write a book that was set [there], which I’ve never done
before. I had this idea of a murder mystery with a board-
ing school setting somewhere out in the countryside, in a
beautiful old building with stunning manicured grounds,
and what have you. As I was mentally processing my way
through the grounds of this beautiful imaginary school,
I saw this sign in my head, a sign saying “Dig Here.” And
that was the diving board from whence the story came.
TNSD features three different timelines that ulti-
mately catch up to each other. How do you navigate
writing those different timelines and keeping them
straight for yourself as you’re drafting or revising?
Well, it’s actually the other way around. Having the vari-
ous timelines is what keeps it straight. If I didn’t have so
many timelines going on, I would get quite lost. Because
I don’t plan when I write and I don’t have any idea where
the story is going, if I was only following my writerly
clues from the perspective of one person in one place
at one time, I wouldn’t really have a lot to go on. I think
I would get quite stuck and end up writing myself into
JEWELL PHOTO © ANDREW WHITTON
corners and not sure where to go. There’s sort of a pin-
ball bouncing around from person to person, timeline
to timeline, perspective to perspective, it’s what keeps it
all together. It all keeps the momentum going and gives
me what I need as a writer in terms of clues as to what’s
going on. So, I get to the end of the chapter with one
The New York Times
bestselling British author
discusses creating thrilling
plot twists and developing
characters in her 19th novel,
The Night She Disappeared.
BY AMY JONES
THE WD INTERVIEW Lisa Jewell
character and think, Well, now they know this fact but
that doesn’t really help me going on into the future with
this character. I need another character to come and tell
me another fact from their point of view. So that’s how it
actually works. It’s much easier than it might look to a
reader, to actually break the narrative up into those sorts
of chunks.
I’m so interested to hear that because as I’ve been
interviewing different writers who use multiple time-
lines, some of them talk about discovering another
timeline as they get further into the book and having
to go back and revise and map them out and sticky
notes and dry erase boards.
Oh, god, no! No, see when I die and they come to clear
out all my writerly effects, they will find nothing. There
would be not one piece of evidence, apart from my pub-
lished books and the documents in my Word folders,
that I ever wrote a book. I don’t have anything. It’s all just
in my head and on the screen and then, ultimately, in a
paperback novel.
My brain doesn’t work like that. I can’t take things
out of the novel and put them onto a Post-it Notes and
put them onto a whiteboard and then reconnect them
back to the novel. I can only work those things out in
the context of the novel, of the words I’m looking at on
the screen; if they’re anywhere else, they don’t make any
sense to me. It’s quite intense, but it works for me. And
[it] does the way the other writers have what works for
them. It’s the joy and the magic of it because everybody
finds their own way to do it.
So how does that way of not plotting work when it
comes to your revisions and making sure that things
work together? Do you find that you spend more
time revising as a result?
Less, actually. This is my 19th novel, and in my first 10,
12, maybe even 13 novels, I did an awful lot of revisions,
and also lots of deletions of stuff: rejigging, printing off
the manuscript and putting it on the floor, moving sheets
of paper around, and changing my mind about things.
For the biggest chunk of my career, there’s been lots
of that. But that’s something I would like to think you
should get better at—the technical aspects of writing—
once you’ve been writing for 25 years and written 19
novels. And I have … I do much less in the way of revi-
62 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
sions, of taking stuff out, and of going backward before I
can go forward. I spend much more time now just going
forward. Wasting much less time and being much more
efficient, much more confident, and trusting my instincts
a lot more, which I think is vital. But it takes a lot of
practice to trust your instincts.
Your novels are so very character-driven, and in TNSD,
I love Tallulah. But what’s fascinating to me is where
she is in her life. Not only is she at an age where she’s
going from being a teen to being an adult, but she’s
doing that while learning how to be a mom and figur-
ing out parts of her own sexuality that she might not
have known were there before. How did you figure
out all of these pieces of who she is?
I started writing her as an afterthought. I hadn’t been
going to include her. I had just been going to map the
whole story out between Kim and Sophie [Tallulah’s
boyfriend’s mother]. Then I got to a point … [where]
Kim and Sophie need some help here in understanding
what might’ve happened to Tallulah, and the only way I
can give them any help is by knowing what happened to
Tallulah myself. The only way I’m going to find out what
happened to Tallulah is to write the girl. So, I introduced
her quite a few chapters in, and the first chapter I wrote
was her seeing this girl who I assumed would be the girl
with the swimming pool.
I knew that Tallulah had been at a pool party with
this girl called Scarlett. I thought, Right, let’s start writing
Tallulah. And I do start very, very quickly. I don’t sit and
wait for the muse and prevaricate … I just go with the
first thing that presents itself to me. The first thing that
presented itself to me was Tallulah sitting in the cafeteria
at college and seeing this girl Scarlett. And I could have
gone any way with it, ’cause I didn’t really know who
Tallulah was, but I found myself writing that she was
really aching for her baby. I also realized that she was a
teenage mother who was aching for her baby. That kind
of formed everything else.
What if she’s aching for her baby, but she’s doing this
other thing: She’s improving herself and making a life for
herself in the future, then she’s probably very responsible
and she’s probably not very rebellious. She probably does
toe the line and do everything as expected. She probably
is quite quiet. She probably isn’t wild. It was that initial
sight of her in my mind’s eye sitting quietly in the
cafeteria, aching for her baby just informed everything.
That’s kind of how all my characters come out. I put
them somewhere because I have to start writing them. …
And that’s the joy of it. That’s why I love writing char-
acters so much—watching them unfold on the page and
watching these layers develop and getting to know them
as I write them. I never come to a book with a character
fully formed in my head and I know everything about
them. I know a couple of things and everything else
comes from that.
Some of your books, including TNSD, explore the
power dynamics and trust between people in posi-
tions of power vs. people who are in comparatively
lower positions of power, like a principal vs. a stu-
dent, or in this case, a quiet teen mom vs. a popular
teen. How do you approach working those concepts
into your novels?
Any sort of friction is going to work in a novel. I imme-
diately knew which relationships you were talking about
and from which of my novels, and I didn’t actually notice
until you pointed that out, that there is a pattern of that
in my books. I have chosen those dynamics very subcon-
sciously it appears. I guess I liked writing about hope-
less crushes, and I think there is an element of that with
the headteacher in Watching You, and a few people have
a hopeless crush on him. … And then again here, you’ve
got Scarlett who has a whole cast of people who were in
thrall to her. A whole cast of people who actually would
kill for her and do kill for her.
I think that’s a really interesting thing, particularly
for me, because I’ve never been in that position. There’s
never been anyone in my life who I’ve felt that way about
or looked up to in that way or have that sort of obsession
with … So maybe that’s why I like to explore it because
that’s not any feeling that I have for another human being
in my life, yet it creates so much interesting friction on
the page. And as you say, it also creates all this ambigu-
ity, which is the key to a good psychological thriller. I
think it’s just something I’ve naturally kind of come back
to time after time and I’m doing it again with the novel
I’m writing at the moment. There is some obsessive love
going on there as well and a master taking control of
somebody who’s in thrall to them, that dynamic again. …
So, that’s another thing that happens when you’ve
written 19 novels, you get repeating motifs. Somebody
was asking me about this last night, “What things do
you find you keep coming back to now you’ve got to
this point in your career?” And I said, “I keep going
back to teenagers.” And she said, “Oh, I thought you
were going to say houses because that is a repeating
motif, is the houses.”
So many of your books do feature a home with
secrets. What goes on behind closed doors, what
people choose to reveal about themselves to the
world, how much you actually know about the peo-
ple you live with, and there’s so much for novelists to
explore there. What about that is interesting to you?
… They’re like little boxes to lock people away with
their secrets. Places where people can be absolutely
themselves and not have to worry about what anybody
thinks or what impression they’re giving to the world.
So, they’re bound to be the most interesting place to see
stories unfold, but that’s clearly where all the interesting
stuff is happening.
Obviously, you’ve got other sorts of locked room
environments that you can write like that boarding
school, it’s a similar thing. But still, there’s nothing more
intensely private than a house with a door shut and
nobody else there apart from the people who live there
and their secrets and their true selves that come out.
Why wouldn’t you want to write about houses?
The importance of the ending in your books really
shines through. There was one point in TNSD where
I thought, OK, perhaps I figured it out. Not only had
I not figured it out, but there was a second twist that
absolutely made sense and leaves readers with a
little gasp.
Exactly. And it’s that little bit at the end, because so often
when you set up a brilliant thriller and then you have to
explain everything at the end, a lot of thrillers can just
run out of steam with all the explaining. You can almost
feel the writer just like thinking, Oh, I’ve got all these
loose ends I need to tie up and I’ve tied that one up. Right,
now I need to tie up another one, oh, there’s another one.
And then you get to the end and you’re like, “Oh. OK.” I
quite often feel like that when I’m writing my endings. …
Because it is hard to end a novel, which is why I love to
come back with a thing, a thing that, it’s usually some-
thing that I’ve been saving up for the whole book.
WritersDigest.com I 63
THE WD INTERVIEW Lisa Jewell
It doesn’t have to be a huge twist that throws the
whole thing off-kilter, just a little thing just to make the
reader go, “Ohhhh, that was going on all along in the
background. I never even thought of that.” That’s a really
good way of rescuing the ending of a thriller with that
sort of dribbling away thing that they can do sometimes.
You did that so well in TNSD and Watching You as
well. That one really got me.
Because it didn’t actually change the story, the ending of
Watching You. It wasn’t a massive twist. It just gave the
reader a different view of things, kind of mentally scroll-
ing back through everything. I like to do that. I think
that leaves the reader feeling satisfied and like it was all
worth it. It takes a long time to read a 400-page novel
and you want to feel like it was worth your time.
I think my problem with your books is I enjoy them
so much that I always say, “Oh, I’ll just read one
more chapter,” and then it’s 2:00 a.m. Part of it is
because of the way you create cliffhangers at the
end of your chapters.
I think it’s very instinctive for me in a way. Because, quite
often, the mechanics of just getting a chapter down on
the page can feel quite dull. You can sometimes write a
chapter and think, all I’ve done is move my characters
out of one house into another house. And they’ve had
a conversation and they’ve revealed a wonderful some-
thing or other. Now I’ve come to the end of the chap-
ter, and I need something to give me the momentum to
jump onto the next chapter because I’m feeling like I just
wasted 1,500 words or however long the chapter is. So, I
will just pluck anything, anything that I can possibly find
out of thin air to put into the last paragraph of the chap-
ter to bounce it back out of whatever doldrums I felt it
might have been in and bounce me into the next chapter
I’m rearing and ready to start writing. I do it for me, but
I can see it, obviously, it has the byproduct of working
quite well for the reader too.
What is the general working relationship like
between you and your editors and your agents?
Because you’ve got editors and agents on both sides
of the Atlantic—how many of them get involved in
the ideation of a book?
I’ve got a very unusual relationship with my U.K. edi-
tor, and she’s my fourth editor I’ve had over my career,
64 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
or maybe my fifth. But she’s the only editor I’ve ever had
who sees my rough first draft. Every other editor I ever
had before that, I would honestly rather cut off my toes
than let them read my rough first draft because they’re
the ones who pay me. I don’t want them to ever see my
dirty laundry, unwashed garments: the truth about my
terrible writing. But me and my U.K. editor, we just
clicked. I think this is her seventh or eighth novel with
me, and I’m not scared of her seeing my bad writing. It
doesn’t scare me at all.
She works as the first reader in the way, and that is
highly unusual for a writer’s editor to be their first reader.
It’s usually either someone they live with or a friend
or their agent … At the moment, my editor is my first
reader … She will fix my manuscript for me, I’ll go away
and rewrite it. Then we present that in one fell swoop to
my English agent, my American agent, and my American
editor, who then make their own editing notes. We then
do the next draft as per their input as well. So, it’s quite
unusual, but it absolutely works for me, hugely. It’s part
of why I’m so relaxed about the writing process, now that
I’m not scared of what happens at the end anymore.
Did you have any additional writing advice for the
readers of Writer’s Digest?
I think the thing that is most helpful to me now at this
point in my career is not overthinking things and just
putting yourself on the page. Not thinking about the
market, and not thinking about the book that you read
last week that was really good and why didn’t you write
that book, and not thinking about will people think
I’m stupid if I say this. There are so many things you
can worry about when you’re writing that are all irrel-
evant. Two people can write the same book and it’d be
two completely different books. The important thing is
a book that you write is your book and it’s you, and you
put yourself into it and don’t listen to any of the inter-
ference from anywhere else in the world. Just you, your
screen, your brain, your fingertips, your world, just focus
on you. Just communing with your keyboard and not
worry about what anybody else is doing at all. WD
Amy Jones is editor-in-chief of WD. Follow her on Twitter
@AmyMJones_5.
 FUNNY YOU
SHOULDASK
A literary agent’s mostly serious answers to your mostly serious questions.
BY BARBARA POELLE

Dear FYSA, a short description like “Cameron Dear Loyal,

I am about 60 percent
through my novel, and I find myself
struggling a little. I know how to
map out the last 20 percent or so,
but I seem to be at a loss at how
to connect where I am to where I
am going. Looking for a 20 percent
bridge—any tips?
Signed,
Running on Fumes
Dear Fumey,
First of all, whoa whoa. Is this an
algorithm? I crushed a D average
in Honors Calculus (yes, yes, I am
made of dichotomies), and I start
sweating when I think I am read-
ing a word problem. Is there a train
leaving a station? Am I plotting for
X? Was that the bell? I can’t remem-
ber my locker combo! I forgot to
wear pants!
OK, so here’s the thing. Writing?
It’s work. And work doesn’t hap-
pen without effort. So, the num-
ber one thing is AIC: ass in chair.
Sit down and start typing. Just get
through the penultimate fifth (also
the name of my jam band quintet)
as best you can to get to the final act
of the novel where you feel more
confident. Getting that first draft
to the final sentence is key—even
if it means a few chapters with only
loses the zip drive but finds the
dog” or “Scenes needed with Patrice
and Leon?”—then get to the solid
ground you know.
When you finish the draft, close
the document. Now? Go shoe shop-
ping. Head to the skeet range. Heck,
open a new Word doc and start a
new novel, whatever! Just step away
from it. In a couple of days, come
back and (here comes the tip) read
your novel back to yourself out
loud. Yup. It’s gonna take some time,
but it is a little trick that I find can
grease the sticky places. Then don’t
forget to lean into your first reader
because as we all know, a solid lab
partner can sometimes make up all
the difference.
Dear FYSA,
I signed with my agent when
she was newer to the field and have
watched her star rise over the last
few years. But lately, it takes her
longer to respond and even the tone
of her responses seems dismissive. I
was with her from the beginning and
feel like that should mean something.
How can I have a conversation with
her about my feeling less of a priority
without sounding like sour grapes?
Signed,
Lonely but Loyal
Once in my early 20s (remember
those?) in L.A., I was sitting out by
my apartment pool with my BFF—
let’s call him Brandon (because
that is his name)—dangling our
legs in the water and eating a pic-
nic. We were just casually chatting,
and I noticed Brandon’s gaze was
serenely pointed at the water as I
was facing him. Suddenly he said,
“That little guy is enjoying his swim
on this hot day.” And I followed his
gaze to the water where there was a
fat, fuzzy bumble bee churning his
little body in the water.
Now, I am a huge fan of bees.
Like huge. The second I saw that
bumble in the water, I grabbed a
picnic plate, swiveled around, laid
on my belly, and practically fell into
the water scooping him out and
placing him on the ledge to dry
off. I turned to Brandon and said,
“Dude! That bee wasn’t swimming,
he was drowning.” And Brandon
said, “Whoa. It looked like he was
swimming.” And he paused for a bit
then added, “That must have been
exhausting.”
I say all of this to illustrate that,
speaking from experience, while it
may look like your agent is calmly
backstroking through her Scrooge
McDuck vault of commissions, her
PHOTO © TRAVIS POELLE

ASK FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK! Submit your questions on the writing life, publishing, or anything in between to wdsubmissions@
aimmedia.com with “Funny You Should Ask” in the subject line. Select questions (which may be edited for space or clarity) will be
answered in future columns, and may appear on WritersDigest.com and in other WD publications.

66 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

 OK, so here’s the thing. Writing? It’s work. And work doesn’t
happen without effort. So, the number one thing is AIC: ass in
chair. Sit down and start typing.

ankle might actually be tied to an
anchor of an inbox, and it is all she
can do to keep her head above the
nickel-line. This last 18 months has
been—hmm, I believe the medi-
cal term is: cray cray ba-naynay?—
with the dissolution of the work/
life balance, as many of us realized
we weren’t so much “working from
home” as we were “living at work.”
There were (and continue to be) sup-
ply chain disruptions, printer delays
and shortages, and entire shipments
sitting somewhere north of where
they need to be as an entire ware-
house staff is quarantined. This—
and more—led me to be guilty of
shooting off quick emails where
tone cannot be discerned, and tone
matters, and I spent a few phone
calls clearing up my own intentions
with very valued clients.
Since you have been with her
since the beginning, I think you
have more than earned the right to
set up a phone convo with her to
discuss your perception. And she
has earned a chance to honestly
respond, and hopefully, you both
can return to the picnic, wings dry-
ing in the sun. WD
Barbara Poelle is vice president at Irene
Goodman Literary Agency (IreneGoodman
.com), where she specializes in adult and
young adult fiction. She is the author of
Funny You Should Ask: Mostly Serious
Answers to Mostly Serious Questions About
the Book Publishing Industry (WD Books).

WritersDigest.com I 67
ALLABOUT THEPITCH
Covering the tips, tricks, and tactics for capturing the attention of an assigning editor so you don’t get ghosted.
BY ESTELLE ERASMUS
Mining Your Life for Story Ideas
A
s a writing coach and NYU
professor who teaches a
pitching bootcamp for
Writer’s Digest University, one of
the first questions a student asks me
is “How can I come up with ideas?”
Even if you are creative, that part of
the pitching process can be challeng-
ing. I have analyzed the process and
developed an effective idea genera-
tion strategy. That’s why my Estelle’s
Edge and focus of this column is on
capturing an editor’s attention by
using my mapping template to mine
your life for ideas. My students credit
it as integral to their pitching success.
Here is how it’s done.
MAPPING TEMPLATE: HOW
TO MINE YOUR LIFE FOR
IDEAS IN FOUR STEPS
Take five to 15 minutes a day to do
this brainstorming exercise.
Take a piece of paper and sepa-
rate it into four sections. (If you run
out of room, just add more sections).
If you prefer to do it digitally, you
can use Google Jamboard (where
you can even add photos) or another
interactive journal format.
STEP 1: You
In this section, note everything that
defines you and all of your experi-
ences. After all, you are going to
write the essay or article that only
68 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
you can write. So, who are you? What
makes you stand out? Let’s make a
list. Are you an adoptive parent? An
empty nester? Did you climb Mount
Kilimanjaro? Start running races
in midlife? Or, perhaps you are an
expat? Did you get married early in
life? Or does someone in your family
suffer from an unusual medical con-
dition? Do you have a deadbeat dad?
Whatever your situation or expe-
rience (and the more passionate
or obsessed you are about it, the
better), write it down. For me, I
got married and had my daughter
in midlife, am a bit klutzy, pivoted
many times in my career, had a
devastating ectopic pregnancy, have
worked in publishing as a magazine
editor-in-chief, and had an abusive
therapist as a teen. I write about it
all. Add to your list every day and as
new situations emerge in your life.
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Often, stu-
dents will write long, involved,
beautifully worded posts about
something going on in their lives
connected to something in the
news or a celebrity event that get
a strong response on social media.
I message them and tell them to
take the post off their Facebook
or Instagram, and instead, write
about and publish it … and they
do. You should, too.
STEP 2: Timely News and
Celebrity Items
Every morning, scan the news
(CNN, Fox, ABC, local stations) and
look at newspapers to locate break-
ing topics, celebrity, and trending
items that tie in with your interests
or experiences and add that in to
another column right next to the
first one about you. The idea is to
connect the timely, newsy bits with
your own experience and build your
template with those new pieces
of information. If you are an avid
bowler and a new study on bowling
showed it increases intelligence, add
that. Did a celebrity also adopt kids
from a developing nation or also
deal with a deadbeat dad? Write it
down. Is an expat starting up a new
website for women who followed
their partners abroad? You get the
picture. You’ve now added the ele-
ment that shows why the reader
should care.
ESTELLE’S EDGE: I tell my stu-
dents to look at popular movies
or TV shows to put a timely spin
on their idea. You can also check
Twitter for trending topics, and
many writers are now getting
ideas from TikTok, Instagram,
and Reddit.
STEP 3: Google Alerts,
Journals, and Newsletters
The third step in the process
requires you to sign up to get infor-
mation. First, sign up for Google
Alerts relating to the ideas and
subjects that interest you. Did you
know that authors researching a
nonfiction book often set up Google
Alerts on their topic so they are the
first to learn about new information
or studies? Do a Google search for
Google Alerts to learn how to set
them up. Once you start receiving
alerts, you can add pertinent infor-
mation into this third column that
you have created.
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Remember that
Google tends to respond better
to longer sentences in search
mode rather than one- or two-
word fragments. So, you will get
more specific results from setting
an alert for “New studies on
health and happiness in women
in midlife” rather than “health in
women in midlife,” or “studies
on midlife women’s health.”
I also suggest signing up for the
email newsletters for the profes-
sional organizations or associations
that cover the topic the writer is
interested in writing about. Often,
you can find an organization with
a fact sheet, press release, or report
online (check the media section part
of the site).
Consider signing up for jour-
nals, especially if you write about
health. For example, every major
health association offers a journal.
If you are interested in psychology,
sign up for APA PsycInfo from the
American Psychological Association
(APA.org/pubs/databases/psycinfo
/index.aspx). If you are struggling
with adult-onset Type 2 diabetes
and want to write about it, see if you
can find recent research cited by
The American Diabetes Association
(Diabetes.org).
Other tools you can use to fill
your template include the research
and studies gleaned from Science
Daily (ScienceDaily.com) and The
Skimm (TheSkimm.com), a curated
newsletter that you can tailor to
your interests.
STEP 4: Title Your Ideas as if
You Were Pitching Them
For the fourth step, quickly free
write titles of pitches for your ideas
based on your template. Play with
alliteration, make them short (five
words) or long (10 words), try to
elicit emotion by exciting, engaging,
enraging the reader, or evoking a
call to action. If you know the publi-
cation you want to publish in, try to
model your title on their titles.
ESTELLE’S EDGE: Part of your
“sell” is the title. Often, an editor
will assign based on a compelling
headline, even if the pitch isn’t
fully fleshed out. I always tell my
students to come up with a tan-
talizing or provocative title that
tells the story of your essay or
proposed article. I sold the pitch
“How to Bullyproof Your Child” to
The New York Times and “The
Doula Who Saved My Life” to
The Washington Post. A student
of mine pitched an essay to The
New York Times titled “Defying
the Family Cycle of Addiction.”
I tell my students
to look at popular
movies or TV shows
to put a timely spin
on their idea.
HERE IS AN EXERCISE YOU
CAN DO BEFORE CREATING
YOUR MAPPING TEMPLATE
Quickly, and without thinking, write
down 10–15 topics that you would
like to write about.
Next, connect each of these top-
ics to something in your life, and
then do a quick search using Google
or Google Scholar to add something
fresh and new, like a statistic, study,
or information from a new book.
Always remember: your
experience, viewpoint (aka spin),
plus relevant statistics, studies,
experts and quotes, or a connection
to timely, newsworthy, holiday
or celebrity-related events equals
publishing gold.
Look at your mapping template
every day, add to it, and use it to
prompt essays and articles. You’ll be
surprised at how successful you’ll be
using this tool and how it will help
you to mine your life for ideas. WD
Estelle Erasmus (EstelleSErasmus.com)
is an award-winning journalist and writing
coach. She teaches journalism classes at
New York University’s School of Profes-
sional Studies and for Writer’s Digest. She
contributes to The New York Times and
WIRED, and is a guest editor for Narratively.
Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at
@EstelleSErasmus.
WritersDigest.com I 69
YOURSTORY
Water Ways
THE CHALLENGE: Write the opening line to a story based on the photo prompt below.
Out of 300 entries, Writer’s Digest “No man’s going to tell me what
editors and readers selected the I can and can’t do,” thought Lilith as
following 10 winners. she rowed away from Eden in her
self-made boat, the serpent coiled
at her feet and the hull full of ripe
red apples.
—Mary Hansen
The reservoir of the past forever
recreates the wellspring of the
present; we found ourselves there,
traveling the river of time.
—Ann Marie Liakos
You can say anything you want
about nature’s beauty and healing
power, but if my hair gets wet, you
are a dead man.
—Beth Lent
As their rowboat slipped through
the Emerald Passage and carried
them into exile, Arren stared down-
ward while Sera gazed wistfully at
the evergreen beauty of their home
one final time.
—Keith Schooler
Under the waterfall, about a mile
past the river canyon you’ll find the
rest of the survivors; that was the
last thing my father ever said to me.
—Justin Lehrer
70 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
CONTEST #112
As the two lovers approached,
the thundering of the waterfall was
overcome by the roar of a creature
long believed to be extinct.
—Alex Auclair
It was dizzying to contemplate
that the stone-cut river he now
traversed had only been carved a
few days previously by the Great
Serpent.
—Whitman Craig
At the end of the breakup, he
sarcastically laughed, “You’ll be up a
creek, lost in uncharted water,” and
all I could think was, yeah … like
that’s a bad thing?
—Rosemarie McGourty
Under the ever-watchful eye of
Interpol, it was Ben and Suzie’s first
vacation together since the Sahara
incident of 1991.
—Christopher Bowers
Thousands of eyeless skulls
peered up at Adrian from beneath
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: IPPEI NAOI
the water’s surface as he rowed,
careful to make as little noise as pos-
sible lest he alert the Keeper of the
Valley of Souls to his intrusion.
—Karie Bavuso
 ENTERYOURSTORY
THE CHALLENGE: Write the first line of a story based on the prompt below. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

TO ENTER: Send your story via email to

yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com (entries
CONTEST #116
must be pasted directly into the body of
the email; attachments will not be opened).

116
Entries without a name and mailing
address will be disqualified.

NOTE: WD editors select the top 12

finalists and post them on our website
(WritersDigest.com/Your-Story-
Competition). Join us in March, when
readers will vote for their favorite to help pick
the top 10 winners! Follow @WritersDigest on
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: LUIS ALVAREZ

Twitter for Your Story updates.

The winner will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest.

DON’T FORGET: Your name and mailing address. One entry per person.
DEADLINE: February 28, 2022.

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W R I T I N G T I P S F R O M M A S T E R O F F I N E A R T S P R O G R A M S A N D C A N D I D AT E S
WHEN ONE IDEA JUST ISN’T ENOUGH
B Y JA CQU E S DE N AULT
IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM
There are times when writers have to recognize that
one of their stories, for whatever reason, isn’t coming
together on the page. Perhaps you’ve been there, work-
ing and reworking a story using reliable elements of craft
and still feeling like you aren’t getting any traction within
the story. Anyone who’s taken an MFA-style workshop
can relate to the sting of sitting in silence as others pick
apart your story, pointing out the aspects they think
aren’t working. While these critiques can be helpful, it’s
just as helpful to realize that while they might not be
entirely right, they could be onto something.
It is crucial for a writer to look at their work objec-
tively, to be able to recognize and understand why
a story is falling flat. This can be one of the hardest
things to learn how to do since to maintain the stance
of objectivity, you must first remove yourself from a
piece and look at it the way a reader might. The prob-
lem with that is, as the writer, you know all the things
that are in your head but not on the page, making it
difficult to recognize genuine flaws. Workshops are one
way to learn how to spot weak points in a story, like
chinks in a suit of armor, but even without a workshop,
you can learn to recognize these problems within your
own work by studying other authors and incorporating
techniques of craft.
Often, stories submitted in workshops aren’t quite
right because the author is too singularly focused on one
element of the story. This type of writing can lead to a
feeling of incompletion, and to be able to see incomple-
tion in your own work takes time and practice.
I used to write stories with a single idea, whether that
was a character gets lost in an abandoned hospital or
someone has suffered a sudden loss and then has to deal
with it, and one thing I realized was that the workshop
feedback I was often getting boiled down to this isn’t
working as it is. I began to take a close look at why that
was the case. What I decided was that there usually wasn’t
enough tension in my stories, they were bland, and that
alone, they were incomplete. There are two quotes that
come to mind when I think about this point in my MFA:
There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the
Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite
literally from nowhere … two previously unrelated ideas
come together and make something new under the sun.
Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them
when they show up.
— Stephen King, On Writing
I just knew that I wanted a vaguely Egypt-like society
and killer ninja priests.
— N. K. Jemisin
WritersDigest.com I 73
M FA W O R K B O O K
TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE
Both of those quotes point to the combination of seem-
ingly unrelated ideas. I realized that what I had been
doing was writing half of what my stories wanted to
be. I then had to confront the next hurdle—what was
I supposed to do now that I knew my stories were too
flat? Was I just a bad writer? Did I not have the talent to
properly recognize what would make a good story? I had
been thinking about craft and style through the books
and stories that I’d read, but there was something still
missing from my own work.
The key came to me when I was writing two stories
simultaneously, neither of which were going anywhere.
The first was inspired by the song “Lake Pontchartrain”
by Ludo, and the second was an homage to the great
Shirley Jackson story, The Lottery. With a submission for
my workshop class due in five days, I wasn’t sure what I
would be able to turn in since neither piece was working,
when it hit me: I had everything I needed already on the
page. I combined the two stories, taking the characters,
74 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
setting, and tone from the first piece and the plot from
the second. Once I had done that, I was left with a story I
was proud of.
The way that MFA programs usually talk about this
concept is through the “Inside/Outside” method, which
means there is both an “inside” conflict and an “outside”
conflict within a story. You can see these types of stories
everywhere, in any genre, or in nearly any medium. Take
Disney’s Lilo & Stitch: the inside story is that a girl (Lilo)
feels alienated from the other girls and struggles with the
loss of her parents, and the outside story is that an alien
(Stitch) goes to earth and attempts to evade capture and
his own destruction. While this isn’t an extensive break-
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: MIKROMAN6
down of the movie, you can hopefully already see how
the two ideas, as separate as they seem, create a single sto-
ryline. I mentioned The Lottery before, and even that can
fall into the same category of Inside/Outside story. The
inside story is about a woman who does not feel that she
fits in with her neighbors, while the outside story is of a
generations-old tradition of sacrifices chosen by lottery.
 An easy way to distinguish which part of a given story
is the inside and which is the outside is that the inside
story tends to be centered around character, while the
outside story resembles plot. If a story has only an inside
story, it could read as boring or that not much is hap-
pening, but if it only has an outside story, it runs the risk
of not being believable or having flat characters. Give it
a shot. Think about your favorite work; does it have an
inside and an outside story? From there, try to look at
your own work. By recognizing moments where addi-
tional tensions could be added or fleshed out, you can
directly address the moments of the story that aren’t
quite right.
This has been one of the most important things I’ve
learned in my MFA program: You don’t always need
a single tension running through the story to make it
cohesive, and it’s often better that you don’t. See if you
can take two stories that perhaps you’ve been dragging
your feet on and figure out if they can work together. You
never know, what you end up with might surprise you.
HOW TO START YOUR STORY
If you don’t have two story ideas, a good exercise is to
Google “random plot generator” and run the generator
twice. Let’s say it comes up with “a story centered around
murder.” OK, that’s a start, but it’s vague and shapeless.
Try running the generator again, and say it comes up
with “a character getting blackmailed.” Ideally, the gears
in your mind are already turning and plots beginning to
form. One story to come out of this could be a character
who witnessed a murder and wants to go to the police
with information but is being blackmailed into silence.
Another could be from the perspective of the murderer,
and perhaps they were blackmailed into committing the
crime, or maybe they murdered the person who was
blackmailing them. Already these ideas are beginning
to morph into something we would recognize as a story,
or at the very least, plot. While either starting point may
not be enough to create an engaging story on its own,
they become something together. From there, apply the
elements of craft that you learn from all the stories being
told around you every day.
But how do you start once you have two ideas? You
can start with a character and think about who they are
and what they want, or you can start with a location in
See if you can take two stories that
perhaps you’ve been dragging
your feet on and figure out if they
can work together. You never
know, what you end up with might
surprise you.
order to create the setting before populating your crafted
world. You can start at the beginning or the climax. In
the last example, you could start at the time of the mur-
der or at the moment of blackmail, and both would
result in drastically different stories.
Writers often think of stories as books or short stories,
but stories are also in television shows and movies, and
even in the droning of your annoying co-worker as they
tell you what they did that time they went to Cancún:
Did they tell you about an interesting character they met
on the plane? Did they forget one of their sandals in the
hotel? Any of these minuscule details could potentially
find their way into a story. In all of these examples or ori-
gins of story ideas, there are elements of craft, to greater
or lesser extents. These seeds of ideas that come about
in everyday life can serve as starting places for stories or
characters. As you get better at recognizing threads and
components of stories, you’ll likely find yourself think-
ing about potential stories to write. And if you don’t have
a knock-out idea, combine one idea with another and
make something entirely unique to you.
With practice, you will soon find that by absorbing sto-
ries, you may begin thinking about potential plots or
characters without even meaning to. The odds are, the
more you think about craft, the more ideas you will
have to write about, and the better your stories will be
in the end. WD
After receiving his MFA in creative writing from Emerson College,
Jacques Denault began teaching first year writing as an adjunct
lecturer at Merrimack College, where he currently works. His
stories have appeared in Hobart Pulp, Meniscus, and elsewhere.
WritersDigest.com I 75
BUILDINGBET TERWORLDS
Tips for making your story concrete.
BY MORIAH RICHARD

Introduction to Map-Making

W
hich came first: the
story or the map?
Honestly, it depends
on the kind of storyteller you are.
When I set out to write my first
epic fantasy, I thought I had all my
world-building done. I knew the
names of every town, how they were
governed, how many kingdoms
were on the continent, and where
I wanted my heroes to go. The only
problem was that once I started
writing, I couldn’t figure out how
long it would take to get to each city,
what the climate was on the trail
between them, and what important
landmarks would help and hinder
my little band of travelers.
As a visual learner, it helped
enormously to be able to refer to found that it’s easiest to figure out To do this, determine which fault
a concrete map for these kinds of how many continents you’d like to lines will be divergent (moving away
details. Even if you don’t need one, have in your world. If it’s one, great! from each other, creating trenches
it can be a fun exercise to help you To determine its shape, you can sim- and volcanic islands), convergent
connect with your world and even ply grab a notebook and sketch out (plates colliding, creating mountains
generate buzz around your work a rough outline of what you’d like it if they buckle up or valleys if they
later. I mean, really, who doesn’t to look like, or even take something bend down), or transform boundar-
love a good fictional map? I know like rice or coffee grounds and pour ies (where two plates slide against
more than a few people with a them onto a large sheet of paper to each other; anything naturally
poster of Westeros or Middle-earth help you visualize what the outline occurring or created by your world’s
on their walls (though I’m more an could look like. inhabitants that crosses this bound-
ILLUSTRATION © INKARNATE: MORIAH RICHARD

Azeroth kind of person, myself).
But where should you start? Well,
these are some steps that helped
me make my very first map (and a
bunch of others since then).
LANDMASSES
When it comes to landmasses, I’ve
For more than one main land-
mass, I like to start by first drawing
one large Pangaea-like continent
and then tracing where I think the
tectonic plates should fall. This helps
to visualize where the continents
will split, and also where mountain
ranges, lakes, and islands will appear.
ary will be split into pieces as the
plates move).
Once you’ve done this, you can
re-draw your map knowing how
the continents have split, how many
there are, and what their outlines
originally looked like. Then you
can go ahead and rough up their

76 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022

coastlines, making them appear
much older, and add islands and
island chains along the borders and
between continents.
WATER FEATURES
Now that you have a rough out-
line of the land, it’s time to decide
where the water lies. When creating
the landmasses, we acted as though
there were oceans surrounding
the continents, but you don’t have
to stick with this line of thinking.
Maybe your map is mostly land with
a few very large lakes breaking up
the map; maybe your planet is flat
and balanced on the backs of four
elephants who are standing on a
giant turtle á la the Discworld series.
The only limit is your imagination!
However, if your world’s inhab-
itants need some kind of water
source to live, then you’ll need to
provide them with drinkable and/or
strategic lakes, rivers, or oceans for
things like trade, exploration, and
technology. I generally like to have
rivers sloping off mountains and
collecting in ponds and lakes along
the way, ending at the ocean. This
technique also makes it easier to
create branches and splits on rivers
to form smaller streams. And don’t
forget river deltas (which will help
you make your coastline less uni-
form and more realistic).
NATURAL LANDMARKS
AND CLIMATE
When I was first building a map, I
only knew I needed one thing: a
cursed forest. This was where my
story started. Figuring out where it
should be located wasn’t too difficult,
so I marked it down. But what next?
Forests and deserts can be
important, so including them—and
the transitions between them—are
key. Deserts can be hot or cold and
located on the side of a mountain,
though are very rarely found on
both sides. They can also appear
along coasts, like in Australia.
Forests rarely appear directly next to
a desert; instead, the land becomes
rockier until it fades into grasslands.
Depending on the area the forest is
in, it can be tropical or temperate. It
might even be helpful to determine
where an equator might exist on
your map so that you don’t have a
cold desert and a tropical rainforest
near each other, but again, there are
no hard-and-fast rules to map-
making. If your audience can sus-
pend disbelief for the sake of your
story, let your imagination roam.
When thinking about more spe-
cific landmarks, it can help to turn
an eye to natural spaces that people
like to visit in our world. The Grand
Canyon, Victoria Falls, and Mount
Fuji are all places that have signifi-
cance to the people who have settled
by them, as well as those who travel
specifically to see them.
While the focus of this article
isn’t tourism or trade, it could be
important to start thinking about
your setting in those terms. What
are cities known for, and what can
they offer to others? For example,
the furs and fish from one region
might be considered extremely
valuable to another where those
resources are scarce. Knowing
the climate of each region will
help you determine what kinds of
plants, animals, and weather exist
there, deepening the world for your
characters just that bit further.
MAGIC, TECH, & RELIGION
The last tip for this introduction
to maps is to plan out how the
existence of magic, technology,
and/or religion affect a region’s
geography. For example, in my
world-building, I created various
portals through which gods enter
the world from another realm; the
followers of each of these beings
set up massive temples around
each portal which can be seen for
miles around. Knowing where the
portals and temples are on the map
was crucial not only to my world-
building but also to my plot.
What important historical events
have happened in your world? If
there was an epic battle that left
areas of your map totally decimated
by unending magical blights, that’s
something to note. If there’s a
floating mechanical city that you
can only access by teleportation
platform at the top of a specific
mountain, that’s also something
to mark down. And if there’s
something key to your world’s
religions, like temples or ruins,
those are details that can help you
flesh out your map.
Of course, this is just an introduc-
tion to map-making. If you’re still
feeling apprehensive about creating
your map, I recommend finding a
free software like Azgaar’s Fantasy
Map Generator to help you get
started—even having a simple out-
line created for you can get your
creativity rolling in the right direc-
tion. Happy building! WD
Moriah Richard is the managing editor of
Writer’s Digest. Follow her on Twitter
@MoriahRichard93.
WritersDigest.com I 77
PUBLISHINGINSIGHTS
4 Business Magazines
A
s we look to find success in
2022, what better place to
start than examining busi-
ness magazines? While these pub-
lications can get cumbersome with
reporting news and analyzing num-
bers, they’re also often very inspi-
rational and share innovative ideas
that can be used by businesspeople
and writers alike. After all, freelance
writers are businesspeople.
Working in a booming business
sector may give you the expertise to
write for this category, but you don’t
have to be an economics major (or
own a business) to make your mark.
Many of the opportunities available
to writers involve profiling busi-
ness wheelers and dealers, as well
as doing the type of research you’d
expect in any category.
Also, remember that you’re not
limited to pitching the big national
(and very competitive) business
magazines. There are many regional
publications because business is hap-
pening everywhere. Here are four
magazines to get you started.
Dollars & Sense
(DollarsAndSense.org)
Dollars & Sense is a bimonthly
magazine that covers real-
world economics. “Our readers
include students, community
activists, organizers, labor leaders,
78 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
environmentalists, economists,
and many others. In most cases,
articles are geared to a high school
reading level.”
The main formats and lengths for
writers are Features (in-depth arti-
cles on a broad range of economic
topics of 1,500 to 3,000 words);
Active Culture (briefs on activism
of 250 to 400 words); and Reviews
(coverage of recent books, movies,
and other media with an economic
slant of 700 words).
The editors say, “Dollars & Sense
is a progressive economics magazine
that explains in a popular way both
the workings of the economy and
the struggles to change it. Articles
may be on any economic issue,
including the environment, com-
munity organizing, urban conflict,
inflation, unemployment, union
reform, welfare, changes in govern-
ment regulation … a broad range of
topics, as long as the article has an
economic theme.”
Potential writers are encouraged
to query by email (dollars
@dollarsandsense.org), but postal
pitches will be considered as well
at Editors, Dollars & Sense, 95
Berkeley Street, STE 305, Boston,
Mass. 02116. Pitches can include a
more detailed proposal or outline,
but the editors suggest not sending
complete manuscripts.
BY ROBERT LEE BREWER
Harvard Business Review
(HBR.org)
Harvard Business Review is a
bimonthly business magazine
published by Harvard Business
Publishing, a not-for-profit subsid-
iary of Harvard University. Their
mission focuses on improving the
practice of management in an ever-
changing world.
The editors say, “At Harvard
Business Review, we believe in man-
agement. If the world’s organiza-
tions and institutions were run more
effectively, if our leaders made better
decisions, if people worked more
productively, we believe that all of
us—employees, bosses, custom-
ers, our families, and the people our
businesses affect—would be bet-
ter off. We try to arm our readers
with ideas that help them become
smarter, more creative, and more
courageous in their work. To do
that, we enlist the foremost experts
in management theory and practice
to share their insights and counsel.”
This is a competitive market that
receives many more pitches than the
editors can publish. As such, there
are five qualities the editors look for
when figuring out what to publish:
expertise (writers don’t have to be
famous, but they must know their
subject inside and out); evidence
(referring to research, examples,
and data when possible); original-
ity (new ideas and unique perspec-
tives); usefulness (showing readers
how to apply knowledge in real life);
and persuasiveness and a pleasure
to read. As the editors say, “HBR
readers are smart and skeptical and
busy. If you don’t capture their inter-
est right away, they will move on to
something else.”
Prospective writers can pitch
ideas to the editors, but any idea
that is promising will require a more
formal proposal and narrative out-
line (up to 800 words) that explains
the central message of the piece,
why it’s unique and useful, why peo-
ple need to know it now and how
they can use it, why it’s authoritative,
and what academic, professional,
or personal experience will be used.
Submit via their Submittable page
(HarvardBusinessReview
.submittable.com/submit).
The Lane Report
(LaneReport.com)
The Lane Report covers business
throughout Kentucky, though some
extra attention is given to Louisville
and Lexington. Established in 1985,
The Lane Report has more than
50,000 readers who include busi-
ness leaders and policymakers in the
state. Around 60 percent of the con-
tent comes from freelance writers.
The editors want “well-written,
insightful stories that shed light on
the way business works in Kentucky.
The magazine also highlights
partnerships and collaboration
between the business world and
schools, universities, and other
public institutions. We look for
stories that illustrate notable trends
in Kentucky’s economy and business
community. We also keep an eye
out for quirky, dynamic business
people who are innovating and
changing the way business is done
in Kentucky.”
There are three main sections
that freelancers can pitch The Lane
Report. Fast Lane Briefs are concise
pieces of recent Kentucky business
news and trends, as well as their
potential impact, that run 100 to
400 words. Entrepreneurs runs 750
to 1,400 words and features a pro-
file of interesting businesspeople.
Features covers major trends shap-
ing the state, noteworthy business
and best practices, and stories with
sweeping implications across indus-
try sectors and state regions. These
pieces are 750 to 3,000 words.
Potential writers can send a
query outlining their proposal and
story to Editorial Director Mark
Green by post (465 East High St.,
STE 124, Lexington, Ky. 40507) or
email (mark@lanereport.com).
The editors say, “Provide a clear
understanding of the angle and a
sense of the tone your piece would
take. Show us your key interviews
and research sources. Please include
a résumé and two to three represen-
tative clips of your previous work.”
Alaska Business
(AKBizMag.com)
Alaska Business is a monthly maga-
zine covering Alaskan business
for Alaskan, American, and inter-
national audiences. They aim to
provide thorough and objective
reporting and analysis of all busi-
ness enterprises and businesses in
the state.
The editors say, “Alaska Business
publishes informative articles on
everything from entrepreneurs to
heavy industry. Our content
resonates with all things Alaska
business, including all of Alaska’s
major industries. Our reach extends
beyond the businessperson to
include visitors to our state and the
general public.”
Alaska Business has special sec-
tions every month emphasizing a
certain part of the economy. For
instance, they emphasize construc-
tion in March and natural resource
development in November. Plus,
they publish annual features like
the Corporate 100, Best of Alaska
Business awards, and the Top 49ers
(Alaskan-owned companies ranked
by revenue).
“Our content is written by our
talented in-house editorial staff as
well as freelance writers,” the edi-
tors add, “we are always open to
featuring talented writers who are
invested in Alaska and the busi-
nesses that form the foundation of
our economy.”
Potential writers should submit
a résumé and three writing clips to
Managing Editor Tasha Anderson
via email (editor@akbizmag.com).
“While we consider pitches,
generally our freelance writers
are given assignments. Articles
are assigned at least one month in
advance of the story’s deadline,”
the editors say. “We also welcome
queries from individuals who would
like to write columns in their field
of expertise as a guest author or
contributor. Please email a short
bio detailing your area of expertise
as well as a brief summary of the
article you’d like to submit.” WD
Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of WD
and author of Smash Poetry Journal.
WritersDigest.com I 79
CONFERENCESCENE
Events to advance your craft, connections, and career.
San Francisco
Writers Conference
An annual Bay Area gathering
including bestselling authors,
literary agents, publishers, pub
house & indie editors, and both
traditional & self-publishing
industry professionals. Presenters
come from the West Coast, New
York City, and beyond.
WHEN: February 17–20, 2022.
WHERE: Hyatt Regency, San
Francisco, Calif. PRICE: $695–$895.
One-on-ones with literary agents,
manuscript editors, and screen-
writers; agent speed dating; and
Master Classes (which you do not
need to be a conference regis-
trant to attend) are available for an
additional fee. WHAT MAKES THIS
CONFERENCE UNIQUE: Offering
many free events that are open
to the public, such as a Writing
for Change panel, Poetry Open
Mic, and vendor booths. “It’s four
days of everything you need to get
published,” says Director Laurie
McLean. From educational ses-
sions, panels, Ask a Pro roundta-
bles, pitch practice, keynotes, and
workshops, to opportunities for
encounters with bestsellers, agents,
and editors. “We are also ... com-
mitted to making your experience
one you want to come back to year
after year,” says McLean. “After the
year we’ve just had, it’s important
80 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
to gather and celebrate writing and
publishing as we learn.” HOW MANY
ATTEND: 350–400. FACULTY: Keynote
speakers feature award-winners
and bestsellers Charlie Jane Anders,
Annalee Newitz, and Lysley Tenorio.
100+ faculty members include an
assortment of bestselling authors,
agents, editors, poets, self-
publishing experts, Hollywood
insiders, publishing tech special-
ists, and other top publishing
professionals. HIGHLIGHTS: Perfect
for writers at all levels, the event
features five tracks: fiction, nonfic-
tion, children’s/YA, business/mar-
keting, and self-publishing/tech.
They also offer one-day summits for
Poetry and Books-to-Screen that are
included in the general admission
price or available separately. IF YOU
GO: San Francisco is second only
to New York as a publishing mecca.
And with a scenic waterfront locale,
there are many hotspots within
walking distance of this conference
including the Beat Museum and
BY KRISTY STEVENSON
City Lights Bookstore. FOR MORE
INFORMATION: SFWriters.org
Let’s Just Write! An
Uncommon Writers
Conference
Debuting in 2018 and sponsored
by the Chicago Writers Association,
this event was named one of the
best conferences in the U.S. two
years in a row.
WHEN: March 19–20, 2022. WHERE:
The Warwick Allerton Hotel,
Chicago, Ill. PRICE: $345 for Chicago
Writers Association members, $385
for non-members. Consultations
with presenters are an additional
$35. WHAT MAKES THIS CONFERENCE
UNIQUE: “We call this an ‘uncom-
SAN FRANCISCO PHOTO © MARGIE YEE WEBB
mon’ writers conference because
of its warmth and intimacy,” says
Executive Director Samantha
Hoffman. It’s a relatively small-scale
conference that feels comfortable
for writers to not only learn but
also to interact with one another
 Don’t Let the Tired Win Out SPEAKER!
Here are the top five ways to keep your momentum going after a
writing conference: SPEAKER!
1. Brainstorm ways to apply new concepts before the event even ends. Jot
them down, including a timeline, so you can later put your plan into action.
2. Review summary sheets provided by speakers along with your own notes
Our editors are available to
or photos/screencaps to jog your memory.
speak at your conference
3. Participate in any social media groups created specifically for attendees;
these can be helpful for both pre- and post-event collaboration. Connect or workshop. We’re happy
with others and try to establish regular check-ins with those you consider to talk about technique,
mentors or accountability partners. business, or inspirational
4. Write about what you learned. Key conference takeaways can be shared topics. We also help evaluate
in blogs, newsletters, or articles. For lasting value, share pieces with col- query letters or book
leagues, online or in-person writing communities, social media groups, or
proposals. We won’t break
local bookstores.
5. For focus and clarity, set specific intentions for what you’d like to accom- your budget, and we’re
plish in a given period of time—hours, days, weeks, or even months. Then fun people!
let your creativity and productivity flourish!

What are your best tips to add to this list?

and make connections. Networking Importance of Place in Storytelling;

is encouraged with a live lit event,
cocktail hour, meals, and a Saturday
banquet. “There’s nothing more
motivating to a writer than being
in the company of other writers,”
says Hoffman. HOW MANY ATTEND:
120–140. FACULTY: Keynote pre-
sentation from Elizabeth Wetmore.
Plus, a special conversation with
Jacquelyn Mitchard. Presenters
include Jay Amberg (Amika Press),
David W. Berner, Jerry Brennan
(Tortoise Books), Jasmine Cooper
(WGN Radio), Ann Garvin, Jeff
Hoover (WGN-TV), Toneal Jackson,
Nancy Johnson, Parneshia Jones,
Rick Kaempfer (Eckhartz Press),
Billy Lombardo, John Manos
(Amika Press), Jason Marck (WBEZ
Radio), Eric May, Patricia Ann
McNair, Faisal Mohyuddin, Kristin
Oakley, Dominic Pacyga, Michael
Phillips, Renee Rosen, Tim Storm,
Brendan Sullivan, Tony Trigilio, and
Emily Victorson (Allium Press).
HIGHLIGHTS: Sessions include: The
Expressions in Flash Forms; How
to Get to Meaningful Memoir
Material; Revise and Edit Like a
Pro; What Writers Can Learn From
Sports Psychology; How to Get
Free Publicity; Dialogue: Knowing
When to Speak and When to Shut
Up in Your Fiction, Nonfiction, and
Poetry; Creative Techniques to Keep
Those Ideas Flowing; Benefits of
Critiquing; Tension on Every Page;
Editing Is Not Optional; and fic-
tion, nonfiction, poetry, and pub-
lishers panels. IF YOU GO: They’re
welcoming and inclusive and help CONTACT US AT
people interact in a low-pressure Writers.Digest@aimmedia.com
way with group meals and events.
“Everyone walks away with motiva- WD EDITORS AVAILABLE
tion and new friends.” FOR MORE TO SPEAK INCLUDE:
INFORMATION: ChicagoWrites.org
Robert Lee Brewer
/Conference WD
Sadie Dean
Kristy Stevenson (KristyStevenson.com) is Amy Jones
a freelance writer, editor, and storyteller. Moriah Richard
A native Cheesehead, she’s a southern
Michael Woodson
transplant currently residing in central
N.C. with her husband and two children.

WritersDigest.com I 81
CONFE REN CE G UI DE
CONFERENCE GUIDE
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022
• Keep in mind that there may be
more than one workshop in each
of the listings.
• These workshops are listed
alphabetically by state, country, or
continent.
• Unless otherwise indicated,
rates include tuition (T) only.
Sometimes the rates also include
airfare (AF), some or all meals (M),
accommodations (AC), ground
transportation (GT), materials (MT),
or fees (F).
• When you find workshops that
interest you, be sure to call,
email, or check the website of
the instructor or organization for
additional
information.
• All listings are paid advertisements.
CALIFORNIA
ANNUAL CALIFORNIA CREATIVE
WRITERS CONFERENCE™, produced
by West Coast Writers Conferences. March
2022. New Hilton Los Angeles Westside Culver
City. Writers of all genres and disciplines will
benefit from this educational and inspirational
conference focused on the craft and business
of writing. Our 32nd event will feature streams of
consecutive creative writing programs for fiction
& nonfiction, as well as genre writers (from
our popular Genre-LA™ event for Memoirs
and Speculative Fiction). CCWC will include
workshops for the 3-A’s™ (Aspiring, Active, and
Accomplished) writers of fiction, nonfiction,
and screenplays. Topics will be presented by
40+ literary agents, editors, scouts, veteran
educators, publishers, bestselling authors, and
industry professionals in progressive tracks of
workshops, and panels. Reserve FREE one-on-
one pitch meetings with literary agents and
publishers looking for new talent with polished
manuscripts. Participate in our Advance
Submission ProCritiques™ Program to have a
portion of your work reviewed/edited by literary
agents and editors who will meet with you
privately during the event to review. Join us to
meet and pitch agents, stay for the education
and inspiration, and take home the knowledge
to advance your career as a writer. Discounts
with six-months same as cash financing available.
All IN-PERSON health and safety protocols
will be implemented. A virtual option may
be available. See website for details or call
310/379-2650. Wcwriters.com/ccwc
WRITER’S DIGEST NOVEL WRITING
CONFERENCE, presented by Writer’s Digest.
82 I WRITER’S DIGEST I January/February 2022
Writer’s Digest returns in-person to the West
Coast with many of publishing’s most respected
and knowledgeable writers, agents, and
editors to guide you through the process of QUESTIONS?
writing, editing, and publishing your novel.
Hone your craft, refine your characters, explore FEEDBACK?
the future of publishing, and get the tools you
need to advance your career as a successful WE’RE HERE
novelist. Brought to you by Writer’s Digest, the
experts at nurturing and developing writers at TO HELP!
every stage of their career for more than 100
years. 2022 dates will be announced soon.
Check the website for more information
Novel.writersdigestconference.com. Registration
will open in Spring 2022!
TWITTER
Contact: Give us a shout-out
writersdigestconference@aimmedia.com @WritersDigest, or try a
Novel.WritersDigestConference.com
specific editor, such as
@RobertLeeBrewer,
FLORIDA @MoriahRichard93, and
@AmyMJones_5.
GET AWAY TO WRITE–FLORIDA,
presented by Murphy Writing of Stockton
University. March 8–13, 2022 writing retreat at FACEBOOK
the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna
Beach. Escape the cold to write in Florida this
Look for our fan page at
facebook.com/writersdigest,
winter. Spend an inspiring week working on your
memoir with Peter E. Murphy or poetry with where conversations happen
Emari DiGiorgio. Enjoy plentiful writing time,
insightful feedback, homemade meals, and time
every day.
to relax. Beginning and experienced writers
welcome. Register early and save:
Stockton.edu/murphywriting.
NEWSLETTER
If you don’t receive
Contact:
Murphy Writing of Stockton University our free email newsletter, you’re
Ph: 609/626-3594
missing some great curation of
info@murphywriting.com
our content
Stockton.edu/murphywriting
and community.
Sign up at our home page,
NEW YORK writersdigest.com.
WRITER’S DIGEST ANNUAL
CONFERENCE, presented by Writer’s Digest.
REGISTRATION is now open! Writer’s Digest DON’T LET YOUR
Annual Conference is thrilled to announce our
2022 conference dates: July 28–31, 2022 at QUESTIONS GO
the Hilton Midtown in New York City. We’re
excited to meet in person in 2022! The Writer’s
UNANSWERED.
Digest Annual Conference offers everything you
need to advance your writing creatively and
GET IN TOUCH.
professionally. Gain invaluable tips to improve
your craft, explore publishing options, and learn
how to establish a sustainable career—all while
being inspired by successful authors and your
fellow attendees. Brought to you by Writer’s
Digest, the experts at nurturing and developing
writers at every stage of their career for more
than 100 years. Opening Keynote: Beverly
Jenkins! Hear from the queen of romance as
she kicks off the 2022 conference after a two-
year in-person hiatus. Stay tuned for more .
information and announcements. Register by
March 22 for the best price! Visit our website:
WritersDigestConference.com.
Contact:
writersdigestconference@aimmedia.com
WritersDigestConference.com
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