After three years of work on my first novel, I was pretty exhausted. I’d written the initial draft of WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW in third person, then another version in the first person voices of the three main characters. The third year found me back in the third person for another round. I was starting to resent my characters, wondering why they were taking so long to tell their story, and hoping they didn’t plan to drag it into a Michener-length piece of fiction.
My editor advised a detour from the novel to explore the backroads. She suggested I take background situations and build short stories around them. The result would be a better understanding of the characters, finished work for literary journals and contest submissions, and . . . a needed break from the tedium of the novel.
In the next six months I crafted over ten stories. Several pieces were flash fiction of between 250 & 1,000 words. The others were in the 2,500 – 3,000 word range. They were sent to journals and contests, and because there was a variety of material, I had the ability to send out a new story if I received a positive rejection that turned down the submission but invited future work.
I went back to the novel with a renewed interest and fresh ideas about structure. Certain character traits came to light as I wrote the short pieces, leading me to approach the novel-length story from a different angle. It developed a beginning, middle, and end that made sense in under 90,000 words. I had a finished, polished manuscript within the year.
That’s the “writing life” part of the story. Now for the “marketing” part. After a few of the stories were accepted for publication, I added to my agent query, “Stories based on the lead characters have been published online and in anthologies,” giving credibility to my writing and my characters .
At a recent conference, an agent suggested that I post the unpublished stories on my website and then do promotion to drive readers to the site. She noted a recent client who did this. The traffic numbers helped to build a selling point for the publisher pitch, showing that readers were already familiar with the characters and would be inclined to buy the book for more of their story.
The first of my RITA & SYLVIE stories posted last month at www.gingerbcollins.com. It’s the initial step in a campaign that began as a detour and will hopefully serve as the path to agent representation and publication of my first novel.
BIO
Ginger B. Collins writes short fiction and creative non-fiction. Her work appears online and has been published in Freckles to Wrinkles, Silver Boomers, and the newly released Scratch Anthology of Short Fiction. She recently completed her first novel. Read excerpts at www.gingerbcollins.com.
In her blog, OFF THE TOP OF MY RED HEAD, Ginger applies a past career in sales, marketing, and PR to her new role as author, sharing links and writer resources while exploring subjects like social media, agent search, and writer platforms. All writers are invited to follow the blog and share experiences. http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com.
Ginger and her husband, Melvin, are avid sailors, and would be content to spend life onboard, cruising coastal waters and exploring land from the shoreline in. Until then, they winter in the Southeast and summer in Atlantic Canada.
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15 Comments so far
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Great metaphoric advice about the detouring and backroads. Who knows what you’ll discover?
[Reply]
By Linda Collison on 08.15.09 11:07 am | Permalink
Fantastic way to push past the blockage and create a better novel and a wider audience at the same time. Many writers would simply stop writing, hoping for a flash of inspiration to pull them out of the slump. Leave it to Ginger to come up with a creative alternative. I look forward to reading the short pieces and am eager to get a copy of the novel when it comes out!
[Reply]
By Clay Ramsey on 08.15.09 8:54 pm | Permalink
I always keep writing. One thing I do, is find random pictures and make up stories about them.
Some have turned into novels, some not. But it keeps me writing when I get blocked with a WIP.
I also tend to write on more than one WIP at a time.
[Reply]
By Sarah on 08.16.09 12:47 pm | Permalink
I really got a lot of productive advice from this guest blog! I’ve recently had a non-fiction book published and frankly, it was very easy to write and market and it’s been a fun adventure. People do love that book!
Lurking in the background, however, are my memoirs, the book I know I’m meant to write. And about which my kids will kill me if I don’t do it. And I have started it and started it and started it. But I keep, what I call “churning”. I do it one way, then another, will it be essays or novel, fictionalized/not, flashbacks or exactly, chronologically presented? Oh, the angst. Much like Ginger described! But now I have a plan. Thank you Ginger. I’m going to write it in essay form like it actually occurs to me in my head. Maybe it’s because memoirs, especially Southern memoirs which are filled with drama, Honey are too much to just sit down and write. Like psychiatric overload. (I have this vision of all of those crazy relatives fighting to take the stage.)
I may even take Ginger’s route and “present” my little stories to different audiences in that form and let them guide me.
I love it when I can read something just to experience another writer’s journey. When I can also learn something I can take action right now? Nirvana!
Thanks, Ginger for the detour that became the shortest route after all.
Kat
Author of What Could You Possibly Be Thinking?!! How ordinary people answered your questions about love, dating, and relationships, available on Amazon
Re-invent yourself? Why the heck not? http://katquest.wordpress.com
[Reply]
By Kat Bourgeois on 08.16.09 2:29 pm | Permalink
Great advice, Ginger! Thanks much, and congratulations on your success.
Warm regards,
Lori Hope
Author of Help Me Live: 20 things people with cancer want you to know
http://www.LoriHope.com
[Reply]
By Lori Hope on 08.16.09 4:36 pm | Permalink
Ginger definitely puts time in the chair–the most essential part of the process, where you just keep at it. She demonstrates the tenacity that ultimately will set her apart from the ones who might have succeeded.
Like all creative processes, writing also benefits from taking a different perspective. Ginger has given us a terrific prescription for not only boosting our output but adding to our platform as credible writers worthy of publication. Brava!
[Reply]
By George Weinstein on 08.16.09 5:09 pm | Permalink
What a great story. I love the idea of having used your characters to flex your writing muscles in new directions. Thanks for sharing.
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By AmyV on 08.16.09 7:34 pm | Permalink
Louis L’Amour would write standing up. Well, actually he typed on old Remingtons.
He had three of them in his writing room, each sitting on top of a tall dresser. Each one was used for a different novel in progress.
Whenever Louis became bogged down with one story, he would break the writer’s block by stepping over to the next typewriter and work on that story for a while.
Taking his mind off of the story in trouble let his unconscious work in the background. Yet, he still made progress on the other novel in the meantime.
[Reply]
By Wally Lawrence on 08.16.09 8:01 pm | Permalink
That’s what I do Wally. Always a story to work on!
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By Sarah on 08.16.09 8:03 pm | Permalink
Ginger, Thanks for sharing your most interesting detour. Fiction is the genre I have yet to try, and I’m always fascinated when fiction writers comment on the things their characters do to their writing. Your resentment of characters taking so long to tell their story is a perfect example of this process that fiction writers go through. But rather than let those pesky characters continue to lead you about by the nose, you corralled them and made them produce. I love the notion that you put those characters to work…for you.
Your (and your editor’s) solution is one of the more creative approaches I’ve read. The fact that it let you get a jump on your marketing makes your approach all that more special. I usually tell my writing students and clients to start their blog the day they start their book because it takes that long to build a strong following through social networking and blogging. You’ve added a brilliant twist to the process that–I hope–you’ll let me “steal.”
I think using your exercises, musings etc. to get a jump on contests and anthology publications is just marvelous. And I agree with the agent who suggested you post the unpublished stories on your blog. It does, indeed, give proof of a readership.
Again, thanks for sharing your technique.
[Reply]
By Kendra Bonnett on 08.17.09 5:21 am | Permalink
Hello Ginger, sounds like you where given some pretty good advice and it is working for you. Congratulation. Many people can not seem to take the bull by the horns and make something happen.
[Reply]
By J. Michael Warner on 08.17.09 6:39 am | Permalink
What a great way to keep moving forward! I started a flash fiction blog last May and a few of the writers have decided to expand their 1,000-word stories. So it works both ways!
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By Paula Johnson on 08.17.09 5:17 pm | Permalink
Ginger B! You’ve always been practical and dedicated when it comes to your writing and this takes that to a whole new level. Thank you for your sound advice and congratulations on your continued success!
[Reply]
By Karen Schwettman, proprietor, FoxTale Book Shoppe on 08.24.09 11:07 am | Permalink
[...] When I accepted the offer to guest post on If You Give A Girl A Pen, I hoped to share a writer’s block process that had worked for me, and in return, increase visibility for my blog and website. Read the post here. [...]
By Everything I Hoped For . . . and More! » Flash Fiction Chronicles on 09.25.09 5:07 am | Permalink
Fantastic read, it’s right on the mark. http://www.topfloristperu.com
[Reply]
By send flowers peru on 11.12.09 9:36 pm | Permalink
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