Happy U.S. publication to my friend, Kate Hilton! The Hole In The Middle grew out of questions Kate asked herself about her own life — isn’t that so often the case with women’s fiction authors?
Today Kate shares with us what it’s like to self-publish, have the book picked up by a Canadian publisher, and then sold in the U.S! Plus, some heartfelt advice for writers.
Please welcome Kate to WFW! And share you thoughts about her covers (or anything else) in the comments!
Amy xo
What do my readers want from me? In today’s publishing climate, we’re often afraid to give something new a try, afraid of losing our readers, our followers, our mojo even. Sometimes our publishers are afraid as well, using the word “brand” to help us shape our new books. Staying within genre makes sense, but it’s not always possible. Especially when we have a story we want to tell that falls outside certain industry parameters. (I have a few floating around myself.)
Today we have with us, Laura Drake, multi-published, award-winning, romance author whose first women’s fiction title is releasing today! She wonders if fans of her romance novels will read her women’s fiction. Will the new readers she acquires with this book pop over and give her romance novels a try? Below, Laura shares with us her excitement and her fears for her new journey. She’s also sharing an short excerpt.
Please welcome Laura Drake to WFW! And tell us what you think, in the comments.
Amy xo
No one has more insight into the fictional world of a dysfunctional family than my friend, Barbara Claypole White. Her third novel, THE PERFECT SON, like her other novels, explores the impact of mental illness on family dynanics and she does this from the inside out, allowing readers unprecedented access to her characters and their lives.
But today I wanted to talk to Barbara about writing and publishing! So we did! Her road has been long and winding — and look where she is now. THE PERFECT SON already has 500 reviews on Amazon and it launched YESTERDAY!
Please welcome Barbara Claypole White to WFW!
Amy xo
You’ve read the title of this guest post and I feel the universal cringe! If one of your fictional characters is inspired by someone in your real life, either a lot or a little, you’re bound to wonder WHAT WILL THEY THINK? Or even better (worse?) WILL THEY RECOGNIZE THEMSELVES. I don’t base characters on real people, but I do cherry pick bit of people I know, and people I see out in the wild and give those characteristics to the folks in my books. I want them to be real, right?
Today, Eleni Gage joins us again to share her own experience. Brave woman, I say. Brave woman.
Brave woman with a gorgeous book cover, that is!
Please welcome Eleni Gage to WFW, and share your thoughts in the comments!
Amy xo
Today I’m pleased to welcome Anita Hughes back to Women’s Fiction Writers! Her newest novel, FRENCH COAST, whisks you far away without leaving the comfort of your favorite chair. Or bed. Or beach blanket. Anita shares with us how she chose the location for FRENCH COAST, and offers advice on choosing character names when you’ve used your favorites for your children (and Anita has five children)! I’ve known Anita since before our debut novels were published, and she’s as lovely as she is prolific. FRENCH COAST is her fourth novel!
Please welcome Anita to Women’s Fiction Writers!
Amy xo
I often question my writing, judge my prose, belittle my word choices, and doubt my plot points. Some days I love what I’ve written.
The “disbelieving me” is in awe of the time and effort it will take to get from first draft to final draft. The “believing me” might think, “Aww, this is so good it doesn’t need to be changed.
No! To both.
I must self-edit.
I also must strike a balance where I am confident in my work but know it needs work.
Whether it’s the first time or the hundredth time, self-editing can be daunting. At least it can be for me. I stare at the monitor and all this little black shapes stare back at me. Just looking at them is exhausting.
I know myself. I self-edit differently than I write. I’m a binge writer, but a bit-by-bit editor. Not that I can’t, or haven’t, edited for hours, but I can also edit a paragraph, then leave for an appointment or to do the dishes.
Oh, who am I kidding? I do not stop editing to do the dishes.
But I do stop if I’m overwhelmed.
The key here is not to get overwhelmed.
First Drafts
My first drafts are embarrassing. I write in sentence fragments and run-ons. But what I have when I’m finished, I hope, is the beginning, middle, and end of a chapter, the right idea to build upon. I write light in first drafts. That means I know I’m going to go in again to flesh out ideas. Many of my friends write 125, 000 word first drafts they edit down to 90,000 words. My finished first drafts are about 50,000 words. I edit up. No matter how you work, some of these tips might work for you to take the sting out of first draft editing.
My first draft isn’t really finished until it’s self-edited. Until I know someone else could read it and make sense of it, even with the weaknesses and holes. I call it my finished first draft. Before that, you don’t want to know what I call it.
Second Drafts (Or, to Infinity—And Beyond)
I have never counted drafts. Let’s say that with each of my novels (published, soon-to-be published, and under-the-bed) I’ve written more than two drafts and fewer than a hundred.
This, for me, is where fine-tuning begins and where I remember the best advice/joke I ever told my daughter.
“How do you eat an elephant?”
“One bite at a time.”
If I looked at a whole manuscript and imagined editing the whole thing on my own, I’d crawl under this bed I call an office and that would be that. But because I write, and edit, my novels a chapter at a time, at first, it’s more manageable to me. For the time being I pretend that’s all I need to worry about, which allows me to focus (ie: which eliminates panic).
Final Drafts
Final drafts take many forms. I have final drafts for my critique partner, then for agent, and then final drafts for my editor. If you’re not hiring an editor (silent scream) and you’re self-publishing then your final draft is for your reader.
For me, this is the detail and danger zone. This is where I nit-pick and where I usually am convinced that all my time and effort and energy has resulted in a big pile of poo. Luckily, this is normal. And that’s why I start with the hardest thing of all.
The best thing about self-editing, is that it’s not the end – it’s just the beginning. This is how I get my writing ready for others to critique and edit it. Yes, at some point, it’s finished, but you shouldn’t be the only person editing your work if you want it read by others. If you want people to pay to read it.
Beta readers and critique partners, agents, and editors will not only help your story, but their feedback will bolster your ability to self-edit in the future. Self-editing is the gift that keeps on giving.
By that I mean giving us headaches, some heartache—as well as the opportunity to be the best writers we can be.
This article was first published in Write On, the magazine of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (not affiliated with my WFW blog, although I am a founding member of the WFWA organization.) You’re not a member of WFWA? Check it out here.
Happy New Year fellow women’s fiction writers and readers. New year, new author. Apropos, right?
I’m thrilled to introduce you to Sonja Yoerg, who’s debut novel, HOUSE BROKEN, is a riveting family saga strewn with secrets. It’s deftly told from three points of view, and that’s no easy task! I was impressed by the distinctness of the three voices from three generations. I loved that HOUSE BROKEN is set in the present. I enjoy historical fiction but have just been itching to read a slew of contemporary books, since that’s what I write. HOUSE BROKEN did not disappoint. Plus, look at the face on the cover! How could I resist?
Please welcome Sonja Yoerg to Women’s Fiction Writers and tell us about your journey to publication in the comments. (When I read Sonja’s answers, I emailed her immediately because I’d queried well over 100 agents as well the first time around.)
Here’s to a productive 2015 for us all!
Amy xo
You won’t be surprised to learn that I met Priscille Sibley on Backspace. You might be surprised to learn I read her novel when it had a different title and before Priscille had her current agent! How exciting it was for me to read it again in its final form. Another exciting thing is to introduce to you THE PROMISE OF STARDUST, which has a male protagonist (OH NO) but is clearly being marketed as women’s fiction (TRUE)! It’s was a real treat for me to ask Priscille questions about her novel and her process and to learn new things after knowing this author for so long. Priscille is also one of my Book Pregnant friends!
Please welcome Priscille Sibley to Women’s Fiction Writers!
Amy xo
Amy: What is the most important part of THE PROMISE OF STARDUST to you, as its author. Having nothing to do with its plot, what is the book about? Maybe some would refer to that as its theme.
Priscille: Although my story deals heavily with reactions to grief, I believe that ultimately the novel is about hope and resilience. Here is a line from the book: “There is uncertainty in hope, but even with its tenuous nature, it summons our strength and pulls us through fear and grief – and even death.”
Amy: Your novel holds a moral dilemma threaded together, and torn apart, by a love story. What was your favorite part of the novel to write? And I know that doesn’t mean it was the easiest.
Priscille: The backstory was more fun to write, lighter, essential to leaven the main story. About a quarter of the book’s chapters occur in the past. Elle is alive and healthy in those chapters, and Matt is much happier. After her accident, he is grieving. It was painful to climb into his head some days.
Amy: Can you tell us a little about your journey to publication, and perhaps the most surprising part of that journey?
Priscille: I am an unlikely writer. I didn’t study literature in school. (I have a BSN in nursing.) I was very fortunate that once I did start writing, I quickly discovered a number of online writer communities. I found a nurturing critique group. That said, I made plenty of blunders, too. After a couple of years, I realized my first manuscript contained fatal flaws. I put it away and started fresh with a new idea. A year or so later I found a literary agent to represent me. Alas, manuscript number two didn’t sell. My first agent and I parted ways, while I was polishing my third manuscript. By the time I was ready to query The Promise of Stardust, I had a much better idea of what I personally needed from a literary agent. Fortunately, I was really blessed when my manuscript resonated with an agent who fit my new description. With her insights, I dug in and made more revisions. When she sent it out to publishers, it luckily found several interested editors and a home at William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Amy: Do you have a favorite character in the book? Or is that like asking you to pick a favorite child?
Priscille: Having spent an entire book inside Matt’s head, he should be the one I favor right? I love him. I admire his devotion to Elle. He is flawed and I don’t think he completely sees himself or the situation clearly, but I like the way he loves her. I also love Linney and Elle. I even liked Adam (hush, don’t tell Matt.)
Amy: Even though your protagonist is Matt, who is clearly not a woman, you’ve mentioned that it’s thought of as women’s fiction. What is your definition of women’s fiction and how do you feel about your novel being considered part of that genre?
Priscille: Clearly. Matt is a Matthew and not a Matilda. I chose to write the novel from his point of view somewhat reluctantly, but Elle, his wife, has suffered a horrible brain injury. She is in a persistent vegetative state. So to tell their story, I climbed into his head, determined to make him authentically male. By most definitions, women’s fiction is about a woman’s journey. More and more I realized the story was about Matt, even though his focus is very much on her. I think the main reasons people describe TPOS as WF is that Elle is pregnant. Babies are still women’s turf. Moreover, The Promise of Stardust is an emotional story. (I keep hearing reports about tissues, and I’m never quite sure how to respond to that.) Author Keith Cronin, who has been here at Women Fiction Writers, said something women’s fiction being about the emotions conveyed in the story. I truly wish I had the quote because I think he nailed the definition.
Amy: What is your best advice to aspiring authors of women’s fiction?
Priscille: Write your heart out. Really, put your heart in there. Take something that troubles you or resonates and turn it into something someone else can feel.
Amy, thank you so much for having me. I love this blog!
A few people always know what they want to do when they grow up. Priscille Sibley knew early on she would become a nurse. And a poet. Later, her love of words developed into a passion for storytelling.
Born and raised in Maine, Priscille has paddled down a few wild rivers, done a little rock climbing, and jumped out of airplanes. She currently lives in New Jersey where she works as a neonatal intensive care nurse and shares her life with her wonderful husband, three tall teenaged sons, and a mischievous Wheaten terrier.
Please visit Priscille’s website or follow her on Twitter @PriscilleSibley.
Read Big Girls Don’t Cry by Priscille on The Book Pregnant Blog.
Dear Friends,
After three days of watching CNN, I decided it was time to shut off the TV and move forward with things that are normal, while not forgetting about the things that aren’t. It would have been easy to abandon the blog for a week, but then, when is the right time to keep going? The right time is now. I don’t stand on any soap boxes because that’s not what I’m here for, nor what I’m about, but when I saw authors tweeting and FBing blatant self-promotion over the weekend, I all but went bonkers.
I’m done with bonkers.
To each his or her own.
And my own is now to move forward with a normal post on our normal blog in a normal way. So please welcome Nancy DiMauro to Women’s Fiction Writers as she discusses, once again, the meaning of women’s fiction—as she sees it.
Amy xo
by Nancy DiMauro
More women buy books than men. Publishers look for “Women’s Fiction.” So, what the heck is women’s fiction?
The phrase “I know it when I see it” is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. (Here’s the link.)
Yes, I know I’m not supposed to quote Wikipedia, but the definition’s perfect for my purposes. Justice Potter Stewart’s famous quote from Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) was his response to the question: “what is hard-core pornography?” Because the phrase “hard-core pornography” is difficult to define in a manner to include all possibilities, Justice Stewart refused to provide an objective test but instead articulated a subjective one.
Women’s Fiction is an umbrella term that encompasses any fiction whose audience is primarily females over the age of 25. So, how do you know it when you see it?
To me, stories in almost any genre comprise women’s fiction. I think J.D. Robb’s In Death series as well as Patricia Cromwell’s Scarpetta series are “women’s fiction” even though they are thrillers. I also see Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells and The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks as women’s fiction. Chick lit was women’s fiction although we’re supposed to forget about that label now. And don’t get me started on “Hen Lit” which was Chick Lit aimed at the over 50 crowd. Women and men write Women’s Fiction.
No wonder there’s no set definition in the publishing marketplace.
It’s the combination of strong female characters and stories that focus on the issues we wrestle with every day that makes Women’s Fiction. I want to identify with the protagonist’s character development arc; the story of who she was when the adventure started and who she becomes as a result. It may be, and often is, that the character development is the B or secondary plot, but it’s there. Eve Dallas from the In Death series has changed dramatically. She’s become more as she has accepted the joys and hardships that come with being a woman, and having gal pals.
Think about it: Conan the Barbarian and James Bond don’t change.
I started writing fantasy because most fantasy protagonists are alpha males like Conan. Women were fought over, and protected. Sure there were a few exceptions. And I wanted a main character I could identify with. Women role models in fantasy were few and far between.
So, I write stories about strange universes and kick-butt main characters. My fantasy protagonists find the idea of a metal bikini instead of plate armor ridiculous. After all, what warrior would go to battle so ill protected? They are guardians, spies and psychic detectives. They are women. And to me, I write women’s fiction.
Nancy’s novel, Paths Less Traveled: Strange universes. Kick-butt heroines. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Musa Publishing.
You can find Nancy at her blog, web site, Facebook and Twitter.
Rita Plush is here with us on Women’s Fiction Writers today to share her story of writing, querying, and publication. You’re sure to be inspired by Rita and her determination to see LILY STEPS OUT in print. I know I am!
Please welcome Rita to Women’s Fiction Writers!
Amy xo
By Rita Plush
Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, with college-aged children of my own, I was a student, plugging away over an eleven-year period to earn degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing. But it was only when I tried to get my first novel published, that I came to understand the true meaning of commitment and patience.
Originating as a short story, “Lily Steps Out,” is a middle-age coming-of-age novel about a married woman who ‘steps out’ of her domestic life into the business world after her husband retires. This is an interesting couple, I thought, and continued writing about them.
I brought my efforts to my writers’ group and listened to their input and critiques. I worked on the characters, dialogue and plot line. After a time, the pages became chapters. Eventually, I had the first draft of a book which I painstakingly edited and brought back to my group. More recommendations, more character development, till the moment came—five years from that first chapter—when I decided this is a book, and tried to find an agent.
The dozens query letters I sent out brought in almost as many rejections—some agents didn’t respond at all—and I began to realize that finding an agent might take almost as much time and effort as writing the book itself. I labored on, and then months later, voila! An agent who liked what she saw—characters alive and vivid with real lives and real problems. Bidding wars and movie deals danced in my head, but alas, though publishers thought the writing “energetic and entertaining” and “were drawn to the characters,” they didn’t take my book.
My book. My book was about a woman with spirit and drive, a homemaker who’d spent her life caring for her family and then wanted more out of life than making beds and cooking dinners. Did Lily sit back because things didn’t go her way, or did she risk everything she had to get the life she wanted? And so I took a lesson from Lily. If my agent couldn’t find me a publisher, I’d find one on my own, and offered Lily to the handful of publishers who accepted non-agented fiction.
To my disappointment, my efforts fared no better than those of my agent, and something began to nag at me. Was I objective about the book? Or had I developed such a crush on Lily and my other characters that I couldn’t see what was right about them and what was not? Maybe I needed some of that proverbial space between me and them, and so I set the book aside and began another novel.
Years passed. Self-publishing had become the route for many authors who couldn’t otherwise get their books into print. Lily called to me.
But first, I dug deep, looking for the gold in Lily Gold. I tightened the prose, eliminated every non-essential scene and bit of dialogue that didn’t reveal a character’s personality or move the story forward, updating the social references along the way. I hired a professional editor to proof-read and fine-tune the whole business, and signed up a graphic artist to design the cover.
I was so close to self-publishing, I’d already chosen the company and sent them the cover on approval. Then one day I slipped my hand into a coat pocket and out came a scrap of paper with Penumbra Publishing written in my own handwriting. What’s this? I said to myself.
This, it turned out, was my prayed-for-dreamed-of-I-don’t-pay-to-get-published-publisher, who found my novel, “…engaging, with unique characters that gave the tale a certain refreshing charm.”
The rest, as they say is history, Lily’s history, and the twelve years from start to finish, when I began the book to the day it was accepted. Was it worth all the time and effort? Yes indeed! Keep at it, don’t give up.
Rita Plush is an author, teacher, interior designer, and Coordinator of the Interior Design & Decorating Certificate at Queensborough Community College; there she teaches several courses in the program. Rita has also lectured on the decorative arts at libraries throughout Long Island, and at Hofstra University and CW Post-Hutton House.
Her writing practice includes fiction and non-fiction and her stories and essays have appeared in many literary journals including The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iconoclast, The MacGuffin, Passager, and most recently http://www.persimmontree.org. “Lily Steps Out” is her first novel (Penumbra Publishing, May 2012), and she is at work on a second novel that follows some of the characters in “Lily.” She is also putting the finishing touches on a collection of short stories called “Step into My Heart, the Door is Round and Wide.” Rita is a member of LIAG, Long Island Authors’ Group.
Newsday’s Act II, July 19, 2012, featured Rita as “published and proud,” and Times Ledger—August 23-29—headed their feature, “Rita Steps Out.”
“Lily Steps Out” is available through www.amazon.comin both ebook and trade paperback, and from www.barnesandnoble.com in ebook format.
Visit her website www.ritaplush.com for more information about Rita and Lily.
women's fiction writers 