Strange as it may seem, The SCBWI Westside Writer’s Schmooze Blog is back in business, ready to pick up where we left off. Unfortunately, we left off posting so long ago (the 40’s, it turns out) that neither Karol nor Charlie can recall the details of all the Schmoozes we missed. Fortunately, Karol is an extremely anal woman (and, in addition to that, she keeps good records) and was able to unearth these long hidden, never-posted (most likely due to the scarcity of reliable internet ISPs in those days), blogs from back in the day.
The first post she found does indeed come from the 40’s, when we held a Schmooze devoted to niche writing, asking the (as it turns out literally) age-old question, Is Niche Your Niche? The topic was appropriate to the times as detective novels were all the rage back then, even in kids’ books. The information we exchanged, however, remains as useful as if the Schmooze were actually held on June 12th 2013:
Pony up to the typewriter, sister, and we’ll lay it all
out. Last Schmooze we talked niche markets and magazines. You wanna get a little scratch for your
troubles, don’t you? Then you
gotta learn about niche marketing.
What’s the skinny on niche? Well, according to the business dictionary, it’s “concentrating all marketing efforts on a small but specific and well
defined segment of the population.
Niches do not ‘exist’ but are CREATED by identifying needs, wants, and
requirements that are being addressed poorly or not at all by other (s)…”
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| "Killin' Karol" |
So what’s that look like in kid’s books? Our resident femme fatale "Killin' Karol" took us literally under the covers of THE book on Kid Lit Markets (niche presses are only part of the tome, she claims), which coincidentally is known as “The Book” and is available for free from the SCBWI.
Though Karol, of course, had murderous ulterior motives, (just ask her four former high school school principals — if you can find them), The Book was an icy G & T. Take a sip and you’ll find, among other things, that it lays out all the niche presses churning out books right now. Any ink jockey worth his blotter would be a sap not to snatch up The Book toot sweet.
About this time “Weasel Charlie” coughed his way into the
room and started singing like a canary, ratting out http://rockyourwriting.com which tells you how to find the niche of what you’ve already written. He went
on to squeal on Cynthia Leitich Smith, who has a blog on “how to niche market yourself!” We thought he was done, but he musta
gotten some bad hooch, ‘cause
he started ranting about “Author’s Access,” which (he said) was some kinda thing called a “podcast,” featuring writer Ellen Feld gabbling on about her horse niche market. We never figured out if he was talkin’ about heroin or a heroine.
 |
| "Weasel Charlie" |
Thankfully, it was just about then when Big Joe Taylor thundered into the
room. Charlie squealed out of there
like a rat on the Titanic, but not before yelling from the doorway something
about blog posts murderers Dr. Peggy Sissel-Phelan (Fiction Notes) and Jane R Wood (Children's Book Writers-Florida) who apparently made some sort of killing (in niche marketing, that is) and lived to tell about it. Then the Weasel squealed off into the night.
All eyes were on Big Joe now as he slowly thumped across the room and planted himself in the chair at the front. “I’m here to wise up you saps to the rag trade,” he growled. Seeing everyone’s perplexed looks he clarified, “Magazines, you hacks!”
Everyone knew Big Joe was a monster in the mag world: Winner of 2009 SCBWI Magazine Merit
Award for a piece called Flying
Balloons, The Story of the Montgolfier Brothers in Cricket Magazine, and more a bunch of stellar Cricket
pieces since then. We also
knew that nobody was going anywhere until Big Joe had said his peace.
Right away Big Joe put us wise to the amount of work, determination, talent and luck it took to become “Mr. Cricket” (his uptown moniker). Seems his award winner started its life as a picture book. He liked it but thought it had too many words. He then tried turning it into a historical novel but felt he was “losing the essence.” Last time Big Joe felt like he was “losing the essence” of something, 23 characters ended up at the bottom of a shredder. Balloons mighta ended likewise but Joe then thought of Cricket Magazine. He submitted it there, found the editors copacetic, ended up winning the SCBWI Merit Award, and carving out a nice territory for himself. Call it a niche within a niche at the magazine – lightly fictionalized stories about scientists and artists who made amazing breakthroughs in their fields. (Word to the wise: You wanna keep scribbling? Steer clear of Big Joe’s niche.)He then handed out a flyer with the Carus Group's various magazines (of which Cricket is one). Here's a link with the 411:
Suddenly, Big Joe stood up. Everyone ducked,
ready to meet their makers, but it turned out Big Joe was just letting us know
that the Schmooze was over and it was time to go. Sobered, we filed out of the library, into the night.
If you missed the e-book rapfest last night, man you missed a true happening. Greg (“the Fibber”) Pincus blew all our minds, making the scene in a man-miniskirt, Jeff (“the
Webmaster”) Cox showed up in a bright orange Nehru Jacket, and Josh (“Brother#3”) Hauke wore his trusty torn jeans and “Keep on Truckin’” T-shirt. The Tribe gathered to hear “The Three” pontificate on
e-books and self-publishing — “the future, Mr. Gittes.”
Charlie (“Mr. Jones”) Cohen, looking clueless as ever in his Brooks Brother’s suit, questioned the gurus about the state of self-publishing.
Greg set the tone, laying down some TRUTH about expectations and goals – you gotta be honest about both. What do you want to get out of it? Why are you doing it? Greg rapped on how he released his amazing compilation of poems, The Late Bird, to learn how to release an e-book as well as to build on the audience he had grown online. Though he did not get rich off the e-book (yet!), he achieved both goals. “Know why you’re doing it, man,” he said, “and you’ll know what you need to do.”
Whoa.
Not unlike Greg himself.
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| "The Webmaster" on a bad day |
Propitiously, Josh emerged from his cloud of smoke just then to lead us all back into the groove. “It’s just transition, man,” he said, “like when we went from CD’s to MP3s. There’s always curves in the path; you just gotta learn to enjoy the view.” He went on to rap about the different path he took with his Tales Of The Brothers Three. He wanted to compile the first year of his amazing Web comic strip into a book. Rather than mess with e-books and all the formatting troubles that had so bummed out Jeff, Josh decided to release it digitally as a pdf (no formatting issues at all!) as well as in a (beautifully) printed book on Amazon. He said the two formats complemented each other: he sold more hard copies but made more scratch off the ebook.
Everyone nodded. Except Jeff, who just growled, “First get your book into shape. Make sure you’ve vetted it, rewritten it and made it the best work you can do. And find better underwear.”
Then Greg, pupils dilated, started talking about the “world
wide webs,” saying we should check out this book-designer Joel Friedlander’s blog about self-publishing and design, which had every possible thing you could
want to know about how to design and release your book.
“He’s awesome dude,” agreed Josh, “but if you really want
your minds blown, check out this hombre, Matthew Herzberg. He created this
whole website about a fictional town and he writes all these stories about all
the people in it. The WEBSITE
ITSELF is his e-book. YOU GOTTA
SEE THAT THING!!!”
We had to restrain Josh at this point – in his excitement he was throttling Greg.
We had to restrain Josh at this point – in his excitement he was throttling Greg.
Jeff shook his head and pointed accusatorily at the
gathered tribe. “These squares
don’t care about that, man,” he sneered.
“They’re just looking to make money.
All right Squares! You want to make money off self-publishing? Go to http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-can-the-average-writer-make-money-self-publishing-e-books and satisfy your mercenary little hearts.
And while you’re online you might visit http://www.thecreativepenn.com where this chick, Joanna Penn, will give you a 51 page free download about marketing.
All right Squares! You want to make money off self-publishing? Go to http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-can-the-average-writer-make-money-self-publishing-e-books and satisfy your mercenary little hearts.
And while you’re online you might visit http://www.thecreativepenn.com where this chick, Joanna Penn, will give you a 51 page free download about marketing.
Josh chuckled the weird vibes away. “That’s it, man. I think we did it.”
And we had.
Everybody split to do their own things.
“I’ve always been suspicious of plot," whined Charlie. "Always thought of it as lies rather than story. A hard metallic infrastructure that wants to bend my characters into some predetermined and ultimately dishonest shape. At the same time, I know that the only parts of anything that an audience can pay attention to are those that feel like they are integral to the story being told. So where does that leave me?”
“In need of my wise counsel,” snapped Karol
(#obnoxiousknowitall), as she, wisely, opened the floor up to the Schmoozers for
comments. It turned out Charlie
wasn’t entirely alone as most Schmoozers there confessed they were more vexed
by plot than not, many wishing they could find a way to make do with less of it
(#writershatewriting). We were lucky enough to have a teacher in attendance,
though, who quickly set us straight.
She told us that kids in her classes were often “plot junkies” who read
only for the plot. She had to work
to get them to slow down and actually pay attention to details.
We came to the conclusion that plot was but one of many
doors you can open to get into your story. Still, once you were inside your story, you needed a plot to
make it work. This led to a spirited debate between “Pantsers” (writers who
write by the seats of their pants) and “Plotsers” (those who map out a
course). This, of course, brought
to mind the great, overlooked fable by Aesop, “The Pantser and The Plotser”
which centered on the struggles of a blathering butterfly and a boring ass to
tell their mother her yarn was broken. The fable, of course, went on to inspire
the famous vaudeville team of “Pantser and Plotser” whose career exploits were
legendary, as well as their fall when Pantser pantsed Plotser and revealed
Plotsers plotz (#whatthehellwasthat??, #imnotreallysurethisbitworkscharlie, #atleastiwrotethepost, #yeahforonce, #wherewerewe?).
The Schmooze then settled down to some information that one
can actually use to help you get through plotting (#finally):
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon had some great tips on discerning plot from “stuff”
in an impromptu writing class they taught at NYU which you can watch HERE.
Screenwriter Blake Snyder created a 15 beat story structure
that he immortalized in his “Save The Cat” writing guides. Rita Crayon Huang #hernewbabysbabymama said
that she found it too daunting to start her story with but used it as a
diagnostic tool after she finished her drafts. You can check out ol’ Blake’s ideas at his posthumous
website: http://www.blakesnyder.com
Still very much alive is Bruce Coville who gave one of his
amazing plot talks at the 2011 SCBWI conference (read a recap HERE). Bruce has so much great stuff to
say, there’s no way to do it justice here, But one of the big takeaways was to
complicate, complicate, complicate.
Use the senses. Complicate
not only your character’s overall goal, but the individual scenes too.
Linda Sue Park says to look at your character’s internal and
external quests, and focus on the tension between the two. She has a great explanation of it on
her site: http://www.lindasuepark.com/writing/writing.html
Charlie found a surprisingly useful entry on how to plot a story—in wikihow! (Hint: It’s
character and conflict!)
More traditionally, there was Freytag’s Story Pyramid
(exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement).
Martha Alderson, the Plot Whisperer can take you through her
plotting steps on her youtube channel.
She’s all about finding your characters’ flaws and she speaks sweetly
from a garden with lots of dappled sunlight and chirping birds!
(#makeyouwannabarfandlovelifeatthesametime)
And of course, Charlie’s favorite plotting device, Joseph
Campbell’s amazing Monomyth – an assessment arrived at by studying myths and
stories of every hero’s journey throughout time and from all around the
globe. Charlie loves it because
it’s so inspiring and yet so vague and open to interpretation.
Here are two versions of it to peruse:
Campbell's Monomyth
And one that's at least slightly easier on the eyes #sheeshsmallprintwhydonha:
Here are two versions of it to peruse:
Campbell's Monomyth
And one that's at least slightly easier on the eyes #sheeshsmallprintwhydonha:
Finally, (SOME SCHMOOZER) brought up Randy Ingermanson’s (#evilvilliannamesMarvelneverused) notorious “Snowflake method” of plotting, a method so detailed and anal and terrifying that it made Charlie want to kill himself and even gave Karol some pause.
For those of you who dare, though, here is a link to his page:
And that was it (#againfinallynoreallythistime). Fully flayed by the long evening we all plotsed out of there
just in time before the library closed, escaping by the seat of our pants.
(#seewhatwedidthere?)
Now that we're all super-caught-up-to-date, we hope you'll join us for any or all of our awesome upcoming Westside Writer's Schmoozes:
Perfecting the Art of the Elevator pitch (Just in Time for the Summer Conference!), Wednesday June 11th
Until we see you again (like next week), keep passing the open windows!
Charlie & Karol
Now that we're all super-caught-up-to-date, we hope you'll join us for any or all of our awesome upcoming Westside Writer's Schmoozes:
Mad About Middle Grade, Wednesday November 13th
Fabulous Guest Speaker (We Promise), Wednesday December 11th
Happy New Year! The Failure Schmooze, Wednesday January 8th
I Know What Boys Like, Wednesday February 12th
Livin' In A Blogster's Paradise, Wednesday March 12th
Picture Book Critique Night, Wednesday April 9th
Novel Critique Night, Wednesday May 14thPerfecting the Art of the Elevator pitch (Just in Time for the Summer Conference!), Wednesday June 11th
Until we see you again (like next week), keep passing the open windows!
Charlie & Karol
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