Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2022 från Writer's Digest

WD posed the question to readers on our social media: “How do you know when your story has found its perfect ending?” Readers responded: “It’s just a feeling of satisfaction. Your heart tells you.”—Jen Benzinger (@jenbenzinger) “When my characters stop yammering in my head.”—Teresa A. Henderson (@T_Tells_Tales) “Sometimes it just feels right. Other times it’s apparently obvious. For me, I thought of the ending to my novel before I thought of anything else. Knowing where it ends makes it a lot easier to start.”—Eli A. Susman (@EliSusman_Books) “When everything clicks! Honestly, endings are easier than [the] middle [of the] book.”—Amanda Nicole (@AmandaNicole487) “When I feel the same bliss that my characters do at the resolution of their problems.”—Kasturi Sukul Gaytan (@KasturiSukul) “My entire story actually started with the ending. It’s…

The very first time I attempted National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known to the writing world as “NaNoWriMo,” was in November of 2009. I can still remember trying to organize my outline during the last week of October, my nerves buzzing with anticipation at participating in such a legendary writing experience. Ever since I read of founder Chris Baty et al. undertaking the gargantuan task of writing 50,000-word novels in a single month, I knew I would have to try it, if only to see if I could do it. Since that first NaNoWriMo, I have participated in nine more events, and of those nine times, I “won” five of them, meaning that I made it to the finish line of 50,000 words or more by the end of the…

In her bestselling book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott shares one of her now-famous secrets of good writing: shitty first drafts. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts,” she writes. So true. But Lamott has another piece of advice about first drafts which, while less well-known, is equally on the nose. In a chapter entitled Finding Your Voice, she invokes the metaphor of a closed door: “If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must … the writer’s job is to see what’s behind it, to see the bleak, unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words.” In other words, as she puts it, “Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.” I was…

Like all awesome things in this world,1 the freelance life is not for everyone.2 Making your living as a freelance writer takes a lot of hustle and stresstolerance, and it can be difficult to figure out how to freelance in the first place. There are plenty of resources out there offering advice on finding clients, financial matters, and time management—but there’s also a lot of conflicting advice and plenty of gaps. One big gap: firing clients. One of the greatest and probably leastused freelance superpowers is the ability to just stop working with clients when they’re no longer good for you or your business.3 The first time you realize that you don’t have to keep working with a difficult, abusive, or underpaying4 client, it’s exhilarating. But then the doubts start…

Su Cho The Symmetry of Fish (Poetry, October, Penguin Books) “This book examines the way phrases and narratives are passed down through immigrant families—not diluted over time but distilled into potency over generations.” WRITES FROM: Clemson, S.C. PRE-SYMMETRY: I followed the academic route by pursuing an MFA and Ph.D. This book was written during those times and when I wasn’t working on poetry. TIME FRAME: The earliest poem in this book was first drafted about 10 years ago, and the most recent poem was written a few months ago. The Symmetry of Fish is a record of my discovery and sustained love for poetry. ENTER THE AGENT: I don’t have an agent, and the way this book deal came together was the best surprise. I submitted this manuscript to a…

… and I lived happily ever after. If only writing the end of your memoir was that easy! But life doesn’t always resolve neatly. What if you didn’t make it to the top of the mountain or your child is still an addict? Writing about loss? Chances are your person is still dead. How can your ending still satisfy readers—while leaving an opening for your next book? Memoir already lacks suspense. While novelists can tease out tension by suggesting a character might not make it, readers already know you survived—you wrote a book about it. Novelists can work out their relationship problems, imagining the closure they’d like to have or forgiving characters inspired by people the writer can’t forgive in real life. But memoirists must stick to the truth, and…

Like most writers, Jill Madden Melchoir has been putting pen to paper for as long as she can remember. But perhaps unlike most writers, Melchoir’s writing didn’t start with stories or poems: “It was writing lists of stuff I liked, literally just lists of things that I thought were cool—rain, swimming in the river near my house, painter’s pants, shiny rocks.” There was also a diary with a little gold key where she penned the names of her crushes and end-of-year sentimental essays describing the things she’d learned. Then, in 5th grade, she remembers a particular school assignment that changed everything. “[I] wrote this poem about having gum in my hair and [getting] up late and [missing] the bus. I thought it was hilarious. And one of the boys in…

5 Fiction Magazines When I think about “The End,” I think of a good story. And while poetry and nonfiction are capable of delivering a good story, I wanted to focus on a few fiction magazines this time, though some of these markets do publish poetry and nonfiction as well. The good (or bad) thing about publishing short fiction is that query letters lose their importance. A fiction writer’s success depends on how successfully their stories capture the attention of editors. If the story captivates, then it will be published; if not, then it may need to find a different editor. Either way, writers don’t have to pitch their stories. They can share the full manuscript with the hope of keeping the editor reading all the way to the end.…

The Sense of an Ending “I didn’t like the ending,” I said to my favorite college professor. It was my junior year of undergrad, and I was doing an independent study on Victorian literature. I had just finished reading The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, and I was heartbroken with the ending. Dr. Gracie, with all his patience, asked me to think about it beyond whether I liked it or not. He suggested I think about the difference between endings that I wanted for the characters versus endings that were right for the characters, endings that satisfied the story even if they didn’t have a traditionally positive outcome. Of course, I would have preferred a different ending for Tom and Maggie Tulliver, but the ending they got did,…

As you might expect, the editors of WD read a lot of books and not all of them make it into the magazine. Here are seven books from 2022 that we can’t get out of our minds. MORIAH’S PICKS On Rotation BY SHIRLENE OBUOBI (ADULT ROMANCE, AVON, JUNE 2022) “An incredibly sweet novel about navigating familial expectations, maturing friendships, budding romance, and following your professional dreams, On Rotation is a stunning debut by physician and cartoonist Shirlene Obuobi that will keep you hooked from first word to last.” Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology EDITED BY VINCE A. LIAGUNO AND RENA MASON (HORROR/SHORT FICTION, WILLIAM MORROW, JULY 2022) “The ‘other’—and society’s longstanding fear of things it doesn’t understand—has always been a subject that horror writers love to explore, but in Other…

At its very heart, I believe that there is only one story arc in the world: There’s a character in an uncomfortable situation and they must find a way to resolve it. They can do this either by changing the situation, changing themselves, or destroying themselves or their world trying. Obviously, there are millions of ways in which storytellers wrap flesh around this skeleton. The point of consuming stories is in the details and in the telling. Some genres are more focused on the resolution, others on blowing up the world that caused the problem, yet others on proving the fact that the human condition causes problems that can only be accepted and not solved. Those are the only possible endings. Which stories resonate with us says much about how…

Many of my students and clients spend years working on a debut novel, only to discover that to get a literary agent’s attention they need to publish something—maybe a few short stories in literary magazines. But writing a great (or even publishable) short story isn’t easy. Faulkner famously said every novelist is a failed short story writer, and short stories are the most difficult form after poetry. There’s some truth to the idea that short stories have more in common with poems than novels. Novels are more labor intensive, for sure, but there’s something fluke-ish and rare about a perfect short story. Short story writing hones your craft in miniature, without having to throw away multiple “practice” novels, which can be—speaking from experience—uncomfortable and time-consuming. The best short stories are…

Maybe you’re ready to submit, but you’re still not in love with that working title typed across all your novel files. You might have even planned to change it all along, expecting the perfect title to fall in your lap one day, but those elusive words never did. Or maybe—and this can be rough!—you love your title, but your agent or publisher isn’t on board. The trickiest thing about titles is that they don’t exist in a vacuum. What feels like the perfect fit alone in your writing room can lose its luster in the real world for a multitude of unpoetic reasons: Another book sounds too similar, it’s bringing up strange search results on Amazon, or it’s out of sync with the cover direction your marketing team is sure…

When Ian McEwan began writing his new novel, Lessons, in late 2019, he told his wife, novelist Annalena McAfee, that after a year of traveling he would prefer to spend 2020 at home writing. “Really, you’ve got to watch out what you ask for,” he said when he spoke to WD in July, in advance of the book’s publication. Holed up with part of his family during the first COVID-19 lockdown in England, he knew he wanted to “write a fairly long novel and just sort of live inside it.” Because the conditions were “horribly ideal, given that so many other people were suffering,” he was able to immerse himself in the book, writing “seven days a week, sometimes 12, 14 hours a day. It was kind of writerly bliss.”…

Dear FYSA, I received a request for my manuscript from a top agent, and after two days, received a phone call about representing my debut novel and was presented a contract for the term of one year. A few days after signing, I received a list of around 50 editors and publishers my agent had queried. Then, nothing. I emailed him several times to check on progress but received terse responses, if any, then there was no communication at all. If I called, there was no answer. At the end of the contract year, I received no message so sent one to him stating that the contract was over. I received a form note: “Good luck in selling your novel.” I’m feeling so puzzled and belittled, and I have actually…

Journaling as Your Superpower Truth be told, on the one hand, I’m terrible at journaling. Yet, on the other hand, if pressed to name my creative writing superpower … I’d answer “journaling.” There are all kinds of ways to journal—and one might just become your superpower. Traditionally, “journaling” means writing semi-regularly in a diary or journal about our lives, events, thoughts, feelings. As a teen, I was great at keeping a diary. But I stopped keeping a personal journal in my early 20s, and I’ve felt a bit guilty ever since. After all, I’m a writer. Shouldn’t writers journal? I’ve been inspired by big life events and vacations to attempt personal journaling anew, but I never get more than a few days in before I abandon the effort. Now, if…

1 The Poetry Gauntlet Open to writers (16 years and up) of all experience levels. Applications due Dec. 1, 2022. All applicants will be notified by Jan. 3, 2023. WHEN: Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2023. WHERE: Some meetings will be held at the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning, Lexington, Ky., while others will be virtual or off-site as determined by the instructor. Participants can attend gatherings virtually as needed. PRICE: $1,500. Financial assistance is available. WHAT MAKES THIS CONFERENCE UNIQUE: Would you like to take a poetry workshop but can’t take time off work? This unique event is a full year long with meetings on Saturday mornings once a month. “It helps working writers find a community and develop in their craft,” says Program Director Sarah Chapman. “It’s affordable, providing…

ALLISON K WILLIAMS, author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book, has edited and coached writers to deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, and St. Martin’s, as well as literary and indie presses. After 20 years as a circus aerialist and acrobat, Allison turned to essays and has written for National Public Radio, CBC-Canada, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Kenyon Review Online. She serves as social media editor for Brevity and leads the Rebirth Your Book writing retreats. Find her @guerillamemoir on social media and at  RebirthYourBook.com. USA Today-bestselling author SONALI DEV’s novels have been named Best Books of the Year by Library Journal, NPR, The Washington Post, and Kirkus, among others. She has won the…

POETIC FORM: ENGLYN PENFYR The englyn penfyr is a Welsh form. While many englyns are quatrain (or four-line stanza) forms, this one is based around the tercet (or three-line stanza). Here are the guidelines: • Three lines per stanza• First line has 10 syllables• Lines two and three have seven syllables each• Line one has a rhyme near (though not at) the end that end rhymes with lines two and three (see this bolded in the example)• Final syllables of the first line are echoed in the beginning of the second line (see this italicized in the example)• Poem can be as concise as one tercet or continue on for several stanzas Here is an example by a Poetic Asides reader: “I Watch Children After a Storm,” by Jane Shlensky…

Anybody’s Daughter, Failure to Protect, +12 others (Legal thrillers; Goldman House Publishing) WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I didn’t choose self-publishing; it chose me. My first two books were traditionally published, but my publisher rejected my third. So did eight other publishing houses. My agent encouraged me to put the book, Murder on the Down Low, on the shelf and write another book. I felt strongly that there was a market [for it], so I ignored his advice and self-published. This was 2008, when self-publishing wasn’t as popular as it is now. A lot of great things happened. For example, I was among a couple dozen indie authors that year who received a distribution deal from the Independent Publishers Group. So, the book actually made it onto store shelves. I had always planned to…

Alexandra Weiss AZANTIAN LITERARY AGENCY Alexandra Weiss holds a BFA in creative writing and publishing from Columbia College Chicago. She joined the world of publishing in 2016 and represents everything from fiction and nonfiction picture books, middle-grade and young adult to graphic novels and select adult nonfiction. She has written for Bustle and BuzzFeed, among others. She regularly volunteers with literary organizations and says she has a soft spot for working with young readers. “I struggled with dyslexia as a kid but at the same time adored books and getting lost in new worlds, even if it was a challenge at times,” she says. “Being able to help usher new books into the world that kids today can pick up and see themselves in or feel inspired by means everything…

When I was a newer writer, I bought a drink for a famous old novelist at the hotel bar after a long conference day. When he’d consumed half of it, I asked him for advice on crafting good, satisfying final chapters. He snapped, “Your ending depends on your beginning and middle!” Yeah, no kidding. Even I had that much common sense. He did add, “Thanks for the drink.” But I wasn’t asking simply about “endings.” A last line can comprise an ending. Short stories are great for oneliner endings: He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided. —“The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” —“The Tell-Tale Heart”…

Strategies for Success Everything about writing, selling, and promoting a book is hard. And sometimes, no matter the diligence and creativity you bring to the project, success eludes you. If this describes your experience, you’re not alone. Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris reported in The New York Times that “Of the 3.2 million titles that NPD BookScan tracked in 2021, fewer than one percent of them sold more than 5,000 copies.” So, what’s an author to do? Focus on those factors that are in your control. Success isn’t like winning the lottery; it’s more like climbing a tall, rugged mountain—reaching the summit requires a carefully crafted plan and plenty of grit. Over the years, I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I’ve learned from them. I’ve distilled my findings…

Flora When it comes to creating realistic vegetation for your world, you want just enough detail to give your world texture and believability without overwhelming the reader with a bunch of explanations that are not going to serve your plot. To do this, a good rule of thumb is to determine what this plant is doing for your story and then dive into the finer details of its history, purpose, and uses in your world. USES Setting Making your world more tangible will include descriptions of the places your characters inhabit. Think of the way poisonous plants were used for their aesthetics in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park—that showed the reader that the whole park was focused on the wrong things and foreshadowed its downfall. Likewise, description can be used to…

FAMOUS LAST WORDS INSTRUCTIONS: Use the final lines and author names to complete the crossword with corresponding book titles. ANSWER KEY: 1. Invisible Man 2. Where the Wild Things Are 3. Life of Pi  4. The Haunting of Hill House 5. Their Eyes Were Watching God  6. Frankenstein 7. The Color Purple DOWN 1. “Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”—Ralph Ellison 2. “—and it was still hot.”—Maurice Sendak 3. “Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”—Yann Martel 4. “Within, walls continued upright, bricks met nearly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”—Shirley Jackson 6. “He…