When (Not) to Query an Agent

First off, happy 12 - 12 - 12!

(and Happy Birthday to my son, who, on 12 - 12 - 12 is ... 13! Almost made it there, buddy.)

So, on to the topic at hand.
Coming to the end of my novel (and maybe the end of my sanity, too) I began to wonder if there was a best time to query an agent. Of course, the best answer is to query when your novel is ready. Beyond that, though, the all-knowing www is sort of nebulous. But, there is definitely a wrong (or less right) time to query. And that time is Now.

Let me reiterate: most sources say, do not query now unless you absolutely have to.

A few things happen to agents this time of year:

1. Agents get hit with the NaNoWriMo tsunami. No matter how much the NaNo site tries to tell you there's more to be done with your novel, many, many people flush with a 50k victory will pack up their next Twilight or War and Peace and email it off to a bunch of agents. Wading through that is probably enough to make any agent into a rubber-stamping rejection Grinch. Don't get caught like so much flotsam and jetsam in the NaNo deluge.
2. It's the Holidays! Believe it or not, agents are real people, too. They have lives, loved ones, and people they'd like to spend time with. As much as you might think it's a great idea to curl up with a good book over winter vacation, an agent might not like curling up with yours. Sorry, but that's her (or his) job, and when she's reading your manuscript, it's not for pleasure. Let agents have some breathing room to enjoy the bright lights, tinsel, and company of friends and family, too.
3. Oh, and don't think about querying January 1st, either. It's a New Year. You've set a goal to get published this year. How many other people have the same idea? How many others are sending out their stories January 1st so they can check that puppy off their New Year's resolution list? A lot. So, how do you start the year out right? By not querying. Just like NaNo, let the flood subside before you submit.

So, if it's not right to query now, when is it right? Just about any other time of the year. Late winter to early spring seems to be particularly promising from what I've read. Summer can be hit or miss. Some agents love to have something to do during those dog days. Others are busy with vacations and activities. Fall, like Spring tends to be another universally good time to query.

One other thing to be aware of when querying is the agent's schedule. If you know an agent is going to be attending something big, sitting on panels, hearing pitches, etc., it's probably reasonable to expect her inbox to get a little overstuffed. Wait to query until she's a little more free.

There you go. You now have permission to breathe a sigh of querying relief, put down the keyboard, close the email, and go enjoy the holidays.

What good querying tips have you found?

~Susan

(un)Writer

I haven't written a full story in almost a year. I don't know if it's blogging, or trying to sell the house, or if it's just I don't know how to be a mom of three and a writer yet, (Or maybe it's just I watch too much Netflix.), but whatever it is, I haven't really written a new story for a while.

I don't know I can really even call myself a "Writer" anymore, or if I'm more of a "Have Written". I have four novels under my belt... so that should count shouldn't it?

If you too are suffering from a case of the "past tense writer" syndrome, I've come up with a few tips to try to get your writer on.

1. Write as a way of rebelling.

 You know how delicious food is bad for you, but you don't care because you're a rebel? Or is that just me. Imagine if that naughty Nutella had less calories than a carrot stick. Wouldn't that be awesome? If you're like me, you'd be in heaven for a few delicious weeks. Delicious Nutella covered weeks.  But then, slowly the taste of Nutella would get old, too familiar, and that secret thrill you get from sneaking a spoonful here or there would be gone. When there's no reason to feel guilty, then all that's left is the flavor. And every flavor, even Nutella, could get old if you eat it with every meal.




My husband didn't always get the whole I want to be a writer thing, and so for a while there, I wouldn't tell him I was writing.  Instead I tried to sneak it in between not doing laundry, and ignoring my children. But then one day he read one of my stories, and decided I wasn't wasting my time by trying to be a writer. For a while it was like Nutella was good for me. I was in writer heaven. While I wrote everyday, my husband praised me and did the laundry.  Hot, right? Slowly, however, writing drifted from a fun, and rebellious, past time, to a part time job/ task on my "to do list."

So, in effort to get my writing mojo back, I've decided to put a little rebel back into my writing. I'll start by breaking the rules I believe in. I'll swear. I'll start by having a character wake up. I might even write an entire story within a white box. The point is to have fun. The point is to ogly boogly snark rattle just because I can.

( Rebel.)

 2. Write as a way of telling the truth. 

And not just a truth, your truth.  If you can't come up with fictional stories to tell, then write true stories.

For example, growing up I lived next to two girls very close to my age. I'll call these girls Kate and Megan, because that's their names. :) It was kind of idyllic for a while, living next to my best friends, but then, when I was about seven, we started to battle. Kate would be my best friend one day. The next, Megan would be my best friend, and we'd hate Kate.  But the worst days were the ones were Kate and Megan would be best friends and they'd hate me.

 I remember one day in particular. I was over at Megan's house while my mom was getting errands done. Kate and Megan were already playing in the basement, and they had decided that today would be a "I hate Sheena day". They mocked my clothes, asked if  my mom bought them at the DI, ( a thrift store for those who don't know) I remember I said something like "No, my mom bought them from Kmart."
"Oh, I get my clothes from target." Megan said.
"Yeah, me too." Kate said.
Megan probably smiled at Kate and then spoke again, "Well, at least I look good in my clothes. But you don't because you're fat."
"Yeah, you're fat." Kate said.
I sucked in my stomach. " I am not."
 "Yeah huh, " Megan said as she lifted up her shirt to show off her belly button.  She was sucking her gut in too. "See, I'm smaller than you."  Megan hit Kate's shoulder and whispered, "Suck in your stomach."
 We stood there, three seven year-old girls, sucking our stomachs in until we ran out of air. I started to cry and they called me a cry baby, so I ran upstairs.
"I want to go home," I told Megan's mom, but my mom wasn't back yet from her errands, so Megan's mom sent me back downstairs. But I couldn't go back down there, so I sat there on the steps, about six steps from the bottom, and six steps from the top. I was stuck, and worse,  I really had to go to the bathroom.

I couldn't move. Megan's mom was really stern. She was cleaning up for some big party, and was very short tempered with me, and I couldn't go downstairs and be mocked again. And so, a few minutes later, that's were I sat while ashamed, broken, worthless Sheena peed her pants and watched the river of urine flow down the six carpeted stairs like a slinky of shame.

Now, that story is embarrassing, but it also took up enough space in my head that over twenty years later I can still picture the wet stairs, and still hear Megan whisper to Kate to suck in her stomach.

I think, sometimes, you need to get the stories out of your head so you can make room for new ones. New, less embarrassing ones. Telling your stories as you remember it can be therapeutic  Just reading this story now, with my grown up experiences and understanding, and I can see how big and how small that day was. I can see how Kate's parent's were getting divorced about that time, and how she wanted to just belong somewhere. I can see the kind of pressure, and environment that would cause a seven year old girl to have to prove that she was skinnier than all of her friends. I can smile when I realize that perfection seeking mother had to clean up my urine.  But most of all, I can see how that moment doesn't define me anymore. By telling that story, it becomes silent in my head now, and from that silence, new stories can erupt.

Tip number three. Just friggen start. 

Not every sentence needs to be gold. Not every character needs to make sense. Not every story needs to be the one that will give you your big break. Embarrass yourself. Waste your own dang time.

Because it's your time, your stories, and your opportunity to rebel, fail, succeed, or shine.

So shine.
~Sheena

* Please don't judge these girls for their seven year-old selves. Also don't judge me by my seven year-old self. I said meaner things back to them, and just because they were mean one day, doesn't mean they are mean now. Both of these girls grew up to be amazing women.

Also I don't pee my pants now...except when I sneeze.

The Romance Story

You walk into a book store, eager to find a new story to consume.  You might head to the Young Adult section and pile your basket full with Becca Fitzpatrick, James Dashner, or Veronica Roth books.  You might linger in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi section, hunting for Octavia Butler or digging up the newest Writers of the Future volume.  Maybe you're looking for a great mystery, western, or you can't wait to read the newest Jodi Picoult.  Then you turn the corner and your heart races.  You realize, somehow, you've made a wrong turn, and you're now standing smack dab in the middle of the Romance section.

If you beat a hasty retreat and never look back, you might be missing out on something.  According to the Romance Writer's Association, the Romance genre generated 1.368 billion dollars in sales in 2011, and made up the largest share of the U.S. consumer market, at 14.3%.  That is nearly double the sales of the second-highest selling genre for that year.  In a world of ever-tightening budgets, Romance continues to grow, while publishers are forced to either cut down on, or at best, maintain the number of newly published books within each genre every year.

So if your mystery section lost a shelf, it might have been taken over by that section you try to avoid.  What is it about romance stories that sell so well?  Believe it or not, it's not sex.  In fact, one of my favorite authors in the genre, Carla Kelly, avoids pushing her characters into the physical aspect of their relationships.  (Any LDS readers out there should really check out her books Borrowed Light, followed by Enduring Light.  You have to read them both to get the full Romance-genre effect, and you have to read them in that order.  Don't switch them up.)  There are hundreds of books like this, that fall into the Romance category, but aren't based on the physical side of things.  It's about the emotion, the relationship, and most importantly, the characters.

How does this differ from a romance plot in, for example, a fantasy novel?  Well, for starters, Fantasy is usually about characters embarking on some kind of adventure in a strange new world.  And while you may find a Romance with Fantasy elements, it's vastly different than Fantasy with Romance elements.  Here's how:

• In a Romance novel, the plot centers around the character's relationship with one another.  No other element in the book matters more.  If the story finds the world hanging in the balance, and that takes prescience over the relationship, it's probably Fantasy first, Romance second.
• The struggle takes place inside the character's head.  Her family doesn't approve of her choice in husband, or he has never wanted to be tied down to a wife, and they spend the majority of the book trying to overcome these obstacles.  She'd have to come to grips with the fact that in marrying for love, she might very well lose her family.  He would have to realize that the pros of being married outweigh the cons of losing the woman he loves.  (These are just examples I'm making up, by the way, and very basic examples at that.)  The obstacles are occasionally more substantial: she ends up in jail, at which point he probably rides to her rescue.  Or vice versa.  Maybe the world really is working against them.  But 9 times out of 10, the conflict takes place inside their heads.
• The biggest rule of Romance: there is always a happy ending.  No matter how hard the characters fight their feelings, or what the world throws at them, they always get a happy ending.  When you look through other genres (such as Fantasy) you start to see how big a difference this really is.  Characters die, good guys lose, sometimes things end well, but the boy doesn't get the girl.  Not so in Romance.  The happy ending is King.

And that's pretty much it.  I can see why Romance is the highest selling genre.  When you pick up a Fantasy, you might be able to count on the world being put right by the end of the story, but your characters won't always get a parade in their honor.  They won't necessarily end up with the person they loved, and they will most likely lose a few of their friends along the way.  They achieved their overall goal, without finding what makes them happy.  It's a scary prospect, especially if the series happens to be upwards of three volumes long.  (Or--gasp!--twelve or thirteen books the size of a cinder block.  I'm talking about you, Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind.)

Romance is a safe bet.  You get struggle, with the promise of resolution.  You watch the characters evolve, grow, and become the people they were meant to be.  And at the end of they day, you close the book with a smile, satisfied that the author--and the genre--delivered what they promised.

Next post, I'll talk about what every genre can glean from Romance, and how you can apply those elements to your own stories.  Until then, I encourage you to check out Marian's Christmas Wish, a holiday favorite of mine that is about as mild as Romance comes. 

Have a great couple of weeks everyone!

... But Maybe Not Too Much

Two weeks ago, MaryAnn wrote an excellent post about suffering in POV characters. She said,

"I think making the characters suffer ups the stakes, it makes you feel that they have a lot to lose and that success isn’t a given, in fact, it is almost impossible, and that ratchets of the tension while making the hero feel vulnerable, more relatable."

I absolutely agree. However, over the summer, I read a couple of books with characters who go through extreme suffering, and instead of making me care more about the characters, it frustrated me. So what's the deal - did the authors take it to far, or am I expecting too much of my favorite characters?

The two books were The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner, and Fire, by Kristin Cashore.. Without revealing any spoilers, I can tell you that both Gen and Fire suffer crushing losses throughout the course of the story. I should also note that I think both these tragedies needed to happen to these characters; it's not the losses, it's how they're portrayed that somehow bothered me.

Grief isn't a pretty thing. It's a swirling, tar-like mass of sorrow and rage and regret. It takes a long, long time to heal from such a thing, to get back to some semblance of normalcy. I know that personally. So why didn't I have more empathy for Gen and Fire?

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure (this is why even though I'd read the books in summer, I hadn't gotten around to writing the post yet). Is it because I expect more from characters, especially those otherwise portrayed as heroes? Well, maybe a teeny bit. I mean, I would like to think I have a more nuanced appreciation of character growth than that, but maybe I spent too many years watching Disney movies.

Maybe it's because Fire and Gen's grieving comes at bad times for their kingdoms. Both have to be scolded by friends or relatives to leave their grief and pay attention to the troubles around them. It's probably unfair for me to be irritated by that, too. I mean, in the times that I've grieved, there hasn't been an invasion of monsters to California or anything, so it's not like I can empathize on that level.

Or maybe it's because of something else. During the original run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, you may remember that Gene Rodenberry died, and Rick Berman took over as executive producer. My uncle, the biggest Trekkie I've ever me, complained that after Berman had taken the helm, the show had devolved into the bridge crew squabbling throughout every episode. "I don't tune in to watch that sort of thing," he told me. "I started watching Star Trek because it presents a hopeful view of the future, where we can actually work together to achieve results."

And maybe that's a big part of why I read traditional fantasy. I want to see characters overcome impossible situations, to handle every challenge with grace. To act in the ways I wish I could.

I'm not advocating perfection. Perfection is boring. But I do wonder now how to hold that balance, to make characters realistic, to portray suffering without becoming maudlin.

If you've read those books, did those moments frustrate you too, or not? To you as a writer, do you want to try to achieve a balance of those two elements, or do you find one more important than the other? And have you come across any well-done portrayals of suffering in POV characters?

What Exactly is Good Writing?

From Stock.xchng

Whenever agents talk about books they're looking for, most of the time, they specify one that is well-written, and I’ve always wondered what that actually was.  According to readers on goodreads, Twilight was poorly written and The Da Vinci Code and even, dare I say it, Harry Potter.  I’ve always wondered if this was just something associated with writing styles because I have my own personal preferences when it comes to writing styles, but I don’t think that makes other styles wrong.

 So is being well-written subjective, or is it being confused with style and/or voice?  Maybe style, voice, and how the book is written are just so intricately connect that they can’t be separated.  Maybe, but maybe not.

 I recently came across this post by ex-agent now author Nathan Bransford.   He wrote this post in response to his blog readers questioning his claim that Fifty Shades of Grey is “not that badly written.”  He talks in the blog post about how he defines good and bad writing. 

“When I talk about "good" writing and "bad" writing, I mean the prose. Is it readable on a sentence-to-sentence level? Is there a flow? Is there a voice? Do I get tripped up by a lack of specificity in description or are the details evocative? Is the hand of the author too apparent or am I able to lose myself in the world of the book?”

I think this is the perfect definition of good writing.  It really gets to the heart of what is important in writing, and it separates, as much as it can be separated, the very subjective style and voice from the writing itself.  And I’m not entirely sure if my interpretation is correct, but this is my take on the points he makes and how they relate to good writing.  

“Is it readable on a sentence-to-sentence level?” 

 I think clarity is the key here.  The sentences need to be free of grammar mistakes, and they can’t be too convoluted or poorly constructed.  The reader shouldn’t have to struggle to understand the sentences.

“Is there flow?”

It isn’t enough to have clearly written sentences, those sentences need to connect to each other.  The ideas need to logically flow from one sentence to another, and then from paragraph to paragraph.  In good writing everything is connected to what came before with smooth seamless transitions from idea to idea as the story progresses.

“Is there voice?”

Voice is kind of this nebulous thing that agents and editors seem to want but no one really understands.  I know that voice is far more complex then I'm going to get into here (and Melanie gives a great definition of voice here), but I think an important aspect of voice is consistency.  There needs to be a consistent style throughout the entire story that holds the writing together.  It doesn't have to be a specific style.  It just has to be consistent.  

“Do I get tripped up in lack of specificity in description or are the detail provocative?”

I think this has to do with confident writing.  Vivid details help the story and the world feel real, but I think there is more to it than that.  I think there is a confidence that comes from writing that is very specific, and that confidence in the prose makes us readers more willing to trust that the writer knows what he/she is doing.

“Is the hand of the author too apparent, or am I able to lose myself in the world of the book.”

I think this is the most important aspects of good writing.  Good writing shouldn’t get in the way of the story.  It shouldn’t be awkward or repetitive in structure, ideas, or words, but it also shouldn’t stand out and steal the spotlight from the story.  It should paint a scene, evoke emotion, and put images and ideas into the readers mind, but the words themselves should be invisible.

I think these things, clarity, flow, consistency, confidence, and invisibility is what makes up good writing.  Honestly, I’ve never read a traditionally published book that I didn’t think was well-written on some level, even Twilight, The Da Vinci Code, and Harry Potter.   

So what are your thoughts?  What is good writing to you?

~MaryAnn

Gone Girl and the Pitfalls of the Big Twist

The last book I read was a nail-biter, the kind of book that kept me up all night desperate to know how it ends. The answer was true to Amazon reviews: disappointingly. But don’t worry, I won’t spoil the ending, because that would ruin the whole thing.

So I'll only spoil the middle.

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn, is a psychological suspense novel about a missing wife and a marriage that has gone horribly wrong. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t read the reviews that spoil the ending. Go out and buy it - I’m still 40th on our library waiting list- then read 219 pages and get back to me. (If you can’t tear yourself away from this post, then I assure you the spoilage will change how you read this book but not ruin it. It might even make you like it better. Or it might not. No money-back guarantees in the blogging business, my friends.)

Go on. I'll just hang out here and wait.

By Leyo (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-2.5-ch]via Wikimedia Commons

I'm betting you didn't stop at 219. Couldn't put it down, right? I assume it’s Tuesday and you’re checking back in. 

So you’ve started Part 2. For the first half of the book, the narrative has alternated between Nick’s POV in the present day and Amy’s diary entries beginning years earlier. On the day Nick's story began, Amy disappeared from the house, leaving traces of blood and signs of a struggle. Nick has been muddling through the police investigation while Amy's diary has reflected increasing strain between them.

Now we’ve gotten to know both Nick and Amy a bit, and we know something isn’t adding up. Their marriage is clearly troubled, and he is lying to the cops and might even be lying to us, the readers, because there’s something sketchy about Nick. And Amy seems oblivious sometimes, even as she seems to understand their dynamic so well.

If you’re like me, you’ve seen a little more of yourself in Amy than you’d like to admit. The way she tries so hard to be an easy wife, to not let his little guy habits get to her. The way she compares them with other couples while pretending not to. The way she seems to be trying to create a picture of happiness while not being entirely sure if she’s actually feeling it.

If you’re like me, you might have put the book down few chapters in, when you were starting to see how Amy might drive Nick insane, and said to your husband, “So, ah, promise not to murder me, okay?” And he might have frowned and said, “I already promised not to push you down the stairs after you watched that Lifetime movie and I am not making any more promises because I really. Shouldn’t. Have to.” And then you might have pouted for a minute before sinking back into your book, pushing aside the feeling that the author knew you too well.

This was in the beginning, before things got weird. You just suspected Nick was angrier than he seemed and Amy was more desperate than she seemed, and it all was a little too keen, as though the author had taken a shadow and managed to give it form, then sharpened that form to a blade and sliced open every marriage ever.

Or maybe you were just engrossed in the story. To each her own.

You got sucked in deeper, stayed up later, and found yourself on page 219. The midpoint reveal. You knew there had to be one, because nothing added up so far. You may have even floated this in your head, or maybe you positively saw it coming all along. I worried the story might go off the rails, but never anticipated the degree to which Flynn carries her twist through. Whether or not you guessed the twist, if you are like me, even a little bit, you were not happy with this turn of events.

Because if you are like me, you love reading about characters who betray each other but you are less enthusiastic about characters who betray you, the reader.

Okay. This is your final chance to catch up. I'm not going anywhere. Spoilers come after the manatee.

By Chris Muenzer (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Ah, you’re back.

Page 219: Not only did Amy fake her own death, she faked all those diary entries. That character who hit a little close to home, whose vulnerabilities were so perfectly blended into an everywoman that I could understand and envy and pity all at the same time? Yeah, she was fake. The real Amy made her up. The real Amy played a joke on everyone, including the reader. And since the real Amy is not real, but made up by the real author, I had some less than kind thoughts for Ms. Flynn on page 219.

I knew there had to be a twist in order for the story to make sense, but I still groaned out loud when this was it. It took me another fifty pages to get over the resentment and get into the new story - the one featuring a sociopath instead of a victim.

Elements of the TWIST FAIL:

Not everyone will be as bothered by this plot twist as I was, and you can’t please everyone all the time, but if you want to please this cranky blogger I recommend avoiding two pitfalls of a big twist:

1. Abusing the Reader’s Trust

Unreliable narrators can be tricky, but they can also work. If you’ve made it this far, you know that Nick is having an affair, and he didn’t tell the reader upfront. Instead, when his girlfriend forces her way onstage, he makes a reluctant confession to the reader:

I have a mistress. Now is the part where I have to tell you I have a mistress and you stop liking me. If you liked me to begin with. I have a pretty, young, very young mistress, and her name is Andie.

I know. It’s bad.

Nick has committed some lies of omission in his narrative, making him an unreliable narrator. But Andie doesn’t contradict the picture of Nick. She fills out another piece of the puzzle, and it fits with everything that came before.

As I reader, I don't feel like I bit into my next Goober and got a Raisinet instead.

Amy's twist, on the other hand, is like having your delicious chocolate covered peanut snack replaced by chocolate covered raisins in the middle of the movie. And I have always thought that fruit and chocolate is something a person needs time to get used to.

I was invested in Amy's character. I knew she was holding back, but I thought I related to her. Finding out those diary entries were all supposed to be a lie was kind of like spending 200 pages of my life with a someone I think might be a friend and instead turns out to be doing market research. A lot like that, actually. Maybe I should spend more time with real people. But that's for another post.

2. Forgetting the Limits of Your Authorly Control

Books are at a disadvantage compared to movies. A movie always has one ultimate viewpoint: the camera’s. You can stick with one character, or have voiceovers, but basically what the camera sees is what the audience sees. In The Sixth Sense (a.k.a. best twist ever), we could go back and see all the bits that the camera caught that we had missed, all the ways to look at a scene differently once we understood that there was another angle.

A movie never relinquishes control to the viewer. We might puzzle over things or even miss them entirely, but we don’t generally fill in any details with our imaginations. In a movie, you get what you get.

Authors don't have that kind of control. We readers have to form our own images, and we use our imaginations on every single page to make the world of the story richer. Characters and settings become uniquely three-dimensional in our minds. I kept picturing Nick and Amy in a house just like one I’d seen when my husband and I were house hunting several years ago. If I read a detail that contradicted my image, I’d adjust. But the image was there already, based on only a few details from the author and the pictures my brain had in storage. I’ve never been to Missouri, so the suburbs I pictured were more like Michigan, because that’s what my mind filled in. Gillian Flynn couldn’t have stopped me. The author can't control every detail, or decide how invested a reader becomes in his or her imagination.

This means that changing critical things late in the game is dangerous.

If you give a few telling details about a woman - a hunched back, a shuffling gait, gray hair - and for 200 pages, I picture an old lady, it won't work to say on page 201 that she’s actually a young woman. No matter how many details you tell me, it would take some mind-blowing writerly chops to make me to picture something that could be either an old lady or a young woman without giving away your surprise.

As I read, I create images based on my interpretation of the story. In a movie, I have no choice but to interpret the image you show me. In that case, painting a picture that can be seen two ways is easy peasy lemon squeezy:

Maybe I wasn't supposed to relate to Amy as much as I did. Maybe I was supposed to smell that she was off from the outset, or maybe I wasn't supposed to be rooting for her. Maybe I wasn't supposed to picture the diary entries as vividly as I did, or get so attached to them. But Ms. Flynn couldn't have controlled that without giving away the surprise.

A book might be born in one person's creative mind, but the experience of reading it is always collaborative, a meeting of the author's words and the reader's imagination. So before you introduce a twist, ask yourself if you’ve anchored the reader in the right images, and if the promises you made along the way are the ones you meant to make. Some people love surprises and some people hate them, but no one likes a broken promise.

For a great analysis of what makes a twist really work, see MaryAnn's brilliant post: Pulling off The Big Twist.  

I'm off to order Gillian Flynn's other novels. Story critiques aside (we haven't even talked about the ENDING!), Gone Girl was a heckuva fun read and I can't wait to do it again.

Breathing Life Into A Large Cast of Characters

"In 1899, the streets of New York City echoed with the voices of Newsies...On every street corner you saw them carrying The Banner, bringing you the news for a penny a pape."

 How can people not like this movie???? Seriously! I am shocked when I express my adoration of it, and people laugh. Have they never seen this piece of genius? (Christian Bale said, “You say something bad about Newsies and you have an awful lot of people to answer to.”) I'm one of those people. Sadly, I've never seen the Broadway version of it. But I've got a dream...

The movie came out while I was in college, and I was unexcited when my mom wanted me to see it--a musical about child labor. Thanks, Mom.

Not long after that, I memorized it. Pieces of it anyway. After I had children of my own, they loved Newsies as much as I did. We watched it over Thanksgiving vacation this year. ("How could you find time for this, when you are slaving away on your newest Nanowrimo masterpiece?" you may ask, but that's a question for a whole other post. Sorry.) One of the things that make Newsies great is its well-developed minor characters.

If Jack Kelly is going to become the leader of the Newsboys Union, he needs a few people to lead, right? But the story isn't about them. It's about Jack. All he really needs are some faceless boys dancing behind him, cheering occasionally. Yet I know them, and I love them, even the ones that barely had a line to say. Here's how I think the authors (Bob Tzudiker and Noni White) pulled it off:

Newsies: The Broadway Musical

Group Consciousness

Right off the bat, we learn that the newsies are poor orphans and runaways, without a leader. Some of them sleep on the streets. The lucky ones live in the Newsboy Lodging House, which is a huge dormitory filled with boys. When the kindly landlord wakes them up first thing in the morning, they are clearly exhausted. Like most boys, however, they wake up quickly, and spend their morning hitting each other and jumping off things.

However, these boys have grown-up responsibilities. The nuns give them bread for breakfast, and then the newsies hurry off to see the day's headlines. A dull headline might mean the difference between starvation and a good meal. These kids also have to worry about bullies, of course. What kid doesn't? But loyalty is important to the Newsies, and they protect each other's back.

Every single one of them seems confidant in the life they have chosen, and they carry their burdens lightly. It almost seems like a happy life. Then they get their day's papers. Taking a collective breath, they disperse into the streets. You realize that those few moments of camaraderie are all they get. The Newsies lead a remarkably solitary life.

When you have a large cast of characters that all have the same purpose--in this case, surviving on the streets by selling newspapers--allowing them to have a group consciousness can imbue them all with the beginnings of a personality without having to build each one from scratch individually.

In Newsies, none of the minor characters ever truly deviate from the group consciousness, or at least not in a way that a rousing song can't fix. In a book, there would probably be more time to allow them to walk their own paths.

Individual Personalities

Still, they have their own personalities. They each have two or three unique things about them, and every sentence they say; every moment they spend on screen, is spent highlighting those individual differences. Here are a few examples

Racetrack: The Witty Gambler with the Charm

Even Racetrack's name tells you what makes him unique. He's a gambler, though he looks like he's maybe fourteen, tops. When Jack (Cowboy) gets in a fight with the two bullies, Oscar and Morris, you can hear Racetrack shout , "Five to one that Cowboy skunks them. Who's betting?"

Racetrack is a charmer and a gambler, but he is also brave to the point of stupidity when it comes to defending women and his friends. The idioms he uses, the way he speaks to adults, every single moment of his on-screen time is spent hammering that into our heads.

Midway through the movie, Racetrack is dragged to the police station. He was knocked unconscious while trying to protect a singer named Mette during a riot. After Racetrack and his friends are arrested and fined $5.00 each, he speaks to the judge on behalf of everyone. "We ain't got five bucks...we ain't even got five cents. Hey, your honor, how about I roll you for it? Double or nothin'." Classic Racetrack.

Crutchy: The Cheerful, Independent Newsie With the Bad Leg

The origins of Crutchy's nickname are pretty obvious--he has a bad leg, so he walks with a crutch. Crutchy is perpetually cheerful and polite. In contrast to the other Newsies, who don't try to hide their dislike the man who sells them papers, when Crutchy greets him, he says, "Heya, Mr. Wisel." When he gets his papers, he thanks Mr. Wisel as profusely as if he'd just done Crutchy a personal favor.

Crutchy takes every opportunity to point out the good in his fellow Newsies. "You're getting the chance of a lifetime here, Davey," he calls at one point. "You learn from Jack, you learn from the best."

The first time the Newsboy Union gets into a fight, Crutchy is gleefully destroying newspapers, and doesn't notice that the police have arrived to restore order. Obviously he needs more time to escape than most of the Newsies, but he only looks up when Racetrack turns back to yell, "Crutchy! Scram! Scram!"

He doesn't scram in time, and gets beat up and sent to The Refuge, a jail for children run by the wicked Snyder. When Jack and David arrive to break him out, Crutchy is all smiles, as usual, but he explains that he can't go. "I ain't walkin' so good," he says. "Oscar and Morris kinda worked me over." Jack offers to carry him out, and for the first time, Crutchy's smile is gone. "Hey! I don't want no one carrying me. Not ever!" Then he protects Jack and Davey by distracting the warden so they can leave.

The next day, the whole group is antsy. They are scared about what they did yesterday, worried about the consequences and angry about the unfairness of it all. Davey is doing his best to keep everyone calm, but Jack's shout of "Let's soak them for Crutchy!" is like setting a match to gasoline. Although Crutchy doesn't get much more screen time, his memory serves as a rallying cry more than once.

And finally...Spot Conlon: The Young, Powerful Leader with the Great Eyes

Ah Spot. We don't even hear his name until half way through the movie, and yet, at least in my house, he gets more screen time than any other actor. (That's because we rewind the scenes he is in. J)

Spot is the leader of the Brooklyn Newsies, and his name strikes fear in the hearts of Newsies everywhere. Spot's Newsies are huge compared to everyone else, but Spot himself is nothing but a kid--about the same size as Racetrack, and quite a bit smaller than Jack. People listen to him though, because he is street-wise and a good leader, with a knack for military tactics.

When Jack, Davey and Boots arrive in Spot Conlon's territory, Spot has already heard about the Newsies' strike. He refuses to join. Davey does his best to sweet-talk Spot, and it  kind of works. Spot is flattered, and decides Davey is a great guy. However, he does not change his decision.

Spot: How do I know you punks won't run the first time some goon comes at you with a club? How do I know you got what it takes to win?

Jack: Because I'm telling you, Spot.

Spot: That ain't good enough, Jacky-boy. You gotta show me.

Spot saves the day more than once, with such great style and background music that I could watch it over and over, all these years later. However, Spot's dialect kind of bugs me, so there aren't a ton of great Spot quotes. There are a couple though:

Spot: Hey, your honor, I object.

The judge: On what grounds?

Spot: On the grounds of Brooklyn, your honor.

And my niece's favorite: "I say, that what you say, is what I say."

If you want well-rounded characters without granting them a lot of space in your writing, imbue them with a group consciousness, and two or three unique characteristics. Every word they say and every action they take should serve the double purpose of furthering your plot and developing those characteristics.

If you have any examples of books that do a great job developing a group of minor characters, I'd love to hear about them.