Wisdom from the Historical Novel Society Conference 2017

Huge quantity and huge quality authors at the book signing, with yours truly 

I'm back from the Historical Novel Society Conference 2017 in Portland, Oregon. I'd been planning to go to this convergence of great historical fiction authors from all over the world since they announced its location last year, not knowing at the time that I would be so close, I wouldn't even have to book a plane ticket.

The view from the hotel room where I missed my husband 

I participated in so many fun, informative, happy, and intense events! It was no time at all before someone commented that most authors are introverts, so we all must be exhausted from social activity that we desire and enjoy but that drain our energy. I was not the only one who wondered if it was too much fun. I'll try to sum up each event with a word or two of wisdom.

FYI, telling people you're going to be living in Spain soon is a great conversation starter!

Selden Edwards and Irene Goodman 

Perhaps it was foreshadowing for the way the conference would go. I began at the preconference academy with courses on how to start your novel to grab your readers so they can be entranced by the dynamic pacing you maintain throughout. First, agent Irene Goodman and author Selden Edwards offered oral histories that were models of pacing that kept the audience hooked no matter how much they meandered. They dissected what worked with many examples of first lines. It's the perfect exercise for any novelist to look at the first lines of a wide range of first lines of novels and think about why or why not you want to keep reading, looking at tension, suspense, lively words, and specificity.

Irene Goodman gave a memorable example written by no less than her own daughter when she was young: "It started with ordinary carrots." The sentence has so much more tension than the typical "Once there was..."

Heather Webb had us at Hello. 

Heather Webb continued the learning with the first half of You Had Me at Hello. I'm having tremendous trouble getting the sequel to Seven Noble Knights started. Heather looked at my pages and gave me an idea for a new start that will better hook the reader with characterization, and mystery, and obvious stakes, tone, time, and place. (Yes, it's even harder than it sounds.)

Gillian Bagwell had us at Hello and goodbye. 

Author Gillian Bagwell entered in signature polka dots and dropped the bombshell that dialogue can do a lot of the heavy lifting of exposition and description. Drawing from her time as an actress, Gillian illustrated arcane writerly secrets in fresh and entertaining ways. If I don't nail the beginnings of all my books and stories from here on out, it won't be the fault of these fantastic instructors.

I've known author Kim Rendfeld for years,
but we met for the first time at this conference.
The digital age actually can bring people together. 

On the first day, the welcoming atmosphere, the sense of writerly support, and the openness to always learning were already apparent. I've been to a few conferences before, and there are always a few notoriously negative presenters or attendees. Not here.

Irene Goodman and editor Lucia Macro started off the wise positivity the next day, advising us that selling your first book is the good news and the bad news! They made me wish I had their jobs, warts and all.

Seven Noble Knights in excellent company at the Barnes and Noble display 

Author Carol McGrath suggested ways to invent convincing medieval heroines to an intimate "Koffee Klatch" group of my peeps, medievalists. When we present our women characters as strong, some readers complain that they seem too modern. But really, to survive the Middle Ages, they had to be. We discussed the obstacles women came up against with Carol's memorable advice that if you need to give female characters opportunities, send the men to war. Medieval Spain was in a constant state of war, so that is excellent advice for any of my future stories.

Anne Easter Smith, Aimie K. Runyan, and Stephanie Dray revel in
researching archives full of accidental—or deliberate—holes. 

In the wonderfully titled How am I Supposed to Write About This When They've Destroyed All the Evidence?, Anne Easter Smith, Aimie K. Runyan, Stephanie Dray, and Kim Rendfeld discussed the frustration and fascination of having to solve some of history's most entrenched mysteries to move your story along. Anne made convincing arguments that Richard III did not have the princes in the tower killed. When to make it up because nobody really knows was thoroughly discussed. What constitutes a good faith effort for you as a writer?

I didn't get close to Geraldine Brooks, but she was inspiring from afar. 

Geraldine Brooks spoke at lunch the first day. She entranced the audience talking about her career as a war correspondent journalist, how she got into writing novels, and how she gets her book ideas with the concept of implausible history: true events that no one could make up. Describing the sympathy both authors and readers can feel with characters in spite of geographical, cultural, and temporal distance, she said, "She loved as I loved, and that's as good a place to start as any." Read more at M. K. Tod's blog.

That afternoon, I participated in the Blue Pencil Café as a mentor. I wasn't sure what to expect, but both of the writers whose first chapters I'd read were highly receptive and ready to learn. One had just pitched to an agent and received a request for pages, so that added thrilling intensity to the revision process we were discussing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to participate in some other writers' process.

Cold Reads but a warm reception from Lucia Macro,
Anna Michels, and Margaret Porter 

On the heels of thinking about revising first chapters, I attended a Cold Reads session with editors Lucia Macro and Anna Michels and author Margaret Porter. Margaret read the first two pages of twelve unpublished novels submitted by the session attendees and the editors told us what worked for them and what didn't. The most egregious sins were the samples that didn't make the setting and time period clear. I went to a similar but infinitely more brutal session at The Muse and the Marketplace, the Grub Street conference, in 2014. In the end, it made the beginning of Seven Noble Knights 100 percent better, but I had to process it for a long time because the information was delivered in such an unsympathetic way. I wished I'd had some pages to give to these ladies, because I learn more easily in a welcoming environment like this.

The only thing lovelier than this many historical novels for sale is Powell's Books. 

That evening, I went to dinner with Kim Rendfeld and Rita Ashley, whose pages at the Cold Reads session provoked extensive discussion because they were masterfully written but described a child in distress. Apparently, that's a major turnoff for publishers because so many of them have children of their own. We followed dinner with a visit to a Portland institution, the ice cream parlor Salt & Straw. The menu is thrilling reading in itself and I hope I have a chance to go back there before I leave for Spain.

My name tag says Jessica K. Knauss—Medieval Spain. 

Bright and early the next day, I went to possibly the most informative session, How Far Can a Horse Walk in a Day and Other Questions of Accurate Historical Travel. Mary Ann Trail let us in on the secrets of Paterson's Roads, British military records for invading Scotland, which led quickly to the first travel guidebook, complete with inns, the cost of renting horses, best routes, and road conditions—all the nitty gritty details a historical novelist needs. Faith L. Justice took our breath away with Information Age ways to get at travel as far back as Ancient Rome. The best advice was to become the best friend of your local research librarian!

Stephanie Lehmann illustrates coming up against unique challenges
with Patricia Bracewell, Rebecca Kanner, Mary Sharratt, and Nicole Evelina. 

High on potential knowledge, I entered Putting the Her in History, which had possibly the best energy of any of the panels. Women come up against challenges unique to them throughout history, and yet only .5 percent of recorded history is occupied with women's lives. Each panelist had an interesting story to share, whether about her heroines or how she is perceived as a writer who is a woman. Rebecca Kanner has been asked why she's so "stuck on violence," and we imagined no male author has ever been asked that question. Such dynamics are one reason I decided to use my initials for Seven Noble Knights. Most inspiring, of course, was the idea that writing about women validates our stories and lets us know we're important. Read more at Patricia Bracewell's blog and Nicole Evelina's blog.

David Ebershoff, also dynamic from afar 

The speaker at that day's lunch was author David Ebershoff. He described how he came upon the information that inspired The Danish Girl and how he struggled with whether to write the story at all. He had a vision of how much he would regret it in the future if he didn't write it, and we're all glad for that. Every author at the conference writes because s/he feels deeply that a certain story must be told. Getting David's humble take on that passion, complete with museum visits, grave sites, and film crews, validated the struggle and hard work.

Geraldine Brooks, Ed Goldberg, David Ebershoff 

I now share an honor with Geraldine Brooks and David Ebershoff—we've all been interviewed by Ed Goldberg! It was an hour full of anecdotes and pithy replies to clever questions from the audience.

Then we filled a vast ballroom with more than a hundred historical fiction authors for the book signing. So much talent in one place! Because we were grouped in alphabetical order, I seized the opportunity to chat with authors I hadn't been able to catch until then, including Patricia Bracewell, Susan McDuffie, Lucy Pick, and Judith Starkston. Believe it or not, Seven Noble Knights didn't sell out, so Barnes and Noble has a few copies signed by the author available for purchase. Check it out online if you're not local to Portland.

Kate Forsyth 

Entertainment for the closing banquet included an enchanting recitation of the Scottish folktale Tam Lin by Kate Forsyth.

The masquerade ball off to a great start with George Washington and Alison Stuart 

The whist games provoked many shouts of victory. 

To cap it all off, a regency masquerade ball—but of course—complete with tables for playing whist, as all good regency characters do. I chose a red mask even though the purple would've matched my dress better.

The only place where a medieval gentleman can hold hands with Marilyn Monroe 

The Jane Austen Society provided authentic live music and instructors for the dance and the whist. I would likely have hung back, but author Stephanie Renee Dos Santos pulled me in for the first round of dancing. The instructor taught each dance for ten or twenty minutes before we really did it while he called out the moves, and it had a strong feeling of square dancing, lots of holding hands, promenading, and changing partners. I was exhausted!

This dance reminded me of a Goya painting. 

This one is straight out of Jane Austen. 

Many thanks to the tireless organizers and every attendee, who made this conference joyfully worth every penny.

Each person mentioned in this post is connected in some way to at least one excellent historical novel worth checking out.

Literary Idol: The Dos and Don'ts of the First Page (The Muse, Part III)

This post is directly mainly at writers, but readers, please bear with me. I’d love to know if any of this makes sense to you!

The second highly instructive Muse and the Marketplace session I attended was something called Literary Idol. In that session, three literary agents and one editor from a highly regarded literary press acted as the judges. Steve Almond, author, “randomly” selected anonymous first pages of books to read aloud to the audience and judges. Imagining that the samples were part of a query, whenever the judges heard something that would make them stop reading, they raised their hand. If two hands went up, Steve stopped reading. If no hands went up, the sample went into a pool, and the winner among them received a free membership to Grub Street.

You can read about what happened when my first page of Seven Noble Knights got read and what I decided to do afterward at the other blog. In this post, I’ll share what happened to most of the other samples and what we might learn from their voluntary exposure to ridicule.

We’ll start with the worst and move to the best.

4.

The only page to receive four raised hands was a piece of fiction whose writing the judges described as vague. If the reader can’t picture (and ideally, hear, taste, smell, and feel) what you’re writing about, she’ll get bored more quickly than an agent’s intern gets a paper cut.

3.

The two pages to get three hands raised, a YA fiction and an NA fantasy, had in common a lack of freshness and a disorienting tendency to change scenes abruptly. If your subject has been done once for your genre, you can bet literary agents consider it overdone by the time they see your manuscript. Freshness needs to translate into the language you use, too — clichés and stale telling instead of showing were the first to be pointed out and reviled. The agents were additionally put off by the NA piece because it over-explained the life-and-death stakes of the story and opened with a graphically violent crime scene, leaving nothing positive about the characters for the reader to “invest in.” The investment referred to here is the reader’s attachment to the story and characters and resulting willingness to keep reading. The first pages must attract reader investment, or all the following ones, no matter how great, are wasted.

2.

By far, the biggest category included the pages that raised two hands.

An epistolary novel put the judges on high alert from the outset because that genre has a reputation as being hard to pull off. According to the agents, it too frequently results in an artificial, stilted reading experience. Hands were raised because the writing didn’t present a reason to care about the main characters, even though he was dying from an unnamed disease. It’s rough out there, I tell you!

A memoir was described as not different enough from others to be compelling. There was a kitten, which sparked some interest, but otherwise, they’d “heard it all before.” The authorial voice in memoir may be more important than in any other genre. This one seemed bitter, and caused resentment as the judges listened. Not the sympathetic reaction a writer usually goes for.

Both of the samples in the mystery genre tripped up the judges with over-description in the form of lists of objects in the room or types of people passing by. In spite of the necessity of red herrings in mysteries, there is such a thing as too much detail. The writers needed to include only those that were important or would appear to be important in the course of the story. Mystery also seems to be the most likely genre to fall into cliché. Just avoid cliché phrases and cliché situations. They're the hallmarks of stale writing.

A sample of literary fiction didn’t give enough context for the reader to know what was going on. Steve Almond said concisely, “Establish informational equity.” Don’t keep any essential information from the reader. “Disorientation kills the reading experience.” As opposed to this example, the mysteries took the amount of information a little too far. As with every other aspect of writing, it’s all about finding an elusive balance.

Two agents raised their hands upon hearing the title of a fantasy sample. Steve went ahead with the reading anyway, only to bear out that the text was as off-putting as the title. The details were disorienting and too gory to interest the judges. Anachronistic language and repetition added to their confusion.

A YA literary sample started unusually, with a quote from Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, they weren't the right words. It’s important that all the words you choose be the right words, especially if they’re someone else’s. The rest of the introduction showed quite a bit of interesting pizzazz, but the quote made the page all wrong.

Finally, a sample that might be categorized as lad lit used song lyrics to move the story along. The technique was seen as boring and overdone. Pop culture has to arise organically in the story, they said. The song wasn’t one that would be accessible to a wide range of people, so they felt the story excluded the reader. The idea is definitely to draw the reader in, not keep him out.

1.

Two samples got one hand each. While a single hand did not cause Steve to stop reading or knock the sample out of the competition for the Grub Street membership, it certainly decreased the odds it would win.

The one agent to raise her hand for a MG fiction claimed a case of TMI (too much information). It was middle grade humor, admittedly. Though the others said it had a good hook with a hidden letter mystery, all agreed the foreshadowing was a real downer. They were talking about a sentence like, “Little did we know, that summer all our lives would change.” No one wants to read a sentence like that anymore.

A memoir from a cancer survivor provoked pleas for the writing — or something, anything — to really stand out. Most said they’d already seen too many cancer memoirs, aware and regretful that they sounded callous. Here we picked up a concept, thanks again to Steve Almond, known as “rate of revelation”: When a reader comes across new and essential information, she’s interested. When the information is not necessary or new, he’s bored. Over-explaining is a case of unnecessary and old information. The example given was that the reader did not need to be told the nurses were wearing scrubs because, what else would nurses be wearing, after all? It could become new or essential information with more details, but just the scrubs were a “duh” moment.

0.

And finally, the best samples: five pages provoked no hand-raising. I wish I had copies of all these so we could absorb their subtleties.

Two novels lacked a specific moment that caused any one to raise their hand, but they didn’t have a real hook, either. One of them inspired confidence in the writer’s talent, but had several fixable problems: unclear pronouns, wrong words, needed a better beginning. Something that leaves agents so passionless will never get representation. Sorry, but it’s true.

On the other hand, real enthusiasm entered the room with the remaining three pieces. One short story (never mind that I think short stories shouldn’t be competing with book-length pieces) had a “good voice,” that elusive commodity everyone was hoping for. Some revelatory declarations in this piece were good because they didn’t spell out exactly what the story was about, so they maintained a healthy air of mystery. A YA historical fiction had a strong hook, powerful, evocative language, clear stakes, and most unusually of all, variety of syntax. A second short story, about middle school experiences from the perspective of an adult looking back, had a “fabulous voice,” a unique take on the situation, appropriate humor, and good verbs. “Good verbs” make for strong writing. It’s a matter of choosing the most precise and vivid word for idea. In this case, instead of merely handing her friend a prized piece of lingerie, the character “palmed” it to her.

This last sample occurred midway through the session, but I had no doubt that it was going to win. Not only were there no negative comments about it, but it was so memorable, it might even stand out in an agent's slush pile. What did it have that the others lacked?

Writers: on your first page, you must not disorient or confuse the reader; over-explain; foreshadow; have typos or unclear pronouns; use the wrong words; or bore the reader.

Conversely, on your first page, you must have a unique voice and perspective; a strong hook; vivid imagery; powerful, evocative language; clear stakes; freshness in abundance; and if possible, a variety of syntax. All of this is just to draw the reader in and make the reader care what happens next. Not much to ask from about 200 words. (Ha ha.)

Readers: is there anything here you disagree with? How long do you give a book to draw you in? Most of the readers I know will spend fifty pages with a book before abandoning it for unreadable. Are they unusually tenacious?

The Strategic Author: The Muse, Part II

I was at The Muse and the Marketplace on May 2. My amazing author photos were done and I'd had a nice breakfast with some writers of memoir. I was in my favorite city, thinking about my favorite activity (writing). You might wonder what more I possibly could’ve gotten for my registration. I still had all my sessions to attend!

The first was The Strategic Writer, given by Grub Street founder Eve Bridburg. Advertised as help positioning oneself as a writer in the professional world of publishing and publicity, this session posed the first hard questions of the day. In order to plan a successful business (of writing), the first task is to define what success means. Eve gave us a framework from which to consider the question that encouraged us to avoid answering automatically: to be a New York Times bestselling author. Of course every writer hopes for that! But what real changes would such a status cause in our writing lives? And, importantly, are there other aspects to that kind of success that might be more obtainable right now — baby steps toward the ultimate goals?

Start at the beginning: why do I write at all?

I write because I have to. By that, I mean that those times in my life when I haven’t regularly done creative writing were the worst, the most despairing and purposeless.

I also want to tell stories readers enjoy, because otherwise, writing is lonely and too theoretical to have any impact in the world. Here, there’s been a little conflict: Sometimes, I share my stories with someone or a group of people and they don’t seem to enjoy it in the way I intended. My first reaction is to stand up for my inspiration — how could something so indefinable do wrong? My definition of success involves finding the right readers, the readers I can entertain by making good editing choices instead of by compromising my unique vision. It will be a lot easier to find those readers when I’m finally able to define what exactly about my writing is unique…

To further define success, we considered the following two questions from both the emotional and the monetary points of view: How do I want to spend my time? How will I know when I’m successful?

Signs of emotional success for me include:

When readers like what they’ve read so much that they ask for more.

When 500 people “get it,” when they show signs the book has really connected with them.

When my book appears as a Jeopardy! question.

When my book is used as a text or is deconstructed in an academic paper.

When my book wins a prestigious award.

Signs of monetary success:

When my book wins a lucrative award (which may be the same as the prestigious one!).

When I’ve sold so many copies I no longer have to worry about bills or debt.

When I get an HBO series.

When I get other book deals, job opportunities, fellowships and/or grants.

The main idea of the day was that once each writer has a solid understanding of her goals, she has to weigh the investment with the rewards of any publicity campaign. I came to fully understand that some techniques will not work for me because of the type of books I write or because of my personality. While I greatly admire the campaign my Loose Leaves author ScottE. Blumenthal has been able to put together, there is no way I could accomplish the same results, even if I copied everything he and his publicist have done.

The thought that I’m not obliged to try every possibility simply because it exists is liberating. I can breathe much easier knowing that I should do exactly what makes sense for me as a writer and as a human being and what aligns with my clearly defined goals, no more and no less. That’s when the ideas began to germinate!

Sephardim and Rejection Management: The Muse and the Marketplace

On Friday, May 2, I attended my only day of the three-day writers extravaganza, The Muse and the Marketplace, in Boston. I had to get up insanely early and take the train instead of doing my usual routine. I would have loved that if not for the sick-to-my-stomach feeling from lack of sleep and, yes, the separation anxiety from my husband. But as the train passed some of the monuments to the fond memories of my past, when I worked in Boston, my aching love for the city overwhelmed any lingering anxieties and I determined to make the most of this opportunity.

I got to walk a few blocks from the train to the conference, and even the traffic gave me energy. The sunlight coated the Public Library in swathes of brilliance while the Hancock Tower glinted across the way. By the time I arrived at the Park Plaza Hotel, I was thrilled to be there.

First order of business: take advantage of Kobo’s generous offer to have my “author photo” taken by a professional photographer. I had figured I wouldn’t look any better as the day went on and I got sleepier, but then the Park Plaza that day was like a tropical greenhouse: humid and in the mid-80’s, despite whatever efforts the staff was making to fix the air conditioning. All the more reason to get a picture ASAP! I chatted with the people in line — we have writing in common, after all! — and got ready for my close-up.

Michael Benabib, the photographer, takes pictures for The New York Times, so we could now all say we’d had our brush with fame in that capacity. He was efficient at taking as many shots as he needed and at getting his subjects to look as natural and as beautiful as possible. After a thorough powdering to mitigate my sprouting “glow,” he asked me what I write. I said, “I’ve written a historical epic set in medieval Spain.” His enchanting reply was that he is a Sephardic Jew! He added that Spain grants citizenship to people who can prove Sephardic ancestry. So of course all I could do was wish I had some Sephardic ancestry. (I patently do not.)

The pictures will be emailed to all the participants. If it's not as disastrous as I fear, I'll debut mine here.

When the photography session was that much fun, I had the funny feeling that it was going to be the best reaction to my subject matter all day. A self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps, but at breakfast and lunch and all other social opportunities of which I took advantage going forward, I somehow ended up talking to people writing memoirs. I’m sure there are common elements to writing a good memoir and a good fictional narrative, but since I’m so firmly a fiction writer and pay so much close attention to the fiction market, I was largely left out of the conversations. Except one thing we certainly had in common: rejection.

I've now had more than 100 rejections or "non-responses" from agents for my Seven Noble Knights query. I'm starting to feel just a tad unwanted. 

At the sessions I attended, I asked some hard questions and got some hard answers. I’ve been chewing on them ever since. I also came up with some brand new ideas. Watch for posts about them, coming soon!

The Carolina Writers' Networking Luncheon

On Sunday, my husband and I drove for two and half hours to a spot in North Carolina that only took my Loose Leaves colleague Jan an hour and half to get to from South Carolina (why does that happen every time?). There, we met a large percentage of active writers and editors in the Carolinas at the Carolina Writers' Networking Luncheon, which was put on by editor and author of Don't Sabotage Your Submission, Chris Roerdon.

Here's the always necessary book table. The Boxcar Grill didn't anticipate so many wonderful offerings, and many authors sat with their books all afternoon, which was a more personal experience. Notice the Loose Leave mini-catalogue flier standing up at left.

Loads of networking and good fun took place before and after a delicious lunch in the cramped quarters.

Chris Roerdon ends the afternoon with acknowledgments. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I left with the feeling that I'm not alone as a writer in the South. We're everywhere! The gentleman on the right is editor and proprietor of Pisgah Press, A. D. Reed.

And a moment of glamour. We have to mark whenever the disparate members of Loose Leaves manage to occupy the same space. They used a swamp cooler at the restaurant, so my hair is frizzing out, so it's just as well the picture is blurry!

I hope all the attendees found this luncheon as interesting as I did! I love a chance to get out and mix with other writers and editors!

Philippa Gregory’s Keynote Address at HNSLondon12

No, you don't have to be from the UK to be a historical novelist, but Philippa Gregory is, and she gave a wonderful talk at the Historical Novel Society Conference this year. Some day I'll go in person!

Crossroads: The Truth in Fiction

I had a writerly weekend at the Crossroads conference in Macon, Georgia. The organizers say they started the whole thing because writing can be lonely, but it doesn't have to be!

One inspiring theme that arose in a lot of the talks was the truth of fiction. As Sarah Domet said, readers sympathize with fictional characters because they recognize something true in them. Fiction speaks to the heart, and therefore condenses truth in a way bare facts can't.

Another important idea I took away came from Chuck Wendig: Although authors want their books -- their babies -- to cure cancer and end war, they can't do those things, at least not in a direct way, because they're only stories, after all. So don't suffocate your children -- your books --, care less about them and they're be all the better for it. Recently I've been reading a lot about how historical novels have to be so true to history and the known facts, and I can't help but like the idea that I should care a bit less, breathe a bit easier, and remember that it's just a story. I'm not sure how much of that I can get away with overall, but it sounds to me like the only way I will ever finish my first draft of The Seven Noble Knights of Lara.

Finally, one of my favorite speakers was Johanna Ingalls of Akashic Books, who confirmed everything I'd hoped was true about small publishers everywhere: constant enthusiasm, appreciative authors, kindred spirits. I do love being an editor and publisher.

See these other takes on the conference:
Chuck Wendig
Delilah Dawson

Crossroads

Today I'm at the Crossroads Writers Conference in lovely Macon, Georgia, to shake off some of the isolation inherent in writing and be inspired. The keynote speaker is Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, and if there's one person in the world who can tell me how to finish my novel this year, it must be he!

Authors After Dark

A wonderful writer and social media friend of mine, J. Gunnar Grey, will be attending the Authors After Dark Festival of all things Romance books. She'll be handing out goody bags, and in them you'll find some of my postcards and bookmarks and even a CD with a free pdf of my story "Rhinoceros Dreams." (This is the story that is also going to be available from Jake's Monthly: Magic Realism. Get it here, get it there, but get it while you can!)

Although I don't have what it takes to write romance, I have nothing but respect and affection for romance writers in general (and a few specific ones). So enjoy Authors After Dark today through Sunday, August 12 and look for me in the goody bags!