7 Things I've Learned Since Getting Published

author Jill Williamson

Posted by Michelle Griep for JILL WILLIAMSON

1. I need time to write a great book. 

I’m a pleaser, so when I got my first chance to sell books off a proposal, I agreed to tight deadlines, wanting to make my publisher happy. I had to write faster to meet those deadlines, and I believe the books suffered for it. I now know that it’s okay to ask for the time I need to write a book. And it’s also okay to say no to selling off proposals. Some authors thrive by selling off proposals. But I’d rather write the book first, then sell it. I need a certain amount of time to do my best work.

2. I’m not the next J.K. Rowling. 

When I started writing, I wanted so badly to be the next J.K. Rowling. But after years of rejections, then years of mid-list authoring, I’ve learned that I’m not her. (Duh.) I’ve also learned that there is already one J.K. Rowling. The world does not need two. There is also only one Jill Williamson. And I have lived a pretty cool life, thus far. If I spend all my efforts trying to be someone else, who will be me? No one. And I will be leaving a void in God’s creation. I have a purpose that only I can achieve. So I must stay true to me, my life, and the stories I have to tell. I must be the best me I can be.

3. Word-of-mouth is what sells books. 

I can pour all my effort and money into marketing and promotion, but in the end, my bestselling books are the ones people talk about. They’re the ones that “avid” readers read, “sometimes” readers read, and the “I never read” readers read. People often say that controversy sells. But that hasn’t been true for my books. I’ve learned that there is no formula to get people talking about my books except to write the very best book I can write.

4. I’ve got a slow start. 

These days, readers are easily bored. They want instant entertainment. And if you spend too much time setting up your story, you might lose readers. I’m guilty of this in my books. I’ve always liked the “zoom in” beginning, where the “camera” shows my character living his life before the inciting incident upsets everything. But I’ve learned this isn’t the best way to grip readers, especially if they decide not to hang around long enough to get to the good part or give me a second chance. So I’m working on trying new things to hook readers. It’s important to always be learning.

5. I need to get better at pitching books. 

 When people ask me about my books, I tend to stumble my way through the answer. I’m never prepared. And I always feel like I’m bragging and want to change the subject. And if they ask more questions, I end up babbling through my old story pitch that was never the greatest. This is no way to sell books! I have been working on developing a simple way to explain what I write and a short high concept statement/logline for each of my books/series. I’m an introvert and pitching doesn’t come easy, but if I’m prepared, I can do my best.

6. Don’t read reviews. 

This is different for every author, but because of my personality, reading my book reviews does one of two things. 1) I either become happy because the review was good, or I 2) become depressed because the review was negative. This is a pride issue for me. I want everyone to love me and my books. I’m happiest when I am liked by others. And I have a difficult time separating my books from who I am as a person. So a negative review feels personal, even though it isn’t. It’s better for me to focus on writing and ignore reviews. I can learn my weaknesses in other ways—from beta readers, editors, and my agent. I don’t need to walk into trouble on purpose. It’s best to steer clear.

7. Things will go wrong, but that’s okay. 

I’ve had typos in final books (some that were my fault, some that were made in typesetting). I’ve had wrong covers. I’ve had edits done on the wrong versions of my books. I’ve had spoilers posted in online store descriptions. And I’ve had books printed with the wrong stories inside. In the beginning I panicked. I felt as if these things would ruin my career. I now know better. Mistakes happen. Always. I’ve never had a book go perfectly from start to bookstore sale. Yet people keep buying my books and leaving positive reviews. Readers continue to email me kind messages. All is well, even with a mistake here and there. So when mistakes happen, I try to stay calm and remind myself that it will get fixed and forgotten.

Bonus: Here's Michelle Griep's review of Jill's latest, REBELS . . .

Ahhh. Hear that? It's a satisfied sigh. Rebels ties up all the loose ends into a tidy little bow on a gift of a story. There are a few plot twists and turns I didn't see coming, but thankfully no characters that I adored were killed in the process. If you know of a teen or young adult who loves dystopian, I recommend this trilogy.

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Teen Culture and YA Books

At a rcent children's writng conference, I did several critiques. I noticed that while many published children’s books have characters that curse and have sex and know people who engage in destructive behavior, many unpublished manuscripts have naive characters that look like they stepped out of the 1960s.

What Are Teens Like Today?

It’s not enough to give characters computers and video games. Children today look and sound different from children of the past. They are street wise. They see sex and violence on the TV every night. They’ve experienced the pain of divorce either in their immediate family or their extended families. They have gay friends and relatives. They don’t have the luxury of being naive.

I’ve long said that teens today want the same things that teens have always wanted: They want to love and be loved. They are sure they can do better than their hypocritical parents did, they're idealistic.

But today’s teens are also different from teens of the past. For one thing, the causes they champion are different. What kids consider to be unjust today is different. Today, the majority of young people in the world see pollution and bullying as terrible sins and they see homosexuality and abortion as good things.

What Kind of World Do They Live In?

·       Abortion is acceptable even during and after birth

·       Assisted suicide is legal and/or widely accepted

·       Homosexuals and transgendered people are considered normal

·       Alcoholism is seen as a disease

·       Creationism is taught as fairy tale, while evolution is taught as proven fact

·       Teachers cheat by changing test scores

·       Teachers have affairs with students

·       Gunmen, or students, go on shooting rampages

·       Bombers blow up building and buses full of people

·       Communication is immediate—no time to think before you speak

·       Movies are available on the phones kids have in their pockets

·       Video game addiction is a concern for their parents

·       Teens are expected to be sexually active

·       Porn is available from a very young age

·       Billboards and the TV shows are full of sexual images

I’m not remarking on the rightness or wrongness of any of the things above. I’m not arguing that evolution is an unproven theory or that alcoholism is more sin than disease. I have my opinions on these things but they aren’t what this post is about.

This post is about the shift in worldviews that has occurred in the last three to five decades.

When I was a child all sex was kept in the closet, regardless of whether it was heterosexual or homosexual in nature. Even married folks, like Rob and Laura Petrie, had twin beds on TV.

True story: When I was eight or nine there was an ultra brite toothpaste commercial in which a pretty young woman blew a kiss at a handsome young man. Then a woman sang, “Ultra brite gives your mouth sex appeal.” I asked my dad what “sex appeal” meant and he said, “It’s a dirty word.” That same man, once a conservative, Bible-believing minister, went on to speak out in favor of homosexual rights. He came to believe the Old Testament and most of Paul’s epistles were bogus.

This is how much some people’s views changed in three short decades.

How Does This Shift Affect YA Books?

More and more we see kick-ass heroines and heroes out for revenge. We see assassin heroes—loveable hit men and wise-guys. We empathize with killers. No one wanted Katniss to lay down her life—to refuse to fight and kill. We believed she had to kill. She had no choice. Well…yeah, she did have a choice. She could have died instead, which would have been seen as the truly heroic thing, once upon a time.

Today we live in a world with more than fifty shades of gray. Everything is a shade of gray. No black and white. No absolutes. The god whom the people of the world believe in, is a god who just wants everyone to have a good time.

So how do we engage children and teens today?  Can we give them a Katniss who leads a revolution without killing innocents? Can we give them street-smart characters that do the right thing? What do you think?

 photo credit: Shavar Ross via photopin cc

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The ABC couplet contest brought in several stellar entries. It had to go a tie-breaking judge. The final decision was a hard one but in the end...

Marti Pieper,

                  come

                            on

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Facebook or email me, and I'll get you your prize.

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Sally Apokedak is an associate agent with the Leslie H. Stobbe Literary Agency. She's in the process of building a dynamite list of authors. She is also active in the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the American Christian Fiction Writers, and Toastmasters International.

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A Living, Breathing Main Character ~ Stephanie Morrill

Stephanie Morrill is a twenty-something living in Overland Park, Kansas with her husband and two kids. Stephanie is the author of The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series and is currently working on other young adult projects. To check out her blog and read samples of her books, check out http://www.stephaniemorrillbooks.com/ and
www.GoTeenWriters.com .


About 7 years ago, I was stuck in a writing rut and began leafing through old projects of mine. I had a handful of complete manuscripts, but most had been discarded halfway through the writing process. There was something wrong about them—all of them. Something I couldn’t put my finger on for awhile. And then one day, I saw it clearly:
I was my main character.
In every one.
She might not look like me, but she thought like me, talked like me, and got herself into the same kinds of scrapes I did.
The problem with my books was me.
So I opened a blank document on my computer and tried something new.
I’d always been a quiet, behind-the-scenes kind of teenager, so I made my new main character the center of attention. I was a goody-goody, so she was a bad girl. I was raised in a stable home, so her home life was tumultuous. My looks were ordinary, so she was exotic. I was passive aggressive, so she sought out conflict.
I named her Skylar and wrestled her onto the page.
Writing Skylar was freeing. Being in her skin felt like living in a fantasy world. She said things I wanted to say to people but never did. She took chances I was scared to, and yet she was afraid of things that felt ordinary to me.
I submitted the manuscript to a contest. The story felt bigger than anything I’d ever written, and surely the judges would be able to tell. I knew I was guaranteed to final.
So when the list came out, I was flummoxed as to why my name wasn’t on it. Clearly I’d been given a raw deal. My judges must have been having bad days when they read my manuscript. How could they not appreciate Skylar?
But that was the one thing all three judges agreed on—Skylar was annoying. They were not only indifferent to her problems, they felt she deserved them.
Not. Good.
For awhile I resisted dealing with the judges’ comments. Then I forced myself to sit down with my contest entry and read with fresh eyes. That’s when I realized I didn’t like Skylar either. I agreed with those judges. Skylar was rude, self-centered, and had her priorities all backward. She did deserve her problems.
After deciding the judges weren’t complete morons, I changed my opening scene. In my original manuscript, we met Skylar in her element. She was snarky and completely in-control. And completely unlikeable. I reworked it so our first glimpse of Skylar comes the morning after the worst night of her life. For the first time ever, she’s vulnerable and unsure of herself. She knows she needs to make changes, but she doesn’t know how, and there’s no one in her life to mentor her the way she needs to be mentored.
While making Skylar different from me broke me out of a writing rut, I had to find something for us to have in common—an emotion, a circumstance. How could I expect a reader to love and root for her when I didn’t?
It took four years and three drastically different drafts before Me, Just Different was polished enough to sell. Fortunately those years not only produced a sellable manuscript, but lessons for building main characters:

1.Your mom is right—it’s what’s on the inside that counts
Even though I crafted my story in first person, I somehow managed to leave out Skylar’s feelings. We knew every detail about her outfit that day, but we had no idea how she felt about the conversation she’d just had. If a scene is reading flat to you, look to see if you only developed the external story and not the internal. To your reader, your character’s thought life matters far more than his or her eye color.

2.Challenge their world view
The first couple times I wrote Me, Just Different, I made it clear that Skylar was exotically beautiful. It didn’t occur to me that Skylar might not view herself this way. Or, if she did, that it might affect her relationships with others. Basically, I’d forgotten to give Skylar a world view. And the story grew far more interesting when I developed Skylar’s perception of her looks rather than making it as simple as saying she was beautiful.
We all view the world differently, and your characters should too. It’s when their world views clash that you get some of the best conflict.

3.Where’s the motivation?
My original idea of Skylar was that she felt superior to everyone around her, and I left it at that. It wasn’t until later that I realized her frame of mind begged me to answer the question, what had happened in Skylar’s life that left her feeling like she could behave the way she did?
Maybe your main character can’t forgive him or herself for something. Why? Maybe your main character is a womanizer. Why? Don’t just say a character is this or that. Give them a reason, and you’ll develop a rich back story.

The four years I invested in Skylar have paid off. When I receive e-mails from readers, almost all say how Skylar spoke to them. Some have even said they feel they “are Skylar.” How grateful I am to those judges who didn’t let me settle for a sub-par character. Thanks to them, I was forced to dig until I’d crafted a character of complexity. One the reader can love in spite of her flaws. One that lives and breathes apart from me.

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