Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

A couple of weeks ago we visited family in Alabama.

My father-in-law offered to take the kids and me to see the new Harry Potter movie. Of course they were delighted (it was all sold out here in Charlotte) and we headed off to the theater.

We settled into our seats, put on our 3-D glasses, and I leaned over and asked my father-in-law if he’d seen part one of the movie, prepared to set the stage for him a little if needed.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t seen any of the movies.”

I froze. “None of them? And you haven’t read the books, either?”

“Not a one.”

The previews were starting. I leaned closer and said, “Okay. Harry Potter is with the good guys. The bad guys want to kill everybody. It’s good versus evil.” It was all I had time to tell him.

He nodded. “Got it!”

Amazingly, although obviously he missed a lot of references and the whole wand thing at the end might have been confusing, he was able to really enjoy the movie and not be totally lost. Because it did boil down to a suspenseful question of whether the good guys were going to beat the bad guys. A familiar scene whether you’re talking about Macbeth or Lord of the Flies or an episode of Law and Order.

The nice thing about writing traditional mysteries is that the theme is very basic and understandable. I can quickly summarize my books: someone rubs people the wrong way. This person is killed. A sleuth investigates and learns who did it.

But all books should be able to be fairly easily summed up. This is important for pitching a book in person or writing a query letter. It’s also important if you’re writing sales copy for a self-published book. Because readers usually want a book that sounds like something they can understand.

Looking at the New York Times’ bestseller list right now, there are super-short descriptions of each novel. Some of them are better than others:

PORTRAIT OF A SPY, by Daniel Silva. (HarperCollins.) To stop a network of death, an international operative must reach into his violent past.

NOW YOU SEE HER, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Nina Bloom, who years ago changed her identity to save her life, is forced to confront the past and the killer she thought she had escaped.

THE CONFESSION, by John Grisham. (Knopf Doubleday.) A criminal wants to save an innocent man on death row, but he must convince the authorities he’s telling the truth.

Can you sum up your story super-briefly? How have you boiled it down to just the bare bones?

Hi everyone!

Today is my day on A Good Blog is Hard to Find. I’m posting about scenes that don’t work and my approach for diagnosing the problem and finding a cure. Hope you’ll join me!

Hope you’ll welcome my friend, Dorte Jakobsen, here today. Dorte has a brand-new release, The Cosy Knave, her first novel (I’m about 1/3 of the way through, and it’s a delight.) Welcome, Dorte!

It will hardly come as a surprise for any of Elizabeth´s readers that I found the inspiration for this guest post via one of her own links. Elizabeth, your blog is an invaluable source for the aspiring writer! And thank you for inviting me; it is a pleasure and an honour to be here.

In January I took the first, tiny step towards becoming a self-published author by sending out a collection of thirteen flash fiction stories. At that time I really believed I would continue searching for an agent for my humorous novel, “The Cosy Knave”. And I did send off a handful of queries to various agencies in the spring, but without much success.

I know that some of you will think ´a handful is not many´, and you are right, of course, but one of the things I have learnt is that I absolutely, totally loathe writing queries. And the power of British & American agents and publishers also bothers me. Hardly any Danish writer uses an agent, and no matter which serious publisher we send manuscripts to, they will at least send us a standard rejection before or later. No one celebrates rejections, but at least you know where you stand. And honestly, how much would it cost the agent to send back a short ´no thank you´? (Some of them do, but it seems to be the minority).

So I don´t know exactly what happened when, but in April I sent off two queries and received this auto-reply:

“I have received your query/submission. You will not hear from me again unless I want to see more of your work. If you haven’t received another email from me within 8 weeks, assume that I do not wish to read more of your work at this time.”

And somehow my eyes fixed on those ´8 weeks´, and I made up my mind I had written my last queries (certainly for “The Cosy Knave”, possibly for ever).

Well, the eight weeks are history, and on the first of August I published my first full-length novel via Amazon and Smashwords. Now the big question is: do I still want an agent?

Honestly, I am not so sure. It would be nice to have a traditional publisher who would print and distribute paper books for me, someone who could add weight and credibility to the upstart from tiny Denmark, plus an experienced editor I could discuss certain manuscript points with, but an agent? Someone who could take 15 % of my income for doing things I have struggled hard to learn over the last six months? I have already learnt that though I prefer Smashwords in some ways, I definitely need Amazon (well, their customers that is). I have learnt the power of offering short stories and flash fiction cheaply or for free, getting some reviews in return. I have also learnt a lot about the generosity of blog friends, and which social media that seem to suit me. I can recommend Facebook and Goodreads, I am not quite so sure I really feel at home on Twitter yet.

If my debut novel turns out to be a total flop, I may reconsider the agent question (though it will probably be next to impossible to get one in that case), but on the whole I really like being my own master. I listen to the excellent advice I get from friends and fellow writers, but basically I can do exactly what I like whenever I want to. So even though an agent might land me more money in the long term, I am probably too stubborn to give up my independence now. And 15 % – forget it!

Dorte Jakobsen is a Danish teacher who lives in the beautiful region of Thy. In her spare time she reads and writes crime fiction. The Cosy Knave released August 1. You can find Dorte on her blog, and on Facebook.

The Cosy Knave is priced at $3.99, but if you buy at Smashwords and use this coupon code: PN22N, you get a 25% discount. A synopsis: The vicious attacks begin when the prodigal son of Knavesborough returns to the sleepy village after forty years in Argentina with fame and fortune. No wonder that spiteful Rose Walnut-Whip is killed, but when the violence escalates, Constable Penrose knows he needs help from his fiancée, librarian Rhapsody Gershwin.

“The Cosy Knave” is available on Smashwords.com, Amazon.com
and Diesel ebooks.

As someone who tries really hard to go with the flow, I’ve gone ahead and signed up on Google+ (Google’s foray into Facebook-style social media.) I’m Elizabeth S Craig there.

I know…we’ve all got social media fatigue. At first it just exhausted me even thinking about building up a brand on another platform. And I wondered how well I could keep up with it. And I wondered if I was getting overexposed.

The good news is that Google+ is a good application for those of us who are tired of doing this. It’s fairly intuitive. Friends are easy to find and make and group together. It’s a friendly place. There seem to be a lot of publishing professionals there. If you’ve ever been on Facebook, this will seem like a piece of cake.

It’s easy to start there, because half of us already have a Google profile, anyway. I have one from Blogger and my Gmail account. All I had to do was brush up my profile and I was set to go.

So far, I also haven’t seen the gotcha mentality that has frustrated me with Facebook. I felt Facebook was run by little kids who were determined to make me interact in ways that didn’t make me comfortable. In the past, Facebook has—to me, personally—shared my cell phone number on my info page when I’d hidden it, turned on chat when I’d disabled it, changed all my privacy settings several times when they automatically updated my account…the list goes on. I haven’t yet seen these types of shenanigans at Google+. So far, it seems like Facebook for grownups.

One thing I like about Google+ is the way that I can share updates with certain types of people. As y’all know, I share writing links to help connect writers with resources. Writers love this! My readers and librarian friends aren’t so enthused. On Google+, I have my friends divided into different groups (or circles)—I have one for writers, one for readers, one for librarians. When I have a writing link to share, I can easily choose to only share it to writers. That makes me feel like I’m not getting on everyone’s nerves.

Google will make sure that our Google+ page ranks pretty high in their search engine for searches of our name….another reason I jumped onboard.

If you’re new to Google+, feel free to go to my profile and raid my friend list. It’s mostly writers. And check out Debbie Ohi’s list of literary types on Google +. Fill out your profile and make an update of some kind, or comment on someone else’s. It’s easy to start out…and, actually, it’s new to everybody. Still a couple of bugs for Google to work out (I think their mobile app is a little clumsy), but the community there seems solid. Here are some how-to links for Google+: How to Use Google Plus , Google Plus for Writers, and Debbie Ohi’s great post on Google Plus.

Have you gotten on Google+? If you like, share your profile link and we can be friends there. :) If you’re on it, what do you think?

Hope you’ll come back tomorrow when I host my mystery writing friend Dorte Jakobsen. She’ll be answering the question, “Do I still want an agent?”

Our family took a short vacation during my blogging break and tried to escape the blistering heat by visiting the mountains.

We stayed in a town with a reputation for quirkiness. And quirkiness is something that our metro area of Charlotte, North Carolina, isn’t known for (Charlotte, a banking town, is fairly staid.) I thought I should give the kids a heads-up that we weren’t in Charlotte anymore.

We were sitting outside a vegan restaurant with an organic garden eating unusual food that I couldn’t pronounce. “What’s interesting about this town,” I said, “are the people. They’re pretty quirky. It’s a very artsy town.”

“You’re an artist,” said my son.

“Well, yeessss….but not like these folks.”

“Because you don’t have tattoos and piercings and pink hair?” he asked.

“I guess. But also because these people act a little offbeat, too.”

“What’s offbeat?” asked my daughter, squinting.

I was floundering, not sure how to express the ways the town we were in was cool, interesting, and different when a man on a motorcycle puttered by. He wore an eye-catching, splashy, sparkly outfit. His motorcycle pulled a trailer carrying chicken coops full of squawking chickens.

“Oh! Got it,” said my son, watching the man go by.

Which is exactly why showing is so much more effective than telling. (It’s also why I wish I could paint!) I’ve spent a lot of time the last week or so, editing that old manuscript to take out telling descriptions…a pain, but it just reads so much better.

How do you show instead of tell?