Category: Guest Posts

I am often asked how I come up with my ideas. The answers range. For my book RUN, I visited a working silver mine and decided that I had to write a book that had a chase scene set in a mine.

For my young adult novel Billy: Messenger of Powers, I got the idea when my wife told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t write something that did NOT involve people running away from serial killers, ghosts, or other malcontents (i.e., she wanted something she could read without having to put the police on speed-dial and turning on all the lights in the house first), she was going to divorce me. I took those words to heart, and wrote Billy: Messenger of Powers. So apparently ideas can come from a variety of places, and be fruitful and effective.

There is another question I am occasionally asked, however, that fascinates me even more than “How do you get your ideas?” That question is: “How do you write about such (at times) horrific things… and still claim that you are a religious person?”

The answer: Very easily.

I am a deeply religious person. I go to church every single week, I have held numerous ecclesiastical positions, and I even served as an unpaid, full-time missionary for my church. So it is no surprise (to me at least) that my faith colors everything I do… even when I’m writing about a serial killer.

Often, in fact, both the villains AND the heroes of my works are people “of faith.” Again, using the book RUN as an example, one of the heroes is a man named Adam (yes, the biblical name is on purpose) whose sole purpose is nothing less than securing the safety of humanity as a species. In so doing, he is constantly faced by choices that he must answer within his moral framework.

On the flip side of the coin, the antagonist of the book is a man named Malachi (again, not a coincidence), who views it as a mission from God to destroy all life on the planet. Together, these men serve as a kind of spectrum of theological thought, and allow me to treat religious questions from within the framework of (hopefully) an exciting novel.

Not that RUN is preachy. At least, I hope it isn’t. But I have found that as a writer, it is not only a fruitless quest to “divorce” myself from my spirituality, it actually makes for a much more interesting, layered book when questions of faith and belief are discussed. Most people, in the U.S. at least, still count themselves as people with some religious or spiritual belief, and so adding that dimension to my characters not only makes them more accessible, but more interesting and real.

Not only that, but using faith as a foundation for my writing allows me to draw on deep spiritual archetypes that would otherwise be unavailable to me. In Billy: Messenger of Powers, the main character is a young boy who discovers that he is the key player in a war between two sets of magical camps: the Dawnwalkers, who fight to perserve humanity’s freedom of choice; and the Darksiders, whose goal is to enslave all “normal” people. This consciously mirrors a key tenet of my own belief system: that God exists to give people freedom and allow them to discover their potential as His children, while the devil’s key aims are and always have been to bind human beings in chains of sin and misery. This belief is mirrored by many people globally, and having it in my story allows me to tap into subconscious beliefs that my reader’s have. This not only props up the plot of Billy: Messenger of Powers, but make it a better, deeper, and ultimately more thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

There are those who argue that the arts should be more secular – one only has to take a look at the average television network lineup to see how much religion has been stripped out of our daily lives when it comes to entertainment. But I think that art serves its best purposes when it reflects the purposes and values of the ultimate Creator. That is not to say that I believe everything has to be shiny and happy, or that every story can only have “good” people in it (I’m pretty sure that even the Bible has a bad guy or two in it).

But I DO think that it is our responsibility as artists and our privilege as children of God to create things that empower, edify, and enlighten. And the best way to do that is not to deny faith, but to embrace it and make it a living, breathing part of all that we do.

Michaelbrent is a bestselling novelist whose books RUN and Billy: Messenger of Powers have been amazon.com bestsellers. He is also a produced screenwriter and member of both the Writers Guild of America and the Horror Writers of America. His blog is at http://michaelbrentcollings.com/blog2.html, and you can follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michaelbrent-Collings/283851837365 or on twitter @mbcollings.

An unnamed LDS publisher recently decided that since Young Adult novels with themes like paranormal romance and post apocalypse have been so incredibly successful in the national market, maybe they could take a swing at it themselves.

And here at LDSPublisher, we are first with not only the report, but also a video clip secretly taken during the decision making process.

Enjoy, and enjoy your first day of April!

Jeffrey Savage is the author of eight published books including the Shandra Covington mystery series, The Fourth Nephite series, and the Farworld fantasy series (writing as J Scott Savage.) You can visit his personal blog at www.jscottsavage.com. Or e-mail him at jsavage at jeffreysavage.com. He does school visits, firesides and book clubs.

Over the past few months, I’ve had conversations with several other authors regarding the freedom of being able to tell their own story without interference from an editor. To clarify, none of the authors were suggesting they didn’t want an editor, but rather they didn’t want to have to significantly change their stories because an editor told them to. It felt to them like the editor was, in the words of Janice Joplin, “Taking a little piece of their heart” and changing their story. Admittedly, quite a few of the discussions were related to self-publishing their own books in one format or another, but I do not want to make this another self-publishing vs. traditional publishing knock down drag out fight. Instead I’d like to focus on a single issue.

How do you feel about an agent/editor requesting major changes to your story that you might not completely agree with?

First of all, let’s start with a basic premise. It is the job of an editor, for sure, and often an agent, to help you make your manuscript the best it can be. We might not feel the same about what they are seeing, but I think we can all concur they are trying to help us put out a better product.

Samantha Van Walraven of Covenant Communications describes it this way:

“As an editor, I feel like I have two hats when I am working on a book: I’m a general reader because I’m looking at the manuscript with fresh eyes the first time I see it, just like anyone else picking it up in the store, and I’m also a director, someone who has experience in the field and can sometimes see mistakes others never could, so it becomes my responsibility to help and guide an author to avoid those mistakes.”

But what constitutes better? Is it just proper grammar and getting rid of typos? Is it making the story flow more smoothly and the plot more believable? What if the change is not focused so much on the storytelling as it is on making the book itself more sellable?

I think we’ve all heard the story of the editor demanding more sex scenes in a book. The knee-jerk reaction we tend to have as LDS authors is, “That’s terrible! How can anyone demand I put something in my book that I am opposed to?” (Not saying that Mormons are opposed to sex per se, but . . . okay, I’m not going there.) Is it wrong to ask for more sex in a book?

Anyone who has published an LDS romance has probably had an editor ask them to cut something out because it might be objectionable to the audience buying the book. And even if you haven’t had that experience, you know that most LDS publishers have a set of rules on what you can and can’t put into a book. If it’s okay for an LDS publisher to say their audience has certain expectations, is it wrong for a national publisher to say the same thing, but with the opposite result?

I think every author has to answer that for themselves. I would never put something into a book that I didn’t feel morally good about. But I absolutely do understand that part of an editor’s job is to create a book that will sell well by resonating with their audience. I’m not advocating we all start throwing sex scenes in our books, but I am saying that if we don’t want to write the kinds of books a publisher is looking for—whether that publisher is a Christian publisher with strict guidelines or a publisher of steamy romances—we probably shouldn’t submit to them.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move onto something a little grayer. Should an agent or editor ask you to make changes to your manuscript purely for the reason that he or she thinks it will make the story more appealing to book buyers, publishers, executive committees, etc? And how should you as the author react to that?

I’ll try to illustrate this with a personal experience. I currently have a project out with my agent. It’s not one that I have talked about publicly at all. This particular project is aimed at younger middle grade readers. It’s kind of a fun series of books that are scary, silly, and fifth grade boy gross at the same time. After I gave my agent the first half of the first book and the full outline for the rest of the book, he came back and asked me to make the ending not quite as dark. Personally, I didn’t think the ending was all that dark. I mean come on, it involves candy corn, shooting chocolate milk (and a worm) out of your nose, and a gross out contest. I also know that kids love scary books.

So what to do? He wasn’t saying that kids wouldn’t like the book. Or even that it didn’t work. He was saying that for this particular project, he wanted the series to feel scary, but “safe scary.” And the reason he was asking for it was because he felt that is what would sell. This is exactly what I have heard other authors complaining about. You want me to change my story because “you” think it will sell better? Is that selling out? Is it giving up my integrity if I make the change? Should I go with an agent or publisher who wouldn’t ask me to make changes because they would sell better?

Again, I can’t make that call for you. Only you as a writer can decide where you draw the line. For me, personally, I hired an agent for two reasons. Yes, I want to make more money, and I hope my agent can help me do that. But even more important, I want a career as a writer. I trust that my agent understands the market well enough to know what publishers—and readers—are looking for. I put my writing life in my agent’s hands, and what he is telling me is that he believes the feel at the end of my story is too dark for the publishers he has in mind. I could have responded in a lot of ways. But at this time in my life, at this point in my writing career, I chose to accept his advice and redo the ending. I am comfortable changing my story idea to match the market he has in mind.

Of course, even then, it’s not always that easy. Let’s say you’ve written your book, the publisher has accepted it, but during the writing process you’ve hit a roadblock. Your editor is requesting a change you are not comfortable making. Kirk Shaw, also of Covenant, has this to say.

“Typically, if an author strongly disagrees with a proposed edit, I’m always fine with finding another way to solve the problem, but if the problem is important enough, I will push for solving the problem—even if the solution to the problem is one of the author’s making (which I prefer, actually).”

Samantha went into even more detail.

“So what happens when I feel like I have run into a plot or character problem as either a general reader or director (or maybe both), but the author doesn’t agree with me? I take it in steps. First, I express my concern to the author and measure their reaction. I put forth a little bit of an argument in my opinion’s favor and see if they can see where I’m coming from. Sometimes I defend by saying that maybe they didn’t notice the mistake because they’re too familiar with the writing. Sometimes I call it an outright mistake because of the rules or formula of the story. If they can see where I’m coming from, then problem solved and we move on. But if they can’t see it and they keep fighting back, I put forth just a little more effort and a little more defense for my stance. And if that second time, they still come back just as strong or stronger, I either back down then or try one last time. I never try more than three times to convince them that I am right.

If by the third time they are still holding strong, I let them have it. They win. I do that because no matter how wrong or dumb I think they are at the time, it’s still their book; it’s still their brainchild—not mine. I’m just the helper in making their idea come to life. They’re the real intelligence behind it. And besides that, as long as it doesn’t go against our policies, I’m okay with leaving something I think is silly or wrong in a book because it’s not my name on the cover; it’s the authors. So if they want their name on whatever mistake I feel is in there, that’s up to them, and I’ve warned them.

More than anything, I feel like I have to respect the author’s opinion as the real owner of the story. I’m just one reader among thousands. Somebody else might be right in line with the author’s thinking, while I’m not, and I don’t want to ruin that for them if I don’t have to. So I will only point out problems that are really, really problems. I’m not the type of editor who asks the author to change the character’s shirt color because I feel strongly that it should be a different color. I point out changes that really impact the story. So if they don’t agree with me, I just have to remember that sometimes editing takes a lot of swallowing my pride and just accepting that I won’t always get what I want—no matter how important I think it is for the book—and it’s the same with authors. As long as we are both willing to budge on some things, it’s okay. We’ll win some, and we’ll lose some—some bigger wins and losses than others—but the important thing is that we ultimately put something out that sells well, no matter how we feel about every word or idea within its pages.”

I really liked that both of these editors are looking for ways to address the issue while also recognizing that they may not have the right answer, at least on the first try. I especially liked Samantha’s comment, it’s still their book; it’s still their brainchild—not mine. The bottom line is that the story is ours. If we are being asked to make a change so big that we feel it ruins the story, sometimes we may have to say no.

Let me counterbalance that though by mentioning a movie I saw a few years back. It was a smaller independent film. Possibly because of budget—or maybe ego—the same person wrote, produced, and directed the film, as well as doing most of the editing. It was a good film. I liked the story. I liked the acting. And yet, I just didn’t like the movie as a whole. It took me a day or two to decide why, but I finally came to the conclusion that the movie felt unbalanced to me. It felt like I was listening to someone recount a movie they had seen. It all had the same voice.

When I buy a DVD of a movie, I almost always watch the extras. I’m intrigued by the guy whose job it is to figure out lighting. Do you realize they actually film different actors with different types of lighting depending on what looks better for their face type? Next time you watch a TV show or a movie, notice how one actor will almost always have full lighting on his face, while another will almost always have one side of his face slightly shadowed. Then there are the deleted scenes. Scenes that made it from the writer to the director, but got chopped in the editing process because they slowed down or sidetracked the story. A great film has professionals doing what they do best, while the other people back off a little.

For me, writing is the same kind of process. I take my hack at it. My beta readers take their shot. My agent steps in. My editor steps in. And when all is said and done, we’ve hopefully created the best product possible. One that will not only sell well, but will be satisfying to the people who read it.

Is it still my story? Of course. It never would have come into being if I hadn’t dreamed it up. But it’s also partially my agent’s story, my editor’s story, and, ultimately, my reader’s story. I put it on paper, but my readers make it come alive. I do give up a little piece of ownership when I let others shape my work, but if that means it’s going to end up better, I’m more than willing to make the sacrifice.

How about you? How do you feel about making major changes to your story? Have you had good or bad experiences with agents or editors? With the growth of e-books, you can have ultimate control on everything from the cover to the language. Does that excite you or scare you?

Jeffrey Savage is the author of eight published books including the Shandra Covington mystery series, The Fourth Nephite series, and the Farworld fantasy series (writing as J Scott Savage.) You can visit his personal blog at www.jscottsavage.com. Or e-mail him at jsavage at jeffreysavage.com. He does school visits, firesides and book clubs.

It was almost ten years ago, but I can still remember it clearly. (Okay, I know that is a total cliché, but that’s how it is, so live with it!) My first book had just come out, and I was attending the LDSBA (LDS Booksellers Association) annual conference—the equivalent of Book Expo America for the LDS crowd. My publisher, Covenant, was doing a big bookseller breakfast at the Mayan restaurant. One of the bookstore employees at my table handed me a napkin and asked, “Would you sign this?”

I don’t know if hosts of heavenly angels actually did appear above my head, singing and rejoicing with me, or if it was just in my head. But it was one of the coolest moments ever. A person was actually asking me to sign something that wasn’t designed to remove money from my bank account. I looked at my wife and we both beamed at each other. Since that time, I would conservatively estimate that I have signed over 20,000 books, posters, pieces of paper, shoes (lots of elementary kids’ shoes have my name on them), hats, jackets, flyers, binders, and even an arm. (The last one was actually breaking my rule of not signing body parts in permanent ink, but it was Julie Bellon’s daughter and her mom was right there and gave her permission.)

Has the thrill worn off? Yes, and no. I still absolutely love to sign whatever I am asked to. I’ll admit that at least part of that is the implied notion that whoever is asking you to sign their book or paper or whatever believes you are someone worthy of giving a signature in the first place. (You like me, you really like me.) To me at least, the more important part is that it’s a kind of way I can say thanks for following me. You are spending the time and money to read my books, the least I can do is to give you something back—even if it’s just an autograph. That part is great. And based on how much most authors light up when you ask if they’ll sign your book, I think the joy never really fades.

Book signings themselves have become kind of a mixed bag.

I’ve had great ones. Three and a half hours at the American Fork library, where a mom very politely asked if she could skip the line because her son had broken his arm, but they came straight from the hospital, because her son wouldn’t go home without getting a signed book. The Barnes and Noble in California where they told me the only bigger lines they’d ever had were for Stephanie Meyers and Janet Evanovich. The tons of great times I’ve sat next to other authors laughing and talking the whole time. Great times.

But I’ve also had the bad ones. Ask any author and they will recount horror stories. The store isn’t even expecting you or seems less than enthused that you are there. The stores that are out of your books (or never ordered them in the first place.) The times you sat alone for two hours watching every second tick off the clock. The customers who come through the door, see you, and instantly head in the other direction.

And, trust me, the big authors have the same experiences. I walked through a Barnes and Noble door one day to see two authors sitting side by side just inside the front door with a huge pile of books and not a single person waiting to talk to them despite the fact that it was nearly Christmas. The two authors? Brandon Mull and Brandon Sanderson.

So yeah, signings can be exciting and they can be really, really depressing. Last week two great authors, Julie Wright and Frank Cole, had signings for their launch parties. Both went really well. So what is the trick to a good signing and what should you avoid? Let’s go to some experts and see what they have to say.

Michael Knudsen of Writing Fortress (a blog of Cedar Fort Publishing authors) has some excellent advice. I like his quote on being prepared to pitch your book.

Are your prepared to answer the question “What’s it about?” in a compelling way? This should be the shortest and strongest of pitches. If you hit those who approach your table with “It’s YA dystopian fantasy about monsters that eat kids for lunch,” you might get some blank looks. On the other hand, “It’s an exciting and scary story about a world where a small group of brave kids discover that they are being raised as food for giant alien invaders!” might grab more interest, especially if you say it with enthusiasm.”

As an author it can be daunting to “sell” your book to a stranger. But if you have a great pitch and you’re excited to tell it, that takes away some of the “car salesman” feel. (No offense to those of you who might sell cars.)”

Janette Rallison doesn’t give advice about book signings, but she does capture the feeling of thinking about a signing on her post from a couple of years ago.

“Do you remember getting ready for dances in junior high? The anticipation . . . the dread? You never knew whether it was going to be a really fun night where lots of guys asked you to dance, or a really humiliating experience where you felt invisible.”

Also, a couple of years ago, Tristi did a great post on self promotion, where she talks about creating displays.

“If you feel uncomfortable approaching people, you can make them come to you with a cute table display. Kerry Blair has to be the queen of this – when “Mummy’s the Word” came out, she even had a stuffed crow on her table. I went to Michele Paige Holmes’ booksigning just this last Saturday, and she had created a darling display with star-shaped magnets on a metal board. If you picked the right star, you won a free book.”

For me, I think book signings, like almost all marketing you do, come down to a few key points.

1. Know why you are doing it and what you hope to get out of it. Most book signings do not pay for themselves on books sold in the couple of hours you are there. There are exceptions: big launch parties, signings tied to specific events, Costco, etc. But an average signing will not earn you enough in royalties to offset the cost of gas, time spent, possibly a meal, and so forth. If meeting store employees is the goal, take time to talk to each one of them, tell them about both your book and yourself. If they like to write, give them some advice and maybe a pep talk. If you are doing the event because your publisher asked you to, great. Goodwill with your publisher can go a long way. If you are going there to sell books, don’t spend your time sitting. Get up and talk to everyone who comes in the door.
2. Consider your time use wisely. If you went back and read my blogs from six or seven years ago, I was the marketing king. I tried everything I could imagine to get my name out, make connections, sell books, etc. Did it work? Maybe. I really can’t quantify it. For me personally it felt like I was doing everything I could to help make my books successful. Now I do a lot less formal “Marketing.” I blog, I tweet occasionally. I have websites. I do school visits. But I’ve stopped doing a book signing every weekend. And from what I can see, most LDS publishers feel the same way. They are still scheduling signings. But I don’t see as many of them as I used to, and more of them are tied to specific events.
3. Book signings are one of many marketing tools in your arsenal. I often hear from LDS authors who live outside of the “Jell-O Belt” worrying that because they aren’t here, they can’t market as effectively as those of us in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, etc. To a small extent that is true. But there are so many other things you can do to market your books. Consider the authors who are selling tons of e-books. They’ve never done a signing, because there is nothing to sign. Bookstore visits are pointless because there is no tangible book to carry.

Finally, and this is going to seem totally contrary to what you will hear in other places, do what feels right for you. If you can’t stand going out in public, that might hurt you some. But it doesn’t mean you can’t blog, Tweet, Facebook, etc. If the whole social media thing makes your stomach churn, don’t do it. Will it hurt you? Yes. Can you succeed without it? JK Rowling doesn’t have a Facebook page and never has to the best of my knowledge.

Life’s too short to spend your time doing something you absolutely despise. (Exhibit A, the weeds that are already sprouting up in my flowerbed.) If all you want to do is write, write the best books you can. Then maybe you can hire someone to do all the marketing for you.

Jeffrey Savage is the author of eight published books including the Shandra Covington mystery series, The Fourth Nephite series, and the Farworld fantasy series (writing as J Scott Savage.) You can visit his personal blog at www.jscottsavage.com. Or e-mail him at jsavage at jeffreysavage.com. He does school visits, firesides and book clubs.

Wow, here I am, even later than usual (Does posting two to three days late still fall under the cloak of Mormon Standard Time?) and I don’t even have the excuse of another bizarre airplane escapade. The truth of the matter is that I was in head-down writing mode on a project that I had absolutely no idea I would be working on a year or two ago. With that as a jumping off point, I’d like to write about something I usually consider a writing tool—misdirection.

First off, misdirection should not be confused with Miss Direction, the cranky little woman inside your GPS who starts going crazy if you don’t take the freeway onramp she told you to take. It’s also not the concept of getting your reader to look one way right before you hit them from the opposite direction. (Okay, well actually it is, but not in this particular post, in which I’m going to talk about misdirection in your writing life, not misdirection in your actual writing, and again, not Miss Direction in your GPS) Clear? Great. Let’s move on.

The first book I ever wrote was a high tech thriller, called Cutting Edge. It was a mystery/thriller that took place in a world I knew very well at the time. The tumultuous world of Silicon Valley (not Silicone Valley which is located quite a bit further to the south). Having never published a book, gone to a writers conference, or met an actual editor/agent, I had no clue what I was doing. But I liked the story, managed to find a publisher for it and went on my merry way. Had you asked me at the time where my writing career would take me, I would probably have suggested that I would stay writing adult thrillers and mysteries, while possibly edging toward horror.

Here I am roughly ten years later, spending most of my time writing YA and middle grade novels ranging from dark wizards that turn into snakes to church history time travel to teenage demons to fifth grade zombies. How exactly did I end up here? It’s what I call misdirection. The concept of the path you started out on leading somewhere other than where it ended up going.

As an example of this, let me take you back to a time shortly after my first book had been published and I was introduced to my critique group. I’ll describe some of the authors and what they were writing and you see if you can guess who they are before I tell you.

Author Number One was writing a middle grade fantasy. Lots of battles, quests, magical items, and cool fantastical settings and creatures.

Author Number Two was writing a New England-based mystery with lighthouses, mysterious relatives, secret diaries, etc.

Author Number Three was writing middle grade coming of age stories.

Author Number Four was writing Scottish romance novels of incredible length and depth, and swore—swore, I tell you—that she would never, ever, ever write LDS romances.

Ready for the big reveal?

Author Number One is Annette Lyon, best known for her women’s fiction focusing on temples and military wives.

Author Number Two is Heather (HB) Moore, best known for her Book of Mormon fiction and nonfiction.

Author Number Three is Lu Ann Staheli, best known for her celebrity memoirs.

Author Number Four is Michele Holmes, winner of a Whitney award for . . . LDS romance.

Five authors, including me, who are all writing something completely different from what they thought they would be ten years ago. All of them successfully published and publishing, but not what they intended to be publishing. How did that happen? Is it an aberration or is it the norm?

I tend to think it is a little from column A and column B. First of all, each of these authors has one thing in common: an intense desire to succeed. They all wanted to be successful writers and they were willing to follow whatever path that took them down. Not once did they say, “If I can’t do it my way, I won’t do it at all.”

Another thing they all have in common is that none of them has given up on their original dreams. Annette recently completed another excellent YA fantasy based on a Finnish myth. Heather has an excellent thriller out with a national agent. Lu Ann has written several more coming of age novels set in different locations and times, and hopefully will see some of them released in the e-book market. Michele has written several other non-LDS books including romance and a middle grade fantasy. And me? I still have a mystery series, and a horror novel coming out soon.

Of course, there are authors who started writing one genre, succeeded with that, and have stuck with it. But even they have often reached their destinations by paths they might not have expected. Brandon Mull had his first novel with Shadow Mountain rejected, but they liked his writing enough that they encouraged him to write Fablehaven. Aprilynne Pike was devastated when her first book with the incredible agent Jodi Reamer didn’t sell. But that led to her great success with the YA fantasy series, Wings.

I tend to think that many authors best known for one genre might very well have succeeded in another genre if things went differently. Obviously JK Rowling’s career took off with middle grade fantasy. But I found it interesting that when she talked about writing something post HP, the direction she mentioned most often was an adult novel. Most people think of Stephen King as the master of horror. And he is. But some of his greatest stories: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Gunslinger Series, and Stand by Me, are not horror novels at all. He even wrote a pretty nifty children’s fantasy novel called The Eyes of the Dragon. He wrote horror because he loved it, but also I think because to some extent that’s what sold for him.

For me personally, my writing life has been filled with twists and turns I didn’t expect. When I sat down to have lunch with Chris Schoebinger of Shadow Mountain, I was expecting to discuss a couple more fantasy ideas I had. Instead I ended up walking out the door with an idea for a Church time travel series. Many of you know I wrote a novel called Demon Spawn that is currently on submission with my agent. That has recently taken some twists and turns I didn’t expect. But over the course of several conversations I ended up mentioning a series about a group of elementary school kids who love monsters. I didn’t think that would be his kind of thing, but he loved it. When I wrote my first Farworld book, it was to prove to myself that I could NOT write fantasy or middle grade. I was trying to get the idea out of my system.

So what does that mean to the author who hasn’t published her first book or has published a few novels that haven’t been quite as successful as she might have hoped? Scott Card wrote a column one time about college. It was his assertion that for most young men and women, college is not a case of knowing exactly what you want to do, doing it as quickly as possible, and getting out. But rather it is a journey of discovering who you are, who you are becoming, and where you ultimately will end up. As I recall—and I don’t have the exact article in front of me—he went so far as to suggest, that if a student doesn’t change their plans at least once during their college education, the experience was not a success.

There may be writers out there who can only write in one genre. They may be hardwired to medical mysteries or YA romance. But I think most of us just want to tell a great story in a great way to as many people as possible. We want a chance to do what we love, see some success, and maybe even make a little money along the way. If that describes you, I highly suggest that you take Mr. Card’s advice and use your writing as a chance to discover not only who you are now, but who you might become. Consider writing something completely different from what you’ve done in the past. Keep your eye out for new opportunities. Read agent and editor blogs looking for what they would really like to have submitted to them and ask yourself, “Could I do that?” Most of us are readers. Consider the area you love to read most and ask yourself what is missing.

In my first Farworld book, the wizard is talking to a girl who has no magic in a world filled with magic. He tells her, “The most powerful magic is not spells, wands, and potions. It’s what’s inside you. Who you are. What you do. And most importantly, what you may become.” The same goes for you. Give yourself permission to find your magic. Even if it ends up coming from a completely different direction than you expected.

No, I’m not talking about tearing up those rejection letters. (Which I am totally fine with, BTW.) Or the latest cute baby video making the rounds. (And this is definitely not me engaging in a chance to slip some potty humor by LDSPublisher.)

What I’m talking about is whether or not you feel it is appropriate as an author to post negative reviews of other authors’ books. Most people have a knee jerk reaction to this one way or the other. “I would never post a negative review of another author’s book. What If they read it?” Or “Wait, are you suggesting that I should say I like a book when I really don’t, just because I’m an author too?

It would be nice if it was that black and white. You read a book, you like it, you tell people. You read a book, you hate it, you tell people. That’s the way it works in real life. And it’s actually a pretty good process. Regardless of whether we’re talking about e-book, hardbacks, traditionally pubbed, or self-pubbed works, I still believe that word of mouth is what turns a good book into a bestseller.

Why shouldn’t that translate to the internet?

Becca Fitzpatrick, author of Hush Hush, wrote an interesting post about a situation where an up and coming author wrote a scathing review not only of Hush Hush, but of many other YA books. Later when this author was looking for cover blurbs, her editor approached Becca and asked for a blurb. Hmmm. Awkward to say the least. I liked this comment by Becca.

“You might think I turned down reading the manuscript out of revenge or to give the author the finger, so to speak. I hope I’m not that petty. The reason I decided not to read the manuscript was because I wondered what would happen if I did read it…and loved it. What if I sent the editor a handful of glowing words, and she decided to stick them on the front cover of her author’s book? Would the author love having my praise splashed on her cover? Probably not. In the end, I decided to take the higher road and let the author breathe easy. (It didn’t slip my mind that the ultimate revenge would have been making sure my name got on the cover of her book. But again. Higher road. Always the better path.)”

The ultimate revenge line totally cracked me up. That would be the ultimate revenge.

I’ve had a similar experience, where a would-be author savaged (pun semi-intentional) my first Farworld novel. He didn’t just dislike it. He loathed it. It was horrible writing combined with a complete rip off of Harry Potter. Normally I ignore bad reviews. But this guy just seemed to hate me personally. Enough so, that I did some research and discovered that he was an attendee at a conference I was speaking at. I seriously wanted to trash the guy. Instead, I introduced myself, explained that I’d read his review and wanted to know what he hated so much. It turned out that we had a pretty good discussion and we’ve since become friends.

But the truth of the matter, as Becca explained, is that the writing world is so small. If you’re going to become part of it, there is every chance that you’ll eventually run into authors you have read before. And the thing that makes the internet different from talking to a friend is that your words to your friend don’t pop up on the author’s Google Alerts. More than likely within an hour of this blog post going up, Becca will get an e-mail. It will be a direct link to what I have written. Becca will go, “Hmm, wonder what this dude is saying about me and she will come read this.” (Hi Becca!!) A lot of people don’t consider the fact that authors are real people. Who have heard of the internet. And most of us read our reviews.

In addition, even if I decide I don’t like what I wrote and delete it down the road, the internet is a tricky beast. It stores caches of things. You think your words are gone, but they really aren’t. So down the road when you are looking for help from another author, that author can Google and see all the snarky things you said about them.

So, am I saying you should only write good things about other authors, even if you didn’t like their work? Should you say wonderful things and hope they remember you down the road? Unlike a lot of authors, I LOVE Goodreads. If someone hates my book, I really want to know what didn’t work for them. If they liked it, I want to know that too. I hate looking at a book on Amazon that only has six reviews. All of them are five stars, and none of the reviewers have posted another review. It tells me this author got a bunch of his friends together and begged them to give him good reviews. I personally would rather have no reviews than people giving me five stars because they were my friends.

And as authors we should be the most discriminating readers there are. Because we can look behind the curtain at what the author did and didn’t do to make his or her book work. I’ll admit that when I finished reading Hush Hush, I had mixed emotions. (You’ve stopped reading now Becca, right?) Her prose was excellent—especially for a first book. Really well done. Her plot was gripping. Now maybe this is just the dad in me, but some parts of the story made me really uncomfortable. Becca did a great job of walking the fine line between sexual tension and having her main character courting death, rape, and a lot of other bad stuff. If my daughter acted like that, I would lock her in her room until she was forty. So it wasn’t necessarily a perfect read for me.

But here’s the thing. As a forty-eight year old guy, I am not Becca’s target audience. If I go out and rip this book, I’m ignoring the fact that it probably wasn’t intended for me to like. And while I don’t know Becca personally, my guess is that she wouldn’t have a problem with me saying that this isn’t the greatest book for dads of teenage girls. Lu Ann, a Junior High English teacher and fellow writer, loved the book. (She has no daughters by the way.)

Shannon Hale, another LDS writer who I do happen to know personally wrote a good blog post about reading as a writer.

She says, “Reading as a writer changed me completely as a reader. I find I can still appreciate books I dislike because I am learning through them how to write stories I do like.”

That’s pretty close to where I stand. It’s easy to say, “This book stinks!” And maybe to you it does. But if you have aspirations of becoming a published author yourself, you are a lot better off to ask yourself, “What was it about this book—which I may not have liked—that got it past an agent, an editor, a publishing committee, and ultimately into the hands of a lot of readers that did like it?”

I’m not saying don’t write negative reviews. Speaking only for myself, I want to hear what people did and didn’t like about my books. I’m willing to live with some pain to improve my writing. What I hate is one star reviews with no comment at all. Or something like, “Blech.” Blech? Really? You just spent ten hours reading my novel and all you have to offer is Blech? Grrr. But I will say that before you write a less than glowing review, think about what worked and didn’t work for you and why it did and didn’t. A while back, a very nice woman blogged about how Water Keep didn’t have the same character depth as Elantris. Of course it didn’t. One is a middle grade novel aimed at nine-year-olds and the other is epic fantasy aimed at adults who read 800 page tomes.

She was right. But my point is that if you’re going to complain about how a middle grade book doesn’t have the depth of an epic fantasy, consider who the audience is. Consider what the author was going for. Then when you do write a review, you can write a fair review that explains what you liked, what you didn’t like, and why that might have been. I think most authors appreciate an honest review. And if you really hate the book that a lot of people like, maybe you aren’t the best judge of it at after all.

How do you feel? As an author would you be offended if another author ripped your book? If you hate a book by an author you might meet one day, how do you handle it?