Reading, 'Riting, and Ramblings

• Loveable heroines are modest "good girls" who feel insecure about their pasty skin and big thighs. They're shocked, shocked, to discover that any man could desire them.
• Villainesses wear revealing outfits and have brash personalities. They take the initiative with men and aren't afraid of their fellow women and are, therefore, bad people.
• Loveable heroes are weak. Superheroes will stand there, looking righteously appalled, as villains do horrible things. They often get beat up, never lifting a finger to defend themselves. This makes them good men.
• Villains are arrogant and pushy. They brag about how smart and strong they are. This makes them bad men.

The problem is that people confuse confidence with arrogance. Confidence is being aware of your true worth and skills, while still appreciating the talents of other people and being strong enough to admit you're not always right. Arrogance, on the other hand, stems from insecurity. Arrogant people feel the need to prove that they're better than everybody else. They get petty, mean, and loud if their superiority is threatened in any way.

Terrified of being seen as arrogant, many people become spineless and think they're "humble." Writers, in particular, seem to suffer from an epidemic of low self-esteem.

It's no wonder, really. The book business is highly competitive. Anyone who gives the writing thing a serious shot will quickly get used to hearing, "You're not good enough. Nobody wants to read your books. Nobody wants to read any books. You have no talent and you won't make it. You're doing everything wrong and everyone hates you and your haircut is ugly."

It can be difficult for any writer, whether a commercially successful veteran or a bushy-tailed newbie, to keep a firm grip on his or her sense of self-worth. Here are some things you can do to remain confident in your work and abilities, even when it seems like the whole world is shouting, "You suck!"

Mute the Dementors.

Because this industry is so competitive, and so few people achieve financial success through fiction writing, the ones who struggle can turn all kinds of unpleasant: bitter, jealous, cynical, and just plain mean. These people like to congregate in certain places online and be angry together. Occasionally they go on field trips to punish other people who express opinions they don't like.

If you find yourself in one of these toxic circles, get out ASAP and don't look back. These people are Dementors, sucking the happiness and optimism out of everyone around them.

You may also know some well-meaning Dementors: friends or family who think they're saving you from heartache by advising you to give up those pipe dreams and get a real job. They say discouraging things because they don't want you to get hurt, but you should ask them to stop. If they won't, they're not your friends.

Don't become a Dementor.

You can avoid most of the people who shout that you suck, the industry sucks, and the universe sucks. But often the person shouting the loudest lives in the mirror.

Sometimes I have to try very hard not to become a Dementor. I have bad days and I want to complain about them. I have to remind myself that what I post online is public, and that I wouldn't step outside and start yelling, "Writing is so haaard! I hate bureaucracy so muuuch! Why are people so meeean?!"

There are rants about important issues that need to be written, and then there's venting. Are you writing vicious things for catharsis? Attacking a specific person? Unfairly generalizing about large groups of people (e.g., all literary agents are greedy vultures, all reviewers are bullies, all self-publishers are lazy hacks)? This is venting. You're being unpleasant and alienating people for no good reason. And if you're a decent person, you'll feel guilty about it later.

Don't sink to the level of the Dementors. If you feel the urge to be nasty, just turn around and waltz away on the high road. You'll feel much better about yourself, believe me.

Listen to the compliments.

I remember almost all of the negative things people have said about me and my stories. But I seldom remember all of the positive things people have said about me and my stories.

I remember the giveaway winner who said the heroine of Bubbles Pop is one of the most unlikeable characters in English literature. I remember the blogger who requested my book, then emailed me to say she wouldn't review it because it was boring.

But I don't remember all of the people who gave it four or five stars. I don't remember the reviewers who said they enjoyed the humor and couldn't put it down, or the ones who said they looked forward to reading my future books.

It's easy to discount compliments as lip service. "Oh, they're just saying that. They don't really mean it." But for some reason, when people say rude or dismissive things about us, we assume they're right.

What if the rude people are trying to drag you down because they're jealous? What if the people who gush over your stories really, truly enjoyed them? Embrace the compliments!

Reevaluate the word "failure."

We often use the word "failure" when we mean "a result that isn't as great as we'd hoped."

In the kids' movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown goes to the Big City to represent his school at a spelling bee. He gets to the final round, then misspells the word "beagle" and takes second place. Second place—what a failure face! Charlie's friends are disgusted with him. The townspeople refuse to speak to him. He barricades himself in his room to hide his shame.

Our culture tends to sneeze at silver and bronze medals, as if gold were the only one worth having. If you're not the champion, you're a loser. If you're not the lead actor, you're a nobody. And if you're not a billionaire bestselling author, you're a failure as a writer.

We need to stop saying "failure" for everything that isn't the best of the best. A real failure is something that doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

A bridge that collapses is a failure. It was supposed to stand up, and it didn't. It doesn't meet the basic requirements of being a bridge.

A rocket that fizzles out on the ground is a failure. It was supposed to fly, and it doesn't. It doesn't meet the basic requirements of being a rocket.

But a book that sells only a handful of copies isn't a failure. It's still a book. It's just a book that wasn't as popular as you hoped it would be. And a manuscript that's rejected by agents and editors isn't a failure; it's just a story that might need to be revised and/or self-published.

When you say you've "failed" at something, do you really mean you failed? Or do you mean you were disappointed with the results of your efforts? If you expect perfect success in everything you do, you're going to be disappointed in yourself for the rest of your life.

The problem with this advice is that few people who hear it truly understand what a story is—hence why they didn't write one—and few people who give it bother to explain what they mean. They assume it's obvious. You just, you know, tell the story.

Sometimes I suspect the people giving the advice don't understand what a story is either. They'll say, "There's no story," when they really mean, "I got bored." If you ask them to clarify, they'll fidget and say something like, "Nothing happens."

Then the poor writer gets confused and frustrated. "What do you mean nothing happens? I put fast-paced action in every chapter! I do tell the story!"

Here's the root of the misunderstanding: "a bunch of stuff happens" isn't a story. You can pack a book or movie with explosions and passionate love affairs and epic sword fights, and it won't necessarily have any story in it.

In a story, every plot point, every major scene, is related to the ones before and after it. The actions the characters take, and the big decisions they make, are driven by what they experienced, learned, or caused to happen earlier in the timeline. And their actions and decisions have consequences for the future; they determine the direction of the story.

Now every writer who reads the above will roll their eyes and say, "Duh, Captain Obvious. Everybody knows that." But do they? I've read too many published books that have no story in them to believe it's common knowledge.

Here's a "story" we've all read before.

1. A heroine meets a hero. They're attracted to each other, but for some reason they can't be together. He's rich and she's poor. She can't get over her cheating ex. He's the son of the man who murdered her pet Pekingese. Et cetera.
2. The two have heart-fluttering slow dances at parties. They go on dates at cute cafes and trendy bars, in which they talk about their hometowns and then make out. They frolic at the beach in swimsuits that reveal glistening pecs and mile-long legs. Et cetera.
3. They decide the reasons keeping them apart are silly and fall into each others' arms. The End.

This is not a story. The resolution at the end doesn't grow out of the events in the middle. None of the characters' actions or decisions have more than superficial consequences. In fact, you could skip everything between "they meet" and "they marry" and you wouldn't miss anything important.

Now let's study a famous romance that does have a story: Romeo and Juliet.

1. The Montague and Capulet families hate each other. Their young men brawl in the street.
2. Romeo Montague and his friends crash a party held by the Capulets. There Romeo meets Juliet Capulet, and they steal kisses in the shadows.
3. Romeo and Juliet marry secretly.
4. When another fight breaks out between the Montague and Capulet gangs, Romeo tries to stop it. But when Juliet's cousin Tybalt kills Romeo's friend Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt in a rage.
5. The prince banishes Romeo from the city. Juliet, heartbroken, formulates a plan in which she'll fake her death to escape her family, then run away with Romeo.
6. Romeo doesn't get the memo and believes his wife is really dead. He kills himself.
7. Juliet wakes up and finds her husband dead. She kills herself.
8. The Montagues and Capulets realize that their selfish feud lead to this tragedy, and they resolve their differences.

Every plot point in this story is the direct result of a previous one.

Why do Romeo and his friends crash the Capulet party? Because of the long-standing family feud, as introduced through the brawl in the opening scene.

Why do Romeo and Juliet marry? Because he crashed the party, fell for her on sight, and wooed her.

Why does Romeo try to stop the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt? Because he married Juliet, so his former enemies are now his in-laws.

Why does Mercutio die? Because Romeo tried to stop the fight.

And so on. Every action the famous lovers take (1) results from their decisions in the past and (2) leads them closer to the tragedy in their future.

Here are two tests to see if your story is a story, or if it's just a bunch of stuff that happens.

Does the order of your chapters matter?

If Romeo were banished, then married Juliet, then killed Tybalt, the play wouldn't make any sense. The order in which events take place, or at least the order in which facts are revealed, is very important in a story.

But in many books, you can swap scenes around at random and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

If you can easily move a chapter somewhere else, it might mean that chapter serves no purpose in the story. You wrote about your couple frolicking at the beach only because you like the beach, and it doesn't matter when they go because the trip isn't prompted by anything that happened before and doesn't result in any changes to their relationship.

Are all of your chapters necessary?

Imagine if Shakespeare deleted the part where Romeo rushes to Juliet's tomb and chugs poison. Juliet would wake up alone and, uh, I guess she decides to stab herself for no reason?

Or what if Shakespeare took out the part where Juliet decides to fake her death? Romeo would just be hanging out in exile, and then he'd suddenly decide he's going to come back and commit suicide because life sucks.

It's a good sign if you can say, for certain, that taking out a scene or chapter would require a sweeping rewrite of everything that comes afterwards, or that it would at least make the scenes that come later very confusing. It's not a good sign if you can completely delete a chapter and it would affect nothing.

Not every scene has to be indispensable to the story, like in Romeo and Juliet—you can have funny scenes, exciting scenes, and sexy scenes, if that's what you and your readers like. But I do believe that at least one part of every chapter should move things along, or the book starts to stall.