On Character Personalities

In my early days of character creation, I had a simple litmus test.  I would write a scene in a place I knew (Usually a Denny's, one with a full bar, more on that later), with my problem characters and I sitting in a booth.  Denny's because they all look the same, so I didn't have to deal with setting overmuch.

You can figure out a lot about what makes a person tick by what they order at a Denny's, which is why the full bar is key.  Why do they order a drink at 1AM?  Why don't they?  Why do they steer clear of the Moons Over My Hammy?

These days the Denny's test supplements my character research using horoscopes, Western, Lunar, and Blood Type Theory, as well as finding a character's MBTI type.  That last isn't so simple, as I have to pre-select a type based on what I think would work, then cross-reference with the actual test.  And even with that, while one of the characters in my current project fit into her type rather easily, the other didn't like the ISFJ type I ended up with for him.  

And then the Denny's dialogue happened. And I've learned, when my characters "talk" to me (on paper, of course) there's usually a good reason - I'm going against their character.

"That's not right,"  he says. 

So I ask what's up. 

"I'm not a doormat.  ISFJ's are doormats. I don't get taken advantage of."  He's drinking bottled water, because Los Angeles water is gross (My view, not necessarily his.  He doesn't care one way or the other).  Sugary drinks aren't his thing, nor is hard liquor like the tequila I'm drinking across the booth from him.  He's usually on-call, so he doesn't like anything messing with his senses.

"Interesting that of all the traits in the profile you focused immediately on being taken advantage of."  I take a bite of my Lumberjack Slam (no toast). I DO love the crispy hash browns, and because this is fiction, I smear an extra helping of country sausage gravy over everything.  Fictional calories don't count!  Doesn't stop him from watching me ingest a heart attack on a plate and not comment.  He's a smart man.

"Don't psychoanalyze me.  I'm serious.  I love my job, I'm good at it, and I'm loyal, yada yada.  But the description even takes that and turns it negative--"

"You'd follow Margot to her grave if you had to."

"You're right, that's a negative."  He sighs, and he runs his hand through his hair.

"You think so?"  I take a small, tiny sip of my fictional tequila, because really, this is what I ordered it for.  Sometimes, my characters and I take shots if it gets real emotional.  

So this went on for about 7 pages, and at the end of it I got a pretty good sense of who he is, what he does on his off days, and why he'd follow Margot to the grave.

Over the years I've tried a while slew of exercises designed to help me know my characters (the sundry sites that force you through 100+ character questions still makes me twitch), but this is the method that's worked for me.

No method is the best, of course.  I'd love to read about what works for you!

On Baseball and Hope

I attribute my absence directly to the existence of March.  March, you see, is Spring Training, and the beginning of Baseball. I wasn't raised to be this way, though my dad and I voraciously watched Tokyo Giants games because it was on TV all the time, but when I lived in Japan, my relatives there sucked baseball up (if an IV was possible they'd probably have used that).  More importantly, being in Japan introduced me to the world of baseball manga....man, H2 and Cross Game are something else.

But I digress.  Baseball, for all its warts, is about hope.  Well, it's about a lot of things, but for the purpose of this blog, it's that you still have a chance to win as long as you have at least one out left.  

So the odds of a chasm-wide comeback victory in baseball are slim - 12 run deficits were only overcome in only a handful of games - but a "regular" comeback victory, those are much more common in baseball, especially since, again, it's theoretically possible to win until the last out is recorded.  Watching a 1-0 game is excruciatingly tense, and groan-inducing if your team comes out of that with a loss.

Here's where I segue into writing.  Of course, like many writers, I'd love to be published by one of the big five and make enough money to be able to to quit my day job (just so you know, working for an indie publisher does squat for your writing career unless you write what they're looking for, though it DOES give you insight into how the slush pile works...and you'd better have an amazing social media platform because they don't have the marketing budget to be able to support you as much as you'd like), but the odds are pretty slim.  Say what you will about needing to edit, and find beta-readers, and editing again to have a polished manuscript... after you've done all those things, you still have to find the right agent to send the right query letter to, at precisely the right time (ie not when s/he's tired at the end of the day, and you're at the end of the queue for the day) they've opened their email inbox.  And then, you have to resonate with said agent two more times: the partial (kudos to the agent that asks for up to 50 pages at the outset, it saves us both some time), and the full.  Sure, you can have a polished manuscript waiting for a home, but if it doesn't resonate you're going to get the "Thanks, but this isn't for me" letter.

It took me a LONG time to take those letters as a compliment.  You truly want someone who believes they can sell your work to represent it.  Someone who loves it but who can't think of a place they can sell it will not be able to help you (and these were, IMHO, the most heartbreaking rejection letters I've received - they genuinely liked my manuscript).

Back to baseball.

These days, I spend some time working on my current project, working my day job (I'm going to be real honest here and say I'm going to keep working a day job for as long as I can... I can't think of any other way I'd have enough social interaction on my own to be able to come up with new novel material), and sending out queries for my previous project.  The querying, especially, is a slog, there's no other word for it.  After my requisite time spent in front of my computer I turn on the TV and watch some baseball.  Because a come-from-behind victory tastes especially sweet after an hour of slogging through form emails; it reminds me to hope, and to Never. Stop. Writing.

Welcome to the Jungle

The Query Jungle, that is.

Hello!

My name is Iris, and this is my blog.  I write things, mainly Urban Fantasy novels, and various lengths of my completed first project are floating out there in Agent Query-Land while I work on my current one, OH and I also work a paying job that indirectly relates to selling published things for other people (please don't ask me about that, it usually makes the frown lines deepen on my forehead and I'm trying not to encourage them).

I hope to make this blog a platform for what drives my creative process...though I promise not to have *too many* blog posts that are basically variations of "Nrrrghh the writing gods are being mean to me today" or "Ima sit down and write - SQUIRREL", so if you see one please do make a comment to the effect of "Sit down and write you ninny"; I'd really appreciate it.

If you happened upon this page Googling "query" or somesuch (which I doubt, but one must always be prepared) I'd hate to disappoint, so let me tell you where I am in this process.  If you happened upon this page by accident would you mind going to the "menu" page and telling me if you like any of those beverages I created while I was procrastinating before you leave?  Thank you very much.

But I digress.  

I tell people querying agents is like trying on bras and jeans at the same time in front of a three-way full body mirror while checking out Tinder.  And they usually gasp and say, "That sounds horrible!" and I usually shrug and say, "But necessary." 

Let me explain.

I've been querying my first project off and on for three years.  There were three massive rewrites and edits in between, so I resubmitted a couple of times.  When "on" the first time, I'd say I queried about 100 agents, got 30 partials, and 5 fulls, and ultimately no takers for the fulls.  People tell me that's good.  The first couple of rejections were the worst, I mean serious Anne Shirley "Depths of Despair" form letters, in the sense that I was still treating my first project as a beautiful, perfectly formed child, offended when someone had something negative to say about it.  I learned, with my first thoughtful, non-form rejection letter, that the form ones were useless - the agents who told me what I needed to fix were the good ones, that helped me fix things.  Those were few and far between, and who could blame them?  These pour souls get Thousands of blind submissions.  I can't even imagine the terror of the slush, and I don't think I'd ever want to.

So I learned to appreciate the personalized rejections.  At last!  Something concrete to fix! This was when I fixed everything, ran it through a very good writer's group and a writing coach, and came through with a completely changed creature.

And then I put it on the shelf for a year. Helpful or not, the rejections wear on you.  The three-way mirror, you see.  You see the imperfections, the warts, the wrinkles, and sometimes it's not healthy, analyzing all of that.

And I started a new project.  3, actually, but only one kept annoyingly waking me up in the middle of the night so that's the one I've stuck with.

So a couple of months ago I went to a networking mixer and met an agent; she agreed to take a look at my first project.  TL;DR : it was another rejection, but one I'd never had before.  Actually, I had had a couple of them before, but I didn't realize it until I'd read her email.  It was the most positive rejection letter I'd ever seen and a third breed of rejection letter: "this project isn't for me".  And that's where the Tinder comes in.

It's so easy for both of us to swipe left, with their project lists and your query letter.  And every once in a while you get to the coffee stage, and you think, "Wow, this person is SO GREAT... but not for me".  And so I've passed the point of thinking, "there's no one out there for me" and have evolved to "there's definitely an agent out there for me", because let's be honest, if they don't believe in your project(s) with all of their heart, neither of you are going to make money, and that's really the crux of the matter. 

Rent.  Food. Shelter.  Freedom from an extra part-time job.  Because new bras and jeans are necessary every once in a while.

Here's to swiping right.