Andrew S. Chilton On Writing The Ending First

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT- Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Today's guest is Andrew S. Chilton. Andrew is a member of The Class of 2k16, and his MG fantasy novel, The Goblin's Puzzle: Being the Adventures of a Boy With No Name and Two Girls Called Alice was released on Jan 19th by Knopf.

Are you a Planner or Pantser?

I'm definitely a pantser, though I usually have a rough idea of what the story is in my head. Some pantsers will tell you that when they start, they have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. I'm not that extreme. I think it's important to have a general idea how the story ends. In fact, I usually write the ending first.

How long does it typically take you to write a novel, start to finish?

It depends. I can do a first draft in thirty days, but that means setting aside thirty days to do no other kind of work. Getting that much uninterrupted time is a challenge, and if I have to stop and start up again, that adds a lot of time. And even if I get my thirty days, what I have is a very rough first draft. I'd say it takes a minimum of six drafts to get something into any kind of decent shape. Allowing for cooling off time between drafts and beta reading, I'd say that 18 months is the minimum for going from writing “Once upon a time” to hitting send on the email to my editor.

Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multi tasker?

I do better work if I stick to one project at a time, so that's what I try to do. My brain, however, feels differently about this. (“Ooo, look! Shiny!”)

Did you have to overcome any fears that first time you sat down to write?

Like a lot of writers, I have this part of my brain that's constantly telling me, “This is dumb. You can't write. You're an idiot. And not a funny one, either.” But that doesn't feel like fear to me. It's just negative self-talk, the kind of stuff you have to learn to ignore if you're going to do anything at all. But fear? No, I didn't really feel afraid. What is there to fear? Failing? Making an ass of yourself in public? I've done both of those enough times to have learned that they're no big deal (not fun, but not that bad.) There are things worth fearing in this life, but none of them will happen to you because you wrote a book.

How many trunked books did you have before you were agented?

The Goblin's Puzzle was the first book I ever finished, but if we include projects that I worked on but did not finish, the answer is several dozen. I just peeked in my writing folder. There's about twenty abandoned titles in there, and I only keep the ones I think there's some kind of chance I might go back to.

Have you ever quit on an ms, and how did you know it was time?

Yes, but it was never a conscious decision. They all just slowly dribbled away.

Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them?

My agent is Pam Howell with D4EO. Basically, I just sent her a query, but there's a little more to the story than that. A friend of mine is a middle grade author with a couple of books published. He'd read The Goblin's Puzzle and really liked it. (Well, he really liked it after I redid the opening scene—twice.) Anyway, he was kind enough to pass it on to his agent (who ultimately passed on it). While looking for other possible agents, I ran across Pam's book review blog. On it, she said that my author friend's latest book was her favorite middle grade of the year. So, with his permission, I included his endorsement in my query to her. 

How long did you query before landing your agent?  How many queries did you send?  

I kept pretty good records. Pam was the forty-first agent that I formally queried. I sent my first query on September 26, 2011. Pam called me to offer representation on July 8, 2013. So it took just over twenty-one months to land an agent. (Answering this question is the first time I ever actually worked out how long it took. It was a surprise how much shorter it was than I remember. At the time, it seemed like it took forever.)

Any advice to aspiring writers out there on conquering query hell?

Try not to think of it as Hell. It's hard because our books are so much a part of who we are that having them rejected—especially having them rejected for no obvious reason—can be painful. It's best to try to get over that as fast as possible. Sure, some people land an agent the first time out. Or the second. But most don't. I know one author who queried 140 agents before finding representation for a book that went on to be a New York Times bestseller. Every individual query is a longshot. Think of it as rolling a pair of dice looking for double sixes. What happens if you don't? You pick the dice up and throw them again.

Of course, it's all going to be a lot easier if your book is good enough...

How much input do you have on cover art?

More than I knew what to do with. I don't have a very visual imagination. When Katherine Harrison (my wonderful, wonderful editor) asked me for ideas about the cover, I think I said something like, “Uh, maybe we should have the main characters on it?” She went out and found the amazingly talented Jensine Eckwall to do the cover and interior illustrations, which are beautiful. Hire her if you get the chance.

What's something you learned from the process that surprised you?

You hear a lot about how publishing isn't like it used to be and no one really edits anymore and so on. This was not my experience at all. We went through several rounds of editing, and Katherine worked very closely with me on the book.

How much of your own marketing do you?  

I do some of my own marketing but probably not as much as some other authors. I do have a Twitter account and an author page on Facebook, but I mostly use them to announce upcoming appearances.

When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?

I'm probably not the best person to ask this, but my inclination is to say that you shouldn't worry about this too much. If you enjoy having a blog, then you should have a blog. But if it you don't, I wouldn't bother. Every agent I've talked to will say that platform doesn't really matter to them. (At least not in fiction. Non-fiction, I understand, is another story entirely.) That said, every agent I know is a total social media monster. So, there's that.

Do you think social media helps build your readership?

I think it helps more with young adult than middle grade. Your middle grade readership isn't on social media (or isn't supposed to be, anyway), so you have to be indirect. It's about building relationships with people like librarians and booksellers, people who will put your books in kids hands.

SJ Laidlaw On Using Real-Life Experience As Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today's volunteer for the WHAT is SJ Laidlaw, author of FIFTEEN LANES.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

I moved from Indonesia to India in the winter of 2012. At the time I was working on a book set in Indonesia but I started volunteering with a couple of NGOs in the red-light district in Mumbai, trying to help sex workers and their children. The goal was to prevent second generation trafficking. The vast majority of sex workers in India are trafficked. It's estimated that as many as 90% of their daughters end up in the sex trade, if they don't get support from NGOs to help them escape. As a social worker, I’ve had training to work with survivors of sexual violence, so I thought perhaps I could put my training to use.

While working with these NGOs, I was approached by a strategic philanthropy organization that was producing a countrywide report on sex trafficking in India. They asked me to edit their report and write the executive summary. This involved reading all of their primary sources, as well as everything I could find on sex trafficking. As I became immersed in the struggles of children growing up in brothels, my interest in my Indonesian story waned. I realized I needed to write about the lives of the children I was working with.

Kamathipura, the red-light district of Mumbai, is intensely populated but spread across a small area of just fifteen lanes. For sex workers and their children, it’s often their entire world. Poverty and rejection by the rest of society inhibits them from venturing outside their community. To capture the narrowness and isolation this community feels, I titled the book FIFTEEN LANES. The black lines that trap the bird on the cover are an actual map of the neighborhood.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it? 

While the lives of the girls I was working with were filled with dangers and depravations, the girls themselves were amazingly positive. They don’t see themselves as victims. In fact, having spent many years working with kids in international schools, I was struck by how determined and optimistic these kids were compared to some of the kids that I’d counseled in international schools. It got me thinking about how suffering is difficult to quantify and even harder to predict. 

Having rich, loving parents doesn’t necessarily protect a kid from pain. Growing up in a brothel doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not going to feel loved and supported. A lot of how we respond to adversity depends on the resilience that we’ve developed through confronting hardship. Most of the girls I worked with in Kamathipura were incredibly strong and often mature beyond their years, particularly if they had younger siblings. They were often tasked with raising their siblings and were very protective of them. 

I decided to write a story that shows how suffering and sexual violence cut across class and culture. It's told in the voices of two girls. Noor is the daughter of a sex worker. She and her younger siblings live in a brothel in Kamathipura. Grace is the daughter of an international banker who has lived the nomadic life of a Third Culture Kid. While Grace is from a wealthy and privileged background, both girls experience adversity in different ways.

Noor’s story was partly content driven. I needed to introduce a very foreign world, not only India, or the life of underprivileged children, but the life of a girl who is raised in a Mumbai brothel. The girls I was working with faced so many challenges, from the day-to-day reality of poverty, prejudice and disease, to the near-constant exposure to sexual violence.

Because I wanted to give as complete a picture of Noor’s world as possible, I decided to start with her earliest awakening to her circumstances. Her narrative starts when she’s five-years-old and continues until she’s seventeen. 

Grace’s narrative was easier to craft as it’s one that readers will be familiar with and one I’m more familiar with myself. While I worked in Kamathipura for over two years and was working with sex workers’ daughters while I wrote the book, I’ve worked with girls like Grace for many years. She’s a fragile, socially isolated girl who becomes the target of extreme bullying. Her narrative spans just a few weeks.

Aside from the different timelines, the main challenge in writing this book was juxtaposing Grace’s suffering with Noor’s and not letting one story overwhelm the other. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

This story never changed much from my original direction, though I had to do several major rewrites to tone down the graphic nature of the subject matter. I hope I’ve accomplished that but it still may be too much for some readers, particularly if they’re triggered by issues of sexual violence or self-harm.

That said, I’m writing about the lives of two girls who are both victimized in real and terrifying ways. It’s a hopeful story but not a light-hearted read.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Stories come to me easily. I have a lot of ideas. The challenge for me is that I get caught up with life. It’s not always easy to discipline myself to sit down at my computer. I’m trained as a social worker and adolescent counselor and I love that work, so it competes when I also want to write.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Sometimes I think the stories choose me. I was on vacation in Nepal about nine months ago and by chance got talking to some Tibetan refugees. There’s a huge refugee community in Nepal, as it’s immediately across the border from Tibet. Like most people in the west, I knew about the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the exile of the Dalai Lama and of course the murder of Kelsang Namtso that was caught on video, but I didn’t know much more than that. The stories these refugees told me really moved me. I guess like many writers I need to connect with a story emotionally before I have the impetus to write it. I’ve begun working on a book about Tibetans.

When it comes to naming characters, I just rest my hands and let them tell me what their names are. What’s your process? 

It depends on the story but in the case of FIFTEEN LANES the names of the two main characters was deliberate. Both character’s names foreshadow their journey. 

With Grace, I thought a lot about the nature of shame. It’s terrible for any kid to be bullied or socially isolated but in counseling I found that kids felt so much worse if they believed they’d somehow provoked the bullying. We, as adults, understand that there’s never a legitimate reason for bullying but it can be hard to convince a kid of that.

Grace’s feeling of shame significantly intensifies her misery. It also makes it hard for her to ask for help, particularly from her mother who she feels she’s disappointed. So, in her case, I was thinking about the concept of sin or falling from grace.

Noor’s name means “light,” or “of the light.” I’ll leave my readers to decide if that was a good name choice.

Nicole Maggi On Plotting Vs. Pantsing

I'm lucky (or cunning) enough to have lured yet another successful writer over to my blog for an SAT- Successful Author Talk. SAT authors have conquered the query, slain the synopsis and attained the pinnacle of published. How'd they do it? Let's ask 'em!

Today’s guest for the SAT is Nicole Maggi, author of The Twin Willows Trilogy, available from Medallion Press, as well as the forthcoming THE FORGETTING available from Sourcebooks Fire.

Are you a Planner or Pantster?

I’m a Pantster by nature, but I’ve made myself become a Planner by practice because it’s way more efficient. Especially when you’re under a deadline. But I like to leave enough out of the planning so that I can still be surprised along the way.

How long does it typically take you to write a novel, start to finish?

Honestly, it’s been different for each book. My first novel (unpublished) took me 6 years to write, because I learned how to write a novel while writing it. My next book (WINTER FALLS, the first in the Twin Willows Trilogy, Medallion Press, 2014) took me 3 years to write, mainly because I Pantsed my way through it and had to do an enormous amount of work on the back-end to make it publishable. My third book, THE FORGETTING (Sourcebooks Fire, 2015), took a year from idea to sale. This was the first book that I fully plotted out before writing, and because of that I wrote the first draft in 4 months, did one edit, sold it, and did only one round of revisions with my editor. I learned that doing all that work up front really pays off in the end. IN THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF and THE BLUE WOODS, the second and third books in the Twin Willows Trilogy, each took about six months to write.

Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multi tasker?

I’ve tried so hard to be a multi-tasker, and I’m just not. When I’m writing a novel, I need to give myself over to it. I need to live in that world, and it’s very difficult for me to hop between novel-worlds. That said, I am able to be writing something, and then switch over to doing copy or line edits on another project. That’s happened a lot over the last couple of years; I was editing THE FORGETTING while writing IN THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF, and editing IN THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF while I was writing THE BLUE WOODS. Copy and line edits are such a different mindset from free-writing, so I’m able to jump back and forth.

Did you have to overcome any fears that first time you sat down to write?

When I first started writing, I think I was pretty fearless, probably because I didn’t realize that I was writing a book, much less a book that I thought would be published (and that one wasn’t). I was pretty blissful, just me and the page. It’s amazing what we can do when no one else is watching. It’s now, when I know that I have an editor and agent and readers to please, that I freeze up. When I sit down knowing that someone else is going to see what I’m writing, I get scared. I just have to give myself a pep talk and tell myself that the only other option is to just not write, and not writing is scarier than writing, so I do it.

How many trunked books did you have before you were agented?

Well, my first novel got me my agent. It didn’t sell, but it’s still a success story because it landed me my dream agent who is still my agent ten years later. She and I still talk about that book sometimes; just the other day she said how much she’d love to see me go back to it. But it’s not the right time for that book at this particular junction in my career.

Have you ever quit on an ms, and how did you know it was time?

So, my second book is lying around, half-finished, in a drawer. Okay, it’s on a computer file, but it sounds so much more poetic to say it’s “in a drawer.” I abandoned it after my agent and I attended a conference and we pitched it to a bunch of editors who all said they couldn’t sell it. So my agent and I agreed to set it aside. I was sad to put it away. I loved the main character something fierce and wanted to tell her story. But there were also some other problems with the manuscript. One, I never had an ending for it (one of the side effects of being a Pantster). And two, it was historical fiction and the second half of the book took place at sea, and basically I needed to learn how to sail a 19th-century whaling ship in order to really do it justice. So until some publisher is going to pay for me to spend the summer at Mystic Seaport learning how to sail, it’s going to say in a drawer…er, computer file.

Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them?  

My agent is Irene Goodman of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency. She’s been my agent/knight-in-shining-armor for ten years. I have kind of a funny story about how she signed me.

Please don’t hate me…but Irene was the only agent I ever queried. At the time I was writing historical fiction, and I had registered for the Historical Novel Society North American Conference. Irene was attending the conference and in the registration packet was a questionnaire you could fill out if you wanted to get a meeting with her. She was going to read the questionnaires (in which you pitched your book) and decide who she wanted to meet with based on those.

I filled out the questionnaire and sent it off, assuming I would find out if I’d landed a meeting when I got to the conference. This was about two months before the conference.

Now, at this time, I was writing my first book, an epic historical novel whose first draft was 750 pages long. I was in the process of editing it when I registered for the conference, assuming by the time it rolled around, I’d be done. I’d whittled down the draft to 500 pages. The first 250 were in good shape. The second 250 had huge swaths of crap with bracketed text like [SOPHIE DOES SOMETHING HERE].

A few weeks after I sent in my questionnaire, I get an email from Irene Goodman at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, requesting a synopsis and first 3 chapters. “Well, that’s a good sign,” I thought and sent them off, still assuming I wouldn’t know about the meeting until the conference.

A week later I get another email, requesting the full manuscript.

Well, crap. I panic. My saving grace is that she also says in the email that she’s about to go on vacation for a week, and she won’t get back to me until she returns.

“Great!” I think. I can use the week to edit/rewrite the last 250 pages and send it in then. The week flies by. I put my nose to the grindstone…and I get about 25 pages done. But I figure, she’s an agent, she’s super busy, she’s not going to notice that some dumb writer hasn’t sent her a manuscript yet.

The day after she gets back from her vacation, I get an email saying, “I haven’t seen this manuscript yet. Where is it?”

“Oh my God,” I think. “I’ve pissed off my dream agent before she’s even met me!”

At that point, I emailed her back and copped to a version of the truth: I had 250 pages I could send her, and I was “tweaking” the rest of it. She said fine, send her the 250 pages.

Less than a week later, she called me and offered representation. This all happened before the conference, which is where we wound up meeting for the first time.

And I still have that entire email exchange to prove this story is true.

Any advice to aspiring writers out there on conquering query hell?

I really do believe that conferences are the best places to meet agents. By meeting them face-to-face, you get to bypass the slush pile. So get yourself out there and attend a conference. Look for a conference that specifically offers one-on-one pitch sessions with agents and editors. One of my favorites is the Surrey International Writers Conference, held every October in Surrey, BC.

How did it feel the first time you saw your book for sale?

It was an indescribable feeling. I’d worked so long and hard for that moment, and I’d been through some really rough stuff getting my book published. Seeing it on a bookshelf made that struggle worth it.

How much input do you have on cover art?

Not a lot. And honestly, that wasn’t an issue for me. I’m not a visual person; I think in words. So I wouldn’t know the first thing about designing a cover.

With THE FORGETTING, I was asked for colors, phrases, places, things, etc. that are important in the story. That was actually the first cover of mine that I ever saw. I got the email while I was writing in a coffee shop and started crying. They just nailed it, with that incredible anatomical heart graphic. What I love about that cover is that you can only see the lower half of the girl’s face in shadow, and so it could be either the main character, Georgie, or it could be her heart donor, Jane Doe. They are so entwined in the story, and I love that on the cover it could be either one.  

With WINTER FALLS, I got an email from my editor saying, “You’ll have a cover in a few weeks!” I was so nervous. I was actually having anxiety dreams about it. And then one morning I woke up and checked my email (I live on the West Coast so I often have East Coast emails in my inbox first thing in the morning) and there it was, that snowy falcon staring back at me. I was blown away by its beauty. I love what they did with my Twin Willows Trilogy covers. I love that they chose to focus on the animals. And I love that they look so different than any other cover I’ve ever seen. They really stand out on a bookshelf.

With the last book in the trilogy, we originally had two animals on the cover. I won’t say which two, because it spoils the end of the book. I politely asked if they could remove one of the animals so readers wouldn’t guess the ending, and they did. At that point, I felt comfortable enough to speak up. I’ve been very fortunate with my covers, because I felt that both my publishers totally nailed it. I think sometimes authors feel powerless to say anything, but I do think it’s important to speak up if you really feel your cover doesn’t represent the book inside.

What's something you learned from the process that surprised you?

Everything moves so s-l-o-w leading up to your debut, and then everything after that goes so fast. I’ve learned that it’s important to stop every once in a while and really breathe it in and enjoy the moment. I’m not good at doing that, but if you don’t, you miss the whole thing.

How much of your own marketing do you?

 I do Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and I’m a member of the Class of 2k14, which group-marketed our 2014 debut books. I also do as many events as I can, because I actually really enjoy doing events. But beyond that I rely on my publishers. 

When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?

I don’t think it can hurt you to build a platform beforehand, unless you get caught behaving badly online. But I don’t think building a platform should ever take the place of actual writing. If you find you’re spending more time Tweeting than writing your novel, step back.

Do you think social media helps build your readership?

I think it can, but you have to be really hooked into what teens are currently doing online. I’m not that savvy. I was at a school visit recently and the kids were asking where they could find me online. “I’m on Twitter!” I said. They looked at me like I had two heads. Teens are not on Twitter anymore. Twitter is now really only for other authors. Teens are on Instagram. But a year from now they’ll be on something else.

That said, I do think it’s important to have an online presence in some capacity so that readers can contact you. There’s nothing so wonderful as getting an email from a reader who loved your book and just wants to tell you so.