Letter to a Young, Middle-Aged, or Geezer Writer viii

A truly vital and informative factor in our daily writing lives often goes unrecognized, much like the letter gone missing but yet in plain sight within Edgar Allen Poe's famed short story.  The factor of which I write directly informs the behavior between and among characters; while we are aware of it and using it, this factor also informs our social, political, and financial lives.  Some would argue that this factor plays an undeniable role in our romantic life.

More to the point, this factor plays an important role in everything we write, how that writing is read by others, and what the consequences mean to us.

By now you will have realized what the factor is, particularly those among you who have reached geezerhood, which allows you a greater sampling of human interaction from which to draw example.  The factor's very strength and reach are giveaways.  Power is like that.  What F. Scott Fitzgerald said about money is directly applicable to power.  Individuals who are born to it have grown up aware of how it begins early in life, drawing lines, separating those who have it from those who, however much money they might have, from those who eat at the second table, sit in the upper balcony, wait for the cheaper paperback edition to appear.

In its most basic form, power is the ability to do and say what one feels like doing or saying with the complete expectation that as many others as reasonable will accept this position as being so.  In varying degrees, individuals have power to exert over us, what they say is said with the expectation of our obedience.  The dog's owner is thus able to tell a dog to sit or to stop a particular action with the expectation of the dog's obedience.  An acquisitions editor holds a kind of power over incoming manuscripts, a parent has power over children until the children are--or deem themselves--grown up.  Curious, interesting, often insightful uses and shifts of power inhere in sexual relationships, where in a deeply personal sense a pair of lovers willingly exchange and/or abdicate roles of power, each to the other.

Fiction commonly is the armature about which power is wound, and in another sense, a writer whose  lucubrations are necessary because of a daytime job is at the whim of his employer, hopeful of the time where no "outside" work is necessary.

Writing has a measure of power over you as well, making it a splendid idea to determine the source of it, the better to understand the writing self various writing coaches, instructors, and editors are telling all of us they need to get a grip on.  As a hint, I, as a teacher and editor, have used this very line of suggestion on numerous occasions over the years, often with good results but most certainly with good results when the doing has caused me to get a better grip on my own writing self.

You will reach a point where you become aware of exerting your use of power over your created characters, in some perverse way gratified when they begin to sense they are dimensional enough to rebel against your authority, in the process doing things you had not intended.  There is this lovely trope to think of when the behavior of your characters perplexes you:  Your parents wanted better for you than they had, thus their approach to your education.  Your characters are trying to get you away from your lucubrations, and wouldn't that be fun?

The How and Why of the Synopsis

synopsis--a summary or abstract of a short story or novel; a compressed outline of the basic plot points and motivation; a guide to the behavior and attitudes of characters in a story.

A writer in search of a literary agent and/or publisher is still beset with a raging enthusiasm for the finished work. The writer wants to see the work in print, to know others, readers, will now have the opportunity to read it. Thus the first roadblock: said literary agent or publisher wants a synopsis--even if said publisher has already heard about the work in a pitch session, then encouraged its submission.

Why, the writer wonders, do they want a synopsis? Why not simply read the manuscript? The answer to these and other publishing-related questions are not rational. For instance, few individuals in publishing (writers included, by the way) have risen through the ranks to at least a journeyman level. Many in publishing have come from business-related areas, their degrees actually MBAs instead of, say, MFA. It is true that acquisitions editors should be able to determine the inherent value of a manuscript, and indeed, many of them can, but there is another truth at play here, which is that the editor has to produce the prospectus for the work before--in most cases--the work goes to the contract stage. In theory, the editor could write the synopsis. In further theory, it might make sense for the editor to do so because the synopsis would reflect the editor's enthusiasm for the work.

In fact, the author is the better person to write the synopsis because the author's intent and enthusiasm emerges, and because the author, however much given to grumbling about the chore of the synopsis, is more likely to produce an emotionally charged work than the editor or literary agent. Look at it this way: Even though you hate writing synopses and can see no purpose for them, who better than you is there to synopsize your novel?

Onward to the outline: Get some practice. Start by writing fifty- and a hundred word abstracts of short stories. Pick two out of any best-of-the-year collections, settling on one you like and one you don't. You're already halfway to the goal because the stories in either of the three major best-of collections have appeared in prestigeous publications, their validity ratified by a number of critics. Your own sense of liking or not liking particular works allows you to see what the critics may have seen, while offering you the opportunity to disagree with their choices.

After you have the hang of abstracting a shorter work, take a look at the Books Briefly Noted section of any issue of the New Yorker (which covers fiction and nonfiction). Next, take a longer work that is not your own, then imagine yourself attacking a similar hundred- to hundred-fifty-word critical apercu. Now you're almost ready to begin.

First step: decide who the principal teller of the story (point of view) will be. If there is more than one narrator, make a note of all. If there is only one narrator, put the initails POV in parens after that individual's name the first time the character is cited. For instance, "Mary (POV) was adopted when she was one year old." If there are other narrators, allow a speace break between Mary and the next narrator, say Fred.

Thus, "Fred (POV) is her older brother, adopted previous to Mary's adoption."

Next step is to introduce what the novel is about, what its primary goal is. Example: "Mary wants to learn the identity and locale of her biological parents." Note how this is done in the present tense regardless of the usage in the actual text of the novel.

The next step is to introduce some potential for early disagreement or outright opposition. "Fred knows who his biological parents were and where they live. He does not want Mary to learn either fact."

Now we have opposition and some conflict, which may demonstrated with: "Although Mary loves and respects her adoptive parents, Fred, relishing the big brother role, is constantly taunting Mary by questioning her loyalty and devotion to her adoptive parents.

The conventional pattern for the synopsis is to keep it at about three single-spaced pages, but this brings us to a fork in the road regarding the ending. Some synopsis writers "end" the summary with the lead-in to the climactic scene, where the tensions and pressures weigh heavily on the characters and they must face some kind of decisive action. How specific must the ending be? Is it possible to keep the reader(s) of the synopsis in suspense with mere outline and occasional bits of dialogue? On the other hand, if the final confrontation/denouement is left unresolved, won't the literary agent or publisher "have" to read the entire manuscript to see the ending?

This is a critical point for all concerned. If the outcome is too detailed, the writer may be stuck with that ending because the editor will have been sold on it ending that way. If the ending is not rendered with enough detail, the editor may become put off, not trusting the author. Thus the trick is to tell just enough to allow the editor to infer what happens, yet continue to hold the editor curious enough to want to read it all the way through to relish the details.

Knowing all this lead-up background, think of the synopsis this way: Your book will be taken on by a publisher, printed, bound, sent forth to appropriate reviewers and subsidiary rights agents, along with several thousands of other titles, there to compete in the metaphorical crowded drawing room that is a book store. Someone will provide Wikipedia and possibly even Amazon dot com with a description of your book, possibly even spoiling the ending to the point of obviating the reader's need to see how things worked out. Your synopsis can get there first, influencing how your novel will be seen.

Repeat slowly: Synopses are not nuisances, they are incentives. Synopses are not...

Get a Room, Editorially Speaking

stet--from Latin stare (to be) for "let it be" or "let it stand"; editor or proofreader notation indicating a marked word or passage on a manuscript or proof is to stand as now indicated; a writer's note to an editorial suggestion or deletion, thus an authorial override on an editorial opinion.

Editors have a complex menu of responses to matter included in a manuscript, ranging from the highly idiosyncratic to the recognition of house conventions. Some responses relate to the use by the author of comma splices or Arabic numerals instead of spelled-out numbers. Other responses are more substantive, involving material the author wants in the final text as opposed to the same material the editor would like to see omitted from the text. When an author answers an Author Query or AuQy on the manuscript with a stet, the author is having the last word, presumably after taking the editor's query or suggestion into serious consideration.

By the time the decision is made to publish a particular work, and the deal has been contracted, notes and queries from the content editor are considered friendly, helpful suggestions, particularly since the editor was probably a party to the arrangement for publication. Editorial notes and suggestions made after the fact of contract are not mandates; the agreement or contract may have had provisional mandates--change the narration from third to first person, make the ending a happy ending,don't kill off Uncle Fred--and the writer will have been aware of these. The stet decisions involve last-minute details. Example: An editor may conclude that a particular exchange of dialogue will by its very use of words and specifics convey that Ms. Kitty is angrily energized and thus mark for deletion the attribution "Ms. Kitty said hotly" as a goes-without-saying notation. But the writer, wanting the reader to be sure of Ms. Kitty's frame of emotional mind, may say stet, at which point the editor says OK before moving on to the next matter.

Copyeditors are less likely to query on usage; their work is mechanical intervention in the service of consistency of use according to a house style (if book, the style guide is likely to be CMOS Chicago Manual of Style); if magazine or newspaper, more likely to be AP, NY Times, or a style guide based on these). Writers are not likely to get into stet decisions with copyeditors unless the copyeditor is challenging a statement the writer has set as a fact. For an example, in a story in which the writer has claimed that a character who is a professional boxer bears a stylistic resemblance to Muhammad Ali, the copyeditor may circle Muhammad Ali and write in the margin "who he?" The writer may believe Mr. Ali's name needs no attribution and thus lines out the query, then writes stet.

Agents of Change

literary agent--a former book editor; an individual who represents authors with publishers; someone to whom authors are required to assign a limited power of attorney, authorizing payments due the author be made to them; an individual who may have been the scape goat (fired from a publishing company) when sales figures sagged; an individual who often becomes a writer's scape goat when a project does not sell well; an author of form letters suggesting no new clients are being accepted.

The literary agent is the first hurdle the writer must pass; because of his or her expertise, informed judgment, and taste, the agent believes what all characters believe--the agent believes the agent is right. Often it will take more effort finding an agent to represent the work than a publisher to publish it.

NB: literary agents are not career coaches or MFCCs; they are skilled editorial workers.


subplot--a secondary plot line in a larger work of fiction, possibly involving different characters than those in the main plot; a thematic counterpoint of action to the major events of story; often a related series of events taking place in time past relative to the setting of the main plot; usually a series of events involving characters below front-rank status.

Because of length constraints, short stories are unlikely to contain subplots, but in the works of Louise Erdrich, which seem to have been carved from novels or have their origins as platforms for later novels, this construct is an anomaly; ditto Alice Munro. Novels with extensive layers of subplot emerge as being more dramatic and theatrical; this is particularly true of novels with multiple-point-of-view narration.

If the reader is not able eventually to see a reason for the presence of a subplot, the reader will likely regard it as padding. A good "excuse" for the inclusion of a subplot is parallel development, in which differing groups of individuals are subjected to the same dramatic situation.


theme--the metaphoric or symbolic message of a story; an abstract representation of authorial intent; a lesson, moral, or observation to be had from considering the consequences of various options.

Theme is similar to authorial style in that it is what remains resonant after the story had been written, revised, and published. Authors are often surprised at the emergent theme of a work after it has been written, an observation that is thematic in itself.

Most themes, when reduced to their basics, tend to sound banal: The brotherhood/sisterhood of humanity; Self-interest, Nihilism, Twilight of the gods, Man's inhumanity, etc. Fabulists, moralists, and academics eager for broader audiences, tenure, or both, added verbs to the equation, resulting in the apothegm, such as Art is long, life is short, or Blessed are the meek, or A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.

Stand and Deliver

emotion--a feeling or combination of sensations which lead to a mood or an attitude; the result of events, stimuli, and interactions; possible results of memory, thought, or association which may be pleasing, distasteful, or ominous.

Emotions are triggered by experience, whether the result of direct action, contemplation, or analogy. These sensory and perhaps sensual results are among the principal goals to be achieved in story; a story that does not evoke emotion is placing itself in the metaphorical third balcony, some distance away from the performance.

The fact of a reader seeing or understanding the intended emotional content is not sufficient; the reader is entitled by having read the story to feel the resident emotional tones.


rejection--an arbitrary condition arising when a publisher declines an offered work; a situation wherein a writer loses enthusiasm for a project and either shelves or discards it; a work that has been denied entry for idiosyncratic, judgmental, or technical reasons. The experiential sense achieved by an author that certain publications, publishing individuals, and random other individuals are not moved by his work. An author, editor, or publisher in a state of denial.

It is the rare writer who has no experience with having a work refused, either in terms of representation by a literary agent or publication from an editorial representative of a publishing venture; rarer yet is the writer who has had no work returned with a memo of notes for revision. Rarest of all is the writer who has not of his or her own accord set a manuscript aside as being unworkable or uninteresting. All these are examples of rejection. Similarly, a note from a publisher's representative expressing great admiration for a work but nevertheless returning it because of its thematic resemblance to a recently published work is still rejection. A note from a publisher accompanying a rejected manuscript and as well inviting the writer to submit more work is--rejection.

An author, standing in a book store while watching a prospective reader pick up his or her book, thumb through several pages, then set the book back on the shelf, is witnessing rejection of yet another sort.

"There are fifteen types of rejection in connection with writing," Santa Barbara Writers' Conference Director, Barnaby Conrad said, addressing an auditorium filled with attendees. From the voluminous depths of his blazer pocket, he produced an index card from which he was about to read examples, but before he was able to begin, a voice from the rear boomed, "Sixteen."

Ever the polite one, Conrad smiled, nodded. "As I was saying, there are fifteen specific types of rejection." Squinting at the index card for a moment, he continued. "The first instance of rejection is when a writer submits a manuscript electronically or by postal mail and it is subsequently rejected."

Once again the voice from the rear of the auditorium blared forth. "Seventeen!"

Rejection is a living presence in every writer's calculus; even if the writer were to forswear submissions, it could be successfully argued that the writer was rejecting himself. Responses to rejection vary from anger to mild annoyance to conspiracy theory; all of these conditions may or may not be justified but they may all produce the side effect of listening to and agreeing with the Inner Critic, the symptoms of which prevent the writer from writing.

There probably are successful writers who believe their abilities have evolved enough; they accordingly do not worry about becoming better at their craft. The greater number of writers burn off considerable calories with concern about their developmental progress. This is as it should be.

Some letters or notes of rejection address flaws as seen by the rejector. Unless you, the writer, see some way to enhance the effectiveness of the work, or unless a particular editor offers publication of your work if a specific change is effected, a four-letter Latin word, common to publishing, obtains. Stet. Let it stand.