World Building using PESTEL

By Kasie Whitener

Writing a fantasy novel requires world building, a topic I’ve written on and delivered radio shows on in the past. I always advised authors to write a world “bible” – a document that explains the magic of the world, the rules under which the world will operate. Then, like the basic hypocrite so many of us teachers can be, I didn’t bother to do one for my vampire world. 

Until now! I used a tool from my strategic management class to define how the world operates. It’s called a PESTEL analysis and it works to explain the factors affecting a specific market. But it works in fantasy worldbuilding, too. Check it out:

P = Political

What are the political factors that affect the world? In Harry Potter this includes the Ministry of Magic and the usurper He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named who attempted to seize power in the wizarding world J.K. Rowling created. For my vampire novel, the politics are murky in the first book but consist of the Brevet who are sacred priests of the Salvia faith. They maintain the Breviary or the sacred text and enforce the rules of the faith. The three vampire lineages are meant to live in harmony with one another.

E = Economic

What are the economic factors that affect the world? This is how people earn a living, pay for goods and services, and maintain households and status. In Star Wars we know there’s a good deal of smuggling and Luke’s uncle was a moisture farmer. In my vampire world, Blue works on a ranch for cash but in Las Vegas he’d been a barback in a strip club; many vampires flock to such professions for their proximity to prey.

S = Sociocultural

What social and cultural rules dominate the world? In Kushiel’s Dart, the society is divided into a caste system with each house having its origins in one of the disciples of their faith’s scion. The system defines how people speak to one another, how they’re educated, and what they expect from life. It was this faith system that inspired me to create my own faith for my vampires.

T = Technology

What technology is available to the world? I set the vampires in the late 90s on purpose. I didn’t want mass use of the internet, social media, or other modern technology to threaten the subversion of imposters or make literary research too available.

E = Ecological

What natural world elements exist in the world? What is the climate like? What weather do the characters suffer? What is the condition of the planet? 

L = Legal

What laws are the characters bound by?

This framework can help you fully envision the fantasy world you’re building and create a rulebook that you can reference while building your stories. Whether it’s the elaborate worldbuilding of Tolkien or Rowling, or simply infusion of magic and dragons into the middle ages, fantasy books have governance, social customs, and technology. Figuring out how yours work is a rewarding and challenging undertaking.

What Longevity Actually Looks Like

By Kasie Whitener

I’ve been reading the same weekly email newsletter from Canadian writer and coach Daphne Gray-Grant forever. I may be one of her longest subscribers. She’s the Publication Coach and you can find issue #847 here. 

Yes, #847 which, divided by 52 weeks a year, is 16 years she’s been delivering weekly advice to writers like me.

That’s roundabout 2006, which is when I remember finding her. I was working for SYNNEX Corporation as a copywriter, my master’s degree making me eligible to use 25-cent words when 5-cent words would suffice. But Daphne has always encouraged me to be concise and precise in my word selection and sentence structure.

This week she encouraged me to recognize where my writing imposter syndrome comes from: a non-existent continuum of writing. 

“...there’s a widely held misunderstanding that writing falls on a commonly accepted continuum of bad to good. And we all worry about doing something that’s baaaaaad,” she writes, “But, in fact, writing doesn’t operate on such a continuum. Instead, it’s a matter of taste. What I see as ‘good’ writing might not please you and visa versa.”

Ever have one of those, “Duh!” moments? Of course I know the writing I like isn’t necessarily what others like and just because others don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Earlier in the day, I’d read a writer’s tweet asking for everyone’s favorite short stories. Lots of great titles including A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Peach Cobbler by Deesha Philyaw. I scrolled through the thread looking for Hemingway and couldn’t find him. Seriously? No one said Hills Like White Elephants?

Just to prove that writing is personal and reading is subjective, my short story The Shower that won the 2022 Broad River Prize for Prose was also the submission that got me rejected from two different conferences. Also, it didn’t make the list from the favorite short stories tweeter. That doesn’t make me Hemingway.

Daphne’s point that we we think of writing on a continuum of bad to good is frustratingly true. I see my own work as inching from the left (bad) as it’s polished, workshopped, submitted, rejected, rehabilitated, resubmitted, and accepted. Accepted is good, right? Except then people read it and don’t connect with it (bad reviews) or start it but don’t finish it (abandoned) or say they’ve been meaning to read it but haven’t yet (can’t even motivate themselves to start the doggone thing!).

Just when I think I’ve written something “good” it seems increasingly likely I’ll never write anything good ever again.

But I’m still writing. And maybe, just maybe, the more I write the better I’ll get. Maybe the next piece will connect with someone. Will resonate. Will push them, like Daphne’s been pushing me, to keep at this thing. For 847 weeks or more.

WRITING MY WAY OUT of a CARDBOARD BOX

By Kasie Whitener

When I was in undergrad, the structure for a fiction workshop class at university was to read a dozen short stories and talk through them and then to try our hand at writing one. We would bring our own stories in, two students per class, and they’d be read aloud and torn apart by people who couldn’t write their way out of a cardboard box.

I hated it. I’ve been an educator for 17 years and tried to figure out if it was me, 20-year-old kid with a wide-eyed dream of becoming an author, or the class itself.

The flaw in this course design is that we began by reading Richard Ford, Margaret Atwood, and other fiction masters. Their stories were far-and-away better than what we were capable of. We didn’t really have any stories to tell. We were too young. Nothing had happened to us yet.

Short fiction was used in the fiction workshop for two reasons: 1) it’s an exercise in writing discipline to reduce a story to 3500 words or less, and 2) our professors didn’t want to read our poorly conceived novel-length tragedies.

There’s a wide gap between the MFA definition of good work and the commercially appealing fiction we consume like candy. A well-written, well-told story is tremendously satisfying.

One of our SCWA friends, crime novelist Raegan Teller, has recently turned to short fiction to work on her craft. She shared with my class that she finds the form challenging as she’s not allowed to include all the narrative that bloats a novel. She must be more selective with the details she includes.

Scarcity is the draw of flash fiction: can one write a complete story in less than 1000 words? They must be the right words. Their selectivity makes them special. And yet, often we find flash fiction simply omits important development or leaves too much to the reader that its meaning is difficult to discern.

Amazon’s foray into serialization is an indication that consumers are looking for bite-sized stories, something they can easily cram into a subway ride or a Starbucks queue. Short fiction has the draw of being easily digested by wordcount and economy. But the best short fiction stays with you long after you’ve finished the story. Haunts you like a memory that doesn’t really belong to you.

I write short fiction because I have ideas to metabolize. Thoughts and memories that need to be examined. Unlike that undergraduate workshop, I have time and distance on some of these events and can evaluate them without the sting of hurt feelings or the risk of open wounds.

The problem with that class was that we didn’t know what mattered, what to keep and what to edit out. We only knew we wanted to write and were hoping someone would teach us how. After many years of practice and polish, I now feel confident I can write my way out of a cardboard box. The real question is, how’d I get in there?

SIMPLE MACHINES or MAGIC FAIRY DUST?

By Kasie Whitener

There were 250 Wattys winners, and I wasn’t one of them. Over the summer, I’d won the Broad River Prize for Prose and the 2021 Fresh Voices in the Humanities Awards. My unpublished novel took a 3^rd place finish in a writers’ contest in August. I was on a roll.

I really thought my serialized YA story about two kids getting kicked out of Neverland and joining the American Revolution would be a shoo-in for this online fan fiction website contest. Except it wasn’t. I wrote about the serialization project in this post. It’s a former NaNoWriMo effort that just wanted a little revision and to see the light of day.

It’s easy to add my Wattys failure to low turnout at book signings, poor attendance at speaking engagements, anemic growth on my social channels and email list, and the decision to forego NaNoWriMo this year and say my writing career is stalling.

But on October 27, I gave a well-received reading of an unpublished story to a packed bar during “Noir at the Bar.” Yesterday I delivered a keynote speech at the Aiken Book Fair. And that 3^rd-place-winning- vampire novel is in the hands of an agent who loves it.

In this writing life there are milestone events like winning awards and getting representation that seem to be critical to climbing the peak. And then there are low points like showing up to see three people in the audience and cuing up your slide deck anyway while feeling engulfed in the valley of shame.

Last week I discovered this video wherein creative coach Jessica Abel reminds us that our vision of the process for building a writing career looks like this:

1) get good at my craft,

2) get an agent and sell my book,

3) magic fairy dust,

4) retire a famous, rich, world-renowned author.

Except Step 3 (according to Jessica) isn’t “magic fairy dust.” It’s a machine. And anyone can work the machine. You just have to know how. This is a critical conversation for me because I’m using the machine to hoist, elevate, and raise my work for career sustainability, and personal fulfillment.

• Pulley: Attending conferences and festivals (makes heavy lifting easier)

• Lever: Critique groups and beta readers (gets things unstuck, lessens workload)

• Wheel and Axle: Presenting, Sharing, & Teaching (connects me with others, improves craft)

• Wedge: Awards and Recognition (separates my work from others’)

• Inclined Plane (or ramp): Associations (opportunities to lead, create, and shine)

• Screw: Volunteer (embed myself in the work, become deeply engrained in the industry)

When I think of the activities in my writing life as simple machines to move me from where I am toward where I want to be, I appreciate even the low-turnout events, even the no-win contests, and even the rejections and declines.

I am gaining ground not by waiting for someone else to sprinkle luck upon me, but by churning the gears and driving my own success. Pedal down. Roll on.

AFRAID TO ASK

By Kasie Whitener

Last spring, I met an agent with whom I had immediate rapport. In our conversation, I mentioned that I was about to start shopping a vampire novel. Since her preferred genre is adult fantasy, she asked me to send it to her.

Ten days later, I got an email saying, “OK I’ve read enough of this to know that I want to read more. I wanted you to know that I’ve gotten through the first 30 pages or so and I would love to read the rest of it.”

The rest of the email went on to explain she was super busy and would need about a month to finish it. I agreed. My initial email had told her the manuscript was still with beta readers and I had a developmental editor on the job.

I didn’t hear from her again and I was afraid to ask her about it. I’ve been rejected before.

Last Tuesday we hosted Amy Collins as part of the SCWA’s Become an Author series. In the reminder email I sent her the week before, I told her the upcoming radio show I host would be talking about vampires (a topic she and I both enjoy).

When we logged in to the Zoom meeting, Amy said, “I’ve got a great vampire manuscript right now I’ll share with you. It’s not published but it’s great.”

Part of me thought she was teasing me. So, I replied, “Is it mine?”

Amy sat, stunned, on the other side of the Zoom. Within a couple of minutes, we worked out that I’d sent her my manuscript via email, she’d forgotten about it, and maybe thought because it wasn’t done, she’d come back to it? Or I would resubmit a more finalized version? Who knows?

In any case, we’d miscommunicated. And I was relieved.

Relieved because she’s the first agent who had been excited about the manuscript. Relieved because I like Amy and want to work with her. Relieved because she hadn’t ghosted me or rejected me. We’d just miscommunicated.

Amy delivered one of the best SCWA Become an Author sessions we’ve had. She was forthright about what an agent does and does not do. She was honest about what annoys agents and what gets them excited. We had more than 80 people show up. One person messaged me that it was the most valuable session they’d ever attended, and they would be joining SCWA right away.

What I learned from Amy was something I think I already knew: following-up is not pestering.

I should I have messaged her, “Hey! You have my vampire novel. What did you think?”

Instead of assuming that she hadn’t liked it at all. Rejection is a bad teacher.

In fact, Amy told our story to the group on Zoom and said, “Kasie and the rest of you should know that if an agent asks for your manuscript, the ghosting part of your relationship is over. Now it’s about follow-up.

Don’t be afraid to ask.

CUE THE CONFETTI

By Kasie Whitener

I don’t get nervous for Zoom events even when I’m hosting them. I pour a glass of wine and tuck my pajama’d legs underneath me and tune in like the meeting is a television program.

But last Monday night I was nervous. The Southeastern Writers Association was holding their awards event on Zoom and my novel, Being Blue, was a finalist. The entry was an unpublished manuscript and this one, up until now, had only been read by my critique group and a developmental editor.

In contrast, my first novel, After December, has been out since 2019 and has over 50 ratings on Amazon. My second novel, Before Pittsburgh, released last month and earned a dozen 5-star reviews from the vast world of #bookstagram. My short story “For the Win” was in the summer issue of The Showbear Family Circus and my story “The Shower” is set to be printed in Fall Lines. I blog weekly across multiple platforms. I have authored two textbooks at use in my classrooms.

I’m being read on the regular and not just by people who know me.

Entering the Hal Bernard Memorial Award for Novel with the Southeastern Writers Association also meant I’d joined the organization. Logging into the Zoom, I saw strangers’ faces, not my usual SCWA crowd. The nerves had begun much earlier in the day, though, when I thought about what it meant to be a finalist and what it would feel like to have to show one of those fake-Oscar smiles when they didn’t name me the winner.

Any other acceptance or win has come as an email or phone call notification. Congratulations, your book is a finalist in the Indie Excellence Awards. Congratulations, you’ve won the Broad River Prize for Prose.

I’ve applied and submitted and been refused and rejected. We’re sorry but your work does not fit our needs at this time.

I’ve queried and entered and been ignored and ghosted. My novel After December was in a first-novel contest for female authors and lost to a book about the experience of a young Latina immigrant. So, yeah, my white-privileged male protagonist never stood a chance.

Never have I minded the rejection. Putting my work out there means accepting defeat. And Monday night I wasn’t rehearsing my, “Good for you!” expression because I’ve been spoiled by the wins.

Buzz Bernard, who sponsored the award selected five entries to honor. Two received honorable mention and three took prizes.

The screen said, “Third Place – Being Blue by Kasie Whitener,” and I smiled and unmuted and said, “Thank you.” I thought of our bronze-medal winning athletes and the looks on their faces knowing they’ve come so close and come up just short. Then I finished my wine.

Bronze is hard because it’s not a win exactly, but it’s not a loss, either. It’s somewhere in between. Congratulations, your work is above average.

So, thank you. I might just stick with this writing thing. I have some work to do.

SORRY, NOT SORRY

By Kasie Witener

I like the sex in the story.

I read romance novels almost exclusively and I’m not embarrassed to say I like the sex scenes.

The characters are important, of course, and the tension leading up to that point when they finally give in, but it’s the intimacy of the sex that keeps me reading.

I’ve been known to stay awake into the early hours of morning reading romance novels.

I’ve abandoned books that had terrible, awkward, or clinical sex scenes.

I’ve read entire series of books by authors who made dozens of sex scenes seem original every single time.

I’m not alone. Romance is the most popular genre on Amazon. It’s the single biggest genre of fiction accounting for 23% of the overall fiction market in 2016 and growing exponentially. While 83% of the readers are female, Romance Writers of America estimates 16% are male, with the average age between 35- and 39-years-old. I’m 44 and I’m not the oldest romance junkie I know.

Like most genre fiction, romance is governed by reader expectations, chief among them is the HEA (happily ever after) which is what separates the romance from a love story. Split into dozens of subgenres, Romance also meets readers where their desires are: contemporary, erotic, historical, dark, paranormal, “spiritual elements” or Christian romance, romantic suspense, sweet or “clean” romance, and young adult with teenaged or early-twenties characters.

Writers have also embraced the tropes: billionaire, boss, athlete, rock star, outlaw (motorcycle, mafia), and military. Like I said, they meet readers where they are.

What this teaches me, as a writer, because I don’t write romance, is to focus on those moments in the book that I want to become the reader’s favorite.

For example, in After December, my first-person male protagonist has a couple of really great moments. There’s the time he cold-cocks a former high school rival for calling his ex-girlfriend a slut. Then he takes the bartender home and … well, it’s a moment some readers have said made them throw the book across the room. Writing important moments—the scenes that will stick with the reader—that’s what I want to do. I don’t write romance, but I don’t back away from the sexuality of my characters, either.

My second novel, Before Pittsburgh, is out this week (August 17) and I have dozens of favorite moments. One of them is when Brian is teasing his ex-girlfriend with a cookie in his hotel room. It’s not sex, but it’s a sexy scene. One of dozens.

Revision, for me, focuses on solidifying those scenes. Making each moment impactful, meaningful, memorable. So, when my readers flip through the book, they’ll know what it was they loved about it.

Maybe it will be the sex. But I hope will be the vulnerability around Brian’s mental health, the deep forging of friendship bonds, forgiveness of his parents, or the delicate untangling of bad decisions.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course it’s the sex. And I’m not even sorry about it.

MEASURING ALL THE THINGS

By Kasie Whitener 

When I joined the My Name is Not Bob Writers Platform Challenge in 2012, I had no idea what I would even tell people about myself. The purpose was to build a platform for your writing life – a digital platform primarily – and to put yourself into the writing community as a new voice. 

Fast forward to 2021 and I’ve been recognized as a Fresh Voice in the Humanities for South Carolina and I wrote this blog about the irony of being called “fresh.” Because, let’s be honest, I’ve done all the things. 

I started with blogging. I blogged weekly. Then monthly. Then sporadically. I guest blogged and I shared, liked, commented, and promoted blogs. I even gave people advice on how to write blogs and have served as the editor for this blog for several years. Currently my work appears on six different blog sites. 

Then came social media. I have Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. I like Twitter best and have been running a weekly tweet chat (#wschat) every Tuesday at 6 p.m. for eight years. I’m a reluctant Facebook user and they know it. My posts are buried in everyone’s feed because I don’t post often enough or show enough engagement. Did you know it does that? Facebook rewards you for being present by making what you post more visible to others. It’s a mysterious thing called an algorithm. 

I started the radio show Write On SC in 2018 and we’re going strong with over 150 episodes, several patrons, and a good listenership. Each week we discuss various topics around creation, craft, and publication. It led me to Wattpad, where I’ve been serializing a YA novel all summer. The Full Moon in Neverland is my third novel. The first two were published by Chrysalis Press. 

So, I did the writing. I wrote After December, took it through workshop and developmental edits, and got it with Chrysalis and published it. I built a marketing plan, leveraging my platform and reaching out to book clubs to adopt and evangelize the work. It’s found success. Forty-seven reviews so far and a four-star average. 

The follow-up, Before Pittsburgh, comes out in August and I’m working the platform now to promote it and get those pre-sales, reviews, and Want To Read adds on Goodreads. It’s amazing the things I’ve learned to measure since I joined the My Name is Not Bob platform challenge. 

I’ve done all the things. The profiles, the engagement, the presentations and appearances, the promotional work (giveaways, ads), and the book club visits. I’ve built my email list at the urging of my publisher and I’m building audience every day. And I’m still managing to write. 

But I’m exhausted.

Only reading the proof copy of Before Pittsburgh over the weekend has lightened the mood around here. Knowing it’s a good book. Being happy with the product. Glad to share it with the world. All those measurements—like smiles and hugs—are hard to quantify.

WHITE AUTHOR, BLACK CHARACTERS

By Kasie Whitener

My characters are real to me and I think I’ve written them authentically. But how can I know for sure?

My own friendships have shaped all my characters and it’s from those relationships that I’ve written my main character Brian’s friends.

The topic of race is only briefly mentioned in After December but there are two scenes in Before Pittsburgh where Brian’s friend Chris is treated differently because he’s Black. The way Brian, Chris, Joel, and Jason navigate those experiences helps build their brotherhood.

In Before Pittsburgh, Brian needed his heart broken. Jada popped off the page for me. She was exactly who I wanted Brian to meet in grad school. She challenged him, confused him, and rejected him.

I had a beta reader, John, who grew up one of a few Black kids in his white suburb in the 90s, and he said the passages were all fine. But I sought my friend Len Lawson’s perspective after he made this observation to our SCWA diversity committee:

“Fictional characters of color, especially black characters, tend to fall either into two categories: in need of a white savior to rescue them or as the magical Negro savior to scaffold a white character’s enlightenment.”

I emailed him and asked if he’d be willing to have a conversation with me. It’s a difficult conversation to have. Even inviting John to read the piece and give me feedback was complicated. If the work was completely off base, insulting, or racist, they would say so. It’s hard to admit I may have written that. Hard to ask someone to tell me I had.

“Why did you make these characters Black?” Len asked.

“I didn’t. That’s just who they are.” Chris and Jada didn’t have to be Black. The novel could work with all white characters, but it wouldn’t be authentic for me or Brian.

Diversity and inclusivity are not a political climate. Asking for John and Len to review Before Pittsburgh and give feedback was not about virtue signaling or being woke. I asked them to review the work because I’m not Black.

I’m also not a lesbian. And since one of the characters in Before Pittsburgh is, I asked my friend Agata to read Abbie’s scenes and give me feedback. I’ve had white men read Brian and give me feedback on him because I’m female.

I genuinely want to get this right. My characters deserve my best work. My readers deserve my best work. Just as I’ve asked for help with dialogue, plot development, and dramatic tension, I asked for help with the characterization of characters whose experience is different than my own.

The scope of Brian’s relationships is what Before Pittsburgh is all about. The friendships he earns are what make him who he is. Just as my own friends have grown me up by sharing their lives with me. Experience is where authenticity comes from.

There’s nothing wrong with seeking input from diverse readers. We all have blind spots. It’s best to correct them before the book is published.

SERIALIZING for FUN

By Kasie Whitener 

In this week’s episode of Write On SC, we talked about serialization. To “serialize” is to release your story in smaller chunks for the purpose of building an audience willing to purchase the entire work. It’s at once marketing and production.

Classics like The Count of Monte Cristo and Uncle Tom’s Cabin found readers through serialization. At the time, publishing a single volume was really expensive and many readers couldn’t afford to collect books by purchasing them. So, publishers used serials—magazines, journals, even newspapers—to reach a wider audience.

Additionally, authors building an audience didn’t have the advantages of social media and internet followers we have today. Publishing a taste of the work was a way to prove your skills not just to readers but to would-be publishers as well.

Authors like Hemingway and Capote leveraged serials to introduce work that had not found favor with their traditional publishers; work the publisher didn’t want to publish in its entirety, didn’t want to take the risk on, might appear in a magazine or other periodicals. Authors have used serials to try new styles, new genres, and other risky efforts that publishers worried might alienate the existing reader base. But it’s also a low-risk audition for the author. Readers who enjoy the periodical can find the author within its pages and decide to pursue additional work.

Recently, Amazon launched Vella, a serialized deviation of Kindle Unlimited. Its specifics are reader-friendly: subscribers receive a certain number of tokens, can audition the first few installments for “free” and then spend tokens for future installments. The specs are less friendly for writers. This article breaks it down.

First, you cannot publish anything there that’s already been published elsewhere. That self-pubb’d novel that hasn’t gotten any traction? Nope. Second, you can’t put up anything that is freely available elsewhere. That novel you put on your personal blog that’s gotten four visitors in the last 30 days? Nope. Third, you cannot publish the book elsewhere without first removing it from Vella. So, when a publisher falls madly in love with your characters and wants to traditionally publish your amazing work? Nope.

These rules aren’t that different from what we know of competing platform Wattpad. Publishers don’t want to see your work on a “free” platform like Wattpad before they get to revise, edit, pre-sale, and market the hell out of it. Most authors who have serialized work on Wattpad have done so knowing the piece would never be published elsewhere.

So why give your work away?

Maybe because you’re building an audience. Maybe because you’re not sure where the work is going. Maybe to get real-time feedback. Maybe to be part of a creator community. Or maybe, just maybe, because your pre-teen daughter loves Wattpad and can’t read your actual adults-only books. So, you put this up there for her. Like I did.

Check out The Full Moon in Neverland. My effort at serialization available now and free to a good home via Wattpad.

THE SWEET INDULGENCE of MAGNETIC WRITING

By Kasie Whitener

My addiction to romance novels is well established. I read over 100 per year, mostly through Kindle Unlimited, all unapologetically shallow. I call them “candy.”

Some of the books alternate character point-of-view and the voice is so generic I lose track of who’s speaking. Yeah, they’re not exactly literary fiction.

What they do have is magnetism.

Magnetism is compulsion. Characters drawn together, excited by one another, a sense of urgency, need, and passion. These books must establish magnetism. It’s expected of them. Romance readers want characters drawn together, kept apart, and then united in something steamy and fulfilling.

Magnetism also has me choosing to read this book instead of doing anything else. Magnetism has me desperate for one more chapter long after midnight.

One hundred romance novels later and I know (I know!) there are a million reasons not to download the next book in the series. Award-winning books. Literary fiction that is changing the landscape of the craft. Elevating language, diving into unheard narratives. Just waiting to change me with empathy and craft.

And yet, I go for the candy. Like a junky.

This year I put myself on a diet. I took 12 books off my shelf and challenged myself to read one per month. Award-winning books like Pachinko, important books like The Sympathizer. Literary books. Top-of-the-craft books.

Since January, I’ve finished 10 romance novels, three fantasy fiction, and three books on my Off the Shelf list. Three months into 2021 and I’m 16 books in, which is good, and maybe the diet is working because by this time last year I’d finished 22 romance novels. At this pace, I’ll only finish 40 this year instead of 100.

And just typing that sends me into withdrawal.

What is it about romance? It’s the magnetism. I don’t write romance novels. There’s some love, some sex, in my books. But I’m not writing romance. There’s not usually a Happily Ever After. In my books, what “ever after” there is has been hard won.

But the magnetism. I want characters drawn to one another in that romance-y way. I want them to push one another, test one another, twist each other up and let go. Let. Go. And I want readers to feel the same way. Like they can’t put the book down. Like they’re going to throw it across the room and then chase after it to get One. More. Page.

I want to write the kind of magnetism that emanates from the page, pulls you into the sizzling words, and reads like fizzy Pop Rocks. Like chewy taffy in an addictive twist. And then settles over you like the melt of rich salted caramel in milk chocolate. So, you’re satisfied. Sated. Smiling.

I want to write magnetism. So, I study it. I’m working on my craft. One candy at a time.

PERFECT TIMING

By Kasie Whitener

In a central plot point to Thor: The Dark World, the nine realms align for a single moment and travel between them is made possible. There’s some electro-physics-movie-gobbledy-gook to explain the whole thing. But you get the idea: #Fate #Rare #SinglePointofLight #Fiction

You know how you get the sense that the timing is just right for a specific thing to happen? ::whispers:: I think I might be in one of those electro-physics phenomena right now.

Exhibit A: Last week I had a number of emails exchanged and a couple of phone conversations with a literary agent who is “very impressed” with what I’m doing. She means the radio show, the blog, the work with SCWA, and other sundry writing-related marketing suchness my family affectionately calls mom’s unpaid work.

Exhibit B: The third midday session of SCWA’s Writing Conversations last week was led by Barbara Evers, fantasy writer and chapter lead for Greenville. She taught us how to write “The Perfect Pitch” to prepare for, among other things, running into the perfect agent for our work in a hotel elevator somewhere.

Exhibit C: This past Thursday was #pitmad, that delightful internet funhouse wherein authors attempt to sum up their book in 280 characters and attract an agent who will “like” the pitch and thereby invite a query. (Using the appropriate hashtags on Twitter of course.)

Why do we feel like success must be the work of the cosmos? Why can’t it be the coming together of preparation and opportunity? That sweet spot where everything you’ve done to show your value, your talent, and your commitment leaves you gloriously prepared to answer the question perfectly. Like Final Jeopardy. Who knew there’d be a category on American Authors? It’s a good thing I read all those bestseller lists.

I wouldn’t be such a believer in superstition like universe alignment if my first book hadn’t found its  way to publication in pure serendipity. One Saturday in July, after finishing my radio show with my pal Rex Hurst, I said, “I really should get a book published to show I have some credibility around here.” Two hours later, in the swimming pool at Columbia Country Club, I was introduced to Alexa Bigwarfe. She’s a publisher.

It wasn’t instant. Alexa publishes non-fiction and while we had a lot (A LOT) to talk about, I didn’t think we were a perfect fit or anything. Then we started walking our neighborhood in the mornings and over a few miles each day we got to know one another better and then (boom-shaka-laka) we made a deal.

Publishing is business. And business is relationships. And relationships are not lotteries. You pursue them, forge them, nurture them. That’s how we find success.

So why would I think the universe might just align to put my book in front of the right people? Because when you put your book out there – when you put yourself out there – eventually someone pays attention. Just be sure to use the right hashtags.

GET BACK TO PLAY

By Kasie Whitener

I’m a swimmer. I started early, as a four-year-old on the six-and-under squad of my neighborhood team. When people ask, I say the only thing I’ve been doing longer than swimming is breathing.

I’m a writer. I started that early, too. In third grade I wrote stories about what happened at home after school that made my teacher chuckle and declare I’d be a fiction writer. In seventh grade I wrote my first novel on four spiral notebooks. When people ask, I say the only thing I’ve been doing longer than writing is swimming. And breathing.

I have left the pool for long stretches of time. Months, sometimes years, go by between me picking up the habit and slowly drifting out of it. When I return, I remember how fun it is to dolphin-kick through the deep end, to take that hard thrust off the wall and glide suspended in the quiet for just a moment.

Likewise, there were long periods of time when I didn’t write fiction. In graduate school I focused on literary criticism. My early career was spent developing marketing copy for print media. As a corporate trainer, I wrote process documentation. During my PhD program, I wrote weekly essays connecting ideas I’d read, demonstrating I was learning and understanding concepts. There was a decided purpose to my work, a destination for it, and I got used to writing being task oriented.

For years, stories bunny-hopped over meadowed pages in my mind, ducked behind trees in a sunlit wood, slipped in and out of shadows. The voices were there – Brian the spoiled college kid mourning his best friend’s suicide, Blue the vampire time-traveler falling for Lord Byron’s sister, Maisy Diller the aging rock star returning to her hometown, even Breezy and Sean circling one another like a pair of twin moons. The voices occupy me like permanent residents of a beach motel: ready to play in the sun whenever I am.

Once I began writing with purpose in 2012, I learned what needed to be done to become read-worthy, and the voices lined up dutifully to complete their tasks.

“Make us ready,” they said. “Share us with the world.”

And fiction writing became work. But that is only one frame through which I can see my writing life.

The other frame, shown to me by Derek Berry at last week’s SCWA Writing Conversations session, is: Writing is fun. Writing can be play.

Writing can be where I come, not to bleed on the page or forge a career for myself, but to explore ideas and fantasies and play with sound and smell and taste and feel.

I shouldn’t have to be reminded that I love to write. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. And yet the reminder to enjoy it, to play, was such a surprising relief that I couldn’t wait to get back to the page.

To type this blog and tell you about it.

The Ink Reward

By Kasie Whitener 

The buzz in this room isn’t the only one. Down the hall are two other artists, two more permanent works being stenciled in flesh and blood and ink. 

Are they getting something dark and sinister like skulls or horror movie characters? A naked Madonna standing by the side of the road with a cigarette hanging from her pouty lips like my friend Cory put on his deltoid in 2002? 

What are their stories? What story will I write? 

“I’ve never known anyone named Adam,” says the opening line of my Carrie McCray Award-winning short story "Cover Up." It fictionalizes the first visit to Adam, the artist now leaning over my arm, buzzing needle in hand. 

The narrator, a middle-aged mother and wife, visits a studio to have an old tattoo covered up. A midlife awakening occurs: the excavation of a younger version of herself spawned by the subtle sexuality of trusting someone not her husband in such intimate contact. 

Cover Up, was also part of my second visit with Adam. A year ago, some four years after our first encounter, I found him at a studio called 7 Sins, and asked for a monarch butterfly. 

“She wrote a story about you,” my sister told him. “And it won an award.” 

I emailed it to him. It’s more sexual than I remember. It’s also fiction. But it still made that visit awkward. 

On the inside of my right wrist, connected imagery to my first novel, After December, is a monarch butterfly. I’ve decided to get a series of butterflies from wrist to elbow, one for each published book. 

So here I am, a year later and two more books with ISBNs, marking myself again. Under Adam’s capable hand. His pale green eyes. His smile hidden by the pandemic mask. The intimacy of this encounter more about voices and stories and talking me through the excruciating pain. 

Tattoos hurt. 

“Do you do anything special when you finish a book?” Adam asks. He means a cigar, a good bottle of wine, a weekend vacay. But the answer is no, there’s nothing ritualistic in the writing of stories or the finishing thereof. Only in the publishing. And I’m doing it now. 

“I get tattoos,” I say and wince. “Doesn’t that qualify?” 

“But that’s after publication,” he says. 

In Cover Up, the excavation reminds the narrator about her own corporeal existence. She leaves the tattoo artist’s hands having recaptured a sense that she’s real. Breakable. Not an idea or a job or a title or the sum of her own aspirations. 

Real is being published. Others are buying the book. Reading the book. Taking what I’ve done and letting it change them.

Like a butterfly is a changed caterpillar, publishing is emerging. Existing in the way Word documents and ideas for stories never can. Legitimized not by the effort itself, but by the recognition of that effort as released. 

Two new butterflies joined the first one this year. Titles in flight. Inked and real.

A GOOD PLACE to BE FROM

By Kasie Whitener

 

Hello, again, from my November madness. I’ve been NaNoWriMo-ing since the start of the month when I wrote this cheerful, optimistic blog about what a wonderful waste of time and effort this month will be. 

National Novel Writing Month or the bold attempt to write a full 50,000-word manuscript in 30 days is that delightful annual insanity that, like a military academy, is not a good place to be, but a good place to be from. 

“Follow me on this metaphor, will ya?” she asked, her voice muffled by the closed door. 

In the beginning, you’re thrilled at the possibilities. New characters! New settings! New drama and details! Hooray! 

As the novel swells and the crushing requirement of discipline is realized, you begin to doubt the merits of the idea. Not just the NaNo experience, but the novel itself. Is the premise strong enough to make it 50,000 words? Will people grow tired of my protagonist? Where is this plot even going? 

Toward the end, that period of systemically induced fatigue when you just want it to be over, when graduation is within view, but the pillowcases stained with tears and callused-over blisters hardly seem worth it, you bear down harder. 

“You’re the only one here,” she whispered. “You must help us escape.” 

Stephen King said to write the first draft behind closed doors and maybe that’s why I love NaNoWriMo. It’s the perfect excuse to lock myself in the asylum… er… institute. 

For over a year, I have struggled with writing my second novel, Before Pittsburgh, because I brought each scene as it was written to my writing group. Loving, supportive people though they are, the full novel was not envisioned let alone finished. Today, I’m ninety days from publication and Before Pittsburgh still feels broken and in need of serious repair. 

But the NaNo projects, all six of them, feel like five-dollar bills stuffed in the pockets of winter coats. They are all drafts and the beauty of a draft is that it can wait forever for its turn at revision. 

I love the frenzy of NaNo specifically because I know what I’m building doesn’t have to make any sense, or ever even see the light of day. My fingers fly over the keyboard crafting smallish scenes – 1200 to 2000 words at the time, meeting a daily word count goal and moving characters like strategic troop alignments. 

At the end of November, I’m a different kind of writer. One that perseveres. That that revels in creation but is scientific about revision. And revision comes later. Much later if my NaNo history is to be believed. 

In these last few days, when I’ve fallen so far behind in my wordcount as to need a serious effort (or a miracle) to complete the challenge, I know NaNoWriMo isn’t a great place to be, but it’s a great place to be from. Having generated, in that uncalculated frenzy, the first draft. Another winner. 

“And the fifth-in-line for revision,” she says, peeking out of her padded cell. “Queue ‘Taps’.”

  

GET BACK in the GAME: NaNoWriMo STARTS TODAY

By Kasie Whitener 

It’s that time of year again! November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for those of us in the know, and all over the country writers of every stripe are preparing to dedicate 30 days to generating 50,000 words. 

Of mostly unusable garbage. 

In repeated conversations on our radio show, Write On SC, Rex Hurst and I have discussed the merits and risks of NaNoWriMo. Specifically, that it’s a great habit-building exercise. Every year when November rolls around, I look forward to getting back to the habit of writing every day. But NaNo is such a frenzy and the goal of getting to 50,000 words is so difficult, that a lot of what I write will probably not be any good. 

I’ve completed five NaNoWriMo projects, getting to the 50k mark with four of them, and so far, none have become viable. 

I did take my original project, a vampire novel called “Seduction of an Innocent” – yeah, I know, terrible title – and use it as base stock to cook up Being Blue. This novel should have been my first one. I queried it, approached agents with it, even considered self-publishing it. But it’s still not ready. That was 2012. 

Last year, I tried my hand at romance. Listeners of the show know I binge read romance novels, sometimes as many as five per week, and yet that’s the only NaNo project I failed to finish in November. When I did finally stretch the pitiful work I’d done to its conclusion and gave it to a few beta readers in April, I swiftly tucked the 60,000-words-of-wishful-thinking into the proverbial drawer. Where it shall remain. I heard crickets from the betas which should tell you something about the merits of that work. 

In any case, I plan to try my hand at NaNo again this year and I’m excited (again!) at the prospect of playing the game. I’m a “pantser” in that I write by the seat of my pants beginning only with a general idea of where I want to end up. It’s usually a scene in my head, a concept, that I’ll chase all month, attacking it with a variety of word weapons. 

Instead of NaNo being a productive time for me, it’s more like an extended freewrite. An unscripted game in which I play, 2000-words at a time, scenes that are swirling around in my head. The dull scenes. The breakfast scenes. The ones that a writer needs to know but that never make it to the reader’s view. 

From those scenes, I’ll plan the novel. I’ll ask what I really want the book to be about. What story am I really trying to tell? I’ll decide what research I need and what books I should read to get me ready to really write that story. Then I’ll write it. 

NaNoWriMo is, for me, about two things: 1) getting back to practicing every day, and 2) establishing rules for the new literary project. Game on!

THE MAGICAL DAY KNOWN as #PITMAD

By Kasie Whitener 

This past Thursday was #PitMad. Not sure what language that is? It’s Twitter speak and the “#” is called a “hashtag.” When put before a word or phrase, the hashtag connects tweets from unrelated users into a single conversation.

 

When we use the hashtag in a tweet, we are making our tweet visible to anyone who looks at the hashtag. This is as close as Twitter comes to a magic wand. If you’re watching a football game and go to Twitter to read tweets with the hashtag #CLEMvsOSU you’ll find conversations (tweets) about the NCAA playoff football game last December between Clemson and Ohio State University.

 

In the writing world, hashtags are used for a few different purposes: 1) to organize an event such as #wschat or #LitChat, 2) to identify genre such as #YA or relevant character groups such as #LGBTQ, and 3) to create communities of writers such as #WritingCommunity and #amwriting.

 

Writers are all over Twitter and for the most part, they’re friendly, supportive, and enthusiastic. During events like #PitMad, writers are given the chance to bridge the divide between their own wild ambition and the gatekeepers. Agents read #PitMad. Publishers troll #PitMad, too. (Troll like in the boating use of the word, not the hideous online bullying.)

 

Sponsored by PitchWars.org, the #PitMad event is a single day during which writers are encouraged to tweet the pitch for their manuscript complete with comparable titles and relevant hashtags. A few examples:

 

@Lydia_Writing tweeted:

Dee can't stop talking to her dead ex-boyfriend, Cam. When Cam's siblings recruit her to help clean out his apartment, she fears that grief might just be driving all of them mad. Little do they know that a messy apartment isn't the only thing Cam left behind. #PitMad #WF

 

@EvelynHail tweeted:

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE + LOST IN TRANSLATION Two commuters. Two trains. Iris and Evan randomly see each other through the ups and downs of a year, misunderstanding the other's gestures. Still, a bond forms. Once they realize it, time is running out. #pitmad #A #R #RS #HA

 

Lydia received 14 “likes” and Evelyn earned 20 and this is where #PitMad works its magic. Those “likes” – signified by a reader clicking the heart icon on the tweet – are supposed to be from Agents. Those agents are saying they want the writer to send them a query. Sometimes people who don’t know what #PitMad is will like the tweet, so that might not be 14 agents asking Lydia for a query, but it might be.

 

The regular querying rules apply and writers should visit the agent’s site get that query letter instruction. But #PitMad opens the door. It’s yet another channel for writers to reach agents who might be able to shepherd their work to publication.

 

I didn’t participate in #PitMad this week but I learned a lot: what agents want, what people are writing, and what makes a good pitch. Query on!