legal thriller Archives - L.J. Taylor Books

2013 San Francisco Writers Conference

Posted on March 11, 2013November 3, 2014 by LJ

So last month I hopped a five hour flight to San Francisco to attend the 2013 San Francisco Writers Conference. It was my second time attending the conference and I must say that the experience was well worth the time and money.

The conference had great seminars, inspirational speakers, fantastic networking opportunities and, for those seeking publication, lots of access to agents and editors.

One of the best features of the conference is that each attendee is allowed two short consultations with an independent editor as part of the conference fee. You could use that time to get feedback on your book pitch or a critique of the first few pages of your novel. You could even ask about the market for your book.

I found the independent editor consultations at the San Francisco Writers Conference to be an invaluable resource. I asked one editor to read the first few pages of my suspense novel and provide me with feedback. She loved how I began the book and the storyline. She also let me know that there was definitely a market for the book and a real possibility that it would be made be made into a movie. Needless to say, I was on top of the world after that consultation and oh so inspired.

My consultation with the second editor was not so positive or inspiring. I asked her to look at the first few pages of my legal thriller and she told me the same thing the agents who've been sending me rejection letters said: the book starts off too slow, in the wrong place and my opening scene tells the reader very little about the heroine (i.e. inadequate character development).

At first she said that I need to rework the first chapter, but when I told her about the comments I've been receiving from agents, she said that I probably needed to rework the entire book to make it more character driven. That was the last thing I wanted to hear since I had already revised the book and thought I was done with it.

The independent editor's advice to rework my legal thriller was reinforced by a seminar on characterization that I took the next morning. During the seminar, Ellen Sussman, the author of French Lessons, told us about how she once drafted an entire novel that was plot-driven instead of character-driven, and that her character development suffered as a result. I asked her what she did to fix the book. She said that she re-wrote the entire book from scratch and it came out ten times better than it was before.

I was horrified. The idea of rewriting my 330 page suspense novel made me want to run out of the room screaming. I now understood why some writers prefer to scrap whole projects and start new ones rather than do extensive revisions. The lawyer in me kept looking for a shortcut or a loophole – anything to avoid completely rewriting the book. To tell the truth, I'm still looking for an easier way to fix the character development issue without having to rewrite the entire book. The task is so daunting to me that I haven't begun the rewrite. In fact, I've done no writing at all since the conference. But I will. I want to get this bad boy published and I want it to sell, so I will do whatever I have to do to get the job done right.

The rest of the conference was both fruitful and fun. I read a couple of poems aloud at the open-mic session. I consulted with editors of large publishing houses regarding my suspense novel during the Ask-A-Pro session. They liked both my pitch and my story idea. One editor even agreed to review a portion of the manuscript and consider it for publication. I attended some great seminars about self-publishing and am seriously considering it for my Brooks Sisters' series.

All in all, I'm glad that I attended the conference. I learned a great deal, re-connected with old friends, recharged my batteries and came back with some great marketing ideas.

Maybe I'll see you at the conference next year.

Peace

What Writers Can Learn From Rejection

Posted on June 12, 2012November 3, 2014 by LJ

I'm baaaack! I took a little hiatus to work on some non-writing goals, but I'm back baby and more fired up than ever.

Okay, so I got kicked out of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Contest during the pitch stage and two of the three e-publishers that requested to see excerpts of my legal thriller have rejected it. I could sink into a funk, throw in the towel, and stop writing, or I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and see whether I can learn something from this experience.

As writers, we get a lot of rejection – whether it's a less than thrilling grade from a professor, a form rejection letter from an agent or editor, or a bad review of a published work. Chances are that if you submit your work to public scrutiny and/or try to get it published, you will withstand a fair amount of rejection along the way. They say that, to survive in this business, we must learn to be thick-skinned, to roll with the punches and to never give up.

In his book “On Writing” Stephen King tells us that we should be ready to paper our walls with rejection letters until we get that one shot. In fact, he literally did that. I don't know . . . that would take up a lot of wall space and mess with my decor.

The thing is that not all rejections are created equal and the reasons for rejection vary. Your work might be rejected because you didn't properly research an agent or editor and they might not represent the type of book you wrote. You might get rejected because the type of book you wrote is not hot in the market at this time or the agency or publishing house already represents or has books by competing authors in your genre. You might get rejected because you didn't do a good job of pitching or describing the story or your target market or because your prose or your storyline or your writing is not up to the standards of a particular agent or editor. You might be a fine writer and/or storyteller but your storyline might not excite or inspire an agent or editor to want to sign you up or publish your work.

The types of rejections you get vary as well. Sometimes you get a form e-mail or letter simply stating that your work is not a good fit for that agency or publishing house, sometimes you get very detailed editorial comments, and sometimes you just get radio silence. I seemed to have progressed from getting form rejections letters to getting very detailed comments on my excerpts from editors and agents alike. That tells me that I'm close to finding the one (agent and/or editor) according to the tales told by successful novelists concerning their breakthroughs.

Sometimes, we can actually learn something from rejection. In my last rejection letter, the editor told me some of the same things I had heard from my beta readers – that my book has too much legalese in it which threw her out of the story and that it started too slowly after the action- packed prologue. So what did I learn from that? I learned that I should listen to my beta readers and edit the beginning of the book to move it along. The legalese and a couple of unnecessary scenes are slowing the book down. Apparently, it takes flight after page 50 where the only legal scenes take place in the courtroom (as opposed to in the law firm) and are more dramatic.

Sometimes, you have to take some of the editorial advice you get with a grain of salt. One editor, in her rejection letter, told me that she didn't like the fact that my hero was suing for the death of his wife and child and yet was attracted to his very sexy attorney. All of my beta readers (with one notable exception) had no problem with that whatsoever. They felt that almost two years was enough time for him to be ready to move on even though he was in the process of seeking revenge against the company that caused the death of his family. If it was a romantic suspense novel (as opposed to being a legal thriller with strong romantic elements), I might have to rethink that storyline since romance readers might be more sensitive to that issue. But I seem to be making more progress now that I've stopped trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I do not write romance novels. Period. 🙂

What did I learn from being kicked out of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Contest at the pitch stage? That I probably shouldn't have put a line as asinine as: “This book is a legal thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat” in my pitch. Oh well, I'll do better next year.

In the meantime, I have a legal thriller to edit and send out to more agents and editors, another thriller to rework, and a political suspense novel to edit and get ready to pitch at Thrillerfest next month.

Giving up is not in my DNA. I bet it's not in yours either.

Peace.

Romance Writers of America’s Annual Conference 2011

Posted on July 22, 2011 by LJ

Most people who take a vacation head to the beach or go on a cruise or attend theme parks with their children or go to visit their families. I headed off to attend two writers conferences in New York City and killed two birds with one stone by spending time with my family over the Fourth of July holiday. The first conference I attended was Romance Writers of America's (RWA) 31st Annual Conference which was held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. First, let me say that it was a fabulous location – right in the midst of the madness as I like to say. I love New York for many reasons not the least of which is that you could get all kinds of food there – whether you go out to a restaurant to eat with friends or order it delivered to your hotel room while you feverishly work on your pitch for your novel. But I digress.

This was the second RWA annual conference I've attended. The first time was last year in Orlando, Florida. At that time, I was amazed at the quality and proficiency of the seminar programming, the networking and the inspiration I received from the speakers which included one of my personal idols – Nora Roberts. This time, I was equally impressed. The speakers at the conference included best-selling novelists such as Madeline Hunter, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Steve Berry and Tess Gerritsen – the author of the novels that inspired one of my favorite television shows – Rizzoli & Isles.

The first thing I did when I got to the hotel was drop my bags in my room, register and race into the keynote luncheon where I caught some of Madeline Hunter's keynote address. She talked about her journey to publication, trends in the industry and what it takes to be a writer. Her speech was very inspirational to say the least. Fired up, I next headed to the PRO Retreat. You see, once you've submitted your manuscript to an agent or editor and are rejected, you qualify to advance to the level of PRO membership in the RWA. I am now a card-carrying member of that club.

The PRO retreat is a series of workshops designed to get RWA members who are serious about and ready to get published over the hurdles they face on their way. Once a member gets published, they rise to the level of PAN (Published Author Network) membership in the RWA. The PRO retreat offered a wealth of information, great opportunities for networking with other writers at the same stage as me and great raffle prizes. I won a free critique of the first 25 pages of my novel by a published author. That will prove invaluable to me since most agents and editors decide, based on the first few chapters, whether they're interested in reviewing the rest of a manuscript.

The next day I pitched my romance novel to an agent and an editor. The editor wasn't all that interested because my book is a romantic suspense/legal thriller she thought would be best suited for another division of her publishing company headed by another editor. However, the agent – a well-known and highly respected player in the industry – seemed excited about the storyline and requested to see a portion of the manuscript and a synopsis.

While at the conference, I attended a series of well-designed and informative seminars on everything from the writers craft to the writers market to the writers life, including, but not limited to, seminars on how to write better sex scenes, advice from the pros on the romantic suspense market, how to turn rejection (of your manuscript) into an advantage, how to write better dialogue, etc. One of the best seminars I attended, however, was given by Candace Havens – a bestselling author and writing guru – called “Fast Draft: How to Write Your First Draft in Two Weeks.” If you thought National November Writing Month a/k/a Nanowrimo (where you draft a 50,000 word novel in 30 days during the month of November) was a whirlwind experience, Fast Draft is like a hurricane by comparison.

In Fast Draft, you create a first draft of a 280 page novel (70,000) words in 14 days (20 pages a day). She says it takes about three hours a day to do. After you finish your first draft, you take a break (usually two weeks) and then edit the novel into something that is publishable. You can do this any time of year with the help of a few fellow authors to provide support either online or in person if they live in your area. Candace Havens used the Fast Draft technique as a way to be more prolific as an author at a time when she had a very demanding 60 hour per week day job. I plan to give Fast Draft a try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Since there were more seminars I wanted to take but couldn't get to, I ordered the conference CD's which will have mp3 files of all the seminars, panels and speeches presented at the conference for $99.00. I am sure that will prove to be invaluable.

Did you attend the RWA annual conference this year? If so, how was your experience? Have any questions about the conference? Ask them and I will be sure to answer.

Peace