Pick your favorite sport. If you don’t have a favorite sport, switch this analogy to acting or music. If none those apply, stop reading and check your pulse.
Now imagine you’re trying out for a spot on a pro roster, or the pro tour. Or auditioning for a movie. Or a seat with the local symphony.
In other words, you’re on the cusp of making your dearest dream come true. You’re going for it, damn it, and nothing can stop you now.
The place is filled with others just like you, with the same dream and the same passionate depth of preparation, and they all appear to be pretty good athletes, actors or tuba players.
Someone who looks important walks by, clipboard in hand. And you ask them, “hey, excuse me, but what do I have to do to make it around here? What will allow me stand out among this crowd of wannabes?”
The Someone Who Looks Important regards you for a moment, a little suspiciously you fear, and says, “just blow me away. That’s all you have to do. Be the best player in the room.”
Then, a few minutes later it hits you. Everybody at the tryout or the audition is, in fact, really, really good at what they do.
Now switch this analogous horror story to getting published. To the process of getting someone to buy your book or screenplay. And then let me tell you what’s different, and what’s the same, about that scenario.
First, the good news.
Not everybody who submits a manuscript for publication is really good at what they do. But nearly all of them are good at some aspect of writing a story.
Or they wouldn’t be fooling themselves into thinking they had a shot.
Now for the not so good news.
The writer who lands a contract will be very, very good… and at all of aspects of the craft. Which in this case, amounts to six separate attributes or skill sets, what I call the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling.
And they’ll be other-worldly amazing, best-thing-the-editor-has-seen-in-a-decade phenomenal, in at least one of them.
Hear this clearly – being stellar in five out of six of the core competencies isn’t good enough. In all likelihood it won’t get you published.
And hear this just as clearly – being stellar at all six of them may not, either.
Here are a few facts about the getting published proposition.
- How well you write, i.e., your beautiful, poetic, intoxicating prose, has almost nothing at all to do with your chances of selling your story. Because the operative word of this truth is, in fact, story.
- Good, even great writers are everywhere. A dime a dozen. But an amazing story, well told… that’s what they’re looking for.
- You are not competing for the next slot on the release docket with established authors, certainly not the names you’re familiar with, those bestselling writers that, in the darkest corner of your most private self, you truly believe aren’t as good as you are. Those authors have a completely different publishing paradigm, with different criteria.
Whoever said life isn’t fair worked in the publishing business.
- Fact is, their bar is lower than yours. Which means, what you believe about how you compare to them is half right — you need to be better than they are.
- Great stories get rejected on a daily basis. You can expect your story to be one of them. Which means, your ability to be persistent and strategic in the process of marketing your work is every bit as critical as the quality of the work itself. There is a long list of factors that don’t relate to the quality of a manuscript that contribute toward its destiny, and you have control over virtually none of them.
- Publishers aren’t looking for another good book. They’re looking for the next home run.
Idealistic as you may be, publishers are looking to make money off you. The commercial viability of your work is by far the number one variable that they evaluate, and the essence of what they will compare to other manuscripts.
Even if the submissions editor reading your manuscript has a degree in comparative literature from Oxford, she’s being held accountable for recommending the next blockbuster to her Senior Editor, whose job depends on it. Everybody’s looking for something the marketing suits can wrap their greasy little heads around.
You have control over only two things.
First, your manuscript. Your story. How well it competes is completely within your control.
And make no mistake, this is a competition. If there’s only one slot in a publisher’s calendar, and they receive ten stellar submissions, nine of them will get rejected.
The other is the effort, the strategy, that you apply to the process of getting published. Because if you don’t show up at the audition, and if it isn’t the right audition, all that work on your masterpiece will have been for nothing.
Unless publishing it wasn’t your goal in the first place. In that case, do whatever makes you happy.
The Best Way to Stand Out in this Crowd
Of those six core competencies, one of them stands above the others as your best chance at hitting a home run.
Think you know? Do your lit-class sensibilities tell you that it’s character? Does the feedback from your writing group, which raves about your abundant talent, tell you that it’s writing voice? Did you read my ebook on Story Structure and now believe that it’s the differentiating factor in publishable versus non-publishable work?
All of those are wonderful – and absolutely necessary – attributes to bring to your story. And they may very well be the single thing that looks a lot like a home run.
But probably not. They’re like an athlete’s ability to run and chew bubble gum at the same time. They’re not differentiators, they’re baseline expectations.
The thing what will make your story stand out, first and foremost, is a killer idea.
A ground-breaking, breath-taking, totally original, oh-my-god concept.
Chances are nobody really wants to read a novelization of your grandmother’s life growing up in rural Iowa. Let’s just say that if John Grisham had tried to break in with A Painted House (in my opinion his best novel, by far), he’d still be schlepping his self-published books from the trunk of an ’89 Buick between court dates as a practicing attorney.
Because that idea wasn’t a home run. Remember when I said a moment ago that famous authors have a different set of rules than the rest of us? The thing that swung open the gates of opportunity for that book, which was a bestseller, was his name.
We don’t have that going for us.
What we need, in addition to five other core competencies that are beyond doubt, is a killer story idea.
What’s a killer idea or concept?
That depends on your genre, which defines the expectations and parameters that agents and editors will apply to the work.
If you’re writing a thriller, give us Silence of the Lambs.
If you’re writing speculative fiction, give us The Davinci Code.
If you’re writing science fiction, give us The Left Hand of Darkness.
If you’re writing commercial literature with no boundaries, give us The Stand.
If you’re writing crime fiction, give us something that will make Michael Connelly send you fan mail.
Go back to that dark little corner of your heart again, the one that truly believes you can give Stephen King a run for his endless money, and ask yourself: is my story idea worthy of my vast talent? Will an agent break out their iPhone mid-read to call their favorite editor to set up a meeting to pitch your manuscript? Will an editor risk the wrath of their devil-wears-Hilfiger Publisher to recommend your masterpiece, even though your name means zilch in the industry?
Only you know that answer to that. And if you don’t know, then – buck up for the truth here, folks – then that’s your answer.
Because if you have that story on your hands, you’ll know.
Your story idea is your best asset, no matter how well you write, no matter how compelling your characters or rich your themes.
Because flashy characters and evocative themes are everywhere at this literary audition. And the talent of that writer next to you, well, don’t ask, it might make you nervous. Better that you don’t know.
You need to beat her or him with a better idea.
So give yourself the best chance possible. Spend your time, devote your heart and soul, a significant chunk of your life, to a story idea that is worthy. Write something that you believe will change your life, if not the lives of those who read you.
Find something to die for. And then live for it.
Because that’s what it takes. That’s how you get published these days.
Next up – Part 3: Harnessing the Power of The Six Core Competencies
Legal fine print: I am an affiliate marketer for Amazon. Which means — I confess — if you click through the link above and buy “A Painted House,” I’ll make enough pennies to pay the sales tax on a scone from Starbucks.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
This is vital to understand in order to succeed as a fiction writer. I was at a convention recently and the editor guest of honor said, “it isn’t enough to be good, be brilliant.” Meaning, be a brilliant storyteller. Funny how we all get obsessed on becoming a brilliant writer, and often forget that it’s really all about story.
Developing that sense for the killer idea seems hard, but it’s necessary. I appreciate your focus on this. Is there one technique or tip you have on identifying that killer idea? (Reading widely and recently certainly helps me, and knowing what one likes as a reader — as you mentioned in 101 Tips–is very important.)
Thanks as always for these posts!
L.B “I’m always amazed at how you can write a post or series of posts just when I need them.”
My writing career is just beginning to take off and I find myself on the precipice, I’ve struggled and am still struggling with that immortal question. “Am I good enough?” It seems to be the question that most of my life I’ve asked myself… and admittedly I’ve stood in my own way many times when I’ve had an opportunity. I’ve gone up and down left and right, asking my friends and family looking for some kind of pat on the back or encouragement.
But in the end none of it really mattered. So I thought…. I pulled my hair and screamed to the heavens……….and in then I reread my manuscript. I hadn’t done it in over a month because I’ve been working on a new one. I looked at it with fresh eyes and an open mind. I realized that my first instinct was right. I am good enough, and even if my first book isn’t a best seller. My next one will be.
I nearly fell prey to that fear in the back of my mind because what I thought about getting published turned out to be harder than I thought. That I didn’t get the “Oh my god you’re amazing!” on my first manuscript. But when I thought about how hard it is. How many writers get rejected many times before ever getting published once…..I realized that life isn’t always just how you want. But if you’re willing to work at it. You can make your dreams come true.
Ah, man. I know I need to hear this, but I don’t really want to hear this? I’m in the query process and like the previous commenter, am in a constant state of wondering if I’m good enough. I don’t think I am. Yet.
@Sara – to stick with my analogy here in this response to your comment… not every new player wins the first tournament they enter. Nobody does, in fact. Very few writers sell their first book, fewer still on the first submission. So while it is indeed daunting, you need to submit to the process and hang in there. You’re stuck with these odds, but anyone who has published has found a way to beat them, eventually. You get to decide if that will be you. When that will happen, hard to say. Impossible to say, in fact. But as long as you’re growing your craft, rather than spinning your wheels with the same level of understanding and execution, you’ll keep moving toward that goal.
Read, study, write, repeat. That’s the formula. Because after the “study” and “write” middle parts of that equation — most writers forget the “study” and just think they can “write” their way into print… probably not — the next time you come back to the “read” part you’ll begin to notice things about stories that you never have before, and from that new awareness you are then able to instill little touches, artful nuance, based on your evolved and enlightened understanding (yes, there’s more going in within a successful story than a casual reader is even aware of), into what you write next. And on it goes, a cycle of growth, that will eventually lead you to the point at which your story, and you, are both “good enough.”
To expect to conquer such a huge obstacle on one’s first try… frustrating. To work hard, using this formula, toward the point where it’s actually possible… priceless.
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