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The Question Nobody is Asking

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in Fiction Writing

I read a book review once which began, “This book answers a question nobody is asking.” The reviewer thought that was a bad thing. He thought he was trashing the book. 

But in reality, that was quite an endorsement. If you want to make a difference in the world, you need to begin by asking a question nobody is asking. 

That’s not enough, of course. Questions are easy to ask. Anybody can ask a hard question. Anybody can ask an unanswerable question. Children do it all the time.

Progress happens when you ask a question nobody is asking, but which can finally be answered at this stage in human history, because we now know enough to tackle the question.

In 1903, the Wright brothers were asking how to get a machine to fly when it was heavier than air. A couple of years later, Einstein was asking what if the speed of light had the same value in all reference frames. (In both cases, I’m simplifying things a bit. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but not much more complicated.)

Every Novel Has a “What If?” Question

This matters for novelists because at the heart of every novel is a question. A “what if?” question. 

Most novels use a familiar “what if?” question that has been asked and answered many times before.

But the really ground-breaking novels ask a “what if?” question that is new. 

It’s easy to ask a familiar “what if?” question. When you do, you get a familiar novel. 

It’s also easy to ask an utterly unfamiliar “what if?” question that is too weird for words. When you do, you get a novel nobody wants to read. 

The tricky thing is to ask a “what if?” question that is just right. Not completely familiar. Not ridiculously bizarre. Just right. 

A Little Exercise For You

  • Make a list of some of your favorite novels. 
  • For each novel, what’s the “what if?” question the novel asked? 
  • In what way is that “what if?” question familiar—just like many other novels that came before it?
  • In what way is that “what if?” question unfamiliar—unlike any other novel that came before it?

I hope this is helpful to you in working on your next novel. 

The 80/20 Rule And Novelists

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in Career Management

I got interested in the 80/20 rule more than 10 years ago, when Amazon added a feature to their Author Central site that showed each author how they ranked among all the other authors. I immediately realized that this revealed exceptional insights about the earnings of all published authors. (Amazon removed this feature after a few years, maybe because they realized that it gave away more information than they had intended.) 

How could this feature give away “too much information”? Because sales of books follow (approximately) the 80/20 Rule: about 80% of the money is earned by the top 20% of all authors. And the 80/20 Rule is “recursive,” meaning that 80% of 80% of the money is earned by the top 20% of the top 20%. Doing the math, that means that 64% of the money goes to 4% of the authors. 

And likewise, 80% of 80% of 80% of the money goes to the top 20% of the top 20% of the top 20% of authors. Doing the math again, that means that 51.2% of the money goes into the pockets of the top 0.8% of authors. Or, if you want to round those numbers slightly, the top 1% of all authors get about half the money. 

If that sounds like something Bernie Sanders would say, all I can say is that you don’t have be a socialist to acknowledge the simple fact that this is reality. There are deep mathematical reasons for this, and it’s the way markets work. 

If you’re still wondering how this could be “too much information,” I’ll refer you to a blog post I wrote a few years ago that showed how much information you can extract from a single data point. Based on one piece of information Amazon revealed, I derived a mathematical formula to estimate the number of authors who sold at least X books per year. Just plug in X and you get out a very good approximation. That formula was valid in 2014. The formula for our current year would be somewhat different, but not very different. Because the 80/20 rule is a good approximation to reality. 

Is the 80/20 Rule Bad News?

A lot of writers see the 80/20 rule as terrible news. They would summarize the situation as this: “There are a few big winners and a lot of big losers.”

I don’t see it that way. For starters, there are a fair number of people who earn a decent amount of money from their writing. Yes, only a very few earn millions. But many, many authors earn thousands or tens of thousands. And quite a few earn hundreds of thousands. That’s not bad news. That’s good news. It’s possible to get paid well for your writing. 

But there’s better news. The 80/20 rule applies to many different aspects of life. One place where the 80/20 rule probably applies is my famous Snowflake Method. A small number of words can summarize most of the design of a novel. A small amount of design work can provide the blueprint for most of your novel. 

But for this blog post, I’m going to focus on how the 80/20 rule applies to another aspect of life that’s important to all of us—learning new stuff.

An example is in order.

The 80/20 Rule In Learning a New Language

Let’s say you decide you want to learn a new language. As a random example, suppose you decide to learn German. A quick search of the web tells me that there are more than 300,000 words in one standard reference book. 

That sounds overwhelming. How could you ever learn 300,000 words? It would take a lifetime. 

Yes, it would take a lifetime, but I guarantee you that most native German speakers don’t know all those words. The reason is because some words are more common than others. Some German words are extremely common, and others hardly ever get used. 

And the 80/20 rule is a very good estimator for how many words are super common. 20% of the words get used about 80% of the time. The calculation I did above applies here. 1% of the words get used about 50% of the time. 

So if you learned the 3000 most common German words, you’d be able to understand half the words you come across in a typical German document. 

In fact, it gets better than that. If you run the calculation out a bit further, you’ll see that by learning just the 100 most common German words, you’d be able to understand about a third of the words you find in a typical German document. 

That’s actually pretty amazing. You could learn 100 words in a week. And you’d be able to read a German newspaper and see those words all over the place. Even with that very limited vocabulary, you might be able to get the drift of an article. 

Of course, you wouldn’t understand everything. But you’d understand something. And then if you take several more weeks and expand your vocabulary out to 500 words, you’d be able to understand about 41% of the words in a typical German document. That’s amazing! 

No, you wouldn’t understand the whole German language. Yes, you would be able to get along if you suddenly found yourself in a random place in Germany. (Actually, since a great many Germans speak excellent English, you’d probably be fine, even if you spoke no German. But why would you want them to have all the fun of speaking a foreign language, when you could have some of that fun yourself?)

The 80/20 Rule in Learning Anything

The 80/20 rule applies to learning just about anything. If you learn the 1% of the concepts in any field that are most commonly used, you can get a grasp of about half of what gets said in that field. I must emphasize that you won’t have a complete grasp. You’ll have a very incomplete grasp. But you’ll understand it surprisingly well, and that has value.  

As a practical example, you can learn the absolute basics of Photoshop by watching a one-hour tutorial on YouTube. You won’t be a great graphic designer after one hour. But you’ll be able to open somebody else’s amazing Photoshop file and see how they put it together. And you’ll be able to make at least some simple tweaks to it—fix a spelling error, or adjust the colors, or swap out a logo. And that could be extremely useful to you. 

But A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing, Right?

You might be thinking that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and therefore it’s dumb to learn just a little about a subject. 

I don’t agree. It’s dumb to learn just a little about a subject and then imagine that you’re an expert. Ask me about the arguments I’ve had with ignorant people who thought they knew more physics than me because they watched some YouTube video for an hour. 

If you only know 1% of a subject, then you only know 1% of that subject. There’s no way to change that. But if you maintain your humility and remember that you only know the basics, you can easily stay out of trouble. The people who get in trouble are the ones who think that knowing 1% makes them an expert. Do a search sometime for the phrase “Dunning-Kruger Effect” to see how common that is. 

So why should you learn that 1%? Because knowing 1% gives you the ability to talk to an expert and ask intelligent quetions that few other people would even think to ask. And when you’re doing research for a novel, the ability to pick an expert’s mind is gold. 

There are experts out there who would be happy to help you figure out something for your novel. Maybe they’ve spent a lifetime studying a particular subject. And you come to them and say, “Look, I’m a complete novice in your subject, but I’ve got this question….” And then you ask something that proves you took the trouble to learn even a tiny bit about their subject. 

Most experts will be thrilled to see that you took that trouble. Most experts will go the second mile in giving you their insights, once they see that you cared enough to learn even 1% of their subject. 

That’s why you might consider becoming a 1% novice. You can’t possibly spend a lifetime on every subject that interests you. But you could spend a month to become a 1% novice. And knowing a little about a lot of things can be valuable. 

Your Best Writing Conference Ever

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in Writing Conferences

You might have heard that a writing conference is the best place you can possibly go to make the connections you need to succeed as an author. 

I’ve said this many times, and it’s absolutely true. There is no better investment you can make in your writing career than to go to a writing conference. 

But you might have heard other writers with a different opinion. Here are some of the things you might have heard:

  • “I went to a writing conference and it was awful. The editors and agents all stuck to themselves, and all the writers were novices who knew absolutely nothing. It was a complete waste of time and money.”
  • “I went to a conference and I felt so intimidated, I spent the whole time crying in my room. The food was worse than rat poison, and nobody was at all friendly. I hated every minute.”
  • “I made appointments with 2 editors and 2 agents at a conference. The agents shot me down and the editors both asked me to send them something, but then I didn’t hear anything for 6 months. When they finally contacted me, they sent form rejections. The whole thing was pointless.”

Yes, Bad Things Happen at Conferences

It’s true that bad things happen at conferences. Those terrible experiences I listed above really happened to real people. Not just once. Not just a hundred times. They’ve happened to tens of thousands of writers. 

But great things happen at conferences too. Of my 5 closest friends outside my family, I met 2 at writing conferences, I met a 3rd through 1 of those 2, and I met a 4th through a writer’s email loop that I learned about at a conference. (I do have 1 close friend I met at work, so not all my friends are writers.) 

And I have hundreds of friends I met at conferences. Yes, hundreds. They’re not all super close, but I’ve shared good times with each of them, eating meals, talking fiction, hanging out at the bar. (I’m famous for always ordering milk, but most of my friends can’t handle such strong drink and have to settle for something with alcohol in it.)

But yeah, I’ve been to conferences where I felt incredibly intimidated. I’ve been to conferences where it was super hard to get access to the editors and agents. I’ve been to conferences with awful food. I’ve been to conferences where every agent or editor I talked to wasn’t interested in my writing.

But every single conference I’ve ever been to has been a great experience. And I’ve left most of them thinking, “Wow, that was the best conference ever!”

What Makes A Great Conference Experience?

You may be thinking that I must be taking some sort of happy-chemical to make me think awful conferences are actually great. 

Sorry, I don’t. Great conference experiences don’t come out of a pharmacy. 

Great conference experiences come from aligning your expectations with reality and then acting appropriately. 

Here are the 3 realities of a writing conference:

  • All the editors and agents are overwhelmed with a flood of wannabe writers trying every possible trick to get their foot in the door. Which means that every agent and editor is playing defense every second, just to keep their sanity. They literally have to be on guard against manuscripts being shoved under the door of the bathroom stall. 
  • Most of the writers are at their very first conference. They are scared to death of the editors and agents, but at the same time, they’ve been told that this is their one chance to “network” with these bigshots and make a good impression. And they are intimidated by all the other writers, because they see other writers as the competition in a zero-sum game. 
  • A few people at conferences are seasoned writers who’ve been to a number of conferences and know some of the editors and agents. In fact, the editors and agents welcome talking to these writers because these writers are not acting desperate. 

Here’s the secret to having a great experience at a writing conference: Make friends with writers you resonate with. 

Yes, it’s really that simple. And yes, I said to put your focus on other writers. You will eventually also make friends with editors and agents, but that can take a few conferences, and it takes some luck. Whereas making friends with other writers is a sure thing.

So How Do You Make Friends With Writers?

You can make friends with writers in many ways. Here are a few:

  • Ask another writer what sort of fiction they write and then ask intelligent questions about it. 
  • Ask another writer how their writing career is going. They will tell you it’s not going well and will explain at length what’s wrong. If you know something that might advance their career, tell them. Expect nothing in return.  
  • If you see somebody who looks miserable, take the time to talk to them and see if there’s anything you can do to help. 

Your goal here is not to use other writers to advance your career. If you go in with that kind of attitude, other writers will see through you right away. Don’t be That Writer.

Your goal is to be a decent human being who helps others with no expectation of any kind of reward. 

I guarantee that if you talk to even 10 people at a conference with the goal of helping them, 1 of them will resonate with you. You’ll discover that you have a lot in common. By the end of the conference, you’ll be friends. And you’ll leave the conference feeling happy at what a great time you had.

And I guarantee that if you talk to 50 people, you’ll find someone who will turn into a life-long friend. And you’ll leave the conference thinking it was the best time you ever had in your entire life. 

“But I’m An Introvert!”

You may be thinking that you can’t possibly do all this. Because you’re an introvert. Introverts don’t reach out to others. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. About 95% of writers at writing conferences are introverts. I’m a flaming introvert. Always have been. Always will be. I’m probably more introverted than you. But nobody has to know that when I go to a conference. 

Even an introvert can ask another writer how they’re doing. That’s all you have to do, and the other writer opens up. 

No, you don’t have to become friends with every single writer you interact with at a conference. You can’t possibly do that. You’ll resonate with a few and you’ll not resonate with most. The ones you resonate with may turn into friends. But you can be a decent human being to everyone, even if they’re not nice to you. 

This should go without saying, which means it probably needs saying. A writing conference is not a place to go looking for romance. 

But Shouldn’t You Be Networking?

No, you should not be networking at a writing conference. You should not be networking anywhere. You should scrub the word “networking” from your brain. Never, ever, ever think of another writer as a person who can help you advance your career. That way lies dragons—and the worst of the dragons are envy, greed, and malice. 

Always, always, always think of other writers as fellow runners in the grand marathon of life. Some are running too fast for you. Some are running too slow. But some are running at just your pace. These are your natural pack. Run wild and free with them. Howl at the moon together.

But What About Editors and Agents?

Eventually, you’ll meet editors and agents. This can happen at meals. In the hallway. In the lobby. At the bar. Or when you make an appointment with one of them to discuss your writing. 

Treat editors and agents like anyone else at the conference. After talking with a few dozen or a few hundred writers, you’ll be comfortable doing this. It’ll feel like the most natural thing in the world. 

You won’t resonate with most editors or agents. But some of them, you will. Some will even become friends. Be a decent human being to all of them, and when you find The One, you’ll know. And they’ll know. And at that point, your writing career will change forever.

How long will this take? That’s impossible to say. It could take a couple of conferences. It could take 10. Or 20. It might never happen. Not every writer is guaranteed a slot in traditional publishing. Some writers are happier acting as their own publisher. 

But every writer can go to any writing conference and have a great, incredible, stupendously wonderful time. And all you have to do is treat other writers the way you’d want to be treated. 

How to Be a “Bad-As” Editor

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in Editing

Here’s an exercise you can do to make your current novel better:

  1. Search your manuscript for the word “as”. 
  2. Remove it from every sentence that uses “as” to make two events simultaneous.

That’s it. very simple. Extremely effective. 

A few examples will make this all clear. In each example, I’ll show you the wrong way to do it, followed by an explanation of why it’s wrong, followed by a better option. 

Example 1

Wrong: Joe threw a punch at Eric as he approached. 

Why it’s wrong: Your purpose as a novelist is to create a movie in your reader’s brain. This sentence throws up several speed bumps for your reader. Let’s break it down to see why. 

The sentence has three events, and they happen in this order: 

  1. Eric approaches Joe. 
  2. Eric gets within punching range of Joe.
  3. Joe throws the punch. 

Now you can see three things that went horribly wrong. 

First, the sentence puts things out of order. The sentence shows Joe throwing a punch and then it shows Eric approaching. 

Can’t the reader figure out that things are written out of order? Yes, your reader can do that by using logic. But now you’re making your reader’s brain work much harder than it should. The reader has to cut the video you made, reorder it, and splice it back together. That’s a speed bump in your reader’s brain. Readers put down books that have too many speed bumps. They usually won’t be able to say why, other than “it just didn’t feel realistic.” Now you know why. It didn’t “feel realistic” because you made your reader edit your movie. 

The second horribly wrong thing is that the sentence uses the word “as” to say that these things take about the same length of time. But they can’t possibly happen at the same time. It might take several seconds for Eric to approach. It takes a tenth of a second for Joe to throw the punch. 

Can’t the reader figure out the timing problem? Yes, again your reader can use logic to mentally speed up the approach of Eric or slow down Joe’s punch. But either way, the movie looks all wrong in your reader’s brain. 

The third horribly wrong thing is that the sentence uses the word “as” to say that these things happen at the same time. But they don’t. Eric has to approach and get within range before Joe can punch. Even if you had put them in the right order, that pesky “as” would still be saying they’re simultaneous when they aren’t. See how silly that looks: Eric approached as Joe threw a punch at him. 

You know the drill by now. Yes, the reader can sort things out by mentally editing your hashed-up movie into something sensible. No, they should never have to edit your movie.

It’s your job to edit the movie so the reader can see it on the first reading without editing. Something like this: 

Eric walked up and put out his hand. “Hey, buddy!” 

Joe slugged him in the gut. 

Example 2

Wrong: The front door swung open as Madeline strode in. 

This one’s better. Things are shown in the right order. The two events take about the same amount of time. But Madeline can’t make her grand entrance until the door’s open.

Better: The front door opened, and Madeline strode in. 

You might be thinking I’m just being persnickety here. I only changed one word. But it’s the one word that destroys the movie in your reader’s brain. 

Wrong words matter. Your reader can’t picture the door swinging open at precisely the same time that Madeline strides in. The door has to start swinging open, and then the door has to move at least a foot, and only then can Madeline can get in, no matter how slim she is. 

Example 3

Wrong: George clenched his teeth as his face slowly turned red. 

The problem here is that clenching your teeth takes a tenth of a second, but your face takes several seconds to turn red. The events are shown in the right order, but they happen on different time-scales. 

Better: George clenched his teeth. His face slowly turned red. 

Again, it’s only a small change, but now the movie doesn’t need any editing. The reader can see it exactly the way it’s written. 

Kick ‘Em in the As

In my critique group, we refer to this process as “kicking ‘em in the as.” Here’s the full process:

  1. Search for the word “as” in your manuscript. 
  2. For each “as”, ask the following questions:
    • Does one event start before the other? If so, remove the “as” and write them as two phrases or two sentences, with the events in the correct order.  
    • Do the events take different lengths of time? If so, remove the “as” and rewrite the sentence in an order your reader can visualize.
    • Are the events actually simultaneous and do they actually take the same amount of time? If so, see if you can possibly remove the “as” and order the events from most important to least important.
    • If the word “as” is not being used to say that events happen simultaneously, it’s probably fine and you can leave it in. Your job as a writer is to kick the bad “as” and keep the good “as.” 

    Try kicking one of your scenes in the “as.” It should take about 5 minutes. Then read it and see if the scene looks more like a movie in your head. 

    Congratulations. You are now officially a “bad-as” editor. 

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