When Two Authors Have the Same Idea

By Patricia Beal | @bealpat 

I found out on October 7 that Nicholas Sparks was within days of publishing a novel about the Kindred Spirit Mailbox. I was floored! Absolutely floored! I was working on a novel about the exact same remote mailbox.

Now what?!

I was so discouraged and exhausted that I posted the following message on A Seat at the Table, a Facebook group for Christian fiction professionals. If you fit in this category and don’t know about the group, message me to be added. It’s an amazing source of knowledge and support. But anyway—here’s the message:

The response was incredible. Turns out authors have similar ideas all the time.

Here are some highlights for your benefit:

1. This will happen. There’s nothing new under the sun.

2. Stories that may seem similar will end up being unique because we are unique individuals.

3. There’s your comparative title.

4. Not a horrible thing to trend with a famous author.

5. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote about the same things and we enjoy each perspective.

6. Some authors contacted the author who published the idea/theme first (within the Christian writing community) to talk it out and avoid misunderstandings later, and the experience has always been positive. The stories were different enough. No one was mad at anyone.

7. Remember last year’s bestseller Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate? Kim Sawyer came across the same bit of history (adoptions/stolen children) and had her book on that same theme published within months of Lisa’s.

Has that ever happened to you? What did you do?

As for writing, within hours of that October 7 post, God began doing something, and His something caused me to show up at The Art of Writing and The Christy Award Gala in Tennessee thirty days later. Crazy, right? Who shows up there after almost two years of not showing up anywhere? An ACFW event would be the usual suspect, not an ECPA event. This is how God did it...

Part 1 - The Christy Award began following me on Instagram. When I went to follow them back, this was the latest post:

Coincidence? Hmm…

Part 2 - The next morning a friend tagged me on this post:

Coincidence again? Hmm…

Part 3 - I decided I had to walk away from social media and get to my Bible study if I really wanted to get God’s opinion. This is what I read:

And this is how I responded:

As for what’s next, only God knows. It was wonderful to see writing peeps and meet bloggers who helped me launch the debut last year. I feel connected again, felt the love, and learned a ton.

I saw people who’ve since contacted their agents—agents who are now interested in seeing what I’m working on. I’m super thankful and might end up taking them up on that. But that’s not where God is leading me right now.

Right now I’m nurturing a brand-new relationship, formed “accidently/coincidentally” after meeting a stranger during a walk from one building to another at the Lipscomb University campus during the November 7 The Art of Writing/Christy events. Her name means rain and she’s a brand-new agent.

I’m working on a proposal for a brand-new story God gave me as I showered to fly to Tennessee. “Rain” has a meeting with my favorite editor at my favorite house on December 5th.

Please pray. I want to keep this glow and this faith and this joy :)

“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19.

I'm the person on the left with the big face ;) Next to me is fellow Brazilian author, Valeria Hyer, with whom I stayed while in Nashville. Next to her is Sara Ella and her little man (I now know that Sara is the person behind the Christy social media presence and therefore the one who started the whole thing). Photo by Mrs. Book of the Year, Becky Wade!

About Patricia

Patricia Beal is from Brazil and fell in love with the English language while washing dishes at a McDonald's in Indianapolis. She put herself through college working at a BP gas station and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in English Literature. She then worked as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army for seven years.

She now writes contemporary fiction and her debut novel, A Season to Dance, came out in May of 2017 (Bling! / Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas). A Portuguese translation came out in her native Brazil in August (Editora Pandorga). Patricia is a 2015 Genesis semi-finalist and First Impressions finalist. She and her husband live in North Carolina with their two children.

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Learning from a marathon runner who hits the wall

I’ve got a mate who runs marathons.  Why is anybody’s guess - I told him the industrial revolution gave us ways to go anywhere in a 42-kilometre radius - and his constant invitations for me to join him are politely left to rush by.

It’s quite an achievement running forty-two kilometres. Pushing through the pain, wringing every ounce of effort out of yourself and doing something very few people achieve.  I do admire him for it. 

One of the most fascinating parts of running a marathon is known as hitting the wall. My mate talks about hitting it just past the halfway mark.  Everything about his experience says to give up; to walk; to even stop.  His legs are screaming for a break from the lactic acid and muscle cramps.  His lungs are screaming for relief. Even though he’s got the ability and the tools – and he’s already run half the race - things happen to him that make the finish line feel like it’s further away than when he started.

And he talks about feeling like he’s running in jelly.  He’s got the movement of running, but doesn’t feel like he’s getting anywhere. 

Writers hit the wall too. Our lactic acid might be family time that encroaches on writing. Our muscle cramps could be the pull of work or church over writing. Or our energy burnout could be when our ideas or storylines just run out of petrol. Or we're over halfway but just can't seem to find a way to finish the book.

It’s happened to me a number of times this year – when everything about my writing experience says to give up and stop. When my brain wants a rest and my bank balance tells me I should be doing extra work that actually pays the bills. When my ideas have run out of petrol and my characters feel like they can’t move on.

And it feels to me like the finish line – holding the final manuscript in my hands – is further away than when I started.

Now, my mate just laughs when I talk about writers hitting the wall, but there are things that he does that I’ve implemented this year.  And they’ve worked.

• Keep moving.  A runner needs their feet to keep moving. That movement is important as stopping the movement makes it 1000 times harder to restart it.  I’ve done that this year, at times I’ve just kept moving. That could be as simple as giving my protagonist another character trait, adding 200 words to the manuscript.  Or editing another chapter or scene. Or simply reformatted one exchange of dialogue.  That movement is important as I can look back and see that I've done something.
• Focussing on the finish line. Marathon runners often disassociate from the pounding beat of their stride and focus on the finish line. It helps break the dawning thought that they're in pain now, and is a reminder of why they're doing what they're doing. At times this year, I’ve just taken a deep breath and visualised typing The End at the tail of my manuscript. That disassociation has been enough to push me on and to spur me into action, because I now have the end goal in frame.
• Breaking the race down into chunks. This is the opposite of the previous point. One things my marathon running friend does is run the next 1km, then the next, then the next. I’ve done that – written the next scene, then the next scene, then the next scene. And when I’ve looked up at the end of the week I’ve written another 3,000 words.
• Enjoying the process. My friend says he tries to breath in sync with his steps or count out as his feet pound away. He enjoys the process of running.  That’s what I’ve tried to do this year.  I’ve written a particularly difficult scene and enjoyed the words as they’ve come, or the plot point as it has unveiled itself. I've gasped in surprise when a character says something I wasn't expecting or smiled when the protagonist got out of a jam even I didn't expect him to get out of. It sounds crazy, but it's FUN!

Writing a piece of work – any work – is hard. Especially if it’s something you’ve drawn from the depths of your experience or character. You’ve pushed through the pain, wrung every ounce of effort out of yourself and done something very few people achieve. 

And, like my friend, I admire you for it.

About David Rawlings

Based in Adelaide, South Australia, I am a sports-mad, married father-of-three with my own copywriting/communication business who reads everything within an arm’s reach. I can see a typo from across the room and always – always – make sure my text messages are grammatically correct.

My manuscripts have finalled in the ACFW's Genesis competitions and the OCW's Cascade Awards.

And now I'm working with the Steve Laube Agency as my agent to find that elusive first publisher.

How (Not) to Sabotage Yourself as a Writer

By Kristen Young

So you’ve found it: that one, perfect idea for the next international best seller. But no matter how hard you try, you just really, really struggle. You might have a mental image of the ‘ideal writer’ - an arty type sipping lattes and pounding away on their laptop in a cafe, or a prim and well-dressed woman sitting at her window, looking out over her immaculate garden as she produces reams of romantic prose. But life isn’t like that at all. How on earth do people actually get this stuff written?

From distraction to perfectionism, we authorly types have a million ways to sabotage ourselves.

So how can we avoid the pitfalls, and get those burning ideas from our heads to the page?

1. Writing, like faith, requires discipline.

For my faith to keep growing and maturing, I need Christian disciplines like reading my Bible, meeting up with fellow believers, praying, and so on. It’s not always easy. I’m easily distracted by the important little tasks that need to be done. But if I want to nurture my understanding and faith in Jesus, then I need to be disciplined in how I learn from him and grow.

In a similar way, writing won’t just ‘happen’. It’s one thing to wait for inspiration to strike. But if we only write when we feel like it, we’re never going to get anywhere. Like all disciplines, it needs a commitment. A commitment to get it done. A commitment to do it well. A humble commitment to learn and grow where needed.

2. Set times for your writing, and give yourself space

For most of us, writing is something we achieve around the edges of real life. In between kids, work, housework, appointments, somehow we still have that desire to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

It’s better to get 50 words done rather than none, but if you’re going to finish that project, you’ll have to set aside specific time to write. It might be 5:30am before the kids get up. It might be that lunch break on Tuesdays when your co-workers go out. It doesn’t have to be an entire day. But if you really want to finish, you will need to turn down other commitments. Wear noise-cancelling headphones if you have to. Use those half-hours of peace to scribble down as many words as you can.

3. Start thinking about it the night before.

If you don’t have entire weeks blocked out to write that project, it helps to ‘prime’ your brain before you sit down. Start thinking about your writing hours or even the day before you actually write. Work out the kinks and roadblocks in your head. You could have conversations with yourself:

• “If my protagonist does this, what will happen?”
• “What is the big idea of this chapter? What do I want to say?”
• “Who is going to step in at this point?”

Doing this is a great way to get your brain in gear before you put those words on paper. I’ve had much better writing times when I’ve thought through the chapter the night before I sit down. It’s so much easier than looking at that blank page and freaking out.

4. When you finish, walk away for a LONG time.

Trust me on this one. Please.

Writing an entire book is a marathon effort. So you deserve to celebrate when you type THE END. But the way to celebrate is *not* by sending off that manuscript to dozens of agents and publishers, or by instantly uploading it to Amazon.

Yes, it’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever written, and yes, you are just overjoyed to have an actual book in your hot little hands. But please, back away slowly from that Submit button. You’ll thank me later.

Here’s the bit that might be hard to take: Put it aside for at least a couple of months.

Yes, you heard me. What do you do for those months? Write something else. Write a sequel. Write a completely different story. Load up the next draft in your arsenal. But DO NOT SUBMIT STRAIGHT AWAY.

You need to come back to that manuscript with the eyes of a stranger. Right now, you’re too caught up in your own plot to be able to see what you’re missing:

• The flat spots in the action. 
• Fractured descriptions. 
• Flowery language that should never see the light of day. 

Come back to that manuscript when you’ve forgotten it a little bit, and you can be a much better judge of your own work.

Then hone it. Get it edited by an objective editor. Work that baby until it’s so finely tuned it grips the readers from page 1. Only then do you submit it to your heart’s content. You might actually get a more positive response when you do. Better indie book sales. Better responses from agents and publishers.

Believe me. I’ve learned that one the hard way.

5. Things take a lot longer than you think they will.

In our instant society, we expect everything to happen yesterday. But the writing world isn’t like that.

Things go slowly - especially if you’re aiming for a traditional publishing career. The publishing cycle is like an ancient clockwork beast that takes a long time to wind up. Be prepared that it will take you more than three months to be a bestseller. Not only does it take a while to produce a good traditionally published book, the reading public is hesitant to pick up on new readers. It may take until the third or fourth book before they sit up and take notice.

Being an indie writer is a great career choice, and a lot of writing I love comes from indie writers. But I’ve also read some stuff with massive plot jumps and completely incomprehensible paragraphs. Or should I say, ‘tried to read, and dropped at the first chapter’. I wanted to like it. Really, I did.

Just like we don’t re-visit a restaurant with dodgy cuisine, readers won’t revisit a writer who hasn’t taken the time to develop a good quality product. Now I’m not talking about the occasional typo here. Typos are common - even in traditionally published best sellers - so don’t freak out too much. But when a story has been rushed to market, it’s more likely to contain some hasty errors that could have been eliminated with a slowly-slowly approach.

Ask advice from others (not just your family). Does this writing work? Is it interesting? Where can I improve? You are your own boss, which means you’re creating your own brand. Make it a quality brand, and you’ll have a long-term career. But remember that creating trust in your readers is a slow process. It takes time to build and hone.

6. Don’t give up.

Please don’t. Books change lives. They inspire, challenge, thrill and transform us. A well-written book is so worth the pain of giving it birth. So don’t give up. It may take longer than you expect. It might come through painful feedback and struggle. But the end result can be better than you ever dreamed.

You will be rejected. You will have moments of anger. You will experience those dark clouds that tell you that you are the worst writer ever. Don’t listen to them. If God really has given you those books to write, then he’ll help you get them out there.

Struggle through those fantastic ideas. Improve them. Shape them. Then unleash them on the world when they’re the best they can possibly be. Those writers who were rejected multiple times didn’t just keep sending the same old Manuscript to other agents. They improved them. They reshaped them.

Eventually, someone listened. And we’re so glad they did.

About Kristen Young 

Kristen Young is the author of devotions and non-fiction books for youth, published through Fervr and Youthworks press. “What if? Dealing with Doubt” was shortlisted for the 2105 Sparklit prize for best Australian Christian publication. Her YA speculative fiction series is currently in development.

How to stay sane and meet your deadline - 3 ax sharpening tips for writers

I'm writing this post instead of working on my current WIP, book 2 of the Spirit Walker series for Pelican / Watershed. I'm currently 700 words short of 70K, aiming at about 80K when complete. My deadline is the end of February. 

This is totally do-able, unless (like me) you write at the speed of tortoise.

In that case, you have a legitimate excuse to freak out. (Pats you on the head and hands you a cookie.)

But, fear not! I have discovered some handy tips that will help us.

You remember the old story of two lumberjacks who were having a little manly-I-have-more-hair-on-my-chest-than-you tree felling competition? The smart one stops to sharpen his ax, the less smart one is delighted because he just keeps going and is obviously going to win. Until smarty gets back into action with a sharpened blade and annihilates his buddy's tree score completely. That didn't end too well for less-smarty.

This is how I've sharpened my writing ax over the past few weeks.

Get Organised (Unless you started out organised, in which case skip ahead to number 2.)

I've been using The Box (as pictured above) for a while now, but it got a little shabby and disarrayed and I ended up with little clumps of notecards in my handbag or in a pile next to my bed, or doubling up as bookmarks. Not really the best way of tracking a story. So I took an hour last week and made some new dividers. I also decided to keep all three of the books that I'm brooding on in there. This is useful as I can jot down thoughts and ideas even for those that are on the back-burner.

As you can see, I've kept it uber-simple. Each book gets four sections:

• Plot - one card with notes for each scene or major plot point.  
• People - characters in the story
• People Groups - racial, organisational, teams, families etc.
• Theme / message / verses / symbolism - story backbone, theme, any symbolic things that are included

Just having my notes sorted has done wonders for the spaghetti state of my brain.

Boring Manual Labour (Gardening, dishes, hanging laundry, vacuuming floors)

If you are stuck in your story, the best plot-laxative is to put aside your writing for a short while and do something practical that doesn't really need your brain to get involved. While you are up to your elbows in soap suds, your mind will be running free and spitting out ideas faster than you can say New York Times Bestseller. 

Read, Pray, Worship

Jesus has the best ideas. I write because He created me to be a writer and told me to get on with it. So when I'm stuck, where do you think is the best place to go? God has given us access to His glorious Holy Spirit oil to get our writing cogs unstuck. Sometimes I find the light-switch in the Bible, or when I'm talking to Him. Some of my most profound moments of inspiration have come during moments of loving Him and being loved in return. Those have happened on Sunday's in church, or in my car while driving, quietly at home in my room or even smack in the middle of a month-end grocery shop surrounded by people on their own missions.


Take time to sharpen your ax and watch the deadlines fall all around you. How do you manage deadlines and low inspiration?

Dianne J. Wilson writes novels from her hometown in East London, South Africa, where she lives with her husband and three daughters. She is neck-deep in a three book contract for a YA series, Spirit Walker, with Pelican / Watershed.

Finding Mia is available from Amazon, Pelican / Harbourlight, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

Shackles is available as a free ebook from Amazon & Smashwords.

Find her on Facebook, Twitter and her sporadic blog Doodles.

AFTER THE FIRST DRAFT, WHAT? By Bonnie Toews

You type THE END and heave a great sigh of relief. DONE. You pat yourself on the back.

But wait! In today’s world, this is only YOUR FIRST DRAFT. Now the hard work begins.

Revising and editing are a writer’s most important functions in the telling of your story. In the rewriting stage, you have to move away from the subjective author who loves every sentence you’ve produced and become the tough critic. Switching hats is very difficult.

This is why most successful novelists belong to reading groups who serve to critique each other’s work. But before you expose your baby to a third, fourth or even fifth “eye,” you need to produce your best effort. That means stripping down your baby and redressing it.

Where do you start? Frankly, one rewrite won’t work. You can’t fix everything with one shot.

THE STRATEGIC APPROACH TO REVIEWING YOUR FIRST DRAFT

When you reread your manuscript, you need to examine NINE concerns. Focus on one at a time for each revision you write.

      1.       What is the spine of your story? Some authors refer to this as their THEME. This is a harder question than you think. You may assume it is simply what the story is about, but it isn’t. Your spine serves the same purpose as your backbone does for your body. It holds your story together. In my novel, THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR, the obvious theme is treason.  When I reread my first draft, I had to measure every character‘s thoughts, feelings, motives and actions against this underlying theme. Yes, it was a gruelling exercise, but it was worth it because readers say I succeeded in suspending their disbelief. They could not figure out who the traitor was until the end.

      2.       Are your protagonist and main characters well-rounded and believable? Have you explored their conscious and unconscious desires, their strengths and weaknesses? Does your protagonist have a “fatal flaw” she or he must overcome to achieve a heroic or extraordinary outcome? In my novel, one of my heroines does not recognize her own self-worth. She strives to please and over compensates to prove her value.

  

      3.       What is the overall conflict driving your suspense? What rival or adversarial force must your protagonist beat? This is the challenge that drives your plot, and as the story continues, this conflict elevates the tension. It can be a person, group, force of nature or aspect of the protagonist’s own character that stands in the way of achieving a desired goal. Conflict leads the hero or heroine to make a critical decision, one that embraces either victory or defeat, and forces the individual to face the truth:  Who am I and what do I really want?

      4.       Is the development of your plot logical? I remember reading a spy story in which the two protagonists reminded each other that their hotel room may be bugged, and then, while in bed, they go ahead and discuss their plan to reveal the villain. I read on hoping this was a decoy to suspend the reader’s disbelief until the surprise “twist” resolution. If the room is bugged, why are they telling the enemy what he needs to know to intercept them?  Maybe it’s deliberate and we’ll find that out later. Alas, no. The author never caught this flaw, and for me the story imploded.

      5.       Is the structure of your story progressive? This even relates to individual paragraphs and sentences. Does your character react before an action even happens? For example, there is an explosion. Does your character dive for cover before the sound or after?  You can’t react to something that hasn’t happened yet. The character must duck AFTER he or she hears the bang. This also refers to the order of your information. Your characters need to move forward with new insights or conclusions, not rehash what is already known.

      6.      Does your opening sentence immediately grab your readers’ interest? If it doesn’t, does the first paragraph? If it doesn’t, will readers even read your first chapter?  Let’s look at the first sentence of my new novel, COVERT DENIAL:  Rhys Jamieson froze. Do you want to know why? Then you have to read on.

      7.      Do you ‘tell” more than you “show?” Some authors introduce a new character by writing what amounts to a biography including appearance and background. Today’s readers don’t like feeling overwhelmed with such description. It’s better to weave in the details as needed, when your reader wants to know, for instance, or when it is critical to the story. This way the reader becomes a part of what is going on rather than an observer.

      8.      How do you treat your dialogue? You’ve seen it – one line after another of conversation until you no longer know who the speakers are. This stems from a need to speed up pacing, but it can be taken too far. Dialogue serves two things: to reveal what distinguishes your characters from one another through quirks in their speech and to convey information. Good dialogue presents a balance that magnifies what your characters are doing, thinking, noticing, and feeling as well as where they are located when they speak. What your dialogue should NOT DO is be a short-cut to adding information crucial to your story. Too often you end up with an unnatural conversation that is awkward and off-putting for your reader.

      9.     I leave line editing and proof-reading to my last draft, and I have a few tricks to make it easier. First, I search and replace a list of “boring” words with stronger action words or adjectives. This short list causes agents and book editors to wince: was (passive), by the fact that, very, so, then, felt, great, big, would, could, or against. Suppose you wrote, felt angry. What action can your character do that shows he is irked? Barry’s eyes flashed. He slammed his fist on the desk. “Are you crazy?” That is a stronger picture. Second, be careful with words ending in “ing.” Often it signals an imperfect past tense (was working) that is easily corrected with the simple past tense (worked). Keep your text active. Avoid passive verbs.

A retired Canadian journalist, Bonnie Toews is a veterans’ advocate, who uses fiction to bring attention to conditions she has found at the “crossroads of humanity.” In novels of wartime intrigue and suspense, she expands on true events to reveal the political betrayal of our military veterans. The first novel in her “Trilogy of Treason” – THE CONSUMMATE TRAITOR – is available at amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Consummate-Traitor-Bonnie-Toews/dp/1461015383 and on her web site

http://www.authorbonnietoews.com