My Writingy Stuff

Autistic Jewish character

Thanks for raising this, it’s an interesting point. In order to respect your autistic readers, you’ll want to make sure her sensory issues aren’t written as an annoying choice she’s making. It’s an involuntary physical reaction that will hopefully be described with empathy towards her. In my opinion, this solution should also be fine for avoiding the nagging trope, which is usually about how unreasonable the Jewish woman’s actions are and how inconvenient she is to others.

-Shoshi

A writer you should check out is the late Xan West (z’L), who wrote this experience from the inside with several of their characters. Both heroines in Eight Kinky Nights (which comes with detailed content notes so you can skip the chapters with kink or sex if you prefer and you’re just reading for research), the hero in Their Troublesome Crush, and the heroine of Tenderness are autistic and Jewish. Tenderness I remember this being especially relevant, with on-screen stimming, plus it’s a short story and friendship-only, so this may be the most universally approachable option of the three. Just a heads up that it’s about friends helping the MC cope with being dumped, but it’s very loving.

Generally, there’s a way to approach your character’s needs in your own tone as a narrator that will coax and guide the reader to understand that their requests are justified. That’s more of a writing skill than a diversity skill.

--Shira

One thing we neurodiverse Jewish people LOVE is to look for signs of neurodiversity in Jewish historical figures! Autism is especially easy to read into a variety of different people, places, and eras, and one thing that’s conspicuously missing from problematic depictions of Jewish women is any connection with Jewishness earlier than 19th-century Europe. Looking for and finding positive representation in her own Jewishness can help her be positive representation herself.

-Meir

So everyone has very good points about Jewish characters and writing the internal narration, but I want to raise a different point: how outside characters relate to these sensory sensitivities will need to be established in order to well and truly avoid this stereotype.

Because autistic people are absolutely seen as nags! Sometimes we kind of are, because the only way to get any respect is often to make a huge fuss to play along with stereotypes in order to get accommodations, because the outside world loves to gaslight about autistic experiences. There’s out and out a poem called “Growing up autistic / growing up gaslit” that can shine some light on things.

It will be much easier to avoid any sort of nagging—either assumption or performance—if you surround your characters with supportive people who accept the sensory issues as soon as they’re brought up and don’t force either suffering or escalation, which can very easily be read as nagging.

You’re going to need to create some sort of supportive environment where the sensitivities genuinely don’t matter for social acceptance, because that’s pretty much the only way to avoid getting the character to repeat that they need x over and over and over again.

Even better, if they’re old friends, the sensory sensitivities have already been accommodated long ago and they’re in a routine of just going through it the way the autistic character needs.

If the autistic character is in one of those gaslight-y situations, maybe consider having one of her friends do the heavy lifting of advocacy? Or backing her up in the advocacy. This will help avoid the worst of the “singular person wants something ridiculous” implications that come along with both the Jewish Nag and the Gaslit Autistic presentations.

You’re going to need to do more work than just establish internal stuff to the reader (you don’t specify if this main character is a point of view character, which, if she’s not, will make internal establishing impossible). You’re going to need to look at the environment to see what, if any, factors will create situations that make nagging-like behaviour inevitable. 

Some such situations include:

Disbelief that x can produce y

Assumptions that it’s possible to tough out (for some of us, btw, it actually is, up to a point)

Assumptions that the provided accommodations are good enough (“what do you mean, you can hear x through your headphones? We turned the volume down as low as we’ll put it!”)

Conflicting access needs (shockingly common, as even within autistic spheres you can get hypo and hyper sensitive— for example some autistics need bland food because they’re hypersensitive to taste, while other autistics need tons and tons of spices because they’re hyposensitive)

People doubling down on doing a thing because they want to stick it to the “snowflake” (basically everyone disabled has some sort of story or knows of someone who has some sort of story where a coworker or clerk purposely tripped the sensitivity because once they found out about the accommodation, they insisted it couldn’t be that big a deal and often landed the person in hospital)

Food workers get special mention because, oh my god, the number of them who will not make your order exactly the way you want it because they don’t think you need sugar free or gluten free or anything they consider a “fad” is a lot

You get the gist. And in all of these situations, you either have to leave, or you have to be firm, or, in worst case scenarios, you have to throw a fit to get it fixed. 

Having a supportive environment makes all the difference to establish a person is not a nag or nitpicky by nature, and when they’re in a place where they’re respected, they are totally different people because they’re not constantly stressed out and on the verge of meltdown.

Yes, autistic people can be rigid, and very meticulous, but you can show that happening in positive ways, as well—like them memorizing the favourite things of all their friends and giving it to them when their friends feel down. Or even just having a harmless routine that goes like: wake up, drink orange juice with their multivitamin, then brush their teeth so they don’t taste the juice and toothpaste mix.

Basically, look at the environment on top of the internal. It’s a lot easier to not be a nag when generally respected.

~Mod Lesya

P.S. for anyone who wants to come in and say “autistic” is the wrong term: please don’t. It’s the majority-preferred language by quite a lot of the community, including the WWC autistic mods. 

Fluffy, serious, small, pretty.. Which one owl is you today?

thank you for liking my writing! i myself am always aware of the ways it doesn’t yet feel like it’s on the level i want it to be... but i suppose this is a good reminder that things you create don’t need to be flawless for them to still have some worth to other people. so thank you. 

and that’s actually my preliminary piece of advice, now, too—to remember that your writing has some worth, even as you grow as a writer! like that saying—wheat is still wheat, even when it looks like grass at the beginning.

a lot of the time, i notice that writing advice is not universal. it can’t be universal unless it’s really basic advice like ‘try hard’ and ‘don’t give up’. the more specific a piece of writing advice is, the less people it will directly be able to help.

so i can only ultimately tell you what works for me, and what notions of writing feel like the truth to me.

so, here goes: a list of personalised writing advice, meant with care, from yours truly:

have multiple items to write in. you will not always feel like writing the same way. keep a writing notebook, keep a digital folder, make an evernote/notion account, write notes app fragments when you feel like it, etc. the feeling of flexibility and space helps tremendously.

do not underestimate your own capacity to convey an idea, convey something complex. language is more real than you think. your grasp of it is better than you think. go for the jugular, and don’t let the thing you’re writing sense your fear. i believe in this sincerely!

write with different levels of intensity/difficulty. write messy, easy words for getting out of a rut. write things you want to seriously post online to strangers. write things you hope to publish, someday. write anecdotal things for your family. write stories for your friends. write many things for yourself. do not always write for the same place or person—make your practice of writing flexible, and used to different modes and expectations.

you do not always have to write from the same philosophy or emotion. write from multiple states—from love, from rage, from pleasure, from rationality, from hope, from passion, even from spite. let yourself have many engine fuels rather than one.

ideas are easy to come up with. the tricky part is letting them sit with you—for a day, a week, maybe more—until you are sure you have it in you to see the execution of your idea through, and not lose interest or abandon it.

as you grow, this is going to be the biggest hurdle: completing things. your goal is not to even make a good thing, most of the time, the way we assume we must. your goal, especially if you’re beginning, has to be completing things. remember that distinction; it’ll help you improve faster, in a strange way.

find a Lot of varied writing you admire, that you seriously think is good, and read it all carefully—multiple times, ideally. the more carefully you see the framework of how an author get images and concepts into your mind, the less intimidating it becomes to imagine yourself writing something as good.

style is already in you. it will not be as visible to you as it will be to others. a writing style, i like to think, is what you get when you have your ideal, perfect sensibilities/tastes, and then add your life experiences and time spent honing your skills to those ideals. 

if you hate your style and want to change it to someone else’s, do not act on that impulse. wait it out, read other authors you love, and focus on the best way to convey each individual idea, sentence. that is more than enough.

consistency is overrated. people change their minds, and their life’s different works never have the same exact ways of seeing the world. try out different ways of expressing the core things you know to be true. 

few people admit this, but if you have to choose between hubris and humbleness, you should actually... choose hubris. when you aren’t writing, of course, you can be humble and good and grounded—but while writing, let yourself see your voice as genius! let yourself feel blazingly right and visionary, just for a brief period! mostly, it doesn’t matter if you objectively are or not. but letting yourself feel confident while writing is what gets self-consciousness, fear, or lack of passion or belief in one’s words out of the way, and gets your writing closer to impacting others, too. our lives are so short. we don’t have time to see ourselves as stupid and lacking, or downplay ourselves, or match our art to our modesty. just while creating, allow yourself a hint of arrogance, and keep it reined in otherwise.

everyone’s got potential, everyone’s on different points on different paths; jealousy can hit hard at times but will not help you. what will help you is observing lots of different kinds of writing. what will help you is a mindset of steadiness—neither self-hatred nor arrogance, but simply the firm knowing that your art does have the right to exist. 

I was once reading two story openings that were frankly amazing at conveying an established relationship in a matter of pages or even paragraphs. Many stories revolve around the protagonist meeting new people, such as in a typical Hero’s Journey plot. But perhaps even more stories (and often including even the Hero’s Journey to some extent) revolve around relationships that are established before the novel begins.

Many new writers have a difficult time conveying such relationships quickly, and to be honest, it can even be tricky for more experienced writers to figure out sometimes, especially if the relationship is very significant.

Whether you are working with best friends, significant others, parents and children, schoolmates, rivals, or downright enemies, here are several methods to help with that.

1. Communicate What’s Normal.

Every established relationship has been … well … established, meaning it has behaviors and attitudes that are typical in it. In one of the story openings I read, the protagonist had to deal with two, mean, cruel older sisters. First the meanness was rendered, and then validated through narration. In the second one, what was normal of two brothers was simply conveyed through the way they talked to one another. In both cases, I immediately had context for what was typical.

2. Refer to or Imply an Off-Page History.

Every established relationship has a history: how the characters met, what events have taken place between them, and how they got to where they are now. In some cases, they may have a “reoccurring history.” For example, every Saturday they happened to both be at the dog park, and that’s how they became friends (or enemies).

3. Have a Character Predict How the Other Will Behave or React.

This immediately conveys that these two people know each other very well. Again, it can be more reoccurring: “Samantha always got cranky when she ran out of chocolate.” Or a specific moment: “I could already picture Monica’s eye roll before I delivered the news.”

4. If the Relationship is Long-Term, Give Us a Sense of How it has Changed.

A lot can change between first falling in love and being married for ten years. Whether it’s a friendship, partnership, or even an enemy, naturally there will be some degree of growth or at least change. Give us a glimpse of how the relationship we see on the page now is different than it was before.

5. Round out Likeness with Foiling, or Opposition with Likeness.

One of the mistakes that is easy to make is to have participants in a positive relationship exactly the same, or participants in a negative relationship exactly opposites. But almost nothing can make a relationship feel more authentic and well-rounded quicker than having some of both. This means that even two best friends should disagree with or dislike each other to some extent, in some aspect. It’s better if you can even make them opposites in some way. On the other hand, with an enemy, there should be some similarity and likeness between the characters, maybe even admiration (even if the viewpoint character doesn’t want to admit it). This will immediately make the relationship feel more complex.

Dear banphrionsa-sarah,

I imagine there are as many different answers to this as there are authors of series, because multi-volume stories come in all shape and sizes, with many different narrative purposes.

Deep inside, I’m a standalone consumer rather than an episodic consumer. I’d rather watch a film than a TV show, and I’d rather watch a limited edition/ mini-series show than ongoing-episodic show. I like the feeling that comes from knowing we’re headed for a planned end. I want to look for clues and know they were planted with confidence by a creator who knew how they were going to use them.

So that’s how I try to write as well. I don’t need to know everything about future books in a series (and in fact, there is much I don’t know), but I do need to know how many books I have to plot in, and I need to know general arc shapes, as well as conclusion of the Big Plot Question. I need to know enough to make true promises along the way. 

Some of this heavy lifting is done for a writer if you pick an easy shape (maybe I should say “easy”) like a trilogy — you already know the trilogy will follow the expanded shape of the three act structure. So book one will establish what normal was, break it, and then see the protag take the first step toward an active journey. Book two will see the protag taking on ever more conflict with increasing stakes and rewards, changing the protag as they learn from these adventures. The darkest moment usually comes at the end of act two, so you can conclude book two on it as a cliff hanger, or begin book three with it: it’s when everything goes to shit, and the climax is kicked off. 

You can see this shape in many, many trilogies if you squint for it, just as you can see this shape in standalone novels, if you squint for it. 

It gets a little harder to adapt it if you write a duology or a quartet (you can see how a quintet would just expand a bit).

For me, I apply this theory generally and then I also look to make sure that I’m beginning each book and ending each book in a satisfying place. A cliffhanger is fine, but it has to follow a real ending. I want it to feel like THE END … but also! not and then and then and then … to be continued. Moreover, I want each book to feel like it belongs to the same series, but also to have a mood of its own. I love having favorite books within a series, and mood is a big thing that draws me back to those favorites. I want them to feel like distinct chapters.

It’s a daunting undertaking. It’s also fun as hell.

As far as not throwing everything into the first book to keep folks excited … if you think about the shape of the series like a three-act-structure, there’s really a time and place for every reveal and fun thing. So it answers a lot of hard questions for you. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoy writing the second installment in series better than the first or last. A lot of elements have been put in place already, and then it just becomes about exploration and doing what you promised.

Happy writing!

urs,

Wow holy shit I’m gonna actually give you guys an actual writing tip, being a published and award winning author and all.

Anyways, a great way to work in TOTALLY UNRELATED little details about your setting or what have you that may or may not be relevant later on is through the use of metaphors, euphemisms, etc. in character dialogue.

“This cold is terrible! I’m wearing more layers than an Aenirian bride!”

Congratulations, you now know something about Aenirian marriage customs. You might not even know what exactly an Aenirian is, but you know that their brides wear lots of layers.

“i need more of the rowan felted tweed, i’m making some first-world-war balaclavas and i’ve run out”

“i’m making my husband an x-files themed jumper for christmas and i can’t find a good colour for the spaceship”

“do you have any wool/acrylic blends on sale, i’m making hats for the seamen’s mission to give to sailors and i know they say to use acrylics because they’re cheap but it gets awfully cold at sea and i worry”

“i need some black wool for gloves, but it has to be flame-proof because i’m making them for the beltane fire-jugglers”

“could you see if you have another copy of this pattern for a baby shawl, i’ve knitted it in different colours for all of my six children and twelve grandchildren but it’s started to fall apart a bit"

[from a blond, six-foot surfer dude] “yeah, do you have any really light needles, i’m going backpacking around argentina and i want to do some socks while i’m on the coach but there isn’t much room in my rucksack”

“which of these colours do you think would be best for a knitted corgi”

So, I was going to send this as a message to @oabuckvu, but instead I thought I’d post this here since others may also find it helpful!

A:

Addison- child of Adam- English Adina- slender- Hebrew Alby- from Alba- Latin Ally- friend- English Ash- ash tree clearing- English Azra- pure- Israeli Asa- physician- Hebrew Arin- enlightened- Hebrew Arlo- army, hill- old English or barberry tree- Spanish Avery- elf ruler- English Alex- defender of mankind- Greek Arlen- promise, oath- Irish Ambrose- immortal- Latin Aspen- tree- English August- dignity, vulnerable- German

B:

Blaine- yellow- Scottish Blake- blonde, dark- English Bryce- swift- Celtic Brooklyn- broken land- English Bradley- clearing in a woods- English Bailey- bailiff- English Beck- brook, stream- Norse

C:

Chyler- beloved- English Cody- child of cuidightheach- English Charlie- charles- English Chris- christ- English Coby- supplanter- Latin Casey- brave- Gaelic Corin- spear bearer- Irish Cameron- crooked nose- Scottish Colby- town, dark- Norse

D:

Dakota- friend- Native American Devon- poet- Irish Delaney- descendent of the challenger- Irish Drew- manly- English Denham- habitation- English Dael- knowledge of God- Hebrew Danny- God has judged- Scottish

E:

Ellis- Jehova is God- Greek Ellery- from the elder tree island- English Evan- youth warrior- Irish Emery- brave, powerful- German Eden- delight- Hebrew Ellison- child of elder- English

F:

Farron- iron grey- Anglo Saxon Freddie- peaceful ruler- German Frankie- free one- French Fynn- river in Ghana- African Finch- bird- English Flynn- child of red hair- Irish

G:

Gene- well born- English Gale- cheerful, pleasant- English Glade- shining- English Glen- valley- Gaelic

H:

Hollis- Holly tree dweller- English Harlow- rock, army, hill- English Halley- lived near a grove- English Hadley- Heather field- English

I:

Isa- devoted to God- Teutonic Ives- archers bow- English Iggy- firey one- English

J:

Juniper- youth producing, evergreen- Latin Jesse- gift- Hebrew Jo- God is gracious- English/German/French Joey- may Jehova add- Hebrew Jordan- river flow- Macedonian Jet- black gemstone- German

K:

Kellam- at the ridges- Norse Kelsey- from the ships island- English Kendall- royal valley- English Kai- sea- Hawaii

L:

Logan- hollow- Scottish Leslie- garden of holly- Scottish Lee- dweller near the wood- English Lane- path- English Luca- bringer of light- Italy Lirit- poetic- Hebrew Lex- defender- Greek Lakota- friends- Siouan

M:

Mattie- strength in battle- German Morgan- sea defender- English Misha- God live- Russia Max- greatest- Latin Mattise- gift of god- French Monroe- from the mouth of the river Roe- Irish

N:

Newlyn- from the new spring- Celtic Noel- Christmas- French Nicky- victory- English Nat- gift of god- English Nova- chases butterfly- Native American

O:

Oakley- from the oak tree meadow- English Oak- tree- English

P:

Perry- dwells by the pear tree- English Piper- one who plays the pipe- Scandinavian Pema- lotus- Tibetan Puck- unknown meaning- Dutch Parker- park keeper- English

Q:

Quinn- fifth- Irish Quinta- fifth- Spanish

R:

Reese- firey- Welsh Rey- king- Spanish Reed- red, clearing- English Rune- secret- Norse Rue- herb, regret- English Rain- blessings- American Riley- dweller by the Rye field- English River- river- English Rowan- red- Gaelic Rory- red king- Gaelic Ronson- child of ron- English

S:

Sawyer- cuts timber- Celtic Stevie- crown- English Shiloh- owner- Hebrew Sage- wise one- French Saxon- knife- Teutonic Sammy- bright sun- Finnish Scout- to listen- French Shane- gift from God- Irish

T:

Tex- texas- American Toni- worthy of praise- Latin Theo- God given- Greek Taylor- to cut- French Tyne- a river in england- English Tyler- maker of tiles- English Terry- powerful ruler- English

U:

Umber- shade- French

W:

Wyatt- guide- English Willow- graceful- English Wynne- fair- English Wren- song bird- English

X:

Xen- religious- Japanese

Y:

Yael- mountain goat- Hebrew

Z:

On a scale of “is occasionally forced to bathe” to “Instagram model with sponsors to hoe for” how involved is your OC’s Skincare routine?

What are your OC’s food preferences (flavors/textures/spiciness/calories/ when and how they eat) and how did they get that way?

What’s something pointless/petty/unimportant that IRRATIONALLY ANNOYS THE HELL out of your OC?

What’s your OC’s response to being asked for money by a homeless person?

Does your OC get lost easily? What do they do when they do get lost?

What would STOP your OC from Doing The Right Thing in a tense situation?

Realistically, could your OC (in their normal circumstances- i.e. at thier own house/battlecamp/spaceship etc.) keep a small child alive for a week if they had to?  A Dog?  A Houseplant? A rock with a  smiley face painted on?

If your OC had to take the S.A.T. tomorrow with one night to prep, how would they do?  both emotionally and academically.

What would cause your OC to chose to do something petty/pointlessly cruel?

On a scale of “Complete and Justified nervous breakdown” to “Conquer The Entire Galaxy and become an Immortal God-Emperor”, how well would your OC handle being abducted by Aliens?

What song is 100% garunteed to get your OC beyond turnt and will be sung loudly and emabarrasingly, either in public or the shower?

What perfectly-normal-to-them-thing does your OC do that confuses/pisses off/terrifies thier neighbors?

Under what circumstances would your OC appear naked in public?

What thing did your OC’s parents do that your OC wishes they had a better explanation for?

How often does your OC “zone out” or do things on autopilot and how severe have the problems that have arisen from that been?

How strong or weak is your OC’s Impulse control? What’s the worst thing that happened becuase of thier Impulsivity or inability to be so?

How does your OC sabotage themselves? 

What’s the trashiest item in your OC’s wardrobe, when was the last time they wore it and why do they still have it?

How Dehydrated is your OC right now? Are they going to fix this?

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

I am officially being repped by Quressa Robinson at NLA. I have a book agent!!! It’s thrilling and nerve-wracking and amazing and terrifying. 

I can’t share the actual query letter yet, but I can share how it all came about.  It’s a long insane story that is so crazy it will seem like fiction, but as this post proves…it’s not!  (Stay tuned for a word of advice at the bottom of this post!

Link to Part 2 and Part 3

1. I wrote a book.  Obviously, right? I’ve been writing for years, but nothing prepared me for the journey that has been my manuscript. We’re talking two years of tears, late nights, early mornings, writing on the train, writing on the bus, printing out 400 pages at work, highlighting,  and note taking only to have beta readers dislike it and having to go back to the drawing board. But finally in July in the year of our lord 2017, over July. 4th week off from work, I finished my book. It still needed work, but I felt strongly that it was good as I could get it and I needed an agent and then an editor to push it to the finish line. 

2. I Researched Agents. I sent my book out to beta readers and used that awful time while I waited for opinions to research agents.  I had a spreadsheet of dozens of names, what they were looking for, their query requirements and why I wanted to query them. That’s very important. Once you query the chances are you will lose your choices. As in, if you only get one agent offer you’re probably going to take that agent.  Querying someone that you don’t really want to work with is a mistake. My book is my baby. I have not given more to anything in this world than what I have given to my book/ I wanted an agent who would love, fight and lobby for my book as hard as I am.

3. I Wrote An Amazing Query Letter OK. I know that it’s extremely egotistical to call my query letter amazing, but my query letter was amazing. How do I know this? Because I used the F-word in the opening line. :-)

 I wrote a letter. I thought it was good. My closest writing friend thought it was good. Then we sent it to an associate who is a published author and she said it was awful. I started again from complete scratch. And wrote in the third person. (I did NOT write from the POV of my character. It was in third person) BUT as if my main character was writing about herself. My main character would curse. She would have the attitude of “this is what I’m willing to tell you at this time and if it’s not enough…too damn bad.”

4. I Wrote An OK Synopsis From the beginning of my life, I have hated synopses. I hated having to tell my mom what happened in school. I hated having to sum up books in middle school, explain historical events in high school and write script coverage for internships in college. I hate summaries. I hate summarizing. So when I tell you I hate my synopsis and think it’s dry and uninteresting believe me. Luckily, I had Charlee, my close writing friend to chime in and say this is good, this makes no sense and that’s not even a word! 

5. I Read the First Fifty Pages of My Manuscript 100 Times Agents have different requirements. Some want a query and fifty pages. Others want a query, a summary, and fifty pages. Or they want the Query, the first 1-3 chapters, and a summary, or a query, the first 1-3 chapters and nothing else. Some agents have forms that ask questions like “If you could describe your character in three words what would those words be?” or “what are three comparable books to your manuscript?” Other agents just want an email with “QUERY: MANUSCRIPT TITLE” as the subject and a simple query. 

I did my best to check grammar, spelling, etc in the first fifty pages. But I went to NYC public school so my grammar SUCKS. Every time I sent the pages to a new agent I would find something else and cringe. Not just cringe but decide I would never get an agent simply because I don’t have the ability to properly check myself. Agents do not expect you to be an editor, but you should try your BEST to hand in pages that are as clean and as ready as possible.  Do not half-ass this process. 

Side Note: A Word of Advice about Querying. 

If you only listen to one tip from me let it be this…Make sure you get the agent and the agent requirements right. Let’s face it, you are probably not going to write an individualized email unless you actually have something specific. I knew that one agent was as big of a Game of Thrones fan as myself and I was querying as Thrones was coming back for its seventh season, so I mentioned her love of GOT as a reason I wanted to query her. 

But the truth of the matter is that I don’t go to writing conventions, I haven’t participated in pitch sessions so there was no reason that any of these agents would know me.It was mostly a form, run of the mill, same for everyone,  query. And many writing tip sites will tell you to add a personal note, etc. But it’s my opinion that it’s better to get to the point than to be insincere. Besides if your Query is good it won’t matter if you used a line of the email to kiss the agents ass.

Artist Arvalis has been drawing realistic Pokemon for over 6 years and that work led him to a job as a creature designer on Detective Pikachu. He was hired after the movie’s production designer did a google search for “realistic pokemon” and his page popped up.

Check out their portfolio here:

Just the other day I was emailed by a relatively new indie journal looking for writers. They made it very clear that they did not pay writers for their work, so I figured I’d probably be passing, but I took a look at their Copyright policy out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. They wanted “non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license and right to use, display, reproduce, distribute, and publish the Work on the internet and on or in any medium” (that’s copy and pasted btw) and that was the first of 10 sections on their Copyright agreement page. Yikes. That’s exactly the type of publishing nightmare you don’t want to be trapped in. 

Most journals will ask for “First North American Rights” or a variation on “First Rights” which operate under the assumption that all right revert back to you and they only have the right to be the first publishers of the work. That is what you need to be looking for because you do want to retain all the rights to your work. 

You want all rights to revert back to you upon publication in case you, say, want to publish it again in the future or use it for a bookmark or post it on your blog, or anything else you might want to do with the writing you worked hard on. Any time a publisher wants more than that, be very suspicious. Anyone who wants to own your work forever and be able to do whatever they want with it without your permission is not to be trusted. Anyone who wants all that and wants you to sign away your right to ever be paid for your work is running a scam.

What if the publisher goes defunct? What if they get bought by another publisher who doesn’t care to promote or publish your work? You still can’t to anything with it, you don’t own it anymore!

For a thorough overview of what you should be aware of regarding your intellectual property and publishing rights, please read through this collection of post [https://kriswrites.com/business-musings/contracts-and-dealbreakers/] by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.