Every writer's story is unique to that person, and that is one of the reasons I love to talk to different writers and find out how they got started, how they succeed and what they love about becoming a writer. It's one of the reasons I enjoy this blog so much, because i not only love to find out about the different books coming out, but I also like hearing those wonderful, individual stories. Today's guest in My Writing Corner is author Barbara Kroon and her personal story touched me because I not only love writing conferences, but I have also always been interested in writing stories with a sports backdrop.
Welcome, Barbara! Please tell us about your road to publication and your new book
Once I finished the edit that addressed my group’s suggestions, I thought
my manuscript was ready to get to an agent. The group had given me an idea of the
steps involved in finding representation and encouraged me to attend writers’
conferences, so I registered to attend the Pacific Northwest Writers’
Association’s annual conference in Seattle, and the Willamette Writers’
Conference in Portland, Oregon. To be honest, as I headed for Seattle, I was hopeful
that I would find an agent and be done with that part of the process.
Silly me. Once I showed up in Seattle, it didn’t take long to see that I wasn’t
ready. I had only the vaguest of idea of how to pitch my novel, I had no idea
of how to write a successful query letter. The good news, the conference had
great information on query writing and pitching. So just to gain some
experience, I pitched my book. I got a few nibbles and some really helpful
feedback.
I spent the next year editing and polishing my manuscript. And when the
PNWA conference came around on the calendar, I signed up again. This time, several
agents asked for pages. Ironically, an editor I did not pitch to turned out to
have the most influence on my book.
Melissa Singer is a senior editor with Tor Books. Like the other agents
and editors at the conference, Melissa gave a talk about what she wanted to see
in a manuscript. She was terrific. Afterward, I approached her and thanked her
for her great suggestions. “Send me your book,” she said. I said my book wasn’t
what Tor published. She said, “Send it to me anyway.”
It took five months for her to get back to me—amazingly quick considering she was receiving in
excess of 300 manuscripts a week in queries. Her email comments were so thorough,
it was clear she had read my whole my manuscript. She praised the structure,
praised the villain, praised the writing…and very kindly, very gently, said my hero
was boring.
Melissa Singer was soooooooooo right. The good news about fixing that
boring hero was that I had written Trap Play in three points of view. So,
I only had to rework the chapters I had written from my hero’s point of view. It
took five months. And the result of that rewrite is a more interesting and complicated
hero.
Year three and I was back at PNWA. By this time, I had a really good
pitch plan and I knew how to make the most of the conference. In total, I pitched
to five agents and to four editors. Every one of them asked to see some part of
my book. During my pitch, one editor immediately asked for the whole
manuscript.
When I returned home from the conference, I wrote “requested query”
letters to the agents and
editors I’d met and included whatever part of my manuscript they had requested,
plus the extra information their company submission requirements identified. Once
I was finished with those queries, and in case all nine of the conf people
rejected my manuscript, I spent one day a week for several weeks querying
other agents who were seeking suspense thrillers.
The PNWA conference was in September. In early December, I heard back
from Ally Robertson, the editor who had asked to see my whole manuscript. Ally
emailed me on behalf of Wild Rose Press, saying they were interested in
publishing Trap Play but… The selection committee felt that the
manuscript needed another touch from an independent editor (meaning not Ally,
because Ally would be working with me at the press if they took the book). Ally
recommended independent editor Tammy Jeffers, who did a splendid pass-through
of my manuscript. When Tammy pointed out a chapter near the middle of the book
which seemed to stall the action, I got the message loud and clear: drop that
chapter. After all, she knew more about story than I did. I sent the revised manuscript
back to Ally and four days later I had my contract with Wild Rose Press.
How do you come up with your characters?
The Ben Leit series was born out of my interest in football. I started
out thinking I would write about incompetent officiating and the damage that players
suffer because of it. I made a bunch of starts on my story which went nowhere.
Then, finally, I took a different angle for the story. Think of starting the story
as finding a loose thread on a sweater. I took hold of that loose thread and
pulled. The sweater unraveled and out popped Ben Leit, his murdered father, and
the question of what the killer was like and why had the killer had targeted
Ben’s dad.
It seemed logical to me that the killer murdered Ben’s dad in order to
hide an earlier crime, something where the threat of exposure might be serious
enough that the killer would do anything to prevent it coming to a prosecutor’s
attention. ‘Serious crimes’ left me thinking about the corporate messes I’d
encountered during my law firm days. And the idea of a corrupt corporation left
me thinking about the power struggles that can go on inside large organizations.
And that led me to (surprise) a second protagonist: Mimi Fitzroy.
Two protagonists meant I needed to build a real contrast between Ben and
Mimi. Where Ben is a big, physical man, suffering from everything life has
stripped away from him (career, his father, and the possibility he’ll die in
roughly ten years thanks to his head injuries), Mimi is tiny, exceedingly
smart, and she has sacrificed an academic career to satisfy the demands of a
father who doesn’t understand her, doesn’t appreciate her, but is completely
comfortable with using her talents and abilities to make himself into an even bigger
wheel. To make things worse, he is stepping down and putting Mimi’s lifelong
enemy is his place as corporate CEO.
As you know by now, the villain is killing to prevent Ben’s dad from
exposing blackmail, arson, securities fraud, and nearly a decade of antitrust
violations… I needed a villain who was smart enough to commit the underlying
crimes, clever enough to manipulate the people around her, and physically
capable of accomplishing the seductions and fights the story required. That led
me to the villain’s backstory, most of which is tragic and barely suggested in
the book, but which was important for me to work through.
How do you come up with your plots?
I talked above
about the connection the Ben Leit series has to my fondness for football. What
may not be clear is that the Ben Leit books are not about the game of football,
but rather, about the long-range consequences of head injury caused by
helmet-to-helmet collisions. Those injuries hang like a ghost in the Trap
Play story. Trap Play is about power, greed, and what it means to be
a hero. The second book in the Ben Leit series (working title The Beek)
is about revenge. Again, with that undercurrent of the impact of brain injury
on the family of the injured player.
But not everything
I’m working on is connected to sports. I’m also working on a literary novel.
The Truth of It (working title) involves three generations
of a once-affluent family, a Ponzi scheme, and lawsuit brought by the victims
of the con artists. Portia’s discovery of her husband’s lie about a Ponzi
scheme and that he has lost all their money is like the tree falling on your
roof. In the process of fixing your roof, you discover that the house has been
falling apart for years. The more you fix, the more you find is rotten.
Chronologically, The
Truth of It begins with that Ponzi scheme. But the arc of the story rides
on the idea of deceit—how the deceit of the con game leads to a string of lies
that damage three generations of a family.
Tell us about your latest book. What made you write it?
I started out writing as a poet. One of the things poets do
is work out their concerns on the page. Since I kept getting so annoyed with
the officiating at our team’s games, like any poet, I decided to write around
the subject and see where it took me. Writing around bad officiating led took
me to a whole bunch of questions. What happens to the guys who are forced out
of the football game (and their really, really big-deal careers) because of
those head injuries we read about? What if one of those guys with a head injury
discovered the loss of his career and even the possibility that he had CTE was
not the worst thing that happen to him? What if someone he loved was murdered?
How did you decide on the sports background?
Add it up. (1) America’s sense of heroism certainly extends to its
athletes. (2) I’m interested in exploring the ideas of heroism. (3) Sports are
wonderfully physical and you need a sense of the physical in suspense/thrillers.
But as I’ve said, sports is simply a background for the action in Trap
Play. The story focuses on the protagonists’ willingness to risk their
lives in order to expose a murderer. It has something for pretty much anyone: a
former football hero, a brainy computer geek, and a power-hungry former beauty
queen.
What advice do you have for beginning writers?
1. In particular (and maybe first of all), read “Save the Cat! Writes a Novel.” The strategies and advice in those pages will likely save you weeks, months, maybe even years of wasted time.
2. Read well-written books, including ones in your genre (if you’re doing genre writing). Then re-read them and pay attention to how the author has put them together.
3. Attend classes or symposiums, and the nearest writer’s conference—all those venues will help you get going and hopefully give you a chance to connect with other ‘young’ writers.
4. When you begin your book, think about your characters and what they would do in a particular circumstance and why. That way, your story is driven by what your characters want and what’s blocking them from achieving their desires.
5. Connect up with a group of writers who meet regularly. You can get a lead on groups in those classes, symposiums and conferences I mentioned above. And a word about writers’ groups: you will grow more as a writer if you steer toward groups that actually give you the bad news and don’t simply pour on the praise. It may be difficult at times to get that tough love, but your work will grow and improve because of it.
6. When you think your book is ready, send it to an independent editor and ask them to give it a hard look. Consider their advice seriously.
7. Don’t let rejection get you down. But do listen to those agents, editors, beta readers and others who talk with you critically about your book. Remember, your job is to keep your reader engaged.
What is you next project?
I’m mid-way through book two of the
Ben Leit series (The Beek). When I complete a first draft (I expect to
finish that first draft by this fall), I will let it rest for a few months and
shift back to my literary novel (The Truth of It).
How can readers get in touch with you?
Here are the links to her books:
BUY: Amazon also available at Nook, KOBO,
Thank you, Barb, for being my guest. Any comments or questions?
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