Top 10 Things I Learned at the Zurich Writers Workshop

As the co-founder of the Zurich Writers Workshop, Writer Abroad also has the benefit of learning from these events. At the spring workshop, From First Draft to Bestseller with Lee Weatherly, here are ten things Writer Abroad learned about writing fiction:

One: Draw out dramatic moments/moments of tension. If a car crash happens in one sentence, you have a problem.

Two: Get inside the character’s head and stay there. Would they be thinking what you’re describing? If not, get rid of it.

Three: A novel synopsis consists of the main plot points only. It should mainly focus on the action story arc but should also touch on the emotional story arc. (For more on how to plot a novel, see here.)

Four: Every scene should center around tension and the scene should start as close to the tension point as possible.

Five: To discover your character’s backstory, come up with contradictions in your character. If they are stubborn, maybe they are also compassionate. And why? Perhaps because when they were young they were bullied so they won’t be able to tolerate others being treated that way.

Six: Holding back information is just as important as telling it. Even if characters know things, they don’t necessarily say them. Resist the urge to explain everything on page 2. Hold back as much as possible until later. It keeps readers hooked.

Seven: When revising, look for emotional words, like happy or sad. Then take them out and figure out how to get across that the character is happy or sad without saying those words.

Eight: Always stay in the moment.

Nine: Let the reader make their own connections/interpretations about what’s going on. For example, you shouldn’t have to say something like “she is in danger.” The reader should get that.

Ten: Use specific nouns. For example, instead of saying “expensive car” say “Ferrari.”

For those who want more information on these topics, check out Lee Weatherly’s book (co-written with Helen Corner) called, Write a Blockbuster and Get it Published.

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Build a book promotion plan you can be proud of

Writer Abroad recently got an e-mail from a writer who self-published a novel set in Switzerland. How should he promote it?

Since Writer Abroad is in the process of determining this for her own essay book about Switzerland, here are five things to consider:

Appear at an expo in the country your book is set in: For instance, in Switzerland, Writer Abroad would probably consider renting a table at an Expat Expo, since she believes expats in Switzerland will make up a big part of her readership.

Tap into a blog network. In Writer Abroad’s case, it makes sense to ask fellow expat bloggers to review the book or allow her to write a guest post for their blog. This strategy is best if you already have a relationship with certain bloggers versus contacting them cold once you have something to sell.

Get reviews on amazon and Goodreads. The more (and better) the reviews, the better chances your book will show up in the search results and therefore be considered for purchase. For more info on this, check out book marketing master Joanna Penn’s blog.

Connect with publications. Write an article or press release about your book (or offer up an excerpt) and send it to editors you already have a relationship with. For instance, Writer Abroad has written for almost all of the English-language magazines and radio stations in Switzerland. She plans to contact them when her book is ready.

Teach a workshop. Two years ago, Writer Abroad taught a workshop at the American Women’s Club called “Make a living as a writer abroad.” She would consider doing something like this again, or perhaps teaching a course through her own Zurich Writers Workshop. A more subtle approach, maybe, but one that will still get your name out there as an author.

Anyone have book promotion ideas that have worked for them?

International Writing Round-up

Expats Blog is hosting a writing contest this month. Every two weeks there is a new topic. Entries must be previously unpublished. Topics include Education & International Schools, Working Abroad, and more. The winner of each topic receives a $200 Amazon gift voucher.

The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment is seeking poetry and creative nonfiction, written by women and inspired by the natural world. 

Canadians or expats living in Canada are invited to submit stories for a new Chicken Soup for the Soul book called, Oh Canada, The Wonders of Winter. Deadline is June 15. Chosen stories receive $200. 

The New York Times had an interesting article on why even Pulitzer-Prize winning authors are choosing to self-publish.

The Glimpse Graduate Program at MatadorU is looking for talented writers, photographers, and filmakers who are living abroad. The application deadline is July 31st. There is a processing fee of $25.

Watching the Boston Marathon Bombings from Japan

Watching Home from Far Away: On Watching the Boston Marathon Bombings from Japan

Guest post by Tracy Slater

On April 16^th, 2013, I had an experience many expatriates have probably shared at one some point: sitting in my living room watching news unfold on a TV screen, news occurring in a place that’s both home and half a planet away.

The sun was filtering through the soji-screen covering the windows of the tatami room where our TV sits, in the apartment I share with my Japanese husband in Osaka. Pale morning light spread across the straw-matted floor in front of the screen, where in slow-motion, Marathon runners buckled and tipped, gray smoke propelling outward in angry billows. Event officials in bright yellow jackets swarmed over gray metal barricades. Spectators sat clutching limbs or carried wounded strangers, their faces all etched in shock.

I was watching my home, Boston, after the bombings at the Marathon. Behind the slow-moving mayhem on the screen, I could see the street corner where my drug store was, the store fronts I had passed and sidewalk I had tread hundreds of times as a life-long Bostonian, pre-marriage and pre-expatriatism. As a teenager, I’d lived just two blocks from the first bomb; as an adult, just a few blocks further from the second, until, at 36, I fell madly in love with a man from Osaka and left my hometown for his.

The carnage in Boston, as I watched it in Osaka, felt both very close and very far. It was nighttime now in Boston, and the footage I was watching was a few hours old. In the morning sunshine, I sat and watched and was shaken and sad. I thought about the darkness shrouding, at that very moment, the streets of my home where the bombs had detonated, now reflected back to me in a way that felt both immediate and time-delayed, viscerally near and ineffably out-of-reach.

My body itched with the impulse not just to do something—not just to react in some way besides gaping, as I stared dumbly at the TV—but to somehow dispel the weird duality of experiencing home and its pain from the remove of continents. I wanted suddenly to, somehow, literally touch the streets of my neighborhood as they were now touching me in my chest, at the same time that they remained flat and grainy and intangible from behind the sturdy glass of the TV screen.

So I did the only thing I could think of, as not just an expatriate but a writer abroad: I wrote. I wrote about how, although I left my first love, Boston, for my second love, my Japanese husband in Osaka, I never lost my primal connection to the city I will always call home.  Although it could do nothing for the lives and limbs lost in Copley Square that day, writing reminded me of why, no matter where I go and what new things I see and learn, I’ve always belonged to Boston first, and always will: just one tiny, inconsequential blip of an offering for a city I knew would need somehow to start to heal, and I’d have nothing much to offer it while it did. Except, of course, my love.

If you’re interested, here is what I wrote. Either way, I hope we as expat writers all keep telling the stories of where we are from, and of how that very telling helps each of us hold and share and even create anew our connection to and our pride in our home, even from oceans away.

Tracy Slater is a freelance writer and the founder of the award-winning global literary series Four Stories. Her book The Good Shufu: A Wife in Search of a Life Between East and West, is forthcoming from Penguin’s Putnam imprint.

How to Plot a Novel

At the Zurich Writers Workshop in Zurich last weekend, Writer Abroad got her second confirmation that yes, her novel has structure. This was a great relief, after struggling for a couple of years to make sure her plot made sense.

Structure is highly recommended for anyone writing a novel. It’s essential for everything, from making sure your story has well, story, to making sure your story will be marketable.

But how do you plot a novel?

How about reading a book first?

Writer Abroad used Story Engineering, by Larry Brooks, to help her understand how to plot the main points of her novel. It's the most useful book she's read on the subject so far.

At the workshop last weekend, the instructor, Lee Weatherly, used a Three-Act Graph Worksheet to help the writers figure out if their book had structure. So here’s a quick test from the points on her worksheet. If you can answer the following questions, you probably have a story that makes sense (and if this sounds like Chinese, read Story Engineering or read Lee’s book, Write a Blockbuster and Get it Published):

What is the main character’s goal or problem?

Act One: what is the set-up?

What is the inciting event?

Act Two: How does the hero attempt to overcome the problem? Is there cause and effect and escalating tension?

What is the high point?

What is the rug-pulling moment?

What is the hero’s darkest moment?

What is the climax?

What is the resolution?

Structure may be hard (and feel almost impossible) to get right at first, but then it makes everything else easier—even writing the synopsis.

A synopsis, as Writer Abroad learned over the weekend, is just a way for agents to figure out if your story has structure. So your synopsis doesn’t need to be a scene-by-scene blow of your book (whoops!), it just needs to answer the above questions. For Writer Abroad, this was a real revelation and allowed her to trim her two-page synopsis to one (well, almost one).

Anyone else have good resources to share for understanding story structure?

International Writing Round-Up

The New York Times had an interesting (if depressing) piece on The Slow Death of the American Author.

On a positive note, ALLI, The Alliance of Independent Authors, aims to democratize writing and publishing and is always looking for new members.

JJ Marsh, author of the Beatrice Stubbs series, has posted a useful list of the top ten bookmarks for independent writers. 

And as usual, Erika Dreifus can be counted on to post Monday Markets for Writers. A great place to learn about jobs and opportunities.

English writers take over German-speaking Zurich this weekend during the Zurich Writers Workshop, which will feature authors Sam North and Lee Weatherly as authors in residence. To meet the authors without attending the workshop, join the apéro from 7-9 p.m. at the James Joyce Pub on Friday, April 12. 

Anyone else have some interesting things to share?