Category Archives: Writing

Proposal Writing: 5

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Your intended publisher needs to know, without having to flip to the sample text, who is going to be reading your final book. Are you aiming for preschoolers? middle grade readers? young adults? If you’re writing for adults, is there an international community of 5.6 million daisy-chain makers to read your Flower Children for a New Age?

If you’re writing for general interest, this section is easy. If your book appeals only to a special interest group, you’re going to have to sell the size and the enthusiasm of your potential readership.

My rather basic example:

Readership
This project is designed for 10- to 13-year-old readers. Those are the readers most likely to be familiar with Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World and Canadian Boys Who Rocked the World. It’s also an age group old enough to advocate effectively, and young enough to wholeheartedly believe that change is possible.




To read more about this subject:
Proposal Writing 4: Format
Proposal Writing 3: The Summary
Proposal Writing 2: The Outline
Proposal Writing 1: The Reasons Why

Proposal Writing: 4

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Let’s be realistic. You have no say in the final format of your book. You could describe a fully illustrated, four-color coffee table book and your publisher could accept your proposal and publish a text-only pocket book.

So what’s the point of a proposal section on format? It’s a chance to share your vision — your concrete, one-day-to-be-printed vision — with the publisher. And even though you might not get the ultimate choice in format, your suggestions send important messages.

Suggesting a format that is ridiculously wrong for your idea, ludicrously expensive to print, or downright impossible will mark you as an amateur, someone unfamiliar with book publishing. For example, let’s consider The Pop-up Book of Old Growth Activism, a hardcover to be created in full color, with pop-up cedar trees on each page combined with profiles of environmental activists. Here’s the problem: full color hardcovers are expensive, and pop-up books are most economically published in Asia. So, even if you can guarantee thousands of buyers (many thousands), you will still have to explain the contradiction between your wish to protect the environment and your wish to print in China and ship the books back.

On the other hand, sharing an appealing and realistic format allows you to create a vision of the book in the publisher’s eye. It will explain how long your book will be, and include any out-of-the-ordinary considerations. It doesn’t have to be long. When in doubt, go with the basics on this one. And if you’re going to refer to a specific book, as I do below, make sure it’s recognizable. In this case, I’ve chosen a book by a Vancouver author in a proposal designed for a Vancouver publisher.

Format
This is a workbook-style project, similar to Sarah Ellis’s A Young Writer’s Companion. It should be softcover and large enough to be comfortably used as a notebook. Ideally, line illustrations and use of a second color would enliven the text.

I’m imagining 128 to 144 pages. The manuscript itself would consist of about 2,500 words of body text and an additional 2,500 words of sidebar text. And, because it’s meant to inspire activism, it will of course need to be printed on recycled paper.




To read more about this subject:
Proposal Writing 3: The Summary
Proposal Writing 2: The Outline
Proposal Writing 1: The Reasons Why

Tanya + Rodents = Not Friends

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The rat came back. I almost had a heart attack in the back yard.

The good news… I found his entrance. And I plugged it with a big rock. (By “I” in that sentence, I mean Min.) Then I sprinkled the entire compost heap with cayenne pepper and tabasco sauce.

And then I stopped composting forever.

The end.

Proposal Writing: 3

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First on the list for your non-fiction book proposal: the summary.

This initial summary is your chance to sell your idea. The title of this section is misleading… it’s not actually a summary. A summary, you see, would be boring. It would include everything, it would drag with details, it would have to reach the publisher through osmosis, because said publisher would have fallen asleep.

Think of the summary as your ideal imagined catalogue copy. How would the marketing department describe your finished book? What would the back cover copy say? How will the book’s press release hook potential reviewers? There lies the genesis of your book proposal “summary.”

Here’s what it might look like:

Rock Your World!
Save the Children, the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition, the Freechild Project — across North America and around the world, youth are banding together in activism. But how were these organizations born? And how can a young, would-be activist get started?

Rock Your World! is a combination workbook and guide designed to allow 10- to 13-year-old readers to plan their own world-changing activities. With short chapters on research, fundraising, writing persuasively, forming community groups, and using the media, it will give students the tools they need to start making a difference.

Each two- to three-page chapter will be followed by workbook pages on which readers can take notes, make plans, and record their activities. Interspersed amidst these pages will be short biographies of successful world-changers, interesting facts, and advice from well-known activists. For example, the chapter about persuasive writing might feature information about Simon Jackson’s campaign to have 25,000 letters delivered to the premier’s office during his initial campaign to save the spirit bear.

Rock Your World is a natural companion to Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World and Canadian Boys Who Rocked the World, but can also be sold independently, within and outside of Canada.

Previous posts on this topic:
Proposal Writing: 2 (Outlining the outline)
Proposal Writing: 1 (Why do it?)

Proposal Writing: 2

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Before I can talk about the parts of a non-fiction proposal, I have to give you an outline. ‘Cause that’s what non-fiction writers do. We outline.

For my book ideas, I still use the same steps I learned in university. It can take about… oh… forever… to prepare the material, but hopefully, once the idea is accepted, all the research and writing can be plopped into the manuscript. (And I’m not the only one who writes thorough proposals. I seem to remember Deborah Hodge once saying she submitted a 32-page proposal for a 64-page children’s book.)

The Parts of a Proposal:

  1. Summary
  2. Format
  3. Tone
  4. Readership
  5. Outline
  6. Competition
  7. Schedule
  8. Sample Chapter

Coming next: the step-by-step guide.

Proposal Writing: 1

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I’ve decided to talk about non-fiction book proposals for a while. If you write experimental poetry, or if you’ve stopped by to see if more rats have attacked me, you may have to skip a few posts.

To begin: my top four reasons for creating a thorough book proposal.

  1. It will force you to do all sorts of research that you might (if you’re me) be too lazy to do otherwise. You’ll have to search the library catalogue and the amazon listings for similar books. You’ll have to stop by a real, live bookstore. You’ll have to begin a collection of research sources that will help you once you’re actually writing.
  2. It will determine whether your idea can really become a book, or is actually destined to be a magazine article. Is there enough material? Can you brainstorm new connections between topics? Can you organize the information in an interesting way? Is there a format that will set your book apart from the others on the market?
  3. It will help your publisher to fully consider your ideas. If you happen to mention your brilliant concept while chatting with your publisher on the phone, as in, “Hey, I’d like to write a book for teens about possible ways the apocalypse might happen,” said publisher might then freak out and suggest that you not push teens further toward suicidal tendencies. However, a complete proposal might convince your publisher that the apocalypse can actually be a fascinating and uplifting topic.
  4. It will help you decide whether you actually want to write the book. If you’ve gotten halfway through an outline and you’re dreading writing the sample chapter, the topic’s not for you. Better to find out while writing your proposal for Composting and Rats: A Memoir than to sign a contract and find out after you’ve committed to six months of thinking about rodents.

Coming soon: the ingredients of a book proposal.

Writers just wanna have fu-un

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A few weeks ago, my friend Jacqui asked about my favorite part of the writing process, a question that’s been floating around in the back of my mind ever since. This weekend, as I reviewed illustrations for one book (a merry-go-round ride) and worked on writing the middle of another book (a slow jog through deep mud), I finally came up with a ranking.

The Book-Creation Process, from Most Fun to Least Fun:
1. Receiving the printed books
2. Reviewing illustrations
3. Reviewing designs
4. Writing the first few chapters
5. Researching
6. Responding to copyediting
7. Writing the last chapter
8. Responding to substantive editing
9. Indexing
10. Writing the middle

As you can see, the things that are the most fun involve watching other people take my ideas and turn them into something new and flashy and engaging. The things that are the least fun are the ones that involve high levels of focus and actual… ahem… work. But there are no illustrated, designed, and printed books with a hunk of blank pages in the middle, so — onwards!

What do you writers out there think of my list? What are your favorite and least favorite parts?

I feel a conflict coming on

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The kind and wise Rachelle Delaney read a few chapters of my work recently and said something like, “you may want to think about conflict.”

Yes. I may wish to think about conflict. I DO, in fact, think about conflict. I think about diffusing it whenever it arrises. I’m the one who calms family storms, soothes ruffled friend feathers, and averts impending tantrums.

Unfortunately, this ability transfers to my writing. In every first draft I’ve ever written, there are arguments that are resolved before they ever start and people who make up before the fight ever begins. I never managed to learn the “protagonist + conflict = tension” formula. Which is why I’ve decided to watch the following film over and over until it sinks in.

I’ll warn you, this clip is gross. Downright disgusting in parts. (My favorite line is “take ’em to the morgue and slab ’em.”) But it’s for my own good.

Random Arrivals: 2

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Apologies for the general cheesiness of this. It’s continued from here.

My new friend flounces. All of her flounces — her dress, her bosom, the ringlet that’s escaped her tower of hair. She flounces back into a comfortable position.

“I’m called Madie,” she says.

“I’m Els— Edwina.”

She grins, and her black eyes sparkle as if she’s a child who’s discovered a secret stash of candy. “Glad to meet you, Els-Edwina.” She may look like a strumpet (Mrs. McLeod’s word, not mine), but she’s got some brains under that layer of rouge. (Rouge!)

I grimace. “Just Edwina.”

“My full name ain’t Madie, either. It’s Madeline. My pere named me, but my own mere, God rest her soul, couldn’t pronounce it and I don’t see why he should have got to choose my name, anyway.”

Nodding at this, trying my best to absorb it all, I’m just opening my mouth to respond when she starts up again. “My sister’s been at me to come to her for months now, Says it’s all the best in the Crowsnest. They treat you like you’re practically company employees, she says. Are you a seamstress? Where you heading, honey?”

“Crowsnest Pass as well,” I say. “Field.”

“Field! Well, that’s where my sister is. And they say coincidence is the root of all evil…”

“Necessity. I think it’s—”

“Don’t that beat all? You got family out that way?”

My letter’s in my bag, and my bag is still in the other compartment, the first one I sat in. Just as I’m realizing this, a burst of drunken laughter bounces from the men into the corridor and I pale.

“What’s the matter, hun?”

“My things… I’m afraid I was sitting in that compartment when those men arrived and I left some of my things behind.”