Write Good or Die

gotten that impression. My sister Sandy gave me books every year for Christmas and my birthday. As I grew up, I got Newberry Award winners at least once, sometimes twice a year.
    The only awards ceremony I had ever seen as a child was the Academy Awards, which my mother watched faithfully each March. The only school night that I was allowed to stay up until midnight was Oscar Night.
    So, to child-me, all awards ceremonies took place in pavilions with lots of cameras and lots of pretty well dressed people. And my subconscious had held onto that image of the Newberry awards (which was the only book award my child-self had ever heard of) for more than forty years.
    See how the definitions of success get corrupted? Had it been me getting that award before I came to my adult senses and remembered what an extreme honor it is, I would have been momentarily disappointed by that ballroom. Note that I did not expect the Edgars to be in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Nor did I expect it of the Hugos or the Ritas. Just the Newberry, because that definition got set long before I understood the way the world really works.
    I’m not done with definitions yet, and I’m already farther into this post than I wanted to be. So next week’s post will expand a bit on definitions before I stop withholding information about some of the topics I’ve touched on above.
    As you prepare for next week’s post, see if you can figure out what your superficial definitions of success are and what your lofty secret never-tell-a-soul definitions of success are.
    You might be surprised,

    Kristine Kathryn Rusch— http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com
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CRAFT

    11. What’s Your Premise?
    By Alexandra Sokoloff
    http://www.alexandrasokoloff.com

    So I was at some author event the other night and doing the chat thing with people at the pre-dinner cocktail party and found myself in conversation with an aspiring author who had just finished a book, and naturally I asked, “What’s your book about?”
    And she said–“Oh, I can’t really describe it in a few sentences– there’s just so much going on in it.”
    WRONG ANSWER.
    The time to know what your book is about is before you start it, and you damn well better know what it’s about by the time it’s finished and people, like, oh, you know - agents and editors, are asking you what it’s about.
    And here’s another tip–when people ask you what your book is about, the answer is not “War” or “Love” or “Betrayal”, even though your book might be about one or all of those things. Those words don’t distinguish YOUR book from any of the millions of books about those things.
    When people ask you what your book is about, what they are really asking is–“What’s the premise?” In other words, “What’s the story line in one easily understandable sentence?”
    That one sentence is also referred to as a “logline” (in Hollywood) or “the elevator pitch” (in publishing) or “the TV Guide pitch” – it all means the same thing.
    That sentence really should give you a sense of the entire story: the character of the protagonist, the character of the antagonist, the conflict, the setting, the tone, the genre. And–it should make whoever hears it want to read the book. Preferably immediately. It should make the person you tell it to light up and say–“Ooh, that sounds great!” And “Where do I buy it?”
    Writing a premise sentence is a bit of an art, but it’s a critical art for authors, and screenwriters, and playwrights. You need to do this well to sell a book, to pitch a movie, to apply for a grant. You will need to do it well when your agent, and your publicist, and the sales department of your publishing house, and the reference librarian, and the Sisters in Crime books in print catalogue editor ask you for a one-sentence book description, or jacket copy, or ad copy. You will use that sentence over and over and over again in radio and TV interviews, on panels, and in bookstores (over and over and OVER again) when potential readers ask you, “So what’s your book about?” and you have about one minute to get them hooked enough to buy the book.
    And even before all that, the premise is the map of your book when you’re writing it.
    So what are some examples of premise lines?
    Name these books:
    -When a great white shark starts attacking beachgoers in a coastal town during high tourist season, a water-phobic Sheriff must assemble a team to hunt it down before