It’s been a week now (sigh) since I left the Utopiales convention. Back then, I had promised a fuller report about my meetings with Brandon Sanderson there.

Buckle-up your seatbelts, there it is!

Before I went there, I had thought of several questions for him, and had plotted a mind map to help myself think of questions. I had planned to print out this mind map and go to the convention with it. Well, that was not counting on my ability to forget some tiny, yet important things : after arriving to Nantes, I realized that I was missing a few things, this printout among them. So, I connected to my home network, and emailed myself a jpeg of the map. I then copied the image to a sheet of paper, using my delicate-unreadable-even-by-me handwriting.

I won’t retell my first words to Brandon, they can be found elsewhere, and they do not represent one of my finest moments. I will also not talk about the process we used to ask my questions, though it is a funny one.

So, here’s what happened!

Day 2 : machine-gun questions

Using my mind map, I fired question after question to Brandon. He asked to see the map, but it was so badly written that I didn’t give it to him! I described my peculiar situation before starting the questions : namely english-writing in France, with very limited number of alpha readers.

1 – Strategies for publication

His answer was immediate : find an agent in the UK. Having an agent to take care of things while you’re not in the country seems the way to go. I had Brandon confirm that he didn’t mean “find a publisher in the UK”, and he replied that it would be better to find an agent.

He also told me that I should go to UK conventions, to get a feel of the industry, and possibly locate agents and publishers, know them better, and make myself known to them (sigh).

We talked about multiple submissions to agents : since you can do multiple queries, and it’s unlikely that you will have multiple responses at the same time, this is not really a problem.

2 – Alpha Readers & Writing Groups

There are some online writing groups, though Brandon never liked that medium for meeting people (he likes to have someone before him to talk). Some websites have sections with people offering critique about chapters you post (he cited the nanowrimo website, Brandon’s own forum, and Orson Scott Card’s forum).

For alpha readers, he was worried about having only one of them. He personally rejects 3/4 of the advice given by alpha readers : the more you have, the better!

3 – When to submit

“Sooner than you think you can” was his answer : the point here is not always to publish right away, but to obtain a personal rejection letter, where an editor will tell you what didn’t work in your manuscript. Stephen King describes how those letters were a huge help in his writing.

4 – Writing

We talked a little about his method of outlining (the bullet-point method), and my inability as a discovery writer to outline. Since it doesn’t work for me, he told me to stick to discovery, and not try to outline more than I need to.

We talked a little about some points I was uncomfortable with in my writing (use strange units for time and distance, introduction of a magic system late in the book) : if the alpha readers aren’t too disturbed and the story works, anything goes.

5 – Editing

Editing is difficult for me (probably goes to killing your darlings), and we discussed the process a little. In his opinion, it may be a case of me not seeing what doesn’t work in my writing. The only thing to do here is to have multiple people acting as alpha readers to point out what doesn’t work.

Day 3 : focused questions

The next day, I came back with more focused questions, since I had exhausted my stock of general ones the day before.

1 – Incorporating a new idea in a story

My first book had a wonderful setting, but the current book is more plot-oriented, and has a weak setting. It happens that I got a wonderful new idea for a setting, but the book is about a quarter written. How can I incorporate the new setting?

His answer here is to incorporate the new setting as soon as possible, and finish the book that way. Once the book is done, go back to the start and incorporate the setting there (looks like editing 🙂 )

2 – Character voice

The characters that work for me are the ones I know the most about. I know them so well that I even hear their voice in my head. For the others I don’t know that well, I find I have some trouble writing those characters. How can I do those?

The answer there was to imagine the character’s reaction when he passes through a village; thus obtaining some information about the character’s view of the world. I tried this the next night, and it seems to work!

3 – Finding agents

Obtaining a list of publishers might be easy; what about a list of agents?

Two options here : find a book you like, and look-up the agent for that book; go to conventions, and look-up agents there.

4 – Planning the scenes

It appears that Brandon doesn’t outline every scene, but just waypoints in the story. He just tells me that going from one waypoint to the next is just something he leaves to the story while he writes it.

5 – Prologues

I like prologues, Brandon likes prologues, but some editors find that prologues are a sign of childish writing.

Well, some editors think that way, some others don’t. If the story is well written, a prologue shouldn’t disturb an editor too much.

6 – When to submit to alpha readers and writing groups

For alpha readers, probably at the end of draft 2 : they’re going to notice things you already know are wrong if you submit draft 1; it’s better to submit to them something more polished where the major holes have already been taken care of.

For writing groups, this is a little different, since they’re writers themselves. You should submit to them when you know where you’re going, probably at the end of the first draft.

Conclusions

I’ve already said it before : the man is so nice you feel like you can ask him any question, and he will answer the best he can.

This will be an experience I’ll remember for a long time, so I’ll once more thank him here for giving me a little of his precious time.

I already tried to follow some of his advice : rounding up more alpha readers, and searching for a writing group. We’ll see how it goes.