This is part 3 of a 4 part series about career advice my graduate adviser gave to his graduate students and postdocs. His advice is for people pursuing an academic science career, but I'm sharing the ones that also apply to writers.
Part 1: Choose your projects carefully
Part 2: Know the literature
Part 3: Don't spread yourself too thin, especially early on in your career
There's so many interesting topics in neuroscience that it's tempting to investigate them all! However, that's a bad idea for two reasons. First, as a young inexperienced scientist, it's hard enough to stay on top of the literature for one topic, let alone two. Second, you want to become well known and established in your subfield. Publishing two papers on memory and two papers on schizophrenia doesn't make you twice as impressive. It just makes you half as impressive to the memory and schizophrenia communities as you would have been if you had focused on one topic.
Likewise, as a young author, it may be tempting to genre hop. This is a bad idea for analogous reasons. First, it is easier to “keep up with the literature” in one genre as opposed to trying to understand the conventions, traditions, and unique challenges of multiple genres. Second, skipping from genre to genre takes away from your ability to build a solid fan base in one genre. You split your efforts, and you may end up with a weakly formed fan base in two genres, rather than a strong fan base in one. For more on genre hopping, read this blog entry from agent Nathan Bransford.
And finally, part 4.
Writing Career Advice from a Neuroscientist Part 2: Know the Literature
This is part 2 of a 4 part series about career advice my graduate adviser gave to his graduate students and postdocs. His advice is for people pursuing an academic science career, but I'm sharing the ones that also apply to writers.
Part 1: Choose your projects carefully
Part 2: Know the Literature
When designing a new experiment, you need to be caught up on the field. There's no point in conducting an experiment to show something we already know, and there's no point in testing a hypothesis that can't possibly be true.
While it may be easier to write a novel than do neuroscience in a vacuum, you'd have a much better chance of publishing it if you research the market and know what is currently selling. This doesn't mean that we should all be writing teen-vampire-wizard-catholic-church-conspiracy stories, but it does mean that we need to have a good sense of general market trends.
Don't take my word for it though. Here are some interesting blog entries from people who actually know what they're talking about.
1. Agent Jessica Faust on representing books that are different.
2. Agent Rachelle Gardner on whether you should write what's hot.
3. Eric at Pimp My Novel had an excellent series on genre specific book sales.
Stay tuned for Part 3...
Part 1: Choose your projects carefully
Part 2: Know the Literature
When designing a new experiment, you need to be caught up on the field. There's no point in conducting an experiment to show something we already know, and there's no point in testing a hypothesis that can't possibly be true.
While it may be easier to write a novel than do neuroscience in a vacuum, you'd have a much better chance of publishing it if you research the market and know what is currently selling. This doesn't mean that we should all be writing teen-vampire-wizard-catholic-church-conspiracy stories, but it does mean that we need to have a good sense of general market trends.
Don't take my word for it though. Here are some interesting blog entries from people who actually know what they're talking about.
1. Agent Jessica Faust on representing books that are different.
2. Agent Rachelle Gardner on whether you should write what's hot.
3. Eric at Pimp My Novel had an excellent series on genre specific book sales.
Stay tuned for Part 3...
Wedding Haikus
Greetings! Just wanted to report that we survived the wedding and our one week honeymoon in Banff National Park!
Since this is a writing blog, I'll share this little tidbit from our wedding. Jeff and I decided that the usual "clinking glasses to kiss" tradition was cute, but kind of boring. So we proposed the following modification: before clinking their glasses, the guests had to take the microphone and either 1) compliment Livia or 2) make fun of Jeff -- bonus points if they did both in haiku form.
People came up with some hilarious and rather well written haikus. For some reason, I found this one particularly amusing:
Jeffrey is funny--
looking. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
What do you think? Total copout, or stroke of genius?
Writing Career Advice From a Neuroscientist, Part I: Choose your Projects Carefully
As a graduate student studying the brain mechanisms of reading, I'm blessed with a pretty awesome day job (or more accurately, “afternoon, evening, and weekend job”). My adviser is a tenured professor at MIT and occasionally gives graduate students advice on building a scientific career. Not only is his advice spot on, but I've realized that many of his tips apply to building a writing career as well. His tips are the inspiration of this four part series: Writing Career Advice From a Neuroscientist
Tip #1: Choose Your Project Wisely
Before I came to my current lab, I worked as a behavioral psychologist -- I made people do experiments on computers and measured their responses and how quickly they responded. Behavioral experiments are very fast paced -- you can finish an experiment in a week if you work quickly. Because of the small time commitment, the cost of not planning a good behavioral experiment is minimal. If you have a crazy idea, just run a couple of participants and see if it works. Worst case scenario, you lose a few weeks and maybe the $100 that you paid your participants.
When I moved into my current lab, I started with the same mentality of just grab a crazy idea and dive in. However, I quickly learned to slow down and think things through more carefully. Why? Because now I was working in brain imaging. Rather than $100 and a few weeks, you're now talking $20,000 and months or years. An average brain imaging experiment takes about two years from conception to publication if everything goes well. Assuming that your professional life lasts 50 years, every experiment is four percent -- a significant chunk -- of your working life. Therefore, it's important to think before diving in. There's nothing worse than looking back and realizing you would have saved two years of work if you had just thought things through.
Writers would be wise to also consider the time investment factor when planning their projects. If you're just writing a short story, there's no harm in sitting at your computer and typing out any crazy idea you have. However, a novel can take anywhere from six months to several years to complete. It's not so bad to finish a short story and realize it's it's the dumbest thing ever written. However, it's a much worse feeling to finish a 90,000 word manuscript, and only then realize that your premise doesn't work or isn't publishable.
So how to you tell if something is worth working on? Stay tuned for Part II...
Tip #1: Choose Your Project Wisely
Before I came to my current lab, I worked as a behavioral psychologist -- I made people do experiments on computers and measured their responses and how quickly they responded. Behavioral experiments are very fast paced -- you can finish an experiment in a week if you work quickly. Because of the small time commitment, the cost of not planning a good behavioral experiment is minimal. If you have a crazy idea, just run a couple of participants and see if it works. Worst case scenario, you lose a few weeks and maybe the $100 that you paid your participants.
When I moved into my current lab, I started with the same mentality of just grab a crazy idea and dive in. However, I quickly learned to slow down and think things through more carefully. Why? Because now I was working in brain imaging. Rather than $100 and a few weeks, you're now talking $20,000 and months or years. An average brain imaging experiment takes about two years from conception to publication if everything goes well. Assuming that your professional life lasts 50 years, every experiment is four percent -- a significant chunk -- of your working life. Therefore, it's important to think before diving in. There's nothing worse than looking back and realizing you would have saved two years of work if you had just thought things through.
Writers would be wise to also consider the time investment factor when planning their projects. If you're just writing a short story, there's no harm in sitting at your computer and typing out any crazy idea you have. However, a novel can take anywhere from six months to several years to complete. It's not so bad to finish a short story and realize it's it's the dumbest thing ever written. However, it's a much worse feeling to finish a 90,000 word manuscript, and only then realize that your premise doesn't work or isn't publishable.
So how to you tell if something is worth working on? Stay tuned for Part II...
My blog featured on Jordan McCollum's website critique series!
About a month ago, agent Nathan Bransford hosted a blog entry contest. One of the winners was Jordan McCollum, who wrote a great post on essential components of an aspiring writer's website.
This week she's starting an author website critique series on her own blog, and my site was the first in line! She and internet designer Kathleen MacIver gave some really insightful and practical tips that are not only helpful to me, but would be useful to any writer looking to improve their web presence. Go check it out!
Since this review has put me in a "website improvement" mood, I figure it's good time to solicit feedback from you, my readers. Now that I've put up a few entries, do you have any comments or suggestions for improvement? Anything that you'd like to see more or less of? If you read Jordan's review, I'd love to hear whether or not you agree with her suggestions as well.
A week from Saturday I'm getting married (!!!!), and then I'll be gone for two weeks on my honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies. See you all when I return!
This week she's starting an author website critique series on her own blog, and my site was the first in line! She and internet designer Kathleen MacIver gave some really insightful and practical tips that are not only helpful to me, but would be useful to any writer looking to improve their web presence. Go check it out!
Since this review has put me in a "website improvement" mood, I figure it's good time to solicit feedback from you, my readers. Now that I've put up a few entries, do you have any comments or suggestions for improvement? Anything that you'd like to see more or less of? If you read Jordan's review, I'd love to hear whether or not you agree with her suggestions as well.
A week from Saturday I'm getting married (!!!!), and then I'll be gone for two weeks on my honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies. See you all when I return!
Character reactions can show their personality
How can you convey to the reader that a character is a kind and dedicated mother? One option would be to include scenes where she's actively caring for her children. Or, you could have a scene like this, from Carl Hiaasen's Newbery Honor book Hoot
.
"His mom sent him off to military school," Roy explained, "and now she doesn't want him back. She said so herself..."
Roy's mother cocked her head, as if she wasn't sure that she'd heard him correctly. "His mom doesn't want him?"
Roy saw something flash in her eyes. He wasn't certain if it was sorrow or anger -- or both.
"She doesn't want him?" his mother repeated.
Roy nodded somberly.
"Oh, my," she said.
The words came out so softly that Roy was startled. He heard pain in his mother's voice.
I like how this passage gives us, in a few short lines of dialogue, a rich and poignant picture of Roy's mother. We know from this exchange that she's sensitive and feels strongly about maternal obligation. We also see that even though she's capable of strong feelings, she's more likely to keep the feelings under control than yell and scream. Somehow, I find this passage more compelling than a straightforward one where she's simply seen caring for her kids.
A good reminder that a character's reaction to news or events can tell the reader quite a bit about the character. What do you think?
."His mom sent him off to military school," Roy explained, "and now she doesn't want him back. She said so herself..."
Roy's mother cocked her head, as if she wasn't sure that she'd heard him correctly. "His mom doesn't want him?"
Roy saw something flash in her eyes. He wasn't certain if it was sorrow or anger -- or both.
"She doesn't want him?" his mother repeated.
Roy nodded somberly.
"Oh, my," she said.
The words came out so softly that Roy was startled. He heard pain in his mother's voice.
I like how this passage gives us, in a few short lines of dialogue, a rich and poignant picture of Roy's mother. We know from this exchange that she's sensitive and feels strongly about maternal obligation. We also see that even though she's capable of strong feelings, she's more likely to keep the feelings under control than yell and scream. Somehow, I find this passage more compelling than a straightforward one where she's simply seen caring for her kids.
A good reminder that a character's reaction to news or events can tell the reader quite a bit about the character. What do you think?
Three useful pointers from "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy"
One would be hard pressed to find someone with better credentials for teaching science fiction than 10 gazillion time Hugo and Nebula award winner Orson Scott Card (most well known for Ender's Game
).I recently read his book How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
Although some portions were too philosophical for me to find immediately helpful, he gives insightful tips on world building and plotting, and the excellent chapter on exposition is itself worth the price of the book. Here are three tips from the book that I found particularly useful.1. The idea net - The idea of making up a whole universe, with peoples, cultures, landscapes, and histories can often seem overwhelming. That's why I liked Card's approach, which is to start with one or two ideas and expand on them by asking questions and following them to their logical conclusion.
He uses Ender's Game as an example. First he started with the idea of kids playing battle games, and then asked questions -- Who are they fighting? What is the goal of their training?
Likewise, if you are making up an alien species, first start with a few characteristics (another of Card's examples -- they communicate by transmitting memories directly via DNA) and then ask questions. For example, how do these characteristics influence their society and government? Why would such characteristics evolve?
Card sometimes runs workshops where the class uses this process -- asking questions, improvising answers, and repeating. The results are almost always workable into a story.
2. Exposition in Science Fiction and Fantasy - A unique challenge of speculative fiction is the need to acquaint the reader with an entire world and all its relevant quirks and details. How do you do that without clunky descriptive paragraphs or artificial explanatory dialogue?
Card addresses this issue by analyzing an example of skillful exposition: the opening of Octavia Butler's Wild Seed
. A summary is no substitute for his actual analysis, but the basic point is that much can be shown through subtle details. For example, referring to a village as a "comfortable mudwalled place" tells the reader not only about the setting (primitive), but also that the point of view (POV) character feels comfortable in rustic surroundings.It is not necessary to break POV and give characters artificial thoughts in order to fill the reader in. In fact, good use of POV will create a deeper and fuller sense of the setting. Details like whether or not the character regards items and events as unusual or commonplace, happy or sad, fair or unfair, will be picked up by your readers and incorporated into their impression of the world.
3. Creating a wise reader - How do you get feedback from friends and family beyond the polite but not very useful "Yeah, I liked it"? Card suggests that the secret isn't to get people to tell you how to fix your writing (Add more description? Bad characterization? Faulty plotting?), but to train your "wise readers" to report their own personal experience while reading. If they can tell you when they felt bored or excited, when they stopped reading, and when they felt something was missing, then you can go back and figure out how to fix things.
Overall verdict: There's lots of good stuff in this book. I'd highly recommend reading it at least once, and I myself will probably read it multiple times.
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