{"id":381,"date":"2009-10-28T14:24:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T20:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=381"},"modified":"2016-07-12T12:15:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:15:54","slug":"the-aha-moment-by-michael-knost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/the-aha-moment-by-michael-knost\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Aha! Moment” by Michael Knost"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Aha! Moment
\nby Michael Knost <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Stop thinking you have the rejection letter market cornered. No author\u2014despite popularity\u2014has boasted immunity from these painful notes. And that\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, a rejection letter can serve the author just as much as it serves the publisher or editor. I\u2019m not just talking about handwritten notes or suggestions from the editor; impersonal form responses can also make you a better writer.<\/p>\n

I invited a close friend to submit something for one of the anthologies I was working on a few years ago and was excited when her story showed up in my mailbox. She is a fantastic writer, but I found myself unmoved by her tale. So, I had to send her a rejection letter, something I hated doing. She was very cordial, moving on to her next project, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, I might add.<\/p>\n

About three months later, the author sent an email, thanking me for the rejection letter, stating that after working on other projects, she\u2019d reread the story and was mortified at what she had submitted. She was grateful that I did not publish the piece in question, as she feared it could have destroyed her budding career. Now this author was not writing from a beginning level, mind you, she admitted working under a number of deadlines and rushed the story in question. Something I wager she\u2019ll never do again.<\/p>\n

However, beginning writers will obviously produce vastly inferior works in comparison with those they produce after years of honing the craft. Just as the hideous ashtray a world-renowned sculptor might have produced as a child is far inferior to the works of art he or she now has displayed in prestigious galleries and museums. We mature and develop as we identify our mistakes, making the most of them. That\u2019s why rejection letters, although painful, are very important.<\/p>\n

In his book On Writing<\/em>, Stephen King offers a rare glimpse behind the Wizard of Oz\u2019s curtain, revealing the painful scars of a young man with aspirations of a publishing career:<\/p>\n

By the time I was fourteen . . . the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a recent interview, Ray Bradbury spoke about his early struggles for a successful writing career:<\/p>\n

It was a long, slow process with a thousand rejections. I\u2019m still getting rejected this late in time. The important thing is to continue writing and continue being in love with books, authors, and libraries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s hard to fathom Ray Bradbury struggling with rejection letters, isn\u2019t it? But, if he\u2019s still receiving these tortuous slips, what makes you and I think we deserve better? And what can we learn from this?<\/p>\n

Keep writing. Even if you have wallpapered your writing room with rejection letters, keep writing. That\u2019s certainly good advice, but perseverance will only prolong the agony unless you improve<\/em> your craft. So, how does one do that? Well, you have to be able to distinguish good writing from the bad.<\/p>\n

My wife worked as a bank teller a number of years ago and related the process used for identifying counterfeit currency. \u201cYou can\u2019t spot a fake unless you can identify the genuine article,\u201d she\u2019d said. \u201cWe study real money, immersing ourselves in it to the point that anything counterfeit sticks out like a sore thumb.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we as authors should read as much of the good stuff as possible. If we study the good stories, immersing ourselves in them, we\u2019ll be able to identify the bad aspects of writing and avoid them. And every now and then, we will make a discovery that changes how we think and write forever after.<\/p>\n

Some call it intuitive perception, some call it an epiphany, and some call it self-enlightenment. I call it the Aha! Moment<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You know what I\u2019m talking about; it\u2019s that crucial moment where the light bulb comes on over your head, leading to a verbal confirmation such as, \u201cAha!\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of us have experienced many of these moments in our writing, but there is always one or two that stick out as the turning point in our career.<\/p>\n

I asked ten writers who are just breaking into the publishing markets what their Aha! Moments were in hopes that we could gain some insight on what made their work move from rejection to acceptance. The responses are as diverse as the writing styles these talented individuals employ. I\u2019m hoping these answers lead you to your own epiphany moments, and to fewer rejection letters.<\/p>\n

Nate Kenyon found his Aha! Moment in self-editing:<\/p>\n

I\u2019d sent the first few chapters of Bloodstone<\/em> off to Five Star and I got an email asking to see the rest. I knew from previous editors\u2019 feedback that Bloodstone<\/em> was too long and had too many characters for a first novel. I\u2019d tried to edit it before, but I\u2019d been unable, or unwilling, to cut it down enough to make it work, and I\u2019d always received the same reasons for rejection.<\/p>\n

This time I decided to ruthlessly chop away as if I were editing someone else\u2019s manuscript rather than my own. I even made up a fake author\u2019s name to put on the cover page: Tyson Soule<\/em>. I worked all night and by the next morning I\u2019d cut over forty thousand words. I sliced whole characters out and streamlined the entire plot. I sent the revised novel in, and had a contract offer a short time later.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been much better since at taking off my writer\u2019s<\/em> cap when the first draft is done, and putting on the editor\u2019s<\/em> cap to make the tough decisions. For his part, Tyson isn\u2019t talking. I just hope he doesn\u2019t take it personally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sarah Langan\u2019s Aha! Moment came about five years into attempting to sell a few short fiction pieces and her first novel. She related her work as being a square peg that didn\u2019t fit into the conventional round holes of literary magazines like Glimmer Train<\/em>, the now defunct Story<\/em>, and Zoetrope<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I realized that so long as I wrote about ghosts and dead people, no matter how literate, big publishing would not accept me.<\/p>\n

In the late 90s, genre was verboten. Single girl, Candace Bushnell crap was all over the bestseller lists, and the literary world was obsessed with loading their first author picks with recipes. Weird but true. So I expanded my search, and for the first time since I was a teen, started reading horror and science fiction.<\/p>\n

I subscribed to Cemetery Dance<\/em>, poured over Datlow\u2019s Fantasy and Science Fiction<\/em>, and went online, and found the HWA, too. I spent another year or so learning from what I read, and figuring out what my fiction needed to work as genre, then submitted a few stories to Chizine<\/em>. Trish Macomber, who was the fiction editor there at the time, accepted a story called \u201cTaut Red Ribbon.\u201d It was the first story I\u2019d written without an internal sensor, and on that day, I think I found my true voice. Things got a lot easier after that, not because the doors of publishing opened or anything, but because after that, I always wrote exactly what I wanted, instead of the literary crap that bored me to tears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John R. Little experienced his Aha! Moment while attending the inaugural Borderlands Bootcamp:<\/p>\n

Tom Monteleone was critiquing a story of mine and he said something to the effect that I was great at coming up with wonderful concepts and ideas, but I always forgot to include a story<\/em>.\u00a0 Great concepts and interesting characters were fine, but I didn\u2019t take the time to be sure there was a rocketing plot in it.\u00a0From that point, I always made sure the story<\/em> was never lost, and my sales started taking off immediately.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bev Vincent suffered the exact opposite. He didn\u2019t have a plot or story problem, he says his earliest works of fiction were built around plot ideas and populated by characters that served it:<\/p>\n

My characters didn\u2019t have much personality, and their motives were never explored or particularly obvious to anyone, including me.<\/p>\n

In 2000, I wrote a story about a man suffering from an OCD disorder that made him constantly sure he\u2019d just hit someone with his car. This is a plot idea, but what elevated the story, in my opinion, was that it wasn\u2019t really about his perilous drive to a convenience store on Halloween night, when the streets were alive with potential hit-and-run victims. The story got inside his head and showed readers what it was like to be him. What were his challenges and trials and tribulations? What did he want? In a way, it inverted my approach\u2014the plot became of service to the character, instead of the other way around.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarming Obsession\u201d resonated with readers, more than anything else I\u2019d written to that point. I realized that I had to stop treating my characters like pawns on a chessboard. I used to begin new stories as soon as I had an idea. Now I wait until I have an idea and a sense of who the major players are and what motivates them. I described this revelation in an essay, saying: \u201cStory is what characters do when presented with a situation.\u201d It shifted my focus away from events and onto the characters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mary SanGiovanni found her Aha! Moment during her studies at Seton Hill University\u2019s Master\u2019s of Popular Fiction program:<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

I had read a story I wrote for the workshop, which was comprised of romance writers, SF writers, and YA writers. I had anticipated, I admit with some degree of shame, harsh critiques because of the genre writers in the group; I didn\u2019t expect them to understand horror, or what I was going for, or any of the supernatural elements and their place in the story. But when I was done reading a beginning portion of the story, we began to discuss it.<\/p>\n

The romance folks gave opinions and insight into the effectiveness of the character\u2019s interpersonal relationships, and the young adult folks offered suggestions on clarity for the supernatural elements. It affected one critiquer enough to make her cry, and she had to leave the room. There was a long, deep silence after that, in which one of the romance writers said (and I\u2019m paraphrasing here), \u201cWell, at least you know you wrote something that touched someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the moment, I think, that I realized several things. One, I realized that you can learn about writing in your genre by reading and listening and understanding the strengths of writing outside your genre. A great story is a great story, regardless of genre, and the best work utilizes the skill sets and strengths of many genres.<\/p>\n

I also learned that, particularly in horror, which is a genre whose very foundation is pure emotion, gore for gore\u2019s sake, say, or an awesome, scary monster, or cool and creepy vignettes are all meaningless if, as a writer, you don\u2019t reach that core part of a reader where the emotions lay.<\/p>\n

What makes horror memorable, marketable, and enjoyable over multiple readings is the reader-to-character recognition of and relation to basic emotions. I have miles to go before succeeding on a level I\u2019d like, but I think that learning those things changed my writing\u2014not just in quality or marketability, but in the overall enjoyment of writing it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mark Justice says his Aha! Moment came while voicing an audio version of one of his stories:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about other writers, but I have an enormous blind spot when it comes to typos. I would pour over my manuscripts, dutifully fixing all mistakes. Later, when one of my first readers would check the manuscript, another dozen or more typos would rear their ugly heads.<\/p>\n

My brain, it seems, sees what it wants to see, glossing over the missing or transposed letters and substituting the right word at the right spot.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until I was invited to produce an audio version of one of my stories for a website that I made a breakthrough. This was a story that had gone through several revisions, one that I had read at least 10 times or more. It was, I thought, as good as I could make it.<\/p>\n

And when I read it out loud I was mortified. I found new typos, clumsy phrasing and questionable grammar. I did a rewrite on the spot, ending up with a better story.<\/p>\n

Now I read everything out loud before I submit. It\u2019s made a difference in the quality of my work and in the number of acceptances.<\/p>\n

The embarrassing part is that a guy who has worked in radio for over 30 years should have figured this out quicker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maurice Brauddus had a few Aha! Moments hit him at the same time:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been blessed to have a good set of mentors at every step of my career. My first one, Wayne Allen Sallee, always believed that when you were ready, a mentor would show up. He was the one who introduced me to the convention scene (literally: he convinced me to attend the World Horror Convention in 2002 and introduced me around). So lesson one came with learning to build the business side of writing by developing contacts and meeting my peers (who would become invaluable over the years).<\/p>\n

The second came from a workshop I attended at that same con, taught by Uncle Mort (Mort Castle). I\u2019m a pretty good natural storyteller, but that\u2019s a far cry from (or at least only the first step in) being a good storywriter. So we were doing a writing exercise with him where he had us tell either a funny or sad story from our childhood. I wrote how I always wrote and turned in five pages. He looked it over and said, \u201cYou realize your story doesn\u2019t begin until page three.\u201d In one simple sentence, he diagnosed the major stumbling block to my storytelling. I needed to start the story where the story begins.<\/p>\n

The next year I won the short story contest at the World Horror Convention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nate Southard is another author who found his Aha! Moment while attending the Borderlands Boot Camp:<\/p>\n

I learned so much during that weekend, and it really made my writing stronger and cleaner. If I had to pick a bit of advice as the best, I\u2019d say it was the instructors\u2019 suggestion to submit my work to top markets and trickle down, rather than try to work my way up from the bottom. I\u2019ve found that communicating with these markets has done more for my career and recognition level than just about anything else I\u2019ve done, and the feedback I\u2019ve received from the editors of these markets has helped my writing improve by leaps and bounds. In the past few years I\u2019ve seen plenty of talented writers slog through because of some outdated notion of starting at the bottom and clawing your way up. It really doesn\u2019t need to be that way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bob Freeman found his Aha! Moment the first time he typed the words The End after completing his novel Shadows Over Somerset:<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how I see it\u2026 How many times have we been at a dinner party or the local watering hole and you\u2019re chatting someone up and the question gets asked, \u201cSo, what do you do?\u201d Invariably, as soon as you say writer<\/em>, your conversational foil will respond with, \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve always thought about writing a book.\u201d How often do you think biochemists or brain surgeons hear that? The short answer is none, and it\u2019s because most people think writing is easy, until that is, they sit down to actually do the work.<\/p>\n

I fell into that category, thinking of myself as a writer long before I had actually paid my dues, staring down the demon that is the blank page, and seeing the battle through to the bitter end. Oh, I\u2019d started dozens upon dozens of novels, none of them getting past the first paragraph or so. Writing is<\/em> hard work. You spill your guts with every keystroke and the ink as it strikes the paper is drawn from your own sweat and blood. Did I just show my age? I think you catch my meaning just the same.<\/p>\n

So, yes, my first and most important battle in my quest toward becoming an author was, in my opinion, the most crucial for each and every one of us who have chosen this path. I sat myself down in a chair and I wrote the damn thing. And you know what, I\u2019ve never looked back. Each successive novel has come easier. Of course new challenges arise, but that\u2019s okay\u2026such is the nature of the beast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brian J. Hatcher\u2019s Aha! Moment came while working with a deadline:<\/p>\n

Framed and hanging on the wall of my home office, I have a dollar bill commemorating my first professional sale and a letter from Governor Joe Manchin III of West Virginia complimenting me on a story I\u2019d written. Both these mementos on my wall I have because of \u201cThe Hungry Earth,\u201d a short story published in the anthology Legends of the Mountain State<\/em>. This was the story that almost didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Two weeks before the anthology\u2019s deadline, I realized I was in trouble. Editing wasn\u2019t going well; the problems with the story were plentiful and egregious. The characters didn\u2019t ring true, the middle collapsed like a sand castle against the coming tide, and the ending was trite and unrewarding. I came to the painful realization that the story might not be salvageable. I had another story idea, but I wasn\u2019t sure if two weeks would be enough time to get it into shape; but either I had to try or give up entirely.<\/p>\n

The next two weeks became my Writer\u2019s Hell. I wrote, edited, wrote more, went back to the first story to see if maybe I could somehow come up with a way to fix it, found it to be as bad as I remembered, then wrote still more. With only one day left before the deadline, I had the new story completed.<\/p>\n

However, I wasn\u2019t satisfied with it.<\/p>\n

It seemed rushed, and of course it was. I felt I needed more time, but there was none left. I considered sending Michael Knost\u2014the editor of the anthology\u2014an e-mail telling him I wouldn\u2019t be able to send him a story. I wanted to give up, and I almost did. Finally, I decided to send the story and hope for the best. It still took me ten minutes to assemble the courage to click the send<\/em> button on the e-mail.<\/p>\n

Michael accepted the story, and the boost it gave my career and the praise I garnered for it is, as the saying goes, is history.<\/p>\n

It would seem the moral of this story is that I published because I finally overcame my insecurity and hypercritical nature. But that isn\u2019t true. If I would have had the confidence and courage, I\u2019d have sent the first story; and instead of framed mementos on a wall, I would have another rejection letter, well earned.<\/p>\n

When I began my writing career, I had big dreams of making it<\/em>. Writing would be easy, publishing even easier, and laurels would be gratuitously heaped upon me. \u201cThe Hungry Earth\u201d helped me put away such foolish, meaningless dreams. Writing will never be easy; and for that, I am grateful. Every story I write is harder than the last. Every sentence, every word, takes an ever-growing effort. I struggle, even with these few words I write now. I get frustrated, I even consider quitting, yet I keep writing. I believe this utter inability to be satisfied is the flamma magna,<\/em> the alchemical flame that transforms art into something greater than the artist. The fire will guide me and help me grow, as long as I don\u2019t let it burn me down. I learn more, I see more, and I want so much more from my work. Let others dream of making it<\/em>. May I never be fulfilled. May I never look upon my work and say, \u201cI am content.\u201d I would rather go to my page and say, \u201cLet\u2019s see if I can do better.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Michael West found his Aha! Moment after finding first readers outside the genre:<\/p>\n

I\u00a0had experienced great success in the \u201cfor the love\u201d markets\u2014magazines\u00a0that paid very little or nothing but contributors copies, and I\u00a0just could not understand why the professional (and even\u00a0semi-professional) markets\u00a0kept passing on my work. Then, I made the decision to open up\u00a0my\u00a0circle of readers. Up to this point, I\u2019d only shown my work to people who\u00a0read or watched nothing but horror. These readers were true fans of the genre, and they knew its various conventions. They were forgiving of certain aspects of my\u00a0plots and characterizations, because this was the way people in a horror story act, and these were things\u00a0people in horror stories do.<\/p>\n

However, when I started to\u00a0show my fiction to\u00a0readers who, in some cases, did not even like<\/em> horror,\u00a0these \u201coutsiders\u201d\u00a0did not look the other way on these issues. They helped me make my characters more believable, their motivations much clearer, and they\u00a0allowed\u00a0me to finally find my true voice. When I\u00a0began to write tales about real people, with real problems, who just happened to find themselves in terrifying, unbelievable\u00a0situations…I began to sell.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a maturing writer, you should always be on the lookout for Aha! Moments. They come unexpectedly, and they almost always make such an impact that you\u2019ll see results almost immediately.<\/p>\n

So, don\u2019t let the rejection letters discourage you. Keep writing, and pay attention to the things that will improve your craft. Your turning point could be one Aha! Moment away.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

MICHAEL KNOST<\/strong> is an author, editor, and columnist of horror, dark fiction, and supernatural thrillers. His most recent work is Writers Workshop of Horror,<\/em> a collection of articles\/interviews by\/with some of the biggest names writing dark fiction today. Mike has written many books in various genres, edited anthologies such as the Legends of the Mountain State<\/em> series, Spooky Tales from Mountain State Writers, Appalachian Winter Hauntings<\/em> (with Mark Justice). He has also served as ghostwriter for several projects, including associations with the Discovery Channel<\/em> and Lionsgate Media<\/em>. To the Place I Belong<\/em> will be published in 2010, a supernatural novel based on a Southern West Virginia coalmine. To find out more, visit www.MichaelKnost.com<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aha! Moment by Michael Knost Stop thinking you have the rejection letter market cornered. No author\u2014despite popularity\u2014has boasted immunity from these painful notes. And that\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, a rejection letter can serve the author just as much as it serves the publisher or editor. I\u2019m not just talking about … Continue Reading! ““The Aha! Moment” by Michael Knost”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice-for-writers"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Aha! 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