Keynote: Stephanie Garber

Stephanie Garber is the #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of THE CARAVAL SERIES, which has been translated in over 25 languages. Her newest book, ONCE UPON A BROKEN HEART, came out late last year and is the start of a brand new series.

Before being agented or published (and at the time also unemployed) Stephanie tells us the story about being on a date and getting asked what she wanted to do with her life. When she replied that she hoped to be on the NYT best seller list one day... The date went sideways. She felt so ashamed, embarrassed, and rejected that she stopped sharing her dream out loud. And when Stephanie learned about SCBWI, these same feelings kept her reluctant to join and fearing the worst until she attended her first conference which Stephanie described as life changing.

Some of those life-changing keynotes from SCBWI conferences were given by Lin Oliver, Richard Peck, and Mac Barnett. And from those inspiring keynotes Stephanie started to gain confidence again in having her big, NYT list dream. Though Stephanie had a full-time job at a college, the writing she was doing in her spare time as her passion project turned out to be a much better match than that original jerky date and she found herself falling in love with writing stories. For her, pursuing publication was the only way she could see being able to afford to write full time.

Stephanie is a big fan of big goals and dreams and says, "Goals and dreams don't need to be explained or justified, but they should be big and out of reach. Big, impossible dreams make for big goals and big writing... Have a dream so big that it makes other people laugh, those are the dreams that bring stories to life."

Stephanie found that burying her big NYT dream made her writing suffer and made her feel like she wasn't herself. When she tried to make her dreams "more practical" she found she stopped having fun and was writing from a place of fear. Great, big-goal writing needs three things. Here are the first two:

1."You have to banish fear," says Stephanie, "Fear shrinks your brain and makes you less creative, even if we don't know the science behind that we know we can feel that. Look for the fears you may not know you have but that may be holding you back, discover your fears so you can banish them." 

2. Write with your superpower, but do you know what that power is and are you currently using it? Stephanie was compared to Anne Shirley a lot as a kid, she was very dramatic—crying wasn't just crying, it was wailing in the depths of despair. But there's more to Anne than emoting, it's how she sees the whole world through a lens of romance and drama. Stephanie loves that lens, too, and writes romance, drama and settings that feel beautifully alive. Your superpower might not be something you love about yourself, at first, but try fully embracing it and see how that changes your writing.

Stephanie says 50% of writing and publishing is simply failing, so accept that and then ask yourself: 

If you knew whatever you wrote would succeed, what would you write? What kind of story would you want to tell?

Keynote: Stephanie Garber

Stephanie Garber is the New York Times and Sunday Times best-selling author of the break-out, young adult fantasy Caraval, which is one of the publishing success stories of 2017. When Stephanie isn’t writing, she teaches creative writing at a private college in northern California, where she’s been known to turn assignments into games and take students on fieldtrips that involve book signings. She can be found on Twitter @sgarbergirl, or Instagram @stephanie_garber. 

Lin Oliver introduced Stephanie Garber as "the definition of an overnight success." 

But that overnight success was more than seven years in the making. 

"The last time I was here, I was not published. So I'm very excited. And I'm really nervous," she says. "I know what it's like to sit here and wonder if you'll ever get an agent or a book deal, hoping that someone will see something in you and your work. Hoping someone will say the words that would make it all better."

She was you when she got here. "I wanted a magic formula -- agent, book deal, success. That's not how it works." 

How it did work, Stephanie edition: 

-She queried 100 agents with her first manuscript. Got silence. 

-She wrote four more books. Queried the hell out of them. Nada.

-She landed an agent with her 5th book.

-That book got close, but didn't sell.

During that time, "I moved back in with my parents and went to many family functions where people questioned my life choices," Stephanie says. "I also questioned my life choices."

Then, "The week I finished Caraval, my agent left the business. So I was back in the query trenches," Stephanie says. "I felt like I was made to tell stories. But that dream I loved so much didn't love me back. So every time I was rejected, it felt personal."

"But then a miracle happened. Close to 70 percent of the agents I queried requested the book," Stephanie says. "Out of those agents that requested, eight agents offered. Caraval sold in an eight-editor auction, and the film rights sold the same day. It couldn't be a more dramatically different experience from my first time on sub."

So what changed from the first book to Caraval? Here are the four things that Stephanie believes were truly crucial on her journey:

1) "Write the book you are brutally obsessed with. The book that wakes you up at night, itching to write." Because chances are, if you're obsessed, someone else will be, too. 

2) "Do the things you're afraid of." For Stephanie, one of those things was joining SCBWI and going to a conference -- her worst nightmare. But going to conferences -- both on craft and the publishing business -- helped Stephanie up her game and improve her writing. 

3) Learn to let go. The first three books Stephanie wrote were part of trilogy -- more than a thousand pages and two years of writing. "I was so enchanted by own story," she says. She'd written so many words and spent so much time on them, she couldn't let go. "Not only had I invested time in it, but my hopes were in the pages of that story. My heart was in it." But, Stephanie says, "once I let go of it, I never looked back." Starting over is hard. But usually necessary. 

4) Read widely. And read deeply. Advice from Lin, probably via Judy Blume: "For every one book you write, read 500." Create a personal canon of books. It will help you find your voice. "When I meet a writer who doesn't enjoy reading, it baffles me." When Stephanie moved home, she didn't have much money, but she took home stacks of books from the library. She read for pleasure, but she also studied those books. Learn and know what you do and don't enjoy -- if you don't like it, chances are your readers won't like it. Write the kind of books you want to read.

"I just want to say that being here means you are on the right path," Stephanie says. "If you persevere, I believe wholeheartedly that you will achieve your dreams. That is what I needed to hear when I was that wannabe writer sitting right where you are right now. The reality is, most people in this industry is kind. When you hear no, there's usually a valid reason for it. Keep working, keep trying, but keep growing. If this process hasn't hasn't humbled you, it should. There is always more to learn. But I can't wait to hear about the success of everyone in this room."

Stephanie Garber: Five Tips on How to Write a Five Star Ending

Stephanie Garber, author of CARAVAL, garnered wild, breakout success for her YA fantasy which has been on the NYT bestseller list. She's also a creative writing teacher who knows a thing or two about spicy endings. She knows at least five things, actually, but the blog will only share one exercise.

First, Stephanie has us think about the sorts of books we love to read, and FINISH reading. She says you'll read a book with a slow beginning as long as the rest of it picks up, but you'll ask for your money back for a book with a bad ending. Or if not bad, a mediocre or forgettable ending you may not bother to finish, which is just as upsetting. A bad ending in this instance means it's got plot holes, or unanswered questions, or a nonsensical resolution or is overly tragic or is a combination of all of the above.

Stephanie is a 'discovery' writer vs. being a 'plotter,' and she struggles with the adage that a good writer knows their story's ending before they start writing the beginning... Her compromise, which may work for you, is that you may not know exactly WHAT will happen in your ending, but at least know what TYPE of ending you want so you can steer yourself in that correct tone and direction.

Stephanie maps out six types of endings (we'll share 3) that we should work towards to keep our books from being returned to Barnes & Noble:

1. The Happy Disney Ending, this can be happily ever after or happy for now. A happy ending had better be earned by the character to be believable and satisfying, Stephanie says.

2. The Tragic Ending. This is typically a sequel's ending in a trilogy, think of Star Wars's The Empire Strikes Back. The hero gets what they want, but something important has been lost, like a Han(d). The villain may triumph or get away.

3. The Series ending. This is often a book's ending if it is in the middle of a series, it's a cliffhanger ending. Stephanie admonishes that you'll want to write your book's ending as potentially standalone if this is a first submission for you. The initial ending will need to satisfy, if the editor agrees it would be great to turn it into a series, you can adjust the ending to return to being a cliffhanger. This is something Stephanie did for CARAVAL.

One of Stephanie's five exercises for better endings is:

With your existing manuscript or story idea, pick an ending type, first, but then examine within your ending what has changed, the character? The world? The past? Someone's/the world's outlook/thoughts?

SOMETHING MUST CHANGE for a five-star ending, you can justify a characters actions, but that will never be as satisfying as watching a character actually change. Stephanie brings up her one beef with the latest Pride & Prejudice reboot. Darcy is a very proud man whose haughtiness and manners soften as he gets to know Elizabeth Bennet. In the latest reboot, though, there's an added line where Lizzie explains away his earlier behavior by saying Darcy was acting that way because he was just 'shy,' which to Stephanie is a total cop out and a disservice to Darcy's character.

Stephanie asks us to think about how much fun we have noticing the changes to the characters and the world at the end of BACK TO THE FUTURE. Though Marty's character stays the same, everyone/thing else is a bit different.