Scrutinizing Third Person, Present Tense POV

by

When I first started telling stories almost all third-person fiction (and first-person for that matter) was written in the past tense:

Carlos went into the dealership and looked around. He knew the salespeople would descend on him soon, and it was all he could do to stand his ground.

Past tense means the events happened some time ago, and you’re writing about them as such. The story already happened, and you’re telling it to someone at a later time.

For fifty years prior to my own apprenticeship, everyone who had any interest in telling stories also secretly aspired to writing the Great American Novel. You weren’t a real writer if you didn’t have an unfinished novel in your desk.

At about the same time that I was learning my craft, however, something was happening in Hollywood that would change all that. Directors like Coppola and Spielberg and Lucas were breaking out of the classic Hollywood production pipeline and bringing wildly entertaining and successful movies to the screen. The documents they worked from — the scripts — were also becoming literary properties in themselves. Writers were starting to sell scripts outright, and some of those scripts were selling for what anybody would call a chunk of money.

Almost overnight — by which I mean the five year span between the early and late 1980′s — writers went from having novels in their desks to having screenplays in their desks. When Syd Field published a book called Screenplay the gold rush was on.  

Now, what’s interesting about screenplays is that they’re all written in third person, present tense, as if the action is happening right now:

Carlos goes into the dealership. He looks around, spots a salesman. The salesman flashes a white-bright smile and steams over. Carlos looks for a place to hide.

I don’t know if anyone has ever documented the influence of pop-culture screenwriting on the world of fiction, but in the early 90′s I had the distinct impression that third-person, present-tense fiction was becoming more and more popular, while third-person fiction written in the past tense seemed to rapidly fall out of style. And I don’t think that was a coincidence.

One reason I make this point (whether it’s been made elsewhere or not) is because it reveals an ugly and constant truth about the world of fiction. Many (if not most) of the stories you read at any given time are written not in the pure service of craft, but at least partly in the service of trends. Some of these trends help break molds, of course, but others are simply cliquey conventions.

The main reason I make this point, however, is to show how literary trends can work against authorial goals. It may at first blush seems as if third-person, present-tense fiction is no different from third-person, past-tense fiction, but that’s not the case. Choosing one over the other is not simply a preference, it’s a craft choice, and the effects of each on the audience are different.

Third-person, past-tense stories have the advantage of being more natural. From the time we’re children we learn to tell about the events of our lives in the past tense, because that’s quite literally the way in which such events plays out. We go to school, we get beat up, we go home, we tell about it in the past tense because it happened in the past.

In fiction, this imitation of the natural, logical method of telling about events that we all use in our own lives helps facilitate the reader’s suspension of disbelief. It takes little effort for the reader to believe that the past-tense fiction they’re reading is believable precisely because the point-of-view technique being used mimics the way in which they hear stories from all sources. For example: almost all newspaper reporting is in the past tense precisely because the events being reported have already transpired.

Present-tense fiction does not have this advantage. Instead, present-tense fiction mortgages a bit of structural familiarity for a hoped-for increase in tension. The goal is very much like the difference between a story printed in the newspaper the next day, and a live on-the-scene report of something that is happening in real time.

Except…no reader thinks that what’s being told to them in present-tense fiction is actually happening at that moment. This in turn creates a disconnect: the reader is asked to believe that something is happening right now when it clearly isn’t — and the reader knows it isn’t because what they’re reading had to be printed at some earlier point. Yes, suspension of disbelief can solve this problem, but it’s a problem that past-tense stories simply do not have to solve.

To be sure, people are more comfortable reading present-tense fiction now precisely because it has become more common. Just as the jump cut in film used to elicit confusion in the theater, but can now be interpreted by almost anyone of any age, new techniques become part of the storytelling lexicon as mediums evolve.

The takeaway here is not that you shouldn’t use third-person, present-tense point of view. Rather, it’s that you shouldn’t use it simply because it’s what everyone else is doing. That’s not writing, that’s following the herd. (Admittedly this kind of herd instinct may make you more publishable at any given moment, in the same way that having the right buzzwords in your resume will mean you’re more likely to be hired. But it’s a given on this blog that writers shouldn’t be interested in how to suck up to people in power. They should be interested in telling the best stories they can tell.)

When you set out to write your next piece of fiction, whether it’s flash or a thousand-page epic, consider the craft choices available to you, then make the choices that are best for your story. There are plenty of people out there eager to take the next open spot in the literary clique. There are no people out there who will say what you have to say in the way you would say it if you had complete freedom to do so.

You have complete freedom to do so.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Yeah! Reviews on Amazon

by

Well, three book reviews anyway. That’s a start.

Two years ago in June, I published 16 books on CreateSpace Publishing, [which is] owned by Amazon. I started out to publish one book and found the process so easy I decided to publish all my books. My thought was that if I was going to promote one book I might as well promote all 16 at the same time. The books are different genre so I had a better chance of finding buyers. They are sold on Amazon which doesn’t mean much for an unknown author unless I’m willing to work at getting some attention [for] my books.

Correct key search words help book buyers to come across a list of books to choose from with best [sellers] at the top and mine at the bottom. However, I’ve noticed my Amish books are creeping up in the list Amish, because they sell. Buyers haven’t left reviews, but I had the feeling they liked my books because the number of sales kept increasing for all three Amish books. So I asked people I knew who bought my books and buyers from ebay to give me reviews. I can’t review my own books where buyers are allowed, but at the bottom of each of my Amazon book pages is a list of community discussions. I started a new discussion so I could talk about each of my books and submitted all the reviews I had.

This month, to my surprise, a buyer bought one of my Amish books (A Promise Is A Promise) and left a review. She liked the book but thought I was too descriptive. She advised I should watch the use of adjectives. First time I’ve had a semi negative review from anyone. I could have let that go, but I wanted this reviewer to have a good opinion of me as a writer. Besides that, I was thrilled by the fact someone had finally taken the time to leave a review so I responded back to her in the community discussion that I was glad to finally see someone review one of my books and thanked her. She softened her next response by saying the amount of adjectives I used wasn’t going to stop her from buying another one of my books. She liked my Amish stories.

Her second response made me feel better but I was wishing I had another review that could top that first one. I lucked out. Recently, I joined Book Marketing Network. I searched through the groups to seek information that would help me with marketing and found Charlie Courtland’s post about doing free reviews. Charlie is author of Dandelions In The Garden. She hosts the site BitsyBling, where she gives her review of each book she reads and rates them up to five stars. If you want an opinion on the books she reads, check out her site.

I emailed Charlie about doing a review of A Promise Is A Promise, the first book in my Nurse Hal series. She replied she’d be glad to and I could send the book PDF, ebook or in print. I emailed back that I’d like to send her a book. She wondered about the cost, but I wanted her to see the book in the form I sold it, complete with cover. Writing isn’t everything. It helps to have an attractive package (cover).

Charlie told me she was a content, thematic, style and overall impression reviewer. She focuses on the positive and intended to include a few "flaws" because she wants each reader to decide if these are important or will dampen their reading experience. That statement, uncertain author that I am, made me somewhat nervous. I was trying to balance out a flawed review on Amazon and hoped for a new one that was more positive.

I asked for Charlie’s review because she puts them on Amazon (which is what I needed) and Goodreads, [a reader community] which I joined some time back. Charlie must be a fast reader. She goes through many books and gives a review on Goodreads and her website. Here is Charlie’s review for A Promise Is A Promise-Nurse Hal Among The Amish (ISBN 0982459505), which came back in a few days.

Gems: Growing up in the Mid West I loved the style and tone of the story and scenery. No purple prose or overly nostalgic descriptions, but rather a simple and honest portrayal of daily life. Each character is original and thoughtfully developed. I whole-heartedly enjoyed this Amish tale and believed the contrast between the Plain and English, but also how it is possible to live together with understand, honesty and acceptance. The story is not overtly religious but rather focuses on the complexities of relationships and because of this drew me into the Lapp family.

FLAWS: This is not truly a flaw because I loved how the author wrote the story, but if a reader is looking for more action or twist based on a typical ‘mystery’ experience, you may be slightly disappointed. The family secret isn’t so surprising, nor is it terribly shocking, but from the point of view of the Amish it is understandably shameful. I see this as a story about living up to a person’s word and good old fashion romance and values.

Bitsy’s Rating: 4 out of five stars.

I responded with thanks for such a great review. Charlie’s response was –

I really enjoyed the book. I missed the characters after I stopped reading. It was refreshing to read a different type of novel and I could relate since I grew up in farm county in Michigan. I realize I write with a Midwestern accent. I love the ‘voice’. I like the authentic language because it gives depth and thematic power to the story and characters.

Charlie is a personable lady that is easy to correspond with. I’ve enjoyed our emails and a positive look at my work from someone that doesn’t know me. My family and friends were complimentary from the start when they read my books. At first that was enough to keep me writing though not enough to keep me from worrying I might not be as good a writer as I was being told. When my books started selling on ebay, I needed to know if I was giving the buyers their money’s worth. I had personal email contact with each customer so I asked for reviews. The positive reviews came back as well as buyers buying more of my books because they like my stories. Since I put my contact information in each book package, I’ve sold books through my email to these same customers. That makes me more profit when I don’t have ebay’s deduction tacked on. Now I get emails from buyers (dare I say fans) wanting me to hurry up and finish the next book. That’s given me confidence that I’m doing all right as an author.

I started a new thread, Two New Amish Books on Kindle, to advertise. The discussion was picked up and carried on from there. Once people participate and the amount of discussions multiply a book advertising is lost several pages back quickly so has to be repeated to get attention from others. I didn’t go back to advertise again. It looks like buyers have found me now. I checked the email box so when a new message is left in the discussion group the email is sent to me and I can keep track of what is going on. That tells me many Amazon buyers got my advertising mailed to them, too. Problem is getting inundated by Amazon emails, because the discussion groups are popular. I was just about to delete myself from the four discussions I’ve been following when someone wrote about a couple of web sites that list many mystery writers and their books. I’m going to check them out and let you know about that next week.

On MyEntre.Net.com I wrote in my blog about wanting reviews. A helpful comment was join http://www.librarything.com for a member giveaway of my books. I do belong to that website, but I wasn’t familiar with the review process. I can give away a certain number of books to other members. People request to get them. The website determines which members get the books. Then the people who read the books have to give reviews.

I haven’t tried LibraryThing for reviews yet, but with the next Amish book I publish, hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll be ready for another round of reviews and this site will be my next option.

 

This is a reprint from Fay Risner’s BooksByFay blog.

14 Tips For Effective Characterization

by

The next James River Writers’ Conference will be here before you know it and as a member of JRW, I wanted to pass along a few things I found interesting at our last conference. The discussion I most enjoyed centered on CHARACTERIZATION in NOVELS. A panel of three successful authors held this particular seminar.

One panelist indicated the best writing era for character research was the 1880’s to the 1920’s. He said when writing your book, read novels from that time period to learn how to improve upon your characterization.

Another idea they mentioned is show your readers how a character walks, stutters, or whatever. This makes the character more memorable. This made me think of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein, when Marty Feldman who played a hunchback, shuffled off. He told Wilder to, “Walk this way.” He meant for Dr. Frankenstein to follow him, of course. However, the good doctor shambled off like a hunchback, too. Obviously this is a useful tool as I’ve kept that image in my mind for how long, thirty years?

This leads into the next recommendation the panelists made. They said to bridge characters within chapters when you write your novel. By this they meant to carry a character’s oddities from one chapter to the next. For example, if you have a character who shows irritation by flicking his fingers, (thanks, Richard), have him flick his fingers a number of times throughout your novel.

A time-tested avenue for writers is to pit contrasting characters against each other. Think Laurel and Hardy or Lucy and Ricky. (Am I the only one who remembers these people?) Or, for a more modern example, think the cast of Friends.

Put your characters in situations foreign to them. Think fish out of water. A good example is a goody-two-shoes in a gang fight. Your character’s personality will shine in those odd situations.

Never, and they repeated the word, never put your characters in front of a mirror. Yes, there is an exception in Snow White, but then again, even James Bond learned “never” never means never. Right?

The bad guy can always rationalize his actions. He’s not insane, he’s evil.

Here’s a good one! Find contradiction in your novel’s characters. Imagine our goody-two-shoes who finally succumbs to the neighbor’s wife’s enchantments. You could also write about the vegetarian who is forced to eat meat to stay alive. This idea can present wonderful conflict opportunities, don’t you think?

Characters must want something in every chapter. Do they all get their wishes fulfilled? Not if you’re looking for readers.

Put your characters in an argument as this, too, will bring out their personalities. This is the fundamental turning point in my current novel, so I’m glad to hear it works.

I thought this tip interesting and will incorporate it into my later manuscripts. Your character should be recognizable from the silhouette. They cautioned that this can get out of hand quickly if you’re not careful.

For authenticity when you name characters, find popular names during the decades in which they live. Sites of this nature are all over the Internet.

Another tip I liked also surfaced. If a gun is seen in chapter one, it must be fired by chapter four. There’s a name for this concept which I failed to write down.

And what was the most important of all these great writer’s tips? “Write what bubbles up.” That is, trust your Muse and pen what comes naturally to you.

What other tips might you wish to share to bring out the personalities of your characters?

I hope you know by now I wish for you only best-sellers.

 

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Author of Born to be Brothers blog.

Anti-Bookshelving Movement

by

Ok, it’s not really a movement, it’s just me, to my knowledge. But I’ve been harboring feelings of anti-bookshelves for a while and wanted to get my thoughts out in the open. Thanks to Indiependent books’ post inquiring about readers’ bookshelving processes, I offered a contrarian opinion (go figure). Here it is:

[Editor’s note: the author’s original capitalization choices in this piece have been preserved]

when i released my first book, i released it for free online and in all electronic versions, and priced it at a very cute, ironic price in print, and even that was still a little steep for a first time author releasing an independent book that was uncategorizable (read: not a genre novel). so all i asked as i started giving it away to everyone on the street i could find who would take a copy was that their payment [be] to pass it on to someone else to read.

i cringe every time i hear someone say that my book is sitting on their coffee table, or on their nightstand, or proudly in their stack of unread or read books. I DON’T WANT MY BOOK TO SIT ANYWHERE. i want it to be read and read and read again. why would i have written a book, then, to have it sit on a shelf somewhere?
 
and that’s when i realized that all of the books i own and sit on my own shelves have authors, too, who have poured their guts and passion into writing them and want the same for their own works. so i’ve started to pass on my books on the condition that people do the same.
 
books should be an ever revolving product that can be used and re-used and re-re-used. ban bookshelves. bookshelves should be re-named thingshelves, so that they don’t carry books. they should be re-sized so that they can’t carry books. they should be a deterrent to holding books. books should have timers and alarms on them to remind the owner to pass it on.
 
the problem with book pricing is that when someone pays $24.95 plus tax and shipping, you want to get some bang for your buck. so you read it, you gingerly protect the cover, and you place it proudly on your shelf for all to see.
 
ew. we must get away from that mentality and pass books around because it faciliates more discussion about the book itself when you suggest someone read it and then you actually give them the thing. it makes recommendations real and that is what all authors want. and i do suppose readers do, too.
 
thanks.
lovelenox.

 

This is a cross-posting from Lenox Parker’s Eat My Book.

Writer School?

by

Writer School?
WRITER SCHOOL?
Copyright 2003, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Here’s something from my mailbag. “Dear Michael, do you need to do good in school if you want to be a writer? I stink at school and all my friends laugh at me when I tell them I want to write, but I’m serious.” Followed by a sentence or two of “I need your words to encourage me” or some such nonsense.

Fortunately, a writing sample is rarely attached. If it is, either it’s excellent or it stinks like rancid yak butter. There’s a lot of middle ground in the writing world, of course, but for some reason it never seems to accompany these emails.

The message is usually (but not always) so filled with errors that I’m not gonna reprint them here or correct them when I reply lest I destroy some sensitive soul like a jackhammer to an eggshell. It’s ridiculous that I should even have such power, being a stranger and all. Let’s move on to the relevant part, the question, which actually contains several. This writer gets bonus points for brevity.

Do you have to be good in school? Given what’s passing for English in some places, I’d certainly like to see more effort given to school.

If you aspire to be an author and you did poorly in school, or if you’re just plain uneducated, don’t let it stop you. What we do as authors isn’t taught in school. They teach grammar, and bless them. I can’t teach that subject. If you’re very fortunate, as I was, you’ll stumble across some teachers who also encourage you to think. But thinking is the beginning of writing, not the end, and grammar can be fixed later if you find some long-suffering editor (like me) willing to do it.

In other words, school can help you with the first step or two of your journey to be an author. Considering how many steps come after those, don’t be discouraged by test results and report cards.

To distill what you think, feel and believe from all the trash floating around in your head, and then to actually put that on paper the way you mean to put it, is a skill that only comes from years of practice. I struggled at this for 20 years or so after I graduated from college. I didn’t learn to write in a classroom.

In my travels through the Intergoogle, I’ve met blind authors, deaf authors, dyslexic authors, authors writing in a second or third language, authors suffering partial paralysis, authors with various psychoses, authors who deal with more than one of these obstacles. What they overcome makes my complaint, that I’m too left-brained to be in this business, seem absolutely pathetic. And yours, about doing poorly in school.

I could cite you a VERY long list of authors who did poorly in school. If I did my job as an editor, you’ll never know who they are unless I call them out by name. And I won’t. Probably because I can’t remember them.

(I’m joking. Editor/author confidentiality protects them, even if it exists only in my imagination.)

Our emailer then mentions that her friends laugh at her when she tells them she intends to write. Why does she care? I’ve lost count of how many projects I’ve undertaken despite criticism. Not just writing, either. Life. But let me narrow my focus just so I can end this rant.

You have a reason for writing. You know what it is, even if you can’t put it into words. I can’t put it into words. (“It” can mean your reason or mine in that sentence.) But it’s there. Why do you give a rat’s ass how many people tell you not to even try? People who I doubt have even read your writing, I might add. Your classmates won’t understand why you write. Nor your friends. Nor your family. You’re lucky if you find ten non-writers in your lifetime who have a clue. And you don’t care. You just write.

If you’re ever lucky enough to “arrive,” then all the doubters will claim to understand why you write. And they’ll all be wrong.

Also, by the time someone out there is embracing your work, you’ll already be three books beyond it and sick of hearing about your old trash. No, it won’t be trash, but you’ll think of it that way. There’s a big time lapse between creation and that Oprah interview.

What I never write to those emailers is this.

I shouldn’t have to tell you why you write. You don’t need my vindication or anyone else’s. If those who haven’t even read your work can discourage you, give up. Or do an Emily Dickinson and leave it all for people to find after you die. But if you’ll let something as silly as your grades in school stop you from even beginning to write in the first place, nothing you have to write is worth finding after you die.

And if you’re angry at me for saying that, good. Prove me wrong. Write a book.

Get Rich Writing Fiction

by

Some of us write simply because we can’t not write. Ideas grab us, move us, and demand to be written. We strive to make it as real as we possibly can, to improve at our craft every day, hopefully to make it into the realm of literature as well as entertainment. We want to craft an entire world where the places and people are so real that the reader doesn’t feel like he’s reading a book as much as he is going to another place.

In the lofty world of literature that we strive for, the reader will still think about the book after reading that last page. It’s our gift to the reader, something to take with him. Given sufficient skill, this can even happen long after we’re dead.

Then we learn that doesn’t sell. Oh, there are exceptions. Some novelists make a living by consistently writing quality literature. But there are quite a few best sellers who have no such goals. They write for money, and they make it. Even the writer who has written great literature has trouble marketing it that way.

We have to look at our “target audience.” Who will buy this book? Let me see, our heroine survived spousal abuse, so there’s an audience. There’s a suicide, so we can get the bereavement crowd. Where’s the setting? We can get a local audience. The hero’s a cop. Maybe the teen boys will go for that. Nah, too light on action. But there’s a romance. Maybe we’ll market to the romance readers. Give the hero bedroom eyes and pass him off as a romantic hero. Yeah, that might work.

But if you want to write to get rich, even that’s not enough. Nah, the time to think about your reader is before you write the book, not after.

Throw in lots of gratuitous sex, preferably extramarital. One (and only one) character who flirts and is sorely tempted and walks away from “love” to remain true to his wife.

Use taboo words for shock value. Ram, hump, scream, oral sex, voluptuous, female orgasm (the great revelation). Make sure a lot of your leads enjoy sex. Horny women are a good way to pull in the readers you want. We all know men are horny, but most of your readers haven’t discovered that some women enjoy sex too. Tell them this. Give the female readers a balm for their consciences and the male readers someone to dream about.

Your heroine should be tough, sweet, sensitive, and very horny, and has to think she’s not attractive even though every guy in the book except her husband falls off his chair with a tent in his pants.

Don’t let the length of a novel faze you. Just throw some people on the stage, move them around a bit, and get them into bed. Then change the rules so they switch around a bit and get them back into bed. It doesn’t always have to be a bed. Office desks and car seats work too. Hammocks, not so much. When the book’s long enough, stop. Don’t worry about the “climax,” because people are climaxing all over the place.

Exotic locales. Foreign countries with beaches. Lots of rich people. Remember that you’re writing for the lowest common denominator, because they spend most of the money that you’re trying to reel in. Make it sleazy. No one ever went broke underestimating the public.

How to publish? To do it right, write the sales pitch before you write the book. Make sure the book follows the pitch and the formula. If your cover letter alone has eight typos, no problem. Nobody cares. The publisher will wanna rush this baby to print and get you, or an attractive stand-in, doing as many TV appearances as possible before the book reviewers have time to draw breath.

Heck, your target market doesn’t read book reviews anyway. Also keep in mind that once that reader buys your book, you’ve won. They won’t get a refund just because you’re illiterate. So don’t worry about hiring an editor. Hire a publicist!

Think Hollywood. You want your book to become a movie. It doesn’t have to be a good movie, because most of them aren’t. It just has to sell, baby, sell! Write parts for all the hottest stars. True, today’s hottest stars will have faded by the time they start filming your movie, but no matter. Someone just like them will replace them.

I’ve been doing it wrong for all these years. I started writing over 20 years ago, and the seven books I have on the shelves are enough to make it a hobby that barely pays for itself. Meanwhile, I work at a job for my money. But if you follow my advice, you won’t make the same mistakes I have. You’ll get rich!

The One-Plot Wonder

by

The One-Plot Wonder
THE ONE-PLOT WONDER
Copyright 2003, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Back in the mid to late 1980s I was a security guard. The pay was lousy, but it gave me many hours in seclusion to write short stories and novels. However, I usually worked over 80 hours a week. No one can write that much unless his name is Isaac Asimov. Thus I discovered the joys of my local libraries. Recently, I decided to look up an author who gave me great pleasure in those days. Most of his books are now out of print, I’ve learned, even the one that became a movie.

I found that two of his books were available, so I ordered them. One I’d enjoyed before. The other was a straight thriller from the days before he created the “Appleton Porter” spy spoofs, re-released in 2001 in POD. I didn’t know this before they arrived at my home in China.

Since I’m giving away THE plot spoiler, I won’t identify the author or title. A man who deeply loves his wife buys her a hotel outside London. She is very happy there, at first. This is a fine suspenseful read as she notes oddities and eventually appears to be losing her mind and such. Suicides, an eventual murder. Finally, her husband pays a doctor to kill her.

Her husband arranged all this, we learn at the end, because she was dying of a horrible and incurable illness. Rather than let her suffer the indignity, he tries to give this lover of mystery novels some final days filled with clever puzzles and wonderful memories. He never realizes that he ended her days with a living hell.

The writing was fine, aside from some stupid typos of the sort common in unedited POD titles. He’s obviously a sincere, hard-working, talented author. The plot was wholly consistent and everything “worked.” So why is it a weak book? Because the plot I described is all there is. It’s a one-plot wonder.

As an author, if you find yourself floundering, if you find your work-in-progress failing to make progress, ask yourself. Is it a one-plot wonder?

Here are some best sellers I’ve read over the past 30 years.

During the Cold War, a Soviet commander steals a top-secret submarine and tries to defect to the US with it. A good and idealistic young law graduate accepts a job too good to be true, only to eventually learn he’s working for the Mafia. An alcoholic author and his family become caretakers at an old Maine hotel, alone during the winter, and he eventually goes nuts. A US President declares war on drug dealers, a “clear and present danger” to national security. A crippled author is kidnapped by the ultimate fan.

I’ve chosen these titles because I’ve read the books and seen the movies. None of my plot summaries are wrong. But with some of those novels, there are many more plots and subplots at work. These are the novels that didn’t always translate well to the big screen due to time constraints and/or loss of nonobjective voice.

I love a well-conceived “what if” scenario, and none of these books lack that. But more importantly, I love a novel that’s rich with the fabric of life. That’s where multiple plots come into play. Very rarely will a movie capture this as well as a novel can.

A one-plot wonder is a boring read. It’s a boring write. It’s not realistic. And, it’s a hard sell. All your eggs are in one basket. If the editor isn’t enthralled with that sole plot, you aren’t published. If the reviewer isn’t enthralled with that sole plot, he pans you. If the potential reader isn’t enthralled with that sole plot, he doesn’t buy your book. Or if he does, maybe you don’t get any repeat business from him. You don’t get mine.

Plus, we should be setting the bar a bit higher for ourselves anyway. We entertain, but we also enlighten and educate. Or at the very least, provide needed escape. But it’s hard to escape to a one-plot wonder. I keep taking coffee breaks between chapters.

I single out no writing medium with this. All are guilty. Come on, TERMINATOR 2 has more subplots than many successful books these days. And it’s not just “these days,” incidentally. The title I reviewed early in this article is from 1979. Published, successful, well-written, flat.

Craftsmanship is fine. Craftsmanship is wonderful to behold. Craftsmanship is a necessity. But it’s not enough. Do you want to build a horse barn that never leaks or do you want to build a two-story A-frame home that survives five hurricanes undamaged? My carpenter did the latter and I can’t do the former. But if I had the ability to build a leak-proof barn, I certainly wouldn’t limit myself to barns. I’d try to build houses. Just like the sheriff (Gene Hackman) in UNFORGIVEN.

I’m not talking about weighty tomes. Times change, readers change, and most people don’t read those tomes any more. What was once considered gripping is now considered boring.

But one-plot wonders also bore readers. They read it, enjoy it moderately, then go look for something else to do. There’s little satisfaction at the end. Rarely the big “wow” that made you start writing in the first place.

I’m talking about shooting for five stars instead of two or three. I’m talking about richness of story, raising the standard, writing your absolute best instead of settling for adequate.

I risk oversimplification here, but I’m seeing far too many one-plot wonders. People are buying them, too. But it’s time for us, the authors, to quit writing them.

Car Horns

by

Car Horns
CAR HORNS
Copyright 2005, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Let’s pretend that you live in China. Let’s also pretend that, unlike me, you own a car. A Volkswagen Santana, of course. Who do you honk the horn at?

Well, you honk at everyone who’s in your way, and who you think is in your way, and who you are passing, and who you think is trying to pass you. Every bicycle needs a honk in case the driver can’t see you. Every pedestrian, most definitely, because they’re not looking at anything except their feet as they float out in front of you, or the text messages they’re sending on their cell phones.

Every car does this, and the roads become a constant cacophony of car horns. The noise is such that everybody tunes it out in order to function, so the horns are pointless. Nobody is listening to the horns. Some of us wear MP3 players cranked up to full volume specifically to block the noise, which is why we’re deaf. But honking is a habit the Chinese driver can’t break. It’s like breathing.

Okay, now here comes a legitimate reason to honk the horn, an emergency, perhaps some fool walking right in front of your car. What do you do? Flick the headlights. Just how stupid is that? If he can’t hear your horn, he sure can’t hear your headlights. Of course he can’t see your headlights, because he’s not looking at you. That’s what caused the crisis in the first place. Plus, it’s daytime. Nobody can see headlights in the daytime when he’s facing the other direction.

I offer this little tale for authors who wonder why I prefer understatement. Superlatives are your car horns. Save them until you actually need them.

Voice and Narrative in Dialogue

by

Voice in Narrative and Dialogue
VOICE IN NARRATIVE AND DIALOGUE
Copyright 2007, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

One of the nice things about being an author is that we can break any rule we want. (I just did.) It’s part of our job description. Language changes through usage — definitions, spelling, grammar — and authors can help it do this. But on the other hand, we have to have some sort of agreement on the language or we won’t be able to talk to each other.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

When we as authors break a rule or two, it’s not because we’re ignorant. It’s because we have reasons to break them. That’s one of the joys of writing. Having said that, now I’m going to explain some rules. There are two types of writing in your novel. There is your narrative and there is your dialogue. The rules for the two are not the same.

NARRATIVE

A cop thriller like VIGILANTE JUSTICE has a simple set of rules for the narrative portion. Third person, straightforward writing, light on adjectives and adverbs, easy to read and grammatically correct.

To a degree the genre will help you identify what’s appropriate. For a cop drama, write in the dry style of a journalist. For horror, a bit of hyperbole may be acceptable in the most dramatic sections. For romance (not my genre), you can probably use lots more adjectives (swollen, heaving, throbbing) than you’d normally dare.

Sentence fragments are acceptable if communication is achieved, and you’ll note that I use them often in this article. Why? Simply because it’s more effective that way.

When I wrote RISING FROM THE ASHES, the true story of Mom raising my brother and me alone, I tried to adopt a “childlike voice” early in the narrative. As the character of Michael the storyteller grew older, I abandoned that childlike quality. (An entire book of that would get old fast anyway.)

When I wrote REDNECK GOES TO CHINA, the humorous sequel, I once again used first person narrative. But the narrative of RISING is first person only in that it uses “I” instead of “Michael.” Michael is a camera. RISING still follows all the rules of “conventional” narrative.

In REDNECK, I threw most of the rules out the window. I used what one author referred to my as “conversational” tone to maximum effect in REDNECK. He felt like he wasn’t so much reading my book as just listening to me tell some stories over a few beers. That’s exactly what I wanted.

When I wrote the sequel to REDNECK, another bit of humor called WHO MOVED MY RICE?, I chose to keep that same narrative style, which I’d spent three years perfecting in my newsletter.

In RISING, while I was the “first person” character, I wasn’t really the book’s focus. In REDNECK and RICE, I am. Center stage, in the spotlight. Using more of a “dialogue” style in what should have been “narrative” allowed me to focus the reader’s attention on the first person to a greater degree than simply describing him (me) ever could. You may love me or you may hate me, but you’ll know me and you’ll laugh at me. Or, in the case of RICE, you’ll feel my frequent confusion. I had to write that book from “my perspective” because it was often the only one I understood.

If you’re going to use a more conversational tone in your narrative, don’t think that means you just write something down and don’t have to edit it. You still have to organize your thoughts, and that means rewriting. While your style may be unconventional, you have to make the ideas easy for the reader to follow.

In the case of narrative, you have the choice. If you want to spotlight the storyteller to maximum effect, you can go with first person and let the storyteller’s narrative and his dialogue read the same. If you’d prefer to “move the camera” back a bit, make the narrative conventional in contrast to the dialogue. As a rule, this reader likes contrast, because he gets bored reading the same thing over and over again unless the style is really special. Or perhaps you can find a point somewhere in between.

Every story has a way that it should be told for maximum effect. Maximum effect in the author’s eyes, of course, since it’s a subjective thing. Keep it in mind as you write. Make the call, stick to it, change it if it’s not working. It might even be okay to be inconsistent, but only if you do so deliberately. Just keep stuff like “ease of reading” and “maximum effect” in mind and be creative.

DIALOGUE

Have you ever read a book where the dialogue reads like narrative? I hope you haven’t. But as an editor I’ve seen such things, and they’re very ugly.

Do you know why they’re so ugly? Because they remind the reader of the one thing an author does not want to remind the reader of. Namely, that every character on the page is a puppet under the author’s control.

As readers, we put that thought aside so we can enjoy reading. “Willing suspension of disbelief.” If the author ensures that the reader can’t suspend disbelief, the book will not be read. Stilted dialogue is one of the quickest ways to make that happen.

I’ve decided that writing dialogue is the hardest thing we do. It’s certainly not something we can go look up in a style manual or a grammar textbook.

What are the rules? “Make it sound real.” But with the corollary, “not too real because people always say um and er and crap like that.” Oh yeah. That explains everything. End of my article, right? Nope. I’m still writing it.

Ideally, the greatest of the great creators of dialogue will have every character speaking in a voice so distinctive that he/she need never identify the speaker. Okay, that’s enough fiction. Snap back to reality. None of us are writing dialogue that well, are we?

People use a lot more contractions in speech than in writing. They’re faster. More sentence fragments, too. People very often use the wrong version of lie/lay or who/whom in speaking. I do.

The dialogue portion of VIGILANTE JUSTICE isn’t difficult to describe. The hero is a self-destructive cop named Gary Drake. He’s based on a real-life cop, my little brother. So his dialogue was easy because, in my mind, I always heard Gary speaking in Barry’s voice.

For my other characters, I had to find some other voices. For example, the voice of Doctor Garrett Allison is, to me, that of Michael Jordan.

That’s right, people. When I write, I literally hear voices in my head.

As a beginning writer, and not a very good one, I read some advice somewhere saying you might want to cut photos out of magazines and use them when writing your physical description, in case you can’t form a mental picture of your characters. I’ve done that, and with some modification I’ve extended it to voices.

As an author, you should always play to your strengths while working to improve your weaknesses. I know many authors who think visually, and I envy them. One author told me that when he writes, he literally sees movies in his head, then just has to type them really fast because that’s how they’re playing. Lucky him. My novels first come to me in snippets of dialogue. Every character has the same voice at that stage. (My voice, of course.)

Tight dialogue is one thing I enjoy when I read. Here are the characters at some sort of verbal showdown. I know them, I know their motives, I can read between the lines and know what’s being left unsaid. I can just feel the tension in the air. I’m not so much mentally picturing bulging veins and angry glares as I am just feeling the spoken words.

I also have an excellent memory of voices. Like a dog remembers scents or an artist colors, it seems, I can remember voices. But just hearing the voices (if you’re able) isn’t enough. The words themselves will be different depending on who’s speaking them, even if they’re relaying the same information.

In VIGILANTE JUSTICE, Gary Drake doesn’t use a lot of words. He almost never describes his own feelings, and if he does he feels guilty about having them. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tends to use a single swear word, and that word is “fuck.” Marjorie Brooks, on the other hand, mentions feelings and uses whichever swear word is the most appropriate, except that she never says “fuck.” Doctor Allison doesn’t use as many contractions as the rest of us do. These are things I kept in mind as I wrote their dialogue.

Mr. Spock’s speech sounds like written language, very grammatical and correct, and that’s deliberate. He’s a scientist, he’s logical, and for him language is a tool to be used with as much precision as possible. That isn’t just a different style of dialogue; it helps define his character.

In THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN, Ahriman used fewer contractions than the rest of us and he avoided sentence fragments. (He speaks in the voice of Andreas Katsulas.) He probably even knew the difference between who and whom or lie and lay. That’s because he’s intelligent, you see. It kinds of goes with the territory when one is evil incarnate.

During an edit I did of a sci-fi book, I saw that the author wasn’t using contractions in dialogue. I suggested changing his humans’ dialogue in many places to use more contractions, except when military officers were giving orders, because order-giving officers tend to be more “serious” and “thoughtful” than folks just being regular folks.

I also suggested to this author that he change nothing about the “stilted” speech patterns of his aliens. English isn’t their native language, you see, and one thing I noticed from living in China is that the locals didn’t use nearly as many contractions as I do. So I thought that added realism. Plus, the contrast should help the readers keep everybody straight even if they aren’t consciously aware of why.

I remember in one edit where I read some character saying, “I am an historian.” Oh, I hate that phrase. I hate anyone putting “an” in front of a word that begins with the consonant “h.” It’s terribly pretentious and arrhythmic. As I kept reading the book, I quickly learned that the character in question was terribly pretentious. Nobody else in the book was throwing “an” in front of “h” words. It was a deliberate contrast on the author’s part, and it worked quite nicely.

CONCLUSION

I suppose the point of all this is, remember the difference between narrative and dialogue.

In the case of narrative, you’re simply trying to describe what happens. According to George Orwell, “Great writing is like a window pane.” Stick to that maxim unless you feel you have a good reason not to. If you’ve got what it takes to make your writing style superior to the conventional, and if your story allows it, let that style be an asset of your writing. Otherwise, just stick to the rules until you master them.

In the case of dialogue, you’re trying to write something that sounds like what the characters would actually say, but a bit more organized because “real” speech can be boring. Give every character his/her/its own voice.

Am I joking when I say “its?” Not entirely. THE CHRONICLES OF A LOST SOUL contains a short story written in first person from my dog’s viewpoint. I would never call Daisy an “it.”

There’s a stylistic decision you can make in narrative, by the way. I always refer to animals as “he” or “she.” Some authors always use “it.” In dialogue, you can let some characters always say he or she, and let others always say it, to contrast the feeling with the unfeeling. (My heroes never call an animal “it.”)

In the end, the goal is always the same. Make your writing as easy to read as you can. Keep that in mind, and always keep learning, and you won’t go wrong.

How to Break Into Print Publishing

by

The big question. Do you submit directly to publishers, or do you find an agent who will do that for you? It can work either way. Many publishers refuse to read unagented submissions, but on the other hand Tom Clancy and John Grisham sold their first books without an agent.

The bottom line is, if a publisher reads what he can sell, he’ll buy it. It doesn’t matter if it comes from an author or an agent. The trick is getting him to read it. That’s always your focus.

The most important step is to get your presentation looking as professional as possible. No mistakes. None. Zero. Nada. The vast majority of rejections aren’t because the story is “bad,” but because the Acquisitions Editor concludes that it’ll be too much work to make it “ready to read.” With new authors, publishers usually lose money. Advertising, print inventory… Don’t ask them to invest a great deal of editing time as well. They won’t do it. It’s just that simple.

The Selection Process

The most important part of getting your error-free manuscript published is choosing the right market. The best way to do this is to read books that are aimed at the same target audience as your own. If you want to approach publishers directly, look at who published those books. Their marketing machine is already positioned to announce your manuscript to your target audience, and they want more books of the type that you write. They’re your best bet.

Some authors thank their editors. If you’re going straight to the publishers, note the editors’ names and use those, preferably after a phone call to ensure the editor still works there. If you can, just phone the publisher and tell whoever answers the phone something like “I’m writing a letter to so-and-so, and I want to be sure I’m spelling the name correctly.” I used to be a secretary. I liked quick, easy questions.

If you want to approach an agent first, look in the acknowledgements sections of those books. Some authors thank their agents. Look up those agents and start with them. Tell them how you found them. This might impress them because it makes you look professional. You know they’ve got a track record in your genre. They know how to sell to publishers who are aimed at your target audience, so let them do it.

Whichever method you use, go in fully prepared. Meaning, work through all the steps below before you submit anything.

Overview

Your aim is to convince someone who not only does not know you, but does not want to know you, and has read too many bad books, that your book is different. For this you need a cover letter, bio, synopsis, and sample chapter of such wit, wisdom and genius that even the most jaded and cynical editor can take pleasure in it.

Take your time. Don’t just whip up something in a day and send it out. You’re probably looking at a one- or two-year gap between acceptance and publication. So in the grand scheme of things, taking the time to make your presentation really shine won’t matter. EXCEPT, it’ll ensure you get published in the first place.

Every publisher should have writers’ guidelines. Get them. Read them. Follow them. They’re using the process of elimination to get out of reading these submissions. The first step in that process is to bump off every author who can’t follow the guidelines. Don’t be one of them.

Preparing Your Query Letter

This will be the first impression they get of you. Make it a good one. Edit that letter as hard as you would a manuscript, and make the damn thing perfect. Make it good writing. Sum up your book in such a way as to make the recipient of the letter say, “Wow, I want to read this book.”

The first page of your book, along with the jacket text, are what usually determines whether a browser buys your book or puts it back on the shelf. As you write your query letter, think of what you’d put on that book jacket, and work that concept into your letter.

Never address your query letter To Whom It May Concern, Dear Editor, or any of that. Get a name. When you find the books that you really like, and are searching them for potential publishers, call those publishers. Ask who edited those books. If you want to approach the publisher directly, write to those editors.

With a simple bit of good writing, and we all know you can do that since you’ve already written and polished your manuscript, you’ll make it past this first hurdle. The editor reads your letter, sees nothing in it to stop him from continuing, and has no choice.

What would stop him? Typos. Grammar. Spelling. Boredom. Or anything that says “I write so much better than Stephen King that he’s not fit to hold my jock strap. Buy my book and we’ll both get rich.”

Writing Your Bio

Don’t lie. That’s the first rule. The second rule is, don’t forget any writing credits. List everything relevant you’ve got. Publications in decent magazines or newspapers. Credits in TV, films, theaters. Any literary prize you’ve managed to get in adulthood. The fact that you’re a professor of English or an editor of a sports journal.

If you have no literary background, no education, and no respectable publications, but you spent fifteen years in solitary confinement in a Siberian work camp, that might indicate that you have a story to tell. But if you’re writing about cuddly wombats to entertain the under-five crowd, this piece of information may be more than anyone needs to know.

You can list your credits either chronologically or from most impressive to least
impressive. Just whichever puts you in the best light. You want to look like you’re already a successful author. You don’t want to sound arrogant, but you do want to sound confident. Keep it to a single page. You don’t want to waste anybody’s time. They don’t have enough. (Who does?)

If your bio is so bare of details that it’s more of a liability than an asset, forget about it. Maybe your “bio” equals a sentence or two, in which case you can work it into your query letter instead of a separate document.

Your goal, remember, is to get that editor to read your synopsis or manuscript. To judge it on its own merits. If he reads your writing and rejects it, you gave it your best shot. Try a few more editors, and if they all reject it, think about improving your writing. But you don’t want that editor to stop reading your submission before he gets to your writing. So, take the time to do your query letter and bio correctly.

Writing Your Synopsis

To quote at least one agent, “There is no such thing as a good synopsis.” And how can there be? How do you sum up 50,000 or 100,000 words in a page or two? I’ll tell you how I do it. Very badly.

Having said that, this is your first chance to show the publisher that you can write. Some publishers want a minimal amount of information on first contact (query letter, bio, synopsis). Others want to see the first chapter or two as well. Nobody wants to see the whole manuscript at first, except those who say so in their writers’ guidelines. If you include sample chapters, the chance of them being read depends largely on the quality of your query letter and synopsis.

Keep your synopsis short, two pages maximum unless the writers’ guidelines say differently. Shorter is better. Pick out the theme and the strengths of your book and, in as clever a fashion as possible, relay these qualities in a brief chronology. The chronology is less important than the theme because, in truth, your only hope with a synopsis is that your theme or concept will strike a chord with the editor or agent reading it.

If your story is funny, your synopsis should be funny. If it’s a romantic story, then your synopsis should be a romantic synopsis. You are a writer, and here is where you can be creative.

Many great works of literature don’t have easily defined stories, just fine writing and good characters. If you have no story, then you have to sell your idea. Your synopsis must have fine, clear writing. Say how your book starts, how it ends, and the interest in the middle. This isn’t the time for cliffhangers.

Your sample chapter should do the main talking, but your synopsis should offer up those clever memorable sound bites that will linger in the editor’s mind and convince him to read the sample chapter.

Preparing Your Manuscript

Did I mention that your manuscript must be flawless? I’ll mention it again. Your
manuscript must be flawless. Especially be sure that the first chapter(s), the “hook” that you submit, will be the type that grabs the reader and makes him/her/it wonder what happens next.

For questions of paper size, margins, etc., consult the writers’ guidelines for your prospective publisher(s) and follow them precisely. Do what they say and they’ll read your manuscript. Fail to do so and they’ll set it down unread, even if you’re the next Joanne Rowling.

Remember, they’re budgeting their time and trying to get out of reading this stuff. Once they read it, they’ll be fair. (If not, you don’t want them.) If it’s good solid writing, you’re in. But until they get to your writing, they always expect the worst. If you’d seen some of the crap that comes their way, you’d be just as pessimistic. But in the end they do love good writing or else they’d quit that job.

Literary Agents Revisited

Here’s some advice from the Agent Research and Evaluation website. They define an agent as:

“…someone who makes a living selling real books to real publishers. No one representing himself as an agent should also claim to be a book doctor, an editor-for-hire, a book ‘consultant’ of any kind. They shouldn’t charge any type of ‘upfront’ reading fee, marketing fee, evaluation fee or any other fee apart from a commission on work sold.

“With the possible exception of certain MINIMAL office expenses, legitimate agents NEVER handle [the expenses connected with submitting manuscripts] as an upfront cost. Only as a billable expense after being shown to have been incurred.

“Remember, real agents live off the commissions they make from selling their clients’ projects. Scammers live off up-front fees for unnecessary, inadequate, or non-existent services.”

This is excellent advice. Anyone can call himself an agent, get himself listed somewhere, and tell every author who sends him a manuscript “This is excellent. Send me some money and I’ll sell it.” Then he can pocket the author’s money and do absolutely nothing, or send the manuscript to the same publishers who reject everything else he sends them.

Agents work for a percentage of your sales. It’s usually 15%. An agent’s source of income must be the books he sells. If the author pays him before he closes a sale, where is his incentive to close the sale?

Insist that your agent send you copies of all rejection letters. A great agent should offer this without you asking, and those rejection letters shouldn’t all be undated “Dear author” or “Dear agent” letters that don’t mention you or your agent or your manuscript by name.

Your agent should also involve you in the selection process without you asking, even if that just means telling you “I’m sending to this, that, and the other place.” Don’t let him/her send your gothic romance to a children’s publisher, etc.

If you’ve been reading my other advice, you’re already talking to other authors. If you know one who’s made it into print, especially one who writes in your genre, ask which agent (and which publisher and editor) he used.

If your agent is sending your stuff to the right places and it’s still getting rejected, you’ve done all you can do, except write better.

Very

by

Very
VERY
Copyright 2005, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Very is an adverb, yet it cannot modify a verb. Why the hell not? Let’s look at some Chinese, shall we?

Wo ai ni.
I love you.
Wo hen ai ni.
I very love you.

That makes perfect sense to me. I love many things, such as bicycling, nature, literature, humor, food, or good music. But I very love Jan. Some cats run, but Miss Picasso very runs. Sometimes she purrs and sometimes she very purrs.

I greatly love Jan, I deeply love Jan, I sincerely love Jan, I quite love Jan, I passionately love Jan, and I wholeheartedly love Jan. Why can’t I very love Jan if I want to?

This is just one question you’ll face if you teach your language to someone with a different native language. And in this case, I have no good answer. “We just don’t.” How lame.

This is getting very silly. I very should very stop now before you very stop reading.

Advice for Writers

by

Advice For Writers
ADVICE FOR WRITERS
Assembled by Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. —Flannery O’Connor

I write fiction because it’s a way of making statements I can disown, and I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself.
—Tom Stoppard

It is always a good idea, in any type of writing, to imagine what it’s like to be the reader. —Carl Dickson

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. —Howard Aiken

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff. —Adlai Stevenson

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. —T.S. Eliot

It has been said that there is no great writing, only great rewriting. Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me 20 years to write this book. —Michael LaRocca

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once a week.
—George Bernard Shaw

It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write. —Sinclair Lewis

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. —Enrique Jardiel Poncela

Easy reading is damn hard writing. —Nathaniel Hawthorne

I try to leave out the parts that people skip. —Elmore Leonard

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. —Sholem Asch

I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters. —Frank Lloyd Wright

I can’t understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. —Fred Allen

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
—James Michener

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else; we can bore people long after we are dead. —Sinclair Lewis

Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons. —Douglas McArthur

From The Mailbag

by

Dear Michael,

My life was a disaster. My husband left me for another man and took my truck. With four-wheel drive. My dog bit me. The bank repossessed my house. I was illiterate and unemployable. My husband had always been my sole source of income before. What oh what could I do?

I lived in a cardboard box in an alley, my only friend a rusty battered shopping cart with one wheel missing. When I could, I slept in the lobby of the local library, but only on shifts when the old lady with no sense of smell was working. No one else could stand to be in my presence. I ate leftovers from dumpsters. I learned how to make a lovely drink by swishing tap water around in an empty bottle of HP Sauce.

One day I walked into the library for a nice long nap, but there were winos on every couch. So I walked over to a computer terminal, resigned to sleeping in a chair. Again. But there on the screen was NO EDIT FOR YOU. I like food.

It was like a revelation to me. Writing? I’d never thought of it before. But I gave it a shot, following your advice and clinging onto every precious word. I learned about spelling, grammar and punctuation. I learned the difference between verbs and verbiage. I learned about dialogue, plot, dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers, characterization, descriptive passages, narrative, exposition, active voice, and Tom Swifties. And adverbs. I like adverbs.

Writing and publishing were my tickets out of the cardboard box in the alley. A way to quit pushing that squeaky shopping cart. To sleep in an honest-to-goodness bed again. To bathe. To buy new clothes. To learn how to live again! I got a better husband, a bigger truck, a new dog, and a mansion.

This is all because of your unparalleled generosity in writing such a wonderful newsletter, and I will be forever in your debt. Not financially — these billions are mine — but in my heart.

With warmest regards,
££ Rowling

Common Writing Mistakes

by
Common Writing Mistakes
Common Writing Mistakes
Copyright 2007, Michael LaRocca
http://www.michaeledits.com/

Most books aren’t rejected because the stories are “bad.” They’re rejected because they’re not “ready to read.” In short, minor stuff like typos, grammar, spelling, etc.

I don’t mean places where we, as authors, deliberately break the rules. Those are fine. They’re our job. Language always changes with use, and we can help it on its way. No, I’m referring to places where someone just plain didn’t learn the rule or got confused or overlooked it during the self-edits.

I’ve been editing novels since early 2000. Tech manuals since 1990. Looking back at my experiences, I feel like sharing the most common mistakes I’ve seen. If you’ll go through your manuscript and fix these before you submit it to a publisher, your odds of publication will increase dramatically.

Once you’ve found a publisher who publishes what you write, you want to present yourself in the best way possible. Submitting an unedited manuscript is a bit like going to a job interview wearing a purple Mohawk, no shoes, torn jeans, and a T-shirt. With B.O. that wilts the flowers. Your resume may be perfect, and your qualifications impeccable, but something tells me you won’t get the job.

The publisher invests a lot of time and money in every book it accepts. Why ask them to invest hours and days of editing time as well? If the publisher gets two or three or ten nearly identical submissions, you want yours to be the one requiring the least editing.

The first thing you need to do, and I hope you’ve already done it, is use the spelling and grammar checkers in your word processor. They’re not perfect, but they’ll catch many of the “common mistakes” on my list. I’ve been asked to edit many books where the author obviously didn’t do this, and I confess that I may have been lazy and let a couple of mine get to my editors unchecked. Bad Michael!

Here’s a list of the mistakes I see most often.

• Dialogue where everyone speaks in perfect English and never violates any of the points below. Okay, that’s not really a common problem. But I have seen it, and it’s a terrible thing.

• It’s is a contraction for “it is” and its is possessive.

• Who’s is a contraction for “who is” and whose is possessive.

• You’re is a contraction for “you are” and your is possessive.

• They’re is a contraction for “they are,” there is a place, their is possessive.

• There’s is a contraction for “there is” and theirs is possessive.

• If you’ve been paying attention to the above examples, you’ve noticed that possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. Its, whose, your, yours, their, theirs…

• Let’s is a contraction for “let us.”

• When making a word plural by adding an s, don’t use an apostrophe. (The cats are asleep.)

• When making a word possessive by adding an s, use an apostrophe. (The cat’s bowl is empty.)

• A bath is a noun, what you take. Bathe is a verb, the action you do when taking or giving a bath.

• A breath is a noun, what you take. Breathe is a verb, the action you do when taking a breath.

• You wear clothes. When you put them on, you clothe yourself. They are made of cloth.

• Whenever you read a sentence with the word “that,” ask yourself if you can delete that word and still achieve clarity. If so, kill it. The same can be said of all sentences. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning or sacrificing clarity, do it. “And then” is a phrase worth using your word processor’s search feature to look for.

• Keep an eye on verb tenses. “He pulled the pin and throws the grenade” is not a good sentence. When I’m writing, I begin by focusing when “now” is. “Now” could be now, or if I’m writing about an event in the past, “now” could be then. But from that “now,” all verb tenses unfold naturally. When the “now” keeps switching, that confuses the reader.

• Keep an eye on making everything agree regarding singular and plural. “My cat and my wife is sleeping,” “My cat sleep on the sofa,” and “My wife is a beautiful women” are not good sentences. (I exaggerate in these examples, but you know what I mean.) MSWord is especially bad at catching these for you, because it always assumes the verb belongs with the closest noun in front of it, and that’s not always your subject.

• I and me, he and him, etc. I hope no editor is rejecting any novels for this one, because I suspect that most people get confused at times. In dialogue, do whatever the heck you want because it sounds more “natural.” But for the sake of your narrative, I’ll try to explain the rule and the cheat. The rule involves knowing whether your pronoun is the subject or object. When Jim Morrison of The Doors sang, “Til the stars fall from the sky for you and I,” he made a good rhyme which was written by Robby Krieger, but they probably both knew he was using bad grammar. According to the rule, “you and I” is the object of the preposition “for,” thus it should be “for you and me.” The cheat involves pretending “you and” isn’t there, and instinctively knowing “for I” just doesn’t sound right. (I think only native English speakers can use my cheat. For the record, I have great admiration for anyone who’s writing in a language that isn’t their native tongue.)

• Should of, would of, could of. This one can make me throw things. It’s wrong! What you mean is should have, would have, could have. Or maybe you mean the contractions. Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. And maybe ‘ve sounds a bit like of. But it’s not! “Of” is not a verb. Not now, not ever.

• More, shorter sentences are better. Always. Don’t ask a single sentence to do too much work or advance the action too much, because then you’ve got lots of words scattered about like “that” and “however” and “because” and “or” and “as” and “and” and “while,” much like this rather pathetic excuse for a sentence right here.

• On a similar (exaggerated) note: “He laughed a wicked laugh as he kicked Ralphie in the face while he aimed the gun at Lerod and pulled the trigger and then laughed maniacally as Lerod twisted in agony because of the bullet that burned through his face and splattered his brains against the wall and made the wall look like an overcooked lasagna or an abstract painting.” Now tell me this sentence isn’t trying to do too much.

• Too means also or very, two is a number, to is a preposition.

• He said/she said. Use those only when necessary to establish who’s speaking. They distract the reader, pulling him out of the story and saying, “Hey look, you’re reading a book.” Ideally, within the context of the dialogue, we know who’s talking just by the style or the ideas. When a new speaker arrives on the scene, identify him or her immediately. Beyond that keep it to a minimum. Especially with only two people. I don’t mean delete them all, because it’s really frustrating counting backward to see who is speaking because you forgot. Just don’t go overboard with them. Oh yeah, and give every speaker his/her own paragraph. Please.

• Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile and said, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I don’t like this. Use two shorter sentences in the same paragraph. Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Same effect, fewer words, no dialogue tag (he said).

• In the previous example, I don’t like “smiled his most winning smile,” because it’s redundant. If you find yourself writing something like that, try to find a better way to express it before you just give up and leave it like it is. During the self-edit, I mean, not during the initial writing.

• “The glow-in-the-dark poster of Jesus glowed in the dark.” This editor won’t let that one go. Much too redundant, and it appeared in a published novel. The author probably made more royalties than me, too.

• Lie is what you do when you lie down on the bed, lay is what you do to another object that you lay on the table. Just to confuse matters, the past tense of lie is lay. Whenever I hit a lay/lie word in reading, I stop and think. Do that when you self-edit. (Note: Don’t fix this one in dialogue unless your character is quite well-educated, because most people say it wrong. I do.)

• Beware of the dangling modifier. “Rushing into the room, the exploding bombs dropped seven of the soldiers.” Wait a minute. The bombs didn’t rush into the room. The soldiers did. To get all technical about it, the first part is the “dependent clause,” and it must have the same subject as the “independent clause” which follows. Otherwise it’s amateur, distracting, and a real pain for your poor overworked editor.

• When something dark gets lighter, that is lightening. Them things that flash through the skies during a thunderstorm are called lightning bolts. No e, okay?

If you are able (many readers are not), keep an eye out for missing periods, weird commas, closing quotes, opening quotes, etc. When I read a book, be it an e-book or a printed book, I can’t help but spot every single one that’s missing. They slap me upside the head, which makes me a great editor but a lousy reader. If you’re like me, use that to your advantage. If not, that’s what editors are for.

I’ve been asked how to punctuate dialogue but I’m too lazy to write my own article, so I’ll just refer you to http://www.authorinresidence.ecsd.net/Dialogue%20Punctuation.htm and hope it’s still there.

About Writing (Introduction)

by

Here’s everything I know about improving your writing, publishing it electronically and in print, and promoting it after the sale.

Two questions you should ask:
1. What will it cost me?
2. What does this Michael LaRocca guy know about it?

Answer #1 — It won’t cost you a thing. The single most important bit of advice I can give you, and I say it often, is don’t pay for publication.

My successes have come from investing time. Some of it was well spent, but most of it was wasted. It costs me nothing to share what I’ve learned. It costs you nothing to read it except some of your time.

Answer #2 — “Michael LaRocca has been researching the publishing field for over 10 years.”

This quote from Authors Wordsmith was a kind way of saying I’ve received hundreds of rejections. Also, my “research” required 20 years.

But in my “breakout” year (2000), I finished writing four books and scheduled them all for publication in 2001. I also began editing for one of my publishers, a job I’ve been enjoying ever since.

After my first book was published, both my publishers closed. Two weeks and three publishers later, I was back on track.

See how much faster it was the second time around? That’s because I learned a lot.

Also, I found more editing jobs. That’s what I do when I’m not writing, doing legal transcription, or doing English consulting work in Thailand (my new home). But the thing is, if I’d become an editor before learning how to write, I’d have stunk.

I’ll tell you what’s missing from this monologue. What to write about, where I get my ideas from, stuff like that. Maybe I don’t answer this question because I think you should do it your way, not mine. Or maybe because I don’t know how I do it. Or maybe both. Once you’ve done your writing, this essay should help you with the other stuff involved in being a writer. Writing involves wearing at least four different hats. Writer, editor, publication seeker, post-sale self-promoter.

Here’s what I can tell you about my writing.

Sometimes an idea just comes to me out of nowhere and refuses to leave me alone until I write about it. So, I do.

And, whenever I read a book that really fires me up, I think, “I wish I could write like that.” So, I just keep trying. I’ll never write THE best, but I’ll always write MY best. And get better every time. That’s the “secret” of the writing “business,” same as any other business. Always deliver the goods.

I read voraciously, a habit I recommend to any author who doesn’t already have it. You’ll subconsciously pick up on what does and doesn’t work. Characterization, dialogue, pacing, plot, story, setting, description, etc. But more importantly, someone who doesn’t enjoy reading will never write something that someone else will enjoy reading.

I don’t write “for the market.” I know I can’t, so I just write for me and then try to find readers who like what I like. I’m not trying to whip up the next bestseller and get rich. Not that I’d complain. But I have to write what’s in my heart, then find a market later. It makes marketing a challenge at times, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When you write, be a dreamer. Go nuts. Know that you’re writing pure gold. That fire is why we write.

An author I greatly admire, Kurt Vonnegut, sweated out each individual sentence. He wrote it, rewrote it, and didn’t leave it alone until it was perfect. Then he wrote the next sentence the same way, etc., and when he reached the end of the book, it was done.

But I doubt most of us write like that. I don’t. I let it fly as fast as my fingers can move across the paper or keyboard, rushing to capture my ideas before they get away. Later, I change and shuffle and slice.

James Michener writes his last sentence first, then has his goal before him as he writes his way to it.

Then there’s me. No outline whatsoever. I create characters and conflict, spending weeks and months on that task, until the first chapter leaves me wondering “How will this end?” Then my characters take over, and I’m as surprised as the reader when I finish my story.

Some authors set aside a certain number of hours every day for writing, or a certain number of words. In short, a writing schedule.

Then there’s me. No writing for three or six months, then a flurry of activity where I forget to eat, sleep, bathe, change the cat’s litter… I’m a walking stereotype. To assuage the guilt, I tell myself that my unconscious is hard at work. As Hemingway would say, long periods of thinking and short periods of writing.

I’ve shown you the extremes in writing styles. I think most authors fall in the middle somewhere. But my point is, find out what works for you. You can read about how other writers do it, and if that works for you, great. But in the end, find your own way. That’s what writers do.

Just don’t do it halfway.

If you’re doing what I do, writing a story that entertains and moves you, you’ll find readers who share your tastes. For some of us that means a niche market and for others it means regular appearances on the bestseller list.

Writing is a calling, but publishing is a business. Remember that AFTER you’ve written your manuscript. Not during.

I’ve told you how I write. For me.

Editing

The next step is self-editing. Fixing the mistakes I made in my rush to write it before my Muse took a holiday. Several rewrites. Running through it repeatedly with a fine-toothed comb and eliminating clichés like “fine-toothed comb.”

Then what?

There are stories that get rejected because the potential publisher hates them, or feels they won’t sell (as if he knows), but more are shot down for other reasons. Stilted dialogue. Boring descriptions. Weak characters. Underdeveloped story. Unbelievable or inconsistent plot. Sloppy writing.

That’s what you have to fix.

I started by using free online creative writing workshops. What I needed most was input from strangers. After all, once you’re published, your readers will be strangers. Every publisher or agent you submit to will be a stranger. What will they think? I always get too close to my writing to answer that. So do you.

Whenever I got some advice, I considered it. Some I just threw out as wrong, or because I couldn’t make the changes without abandoning part of what made the story special to me. Some I embraced. But the point is, I decided. It’s my writing. My name on the spine, not yours, and I want people reading it centuries after I die. Aim high.

After a time, I didn’t feel the need for the workshops anymore. I’m fortunate enough to have a wife whose advice I will always treasure, and after a while that was all I needed. But early on, it would’ve been unfair to ask her to read my drivel. (I did anyway, but she married me in spite of it.)

Your goal when you self-edit is to get your book as close to “ready to read” as you possibly can. Do not be lazy and do not rush. You want your editor to find what you overlooked, not what you didn’t know about, and you want it to be easy for him/her. EASY! Easy to edit, easy to read. It’s a novel, not a blog.

Your story is your story. You write it from your heart, and when it looks like something you’d enjoy reading, you set out to find a publisher who shares your tastes. What you don’t want is for that first reader to lose sight of what makes your story special because you’ve bogged it down with silly mistakes.

Authors don’t pay to be published. They are paid for publication. Always. It’s just that simple. Publishers are paid by readers, not authors. That’s why they help you find those readers.

Your publisher should also give you some free editing. But there’s a limit to how much editing you can get without paying for it. Do you need more than that? I don’t know because I’ve never read your writing. But if you evaluate it honestly, I think you’ll know the answer.

As an editor, I’ve worked with some authors who simply couldn’t self-edit. Non-native English speakers, diagnosed dyslexics, blind authors, guys who slept through English class, whatever. To them, paying for editing was an option. This isn’t paying for publication. This is paying for a service, training. Just like paying to take a Creative Writing class at the local community college.

By the way, I don’t believe creativity can be taught. Writing, certainly. I took a Creative Writing class in high school, free, and treasure what I can remember of the experience. (It’s been a while.) But I already had the creativity, or else it would’ve been a waste of the teacher’s time and mine. (Later I taught Creative Writing in China. We call this irony.)

If you hire an editor worthy of the name, you should learn from that editor how to self-edit in the future. In my case it took two tries, because my first “editor” was a rip-off artist charging over ten times market value for incomplete advice.

That editor, incidentally, is named Edit Ink, and they’re listed on many “scam warning” sites. They take kickbacks from every fake agent who sends them a client. Avoid such places at all costs, and I will stress the word “costs.” Ouch!

If you choose to hire an editor, check price and reputation. For a ballpark figure, I charge a penny a word. Consider that you might never make enough selling your books to get back what you pay that editor. Do you care? That’s your decision.

Your first, most important step on the road to publication is to make your writing the best it can be.

Publication

My goal is to be published in both mediums, ebook and print. There are some readers who prefer ebooks, and some who prefer print books. The latter group is larger, but those publishers are harder to sell your writing to. I want to be published in both mediums, because I want all the readers I can get.

Before you epublish, check the contract to be sure you can publish the EDITED work in print later. I’m aware of only one e-publisher whose contract specified “no,” but my information on this is very much out of date.

Also, you might want to make sure your targeted print publisher will accept something that’s been previously published electronically. That’s a nasty little change that’s taken place over the past few years. Will I have to choose between the “big publishers” and epublication? I shouldn’t be forced to, but it’s possible. Check on this with someone more knowledgeable than I am.

If you know your book just plain won’t ever make it into traditional print, print-on-demand (POD) is an option. Some of my books fall into this category. The best epublishers will simultaneously publish your work electronically and in POD format, at no cost to you.

A lot of authors swear by self-publication, but the prospect just plain scares me. All that promo, all that self-editing, maybe driving around the countryside with a back seat full of books. I’m a writer, not a salesman. Maybe you’re different.

(And did I mention that I live in Thailand? And don’t have a car?)

I self-published once, in the pre-POD days. Mom handled the sales. I had fun and broke even. With POD, at least it’s easier (and probably cheaper) to self-publish than it was in 1989, because you’ll never get stuck with a large unsold inventory.

POD setup fees can range anywhere from US$100 to well over $1000. Don’t pay the higher price! Price shop. Also, remember that POD places publish any author who pays, giving them a real credibility problem with some reviewers and readers, and that they do no editing or marketing.

Closing Thoughts

Here’s something you’ve heard before. When your manuscript is rejected — and it will be — remember that you aren’t being rejected. Your manuscript is.

Did you ever hang up the phone on a telemarketer, delete spam, or close the door in the face of a salesman? Of course, and yet that salesman just moves on to the next potential customer. He knows you’re rejecting his product, not him.

Okay, in my case I’m rejecting both, but I’d never do that to an author. Neither will a publisher or an agent. All authors tell other authors not to take rejection personally, and yet we all do. Consider it a target to shoot for, then. Just keep submitting, and just keep writing.

The best way to cope with waiting times is to “submit and forget,” writing or editing other stuff while the time passes.

And finally, feel free to send an e-mail to me anytime. michaeledits@michaeledits.com. I’ll gladly share what I know with you, and it won’t cost you a cent.

I would wish you luck in your publishing endeavors, but I know there’s no luck involved. It’s all skill and diligence.

Congratulations on completing the course! No ceremonies, no degrees, and no diplomas. But on the bright side, no student loan to repay.