Write

Articles about craft.

You Can’t Be Too Careful With That Precious First Page

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This post by Greta van der Rol originally appeared on her site on 6/30/14.

Authors, you can’t be too careful when crafting that precious first page for your tour de force. This is a case study.

Since he retired, my husband has read a lot of books. He tends to like crime, thrillers, mystery – that sort of thing. And he often picks up free books from Smashwords. As I explained in a previous post, if he enjoys the read, he’ll go and buy whatever else that author has on offer. Sometimes, he’ll share his new find with me. “Read this. I think you’d like it.”

So, feeling at something of a loose end, I sat down in my reading chair and opened the book on my tablet. It’s a crime novel, written in first person. I’ll say no more at this stage, because all I’d read was the blurb. In the first few sentences I met the protagonist, and a rather scruffy stranger. The exchange was very different to the usual polite frippery. He says, “Pleased to meet you.” She responds with, “No you’re not.”

So far so good. I’m interested. But then we meet a new character who is this lady’s boss. And this is where the author lost me. Not because a new character is introduced, but because I am immediately derailed into a far too long exposition of this person, his background, her background… All presented as her inner thoughts.

 

Click here to read the full article on Greta van der Rol’s site.

 

Dear Miss Austen

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This post by Kat Flannery originally appeared on Indie Chicks Cafe on 2/22/14.

We have never met, and with the many years between us, you being born in 1775 and me in 1977, the likelihood of this occurring is slim. However, I have admired you since I was sixteen years old, when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. You were talented beyond your time, and as I researched your life more, I was saddened to learn that you never received acclaimed status or rave reviews for your work as an author while living.

The early 1800s were not ready for women to be raising their fists while demanding recognition and a place in society, but you thought it so. You were eager and honest for women to be held in some form of esteem other than the mere whisper from behind their men.

You lived during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the Industrial Revolution, and yet there is never any mention of them in your novels. These historic events seemed to have passed you by without notice. When I open your books, I’m transported back to a time where none of this existed. Instead, romance, common sense and reason are woven into your words.
 

Click here to read the full post on Indie Chicks Cafe.

 

The Struggle That Makes the Art

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This post by Heidi Cullinan originally appeared on her blog on 6/6/14.

If there’s a frequently asked question I get which isn’t a variation on “How can a girl write boy sex?” it’s a riff on “How can I be successful as a writer?” I think I get the question a lot because I’m clearly mid-list, doing well but not even in the same zip code as people whose signing lines wrap around the building. I have the career a lot of people want, because everybody knows those megawatt stars are rare. But I’m making well more than a living wage as an author, and that seems an attainable dream. It’s just that nobody can figure out how to do it. How did I? How can others emulate me?

I can answer the question, but I’ll warn you right now a lot of people won’t like the answer, and even more won’t even hear it. Because how I did it is that I worked hard. I mean, I worked. Like a dog. Like a crazy person. Like a desperate freak. I struggled like I’ve struggled for nothing else, and I haven’t stopped. I stripped myself down and made myself understand who I was and what I could do, and then I did what I could to expand my limitations. I believe my struggle and pain, both personal and professional, define and make my art. I believe anyone, everyone, can do this too. Yet the short version of why so many people don’t make it even to a comfortable middle ground has nothing to do with the difficulties of publishing or whether or not we should all toss off publishers entirely, or the quality of the art, or whether or not Amazon is an asshole for bullying Hachette. Most people’s art doesn’t earn them a living because they cannot let go of the fantasy that all they have to do is show up with a product and the world will hand them cash. Most people cannot accept the truth that the work required to get money from art is so onerous it changes the nature of the art itself.

 

Click here to read the full post on Heidi Cullinan’s blog.

 

Write Relatable Characters

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This post by Ksenia Anske originally appeared on her site on 6/25/14.

Why? Is the first question you ask. Why should I write characters that are relatable? What about villains? The bad guys? The killers? The perverts? The awful awful people that do bad bad things? Well, here is the deal. Even the awfulest people are human. And by human I mean, we all simply want to be loved and to love. We may have a ton of shit piled up from the past, a ton of fear and anger, to the point when we want to kill somebody. Still. Killers feel too. They kill because they feel. Pain. A tremendous amount of pain. So much pain that they don’t know it’s pain anymore. They’re human, not robots. They have feelings. Think about the last book you read with a really evil character. Somebody so horrible, you couldn’t possibly root, but you did. I can tell you one. I read AMERICAN PSYCHO and even though I should’ve felt hate and disgust, I rooted for Patrick Bateman. Why? Because he was human. He doubted himself, he tried to find love and beauty in things, albeit, the wrong way, but you could feel it, see it, identify with it, perhaps think about that time you squished a bug to see what’s inside and realizing you killed it and feeling bad and sorry and…you know. All of us had these moments.

Because the characters are relatable.

 

Click here to read the full post on Ksenia Anske’s site.

 

How Emotional Peril Keeps Readers Reading

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This post by Janice Hardy originally appeared on the Writers in the Storm blog on 6/20/14.

Before I dive in, I’d like to say congrats and cheers to everyone at WITS on their new home! It’s hard to improve something so good, but they managed to do it. Kudos, Stormies! And thanks for letting me stop by to help you celebrate.

Okay, on to the writing tips…

When you pick up a novel, what keeps you reading?

The desire to see what happens next? The fear that something horrible will happen to your favorite character? The need to see it all turn out for the best? The need to know what happens next or what it all means? Maybe all of these at different times in the book.

No matter what hooks a reader about a book, she’s made an emotional connection. She cares, and doesn’t want to see the characters get hurt. But the wonderful things is, once you’ve made that emotional connection, “hurt” takes on a much broader definition. The emotional peril the character faces becomes just as important as physical peril. Probably more so, because readers know a major character isn’t likely to die, so they don’t worry as much about the outcome (unless it’s Game of Thrones, then all bets are off).

But you can destroy a character emotionally without physically hurting her. She can survive, yet never be the same. (and if you’re giggling in glee over the very thought, you’re my kind of writer)

 

Click here to read the full post on the Writers in the Storm blog.

 

David Farland’s Kick in the Pants—The High Cost of an Honest Critique

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This post by Kami M. McArthur originally appeared on David Farland’s site on 6/2/14.

Before you send out a manuscript for any kind of an edit, you need to consider whether you are willing to pay the true costs of an edit.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked to edit several novels. For those of you who don’t know, I sometimes will edit novels for others (for a price) and try to help authors prepare them before querying agents or making a wide release.

My goal of course is to help the author become a bestseller and perhaps win awards. This means that I have to study the novel and maybe try to figure out how to broaden the audience, ramp up the tension or wonder, tweak characters, boost plot lines, make protagonists more likeable, and so on. It also requires me to give advice on how to bolster weak prose, tighten pacing, and do a host of other things.

I always approach this with a bit of trepidation. When you take on an editing job, you never quite know what you’re getting yourself into. You may have a novel that sounds great when it is summarized, but has major weaknesses.

Problems can be fixed, of course, but authors sometimes can’t be. Occasionally the author is dead-set on doing something wrong, or is hoping only for praise, not for real constructive criticism.

 

Click here to read the full post on David Farland’s site.

 

Should You Blog Your Novel?

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This post by Nina Amir originally appeared on How To Blog A Book on 7/1/14.

Many novelists feel intrigued by the idea of blogging a book. If they seek a traditional publishing deal, however, they usually have one major concern: If I blog my novel, will a publisher be interested in the manuscript? In fact, nonfiction writers have the same concern.

No matter what type of book you blog, this is a valid concern. For novelists, it’s a larger issue, though.

 

Previously Published Nonfiction Work and Traditional Publishers

Let me discuss nonfiction first. If you blog the first draft of your nonfiction book and then submit to a traditional publisher, that manuscript will be seen as previously published work. However, you will have 25 or 30 percent new content and an edited version to submit (if you follow the plan I propose here on the blog and in How to Blog a Book), so what you present is not identical to what can be found online. That makes the manuscript enticing to a publisher.

Plus, when you submit your work you offer statistics to prove the blog posts you published successfully test marketed your idea and created a platform for yourself, which means you now have a built-in readership for the book.

For these reasons—additional content, the difference in your manuscript, great stats, platform—the majority of publishers—not all—will not be put off by the fact that your manuscript technically is previously published. If your stats are good, they should be happy to publish your nonfiction book.

 

Click here to read the full post on How To Blog A Book.

 

10 Things Writers Can Learn From Jane Eyre

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site on 6/25/14.

lucky ducky. Know why? Because writers can learn about storytelling just about anywhere. Life itself is a story. All we have to do is sit back and watch!

But one of the best specific places where writers can learn how to better their craft is by reading masterful books. As we approach the August 1st release date for my writing how-to book Jane Eyre: The Writer’s Digest Annotated Classic, I’d like to share ten quick lessons you can take away from this book right now. In lieu of the standard book trailer, graphic wizard Sean Brunke put together this fun little video for us.

 

Click here to watch the video on Helping Writers Become Authors. Note that a full transcript of the video is also available there.

 

M. Louisa Locke: From Academia to Authorship, A Dream Deferred

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This article by Tim Knox originally appeared on Interviewing Authors.

Tim Knox: Hey friends, welcome in to Interviewing Authors with Tim Knox, another great show for you today. M. Louisa Locke is my guest, my friend Mary Lou Locke. She has quite the history. She’s a retired professor of women’s history, embarked on a second career as a historical writer and her Victorian San Francisco mystery series is based on the research she did to get her doctorate.

The series features Annie Fuller, a boarding house owner and pretend clairvoyant. The series thus far includes Maids of Misfortune, Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons and the new book soon to come out, called Deadly Proof.

Now if you are interested in writing historical fiction this is an interview you don’t want to miss. Mary Lou talks about all of the work that she puts in and the research she does to make sure things are accurate. But then again she also talks about things like bringing humor into the story and the mystery and the romance.

So just a really good interview with M. Louisa Locke on this edition of Interviewing Authors.

Tim Knox: Mary Lou, welcome to the program.

M. Louisa Locke: Well it’s very good to be here, Tim.

Tim Knox: To begin let’s hear a little bit about you. Tell us about your background.

M. Louisa Locke: Okay most of my life, career as an adult I was a college professor. I got a doctorate in history in the late 1970s, early 1980s. I spent most of my career teaching at San Diego Mesa Community College, so teaching freshman U.S. History and U.S. Women’s History. That’s what I did with most of my career but I always wanted to write historical fiction. In fact my high school yearbook when it said ‘what do you want to do with your life?’ I said I wanted to write.

I understood by college that most writers couldn’t make a living and so I decided that I would make history my profession and then the hope was that I might be able to write fiction on the side. In many ways that dream got deferred until I was in my late 50s and I was semi-retired. I thought I would give writing another shot. I’d written a rough draft of the book that became my first book years earlier. I published as a self-published independent author and it sold and I made enough money by the second year to retire completely. So I really now have a second career as a full-time writer. It’s really a dream deferred that I really did not expect to get fulfilled.

 

Click here to read the full article (or listen to the podcast) on Interviewing Authors.

 

The Art Of Using Correct Verb Tenses In Your Writing

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This post by Writer’s Relief Staff originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 4/2/14.

Enforcing consistent verb tense in your writing is crucial. Nothing makes an editor’s brain hurt more than trying to read through distracting or confusing verb tenses. If one sentence has so many varying tenses that readers don’t know if you’re coming or going, you can be sure your work is going to end up in the editor’s reject pile.

But choosing the right verb tense isn’t always easy. Let’s start with the basics:

The Simple form (aka stick-figure art)
Past: I drew.
Present: I draw.
Future: I will draw.

Jake drew a picture of Mary.

So simple and easy, you’re probably thinking: Thanks, Captain Obvious. So let’s take it up a notch. What if you want to imply action that ends in a specific time frame? Then, you would use the Perfect form:

 

Click here to read the full post on The Huffington Post.

 

How to Treat Geological and Astronomical Terms

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This post by Mark Nichol originally appeared on Daily Writing Tips.

Determining whether to refer to geological and astronomical terms with initial uppercase or lowercase letters can be a challenge, because various publications and publishers differ on capitalization style. The following guidelines, however, appear to predominate:

 

Names of geological time spans are capitalized, but the terms for the magnitude of duration (eons, eras, periods, epochs, and stages, in descending order of length), are not; in scientific and nonscientific prose alike, these terms can be omitted:

“The Mesozoic is also known as the Age of Dinosaurs.”

“Mrs. Wattle has been teaching Freshman Composition since the Mesozoic.”

 

Whether modifying terms such as early, middle, and late are capitalized depends on whether they are themselves modified:

“Tyrannosaurus rex lived during the Late Cretaceous.”

“The Deccan Traps erupted in the very late Cretaceous.”

“Ice age” is considered a generic term because multiple such events have occurred.

 

Click here to read the full post on Daily Writing Tips.

 

Writing: How to Self-Edit Your Novel

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This post by Jessica Bell originally appeared on the ALLi blog on 6/26/14.

Professional editor Jessica Bell, an Australian author and poet living in Athens, Greece, shares her top tips for polishing your fiction writing. Her advice will help you make your book the best it can be, prior to publication. This post complements Derek Murphy’s recent article about employing editors.

Ugh. It’s time to edit your novel. What a drag, right? It doesn’t have to be.

If you take a systematic approach, you can make sure you catch as many mistakes and writing pitfalls as possible without feeling overwhelmed by it all.

I’ve been an editor for more than ten years, and there is the one rule I live by which gets excellent results every time: edit piece by piece.

Sound ambiguous? Let me explain.

 

The Editing Process

When we read a manuscript from beginning to end, we aren’t able to concentrate on every detail at once.

For example, let’s say you’ve read through the first chapter of your manuscript and the only error you notice is the word cafe lacking the accent on the e. Easy. You fix it. And you make a mental note to catch that as you go along.

 

Click here to read the full post on the ALLi blog.

 

Creative Ideation: Know When to Say When

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This post by Tom Nixon originally appeared on alchemy on 6/24/14.

Throw out your first idea, and work to improve your last.

When starting a creative project, whether it be a marketing campaign, an advertising concept, a website relaunch or new brand strategy, there is a common pitfall that is very difficult for some to overcome — falling in love with the first idea.

Usually, the first idea that comes to you does so rather easily. Take that as a warning sign, not as a comfort. If it comes naturally and intuitively, it could be that you’re a creative genius. Let’s not bank on that. It’s more likely that your idea has already been done before. So, subliminally, you’ve arrived in a comfort zone because your idea has already been tested and validated in the market, so it feels both safe and creative at the same time.

The problem is, your safe and creative original idea is too often nothing more than a “me-too” regurgitation of someone else’s idea.

 

Click here to read the full post on alchemy.

 

Selling LOTS of Books and Why Bright Ideas Can Go BADLY

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 6/19/14.

Writers must understand structure if they hope to be successful. Yes, it might take five years to finish the first novel, but if we land a three book deal, we don’t have 15 years to turn in our books. And the key to making money at this writing thing is we have to be able to write books…the more the better. If we can write GREAT books quickly? WINNING!

Understanding structure helps us become faster, cleaner, better writers.

Plotters tend to do better with structure, but even pantsers (those writers who write by the seat of their pants) NEED to understand structure or revisions will be HELL. Structure is one of those boring topics like finance or taxes. It isn’t nearly as glamorous as creating characters or reading about ways to unleash our creative energy.

Structure is probably one of the most overlooked topics, and yet it is the most critical. Why? Because structure is for the reader. The farther an author deviates from structure, the less likely the story will connect to a reader.

As an editor, I can tell in five minutes if an author understands narrative structure. Seriously.

Oh and I can hear the moaning and great gnashing of teeth. Trust me, I hear ya.

Structure can be tough to wrap your mind around and, to be blunt, most new writers don’t understand it. They rely on wordsmithery and hope they can bluff past people like me with their glorious prose. Yeah, no. Prose isn’t plot. We have to understand plot. That’s why I make learning this stuff simple, easy and best of all FUN.

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

On Output and Quality

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This post by Alan Baxter originally appeared on his Warrior Scribe site on 6/1/14. Note that it contains strong language.

I’ve been reading a few posts lately that seem to contradict each other. What do you know – there’s no one true rule. I won’t bother linking to all those posts, at least partly because I can’t remember where they all are. But the general gist of it all was either:

Write as much as you can, it’s the only way to be noticed and have a career!

vs

Stop just writing for the sake of it! There’s too much shit out there, you need to write well, not lots.

Obviously I’ve paraphrased the general messages there. The thing is, they’re both right. The reason they’re both right is because there are many types of writers out there with many styles of work and opportunity to write. It also depends what you want from your career.

You certainly need more than one book to build a career, unless you’re Harper Lee. It’s true that the more people see from you, the more likely they are to check out your stuff and the more likely you are to build a loyal fan base. But don’t be in a rush.

 

Click here to read the full post on Warrior Scribe.