For Writers, April 2013 Edition

Today I'm adding a new feature to the "For Writers" post: a writing prompt!

This prompt caught my eye not only because it is rich in possibility, but also because it can fit almost any genre: romance, horror, thriller, mystery, you name it. So break out your notebook/keyboard and write!

This month's writing prompt (from @DailyPrompt):

Two women meet at a film developing counter. They both have pictures of the same man.

Is it their husband/lover? Is it their father, and they had no idea they were half-siblings? Who is the man, and why do they both have pictures of him? (Note: if you have issues with the idea of a "film-developing counter" in this digital age, then feel free to change it to: the women are at one of those "print centers" where you can print out your digital photos; maybe one of them is even having the photos turned into a photo-pillow, or having it put on a celebratory banner . . .).

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A while ago, there was quite a dust up in the Internet world over an indie author who had a meltdown over bad reviews and behaved badly across several social media outlets. Well, indie authors aren't the only ones behaving badly. Here is a link relating to a traditionally published author (and her agent) who haven't quite mastered proper social media etiquette, either.

Wendy Darling's review of The Selection

And Publishers Weekly's article on the subject:

Should Authors and Agents Weigh In on Citizen Reviews?

I understand the author/agent's response, I really do. I used to sell items on eBay and would occasionally get the most ridiculous negative feedback. I required a Paypal confirmed address, and clearly stated it several places in my auctions; then, when I rejected payment from an unconfirmed address, the buyer would leave stupid negative feedback like, "Seller won't take my payment!" Well, duh! The really sad part is I was selling educational products, so if the buyer couldn't bother to read and follow instructions in an auction, how could they educate children!?! But I digress, lol.

I've also had a few negative reviews on my short stories, and I'm really glad that I haven't written a novel yet, because novels are reviewed SO much more often than short stories.

But I do know how it feels to have negative reviews, and I rant and rave and scream about them . . . at home, in private. And then I move on.

Responding to a negative review can never, NEVER end well. First of all, you aren't going to change the original reviewer's mind. Best case scenario, if you're extremely graceful in your rebuttal, you might--MIGHT--come across as merely egotistical or filled with sour grapes. More likely is the scenario we've seen played out time and time again: a volley of back and forth between author and commentor that escalates until it ends in single word postings questioning each other's genetic lineage.

For the love of all that's holy, even if you think you are Miss Manners, DON'T REBUT NEGATIVE REVIEWS. Don't draw attention to them, and, if you're lucky, they'll eventually be replaced with good reviews and fall back to page 147 where no one will ever see them. (SIDEBAR: also, don't have all your friends post false positive reviews in an effort to artificially push the negative review off the page; but that's a topic for another post).

This is one of those issues that makes me long for the good old days before every single move a person made was available on YouTube, and before there were nine million Internet sites for a person to rant on. Back in the good old days, as long as you kept the paparazzi at bay, you could behave as badly as you wanted, lol.
But in the social media age, everything a person does is out there for the whole world to see, and it sticks around FOREVER (thank you, "Way Back Machine").

Can you imagine if Hemingway, or Hunter S. Thompson, or Poe had their every move tweeted, YouTubed, and videotaped for Entertainment tonight? What a nightmare that would have been for them!

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Whew! Two rants in one month. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to change the name of the blog to "Ed Angry" (obscure reference to the Weekly World News, for those who care).

How about a couple of helpful links to put us back in our happy place?


Crock Pots, Commuter Trains, and Artist Dates: Making the Time to Write Instead of Just Talking About It, by Marley Gibson

The 22 Rules of Storytelling [Infographic]

Character Development Tricks! from @writingcraft


5 Must Read Blogs for Indie Authors

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See you next week!

For Writers, March 2013 Edition

On tap today: an improved editing tool, an inspirational book, and some bad news about the Amazon Associates program.

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Pro Writing Aid now has a handy-dandy plug-in that works in Microsoft Word! No more pasting your text into the web editor, checking the report, and then going back to your original file to make corrections. You can now do it all right in Microsoft Word. The plug-in requires a paid subscription, but I find it's well worth the $35 yearly fee for the convenience. There is a 14-day free trial available so you can try it out and see for yourself just how handy it is. Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Pro Writing Aid in any way; I just really hate editing and love any tool that makes it easier for me, lol.

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I am affiliated with the next product I think you should check out: Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers is now available for pre-order! It includes my story, "Putting Together the Pieces."

               

I tweeted a link to this great article: "When The Romance Is Dying," by Joss Alexander. Although it's about falling out of love with your WIP, we can fall out of love with writing in general, too.

Writing is tough: fighting tooth and nail for a little time to write, the guilt over tasks left undone and family ignored, constant rejection, constant criticism from friends/family/or co-workers about your "silly little hobby." And if you're a genre writer, you even get looked down on by other writers: "This conference is only for literary fiction authors . . . you know, serious writing," or "You write romance?" followed by derisive laughter. No wonder we suffer from writer's block! 

You are not alone. Other writers are going through the same struggles, every single day. And you'll be inspired to hear the stories of how they made it through the struggles and prevailed.

If you are falling out of love with your WIP, or falling out of love with writing, then this book is the perfect "date night" to rekindle the romance!

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You may have already heard about this, but it bears repeating to ensure that everyone is aware of it: Amazon now penalizes members of their Amazon Associates Program for free ebook downloads. You can be penalized and lose your commissions even with only a few free downloads, if 80% of the downloads attributed to your account are "sales" of free ebooks. So if you have links to free ebooks on your site, plus links to other ebooks you are selling, the free downloads can erase the commission on the books you've sold. This is bad news for authors giving away free ebooks to promote other books in a series, and bad news for readers because some sites are electing to no longer list free ebooks. You can read more about it here: Daily Cheap Reads.

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See you next week!

Revision & Self-Editing Part 2: Read It Out Loud

My number one tip for revision/editing is to read your work out loud.

It's absolutely indispensable for catching errors that you otherwise might miss. For example, one of the most common (and annoying) errors I run into in my own work is leftover words I forgot to delete when I revised a sentence:

He turned the the car around.

If I read that sentence out loud, my eye just skips over the second "the," but when someone else reads it out loud, the extra "the" jumps out at me.

Reading out loud also helps catch awkward sentences and discordant word choices. Sentences have a rhythm to them, depending on word choice, and sometimes a sentence can be grammatically correct but "sound" choppy when read out loud. Sometimes a sentences doesn't look like its a run on, but when you read it out loud you find yourself gasping for breath halfway through.

These are all problems that are brought to light when you read out loud.

The best option would be to have a nice volunteer read your story out loud to you, but in cases where you don't have a volunteer standing by, there are software programs that will do it for you.

Originally, I used WordTalk to read my story back to me. It's a free plug-in for Microsoft Word and you can get it here. Though the website doesn't mention anything about Windows 8, I have it installed on a Windows 8 machine using Microsoft Office 2010 and it works fine.

These days, I'm using Dragon Naturally Speaking because it reads text AND takes dictation. I use the dictation feature both during drafting and during revision to make small changes. It's also handy when I'm taking notes. I happen to be a "how-to" junkie, and I read a lot of how-to books. I'll leave the microphone on but sleeping while I'm reading. When I get to a passage that I want to take notes on, I'll give the "wake up" command and dictate the note instead of trying to juggle the book in one hand and type/write a note with the other. One caveat: you have to be careful when you are using dictation mode, because it will pick up anything you say and insert it into your document. For example, the dogs (Abby and Roscoe) were being unruly while I was revising a draft, and I ended up with this:

Something splashed in the water behind him. He spun and squinted at the water rippling in the moonlight. Frogs croaked in the damn it Abby, get your head out of the garbage weeds at the water's edge.

If I hadn't caught that little addition, it certainly would have left a acquisitions editor scratching his/her head! So be very careful with the dictation feature!

The playback feature in Dragon Naturally Speaking is very similar to WordTalk, though I do think the WordTalk playback is easier to use. The Dragon Naturally Speaking version I'm using is for Windows XP/7, but I'm running it on a Windows 8 machine and it works fine.

Of course, you're going to need more than just software to help you make your manuscript shine.

The books I've found most useful for matters of style & grammar are:

              

The Chicago Manual of Style is the Publishing industry bible. Painless Grammar, Painless Writing, and Writers Inc. are not books that I bought for my fiction writing career; they are books I bought for the kids while we were homeschooling! But the very things that made them perfect for the kids (clear and simple instruction, great indexing for looking up words/problems) also make them a perfect quick-reference for this old dog who hasn't taken an English class in over a decade! I STILL have issues with the use of lay/lie/laid, and these books include a nice little chart I can refer to during editing.

My other favorite books on revision and editing include:

              

Revision and editing is my least favorite part of the writing process, but it's a necessary evil (and if you've seen any of my first drafts, you KNOW how necessary it is for me)! These books and software make the process a little less painful.

Revision & Self-Editing, Part I

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I've spent a lot of time lately editing (seems like forever), so I thought it would be a good time to share some thoughts and links on the revision/editing process. Today's post will cover a few handy links for editing, as well as links to three online editing tools.

Proofreading and Editing Tips


Eight Simple Tips for Editing Your Own Work


Ten Editing Tips, for Your Fiction Mss.


Unleashing the Internal Editor: A Self-Editing Checklist


Red Pencil Round-Up: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers


Self-Editing Tips


Self-Editing: Back to Basics, Part I – Guest Post by Karin Cox


There are also handy editing wizards that flag passive voice sections in your writing and check other writing issues like overused words, adverbs, pacing, cliches, etc.:

AutoCrit Editing Wizard

EditMinion

Pro Writing Aid


This topic will be continued the 3rd Monday of next month, when I'll discuss some of my favorite self-editing books and offer some of my own editing tips.

Don't forget to visit next Monday for the latest "What's New in Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi" post!

Story Structure

I've been busy working on a presentation about story structure for my local writer's group.

It was actually a pretty frustrating process because just like everything else that has to do with "writing advice" or "writing rules," there's a lot of conflicting information (I know, color you shocked, right?). One of the most frustrating things about it was that terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

For example: the hook vs. the inciting incident.

In the methods I learned from:

"The Hook" is something in a story that engages the reader and makes them want to read on. It's often a funny or interesting event that displays the nature of a character and raises a reader's interest in the character. It makes the reader say, "Hey! I like this guy. I'll spend 400 pages with him," or "This guy's messed up. I can't wait to see what kind of trouble he gets himself into next. I'll invest my time in the 400 pages to find out."

"The Inciting Incident" is the event that changes the character's life/presents a problem to be solved and is the event that really gets the story rolling.

A lot of the research material I looked at used the term "Hook" to mean the inciting incident. While I'm sure that the two can be the same moment (the moment that piques the reader's interest in the story can be the event that gets the story rolling), they don't necessarily have to be rolled into one.

The Stephanie Plum books from Janet Evanovich are a good example: most of them have an event in the first few pages that lets you know Ms. Plum is a bit of a . . . um . . . klutzy train wreck with a strange, strange life. That piques reader interest and makes them want to learn more about her. Then, a few pages later, there is some event (a murder, a skip, etc.) that actually starts the storyline for each novel. Hook and inciting incident as two separate events.

Okay, enough of my ranting. Here are some of the better links I've found on story structure:


NaNoWriMo Prep: Campbell, Vogler, the Hero's Journey, The Writer's Journey and Narrative Structure Cheat Sheet, by Alexandra Sokoloff


Adapting Story Structure for Any Project, by Lydia Sharp

Cheat Sheet: 7-Point Story Structure, by CM Craig 

 

 

Seven-Point Plot Outline for Genre Short Stories, by Wendy Wheeler


25 Things You Should Know About Story Structure, by Chuck Wendig


How to Structure A Story: The Eight-Point Arc, by Ali Hale


Story Structure in Short Stories, by Philip Brewer


Comparing the Story Theories of Michael Hague and Dramatica, by Glen C. Strathy

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See you next week!

Links for Writers

Image courtesy of Phaitoon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm trying to slog my way through NaNoWriMo and doing a terrible job of it. Rather than writing every day, my over scheduled November means I skip a few days, then have a marathon writing session to catch up; skip a few days, have a marathon writing session to catch up . . . One thing that this NaNoWriMo has taught me is that when I put my mind to it (and put the rest of life on hold), I can write one hell of a lot of words in a single day. It's not a pace I couldn't keep up with on a daily basis, not without buying new clothes every day so I can skip laundry or learning to love eating take-out out of Styrofoam trays.

But enough with the whining and onto today's info for writers.


Writing Metaphor, Memorable Characters And Horror With Chuck Wendig


And speaking of Chuck Wendig, if you need to amp up the conflict in your NaNo novel (or any other novel/story), here are
25 Ways to F**k With Your Character (or, Building Conflict One Cruelty at a Time)


The Big Three - Goals, Motivation and Conflict, by Florence U. Cardinal

Need help brainstorming your main character's goals/motivation/conflict?
GMC Wizard


Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Susan Dennard


Using Invalid Beliefs to Show Character Growth by Sharon Clare


See you next week!

Links for Writers: NaNo, Loglines, Synopses, and More

Image courtesy of winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here are some helpful links I've come across this week on Twitter, at The Muse Conference, and while surfing the web (aka, procrastinating about my novel).


Have a book you are marketing or about to market? Solid advice at The Bookshelf Muse:
The Path To 10K In Sales: Strategy, Luck & Mistakes


How to maximize your email list (includes a pdf checklist):
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Email Updates (Your Fans Actually Read)


Ready to make your debut as an author?
Building Your Author Platform, Part I
and
Building Your Author Platform, Part II


How's your logline? Get feedback:
Logline It!


The 5 elements of a good synopsis (and story)
A "Secret" Formula for Creating a Short Synopsis for Your Book


This is also a good test for the planning stage of your NaNo novel:
Six Tests of a Solid Story Premise and Eight Ways to Write One


Speaking of NaNo:
NaNoWriMo: 5 Tips On How To Get Ready


And more NaNo preparation:
How to outline your story for National Novel-Writing Month – checklist


And if you haven't come up with an idea for your NaNo novel yet:
10 Tips for Generating Killer Science Fiction Story Ideas


See you next week!