Writing Tools – things to help you get your writing done
Thorin Klosowski at Life Hacker reviews Ulysses, a plain text writing tool. What are some of your favorite apps or tools to help get your writing done?
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Ulysses Is the Plain Text, Evernote-Style Writing App I’ve Always Wanted
I’ve long been a fan of plain text for everything from notes to general writing, but it wasn’t until recently that I found my holy grail: An app that could sync with multiple devices and handle multiple output types. Ulysses. It’s the plain text version of Evernote I’ve always wanted.
There are a couple of catches with Ulysses I want to mention up front: First, it’s only available for Apple devices (Mac/iOS). Second, it’s pricey: $44.99 for the Mac app (though you can check out a trial version for free) and $24.99 for the iPhone/iPad app. Both the iOS and Mac apps have the same feature set, so you can switch between the two easily.
Considering apps like Evernote are free, the price tag is definitely asking a lot, but it’s also the only app of its kind that clicked for me. Scrivener was close, but its ugly design and lack of mobile options prevented it from being my only tool. Ulysses doesn’t have that problem, which makes it worth the price. Now that Ulysses has cemented itself in my workflow, I figured I’d share a few tips for how I use it.
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Have you ever thought of becoming an editor and helping other writers shape their work? Roz Morris at Nail Your Novel shares the different types of editor and what it takes to become one.
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How do you become an editor?
Rachel Anderson asks: How did you get into editing? Did you start writing first and then take on editing as a natural second, or was it out of necessity since there are more opportunities for editors than writers?
Oof, talk about cutting to the quick. It’s certainly tricky to make a living as a full-time writer. So most writers also use their wordsmithing in some other way – teaching or working in the publishing trade.
But does that mean all writers could be editors? Not necessarily. There’s a lot of difference between tidying your own work and shaping someone else’s to professional standards.
And you need different skills for the various strains of editing.
Copy editing and proof reading These are the nitpicky, forensic phases. Fact-checking and querying. Reading for consistency, clarity, correctness, house style, possible libel. The copy editor and proof reader are a human error trap – they have to catch anything that might be inaccurate, or would spoil the reader’s experience or undermine the author’s command. They have to spot anything that could possibly go wrong such as characters’ names changing half-way through, repeated passages from copy/paste mistakes, and snafus that no other human has yet encountered.
Rachel: I’ve been reading articles and stuff about developmental editing…
Aha – the creative stuff! For developmental editing, you need a mind for detail and a solid grounding in the mechanics of fiction (or non-fiction or memoir if that’s where you want to specialise – they need developmental editors too). Developmental editing is part diagnosis, part teaching. You need sharp radar for what isn’t working, and you need to explain this to the writer in a way that helps them solve it. Equally, it might be your job to solve it.
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I am a firm believer in hiring a professional editor. That said, you want to put your best effort forward and do as much as you can. Lucky for us, Kristen Lamb is here to help us with self-editing tips so you can avoid the pants of shame.
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Six Ways To Self-Edit & Polish Your Prose
May 16, 2016
Editing your work has become a lot easier….
Kristen Lamb
Whether you are new to writing or an old pro, brushing up on the basics is always helpful. Because no matter how GOOD the story is? If the reader is busy stumbling over this stuff, it ruins the fictive dream and she will never GET to the story. So today we are going to cover six ways to self-edit your fiction. Though this stuff might seem like a no-brainer, I see these blunders ALL the time.
….unfortunately even in (legacy) published books.
When I worked as an editor, I found it frustrating when I couldn’t even GET to the story because I was too distracted by these all too common oopses.
There are many editors who charge by the hour. If they’re spending their time fixing oopses you could’ve easily repaired yourself? You’re burning cash and time. Yet, correct these problems, and editors can more easily get to the MEAT of your novel. This means you will spend less money and get far higher value.
#1 The Brutal Truth about Adverbs, Metaphors and Similes
I have never met an adverb, simile, or metaphor I didn’t LOVE. I totally dig description, but it can present problems.
First of all, adverbs are not ALL evil. Redundant adverbs are evil. If someone shouts loudly? How else are they going to shout? Whispering quietly? Really? Ah, but if they whisper seductively? The adverb seductively gives us a quality to the whisper that isn’t already implied by the verb.
Check your work for adverbs and kill the redundant ones. Kill them. Dead.
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Are writer’s groups and libraries at crossroads with publishers over eBooks? Cory Doctorow, author and man about the web, believes so. He also believes he has some answers to help us all just get along in this article from Locus Online.
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Cory Doctorow: Peace In Our Time
4 May 2016
E-books are game-changers, but not in the way we all thought they would be. Far from taking over print, e-book sales have stagnated at less than a quarter of print sales and show every sign of staying there or declining for the foreseeable future.
But e-books continue to be a source of bitter controversy that divides publishers from two of their most potentially useful allies: writers’ groups and libraries.
Below, I’ll present two thought experiments for how libraries and writers’ groups could find common cause with the Big Five publishers, using tech projects that would make a better world for writers, readers, literature, and culture.
First up, libraries. Libraries are understandably exercised about the high prices they’re expected to pay for their e-books – as much as 500% more than you and I pay on the major online services. To add insult to injury, HarperCollins makes libraries delete any e-book that has circulated 26 times, on the bizarre grounds that:
a) Its print books are allegedly so badly bound that they disintegrate after 26 readings (this is not actually true); and
b) This defect in the robustness of physical books is a feature, not a bug, and should be imported into the digital realm.
Libraries have tried to shame the publishers into offering better deals, through the Fair Pricing for Libraries campaign, fairpricingforlibraries.org. It’s had some limited success there, with Random Penguin, the largest of the Big Five, offering ‘‘flexible’’ prices that are a substantial improvement, but still far from perfect.
The libraries’ fight is hamstrung by their lack of leverage. Library patrons want e-books, publishers are the only source of the e-books patrons want, and libraries have to give their patrons what they want.
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I admit that when I first looked at this post by Jami Gold, I was didn’t think there was going to be much I could get from it. But Jami goes deep. There is a very important difference between the story and the plot, and that difference is what makes a great story. Check out the post at jamigold.com and see if you agree.
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What’s the Difference between Plot and Story?
I want a magic pen!
by Jami Gold
May 3, 2016
When we first start off as writers, if someone asks us about our story, we might launch into an overview of our story’s plot. It’s easy to think the plot is what our story is about.
Believe me, I know. I have several query letter drafts that took that road to rejection. *smile*
Yet one complaint I’ve heard from agents over the years is that many queries are too “plotty.” What does that mean?
With few exceptions, storyisn’t the same as plot.
For this post’s image above, the plot event would be: man lost in a desert. The story behind it would be: man struggles to survive.
What’s the difference? Stick with me and find out. *smile*
Nouns vs. Verbs
Which sounds stronger and evokes more emotion?
The sorority member stopped her luxury sports car in front of the three-story brownstone.
The woman screeched her car to a halt in front of the house.
For many of us, we’re going to say the second sentence sounds stronger. We get a sense of action and urgency, which are emotional concepts.
Now take a closer look at those two sentences. They’re essentially the same idea—a woman is parking in front of a house.
The difference is that the first sentence concentrates on precise nouns:
sorority member vs. woman
luxury sports car vs. car
three-story brownstone vs. house
The second sentence focuses on a strong verb:
screeched vs. stopped.
That example isn’t meant to imply that we shouldn’t use precise nouns. In fact, we should use precise nouns and strong verbs. Instead, the example shows how verbs are the part of speech that add action, emotion, and narrative drive to our story.
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It is laughably easy to get around DRM in eBooks. Not only does it not deter would be pirates, DRM punishes those who purchase titles legally. Case in point – the most recent episode of legal users loosing purchases from their libraries after an upgrade courtesy of Sony and Kobo. This also brings up another issue with electronic goods. You don’t technically own them, you “rent” them. Again punishing the legal users. Sound off your thoughts in the comments below. Chris Meadows at Teleread reports.
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DRM nightmare: After recent upgrade, Kobo customers report losing Sony books from their libraries
One of the issues has to do with concealing the option to download ACSM files in order to be able to pull Kobo EPUB files down to the desktop reader. Unlike Barnes & Noble, however, Kobo hasn’t actually removed the option to do so—just hidden it under the three-dot menu at the far right of the listing for the e-book in question.
Another issue is that the “Trash” folder has been removed from the library. Now books customers delete from their library are simply automatically removed, though they have the option of searching the book in the Kobo store to add it back at no cost.
Some users are reporting that some or all of the books they’d added from their Sony Reader libraries are missing. They were apparently removed from their library during a recent software upgrade, and the customers now have to search them in Kobo’s store and add them back individually. One reader reports missing around 460 Sony books from her library, which is an awful lot to have to add back one at a time! Some customers also report that the Kobo site wants them to repurchase some of the missing volumes. (“This is why I back up and ‘future proof’ all my ebooks,” writes MobileRead user MGlitch, and he wasn’t the only forum regular to cop to making Calibre backups.)
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If you are an author, you know the importance of social media. Especially when it comes time to try and generate exposure and sales for your books. So this article from Rachel Thompson on Bad Redhead Media will be of interest to you. She breaks down the different social media options and gives a few hints too.
“Which one social media channel will net me the most book sales?” an author asked me recently during my new weekly #BookMarketingChat (join any Wednesday on Twitter, 6pm pst/9pm est simply by typing in the hashtag).
Well, it’s not that easy. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just go to say, Facebook because that’s the EASY button, and violá! They will come, we will sell, and yacht-life, here we come. Alas, it just doesn’t work that way because well, a few reasons.
Let’s deconstruct.
YouTube:
Across the board, YouTube has the highest conversions and the all-important measure, purchases. Yet, how many authors do you know (including myself) who utilize YouTube? And of those who do, how many are gaining the bulk of their sales from YouTube? Probably not a lot, with of course, the occasional notable exception like John Green.
Facebook:
No surprise here, given that 1.6 billion people use Facebook, worldwide. What this means for authors is that somewhere in that mix is your demographic. In fact, Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion monthly active users (Source: Statista.com).
How do you find readers? That’s the tricky part, as we are not allowed to use our personal accounts for financial gain (yea, we all agreed to that when we signed up for our accounts), so we have to reach our readers via an author page — tricky, Facebook, tricky — and the only way to get people over to our page is to pay to boost posts, or promote our page — aka, advertising. Still, I love interacting with people on a personal level, which is what the personal account is for, not ‘selling,’ so there’s that.
Use your author page to sell and interact, your personal account to build relationships. Keep the two separate. If you don’t, you risk Facebook shutting down your account (and believe me, it happens ALL.THE.TIME.).
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When I first read this post by Ali from Aliventures I admit I was a bit shocked. Two years seems like a long time! But then I realized that not only was this a reality check, but when you look at the plan, it makes sense. Especially considering she is talking about spending only 30 minutes a day to work on your project. So if you have ever made any excuses on why you haven’t written more (Guilty!) this article is for you! Ali even offers a free download of the material she uses in the post.
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Your Two-Year Plan for Writing, Editing and Publishing Your Novel (However Busy You Are)
I will schedule my writing… I will schedule my writing… I will schedule my writing.
April 25, 2016
Have you ever told yourself something like this:
“Once I have a bit more time, I’ll start work on that novel.”
“Once life is less manic, I’ll get back to my novel.”
“If only I could take a year off work, I could finally write my novel.”
A novel is a major undertaking. But it’s also one that can fit around a busy life.
You don’t need all day, every day, to write.
If you can find just 30 minutes each day, you could finish a novel (to the point where you’re sending it out to agents, or self-publishing) in just two years.
If, like me, you know some super-prolific novelists (like Joanna Penn and Johnny B. Truant), one novel in two years might sound a bit slow.
But … one novel in two years is definitely better than no novels at all.
What You Need to Make This Work
Obviously, I have to make some assumptions about your time available and writing speed. (We’ll get to “making time” and “speeding up” in a moment.)
For the plan to work, you’ll need to:
Have 30 minutes per day available (or the equivalent across a week, e.g. two 1 h 45 m sessions).
Write an average of 500 words per day during the first draft
Edit at an average pace of 1,000 words per day
The plan allows for:
Two full drafts (writing 500 words per day)
One full edit (editing 1,000 words per day)
A final tidying-up edit (editing 1,500 words per day)
Plus time for your novel to be with your editor and/or beta readers.
This should result in a novel of 75,000 – 80,000 words, completely finished (from initial idea to ready-to-go book) within two years.
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Lifehacker’sThorin Klosowski gives his opinion on the four Amazon Kindles. The new Oasis is out, and if you are curious if it is worth the price, read on. For reading I am a purist and I love my Voyage. So having a dedicated eReader is important to me, but I don’t know if I will be shelling out the bucks for anything new. What are you using to read?
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Ereader Showdown: Amazon Kindles, Compared
Thorin Klosowski
Amazon has somehow managed to create four different models of its Kindle ereader. Each of the four models has its own strengths and weaknesses, so if you’re in the market for one—or an upgrade—let’s take a look to make your buying decision a little easier.
The Contenders
It’s no secret that Amazon has the lock on ereaders. Sure, the Kobo and Nook are still around, but the Kindle dominates the ereader space. Here’s a quick overview of the four models available right now:
Kindle: Amazon’s basic Kindle retails for $79.99. It’s about as basic an ereader as you can get, which means it doesn’t come with a built-in light and at 167 ppi, this Kindle has the lowest resolution of all the models available.
Kindle Paperwhite: The Paperwhite is $119.99. It features a backlight powered by four LEDS and a 300 ppi resolution screen.
Kindle Voyage: The Voyage was Amazon’s first foray into luxury Kindles and comes in at $199.99. It has six LEDs and an adaptive light sensor for the backlight, as well as a touch sensor on the case to change pages.
Kindle Oasis: The Oasis is the newest Kindle model, and costs an absolutely insane $289.99. That $300 gets you a backlight powered by 10 LEDs, hardware buttons for turning pages, and a charging cover that keeps your Kindle alive for months between charges instead of weeks.
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Writing is a very personal thing. So it is easy to see why people have difficulty with feedback. It’s like getting immunization shots, you know you need them but it’s going to hurt. One way to get good feedback is working with critique partners. {Writability}’s Ava Jae has the lollypop and band-aids ready as she gives us tips on how to survive the critiquing process.
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How to Survive the Edit Letter
by Ava Jae
I’m sorry… You have run on sentences. Have a tissue.
So we all know working with critique partners is a very good thing you should be doing if you’re a writer, and we know that even after you get an agent, the revisions don’t stop until the book is on the shelf. Which means between the first draft and the final printed copy, writers have to do a lot of revisions. And generally, when those revisions are based off someone else’s notes…there comes the edit letter.
A lot of edit letters.
I recently got a question on tumblr about handling edit letters, and it occurred to me that while I’ve mentioned tips here and there for handling critiques, it doesn’t look like I’d really dedicated a post to it. So now I am.
The long and short of this is even when you like revising (like me)—even when revising is your favorite part (like me)—edit letters can be pretty hard to swallow. Whether it’s a bulleted e-mail or a fifteen-page Word document (both of which I’ve received), reading an edit letter can feel a bit like getting punched in the stomach repeatedly. And at the end you’re supposed to smile and say, “thank you.”
So how do you handle an edit letter? These are the steps I take:
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Character, plot, setting, point of view, theme, and style. According to Ruthanne Reid these are the six elements you need for good fiction, and she goes into detail about each one over at The Write Practice.
Much of writing is instinctual, born of exposure to good stories and a lot of practice. However, there are some tools every writer needs to make their story professional and effective. Grammar and spelling are the obvious ones, but today, I’m talking about the elements of fiction: character, plot, setting, point of view, theme, and style.
The First Element of Fiction: Character
In many ways, characters are the foundation for the entire work. Is there conflict? That’s going to involve the emotional and mental condition of your characters. Have you chosen a point of view? That’s you following specific characters as you tell the story. Your characters are the people through whom your reader experiences the tale, and the trick is to make those fictional characters feel completely real.
You’ll need to know their backstory. This doesn’t mean your reader needs to know it, but your understanding of your character’s history is crucial for how and why your character responds to things.
You’ll need at least a rudimentary grasp of psychology. You and I have both read books which annoyed us because the characters just didn’t feel “real.” Often, this is because basic psychology was ignored, and the characters behaved in a way that made no sense for human beings.
You’ll need to understand the power of the character arc. Your character should not be the same at the end of the story as in the beginning. They change, and their growth is a key aspect of your story’s momentum.
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Over at CNET, Stephen Shankland asks why we can’t make eBooks more like webpages, with all the glories functionality that technology provides. I actually love creating customized eBooks for people. Because of my background as a software engineer, I can often do little extra’s such as drop caps and still make the eBook work in all the different readers. I don’t take on eBook work anymore because I can’t compete with overseas pricing.
That is why we can’t use all the technology of the web in our ebooks. Cost. You would need to have two very different versions of the eBook created. One with all the bells and whistles that a webpage can provide and that would work in your Fires, and Ipads. The other version would be the simplified “traditional” one for people who just want to read a book and for eReaders that don’t support such technology. Most people aren’t willing to pay for both version. What are your thoughts on why we haven’t moved farther?
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E-books, why so old-fashioned? Here’s a Web wakeup call
Get into my computer!
Groups that advance Web and e-book technology want to join forces. That could make e-books livelier, richer and easier to read online.
For all the supposed disruption that e-books brought to the publishing industry, the digital versions look still look an awful lot like the paper ones you could have bought a century ago.
E-books could become much more dynamic and interactive, though. That’s because two groups — the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) — are trying to join forces. The first advances and standardizes the technology underpinning the Web; the second the Epub format used to package e-books. In a statement Tuesday, Web creator and W3C leader Tim Berners-Lee said the planned merger would “create a rich media environment for digital publishing.”
The current Epub 3.0 standard already uses Web technologies, but e-books remain a separate domain from the Web. The new Portable Web Publications effort would erase the distinction. That would make it easier to publish a single Web document that’s conveniently separated into multiple chapters, lets you flip from page to page, and better handles math formulas in textbooks.
But the more exciting opportunities would be encouraging authors to draw on the Web’s power: enlivening books with video, audio and photos; enriching them with links to outside sources like footnotes on steroids; and even adding running software like the dynamic illustrations in Mike Bostock’s guide to visualizing various computer algorithms.
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Some books are very easy to put into a genre – like The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe #1) by Raymond Chandler, 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, or The Notebook (The Notebook #1) by Nicholas Sparks. Others not so much. Lines are becoming more blurry as authors try and find where they fit the best and to be honest where they can get the most exposure. Take the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer which can be classified as romance, fantasy, and for some of us, comedy. (Sorry!) Joanna Penn shares her wisdom with us and gives us 5 tips to deal with cross genre. So head on over to The Creative Penn and let us know your thoughts on genre.
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The Joy Of Genre Mashing: 5 Tips For Writing Cross Genre
A little sweetness, a little spice, makes my reading very nice!
by Joanna Penn
Genre is a difficult word as many authors resist being ‘put in a box.’ But the reality is that, when you self-publish, you have to choose three categories for your book. And if you want a traditional publisher, they will have to put you somewhere too.
So I tend to think of genre as category these days. The problem is … which do you choose!
As J.F.Penn, I write across the boundaries of supernatural thriller, action adventure, dark fantasy, and crime with an edge of horror. When I first started out writing fiction in Australia, I met Alan Baxter, because he writes books that I enjoy with similar cross-genre themes. In today’s article, Alan explains how we can make the most of writing genre-mashing.
I am unashamedly a genre writer. But I find it hard to answer when people ask what genre.
Generally, I tend to write speculative fiction, which is the umbrella term for science fiction, fantasy and horror. Most of my stuff is dark urban fantasy and horror. But it’s rarely only those things. I include a lot more than just SFF tropes in my stories. I’m a huge fan of crime, noir, mystery, thrillers – in all honesty, I’ve never met a genre I didn’t like.
I’ve written a weird western ghost story, a novella that turns sweltering Sydney into a noir landscape where supernatural beings are dealing with mental illness, a historical pirate yarn with a cosmic horror threat looming over the world. My novels are paced like thrillers, dive through realms of crime and mystery, but are thick with magic and monsters and mayhem. And often a lot of martial arts, as I’m a martial arts instructor too and that’s the only other thing I’ve been doing as long as I’ve been a writer.
So how do we genre-mash without our stories becoming a mess? Here are 5 tips that I like to keep in mind:
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Time to get some work done! Do you have problems procrastinating? I do! ; ) So it is good for us that Shelly Hitz shares with us her tricks to just get’er done. I actually use a slight spin to Shelly’s method. I set a timer for five minutes and promise myself that if I do just five minutes of solid work on the task I am avoiding, I can take a break. By the end of the five minutes, I am usually invested in the task and will continue. If not, I take a break and then try again. That said, I am a long time big fan of the “Pomodoro Technique” that Shelly also goes into. What are your tips for getting work done?
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My #1 Best Productivity Tool – How to Get the Job Done!
This is the kind of timer I like when it is time to read
Shelly Hitz
In this post I share with you my #1 best productivity tool. It is a simple tool, but very effective. I will also share some tips for you on how to be more productive and stop procrastinating.
Put that Timer to Work!
Let me tell you a story. I was trying to get some bookings for different potential speaking engagements, and needed to write a letter for mailing. However, I had been putting it off. It felt so hard for me and all I was thinking was “I don’t know what to write” and “I don’t know what to do.”
This had been my dilemma until I thought of putting my own advice into action and using a timer.
Yes, a timer!
So I took out a timer, set it to 25 minutes, sat down, got out my notes, and started writing. Then, I took a 5-minute break, set my timer to another 25 minutes and before I knew it, the letter was done!
The task that I have been putting off for weeks is finally done. And it’s all because of a timer.
This method is called “Time Boxing”.
By using a timer, you are setting a deadline on your brain, which will allow you to focus on that one thing that you are trying to finish.
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Your cover is one of the first things that a potential reader will use to decide if they want to read your book. Writer, writing coach and blogger Lauren, over LaurenSapala.com gives it to you straight on how to get the best book cover. My personal tip, if you are not a graphic designer trained in covers, don’t do it yourself. It shows.
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Marketing for Writers Who Hate Marketing
What Self-Pubbing Authors Need to Know about Getting the Best Book Cover
20 April, 2016
Lauren Sapala
Studies have proven again and again that humans make purchasing decisions based on emotional factors. This probably happens most frequently in the glittering online jungle known as Amazon.com. I read recently that Amazon is the only search engine people use with the mouse in one hand, and a credit card in the other. For me, a regular Amazon customer, I don’t even need my credit card. The site has my payment information recorded and it’s as simple as one click to send a new book to my Kindle.
If you’re a writer, and a reader, I know this is true for you too.
Emotional decision making + split-second purchasing power =
You better have a damn good book cover.
Too many self-pubbing authors have book covers that get lost in the deluge of 99 cent Kindle deals. The cover might be too generic, too bland; it doesn’t stand out when potential readers are skimming through hundreds of titles. Or the cover is too bright and the colors are all wrong; it comes off as gaudy and garish and turns off otherwise loyal fans of a genre. The key is balance. Your book cover should speak volumes with one fantastic image, and draw in die-hard followers as well as those readers who didn’t even know they were your audience.
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I’ve long been a fan of plain text for everything from notes to general writing, but it wasn’t until recently that I found my holy grail: An app that could sync with multiple devices and handle multiple output types. Ulysses. It’s the plain text version of Evernote I’ve always wanted.
Rachel Anderson asks: How did you get into editing? Did you start writing first and then take on editing as a natural second, or was it out of necessity since there are more opportunities for editors than writers?
Ah, but if they whisper seductively? The adverb seductively gives us a quality to the whisper that isn’t already implied by the verb.
4 May 2016
By 
“Which one social media channel will net me the most book sales?” an author asked me recently during my new weekly #BookMarketingChat (join any Wednesday on Twitter, 6pm pst/9pm est simply by typing in the hashtag).
Amazon has somehow managed to create four different models of its Kindle ereader. Each of the four models has its own strengths and weaknesses, so if you’re in the market for one—or an upgrade—let’s take a look to make your buying decision a little easier.
by 
Lauren Sapala