Publetariat

Copyedit offered in benefit auction for writer

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If you’re ready to self-publish but need a final copyedit first, please check out the benefit auction on behalf of Bridget Zinn. Bridget is a Young Adult author and librarian who’s battling Stage 4 colon cancer, and all the auction proceeds go toward her medical expenses that aren’t covered by insurance.

I’m a freelance editor in California who has worked with dozens of self-published authors. I’m donating a full copyedit of a manuscript up to 100,000 words. This would normally cost hundreds of dollars, but you may be able to get a great deal by bidding on the auction. The auction website is www.ly.bridgetauction. Do a search for "manuscript copyedit" if you’re interested. For more about me and my services, please visit my website at www.secondsetofeyes.com, and do feel free to email me if you have any questions before bidding.

The auction lasts until December 4th. If you still need help with macro issues in a developmental edit (voice, plot, pacing, characterization, dialogue, etc.) you can check out other items up for bid–there are many manuscript critiques and evaluations donated by professionals. You can also bid on signed books and other items in the auction, all for a great cause to help a fellow writer.

How Many Of The Top 100 Have You Read?

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There’s this meme going around Facebook at the moment, so I thought I’d drag it out of the social network and onto my blog. It’s pretty flawed, as these things always are, but interesting nonetheless. (Although I am confused by 14 and 98 – bit of a cock up there). Anyway, it goes like this:

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your [Facebook] NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses! [Publetariat Editor’s Note: you can also use the comment area below to list only those you’ve read from the list.]

So yeah, the usual chain letter nature of these things applies here. I’ll bold and italicise as instructed. If you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged.

1) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (Does And Zombies count?)

2) The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4) Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5) To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6) The Bible

7) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 ) Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9) His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10) Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11) Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13) Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 ) Complete Works of Shakespeare – This could be a bold one, but I’m not sure I’ve read everything.

15) Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier – not sure if I finished it ornot, was quite young

16) The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17) Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18) Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19) The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20) Middlemarch – George Eliot

21) Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22) The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23) Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24) War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26) Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27) Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28) Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29) Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30) The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31) Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32) David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33) Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis – I don’t think I’ve read all seven, or whatever it is.

34) Emma – Jane Austen

35) Persuasion – Jane Austen

36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis – Isn’t this part of the Chronicles of Narnia? It’s the 14/98 situation all over again. This really isn’t a very well thought out list…

37) The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39) Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40) Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41) Animal Farm – George Orwell

42) The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43) One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45) The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46) Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47) Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48) The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49) Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50) Atonement – Ian McEwan

51) Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52) Dune – Frank Herbert

53) Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54) Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55) A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56) The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57) A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58) Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60) Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61) Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62) Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63) The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64) The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65) Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66) On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67) Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68) Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69) Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70) Moby Dick – Herman Melville – Yep, I’m one of those people that’s actually read this whole book. I now know far too much about whales.

71) Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72) Dracula – Bram Stoker

73) The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74) Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75) Ulysses – James Joyce

76) The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77) Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78) Germinal – Emile Zola

79) Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackera

80) Possession – AS Byatt

81) A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82) Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83) The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84) The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85) Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86) A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87) Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I’ve read a lot of Sherlock Holmes, so I assume this is one of them. Is this an omnibus edition or something?

90) The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91) Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92) The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93) The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94) Watership Down – Richard Adams

95) A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96) A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97) The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98) Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100) Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

That’s not a bad result, I suppose. Certainly more than six. But I do question the list. Including “complete works” or series, then adding another item which is a book from that series is a bit redundant and shows quite a lack of thought and planning in the list. But there you go. The list did at least make me notice a couple of things that I’ve been meaning to read but still haven’t, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Tag!

EDIT: Thanks to Trudi Canavan in the comments for pointing out that the list from Facebook is not, in fact, the same as the original list from the BBC, which you can read here. Which is also out of date, having been last updated in August 2004. Ah, the internet is a minefield of “almost”.

 

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

Cheap Books Or Surviving Business?

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I recently posted about how Aussies can get great prices on books right now because the Aussie dollar and the US dollar are at around 1:1 for the first time. Chuck McKenzie, recently wrote about how cheap online stores are a real threat to bookshops. He cited my post in his own. Chuck’s a good friend of mine, a writer and makes his career as a bookseller, so there’s a good case to be made from his perspective and I certainly don’t take any offence that he would use my post to help back up his own position. He makes many good points that are worth considering.

Chuck’s points about the comparisons between online bookstores and the paralell importation issues are valid. Follow the links in Chuck’s post to learn more. Chuck says:

I’m not pissed off that people are buying online – I’m pissed off at the lack of balance, in that so many people – and, it must be said, so many of the same people who vigorously defended the rights of authors and publishers during the PI debacle – are now singing the praises of the online booksellers without apparently taking stock of what effect this shift in consumer behaviour will mean for traditional booksellers.

I’m rather torn on this subject. I want there to be traditional booksellers. I love bookshsops. I love the people that run bookshops. I’ve always dreamed of owning a bookshop, though I know it’s a pipe dream. But I also love cheap books, because that means I can afford to buy more. I love shopping online because I live in the country and the internet is like a massive mall right on my desk. I’m also a big fan of ebooks, Print-On-Demand as an alternate publishing model and so on. The face of publishing and book selling is changing. We’re moving into the future every day.

The problem is that these things are market driven. While I would love to support Australian stores by buying from them, if I can get two books for the price of one by going online, I probably will. I guess bookshops need to rise to the challenge and offer something the online stores can’t. If they can’t compete with pricing, they need something else to keep them viable. What that something else might be is anyone’s guess. But market forces will ensure that bookshops survive or die based on the services they offer. It would be great if it were different, but we can’t hold back progress, even if it kills things. Which is regularly does.

In my own case, my novels are published in the US. There’s no domestic Australian distribution. So the only way to get them is online. I have some copies here and am always happy to send out a signed copy to anyone that buys one, but it’ll cost them more than if they bought it from Amazon or Book Depository. Maybe having a signed copy is enough to warrant the extra expense on their part. I also sell them at cons and have books in a variety of bookstores that are generous enough to stock them for me. Chuck’s store is one of those and I’m extremely grateful to Chuck for helping me to shift books by making them available on Australian shelves.

You may remember the instore signing I did recently. That was at Chuck’s shop and it was excellent fun, we all sold some books and had a great time. I don’t want to see things like that stop. I don’t want Chuck’s career to get eaten by progress.

Perhaps it’s worth all of us stopping periodically to check before we buy a book. Maybe we should think about local business over price and try to help bookstores survive. But it’s not really our job to do that. We’re the consumers and we’ll be guided by the market and the prices. As a writer, I want as many bookstores as possible, because that should mean more sales for me. I can’t see bookstores ever disappearing completely. But while we wait for the shops to come up with ways to keep themselves going, maybe we should do all within our means to support them in the meantime.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

How To Write A Back Blurb For Your Book

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You pick up a book because the cover or title looks interesting. The next thing you do is read the back blurb, or if you are online, you read the first excerpt which is usually the same thing.

At basics, the back blurb is a sales pitch. It has to be almost an exaggeration of your story that entices the reader to buy, or at least download a sample to their Kindle or iPad.

How do you write good back blurb?

This is a list of what featured most often from a number of bestselling thrillers reviewed as research from my bookshelf. The principles hold true for any genre although the details change for each.

  • A hint of the plot. “Secret experiment. Tiny island. Big mistake.” (Scott Sigler, Ancestor); “must fight their way past traps, labyrinths and a host of deadly enemies” (Matthew Reilly. Six Sacred Stones);
  • Use of words that evoke images and resonate with readers of the genre. Examples, “ancient monastery” (Raymond Khoury, The Sign), “hidden esoteric wisdom, Masonic secrets” (Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol), “the secret behind Noah’s Ark” (Boyd Morrison, The Ark), “Druidic pagan cross” (James Rollins, The Doomsday Key); “A buried Egyptian temple. A secret kept for 6000 years. A race for life worth killing for.” (Andy McDermott, The Pyramid of Doom)
  • Main characters are named and characterized. “TV news reporter Gracie Logan. Matt Sherwood, reformed car thief” (The Sign); “Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon: (Lost Symbol); “Trapped inside a paralyzed body, Rhyme’s brilliant mind is channeled through his partner, policewoman Amelia Sachs” (Jeffrey Deaver, The Twelfth Card); “Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force” (James Rollins, Doomsday Key)
  • Idea of setting. Washington DC, Rotunda (Dan Brown, Lost Symbol); “from the Roman Coliseum to the icy peaks of Norway, from the ruins of medieval abbeys to the lost tombs of Celtic kings” (James Rollins, Doomsday Key)
  • A question or a hint of mystery that draws the reader in to be solved or answered. “Is the sign real? Is God talking to us? Or is something more sinister going on…” (Raymond Khoury, The Sign)
  • Hyperbole. “stunning controversy that’s spinning out of control” (Raymond Khoury, The Sign); “..never before seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth” (Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol); “The mission is incredible. The consequences of failure are unimaginable. The ending is unthinkable.” (Matthew Reilly. Six Sacred Stones)
  • Quotes about the book or previous books by the author. “Part Stephen King, part Chuck Palahniuk…a pulpy masterpiece of action, terror and suspense” (James Rollins on Scott Sigler’s Infected)
  • How long. Most seem to be 100-150 words long as the blurb text itself, not including about the author if included. That is also a nicely spaced blurb, not a squashed one.
  • About the author. This isn’t done often for the blockbuster novels, but James Rollins does it well with a rugged photo and a description that includes “An avid spelunker and certified scuba enthusiast, he can often be found underground or underwater.” Now that’s a thriller writer!

Here is my proposed blurb for ‘Pentecost’

A power kept secret for 2000 years.

A brotherhood broken by murder.

A woman who stands to lose everything.

When Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, the apostles took stone from his tomb as a symbol of their brotherhood. At Pentecost, the fire of the Holy Spirit empowered the stones and the Apostles performed miracles in God’s name throughout the Empire. Forged in the fire and blood of the Christian martyrs, the Pentecost stones were handed down through generations of Keepers who kept their power and locations secret.

Until now.

The Keepers are being murdered, the stones stolen by those who would use them for evil in a world transformed by religious fundamentalism. Oxford University psychologist Morgan Stone is forced into the search when her sister and niece are held hostage. She is helped by Jake Timber from the mysterious ARKANE, a British government agency specializing in paranormal and religious experience.

From ancient Christian sites in Spain, Italy and Israel to the far reaches of Iran and Tunisia, Morgan and Jake must track down the stones through the myths of the early church in a race against time before a new Pentecost is summoned, this time powered by the fire of evil.

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You can now get free chapters of Pentecost on the Facebook page by clicking here.

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What do you think? Do you have any tips for improving the ‘Pentecost’ blurb? Or any tips for writing blurb in general?

Photos done in Photofunia.com.

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

20 Essential African-American Writers

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This article originally appeared on Mastersdegree.net on 11/22/10.

Though things have steadily improved a bit over the past few decades, the literary canon is still dominated by what’s commonly criticized as "dead white men." Because of this phenomenon, the contributions of female and minority writers, philosophers, scholars and activists fall to the wayside — sometimes completely missing opportunities to pick up prestigious awards. Readers from all backgrounds hoping to diversify their intake of novels, poetry, essays and speeches would do well to start here when looking for African-American perspectives. Far more than 20 fantastic writers exist, of course, but the ones listed here provide an amazing start.

  1. Maya Angelou (1928-): This incredible Renaissance woman served as the American Poet Laureate, won several Grammy Awards, served the Civil Rights cause under the venerable Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., taught numerous classes and enjoyed a respectable performing arts career — all while never losing sight of her elegant poetry and prose. Her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings remains one of the most essential and inspiring examples of the genre, often finding its way onto syllabi across the nation. Like every other entry on this list, she’s more than an essential African-American writer — she’s an essential component of the literary canon, period.

  2. James Baldwin (1924-1987): Writer, activist and expatriate James Baldwin fearlessly tackled challenging, controversial sexual and racial subject matter at a time when hate crimes and abuse against the African-Americans and members of the LGBTQIA community ran riot. The impact of religion, for better or for worse, amongst the two marginalized minorities comprises one of his major themes. Go Tell it on the Mountain, Baldwin’s sublime debut novel, pulled from his own life experiences and opened readers up to the realities those forced to the fringes of society must face on a daily basis — and how they find the strength to continue in spite of adversity.

  3. Sterling Allen Brown (1901-1989): Folklore, jazz and Southern African-American culture greatly inspired the highly influential academic and poet. In 1984, Sterling Allen Brown received the distinguished position of Poet Laureate of the District of Colombia for his considerable contributions to education, literature and literary criticism — not to mention his mentorship of such notable figures as Toni Morrison, Ossie Davis, Stokely Carmichael and many more. Along with Langston Hughes and many others during the "Harlem Renaissance" (a term Brown considered a mere media label), he showed the world why poetry written in the African-American vernacular could be just as beautiful, effective as anything else written in any other language.

  4. William Demby (1922-): In 2006, received a Lifetime Achievement recognition from the Saturday Review‘s Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. He has only written four novels to date, with 1950s reflection on West Virginian race relations Beetlecreek garnering the most attention. These days, he works as a contributing editor for the nonprofit, bimonthly literary journal American Book Review after having retired from academia in 1989.

  5. Frederick Douglass (1817-1895): Today, schoolchildren across America remember Frederick Douglass as one of the most inspiring voices in the pre-Civil War Abolitionist movement. Because of his autobiographies and essays — most famously, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a Slave – readers fully understood the mortal and dehumanizing dangers found on slave plantations and farms. Following emancipation, Douglass continued working as a political activist and lecturer, traveling all over the world to discuss issues of slavery and equal rights.

  6. Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906): Even those unfamiliar with the amazing Paul Laurence Dunbar’s writings still know of them tangentially — "I know why the caged bird sings," the inspiration for Maya Angelou’s autobiography, comes from his poem "Sympathy." Way before that, though, he earned a reputation as the first African-American poet to gain national renown, though his oeuvre stretched into novels, plays, librettos and more as well. Most literary critics and historians accept that the sublime 1896 piece "Ode to Ethiopia" the defining work that launched him to national acclaim, paving the way for later writers from a number of different marginalized communities to shine through.

  7. Ralph Ellison (1914-1994): To this day, Invisible Man remains one of the most intense portraits of a marginalized community (American or not) ever printed. Writer, literary critic and academic Ralph Ellison bottled up the anger and frustration of African-Americans — specifically men — shoved to the fringes of society for no reason other than skin color, paying close attention to how they channeled such volatile emotions. Even beyond his magnum opus, he made a name for himself as an insightful scholar with a keen eye for analyzing and understanding all forms of literature, and he published numerous articles fans should definitely check out.

  8. bell hooks (1952-): Gloria Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, stands at the forefront of postmodern feminism. Thanks to her impressive activism work meaning to break down racial, gender and sexual barriers, she published some of the most essential works on the subjects — including the incredibly intelligent and insightful Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Today, she continues to lecture, publish and teach classes that carry on her philosophies pushing towards a more equitable, harmonious society.

  9. Langston Hughes (1902-1967): Regardless of whether or not one considers the Harlem Renaissance a broad media label or a legitimate literary movement (or somewhere in between), few argue that Langston Hughes emerged as one of the most essential American writers of the period. He worked in a wide range of styles, from plays to novels to essays to songs, but today’s audiences seem to know him from his poetry more than anything else. Though the short story collection The Ways of White Folks still garners plenty of attention for its sarcastic take on race relations in the early decades of the 20th Century.

  10. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960): Because Zora Neale Huston intently studied anthropology and folklore, her fictional characters crackle with nuance that becomes more apparent in subsequent readings. Her oeuvre stretches across four books, with Their Eyes Were Watching God easily the most recognized, and over 50 plays, short stories and essays — all of them considered some of the finest examples of Harlem Renaissance literature (not to mention American in general!). Interestingly enough, her conservative leanings placed her at odds with her more liberal contemporaries from the movement, most especially the heavily influential Langston Hughes.

 

Read the rest of the article, featuring 10 more essential African-American writers, on Mastersdegree.net.

What Publishers Ask

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We’re happy to present a third post from author and Publetariat member L.J. Sellers. While this article specifically addresses what mainstream publishers look for when acquiring new manuscripts, it provides a helpful checklist for evaluating work to be self-published, as well.

I evaluate fiction manuscripts for a publisher, using a standard form crafted by the publishing house. The form contains a list questions, grouped by subject: premise, plot, POV, character, dialogue, and setting. I’m sharing some of the questions so you can see specifically how a publisher might evaluate your manuscript.

 
Opening:
Does the first page grab the reader’s attention?
Does the first chapter set up the basis for the rest of the story?
 
Premise and Tone:
Is the basic premise or theme interesting? Believable? Unique?
Is the focus of the work revealed early in the novel?
Is the basic premise of the novel well executed?
 
Point of View:
Is the point of view consistent throughout?
Are shifts in point of view, if any, necessary and simple to follow?
Is the point of view used appropriately to convey the thoughts or emotions of various characters?
 
Structure, Plot, and Pace:
Is there a planned series of carefully selected interrelated incidents?
Are there situations that heighten the conflict?
Does the story have a clear conclusion or satisfactory ending appropriate to the genre?
Do the plot and structure sufficiently hold the reader’s interest throughout?
 
Setting:
Is the setting described appropriately without slowing the pace of the work?
Does the novel provide an appropriate sense of place?
 
Characterization:
Does the author provide a clear visual image of the characters?
Does the behavior of all characters seem realistic?
Are the characters presented with realistic challenges and life situations?
Do you feel an emotional connection to any of the characters?
Are characters introduced effectively and for a specific purpose?
 
Dialogue:
Does the dialogue reveal the character’s background or identifying traits?
Is there a good balance of dialogue and action?
Does the dialogue sound authentic, and is it used effectively throughout?
 
As you can see, publishers have high—and specific—expectations that apply across all fiction genres.
 
 
L.J. Sellers is the author of the bestselling Detective Jackson mysteries: The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For, Thrilled to Death, and Passions of the Dead. All are available as e-books for $2.99 or less.

Strengthen Your Writing With Stories

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As a professional storyteller with a family oral tradition background, stories come to me naturally. I use stories to beef up both my nonfiction and my fiction writing. They are used differently in each type of writing, so I will explain.

Nonfiction

Back in the 1990s when I was cranking out self-defense and personal security books, I used the power of story a lot. I always introduced and explained my various concepts. Then, I would use a short story of a paragraph or so long as a way to illustrate the concept with an everyday, true-life example. My book Surviving Hostage Situations is filled with true stories of people who survived hostage situations. Each mini-story shows how the concept I was teaching worked in each respective case.

This can work for all kinds of nonfiction. For instance, a business how-to book can include case studies that illustrate the author’s intent. Biographies are built on stories and vignettes. Stories make a book more human, more believable.

Fiction

Now I know some of you are saying that fiction is nothing but a story. That’s true; however, it can be illustrated with true or imaginary tales that help shape the book. Let me explain by using a true story. My 6th mystery needs to start with a bang of a hook to drag readers into wanting to read the rest of the book. My hook will based on a true story that happened to me back in the spring of 1986.

I was hired by Kansas City Kansas Community College to teach a class in Business Law to prisoners incarcerated in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. It was an evening class. One night, a bunch of correction officers came running into the classroom and shouted out instructions, “Prisoners on your feet! Line up in the hallway. Are you OK, Mr. Spear?”

“Yeah, but what do you guys know that I don’t?”

“We found a blood trail out in the hallway and thought it might be your’s.”

Some of the officers escorted the prisoners back to their cells while others tracked down the blood trail. They found a prisoner with a badly gashed hand hiding in a stairwell. He claimed he’d stumbled and cut it on the steps. In actuality, he’d survived an attack from another prisoner with a shank, a homemade knife.

Needless to say, class was over for that evening. While I waited on an officer to escort me out to the front entrance, the Lieutenant of the guard shift told me shanking war stories.

OK, so that’s the story. Now, let me explain how I will use it. The hook will begin with a concerned prisoner who has just learned through the prison rumor mill that the head of the Mexican drug gang in the prison has put out a contract on him for having sold some dope without the drug lord’s permission. He suddenly see’s the drug lord’s enforcer working his way toward him through a crowd of prisoners. The victim turns away and runs toward the education center with his executioner close behind and…well you can see where all that’s going, except this prisoner won’t survive the fifty odd stab wounds he receives. I will combine my incident with some of the stories the guard Lieutenant told me to give realistic descriptions of the hook incident.

This is why I’m always on the lookout for interesting stories in the media, on the internet, and wherever else I hear them. Combining real-life stories with your fiction gives it extra oomph. This is why some writers spend time around folks who do in real life what the writers’ characters do in their books. It really adds a sense of authenticity. Never forget the power of story. This doesn’t mean one should overwhelm the reader with backstory, but it helps shape the presentation of plot and action.

 

This is a reprint from Bob Spear‘s Book Trends blog.

What Publishers Ask

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I evaluate fiction manuscripts for a publisher, using a standard form crafted by the publishing house. The form contains a list questions, grouped by subject: premise, plot, POV, character, dialogue, and setting. I’m sharing some of the questions so you can see specifically how a publisher might evaluate your manuscript.

 

Opening:

Does the first page grab the reader’s attention?

Does the first chapter set up the basis for the rest of the story?

 

Premise and Tone:

Is the basic premise or theme interesting? Believable? Unique?

Is the focus of the work revealed early in the novel?

Is the basic premise of the novel well executed?

 

Point of View:

Is the point of view consistent throughout?

Are shifts in point of view, if any, necessary and simple to follow?

Is the point of view used appropriately to convey the thoughts or emotions of various characters?

 

Structure, Plot, and Pace:

Is there a planned series of carefully selected interrelated incidents?

Are there situations that heighten the conflict?

Does the story have a clear conclusion or satisfactory ending appropriate to the genre?

Do the plot and structure sufficiently hold the reader’s interest throughout?

 

Setting:

Is the setting described appropriately without slowing the pace of the work?

Does the novel provide an appropriate sense of place?

 

Characterization:

Does the author provide a clear visual image of the characters?

Does the behavior of all characters seem realistic?

Are the characters presented with realistic challenges and life situations?

Do you feel an emotional connection to any of the characters?

Are characters introduced effectively and for a specific purpose?

 

Dialogue:

Does the dialogue reveal the character’s background or identifying traits?

Is there a good balance of dialogue and action?

Does the dialogue sound authentic, and is it used effectively throughout?

 

As you can see, publishers have high—and specific—expectations that apply across all fiction genres.

 

L.J. Sellers is the author of the bestselling Detective Jackson mysteries: The Sex Club, Secrets to Die For, Thrilled to Death, and Passions of the Dead. All are available as e-books for $2.99 or less.

 

Outlining: Straightjacket Or Lifeline?

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One of the arguments I had with my father when I was in grade-school was over the necessity of outlining when writing. He was for it, I didn’t see the need. By college I had a better understanding of the importance of having a clear organization for essays. However, what I tended to do was sketch out a very short outline, then write a quick rough draft–getting all my ideas down, then I would go back and write a new outline (now that I knew what I really wanted to say), and finally I cut and pasted the material into the right sections of this new outline.

By the time I was working on my doctorate, I had become committed to outlining, and my first outlines became more and more detailed. The work I was doing was simply too complicated–particularly once I was writing my dissertation–to wing it. This was long enough ago to be pre-desktop computer, which meant any changes required retyping the whole document, so it paid to be organized from the get go. I spent the next thirty or so years teaching, where I had the same conversations with my students that I had had with my father about the virtues of the outline-only now I was the one for it.

Needless to say, when I sat down to write the draft of my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, I outlined the plot. I literally outlined the whole story, chapter by chapter, listing under each chapter the scenes, characters involved, and the information that needed to be conveyed (clues, motivations, red-herrings, etc.) I remember being very puzzled by several members of my writing critique group, who were also writing mysteries at the time, who did not do outlines. In fact, they weren’t even sure who the murderer was, if there were going to be more than one murder, or how the murderer was going to be discovered. This seemed terribly disorganized, necessitating a good deal of rewriting once the plot elements were finally determined.

However, now that I look back at the path that first draft took before it ended up in the version that I published (with it’s new plot twists, new characters, new scenes, and deleted scenes), I am not sure I didn’t end up doing as much rewriting as the non-outliners did.

So now I have started writing Uneasy Spirits, the sequel to my first mystery, and I am confronted with the question, is an outline necessary? Can it become an obstacle to creativity or does it ensure a well-paced plot?

On the anti-outline side of the argument, having an outline can cause tunnel vision. In Maids of Misfortune, I originally had my protagonist, Annie Fuller, go undercover as a maid in the murdered man’s house about half-way through the book. My outline said I had to have all sorts of establishing scenes between Annie and the second protagonist, Nate Dawson, before she could disappear into her role as a servant. It took a number of beta readers to point out to me that this made the plot way too slow, and that I could actually rearrange my outline!

Another anti-outline argument I have heard numerous times (from non-outliner writers) is that once the whole story is plotted out in an outline, they lose interest in telling it. They get bored. They know “who done it,” so they don’t have the motivation to spend the months it will take to flesh out the story. For them, one of the prime motivations in writing is to “see what comes next,” something they feel they have lost when they have the whole novel plotted out. I confess that since I have lectured on the American Civil War about 10 times a year for 30 years (300 times!), always knowing “how it turned out,” but always trying to find new and better ways to describe what happened and why it happened, this argument has never held much weight.

Yet in favor of the anti-outlining argument, I do think that outlines have caused me to overwrite. I spent a good deal of time cutting in the last revision I did before publishing Maids of Misfortune, and a lot of it was because I had been so busy writing scenes in order to introduce the “clues” I had seeded throughout the plot outline that I lost touch with how to keep up the pacing.

On the other hand, having an outline ensures that the main plot points don’t get lost when there is a long time between the conception of the book and its actual completion. For example, I came up with the plot for Uneasy Spirits years ago (when I became discouraged by my inability to sell the first manuscript, and I thought I should move on, hoping editors might be more impressed if I had two books in hand.) I spent several weeks doing some background research for the book, developed character sketches for the main characters (victims, murderer, red herrings), and finally outlined the plot. Then I put this work away (summer was over and I was back to full time teaching).  Fast forward more than five years and the stuff that life throws at you, and I was finally ready to start on this manuscript. Without that typed outline and character sketches I would have been at square one.

A second pro-outline argument is that it helps you develop the story arc. One of the most difficult tasks for the college students I teach is to develop a thesis for their essays. They know what a topic is, and can write about a topic, but they have trouble developing an opinion about that topic. They write, “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.” But they can’t tell you why something happened, or why it was important. The books that I enjoy the most–even within the narrow confines of genre writing–are the ones that tell the story about how events changed characters-for better or worse. Writing an outline that not only introduces clues and red herrings throughout the story, but also includes scenes designed to change the main characters by challenging their beliefs and patterns of behavior, ensures that my stories will have that arc (or thesis) and that it is organic to the story itself, not grafted on after the fact.

For a final pro-outline argument, it can guard against writer’s block. I read about writers block, how people stare at a blank page for hours, days, weeks, and this just has never happened to me. While I can procrastinate with the best of them, once I sit down to write, I have always had that outline in front of me, and I have always been able to write something. I know what the next scene is supposed to be about, who is in the room, what they are supposed to be talking about, and this makes it easy to start writing.

This doesn’t always mean the scene comes out the way I planned it. As most writers will tell you, writing can be a magical experience where the characters have a decided mind of their own. For example, according to my outline for Uneasy Spirits, the first chapter was supposed to be set in Annie Fuller’s boarding house (Annie is my protagonist), and it was supposed to be a scene between Annie and Miss Pinehurst (who somehow mutated from a Miss Pringle in the outline). Instead as I sat down to write, while it was set in the boarding house, a completely new character, Mrs. Crenshaw, started talking to Annie. Instead Annie and Miss Pinehurst had their meeting in the next chapter, but in a cemetery rather than in the boardinghouse. So, whether I follow my outline, or rebel against it, I seem to have something to write–hence–no writer’s block.

I guess my conclusion is that I will continue to use outlines for my novels, but try to remain flexible, so that they will carry me along, not hem me in.  But I would love to hear from all of you.

Do you outline your plot before writing, or do you just wing it? And what are your reasons for outlining or not.

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s The Front Parlor.

23 (More) Websites That Make Your Writing Stronger

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This post, by Suzannah Windsor Freeman, originally appeared on Write It Sideways on 8/17/10.

A while back, I posted a list of 23 websites and blogs that make your writing stronger.

The post was, and still is, a favourite with readers.

Since writing the list, I’ve subscribed to a number of other sites that continue to help me in my writing journey. They cover fiction, freelance writing, blogging, publishing, and more.

If you want to learn more about writing or enhance your natural strengths, check out the following resources (in no particular order.)

PS If you find this list useful, please share it on Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon – I’d really appreciate it!

There Are No Rules
 
1) There Are No Rules: Jane Friedman, publisher at Writer’s Digest and regular contributor at Writer Unboxed, always has a wealth of helpful information on fiction, publishing, and self-promotion. Each week, she also shares a list of the Best Tweets for Writers.
 
 
Word Love
 
2) Word Love: Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Murderer’s Daughters, shares great tips on writing fiction.
 
 
Write For Your Life
 
3) Write for Your Life: Copywriter Iain Broome, whose first novel has found literary representation, provides information on all types of writing, and includes regular videos and podcasts.
 
 
Victoria Mixon's Advice Column
 
4) Victoria Mixon’s Advice Column: This professional writer and editor offers a no-nonsense approach to writing and publishing advice.

 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 19 more sites, on Write It Sideways.

I'm An Indie Author

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This post, by Cathryn Grant, originally appeared on her Suburban Noir site on 11/11/10.

While I was finishing my novel, the universe shifted. The economy imploded and ebooks exploded. Since my head was buried in my manuscript, I didn’t immediately realize the impact of these events.

I’d followed publishing for long enough that I knew a fair amount about the ups and downs of getting a novel published. In fact, I originally started writing and submitting short stories because I’d been told that short fiction publication credits would help catch the eye of an agent. While I worked on the final rewrites of my novel, I began compiling a list of potential agents. I started working on a query letter and following agents’ blogs.

There was never a doubt, until early 2010, that I’d follow the traditional path. But the world changed.

In addition to upheaval in the publishing industry and the global economy, two significant things happened in my life.

The first was in January 2010. I’d had a simple website up for about eighteen months. The site provided my author bio and two short stories that had been published in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines.

One Sunday morning I woke up to a message from a stranger in my in-box. A man in Australia had read the stories on my website, liked them and was interested in knowing whether I had any novels that he might consider developing into an Indie film. I checked out his credits – legit, including an award and a very suspenseful, skin-crawling short film. We started corresponding. The chapters I sent him (from an earlier novel) weren’t a good fit for an Australian setting. Nearly a year later we’re still in touch, and he’s still interested in future work. I don’t know if anything will ever come of it, but his email made me realize the power of the web for getting my fiction out far beyond my little corner of the world.

 

Read the rest of the post on Cathryn Grant‘s Suburban Noir.

How To Write Drunk And Edit Sober

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This post, by Mark Dykeman, originally appeared on Thoughtwrestling on 5/12/10.

Writers are supposed to write drunk, then edit sober, according to the late Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway knew a lot about writing and drinking, so he must be right.

But what does the phrase mean? Should it be taken literally?

Let’s talk about Hemingway’s quote. I’m going to suggest some healthier alternatives to cirrhosis and death for the sake of trying to write. After all, if our readers take his advice literally, we’ll run out of readers.

Write drunk

If you want to follow Hemingway’s advice literally, I’m assuming that you know how to procure and imbibe alcoholic beverages. That clearly sets the stage for writing drunk.

There’s two main reasons why you shouldn’t follow Hemingway’s advice:

  1. It’s bad for your health because many people fail at exercising moderation and too much alcohol damages your health.
     
  2. It costs money that you could be using to support [Thoughtwrestling] by purchasing future products and services.

Instead of literally writing drunk let’s reflect. What is it about alcohol that is good for the creator?

  • Blurred vision?
  • Slurred speech?
  • Loss of balance?
  • Passing out?

Or, is it…

The removal of inhibitions?

 

Read the rest of the post on Thoughtwrestling.

The Dark Side Of Your Novel's Hero

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We all know our HERO requires a weakness. But did you also know he needs a dark side, a shadow if you will, and this part of him needs to come out? I didn’t until I read my EDITOR’s suggestions for my current manuscript. In one of her four hundred thirty-two suggestions, she recommended I needed to play up my hero’s dark side a bit more.

(Listen to a PODCAST of this article.)
 
The fact she mentioned this proved I didn’t know enough about the concept, so I did some reading on the subject. I now feel I have a better handled on the idea and thought I’d pass along what I’ve come to know. After all, it is all about the sharing, isn’t it?
 
To start, if your hero must have a dark side, what good is it if it doesn’t come out of hiding? That was the editor’s point. As I reevaluated my manuscript and the character in question, I realized my hero had a shadow, I’d simply not used it to effect.
 
So, what is this shadow and what might cause the good guy to turn to his dark side?
 
His dark side is the villain. Surprised? So was I until I thought it through.
 
The villain personifies those qualities opposite of your hero, right? He therefore possesses those characteristics your hero despises or those that may even frighten him. And why does the protagonist hate those qualities? It’s because these aspects of his personality are his own shadow, a deeply subdued part of himself.
 
Whoa… Flashback to Psych 101.
 
In any case, how might the hero’s dark side come to the fore? Most often it is the villain who draws it from him. It is he who pushes the hero’s buttons and forces the good guy over the edge. In effect, he provokes your hero to his breaking point.
 
Consider "The Lord of the Rings." The master ring pulls from its owner their worst, does it not? How about "The Wizard of Oz?" Dorothy kills the witch who, in turn, wants to kill Dorothy for killing the witch’s sister, all of which is contrary to Dorothy’s basic personality. This all makes sense when we realize a villain must force the hero into some sort of obsession if the good guy is to complete his quest.
 
Think of it like this. Take your hero’s finest characteristic and use it against him. Does he think himself a brave soldier? Them maybe he should run away when he first faces combat like in "The Red Badge of Courage." Does he believe marriage is sacred? Then have the villain force him into a divorce. Is he a happy-go-lucky guy? Then turn this characteristic into irresponsibility. The secret to this, is to ensure the motivation for this transformation is valid. Did Dorothy have a reason to kill the Wicked Witch? Yup.
 
What keeps the hero from becoming a bad guy himself? It’s choice. He chooses not be become like his nemesis, thus again subduing his own dark appetites.
 
The good part of this whole shadow concept? It allows for character growth. It fills in his personality and gives you a more three-dimensional character. It overcomes the imbalance that kept your hero from his goal.
 
You can develop this dichotomy in your hero by way of a three-pronged technique. You first develop his high qualities. Then find the opposite of these. Finally, you assign a physical behavior to this contradictory characteristic.
 
For example, if your hero loves children, the opposite is to hate children. The activity that might brings this out is he causes a child’s death.
 
So, a major aspect of a fully developed hero, is to give him a dark side, a shadow, then bring it out of him by way of a button-pushing villain who posses those same traits.
 
I don’t know about you, but I found this interesting. Regardless, I’ve got work to do on "Born to be Brothers."
 
Have you brought out the dark side to your hero? How did you do it?
 
Until we speak again, know I wish for you only best-sellers.

 

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

Book Publicity Tips For Authors

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Book publicity is the process of seeking and getting media coverage for books and their authors. Media coverage can potentially exposure your book to a large number of people and it offers more credibility than some other promotional methods. It’s also a great way to build your author platform, name recognition, and expert reputation.

Although a newspaper article or radio interview won’t cost you anything, you may have costs associated with generating interest from the media, such as hiring someone to write a press release, paying for press release distribution services, or hiring a publicist to prepare publicity materials and make media contacts on your behalf. If your budget is limited, you can do these tasks yourself.

Below are some resources to help you learn how to generate your own media coverage:
 

  • Award-winning publicist Sandra Beckwith offers a terrific publicity workbook packed with book publicity forms and templates.
  • Author and marketing expert Marcia Yudkin recently wrote and distributed nine different press releases for her new series of books. In this case study, she shares the details.  Also, take a look at Marcia’s article on how to generate media coverage.
  • This book publicity article by Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, has some very helpful tips for the most effective ways to pitch the media.
  • Joan also offers an excellent free course on how to use news releases effectively. You can sign up to receive a daily lesson by email for 89 days at no charge, or purchase the entire series in ebook format so you don’t have to wait three months to get all these great publicity tips.
  • This collection of book publicity tips on the Savvy Book Marketer blog includes several guest posts written by experts in book publicity and promotion.

There are many online press release distribution services. For my most important releases, I use the paid service at PRWeb.com. For routine releases, I use the free service as PRLog.com.

Media coverage can be valuable way to gain attention for your book. If you don’t already have a book publicity plan in place, get started today.
 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

The Indie Publishing Life

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You’ve arrived at the end of your journey to publication. Slowly the realization dawns that you have now transitioned into being an author/publisher. As you promote your book you’ll start to connect with the wider community of indie authors and self-publishers.

This is a rapidly-growing cohort of people who have traveled a similar path. It surprises a lot of new self-publishers to arrive here, and realize that all the work they have put in—sometimes for years—is actually the introduction to a much larger world.

As an indie author you will keep learning about book marketing and promotion opportunities. Part of being a self-publisher is having an activist mindset. You are tuned into your niche, your genre, or your subject area. You know what’s happening and who the players are.

One day you’ll be surprised when an author who is just starting to think about self-publishing starts asking for your advice, leaning on your wisdom.

Learning from Other Self-Publishers

Indie publishing is a field full of helpful, active, intelligent people. You had the drive to write, publish and market your book, and that sets you apart from many people who only dream of doing what you’ve done. Hearing from other self-publishers is a powerful way to connect to the drive that’s common in us all.

Self-Publisher With Drive: The Amazing Tania McCartney
Where Beauty Meets Art: An Interview with Jennifer Robin, Author of Growing More Beautiful
Chris Finlan—From Page One to ‘Take One’ in Less than a Year

Book Marketing in the Social Media

A lot of our interaction takes place at industry events and workshops, and like many self-publishers you’ll find these groups and their online counterparts powerful tools in continuing your education.

Networking online and off also opens you to co-publishing ventures, leads you to skilled vendors for your books and marketing projects, and helps you address the inevitable questions that occur in this fast-changing environment.

2010 BAIPA Get Published! Institute
Top 5 Discussion Forums for Self-Publishers

Living the Indie Author Life

Of course, although our book is finished and on the market—and hopefully selling well—there is more writing to do. It’s long been my feeling that the best way to make your publishing program a success is to take what you’ve learned and start on another book that can be sold to the same people who are enjoying your first book.

There are lots of things to keep up with in the changing world of publishing, and lots of ways to do it.

Dear Suzanne: 7 Things Writers Need to Know Today

One of the great things that has happened as a result of the growth of self-publishing is a gradual fading of the “stigma” self-published authors have been fighting for a long time. But it’s gradual, and there are times when it seems that we are only getting reluctant acceptance.

Indie Bookstores and Indie Publishers: On The Same Page?
Self-Publishing Pro and Con(temptuous)

The Ending is the Beginning

From here it looks like we are well into a golden age for indie authors. It’s the best time ever to be a self-publisher and more people are achieving life-changing success by publishing their own books. And so let’s bring this journey to it’s end:

8 Reasons Self-Publishing is Entering a Golden Age

Thanks for traveling a little way on this road with me, and I hope I’ve been able to speed you on your journey. May you publish well, and with satisfaction. You deserve it.

 

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.