Publetariat

Pacing: Capturing the Rhythm of Your Story

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This post by Sue Coletta originally appeared on Venture Galleries on 11/4/14.

PACING IS THE RHYTHM of the novel, of the chapters and scenes and paragraphs and sentences. It is also the rate at which the reader reads and the speed at which the events unfold. By using specific word choices and sentence structure– scene, sequel, chapter, novel structure– we can tap the emotions of the reader so that the reader feels what the writer wants them to feel at any given point in the story.

Pacing is especially important in crime writing.

Almost everything you read on the internet deals with picking up the pace, because so many new writers pace their novels too slowly. But what if you’re like me, someone who writes at break-neck speed, never giving the reader a break from the action? I know when I’m doing it too. I’m literally on the edge of my seat, feeling like I just drank forty cups of caffeine.

Why would too fast be a problem? People want to curl-up with a good book and be entertained. They do not want to wipe the sweat from their brow, the action happening so fast they feel like they’re on a never-ending roller coaster, and they need to unwind after reading your story. Honestly, sometimes when I’m writing my first drafts I feel wired– sweaty, hot, the muscles in my shoulders knotted into balls of pure stress. If that’s how my story makes ME feel imagine what I’m doing to my reader.

 

Read the full post on Venture Galleries.

 

Trouble With Your Latest Story? 10 Ways to Reinvent Your Writing Style

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This post by Steve Aedy originally appeared on K.M. Weiland‘s Helping Writers Become Authors on 10/24/14.

Stuck in the writing doldrums? Has your prose become lackluster and stale? If so, it might be time to change up your writing style and infuse some fresh life into your words and stories.

Every writer has his own writing style–a particular combination of skills, techniques, characteristics, and practices that develops into his unique voice. But, what happens if your style becomes clichéd and predictable, tired and trite?

If it’s time to give your writing style a makeover, consider the following tips for a new approach and greater results.

 

1. Change Your Pacing, Change Your Writing Style

Enter the scene late and leave it early.

This screenwriting tip from author and screenwriter William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade applies as much to novels as to scripts. But what does it mean “to enter the scene late and leave it early”? It means preventing the pace of your setup from bogging down in unnecessary introductions that establish how the characters arrived in the scene.

Try changing the pace by cutting the first paragraph in each chapter and reworking the second one. This will help compact your information into fewer words and thrust the storyline forward.

Similarly, if the last paragraph is mostly filler, cut it and reword the one before it to tighten up the delivery of information critical to the scene’s conclusion.

 

2. Don’t Edit While You Write

 

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

 

Have You Ever Had a Relationship End Because of a Book?

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This post by Zoë Heller and Anna Holmes originally appeared on The New York Times on 10/28/14.

Each week in Bookends, two writers take on questions about the world of books. This week, Zoë Heller and Anna Holmes discuss the havoc books can wreak on relationships.

By Zoë Heller:

Do you want to be one of those dreary couples who are always delivering their identical cultural opinions in the first person plural?

Many years ago, when I was in my 20s, I went on vacation with a boyfriend to a remote Scottish island. We spent the days going on long, wet hikes and drinking in the pub. At night, we huddled in our freezing house and read aloud to each other. Neither one of us, it turned out, cared much for the other’s choice of book. I had come with “A Legacy,” by Sybille Bedford, which my boyfriend found mannered and pretentious. He had brought “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” by Hunter S. Thompson, which I thought was tiresome and unfunny.

These differences of opinion did not strike me as a big deal. It was mildly disappointing, perhaps, that my boyfriend should be impressed by the drug-brag of Hunter Thompson and oblivious to the genius of Sybille Bedford. But it wasn’t as if I was auditioning him to be my literary adviser. Chacun à son goût, I thought.

 

Read the full post on The New York Times.

 

Bad Advice for Writers! NaNoWriMo Edition

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This post by G. Doucette originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 10/28/14.

We at Bad Advice for Writers have thus far only concentrated on the act of writing, ignoring important things to like how to behave like a writer and the importance of not understanding how social media works.

Today, on the eve of NaNoWriMo*, we will focus on bad advice for the novelist. We feel we should make this distinction insofar as some of this advice might actually not be bad advice if you are planning on a work of non-fiction.

(*NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place in November because that is a month that everyone celebrates for the fact that it is indeed a month long.)

 

Advice #1: Start notifying people about it before you’ve written it

Before writing a great novel, it’s always a good idea to alert important people in the publishing industry, so they’re prepared to read it when it’s finished. You may receive requests to see it before it’s even done!

Our advice is to craft an email blast and send it to everyone involved in publishing, even if that someone is the security guard at the Time/Life building. Remember: selling is all about networking! And networking is something we read about somewhere!

 

Read the full post on The Huffington Post.

 

5 Tips for NaNoWriMo: Getting Started

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This post by Nathan Bransford originally appeared on NaNoWriMo.

Nathan Bransford is an author and former publishing professional. Today, he offers five tips to getting your novel started. (This post is adapted from How to Write a Novel: 47 Rules for Writing a Stupendously Awesome Novel That You Will Love Forever.)

Writing a novel is hard. So hard, in fact, that some people are intimidated by how large the task looms. But do not fear! You can do this. Here are 5 tips for getting started:

 

NUMBER ONE: Think of an idea you love enough to neglect everything else you enjoy in life.

When you’re choosing an idea for a novel, you’re choosing something you are going to be spending more time with than many of your best friends and your most demanding family members. You’re choosing an idea that will render your bathing habits irregular and your sanity patchy.

In other words, it can’t be an idea you merely like. Liking an idea will get you to page fifty. It will give you an initial burst of enthusiasm—a dawning feeling of “Hemingway’s daiquiri, I can do this!”—before you inevitably lose interest, your attention wanders, and you find yourself with an unfinished novel that you feel vaguely embarrassed about.

Open yourself up to the world so that the right plot hook or character will flow into you. Prime yourself for inspiration.

 

NUMBER TWO: Flesh out a vague idea.

 

Read the full post on NaNoWriMo.

 

I Buy Your Book, You Owe Me A Good Read

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This post by Ally Machate originally appeared on Shelf Pleasure on 2/17/13.

It’s so easy to download an inexpensive ebook that I’ve become much more willing to try self-published titles than when I had to pay $14, $15, or even upwards of $20 for the print version. Digital technology has broadened the possibilities for people to express themselves and for us, as readers, to find more books to enjoy. The downside, however, is that this new marketplace has created a troublesome reality for all book lovers: Almost anybody who wants to publish a book can. And frankly, too many of these books aren’t ready for public consumption.

I sat down one Saturday with my Kindle and my coffee, envisioning a lovely relaxing morning read. But here’s how it went: I started and stopped four books in about an hour. With a couple, I only read a few pages, but the other two I gave more of a chance. I knew the author of one and I’d read something good about the other in a blog roundup.

And yet, with all four of these books, the authors had not polished their skills, nor had they sufficiently polished their manuscripts. I’m not just talking about misplaced punctuation or bad spelling, either. I’m talking about basic plot holes; two-dimensional, clichéd characters and situations; unnatural and awkward dialogue; and unbelievable, contrived scenarios that didn’t arise naturally out of the events of the story.

 

Read the full post on Shelf Pleasure.

 

10 of Literature’s Greatest Comeback Books

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This post by Emily Temple originally appeared on Flavorwire on 10/24/13.

Though Tom Wolfe’s last novel, 2004’s I Am Charlotte Simmons, fell flat for many readers and reviewers — Michiko Kakutani called it “disappointingly empty” — some critics are heralding his new effort, Back to Blood, which hit bookstores this week, as his comeback book. Only time will tell, of course, but the idea got us thinking about a few other important books that have pulled some of our favorite authors back from the brink of oblivion (or worse, bad reviews). After the jump, read about the many ways authors have dusted off and recharged their careers with a well-placed tome, and as always, add any we’ve missed in the comments [on the original post, here].

 

1. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

The 1940s were not good for Hemingway. He described himself as being “out of business as a writer” from 1942 to 1945, and fell into a depression fueled by physical problems and the fact that many of his friends — Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Max Perkins — were dying around him. In 1950, he published Across the River and Into the Trees, which was roundly panned. The following year, as if in furious revenge, he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, which was to be his last book, and some say his best — in any event, it won a Pulitzer and firmly re-established his literary reputation.

 

Read the full post on Flavorwire.

 

Where Do I Write? All Over The Damn Place

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This post by Elisa Albert originally appeared on Guernica on 10/30/14.

On community, urban sprawl, infant mortality, and the Albany food co-op.

1. Office at home

Set up your office and get to work, a friend instructed a few years back, when I complained about the novel, which had plateaued at halfway done and was now just sitting there. I half-heartedly poked at it a few times a week, but the momentum was gone. So I put down an old Ikea kilim, cleared out clutter per the Feng Shui guru, hung pink string lights and cute scrap flags someone sewed me as a gift and a photograph of a feral house in Detroit (which has a thing or two in common with downtown Albany). Suspended some tillasandia with twine. Now I had a nice quiet little room to sit in and contemplate the stalled novel.

Just doing the work is the whole battle, we always say: making contact. Sit with the novel, be in it. Turn off the internet so you have nowhere else to go. Only rarely is it satisfying. Rarely is there a great chunk you can point to at the end of a day and say, here is what I did today! More often there’s the vague fear you’ve made no progress at all. Where did those hours go? Where is your work? What is this adding up to? You have paid someone else to be with your child while you did this bullshit? The thing continues and continues to feel like a wreck. But it’s your wreck. And you are working on it, even when it seems like bullshit, eating your time and appearing none the better. No effort is wasted, says the Bhagavad Gita on a post-it I stuck to the bottom of the giant computer monitor. But God, some days are a slog.

 

2. Leaning against doorjamb while boy plays in the bath

 

Read the full post on Guernica.

 

The Amazon/Hachette Battle and Why It’s Great to Be a Self-Published Author

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This post by Miral Sattar originally appeared on PBS Mediashift on 6/3/14.

After a fantastic BEA (Book Expo America), I’ve been digesting the whole Amazon/Hachette battle. I’ve basically come to the conclusion that it’s an incredible time to be a self-published author.

The first thing that surprised me is that so much has been misreported about the Amazon/Hachette battle. Amazon and Hachette are negotiating their contract terms, and what normally should have been behind-the-door talks is turning into an all-out flame war in the media.

 
Myths:

a) Amazon increased publisher prices.

Amazon can’t increase prices. Amazon acts as a retailer of books. The publisher always sets the price of the books. Amazon only changes the amount of the discount similar to the way Walmart, Target or anyone else would.

b) Amazon removed buy buttons from Hachette titles.

No, Amazon didn’t remove any buy buttons. They just removed pre-order buttons from Hachette titles. Amazon doesn’t make pre-order buttons available to everyone and negotiates with each publisher individually. Readers can still buy their books albeit with delays as posted in the Amazon forums.

 

Read the full post on PBS Mediashift.

 

Using Critical Reviews as Resources

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This post by Elizabeth Spann Craig originally appeared on her site on 10/24/14.

Wired’s founding executive editor Kevin Kelly stated that if writers and other artists have “one thousand true fans” then they’re able to sustain a living from their art.

I don’t honestly know how many true fans I have (and I prefer calling them readers instead of fans) but I know I get nearly-daily emails from readers.

And I do know one true ‘fan’.  She is, actually, my number one fan (no Stephen King reference intended).  She is also my number one critic.  Since she doesn’t have a public presence, I won’t call her out by giving her name online.

She started emailing me over a year ago, giving me feedback on various books in various series. She has mentioned reading each of my books numerous times.

I’m almost positive that she knows my characters better than I do.

 

Read the full post on Elizabeth Spann Craig’s site.

 

The Problem of Entitlement: A Question of Respect

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This post by Steve Almond originally appeared on Poets & Writers on 8/20/14.

This past spring I took a position as a visiting writer at a well-respected MFA program. My students were by and large intelligent and serious, but there were a few moments when I found them—what’s the word I’m looking for here—exasperating.

One day before the fiction workshop, for instance, we got into a discussion about the Best American Short Stories series, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. To my astonishment, a number of students made comments indicating their disdain for the annual anthology.

“Wait a second,” I said. “The stories in those collections are always great.”

There was an awkward pause. Then one of them said, “You’re being ironic, right?”

At this point, I sort of lost it. I told my students that they had every right to dislike particular stories, but that dismissing them entirely was foolish. Then I added something along the lines of, “Why don’t you guys publish a story in Best American and then you can sit in judgment of them.”

It was not my finest moment as a teacher. (And, for the record, I later apologized to the entire class.) It was an impulsive reaction to what I’ve come to think of over the years as the Problem of Entitlement.

I mean by this that a significant number of the students I’ve encountered in creative writing programs display a curious arrogance toward published authors, as well as an inflated sense of their own talents and importance. The same attitudes often prevail in those online precincts where new and emerging writers congregate.

 

Read the full post on Poets & Writers.

 

3 Vital Questions to Build Website Impact

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This post by Donna K. Fitch originally appeared on D’Vorah Lansky’s Build A Business With Your Book.

Why do you have a website? What a silly question. We have websites because we’re supposed to. Everyone else does, right?

But a website without thought behind it, without intentionality, may be doing you more harm than good. Professional web designers ask their clients a series of questions before they do any design work. Improve your website by asking yourself these three questions:

 

1. What do you want to accomplish with your website?

It’s so tempting to pile cool widgets and generic text (“Welcome to my website, I hope you enjoy it”) on your site without considering the purpose. Besides overwhelming the site visitor, the items may be sending mixed messages—or give the impression you’re not sure what business you’re in. If you aren’t sure what you’re trying to achieve, you won’t know when you’ve arrived.

 

Read the full post on Build A Business With Your Book.

 

37 Reasons Why You Should Write A Book

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This post by John Kremer originally appeared on his Book Marketing Bestsellers site.

The sooner your write a book, the better (for you and your business). You can certainly write a book within the next 60 days!

Here are 37 reasons why you should write a book.

 

Make money. You can make money not only by selling your book, but also by selling all the ancillary products and services you can offer.

Money is often the key motivator for many authors, but it certainly isn’t the only reason why you should write a book.

 

Change lives. Books can enlighten, educate, inspire, inform, and entertain. They can and do change lives.

Everyone has at least one story of a book that changed their lives. What book changed your life? Now, write one to change other people’s lives.

 

Sell a product. Use your book to help promote another product, whether a real world product or an online information product. Books can help you sell all your other products and services. Seed your book with the stories of your other products and services. Include case studies, success stories, examples of failure and success.

Books can sell your products and services faster and easier than anything else. Books allow you to showcase what you do, how well you do it, and how your customers benefit from what you offer.

 

Build a career. There’s no better way to build a career than to start by writing a book. Books open doors. Books get respect. Books get you promotions. And books get you job offers, again and again.

 

Boost your credibility. Nothing establishes your authority better than a book. Your book instantly boosts your credibility as a doer, as an expert, as a celebrity, as an authority. Of course, it has to be a good book, a great book, an extraordinary book. The more extraordinary, the more your credibility will grow!

 

Read the full post on Book Marketing Bestsellers.

 

Two Important Publishing Facts Everyone Gets Wrong

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This post by Hugh Howey originally appeared on his site on 10/27/14.

Almost everything being said about publishing today is predicated on two facts that are dead wrong. The first is that publishers are somehow being hurt by ebook sales. The second is that independent bookstores are being crushed. The opposite is true in both cases, and without understanding this, most of what everyone says about publishing is complete bollocks.

Let’s take the health of publishers first. Below you will see that profit margins at the major publishers are either flat or improving. For three of the top publishers, margins have improved quite a bit:

 

Read the full post, which includes numerous infographics and much further analysis, on Hugh Howey’s site.

 

Why Don’t Men Read Romance Novels?

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This post by Noah Berlatsky originally appeared on Pacific Standard on 10/23/14.

A lot of men just don’t read fiction, and if they do, structural misogyny drives them away from the genre.

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Why do women read romance novels? It’s a question that’s often been asked, explicitly or implicitly. Two groundbreaking 1980s studies, Janice Radway’s anthropological Reading the Romance and Tania Modleski’s more theoretical Loving With a Vengeance, suggested that romance novels provided women with compensatory fantasies. Patriarchy is depressing and oppressive for women, and romance novels understand that and provide a salve.

Other commenters have been more vicious. William Giraldi declared: “Romance novels—parochial by definition, ecumenical in ambition—teach a scurvy lesson: enslavement to the passions is a ticket to happiness.” He concluded that the success of 50 Shades of Grey shows that, “We’re an infirm, ineffectual tribe still stuck in some sort of larval stage.” Since the main readers of 50 Shades have been women, the conclusion seems to be that women read this sort of book because they are stunted. If reading romance is seen as deviant or pathological, then the attitude toward romance readers is either condescension or contempt: Romance readers are either poor souls who need help, or they’re debased fools who should be scorned.

 

Read the full post on Pacific Standard.