Inventing Reality Editing Service

How to write an author's bio for your book

2012-03-05T07:00:00.004-08:00

When self-publishing your book, you’ll want to write an author’s bio. Often mainstream publishers don’t include such a bio, as it adds to page counts and printing costs. That’s unfortunate, because when readers really like a book, they often want to know a little about the author, and finding out such information can lead to more book sales. In short, it’s a great marketing tool – so don’t think of it as vanity that you’re adding one.

Vanity, of course, would occur if the bio was more than eight or nine sentences long. The bio also ought to be placed at the end of the book, following the last chapter/epilogue or the index; putting it anywhere else also amounts to vanity (after all, what matters is the story or information you’re providing). The bio also ought to focus on why the author is qualified to write the book not be a simple list of achievements that have little to do with the book.

Here’s a solid author’s bio that write Bro Craig penned for his novel “The Letters,” which is largely set during the 1960s on the Oregon coast:

Bro Craig grew up in Coos River, Oregon, a third-generation Oregonian. As a child, he learned the value of friendship, honor and hard work. After graduating from Marshfield High School, he spent a year at Willamette University then transferred to the University of Oregon, earning a bachelor’s in marketing. During the next 35 years, he worked in the agriculture, aquaculture, forest products, and electronics industries. He obtained his commodity trading license, securities license, and Manager’s Food Handlers permit, while starting, buying and selling businesses. He always had been encouraged to write about his adventures and experiences in life, and upon finally sitting down to pen them found his passion. Thus, "The Letters." This is his first of many novels to come in which he mixes fiction with nonfiction, leaving the reader questioning.

To write a bio, begin by taking some quick notes, answer the following questions:
g What do you do for a living?
g What awards (writing or otherwise) have you won?
g Is this your first published book? If not, what are the titles of the other books you've published?
g Has your writing appeared elsewhere (magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc)?
g What makes you qualified to write the book?
g Where did you graduate from school?
g Where do you reside?
g Is there a blog or website about you or the book that we can send readers to? What is its name and URL?

Now organize those notes into a short six- to eight-sentence bio.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Consider using man vs. nature conflict in your story

2012-03-02T07:00:00.001-08:00

When developing your story, you’ll want your characters to face a number of challenges or conflicts. One of the most basic of them is man vs. nature. In this conflict, the characters find their goals jeopardized by the natural forces of the universe: the cold of an ice age, dangerous plants and animals in an alien jungle, or the vacuum of space.

This conflict can truly test the characters’ stamina, and in a Darwinistic way, show who is the fittest. There’s virtually nothing that a character can do to change the weather or his environment, but he can through physical strength, willpower and intelligence survive it. Exactly how the character does survive – whether by forcing himself to stay awake for three days until he can march his out of the desert or by using his wits to kill a beast and sleeping in its belly to stay warm – says a lot about what characteristics the author values.

The man vs. nature conflict can takes on a thematic role in ecological disaster stories. A good example of this is Larry Niven’s novel "Legacy of Heorot." Set on a colony world, the story centers on how nature is “fighting back” against the ecological changes that the colonists have engendered. It examines the issues of what happens when humans interfere with the natural order of a world and if the notion of “protecting nature” is rational.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Why you need to market your book

2012-02-29T16:58:00.003-08:00

You’ve spent a year writing your book, spent money on an editor to proofread it and a designer to create a book cover, then spent a week or two taking it through the publishing process. But now, after all of that hard work, your book – your labor of love – is available for purchase with its own page on Amazon.com and able to be ordered at your local Barnes and Noble.

All you have to do now is sit back and wait for fame and fortune to roll in.

Unfortunately, you may be waiting a very long time.

It’s the rare book that somehow goes virulent and captures the public’s attention and admiration all on its own. Indeed, around 800 books are published daily in just the United States alone, so no matter how good your book is, the odds of it even being noticed are nil at best.

The reality is that indie authors and those who self-publish need to market their own books.

For most authors, the idea of marketing their book is anathema. Marketing for many writers means using guilt and fear to convince people to buy a product. Even for those authors who don’t hold such a view, they probably never studied marketing and have no idea of how to begin such an effort.

But the reality is that unless you’re satisfied with your book languishing in anonymity, you need a marketing plan. You’ll need to send press releases to media outlets. You’ll need a website and probably a blog to inform people about your book. You’ll need to do some book signings, some book readings, maybe some radio interviews. You may need to make some business cards and even advertise.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Treat careful readers of your story to an easter egg

2012-02-28T07:00:00.005-08:00

Sometimes the real pleasure of writing – and reading - isn’t about a well-crafted tale with a fast-moving plot involving intriguing characters set in a well-described landscape. After all, penning such a story entails a lot of sweat, and for readers, they expect nothing less than a well-developed piece. Instead, the real smile comes when the author leaves a special treats for the reader, such as hiding some surprise not germane to the story. These surprises are called “easter eggs”, a term science fiction writing workshops have borrowed from the jargon of computer programming.

For example, an author might encode, with the first letters of consecutive sentences, some message to the reader. In other instances, the author may use obscure allusions, such as what James Lecky does in his recently published “The Season Without Sun”. In the Lecky’s story, the antagonists are a people called the “Dajzyn” - the Tuva word for “enemy.” Tuva is a Russian republic on the central steppes of Asia, which one theory posits is where homo sapiens came from when moving into Ice Age Europe, the apparent setting of this story.

The pleasure for the author is akin to being part of an inside joke. The pleasure for the reader comes in possessing a deeper understanding of the piece – or at least in knowing that he’s one of the few who got the inside joke! It strengthens the bond between writer and reader.

If placing an easter egg into your story, remember that it usually is hidden deep within the text. It shouldn’t disrupt the narrative’s flow. After all, the easter egg often is superfluous to the story. In addition, don’t sacrifice time crafting and polishing the story to hide an easter egg. The reason a reader opts to look at your story is to enjoy a quality tale. The easter egg is just a fun surprise.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Is a God-like narrator best for your story?

2012-02-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Narrating the story through the perspective of the main character is not the only way to tell a story. Sometimes it’s told from the author’s viewpoint. When this occurs, the author is writing in third-person point of view.

A specific kind of third-person point of view is “omniscient”, in which the author is an all-knowing, God-like narrator. Consider this example of third-person omniscient from R. Garcia y Robertson‘s short story “Oxygen Rising”:

“Hey, human, time to earn your pay!” Curled in a feline crouch, a silver comlink clipped to its furry ear, the SuperCat flashed Derek a toothy grin. Tawny fur showed through gaps in the bioconstruct’s body armor, and his oxygen bottle had a special nosepiece to accommodate the saber-tooth upper canines, huge curved fangs whose roots ran back to the eye sockets. This deep in the highlands of Harmonia, even homo smilodon needed bottled air. Cradling a recoilless assault cannon, the SuperCat had small use for ceremony, letting everyone call him Leo.

Derek grunted, getting paid being the least of his worries.
Notice how the story isn’t told by or from the perspective of Leo or Derek. Instead, we have a unique perspective, as if watching these two characters interact on a stage before us. But we’re doing much more than observing them. We are also able to get inside their heads, to know what both characters think and feel.

This trait is a major strength of a third-person omniscient point of view. It can reveal anything and everything about any of the characters – their perceptions, thoughts and observations. This is useful if no human viewpoint can encapsulate the story, as often is the case of science fiction stories that deal with aliens and artificial intelligences. The viewpoint also is excellent for humorous, satirical stories because the characters’ absurdity - which the main character wouldn’t notice - can be shown (though that’s not the reason Garcia y Robertson used it in the excerpted story).

In addition, third-person omniscient gives author more freedom than first-person point of views when developing a story. This is because he can change locations and use multiple viewpoints; first-person, of course, is limited to the main character’s perceptions, so only action that he is directly involved in can be shown.

Still, third-person omniscient has its drawbacks:
g It imposes distance between reader and the main character - Events in a story often gain a certain formality as narrator telling the story is ill-defined. An aloofness in the narrator also can create distance. After all, how could a god (the story’s narrator) ever exist man-to-man with the story’s main character?
g Dramatic tension can be more easily defused - When the story is told from the main character’s perspective, readers can more directly feel and relate to his stress and challenge. It’s like being told about the walk through a haunted house rather than actually going through one.
g Know-it-all voice can intrude on the narration - Like a backseat driver, some omniscient narrators are just darn irritating.

Knowing when to choose third-person rather than a first-person point of view is a matter of understanding what kind of story you want to tell. Each point of view has tradeoffs. If the story you want to tell best matches the advantages that a particular point of view offers, then go with that one.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Don't settle for a carboard villain in your story

2012-02-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Every story’s protagonist faces conflicts, and often they are with a special type of antagonist called a villain. A villain is an individual character or group of people who oppose the story’s main character. Often the villain creates the situation that forces the main character to address the tale’s central problem.

Villains are well known - sometimes as much so as the main character: Darth Vader in “Star Wars: A New Hope”, the Klingons in “Star Trek: The Original Series” and Kahn in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn.”

Sometimes science fiction villains are referred to as “dark lord.”

The advantage of using a villain in your story is that such characters are great fun. Villains can be over the top in their evil and powers. And while your main character is “limited” to behaving in an ethic and responsible manner, the villain can be as devious and frightening. He’s Id unleashed.

But villains often are poorly constructed antagonists, created purely to be representatives of evil. Such characters aren’t real; they’re flat characters. Indeed, one of the reasons Worf was created for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” is because series creator Gene Roddenberry felt the Klingons of “The Original Series” were unreal villains. Another problem with villains is that they’re often just clones of established villains - they’re usually deformed, a paragon of evil, reside in a lair, wear black and laugh maniacally whenever something bad happens to someone else. Ultimately, such cliché villains diminish plot possibilities. The only outcome that the reader can expect is that the story’s hero will defeat the villain.

If using a villain in your story, always ask what is the villain’s motivation? Just how did the villain come to embrace evil? After all, if the villain is real character, from his viewpoint he isn’t evil but merely meting out justice.

To avoid creating a cardboard villain, construct him as if he is a hero – but give him a motivation for which the reader isn’t likely to feel sympathy. In short, make a good man who has fallen into a bad cause. A good example of this is the Romulan Commander in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Balance of Terror.” After years of duty and loyalty, he begins to question the need to start a war with the Federation; ultimately, though, as protagonist Captain Kirk succeeds in defeating him, he performs his last duty, of blowing up his own ship. The struggle between Kirk and the Romulan commander becomes more intriguing because the commander is a real person, not just an aggressor bent on destruction.

Another way to make your villain real is to create a “transformed villain.” In such a character, the villain’s inner turmoil still calls out for our pity despite the great cruelty he’s caused. A good example is the X-Men’s Magneto.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Don't let a rhinoceros in the room smash your plot

2012-02-22T07:00:00.008-08:00

Often the setting of a story contains some item that later plays a role in the story’s plot. A strange looking statue on the mantle, for example, may hold some clue or jog a memory, allowing for the story’s mystery to be solved.

When describing the setting, however, be careful not to place a “rhinoceros in the room," This term is some item or attribute that is obvious to everyone except the people closest to it. It was coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop.

A common example of a “rhinoceros in the room” would be some missing item that is sitting in clear view of all looking for it. Like a rhinoceros, you couldn’t miss it.

But the “rhinoceros in the room” isn’t just limited to items that form the story’s landscape. It can refer to cliché plot lines (such as splitting up in a dark mansion to look for clues), recurring tropes, tics and fetishes. Each of these plot devices and character attributes ultimately cheapen the story because they are contrived. Like that missing item that is sitting in clear site of all looking for it, the notion that someone can’t see it comes off as an artificial plot device.

Having some important item or characteristic sitting in clear view for all to see does make sense in a story – just don’t make the item or attribute so big that its importance should be obvious to all.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Give your protagonist something to gain or lose

2012-02-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

The plot of a story is more interesting and exciting if the characters have something to gain or lose.

Because of this, the characters in your story should something at stake, or some personal interest or involvement in solving the story's conflict. Establishing what these personal interests or involvement are early in the story and then returning them through the rising action generates reader interest.

The "stakes" always revolve around two basic questions: "What does the protagonist want?" and "What if the protagonist fails to get it?" For example, in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation," the character Salvor Hardin wants to ensure his home planet of Terminus (one of two depositories of scientific knowledge and reason in which humanity's future depends) survives the collapse of the Galactic Empire, which is fragmenting into several war-like kingdoms. If he fails, Terminus will be taken over by the warrior kingdoms - and humanity will fall into a dark ages that lasts thousands of years. Those are high stakes.

Remember that virtually all stories center on a character that possesses some want that if unfulfilled means some disaster. The plot of the story is little more than the obstacles that the character must overcome as trying to fulfill this want.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Appeal to sense of taste only in meaningful moments

2012-02-20T13:27:00.008-08:00

Of the five senses, taste is the rarest in stories. The reason is that we’re not eating, drinking, smoking or falling face-first into the dirt as frequently as we are seeing, hearing and smelling the world around us.

Like the senses of sound and smell, taste ought to be reserved for moments when it can offer meaningful descriptions of an object, to raise dramatic tension or to offer insights into a character. For example, describing how an extrasolar colonist who has learned bad news suddenly finds bitter the taste of his otherwise sweet julah drink shows how the information has affected him emotionally. Unfortunately, writers too often simply describe the food a character is eating either for the gross-out factor (such as the Klingon’s gagh in “Star Trek”) or simply to find a way to get the sense of taste into their story.

Where taste and smell are concerned, sometimes you can get your descriptions to appeal to both senses. They are, after all, closely related: Humans who have temporarily lost their sense of smell due to a cold often can’t taste either. J. Chris Rock accomplishes this in his short story “Lucy” (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov’s Science Fiction): “’Seriously though,’ Elgin says, his mouth full of Fritos. I can smell them, that gross wet corn mush smell.”

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

When to use an en dash vs. an em dash

2012-02-17T07:00:00.013-08:00

Among the most common problems I see when proofreading for my clients is confusion over the en dash and the em dash. Oftentimes, the confusion is so great that inconsistent styles are used within a manuscript.

First, some definitions:
g En dash – This dash is longer than a hyphen and often about half the length of an em dash (though modern computers’ font options are differ and usually make this only an approximate), or the length of a capital N. Also called an “n dash,” “n-rule,” or “nut,” the en dash typically is used in a closed set of values, such as, “The score was 21–7.” You usually make an en dash on a computer keyboard by hitting the hyphen key and then a return. ¬
g Em dash – This dash is typically twice the length of an en dash, or the length of a capital M. Also called an “m dash,” “m-rule,” or "mutton," the em dash usually is used to show an idea that is set apart, such as “A character’s passions, desires and fears allow for conflict–and hence your plot–to occur.”

And now comes a whole new set of problems. No one really can agree how the spacing should appear after an em dash. “The Chicago Style of Manual” says no spaces should appear before or after an em dash, as in the above example. Canadian and United Kingdom typography organizations and publishing houses tend to prefer spaces around an en dash.

Confounding this is that software and computer engineers could care less about the issue. Because of this, there’s no key for an em dash on most computers. In addition, typographically the justification of text across a line sometimes makes text appear odd when the em dash connects two words. Spell checks aren’t happy with it, either.

I propose that like “who” and “whom,” the en dash and em dash are increasingly irrelevant and that a simplification of the rules is necessary. Unless an editor or a publisher specifically suggests following a specific format (such as “The Chicago Style of Manual”), I typically edit en dashes in closed sets of values to be a hyphen. When setting ideas apart, I replace the em dash with an en dash, and to make the justified lines more readable, add spaces before or after the em dash.

Call me a heretic, if you must. But most readers (let alone authors) don’t know the difference between an en dash and an em dash. Readers do know, however, when a line is typographically difficult to read. And if your publisher or editor doesn’t like it, she always can change it.

Whichever approach you use, though, always be consistent in its application.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Appeal to sense of touch to improve writing's vividness

2012-02-16T14:49:00.007-08:00

As with the scents, we’re constantly barraged with the sensation of touch, but often it goes ignored. American and Western culture prefers personal space that prevents a lot of touching, and our buildings tend to be climate-controlled, leaving us neither hot nor cold. Our furniture is designed to be soft enough that our bodies do not get sore when sitting or reclining. I’m certainly not complaining about such comfortableness, but it does challenge the writer to work for images that appeal to a sense of touch that readers can relate to.

Since touch is almost a background sensation in readers’ lives, its use ought to be reserved for moments when it can offer meaningful descriptions of an object, to raise dramatic tension or to offer insights into a character. As the sensation of touch is powerful in real life, sloppy use of it in your fictional world can wreck the story’s believability. Deftly handled appeals to the sense of touch, however, can make for a striking description that keeps the reader turning the page.

Recognizing the power of touch, author Jack Skillingstead appeals to the sense in the opening line of his recent short story “What You are About to See” (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov’s Science Fiction): “I sat in a cold room.” Readers used to climate-controlled buildings instantly finds the situation peculiar. The exoticness of appealing to the sense of touch further serves to pull the reader in. The line also does a good job of establishing the story’s tone, one in which our main character and the other government officials around him are never quite comfortable, as they’ve made contact with an alien whose craft crashed in the Nevada desert.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Costs of self-publishing: What you'll pay for

2012-02-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Self-publishing always sounds appealing: it's a quick way to get your book in print, you don't have to deal with literary agents, editors and publishers who want to rewrite your book so it fits their idea of marketability, and you almost certainly will reap a higher percentage of profits from your book sale.

The downside, though, is that you'll need to do a lot of the work that your book publisher would handle for you. That means you'll be putting in a lot of extra time - and may not even have the skills to complete some of the tasks.

Here's a quick rundown of the potential costs of self-publishing:
g Editing and proofreading - You'll always want someone else to read your work for you (full disclosure: I offer such a service). A second eye always will spot typos and content problems that you missed because as a writer you're too close to the book. Self-publishing houses do offer editing and proofreading services, but you'll be able to find less expensive and typically more personal service through an independent, freelance editor.
g Typesetting/formatting the book - Books can by typeset in Microsoft Word, but most will find it a time consuming and frustrating process. For a more professional appearance, you'll want to format the book in a software program like InDesign or Quark Express. If you don't have such programs, you'll need to find a designer. Many self-publishing houses do offer such services, but again, an independent freelance contractor almost certainly is less expensive.
g Book cover - Self-publishing houses do offer book cover designs that you do right online at no cost. Such covers, however, tend to look bland and like dozens of other self-published books. Again, seek an independent freelance contractor if you do not have the skills or the software to create your own cover.
g Publishing house - To get attention from the mainstream press, you'll want to create your own publishing house. Newspapers and magazines that write books reviews or stories about them generally eschew any title from a self-publisher (which is who your publisher will be unless you create your publishing house). Creating your own publishing house is fairly simple at first - just purchase your own ISBN. If you don't go that route, your self-publisher handles the ISBN for you (and hence becomes the publisher). Later, as you begin to make a profit from your book and print additional titles, you'll need to file the appropriate documents with your state and possibly city to affirm that you are an established business.
g Printing - You will pay some kind of fee to be a "member" at your chosen self-publisher or to receive initial copies of your printed book that you must review and then okay before the book will be available for sale. The more work you do upfront so that you don't have to make editing changes once your initial print run occurs, the lower this expense will be.
g Marketing - Self-publishing houses tout that they will market your book, but that usually just means that they give you some online channels to post your book. That's useful (especially if your book gets a page on Amazon.com), but you still need to write and send press releases, arrange your own book readings/signings, and create your own website/blog. You can do all of that on your own for the just cost of time, but you may want a freelance writer with public relations or marketing experience, to write the text for your press release and website, and possibly even a website designer.

How much will all of this cost you? For my first self-published book, I spent less than $400, primarily for a website, to buy my own ISBN (I created my own publishing house), and to pay for that initial run. Everything else I did myself - which as a long-time journalist who wrote for, designed and edited newspapers and magazines was a cinch. Contract all of this labor out, however, and your costs could run from a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars. Your best bet is to shop around for services, do as much of it as you can on your own, and cut corners - for example, you probably can initially get away with a blog rather than building a website.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Don't make readers ask "What is 'it'?"

2012-02-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

Avoid starting a paragraph - and especially a story - with “It”. As a pronoun, “it” is shorthand for another word that preceded it, such as: “The phone rang. It woke up the baby.” You know that “it” is the phone ringing. If the opening sentence starts with “it”, however, the reader doesn’t know what “it” is.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Appeal to sense of sound to make writing more vivid

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

When writing descriptions, one of the five senses that you can appeal to is sound.

We’re surrounded all day by sounds, though most of it is tuned out. When we do hear something out of the ordinary – an alarm, the crunch of metal when cars collide, the annoying repetition of a water drip – it stands out.

Likewise, most authors use sound in the same way in their stories: the sensation is often implied but only used at a moment when it can most contribute to raising dramatic tension or add to a description of an important object in the story.

Matthew Johnson does this in his short story “Lagos” (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov’s Science Fiction). The story, about a Third World worker named Safrat who vacuums other people’s houses by telepresence, never describes the sound of the vacuuming in the opening paragraphs, but as we learn about a day in Safrat’s life, the reader almost can hear the changing whirs as the type of vacuuming performed changes. It isn’t until the 13th paragraph arrives that the sense of sound is directly appealed to, when Safrat laughs when her brother tells her in her sleep – in the language of the wealthy people whose houses she vacuums – about taking a vacation. The sound points toward the poignant irony of such a dream. As the story nears its climax, the number of times the sense of sound is used increases.

One way to insert sound into your story is through the use of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia occurs when words are spelled like the sound they make, such as buzz, whoosh, beep. Again, such sounds shouldn’t be inserted into a description for the sake of having sound in your story but instead to generate dramatic tension or to show some important characteristic of an object.

Need an editor?
Having your book, website, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Select a viewpoint that gives you flexibility

2012-02-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Stories don’t have to be told only from the main character’s perspective. Indeed, the story’s author often narrates a story about a character rather be that persona. When this occurs, authors are writing in third-person point of view.

One type of third-person point of view is third-person limited. This is when the narrator tells the story only from the perspective of what the main character can observe and think, but unlike first-person limited, we also observe the main character through the author’s eyes.

Consider this excerpt from Brian Aldiss’ science fiction short story “Not For an Age”:

A bedspring groaned and pinged, mists cleared, Rodney Furnell awoke. From the bathroom next door came the crisp sound of shaving; his son was up. The bed next to his was empty; Valerie, his second wife, was up. Guiltily, Rodney also rose, and performed several timid exercises to flex his backbone. Youth! When it was going it had to be husbanded. He touched his toes.

Notice how we see events unfolding through the eyes of Rodney Furnell, the main character: waking up, the sounds around him, exercising. We do not see the world through the perspective of his son or his second wife. Further, the word "I" never would appear in the piece unless spoken by someone; that's because Rodney isn't telling the story - the author is. The author even offers a small comment, describing Rodney’s exercises as “timid” (certainly Rodney would not describe them as “timid”!).

Third-person limited offers several advantages, including:
g Giving the writer more flexibility than first-person point of view – If the story above were told only from Rodney’s point of view, the author could not offer his perspective on him. The audience no longer would be looking upon the stage that the main character acted but would be standing upon it in the main character’s body.
g Providing a less biased perspective - Stories told in first-person also carry the weight of the main character’s subjective views and perspectives. Sometimes this can make the protagonist less acceptable likeable to a reader who is more enlightened than that character. Third-person limited moves the reader to the usually more enlightened perspective of the author.
g Offering a clear sense of who the reader should identify with and invest in - Stories told only from the main character’s perspective sometimes don’t make that persona the hero but someone whose weaknesses cost him. The author’s insertions in third-person limited show readers how they should view the main character. Because of that, readers often like this point of view.

One danger of third-person limited, however, is that the reader loses a sense of intimacy with the main character. Rather than fully experience the universe with the main character, the reader can feel superior to him. If your goal is to have the reader relate to the main character, this may not be the best choice for your story’s point of view.

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Make traditional heroes vulnerable to improve your plot

2012-02-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

“Once again, we've saved civilization as we know it." - James T. Kirk, “The Undiscovered Country”

Most main characters in genre stories also are traditional heroes, or larger than characters who serve as the tale’s protagonist. Obvious examples are Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk and Indiana Jones. Such characters become “mythic,” especially after several stories describing their adventures.

The advantage of using such characters as that they are good fun. Not surprisingly, the memorable heroes mentioned above all appear in motion pictures, which typically serves as escapism rather than high art.

But you do your readers a disservice when your main character is the stereotypical hero. Such characters, after all, aren’t real. After awhile, you have to ask, “How many times can James T. Kirk save the galaxy?” In addition, heroes often are just clones of heroes who came long before them. Skywalker, Kirk and Jones all are strong, respected, admired, clever, brave, intelligent, natural leaders and usually can have any woman. So were Theseus, Horatio Hornblower and Robin Hood. Ultimately, heroes limit your plot. One notable way is that heroes typically collect “plot coupons” in each scene. In such a plot, the hero gains some knowledge or gizmo that ensures he can solve the problem by the story’s climax. The story really is just a clever game of how he’ll gather all of these coupons, for the story’s outcome never is in doubt.

A more rigorous character – and hence a more rigorous story – should involve placing an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance. Ordinary people possess flaws, and the extraordinary circumstance provides an opportunity for those characters to grow and develop.

Because some of the tales involving Skywalker and Kirk do show them overcoming their flaws (Skywalker learning to control his fear and anger; Kirk sacrificing the love of his life for the future), they probably are more memorable heroes than Indiana Jones, whose only real Achilles’ heel is a fear of snakes. In short, if you do stick with a hero character, don’t make him “too cool.” He needs to be vulnerable or he’ll be too superhuman and hence not very interesting. For example, a hero shouldn’t be fearless but instead someone who performs his duties - such as protecting or rescuing others - despite his fears (which is why Indiana Jones’ fear of snakes makes him so endearing).

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Organ music won't create suspense in your story

2012-02-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when attempting to create tension and suspense in a story, writers can undercut their own efforts by adding “organ music.” A term coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop, organ music us providing “details that countersink an emotional response before anything happens.” An example is crackling lightning before a character is murdered. Avoid this non-subtle way of foreshadowing as a way of creating suspense, however; non-subtle foreshadowing actually gives away what is about to happen. It’s akin to the villain telling the hero, “And now I will shoot you.” Just have the villain fire his atom blaster.

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Your main character must fail

2012-02-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

During the rising action, your main character must attempt to resolve his central problem yet always fail.

There are several ways a failure can occur:
g Barrier - In this case, the main character’s solution is inadequate to the task at hand. For example, he may try to blow up a bioweapons, facility but his explosives are unable to penetrate an undetected force field.
g Misjudgment - The main character may misjudge what the problem is to be resolved. For example, the main character may give his girlfriend flowers in an attempt to make up after a fight, but she doesn’t accept them because she no longer has feelings for him so the gesture is meaningless. When the main character is guilty of misjudgment, often the problem moves even farther away from his solution and becomes more difficult to resolve.
g Partial solution - Sometimes the main character only solves elements of the problem. For example, when sent to assassinate a pair of scientists working on a biogenic weapon, he kills one but the other escapes.
g Temporary triumph - On occasion, the main character’s solution may only be a temporary fix. For example, the main character may succeed in destroying an invading alien race’s scout ship. Then a larger, more powerful scout ship arrives.
g Complication - The main character’s solution may work but has no immediate payoff. For example, to determine how to get home when lost, one needs to know where he is. The main character may discover that information, but he still needs to make the journey home.
g Reversal - There are instances when the main character’s solution actually makes the situation worse. For example, while destroying an enemy’s bioweapons lab, he accidentally releases deadly bacteria into the atmosphere, and the winds are carrying the germs right toward his nation.

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Outline the story to guide your writing

2012-02-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Most published writers agree that inspiration is overrated. After all, inspiration can generate a story idea or a character or even a scene, but it rarely generates a whole story.
Once a story idea has sprung from your head, you must grow and nurture it. This typically means outlining it.

Some writers prefer to just get words on a page rather than outlining. That may work for some, but for most of us, it’ll result in a disjointed story that’s missing elements. It’s certainly imperative for a novel and definitely a good idea for a short story.

An outline forces you to think deeply about your story in advance of writing it. Rather than penning passages that must be tossed because they don’t fit well into the final story, you can get that first draft closer to publishable form by working out exactly what you want to write. You can ensure the plot will flow logically from opening line through climax, can sketch out characters so that you know them better, can settle on the best point of view all in advance of writing that first line.

In many ways, the outline is like an instruction book for your story. It helps you feed the story with just the right nutrients and to ensure it receives the correct amount of sunlight. You know what you’re aiming for even before you sit down at the keyboard.

As with anything, a writer can misuse the outline by overrelying on it. Just because your outline says to write something doesn’t mean you have to, especially if it will result in a week story. Once you start drafting the story (the next step in the writing process), always remain flexible by considering the possibility that your outline contains flaws. After all, as you continue to think about your story, you may come up with better ideas than when you were outlining.

A side note: There’s no right or wrong way to outline. You can use 3x5 note cards. You can write a complex beat-by-beat or even line-by-line plan. You can make a quick flow chart. Do whatever helps you best organize your thoughts.

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Appeal to sense of smell to make scenes more vivid

2012-02-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

We are surrounded by scents, but they often go ignored as people have a poor sense of smell (at least compared to other animals, such as dogs and cats). Further, in American culture most scents are suppressed; we prefer an antiseptic home, workplace and body.

For those reasons, beginning writers rarely describe scents in a story. As with sound, when the sensation does appear in a story, it’s often to draw attention to some characteristic of an object or to raise dramatic tension.

Writers ought to find a way to incorporate at least one appeal to the sense of smell in their story, if only to make the story more real. The key is to get it purposefully into the story and not just to make the writing more vivid for vividness’ own sake.

Novelist Kevin J. Anderson appeals to the sense of smell in just such a way in his novel “The Ashes of Worlds”. The book’s opening chapter, set aboard a spaceship bridge, makes no appeal at all to the sense of smell , which makes sense as one wouldn’t expect to smell anything (other than ozone perhaps) in a setting with an artificial atmosphere. In the next chapter, the sense of smell only is implied when smoke and burnings coals are noted in the description of a tree city under attack. A scent finally is directly described to good dramatic effect after the chapter’s climax as the city’s inhabitants flee what once their homes: “Green grass smoldered around them, making the smoke burn like acid in their lungs.”

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All right vs. alright ... which one is accurate?

2012-02-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

During my edits of novels, nonfiction books, academic papers and business documents, I frequently see the same pairs of words confused. Among them is all right and alright.

While alright increasingly appears in writing, most grammarians would agree that alright is all wrong. Alright generally is considered nonstandard, and its use probably arises from the notion that all right/alright follows similar rules to “all ready/already” or “all together/altogether.”

The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style (7), does list alright as okay to use when it means “satisfactory,” indicating that all right means “accurate.” Hmm … Sure, satisfactory and accurate have different definitions, but what’s the difference between if you write, “The cost estimates are satisfactory” or the “The cost estimates are accurate”? To be alright (satisfactory), the cost estimates would have to be all right (accurate). Or why not just write “The cost estimates are satisfactory” rather than “The cost estimates are alright” if you want to indicate they are not excellent … “satisfactory” certainly would be more specific (or accurate!).

Or would saying they’re satisfactory be alright?

Final verdict: Always use all right, never use alright.

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Where to find a literary agent

2012-02-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

If you've decided that finding a literary agent to obtain a publisher for your book is the best route for you, you're faced with a new dilemma: Where to find one.

There are a number of routes you could go:
g Book listings - Before the Internet age, thick tomes published by Writers Digest and other organizations were the place to go. A number of such books still are being published and are available through a search as Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com. You can read through them for free at a bookstore or a library (though the latter usually has old, outdated versions). The upside to these books is that the book publisher solicits responses from the literary agents, so you know in one quick place if the agent is seeking work, the types of wok they're looking for, their submission preferences, mailing addresses and more. The downside is that these responses often were solicited months before the book went to print, so they can quickly become outdated.
g Websites - Any number of websites list literary agents, typically with similar information to what you'd find in the published tomes. Sometimes these websites are not frequently updated, however. In addition, some of these sties simply copy information from the above mentioned books or other websites, meaning errors creep into the entries. Two sites I recommend for finding good lists of literary agents include Writers.Net and AgentQuery.
g Find your own - There are a couple of options here. First, type into a search engine "literary agent AND" and the genre in which your book fits. So, if the book is a mystery, type "literary agents AND mystery". You'll find a variety of lists maintained by magazines and writers of that genre, all of varying quality, but that are very specific to your needs. A second option is to look at the acknowledgements or introduction pages of books that are very similar to yours in genre and style. identify the name of those writers' literary agents, then locate online that agents' address. You've just found a potential agent who specializes in the kind of book you've written.

I know of writers who've found agents using every one of these methods. Give the one that you think will work best for you a try!

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Don't stick your main character with just one name

2012-01-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered why some television characters always wear the same clothes? Gilligan of “Gilligan’s Island” always dons his red shirt and white cap while Fred Flintstone always wears a spotted leopard’s wool. Such characters appear less real because in the everyday world, people wear different clothes from day to day.

Likewise, you don’t want your characters to always refer back to one another with the exact same word throughout your story, particularly in a novel. Such a word is called a “referent.”

In the real world, different people refer to us in different ways. Suppose your name is Amanda Phillips. Your co-workers might call you “Amanda”, your close friends “Mandy,” your significant other “Snookums,” your professional contacts “Ms. Phillips,” your kid sister “Manda,” etc.

Consider how “Star Trek: The Original Series” handled referents for its characters, particularly Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott. Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy refer to him as “Scotty.” Mr. Spock calls him “Mr. Scott.” Others call him “Engineer Scott.” This is a realistic way of handling referents.

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Explore profound ideas in your story through metaphors

2012-01-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Literature can examine deep, philosophical concepts by placing characters in extraordinary situations where viewpoints and the logic behind decisions are tested. One powerful way to explore profound ideas is through the use of metaphor.

A metaphor is when a word or phrase that usually designates one thing is used to mean another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in Fredric Brown’s “Arena”: “Slowly his mind cleared as, slowly, the mind of a man wakening from a nightmare clears away the fear-fabric of which the dream was woven." The metaphor is the comparing of a nightmare to a cloth that has been weaved together with the fabric of fear.

Metaphors can occur within stories, as a form of imagery (such as Brown’s example), or the story itself can be a metaphor. For example, the Martian invasion in H.G. Well’s “The War of the Worlds” often is seen as a metaphor for Victorian colonialism – the superior air the Martians hold toward the natives, the invaders’ technological superiority, their indiscriminate destruction, even their replacing of local fauna with that brought from their home.

When writing metaphors, be sure to follow a few guidelines:
g Don’t mix metaphors - A mixed metaphor occurs when two incongruous, contradictory objects are compared, as in “Brilliant sunshine rained down on Tau Ceti V." Sunshine and rain are incongruous.
g Avoid metaphoric clash - Sometimes an otherwise perfect metaphor results in the wrong impression, as in “Zell searched through the ruins for his beloved fiancé with the intensity of a Puritan priest on a witch hunt.” Hopefully Zell doesn’t intend to burn his fiancé at the stake to show his undying love!
g Choose an appropriate metaphor for the scene/environment - Sometimes the metaphor’s comparison collapses under analysis, as in “Ramtal spoke diplomatically to the Pavonians, a drill instructor conversing with his recruits.” Drill sergeants don’t speak “diplomatically” but with gruffness. An inappropriate metaphor should be reserved for comedy.

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Just give cold, hard facts with first-person objective POV

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

When the main character narrates your story, you’ve selected the first-person point of view. But when the narrator gives only the cold, hard facts as telling us what people said and did, you have a specific kind of first-person, known as first-person objective.

An excellent example of first-person objective is Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” The story’s main character/protagonist, Dr. Pierre Aronnax, tells what occurs to him as he goes on an expedition to the ocean and his subsequent capture by Captain Nemo. Here’s an excerpt:

What had he seen? Then, I know not why, the thought of the monster came into my head for the first time! But that voice? The time is past for Jonahs to take refuge in whales' bellies! However, Conseil was towing me again. He raised his head sometimes, looked before us, and uttered a cry of recognition, which was responded to by a voice that came nearer and nearer. I scarcely heard it. My strength was exhausted; my fingers stiffened; my hand afforded me support no longer; my mouth, convulsively opening, filled with salt water. Cold crept over me. I raised my head for the last time, then I sank.

Notice how Arronax sticks to a blow-by-blow, almost detached account of what occurs, even when he is a frightening, perilous situation. “Cold crept over me” suffices where other narrators would be more prosaic in their description. Because of this, first-person objective sometimes is called “detached autobiography.”

First-person objective is suitable to science fiction because of the types of main characters that usually appear in the genre. Scientists, for example, often describe the world around them in a detached manner when writing journals. Indeed, Aronnax is a naturalist. The “tough guy” character also often thinks in a similar way when observing the world. For such a character, there’s little room for sentimentality and metaphysical reflection, just the hard reality of the here and now.

Because of this, first-person objective offers a major disadvantage: the detached, objective narration can undercut the intimacy readers feel with the main character. Characters like Arronax are hardly as memorable as H.G. Wells’ The Time Traveler, who tells his tale in the more congenial first-person limited.

Still, first-person limited offers a number of advantages. First, it creates a sense that the narrator is more reliable. A risk of first-person limited is that the narrator may come off as unreliable (and a few “sequels” to Wells’ story often present The Time Traveler as an obsessed, borderline madman). Secondly, first-person objective allows for a unique narrative voice that some readers find appealing. The tough guy character, for example, often is memorable, especially to male readers, because he represents American culture’s ideal of maleness. Because of this, first-person objective is a great voice to use if parodying the tough guy.

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Create the perfect nemesis for your main character

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

In most stories, someone causes the problem that vexes the main character. This character is called the antagonist.

Examples of well-known antagonists include Q in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episodes, Darth Vader in “Star Wars IV: A New Hope” and the Lunar Authority soldiers in Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.

Usually a story is not told from the antagonist’s perspective. In fact, often the antagonist is a flat, cardboard character whose sole reason for existence is to cause trouble. This was one of the complaints “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry had of the Klingons in “The Original Series”.

Obviously the main character needs to be the focus of your story, and so the antagonist in contrast will not be as developed. Still, you want to think a lot about the antagonist and give him more a deeper motives than greed, lust or evil. He’s arguably the second most important character of your story, the reason why there’s even a story to tell. By developing a backstory for the antagonist’s motivations, you can create thematic tension. The antagonist’s motivations can be paralleled with and contrasted to the protagonist’s motivations and decisions.

As with the main character, you should know what your antagonist looks like, his strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, what motivates him, his parents and schooling, who he’s dated throughout his life, the foods he enjoys and hates, what he does during his free time, how his apartment is decorated, places he’s visited and places he yet wants to go, and more. You should know you’re antagonist almost as well as you know yourself.

Sometimes, the antagonist is not a “real” person but an element of nature or some competing idea in the main character’s internal conflict. Often these antagonists take on a life of their own, however, and become characters in their own right.

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Avoid rear-view mirror descriptions in stories

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

When writing action scenes, avoiding rear-view mirror descriptions typically is a good idea. In such a description, an object is described only after it’s been part of the action. For example, “He slid into the cave hole that his foot had just felt.” This type of writing allows the reader to see the setting only after the character has interacted with it – in short, it’s like looking at a landscape through a rear-view mirror.

Such writing diminishes the reader’s ability to feel the story’s dramatic tension and to feel the character’s urgency. It strains the story’s verisimilitude because the character appears to be extremely lucky as he is able to get out of any jam thanks to the author’s good blessings.

This type of description is a common error of novice writers, so not surprisingly this term often is most heard is writing workshops. In fact, it was coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction workshop.

To avoid rear-mirror descriptions, lay out in advance the setting, including all objects with which the characters later will interact. In addition, reverse the order of sentences or phrasing within them so that the object appears before it is acted upon. The above example of a rear-view mirror description could be rewritten as: “His foot slipped into an opening in the dark rock. It felt just large enough to accommodate him. ‘This must be the cave entrance,’ he thought. He slid into the hole."

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Heighten your story's tension with an 'emotional disturbance'

2012-01-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Often a story is not about defending the world from some outside menace or about obtaining some item but is about overcoming some internal, man vs. himself struggle. In science fiction workshops, this type of storyline is called an emotional disturbance.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. define an “emotional disturbance” as “when a character’s inner state is unstable and he must do something to restore equilibrium.” In short, to solve the main problem of the story, the main character must undergo an inner journey of self-discovery and change.

A common example of an emotional disturbance is Luke Skywalker’s journey from self-doubting farm boy to a confident Jedi knight, as seen in “Star Wars IV-VI.” Skywalker garners skills and a deeper understanding of the universe – and himself along the way – through the mentoring of Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda. These experiences cause him to grow intellectually and spiritually.

Often stories that center on an emotional disturbance include an out-of-whack event or a macguffin, another name for an item that is being sought. Skywalker wouldn’t have experienced an emotional disturbance if not for an out-of-whack event – the rebel theft of the Death Star blueprints – that set the movie series into motion. In quest novels, such as “The Lord of the Rings”, the seeking of an object often sends the main character on a journey that parallels his internal struggle and growth. Usually the main character must overcome some internal flaw in order for the out-of-whack event to be resolved or for the object to be recovered.

Sometimes, however, the emotional disturbance is the reason the out-of-whack event occurs. This typically occurs in stories where he main character falls, and we learn through his descent about the nature of good and evil. Such is the case in “Star Wars III” in which Anakin Skywalker’s gradually shift to the dark side helps cause the collapse of the Republic.

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Overcoming writer’s block

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Finally you have time to yourself to write – work is over, the kids are away, all homework is turned in – and you sit down before the laptop with a steaming cup of coffee, all ready to write the next Great American Novel.

But nothing comes.

You take a sip of coffee. The mug warms your hands.

Still nothing comes.

You take a long stretch, crack your knuckles, bring your fingers to the keyboard.

But nothing still comes.

You’ve got writer’s block.

As Presley Thurman, the main character in the mystery romance novel “Necklaces and Nooses” says, “I had all these great ideas, plot lines, fun characters, but I just couldn’t seem to do anything but stare at the blank page when I tried to get it down on paper or computer screen. I had a problem getting it from my head to paper, which was a big obstacle for someone who wanted to be a writer.”

Unfortunately, the longer you allow writer’s block to continue, the less you’ll have written – and the harder it will be to overcome. Don’t fret, however: Almost every writer suffers from it every once in a while.

Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do to create the right environment for you to end your writer’s block. Here are some methods used by writers that I’ve edited:
g Play music that will get you into the mood – Heavy metal or industrial works if writing cyberpunk, classical if writing about a moment of triumph, Simon and Garfunkel if your character is in a reflective mood.
g Create a “playlist” for your characters and story – Select songs that help you get into your character’s frame of mind of the scene’s tone. Then play those songs as you write.
g Add something that demands explanation – One writer told me he imitated Raymond Chandler’s approach. When Chandler had writer’s block, he would introduce a man with a gun, which then forced him to figure out who the man with the gun might be and what he wanted given what already had been written.
g Conduct a mock interview with your character – Perhaps your character’s background and their motivations need to be further developed for you to continue the story. An interview will help you further develop the character.
g Share your writing with someone –Make sure this person has the caliber to offer suggestions and feedback that spurs your creativity.
g Allow yourself to write “poorly” –Most writer’s block is caused by fear that you lack talent. Simply start writing and edit the junk out later.

You also might set story aside and come back to it in a few days. In the meantime, read stories or nonfiction works about your setting or in the genre that you’re writing, and see if that sparks your creativity. This doesn’t immediately solve your writer’s block, but it may help in the long run. Often I find “research” about elements of my story spurs new ideas about what to write.

Finally, be honest about what you’re writing. Perhaps the reason you can’t think of what to write next is that the story is flawed: the plot is illogical, the main character lacks an internal conflict, it’s being told from the wring point of view. In that case, rewrite, start over, or abandon it. Then get to penning a story that works!

After you pour yourself another cup of coffee, of course.

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Types of academic papers you could write

2012-01-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Once you’ve received your writing assignment, you’ll need to determine what kind of paper you’re expected to write. Knowing this information will shape how you conduct your research and ultimately how you structure your paper. Not knowing this information will cost you time as you do unnecessary work or could lead you to writing a paper that doesn’t meet your instructor’s expectations, meaning a low grade.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of papers you could write:
g Report – In this type of paper, you describe what you learned from your readings and research. This is what was taught in elementary school: for example, the teacher might say “Write a report about cardinals” and you would read encyclopedias and some entries in scattered books about birds then collate all of that data into something sensible, making you a mini-expert on the songbird.
g Position – This perhaps is the most common type of paper for high school students and undergraduates to write: They take a position and support it with evidence. For example, they might take the position that the death penalty should be abolished and then offer three supporting points as to why it should be: it is an inhumane and barbaric form of punishment, it is an irreversible sentence that could be carried out against an innocent person, and it doesn’t deter the crime it punishes.
g Analysis – The more advanced the class, the greater the chance that students will be asked to analyze an issue. In a sense, the analysis paper begins as little more than a report, but at its end offers conclusions about this data. For example, an analysis paper might examine both sides of the gun control issue and present the data used to support those viewpoints. The challenge is to draw some conclusion about that data and hence the validity of those arguments. In that sense, an analysis often ends acting like a position paper.

Each of these types of papers can be written using a variety of structures (we’ll examine those in a future entry).

Knowing what the instructor expects will guide your research in the days ahead. If writing the position paper about the death penalty, you may not need to spend a lot of time researching the arguments for capital punishment but instead to go very in depth finding evidence and explaining the reasoning that supports your position. If you wrote an analysis paper about the same topic, you’d have to spend as much time researching one side of the argument as the other.

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Write website text like your site visitors will read it

2012-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Most readers of websites do so by scanning. That is, they don’t read every word but skim over the page, searching for words that are of interest to them. Once they find those words, their reading may slow to include every word, as if they were reading a magazine article or a novel.

Indeed, website visitors read only about 20% of the text per page, according to one study.

This then demands a different approach to writing than what you’d find in print (such as newspaper, magazines, books), where people are more likely to read a passage word for word. The challenge is to write as tightly and crisply as possible so that the website text is easy to scan through.

When writing for the web, follow these basic rules:
g Every word counts – Be succinct and specific by using fragments, short sentences and writing in the active voice. Every word used must carry useful information: Readers expect immediacy and utility when they come to a website.
g Bulleted points rock – Such points, like this list, are easier for website readers to scan.
g Create the tone that your reader would expect from your site – Visitors to a site for a party clown expect corny jokes. Visitors to a site for attorneys expect sophistication and no-nonsense professionalism. At the same time, you must be understandable … many people needing your service probably do because they don’t know much about what you’re the expert at.
g Short is better – Studies show that the idea word count for page is between 30 and 1,250 words. Any more and people typically skip the bulk of the text.
g Think search engine – Keywords must be included so that your website can be found on a search engine. With so many websites out there to choose from, you must embed in your web pages signposts that bring traffic to your site; those signposts are keywords. At the risk of being simplistic, if you sell T-shirts, that word needs to be in your text.

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Self-publishing vs. mainstream publishing

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

During these tough economic times, publishing houses are printing fewer books and cutting back on the number of editions they print. In addition, there already are a sparse number of magazines printing short stories, novellas and serials. As a consequence, many good writers who’ve written good books and short tales simply aren’t being published.

These days, a number of beginning and entrepreneurial writers have turned to self-publishing as an alternative way of getting their book “in print.” Though long reviled as a vanity press, more books now are being self-published in both paper and digital forms than mainstream publishers are putting out.

The advantages of self-publishing are numerous:
g You’ll actually get published – You can bypass the literary agent, magazine editor and the publishing house and quickly get to your destination, which is to see your name and book in print. It’s quick, too; within a matter of days you can have your book up for sale online.
g You can make more money – Your royalties will be higher if you self-publish. In some scenarios, you can earn more than half of the book’s retail sale price by self-publishing whereas mainstream publishers give you less than 10 percent of the earnings. The result is you only need to sell a couple of thousand self-published books as opposed to tens of thousands of mainstream published books to achieve the same profit margin.
g You control the book – Publishing houses and magazines can limit how you promote your book and your ability to reuse material from it. By being your own publisher, you can use the book however you like to promote your business or causes.

Of course, there are some downsides to self-publishing:
g It can get expensive – Self-publishing is less expensive than you think; many authors do it for less than $40 a book. But if you need your cover designed, the text proofread and edited, and the book formatted – and if you want be the publisher of your book rather than Amazon.com or Lulu.com (and being your own publisher is a good idea) – the costs can rise into the hundreds if not thousands of dollars.
g You need to market the book – Making sales requires a concerted effort on your part at marketing your book. A website, a blog, twittering and a Facebook page mark a good start, but it’s probably not enough to sell hundreds of copies of a book, at least not in a matter of a few days or weeks. As many writers simply don’t enjoy marketing, they often give up too early on their promotional efforts.
g Most won’t give your book the respectability it deserves – A bias still exists that books printed by mainstream publishers or magazines sold in stores are better written. After all, if you weren’t good enough to work through a major publisher’s vetting process, why should your writing be given a look at by anyone else? Because of this, most newspapers and magazines won’t review self-published books.

Given the existing (though fading) bias toward mainstream publishing – I always recommend that writers first try that route to getting their works in print. Set a time of six months and see if a literary agent, publishing house or magazine editor is interested in your work. If they are, congratulations!

If not, don’t despair. Instead, self-publish. Indeed, one route to finding a literary agent and publisher is through self-publishing. The magic number appears to be 300 … that is, if you can quickly sell 300 copies of your book, you probably can catch the interest of a literary agent or a publisher.

If you don’t sell 300 books, still don’t despair. Instead, get working on that next book. Perhaps that one will catch on – and then readers will discover that masterpiece you’ve previously written.

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Improve writing's texture by avoiding repetition of words

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

One of the quickest ways to ruin a story’s texture is to repeat the same word between sentences and paragraphs. For example:

Koorana quivered as Birray’s scent grew stronger than ever before, so strong that the teenager thought it entwined with her very blood. For a teenage male with such wide shoulders he possessed the sweetest smile, she mused, and so tall, too. He motioned to look up, and Koorana realized everyone else in the tent was standing. She broke her stare, quickly stood. Averting her eyes to the dirt ground beneath them, Koorana vowed to concentrate on the service, but a moment later she allowed herself one last look at Birray. He was still staring at her and winked. The teenager turned back, happy, and even in the dim light could see the flowers adorning the altar.

Notice how some words, particularly “teenager” and its variant “teenage” are repeated? The paragraph could be improved by eliminating two of the three uses of that word, perhaps by replacing the first “teenager” with a synonym such as “adolescent” and simply using the pronoun “she” for “The teenager” in the last sentence.

Flaubert recommended never using a word more than once on a single page, but I consider that a bit extreme. After all, sometimes repeating the word is necessary for rhetorical effect. Consider this passage:

“Do you realize how complex living things are?” the gobena said from the revival’s dais. The crowd’s eyes clung to him despite the heat exacerbated by the tent walls’ dark hadrosaur hide. “Do you realize how complex a family is, with all of its interactions and behaviors? But some say life is no more difficult to make than the simple whistles of an ugly scrubfowl.”

The audience laughed. “How could organs as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes?” the gobena continued. “How could a family?”

The gobena’s speech harkens to that of a revivalist and thus seems more real when the phrases “Do you realize how complex” and “How could” are repeated.

Another acceptable practice for repetition is when using an invisible word, like “the”, “and” or “said”. In the preceding passage, “the” was used 11 times, though you probably didn’t notice it.

Beyond these instances, however, avoiding repetition of words is advisable.

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Add textual depth to your story with symbolism

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

One of the fun aspects of the literary and science fiction genres of fiction is that the story can mean much more than the action-adventure tale it appears to be at first glance. Indeed, science fiction often is a literature of social criticism because its characters, planets and gizmos represent something in our world. For example, the crew of the Enterprise and the Federation in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” represent the United States and Western world while the Klingons represent Russia in the days following the Soviet Union’s collapse. The movie is about how we in the present will deal with the end of the Cold War.

To achieve a broader thematic meaning in a story, authors use a variety of symbols, which are the attributing of representative meanings or significance to objects, events or relationships. There are many types of symbols, but in literature three are primary (all examples are from Ray Bradbury’s “The Lost City of Mars”):
g Metaphors - When a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “… he let loose such a deluge of laughter that those below him almost raised their hands to ward off the avalanche …” (his laughter is compared to a flood)
g Similes - When two unlike things are compared in a phrase beginning with “like” or “as”, as in “… a boat as fresh as the morning itself, with new-minted silver crews and brass pipings …” (the new boat is compared the beginning of day)
g Personification - When inanimate objects or abstractions are given human qualities, as in “The great eye floated in space. And behind the great eye somewhere, hidden away within the metal and machinery, was a small eye that belonged to a man who could not stop looking at all the multitude of stars and the diminishing and growings of light a billion billion miles away.” (the “great eye” is a telescope lens)

Using symbols add a layer of textual depth to your story. Given this, they should not be used haphazardly. An inappropriate or confusing symbol can distract the reader or give him reason to believe you mean one thing when you really mean another.

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Create sense of immediacy in your story through point of view

2012-01-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

A story can be told from several viewpoints. When the main character narrates his own experiences and observations, the author is using “first person limited” point of view.

This viewpoint is autobiographical in nature. It’s “limited” because the narrator only can tell what he perceives, not what other characters see, hear or think.

Consider this example from Ann Aguirre’s novel “Grimpsace”:

My AI asks, “Lights on, Sirantha Jax?”

Such a polite Unit spy. The fragging thing reports everything I do, every time I roll over, probably every time I take a piss.”

We only know the world from the narrator’s perspective. We have no idea what the AI is “thinking” about the narrator, the humans its serves or of its duties.

There are several advantages to using first person limited:
g Immediacy - Since the story is told as the main character makes observations, the reader in turn observes the story’s world as the same moment that the character does. This helps keep a strong flow of dramatic tension.
g Identification - This point of view typically makes identifying with the character easier for readers. They have a greater feeling of intimacy with him.
g Distinctive voice - Often a unique narrative voice is possible, which can make story more interesting to reader. In “Grimspace,” for example, the reader gains a strong sense of Jax’s anger at being incarcerated when she directly tells the tale. If told from a more objective viewpoint, however, some of the anger would be lost, and Jax would be a far less distinct - and hence interesting – character: “Lights on, Sirantha Jax?” her AI asked. Jax cursed at the AI in her mind, thought about how reported everything she did, every time she rolled over, probably every time she took a piss.”
g Control - The author arguably can better control flow of narrative when it is first person limited. Because only one character’s perspective is told, the pace of what happens to that character primarily affects the story’s flow.
g Conversational - This viewpoint often sounds more conversational in tone. This allows for use of slang, jargon offbeat expressions, as in the novel and movie “A Clockwork Orange”.
g Awareness - This perspective sometimes is used because it allows for characters who are naïve, evil or mistaken to reveal their flaws even though they haven’t grown or changed during the story. Because the author can control the narrative flow, he can point out, via the narrator’s errors in observation, that a character fault exists. Readers picking up on this error find themselves contemplating if they themselves possess this fault.

Depending on the story you’re telling, first-person limited can be ill-suited. A few disadvantages of using this point of view include:
g The unreliability of the narrator can be problematic - Since the narrator could be lying or distorting events, the reader may not identify with or understand that character.
g Any action not directly involving the narrator can’t be told - This can be limiting for an author. Who may need to show how other characters react to an event with more depth or objectivity than the narrator’s perception of those characters can offer.
g Threats to the main character can seem less dramatic - The reader knows in advance that the narrator will survive, and a dead narrator can’t tell a story, after all.
g The main character typically can’t describe himself - When the narrator does, he runs the risk of sounding obnoxious, or the passage can sound forced.

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Know your protagonist better than you know yourself

2012-01-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Virtually every story has a central character that spends the tale overcoming a major challenge. This character is called the protagonist.

Examples of well-known protagonists include Captain Kirk in “Star Trek: The Original Series” episodes, Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars IV-VI” and Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”

Usually the protagonist also is the viewpoint character, but not always. Stories told by a friend or assistant of the protagonist would be an example of this.

When writing a story, you want to think a lot about the protagonist. He’s the most important character of your story, after all, an ambassador of the author who is reaching out to the reader. Create a dull or a contradictory or an unlikeable protagonist, and your story will suffer. Because of this, many authors know far more about their protagonist than ever makes it in their story.

You should know what your protagonist looks like, his strengths and weaknesses, his likes and dislikes, what motivates him, his parents and schooling, who he’s dated throughout his life, the foods he enjoys and hates, the what he does during his free time, how his apartment is decorated, places he’s visited, places he yet wants to go, and more. You should know your protagonist better than you know yourself.

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Add reaction shots to heighten dramatic tension

2012-01-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

Description in your stories shouldn’t be limited to landscapes and introductions of characters. While most description in a story will be devoted to those purposes, there are other times when a single phrase or line of description can be inserted amid action and dialogue with great effectiveness.

One such insertion is known as a “reaction shot.” A term commonly used in science fiction workshops and critiques, a reaction shot is a cut away from the narrative to show a character’s emotional response. Consider this example from Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert’s short story “Stray”:

“You smoke?”

Ivan blinked up at him. What was this? “I have,” he said.

The description of Ivan blinking up at the speaker is an example of a reaction shot. It provides insight into Ian’s character by showing his surprise that another would treat him in a friendly manner.

Such cutaways are natural to readers of today, primarily because we see it all the time in movies and television programs. Indeed, the term comes from the filming industry.

When utilizing a reaction shot, be sure to follow a couple of guidelines. First, the character cut away to is the main character. It’s his emotional responses and insights into his personality that most interest readers. Secondly, don’t cut away to an obvious emotional reaction, such as laughing at a joke. If you do, you risk slowing the story. Be selective with reaction shots, using them to further the dramatic tension.

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Questions to answer about your macguffin

2012-01-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Not all stories are about restoring order in the universe or overcoming some personal conflict. Sometimes the plot revolves around the search for an item that will elevate the main character’s position in the world or will prevent an evil force from gaining the upper hand. This item is called a macguffin, a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock.

The macguffin could be a chalice that promises immortality (King Arthur’s holy grail stories), the One Ring (“Lord of the Rings”), a valuable piece of art (“The Maltese Falcon”), a magic jewel, a secret formula – anything that is so highly desired that it creates obstacles and challenges for the main character who tries to obtain it.

If using a macguffin in your story, two questions must be answered. First, why is the object valuable? If the importance (and usually the exoticness) of the object is explained, the reader will quickly lose interest as the story has little point. After all, every one of us spends time looking for mundane objects. A second question to answer is why are the characters motivated to obtain the macguffin? To say the object is valuable is not enough, for one man’s treasure often is another man’s junk. Usually a character needs some overwhelming reason to desire an object, such as the thirst for immortality or a desperate need for money.

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Free yourself during that first mad scribble of story notes

2012-01-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

If you’re putting your pen to paper or fingers to keyboard for the first time on a story, you really aren’t starting at all. You probably “started” writing the piece some time before – in your head.

That “thinking step” is known in the writing process as brainstorming. It is where you come up with the idea for the story; it is that first mad scribble of notes about your characters, their conflicts, the setting the story will occur, a catchy title and more.

There is no magical answer for making the muse bless you with inspiration. It varies greatly, even for authors in the same genre. Some writers only can create when stress free. Others need to be in a tumultuous environment. Some need to delve into good books, examine great art, and listen to fine music. Others need a blank, almost sterile room so their mind can focus.

Regardless, once inspiration does strike, you’re ready to brainstorm. In fact, you’ll probably just do it naturally (and usually when there’s no pen or paper handy!)

The biggest challenge facing you when brainstorming is to prevent your self-doubts from hindering your creativity.

Don’t tell yourself it’s a lousy story idea. It may indeed be lousy, but by allowing yourself to explore the possibilities, you may come upon an idea that’s pretty darn good. Be curious not critical. Criticism comes later when you start outlining your work (which is the next step in the writing process) through the revising of it.

In addition to generating your idea, brainstorming can involve collection of information to help you formulate your story idea. If it involves a historical romance set in the beginning of the Roman Empire, you may want to read about the time of Caesar and Augustus. This likely will spur further ideas about your book, perhaps even whole scenes.

In many ways, the brainstorming portion of the writing process is the most fun. It’s a time when you let your mind dream freely and your visions soar, leaving practical questions like “Who is my reader?” (which could alter the plotting and style of your book) for later stages.

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Understand instructions before writing your academic paper

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Before you even begin writing your paper, you need to fully understand what the instructor expects. Knowing that will help you focus your thoughts about what you’ll write and will prevent you from later having to rewrite when the instructor reviews your paper before you turn it in.

Hopefully, the instructor has given more than verbal instructions about what to write. If that’s all he does, though, make sure you take notes. If the assignment is unclear, ask the instructor to clarify. Even if the instructions are given in written form on a marker board, in a syllabus, or via email, always ask for clarification if some element is unclear.

From the instructions, you should be able to answer the following questions:
g What is the paper’s topic or thrust? You need to know the scope of what you can write about. This will help you determine what you should research and your thesis (or the main point of your paper).
g What is the paper’s length? You don’t want to write too little or too much. Usually the paper’s maximum length is given by page or word count.
g When is the paper due? Knowing the deadline will help you set up a timetable for completing the paper. The instructions also may include some pre-deadline dates, such as when you must meet the instructor for a conference to discuss the paper.
g What kind of paper do you have to write? Not every paper is a straight report in which you describe what you learned from your readings and research. In some papers, you must take a position and support it with evidence; in others, you might analyze an issue.

Also, watch in the instructions for any information about:
g How should the paper be structured? All papers follow a basic structure of introduction, supporting points, and conclusion. There are many ways, however, to organize that middle section of supporting points, which is the meat of your paper. Your instructor may have a preference for how you organize that section, such as three supporting points or using comparison and contrast.
g What style should you write the paper in? You’ll likely need footnotes and a bibliography for your paper, especially as you advance in your coursework. Knowing if the instructor wants you to use APA, the Chicago Manual of Style, or another format is key as this determines how your footnoting, bibliography and more will be done.
g What sources can I use? Your instructor may limit from where you can gather information to quote or reference in the paper (usually encyclopedias are a no-no). He also may require that you use specific sources, such as books read for class or experiences that you had while working on a class project.

There are many other instructions or bits of information that might be given (such as how many points or percent of your grade the paper is worth), all based on the paper you’ve been asked to write and the course you’re taking. It may seem like extra work to read or ask about all of these instructions, but fully understanding them will make planning and writing your paper considerably easier and in the long run save you far more time.

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Fresh, original content is vital to your website

2012-01-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

There are more than 350 million websites on the planet. To get readers to stay on yours and to return, you need to offer what nobody else does – or at least in a way that no one else does. That’s a challenge certainly, but it can be done. Simply follow some basic principles of website text.

Your website text should be:
g Unique – Rather than be a copycat of a competitor’s site, you need to present your business by using original wording and descriptions. You may sell the exact same products and even offer the exact same services, but your website is an opportunity to distinguish your business from the rest.
g Useful – Readers come to your site to obtain information. You must then provide the information that the majority of them want so that they’ll stick around, increasing the chances that they’ll then purchase your products or services. Rather than offer vague wording (such as a lot of superlatives), tell them exactly what you offer and why it’s better than the rest. Think about this wording from your readers’ point of view. What do they want to know? Figure that out then provide it.
g Updated – If your website was created even a few months ago, you may need to update it, whether it is because there are new employees whose pictures need to be posted or because prices have changed. Providing outdated information to people makes your business look bad, causing potential customers to think you’re scamming them or less than competent.
g Fresh – Among the worst mistakes businesses make is creating a static website. To keep potential customers coming back to your site and to convince them that you can provide the best services or product, you’ll want to regularly provide new information that demonstrates your expertise and knowledge of the field. A blog with posts two or three times a week is a great way to do this.

In addition, sites that are purely meta-lists, meaning they only provide links to other sites, aren’t a great idea. Despite being easy to build, they offer no original, unique content. Of course, meta-lists can be useful as a component of your website; for example, if your site reviews hiking gear, perhaps you’d provide a list, with links, to businesses that sell backpacks, trekking poles and boots as one of your pages. But if your site primarily is a series of links to other sites, once the reader discovers a great webpage via your meta-list, they may decide not to go back to yours.

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Don't trust word processor for accurate word count

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

When you’re deciding where to send your story for publication, pay close attention to the directions about word counts. Editors have only so much space for a story, and if your story goes over the word count, it won’t fit the space and so likely will be rejected. It’s a rare story in a rare situation that exceeds word counts and is accepted for publication.

Determining word count is not quite as easy as hitting a button on your word processor. While that word count method is satisfactory for submitting your story, remember that editors and publishers traditionally count words in a different way. A word processing program counts a word as a set of letters with spaces around them. Because of that, your word processing program would say that the first sentence of this entry contains 19 words. In the past, however, a “word” was every five characters, regardless of where the spaces were. This gave a count that better matched the amount of physical space available on a page. By that method, this entry’s first sentence contains 20 words.

One word isn’t much of a difference. But over a 10 typed pages, the difference can cost you a paragraph. So be prepared to be edited for length.

Another quick note: when determining word counts, do not include what appears in your manuscript’s headers, only the actual text from the first to the last word of the story.

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Eliminate 'nulls' to increase dramatic tension in your story

2012-01-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the only purpose of a story’s sentence is to say that nothing happened. Such sentences are called “nulls”. An example would be the sentence “He said nothing.”

Fortunately, nulls are easy to spot: if your story were occurring in real life, nulls would be the points where nothing happens.

Nulls can be deleted from the story. They slow down the piece’s immediacy and dramatic tension.

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Avoid falling into trap of presenting 'evils of duality'

2012-01-02T07:00:00.000-08:00

When developing a storyline about a main character overcoming a problem, some writers fall into the trap of creating an adversary who personifies evil. In doing so, the theme and plot of the story is reduced to the level of good guys vs. bad guys.

This oversimplification is known as “evils of duality”, which is when the theme is presented as a simple dichotomy of ideas.

We’ve all seen and read such stories; they dominate science fiction television shows and motion pictures. The theme has a number of variations, including empire vs. resistance (“Star Wars IV: A New Hope”), spacers vs. earthers (rip-offs off Isaac Asimov’s “The Caves of Steel”) and us vs. them (the television show “The Invaders”).

While such reductionism can make great action-adventure stories, it also robs the tales of potential richness. Consider “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Balance of Terror” in which a Romulan ship makes surprise raids on Federation outposts to test new weapons. Rather than remaining a submarine story set in space with the good Captain Kirk vs. the villainous Romulan commander, the episode aims for something higher. We learn that the Romulan commander is torn between his sense of duty and his disgust with his government that it is seeking another war. The Romulan commander must deal with a subordinate who has blind loyalty to the government and the potential loss of his ship and its crewmembers. We learn much about the nature of war and its effect on people thanks to this approach.

Of course, characters can think in such dualistic terms, and they do in “Balance of Terror”. The Romulan commander has his subordinate, and Captain Kirk has a bigoted navigator. This usually is a sign of those minor characters’ narrow thinking, however, and is used for dramatic tension as the main characters deal with the story’s deeper issues.

In any case, your story’s universe should be broader than your character’s thinking. Real life is a series of clear black and white issues. There’s lots of fuzzy gray. As a writer, it’s your job to explore that unclear gray. Your readers will appreciate it.

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Who tells your tale: The most important 'character' in your story?

2011-12-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

Arguably the most important “character” in your story isn’t its hero but the narrator – the person who tells the tale.

The narrator can be the story’s hero, as in Hannu Rajaniemi’s “Deux ex Homine:
As gods go, I wasn’t one of the holier-than-thou, dying for your sins variety. I was a full-blown transhumanist deity with a liquid metal body, an external brain, clouds of self-replicating utility fog to do my bidding and a recursively self-improving AI slaved to my volition. I could do anything I wanted. I wasn’t Jesus, I was Superman: an evil Bizarro Superman.

On occasion, the narrator is another character in the story, who observes what occurs to the hero, as in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, in which Watson tells how Holmes solves the mystery:
[Holmes] was a man of habits... and I had become one of them... a comrade... upon whose nerve he could place some reliance... a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him... If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.

Often the narrator isn’t even a character in the story but the author’s persona, as in Stephen Baxter’s “Lakes of Light”:
The door of Bicansa’s car opened. A creature climbed our cautiously. In a bright orange pressure suit, its body was low-slung, supported by four limbs as thick as tree trunks. Even through the suit Pala could make out immense bones at hips and shoulders, and massive joints along the spine. It lifted its head and looked into the car. Through a thick visor Pala could make out a face – thick-jawed, flattened, but a human face nonetheless. The creature nodded once. Then it turned and, moving heavily, carefully, made its way toward the colony and its lake of light.

Who you select as the story’s narrator is vital. The narrator holds a unique position among readers, possessing an air of authority. Because of this, the narrator shapes the reader’s attitudes. Choose the wrong narrator, and you risk the reader interpreting events in a way you don’t intend.

Another note of caution: be careful of not imposing yourself too much if the narrator is your persona. If you directly insert too many of your views rather than let the characters’ action demonstrate your view, the story will be weakened.

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Some of your story's most important characters are fairly insignificant

2011-12-29T07:00:00.000-08:00

Not all characters in your story are created equal. Some of the utmost importance while some are fairly insignificant.

The most important characters are the ones who face and overcome a number of serious problems and obstacles in a story. They are called major characters. In “Star Trek”, they would be Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. In “Star Wars IV-VI”, they would be Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo.

In contrast, minor characters face few obstacles and often none at all. Because of this, minor characters have few lines of dialogue and usually appear only incidentally. They are part of the background, necessary for advancing the plot and giving the story a semblance of reality, but they are not who the story is about. In “Star Trek,” they (typically) would be Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, the transporter chief, the red shirt who dies on the planet. In “Star Wars IV-VI”, they would be the stormtroopers, the Jawas and the cantina musicians.

It’s not necessary to develop all of your characters. In fact, the fewer you develop the better, especially if writing a short story or novella. This allows the reader to focus on a single character (or small band of characters) who must overcome the story’s central problem.

At the same time, don’t skimp on minor characters if they’re needed in your story. The tale about the scientist professor making a startling but dangerous discovery probably needs to include a research assistant, department secretary and bored students. There’s nothing wrong with including these side players. Just make sure they seem real (that is, they shouldn’t be stereotypes) and that they don’t attract the reader’s attention too much.

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Customer comes first when designing your website

2011-12-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

The biggest mistake businesses make when creating their website is designing it for themselves rather than for their customers. Getting a website is exciting, after all, and when combined with pride in one’s company, all too often the person who really needs to use it is given short shrift or even forgotten.

Think of a website as a sales pitch, however. It’s not for boasting about a company or its owners or its employees but instead about meeting a potential customer’s needs. When creating a website, ask yourself exactly what is it that the customer wants to hear.

That’s paramount. Unlike a television commercial or face-to-face meeting in which you have a number of opportunities to garner attention, you have no time to waste via your website. Nearly a fifth of those visitors to your website will leave it within four seconds, according to one study.

Granted, a number of visitors will come to your site and discover your product or service is not what they want … as with any brick and mortar store, people stop in all the time just to get a sense of what products are available only to find it’s not quite what they’re looking for, so don’t expect 100% captivity.

But for at least a few of those visitors, the product or service they wanted was available – they just didn’t see it. Your goal must be to get them to notice it so they’ll stay longer.

If you don’t, expect that some other company will. After all, your competition is only a click away.

Given your goal of getting visitors to see your products or services, visual gimmicks like pop ups and flashing words often don’t work. If anything, they’re a turn-off, as the web page user views them as distractions or even advertisements for another company! You still can use a number of pleasing visual and design techniques to keep readers on your page – in fact, you want to do that – but once you’ve got them on your web page, you need to have the right words to convince them that your company offers the exact product or service that they want.

The big question you must then answer is “Who is my target audience?” You must apply all that you know about their needs and wants, their reading levels, their intelligence levels, their buying power, so you can best appeal to it. You need to think strategically about what words you’ll use.

That will require a balancing act. You’ll want to be generic enough that most people can understand what you’re talking about. Often customers who need something aren’t certain what they specifically need, and as they hunt for it they need information that points them in the right direction and helps them better form in their mind what is best for them. At the same time, don’t be so generic that you fail to provide your target audience with the information it needs to make an informed decision.

In addition, ask yourself what tone your customers will find appealing. For example, a design company might wish to show it is creativity and does so through lively, slightly humorous writing. The visual design of the webpage largely establishes the site’s tone, but the words should reflect that feel as well.

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Write your book using these simple steps

2011-12-26T12:18:00.000-08:00

When writing, you probably follow a process – that is, you go through a series of steps from the proverbial germ of an idea to (hopefully!) its publication.

The general steps include:
g Brainstorming – This is where you come up with the idea. It is that first mad scribble of notes about your characters, their conflicts, the setting the story will occur.
g Outlining – Getting down to work, you develop a scene-by-scene plan for what will occur in the story. It may be a classic outline with Roman numerals, a synopsis of each scene, or notes nicely divided onto little 3x5 note cards.
g Drafting – Next, the outline is fleshed out into actual written scenes from the start of the story to its end. You may write several drafts of a story.
g Revising – This ranges from correcting typos to rewriting whole scenes. With each revision, you create a new draft of the story.
g Final form – After several drafts, you will arrive at a “final” version. This typically is the one that is published in a book or magazine.

Of course, very few people actually follow these steps in a precise, military drill order. You’re probably brainstorming as you’re outlining, trying to figure out what is the best climax to your story. You’re probably revising as drafting, correcting typos and rewriting poor lines of dialogue penned the day before. You’re probably creating a new outline for a scene when revising as you decide the interaction between the characters just doesn’t work.

Recognizing these steps and knowing where you are with them as writing can be useful. Why? Because it:
g Forces you to think about what you writing, which typically means a more complex and sophisticated work. Only a novice will sit down at the coffee shop, write for a few hours, and think he’s come away with a perfect, ready to publish story (though sometimes a true genius does this!). Writing typically involves a lot of mental sweat.
g Saves you time. For example, if you outline first, you don’t have to start all over when your first draft turns out to be a structural mess. If you brainstorm first, you won’t sit at the coffee shop people watching for hours on end because you can’t think of something to write.
g Prevent rejection. If you write a first draft in final form and send it off, chances are you’ll be rejected because your story is flawed in a number of ways that you haven’t taken the time to address. If it isn’t rejected, you’re either darn lucky or a literary genius.

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Delete out of place distractions in your story's descriptions

2011-12-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

You’ve probably read several stories in which upon reading their climax in which the hero uses some object to help him achieve victory, thought to yourself, “Hey, that object was mentioned earlier in the story.” The object in question probably was mentioned in passing so that it did not distract you from the tale. But if the object hadn’t been noted, upon reaching the conclusion you’d probably find yourself saying, “How convenient that it was there!”

Mentioning early in a story some object – or even a character, prize or challenge – that later helps the main character resolve his central problem is a ploy known as “Chekhov’s gun”. It comes from playwright Anton Chekhov’s advice that if you put a gun on the in Act I, you must use it by Act III. Otherwise, the gun is just a distraction that is out of place.

Of course, if your science fiction story is a murder mystery set in space, such distractions are necessary to the plot and enjoyment of the story. Like a labyrinth, a mystery’s plot must contain wrong turns and dead ends for the main character.

But in tales that aren’t murder mysteries or detective stories, forcing the reader to invest time in an object or character that doesn’t offer some plot payoff later in the tale is downright annoying, not to mention poor craftsmanship.

Using Chekhov’s gun also avoids the inconvenient plot problem of a deus ex machina – an improbable contrivance that allows the central problem to be solved.

H.G. Wells uses such a strategy in “The War of the Worlds”. In the novel’s opening lines, he writes:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.
Bacteria seen under a microscope aren’t mentioned again in the novel until the story’s climax: As humanity appears doomed to defeat, bacteria infects and kills the Martian invaders, saving us from extinction.

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Start your story with an event that upsets the status quo

2011-12-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

Often the opening of a story involves some incident that upsets the status quo. In doing so, the main character faces the challenge of restoring order in the world.

This incident is known as an “out-of-whack event,” which is “when the story concerns a character who stable life is knocked out of whack by an external event,” as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc., defines it.

Consider this example of a story opener that employs an out-of-whack event:

Peter Hanswurst sniffed indignantly. A gray circle of withered plants lay in the middle of his field, an otherwise perfect patch of green soybeans alternating with black dirt that ran into the horizon. The hot Midwestern sun beat down on him, and he wiped sweat from his forehead. Hanswurst figured the circle was no more six feet across, a miniscule fraction of the entire field, and one he decided that was small enough to eradicate.

In this story, farmer Peter Hanswurst finds his world out-of-whack: a strange circle of dead plants sits in the middle of his otherwise perfect field. He now will spend the story trying to rid the field of the circle – and face a number of obstacles in doing so.

Starting a story with an out-of-whack event is a time-honored tradition in Western storytelling. Indeed, Aristotle touted it.

Usually the out-of-whack event happens at the story’s beginning. Sometimes it even occurs before the story begins, as the tale starts with the main character already engaged in the struggle to get his life back in order. If the excerpt above started with Peter Hanswurst plowing under the dead plants in the gray circle, the out-of-whack event would have occurred before the story began.

If using an out-of-whack event, don’t wait too long to introduce the incident. If you do, you risk having the story move too slowly and missing out on a great opportunity for a narrative hook.

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Avoid get-it-in-the-mail syndrome

2011-12-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

You’ve written a book and decide it’s time to let the world see it and your genius. You’re now on your way to the mailbox to send off that piece – or are downloading to be published at Amazon.com or by Lulu.

Whoa, mister!

Before sending any piece, make sure you’ve done more than just write the piece. Revising almost always is a key step on the way to publication.

When writers are so eager to submit their story for publication that the work isn’t revised, they suffer from “get-it-in-the-mail syndrome”. This term was coined by CSFW’s Sari Boren. It’s a term that sometimes pops up during critiques of science fiction works.

A special form of this syndrome is the “grouper effect,” in which participants in a writers' workshop do not adequately revise their work because they’re eager to submit to the group for review. CFSW’s Alan Jablokov coined this term.

You want to revise your work, however. The competition for the limited magazine spots and novels that will be published is high. Often perfectly good stories are passed over. To give yourself the edge, you want to make your story as perfect as possible. That doesn’t mean you never submit your piece because it’s always in the state of being rewritten, but it does mean that you shouldn’t just rip off a piece and ship it off to an editor. It’s a rare book, indeed, that is perfect after the first draft.

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Use pacing to maintain sense of tension in your story

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

As developing your story, maintaining a sense of tension is vital. Without dramatic tension - a feeling of uncertainty in the reader about how the main character will solve (or even if he will resolve) the central problem - the story will be flat and vanilla.

Creating tension involves controlling the story's pace. Pace is the timing by which the major events in the plot unfold and in which the big scenes are shown.

The "better" the story, then the better that the author handled the pace. "Star Wars IV: A New Hope", the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Yesterday's Enterprise", Douglas Adams' comedic novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder" all are examples of masterful pacing.

Every story has a different pace. Those that are more introspective tend to move at a slower pace while those that are action-packed tend to be fast. Because of this, all stories run on a "story clock". This is a measurement in which action is internally described. As with the wider universe, however, there is no objective clock. A true sign of craftsmanship is when an author sets the story clock winding at the right pace for an individual tale.

Regardless of the story, however, good pacing always involves compression and expansion of time - In "real time," events don't unfold at the same rate as they do in a story. For example, a suborbital flight from New York to Tokyo in real time might take a hour, but in the story it's handled in a phrase that takes a couple of seconds to read. Usually the authors speeds up or slows down the action to match the emotions he wants the reader to have.

Another aspect of good pacing is "travel time". Characters don't change their personalities or their minds about important decisions overnight. A character must "travel" a certain emotional distance to arrive at such changes. The author's wording and dramatic action must mirror that pace.

Of course, you have only so many words to tell a story, so reducing that "travel time" is important. There are a few ways you can accomplish that without cheating on the emotional distance that a character must traverse:
g Intercut a different story - Sometimes a parallel story or subplot can help lead the character to change more quickly because he realizes, through analogy, that he must change.
g Fill intervening time with straight action - A change often doesn't occur because one has thought through a problem but because physical experiences test and uncover what one truly believes. Straight action can be a crucible that helps the character come to a new understanding.
g Develop other characters - As with a parallel story or subplot, other characters who undergo change can affect the protagonist. Their changes can test and alter the protagonist's beliefs.
g Offer description - Changes in the landscape and climate can symbolically represent the emotional currents in the protagonist's thinking.

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Don't burden readers with a self-indulgent digression

2011-12-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

Many writers pen stories to make a statement about an ethical or political issue. This is especially true in science fiction; the movie “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, for example, is largely about the need for humanity to be better stewards of the Earth, specifically in the way we treat whales.

Unlike “The Voyage Home”, however, authors sometimes are tempted to get on their soapbox rather than allow the message to unfold with the story. When a diatribe or rant is inserted in the story, the author is guilty of a self-indulgent digression.

There are a lot of good reasons to excise this digression from your story. First, it breaks the story’s dramatic tension. You only have so many words to tell a story, and if you don’t use every one of them to move the tale forward, the risk of the reader putting the novel down or turning to another story in the magazine increases. Furthermore, the point of a fiction story is to express a message through the character’s actions, to show a position by taking us through the people’s lives as they face a moral crisis. Diatribes and rants aren’t why readers picked up your story. Finally, such digressions indicate a lack of craftsmanship on your part. Good writers don’t convince their readers to take a moral or political stance by arguing points as if they’re in a debate but instead rely on the power of storytelling.

Simply put, get rid of the rant in your story. Send a letter to the editor, go stand on a soapbox in a park or write a blog if your must write a diatribe. After all, readers picked up the publication that your story is in to read fiction not essays.

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Tell your story from the right character's perspective

2011-12-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Every story is told from someone’s perspective. This someone is known as the viewpoint character.

For example, in “The Matrix” movie series, the story is seen through the perspective of Neo, the tales’ hero. In the short story Thomas F. Monteleone’s “Present Perfect”, it’s the magazine editor William Rutherford. Usually the story’s hero is the viewpoint character. Sometimes this character is referred to as the “POV character”.

The viewpoint character does not have to be the story’s main character - or even a character in the story, however.

How do you decide who will be the viewpoint character? Ask yourself which character:
g Faces key decisions that must be shown in the story? You must show how these choices are arrived at to move along your plot, so this character is a good choice to be the viewpoint character.
g Makes the best observer? Sometimes the main character facing significant choices doesn’t have the ability to make the right decision; in such a story, your viewpoint character is showing how the main character made the wrong call.
g Serves as a surrogate for the author? This character usually is the author living a fantasy. Making him the viewpoint character can result in a melodramatic story.
g Serves as a surrogate for reader? This character probably is the best viewpoint character as it is the one who readers can identify with.

One last note: Your viewpoint character, if a character in the story, needs to be at an event to tell about it. Having a key event told to the viewpoint character amounts to exposition, a major style issue.

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Create the 'perfect' main character

2011-12-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Typically a story is about a single character who must overcome some problem. This player in your story is called the main character. Common examples are Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars IV: A New Hope”, Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”, and Jessica Fletcher in “Murder, She Wrote”.

Main characters usually are the hero of the story. The tale often is told from their viewpoint.

Quality main characters typically:
g Possess likeable traits but also have a major flaw - Your main character may be brave, intelligent, a natural leader and handsome, but he also ought to be indecisive, obsessed, or hold some other negative quality. Your character runs the risk of being melodramatic (or too perfect) if he doesn’t possess some flaw. Such stories may be fun for kids to read (and possibly even instructive for them) but is not a believable story for an even slightly discerning adult reader.
g Face a challenge that attacks him at his weakest point: his major flaw -To succeed, the main character should must grow and develop in such a way that he confronts and overcomes his major flaw. Oftentimes, to overcome his major flaw, he must surrender something of “inestimable value” to himself. In exchange, by overcoming this inner conflict the main character should gain something of inestimable worth. Such challenges maximize tension in a story and allows the reader to take something with him when he’s finished the story.
g Overcome conflicts that allows him to grow - All conflicts the main character faces should serve to point or direct him toward ultimately overcoming his major flaw. By overcoming such challenges, the main character inches closer to realizing what he must do to solve his major flaw, which in turn allows him to overcome the problem that set the story in the motion.
g Don’t give up - Main characters almost always fight to main control of their lives. They want to determine their own destiny.

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Don't let ergonomics issues keep you from writing your bestseller

2011-12-14T14:29:00.001-08:00

You always have great book ideas, but whenever you sit to type, you just can’t get comfortable enough for the words to come out. In a short while, your eyes are burning and your wrists aching. You’re wondering if you’re really cut out to be an author, even though you enjoy writing a lot.

The problem probably has little to do with your love of or skill for writing but with ergonomics issues.

The human body really isn’t meant to perform for hours on end some of the tasks that our modern writing and office equipment demand of it. All too often our necks cramp from looking at computer screens at slanted angles, our eyes burn from staring too long at a fixed distance (a computer monitor), and our fingers turn numb from the strain of our wrists performing repetitive motions.

If you’ve spent all day working in an office under such conditions, the last thing your body wants to do once you’re home at night or for the weekend is to keep it up.

To address ergonomics issues, listen to your body. If your wrists or back feel stressed when writing, you may need to “revise” your writing area. Sometimes you simply need to raise or lower your chair to avoid typing at odd angles or to adjust the computer monitor to eliminate glare. You may need to add lighting to prevent eye strain.

In addition, always sit up straight when typing and take frequent breaks if using a computer. If your body still feels stressed, consider writing like during the days of old with a pen and notebook. While you’ll ultimately want to get your writing typed and saved, at least when you have good ideas you can continue to pursue them.

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Avoid white room syndrome in your writing

2011-12-13T09:23:00.000-08:00

Establishing the setting at the beginning of a story is no easy task. For some genres such as science fiction and fantasy, imagining the story's world involves thinking about every aspect of how it differs from ours in sights, sounds, scents and even tastes and feel.

Rather than fully imagine such a world, some writers instead create a quick, unformed facsimile of their own. For example, they start the story with the line, "She awoke in a white room". The white room is the white piece of paper facing the author. This is known as "white room syndrome", a term coined a few year ago at the Turkey City Workshop in Austin (a group that has included authors William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Rudy Rucker and Walter Jon Williams).
They officially define white room syndrome as "an authorial imagination inadequate to the situation at end, most common at the beginning of a story". In short, because the science fiction world wasn't fully imagined, it can't support the story that unfolds from it.

Sometimes this occurs because a writers' inspiration for the story is from a setting in which he found himself. If the writer takes some extra time to think about and develop this world, however, such inspiration can be put to good effect. This is the case in the non science fiction story "The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

White room syndrome also can occur because some writers believe that they should simply start writing and let the world evolve from there, a la the Beat writers' approach. Sometimes this technique does work, but all too often the writers misses the full potential of this kernel of a setting that is planted in the opening line. Even worse, the writer creates an inconsistent setting because he haphazardly creates a new world.

The lesson here: Think a lot about and fully develop your setting before committing to it.

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Write a great narrative hook for your story

2011-12-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

One sign of a good opener is that it makes the reader want to continue with the story. Using a fishing metaphor, a good opener “hooks” the reader.

Writers who catch the reader have employed a successful narrative hook. A narrative hook involves dangling elements of the story before the reader so he can’t help but bite. This is done by making the reader want to know more - the who, what, where, when, how and why of the story.

Consider this story opener:

Jord ducked around the corner, pressed himself hard against the damp wall, wishing he could fade into it. His eyes darted toward the wall’s edge, hoping to catch the shift of a shadow, a movement of brush, any sign at all that they were close.

Notice how it dangles elements of the story. The reader wants to know why Jord is running and who is chasing him. The reader wants to know if Jord will get caught.

Successful narrative hooks usually begin the story in the middle of the action. Conflict already is underway. Beginning a story this way immediately creates dramatic tension, which for most readers is the delight of the narrative.

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Avoid 'As you know' Syndrome

2011-12-09T07:18:00.000-08:00

Whatever you do, avoid embedding exposition by having one character say to another, “As you know …” This is commonly given in science fiction stories by a “Stapledon”, which is a character who gives us an info dump, usually one at great length and without interruption (The term is ignominiously pays homage to science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon, who regularly made use of this technique.). It’s an obvious info dump and immediately flags to the reader that the forward movement of plot is about to be slowed, that he is about to be lectured and the viewpoint may be violated. As award-winning science fiction editor Gardner Dozois said of the Stapledon, “That’s probably the most common beginner’s mistake …”

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Your website: Text is king, design is queen

2011-12-08T07:34:00.000-08:00

There’s a lot of great stuff out there about what a website should look like and how to build one. Yet the most important element of any website is the words conveyed on it.

After all, the reason people go to a website is for information – about products, about services, about you as a person – to see if what you offer is the right match for them. Pictures make what you’ve written easier for readers to visualize and the website’s design makes navigating the pages easier for the audience, but in the end what matters are the words: The price of a product, the synopsis of a book being that can be ordered, the description of the services offered. A website with only pictures and a sexy design does little except to show you’re high on style but low on substance … and substantive products or service is what your customers want – and where the words come in.

Indeed, well-written websites also tend to drive more traffic, which means more business for you. Such websites contain the rights words that allow potential customers to more easily find your webpage via a search engine.

None of this is to denigrate a website’s design. Undoubtedly, it is the visual aspect of your website that first grabs the page visitor. And a poorly designed webpage – even with great information on it – will drive away potential customers.

Ultimately, a good web page consists of both great design and great text. All too often, though, we give the text little attention in favor of the design. While there’s much truth to the notion that “Content is king,” I prefer to think of a good webpage as “Text is king” and “Design is queen.” They’re partners in this endeavor, and for the kingdom (or your webpage) to succeed, they need to work in tandem, complementing one another’s strengths.

The challenge facing you when writing website text is to convey what needs to be said in as few words as possible. Many readers stay on a site for only a few seconds, and if the website writer doesn’t select the right one or two words that best appeal to your potential customer, you’re sunk. Once you do have webpage visitors hooked enough to stay longer, then you need to have set of words to convince them your product or service is worthy of their dollars. If you don’t, there are hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of other websites that they can click on to seek what they need.

In short, don’t favor design over text when constructing your website. If you do, you’ll just be wasting your money. In future entries, we’ll explore exactly how to write perfect text for your website.

Need an editor?
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Don't trust spellcheck, your junior high-aged editor

2011-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

So you’ve got your story typed in manuscript form and are about to send it out. You decide to do one more spell check before printing the final copy. Good idea, right?

Wrong.

If you don’t feel confident that your manuscript is as perfect as can be, you should print it and make one more read of it. Don’t leave your manuscript’s quality up to the computer spell check.

Instead, learn to distrust the spell check.

Spell checks certainly are improving, and the dynamic spell check on current word processing programs are excellent tools. A spell check, however, should not be the sole method you use to edit your manuscript.

Here are some common problems with spell check:
g Homonyms - These are words that sound the same but are spelled differently, such as there, their and they’re. The different spellings have different meanings, and spell checks often can’t tell the difference.
g Machine gun checking - Because spell checks have limited dictionaries, they tend to flag words that are spelled correctly. Writers often fire rapidly through these words. The result is that some misspelled words are missed.
g Misspelled words can pass - If you misspell a word in such a way that it becomes two correctly spelled words, such as “miss steaks” when you meant “mistakes”, or simply mistype one letter so that it becomes a new word, such as “advise” when you meant “advice”, the spell check won’t catch it.

This is not to say you shouldn’t use your spell check. It is like having a second pair of eyes on your story. But the brain behind those eyes isn’t particularly smart. You wouldn’t be satisfied with letting a junior high student be the only one to edit your manuscript - so why would you put all of your faith in a spell check?

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Give your writing class with right vocabulary choices

2011-12-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

A sign of true craftsmanship for a writer is when he selects the right words and arranges them in an evocative way. After all, the most interesting character facing a significant moral decision in a fast-paced plot and exotic setting will sound flat if the words used are wrong. The vocabulary choices and ways they are arranged to create a sense of style is known as diction.

Consider this excellent use of diction from Frederic Brown’s short story “Puppet Show”:

Horror came to Cherrybell mounted on a burro led by an ancient, dirty and gray-bearded desert rat of a prospector who later gave the name of Dade Grant. Horror’s name was Garvane. He was approximately nine feet tall but so thin, almost a stickman, that he could not have weighed over a hundred pounds. Old Dade’s burro carried him easily, despite the fact that his feet dragged in the sand on either side. Being dragged through the sand for, as it later turned out, well over five miles hadn’t caused the slightest wear on the shoes – more like buskins, they were – which constituted all that he wore except for a pair of what could have been swimming trunks, in robin’s-egg blue. But it wasn’t his dimensions that made him horrible to look upon, it was his skin. It looked red, raw. It looked as though he had been skinned alive and the skin replaced raw side out. His skull, his face were equally narrow or elongated; otherwise, in every visible way, he appeared human – or at least humanoid. Unless you count such little things as the fact that his hair was robin’s-egg blue to match his trunks, as were his eyes and his boots. Blood red and light blue.

Notice how certain words describing Garvane evoke a sense of revulsion and alienness about him: “It looked as though he had been skinned alive and the skin replaced raw side out”, his hair and trunks are a contrasting “robin’s–egg blue”, he’s a “stickman”. In fewer than 100 words, we have a good idea of what Garvane looks like, but even more than that we are moved at an a gut level and find him repulsive.

Mastering diction really is a matter of reading a lot of good authors and spending a lot of time writing. But if a beginner, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind to improve your diction right away:
g Don’t use big words for the sake of showing off – Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Often such words distract the reader and make him think the author is a show-off.
g Don’t always go for the simplest, shortest word (as so many writing books wrongly recommend) – Instead, opt for the right word – the word that best fits, in definition, tone, characterization, etc. The English language is vocabulary rich, and the word you’re looking for probably is out there.

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How to integrate a message into your story

2011-12-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

Even the most action-packed, blood-and-gore story has some message or point that the tale makes. The proposition that is argued or some aspect of human experience that is examined in your story is its theme.

For example, the theme of the movie “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” is revenge and obsession. Those dual passions and their costs are examined as the villain Kahn seeks revenge upon hero James T. Kirk.

Theme can include a message or a moral, such as “good is stronger than evil” or “love is the answer”, but it is not exclusively that.

All stories convey underlying values. But unless you’re writing an action-adventure story, simply hoping that some theme emerges from your character’s journey isn’t adequate. You must pay attention to theme and carefully integrate it with the story’s events. Some underlying element – a proposition to be proved, the solution to a moral dilemma, or a perspective about the best attributes of human character - should guide your plot.

Often science fiction story lines are symbolic of larger, real-life conflicts. Science fiction readers often want to emerge from the story wiser than when they went in; they often want the story to force them to think. Because of this, along with setting, theme is paramount in this genre. Indeed, science fiction often is called a “literature of ideas.” Sometimes the “idea”, rather than a character, is the “hero”. Sometimes the writer presents a dichotomy of morals as represented by varying characters.

Theme typically is reflective of the author’s attitudes. Yet, by repeating a theme done by another author, are you being unoriginal? After all, it has been said, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” So, as a writer, can you step into the same river twice? The answer is “yes.” The plot, characters and setting can be unique to you, so you may arrive at the same thematic conclusion as another author by taking the reader on an entirely different journey. Consider that “The Wrath of Kahn” has the same theme as “Moby Dick”, but they’re obviously quite different tales.

There are a couple of guidelines to follow when incorporating a theme into your story:
g Don’t be preachy - Fiction often is better when it poses questions and shows how people would respond to them. Stories are allegories for moral action rather than essays about what is the best decision to make.
g Don’t state the obvious - We already know that murder is bad and such people should be punished. But is there a time when murder might be acceptable?

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Heighten your story's dramatic tension with a consistent point of view

2011-12-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Every story has an angle or perspective from which it is told. This perspective is called point of view.

Notice how this scene is from an outsider's perspective, as if the narrator were looking down upon the action from a viewpoint that is able to see all.

Even before the sun rose, Evod and Nevar prepared themselves for the race. Silently, they inventoried supplies, examined their craft’s hull and unpacked Nevar’s ceremonial suit. Evod inspected each items with a drill instructor’s eye, discovering problems that really weren’t.

Here's the same scene, this time told from Nevar's perspective. We "hear" what he is thinking and only through his eyes know what Evod is doing:

Nevar turned over the food pack in his hands in the pre-dawn light. Silently he examined the craft’s hull and then unpacked his ceremonial suit. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Evod staring at the control panel, fretting again about a problem that really wasn’t.

Selecting the best point of view is important because it needs to be consistent throughout the story to establish “unity of effect." Without a consistent point of view, the reader can lose track of who the story is about, and dramatic tension is weakened.

Your viewpoint ought to be from the character "who has the most at stake” often is advised by self-help writing books, and as a general rule, it is a good guideline to follow. But point of view selection is a more sophisticated process than simply writing the story's perspective from that of the antagonist or main character. Sometimes the main character’s viewpoint is not suitable for revealing the story’s theme.

Even if you’re consistent with your point of view, should you select the wrong perspective from which to tell the story, you run the risk of writing a story that reeks of:
g Mannerisms - The author’s persona shouldn't become more important than the story’s events itself. Often flamboyant diction occurs.
g Frigidity - Excessive objectivity can trivialize the story’s events.
g Sentimentality - This occurs when trying to evoke an emotional response that the story’s events cannot evoke by themselves.

For beginning writers, point of view perhaps is the most difficult element to master. Scenes often are envisioned in different points of view and so are knitted together. These individual scenes may be the best options for what the author wishes to achieve, but when connected to the rest of the story, they cause the story to lose unity of effect.

When writing, follow these point of view guidelines:
g Use one point of view per story. Jumping around is confusing
g Usually the point of view in a scene is that of the story's main character.

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Create meaningful settings for your stories

2011-12-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

Setting is the story's time and the place in which the plot unfolds. Sometimes it's referred to as the “scene”.

For example, in "Star Trek: The Original Series", the setting typically is the 23rd century and various parts of the starship Enterprise, such as the bridge, sickbay, engineering and transporter room. The various locations that the landing party visits on the planet also is part of the setting.

Setting helps shape your story's color and mood. The conflicts the characters face hinge on the setting and the situations it creates for the characters. On occasion, the setting itself must be transformed as the main character resolves his central problem.

Setting is high art in science fiction and fantasy writing. That's because the setting typically is a time and place that doesn't exist - the future, a lunar colony, a ship traveling between the stars. The challenge to science fiction writers is to create a background that is believable.

There are several ways that writers can make their science fiction setting believable:
g New devices and discoveries should not contradict what science knows today. Science fiction readers often play what is known as “The Game - they scrutinize every story, looking for scientific or technological errors. Consider Bill's critical response to my story, “Boundaries” (though I think he misread some of the story, some of his points are well taken).
g Every background detail should advance the story. If it’s not important to the story, get rid of it. Exotic detail for the sake of being exotic is unnecessary.
g Avoid explaining how the machinery works. Just show what it does. Limited explanation should be used only if it will advance the story.
g Be thoroughly familiar with setting of your story. This requires a working and researched knowledge of ecosystems and machinery before making extrapolations. Know more than the reader, but don't leave out important information necessary to the story.
g Remain self-consistent. As soon as one detail contradicts another, the story falls apart. For example, in a society lacking energy resources, the variety of food available would be limited as transportation of staples between regions wouldn't be possible. Miss that detail, however, and the setting won't seem believable.

More generally, when describing the setting, follow these basic rules:
g Give concrete details of the place. Appeal to as many senses as possible. All of us live in a world in which we constantly see, hear, smell, taste and touch. So also should your characters.
g Ask how your main character would perceive this place. Write a description of the setting from that viewpoint.
g Divide descriptions of the setting into three sections. For example, start with the foreground, then in the next couple of the sentences go the middle and at paragraph's end to the background. Or try left-center-right or sky-eye-level-ground.

Sometimes in the science fiction, fantasy and literary genres, masters of their craft create a "meta-setting", which is when the author’s perspective colors the selection of words and phrasing used to describe a scene. A meta-setting adds texture to your writing and can help express a thematic point to your story.

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Characters: The center of your story

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Your story's characters are who the story is about, who the plot is happening to. They are the players that act across the stage of your setting. Arguably, they are the center of your story.

A great variety of characters can appear in your story. They include the story's hero (such as Captain Kirk or Luke Skywalker), the hero's sidekicks (such as Mr. Spock and R2D2), the hero's nemesis (such as the Klingons or Darth Vader) and the characters we just see in passing (such as crewmen in the rec room or a squad of stormtroopers marching in the background).

Generally speaking, the more developed the characters in a story, then the better the tale will be. That's because successful stories involve drama, which arises from tension between character and the situation in which they've been placed. That situation is your story's plot. The more developed the character, the greater the drama for more tension can arise as your hero can interact with the situation in more varied ways.

For example, if your story's hero is just a strongman, then there's really only one way for him to deal with any situation: blast his way through. But if he has self-doubts or a sense of ethics that is at odds with the solution to solving a problem, then he has to come up with unique ways to get out of jams. That's far more interesting them just blowing up every bug he encounters.

To create more developed characters, consider their motivations. Ask what is a character’s passion, desires and fears? These motivations allow for conflict – and hence your plot – to occur.

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Pull readers into your story with great opening lines

2011-11-29T07:31:00.000-08:00

Among the most important words in your story are the ones that begin it. Those words should get the reader to ask, “What’s going on here?” so he keeps reading. In a short story, the author usually only has a couple of sentences to make this happen; in a novel, a couple of paragraphs typically is the limit.

Your opening lines - also known as the grabber or narrative hook - need to deliver some vital information to readers as well. In most stories, the opening lines provide some striking situation that presents the reader with something unusual, and they usually introduce the main character, his conflict to be resolved and the setting.

There are a couple of ploys you can use to create gripping opening lines. First, show two seemingly disparate elements, such as “At 0150 Greenwhich Mean Time on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world started to ring”, which Arthur C. Clarke uses in “Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein.” Another ploy is to start with a “distancing move” that shows we’re in a different world, such as “The great eye floated in space”, in Ray Bradbury’s “The Lost City of Mars”. A third technique is to show your main character in a crisis or puzzling situation, such as “Why must they do it on December 28th? John Stapleton considered the question” as Theodore I. Thomas wrote in “December 28th”.

When writing your story’s opening lines, remember that they should:
g Be interesting and intriguing enough to draw reader in
g Be integral to the story, perhaps even holding key clues to how the main character will resolve the central problem by foreshadow the ending
g Establish, without much detail, the main character/protagonist and a problem or conflict that that the main character must resolve; in doing so, those lines shows the main character threatened and indicate what’s at stake for him
g Establish the setting, or at least the story’s place by establishing the scene of where the main character is
g Reveal the antagonist, if only vaguely
g Set the story's tone
g Give the reader a sense that the main character’s life began before the story did; as Ben Bova wrote in “Notes to a Science Fiction Writer”, “this helps convince the reader that … (the main character) is really alive”

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Draw inspiration to write from other authors

2011-11-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

Looking for a way to hone your writing skills? Try drawing inspiration from your favorite authors’ writing.

To some degree, you’re probably all ready doing this. Our perception of what makes good writing often is based on who we consider to be a good writer. If you idolize Hemingway, you’ll probably think good writing means short, almost staccato sentences.

There’s certainly value in reading and consciously drawing inspiration from the authors you like. After all, they’re probably among the best in their genre, so they must be doing something right (no pun intended). For beginning writers, modeling the stories of a favorite author forces them to think about how a story is structured and the characters developed, making writing of their own stories easier later on.

Having said this, you don’t want to imitate a loved author’s style. Instead, respond to his style, to his content. By copying someone else’s style and voice, you deny your own. You physically and mentally aren’t Arthur C. Clarke, so at best you only can create a facsimile of his approach to storytelling. The story will ring as false to the reader.

By responding to a favorite author’s style and content, however, you acknowledge his influence while remaining true to your own voice. As you are presenting the story from your world view, you’ve peeled away a level of artificiality (the using of another writer’s voice to tell your story). You then become part of an ongoing commentary of all that ever has been written in that genre.

If you really want to learn from your favorite author how writing works, read his inspirations. You’ll be surprised how his best stories don’t copy those inspirations but instead was spurred by them to great creativity.

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Give your story oomph! with narrative drive

2011-11-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

Ever read story before bed and find it so gripping that you stay up far later than you should just to find out what is going to happen? If so, you’ve been a “victim” of narrative drive.

Narrative drive is the force that makes a reader feel that something is about to happen. The more powerful your narrative drive, the less likely the reader is to put down the story.

All of the great works of literature have powerful narrative drives.

But creating a powerful narrative drive involves a lot more than creating interesting worlds as does Frank Herbert in “Dune”, an intriguing main character as does Orson Scott Card in “Ender’s Game” or a fascinating premise as does Isaac Asimov in “Foundation”. It is all of these things more: good plotting, mesmerizing settings, captivating characters, proper point of view selection, an absorbing theme and an artists’ handling of stylistic issues. So, while we can discuss elements of a story in isolation, as occurs on this blog, always remember that a good story is the sum of these elements.

To obtain narrative drive, then requires a full sense of a story’s various elements. Still, there are a couple of things to keep in mind to improve your story’s narrative drive:
g Link description with action - Whenever you opt to describe a landscape or character, ensure that it serves the dual purpose of moving forward the story’s plot.
g Avoid stiff writing by using repetitious and superfluous wording - Poor writing follows a “He did this then this happened” pattern while quality writing takes an “As he did this, this happened” approach.

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Find a place to write this holiday weekend

2011-11-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

One of the obstacles facing writers is finding a place where they actually can write. Too often our responsibilities and modern civilization’s many distractions don’t allow for a moment – or place – of peace and quiet in our lives. That's especially true on a holiday weekend! Yet, just such a place where we can put our fingers to keyboard or pen to paper for a while is necessary if we are to write.

To be a writer, you must find a place where you can write with few distractions. That means no new magazines or books in easy reach, no TV, email or Internet to take your focus off the task. It must be a place where others will not carry on a conversation with you. For some, this place is the kitchen table, for others a den, for yet more the coffee shop.

In addition, your writing place should be stocked with what you need so you don’t spend valuable time looking for those items. Always keep on hands items you need to write: laptop/desktop computer, paper, pens, dictionary, whatever it is that will keep you from getting out of the chair so words aren’t flowing from your fingertips.

Wherever you do write, ensure that you can avoid ergonomic issues - repetitive motions (carpel tunnel syndrome, tendonitis), awkward positions, improper lighting. If writing becomes physically stressful, you’re not likely to keep at it. So avoid the library with the too low/too high of a table, the tree in the park that doesn’t offer back support, the coffee shop where the sun glares through the windows so you can’t see your laptop’s screen.

Remember, to become a successful writer, you must write. And part of writing is finding “a room of one’s own” to practice your craft.

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Quick tips to tighten your writing

2011-11-22T07:08:00.000-08:00

Tight writing is using the minimum number of words necessary to convey an idea or to describe an event. Writing tightly allows your text to be punchier and for the plot to move more quickly. At the very least, tight writing reduces your word count, allowing you to spend more words on text that truly advances your story’s or builds dramatic tension.

Here’s a list of common expressions, which I’ve run into during my years of editing, that should be tightened.

“a blonde girl”
Just write “blonde”; a male with light-colored hair is “blond” (no “e”)

“knelt down”
Just write “knelt”; the act of kneeling implies one is going downward

“nods his head up and down”
Just write “nods”; this gesture alone indicates the head is moving up and down

“nods yes” or “nods to the affirmative”
Just write “nods”; this gesture alone means “yes” or indicates agreement

“shakes his head no” or “shakes his head to the negative”
Just write “shakes his head”; this gesture alone means “no” or indicates disagreement

“stood up”
Just write “stood”; the act of standing implies one is rising

“the two of us”
Just write “we”

“they both”; “we both”
Just write “we” or “they”; the pronoun already implies both characters

“was nodding”
Just write “nodded”; see entry on active vs. passive voice

“were wearing”
Just write “wore”; see entry on active vs. passive voice

“with a smile on her face”
Just write “with a smile”; a smile couldn’t be anywhere else but on a face (unless we’re talking alien life forms)

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Watch for verb tense shifts in your writing

2011-11-21T17:49:00.000-08:00

A common mistake among novice writers is shifting within their story so that events are occurring in the now but then in the next paragraph are happening in the past. This is a sign that the writer is changing verb tenses.

There are two common verb tenses in which you could write. Most typically used is “past tense”. In this case, the story’s events are told as if they’ve happened in the past (never mind that your story may be set in the future – the reader actually is hearing about the events from a future beyond which the story is told):

Col. Noel turned away from the reflection of his wrinkled face in the starcraft’s portal. Nothing to see but dust and gas anyway, he muttered to himself. His baggy eyes glanced at the gamma ray radiation sensors; soon the ship would enter the glowing cloud’s open center, where immortality awaited him. He moved toward the helm but cringed as the arthritis in his knee spiked. There was nanomedicine for the infirmity, but taking the capsules only reminded him of his body’s inevitable slow destruction. He sighed, resorted to giving the computer a voice command to slow speed, noticed a rasp in his words that had never been there before.
The other verb tense used in stories is “present tense”. In the case, the story’s events are unfolding exactly at the same time that the reader reads them. Notice how the above example of past tense writing changes when rewritten in present tense:

Col. Noel turns away from the reflection of his wrinkled face in the starcraft’s portal. Nothing to see but dust and gas anyway, he mutters to himself. His baggy eyes glance at the gamma ray radiation sensors; soon the ship will enter the glowing cloud’s open center, where immortality awaits him. He moves toward the helm but cringes as the arthritis in his knee spikes. There was nanomedicine for the infirmity, but taking the capsules only reminds him of his body’s inevitable slow destruction. He sighs, resorts to giving the computer a voice command to slow speed, notices a rasp in his words that had never been there before.
Writers should stick to one tense when writing. Shifting between tenses jars the reader.

In addition, writers rarely should use present tense. In the hands of a master, such as Margaret Atwood in her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, it can be used to great effect by creating a sense of immediacy and making the narrators’ voice unique. But present tense largely is an unnatural way of telling a story. After all, which of the two versions of Col. Noel’s tale do you prefer?

Need an editor?
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Establishing 'moral order' in your story

2011-11-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

Every story has a theme. An aspect of that theme is your story’s “moral order” – the sense of what’s right and wrong based on how your characters are rewarded and punished for their actions.

The simple moral order of most science fiction television series and movies, for example, is that good is stronger than evil. But in well developed series, it’s more complicated than that. “Star Trek,” for example, defines “good” as a humanistic universe in which diversity and equality are paramount. The search for knowledge, rather than the accumulation of wealth, is the driving force of society. As alien societies are explored in the series, we gain a better sense of what makes up “good” in this humanistic vision.

Characters in stories usually display moral issues in a purer way than people do in the real world. Because the story is constructed, the choices are more clear cut. Limited word counts mean you can’t extensively go into the deep psychological background of your character, so the moral issues being faced often are presented as a simple choice between one or two options. Given this, many science fiction stories are allegorical.

When writing your story, consider these problems that can arise when you create a moral order:
g It’s a good idea to be aware of what moral order is being portrayed so you don’t unintentionally tell a story that advocates ethics and viewpoints with which you don’t agree.
g The moral order of your story must be logically consistent. What’s presented as “good” in one part of the story can’t later be a punishable offense (unless you’re trying to be satirical). If the ways of a Jedi are positive in one part of the story, then those moral values ought to continue to be presented as positive later in the piece.

One challenge facing every writer is creating a sense of “moral compatibility”. That is, readers ought to be identify with characters by sharing a core of moral values. For example, the character’s morals may be too removed from current cultural mores for most readers to ever agree with. This is a common problem in presenting historically accurate characters or when creating an alien or a far-future society. Another problem is that the character’s morals are “too common” – that is, they are so simplified that they become camp. This often is the problem with superheroes.

A related concept to moral order is “moral affirmation”. This occurs when a reader decides to read certain types of books because those tomes exude a moral order that feels comfortable. Some readers, for example, prefer the right-wing moral order presented in military SF stories, such as Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”. Others prefer the comfortable universe created in television series and motion pictures, which in part explains the popularity of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” novels.

Need an editor?
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Incorporating a theme into your story

2011-11-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Even the most action-packed, blood-and-gore story has some message or point that the tale makes. The proposition that is argued or some aspect of human experience that is examined in your story is its theme.

For example, the theme of the movie “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” is revenge and obsession. Those dual passions and their costs are examined as the villain Kahn seeks revenge upon hero James T. Kirk.

Theme can include a message or a moral, such as “good is stronger than evil” or “love is the answer”, but it is not exclusively that.

All stories convey underlying values. But unless you’re writing an action-adventure story, simply hoping that some theme emerges from your character’s journey isn’t adequate. You must pay attention to theme and carefully integrate it with the story’s events. Some underlying element – a proposition to be proved, the solution to a moral dilemma, or a perspective about the best attributes of human character - should guide your plot.

This is typically true of science fiction stories. Often this genre’s story lines are symbolic of larger, real-life conflicts. Science fiction readers often want to emerge from the story wiser than when they went in; they often want the story to force them to think. Because of this, along with setting, theme is paramount in this genre. Indeed, science fiction often is called a “literature of ideas.” Sometimes the “idea”, rather than a character, is the “hero”. Sometimes the writer presents a dichotomy of morals as represented by varying characters.

No matter how distant the setting or how alien the characters, thematically every story is about the here and now. As Kurd Lasswitz, the father of German science fiction, wrote, “… we do dream of a higher civilization, but we would also like to come to know it as something more than the hope for a distant future. We tell ourselves that what the future can sometime bring about on Earth must even now, in view of the infiniteness of time and space, have already become a reality somewhere.”

Theme typically is reflective of the author’s attitudes. Yet, by repeating a theme done by another author, are you being unoriginal? After all, it has been said, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” So, as a writer, can you step into the same river twice? The answer is “yes.” The plot, characters and setting can be unique to you, so you may arrive at the same thematic conclusion as another author by taking the reader on an entirely different journey. Consider that “The Wrath of Kahn” has the same theme as “Moby Dick”, but they’re obviously quite different tales.

There are a couple of guidelines to follow when incorporating a theme into your story:
g Don’t be preachy - Fiction often is better when it poses questions and shows how people would respond to them. Stories are allegories for moral action rather than essays about what is the best decision to make.
g Don’t state the obvious - We already know that murder is bad and such people should be punished. But is there ever a time when murder might be acceptable?

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Trim flabby adverbs to achieve buff passages

2011-11-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

Does a passage you’ve written feel weighed down? Perhaps it sounds pretty but doesn’t have any oomph? Your problem might be an overuse of adverbs.

Adverbs are words that typically describe a verb (though they also can describe adjectives and other adverbs, which can be a real symptom of a bloated passage). For example, in the sentence “He walked quickly across the deck”, “quickly” is an adverb because it describes or modifies “walked,” the verb.

The sentence could be tightened by dumping “quickly walked” and replacing it with a stronger verb. “Strode” – which indicates a brisk walk – might work better. The sentence then would read, “He strode across the deck.”

If you’ve got a lot of adverbs in a passage, you’re probably relying too much on adverbs to do the hard work in your sentence. Adverbs, however, aren’t the muscle that an exact verb provides. While you may need to use an adverb on occasion, our language generally is broad enough that you can find the right verb.

So trim the fat in your writing and build a buff sentence capable of delivering a right hook to your reader. Or as Strunk and White famously advise with another metaphor, remember that an adverb is a leech sucking the strength from a verb.

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Make your story's dialogue come alive!

2011-11-15T07:21:00.000-08:00

No doubt your novel will include dialogue in which characters speak to one another. Unfortunately, too many beginning writers drag their story into a furrow of tedium by poorly handling dialogue. The problem is that their characters’ dialogue mirrors actual conversations too closely.

Realistic dialogue in a story isn’t a copy of how we really speak in everyday life. Our daily conversations are filled with niceties, formalities, repetition and the mundane. They often are tedious and even banal.

Writers can’t afford to waste a word of their story on such dialogue. Instead, they should keep in mind that dialogue in a story – unlike real life – always must have a conversational goal. Dialogue is a means of characterization, a way for characters to push forward their agenda vital to the plot. Characters engage in competition and verbal combat via their dialogue.

Consider the following dialogue examples. This attempts to mimic real life conversation:

“You know, Upir, I’ve changed. I just can’t help you.”

The alien raised his hands. “But what of Ala and I? It took all three of us to lure the human spacecraft to that asteroid.”

“But two of the humans died when the spacecraft crashed! I was the test subject for us; I volunteered so you would not die if it didn’t work!”

“Well then, why did you leave us there?”

“It was the jump, it made me mad, you know. I did not know what I was doing!”

“You do now, right?”

“Yeah, I do. But I am powerless. You see, once human, you no longer can jump.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You do? How?”

“The humans sent a rescue craft. Ala was near death, so he jumped.”

“Oh, I see.”

The following example, however, indicates the characters have goals to achieve. They use their conversation to further their personal agendas:

“I’ve changed, Upir. I can’t help you.”

“You know what will happen if you don’t do as I say.”

“I’m not cold anymore, Upir.”

The alien raised his hand like a cat ready to strike. “Yes, Raphaelie, I can see that. You’ve got what you wanted. But what of Ala and I? It took all three of us to lure the human spacecraft to that asteroid. You will make amends for what you did.”

“But two of the humans died when the spacecraft crashed! I was the test subject for us; I volunteered so you would not die if it didn’t work!”

“Then why did you leave us there?”

“It was the jump, it made me mad. I did not know what I was doing!”

“But you do now.”

“I am powerless. Once human, you no longer can jump.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“The humans sent a rescue craft. Ala was near death. He jumped.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted you.”

Which one was more interesting to read?

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Find your writing 'voice'

2011-11-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

Ever notice how you can identify some authors by the way they write? That’s because they have a distinct voice.

Each writer sounds unique because he has his own world view. Someone who is cynical likely is to write in a cynical tone. He accomplishes this by creating rhythm and diction and by shaping sentences. These stylistic techniques combine to create a certain pattern or texture to one’s writing.

For example, Arthur C. Clarke’s writing often has been described as prophetic, not just because of the predictions it makes but because of the voice he exudes in his works. Consider this passage from his short story “The Possessed”:

And now the sun ahead was so close that the hurricane of radiation was forcing the Swarm back into the dark night of space. Soon it would be able to come no closer; their gales of light on which it rode from star to star could not be faced so near their source. Unless it encountered a planet very soon, and could fall down into the peace and safety of its shadow, this sun must be abandoned as had so many before.

The voice is prophetic due to its soaring tone and the lofty, sweeping way the subject matter is handled. Many of Clarke’s stories contain such passages that make him unique from Asimov, Bradbury, Gibson and other science fiction writers.

Every writer has his own voice. But some writers – especially beginners – sound flat and all too similar. Some would say those writers haven’t yet found “their” voice and there’s some truth to that. But more likely the problem is they haven’t fully mastered the craft of writing. They understand well the mechanics of writing and plotting but lack the self-confidence to let their own voice be heard. It is as if they are a apprentice painter, capable of following their Renaissance master's rules but unable to add the special brush strokes necessary to give the work a unique quality.

There are a few ways you can strengthen your voice:
g Fine-tune sentences - Make sure they clearly convey what you want to say. Many writers have a distinct voice because their sentences carry a subtext. To accomplish that, every word must be selected for a specific purpose.
g Use expressive words - The words you select ought to be to the point, should be evocative, should focus the reader toward a certain feeling or message.
g Avoid imitating another author’s voice - You wouldn’t talk like someone else, so why write like someone else? Even if you “mastered” another writer’s voice, it wouldn’t be original.

A final note: Don’t confuse with “point of view” or “verb tense” with voice. Sometimes terms overlap. And while point of view and verb tense are important elements in your writing, “voice” in this discussion refers more to your word choice and how those words are arranged to create a certain impression.

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Find time to write

2011-11-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

If you want to be a published writer, you’ll need to write regularly. After all, you can’t publish a novel, a short story or a how-to book if you haven’t finished it.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Most of us must balance our writing time against career, family, friends, house chores and more.

But hours at the office and the needs of children at home need not prevent us from completing our dream book.

So how do you create that “balance”?

First, you must establish a routine, a time every day when you will write undisturbed, if only for a half-hour. That period should occur at roughly the same time every day. It may mean getting up a half-hour earlier or going to sleep a half-hour later. It may be that half-hour lunch break at work. It may be during the half-hour nap your preschooler takes every afternoon. If your children are older or you’re an empty-nester, require others to build their schedules around you for this time. After several weeks of writing a half-hour every day, you’ll soon amass quite a number of written pages.

Some authors have told me that if they write for a specified time period, they spend most of their time thinking about what to write rather than actually getting words on a page. If you face the same obstacle and have a little more leeway with your time, instead write to a specific word count or page count.

At the risk of sounding contradictory, some authors say if they write to a specific word or page count, they write a lot of junk that later has to be trashed, and so it seems like a waste of time and effort. Don’t worry about “wasted” writing, though. Consider that football players don’t complain about tackle drills and running plays in practice as “wasted” time since they’re not playing a real game – they’re simply developing their skills.

Regardless of which approach you choose, don’t stop “writing” when your time period is over or once you’ve reached your word count goal. Keep thinking about your story when jogging, vacuuming, folding laundry, commuting, changing a diaper, waiting for the next meeting to begin, sitting at the doctor’s office and so on. Ask yourself what will happen next in the story, imagine a scene, build a character’s background. Carry a notepad with you to jot notes or to make outlines.

Once you sit did again to write again, you’ll then have something to work with so you can make your limited time even more productive!

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Don't forget your reader when writing

2011-11-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

All too often when writing, authors forget their readers. This is somewhat understandable. In nonfiction an author typically is an expert who knows more about the subject than the reader; in fiction, an author is akin to a god creating a world and so knows more about that universe than anyone else. Given this, a book’s organization and explanations often seems obvious to the author.

Every act of writing assumes a reader, however. To be a successful writer, the author almost always must recognize the reader’s level of knowledge, reading skills and even their cultural background. To further complicate the matter, no reader is exactly alike.

As writing, authors ought to consider who their audience generally is. If for children, this may mean using shorter words and sentences. If writing for teens, this may mean being aware of their social and maturity issues. If writing for an adult, this may mean understanding the level of their technical prowess and adjusting accordingly. Always ask yourself, “Will my reader be able to understand what I’m saying?”

That’s difficult enough when writing textbooks, technical manuals and magazine articles. Where fiction is concerned, there’s an added element: Readers are “participants” in stories. Readers typically want to arrive at some place “interesting” via your story. Because of this, readers are willing to be “deceived” by you as they surrender themselves to your world in which the main character saves a city from terrorists with a nuclear weapon, as an elderly retired lady solves a murder, or as a spaceship encounters aliens on another planet. Regardless of the world the author has created, readers are only willing to be deceived if the author presents a plausible lie. That requires being aware of just how much the reader is willing to accept.

Regarding the “plausible lie” in genre fiction, reading always involves “protocols.” That is, there are certain expectations of how the story will be structured and of what is permissible. For example, in science fiction set during a future time, there almost always will be the use of new words that indicate the world is different. “Star Trek” crew members, for example, don’t use phones but “communicators.” This wouldn’t fly in a murder mystery set in modern day Cabot Cave, Maine. Authors who write genre fiction need to be cognizant of these protocols to best reach their niche audience. In addition, they should be aware that such protocols often make a work less assessable to non-readers of the genre.

Considering this, readers picking up a story from any genre – or when picking up a nonfiction piece, for that matter – are aware that the reality they’re engulfed in is different than their own. This requires a different degree of attention when reading, and for authors, an awareness of it when they’re writing.

Need an editor?
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Getting motivated to write

2011-11-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, writing is hard work. Most who write find themselves filled with anxiety and self-criticism as they pen their paragraphs and compare it to those authors who inspired them to write. And then there’s always the frustration that comes when the right word (or even no words) won’t come.

As Karl Iagnemma, an MIT roboticist who also happens to also be an acclaimed fiction writer, once said: "A lot of people, when they think about writers, probably imagine people wasting time in cafés, drinking a lot and smoking too many cigarettes, and working when the inspiration - whatever that is - seizes them. But writing is rigorous. Writing, for me at least, takes a lot of concentrated work and effort. It takes dedication and the willingness to do the work even when that feeling of inspiration isn't there at all."

Few of us like to do hard work. But in writing, the rewards are worth the effort. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you get motivated to write:

g Keep a project “bible” - Create a notebook of reference materials in a 3-ring binder of loose-leaf paper. Often “inspiration” will strike on one of those ideas. At least it gives you a collection of ideas you can back to when you don’t know what to write about.

g Keep a daily log - Track how many words you wrote and challenge yourself to top it the next day.

g Keep a journal - Often the kernels of stories later can be found in your journal.

g Keep in touch with fellow writers - They can offer encouragement and provide advice when you’re stuck.

g Start with free-writing - Sometimes when driving aimlessly you see a billboard that gives you an idea for a destination. The same can occur when writing - sometimes when writing aimlessly you develop an idea that gives you idea for a story.

g Begin your writing by revising work already completed and continue onward - At the very least, you’ve polished your past day’s work and maybe have identified trouble spots that you need to mull over to solve.

g Stop at a good point - If you’ve had a productive writing session, put down the pen at a point where you know already what you want to do next. You will not be stymied when starting the next day.

g Ask outrageous questions - Science fiction writer Stephen Baxter once wrote, “If you want to generate new and original ideas, you have to ask yourself outrageous questions. Such as: "Could humans survive on the equator of a fast-spinning neutron star?” Well, how would they? Why would they want to? How would such a residence change their outlook on life? Would it change how others viewed them?

g Keep plugging along - No matter the quality of your work or the number of rejections you receive, don’t stop writing, The biggest mistake those who want to be writers can make is to not write.

A few writers employ rituals to help them get started writing. But most don’t as the rituals only delay the actual hard work of writing. As Isaac Asimov once said when asked about rituals, “Rituals? Ridiculous! My only ritual is to sit close enough to the typewriter so that my fingers touch the keys."

Need an editor?
Having your story, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge.

How to 'murder your darlings'

2011-11-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

To engage your readers – whether writing fiction of nonfiction – you’ll need to be utterly ruthless with your own words. In short, you’ll need to “murder your darlings.”

You’ve probably heard the axiom before. Though recently promoted by science fiction writer James Patrick Kelly, the advice is often given to writers of all genres, and for good reason.

Here’s the problem: Writers fall in love with their words. Like their own children or lovers, a writer’s words can do no wrong. And if they do, the transgression is highly forgivable given the surrounding words’ beauty.

But some words in our stories are “precious freeloaders who are too busy looking good to do any work,” as Kelly points he. He recommends eliminating those words, or to “murder your darlings.”

(A side note here: The phrase actually is borrowed from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate of piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” But who remembers Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch?)

Such freeloading words actually slow your story. They distract from the action, which in turn keeps readers from remaining focused on how your main character faces his central problem – and that latter conflict, after all, is the heart of the traditional story.

Beginning writers often make the mistake of trying to fix wordiness by adding words rather than cutting them. That’s like adding more fat to the plate rather than trimming it, however.

What are some darlings that ought to be excised? Kelly identifies six “darlings” that can be killed:

g Adjectival and adverbial leeches – Descriptive words should be selected very carefully. They ought to create atmosphere and offer insights into the character, not to decorate a paragraph.

g Clumsy entrances and exits – Too often stories contain “here to there” action that shows how a character got from one place to another. Providing that info typically is irrelevant to the story.

g Unnecessary scene or time switches – Many stories can take place in a couple of locations or during the course of a few hours. Switching the when and where of a story often forces you to waste words on re-establishing the setting and mood as well as explaining why the change occurred.

g Overpopulation (extra characters) – Limit a story (especially a short stories and novellas) to a few characters – the main character, the villain, the sidekick, a couple of background characters. Each additional character requires some description and takes attention away from the main character.

g Overdramatization (too much “show” and not enough “tell”) – In fiction, exposition kills a story. If readers wanted to read an encyclopedia, they would have grabbed a Compton’s from the bookshelf, not your book.

g Arriving early, staying late – When and where stories and scenes start and end is vital. Think of “The Iliad”: Homer doesn’t begin with the war’s start 10 years earlier but begins the tale in the days leading up to the final battle.

Need an editor?
Having your story, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge.

Handling rejection: Fortifying yourself against 'No thanks'

2011-11-07T08:13:00.001-08:00

You’ve just spent months putting your heart and soul into writing a book. You’ve revised it, you’ve paid to have it edited, you’ve revised it again, you’ve missed out on sleep, you’ve skimped on time with family. You can’t imagine the story getting any better. You send it out.

A few weeks (or even worse, a few days) later, the publisher or magazine editor or literary agent sends you a rejection slip.

Probably you got no explanation as to why the piece was rejected. Maybe you were lucky enough to get a form checklist in which a quickly scribbled checkmark was made next to some vague claim like “character not developed enough.”

Do you give up or keep sending out the piece?

If you want to be a writer, you must persist in the face of self-doubt. You need to re-examine your piece, possibly revise it some more, and send it again.

Knowing why your piece was rejected in the first place certainly would be a plus when revising it. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of reasons as to why the editor didn’t place your piece into the take-a-second-look pile.

Perhaps the most common cause for rejection is that the piece didn’t match what the publisher/editor/lit agent was looking for. They might not consider your piece saleable to their respective audiences or markets. Because of this, meticulously researching the kind of works that your favorite publishing house or magazine publish is vital.

Having said that, your piece also needs to be unique in some way. A book publisher or magazine editor doesn’t want to publish cookie cutter versions of what they’ve previously printed. They may want something similar, but they want it to be something different as well. Given this, if you are writing cookie cutter pieces (and shame on you for being a hack!), you may want to find a place that is looking to cash in on the latest book craze by wanting to publish its own line of vampire or shopaholic stories.

Regardless, take heart: Your story probably is good (and I know you’re not a hack!). Recognize, however, that there are a lot of other good writers producing good stories and books. Many of them also received rejection slips.

Also, don’t forget that the number of publishing houses and magazines are shrinking. Thanks to the soft economy and competition from the Internet and self-publishing industries, fewer books are being publishing. Often there’s a demand for very niche writing, however – so while an adventure short story may not have many markets, there may be a demand for articles about backpacking into little known, wild backcountry. In addition, you may want to consider publishing on an Internet magazine.

Considering this, sometimes it’s simply a matter of finding the right editor before another writer does. My own rejected short story "I Hold the World but as the World" was submitted on its second go around to an editor who didn’t want it for his magazine but did believe it fit nicely into an anthology he wanted to publish. If I had stuffed the story into a box relegated to the attic, it never would have been published. Lucky I was, but such luck helped open the way to get other stories and articles published.

So remain strong. As science fiction writer Brian Aldiss once wrote, “Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood.”

Fortify yourself, and soon the flood of rejections will stop coming.

Need an editor?
Having your story, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge.

Developing good writing habits

2011-11-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

All too often as writers we wait for “inspiration” to strike. Certainly it does flash, and when it does, the story almost always is a great idea. The problem, however, is in seeing that idea through to its completion, which is a story in a magazine or a novel on the shelf.

To get there, you’ll need some good writing habits.

The good news is that there’s really only one good writing habit: You must write constantly.

Having a good idea means little if you don’t follow through with the writing, after all. But even more importantly, the quality of this writing during the follow-through will be poor if you have not developed the skills and acumen that come with regular writing. Think of it this way: You can’t run a marathon without doing lots of small, conditioning runs.

So how do you develop the self-discipline to write?

g Write daily – Somehow you must set aside at least a half-hour but preferably an hour or longer, to do nothing but write. Don’t worry about the quality; it will vary from day to day, but ultimately over time it will improve as you read other authors’ works and experiment.

g Warm up – Many writers start their writing session start by reading or revising the previous day’s work, a sort of warm-up, and then picking up from there. This also helps ensure consistency in the story if the focus of your writing is a longer work, such as a novel.

g Work from an outline – Some writers develop outlines that are so detailed that writing the notes in a complete sentence is all that’s left to put the story in written form. Of course, others prefer to write with no outline or notes, as if they are channeling their story but most writers are somewhere in between, sometimes planning out scenes beat by beat other times seized by inspiration and writing a whole scene on the blank page with preconceived notion in their heads. Regardless of your preferred style, the goal ought to be to do enough planning that eventually inspiration sizes you.

g Don’t edit – During your writing sessions, save hard-core editing and rewriting (as well as the chore of sending out manuscripts) for later. While you might start by reading the previous day’s writing, don’t get bogged down rewriting it. Just do some quick proofreading and move on.

You always should use a writing strategy that’s best for you, but always remember one thing: You MUST write. New copy must flow onto the paper or computer screen daily.

As science fiction writer Robert Silverberg wrote, “The process of becoming a writer involves discovering how to use the accumulated wisdom of our guild, all those tricks of the storytelling trade that have evolved around the campfire over the past five or ten or fifty thousand years. Others can show what those tricks are. But only you can make a writer out of yourself, by reading, by studying what you have read, and above all by writing.”

Need an editor?
Having your story proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In a publishing world where your story faces heavy competition, pieces need a second eye to make sure they are more marketable and to give them the edge.

How to create a strong fictional dream

2011-11-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

When writing any story, your goal ought to be to create and maintain a fictional dream, or an “illusion that there is no filter between reader and events that the reader is actually experiencing what he is reading,” as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. defines it.

For the reader, one of the joys of literature is to be immersed in the fictional dream. As a writer, there may be no greater disservice to your reader than to break this illusion. As science fiction author and editor Stanley Schmidt once wrote, “Your job as a writer is to make your reader forget that he or she is reading …”

The stronger the fictional dream, the more immediate the story and its characters are to the reader. The payoff for the author is that his story’s message will stick longer with the reader – never mind that the author’s stature (and sales) correspondingly will rise.

Readers pick up a novel or turn to a short story in a magazine ready to enter a fictional dream. Like a football team that can score at will over an opponent, the author gives away the victory when he repeatedly fumbles.

To maintain the fictional dream, avoid committing these errors when writing:

g Pointless digressions – The reader expects that every sentence will move the story forward. Taking a side trip that serves no purpose in the tale delays this forward momentum, which should only increase until the story reaches its climax.

g Expository lumps – Explanations of procedures, how devices operate and future history often run too long and again break the story’s forward momentum. The best way to explain something is to show it in action and have characters give brief, partial hints so readers through their own thinking can figure out it out for themselves.

g Lists – Even worse than a lump is a list. The items in the list usually are superfluous to the story. If they aren’t, then their importance ought to be incorporated into the action.

g Turgid prose – Bombastic or pompous phrasing sounds unnatural. Authors should write as if holding a conversation with the reader, not lecturing and talking down to him.

g Unrealistic characters – If a character appears false, then the reader won’t identify with him or will find his actions unbelievable.

g Premise with holes in it – Stories make arguments and draw conclusions. If the argument is satisfactorily supported or steps skipped to reach a conclusion, the reader will questions about the story rather than enjoy it

g Shifts in viewpoint – Changing the perspective from which a story is told can be jarring to the reader.

g Telling rather than showing – By telling what happens, as if giving stage directions, the reader is distanced from the action and the characters.

Need an editor?
Having your story proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In a publishing world where your story faces heavy competition, pieces need a second eye to make sure they are more marketable and to give them the edge.

Finish that story!

2011-11-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Many writers have unfinished novels and short stories sitting on their hard drives or as printouts in a desk drawer. Often coming up with a story idea isn’t a problem, but finding the time or knowing how to finish the work is.

There are several approaches any writer can use to finish their story:

g Set a deadline - Sometimes nothing works better than the challenge of a deadline. This forces you to avoid waiting for inspiration and to get down to the hard work of writing. Simply set a realistic goal for how many words or pages you will write a day. Figure out how many words/pages you still need to write to finish a work. Then divide those number of words/pages by how many words/pages you can write in a day. That gives you the number of days needed to complete your novel, and that many days out is your deadline. For example, suppose you can write 1,000 words a day. A short novel is about 70,000 words; suppose you’ve written 40,000 so far. That means you’ve got 30,000 words to go. At 1,000 words a day, that means you could finish the novel in 30 days (30,000/1,000). If today is Jan. 1, that means your deadline is midnight Jan. 30.

g Outline the rest of the book - Often writers get stalled because they’re not certain where their book is going. Plot out the rest of the story, describing beat-by-beat how you want the story to develop and how you want the main character to resolve the tale’s central problem. The more detailed you can be, the easier writing those last chapters will be.

g Find a writing partner - Someone else who also is trying to finish their story can be a great inspiration. He can offer encouragement and critiques of your work. If you meet regularly, ensuring you have text for one another to read can serve as a “deadline.”

Of course, sometimes the story is so poorly done in its opening sections that there really is no good reason to finish it. Despite that the story may be unpublishable, I’d recommend finishing it anyway. Completing one story makes completing the second one all that more easy, in the same way that completing your first 5k run makes finishing the second 5k run all that more easy. Finishing the story gives you the full experience of writing one, after all, and that may help you avoid pitfalls on the next go.

Need an editor?
Having your story proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In a publishing world where your story faces heavy competition, pieces need a second eye to make sure they are more marketable and to give them the edge.

Get readers engaged in your story

2011-11-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

To be a truly successful fiction writer that people return to over and over again, you’ll want to pen a story that “engages” the reader. When a reader is engaged, she closely follows your tale, focusing on every word as if a wine connoisseur appreciating every sip of the best vintage.

What makes a novel or a short story really grab hold of a reader, makes them not want to put the book down? That’s a matter of personal taste, of course. If you like adventure stories, a romance probably is trash. If you appreciate great literature, you’ll probably find a lot of genre writing a bit low brow.

Still, where fiction is considered there seems to be some commonalities in good storytelling. First and foremost, if a reader is engaged, the “fictional dream” is stronger. That is, the reader feels as if the story really is unfolding around her. If you’ve written a fantasy piece this means the reader truly is lost in the escapist adventure. For the lover of more literary works, the story likely has the reader feeling that the story accurately reveals and perfectly captures some new truth about people or the world.

Regardless of the genre, creating a fictional dream – or successfully engaging a reader – likely means the writer has:

g Created scenes that are alive and vital to the dramatic action – When a scene primarily is about getting characters from “here to there,” the story slows. When a scene has a lot of banter in which characters don’t reveal anything about themselves, the story goes nowhere. Cut such scenes from your writing.

g Developed an intriguing and well-described setting – Regardless of the genre, the setting ought to give the characters the opportunity to do interesting activities that advance the plot. A setting should help establish the story’s atmosphere and mood against which the plot can take place.

g Devise a focus character who the reader can bond with – The story’s main character need not be exactly like the reader; indeed, readers often like idealized characters who they can pretend to be, such as Captain Kirk of “Star Trek” fame. Characters who possess inner conflicts – such as Mr. Spock’s sense of being an outsider and trying to maintain who he is in the face of it – are easier to relate to, however, and often more popular than idealized characters.

g Offered something new and provocative – For a literary work, this might be a twist on a theme (For example, what if procrastination would have been better for a Hamlet-like character?). For science fiction, it might be a new novum (i.e gadget). For a mystery story, this might be a new way to commit a murder. Simply put, readers rarely want to reread a story that essentially is a copy of a story they’ve all ready enjoyed.

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Should you co-author your book?

2011-10-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you come up with a great story idea with another person. Or your discussions and critiques of one another’s works are inspiring. So you decide to co-write a book.

Is it a good idea?

There are, of course, a number of great books written by a pair of authors. On the other hand, most books boast a single author, and when asked who are our favorite authors, we rarely gave the name of a duo.

There are a number of pros to co-authoring a book:
g Create synergy – You can avoid writer’s block by feeding off of one another; when uncertain where to take the novel, for example, a co-author often can provide ideas that inspire. Think Lennon and McCartney when songwriting, with one filling in the other’s gaps.
g Complement one other’s talents – If you lack the expertise, a partner may be the way to go. For example, a tech savvy person can really benefit from a person who has a way with words (and vice-versa).
g Division of labor – Writing a novel takes a long time; even those who do it full time may spend up to a year penning their tale. Two writers theoretically means half of the work, right? It’s rarely that simple, but certainly in most cases authors don’t have to generate as much of a story’s details when sharing the workload.

There are downsides, unfortunately:
g Difference of opinions – Sometimes disputes over what the book is about and how to execute ideas can stall the writing. The co-authors should have a clear idea of where the book’s purpose before they begin writing.
g Developing a single voice – Writers can have very distinct styles. If the book writing is divided so one author pens Chapter 1 and the other author knocks out Chapter 2, the two chapters may sound like they’re from entirely different books.
g Establishing a contract that is acceptable to both of you – How will the profits be split? How will the work load be divided? What is the marketing strategy and who will implement it? Who will be your agent? These questions can split even the greatest writing partnerships – consider Lennon and McCartney.

Need an editor?
Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.