Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 26 & 27, 2013

Well, here it is: the last Great Stuff post on the Cochise Writers blog. OK, not quite. I’ll put up a reminder so everyone knows these posts and my Critique Technique posts have moved. As of Friday, March 1^st, everything will be over at my new web site, www.rossblampert.com. Great Stuff for Writers and Critique Technique will have their own menu items and pages. You’ll have to resubscribe, I’m afraid, but the RSS feed links and subscribe-by-email boxes are up at the top of the sidebar so they’re easy to get to. Every site is a work in progress, so I’ll be adding new features as I can and as they become relevant. I hope you like the look and feel of the new site. I’m pretty excited about it and I hope you will be too.

Meanwhile, there’s lots of Great Stuff here as well.

CRAFT

Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a. @GrammarGirl, clears up once and for all (you believe THAT, don’t you?) when and whether to use the Oxford/Harvard/serial comma with an graphic from OnlineSchools.com in The Oxford Comma, in Pictures. You may want to ensure you’re reading the post and graphic at a relatively large screen expansion because the color contrasts in the image aren’t the strongest, but the information itself is clear, concise(,) and easy to absorb.

Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) has a post today on words that writers consistently confuse with others that are similar: Never Confuse These Words Again. Her list of doubles and triples is short—only 10 sets out of many—but still a good review. The one of her commenters pointed out a blog called Homophones Weakly (notice the “mis”spelling) that covers this topic in a fun way.

KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) deals with a problem we all run into once in a while: Episodic Storytelling. When writing is called “episodic,” that’s generally not a compliment. It happens, Katie tells us, because the scenes that make up these episodes don’t seem to matter to each other—one doesn’t build into the next. The solution is straight-forward (to describe if not necessarily to do): make sure each scene contributes to the overall story.

BUSINESS

Every so often the issue of “traditional” copyright bubbles up (I’m putting traditional in quotes to distinguish it from the Creative Commons copyright) and it has again on Writer Beware ® Blogs, in Victoria Strauss’s (@victoriastrauss) Why Not to Register Copyright for Unpublished Work. This piece has two parts: one clearly related to the title (short form: it’s not necessary and does nothing for you) and the other about why it can actually place you at risk. Say what? It turns out, Strauss reports, that there are various unscrupulous companies (she names one) that troll copyright and Library of Congress registration lists looking for naïve unpublished authors to scam with offers of “services” (exorbitant fees not mentioned, of course).

Here’s an important one for you: Thomas Ford’s Common Creativity: Understanding the Rules and Rights Around “Free” Images on the Web on ProBlogger. As Ford discusses, “free” isn’t necessarily an absolute term when it comes to images—or documents, for that matter—and if you’re going to use a “free” image, you’d better know exactly what you’re allowed to do under what circumstances. Just because something is available at no charge doesn’t mean there are no restrictions on what you can or can’t do with it. This is a long and detailed piece, particularly when it comes to the Creative Commons kinds of copyrights, and may be more than you can absorb in one reading, so bookmark it or flag it as a favorite and check out the resources the Creative Commons folks have put together for your use.

TECHNOLOGY

Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) has a terrific post on 7 Ways to Look Good on Your Webcam. As I noted in my comment, I’m not an ENT doctor—I really don’t care to be looking up your nose—so her #1 suggestion to put your webcam at eye level or a little higher is a biggie. Her other points and those of her commenters are all good. With Google Hangouts, other video chats, vlogs, and podcasts all becoming more common, these pointers are all necessary for looking at least decent on camera.

THE WRITING LIFE

Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) continues her writing community series with the start of a sub-series on how to Build Your Online Writing Community, the key word being “Online.” While she discusses the blogosphere and Twitter in a bit of detail here, she promises more posts on other parts of the online world in the future. As she notes, there are so many options that it’s hard for someone who’s just getting into social media to know what to do first. Let’s hope this series will help people like that (like you?) make that choice.

See you next time at our new site!

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 23-25, 2013

Several sets of FAQs for you today, plus tips on trilogies, writing magic, getting more out of Google+, and building your writing community. But before we get to that…

A LITTLE MORE LEAD-UP

Starting Friday, Great Stuff will not only have a new home but a slightly different name. I’m changing it to focus on what it provides: value to you. So when we make the move, look for “Great Stuff for Writers,” in place of the current title. It’ll have its own place on the new web site’s menu line. My other posts, under the title of Critique Technique, will remain the same, but they too will have their own menu line item. On Wednesday I’ll give you the new web site name and URL and then on Friday—deep breath—it’ll all officially go live.

CRAFT

KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) finishes her series on scenes and sequels with some Frequently Asked Questions. Alas, her call for questions elicited only two and, well, let’s hope that those folks just came to the series late. So instead, Katie pulled in some questions that had been asked in the comments to previous parts of the series. Some are pretty basic but others drew out insightful or informative answers. Here’s a big THANK YOU to Katie for the series. It’s a keeper. (Do I sense a small ebook? :))

Other author’s who’ve written about writing a series have discussed overall story and character arcs and the like, and those are important things. Jordyn Redwood (@JordynRedwood) discusses some other details specifically regarding Writing a Trilogy that, if not taken care of, can catch the writer out, things like timelines, characterization absolutes, and moments that tie later books back to the earlier ones. Series writing introduces layers of complexity not found in a standalone work, so posts like this are valuable.

Here’s a big shout-out thank you to Becca Puglisi (@beccapuglisi) of The Bookshelf Muse for bringing in horror writer Michaelbrent Collings to discuss The Magic of Misleading. Why? Because reading it made me realize one of the things that’s missing from the first draft of my current WIP. Are you ready? Here it is: “the secret to misdirection isn’t withholding information, it’s giving extra information, and focusing the audience’s attention on that.” (emphases his) That light you see is the 25 Watt light bulb flickering on above my head! There’s more to the post, of course, but this is a nugget I’ll be keeping. Maybe you will too.

BUSINESS

Query letters: one of the greatest mysteries in the business of getting published. What makes a good one? What do agents want??????  Back in September of last year, Chuck Sambuchino (@ChuckSambuchino) wrote a roundup of frequently asked questions. Now he’s back with Query Letter FAQs (Part II): 10 More Questions Answered on Writer Unboxed. If you’re currently querying or want to get published by a traditional publisher, take a look at this post. But keep one thing in mind that Chuck only hints at: always always ALWAYS check the web site of the agent or agency you’re submitting to first to find out what they want and how they work.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Demian Farnworth’s (@demianfarnworth) Seven Ways Writers Can Build Online Authority with Google+ (really 6 do’s and 1 don’t) is something of a paean to Google’s social media platform, but I suppose you could call it a practical paean. As I’ve noted elsewhere, in many ways Google+ isn’t all that unique (the major exception being the Hangouts free video conferencing feature), but what they’ve done is take a number of things other social media sites do, such as LinkedIn’s groups, and amplified them (Google+’s circles). So if you’re already on Google+ and want to know how to use it better, or you’re still trying to decide whether to add it to your social media repertoire, it’s probably worth your time to visit this long post on Copyblogger.

THE WRITING LIFE

We all know—and keep telling each other! :)—that the writing life is a lonely one, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be, and Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) is starting a series on how you can expand your circle, or as she calls it, Build Your Writing Community with In-Person Events. She offers tips on where to find such events, which to choose, and what to do once you get there. If you’re looking for ways to escape your garret, this could be for you. Then in part 2, she discusses Writing Classes and Workshops. Surprised that someone hosting a blog on creating a do-it-yourself Master of Fine Arts equivalent would be advocating finding classes? Don’t be—it makes sense in the context of creating your own community. Classes are simply another way of meeting like-minded and like-skilled writers. And be sure to check out her tips for evaluating the people and the classes.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 16-18, 2013

Quite a variety of Great Stuff today: it’s been a productive weekend on the blogosphere.

One mini-announcement before I turn you loose, I’ll be “attending” the IndieReCon online writers’ conference Tuesday through Thursday, so Wednesday’s and Friday’s posts may be a bit thin.

CRAFT

KM Weiland’s (@KMWeiland) penultimate entry in her series on scenes and sequels has to do with Variations on the Sequel. These variations can happen in the reaction (it’s ongoing, delayed, or shown in a flashback), in the dilemma or decision (such as if the decision turns out to be a dead end), or in the entire sequel (how quickly or slowly it happens, whether its elements are in order or not, or are disproportionate in length or strength, or if the sequel is interrupted by a new scene). Of course, this summary doesn’t do the post justice, so click that link and get the whole story, as it were.

BUSINESS

I have no idea what prompted Suw Charman-Anderson to write Piracy, Saviour of the Book Industry for Forbes magazine, but her message to the publishing industry is somewhat similar to what Cory Doctorow has been saying to writers for over a decade: not only is piracy of written works a minor problem at best (Charman-Anderson calls it a boulder in the road), it’s (@Doctorow says) an opportunity to reach more readers, many of whom will eventually pay for their free copy or buy another one and, again from Charman-Anderson, opens up the possibility of a secondhand ebook market. I wonder who will listen.

Meanwhile, Joe Konrath’s (@JAKonrath) now ebooks are selling like hotcakes, maybe better (does $15,000 of income in a week sound good?), in part because he’s been giving them away via the KDP Select program. In Hungry Dogs, he explains how readers are like those hungry dogs—in good ways!—and offers six keys to Konrath-like sales numbers. Note (once again) that he, like Doctorow, is NOT worried about giving away copies.

SOCIAL MEDIA

We haven’t visited the hilarious Catherine Ryan Howard (@cathryanhoward) of Catherine, Caffeinated in a while, but today we get to with her Social Media for Authors: [Groan] Do I HAVE To? Here’s her answer from near the end of a very funny post: “You’ll only make money by selling books, and the first step in selling a book is to inform a potential reader than it exists. For a self-published author, social media is the only gateway to a global audience that doesn’t charge a toll. So yes, I think you have to.”

TECHNOLOGY

If you’re self-published and want to track your sales (of course you do), Carol Wyer (@carolewyer) has posted a Tutorial: NovelRank that introduces you to NovelRank and shows you how to use it. Well, sort-of shows you. Wyer posted lots of screenshots, which was a great idea, but they’re so small it’s very hard to see what she’s filled in, highlighted, circled, or got arrows pointing to. Now, there is a video on the NovelRank site that shows you how to do it, too, but it flashes through so much in 60 seconds that for a new visitor it’s hard to absorb what’s being done and there’s no narration or explanatory text, only background music. So, the idea of the post and video are both good, and the service may well be useful, but you’re going to need to spend some time with the post and site to make it work.

Well, this should be interesting. By his own (indirect) admission, Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) was a bit of a software snob, favoring high-powered (and high-priced) programs like Adobe InDesign over the relatively cheaper and more pedestrian Microsoft Word. And yet… people still insisted on using Word to format their ebooks! Badly, too often, which made Joel and others like him cringe. So he railed against using Word. But now he’s seen the light and announces today in Book Designer Confesses: The Truth About Word Processors that it’s time to help Word users do book design well, or as well as possible within the capabilities and limitations of programs like Word. And so a series is about to start. Stay tuned!

THE WRITING LIFE

Full-time high school math teacher and epic fantasy writer Patrick Carr posted How to Write While Managing a Full-Time Job: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Time on the Guide to Literary Agents over the weekend. If you, like so many of us, are in this situation, you’ll find these hints helpful. Personally, I would have put #5, “Make writing a priority,” at the top of the list, because if you don’t do this, none of the other four will matter—or happen—but that’s just me. The suggestions are all still good.

There are some people (I’m not naming any names) who are absolutely dead-set against writers’ groups, whatever they might be called. It’s too bad their minds are so closed. For the rest of us, Gabriela Pereira’s (@DIYMFA) Writing Workshop: How to Tell When You Need That Boost is a clear summary of what a group can do for a writer. If you think a group might be for you, check out Gabriela’s four ways to tell and three important factors to consider about yourself and the group(s) you might be considering.

Like anything you see here? Please share it with your writing friends!

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 2-4, 2013

Wow! Busy weekend out there on the blogosphere, and Monday morning, too: rules and tools, emotions and responses, Star Wars attacks and attacks on Amazon. It’s all here, and more. No time to lose! Let’s get started.

CRAFT

CORRECTION! Gabriela Pereira’s (@DIYMFA) workshop is on Tuesday, February FIFTH,  (that’s tomorrow) at 1 PM Eastern. Sorry for the confusion!

Anyone who’s been at this business a while knows that there are almost no rules to writing, beyond maybe, “Get your butt in the chair! Now!” So when a post is titled The Rules of Writing, naturally that’s going to raise some concerns. Fortunately, French super-bestseller Marc Levy’s (@marc_levy) “rules” on Writer Unboxed aren’t rules so much as guidelines, and wise and practical ones at that. A couple examples to whet your appetite: “Stop trying so hard to find a subject” and “Don’t show too much, don’t tell too much.”

Along these same lines, Joanna Penn’s (@thecreativepenn) guest post on Write to Done on 5 Ways To Take Your Writing Further includes some techniques I’ve heard before but haven’t seen mentioned much recently, namely free-writing and physically copying the work of published authors you enjoy and respect. Not only are these effective techniques for expanding your writing, they’re terrific for overcoming writer’s block. (See the Brandon Yawa post below too.)

I think it was one of the great Russian writers who said, “If there is no emotion in the writer, there will be no emotion in the reader.” Anyone know who that was? In any case, James Scott Bell (@jamesscottbell) picks up on that theme with his post How To Get Emotional About Your Novel on The Kill Zone. “Emotion in the author,” he writes, “is literary electricity. It’s the X Factor, the game changer… Readers sense it.” Then he describes a couple of methods for finding it and bringing it out in your work. The last part of the post is a plug for his latest book but also serves as an example of how he was able to create genuine emotion in the story.

Speaking of emotion, KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) continues her excellent series on scenes and sequels with Pt. 9: Options for Dilemmas in a Sequel. What does this have to do with emotion? After the emotion of the reaction to the previous scene’s disaster, now the protagonist should face a dilemma in which he or she has to figure out what to do next. This can be an emotional reaction, too, or a rational one, but it needs to start with a review of what’s happened, an analysis of options, and a plan for moving forward, which will lead to a decision, the next scene and, of course, the next disaster… but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Lessons Learned from the Original Star Wars Trilogy to Up Your Writing Game? Seriously? Yup. Lydia Sharp (@lydia_sharp) comes up with them on Writer Unboxed. Specifically, Episode IV (start in the middle), Episode V (destroy everything), Episode VI (expect the unexpected).  Hmmm. Y’know, that gives me an idea…. Thanks, Lydia!

BUSINESS

Joanna Penn’s piece on her own blog, How EBook Readers Shop And The Importance Of Sampling, is a terrific insight into both. Yes, if you own an e-reader, your shopping habits may be different, but if you’re looking to e-publish, even how just one reader shops can be revealing. So are Joanna’s and her commenters’ views on samples: how long they should be, how much time a reader will spend with them, how often they decide not to buy based on the sample, etc. Valuable info here!

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) has started a monthly feature called Best Business Advice for Writers, and the January edition is full to overflowing with links to other posts and articles that are full to overflowing with information. The ol’ veritable plethora, right on your screen: GoodReads, cover design, self-publishing lessons-learned, WordPress plug-ins, Kickstarter, and more. Goodness. It’s a week’s worth of reading all by itself! Pick what most interests you.

Whoa, this is a tough one. Clare Langley-Hawthorne reports on The Kill Zone on a series of Concerted Amazon Attacks meant to discredit and kill the sales of a book. The book, an apparently non-sycophantic biography of Michael Jackson received so many 1-star reviews on Amazon (over 100), many of which were factually inaccurate, that despite Amazon’s selecting it as one of their best books of the year, sales were a small fraction of the number of books printed. So, whose free-speech rights prevail in a case like this: the authors’ or the reviewers’? Or is this an either/or decision at all? What do you think?

THE WRITING LIFE

It might be a bit of a surprise to see a post from ProBlogger here in the Writing Life section, but Brandon Yawa’s (@BrandonYawa) How Compassion Cures Writer’s Block fits. Interestingly, his idea is NOT compassion by the author for someone else, but compassion by the author for him- or herself. Self-forgiveness, in other words, when the words won’t come, plus a few non-writing techniques for getting that mental break that releases the block. Marc Levy (above) says not to fear writer’s block because it’s a natural thing. Without the fear, then, the forgiveness should come more easily. Hope so, anyway!

If you’ve ever been in a writers’/critique group, you’ve probably encountered people like those described in Donna Cooner’s (@donnacooner) Top 10 Worst Types of Critique Partners. If you haven’t, yes, you might well encounter people like these. But don’t assume as some writers and bloggers (NOT Donna) insist that all groups are like this. They’re not, and a good group is worth its weight in ink cartridges.

So, can you name that Russian writer? Have you run into any of those awful critique partners? How about great ones? Tell! Tell! (This is one time you don’t have to “show.”)

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 31 & February 1, 2013

Well here’s a post that will launch you into the weekend with plenty consider—at least, if you live in the U.S. and are an American football fan—when you’re not wrapped up in the Super Bowl. Eight pieces: some challenging, some sad, some practical, and some mostly for fun. Enjoy!

CRAFT

Hmmm. Well, okay, this is different. Editor Stuart Horwitz guest posts on Writer Unboxed under the title Plot is a Four-Letter Word. “Plot,” it seems, is verboten around his office. Instead, he tells writers to think in terms of “series.” Not series as in book 1, book 2, book 3, and so on, but series as in characters, and things, and phrases, or as he puts it, “a narrative element that repeats and varies” within a book. So each book has not just one series, but many, and they operate in series and in parallel. And they interact and together form a net which is the story but does not anywhere contain a plot. Got it? No? Well, check out the post and see if it helps.

It’s been kind of fun to watch Gabriela Pereira’s (@DIYMFA) web site evolve and now she’s ready to take the next big step with an Online Workshop: Boost Your Writing With Seven Techniques next Tuesday, February 7^th, starting at 1 PM Eastern Time. More than just a webinar you passively watch on your screen, this will be a truly interactive workshop. How cool is that? Even better, because it’s the first one, Gabriela’s offering it for free. Click on the link above for the full story or here if you already know you want to register.

BUSINESS

If you’ve wondered what the various kinds of editors do (you did know there are various kinds of editors, didn’t you?) and what the can do for you if you’re self-publishing—and what they can do to you if you let them—then you want to read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s (@kriswrites) Hiring Editors. Skip or plow through her de rigeur sliming of traditional publishing and agents because around that is valuable, maybe even vital, information on content editors, copy editors, line editors, and proofreaders (who aren’t editors but can be really important too).

Some people may find this news from Victoria Strauss (@victoriastrauss) on Writer Beware® Blogs disappointing (at least): Christian Writers Guild Publishing: Pay to Play from Jerry B. Jenkins. Why disappointing? Three reasons. First, like companies like Author Solutions, CWGP is offering writers bundles of “services,” some of questionable value, for prices starting at—brace yourself–$9,995.00. Second, a big-name author like Jerry Jenkins is involved. And third, this is proof once again that just because something is labeled “Christian” doesn’t mean it can be trusted to live up to those principles.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Today Robert Lee “My Name Is Not Bob” Brewer (@robertleebrewer) publishes this year’s list of his Best Blogs for Writers to Read in 2013. While I’m pleased to say that many, indeed virtually all, of the blogs I report on here are included in his list, there are many that are not. Why? Because his list is 55 blogs long! Yikes! Okay, so sanity-check time here. No one’s suggesting that you MUST read all 55. What else would you do with your day if you did? But with so many to choose from, I’m sure you’ll find a reasonable number that are worth your time. And THANK YOU for including this blog in your list!

TECHNOLOGY

It’s easy to get intimidated by all of the capabilities your word processing software has, isn’t it? So many of us fall back to a default position of learning a few tools and ignoring the rest. Then, anyone who knows even a few more gets designated an “expert.” Which is a shame because those software designers created those tools to make your life easier. That’s Joel Friedlander’s (@JFBookman) theme in Getting Started With Microsoft Word Styles for Book Layout. Every word processing program has something like Word’s “styles,” although they may call them something else, so this post is well worth your time, no matter what program you use. And by the way, “styles” aren’t just for laying out books. I write this blog in Word and have set up a “WordPress” style that captures not just the header design Joel discusses but every format-related thing I want. With one click of my mouse button, a new document is automatically set up. Shazam!

THE WRITING LIFE

Don’t do it! Don’tcha dare do it! Don’t read those reviews. No, not even the good ones. That’s Michelle Gagnon’s (@Michelle_Gagnon) advice on The Kill Zone, and she’s got lots of good reasons. Not reading the bad reviews is pretty obvious: clearly the reviewer just didn’t get it. J But the good reviews, well, their traps are more subtle. Michelle’s not talking about the ego overload problem, but all those “good ideas” that can lead you into forgetting that the work, especially the next one in the series, is your work, not that gushy reviewer’s. There be monsters. Beware!

Sarah Callender (@sarahrcallender) takes a fun but also serious look at The Writer as Inventor on Writer Unboxed. Sure, we know we invent our (fictional) stories. What Sarah focuses on are the traits of successful inventors: curiosity, focus, loyalty, clarity, fear more-or-less balanced with foolishness (or vice versa), and someone to provide a sanity check without stifling creativity.

So what do you think? Does Horwitz’s idea make any sense to you? What about Callender’s: are you a writer/inventor?

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 22 & 23, 2013

 

What do you know? A Great Stuff post without anything on craft! But that’s OK, there’s still Great Stuff out there: a convenient submission tracking form, yet another way to connect using social media and other ways to get support, acting like a writer, and a post like nothing you’ve ever seen—at least not recently.

BUSINESS

A couple weeks ago, Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) published a post called Navigating the Guest Post Process on DIY MFA, which included a PDF guest post submission log form. Today she announced on Twitter a new and improved version that you can fill out using Adobe Reader. (Full disclosure: Gabriela designed the form, I suggested and created the capability to fill it in with Reader. Thanks for letting me contribute, Gabriela!) The form is good for other submissions besides guest posts, too: opinion pieces, even full-scale non-fiction articles for print or online publication. You can find the form by clicking on the link above or get it directly here.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Google+ continues to come up with its own takes on things other social media sites are already doing. Now Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) introduces us to the latest with Google+ Communities Create New Networks for Authors and Publishers. I won’t make any snarky comments about this being another way to spend time we should be spending writing: we know that already. What jumped out at me was this: there are four general types of groups: public, public moderated, private, and private hidden. That’s fine. But once the community’s been created, you can’t change the type, from public moderated to private, say? Really? If Joel’s not wrong, Google certainly is. That’s poor design.

THE WRITING LIFE

No doubt Becca Puglisi (@beccapuglisi) chose the title Got Any Wise People in Your Village? Or Just Idiots? with the intention of getting our attention. And she succeeded. But the village she’s referring to is the group of writing-related people around us—the people who should be our support group. Are they wise or, um, not so helpful? Her key points are: (1) you need them; (2) you decide who to keep close and who not to.

Having that village around you will only help so much, however, if you’re not willing to help yourself. Carleen Brice (@carleenbrice) answers the question Can Acting As If You’re a Writer Make You a Writer? with a qualified yes. Yes if you use acting-as-if to get started or keep yourself motivated to keep going. There’s even scientific evidence now to show this works. But it’s the doing that matters in the end, not the pretending.

FUN

Oh, man, this is just too much fun to pass up. John Vorhaus’s (@TrueFactBarFact) Simile Fever Spreads Like Wildfire on Writer Unboxed is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Good thing you’re done with this post. You can stop what you’re doing an go read it—now!—without guilt.

Then share the laughs with all your writer friends.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 12-14, 2013

We’ve got everything from variations on a scene to guest posting to number crunching (or not) to scams to friends to plot holes. Quite a smorgasbord of Great Stuff!

CRAFT

KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) continues her series on scenes with Pt. 6: Variations on the Scene. Said variations can apply to:

• The scene goal: discovered after the scene begins; is implied instead of stated
• The scene conflict: opens with conflict, not goal; is understated
• The scene disaster: ends before the disaster, or
• The scene as a whole: is skipped, implied, or summarized; is interrupted by a new scene; or switches POV.

Lots of great information here, especially for the intermediate writer.

Despite the title, Boyd Morrison’s (@boydmorrison) Have Gun? Won’t Travel on The Kill Zone isn’t about guns, per se, and it’s certainly not about the “debate” over “gun control” going on in the country now. It’s about plot holes, those practical, logistical, or logical impossibilities that movie-makers often get away with that writers can’t (or at least shouldn’t) and what you might do to keep yourself from leaving them in your own work. A long post, but worth a look.

BUSINESS

At first, Michael Swanwick’s Free Me! post was pretty much what I expected: an announcement of a free e-book from Tor.com that includes one of his stories. But then Michael went on to join the Kris Rusch bandwagon and remind authors to start recording their bibliography as soon as their first story is published. Why? Not just to have the record for your eventual estate, but to motivate you to get another story written and published so the first one won’t look so lonely. And then the first two won’t be lonely. And then….

Dean Wesley Smith (@DeanWesleySmith) continues his New World of Publishing with a not-as-long-as-it-looks post titled Counting Numbers. This piece is going to be a bracing reality check on what realistic expectations for sales numbers and income look like, especially for many new, stars-in-their-eyes writers, but that’s okay. Perhaps his most important point is to think like a publisher: over a 10 year span, not month-to-month.

James Scott Bell (@jamesscottbell) wades once again into the quantity-now-versus-quality-soon debate that’s been bubbling around the blogosphere lately, with participants like DW Smith, Jane Friedman, and Porter Anderson with his Kill Zone post Publishing and Marketing Your Crap. It takes him a while to get to this point but it’s sure where my thinking is: “If readers don’t like the first book of yours they try, they’re most unlikely to buy any of the other 37.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) begins a series on Why Writers Should Write Guest Posts. This fairly long article covers five strategies for why someone would want to do this: to promote a blog or web site, to reach a new audience, to promote a new book, to help a new blogger build a readership, and to stretch your “writing muscle.” Future posts will cover the who, what, and how of guest postings. Should be a good series.

The second post, in fact, is pretty good, too. Gabriela discusses Navigating the Guest Post Process, including deciding specifically what to write about and for whom, how to pitch the idea (including a format for a pitch e-mail—very good idea!), things NOT to do in the pitch, and what to do when the post is published. All terrific stuff. She also provides a downloadable PDF form that you could use to track your submissions. Unfortunately, you can’t fill it in electronically but Gabriela’s accepted my offer to make it fillable. Check back tomorrow for news.

THE WRITING LIFE

Scams, alas, are a part of e-life, and Victoria Strauss (@VictoriaStrauss) relays a report of one that’s been making the rounds in the UK in Alert: UK Speaker Scam Targets Writers (and Others) on Writer Beware® Blogs. In essence, the scam comes as an e-mail that says the recipient’s been selected to be a guest speaker at a university-sponsored conference but (there’s always a but) there are government fees that need to be paid up-front. You can figure out the rest. This scam isn’t unique to the UK; it’s a variation on a theme whose purpose is always to separate the naïve or unthinking from their money. Writer: beware!

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) points us over to the Glimmer Train Bulletin for an article by Kate Gale, the Managing Editor of Red Hen Press in which she advises, Find Someone Who Is a Stakeholder in Your Writing Life. She suggests three sources—family, spouse/lover, and other (published) writers—and a total of five people, or so, who will believe in you and support you. Contrary to the opinion of some writers, this is where a writers’ group can—not necessarily will, but can—provide that kind of support. Food for thought.

Don’t forget, you can always share Great Stuff with your friends. At no cost! 😉

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, December 13 & 14, 2012

Happy Friday, everyone, from snowy southern Arizona. You read that right—snowy. Not Minnesota-snowy, but we are getting snow showers today. Nothing’s sticking—the ground is much too warm—but yes, 10 miles from the Mexican border, we do get snow. The mountains should be gorgeous once the clouds lift enough that I can see them. Anyway, that makes today a good day to stay inside and WRITE!

CRAFT

Ever find your story wandering off not just into places you never intended but into the deep, dark, dismal forest, just lost, lost, lost? Yeah, me too. Lisa Cron (@lisacron) offers a path out of those woods (or a way to avoid getting into them in the first place) in How To Keep Your Story On Track: Chart “Who Knows What, When” on Writer Unboxed. Outliners may love this method, since its character-knowledge-lines tie directly to a story’s scene-by-scene outline but even pantsers will find it useful, although at a later stage in the development process.

Another way stories get slowed down is when the author inserts “filler”: sentences, paragraphs, scenes, even (gasp!) whole chapters that add nothing to the story. Fortunately, editor Laura Carlson comes to the rescue with How to Cut the Filler and Tighten Your Book on KM Weiland’s WORDplay blog. If you’ve ever written anything that turned out to be filler (c’mon, of course you have J), this post will be helpful.

Last Wednesday, after I’d put up my post, Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) put up a 4-page Writing Goals Sheet, a downloadable PDF file that covers near-term and long range goals, funding and resources, and more. It’s all very pretty but you need to know how to turn on the typewriter function in Adobe Reader if you want to type directly onto the document. (To do so, in the latest Reader version, click on Comment on the right side of the screen, then click on the big capital T. That will give you a special cursor that you can place in the document where you want to start typing.) Of course, you can always print out the sheets and fill them in by hand.

BUSINESS

Writer Beware® Blogs! hosts guest blogger Mridi Khullar Relph (@mridikhullar), who provides useful information on International Writing Scams and How to Protect Yourself. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that many of the overseas scams Mridi discusses have kissing cousins (or identical twins) here in the U.S. but working outside your home country always adds additional complications, so if that’s something you’re contemplating doing, or already doing, be sure to give this post a look.

The cover of your book, irrespective of format, is critical to whether it’ll be purchased or not. I know that seems unfair—that some graphic artwork can have more influence on a potential reader than your own words—but it’s true. If you’re publishing independently, what do you do? Design it yourself? Hire someone to do it? If so, who? Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) has invited guest poster GX (@graphiczsdesign) to discuss this in Want Professional Ebook Covers on a Budget? Try Ready-To-Go Options. GX discusses his (?)/her (?) own company’s work and how authors can use ready-to-go covers, and one of the comments also suggests three other sources.

THE WRITING LIFE

Jurgen Wolff (@jurgenwolff) retells a story originally told by Tim Ferris, the author of “The 4-Hour Work Week” in How big should your next writing or other creative goal be? (The missing reasons) on his Time to Write blog. The basic point is that if you aim for mediocre goals, that’s the most you’ll achieve. Aim higher and you have the chance (nothing guaranteed but the chance) at something far better. Thanks to my friend Lucinda for pointing out this piece.

Of course, if you aim high, there’s the risk of doing nothing but leaving a big splat mark on that tall building you tried to leap over in a single bound. Two posts address this fear: Nathan Bransford’s (@NathanBransford) Living on the Edge of Confidence and Self-Doubt and Rachelle Gardner’s (@RachelleGardner) 5 Ways to Deal with Failure on the Books & Such Literary Agency blog. Both discuss living with the fact that failure is a part of doing and that how you deal with failures is more important than the failure itself. If you’re needing a confidence boost about now, check out these two posts.

Rachelle then comes back with a post on her own blog about creating a realistic Holiday Writing Plan. Her five suggestions are nothing but common sense, but as the saying goes, sometimes common sense ain’t so common, which makes reminders like these valuable.

So what do you think? Have any thoughts or observations about any of these posts? Share them in the Comments below.

 

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, December 6 & 7, 2012

Some really important stuff in the Business and Life sections today, not to mention valuable things to know about Craft and a little bit of crazy and not-for-the-squeamish Fun.

CRAFT

Juliet Marillier touches on an interesting but not that uncommon topic in A Dog’s-eye view on Writer Unboxed. Science fiction and fantasy authors have had to deal with the question of how you make a non-human character, especially if they’re a POV character, both comprehensible and alien at the same time. Many authors have tried it, with varying degrees of success—“success” being a very squishy concept, depending on what they were trying to do. If this is something you’ve ever tried or want to try, give this piece a look.

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) offers some suggestions on How to Write Smart, Not Fast on Write to Done. I was concerned at first when he wrote, “…you need a system…” but fortunately he doesn’t prescribe a particular system, per se, but a system for developing your own. OK, I can live with that.

Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) discusses her process of revising in Writing a Book: What Happens After the First Draft? While her particular technique is, of course, her own and may not work for you or me, not only does she have a few interesting twists, like editing on her Kindle for word choice, but she provides quite a few links to other posts, not only her own. For my own immediate needs, the link to her article on beta readers was helpful but there are half a dozen others as well. They alone make this post worth your while.

How Do You Know If Your Work is Any Good? It’s one of the oldest questions around, and not unique at all to writing or even the arts. Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) takes a crack at it, starting by asking how each of us define “good” and what kind of validation we’re looking for. Nothing really new or revelatory here, just good solid reminders to help you keep yourself in balance.

Along this line, check out the quote from Steven Spielberg, provided by Michael Hyatt (@MichaelHyatt) in Being Fearless Is Overrated.

BUSINESS

I’m still having trouble with writers who slime all agents all the time because some (small? who knows?) percentage manage to screw up. But that said, when you read pieces like Dean Wesley Smith’s (@DeanWesleySmith) A Side Note About Agents you can’t help but wonder what’s up with agents like the one Smith discusses, who’s being sued for failing to do his job. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder why the competent agents aren’t (a) speaking up for their profession and (b) making a real effort to weed out the bad apples. (Mixed metaphor—sorry!)

Along those same lines, Victoria Strauss (@VictoriaStrauss) issues yet another warning on Writer Beware, this time about The Albee Agency: Book Publicity Faked. What amazes me—and her—is that this agency seemed not to think that nobody would check on their claims. So when Strauss did… I’ll let you guess what happened. “Writer Beware”: it’s so true.

THE WRITER’S LIFE

With the end of the year approaching, we’re tempted to look back and assess. Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) continues her Write It! Wednesday series in that vein with What Successes Will You Celebrate This Year? Celebrating, or even just acknowledging, our own successes isn’t a bad thing. I can list a few: the continued growth and success of the Cochise Writers’ Group, the creation and growth of this blog series, the fact that all of you are reading it (THANK YOU!!!), and the soon-to-happen transition of my major Work In Progress to Work Completed (for now, anyway). What are your successes?

On a much less happy but perhaps even more important topic, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (@kriswrites) continues her series on estate planning with Ghosts of Writers Future. This long as always but important piece is the first of a series on the relationships between wills and copyrights and what how long copyrights last after your death means for your estate and heirs. I know this isn’t a comfortable topic—I’m working on a change to my will and one of its charitable remainder trusts right now—but having lived through what happens when someone dies without a will, trust me, if you value your writing work and love your family, you’ll want to read and heed what Kris is writing here.

FUN

Whether you’re a mystery or thriller writer or not, check out Jordan Dane’s (@JordanDane) White Elephant Christmas Gifts for Crime Fiction Buffs on The Kill Zone. Some of them, like the outfit consisting of a horrible Christmas sweater, pink cowboy hat, and plaid shorts are funny, others, like the bleeding bath mat are just plain creepy. All in good fun, though—at least so long as the words “you have just been poisoned” at the bottom of the coffee mug aren’t true!

Have a great weekend. Happy reading and writing!

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, November 29 & 30, 2012

Today marks the end of this year’s NaNoWriMo. If you were NaNo-ing, I hope you made your target. Now the fun begins: editing that (bleep)y first draft. 😉 Maybe the posts below will help you do that and get the final result published.

CRAFT

When Jeanne Kisacky writes about deep and shallow plots, she isn’t necessarily referring to graves, although for someone writing a murder mystery, that certainly could apply. Instead, what she’s referring to in Building a Plot of Variable Depth on Writer Unboxed is how plot relates to pace and character. When the plot is shallow, the story’s pace is quick. When the plot is deep, that’s a time of exploring character and change. A well-written story moves back and forth between the two.

Two posts on characters to check out. How Do You Create Characters? on The Kill Zone asks TKZ readers for their techniques. Mine’s there and you can check out other writers’ as well. Jennifer R. Hubbard (@JenRHubbard) has a concise discussion of The supporting cast on her blog, writerjenn, with good examples of how writers have used them badly and well. Thanks to Nathan Bransford for pointing out this piece.

There are also two posts on tension/suspense. Ollin Morales’ (@OllinMorales) How to Create Suspense on Write to Done uses an example of a Hitchcock movie to make the point of telling the reader just enough—and no more—to keep them wondering what will happen next. Victoria Mixon’s (@VictoriaMixon) longer Making Tension Tense on Writer Unboxed says much the same thing, but with three examples.

BUSINESS

Victoria Strauss (@VictoriaStrauss) of Writer Beware joins the chorus of negative reviews today in Archway Publishing: Simon & Schuster Adds a Self-Publishing Division. In case you hadn’t heard, Archway is S&S’s link to Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI), which I mentioned last time. Unlike Dean Wesley Smith’s previous post on the topic, however, Strauss goes into much more detail on why sensible writers should stay far far away from anything having to do with ASI. Read and heed.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s latest Business Rusch (@kriswrites; again, as always, very long) column, Getting Rid of the Middle Man, is really about Kickstarter, one of the “crowdsourcing” web sites (along with FaithFunder and IndieGoGo), writers and others can use to fund projects. Unfortunately, getting to the real meat of the piece—what to do and not do in order to have a reasonable chance at getting your Kickstarter project funded—requires skipping screen after screen of other material. If you’re thinking of using Kickstarter or one of the others, the piece is probably worth a look, but plan on hitting the Page Down key several times before you get to the good stuff.

Joel Friedlander (@jfbookman) introduces something I think is very cool: A New (Free) Way to Sell Books from Your Sidebar. Agent Claire Ryan (@rayntweets) has created a WordPress plugin called Buy This Book (available through the WordPress Plugin Directory) that lets blog visitors to click on an image of the book’s cover and get a slide-out menu of links to websites where the book can be purchased. While the plugin is available only for blogs/web sites using WordPress.org software, Ryan also provides the HTML code that can be copied into a WordPress.com blog and modified as necessary—plus the instructions on how to install it properly as a widget.

THE WRITER’S LIFE

Gabriela Pereira’s (@DIYMFA) Write It! Wednesday piece, Your Writing Superheroes talks about hers, which may or may not be interesting. But one of her four stood out to me: the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. (a.k.a 826NYC). These folks are part of an organization called 826 National, a nonprofit that supports eight writing and tutoring centers around the country for kids 6-18—in New York, DC, Ann Arbor, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco. (Darn shame it’s just eight.) Anyway, if you live in one of these cities, have a thing for kids and writing, and want to do some volunteer work, you might want to check them out.

JUST FOR FUN

Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s epigraph to The Great Gatsby is a fake—that he quoted a character from one of his previous books? Check out Robert Bruce’s (@robertbruce76) latest 101 Books post, The “High Bouncing Lover”?

And one more thing, from Dan Blank’s (@DanBlank) e-newsletter today. You may have seen images like the ones in this video by @kottke as chalk drawings on city streets… but you probably haven’t seen anything quite like them, either. What’s the relation to writing? They’re both illusions: some are optical, some are mental. Enjoy.

Come across something great? Don’t delay: share it in the Comments below!