Conflict is the difference between expectation and result.
Category Archives: writing tip
Writing tip Wednesday: “Conflict”
Conflict is the difference between expectation and result.
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Writing tip Wednesday: “Don’t say this at home”
“Said” or “asked” is usually enough. As in Mike said or Beth asked.
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Stephen King on writing
Stephen King Used These 8 Writing Strategies to Sell 350 Million Books
The best-selling novelist shares his secrets to selling so many books.
by Glenn Leibowitz
Stephen King is one of the most prolific and commercially successful authors of the past half century, with more than 70 books of horror, science fiction, and fantasy to his name. Estimates put the total sales of his books at between 300 and 350 million copies.
Author offers advice.
16 years ago, King shared everything he knows about writing in a book that instantly became a bestseller: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Part memoir, part codification of his best writing strategies, the book has become a classic among writers.
I discovered – and devoured – it a dozen years ago, when I was trying to take my writing to the next level. I recommend it to all of my writer friends.
You don’t have to be a fan of King’s writing to appreciate the wisdom within the pages of this book. Nor do you have to be a novelist: The book has highly practical strategies that writers of nonfiction can immediately apply to their writing.
Here are eight writing strategies King shares that have helped him sell 350 million books:
1. Tell the truth.
“Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. Anything at all… as long as you tell the truth… Write what you like, then imbue it with life and make it unique by blending in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex, and work… What you know makes you unique in some other way. Be brave.”
2. Don’t use big words when small ones work.
“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up your household pet in evening clothes.”
3. Use single-sentence paragraphs.
“The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story… to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.
The single-sentence paragraph more closely resembles talk than writing, and that’s good. Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?”
4. Write for your Ideal Reader.
“Someone – I can’t remember who, for the life of me – once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I believe this.
I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, ‘I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?’ For me that first reader is my wife, Tabitha… Call that one person you write for Ideal Reader.”
5. Read a lot.
“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books – of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone’s favorite, the john.”
6. Write one word at a time.
“In an early interview (this was to promote Carrie, I think), a radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply – ’One word at a time’– seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple.”
7. Write every day.
“The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway)… When I’m writing, it’s all the playground, and the worst three hours I ever spent there were still pretty damned good.”
8. Write for the joy of it.
“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it… Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side – I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”
Filed under 2016, Uncategorized, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Writing tip Wednesday: “Six the hard way”
6 Hard Truths Every Writer Should Accept
by Dana Elmendorf
1. It won’t be your first novel.
Dana Elmendorf
2. First drafts always suck.
There’s no getting around it. It’s a part of the process we must all accept to make the improvements our manuscripts need. The first words you put on paper will not sparkle like shimmering diamonds. Geological fact, diamonds look like cloudy, dirty rocks until somebody cuts and polishes them. Don’t fight it. Let the suckage happen. It’s a healthy part of growing as a writer. But I’ll tell you a little secret, each first draft sucks a little less than its predecessor.
3. Your husband, mother, sister, best friend, coworker or the neighbor who is a high school English teacher does not qualify as a critique partner.
It doesn’t matter how “honest” they are with you. The truth of the mater is, only another writer can give you what you really need. They understand voice, character development, pacing, story arc, plot points, sub plots, inciting incidents, reversals, character growth, and about six hundred other things that go into writing a book. It doesn’t matter that your bestie reads a hundred books a year. Reading books is only a fraction of what it takes to be a writer. Passion for reading does not equal qualified critique partner. Beta reader, maybe. Critique partner, no. Do your writing a favor and find yourself several qualified critique partners. It’ll be the best decision you ever made for your career.
4. Your journey will not be the same journey as your peer’s journey.
This is where I’m supposed to tell you not to compare yourself to others. But we both know that’s pointless. You’ll do it anyway. We all do. If you’re comparing yourself it’s probably because you’re feeling like you’re not where you’d like to be in your career. Which will most likely result in finding inadequacies within yourself. Instead, when you do compare yourself, be realistic. Realize there aren’t any measurable factors to compare yourself despite how similar your life is to another writer. Because when it comes down to it, some things you just can’t assign a value, like natural talent, motivation, passion, doubt, and many more intangible factors. At the end of the day, it’s the writer who perseveres that will become published.
5. Being good isn’t good enough.
This factor was the hardest for me to accept. It implies that a positive word like “good” only equates to “competent.” There is a sea of talented writers out there. What you need to be to stand out varies. Maybe you need to be different, refreshing, clever, timeless, re-inventive, unique, or my personal favorite…sparkly. The only way to be better than good is through hard work and perseverance. Which leads me to the last point…
6. Pay your dues.
There isn’t any secret advice to getting published. There are no short cuts in this business. Nothing comes easy in this industry. You want to get published? Then put in the time, blood, sweat, and tears that it takes to get you there. Sure some authors make it look easy, but don’t be fooled. They walked that same long road just like the rest of us.
These hard truths aren’t here to disappoint you. They’re here to help you focus on what’s important, your writing. Set your sights on your goal and don’t let these small things trip you up along the way.
—
Column by Dana Elmendorf, author of SOUTH OF SUNSHINE (April 1, 2016, Albert Whitman and Company). Dana lives in southern California with her husband, two boys and her tiny dog Sookie. When she isn’t exercising, she can be found geeking out with Mother Nature or scouring the internet for foreign indie bands.You can also find her dreaming up contemporary YA romances with plenty of kissing. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Writing tip Wednesday: “Agent to consider”
New Literary Agent Alert: Elise Erickson of Harold Ober Associates
Elise Erickson of Harold Ober Associates (http://www.haroldober.com/) graduated from St. Olaf College and the NYU Summer Publishing Institute in 2014, and spent several months interning at Penguin’s New American Library imprint, Folio Literary Management, and Susanna Lea Associates before taking on her current position at Harold Ober Associates. She grew up in both Florida and Minnesota, but is quickly learning to love city life in NYC. Elise is passionate about the role and responsibility of the literary agent, especially being an advocate for authors. In addition to working with books, she currently assists in selling Harold Ober’s TV, film, and subsidiary rights, and is actively building a client list of her own.
Interests: Romance and all of its subgenres, women’s fiction, paranormal, mystery including clever cozy mysteries, thrillers, historical fiction, commercial literary fiction, and some YA. She is particularly drawn to stories that contain a strong sense of place, and female protagonists with unique, compelling voices.
Not Looking For: Poetry, Screenplays, Picture Books, Horror, Self-help.
How to Query: Please email the first 15-20 pages of your manuscript, a concise query letter, and a detailed synopsis to
elise [at] haroldober.com.
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Writing tip Wednesday: “Watch you language”
Why Your Story is Getting Rejected: Language
by Chelsea Henshey
Getting to the heart of the matter.
Now, as an editor, writer, and reader, I’m constantly on the lookout for crafted prose that’s evident from paragraph one. Crafted prose means the writer isn’t simply moving characters from point A to point B, but arranging images and syntax to create rhythm and evoke emotion.
While all levels of a story must be effective for publication, stilted language can stop an editor in her tracks before your plot even begins. To refine your own language, remember the following tips:
Choose Your Style
When I use the term style, I’m referring to minimalist, maximalist, or somewhere in between. Notice the difference between the passages from Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” and Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God.
This blind man, an old friend of my wife’s, he was on his way to spend the night. His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife’s relatives in Connecticut. He called my wife from his in-law’s. Arrangements were made. He would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my wife would meet him at the station. She hadn’t seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago.
They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and pitching the ruts and the musicians on the chairs in the truckbed teetering and tuning their instruments, the fat man with guitar grinning and gesturing to others in a car behind and bending to give a note to the fiddler who turned a fiddlepeg and listened with a wrinkled face.
Much of your style has to do with instinct. Do you cringe at the thought of sprawling descriptions, or could you describe a scene for pages? Whatever you choose, stay consistent. Don’t be minimalist on page one and switch to a maximalist style on page three.
Avoid Abstraction
Many writers rely on abstractions in their descriptions. The issue with abstractions is they do not ground your reader. When you say something is beautiful, hideous, terrible, amazing, etc. it doesn’t provide a concrete image the reader can see. Instead, abstractions remain different for everyone, with one person’s view of beauty drastically different from the author’s. If you don’t explain what beautiful looks like, your reader is lost, and your description has no effect.
Avoid Abstraction
Many writers rely on abstractions in their descriptions. The issue with abstractions is they do not ground your reader. When you say something is beautiful, hideous, terrible, amazing, etc. it doesn’t provide a concrete image the reader can see. Instead, abstractions remain different for everyone, with one person’s view of beauty drastically different from the author’s. If you don’t explain what beautiful looks like, your reader is lost, and your description has no effect.
Be Creative
When you meet a new person, how do you describe him to someone else? Do you say he’s 6-feet tall with blue eyes, brown hair, and a beard, or are you more likely to explain unique things about him? The same goes for setting. Are the mountains tall? Is the sky blue? Does the dining room have a table? As you write, move beyond the obvious and into the memorable.
But Watch for Runaway Similes and Metaphors
Runaway similes and metaphors are tricky. I can see the writer has good intentions, but the image has backfired. These comparisons are so unrelated, they depart from what they’re describing. For example, if you compare your character stretching his legs out to unrolling a sleeping bag, notice what happens: You’re going to jump to the sleeping bag and leave the character behind. I’ve written many metaphors like this in the past, and it usually takes a trusted reader to point them out. If you’re feeling particularly proud of an out-of-the-box image, use caution, and test it on a reader.
Other things to consider:
Listen to your writing
Eliminate Repetition
Proofread
Rest of the article: http://www.writersdigest.com/uncategorized/why-your-story-is-getting-rejected-language?platform=hootsuite
Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Writing tip Wednesday: “Avoiding pitfalls on the way to publication”
Mistakes Writers Make When Submitting to Literary Magazines
by Eva Langston
1. Not reading literary magazines
This seems obvious, but if you want to get published in a journal, it’s helpful to read the types of pieces they publish. Most literary magazines suggest you read a few back issues first to get a sense of their aesthetic. In an ideal world, you should do this, but chances are you don’t have time to read multiple back issues of every single journal you’re going to submit to. Instead, make it your goal to simply read more literary magazines than you currently do. Subscribe to a few each year. Get your friends to subscribe to different publications and then trade. And of course, take advantage of free online journals, such as Carve. Read a story whenever you have a spare moment, even if it’s on your phone while waiting in line at the grocery store.
2. Not submitting your best work
Instead of finishing a story and submitting it immediately, let your piece rest for a few months then go back and revise. Workshop it, or let a trusted writer friend read it and give feedback. Print it out and triple-check for grammatical and spelling errors. Read your piece out loud at least once. Only submit when you think the piece is the best it can possibly be.
3. Not following guidelines
Double check all guidelines before submitting to a magazine. Is there a word count requirement? Should your name be removed from the piece? Should your document be in Word, PDF, or rich text format? If it’s an email submission, do they want the document attached, or pasted into the body of the email? Do they accept simultaneous submissions? Don’t risk getting your piece being tossed out because you didn’t follow the rules.
4. Making simultaneous submission goofs
Speaking of simultaneous submissions, if a journal says they don’t accept them you should respect that, or risk making an editor annoyed. Fortunately, a lot of magazines do accept simultaneous submissions, and if they don’t say either way, you can safely assume that they do. This is good because it means you can send the same story to multiple journals at the same time and increase your chances of getting an acceptance letter. But if your piece gets picked up by a journal, you must alert the other journals you submitted it to. If a reading committee debates over your story for a long time, decides to accept it, and then finds out it’s been published elsewhere, your name will be mud in the world of literary magazines.
5. Not keeping track of submissions
Use a spreadsheet or some other organizational method to keep track of your submissions (what you sent, to which journals, when, and the responses). Not only will this help with simultaneous submissions in case your piece is accepted (see No. 4), but it will also keep you from submitting the same piece to a magazine that has already rejected it, or not yet responded to your last submission. The online submission manager Duotrope offers this type of “tracker” as a feature for their paid subscribers.
Other tips include:
6. Making cover letter goofs
7. Not doing enough research
8. Ignoring online journals
9. Taking rejections too personally and not submitting enough
10. Not thanking the editor
For details, go to: http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2016/02/03/mistakes-writers-make-when-submitting-to-literary-magazines/
Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Writing tip Wednesday: “Find it here”
Poets and Writers tools for writers
Source: http://www.pw.org/conferences_and_residencies
The link takes you to a searchable database where you can find conferences and residences across the U.S. There are also links to those events, so you can investigate them further.
Sample of the Poets & Writers database.
And don’t forget about this database to search for competitions: http://www.dystopianstories.com/writing-competitions-2016/
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Writing tip Wednesday: “New agent to consider”
New Literary Agent Alert: Eve Porinchak of Jill Corcoran Literary
Eve Porinchak
She is seeking: Eve has eclectic literary tastes and is open to everything from picture books to adult novels. Specifically looking for edgy, psychological thrillers, gang-lit, realistic contemporary. Some of Eve’s favorite books are: True Notebooks by Mark Salzman, Monster by Walter Dean Myers, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, This Is For The Mara Salvatrucha, Inside The MS-13 by Samuel Logan.
Eve is not a fan of high fantasy; however, she loves the Hunger Games and Science Fiction. Also a huge fan of true crime, and loved NPR’s SERIAL. If your story reads like a Tuesday night episode of “Dateline,” send Eve your pages!
How to submit: Please send a query letter with a synopsis and the first ten pages of your work (or entire picture book manuscript) to eve [at] jillcorcoranliteraryagency.com . Please include your submission text within your e-mail. Attachments will not be opened.
Filed under 2016, agents, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
Writing tip Wednesday: “Hands-on Research”
7 Tips for Using Hands-On Research to Enrich Your Writing
by Delilah S. Dawson
Delilah S. Dawson
1. See the place.
Traveling allows you to soak up the visual backdrop of a new place. If you grew up in the country, it’ll be hard to write a big city since you’ve never looked up at a looming skyscraper. Visiting the place you’re writing about will inform you of what the people wear, what they hang on the walls, what sidewalk vendors sell, what colors the mountains are in the distance. I’m from Georgia, and I’ll never forget what it felt like to see the Alps for the first time, to climb the stairs of the Duomo in Milan, or to take a ferry to Santorini. Mountains are so much bigger than I’d imagined, and the Mediterranean is such a specific crystal blue. The mental photographs you’ll take while traveling will make your descriptions richer and more specific.
2. Taste the food.
Even if you’re not writing Game of Thrones-style banquet orgies, place-specific food still plays a big part in any story. If you’ve never tried to make coffee by a campfire or roast meat on a stick, you’re going to have trouble describing the process your character goes through and how satisfying their end result is. I’ll never forget what a wakeup call it was the first time I had breakfast in France— baguette with Nutella and hot chocolate. Or that summer in Greece, when we had fresh cherries over ice. Or a bag of hot chestnuts in Florence in January. Wherever you go, find out what the locals eat and try it with an open mind.
3. Feel the experience.
Thanks to TripAdvisor and Yelp, it’s easy to find place-specific activities that can inform your writing. Go ziplining over the jungle, go for a ride with a cop, watch an autopsy, try spinning wool or dipping candles. Take a horseback riding lesson or a short trip in a hot air balloon. Save up to go on a safari or just ride the camel at the zoo for six dollars. For almost any activity you’re going to use in your book, there’s a way to experience it yourself for under a hundred dollars.
That goes for clothes, too. Personally, I feel like you shouldn’t write about corsets until you’ve spent a day wearing one. Try dancing in a ball gown or tying a cravat. Go to the RenFaire and try chainmail. Clothes affect how you move, what you do with your time, where you sit, and how you feel overall. Visit the dealer room of any Comic Con to try costume pieces that translate to your work.
4. Feel the discomfort.
I once threw a Romance novel across the room because the pampered main character lost her virginity in a filthy, abandoned hovel on a bed of loose straw. Have you felt real straw? So not sexy.
Discomfort is part of life—now, in the far less hygienic past, and even in space in the future. If your character spends all day sweating in a saddle in too-small boots, they’re going to have a hard time walking, much less killing vampires. If your character gets in a fight, they’re going to have bruises. And shouldn’t James Bond have jet lag basically all the time? Capturing an experience means paying homage to the good and the bad with careful attention to the realistic consequences of their physical experience.
5. Listen to crowds, listen to the silence.
It makes a big difference if you’re awakened by barking dogs, a crowing rooster, Big Ben, songbirds, or a blaring alarm. The sounds of a city are entirely different from the sounds of a mountain cabin. Even the birds sing differently in different places. Is your character in a city that never sleeps or on a spaceship so quiet that she’s going mad? Adding place-specific sounds to your story help us feel what your character is feeling and give us a flavor for the culture and setting.
6. Smell the air.
Whether you’re describing the hot garbage smell of New York in August or the clean pine smell of the mountains in autumn, your descriptions of scent will add one more facet to your character’s experience. It’s hard to describe the scent of a desert or ocean if you’ve never been there. The smell of horses is entirely different from the scent of cows, pigs, camels, or elephants. Rain smells different when it hits hot concrete at night as compared to an aluminum roof on a cool morning. If you have a difficult time describing scents, I would recommend taking a wine tasting class, which really helps tease apart different notes in a way that translates to the world of smell.
7. Learn the lingo.
Without googling, can you name the device used to move yarn through the warp and weft of a loom? Can you identify the parts of a saddle? Do you know the parts of a gun? Using the right words—not necessarily the proper words—helps convince your readers that you’re enough of an expert to write about a topic. And the best way to learn the right lingo is to experience it for yourself and ask the true expert tons of questions. Wikipedia is great but not always accurate, and absorbing word choice from other books won’t always guide you in the right direction. There’s simply no better source than firsthand knowledge.
And the other good news? If you have income from your writing, trips and adventures used as research are considered tax deductible. Win-win!
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Delilah S. Dawson, author of WAKE OF VULTURES (Oct. 2015, Orbit), written as Lila Bowen. Delilah is the author of the Blud series, SERVANTS OF THE STORM, HIT, and STAR WARS: THE PERFECT WEAPON. She teaches writing classes at LitReactor and has received the Steampunk Book of the Year and May Seal of Excellence for 2013 for WICKED AS SHE WANTS. Find her online at www.whimsydark.com
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Filed under 2016, writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday
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