writing from the peak – Page 7

Posts Tagged ‘writing from the peak’

Anthologies – What, Why, How?

By: Kathie Scrimgeour

With PPW’s new anthology, FRESH STARTS, publishing today it seemed appropriate to talk a little about anthologies. Back in August I wrote a post, Submitting to an Anthology in 5 Easy Steps. Today I will answer a few questions you might be thinking about. What exactly is an Anthology? Why write for one? How do you find an anthology to submit to?

What is an Anthology?

Simply put, it is a book that brings together a series of short stories, poems, and/or essays written by different authors. Usually there is a theme that all the authors write to. For FRESH STARTS the theme is the same as the title, with the added theme statement:

After the fires are out, the smoke has cleared, the divorce is over, the widow has stopped wearing black, the sun has risen, the monsters are dead, the world is saved (or destroyed!), the storm has calmed, and the trouble is over…

…what do you do next?

We can’t promise only happy endings. Just that moment when you pick yourself up out of the wreckage and find the strength to begin anew.

Is an anthology the same as a collection? No. A collection is a book that the contents are written by the same author, whereas an anthology’s stories are by different authors.

Why submit to an Anthology?

Even if you’re a novelist, you should consider writing for an anthology. Creating a short story will help you tighten your writing. You will learn how to condense descriptions the size of the Sistine Chapel down to a masterpiece the size of a thumb tack. It will still make your reader’s heart flutter, but with fewer words.

Maybe you want to try out an idea you have for an epic novel, but you aren’t sure if the subject will keep your reader engaged (or keep you writing). Start with a short story and shop it around to see what response you get. If it falls flat, then you might reconsider writing a three-book project.

An anthology also gives you a way to test out a genre you have never written in before. Writing outside your normal genre may spark inspiration in unexpected ways.

One last reason to submit to an anthology is to expand your resume. For most writers, books take a long time to write, but a short story…? With practice it can be created in a short period of time. Each publication in an anthology is another notch on your writing resume.

How do you find an anthology to submit to?

Well, PPW just so happens to be one resource. Plans have already started for the next anthology which should publish in March of 2022. The theme and details are being worked on and you can check the website for up-to-date information.

In the meantime, there are several ways to discover anthologies that are accepting submissions. One, is a search on your favorite online outlet using the keyword, “anthology”. Make notes of the publishers that pop up and check out their websites for information.

Doing a search like that is a little arduous so you might consider opting for a subscription to a listing service such as DuoTrope or Submission Grinder.

I did a broad search on DuoTrope for “anthology” and here is a screen shot of the results:

As you can see, there are a lot of anthologies to submit to (173 to be exact). DuoTrope does have a free trial that you can take advantage of if you want to take it for a test run.

Submission Grinder is a little cumbersome to use. Searches here are limited to names, titles, fiction, and poetry. Here is a screen shot of the search I did under the fiction option which took me to a menu to drill down my search. Anthology was not an option.

But, the landing page does list the names of publishers and what they are looking for whether it’s flash fiction, short stories, poetry, or essays.

Even if you never submit to an anthology, you will gain writing skills. Find a fun theme then write to it. You never know, you may end up opening your mind to things you never dreamed of.

Kathie Scrimgeour writes under the pseudonym KJ Scrim. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors with PPW, she is also the Managing Editor of Writing from the Peak (PPW’s blog) and the Lead Coordinator of PPW’s first anthology, Fresh Starts. Her inspiration for blogging, flash fiction, short stories, and the long haul of novel writing comes from her many life experiences. You can follow her on her website, and on Facebook. When she’s not writing you can find her somewhere in Colorado walking, hiking, or rock climbing.

P.S. Have you heard? PPW’s first anthology is here!
Fresh Starts is now on sale!

Now available on Amazon.
Pre-orders accepted on KOBO, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books (sales on these channels begin 4-9-21).

Clubhouse – Everything you need to know for now

By: Jenny Kate

Clubhouse is the hottest social media outlet on the internet right now.
But how familiar with it are you? Is it right for authors? What can the book industry get out of it?

Let’s dig in.

What is Clubhouse?

It’s the social media outlet all haters of live video have been waiting for!
It’s basically a conference call without video. Like having your own TedTalk with a bunch of people. You can listen in to any open room on the platform.
You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to. Or you can host your own room and have a conversation about a topic of interest.

Clubhouse is new

First, a little background. It’s only been around since the spring of 2020. So if you haven’t heard of it, don’t despair. It’s super new. And my guess is you had other things on your mind back then than worrying about a new social outlet. But there is nothing like it out there and I’m super excited about it.

Poll after poll shows people like to listen. Whether it’s to audiobooks, podcasts or the radio, listening while working out, driving, gardening, cleaning, working has shown to be extremely effective as a marketing tool.

How Clubhouse works

Right now it’s in beta and only on iOS so Android users have to wait until late 2021 at the earliest. Without an invitation from an existing user, you’re on the outside looking in. So, if you’re an iPhone user it is easy to create your account. Once you receive your invitation, just go through the steps. If you want to find out if any of your contacts are on Clubhouse, you can search via phone number. If you want to invite others, the platform gives you two invites. You’ll need to input their phone number and Clubhouse will send them a text. (Of course get their permission first).

I got mine through a colleague who posted about it on Facebook.

A really great workaround came from Tiffany Lee Bymaster on Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy podcast where she suggested finding an old iPhone, connecting to wifi, download the app, get an invite and explore. It’s a great idea! I borrowed a friend’s old iPhone since we’re Samsung users.

What can authors get out of it?

For now, I see two ways authors can use Clubhouse.

Authors can listen to great conversations for research. The exposure to experts and celebrities is unreal. Take advantage of that.
Name recognition through speaking will be way easier than on other social outlets. You can add to conversations or host your own. Either way, participation will have a tremendous payoff down the road.

I think Clubhouse has really filled a hole in the social media market. So many people don’t do live video because it’s intimidating or just not fun. Speaking where no one can see you gives you a lot of freedom to connect without worrying about the extras (lighting, being camera ready, location, etc..).

This is one of the reasons I like podcasting over video. I can just talk to people without a lot of technical know-how and external prep. So for now, I’m doing a lot of listening and will continue to explore how this platform will be a game changer for authors.

Jenny Kate is the founder of Writer Nation, an online space dedicated to helping writers market their work. With 19 years communications experience, she regularly writes on social media, internet marketing and face-to-face publicity. You can find her on her Website, Facebook, and Instagram

FRESH STARTS, Pikes Peak Writers first anthology will be released April 9th.
From more information, visit our webpage.

Surgery for Your Manuscript

By: Terry Odell

Whether you’re traditionally published, indie published, or working on getting published, you want to present the best possible reading experience. I edit as I go, with much appreciated feedback from critique partners, but even so, when I hit “The End,” it signals the beginning of the real editing process. It’s highly unlikely the manuscript is ready to turn in at this point.

A tip: You want to fool your brain, because you’ve been looking at the manuscript on screen for months. Print a hard copy. You’ll be amazed at how much more you “see.” Also, use a different font. If you’ve been working in a serif font, like TNR, use a non-serif font. In fact, this is a great place for Comic Sans. I also print it in two columns, which totally changes the line length, and the words line up differently. More glitches will be visible.

Start with Major Surgery

So, you have your manuscript ready to go. First: the major surgery. This is a read-through with one big question in mind: Does it advance the plot?

Often, the answer is no. I’m not a plotter, so my characters lead the way much of the time, and sometimes they insist on a scene that’s brilliantly written, but doesn’t help the story. Or a plot thread that turns out to be unnecessary.

Cut the threads, then, right? Or the scenes. Trouble is, threads don’t exist in nice, tidy packages. There are other things to watch out for. Did you foreshadow that scene or thread? Did you follow up? Make a reference, even in passing. Those have to go. Then, you have to go back and deal with transitions. Consider this phase reconstructive surgery.

It’s more than likely the scene before the one you cut led into it. That will have to be adjusted. Likewise the one after it. If you ended the scene with a page-turning cliff hanger, that cliffhanger now sends readers into an abyss with no bottom.

Same goes for any shorter bits you’ve cut. Watch what happens right before and right after, and smooth out the edges.

One tip for dealing with these spackling jobs is to note key words from your threads and search for them. It might be the name of the character, or some specific scene detail, like what they ate for dinner, or what they were wearing.

An example: After deleting a thread, there was a subsequent reference that included a trigger for a reaction from my hero, and I needed that reaction. But the conversation was no longer viable, and when I cut it, there went my trigger.

I went back quite a few chapters, and found another conversation that had shown a much milder reaction from my hero. By snipping it from that scene and including it, with the requisite modifications, I was able to salvage the trigger I needed, plus the reaction.

Don’t Leave any Instruments Behind

Once you’ve dealt with the big things, and have checked to be sure you didn’t leave any instruments or sponges in the body after performing the surgery, it’s time for minor surgery. Your story might be finished, but you need to deal with the inevitable excesses. Words that don’t add anything to the story. In fact, they might add distance, keeping a layer you don’t want between your readers and the characters. Or, there might be awkward bits.

How do you deal with these?

You probably have your list of crutch words and filler words. Words that are the written equivalent of throat-clearing, or the ums in spoken conversation. Word lets you search for those. However, there are the inevitable words or phrases I’m not aware of, and new ones crop up in every book. I use a program called SmartEdit, and highly recommend it. The cost is nominal (I get nothing from the company—I just like the product)—and I think there’s also a free version. This program does not check for grammar, which is hard to do for genre fiction anyway. Also, grammar is not a problem for me. The minor errors I make, my editor catches.

What kinds of things does a pass through the SmartEdit program flag?

An Adverb Usage list
Repeated Phrases list
Repeated Words List
Possible Misused Words List
Foreign Phrases List
Profanity/Swear Word List
A Sentence Length Graph
Dialogue Tags (this doesn’t work as I expected it to, so I don’t use it.)
Proper Nouns list (This is more of an “anything that begins with a capital letter” list, but it’s helpful in catching a name you thought you’d deleted, or two spellings of the same name. In my Mapleton books, there’s always at least one place where I spell my protagonist’s name Helper instead of Hepler.
Sentence Start List
Suspect Punctuation List.

Going through all of these is tedious, to be sure, but as you work through them, you’ll see places where your can tighten your writing, so there’s an extra bonus.

Microsurgery

At this point, I’m comfortable sending the manuscript to my editor, but there’s one last step. Microsurgery in the form of listening to the manuscript. I do this after I’m done dealing with my editor’s feedback, because it’s another tedious process, and I’d rather listen to the “finished” product. Like it or not, there will still be clunkers and minor typos.

There are those who suggest reading the manuscript aloud yourself, but your brain still knows what’s supposed to be there, and you’ll miss things. I use Word’s “Read Aloud” function (it comes with Office 365. If you don’t have that version, there’s “Read Selected Text” which does almost the same thing.) There have been a lot of improvements in the voices, but it’s still going to be a computer. The plus side is that a computer reads exactly what you’ve written. There are pronunciation issues, but I find those make sure I’m paying attention. You’ll hear ‘clunkers’ as well as actual mistakes.

Here are a couple of examples of errors nobody caught.

She drove the up the dirt lane. A beam of sunlight shone through a break in the gray winter sky, reflecting off a sprawling white two-story house, as if to say, This is your light in the darkness.

Did you catch the mistake?

Or, a potentially embarrassing one: A line was supposed to say “Come in here” but as written, it was “Come in her.” That made the extra listening step worth it!

Terry Odell is the author of over thirty novels, novellas, and short stories. She writes both mysteries and romantic suspense, but calls them all “Mysteries With Relationships.” Terry’s books have won awards including the Silver Falchion, the International Digital Awards, and the HOLT Medallion. A Los Angeles native, she moved to Florida for far too long, and is now enjoying life in the Colorado Rockies. Learn more on her website, or find her on Facebook page.

FRESH STARTS, Pikes Peak Writers first anthology will be released April 9th.
From more information, visit our webpage.

Producing a Novel – Part 11

Self-Editing

By Donna Schlachter

Okay, you’re getting close to the end of writing your book. You’ve checked the character arcs, the plot lines, sub-plots are all concluded, satisfying ending. Time to type THE END and send it off to your agent or one of the dozens of publishing houses languishing for want of your book, right?

Wrong!

Now it’s time to edit your book until the prose shines. Until you make your word count squeak because you’ve tightened the writing so much.

There are several ways to approach this stage, but I will suggest the steps I usually take, and I’ll toss in a couple of options for you, as well.

The Process

Regardless how much editing you might already have done while writing the book, the following steps are critical to the success of your book. Having already spent hundreds or thousands of hours getting the book written, you don’t want to skip any important steps. If you do them in the order laid out below, you won’t waste time because getting the steps out of order will duplicate the work.

If you haven’t already, you should put as much of the book as possible through your critique group. Everybody should have a critique group. Online or in person, it doesn’t matter. And once you receive feedback, incorporate it appropriately. Each member of your group should have their own particular skills. A grammar queen, a sentence structure guru, a big picture boss, and a story expert should comprise the basis of your group. So for example, if your big picture boss says to put a comma here, but your grammar queen says no, listen to the one who knows the grammar and punctuation best.
Use an online tool such as Grammarly or ProWriting Aid. Don’t use this tool instead of a critique group. Use it after the critique group. Listen to what the program tells you, but choose wisely. In particular, use the Grammar & Style, Echoes, and Overused Words functions. Check the readability and strive to get your book to fall into the parameters listed. For example, if the program says your Readability is difficult to read, check out the Stats to find out why. Or if the program says your Passive Index is 45, and the target is up to 25, listen to them.
If you have beta readers, send it to them now. These could be folks you’re related to, or friends, or strangers who offer to read your book for free when you ask for help. If you have a launch team, this could be them. When they send you feedback, listen to them and incorporate their suggestions.
Print your book out in the format in which it most likely will be published. If you expect it to be a 6X9, or a 5X7, or a mass market size like 4.75X7, set the margins and print the book. I know, it will be a lot of pages. Still a great investment. Then read the book as if you were a reader. Mark any changes you want to make in red. Move paragraphs around inside the document with arrows and notes. You will sometimes see things on the page when it’s printed this way that you wouldn’t see otherwise, such as if every paragraph on a page or in a scene begins with “she”. Then make your changes to your digital document.
Print the book out again, this time with regular margins on regular paper, single spaced. Find a quiet spot, and read it out loud. No, mouthing the words doesn’t count. Out loud. Mark where you stumble over words, where there are echoes—when you use the same word more than once in a paragraph, such as vehicle, book, hospital, tree, gun. Look for places where you can change the wording to eliminate the echo, such as identifying the kind of tree, vehicle, or gun. Make those changes to the digital version.

Things to Watch For While You Edit

Pet words. We all have them. I tend to overuse: just, nearly, managed, begin(ning), start(ing), try(ing)
Overused phrases: be able to; be going to; barely managed to; in fact; goes without saying;
Redundant phrases: shrugged his shoulders; nodded his head; sat down — cut the underlined words

Make sure you have:

Lots of body language – switch out dialogue tags (he said, she pouted, he whispered, she hissed) with action.

For example:
“Where are you going?” he whispered. “And can I come along?”
A better way to say it:
“Where are you going?” He gripped my sleeve. “And can I come along?”

We can see the desperation or the boldness in the clutching at the sleeve.

Highlight tension between and within characters through internal dialogue, particularly when what the character is thinking is opposed to what they say.

For example:
Jane twirled around the living room. “Don’t you just love this dress?”
Orange always did make her look fat. Paul gritted his teeth. “Lovely.”

Tension on every page. Doesn’t matter what kind: physical, mental, relational, spiritual, internal, external (like with the elements or nature). Doesn’t have to be life-threatening, but make it important enough for the reader to ask, “Ooh, what’s going to happen next?” Tension keeps the reader reading. You can identify weak areas by underlining tension in red then going back and looking for places where there is no red ink.
Make sure every scene and chapter starts by anchoring the reader in the character’s Point of view, and the time and place. Avoid going backward in time in the story. Keep the story moving forward.
End every scene and chapter with a question, a problem, a danger, or a twist. Something that makes the reader want to keep reading to find the answer, solution, rescue, or explanation.
Foreshadow what’s happened in the past and how it affects the character, and also suggest how it will have an impact on choices the character will make when pushed into a corner or out on a limb. Do this as if you’re sprinkling cinnamon on your oatmeal, a little at a time.

What’s Next?

Depending on many factors, you might want to hire an editor for a final set of eyes on your work. If several of your critique group or beta readers mentioned the same issues, such as not liking your main character, not believing your premise, not understanding why a character did or didn’t choose a certain action, then you might choose to hire a developmental editor to look at the story as a whole and make suggestions about structure, premise, plot, or characters.

If you find yourself asking yourself questions as you work through the above process, like, “does a comma really go there?” or “how should I format this paragraph”, you might choose to hire a copy editor or a proofreader.

In reality, there are as many kinds of editors as there are problems with manuscripts, each with their own price tag and level of expertise attached. Ask your friends for recommendations, or your agent. Just remember: a reputable agent or publisher will never charge you to edit your work. NEVER.

If you have any questions, while I don’t pretend to know all the answers, feel free to email me at donna@historythrutheages.com

Looking forward to seeing your book in a bookstore soon!

Resources:
Below I’ve included several websites and resources you might also find helpful. Many of these articles have a plethora of other useful articles on writing, and some include free downloads, newsletters, and blogs you can follow:
How to Edit Your Own Work
How to edit a Book
The Ultimate Guide to Editing Your Manuscript
10 Self-Editing Tips
How to Self-Edit a Book With Specific Strategies for Success
Self-Editing Your Manuscript
Self-Editing Basics: 10 Simple Ways to Edit Your Own Book
Self-Editing Explained
Top 10 Golden Rules of Self-Editing
Mastering the 3 Stages of Manuscript Editing

Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh installment in Donna Schlachter’s fantastic series, Producing a Novel. If you would like to read more in this series click on the links below:
Generating—and Testing—Ideas for Fiction and Non-Fiction Books – Part 1
Genre and Markets – Part 2
Building Believable Characters – Part 3
Character Sketches and Backstory – Part 4
Hooking Your Readers – Part 5
Character and Story Arc – Part 6
Outlining Your Book – Part 7
Overcoming the Muddle Middle – Part 8
Racing to the Finish – Part 9
Writing a Series – Part 10
Self-Editing – Part 11
Cover Design and Self-Publishing – Part 12

Donna Schlachter lives in Denver with husband Patrick. As a hybrid author, she writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts, and has been published more than 30 times in novellas, full-length novels, and non-fiction books. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Writers on the Rock, Sisters In Crime, Pikes Peak Writers, and Christian Authors Network; facilitates a critique group; and teaches writing classes online and in person. Donna also ghostwrites, edits, and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, and travels extensively for both. Donna is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management. You can find her at www.HiStoryThrutheAges.com

9 Newsletters for Writers

By: Jenny Kate

There are so many reader newsletters out there that it is hard to keep up with.

I know you keep asking yourself: where is the best place for my money?

Hopefully, this will help.

Book promotion newsletters or eblasts are basically an email readers opt into that tells them what new books are available in their favorite genres. Those emails are sometimes advertising sales or free books or just new releases. It just depends on what the newsletter offers.

There seem to be a gazillion newsletters out there that promote books for authors but the 9 below are probably the best. Authors have found great success with some of these and terrible success with others.

The best advice I’ve got is to try them out and see what works for you.

I didn’t include BookBub because it warrants its own blog post and you can find it here.

1- Freebooksy

For free books only
400,000+ readers across several genres
Thrillers and mystery genres have the most subscribers with romantic suspense close on their heels

2- Bargain Booksy

A discounted ebook of at least 100 pages at $3.99 or below
No minimum review requirements for standard ads
At least 20 4-star reviews on Amazon for Deal of the Day features
294,000 subscribers across several genres

3- NewInBooks

New books released in the past 120 days
At least 100 pages
Advertised across all Written Word Media Brands
80,000 readers across several genres
Includes an author interview on their website

4- Red Feather Romance

Books with at least a 3.5-star rating on Amazon
Be more than 50 pages in length
120,000 readers of steamy contemporary romance

5- Reading Stacks

Promotes Kindle Unlimited or audiobooks
Books with at least 20 reviews and an average 4-star rating

6- Ereader News Today (ENT)

ENT started in 2010 and their goal is to advertise free or discounted books to readers. They don’t have nearly the reach as Bookbub with only about 200,000 subscribers, but exposure is exposure. Their deals are much cheaper than a Featured Deal on BookBub, so for that reason alone is worth considering. You might gain a few new readers with ENT. For approval, they recommend reviews and a high-quality book – professional book cover and edit. ENT has two options available to you.

Book of the Day sponsorship

Posted to 475,000 Facebook fans
Emailed to 200,000 email subscribers
Most prevalent demographics of its fans are women between 35 and 55

Bargain or Free Book

Book must be at least 125 pages
Must be available on Amazon
Must be free or on sale

7- Robin Reads

Just like with ENT, Robin Reads is a newsletter for readers looking for a deal. They have almost 200,000 subscribers as well.

The book must be free or $0.99.
Mystery is its largest subscriber list with over 130,000 readers.
Romance comes in at a super close second.
Things that will help you get listed: good reviews and a high-quality book with a professional cover and edit.

8- The Fussy Librarian

Fussy Librarian produces two daily newsletters: the Most Bargain Ebook Newsletter and the Free Ebook Newsletter.
The Most Bargain list has 120,000 subscribers.
The Free Newsletter has 200,000 subscribers.
These prices are way cheaper than the others, but the lists are smaller.
For example, Contemporary Romance has about 80,000. Regardless that’s still 80,000 readers who like your genre.
If you advertise with the free newsletter, you’ll reach an additional 120,000 but they may or may not read your genre.

9- BookGorilla

This is another discounted newsletter service, but it has slightly more subscribers at 350,000.

Not surprisingly Mystery and Thriller are its top genres.
The outlet requires the book be less than $3.99, and according to the site, books in the $1.99 or less range do better.
It should also have more than five reviews on Kindle with an average 4-star rating.
You can pay for a Starred Title but it’s not a huge jump from what you’ll already receive.
BookGorilla reports 88% of its subscribers opt to receive 25 or more book recommendations a day.

Keep watching the author groups to see which ones folks are having the best luck with. Always check out the site for their most up-to-date submission requirements and prices, but more importantly, look at their subscriber rates. Ask around to see how effective they are.

If you want to join us for the most up-to-date marketing and publishing advice and news, Writer Nation FB Group is open to all PPW members. You will find a great group of writers to help you with your writing, marketing and publishing. Click here to join us! (Please remember to answer the security questions.)

What’s in a Name?

Tips for Naming Characters

By: Terry Odell

Naming characters has always been a challenge for me. It seems my creativity comes to a screeching halt when I have to find a name for a character. One of my writing friends keeps a name bank, adding names she finds interesting while watching television. Maybe I should do that.

I tend to hit the Google Machine. “Male (or female) Names Starting with …” is a frequent search. Another thing to add to that search is the year that character was born. Name trends change with time. (I had a shocking realization when seeking a name for a character in a recent book, but I digress.)

Moving forward.

Pitfalls to avoid

You have names for your characters. But there are pitfalls to avoid so you don’t confuse your readers.

Names have to “match” the characters to some extent. For me, it’s a loose match. When I am stuck for names, and Google hasn’t given me anything I like, I go to my Facebook page and ask for suggestions. Some people ask me what the character’s background is. Honestly, our country is so much of a melting pot that names often don’t match one’s ethnicity, and it’s often a stereotype to try to give them “appropriate” names. I recall my daughter, when she was in school, asking if her friend Kiesha could come visit. What’s your first visual? Probably not the blue-eyed blonde who showed up. But if I want an ethnic name, I just add that to my Google search.

Another tip I picked up at a workshop was the reminder that the characters should sound like their parents named them, not you.

Keep each name unique.

Major warning: Names shouldn’t be too similar to other characters in the book. This mean no Jane and Jake, or Mick and Mack, or Michael and Michelle—and that includes nicknames. If everyone calls Michael Mike, and there’s another character named Norman, but Norman’s last name is MacDonald and everyone calls him Mac, then you’re setting things up for reader confusion. I recently read a book where the author had fixated on the letter B for character names, and these were major players, not bit parts. I don’t think I ever got them straight.

Many readers see the first few letters of a character’s name and connect it to whatever image they’ve created for that character. Your character might be named Anastasia, but the reader might be thinking “The blonde woman with the A name.”

Keep track of your characters names.

So, how do you keep track so you don’t confuse or frustrate your readers?

The late Jeremiah Healy prefaced one of his workshops—on a totally different subject—with a very vocal complaint about character names in books. He said, “How hard is it to take a sheet of paper, write the alphabet in two columns, and then put first names in one, last names in the other?”

Now that we’re using computers, instead of a sheet of paper, I use a simple Excel spreadsheet. When I name a character, I fill in a blank field in the appropriate line. This lets me see at a glance when I start to fixate on a letter. I hadn’t been to Healy’s workshop when I wrote What’s in a Name? but when rights reverted to me, I used the spreadsheet and was shocked at what I’d discovered. THREE characters named Hank? Okay, only two, but the third was Henry “but you can call me Hank.”

In addition to making minor revisions to the text, you can be sure I updated the character names. Here’s the “after” spreadsheet.

Unfamiliar names

Other considerations. Foreign names might be realistic, but what if a reader is unfamiliar with the name, or its pronunciation? One of my critique partners wrote a book with a family of Irish descent, and she’s calling one of the characters Siobhan. (If I were naming a character Siobhan, the first thing I’d do would be to set up an auto correct, because I’d probably spell it wrong more often than not.) But typing it right is the author’s problem, not the reader’s. Do you know how to pronounce Siobhan? (shi-VAWN) If the author tells you, when you see the word do you “hear it” or is it strictly a visual?

Pronunciation

On that note, in another book by a popular thriller author, there’s a character named Venice. The author makes a point the first time the character appears, that it’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay. Do I think of that as I read? Quite honestly, my brain says “it’s NOT Venice”, but I don’t run it through my head as Ven-EE-chay. If anything it slows me down a bit because I’ve got that ‘seeing’ versus ‘hearing’ thing going. I know what I’m seeing/hearing is “wrong”, but I don’t remember what the right pronunciation is.

What does it sound like?

And then, there’s a whole new set of problems. Audiobooks. When I started to put my books into audio, I had to focus on what things sound like as well as look like. In my book, What’s in a Name, the heroine’s ex-husband’s name is Seth. Her sister’s name is Bethany. They don’t look very similar on the page, but when spoken, I’m concerned that they’ll sound too much alike, especially if they’re in the same sentence. Or even paragraph. I don’t want my narrator stumbling (or calling them both Sethany).

I hope my simple tracking chart system might help some of you avoid problems with character names.

Further Reading:
What’s in a Name? By: Robin Windmar
By Any Other Name By: Darby Karchut

Can You Spare a Few Minutes?

By: Margena Holmes

When I decided to write this blog I thought, “How can I—a person who doesn’t manage her time very well—write this?” Well, like a true writer, I researched!

Writing—any kind of writing—takes up a lot of time with planning, writing, or editing. Some people have oodles of time to get their writing done, while others have to eke it out in small increments each day in between jobs, school, kids, exercise, or whatever else is going on in their lives. A lot of these authors are pretty prolific, too.

What do other authors do?

Since I’m one of those writers who gets distracted at the drop of a…squirrel! Oh, sorry…I asked other authors how they managed to find time to write with their busy schedules.

Jeannie Fredrick, author of Abruptly Alone, found twenty minutes here and there to work on her book. She was patient and determined and even though it took her four years, she got it written.

Leslie Heath, author of the Nivaka Chronicles series and other fantasy books, was a busy ER nurse when she wrote most of her books. She told me she reserves an hour each day and made that time sacred—no interruptions.

When I sit down to write, if everyone is home, I put up a sign by my desk so I’m not disturbed. I’ve done that since my kids were little, and now with a grandson, he understands that when Grandma’s sign is up, I’m not to be disturbed (though I will accept quiet hugs).

Ooh, shiny!

If you have trouble staying focused, the Pomodoro Technique might work for you for managing your writing time. What is that? The Pomodoro Technique is where you break up writing time by setting a timer for 25 minutes. At the end of that time, you take a five minute break. After 4 Pomodoros, you take a longer 15-30 minute break. This is especially helpful if you tend to lose your focus after only a few minutes. This method could work for any project or chore you have to do.

Time Suckage

Social media is a big time suck. One can spend hours just scrolling through looking at all the cat and Bernie Sanders memes. If you’re like me, you have a few writers groups you participate in, so banning yourself from social media isn’t an option. One thing I learned recently from Inkers Mini Con was to track all your time for one week, writing down everything you do in one day for the week, no matter how small. You’d be surprised how much time is wasted on social media and other non-essential activities.

Plan Your Day

Another way to stay on track is to plan out your day, either on paper or on your phone with a to-do list. As you complete a task, check it off. Treat your writing time as you would everything else on your list. Just because it’s “writing time” doesn’t mean it’s any less important than doing the laundry. As with other appointments, put your writing time in your planner.

If you’re having trouble finding time to get your writing in, distraction-free, hopefully one of these methods will help you squeeze in that sacred writing time and you’ll have your novel written in no time!

Margena Adams Holmes has been writing ever since she can remember, writing her first poem in 1st grade. At her day job, when she’s not kicking young kids out of R-rated movies, she’s sweeping up spilled popcorn from the hallways and aisles (she’s not your mother, though, so please take your trash out). Her days off consist of writing science fiction, short stories, and more movie theater shenanigans. Reading is a close second to writing, and she normally has her nose buried in a book. Her publications are available through her author page. Contact Margena via email: jedi_anegram@hotmail.com.

Resist the Urge to Explain

By: Terry Odell

When I began writing, my crit partners would often return my pages with passages labeled R.U.E: Resist the Urge to Explain. I think it’s a common “beginner’s” mistake and I thought it might be worth a mention.

Anyone who’s undertaken writing has heard “Show, Don’t Tell”—probably more times than they’ve wanted. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, because often telling is more efficient than showing, and done well, gets the point across. But too much telling, especially when it comes across as author intrusion can put the brakes on the pace of your story, and can do exactly the opposite of what the author intended.

For example, “Mary laughed so hard, she was afraid she’d pulled a stomach muscle. Susie had just told the funniest joke Mary had ever heard.” The second sentence isn’t needed; it’s explaining something the reader would be able to figure out in context.

The goal of any fiction writer is to get readers to care about the characters. We want there to be an emotional connection, so we often tell our readers exactly what the character is feeling. However, saying “Mary was depressed” doesn’t pull the reader in as effectively as showing Mary’s actions. Did she stay in bed until noon? Eat a box of chocolates? Not eat anything at all? How did being depressed affect Mary’s actions? That’s what you need to show.

Another pitfall—telling something, then going on to show it. Let’s say you’re beginning to understand the “show don’t tell” and you do put the action on the page. For the sake of example, a simplistic passage might be written as follows:

After Bill canceled their date, claiming his aunt was sick, Mary was depressed. She took one bite of chocolate cake, then pushed the plate away.

The second sentence shows what the first tells. If you find this in your writing, use your delete key on that first sentence. A better approach:

Mary had been looking forward to her date with Bill for weeks, and he’d cancelled, giving some excuse about a sick aunt. She moved the chocolate cake around the plate with her fork, then pushed it away.

The reader gets the information, and can see that Mary’s depressed without having to be told. You can use the same to show other emotions. Maybe Mary was angry, not depressed, after Bill canceled. Maybe she throws the whole cake against the wall.

What about this?

Mary’s feet felt like lead. She couldn’t run fast enough to escape the man chasing behind her.

Cut the first sentence. You don’t need both. What about: Mary ran, but her feet refused to move fast enough to escape the man chasing her. Or, Mary’s feet moved as though encased in lead shoes.

Sometimes, we tell the reader too much.

Mary twirled up two strands of spaghetti and waited for the excess sauce to drip onto her plate. Leaning forward, she manipulated the fork into her mouth, then wiped her mouth with her napkin. She was a very careful eater because she hated getting stains on her clothes.

Don’t insult your reader with the last sentence. No need to explain. We can see for ourselves Mary is a meticulous eater.

Another common place writers need to Resist the Urge to Explain is in dialogue. Too often, we tack on tags or beats that tell the reader what the dialogue has already shown. Are you adding adverbs to your dialogue tags?

“I’m sorry,” Tom said apologetically.

Those adverbs are usually signals that you’re telling something the dialogue should be showing. They’re propping up your dialogue, and if it needs propping, it wasn’t strong enough to begin with. All that ‘scaffolding’ merely calls attention to the weak structure beneath.

Will your reader notice these differences? Probably not, but they might not enjoy the read even if they can’t explain why. However, agents and editors are tuned into them, and if you’re submitting, you don’t want to send up any red flags.

Check your manuscript for ‘emotion’ words, especially if they’re preceded by “was” or “felt.” Are you describing your character’s feelings? Don’t tell us how your character feels. Show us.

Check your dialogue tags and beats. Are they consistent with the words being spoken? If so, you don’t need them. If not, your readers will be confused, trying to reconcile dialogue with the action.

How to Keep a Writer’s Journal

By: DeAnna Knippling

Learning changes your brain, and it can, at times, feel exhausting. Don’t give up when things look their worst—because you might be giving up at just the moment when you learned something new.

A writer’s journal is a way that writers (and other creative types) can use the nature of how the brain learns to help make small, incremental changes, generally without too much stress.

Here’s how to do it:

Get a cheap journal of standard letter size.
Every morning write three pages longhand in your journal (try to remember to date them).
Once a week (or when the journal is full), review your journal by rereading the entries.
Keep the journals.

This is a lot of work; however, it is less work than trying to learn how to write without a journal, for many people.

If you have a different way of connecting your conscious and subconscious minds, use it! But those of us who struggle to stop overthinking may find this useful.

What should you write in your journal?

Whatever crosses your mind.

Your goal, when journaling, is literally to write the first thing that comes to mind. If you find your thoughts outpacing your writing, write what you’re thinking now. Don’t bother to finish your current sentence, but catch up to your current thoughts as soon as possible. Doodle if you need to. Draw arrows, circle, underline, cross things out. Put notes at the top of the page for things that need to be done later.

If you find yourself staring into space, thinking about some tangent, stop writing about your current topic and write about your new one.

Interrupt yourself. Whine. Complain about hangovers, family members, jobs. Write about the noises you hear, the grayness of the day, the latest pop song. Anything.

When you first start writing, you may have to suffer through a lot of statements like, “Journaling is stupid.” I’ve been journaling for years, and I still start about a third of my entries with some sort of complaint about having to journal. Don’t worry about what you sound like; petty complaints are pretty normal.

Reread Your Entries

At the end of the week (or at least when you reach the end of the journal), reread your entries. They’re handwritten, so this will might take longer than you expect. You will notice some patterns.

Anything that you write in your journal on more than three separate days is something that is currently defining you, either something you believe about yourself (fairly or unfairly), an obstacle you currently face, or an opportunity that you’re playing with.

Pay Attention

That’s it, really. A lot of us haven’t paid attention to our inner selves for years. When you pay attention to yourself on a regular basis, then you teach your subconscious mind that it’s safe to speak to your conscious mind, to be creative. You also teach your conscious mind that it’s safe to listen to your subconscious mind, that the world won’t end if you listen.

It’s easy to tune out your subconscious mind when it’s constantly saying that something in your life needs to change. Your subconscious is a rebel; it’s always threatening some small part of the status quo.

Journaling, like meditation, won’t force you to make radical, sudden changes. But it will slowly help you investigate alternatives, one after the other, until you find one that works for you.

What journaling can do:

Open you up to your own inner thoughts and voice—making it easier to write.
Allow you to set aside your inner editor for a while—making it easier to write clean prose the first time (because you’re not overthinking it).
Negotiate a peace settlement between your subconscious and conscious selves—making it easier for you to write what you want to write and get away with it.

Writing a journal out by hand seems to be particularly helpful in changing one’s mental state; writing out anything by hand seems to make the information more likely to be stored in your long-term memory. But it’s better to journal, period, than not to journal because you have difficulty writing journals by hand.

Other techniques that might be useful:

Working on other types of creative work, like music, painting, or crafts.
Following a wide variety of disciplined spiritual practices.
Practicing meditation or yoga.
Talking to yourself (and listening).
Taking long walks, particularly with dogs.
Doing any sort of routine tasks that requires both creativity and strict attention (like cooking something from scratch).

I have seen all of the above help integrate people’s conscious and subconscious minds and help make writing fiction smoother and less stressful.

But writing in a journal also teaches you how to put thoughts down on a page; it teaches you that no page is so blank that it can’t be filled up with a mental discussion about your favorite type of pen, or how much you hate going in for checkups, or where your neighbor needs to stick that nose of hers—not in your business, at any rate.

Journaling makes words easy.

In addition, the more you listen to your subconscious, the more available it is to solve problems for you.

Complaining that “I’m tired of being stuck on this story…” on the page has often led me to a solution that has gotten me unstuck. “I don’t know what to write next.” “I don’t know where I want to go with my career.” “Why am I not famous yet?” “Why did so-and-so get that award, and not me?” and so on.

The act of asking our subconscious—if we’re in the habit of listening to the actual answer, and not just talking over our subconscious selves—can help work out all sorts of problems.

You may not get an answer to the big questions right away. But every time you ask, another small piece of the puzzle will fall into place.

On a side note, if you want to be particularly good to yourself, when you read through your previous week’s entries, write a note in the margin saying “good job!” whenever you accomplished or realized something; write “better luck next time!” whenever you had to suffer through something that was less than successful.

Of such small moments of compassion, a sense of self-worth is made.

***

Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted, with permission, from DeAnna Knippling. It originally appeared in her Writing Craft: Lessons in Fiction for the Working Fiction Writer on Patreon.

DeAnna Knippling has two minor superpowers: speed-reading and babble. She types at over 10,000 words per minute and can make things up even faster than that. Her first job was hunting snipe for her father at twenty-five cents per head, with which she paid her way through college; her latest job involves a non-disclosure agreement, a dozen hitmen, a ballerina, a snowblower, three very small robots, and a disposable dictator in South America. Her cover job is that of freelance writer, editor, and designer living in Littleton, Colorado, with her husband, daughter, cat, more than one cupboard full of various condiments, and many shelves full of the very best books. She has her own indie small press, www.WonderlandPress.com, and her website is www.DeAnnaKnippling.com.

Improv Writing for Better Writing

Or – How to love not knowing what the hell you’re doing.

By: Bowen Gillings

I am a huge fan of Pikes Peak Writers’s Write Drunk, Edit Sober improvisational writing events that occur on the second Wednesday of each month. Deb Courtney provides a grounding lesson at the outset that sets the theme, if you will, for the evening. Then a series of writing prompts are given out, each designed to be the opening line that drives you the writer forward for the next ten minute span to let you brain steer the train down whatever track opens up first.

When the timer goes off, that train hits the station whether you’re ready for it or not and then you’re off again, chugging down the tracks with a new thread to pull on led by a new prompt and, if you’re brave enough, allowed to take the wheel of you’re creative self all on its own until the clock dings and time is up. Then the whole crazy excursion starts again. Only the boundary of the clock following the final prompt halts your cross-brain zephyr. Then it’s upstairs for a final cocktail and a bit of sharing with your fellow writers.

What is Improv Writing?

Improvisational writing, that is writing based on the directive of a third party and limited by time to force creativity, is a wonderful, powerful, and inspirational tool all writers should make use of. Improv writing is fun, invigorating, and eye-opening. It is from one night at Write Drunk, Edit Sober where I wrote about four paragraphs that I then expanded into a short story which was published in Allegory. That short story provided the opening chapter for my first completed novel manuscript which won at the Zebulon Writing Contest and became a finalist at the Colorado Gold Rush Literary Awards. Without improv writing, I would not be able to call myself a published, award-winning author. Did I mention I love improv writing?

Four Benefits of Improv Writing

Allow me to share with you four benefits of improvisational writing and I think a) if you have never tried it, you will want to, or b) if you’ve dabble in it as a fun release, you’ll grasp it’s true potential to release the great writer in you.

Improv Writing Kills Your Internal Editor

By having a hard time limit, you are forced to drive the story forward. You can’t afford to go back and make your effort pretty, to select a better adjective, to tweak a phrase so that it rolls better of the tongue of the mind. You have to move the story along and that is key to getting through the first draft of any work. Improv writing allows you to ignore the blemishes of what is already on the page and just get the story that is swirling in your mind onto the paper or screen in front of you.

2. You Will Discover Your Voice

Voice is something each of us has. It is what makes us different from the next schmuck with an idea for a novel. Voice is the you in your writing. It is that special something that makes the story yours versus someone else’s tale of a non-binary werewolf looking for love while touring the Dutch tulip fields in 1973. Improv writing brings your voice forward like no other tool I know.

For the longest time, I was convinced that my writing destiny lay in epic fantasy. I loved, lived, and breathed that genre. I set out to write a trilogy set in my own magical world. Yet I struggled to move it forward. I started and fought and sputtered and started again. Then I dove into improv writing and found that, when pressed by the constraints of the medium, my brain never went to fantasy. I wrote contemporary stories dripping with wry humor, offbeat characters, and odd scenarios. My voice emerged of its own accord and it was not in any way the voice I saw as mine until it popped out and said, “Yo, douchebag. What took you so long?”

3. You Can Try Things Out

Let’s say you have a work in progress. You have a character you love or a scene you want to expand. Improv writing is an opportunity to flesh out that character, reimagine that scene, play around with the structured narrative of your current project. Maybe in your story your protagonist would never attack an innocent. But, in the freeing realm of improv, a writing prompt may just let you experience what your character would do or how they would react to doing just that, or sitting by while that happened, or maybe they shoplifted a Snickers. I don’t know, but you get the point. Improv lets you play with aspects of characters and events that you won’t reveal in your story, but will add to your understanding of that character’s depth, that scene’s importance, and what the consequences would be to your fictional world if you changed just a tiny aspect of your work.

4. Exposition Go Bye-Bye

Okay, we have all read or been guilty of writing the hated info dump opening. These are the “here’s how my world works” first five pages that agents and editors stop reading after paragraph one. Improv writing forces you to ditch exposition. There’s no time for backstory and world building on the page when you only have ten minutes to vomit out an opening narrative. This is a good thing! You quickly realize that, no matter the genre, readers don’t need or want a lengthy setup of the world in which the story takes place or the traumatic history of the main character. That info can come later, at the time and place the reader and the character need that knowledge revealed. Your story features complicated social norms? Improv writing forces you to show them to us through interactions with your characters, not by telling the reader how things work before starting us along the path of the story.

Improv writing is like a trip to the gym for your creative muscles. It hits your weak spots. It lets you flex your strengths. It leaves you tired but energized and eager for more. I challenge you to tackle an improv writing event at you earliest opportunity and experience how your writing will metamorphose. Pikes Peak Writers offers improvisational writing every second Wednesday. Check out Write Drunk, Edit Sober on pikespeakwriters.com for details.

Bowen Gillings is an award-winning author writing to appease the story demons in his head. A former president of Pikes Peak Writers, he currently hosts Open Critique and Writing with a View each month (both on COVID-induced hiatus). He has been featured in Allegory e-zine, Voices and Views and Rocky Mountain Writers podcasts, Ghosts of Downtown, Writing is Art, and the Writing from the Peak blog. He holds a Master of Education in Adult Education and is a travel enthusiast, nature lover, and closeted RPG nerd. He enjoys cooking big meals for family and friends, hiking wooded mountain trails, and seeking Zen through mixed martial arts. Born in Wisconsin, he grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, matriculated in Minnesota, and then bounced around Europe with the Army. He’s lived on both coasts, danced on the Great Wall of China, and driven a Volvo from Alaska to Louisiana before settling in Colorado with his wife and daughter. Check out his website and look for his latest work in the anthology from Pikes Peak Writers due out in 2021.

« Previous 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 18 Next »