Category: Writing Basics

Conflict Fuels the Story by Rebecca Talley

In life we generally try to avoid conflict. We tend to avoid confrontation and contention in hopes of finding peace and tranquility. We work hard to avoid problems at home or in the workplace.

In writing fiction, we must create as much conflict as possible because without conflict there is no story.

Conflict can be classified in the following categories:

1. Man vs. Man
2. Man vs. Self
3. Man vs. Society
4. Man vs. Fate/God/Nature

Man vs. man is when the antagonist is another person. The main character, or protagonist, is trying to obtain his goal but another person stands in his way, preventing him from his goal.

Man vs. self includes stories when the protagonist fights against himself and he stands in his own way of accomplishing his goal. Perhaps, his goal may be to become a heart surgeon but his fear that he’ll never be smart enough to get through medical school paralyzes him and prevents him from becoming a surgeon. Self-doubt can be a strong adversary and makes for dynamic stories.

Man vs. society is when the protagonist fights against the rules or laws of society to obtain his goal. A woman may want to marry a man that her society forbids her to marry. She must then struggle against society in order to reach her goal of marrying.

Man vs. fate/God/nature includes stories when the protagonist fights against elements out of his control. A man who wants to reunite with his family after an argument but runs into a hurricane, must fight against the hurricane in order to reach his goal: his family. Natural disasters or other unexplained difficulties placed in the way of the protagonist would be classified as man vs. fate/God/nature.

You must include conflict in writing your fiction because conflict is what fuels the story. You aren’t limited to only one type of conflict, but whichever conflict, or combination of conflicts, you choose to use make sure they are not only realistic, but that they are organic to the story. Otherwise, your story will soon run out of gas.

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), four novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009),  “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and “Aura” (2012), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

“Their” As a Singular Pronoun by Annette Lyon

A reader recently called me out on using their as a singular generic pronoun. (I forget who right now; feel free to claim the comment as your own!)

The issue: What pronoun do you use in a situation where the gender of the person acting either isn’t known or isn’t relevant? For example:

When an employee arrives . . .

The rest of the sentence is about the employee, who must sign in. What pronoun do you use?

When an employee arrives, ____ must sign in.

At one time, writers simply used he as the generic pronoun:

When an employee arrives, he must sign in.

But eventually came the complaints of sexism. (What if the employee is female?) That’s when we started seeing a lot of he or she, just to be sure we covered our bases:

When an employee arrives, he or she must sign in.

That’s seriously clunky and awkward, but it’s better than the other weird compromise, s/he.

Others have opted to use she instead of he. That’s annoying to me as a reader, because a) it’s reverse sexism and b) historically he has a far more neutral feel than she, which jumps out like a flashing red light.

(Good writing should move smoothly, without jolts or flashing red lights.)

To keep the gender thing fair, some writers alternate between he and she throughout a piece. Personally, I think that goes beyond annoying and enters the range of shoot me now.

I’ve seen magazines that alternate on an article level: this article uses he, and the next one uses she. Not a particularly elegant solution, but at least it doesn’t have me wanting to hit something.

So the gender-neutral problem persists: English simply doesn’t have a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.

Finnish does have a gender-neutral pronoun, and I have to say, it’s really convenient when you see a baby but can’t figure out the gender. You can totally compliment the kid without offending the parents. Too bad English doesn’t have an equivalent of hän.

(Another side note: Finns often use se instead of hän . . . which means it, even when referring to people. Totally works in Finnish. Not so much in English. Can you imagine referring to your friend and saying you’re going to lunch with it?)

Chicago and a lot of other style guides suggest avoiding the problem altogether. Either 1) reword the sentence so you don’t need the pronoun, or 2) change the sentence so you can grammatically use the plural:

When employees arrive, they must sign in.

That works fine at times, but it’s still not a solution. Sometimes a piece needs the singular, and making it plural or otherwise doing acrobatics to avoid their as singular sounds odd.

This is precisely why their is becoming increasingly accepted as the singular pronoun, at least in conversation and informal writing. I’m in the camp that accepts this usage already (obviously), although some people still foam at the mouth when they see their used this way. (Just as I foam at the mouth at infer used for imply and other losing usage battles.)

That said, if I’m writing for a professional journal or something similar, I avoid using their as a singular. You write to fit the register you want the piece to fit in. If something isn’t accepted in that arena, don’t use it, and no, their is not accepted as Standard English.

Yet.

I believe it’s just a matter of time before their is considered correct and perfectly fine to use this way. People already do, often, sometimes by accident and other times absolutely on purpose (raising my hand here).

The new rule actually reaching style guides? That may take some time, but it’ll happen.

Grammar Girl agrees with me and adds that “it takes a bold, confident, and possibly reckless person to use they with a singular antecedent today.”

What can I say? I live on the edge.

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of nine novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Finding Story Ideas by Rebecca Talley

I’m often asked where I find ideas for my stories. As a writer, I’ve learned that ideas are everywhere.

Many of the magazine stories I’ve written have been based on a true experience. One such story was about my son. He’d saved money to buy a set of Legos. He was so excited when he’d finally accumulated enough money from doing odd jobs and chores to buy the Legos. He thumbed through the catalog and found the order form. He placed the order form and his money inside an envelope and left it on my desk. While the envelope sat on my desk, Hurricane Katrina hit.

My son came home from school and talked about the devastating effects of the storm and how many children had to leave their homes, pets, and toys. He then ran to my desk and scooped up the envelope. He told me he wanted to donate all of his money to a local Katrina fund. Not only was I proud of my son for his decision, I had a basis for a story that I then sold to a magazine.

Ideas are everywhere. Tidbits of conversation can become the base of a story. Newspaper stories, friend’s experiences, historical accounts, local folklore, myths, or dreams can all provide nuggets for stories. The trick is becoming aware of potential stories.

Here are some ideas:

Take a notebook to the mall. Write down different bits of conversation, descriptions of people you see, and play with various scenarios.

Sift through some newspapers and look for human interest stories. I once read an account of a woman whose husbands all ended up committing suicide in the same way. Children of the dead men accused the woman of killing the men. Is there a story? Perhaps.

Watch TV news and see if it triggers ideas for stories. What about a man who risks his life to save homeless people over and over again? Or the woman who lives with a chimpanzee that then goes berserk? These wouldn’t be full-blown novels, but could form a foundation for possible novels.

Family history can also be a valuable place to find story ideas. I have an ancestor who emigrated from Italy, became a chef, and cooked meals for some of the presidents of the United States. Or what about the ancestor who was a horse thief when America was still a frontier?

Look around you. Ideas are everywhere. Once you start looking, you’ll discover so many ideas you’ll have a hard time keeping track of them. Be sure to write them all down in an idea notebook. And then you’ll be like other writers who declare, “I’ll never live long enough to write about all the ideas I have.”

Story Plotting: Turn off the GPS by Julie N. Ford, WiDo Publishing

Every now and then I’ll hear a writer say that plotting is his/her least favorite part about writing a novel. Okay first of all, “novel” and “plot” are nearly synonymous. Without a plot, there is no novel, no story. So technically, if a writer doesn’t like to “plot,” said writer probably shouldn’t be wasting his/her time writing a novel. Just because a person enjoys writing doesn’t mean he/she must become a novelist. There are other ways one can express oneself through the written word—columns, editorials, poetry, blogging, journaling.

And second, maybe the reason so many writers have a hard time plotting is because we as a society have become too dependent on technology doing our thinking for us. We don’t memorize phone numbers anymore because all of our contacts are stored in our cell phones. We don’t have to think about how to spell because Word and even our phones do that for us.

I’m showing my age here but I remember when telephones still had party-lines and TVs were black and white. *Gasp* Viewers had to actually get up and turn a knob to change channels. (Currently, I don’t even know where the on and off switch is on my TV much less how to change channels without the remote.) And when I started college, students were still using typewriters for term papers and libraries to do research. Ah, I do miss the days of rifling through the card catalog . . .

Back in the good ol’ days when we needed to travel somewhere we’d never been before, we used something called . . . a map. For those of you who don’t have a firsthand knowledge of such a thing, maps are somewhat cumbersome, accordion folded sheets of paper that often hitch at the seams and have a tendency to flap away at the slightest breeze. But when laid out flat, a map is a vision to behold—a colorful labyrinth of intersecting paths that offer options to one’s destination while branching out into a myriad of possibilities. Stretched out across a table or the hood of a car, maps are a visually pleasing tool that allows an individual to plot his/her path to a desired destination while highlighting each and every point of interest along the way.

The beginning, middle and end of a new journey.

When traveling with the use of a map, one needs to be keenly aware of where he/she is at all times, pay close attention to mile markers and state lines, watching for signs indicating the next turn in the journey. The traveler is an engaged, active participant in the success or failure of reaching the desired destination.

Enter the GPS.

An ingenious piece of technology you can feed an address and then like magic, the course to follow appears on the screen accompanied by a pleasant voice that guides you effortlessly to your destination.

Easy, peasy.

The last road trip I took was from Nashville to Kansas City. I plugged the hotel’s address into my GPS and then started driving. Along the way I passed small towns and big cities often asking myself, “Where am I?” But it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to know. Dave (the name we gave the voice that comes from our GPS) dutifully warned me of every upcoming turn, while repeatedly reminding me of the impending change in course, followed by an exact measure of when to make the change in direction. And I never even questioned, never wondered if Dave was leading me the right way, never thought to check the correctness of his course. I blindly followed Dave, and he led me straight to where I needed to go.

Like going back to the “dark ages” and planning out a trip on a map, plotting our story seems tedious—a waste of time and effort. You see, plotting a story is much like mapping out a road trip. Our stories must stretch out in front of us with a beginning, middle, and then an end. If we don’t know how to visualize the possibilities, experience wrong turns, back track, take unexpected stops along the way and roll with diversions from the path, then how can we envision the same for our characters?

We’ve become lazy.

And this lack of plotting ability may just be the reason that many novels and movies are sent out to readers and viewers with holes in the storyline. Could it be that we are losing our ability to step from one point to another without the help of technology? What’s next, electronic story plotters? One day, will Dave be capable of plotting my novel for me as well?

Good gracious, I hope not. Plotting is, after all, half the fun in writing a novel.

 

Julie N. Ford is the author of four women’s fiction novels, The Woman He Married (March 2011) and No Holly for Christmas (November 2011), published by Whiskey Creek Press. Whitney Award Finalist, Count Down to Love (July 2011), published by Bonneville Books. And Replacing Gentry to be released April 2013 by WiDo Publishing. Currently, she lives in Nashville, TN with her husband, two daughters and baby hedgehog, Wallace. Julie’s website is julienford.com.

Anaphora and Epistrophe by Annette Lyon

Anaphora is a funky term that essentially refers to a stylistic effect with repetition at the beginning of sentences or phrases.

Before your brain starts spinning with “what the huh?” let’s look at some examples you’re probably already familiar with. Note the bolded sections:

One of the most famous examples in modern times is from Martin Luther King, Jr:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi a state, sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

Then there’s one of the most famous openings to a novel, where Charles Dickens used anaphora in A Tale of Two Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . .

Or how about Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right . . .

A general writing rule is to avoid repetition. But as with any rule, there are exceptions, and this is one.

My critique group is great at catching weak repetition (so, not anaphora), whether it’s when one of us gets redundant with concepts (“beating a dead horse; you already showed that . . . a lot”) or words (“on these two pages, your characters looked twelve times”).

When I find that kind of repetition, I cut it out and revise, and I suggest the same to editing clients. A great way to find repetition is to read you work aloud. Your ear will catch things your eyes don’t.

But anaphora is a different animal; it’s repetition with a purpose. It’s used for a specific emphasis in meaning or to create a desired impact on the reader or listener.

There is another type of repetition that is similar to anaphora, and that is epistrophe, which is repetition at the end of a line. I used epistrophe in Lost Without You, my first published novel (*cough*now on Kindle for cheap*cough*cough*).

It’s a minor moment, when Brooke falls into a lake. Greg and Russell worry at first that she’s hurt herself, but

Brooke was only wet. Very wet.

I remember circling “Very wet” during revisions, wondering whether I should take it out. In the end, I kept it in for emphasis, even though I didn’t realize that what I was doing had a name. In that case, I think it worked.

Once you’re aware of them, you can find examples of anaphora and epistrophe everywhere. Without resorting to Dr. Google, can you think of other examples of anaphora or epistrophe? Any favorites?

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of nine novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Why You Should Avoid Succeeding as a Writer by Michaelbrent Collings

I am often asked questions about the business of writing – how to self-pub, how to market, how to amass a group of loyal fans – but the question I am most often asked (in some form or other) is this: “How do I become a successful writer?”

For a long time I tried to answer the question, babbling about sales and marketing and hard work and blahblahblahblah. But then I realized what I should have been saying, and what I now say to you: if you’re asking yourself – or anyone else – how to become a successful writer, you’re asking the wrong question.

Success is an ever-retreating illusion. Like the end of the rainbow, it looks beautiful, laudable, something that people just over there clearly can lay their hands on. So why not you?

Well, because even if you manage to get to the end of the rainbow, even if you somehow contrive to grasp the edge of that many-colored illusion, you will find in the next moment that it moves away from you once more. And your version of “success” moves right along with it.

How many times have you said this in your life?

“If only I could get that promotion – then I’ll be a success.”
“If only I could buy that car – then I’ll know I’m a success.”
“If only I could afford the big house – then I’d know I was a success.”

And what happens? You get the promotion, you buy the car, you put the down payment on the big house… and like the rainbow, your measure of success immediately moves. You’re not successful unless you are constantly moving onward, upward, forward. “Success” is a beast with a relentless appetite.

So what do you do? Is the only answer to eschew success as a writer? Do you put all your manuscripts in a box and bury them somewhere, then go off and live as a hermit in a cave?

Not at all. But you must stop thinking in terms of being “successful,” and instead ask yourself this: as a writer, what will make me happy?

In other words, what is my goal, my aim, which will give me satisfaction once reached?

Is it to simply write a book?
Is it to win an award?
Is it to pay the rent on a regular basis?

Each of these is an attainable goal, but each is different, and each carries with it different responsibilities. Recently, the finalists for the Whitney Awards were announced. Several of my friends were among them, which was great.

My name, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen on the list. I’ve sold oodles of books, my novels are consistent bestsellers on Amazon’s major lists, my most recent novel Darkbound is doing great and getting rave reviews.

But none of my books were there.

Did I break down crying over this? No. Because long ago I decided that my goal, my reason for writing, my “happy place,” if you will, was to write full-time, and take care of my family doing by doing so. So while it would have been nice to get on the list (if only to see the look on the judges’ faces, given the kind of books I tend to write), it mostly would have been nice inasmuch as it might have driven a few more sales my way. Because that’s my goal: to sell books.

Other people crumple into a fetal position when their names are missed for some honor or other. Not me. And it’s because I’m too busy achieving my goal – the thing that I decided will make me happy – to worry about incidentals.

How do you “succeed” as a writer? How do you “make it”? Beats me. But that doesn’t matter.  Because more important is your determination of what will make you happy. The question is subtly different, but the difference allows you to focus on concrete steps that will aid you in achieving that goal. It also allows you to avoid the poisonous practice of comparing yourself with others, because no matter how “successful” other writers may be, their success is irrelevant to the question of your happiness.

What is your goal as a writer? What is your happy place? Answer those questions. Then push away everything else, and work to achieve those ends. And once you have achieved them, recognize that you have done so, and find joy in the attainment.

But oddly enough, you will most likely find that in the doing you achieve as much joy as in the accomplishing of them.

Michaelbrent Collings has written numerous bestselling novels, including his latest novel Darkbound.  His wife and mommy think he is a can that is chock-full of awesome sauce.  Check him out at www.facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings or  michaelbrentcollings.com.
 

Beware of POV Shifts by Rebecca Talley

Point of view, or POV, can be tricky. POV can be defined as the character(s) through whose eyes readers experience the story.

Usually, the POV character is the main character, but that’s not always the case. Once you decide which character will be telling the story, you’ll also need to decide if it will be in first person (I) , second person (you), or third person (he, him, she, her). Only you, as the writer, can determine how best to tell the story, and which character needs to tell it. If you decide that more than one character needs to tell the story (mysteries and romances often employ more than one character POV) you’ll be using multiple POV.

First, you need to decide which character needs to tell the story and then how to best tell that story. To help you determine this, you can ask yourself which character grows and changes the most. Usually, that’s the best character to tell the story. If you’re unsure, try writing the first few scenes from different character’s viewpoints and experiment between first, second, and third person. (Most writers shy away from second person because it presents such a difficult voice).

Once you know who is telling the story, and why that character is telling it, you can start writing your novel. However, you need to be very careful that you don’t slip into the wrong POV. Unless you’re using omniscient (all-knowing, all-seeing), your character can only relate what he/she sees, hears, feels, thinks, remembers. If you find yourself describing what another character feels, sees, thinks, hears, knows, or remembers, you’ve had a POV shift.

For example:

Jenny felt scared. She didn’t know where the noise was coming from and she feared it was the intruder. She looked over at her best friend, Angie, who was remembering when someone broke into her house. Warning: POV shift! If it’s in Jenny’s POV, she can’t know what Angie is remembering unless Angie communicates that to her somehow. If you’re in Jenny’s POV, you can only know what Jenny knows. Otherwise you’re head-hopping (or in omniscient).

It’s easy to slip out of POV when you first begin to write. Beware. As you write, ask yourself, “Can this character see, hear, know, remember, think, or feel this?” If not, you’ve slipped out of POV and need to rewrite it.

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. Her newest novel, Aura, was released in 2012. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Every Day or Everyday? by Annette Lyon

Which do you use? When? What’s the difference? Is there one?

The everyday/every day mix-up is easily one of the most common mistakes I see in my editing work and one of the most common questions I’m asked.

Kinda figured it made sense to address it here. I do mention it in There, Their, They’re as well, and I think I do a pretty good job of it. But recently, I had a brain flash about how to explain it even better.

I’m hereby using that brain flash in this post and reserving the right to reprint it in the second edition of the book. ‘Cause I can do that. 🙂

Every day
This phrase is pretty much what it sounds like: something that happens on a daily basis.

Examples:
I brush my teeth every day.
Every day, I send my kids off to school.
I check the mail every day for another rejection.

It’s easy to know whether to keep the space.

Just ask: Can I add the word “single” between “every” and “day” and have it make sense?

If so, keep the space:

I brush my teeth every single day.
Every single day, I send my kids off to school.
I check the mail every single day for another rejection.

They all work. Woohoo!

Everyday (one word)
Going all technical for a second, this is one word because it’s an adjective. It describes what comes next.

Try replacing “everyday” with a different adjective, one that means something similar, like:

  • regular
  • usual
  • typical
  • normal
  • common

Does the sentence still work?

For example:
Running out of toilet paper around here is an everyday (normal/typical) event.

Her everyday (typical/regular) migraines are debilitating.

Is this type of outburst an everyday (normal/common) occurrence for your daughter?

 

If you notice, those kinds of words don’t work as replacements for the two-word variety (every day):

I brush my teeth every day (typical/normal?).
Every day (regular, common?), I send my kids off to school.
I check the mail every day (usual, normal, typical?) for another rejection.

 

In summary:

Ask: Can you replace the phrase with a word such as regular, typical, normal, common, or usual?

If YES: Make it ONE word, no spaces (everyday). It’s an adjective.

If NO: Use TWO words and a space (every day). The phrase is just referring to a regular time period.

If you’ve decided the phrase needs a space, test it further by adding “single” between “every” and “day,” making it, “every single day.” Does it still make sense? If so, you’re good to go.

See? Easy peasy.

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of nine novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Read to Write by Rebecca Talley

When I give my school presentations to young aspiring writers I always tell them that in order to write, they must read.

Of course, there’s no substitute for actually writing and no matter how many books you read, you won’t be a writer unless you write. But, the best writers are generally those who read.

You can read books on writing. There’s no lack of books on how to write and you need to be careful to read each one with a discerning eye. Some books will advocate one thing and others will insist you must do something completely different. In the end, you have to decide for yourself what works for your own unique writing style.

It’s extremely valuable to read books in the genre in which you hope to write. The more books you can read, the better. As you read, pay attention to how the author uses plot, characterization, setting, pacing, and description. Ask yourself if you think the author has successfully used different techniques and why, or why not. See if the author shows you the story rather than tells it to you. Watch for voice, style, and word choice.

To really understand a genre I recommend you dissect 5-10 books. Use a notebook and detail each entry with title, author, word count, and audience. Next, write a synopsis of the story. Include passages that you found particularly clever, or clumsy, and list reasons why. Keep track of the events and how they lead up to the climax. Examine how long it takes to get to the climax and how quickly the resolution comes.

After you’ve analyzed the books, you’ll find yourself automatically searching published books for these same things. In fact, once you start to examine books in this way, you’ll never read another book the same way again. The more you can understand what’s successful, and what isn’t, in books you read, the easier it will be to apply this knowledge to your own work.

Read books with the purpose of understanding why it was publishable and you’ll soon be on your way to publishing your own book.

Here are a few books I recommend on the art of writing fiction:

 

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. Her newest novel, Aura, was released in 2012. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Why Punctuation Matters by Annette Lyon

People joke that I’m the Grammar Nazi.

My critique group says that I know exactly how to use commas (and then they go comatose, and tweet about it, if I try to explain why a semicolon is correct on page 5).

For that matter, rumor has it that when they speak about our group and mention members’ strengths, they bring up punctuation as my strength.

While I do know my fair share of punctuation rules, I do like to hope that in the 12 years I’ve been there I’ve been worth more than fixing comma splices. 🙂

But yes, I do care about punctuation more than the average reader or writer. Why? Because it adds nuance and meaning that nothing else can. The same words can have a totally different meaning with a few different punctuation marks.

This is true with big issues like pacing, tone, and mood.

But to make my point, I’ll go a bit over the top.

First off, read Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (the title of which is a punctuation joke). If you think punctuation is stale and boring, read that book. I read it on the treadmill and nearly fell off, I was laughing so hard.

Truss has several other titles, including picture books. I own one of them, and my kids love it. My third grader took it to school for show-and-tell. (And probably had to explain it to the class . . .)

 

To make my point about how punctuation can change meaning, here are three fun examples:

1) I’ve seen this one go around Facebook under the guise of, “Punctuation saves lives!”

Let’s eat Grandpa.
(I doubt he’s very tasty)

versus:

Let’s eat, Grandpa.
(Yo, Grandpa, dinner’s ready! I’ll race ya to the table!)

 

2) I saw this one in college during my nerd training (read: English major studies). The professor, a woman, wrote the following sentence on the board:

Woman, without her man, is nothing.

I was rather incensed. Until she changed the punctuation.

Woman: without her, man is nothing.

And then I laughed.

3) One of Lynne Truss’s books, Twenty-odd Ducks, includes a punctuation joke right on the cover with the title. With the hyphen, the title means, “roughly twenty ducks.” If you take the hyphen out, it means, “twenty weird ducks.” So the cover has twenty funky ducks: some that are striped, one ready to go snorkeling, and so on.

Even the subtitle has a play on punctuation: Why, Punctuation Matters

On each page spread, the book has the same sentence but with different punctuation (and therefore different meanings), plus illustrations to match.

You need to get your hands on a copy. Really. As proof, I present my kids’ favorite 2-page spread from the book. It’s gruesome, which may be why they love it.

The first page shows a king strolling near a group of girls bowing and throwing flowers at him as he says, “Ah, life is grand.” The caption reads as follows:

The king walked and talked. Half an hour later, his head was cut off.

The second page makes the whole thing read as one sentence, which changes the meaning drastically:

The king walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.

Above the caption: three illustrations showing the king decapitated and his head talking (“Why can’t I feel my lips?”) as his body walks around.

Hysterical, if you ask me. At the end of the book, Truss manages (quite brilliantly) to write an entire letter to a school teacher on one page and then changes the meaning entirely using nothing but punctuation on the other.

Convinced that punctuation matters? I hope so. At the very least, remember point number one: punctuation saves lives.

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of eight novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

A Picture Book: What Do I Do Next?

I am looking for advice on publishing an LDS children’s book.  My book is in the very early stages.  I’ve written a first draft, and have an artist who has agreed to do illustrations.  Everyone who has read the story has told me I should get it published (without me asking, and without them knowing I’m thinking about doing it).  I’m just wondering if you have advice on the process of publishing an LDS childrens book.  What publisher(s) do I send it to? In what format? Thank you very much.

The children’s picture book market is a tough one—especially in the small LDS niche market. This is because, in general, the cost to print them is higher and the expected return on investment is less.

To increase the likelihood of success, do your research. First, read a lot of picture books. Study the ones that are really popular and determine what makes them so.

Second, write a unique story that lends itself to unique illustrations.

Learn all you can about the process of publishing picture books. For example, did you know that most picture books are 32 pages long—and that includes the title page.

Formatting for submitting a picture book is different than a standard fiction book. Research that so it’s easy for the editor to see where page breaks should occur.

Also, most publishers hire their own illustrators. It’s rare that they’ll use your illustrator.

Once you’re armed with a good story and knowledge of the industry, go to Deseret Book and look at the LDS picture books they have on the shelf. Write down the names of the publishers and then start submitting.

 

Don’t Give Up! by Rebecca Talley

As writers, it’s easy to get discouraged. Don’t.

With housework, full-time jobs, kids, appointments, volunteer opportunities, political involvement, grocery shopping, caring for aging parents, feeding animals, going to school, or a multitude of other commitments that eat away at writing time, sometimes it’s hard to not give up.

Add in rejection letters, time spent waiting to hear from an editor or agent, lack of support from family members or friends, and dismal news about the economy and you might wonder why you’d want to keep writing.

It’s simple: We don’t choose writing, it chooses us. For those of us who write, writing is an integral part of who we are. We think about characters and plotlines while we shower, drive our kids to appointments, or wait at the doctor’s office. We have voices in our heads. We turn on the light in the middle of the night to record a dream in our writer’s notebook. We research exotic locales, poisons, and ways to steal money all in an effort to make our stories realistic.

We have sticky notes on the computer, the walls, the bathroom mirror. We interview our characters and ponder on their deepest, darkest secrets.

We live to write and write to live.

And the good news is that publishers need our manuscripts to stay in business. Though some publishers may be scaling back, books are still being published. New authors break into the market every year and existing authors continue to publish books.

Yes, the writing world is difficult. Writing a novel is strenuous work and takes time and dedication. Marketing that book is arduous and not only takes time and dedication, it also takes a great deal of patience and persistence. But, if your dream is to be published, don’t give up. Keep at it.
Someone once said that the difference between an unpublished and a published author is persistence.

Never surrender. Believe in yourself and in your work. Keep honing your skills and someday, you will see your name in print.

When you feel like giving up, what do you do to keep yourself motivated and believing that you’ll make it?

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

Finding a Good Editor by Tristi Pinkston

Part 1: How to Work with an Editor

[LDSP note: So many of my clients have made a bad match with an editor. I once had a self-published author who approached me about traditionally publishing or distributing their book. After reading the first chapter, I told them they needed to have it edited. They told me they’d already spent $2000 on an edit. And it was horrid!!! Incomplete sentences, verb tense issues, punctuation… My heart just broke for them. Editing is very much a “buyer beware” situation. I am very glad Tristi wrote this post and I support every sentence 100%!]

Yesterday, I blogged about how to work with an editor. Today, I’m blogging about how to look for—and find—a good editor. Perhaps I went about that backwards.

As a note of explanation, yesterday’s post was applicable to every author, whether they are self-published or traditionally published. Today’s post will be most beneficial to authors who either self-publish or are looking for a freelance editor to help them prepare to submit traditionally—once you sign with a publishing company, they will assign an editor to you, so you will not need to search for one.

So, let us begin. You’ve finished your manuscript and you’ve sent it through some trusted readers. You’ve incorporated their feedback, and you are ready to send it to an editor. How should you go about this? What should you avoid?

There are some fantastic editors out there, some pretty good editors out there, and some (quite frankly) frightening editors out there. About ten of my clients were badly burned by their editors, came hunting for help in desperation, found me (makes it sound like they had to be desperate to end up choosing me …) and sent me the manuscript after their editor had worked it over. In each of these cases, I have been appalled at the kinds of mistakes left in the manuscript. No editor worthy of the title would ever have left a manuscript in that condition. So it is with that in mind that  I write this blog today—to help you avoid that kind of frustration.

How do you find an editor?

You can go on Google and do a search for freelance editors, but word of mouth always has been and always will be the best way to find a good or a service. People love to talk about their good experiences and their bad. Ask your author friends who they use and recommend. Ask them who they do not recommend. And after they have given you a name or two, ask them the following things:

1. Did the editor treat them well?

 2. Did the editor charge them a fair price?

 3. Did the editor turn the job around when promised?

 4. Did they deliver the kind of edit they promised?

 5. Did the editor make any mistakes in the edit, and if so, were they apologetic, or did they get defensive about it?

 6. Did the editor explain things clearly? Were they open to questions, and did they answer them respectfully?

 7.  If they could change one thing about their editor, what would they change?

After you’ve spoken with your friend and you feel good about the answers they gave, visit that editor’s website and find out the following things:

1. Have they posted a list of books they edited? Are you familiar with any of their previous work? Note: Some brand-new editors are awesome, so if they don’t have a huge list of titles. That’s not necessarily a bad sign.

 2. Are their rates compatible with what you can afford, and are they reasonable? Reasonable: $1.00 a page is not unheard of for a new editor, while $3.00 is pretty typical for a seasoned editor. The amount of work that will go into the edit also comes into play—some editors charge a little more if the edit will be complex.

 3. Do they offer a sample of their work? Many editors will do a few pages for free, or will do twenty pages for a reasonable fee. This gives you the chance to see if you like their style, but it also gives them the chance to see if they like working with you.

 4. Do they work with your genre? This is key! Don’t waste your time querying an editor who doesn’t work with (or enjoy reading) the genre you write, or who doesn’t do the type of edit you need.

 If you still like what you see, contact that editor and ask them any other questions that might have risen to the surface. These might include:

1. How long does an edit usually take?

 2. Do you ask for money down?

 3. How long do I have to pay my bill? What methods of payment do you accept?

 4. What system do you have in place just in case one of us is unhappy with the arrangement? (The author should be happy with the editor, but the editor should also be happy with the author.)

 5. When is your next available slot?

 6. What format should I use when sending my manuscript?

Some of these questions might be answered on the editor’s website, but feel free to ask any others that might be important to you.

You may find the most awesome editor right off the bat and fall madly in love with them and never leave them, or you may find that search to be a little more tricky. To help weed out the editors who will not be as beneficial to you, I suggest:

1. Take them up on that free sample, if offered. If they don’t offer one, be gutsy and ask. Say, “My friend (insert friend’s name here) recommended you, and I’d like to see if our styles are compatible. Would you do a three-page free sample for me?” If they give you lip, they probably aren’t the editor for you anyway. If you don’t care for their style from those three pages, you can thank them for their time and be under no obligation to hire them.

 2. If you get a sample back and it just doesn’t seem right to you, ask another editor for a sample, and send in the same segment. Then compare the two. Of course they’ll each point out different things when it comes to the subjective parts of editing, but they should both find the same typos, etc. If you find that the first sample doesn’t match the second and is missing several important corrections (or the second sample doesn’t match the first), that will tell you who is going to be the more thorough editor.

 3. Google the name of the editor and see who might have posted positive or negative comments about them online.

 4. Make sure you have an out if the editor didn’t come with enough recommendations to make you feel comfortable. Start with a fifty-page edit, and if you like what you see, finish it out. Any time you have doubt, start with a partial. You don’t want to get halfway through an edit, decide you can’t stand each other, still have money owing on one side or work owed on the other, and create a really awkward parting of the ways.

This needs to go two ways. If the author can’t work with the editor, or if the editor can’t work with the author, either one of them should have the option to pull out. But discuss this before you begin any work. Know what the parameters are for that type of situation.

Now, I’m probably making this all sound a lot more complicated than it really has to be. Most authors get referrals from their friends, they trust that editor, they work well together, and they don’t have any issues whatsoever. But we don’t all have author friends with great editors, or maybe that editor is booked and we need to find someone else. These tips will hopefully help you to narrow down what you need and aid in the search for that editor you will love to work with for years to come.

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

How to Work with an Editor by Tristi Pinkston

Believe me, I know how you feel. You’ve written a book, it’s taken you months/years/decades, you have large chunks of it memorized because you’ve gone over it so many times, and when you look at it, you see a big pile of blood, sweat, and tears.

It represents all the nights you went without sleep, all the television shows you gave up, all the nights out with friends you missed, the stomachaches you got . . . you have given your all to this book, and now it’s time to turn it over to someone else. You’re tense. You’re nervous. You wonder what they’re going to say. You are, understandably, on pins and needles, and yes, you’ve got your barriers up a bit. You don’t want to get hurt, and so you go into the edit with caution. Again, believe me, I know. I’ve been there.

I’ve also been on the editor’s side of the table. Actually, quite a lot more than I have the author’s side—I have written 14 published books, but I’ve edited a couple hundred books, so the ratio is a little lopsided there.

I’d like to share with you some things I’ve learned about the editor/author relationship from both sides. It’s my hope to help you avoid some of the pitfalls that a lot of new authors (and myself) have encountered on their journeys.

1. The editor is not your enemy.

I have to tell you, I’ve had some clients approach me like they thought I was a lion, and that everything I said was geared specifically to hurt them. There was this one experience, a few years back …

The editor’s job is to take what you have created and help you make it better. That is the only thing on the editor’s mind. They don’t wake up in the morning, rub their hands together, and say, “How can I make my author miserable today?” You might feel wounded when they ask you to rewrite a sentence or to rework a character’s motivation, but in the end, they are doing their best to help you look your best.

2. The editor is usually right.

If you have chosen a good editor (and again, we’ll be discussing that tomorrow), he or she has done their research and they know what they’re talking about. You can put a level of trust in them that they have looked up the answer to your particular question and they are leading you in the right direction. Good editors double-check when they have a question. They ask questions of other editors as need be. They keep Google and Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com up on their computers so they can be sure that what they’re giving you is their very best effort.

3. The editor is sometimes wrong.

Editors are humans, and humans make mistakes. There are times when your editor may make a correction that you know isn’t right. The way to handle this is to talk to them respectfully and explain your point of view, including links to your source, if available. If you have a good working relationship with your editor, based on the respect you show each other, you will be able to discuss it professionally and come to an answer that works for both of you.

Whenever there’s a disagreement, it’s important for both sides to share their feelings. Again, this should be done professionally, with the understanding that neither side is trying to be hurtful.

If you know you’re right, don’t hesitate to make a stand. Most editors are professionals and they will listen to you without the need for an unpleasant “discussion.” If you are proven wrong, be willing to concede the point.

4. It’s personal to the author, but it’s a job to the editor.

Editors take their jobs very seriously. They think about their authors, they’ll fall asleep mulling over plots, they might be out grocery shopping and all of a sudden realize that they need to go back and tweak that one sentence. They care very much about what they do. However, at the end of the day, they don’t have the depth of emotional attachment to the project that the author has.

The author knows that book inside and out. Like I mentioned above, it represents so much more to them than just the story on the page. They can look it at and say, “I remember the day I wrote that scene.”

When an editor makes a cut in a scene that’s very important to the author, it can feel like the author’s throat has been cut instead. It’s painful, especially when the author worked really hard on it. But keep in mind, the editor is making the suggestion based on what works for your story, and what works in the current market. Don’t take it personally. Step back and think of it from a different perspective. Be willing to consider that maybe it does need to go.

5. Ask Questions If You Don’t Understand

Your editor is there to help you, and if they make a comment you don’t understand, ask them to clarify. If they aren’t being clear, they aren’t doing the best job for you. Don’t feel stupid if you don’t get what they mean—they might use specialized editing terms you don’t know, or perhaps they are just approaching it from a different angle. Any time you are unsure what they are saying, ask for clarification. You should understand their viewpoint on every aspect of the edit.

6. You Are the Steward of Your Story

At the end of the day, this is your story. It’s up to you to decide how it should go. The editor is there to help you make it even better, but it’s your task to implement those changes. The trick is to understand what changes are absolutely crucial to make (I have had clients reject some very basic grammar and spelling changes … um, don’t do that) and what are, perhaps, more a matter of personal opinion. I urge you not to disregard good advice just because it’s not what you were thinking. Weigh everything that is said to you carefully. Put ego to the side and be willing to see your book from a reader’s perspective and from the market’s perspective. At the same time, know what’s most important to you and what you’re willing to sacrifice and what you’re not.

There are times when you will need to make a certain change in order to conform to what your publisher has asked. They might say to cut an entire scene that means a lot to you, or to revamp a plot line that is important to you. In a case like that, be willing to talk with them and see if you can compromise. Why do they want you to make the change, and can you arrive at a solution that will please both of you? Sometimes it’s a matter of making the motivation more clear, or heightening the conflict, or making the scene less filler and more usable content. Talk it over.

The editor/author relationship is one of the most important you will form in the writing industry. Authors need editors. Editors need authors . . . kind of hard to be an editor without something to edit. When both parties approach their jobs with professionalism, with an attitude of teamwork, with the willingness to put ego aside to work toward the greater good (and what greater good is there but an awesome book for the world to read), it can be an unbeatable combination.

Come back tomorrow when I discuss how to find an editor and how to make sure they’ll be a good fit for you.

 

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

What is Your Story Goal? by Rebecca Talley

The main character in a novel must have a goal. He must have something he works toward, something he desperately wants and if he does not obtain that something his life will not be the same.

Every novel should have a story goal and that goal should be clearly stated for the reader. In my novel, Heaven Scent, Liza is the main character. Her father has become obsessed with his career and has seemingly abandoned his family. Liza desperately wants her father back in her life. She wants her family to be as it once was. Throughout the book, she works toward the goal of trying to restore her family to its once happy state. In the first chapter, Liza clearly states this goal and she continues to restate it throughout the book.

Readers need to know what the goal is and what’s at stake if the goal is not obtained. Without a clear story goal, the reader gets lost and never fully engages with the story.

To determine the story goal you need to know what it is that your character wants. A new job? A husband? A child? A new house? Fame? Riches?

Once you know what your character wants, you need to know why. Why is this goal so important? What’s the underlying reason the character wants this goal? In Recovering Charles by Jason Wright the main character, Luke Millward, wants to reconcile with his father. His search to do so leads him to New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. Throughout the book, the reader wonders if Luke will be able to move beyond the past and repair his relationship with his father.

The story goal, or the desire to achieve it, propels the story forward. Without one, the story will flounder and finally fizzle. As a writer, you must be aware of the story goal and design smaller, scene goals that work toward the overall story goal.

Make sure your story has a clearly defined goal and you’ll not only have an easier time writing toward it, you’ll have readers anxious to read to the end to see if the character accomplished his goal.

 

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

When Passive Voice is OKAY by Annette Lyon

Don’t use passive voice; use active voice.

Ever heard that writing rule?

It’s a good guideline, for sure, but like any writing rule, exceptions abound.

First, what is passive voice?

Passive voice shows up when something or someone is being acted upon rather than doing the acting. It’s usually a weak way to construct a sentence or a scene because your characters are like chess pieces being moved around and having stuff thrown at them rather than actually doing anything themselves.

Often passive voice can be changed with a little tweaking, and doing so almost always results in a stronger sentence.

Consider:

Tom was hit by a car.

This is passive because the car is the one actually doing the action. Tom is the recipient of the effect.

The car hit Tom.

That’s active, but it’s still a bit telly.

Since the first sentence (Tom was hit by a car) was rather non-specific (ie telly), let’s do better on both counts. Let’s show AND use active voice:

A red Jeep squealed around the corner, its headlights staring Tom in the face. He dove for the sidewalk, but too late; the grill smacked into his torso, and tires rolled over his legs. A pop and a crunch, and then silence, save for Tom’s heavy breathing and a sensation of shock eclipsing the pain in his broken legs.

Now the car (or, the Jeep, since we’re adding specificity) is acting. Tom’s still on the receiving end, but the action is much better.

Passive voice is one reason writers are cautioned to avoid WAS constructions. They aren’t all passive voice (contrary to what some writers teach or have been taught, haha—that was passive voice), but it’s a clue that you might be dealing with it.

So here’s a fun detail: sometimes you WANT passive voice.

1) Use passive voice when the common sentence construction demands it and changing the sentence to active would call attention to itself. Such as:

He got arrested.

Sure, that’s passive, but it’s also the way that term is generally used. Pointing out that police officers did the arresting is kinda silly, and it would detract.

(Note that here and in many cases, it’s GET/GOT that’s the key for noting passive voice, not WAS.)

2) When you’re deliberately trying to avoid pointing out the person/thing who acted.

Pay attention to commercials or company communications: they rarely accept responsibility for anything, and they do so by using passive voice:

“We regret that your washing machine was improperly installed” keeps it passive and the focus on the washer.

They’d never say, “We regret that our technician installed your washer improperly,” because then the spotlight is on their shortcomings and gives the customer ammunition for a refund.

You can do the same thing in your writing. Mysteries are rife with passive voice when we don’t know WHO done it: “The victim was stabbed five times.” Trying to avoid passive voice there would feel a bit acrobatic and awkward to the reader.

Another case to use passive voice: when you’re deliberately trying to hide the person who is acting.

“Mom, one of the car’s headlights got smashed,” a teen says, and then slinks to their room, hoping Mom assumes it was a hit-and-run in a parking lot or something, even though the teen is the one who busted the light by driving into a lamp post.

Or when a teacher walks in to see chaos and says, “What’s going on here?”and the class replies, “The same thing that happens every day.”

(Careful not to point out that THEY are the ones doing whatever they shouldn’t be.)

To sum up:

  • Passive voice is when the sentence shows what is happening to who/what but avoids using the subject of the action as the subject of the sentence.Most of the time, passive voice is weak and should be avoided.
  • WAS/GOT tend to signal passive voice.
  • But not all sentences with those words are passive voice.
  • Use passive voice when you (or a character) want to conceal who is doing the action.

Okay, so let’s try it: After Thanksgiving, I’m amazed at how much pie GOT EATEN.

Ahem. (See? With passive voice, I admit to nothing . . .)

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of eight novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Writing Fear by Michaelbrent Collings

As a horror writer, I am often asked where I get my ideas. (I’m also asked about the voices in my head—sometimes by the other voices in my head, which is weird—but that’s a whole other therapy session.) And the sad answer is that there’s no one answer. The ideas I get can come from anywhere: a radio piece I found interesting, a disturbing dream I had after too much hot sauce on my tacos, or just me watching a movie and thinking “they did that wrong.”

That being said, all of the scary things I write about have one thing in common: they scare me.

An example: my most recent horror novel, Apparition, has been on Amazon’s list of best-selling supernatural horror for months now. It’s about a family in which the mother goes insane and tries to stab her children to death. The father stops her, and she turns the knife on herself. Months later, the father is trying to cope with the loss of his wife, the kids are trying to get over it, they’re trying to heal… and the father starts feeling urges to kill his children. Hijinks ensue.

Now a lot of people have asked how a devoted family man (which I am) could come up with something so messed up… something that revolves around the destruction of a family. And the answer is, of course, that that is the reason it’s so scary. It is a story about the destruction of something I hold most dear. So how could it fail to be terrifying? Horror critics all over seem to agree with me (I’ll avoid the temptation to spew quotes about how cool the book is; besides, I’m sure you’ve already bought it by now).

The thing with horror is that it is a universal element of life. We are born crying, terrified of a world which suddenly shows itself to be much larger, brighter, and more daunting than the womb we think of as our universe during our early months. Boo-boos and owies are the stitching in the tapestry of our childhood. Adolescence is as purely terrifying a time as any I can think of. And then we grow up, have children of our own… and suddenly we fear for more than just our own selves.

I don’t mean to paint a maleficent picture here. The fear we all experience is just that: an experience. And we can either use it to tear us down, or we can create stories about it that meld us together like warriors against a dark invading army. We tell stories of terror so that we may come to control our fear. We whisper ghost tales around the campfire so that, come the dawn (and assuming all the campers have survived), we can clap hands and celebrate and draw tighter together as a community.

Fear is uncomfortable. But it is a fact of life. It is a facet of growth.

Where do I get my scary ideas from? From life. From the loss of the things most important to me. And so I tell stories about those things, in the hopes that by doing so I can ward off the losses, or at least cope better when they inevitably come. My stories of terror come from my own fear. But like many, they are really stories of hope. Tales in which I pray to be greater than the fear that I know must come upon me.

Halloween season is upon us. A month long celebration of all things dark and gruesome, a night of terror. But it is also a night of treats. We brave the darkness, we step onto paths decorated with the incarnations of our deepest fears… and in so doing, we may (we hope) win the prize.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

Michaelbrent Collings has written numerous bestselling novels, including his latest YA fantasy Billy: Seeker of Powers.  His wife and mommy think he is a can that is chock-full of awesome sauce.  Check him out at www.facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings or michaelbrentcollings.com.

Ability vs Desire by Tristi Pinkston

My seven-year-old son is a total hoot. The other day he came up to me and said, “Mom, people are always asking the question, ‘How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?’ I think the real question is, ‘How much does he want to chuck?'”

Like any good mother, of course I immediately put that on my Facebook status, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Out of the mouths of babes, they say. His innocent little question got my brain spinning in a million different directions.

Let’s think about this woodchuck for a minute. Let’s say that he can chuck two trees’ worth of wood in one day. That is his capability. If he works consistently for eight hours, taking a half-hour lunch break, he can chuck two trees.

But how much does he want to chuck?

If he decides that one tree a day is just fine by him, he may only ever chuck one a day. That’s what all the other woodchucks (possessed of similar inclinations) are doing. If he decides to be like all the other woodchucks and produce one a day, no one will think any the less of him. A wood-chucking woodchuck is an awesome thing all by itself. He can get away with living below his potential.

But what if he decides he wants more?

If that woodchuck had enough desire, and he was committed and dedicated and focused, and maybe even skipped his lunch break because he was excited to be chucking wood, he might find himself exceeding his wildest dreams and chucking three or four trees a day. He might have believed his ability only extended to two trees, but when his desire was brought into the picture, suddenly his ability didn’t matter anymore. His desire took his ability and magnified it and expanded it until it was a non-issue.

When you want something badly enough, the facts don’t matter.

Of course I’m going to tie this in to writing. It’s very like me to do that.

As authors, when we think about our writing journey, we shouldn’t think in terms of what we’re “able” to do. We should think in terms of what we “want” to do. If I set a goal to write a book this summer because I want to, it shouldn’t matter in the slightest that I’ve never done it before. I have the desire, and so I can achieve it. If I say, “You know, it’s awesome that I’m an author to begin with. It’s okay if I don’t push myself,” my productivity might slacken and my quality might decline because I’m making excuses and resting on my laurels. I’m like the complacent woodchuck who doesn’t care that he could be chucking more trees.

And what if I don’t want to write a book this summer? That’s okay – if I forced myself to do it anyway, it would probably be a stupid book because my heart wouldn’t be in it. Only I can determine my desires.

In summary, your level of ability doesn’t matter. It’s all about your level of your desire. Desire will take you further than any other determining factor. It doesn’t matter how fast you type. It doesn’t matter how little time you have to write each day. Desire makes things possible. Are you ready to listen to yourself, to your hopes, dreams, and deepest desires, and follow them?

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.

Not Just Writing, but Creation by Michaelbrent Collings

Another apology—this time to Michaelbrent Collings for a delayed post this month. Totally my fault!

There are several reasons we write. For personal satisfaction, as a way of making sense of the world around us. We write to create emotions in others, to teach lessons that will (hopefully) make the world a better place.

We also write (perhaps most important) as a way of creating community.

Think about it: not only is our world defined by stories, but who we are as a people is defined by stories. We aren’t members of the USA because we live in a certain geographical area—there are plenty of people all over the world who define themselves that way. It’s not determined by laws, either—huge debates in the news give plenty of air time to people who are here “illegally” yet who stolidly insist they, too, are “Americans.”

So what is it?

The stories.

An “American” is someone who knows the story of the American Revolution. Of the Civil War.  Of Washington chopping down the cherry tree and Lincoln writing the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. Neither of those last stories is true, but that doesn’t matter. Truth is less important than the binding capacity the stories have.

Another example: say you—like every other person in the known universe—went to see the final Harry Potter movie at midnight opening night. You got there six hours ahead of time so you could get a good seat. And while you’re sitting there, waiting for the movie to start, a middle-aged guy with a comb-over and a T-shirt that’s a bit too small for him whips around and says, “Do you think Harry will die in the movie?” And that’s the signal for a conversation to start. And it does.

Now, change venues. You’re in the local fast food place. Waiting in line for lunch. And suddenly the middle-aged guy in front of you whips around and says without preamble, “Do you like seasoned curly fries or the regular kind?”

This is the part where you very reasonably start edging toward an exit and perhaps put “911” on your cell phone’s speed dial.

Same guy. Same you. What was the difference? The difference was that in the first example you were sharing a story. You were, for the moment at least, members of the same community, of the same tribe. And we do not fear members of our community. We understand them. And it isn’t because they’re the same as us—there’s plenty of diversity and strangeness within every community. But the more stories people share in common, the closer their bond and the greater their trust. That’s what makes a “BFF”—just a bunch of shared stories.

So writers are in a place of sublime power and responsibility. Writers create the communities that others will cling to, they create the frameworks that the world at large will hang on as reference points for who they will treat as “friends” (i.e., fellow believers of their stories) and “enemies” (i.e., those who follow or believe other stories… or none at all). It stands to us, then, to create communities that are not merely joined in pursuit of “fun” or “escapism,” but in pursuit of those enobling properties that allow the human race to rise above itself and become more than it is.

Writers are the dreamers. And dreaming is and always has been the first step in the great act of creation. We create words. We create worlds. We create context, and in so doing we create community.

Without stories, every man is and always must be an island. But writers tie those islands together and create great continents—even empires—of meaning… and hope.

 

Michaelbrent Collings has written numerous bestselling novels, including his latest YA fantasy Billy: Seeker of Powers.  His wife and mommy think he is a can that is chock-full of awesome sauce.  Check him out at www.facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings or michaelbrentcollings.com.

Homophones by Annette Lyon

Homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir  and air.

Homophones can really trip  a writer up. Here are a few common ones.

Lightning/Lightening
When a bolt of bright electricity shoots through the sky during a storm, that is lightning.
When dawn comes, the darkness is going away and the room may be lightening.

Lead/Led
I see these two words used interchangeably, both as the past tense form of what a follower does with a leader. The confusion likely happens because the past tense of the verb lead is led, which happens to rhyme with the metal lead.

Present tense: I walk through the forest and lead the way for those behind me.
Past tense: I walked through the forest; I led the way for those behind me.

Anyway/Any Way
If something happens in spite of someone’s efforts, it takes place anyway.
If you wonder whether something is possible, you may ask if there is any way it could come about.

Throws/Throes
When Mark pitches a baseball, he throws it.
When Janet is dealing with emotional turmoil, she could be in the throes of depression. Someone else could be in the last throes of death, or in the throes of passion.

Threw/Through/Thru
First word here is simply the past tense of the one above: Mark threw the ball.
Something or someone passes through something else, such as a train through a tunnel.
An old-fashioned version of through is thru.

Peak/Peek/Pique
The top of a gable roof has a peak.
If you’re peering around a corner, you may catch a peek at something secret.
The first page of a book may pique your interest.

All Together/Altogether
If something is very complicated, it could be altogether confusing. (In other words, completely.)
The family went to the store all together. (In a group.)

What are some that you’ve seen lately? List them in the comments section.

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of eight novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

Editing Fiction by Rebecca Talley

“I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” – James Michener

That’s editing in a nutshell.

Some writers prefer writing the rough draft and feeling the creativity as it flows through their fingers. Other writers enjoy the editing stage and believe that’s where the real magic lies. Which do you prefer?

Writing the first draft can be fast and furious. You may find it difficult for your fingers to keep up with your brain as your brilliance pours out on the computer screen. Unfortunately, for most writers, the first draft isn’t always brilliant. In fact, very few writers can produce a saleable first draft. That’s when editing becomes a writer’s best friend.

Once that story is down on paper, or on the computer screen, it’s time to edit it. How? There are as many ways to edit as there are to write. No one way is right for everyone and you must find what works best for you.

Here are some different ways to edit:

One Pass. Some writers get their first draft down as quickly as possible and then let it rest for a few weeks, or a month. After the rest period, they go back and edit every single word, phrase, and paragraph to make sure it says exactly what they want it to say. This pass through their manuscript is grueling, but it only takes the one time and then it’s ready for submission.

Several Passes to Add Layers. Other writers edit their manuscripts multiple times. In each pass, they specifically add a layer to the story. When they feel they’ve added enough layers, they’re finished and ready to submit the manuscript. Some writers may edit their manuscript dozens of times.

Edit While You Write. Another possibility is to edit while you’re writing. Some writers won’t go to the next scene until they feel the previous scene is in its final format. These writers want to get each sentence right before they move on to the next sentence. When they’ve completed their manuscript, it’s ready for submission because they’ve spent so much time editing while writing.

Which works best? It depends on your own unique writing style. The important aspect is to make sure that the final manuscript is the best that it can be before you submit it to a publisher. Whether that takes you one pass or many, or you edit as you go, it doesn’t matter which process you choose as long as you find the process that allows you to submit the very best manuscript you can.

Rebecca Talley grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. She now lives in rural CO on a small ranch with a dog, a spoiled horse, too many cats, and a herd of goats. She and her husband, Del, are the proud parents of ten multi-talented and wildly-creative children. Rebecca is the author of a children’s picture book “Grasshopper Pie” (WindRiver 2003), three novels, “Heaven Scent” (CFI 2008), “Altared Plans” (CFI 2009), and “The Upside of Down” (CFI 2011), and numerous magazine stories and articles. You can visit her blog at www.rebeccatalleywrites.blogspot.com.

 

Dangling Participles by Annette Lyon

Dangling participles!

They’re loads of fun . . . really! They’re easy to giggle over . . . at least when you find the mistake in someone else’s work (or before yours gets in front of an editor).

So what is a dangling participle?
It’s a modifier, usually noun, pronoun, or phrase—basically any descriptor—that’s in the wrong place for what it’s supposed to be describing. Often that means it’s too far away from it, or at least that something else is in the way.

Sounds confusing, so let’s just ignore the definition for a minute and show some examples. They’re the best way to learn anyway, right?

Try these sentences on for size:

Joe went on the ride with my sister called The Raging Flame of Death.
Hmm. That’s not a sister I’d like to hang out with. Oh, wait! The ride has that name. In that case:

He went on the The Raging Flame of Death ride [or the ride called The Raging Flame of Death] with my sister.

Other funny examples:

Two computers were reported stolen by the high school principal.

(That’s one unethical principal . . .)

The anchor reported a coming lightning storm on the television.

(Get AWAY from that television!)

Please look through the contents of the package with your wife.

(Must be one huge package if she fits in it.)

James hadn’t meant to let it slip that he wasn’t married, at least to his boss.

(Wait. His boss is Mrs. James?)

Quiet and patient, her dress was simple, yet stylish.

(Let’s hope her dress wasn’t loud and impatient.)

At the age of five, her mother remarried.

(Um . . . doubt that’s legal in any state. And she certainly wasn’t a mother then.)

 

These little nasties are painfully easy to drop into your work without you even knowing it. They happen when you’ve used an action and then the subject that belongs to the action is put into the wrong place.

The result is most definitely a meaning you didn’t intend.

One of the most common forms is relatively easy to spot: look for sentences that open with an “ing” phrase:

Turning the corner on a bike, a huge dog startled him.

(Apparently that’s a dog with serious coordination skills.)

Driving through town, the grocery store appeared on the right.

(Freaky store. And just how big is its car?!)

And here’s one of my favorite dangling participles (which I found in a New York Times bestseller that shall remain nameless, even though it was just too funny):

Being my father, I thought he’d be more upset.

(Now THAT is one amazing genetic trick . . .)

You get the idea.

Dangling participles can sound scary and intimidating, but in reality, they’re easy to fix. Just make sure the action in your sentence is really attached to the person or thing doing it.

For the writers reading this, it’s something you don’t need to worry too much about in the drafting stage. It is, however, one of those things you should try to catch in the revision stage.

One great way is to read your draft aloud. The stresses and pauses will make you recognize when something doesn’t quite sound right. Pick some trusted readers to ferret out these kinds of bloopers as well.

Your future lack of embarrassment is most definitely worth the effort.

 

Annette Lyon  is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best of State medal for fiction, and the author of eight novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide, plus over a hundred magazine articles. She’s a senior editor at Precision Editing Group and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor. Find her online at blog.annettelyon.com and on Twitter: @AnnetteLyon.

Need a little extra grammar help? Get Annette’s grammar book, There, Their, They’re: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd.

The Most Important Thing Ever by Michaelbrent Collings

When asked what is the most important skill to learn as a writer, I always say the same thing: turning water into gold.

However, because most people have failed to take their required alchemy classes at the local community college, I often have to start over and come up with something that any ol’ muggle can do.

And that secondary skill, the skill that comes only after the ability to turn base metal into precious, is this: any writer who wants to sell books must know how to create suspense.

“But,” you say, “I am writing a YA fantasy!”  Or perhaps, “My magnum opus shall be a romantic comedy in the vein of the great Jane Austen!”  Or even, “I just need to make my werewolves sparkle and I’m all good.”

Well, to you folks, I have this to say: WRONG.

Suspense isn’t just something that horror writers or people who write thrillers about whether a nuclear weapon can be stopped en route to its intended target use.  Suspense is (and I hope you write this down) the driving force that gets any reader to finish the book.

Suspense is more than just worry about life and limb. There doesn’t have to be a ticking clock, or an oncoming car, or a serial killer looking after someone.  Suspense is used to create import in these situations, yes, but suspense is so much more… and so much less.

Suspense, is, quite simply, the creation of a critical question in your readers’ minds: “What happens next?”

My novel The Haunted is a straight-up ghost story.  It’s received numerous accolades from readers and critics alike.  And the truth is, it’s scary.  But the scary is less important than the fact that people stick around to read the whole thing!  Because is a scary book really scary if no one cares to read it past page 14?

If you just heard a popping sound, that’s your mind.  ‘Cause I just blew it, man.

So remember, no matter what genre you are writing – even if you’re writing nonfiction – the first skill you must master is the creation of suspense.  You must tease your readers with information, set up questions that they know only you can answer.  And you have to do this from page one on.  The worst books aren’t the ones that people hated reading.  The worst books are the ones that no one could be persuaded to finish.

Don’t let that be you.  Suspense.  It’s the only way to write.

Michaelbrent Collings is a novelist and screenwriter. His newest bestseller, APPARITION, is scaring people all over the place.  Which is awesome. He hopes someday to develop superpowers, or, if that is out of the question, then at least to get a cool robot arm. You can follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings or check out his website at http://michaelbrentcollings.com

Villains We Love to Hate by Tristi Pinkston

Like a great many other people, I’ve been watching Downton Abbey recently. Well, not so much watching it as inhaling it. Sure, it has some soap opera elements to it, but I’ve been absolutely fascinated by the interactions between the characters, and how the choices of one person ripple out and affect everyone around them, so much like they do in real life.

There’s one character I absolutely cannot stand – Thomas the footman. From the minute he stepped onto the screen in the first episode, he just … ugh. He’s insolent, prideful, disrespectful, rude, and at times downright evil. I’m sure the actor is a very nice young man, but the character just inspires total hatred in me, and I’m not used to feeling that way. I’m a very loving person as a general rule, but this guy brings out sides of me I didn’t even know I had.

That is the very successful marriage of an excellent actor and an excellent script.

Throughout season one of the show, we basically just hate Thomas all the way through. But in season two, we are introduced to some of his insecurities and some of his fears. We see the things he’s willing to do to survive. These added dimensions make him more real, but rather than lessening our hatred toward him, they make him someone to be pitied, someone who has chosen a life of manipulation to cope rather than trying to do things the right way.

First of all, I have to say this is absolutely brilliant. If I had the chance to speak with the writer of Downton Abbey, (Julian Fellowes) I would soak up everything he had to say about the craft of writing characters. There must be a balance between what we see them do and the reasons why they do it in order to create a well-rounded character that evokes these types of emotions in us. I hate Thomas the footman, but I love Bates the valet. I don’t just dislike one and like the other – my emotional attachment goes much deeper, and it’s the combination of their actions plus their motivations.

Far too often, I see books where the motivation is left out. The character will perform an action of some kind, but we don’t know the reason behind it, and the action either comes across as flat, or it will seem so random that it doesn’t make sense. When we know the motivation behind the action and what the character was thinking or feeling when they did it, the whole thing becomes so much richer.

This is especially true of villains. It’s not enough to know that Bob is setting a bomb to go off in the building. We need to know that his girlfriend is in the building and she’s been cheating on him, and he wants to see her dead. But we also need to know that he was abandoned as a baby by a mother too drunk to care for him and he was rescued from the side of the road by a truck driver, who took him to the authorities. Then Bob was passed from foster care home to foster care home until adulthood, essentially being abandoned by women in his life since the very beginning, and he just can’t take it anymore. Which story is more interesting? Man setting a bomb, or a deeply troubled, tortured soul setting a bomb? And would it help to know that he plans on being inside the building when the bomb goes off so he dies too?

The point is this – when we write a villain, it’s all very well and good to show the evil actions they take. But every evil action has a thought process behind it, a deep emotional need pushing it forward. If you tap into that deep emotional need when you write your villain, you create someone the reader will fear even more because they are so very real.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to go take a nap. I was up far too late last night watching Downton Abbey …

 

Tristi Pinkston is the author of nine published books, including the Secret Sisters mystery series. In addition to being a prolific author, Tristi also provides a variety of author services, including editing and online writing instruction. You can visit her at www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com or her website at www.tristipinkston.com.