Farland’s Writing for Fun and Profit

There are some hard realities when it comes to writing, especially if you want to make a living at it. But today, I want to focus on some of the other benefits of writing that come from just writing for fun. I love writing because 1) It fulfills my primal need to communicate more deeply than saying, "Thank you, and have a nice day" does. I find deep satisfaction in writing a beautiful paragraph. 2) A writer can live anywhere in the world that he wants to--so long as he can afford the price. That means that if I want to live on a deserted island in Samoa and power my laptop with solar rays, I can do it. The Antarctic--no problem. England, Ireland, New Zealand--all high on my list of places to retire. I love not being tied to a local economy. (I've known writers who have moved to places like Samoa, Chile, and so on in order to save money. In some cases, they've cut their cost of living down to under $500 per month.) 3) I don't have a boss breathing down my neck--other than my wife. I don't have to play office politics. I don't have to get the pizzas to your door in eight minutes, guaranteed. In short, the job-related stress is minimal. 4) I get to work on my own schedule, within reason. That means that if I want to work for twenty hours today because I'm in the mood, I can do that. I've done it before. But if I feel lousy and would prefer to do research by reading the novels or watching the movies of my competitors, I can do that, too--and it's tax deductible! 5) I'm my own businessman. That means that if I make a lot of money for the company this year, I get to keep it. 6) The dress standards at work are very lax. For all that you know, I could be writing this in my underwear. Other than pole-dancing, what other job lets you work in your underwear? In short, there are a lot of reasons to like this job even if you're not making a lot of money. But the truth is that it is easier to make a living than it might sound to some. Years ago, I was teaching a class on writing, and I told the class that "Being a writer is both far easier and far harder than you will ever imagine." Brandon Sanderson was taking the class, and said that he didn't understand what I meant--until he did it. It's hard to be a writer because you have to be diligent and dedicated from the start. No one cheers you on in the beginning. Instead, you push yourself without fanfare. In fact, if you're like me, your parents will try to dissuade you, and many of your friends will tell you that you're deluding yourself into believing that you can make a career in writing. So it seems impossibly hard, often for years. Then you sell your first novel. Suddenly you have a little income (on top of the pizza job you've been hanging onto). And then you begin selling foreign rights and movie rights, and you have more money than you know what to do with (after having learned for years how to survive on nothing). And then you begin to wonder, "Why don't more people do this?" It is, after all, the easiest job in the world! So the question arises, is it really a viable career choice? How much money does the average writer make? When I was in college back in the early eighties, I used to hear about a survey that had been taken that showed that the average writer in America makes something like $5,200 per year. That was disheartening. Interestingly, I still hear that figure being thrown out at conventions. The survey, it seems, was taken back in the late 1960s and the same figures have been used in writing classes ever since. Now, in 1968 my father was working in a sawmill for $1.25 per hour. He wasn't making half as much as the "average" writer. I don't know how much other writers make, but I am willing to bet that I still make twice as much as your average sawmill worker. There are lots of sources of income for a novelist. Let me just give you a few. 1) Novel rights sales. When you sell a novel, you typically make much of your money by selling American rights. But you also resell the same novel to foreign countries. Thus, when I write a book, I may sell it in the U.S., then to England, Germany, France, Italy, China, Russia, Spain, and so on. I've sold and resold the rights to some books more than twenty times. In some countries, you may catch on very well. For example, Marion Zimmer Bradley was fairly successful as a fantasy author in the U.S., but in Germany she was the #1 bestselling author period--and she made millions of dollars on foreign rights. I've known American authors who've made 90 percent of their income selling books in countries like Japan, Romania, and England. 2) Ancillary rights sales. When you sell a novel, you may often option off the movie rights to the book. Thus, you might sell the book rights for as little as five thousand dollars in the U.S., but suddenly get a million dollar paycheck for movie rights. Books can also be turned into plays, video games, role-playing games, and so on. I knew one novelist a few years back who became so popular in Japan that he made a sizable income selling his picture--to go on t-shirts. (For some reason, I have never been able to break into David Farland action figures, though.) 3) Work-for-hire. Once you become an established author (and perhaps even before), you may be asked to do work for hire. In these cases your job might be to write novels set in someone else's universe. Now, I've personally written novels in the Star Wars and Mummy universes, and I've helped design and script videogames for StarCraft, Xena, and others. Some of those projects paid royalties, and some didn't. But the important point here is that just with these little projects, back when I did such things, I typically made more than your average pizza delivery guy or sawmill worker could make in a year--and I was working at it for less than three months per year. 4) Contests. In college I worked as a prize writer to make money on the side. There aren't many contests open to professional writers, but there are literary awards. Some of these are run through state-sponsored contests, others are voted on by juries, and some are fan-based popularity contests. Most of them either offer a cash prize, or they will help boost your sales--and thus pay dividends on the back end. 5) Work outside your primary field. As a writer, I typically write one epic fantasy novel per year. I also write at least one YA novel per year. Beyond that I may write other things. One year I wrote a 200,000-word historical novel. Another year I wrote half of a thriller. I've made as much as $15,000 in a year writing short stories on the side. But I know writers who like to write in many other fields--mystery, romance, horror, and so on. One favorite for many authors is writing nonfiction. Let's say that in your research on vampires, you become an expert on the real Count Dracula, or Transylvania, or blood diseases. Why not turn your notes into a nonfiction book? So for a novelist it is often easy to move into a secondary field--such as writing articles for magazines. Beyond writing outside your field, why not consider writing in another medium? I suspect that I could make a fine living as a screenwriter, if I wanted. My credentials as a New York Times Bestseller would go a long way toward gaining credibility--particularly in scripting movies in the fantasy and science fiction fields. Add that to my background in gaming and movie production . . . and even I have to wonder why I don't give more of a try. 6) Teaching. As a writer, you may find yourself in a position to take a full-time job teaching creative writing. I used to work part-time at Brigham Young University, teaching the science fiction and fantasy writing classes, and I turned down a full-time position simply because I knew that it would interfere with my writing schedule. But a lot of authors enjoy the security of doing this. You can of course teach even outside schools. As you know, I teach writing seminars throughout the year. 7) Work on the side in writing-related fields. I work as the coordinating judge for a large international writing contest. I've known other authors who've worked as fiction editors or reviewers, or who've worked writing back copy for other people's novels. I've done a little work as the Director of Storytelling for an animation company, a job that required me to hire and evaluate other writers' work along with creating story lines for feature films. In short, when you're a writer, you typically don't wear just one hat. You can if you want to, but I like to do a lot of different things. Keeping busy makes life so much more interesting--as long as you love what you're doing!

Farland's Surprising Language

In storytelling, I often point out that in order to engage a reader’s interest, we need to offer something strange. In other words, people become fascinated when they visit a strange new world or fantastic setting. They can also become engrossed in a character who thinks, speaks, or behaves in an unpredictable fashion. An unusual conflict can also grip your reader. Yet if you study many an author in the mainstream, you’ll find that they strive to engage the reader primarily by offering up surprising language. In other words, if you’re writing about a guy named Joe who lives down the street in Everytown, U.S.A., he’s not going to be engaging as a person, nor is the reader likely to be riveted by the bizarre new Wal-Mart down the street. If his main conflict in life is that he’s squabbling with his wife over whether she should invest their savings on getting a hair extension, that’s probably not going to blow a reader’s mind. So what’s left in your arsenal? Language—your own personal style and treatment of the tale. If you pay close attention to certain writers, you’ll find that they use language in surprising ways in order to engage an audience. Let’s take J.K. Rowling, for example. Her Harry Potter novels have become a global sensation. Ostensibly, her first novel was a middle-grade book. But have you studied her language? It isn’t written at a third-grade level. Her sentences are a bit too long and convoluted. Her use of archaic words, and frequent use of multisyllabic words add further difficulty to the reading, as does her made-up words like “Muggles.” In fact, years ago I ran her work through various programs to see what level she was really writing at, and I found that she scored at a ninth-grade level. So her work would actually be quite challenging for a younger child. In fact, when you’re writing for an adult audience, the rule of thumb is that you should be writing at a sixth-grade level, not a ninth-grade level. So Rowling writes in a surprisingly adult style for someone who is supposedly aiming her novels at children that have just graduated from reading picture books. In fact, I believe that her work succeeds so well precisely because she does not “write down” to a child’s level. The strangeness and difficulty that her language evokes is actually rather enticing to both children and casual readers. Little kids will pick up her novels and proudly show their parents and teachers, “Look what I’m reading.” I know that they do it because when I appear at book signings I’ve had literally hundreds of parents tell me, “Oh, my son is a very advanced reader. He’s only nine, but he’s read all of the Harry Potter books!” For a child to read Rowling is a badge of honor. There are dozens of other ways to surprise your readers, of course. One method is to use neologisms, modern slang, or regional dialects in your stories. If you have a character on the streets of New York who speaks with a thick Haitian accent, for example, it can give him that aura of uniqueness that you might be searching for. Just make sure that you’re fluent in the dialect that you’re trying to reproduce. One of my mentors, the poet Leslie Norris, used to say, “Try to avoid using modifiers on nouns or verbs unless they’re surprising in some way.” In other words, if you had two people meet at the office in the morning, and a secretary smiles at her boss, you would probably not put the words “joyful smile” together. Smiles are usually joyful or mirthful. But what if you say, “A brief, desolate smile flashed like summer lightning across Serena’s lips,” you’ll attract our attention. Smiles aren’t often desolate. In fact, we create a sense of depth to the story that otherwise wouldn’t be there. By doing this, we infuse the tale with layer upon layer of underlying meaning. We create something of a mystery. Why is her smile so desolate? Another popular method for surprising the reader is through the use of inventive similes or metaphors. You have to take care though. The metaphors need to be both surprising and accurate. “The air on the tarmac at Las Vegas was hotter than a bee sting, drier than yesterday’s biscuit.” That works for me. But it’s easy to go over the top and come off sounding silly. I read a story once for a contest in which a man had a headache so bad that “It felt like a herd of giraffes were stomping on his temple.” Now, I had to stop and try to clear my mind of the image of an entire herd of giraffes stomping on someone’s head. I just couldn’t do it, and so of course rejected the tale posthaste. There are of course other ways to surprise readers with language. Combining high language and low language is one way to do it. Yogi Berra was a master at saying something intelligent one second and sounding like an idiot the next. “This is like déjà vu all over again!” “You’d better just cut that pizza into four pieces, cause I can’t eat six.” “Baseball is 90% physical, and the other half is mental!” Perhaps the greatest author to study in this regard is Shakespeare. His contemporaries complained that between his use of neologisms, archaisms, twisted word orders, and invented language he was practically indecipherable to the common man of his day. All of that is true. Yet after 400 years he remains one of the most oft-quoted men alive. So as an author, learn how to keep your reader entertained with surprising language. It will become one of your most valuable writing tools. Less is More At times you will want your prose to be as spare as possible. For example, when you’re writing a fight scene, it’s no time to slow down your pacing with long descriptions, or to ramble on about the vicissitudes of life. Can you imagine how a badly written scene might read? “Trayvor’s sword flicked forward with a burst, like the tongue of an asp as it tastes the air. Only this time it tasted the orc’s blood. “Oh. how Trayvor wearied of this. Orcs again, attacking in his favorite inn. He’d only come for a nice stout ale, dark and cold from the Innkeeper Gormath’s cellars! It had been three days since he’d had a fine brew, and now this!” “The orc fell away, its red eyes bulging in its squinty green face. There was terror in its eyes. Even a hog knows when it’s doing to die, and orcs are far cleverer than hogs. This one had a black iron nose ring in its left nostril, and it gaped its mouth wide as it staggered backward, clutching a stool for support, its steaming breath hissing out in a cry, its yellow fangs slicing the air. The creature was surprisingly well dressed for an orc, all in black leather, like a movie producer. “'Grissshta!' it called. Whether it was the name of the orc’s lover or a child, Trayvor did not know, but he suddenly grieved for his mortal enemy. “Trayvor glanced up into the corner of the room, there above the firepit where a spinnerdog tread a weary circle, still roasting a ham above the hot coals even with the battle going on. There where the ceiling met the walls a yellow garden spider harvested a bluebottle fly. "We are all caught in death’s web, Trayvor mused. Today I am the spider, but my time is coming soon. Someday, I shall be the fly.” Oy, I think you see what I mean. I’ve read scenes like that a hundred times as new authors struggle to bring a fight scene to life. You don’t need all of that. It just gets in the way. Similarly, I’ve seen those moments where a young woman suddenly gushes with newly discovered love, and the author will seek ways to convince us that her love is purer, larger, and nobler than any love that has ever blossomed within a woman’s breast. That’s nice, but it doesn’t work. Your goal is not to describe how your character feels, but to create an experience that makes the reader feel the desired emotion. Your goal isn’t to describe how your heroine feels, it’s to make the reader fall in love. Very often, it is not the overwrought description of an incident that arouses the emotion, but a nice spare depiction that simply makes the reader feel as he or she should feel. Sometimes, less is more.

Farland's Join the Writing Community

I was watching the news and noticed that a new study showed that “If a person has a strong network of family and friends, it vastly improved that person’s life expectancy and longevity.” It turns out that a person with a strong support system is twice as likely to recover from a major accident or illness as someone who doesn’t. Though this article was talking about physical health, it got me to thinking about writing communities and how they relate to your writing health. Very often, we talk about writing being a “lonely profession,” and it can be. Writers tend to get wrapped up in their work. Young writers in particular may have a day job and then try to write on the side, foregoing parties and friendships in the name of productivity. When that happens, the writer may become prone to despair and cynicism. You can go months without good news, with nothing but a few rejections to show for it, and all too often, I’ve seen writers fall out of the habit of writing simply because they don’t have an adequate support system. In short, most of us writers need an occasional kind word as much as we need food or air. When you’re a writer learning the craft, you may go years without selling a manuscript. Sometimes you need the valuable input of others—not just their criticism and feedback, but genuine heartfelt assurance that you’re on the right track. As a young author, I got buoyed up to a huge extent by associating with other writers from my college classes, from my writing group, from workshops, and so on. Someone might ask, “How are you doing on that story?” They had read a part of it, and their excitement kept me going. At one time I belonged to three writing groups at once—and I don’t think that it is a coincidence that I was writing a tremendous amount at the time. Time spent with writing groups and critiquing the work of others actually fueled enthusiasm for my own work. It works in every discipline. My son was once composing a song. I heard him play a riff on the piano and asked, “Is that a song that you heard elsewhere, or is that something you’re working on?” He admitted that it was a song that he’d begun to write, but he only had a small bit of it. I told him, “I really like it. I can’t wait to hear the rest of it.” Oddly, he was composing on the ocarina and then transferring it to the piano. Later, I noticed, he had gotten some change-ups and variations to the song. The same thing happens with our writing. You take the opening to a short story in to your writing group, and they provide encouragement and suggest improvements. Suddenly, even though you might have stalled out on that tale, you find yourself excited about it again. It’s not surprising that with each workshop that I’ve taught over the years, the participants have formed a writing group afterward. A couple of those groups have gone on for decades, and I’ve seen huge growth in the writers involved. Yet many of my readers don’t belong to a writing group. If you’re isolated, living in South Africa or New Zealand or Montana, you might feel that you can’t join a good group. But there are plenty of online groups that you might join. You’ll just have to spend a little time looking. Look for opportunities to become part of a larger writing community. Consider going to meet other writers at conventions, workshops, or online. Writing as a profession is only as lonely as we make it.

David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—Motivation vs Habit

On the door at my gym this last week, someone hung a sign that says, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit keeps you going.”

I began working out regularly about 20 years ago. Since then, I’ve dropped about 75 pounds, and run or walked something in neighborhood of 22,000 miles. I can’t even imagine how much I’ve lifted in weights. But think about it, if someone had said to me, “Hey, Dave, why don’t you go run 22,000 miles?” it would take an awful lot of motivation to get me going.

However, it only took a tiny bit of habit.

Writing is much the same way. A lot of us try hard to get motivated to write a novel. We try to get ourselves excited about it. But writing a novel is a lengthy process. Being motivated doesn’t help much, but developing good writing habits helps a lot.

I learned long ago that exercise is hard when you’re starting out. If you run three days, you’ll want to quit at the end of them. That’s when muscle aches and fatigue are the strongest. But if you run for a week, you’ll begin to notice that you feel better on the days that you’ve run. Soon, the day won’t feel complete without some exercise.

Writing is much the same. Jumping into a project is hard. Writing on a novel for one day doesn’t really get you very far into it. But if you try making it a habit—if you bundle all of that motivation up and say to yourself, “I’m going to write for one hour a day this week,” you’ll find at the end of that time that you just don’t really feel that your day is complete if you haven’t spent some time engaged in creative recreation.

In my writing workshops, I generally hold them for a week. I try to motivate my students to write daily during that time, if only for a couple of hours. The goal in part is teach the writers and get them to develop new skills, but just as importantly, I’m trying to get them into the habit of writing.

Quite often it works. I’ve gotten several letters from writers in the past few months where the writer has said, “Hey, Dave, I got into the habit of writing at your workshop last year, and I’ve just finished my first/second/third/fourth novel!” Whenever I see that, I always feel as if the mission has been accomplished.

So here’s the key to become a writer: use your motivation to create a writing habit. Long after you’re run out of motivation, you’ll still be writing.

The LITTLE Things by Jerry Simmons

As you might know, the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten. Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.

One woman was late because her alarm clock didn’t go off in time.  One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike because of an auto accident. One of them missed his bus.  One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change. One’s car wouldn’t start.  One went back to answer the telephone.  One had a child that dawdled and didn’t get ready as soon as he should have. One couldn’t get a taxi.   The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he is alive today.

Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone…All the little things that annoy me. I think to myself, this is exactly where I am supposed to be at this very moment…Next time your morning seems to be going wrong, the children are slow getting dressed, you can’t seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don’t get mad or frustrated; take refuge in the fact that someone is at work watching over you.

May your guardian angel continue to bless you with all those annoying little things and may you remember their possible purpose. – Author Unknown

Make Writing Your Only Plan by David Farland

During last week’s episode of “The Voice,” a reality television show where young singers compete for a recording contract, one of the judges, rock star Adam Levine, gave a critique of one singer’s performance. He said something that I thought was interesting. He told the young singer, “I love the fact that you give it your all. You have no backup plan, and that’s important. If you’re going to make it in this cutthroat business, you can’t have a backup plan.” This is something that I noticed long ago. Many people want to become writers, and many of them have a tremendous amount of talent. But almost always, the young writer decides that he needs a backup plan. For example, he might say, “I’ll take a job as a tech writer and plan to write on the side.” Or “I’ll take a job as a computer programmer or work as a dentist.” Eventually, the writer finds himself with a career, and his writing gets shoved back further and further in to the corners, never to escape. Very often, after years of regret, the writer will try to make a go of writing, but she’ll often find that the constraints of family expenses and the time involved just don’t allow for a transition to a writer’s life. The dream may soon be gone forever, becoming nothing more than regret. As a college student, I studied several things in my early years. I was a straight-A student in marketing and business management for a year, but then went to pre-med. Though I’d worked as a butcher when young, I found that I didn’t have the stomach to become a surgeon, and so I began looking seriously at my backup plan—writing. Perhaps I could make writing my primary plan and do something else if it didn’t work out. I quit studying medicine and dove into writing, thinking that if I couldn’t sell my writing, I’d perhaps take a job as an editor. Well, the writing career took off much faster than expected, and my “backup plans” were cast by the wayside. Oh, I do still do some editing and teaching but mainly for fun. A guy has got to get out of the house once in a while. But I keep myself focused on writing, and here’s my backup plan: more writing. By that I mean simply, I’m going to write what I like. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll write some more. I’m finishing the last book of the Runelords series, and then I’ll work on the next book in the Nightingale series. When I’m done with that, I have three other novels that I want to write, and a fourth that I’m hatching. I have faith that one of these projects will take off big. I’ve found that this is the only sane way to work in this business. Write, and then write some more. So if you see your writing as a backup plan, figure out how to make it your career. Give it a little more emphasis. Attack your writing with a little more ferocity. Whatever else you may be doing, whatever other occupation you have, start looking at it as your backup plan. If you’re stocking shelves in a grocery store, see it as a means to an end. Remember that you’re a writer first. You only stock shelves to pay the bills until your writing career takes off. Then make sure that each day, your writing takes precedence. That means that you start the day with your writing, when you’re full of energy and fresh ideas. You don’t try to do it just in those few stolen moments when you really “feel like it.” Start making money with your writing, and then make writing your only plan.

Make Every Word Count by Stephen Wilber

Make every word count - or as Strunk and White famously advised in The Elements of Style, "Omit needless words."

Consider this sentence: "Due to the fact that we ran out of gas, we were two hours late for our meeting."

Can you identify the needless words? (My first version of the previous sentence read, "Can you identify the words that were used needlessly?")

Look again. The sentence contains a phrase that, as reported by E. B. White, made his former college professor William Strunk "quiver with revulsion."

Although your reaction may not be as visceral as Professor Strunk's, I suspect you can identify the non-functioning words. To make every word count, replace the wordy phrase due to the fact that with the word because.

How would you revise the following sentence?

"Due to the fact that our profits remained flat in the third quarter, the board reduced our CEO's salary by $50 million and used those dollars to increase the salary of our 500 account managers by $100,000 each."

  

The phrase the fact that can almost always be replaced with a simple but useful word: because. So too can the phrases based on the fact that, in view of the fact that, and owing to the fact that. Similarly, the phrase in spite of the fact that can be replaced with although or even though.

With these patterns of wordiness in mind, how would you condense these three sentences?

1. "Based on the fact that I love snow, I'm eager for winter to come."

2. "Many people choose to live in Minnesota in spite of the fact that they don't like snow or cold weather."

3. "In view of the fact that it snows every winter in Minnesota, and usually in significant quantities, I'm perplexed by their decision to live here."

Do your revisions look like this?

1. "Because I love snow, I'm eager for winter to come."

2. "Many people choose to live in Minnesota even though they don't like snow or cold weather."

3. "Because it snows every winter in Minnesota, and usually in significant quantities, I'm perplexed by their decision to live here."

By the way, if you were taught it's incorrect to begin a sentence with because, you were misled. Beginning a sentence with because is perfectly acceptable as long as you complete the sentence -- that is, as long as you don't put a period after the dependent because clause and create a sentence fragment.

Five Secrets of Success in a Down Economy

Whether your company is large or small, when you offer a valuable product or service you can succeed. Even in a down economy. You may work with a franchise, or promote skills as a consultant. You may work as an employee of a local firm or promote products that are household names. Whatever your labors, apply the following principles and your business will excel.

1)                 Love Your Job: When you really enjoy what you do, you look forward to the jangle of the alarm clock, each morning. If you feel numb, bored, chronically tired or even depressed when thinking about work, change either your attitude or your profession. OK – maybe love is too strong a word. Maybe enthusiasm or respect fit our professional lives better. But, whatever vocation you invest in, make sure it has long-term appeal.   

2)                 The Customer is King: Whatever you do for a living, the customer is always king. Remember, a client will “chat up” forty people about a bad experience but only twenty when singing your praises. Once, I made the mistake of asking a customer to go to the rear of the line to return her product, instead of shoving in front of 8 people that were already waiting ahead of her. It seemed a reasonable request for courtesy, until I got a letter from the corporate CEO…her father! In an effort to get me fired, he sent a dozen “secret shoppers” into my department to test my customer service skills. This backfired and I hit five stars for customer excellence in record time. It taught me an important lesson. When the customer is treated like gold, gold flows into your pocket.

3)                 Get Your Company Name Out: A “down economy” is a great time to advertise or promote PR. Why? Because no one else is doing it. Your company name is emblazoned across the local business horizon, just as others timidly retract all mention of products and services. This pays off with great dividends, over time. And, don’t kid yourself; it has short-term benefits, too. When you follow-up an article, ad or press release with a phone campaign (either B2B or B2C), the chances of closing a sale double and triple. So, don’t hide in the shadows during a down economy. Leap into the spotlight and benefit by being center stage!

4)                 Take Time to Serve: Serving your community during hard times builds loyalty and generates great word-of-mouth. Pick something you really enjoy, like the local Boys and Girls Club, your regional library or the city shelter for family support. You won’t need to donate money, either. Just go dressed in company T-shirts or wearing in-office nametags. Then, you can rake leaves, repaint walls or collect cans of food, while quietly advertising that your company cares! It’s amazing how many appreciative people you meet when serving. Out-of-the-blue your firm may be nominated for an award or receive unexpected encomiums. Most often these acts of service are their own reward.

5)                 Embrace an Honest Work Ethic: This doesn’t mean working harder. It means working with street-smart old-fashioned ethics. During a down economy it’s especially important to give honor where honor is due. Keep an eye out for those that make creative contributions, work overtime or provide consistent cheerful support. When you recognize those that go the extra mile, team members close ranks. They work even harder to make sure your company succeeds. Taking the blame yourself (when appropriate) and giving praise to others when they excel creates an atmosphere of loyal teamwork that sets you firmly on the yellow brick road. By the way, this is a great time to catch “kudo thieves” and send them packing. Employees that stab their fellows in the back to gain points or ride rough shod over other team members (gossip is an overused tool) are better employed by your competitors. During hard times, you don’t need the chaos they cause.

Applying these five secrets can promote lasting success. You may be surprised by the harmony, even the serendipity, which follows! 

Finding the Courage to Write by Dave Wolverton

I decided to begin writing at the age of 17. I bought a used typewriter and began my first fantasy novel--a story about a young wizard who goes to a magic school.

I was terrified that someone might actually read it, so I hid the manuscript under my mattress. I’ve sometimes imagined my mother’s reaction when, upon changing my sheets, she felt that suspicious pad of paper. “Oh, what kind of a twisted little pervert am I raising?” she might have wondered. Imagine her surprise when she pulled out the wad and found that instead of reading Playboy, I was writing a novel!

(I can hear her muttering under her breath, “What kind of twisted little nerd am I raising?”)

A year later, I moved out of the house--mainly so that I could write without getting caught. One day a friend dropped by and noticed my nicely typed manuscript sitting next to my typewriter. “Oh, you’re writing a book!” he said enthusiastically. “Let me see!” But as he reached for the manuscript, instinct took control, and I did a belly flop on the table in order to hide my labors.

That was many millions of words ago. Yet I see people with similar fears every day. Once a father brought his son to one of my signings, a young man who was secretly writing his own novel. Dad knew, and was trying to get him to come out of the closet.

A good friend of mine wrote five novels before he got the courage to submit one to a publisher. (It was a great book, and it became a bestseller!) A young author I met at a panel was shaking when she sat down. I asked if she was all right, and she said, “I’m afraid that they’ll know that I’m not really an writer.”

This fear of showing your work is common. It’s similar to one of our most fundamental fears--that of speaking in public. Oddly enough, surveys show that more people are afraid of speaking in public than of dying. But if you’re going to live your dream, if you’re going to become a bestseller, you need to show your work to the whole world. You’ll need to develop the guts to show your work to a critique group.

You’ll need to find the courage to send your story to an editor. You’ll need to find the inner resolve to read the reviews of critics, and to stand against the tides of public opinion. You’ll need to brave a book signing on a cold winter’s day when no one will show up. You’ll need to dig deep and find the strength to quit your day job and take the risk of making storytelling your profession. It won’t be comfortable. You might even regret it. But I suspect that you’ll regret it more bitterly if you never try.

So here’s writing tip number one: Begin developing courage today. Stop doing swan dives on your keyboard. If you’re really insecure, show your story to someone who loves you. Maybe you could tell your colleagues at work or at school that you want to be a writer. Tell your parents what you’ve got hidden under your mattress. If you feel safe enough, join a writing group. If you’re beyond that stage, send a manuscript out to an editor--a really scary one. But whatever you resolve to do, do it today!

Your Unique Gift

In an age of rush and bustle, it's easy to assume that our words, either written or spoken, have little value. The opposite is true! Today, we can Facebook, Twitter and Blog our opinions to hundreds, even thousands, of people, through the power of technology. We can also influence those we love, one-on-one.

No one is perfect. But, everyone has perfectly inspiring words and thoughts to share.

Your unique gift, your point of view, is expressed in your words. So, write them, speak them, share them. It is generous and kind to share an uplifting thought or tale with others. It can help them more than you know.

Recently, I went through my journals. During my growing  years, my passion for writing was dismissed by certain relatives. I pursued it in spite of strictures to be more practical, slogging through the slough of criticism instead of rising on wings of praise. Yet, in one journal entry, I was surprised to read that my example of writing had inspired my sister to write books.

What greater gift can we give to one another than our words, thoughts and examples? Share your soul through your words. You, and others in your world, with be better for it.

Put Your Story in Motion by Farland

From David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants

Have you ever read a story that just stalled on you? The character isn’t going anywhere, doing anything, or thinking or saying anything new? Did you notice that you wanted to put the book down? In fact, if you’re like me, you probably did put the book down . . . and you’ll never pick it up again. Humans and animals respond to motion. It’s in our DNA. Anything that moves is either a potential threat, potential food, a potential mate, or a potential ally. That’s why you need to keep your story in motion. When it stalls, it’s as interesting as a dirt clod. So how do you keep your story in motion? Here are a few things that you can do. 1) Keep your characters moving. Simply having characters stride purposefully (not wander aimlessly) across a room will add some motion. Putting them to work, having them racing for their lives—all are good options. 2) Create characters who act. Some people in this world simply react. When faced with an imminent threat, they’ll respond, and that alone is enough for a plot to work. But such people are a bit predictable. It’s much more interesting to have characters who set goals, who struggle to achieve, who think outside the box and act decisively. 3) Create emotional movement. A scene where a character’s feelings change dramatically—for example a scene where a young woman’s anger toward her father is replaced by sadness when she learns of his death—is much more interesting than a scene that is emotionally flat. You can create emotional movement in any direction—from envy to love, from humor to horror, from lust to disgust. 4) Create intellectual movement. Many writers have no intellectual component to their tales at all. It seems that the writer almost has no intellectual life. Yet a scene where a character learns something new, makes a discovery, or even just ponders an important theme will engage your reader intellectually and add some depth to your tale. This works best when you deal with universal themes and problems that strongly affect the reader. These philosophical discussions can be handled either as internal dialog, or you can have people arguing, or otherwise exchanging ideas. 5) Move your characters temporally. Too often writers are so “in the moment” that they forget to use temporal motion to their advantage. For example, imagine that your heroine is getting ready for a date. She decides to wear her “lucky” red dress. Why? Because the last two times that she fell in love, she was able to seduce the men that she wanted while wearing this red dress. If you were writing a romance, looking back in time would offer a great opportunity to deepen your character’s personality. In the same way, if I were writing a fantasy, I might want to take a couple of paragraphs to talk about a sword—discussing where it was forged, the conquests of past owners, it’s alleged powers, and so on, all in an effort to engage those fantasy readers who really like to become immersed in a fantasy world. 6) Put your characters together. Too often, I read scenes where a character is alone, but the opportunity for change, for movement, becomes limited. For example, an old woman sweeping her floor is likely to be fairly boring. But if you throw a serial killer in the basement, the level of interest will skyrocket. Whenever you have two characters together, it gives you a chance to let them argue, or even come to blows. Hence, one assignment that I often ask people to do in my writing workshops is to add an argument to your story. Characters should be like balls in a game of billiards—they should bounce off one another, get sent off in new directions in response to opposing forces. Far too often, I read about characters who should get together and they never do. For example, are you writing about a serial killer, and your detective never meets him before the climax? Boring. It’s much more interesting to get them together early on. The same often happens in epic fantasy, where a young hero face a godlike foe that he never sees. Figure out how to put them together in such a way that your hero comes out alive. 7) Change course. In a story, characters are often forced to respond to others, or to stimulate others. Thus, after your character loses a battle, he may have to regroup with his comrades, reconsider his plans, suffer through a dire funk, or make an excursion in order to ensure success at the next meeting. These “course correction” scenes are the meat of your story. 8) Create suspense by allowing your reader to have some doubt as to a probable outcome. When you’re writing, you as a writer usually know what is going to happen next. Your tone and word choice often act as tells, “foreshadowing” the upcoming actions. One great way to create suspense is to foreshadow a different ending. For example, you have a story about a young man who breaks horses for a living, and on a certain day, a horse finally breaks him—literally. It bucks him off and breaks his neck. How are you going to foreshadow this event? You might be tempted to start off with a gray day, with overcast skies and the taste of rain. You might have rumblings of thunder, and your character might feel “off” of his game. But there’s no surprise in that. So rethink how you’ll approach your scene. 9) Combine the techniques listed above. I remember years ago reading Flannery O’Connor’s masterpiece “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It’s a story about an old woman who has been kidnapped. She’s taken into the woods by a pair of men who plan to kill her, and she thinks furiously about how she might be able to outrun them, outfight them, outwit them. She argues with them and plays upon her captor’s sympathies. She tells her captor that she knows that he’s “a good man,” for he does show her some kindness, and then he proves her wrong. The story has everything—intellectual movement, temporal motion, emotional movement, characters acting and reacting, while the audience is nicely balanced with suspense. In short, I found it absolutely engrossing as a teen. Certainly, there are a lot of great examples for you to look at, but consider your favorite scenes, and you will often find that all of these elements combine in your favorite scenes. In short, whenever your story suddenly stops—whether you do it purposefully or inadvertently—your reader will stop reading. Your challenge is to keep the story moving!

What is a Writer?

A writer isn’t just anyone that can pick-up a pencil and scratch words on paper. A writer is someone with either the skill or talent to write with purpose and power.

Great writing is done in many ways, with literary language or simple words. There is no yardstick for such greatness, except the response of the heart.

Although artistic writing can be done by anyone (meaning poems, meditations, etc.), a professional writer has a passion for the written word. This passion usually expresses itself through skillful communications that make a point, with pure and powerful language.

Children are often more expressive than adults, having not yet learned to be self-conscious. Whether we grew up playing with mud pies or rockets, each child felt a connection with inborn artistic talent. As adults, we should value these gifts, without assuming that our ability to communicate makes us skillful at all forms of writing.

For example, an office assistant may be great at composing newsletters, yet unskillful at PR writing and press pitching. A CEO may enjoy sketching out articles, yet be ineffective at wording said articles to attract the attention of local or national editors.

A professional writer has paid their dues. They know how to write effectively because they’ve been doing it for a long time and know what works.

In short, although everyone can hone an innate ability to write, becoming a specialist in specific fields of writing is the result of experience and study. So, rejoice in your writerly abilities. But, be wise enough to hire a specialist when it comes to those vital ads, infomercials or proposals that make or break your business!

A Powerful Prologue

A powerful prologue can make or break your book. Although most prologues are considered unnecessary these days, there are some prologues that "hook" the reader with images and emotions. Read the following example and compare it to prologues that others have written. You will find it exceptionally attractive to readers that scan the first few pages prior to purchase.

PROLOGUE
A Silence of Three Parts

IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained.

Inside the Waystone a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of troubling news. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint.

The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, splintering barrels behind the bar. It was in the weight of the black stone hearth that held the heat of a long dead fire. It was in the slow back and forth of a white linen cloth rubbing along the grain of the bar. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, polishing a stretch of mahogany that already gleamed in the lamplight.

The man had true-red hair, red as flame. His eyes were dark and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from knowing many things.

The Waystone was his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

When you distill human elements into your prologue, personal details that intrigue, you guarantee that readers carry your book from the shelf to the cash register. Determine what appeals most to your audience, then include those elements in your prologue. This will ensure a powerful loyalty and interest in your book for both familiar and unfamiliar readers.

Your Three Minute Miracle

When you're stuck, when your writing sense has run dry, try this three minute miracle to get words flowing again.

For the first minute, close your eyes. Imagine that you're blind. When you can't see, what senses become paramount? Then, open your eyes and write down this experience. How did you think and feel for that sixty seconds?

For the second minute, plug your ears. When you can't hear, what happens to your world? Imagine, being deaf for your entire life. What would your existence be like? Envision it, then write it down.

For your third minute, select one of the remaining senses and imagine your life without it. What if you couldn't taste, feel or smell. What if your spiritual senses did not exist?
What if you had no imagination? If you couldn't write with your hands? Imagine it then put pen to paper and record your experience.

These may seem like nightmarish scenarios, but that does not have to be the case. In your mind, other senses may rise and shine, taking over with powers that make up for the sense that is missing.

The point is to use your imagination to experience life without senses that you take for granted.
Each of your senses is a miracle. Without them, what would you do?

Asking these questions acts as a reset button for your writing sense. Try this three minute miracle. Afterward, you may write with more power than ever before!

 

When Content is Key

Quality content is key to drawing readers into your book or story. Almost half of those that used to read have been distracted by alternate sources of entertainment over the last three decades, reducing the pool of fans that used to follow specific authors. Our remaining readers are much more refined. The depth and breadth of education has honed their sophistication and discernment, when selecting literature.

In fact, it’s never been more vital for a writer to write well.

With this in mind, think about the following advice for building great content. 1) Write a lot. Prolific writers are much more likely to hit it big with their works. More books on the shelf translate directly into more sales at the register. But, there is another benefit. The more you write the better you get at writing. Think of yourself as an Olympic athlete. Practice really does make perfect. 2) Select an editor with a mindset that matches your own. Just because you’re a good writer doesn’t mean you’re a good editor. Even if you edit for a living, it’s wise to hire someone else to edit your work. Why? Because personal literary works are the hardest things to view objectively. So, hire an editor. A good one! 3) Learn about and use social media.  A great book for those of us that are social media challenged is The Digital Handshake. Written in simple, easily understood language, this book will walk you through every marketing scenario that may confront you on the web.

By far, the most important counsel is to write every day. Make sure that each moment possible is utilized for the development of your talent. Only then can you rest assured that your content is the best you have to offer. 

Write What You Are

Sometimes budding writers don’t know what or who to write about. If you’re stymied by a lack of inspiration in the “what or who” categories, take a moment to imagine yourself in the story, both as a character and as someone experiencing the new world you desire to create.

Many authors have fielded questions about which character is their character. The truth is that the writer is every character, from philosopher to villain to magician to hero. When you allow your mind to “become” a character, you can see, think, feel and do (in your imagination) what that character would do.

This is a popular technique with actors. It’s not enough to know your lines and take your mark. You must have a running dialogue in your head while delivering your lines, a dialogue that gives “meatiness” to your character and meaning to their words and choices.

This kind of mental fingerprint makes a character real, to both author and reader. It is easier to develop such knowledge about character if we stop worrying, scribbling and trying to meet deadlines.

Relax, lock yourself in the bathroom, and find a way to connect with your inner self where interruptions are more rare than common. When you do this, the “what and who” information you need will simply flow into your mind, with harmony and fascination.

Then, you can clearly and powerfully write what you are!

Developing a Productive “Mindset” by Farland

For today’s kick, I’m pulling a lot of material from an article that I just got from my son’s college. It summarizes the philosophy of Carol S. Dweck, Ph. D., as expressed in her new book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. So let me paraphrase, pulling some sentences from the article, changing others to suit my audience here:
‘There is a common myth in our society that those who achieve in life do so because of superior talent, intelligence, or other forms of giftedness. Scientific discoveries, technological innovations, and success in business or artistic endeavors can come almost automatically to those who “have it” (whatever “it” is). Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck refers to this way of thinking as a “fixed mindset” and suggests that for many students it is the cause of a great deal of anxiety and failure to learn. ‘For students with a fixed mindset about themselves, any setback is evidence that they don’t have “it,” that they are not cut out for the endeavor in which they are struggling, and this creates discouragement. (For example, if writers think that only “gifted” people succeed in their fields, and they struggle, then they presume that they must not be talented enough and often stop trying.) Since imperfection suggests permanent personal failure, they also hesitate to ask for help or look for new ways to succeed. ‘The other side of the coin is what Dweck refers to as the growth mindset. Artists with this perspective see achievement as a process of growing through persistent effort. They know their early works will be fraught with mistakes and may never be “perfect,” but, like an infant learning to walk, they are willing to learn from their mistakes and move forward. They see their writing as a process of continual improvement rather than an evaluation of their character or personal worth; so they are less distressed by setback or failure. They are also less embarrassed about sharing their mistakes or consulting with others in their efforts to improve.’ I like Dweck’s philosophy. It sums up something that I’ve believed for a long time. Too often as writers, we evaluate our work and fail to see our own talent. An author who has a gift for characterization doesn’t even notice it, but yearns to have a stronger poetic voice. Or perhaps a writer whose prose is naturally clean and evocative wishes for a more elaborate style. Or a novelist with a gift for profound philosophical insights wishes that he could write steamy romantic interludes. Whatever. You get the idea. But developing the ability to write is a process. We gain one skill upon another. Even the greatest among us don’t have all “gifts.” Some of Shakespeare’s work seems so beautiful and profound, it’s ethereal. But he wrote pages and pages of drivel to get to that point. Sometimes, he even manages to sink to the level of dreck. Ben Johnson, the greatest of his contemporaries, found Shakespeare’s writing to be almost incomprehensible to the common man, and felt that he needed to learn to rewrite. Johnson was right. But when Shakespeare hit his stride in a passage, no one was better. Every great painter—Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh—has a few epic works. Yet always the “old masters” have hundreds or thousands of pieces that don’t rise to the highest level, and are thus forgettable. Don’t let your own masterpieces go unwritten. Learn to unlock the writer inside. Consciously work at developing your own unique skill set. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.

Pitfalls in Publishing by David Farland

For more than a year now, I’ve tried to avoid talking about the changing book industry. This is a writing newsletter, not an industry newsletter. Publishing has always been evolving, and you’ll see that if you take a snapshot of the industry from the 1880s or the 1990s and compare it to now. But the changes are pretty far-reaching, and there are some people who don’t seem to realize how dramatic those changes will become.

I’m just going to list some of the things that are happening, with very little editorializing. I’m not going to hit every little thing that has happened, so you may need to fill in the blanks.

The world is changing from paper books to electronic books.

This started with Amazon.com introducing the Kindle, an e-reader whose low price was attractive. However, it can’t be overemphasized that Amazon.com was already the nation’s single largest bookstore. The Kindle found an audience of book-buyers who made perfect customers. The new Kindle allowed readers to instantly download their books, anytime, anyplace, and pay less for them. It let readers shop more efficiently—no more long trips to bookstores.

Amazon’s competitor, Barnes and Noble, accepted Amazon’s challenge and created its own e-reader: the Nook. But a little over 18 months ago, Borders, the second largest book chain, was already in trouble, with a shrinking market share.

Hampered by high debts that it had been carrying for years, Borders was forced into bankruptcy.

Many people thought that other brick-and-mortar bookstores would see a sharp surge in sales as shoppers went elsewhere to buy paper books. After all, Borders had about 30% of the market. Instead, shoppers went electronic. E-book sales rose from about 30% of the total sales to over 50% of book sales about 18 months ago.

Barnes and Noble, the second-largest retailer in the market, re-designed its stores so that they could put more emphasis on selling their Nook, along with games and toys. Thus, they cut their inventory of paper books by about 30%, and this move was a success. Their busiest day in 2010 came on Christmas, when they sold more books than on any other day of the year—when all of their stores were closed! So e-book sales were pushed well beyond the 50% mark.

In January 2011, Amanda Hocking became the first person to become a multimillionaire by selling her own electronic books. Several other authors have begun to follow. Even traditional authors are seeing their sales move from print to digital. Paperback book sales are shrinking dramatically as publishers quit re-printing old titles and let them come out only in digital. In the past six months, my own e-book sales have skyrocketed. I’m currently making much more from electronic sales than I am making on paper sales.

This is true even for new releases. For example, in April one author I know released his hardcover novel, one in a series, to good strong sales—7,000 copies in the first week. But the book sold another 11,500 copies digitally that week, even though the price was at $16.95 per digital book. In other words, most of the readers who had faithfully been collecting the books in hardcover for years simply transitioned to electronic format.

With the opening market for e-books, a lot of authors are going Indie, but are finding that with the stiff competition, it’s hard even for an Indie author to sell well. You can’t just have a good book, they’re discovering, you’ve also got to have great marketing.

So the market is tough. In an effort to get good reviews, I’ve heard that a lot of indie authors are trading reviews—asking strangers to give them raves in exchange for their own raves about the stranger’s book. This kind of incestuous behavior is backfiring. I recently heard one attendee at a book conference say, “I won’t buy indie books anymore, because you just can’t trust the reviews.” Another writer said, “Yeah, but you can’t trust the big names, either. They just write reviews for their friends.” So authors seeking reviews have a quandary. Bestselling authors are busy. It’s hard to get one who is a complete stranger to look at your book for book quotes. Even if you get them, readers have learned to tune out.

Of course, you can hire reviewers at places like Kirkus to write reviews, but those reviews aren’t completely unbiased either.

So getting great reviews isn’t necessarily a good way to attract attention anymore, I’m afraid. We need something else. Even if you do get good reviews, there are people on the internet who like to bash good books and movies in order to gratify their own egos. They’ll dis a book that they haven’t read. Even if people love your work, and are vocal about it, it will backfire.

With paper book sales plummeting, many authors are taking their backlists and selling the titles as e-books. This is good for the author and the fans, but it is hurting the store owners. One author that recently went on a book tour mentioned that at the indie bookstores, he had a couple of store owners complain about authors who sell their backlist, cutting out the bookstore owners. These bookstore owners are taking it as a personal insult, and in some cases may be refusing to support authors who publish e-books. I’d love to find a way to keep them in the loop, and Dean Smith’s idea of selling books as e-books using gift certificates at stores is one great way to do this. We just haven’t found a system to implement this plan.

At the same time, publishers are upset about being cut out of the loop, too. The publishers want to sell authors’ titles as e-books, and several class-action lawsuits have been filed by authors alleging that publishers have been accused of stealing e-book rights, under-reporting sales, or fixing prices on e-books.

The publishers want e-rights so badly, that one best-selling author I know who recently published a nonfiction e-book, found that when he took his next fiction proposal to his publisher, it was soundly rejected. Why? As one person on the acquisitions team said, “If the book is any good, why doesn’t he just publish it himself?” So authors who publish their own backlists may be finding that they face a backlash from publishers.

What does all of this mean? A lot of authors are looking at the markets and trying to decide whether to publish traditionally or as indies. I’m not going to make that assessment for you, but you should know that no matter what route you take, there are potholes and pitfalls.

Tread carefully.

Celebrating the Fourth

 

When celebrating the Fourth of July, we often forget the simple freedoms that liberty offers to writers. Instead of distributing our witticisms via underground newspapers, anyone can write anything and post it on a blog, like this one. Instead of enduring government control over what we write about, we can pen original or inspiring thoughts on a plethora of subjects freely, whenever and however we wish. Critics used to control what was published through ruthless editing. Today, there is so little editing that the hunger for a few cleansing edits, here and there, is almost universally acknowledged.

Here are a few quotes on the writing freedom we now enjoy:

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."

Ray Bradbury

"Nobody can make us write what we don't want to write."

William Zinsser

"Writing is a form of personal freedom."

 Don Delillo

In short, there are more opportunities for writers to express themselves, today, than ever before in the history of civilized man. Take advantage of this grand freedom.

Write…and be grateful for the privilege!   

Five Common Writing Blunders by Kirsten Lamb

Five Common Writing Blunders by Kirsten Lamb

I generally like blogging about the larger issues, namely structure, because that is the killer. If the story’s plot is fatally flawed there’s little hope of connecting with a reader. If we need a Dungeon Master Guide, a GPS and a team of sherpas to navigate our story’s plot, then finding an agent is the least of our worries. So plot matters, but, to be blunt, there other rookie mistakes that can land us in a slush pile before an agent (or reader) even gets far enough to notice a problem with plot.

So today I am putting on my editor’s hat and going to give you a peek into what agents and editors (and even readers) see in those first 5-25 pages that can make us lose interest.

If Your Novel has More Characters than the Cast of Ben Hur, You Might Need Revision...

Whenever the author takes the time to name a character, that is a subtle clue to the reader that this is a major character and we need to pay attention. Think Hollywood and movies. If the credits roll and there is a named character in the credits, then we can rest assured this character had a speaking part. Many characters in our novels will be what NYTSBA Bob Mayer calls “spear carriers.” Spear carriers do not need names.

I did not know this, years ago, and I felt the need to name the pizza guy, the florist, the baker and the candlestick maker. Do NOT do this. When we name characters, it is telling our readers to care. Sort of like animals. Only name them if you plan on getting attached.

We do not have to know intimate life details about the waitress, the taxi driver or even the funeral director. Unless the character serves a role—protagonist, antagonist, allies, mentor, love interest, minions, etc.—you really don’t need to give them a name. They are props, not people.

And maybe your book has a large cast; that is okay. Don’t feel the need to introduce them all at once. If I have to keep up with 10 names on the first page, it’s confusing, ergo annoying. Readers (and agents) will feel the same way.

If Your Novel Dumps the Reader Right into Major Action, You Might Need Revision...

Oh, there is no newbie blunder I didn’t make.

Anastasia leaned out over the yawning chasm below, and yelled to Drake. She needed her glue-sticks and Bedazzler if she ever was going to diffuse the bomb in time. Blood ran down her face as she reached out for Dakota’s hand. They only had minutes before Xing Xio would be back and then it would all be over for Fifi, Gerturde and Muffin.

Okay, I just smashed two into one. Your first question might be, Who the hell are these people? And likely your second question is Why do I care?

Thing is, you don’t care. You aren’t the writer who knows these characters and is vested. We have discussed before how Normal World plays a vital role in narrative structure. As an editor, if I see the main character sobbing at a funeral or a hospital or hanging over a shark tank by page three, that is a big red flag the writer doesn’t understand narrative structure.

Thing is, maybe you do. But, if we are new and unknown and querying agents, these guys get a lot of submissions. And, if our first five pages shout that we don’t understand narrative structure, our pages are likely to end up in the slush pile.  Also, here is the thing about narrative structure. It is hardwired into our brains. Even three-year-olds "get" narrative structure. Don't believe me? Try to skip part of Where the Wild Things Are and see what happens.

If three act structure is wired into the human brain, why mess with what works? Besides, when we are new, we get less leeway about trying to reinvent narrative structure, and the thing is---and I can't emphasize this enough---three-act structure has worked since Aristotle came up with it. There are better uses of time than us trying to totally remake dramatic structure.

It’s like the wheel. Round. It rolls. The wheel works. Don’t mess with the wheel. Don't mess with narrative structure.

Some other picky no-nos… .

Painful and Alien Movement of Body Parts...

Her eyes flew to the other end of the restaurant.

 His head followed her across the room.

All I have to say is… “Ouch.”

Make sure your character keeps all body parts attached. Her gaze can follow a person and so can her stare, but if her eyes follow? The carpet gets them fuzzy with dust bunnies and then they don’t slide back in her sockets as easily.

Too much Physiology…

Her heart pounded. Her heart hammered. Her pulse beat in her head. Her breath came in choking sobs.

After a page of this? I need a nap. After two pages? I need a drink. We can only take so much heart pounding, thrumming, hammering before we just get worn out.  That and I read a lot of entries where the character has her heart hammering so much, I am waiting for her to slip into cardiac arrest at any moment. Ease up on the physiology. Less is often more.

Again, I will recommend Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's Emotion Thesaurus. This is an inexpensive tool that will keep you from beating up the same words/descriptions. You can thank me later ;).

Info-Dump...

The beginning of the novel starts the reader off with lengthy history or world-building. The author pores on and on about details of a city or civilization or some alien history all to “set up” the story.

In my experience, this is often the hallmark of a writer who is weak when it comes to characters and even plotting. How can I tell? He begins with his strength---lots of intricate details about a painstakingly crafted world. Although not set in stone, generally, if the author dumps a huge chunk of information at the start of the book, then he is likely to use this tactic throughout.

This type of beginning tells me that author is not yet strong enough to blend information into the narrative in a way that it doesn’t disrupt the story. The narrative then becomes like riding in a car with someone who relies on hitting the brakes to modulate speed. The story likely will just get flowing…and then the writer will stop to give an information dump.

Also, readers read fiction for stories. We read Wikipedia for information. Information does not a plot make. Facts and details are to support the story that will be driven by characters with human wants and needs. 

Sci-fi/fantasy writers are some of the worst offenders. It is easy to fall in love with our world-building and forget we need a plot with players. Keep the priorities straight. In twenty years people won't remember gizmos, they will remember people.

I will do more of these in the future, but the points I mentioned today are very common errors. Many editors and agents will look for these oopses to narrow down the stack of who to read. These are also habits that can frustrate readers should the book make it to publication.

To learn more, visit Kirsten at her website: http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/author/warriorwriters/