Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

[James D. Macdonald]

What definition of "professional" do you want? There's been discussion on this forever, without consensus.

One point of view is that there's no such thing as a professional writer, because the only "professions" are those that have licenses, such as doctor or lawyer.

Another point of view is that anyone who gets paid for his/her writing is a "professional" writer.

I don't think that anyone's argued that only full-time writers are "professional," since if that were true there'd be darned few.

My personal opinion is that "professional" is a state of mind. If you act "professionally," (that is, in a businesslike way) then you're a professional writer. Know the standards, apply them, and so on. When your work is published by professional markets (that is, ones that sell copies to the public for money), then one is a professional.

[Duncan J Macdonald]

I am not U.J, of course, though, I pester him so much one might think I'm his younger brother.Nope. Sorry. That position has already been filled.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Uncle Jim, I have a question for you, if I may.

That WIP I've been working on: it looks like I might be able to squeeze another 3,000 or 4,000 words out of it without fouling it up. It probably will end up no more than 55,000 words in length.

I've thought about another character and sub-plot like you suggested, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to build another sub-plot too readily. I could do it, but it will take quite some time.

Therefore, my question is: should I trunk this novel or perhaps put it on the back burner? A learning experience of sorts, and move on to another work that is longer and perhaps better?

I'm not discouraged like I was before, but I am concerned that this work's length would be a problem in getting it sold.

What say ye? Should I trunk it, or should I shop it?

[Ashling]

Thanks Ken, Berry & Jim. We hold similar views on what makes a writer a professional. Back to the grant grind.

[James D. Macdonald]

I could do it, but it will take quite some time.


And this is a problem how? Take the time.

[SeanDSchaffer]

And this is a problem how? Take the time.


Uncle Jim, I will do what you said. But I would like to explain, if it's all right with you, why I thought it would be a problem.

I've always written my works very slowly. My only printed work took me 17 years to complete, and it wasn't done to my satisfaction when I submitted it.

I was worried that other writers would look down upon me if I did not get the work done quickly, say, in 6 months or so. I do not want to take another 17 years to write one book. I know I can do a better job in less time, because of what experience I have actually writing my previous work. But I worry that I'll still be writing this manuscript several years down the way without any visible progress.

Do you understand what I'm saying? I know I worry way too much, but I feel driven to perform beyond my abilities much of the time, which is highly stressful at best.


Anyway, I was just wondering what you thought I should do before I made my decision. I looked over the work a few minutes ago, and I think I know how to lengthen the book without doing anything that will take away from the story. Another thing I've noticed is that five chapters near the end can be much better written and presented. They're kind of lame compared to the first five chapters; I'm thinking about adding some action to the chapters as well as adding some extra tension. It's looking like I will have 19 or 20 chapters altogether when I get done, whereas I have 18 chapters now.


So I will take the time. It may take quite awhile to get the work to publishable status....possibly another year, even. But I know from previous experience that I personally will be more pleased with the work if I take the time like you said.

Thank you kindly for the advice. I'll talk to you later.

[James D. Macdonald]

Joseph Heller started his first novel (Catch-22) in 1953. It was published in 1961. His second novel was published in 1974.

No one looks down on Joseph Heller.

Really, how fast you pump 'em out isn't the question. How good they are is the question. Make your book good.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Joseph Heller started his first novel (Catch-22) in 1953. It was published in 1961. His second novel was published in 1974.

No one looks down on Joseph Heller.

Really, how fast you pump 'em out isn't the question. How good they are is the question. Make your book good.


Uncle Jim, that's exactly what I needed to hear. I appreciate it.

I'll go ahead and ask the agency to withdraw the work from consideration, because it is nowhere near what I want it to be. And I give you and everyone else here my word that I will not submit it again until I personally am satisfied with it.

Nor will I submit any further works until I know that I am pleased with them.


Now I know why the words 'Return to Wyverinia' kept going through my mind. They weren't telling me to write a novel by that title; they were telling me to return to the patience and the perseverance it took to get my original work to the writing quality it possesses today.


I do believe I feel much better, and that I have much to learn and do. I appreciate you, Uncle Jim, for putting up this thread. And I appreciate everyone in the writing community for helping me to realize what I need to do.

You guys have helped me to re-ignite the little pilot light in my boilers. Now they can heat the water within to a good strong boil, providing me plenty of steam with which to propel my writing. I am forever in my fellow writers' debt.


I'll talk to you all later, and I wish you all the best of success.


Sincerely,

Sean D. Schaffer

[blacbird]

Joseph Heller started his first novel (Catch-22) in 1953. It was published in 1961. His second novel was published in 1974.

No one looks down on Joseph Heller.

Really, how fast you pump 'em out isn't the question. How good they are is the question. Make your book good.

I agree completely with all of this, as a historical matter, and as good advice. However, it is worth noting that, in Heller's case, that was then, this is now. I doubt any agent or publisher today is willing to wait 13 years between first and second books, unless the first one is as monumentally successful as Heller's first. Yeah, every publisher would defecate blue bullets to get Harper Lee's second novel manuscript, if she had one. But for most of us, the picture is very different.

caw.

[James D. Macdonald]

There's a difference between writing for publication and writing for a living. If you're doing it for a living, you absolutely need to have something coming out every year. If you're writing for publication, write when and if you please, just be aware that you'll be getting first-novel advances each time.

[popmuze]

Uncle Jim,

I've really been stuck on my current work in progress. I've revised it a few times since starting to send it out about a year ago, but I wonder if I've really revised it. At the time I thought I was making major changes, tightening it up and making it more dramatic, etc. These four rejections span about a year, with the last two taking place after the last rewrite a few months ago. They are from agents. The first two were from editors. I'm wondering if just by looking at these rejections, you can give me any feedback about whether to start any further revisions or not.



While I think there is definitely potential for a great story here in the voluptuous, impetuous Gloria & the sickly, neurotic Byron –and of course Murray and his self-centered aspirations—we found ourselves questioning the narrator’s relationship with the two young uprisers. He makes no excuses for his self-serving behavior and there are moments when he actually convinces the reader he cares for these kids and their career. But at the bottom, he’s out for himself. An intriguing character, but I wanted to go deeper into the reasons why he so desperately latched his life onto these two. Also, I wanted to feel the time and place more fully- to really be immersed in the Brooklyn they inhabited. I thought you successfully introduced the historical details, the places and sights, but I wanted the smells, sounds, and tastes as well.







While the manuscript is very eloquent and well written it is often far
too wordy and overly descriptive; this is detrimental because it hurts the
overall tone. The characters themselves are fun to read and seem very real. Despite a very slow start, which should probably be reworked, the plot was engaging and held my interest. The pace of the plot would do well to be more accelerated. I believe the author could benefit from hiring a freelance editor to tighten the story and perhaps make it more concise.



This is certainly a vivid and well-written work, with a strong sense of place and interesting characters (especially Murray). The period detail regarding the music industry seems spot-on (it reminded me a bit of a fictionalPositively Fourth Street), but unfortunately, though Gloria and Byron are intriguing characters in their own right, the story of their rise and fall from celebrity just didn’t feel truly compelling enough to stand out in the market.



Thanks for the chance to consider your novel. I read the first 100 pages and found your writing to be stylish, crisp and engaging. You present an original view of music industry shenanigans, which is also appealing. However, the central relationships between Byron, Gloria and Murray seemed to be lacking a bit of drama or oomph to me. Though the characters are well drawn, I didn’t find myself really caring about them as much as I had hoped. Though I don’t think this is quite right for us, I do think the novel is assured and convincing, and I wish you the best of luck in finding a home for it.

[James D. Macdonald]

Beware performing rejectomancy.

Here's one thing to try:

Retype the entire manuscript. From hardcopy. You're allowed to make changes as you go. Some bits may not seem worth retyping. Don't retype them. Others will fill you with the need to expand. Expand them.

Meanwhile, start another book.

[popmuze]

I remember those days of retyping from hard copy (on the old Smith Corona).

Thinking about doing that now in the era of the word processor, I'm not sure any of it would survive.
I've started another project, but 40-50 pages into it, I just don't have the same emotional investment as I've got with the current one.

[James D. Macdonald]

Thinking about doing that now in the era of the word processor, I'm not sure any of it would survive.

I know one well-published and award-winning author who does exactly that.

I've started another project, but 40-50 pages into it, I just don't have the same emotional investment as I've got with the current one.

You will.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Beware performing rejectomancy.

Here's one thing to try:

Retype the entire manuscript. From hardcopy. You're allowed to make changes as you go. Some bits may not seem worth retyping. Don't retype them. Others will fill you with the need to expand. Expand them.

Meanwhile, start another book.

I write that stuff by HAND!

OK, to me it's fun........

[SeanDSchaffer]

There's a difference between writing for publication and writing for a living. If you're doing it for a living, you absolutely need to have something coming out every year. If you're writing for publication, write when and if you please, just be aware that you'll be getting first-novel advances each time.


A quick question, if I may:

I was actually thinking about doing short stories as a way to supplement my work as a novelist. My idea is to do lots of short stories during the times I'm working on my novels, so as to stay on as a constant presence in the industry.

My question: Does this work?


I thank you all in advance for your answers.

[James D. Macdonald]

My question: Does this work?

Can't hurt. The trick, as aways, is finding a market for them.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Can't hurt. The trick, as aways, is finding a market for them.


Right on.


I do have one more question, if I may. Is there a formula to writing a book a year?

I hope my questions don't bother you too much; it's just I've never really seen myself as able to do a book every year, and I want to learn how to do it. When I was a child, I told myself I would make a living at writing, and I want to keep that promise.

Novels seem to be what I'm best at, although I am also good at writing short short stories. So naturally, I want to find out how best to go about writing a book every year like you recommended.

Thanks.

[James D. Macdonald]

I do have one more question, if I may. Is there a formula to writing a book a year?


Yes. Write a page a day.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Yes. Write a page a day.


That's it? Really?

Well, I don't see why I couldn't do something to that effect. I just always thought I was supposed to do more stuff in a day than one page; that's part of where all the discouragement originally came from.

I assume when you say 'a page a day,' you're talking about more than just throwing a page together? Such as making the page completely right by the end of the day?

I don't think I'll need to take it only one page a day. But I can do something to that effect. Maybe one scene in a day, and make sure the scene is right before the day is over.


At first, I thought what you said was a joke, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

I appreciate it, Uncle Jim. Thank you kindly.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[katee]

Sean, I had an a-ha moment about this when I started writing my novel last year. I'd get home from work and make myself write before I did anything else (including feeding my husband!). I'd usually last for 45 minutes. It's less that UJ's recommended 2 hours, but better than nothing, and all I could manage at the time. I'd get through about 2/3rds of a scene each 'session'. I didn't review what I'd written previously, but just kept slogging at it. A few months of doing that I realised I was halfway through the book ... almost by accident :)

I found the momentum of making myself write, at the same time each day, was a big help.

The way I look at it, the only point of my first draft is to get the whole story down on paper. My second is for polishing -- and so, I'm sure, will be my 4th, 5th, 6th etc. You might not write this way - I know some writers like to make sure they're happy with what they've written before they move on to the next bit - so I guess it's also a matter of figuring out what works for you. Good Luck!

[blacbird]

Bird by bird, as Anne Lamott has written.

caw.

[DamaNegra]

I try the a page a day method. Even if I only write one page, that's still 365 pages a year. However, I usually wind up writing at least two pages a day. That is 730 pages a year. At 250 words per page (aprox), that's 185,000 words. That means that even before the year is over, I'll have a finished MS ready to be put in a drawer and wait for revisions to come :) It's not as hards as it sounds.

[aertep]

It's the whole concept of baby steps. If you look at it as writing the whole book, the task seems impossible. If you look at it a page at a time, or bird by bird, you see how it can be done.

Thanks, Uncle Jim.

[SeanDSchaffer]

It definitely does sound like a better idea than what I used to believe. With such a baby step method, it not only sounds like an easier job, but also more fun as well as higher quality. If I focus on a page a day as a basic goal, I can re-write the page several times in a day--much like I do with each of my webforum posts--until eventually I have a really well-done work.

It makes a lot more sense to write this way than to not have a goal at all....or to only write when I feel like it.


In fact, last night I worked on a chapter of my present WIP, and just kept it to that chapter. I didn't do anything but the one chapter, and that's it.

I added roughly 1,000 words to the chapter that were not there before. And the writing is much better, as is the story. All because I took a baby step instead of trying to take a football field in one bound.


This is a cool way of doing things. I'm quite happy with it. It makes good sense to me.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Sailor Kenshin]

Beware performing rejectomancy.

Here's one thing to try:

Retype the entire manuscript. From hardcopy. You're allowed to make changes as you go. Some bits may not seem worth retyping. Don't retype them. Others will fill you with the need to expand. Expand them.

Meanwhile, start another book.

Is this different from re-visioning scenes, away from the actual manuscript? I re-wrote two scenes today, not looking at (but thinking of) the original, and I like them much better this way.

[James D. Macdonald]

Is this different from re-visioning scenes, away from the actual manuscript? I re-wrote two scenes today, not looking at (but thinking of) the original, and I like them much better this way.

It's quasi-different. If you're in real trouble with a novel, and you don't want to just trunk it, my next advice would be to retype it from memory.

In other news ...

You can follow The Land of Mist and Snow (most recent novel) as it makes its way from me to my editor!

http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?cntry_code=us&link=4

FedEx tracking number 8550 1071 3281

(Why FedEx? Pushing the deadline for one last re-write, of course.)

I'll start the next one tomorrow. For me, right now, ice cream! (I know it's February. I want ice cream. You got a problem with that?)

[SeanDSchaffer]

Snipped....

I'll start the next one tomorrow. For me, right now, ice cream! (I know it's February. I want ice cream. You got a problem with that?)


Nope. No problem whatsoever. I hope you enjoy it.


Uncle Jim, do you think I should start up another, brand-new book while I'm still working on my present one? Or do you think that's a bit much to handle?

I would be willing to do it, if it would help my writing out more. I am afraid, though, that I might end up overdoing it like I did previously with the work I'm doing now.


What thinkest thou?

[James D. Macdonald]

Uncle Jim, do you think I should start up another, brand-new book while I'm still working on my present one? Or do you think that's a bit much to handle?


Only you can know that, Sean. Experiment. Find what works for you.

You might consider starting slow and building up as you see what your capabilities are, rather than starting out too high and perhaps burning out.

Now, go write a page.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Only you can know that, Sean. Experiment. Find what works for you.

You might consider starting slow and building up as you see what your capabilities are, rather than starting out too high and perhaps burning out.

Now, go write a page.


Understood. I will start out slow, like you suggested.

As for the page, I could do another page tonight. I don't see why not. I did finish a chapter earlier today, but as I was working on a short story last night, I wouldn't mind seeing how another page would work out on it.

I'll talk to you later, and I hope you have a good night.
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[AnnaWhite]

I finally sent my submission to VP today. It will probably take at least a week to get there from the UK. I hope I'm not too late, and I hope it gets there safely, and, and... :scared:

I guess I'll have to wait until June for an answer (where are those patience tablets :D)

[batgirl]

Lucia, if it's a comfort, you'll probably hear back from the staff soon after your submission arrives. I did, because one of the instructors (Cory Doctorow, I think) is in the UK (hey!) and has asked to have the samples sent to him by email - through them, not direct from the applicants - so they'll be asking you to send an .rtf of your submission so they can forward it to him.
I blush to admit that I also heard back from them because in the mad dithering over which WIP to submit, which involved me making up two complete submission packages, one for each, and then getting a friend to eeny-meeny them to choose which, I ... umm ... forgot to put the submission fee back in before mailing the chosen one.
Shall we compete for highest level of dithering?
-Barbara

[James D. Macdonald]

Talk about VP is a bit off-topic for this thread. There's yahoo email group
for past-and-potential VP students.

I'm trying to think of something useful to say about writing that hasn't already been said. I'm still in that post-turn-in haze, when I'm supposed to be writing, and I am, but it's all ... junk.

This will pass.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Hi Uncle Jim,

I thought you would like to know that I have been writing faithfully, at least a page every day--save Saturday, when I take my weekly day off from everything and relax. In the process of having written 6 chapters altogether on my work, I've added more than 2,000 words of material to it. Presently, the manuscript is some 20 chapters long, and I still have the first 13 chapters to work on as well as the last one.

All I've been doing is putting greater detail in where it is necessary. Nothing more than that. I have found that my work is very basic in the detail area, and I'm thinking with this new tactic I might be able to put 10,000 or possibly even 20,000 new words into the work, making it 60,000 or 70,000 words long.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you as well as the other posters here who've chimed in on this subject, for your help. I should have this work finished in a couple months to my own satisfaction....and hopefully, to an agent's as well.


I'll talk to you later, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the day.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Christine N.]

Sean,
I usually start another book while I'm waiting for one to cook in the drawer. Keeps my itchy fingers away from it and gives me perspective. After a month, I put the other one in the drawer and take the first one out.

By the time book #1 has been through several rounds of editing, book #2 is usually at least halfway through a first draft. Repeat.

That's how I wrote 2.5 books last year. One is being published in 2007, #2 is almost ready for it's final go-over before submitting and #3 is being torn apart, as I ran up against a wall and hated where the storyline went.

When I wanted a break, I took a month off and wrote two short stories. :) One is in SOS, and the other will be out later this month in an anthology. Actually, I wrote three... but one didn't make it into SOS- it was published in a mag last month.

But do what works for you.

PS - I sat down and wrote almost four pages today. Amazing what happens when you find the story again.

[batgirl]

I have a couple of questions, spurred by workshop comments.

First, how close should a writer be to his/her characters? How can you tell if you're either too close to or too distant from your characters?

Second, is there a difference in language between litfic and genre fic? I understand that each genre will have its own techie terms and specialised language, but I'm unsure where litfic stands.

The workshop comments themselves aren't really relevant, except to me, but they got me thinking about these other issues. Apologies if the questions don't fit here.
-Barbara (stuck on the first game in Logical Chess, and shouldn't even be posting yet ...)

[James D. Macdonald]

Litfic is just a marketing category. The exact same text could have another genre on the spine, and would if the nice publisher thought it would sell better over there.

I could tell you stories that aren't fit for public consumption about that.

As to how close you get to your characters ... it's one thing when you start seeing your characters around the house. It's worse when your kids start seeing your characters around the house.


Or when your kids walk in to the middle of a conversation and ask "Are you talking about someone we know, or is it one of your characters again?"

[James D. Macdonald]

See y'all at Boskone.

[PenDragon]

This looks like an interesting little thread. Could someone give me a quick summary of what I’ve missed?

Only joking, I’ve just read through the undiluted thread (took awhile) thanks McAlister for posting that and thanks Uncle Jim.
I haven’t done the assignments, but I do my BIC and aim for at least 500 words a day (managed 33,000 in Jan). I’ve not read Red Harvest (it’s on my Amazon wish list) but have seen Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, and Last Man Standing.

The things that from the thread I’ve found most useful are the ten point outline for the novels structure, gems like…"Never tell the reader anything before he cares!" and…"Every Character thinks that he's the main character in the story, and every charater thinks that he's the good guy." Casting the reader and writer as characters is also an interesting concept.Good stuff.


Anyway, I have a question for you Uncle Jim (I know you’re at Boskone but I’m in no hurry).

I’m working on my first long piece of fiction a Sword & Sorcery novella. I’m 27,000 words into a first draft and have four or five scenes left on my plot plan. Novella’s tend to cover less ground than novels, fewer characters, shorter time span, focused in just one location, etc. I’ve done this with mine, but was wondering what you (or anyone else for that matter) think about 30-35,000 words with just one viewpoint character and no subplots?

I know it’s hard without reading it or knowing the plot but I’ve kept the character in conflict throughout (had a few lulls to give the reader time to catch their breath). Will constant focus on the main character and main plot make it seem a bit flat/too linear?
I know in the end it’s a decision I’ll have to make for myself but some input would be helpful.

Cheers,

Lee

[James D. Macdonald]

Lee, I don't know. Could it work? Sure. How will you know that it worked? Your beta readers will tell you.

Novellas are tough lengths to sell.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Uncle Jim,

I thought you'd like to know that I've added several thousand words to my work now and I'm in the process of transcribing the work onto the word processor.

My typewritten pages are 27 lines long and each line is slightly longer than the word processor lines are, so I'm thinking I'll have a little under 60,000 words with my novel. I am as happy right now as happy can be.

Thank you for suggesting that I re-write the work one more time. It's been well worth the effort.


I'm glad to see you're back on the boards again. I hope your trip is going well and that you have a safe return home.


I'll talk to you later.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[PenDragon]

Lee, I don't know. Could it work? Sure. How will you know that it worked? Your beta readers will tell you.

Novellas are tough lengths to sell.

I'd better aquire some beta readers at some stage then. Luckily, there are a few Sword & Sorcery small press publishers that want novellas.

Cheers,

Lee.

[AnnaWhite]

Any ideas on how to acquire beta readers? I did an Internet search, and didn't find anything. Maybe I was searching for the wrong thing...

[zornhau]

Beta readers are anybody who reads your stuff for you, before you release it into the wild.

They could be members of a crit group/circle, fellow writers, or just friends who already read books in your genre and can be trusted to give you an honest opinion (you may need to train these).

[victoria.goddard]

Hi all,

I'm new to internet fora and I'm not sure if what I tried to post actually went on. If so, my apologies for mostly duplicating the same thing. If not, let me introduce myself: I'm new to this thread, and I have just finished reading through the whole thread up to today. I'm very glad that it hasn't finished before I could join in! (I was a bit worried--it has been going for some now, after all, and Uncle Jim might have gotten bored.)

Let me put in my thanks to Uncle Jim and all the others who participate for making this fascinating, fun, and extremely helpful. I have not done all the exercises, but I do have The Unstrung Harp and Logical Chess coming in (one bought, the other from the library), and am working through memorising my poetry, and . . . I've been writing my WIP since junior high and am now doing my doctorate, and while it has changed it is (in my head, at least) the same story. But somehow the idea that every word (or at least every other one) should go towards one overarching theme, however implicit, was extremely helpful towards unsticking a few points. So, many thanks!

This is going to be a long enough post as it is, so I shall keep my questions until later. Till then, happy BIC-ing!

[victoria.goddard]

Now I do feel silly, since the very first sentence of my first (actual) post was a bit nonsensical . . . it is now quite obvious to me that the first thing I tried to post went off into the ether, so that was my introduction, however flawed. Ah well, I'll get the hang of this eventually.

[batgirl]

Hi Victoria!
You can edit your posts - there should be a button at the bottom of any of your own posts that says 'edit'. Click on it and you can fix those typos or continuity glitches, even write yourself sparkling repartee. (It's the only way I'm going to sparkle - where's my scriptwriter?)

Lucia, a beta reader is a term from fanfic, stolen from 'beta tester' for games. It's ideally someone who can read attentively and be articulate and honest about his/her reactions. I'm beta-reading for (quick count on fingers) four people currently, at different levels. One is just quick reader-reactions, what I understood, what slowed me down, what made me go aha!. Another is line-critting for punctuation and syntax glitches, which is slower and requires a different sort of attentiveness. Another is the whole deal, from commas to characterisation. So, it varies. Depends what you want and what the beta's strengths are.
The advantage of a beta reader over an online workshop is that your beta reader will ideally read the whole thing and get the whole picture. In workshops, the story is read in chapter-chunks, and you may not get the same reader(s) for more than a couple of chapters. But you will get a greater variety of readers, and any one of them may pick up on something the others missed.
Be good to your betas. Give them strokes and cookies.

-Barbara

[victoria.goddard]

See, already I've learned something . . . as I said, my first time on a forum like this. I'll leave my first posts as they are for now, and remember about the edit button in future. Thanks, Barbara!

[MikeLeung]

I started submitting queries for my kids book about a French-accented dog.

Now I've discovered Pixar is releasing a cartoon next year featuring a French-accented rat: http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932 (http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932/).

Am I right in assuming my story is unsellable for the foreseeable future? Am I stuck back at square one with a new manuscript?

[MadScientistMatt]

I started submitting queries for my kids book about a French-accented dog.

Now I've discovered Pixar is releasing a cartoon next year featuring a French-accented rat: http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932 (http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932/).

Am I right in assuming my story is unsellable for the foreseeable future? Am I stuck back at square one with a new manuscript?

Well, after The Lord of the Rings came out as a movie, it didn't cause any trouble for people who wanted to sell manuscripts that featured elves and magicians. Don't worry about it. Talking animals are always popular in children's stories, and giving them accents is certainly not uncommon.

[crosseyed reader]

I started submitting queries for my kids book about a French-accented dog.

Now I've discovered Pixar is releasing a cartoon next year featuring a French-accented rat: http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932 (http://imdb.com/title/tt0382932/).

Am I right in assuming my story is unsellable for the foreseeable future? Am I stuck back at square one with a new manuscript?
Let me guess - he says, "Le barque," right? Okay, okay, toss a snowball at me - I couldn't resist. I woudn't worry about the Pixar movie. If your story doesn't parallel the French rat plot, go for it.

[James D. Macdonald]

Am I right in assuming my story is unsellable for the foreseeable future? Am I stuck back at square one with a new manuscript?

Nope. Just write it, and submit it, and let the story carry itself.

If all that the story has going for it is an accented animal -- it may not be much of a story. Aside from the gimmick is the plot strong?

Animals with French accents have been around since Pepe LePew (http://www.toonopedia.com/pepe.htm). Carry on regardless of unseen films. By the time that one's released it might feature a Russian-accented giraffe. No telling with Hollywood.

[AnnaWhite]

Lucia, a beta reader is a term from fanfic, stolen from 'beta tester' for games. It's ideally someone who can read attentively and be articulate and honest about his/her reactions. I'm beta-reading for (quick count on fingers) four people currently, at different levels. One is just quick reader-reactions, what I understood, what slowed me down, what made me go aha!. Another is line-critting for punctuation and syntax glitches, which is slower and requires a different sort of attentiveness. Another is the whole deal, from commas to characterisation. So, it varies. Depends what you want and what the beta's strengths are.
I have about five friends and relatives who read my short stories, but they tend to be frustratingly uncritical. Luckily, I'm doing a correspondance course for short stories, and my tutor is far more critical.

When I finished writing my novel, I gave it to about 15 friends and relatives to read. Many only paid compliments, a few picked up some minor spelling or grammar mistakes, and one, who is also a writer, gave a written, in-depth critique on style, story, characters - the works. Unfortunately, we've lost touch, and moved to opposite sides of the world.

Since I can't depend on a correspondance course and a tutor forever, I guess I need to start looking for beta readers. The question is, how does one find them? Is there a place where writers advertise to say they are looking for beta readers, to exchange services? Can one have beta readers by email or other Internet options, or should it be in real life - like a reading group? My experience with a local reading group, where I live, was not particularly helpful; we read our work aloud in the group, and the feedback was invariably positive, with hardly any constructive criticism.

[batgirl]

The people I'm reading for are all by email, so I don't see why that wouldn't work. In fact, come to think of it, I've only met one of them in person, and that was well along in the process.
Orson Scott Card, in one of his how-to books, talks about how he trained his wife to be his beta reader. But my husband refuses to be mine, so I rely on a friend who lives a few blocks away and is pretty ruthless.
You might want to consider Critters or the Online Writing Workshop, if not for the crit to be found there, for the possibility of finding a beta reader. Or check the SYW forum and see whose crits you think are good, and ask that person if they'd beta for you. The worst they can do is say no.

And to be semi-on-topic ... I'm wondering if it's necessary for every chapter to end with a hook, or only the first few? And how strong does a hook have to be? Deadly peril, or teasing clue, or mild curiosity?
-Barbara

[James D. Macdonald]

Anna, you might look at Critters (http://www.critters.org). It's a give-one-to-get-one kind of on-line workshop/critique group. You may learn more about your own writing by critiquing that of others.

Beta readers who are willing to be brutally honest are a vein of gold. Even if you're crying inside, the only words on your lips should be a sincere "Thank you!"

(Your mom and your best friend from high school probably aren't your best beta readers.)

Do try to include a filthy minded fifteen-year-old and a literal-minded twelve-year-old in the mix.

[Jason M. Dyess]

You may also want to check out Critique Circle (http://www.critiquecircle.com (http://www.critiquecircle.com/)) It is also a give and take site, but it is closer to give three, receive a bunch.

[victoria.goddard]

[And to be semi-on-topic ... I'm wondering if it's necessary for every chapter to end with a hook, or only the first few? And how strong does a hook have to be? Deadly peril, or teasing clue, or mild curiosity?]


My general thoughts on this are that every chapter should end with a hook of some sort, even (or perhaps especially) if it's "What on earth happens after that?". "Why did that happen?" or "Why did he say (or do, or think) that?" or "Who (or what) is this just come into the room?" are also good end-of-chapter questions. I think the kind of hook largely depends on the kind of story you're telling. A comedy of manners will obviously have less deadly peril than a thriller. Then again, perhaps social death counts.

I think the hook should work together with the pacing and the tone of the chapter--though that's not to say it couldn't be in contrast. Perhaps you expect deadly peril and it turns out to be a joke; but the deadly peril may come from another direction entirely, and we must read on to find out which it is. Well-done humour is a good place to look for hooks, because humour depends on creating and then inverting expectations, which a hook, in my opinion, does.

Douglas Adams is good for hooks, particularly in the later books. I can think of good examples from 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'--think of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect jumping onto the couch and falling through a crack in space-time to the cricket ground. It could be a joke--it could be deathly peril--it could be all sorts of things, most of which it turns out to be, or lead to. And it furthers the plot (insofar as it exists), the character development (such as there is of that), and the theme (if you can figure it out).

[MikeLeung]

Nope. Just write it, and submit it, and let the story carry itself.

If all that the story has going for it is an accented animal -- it may not be much of a story. Aside from the gimmick is the plot strong?
May I impose on y'all to take a look at the query letter I plan on sending, and let me know what you think?

King Spot is a 22,000 word story for middle readers about a dog that wins a radio phone-in contest and is made King of the World. After his vanity invites disaster upon disaster on him and his loved ones, the dog finally surrenders his crown.

Brian Garlic is the fastidious fourth grader into whose arms Spot leaps in the schoolyard. Brian deduces Spot is a runaway circus dog, but Spot refuses to name which circus he comes from. After a number of incidents in which Spot sickens and antagonizes Brian, Brian is horrified to learn his parents are considering keeping Spot if his owners can’t be found. To expedite Spot’s departure, Brian buys a classified ad calling for Spot’s owners to come forward. Spot reacts to Brian’s “betrayal” by running away.

A gang of cruel clowns responds to Brian’s ad and takes his parents hostage when Brian is unable to return Spot. Brian seeks help from involved neighbors, and finds them under a fairy enchantment sapping their will. Brian also discovers his neighbors and the fairies hosting the runaway Spot. Spot wins the radio contest and is made King of the World. To complicate things further for Brian, the fairies have themselves kidnapped the neighbors’ new-born baby.

And so Spot and Brian embark on a series of adventures and misadventures, recovering Brian’s parents, recovering his neighbors’ baby, rescuing a family from a werewolf, assisting a princess postpone an arranged marriage, searching for Spot a queen, accepting a challenge from a minotaur, and misguidedly aiding a cyclops in serenading a princess trapped in a tower.

Submitted are the first 17 pages of my manuscript. To notify me of your interest in seeing the complete manuscript, enclosed is an SASE.

[James D. Macdonald]

The end of each chapter should contain a reason to keep reading. That isn't to say that a cliffhanger is necessary every time ... but you need to give your readers cause to continue.

The end of a chapter is permission to set the book down for the evening. The chapter's end has to have enough forward momentum and unanswered questions that the reader will pick the book up the next day (rather than watching a football game, starting a different book, or staring off into space.

"Idle curiosity" isn't good enough.

[James D. Macdonald]

May I impose on y'all to take a look at the query letter I plan on sending, and let me know what you think?

Is that intended for someone who asked for three-and-an-outline? What are the specific guidelines of the market you're looking at?

[MikeLeung]

Is that intended for someone who asked for three-and-an-outline? What are the specific guidelines of the market you're looking at?

Yes, a cold query/synopsis +3:
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/index.php?
main_page=pubs_info&iPath=37_51&info_uid=submissions.kids&
store=books&zenid=9d448bd495ab6aae4afe36752ea90f60 (http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/index.php?main_page=pubs_info&iPath=37_51&info_uid=submissions.kids&store=books&zenid=9d448bd495ab6aae4afe36752ea90f60)



...I mean, if it were up to me I'd send the manuscript without any kind of cover because I feel like trying to sum up in a page diminishes my story, my characters, my themes etc.

If I wanted to convince you to go see "Million dollar baby," it would never occur to me to rehash the plot to you. I would rather tell you about the stuff Eastwood said implicitly in the movie, like how his trainer-character crushed the hopes of his fighters to get them to fight harder ("You can't win, she's younger, stronger, and a better fighter than you") and how that related to how he chose to end the movie.

Yet, what I like about my book isn't what the submission guidelines ask for.

[James D. Macdonald]

Make the letter short:

Dear Name of Editor Spelled Right:

I am querying a 22,000 word middle-grades fantasy, King Spot.

My previously published works include....

Sincerely,


Encl:
Three chapters
Synopsis
SASE


======================

For the synopsis, make sure you include the conclusion. How's the thing end? Keep the synopsis under ten pages. (For that matter, for a story that short, you can probably keep it under two pages.)

[SeanDSchaffer]

Make the letter short:

Dear Name of Editor Spelled Right:

I am querying a 22,000 word middle-grades fantasy, King Spot.

My previously published works include....

Sincerely,


Encl:
Three chapters
Synopsis
SASE




Uncle Jim, is this the general rule and format for all query letters? I never realized they could be so short (or that they should be so short).

Also, is the synopsis supposed to be sent as a separate document? I've been sending a short synopsis as part of my query letter; is that cause for concern?

Are agents and/or editors more likely to toss my work in the circular file the way I've been doing the query and synopsis all this time? If so, this knowledge will definitely help me out, because I'll know what to change.

[James D. Macdonald]

The cover letter has two purposes:

1) To give the editor something with your name, book's name, and contact info that can be easily filed, and

2) Someplace to put his coffee so it won't leave an embarassing brown ring on the first page of your manuscript.

Now as to a query letter: If all they want is query letter, then a brief synopsis (the whole letter is under one page!) goes in the letter itself. In this case the guidelines called for a letter, three chapters, and a synopsis. So put the synopsis in a separate document.

The first paragraph is the title of the work, its genre, and its length, and any special notes on the rights available.

The second paragraph is your recent publications and awards, and any special qualifications you may have to write this book (you train dogs for a circus, for example, or you, personally, are a circus dog). If none, leave this paragraph out.

Then a very brief synopsis if it isn't elsewhere in the submission packet. Tell the beginning, the middle, and the end. Please don't try to make it sound like flap copy.

Then stop.

It is entirely possible to say too much in a cover letter.


Always include an SASE.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'm not associated with these folks in any way, but I do know one of the mentors. It appears to be more geared to short fiction than to novels.

http://www.speclit.org/Programs/Mentorship.php

SLF Mentorship Program

The Speculative Literature Foundation is launching a pilot mentorship program for beginning writers. These writers will be able to gather valuable advice from more experienced writers regarding the craft and business of writing.

Structure

Each mentor will receive five mentees. The mentors will offer advice and answer craft/business questions (both from a SLF facilitator and from the writers themselves). Please note: this is not a workshop, and mentors will not read or comment on individual writing from their mentees.

Applicants may indicate a preference for a particular mentor, but we cannot guarantee that you will be matched with that mentor. Once matched, you will be added to a mailing list with your mentor and the other mentees in your group.

Conversations on that mailing list are to be kept private and confidential. At the end of the program, participants are required to write a one-page evaluation of the program, and a brief evaluation of their mentor.

Mentors: Spring 2006 Pilot Program, Mar 15 - June 15


Jay Lake (http://www.jlake.com/) lives in Portland, Oregon with his books, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated Polyphony anthology series from Wheatland Press. He has over 100 short stories in print. Current projects include Rocket Science and TEL : Stories. His next novel, Trial of Flowers, will be available fall, 2006 from Night Shade Books, while Mainspring will be released summer, 2007 from Tor. Jay is the winner of the 2004 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Beth Adele Long's (http://www.sff.net/people/bethadele/) short fiction has been published in venues including Trampoline, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Strange Horizons. She is a former writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House and a Clarion graduate, as well as recipient of the 2000 Asimov Award. She earns a living as a web designer/programmer and documentation consultant and lives in the Tampa Bay area. She can be bribed with Necco wafers or comic books.
Jennifer Pelland's (http://www.jenniferpelland.com/) science fiction, slipstream, and horror stories have appeared in publications such as Strange Horizons, Abyss and Apex, Tales of the Unanticipated, and Apex Digest, and come April, she will be the featured writer on Apex Online. She has completed two novels, and while working to find an agent to represent them, she's keeping herself distracted by writing a third. Jennifer attended the Viable Paradise writing workshop in 2002, and joined their administrative staff in 2005. She also volunteers for SFWA, runs Rapid-Fire Readings for Broad Universe, and participates in Boston-area radio theater.
How to Apply


Send a one-page bio and personal statement as an attached Word .doc or .rtf (Rich Text Format) to mentorship@speclit.org. This will serve as your introduction to your mentor and the group, if you are selected for the program.
Indicate if you have a preference for a particular mentor.
There is no fee for application or participation in the program."
Applications are due by Wednesday, March 8, 2006.
Thank you!

- Mary Anne Mohanraj, Director, SLF

[SeanDSchaffer]

The cover letter has two purposes:

....Snipped for Post Length....

Then stop.

It is entirely possible to say too much in a cover letter.


Always include an SASE.


Cool! I appreciate your help. Thank you.

[MikeLeung]

Yes, thank you from me, also.

[ems]

Thanks, Uncle Jim, and all the other writers who contribute to this thread. I've read about 2/3 of it so far and have already gotten tons of ideas and strategies for writing. I hope this question hasn't already been answered in the last third:

In the novel I'm working on, a lot of my characters are based on real people. I find it hard to invent characters out of whole cloth, they mostly seem to come out 'flat', like an inventory of motivations and quirks without any soul. It helps me to start out by thinking, "here's a guy like ____" -- and changing him from there as it suits the story. In my first draft I even use real names, so a character based on my cousin Bob would be named Bob.

The plot, setting, and what happens to these characters is completely invented, so I don't think that (once I change the names) someone reading the book cold would ever say, "hey, that's about Bob!" Still, I'm a little unsure about this as a writing technique. Is it a good way to get started? Bad idea? Pure writerly laziness?

Any other tips on how to develop characters besides those (cringe) character worksheets where you fill out their height, shoe size, deepest fear, etc?

[James D. Macdonald]

Thanks, Uncle Jim, and all the other writers who contribute to this thread. I've read about 2/3 of it so far and have already gotten tons of ideas and strategies for writing. I hope this question hasn't already been answered in the last third:

In the novel I'm working on, a lot of my characters are based on real people. I find it hard to invent characters out of whole cloth, they mostly seem to come out 'flat', like an inventory of motivations and quirks without any soul. It helps me to start out by thinking, "here's a guy like ____" -- and changing him from there as it suits the story. In my first draft I even use real names, so a character based on my cousin Bob would be named Bob.

It would be a very bad idea to name the person "Bob." It's sometimes useful to do half-n-half ... half from one person, half from another. Then do a sex channge, an age change, new hair color, new history ... by then it's a new person.

The plot, setting, and what happens to these characters is completely invented, so I don't think that (once I change the names) someone reading the book cold would ever say, "hey, that's about Bob!" Still, I'm a little unsure about this as a writing technique. Is it a good way to get started? Bad idea? Pure writerly laziness?

Anything at all that you do to create characters is in bounds. You, as the writer, have to come up with characters. How you do it is up to you. All of my characters are me, interspliced with folks I know, folks I imagine, and folks I've read about. Where the clay comes from is less important than the pot you shape on your wheel.

Any other tips on how to develop characters besides those (cringe) character worksheets where you fill out their height, shoe size, deepest fear, etc?


Oh, Lord, those character sheets. Maybe they work for some writers... what works for you only you know.

You're an expert observer of humans. That's why you're a writer. Use your observations.

[Ken Schneider]

Instead of my guessing what I think it is, what is a byline?

[Berry]

A "byline" is the line that says "by Ken Schneider" (or whomever wrote it) on the title page, or at the head of an article in a newspaper or magazine.

[Sherri Joe]

I haven't read all 5000+ responses, but have read quite a bit. Extremely interesting information. Thanks so much.

Totally off topic, are you the same James Macdonald that wrote the book Communicating Partners ? If so, could you tell me a little about it? I have a 13 year old autistic son who is still non-verbal but who communicates other ways.

Just curious! Keep up the good work. I am going to bookmark this and read more when I can. I've always been interested in writing.

[Nyna]

Read through this entire thread -- it took a while, but was worth it. There's a lot of great information here. I especially loved the Key Lime Pie analogy, because there is nothing in the world I like better than Key Lime Pie. Now, having finally caught up, I just wanted to repeat what other people have said and say thank you for doing this! It's really been invaluable.

[James D. Macdonald]

Thank you ... now go out and write a book.

[James D. Macdonald]

A wickedly accurate and very funny piece that violates several copyrights and trademarks. Derivative works, y'know:

http://www.aleuromancy.net/lalejandra/ronondex.html

I think I can name the publisher.

[batgirl]

Still catching up on the thread, and realised I should have said Thank You! before, for doing this, so Thank You!

I think I more-or-less understand the novel being a house, or chair, or something you can take apart and rebuild, and a short story being a baked good (I've never made or eaten Key Lime pie, but I suppose the simile holds for other desserts) where you put the pieces together and they blend indissolubly, or not.
But I've just finished what I meant to be a short story until it grew to 11k, becoming a novelet(te), according to at least one word-count chart.
Are novellas and novelettes more like novels, or more like short stories, or is this a case-by-case decision? If it is case-by-case, what sort of factors would be considered?
It affects how I approach the revising, and how much I can hack the draft up without spoiling it, I think.
-Barbara

[victoria.goddard]

Dear Uncle Jim,

At some point way upthread you mentioned the six senses that should be borne in mind--the five regular ones and one more. I seem to remember that it has to do with one's sense of extension in space. Does that sense have a name? And how does one go about expressing it? Is it a case of: "He lay face-down on the couch with his nose a bit squashed into the cushion and his feet fumbling for purchase on the arm rest", or more, "She imagined that if she stretched out her hand she would reach the tree trunk", or something else entirely?

Yours, mildly curious,

Victoria

[James D. Macdonald]

The sixth sense is called proprioception, and it's the awareness of where your body is in relationship to itself.

[James D. Macdonald]

Are novellas and novelettes more like novels, or more like short stories, or is this a case-by-case decision?

As far as rewriting, a novella or novelette is closer to being a novel. You can take pieces, rearrange, add and take away, and have something useful. It isn't a case of "Well, that didn't work," and try again from scratch.

Sometimes, though, even entire novels are so fatally flawed that you have to lay it aside and start again.

This is frequently the case with first novels.

[Ken Schneider]

I now understand where the thought, "Submit and write another book," comes from.

I have three piece of work at at different publishers, and the time frame for an answer is close, and past on two. I don't know if it is because the pile is big, or they are considering, and passing the work around to see if there is interest.

That is why we should be writing, instead of thinking about what we can't do anything about at the moment.

Easier said than done for those of us trying to climb a ladder with the first rung a bit higher than our writing hand can reach, as yet.

But we write on, and wait, write more while we wonder if we are growing.

We write to grow tall enough to reach that first rung.

[goliard]

What a mindbogglingly useful thread this is.

I've only read about a fifth of it so far, so apologies if this question has been answered in the remaining four-fifths:

Is there any point, for an unpublished writer, in sending out three chapters and an outline (to either a publisher or an agent) before the manuscript is finished? Is it unheard of to be offered a book deal at that stage?

Uncle Jim, I know you're going to say, Finish it, revise it, and revise it again - but what's the harm in trying your luck early on?

-Tom

[Berry]

[...]what's the harm in trying your luck early on?

The harm is this. Imagine you send out the first three chapters and a synopsis, and Big Name Editor says "Yes! I want this! Send the whole MS!" and then you have to say "Er, um, well, it's not finished yet, I can send it in six months."

At this point, Ms. Big may have already put her butt on the line for your MS in the acquisition meetings, and you have now made her look bad.

So B. N. Editor says, "Well, OK, whatever," and promptly forgets you exist -- if you're lucky. Remember, you don't have a track record for delivering publishable manuscripts to deadline. Many beginning authors' books fall apart 3/4 of the way through, and B.N. knows this, and won't take a chance.

When you're done, you have to start over at the beginning. So why not finish it first?

[goliard]

I should have made it clear that I meant, sending out an unfinished MS and disclosing the fact that it is unfinished. But I guess you answered that question too -

Remember, you don't have a track record for delivering publishable manuscripts to deadline. Many beginning authors' books fall apart 3/4 of the way through, and B.N. knows this, and won't take a chance.
All true... But (assuming you're candid about the partial state of your offering) there's still no harm done - no?

[James D. Macdonald]

I know all about being impatient, but seriously, what's your hurry?

You may not even know what the real opening of your book is until after you've reached The End and revised it a couple of times.

Sending out a partial of an unfinished manscript as a first timer is a form of betting against yourself. You're betting that everyone will say "no," so where's the harm?

What's your goal? To get the greatest number of rejection slips? Didn't think so. Your goal is to get picked up by the first place you query. You want to hear "yes, send the whole thing."

Even if you're up front about the fact that the book isn't finished ... as a first timer the best you'll hear is "write again when it's done." At worst, you'll get one of those nice form rejections. Sad fact: once a particular work has been rejected by a particular market, it's well-nigh impossible to get them to look at that same work again.

So, don't do it. Finish your book. Make it perfect. That includes the perfect opening, the perfect ending, and all the words in between.

Only then should you start sending it around. And while it's going around, you're writing your next book.

[goliard]

Sad fact: once a particular work has been rejected by a particular market, it's well-nigh impossible to get them to look at that same work again.

Yes, I'm sure you're right. I was just thinking, what better incentive could there be to finish the thing than an expression of interest from a publisher? But it sounds like I'm even more naive than I thought I was...

[James D. Macdonald]

The Devil's Rejection Slips (http://www.tcinternet.net/users/kritzerburke/naomi/devilsmailbox.htm)

[LightShadow]

The Devil's Rejection Slips (http://www.tcinternet.net/users/kritzerburke/naomi/devilsmailbox.htm)

That is great...but alas, they did read like a lot of my rejections. My soul is battered, but still optimistic.

[Triavan]

My personal thanks to each and every contributor to this thread, and a special thanks to Uncle Jim for the invaluable perspective you bring. After having slogged my way through the whole of this gem I am pleased to say that I have a whole new understanding of the art.

While I was reading this thread I came to realize that my writing was being paralyzed because I was insisting on starting my writing career with the story I've been refining for years. The story and characters that led me into a serious enough interest in writing that I would do something as crazy as write a novel. It struck me that if I was to write this first novel and it failed I would lose my motivation to write the rest of thier story. I was stonewalling myself to avoid confronting that. So I put a ream of paper aside with a personal contract attached to it obligating me to pick up my story once I am confident of its success and started in on an unrelated novel. Since then I have been burning up the keyboard. It was amazing to me how easily I changed focus (which I took as a sign) and now that I'm caught up here I look forward to having more time free in the day to continue with this new story. I put my two hours in at the chair every day, now I can put in three http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

I'd like to share my solution with those who have mentioned difficulty with the temptation to edit what’s on the screen instead of adding to it.
I highlight everything but the last paragraph at the end of my writing session and turn the text color to white (I save it to my back ups first, white text is only on my working copy). This gives me a launching point for the next days session and makes all that other *really* rough prose invisible until I am really ready for it.

Finally, it seems customary to join the thread with a question.

I'm afraid the best I can do is a formatting question. My WIP is written in the form of a journal, using dates in place of chapter headings. What I am wondering is whether or not enough attention will be paid to these headings to allow them to direct the flow of time.
For example, if the first section is the 12th day of 5th 2e214 (I am writing in a fantasy setting so standard names for months are inapplicable. The calendar is explained in the work.) and then there is a three day space before the second entry, is it enough to label it 15th day of 5th 2e214 or shall I reinforce the passage of time. Perhaps with an intro along the lines of "Three days of fruitless searching has finally led me to ..."

Chris

[glutton]

[QUOTE=James D Macdonald]


Beware the word "Somehow." You can use it in dialog when the character doesn't know, but you should avoid it in narrative. "Somehow" means the author doesn't know either. This is bad. The reader is trusting you to know what's going on and to guide him to the climax of the book. "Somehow" makes the reader look at you askance and ask "What's the matter with this guy?" It's as if he were following a guide through trackless wilderness, when the guide suddenly gets a puzzled expression on his face and says "Beats the heck out of me."

Example: Our hero is trying to sneak into a warehouse. The door is sliding shut. Then the narrative: Somehow the door failed to close all the way. What? Why didn't it close? Figure this out, author, and come back when you know. Did a mouse get jammed in the gears? Either come up with something reasonable, or give the guy a different way into the warehouse. If you do nothing else, delete the word "somehow." You still have the same action, but without the moment of doubt.

[QUOTE]

Question here- if it's in third person POV, wouldn't the somehow be appropriate if the character doesn't know why the door didn't close? I mean if he knows the door didn't close, but doesn't know why.

[allenparker]

I know all about being impatient, but seriously, what's your hurry?

You may not even know what the real opening of your book is until after you've reached The End and revised it a couple of times.

This is specifically a good reason to wait to start submitting your work.

I finished writing the first draft of my WIP a few weeks ago. I typed "The End" at the bottom of the last page, trundled up the stairs for a good night's sleep. The next evening, I began reading the rough draft to determine if there had been enough time between typing and reading to make a good faith effort at revising the story.

After reading the first five chapters of the story, I realized that the story really began at chapter four. The first three chapters, although important to me, didn't supply the reader with any information that wouldn't be disclosed later or was needed at that point. The action of the story didn't really begin until chapter five. What I had written was a boring draggy story that began to pick up speed in the fourth and fifth chapters.

I may have needed to write the first three chapters to help me mentally develop the characters, but I certainly didn't need to bore the the readers to tears, especially since most of the first readers past the beta group would be agents and editors.

As we all know, we usually only get three chapters to capture the attention of an agent or editor. If we make sure that the story begins on page one, the reader will get three chapters of action and substance.

(take my suggestions to be worth what you paid for them.)
awp

[batgirl]

Following up on the 'starting the story too early' idea, how do you tell if you've started the story too late? I've read more than a few books that start with some tense or slam-bang situation, and as I read on, I find out how the protagonist got there. William Marshall, for instance, starts many of his Yellowthread Street books with a surreal image that makes perfect sense by the time you get to the real climax of the book. So, I figure he's doing it right.
Which doesn't mean that it can't be done wrong, say by starting so far into the story that everyone has to do maid-and-butler dialogue to explain the backstory.

This is a specific question for me because one of the stories I'm working on starts out with a tense situation that I've been told (in one case by a professional editor) was a great opening. It raises a number of questions that I've tried to answer bit-by-bit by short memories or conversations, without (I hope) info-dumping.
In workshopping the later chapters, a couple of reviewers (not all) have said that they would rather have the short flashbacks or memories as actual scenes in the story. They didn't say 'this story starts too late, go and write at least one chapter of what happens before' - but I can't think what else they'd mean.
To me, the opening I have is the moment of not-ordering-pizza, because it's when the protagonist (actually, he's died once already and dies a few more times in the course of the book, so he may a hero as well) decides to not just run away, but to arm himself (in a way) against his enemy. The part before that is him being victimised and endangered, really.
Any suggestions on how to tell whether I've started the story in the wrong place or the right place? Or what the problem really is?

And thanks for the take on revising a novella - it's gone out now!
-Barbara

[James D. Macdonald]

I'm afraid the best I can do is a formatting question. My WIP is written in the form of a journal, using dates in place of chapter headings. What I am wondering is whether or not enough attention will be paid to these headings to allow them to direct the flow of time.
For example, if the first section is the 12th day of 5th 2e214 (I am writing in a fantasy setting so standard names for months are inapplicable. The calendar is explained in the work.) and then there is a three day space before the second entry, is it enough to label it 15th day of 5th 2e214 or shall I reinforce the passage of time. Perhaps with an intro along the lines of "Three days of fruitless searching has finally led me to ..."

Chris

Would the character countersink the time passage with "three days later" when writing his/her journal? If not ... don't.

Be very careful of using long strings of numbers for anything. Readers are likely to read those as "number number number" without actually seeing them. That is, they'll be aware there's a number, but not what it is.

After that ... just try and see how it works. You can always go back and change it if you need to. No one but you sees your first drafts.

===========

I'd still be wary of "somehow." What's wrong with merely noting "The door didn't close"?

===========

In the workshop, were the workshoppers reading the whole book from the beginning as one unit, or were they reading an isolated chapter, after having read the preceeding bits some time before?

Workshopping in pieces is difficult. Wait until your beta readers have the whole book in hand and read it as a whole before making that decision.

[James D. Macdonald]

To me, the opening I have is the moment of not-ordering-pizza, because it's when the protagonist (actually, he's died once already and dies a few more times in the course of the book, so he may a hero as well) decides to not just run away, but to arm himself (in a way) against his enemy. The part before that is him being victimised and endangered, really.
Any suggestions on how to tell whether I've started the story in the wrong place or the right place? Or what the problem really is?

Have you written the whole book?

You can do flashbacks, but you need real justification for any deviation from chronological time.

Are you entirely certain that those parts are needed to tell your story?

The best way to tell if you've started in the wrong place is to a) finish the book, and b) let it sit in your desk drawer for three months while you start another book. Re-read then and the answer may be obvious.

[maestrowork]

Be very careful of using long strings of numbers for anything. Readers are likely to read those as "number number number" without actually seeing them. That is, they'll be aware there's a number, but not what it is.


I agree. Obviously, we want our readers to read everything with diligence. The reality is, people skimp. And if you have a string of numbers, people will naturally skip over... "yeah, yeah... it's some years and months and dates." Same with locations, etc. I have done so myself multiple times, only to back track and read it again to understand exactly when and where something is happening. After a while, it gets really confusing (especially if you start jumping around in time, not in chronological order).

[blacbird]

This is pretty much true of long verbal strings of anything. I've seen stuff like this, especially in mystery novels, where the writer is trying to enumerate clues or evidence or observations, and I always find myself skimming it. It's just hard to pay attention to a dozen nouns in a row with commas separating them.

caw.

[James D. Macdonald]

If you really, really want to know how many words are in your manuscript, and how many pages will be in the printed book, here're workshop instructions:

http://alg.livejournal.com/77731.html

[James D. Macdonald]

Some wonderful words:

http://www.brownielocks.com/words.html

[batgirl]

In the workshop, were the workshoppers reading the whole book from the beginning as one unit, or were they reading an isolated chapter, after having read the preceeding bits some time before?

Workshopping in pieces is difficult. Wait until your beta readers have the whole book in hand and read it as a whole before making that decision.
Isolated chapters. And the story isn't finished - there are big chunks missing still. The workshop is a way of giving myself deadlines.

Okay, that makes sense. Chapter-by-chapter crits are good for catching the flow within the chapter and within scenes, and for line-editing. But for structural crit I have to have the complete structure visible, and there's no point fussing about that while I'm still raising the frame.
Thank you. I'll stop fussing about the first chapters and get on with writing the middle ones.
-Barbara (yikes, 500 posts? I should go do some crits and be useful)

[James D. Macdonald]

It's been a while since we've played "First Two Pages." So, without further ado:

They threw me off the hay truck about noon. I had swung on the night before, down at the border, and as soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep. I needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let the engine cool. Then they saw a foot sticking out and threw me off. I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out. They gave me a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.

That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern. It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California. There was a lunchroom part, and over that a house part, where they lived, and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court. I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road. When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac. He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch. Not today, said the Greek. He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have. I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee. Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.

"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be on him, and I'm kind of short myself."

"Hokay, fill'm up."

I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something.

"What you do, what kind of work, hey?"

"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another. Why?"

"How old you?"

"Twenty-four."

"Young fellow, hey? I could use young fellow right now. In my business."

"Nice place you got here."

"Air. Is a nice. No fog, like in Los Angeles. No fog at all. Nice, a clear, all a time nice a clear."

"Must be swell at night. I can smell it now."

"Sleep fine. You understand automobile? Fix'm up?"

"Sure. I'm a born mechanic."

He gave me some more about the air, and how healthy he's been since he bought this place, and how he can't figure it out, why his help won't stay with him. I can figure it out, but I stay with the grub.

"Hey? You think you like it here?"

By that time I had put down the rest of the coffee, and lit the cigar he gave me. "I tell you how it is. I got a couple of other propositions, that's my trouble. But I'll think about it. I sure will do that all right."

###

Then I saw her. She had been out back, in the kitchen, but she came in to gather up my dishes. Except for the shape, she really wasn't any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.

End of page two.

How about it, folks ... turn the page?

[Anya Smith]

BTW, I didn't say "no music," I said "no radio." Radios have announcers, disk jockeys, the news, weather ... things that will break your concentration, take you out of that place where the creative things happen.

I like music myself for writing ... I prefer requiems, but maybe I'm just strange.

Whatever helps you get into the state you need to be in....

But there's a warning coming.

Don't couple destructive things with you writing. If you light up a cigarette when you start writing, if you quit smoking you'll find you can't write any more.

Same with drinking booze. Same with eating bon-bons. Coupling bad habits with writing will mean that you'll never be able to shed the bad habits.

One of the popular images of writers is of the guy with a bottle of whisky beside the typewriter.

It probably won't make you a better writer, or even make you a writer at all. It will rot your liver and empty your bank account.

I can only listen to music without lirics while I write, that's usually classical. Words are distracting.

[Anya Smith]

So, where does your story begin?

One way to find your beginning is this: first, write your book. Now go through it to find its start.

Here's how to recognize the start: it's the point where you can no longer summarize everything that went before in a single sentence:

Nothing that Ceclia had seen at the Academy could have prepared her for the first sight of Crymble Manor.

"The appropriations bill is dead on arrival," Senator O'Connor said.

The day after the world ended, Bill got into his pickup truck and drove into town.

Another way to say this is: it's the point where the characters can't decide, To heck with this and order out for pizza. The one-way door has blown shut and they can't get back into the theatre.

Later on, as you gain experience, you can get better at avoiding false starts ("Hesitation marks," we call 'em).

Here's how I figure out where to start my story: I figure out the climax -- something that's really big, cinematic, satisfying, full of action and movement. I take the characters who are there, and back 'em off to some point before that climax, then try to get them to it.

Sometimes -- a lot of the time -- those characters never get to the climax I started with. (There's one climax I've been using for years as a starting point. One day I will get there.)

So here's another way to figure out where to start your story: Put interesting characters in an interesting place, then let them do interesting things. (What's interesting? That's the art, isn't it. Your readers will tell you what's interesting by the sound of rapidly turning pages.)

If the first two chapters of your book are backstory and exposition, and the movement of the plot starts in chapter three, the opening of your book is chapter three. Delete the first two chapters.

====

Plots start when movement starts. This movement can be physical, or it can be psychological, but it is movement. The human eye instinctivly follows a moving object. It will follow the fastest moving object if several are present. So ... make your plot move, and eyes will follow it.

A chess game doesn't start until the first piece or pawn moves.


Thank you for sharing this. A very good way to judge a beginning of a story.

[Anya Smith]

dammit. i hate courier

but, i shall use it nonetheless....didn't know my book was going to be so long....lol

I hate curier too, but I converted all my ms's since I started reading this post.

Being a good little student.

[Anya Smith]

"You can get farther with beautiful prose and a plot than you can with beautiful prose alone."

"Plot will get you through times with no prose better than prose will get you thorugh times with no plot."

"I am a professional writer. I tell lies to strangers for money."

"One Damn Thing After Another is a perfectly good plot."

"Anything that doesn't add to the story takes away from it."

Cool, I like that.

I was told by a crit group that plot is the strongest feature in my stories, then prose. My dialogues are weak. I'm working on that.

[Anya Smith]

Hi, Betty.

a) I type fast.
b) I don't sleep.


Thank you, Uncle James, for all the help you give us.

[Anya Smith]

Which leads very nicely into the next topic: Characters.

Plot isn't the whole of your novel. Plot is more like the ropes and poles that hold up the big top where the circus is going to be held. Plot provides structure, but it isn't the novel.

Nor is story the novel: story is the space inside that big top where the show is going to happen.

No, your novel is in the characters: the bareback riders, the ringmaster, the trapeze artists, the lion tamers. A novel is about people, without the people it's an empty tent.

(And you were wondering where I was going to come down on the plot-generated vice character-generated novels.)

When you are coming up with characters, I beg you make them interesting. Interesting people doing interesting things in interesting places make your novel interesting.

You need to develop characters so that they serve a purpose other than Keeping The Front Cover and Back Cover Apart. Two rules for that: Every character thinks that he's the main character in the story, and Every character thinks that he's the good guy. While you are writing the character (from the main character, to the most minor of minor characters) you're in his head, and those two things are true while you're writing from his point of view (POV).

We beat up our characters. We make them miserable. Writing is about a lot of things; being kind to your characters isn't one of them.

Generally speaking, you need at least two characters in a story; otherwise dialog is very hard to do. How many characters you can handle is a measure of your skill level and the needs of your book. Characters all serve a function in the book. If two characters are serving the same function, make them into one character.

Now, I'm going to add two more characters to your story. These have to be characters, though y'all might not have thought of them so.

First is the author. You are a character in your story. Cast yourself. Then stay in character. Are you a lecturer? Are you a genial host? Are you a salesman? Are you a stranger here yourself?

Second is the reader. You have to cast the reader. Picture the reader. Is she a teenage girl living in suburbia? Is she a sophisticated urban professional? Is he a business traveler looking for something to read in the airport? The reader is why you're doing this. He's a character. See him. Make him consistent.

If you want to imagine you and your reader sitting in your living room (or some other location) while you tell the story, that can work. Just be consistent! We are building a dream, here, creating an illusion. Inconsistencies are illusion killers. Don't let your reader see you palming a card.

But aren't characters generate the plot? I mean, it's from their actions and reactions where the plot comes from. Or I must be totally wrong. If I am, I have major rewrites ahead of me.

[James D. Macdonald]

You can compose in any typeface you want. When it comes time to submit, submit your work in Courier 10 or 12 (unless the guidelines explicitly say something else).

===========

Plot and character are related, and influence one another. But they are not the same.

If you happen to come first to plot, or come first to character, relax. How you create is less important than that you create. Do what works for you.

No one but you will see your first draft. Come out with a unified whole, and you will have succeeded.

[ted_curtis]

It's been a while since we've played "First Two Pages." So, without further ado:


They threw me off the hay truck about noon....Then I saw her. She had been out back, in the kitchen, but she came in to gather up my dishes. Except for the shape, she really wasn't any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.


End of page two.


How about it, folks ... turn the page?

I'd turn the page. The narrator has an interesting voice, and there's a subtle humor at play here -- I love the line about hamming it up when he gets thrown off the truck. The narrator's a con-man and realizes it. The author sets up an interesting romance, or at least possible romance right off the bat. I'm guessing it will be a quick and enjoyable read.

[Anya Smith]

Yay for me!! I just ordered "The Apocolypse Door" on Amazon.com.
Can't wait to read it--it'll get here on April 4th.

Anya:banana:

[James D. Macdonald]

They threw me off the hay truck about noon.

Great opening line. Introduces a character ("me") with action ("threw"). A play on naivity -- where someone might say "I didn't fall off the hay wagon last night," to mean that he isn't easily fooled, our narrator was literally thrown off a hay wagon. First person, past tense.


I had swung on the night before, down at the border, and as soon as I got up there under the canvas, I went to sleep.

A drifter. A tramp. He's getting around by informally hitching rides. Characterization, and location.

I needed plenty of that, after three weeks in Tia Juana, and I was still getting it when they pulled off to one side to let the engine cool.

More localization, more backstory, more characterization.


Then they saw a foot sticking out and threw me off.

He's careless. He's detected. Characterization.


I tried some comical stuff, but all I got was a dead pan, so that gag was out.

He's self-aware, and speaks in slang.


They gave me a cigarette, though, and I hiked down the road to find something to eat.

Characterization -- he manages to talk the unknown driver out of a cigarette. Our narrator can find a silver lining in some pretty grim circumstances. And he's an optimist. End of first paragraph. Short declarative sentences. Almost no description. The narrator doesn't care about anyone or anything but himself. Check the number of times he says "I."


That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern.

A place. Non-standard English. The preceding paragraph told us how the narrator happened to be here -- pure random chance. The main location shows up in the first sentence of the second paragraph.

It was nothing but a roadside sandwich joint, like a million others in California.

Abbreviated description; we're in California. Probably southern California, since we know the narrator was coming up from the Mexican border.

There was a lunchroom part, and over that a house part, where they lived, and off to one side a filling station, and out back a half dozen shacks that they called an auto court.

Physical layout of the setting. No details; the reader can fill them in since there are a million just like it. An "auto court" is another name for a motel. Tourist cabins. The impression is bleak. New characters added: "they." Who "they" are is yet to be defined.


I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road. When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac.

The narrator is running a con. He's a natural play-actor. Who "the Greek" might be is undefined. Possibly one of the "they" from the last sentence.

He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch.

We have a narrator who lies fluently, naturally, as his first choice. The story is being told by this narrator. That is to say, nothing is as it seems. The readers shouldn't believe a word he says.

Not today, said the Greek.

Indirect discourse.

He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have.

The Greek is apparently a waiter, perhaps the proprietor of this rundown gas-station-motel-lunch-counter somewhere in California.


I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee.

In addition to not sleeping for three weeks, the narrator apparently didn't eat, either. Or, he asks for everything in hopes of getting something.


Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes.

Not exactly what he asked for. End of second paragraph. Again, very short, simple sentences.

"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be on him, and I'm kind of short myself."

The con is revealed. The narrator may have run this same swindle a thousand times before, at a thousand other lunch joints. First use of direct quotation in the story.


"Hokay, fill'm up."

I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something.

The Greek knows he's being conned, and doesn't care. The narrator knows he knows, and stops even pretending. This is lovely characterization for both of 'em. The Greek speaks broken English, close to dialect.


"What you do, what kind of work, hey?"

"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another. Why?"

"How old you?"

"Twenty-four."

"Young fellow, hey? I could use young fellow right now. In my business."

"Nice place you got here."

"Air. Is a nice. No fog, like in Los Angeles. No fog at all. Nice, a clear, all a time nice a clear."

"Must be swell at night. I can smell it now."

"Sleep fine. You understand automobile? Fix'm up?"

"Sure. I'm a born mechanic."

They're each lying to the other, for purposes unknown. I bet the Greek isn't there for the air, and I bet the narrator doesn't know the first thing about fixing cars. The narrator is a bum. The Greek is ... odd. Why does he need to expand on why he needs a young fellow? What could he possibly be talking about other than his business? Implies that the Greek is old.


He gave me some more about the air, and how healthy he's been since he bought this place, and how he can't figure it out, why his help won't stay with him. I can figure it out, but I stay with the grub.

Just like the Greek didn't buy the story about the guy in the Cadillac, the narrator isn't buying the story about the air. The narrator detects something about the Greek that means he would be a lousy boss. The readers aren't told, exactly, just that the narrator can figure out why no one wants to work for this guy.



"Hey? You think you like it here?"

There's the pitch. Notice that there are no dialog tags -- no "I said ... he said." No bits of business fiddling with coffee cups. No information about what the room looks like, where the door is, what color the tablecloths are (or even if there are tablecloths).


By that time I had put down the rest of the coffee, and lit the cigar he gave me. "I tell you how it is. I got a couple of other propositions, that's my trouble. But I'll think about it. I sure will do that all right."

Our narrator accepts the free meal, accepts a cigar (he's apparently good at bumming smokes -- he got a cigarette from the truck driver), and is on the verge of turning down the job offer. You know he's going to smoke that cigar and walk out and never look back. He's lying some more, though -- he doesn't have any other propositions. He's got no future at all except bumming from town to town and running penny-ante swindles. This is pure character building.

###

Linebreak. Change of scene. Even though we don't move an inch, and the time is about one second later.
Then I saw her.

A very simple sentence. It leads the new scene, and adds a new character: "her." "Her" has the position of power at the end of the sentence. So far we haven't learned a single name.


She had been out back, in the kitchen, but she came in to gather up my dishes.

Simple narration. Gives the person a job, a reason for being there. The other part of the "they" we were promised.


Except for the shape, she really wasn't any raving beauty, but she had a sulky look to her, and her lips stuck out in a way that made me want to mash them in for her.

The longest sentence so far. A beautiful shape, a sulky look, and lips. And "mash them in for her" is ambiguous. Does he want to kiss her, or punch her in the mouth? The overtone of violence is inescapable. And we are in the classic triangle by the end of page two. Plot has just arrived. The old husband, the young wife, and the glib young stranger.

Lies, poverty, violence, sex ... this is a dynamite setup. I don't see a wasted word in it.

[Anya Smith]

Another thing about the characters: they don't know they're in a novel.

(Generally speaking, the characters in art don't know they're in art. That's why the lights are turned down and the audience is quiet in theatres: so the characters won't realize they're on a stage. That's why characters in the movies don't look at the camera. (Have you noticed how distracting it is, in amateur film, when an actor's eyes focus on the camera?).

My question is, how do I determine whether my characters know or don't know if they're in a novel?

[Anya Smith]

[QUOTE=James D Macdonald]More advice,

Have a life. Go to interesting places, do interesting things. Observe people. You have to be the best observer around. No matter what you're doing, part of your brain should be turning the scene into descriptive prose.

Read widely. Take classes just for the heck of it. You can't know too much.

Consider joining a writers' workshop. Look for one that has at least one or two people with legitimate publishing credits in it. If workshops aren't for you, they aren't for you, but give 'em a try. You'll need a set of trusted friends who'll read your work and give you their honest opinions. No matter how much those opinions may hurt, thank your friends cheerfully and sincerely.



More good advice. Having been an artist before I became I writer, I always observed people. I just signed on for a writing worksop recently.

[Anya Smith]

Lesson # 99--Other Random thoughts.

I'm going back to my stories and taking out the couple of "Somehows". I remember I have 2-3.

Thank you.

[janetbellinger]

I have a lot of anyways to get rid of.

[jules]

My question is, how do I determine whether my characters know or don't know if they're in a novel?

Have you tried asking them? Turn up as a character. Say, "Do you know we're characters in a novel?" to one of them. If his response is to either look at you strangely or cross over to the other side of the street then he doesn't know. If looks around nervously, he does.

[Avalon]

Thank you for the analysis, Uncle Jim!

I would have turned the page.

I wonder -- for most people, I assume that kind of tightness happens several rounds into revision?

[Christine N.]

I write for Middle Grades, and just found the BEST job to be an observer of children that age (of course most of my characters are that age also)

Substitute teacher.

[James D. Macdonald]

I wonder -- for most people, I assume that kind of tightness happens several rounds into revision?

Who knows? All that we know is that this is the final form.

All anyone ever sees is your last draft.

This is really a bravura example of minimalist writing. Later on, the author has pages on end of two and three person conversations, none of it with dialog tags.

It's a first novel.

[James D. Macdonald]

My question is, how do I determine whether my characters know or don't know if they're in a novel?

If they do or say things for no other reason than that the plot requires it, or the author needs to clue in the readers -- then they know they're characters in a novel.

"Fred, when you heard the mysterious noises downstairs why didn't you just call 9-1-1?"

"Because if I did this would have been a very short book."

###

"Bob, normal household current is 120 volt, 60 cycle AC. 'Cycle' and 'Hertz' mean the same thing."

"Fred, we've both been electricians for twenty years. I know this stuff, and you know I know it. Why are you telling me?"

"Maybe you know it, but the readers don't."

[Anya Smith]

If they do or say things for no other reason than that the plot requires it, or the author needs to clue in the readers -- then they know they're characters in a novel.

"Fred, when you heard the mysterious noises downstairs why didn't you just call 9-1-1?"

"Because if I did this would have been a very short book."

###

"Bob, normal household current is 120 volt, 60 cycle AC. 'Cycle' and 'Hertz' mean the same thing."

"Fred, we've both been electricians for twenty years. I know this stuff, and you know I know it. Why are you telling me?"

"Maybe you know it, but the readers don't."

Ok, that's very clear now. Thank you for the examples.

I may have one of those too, iffy though it is. I'd have to go back and check it, change it, or remove it. My head is buzzing. Where else would I insert all that info?

[Scribhneoir]

This is really a bravura example of minimalist writing. Later on, the author has pages on end of two and three person conversations, none of it with dialog tags.

It's a first novel.

I'd turn the page. In fact, I think I did, way back in school -- is this "The Postman Always Rings Twice"?

[James D. Macdonald]

Where else would I insert all that info?

Ask yourself: is this information really necessary? If so, you might have a stranger who needs to have things explained as one of your characters. That's one of the functions Stephen Maturin plays in O'Brien's Aubrey novels. If he weren't there O'Brien would have needed to show 18th c. British sailors explaining rigging to one another, or left the readers hopelessly at sea.

The other problem is a bit more subtle. You need to have characters who have credible motives for everything they do. All other things being equal, your characters would rather be at home eating ice cream and watching late-night TV, rather than dangling by their thumbs over active volcanoes. It's up to you to provide that motivation, and make the readers believe it.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'd turn the page. In fact, I think I did, way back in school -- is this "The Postman Always Rings Twice"?

It is, indeed, The Postman Always B/r/i/n/g/s/ M/i/c/e/ Rings Twice (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/037541438X/ref=nosim/madhousemanor/).

(For more fun, here's a first-lines quiz (http://www.eppsnet.com/quizzes/first-lines.aspx) (and a linked last-lines quiz (http://www.eppsnet.com/quizzes/last-lines.aspx)).)

[Anya Smith]

Ask yourself: is this information really necessary? If so, you might have a stranger who needs to have things explained as one of your characters. That's one of the functions Stephen Maturin plays in O'Brien's Aubrey novels. If he weren't there O'Brien would have needed to show 18th c. British sailors explaining rigging to one another, or left the readers hopelessly at sea.

The other problem is a bit more subtle. You need to have characters who have credible motives for everything they do. All other things being equal, your characters would rather be at home eating ice cream and watching late-night TV, rather than dangling by their thumbs over active volcanoes. It's up to you to provide that motivation, and make the readers believe it.

Thank you, I'm asking and it's still difficult to decide. I included this section because if has a twofold purpose. One is central to the setting and culture; the 'chimera', deadly senso plays, in question is used even for curse words in the 25th century. I felt it should be explained a little. The other purpose is to show how one of the MC, Eric manipulates Carlina to get himself aboard the spaccraft he wants to hijack. He's using her aversion to maya-tappers, cyberslums, and such to achieve that.


Eric shifted in the variform and tried to school his mind into constructive thinking. Slowly, a plan began to take shape. It was fraught with dangers, but if he could pull it off . . . .

"Carlina, can you get me the coordinates of those three blinking stars?"

"If Zadine makes another recording. After I ran the comparison, I left the senso cube with the PC Legislators. I didn't think to upload it to my wristcom."

Zadine gave him a sidelong glance. There was a mixture of alarm and curiosity on her face, but she nodded. She was certainly strange in some ways. She didn't seem to resent the unfair treatment of the Network. Quite the contrary, she seemed to welcome the prospect of losing her privileges. Eric had a feeling she didn't consider her psi power such a blessing. After they had wrapped up their unsuccessful venture with the authorities on Earth, Zadine planned to return home to Dawn. He would miss her very much.

Eric forced his mind back to their present problem and turned around to face Carlina. "I suppose the Phoenix is equipped with a neural interface system."

Carlina smiled. "The Phoenix is equipped with everything, all the latest technological gadgets." She crossed her long legs and stretched luxuriously, leaning back into the variform.

"Good," Eric said and grinned. He had learned at the beginning of their friendship not to take Carlina's flirting seriously, simply because she didn't mean it. It was part of her personality.



He narrowed his eyes with speculation and said, "Perhaps we should go there."

Both women and David looked at him inquiringly.

Eric shrugged and said, "Unless we want to wait around in a crowded senso theater for recording equipment. You've seen how busy the station is, and all the VR entertainers are jammed with people."

"You are cleared to exit the shuttle," the computer announced.

He lifted the crash web and stood up. "We might find an illegal senso lodge near the hub with a senso-interface system," Eric said, knowing how much Carlina detested cyberslums and cyberspace addicts.

He felt a like a chimera for manipulating her by using a traumatic experience, especially because Max's death was not her fault. But he needed all the help he could find. Eric couldn't allow decency to interfere with his purpose now. Not when the galaxy was exploding around them.

"I don't see why the Coalition allows these senso lodges to operate," Carlina said with a distasteful expression.

Eric snorted. "It all goes back to three, four centuries, when the World Government not only encouraged, but financed the Death Chambers. They have been abolished when the government realized that low-income elderly citizens who practiced dying became addicted. Even though the addiction was not fatal, obviously, for those were not chimera senso plays, it was embarrassing for the government. Simply because in those days, full medical that included the once a year cleansing treatment to extend an average citizen's life was very expensive. Nanotechnology was in its infancy, and it took much time and tinkering to tailor the nano-scale biobots to a person's genetic code. A Death Chamber for the poor, however, was affordable," Eric explained as they slowly moved towards the airlock. They were almost the last ones to exit.

"Yeah, and it was much later that someone invented the chimera, adding the dying of animals to those senso plays," David said. "Hence the name chimera: human and animals."

"But it was after the Venusians discovered the biocrystals that things evolved from bad to worse," Eric continued. "Due to the emotive quality of biocrystals, the sensorium of the chimera is so intense that the human brain experiences a minor sensory overload each time. In defense, it starts shutting off certain areas, which causes the Alternate Reality Syndrome. And the maya-tappers, the illusion junkies, keep going back for more. That's what makes the chimera so deadly."

"We all know that, you two." Carlina glared at them. "We didn't ask for a history lecture, Professors," she added in a sarcastic tone.

"All I'm saying is that chimera senso plays evolved from economic pressures of our past," Eric explained. "One thing led to another."

"That's like piling new mistakes upon the old ones and just let them fester. Just because Earth Government made a mistake centuries ago, it doesn't mean the Coalition should tolerate crimes," Carlina argued in a heated tone.

"Governments make many mistakes, but that one wasn't," Eric declared. "I've read some scientific publications of the era that proved that the chimera senso plays were a convenient and humane way of culling the weak and undesirables from the Human gene pool. If that was the case and I believe it was, the Government needed only to stand aside and allow the cyber slums to operate. Remember your history; back then, the population pressures were tremendous. Besides, cyberspace addicts are not criminals, despite how Coalition citizens regard them. They're slowly committing suicide while they enjoy themselves. It is their choice," he said with emphasis.

"Yeah, well, call it whatever you want," Carlina said. "I'd rather not bump into maya-tappers." Her eyes flashed and her lips tightened, but then she turned away.

"Lead the way then." Eric felt a mixture of relief and shame.

"The Phoenix docks at port eighty-seven," Carlina said and stepped onto the dock.

If this sounds like the characters realize they're in a story, then I have to remove it. Gosh, I'd hate to do that.

[Bob Haynes]

>>>
"We all know that, you two." Carlina glared at them. "We didn't ask for a history lecture, Professors," she added in a sarcastic tone.
<<<

This in particular stands out as the characters knowing they're in a novel. The preceding lecture leads up to this, "As you know, Bob," and as a Bob myself, I tend to resent being told things I already know (or even ought to already know.)

How much of the lecture the characters 'all know' would be a guess on my part, so I have no idea what deserves to stay here and what should be worked in elsewhere. You could use what's known as an 'ignorant device' to convey the info. Barry Longyear, author of Science Fiction Writers Workshop I: An Introduction to Fiction Mechanics, defines an ignorant device as:

>>>
Any passive device (recorders, transmitters, rocks, amulets, gods, etc.) that a character can talk to, conveying information the author wishes to pass on to the reader.
<<<

Excerpts from fictitious sources like the Encyclopedia Galactica or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are found throughout science fiction. They're ignorant devices, too.

Barry's book discusses various backfill methods, with examples of how he handled it in his own fiction. The book is packed with useful stuff, and still in print.

[Lucifiel]

Wow, this is such a looong thread! It'd take me at least a year to make my way till the middle of it, I'm sure. :D Still, this newbie to writing hopes "it" will make it till the end! :)

I've got a question, though and if any won't answer, it's all fine by me. ^^;;

Since a few months back, I've tried learning British punctuation and spelling(no, not much yet). And now, I'm not sure if I ought to stick to British or change to American. *totally and utterly confused*

[James D. Macdonald]

Since a few months back, I've tried learning British punctuation and spelling(no, not much yet). And now, I'm not sure if I ought to stick to British or change to American. *totally and utterly confused*

Where do you live, and what markets are you considering submitting to?

[Anya Smith]

Great advice. I don't like books that have no difinite endings.

With my story, I knew the ending before I worked out the middle chapters.

[Anya Smith]

-----------

Now comes that point of today's ramblings where I throw out little pearls of wisdom.

Here's one: Say one of your characters is the world's greatest political orator. Do not, under penalty of having your book flung across the room by your readers, attempt to reproduce that orator's speeches. Unless you personally are the world's greatest orator, anything you write will fall short of the reader's expectation. (Same rule applies if your character is the world's greatest poet, greatest preacher, greatest writer, greatest anything. Don't try to provide samples.)

What you do is this: Show people's reactions to the character when he's doing his thing. Don't reproduce the sermon, show the congregation falling to the floor weeping.



I never knew that. Thank you for another lesson.

[Anya Smith]

Paul, could you point to such a scene? I think we could get a better handle on the whole question if we had something concrete to analyse.


Hello James,

I also noticed POV switching within chapters and scenes in several novels. For example, Frank Herbert's Dune series. He is one of my favorite authors, but he switches from paragraph to paragraph. I still read and re-read his books.

[Lucifiel]

Where do you live, and what markets are you considering submitting to?

Oh no, in my country Singapore, we use a mixture of both American and British punctuation and spelling when writing. And a pidgin language(most of the time) when speaking. It took me like forever to sort out my bearings and get my English out of the mud!

No idea about markets? I'm soo utterly new to writing, it'd take me at least 20 years to get to ever writing a novel. >>;;

Oh well, it doesn't matter.

[James D. Macdonald]

If you're planning to submit to American markets, use American punctuation. If you're planning to submit to British markets, use British punctuation. Or -- chose one, and just be consistent.

Work on making your story compelling.

[Lucifiel]

If you're planning to submit to American markets, use American punctuation. If you're planning to submit to British markets, use British punctuation. Or -- chose one, and just be consistent.

Work on making your story compelling.

Good point! :D Hmmm... damn! Either market is good, right? Oh well.

Work on the compelling parts, huh? By jolly, you're right!!!!

*Charges off into the sunset*

Except it's a sunset on a wall. :D

[James D. Macdonald]

If I recall correctly, the big differences between American and British punctuation are in the use of single and double quotes, and whether the period goes inside or outside of a close quote.

Really, just be consistent. That way search-and-replace will get 'em all when the time comes.

In fiction you can get farther out. The usual genius exception applies. (The farther away from the norm you are, the closer to genius the work must be.)

[maestrowork]

I never knew that. Thank you for another lesson.

Unless, of course, the author is the world's greatest political orator or poet. :)

[omega12596]

Just curious, but what is wrong with switching POV from paragraph to paragraph? If you're writing in third person, that is.

[jules]

I also noticed POV switching within chapters and scenes in several novels. For example, Frank Herbert's Dune series. He is one of my favorite authors, but he switches from paragraph to paragraph. I still read and re-read his books.

I think Dune's actually written in omniscient POV; it doesn't ever stay with a single character long enough for you to get settled in and often gives impressions that aren't any single character's:

As the guests waited, their attention torn between the dishes placed before them and the standing Duke...

[James D. Macdonald]

Nothing wrong with 3rd omniscient. It's just notoriously hard to do well.

[maestrowork]

Agreed. And it's harder for the readers to identify with your characters. It's easier for them to identify with one or two main characters, but if you have multiple POVs, it's tough for the readers to feel for anyone of them (unless they're part of a "group" or something).

[James D. Macdonald]

Here's some discussion about the author's role in publicizing their own books:

http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/?p=300

Pray notice this reply from a very senior editor:

Look, what I meant is that the one irreducible thing that’s every writer’s job is the writing.

Some writers can contribute to the selling of their work as well, and they want to, and their publishers agree and are willing to support them in this.

Some writers can contribute to the selling of their work, and they want to, and their publishers don’t agree, so nothing happens.

Some writers can contribute to the selling of their work as well, but they _don’t_ want to, but their publishers pressure them into tryng it anyway.

Some writers can contribute to the selling of their work as well, but they don’t want to, and their publishers are fine with this.

Some writers are very ineffective at selling their work, but they want to, and their publisher wants them to and is willing to send them out into the world, where they proceed to do significant damage to their reputations.

Some writers are very ineffective at selling their work, but they want to, but their publishers (thankfully for all involved) manage to talk them out of it.

Some writers are very ineffective at selling their work, and they KNOW this about themselves, but their publishers insist on sending them out into the world, with predictably successful results… Etc., etc., etc. You can work out the remaining permutations as well as I can.

Meanwhile, you challenge me to “Tell that to the writers who get heavy pressure from their publishers to do book tours etc.” Okay. Send me their names and I’ll “tell that to” them.

The plain fact is, some writers have accurate self-knowledge and some don’t. Some publishers have good judgement about who ought to be sent out to publicize their own work and some don’t. Everybody’s an idiot a good part of the time. There’s no substitute for using your own judgement. And RWA-style categorical assertions about what authors HAVE TO do or MUST come to terms with are, by and large, wise-guy ********. There are no accurate formulas, and the maps get redrawn every day.

[ashnistrike]

...And I know this topic has been addressed. My apologies.

I recall your saying, UJ, earlier in the thread, that a synopsis should be about 5000 words and cover all the plot developments and twists including the ending. From this description I started a synopsis with about one paragraph summarizing each scene of my novel. I was even putting in a couple of direct quotes here and there, to get across a little of the voice (which is fairly snarky).

Then I bumped into the blog for "Miss Snark, the literary agent." I believe I may even have found the link on this board. She has many sample synopses up, all at a much shorter length and lower level of detail than that described above. I'd say about 1000 words and covering the basic shape of the plot with no details except for major turning points.

Which of these is right? Is yours the format for sending to publishers, while hers is for agents? Does it vary wildly by market or genre? For reference, I was planning on submitting to Baen first (along with a few agents).

A second question: while dithering over the synopsis and thereby procrastinating on my novel submission, I managed to make my first short story sale to a good market. In the cover letter, can you mention "in press" publications? Or only things that are actually in print?

Thanks in advance for answers. I am tired of procrastinating and want to get this out.

[MadScientistMatt]

The correct format is whatever the person you are sending the synopsis to says is the correct format.

[Lucifiel]

If I recall correctly, the big differences between American and British punctuation are in the use of single and double quotes, and whether the period goes inside or outside of a close quote.


Yep, not to mention the various spelling issues like ommission of "ou", various phrases/slangs, etc. Bleeahhhh... =P And ya know what? Since it's light years before I ever publish a novel, I think I shall learn the differences slowly. Why rush with every single damn thing and confuse myself?

Really, just be consistent. That way search-and-replace will get 'em all when the time comes.

In fiction you can get farther out. The usual genius exception applies. (The farther away from the norm you are, the closer to genius the work must be.)


Farther out? Uhhh... excuse me, what does that phrase mean? (I know what farther means, don't worry) I just assume that it has nothing to do with engineering or finance, right?

*sighs* Genius exception? Ooooh boy.

[James D. Macdonald]

There isn't a standard for synopses.

The one I use is for the classic three-and-an-outline. About ten pages of outline is what I tend to do.

If I were sending a query letter, I'd more likely send two pages at most.

----

You can absolutely mention forthcoming works in your query letters.

[ashnistrike]

MadScientistMatt: The correct format is whatever the person you are sending the synopsis to says is the correct format.

Yes, which is why I looked all over the Baen website for something other than "send us a synopsis." No luck.

UJ: There isn't a standard for synopses.

That's what I was afraid of. Okay, I'll try it both ways, and see what looks better. The story is a pain to summarize either way--it's sort of a braid format, with three plot lines that start out near each other, go off in different directions for most of the book, and end up in the same place for the climax with each one being integral to the solution for the rest. That makes 'scene by scene' easiest to write, but not necessarily the most informative to read. Dammit, if it took less than 95,000 words to say coherently, I would have said it in less than 95,000 words the first time.

Thanks for the quick response.

[Berry]

Then I bumped into the blog for "Miss Snark, the literary agent." I believe I may even have found the link on this board. She has many sample synopses up, all at a much shorter length and lower level of detail than that described above. I'd say about 1000 words and covering the basic shape of the plot with no details except for major turning points.

Remember that Miss Snark set the 1000 word limit in part because she didn't want the hassle of dealing with longer synopses in the context of her blog. None of these were going to result in business for her agency and she was doing this out of altruistic motives ot benefit the writing community, if I recall correctly. So it makes perfect sense to me for her to set limits to what she could deal with in the time alloted for this project.

[Nexusman]

Punctuation question:

"Which one is 'right?'" he asked.
"Which one is 'right'?" he asked.

This one always throws me.

-Nick

[janetbellinger]

Punctuation question:

"Which one is 'right?'" he asked.
"Which one is 'right'?" he asked.

This one always throws me.

-Nick

The first one.

[Forbidden Snowflake]

Wow, I'm through (yes, all 5000 posts). Thank you so much for this thread, so amazing all the help and inspiration I found here! http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Duncan J Macdonald]

Punctuation question:

"Which one is 'right?'" he asked.
"Which one is 'right'?" he asked.

This one always throws me.

-NickThe second one.

[DamaNegra]

The first one.


The second one.

LOL!!!!

Well, I vote for the second one.

[Nexusman]

:Headbang:

-Nick

[James D. Macdonald]

Was the questionmark part of the phrase he was quoting?

Personally, I'd go with "Which one is 'right'?" he asked, and ignore it thereafter, because the publisher will change it to house style regardless of which you choose. Just be consistent.

[Rambling]

I don't mind the sarcasm/argument approach, in small enough doses - ie.

"I don't see why the Coalition allows these senso lodges to operate," Carlina said with distaste.

"What are you proposing they do? Start up the Death Chambers again? Forbid nano life-extension treatments for the poor? It keeps the addicts contained and off the streets."

"This isn't old Earth and we aren't overpopulated anymore. Whatever lame justifications they used to make four centuries back, there's no excuse now for letting people fry their brains in those damn chimera death-senso's."

"I never would have taken you for an anti-death campaigner, Carlina."

"I'm not! But rational people take suicide pills in hospitals, they don't grub about in cyber-slums."

[jchines]

Personally, I'd go with "Which one is 'right'?" he asked, and ignore it thereafter, because the publisher will change it to house style regardless of which you choose. Just be consistent.

Heh. I just wrote about this a few days ago, over at http://dsnight.livejournal.com/141876.html

General consensus, at least in the U.S., seems to be "Which one is 'right'?" as you said.

[jules]

MadScientistMatt: The correct format is whatever the person you are sending the synopsis to says is the correct format.

Yes, which is why I looked all over the Baen website for something other than "send us a synopsis." No luck.


Baen have a discussion forum (http://bar.baen.com/) where a lot of their writers and editors hang around. Somebody there will know what sort of synopsis they prefer.

[Anya Smith]

I don't mind the sarcasm/argument approach, in small enough doses - ie.

Interesting. :)

[Andrew Jameson]

I don't mind the sarcasm/argument approach, in small enough doses - ie.Hum. That still sounds to me like "as you know, Bob" style dialogue, so it clunks in my ear. If background information can't be worked in any other way, I'd prefer a short but clear bit of authorial intrusion:

"You are cleared to exit the shuttle," the computer announced.

He lifted the crash web and stood up. "We might find an illegal senso lodge near the hub with a senso-interface system," Eric said, knowing how much Carlina detested cyberslums and cyberspace addicts.

The chimera senso plays evolved from economic pressures in the past. Four centuries earlier, the World Government financed Death Chambers. They were later abolished, but low-income elderly citizens who practiced dying became addicted. Not much later, the chimera was invented, adding the dying of animals to the senso plays. Then the Venusians discovered the biocrystals and things evolved from bad to worse. Due to the emotive quality of biocrystals, the sensorium of the chimera is so intense that the human brain experiences a minor sensory overload each time. In defense, it starts shutting off certain areas, which causes the Alternate Reality Syndrome. And the maya-tappers, the illusion junkies, keep going back for more. That's what made the chimera so deadly.

And that was why Carlita hated them. "Yeah, well, you might find it," she said. "I'd rather not bump into maya-tappers." Her eyes flashed and her lips tightened, but then she turned away.

"Lead the way then." Eric felt a mixture of relief and shame.

"The Phoenix docks at port eighty-seven," Carlina said and stepped onto the dock.

The information can be compacted what presented in this form, and with a cool POV and smooth segue in and out, I think it's less intrusive than artificial dialogue, sarcastic or not. But what the heck do I know?

[Anya Smith]

OK, I get the point. Either way I do it, it's called an info dump. (tearing my hair out)

[ashnistrike]

Of the three possibilities, the sarcasm/argument approach seems least intrusive to me. It all seems like things people would really say, and the question of why I should care is answered: because the characters care.

Of course, the fourth possibility is to not explain the whole thing now. Have him bait her, and leave the reader wondering for a few pages why the senso chambers are such a problem. I assume they're going to be a plot point, and they sound nasty enough that waiting to see them up close might have more impact.

[Anya Smith]

That info has to be there; it's an integral part of the setting. Though it's not a plot twist, it's a good way to get them all on the starship, and Eric wants to hijack the starship. I've made it more sarcastic and also reinforced how ignorant Carlina was about ancient history.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'm going to be doing a live chat here tonight at 9:00 pm EDT.

http://www.starchat.net/chat/?chan=absolutewrite

The channel is #absolutewrite

[HConn]

Cool!

I'll have to ask Her Majesty for permission to attend.

[Anya Smith]

I'm going to be doing a live chat here tonight at 9:00 pm EDT.

http://www.starchat.net/chat/?chan=absolutewrite

The channel is #absolutewrite

Shucks, we have a dinner party at friends house. I always miss the good stuff.

Uncle James, "The Apocalypse Door" was very good. Thanks for a good read.

Anya

[James D. Macdonald]

Shucks, we have a dinner party at friends house. I always miss the good stuff.

Uncle James, "The Apocalypse Door" was very good. Thanks for a good read.



Thanks.

I'm sure there'll be a transcript.

[Bob Haynes]

Uncle Jim,

Thanks again for doing the chat last night. I was there in my clever disguise as Bobb. You gave us a great mix of writing advice and humor, and I'm not sure that a writer can (or should) dispense the first without the latter.

I realized from what you had to say that the major problem for me is that the fun has gone out of writing. I write something because I think I 'should' or because it's what the latest pro-paying anthology is looking for, and I agonize about the stories I've abandoned and beat myself up for not going back and finishing them before writing something new.

This morning I woke up and starting jotting story notes to myself for a fun story entitled, "The Last House You'll Ever Haunt" about a family of ghosts whose search for the 'perfect house to haunt' is finally over. Will it be too silly? Is there any market for it? To answer the question, "What's the difference between ignorance and indifference?" I'll answer, "I don't know and I don't care." I just know that I want to write this story and put the fun back into my writing.

I highly recommend the transcript (when it's posted) to anyone who missed your chat. You covered a few things that haven't been tackled here yet, and the time flew by.

Thanks,

Bob

[Avalon]

ARGH! I can't believe I missed it.

Where will the transcript end up, if someone is so very, very kind as to make it available? (I'm new enough around here not to know where such things might be posted....)

[DamaNegra]

I missed it too :( I tried to log on from 7.30 to 9.45 without any success. This thing just wouldn't cooperate. Someone said the transcript will be posted in a week. When will it be posted?

[DamaNegra]

Yay http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smilehooray.gif I got the transcript. Shame I couldn't go, though :(

Anyway, I have a question for UJ.

You said you've co-authored many books. How exactly do you co-author a book? How do you write a book between two people? Do you say: OK, I'll write Chapters 1, 4, 6 and 9 and you write Chaps 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8?? Or do you sit together and put ideas while one of them types? How?

[Bob Haynes]

Uncle Jim gave us some idea about his and Debra Doyle's working methods here:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=108452&highlight=collaboration#post108452

I'm sure most of us would like to hear more.

And does her name appear first on the books because of the alphabet or because he likes her double D's? ;)

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Yay http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/smilehooray.gif I got the transcript.What, and yer gonna keep it to yerself?

Where does the transcript reside?

[nomuse]

The chat transcript is here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=571090&postcount=4

[jchines]

Thanks, nomuse!

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Yay thank you!

ETA: Uncle Jim, can we buy you another beer? ;)

[DamaNegra]

I'd like some advice in the show vs tell. You've said always show instead of tell. But what about show&tell?

"The place was so cold goosebumps filled my skin."

Or is it recommendable to say:

"As I entered, goosebumps filled my skin."

And let the reader assume it's cold. What do you say?

[HConn]

You can get goosebumps from cold or from fear. I vote for clarity over brevity.

[Nexusman]

Is he getting goosebumps because he's walked into a cold room, or because he walked into a room and looked down the barrel of a .357? I'd consider it kind of cheating if you intended the reader to perceive goosebumps as the product of being cold if it instead were nerves.

Perhaps a qualifier similar to "Goosebumps rose on my skin and I could see my breath rising in front of me."

-Nick

[rich]

You're doing a show when the show isn't focussed, Bob.

[maestrowork]

I entered the room, a rush of cold air brushed past me and goosebumps filled my skin.

"The place was so cold goosebumps filled my skin."

This is not showing. It is telling with an appendage like, "oops, I am supposed to 'show' you how old it is."

[James D. Macdonald]

His breath steamed and he stamped his feet.

[janetbellinger]

Why not let us imagine the goosebumps? Are they central to the plot?

[maestrowork]

There are a million ways to say "it's cold." The idea is to let the readers know, clearly, it's cold without you saying, "it's cold."

[Benja]

Hi all,

I'm new here. It has taken me a few months to get through the five thousand posts, so I don't feel that new, but you get the point. :-)

DamaNegra, I find it difficult to discuss concepts like "show, don't tell" in the abstract, but with regard to your example, in my opinion it depends on the situation which of these is appropriate.

To me, "The place was so cold goosebumps filled my skin" conveys that the narrator (and the reader) knew that the place would be cold, or at least cool, but is surprised by how cold it is. "As I entered, goosebumps filled my skin" (assuming that the reader understand they are from the cold) conveys to me that it is cold, uncomfortably so, but the narrator (and the reader) knew that it would be. I would find the first variant inappropriate if the narrator knew it would be this cold, and I would find the second one inappropriate if they are surprised by it.

If the narrator didn't know it would be cold at all, I would find both versions inappropriate. In that case, I might consider, for example, "The place was ice cold. Goose bumps filled my skin."

maestrowork's "I entered the room, a rush of cold air brushed past me and goosebumps filled my skin" and Uncle Jim's "His breath steamed and he stamped his feet" seem appropriate in the same situation as "As I entered, goosebumps filled my skin", for me, (except that they fix the problem that the reader might not now whether the goosebumps are from the cold or from the narrator's nerves).

Of course there's also the possibility that the narrator knew it would be cold, but the reader doesn't. "Like always, the place was so cold that goosebumps filled my skin" might serve you here. "The place was so cold that goosebumps filled my skin" is inappropriate because it conveys (to me) that the narrator didn't know it would be. "As I entered, goosebumps filled my skin" isn't appropriate because the reader doesn't know why that would happen; the same is true for "His breath steamed and he stamped his feet" and "I entered the room, a rush of cold air brushed past me and goosebumps filled my skin." These could be made to work by following them up by an explanation, though: "Grandmother always kept her windows open, even in Winter."

Hmm:

1) "I entered my grandmother's appartment. The windows were wide open, as always. It was so cold that goosebumps filled my skin."

2) "I entered my grandmother's appartment. The windows were wide open, as always. A rush of cold air brushed past me, and goosebumps filled my skin."

3) "I entered my grandmother's appartment. The windows were wide open, as always. Goosebumps filled my skin."

4) "I entered my grandmother's appartment. The windows were wide open, as always. My breath steamed, and I stamped my feet."

(3) and (4) don't work for me in this context -- seems to me that we need the word "cold" somewhere in here, or something similar to fill the reader in on what is going on. I like (2) better than (1), in this context, though.

- Benja

[DamaNegra]

Yeah, well, let's consider that my piece is written in spanish, where the word for goosebumps is used mainly for cold, so the message would get across and no one would get confused.

[Popeyesays]

So, where does your story begin?

One way to find your beginning is this: first, write your book. Now go through it to find its start.

Here's how to recognize the start: it's the point where you can no longer summarize everything that went before in a single sentence:

Nothing that Ceclia had seen at the Academy could have prepared her for the first sight of Crymble Manor.

"The appropriations bill is dead on arrival," Senator O'Connor said.

The day after the world ended, Bill got into his pickup truck and drove into town.

Another way to say this is: it's the point where the characters can't decide, To heck with this and order out for pizza. The one-way door has blown shut and they can't get back into the theatre.

Later on, as you gain experience, you can get better at avoiding false starts ("Hesitation marks," we call 'em).

Here's how I figure out where to start my story: I figure out the climax -- something that's really big, cinematic, satisfying, full of action and movement. I take the characters who are there, and back 'em off to some point before that climax, then try to get them to it.

Sometimes -- a lot of the time -- those characters never get to the climax I started with. (There's one climax I've been using for years as a starting point. One day I will get there.)

So here's another way to figure out where to start your story: Put interesting characters in an interesting place, then let them do interesting things. (What's interesting? That's the art, isn't it. Your readers will tell you what's interesting by the sound of rapidly turning pages.)

If the first two chapters of your book are backstory and exposition, and the movement of the plot starts in chapter three, the opening of your book is chapter three. Delete the first two chapters.

====

Plots start when movement starts. This movement can be physical, or it can be psychological, but it is movement. The human eye instinctivly follows a moving object. It will follow the fastest moving object if several are present. So ... make your plot move, and eyes will follow it.

A chess game doesn't start until the first piece or pawn moves.

I am about 35-40,000 words into a novel at the moment - gritty science fiction/technothriller kind of thing. I was waist deep in the book, when I started worrying about the first chapter - it took place in a naval academylecture hall, even though the professor was speaking of a battle he had been in it just didn't grab anything.

First I re-wrote the chapter including the battle largely as flashbacks, which helped, but the reader would know it was memory and in the past. So it still didn't really work. About 5,000 words after this I had written a scene where an unsuspecting man riding in an ambassadorial limousine is the victim of an assassination meant for the ambassador himself. I figured here's something of reasonable length to start with and THEN do the lecture scene as re-written as something going on at the same time parsecs away.

I think I solve my first thousand words problem at last. You just introduce a perfectly likeable character and then machine gun him to death in the space of one thousand words.

I plan to send it to two or three publishers over the next year while I work on another project, and if it won't sell, I'll check into e-book publishers and personal publication.

Regards,
Scott

[Popeyesays]

Is he getting goosebumps because he's walked into a cold room, or because he walked into a room and looked down the barrel of a .357? I'd consider it kind of cheating if you intended the reader to perceive goosebumps as the product of being cold if it instead were nerves.

Perhaps a qualifier similar to "Goosebumps rose on my skin and I could see my breath rising in front of me."

-Nick

"I entered the door of my grandmother's apartment, as usual all the windows were open and January air filled the room. Cold as it might be, I reserved my gooseflesh for the black muzzle of the .357 pointed at me."

Regards,
Scott

[Nangleator]

I plan to send it to two or three publishers over the next year while I work on another project, and if it won't sell...
Whoa there! If this is a first novel, I think the consensus is that you should finish it, and finish polishing it before you send it out.

And just three publishers is not really "sending it out." Be a bit more persistent than that.

[James D. Macdonald]

How books make money (http://alg.livejournal.com/84032.html)

[Benja]

Jim, it is so good of you (http://deannahoak.livejournal.com/66152.html) to pass along those invitations (http://deannahoak.livejournal.com/66788.html).

What would aspiring writers all over the world do if they couldn't meet somebody traditionally published at their local SF convention?

*giggles*

- Benja

[Popeyesays]

Whoa there! If this is a first novel, I think the consensus is that you should finish it, and finish polishing it before you send it out.

And just three publishers is not really "sending it out." Be a bit more persistent than that.

Duly noted. I have been working in a back and forth manner. I try to add to the full text of the novel 2,000-4,000 written, re-written, revised, revised, revised words a day. This means I go back and forth from new to older sections every day.

I story-boarded the whole thing in advance, and have been refining the storyboard as I go. The end is in sight!

Regards,
Scott

[James D. Macdonald]

A lovely article on written techniques as seen from a game-developer's point of view:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060426/noyle_01.shtml

Those who need to see examples of what we mean by many of these things can see 'em here.

[Ken Schneider]

Jim,

What, if any, are the problems with making a book available say through Lulu, and still submitting to publishers?

[Christine N.]

I'll take a stab.

If it's available to the general public through lulu; it's published in the technical sense of the term. Not many publishers will do a reprint, they don't want second rights or whatever they're called; they want first rights.

Some do - I know my publisher actually has taken previous works from Lulu and self-pubbed and done re-edits and reprints; it will get a small book out to a wider audience.

If I'm incorrect in this assumption, please enlighten me. :)

[James D. Macdonald]

Like anything else, it varies.

Some publishers might treat your book as essentially unpublished, because who ever heard of it? (You'd still get a reprint-sized advance, though.)

Some might treat it as a proven failure and decline on that basis.

If it sold a whole lotta copies, some might pick it up on that basis (but still pay reprint rates), while others might assume that you've already sold all the copies that it's going to sell.

[Ken Schneider]

Excellent!. That answers the question. Don't do it.

I have the locals, a small number 30-40 asking on a regular basis for my second book.

I think I'll keep pushing for pub, instead of going the other route.

I've offered a few of them to beta, if they can't wait.

Thanks.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'm off to my eldest son's graduation from Vanderbilt. Then from Nashville up to Pittsburgh where he'll be going to grad school (Carnegie Mellon).

Back in a week.

Keep writing!

[SeanDSchaffer]

Have a safe trip, Uncle Jim.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/images/smilies/emoticonhi.gif

[maestrowork]

I'm off to my eldest son's graduation from Vanderbilt. Then from Nashville up to Pittsburgh where he'll be going to grad school (Carnegie Mellon).

Back in a week.

Keep writing!

Hey Uncle Jim... drop by and say hi! CMU is a great school.

[SeanDSchaffer]

BTW Uncle Jim,

I thought you would like to know that I've started work on a new WIP using the one-page-a-day method you described to me some time back in this thread. The method works wonders for my writing and for my attitude. Every time that I have sat down to do a single page this week, I've ended up being inspired mid-page and writing at least two or three more pages. So far, in a work that has been going for five days, I've done 26 pages.

Basically, I just want to let you know that I appreciate the suggestion you gave me, and that it works very well. To have a minimum quota a day of one page doesn't seem like a great stride to my mind, but it's a leap and a bound beyond any method I've ever used before. I don't get depressed so easily as I used to, when I would try to write a chapter a day.

Thank you kindly, and I will talk to you later.

[Lady of Prose]

A lovely article on written techniques as seen from a game-developer's point of view:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060426/noyle_01.shtml

Those who need to see examples of what we mean by many of these things can see 'em here.

I love the side bar "a point-of-view error of omission," comment.

[Bufty]

Just popping this thread back on to the front page where it belongs.

[batgirl]

Maybe it should be a sticky?

I haven't found this question in the thread yet, so--
It's recommended to have all the major characters on deck by p.100 (I'm guessing that's in SMF, double-spaced and all), and Logical Chess says develop the pieces before the pawns. I can see the sense of this.
But what if the necessary action of the story means that a character who will prove to be important doesn't appear until the second half or last third of the book? For instance, if characters are travelling to the place where they'll meet him/her, or she/he arrives with a group that's in transit for the first part of the book?
One solution, I guess, is to have that character-in-waiting be thought of or remembered by the onstage characters prior to appearance. That way s/he is present in the reader's mind at least.
But what if that character is previously unknown to the others? Is it necessary to write a second thread for him/her until they meet?
I know that no rules are absolute, but usually I'd prefer to bend or circumvent them than break them.
-Barbara

[Lady of Prose]

Just popping this thread back on to the front page where it belongs.

Thanks Bufty. You are so right.


Bagirl, making it a sticky is a good suggestion. I hope it will be considered.

[cuteshoes]

for the record, when i first came here i was very confused because there were stickied directories to the writing with uncle jim thread but the thread wasn't on page one and i had no idea what thread all those stickies referred to.

[Nangleator]

Batgirl,

I try to think of all my characters as major, and the central part of some story, even if it isn't the one I'm telling. And even if they have a walk-on in chapter 11.

I think the prohibition here is against introducing a pivotal figure too late. We as the reader would feel cheated not to have followed that person's story.

[Duncan J Macdonald]

Thanks Bufty. You are so right.


Bagirl, making it a sticky is a good suggestion. I hope it will be considered.I do believe that it was, way back in the mists of time. Our genial host decided that if in the course of human events the thread dropped off the front page, that was the Will of the Universe and not to be flouted. So only interest and continued posting will keep it afloat.

[Lady of Prose]

:) I was aware, actually, that it was at one time a sticky. I "read" it more than I posted. I was hoping a gentle hint might bring the front page status back, since it's an invaluable tool to anyone wanting to read, or make an occasional comment. But of course, the boss knows best in these cases. :)

Maybe some of the newer people will take notice and participate.

[ted_curtis]

I haven't found this question in the thread yet, so--
It's recommended to have all the major characters on deck by p.100 (I'm guessing that's in SMF, double-spaced and all), and Logical Chess says develop the pieces before the pawns. I can see the sense of this.
But what if the necessary action of the story means that a character who will prove to be important doesn't appear until the second half or last third of the book? For instance, if characters are travelling to the place where they'll meet him/her, or she/he arrives with a group that's in transit for the first part of the book?

Well, in my opinion, if you're characters are travelling to meet someone, you have, in fact, introduced them. A good example would be The Wizzard of Oz -- he's introduced well before he shows up on stage. Another classic example would be Waiting for Godot, where Godot never actually appears.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'm back, having driven 2,846.3 miles since last Wednesday morning. My elder son is now a Mechanical Engineer with a diploma to prove it. He's going to grad school (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/) in the fall.

My own opinion on stickiness: If the thread isn't active enough to be on the first page, it doesn't deserve to be on the first page. (When it sinks off the page, that's a reminder to me that I need to post.)

The page-one-hundred rule (not so much a rule as a guideline): If you're writing War And Peace, or the Bible, you can introduce major characters later on. There are other special circumstances. Examine your story. If it's better with a major character introduced nearer to the end, then it's better.

Be very sure that it's better. (Your beta readers will tell you.)

[Nangleator]

... Waiting for Godot, where Godot never actually appears. In the extended DVD of Return of the King, PJ and his screenwriters described how they nearly added Sauron as a character coming out of the black gate to duel with Aragorn. Good gracious. We came that close to having that artistic triumph so sullied...

[Nangleator]

...My elder son is now a Mechanical Engineer Congratulations! That's one of the few careers I've really envied.

[Liam Jackson]

Congrats to the entire Macdonald family and best wishes to the newly annointed engineer!

[SeanDSchaffer]

I'm back, having driven 2,846.3 miles since last Wednesday morning. My elder son is now a Mechanical Engineer with a diploma to prove it. He's going to grad school (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/) in the fall.

....Snipped.


First, I want to congratulate your son on his diploma. That is outright awesome!


Second, I want to let you all know that, for the first time since I joined this board, I actually set aside a time this morning for BIC.

At nine this morning, I sat at my typewriter for a little under an hour, plunking away at my present WIP. It would have been a longer period of time, except that a neighbor knocked on my door ten minutes before the end of the hour.

The work as it is now, is in the midst of Chapter 7, with my having completed Chapters 5 and 6 this morning. I will definitely be BIC'ing regularly, every morning from nine to ten. I might also set aside another time in the morning or afternoon to BIC a second time in the day. I find that my productivity is outstanding when I sit with Butt In Chair, doing nothing but writing.

[James D. Macdonald]

I might also set aside another time in the morning or afternoon to BIC a second time in the day. I find that my productivity is outstanding when I sit with Butt In Chair, doing nothing but writing.

Do what's comfortable for you.

Later, you'll want to set aside time to do an hour of original writing, and an hour of editing/rewriting an earlier work.

An hour here, an hour there. It adds up.

[SeanDSchaffer]

Do what's comfortable for you.

Later, you'll want to set aside time to do an hour of original writing, and an hour of editing/rewriting an earlier work.

An hour here, an hour there. It adds up.


That sounds like a good idea. I think I'll reserve my second BIC time in each day for something other than the work I'm doing now, like you said. Maybe I could use it to outline another work I started, and then had to stop on because it was heading nowhere.

I originally had thought about waiting to outline the other WIP until I was finished with my present one. But what you just described would give me a lot more purpose and versatility in my writing time. Thank you kindly for the suggestion; I will definitely use it.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I've written close to 200 pages in two-point-five weeks.

My hands are numb.

[James D. Macdonald]

Go, you! If you don't have the clay you can't make the pot.

[Sailor Kenshin]

I like the "pot" metaphor. Potboiler comes to mind. ;)

[Ken Schneider]

Excellent, to Jim's son.

Excellent, to all who are flying through writing their WIP with enthusiasm.


I'm in a funk as it pertains to writing. I can't get anything on paper-computer that seems worth a darn. Painfully slow right now.

Be well all,
Ken

[SeanDSchaffer]

Excellent, to Jim's son.

Excellent, to all who are flying through writing their WIP with enthusiasm.


I'm in a funk as it pertains to writing. I can't get anything on paper-computer that seems worth a darn. Painfully slow right now.

Be well all,
Ken


Believe it or not, I'm going through something similar right now. Sure, I have my WIP that is moving along at a good clip, but my muse is basically giving me stuff that I'm not really proud of, when it comes to new writing.

The point I'm making is, Ken, that we all go through this kind of thing. But the fact that you're writing anything at all when you're going through this, I think is good. You might not like what you're writing, but you're still putting it on paper/computer. That's important, because it continues to build and hone your skills.

I hope this helps you out, Ken, and I wish you all the best.

[BardSkye]

I've learned more about writing on this thread in a couple of days' worth of reading than in years of just going my own way. (I'm still going through the back posts.) Sooner or later it will make me a writer. It might even make me an editor one day. Thanks to everyone who contributes here.

[Merricat]

Excellent, to Jim's son.

Excellent, to all who are flying through writing their WIP with enthusiasm.


I'm in a funk as it pertains to writing. I can't get anything on paper-computer that seems worth a darn. Painfully slow right now.

Be well all,
Ken

I'm returning to novels after a couple of dead end attempts earlier this year (damn you, college social life), and I'm taking it slow at the moment; the rule is one scene a day, every day. No time limit or length limit on the scenes, they're as long or as short as they need to be (although they've almost all been at least a page, usually well over it).

I'm thinking of it as a placeholder draft. I don't have to have the dialogue perfect or all the details correct; these scenes are just so I know what occurs, what people say or don't say, who is in each scene and how it fits in with everything else.

Flying through your story is optimal, but after two years of not finishing anything long than 5k, I'll settle for a painful but determined limp.

[BardSkye]

The story I'm working on is a "coming of age" novel involving several subplots with a fantasy setting. There are two different characters each having to "come of age" and two distinct civilizations involved as each character has to overcome his heritage to fit into a third world.

In order to get my main players on the stage and set up the various threads in the weave each should probably have at least a short introductory passage but how do I keep it from being choppy at the beginning? Is there a rule of thumb concerning how long between sections you should go without losing the reader?

The link downthread for Celtic knots was interesting, though it wouldn't get me to the exact knot that was being shown. A fascinating concept for weaving a story which I'm going to try this evening!

Thanks, everyone.

[James D. Macdonald]

Nope, no rule that I'm aware of.

Fool with it. It's okay to try several different ways in different drafts in order to see which works best.

[BardSkye]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll mess about with it for a while, then, and let my readers tell me if it doesn't work.

[Ken Schneider]

I'm returning to novels after a couple of dead end attempts earlier this year (damn you, college social life), and I'm taking it slow at the moment; the rule is one scene a day, every day. No time limit or length limit on the scenes, they're as long or as short as they need to be (although they've almost all been at least a page, usually well over it).

I get my BIC time in everyday to be sure. I've cut my time here down to about nothing. Jim knows that he has told me, and everyone else to just write. The problem now is that when you start to learn the rights and wrongs of the craft as I have in a year of tutorship here at AW, I can't get beyond leaving a wrong sentence or word that isn't the best one, on the page. It has to be perfect, or as perfect to right and good as I can get it.

I hope to let it go and let the story begin to write itself again, soon.

Has anyone heard if those who participated in the short story excerise we did over the holidays, given by UJ, has had any success in publication? I've sent mine out, but haven't heard back yet.

Ken

[James D. Macdonald]

Off to go over the copyedit on Mist and Snow. The cover art is spectacular -- I hope to have permission to show it to y'all soon.

[Duncan J Macdonald]

Off to go over the copyedit on Mist and Snow. The cover art is spectacular -- I hope to have permission to show it to y'all soon.STET

[alaskamatt17]

Wow, it sounds like a lot of people are making great progress on their novels here. I haven't been doing much in that respect ... just working on the same chapter for over a week now. My mind keeps veering off course on short story ideas, and I've always been one to oblige my mind. The novel is still moving forward, albeit slowly.

[James D. Macdonald]

Guys, if anyone can find the Google caches for this thread from the last month, please help do so. 24MAY06 - 30JUN06

[Andrew Jameson]

Original page 210 of this thread:
(Dawno's post comes right after Duncan J Macdonald's post on 5/23, above, so nothing is missing, yet. Also I started doing this before I saw your request, UJ.)


I just wanted to bump this thread - the outpouring of concern about the possible loss of this thread alone, on dozens of blogs and in numerous comments over at Making Light, prove how valuable a resource this is. Thank you, Jim.


There wasn't that much stetted, Duncan -- even though the copy editor apparently was confused that a vessel could be described as both having twelve guns and having a broadside of six guns. (She's a sloop of war, special experimental construction, during the American Civil War.)

And Dawno -- thank you. I haven't yet been through this thread to be sure it's all here. The day will come, I'm sure. I've also heard from several people suggesting turning this thread into a book. I think I'll follow up on that.

(One place where I put up the tip jar, and mourned the loss of this thread, was here: http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/UncleJim.html Y'all can help support AW by buying a book from that page. The commisssions go to Jenna.)


Oh -- Dawno has made some nice Learn Writing with Uncle Jim tee-shirts. (http://www.cafepress.com/ohdawnos.59770619) (Available in a variety of colors and styles (http://www.cafepress.com/ohdawnos).)

Income from these shirts goes to support Absolute Write. Buy one! Better still, buy a dozen! They make excellent gifts....


Good to be back Jim, and that being said--writing question.

How to determine if you are keeping a handle on the word "had" in 3rd person fiction. If there is already a reference to it--just point me that way.

Thanks again for this thread Jim...invaluable.


Oh -- Dawno has made some nice Learn Writing with Uncle Jim tee-shirts. (Available in a variety of colors and styles.)

Income from these shirts goes to support Absolute Write. Buy one! Better still, buy a dozen! They make excellent gifts....


I had a look last night, Dawno. Very cool stuff! (My birthday's coming...)


How to determine if you are keeping a handle on the word "had" in 3rd person fiction. If there is already a reference to it--just point me that way.

The way I'd check on 'had' (or other words/word choices): Stand in your living room and read the book out loud. If something sounds funny to you, put a checkmark in the margin and move on. Smooth out those bits later.

Things that sound wrong -- probably are.



. I've also heard from several people suggesting turning this thread into a book. I think I'll follow up on that.

Definitely - Ive thought that many times myself. I look forward to it.


Thanks Jim...

And by the way, I too have thought this thread would make a good book. I thought it had been mentioned before. I look forward to it.



I've also heard from several people suggesting turning this thread into a book. I think I'll follow up on that.

Definitely - Ive thought that many times myself. I look forward to it.

Ditto. I'm more of a lurker on this thread, but I've printed out several portions and would find the book version quite valuable.

I'm so happy we didn't lose it.


oh happy day!

I've been receiving a few posts in my e-mail, but unable to get on the board. Thank you all, mods, etc., for posting and letting us know you were out there.

Thanks, Dawno. I need a way to express my support, and a new tote bag wouldn't hurt.

It's good to be back.


I've also heard from several people suggesting turning this thread into a book. I think I'll follow up on that.

Oh, please do! I've got a hard copy of my enormous Word file of this thread, but even printed double-sided it's overflowing a 5" notebook and I can barely lift it. A real book would be so handy.

Now I'm off to choose a goody (or two or three) from Dawno's grab bag ...


Great to see everything back, up and running. I almost forgot to breathe when it was all gone! Missed you all!


Oh, I missed this thread so much! It used to motivate me every day and I was lacking motivation the last week



Thanks, Dawno. I need a way to express my support, and a new tote bag wouldn't hurt.

Come to think of it, WorldCon is coming up...


Made my donation. Double posted about it on Jim's homepage-Oops.

Yes it is good to have this thread, and others back, and good to be back up.

A book about the information and questions in this thread? An outstanding idea. A best seller I'd bet. My ramblings are are all yours, Jim.

Ken


I would LOVE a book version. I've read chunks of this, as needed, but I have to admit the task of finding certain things archived in the many pages can be daunting. A book would be wonderful.


I made it through the first 12 pages of this thread just tonight and I have to say that by page three I saw a book in this. (Or several, depending on which aspects of the craft you're planning to discuss.)


A bit of a brag: Paul Melko (Viable Paradise VI), just sold a novel, Singularity's Rising, to Tor.



A bit of a brag: Paul Melko (Viable Paradise VI), just sold a novel, Singularity's Rising, to Tor.

Oh, Bravo! Congratulations to Paul!



A bit of a brag: Paul Melko (Viable Paradise VI), just sold a novel, Singularity's Rising, to Tor.

I'm seething with envy.

Congrats to Paul Melko, and to his teachers, too!



(One place where I put up the tip jar, and mourned the loss of this thread, was here: http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/UncleJim.html Y'all can help support AW by buying a book from that page. The commisssions go to Jenna.)

I'm curious--or maybe clueless. Did all the authors/copyright owners of these books have to give their permission to donate the proceeds? If so, how did you manage it? That's way cool.

If not, well, okay. Clueless.


Two things: first, elsewhere in AW I posted this, and I thought I'd share it here:

A writin' man walked out one day in a caffeine-powered funk
And by a postbox rested while he thought about his bunk
When all at once a mighty crowd of hopeful authors came
A-trailin' dreams of bylines and a bit of local fame.

Paragraph change! Paragraph STET! Ghost writers in the sky.

Their eyes were red, their hair uncombed, they all wore mismatched socks,
They fixed their hungry eyes upon that silent letter box.
Some had gone with Barb'ra Bauer, and others with ST,
And one of them had even signed with the Robins Agency.

Paragraph change! Paragraph STET! Ghost writers in the sky.

The authors most ignored him, but one tried to engage:
"If you want to save your soul from Hell a-scribblin' on a page,
Then writer change your ways today or someday you will be
Wond'ring why you never sold -- and why you paid a fee."

Paragraph change! Paragraph STET! Ghost writers in the sky.

-------------

Second, the question about cash from the Amazon book sales.

No, the authors didn't agree to anything. The way it works is this: if you have an Amazon Affilliate account, Amazon pays a percentage of any book sales they make that came to them through your link. Amazon gets a tiny bit less profit from the sale, but in return they get links to Amazon all over the Web. They figure it's a fair tradeoff.

Those books have Absolute Write's affiliate code on 'em -- so the commission paid by Amazon for the sales goes to AW.



There wasn't that much stetted, Duncan -- even though the copy editor apparently was confused that a vessel could be described as both having twelve guns and having a broadside of six guns. (She's a sloop of war, special experimental construction, during the American Civil War.)

Good. I was worried about a repeat of a certain Copy Edit From the Lower Entropy Plain.

[Andrew Jameson]

Original page 211 of this thread:

If you do decide to turn this into an actual book, I want three copies. One for home, one for the backpack and one for a friend.



I lurk in this thread a lot, but this is my first post. I think this thread would make an excellent book, I know I'd have a copy next to my computer at all times. Not to mention how nice it would be to have when internet access isn't always possible.

I do have a question regarding 400 pages=100,000 words. I wrote my first draft in Times New Roman, and before I decided to learn anything about writing I was curious about how many of my pages equal print pages. So I pulled out a random book on my shelf and found a page that had just as many line breaks as one of my pages, and proceeded to count every individual word from each (because I had that much time, thanks to writers block). My Times New Roman page only had 12 more words than the published book page. Since Courier New drastically reduces the amount of words per page, how does that work once the book is printed? If I turn in a 440 page manuscript, would the actual book only be around 300 pages (assuming it gets published)? I've been wondering about that for a while.

Thanks!


Roughly, yes. A manuscript page is about 250 words, a printed book page is somewhere between 300 and 400 (on average, could be different in either direction if the publisher wanted, though). So your 440 pages of manuscript is about 275 - 300 pages printed.

For more detail, you could try working through this example: http://alg.livejournal.com/77731.html#cutid2

It's a more difficult process, and the result you get will probably be no more accurate, but you can reassure yourself that it is the process used by an actual publisher.


The answer to the question "How many words are on the page in a printed book?" is "How many do you want?" The book's designer controls it and balances printing costs against readability.


George Orwell's rules of writing:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

They come from "Politics and the English Language (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm)." The sixth and last is especially important.



I'm having difficulty imagining a barbarous sentence as a result of the application of the first five, but nevertheless, I should tattoo these rules on my forearms.


Uncle Jim:

A question in technique. I'm in the middle of my WIP (~40K), and I'm sensing that I have too many characters--or, at least, too many characters that are all in the same place at the same time. This seems to make scenes awkward, because the scenes wind up being an interplay between four or five characters, and often the POV character remains more passive than I'd like.

So. How do I fix this? Ignore it, slog ahead, and try to reduce/combine characters during editing? Drop a few characters now, keep writing, and fix the previous scenes (with dropped characters) later? Physically split up the characters so they're not all in the same place? Use more characters as POV characters? De-emphasize some characters so that they're clearly spear carriers?


Andrew, do two or more of the characters serve the same purpose in the story? If so, combine them.

The viewpoint character does not have to be active, merely the best-suited to seeing the action in a given scene.

What are those scenes meant to accomplish? What's your overall story? Those things I can't answer. If you can see them clearly, then cut close and accomplish your purpose.



Andrew, do two or more of the characters serve the same purpose in the story? If so, combine them.

The viewpoint character does not have to be active, merely the best-suited to seeing the action in a given scene.

What are those scenes meant to accomplish? What's your overall story? Those things I can't answer. If you can see them clearly, then cut close and accomplish your purpose.

Whenever Uncle Jim pontificates, I hear the Go Rin No Sho, the Book of Five Rings, by Musashi Miyamoto.

"You cannot master this ability quickly. Learn what is written here: use this in everyday life and do not vary it whatever happens. "



Uncle Jim:

A question in technique. I'm in the middle of my WIP (~40K), and I'm sensing that I have too many characters--or, at least, too many characters that are all in the same place at the same time. This seems to make scenes awkward, because the scenes wind up being an interplay between four or five characters, and often the POV character remains more passive than I'd like.

So. How do I fix this? Ignore it, slog ahead, and try to reduce/combine characters during editing? Drop a few characters now, keep writing, and fix the previous scenes (with dropped characters) later? Physically split up the characters so they're not all in the same place? Use more characters as POV characters? De-emphasize some characters so that they're clearly spear carriers?

First the disclaimer: I'm not published.

In the first draft of my first SF novel, I had two characters that ended up getting cut because they essentially served no purpose other than taking up space. Another one of my characters (the protagonist, in fact) became an entirely different person to accommodate the change. He had to have a background that let the whole cast keep on truckin' when it came to the scene where the no-longer-existent characters imparted their one or two lines of much-needed wisdom.

As for those rules above, I don't think Stephen King ever read them. Well, that's not exactly true; he may have read them but he ignores tham flat-out. Every single one them. Even the sixth.

No disrespect meant, Uncle Jim. Your thread here has been an amazing help to me, and probably every person who has read it. I'm just in an anti-authoritarian mood right now and I'm attacking every set of rules I see.

I'd apologize to George Orwell, too, but he's dead and I didn't really like his books anyway.



Wow, this may be the first time I've ever said anything worth catching flak over.



As for those rules above, I don't think Stephen King ever read them. Well, that's not exactly true; he may have read them but he ignores tham flat-out. Every single one them. Even the sixth.

Gee, he never breaks the rules? Who'd a thunk?

The thing about writing rules is this: They aren't rules. They're guidelines. You do have to know where the lines are, but if you need to color outside of them, please do so. The master rule is if it works, it's right. Yes, you can break that rule too, but don't expect anyone but mom to love your story if you do.


I'm sorry, Uncle Jim, I was just being belligerent. It's a mood I sometimes get into and I start saying (or typing) things without thinking them through too well. But I have been noticing a lot of disregard for the rules in almost every book I've read lately, and the authors I've been reading aren't exactly pushovers in the writing world.


Uncle Jim,

I've often read you pontificating something along the lines of "if it works, do it" whether or not the writer in question was alledgedly breaking a rule. I hope you keep pontificating that particular nugget. I live by it... or write by it? Whichever.

But wouldn't you say that most newbie writers (and I include myself in this category) are all too willing to embrace that rule, while disregarding its reciprocal "if it doesn't work, don't use it"? What I mean is we're more than happy to break a rule when it makes sense, but when we create a line we absolutely love, or describe something at length that we regard as sheer poetic genius, or give a character a dialogue bit that makes us laugh out loud as we write it, we're less likely to have the cajones to cut it even though we know it doesn't work with respect to the entire piece, where we'll act the hero to break a rule when we think we can.

Would you say that this is the major difference between the published and the nearly-published-but-no-cigar? We--the downtrodden unpublished--embrace breaking rules when it is convenient, but fail to recognize them when we fall in love with our own words?


You have to know the rules, and how they work to break them in a way that works.

I think that's where new writers fail.

They haven't learned the skills needed to break those rules. I'm not just speaking of the ones above. There are many rules pertaining to the English language, sentence structure, POV, and on and on.

Not to mention showing a story instead of telling. Many new writers don't even know they are telling, but publishing editors do.

This is one profession that truly is OJT- on the job typewriting.

FWW. Ken



What I mean is we're more than happy to break a rule when it makes sense, but when we create a line we absolutely love, or describe something at length that we regard as sheer poetic genius, or give a character a dialogue bit that makes us laugh out loud as we write it, we're less likely to have the cajones to cut it
Eek! I've been found out.

I think you've described me perfectly. Though in my defense, I've got a scene up in SYW that started purple and has been substantially improved by following the advice of those who know more than I do. (It does hurt to cut out all that pretty prose, though, doesn't it?)

Maybe one of the biggest steps towards eventual publication is admitting that there could be a much better way to tell the story.


Uncle Jim, I'm querying about my novel now, and I mention the handful of short stories I've sold.

Thing is, most of those sales have been to one magazine. I think it's a *good* magazine (publishing my stories notwithstanding) but I wonder if it would look better if I had sales to several different markets.

Many sales to one market or to several markets or doesn't it matter?


My personal rule is, the three most recent/most prestigious sales. All to the same market, to different markets ... that doesn't matter to me. The idea is to show "I'm writing at a professional level; a professional sent me money."


I would think it would be a good thing to have multiple sales to a good magazine. It must mean your stories were well-received by the magazine's readership. Just by looking at a sales record like that, you would have to think that the stories worked out well for that publication; the next logical step would be to think, Hey, maybe that writer could work for me, too.


Thanks.


Good Evening
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like so many others, I have been reading this thread for some time and finally decided I should stop eavesdropping. I have been trying to catch up from the beginning but still have a couple of years to go. Over the past year I have looked in on several writer forums, but this is by far the best I've come across. The information disseminated by Uncle Jim is amazingly interesting and valuable.

I am 55 years old and am 50,000 words into a first novel that looks as if it will exceed the 100,000 word guideline. I have never had anything published, but have done some business writing. I don't have any writing experience or experise, so don't really have much to contribute. I'll be around, however, so if you ever want me for anything, just holler. I look forward to more of your insights and observations.


Welcome to the group and the thread, Wrinkles!

I wouldn't worry about being over the 100k mark on your first pass. You ought to be able to tighten it up nicely in editing. It's certainly better to have more than less when editing starts.


....That's a really lovely segue into my question. I wish all the threads worked so smoothly as that.

Right. My question: My current novel is going to come out around 150,000 words, when I'm done downloading everything I have to say onto the page, and I've reached where my story ends. This is terribly excessive, and I'm planning (all rough plans, of course) to have my novel tightened and humming at around 110, 120,000 words.

I guess I find myself curious how this will affect my chances of publishing. I hear a lot of people say that 80,000 (or in that vicinity) is a good range for a first time novel, and from what I generally see on shelves, this is broadly true.

I guess I'm just curious what you fine folk think. First novels, over-length, what happens?


Are all 120,000 words going to be the exactly right words?

Make the book the best you can ... then write another one.


I need some advice. When I originally wrote my novel, Rain I stretched it out over the course of the heroine's lifetime and had her telling the story as an old woman. Now that I am making it more active though, all this reminiscence doesn't seem appropriate and I'm thinking I should delete about twenty five pages as it deals with different stages of life and kind of takes away from the book having a climax and I also think I h ave too many events taking place and wonder if I should remove some of them and put them in another book. Somebody said somewhere it sounds like a soap opera and I have to admit I like things to happen when I am writing a book but is that a substitute for really developing the plot and characters?


"Things happen" is pretty much the definition of plot. More stuff happening is better (usually) than less stuff happening (unless you're Marcel Proust).

But ... when you say something takes away from the climax, that's a hint that maybe it doesn't belong in your book. Anything that doesn't move the story forward holds it back.

Cut ruthlessly. You'll still have the original version in case you need to go back and reinsert some scenes.

Then let it sit for a bit, read it out loud, do a re-write ... then hand it over to your beta readers.

And start a new book, while it's sitting.

[Andrew Jameson]

Original page 212 of this thread:


Thanks Jim. It makes sense.



....That's a really lovely segue into my question. I wish all the threads worked so smoothly as that.

Right. My question: My current novel is going to come out around 150,000 words, when I'm done downloading everything I have to say onto the page, and I've reached where my story ends. This is terribly excessive, and I'm planning (all rough plans, of course) to have my novel tightened and humming at around 110, 120,000 words.

I guess I find myself curious how this will affect my chances of publishing. I hear a lot of people say that 80,000 (or in that vicinity) is a good range for a first time novel, and from what I generally see on shelves, this is broadly true.

I guess I'm just curious what you fine folk think. First novels, over-length, what happens?

I guess it depends on your genre and which publisher you're aiming for. For science fiction and fantasy, it seems like 80,000 to 130,000 words is acceptable. Most publishers have suggested word count ranges in their guidelines. Baen, for instance, wants manuscripts between 100,000 and 130,000 words. DAW's guidelines suggest anything over 80,000 words. Tor, as far as I recall, doesn't list any specific word count suggestions, but most of their books are over 100,000 words as far as I can tell by looking at them on a bookshelf (some appear to exceed 200,000, but those aren't first novels).

I don't know much about other genres or markets. I would guess that most romances are right around 70,000 to 80,000 words; same with westerns. It looks like "mainstream" books are a little longer on average ... I would guess between 90,000 and 120,000 words.

It sounds to me like your book will be fine once you go through a few revisions.

But remember, word count isn't as important as having a good story. There have been some colossal first novels over the ages. There have been miniscule ones as well. Word count and quality are not dependent on one another. Usually, though, second drafts end up quite a bit shorter than rough drafts. My last manuscript came in at a hefty 180,000 words in rough draft. The second draft trimmed that down to 165,000 and I'm hoping to end up with 140,000 words by the final draft.



... Now that I am making it more active though, all this reminiscence doesn't seem appropriate and I'm thinking I should delete about twenty five pages as it deals with different stages of life and kind of takes away from the book having a climax and I also think I h ave too many events taking place and wonder if I should remove some of them and put them in another book. ...

Janet, I just love this sentence. I nearly asphyxiated reading it, but I love it anyway!

I'm now picturing you as that girl in Real Genius.


Thanks. I have to watch it when I'm writing or I'll run on sentences forever without taking a breath.


That's one of the reasons I recommend that you read your book out loud.



That's one of the reasons I recommend that you read your book out loud.
I hadn't thought about that, but it does make good sense.

This actually makes me think about something you and I talked about on this thread about, oh, two or three months ago. It was about my 57,000 word WIP that I was working on back then. You said that I should expand it by adding another plot, but I think I won't be needing to. As I read the words to the work out loud, I noticed that the writing was too compressed, and could easily be expanded just by making a better edit. It really is sad that I had already submitted it in the 57,000 word fashion. I'm wondering, Uncle Jim, if I should even submit it again after I truly finish it, because of this problem.

What do you think I should do when I get it all done?


I'm not hugely worried about it (I'm just worrying about writing it and finishing it, everything else comes later) I was just rather curious. It occured to me that a lot of the "comfortable at eighty thousand words" talk I hear is generally for romance and mainstream fiction. So I was jus' poking.

(Real Genius. Geeze. That's a long time ago.)



That's one of the reasons I recommend that you read your book out loud.
I always do. I enjoy it. I usually take my pages and go for a walk, probably much to the dismay of the people in my neighborhood.

My rule of thumb is, none of the passages (be them prose, be them dialogue) should sound like the sort of thing that a kid would say while telling a horror story to other kids around a camp fire. You've all seen the movies, where the one kid is very dramatically telling the story. My prose shouldn't be able to be spoken like that.

"He could feel the icey cold branches....on his neck....and he turned....to look....and then.....he SAW IT.....the hand of death."

You see?



What do you think I should do when I get it all done?
Submit it and start writing another book, silly.


"He could feel the icey cold branches....on his neck....and he turned....to look....and then.....he SAW IT.....the hand of death."

Oh, gee ... when did you get a look at my current WIP?



Submit it and start writing another book, silly.
Thanks, Uncle Jim. The reason I asked was that I thought it might be considered unprofessional to re-submit a work I've submitted before. But I admittedly don't know the business half as well as the average person here does.

Thanks again. I appreciate your help.


If you're submitting it to one of the same places again, either use a new title, or put in the cover letter that this is a substantially revised and expanded version.



That's one of the reasons I recommend that you read your book out loud.
That's so useful. Recently I read one of my stories at a con, and to my horror discovered that it dragged in the middle! At least I can fix it before it comes out.

Next time I'll do that BEFORE submitting.



If you're submitting it to one of the same places again, either use a new title, or put in the cover letter that this is a substantially revised and expanded version.
Cool! I'll be sure to do that. Probably I'll make up a new title for it; I need to change a few words, anyway.

Thanks for your help, Uncle Jim.


Disclaimers in manuscripts?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even though this is a long way off, if I don't ask it now I'll forget to later.

My WIP is historical fiction and I will be deliberately combining several theories involving astrology that did not, in fact, happen at the same time. I plan to have a disclaimer to that effect telling the reader that this is a deliberate mistake.

Would I include that disclaimer as a preface in a manuscript being sent to an agent or publisher?


I'm a bit unclear on what exactly you mean.


Sorry about that. Example:

"There are several theories about what the Star of Bethlehem really was. Some say a comet, a planet, a supernova or astrological observations that had no physical reality. This is a work of fiction that combines all of those theories into a time frame that is not historically accurate."

Would that paragraph be included in a manuscript that I am sending out to a publisher? Not in the query letter, in the actual manuscript either on page one before the words "Chapter One" or at the end.


It's a work of fiction, right? Are you 100% sure that some lone genius in the year 1214 didn't put 'em all together?

I wouldn't put in a notice about that. Novels aren't meant to be textbooks.

Now it's true that readers of, say, historical romances will snark at you if you have your characters waltzing two years before the dance was introduced in a particular area, and firearms enthusiasts will wax wroth if you give your Colt Commander .45 semi-automatic pistol right-hand rifling ... unless the point of your story was What If the Waltz Had Been Introduced Early or What If the .45 Had A Right-Hand Twist? "What If" is one of the great story-generating engines.

You might want to read a couple of alternate histories.


Okay.

I'm coming down to the end of my current work. I'm writing, or trying to write the final battle scene and climax. I know that the shorter the sentence, the faster the action will seem to move.

Are there any methods I can use to really spice up the battle scene. AKA, create mayhem, increase the volumn of the clash in the readers mind, sense of ergency, feelings of fear of losing the battle for the side I've allied the reader with?

Thanks in advance.

Ken


Short scenes.

Dialog.


The parts that I'm fudging will cause any astronomers, astrologers and serious students of Roman/Jewish history in the audience to cry "Those were ten years apart, not at the same time!"

However, point taken. I'll argue timeline validity only if I have to and not worry about it beforehand.

As always, the help is appreciated. Thank you.



The parts that I'm fudging will cause any astronomers, astrologers and serious students of Roman/Jewish history in the audience to cry "Those were ten years apart, not at the same time!"

While the author probably shouldn't make too many research mistakes, it's perfectly fine if your characters get things wrong. And would it be surprising for one or more of them not to be aware of a scientific theory proposed ten years before?

It's the opposite of what UJ suggested, so take it with a grain.

I have my characters make mistakes all the time, sometimes for a smile, and sometimes because they're just human.


POV and tense

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Forgive me if this is a question that has been addressed before, but if so I don't remember seeing it. I am an inexperienced writer of fiction, approximately halfway in to the first draft of a first novel. I am using first person POV and, usually, past tense. But on occasion, it seems to me that the narrator would switch to present tense if the situation being described extends into the present. For example:

"I spoke to him frankly because he is my best friend, and I knew that he would want me to."

I also tend to use adverbs, sentence fragments, begin sentences with conjunctions and end them with prepositions, and sometimes put commas before conjunctions, and sometimes not, but those are issues for other posts. Does anyone else struggle with this tense thing? Again, forgive me if the answer is obvious and I have revealed myself as a simpleton for asking.


Re: POV and tense

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am using first person POV and, usually, past tense. But on occasion, it seems to me that the narrator would switch to present tense if the situation being described extends into the present. For example:

"I spoke to him frankly because he is my best friend, and I knew that he would want me to."
I would say books in first person POV are usually in the past tense. The protagonist is narrating a story to someone else, or writing a diary/journal, about something in the past. I find narration in the present tense combined with first person POV odd. e.g. I speak to him frankly because he is my best friend, and I know that he would want me to.

Unless your story is really set in the past, that is, it has already happened, you could consider telling it in third person POV. Is there a reason why you cannot write "I spoke to him frankly because he was my best friend..."?

regards,
Paritosh.


Please, don't mix tenses.

Of course, you can do anything at all in dialog -- it reveals character.

If it's vital that the readers know that Fred is still the narrator's best friend, you could say something like:

"He was my best friend -- still is."

Or, you could fudge it:

"He's my best friend."

Ask yourself if it's important that the readers know that this person not only was but still is the narrator's friend. Ask yourself if the readers care. Be ruled accordingly.


RE: POV and Tense

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Paritoshuttam:

Because the fact that he is the narrator's best friend isn't an occurrence that happens only in the past. It extends into the present and hopefully into the future. That's the way it seems to me, anyway. Another example that puts the tense change in different sentences would be:

"Rick and I went to see our beloved Mugwumps play the Rammerjammers last Friday night. The Rammerjammers are (instead of were) our biggest rivals, dating back to the night twenty-five years ago when a possibly inebriated Mugwump fan, irate over a close loss, threw and hit the Rammerjammer coach with a dead opossum."

To Uncle Jim:

I agree with your advice and appreciate your input. I realize that changing the tenses could result in some awkward-sounding sentences. I intend to try to keep it to a minimum, but I think I am going to include a few and see if someone at some future time makes me change them.

[Andrew Jameson]

Oringinal page 213 of this thread:


I fear that those sentences do, indeed, sound awkward. Please think very carefully before mixing tenses.


How do you end a novel? Do you just write "The End" or do one of these, "<the end>"? And how far down should the end be from the last sentance on the page?


I usually write "The End" after a linebreak.

But ... if the agent or editor is still with you by then, you could put Anythnig At All there (to show that a page didn't get lost) and it'll work.



"Rick and I went to see our beloved Mugwumps play the Rammerjammers last Friday night. The Rammerjammers are (instead of were) our biggest rivals, dating back to the night twenty-five years ago when a possibly inebriated Mugwump fan, irate over a close loss, threw and hit the Rammerjammer coach with a dead opossum."

That reads well to me, but only as a flashback/anecdote in a present-tense narrative, or serving the same purpose in dialogue.

That is, if you were to lead into that paragraph with something like this:

"So Rick and I are wandering around downtown, and suddenly he freezes and I'm like, 'What?' and he's like, 'No way!' and he's pointing at a newspaper headline that says the Mugwumps pitcher died last night. We're both in shock, just staring at that headline. I mean, Rick and I saw them beat the Rammerjammers in a total shut-out just last Friday night..."

But then, inserting a flashback into the narrative isn't tense-mixing in the same way that Uncle Jim's warning about.

Now, if that paragraph were in a past-tense narrative, with just that one sentence of present tense sticking out, I'd agree that it doesn't work. What it does is jars me out of my comfortable assumption that I've been reading a past-tense story and suddenly forces me to adjust to the expectation we're in present tense--the narrator's present, in which the Mugwumps still are his favorite team, is supposed to be part of the story, when up until now only his past, in which the Mugwumps were his favorite team, had been in the narration-window for me.

...does that make sense?



Because the fact that he is the narrator's best friend isn't an occurrence that happens only in the past. It extends into the present and hopefully into the future. That's the way it seems to me, anyway.
Non-genre, I've seen this used to good effect with a certain type of narrator, like:


Trenton, the capital city of New Jersey, has seen better days. That said, beautiful architecture abounds. Handsome brick townhouses, no more sinister than the oak trees that line the wide roads, make up the majority of the Mill Hill neighborhood's residences.

It was into one of these townhouses that Carmina Burona disappeared. She never made it out.


For me, that sort of treatment gives an "I've been there" sort of feel to the narrator--a story he's telling through acquired research or eyewitness interpretations, or direct participation. It works particularly well in oral storytelling.

I'm not sure it works with written specfic, because the reader knows it's impossible for the narrator to have been there; a first-person narrative is one thing, but there's cognitive dissonance if one reads something like:


Imeletz, the capital city of the Qhorth Continuum, has seen better days. That said, beautiful architecture abounds. Handsome steelstone townhouses, no more sinister than the fladger trees that line the wide roads, make up the majority of the Eyver District's residences.

It was into one of these townhouses that Carmina Burona disappeared. She never made it out.



I think the same would apply to continuing relationships in specfic; it's simply not possible for Aynish to be friends with Gruu, and the reader knows it, because they don't exist and can't. Which isn't to say it'll be fatal, but it might put a bump in the reader's perceptions.

There's probably an exception to this in alt-history, magical realism, and contemporary fantasy...

Just a thought, nothing I've pondered deeply, but it seems to resonate. I'm willing to hear why I'm wrong

-j



I usually write "The End" after a linebreak.

But ... if the agent or editor is still with you by then, you could put Anythnig At All there (to show that a page didn't get lost) and it'll work.

Thanks! I can only hope that an agent will get that far.



Thanks! I can only hope that an agent will get that far.
I always write "You're still reading, Praise Allah, and I will name my first-born son after you!"

They never write back.

So strange.


First Person POV and Tense

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Thank you Uncle Jim, jdparadise, NicoleJLeBoeuf and Paritosh for your excellent advice that I should not mix past and present tense with first person POV. I appreciate the time you spent in trying to set me straight. You have made persuasive and erudite arguments and I have learned a lot from your posts. But, I'm afraid I can't help myself. In the last few days I've done it again, more than once I have to admit, even as you were urging me not to. It looks like I'm not going to be able to resist the temptation. I hope I'm not being self-destructive.

If you aren't too disgusted with my weakness, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts concerning the literary/commercial novel dichotomy, assuming there is such a dichotomy. Can a literary novel be a commercial success nowadays? Given my limited expectations, I define commercial success as getting published. And just what the heck makes a literary novel literary anyhow?



But, I'm afraid I can't help myself. In the last few days I've done it again, more than once I have to admit, even as you were urging me not to. It looks like I'm not going to be able to resist the temptation. I hope I'm not being self-destructive.

Wrinkles, if you're going to make mistakes, they should be your own. Make bold mistakes, if you have to make any at all, and make them willfully, not in ignorance.

If you are determined to mix tenses, go for it. I hope you can do it to great effect.



But, I'm afraid I can't help myself. In the last few days I've done it again, more than once I have to admit, even as you were urging me not to. It looks like I'm not going to be able to resist the temptation. I hope I'm not being self-destructive.

:: grin ::

As you will; it's no skin off my nose, and it might be a thing of wonder to behold.

I'll ask this, though. I tend to write with a rule in mind for my final drafts: I try never to leave anything in the text that I can't justify as having a specific intended effect on the reader.

To that point, what's the effect you're hoping to have on the reader by mixing the tenses? How will mixing tenses help you toward that goal? Is it the best tool for the job, or is there another way you could better achieve it?

If the answer is "I dunno, it just feels right," you might want to look at it again when you get to draft 2 and beyond. If you have a reasoned approach to it and can't think of a better way to do it, it may well belong there...

G'luck!

-j


"I dunno, it just feels right" is the place where you should be when writing. Your subconscious will guide you; your characters come to life and surprise you; the right ending (as opposed to the one you planned) will appear.

Meanwhile:

Saturday I saw a Reader's Theatre (minimal sets and costumes, actors have the script in their hands and read it) performance of G. B. Shaw's How He Lied To Her Husband. (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext02/lied210.txt)

May I recommend it to everyone here as a wonderful example of Not A Word Wasted? This is a one-act farce, and carries itself marvelously a hundred years after it was first produced.



"I dunno, it just feels right" is the place where you should be when writing. Your subconscious will guide you; your characters come to life and surprise you; the right ending (as opposed to the one you planned) will appear.

I respectfully submit that there may be a difference between what you're talking about here and what I was talking about above; I've found (with my own stuff, and everyone varies) that my intuition is much more trustworthy with respect to characters and plot than it is with respect to technical decisions on things such as POV and similar mechanics. My suggestion was for analysis of the mechanics of the piece, rather than the plot or characters, fwiw.


question

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I dunno, it just feels right" is the place where you should be when writing. Your subconscious will guide you; your characters come to life and surprise you; the right ending (as opposed to the one you planned) will appear.

Jim, do you think that the your past experiences have honed this skill to be able to rely confidently on your "it feels right" senses?

Is so, are there exercises that you do or did that helped this?

thanks so much for replying.


I write because I have to. Otherwise the desire to do so wouldn't let me do anything else.



Is so, are there exercises that you do or did that helped this?

I retyped a heck of a lot of other writers' published material, to get the feel of it into my hands.



I retyped a heck of a lot of other writers' published material, to get the feel of it into my hands.

What did you take away from the experience, Jim?



I retyped a heck of a lot of other writers' published material, to get the feel of it into my hands.

Before reading the earlier pages of this thread, where you suggested that, it never would have occured to me to do that. I've done it several times now, and it's a great deal of fun. I'll re-type American Gods' first chapter and find myself admiring how not a word goes to waste....or I'll read the first chapter over several times, and then try to write it only from what's in my head, and see how close I come out. Usually, I get the same meaning, but in my own words.

As for writing what "feels right..." if you don't, in the first draft, then aren't you being dishonest? And isn't the biggest rule of writing honesty to yourself, your story, your reader?


I retyped a heck of a lot of other writers' published material, to get the feel of it into my hands.

I've done this on occasions, too, and really benefited from it. There's something very different about TYPING out a page, as opposed to just reading it, for learning how the author did what he/she did. If nothing else, it slows you down, so you're concentrating on every single word, instead of skimming and getting caught up in the story and missing the craft.

It's an especially good exercise if there's a TYPE of scene (for me, it was the sex scenes in romance, but it could also be a first scene or last scene or climactic scene or action scene or -- you pick one) that's eluding you, and I usually recommend finding three examples from different authors that are widely considered masters of that type of scene, and then typing all three in a row. You may find that there are patterns or commonalities or even distinct differences among them that will be useful to your own writing.

JD



What did you take away from the experience, Jim?

Where and how characters are introduced, paragraph rhythm, word-choice, punctuation ... if you try to write like your favorite author, you won't, exactly, because you're different people, but your own writing will be better.

When you're training for the race, it helps that your training partner is a bit faster than you, because that way you'll really stretch your legs.


It was great fun last Christmas doing the excercise U.J. offered.

Another excercise, Jim?

Or a line by line, of a page or two, from something current or not so,that I can learn from?

Ken.


On paragraphs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I noitced you mentioned paragraph rhythms. Can you give us an overview of how you use these effectively in your stories? I know there is much that can be accomplished by the way we construct our paragraphs and how we handle the timing and flow, but I feel somewhat behind in this area. If I missed the exercises and posts in this thread, let me know and I'll go back and look again.

awp


Thanks to Uncle Jim and others from a Newbie

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Currently I am on Page 110 of 210 pages of this thread. IOW, I still have a LONG way to go.

I cannot express to you how much this thread has really helped me. I am practicing BIC, doing Uncle Jim's Assignments as I can (only two completed so far, but have requested books, movies, magazines, searched for anthology submission requests, read guidelines, etc.), and read the breakdowns of Chapter 1s.

Because of you all, I have even worked up the courage to post Chapter 1 of my WIP (YA - Christian) at http://absolutewrite.com/forums/show...968#post678968

Now, I am off to read, write and do more homework. I will get this novel (novella?? - don't know yet) finished before the end of the year!



Now, I am off to read, write and do more homework. I will get this novel (novella?? - don't know yet) finished before the end of the year!

Go, you!



There's something very different about TYPING out a page, as opposed to just reading it, for learning how the author did what he/she did.

It's a very enlightening experience to type out a chapter of your favorite book. I did it with a book I've read several times, so I was familiar with the words. I couldn't believe how different it became when I was typing it. The craft behind it leaped out. I think this is one of the best of Uncle Jim's assignments (of those I've finished, that is).

Jo



It's a very enlightening experience to type out a chapter of your favorite book. I did it with a book I've read several times, so I was familiar with the words. I couldn't believe how different it became when I was typing it. The craft behind it leaped out. I think this is one of the best of Uncle Jim's assignments (of those I've finished, that is).
Jo

Conversely, it's also really interesting to do it with a really, really bad book. I did it with this really horrible book about the adventures of young authors H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, and their adventures to stop that great beast, Cthulu. Terrible, horrible book.

Typing out the first chapter taught me so much about why we avoid adversbs, bad commas, bad dialogue, and bad dialogue tags...

(MSN's cache, dated June 30, ends here.)

[James D. Macdonald]

Thanks, Andrew.

The remaining three days, where I reveal the Next Big Thing, the Secret Handshake, and Five Things Editors Don't Want You To Know, must remain forever shrouded in silence.

Those who read them in time ... see you on the best seller list.

[aertep]

Thanks, Andrew.

The remaining three days, where I reveal the Next Big Thing, the Secret Handshake, and Five Things Editors Don't Want You To Know, must remain forever shrouded in silence.

Those who read them in time ... see you on the best seller list.


I didn't read them in time. I've been away because if I spend too much time here I don't write.

However, for the past week I lurked and caught up--Andrew, thanks for finding all this stuff. I had read it, but for the last three days I haven't been able to get onto AW or the forums, so I missed out on The Secret Handshake, etc. However, I can add to the missing info: a message came to my inbox from Pee Dee on June 30th. From the context, I'm guessing he was talking about typing first chapters from favorite books:

"Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
Conversely, it's also really interesting to do it with a really, really bad book. I did it with this really horrible book about the adventures of young authors H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, and their adventures to stop that great beast, Cthulu. Terrible, horrible book.

Typing out the first chapter taught me so much about why we avoid adversbs, bad commas, bad dialogue, and bad dialogue tags..."

(I can attest to the horribleness of the book.)
--------------------------------------------------

This came in 7/2 from alaskamatt17:

"Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
Wow, it sounds like a lot of people are making great progress on their novels here. I haven't been doing much in that respect ... just working on the same chapter for over a week now. My mind keeps veering off course on short story ideas, and I've always been one to oblige my mind. The novel is still moving forward, albeit slowly."

--------------------------------------------------

Not exactly a Google cache, but the best I can offer.

I've been trying to get onto the forums ever since PeeDee's message came in. I wanted to tell you that I finished draft 2 of my novel. I'm setting it aside for the summer so it can stew. It's WAY too long, which is fine, because I think I know where to cut. I hope Draft 3 will be the last, but I know better than to predict.

Thank you all. I had to trade my AW forum time for BIC time, but I did check in and read. Maybe I'll get to participate a little more now, at least until it's time to start Draft 3.

[HConn]

Thanks, Andrew.

The remaining three days, where I reveal the Next Big Thing, the Secret Handshake, and Five Things Editors Don't Want You To Know, must remain forever shrouded in silence.

Those who read them in time ... see you on the best seller list.

:ROFL:

Andrew, can you find my missing prestige points, too?

lol

[Andrew Jameson]

There we go. I found an MSN cache that filled in the piece of page 212 that Google was missing, as well as extending p. 213 through June 30th. I pasted the new info in the appropriate places above. Unfortunately, the cache still ends just before UJ reveals the Next Big Thing, the Secret Handshake, and Five Things Editors Don't Want You To Know, but hey, something's better than nothing.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Well, I just now got what I deserved.

After mouthing off as though I actually Knew What I Was Talking About or something on the issue of mixing tenses, I read some peer critiques of a short story of mine and found that I am absolutely not immune from the problem.

The story is in first person present tense. Sort of. Which is to say, it takes the form of a diary. (One critter referred to the main character as a blogger, which made me grin in a befuddled way.) So, it could all be read as one long first person present tense monologue. But of course she chronicles events in the past tense. So you get paragraphs that do this sort of thing:

"So event X was happening, and I was wishing I had object Y with me. I have a whole bunch of 'em--character B makes them for me everytime we meet up, he does L and M and N all the time--and having one of those along would have helped..."

That sort of tense mixing. Past tense anecdote mixed with present tense descriptions of characters and their habitual actions.

I swear I went back to the draft with an open mind about this sort of thing--if more than one critter said it was a problem, I understand it means there really is a problem, although its nature and solution may not be exactly what they say it is (thanks to this thread and Uncle Jim for the maxim "if they tell you how to solve it, they're probably wrong" running around in my head). But every time I reread the paragraph in question, it sounds right to me. It sounds exactly how a person would narrate an event and insert asides about the characters in her diary, or over a beer at the bar to her best friends.

Right now I'm mainly rewriting from the point of view of A) put in things that need to be in the story, and B) clean up clumsy bits of narration (too-long sentences and the like). I'm hoping that having swept those infelicites away will make it easier for the mixed-tense anecdotes to feel as right to a reader as they do to me. Or else the act of cleaning them up will push me into rewriting those bits in a way that work without mixed tenses.

I do share Wrinkle's worry that having a character talk about her best friend in the past tense makes it sound like the character is no longer her best friend, or the best friend no longer matches the description, or that the best friend has in fact shuffled off this mortal coil and is best described in the past tense for that reason.

[jules]

if more than one critter said it was a problem, I understand it means there really is a problem, although its nature and solution may not be exactly what they say it is

I'm not so sure, particularly if your multiple critters are all writers and the problem is that you're straying outside of a set of rather narrow rules, which "don't mix tenses" is definitely a part of.

If writers are telling you that a technique you've used is wrong, but you're not sure you agree with them, ask some non-writing readers as well. If the readers don't spot a problem, then it's probably just writer pickiness.

[jayxwolf]

I'd say I'm with jules on this one-- ultimately it sounds a little like nitpicking, which is pretty common between writers....

the ultimate aim of the writer is clarity of meaning, not how grammatically proper you can be (though it does factor in, as understanding of grammar improves your potential to write clearly, and so on).

I think I'd pass it by a few nonwriters as well and see what they think. ultimately the reading public has to be able to get your drift. Even the editor-- and I'd argue that an editor is a reader first and foremost, after all. ;-)

~j

[wrinkles]

Well, I feel sort of bad for opening a proverbial can of worms about this tense thing. I do feel better, though, that I am not the only one struggling with it. So, did your Beta readers have a problem with it? I hate to hear that. The passage read just fine to me.

It sounds as if I am writing something similar to what you describe. In my case a novel narrated by a woman (even though I am a man) writing about recent events in her life. To give you an idea of the way it is going, I have posted the first chapter in the Share Your Work section, Literary subgroup. I have called it a Wrinkle in Time so you can find it, but it is not about time travel. The tense changes from present to past and back again and again.

I chose the literary subgroup because I really didn't know where to put it. The novel is not science fiction or fantasy, although it does have elements of the supernatural. Southern Gothic might describe it best.

I asked Uncle Jim earlier if he would talk about literary fiction: just what that term means and maybe give some examples of novels that are both literary and commercial. Would Dune be an example of a novel that is both? I hope he will still do that at some point.

Anyway, please take a look at Chapter 1 if you would. It is short and serves as an introduction to the book. I would especially appreciate it if Uncle Jim could find the time to read it, but I know he is very busy.

[James D. Macdonald]

Dialog is privileged. That means that you can do anything at all in dialog.

Dune was science fiction. The difference between "literary" and "commercial" is the label that the publisher puts on the spine.

I've gotten burned every time I've commented on works over in Share Your Work, so, alas, I must decline.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Thanks for the vote of confidence on that paraphrase--I'm beginning to think that the actual para that the critters were commenting on was clumsily put together, just on a sentence-structure level, and some of my critters were pinpointing the tense-change as the reason they had trouble reading it (what with "never mix tenses" possibly ingrained in their minds), when the real problem was just really long rambly sentences and parenthetical asides galore (much like this paragraph right here).

I also have to go with Uncle Jim's comment that "dialogue is privileged", and just hope that the way the story is written, it will all be understood as dialogue. Well, monologue. Diary entries.

I've been noticing this sort of thing in both narrative and dialogue in things I've read these past couple days. I sorta speed-burned through Pratchett's Wee Free Men and Hat Full of Sky, and he does present-tense asides all the time in his narration. It reads very cleanly and naturally to me when he does it. Not to compare my story to his novels, of course, but it's always reassuring to see an example of what I'm trying to do in a published and celebrated book.

[James D. Macdonald]

I'd remembered writing this post -- but couldn't find it. At last, this morning, it turned up on a search for something else. So here, moved from another AW thread, is: Reserve Against Returns!

===============

The question is probably going to come up, so I might as well explain it now.

When a normal publisher publishes a book, and it's offered for sale through bookstores, that book isn't really sold until it goes out the door under a customer's arm. The other books are returned, to make way for still newer releases.

So ... how does the publisher handle paying royalties when the publisher doesn't know how many will come back to the warehouse?

This is handled with a process called "reserve against returns." The reserve is the number that you don't get paid for, just in case they come back.

Publishers don't tell you exactly what their reserves are -- but as it happens I know at least one publisher uses this formula:

The first royalty period after the book is released, the reserve against returns is 100%. Maybe they printed 30,000 copies, and maybe bookstores ordered 20,000 of them -- but they aren't going to cut a check to you for royalties on 20,000 copies. They assume that ever single one of them will be returned.

Let's say that royalty months are April and November (which again is pretty standard). Let's say the book came out in July, that the cover price is $10, and the royalty rate is 10%. And let's say the author gets a $5,000 advance against 10%. (I'm choosing these numbers for ease of math, not because they're necessarily real.)

And let's say that 10,000 copies sold (actually went out the door with customers, 30% sell-through) of the 20,000 that shipped.

Right, then.

Comes November, and those 10,000 copies would be a $5,000 check for Joe Author ($10,000 in royalties minus the $5,000 advance) but he gets a royalty statement showing $0.00 due, because of the reserve against returns.

At this particular publisher the reserve against returns is 100% in the first royalty period, and 75% in the second. And let's say that another 5,000 copies of Joe's book sold in the six months from November through April. So ... Joe would have $15K coming, but .... reserve against returns is 75%, so only $3,750 is credited to him. Subtract that from the advance, and his royalty statement says that he still has $1,250 in unearned advance.

From May through October, books get returned by one bookstore, ordered by another, and an additional 5,000 that have gone out the bookstore door in a shopping bag.

Total actually sold, to date: 20,000 (66% sell-through). This time around the publisher's reserve against returns is 25%. 25% of 20,000 is 5,000 books. So the publisher only reports a total to date of 15,000 sold, for total royalties of $15,000, minus the $3,750 already credited to him, minus the $1,250 in unearned advance, so Joe gets a check for $10,000. Happy day! He's earned out!

Now in the fourth royalty period after the book came out, the reserve against returns is 0%. Books have gone out, been returned, been redistributed, sold, and another 5,000 have been bought and paid for by readers.

So far: 25,000 sold. Royalties due, $25,000. Finally, we've gotten out from under the dead horse. In April two years after his book came out, Joe Author gets paid $25,000 minus the $10,000 he was already paid, for a nice $15,000 royalty check.

After this, the reserve against returns continues at 0% -- if 5,000 books ship during those six months, the publisher pays royalties for 5,000. (And by this point they have a pretty fair idea of how many will sell, because they have a history, and at this point, with 25,000 sold out of an initial press run of 30,000 (83% sell-through) they'll probably have gone back to press. Do you know what a 100% sell-through means? It means the publisher didn't print enough copies.)

So, reserve against returns at this one publisher: 100%, 75%, 25%, 0%. It takes you two solid years to get to the place where you're getting royalties as they happen. Normally, since you got an advance, this isn't that major a problem. You're living off the advance while the reserve against returns is catching up. It protects the publisher, and you do want to protect the publisher: If they stay in business that means they'll buy more of your books.

(Among other unrealistic things in this story: I set the advance low for a book that was going to be printed in those numbers. I wanted to show a book earning out because I'm a sucker for happy endings.)

[LloydBrown]

Thanks, Uncle Jim. You saved me from making an ASSumption.

[allenparker]

Thanks, Andrew.

The remaining three days, where I reveal the Next Big Thing, the Secret Handshake, and Five Things Editors Don't Want You To Know, must remain forever shrouded in silence.

Those who read them in time ... see you on the best seller list.

I'm going to feel real silly sitting on the best seller's list without knowing the Secret Hand Shake.



Maybe I can trade Jim the Ancient Chinese Secret for cleaner laundry in exchange for a secret hand shake, although I usually prefer chocolate. The fingernails get caught in my throat.

[Nangleator]

I remember reading that post, UJ, and I appreciate you finding it again.

I have some questions, though I'm not sure how easy it is to answer them.

What percentage of books earn back their advance?
For an average professional writer (yeah, there probably isn't an average...) what percentage earns out?
Is the first incidence of not earning out the last time the publisher will work with the author?
Do the big names ever have books that don't earn out?

[James D. Macdonald]

What percentage of books earn back their advance?

Don't know exactly, but my guess would be around a quarter of them.

For an average professional writer (yeah, there probably isn't an average...) what percentage earns out?

Probabaly about a quarter of them.

Is the first incidence of not earning out the last time the publisher will work with the author?

Gracious no! Publishers start showing a profit long before earn-out. The usual thing is for the publisher to try to guess how many will sell, and try to set the advance equal to the total expected royalties. That way they don't have to run around cutting checks every six months. The payments to the author are the smallest part of the book's expenses.

The system is designed so that most books won't earn out. That 25% represents when the publisher guessed wrong.

(And what does not earning out mean to you, as an author? Just that you were paid for your sales at a higher-than-contracted-for royalty rate.)


Do the big names ever have books that don't earn out?


Sure. All the time. Unless the advance is negotiated low (usually for tax purposes, to spread the income out into multiple years).

[Nangleator]

Thanks for the reply.

...my guess would be around a quarter of them.
I was under the impression that only a small fraction of books showed a profit for the publisher. It's encouraging to hear it might be that percentage or higher.

[Allynegirl]

I posted my greetings before the board went down, so hello again. I am still only at Page 132 out of 180.

Thanks to Uncle Jim and the other writers for their wonderful insight.

I would like to post my assignments as they are completed, if no one has an objection. Let me know and I will edit them out.

This is the first.

Assignment Eighteen
Bake a lime pie.


What are the definitions of:

“A soft peak”
“Lemon-colored” – my yolks were orange, never got to what I think of “lemon” yellow
“Very thick”

It turned out okay – edible, but too sweet for me, too limey for husband.

Inspired, I have written a short, short story (approx. 680 words), dark humor. What do you think?

Here I am. Not so unattractive a guy as to have to keep a girl like her by my side. She is beautiful, but needful and subservient. She is an unintelligent bore and so clingy. She will suffocate me to death, of that I am sure. Breaking our relationship is out of the question, though I have tried to imply it was time to move on. Her brothers’ body language conveys that it would be bad for my health to continue in that vain. Which would be worse though? Which condition would be less painful– to be stifled and suffocated or to be broken and bleeding? I have to think of a way out without incurring either.

As I move through my days, I ponder the question. Could I run away? No, my career is a good one. It pays the bills and allows me to play. Unfortunately, because of her brothers’ watchful eyes, I can only play with her. Most people couldn’t understand; they only look on the outside – at her beauty. Inside, she is a murderer waiting to happen. She kills the life inside me. I must be free before my spirit is quashed. What is it that I must do? I must get away. I must stay alive. I must avoid detection by the brothers. My head hurts with trying to figure it out.

After weeks of telling her the things she wants to hear, of taking boring walks along the train tracks, of listening to her talk about our future, of pretending our relationship works for me, the fog cleared and this image took its place – a headstone with her name on it. My chest tightened in fear, but also excitement. How could this be accomplished?

It’s not as if I wasn’t provided with an arsenal of ideas. All that needs to be done is to turn on the television and pick a scenario. The problem was the brothers. Murders must have no witnesses, no evidence, and no motive to truly be gotten away with. I didn’t want to be the prime suspect and go through a trial. No, that wouldn’t work in this small, one bus-stop town. It would get me fired, drag my name through the mud and make any future prospects wary.

After multitudes of weapons and various uses of said items have been thought of and rejected, I have come to the conclusion it would be better to make it look like an accident. Drowning? I daydream: row out into a mist enshrouded lake, sing to her, overturn the boat, she drowns. Unfortunately, no mist enshrouded lakes are around; I can’t sing; why would the boat overturn; also, she is good swimmer. I would probably drown instead. I shake my head dismissing the idea and go back to the drawing board hampered by my limited creativity.

A week later with many ideas thought of and rejected, I have an epiphany. A fall would be the best way; oh yes, it would. Opportunities abound around this town. She is into outdoor sports, but not I. I fear the heights, though to be free of her I will conquer this phobia. Should I express an interest in rock climbing? I shudder at the thought. The train trestles above the gorge could be what I need. She loves a walk along the tracks. Add to that the thrill of possible danger, my suggestion would surprise her and keep her innocent of my intentions.

After running the scenario through my head numerous times, I realized it was time. The plan was set. Perfect, it was. All I need now was to find her. Three o’clock, time for her mid-day coffee. No sooner did I see the cafe then she appeared exiting the door. What luck, the brothers are absent! I whistled to her from the opposite curb. She smiled at me and waved with excitement, then hurried into the street. My freedom would soon be a reality.

She didn’t see the bus that ran her over. At first, I looked upon the scene in dismay, then with a smile and the thought: Yeah, that works.

I have figured out Uncle Jim is right. The story wrote itself. To add anything to it would be to change the story itself. It is what it is. Did it turn out good? Bad? Edible?

Thank goodness, it is okay to write crap. :ROFL: