Advanced English Writing Curriculum

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What Is The Secret of Good Writing?

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO GOOD WRITING?
by Lu Xun

A REPLY TO THE MAGAZINE 'THE DIPPER'

Dear Sir,

You should have addressed your question to American writers or Chinese professors in Shanghai, whose heads are full of "rules of writing" and "the art of writing fiction." Though I have written a score or so of short stories I have never had any set views on the subject, in much the same way as I can speak Chinese but could never write AN INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE GRAMMAR. But since you did me the honour of consulting me, here are a few tips from my experience:

1. Take an interest in everything and see as much as you can. Don't write as soon as you have seen a little.

2. Don't force yourself to write when not in the mood.

3. Don't choose definite models for your characters, but create them out of all that you have seen.

4. Read your story through at least twice after finishing it, and ruthlessly cut all words, phrases and sections that are not essential. It is better to compress the material for a story into a sketch than to stretch the material for a sketch into a story.

5. Read foreign stories, especially those of Eastern and Northern Europe, as well as Japanese works.

6. Never make up adjectives or phrases that no one else can understand.

7. Never believe any talk about "rules of writing."

8. Never trust Chinese "literary critics," but read the works of reliable foreign critics.

That is all I can say on this subject.

I send you my greetings!

Lu Xun
December 27, 1931
 

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Writing Class III: John Masefield (Character Description)

Crossing the highway late last night
He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right
He didn't see the station wagon car
The AW Thread got squashed and there he whar
 
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Writing Class IV: My Average Uncle (Character Description)

Dead thread in the middle of the road
 
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Learning How To Write

LEARNING HOW TO WRITE
Copyright 2002, Michael LaRocca

As a student of Spanish, my goal was to think in Spanish. Skip the word-by-word translation so I'd have the necessary speed to speak and listen. I know words in Spanish that I'd be hard pressed to translate. Usually profanity, I confess. Chingow!

For years my students here in China have studied grammar, and know it better than you or I. They read. They write. But speaking involves moving faster than that. In conversation, we don't have time to write it first and make sure it's all grammatically flawless, then read it aloud, perhaps after a bit of rehearsal.

So, I try to give them a chance to practice putting words together on the fly, rules be damned. The rules they've internalized will kick in and keep them comprehensible, which will build their confidence in their ability to keep creating conversation that way.

This is not unlike what we go through as authors. First we study rulebooks, perhaps take some classes, and conclude just about everything we're is doing is wrong. So many rules to memorize. We might dread sitting down to write with all those constraints.

But really, it's not about memorizing rules at all. It's about internalizing the rules, following them (or not if you prefer) without being consciously aware of what they are. They're there, but in the background.

The story's what matters. You're supposed to be having fun, not "working." At least not during the creation phase.

We don't always take the time to say, "I've written ten active sentences in a row so maybe I'll whip in a passive one now" or "I need a beat for every X lines of dialogue." I published four novels and edited dozens more before I learned what a beat was. (It's a pause so the reader can catch his/her breath.)

And, of course, since it is writing and not speaking, we can always go back and revise later. Then rely on editors to catch what we missed, or at least make us wonder why we wrote it this way instead of that way.

Some authors aren't even consciously aware of "the rules." They've never taken a class, never read a book about writing. They're simply avid readers who one day decided to write. But they've internalized the rules as well. It comes from reading.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want to write, you must read. If you don't like reading, maybe writing isn't for you. It's not about writing because you want to say, "I am a writer." It's about writing because you enjoy writing.

And, it's really nice when you've been writing for a long time to go back and read a book about how to write. You might find one or two things to tweak in your technique, as opposed to a daunting laundry list of flaws. It's much easier to internalize one or two new rules than 50 or 100.
 

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Very

VERY
Copyright 2005, Michael LaRocca

Very is an adverb, yet it cannot modify a verb. Why the hell not? Let's look at some Chinese, shall we?

Wo ai ni.
I love you.
Wo hen ai ni.
I very love you.

That makes perfect sense to me. I love many things, such as bicycling, nature, literature, humor, or good music. But I very love Jan. Some people run, but Picasso very runs. Sometimes she purrs and sometimes she very purrs.

I greatly love Jan, I deeply love Jan, I sincerely love Jan, I quite love Jan, I passionately love Jan, and I wholeheartedly love Jan. Why can't I very love Jan if I want to?

This is just one question you'll face if you teach your language to someone with a different native language. And in this case, I have no good answer. "We just don't." How lame.

But on the other hand, most editors would bust my tail feathers. Good thing I have my own newsletter, huh? Author, editor, publisher, god. With a little g because I'm still somewhat humble. For now.

This is getting very silly. I very should very stop now before you very stop reading.

{And again, all this mess is coming to you from http://www.chinarice.org/archive.html }
 

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Writing Class V: Willie Stone (Narrative)

Generalissimo Francisco Threado is still dead
 
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Car Horns

CAR HORNS
Copyright 2005, Michael LaRocca

Let's pretend that you live in China. Let's also pretend that, unlike me, you own a car. A Volkswagen Santana, of course. Who do you honk the horn at?

Well, you honk at everyone who's in your way, and who you think is in your way, and who you are passing, and who you think is trying to pass you. Every bicycle needs a honk in case the driver can't see you. Every pedestrian, most definitely, because they're not looking at anything except their feet as they float out in front of you, or the text messages they're sending on their cell phones.

Every car does this, and the roads become a constant cacophony of car horns. The noise is such that everybody tunes it out in order to function, so the horns are pointless. Nobody is listening to the horns. Some of us wear MP3 players cranked up to full volume specifically to block the noise, which is why we're deaf. But honking is a habit the Chinese driver can't break. It's like breathing.

Okay, now here comes a legitimate reason to honk the horn, an emergency, perhaps some fool walking right in front of your car. What do you do? Flick the headlights. Just how stupid is that? If he can't hear your horn, he sure can't hear your headlights. Of course he can't see your headlights, because he's not looking at you. That's what caused the crisis in the first place. Plus, it's daytime. Nobody can see headlights in the daytime when he's facing the other direction.

I offer this little tale for authors who wonder why I prefer understatement. Superlatives are your car horns. Save them until you actually need them.
 

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Writer School?

WRITER SCHOOL?
Copyright 2003, Michael LaRocca

Here's something from my mailbag. "Dear Michael, do you need to do good in school if you want to be a writer? I stink at school and all my friends laugh at me when I tell them I want to write, but I'm serious." Followed by a sentence or two of "I need your words to encourage me" or some such nonsense.

Fortunately, a writing sample is rarely attached. If it is, either it's excellent or it stinks like rancid yak butter. There's a lot of middle ground in the writing world, of course, but for some reason it never seems to accompany these emails.

The message is usually (but not always) so filled with errors that I'm not gonna reprint them here or correct them when I reply lest I destroy some sensitive soul like a jackhammer to an eggshell. (It's ridiculous that I should even have such power, being a stranger and all.) Let's move on to the relevant part, the question, which actually contains several. This writer gets bonus points for brevity.

Do you have to be good in school? Given what's passing for English in some places, I'd certainly like to see more effort given to school. If you're a student reading this, please try to learn something while you can.

If you aspire to be an author and you did poorly in school, or if you're just plain uneducated, don't let it stop you. What we do as authors isn't taught in school. They teach grammar, and bless them. I can't teach that subject. If you're very fortunate, as I was, you'll stumble across some teachers who also encourage you to think. But thinking is the beginning of writing, not the end, and grammar can be fixed later if you find some long-suffering editor (like me) willing to do it.

In other words, school can help you with the first step or two of your journey to be an author. Considering how many steps come after those, don't be discouraged by test results and report cards.

To distill what you think, feel and believe from all the trash floating around in your head, and then to actually put that on paper the way you mean to put it, is a skill that only comes from years of practice. They don't teach that in any school I've ever attended. I struggled at this for 20 years or so after I graduated from college. I didn't learn to write in a classroom.

In my travels through the Intergoogle, I've met blind authors, deaf authors, dyslexic authors, authors writing in a second or third language, authors suffering partial paralysis, authors with various psychoses, authors who deal with more than one of these obstacles. What they overcome makes my complaint, that I'm too left-brained to be in this business, seem absolutely pathetic. And yours, about doing poorly in school.

I could cite you a VERY long list of authors who did poorly in school. If I did my job as an editor, you'll never know who they are unless I call them out by name. And I won't. Probably because I can't remember them all.

(I'm joking. Editor/author confidentiality protects them, even if it exists only in my imagination.)

Our emailer then mentions that her friends laugh at her when she tells them she intends to write. Why does she care? I've lost count of how many projects I've undertaken despite criticism. Not just writing, either. Life. But let me narrow my focus just so I can end this rant.

You have a reason for writing. You know what it is, even if you can't put it into words. I can't put it into words. ("It" can mean your reason OR mine in that sentence.) But it's there. Why do you give a rat's backside how many people tell you not to even try? People who I doubt have even read your writing, I might add.

Your classmates won't understand why you write. Nor your friends. Nor your family. You're lucky if you find ten non-writers in your lifetime who have a clue. And you don't care. You just write.

If you're ever lucky enough to "arrive," then all the doubters will claim to understand why you write. And they'll all be wrong.

Also, by the time someone out there is embracing your work, you'll already be three books beyond it and sick of hearing about your old trash. No, it won't be trash, but you'll think of it that way. There's a big time lapse between creation and that Oprah interview.

What I never write to those emailers is this. I shouldn't have to tell you why you write. You don't need my vindication or anyone else's. If those who haven't even read your work can discourage you, maybe you should give up. Or do an Emily Dickinson and leave it all for people to find after you die.

But I can tell you this. If you'll let something as silly as your grades in school stop you from even beginning to write in the first place, nothing you have to write is worth finding after you die. And if you're angry at me for saying it, good. Prove me wrong. Write a book.
 

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The One-Plot Wonder

THE ONE-PLOT WONDER
Copyright 2003, Michael LaRocca

Back in the mid to late 1980s I was a security guard. The pay was lousy, but it gave me many hours in seclusion to write short stories and novels. However, I usually worked over 80 hours a week. No one can write that much unless his name is Isaac Asimov. Thus I discovered the joys of my local libraries.

Recently, I decided to look up an author who gave me great pleasure in those days. Most of his books are now out of print, I've learned, even the one that became a movie.

I found that two of his books were available, so I ordered them. One I'd enjoyed before. The other was a straight thriller from the days before he created the "Appleton Porter" spy spoofs, re-released in 2001 in POD. I didn't know this before they arrived at my home in China.

Since I'm giving away THE plot spoiler, I won't identify the author or title.

A man who deeply loves his wife buys her a hotel outside London. She is very happy there, at first. This is a fine suspenseful read as she notes oddities and eventually appears to be losing her mind and such. Suicides, an eventual murder. Finally, her husband pays a doctor to kill her.

Her husband arranged all this, we learn at the end, because she was dying of a horrible and incurable illness. Rather than let her suffer the indignity, he tries to give this lover of mystery novels some final days filled with clever puzzles and wonderful memories. He never realizes that he ended her days with a living hell.

The writing was fine, aside from some stupid typos of the sort common in unedited POD titles. He's obviously a sincere, hard-working, talented author. The plot was wholly consistent and everything "worked."

So why is it a weak book? Because the plot I described is all there is. It's a one-plot wonder.

As an author, if you find yourself floundering, if you find your work-in-progress failing to make progress, ask yourself. Is it a one-plot wonder?

Here are some best sellers I've read over the past thirty years.

During the Cold War, a Soviet commander steals a top-secret submarine and tries to defect to the US with it. A good and idealistic young law graduate accepts a job too good to be true, only to eventually learn he's working for the Mafia. An alcoholic author and his family become caretakers at an old Maine hotel, alone during the winter, and he eventually goes nuts. A US President declares war on drug dealers, a "clear and present danger" to national security. A crippled author is kidnapped by the ultimate fan.

I've chosen these titles because I've read the books and seen the movies. None of my plot summaries are wrong. But with some of those novels, there are many more plots and subplots at work. These are the novels that didn't always translate well to the big screen due to time constraints and/or loss of non-objective voice.

I love a well-conceived "what if" scenario, and none of these books lack that. But more importantly, I love a novel that's rich with the fabric of life. That's where multiple plots come into play. Very rarely will a movie capture this as well as a novel can.

A one-plot wonder is a boring read. It's a boring write. It's not realistic. And, it's a hard sell. All your eggs are in one basket. If the editor isn't enthralled with that sole plot, you aren't published. If the reviewer isn't enthralled with that sole plot, he pans you. If the potential reader isn't enthralled with that sole plot, he doesn't buy your book. Or if he does, maybe you don't get any repeat business from him. You don't get mine.

Plus, we should be setting the bar a bit higher for ourselves anyway. We entertain, but we also enlighten and educate. Or at the very least, provide needed escape. But it's hard to escape to a one-plot wonder. I keep taking coffee breaks between chapters.

I single out no writing medium with this. All are guilty. Come on, TERMINATOR 2 has more subplots than many successful books these days. And it's not just "these days," incidentally. The title I reviewed early in this article is from 1979. Published, successful, well-written, flat.

Craftsmanship is fine. Craftsmanship is wonderful to behold. Craftsmanship is a necessity. But it's not enough.

Do you want to build a horse barn that never leaks or do you want to build a two-story A-frame home that survives five hurricanes undamaged? My carpenter did the latter and I can't do the former. But if I had the ability to build a leak-proof barn, I certainly wouldn't limit myself to barns. I'd try to build houses. Just like the sheriff (Gene Hackman) in UNFORGIVEN.

I'm not talking about weighty tomes. Times change, readers change, and most people don't read those tomes any more. What was once considered gripping is now considered boring.

But one-plot wonders also bore readers. They read it, enjoy it moderately, then go look for something else to do. There's little satisfaction at the end. Rarely the big "wow" that made you start writing in the first place.

I'm talking about shooting for five stars instead of two or three. I'm talking about richness of story, raising the standard, writing your absolute best instead of settling for adequate.

I risk oversimplification here, but I'm seeing far too many one-plot wonders. People are buying them, too. But it's time for us, the authors, to quit writing them.
 

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The Worst Analogies in High School Writing

THE WORST ANALOGIES IN HIGH SCHOOL WRITING

* He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

* She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

* The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

* McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.

* Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

* Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

* He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

* The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

* Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man."

* Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

* They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

* The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

* John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

* The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

* His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

* Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

* Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

* The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

* The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

* The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

* It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

* It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

* The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.

* The revelation that his marriage had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.

* He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

* She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.
 

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Point of View Exercises

How many times can I say "dead thread" in a single thread?
 
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How Not To Get Published

HOW NOT TO GET PUBLISHED
Copyright 2001, Michael LaRocca

If someone had told me in 2000 that I'd publish four books in 2001, I'd have called him an eejit.

The last time I'd been published was 1989, and that doesn't count because I paid someone to do it. I'd long since given up on getting published again. In fact, I doubted I'd ever write again.

By now you may wonder how I made it from Point A to Point B. Or for that matter, why I stopped writing.

The second part is simple. I was chasing money, becoming a high-powered businessman and losing myself. The first part is a little more difficult to explain.

In December 1999, I flew to Hong Kong for a vacation. The first vacation in my life, really. I intended to stay for a month. Instead, I married an Australian who taught English there. I quit my job in North Carolina by email.

I found myself unable to legally work in Hong Kong. So what was I to do with my time? I dusted off a childhood dream and resumed writing.

I had a slush pile full of old short stories, and I ran them through the on-line writing workshops. There are two parts to writing--story and style. I wasn't changing my stories--they came from me and were what I wanted to write--but my style was pathetic. Style is also the part that can be learned. So I did.

Then came something that surprised me. New stories. Mixing with the "writing culture" got my creative juices flowing again. After all those years. Better than ever, in fact.

Next, I published them. Between March and December 2000, I published twenty stories in twenty different e-zines. I only made $6, but I was building my resume. I believed that I had a short story anthology in me, and I'd decided to try publishing it. I felt I needed a "track record," so I got one. I probably overdid that part.

I also had a novel in my slush pile. A gripping imaginative story, badly told. But I'd finally learned about the craft, the structure, and the hard work that comes after that original flash of inspiration.

You see where I'm leading by now. I wrote two new novels, and signed contracts to publish all three novels plus the new short story collection in 2001.

It's a common sight among new writers, and really it's a bit sad. People who have the story--the part that can't be learned--but tell it badly. They rush in on the adrenaline high that authors know so well, then get rejected and give up.

What defines a great story? That depends on which reader you ask. If you're writing a story that moves you, someone somewhere with similar tastes will like it. Some stories will be more popular than others, but almost every story will be considered great by someone. But if it's badly written, the reader will simply put the book down and read something else.

As a teenaged author, gathering up enough rejection slips to wallpaper the room, I didn't give up. I just got arrogant and decided "You don't understand me, ya eejit." That's no solution. Nor is paying to be published.

Nope, if you want to get published, learn how to tell your story. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, pacing, dialogue... all that stuff you may have slept through in high school will become second nature with enough practice.

I did quite well in high school English, by the way, but it's not like they taught pacing and dialogue and real storytelling there. To learn those, you've gotta read. But that's no problem for an author. If you don't enjoy reading, you can't write something that others will enjoy reading.

Also, you must listen to the criticisms. Accept some and reject others, but always listen. I believe the Internet makes it much easier to get those criticisms.

I work as an editor now, and one of my authors told me that he sees movies inside his head. It shows in his writing! I don't write that way, unfortunately, but I still know how he feels. When "the Muse" pays me a visit, I've gotta write it down as fast as it comes to me. That's the one part that can't be packaged, taught or mass-produced. That part comes from you, the author, and no one else can do it the way that you do.

Kurt Vonnegut, whose works I greatly admire, wrote one sentence at a time, and made each one perfect before he began the next. But I don't write like that, nor do most of the authors I know. We just let it fly, then go back and fix it later.

But if you don't want to get published, don't go back and fix it. Pass that raw copy around to your friends and family and let them tell you how wonderful it is from fear of hurting your feelings. Then send it to the publishers and collect the rejection letters. That's what I did in my younger days, and I wasn't published.

It took me twenty years to learn my lesson. It would genuinely make me feel good to hear that most writers aren't taking quite so long.

===========

Addendum -- I wrote this after being accepted by CrossroadsPub. I've also been accepted by Wordbeams and NovelBooks. I kill every publisher I touch! Mwa-ha-haaaa!

Still trust me? You can read all this mess, and more, at http://www.chinarice.org/archive.html
 

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Voice in Narrative and Dialog

VOICE AND NARRATIVE IN DIALOGUE
Copyright 2007, Michael LaRocca

One of the nice things about being an author is that we can break any rule we want. (I just did.) It's part of our job description. Language changes through usage -- definitions, spelling, grammar -- and authors can help it do this. But on the other hand, we have to have some sort of agreement on the language or we won't be able to talk to each other.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.

When we as authors break a rule or two, it's not because we're ignorant. It's because we have reasons to break them. That's one of the joys of writing.

Having said that, now I'm going to explain some rules. There are two types of writing in your novel. There is your narrative and there is your dialogue. The rules for the two are not the same.

NARRATIVE

A cop thriller like VIGILANTE JUSTICE has a simple set of rules for the narrative portion. Third-person, straightforward writing, light on adjectives and adverbs, easy to read and grammatically correct. Sentence fragments are acceptable if communication is achieved, and you'll note that I use them often in this article. Why? Simply because it's more effective that way.

To a degree the genre will help you identify what's appropriate. For a cop drama, write in the dry style of a journalist. For horror, a bit of hyperbole may be acceptable in the most dramatic sections. For romance (not my genre), you can probably use lots more adjectives (swollen, heaving, throbbing) than you'd normally dare.

When I wrote RISING FROM THE ASHES, the true story of Mom raising my brother and me alone, I tried to adopt a "childlike voice" early in the narrative. As the character of Michael the storyteller grew older, I abandoned that childlike quality. (An entire book of that would get old fast anyway.)

When I wrote AN AMERICAN REDNECK IN HONG KONG, the humorous sequel, I once again used first person narrative. But the narrative of RISING is first person only in that it uses "I" instead of "Michael." Michael is only a camera. It still follows all the rules of "conventional" narrative. In REDNECK, I threw most of the rules out the window.

I used what one author referred to my as "conversational" tone to maximum effect in REDNECK. He felt like he wasn't so much reading my book as just listening to me tell some stories over a few beers. That's exactly what I wanted.

When I wrote the sequel to REDNECK, another bit of humor called WHO MOVED MY RICE?, I chose to keep that same narrative style, which I'd spent three years perfecting in my newsletter.

In RISING, while I was the "first person" character, I wasn't really the book's focus. In REDNECK and RICE, I am. Center stage, in the spotlight. Using more of a "dialogue" style in what should have been "narrative" allowed me to focus the reader's attention on the first person to a greater degree than simply describing him ever could. You may love me or you may hate me, but you'll know me and you'll laugh at me. Or, in the case of RICE, you'll feel my frequent confusion. I had to write that book from "my perspective" because it was often the only one I understood.

If you're going to use a more conversational tone in your narrative, don't think that means you just write something down and don't have to edit it. You still have to organize your thoughts, and that means rewriting. While your style may be unconventional, you have to make the ideas easy for the reader to follow.

In the case of narrative, you have the choice. If you want to spotlight the storyteller to maximum effect, you can go with first person and let the storyteller's narrative and his dialogue read the same. If you'd prefer to "move the camera" back a bit, make the narrative conventional in contrast to the dialogue. As a rule, this reader likes contrast, because he gets bored reading the same thing over and over again unless the style is really special. Or perhaps you can find a point somewhere in between.

Every story has a way that it should be told for maximum effect. Maximum effect in the author's eyes, of course, since it's a subjective thing. Keep it in mind as you write. Make the call, stick to it, change it if it's not working. It might even be okay to be inconsistent, but only if you do so deliberately. Just keep stuff like "ease of reading" and "maximum effect" in mind and be creative.

DIALOGUE

Have you ever read a book where the dialogue reads like narrative? I hope you haven't. But as an editor I've seen such things, and they're very ugly.

Do you know why they're so ugly? Because they remind the reader of the one thing an author does not want to remind the reader of. Namely, that every character on the page is a puppet under the author's control.

As readers, we put that thought aside so we can enjoy reading. "Willing suspension of disbelief." If the author ensures that the reader can't suspend disbelief, the book will not be read. Stilted dialogue is one of the quickest ways to make that happen.

I've decided that writing dialogue is the hardest thing we do. It's certainly not something we can go look up in a style manual like Strunk or Turabian.

What are the rules? "Make it sound real." But with the corollary, "not too real because people always say um and er and crap like that." Oh yeah. That explains everything! End of my article, right?

Nope. I'm still writing it.

Ideally, the greatest of the great creators of dialogue will have every character "speaking" in a voice so distinctive that he/she need never identify the speaker. Okay, that's enough fiction. Snap back to reality. None of us are writing dialogue that well, are we?

People use a lot more contractions in speech than in writing. They're faster. More sentence fragments, too. People very often use the wrong version of lie/lay or who/whom in speaking. (I never use "whom" in speaking or writing because I want to see the distinction scrapped, but that's another story.)

The dialogue portion of VIGILANTE JUSTICE isn't difficult to describe. The hero is a self-destructive cop named Gary Drake. He's based on a real-life cop, my little brother. So his dialogue was easy because, in my mind, I always heard Gary speaking in Barry's voice.

For my other characters, I had to find some other voices. For example, the voice of Doctor Garrett Allison is, to me, that of Michael Jordan.

That's right, people. When I write, I literally hear voices in my head.

As a beginning writer, and not a very good one, I read some advice somewhere saying you might want to cut photos out of magazines and use them when writing your physical description, in case you can't form a mental picture of your characters. I've used this technique, and with some modification I've extended it to voices.

As an author, you should always play to your greatest strengths while working to improve your weaknesses. I know many authors who think visually, and I envy them. One author told me that when he writes, he literally sees movies in his head, then just has to type them really fast because that's how they're playing. Lucky him! My novels first come to me in snippets of dialogue. Every character has the same voice at that stage. (My voice, of course.)

Tight dialogue is one thing I enjoy when I read. Here are the characters at some sort of verbal showdown. I know them, I know their motives, I can read between the lines and know what's being left unsaid. I can just feel the tension in the air. I'm not so much mentally picturing bulging veins and angry glares as I am just feeling the spoken words.

I also have an excellent memory of voices. Like a dog remembers scents or an artist colors, it seems, I can remember voices. If I hear an unfamiliar song on the radio but I've ever heard that singer before, I can tell you who it is. I can tell you that the guy who did the voice of Gomez Addams in the original Addams Family cartoon is now doing one of the voices in the Tasmanian Devil's cartoon series. I can spot an actor like Andreas Katsulas no matter what species of rubberized alien he's playing, because I recognize his voice, although really that's no great challenge in his case.

(For the record, if you've read THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN, Ahriman looks and sounds like Andreas Katsulas. Clyde Windham is Dennis Franz. Wendy Himes is some girl who sold me some horse feed about 15 years ago.)

But just "hearing" the voices (if you're able) isn't enough. The words themselves will be different depending on who's speaking them, even if they're relaying the same information.

In VIGILANTE JUSTICE, Gary Drake doesn't use a lot of words. He almost never describes his own feelings, and if he does he feels guilty about it. He speaks with a Southern drawl. He tends to use a single swear word, and that word is "fuck." Marjorie Brooks, on the other hand, mentions feelings and uses whichever swear word is the most appropriate, except that she never says "fuck." Doctor Allison doesn't use as many contractions as the rest of us do. These are things I kept in mind as I wrote their dialogue.

Who remembers Mr. Spock? His speech sounds like written language, very grammatical and correct, and that's deliberate. He's a scientist, he's logical, and for him language is a tool to be used with as much precision as possible. That isn't just a different style of dialogue; it helps define his character.

In THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN, Ahriman used fewer contractions than the rest of us and he avoided sentence fragments. He probably even knew the difference between who and whom or lie and lay. That's because he's intelligent, you see. It kinds of goes with the territory when one is evil incarnate.

During an edit I did of a sci-fi book, I saw that the author wasn't using contractions in dialogue. I made many suggestions that he change the dialogue of the humans to use those contractions, except when military officers were giving orders, because order-giving officers tend to be more "serious" and "thoughtful" than folks just being regular folks.

I also suggested to this author that he change nothing about the "stilted" speech patterns of his aliens. English isn't their native language, you see, and one thing I noticed from living in China is that the locals didn't use nearly as many contractions as I do. So I thought that added realism. Plus, the contrast should help the readers keep everybody straight even if they aren't consciously aware of why.

I remember in one edit where I read some character saying, "I am an historian." Oh, I hate that phrase. I hate anyone ever putting "an" in front of a word that begins with the consonant "h." It's terribly pretentious and arrhythmic. As I kept reading the book, I quickly learned that the character in question was terribly pretentious. Nobody else in the book was throwing "an" in front of "h" words. It was a deliberate contrast on the author's part, and it worked quite nicely.

CONCLUSION

I suppose the point of all this is, remember the difference between narrative and dialogue.

In the case of narrative, you're simply trying to describe what happens. According to George Orwell, "Great writing is like a window pane." Stick to that maxim unless you feel you have a good reason not to. If you've got what it takes to make your writing style superior to the conventional, and if your story allows it, let that style be an asset of your writing. Otherwise, just stick to the rules until you master them.

In the case of dialogue, you're trying to write something that sounds like what the characters would actually say, but a bit more organized because "real" speech can be boring. Give every character his/her/its own voice.

Am I joking when I say "its?" Not entirely. THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN contains a short story written in first person from my dog's viewpoint. But then again, I would never call Daisy an "it."

There's a stylistic decision you can make in narrative, by the way. I always refer to animals as "he" or "she." Some authors always use "it." In dialogue, you can let some characters always say he or she, and let others always say it, to contrast the feeling with the unfeeling. (My heroes never call an animal "it.")

In the end, the goal is always the same. Make your writing as easy to read as you can. Keep that in mind, and always keep learning, and you won't go wrong.

==========

Note to those reading the "titles" thread --- a magazine changed the title of this without asking me about it. I liked their title so much that I changed it and can't remember what this was originally called.

Now there's a bit of trivia you won't find at http://www.chinarice.org/archive.html
 

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Get Rich Writing Fiction

GET RICH WRITING FICTION
Copyright 2002, Michael LaRocca

Some of us write simply because we can't not write. Ideas grab us, move us, and demand to be written. We strive to make it as real as we possibly can, to improve at our craft every day, hopefully to make it into the realm of literature as well as entertainment. We want to craft an entire world where the places and people are so real that the reader doesn't feel like he's reading a book as much as he is going to another place. In the lofty world of literature that we strive for, the reader will still think about the book after reading that last page. It's our gift to the reader, something to take with him. Given sufficient skill, this can even happen long after we are dead.

Then we learn that doesn't sell. Oh, there are exceptions. Some novelists make a living by consistently writing quality literature. But there are quite a few best sellers who have no such goals. They write for money, and they make it.

Even the writer who has written great literature has trouble marketing it that way. We have to look at our "target audience." Who will buy this book? Let me see, our heroine survived spousal abuse, so there's an audience. There's a suicide, so we can get the bereavement crowd. Where's the setting? We can get a local audience. The hero's a cop. Maybe the teen boys will go for that. Nah, too light on action. But there's a romance. Maybe we'll market to the romance readers. Give the hero bedroom eyes and pass him off as a romantic hero. Yeah, that might work.

But if you want to write to get rich, even that's not enough. Nah, the time to think about your reader is before you write the book, not after.

Throw in lots of gratuitous sex, preferably extramarital. One (and only one) character who flirts and is sorely tempted and walks away from "love" to remain true to his wife.

Use taboo words for shock value. Ram, hump, scream, oral sex, voluptuous, female orgasm (the great revelation). Make sure a lot of your leads enjoy sex. Horny women are a good way to pull in the readers you want. We all know men are horny, but most of your readers haven't discovered that some women enjoy sex too. Tell them this. Give the female readers a balm for their consciences and the male readers someone to dream about.

Your heroine should be tough, sweet, sensitive, and very horny, and has to think she's not attractive even though every guy in the book except her husband falls off his chair with a tent in his pants.

Don't let the length of a novel faze you. Just throw some people on the stage, move them around a bit, and get them into bed. Then change the rules so they switch around a bit and get them back into bed. It doesn't always have to be a bed. Office desks and car seats work too. When the book's long enough, stop. Don't worry about the "climax," because people are climaxing all over the place.

Exotic locales. Foreign countries with beaches. Lots of rich people. Remember that you're writing for the lowest common denominator, because they spend most of the money that you're trying to reel in. Make it sleazy. No one ever went broke underestimating the public.

How to publish? To do it right, write the sales pitch before you write the book. Make sure the book follows the pitch and the formula. If your cover letter alone has eight typos, no problem. Nobody cares. The publisher will wanna rush this baby to print and get you, or an attractive stand-in, doing as many TV appearances as possible before the book reviewers have time to draw breath. Heck, your target market doesn't read book reviews anyway! Also keep in mind that once that reader buys your book, you've won. They won't get a refund just because you're illiterate. So don't worry about hiring an editor. Hire a publicist!

Think Hollywood. You want your book to become a movie. It doesn't have to be a good movie, because most of them aren't. It just has to sell, baby, sell! Write parts for all the hottest stars. True, today's hottest stars will have faded by the time they start filming your movie, but no matter. Someone just like them will replace them.

I've been doing it wrong for all these years. I started writing over 20 years ago, and the five books I have on the shelves are enough to make it a hobby that barely pays for itself. Meanwhile, I work at a job for my money. But if you follow my advice, you won't make the same mistakes I have. You'll get rich!
 

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Copyrights Revisited

COPYRIGHTS REVISITED
Copyright 2004, Michael LaRocca

Back when I taught Advanced English Writing classes. I'd write "There are no new ideas" on the board and attribute it to Plato, and then say in my lecture that he probably stole that quote. Are we allowed to do plagiarism humor in China? They forgot to comment on that in my contract.

Anyway, dig this. Michael LaRocca, age 17, is crafting his award-winning THE BARGAIN in 1980, which I hype far too much. Somehow he stumbles upon something he will write in 2003. CAMEL BUTT. The total lack of anything redeeming depresses him so much that he never writes again. Thus, he doesn't write CAMEL BUTT.

Is this "time travel paradox" original? Yes and no. I believe this is why the US Copyright Office says you can copyright your words but not your ideas. I've never read a time travel paradox featuring a camel butt, but otherwise my little tale is far from original. If you were working in the Copyright Office, would you want to be the one deciding which ideas are and aren't new? Is it even possible?

This is my latest answer to every aspiring author who asks me, "How can I protect my idea?" Don't write it. Take it to your grave. Otherwise, it's fair game. Your words are always protected, but your ideas never are. And, since there really are no new ideas, not even death will protect "your" ideas. Learn to live with it.

Put another way, the ideating is the easy part. The hard part is publishing and marketing. This is also why I've never seen an idea worth stealing. It's too damn much work. Pick up something by your favorite author, and in my case that would be Shakespeare. Ignore the words and look at the ideas. How many will you see that are original? Zero, baby.

To be or not to be. To thine own self be true. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. A coward dies many times before his death, a brave man dies but once. Ideas I fully agree with, but they aren't original. And, in this day and age, a damn hard sell. That's right, I can't even get rich ripping off Shakespeare, so what makes you think I can get rich ripping off YOUR ideas? Try ripping off my ideas and see how much cat food that'll get you.

Put yet another way, if you want to steal what I just wrote, you can't take my words. They're mine. Copyrighted the moment I clicked "send." But if you change CAMEL BUTT to WHOMPING THE YAK, then it might work. But be careful. I stole the words WHOMPING THE YAK from Dave Barry. If he decides to sue you, you're on your own.
 

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How Long?

HOW LONG?
Copyright 2005-2007, Michael LaRocca

When people ask me when I started writing, I tell them it was in 1980. My first story was published in the high school literary magazine, my next story won second prize at the National Honor Society's 1981 Florida State Convention, etc.

However, now I remember something older. I wrote my first short story in 1976. I was 13. This was for English class, at Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina. The title was "Dial O For Orgy."

Are you still reading?

I really wanted to say "Dial O For Occult," but vocabulary was never my strong suit. I don't recall the teacher ever doing anything to correct my mistake. But I've since learned that students sometimes have the power to leave a teacher totally speechless.

"Dial O For Orgy." Yeah, that could do it.

The title was a deliberately blatant rip-off of DIAL M FOR MURDER, which I've never even seen. You knew the title was a blatant rip-off, much like WHO MOVED MY RICE?, but maybe you didn't know it was deliberate. And hey, now Sue Grafton's writing an entire alphabet of mysteries, and their titles regularly appear in the crossword puzzles I use to help me with my vocabulary deficiency.

No, I don't remember my story. Something bad happens, our hero can't solve the problem, he consults somebody with a Ouija board (dial O for Ouija?) and lives happily ever after. Or something like that. I just thought you'd like the title. I swear, it wasn't about phone sex.

==========

This is an excerpt from an unpublished interview. Deepa Kandaswamy asked me how long it took me to write each of my books. Funny that nobody else has ever asked me that.

* THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN - 21 years

From 1979 through 1985, I wrote short stories for magazine publication. Well, intended publication. The 100+ rejection letters amassed. One had a picture of a skunk on it. (Thunder Creek Publishing, Canada.) But I was stubborn. "My writing, my way, and if you won't take it it's your fault!" That is not the way to approach this business. Writing is a calling, but publishing is a business. It took me years to learn that. Twenty-one years, to be exact.

A friend read my short story collection and said it had not one single redeeming quality. I decided she was right, erased those Commodore 64 floppy disks, and went back to my security guard desk. About a year later, I realized I'd done a stupid thing.

(And with friends like that...)

1988, on my newly purchased but very old Osborne computer, I recreated the stories from memory. Best thing that could have happened to this particular book. I remembered the best bits and forgot the trash. I doubt you need to do anything so drastic.

Now we have to skip ahead again. 1995. I wrote a novel in three weeks despite working about 100 hours each of those weeks at a physically intense hog farm. The Muse grabbed me. I shopped the novel around but had no luck. Oh well. That wasn't a new experience.

Hong Kong 2000, I realized the obvious. The "novel" was too padded and puffy. Since it was the sequel to a short story from the undersized collection, I chopped it in half and added it to the collection as a novella. After this experience, plus the experience of running all my old stories through free on-line creative writing workshops and learning so much about how to improve them, I began writing new short stories. The end result was THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN.

It will soon be reissued by Books Unbound, by the way, and you can rest assured that I'll shout it from the rooftops.

* VIGILANTE JUSTICE - 11 years

Sometimes it takes a while to write that first novel.

My little brother, age 20, was a cop when he killed himself. I was a writer long before that. So I had to write about what he would be like "today" if he hadn't done it. I wrote 3-1/2 novels about "him" before throwing them away and abandoning the project. A few years later, I had a "eureka moment" and wrote a first draft in 1996. I wasn't able to find a publisher, largely because I hadn't written it well.

Skip ahead to 2000 in Hong Kong. Fresh off my short story collection, I dug this out of the slush pile and utilized all I'd learned to rewrite it. Judging by its readership and its status as an EPPIE finalist, I must have gotten something right.

* RISING FROM THE ASHES - 1 month

I was an old veteran by this time. My wife had spent 10 months telling me to "write my life story." She'd fallen in love with me because of how I told it to her. But I was afraid it'd bore people. Finally, the realization hit me. Don't write MY story. Write Mom's. She can't write it herself, because she's dead, but it needs to be told.

At a resort in Koh Samui, Thailand, I outlined it in one hour on hotel stationery. A striking contrast to the humble beginnings described in the book, and the only time I've ever used an outline. My longest book, my shortest writing time. Perhaps because remembering is faster than inventing. I consider this my finest work. The second of my three EPPIE finalists.

* AN AMERICAN REDNECK IN HONG KONG - 6 months

Though RISING FROM THE ASHES is women's literature and this is humor, this is the sequel. I ended the first book when my family died. I was 26 then. I wrote this when I was 38. I lived a lot of crazy stories in those 12 years, including the "infamous" hog farm stories. Again, a process of remembering instead of inventing.

The breakthrough moment was realizing that the chronological approach wasn't working. It was forcing me to retell the same backstories too many times. I organized this into theme-based sections, each section chronological and self-contained, and it all but wrote itself after that.

* WHO MOVED MY RICE? - 2 years

Things got even crazier after I left Hong Kong to "teach English" in mainland China, so it was only natural for me to chronicle all that. Two years? Yes, two years. I write slowly now. My third EPPIE finalist.
 

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Why Do We Publish?

WHY DO WE PUBLISH?
Copyright 2007, Michael LaRocca

A major "character" in Mark Salzman's first autobiography is his father. Sometimes his father paints. But his father hates painting. He likes it when his painting is done. He likes having painted. But the act of painting itself is, in his opinion, a big pain in the backside.

Nobody reading this approaches writing like that, do they? I know I don't. Of all my experiences as an author, whacking those words down onto the paper is the best of the best. Always has been, always will be. Even though I cut most of them. I like creating.

I've quoted Hemingway before. Long periods of thinking, short periods of writing. These days, my thinking takes longer and my periods of writing are getting less frequent, but both still happen, and I still love creating something from nothing.

If it weren't for me, you would never read the words you're reading right now. Nobody else would ever write them. And they contain my thoughts. Through time and space, better than telepathy, you hear what I'm saying.

So, there's one reason to write, isn't it? The biggie, if you ask me. I write what I do because I can't NOT write it. I may be clarifying my thoughts in my own head. But, most certainly, I'm just so moved by those thoughts that I must put them on paper. They're in me and they have to get out, kinda like those critters in the ALIEN movies.

Is this the only reason to write? Because I want to zap my thoughts into your heads? I don't know. But let me change the question. Is this a reason to publish? Why not write your books and stick them in a filing cabinet like Sean Connery did in the film FINDING FORRESTER? Write it, express it, file it away. Why publish it?

In FINDING FORRESTER, the Sean Connery character won the Pulitzer with his first book, saw that every reviewer misunderstood him, and decided they could all get stuffed. This is a work of fiction, but I understand the attitude. I once wrote a true story, where the main character was Michael LaRocca, only to have a critic slam the main character as "unbelievable." Apparently I don't act like real people.

I could never shove all my writing in a filing cabinet, unpublished, and tell the establishment to get stuffed. But yep, there are stupid people in the world, and some of them review books.

I've hit best-seller status for two different e-publishers with three different books. Minor thrills at the time, but there's no way I could call them enough of a reward for what I put into writing. (Especially since both publishers stole my royalties...)

You're an author. You know what I'm talking about. We all but kill ourselves to make our books. And let's be blunt here. Unless you're going to throw Rowling/King/Clancy/Grisham money at me -- and you're NOT -- money isn't sufficient reason to publish.

Publishing isn't just a case of sending it to a publisher, signing a contract, and being done.

Next up is editing, which is a blast. Not at the time, perhaps. Any editor worth a damn will beat you over the head with every bad word choice you ever made. And you made hundreds! But at the end of that gauntlet, you know you are da bomb.

Seeing my cover art is almost always awesome. Yes, I did say "almost." One bad experience among eight. It happens. But if you've worked with a publisher, you know what I mean. You log onto the Internet one morning, not fully conscious, amazed that you poured that first cup of coffee without burning off your naughty bits. You pop open an email and see cover art that almost makes your head explode. You get this big rush, thinking, "Someone understands my writing!" What you don't realize, naive little author, is that some artists don't even read the books they do the art for. But still. The art rocks your world. Feel that. I always enjoy clicking those email attachments and seeing MY book covers.

Then comes marketing. Biggest pain in the... Well, let's just say it makes me want to not publish sometimes. So why publish?

I've entered the EPPIEs three times, and been a finalist three times. The second time one of my books was an EPPIE finalist, I made some wisecrack in an author's egroup about how "finalist" is a synonym for "loser" and was raked over the coals.

Oops!

Maybe I annoyed entrants who weren't finalists. I'd always wondered if they existed...

So let's say I'm not publishing for money or awards. They sing a siren song to new authors which this jaded old bastard quit hearing long ago. So why do I still publish? What are my rewards? Let me mention a few.

A psychologist turned English teacher formed a women's reading group at the university where we once worked together in China. Her concept was women readers, women writers. But the first book the group ever discussed was my very own RISING FROM THE ASHES, which is about Mom. My only foray into "women's literature." I couldn't attend the reading group, since I'm a guy, but my wife was there. What I learned about my book is priceless, as is knowing what those young students discussed because of my writing. Issues of such depth that I'd be proud to inspire any student, in any country, in any language, to tackle them.

I used to work on North Carolina hog farms. I enjoyed the company of some damn fine people at every one of them. Hog farming is hard work. This isn't the backyard family farm, folks, this is 13 people with 98 boars, 3500 sows, and all the babies they can make. One of my toughest coworkers was a lesbian who could break Xena in half, and my one foray into writing horror gave her nightmares.

I don't consider myself a poet, and I believe most of the reading world agrees with me. But I have published 6 poems. There's one that a hog farm coworker insists will be read at his funeral. Don't ask me why he was planning his funeral during our lunch break because I have no idea. But, well, I guess I'm invited, in a manner of speaking.

Master Pizza, 30th Street, Tampa, Florida. A bunch of drunken Italian relatives reading one of my less-than-serious poems ALOUD between pitchers of beer. It was like a Joe Dolce moment.

I was working as a security guard in a particularly unpleasant place. This was 20 years ago, I think. A fellow guard read one of my short stories. It is, by far, the most allegorical thing I've ever written. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about throwing it out. But then, I remember Bob's words. "This is me. This is my life." Me too, old pal, and I don't care if you and I are the only two readers to have any idea what I'm talking about. {Scapegoat Bob!}

I've written some pretty heady volumes, but I've also written quite a few short works. Numerous students in China told me, "This is the first book in English I've ever finished reading." When I write, I certainly never set out to help anyone learn English. (Some of my editors claim I never learned the language.) And, students will LIE to teachers. But I've decided that at least one was telling the truth.

When I left the US, I embarked on several journeys. Learning to live in China. Learning to love. Taking another shot at the writer dream. And, eventually, teaching. After all that, I tried my hand at writing humor for the first time. Every time I hear Jan laugh at something I've written, I file it away as a reason to keep writing.

I've written one play in my life. I was young, and quite hooked on the album (pre-CD days) JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. So, you guessed it, I tackled JC. I wrote something that nobody can read without having a powerful reaction. Readers love it or they hate it. I'm proud of that. And hey, it's only one act long. I have a short attention span.

I loaned Clint "Two Dawgs" Hill my very first book. My cousin. He took it to Durham (North Carolina) and loaned it to a bunch of hippie buddies. He asked for another, because the first one fell apart from overuse. That's why we publish. People all but fighting for the chance to read my words. And heck, THE CHRONICLES OF A MADMAN wasn't even good yet. It's 25 years older now.

So, maybe this is why we don't just stop when the book is written, stick it in a drawer, and uncork the champagne. Although I do hope you uncorked the champagne. This planet contains far too many people who "want to be authors" but who haven't written a book. Never have, never will. Meanwhile, you and I are sitting here knowing we had no choice. We had to write.

Why publish? Heck, why not?
 

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Common Writing Mistakes

COMMON WRITING MISTAKES
Copyright 2002, Michael LaRocca

I've been editing novels since early 2000. Looking back at my experiences, I feel like sharing the most common mistakes I've seen.

Once you've found a publisher who publishes what you write, you want to present yourself in the best way possible. Submitting an unedited manuscript is a bit like going to a job interview wearing a purple Mohawk, no shoes, torn jeans, and a T-shirt. Your resume may be perfect, and your qualifications impeccable, but something tells me you won't get the job.

The publisher invests a lot of time and money in every book it accepts. Why ask them to invest hours and days of editing time as well? If the publisher gets two or three or ten nearly identical submissions, you want yours to be the one requiring the least editing.

The first thing you need to do, and I hope you've already done it, is use the spelling and grammar checkers in your word processor. They're not perfect, but they'll catch many of the "common mistakes" on my list. I've been asked to edit many books where the author obviously didn't do this, and I confess that I may have been lazy and let a couple of mine get to my editors unchecked. Bad Michael!

Here's a list of the mistakes I see most often.

* Dialogue where everyone speaks in perfect English and never violates any of the points below. Okay, that's not really a common problem at all. But I have seen it, and it's a terrible thing.

* It's is a contraction for "it is" and its is possessive.

* Who's is a contraction for "who is" and whose is possessive.

* You're is a contraction for "you are" and your is possessive.

* They're is a contraction for "they are," there is a place, their is possessive.

* There's is a contraction for "there is" and theirs is possessive.

* If you've been paying attention to the above examples, you've noticed that possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. Its, whose, your, yours, their, theirs...

* Let's is a contraction for "let us."

* When making a word plural by adding an s, don't use an apostrophe. (The cats are asleep.)

* When making a word possessive by adding an s, use an apostrophe. (The cat's bowl is empty.)

* A bath is a noun, what you take. Bathe is a verb, the action you do when taking or giving a bath.

* A breath is a noun, what you take. Breathe is a verb, the action you do when taking a breath.

* You wear clothes. When you put them on, you clothe yourself. They are made of cloth.

* Whenever you read a sentence with the word "that," ask yourself if you can delete that word and still achieve clarity. If so, kill it. The same can be said of all sentences. If you can delete a word without changing the meaning or sacrificing clarity, do it. "And then" is a phrase worth using your word processor's search feature to look for.

* Keep an eye on verb tenses. "He pulled the pin and throws the grenade" is not a good sentence.

* Keep an eye on making everything agree regarding singular and plural. "My cat and my wife is sleeping," "My cat sleep on the sofa," and "My wife is a beautiful women" are not good sentences. (I exaggerate in these examples, but you know what I mean.)

* I and me, he and him, etc. I hope no editor is rejecting any novels for this one, because I suspect that most people get confused at times. In dialogue, do whatever the heck you want because it sounds more "natural." But for the sake of your narrative, I'll try to explain the rule and the cheat. The rule involves knowing whether your pronoun is the subject or object. When Jim Morrison of The Doors sings, "til the stars fall from the sky for you and I," he's making a good rhyme but he's using bad grammar. According to the rule, "you and I" is the object of the preposition "for," thus it should be "for you and me." The cheat involves pretending "you and" isn't there, and just instinctively knowing "for I" just doesn't sound right. (I think only native English speakers can use my cheat. For the record, I have great admiration for anyone who's writing in a language that isn't their native tongue.)

* Should of, would of, could of. This one can make me throw things. It's wrong! What you mean is should have, would have, could have. Or maybe you mean the contractions. Should've, would've, could've. And maybe 've sounds a bit like of. But it's not! Of is not a verb. Not now, not ever.

* More, shorter sentences are better. Always. Don't ask a single sentence to do too much work or advance the action too much, because then you've got lots of words scattered about like "that" and "however" and "because" and "or" and "as" and "and" and "while," much like this rather pathetic excuse for a sentence right here.

* On a similar (exaggerated) note: "He laughed a wicked laugh as he kicked Ralphie in the face while he aimed the gun at Lerod and pulled the trigger and then laughed maniacally as Lerod twisted in agony because of the bullet that burned through his face and splattered his brains against the wall and made the wall look like an overcooked lasagne or an abstract painting." Now tell me this sentence isn't trying to do too much.

* Too means also or very, two is a number, to is a preposition.

* He said/she said. Use those only when necessary to establish who's speaking. They distract the reader, pulling him out of the story and saying, "Hey look, you're reading a book." Ideally, within the context of the dialogue, we know who's talking just by the style or the ideas. When a new speaker arrives on the scene, identify him or her immediately. Beyond that, keep it to a minimum. I don't mean delete them all, because it's really frustrating counting backward to see who is speaking because you forgot. Just don't go overboard with them. Oh yeah, and give every speaker his/her own paragraph.

* Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile and said, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" I don't like this. Use two shorter sentences in the same paragraph. Billy-Bob smiled his most winning smile. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" Same effect, fewer words, no dialogue tag (he said).

* In the previous example, I don't like "smiled his most winning smile," because it's redundant, but I'd probably let it slide. But please, if you find yourself writing something like that, try to find a better way to express it before you just give up and leave it like it is. During the self-edit, I mean, not during the initial writing.

* "The glow-in-the-dark poster of Jesus glowed in the dark." This editor won't let that one go. Much too redundant, and it appeared in a published novel.

* Lie is what you do when you lie down on the bed, lay is what you do to another object that you lay on the table. Just to confuse matters, the past tense of lie is lay. Whenever I hit a lay/lie word in reading, I stop and think. Do that when you self-edit. (Note: Don't fix this one in dialogue unless your character is quite well-educated, because most people say it wrong. I do.)

* Beware of the dangling modifier. "Rushing into the room, the exploding bombs dropped seven of the soldiers." Wait a minute! The bombs didn't rush into the room. The soldiers did. To get all technical about it, the first part is the "dependent clause," and it must have the same subject as the "independent clause" which follows. Otherwise it's amateur, distracting, and a real pain for your poor overworked editor.

* When something dark gets lighter, that is lightening. Them things that flash through the skies during a thunderstorm are called lightning bolts. No e, okay? Getting struck by lightening is about as unlikely as getting struck by darkening.


If you are able (many readers are not), keep an eye out for missing periods, weird commas, closing quotes, opening quotes, etc. When I read a book, be it an e-book or a printed book, I can't help but spot every single one that's missing. They slap me upside the head, which makes me a great editor but a lousy reader. If you're like me, use that to your advantage. If not, that's what editors are for.

Grammar Quiz is 10 questions. If you get any of them wrong, it does a great job of explaining why.

Looking for the rules on how to punctuate dialogue? Here are two fine sites that explain them well:

http://www.authorinresidence.ecsd.ne...unctuation.htm http://www.gabwhacker.com/xwp/bluequill/said1/asp

==========

And now we've moved into http://www.chinarice.org for a few more "lessons." More like spoutfests, eh? Well, I'm almost done, and you're not reading anyway, so what the heck?
 
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larocca

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How To Break Into Print Publishing

HOW TO BREAK INTO PRINT PUBLISHING
Copyright 2001-2007, Michael LaRocca
http://www.chinarice.org

The big question. Do you submit directly to publishers, or do you find an agent who will do that for you? It can work either way. Many publishers refuse to read unagented submissions, but on the other hand Tom Clancy and John Grisham sold their first books without an agent.

The bottom line is, if a publisher reads what he can sell, he'll buy it. It doesn't matter if it comes from an author or an agent. The trick is getting him to read it. That's always your focus.

The most important step is to get your presentation looking as professional as possible. No mistakes. None. Zero. Nada. The vast majority of rejections aren't because the story is "bad," but because the Acquisitions Editor concludes that it'll be too much work to make it "ready to read." With new authors, publishers usually lose money. Advertising, print inventory... Don't ask them to invest a great deal of editing time as well. They won't do it. It's just that simple.
The Selection Process

The most important part of getting your error-free manuscript published is choosing the right market. The best way to do this is to read books that are aimed at the same target audience as your own. If you want to approach publishers directly, look at who published those books. Their marketing machine is already positioned to announce your manuscript to your target audience, and they want more books of the type that you write. They're your best bet.

Some authors thank their editors. If you're going straight to the publishers, note the editors' names and use those, preferably after a phone call to ensure the editor still works there. If you can, just phone the publisher and tell whoever answers the phone something like "I'm writing a letter to so-and-so, and I want to be sure I'm spelling the name correctly." I used to be a secretary. I liked quick, easy questions.

If you want to approach an agent first, look in the acknowledgements sections of those books. Some authors thank their agents. Look up those agents and start with them. Tell how you found them. This might impress them because it makes you look professional. You know they've got a track record in your genre. They know how to sell to publishers who are aimed at your target audience, so let them do it.

Whichever method you use, go in fully prepared. Meaning, work through all the steps below before you submit anything.
Overview

Your aim is to convince someone who not only does not know you, but does not want to know you, and has read too many bad books, that your book is different. For this you need a cover letter, bio, synopsis, and sample chapter of such wit, wisdom and genius that even the most jaded and cynical editor can take pleasure in it.

Take your time. Don't just whip up something in a day and send it out. You're probably looking at a one or two year gap between acceptance and publication. So in the grand scheme of things, taking the time to make your presentation really shine won't matter. EXCEPT, it'll ensure you get published in the first place.

Every publisher should have writers guidelines. Get them. Read them. Follow them. They're using the process of elimination to get out of reading these submissions. The first step in that process is to bump off everyone who can't follow the guidelines. Don't be one of them.
Preparing Your Query Letter

This will be the first impression they get of you. Make it a good one! Edit that letter as hard as you would a manuscript, and make the damn thing perfect. Make it good writing. Sum up your book in such a way as to make the recipient of the letter say, "Wow, I want to read this book."

The first page of your book, along with the jacket text, are what usually determines whether a browser buys your book or puts it back on the shelf. As you write your query letter, think of what you'd put on that book jacket, and work that concept into your letter.

Never address your query letter To Whom It May Concern, Dear Editor, or any of that. Get a name. When you find the books that you really like, and are searching them for potential publishers, call those publishers. Ask who edited those books. If you want to approach the publisher directly, write to those editors.

You can find more excellent information on the submission and publication process at:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/
http://www.caderbooks.com/pubfaq.html
http://www.dsmagency.com/published.html
http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/findagent.html
http://www.fictionfactor.com/children/chances.html
http://www.jkelman.com/publish/
http://www.sff.net/people/justinvs/howtopub.html

With a simple bit of good writing, and we all know you can do that since you've already written and polished your manuscript, you'll make it past this first hurdle. The editor reads your letter, sees nothing in it to stop him from continuing, and has no choice.

What would stop him? Typos. Grammar. Spelling. Boredom. Or anything that says "I write so much better than Stephen King that he's not fit to hold my jock strap. Buy my book and we'll both get rich."
Writing Your Bio

Don't lie. That's the first rule. The second rule is, don't forget any writing credits. List everything relevant you've got. Publications in decent magazines or newspapers. Credits in TV, films, theaters. Any literary prize you've managed to get in adulthood. The fact that you're a professor of English or an editor of a sports journal.

If you have no literary background, no education, and no respectable publications, but you spent fifteen years in solitary confinement in a Siberian Work Camp, that might indicate that you have a story to tell. But if you're writing about cuddly koalas to entertain the under-five crowd, this piece of information may be more than anyone needs to know.

You can list your credits either chronologically or from most impressive to least impressive. Just whichever puts you in the best light. You want to look like you're already a successful author. You don't want to sound arrogant, but you do want to sound confident. Keep it to a single page. You don't want to waste anybody's time. They don't have enough. (Who does?)

If your bio is so bare of details that it's more of a liability than an asset, forget about it. Maybe your "bio" equals a sentence or two, in which case you can work it into your query letter instead of a separate document.

Your goal, remember, is to get that editor to read your synopsis or manuscript. To judge it on its own merits. If he reads your writing and rejects it, you gave it your best shot. Try a few more, and if they all reject it, think about improving your writing. But you don't want that editor to stop reading your submission before he gets to your writing. So, take the time to do the query letter and bio correctly.
Writing Your Synopsis

To quote at least one agent, "There is no such thing as a good synopsis." And how can there be? How do you sum up 50,000 or 100,000 words in a page or two? I'll tell you how I do it. Very badly.

Having said that, this is your first chance to show the publisher that you can write. Some publishers want a minimal amount of information on first contact (query letter, bio, synopsis). Others want to see the first chapter or two as well. Nobody wants to see the whole manuscript at first, except those who say so in their writers' guidelines. If you include sample chapters, the chance of them being read depends largely on the quality of your query letter and synopsis.

Keep your synopsis short, two pages maximum unless the writers' guidelines say differently. Shorter is better. Pick out the theme and the strengths of your book and, in as clever a fashion as possible, relay these qualities in a brief chronology. The chronology is less important than the theme because, in truth, your only hope with a synopsis is that your theme or concept will strike a chord with the editor or agent reading it.

If your story is funny, your synopsis should be funny. If it's a romantic story, then your synopsis should be a romantic synopsis. You are a writer, and here is where you can be creative.

Many great works of literature don't have easily defined stories, just fine writing and good characters. If you have no story, then you have to sell your idea. Your synopsis must have fine, clear writing. Say how your book starts, how it ends, and the interest in the middle. This isn't the time for cliffhangers.

Your sample chapter should do the main talking, but your synopsis should offer up those clever memorable sound bites that will linger in the editor's mind and convince him to read the sample chapter.

I recently ran across a pretty good article on how to write a synopsis at http://www.romancewriter2writer.com/synopses.htm
Preparing Your Manuscript

Did I mention that your manuscript must be flawless? I'll mention it again. Your manuscript must be flawless. Especially be sure that the first chapter(s), the "hook" that you submit, will be the type that grabs the reader and makes him/her/it wonder what happens next.

For questions of paper size, margins, etc., consult the writers' guidelines for your prospective publisher(s) and follow them precisely. Do what they say and they'll read your manuscript. Fail to do so and they'll set it down unread, even if you're the next John Grisham.

Remember, they're budgeting their time and trying to get out of reading this stuff. Once they read it, they'll be fair. (If not, you don't want them.) If it's good solid writing, you're in. But until they get to your writing, they always expect the worst. If you'd seen some of the crap that comes their way, you'd be just as pessimistic. But in the end they do love good writing or else they'd quit that job.
Literary Agents Revisited

Here's some advice from the Agent Research and Evaluation website. They define an agent as:

"...someone who makes a living selling real books to real publishers. No one representing himself as an agent should also claim to be a book doctor, an editor-for-hire, a book 'consultant' of any kind. They shouldn't charge any type of 'upfront' reading fee, marketing fee, evaluation fee or any other fee apart from a commission on work sold.

"With the possible exception of certain MINIMAL office expenses, legitimate agents NEVER handle [the expenses connected with submitting manuscripts] as an upfront cost. Only as a billable expense after being shown to have been incurred.

"Remember, real agents live off the commissions they make from selling their clients' projects. Scammers live off up-front fees for unnecessary, inadequate, or non-existent services."

This is excellent advice. Anyone can call himself an agent, get himself listed somewhere, and tell every author who sends him a manuscript "This is excellent. Send me some money and I'll sell it." Then he can pocket the author's money and do absolutely nothing, or send the manuscript to the same publishers who reject everything else he sends them.

Agents work for a percentage of your sales. It's usually 15%. An agent's source of income must be the books he sells. If the author pays him before he closes a sale, where is his incentive to close the sale?

Insist that your agent send you copies of all rejection letters. A great agent should offer this without you asking, and those rejection letters shouldn't all be undated "Dear author" or "Dear agent" letters that don't mention you or your agent or your manuscript by name.

Your agent should also involve you in the selection process without you asking, even if that just means telling you "I'm sending to this, that, and the other place." Don't let him/her send your gothic romance to a children's publisher, etc.

If you've been reading my other advice, you're already talking to other authors. If you know one who's made it into print, especially one who writes in your genre, ask which agent (and which publisher and editor) he used.

If your agent is sending your stuff to the right places and it's still getting rejected, you've done all you can do, except write better.
 

larocca

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About Writing

About Writing
Copyright 2007, Michael LaRocca


Here's everything I know about improving your writing, publishing it electronically and in print, and promoting it after the sale.

Two questions you should ask:

(1) What will it cost me?
(2) What does this Michael LaRocca guy know about it?

Answer #1 -- It won't cost you a thing. The single most important bit of advice I can give you, and I say it often, is don't pay for publication.

My successes have come from investing time. Some of it was well spent, but most of it was wasted. It costs me nothing to share what I've learned. It costs you nothing to read it except some of your time.

Answer #2 -- "Michael LaRocca has been researching the publishing field for over ten years."

This quote from Authors Wordsmith was a kind way of saying I've received a lot of rejections. Also, my "research" required 20 years.

But in my "breakout" year (2000), I finished writing four books and scheduled them all for publication in 2001. I also began editing for one of my publishers, a job I've been enjoying ever since.

After my first book was published, both my publishers closed. Two weeks and three publishers later, I was back on track.

See how much faster it was the second time around? That's because I learned a lot.

Also, I found more editing jobs. That's what I do when I'm not writing, doing legal transcription, or doing English consulting work in Thailand (my new home). But the thing is, if I'd become an editor before learning how to write, I'd have stunk.

(Some readers say I still stink. Ignore them.)

2005 EPPIE Award finalist. 2004 EPPIE Award finalist. 2002 EPPIE Award finalist. Listed by Writers Digest as one of The Best 101 Websites For Writers in 2001 and 2002. Sime-Gen Readers Choice Awards for favorite Author (Nonfiction & Writing) and Favorite Book (Nonfiction & Writing). 1982 Who's Who In American Writing.

Excuse me for bragging, but it beats having you think I'm unqualified.

I'll tell you what's missing from this monologue. What to write about, where I get my ideas from, stuff like that. Maybe I don't answer this question because I think you should do it your way, not mine. Or maybe because I don't know how I do it. Or maybe both.

Once you've done your writing, this essay should help you with the other stuff involved in being a writer. Writing involves wearing at least four different hats. Writer, editor, publication seeker, post-sale self-promoter.

Here's what I can tell you about my writing.

Sometimes an idea just comes to me out of nowhere and refuses to leave me alone until I write about it. So, I do.

And, whenever I read a book that really fires me up, I think, "I wish I could write like that." So, I just keep trying. I'll never write THE best, but I'll always write MY best. And get better every time. That's the "secret" of the writing "business," same as any other business. Always deliver the goods.

I read voraciously, a habit I recommend to any author who doesn't already have it. You'll subconsciously pick up on what does and doesn't work. Characterization, dialogue, pacing, plot, story, setting, description, etc. But more importantly, someone who doesn't enjoy reading will never write something that someone else will enjoy reading.

I don't write "for the market." I know I can't, so I just write for me and then try to find readers who like what I like. I'm not trying to whip up the next bestseller and get rich. Not that I'd complain. But I have to write what's in my heart, then find a market later. It makes marketing a challenge at times, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

When you write, be a dreamer. Go nuts. Know that you're writing pure gold. That fire is why we write.

An author I greatly admire, Kurt Vonnegut, sweated out each individual sentence. He wrote it, rewrote it, and didn't leave it alone until it was perfect. Then he wrote the next sentence the same way, etc., and when reached the end of the book, it was done. I still own many of them.

But I doubt most of write like that. I don't. I let it fly as fast as my fingers can move across the paper or keyboard, rushing to capture my ideas before they get away. Later, I change and shuffle and slice.

James Michener writes his last sentence first, then has his goal before him as he writes his way to it.

Then there's me. No outline whatsoever. I create characters and conflict, spending days and weeks on that task, until the first chapter leaves me wondering "How will this end?" Then my characters take over, and I'm as surprised as the reader when I finish my story.

Some authors set aside a certain number of hours every day for writing, or a certain number of words. In short, a writing schedule.

Then there's me. No writing for three or six months, then a flurry of activity where I forget to eat, sleep, bathe, change the cat's litter... I'm a walking stereotype. To assuage the guilt, I tell myself that my unconscious is hard at work. As Hemingway would say, long periods of thinking and short periods of writing.

I've shown you the extremes in writing styles. I think most authors fall in the middle somewhere. But my point is, find out what works for you. You can read about how other writers do it, and if that works for you, great. But in the end, find your own way. That's what writers do.

Just don't do it halfway.

If you're doing what I do, writing a story that entertains and moves you, you'll find readers who share your tastes. For some of us that means a niche market and for others it means regular appearances on the bestseller list.

Writing is a calling, but publishing is a business. Remember that AFTER you've written your manuscript. Not during.

I've told you how I write. For me.

** Editing **
The next step is self-editing. Fixing the mistakes I made in my rush to write it before my Muse took a holiday. Several rewrites. Running through it repeatedly with a fine-toothed comb and eliminating cliches like "fine-toothed comb."

Then what?

There are stories that get rejected because the potential publisher hates them, or feels they won't SELL (as if he knows), but more are shot down for other reasons. Stilted dialogue. Boring descriptions. Weak characters. Underdeveloped story. Unbelievable or inconsistent plot. Sloppy writing.

That's what you have to fix.

I started by using free online creative writing workshops. What I needed most was input from strangers. After all, once you're published, your readers will be strangers. Every publisher or agent you submit to will be a stranger. What will they think? I always get too close to my writing to answer that.

Whenever I got some advice, I considered it. Some I just threw out as wrong, or because I couldn't make the changes without abandoning part of what made the story special to me. Some I embraced. But the point is, I decided. It's my writing. My name on the spine, not yours, and I want people reading it centuries after I die. Aim high.

After a time, I didn't feel the need for the workshops anymore. I'm fortunate enough to have a wife whose advice I will always treasure, and after a while that was all I needed. But early on, it would've been unfair to ask her to read my drivel. (Not that I didn't anyway, but she married me in spite of it.)

Your goal when you self-edit is to get your book as close to "ready to read" as you possibly can. Do not be lazy and do not rush. You want your editor to find what you overlooked, not what you didn't know about, and you want it to be easy for him/her. EASY! Easy to edit, easy to read. It's a novel, not a blog.

Your story is your story. You write it from your heart, and when it looks like something you'd enjoy reading, you set out to find a publisher who shares your tastes. What you don't want is for that first reader to lose sight of what makes your story special because you've bogged it down with silly mistakes.

Authors don't pay to be published. They are paid for publication. Always. It's just that simple. Publishers are paid by reades, not authors. That's why they help you find those readers.

Your publisher should also give you some free editing. But there's a limit to how much editing you can get without paying for it. Do you need more than that? I don't know because I've never read your writing. But if you evaluate it honestly, I think you'll know the answer.

As an editor, I've worked with some authors who simply couldn't self-edit. Non-native English speakers, diagnosed dyslexics, blind authors, guys who slept through English class, whatever. To them, paying for editing was an option. This isn't paying for publication. This is paying for a service, training. Just like paying to take a Creative Writing class at the local community college.

By the way, I don't believe creativity can be taught. Writing, certainly. I took a Creative Writing class in high school, free, and treasure the experience. But I already had the creativity, or else it would've been a waste of the teacher's time and mine.

(Later I taught Creative Writing in China. We call this irony.)

If you hire an editor worthy of the name, you should learn from that editor how to self-edit in the future. In my case it took two tries, because my first "editor" was a rip-off artist charging over ten times market value for incomplete advice.

That editor, incidentally, is named Edit Ink, and they're listed on many "scam warning" sites. They take kickbacks from every fake agent who sends them a client. Avoid such places at all costs, and I will stress the word "costs." Ouch!

If you choose to hire an editor, check price and reputation. For a ballpark figure, I charge a penny a word. Consider that you might never make enough selling your books to get back what you pay that editor. Do you care? That's your decision.

Your first, most important step on the road to publication is to make your writing the best it can be.

** Publication **
My goal is to be published in both mediums, ebook and print. There are some readers who prefer ebooks, and some who prefer print books. The latter group is larger, but those publishers are harder to sell your writing to. I want to be published in both mediums, because I want all the readers I can get.

Before you epublish, check the contract to be sure you can publish the EDITED work in print later. I'm aware of only one e-publisher whose contract specified "no," but my information on this is very much out of date.

Also, you might want to make sure your targeted print publisher will accept something that's been previously published electronically. That's a nasty little change that's taken place over the past few years. Will I have to choose between the "big publishers" and e-publication? I shouldn't be forced to, but it's possible. Check on this with someone more knowledgeable than I am.

If you know your book just plain won't ever make it into traditional print, print-on-demand (POD) is an option. Some of my books fall into this category. The best epublishers will simultaneously publish your work electronically and in POD format, at no cost to you.

A lot of authors swear by self-publication, but the prospect just plain scares me. All that promo, all that self-editing, maybe driving around the countryside with a back seat full of books. I'm a writer, not a salesman. Maybe you're different.

(And did I mention that I live in Thailand? And don't have a car?)

I self-published once, in the pre-POD days. Mom handled the sales. I had fun and broke even. With POD, at least it's easier (and probably cheaper) to self-publish than it was in 1989, because you'll never get stuck with a large unsold inventory.

POD setup fees can range anywhere from US$100 to well over $1000. Don't pay the higher price! Price shop. Also, remember that POD places publish any author who pays, giving them a real credibility problem with some reviewers and readers, and that they do no marketing.

** Promoting Your Published Writing **
It doesn't matter how you publish your book. Self-published, epublished, POD, or traditional print publishing from a small press or an absolute powerhouse. Marketing falls largely on you, and the same things always work. Book signings, book reviews and interviews in the local newspapers and on radio. (Or Oprah, but what are our chances?)

Start with http://www.kidon.com/media-link/index.shtml. It will allow you to look up all the local media outlets in your area that have websites.

If you write to them all, you're a spammer. Plus, it'll take ages. Look for the ones with a legitimate interest and fire away.

If you find a stale URL, and I think you will, look for the name of that media outlet at some place like Google. Spend some time looking for the right press contacts, spend some time writing your press release, and do what you can.

Most of these sites list email, snail mail, and phone numbers. Since I live in Asia, I've only used email.

Book reviews, author interviews, book listing sites, and book contests are something we can all do, regardless of where we live. My list is at http://www.chinarice.org/find-some-readers.html and there are many other lists.

Aside from two radio interviews and a seminar in Hong Kong, and some emailed press releases to the LOCAL media back in the US which may or may not have succeeded in anything, my marketing has come from the Internet.

I have a website. I have a newsletter. I write free articles such as this one. You found me somehow, right?

Here's the type of message I receive often in email. To be more precise, in spam.

"If a million people see your ad, and you get 1% of them, that's 10,000 readers and therefore $15,000 profit and you only paid 1000 for those million addresses."

NO!! It doesn't work that way. Need I use the words dot-com bust?

My website is free. My newsletter is free. I don't buy mailing lists, I don't harvest email addresses, and I don't spam. I want interested traffic, not just sheer numbers.

Do you think the Phoenicians tried to sell sails to people a thousand miles from water?

Internet marketing isn't a replacement for the methods mentioned above, but a complement to them. And by using it, I got you here. Hi!

Your goal in marketing is this. There are people in the world who like what you like. And since you like your book, they probably will too. You have to find those readers and make them interested, without spamming them and without "playing the numbers game."

If you're an e-author, let me state the obvious. Nobody buys ebooks who doesn't have Internet access. Do they? So you definitely need a website.

Traditional print authors need websites too. Even blockbuster authors like Joanne Rowling and Stephen King, who I doubt could garner any more name recognition, have websites. So does every long-established inescapable monstro-business from hell like McDonalds and Coke.

Okay, those folks pay web designers. I'm not doing that. I can't generate sales like that. And yes, I've been employed as an HTML programmer. But you can write your own website without learning HTML if you want. It's no harder than writing a manuscript with a word processor.

It won't be super-flashy like the big boys, but it'll communicate the information. Remember, you can communicate. You're an author! That's what keeps people coming back to a website after the thrill of the flash wears off. Information. Content. Your specialty. Not a ticket to massive overnight traffic, but slow steady growth.

** Closing Thoughts **
Here's something you've heard before. When your manuscript is rejected -- and it will be -- remember that you aren't being rejected. Your manuscript is.

Did you ever hang up the phone on a telemarketer, delete spam, or close the door in the face of a salesman? Of course, and yet that salesman just moves on to the next potential customer. He knows you're rejecting his product, not him.

Okay, in my case I'm rejecting both, but I'd never do that to an author. Neither will a publisher or an agent. All authors tell other authors not to take rejection personally, and yet we all do. Consider it a target to shoot for, then. Just keep submitting, and just keep writing.

The best way to cope with waiting times is to "submit and forget," writing or editing other stuff while the time passes.

And finally, feel free to send an e-mail to me anytime. [email protected]. I'll gladly share what I know with you, and it won't cost you a cent.

I would wish you luck in your publishing endeavors, but I know there's no luck involved. It's all skill and diligence.

Congratulations on completing the course! No ceremonies, no degrees, and no diplomas. But on the bright side, no student loan to repay.

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And this, friends and neighbors, is my last post on this thread. I hope you enjoyed it. I did.