Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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Richard White

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Remember the 80-100K word count is an "average".

Look at the publisher you're aiming at, some list the size of book they're looking for as part of their submission guidelines. Luna Books (Harlequin's new fantasy line) is requesting manuscripts from 130-150K words. The book I'm thinking about pushing their way has to be "increased" to meet their suggested length. (Both of my novels came in around 110k before final edits. . . wound up 400 pages when printed).

Some publishers like shorter novels, some like fat ones (re: Melanie Rawn's books. . . eek!).

However, as has been said in this thread, almost any story in the earlier drafts has fluff that can be trimmed to make it a tighter, faster read. Don't NOT edit, but don't get too hung up if your magnum opus comes in at 78,000 or 103,000.

Research your market.
 

Zane Curtis

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I'm aiming for 85 thousand words, and I'll probably reach that goal to within a thousand words either side. But that's just the way I write. I work to a plan, rather than doing a skin-of-the-teeth first draft.

Why write more than I have to? If I did 120 thousand words instead, that would be 25 thousand more words to write, to rewrite, to edit, and to proof. But a publisher wouldn't pay me any more money for it.
 

jeffchele

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Should you aim or just shoot?

I have a question on aim for a certain word count or not. I have written one novel and am writtng the sequel, trying to get the first in print, looking for an agent. The first I have put away for a couple of weeks and am planning on doing some reading on it, then edit again if I see the need. When I was writing it I didn't worry about how many words. I had an idea, written down about plot and what I wanted to happen but no idea about length. I looked at some books I had read, Clancy and Grisham and Heinlein, to see what the length of theirs was. I found out that I had no idea what I could shoot for in length. I had an idea and knew where I wanted it to go.

Here's the question. When writing a novel, should you shoot for length or just let the creative nature of writing go were it takes you? It seems to me that your novel should be as long as it needs to be and that it will get edited later anyway. A few times in this forum I have seen people talking about a story length like its a goal for them, is it that important to have a goal like that or is it more important to have all the right elements to complete your story?
 

jdparadise

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Zane Curtis said:
Why write more than I have to? If I did 120 thousand words instead, that would be 25 thousand more words to write, to rewrite, to edit, and to proof. But a publisher wouldn't pay me any more money for it.

On one hand, I see your point, and agree from an effiiciency and cost/benefit analysis. I'm a tech writer by trade. I know the value of saying things concisely (though you can't tell from the logorhheaic sample I posted :) ).

But the flip side... sometimes a story may need more or fewer words than the first, or second, or third, plan for it. "Write as many words as the story needs" is excellent advice, in other words, but I get a bit nervous when I hear "write 85,000 words because that's the plan." (see "plans, enemies, first contact with.")

What makes me nervous is that, by limiting (or stretching) to a particular number, a writer may avoid (or artificially include) subplots, theme extensions, and characters, under- or over-write for the reader's needs...

I don't know that one can successfully write "for the money," if one is writing fiction; one can make money at it, but usually I think it's in the course of pursuing the story one wants to tell, not the paycheck for its delivery.

Just my opinion, who am I, etc...
 
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jdparadise

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Christine N. said:
I've been guilty of it, but going back and reading out loud is a a great way of clearing it up. If your tongue stumbles over it, rewrite it.

Hah! The problem is, I think in sentences like the ones in the sample. I think in parenthetical digressions, and long comma clauses, and em-dashes, and semicolons. Plus, I have a theater background. So not only do I conceive things overly long, but when I go to read them I know where all the secret pauses go so that it sounds "right."

Doesn't make it less impenetrable for the reader, though. :)

Thanks for the feedback, Christine and all!
 

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Lenora Rose said:
This [tension in balancing justice versus crowd reaction] hasn't come out yet in the segment you mentioned.
...
The only information we'll need now is that the people watching are upset and demanding X, the consequences of refusing the demands of the populace are Y, the law regarding this crime says Z, the Judge's opinion is A, the conflict is between all these. The rest of the world-building can come gradually. I'm willing to wait for background if the trial's conclusion is sufficiently riveting.
...
If you put it in tight third-person POV from the judge, *not* narrating from some future time but stuck in the moment, the conflict might well come forward, as he has no idea what will come next. Sometimes narration from the future means the narrator can leave tidbits and teasers to add tension - sometimes instead, it drains it away, because there's the underlying, "I know how this all turned out...."
Excellent points, Lenora! I got waaaaay too stuck in making sure no one was lost, forgetting that people don't read maps for entertainment.

For those curious, here's the newest version of the first few paragraphs--it's still draft0, so it's still clumsy wording-wise and probably over-adjectived, but I think I've otherwise managed to incorporate the excellent feedback I've received from all of you, to some extent at least :)



Perched atop the Judge's Chair, Pel Mah'Gandy plucked at the fraying gray cloth at the bottom of his shirt and wished he was back in his shop. The boy kneeling in the dirt before him was no criminal despite the black-ink tattoos twisting around his scalp and down his neck, spilling onto his narrow back. He was a fourteen-year-old Mah'hin boy, who'd been stupid enough to be angered by broken Falyai promises.

Idiots, the lot of them. Marko Mah'Tenji, for striking the Falyai merchant in the first place. Eynas Mord, for underpaying the boy to provoke it, and for bringing the matter to the Mah'hin court when it happened. Pel's own brother Tek, for not demanding better discipline among his recruits. The Falyai, Cheapsider and merchant alike, standing around the central circle, grumbling with heat and sweat and the slow crawl of the spectacle before them. The Mah'hin sitting among them, chewing their slackgrass and watching the proceedings with their placid cow's eyes, for electing him judge when they all knew he was too young for it.

Pel knew better than to say anything, but that didn't make it easy to hold back. He bit down on the inside of his cheek in an effort to maintain control.

The boy's barely fourteen, he wanted to snarl at Eynas Mord's turned back. The piggish vegetable-seller was mincing mockingly towar the circle's boundary, to the cooing attention of the half-drunk woman waiting there for him. Promise a two-drop copper vahnak and pay a one-drop tin to a boy of that age. What did you expect to happen?

Pel lowered his eyes, summoning composure.

"Marko Mah'Tenji, you have heard the testimony of your accuser and his witnesses?"


Better, I think.



Thanks again for all your help, folks!
 
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James D. Macdonald

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jdparadise said:
Better, I think.

Yeah, better.

By the time you reach The End, you may discover that this scene isn't the start of your book. This scene may not even be in your book. Who knows these things in advance? Continue on. When you have the entire mass of clay on your potter's wheel, then you can shape it.
 

jdparadise

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James D. Macdonald said:
By the time you reach The End, you may discover that this scene isn't the start of your book. This scene may not even be in your book. Who knows these things in advance?

Almost completely apart from my piece (yes, now I feel comfortable moving on, happy me!), that raises an excellent question.

How does one know what the "real" beginning to one's novel is?

I've read the advice that one should start "just as the MC's life is about to change in some irrevocable way," which I can definitely see working for a good number of published books I've read--from The Hobbit (though it does take three pages to get to "something happening") to any number of thrillers. (My novel actually is one of these beginnings, btw. It was just the opening paragraphs that made it seem otherwise)

But Stephen King's The Gunslinger's chapter 1 is a man following another man, with nothing happening at all except him, maybe, drawing closer. To stay with Mr. King (and Mr. Straub, no telling who wrote the first chapter, but I suspect Mr. King), Black House starts with a many-page omniscient zoom-in to the action. I know there are books by others than Mr. King that don't start at this point of no return, but I'm drawing a blank besides these.

In any event, novel-length stories can apparently be effectively told when chapter 1 does not start at this point of no return.

So how does one know if a "starting somewhere else" beginning is the "proper" beginning for a story, or if it needs to be hacked and beaten into a "point of no return" beginning?
 

James D. Macdonald

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jdparadise said:
So how does one know if a "starting somewhere else" beginning is the "proper" beginning for a story, or if it needs to be hacked and beaten into a "point of no return" beginning?

Your story begins where all the preceeding events can't be summarized in a single sentence.

(BTW -- King and Straub have earned the right to slow beginnings through their reputations for strong closes. This isn't something that a first novel will enjoy. If your novel must start slowly, consider holding onto it until you've sold a few others. Or not. A sufficiently brilliant manuscript....)

(There are, of course, other sorts of openings besides car chases and explosions. What you really need is a sense of forward motion.)
 

Kate Nepveu

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I haven't read _Black House_, but I have read all but the last of the Dark Tower books (just waiting for time to read the last, argh). The original _Gunslinger_ (I haven't and won't read the revised, but that's another story) has kind of a reputation for a difficult start--both because it's very different from King's novels and reader expectations are powerful things, and because of the opening section itself, which is somewhat less accessible for its spare, dry weirdness.

All the same, I would say that "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." is a justly-famous opening sentence.
 
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maestrowork

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James D. Macdonald said:
(There are, of course, other sorts of openings besides car chases and explosions. What you really need is a sense of forward motion.)

Precisely.

Novice writers (like me) tend to have false starts because: 1) we think everything is important to the story, including what happened 1000 years ago to the hero's family; 2) we have a need to develop and explore and talk about our characters before the story even begins; 3) we read books by "established" writers, like King or Grisham (his "A Painted House" crawled at the beginning), who could afford to start slow, sometimes with long prologues and what not; 4) we see too many movies when the first 10 minutes are nothing but set up...

...a crane shot over a beautiful neighborhood with perfect gardens and flowers... grandma sitting by the window drinking tea... that's okay if the next thing is grandma getting shot. But if that's not how your story begins (instead, you have grandma talking about baking a pie), you have a false start.

I've been there, and my advice is, just write it. If you need to write 20, 40, 60 pages of character development and settings and such, do it. If it helps you get into the heads of the characters or ramp up to the main story, do it. You can always cut that out and find the "REAL" beginning of your book somewhere, once you've written the entire thing.
 

Sharon Mock

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Ah, beginnings. ::rubs scab on forehead from beating head against that particular brick wall a few too many times::

Oddly, I've had to push the beginning continually backward, away from the inciting incident. When I've started too soon, there's not enough build-up, not enough sense of why these things matter.

I'm most of the way there, although I still need to push backward a little. But at this point it's just getting rid of unintentional red herrings, which is a big improvement. (Especially over the first attempt, which started with absolutely no forward momentum whatsoever, set up my POV character as entirely helpless and powerless, and grounded the draft after 20,000 words...)
 

Lydia Joyce

Did I hear my name? Encouragement!

I was ego-googling to find the latest reviews of my book (no one ever tells me when it's reviewed!), and I found the old site where allion mentioned my letter about Jane Doe a full year ago. I'd totally forgotten about it.

This is what she said:

"Salon.com printed letters received in response to the article and you don't have to watch an ad to read them. The one that expressed things best for me was from Lydia Joyce:

"I mean, this is a woman who got an advance on her first book of more than $100,000. Forget midlist. Many bestsellers top out at $100k per book.

In excitement about this book, her publisher promoted her hugely. She got the Big Push most of us dream about, publicity, radio spots, tours, TV.

And guess what? She still sold all of 10,000 copies.

Now, after that kind of publicity, I have only one conclusion: The general population believes that she sucks. And I don't have much sympathy.""


I want to weigh in again against the doom and gloom that so many people are spreading around still about the condition of the market. *ggg* When I wrote that letter, I didn't have a book out. In fact, I hadn't even had an OFFER for publication yet. But back then, I was already convinced that if you wrote a book people want to read and if your publishing house didn't get disillusioned by you and just try to get out of the contract as soon as possible, you would sell. If no one wants to buy your book, then it just isn't good enough according to the general population. The end.

I now have a book out now--my first one. It came out this week. And my own case has proven me right. :)))

I am a midlist author, and my advance was a ***fraction*** of Jane Doe's. As far as publisher support goes, my house liked my book a lot, but I was not even second lead for my month. But you know what? I was one of the top 100 novels in my genre on the Neilson BookSCAN list. My FIRST WEEK. I was treated well by my publisher and I have a GREAT cover, but there's something else, too, that's making this book a success--*people want to read it.* And in the end, that's what it's all about. Midlist authors still have ample distribution. They still have decent royalties. They just need to write something that other people want to read!

So anyhow, take heart! There's no need to starve as an author, and many of the most bitter people out there simply do not wish to face the fact that people just don't like their books, and so they decide to pin the blame elsewhere. You can write what you want, always, of course. But you'll be the biggest success--IF that is a goal for you--if you write what other people want to read! :)
 

katiemac

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Contract actually from Satan. You sign anyway.

Hey, at this point, his agency looks kind of tempting. Some authors will do anything.

But.... Satan? Wait, isn't he a rep for PublishAmerica?

Never mind.
 

Christine N.

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Kate Nepveu said:
I haven't read _Black House_, but I have read all but the last of the Dark Tower books (just waiting for time to read the last, argh). The original _Gunslinger_ (I haven't and won't read the revised, but that's another story) has kind of a reputation for a difficult start--both because it's very different from King's novels and reader expectations are powerful things, and because of the opening section itself, which is somewhat less accessible for its spare, dry weirdness.

All the same, I would say that "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." is a justly-famous opening sentence.

Black House was great. The Talisman is one of my all time favorite books. And the Dark Tower is one of the best quests of all time, IMO. Yeah, I'm a fan (but not his #1 fan LOL)

I don't think the opening of Gunslinger is difficult at all, and this is a great, well -crafted opening line.

-It conveys action (the man in black fled... gunslinger followed)
-It conveys urgency (the man in black didn't walk, he didn't saunter, or shuffle, trudge or even run, he fled; the imagery is one of hunted and hunter.
- It makes me ask questions - who is the man and why is he fleeing from the gunslinger? Who is the gunslinger and why is he chasing the man in black?

You get so much from so few words. And, although I know we've been told that the smallest increment of a book is the paragraph, it makes me want to read the book. If all you told me was that line, I would probably pick up the book, if I hadn't already. It's got to be one of the best hooks ever.
 

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jdparadise said:
What makes me nervous is that, by limiting (or stretching) to a particular number, a writer may avoid (or artificially include) subplots, theme extensions, and characters, under- or over-write for the reader's needs...

Actually, it's in trying to avoid under or over-writing that I came about this rather peculiar method I have for writing novels. I know of no other writer who does it the way I do (though Michael Moorcock comes closest). Believe me, this is not the first time I've heard, "But how can you write to rule like that?" Well, I'll tell you how.

When I first sat down to commit an act of writing with intent, the first chapter I ever seriously wrote came to 12 thousand words. So, naturally, I decided to keep it regular and write all the chapters of that novel at 12 thousand words. That was my first big mistake. The thing is, that first chapter aside, I couldn't write chapters of 12 thousand words and make them coherent. I kept introducing long digressions, lectures, pointless sub-plots, and other stretching techniques just to fill out the space. By the end of chapter three I had so many characters and loose plot threads that my story collapsed into an impenetrable junkheap of incoherence and confusion. I had to scrap the whole thing and start over.

I asked myself, if 12 thousand words is too long, what exactly is my natural length as a writer? How many words are enough to cover all the details of plot, character, setting, and imagery I need to bring the story to life? Also, how many words are few enough that I have no temptation at all to pad? That was the start of a long process of trial and error. I tried writing in blocks of 5 thousand words, 3 thousand, 2 thousand, 1 thousand, 8 hundred, and 5 hundred. In the end, I settled on 1 thousand words, because 8 hundred word blocks caused me to write a little too sparsely, and 2 thousand word blocks were just long enough to hang myself with. I've written in blocks of 1 thousand words ever since. Of course, I give myself breathing room there. It's very rare for me to come within 10 words of that target, but the thing is, it all averages out in a novel length work, and I can be confident of writing to within a thousand words of my target.

The thing is, there is no right or wrong way to write a novel. You have to do the work yourself, and come up with your own method that emphasises your strengths and minimises your weaknesses. As for me, I've played and written music for 20 years. From that, I've learned how to be creative -- and how to improvise -- within the rigid limits of keys, progressions, and song structures. That's as natural to me as breathing now. But I have also learned how to tackle it from the other end, and make the structure serve the muse of music... or of writing, for that matter.

Building and tweaking structures is the particular strength I bring to this whole business of writing novels. Now, since I write in blocks of 1 thousand words, that's the level I want to be thinking at when I'm writing my first draft. I want to be able to concentrate on the present block of 1 thousand words, and how that relates to the last block, and to the next block. I don't want to be distracted from that by having to worry about where the story as a whole is going. So, for me, the natural thing to do is to build a structure that sits above my thousand word blocks and organises them into a coherent novel with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and rising dramatic tension to carry the reader right the way through.

You can join three blocks of a thousand words into a single coherent progression, and that gives me a 3 thousand word chapter. I can go one better, and do 5 thousand word chapters in the same way, or I can use a block by itself for a short, 1 thousand word chapter. I can organise chapters into parts of 17 thousand words each. Five parts of 17 thousand words gives me the 85 thousand words I mentioned above. But I can break it down any number of ways, to arrive at pretty much any word count I would care to name. So, of course, when someone asks me how long a novel is going to be, my natural response is "How long do you want it?"

When I have a story idea, the first thing I do is break it down into five equal parts, or three, or whatever the structure dictates. If a story idea falls more naturally into three equal parts than into five, then I'll use a structure based on threes for preference. But in practice, I haven't yet met with an idea that I can't break down into any number of parts I want. It's no big deal for me to think up a dozen ways I can break a general story idea into five steps, or to then turn around and think up a dozen more ways to break it into three steps. When Uncle Jim or anyone else talks about writing a story as large as it needs to be, it doesn't compute for me. That's just not how I work. I make a distinction between ideas fit for short stories, as opposed to ideas fit for novels. But whether a novel is 60 thousand words or 120 thousand, just depends on how I decide to break it down. It has no impact at all on all the creative stuff with characters and imagery and so forth, which for me is all happening when I sit down to write a 1 thousand word block.

"Formula fiction!" you interject? Pfft. As far as I'm concerned, the main thing wrong with formula fiction is how crude and unsubtle the formulas generally are. Structuring is my thing. I know how to use syncopation and asymmetry in such a way that you would never know you were reading formula fiction, until a mathematician points it out to you. I know how to build structures that become an integral part of the artistic expression, in the same way that exposed structural members are integral to aesthetics of modern architecture. I know how to use chaos theory and emergent properties to build a complex, reactive structure that almost behaves as though it was a living thing. I can turn "formula" into a virtue, and I can do it without disturbing the primary task of telling a story, because it's hidden away as an elaboration of the basic scaffolding of a regular novel. This is my strength, remember. This is the unique perspective I bring to this business of writing novels.
 
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Ken Schneider

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Somewhat on topic, When should you start shopping your work around?

1. I have 30,000 words in on my current project-bic nightly- and am curious to know if I should dig into my copy of Writers Market '05 to try and match it with a possible publisher-agent?

2. Should I wait until the project is finished? I have read that one should not write another work until the first is sold. The thinking being that you may give up on the previous work.

3. If I am to send out the work, I am under the impression that it be run through the ringer of re-writes, my best edit?

Thanks, Ken
 

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1. Don't try to match an unfinished work. Keep your eye on the finish line and finishe the book first.

2. When the first draft is finished, take a little time to research who you're going to send it to. After the first draft, you'll have a good idea what you're writing. You can do the *research* while you rewrite, but don't query or send samples or anything. And please don't wait for a book to sell before starting the next.

3. Definitely.

After the book is as good as it can be, put it on the market. Then, while the book is making the rounds, start your next. Marketing a book can take so long that you might have finished the next before you sell the previous. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

That's my advice.


 

MacAllister

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Changling posted:
1. I have 30,000 words in on my current project-bic nightly- and am curious to know if I should dig into my copy of Writers Market '05 to try and match it with a possible publisher-agent?

2. Should I wait until the project is finished? I have read that one should not write another work until the first is sold. The thinking being that you may give up on the previous work.

3. If I am to send out the work, I am under the impression that it be run through the ringer of re-writes, my best edit?

I'm with HConn, Changling--
1. Finish the puppy...write your butt off and get 'er done. Then let it rest and revise/rewrite it. Repeat until you're confident it's absolutely the best you can make it. Then get a beta reader or two you trust to be absolutely honest about characters they hate, plot holes, and the places they skipped over because it got boring. Rewrite again, as needed. Then send it out.

2. Research time, note-making, outlining, etc is NOT writing...so you can be doing homework for the next book, while you write this one. (It's working out pretty well for me to do it that way, anyway.) The day you put the stamp on your completely manuscript and send it away, start writing the next one. It will help keep you amused and occupied so you don't just sit by the mailbox obsessing. Also, when the first one sells, you have a completed or almost completed second book, and you can say: "Gosh, by the way...I have this other book, too, and..." The day you send the second book out, start writing your third.

3. Absolutely, positively don't send anything to anyone that you haven't tweaked and pushed and pulled to make into your best words.

Good luck! :)
 

HConn

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MacAllister said:
Research time, note-making, outlining, etc is NOT writing...

I don't agree with this, but that's my situation. I get a set amount of time every day to work on writing, so that time gets used for first drafts, rewriting, outlining, whatever. (Not research).

I'd love to have extra time in the day for both writing and outlining, but I don't. Whatever works for you.
 

MacAllister

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I don't agree with this, but that's my situation. I get a set amount of time every day to work on writing, so that time gets used for first drafts, rewriting, outlining, whatever. (Not research).
*sniff*
HConn just publicly disagreed with me.

Actually--I didn't mean to make that sound as hard and fast as it came out in text. I have to keep to that rule for myself, or I'll plan things to death, and never actually get to the point of WRITING them.

Oh heck, HConn--hardly anyone ever DOES agree with me. :D I do have more free time than most, admittedly. It helps not to have a pesky family-life that demands time and attention.
 

reph

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MacAllister said:
It helps not to have a pesky family-life that demands time and attention.
Everybody listen to Mac. All she's got is pigs, dogs, horses, sheep... Betcha those critters just about take care of themselves.
 
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