Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

euclid · Jun 23, 2009

Genre?

I'm concerned about the genre of my book, the one I'm querying at the moment. The first half of the book builds fairly slowly, like a mystery, the second half is fast and exciting - a thriller/suspense. The whole could be considered a coming-of-age book and might be categorized as a literary novel. There is also a strong love story in there, and it has a strong plot. Oh and of course it's setting is historical.

How do you decide what genre to target?

Perle_Rare · Jun 23, 2009

euclid said:
I stumbled across this publisher's site: www.lyricalpress.com/submissions

On the submissions page they have book formatting tips that include the following:

"Use your word processing toys to indent new paragraphs. Do not tab or use the space bar."

What does this mean? I've always used tab.

If you're using MS Word, for example, you can set the size of the first line indent automatically so that every time you hit the "Enter" key (which indicates the end of a paragraph), the cursor will automatically be positioned at the right spot without the use of the tab key.

In my current version of Word (2007), that setting is under "Paragraph / Indents and Spacing / Indentation". I set the "First line" spacing to 0.5".

Hope that helps...

jst5150 · Jun 23, 2009

Jim, one of the three principal characters in my novel is dead. And that dead character's history and action play throughout the book. Can you offer any thoughts on "dead character as main character," and how one best handles that throughout the story?

Thanks.

allenparker · Jun 23, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Just turned in a novel. It starts with a prologue. (No one reads them anyway.) Then the first paragraph of chapter one is a weather report. (And now for the 11:35 weather report.)

Darned thing only runs 60K.
This probably has a lot to do with why I've been feeling so bitchy lately.

Just so you know.

Everyone has their moments. Enjoy them!

James D. Macdonald said:
Oh, I was. Or, co-author, actually. But since in the eyes of God and Man my wife and I are one ... well, anyway.

Not to worry. The editor will now get to make cogent comments. By the time we're done with revisions who knows what'll be there.

This is another Civil War fantasy.

Next project (and gonna power right through it this time) the next Peter Crossman novel.

After that, a new Mageworlds novel.

After that, I'll see where we stand.

Which brings up this question. Obviously, an author eventually gets to the point where he sends in novels to a publisher and they take them, review them, but the focus changes from whether they want the novel or not to beginning the process of preparing the manuscript for publication.

So, how many novels does it take the average bottomlist author to reach such a place?

Where is the tipping point from fear of being rejected to fear of dishing out a less desirable novel?

Or is there ever a point where the run of the mill author has this luxury?

Ken Schneider · Jun 23, 2009

Somewhat connected, but not, Allen.

I'm going with the theory that it takes a million words/ten 100k novels, before one is in good writing form.

I'm over half way there.

If this is the case, and one writes a novel that a publisher or an agent considers, publishes or represents, I'll be happy.

Success to me after that point depends on sales of that first work, IMO.

Once published, you have a trackable history to help you sink or swim.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 23, 2009

Well, you never get over the feeling that you're just faking it and that any minute now your editors and the reading public will figure this out and you'll have to go get an honest job.

Yeah, I know that I've said that the real way to learn to write a novel is to write one. But that isn't strictly true. What you learn by writing a novel is how to write that novel. You're going to have to go back to learning all over again on the next one.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 23, 2009

jst5150 said:
Can you offer any thoughts on "dead character as main character," and how one best handles that throughout the story?

No, I can't. But you can. And, with the aid of your beta readers, you will.

FOTSGreg · Jun 23, 2009

Euclid, I've seen more and more of that sort of thing lately. I always use the tab key as well (comes from half a lifetime of using a typewriter before shifting to computers and word processors). I've seen some publications asking writers to use 5 spaces instead of a tab or indent, It may have something to do with Word's embedded commands or with the way documents convert to text or rtf files.

I've also seen at least half a dozen different ways, at least, to separate scenes, but until I learn better, I'll stick with what the SFWA says and that's to use the # key to separate scenes.

euclid · Jun 23, 2009

I did a word count: 395,000 so far, including my short stories. Only 605,000 to go!

Dale Emery · Jun 23, 2009

euclid said:
"Do not use style elements or sections breaks."

I thought # was used between sections to indicate (typically) the passage of time (US convention).

Yes. The publisher means: Don't use the word processor's "Insert Section Break" feature to separate scenes or chapters.

Dale

jst5150 · Jun 23, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
No, I can't. But you can. And, with the aid of your beta readers, you will.

Sorry. The dumb retired military guy in me is coming out. I'll get feedback from my betas as to how I wrote it. That'll tell me how about that component of the story, yes?

Blue Sky · Jun 23, 2009

8. If you can explain how to write a book, then you don't know how to write one. If you can write a book, then you won't be able to explain how you did it. It's stupid, but it's true.

Laughed and appreciated the honesty before and this time as well.

Btw: Picked up a used book by Jack London, The Star Rover, his last novel. Had no idea he wrote such a thing. I always think of Call of the Wild, White Fang, To Build a Fire, etc. from boyhood reading. A death-row inmate experiences other lives. It's so easy to fall into the story; the transitions into and out of other lives are smooth and simple. We're talking transmigration/reincarnation here--his other lives.

Jack London's take on our recurring curiosity regarding breaking chronology. Very nicely done imho.

MiltonPope · Jun 23, 2009

FOTSGreg said:
Euclid, I've seen more and more of that sort of thing lately. I always use the tab key as well (comes from half a lifetime of using a typewriter before shifting to computers and word processors). I've seen some publications asking writers to use 5 spaces instead of a tab or indent, It may have something to do with Word's embedded commands or with the way documents convert to text or rtf files.

If you have put the whole book in a single file, it's very quick to convert all paragraphs to the proper form for this publisher. For instance:

Delete all tab characters. In Word, Select All / Replace choose the More and Special buttons, and replace them with nothing.

Or delete five spaces at the start of the paragraph: Select All / Replace, enter ^p (that's two characters, caret and "p") plus the five spaces, and replace them with nothing.

Use the paragraph indent instead: Select all, then apply the Paragraph indent as someone (was it perle?) suggested above.

You can also fix inconsistent character names, common misspellings and inconsistent scene-change markers in the same way.

--Milton

FOTSGreg · Jun 23, 2009

MiltonPope, Yup, all of those work (and there are a few other tricks as well), but might require more than just rudimentary knowledge of your word processor's command language and capabilities (still, anyone using a word processing program ought to learn it on more than just a rudimentary level in my opinion saves a lot of time and struggle when you know how to eliminate excess white space for example than trying to go in and do it manually just to give one example (paragraphs are another)).

FOTSGreg · Jun 23, 2009

Uncle Jim, How do I stop the desire to "fiddle" with a book that is finished, has been finished, might still need a little (editorial) work, but is essentially fine the way it is, and get on with writing the next book?

One of my problems is that every time I put a section up for review by a bunch of science geeks they find something else that needs tweaking. I don't think the ordinary, non-science geek reader will even notice and might actually like the section (I know of a truck driver SF writer who liked it).

So, how do I get the science past the science geeks and get this work put behind me so I can get on to the next one (and get past the notion to fiddle with it)?

smsarber · Jun 23, 2009

Oh, this hurts my head... going out to buy a typewriter.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 23, 2009

FOTSGreg said:
Uncle Jim, How do I stop the desire to "fiddle" with a book that is finished, has been finished, might still need a little (editorial) work, but is essentially fine the way it is, and get on with writing the next book?

Book's finished, right? Good as you can make it? You're putting in a comma in the morning and taking it out in the afternoon?

Okay. I'm giving you a deadline. Tomorrow or you have to give back the advance.

Put it in the mail tomorrow morning, go have lunch, roll a clean sheet of paper into your typewriter and get the first 250 words of your next pumped out before you go to bed.

There! That was easy, wasn't it?

James D. Macdonald · Jun 23, 2009

Books are never finished. They escape.

smsarber · Jun 23, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
Books are never finished. They escape.

euclid · Jun 24, 2009

Thanks

MiltonPope: I printed out your post about how to convert tabs to paragraph indents. I will now create a small file with some text (that I can afford to lose) and experiment with it. Thanks.

ETA: Tried all that. Managed to eliminate all tabs, but couldn't find "First line spacing" under format/paragraph/indents and spacing. My version of Word is 2003 (I think)

ETA2: I found it. It's there under Indentation / Special / First line / By: It suggested 1.27 cm and I went with that.

Thanks everybody.

FOTSGreg · Jun 24, 2009

Uncle Jim wrote, Books are never finished. They escape.

I love it. I'm framing that one.

Yeah, the book's finished. Really all I'm doing now is fiddling with it as you said, a comma in the morning, taking it out in the evening, futzing with the wording, etc., etc., endlessly.

No advance or anything yet (not even an offer, but that's because I've been fiddling with it for so long). I do have a query and the first 14 pages out to an agent...

James D. Macdonald · Jun 24, 2009

FOTSGreg said:
No advance or anything yet (not even an offer, but that's because I've been fiddling with it for so long). I do have a query and the first 14 pages out to an agent...

I'm just saying, pretend there's an advance. Then you really will have to send in what you have on the day.

Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to query several agents at the same time.

FOTSGreg · Jun 24, 2009

Uncle Jim, I grok what you're saying.

I'm still framing your previous statement and hanging it on my wall (it'll sit right up there with "One damned thing after another is a perfectly good plot".

Now, while I'm looking the other way, my completed book will escape and inflict itself upon the world...

FOTSGreg · Jun 24, 2009

I've been reading David Gerrold's book Worlds Of Wonder: How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy the last few days during my copious amounts of free time when not writing myself and I think Gerrold has pegged some really fine elements of storycrafting that other writers of "how to" books have not.

Now, I like Gerrold, for the most part, and have even met and corresponded with him extensively back in the 80s and early 90s so I might be biased.

Dave mentions The Law of Polymurphic Progression which I recently ran headlong into with some friends of mine over at the Analog forum. Basically, this law states that Murphy's Law polymorphs. The more attention you pay to a problem, the more complex it becomes. At some point, the problem becomes so complex it becomes unresolvable.

I had this problem concerning a scene in a science fiction novel where I discuss the basics of photosynthesis which is essentially an info-dump. A couple of the forumites liked it, but then the science whizzes got going on the problem (again), picking the problem apart in detail until it was impossible to solve (if it were possible to solve, it wouldn't be science fiction and I'd be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, probably win the Nobel Prize for ushering in a new hydrogen-economy, and wouldn;t be posting here much anymore).

The thing is, the people I originally consulted regarding the science, who are scientists themselves at a leading university, thought the science was plausible.

I realized today that the science in my fiction doesn't have to be 100% accurate. If it were I'd be writing textbooks and grant proposals not a novel. It just has to be reasonably plausible and entertaining to an acceptable number of readers. My book is, I hope. I hope the next one will be too.

Uncle Jim, Thanks for all those little slaps up side of my head and the kicks in the seat of the pants. This b*tch is on its way out the frakking door and I'm finishing up a couple of other WIPs and getting rolling on the next one asap.

BTW, I think Gerrold's book has some of the best advice on the emotionailty of writing as any I;ve ever read.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 24, 2009

Greg: This is the same story as we were discussing last August?

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2665399#post2665399

Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

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Dragon rider

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Coming soon to a nightmare near you

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Today is your last day.

Your Genial Uncle

Today is your last day.

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Your Genial Uncle