Learn Writing with Uncle Jim, Volume 1

James D. Macdonald said:

A big part of my reluctance to actually write such a book is because writing how-to-write books is often a passtime indulged in by writers whose careers have cratered on the runway. It's like methadone that way. It takes some of the edge off the writing jones without being really writing.

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I think that's why, when Stephen King was asked to do his "On Writing," he did it as a memoir, with some pearls of wisdom, or turds of supposition (depending on the readers viewpoint of King's writing) thrown in. But if you have over a thousand pages you wouldn't have any room to add in any autobiographical stuff. Unless you made it an encyclopedia for the novel writer. Oooh, good ideas percolating. Okay, maybe not good, but you know, it could work. Volume One: The First Drafts, Volume Two: Editing, Volume Three: Polishing, Volume Four: Finding Representation and Getting Published.

search and challenge

Judg said:

As for the should/could/would thing, it's not that these words shouldn't be used, but they can be flabby. "He could see the light burning on the end of her wharf" could easily become "He saw the light burning on the end of her wharf" (If he COULD see it, he DID see it. Is it important to point out that he isn't blind?) or "the light on the end of her wharf burned well into the night" (Is it really all that necessary to point out that he was committing the act of seeing?)

Part of my editing process consists of going through a long list of words and doing a "search and challenge". I don't automatically replace them, because sometimes they are the best way to say exactly what I want to say. Often they are flabby, and then I rewrite the sentence. Going through that entire list on my last book eliminated about 7000 words, with flabby "to be" verbs being the biggest offenders. The net effect was like cleaning a window. Everything just seemed brighter and crisper. It was worth it.

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Hi Judg,

That part of your editing process sounds inspired. I bet it requires great patience! What I do is probably the step before that - removing neoplasms (I think that's what they're called) like I sat up at the table. My current WIP is already like a clean window (I think) because of what I've learnt here and by reading, but I will certainly get out the Windowlene before I'm finished polishing it!

I would argue with you about the first part of your post.

He could see the light burning on the end of her wharf.

is not the same as:

The light on the end of her wharf burned well into the night.

In the first sentence the implication might be that the light was distant or difficult to see for some reason. Also, he could see connects the reader with the protagonist in a way that the plain description of the light does not.

"well into the night" is additional information, not in the first sentence. It seems to be there for the sole purpose of avoiding using was.

The light on the end of her wharf was burning.

is perfectly fine if there is no reason to suppose that it might be difficult to see, or connecting the reader with the protagonist is not required here.

imo of course.

Euclid: Did you mean to say pleonasms: redundant words? I looked up neoplasm because it sounded cellular. A neoplasm is an abnormal formation or growth of tissue. If you are creating neoplasms by typing at a computer, I suggest you are wasting your time pursuing a writing career. Make some zombies. For ideas read Girl Genius.

Kidding! After the last joke went haywire, thought it best to say so.

Judg: Your examples struck me. They struck me like wet fish!

Are you describing a male firefly observing his love interest?

With a few changes:

The light on the end of her wharf was burning--he could see the light burning on the end of her wharf. The light on the end of her wharf burned well into the night.

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So fun how they fit together like that! Future bestseller?

Is the Muse peeking out while you share? This and the crotchety school teacher from earlier in the thread feel fun. The dog-turd-studded lawn? Indelibly etched in my memory, thank you very much. What's trying to get out?

This thread is about commercially viable fiction. You're walking the writers walk, so what's coming in support? What's the Muse offering here? I'm having fun, but I'm also serious. Dontcha need a fantastic story?

That's how my best ideas bubble out of me.

Btw: In my case a resounding QFT the polishing you described. I sigh when I look at hundreds of pages needing a polish, but like you said, it's always been worth it!

James D. Macdonald said:

A big part of my reluctance to actually write such a book is because writing how-to-write books is often a passtime indulged in by writers whose careers have cratered on the runway. It's like methadone that way. It takes some of the edge off the writing jones without being really writing.

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There is a difference in the person who teaches. I am not a believer in those who can, do and those who can't. teach.

I look forward to your take on writing. In the few short years I have been reading this thread, I have learned much. I also have witnessed others growing as writers. I can be convinced it is in part due to this thread and the writers who offer there advice freely to us.

The difference in the books I have read so far and what I expect this to become is that your book will be proven. There is a track record.

Lastly, having the book in a completed, edited, and packaged form will, in and of itself, be an example of what a writer should strive for.

That said, I reserve the right to throw said book across the room should I be wrong.

So, count me in the first printing. AND, I want mine autographed so that if I should toss the book across the room, others will accuse me of throwing your name around. I'll look like such a big shot.

euclid said:

He could see the light burning on the end of her wharf.

is not the same as:

The light on the end of her wharf burned well into the night.

In the first sentence the implication might be that the light was distant or difficult to see for some reason. Also, he could see connects the reader with the protagonist in a way that the plain description of the light does not.

"well into the night" is additional information, not in the first sentence. It seems to be there for the sole purpose of avoiding using was.

The light on the end of her wharf was burning.

is perfectly fine if there is no reason to suppose that it might be difficult to see, or connecting the reader with the protagonist is not required here.

imo of course.

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Actually, you pretty much got my point. So often we say "he could see" when the ability to see is not what we're really trying to say. If that aspect is important, by all means leave it in. That's why I do a search and challenge, not search and replace. If the "could" is adding something important, it survives the challenge. It's amazing how often it doesn't matter though, in which case it doesn't survive the challenge. If you're writing in third person limited, any sensory information is assumed to be taken in by the viewpoint character, so there's no need to mention it at all unless the act of perceiving itself matters.

It's like the passive voice. It should not be eliminated wherever it occurs. It exists for a reason and when it's used for that reason (like in the last two sentences), it's the best way of saying things. We use the passive to put the emphasis on what is happening and not on who is doing it. Used for other purposes, it sounds like bureaucrat-speak, which is not what we usually want when writing fiction.

Judg: would you be prepared to share your "long list of words"?

Neoplasms / Pleonasms brilliant anagram. Pleonasms are obviously the literary equivalent of neoplasms - extra wordy growths and nodules that need to be excised!

Mr. Jason Yarn with Paradigm Talent Agency turned down the chance to represent my book Hatchings. He did say that he enjoyed the 1950s monster movie tone to the book, but it just wasn't for him.

I've had worse things said about my book and he's only the 6th or 7th agent I've contacted so I've got a lot more to go through. Most of the previous ones contacted didn't even want to look at a partial.

So, next week, it's collect the email addresses of a dozen or so others and start really slinging this puppy.

I posted in another thread, but I figure y'all will be interested too:

Swordswoman said:

There are also two increasingly common factors in UK publishing which may/may not be applicable in the US. The first is sliding-scale royalties - ie 10% for the first miserable couple thousand, then up to 15%, and even to 20% if you sell enough of the things. If the original article had applied a system like this (which any decent agent should be able to get you in the UK) the math would have come out very, very differently.

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Very common in the US too. I've had 'em on books since I've been writing, and that's been over twenty years.

The second is relatively new, which is the bonus system. One of the publishers interested in my book offered a system whereby certain sales levels would earn me a bonus independent of royalties - ie string-free money over and above the percentage of the book price I'd get as agreed in the contract.

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They're called "escalators" here, and they click in for things like "Author appeared on The Tonight Show, $X. Book is on the New York Times Best Seller List in the Top Ten for more than six weeks, $X. Book made into a movie that opens in the top ten, $X." And so on.

Now here's the deal on that "Low Advance, High Royalty" idea, and why it's a cruddy one for authors:

First, you have to understand that books become profitable for the publisher long before the advance earns out.

Second, you have to understand that it is not unknown, right here and now, for publishers to set print runs so that it is mathematically impossible for the book to earn out, even if every single copy sells. The advantage for them is that they have a predictable profit. Makes planning easier.

They make their predicted profit, the book goes out of print and reverts, and they go on to publish other books without the hassle of cutting small checks every six months. The publishers are happy.

What happens with the Low Advance High Royalties plan? The publisher pays the low advance, sets the print run to a point where it is still mathematically impossible for the book to earn out even if all the copies sell, they make their predicted profit, plus the added profit from paying the lower advance. The book goes out of print and reverts. The publishers are even happier!

If you're writing in third person limited, any sensory information is assumed to be taken in by the viewpoint character, so there's no need to mention it at all unless the act of perceiving itself matters.

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Hey, thanks for that. Something I've been wondering about lately. Helpful advice for my first editing run-through.

James D. Macdonald said:

Second, you have to understand that it is not unknown, right here and now, for publishers to set print runs so that it is mathematically impossible for the book to earn out, even if every single copy sells. The advantage for them is that they have a predictable profit. Makes planning easier.

They make their predicted profit, the book goes out of print and reverts, and they go on to publish other books without the hassle of cutting small checks every six months. The publishers are happy.

What happens with the Low Advance High Royalties plan? The publisher pays the low advance, sets the print run to a point where it is still mathematically impossible for the book to earn out even if all the copies sell, they make their predicted profit, plus the added profit from paying the lower advance. The book goes out of print and reverts. The publishers are even happier!

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Sounds publishamerica—ish.

Ken Schneider said:

Sounds publishamerica—ish.

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Not really. We're talking about, say, $20,000. You keep the $20K, and you get the rights to your book back to sell again to someone else. What's not to like?

All right,

So in keeping on the current couple of posts about royalties and advances, say the same author gets his second book published. In order to make more sales I presume that with the relese of a new book the publisher wants to also make more sales off of the first book that went out of print at the time. Would royalties come in for book number one while book number two is being sold?

euclid said:

Judg: would you be prepared to share your "long list of words"?

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If you poke through the Novels forum, you'll find quite a few of these lists, but for what it's worth, here is my search list. It's not formatted to be pretty, I'm afraid, but I didn't feel like cleaning it up. Some of these are the words that I have a tendency to overuse; they might not be a problem for others.

is, 's, isn't, are, 're, aren't, was , were, be, been, being, would, could, should, "that". Challenge-ly, with, very. Challenge gerund clauses (do a search for "ing"), Eliminate most exclamation marks. really, some (and compound forms), quite, almost, probably, a little. possibly, simply, totally, supposedly, seriously, mostly, practically. terribly, allegedly, utterly, sort of, kind of, usually, extremely. Sudden, moment, pause

It's the "to be" verbs that cause me the most work. I often overuse them (like in the preceding sentence).

Wow, a moose festival! Nice old cars in the past car shows. Looks like a friendly place. Thought I'd have to visit my friend in Alaska to see something like that. I see that other options exist. Ha!

Let's go y'all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Advance and royalty info: Pretty sly tricks on the publishers part. Like working for Walmart, but not having to show up--unless the book doesn't sell.

James D. Macdonald said:

Not really. We're talking about, say, $20,000. You keep the $20K, and you get the rights to your book back to sell again to someone else. What's not to like?

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I meant the low advance high print run senario.

Seems to me if they give you, say, 2,000 advance, set the print run too high, the writer gets screwed.

You never see any royalties, and the publisher sells above the advance. When the book dribbles to a slow crawl in sales, and doesn't sell through and reverts, well. Someone got tricked. Shady tactics at best.

barnicus said:

All right,

So in keeping on the current couple of posts about royalties and advances, say the same author gets his second book published. In order to make more sales I presume that with the relese of a new book the publisher wants to also make more sales off of the first book that went out of print at the time. Would royalties come in for book number one while book number two is being sold?

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I'm sure, if it didn't revert, and the second book having an established reader base from the first. Those who didn't read the first book might want to read it.

If the rights reverted to the author, no chance of that unless another publisher picked up the rights to the first book. Though, the sales numbers on the first book would come into play. My thinking any way.

Ken Schneider said:

I meant the low advance high print run senario.

Seems to me if they give you, say, 2,000 advance, set the print run too high, the writer gets screwed.

You never see any royalties, and the publisher sells above the advance. When the book dribbles to a slow crawl in sales, and doesn't sell through and reverts, well. Someone got tricked. Shady tactics at best.

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Not "low advance, high print run"; it's "low advance, high royalties." With the print run set so that there can't be any royalties. Which works out to plain old "low advance."

The rule for any working writer is this: The advance is the only money you're ever going to see.

Now about reversions:

If your book has reverted you can resell it to anyone. Including the previous publisher. If you're suddenly a hot property, they'll bid.

The only way to make a living as a writer is to keep writing. And keep selling. (Which is the trick, isn't it?) But the key to keeping selling is to keep getting better.

James D. Macdonald said:

What happens with the Low Advance High Royalties plan? The publisher pays the low advance, sets the print run to a point where it is still mathematically impossible for the book to earn out even if all the copies sell, they make their predicted profit, plus the added profit from paying the lower advance. The book goes out of print and reverts. The publishers are even happier!

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It's a shame that in order to make the best business choices, authors seemingly must assume that publishing is out to screw them. Sigh.

barnicus said:

All right,

So in keeping on the current couple of posts about royalties and advances, say the same author gets his second book published. In order to make more sales I presume that with the release of a new book the publisher wants to also make more sales off of the first book that went out of print at the time. Would royalties come in for book number one while book number two is being sold?

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One of the nice things about a new book's publication is that your backlist may well be put back into print and resolicited. (Resolicited: The publisher's sales force goes out and actively solicits bookstores to shelve it.) For the publisher, that's found money: They've already sunk the costs of acquistion, editing, artwork, and design. All that's left is printing, which is cheap, and distribution, which they're doing anyway because that's their core job. If the earlier book hadn't earned out before, any new revenue is put toward the advance. It it has earned out, then the author gets the money (after figuring reserve-against-returns and all the other sorrows of the writers' life).

That is if the publisher thinks that your new book is strong enough to pull other sales along with it. The publisher may not think so. In which case the earlier book continues to stumble its way toward reversion. (Without getting into the various tricks and traps, like "Permanently Out Of Stock" which is used to avoid "Out of Print," since the latter triggers reversion but the former does not. The publisher might do this, figuring that you aren't famous now, but you could become famous someday, and at that hypothetical point your backlist will be valuable. This is one place where having an agent suddenly becomes Very Very Useful Indeed.)

For the variations on this theme, see the details of your contract. Please have an expert read that contract and advise you before you sign. Good intentions don't count.

If you're going to be an alcoholic writer -- first become a writer. You can always work on the alcoholism later.

We're going to ReaderCon this coming weekend.

Here's the sked:


>>>>> Readercon 20 Participant Schedule: James D. Macdonald

Saturday 11:00 AM, VT: Group Reading

read (30 min.) Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald

Doyle and Macdonald read from a work in progress.

Saturday 2:00 PM, ME/ CT: Panel

I Spy, I Fear, I Wonder: Espionage Fiction and the Fantastic. Don
D'Ammassa, C. C. Finlay (M), James D. Macdonald, Chris Nakashima-Brown,
John Shirley

In his afterword to The Atrocity Archives, Charles Stross makes a bold
pair of assertions: Len Deighton was a horror writer (because "all cold-
war era spy thrillers rely on the existential horror of nuclear
annihilation") while Lovecraft wrote spy thrillers (with their "obsessive
collection of secret information"). In fact, Stross argues that the
primary difference between the two genres is that the threat of the
"uncontrollable universe" in horror fiction "verges on the overwhelming,"
while spy fiction "allows us to believe for a while that the little people
can, by obtaining secret knowledge, acquire some leverage over" it. This
is only one example of the confluence of the espionage novel with the
genres of the fantastic; the two are blended in various ways in Neal
Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, Tim Powers' Declare, William Gibson's Spook
County, and, in the media, the Bond movies and The Prisoner. We'll survey
the best of espionage fiction as it reads to lovers of the fantastic. Are
there branches of the fantastic other than horror to which the spy novel
has a special affinity or relationship?

Sunday 12:00 Noon, Salon F: Autographing

Sunday 1:00 PM, Vineyard: Kaffeeklatsch




===========

The reading will be from the current Civil War novel, which is going to be called
either To Look Beyond the Union or Not A Single Star Obscured. Or perhaps
something else.

We're looking for something pithy from Daniel Webster to express a time-traveling
alternate history fantasy in which sometimes the Confederacy wins, and sometimes
it doesn't, and sometimes Abe Lincoln lives to retire back to Springfield, and
sometimes he's assassinated in Baltimore before he can even take the oath of
office.

Which I hope is a fun read.

Eeeps! That's it, I've reached the last page of this thread.

I'm doing some assignments as I find the time for them. In particular, I like copying the first chapter / first few pages of novels. I'm sure something good is rubbing on me, I can almost smell it.

I now BIC everyday. I have a rough idea of where the story is going, but I don't know the details yet. It feels odd to work without a net. I'm just some sort of translator for the characters. They surprise me everyday.

I've never received a most helpful advice than the permission to write badly. Thank you!

James D. Macdonald said:

If you're going to be an alcoholic writer -- first become a writer. You can always work on the alcoholism later.

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Made me laugh. Then cry. Then laugh again. I'm not drinking. I'm writing. That's right. Writing.

James D. Macdonald said:

If you're going to be an alcoholic writer -- first become a writer. You can always work on the alcoholism later.

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You know, I haven't had any luck with that. I tried to cultivate a drinking problem in late 2007 and it just didn't stick.

I'm pathetic.

So, I guess I better just go with the writing part...