5 Questions...An aspiring writer should ask themselves before pursuing a career as a novelist.

1. Do you have the talent to be a professional novelist? I don’t mean, does your mother or spouse think you are a good writer but is your writing on par with novels, short stories and magazine articles that you’ve read. Or could it be, after you’ve studied the craft of novel writing, written a novel or two and understand how to write a properly plotted story with realistic dialogue and well-developed characters. Have you let anyone read what you have written? Have you received positive, encouraging feedback from an English professor, magazine editor, agent or anyone who should know good writing?

2. Do you have a passion for writing? Like most creative undertakings, writing is a passion project, usually a lifelong endeavor. Real writers have been writing since they could hold a pencil properly--poems, childish stories, journal entries, novels and the like. It is a part of them, a natural expression of who they are. And they write for themselves. They write for free. They write because they love the idea of putting pen to paper (okay, that’s rather archaic) or fingertip to keypad and creating a story from nothing. Passionate writers write because they don’t feel normal if they don’t.

3. Do you have the diligence required to study and learn the craft of writing? Writing is not easy. Oh, writing can be easy but committing to edit, write and re-write until your literary piece is polished like a crown jewel is not. There is a structure or structures to learn, the right one has to be selected for your genre and story. Creating the correct novel structure is almost a geometric calculation, but once you’ve got it…you’ve got it. Themes must be subtly laced through your story. And there is a knack required to create natural dialogue and develop interesting characters. It cannot always be taught but certain aspects can be learned. You must read books on writing, take classes or both and then practice, practice, practice. You must let others critique your writing and then you have to turn an objective eye to your own writing and revise, write and then revise some more.

4. Are you disciplined enough to write novels? Writing is lonely work. Do you work well independently? Can you create and meet self-imposed writing deadlines? Do you have a writing schedule that you adhere to; measured in a daily or weekly amount of hours, pages or words you must meet? Are you committed to writing a novel that will knock the proverbial socks off an agent and compel a publisher to buy your work?

5. Can you persevere? Can you continue to write when it matters to no one but you? Can you continue to write in the face of constant rejection? Sometimes spouses and family members will not take your writing serious. Agents will like but not ‘love’ your writing. Book publishers will not be able to ‘garner the support’ they’d hope to for your novel. You will lose faith in your own abilities and commitment. But ultimately the writing race is not to the swift…but time and chance…

If you have answered all five questions in the affirmative, writing may be the career for you.

Intern N

I see, you see, we all see...

Okay, that title wasn't particularly clever, as it doesn't include third person and it's not even the right words, but hey. I though using "scream" might imply something slightly different than the actual topic, which is:

Point of View!

Let’s talk about this. This is one of those things that, when you think about it, is generally pretty common sense. The problem is, I think people get so caught up in telling their stories and trying to get all the information out there, they don’t always think about it.

Some people have only a little trouble with this- a couple slips here and there, just something to keep an eye on. Some people have no trouble. Some people have lots of trouble.

The easiest place, in my experience, to have no trouble, is when you’re telling something from a first person POV. Because in first person, it’s pretty easy to tell what belongs and what doesn’t. Even when you’re not thinking about it, when you’re writing you generally know you can’t switch to someone else’s thoughts if your narrator doesn’t know them, unless your narrator is psychic. I think even if you weren’t paying terribly close attention, you wouldn’t make a mistake like:

“I was sitting at a booth and watching the bar door when my dad strolled in. He saw me and grinned.

‘Hey, Elsie!’

‘Hey dad!” I gestured for him to sit down.

Behind Elsie, Frank watched jealously, sipping his coke and thinking of the best way to get her alone.”

First person is probably (certainly?) the easiest way to get close to your main character. It gives them a very distinct voice that builds their character, instead of just basing it on their actions. But of course, it can be very limiting, because you know your narrator so much better than anyone else (unless you play around with how you use the first person. See: Sherlock Holmes, for example (but really, see them. The real, Conan Doyle stories, I mean. They’re amazing). Watson is the first person narrator, but the stories are, of course, actually about Holmes).

Third person is where it gets tricky, because there are so many ways to do it, and people try to combine them. Pick one.

Some people opt for omniscient third person, where the narrator sees and knows everything about everyone. This is easy because it lets you tell anything you want about what anyone is doing. It’s difficult because it distances you from your characters a bit more, so you’ll have to work on revealing their inner thoughts and desires without doing too much telling. And if your narrator is really going to be omniscient, you can’t get too close to one person for too long, because that’s more…

Close third person. Close third person is a favorite, and probably where I see the most mistakes. In close third person, you pick one character- your main character, almost always- and the third person narrator doesn't leave their side. Or their head, since you can usually see what they’re thinking, as well. The narrator is not an actor in the story any more than the omniscient narrator is, but they only know what the character they are close to knows. Thus, the narrator (and the reader) can’t know what other people are thinking or doing unless the main character knows, too.

An example: The Harry Potter series, with a couple of exceptions (generally one chapter in the beginning of the book that shows what Voldemort’s up to) is told in close third person, close to Harry. We don’t know anything until Harry does (well, we might figure stuff out faster than he does, but only based on the information he knows). The story does not, all of a sudden, follow Hermione for a day or an hour, even if what happened to her was important. We have to wait until she tells Harry about this. This is a drawback of close third-person (it would be really convenient if the narrator could just show/tell us what Hermione did), but it’s necessary. By not leaving the one character’s side (and mind), we know them intimately fairly quickly. It’s similar to first-person in this way; it’s an excellent way to really develop your main character. Of course, it’s also more of an effort to develop the characters you’re not close to. But (clearly) every POV is a give and take.

I've seen more problems with this than one might expect. A close third person narration will suddenly switch to a different character, which is horribly disorienting.

Don’t get me wrong: you’re allowed to switch viewpoints. Quite a lot of books do it. But it has to be at regular, set intervals- chapters, for instance. This is Jeff’s chapter, now Christine’s. It has to be obvious. The POV can’t switch in the middle of, say, a phone call. If the character on the phone is not the character we’re close to, we do not know what the person on the other end of the line is saying. We just don’t. Maybe they’ll tell us in a minute; but until then, we don’t know. A couple of other interns have written about changing POV, however (one about a year ago, and one in March), so I won’t go into too much detail about that. I do recommend those posts if you need help on that though.

To sum up, don’t stray. Switch, coherently, if you’d like, but don’t stray. Pick a point of view and be true to it, even when you’d like to let us know a bit of information that’s going to be hard to work in. It can be frustrating, but it’s worth it for a polished, coherent, smooth read.

This is more a call to double check your work than anything. I know that most writers know the differences between POVs. But like I said, sometimes it’s one sentence of slip-up, or just a switch that’s a bit disorienting. Make sure you know exactly where you’re going with your narrator’s voice, and make sure everything fits.

Hope this can help, live long and prosper and all that,

-Katie

Finding Themselves

I want to talk about characters today. Another intern wrote a post on characters a few months ago, and I agree with everything she said, but I want to talk a little bit more specifically about developing characters. For me, the characters are the most important part of the story (of course, different people have different opinions, but this is mine). A plot can be mediocre (I’d rather it not be, of course, but it can be forgiven) if the characters are excellent. When I write, I almost always start a story because I have a new character I want to write about, and then the plot develops around them (plotting is generally my least favorite part of writing). This is largely why dialogue is something I harp on so much, because the way someone talks is so integral to who they are.

For example, in my recent blog post on dialogue, I wrote up a couple of short example conversations between the characters David, Jane and Jared. These conversations were completely random and on-the-spot, and the names were just the first that popped into my head. But since then, I’ve found myself thinking about them more than I expected to. Just based on those conversations, I already know that the three of them are deep into something, probably trying to scam someone (for some reason what I’m picturing is something about an inheritance, but I also don’t think the three are siblings). It’s also clear that David and Jane are doing something behind Jared’s back. Part of me keeps wondering what the story is, because I’ve inadvertently created characters that interest me.

You should know your characters intimately, in and out of the situations of the story. You should know all sorts of random details that may never actually come into play in your actual story, because the more you know (even random, apparently pointless things) the better you will be able to predict what your character would do in a certain situation. As the other intern mentioned, you should know what you characters were like as children, what they think about before going to sleep, etc.

A good number of you probably already do stuff like this, but for those of you who have trouble breaking away from the plot, here’s my advice. I like to do character development exercises—my favorites are the ones that are lists of questions. You can find any number of these online. They ask things like “What does your character wish for when they blow out their birthday candles?” “What are three bad habits your character has?” and “What is your character’s worst fear?” (I had no idea one of my characters was deathly afraid of fire until I came across that question. Once I realized it (and realized that, being who he was, he would never admit it to anyone), my storyline opened up considerably). Sometimes you have to modify the questions to make them fit your character (if you have a character that’s an orphan living in the woods in a fantasy world (like me), clearly she never blew out birthday candles. But if she could wish for something, what would it be?). But that’s okay, that’s just more information to work with. Also, sometimes the questions just make you go “of course!” even if you already know your character really well. For instance, the bad habits question: “he smokes- it’s the twenties!” It was so obvious, but it’s not necessarily something I would have thought about enough to include, and it can make all the difference. It’s the little details that make a scene. And a character.

My favorite question is “What is your character’s worst nightmare?” Whenever I answer this question, I answer it literally. I write out the actual nightmare, from the first-person point of view of that character (even if the manuscript itself isn’t from that character’s point of view—it’s helpful to get into each character’s head a bit). Of course, everyone has their own methods, but I’ve had quite a lot of fun with that question, and learned quite a bit about my own characters at the same time.

Sometimes helping a character find themselves is more important than you realize. Maybe a minor character isn’t so minor after all (I would recommend doing these types of exercises for lots of characters, not just the main ones). Maybe a piece of your main character’s past is going to change the whole story. When it comes down to it, I think the main message is don’t be so glued to your plot that you suffocate your characters. If you let them be themselves, chances are your story will improve.

All for now!

-Katie

See?

So today I read an article (well, a mini-article) in the Washington Post Express that bothered me a lot, and it tied into a post I wrote on here before, so I thought I'd share.

It wasn't the article itself that bothered me--it was about a man in Qatar that is trying to breed Spix's macaws (the world's rarest species of parrot, I believe) in order to release some back into the wild, because there are no known specimens still living in the wild (and only 76 in captivity, according to the Express)(have you guys seen the recent cartoon movie Rio? The "Blue Macaw" is modeled after the Spix's macaw). This, in itself, is fantastic. As a parrot lover, I'm gung-ho for saving and reintroducing species.

The article had a picture underneath it. It was the back view of a macaw with its wings spread. Now, I'm sure there are only a few Express readers who would have noticed this, but working in a pet store (a privately owned pet store where the employees actually know what they're talking about, thank you) and knowing a fair amount about parrots in particular, I noticed something.

The bird pictured is not a Spix's Macaw. It is a Blue and Gold macaw.

Since I'd just recently written up a whole post about authors doing their research, and how they can't expect the readers to not know more than them, this bothered me even more than it normally would.

I talked to my co-worker from the pet store, and she said she had read the original, long-version article in the Washington Post proper (in fact, our boss had brought it in for the employees to read), and it had a correct picture. Which, to me, makes this even worse. Now it's not even an issue of not knowing, it's just being lazy. What this says to me is that the Express just didn't want to go through the trouble of getting the rights to an actual picture, so took a photo stock picture of a somewhat nondescript macaw (like I said, it's the back view; I only noticed because it's the wrong color blue for a Spix's, and last time I checked Spix's don't have yellow legs) and assumed it would suffice. It's an article about parrots, it's a picture of a parrot; close enough. (I have to make a disclaimer here and say that, not being a Post or an Express employee, I don't actually know what happened and clearly can't make any official statements about it.) But my personal opinion is that they should get their facts straight. To me, a picture of the wrong bird is misleading and not close enough, especially when the article is so specific to one species. I expect more from a reputable source like the Post.

You can't assume your readers don't know more than you.

I like the Washington Post, and the Express. But issues like this lower my opinion of them.

SO the point of all this was to say "See?" and underline my point about doing your research. It is definitely worth the effort, even if only a few people are going to notice. The person that notices might just be someone that's going to write a blog post about it.

Your neighborhood nit-picker,

Katie

Dialogue: Let's be real. Part II

I don't mean to harp, but I have more to say about dialogue, and a few of you seemed to like my post on the subject before, so by George I'm gonna say it.

Remember when I said that readers are smart? Readers can figure it out? It's true, I promise. I read way too many things where the author is trying desperately to make absolutely sure the reader knows what's going on. While I'm sure the reader appreciates the thought, it's often not necessary. Specifically, I mean overuse of dialogue tags and names.

Dialogue tags: some authors want to have a "he said," "she said" after every single thing a character says. Obviously, these tags are necessary sometimes (even lots of times). But if you've started a conversation with your characters, and the words are between quotation marks, we know they've said it. I promise.

"I want to get lunch," Jane said.

"Okay. Where do you want to eat?" David asked.

"Anywhere," she responded.

"How about that new Italian place?" he suggested.

"Sounds good," she agreed.

After we've established that Jane and David are talking (which may have happened before this snippet of conversation--hey, we have no idea what they were doing before I started typing) we really don't need that many tags. The last three lines could easily lose their tags entirely, and the conversation loses nothing.

An instance where frequent dialogue tags are helpful is when there are more than two people talking. Obviously, then we need to know how the conversation is progressing. But even then, you can be creative. Instead of an actual dialogue tag, just move the focus to the character who's speaking.

"I've made some changes," David began, "and I think it should work. But--"

"Can you get it to him tomorrow?" Jared interrupted.

"Yes."

"Then do it."

Jane paced the room, her hands twitching slightly. "But what if he won't sign?"

Thrusting the papers away from him, David sighed and pressed his hands against his eyes. "Then we start from the beginning."

Jared groaned. "Not again!"

There are seven separate instances of people speaking in that conversation, but I only used two actual dialogue tags. And I think it's pretty obvious who's talking throughout.

Names: this one's pretty obvious, I think. But I still see people get hung up on it. Direct conversation by content and context, not by telling us exactly whom the character is addressing. What I mean is, above, David didn't have to say "then we start from the beginning, Jane" for us to know he was answering her. Generally, people only use each other's names when they're trying to get their attention or for emphasis. So if David is really fed up with Jane and Jared's harping by now, and thinks the answer should be obvious, he could say "then we start from the beginning, Jane." But he doesn't need to. I've seen more conversations than I expected to that go something like this:

"What should we do about Jared, Jane?"

"I don't know, David, what do you think?"

"It's up to you, Jane."

Tiring is really the only way to describe it.

I'm not saying you should be Hemingway or anything, here. Dialogue tags and names are good (as it turns out). But like any writing tool, just be careful about how and how often you use them. Yes, we need to know who's talking to whom. But not in every sentence.

Hope this helps and good luck!

-Katie

Research Makes Perfect

Tip of the day from your friendly neighborhood intern: do your research. I know, it isn’t the most fun part of writing a novel—it’s tedious and time-consuming, and you want to get to writing your story and bringing the scenes in your head to life (although in theory you’re writing about something that interests you, so hopefully the research isn’t too boring). But trust me, it’s worth it.

One thing I cannot caution you enough on is the use of foreign languages in your books. I love the use of other languages in things I’m reading, I really do. I get excited. But I hate when they’re used incorrectly. And since I speak a couple of other languages conversationally, I often notice.

An example completely unrelated to my work here, so as not to offend anyone: at the pet store I work at, I once saw a bird toy that was made of coconuts and other things latin-american-y. The company, trying to be cutesy, decided to put some Spanish slogans on it. One of them was “Mucho grande!” Mucho grande means much big. Not even in English is that okay. I was not inclined to buy that toy for my bird (yes, I do actually have a bird), and when a novel makes this mistake, I’m not inclined to sing its praises.

Don’t use an online translator. I love Google translate; it’s my best friend when I need to know a word for a class. But if you don’t know the language and can’t use discretion, don’t try. “Mucho grande” could have been fixed by a literal translation (which is part of why it annoys me SO much), but often those don’t work for the everyday slang in dialogue (which is usually when you’re using the other language).

If you really want to use another language that you don’t speak, find someone who speaks it. It’s really not that hard in this day and age; we can find anyone we want on the internet.

In general, you can’t assume your readers won’t know this or that detail, or won’t care. Some readers are going to know more than you. Some, just because they’re curious, will look things up to see if you’re right. And you want to be right. If a character in your story has a disease, make sure you know the symptoms and progression of that disease really well. If you’re writing about a different time period, make sure all of your historical facts mesh (on this note, I also want to mention that it’s really okay for characters to have beliefs that mesh with their time period, not ours. Sure, we don’t want them to be bigots, but realistically, women’s rights (for example) didn’t come along until fairly recently. Not every guy from history has to be gung-ho for equality to make them a good guy. They just have to be good. And, you know. Not a complete bigot.).

Sometimes, readers even like to learn (gasp!). If you’ve done enough research on your topic (or even have enough background knowledge), you don’t have to stop at the simple, basic information. You don’t want a list of facts, of course, but if you can slip some interesting tidbits into dialogue or narration, it can add to the story. Be careful about it (remember what I said before about dialogue that’s obviously just there to tell the reader something? “Did you know that the leaning tower of Pisa took almost two centuries to build, and it started leaning after only a couple years of construction? But they stopped building it for almost a century so that the earth could settle underneath and it wouldn’t fall. It’s the campanile, or free-standing tower, for the cathedral in Pisa.”), but if it fits naturally into the story, go for it. This is why I love historical fiction; I love learning new things.

I thought this was going to be a fairly short post, but I don’t seem to be able to stop when I start rambling. I’ll cut myself off. Good luck and keep writing!

-Katie

Dialogue: Let's be real.

Nothing turns me off a story more than poor dialogue. It has to sound real. When reading a story (be it a partial submitted here or a published novel) I can forgive the author for a lot of things. If the dialogue is unconvincing, it is very hard to win me back.

Let’s be clear. Things that make me cringe:

-dialogue that is obviously only used to explain something to the reader. Authors often don’t give the reader enough credit. The reader is smart. The reader can figure it out. The reader also knows when dialogue is contrived, not to portray a conversation between characters, but to spell something out. That’s not to say you should never use dialogue to explain something—used correctly, this can be a great tool. But you have to do it subtly.

For example, the WRONG way to set up a situation:

“Josh and Mary are together again. I don’t think that’s going to work. He cheated on her before and people don’t really change.”

“I think you’re right. Mary is too dependent on him, too. She’s only going to end up in trouble again.”

A better way to say this could go something like:

“Mary’s back with Josh.”

“Seriously? God, I thought she was rid of him.”

“I know, me too. I swear, he smiles and she goes running back.”

People’s thoughts on a subject can be just as (or more) informative than straight information. In the second example, we already know the speakers don’t like Josh, and that Mary is infatuated. We don’t need all the information at once; it can come out later that they were separated because he cheated.

-being too formal. Specifically, the absence of contractions. This one really gets to me. Use contractions! When people talk, they use contractions (unless there is a specific reason for them not to—if they learned English as a second language, for example). If it’s a really formal setting, that’s fine. But in day to day speech, people do not say things like “We would love it if you would come. We will wait for you so that you do not get lost.” Instead, say something like “We’d love for you to come. We’ll wait for you so you don’t get lost.” It’s a simple thing, but it makes a huge difference.

There are more, of course, but those are two big ones and this post is getting long. So before you send your baby out for other people to judge, go back to the dialogue. I know it’s hard to be objective, but try to imagine the conversation outside of the story. Could you hear two of your friends having the conversation? Two random people on the street? If not, the reader probably can’t hear the characters having it, and it’s going to disrupt your story. The story you've slaved over deserves better than to be dismissed because of awkward dialogue.

Good luck!

-Katie

And In the End...

Writing a novel is hard. There’s no getting around it. Trying to create words and sentences that flow into each other nicely, develop characters and plots, and maybe even create an entire new world? These are all really difficult, and it’s easy to forget about some things while writing.

Forgetting, however, is exactly what I want to talk about. I’ve been noticing lately that many authors will introduce a plot element or subplot at the beginning of the story, but they won’t come back to it again at the end. Other times, a character arc will start, but the character will end up right back where she started at the end of the novel. It’s frustrating for us to get caught up in a plot element in a partial, only to read the synopsis and find that it’s not mentioned after the first three chapters.

Here’s an extreme example. Let’s pretend that J.K. Rowling never wrote another Harry Potter book after Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The sixth Harry Potter book ended the way it was written, with Harry getting ready to search for Horcruxes and fight Voldemort, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows never happened. It would have been monumentally frustrating (especially for someone who loves the Harry Potter books as much as I do) to have had over ten years of exposition leading to the final book and battle, only to have no battle at all.

What I’m trying to say is, as you’re proofreading your manuscripts, make sure that the plot and character elements introduced at the beginning don’t disappear from the rest of your stories. If a character is unemployed and looking for a job at the beginning of the story, don’t put her in the same position at the end – it makes the story itself feel pointless. We want to finish learning about your characters, find out whodunit or whether the guy will end up with the girl of his dreams. And we will – provided those endings are written.

Hope this helps! Good luck with your writing!

-Becca

What’s In A Name?

This past weekend, I attended a writer’s conference. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time, but I noticed something about everyone I talked to. Most of them couldn’t give me a definitive answer on what they wrote.

I know today, the lines between genres are blurring and there are new genres coming out, but it is important to know where your book belongs. Not only will it help readers know what they are reading, but it will also help you write better. You will know what to focus on in your plot. Is your book a mix of action and romance? Well, which is the strongest voice or plot strand?

Not to mention, if you can’t classify your book, how is anyone else going to? An agent won’t and a publisher won’t. It’s on you.

So to that end, I’ve compiled a short list of genres (and subgenres) with equally short definitions to get you started.

Main Genres:

Romance: a love story

Mystery: a whodunit

Fantasy: a mythical world that bends the laws of nature

Sci-Fi: a made up place with advanced technology

Thriller: a suspense filled story

Horror: some grotesque elements and fear for the main characters

Literary Fiction: “serious fiction”-highbrow writing and concepts

Sub-genres:

Historical: set in the past

Contemporary: present time

Paranormal: include characters or elements of make-believe

Western: set in mid-west

Gothic: dark elements

Profession: a certain type of profession (legal, medicine, politics) prevalent in the story

Inspirational: relying on faith (usually Christian based)

Erotica: focus on sexual relationships instead of emotional ones

Chick-lit: humorous tales of the main female character

Steampunk: a new sub-genre involving steam technology

The list could go on and on. Spend time researching genres and really thinking about what your story is. Also, don’t be afraid to let go of what you want the book to be and what it actually is. One author I met said he always wanted to be Stephen King and tried to write books like him, but when he sat down and finished his book, he found out he was a YA Paranormal Romance writer instead.

Remember find a home for your book!

-Ellen

Keep it Real: Crafting a Good Narrative Tone

Yo homeslice, what’s the 411 on the blogosphere and the intertubes today?

Okay, so that’s kind of exaggerated, but it’s perfect for what I want to talk about today: narrative tone and style. It can be tough to keep your narration from being too casual or too formal, so I wanted to discuss some tips for crafting that perfect voice.

Unlike the first sentence of this post, you should try to keep your narration—regardless of whether it is first person or third person—from being overly casual. Try to avoid using lots of slang terms and idiomatic phrases if you can. Even though it may seem like it fits in with your story and the featured protagonist, it can be very difficult for us interns to sift through colloquialisms to learn about the characters and the plots while reading manuscripts. If you’re unsure about how casual to go, I would recommend making your writing slightly more formal than a well-written blog post (see those of my fellow interns for inspiration!)

But you should also be careful about being too formal as well. We’re interested in commercial fiction, not nouveau nineteenth century literature. While I love the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens’ novels as much as the next girl (Mr. Rochester, anyone?), modern day fiction can’t be quite that formalized. But it is possible to find that happy medium. One book that I love that’s written in a relatively formal narrative style is Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It keeps the reader interested in what is going on without seeming overly formal or overly casual. I’m not advising you to copy Chabon’s writing style, but reading well written fiction often helps me with my own writing – if only as a way to set a high bar for myself.

It can be difficult to find that line between too casual and too formal, and sometimes you might just want to use a character voice, which is fine too. Character voices can add a lot to a story and can keep your readers engaged from the very first sentence. One piece of advice, though: make sure that your character voice fits in with the overall tone of your story. A harrowing murder mystery won’t read as well if the heroine’s narration is that of a Carrie Bradshaw-type, and vice versa. But feel free to develop your character voices any way you want.

Hope this helps a bit on your quest for the perfect narrative tone. Good luck and happy writing!

-Becca

Proforaednig Maeks A Difernece

Can you read the title of this post? If you stare at the words for a few minutes, you can probably figure it out. For those of you who have given up, it says: Proofreading Makes a Difference. Now imagine having to sit through an entire 50 page partial trying to read something like that? Not easy.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “That’s what spell check is for.” Well, spell check only looks for misspelled words. So many manuscripts I read have awkward passages that don’t make sense. They have repeated words and poor grammar. I know it’s thrilling to type the last period of your novel, but please do not simply Google a few literary agencies and send it off. You’re not even giving your book a fighting chance. After so much time spent planning the book, doing painstaking research, and writing, don’t you owe your master piece the respect of another look over? You’d be amazed at how much needs to be rework. You might re-write an entire chapter because you had an off day.

Here’s a little secret when it comes to proofreading: Your book needs to be virtually perfect. It needs to be so polished that it can go from the agent’s hands to the book shelves. Is their wiggle room? Absolutely—an ending may need to be changed or a beginning starts too slow, but the characters and plot need to be there. However, we won’t even get to that point if the novel is riddled with mistakes.

Now that you’re a big ball of stress, let me untangle you. There is hope and there is help! I would suggest joining an online critique group. They are much less hassle than the ones that you drive to weekly or bi weekly. The online ones are on your own time. One of the biggest groups lately is Wattpad. It’s a giant forum of posted books. People vote on their favorites, comment on their stories and offer advice to each other. Also, there is that added bonus of exposure to other people’s works. Critiquing others helps you to understand what’s wrong with your own stuff. If you’re looking for genre specific there are many options out there like RWC and Romance Critters, just search engine it.

Godo Lcuk!

-Ellen

Look Who's Also Talking: Changing Point of View

Switching between different character’s points of view seems easy, right? All it involves is a first paragraph in one character’s voice, and a second paragraph in a different character’s voice...but it’s not quite that simple. Changing point of view can be very difficult to do in an easily understandable way, and often ends up hurting a manuscript. But there are ways to make it easy to read and understand, and when done well it can add a lot to certain kinds of stories.

I would recommend taking a look at your manuscript and playing devil’s advocate for a few minutes. Ask yourself whether your story really does need the narration to change point of view, or whether it would be fine without it. Think about your plots, subplots and characters – will changing the point of view be helpful to them? And don’t worry about it making your manuscript less interesting – there are plenty of great books that do not change point of view at all, like To Kill a Mockingbird and the Harry Potter series. If your protagonist is a strong enough character, his or her narration will be more than enough to sustain our interest in your story.

But if you decide that you do want to change point of view, make sure it’s easily understandable to readers who don’t know your characters as well as you do. A simple underscored line is often enough to tell us that something is changing between paragraphs, but does not necessarily denote a point of view change. Something simple like using third person would easily indicate a change – if we’re reading Marie’s thoughts for the first two chapters and Jason’s thoughts for the second, using their names is incredibly helpful. Another way to easily indicate switches is to use names as chapter headings to quickly indicate changes. Check out The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for examples of third person point of view changes, and William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury for examples of using names as chapter headings.

This is tough to do, but I’m sure you’re up to the challenge!

Good luck and happy writing!

-Becca

What a Character!

We all know how important characters are to a story. However, I find that some writers are so intent on telling a story and weaving a complex plot that they tend to ignore their main characters. Although a twisting plot can be exciting and absorbing, without strong characters to ground the story, such a plot tends to fall flat. It’s incredibly important to have a good, strong main character to draw the reader into the story. The protagonist should create a connection between the reader and the novel, helping to make them feel connected and invested in the work. Think of the main character as a guide who takes the reader through the plot, helping them to understand exactly what is going on around them.

Of course, crafting a strong character is easier said than done. So how exactly do we go about writing character? First of all, make sure the character is realistic. Really get into their heads: know what they were like as children, their favorite food, even what they think about when they fall asleep at night. Of course, you don’t need to write about all of this, but have it in the back of your mind when you’re writing. If the character feels alive for you, it’s much easier to bring them to life for the reader.

Once you have a deep sense of who the main character is, it’s time to get them onto the page. But don’t just tell us what the character is like—involve the reader by using indirect characterization. For example, if your main character is angry, she could be clenching her fists or grinding her teeth. This gives the reader more of a sense of who the character is than simply stating “she was angry.” How the main character expresses her emotions or thoughts is what makes her unique.

Keep writing!

--Beverly

Facebook Me!

As a child of the technology generation, I can’t tell you how important it is to learn everything you need to know about sites like Facebook and MySpace. I know, I know, some people don’t see the importance. I myself can’t get around to using Twitter. It’s like texting was ten years ago. No one really used it when it first came out. Now all we do is text and experts are afraid people are losing their ability to interact with one another.

Most beginning writers do not realize that there is another side of being an author. The commonly held belief is once the book is written and handed over to someone to publish, the writer’s job is done. However, this isn’t true. In today’s publishing world, it is not enough for an author to be talented. They must also be business savvy. One way to enhance the business side of your writing is to gain connections in the industry.

So why do I think Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are important? They are a great way to market yourself. (Remember it is you and your potential you’re selling to someone!) These are high-high tech networking. The traditional methods in the publishing world was to attend conferences and do certain met and greets with those who hold the clout to get your book published or with readers who will buy copies. Today, an author must combine both in order to get their name out there. Many author’s like Stephanie Julian have their websites linked with Twitter updates and Facebook feeds/fan pages to provide information about their books and build readership. You can, also, make friends with other writers who are trying to publish and set up a critique group.

Another way to be noticed is to create a themed group with other writers. Themed groups help sell your books and also give you another source of promoting your book through word of mouth. An excellent example to check out is Hope Ramsay’s The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood. It’s a group of authors who have teamed up to help promote each others books on their web pages and give each other a hand when it’s needed. Often times, they become great friends.

So all in all, the web is becoming an extremely important tool in marketing and writing. I would caution, however, that you keep your business as a writer separate from your personal pages on Facebook or MySpace so you can maintain a level of privacy.

If you haven’t checked any of this out or aren’t currently considering it, you should. And remember, always act professional!

-Ellen

Sum it Up

When I come to the end of a partial, I am always eager to read the synopsis to see how things will turn out for the characters. Because it’s the last thing I read, the summary really sticks with me. So, as difficult as it is to trim down an entire novel into a short summary, it truly is necessary. Summaries help to give a sense of your work as a whole. They should be concise and to the point, but don’t forget to make them interesting! It seems like a daunting task, but you can do it!

It’s natural to want to include everything you love about your novel in the synopsis, but try to detach yourself from the work and only include the storylines that are essential to the plot. Here’s a good way to figure out what’s most important for your synopsis—pick the major point of each of your chapters, and string these together to form the backbone of the summary. This way you don’t leave out anything too important, but you won’t have a lot of extraneous information either.

I find that some writers like to leave cliff-hangers at the end of their summaries. As hard as it is to ruin the ending, it must be done. We really have to see how the novel ends to see if we want to pursue the full.

Finally, be sure your synopsis makes sense. This can be difficult—after all, you know this story like the back of your hand, so of course the summary will make sense to you! It helps to get an outsider’s perspective, just to make sure everything’s as clear as it seems.

While the summary doesn’t hold as much clout as the partial itself, it still is important in helping us make a decision about a manuscript, so make sure it lives up to your standards and reflects your vision. I look forward to reading what you come up with!

-Beverly

On Queries

For my newest blog post, as well as my first post in 2011, I’d like to discuss something that we haven’t really been talking about thus far: queries. As our first impression of you and your writing, query letters are incredibly important for a new writer hoping to be published. A bad query letter could disguise a fantastic manuscript, so it is definitely a good idea to take the time to make sure that your query is intriguing enough to merit a second glance (or a request for a partial).

With that in mind, here are a few tips for writing a successful query letter:

• Language: this is a kind of cover letter, so make sure you maintain a level of formality throughout the letter. Cover letters that begin with “Yo Elaine,” for example, do not make me optimistic about reading the rest.
• Plot summary: remember my previous blog post about using details in manuscripts? The same thing applies to queries—we’re not looking for an incredibly detailed description of every major and minor event in your story. Just give us an overview of the major plot elements as well as an idea of who the characters will be.
• DO include your contact information (name, address, etc.) as well as any accolades you have received as an author.
• DON'T include the first few chapters of your manuscript in the body of your email—we will request that from you once your query is screened.
  

I know that writing query letters can be difficult and confusing, but it’s worth it to take the time to write a good one, since a good query letter is that much more likely to be requested as a partial.

Happy writing, and good luck!
Becca

Teenage Dream: Writing for Young Adults

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of partial manuscripts for young adult novels. In my opinion, YA is one of the hardest genres to write. There are so many subsets of YA—historical, fantasy, and everything in between. It can be difficult to address teenagers, yet I think YA novels are so important. Adolescence is a turbulent time, and having something or someone (a fictional character, perhaps?) to relate to can be very reassuring. With that in mind, here are a few tips to help make your YA novel stand out.

In my eyes, character development is especially important in YA novels. But how exactly does one write a realistic teen? Tap into your high school self. Remember what it was like to be your character’s age—trying to find yourself, create meaningful friendships, and navigate the world on your own. Write these issues into your novel. Including a character who struggles with similar issues helps your reader to feel connected to the story. When creating your characters, be sure to think about age, because just a few years make a huge difference in maturity level. A thirteen year old and a seventeen year old will face massively different problems and situations.

Finally, don’t feel like you need to keep everything squeaky clean. The situations should certainly be age appropriate, but that don’t be afraid to provoke and challenge your reader. Also, avoid throwing in references to teenage heartthrobs and pop culture phenoms just because you want to appeal to your audience. Instead of speculating about what teens like to read about, just go with what you know; your novel will feel more real.

I hope this helps!

--Beverly