The Most Common Mistakes In Writing: A Series

I found this series thanks to Elizabeth S. Craig over at Mystery Writing is Murder and her fantastic Twitter feed. If you ever need inspiration or guidance, or you want to learn how to become a better writer (and we could all be better!), go to @elizabethscraig and read a few of the articles she links to.

One series I'm going to be working my way through is Wordplay's Most Common Mistakes Series.  There are 15 posts in all and growing. I've provided an index to them, below.

Most Common Mistakes Series:

1) Are Your Verbs Showing or Telling?

2) Are You Using “There” as a Crutch?

3) Are You Confusing Readers With Poor Cause and Effect?

4) Why Vague Writing Is Weak Writing

5) How Not to Use Speaker Tags and Action Beats

6) Is Your First-Person Narrator Overpowering Your Story?

7) Is Your Opening Line Lying to Your Readers?

8) 10 Stylistic Mistakes Sabotaging Your Story

9) Is Nothin’ Happening in Your Scene?

10) The Dangers of Character Overload

11) Do Readers See Your Characters the Way You Want Them To?

12) Are Your Flashbacks Flashy or Flabby?

13) Don’t Drown Your Reader in Explanations

14) The Case of the Vanishing Setting

15) How to Spot and Fix Non-Reactive and Over-Reactive Characters

Enjoy!

Mark Coker, Founder Of Smashwords, Talks About Indie Publishing

Mark Coker

Mark Coker gives great advice about indie publishing that the average person can understand. I highly recommend his Smashwords Style Guide and Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.

Below is a recent interview he did with Morgan Doremus over at RT Book Reviews.


Cheers, thanks for stopping by.

Thanks to the Passive Voice Blog for positing about Mark Coker's interview.

10 Reasons Why Stories Get Rejected

It's always nice to learn why a story was rejected and, although it hurts, the greater the detail the better. David Farland's latest article gives 10 reasons why he rejects stories. I'm just going to summarize them (well, that was my plan), so I recommend you read his article for the details.

1) The story is unintelligible.

2) The story is unbelievable.

3) Too many adverbs and adjectives.
I hadn't meant to comment on these, but I can't resist. The first time I heard someone say that, as a general rule, a writer should avoid using adverbs, especially those that ended in -ly, I thought they were daft. (And yes, I'm painfully aware of the -ly adverb I just used, but I think it adds something to the sentence that goes toward my point so I'm keeping it. Isn't irony grand?) It took reading Stephen King's book, On Writing, for me to see the wisdom in this.

If it helps, think of it this way: Instead of using -ly adverbs, use strong verbs. Rather than making a word more interesting, or more meaningful, by modifying it with another word, try making the word itself everything you need.

For instance, rather than writing,

a) "I won the lottery," she said happily.

write

b) Waving her lottery ticket above her head, she jumped up in the air and screamed, "I won the lottery!"

I think that the advice to steer clear of -ly adverbs goes hand-in-hand with the advice to show rather than tell. I don't think the above example is very good, but hopefully it is enough to give you the sense of what I mean. For the purposes of the example, I should have used one strong verb rather than the adverb ("happily"), but perhaps you can suggest something better in the comments.

Also, there is a change in tone between (a) and (b). I think that (b) hints at the speaker being an extravert and fond of screaming, especially at concerts.

In any case, moving along.

4)   Nothing happens.
Make something happen and make it happen earlier rather than later. Try to grab the reader with your first sentence and don't let them go until the last one. I'm sure there are many names for this quality of can't-put-it-down-edness but I think of it as narrative drive.

5) Don't confuse your readers.
You may know the story takes place on the 5th moon of Dovan, but your readers won't unless you tell them. After a while folks are going to stop guessing, get irritated, and find something else to do.

6) Remove the boring bits.
I can't remember who said this first, but it's true. If it doesn't absolutely have to be in your story toss it. Ask yourself: does this further the story? If yes, fine. If no, lose it.

As David Farland says, this also applies to writing sentences like, "They shook on it," rather than, "They shook hands on it." If it's clear from the context that what they're shaking are hands (rather than, say, flippers), then you don't have to include that information. If, on the other hand, the "they" in question are squid-like personages living on the dark side of our moon then you might want to specify which appendages they used.

7) Have a story and tell it.
If a piece of writing is, say, 2,500 words long and has a title that doesn't mean it's a story.

Although there are no rules for what makes a story a story--including the rule that says there are no rules--people who judge story contests generally appreciate it if there is a beginning and an end. You get bonus points if there are characters things happen to and if these events put your hero in danger of not reaching their goal. I've written a bit about story telling here.

8) Don't cheat
I'm not talking about plagiarism (but don't plagiarise), I'm talking about including something like violence or sex when it has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. To be clear, I'm not saying anything for or against using sex or violence in your stories, but everything in your story, everything, has to be there for a reason and if that reason is simply to shock or titillate then your story will be weaker for it.

8b) Understand your market
Let's say you're writing a paranormal romance. Including a scene in which a character has something done to them worthy of the movie Saw means you run the risk of alienating the editor who will make the decision whether to buy your work.

9) Non-formed stories.
See point 7, above: Have a story and tell it.

10) Don't irritate your readers
This is in the same vein as 5, above: Don't confuse your readers. For instance, although I don't believe there are hard-and-fast rules about how many points of view your story should be told from, if you have 5 in 2,500 words you'll confuse your readers.

Dave Farland gives the following example: "John raced out the door, after brushing his teeth." After I read this sentence I parsed it as, "After brushing his teeth, john raced out the door." If a story was filled with sentences like that I would become irritated.

To read the rest of David Farland's awesome article (alliteration can, occasionally, be tolerated ;) click here: Ten Reasons Why I'll Quickly Reject Your Story.

This ends the list of 10 things which will will send your story to the proverbial dust bin of obscurity, but of course (and unfortunately), there are far more than ten. But take heart, Mr. Farland has just published the next article in this series: Why Editors Reject Your Story. In that post he discusses what separates stories which receive honorable mention from stories that win.

Cheers!

Related reading:
- The Starburst Method: How to write a story, from one-liner to first draft
- Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story
- How to build a Villain, by Jim Butcher

Photo credit: A Writer's Journey


"10 Reasons Why Stories Get Rejected," copyright© 2012 by Karen Woodward.

Excerpt From The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler

I've been re-reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. I had forgotten how much I love his writing. For instance:

The path took us along to the side of the greenhouse and the butler opened a door for me and stood aside. It opened into a sort of vestibule that was about as warm as a slow oven. He came in after me, shut the outer door, opened an inner door and we went through that. Then it was really hot. The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. The plants filled the place, a forest of them, with nasty meaty leaves and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men. They smelled as overpowering as boiling alcohol under a blanket.

"The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom." Larded, that word is evocative. I'm there in the greenhouse, the obscene sweetness of the flowers coating my tongue, my throat, making me want to gag. The scene is cast with a pall of sickness, of decay. I suppose it's a symbol for the decay that has infested the Sternwoods and come to fruition in Carmen.

In any case, I get inspired by great writing and wanted to share. :)

Keep writing!

Jim Butcher: How To Write A Story

Jim Butcher is a writer I have a lot of respect for. Not only because I love his stories, but because time again he demonstrates a level of skill in his writing I can only aspire to. Thankfully, Mr. Butcher has been generous, penning many articles about the writing process and giving folks just starting out--or perhaps even well on their way!--many useful tips.

I'd like to talk a bit of about one of Mr. Butcher's articles, "Putting It All Together: How to get your story started," or "Organizing this frikin' mess."

Honestly, when I read this article I felt he was writing to me, this was just what I needed. So I thought I'd pass it along.

So, what are we waiting for? Let's write a story! Here's what we'll need:

1) A story question

2) A protagonist and antagonist

3) A turning point in the middle

4) A story climax

Sure, we need a lot of other things too, but this should help us get started.

1) The story question/The Story skeleton
 Jim Butcher writes:

The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

For instance, look at Storm Front. (Yes, I'll use my own books as examples, because I'm just that way. ;) Also, I'm more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.) Storm Front's story question:

****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago, wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer. But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard, a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police Department?
****************************

Why does it seem so easy when he does it?

2) Protagonist and Antagonist
Jim Butcher writes:

Simply put, a story is a narrative description of a character (the protagonist/hero) struggling to attain an important goal. In general, the protagonist is opposed by another character (the antagonist/villain).

The protagonist sets out to achieve his goal and faces problems and opposition to his intentions along the way. His risk of loss increases as the narrative proceeds, and casts an element of doubt over whether or not the protagonist will attain his goal. Then, in a final confrontation of some sort (the climax), the protagonist either succeeds or fails, based upon his own choices and actions.

Jim Butcher gave an interview not long ago in which he spoke about how to build a villain, so I'm going to let you follow that link and not talk a whole lot about the antagonist. Kristen Lamb also has an excellent post about this: Spice Up Your Fiction–Simple Ways to Create Page-Turning Conflict.

3) The Great Swampy Middle: Turning point
Jim Butcher writes:

Here's the nutshell concept: Plan a great big freaking event for the end of the middle. You want it to be a big dramatic confrontation of whatever kind is appropriate to your genre. The fallout from your big bad Big Middle event should be what boots the book down the homestretch to reach the story's climax. Really lay out the fireworks. Hit the reader with everything you can. PLAN THE BIG MIDDLE EVENT. Then, as you work through the middle, WORK TO BUILD UP TO IT. Drop in the little hints, establish the proper props and motivations and such. Make sure that everything you do in the middle of the book is helping you build up to the BIG MIDDLE.

(I've used the Big Middle concept in EVERY book I've ever published. It works. It ain't broke. It ain't the only way to do the middle, either, but it's one way.)

I love Jim Butcher's name for the often amorphous middle part: The great swampy middle.

4) Story Climax
Jim Butcher writes:

A story climax is, in structure terms the ANSWER to the STORY QUESTION that we talked about earlier.

There, see how tidy that is? Simple! Again, not EASY, but simple!

For example, the overall Story Question of Lord of the Rings:

*************
When Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring of Power from his Uncle Bilbo, HE SETS OUT TO DESTROY IT before its evil can wreak havoc upon Middle Earth. BUT WILL HE SUCCEED when the Dark Lord Sauron and every scary evil thing on the planet set forth to take the ring and use it to turn the entire world into the bad parts of New Jersey?
*************

And the story climax of the Lord of the Rings:

******
Yep.
******

See? ANYBODY could have written Lord of the Rings!

.  .  .  .

Remember earlier, how we talked about ways to hook your readers and get them emotionally involved in the story? Well, if we've done that right, then when you reach story's end, they are INVESTED in its outcome. They want to SEE what happens, preferably as vividly as they possibly can. By the time you've reached the end of a story, a good writer has got their readers on the edge of their seats, at 3:30 in the morning, and the pages are tearing every time they turn because the reader is so excited.

You've made an implicit promise by getting your reader so bound up in the story. You've /got/ to deliver on it, or that reader is going to freaking /hate/ you for doing that to them. They are gonna go away from that ride all hot and bothered and frustrated as hell. That's what catharsis is: the release of all that tension and sympathetic emotion that the reader has built up because of the writer's skill at weaving the story. Done right, your readers will cheer and cry and laugh out loud and dance around their living room.

EVERYTHING YOU DID IN YOUR BOOK LEADS UP TO THIS. Deliver on the climax or die as a working writer. Simple as that.

Okay? Got it? Ready to write that story? Well then, what are you waiting for!

Oh, and if you want to read some of the best writing on writing--that just so happens to be free--head on over to Jim Butcher's livejournal. All the excerpts on this page are from http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/.

Tips For Writers From Richard Nash, Previously Of Soft Skull Press

Mexican Sugar Skull

Richard Eoin Nash writes about his time at Soft Skull Press:

The real work is in the day-to-day writing and connecting with people. So you're continuously putting out the poem, the short story, you're doing a reading in a series, you go to your writing group, you show up at a writers conference, you study with someone you admire, you go to workshop, you're blogging, you're critiquing, you're putting your ideas out there, that's the true work of writing. There's something profoundly wrong about the model of sitting in a room for three years writing a novel all by yourself. Successes that happened with that model happened in despite of the process, not because of it. That whole writer in the garret cliché came out the Industrial Revolution, and it created an absolutely alienated producer, the writer. I'm not saying all you should do is sit around and shmooze and not write your book. Not at all. I'm saying engage with others who are doing similar things, and if you do it right these people will advocate and be your ally in making better art that means something to you and your friends. And in fact, agents and publishers are more likely to find you if you are actively participating in your culture. If you do it for your own sake, it will make you a happier and more fulfilled writer.

 Amen!

Mr Nash talks about what he was looking for in both writing and writers when he was at the helm of Soft Skull Pres, so if you're thinking of submitting your work to a traditional publisher--and even if you're not!--it's worth a gander.

Read the interview here: How to Get Love From Independent Publishers and the Future of Books: Richard Nash & the Book Doctors

Here is Mr. Nash's impressive biography:

Richard Nash is an independent publishing entrepreneur -- VP of Community and Content of Small Demons, founder of Cursor, and Publisher of Red Lemonade. He ran the iconic indie Soft Skull Press and was awarded the AAP Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing. Books he edited and published landed on bestseller lists from the Boston Globe to the Singapore Straits-Times; the last book he edited there, Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys, was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist. The Utne Reader named him one of Fifty Visionaries Changing Your World and Mashable.com picked him as the #1 Twitter User Changing the Shape of Publishing. Twitter: @R_Nash Website: http://www.rnash.com/

Cheers.

Photo credit: Tatooology

The End Comes For The Rock Bottom Remainders

Rock Bottom Remainders

After raising 2 million dollars for charity, the Rock Bottom Remainders are going their separate ways.

I'm saddened by this news, especially since it follows the death of the group's founder, publicist and lead singer Kathi Goldmark. But there is good news, the Rock Bottom Remainders are playing at least once more.

The group's "Past Our Bedtime Tour" (because real musicians don't get up early like writers do) will include a public performance June 22 at LA's El Rey Theatre, followed by a private show the next day for the American Library Association's Anaheim convention.

To read about the Rock Bottom Remainders and their final tour, click here: Rock Bottom Remainders saying goodbye to lit-rock.

It's sad when something ends and I always thought it was cool that Stephen King was in a rock band. And, yes, I know Mr. King cherishes a special hatred for the word "cool," but it fits so I'm using it.

Keep writing!

Photo credit: RockBottomRemainders.com

Audiobook Sales Up 33% From Last Year

Net Sales Revenue From Book Publishing Is Up

According to a recent article in gallycat, revenue from downloaded audiobooks has increased by a whopping 32.7% from last year (25 million vs 18.8 million). That's amazing, and excellent news for folks, such as myself, who love listening to stories.

Lately, I've been putting together a list of book bloggers who review self-published books, or who do author interviews with self published authors, and I've noticed a startling trend: increasing numbers of reviewers prefer submissions in audiobook format. Good news for authors who have made an audiobook version of their story and something that could give self published authors an edge.

But that isn't the only interesting statistic. Net sales revenue from ebook sales (283 M)  has surpassed that from adult hardcover sales (230 M)--although not from adult paperback sales (300 M), although adult paperback sales have gone down by 10.5 percent. But the largest decrease of all was in the category of sales revenue from mass market paperbacks; sales in this category have decreased by an amazing 20.8 percent.

For your viewing convenience, I've included the table from the original article, above.

To read the original article, head over to galleycat.com and read eBook Revenues Top Hardcover.

Thanks to Passive Guy for writing about this (eBook Reviews Top Hardcover).

Amazon's KDP Select: Another Author Shares Her Experience

P.J. Sharon writes:

I’ve come to the end of my ninety days of exclusivity with Amazon’s KDP Select program. That means that I’m now able to upload and distribute SAVAGE CINDERELLA on other sales channels, such as B&N,  Smashwords, and coming soon, Kobo. I thought I would give you my final analysis on my experience.

PROS:

1)      All sales on one distribution channel. Easier accounting and focused marketing plan.

2)      Cross promotion opportunities with other KDP Select participants.

3)      Five days to offer the book FREE in an effort to gain exposure and readership.

4)      Participation in the Prime Lending program (approximately $2 per borrow).

CONS:

1)      Narrows your readership to Kindle owners, and may alienate Nook or I-pad owners.

2)      Contributes to Amazon’s attempt to monopolize the e-reader market.

3)      Unable to post excerpts for advertising purposes.

All in all, I’m very pleased with the outcome of my KDP Select experience. I’m not sure if I will do it again, only because I think it’s generally bad for the publishing industry for any one entity to have exclusive rights to our work, but I can’t deny the short term benefits are very enticing.

Read the rest here: The End of Select

Although it seems P.J. won't be re-enrolling in Amazon's KDP Select anytime soon, I'd say her experience makes the program seem attractive.

The problem is it's devilishly hard to decide if a book would have done better if it hadn't been placed in the KDP Select program. From what I've seen, when authors report their sales, generally over 60% come through Amazon.

Are Amazon's promotional efforts worth losing up to 40 percent of your sales? I don't know. I'm very interested to read what authors say about their sales (thanks P.J.!) after the changes Amazon made to its all-important ranking algorithm.

Stay tuned and keep writing!

Authors File Class Action Lawsuit Against PublishAmerica

Finally! PublishAmerica has been scamming authors out of their hard earned dollars for too many years. If you haven't heard about the shenanigans of PublishAmerica, take a gander at what Writer Beware has to say.

The Great PublishAmerica Hoax:

Writer Beware has received scores of complaints over the years about PublishAmerica, and hundreds more can be found online. The company has been the subject of at least one successful arbitration proceeding, resulting in a substantial award for a PA author.

On June 11, 2012, a class action complaint against PublishAmerica was filed in US District Court in Maryland, in the name of three plaintiffs. See Writer Beware’s blog for more.

This information is current as of the update date at the top of the page. Writer Beware receives complaints, advisories, reports, and/or questions about PublishAmerica at least monthly.

My advice: Don't even think about sending your work to PublishingAmerica. Few things in life are guaranteed, but if you send your work to PublishAmerica you're sending it into painful obscurity.

Here's part of the introduction to the complaint in the class action lawsuit:

Like plaintiffs, thousands of other aspiring authors who signed up with PublishAmerica have become demoralized because the publishing contract appears to be little more than a pretext for selling dubious services...These authors also feel trapped because PublishAmerica owns the rights to their books for seven to ten years. This presents a Hobson's choice for the authors: either throw good money after bad for suspect promotional services or abandon the book that was a labor of love.

Read the rest here: Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against PublishAmerica.

Writer Beware will keep on top of this issue, and I'll provide updates as I receive them.