Deadlines

Posted on by

Deadlines.

Brrrr.

A line not to be crossed without consequences.

All writers bow to them, and for some, looming deadlines are also an electric jolt to get authors off the stick and in front of the keyboard. I confess. I do my best work right up against deadlines.

The dreaded word originated during the Civil War, referencing a defined line around prison camps that prisoners weren’t allowed to cross under the guarantee of being shot by guards. Some sources say it began at Andersonville, a Confederate prison camp notorious for its horrific conditions and high death rate among Union prisoners.

“Before noon, we were turned into the pen which is merely enclosed by a ditch and the dirt taken from the ditch thrown up on the outside, making a sort of breastwork. The ditch serves as a dead line, and no prisoners must go near the ditch. ­–––Robert Ransom, Diary of Robert Ransom, Nov, 22, 1863.

You get the picture.

Over time, as memories faded, the term softened and shifted from a literal physical boundary to a time limit. In the early 1900s, newspapers used the word to indicate the last possible moment for submitting copy for publication. Meeting a deadline is the mark of a professional, or one who refuses to be late.

Now, to soften that a bit, some writing deadlines are fluid. Life can get in the way of meeting those obligations, and most editors and publishers understand, to a point. Your family, health, and all those insane troubles that sometimes swirl around us like tweeting birds circling a cartoon character’s head should take precedence.

Simply missing a specific date because you can’t get off the stick is unforgivable and sets back a publisher’s schedule. Titles are lined up on the calendar for print and missing those dates might put your manuscript back at the end of the line, or pulled completely, damaging the writer’s reputation, and also that of their agent.

Other things happen, too. I got a little lazy in writing my fourth novel, Dark Places, and my agent took me to task, setting back my delivery date.

“Rev, I love the manuscript, but you missed an entire plot line.”

“What!!!???”

“Pepper ran away from home, and you didn’t follow her. She’s almost forgotten until the end.”

“But….”

“Follow her.”

I did, and it gave the book an entirely different quality. However, I missed that deadline in the sense that we had to ask for more time. The publisher gave me a month, but my subconscious, knowing I’d become lazy, had already written the material and the story poured out in only two weeks.

Besides the book deadlines mentioned above, (and I’m free of those for the first time in several years because I’ve turned in three novels in my new series and have some breathing room), I still have a weekly newspaper column and magazine columns…plus this blog.

Book deadlines, short story deadlines, column and magazine articles, blog posts, well-established newsletters, and paid Substack posts all require razor sharp attention. If you sign either a physical, agreed upon contract, or a personal goal to get your work on a particular date or day, they should all be met.

It’s your professional reputation that’s on the line.

Reader Friday-One Book

Posted on by

I’ll bet a paycheck (if I had one…) that everyone reading these words today has more than one book on the bookshelf.

More than twenty? Or a hundred?

So…I have a question for you.

If you were allowed only one, 1, uno, une book on your shelf, what book would you choose?

 

 

If a wicked, wicked genie popped up in front of your face and said, “Choose only one book or die a thousand deaths”, what would be the title of that book?

Cue Deb’s fingers drumming . . .

(My answer in the comments–wouldn’t want to give you any ideas!)

🙂

 

ARGGH! Words We Love to Hate

Posted on by

 

By Elaine Viets

You know, some words and phrases are getting on my nerves. Most people would say it is what it is and at the end of the day, let it go. I know, right? But I’ve been doing some online research. There are certain sayings that tick people off. And readers are people, too. You don’t want to turn off your readers with annoying phrases. Just sayin’.
These outstandingly irritating phrases are garnered from various corners of the web.
Think carefully before you use them in your writing. You may want to save them for your most hateful characters.

Just sayin’. The winner! Nearly everyone hates this redundant phrase. I mean, you’ve already said what you were going to say, right?

Literally. I confess I’ve used this one and thought it was pretty clever – the first time. Then I noticed that word in every novel I picked up – literally.

It is what it is. This meaningless phrase is enough to send me screaming into the night. Please don’t use it.

At this moment in time. What’s wrong with “now”? Can this pretentious phrase.

Everything happens for a reason. Usually said after some meaningless tragedy, and meant as consolation. If you don’t have that comforting belief system, this phrase triggers an urge to slap that person silly. Also avoid this phrase: Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window. I had a roommate like that. Very annoying.

Honestly. Often a trigger word indicating the person using it is lying. Use it carefully.

My bad. A cutesy way of glossing over a mistake. This phrase says, “I know I did something offensive and I don’t care.”

I want 110 percent. Right, boss. Except your math doesn’t add up.

No worries. Some people find this phrase a little passive-aggressive. In other words, when someone says, “No worries,” they’re really telling you that you should be worried.

At the end of day. As in, “At the end of the day, getting a new CEO won’t make any difference. This company is doomed.” This crutch will cripple any sentence.

With all due respect. The warm-up to an insult. “With all due respect, even in your prime you weren’t that good.”

That’s my list, and it’s pretty good, in IMHO (oops, there’s another one.) Now’s your chance. What tired words and phrases would you like to see retired?

Now hear this! SEX AND DEATH ON THE BEACH, my new Florida Beach mystery, is now an audio book. https://tinyurl.com/9amkzaf4

Writing Process Problems

Posted on by

Writing Process Problems
Terry Odell

Skimmer standing on a beach, beak wide openI’ve finally reached the “I’m home” mindset. Dealt with all the administrivia, household chores, and feel like I’m back in my routine. Which means it’s time for serious work on the wip.

This one’s given me more trouble than usual. Normally, my “organic” writing process means I start at the beginning, let things unfold until I hit “the end.”

To quote E.L. Doctorow”

“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.”

Not so this time. I was approaching the 50K word count when I realized the “Bad Stuff” that I’d been writing about happened way to soon, at least for a novel-length work. Even a short novel-length work.

What to do?

I went back and looked at my plot threads and realized I’d left a lot of them hanging around waiting to be dealt with later. I figured I’d better deal with them sooner. Trouble was, fitting chapters (which turned out to be nine) into points well ahead of chapters I’d already written led to continuity inconsistencies.

I’d added the death of a character. That’s what you do when you get to the muddled middle, right?

Unless he shows up alive five or six chapters down the road.

I liked the new chapters and they were moving things along. Until I ran into other inconsistencies. I ended up having to look at my chapter summaries to see when and where things happened. Of course, as expected, things I thought unimportant when doing my summaries turned out to be information I needed later.

Then, there were the decisions to make. Move things around? Leave things where they were but adjust bits and pieces for continuity. Scrap things altogether?

Writing out of order has never been part of my process, but every book is different, and now I had to deal with going back in page time, write the scene, and deal with reweaving the changes into the book so that it would appear seamless.

Of course, the organic writer in me found that one fix led to an entirely new plot thread, which then had to be worked in, often going way, way back in the manuscript to lay some foundations, with slight detours along the way to research things for the new threads. The book covers quite a time spread, much of it not on the page, but accuracy counts.

Also, probably due to my Mississippi River cruise and my recent birding trip, my ability to recall details seems to have left the building. A character talking on the phone to another is noting facial expressions? A character appears riding in another character’s car after said character told him to meet at the house?

Other things I seem to have lost track of. Who said what to which character, and when? Who was in the scene when it was said? It’s as if when the text scrolls off the screen, it leaves my memory, too.

Could it maybe have something to do with time spent processing my birding images? That’s an entirely different skillset, and my brain can’t seem to handle both.

Nevertheless, I persevered, and over last weekend, I had caught up to where I noticed the structure failure and am now working to finish the book. I’m still dealing with the right time to wrap up each thread.

I know I’ll have to be very diligent when it comes time to do my first editing pass. There may be some serious restructuring going on.

And, because I promised to tell you about my birding trip, here’s a link to my Substack, where I did a brief recap.

And a “bird foodie” post on my blog.

If you’re interested in more pictures, you can find them (another work in progress) here.

Your turn. Has your basic writing process ever had to change? How did you deal with it?

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Danger Abroad

When breaking family ties is the only option.

Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.

Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.

Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?

Available now.

Like bang for your buck? I have a new Triple-D Ranch bundle. All four novels for one low price. One stop shopping here.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

First Page Critique – Fallen Starr

Posted on by

 

by Debbie Burke

Welcome to another first page submitted by an anonymous Brave Author. Please read then we’ll discuss on the flip side.

 ~~~

Fallen Starr

Thriller

Starr’s gaze followed the barrel of the gun clenched in the mobster’s trembling white-knuckled grip, her eyes crossing from the effort. Deep shadows enveloped her in the narrow alley off St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Avenue, while the dim, jaundiced glow from the solitary streetlight bled into the darkness.

Crumbling brick walls and weathered cobblestones, slick from a recent downpour, boxed her in. Dripping water reverberated into the twilight, interrupted only by the distant cry of some poor soul. Echoes of fading footsteps sparked her fear that someone might stumble into the alley before she got what she wanted.

Her assailant’s eyes widened, pupils blown out to the edges with a glimmer of paranoia, most likely a result of the street drug Krokodil. He blinked slowly as if the action required immense effort, each movement sluggish and delayed. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his skin glistened under the faint light. As his trigger finger twitched, Starr’s heart hammered against her ribcage as she swallowed a bitter taste of dread.

“Traitor.” His voice dripped with contempt.

That one word pierced harder than it should. Traitor. She could almost laugh at the irony. If the world only knew how far she’d already fallen. As her chosen name suggested, like a falling star, she had blazed a meteoric path from the heavens alongside one-third of the angels who’d foolishly followed Lucifer’s glorious but doomed light. But after her burning descent, her journey had become a slow, winding climb, as she searched for redemption.

“Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.” John Milton’s epic poem rang in her ears. But right now, she was far from any light.

Starr turned down the corners of her lips and tilted her head. “Traitor? That hurts my feelings.”

It did indeed. In her quest for redemption, she had made tough choices, turning her back on the other fallen angels. Her current situation in this foul alley had sunk to a similar low.

The air was thick with the stench of rancid garbage. Twisted shadows cast by an old wrought-iron fire escape danced across an overturned dumpster spilling its contents onto the cobblestones. The shade of the bars concealed—was that a headless rat?

A writhing heap of maggots feasting on the rodent forced her to part her lips and take shallow breaths through her mouth.

~~~

First off, kudos to the Brave Author (BA) for a clean submission free of typos.

This is a solid action start, landing the reader smack in the middle of a frightening situation. A gun is aimed at the protagonist, brandished by a man who appears to be a twitchy addict.

It’s nighttime and the location is described with an abundance of sensory detail: sights (“jaundiced glow”), touch (slick cobblestones), sound (dripping water reverberating, a cry, fading footfalls), taste (“bitter dread), and smell (“rancid garbage”).

Nevsky Avenue is a good specific detail, but I wondered whether it referred to St. Petersburg in Florida or in Russia. I googled Nevsky Avenue and discovered a live webcam that shows real-time action on the Russian street.

BTW, TKZers, live webcams are helpful tools for writers to visualize locations, as are street views on Google Earth. If you’re unfamiliar with the lay of the land or need to refresh your recollection of a place you visited in the past, check these out.

BA does a good job of grounding the reader in a few paragraphs. We know where and when the action is taking place. There’s an immediate threat—an armed assailant who has a serious beef with the hero.

Starr is not only in physical danger. She describes what may be metaphorical or spiritual danger. She says she’s a fallen angel struggling on a path to redemption. That makes me wonder if the story has fantasy elements, although it’s categorized as a thriller. Mashups between genres can work well and are popular with current readers.

BA has packed a lot into one page and therein lies the problem. It’s too much, too soon.

While attempting to immerse the reader immediately in the story, BA instead threatens to drown us. It felt like trying to drink from a firehose—a cliche but an apt one.

Slow down and dribble information rather than deluge the reader. Make the reader thirsty for more.

My suggestion is to limit descriptions to a couple of senses rather than all five at once. Choose the best image to sum up the setting and delete the rest. It’s night in a dark cobblestone alley after a recent rain, and there’s a headless rat with maggots feasting on it. That does the job. The reader’s imagination fills in the rest.

Strong verbs are generally good, but here they’re overused. In the first two paragraphs: enveloped, bled, boxed, reverberated, sparked. They draw attention to themselves and pull the reader out of the story. Again, choose the best one and skip the rest.

The description of Starr’s assailant also overwhelms the reader with too many details. I suggest you pare it down to the most vivid, telling detail. Here’s a possible rewrite:

His eyes widened, pupils blown out to the edges with a glimmer of paranoia, most likely from a result of the street drug Krokodil, the cheap Russian homebrew version of heroin.

I had to look up Krokodil. It’s apparently common in Russia but not so much in other countries. That’s why I suggest adding a bit more explanation to clarify it’s not just another street drug. It’s somewhat unique to the location and cooked by the user, rather than purchased as a finished product from a dealer.

That detail is important because it makes the reader curious about Starr. How does she know about Krokodil? Is she a user, a dealer, an undercover officer?

The character of Starr as a fallen angel is intriguing but again it’s overdone. Let’s take another look at this paragraph of inner monologue.

That one word pierced harder than it should. Traitor. She could almost laugh at the irony. If the world only knew how far she’d already fallen. As her chosen name suggested, like a falling star, she had blazed a meteoric path from the heavens alongside one-third of the angels who’d foolishly followed Lucifer’s glorious but doomed light. But after her burning descent, her journey had become a slow, winding climb, as she searched for redemption.

How much of this does the reader need to know at this stage of the story? An accusation that she’s a traitor is intriguing. So is that she’s a fallen angel struggling for redemption.

What the world knows about her fall, the significance of her name, a meteoric path with one-third of other fallen angels who followed Lucifer, a burning descent, and a slow, winding climb—all this information can be saved for later.

Simply using dialogue shows enough about her character to make the reader curious.

“Traitor,” he said (get rid of the cliche “dripped with contempt”).

Starr turned down the corners of her lips and tilted her head. “Traitor? That hurts my feelings.”

What is her tone of voice? Is she being sarcastic? Cocky? Trying to provoke him? Saying something, anything to distract him from shooting her?

Instead of overexplaining her guilt complex, keep the reader wondering and turning the page.

“Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.” John Milton’s epic poem lingered in Starr’s mind. But right now, she was far from any light.

These lines struck me because they establish Starr’s conflict without overwhelming the reader. However, the current placement confuses the reader because it appears to continue earlier dialogue between the assailant and Starr.

What if you used these lines as the opener instead?

It’s a difficult judgment call to choose which details are important enough to be on the first page and which can be saved until later. The goal is to intrigue the reader, to tease them into wanting to learn more, but not overpower them.

Ask yourself: how much does the reader need to know and when do they need to know it? Don’t get rid of extra info. Save it for later. Decide when to slip in a detail here or a hint there.

As you review this page, also watch out for cliches and delete them. White knuckles, sweat beaded on the forehead, heart hammering her ribs, voice dripping with contempt—these don’t add to the story and detract from the interesting fallen angel concept.

Brave Author, please don’t be discouraged by this critique. You have a compelling idea, an unusual, exotic setting, and a character with an immediate problem. You start with dramatic action. Those are all positive qualities.

Please realize you don’t have to explain everything at once. Take your time.

Thank you for submitting this first page and best of luck with your story!

~~~

TKZers: As a reader with fresh eyes, what is your reaction to this page? What suggestions do you have for the Brave Author?

~~~

Debbie Burke’s new reference book The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate is now available in print as well as ebook.

Amazon: Print book   Ebook

Barnes & Noble: Print book   Ebook

Apple: Ebook

Kobo: Ebook

Resonance

Posted on by

Resonance (noun) – the occurrence of a vibrating object causing another object to vibrate at a higher amplitude.

* * *

I’ve noticed several comments on TKZ lately where folks mentioned a particular book or scene “resonated” with them. Intuitively, we understand what that means, but when I mentioned it to my husband, whose background is physics, I got a mini-lesson on the physical properties of resonance.

It was fascinating.

That sent me off to read some more about this phenomenon. I discovered the howstuffworks site that gave a definition perfectly describing the concept:

“At its core, resonance is the extraordinary phenomenon where an object vibrates at the same natural frequency as another.”

There are several areas that clearly illustrate resonant behavior.

 

MUSIC

This may be the most obvious. Notes produce sound in waves. When you play a note on the piano, the string vibrates and causes the sounding board to vibrate and amplify the sound. In addition, playing two notes that have related frequencies produce a harmonious sound. For example, playing two notes an octave apart or a “perfect fifth” like playing C and G at the same time produce a resonant result.

SWINGS

We’ve probably all enjoyed having someone push us on a swing. If the push is at right moment, the swing will go higher. If it’s a little early or late, the frequency is off, and the swing won’t go as high.

 

BRIDGES

Soldiers are often ordered to stop marching in a synchronized cadence when they cross a bridge to avoid accidentally activating a dangerous frequency. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse is a perfect example of resonance that resulted in a bridge disaster. The wind’s force, combined with the bridge’s natural frequency of vibration, led to resonance, where the oscillations became increasingly large and violent. 

Fortunately, no one died in the Tacoma Narrows disaster, but it’s not the kind of resonance we’re aiming for in our writing!

* * *

WRITING

Now that we know what resonance is, how do we use the concept in writing a story? Again, from the howstuffworks site:

When we say a piece of art or music resonates with us, we mean that it strikes a chord in our hearts and minds. This emotional resonance is the magic that binds us to the world around us, creating a profound connection between ourselves and our experiences.

James Scott Bell addressed this topic in his recent post on “What Writers Can Learn from the Twilight Zone.” He concluded that the essence of a work is its heart, the ability to emotionally connect with the reader. He advises us

“What is it you care most deeply about, besides selling books? Tap into it. Draw from it. Make it thrum throughout your work.”

I believe the “thrum” JSB spoke of is the resonant quality of a story that touches the reader in a way to amplify his/her emotional response.

* * *

Here are a few examples of books that created that magic bond and resonated with me. Some because I connected with the characters, others because I felt the emotion even if I didn’t identify with the characters.

  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  • West with the Night by Beryl Markham
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

* * *

So, TKZers: How would you define resonance in writing? How do you ensure that your stories will resonate with the reader? What books have resonated with you?

* * *

 

The idea of a search for treasure hidden by the mysterious “Mr. Shadow” resonates with a lot of people in the university town of Bellevue. However, very few of them are as determined as these two young detectives.

But will Mrs. Toussaint’s advice that “Persistence is the key to success” prove true?

EBOOK ON SALE NOW: 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Apple Books.

 

Steinbeck on Writing

Posted on by

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I read Of Mice and Men in high school and was wiped out for a week. I’ve seen the 1939 movie adaptation only once, in college, and I can’t watch it again.

That’s storytelling power. John Steinbeck had it.

So I thought it might be of interest here to share some of his writing advice via an interview in The Paris Review. I’ve added some comments, which is rather cheeky considering Mr. Steinbeck is a Nobel Prize ahead of me. But here goes anyway:

  1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

JSB: I like this. It’s similar to what Ann Lamott counsels in Bird by Bird, i.e., the “one inch frame.” Just face your daily writing, with full attention. If you do this faithfully, at some point you’ll look up and see a full novel. And that’s a very nice feeling.

  1. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

JSB: I somewhat agree. I am a planner, and once I get going I want to finish that first draft as rapidly as I can. However, I do edit my previous day’s work. I sharpen it, and it gets me back in flow.

  1. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

JSB: I don’t think about readers, plural or singular, when I write. I think about the characters. I think about the market when I nurture and idea. I want a concept that will appeal to sizable slice of folks who have discretionary income to spend on books. But once I’ve put that concept into motion in a novel, I’m involved only with the characters and how they get out of trouble.

  1. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.

JSB: This is good advice, so long as  you’re not doing it a lot. If you do, there’s going to be a much bigger mess at the end than there was at the beginning. If you have too many scenes that are not “working,” the problem may be in the structural foundations or in scene writing itself.

  1. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

JSB: I believe “out of drawing” is an art term which means an element that doesn’t fit. “Kill your darlings” is another way to put it. But this advice has always puzzled me. Maybe that scene that’s dear to you is the best one in the book. I think the only test is, Does it work in the story? Does it slow things down? Are you showing off?

JSB Axiom: Don’t write to impress your readers. Write to distress your characters.

  1. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

JSB: I prefer to write dialogue and let it flow. When I edit the dialogue, that’s when I might say it out loud, or listen to the text.

So what do you think of this advice, TKZers?
Have you read much Steinbeck? How does he rate with you?

Words of Wisdom: Rules for Writers

Posted on by

Are there rules for writers? Some say yes, some say no, while some say rules are meant to be broken. I believe there are rules. Perhaps they are really more like guidelines, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, but they are guidelines worth knowing and heeding. If there’s a good reason to break one, especially if it helps the story or unblocks you, by all means break it, but it helps to know the rule (guideline) first.

Today’s Words of Wisdom dives into the TKZ archives to find an intriguing grab bag of rules. Joe Moore lays out the rules of writing, with humor, wit and more than a little wisdom. I share the first fifteen on his list, and it’s worth clicking on the date-link at the bottom of this excerpt to read the other nineteen.

Next, John Gilstrap gives us his “Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation,” thoughtful advice on how to approach a manuscript you plan on submitting for feedback at a conference. His first five rules are included in this excerpt, and again it’s worth clicking on the date-link below to read all ten.

Finally, James Scott Bell looks at science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers,” and provides commentary on each. Here too it’s worth clicking on the link to read his full commentary.

Who said there are no rules for writers? Of course there are:

  1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
    2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
    3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
    4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
    5. Avoid clichés like the plague.
    6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
    7. Be more or less specific.
    8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
    9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
    10. No sentence fragments.
    11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
    12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
    13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
    14. One should NEVER generalize.
    15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

Joe Moore—December 17, 2008

Over the years, then, I have developed a list of Gilstrap’s Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation:

1. Number your pages and put your name or project title on every page. The reality is that I will lose your paper clip and I will drop your papers on the floor at least once. I don’t do this on purpose; it just always happens. Sometimes the pages get separated in my briefcase. However it happens, jumbled papers are jumbled papers. It helps to know which ones belong to whom, and in what order.

2. Have confidence in Times New Roman 12-point type. Reducing the font size to sneak in more story does not slip past unnoticed. I recently participated in a conference where someone actually gave me 15 pages of double-spaced 8-point type. Ignoring the fact that it pissed me off, I literally could not read the text. While I like to think of myself as young, my eyes are marching toward old age.

3. For me to believe that your story has any hope of success, something must happen in the first two hundred words. That’s the length of my interest fuse. Billowing clouds, pouring rain and beautiful flowers are not action. Characters interacting with each other or with their environment is action.

4. If you insist on walking into the whirling propeller that is a prologue, check first to make sure that your prologue is in fact not your first chapter in disguise. Next check to verify that your prologue is truly for the benefit of the reader, and not a crutch for the writer who needs to dump a bunch of backstory so that the first chapter will make sense.

5. Ten pages are plenty. Actually, five pages are plenty, but I understand that conference organizers can tout the larger number more easily. In my experience, unless dealing with a journeyman writer, the sins committed in the first few pages are replicated throughout. It’s rare that I discover a new issue on page thirteen or fifteen that hasn’t been noted several times previously.

John Gilstrap—July 22, 2011

Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers.” They are as follows:

Rule One: You must write.

Rule Two: You must finish what you start.

Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.

Rule Four: You must put it on the market.

Rule Five: You must keep it on the market until it has sold.

I’d like to offer my commentary on this list.

Rule One: You must write.

Pretty self-evident. You can’t sell what you don’t produce. The writers of Heinlein’s era all had quotas. Pulp writers like W. T. Ballard and Erle Stanley Gardner wrote a million words or more a year. Fred Faust (aka Max Brand) wrote four thousand words a day, every day. They did so because they were getting a penny or two a word, and they needed to put food on the table.

I always advise writers to figure out how many words they can comfortably write in a week, considering their other obligations. Now up that number by 10% and make that the goal. Revise the number every year. Keep track of your words on a spreadsheet. I can tell you how many words I’ve written per day, per week, per year since the year 2000.

Rule Two: You must finish what you start.

I remember when I finished my first (unpublished, and it shall stay unpublished) novel. I was still trying to figure out this craft of ours and knew I had a long way to go. But I learned a whole lot just from the act of finishing. It also felt good, and motivated me to keep going.

Heinlein was primarily thinking about short stories here, so the act of finishing was an easier task. With a novel, there’s always a moment when you think it stinks. When you wonder if you should keep going for another 50k words. Fight through it and finish the dang thing. Nothing is wasted. At the very least you’ll become a stronger writer.

Should a project ever be abandoned? If you’ve done sufficient planning and have the right foundation, I’d say no. If you’re a pantser … well, the temptation to set something aside is more pronounced. But you chose to be a panster, so deal with it.

Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.

This is a bad rule if taken at face value. Again, Heinlein was thinking about the short story market. With novel-length fiction, the old saw still applies: Writing is re-writing.

I’ve heard a certain #1 bestselling writer state that he only does one draft and that’s it. Upon closer examination, however, that writer is revising pages daily as he goes, so it comes out to the same thing—re-writing.

As for “editorial order,” Heinlein meant that once a story sold—which meant actual payment—you made the changes the editor wanted (that is, if you wanted him to send you the check!)

For all writers, a skilled editor or reliable beta readers give us an all-important extra set of eyes. Don’t skip this step. There’s always something you need to fix!

James Scott Bell—December 11, 2018

***

There you have it, three different sets of rules for writers. Do you believe that there are rules for writers? Do any of these resonate with you? What rules have you broken, and if so, why?

Reader Friday-You Were There

Posted on by

 

Have you ever wished you could have been physically present, on-scene, an eyewitness to an historical event? Preferably with notebook and pen in hand, of course!

I have. I gave it some thought, and here’s where my imagination took me:

 

Paul Revere’s ride.

Washington crossing the Delaware.

The signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The first moon landing.

The first Major League Baseball game ever played. (According to my research, the first Major League game ever played was a National Association contest between the Cleveland Forest Cities and Ft. Wayne Kekiongas on May 4, 1871. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this…)

The first car rolling down the street. Or…

The Wright Brothers’ flight.

TKZers, please feel free to add your own!

 

If It Hurts Too Much, Stop

Posted on by

By John Gilstrap

I posted here a few weeks ago that I am recovering from surgery on my lumbar spine–a two-level hemilaminectomy. (I just like the way the word sounds.) The surgery was successful, but like any invasion of one’s musculature and nervous system, recovery takes time. For me, that means resuming normal activity with one big asterisk: If what I’m doing at any time, whether walking, doing yard work, or shooting at the range, if the activity starts to hurt too much, I am to stop. There is no glory to be gained by pushing through the pain. Doing so today will just make tomorrow suck.

This advice occurred to me the other day as I was reading a piece posted on Medium entitled, “Write Like the Rent Is Due Next Week” by Felicia C. Sullivan. The piece begins,

My rent is due on Monday. I’ve listed four maxi dresses while shoveling down buttered pasta for breakfast. Refreshed my eBay store at least seven times in the past hour. I scan my home like a thief. What else can I sell?

The fascinating, extraordinarily well-written piece goes on at length to tell us that Felicia was “born to tell stories” while lamenting that “the romantic writer life” was a sham unless you had parents folding fat bills into your hands.” No one

 told me how far you’ll have to hustle to live with integrity. If I didn’t take the fancy marketing gigs, I’d have to hustle like my life depended on it. . . . I’d draft first lines while praying the ache in my mouth I’ve been ignoring won’t turn into another $3,000 root canal.

And then there’s this:

Creating art in the barbaric slaughterhouse that is late-stage capitalism, while you’re wondering how far and wide you can stretch a single dollar — it’s not romantic or noble, it’s messy, often erratic, and filled with crippling self-doubt.

Truly artistic writers, we learn, can no longer make a living, in large measure due to:

dwindling attention spans and an audience seal-clapping for simple prose. Easy stories. Happy endings.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the Readerverse, your selfish desire to be entertained by what you read is forcing some navel-gazing Bohemian aspirants into the position where they must consider the horror of, you know, getting a job outside their own minds and interact with three-dimensional people who exist beyond their laptops.

Want to make money off of your writing?

Dear writers and musicians and artists of all stripes: Get over your precious selves. I am 100% with you when you claim that the thing you create is art–even if it’s ugly or I don’t understand it. The imagination superhighway has no lanes. Let your colors and your chords and your characters run wherever they take you. That’s the beauty of art. It literally has no bounds, no definition.

The instant you put a price tag on it, though, and try to sell it to me, your art becomes a product, and you’ve surrendered the command chair to everyone else but you. If your masterpiece is a self-indulgent, depressing expose of your inner demons and you don’t care about “seal-clapping” readers, good on you. Just expect to sell fewer copies than the author who considers himself and entertainer and writes a potboiler targeting the largest possible audience.

This shouldn’t hurt.

When I read the angst inherent to Ms. Sullivan’s prose, which is amplified severalfold by some of the comments, I find myself confused. If it all hurts that much, why do it? Why not take a break from it? To posit that she’s “born” to inflict this kind of emotional pain on herself makes no more sense to me than to posit that one can be born to pull one’s fingernails out.

Precious few writers ply their craft full time, and one who’s very close to me chose to go back to a day job just to break the claustrophobia of fulltime writing.

Life is about priorities.

I cannot imagine a circumstance where writing would ever be the first priority in my life. That slot belongs to family, always and forever. And you can’t take care of your family if you can’t pay the rent. If you can’t pay the rent without having a day job, well, I guess that day job needs to be pretty high on the priority list, doesn’t it?

By way of shameless self-promotion, I’ve reactivated my YouTube channel, A Writer’s View of Writing and Publishing, with an episode focused on the very topic of Setting Your Priorities As A Writer. I invite you to give it a look if you get a chance.