Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.
 
A bright orange blazer
2 cute puppies
Refrigerator magnets
 

Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Write your best story. Great advice, but the sentiment is vague.

What is your best story?

The market (both traditional and indie) is flooded right now by writers who believe they have written their greatest achievement until their next story gets put down on paper. Some authors have reached their goal. Others have not, and they are the ones creating a vast problem.

Many authors have no idea what their best story can be because they haven’t studied the craft of storytelling. Increasingly the level for excellence has been lowered while the availability for publication has increased.

Yes, this business is a subjective one. An editor looks at a story and decides it doesn’t have what it takes. Another reviews the same manuscript, and he feel it’s the author’s breakout novel. Independent writers, so proud of their prose that they believe it can rise above the millions of other published works, place it in the market. Some readers love it. Others hate it.

How in the world is an author supposed to craft their best story in such an industry where beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder?

I used a key word in that leading question. Did you see it?
Right in the middle is the word craft.

Craft is vital to storytelling. Putting a story onto paper is only the beginning. The first draft, maybe even the second draft of a story does not mean it is a finished work of art. Much like a sculptor, the author needs to chisel away words, scenes, entire chapters. In the same way a painter does, an author needs to color the prose with conflict, emotion, and vibrant pictures. These are aided by voice, by grammar, by the proper (and sometimes improper) placement of punctuation, and by style.

I’m afraid that in today’s world of publishing (in both traditional and indie), crap instead of craft is the key word. Individuals who long to be authors aren’t satisfied with rejection, even when the rejections are specific enough to help a writer begin to craft a story into a masterpiece. They do not want to take the time it takes to learn how to craft a story. They lean upon the “subjective” nature of the work. “Well, not everyone is going to like it.”

Couple the authors inattention to craft with editors (both in-house and freelance) who haven’t studied the craft of storytelling, the art of punctuation, and the refinement of grammar, and the industry has a very big problem. Horrible novels are flooding the marketplace, tainting the industry—especially the Christian publishing industry, which has had to fight this stigma from the beginning.

The beginning of the solution lies in self-editing. To do so, though, an author must learn the craft of storytelling, the art of punctuation, the refinement of grammar and using it to tell the best story ever. He or she must also learn to discern good advice from bad, to lay aside his or her bias toward a manuscript and begin to realize whose subjectivity is the best to lean upon.

Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

A candleholder
Old letters
A gunshot

Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Have you ever read a book so terrible that you felt sorry for the author? I have.

When this happens to me, it’s as if I’m cruising past a train wreck, and I can see into each derailed car and the disaster inside. I find myself wondering why someone didn’t switch the track to avoid the derailment.

What makes a novel a disaster? There are many elements that go into the making of a disaster, but here is what stands out the most for me in a novel:

First of all, I cringe when I see unrealistic or stilted dialogue. I want every word spoken by a character to contain 1) a realistic tone and conversation; 2) information that moves the plot along without the author obviously using the dialogue to tell what the reader needs to know; and 3) a conversation that is appropriate for the moment and for the genre. For instance, I do not want two characters who are, let’s say, astronomers, who, together, have detected a large meteor on a collision course with Earth, to begin reliving their discovery. They were together. Their conversation isn’t likely to go something like, “Harry, do you remember yesterday when we measured the meteor, did the calculations, and learned that Earth is in deep trouble.” That conversation is not likely to happen. Instead, those astronomers need to be in action and in conversation about how they’re going to stop the thing, save the earth, and become heroes in the process. Yes. All dialogue tells the reader information they need to know. The key to effective and well-written dialogue is to wrap the reader up in it so that they don't realize they're being told. Instead, they're a part of a realistic conversation that moves the plot forward.

Along with dialogue, redundancies are often what turns a good novel bad very quickly. You know what they are. The writer isn’t sure she even has a handle on the story, so she tries to cover it up by repeating what the reader understood from the start. While redundancies are most often caused by a writer's insecurity over her ability to relay the message, the reader comes away feeling as if they've been talked down to. As noted above, that is sometimes done in dialogue as well as narrative.

Stopping to smell the roses is another problem that stands out for me. Those are the moments when the characters are neck deep in trouble, and they’re talking about things that don’t matter. Let’s go back to our astronomers, Harry and Jacqueline. A meteor is streaking toward Earth. The force of the blast will take Earth out of its orbit and everyone will die. But Harry and Jacqueline don’t let that stop them from stealing a kiss on about every page or even taking about wedding plans. No-sir-ree, that part of the plot has to go forward, and they’re going to discuss those things right in the midst of a disaster.

When self-editing a manuscript, an author should check very carefully and remove any unrealistic and/or stilted dialogue from a manuscript. Redundancies should be reviewed and most often deleted. Likewise, all action and dialogue should be relevant for the scene. Remember, you're not going to stop and smell the roses when a serial killer is on your heels.

Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.

A favorite restaurant
A rainy day
A horse and carriage


Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing

Have you ever known someone who has an annoying habit? Every time they do what they do, it drives you up the wall?

Sometimes authors develop annoying habits, and those habits can destroy a writer’s relationship with a reader. Authors will say it has everything to do with style, but as discussed many times, style stops being effective when it is overdone, and when style is overdone, the cause is usually that the author has picked up an annoying habit. I’ve listed a few of these practices that self-editing will help to eliminate:

Starting a sentence with a conjunction is sometimes a way to bring emphasis to the second portion of an independent clause. The comma and conjunction doesn’t hold enough of a pause. But letting that conjunction stand out does the trick. That is, unless the author starts every other sentence with a conjunction. Then it becomes a bad habit that weakens emphasis elsewhere in the novel.

While we’re discussing conjunctions, another annoying practice is to continually place an incorrect comma after the conjunction. Sometimes, the rules of punctuation call for it, especially if there is a non-restrictive or parenthetical clause or maybe an interjection following the conjunction. However, 99.9% of the time, the comma has become a habit of incorrect punctuation. The conjunctions so and yet are the exception. Sometimes, the author needs to have that pause a comma brings. So, the key is? Let your ear place that comma where it is needed.

Redundancies are a plague of writers who are unsure if they’re getting the message across. He fears the reader isn’t going to get his message. The easiest route for an author to take is to repeat himself, and when an author takes that easy route, the reader believes she’s being talked down to. The truth is, the author should make sure that he’s painted a clear enough picture and move forward.

Exclamation points! I actually get headaches when characters scream and yell at each other in every other sentence, but some authors mistakenly believe the exclamation point is used to add emphasis to what is being said or, heavens to Betsy, what is being thought. The truth about exclamation points is that they’re to denote loud speech. When a character is yelling at another character or cheering another character, by all means, use the exclamation point. Examine real-life speech. Do people screech at each other often? Not really. It’s a good way to get smacked or worse. For that reason, one or two exclamation points in a novel may be one or two exclamation points too many. Tone it down.

Em dashes and ellipses marks are another form of punctuation that authors discover and then pick up the annoying habit of using. Finding a manuscript without a page peppered with either one or both of these marks is becoming increasingly hard to find. Often the author doesn’t use the mark correctly. For example, the ellipses point or mark truly doesn’t hold the function of showing a pause in speech. Authors have adapted it because it is easier for them to take a shortcut rather than to add an action that denotes the pause.

Sometimes, the dialogue on a page has every speech ending with an em dash to note that the character has been cut off mid-sentence. I don’t know about others, but if I’m involved in that type of conversation, I’ve left the room by the time I’m interrupted more than twice. Readers might make it through one such conversation in a novel, but they probably won’t turn the page after the second one begins. Why? Rudeness isn’t tolerated for very long in fiction or in real life.

When self-editing, it is important to look for these stylized areas to determine if the habit we’ve taken up is annoying enough to prevent the reader from enjoying the story.

Remember: style is about effective usage, not over usage.


Happy editing.

Make-A-Story™ Monday - This Week's Writing Prompt

Writing to spec – you’ve heard the term. It means writing what the publisher wants. Can you do it? In our new feature - Make-A-Story™, we ask you to create a story with these elements. The story can be set in any time frame, any length, must adhere to our guidelines and have our standard Christian world view.
 
A broken lamp
Special instructions
A glass of orange juice