Tag Archives: editing process

Resolving to be Resolute

29 Monday Jan 2018

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It’s that time of year again. The beginning!

I’m sure there have been many a resolution made. About your writing. About your health. About your personal life.

I’m going to be honest with you: I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I believe that if people want to change they will, they don’t need to wait for a new year to begin. You can make yourself new anytime you want by committing to change. Studies agree with me. Several have been done, and something like 85% of New Year’s resolutions are forgotten/abandoned by mid-February, if not sooner.

So, if you’ve made resolutions about your writing, I’m sorry. Some of you are probably already struggling to keep up with the changes to routine/style/genre. It can be rough. It will continue to be rough. And I’m sorry for that. Seriously.

I’ve been in the same boat. When I graduated college (the first time), I said I was a writer. I’d taken classes. I’d gotten a degree. I had the verbiage: I am a writer. I also had bills: I had to eat; I had to have a place to live; I needed a job to get money to pay for that, and I needed a car to get to the job, and car insurance on top of that.

Life getting in the way of life.

I wrote when I could, but most days I was tired, or happy to have some time to myself. Writing became a footnote in my life.

Then, I met my wife—she wasn’t my wife at the time, we were just dating. I told her I was a writer, that it was my passion, and showed her some of my work. She liked it, thought it was good. I was happy to share my work. But…

Life got in the way of life, and, to be honest, I was out of the habit of writing so there was more than a little slacking off.

Decisions were made, and something miraculous and horrifying happened. My wife (still a girlfriend) and I moved in together. Every day when she got home she’d ask me what I’d done, expecting to hear about my writing. But…Life and slacking.

After a couple months she did something that I sorely needed. She yelled at me. She asked me why I wasn’t writing. She accused me of not being a writer, and said if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to FUCKING write.

I was hurt at first. Having her yell at me from, what I felt was, out of the blue was a tad scary. What hurt the most, and was eye opening, was that she was right.

Writers write, and if I wanted to be a writer then I needed to write. It was a dose of tough love, but I needed it.

So, with that in mind…

All you aspiring writers out there! FUCKING WRITE!

I want you to write. I love hearing stories, and I want to hear yours. If no one else does, at the very least I do.

I’ve said this before (and I’ll probably say it again), only you can tell your story the way you can tell it. So, tell it! If you want to write, you have to write. No one else is going to do it for you. And why would you want someone else to write your story?

This has been your dose of tough love.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well

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Taking that Burger with a Side of Characterization

29 Monday Aug 2016

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Hey, all! Today I want to talk to you about characterization. For those of us who need a quick reminder/definition: Characterization is how and what we learn about someone in a story that makes them feel/seem like a real person; details about a character in your story.

Everybody got it?

Need an example?

How do we know the main character’s best friend is in love with them? Because they run out of a date to help the main character, and other “above and beyond” type of things that a friend wouldn’t normally do.

A big part of characterization, I believe (but I’m sure most others would agree with me-if I could ask them-which I can’t-so we’ll just assume), is (and here’s the phrase you’re probably tired of hearing) showing not telling. Quick reminder: the “show don’t tell” advice is straight forward, show the readers something in the story don’t tell the readers about something that we didn’t see.
For instance, if you end a chapter/scene with the main character going off to break into the bio-tech lab, don’t start the next chapter/scene after the break in and tell us it went well, show us the break in.

The same thing goes for characters in your story. Don’t have a character tell us another character is a jerk, show us that character is a jerk by their actions and interactions with the other characters. And here’s the thing, if you are having a character tell us another character is a jerk, then it says more about the character telling us about the other character than it does about the character they’re telling us about.

Sometimes coming up with what your character is like is tough (you can’t characterize your character to yourself). You just can’t figure out how your character would react in a scene. In these cases it can be a good thing to take them out of the story for moment and think about them doing something completely mundane. In this example let’s say their eating lunch. What do they eat for lunch? Are they are a fast food type of person? If they are, are they not concerned with their weight/health? Or are they a salad type of person? What kind of salad? Do they go out to a restaurant to eat lunch or have it delivered to where they work? Do they like to eat with people, or do they eat alone in their car to have a few minutes to wallow?

As you can see, when it comes to characterization lunch can be so much more than just something that happens. Lunch can be another way to show us what your character is like.

I hope this helps.

Until next time: Be yourself, be well. Write yourself, write well.

The Ergonomics of Failure

08 Thursday Oct 2015

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We’re back again for another installment.

Last time I mentioned failure. So I wanted to talk a little more about that. Because, you know, I don’t think life is depressing enough.

Anyway. I specifically say: “Stopping writing makes you a failure.” While at the time I was being inspirational this time I wanted to talk practically about that statement. I’ve asked several authors what is meant by the term, failed novel. All of them said that a failed novel is basically a novel that you stop working on.

I want to be clear on this. A novel isn’t a failure because it’s been rejected x number of times, or xx number of times, or xxx number of times, or xxxx number of times. It’s not a failure because it’s never published. It’s not a failure because numerous, very loud people don’t like it. It’s not a failure because, while people like it, the public misses the underlying point that you were going for in the story.

The only thing that makes a novel failed is you giving up on it.

Now I’m not talking about: I’ve been working on this novel for months/years. I’ve written it, re-written it, and re-re-written. I’m at the point that, I as the author cannot do anything more with it; I’m going to need a third party to come in and take a look at it before I can do anything else with it. So you stop actively working on it so you can focus on other things, like another novel, or eating, or your relationship (I swear I had a girlfriend/boyfriend/fiancé around here somewhere).

What I’m talking about when I say a novel is failed is: I got fifty pages in about a couple years ago and then I just haven’t had the time to pick it back up. Or, I tried writing a novel, but it just wasn’t for me. Or, I wrote a whole novel, but no one seemed to like it so, but I’m not going to change anything because they don’t get it; I’ll just focus on my porn addiction for a while.

Basically any time you just stop working on a novel, and just never go back to pick it up. The above reasons are pretty negative, but a failed novel might be a good thing too. Just let me explain. If you spend time writing you should, eventually, get a feel for your writing process, your style, and stories in general. You could have a great idea for a novel, get fifty pages in, and you realize that it’s just not working. Whatever the reason may be: the subject might not translate well, you might be having trouble organizing your thoughts, you might not be feeling the story right then. In that case you abandon the project in favor for a project that comes more easily. Or you might decide that your brilliant idea for a novel actually works better as a short story.

As a writer it is important that you’re able to identify poor writing, especially if it’s yours. Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. Apparently, John Green in the wake of The Fault in Our Stars, has started and abandoned four or five novels.

(If you don’t know who John Green is; he’s awesome. If you haven’t read The Fault in Our Stars; you should.)

The point I’m going for is this: Just because you have a failed novel doesn’t mean you are a failure. As the old saying goes: We learn more from our failures then our successes. And again: the only thing that makes you a failure is if you stop writing. So don’t let that one failed novel/story define the rest of your story, learn from it and move on.

Until next time: be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.

The Rejection Reflection Injection

07 Friday Aug 2015

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Okay, so, since I took us out of the beautiful ephemeralness of the writing process and thrust us into the concrete really-realness of putting yourself out there I thought this time I’d put out a life jacket.

I mentioned that my preferred way of putting yourself out there for the public was getting published. This was a tad full hardy, and easier said than done. Putting yourself out there through publishing is hard. You’re going to get rejected a lot.

Let me say that again: YOU’RE GOING TO GET REJECTED A LOT.

Alright. Deep breath. Now everyone say it with me…

I’m going to get rejected a lot.

This does not make you a failure. … … Trust me, I know how that sounds. Even I have trouble believing that every now and again. Because, and this is just the truth, you’re going to feel like a failure after your umpteenth rejection.

One of the things you should keep in mind during this whole process is: our work is subjective. As much as publishers and agents may look at Harry Potter and say that it was successful because of x, x, and x. Or the Twilight series. Or the works of Michael Chabon. (and I’m showing my age here.) It is really up to the taste of the public what becomes popular, and with small publishing—short stories in a maga/e-zine—it’s up to the editor what goes into the publication. For instance: I have a zombie-ish story—Issues of Revanantcy—which I sent to the publication Brave Blue Mice. It was accepted to the webpage portion of the publication, but in the acceptance letter, and I’ll never forget this, the person who read it said they almost rejected it without reading it. And why, you may ask, would they do that? Because it was about zombies—well revenants, which are slightly different, but I digress. And they just get so many zombie story the person didn’t want to read yet another story about them. In the end they did, and found out that zombie stories can be more than: “high school kids running around screaming and getting eaten in the goriest ways possible.” (Or something to that effect.)

So yeah, subjectivity plays a big part in what we do. The above story also illustrates another thing to keep in mind about writing and rejection: you’re not alone. There are so many people out there writing, and the Interweb has made it much easier to put your/their/everyone’s writing in the hands of the people. So if you’ve written a zombie story someone else has too. If you’ve written a lesbian vampire story someone else has too. If you’ve written a Suesian jaunt through the mind of psychopathic killer haunted by the ghosts of victims who finds love with one of the ghosts and attempts to resurrect said ghost in a new body well…you should really get that published because I kinda want to read that. The point I’m going for isn’t you should shelve your zombie story because everyone is doing zombie stories (or anything really zombies just seems to be the theme today), but you should highlight what makes yours different, and you have to fight that much harder for it.

By the way, this also means there are hundreds, at least, of writing blogs out there. So if you’re reading this one: THANKS FOR READING THIS ONE!

I’m going to finish with the point I made all the way at the beginning of this: rejection doesn’t make you a failure. Stopping writing makes you a failure. Rejection can’t make you stop writing, only you can stop you from writing. The worst rejection can do is tell you that this editor of this mag/e-zine doesn’t think this story is right for them. Take that as a challenge to find one your stories, or write a new one, that the editor will think is a good fit for the publication.

Don’t stop writing.

And: Be yourself, be well; write yourself, write well.

Platforming isn’t just for Plumbers and Hedgehogs

09 Thursday Jul 2015

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So we’re going to change gears (sorta) for a second here. We’ve talked a lot about writing, as you might expect from a writing blog, but I’d like to talk about what comes after. That’s right, now that you’ve wrote something you’re proud of you have to show it to people.

Cringe, gasp, heart palpitations, rising blood pressure, glee, confidence.

Okay. Finished? Take a minute. Take a deep breath. Get a glass of water.

Better? Good.

So let’s talk about publishing and finding an agent, or, at least, one part of it. Most publishing companies, and some agents, will ask you about your marketing platform. Don’t get all sweaty over the jargon. What they’re asking you, basically, is what are you willing to do to promote yourself and your work.

I know, you thought that was their job.

So one of the ways you can respond, if you’ve been doing that, is that you have exposure. This means you and your work are out there. For instance you have a blog, even if you just review books you’ve read on it, you have a Twitter following (again talking about writing or books or daily thoughts/ideas about your writing) where you interact with your fans. Some of you might want to start a YouTube channel where you dispense advice about writing, rant about your writers’ block, or do quick reviews of books (I hear some people are very successful at the YouTube).

Part of the reason for this blog is to put me out there so agents and publisher can see that I’m out there. I don’t do book reviews because I’m not really in to telling you how I didn’t like a book. I get yelled at enough by my wife when I do that with her. Plus, I like to feel like I’m contributing, so I try to put some (reasonably) good advice.

The oldest way to expose yourself, and the one I recommend, is getting your writing (the shorter stuff obviously) in print. Who would have thought you could get fans by doing what you’re good at?

Yeah, so getting your work out there is just as useful (and I would say the most useful) as getting your name out there. It has the benefit of putting your name out there, and your work at the same time. Also it keeps you writing. This is always a good thing!

So the point is this: there is more to being a writer than just writing. You have to be “out there.” You have to be willing to be out there. There’s old saying about you being your best promoter, and it’s just as true now as it was when whoever said it said it.

I know for some of you this might be scary. I still worry that I’m doing something wrong whenever the cursor hovers over the publish button. You have to get over that. Being a writer is about putting yourself on the page; about putting yourself out there anyway. So put yourself out there.

Until next time: Be you, be well; write you, write well.

You Gotta Chip Away At It

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Hello, Everyone! I hope you had a good National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as the hip kids are calling it). For those of you not aware: November is National Novel Writing Month, where people sit down and write a novel in a month. Breaking that down for you in pages 5 pages a day equals 150 pages, which is roughly 2,000-2,500 words a day. Anyway, if you participated then I hope it was a good experience for you.

So NaNoWriMo is the reason I didn’t post in November. Not that I was working on a novel (I had other things piling up on my plate), but because I figured everyone would be posting about writing and didn’t want to overload the Internet on literature. Also I didn’t want to contribute to the distractions of not writing. And again, the afore mentioned pile of stuff I had to get done.

Which brings us to what I want to talk about today; I want to talk to you about writers’ block.

DA-DA-DUUUM!

I know, it’s such a cheery subject (especially for the holidays). I want to assure you: There will come a time when you don’t feel like writing. This is normal. If you do anything for any length of time you will get sick of it. I love writing—LOVE IT—and even I have days where the mere thought of what my character(s) will do next sickens me. One day I was staring at the computer screen, staring at the words from the day before, and just wrote: And they all died. Needless to say I took the day off.

Yeah, you’re going to have days where you don’t feel like writing. Writers’ Block is something else. It’s a persistent condition of being stuck, of not being able to write. No matter what you do you can’t put the next sentence together; can’t get through the scene; are unable to see the characters for the plot (or vice versa).

Don’t be ashamed. It happens to everyone. It’s no big deal. Seriously. It’s okay.

Here’s what I believe (and you may have guessed what it is): You’ve got to chip away at the block. You do this by keeping writing. It doesn’t matter if what you write is crap (in all honestly it probably will be), but you got to keep the writing muscle fresh. Do you know how many tons of earth miners have to move before getting to the good stuff? You should look up the statistics, it’s interesting. The same premise applies here, you keep working the earth until you hit a rich vein of creativity.

It’ll be hard work. It’ll be frustrating. That’s good. Eventually you’ll just want to write something and that’s when the dam will break and the writing will come.

At least…that’s how I do it.

For those of you who’d like a less aggressive approach here’s some things you can do.

1) Do something different with your writing: If you’re a horror writer try writing a fantasy story, or a sci-fi story, or even (GULP!) a contemporary (non-genre) story. The idea here is to keep the writing machine pumping while simultaneously cleaning all the gum out of the gears. Sometimes you can be too mired in a genre its tropes, and beats, and rhythms, and it clogs the thinking. The thoughts get jumbled up in possibilities and just won’t come out. Thinking about how different stories work and are put together can work out the kinks in your brain so you can come back to the story you really want to write with a clear head.

2) Do something different with yourself: Embrace the variety, my friends. Chances are if you’re a horror writer (going of the example from number one) then you watch horror shows/movies, and read horror stories. It’s good to keep up on your field, but this can also gum up the thought gears. Try reading a fantasy, a sci-fi, a historical novel, go to the movies and see a comedy, or a drama. Every once and a while you should, and can, come up for air from the full emersion in your genre.

3) Put the story down and step away: It’s okay. I know you can do it. Put the story off to the side (literally or metaphorically speaking) and work on something else. Move on to the next story you have filed away in your write brain; or you can pick up an old story that needed more work but you moved on because you decided you were done with it (the new perspective might be just what it needed). The point is maybe you need some distance from the story. It’s possible you have the story all outlined, but now that you’re writing it it’s going somewhere else and you’re trying to force it back into the original mold; some time may give the vantage point to see where it went off track, or where the story is going now.

4) It’s a 48 hour bug: It’s possible you just need a couple days to breathe. That’s right, a couple days off and you can hit the keyboard (notebook) hard and finish up the story. I don’t suggest taking more than a week off in the middle of a project. The hardest thing about being a writer is the self-discipline; you don’t have someone over your shoulder keeping you to a deadline, you don’t have to punch a clock, or even put on pants if you don’t want. So keeping yourself on track is a big responsibility.

Okay, here’s how I see writers’ block (and feel free to disagree with me): it’s all about pressure. You putting pressure on yourself to write, to be original, to finish in a certain time, to make it big, TO WRITE. Some pressure is good, it keeps us motivated, but too much can destroy you. Even worse too much pressure can take the joy out of what you’re doing. At the end of the day isn’t that what it’s all about? Enjoying what you’re doing?

Happy Holidays from all us Hemlocks to all you Mistletoes. Enjoy yourselves.

We Searched and Researched and Researched and…

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

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Alright-y then, going off of the last post on preparation; I want to talk about research. I know research is a part of preparation, but it’s such an important, and big, part I thought I’d give it its due with a whole post about it.

So the meat of the argument, the question everyone asks, is: how much research is enough research/how much research should I be doing?

The quick and dirty answer to this question (and some budding writers out there will stop after this, which they shouldn’t) is: you do as much research as you feel you need to, and then you get on to writing.

That being said, if you consider yourself a writer, if you want to be a professional writer one day, you should do more research than looking up one website/article (wiki- or otherwise) before you sit down to write about something. As a general rule I go for two or three sources on a subject, but it will depend on what you are writing.

If, for instance, you’re writing a historical fiction story I wouldn’t say it’d be out of line to have at least six sources (two or three on the event itself and one for each of the major participants), and really if you had a dozen sources I wouldn’t say you’re out of line. I read an interview with a writer (and you’re going to hate me because I keep doing this) whose name I can’t remember (someone look it up and send me a comment: female author, book took place around/during the Chicago fire, came out late ’90’s or early 2000’s). Anyway, this author took ten years to write this book, most of that time being research. So there’s that.

I would even say if you’re writing an alternative history story you still need to research the event(s) you’re changing, because you need to know what happened if you’re going to change things. Plus, doing this may get you to think about outcomes/consequences you might not have thought of for your story.

For my Reiner Rotterdam story I looked up several sources (digital and print) about fairy creatures to make sure I had the legends right. As it turns out trolls (Reiner is a troll by the way) originally were just bigger humans that liked to live alone and it wasn’t really until the introduction of the fantasy genre that they took on monstrous features that have become common place in our collective imaginations. Learning this made me think about the story I wanted to tell again, and in a different way, and I think it came out much better because of it.

Let me bottom line it for you: you will have to do research about something for your stories. To be fair (more than fair really) in this glorious information age that we live in research has become exceedingly easy to do, and writers have less and less excuses for misinformed stories or completely wrong “facts” in their stories.

As a general rule (yes, another one) regarding research: If you don’t know, even if you’re unsure, about something look it up.

I hope this clears the air about research. And as always: think good things, writer good words.

The Uncle Karl Fix Pt. 2

21 Saturday Jun 2014

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Okay, so enough people have said something about “Uncle Karl” that you’ve (begrudgingly) decided to take a look at the scenes he’s in. Hopefully there’s been a few days/weeks/months between you finishing the writing and you going back to edit. The reason for this is that time can help you get a better perspective on your story. I can’t tell you how many times I wrote something that made complete sense in the middle of the writing, but when I went back through editing I was like: Wait! What?!

So, you’re looking at the scenes with Uncle Karl. The very first thing you need to ask yourself is: What is Uncle Karl bringing to the scene?

Try to be as objective as possible. This will be difficult. Probably at some point during your re-read of the scene you smile because of Uncle Karl. It’s tempting at this point to go: Hey, I don’t know what they (your friends who have been nice enough to read your story to help you edit it and make it better) are talking about. Uncle Karl is great. I’m the cleverest motherfucker here.

Alright, stop right there. Now I’m not saying you’re not clever, and you may be the cleverest one among your group of friends, you might even be the cleverest motherfucker writing about what you’re writing about, but…BUT…what if you’re not? And even if you truly are the cleverest writer to ever write, if people are too distracted by Uncle Karl to notice then in the end it doesn’t matter.

So you’ve re-read the scene with Uncle Karl in it with the question, What is Uncle Karl bringing to the scene, on your mind. Now for the second question: What is the scene trying to accomplish? Thinking of this question re-re-read the scene. Now is Uncle Karl helping or hindering what you’re trying to do in the scene?

Obviously if Uncle Karl is helping then Uncle Karl gets to stay. If Uncle Karl is hindering Uncle Karl gots to go.

You have to do this for each scene individually. I must stress: DON’T GET RID OF UNCLE KARL IN EVERY SCENE BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WORK IN JUST ONE. The reason I bring this up is because Uncle Karl isn’t just taking up space on the page, he’s taking up space in the world of the story. You took the time for the story to have Uncle Karl in it so the story WILL have a hole to fill if you take him out.

This is actually a good segue into the coolest question of “The Uncle Karl Fix”: What happens to the story if you take Uncle Karl out completely? BA-BA-BUUUUM!

For instance what if Uncle Karl is hindering one of your scenes, but he’s there to introduce something that will be important later in the story? So Uncle Karl is hindering the scene but helping the story. Fair enough, but what does taking him out completely do for the story? What if taking Uncle Karl out forces the Main Character to be more proactive? What’s wrong with that?

What I’m trying to get at is that getting rid of Uncle Karl doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can provide opportunities for the story to grow and move in directions you didn’t expect. From part one I mentioned my most recent “Uncle Karl” was that my story was from a character’s POV and that it just wasn’t working from their POV.

Yeah, I was upset. Something I wanted to do didn’t work. The story sucked. I had my maybe-they’re-just-not-smart/cool/into my genre-enough-to-get-what-I’m-trying-to-do moment, and once I calmed down I started thinking about the other characters in the story. When it occurred to me who’s POV it should be from all these ideas flooded into me about how I could play around with different aspects of the story, things that hadn’t even occurred to me the first time around, things that couldn’t have because the way the story was coming out. All of a sudden the story was breathing and alive again.

At the end of the day that’s all we, as writers, really want isn’t it? To have a story that’s fun to write and lives on its own.

Zen and the Art of Writing Mechanics

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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It’s been said by better people than me (over and over again) about many, many things: you have to have a firm grasp of the fundamentals to be able to do anything well. Why people think they can ignore it about writing and language is beyond me.

I recently joined a writing group. I was shocked by myself when I started reading others’ writing. Honestly, I didn’t think I was that guy. I thought I was more concerned with the stories than the grammar rules. However, I found myself floundering to get to the story because of the misuse of the words involved.

This is not another rant about comma use. No this is much more fundamental. This is about the misuse of language.

For instance (and every writer struggles with this one), passivity. Passive verb forms keep an action from fully forming (and people could argue that they keep a character and, more importantly, a story from fully developing as well). Examples of a passive sentence: Jenna was starting to understand. Active sentence: Jenna started to understand. Even better: Jenna understood now. You need your characters doing things otherwise you have a story that might have been instead of a story that is.

Another specific example of things that can muddle the pace of the story and put off your reader is prepositional phrases. Not that you shouldn’t use these, but over using them can cause sentence to keep going well past their intended point. Example: “ It’s not my fault,” said Johnny, who had to let the ball go in order to hang on. This is a speech tag, yet the sentence doesn’t just tell us who’s talking it goes into action too…except it doesn’t, because there are three prepositional phrases strung together. This is an example of overcomplicating a sentence.

Like I said, I really didn’t want to be this guy but I found myself missing the story being told because of constant misuses like these. It’s like seeing someone with matted hair, dirty t-shirt, and ripped jeans walking down the street. Is that a person you’d randomly stop so you could talk to them? It’s entirely possible that this person is a sensitive poet who’s had a bad couple of weeks and is on the way to do laundry and a shower, but are you going to test those odds?

The story actually has it worse than the afore mentioned person. If you did take the chance and stop to talk to the person, and they did turn out to be a down on their luck poet you might be able to look past the unkempt appearance. With the story though (and this is my point), the words are the story and the story is the words you use to tell it. Make sure your story is presentable.