Riley Adams's Blog, page 131

Integrating Writing Into Life

by Lex Thomas, @LexThomasAuthor

We all have our demons. Mine is writing. It’s been with me since I was little, this compulsion to create. A nagging feeling like I shouldn’t be living in this moment, I should be recording it. When life is calling, when reality is demanding my attention, that urge to write it down can be a horrible feeling. I feel as though I’m being pulled in two, because an idea requires so much thought and time and energy to become realized. As much as I feel a responsibility to my waking life, to my loved ones, to the care of my home and body, to my simple day to day enjoyment, I also feel a responsibility to this story I’ve conjured in your head. And by no means is exorcising it an easy process. Writing takes time. It’s not instantaneous. It’s a process. A story becomes worth reading in stages, each one as lengthy as the one before it.

So the question becomes: how do I manage this responsibility of writing when it doesn’t feel like it fits neatly into the rest of my life? Figuring out how to manage writing has been as much of a journey as the craft of it. There are those impossible maniacs who seem to be able to write anywhere, anytime, picking up and putting down their narrative at the drop of a hat, writing on napkins, in their phones, on walls. I’ve never been that way. I’ll do that when I’m brainstorming, but as far as the actual composing of words goes, the drafting, I’m the worst kind of writer. I lost most of ability to hand-write around 2002. Now, I can’t write without a computer. It also takes me a good 45 minutes to get in the zone and another 45 minutes to get out of that creative headspace and become sane again. I can’t write at night. I’m just not wired that way. My best hours are old-fashioned: 9 to 5. You know, those hours when most employers expect you to work.

I’ve been in every type of working scenario, and let me tell you the best one is no straight job at all. I’ve never been so functional and prolific as a writer as when I could keep that 9 to 5 schedule, 5 to 6 days a week, but that’s a luxury, rather than the norm. The world is expensive, and writing rarely pays. When you’re under contract and the check’s in the bank, you write like the wind. Because you know that it’s only a matter of time before the world comes knocking. But what happens when you’re writing on spec, and the bills need paying, your children need their dad, and your wife needs her husband? You have to be there for them.

So, after all my yammering and qualifying, what am I saying? Schedules change. And fighting your life, feeling torn in two directions, fueling a building frustration that life is standing in the way of your writing doesn’t help your life or your writing. It makes you sour. The key is to find balance. Openness, seeing your life and your writing as symbiotic will help you find a more natural process. When life is hectic, and I find myself needing to write for hire, I’ve had to adapt. My word processor of choice is Scrivener, now more than ever, because of the Project Targets feature. It allows me to create my own deadline and figures out the word count I need to hit with every session to stay on target. If your time is limited, knowing that you only need to knock out 700 words helps you buckle down when you think, “oh god, I couldn’t possibly write right now.” When I’m not near my computer, I can use Google Drive on my phone, and access a live document. It helps me feel like my writing isn’t a compartmentalized experience. It’s not ideal, but it keeps me moving forward.

All that said, when you find those moments when the world doesn’t need you, steal them.

Lex Thomas is the pen name used by the screenwriting team of Lex Hrabe and Thomas Voorhies.

Lex Hrabe was a Drama Geek in high school as well as student body president. L

ex received a BA in Drama and English from the University of Virginia and has worn hats as an actor, director, and writer. In addition to working as a screenwriter, he heads development at Cinespire Entertainment, a boutique production company.

If Thomas Voorhies were a character in the Quarantine trilogy, he would be a member of the Art Geek gang. Thomas graduated with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and continues to practice and exhibit his realist oil paintings. To see a selection of his artwork, visitwww.thomasvoorhies.com.

Lex Hrabe lives in Virginia; Tom Voorhies lives in California.

 

The post Integrating Writing Into Life appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Create a Compelling Character, Addendum: His or Her Unique Perspective: http://ow.ly/z9jTA @CockeyedCaravan

Authors Will Soon Be Able to Sell their eBooks on Facebook:  http://ow.ly/zkGvj @Goodereader

Where To Set Your Story and Tips for Researching Locations:  http://ow.ly/zlTFh @LovelyAuthor

How can we ease the summer’s debate?  http://ow.ly/zkRCm  @Porter_Anderson @HughHowey @philipdsjones

How to Start Your Story:  http://ow.ly/zc9vQ @HGComan

3 Steps to Taking Your Character Further and Deeper With Anger:  http://ow.ly/zc9yr @angelaackerman               

Should you revise, rework or reject your book? http://ow.ly/ @emma_darwin

12 Hashtags for Promoting Your Book:  http://ow.ly/zca8k @ReadersJournal

4 Ways To Write Every Day:  http://ow.ly/zcadP @woodwardkaren

Choosing and Staying True to A Point of View: http://ow.ly/zcbhZ  @amyjmcelroy

Creating a Scene Outline for Your Novel:  http://ow.ly/zcbVu  @JodieRennerEd

Always Open To The Possibility Of Writing:  http://ow.ly/zcah8  @jrobertlennon

100 Writing Prompts:  http://ow.ly/zcapg @Wiseink

Pricing Strategies for Ebooks in a Series:  http://ow.ly/zcbOz @goblinwriter

Why children’s literary heroes need to be less white: http://ow.ly/zcaTe @amymcculloch

26 Ways Writers Can Make a Workshop Successful:  http://ow.ly/zcbdS @themjkelley

Write an irresistible book blurb in 5 easy steps:  http://ow.ly/zcavb @writers_write

In Defence of Ghostwriting:  http://ow.ly/zcb5B @GMcDuling

How Authors Can (and Should) Use Author Copies:  http://ow.ly/zc9br @outskirtspress

20 Ideas for Sharing on Social Media:  http://ow.ly/zgfuO @CaballoFrances

11 Author Quotations to Help Reluctant Readers Find Their Way: http://ow.ly/zgeAH @geekerydo

Friendships Among Your Characters:  http://ow.ly/zgfqp @CantrellJason

You’re not behind and writers are not in a race: http://ow.ly/zgeJc @deanwesleysmith

Successful Querying: ItÂ’s Not All About The Letter:  http://ow.ly/zgfSD @mmfinck @womenwriters

When Real Life Happens To Your Fiction:  http://ow.ly/zgeZ5 @chgriffinauthor

Freelancing: Make a Living as a Writer: A Simple Strategy That Works:  http://ow.ly/zgemq @hopeclark

9 Things Writers Need to Know Before the Book Deal:  http://ow.ly/zkO8C @MartinaABoone

The Arc of The Indie Author Journey: From First Book to CEO Of Your Global Media Empire: http://ow.ly/z9icl @thecreativepenn

July 2014 Author Earnings Report:  http://ow.ly/zkGEI @AuthorEarnings @HughHowey

How to Write a Negative Character Arc: The First Act: http://ow.ly/z9jc4 @KMWeiland

Do Writers Practice Their Art? http://ow.ly/z9j84 @janice_hardy

History’s Most Heinous Typos: http://ow.ly/z9juZ @drummondmoir

How to Live the Brave Story You Must Write:  http://ow.ly/z9izU @JeffreyDavis108

3 Ways to Brand Your Covers:  http://ow.ly/z9iTG @janetkgrant

What to blog about: 5 top tips for new and aspiring authors:  http://ow.ly/z9iY2 @altait

Never let research get in the way of a good story:  http://ow.ly/z9ijN @IrishTimes

7 Questions that Will Change How You Publish:  http://ow.ly/z9iPD @cjlyonswriter

Situations in crime fiction when characters are faced with difficult choices:  http://ow.ly/zja2R @mkinberg

7 Things Writers Can Learn from Stand-up Comedians:  http://ow.ly/z9jhE @byagoda

How To Begin Your Book With A Knockout:  http://ow.ly/z9j23 @huffpost

Enjoy what you’re writing or you’ll never finish:  http://ow.ly/z9iox @Eliz_Mallory

One Thing Authors Shouldn’t Leave Out of A Story’s “Big Moment”:  http://ow.ly/z9j5R @vgrefer

Even Harvard Business School advice may not work for publishers in their struggle with Amazon:  http://ow.ly/zgrBH @MikeShatzkin

How To Change the Future of Publishing Now, Even Though It’s Too Late:  http://ow.ly/zgvkn @vaporbook

5 Things Every Screenwriter Should Know About Writing A Novel:  http://ow.ly/z6F9G @Abdaddy

Stereotypes, Tropes, and Archetypes: http://ow.ly/z6ET1 from Clever Girl Helps

A Crash Course in Mystery Sub-Genres:  http://ow.ly/z6ENF @MarcyKennedy

A digital renaissance for the science fiction short story:  http://ow.ly/z6EY3 @damiengwalter

Preparing for Success (and finding more time to write):  http://ow.ly/ @DanBlank

5 Signs Your Character Is Fully Developed:  http://ow.ly/z6GbN @mythcreants

Mystery Novelist Daniel Friedman on Amazon v. Hachette:  http://ow.ly/zgDvv @junglereds @DanFriedman81

Songwriting Tip: Rhyming http://ow.ly/z6EM9 @harrietschock

Uses of the Past Participle:  http://ow.ly/z6ES4 @writing_tips

Character Checklist: http://ow.ly/zgBQF @MartinaABoone

Putting An End To Plot Conveniences:  http://ow.ly/z6F5b @litreactor

Why characters are the heart of your novel – & how you can write them effectively:  http://ow.ly/z6FgI @roz_morris

How to Get Successfully Published Today: Big 5, Indy, or Self-Publish? http://ow.ly/z6F6S @passivevoiceblg

Submit Queries Using Real Name or Pen Name?  http://ow.ly/z6FWG

$5k advances for lifetime rights of works that can’t go out of print is indefensible:  http://ow.ly/zguS2 @HughHowey

What Is the Future of the Physical Bookstore? [Smart Set] http://ow.ly/zgrwe @Janefriedman

Writer Nightmares:  http://ow.ly/z6FfR @rebeccamakkai

Sentence clauses and commas.  http://ow.ly/z6EUN  @ericjbaker1

5 Free Tools of Social Media Success for Writers:  http://ow.ly/z6G95 @SMisDynamite

How to fix a plot hole:  http://ow.ly/z6Fc8 @roz_morris

How character POV affects word choice:  http://ow.ly/z4W6h @weifarer

3 Quotes every Writer should Ink to their Souls:  http://ow.ly/z4VWH @EudaimoniaJanne

If Writers Wrote as Some People Talk:  http://ow.ly/z4WmJ @Massim0Marin0

Common Plotting Faults and What to do About Them:  http://ow.ly/z4Uq4 @barbbradley

6 Things That Will Happen a Few Days Before Your Book Comes Out:  http://ow.ly/z4VdK @Petermball

Handling eBook Pirates http://ow.ly/z4VTN @BadRedheadMedia @macpetreshock

For Writers, Are Bars the New Coffee Shop? http://ow.ly/z4Ws0 @UrbanMuseWriter @contently

Here’s why you shouldn’t underestimate the power of setting:  http://ow.ly/z4WLD @standoutbooks

Take Your Characters Out to Lunch: 5 Development Exercises: http://ow.ly/z4VPe @adearinthewoods

8 Reasons All Authors Need Business Plans for Their Books: http://ow.ly/z4VIX @ninaamir

How to Personalize Your Revision Checklist:  http://ow.ly/z4Wjj @writing_tips

Finding an Agent: What No One Wants to Talk About:  http://ow.ly/z4V2p @arnabontemps

Battling Cliches & Tired, Old Tropes: Hate-at-First-Sight Love Stories:  http://ow.ly/z4Xda @stdennard

Harper Lee gave the US a story for the ages. Just don’t ask her about it:  http://ow.ly/z4W8J @CharlesLeerhsen @SmithsonianMag

How To Maintain Your Writing Voice:  http://ow.ly/z4Vn8 @SITSGirls

What does #Steampunk Mean? 10 Authors Share their Vision of the Genre:  http://ow.ly/z4WE3  @Fuelforwriters

6 Things Your Book Publicist Won’t Tell You:  http://ow.ly/z3RJ2 @SarahPinneo

Writing with Emotion:  http://ow.ly/z3Oxa @JanalynVoigt

Having Trouble Plotting Forward? Try Plotting Backward:  http://ow.ly/z3Phq @Janice_Hardy

How NOT to write disabled people:  http://ow.ly/z3OV7 @disabilityinlit

The Daily Routines Of 26 Of History’s Most Creative Minds:  http://ow.ly/z3JPv @FastCoDesign

Standalone or series?  http://ow.ly/z3RTk @Author_DFarland

An agent on agent guidelines and querying:  http://ow.ly/z3KqS @Janet_Reid

Script To Screen: “Cinema Paradiso”:  http://ow.ly/z3RQV @gointothestory

#FutureChat recap: How can we pay authors what they deserve? http://ow.ly/zbu56 @Porter_Anderson @MirabilisDave @camillelaguire

What Should an Author Expect from an Agent?  http://ow.ly/z3JHC @susanspann

5 Top Tips To Boost Writing Productivity | Self-Publishing Advice http://ow.ly/z3JBf @CSheehanMiles

On Writing the First Kiss:  http://ow.ly/z3KHi @AnnaCampbelloz

What Is Voice In Fiction? http://ow.ly/z3KAR @MartinaABoone

Query question: how much less enticing is a second novel?  http://ow.ly/z3OE4 @Janet_Reid

So You Want To Make A Living Writing? 13 Great Truths: http://ow.ly/z3L1g @bob_mayer

20 Ways To Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose Content:  http://ow.ly/z3JsP @bookgal

10 things most writers don’t know about the woods:  http://ow.ly/z3Rqm @DanKoboldt

What 1 writer learned while reading for an agent:  http://ow.ly/z0qf9 @OrlyKonigLopez

Continue writing a successful series? Or take time out for something new?  http://ow.ly/z8DWP

5 Essential Questions to Ask When Writing Your Protagonist:  http://ow.ly/z0oet @bridgetmcnulty

How to Respond to Alarming Industry Changes:  http://ow.ly/z0ozO @rachellegardner

4 Reasons We Sometimes Write (Too) Slowly:  http://ow.ly/z0pKP @vgrefer

Will Publishing Change The Tone as Rhetoric on Both Sides Heats Up?  http://ow.ly/z9cIZ @thoughtcatalog @Porter_Anderson

Why We Need ‘Ugly’ Heroines:  http://ow.ly/z0p3t @buzzfeed

Dinner parties featured in crime fiction:  http://ow.ly/z8u5k @mkinberg

The Author-Reader Amazon Revolution:Mirage or Reality? http://ow.ly/z0opa @claudenougat

10 Tips to Beat Writer’s Block:  http://ow.ly/z0pk0 @sdwriter

6 Writing Tips From John Steinbeck:  http://ow.ly/z0o65 @verbicide

The 8 laws of Foreshadowing:  http://ow.ly/z0ppn  @nownovel

9 Great Tools and Programs to Help You Edit:  http://ow.ly/z8oyF @alexjcavanaugh

The Art of the Opening Sentence: http://ow.ly/z0nPq @jrc2666

Recharge Your Writing Batteries:  http://ow.ly/yX1It @CarolineLawrenc

When a Writing Dead End Becomes a Detour to Success:  http://ow.ly/yWUA6 @NinaBadzin

Magical Creatures for Magical Worlds: Fairies http://ow.ly/yWUvo @Chilari

Point of view shifts and head-hopping: always bad? http://ow.ly/yWUqT @roz_morris

Hidden Emotions: How To Tell Readers What Characters Don’t Want To Show: http://ow.ly/z0p7O @angelaackerman

What Defines Traditional Publishing? What You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You. http://ow.ly/z6HxJ @annerallen

The 7 Paragraph Synopsis:  http://ow.ly/yWTfw  @HopeRamsay

3 Ways to Plan a Marketable Novel without Losing Creativity:  http://ow.ly/yWSHK @ninaamir

Dissecting Your Characters:  http://ow.ly/yWRqg @TerriLAustin

Positive Versus Negative Description:  http://ow.ly/yWTpV @Kid_Lit

3 Ways to Train Your Brain to be More Creative http://ow.ly/yWSVP @AlexZamorski @thewritelife

A normal life for our characters?  http://ow.ly/yWRv0 @VickyThinks

Writing Workshops: Tough Love, Indulgence, or Shark Tanks? http://ow.ly/yWRA8 @BTMargins

Why Words Matter in Fiction and Story:  http://ow.ly/yWUol @noveleditor

How to Create a Compelling Character: The Moment of Humanity http://ow.ly/z9jGa @CockeyedCaravan

The post Twitterific Writing Links appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Resources for Writers: Protecting Ourselves

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Unfortunately, protecting ourselves against scams is a very important topic for writers.  And I think that, sadly, we’re easy prey since we’re eager to publish and want so much for our story.

Today, I’m sharing resources that help us avoid bad contracts, publishing scams, shady agents, etc.

First of all, Preditors and Editors  (the unusual spelling is intended). This site maintains lists of recommended (or “not recommended”) agents, publishers, contests and more. If you worry you’re potentially being scammed or wonder if the agent you’re considering is reputable, this should be your first stop.

Writer Beware is another important resource that updates writers on current scams that writer Victoria Strauss has uncovered.  The blog’s mission statement: “Shining a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news and commentary, and a special focus on the weird and wacky things that happen at the fringes of the publishing world.”

If you are in the position of having to negotiate your own contract, there are resources available to help you know what to be on the lookout for. I wrote a post in 2010 that covered as many available resources as I was able to find at the time.  Most helpful, I think, was the Agenting 101 series of posts, put together by agent Kristin Nelson, now Hugh Howey’s agent. Part one of the series is here and you can find the rest of the series in her right sidebar.  I used this series to negotiate my first contract with Midnight Ink before I was agented.

Because these posts are a bit dated, I also want to share the link to Passive Voice Blog where lawyer David Vandagriff will caution you about non-compete clauses (which have no business in our contracts).

Keeping it Legal is a blog by self-published writer and lawyer Helen Sedwick .  She has helpful posts on a variety of legal topics for writers, including “10 Legal Terms Every Writer Should Know.”

Susan Spann’s blog:  Susan Spann (no relation to me) is also a lawyer and writer and frequently posts on contracts and other legal issues concerning lawyers.  Her publishing law posts are particularly helpful.

Protecting ourselves may also mean protecting ourselves from lawsuits.  Industry expert Jane Friedman has two important posts that I think every author should read: “When Do You Need to Secure Permissions?” and (this one a guest post by attorney Bradlee Frazer) “Is It Fair Use? 7 Questions to Ask Before Using Copyrighted Material.”   I’ve read these posts numerous times.

Also on Jane Friedman’s site is a helpful post from lawyer Helen Sedwick, this time on the topic of taxes: “What Every Self-Published Author Needs to Know About Taxes.” This article covers protecting ourselves from a nasty surprise around tax time (and I’ve had them before, unfortunately).

These are my go-to sites for educating myself on various problems I could face as an author.  Do you have any sites to add or info to offer?

Image: MorgueFile: Alvimann

The post Resources for Writers: Protecting Ourselves appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Weighing Writing Choices

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’ve always been very jealous of writers who have spectacular, manuscript-worthy dreams.  Those writers who wake up with ideas for their works in progress or for new stories, falling out of their beds to find a pen and paper.

Although I often get story ideas in those drowsy moments right before I fall asleep, my dreams have always been a source of consternation for me.  They’re pedestrian visions of forgotten locker codes from decades ago, anxious and imaginary wanderings through unfamiliar cities with no map to guide me.  They’re even work-related dreams of me writing…without, mind you, the actual writing which would make such dreams worthwhile. My dreams are basically me worrying over minutiae.  

Which is why my dream last week was so completely extraordinary.

I woke up, gasping, sitting straight up in bed, scaring my husband half to death.  I could still see the freight train from the dream, so real I could practically feel the breeze as it went by.

And I had a whole skeleton of a book…from the dream.

Naturally, after years of complaining about my boring dreams, I wasn’t about to squander this opportunity. I gave up on sleeping (yes, it was…oh, maybe two-thirty in the morning) and created a rough outline for the story along with character sheets.

Then I looked at the outline.  Well, what the heck was I supposed to do with that?  It wasn’t that it was a bad story.  But it presented me with a bunch of problems.

Problem #1: It was a story that wanted to be lit fic.  Even though the characters were teens.  It didn’t want to be YA.

Problem #2: It was a story that wanted to be a standalone.

Problem #3: Neither of those things (lit fic, standalones) sells particularly well.

Problem #4: My brand as an author isn’t associated with lit fic at all. This means I’d likely want to write this book under another name.  Which involves a web presence of some kind for that other name. Which involves time.

Problem #5: I’m writing a series that’s doing well. I have dedicated readers for it.  It makes no sense to spend three months writing a project that won’t sell in a genre I don’t write for readers that don’t exist.

Of course, the argument against giving in to the problems with the story is that I would likely enjoy writing the story.  I’d find it creatively stimulating.  It would be a challenge.

But…it’s also a challenge for me to write my own, fairly successful series.  In fact, the challenge grows with every book, with every new reader.  The challenge is to create new and exciting material within the story world and with the recurring story characters.  The challenge is creating character growth to prevent popular characters from getting too static…without changing the characters so much that readers are unhappy with the changes.  There are plenty of creative challenges there and will be for a long time.

So, even though it was a Shiny New Idea (and we all know how tempting those Shiny New Ideas are, especially when we’re slogging through other stories…I’m writing one and editing another currently), I’m going to shelve it for a little while.  My thoughts are that build up a couple more releases for my self published Myrtle Clover series, finish out my responsibilities for my trad published series, and then I’ll write the book.  Because clearly—the book has to be written.

It made me think of all the writers who are facing similar questions:  should I write this new story? When? Should I write the story under my name, if it’s a different genre than I usually write?  And for writers who might be increasingly dependent on the income they’re now making from the more commercial genres (mystery, romance, YA), should they take a break from a lucrative gig to branch out into a less-popular area…like literary fiction?  When might they reach the point where they feel they can take on something completely different?

Have you faced these questions as a writer?  How did you choose your course?

Image: MorgueFile: can131

The post Weighing Writing Choices appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Writing a Great Proposal in 8 (Not Particularly) Easy Steps:  http://ow.ly/yO2yT @literaryeric

Writing Under The Influence of Music: http://ow.ly/yO2uI @mcmuhlenkamp

The Backstory Battle:  http://ow.ly/yO2Zg  @AnthonyEhlers

Character Change:  http://ow.ly/yO31c @HeatherJacksonW

7 Ways to Tighten Your Prose:  http://ow.ly/z3Scx @DanKoboldt

The Latest Trends in the Indie Author Market [Smart Set]:  http://ow.ly/z3SiQ @JaneFriedman

If Strangers Talked to Everybody like They Talk to Writers:  http://ow.ly/yPXxF @ElectricLit @TheLincoln

Protecting your literary estate: http://ow.ly/yPXNG @junglereds

How many characters are too many? http://ow.ly/yPXjj @gaelynnwoods

Negative, Continuous, and Passive Forms of Subjunctive Mood: http://ow.ly/yPXMi @CSLakin

The Building of a Setting: http://ow.ly/yPXKt @biljanalikic

39 Things to Remember While Struggling to Build Your Writing Career:  http://ow.ly/yPXFX @writerplatform

Presence on the Page: What It Is, and What It Isn’t:  http://ow.ly/yPXsj @manzanitafire

Occupational Hazards for Writers:  http://ow.ly/yPXIP @Kathy_Crowley

Describing the physical attributes of your characters:  http://ow.ly/yO1zz From Clever Girl Helps

How to Write Fat Books:  http://ow.ly/yO23d @brainpicker

5 Ways to Put More GO Into Your Goal Setting:  http://ow.ly/z3tOP @Jenpens2 Write_Tomorrow

3 Twitter Basics You Probably Don’t Know About:  http://ow.ly/yO26e @loriculwell @BadRedheadMedia

The New Top-Down Approach:  http://ow.ly/yO2wd @hughhowey

Tips for Pulling Off a Reading:  http://ow.ly/z3IVC

How Scrivener Helped 1 Writer Organize All His Writing:  http://ow.ly/yO2kH @kingthor

Writers Conferences – Worth the Expense? http://ow.ly/yO2tu @novelrocket

How to Spot a Scam | Indies Unlimited http://ow.ly/yO34V

How To Think Like Your Agent – That Book Sold HOW MANY Copies? http://ow.ly/yO1PU @literaryeric

A look at how crime fiction writers depict characters dealing with loss: http://ow.ly/z2KmC @mkinberg

Can an Author Co-Op Work For You?  http://ow.ly/yO28G @Wiseink

Elizabeth Gilbert on writing:  http://ow.ly/yO2NW @GilbertLiz @galleycat

11-Step Guide to Writing a Scene from Screenwriter @johnaugust:  http://ow.ly/yO2V7 @nofilmschool

Write a Sizzling Modern Adaptation of a Classic Story:  http://ow.ly/yO1xp @epbure

A Writer’s Working Vacation:  http://ow.ly/yMmZh @cathychall

Start With a Change, Not Just Action:  http://ow.ly/yMmVZ @jodimeadows

The Highs and Lows of Writing :  http://ow.ly/yMnzD @CarolineSandon @womenwriters

Estimating Kindle Sales From Amazon Rankings:  http://ow.ly/yMnt1 @Brandilyn

10 Tips to Promote a Book When the Author is MIA…or Dead: http://ow.ly/yMnlH @Rachelrooo @pubperspectives

Why Is Romance Reviled?  http://ow.ly/z14q2 @Porter_Anderson @thoughtcatalog @barbaraoneal

What Are Your Secondary Characters Good At? http://ow.ly/yMn3v @Janice_Hardy

The Four Primary Pillars of Novel Construction:  http://ow.ly/yMnBh @CSLakin

POV Shifts: http://ow.ly/yMnc2  @Ross_B_Lampert

Media Bias Against Self-Publishing:  http://ow.ly/z0OPA @HughHowey

Online Marketing Mistakes:  http://ow.ly/yMnp7 @storyrally

Overcoming the Sense of Failure as a Writer:  http://ow.ly/yMn6j @LyndaRYoung

9 Self-Publishing Fiction Writers to Follow Today:  http://ow.ly/z0lAs @storyrally @JFBookman

Authors’ incomes collapse to ‘abject’ levels (for trad. pub):  http://ow.ly/z0lfw @alisonflood @guardianbooks

Why you should prioritize your author website over social media:  http://ow.ly/yMnWD @chrisrobley @Bookbaby

Dash Your Way Out of Procrastination:  http://ow.ly/yMo2V @99u

Good-bye Confusing Subplot, Hello Book Contract:  http://ow.ly/yMnJ9 @Margo_L_Dill

How to Write a Great Book Proposal: http://ow.ly/yIwHZ @lindasclare

How to Fit Writing Into Your Life: 6 Tips:  http://ow.ly/yIwCE  @Natasha_Lester

Ed McBain: 7 Ways To Write A Crime Story:  http://ow.ly/yIvUp @woodwardkaren

Navigating a New Season in Your Writing Life: http://ow.ly/yIvwN  @JuliaReffner

Writing yourself a pen name:  http://ow.ly/yIwmS @guardianbooks

Head-hopping, explained:  http://ow.ly/yIvQz  @Wordstrumpet

Know Your Novel’s Characters: 3 Easy Strategies:  http://ow.ly/yIwTT @lindasclare

5 Factors For A Great Book Cover:  http://ow.ly/yIvbt @selfpubreview

Character Habits: http://ow.ly/yIv7d @noveleditor

Why We Write: Giving Voice to the Ineffable:  http://ow.ly/yIvjZ @BTMargins @kimtriedman

How to Tell if Your Protagonist Needs a Better Goal:  http://ow.ly/yIvGG @kmweiland

Cliffhangers: How to Keep Your Reader Reading:  http://ow.ly/yIww0 @Wiseink

Playwriting vs Novel writing:  http://ow.ly/yIw6a @Ctmannino

How to Use Layers to Show Intense Emotions: http://ow.ly/yIvE5 @jamigold

12 Essential Steps from Story Idea to Publish-Ready Novel:  http://ow.ly/yIvot @JodieRennerEd

Consistency Checker: A Free Proofreading Tool:  http://ow.ly/yIv1b @CKmacleodwriter

“But”, “therefore”, “and so”’  keep conflict in your plot http://ow.ly/yIwcJ @nownovel

Plotter or Pantser: —Who Says You Have to Choose? http://ow.ly/yIvKe @LitCentralOC

UK author income survey: Another publishing bombshell:  http://ow.ly/yW06m @Porter_Anderson @TheFutureBook

“Is it my query or my sample pages?” Why you’re not getting full manuscript requests:  http://ow.ly/yFsIh @carlywatters

14 Tips to Surviving Your Book Signing:  http://ow.ly/yFsFa @StinaLL

Adventures in Author Readings:  http://ow.ly/yFsB9 @DeborahJRoss

How to speak publisher: F is for Feedback:  http://ow.ly/yFxku @annerooney

When Authors Turn On Authors:  http://ow.ly/yVv2X @ChuckWendig @JAKonrath @Porter_Anderson

Showing, Not Telling, in an Opening Scene:  http://ow.ly/yFxu3 @janice_hardy

The Escalation of Complications:  http://ow.ly/yFt7Y @mooderino

Act out to create vivid scenes:  http://ow.ly/yFt0H @onewildword

5 Brilliant Business Lessons From Motley Crue:  http://ow.ly/yFxDd @joshrottenberg @FastCompany

Strengthening Your Character Through Personal Relationships: http://ow.ly/yFx1w @enderawiggin

Lessons From @jamesscottbell : Characters That Jump Off The Page:  http://ow.ly/yFsy0 @angelaackerman

Discomfort vs. Discomfiture:  http://ow.ly/yFx73 @writing_tips

Avoiding Common Punctuation Errors:  http://ow.ly/yFsao

Don’t Use Five-Dollar Words:  http://ow.ly/yFt3v @Jen_328

The Danger of Political Correctness for Diverse Books:  http://ow.ly/yFsjk @jamigold

Secrets to a Good Logline: http://ow.ly/yFsMX @Kid_Lit

Your Novelty Picture Book:  http://ow.ly/yFtcZ

Recap of online #FutureChat debate–dueling open letters:  http://ow.ly/yVrMK @Porter_Anderson

7 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Self-Publishing Company:  http://ow.ly/yCRXS @HelenSedwick

A New York Editor and Author Goes Indie:  http://ow.ly/yCSny

How Soon Do We Need to Show Genre in Our Novels? http://ow.ly/yCQOY @janice_hardy

6 Things to Consider When Writing Promotional Copy for Your Book: http://ow.ly/yCUHy

5 Creativity Lessons from Hall of Fame Inventors:  http://ow.ly/yRTTi @PatrickRwrites

Write Nonfiction: How to Become an Instant Expert:  http://ow.ly/yCR0w  @angee

10 Tips to Make Your Cozy Mystery Sell:  http://ow.ly/yCVjJ @NancyJCohen

Advertising for Indie Authors : http://ow.ly/yCXOi  @SeeleyJamesAuth

The State of Self-Publishing: http://ow.ly/yCVhG @HughHowey

Which courses should I take to become a writer? http://ow.ly/yCUFm @roz_morris

How 1 Writer Got Published in the New York Times On Her First Try: http://ow.ly/yCUzQ @GillespieKarin

4 Tips for Setting Up Your International Amazon Author Central Pages:  http://ow.ly/yCV1x @MarcyKennedy

Story Structure: the Second Plot Point:  http://ow.ly/yCV9z @inkybites

How Your Blog Helps Your Books Take Off:  http://ow.ly/yCRfG @111publishing

5 Surprising Ways Regret Can Deepen Your Hero’s Arc: http://ow.ly/yCUV9 @writingeekery

Jim Butcher On How To Write A Suspenseful Story Climax:  http://ow.ly/yCQRc @woodwardkaren

Query Letters: How to Get an Agent to Beg to Read More:  http://ow.ly/yCUPO @WriterlyTweets @SDWriters

Self-Publishing a Second Time:  http://ow.ly/yziZc @kristenelisephd @lcharnes

8 Essentials Tips for a Successful Book Reading by a Self-Published Author:  http://ow.ly/yzj1W @judy_croome

Finding the Editor Who’s Right for You:  http://ow.ly/yzhXR @WritingRefinery

Assessing your writing goals at mid-year and not where you want to be? Camp NaNoWriMo is 1 option: http://ow.ly/yPXat @NaNoWriMo

25 more ideas for daily blog posts http://ow.ly/yzibN @michellerafter

Effort alone isn’t enough:  http://ow.ly/yzi74 from David Cain

Why shortcuts short circuit writing: http://ow.ly/yzj5z  @stephenwoodfin

Another Look at the Subjunctive Mood:  http://ow.ly/yzjyH @CSLakin

1 Writer’s Journey to Becoming an Optimist:  http://ow.ly/yzhVm @PaulaAltenburg

The post Twitterific Writing Links appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Tips for Pulling Off a Reading

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

First off, I have an increasingly rare public appearance to announce.  Saturday—tomorrow, actually—I’m going to be on a panel of mystery writers at 2:30 p.m. at the West Regional Library in Cary, North Carolina.  It’s my understanding that we’ll be discussing mystery subgenres, how living in this (Southern US) region has affected our writing, and industry changes and the rise of self-publishing.

In addition, there’s a reading.  :)  Those who have read my blog for a while know that I’m not fond of giving readings. The last one I gave is pictured above…I was at a 2011 event with Avery Aames, pen name for Daryl Wood Gerber  (I was appearing as Riley Adams). And–Daryl is a former actress who has co-starred on such shows as “Murder, She Wrote.”  So…yeah. I didn’t sound so hot compared to Daryl.  At least I’m on a panel, so I won’t be the only one. And, even more fortunately, I’ve recently reacquainted myself with a helpful post on successful readings.  It was a guest post writer Jennifer Nielson wrote for Shrinking Violet Promotions several years ago, entitled “The Rules of Readings.”

One of the (many) reasons readings frustrate me is because it’s challenging for me to pick an appropriate passage to read.  This time I decided to use the teaser info that Penguin had selected to stick in the previous book.  But still—I don’t know, it just seemed like an awkward spot to begin reading.

But Jen Nielson gave two excellent tips in her post. One was to edit the passage. Yes, even though it’s been published:

…prepare for some surgery on the excerpt. Eliminate anything that doesn’t add to your reading, even if it’s an important thread to the overall plot. This includes long descriptions (of anything), and backstory references irrelevant to this excerpt. They’d feel like moving through mud while you’re reading. It also will include dialogue that may make sense within the total context of the story, but that is extraneous within the small passage you’ll be reading.

I think that if I hadn’t gotten permission to do this from another author I’d have convicted myself of heresy for suggesting this.  But doesn’t it make so much sense?  While heavy description and exposition may work in the context of a 275 page novel, it makes so much mess to slog through during a reading. I’ll keep the changes minor, instead of making drastic changes. If I needed to make drastic changes, I’d choose a different passage or a different book.

In the same vein, Nielson recommended some character “surgery”, too. For example, the passage I was considering using was used to introduce the reader to some of the future suspects and give readers a sense of who was populating the book. For a short reading, it seemed confusing to have a bunch of different characters.  She recommends:

Very often the chosen passage has a line or two of dialogue that is vital to the scene, but that is spoken by a character who doesn’t matter in your excerpt. Unless the audience is already familiar with all of your characters, if you can attribute that dialogue to another character just during the reading, it will be less confusing to the audience. Sometimes to accomplish this, you may need to make a slight adjustment to the plot. Go ahead. Unless you’re JK Rowling and the world is paying attention to every syllable you utter, it won’t matter.

I tend to agree with her.  What do you think?

So my response was to find the original Word doc of the book, copy-paste the selection onto a separate document, blow it up nicely so that my 43 year old eyes can read all the words, edit the stew out of it, and then print it out.  I’ll read my handout and put the book it came from on a plate-holder on the table in front of me so that the readers can see the cover.  And I’ll keep it short and sweet, believe me.

Any other tips for readings?  Thoughts on giving readings?  Thoughts on editing passages for better stage appeal?

The post Tips for Pulling Off a Reading appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Using Track Changes to Revise an Outline

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Over the last couple of years, I’ve transformed into a (very reluctant) outliner.  Long story short, I royally screwed up a couple of books really close to deadline when I’d pantsed them, and with the schedule I’m on, I decided I couldn’t afford mistakes anymore.  Or maybe it’s just that my heart couldn’t afford them since I’m sure my blood pressure shot through the roof.

So I outline.  My outlines are completely conversational, in paragraph form, and cover the whole story from start to finish.  More about my process of outlining in this post from last August.   More about what I feel the pros and cons are for outlining in this post from February.

There are definitely elements of outlining that I don’t enjoy.  One of the things that I’ve never liked about outlining—the fact that when I go off my outline, which is during every single story, I either confuse myself later while editing, or I feel really disorganized by having my story sprout off in different directions.

For some reason, it never occurred to me until lately that I could just use Track Changes in Microsoft Word to add my changes as comments in the margins.  This satisfied my need to keep organized without making me drastically revise my outline.

Uses for comments in an outline:

I put the character description in a comment box to make it easy to locate later in the story.  It also contains that character’s full name (which I use Word to highlight so that it stands out even more).

I list the running subplots (as I think them up) in a comment box in the margins.  When I want a change of pace or feel as if the main story is progressing too quickly, the subplot comment helps remind me of the storyline.   Sometimes I’ll layer in subplots after the first draft is finished, sometimes I’ll write them as I go through.  Either way, the subplot marginalia helps keep it in mind.

I note major or minor changes to the plot in the comment boxes so that I can easily see where I changed course in a story. In the outline I’m currently working on, I decided less than halfway through the book to change the killer.  So as I worked through the outline, I added comments to the parts of the outline where I listed clues (which are now red herrings) and where I showed the killer’s motivation (which is also a red herring, since I changed the killer’s identity). This will ultimately help me at the end of the story when I look back through to make sure that there are enough clues to the murderer to keep the story fair for readers.

I also decided not to kill one of the previously outlined victims.  The death would be a near-miss, instead.  This also meant a little outline tweaking helped keep the change a lot tidier.

In addition, this process helps keep me from revising the outline, which just seems like a silly thing to do, considering the outline for my self-pubbed books is for my own benefit.  Revising an accepted outline for a trad-published book is pointless, too—because I’m not going to send it over to my editor.  I’d rather just explain later that I went off-outline when the completed draft is all spruced up and seamless.

At the top of my outline, I added a logline in the comment box.  It sort of keeps me focused and keeps me from wandering too much.  For more on creating your own logline, check out these resources: Gabriela Pereira’s “How to Write a Killer Logline,”  Allen Palmer’s  “How to Write a Logline,” and Laura Drake’s “The No-Stress Way to Create Your Story’s Logline.”

Sometimes I add random bits of ideas into the comment box.  Maybe I’m not sure exactly where I want them in the story, but I’ve got a neat description, setting, scrap of dialogue, or interesting piece of research that I want to incorporate…and that’s a better spot than setting up a different Word document and trying to remember the doc exists.

Just thought I’d share in case anyone else was interested in making quick changes to an outline (or just wants to have an easy way to find character descriptions, etc.)  For the outliners out there, what do you do, if anything, when you veer off your outline?

The post Using Track Changes to Revise an Outline appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Twitterific Writing Links

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Using Scrivener as a Blogging Tool:  http://ow.ly/yuELL @ninaamir

A critique of a story opening that needs work:  http://ow.ly/yuEwc @davidfarland

Find Dialogue Daunting? Expand Your Character-Talk: http://ow.ly/yuEea @LitCentralOC       

How to Use Subtitles for Targeted Book Marketing:  http://ow.ly/yuEHN @BookMarketer

Preserve Your Creative Energy:  http://ow.ly/yuEqM @JordanRosenfeld

One Weird Trick For Cutting Down Your Novel:  http://ow.ly/yuFQl @io9

Why book editors are so expensive:  http://ow.ly/yuFay  and  http://bit.ly/1nEwuKe @Belinda_Pollard

How 1 Writer Wrote 400K Words in a Year:  http://ow.ly/yuGI1 @jamietr

Empathetic correctness poses dangers for writers:  http://ow.ly/yuEXP @kristenlambtx

A Journey through Theme Development:  http://ow.ly/yuEjy @CSLakin

11 Questions for Crafting a Fiction Pitch:  http://ow.ly/yuEbf @rachellegardner

The creative warm up:  http://ow.ly/yzjx9 @tannerc

Trilogy Writing Tips: http://ow.ly/yzj4p  @alison_morton @womenwriters

How to Spell Interjections Used in Dialogue:  http://ow.ly/yzias @noveleditor

A Quick Guide to Writing Short:  http://ow.ly/yzi0d @byondpapr

5 Options for Background Noise When Writing:  http://ow.ly/yziXs @SandraPeoples

Write a thriller: Make it funny:  http://ow.ly/yzj32 @MattReesAuthor

Alternative History’s Distorted Mirror:  http://ow.ly/yzj8z @fantasyfaction

The Mindset Of Successful Indie Authors And Longevity As A Writer:  http://ow.ly/yuFiL @bob_mayer @thecreativepenn

5 Things 1 Writer Learned When Her Publisher Went Under: http://ow.ly/yuFT6 @KimeCurran

How to Create Your Own Infographic: http://ow.ly/yuEEp @wherewriterswin

The Perplexing Problem of Romance:  http://ow.ly/yuF6F @BarbaraONeal @writerunboxed

Book Marketing: It’s About Data, Not Promotion [Smart Set]: http://ow.ly/yuFmF @Janefriedman

Violent, dystopian children’s fiction is nothing new:  http://ow.ly/yswFl

Speechtags are of the devil (he said):  http://ow.ly/ysuPe  @JamesTuckwriter

Why is Climate Fiction So Controversial? http://ow.ly/ysvDk @claudenougat

How to Get Back to Writing After a Death in the Family:  http://ow.ly/yswJd

Organizing Ideas into an Outline:  http://ow.ly/ysuSz  @dr_christina

Resources for Writers: Microsoft Word: http://ow.ly/yNctR

7 Item To-Do List for Amazon Author Central Profile:  http://ow.ly/yswMk @Jason_Matthews

18 LinkedIn Best Practices for Writers: http://ow.ly/ysv8g @CaballoFrances

Why Getting Together with Other Writers Is Important:  http://ow.ly/ysvpY @JulieeJohnsonn

The irresistible rise of the short story:  http://ow.ly/ysuZB  @SamBaker

Successful Authors Don’t Keep Secrets:  http://ow.ly/ysvh8  @AshKrafton

What Motivates The Bad Guy? http://ow.ly/ysuMD @mooderino

Co-Authoring a Book:  http://ow.ly/ysv1s @AdriennGiordano

Become a Better Writer by Writing Daily:  http://ow.ly/yswzN @danasitar

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words:  http://ow.ly/ysuKY @Kid_Lit

8 Great Writing Tools to Keep You Motivated to Write:  http://ow.ly/ysv3e

Should Writers Compare Themselves to Other Writers?  http://ow.ly/ysvxV @noveleditor

Is Your Book Market-Ready? http://ow.ly/ypDry @thecadencegrp

4 Ways to Add Caffeine to Your Story:  http://ow.ly/ypEdJ @jodyhedlund

Sensory Description: Beyond the 5 Senses: http://ow.ly/ypDAg @amyjmcelroy

How to Sharpen Your Sentences:  http://ow.ly/ypDjn @JenniWiltz

10 Tips For Authors Promoting Their Books Online: http://ow.ly/ypDTR @bang2write

The Importance of Sentence Structure:  http://ow.ly/ypE29 @enderawiggin

5 Tips to Maximize Your Book’s Presence on Amazon:  http://ow.ly/ypDwY @thecadencegrp

36 writing tips from Stephen King:  http://ow.ly/ypDKs @whynotbooks

Underwriting Versus Overwriting: Just Write:  http://ow.ly/ypDYg @SarahMMcCoy @writerunboxed

It’s The Best Time On Earth To Be A Writer:  http://ow.ly/ypDa7 @jamesscottbell

How to fix flat characters:  http://ow.ly/ypD6Y from Clever Girl Helps

Generating Conflict in a Story:  http://ow.ly/ypDcj @shalvatzis

How to Write Anti-Heroes and Villains:  http://ow.ly/ypEjw  @Jackson_D_Chase

“Somebody Stole My Title!” http://ow.ly/ypDpA @HelenSedwick

Dos and Don’ts for Choosing a Title:  http://ow.ly/ypDNN @byondpapr

Clean illegal images from your blog before it’s too late:  http://ow.ly/ypDuR @HelenSedwick

Guest Blogging 101: http://ow.ly/ymVMU

How To Strike Creative Gold:  http://ow.ly/ymVHz @writetodone

How to Plan a Novel without Actually Outlining: 3 Tips from @NathanBransford http://ow.ly/ymW5p for @annerallen

An examination of @HughHowey ‘s “State of Self-Publishing”: http://ow.ly/yIjVV @Porter_Anderson”

How to write a novel to an outline and still be creative:  http://ow.ly/ymWfD @roz_morris

Telling The Tough Story:  http://ow.ly/ymW8u @btmargins

Having trouble with ‘show, don’t tell?’ Use a Word macro:  http://ow.ly/yH6wl  @CKMacLeod

20 Killer Errors In Your Screenplay’s Scenes: http://ow.ly/ymWlU @bang2write

7 Reasons to Write the Ending First:  http://ow.ly/ymWxE @writers_write

Consider cutting a paragraph before fighting to make it work:  http://ow.ly/ymWoV @vgrefer

Don’t Take it Personally:  http://ow.ly/ymWie @kcraftwriter

How to Write a Flat Character Arc: The 3rd Act:  http://ow.ly/ymWa7 @KMWeiland

Crafting the Perfect Critique Sandwich:  http://ow.ly/ymWvU @erin_bowman

4 Characteristics of Author Attitude and Why You Need Them:  http://ow.ly/ymWrt  @ninaamir

8 of the Best Screenwriting Forums and Message Boards:  http://ow.ly/ymVZu @screencrafting

Fiction University: The Cathartic Novel – an Editor’s Perspective:  http://ow.ly/ymWwZ

How technology rewrites literature: http://ow.ly/ymWdu @guardianbooks

5 storytelling techniques you can learn from good music:  http://ow.ly/yBvPK @JonAcuff

Being Different is Not a Disorder: Embracing our Exceptionalities, Eccentricities and Sensitivities:  http://ow.ly/yjRvi  @DouglasEby

8 Things That Will Derail Your Writing Goals the Fastest:  http://ow.ly/yjRso @ediemelson

Fear of Being Called a Fraud and Fear of Losing Your Creative Edge:  http://ow.ly/yjRkp @JessBaverstock

Subjunctive Mood:   http://ow.ly/yjRhk @CSLakin

How to format a script: the jargon explained http://ow.ly/yjQT1 @ideastap

The Top 10 Quotes About Coffee From Writers:  http://ow.ly/yjQYH @writers_write

How Much Backstory Do We Really Need? http://ow.ly/yjRm8  @JonSprunk

#FutureChat recap: Can publishers compete with Amazon?  http://ow.ly/yF6j7 @Porter_Anderson @TheFutureBook

#FutureChat recap: Can publishers compete with Amazon?  http://ow.ly/yF6j7 @Porter_Anderson @TheFutureBook

Writers: How “Automatic” Pistols Really Work: http://ow.ly/yjRor @ACFirestone

Crash Course in The Basics of Writing: http://ow.ly/yjRg3 @KimberleyGLittl

Make Your Character Reactions Twice as Interesting: http://ow.ly/yjRA8 @KMWeiland

10 Reasons Why You Should Know How To Format Ebooks:  http://ow.ly/yjQQE  @kaitnolan

Removing the Creeps From Romance:  http://ow.ly/yjQX4 @mythcreants

How to keep from getting stuck in Act Two: http://ow.ly/yjRCj @gointothestory

Superhero Nation: Learning Curves: An Alternative Approach to Superpower Limitation:  http://ow.ly/yjRiX

The Dangers of Dialect:  http://ow.ly/yjQRA @ava_jae

Zapping Those Crutch Words: http://ow.ly/yASpH @authorterryo

JK Rowling’s The Silkworm Shows What She Thinks of Publishing Industry | New Republic http://ow.ly/yCXrh @tnr

Beyond You’re vs. Your: A Grammar Cheat Sheet Even The Pros Can Use:  http://ow.ly/yiKLL @hayley_mullen

Writing Real Characters Amid Horrible Violence: Tips from a True-Crime Writer:  http://ow.ly/yD3WK @morsedan

5 mistakes writers make — writing tips from published authors:  http://ow.ly/yiMof @MilaGrayBooks

The Hidden Power of Layering the Right Desires in Your Story: http://ow.ly/yCVYa @writingeekery

Most of the Stuff You Need to Know to Edit Your Manuscript: http://ow.ly/yiMcx @BillFerris

Working Strategies for Display Ads:  http://ow.ly/yCVEe @SeeleyJamesAuth

7 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block:  http://ow.ly/yiMnm  @AndrewLConn

151 must visit writing websites:  http://ow.ly/yiMoX @nownovel

Freelance Writing–Secrets to a Query Letter That Sells:  http://ow.ly/yiMBQ @hopeclark

What Makes a Great Editor?- NYTimes.com:  http://ow.ly/yiKJY

Tools for Writers, reviews, how-to videos, and cheat sheets: http://ow.ly/yAS1C @ruthharrisbooks @annerallen

7 Ways to Grow Your Blog:  http://ow.ly/yARHD  @SusanKelley

Quick and easy promo from home: http://ow.ly/yiMkH @naturithomas

5 People Watching Tips:  http://ow.ly/yASHd @jemifraser @WriteAngleBlog

4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Try To Be Perfect:  http://ow.ly/yiM9P @KathrynMaeglin

Screenwriting Article – The Exceptional Element:  http://ow.ly/yhBMO @scriptshadow

9 Famous Authors Who Used Pen Names To Reinvent Themselves: http://ow.ly/yhBty @huffpost

Writing Basics:  Exposition:  http://ow.ly/yhChC  @Janice_Hardy

The Atavist Is the Future of Storytelling: http://ow.ly/yhBIc @jillkrasny @inc

All the links I shared last week: http://ow.ly/yzRxz . All the links I’ve ever shared (searchable): writerskb.com .

6 Ways to Outline Your Novel Faster:  http://ow.ly/yhBNv @KMWeiland

Creating A Creative Outline:  http://ow.ly/yhBLU @woodwardkaren

The Art of the Short Story:  http://ow.ly/yhBG4 @weifarer

Amazon–should we worry about its dominance in the marketplace?  http://ow.ly/yOHjM @passivevoiceblg @Porter_Anderson

The post Twitterific Writing Links appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Resources for Writers—Microsoft Word

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Microsoft Word is an incredibly useful tool for writers—and one that I think is easy to overlook because we use it all the time.

Features that I use on a regular basis:

Highlighter.  I highlight problem areas that really don’t require explanation as I write my first draft.  This may be the fact that one of my characters doesn’t have a last name, or that a scene has gotten awkward or bogged down.  Maybe I don’t really even know what the problem is, but I want to highlight the area to figure out later.

Find/Replace:  This is very handy when I change character names in the middle of a manuscript. 

Find: I use the find feature to locate my favorite crutch words.  I tend to use just, some, and look a lot and want to find spots in my manuscript where I can remove the crutch word or maybe reword the sentence if needed.

Word’s Track Changes is a necessity when revising with an agent or editor and shows who made what changes or suggestions.  But I also use Track Changes during first drafts.  Instead of taking time looking up character details (are Lisa’s eyes green or blue?)  I add comments in the manuscript’s margins where I have a question.  Lately, I’ve been using the comments feature to change my outline, too.  More about that on Monday.  If you’re not sure how to use Track Changes, writer Jenny Hansen has a nice tutorial.

So…my uses have been fairly basic in the past.  But I’ve found some really interesting ways of using Word that other writers have employed.  Here are some of them:

Create a personalized AutoCorrect.  This one is from Hilary T. Smith.  Maybe you’ve got a character name that you always trip over when you’re typing.  You can program Word to automatically fill in the name whenever you type in a particular series of letters.

Combine different versions of a document (or incorporate beta reader changes and comments):  This helpful explanation is from Jami Gold. This is a helpful feature I’ve used several times when I’ve gotten changes from my editor and my beta reader and my agent.

View your manuscript in different ways. From Cheryl Reifsnyder.   As Cheryl puts it:



Full screen lets me write and edit without distracting menus.


View “side by side” allows me to move back and forth between two documents because they both appear on the screen. Side by side. Go figure.


Full page: This option will show you a full document page on your screen. It’s not ideal for reading text, but it’s a great way to scan a document for blank pages, chapter lengths, and formatting errors.


The REVIEW tab also offers different view options. If you’re using TRACK CHANGES or COMMENTS in the document, you can choose to have them visible or not—which can make it a lot easier to read the text.

Create a Macro that helps you show instead of tell:  This is a really cool way to help tweak your story to make it stronger. Corina Koch MacLeod from the Tech Tools for Writers blog explains: Copy the TellingWords macro, below, from Sub to End Sub and paste it into Word’s Visual Basic Application (VBA). When you run the macro, it will hunt down and highlight those telling words so you can tell them, I mean, show them who’s boss.

Writer Karen Woodward created a similar macro for adverbs.

Auto-outline as you take your story on a tangent.  Writer Martina Boone shows writers how to set up Word to track important changes as you write.

Other helpful posts regarding MS Word:

Using breaks properly (from Jenny Hansen).

Creating manuscript templates in Word—here and here (Jenny Hansen again).

A great list of keyboard shortcuts to use in Word (again, from writer Jenny Hansen…who is also a corporate software trainer).

Don’t have Microsoft Word? Digital Trends posted an article in May 2014, “10 Great Microsoft Office Alternatives” for those who don’t have Office.

Do you use MS Word to write your manuscript?  How do you customize it for your own use?

And–Happy 4th of July to all my US readers!  Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday/long weekend.

The post Resources for Writers—Microsoft Word appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.

Writing Real Characters Amid Horrible Violence: Tips from a True-Crime Writer

By Dan Morse, @morsedan,  author of The Yoga Store Murder

In 2011, as a reporter for The Washington Post, I covered the most violent of murders in the least likely of places. Someone had slashed, stabbed and struck Jayna Murray more than 331 times in the back of a high-end yoga store. The killer used more than six weapons, including a hammer, wrench, knives and a jagged steel bar used to display merchandise. That dichotomy – complete mayhem in a place of peace and Zen – got me thinking about writing a book about the case.

To pull readers along for 300-plus pages, though, I needed detailed scenes that not only advanced the plot, but also built out very real characters. After all, readers of non-fiction are like readers of mysteries; they want to get to know people as they turn each page.

To write such scenes, I first laid a foundation of detailed reporting. I got some good breaks. I was able to read 11,000 text messages pulled from the killer’s phone, which offered direct dialogue and candid thoughts. I conducted repeated interviews with detectives – at police stations, bars, and back patios. Those characters formed the core of the book – the killer and the cops. I also spent a lot of time with Jayna Murray’s family, who helped me understand Jayna and how devastated the murder had left them.

During one interview, David Murray, Jayna’s dad, started speaking about the last time he’d seen his daughter alive. He lives in Houston, and was staying at Jayna’s condominium just outside of Washington DC. In my mind, I saw David’s story going to a place that could be easily conveyed in a scene: Jayna driving David to the airport, the two of them going inside and lingering before take-off. But that’s not what happened. On the morning David was to leave, Jayna had a lot of packing to do for a planned trip to a wedding. So David took the subway to the airport. It was only later, when I wrote the scene, that I had one of those oh-yeah-that-axiom-again-forehead-slapping moments: The truth is almost always more interesting than what writers hope the truth to be. And it’s that nuanced truth that builds out characters.

In this case, as readers of the book were starting to know by page 120, David and Jayna were strong, independent people. David had served as a Special Forces officer in Vietnam, then gone on to manage oil drilling sites around the world. Jayna went bungee jumping to celebrate her 30th birthday, and was two months shy of getting her MBA and pursuing a career in corporate marketing. The two were so close they didn’t need drawn-out goodbyes – they’d be on the phone soon enough, seeing each other again soon enough. A parting that was understated seem to fit them.

So here is how I closed out that scene, picking up from the day before, when the two had met in North Carolina so they could see off Jayna’s brother Hugh, who was being deployed to Iraq. David took the occasion to spend some extra time with Jayna.

He drove back with her to Washington – just the two of them, talking in her car while driving north. Subjects swung from politics to pacifism to David’s questions about the principles of marketing as they applied to specific business projects. “Why do you say it that way?” he’d ask. David could sense Jayna’s fears for her brother Hugh. They were well-placed: Iraq was chaotic, even if it was no longer at war. And her brother would be moving around, the most dangerous thing to do there. David, of course, knew all about combat. “Hugh is going to be fine,” David told his daughter.

Time was ticking on their visit. As they got into Washington, David drove Jayna by a friend’s house so she could pick up a bridesmaid dress. The two planned to get a few hours of sleep before their flights the next morning – David back home to Houston and Jayna to Minnesota, for a wedding. But when it was clear Jayna needed more time to finish packing that morning, David said he didn’t need a ride to the airport. He hugged his daughter good-bye. “I love you,” they said to each other.

David walked out of the condo and two blocks to a subway stop. It was January 20, 2011, and the last time he’d see his daughter.

Struggling through engineering classes at Vanderbilt University, Dan Morse decided to give sports-writing a go at the campus newspaper. It proved a better fit. In his junior year, he tried out for the football team – going on to write a year’s worth of columns chronicling his trials, tribulations and deep bruises as a slow but poor route-running wide receiver. After graduation, Morse combined his engineering degree with writing and, as if it had been well-planned, took a position at Civil Engineering magazine in New York. Who among us can forget his prescient 1989 piece on waste-water treatment disposal regulations: “Sludge in the Nineties.”

Wanting to know how other things worked – crime, politics, business – Morse sought a reporting position at more than 50 newspapers. Exactly one of them offered him a job, The Alabama Journal, an afternoon daily in Montgomery, Ala., where Morse settled in as a cops reporter. He moved on to that city’s morning paper, The Advertiser, covering state politics and becoming a Pulitzer Prize finalist for stories on the Southern Poverty Law Center. From there, he moved to The Baltimore Sun,  The Wall Street Journal, and, in 2005, The Washington Post. (Some of his favorite stories, and the most interesting people he has met, can be viewed here.)

Morse grew up with four siblings in Urbana, Ill., where his parents still live. He is married to Dana Hedgpeth, a fellow Post reporter. They have a daughter named C.C.

Purchasing Links: Amazon
Dan’s Twitter
Dan’s Facebook Page
Website

The post Writing Real Characters Amid Horrible Violence: Tips from a True-Crime Writer appeared first on Elizabeth Spann Craig.