Lee Rene's Blog, page 14
January 14, 2015
Connecting online
Here are my author contacts
I’m thrilled to meet other writers, bloggers, reviewers, editors, and most importantly, readers. I’m a Los Angeles-based author who writes dark Young Adult fiction with strong female protagonists.
Loose Id released my first erotic romance, The New Orleans Hothouse, which I wrote under the nom de plume, Lee Rene. http://www.loose-id.com/authors/l-p/l...
http://www.amazon.com/New-Orleans-Hot...
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/The-N...
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/prod...
My website is located at http://francescamiller.com/index2.html with a portal leading to my erotic romance writing alter-ego, Lee Rene, http://www.leerene.com/
If you are interested in further connections, I’m ready to friend and/or follow back everyone. Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/francesca.e....
I just joined Tsu and am looking for friends and followers in the Writer’s community,
https://www.tsu.co/leerene
I always follow back on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gothicimp
I have three facebook fan pages, https://www.facebook.com/TheDivaAndDo...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Go...
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLeeRen...
I also have boards on Pinterest http://pinterest.com/gothicimp/boards/
I’m on Google + https://plus.google.com/u/0/115489761... and at
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116818251...
I’m also on Wattpad at http://www.wattpad.com/user/Francesca...
I’m thrilled to meet other writers, bloggers, reviewers, editors, and most importantly, readers. I’m a Los Angeles-based author who writes dark Young Adult fiction with strong female protagonists.
Loose Id released my first erotic romance, The New Orleans Hothouse, which I wrote under the nom de plume, Lee Rene. http://www.loose-id.com/authors/l-p/l...
http://www.amazon.com/New-Orleans-Hot...
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/The-N...
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/prod...
My website is located at http://francescamiller.com/index2.html with a portal leading to my erotic romance writing alter-ego, Lee Rene, http://www.leerene.com/
If you are interested in further connections, I’m ready to friend and/or follow back everyone. Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/francesca.e....
I just joined Tsu and am looking for friends and followers in the Writer’s community,
https://www.tsu.co/leerene
I always follow back on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gothicimp
I have three facebook fan pages, https://www.facebook.com/TheDivaAndDo...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Go...
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLeeRen...
I also have boards on Pinterest http://pinterest.com/gothicimp/boards/
I’m on Google + https://plus.google.com/u/0/115489761... and at
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116818251...
I’m also on Wattpad at http://www.wattpad.com/user/Francesca...
Five Common writing Mistakes that Make You Look Like An Amateur
An interesting post from filmmaker Justin McLachlan’s blog
Five Common writing Mistakes that Make You Look Like An Amateur
So they say knowing is half the battle, right? Well, someone said it somewhere once and I’m gonna go with it.
There are a couple of common writing mistakes that will instantly peg you as a novice to any agent or editor, but are really easy to fix if you know what they are. I’ve listed five really common ones here (with a bonus! sixth).
Take some time to unlearn these bad habits and you’ll instantly move into the 90th percentile of all writers without doing much work.
1. Your characters grouse, whisper, bellow, and ejaculate their dialogue. Said. That’s all you need and most of the time, you shouldn’t even need that. Dialogue attributions are just markers to help orient the reader—we tend to glance over them anyway so cut them where you can. But stick to said, or ask, as proper (the character is asking a question).
2. You use italics for emphasis. I battle so many writers on this one. Without italics, how will my reader know this is a thought? How will they know that the character stressed that word? Because you write it so they know. With practice you’ll learn to put important words in important places, so you don’t need fancy typography to shore up the copy. For now, cut the italics and trust your reader. They’ll get it.
3. You switch POV. It’s fine to get inside a character’s head, but bouncing around from person to person within a scene is awfully confusing for the reader. Stay with one character instead, and if you must change—save it for a scene break or other clear delineation.
4. You’ve never seen a modifier you don’t love. Adjectives and adverbs are the death of good writing.2 Pick strong, active verbs instead and cut the modifier. Try this: do a search for “ly” in your manuscript and you’ll get a sense of how many times an adverb has crept into your writing. Do another search for “very.” This is an easy fix, though. Catch ‘em. Kill ‘em.
5. You’re showing off. Complex writing does not equal complex thought. Using big, fancy words (like say, overwrought instead of strained) and overwrought construction screams, “look at me, LOOK AT ME, BITCH!” Instead of getting out of the reader’s way and letting the story envelop them, this kind of showy style puts a wall up and paints the author’s face across it. It also kills clarity, which is just another wall in and of itself. Aim for clear, simple writing. Choose the plain word over the fancy one. Don’t use two words when one will do.
And, here’s a bonus just for my fantasy and science fiction writing friends.
6. Your character and place names are pretentious. A lot goes into a name, and getting them right in genre fiction can be hard. But just because you’re writing high fantasy, for example, doesn’t mean everyone needs to run around with names like Hurtzzhulnaznag or Nákhgolroggu. If we can’t pronounce what you’ve written, we start to not want to read it either. Obviously, big problem there. Here’s a red flag: you start using letters in your names that you have to look up the keystrokes for. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Guys, trust me. There are so many bad writers out there. Writing is mostly craft, and from the craft comes the art. But most of your unpublished competition doesn’t want to learn the craft. Hell, they don’t even want to make the art. In other words, they don’t like writing—they like having written and all that comes with it. They’ll never take the time to learn the craft, so every bit you learn puts you that much further ahead of the crowd.
Five Common writing Mistakes that Make You Look Like An Amateur
So they say knowing is half the battle, right? Well, someone said it somewhere once and I’m gonna go with it.
There are a couple of common writing mistakes that will instantly peg you as a novice to any agent or editor, but are really easy to fix if you know what they are. I’ve listed five really common ones here (with a bonus! sixth).
Take some time to unlearn these bad habits and you’ll instantly move into the 90th percentile of all writers without doing much work.
1. Your characters grouse, whisper, bellow, and ejaculate their dialogue. Said. That’s all you need and most of the time, you shouldn’t even need that. Dialogue attributions are just markers to help orient the reader—we tend to glance over them anyway so cut them where you can. But stick to said, or ask, as proper (the character is asking a question).
2. You use italics for emphasis. I battle so many writers on this one. Without italics, how will my reader know this is a thought? How will they know that the character stressed that word? Because you write it so they know. With practice you’ll learn to put important words in important places, so you don’t need fancy typography to shore up the copy. For now, cut the italics and trust your reader. They’ll get it.
3. You switch POV. It’s fine to get inside a character’s head, but bouncing around from person to person within a scene is awfully confusing for the reader. Stay with one character instead, and if you must change—save it for a scene break or other clear delineation.
4. You’ve never seen a modifier you don’t love. Adjectives and adverbs are the death of good writing.2 Pick strong, active verbs instead and cut the modifier. Try this: do a search for “ly” in your manuscript and you’ll get a sense of how many times an adverb has crept into your writing. Do another search for “very.” This is an easy fix, though. Catch ‘em. Kill ‘em.
5. You’re showing off. Complex writing does not equal complex thought. Using big, fancy words (like say, overwrought instead of strained) and overwrought construction screams, “look at me, LOOK AT ME, BITCH!” Instead of getting out of the reader’s way and letting the story envelop them, this kind of showy style puts a wall up and paints the author’s face across it. It also kills clarity, which is just another wall in and of itself. Aim for clear, simple writing. Choose the plain word over the fancy one. Don’t use two words when one will do.
And, here’s a bonus just for my fantasy and science fiction writing friends.
6. Your character and place names are pretentious. A lot goes into a name, and getting them right in genre fiction can be hard. But just because you’re writing high fantasy, for example, doesn’t mean everyone needs to run around with names like Hurtzzhulnaznag or Nákhgolroggu. If we can’t pronounce what you’ve written, we start to not want to read it either. Obviously, big problem there. Here’s a red flag: you start using letters in your names that you have to look up the keystrokes for. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Guys, trust me. There are so many bad writers out there. Writing is mostly craft, and from the craft comes the art. But most of your unpublished competition doesn’t want to learn the craft. Hell, they don’t even want to make the art. In other words, they don’t like writing—they like having written and all that comes with it. They’ll never take the time to learn the craft, so every bit you learn puts you that much further ahead of the crowd.
January 12, 2015
8 Query Tips No One Tells Writers
I found this article posted by Literary agent, Carly Watters, of interest - I hope you do too.There is a bounty of query letter writing advice on the web. I’ve written about it before too: The Biggest Query Letter Mistake, and How To Format Your Query.
However, here are some tips you might not have heard yet that will set your querying strategy apart from the rest.
Querying in 2015? Read 8 Query Tips No One Tells Writers:
1. There are no second chances. Send a query letter with an agent’s name misspelled and resend 5 minutes later? You might already be written off. We get so many queries that we’re always looking for reasons to say no (even though we’re looking for gems!). Sometimes there are easy no’s.
2. If you say you’ve been published we assume that means traditional. And if you don’t share the publisher, year, and maybe some sales information we’ll assume you’re pulling our leg.
3. Telling agents you’ve self published before doesn’t actually say anything. Anyone and their mother can self publish a book. Telling us you’ve self published a previous book doesn’t rub us the wrong way, it just doesn’t impact our decision at all. With the hundreds of queries we receive a week it’s something we see a lot and tend to brush off. Of course, if you’ve self published to much acclaim, that’s a different story. But a thousand copies isn’t a bestseller and doesn’t move the needle for us.
4. It’s okay to break the rules. There are guidelines for a reason. However, I’ll give you an example of when it’s okay to step out. Our agency doesn’t ask for sample material when you query. Just a query letter. So sometimes I’ll see writers paste in a couple pages into the bottom of the query email–even though we don’t ask for it–and it gives me a chance to read a bit before I decide to request more. I’m okay with that! The rules not to break are whether you can pitch more than one agent at the agency, follow up guidelines etc.
5. If we’re not confident you can pitch us your book, we’re not confident you can write a novel. I know, I know, writing a novel and writing a query are very different things. However, it’s expected of today’s writer to pitch themselves (to us, to publicists, to readers, to sales staff etc). If your query is long-winded and don’t pitch the plot but themes instead, we’re not convinced.
6. For fiction writers, social media is not a deciding factor. Writers tend to freak out about the word platform. For good reason, it’s terrifying. “What do you mean I need to have a newsletter with a million subscribers?!”–is often the response I get. Relax fiction writers, you don’t need thousands of social media followers just to query. (Non fiction authors, the same does not apply to you. Get back to that blog.) Fiction always stands on its own, but a good following is never a bad thing! However, platform for fiction writers comes with time.
7. Referrals are under used. If you have a friend represented by an agent you think you might connect with ask for them to refer you. This type of network is often under used. Don’t be afraid to network with writers represented by agents and build up some trust. Get critique partners who have representation and work your way to agents. Having someone vouch for you is powerful and helps you avoid the slush.
8. Author bios can bring us in or push us away. Author bios that are abnormally long and reference experiences that don’t relate to the book you’re pitching can be a turn off. Author bios should include any affiliations that are relevant like SCBWI if you write kids books, or WFWA if you write women’s fiction. Author bios that reference books written over 15 years ago are not of use to the book you’re querying. If you don’t have much to say in your author bio it’s okay to say where you live, share your author website, and tell us that this is your debut novel. Don’t forget it’s okay to be a debut. And don’t forget to include a little something for us to relate to.
January 10, 2015
Confict - the key to romance novels
Romance novels are not everyone's taste but if you like them or write them as I do, you'll find this article from Writer's Digest interesting.
How to Write a Romance Novel: The Keys to Conflict by Jennifer Lawler from Writer’s Digest
As a romance acquisitions editor, I find that one of the biggest problems writers struggle with is creating a believable conflict, or series of conflicts, that will sustain the novel its entire length. Conflict is the core of any work of fiction—it’s what makes your readers care what will happen next.
In romance, everyone already knows how the book is going to end (happily ever after), so there is no tension over the outcome; the tension (and the page turning) must come from some other source. At least some part of the conflict must be between the hero and the heroine. No romance reader wants to read about how the plucky heroine met the strong, sexy hero and they realized they were right for each other and everything was awesome once they got rid of those pesky cattle rustlers. That might make an interesting story, but it is not a romance.
A romance must have something (a conflict!) that keeps the hero and the heroine apart. And what keeps the reader turning pages is wondering how on earth you’re going to get them to overcome that obstacle and reach the happily ever after. Use these three key questions to achieve just that.
What do your characters want, and how does it bring them into conflict?
In romance, your two main characters must have internal goals and external goals that they’re trying to reach. If you can bring your characters’ goals into conflict, and thus the hero and heroine into conflict, you have a good chance of creating believable tension that will keep your readers engaged.
Suppose Greta has always loved her grandmother’s quilts, which remind her of her grandmother’s house, the only place she ever felt safe and loved. She has the internal goal, perhaps never explicitly stated, but certainly implied, of finding a way to feel safe and loved again.
For her character to be powerfully motivated through the story, Greta’s internal goal will need to drive her external goal that will lay the foundation for the plot. Suppose she learns that the old general store on Main Street has finally come up for sale, and she realizes that she can buy it to start a quilt shop. She’ll be able to share all that’s wonderful about quilts—especially the love that goes into them—plus, owning her own business will help her feel more secure, because she’ll be in charge of her own career. She can already imagine her cozy future, surrounded by things her grandmother once loved so deeply. The quilt shop becomes the external goal that can help her reach her internal goal.
Of course, it can’t be easy: She must have obstacles to reaching this goal. Suppose Hank also wants to buy the building, to house the hobby store he’s always wanted to run. His internal goal is to feel connected, and the one time he felt that way was when his dad, who died very young, used to build model ships with him. This need is amplified by the fact that he’s been feeling more disconnected than ever these days because he’s newly divorced from his cheating ex-wife—and doesn’t know if he can ever really trust anyone again.
With this rich backstory, he already has lots of internal conflict beneath the surface when his internal goal of feeling connected becomes an external goal of wanting to start a hobby shop—and brings him into direct conflict with Greta.
The pair vies for the property. Each is emotionally invested in his or her external goal because it is a reflection of his or her internal goal. Each step of the way, being thwarted causes them both not just mere frustration, but real emotional pain. That is the key to conflict in romance: It must have a deep emotional source, even when the story is lighthearted.
As the author, you need to recognize from the start that for Hank and Greta to resolve the conflict between them (their external conflict) they must each resolve that internal conflict first. Greta may eventually realize that she doesn’t need to always feel safe—she is strong enough to weather whatever storms may come, because the conflict with Hank has shown her this is true. Hank must learn to trust again in order to feel connectedness, and perhaps he realizes that despite their conflict, Greta has never lied to him or let him down, and so he learns to trust her. When they fall in love and realize they can both get what they want, they open the Main Street Hobby and Quilt Shop. Ta-da! A believable conflict and a satisfying resolution.
What’s at risk if your characters don’t reach their goals?
This has to matter. Make the consequence big. Your hero will lose his job or your heroine, her freedom. A character racing just to win a $20 bet doesn’t have much in jeopardy. However, she does if the bet is the external manifestation of something hugely important to the character—for example, proving that she is not a failure. Suppose LouAnn’s awful ex-boyfriend says, “I bet you $20 you can’t get a job by the end of summer,” and she takes that challenge. It’s not the money that’s really at risk.
In romance, when you have two main characters trying to reach their goals, their competing goals must be of similar importance. Make sure your reader cares about both of them succeeding.
Your characters should be working toward something important and meaningful—saving the ranch, winning the election, bringing the bad guys to justice.
Suppose you have a story where the Greek shipping magnate spearheads a hostile takeover of the financially imperiled business that the spunky heroine is trying to save. Are we expected to believe that once he does her
out of a job and destroys her dreams, she’ll fall in love with him?
Her goal—saving the business—is meaningful and we can sympathize with it. But what about his?
He has to have a sympathetic reason for wanting to take over the heroine’s company. One way to accomplish this is to give him a misguided external goal based on an internal goal—for example, suppose all he wants is to make his father proud of him, and so he follows in his father’s footsteps by launching hostile takeovers of vulnerable companies.
Readers can sympathize with his internal goal while disliking his external goal. And then the conflict can be resolved when he realizes that his father was proud of him all along, or that his father will never be proud of him but that’s OK, or whatever will serve to help him meet his internal goal—and free him to confess the admiration that he’s been developing for our spunky heroine.
Remember, it’s romance. Readers have to love your hero, just as they have to respect your heroine.
Do your characters take realistic steps toward those goals?
As your plot unfolds scene by scene, be sure your characters respond and react in ways that readers will understand. If your hero meets the heroine on Page 1, is promising his undying love on Page 2, and tries to prove it by stalking her as she goes about town on Page 3, he’s not going to come across as a roguish charmer readers will root for. Make things unfold naturally and logically.
If you still find your characters acting in unbelievable or unsympathetic ways, the problem may be that your characters’ goals are too small, trivial or contrived. We’ve all read some form of frivolous conflict along the lines of, “Sorry, I don’t date blue-eyed men.” If the conflict relies on a misunderstood email, or some malicious third party interfering with the couple’s road to happiness, or could be cleared up if the heroine would just ask one nine-word question, it isn’t believable for very long.
It isn’t enough to set up a believable conflict in your story; you also have to resolve it. A conflict, however believable, is not successful if it does not end in a way that satisfies the reader.
That does not mean the resolution should be predictable. The resolution should not rely on divine intervention, the wise third party who sets everyone straight, or the clock striking midnight. The conflict must be resolved by a change that occurs in each character that sets them on the path of mutual love and cooperation. Think of it like focusing a camera; the characters are muddled, and must reach clarity in order to reach their happily ever after. For example, Hank and Greta realize that their goals are not mutually exclusive—they can join forces, and reach their goals together.
By making sure your two main characters have a believable conflict, you’ll keep readers turning the pages to the end.
How to Write a Romance Novel: The Keys to Conflict by Jennifer Lawler from Writer’s Digest
As a romance acquisitions editor, I find that one of the biggest problems writers struggle with is creating a believable conflict, or series of conflicts, that will sustain the novel its entire length. Conflict is the core of any work of fiction—it’s what makes your readers care what will happen next.
In romance, everyone already knows how the book is going to end (happily ever after), so there is no tension over the outcome; the tension (and the page turning) must come from some other source. At least some part of the conflict must be between the hero and the heroine. No romance reader wants to read about how the plucky heroine met the strong, sexy hero and they realized they were right for each other and everything was awesome once they got rid of those pesky cattle rustlers. That might make an interesting story, but it is not a romance.
A romance must have something (a conflict!) that keeps the hero and the heroine apart. And what keeps the reader turning pages is wondering how on earth you’re going to get them to overcome that obstacle and reach the happily ever after. Use these three key questions to achieve just that.
What do your characters want, and how does it bring them into conflict?
In romance, your two main characters must have internal goals and external goals that they’re trying to reach. If you can bring your characters’ goals into conflict, and thus the hero and heroine into conflict, you have a good chance of creating believable tension that will keep your readers engaged.
Suppose Greta has always loved her grandmother’s quilts, which remind her of her grandmother’s house, the only place she ever felt safe and loved. She has the internal goal, perhaps never explicitly stated, but certainly implied, of finding a way to feel safe and loved again.
For her character to be powerfully motivated through the story, Greta’s internal goal will need to drive her external goal that will lay the foundation for the plot. Suppose she learns that the old general store on Main Street has finally come up for sale, and she realizes that she can buy it to start a quilt shop. She’ll be able to share all that’s wonderful about quilts—especially the love that goes into them—plus, owning her own business will help her feel more secure, because she’ll be in charge of her own career. She can already imagine her cozy future, surrounded by things her grandmother once loved so deeply. The quilt shop becomes the external goal that can help her reach her internal goal.
Of course, it can’t be easy: She must have obstacles to reaching this goal. Suppose Hank also wants to buy the building, to house the hobby store he’s always wanted to run. His internal goal is to feel connected, and the one time he felt that way was when his dad, who died very young, used to build model ships with him. This need is amplified by the fact that he’s been feeling more disconnected than ever these days because he’s newly divorced from his cheating ex-wife—and doesn’t know if he can ever really trust anyone again.
With this rich backstory, he already has lots of internal conflict beneath the surface when his internal goal of feeling connected becomes an external goal of wanting to start a hobby shop—and brings him into direct conflict with Greta.
The pair vies for the property. Each is emotionally invested in his or her external goal because it is a reflection of his or her internal goal. Each step of the way, being thwarted causes them both not just mere frustration, but real emotional pain. That is the key to conflict in romance: It must have a deep emotional source, even when the story is lighthearted.
As the author, you need to recognize from the start that for Hank and Greta to resolve the conflict between them (their external conflict) they must each resolve that internal conflict first. Greta may eventually realize that she doesn’t need to always feel safe—she is strong enough to weather whatever storms may come, because the conflict with Hank has shown her this is true. Hank must learn to trust again in order to feel connectedness, and perhaps he realizes that despite their conflict, Greta has never lied to him or let him down, and so he learns to trust her. When they fall in love and realize they can both get what they want, they open the Main Street Hobby and Quilt Shop. Ta-da! A believable conflict and a satisfying resolution.
What’s at risk if your characters don’t reach their goals?
This has to matter. Make the consequence big. Your hero will lose his job or your heroine, her freedom. A character racing just to win a $20 bet doesn’t have much in jeopardy. However, she does if the bet is the external manifestation of something hugely important to the character—for example, proving that she is not a failure. Suppose LouAnn’s awful ex-boyfriend says, “I bet you $20 you can’t get a job by the end of summer,” and she takes that challenge. It’s not the money that’s really at risk.
In romance, when you have two main characters trying to reach their goals, their competing goals must be of similar importance. Make sure your reader cares about both of them succeeding.
Your characters should be working toward something important and meaningful—saving the ranch, winning the election, bringing the bad guys to justice.
Suppose you have a story where the Greek shipping magnate spearheads a hostile takeover of the financially imperiled business that the spunky heroine is trying to save. Are we expected to believe that once he does her
out of a job and destroys her dreams, she’ll fall in love with him?
Her goal—saving the business—is meaningful and we can sympathize with it. But what about his?
He has to have a sympathetic reason for wanting to take over the heroine’s company. One way to accomplish this is to give him a misguided external goal based on an internal goal—for example, suppose all he wants is to make his father proud of him, and so he follows in his father’s footsteps by launching hostile takeovers of vulnerable companies.
Readers can sympathize with his internal goal while disliking his external goal. And then the conflict can be resolved when he realizes that his father was proud of him all along, or that his father will never be proud of him but that’s OK, or whatever will serve to help him meet his internal goal—and free him to confess the admiration that he’s been developing for our spunky heroine.
Remember, it’s romance. Readers have to love your hero, just as they have to respect your heroine.
Do your characters take realistic steps toward those goals?
As your plot unfolds scene by scene, be sure your characters respond and react in ways that readers will understand. If your hero meets the heroine on Page 1, is promising his undying love on Page 2, and tries to prove it by stalking her as she goes about town on Page 3, he’s not going to come across as a roguish charmer readers will root for. Make things unfold naturally and logically.
If you still find your characters acting in unbelievable or unsympathetic ways, the problem may be that your characters’ goals are too small, trivial or contrived. We’ve all read some form of frivolous conflict along the lines of, “Sorry, I don’t date blue-eyed men.” If the conflict relies on a misunderstood email, or some malicious third party interfering with the couple’s road to happiness, or could be cleared up if the heroine would just ask one nine-word question, it isn’t believable for very long.
It isn’t enough to set up a believable conflict in your story; you also have to resolve it. A conflict, however believable, is not successful if it does not end in a way that satisfies the reader.
That does not mean the resolution should be predictable. The resolution should not rely on divine intervention, the wise third party who sets everyone straight, or the clock striking midnight. The conflict must be resolved by a change that occurs in each character that sets them on the path of mutual love and cooperation. Think of it like focusing a camera; the characters are muddled, and must reach clarity in order to reach their happily ever after. For example, Hank and Greta realize that their goals are not mutually exclusive—they can join forces, and reach their goals together.
By making sure your two main characters have a believable conflict, you’ll keep readers turning the pages to the end.
January 9, 2015
Seven great tips for self-editing
7 Proofreading Steps by Helen Prest,
Independent Editor
Distinct from editing, proofing has its own specific functions that go beyond making sure the words are spelled correctly. Punctuation, fonts, and formatting issues all need attention.
Proofreading is the last line of defense for quality control in print and online publishing. Be sure to conduct a thorough proofread of all documents before they are printed for distribution and of all Web pages before they go live, using these guidelines.
But before you proof, you must edit. (This article explains the difference between the two processes.) There’s no use expending time and effort to check for minor typographical errors until the editing stage is complete. Review for proper organization, appropriate tone, and grammar, syntax, usage, and style before the document is laid out.
Stakeholders should read the edited version before layout and submit requests for revisions during the editing stage. If anyone other than the editorial staff must see the proof, remind him or her that only minor changes should be made at this point.
1. Use a Checklist
Create a list of important things to check for, such as problem areas like agreement of nouns and verbs and of pronouns and antecedents, and number style.
2. Fact-Check
Double-check facts, figures, and proper names. If information remains to be inserted at the last minute, highlight the omission prominently so that no one forgets to do so.
3. Spell-Check
Before proofreading a printout, spell-check the electronic version to find misspellings, as well as errors you or a colleague make frequently, such as omitting a closing parenthesis or quotation mark.
4. Read Aloud
Reading text during the proof stage improves your chances of noticing errors, especially missing (“a summary the report follows”) or repeated (“a summary of the the report follows”) words.
5. Focus on One Line at a Time
When proofing print documents, use another piece of paper or a ruler to cover the text following the line you are proofreading, shifting the paper down as you go along. This technique helps you keep your place and discourages you from reading too quickly and missing subtle errors.
6. Attend to Format
Proofreading isn’t just about reviewing the text. Make sure that the document design adheres to established specifications. Check page numbering, column alignment, relative fonts, sizes, and other features of standard elements such as headlines, subheadings, captions, and footnotes. Inspect each type of feature within categories, such as looking at every headline, then every caption, and so on.
7. Proof Again
Once revisions have been made, proofread the document again with the same thoroughness, rather than simply spot-checking the changes. An insertion or deletion may have thrown off the line count, for example.
Independent Editor
Distinct from editing, proofing has its own specific functions that go beyond making sure the words are spelled correctly. Punctuation, fonts, and formatting issues all need attention.
Proofreading is the last line of defense for quality control in print and online publishing. Be sure to conduct a thorough proofread of all documents before they are printed for distribution and of all Web pages before they go live, using these guidelines.
But before you proof, you must edit. (This article explains the difference between the two processes.) There’s no use expending time and effort to check for minor typographical errors until the editing stage is complete. Review for proper organization, appropriate tone, and grammar, syntax, usage, and style before the document is laid out.
Stakeholders should read the edited version before layout and submit requests for revisions during the editing stage. If anyone other than the editorial staff must see the proof, remind him or her that only minor changes should be made at this point.
1. Use a Checklist
Create a list of important things to check for, such as problem areas like agreement of nouns and verbs and of pronouns and antecedents, and number style.
2. Fact-Check
Double-check facts, figures, and proper names. If information remains to be inserted at the last minute, highlight the omission prominently so that no one forgets to do so.
3. Spell-Check
Before proofreading a printout, spell-check the electronic version to find misspellings, as well as errors you or a colleague make frequently, such as omitting a closing parenthesis or quotation mark.
4. Read Aloud
Reading text during the proof stage improves your chances of noticing errors, especially missing (“a summary the report follows”) or repeated (“a summary of the the report follows”) words.
5. Focus on One Line at a Time
When proofing print documents, use another piece of paper or a ruler to cover the text following the line you are proofreading, shifting the paper down as you go along. This technique helps you keep your place and discourages you from reading too quickly and missing subtle errors.
6. Attend to Format
Proofreading isn’t just about reviewing the text. Make sure that the document design adheres to established specifications. Check page numbering, column alignment, relative fonts, sizes, and other features of standard elements such as headlines, subheadings, captions, and footnotes. Inspect each type of feature within categories, such as looking at every headline, then every caption, and so on.
7. Proof Again
Once revisions have been made, proofread the document again with the same thoroughness, rather than simply spot-checking the changes. An insertion or deletion may have thrown off the line count, for example.
7 Things Being an Editor Taught Me About Being an Author by Chris Pavone – From Bookish
This is a terrific post by Author/Editor Chris Pavone. I recommend it to anyone who wants to work in traditional publishing. Editors can help shape your writing, point your weaknesses out and shape your novel. Chris Pavone’s The Accident is a fast-paced suspense that gives readers a glimpse into the publishing industry. The behind-the-scenes moments come straight from Pavone’s own history: He worked for 20 years as an editor. Here, Pavone gives us the dirt on the lessons he picked up on the job.
Authors travel a number of well-worn roads to their first published books: MFA programs and writing workshops, journalism and screenwriting and teaching; all of these are jobs that help people hone their prose styles and storytelling skills. Me, I worked in the book-publishing business for a couple decades. I was a copy editor and a proofreader, a managing editor and an associate publisher and even a ghostwriter, but mostly I was an acquisitions editor. I learned a few things in those jobs that are useful to me now. Not necessarily things about writing, but about doing the job of someone who writes. About being an author.
1. The first few pages are crucial
The people who make career-defining decisions about a book are pitched thousands of books per year. Every day, their inboxes are refreshed with an unreadable volume of material. If an author is lucky, these people will start reading page 1. If they don’t like page 1, they probably won’t turn to page 2. Instead they’ll pick up something else, something that might have a more compelling page 1. So whatever’s going to be good about a book ought to be good from the get-go.
2. Editing works - Not because all editors are brilliant plot theorists and meticulous prose technicians who can immediately spot what’s wrong with a manuscript and offer the perfect solutions. They’re not, and they don’t. But I’ve never met a manuscript that didn’t get better during editing, sometimes by orders of magnitude. Rigorous criticism helps everything improve, and I want my books to be as improved as possible. The editing stages may not be fun—the opposite is probably more accurate—but this is work, after all. It’s not supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be productive.
3. No book will appeal to every reader
Maybe 2% of adult Americans will read the single best-selling new novel in any given year. Another way of saying that: a mere 98% of the population will not read my next book, in the very best-case scenario. There are millions of avid readers who enjoy only crime fiction; others read exclusively history and politics. Some people plow through a romance novel every week, while others devour a steady diet of self-help. There’s no way to appeal to everyone, and no reason to try: It will only ensure that a book appeals to absolutely no one whatsoever.
4. Being early helps - Just because my editor gives me a week to review something doesn’t mean I should use all seven days, not unless I really need them (like if I’ve spent five of them in the hospital). A lot can go wrong along every book’s journey from manuscript to publication. But if I do my bits early, I help prevent those problems from blossoming into disasters that could impact the viability of my book.
5. Showing up pays dividends - “I’m coming to New York!” author says to editor. Immediately after hanging up, editor marches down the hallway to publicist’s office, and to marketing manager’s. “Hey,” she says, “we’re going to meet with this author in a couple of weeks, so let’s talk about our plans for the book again.” That’s a conversation that might not happen if author wasn’t showing up. And that conversation might result in something—some publicity pitch or marketing effort or social-media campaign—that otherwise wouldn’t exist. It also helps to be able to associate some faces and handshakes and voices with the people on the other end of all those emails, the people entrusted with an author’s career. Plus, they buy lunch.
6. Publishing is slow for two distinct reasons
First: There’s a finite number of staff at any house. Those people handle a lot of tasks over many stages for a tremendous quantity of titles—all with the goal of improving the text, getting rid of mistakes, and making it look appealing. So books wait in queues for attention. Second: Book retailers make their buying and merchandising decisions many months in advance of publication; a lot of important publicity outlets operate on a similarly long lead. So if a book were published in a couple months instead of the normal year, the book’s retail distribution and media exposure might suffer, possibly immensely. Which is to say that even if book production could be sped up, it usually shouldn’t. The slowness is a built-in part of the game, like in baseball, not solvable by any single player or even team.
7. Care about what you care about, and shut the f*!$ up about the rest
Yes, I very much want my opinion to be heard on certain issues. But there are other things I care about marginally at best, and am informed about minimally at most. For these issues, the better part of valor is to keep my lightly held, half-ignorant opinions from getting in the way. Other people are paid to know what they’re doing, and I think one of my jobs is to let them do theirs. Authors write books. Publishers publish books. There’s a difference.
January 7, 2015
Advice on how not to get an agent
I wanted to share this article I found on Twitter from writer M.J. Moores. Many of us have stories about receiving rejections as did Ms. Moores. She's a braver lady than I am. Moores bit the bullet and questioned literary agents on why they reject a manuscript. Top 3 Reasons Why Fiction Manuscripts Get Rejected by M.J. Moores
My number is 28, what’s yours? You know, the number of times a Literary Agent or Publishing House sent you the “Thank you, but no” letter.
As writers we research the best possible way to write a query letter; how to manipulate our 350 page manuscript into a one page synopsis. We review all possible avenues for our baby to grow into an adult. Yet we are no closer to that elusive yes.
Haven’t you ever wanted to simply hit reply and ask why? Well, I did, and you might be surprised to learn the answers.
Sam Hiyate, Literary Agent – The Rights Factory
When asked what his top 3 reasons for rejecting fiction manuscripts were, Sam replied, “Three? I only have one, but I can give you three examples.”
1) I can’t sell it.
1. a. I can’t get excited about it: When I get something in, it’s my job to get excited about the manuscript and to find people who will get just as energized. I need a reason to read past the query, and a desire to absorb what I’m offered.
1. b. The writing itself: All stories need to start sharply and carry on at a good pace. They need to have a compelling plot or character we like or like to hate. The best writers take you to a place you cannot even comprehend. I need a reason to turn the page.
1. c. The genre: Every agent specializes. There are certain genres we follow and have built relationships with publishers around those genres, and there are those we haven’t. I won’t read a manuscript if it’s a poor fit for me, or it’s obvious the author hasn’t done their research. People need to listen to what we represent – it’s those kinds of books we understand.
Sam is the kind of agent who goes out of his way to make public appearances at conferences and workshops in order to meet the people behind the stories. His charisma and forthright attitude both endear him to authors and frighten them a little – after all he does hold one of only a few keys to that elusive world of traditional publishing.
Wendy Lawrance, Editor – Great War Literature Publishing
When asked what her top 3 reasons for rejecting fiction manuscripts for GWL were, Wendy said, “What, only three?” After settling on 6 reasons we worked through how each directly related to the publishing arena and came up with the following as her top 3.
1) Self-Publishing: This entity has become the bane of many traditional publishers’ lives. Self-publishing is great in allowing first-time and unknown authors to get their work out there. However, when a book has already been published, the traditional publisher has to think very hard about how much time and money they are willing to invest in a book which may give them several legal issues, may have already run its course (in terms of sales), or may have caused irreparable damage to the author’s reputation (if the book happened to suffer from poor editing and/or presentation).
2) Presentation: When an author is unaware of the publishing house’s guidelines and sends in the wrong elements, more often than not the work won’t even be read. Be sure to send an introductory letter, a synopsis, and however much of the book is requested (normally three chapters or 10,000 words). Nothing else – unless it’s requested. The introductory letter and synopsis are, surprisingly, the most important elements of this package, because they represent you as a writer: style, flow, and ability.
3) Arrogance: This is a belief in the author that their book is better than anyone else’s, that it will be an automatic bestseller, and that they will be approached by multiple film studios for the movie rights. Accompanying this is the belief that the publisher essentially owes them a contract with a hefty advance and immense royalty rates. It’s good to have confidence in what you’ve written, but this can be taken too far.
Wendy is not one of those publishing editors who operate with blinders on. While GWL started as a publisher focusing on war-related novels, both its British and American imprints keep an open mind about literature – why discriminate if what you’re reading is good? Wendy’s passion for writing and editing shows in her innate ability to reach out and connect with others in the industry.
Ruth E. Walker, Author – Living Underground
When asked for her top 6 reasons (see, I learned my lesson with Wendy) why fiction manuscripts get rejected, Ruth responded with, “I went a bit overboard despite your request for brevity, but I needed to be clear in my own mind what I meant.” She indeed listed 6 options for us to discuss, but with copious notes provided on three, our choices were clear.
1) We don’t present our best work: What I’m talking about is the content, not the packaging – that’s another issue. This is far more difficult to nail. I thought my manuscript was pretty good when I first started sending it out. I’d had good feedback from critique colleagues. But my novel was not ready. There were some plot holes, too many ‘lazy’ passages, some stereotypical characters, and a darn near Harlequin kind of ending. Sure, an editor could have helped me discover all that but no publisher wants to invest that much time into an unknown writer without a novel on my track record.
2) We start at the wrong place: Too often, writers cram too much back story, too much action, or too many characters into the narrative right at the beginning. With a novel, you’ll have plenty of time to build the back story, background of events, characters, and their motivations. Any fiction narrative needs to leave room for the reader to fill in the blanks. Readers can infer from what is not revealed. Let readers build the information from the breadcrumbs that you scatter along the way. They want to do some of the work of the story – trust your reader.
3) We give up: I did. More than once. But every so often, a glimmer of something would have me pull out the manuscript from the drawer and send it out again. Timing became my worst enemy with responses from agents or houses like, “We would have taken your novel but its themes and situations are close to another one we are publishing next spring…” or “We have just cut back our fiction catalogue and regretfully decline…” Don’t take the rejection slip personally; learn from it if you can. The right door will open at the right time.
Ruth is a spit-fire of a lady with more energy in her pinky finger than I have in my entire body. She’s been working in the industry freelance writing, editing, and giving workshops for much of her adult life. She is a driven woman with a dream and if she can help a new writer navigate these choppy waters, she will.
We all need a little advice and in the business of writing any insight into the mystique lying under a beautiful book cover is worth more than gold. But I wanted more. This was just a tease. Digging deeper, I went back to each professional for exactly that. The best of the best, the number one on everyone’s list sat there for a reason.
When I asked Sam for more detail he laughed and said, “What more can I say that hasn’t already been said? If not by me then someone else in the industry.” But he relented:
As an agent, I make a very personal connection to either the story or the author’s style. Authors need to realize, too, that queries and manuscripts filter through a system: a reader or intern on staff goes through the mountains of letters the agency receives and it’s up to them to determine whether or not what they’re reading will appeal to me or another agent. Then, in a company meeting, a select few manuscripts are pitched to the agents and we determine, based on what and who we’re already representing (and the potential salability of either the story or the style) if we’re going to look into a book further. That’s the way it works, and knowing that is half the battle.
When I asked Wendy about the insurgence of self-publishing and its impact on traditional publishing, she not only focused on the importance of the issues mentioned above but the expectations of authors:
I would never say don’t self-publish, but if, having tried this, you decide it’s not for you and that you want to pursue traditional publishing, then, by all means, go ahead. However, I’d recommend doing it with a different book to the one you’ve produced yourself – although preferably not a sequel!
Those who anticipate that, if they self-publish, a traditional publisher will come along and snap them up, are being unrealistic. This happens on only a very few occasions, when the publisher is certain they will get a return on their investment. This also assumes that traditional publishers read self-published books all the time, which, bearing in mind how many new books are self-published every day, is impractical.
And when I asked Ruth to elaborate on her experience with finding her ‘best work,’ she eagerly dug into what it took for her to find it in the manuscript sitting in her desk drawer:
It took distance of time to make the edits the story needed. It took taking time to really develop my craft (and I’m still developing it). And it took time to find the courage to write some difficult scenes – Editing; rewriting; editing; and more editing before I had a novel much closer to my best work. Then, the rejections were far more personal, more engaged. And that gave me hope. By the way, that “time” was over years, not months. It won’t be the same for everyone. Some writers have crafted a novel manuscript that is publisher-ready in only months of work. The point here is the word: work. And it needs to be our best work to be ready.
On that final note, when you ask yourself, “Am I ready?” What will your honest answer be? Hopefully you are inspired by the crucial and insightful information these three professionals have offered. They live and breathe writing and the world of publishing and their advice is worth heeding.
I’ve completed another difficult draft; I’d say it’s time to see what will happen with lucky submission number 29 – what about you?
About the Author
M.J. Moores began her career as a high school English teacher with a passion for creative writing. Recently, she left the teaching profession to work as a freelance writer as she prepares her science fiction novel for publishing. Unimpressed with the lack of straightforward, simple (and free) resources available to new and emerging writers, she started her own online editing company and writers’ blog (Infinite Pathways) to help her fellow compatriots. M.J. is the author of Publicizing Yourself: A Beginners Guide to Author Marketing available through Smashwords. http://infinite-pathways.org – http://facebook.com/AuthorMJMoores
January 5, 2015
Blogging around
I've spent most of the day asking blogs to do a feature about my first erotic romance, The New Orleans Hothouse. The lovely ladies at www.bitchesbewriting.com (Bitches Be Writing) gave me a space today and I'm thrilled. They also ran the first chapter of the novel, a raunchy romance set in 1950s New Orleans. Here is the link http://wp.me/p2FWt8-O7
