Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 28

State of Writing

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Not much action last week. I’m saving it all up for the days to come. I worked a little on a secret side project and wrote blog posts through May. Hopefully I will start writing fiction again this week. This is it: the beginning of The Hidden Rings of Myrddin the Cambion. Book 1–Hoods of the Red Order.

Sidenote, I have some appearances coming up! I’ll be at MiniCon this coming weekend and will have some books available. I’ve also got a fine arts panel coming up in Marshall, MN to help answer questions and guide newer writers towards a publishing path of their preference (either traditional or Indie.)

Show/Don’t Tell & Body Language Lists

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One of the things you will hear a great deal as a writer is to “show don’t tell.” Part of this alludes to passive voice, but eliminating passive voice isn’t enough. As a writer, your narration has to lead the reader to the conclusion you want them to arrive at without telling them outright. This is one of the more difficult aspects of writing for most people (and if you’ve picked up many books—even traditional press, high-quality ones—you will see that this isn’t always a well-followed rule).

Here is an example of what I mean.

Jack was sad because of the bad news. (Passive)

The bad news made Jack sad. (Better… not passive, but it still “tells.”)

Jack heard the news and his shoulders slumped with a sigh. (This version leads us to conclude what kind of news it was and his reaction to it based on his body language.)

Granted, we can’t do the above with every sentence. Sometimes we must set absolutes and dictate what has happened so that there is no confusion for the reader, but we should make an attempt to make our characters act out their feelings as often as possible. I find this is especially true in my own writing during dialogue.

While using different text analysis apps I’ve learned a lot about my writing and my style. I am amazing at killing voice in my sentences, according to the Hemingway app; I don’t even come close to the recommended limit it gives based on length and that makes my stories feel like white-knuckle page-turners… but adverbs. I tend to run over in that department, and chiefly because of dialogue. I’ve found that my characters often say things sadly or reply tensely. They should instead say things with a sigh or reply as they bristle visibly. To help improve my own writing I often consult collections of phrases that show specific body language (lest I fall into using the same few descriptive postures over and over.)

Here are a few graphics on the topic taken from Amanda Patterson’s blog. She cautions not to overuse these which can bog down the story. I can concur; authors need to keep storytelling as number one and remember that a story is not a collection of good descriptions and well-spoken details.

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There are few other sites I’d recommend with additional lists:

Word Dreams

Writers in the Storm

Bryn Donovan’s Gesture List

Bryn Donovan’s Facial Expression List

TheOtakuNerd on Wattpad

Perhaps my new favorite is DescriptiveWords.org which links to a bunch of smaller lists based on adjectives (like a thesaurus, but collected differently.)

Do you know of body-language lists like these? Let me know in the comments!

Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Cult of Cthulhu

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James Boswell’s Sherlock Holmes and the Cult of Cthulhu is an intriguing book. The time periods, and in many respects, the writing styles, of Doyle and Lovecraft seem an obvious intersection for a writer seeking to dovetail them together.

Fair warning, I haven’t read any of Doyle’s Holmes titles in almost two decades. Perhaps it was the theme, but I read the story with an inner monologue in a British accent, kind of like how memes with a photo of Morgan Freeman make you read the text in his voice.

The story was engaging and kept me reading. I did notice some problems with POV as Boswell slipped out of first person and into third person. It isn’t all that odd since Watson sometimes does this as a way of narration, but there are a few points where this occurs and Watson is not present and it’s obviously not a narration but an inconsistent POV. I would much prefer a 3rd person, anyhow and would shift Watson’s 1st person narration into actual dialogue or into journal entries. As mentioned, Doyle might also shift between POVs, but I can’t remember and it’s discouraged in the modern age of writing. The cover could also use a little TLC to make it look less “self published,” (art is fine, but the layout elements detract somewhat,) but the story is a lot of fun.

As mentioned, the story and overall theme were quite intriguing, although it does take a few chapters to get firmly into the mythos. I found it enjoyable and perhaps more engaging than I initially expected. If you like either Holmes or Lovecraft, I’d encourage you to pick this book up.

I got a free copy in exchange for an honest review at my blog, Inside the Inkwell. You can get the book by following this link to Amazon!

State of Writing

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Yikes. My day got away from me before I could vomit a few words onto my keyboard.

Big week for me… in addition to being crazy productive for my dayjob. I took my daughter to the #MNWW Minnesota writers workshop; she just recently finished her first novel. Not only did she get to see some of the underbelly stuff from the publishing world and get to hear from some industry professionals, but we took an editing track that I think she will find immensely useful in making revisions. (She took like 6 pages worth of notes). My big highlights this year were all professional achievements. I connected with the owner of Subtext books who sponsored the event and have her sold on hosting a book signing for Wolf of the Tesseract. I also book a future author interview for this blog from David Oppegaard, and pitched books to 3 agents (with 4 requests for pages and an agent I pitched last year but did not query this year invited me to requery her at her new agency). Hopefully the other shoe doesn’t drop any time soon.

Scheduled a few more book signings in addition to everything else I did. I also finished my outlines for all 5 installments of The Hidden Rings of Myrrdin the Cambion, my YA genre mash-up series which will begin writing soon. I did get worried when I realized I lost an entire book (including the outline) that I had detailed notes for while updating my scrivener software a few months back now that I wanted to plot them with notecards in the software. It took me a few hours’ worth of searching through old TEMP files, but I eventually found them. Good thing, too, because it was pretty good stuff and I outlined all 5 books over a period of about 10 days so that all the story lines had a cohesive continuity.

…Now to get the final drafts of TKR3 and WotT2 completed so I can begin in clear conscience.

Answering Reader Questions #1 Passive Voice (and other ramblings)

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I’m quite serious when I tell people I’m willing to give some feedback, answer questions, or offer writing advice. (I always extend this offer to folks on my mailing list–I love to connect and see what friends are doing.) A friend recently asked for some advice about passive voice and I thought I’d copy and paste the exchange here in the event that it might help some fellow writers.

You said something before about passive voice and active voice. Could you explain that again? for example, I could write (her voice is kind but there is no expression on her face) but I could write (her voice was kind but there was no expression on her face). is present or past tense better? in addition, the first chapter starts the stories but then the rest of the opening chapters go back in time to see what lead up to the first. Is present tense still the best?

in addition, the first chapter starts the stories but then the rest of the opening chapters go back in time to see what lead up to the first. Is present tense still the best?

Passive voice and the tenses of verbs aren’t the same thing (just in case there’s confusion. When I first started kicking over rocks to figure out how to improve my writing I discovered there existed a whole set of terms I knew nothing about—and I’m still learning new ones all the time).

Anyway, here’s passive voice in a nutshell: when something just “is” …passive voice is when your verb is a state of being. The most common abuse is when people use the word was. Here’s an example:

Jack was running and he was fast. Bill was running just behind jack and could not catch Jack who was fastest.

Jack ran fast. Bill tried to catch up, but Jack won the race.

Not only is it more succinct, but it gives a tighter cadence and draws the reader in. Sometimes “was” is unavoidable or something you use to change that cadence (I think about writing a lot in terms of musical movements and styles… sometimes a person needs to relax. I typically write high action page turners that don’t let up on the tension—but sometimes you need an interlude. Heavy Metal isn’t usually a good music choice for a wedding.) There’s some psychology behind it: it takes more mental energy to process all of the “was” and “is” passivity because it doesn’t engage the reader as the direct object within the story (active voices make you feel sucked into the book). That means readers lose interest and become disengaged; eventually it takes too much effort to continue and people put the book down. Fantasy and genre fiction are easy places to wax passive because we try to pump in as much world-building as possible. We all think back to LotR which is very passive at times, but Tolkien wrote when rules for writing were different (and remember that he wasn’t fondly remembered by the masses until he was dead—I’d rather be a living legend than a dead one). Jackson’s Fellowship movie illustrates it perfectly: the film opens and Galadriel gives us a brief summary of the world and what we need to know to understand the geography, cultures, and powers of the realm. We can’t get away with that in writing. We can’t really get away with it in movies, either, but we forgive him because it is his version of Tolkien and that story is our metric for legendary.

Present tense is always best in my opinion. You are carrying a reader along on a journey—don’t just tell them you took them on a trip… take them along with you. You have an example sentence of:

her voice is kind but there is no expression on her face

or

her voice was kind but there was no expression on her face

The choice comes down to the point of view for your story. If it’s first person (which I abhor almost universally,) then you want the first because it’s something you see from the characters eyes/viewpoint. The other version is third person, like you are standing right outside the action as a ghostly third person. (1st person: You are Ebenezer Scrooge and the story is your recording of everything you did. 3rd person: you are like the ghostly Scrooge who can see and experience right alongside everyone else, even though they aren’t necessarily a character—they just feel like it…. And then there’s 2nd person. The story tells a 1st person POV-like reader what to do.  It’s very rare in fiction except for Choose Your Own Adventure stories.)

I would rewrite the sentence in question (it has 2 verbs and both are “was”) like this:

Her voice sounded kind, even if her face remained expressionless.

(It’s still technically passive if you look up the definition, but it’s better, though it feels like it should be an observation made between active comments.) If it needed to have action (which isn’t the norm for a descriptive statement) I would write:

Kindness flooded her voice but she forced her expression into something unreadable, like stone.

It really depends on how big of a deal the statement should be.

Also, here’s three quick pieces of advice. 1. Don’t worry about getting it perfect before moving on—don’t let word choice and verbiage slow you down. Try to get it, but tell the story first—you can always fix word choice and tense issues in the next draft. 2. You can break rules. Screw it. It’s your story. In the end, it’s all about you anyways (but I highly recommend listening to editors and experts who know what readers want/need… the trick is to find a comfortable balance where readers like it enough to read/buy and YOU are also satisfied. 3. It took me years to get comfortable with this, but if someone rewrites a sentence for you, don’t feel guilty. Unless specifically stated, you can use the new line exactly as given –we’re just cleaning up what you had (think of it like someone cleaning the Mona Lisa… the cleaners didn’t paint it, they just made the artist’s intention clearer to an eventual audience.)

Hope those things help!

If this kind of thing interests you, check out my DIY guide on writing:

The Indie Author’s Bible is full of this kind of advice and provides a hundred different articles on writing and publishing. If you’ve got questions, this is a great place to start!

Review: Cursed–the Hunter Inside

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Cursed: the Hunter Inside (Part 1), is the next book that you’ve got to get! As the father of teenage author I took special interest when sixteen year old Casey Millette queried my blog for a review. I thought I might have to reach in order to find nice things to say, but dang, this girl can write.

It opens with a phenomenal hook and the action keeps driving forward from there. In checking out her publisher, I also see that Parliament House  (an IBPA member) is no slouch, either. They demand top- notch stories, and this is one of them. Millette writes with a tightness and descriptive ability typically only found in writers with several books under their belt; she does a great job of resisting waxing passive and falling into “tell” vs “show.” This is a story you won’t regret picking up and from a voice that is guaranteed to be a fresh one in the industry.

The Hunter Inside promises to be the first book in the Cursed series. Millette seems to have all the natural skill and talent of a young Robert Jordan (and Aldor’s struggles strike me something akin to Rand al’Thor or the Wheel of Time in many ways, though Millette claims to have struck out to write a YA themed Lord of the Rings style epic.) The final pages of the book promise that book two is forthcoming. Of course, I received book one as an ARC for review purposes, so it may be a while. Book 1 releases on paperback on March 27.

I got a review copy for free in order to review it at my blog, Inside the Inkwell. You can get it after it releases over at Amazon by clicking this link.

State of Writing

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Last week I edited a revised draft of my new crime-comedy/awkward romance, 50 Shades of Worf… note the title change. I also watched most of Alan Tudyk’s ConMan (which is hilarious) … they are very similar. Once I do another future edit, and after I have completed through season two, I may be reminded of some other tropes and can insert a few other throw away jokes. I really am heavy on the humor side.

Aside from the #amediting I did a little promo for my 2 books in the Indie Contest (please vote) and set some calendar items (I am confirmed at the MCBA comiccon in May,) and got a few things ready for the MN Writers Workshop I’m attending on Saturday.

My 14 year old daughter is coming with me as a paid and registered conference member. She just finished her novel over the weekend, so I’m excited for her to see some of the other real world aspects of the publishing world and get her acquainted early.

Within the next couple of weeks I hope to begin the Hidden Rings Cycle. I have begun migrating my rough outlines into a more Scrivener friendly format so that it’s ready to begin writing and then keep writing. I should have that done this week. My outlook is very positive–50 Shades of Worf was written in just over 30 days and its slightly longer/about the same as what I have planned for each of these 5 stories… the goal is to complete writing on them in a maximum of 12 months. I proved to myself that I am capable of that… new achievement reached! New goal unlocked: write 6 novels in one year. 1 down, 5 to go

What do you want to know? Taking Your Requests…

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I want to hear from you! I often answer questions from people as they ask them in person, at panels, and online. #writingadvice #writerscommunity  #amwriting

What are your biggest questions about publishing, writing, etc? I’ll do my best to ferret out the answers for you! Maybe I’ve already blogged about it and this will give me a chance to revisit an older topics again.

I do have blog posts written and scheduled up until the end of March already, but I’d love to write some new articles on top of those I’ve already got and see what issues other Indies are dealing with.

Leave your comments in the blog responses (this will be pushed to social media as well, but those responses are harder to track, so reply to this post over at https://authorchristopherdschmitz.wordpress.com so I can find them more easily!)

I’m here to help! Let me help you navigate the Indie world! Leave those comments below and Follow me for more!

#indiethursday #amediting #indieauthor  #indiepub #selfpub #selfpublishing

Top Picks For Writing Software (that doesn’t suck)

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What a time to be alive! It’s never been easier to produce good writing thanks to automated tools that help clean up the produced content and let your stories shine. I’m going to talk about a few great ones that I’ve begun using this year.

Scrivener. Much print has been left about the pros and cons of this software. I’ve begun using it last year. Even though I’m not using it to its full potential, the way that it can move scenes and drag/drop notecards make it the go-to tool for people who write with tight outlines. It’s a pretty intimidating piece of software to begin using and not very similar to the boilerplate word-processing we’re used to. I watched a number of YouTube videos prior to using it and then waded in slowly by writing some short fiction with it while referencing some of my favorite videos to make sure I didn’t get lost. I’m glad I did. I still use regular word processers for many things, but for story writing, research, and outlining it is my new preference. Price of admission is also very low. It’s just $40-45 depending on the version (Mac/PC)—that’s cheaper than buying a fresh copy of MS Word. You can get it at this link/amazon.com Or get it directly from the developer (who offers a discount if you completed nanowrimo, https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
Grammarly. If you don’t know about Grammarly, you’ve probably been living under a rock and don’t have a television or internet. It’s a contextual grammar and spellchecking tool that helps catch errors—it’s more like an editor than like a spellchecker. While it’s not perfect, it certainly tightens up the writing in a way superior to the red and green squiggles of Word. The great thing is that it’s free for basic functionality, or thirty bucks a month for advanced features. To preserve formatting you have to upload to the website, so an internet connection is required to use the free version. It’s super easy to use and the learning curve is practically nonexistent.

https://grammarly.com/
Hemingway. This is another free editing app (as long as you are using it online) with contextual proofreading. However, it’s not exactly a spell checker. There are so many things to love about it, and using it as a spelling and grammar checker would be a waste. Hemingway gives you a whole spate of information in addition to the standard word-count, character count, number of sentences, etc. It gives you the grade-level for readability and the estimated time it will take to read… although I’d love to see that feature expanded to include an estimate for reading aloud. My favorite feature is the highlighting it does. Hemingway uses five highlighters to mark up your document and label all of your adverbs, uses of passive voice, phrases with simpler alternatives, and sentences which are hard to read and very hard to read. For those writers suffering from over-use of passive voice and adverb dumps it gives you a usage limit to shoot for as a goal so that you don’t bog down the reader. You have to be online to use it unless you purchase the app version, which I did. It’s just $20 and worth every penny to me to have a tool that identifies the sentences that will feel clunky to my reading audience. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

My writing process now goes something like this: write and spellcheck in Scrivener with at least 2 drafts, double check and edit in Grammarly, revise in Hemingway, then again in Grammarly (because we’ve all thought our revisions were perfect before and left huge errors without another quick check.) Then it’s on to betas, of course.

These are my three top picks for writing software; I know there are a bunch of others out there, too… most of which do similar things. Just be careful not to overdo it and lose your unique voice (I’m thinking of the episode of Friends where Joey wanted to sound smart so he wrote a letter and then used Word’s synonym feature to change every word with unintentional results.)

Do you have any other great writing tools that you would recommend? Share in the comments below! I’d love to hear what’s working for you in your writing process.

Review: Neogenesis

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I got an ARC of Neogenesis from a contact over at Baen Books who was looking for reviews. It is written by the husband and wife duo Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

The book falls somewhere on the Space Opera spectrum with some leanings into hard SF. I enjoyed the book, although it took me a little bit to get into it. Partly that is because the SF universe that they write in is so expansive that some of what they were writing about may have taken me a little extra time to wade in and understand. The first moment that I really connected was late in the first chapter when Ren Zel resisted the temptations of the addiction he knew he’d eventually succumb to—and that’s what space opera is all about: internal character struggle.

The universe is big (even if this particular book deals mostly with the backwater planet of Surebleak. Of course, planets like Tatooine are the perfect sorts of places to do acts and take refuge away from prying eyes.

It does have a certain flair that harkens back to the golden age of SF/Space Opera and has overtures of writing that feels very much like James H Schmitz (Telzey and Trigger stories,) whose name was virtually synonymous with Space Opera in the 50s and 60s. Of course, the stories aren’t trapped in an archaic sense of what future tech would look like, but the same feeling is present.

I’m not too keen on the cover art, but then again, do you remember the godawful covers on anything SF from the 70s through the early 90s. It’s a nonissue for the most part since the series has a very solid following, so don’t let that stop you.

If you’re looking for well-established new space series to delve into, the Liaden Universe might be a great spot. You can learn more about it by checking out the authors online. You can check out the book by clicking here.