Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 232
March 6, 2012
Back to the Grindstone (yay!)
Yesterday morning I took a nice walk over to the library and loaded up on reference books for that mystery idea, and then in the evening I got news about a potential project that I need to do a proposal for. Since that's closer to guaranteed income, I guess I now have something to do during the TV hiatus, and it should be a lot of fun, especially if it comes through and I get to do the work. I can keep researching the mystery in the background while I do that work. That's going to involve a fair amount of research and development to do it right.
So, that was a pretty good day -- a nice walk, some new books and the potential for work and money. Plus, I made great strides yesterday toward cleaning out one of my e-mail in boxes. A few years ago (yikes, that long?) my ISP changed their e-mail security settings, so my ancient version of Entourage would no longer work with it and I had to start using webmail. It took me a couple of years to replace my computer and get the new version of Office, and then it took me still longer to try to set up Outlook, only to find it's somehow still not working right. All this time, I've been treating my e-mail situation as "temporary," which means everything just sits in my in-box, since at any time now I plan to download all my messages into a real e-mail program and then sort and deal with them.
Now I've started to realize that there are some benefits to the webmail setup, as I can access my e-mail from anywhere or with my phone. I don't really do that much e-mail stuff offline anymore. And then there's the fact that once I did get Outlook set up for another account I have for my position in an organization, I realized that I really hate the current Outlook (though I loved the old Entourage). So I finally decided to start treating the webmail as a permanent situation, so I set up folders and started moving and deleting old messages. When I get my main personal/business account done, then maybe I'll tackle the public/fan mail account, which is also out of control. I seem to get overwhelmed by the volume of mail and end up just not dealing with it at all. So, if you suddenly get a reply from me to a message you sent years ago, this would be why.
I may still someday see if I can make Outlook work and get used to it, but that may have to wait for my next lull between projects. There are a lot more pressing things in my life right now. Like my still-messy house.
Now I'm kind of tempted to walk to the movie theater this afternoon before buckling down to work. The walk to and from the theater is usually good for thinking. I tend to get great ideas that pop out of my subconscious on the walk home after the movie.
So, that was a pretty good day -- a nice walk, some new books and the potential for work and money. Plus, I made great strides yesterday toward cleaning out one of my e-mail in boxes. A few years ago (yikes, that long?) my ISP changed their e-mail security settings, so my ancient version of Entourage would no longer work with it and I had to start using webmail. It took me a couple of years to replace my computer and get the new version of Office, and then it took me still longer to try to set up Outlook, only to find it's somehow still not working right. All this time, I've been treating my e-mail situation as "temporary," which means everything just sits in my in-box, since at any time now I plan to download all my messages into a real e-mail program and then sort and deal with them.
Now I've started to realize that there are some benefits to the webmail setup, as I can access my e-mail from anywhere or with my phone. I don't really do that much e-mail stuff offline anymore. And then there's the fact that once I did get Outlook set up for another account I have for my position in an organization, I realized that I really hate the current Outlook (though I loved the old Entourage). So I finally decided to start treating the webmail as a permanent situation, so I set up folders and started moving and deleting old messages. When I get my main personal/business account done, then maybe I'll tackle the public/fan mail account, which is also out of control. I seem to get overwhelmed by the volume of mail and end up just not dealing with it at all. So, if you suddenly get a reply from me to a message you sent years ago, this would be why.
I may still someday see if I can make Outlook work and get used to it, but that may have to wait for my next lull between projects. There are a lot more pressing things in my life right now. Like my still-messy house.
Now I'm kind of tempted to walk to the movie theater this afternoon before buckling down to work. The walk to and from the theater is usually good for thinking. I tend to get great ideas that pop out of my subconscious on the walk home after the movie.
March 5, 2012
The Opposite of Spring Fever
My body seems to be switching out of hibernation mode, as I'm waking up earlier on my own, though being forced to get up way earlier yesterday may have helped. Then there's Daylight Savings Time starting next weekend -- when I have to do the early service yet again. I once went to a church that didn't observe the time change until after the service, which was a great idea. Strangely, though, the spring time change is usually the easier one for me.
In my quest to find something to work on during the spring TV hiatus while I don't have a book in the writing stage, I thought I'd look back at an unsold book to see if I can spiff it up and maybe self-publish on Amazon (because the work is mostly done and it would earn me more that way than it does on my hard drive). But now, although I love a lot about this book, there's a lot that bugs me, and I'm not sure I can put my finger on it. I think I went through too many rounds of revisions with my agent, and that edited the life out of it while also veering it away from my vision. My vision may not have been marketable, but what I'm left with isn't where I was originally going with it, I don't think (while, apparently, still not being marketable). So now I don't know if it's worth the work I'd have to do to make it something I'd be willing to put out there. Then again, I need something to work on right now, and it's farther along than anything else I've got. I may keep re-reading and see if I can figure it out.
Or I may try tackling short stories. That seems to be the way you get credibility in the science fiction/fantasy world. It's like you're a "real" writer if you publish a lot of short stories before you sell a novel. They've got the Nebula finalists available electronically for SFWA members, so reading those may give me ideas or inspiration. Then again, with my usual patterns, I'll start a short story and it will turn into a novel. I can't seem to help myself.
Meanwhile, I may start digging deeper into this mystery idea. I can't believe I'm actually getting itchy to want to work instead of wanting the opportunity to take time off while I can. I should be getting spring fever, but I just want to hole up and write. While I'm in this mood, I need to find something I can just write to take advantage of it.
In my quest to find something to work on during the spring TV hiatus while I don't have a book in the writing stage, I thought I'd look back at an unsold book to see if I can spiff it up and maybe self-publish on Amazon (because the work is mostly done and it would earn me more that way than it does on my hard drive). But now, although I love a lot about this book, there's a lot that bugs me, and I'm not sure I can put my finger on it. I think I went through too many rounds of revisions with my agent, and that edited the life out of it while also veering it away from my vision. My vision may not have been marketable, but what I'm left with isn't where I was originally going with it, I don't think (while, apparently, still not being marketable). So now I don't know if it's worth the work I'd have to do to make it something I'd be willing to put out there. Then again, I need something to work on right now, and it's farther along than anything else I've got. I may keep re-reading and see if I can figure it out.
Or I may try tackling short stories. That seems to be the way you get credibility in the science fiction/fantasy world. It's like you're a "real" writer if you publish a lot of short stories before you sell a novel. They've got the Nebula finalists available electronically for SFWA members, so reading those may give me ideas or inspiration. Then again, with my usual patterns, I'll start a short story and it will turn into a novel. I can't seem to help myself.
Meanwhile, I may start digging deeper into this mystery idea. I can't believe I'm actually getting itchy to want to work instead of wanting the opportunity to take time off while I can. I should be getting spring fever, but I just want to hole up and write. While I'm in this mood, I need to find something I can just write to take advantage of it.
March 2, 2012
How to Watch Star Wars
First, if you checked my blog soon after I posted yesterday and thought it looked familiar, it seems that in my cold-fogged haze I had a wee bit of a copy/paste error and re-posted the previous day's blog. I guess you actually have to hit "copy" after highlighting something. I'm lucky that the last thing I'd copied was the previous day's blog post. That had the potential to be all kinds of embarrassing or awkward. Anyway, the right post is up, so you might want to re-check.
I did find that ballet worked really well for clearing my stuffy head. I almost couldn't talk myself into going, but exertion in a really hot, humid room turned out to be great. I may have to shut the bathroom door, run the shower and jog in place. I still have the last remnants of sniffles and sinus pressure, but I think the end of the nightmare is near. Even with my head all stuffy and aching, I felt like I was really dancing for a while. Normally I'm just getting through the moves, but I was able to turn my brain off and let my body go with what it knows how to do.
And now to indulge in a bit of geekery (that I should probably also post to my very neglected Stealth Geek blog).
This blog post has been making the rounds among my friends, and it resolves one of the burning issues of our time: the proper viewing order of the Star Wars series. Should you view them in release order, starting with the original Star Wars and the first trilogy and then moving on to the prequels, or should you view them in chronological order, starting with Episode 1? (That's putting aside the whole "the prequels don't exist, la, la, la, can't hear you" mindset.)
You can read that very long blog post if you want the whole story, but here's my perspective. I'm a child of the 70s, and I saw the original Star Wars in the theater during its original theatrical run (yes, I'm old). We were actually kind of late to the party, as this movie had been the smash hit of the summer of 1977, while we didn't see it until Labor Day. I think that was mostly because of practical reasons. There was one theater in the entire city showing it, and you had to wait in line for hours to get in. That's not something you want to do with two children, one of them a preschooler. Even on Labor Day, we waited in a very long line and got less than ideal seats in a totally packed theater. I didn't actually want to see it. The other movie playing at that "twin" cinema was The Slipper and the Rose, a live-action Cinderella musical, and that's what I wanted to see, but my dad insisted on Star Wars (bless him -- I did eventually see the Cinderella movie on TV, and he so made the right call). And I was totally blown away. That movie changed my life and had a lot to do with me wanting to be a writer. I'm still not entirely sure how that worked, how my lifelong love of books didn't trigger that, but a movie did, but I think it had something to do with so totally capturing my imagination and making me want to tell stories.
Flash forward a few years. I was late, again, to The Empire Strikes Back because I was living in Germany at the time and the base theater didn't get it until November. I was thoroughly spoiled, since one of my mom's women's magazines had published a condensed version of the novelization during the summer. I didn't believe the big reveal until I read it in the actual novelization, which I obtained through a school friend who had an extra copy from her grandparents in the States. Even so, that big moment when Darth Vader tells Luke that he's his father was a big shocker, and I remember the gasp in the theater.
That's the big problem with watching in episode order. If you've seen the prequels and have watched Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vader, you know all along who Vader is and it's no big shock, assuming you're showing these films to someone who's been living under a rock and has never heard of any of the major plot developments. But even if you've heard about it, it's still different from seeing it in context. However, if you watch the movies in release order, you end with the big downer of the Republic falling and Anakin becoming Darth Vader. The author of the original blog post also mentions the problem of not knowing who the ghost dude at the end of Return of the Jedi is, but I guess that's a Blu-Ray problem as I haven't watched the version where they replaced older ghost Anakin with young ghost Anakin (the original DVDs have both original and special edition versions).
The solution he proposes is rather clever -- watch Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, then treat the prequels as a backstory flashback to tell Anakin's story after the big revelation, and then return to Return of the Jedi to finish it off and conclude both Anakin's story and Luke's story as well as the restoration of the Republic. Everything comes full circle. There are a few continuity errors that become more obvious this way, like Leia remembering her mother in Return of the Jedi when you'd have just seen that their mother died in childbirth, so neither of them knew their mother. But still, the idea of using the prequels as an extended flashback works better than most viewing orders.
Then the original blogger goes on to propose that you don't even need Episode 1 here, and that makes a lot of sense. Everything you need to know from that episode is explained in Episode 2, and skipping that one means no whiny boy Anakin, less reminder of the kind of creepy way that Anakin and Padme meet when he's a child and she's a teenager (not to mention that whole thing of a planet being ruled by a teenage girl who is elected to that office -- who the heck came up with that political system?), next to no Jar-Jar and no talk of the pseudoscience "immaculate conception" of Anakin (another "seriously?" item). The few good parts of Episode 1 are mostly just action scenes that don't lend much to the plot. Just watch the lightsaber duel at the end for kicks (and the music for that is truly awesome).
I may have to try this during the March TV hiatus/rerun season, and it's convenient as Episode 1 is the only one I don't have on DVD. Of course, it's hard to purge the knowledge of all the films from the brain to really see how it works, and I don't think I know anyone who hasn't seen these movies. It's sort of mandatory for geeks, and all my friends are geeks. Still, it might be an interesting experiment from a story structure perspective.
I did find that ballet worked really well for clearing my stuffy head. I almost couldn't talk myself into going, but exertion in a really hot, humid room turned out to be great. I may have to shut the bathroom door, run the shower and jog in place. I still have the last remnants of sniffles and sinus pressure, but I think the end of the nightmare is near. Even with my head all stuffy and aching, I felt like I was really dancing for a while. Normally I'm just getting through the moves, but I was able to turn my brain off and let my body go with what it knows how to do.
And now to indulge in a bit of geekery (that I should probably also post to my very neglected Stealth Geek blog).
This blog post has been making the rounds among my friends, and it resolves one of the burning issues of our time: the proper viewing order of the Star Wars series. Should you view them in release order, starting with the original Star Wars and the first trilogy and then moving on to the prequels, or should you view them in chronological order, starting with Episode 1? (That's putting aside the whole "the prequels don't exist, la, la, la, can't hear you" mindset.)
You can read that very long blog post if you want the whole story, but here's my perspective. I'm a child of the 70s, and I saw the original Star Wars in the theater during its original theatrical run (yes, I'm old). We were actually kind of late to the party, as this movie had been the smash hit of the summer of 1977, while we didn't see it until Labor Day. I think that was mostly because of practical reasons. There was one theater in the entire city showing it, and you had to wait in line for hours to get in. That's not something you want to do with two children, one of them a preschooler. Even on Labor Day, we waited in a very long line and got less than ideal seats in a totally packed theater. I didn't actually want to see it. The other movie playing at that "twin" cinema was The Slipper and the Rose, a live-action Cinderella musical, and that's what I wanted to see, but my dad insisted on Star Wars (bless him -- I did eventually see the Cinderella movie on TV, and he so made the right call). And I was totally blown away. That movie changed my life and had a lot to do with me wanting to be a writer. I'm still not entirely sure how that worked, how my lifelong love of books didn't trigger that, but a movie did, but I think it had something to do with so totally capturing my imagination and making me want to tell stories.
Flash forward a few years. I was late, again, to The Empire Strikes Back because I was living in Germany at the time and the base theater didn't get it until November. I was thoroughly spoiled, since one of my mom's women's magazines had published a condensed version of the novelization during the summer. I didn't believe the big reveal until I read it in the actual novelization, which I obtained through a school friend who had an extra copy from her grandparents in the States. Even so, that big moment when Darth Vader tells Luke that he's his father was a big shocker, and I remember the gasp in the theater.
That's the big problem with watching in episode order. If you've seen the prequels and have watched Anakin Skywalker turn into Darth Vader, you know all along who Vader is and it's no big shock, assuming you're showing these films to someone who's been living under a rock and has never heard of any of the major plot developments. But even if you've heard about it, it's still different from seeing it in context. However, if you watch the movies in release order, you end with the big downer of the Republic falling and Anakin becoming Darth Vader. The author of the original blog post also mentions the problem of not knowing who the ghost dude at the end of Return of the Jedi is, but I guess that's a Blu-Ray problem as I haven't watched the version where they replaced older ghost Anakin with young ghost Anakin (the original DVDs have both original and special edition versions).
The solution he proposes is rather clever -- watch Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, then treat the prequels as a backstory flashback to tell Anakin's story after the big revelation, and then return to Return of the Jedi to finish it off and conclude both Anakin's story and Luke's story as well as the restoration of the Republic. Everything comes full circle. There are a few continuity errors that become more obvious this way, like Leia remembering her mother in Return of the Jedi when you'd have just seen that their mother died in childbirth, so neither of them knew their mother. But still, the idea of using the prequels as an extended flashback works better than most viewing orders.
Then the original blogger goes on to propose that you don't even need Episode 1 here, and that makes a lot of sense. Everything you need to know from that episode is explained in Episode 2, and skipping that one means no whiny boy Anakin, less reminder of the kind of creepy way that Anakin and Padme meet when he's a child and she's a teenager (not to mention that whole thing of a planet being ruled by a teenage girl who is elected to that office -- who the heck came up with that political system?), next to no Jar-Jar and no talk of the pseudoscience "immaculate conception" of Anakin (another "seriously?" item). The few good parts of Episode 1 are mostly just action scenes that don't lend much to the plot. Just watch the lightsaber duel at the end for kicks (and the music for that is truly awesome).
I may have to try this during the March TV hiatus/rerun season, and it's convenient as Episode 1 is the only one I don't have on DVD. Of course, it's hard to purge the knowledge of all the films from the brain to really see how it works, and I don't think I know anyone who hasn't seen these movies. It's sort of mandatory for geeks, and all my friends are geeks. Still, it might be an interesting experiment from a story structure perspective.
March 1, 2012
Planning Poorly
Oops, copy/paste error. This is today's real post.
I'm getting really tired of this cold/allergies/whatever. It's better, but now at the annoying stage where I want to do more but don't quite feel like it. I don't want to miss ballet tonight, but we'll see how it goes. I did impress the preschoolers last night by turning a very nice pirouette. They were playing ballerina and spinning, so I joined in. Knowing ballet seems to give me some credibility with the little girls. I bailed early on choir, though, because singing made my sinuses hurt.
I've just realized that I've planned things very badly. We're coming up on rerun/hiatus season for most of the things I watch on TV, and I'm at a work phase where I don't need that time. I've got almost completed books and I've got a book in the planning/research phase, and I often find that the planning goes better against a TV backdrop. This is a time when I could spend the day doing fun stuff and write at night. Maybe I'll dream up something to just write at night while I spend the day doing research and planning.
I do have a lot of reading to get done. I like to try to read the Nebula finalists so I can vote. This year, for the main novel Nebula, I've read and liked one of the books. Two were by authors whose earlier books I didn't finish. One of those did have strokes of brilliance, but I just didn't like it. I read it in a book club, and nobody finished it (though we seem to be in the minority, as the author is wildly successful). One I thought was okay, but I was reading it for awards voting and I could tell I wasn't going to vote for it, so I stopped and moved on to something else. It was a mildly entertaining book, but I'm surprised that books in this series seem to be perennial award contenders. They're not bad, just not particularly special. I've read the previous book by the author of one of the other finalists, and while I thought that book was an award contender kind of book, it wasn't my cup of tea. The descriptions of some of the others had me going "eww." I know it's best to judge on the book's merits rather than on personal taste, but let's face it, this is generally a popularity contest, anyway, and if you find a book unpleasant, it's hard to objectively judge its qualities. For the young adult award that isn't technically a Nebula, I hadn't read any. A lot of the finalists were the dystopian type story that's so hot now and that I can't bear to read, but several sounded really good and I'm going to try to get through them.
Meanwhile, while I'm still doing market research reading on mysteries, I'm also going back and reading some of the classics of the canon. Right now, I'm on the second Peter Wimsey book by Dorothy L. Sayers, and it's interesting how quickly I'm plowing through it, even given the different pacing expectations from that era, compared to the current book that took me forever to read. Granted, I have more reading time at the moment, but I've found that when a book grabs me, I tend to create reading time. (And, hmm, I must be out of the mainstream again because the Amazon reviews for the book that bored me to tears are overwhelmingly positive and even mention that you'd better be prepared to read it in one sitting. I really am an oddball.)
So far, Mom gives the current book a huge thumbs up and is already demanding the sequel. Let's hope publishers agree with her.
I'm getting really tired of this cold/allergies/whatever. It's better, but now at the annoying stage where I want to do more but don't quite feel like it. I don't want to miss ballet tonight, but we'll see how it goes. I did impress the preschoolers last night by turning a very nice pirouette. They were playing ballerina and spinning, so I joined in. Knowing ballet seems to give me some credibility with the little girls. I bailed early on choir, though, because singing made my sinuses hurt.
I've just realized that I've planned things very badly. We're coming up on rerun/hiatus season for most of the things I watch on TV, and I'm at a work phase where I don't need that time. I've got almost completed books and I've got a book in the planning/research phase, and I often find that the planning goes better against a TV backdrop. This is a time when I could spend the day doing fun stuff and write at night. Maybe I'll dream up something to just write at night while I spend the day doing research and planning.
I do have a lot of reading to get done. I like to try to read the Nebula finalists so I can vote. This year, for the main novel Nebula, I've read and liked one of the books. Two were by authors whose earlier books I didn't finish. One of those did have strokes of brilliance, but I just didn't like it. I read it in a book club, and nobody finished it (though we seem to be in the minority, as the author is wildly successful). One I thought was okay, but I was reading it for awards voting and I could tell I wasn't going to vote for it, so I stopped and moved on to something else. It was a mildly entertaining book, but I'm surprised that books in this series seem to be perennial award contenders. They're not bad, just not particularly special. I've read the previous book by the author of one of the other finalists, and while I thought that book was an award contender kind of book, it wasn't my cup of tea. The descriptions of some of the others had me going "eww." I know it's best to judge on the book's merits rather than on personal taste, but let's face it, this is generally a popularity contest, anyway, and if you find a book unpleasant, it's hard to objectively judge its qualities. For the young adult award that isn't technically a Nebula, I hadn't read any. A lot of the finalists were the dystopian type story that's so hot now and that I can't bear to read, but several sounded really good and I'm going to try to get through them.
Meanwhile, while I'm still doing market research reading on mysteries, I'm also going back and reading some of the classics of the canon. Right now, I'm on the second Peter Wimsey book by Dorothy L. Sayers, and it's interesting how quickly I'm plowing through it, even given the different pacing expectations from that era, compared to the current book that took me forever to read. Granted, I have more reading time at the moment, but I've found that when a book grabs me, I tend to create reading time. (And, hmm, I must be out of the mainstream again because the Amazon reviews for the book that bored me to tears are overwhelmingly positive and even mention that you'd better be prepared to read it in one sitting. I really am an oddball.)
So far, Mom gives the current book a huge thumbs up and is already demanding the sequel. Let's hope publishers agree with her.
February 29, 2012
Leap Day
I have now reached the most miserable phase of the cold, the stuffy phase. Yes, the sniffly/drippy/sneezy phase is annoying, but the phase when my head feels like someone poured cement into it and it has now hardened -- expanding in the process -- has to be the worst because I can't breathe and it's so uncomfortable I can't concentrate.
Fortunately, I finished the latest draft of the book last night, and now it's in the resting/sanity check phase, so I don't have anything urgent I have to do right now. I was going to declare this a "get my life together" day, but I don't really feel up to organizing, cleaning or doing my taxes. I did take advantage of the stuffiness and have sprayed mildew remover on the shower tile. In the state I'm in, I can't smell the nasty chemical odor that leaves. So, that's one cleaning task I've accomplished. This may be a day for drinking tea and reading mystery novels, which also counts as work. I might even be able to stretch and call a Grimm marathon "research" on paranormal mysteries.
I was kind of bummed to find that none of the HBO channels are showing Leap Year today (unless it's on tonight, but I didn't check the night schedule because I have choir). It would have been fitting. They dragged out Valentine's Day for Valentine's Day.
I follow the blogs of a few of my writer friends, and I've noticed that they all seem to go on exciting writing retreats, and now I wonder what I'm missing out on. What would one do at a writing retreat? To me, a retreat doesn't involve other people. I'd never get any writing done in an interesting new place around people I like. I can barely handle any sound. Yesterday, it was really windy and the shrubs in front of my living room windows were blowing against the window, making a weird scratchy sound. Groundskeeping is handled by the homeowners' association, and we're not really supposed to touch the outside plants, but I couldn't take it anymore and went out with a pair of gardening shears to snip off the offending branches. If I can't write with the sound of leaves rubbing against the window, I can't imagine being in a castle/villa/beach house with other people. Plus, although I need my solitude, when I'm around people I like, I want to talk to them. I'd probably drive everyone else crazy popping by their rooms and going, "Whatchya doin'?" What might be useful would be a brainstorming or critique retreat, where we hang out and talk through our current ideas or read each others' latest drafts and then give feedback. Not that I could afford to jet off to a castle or beach house right now, even if I were invited (I guess it's like being a bridesmaid -- I'm friends, but apparently not close enough to make the cut). Or maybe I need to form my own clique.
Speaking of writing, does anyone have any writing-related questions for me to address? I'm running out of ideas for my every-other-Wednesday writing posts.
Fortunately, I finished the latest draft of the book last night, and now it's in the resting/sanity check phase, so I don't have anything urgent I have to do right now. I was going to declare this a "get my life together" day, but I don't really feel up to organizing, cleaning or doing my taxes. I did take advantage of the stuffiness and have sprayed mildew remover on the shower tile. In the state I'm in, I can't smell the nasty chemical odor that leaves. So, that's one cleaning task I've accomplished. This may be a day for drinking tea and reading mystery novels, which also counts as work. I might even be able to stretch and call a Grimm marathon "research" on paranormal mysteries.
I was kind of bummed to find that none of the HBO channels are showing Leap Year today (unless it's on tonight, but I didn't check the night schedule because I have choir). It would have been fitting. They dragged out Valentine's Day for Valentine's Day.
I follow the blogs of a few of my writer friends, and I've noticed that they all seem to go on exciting writing retreats, and now I wonder what I'm missing out on. What would one do at a writing retreat? To me, a retreat doesn't involve other people. I'd never get any writing done in an interesting new place around people I like. I can barely handle any sound. Yesterday, it was really windy and the shrubs in front of my living room windows were blowing against the window, making a weird scratchy sound. Groundskeeping is handled by the homeowners' association, and we're not really supposed to touch the outside plants, but I couldn't take it anymore and went out with a pair of gardening shears to snip off the offending branches. If I can't write with the sound of leaves rubbing against the window, I can't imagine being in a castle/villa/beach house with other people. Plus, although I need my solitude, when I'm around people I like, I want to talk to them. I'd probably drive everyone else crazy popping by their rooms and going, "Whatchya doin'?" What might be useful would be a brainstorming or critique retreat, where we hang out and talk through our current ideas or read each others' latest drafts and then give feedback. Not that I could afford to jet off to a castle or beach house right now, even if I were invited (I guess it's like being a bridesmaid -- I'm friends, but apparently not close enough to make the cut). Or maybe I need to form my own clique.
Speaking of writing, does anyone have any writing-related questions for me to address? I'm running out of ideas for my every-other-Wednesday writing posts.
February 28, 2012
How to Write a Mystery
So, I finally finished reading that mystery novel I'd been struggling with. You know it's a bad sign when it takes you more than a week to read an approximately 80,000 word mystery novel and when you can easily close the book after reading one seven-page chapter and turn out the light. That made me try to analyze why this book didn't work for me (I won't even ponder how it got published -- that way lies madness), and I think I've come up with some "rules" for making a mystery work. Of course, there will be exceptions because brilliant execution of something unexpected can turn a don't into a do, but I'm using this as a starting point as I explore the possibility of writing in this genre.
1) The heroine must have a very strong motivation to get involved in the investigation.
Normal people who are not cops don't generally involve themselves in solving murders. There has to be a good reason to do so, like the possibility that justice won't be served if the killer isn't found, and the killer isn't likely to be found through the conventional police investigation. This is most important in the first book in a series, before the heroine gets a taste and a reputation for solving crimes. Even more, I think there needs to be some kind of stakes for the heroine, where she stands to lose or suffer if the real killer isn't discovered -- she or someone very close to her might be wrongfully convicted or she might lose her job or something else important to her if the main (wrong) suspect goes to jail. I think this is a potential strength for the paranormal subgenre, because if the heroine has learned something from communicating with ghosts, reading vibes off an object, reading someone's thoughts or having a prophetic dream, then she may have more information to go on than the police do but she can't exactly tell the police what she knows or how she knows it and be taken seriously. One of the problems with this book I was reading was that the heroine never really committed to the case. She was kind of worried that someone she liked might be accused, but the cops never really acted like that person was a real suspect. It was more like, "Oh, it would be kind of nice to know who did it, and I guess if I get a chance, I'll find out."
2) There should be some sense of consequences for the heroine's involvement in the investigation.
While there should be the possibility that something bad could happen if the heroine doesn't solve the crime, I find it a lot more compelling when the heroine also gets into some hot water because she involves herself in the investigation -- sort of a damned of you don't, damned if you do situation. That could include earning the antagonism of the hunky cop, putting her reputation at stake, earning the enmity of family or community, or getting herself into physical jeopardy. I think this is usually the factor that keeps me turning pages on the way to solving the main crime.
3) The heroine should actively investigate the crime.
While she may accidentally stumble across information in the beginning as part of what leads her to decide to investigate, as the investigation continues, she should actively seek out clues, do searches, talk to people, do research, etc. There may be some serendipity, but it's boring if all the major clues come because of someone wandering across the heroine's path and telling her what she needs to know or because of her stumbling across things that she wasn't looking for.
4) The heroine should actually solve the crime.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a genre rule, but I find it irritating when the heroine discovers who the murderer is when the murderer confronts her. The heroine will be going along, thinking one person is the bad guy, until she ends up cornered by the real murderer. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the person who pulls a gun on you and starts talking about how you're ruining everything with your poking around is the killer. I far prefer it when the heroine does figure it out herself before the murderer reveals himself. It can be a split second before, so she has just enough time to realize she's in trouble, but I really want her to add two and two for herself.
5) In a paranormal mystery, I like it when the paranormal ability has something to do with the case.
I don't know if there are rules for this in the genre, but one problem with this book I just read was that the heroine's unusual gifts were just set dressing. You could remove them from the story without changing the murder plot. I don't want the gifts to make it too easy to solve the mystery, either. The paranormal element works best to get the heroine into the case and to maybe complicate matters along the way. She may get a clue through paranormal means, but then she has to do real detective work to get something she can actually use.
I've also noticed that it's pretty common in mystery series right now to have some sort of gimmick, usually involving some hobby, so that the book includes some little extras like how-tos, project instructions, tips or recipes. In the series I'm planning, I think my heroine is going to be a doctor. I can just see the little how-to tips I could include: "How to conduct an autopsy -- start with an exterior examination of the body, checking for wounds or distinguishing marks."
1) The heroine must have a very strong motivation to get involved in the investigation.
Normal people who are not cops don't generally involve themselves in solving murders. There has to be a good reason to do so, like the possibility that justice won't be served if the killer isn't found, and the killer isn't likely to be found through the conventional police investigation. This is most important in the first book in a series, before the heroine gets a taste and a reputation for solving crimes. Even more, I think there needs to be some kind of stakes for the heroine, where she stands to lose or suffer if the real killer isn't discovered -- she or someone very close to her might be wrongfully convicted or she might lose her job or something else important to her if the main (wrong) suspect goes to jail. I think this is a potential strength for the paranormal subgenre, because if the heroine has learned something from communicating with ghosts, reading vibes off an object, reading someone's thoughts or having a prophetic dream, then she may have more information to go on than the police do but she can't exactly tell the police what she knows or how she knows it and be taken seriously. One of the problems with this book I was reading was that the heroine never really committed to the case. She was kind of worried that someone she liked might be accused, but the cops never really acted like that person was a real suspect. It was more like, "Oh, it would be kind of nice to know who did it, and I guess if I get a chance, I'll find out."
2) There should be some sense of consequences for the heroine's involvement in the investigation.
While there should be the possibility that something bad could happen if the heroine doesn't solve the crime, I find it a lot more compelling when the heroine also gets into some hot water because she involves herself in the investigation -- sort of a damned of you don't, damned if you do situation. That could include earning the antagonism of the hunky cop, putting her reputation at stake, earning the enmity of family or community, or getting herself into physical jeopardy. I think this is usually the factor that keeps me turning pages on the way to solving the main crime.
3) The heroine should actively investigate the crime.
While she may accidentally stumble across information in the beginning as part of what leads her to decide to investigate, as the investigation continues, she should actively seek out clues, do searches, talk to people, do research, etc. There may be some serendipity, but it's boring if all the major clues come because of someone wandering across the heroine's path and telling her what she needs to know or because of her stumbling across things that she wasn't looking for.
4) The heroine should actually solve the crime.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a genre rule, but I find it irritating when the heroine discovers who the murderer is when the murderer confronts her. The heroine will be going along, thinking one person is the bad guy, until she ends up cornered by the real murderer. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the person who pulls a gun on you and starts talking about how you're ruining everything with your poking around is the killer. I far prefer it when the heroine does figure it out herself before the murderer reveals himself. It can be a split second before, so she has just enough time to realize she's in trouble, but I really want her to add two and two for herself.
5) In a paranormal mystery, I like it when the paranormal ability has something to do with the case.
I don't know if there are rules for this in the genre, but one problem with this book I just read was that the heroine's unusual gifts were just set dressing. You could remove them from the story without changing the murder plot. I don't want the gifts to make it too easy to solve the mystery, either. The paranormal element works best to get the heroine into the case and to maybe complicate matters along the way. She may get a clue through paranormal means, but then she has to do real detective work to get something she can actually use.
I've also noticed that it's pretty common in mystery series right now to have some sort of gimmick, usually involving some hobby, so that the book includes some little extras like how-tos, project instructions, tips or recipes. In the series I'm planning, I think my heroine is going to be a doctor. I can just see the little how-to tips I could include: "How to conduct an autopsy -- start with an exterior examination of the body, checking for wounds or distinguishing marks."
February 27, 2012
Dreaming Your Backstory
I don't know whether to blame the allergies or the preschoolers, but I seem to have come down with my regular Sunday-afternoon sniffles that may or may not escalate into something worse. We did have a windy weekend, which tends to stir up the pollen, but then it also seems like Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon fits a typical virus incubation period. At any rate, this will be a day when I dare not stray far from the tissue box. I'm resisting medication because I need to be able to stay awake and work. We'll see how long that lasts.
I was actually rather disappointed in that Witchslayer Gretl movie on SyFy Saturday night. It wasn't good by any means, but it wasn't awesomely bad. It was mostly rather boring and half-assed, though it did have a few unintentional laugh-out-loud moments. The main problem was a script that sounded like something sixth graders might come up with after a day of playing in the backyard, when they think the scenario they were playing would make a really good movie (not that I ever did this or that this might have been how my first few attempts at novels got started).
Basically, we had this guy known as Witchslayer, though we learn in the backstory flashbacks that happen whenever he closes his eyes that he's Hansel and that a witch stole his sister when they were lost in the woods as kids, and now he's out to kill all the witches. Except "witches" doesn't seem to mean what it does in our world. It has something to do with taking girls with innate power and binding them into a coven, where they become mindless drones wearing red satin slip dresses (mind you, this is a quasi-medieval fantasy world setting in which the good guys buy their clothing at the Renaissance festival). His sidekick is apparently a former witch who somehow lost her powers and her memory when her binding with the coven was broken. She still has some latent abilities, like a sense for danger, but she can't really do magic. However, they use some magic devices, like magical throat-mike walkie-talkies and the magic-vision goggles that allow them to see people who are using magic to cloak themselves. They rescue a girl who's about to be bound into the coven, and the sidekick has to convince Hansel not to kill her immediately, since she only has power but isn't technically a witch. I thought they were going somewhere with that whole distinction of what really constituted a witch, but they never did.
Their main opponent seems to be Samurai Elvis the Warlock (based on his hairstyle and wardrobe), but he works for the queen witch (played by Shannen Doherty, of course, and if you can't figure out who she really is in the story, you're not paying attention). You know she's a real badass witch queen because her familiar is a gargoyle. Toads and cats are for weenies. Oh, and Hansel is a really powerful witch slayer because, get this, he's immune to magic. I had been reading a book while halfway watching, but that did get my attention. I'm not sure how he was able to use all those magical devices if magic doesn't work on him, but worldbuilding wasn't this movie's strong suit. Then again, neither were characterization or dialogue. There were a lot of potentially interesting elements that could have been woven into a decent story, but they weren't, and I was left mostly laughing at Young Elvis in Samurai clothes, the slip dresses on the witches and the fact that every time anyone went to sleep or got knocked out, they had flashbacks that told us their backstory.
Then again, the dialogue wasn't nearly as painful as the small bits I saw of the Oscars when I was switching between OnDemand and DVD shows. Now I know where they find the SyFy movie screenwriters -- they write the script for the Oscars.
Anyway, I had to rewatch the Grimm take on Hansel and Gretl to get the icky out of my head. On the bright side, I finally finished that mystery novel I was reading. It seems two borings can add up to one mildly amusing.
I must be weird (or not a character in a SyFy movie) because I don't ever seem to dream about things that happened in my past. If I do, they're all garbled up with other things so that they seem to be about things that are happening now or that will happen even if they incorporate memories, or else they're wildly exaggerated, more about things I feared might happen or wished would happen than what actually happen. When I was in a bad car accident in eighth grade, I did have nightmares about being in car accidents, but they were never actually that same accident, so I wasn't reliving the accident I had. Someone eavesdropping on my dreams wouldn't pick up anything useful or reliable about my backstory. For instance, last night I dreamed I was at a convention and somehow ended up hanging out with JK Rowling, but I think I was mostly remembering what actually did happen when I ended up hanging out with Katherine Kurtz at a convention. Someone watching my dreams for memories would be confused -- did it happen, and who was really involved? Now I wonder if I've ever used that literary trope of characters reliving events in dreams.
I was actually rather disappointed in that Witchslayer Gretl movie on SyFy Saturday night. It wasn't good by any means, but it wasn't awesomely bad. It was mostly rather boring and half-assed, though it did have a few unintentional laugh-out-loud moments. The main problem was a script that sounded like something sixth graders might come up with after a day of playing in the backyard, when they think the scenario they were playing would make a really good movie (not that I ever did this or that this might have been how my first few attempts at novels got started).
Basically, we had this guy known as Witchslayer, though we learn in the backstory flashbacks that happen whenever he closes his eyes that he's Hansel and that a witch stole his sister when they were lost in the woods as kids, and now he's out to kill all the witches. Except "witches" doesn't seem to mean what it does in our world. It has something to do with taking girls with innate power and binding them into a coven, where they become mindless drones wearing red satin slip dresses (mind you, this is a quasi-medieval fantasy world setting in which the good guys buy their clothing at the Renaissance festival). His sidekick is apparently a former witch who somehow lost her powers and her memory when her binding with the coven was broken. She still has some latent abilities, like a sense for danger, but she can't really do magic. However, they use some magic devices, like magical throat-mike walkie-talkies and the magic-vision goggles that allow them to see people who are using magic to cloak themselves. They rescue a girl who's about to be bound into the coven, and the sidekick has to convince Hansel not to kill her immediately, since she only has power but isn't technically a witch. I thought they were going somewhere with that whole distinction of what really constituted a witch, but they never did.
Their main opponent seems to be Samurai Elvis the Warlock (based on his hairstyle and wardrobe), but he works for the queen witch (played by Shannen Doherty, of course, and if you can't figure out who she really is in the story, you're not paying attention). You know she's a real badass witch queen because her familiar is a gargoyle. Toads and cats are for weenies. Oh, and Hansel is a really powerful witch slayer because, get this, he's immune to magic. I had been reading a book while halfway watching, but that did get my attention. I'm not sure how he was able to use all those magical devices if magic doesn't work on him, but worldbuilding wasn't this movie's strong suit. Then again, neither were characterization or dialogue. There were a lot of potentially interesting elements that could have been woven into a decent story, but they weren't, and I was left mostly laughing at Young Elvis in Samurai clothes, the slip dresses on the witches and the fact that every time anyone went to sleep or got knocked out, they had flashbacks that told us their backstory.
Then again, the dialogue wasn't nearly as painful as the small bits I saw of the Oscars when I was switching between OnDemand and DVD shows. Now I know where they find the SyFy movie screenwriters -- they write the script for the Oscars.
Anyway, I had to rewatch the Grimm take on Hansel and Gretl to get the icky out of my head. On the bright side, I finally finished that mystery novel I was reading. It seems two borings can add up to one mildly amusing.
I must be weird (or not a character in a SyFy movie) because I don't ever seem to dream about things that happened in my past. If I do, they're all garbled up with other things so that they seem to be about things that are happening now or that will happen even if they incorporate memories, or else they're wildly exaggerated, more about things I feared might happen or wished would happen than what actually happen. When I was in a bad car accident in eighth grade, I did have nightmares about being in car accidents, but they were never actually that same accident, so I wasn't reliving the accident I had. Someone eavesdropping on my dreams wouldn't pick up anything useful or reliable about my backstory. For instance, last night I dreamed I was at a convention and somehow ended up hanging out with JK Rowling, but I think I was mostly remembering what actually did happen when I ended up hanging out with Katherine Kurtz at a convention. Someone watching my dreams for memories would be confused -- did it happen, and who was really involved? Now I wonder if I've ever used that literary trope of characters reliving events in dreams.
February 24, 2012
Moving on Up
I found out last night that my ballet teacher will also be teaching the adult intermediate/advanced class this summer, and possibly next fall. Now I have to decide if I want to promote myself. I've been staying in the beginning class, mostly because I like the teacher and the other students. It's as much a friendship/support group as it is a dance class, and we've all been through so much together. But also, the advanced class looks kind of scary. The people in it are mostly the ones who grew up in dance class -- some have even danced professionally -- and who are just keeping it going as adults. That's very different from people like me, where I've been doing it for nearly four years, but only had a little dance training as a child. I'm not really a beginner anymore, but I'm not sure I could keep up with those people. But with our teacher, it could still be fun, and more of our group will probably go with that class, since we've all been doing it a while. The beginning class is starting to fill up with real beginners, and I'm sure that's making it difficult to teach, with half the class knowing what they're doing, even if they're not particularly good at it, and half the class needing to learn the basics. Some people may use this as an opportunity to take both classes, and that would be great for staying in shape, but I don't really have the time or (right now) the money for two classes a week. I might try it for the summer session, but I don't think I could do it year-round, especially combined with choir stuff (I don't have children's choir or chorale in the summer).
What I need is the ability to make myself eighteen again. Then I could pursue all those things I discovered too late in life to be able to do anything with them. I'm not sure if I'd end up as a criminal profiler or an opera singer, though. Writing novels on the side, of course. It's really difficult to make a living as a novelist, and I mostly loathe doing all the things I'm capable of doing for a "day job."
I have edits from my agent on the early part of this book, before she decided it needed plot/character reworking, and it seems she has the same issue I do, where she starts off really editing, and then it trails off. I don't know if I was just that perfect or if she got caught up in the story and forgot to edit. I'm having to take frequent breaks so I stay focused and edit instead of just reading the book. This editing is even more interesting than the book I'm reading now, but I don't know if it's because my book is so great or the book I'm reading is kind of weak. It's a mystery, and I'm nearing the halfway point, but I still don't really care. I can read one (very short) chapter and then put it aside. If I weren't reading for market and genre research, I'd just skip to the end to see who the killer is. But I'm studying the paranormal element and how it's integrated.
Speaking of switching to mysteries, if I do this, I may be in good company. JK Rowling has sold an adult novel, and rumor has it she was writing a mystery. I've been trying to think of what the elements that made the Harry Potter series so successful were and whether they'd transfer to another kind of book. I liked the characters and I liked the wry humor. Some of her pacing could be iffy, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that she mapped her plots to the school calendar -- kick things off at back to school, a minor incident at Halloween, a major midpoint incident at Christmas, another rising action incident at Easter and then the big showdown around finals. That sometimes meant a lot of killing time to hold back the big showdown. That pacing could be deadly in a mystery (as I'm seeing in the one I'm reading), but the characters and wry humor are necessary to get me into a mystery (as I'm also seeing in the one I'm reading). I'll probably read it, but I doubt I'll be in line at the bookstore at midnight. I may not even buy it in hardcover. Since it's a new book, it's not like I'm dying to find out what happens next.
Now I need to get ready for my workday. I'm also baking some bread, as I spent a good part of yesterday looking for the honey wheat bread recipe I'd thought for a moment that I'd lost and that I couldn't find anywhere online.
What I need is the ability to make myself eighteen again. Then I could pursue all those things I discovered too late in life to be able to do anything with them. I'm not sure if I'd end up as a criminal profiler or an opera singer, though. Writing novels on the side, of course. It's really difficult to make a living as a novelist, and I mostly loathe doing all the things I'm capable of doing for a "day job."
I have edits from my agent on the early part of this book, before she decided it needed plot/character reworking, and it seems she has the same issue I do, where she starts off really editing, and then it trails off. I don't know if I was just that perfect or if she got caught up in the story and forgot to edit. I'm having to take frequent breaks so I stay focused and edit instead of just reading the book. This editing is even more interesting than the book I'm reading now, but I don't know if it's because my book is so great or the book I'm reading is kind of weak. It's a mystery, and I'm nearing the halfway point, but I still don't really care. I can read one (very short) chapter and then put it aside. If I weren't reading for market and genre research, I'd just skip to the end to see who the killer is. But I'm studying the paranormal element and how it's integrated.
Speaking of switching to mysteries, if I do this, I may be in good company. JK Rowling has sold an adult novel, and rumor has it she was writing a mystery. I've been trying to think of what the elements that made the Harry Potter series so successful were and whether they'd transfer to another kind of book. I liked the characters and I liked the wry humor. Some of her pacing could be iffy, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that she mapped her plots to the school calendar -- kick things off at back to school, a minor incident at Halloween, a major midpoint incident at Christmas, another rising action incident at Easter and then the big showdown around finals. That sometimes meant a lot of killing time to hold back the big showdown. That pacing could be deadly in a mystery (as I'm seeing in the one I'm reading), but the characters and wry humor are necessary to get me into a mystery (as I'm also seeing in the one I'm reading). I'll probably read it, but I doubt I'll be in line at the bookstore at midnight. I may not even buy it in hardcover. Since it's a new book, it's not like I'm dying to find out what happens next.
Now I need to get ready for my workday. I'm also baking some bread, as I spent a good part of yesterday looking for the honey wheat bread recipe I'd thought for a moment that I'd lost and that I couldn't find anywhere online.
February 23, 2012
Hibernation Ahead
I finished the latest pass on the book, rewriting scenes, and now it's time for editing. I'd thought about taking some down time to let the book rest first, but then I decided that's more important before the proofreading stage. For the editing stage, I'll be looking for things like redundant sentences, dialogue that needs to be tightened, word choices, sentence structure and length variety, etc. That doesn't really need fresh eyes since I've strictly been looking at story and character. I will need a break before proofreading because that's when I have to make sure that what I think is on the page is really what's on the page. So, I must work today.
Which could be a challenge because I could easily sleep all day. I think a front is coming in tonight because the air has that "the weather is going to change" heaviness about it. Today, though, feels like spring, and I'm not ready for that. I'm rather glad it will get cool again because I'm looking forward to a weekend of intense hibernation. There will be cooking, writing, reading and napping, and the SyFy Saturday night movie is Witchslayer Gretl, starring Shannen Doherty, so you just know it's going to be awesomely awful. I'd better make sure I have enough popcorn handy (and then I'd probably better not butter it because some of it may be thrown). Though if they go by their usual pattern, Shannen Doherty won't be Gretl. She'll have some cameo scene (maybe she's the witch?) and some unknown with absolutely wooden acting skills will be Gretl.
I still need to write that script for my SyFy fantasy movie. I really do have the perfect plot.
Of course, that's in line behind all the other things I really need to write, which probably means I need to get cracking on the writing. So many books, so little time has an entirely different meaning in my life.
Which could be a challenge because I could easily sleep all day. I think a front is coming in tonight because the air has that "the weather is going to change" heaviness about it. Today, though, feels like spring, and I'm not ready for that. I'm rather glad it will get cool again because I'm looking forward to a weekend of intense hibernation. There will be cooking, writing, reading and napping, and the SyFy Saturday night movie is Witchslayer Gretl, starring Shannen Doherty, so you just know it's going to be awesomely awful. I'd better make sure I have enough popcorn handy (and then I'd probably better not butter it because some of it may be thrown). Though if they go by their usual pattern, Shannen Doherty won't be Gretl. She'll have some cameo scene (maybe she's the witch?) and some unknown with absolutely wooden acting skills will be Gretl.
I still need to write that script for my SyFy fantasy movie. I really do have the perfect plot.
Of course, that's in line behind all the other things I really need to write, which probably means I need to get cracking on the writing. So many books, so little time has an entirely different meaning in my life.
February 22, 2012
Use the Right Words the Right Way
While it's true that the story's the important thing, and that's what sells a book, and while there are a lot of bestselling books that are really badly written but readers don't care because they love the story and the characters, if you don't have good mechanics, it becomes a lot more difficult to sell a book. Anything that distracts an editor from the story is a bad thing, and if the editor is mentally editing while reading a submission, she's less likely to fall in love with the story. You improve your chances by using the right words in the right way.
Here are a few things to look for that I think are common errors, judging by Internet posts, e-mails and manuscripts I've either judged or critiqued:
They're vs. their
"They're" is the contraction for "they are." "Their" is a possessive pronoun. An easy way to remember the difference is that the apostrophe fills in for missing letters.
It's vs. its
Similar to the above. "It's" is the contraction for "it is." "Its" with no apostrophe is the possessive pronoun.
You're vs. your
Again, like the above. Use "you're" when you mean "you are" and "your" when you're talking about something belonging to someone.
In general, you don't use an apostrophe before the s when making something plural. If you're making a plural noun possessive, you add the apostrophe at the end of the word.
Repeated, ongoing problems with any of the above will cause most editors to scream in pain, and they may stop seeing anything other than the errors in your manuscript, so they won't even notice if you have a good story.
Affect vs. effect
There are some exceptions for specialized uses, but generally "affect" is a verb. "Effect" is the noun. The effect is the result when someone affects something. "Affect" may be a noun in psychology, and "effect" may be a verb meaning "to bring about," but if you aren't writing psychological papers and have any confusion between affect and effect, avoid these uses and stick to the "affect=verb, effect=noun" rule.
Accept vs. except
"Accept" means to take something that's being offered. "Except" means "other than." So, I accept the job offer, except I refuse to work weekends.
Rein vs. reign
This can get confusing because the literal meanings for both involve control. "Rein" is the mechanism for controlling a horse, while "reign" is what a king does. When you say someone has been given "free rein," it means letting the horse go where it wants without trying to control it using the reins, although technically and literally it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to think of "free reign" as someone being allowed to rule without checks and balances. However, the expression did come from horsemanship, so "rein" is correct (and that's what the Associated Press style book says is to be used). The same applies to other related figures of speech, like "seize the reins" or "rein in."
Literally
This term has become so misused that it's become a running joke on the sitcom Parks and Recreation. "Literally" is supposed to mean that this thing that is usually considered to be a figure of speech is actually true in this case. What most people mean when they say "literally" is "figuratively," though the "figuratively" can generally be taken to be implied unless there's a chance for confusion from someone taking you literally. So, we might say figuratively that it's raining buckets when it's just raining hard, but if there's an explosion at the bucket factory, we might say that it's literally raining buckets. If there's been a vampire attack, we might say that the victim has literally been bled dry. Otherwise, we usually take that as a figure of speech that means someone has taken every last cent from them. But if we've recently been talking about vampire attacks, we might make sure to add the "figuratively" when talking about someone being bled dry in the money sense to make sure everyone knows we're not talking about another vampire attack.
Livid
When someone is "livid with rage," she's pale, not red in the face. It means the color has drained out of the face.
Decimate
This literally means to kill one in ten. If you say that the Black Death decimated the population of Europe, you're actually understating the case. It's often used to mean "kill a lot of people," but publishing people tend to be word nerds, and while you might not get dinged for the "kill a lot" use, if you use "decimate" properly, you may get bonus points.
"Troop" vs. "Troupe"
A "troupe" is generally a group of performers, while "troop" is used for discussing the military. Misuse of this can cause massive giggle fits at the mental image. Or it did for me in a manuscript I critiqued once, so much so that I still remember this one. Then again, Busby Berkley did start his career designing military drills …
Of course, nobody's perfect and editors aren't going to reject you because you've put an apostrophe where one doesn't belong. But today's publishing climate is very competitive and you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot with preventable errors. They're less likely these days to buy a manuscript that requires a lot of editing, and a lot of word usage errors in the opening pages signals that your book might require a lot of work to get it in shape. I'd also caution you about how well you edit any other writing you have in public, like blog posts or tweets. Editors have been known to Google authors, and while they know that the Internet is more casual and autocorrect sometimes inserts errors into tweets, if your blog posts show that you don't know the difference between common things like "it's" and "its," then they may have doubts. Readers may also wonder about a writer who has issues with basic grammar.
Here are a few things to look for that I think are common errors, judging by Internet posts, e-mails and manuscripts I've either judged or critiqued:
They're vs. their
"They're" is the contraction for "they are." "Their" is a possessive pronoun. An easy way to remember the difference is that the apostrophe fills in for missing letters.
It's vs. its
Similar to the above. "It's" is the contraction for "it is." "Its" with no apostrophe is the possessive pronoun.
You're vs. your
Again, like the above. Use "you're" when you mean "you are" and "your" when you're talking about something belonging to someone.
In general, you don't use an apostrophe before the s when making something plural. If you're making a plural noun possessive, you add the apostrophe at the end of the word.
Repeated, ongoing problems with any of the above will cause most editors to scream in pain, and they may stop seeing anything other than the errors in your manuscript, so they won't even notice if you have a good story.
Affect vs. effect
There are some exceptions for specialized uses, but generally "affect" is a verb. "Effect" is the noun. The effect is the result when someone affects something. "Affect" may be a noun in psychology, and "effect" may be a verb meaning "to bring about," but if you aren't writing psychological papers and have any confusion between affect and effect, avoid these uses and stick to the "affect=verb, effect=noun" rule.
Accept vs. except
"Accept" means to take something that's being offered. "Except" means "other than." So, I accept the job offer, except I refuse to work weekends.
Rein vs. reign
This can get confusing because the literal meanings for both involve control. "Rein" is the mechanism for controlling a horse, while "reign" is what a king does. When you say someone has been given "free rein," it means letting the horse go where it wants without trying to control it using the reins, although technically and literally it wouldn't be entirely incorrect to think of "free reign" as someone being allowed to rule without checks and balances. However, the expression did come from horsemanship, so "rein" is correct (and that's what the Associated Press style book says is to be used). The same applies to other related figures of speech, like "seize the reins" or "rein in."
Literally
This term has become so misused that it's become a running joke on the sitcom Parks and Recreation. "Literally" is supposed to mean that this thing that is usually considered to be a figure of speech is actually true in this case. What most people mean when they say "literally" is "figuratively," though the "figuratively" can generally be taken to be implied unless there's a chance for confusion from someone taking you literally. So, we might say figuratively that it's raining buckets when it's just raining hard, but if there's an explosion at the bucket factory, we might say that it's literally raining buckets. If there's been a vampire attack, we might say that the victim has literally been bled dry. Otherwise, we usually take that as a figure of speech that means someone has taken every last cent from them. But if we've recently been talking about vampire attacks, we might make sure to add the "figuratively" when talking about someone being bled dry in the money sense to make sure everyone knows we're not talking about another vampire attack.
Livid
When someone is "livid with rage," she's pale, not red in the face. It means the color has drained out of the face.
Decimate
This literally means to kill one in ten. If you say that the Black Death decimated the population of Europe, you're actually understating the case. It's often used to mean "kill a lot of people," but publishing people tend to be word nerds, and while you might not get dinged for the "kill a lot" use, if you use "decimate" properly, you may get bonus points.
"Troop" vs. "Troupe"
A "troupe" is generally a group of performers, while "troop" is used for discussing the military. Misuse of this can cause massive giggle fits at the mental image. Or it did for me in a manuscript I critiqued once, so much so that I still remember this one. Then again, Busby Berkley did start his career designing military drills …
Of course, nobody's perfect and editors aren't going to reject you because you've put an apostrophe where one doesn't belong. But today's publishing climate is very competitive and you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot with preventable errors. They're less likely these days to buy a manuscript that requires a lot of editing, and a lot of word usage errors in the opening pages signals that your book might require a lot of work to get it in shape. I'd also caution you about how well you edit any other writing you have in public, like blog posts or tweets. Editors have been known to Google authors, and while they know that the Internet is more casual and autocorrect sometimes inserts errors into tweets, if your blog posts show that you don't know the difference between common things like "it's" and "its," then they may have doubts. Readers may also wonder about a writer who has issues with basic grammar.
