Rob Bignell's Blog, page 290

Writing Prompt: Pen your autobiography

Suffering from writer���s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: Another way to write for self-discovery is using a journal to pen your ���autobiography.��� Think of your life as a journey. What were the waypoints in your life? What obstacles did you encounter? What is the purpose of your journey and what is your destination?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Las Vegas, Nevada, or a small town like Accident, Maryland, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Prompt: Start with last line

Suffering from writer���s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: Read the last line of the book you checked out or purchased. Use it as a writing prompt and spend 15 minutes writing a story in which it is the opening line.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, or a small town like Cluttsville, Alabama, I can provide that second eye.

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Three ebook formatting tips, part VIII

Ebooks follow different formatting rules than books printed on paper. That���s because a book made of ink on paper is a different platform for presenting information than a book made of digital bits on an electronic screen. Even though the same content (your book) is being presented, the platforms will need to be handled differently, just as certainly different production methods are used for a play presented on stage and on a television screen.

Because of that, there are a number of things you might do when formatting a paperback but never would do when constructing an ebook. Following are three tips about what to differently.

Add space function
Don���t use the ���Add Space Before Paragraph��� or the ���Add Space After Paragraph��� function on your word processing program when formatting. Since you���ll use a block paragraph structure (rather than tabs to indent the paragraph���s first line) when formatting an ebook, the add space function can result in paragraphs that are squished too closely together as well as uneven spacing between text and images. The better solution is to use a hard return to create a blank line that will ensure the spacing is equal to the height of a line of a text, resulting in a cleaner appearance. In addition, should you have extra lines that need to be deleted between paragraphs, locating and using the search and replace function to resolve the problem will prove easier with a hard return.

Tab key
Don���t indent the first line of each paragraph by either using the tab key or the space bar. Doing so usually will result in one paragraph beginning so many spaces from the left margin and the next paragraph at another spot. This occurs because most ereaders automatically distribute your text evenly between the margins and ignore the word processing program���s instructions to begin at a specific location relative to the left margin. Instead, use block paragraphs in an ebook, just as you would if designing a web page. This means no indentations but a blank line between paragraphs.

Text wrap
Generally, text can be wrapped around photos and graphic elements in an ebook. Even if you are able finagle some text to do so, as soon as a reader changes the font and font size, your work text will move out of place. Instead, place all images and graphics with the text above and below it.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Wichita, Kansas, or a small town like Bird In Hand, Pennsylvania, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Plot

���A story is only formulaic if you allow it to be. It has nothing to do with abiding by the principles of solid storytelling and the handful of elements, parts, and milestones that comprise it.��� - Larry Brooks

���All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.��� - Leo Tolstoy

���A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.��� - Graham Greene

���Just start at the beginning, you say? And what beginning might that be? I've come to the conclusion all starts are false ones. Tap the fragile shell of any beginning and you'll find another nested inside.��� - Christina Sunley

���All plots are cliche.��� - Jincy Willett

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Boise, Idaho, or a small town like Cut n' Shoot, Texas, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Writing Inspiration: Read in your genre

Check out a book from the library or purchase one for your ereader. Make sure the book is from the genre you write in. Set aside 15 minutes every day to read it.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like St. Louis, Missouri, or a small town like Cheesequake, New Jersey, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Follow social media etiquette during promos

When promoting your book via social media, you���ll want to make sure you���re observing the site���s ���social etiquette.��� Users of each site have unwritten standards of what is considered spamming, overt advertising, and poor taste. Rest assured, violate the rules and you undercut your ability to sell your title.

Each site���s standards differs slightly, and as with any social rules, some users are more offended than others. There are some general etiquette rules, however, that seem to cut across most social media. When promoting your book, you���re best not to:
��� Use ALL CAPS ��� They are very difficult to read, and many users will simply move on to another post or tweet.
��� Go nuts with the exclamation points ��� One will do.
��� Be coy ��� Mysteriously announcing that ���Something great is about to happen��� misses the point of what social media is all about, namely providing useful, interesting information in a quick manner.
��� Put down other writers ��� Every writer has a typo or two in their book. And the best way to bring attention to a repugnant idea is to point at it. 
��� Put down readers ��� Not every reader shares your taste. Remember, even negative publicity is good publicity, for there���s nothing worse than being ignored. 
��� Put down reviewers ��� Take the moral high road. You don���t need to stoop to the troll���s level to get attention for your book. 
��� Cut the self-pity ��� Rather than telling about how your writing is subpar, why not work on improving it? Besides, who would buy a book from a writer who says their writing stinks?

What general etiquette rules have you noticed in social media?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Boston, Massachusetts, or a small town like Boston, Georgia, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Inspiration: Time to work hard

Once you���ve reached a certain level of competence as a writer, you then must work hard to achieve your goals. For a writer, there���s nothing nuanced about hard work. It simply means showing up every day at the computer keyboard and actually writing. How many words or pages do you turn out per day, on average?

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Minneapolis, Minnesota, or a small town like Nothing, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.

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Editing client publishes his first fantasy novella

A recent editing client of mine, Victor G. Espinosa, has published his first novella, ���Greyheart���.

The fantasy tells the story of Peter Antilys, Lord Commander of the royal army and veteran of countless battles, who has been tasked with protecting the fortified city of Greyheart from an enemy he's never faced before. Elves have been spotted leaving their forest territories for the first time in more than one hundred years, and all reports of their movement declare they are marching for war. Villages near the elven border are losing their inhabitants, scouts who venture out never return again, and anyone who has seen the elves and survived bear strange and grievous wounds.

Now Peter must prepare a city to stand against a foe they never thought they'd face, but will they outlast the onslaught? The book is available online.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Rochester, New York, or a small town like Beech Bottom, West Virginia, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Prompt: Random sentence

Suffering from writer���s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: Take a fiction book off your shelf. Close your eyes, open the book to a random page, and press your finger against the center of that page. Open your eyes and read the sentence. Make that sentence the opening line of a freewrite that lasts for 15 minutes.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Seattle, Washington, or a small town like Uncertain, Texas, I can provide that second eye.

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Three ebook formatting tips, Part VII

Ebooks follow different formatting rules than books printed on paper. That���s because a book made of ink on paper is a different platform for presenting information than a book made of digital bits on an electronic screen. Even though the same content (your book) is being presented, the platforms will need to be handled differently, just as certainly different production methods are used for a play presented on stage and on a television screen.

Because of that, there are a number of things you might do when formatting a paperback but never would do when constructing an ebook. Following are three tips about what to differently.

Return key
Don���t overclick the return key (aka enter key). Two clicks at the end of a paragraph ��� one to mark the paragraph���s end and one to create a blank space before the next paragraph ��� are sufficient. Any more than that will result in long stretches of white space in your ebook, which can lead to blank white pages that confuse readers, who wonder if your book is done.

Tables and charts
When self-publishing a nonfiction book, you probably will want to include tables of some sort. If writing a book about rock climbing, for example, you might include a list of the National Climbing Classification System. The problem with tables created in Microsoft Word is that they don���t resize well. In Word parlance, a table is a ���fixed format element.��� So if you create a table that is six inches wide, the text likely will be unreadable if you shrink it to fit on an ereader screen that���s only three inches wide. You have a couple of solutions. One option is to create the table only after you know the paperback���s size and then limiting the table���s size to those measurements. So if the ebook size ��� discounting the gutters and margins ��� is 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall, the table must be no larger than that. Doing this ensures there is no shrinking of the table at all, as it���s designed for the page or screen. A second option is to make the table a picture. This is useful if there���s no way to make the table fit the page���s actual size, usually because there are too many rows or columns in the table to make that viable. You still can create the table in Word. When finished, take a screenshot of it and then save the screenshot as a jpeg. You may need to do some cropping to make the screenshot show only the table.

Text boxes
Keep your ebook formatting as simple as possible by not using any text boxes. Such boxes can appear in odd places in the ebook, such as at the end of the book or pasted over other text. If you wish to use graphic elements, such as breakout boxes, convert the file to a jpeg and insert the photo into the text where you wish it to appear.

Need an editor? Having your book, business document or academic paper proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. Whether you come from a big city like Syracuse, New York, or a small town like Hicks, Alabama, I can provide that second eye.

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