Rob Bignell's Blog, page 305

Writing Prompt: Tell what you feel/desire/need

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: If undergoing a period of personal turmoil, write a page that continues with one of these writing prompts: “I feel…”; “I desire…”; “I need…”

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 Albany, New York, or a small town like Ding Dong, Texas, I can provide that second eye.

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List rules to maintain internal consistency

What are the rules that ensure your story is internally consistent? Among them might be that a character will respond in the same way to the same stimuli each time the latter is encountered.

The exception would be if your character grows and develops and hence arrives at a different outlook.

Look for inconsistencies in your story’s plot, characters and theme and then rewrite the passages to correct them.

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 Omaha, Nebraska, or a small town like Duckville, Tennessee, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Editing

“Substitute 'damn' every time you’re inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” - Mark Twain

“The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can’t do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That’s how you make it all of one piece.” - Ernest Hemingway

“If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.” - John Steinbeck

“Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.” - Helen Dunmore

“The virtue of books is to be readable.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 Tulsa, Oklahoma, or a small town like Drain, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Writing Inspiration: Like the rising sun, my writing casts an ever-widening light upon the world

The hours before dawn mark the darkest hours, when seeing even a few feet in front of you is difficult. As night’s blanket has covered the world for several hours, the wind blows its coldest and the ground is at its dampest.

And then, at last, a thin line of orange appears on the horizon. The sky about it lightens from an impenetrable black to a friendly blue, and soon tree leaves and sides of buildings shimmer in the glow of the rising sun. Dawn reawakens the world, gives it a fresh start, a new hope.

Your writing – once published – can have the same effect.

As a unique human being, you can offer the world a perspective that was never considered before, can synthesize disparate ideas that offer new insights and solutions, can inspire people to work for great causes and to shift their views away from those that are dark and unjust.

Granted, few books have had such a remarkable impact that they utterly altered human history. But each book published contributes, for better or for worse, to the improvement of humanity. Movements cannot occur, after all, without the press and push of millions of individuals; likewise, shifts in consciousness often occur when thousands of books on an idea are published. Perhaps your book is not as revolutionary as Mohammed’s Koran or Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, but it may help direct a new course in thinking that allows for a work of such magnitude to make its impact.

Or perhaps your book will inspire a lone, single reader to take up writing or a cause, and her efforts lead to a titanic change in history. Or perhaps she will pass those ideas on to one of her children, who will have such an effect. History is littered with stories and poems and songs that energized others to improve the world. Perhaps such works of art are relegated to footnote status, but their impact reshaped and now drives civilization.

By never publishing, though, you shun an opportunity to make a positive difference. You diminish your potential to change the world.

You allow the world to remain in blackness a little longer.

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 Tulsa, Oklahoma, or a small town like Drain, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

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Do Kindle DP pre-orders help or hinder sales?

As of summer 2014, indie authors can take pre-orders for their ebooks published on Kindle DP. But do preorders make good marketing sense?

That depends where you’re at as an author.

The pre-order will help a couple of different indie authors. First, it will be useful for authors who do a lot of promotional activities via mailing lists and social media, as it extends the publicity period for the book. They now can list the book on Amazon.com and Goodreads to promote pre-orders, then on the book’s launch date can change up the publicity campaign to “Book has been released!” Should pre-orders put them on Amazon.com’s Top 100 bestseller list for the ebook’s category, that adds a third layer of publicity. Secondly, pre-orders will be useful for writers of series novels. By taking preorders, those authors can decrease the amount of time between book releases, taking advantage of fan and reader interest to land sales.

For those authors whose pre-orders will take a chunk out of sizeable sales on their book’s release day, though, it’s a bad strategy. Pre-order sales don’t help a book’s release date ranking. Suppose for example that sales of a 1000 books likely will get an author into the Top 100 bestsellers list for that ebook’s category and about that many sales are anticipated. If pre-orders amount to 700 sales, leaving the author with only 300 sales on launch date, then pre-orders have knocked the book off the bestseller list simply because it was released.

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 Hartford, Connecticut, or a small town like Hebron, New Hampshire, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing inspiration: Read their inspirations

If you really want to learn the craft of writing from your favorite authors, read their inspirations. You typically can find them through his/her personal website or a Wikipedia article. You’ll be surprised how their best stories don’t copy those inspirations, which instead were a catalyst for greater creativity.

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 Fort Myers, Florida, or a small town like Knock 'em Stiff, Ohio, I can provide that second eye.

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A change in the text: Amend vs. emend

If only we could alter some writers’ bad habits regarding the words amend and emend!

Amend is a verb meaning to change, usually for the better or to at least set something right. For example, The Los Angeles City Council plans to amend the city charter.

Emend is a verb meaning to improve by editing and typically is limited to text. To wit, The New York City mayor’s secretary planned to emend his letter by adding a comma.

Hopefully, you now will not not need to emend your first draft when either of these words appear in your manunscripts!

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 Tucson, Arizona, or a small town like Zap, North Dakota, I can provide that second eye.

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Writing Prompt: Draw upon personal turmoil

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: Think of a time you’ve faced personal turmoil in your life. Write a page about the emotions you experienced during that difficult time.

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 Grand Rapids, Michigan, or a small town like Frying Pan Landing, North Carolina, I can provide that second eye.

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Avoid writing schizophrenic story

Does your story belong in therapy? Perhaps one portion of it appears to be in conflict with another portion, maybe over tone or theme.

The problem might be that we as authors haven’t shaped the story enough during its formative stages to ensure the plot, characters and message can adequately address conflicts, motivations and ideas.

Consider allowing more discomfort and unhappy circumstances to appear in your story; this may create the right situations so your story can more adequately present and work through plot conflicts, character motivations, and thematic ideas.

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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Five Great Quotations about Books

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” - Oscar Wilde

“I firmly believe every book was meant to be written.” - Marchette Chute

“The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry/The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy/The books that people talk about we never can recall/And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.” - Carolyn Wells

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” - Carl Sagan

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” - Henry Ward Beecher

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 an urban area like Akron-Canton, Ohio, or a rural community like Toadlena, New Mexico, I can provide that second eye.

 

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