Rob Bignell's Blog, page 323

Remain wary of using fast-forward in story

A literary device that’s often overused by novice writers is that of the fast-forward. This involves taking the story out of its timeline by going to a point in the future. In doing so, the scene reveals important events that are yet to occur in the story. It’s sometimes referred to as prolepsis.

This is the opposite of a flashback, in which the narrative goes back in time to reveal important events that occurred prior to the story began.

A good example of a fast-forward is Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge his future. Larry Watson also uses the technique in Montana, 1948 when he begins the story with the main character recalling images of the novel’s climax.

Unlike foreshadowing, which is merely a hint of what might occur, a flash-forward shows the actual dramatic events that are will occur in the story.

There are good reasons to use a fast-forward. When done properly, a fast-forward can help reveal the main character’s personality. This is the strategy Dickens uses in The Christmas Carol, as we learn through the scene showing how he’ll be remembered that Scrooge actually does care about what others think of him; this in turn influences his decision in the present timeline. A flash-forward also can be used to establish an event that is of high interest and so is a hook to encourage the reader to find out how the story will reach that point; in such instances, it often used as a prologue, as Watson does in Montana, 1948.

Despite these good uses of the literary device, writers always should hesitate to use a fast-forward. Unless it’s a really big, climactic scene that actually would hook the reader into working through an entire story and unless it really does reveal something significant about the character, writers risk reducing suspense and tension by revealing what will happen. This is especially true of minor scenes involving minor characters. If the reader knows the outcome, then there’s little reason to read the intervening text. After all, authors build suspense in part by leaving in question what the outcome of a decision or situation will be.

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 New York, New York, or a small town like Bantam, Connecticut, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Originality

“The writer's genetic inheritance and her or his experiences shape the writer into a unique individual, and it is this uniqueness that is the writer's only stuff for sale.” – James Gunn

“When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.” – Blaise Pascal

“Make it new.” – Ezra Pound

“When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism; but when you take it from many writers, it's research.” – William Mizner

“Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself.” – James F. Stephan

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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Handling foreign accents and regional dialects

Sometimes, characters who don’t speak English as their first language will appear in your story. A challenge you’ll likely face is how to portray them. While novice writers may be conscious of not replicating physical stereotypes (e.g. all Muslims wear white flowing clothes, headdresses, and large sunglasses, and have a swarthy complexion), sometimes they still mess up by having their characters use foreign accents and regional dialects.

Unless you’ve lived in another region of the world and so are familiar enough with the dialect there to replicate it with earnestness, writing dialogue in a foreign accent is best avoided. First, accurately imitating regional and ethnic dialects is difficult, and any reader who hails from or has visited that area will know it rings untrue. Secondly, regardless if the reader knows anything about the foregin accent or dialect, you run the risk of it coming across as stereotyped and offensive – and it may just well be, even if you didn’t intend for it to be so. Third, such language is difficult to read, so many readers find it irritating and a hindrance. If a lot of foreign accented dialogue is included, readers may even skip the passage or out the book back on the shelf. Finally, the way people speak does change over time, so stories with foreign accents and dialogue, even if accurately portrayed, risk becoming quaint with each passing year.

To that end, don’t frequently misspell words to indicate offbeat pronunciations. In addition, don’t use fragmented sentences. Lastly, avoid the excessive dropping of letters replaced by apostrophes, called an elision, which is the omitting of a sound or syllable when speaking.

Of course, having a non-English speaking character speak perfect English can come across as odd, too. But there are ways to refer to and establish a character’s “geographical identity.” Hints that they speak in a certain dialect or with an accent can be inserted, and readers can take it from there. One such hint is a simple statement about how the character speaks; for example, a character from the western United States might be described as speaking with a twang, while a Midwesterner might be described as stretching out his long vowels. Another possible hint is the character’s vocabulary; an Englishman would refer to an elevator as a “lift” and a truck as a “lorry,” for example; this might also include dropping in a word or phrase from a foreign language, such “gracias” for “thank you” if the character is from Mexico. Including an occasional elision, such as let’s for “let us” or e’en for “even” that has nothing to really do with the foreign dialect but merely shows the character speaks differently, is all right as well.

An exception to all of this is if you’re describing an alien species or colonists from another world in a science fiction or a fantasy story. Still, don’t take it to extremes, or you risk writing passages that readers will have difficulty working through.

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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Increase book sales by giving away first in series

If you’ve written a series of novels about a single character, one way to improve sales is to give the first volume away for free.

This may seem counterintuitive, but for self-published writers, it’s a great way to get your book in front of more eyeballs. Simply put, readers are more likely to try your series if the first title in it is free; after all, there’s no monetary investment in it for them. If done as a promotion via CreteSpace or Kindle DP, this can raise your ranking on Amazon.com’s bestsellers list of free books, thus greatly increasing the number of free downloads.

Should readers enjoy your book, they likely will purchase the next book and subsequent titles in your series. Be sure to include information about the books in your series – especially the next one that appears – in your free book and on your Amazon.com sales page for the free book. In the ebook, be sure to include links to those sales pages.

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 Arlington, Texas, or a small town like Chicken, Alaska, I can provide that second eye.

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Many famous books first were self-published

All too often self-publishing gets a bad rap as a last resort of authors whose writing wasn’t good enough to be accepted by one of the Big Five publishers. Never mind the long explanation of how big corporate publishing actually is something new, a product of the past century that worked then because the economics of creating and distributing a book ensured its success and that new technology now makes big publishing an anomaly (and passing era) in the history of books.

Instead, let’s take the argument head-on by showing there are a lot of famous, successful authors who self-published because corporate publishing couldn’t recognize the book’s value…or just as bad, their business model for profits didn’t allow for quality books to be printed and distributed.

Here’s a list of famous authors and books that were self-published (and often later picked up by a corporate publisher):
g Alan Lawrence’s “The Hoopster”
g Ben Kaplan’s “How to Go College Almost for Free”
g Christopher Polini’s “Eragon”
g Henry Martyn Robert’s “Robert’s Rules of Order”
g Ken Blanchard’s “The One Minute Manager”
g Lisa Genova’s “Still Alice”
g James Joyce’s “Ulysses”
g James Redfield’s “The Celestine Prophecy”
g John Bartlett’s “Bartlett’s Familiar Quoations”
g John Muir’s “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive”
g J. Patrick Wright’s “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors”
g Michael Stradther’s “A Treasure’s Trove”
g Nancy Tillman’s “On the Night You Were Born”
g Peter McWilliams’ “How to Survive the Loss of a Love”
g Richard Nelson Bolles’ “What Color is Yor Parachute?”
g Richard Paul Evans’ “The Christmas Box”
g Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”
g Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?”
g Vicki Lansky’s “Feed Me! I’m Yours”
g Wess Roberts’ “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun”
g William C. Byham’s Zapp! The Lightning of Empowerment”
g William Strunk, Jr.’s “The Elements of Style”
g Zane Grey’s “Betty Zane”

You’ve probably heard of at least most of the above titles. They (and there are many more) all went on to hit the bestseller’s list, sell hundreds of thousands (and sometimes even millions) of copies, and often after the book’s success the author was offered a major publishing deal.

Bottom line: Self-publishing isn’t a last resort. It’s a way to prove yourself when others doubt you.

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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Stretching your knowledge: warm-up vs warm up

Ready to l oosen up the old brain muscles? Good. Let’s tackle warm up vs. warm-up.

Warm-up is the noun that means the stretching you do before exercising or a game: Jenny did warm-ups before the soccer match. It’s also an adjective: Jenny wondered what would be the best warm-up stretches before the lacrosse match. Increasingly, writers are dropping the hyphen and simply spelling the word as warmup.

Warm up, without the hyphen but with the space, is a verb that shows one increasingly likes an idea or thing: Jenny began to warm up to the idea of going out for field hockey.

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 San Diego, California, or a small town like Eek, Arkansas, I can provide that second eye.

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Craft powerful story by paying attention to milieu

While thinking of the elements of a story in terms of plot, setting, character, point of view, and theme is extremely useful, sometimes novice writers don’t recognize that each is much more complex than the standard definition given for them. Take setting, for example. It typically is defined as the place and time of the story. But setting is much more than geographical location or a dates on a calendar.

Another aspect of setting in a story is the milieu, or the social or cultural environment in which the action occurs. This might include what the houses look like to infer how people who live in a location interact and relate to their environment; to wit, homes on the prairie would be one-story and spread out like the landscape around them. The milieu might include what kind of music the characters listen to on the streets; for example, an upbeat reggae performance can indicate a community’s zest for and love of life.

Indeed, whole stories can center around the milieu, such as when a character arrives at a new location and is emotionally affected then transformed by it; this typically occurs in science fiction and to a lesser extent fantasy stories. A good example of a mainstream novel in which the story pivots on the milieu is James Clavell’s “Shogun”, in which the main character, a European explorer, observes and is transformed by medieval Japanese society.

All stories naturally have a milieu. When an author pays attention to crafting it, however, it can be a powerful storytelling tool. After all, the more immersed readers can become in the story’s milieu, the more likely they will be hooked in the story.

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 Los Angeles, California, or a small town like Hell, Michigan, I can provide that second eye.

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Speed up story by curtailing dramatic narration

Sometimes events in a story must be summed up, that is told rather than shown. When doing so, the author makes use of dramatic narration. Typically, the dramatic narration (aka summary narration) compresses time between scenes.

The following passage is an example of dramatic narration:

The two men remained silent as they plodded toward the heart of Miletus, sea waves crashing at the cliff beneath them.

Rather than show them plodding step by step and relating which buildings they passed, their small talk, and so on, the author merely relays in a quick sentence that they moved from one spot to another. Noting that they’ve made this shift in location is vital so the reader can more easily follow the storyline. Descibing everyithing they did during this shift usually doesn’t move the story forward, however, and so is superflous.

To keep your story from sounding flat because of dramatic narration, do the following:
g Tighten the dramatic narration – It usually can be given in a single phrase, clause or sentence. This typically means simply stating that the character is moving to a new location.
g Don’t overuse dramatic narration – Sometimes a blank line can be placed between scenes showing that the location and time has changed; so long as the reader can quickly infer the actual location and time of the new scene, the dramatic narration can be deleted.
g Cloak the dramatic narration with details that help set the mood or describe the setting – In the above example, we learn that the characters are in deep thought and that waves are crashing against the cliff they walk upon, metaphorically suggesting they face some dire problem that could cause their fall.

Ideally, no dramatic narration would occur at all in a story. Still, most readers find it an acceptable shortcut so long as it keeps the plot flowing.

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 Austin, Texas, or a small town like Bald Knob, Arkansas, I can provide that second eye.

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Five Great Quotations about Creativity

“The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.” – Joan Cocteau

“Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.” – Joseph Conrad

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – Virginia Woolf

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.” – Mary Shelley

“No tale is so good...but can be spoilt in the telling.” – Terence

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 Tampa, Florida, or a small town like Deadhorse, Alaska, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Create main character that readers bond with

Virtually every story aims to establish a bond between the main character and the reader. After all, why would a reader continue to read a story about an unlikeable character?

Granted, there are thematic exceptions, in which the writer’s goal is to examine evil or to convince readers to dislike a character who generally is accepted by society (such as a powerfully businessman who in truth is ruthless). Still, in sush cases often the narrator is likeable (such as Nick in F. Scott Fitgerald’s The Great Gatsby) or we see the tragedy of the main character and feel for his failure (such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth). In any case, such strategies often are the exception to how characters are portrayed in stories.

A writer can establish a bond between the main character in a number of ways:
g Identification –Any time the reader believes he has something significant in common with the character, bonding can occur. For example, in science fiction tales, the character may feel that his intelligence makes him an outcast in society, a trait many science fiction readers themelves possess. In a romance, the heroine’s longings and desires may match those of the reader who also wishes such love.
g Sympathy – A writer also can play off our culture’s values to create a bond. For example, placing a character in jeopardy, showing him undergoing some hardship, portraying him as an underdog, or having him make ethically correct choices that also make him vulnerable all generate empathy in the reader.
g Likeability – Though the reader may not share anything in common with a character, the latter still can be likeable. One way to create a “friendly” character is to give them some unique, quirky trait; for example, Star Wars’ C3PO possesses a neuroticism that is humorous. Avoid cliches, however; the android that misunderstands basic human words or sayings (such as beieving a homemaker is someone who works in the construction trades) has been overdone in science fiction.
g Inner conflict – When a character must make a difficult choice because of an inner conflict, readers can better relate to him. After all, readers themselves often face inner conflicts in which they must make a difficult choice.
g Believability – The more real a character is, the greater the chances that a reader will take a liking to him. While a character, such as an Alpha male hero of an epic fantasy, can provide wish fulfillment (such as being strong and always getting the girl) and hence make the character likeable, he also won’t resonate on a deep level with a reader. Generally a reader cannot identify with or find sympathy for a character who isn’t believable.

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 California's Inland Empire or a rural area like Loving County, Texas, I can provide that second eye.

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