Rob Bignell's Blog, page 325

Editing client publishes Irish ghost novel

A recent editing client of mine, Eric Smith, has published his first book, “Psychic Shadows.” Set in Dublin, Ireland, the novella tells the tale of Laura O’Kelly, a single mum who wins the Home lottery. When Laura, her boyfriend, and her daughter move into the house – the same house where a family was murdered in 1880 – they experience a night of terror and horror…with a twist. 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 Detroit, Michigan, or a small town like Carefree, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.

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'Fast forward' to keep your story moving

‘Fast forward’ to keep your story moving

Despite the mantra of “show don’t tell,” sometimes when telling a story, you’ll need to use exposition. A good example of this is when one character must catch up another on what has occurred. Though the reader already knows what happened, the story won’t make sense if that information or action isn’t repeated to another character. Of course, the more words and sentences that are needed to the uninformed character caught up, the more the story is slowed.

When confronted with such a dilemma, use the literary convention of the fast forward, a term coined by CSFW’s David Smith. A fast forward involves “shortcutting” to relay the information the character needs to know.

A couple of examples include:

“They found Valders’ body down at the wharf,” Ace said to his partner. “It was all hacked up.”

or

Ace filled in his partner about Valders’ murder.

This technique commonly is used in mysteries but can be found in every genre.

When using a fast forward, relay the information as succinctly and as quickly as possible. The more details you provide, the longer the story takes to get back to the action. You must always remain aware, however, that the character who is provided the information can know only as much as what he was told.

In addition, try to give the fast forward more purpose than just getting a character caught up. A fast forward, after all, marks a good opportunity to subtly relay information about the characters’ personalities. For example, in the following passage we learn that Ace doesn’t want to appear vulnerable and that his partner is a bit indifferent:

Ace tried to not let his voice tremble. “They found Valders’ body down at the wharf. It was all hacked up.” His partner grunted.

Adding the reaction of the character who is caught up also helps hide the fast forward by quickly shifting the story from exposition to action.

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 Detroit, Michigan, or a small town like Carefree, Arizona, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Five Great Quotations about Readers

“The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.” - Larry Niven

“No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.” - E. B. White

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

“Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless.” - Blaise Pascal

“People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.” - 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're from a big city like Seattle or a small town like Sheyenne, North Dakota, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Benefits, pitfalls of flat characters

When a character doesn’t change and is fairly uncomplicated, it is said to be a flat character. Its opposite is a round character, which has dimension and develops over the course of the story.

Typically only one or a small number of round characters appear in a story, and they usually are the protagonist or main characters. Virtually all of the other characters will be flat by necessity. That’s because their main purpose is to move the story along. After all, you may need a cop directing traffic on a street that our main character desperately must get down; the cop need not be developed or have any other traits than those typical of one directing traffic – a firm stance, blowing a whistle, maybe fluid motions with his arms and hands.

Despite being so simple, there are a couple of variations on flat characters.

A cardboard character is unreal due to its superficiality. A good example would be the cut-out Mary Sue cliché of fan fiction in which the character is an everyday, lonely woman who has a good heart. Another is red shirt of “Star Trek: The Original Series” in which the character wearing that colored uniform usually is the one who dies in a scene. Typically readers find such characters annoying.

A background or stock character is one whose traits are merely provided to that the reader know what his or her job is. Such a character – like the aforementioned policeman directing traffic – merely appears in a story to move along the action. Novelist Henry James called them ficelle characters while Vladimir Nabokov called them peri characters.

A static character remains the same throughout the story, meaning it does not grow or develop; typically they appear several times in a story rather than just once as the previously mentioned policeman directing traffic. Its opposite is a dynamic character, which also is a round character. An example of static characters are Rosencranz and Guildenstern from “Hamlet.”

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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Promote books to young adults using social media

If promoting your books to today’s teens and young college students, you may want to reconsider what social media you’re using.

Surveys indicate that fewer than 5 percent of teens use Google+, Tumblr or Pinterest. Numbers further show that they’re leaving behind Facebook and their use of Twitter hasn't risen for several years.

Yet teens and especially college students in their twenties do read and buy books, especially those in the science fiction, fantasy, horror and (obviously) young adult genres. By not using the social media they turn to, you’re missing an opportunity to sell books to a large segment of your potential readers – readers who will be around for several decades to come to buy more of your titles.

So what social media are teens and twentysomethings using in 2014?

Snapchat
This service allows users to send photos or a video that lasts up to 10 seconds. Snapchat boasts more than a 100 million users, and more than a quarter of all 18-29 year olds with cell phones use it.

Instagram
Users can share pictures and videos via this service. Its use among teens is at 4.8 million and expected to grow during the next two years by about 1.7 million.

Vine
Owned by Twitter, Vine allows users to share videos that last up to six seconds. It claims more than 40 million users, many of whom are youth.

Pheed
This mobile app for sharing photos, videos and voice tracks also allows users to make live broadcasts. Though it has a mere 3 million users, about 84 percent of them are ages 18-25.

Of course, Facebook does remain among the top two most used social media sites for teens and young adults, so don’t eliminate it from your promotional efforts. Instead, began incorporating into your book marketing other sites that youth increasingly prefer.

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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Two ebook formats dominate industry

When self-publishing an ebook, you’ll likely run into a couple of terms about the “format” that your manuscript must appear in, specifically terms like EPUB and MOBI. While you need not be too concerned about how to create documents in each format, knowing the difference between the two can help you better understand the ebook creation process.

Each electronic device that you can use to access ebooks – a tablet, a Kindle, a Nook, a smartphone – uses an operating system. Because these devices are created by competing companies, they use different operating systems, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. Operating systems only can read information provided to it in certain formats.

Though there are many different formats that ebooks can appear in, generally, two major industry standards dominate.

One is called EPUB. This format is used by most major ebook retailers who produce ebooks, including Nook (Barnes and Noble), iPad (Apple), Kobo, and Sony Reader. The other is MOBI, which is used by Kindle (Amazon.com).

When self-publishing, you do need not know how to write software code in EPUB or MOBI. Currently, Kindle DP, Smashwords, and most other publishers of ebooks will reformat Microsoft Word documents into EPUB and MOBI formats for you when uploaded. However, to accomplish that, you may need to follow specific guidelines about how you create and format your Word document; for example, Smashwords does not allow tabs to be used (while Kindle DP has no problem with 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 Miami, Florida, or a small town like Normal, Illinois, I can provide that second eye.

 

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How to properly use a semicolon (wink, wink)

Among the most misunderstood of punctuation marks is semicolons. That the mark serves as a stand-in for a wink when texting probably is appropriate!

For the record, there are two instances when the semicolon should be used.

One case in when a closely-related second sentence, to make any sense, needs to be connected to the one prior to it. If the second sentence is just a phrase, however, connect it with a comma.
RIGHT: The ship shuddered as the alien’s antimatter salvo struck it; many of the crew wondered if they’d survive the expedition.
RIGHT: The ship shuddered as the alien’s antimatter salvo struck it, causing many of the crew to wonder if they’d survive the expedition.
WRONG: The ship shuddered as the alien’s antimatter salvo struck it; causing many of the crew to wonder if they’d survive the expedition.

A second case is to separate phrases in a series that is set off with a colon (when the eyes in your text aren’t winking, you’re using a colon!).
RIGHT: Among Yellowstone National Park’s highlights are: multiple geysers that regularly erupt; large wildlife such as bison, bears, elk herds, and wolves; and dozens of high waterfalls.
WRONG: Among Yellowstone National Park’s highlights are geysers; large wildlife; and high waterfalls.

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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Don’t leave reader in fog with vague descriptions

As a storyteller, you want to draw readers into your tale so that they vicariously live out the action. One way to achieve that it by providing evocative descriptions of the setting or action. Not providing that likely will leave readers in a fog, in which they cannot clearly visualize where the story occurs or what is happening.

An example of fog (a term coined by CSFW’s David Smith) might be:

Peter entered the dark farmhouse.

The passage leaves readers asking many questions. Just how dark is the farmhouse? Why is the farmhouse dark? What is the significance of the farmhouse being dark? How did he enter the farmhouse? A reader may not ask these questions aloud, but they linger in her unconsciousness. Passages like the one above simply are too generalized for readers to really imagine the setting. Too many such passages disconnect readers from the story.

One solution is to appeal to the readers’ five senses by offering descriptions of the farmhouse. When sounds, scents, and tactile details are included, readers can more easily immerse themselves into the scene. In addition, though dark does appeal to the sense of sight, it is too nebulous of a word to give a clear picture of the scene, so using more precise wording also can resolve the problem.

For example, the above passage could be rewritten as:

As the farmhouse’s screen door creaked open, the morning's luster gave way to a stained brown like that of withered mustard seed.

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 Antonio, Texas, or a small town like Toad Suck, Arkansas, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Don’t end novel with cliffhanger

One of the new writing trends among self-published authors is to end their novel on a cliffhanger. The idea is that this will generate interest in purchasing the author’s next novel, which is a sequel.

Unless readers know they've picked up a trilogy or a book in a story arc, most will find a cliffhanger ending unsatisfying and wonder why the author didn't finish the story. As most television show episodes, motion pictures, novels and short stories have a clear beginning-middle-end, readers have become accustomed to tales that follow such a plot line.

If you wish to open the way for a sequel, consider structuring your novel so it completes one story that is part of a larger tale. For example, a trilogy might be about an unlikely band of characters going on a quest. To complete the first part of the journey, they must overcome some major obstacle that cements them together as a team. This leaves an opening for them to pick up their quest in progress in the next novel, which has them overcome a specific goal necessary for them to continue their journey (Perhaps to reach a specific spot they must solve some large puzzle). The third novel would follow this pattern by following another specific adventure in the quest. Indeed, most of the original King Arthur stories about the quest for the Holy Grail were written using this structure – as self-contained stories that each bring the characters a little closer to achieving their overall goal.

One possibility for including the cliffhanger in a novel is to add as an epilogue. Once the segment of the heroes’ adventure has been completed in the novel’s chapters, the epilogue is an extra that doesn’t feel tacked on but opens the ways for a sequel.

To get a novel with a cliffhanger to not end that way, you’ll likely need to add the solution to the cliffhanger in one last chapter. That may require editing some sections out of the story to prevent it from being too long. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to revisit the story’s plot and revise it so it contains a self-contained 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 San Francisco, California, or a small town like Nimrod, Oregon, I can provide that second eye.

 

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Five Great Quotations about Originality in Writing

“There is no idea so brilliant or original that a sufficiently-untalented writer can't screw it up.” - Raymond Feist (for the corollary, see Lawrence Watt-Evans below)

“There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story out of it.” - Lawrence Watt-Evans

“In brief, I spend half my time trying to learn the secrets of other writers - to apply them to the expression of my own thoughts.” - Shirley Ann Grau

“A writer will seal his own coffin,
And the interests of readers will soften,
If the author insists
On the usual twists,
And he goes to the Wells once too often.” - Mark Grenier

“Observe, don't imitate.” - John M. Ford

“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

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 live in a big city like Austin, Texas, or a small town like Waldo, Ohio, I can provide that second eye.

 

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