Rob Bignell's Blog, page 367
June 12, 2013
Get it entirely right: All together vs. altogether
I often 
see these two words similar sounding words confused in manuscripts I edit for writers.
“Altogether” means “completely” or “entirely” as in “When it came to knowing when to use who and whom, the writer was altogether confused.”
“All together” means “in a group” as in “The chimpanzees sat all together in the exhibit’s corner.”
Here’s an easy way to not look like a monkey when using the two words: “Altogether” is one complete word while “all together” is a group of words.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 11, 2013
Delete bookisms in your story’s dialogue
Ever notice 
when reading a story that sometimes an odd word appears when “said” would do? For example, “Well, I’ve never!” she blustered.
If so, you’ve just come across a bookism. A term coined by science fiction writer James Patrick Kelly, a bookism is a long word that means “said.”
Usually writers use a bookism to convey information that is not directly stated in dialogue or description. For example, in “That could be the case,” he admitted, the fill-in for “said” – admitted – is intended to connote that the speaker acknowledges that there’s some truth to a position or explanation that apparently the previous speaker gave.
Rather than tell readers how they should interpret a certain statement, writers almost are always better off to infer it. That may mean rewriting the dialogue or description.
In many cases, the writer already has inferred it. For example, in the previous paragraph’s bookism, the speaker’s statement implies that he is acknowledging there’s some truth to a position or explanation with which he disagrees. There’s no need to emphasize it.
Another reason not use to bookisms is that really poor ones sometimes can result in an unintentional Tom Swifty, such as “It’s a unit of electric current,” Tom amplified.
Don’t worry about overusing “said,” a common reason authors like to use bookisms. “Said” is a nearly invisible word for most readers. In addition, during long exchanges of dialogue between two characters, attribution usually isn’t needed for every line they speak, so many potential uses of “said” are deleted.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 10, 2013
St. Croix 360 features ‘Hittin’ the Trail’ excerpt
St. Croix 360 
on Friday ran an excerpt from my latest release, the ebook Hittin’ the Trail: Day Hiking Polk County, Wisconsin. The excerpt is a description of the Indianhead Flowage Trail, just north of St. Croix Falls, in the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. St. Croix 360 covers environmental, outdoors and other news related to the scenic riverway. Day Hiking Polk County, Wisconsin lists dozens of great family-friendly trails in all of your favorite Polk County communities, including St. Croix Falls, Osceola, Amery, Turtle Lake, Balsam Lake, Frederic and Luck.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 9, 2013
Editor reading hiking, fathering essays Saturday
In celebration
of Father’s Day, I’ll be reading about hiking and fatherhood on Saturday, June 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Valley Bookseller in downtown Stillwater, Minn. The readings are of the completed essays in an anthology that I’m writing, Trails and Trials: Journeys of a Father and Son. Among the book’s topics: Fathers’ fears of handling a newborn, traditional vs. nontraditional roles of a father, and fathers being nurturers. Each essay shows how hiking offers the answers to these and other complex issues of being a father. After the reading, I’ll be on hand to answer questions and sign any of my various hiking books, which currently are available for purchase at Valley Bookseller. Valley Bookseller is an independently owned and run bookstore, located at 217 Main Street North in Stillwater.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 8, 2013
'Headin' to the Cabin' makes Father's Day gift list
Wisconsin Outdoor Fun
today listed my recent book, Headin’ to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin has one of six outdoors-related books that would be a great Father’s Day gift. The neat interactive feature allows readers to click onto the book cover and read a synopsis of it or to connect with a news article about the title. Among the other books listed are: “I Dream in Camo”; “The Stream of Time”; “People of the Sturgeon”; “Blaze Orange”; and “Invaders of the Great Lakes.” Headin’ to the Cabin describes more than a 100 day hiking trails in Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, Polk, St. Croix, Sawyer and Washburn counties.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 7, 2013
Decide what your book's website will look like
Before 
constructing your website or even deciding what pages you’ll have on your website, you’ll need to think about what the website page should look like. While each page will differ slightly – one might be a collection of publicity photos that can be downloaded while another is primarily a sample chapter of your book – each page should contain certain elements that are consistent throughout your site. This helps give your website a unity of appearance and will improve the reader’s ability to navigate it.
To best understand web design, imagine that each element of your page sticks to a piece of cardboard in a very specific spot: a header giving your name sits at the page’s top; a slim column of links to other pages on your website runs down the left side; an article with a headline and photo sit below the header and to the right of the column of links. These parts are “glued” to a frame, which typically consists of a single color or a color scheme. For example, at the website promoting my book “Hikes with Tykes”, the frame includes the header illustration of a family walking with the book’s name superimposed over the sky, the column of links on the right side, and the headline with text on the left side. Surrounding this is a background sand color that gradates in hue from dark to light. You want your frame and background to be the same on virtually every page of your website. This unity of appearance makes it identifiable as your website.
Among the general parts of any website page that fit on this frame are:
g Body content – Also known as text, this is the article or wording that appears on the page. It might be a summary of your book, a Q&A of the author, or her biography.
g Headlines – These are the titles of your body content so that readers know what a specific page is about. For example, headlines might read “Novel Synopsis”, “Q&A with the Author”, or “About the Author.”
g Images – These photos or illustrations support the body content on the page. An “About the Author” page with a biography might include a picture of the author.
g Navigation – These are links that readers can take to other pages on your website. For example, they may be a list of links appearing on either the left or the right side of the page, or they may be a series of file folder-like tabs running across the top of your page.
g Credits – These typically appear at the page’s bottom and might include such information as who designed the website, who hosts the site, a copyright date, and so on. For my “Hikes with Tykes” website, since I did all of the work myself, I dispensed with the credits.
If using a turnkey website, you can select from templates that have a frame ready to go for you. Each page you build will use this frame. You then add any of the general parts of a website page (body content, headlines, images, navigation, credits) that fit on this frame. During the next few chapters of this book, we’ll examine what specific pages you might want to include on your website and considerations you should make about the body content, headlines, images and navigation on each one.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 6, 2013
Should you buy publisher’s insurance?
If you’re
establishing your own publishing company, you may want to consider purchasing insurance against copyright infringement, defamation, right of publicity, invasion of privacy, negligence, and more. This is loosely called a “publisher’s policy”.
Generally speaking, such policies are far too expensive for a writer who has only self-published a book or two. The premiums alone will far outstrip your royalties.
However, once you’ve written a series of books – especially if they’re about controversial topics – and particularly if you expand your business to handle books by other authors, an insurance policy probably is necessary to guard against libel and copyright infringement.
Should you be interested in finding out more about such policies, The Authors Guild offers a list of recommended providers. The Small Publishers Association of North America and the Publishers Marketing Association also offer policies in which you can participate, but you’ll first have to join those organizations (which is an added expense!).
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. I can provide that second eye.
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How to purchase an ISBN for your bookJune 5, 2013
Editor publishes third ‘Hittin’ the Trail’ guidebook
The third 
book in my Hittin’ the Trail hiking guide series, Hittin’ the Trail: Day Hiking Polk County, Wisconsin, went on sale Tuesday. The ebook lists dozens of great family-friendly trails in all of your favorite Polk County communities, including St. Croix Falls, Osceola, Amery, Turtle Lake, Balsam Lake, Frederic and Luck. Included is a primer about day hiking essentials, such as gear, clothing, navigation, and how to avoid various trail dangers. Day Hiking Polk County, Wisconsin is available as an ebook on Kindle, Nook, iBook/iPad, Kobo, and other formats.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 4, 2013
‘Murder your darlings’ to better engage readers
To engage
your readers – whether writing fiction of nonfiction – you’ll need to be utterly ruthless with your own words. In short, you’ll need to “murder your darlings.”
You’ve probably heard the axiom before. Though recently promoted by science fiction writer James Patrick Kelly, the advice is often given to writers of all genres, and for good reason.
Here’s the problem: Writers fall in love with their words. Like their own children or lovers, a writer’s words can do no wrong. And if they do, the transgression is highly forgivable given the surrounding words’ beauty.
But some words in our stories are “precious freeloaders who are too busy looking good to do any work,” as Kelly points he. He recommends eliminating those words, or to “murder your darlings.” (A side note here: The phrase actually is borrowed from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who wrote, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate of piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” But who remembers Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch?)
Such freeloading words actually slow your story. They distract from the action, which in turn keeps readers from remaining focused on how your main character faces his central problem – and that latter conflict, after all, is the heart of the traditional story.
Beginning writers often make the mistake of trying to fix wordiness by adding words rather than cutting them. That’s like adding more fat to the plate rather than trimming it, however.
What are some darlings that ought to be excised? Kelly identifies six “darlings” that can be killed:
g Adjectival and adverbial leeches – Descriptive words should be selected very carefully. They ought to create atmosphere and offer insights into the character, not to decorate a paragraph.
g Clumsy entrances and exits – Too often stories contain “here to there” action that shows how a character got from one place to another. Providing that info typically is irrelevant to the story.
g Unnecessary scene or time switches – Many stories can take place in a couple of locations or during the course of a few hours. Switching the when and where of a story often forces you to waste words on re-establishing the setting and mood as well as explaining why the change occurred.
g Overpopulation (extra characters) – Limit a story (especially a short stories and novellas) to a few characters – the main character, the villain, the sidekick, a couple of background characters. Each additional character requires some description and takes attention away from the main character.
g Overdramatization (too much “show” and not enough “tell”) – In fiction, exposition kills a story. If readers wanted to read an encyclopedia, they would have grabbed a Compton’s from the bookshelf, not your book.
g Arriving early, staying late – When and where stories and scenes start and end is vital. Think of “The Iliad”: Homer doesn’t begin with the war’s start 10 years earlier but begins the tale in the days leading up to the final battle.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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June 2, 2013
Common ‘first draft-itis’ symptoms to look for
Ever suffer 
from a bad bout of “first draft-Itis”?
We all have. First draft-itis refers to the various flaws that everyone – including the author – during a first read of the manuscript can quickly agree should be corrected. In short, they’re common flaws that appear in first drafts.
What are some common problems in first drafts? In my editing of novels, short stories and nonfiction books, I generally see:
g Spelling errors (usually just typos)
g Punctuation errors (especially with commas and quotation marks – you know, those pesky little rules we didn’t bother to learn in sixth grade)
g Capitalization errors (particularly with pronouns used during dialogue)
g Misplaced modifiers (such as “We ate the hamburgers we just bought quickly” really should be “We quickly ate the hamburgers we just bought.”)
g Using vague words (like “thing”) and weak verbs (like “walk” instead “saunter”)
g Shifts in verb tense (often moving between past and present tense)
Many other problems can’t be quickly agreed upon and so aren’t first draft-itis: Plot turns that don’t seem to make sense, characters acting in a way contrary to how they were previously presented, and point of view shifts. These issues all are a matter of craft and style. In addition, what might be perfectly acceptable in one genre, such as a romance, won’t fly in another genre, such as literary.
First draft-itis certainly is not a problem – so long as you take care of it. The best medicine is to proofread and edit and revise … over and over until you get it right. You don’t want to send out a manuscript to a literary agent or a self-publish it on Amazon.com when it’s full of errors.
In short, your first draft shouldn’t be your final draft. If it is, first draft-itis can be fatal.
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. I can provide that second eye.
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