Adam Heine's Blog, page 46

A Simple Fix: -ing Verbs

I love Dr. Seuss, but there's one of his books I always edit as I read. Bartholomew and the Oobleck just has an overabundance of passive -ing verbs. Example:

       With an angry roar, the oobleck was suddenly hitting the palace harder. It was battering and spattering against the walls as big as greenish buckets full of gooey asparagus soup!

       Like a sinking sailboat, the whole palace was springing leaks. The oobleck was ripping the windows right off their hinges.

       It was...

Never Tell Me the Odds

Three years ago, I thought all you needed to get published was a half-decent book.



Most of you are laughing now.



The thing is if I knew, when I started writing Travelers, that it would take eight years and three novels to get to the place where agents said, "I like your writing, but...", I think I would've given up from the start. I'm glad I didn't know how hard this road would be when I started it.



But there are a few things I wish I had known, and I'll share these with you:

Critiquing...

What's DRM Good For?

Wednesday's post garnered some very awesome comments, making good points for both sides: paper and e-books. A couple of them got me thinking about DRM, and what makes it bad or good. That's what we're talking about today.



First, a definition. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. Once upon a time, media was produced as physical objects. You had to have a printing press or a recording studio or a pinball parts factory to copy your favorite book/song/game for your friends. Today, software,...

The Arguments Against eBooks

There are good reasons to favor paper books over eBooks, but they are more limited than most people think. This post is intended to clarify what is and is not a good argument, using the most common ones I've come across.



(NOTE: The first two arguments are actually TRUE for the iPad, which is more of a tablet than an e-reader.)



1. "I get a headache looking at a computer screen for too long." FALSE. Not that you don't get a headache, but that you're not looking at a computer screen. E-reader...

Gummi Bears and Obsessive Compulsions

Everyone's got their quirks. Some people have to collect the same edition of a book (mass market, trade, or hard) for the entire series. Some people straighten cards and game pieces constantly. Some won't watch a movie if they have to start in the middle. Some have to peel their orange in one giant piece, while others put each piece on the table such that none of them are touching.



Okay, so those are all me (except the last one, but that's my son, so it's the same thing). When I was a kid, I...

Actually Critiquing

Have I talked about critique partners enough yet? Well they're important. I do believe you can learn from anybody, at any skill level, but you can learn a heckuva lot more when you find the right folks.



But all the awesome friends in the world will run out if your critiques aren't all that useful. Fortunately, you don't have to be an awesome writer to give good critiques. You just need to pay attention to what's working (and not working) for you, then communicate that.



The rest is just bein...

More on "The Entire Freaking Internet"

NOTE: Apparently, I'm not the only one who decided it was Critique Week. On Monday, LT Host wrote about the different kind of beta readers, and Natalie Whipple is running a crit partner classifieds. I'm starting to feel redundant, but I'm nothing if not lazydetermined. Let us press on!





Stop me if you know this feeling. You find a critique group only to discover its members are where you were five years ago. Their comments are glowing because they don't know what to say, or else they're peda...

Finding Critique Partners

I've decided (somewhat randomly) this is going to be Critique Week on Author's Echo. Some of this stuff I've said before, but finding critique partners and getting/giving good critiques is so dang important, it's worth repeating.



But where do you find someone willing to read 80,000 words and tell you what they think? More over, where do you find people who are actually good at that sort of thing?



I know of three places, though the first two specialize in SF, Fantasy, and Horror. Hopefully f...

The Great Criddle-Heine Art Swap

The great K. Marie Criddle approached me to exchange sketches, which does all kinds of nonsense to my ego (e.g. "Your ego's so fat, it uses Wilson Fisk's socks for finger puppets"). ESPECIALLY since I failed to win a Criddle sketch from her recent contest. It's like I won the contest for free!



Well, not free. I got to draw this:





This is Miss Hannah P. Bartleby, the main character of a manuscript Marie is revising for her agent. She's not the most graceful of young ladies, but she can be a ...

Answers the Second: Randomness and Torture

Matthew Rush asks: Would you rather be Jirayah (Pervy Sage) or Kabuto (the dork with the glasses)?



I can't say I approve of Jiraiya's choice of hobbies or Kabuto's choice of employer, though they are both pretty powerful. But any way I look at it, Jiraiya's got one thing going for him that Kabuto doesn't. Sage Mode:







Susan Kaye Quinn asks: Favored platform: Mac or PC?



I would love a Mac. Thank you for offering.



Every time I buy a new computer, I have to make this decision, and it always...