Florence Witkop's Blog, page 75

You Are In Your Stories

One of the most common pieces of advice given to new writers is to write what they know. What they are familiar with. It’s good advice but all by itself this advice comes up short. When given this advice, writers should ask why they should do so.

The answer is simple. Because every writer is in every story they tell. So knowing what they are doing in their own story can expedite the process.

Think of the story you want to tell. Take it apart. Find yourself. Are you the main character, a minor one, or the omnipotent voice-over? Are you a spy watching from behind a curtain and judging other characters? Or are you someone else? Think about it until you figure out who you are.

Once you’ve found yourself, figure out why you are there. What you are trying to accomplish. You know yourself so you know the answers. How you got in your story. What you’re doing there.

Then start writing. Start telling your story. Knowing your place in it will make telling that story easier.

The Point of Exclamation Points!

Exclamation points  have a place! But they should be used sparingly! They shouldn’t be found at the end of every sentence! Or even every once in a while! Even if you feel what you’re saying is important! Because that would be overdoing the point of exclamation points!

See what I mean? Too many exclamation points lessen the point they are supposed to make.

I recently edited a manuscript for a book that was quite good. My only problem with it was that the writer used too many exclamation points. I took out all but a half dozen of them, and that was in a manuscript of over 55,000 words. And I still wondered if that was too many. If those  half dozen were enough that they diluted the meaning of the ones following truly important information.

There is no  hard and fast rule about exclamation points. Use as many or as few as you feel is necessary. But remember that every time you use more than one in a manuscript … any manuscript, no matter how long or short … you dilute the value of the ones that truly are appropriate.

 

Give Your Characters Opinions

Happy belated Fourth of July, everyone.  I hope you had as safe and sane a holiday as we did. To be honest, I hope your Fourth was as safe as ours but maybe more sane. We spent it selling fudge and fudge-filled banana bread (try it, it’s wonderful!) at a local outdoor celebration because our daughter and grandson, who own the business, were selling elsewhere.

We came home with aching feet and sore throats because we know that, if you want to sell, you don’t sit on your butt. You get out there and let people know how great your special fudge truly is. You get their attention as they pass by and engage them in a conversation that’s all about how you feel about fudge and fudge-filled banana bread.

Which is relevant because passive, malleable people might seem likable but they are boring. They are especially boring as characters in fiction.

Give your characters opinions. The stronger the better. That doesn’t mean they must go around arguing constantly or starting fights or shunning characters who disagree with them. But remember that, as a writer, you have a limited number of words in which to show off that character. And the stronger the opinions held the easier the task.

So give them aching feet and sore throats if necessary. Or give them strong feelings that they don’t express but that drives their actions. Your readers will love your characters and will buy your stories eagerly.

Mail Order Millie by Katie Crabapple

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SAKW9E

Review of Mail Order Millie by Katie Crabapple

As I started reading this homespun romance I didn’t expect to enjoy the read but, as an author, I often read for reasons other than plain enjoyment. I’d decided that I should become more well-rounded in the small town romance genre and this book looked like a good place to start.

But something happened as I read.I became increasingly annoyed with the author because I felt that this unusually detailed account of the daily life of a pioneer woman in early Minnesota might not be realistic in that the author was turning Millie into something no woman could be. Wonder Woman. I don’t know anyone who can scrub down log walls and bake bread while doing the laundry by hand.  And it bothered me a tad that the writing wasn’t smooth or polished. It was as simplistic as if I was reading a pioneer woman’s journal, except it was in third person.

Now let me make something clear. I did not live in those times (I’m not quite that old) but my mother did, having lived as a child in Hibbing Minnesota during the boom times. She learned to cook on a wood stove and started caring for her younger siblings when she was five. Though she later earned her Masters and was in Who’s Who in American Education and was an extremely competent, hard-working and efficient person, I doubt she was physically capable of accomplishing all that Millie did in the book. I doubt anyone could have done all those things to quickly, efficiently and easily. They’d have passed out from sheer exhaustion.

I also wondered whether any devout Christian woman would have felt quite so subservient to her husband as Millie did. In fact became a tad irritated with Millie and wanted to slap her upside the head until she stopped being so hard on herself for being every bit as irritated with her husband for being chauvinist as I was.

Then I realized something. I’d forgotten that I was reading for research. I was into the story. More, I was into the characters enough that I wanted to intervene and thump on someone’s head.. anyone’s head, either the hero or the heroine… until they stopped being so dense, even though I knew all along that everything would end happily.

Well! That says something!

I guess the book was better than I thought. In fact, now that I’m done with it, I look back and am very glad I read it and will remember it for a long time, and not only because it was an interesting and very detailed description of the daily life of a pioneer Minnesota woman.

Maybe I’m prejudiced. My mom was much like the oldest daughter in the story. My grandmother was very sick so she gave instructions that my mother, as a child, carried out so the housework got done and the kids were cared for. Okay, there were differences. They lived in town instead of a log cabin and my grandfather was the school superintendent instead of a farmer so things weren’t as tough for my mom as they were for Millie. Still, there’s a similarity and I think I’ll shoot this book over to my mom to read because I think she’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Oh my goodness! I doubt I’ve ever given a book that wasn’t extremely well written as good a review as I have this one. Or was the writing better than I realized and I just didn’t see it? I’ll always wonder.

Why Do We Need Publishers?

Writers who self-publish electronically get to keep all the money their books earn less a pittance to the venue through which the book is sold, such as Amazon or Smashwords. That’s not much money but If they publish through an electronic publisher such as Samhain,Tate or The Written World, the publisher takes an additional chunk of money for their effort.

Sometimes that’s a rather sizable chunk considering that they have no printing costs and don’t have to ship paper books all over the world. Print publishers, such as Dorchester or Penguin Books, take even more to cover the cost of printing and distributing. And they do so even though the writer has to do all or most of the marketing. So why bother with a publisher at all? Why not just self-publish and keep most or all of the money yourself?

The answer is that publishers, both print and electronic, provide one very valuable service. They tell you how to market your book. That’s major because, without marketing few readers will ever know your book is out there let alone make the decision to buy it. I’ve met some writers who are also skilled marketers. I’m awed at how well their books seem to climb the charts whether they have written the next great novel or not. Unfortunately, most of us don’t know a fig about marketing.

And that’s okay if we publish through a publisher because as a part of the agreement between them and you, the writer, they check your website and tell you what’s wrong with it, how to improve it, and if you don’t have one, they tell you where and how to create one.They tell you what to say and do on that website and how to say and do it. They tell you which social media sites are best for marketing your specific book and they take you through the process. Step by step. In detail. Much the way those techies do when your computer stops working and you call for help and end up doing whatever they say with your phone scrunched against your shoulder and your fingers on the keys. And they keep doing it until they believe you know how to sell as many of your books as possible. And until your sales are satisfactory to everyone involved.

That service is worth whatever they charge and is what will keep them in business until someone comes along with software that will do the same thing at the touch of a button. (I’m sure that’ll happen eventually because it’s amazing what software designers come up with. But it hasn’t yet. Hint, hint any software designers out there.) In the meantime we writers gladly give thanks and a portion of our profits to publishers.

After The End

The time comes when each and every writer must finish what they write and send it out into the world. The problem is that very few writers know when it’s done. When it’s ready. When it should be sent away. Most writers will edit, change and tweak their works even after they’ve been published if they get the chance and they will fight to get the chance. It’s the nature of the job.

But if a writer is ever going to get started on that next story that’s already waiting in the wings, then that writer must stop working on the present one. Ready or not, the current work must come to an end and be sent out or the writer’s career will end up stalled. So how is a writer to know when that magical moment is that the story is done?

The answer is, they don/t. They just choose an end, a time when they find they are just playing with words and phrases and other little things that don’t change the story significantly even though it does improve it … and they let it go.

Writers, by their very nature, will never be satisfied. Nothing is ever perfect but writers don’t seem to know that.

But if they are to be professionals, they must let the story go. Perfect or not, it must get out there. If you feel something wasn’t as good as it should be, forget it and vow to do better in the next manuscript. So get your current story out there and then get that next story started.

The End Is Here

Endings are the most important part of any story. It’s what the beginning hints at and the middle reaches after slogging through a lot of muck. In a way, they are the exact opposite of theme because the ending is the one thing that the writer must not wait to figure out. It must be firmly in place before the first sentence is written.

Because the ending must be behind every sentence that’s written. The writer must know where the story is going in order to write words and sentences and paragraphs that will get the reader there without throwing the book against the wall in frustration because that wasn’t what they expected.

There are exceptions. Some great writers don’t know where they are going until they get there. Hans Christian Anderson is the writer I’m thinking of. He said he wrote stories to find out how they ended. But I firmly believe that his subconscious knew all along what the ending would be and he just followed its lead until it emerged into his conscience.

So unless you trust your subconscience to know more than you do and to lead you in the right direction, write the ending before the beginning. Most writers do. Some write the entire ending scene before starting their story. Most of us at least jot down a sentence or two on a slip of paper and tape it to the wall above our computers. Or, as in my case, on the computer.

Doing this one simple thing will make writing a story a lot easier and will get you to the end a lot faster and might prevent some future reader from throwing your book against the wall.

Messing Up Your Characters

Once, at a writers’ meeting, a fellow writer said he was quitting the group. His explanation? He’d had a happy childhood. We all understood. Some of the best writers out there grew up in unhappy homes. Not all, but a lot. Those unhappy childhoods gave them both content and incentive to write great stories.

I had a happy, normal, well-adjusted childhood. As a beginning writer, I started out writing what I knew about and that was happy, well-adjusted … and boring.

I realized I’d have to learn how to create characters that don’t put my readers to sleep or go to work at Walmart. I did so by creating characters who have difficulty with adversity because, like me, they’ve never known it and so, don’t know how to deal with it when it hits them over the head. It worked and I started selling.

I still struggle with the process.

As a writer, you must do whatever works for you to create great characters. You can throw problems you are familiar with at them or you can throw problems at them that you … and they … know nothing about. Doesn’t matter which as long as they end up with problems they can’t handle.

Your characters will grow, your story will be better and, most of all, your characters will be more interesting.

The Right Theme

Theme is important. It’s deeper than plot. It’s what makes the story come alive. And it’s very, very general. Love overcomes bigotry. Hope springs eternal. Life is good. Nothing specific.

Problem is, the general nature of theme makes it illusive, amorphous and easy to lose track of even though the theme is what makes the story unforgettable. Like the times you set out to write a love story and ended up with a family saga. You had a techno- thriller clearly in mind but you wrote a romance. So the question is … how can you know your theme before you begin writing if it might change during the course of the story?

The answer is, you don’t. And that’s okay. Because theme chooses you, not the other way around, and that’s why very often it shouldn’t be decided until after the story is finished.

What you wrote when you thought you were writing whatever you set out to write was the story your subconscious was directing you to write. You just didn’t know it until you wrote The End at the bottom of the last page with that elegant flourish all writers learn early on.

At that moment, and not a second before, go back and decipher the underlying theme of your masterpiece. It might surprise you. It may be totally different from what you expected. It usually is.

Don’t worry about it. Run with whatever theme you uncovered that you didn’t know existed until your story was written. Then pretend that theme was what you set out to write all along and accept all compliments gracefully.

Simplify

In my wip (that’s work-in-progress to non-writers) I need a character to introduce Elle to the spaceship, another to figure out that she’s a stow-away and still another to give her fake papers so she’ll appear to be legitimate. That’s three characters who aren’t essential to the story and all must appear in the first two chapters.

There are two ways to handle such a situation. The first involves creating what some writers call throw-away characters, those people who appear briefly in a story and then disappear, never to be seen again. It’s fun to create such characters and describe them in a sentence or two that implants them so firmly in the readers’ minds that they stay there forever. But too many minor characters can clutter up a story.

So I chose the second way. I simplified and combined. I created one single character who will be semi-important to the story and who does all three jobs. He meets Elle as they board the spaceship, he finds her living hand-to-mouth and he makes fake papers for her. And since he’s also the father of a small girl who helps Ells survive and since he’s also the Mayor of the village she lives near, he’s available to accomplish all sorts of other things in the story that I haven’t yet figured out I’ll need done. And he’s just one character.

A simple story will be remembered long after a complex one has been long forgotten and one character who becomes part of the story will be fuller and more rounded than several throw-away characters, no matter how well they have been described.

The decision as to which way to go is up to the writer. Long stories usually need simplification because they are complex enough without adding to the mix. Shorter stories often benefit from one or two well-defiined throw-away characters.