Phillip T. Stephens's Blog: Wind Eggs, page 18
March 2, 2017
Fantasy Indie Author Sponsorship
Claire’s publishing house produces some good work. If you’re looking to get started in fantasy, take a glance at this offer.
Don’t forget to get your entries in before the 31st May 2017. The package is worth over $700 USD.
The winner will recieve:
Editing, Book Cover, Formatting, Book Trailer and some Marketing. Plaisted Publishing House will also do and Interview which will be shared on social media and their monthly magazine.
Looking forward to hearing from you all.
Book Review: Writing Vivid Emotions
Rayne Hall just released her new book Writing Vivid Emotions: Professional Techniques For Fiction Authors. It’s 99¢ for a limited time, so now is the time to cash in. I don’t carry many reference books for writers because I’ve been doing it so long, but I stock my reference shelf with several of Rayne’s and this is one of them.
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Buy Rayne’s book for the bargain price of 99¢ while it’s available. It’s worth every penny of the full retail price. My review should sell you if the price doesn’t.
Is it worth the dollar? It’s worth the full price. If you don’t believe me, read my review.
Writing Vid Emotions:
Tap Into Life and Imagination as well
March 1, 2017
Ever wanted to join the Iowa Writer’s Workshop?
Iowa’s International Writer’s Program, the online extension of their famous Writer’s Workshop, just opened their library of courses to the public. You can review the lessons of past workshops for no fee, and without logging in.
I joined the Women’s Stories workshop las fall and connected with dozens of writers from around the world as we posted and critiqued each other’s work. I even honed my entry for the next Hell’s Creatures anthology, “Euterpe”, with advice from new and experienced writers.
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Iowa’s Storied Women session introduced young writers to the styles and techniques of international writers, with a focus on women’s narrative.
Iowa posts the courses as (Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) packs. (It took seven different searches to pin down what the meaning of MOOC). They include multiple lessons, video lectures and interviews, suggested readings and assignments.
Topics cover international writing, writing about loss and suffering, teen poetry as well as general sessions on fiction and poetry from past workshops. Their later modules focus on specialized topics and plan to announce the next round of workshops around the middle of the month.
If you’re interested in participating, past workshops ran around $60. For more information, put your name on their mailing list.
Book Reviews
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check out Phillip T. Stephens books at Amazon.com
#amwriting: Hyphens are the Devil
I don’t live in hyphen hell, more like a zone where hyphens nip the skin like mini-mosquitoes. Or is it mini mosquitoes. Grammerly and spellcheck get it wrong sometimes. Connie Jasperson shares her guidelines for hyphenation.
They’ll help a little, until you lose the link to the blog. But that’s just me being neg…proactive. I’m bookmarking this now.
I’ll forget where I bookmarked it, but you’ll do a better job. I’m sure.
PS: I’m not still paying my student loans at 62 to pay for college to learn this. I paid for college to expand my horizons and stretch my brain. But I did learn this at college.
As it is March and is that month known as National Novel Editing Month, or NaNoEdMo, I will be be revisiting some of my posts on the craft of writing. Today we are looking at that most abused morsel of punctuation, the Hyphen. In my own work I will be looking at each hyphen and deciding if it stays or if it goes. Much of the time, they must go.
Most authors know that a compound word is a combination of two or more words that function as a single unit of meaning. Most of us even know that there are two types of compounds: those written as single words, with no hyphenation and which are called “closed compounds”– such as the word “bedspread,” AND the “hyphenated compounds,” such as “jack-in-the-box” and “self-worth.”
But there is a third group, and they are the bane of my life–those mysterious…
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February 28, 2017
Create a high performing book launch page
Looking to launch your book with the best marketing tools available? Hire a professional, and make sure they have a proven track record. For those writers with no marketing budget, (and a lot of us are out here) we’re stuck wading through endless resources teaching us how to create launch pages, master social media, build e-mail lists…
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You can pay a professional to design your launch page or you can make one yourself.
(Image courtesy of bamboocreative.com, who I’m not endorsing.)
I’m of two minds of thought. I feel that most of the information on the web is, in the words of Donald Trump, “fake news.” Only really fake news, not an excuse to ignore criticism. So trying to follow every lead is likely to waste time and distract you from real marketing efforts.
On the other hand, I think that if you focus on one or two strategies with sources that seem reliable, and ignore the rest until you see a return from those, you might sell a few more books. You can add pieces to your marketing as your efforts fall into place.
Book Marketing Tools recently posted a step-by-step guide to building a launch page. I wouldn’t pile this on top of strategies you’re already working, but if you’re still in the planning stage, you should give it a look.
February 26, 2017
What the how? Why not #SOCS ?
This is the badge for Stream of Consciousness Saturday participants. Click here to bookmark for next week.
So Kristen Twardowsky turned me onto John Howell’s post with a link to Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday rules. You must write SOC from the weekly prompt (this week was “how”), and then ping the site back.
Normally I don’t post these kinds of contests, but this time I figured why not, and if you want to you should give it a try. Extra points for ending with “how” as well. Note, writing without punctuation is a style I use. You can structure your entry syntactically anyway you want as long as you write without thinking ahead
How he came to be face down in a funnel shaped hole underneath the walkway was entirely his fault after all he was too busy talking on his cell phone to his goddam mother and not paying attention to me or to traffic or to the sign right in front of us that said “danger construction proceed with caution” or similar such language and yellow stickers and warning signs and red lights and he walked right on past the last cement step past the wooden frame and even when i yelled at him “watch where you’re going for chris sake” he walked straight ahead talking on his cellphone to his mother and tumbled over the safety rope and right into the funnel shaped sinkhole they marked off with ropes and tape not to mention two bruising construction workers dropping their tools to rush to his aid (including rebar onto the toes of the blonde adonis’ steel-tipped boots but you could tell it hurt like hell by the way he limped hurriedly, not like an all out run like his partner did, the partner who might have arrived in time if he was as close as the adonis with the rebar sticking from his boot which is the only reason blood didn’t flow more freely) and you might ask yourself “how come he didn’t put a hand out to stop himself from falling” and the answer if you knew him would be because the idiot didn’t want to drop his expensive iPhone 7 with all the bells and whistles including a hard shell case which was supposed to protect it if a train ran over it but you don’t know how he is because that’s why I’m telling you this story isn’t it?
Anyhow he falls straight in head first down the sinkhole until his head’s wedged into this little neck at the bottom, the little neck collecting the run off water from the morning’s rainstorm and he’s coughing and choking and yelling to me, “well, how’re you gonna get me out of here” and I said “how the hell should I know we’ve been dating seven years and I see your mother twice a week but you still won’t let me introduce you to my folks even though the Supreme Damn Court of the United States gave us permission to marry so if you want out you need to be the one to figure out how.”
Note: writing without punctuation is a style I use. You can structure your entry syntactically anyway you want as long as you write without thinking ahead. (As opposed to SOC literature which you can plan and craft as carefully as you want so long as it reads like a character’s stream of consciousness.)
February 24, 2017
An Art Museum For Book Lovers
Picture books taught me how to read, especially Babar the Elephant and any book on astronomy. I loved looking at pictures of planets and how artists (then) imagined they looked on the surface, My mom would read to me and I would try to learn the words so I could read the books while looking at the pictures.
Many books I remember by the images more than words, and some thinkers, such as Rudolf Arnheim believe we think in images (which is why modern neurophilosophers such as George Lakoff spend so much time exploring metaphors embedded in language and thinking). I remember those pictures more than the words, and I can often picture stories in my head even though the books are out of print and I can’t remember the titles.
One teacher shares her experiences bringing her students to explore a museum that celebrates the art that accompanies words.
People think of an art museum as… art, single standing pieces on their own right. Imagine masterful, award winning art combined with the best literature, in one museum. Exciting? You bet! A hidden gem in Amherst, Massachusetts.
What is your favorite childhood book? Madeline? Perhaps it is Make Way For Ducklings. There are so many. The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is dedicated to the art of children’s book illustrators. I thought this was interesting, then I visited the museum. Oh, my!
The exhibit way back then featured Ezra Jack Keats, author of The Snowy Day. I am a preschool teacher and have read this wonderful book to my class hundreds of times. Yet, I never expected to come face-to-face with his art. I did. To my great surprise it was made from cut-out linoleum. I couldn’t walk away or let that go…
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Pixar’s 15 Rules of Storytelling
Writer Emma Coats shares lessons about storytelling she learned at PIXAR. “But I’m writing fiction,” you protest. In my experience the elements of good storytelling cross media, and I study film and television as well as novels to learn the craft of fiction. I recommend copying this list and keep it in your digital back pocket to refer to every once in a while.
On Twitter, Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats has compiled nuggets of narrative wisdom she’s received working for the animation studio over the years. Here are the ones that resonated with me.
Pixar’s 15 Rules of Storytelling
You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to your audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you…
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February 22, 2017
Don’t become an ad for an editor
I was chatting with some fellow authors on Facebook (which I tend to avoid because I Tweet so often), when I noticed a post sharing “7 point short story structure.”
I started commenting how much I liked it as a tool for teaching craft to writers (even novelists) when I took a second look. I thought, “Is there really a difference between a ‘situation’ and a ‘problem/'” I recalled that when my first wife signed me up for Amway (and dragged me to their rallies), the speakers exhorted us, “Stop thinking of problems. All you have is a situation.”
Yep, I thought, it should be “6 Point Structure.” Then I noticed that the authors changed subject tense between Steps 1 and 2. Suddenly authors are working with two characters instead of one (perhaps the second character is the problem). Then I noticed that, technically, a comma belonged after the dependent clause in Step 6.
I decided to redo the poster with editor’s notes.
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I still love this poster for explaining story structure to new writers. But I couldn’t resist my editor’s glance too.
I’m not trying to belittle the poster or its authors. I like the poster. It’s instructive. It instructs writers not only in story structure but the need to proofread. Why, because others might not be so kind as me. I could see a writer posting this on Facebook for laughs, or criticize the authors.
Hopefully, the authors still have the original Photoshop file.
I looked them up on Facebook and the first post I found said: “Don’t be discouraged if you have lots of spelling and grammar errors or write poorly at first. With the help of Google, friends and family, fellow writers, and professional editors, you can improve your writing.”
My answer to that is, “yes and no.” I’ve seen writers improve their writing but too many assume family and friends will correct their syntax and grammar correctly. Sorry, proofreading and editing skills require practice and training. Years of practice and training. Spell check isn’t good enough.
I admit I could proofread this blog more closely. However, a blog post is a transitory event. We drop by, read the post and perhaps even leave a comment. Stories and books, especially those intended for print, are permanent documents. We want them to signify who we are as thinkers and writers.
I could proofread this blog more closely, but a blog post is transitory. Stories and books are permanent documents. We want them to signify who we are as thinkers and writers.
Unless you have a professional proofreader friend who will look your stories over for free, you need to hire and proofreader and editor. “But that costs money and I write to make money” you’re probably thinking. Think how much money you will lose when editor after editor rejects your stories, or you rack up a dozen Amazon reviews criticizing the sloppy editing in your indie novel. 1
Even as I write this I know that only experienced writers will read this and say, “No kidding. You hit the nail on the head.” My friend, the late artist Don Snell, once told me when we were discussing children, “You can’t pass on wisdom.”
I’ve never met a new writer who heeded this advice until their mistakes burned them badly. I can only hope you will be the exception that tests the rule.2
P.S. Truthfully, I often leave out commas after dependent clauses when the meaning is clear. In this case, however, I felt the comma belonged. Then as I started typing this blog, Grammerly informed me that the title “7 point short story structure” should be ‘7 points.” Sorry, Grammerly, I have to argue on that one. (This is why you want to hire a real person who can look it up if they don’t already know.)
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Phillip T. Stephens is the author of Cigerets, Guns & Beer, Raising Hell and the new release Seeing Jesus. You can follow him @stephens_pt.
1I really don’t have the heart to point out that if you’re in this to make money, wise up. Most writers will keep their daytime jobs until they retire. And my writing friends who made it still hustle their books (and posters, bookmarks and any other “collectables” they can tie to their books).back
2This is the real meaning of the old adage, “The exception that proves the rule.” In it’s original usage the word “prove” was taken to mean “test” or “challenge” to see if it still holds up.back
Book Reviews
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check out my books at Amazon.com
Writer’s Craft: VILE VOICES: DESCRIBING HOW THE KILLER SPEAKS by Rayne Hall
Villains should scare the reader. In movies, an actor uses vocal inflections to chill viewers. Can writers use this technique? Rayne Hall offers a few tips.
When a dangerous or evil person talks, make their dialogue short and to the point. The tighter their speech, the more intelligent and threatening it becomes. Wordy waffling would dilute the effect.
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Wind Eggs
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