Billy Franks's Blog: A Far Cry from Sunset, page 6

How local Authors published their books – Shaw TV interview from Victoria, B.C. Canada

This is post #36 of 36 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Authors are interviewed by Karen Elgersma on The Daily Show about their experience of writing and publishing their books.

John Irving: Advice to Aspiring Novelists: Don’t Shoot Yourself

This is post #35 of 35 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Christopher Hitchens Advice for Writers

This is post #34 of 35 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Video Marketing Tips and Strategies for Authors and Writers

This is post #33 of 35 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

5 Effective Web Writing Tips

This is post #32 of 35 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

5 Effective Web Writing Tips

Writing for the web is very different from writing for the print medium. Writing for the web requires some special abilities. Mastering these abilities is crucial to establish yourself as a well known author or content writer in this challenging medium.

Here are a few key tips to make you an expert in writing for the web.

Make your document scan able

People scan a web page rather than read them. Make your document easily readable by using simple and short sentences. A few short sentences make short paragraphs. Short paragraphs are more easily scanned than longer ones.

Use heads, subheads and lists

Start the writing with a header followed by short sentences. Use as many sub heads as required for different points. Sometimes you may also use a list to highlight all the important points.

The title could be short and work the best. However longer titles can have keywords and are more searchable

Use of Keywords

Being searchable is an important aspect of Web writing. Whatever be the title of your topic, article or web page, use related key words as often as possible throughout the page. Start with a summary which has a higher density of these keywords followed by a liberal sprinkling of them throughout the copy.

However the use of keywords must be natural and should not be used without making sense just for being searchable.

Provide links for additional information

This is something unique to web writing. Wherever you want to be descriptive or provide more information you can provide a link to the required page. While this makes your writing to the point, the reader has the option to learn more on the subject if he so desires.

Summarize

The best principle to follow in web writing is tell what you want to tell. Tell it. Tell what you have told.

Start your writing with a small summary of what you want to say. Then say what you want to in the main content. Finally conclude by giving a summary of what you have said.

Keeping these key techniques in mind for whatever you want to write for the web will make you more readable, keep your readers happy, search engines finding you easily and your own satisfaction at being able to deliver quality content.

Source by Srinivasan Gopal

STEPHEN KING on Writing, Scary Stories, and More

This is post #31 of 35 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Writing Tips – How to Avoid Useless Fluff to Meet Word Count

This is post #30 of 30 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Writing Tips – How to Avoid Useless Fluff to Meet Word Count

What could be more depressing than useless fluff? On the other hand, what could be worse than the feeling that you have a word count but no idea how to meet it? Here are some suggestions for getting a grip on the need to write a certain amount of useful material.

1. You either have enough in your head, or you don’t. It’s important to discover what you know. If you are a veteran of the topic you are writing about, you will be surprised (I often am) at how much you know, but haven’t yet put down on paper. Let’s say you’ve been assigned an article on running a daycare center. Perhaps you’ve never run any kind of business, but, on the other hand, you have two children who went through two or three different daycare providers. Use the knowledge that you have to set out your article.

2: If, on the other hand, you’ve been assigned the task of evaluating the healthiest ways of feeding lions at the zoo and have never even been to a zoo, do your research! Visit the closest zoo, first of all. Build on what you learn with internet research and interviews.

OK, feeding the lions is exotic. Perhaps you’ve been asked to profile a new employee. Take them to lunch, or for a walk. Look at the photos on their desk; find out how they like their new city, what they do on weekends, in addition to their perceptions of the new job.

3: In general, aim to acquire more information than you will need. How delightful to suddenly realize that you have 50 percent more content than is called for.

4: DO NOT use the word count tool on your computer until you are confident that you are nearly finished. Remember the saying, “A watched pot never boils?” Same thing for counting words.

5: Allow your mind to play. If a seemingly crazy idea comes up when you are writing, put it down on paper/screen. Remember that you can always delete it, and it may surprise you with its relevance or attractiveness to your piece.

6: If you determine after much toil that the topic simply doesn’t have 1,000 words, or 500 words worth of content, then, well before deadline, talk to your editor. If you are the editor, then rethink the title. Consider turning the article into a side piece, or adding an interesting photo or graphic, or a second very short piece.

7: Ask yourself whether your problem is really a lack of anything worth saying. Perhaps, instead, you’ve just not thought enough about the topic. Do some quick research on the internet. Throw in some odd keywords and see what comes up. Call a couple of friends and play “word association” with them, to spark your ideas.

8: Try some humor to lighten the load and loosen the flow of ideas. For example, I find that “useless fluff” is actually quite amusing as a phrase, with its double letters and disparaging tone. If you can smile, you may be able to move ahead.

Copyright (c) 2010 Jane Sherwin. You may reprint this entire article and you must include the copyright info and the following statement: “Jane Sherwin is a writer who helps hospitals and other healthcare facilities communicate their strengths and connect with their readers.”

Source by Jane Sherwin

Meditation For Writing – Three Tips to Improve your Writing with Creative Meditation

This is post #29 of 30 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

Meditation For Writing – Three Tips to Improve your Writing with Creative Meditation

Would you like to be able to write more, and write more easily? Meditation is a great tool to help you to develop as a writer. The ten or 15 minutes you spend meditating each day tune up your mind, improving your focus and concentration.

You can learn to meditate in classes, or from CDs and books. A daily meditation session is a gift you give yourself and your writing.

Meditation is easy to learn, and long before you become a skilled meditator, you’ll find that it helps your writing.

Once you’ve learned the basics, here are three tips to improve your writing with creative meditation.

1. Bring your challenges to meditation to discover solutions

Everyone has challenges. It’s useful to select a challenge, and make it the focus of your meditation session.

This doesn’t mean thinking about the challenge: just hold the challenge in your mind once you’ve achieved a meditative state. You’ll find that solutions will come to you, either during the meditation itself, or when you wake up the next morning.

2. The magical pause – use one-minute meditations to clear your mind

Writing requires focused concentration, and this state can be difficult to achieve if you’re tired or stressed.

Use a one-minute meditation to clear your mind. Just take several slow, deep breaths, and focus on your breathing.

This pause works like rebooting a computer. It removes your everyday stresses so that you can focus on your writing.

3. Keep a meditation journal to help you to work through your challenges

When you begin working with challenges in your meditation sessions, keep a meditation journal. Write down the date, what challenge you’re meditating on, and any insights you have.

You’ll be fascinated to find each and every challenge is resolved, when you meditate on it, often within a very short time.

Meditation is relaxing and calming. It can increase your productivity, and if you suffer from any writing blocks, meditation will remove them.

Source by Angela Booth

How to Write Effectively – 7 Crucial Tips

This is post #28 of 30 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

How to Write Effectively – 7 Crucial Tips

No matter what you are writing, unless you are writing in your own private journal or diary, the objective is to communicate. That means you want to tell someone something, persuade them of something or at least get some kind of reaction from them. Here are some tips to help you do this more effectively:

1. Imagine You Are the Reader

Before you even start, put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Try to imagine what this reader might be thinking or what they might want or need. If it’s information, what exactly would help them most? What might motivate them to buy something (if you are selling)?

2. Break Information Down

One of the worst mistakes some people make is to just write one long page with no paragraph breaks. Even a long page of paragraphs can be dull. A simple example is this article, which is separated into numbered points. You can also use headings or bullets. You don’t have to do this with everything you write. If it’s short, one section is probably enough. But, as a rule, people today have short attention spans and you can be more effective if you create more sections to divert them.

3. Focus on the Reader

Another mistake many writers make is to write in a way that alienates the reader. If you find yourself saying “I” a lot, you might be doing this. Again, attention spans are short today, and the fact is, people want to know how something pertains to them. So if you are trying to persuade them of something, keep the focus on them.

4. Brief and Concise

Don’t make your writing any longer than it has to be. The more filler you put in and rambling you do, the more chance you have to lose the readers attention. Stick to the points. This is especially true of business or sales letters.

5. Spelling and Grammar

If your writing is full of mistakes, you are likely to lose many readers. If you have problems with this, there is spelling and grammar software available that can correct your spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.

6. Avoid Excessive Hype

If you try too hard to sell someone something, you will put them on the defensive. If you are marketing, don’t overuse exclamation points, red lettering, bold print and over-hyped statements.

7. Use Writing Tools

Good writers don’t try to be completely self sufficient —they use tools that can help them. This may include a dictionary, thesaurus, spell checker or online grammar and punctuation software. Use whatever will make your writing more professional.

Source by Jane Sumerset

12 Tips for Editing Your Fiction

This is post #27 of 30 in the series “Writing Tips For Authors & Bloggers”

12 Tips for Editing Your Fiction

Good writing includes editing. Just look back at an email you dashed off in haste, and you will likely wince at something. Editing encompasses many levels of intensity from basic proofreading to substantial reworking and rewriting. To produce professional and effective fiction, the manuscript editing will go far beyond merely proofreading.

Whether a short story or novel is being submitted to a publisher or headed for self publishing, it needs to be thoroughly edited and assessed from many angles. Editing strives to create flow with smooth transitions, maintain clarity, cut out unnecessary repetition, and includes a variety of tiny to huge adjustments that make the difference between a block of stone and (hopefully) Michelangelo’s David.

Editing is commonly believed to best be done by a competent person other than the writer. Although the critical eye of another is great, any writer should also assess his or her work by switching gears and looking at the work from the editing perspective instead of the writing perspective. However, a writer is often emotionally attached to a work and reluctant to approach the creation with the attitude of an over demanding, never-satisfied father. Overcoming the protective impulse to cling to an original draft as divinely-driven art will serve any writer well.

Editing also takes much effort. A writer might thankfully turn over a manuscript to an editor like after laboring to plant a garden and then assigning someone else to weed and harvest it. However, many writers do not have the luxury of an available competent person who can polish work for an audience.

All writers want to be considered a good writer, and this requires editing. You may be trying to break into fiction markets with short stories and you need to submit your very best to get noticed. To do this you should approach editing as another and enjoyable part of writing. You will enjoy making your work better, sometimes much better. While editing, you will learn about how you write and you will see what you are good at and what you need to fix.

For example, I often find when editing my initial drafts that I flopped through three sentences to say one thing. Usually I can harvest the good bits from each sentence and then combine them into one strong sentence. To do this, I weigh the nuances of each sentence and judge whether I am actually giving out good details or repeating myself needlessly.

Having spent many years writing fiction, which includes editing and rewriting, I have developed a checklist that keeps me on track when editing fiction. I apply most or all of the questions on this checklist to every chapter during the editing process. Remember, the goal is for you to be your toughest critic and for all other critics to love you.

Fiction Editing Checklist

Is it bad? Be honest. Do you like what you wrote? Can you imagine others liking it? You really must be able to say yes to this fundamental question before being satisfied.
What is the lead like? Good, bad, indifferent? By lead, I mean how does the chapter or short story start? Is it compelling? Does it arouse interest or excitement? Don’t let an otherwise great story start like assembly instructions for an entertainment center.
What is the action like? With this question, I analyze what is happening in the story. First of all, is anything happening? Do not let the narrative feel like being stuck in a traffic jam (unless the action is being stuck in a traffic jam). This is a very subjective question for the writer/editor. Basically, you need to decide if events are moving the story and thereby maintaining the interest of the reader.
Are you having a good mix of dialogue, narrative, and action? I use this question to avoid stringing together 80 lines of dialogue. Too much he said and she said in a row does not suit narrative fiction. Non-dialogue elements about the characters, setting, and action need to be mixed with dialogue in order to build the word pictures necessary for fiction.
Are you moving the plot along or are you fooling around? It’s easy as a writer to start enjoying your characters and exploring tangents or minute details of their lives. Some of this might be essential to story and character development, but let it go too far, and the reader could become bored. Do not let narrative wanderings dilute a story until it is about as interesting as waiting for your number at the DMV.
Do the actions of the characters make sense? Readers need to understand or at least have some clues as to why a character does or says something. If a character does something completely out of character, does the story explain why? Characters are often like chess pieces. They can only move in certain ways. Essentially, I am cautioning against making a character do something just because the writer needs that thing done. It must come down to would the character do that and, if so, under what circumstances?
Do you think the plot twists and turns are acceptable? Do they appear contrived? You want a natural flow.
Are you appealing to the senses? Does imagery occur often enough to build a setting? Are you doing it too much?
Are you watching for places in the story that drag? Can you think of a way to pick it up? Does the dragging portion need to be cut? Or is a pause from the action necessary?
Is the dialogue necessary or should it be replaced with narrative? Sometimes you don’t need to write out mundane conversation with quoted character dialogue. Sometimes it’s much better and efficient to simply writing narrative such as: Becky asked her dad when her mom would be home. He said he didn’t know.
Does the dialogue match the character for language skills, vocabulary, intelligence, emotion and knowledge?
Can the reader identify with the characters in any way? Does anything ring true?

After analyzing and editing your work with the above questions, you have surely improved your writing. The last thing on my checklist is to tell yourself that you did a good job.

Source by Tracy Falbe