L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 22

Things Your Characters Should Never Say

It’s easy to be told that character dialogue in fiction should be short and sharp and punchy and witty but actually executing it without a little more guidance can be hard. I could tell you to watch everything Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon have ever written and you’d have some great examples.

But sometimes the easier path is to start with what not to do. So here are a few pieces of dialogue your characters should never say.

“Tell Me About It”

It’s almost twenty years since my first class as part of my Advanced Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing and I can still remember my Novel teacher telling us how “Tell me about it” was the most overused piece of dialogue in Hollywood and that it applied equally to books. And it was funny. I never noticed it on my own, even though I went to the movies every week and spent the rest of my non-writing and non-studying time watching more movies at home and reading as many books as I could. But as soon as he said it, I began to notice it everywhere.

So if you don’t want to end up being a cautionary tale in a first-year writing course, leave it out.

“Hello”, “Hi”, “Goodbye”, “See You Later”

A lot of dialogue, particularly greetings and farewells, while being proper and polite in real life, is boring and unnecessary in fiction. Leave them out.

“Honestly”

Whether it’s asking if whoever they are talking to wants to hear the truth or prefacing that they’re about to deliver it, “Honestly?” (or “Honestly…”) is completely redundant. Just leave it out.

“As You Know…”

This is code for “We’re about to discuss something you already know the complete story of but I want to deliver the information to the reader in dialogue rather than prose”. It’s exposition. It’s telling instead of showing, which I think was the second thing I learned in Novel class not to do, right after “Tell me about it”. If you want to rehash something that both characters already know, then think about how this would happen in real life. The dialogue wouldn’t tell the whole story – it would need prose to fill in the gaps. And so should it be in fiction.

“How Dare You?”

Once upon a time “How dare you?” was the epitome of the expression of upper class outrage. Nowadays it understandably comes across as very dated. People aren’t held back by propriety or concerns about the reactions of others. In fact, in this day and age, people dare all the time. So asking this very old-fashioned question just makes your characters seem uptight and their dialogue seem stuffy.

Exceptions

There are exceptions to every rule. In the case of each of these instances, the exception is when you are using these bland pieces of dialogue to turn the blandness of them on their head. For example, in the episode “Mr Willis of Ohio” in The West Wing, CJ Cregg is struggling to understand the finer details of the census and asks Sam Seaborne for help by saying, “Tell me about it.” In its more commonly used sarcastic sense, this phrase tends to convey “I know exactly what you mean”. CJ uses it to seem cool and evoke this meaning even though she is actually and literally asking Sam to tell her about the census.

The best example of an absolutely imperative greeting is, of course, Tom Cruise’s “Hello?” at the end of Jerry McGuire. It’s followed by a rather lengthy speech about how much in love he is with Dorothy Boyd but it’s the greeting that is the most important part because it allows Renee Zellweger to deliver the beautiful, classic line, “You had me at ‘Hello’.”

In the case of “See you later”, I specifically recall a real life example of this. I previously worked in the global mobility industry (also known as relocation) and a niche part of the business is cross-cultural training, helping people moving and living in new countries to acclimatise to cultures different from their own. A cross-cultural expert gave me examples of why the service was so important including a recently arrived immigrant in a new country being farewelled with the phrase “See you later” and then expecting (although not really understanding when and where) they would see that person later on that same day.

For “Honestly?”, particularly when it is posed as a question, another character can respond with, “No. Lie to me instead.” Since “Honestly?” is usually deployed during emotionally intense conversations, the truth can be hard and characters might not be ready to hear it.

And for “As you know”, the best way to flip it on its head is to follow it up with a “What you don’t know” piece of dialogue. Unlike the scenario where both characters already know the entire story, in this situation one character knows slightly more than the other, usually something miraculous or important, and is about to reveal it.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any great exceptions to the rule in relation to “How dare you?” but there must be. There are always exceptions. And if there genuinely aren’t, they maybe you can be the first writer to do it. But take care. The line between corny dialogue and exceptions to the rule can be a very fine one.

Book Review: The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

I saw the movie of this book several years ago so it’s one of those rare experiences for me in that I’m reading the book afterwards. Normally, I find that a challenge because I’m constantly anticipating what’s about to happen. That didn’t happen with this book because the movie is very different… and so much better.

The Silver Linings Playbook is narrated by Pat, who is living in “the bad place”, as he calls it. His mother is there to take him home after… is it months or years? Pat can’t tell. He can’t remember why he was living in the institution either. Pat only has one goal: to be reunited with his beloved wife, Nikki, by focusing on being kind instead of being right, reading great American literature and by keeping up his gruelling exercise regime. He feels he was unkind to her, didn’t involve himself enough in her interests and let himself go during their marriage and if he can only rectify these things, then Nikki will welcome him back with open arms and everything will be alright again. Because he believes in silver linings.

When he gets to his parents’ home, all of his and Nikki’s wedding pictures have disappeared. They were stolen, his mother tells him. And a little later while watching a football game, Pat realises his favourite team now plays at a new and unfamiliar stadium. The old one was demolished two years ago, his brother tells him. How long was he in the bad place? Pat asks. Four years. It’s been four years since he’s seen his wife and he’s four years old than he thought.

He is invited to dinner at his former best friend’s home and there meets his former best friend’s wife’s sister, Tiffany. After her offer of casual sex and a bit of uncomfortable stalking, Tiffany gives Pat the option of a trade. She will act as an intermediary between him and Nikki (because they both have taken out legal orders preventing contact) if he will be her dance partner in a competition she is desperate to win. He agrees. In between he beats up his father, an opposition football fan and himself – himself a lot more than anyone else – and tries to avoid the music as well as any mention of a “smooth jazz performer whose initials are K.G.” (Kenny G).

Right from the beginning of the novel, Pat comes across as very single-minded. Even though he is thirty-four, it was like reading an eight-year-old’s account. He is simplistic, has no appreciation of nuance and no understanding of the real world. I couldn’t decide if it was childish or child-like. And even though towards the end of the book, we are told why he is like this, it’s also revealed that a lot of his current behaviour isn’t all that different to the way he was before.

There isn’t a single likeable male character in the whole book. Pat is violent and won’t take no for an answer. His father is sulky and smashes the television when his football team loses. (Wonder where Pat gets it from?) His brother is tries to act like nothing is wrong. His best friend makes an effort but is under the thumb of his wife. His therapist thinks football is an appropriate substitute for real therapy. And the female characters aren’t much better. Pat’s mother does everything for her “boys”. Tiffany is rude and unpleasant. Her sister treats both her and Pat like children who can’t be left alone or trusted. And Nikki, who only appears briefly at the end of the book, is given a free pass for behaviour that cannot be excused.

The secrets that everyone is keeping are kept only so the book can claim to be mysterious and alluring. It’s a writer’s trick that I hate, used instead of actual mystery. In fact, the movie gives away almost all of the secrets straight away, realising that they aren’t the key to keeping viewers (or readers) hooked on the story.

This was Matthew Quick’s first novel and while it’s a reasonable effort, it displays many of the issues common to first novels. But I think he writes well – I’d have to read another of his books not narrated by a thirty-four-year-old man who sounds like he’s eight to be absolutely sure. And I’m willing to read more of his work, which is always a mark in the plus column. I just hope he has a better handle on mysteries of plot and what makes an interesting character in his subsequent work.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 4 December 2016

Should You Market Your Book, Yourself or Both? (Part 2: Marketing Yourself)

On Tuesday I looked at marketing your book and today I continue the theme by looking at ways to market yourself. It’s not everybody’s favourite task – in fact, I once asked a friend if she wanted to be the public face and name of my books because I was so afraid of the scrutiny (she declined) – but if you’re planning on publishing more than one book, establishing your identity as a writer can be just as important as establishing the quality of an individual book.

Find Your Angle

Everybody has an angle – they just have to discover what it is. John Grisham is a former lawyer so when he started writing crime books, it made total sense. Jeffrey Archer was conned out of a significant amount of money so when he wrote a book about characters trying to exact their revenge for the same thing and get their money back, it was a great selling point. When Lauren Conrad wrote a novel about a girl and her best friend appearing on a reality show, the fact that it was a thinly veiled autobiography and she had a guaranteed readership from the audience of the show she had appeared on helped to ring up the sales, even if the critical acclaim didn’t accompany it.

One of the hardest things about finding your angle is that it requires a certain amount of self-awareness and often it’s just easier if someone else can point out your angle to you rather than having to figure it out for yourself. I still don’t know what my angle is. I thought it might be that I’m a single, white, female writer (thus the name of my blog) but there are plenty of those going round. I’m not pretty or skinny or adventurous or confident or a genius or a survivor of a horrific event in my formative years. I’ve got big boobs, great organisational skills, a boatload of common sense and a sense of the importance of independence but only one of those things is sexy and being known for big boobs is a path I’d rather not go down, especially after spending more than two decades in the educational system graduating from primary school, secondary school, gaining two undergraduate qualifications and finally emerging with a master’s degree.

Yes, I have a tattoo and a pair of Doc Martens, I’m a Collingwood supporter and I once shaved all my hair off but these are things that I do or have done, not things that define who I am and certainly not things that have shown me my angle. I’m boring. So until someone tells me otherwise and clues me in on how I can differentiate myself from all the other writers out there, I’m a little stuck. I’ll keep writing in the meantime and maybe my angle will suddenly reveal itself. If not, maybe I can try a few of the following ideas.

Set Yourself Up as an Expert

Many people have other careers before they begin writing, very successful careers in which they establish reputations as experts in their fields. Nicholas J Johnson, the author of Chasing the Ace and Fast and Loose, was in the public eye long before he published his first novel in 2014. He is a magician and has been described as “an honest conman”. I can remember seeing and hearing him on morning shows and current affairs programs demonstrating the tricks of the pickpocket trade and how the average Joe and Jane can protect themselves from losing their watches and wallets. He is the go-to guy for comments when scams and conmen (or conwomen) become periodically newsworthy and when he publishes a book, those same morning shows and current affairs programs give him a little air time to promote them, a very cosy back scratching arrangement.

I’ve never had any career other than as a writer and editor – I briefly worked as a kitchenhand, an administrative assistant and an executive assistant to a conman film producer (maybe Nicholas and I can swap stories if we ever meet) – so it makes sense that I have “set myself up” as an expert on writing and editing by writing blog posts on the topics as well as publishing Project December: A Book about Writing and now Project January: Another Book about Writing. Nobody has ever asked for my expert opinion as a marketing exercise but I get plenty of requests from family, friends, acquaintances and co-workers who know I’m the go-to girl when they have questions about the English language, Microsoft Word and the best way to express themselves in writing.

If you can identify your area of expertise and use it to generate a little publicity for yourself, then it can go a long way towards your book sales and your ability to market yourself.

Generate a Little Controversy

The idea that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” has long been associated with Phineas T Barnum, a “circus owner” and “self-publicist of the first order”. And the inimitable Oscar Wilde proclaimed, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” So if you can stand the heat that it may bring along with the publicity, generating some controversy has proven plenty of times before to be a useful way of getting attention and building a public profile.

Your controversy might be your book itself – there have been plenty of writers who tackled controversial topics – or it might be an opinion on something entirely unrelated to your book. Lionel Shriver, the author of We Need to Talk about Kevin, Big Brother and The Mandibles, didn’t need the publicity but her keynote speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival on fiction and cultural identify certainly got everyone talking. Jennifer Weiner, the author of Good in Bed, In Her Shoes (which was adapted into a movie starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz) and 2016’s Hungry Heart, hasn’t been backwards in coming forwards about her feelings that white male writers receive what she refers to as “overcoverage” when Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom was published. That was back in 2010 and people are still talking about it – well, not so much her assertion but her. The publicity hasn’t all been flattering. Some people have agree with her but a lot of people have accused her of being simply resentful and jealous that more people aren’t reading her books. But the controversy is the only reason I even know who Jennifer Weiner is. I’ve never read any of her books (I’ve never read any of Jonathan Franzen’s books either) but because of the controversy I know who she is and often that’s half the battle. And the next time I come across one of her books, I might be more inclined to pick it up and give it a go simply on the basis of the familiarity her controversy has engendered.

Maintain a Little Mystery

So you’ll probably notice that the advice to maintain a little mystery is almost of the exact opposite of the advice to generate a little controversy. But there is also some similarity – because often the controversy of the mystery can drive readers and the publishing industry wild.

Elena Ferrante, the pseudonym of an Italian novelist, is the latest to do just that. First published in 1992, her books have been extremely well-received and in 2016, she was included in Time’s 100 Most Influential People list, perhaps coincidentally the same year in which her true identity was exposed without her consent. In her view, “books, once they are written, have no need of their authors” but for a lot of people, the not knowing is just unbearable. Out of respect for her wishes, I won’t mention her real name but for anyone who desperately needs to know, a simple Google search will fill you in.

EL James, later revealed as Erika Mitchell, is another example of maintaining a little mystery and she very definitely generated a little controversy at the same time. The overtones of S&M sex in her Fifty Shades series weren’t the first time such a topic had been explored in romance fiction but they were the first books to explode into the mainstream market in the way they did. And because of their origin as titillating Twilight fan fiction and her confession that her husband got a bit sick of being the person she experimented on as part of her research for the book, it makes sense that she would be a little media shy, although her agent has described her as “press shy” anyway.

The important thing is not to confuse mystery with antagonism of the reading public and press. Yes, there are some people out there who will want to know all about you as a means of engineering your downfall but most people want to read you, support you and feel a connection by knowing a little more about you. You need to find the right balance for you.

Should You Market Your Book, Yourself or Both? (Part 1: Marketing Your Book)

I love to ask myself questions that I don’t know the answer to and spend time considering them at length, then spend time discussing them at length in a blog post. So, somewhat surprisingly, when I asked myself the question “Should you market your book, yourself or both?” I realised I already knew the answer. Of course, all writers seeking an audience for their work must market both their books and themselves. It’s everything that comes after that realisation that tends to be a lot more difficult.

I’ve previously admitted that I have a problem with marketing myself and I’m not much better at marketing my books, not because I don’t think they’re any good but because a lifetime of reinforcement that humility is more important than confidence when it comes to self-promotion is hard to overcome.

So here’s an exercise in “do as I say, not as I do”. You don’t have to do them all – in fact, you probably shouldn’t, at least not all at once in an effort to avoid overkill. But by selecting the right combination over the right length of time, your marketing efforts may just pay off. Today I’m looking at marketing your book and on Thursday I’ll look at marketing yourself and together those two approaches will hopefully translate into book sales now and in the future.

Become an Expert on your Book

Before beginning any sort of marketing exercise, you need to be an expert in the thing you are marketing. Of course, you are already an expert in your book. You wrote it. But you need to be able to identify the things about your book that are going to sell it in the shortest number of words possible.

If somebody asks you what your book is about and it takes five minutes for you to explain it, then it’s likely they will have stopped listening somewhere around the one minute thirty seconds mark. But if you can tell them in thirty seconds and include “the hook”, the one thing that makes your book worth reading over all the other options readers have, then you will be more likely to have made a sale. Sometimes this is referred to as “the elevator pitch” – when you’re lucky enough to just happen to be riding in an elevator with someone who has the power to get your book published, it’s the complete pitch of your story before the elevator reaches its destination floor and allows them to escape.

If your pitch is intriguing enough, whoever you’re pitching to will want to know more and will ask for the details that had to be excluded to reduce its length from five minutes to thirty seconds. And the more you pitch, the more likely you are to be asked almost identical follow-up questions. So it’s a good thing to anticipate what those questions might be and have your answers ready. Examples include:

*Why did you write this book?

*How long did it take to write?

*What is your next book about?

Hold a Book Launch

Who doesn’t love a party? And that’s pretty much what a book launch is – finger food, drinks, copies of your book spread around the room (or posters of the cover if it’s an ebook) and everybody you’ve ever met in your life invited to dress up, eat, drink and listen to a short speech from you, then eat and drink some more while they socialise and celebrate your achievement. You can even invite a few journalists and industry types and you might be lucky enough that they show up.

If you’re very lucky, everybody in the room will buy a copy of your book, either because they want to read it or because they feel obligated. And once the evening is over, you can write about it, thanking people who showed up and posting pictures. You always have to think about how each marketing event leads into the next.

Give a Talk at a Library or Do a Reading and a Signing at a Book Store

People love to meet the people behind the books they read so if you can tee up a library talk or a book store signing/reading, it can generate a little more publicity. It’s a labour intensive form of marketing and requires a certain amount of confidence and public speaking, but if you can master it, then it’s a great way to get your book in front of more potential readers.

Publish an Excerpt

Publishing an excerpt from a book is a very common marketing tool. Whether it’s on your website, on someone else’s, in a magazine, journal or other periodical, or as a sample on the platforms it is available for sale, it gives readers the chance to experience your writing and your story and assess whether your book is likely to be something they will enjoy reading. Quite a few people make these assessments very early in a book and will decide to read on (or not) based on the first few chapters.

You never know who might publish an excerpt of your book. I love having guest posts on my blog to support other writers and good writing and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Advertising

Paid advertising isn’t as expensive as you might think. Yes, a half or quarter page ad in the Saturday edition of a broadsheet newspaper, a fifteen second spot on commercial networks and bus shelter posters are probably beyond most of us, but there are plenty of smaller, more infrequent periodicals, community television and online options that might provide better, more targeted options. I’m a member of Writers Victoria and part of my membership entitles me to a few free mentions in their bi-monthly magazine and more frequent email newsletters. There is also paid advertising available.

However, you shouldn’t just throw money at advertising. It should be part of an overall campaign and specifically aimed at the right demographic. Some companies that offer advertising will help you with this if you’re prepared to spend enough money. You might know someone in marketing whose brain you can pick. Or you can hook up with a student studying advertising as part of a marketing degree for a mutually beneficial arrangement – you get an advertising campaign devised for free and they get to use you as a guinea pig client.

Free Giveaways

Reviews of your book, especially four and five star reviews, can really help generate sales. It’s one thing to make people aware of your book but it’s another to actually get them to buy it. In order to get some reviews, it might be worth giving away copies to book review bloggers. There are no guarantees they will like your book but it’s more publicity.

Interviews

An interview allows more in-depth analysis of your book and if you’re not lucky enough to land five minutes talking to a DJ on a local radio station (of which there are many – and it doesn’t have to be your local, there are “local” radio stations across the world and they are always looking for content to fill the schedule), then there are websites that will publish interviews (sometimes for free, sometimes paid) or you could even interview yourself and post it to your own website and social media.

So what should you talk about in an interview? The questions I listed above will come up. Some questions might take you by surprise if you have a particularly insightful interviewer but you are more than likely to be asked variations of the same questions over and over again. So practising your answers beforehand will help with any nervousness you might feel when talking about yourself and your work.

Support from Relevant Organisations

If your book contains elements like a particular disease or a particular social cause, charity and support organisations might be interested in helping you market it, particularly if there is the potential for donations as a result of the awareness your book might raise.

If you have established contacts with these types of organisations, great. If you haven’t, then you can cold call them and speak to their marketing departments to see whether they’d be interested. But remember, they don’t owe you anything and they’re more interested in their cause than helping you sell books.

Also, they might not want to be associated with somebody controversial so you’ll need to disclose anything that there’s a possibility they won’t like and let them make an informed decision about any arrangement. They will probably want to read the book first as well before making a commitment. No, it’s not a short process but it can be an extremely helpful and beneficial one on both ends.

Friends and Family

What are friends and family for it not supporting you when you are trying to get the word out about your book? Most will be happy to help, especially if you tell them exactly what you need them to do. Remember, most of them won’t be marketing experts either so will need a little guidance.

So what can they do? Buying, reading and reviewing your book is a great start (either on Goodreads if they are signed up to it, on their social media or on the online platform where they bought the book if they bought it online). Liking and sharing your social media can also help. And telling everybody they know about the book to get a little word-of-mouth going. If every family member and friend you have can get a few people to buy a copy of your book, then you’ll make quite a few sales. And if those few people enjoy it and mention it to someone else, maybe it will snowball. Maybe it won’t. But you’ll never know if you don’t give it a go.

Social Media

Social media is a niche marketing skill in itself and well-crafted social media posts can go viral and get a lot of attention. But it’s really important to have an established social media presence well before you publish your book. It’s also really important that you don’t use your platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even LinkedIn, to just yell about the existence of your book. There are plenty of examples of this and I’ve yet to be convinced to buy a book through this method.

Before you even publish your book, you should be tempting your connections and followers with tidbits about the book’s topic, release date, cover, pre-release reviews, anything you can think of. A little bit here and a little bit there won’t overwhelm or annoy anyone but will keep your book in the back of their mind. And then when you actually release it, you do a little bit more here and a little bit more there. Link to places the book can be bought. Post key sentences from complete reviews. Like and share other people’s social media posts about your book. But keep it fresh and sharp.

Try to find examples of social media marketing campaigns that you like and emulate their approach.

Hire a Professional

If any or all of the suggestions above fill you with dread or you feel they are beyond your capabilities, you can always hire a professional marketer to advise and support you or even just do the marketing for you. Yes, it will cost money, potentially a lot of money, and there are no guarantees it will lead to your book being a bestseller. But sometimes you just need to admit that you can’t do everything by yourself and that you need to spend a bit of money to make a bit more.

*****

Check out Thursday’s post on the complementary approach to marketing your book, which is, of course, marketing yourself.

For the Love of Language

I like knowing stuff. It doesn’t matter what that stuff is, I just like knowing it. Knowledge is cool. I haven’t figured out what to do with it all yet but in the meantime, I’m continuing to accumulate it.

In that spirit, I was watching a couple of documentaries about Tourette’s syndrome – one focused on children struggling with the condition and the other explored the difficulties in obtaining employment when unable to control muscular and vocal tics. And as I commonly do (because I always want to know more), I Googled Tourette’s syndrome and began reading on Wikipedia about the details the documentaries weren’t going into.

One of the children in the documentary and one of the men looking for work had what I discovered was called coprolalia – “the utterance of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks” – and that only a small minority of people with Tourette’s exhibit this symptom. When I clicked through the link to find out more about coprolalia, I discovered that “copro” came from the Greek for “faeces” and “lalia” came from the Greek for “to talk”. Coprolalia literally means “to talk shit”.

Now knowledge is one thing but language is another entirely. And for someone who loves language as much as I do, this was a glorious find. This was wonderful. This was bliss! My heart skipped a nerdy beat. And it went on and on as I read about copropraxia and coprographia. Copropraxia is “involuntarily performing obscene or forbidden gestures” – “copro” from the Greek for “faeces” and “praxia” from the Greek for “actions”, literally “shit actions”. And coprographia is “involuntarily making vulgar writings or drawings” – “copro” from the Greek for “faeces” and “graphia” from the Greek for “to draw”, literally “to draw shit”. It doesn’t get much better than this!

I know I’m not the only one. During the episode “Mr Willis of Ohio” from The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin writes the following exchange as the main characters play poker.

President Bartlet: There are three words, and three words only, in the English language that begin with the letters DW.

Josh Lyman: This is a pretty good illustration of why we get nothing done.

President Bartlet: Can anyone name them for me please?

Sam Seaborne: Three words that begin with DW?

President Bartlet: Yes.

Sam Seaborne: Dwindle.

President Bartlet: Yes.

Toby Ziegler: Dwarf.

President Bartlet: Yes.

Toby Ziegler (to Sam Seaborne): C’mon, Princeton, we’ve got dwindle, we’ve got dwarf.

President Bartlet: I see your five and raise you five by the way.

Toby Ziegler: Dwarf, dwindle…

Leo McGarry: Fold.

John Lyman: Fold.

CJ Cregg: Last card down.

President Bartlet: “Witches brew a magic spell, in an enchanted forest where fairies…”

Toby Ziegler: Dwell, dwell, dwell! Dwindle, dwarf and dwell!

I’ve written previously about how much I love my dictionary, randomly thumbing through pages to discover new and fantastic words. I’ve also written previously about how my beloved dictionary was more than a decade old and even though I gave in and finally purchased an updated version, I still love my old dictionary more than my new one. This was confirmed when I arrived at the end of the D section to find that there were no longer only three words beginning with DW. My new dictionary (which I loathe more and more each time I pick it up) also lists:

*dwale – the deadly nightshade

*dwang – a short piece of timber fixed horizontally between vertical framing members, to which lining materials may be attached

*dweeb – a person who is despised as lacking vigour or personal style

*dwine – to waste away or fade

As far as I’m concerned, none of these other DW words are all that worthy, certainly not enough to render the scene from The West Wing irrelevant. And none of this is apropos of anything except that I’m a great big word nerd. (In “The Midterms” episode, Aaron Sorkin manages to work in the term “acalculia” and there are so many more examples of his love of language. I love The West Wing almost as much as I love my old dictionary. And for anyone who wants to write, watching all seven seasons is like taking a crash course in how to do it well.)

When I looked up “coprolalia” in my new dictionary, it wasn’t there, although there were several other “copro-” words. But when I looked up “coprolalia” in my old dictionary, there it was – “the uncontrolled use of violent and obscene language, especially as a result of an illness such as Tourette’s syndrome”. Just another black mark against the new dictionary. And further evidence of both my love of language and the fact that I’m more than a little bit unusual – who else looks up the same word three times in three different places, two of them different versions of the same dictionary? I’m sure it isn’t just me even though I’ve never met anyone else who would admit to it. When I do, maybe my love of language will be matched by my love for that person. Until then, it’s just me, my old dictionary and The West Wing as I continue to accumulate knowledge and appreciate language.

Book Review: The Wrong Girl by Zoe Foster

This book falls into a rare category in my back catalogue of reviews. I hardly ever award a book 5 stars and I hardly ever award a book 1 star because I want to reserve them for books that are genuinely perfect or genuinely awful. Unfortunately for Zoe Foster, she now becomes the author of only the second book I’ve ever give 1 star to.

Lily is the narrator and she may well be the titular wrong girl as well – it’s hard to tell, there are so many of them in the book. After sleeping with her best friend, Pete, he casually tells her he’s in love with someone else. She not-so-casually tells him piss off and that’s the last we see of him. Lily’s housemate, Simone, has just broken up with a total dick so the girls decide to have a man break and detox.

But Simone is a bikini model and an airhead and a perpetual pill-popper, so she doesn’t last very long. Instead, she hooks up with… well, pretty much everyone in the book. And then she nabs the hot new chef Lily works with as a segment producer on a morning television show. Cue Lily spending pretty much the rest of the book alternating between being envious and telling herself she doesn’t really like the chef that much.

In between, Lily hates, then loves, then hates, then loves, then quits her job; dates a muso, ignores a muso, shags another muso, silently creeps out of that muso’s hotel room; goes to Greece for her thirtieth birthday with her mum and her mum’s new boyfriend (ew!); returns home to get kicked out of her house by a relocating Simone who is embracing an informal rehab program and the dick of a boyfriend she broke up with at the start of the book; and then lands her dream job. Because that’s what happens in Gen Y land – mummy pays for a trip to Europe and everything you ever wanted happens if you just let it. Vomit!

I read this book knowing that Valentine’s Day was coming up in my blog book review schedule and because I love a good theme, I thought it would be appropriate. But there is no stage of relationship anyone can be in that would make it timely for this book to be read. Whiny, self-indulgent, Gen Y characters, thank you but no. Snapshot of “I know everything, why am I not paid better and universally adored?” passing itself off as plot, ugh. Dialogue that sounds like a primary schooler wrote it while imagining how adults talk when children aren’t around, meh. And writing so bad I don’t understand how the book ever got published. Of course, I know how it got published. The author has an okay back catalogue, a famous husband and is now doing underwear commercials so she’s a marketer’s dream. But based on this effort, she certainly isn’t a reader’s dream.

If you’ve seen the television miniseries adaptation and read the book, you’ll realise that they share only the most basic of plot points. Clearly, the producers realised how bad the book was and knew they’d have to make changes but, you know, marketer’s dream and all that, especially with famous husband making a charming cameo.

Perhaps the worst part comes in the acknowledgements where the author thanks her editor and publisher “who encouraged me to perform some exquisite surgery on my story and make it into the tight, fun package you just read”. I’m not sure how this book could have been worse but apparently it was. It’s just a shame that neither the author nor her editor realised it was brain dead long before the surgery was over due to a lack of oxygen.

The only redeeming thing about this book is that it serves as an important lesson for everyone out there writing: if something as bad as this book can be published, then there’s still hope for the rest of us.

1 star

*First published on Goodreads 16 November 2016

Rules versus Styles versus Preferences When Editing

The English language is one of the hardest in the world to master and only seems to be getting harder thanks to its constant evolution. The fact that there are so many different opinions about what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” doesn’t make it any easier, especially for those wanting to edit their writing and looking for definitive answers. After all, as writers, we generally don’t want to get involved in the battle. We just want to know who won.

Unfortunately, I don’t have good news on that front. Because while there are some definitive rules, there are also styles that change depending on which country or publication you write in and there are even preferences that individuals make up their own mind in relation to.

Rules

Rules are the things that don’t change, regardless of region or style or preference or any amount of arguing from people who have passion but no idea what they’re talking about including:

*Its and it’s

*Your and you’re

*Their, there and they’re

*Correct spelling

*Apostrophes

I’ve written a couple of previous posts (here and here) on the common mistakes people make, the correct ways they should be used and some tricks to help remember in order to get it right. If in doubt, buy a good quality dictionary and a guide to grammar and punctuation, then look it up.

Styles

There are more styles and guides out there than Twitter trolls (Oxford style, Chicago style, Harvard style, AP style, APA style, Australian Style Manual, as well as innumerable internal style guides from publishing houses and private corporate organisations) and a lot of them are inconsistent so it’s best to pick one and stick to it, if not for the sanity of your readers and publishers, then for your own.

The most obvious differences are between the regional versions of English – UK English versus US English versus Canadian English versus Australian English versus New Zealand English versus quite a few others. Usually, wherever you live dictates which version you write and edit in but that isn’t always the case. When I released my debut novel, Enemies Closer, I chose to use US English, thinking (perhaps hoping) that I would have more US readers than Australian. (I don’t know whether that turned out to be true.) But when I released Project December: A Book about Writing, I reverted back to Australian English, specifically because there was quite a bit of editing advice and my expertise as well as my training and qualifications all relate to Australian English.

There are lots of other things that change depending on which style guide you are working from and here’s a few that seem to really rile up people:

*Points of ellipsis (the dots used to indicate trailing off in dialogue or gaps in quotes) – there are people who insist it must only be three dots and others who say that four is entirely acceptable.

*Oxford comma (“me, myself, and I” instead of “me, myself and I”) – this is another one that gets people all hot under the collar.

*Quotation marks (single or double) – there isn’t a great deal of different except that one choice takes up slightly more space than the other.

The key thing to remember with many of these style issues is that they don’t really make much difference one way or the other.

Preferences

Preferences are a lot like styles – nobody seems to be able to agree one hundred percent (or should that be 100%?). Because I write fiction and non-fiction about writing, I tend to spell out numbers under a thousand, mostly because I don’t use numbers that often and I prefer how it looks in text. If I was writing an economic report, I’d probably kill myself and all my readers doing this. But it’s my preference. And I don’t write that many economic reports.

Initials are another example – is it JK Rowling and EB White or is it J.K. Rowling and E.B. White? Because I write so much and because losing the full stops doesn’t impact on how it is read, I tend to leave them out. The fewer keys I have to push, the longer I can put off my ever advancing arthritis. It’s actually quite common for publishing organisations like newspapers to make editing decisions based on reducing ink consumption. And while this is becoming less important in the digital age, it’s interesting to know how some of their preference choices came to be made.

You can have your own preferences, too. But if your preference is to break the rules, then that’s not called a preference, it’s just called being wrong. Know which battles to fight.

*****

The two most important things when editing a piece of work are consistency and being able to justify your choices. If you aren’t consistent in your choices, you just look stupid. And if you break the rules, that’s hard to justify. Knowing the difference between rules, styles and preferences will help. And making sure you edit accordingly will go a long way with people who won’t bother to consider the quality of your writing if they’re too busy judging your editing.

Free Writing, Free Reading, Free Editing: Where Do We Draw the Line?

As a writer, I understand very well the concept of writing for free. I do it every day. I write my novels with no expectation of ever being paid for my writing labour. (I hope but I don’t expect.) I write my blog posts and publish them on a freely available blog to educate and entertain people about writing and its offshoots. I sometimes write articles about employment and post them on LinkedIn to support my job title, which lists me as a “Freelance Blogger, Writer and Editor”. I write ads for family members with their own businesses without charging for it. I write blurbs and introductions for other people’s books without receiving a single cent.

I also understand the concept of reading for free – how could I not when I post all that writing mentioned above so people can read it without charge? Plus I read a lot of news websites, particularly The Age online, news.com.au, the New York Times online, the Washington Post online, ABC (Australia) News online, BBC News online, CBC News online and sometimes the Miami Herald online, the LA Times online and the Chicago Tribune online. When I run out of free articles to read each month on the sites that charge for subscriptions, I content myself with browsing headlines and public news websites. (I’d like to be able to afford to subscribe but I’m just a poor writer at the moment.)

But where I draw the line is at free editing. Everybody learns to read and write at school (or at least has the opportunity to) but editing the writing of others is a very specific skill and many, if not most, editors train further in order to do it properly and professionally. Certainly to apply for professional membership of the Institute of Professional Editors here in Australia, you need an eligible qualification. And with the Federal Government trying to restrict fee support for courses less than three years in length and with many educational institutions abolishing their writing and editing courses (including Holmesglen Institute of TAFE where I studied and graduated with an Advanced Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing), those qualifications are becoming harder and harder to come by. So why would anyone ask for or expect an editing service to be provided for free?

It was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) News online that made me think about this. I’ve only recently started browsing the website and I noticed that at the end of each of their articles is a hyperlink to “Report Typo”. At the start, I thought it was a great initiative. Errors on news website are an epidemic and here was an effort to rectify the situation. Except the longer I thought about it, the more I realised something – they are just trying to get out of paying for an editor who would make sure the typos aren’t there in the first place. After all, why bother paying someone if they can rely on a free service from conscientious and pedantic readers including someone like me who just happens to be a trained editor? Well, I’ve decided to conscientiously object. If I see a typo or a spelling mistake or a grammatical error or missing punctuation, I won’t report it. If CBC News online wants to hire me, I’m available – at a very reasonable cost.

Editors in journalism are a dying breed – journalists are instead expected to proofread other journalists’ work to save on the cost of employing a professional editor. Check any news website and you’ll see the signs of it – incorrect use of apostrophes, misspellings, notes referring to corrections that had to be made to the original article after it was published because details were wrong, grammatical errors, typos, the list goes on and on. And so do the innumerable examples of it. Editors are still present in traditional publishing – it’s harder and a lot more costly to fix mistakes after printing 100,000 copies of a book – but the standards are still, unfortunately, declining. In fact, it’s now often the case that people who have studied English as a second language are better at using it correctly than we native speakers are.

If that’s the case, then it’s more important than ever to make sure that when you’re ready for an editor, you are prepared to pay for someone who knows what they’re doing. Don’t expect it to be cheap – if you want cheap, then you’ll probably get the accompanying nasty to go with it. It also shouldn’t be ridiculously expensive. A writer I worked with to get his book to publishable standard by editing and partially rewriting it was quoted $20,000 by another editor before he accepted my quote for a third of that. And he could have accepted an even lower quote I provided (less than half of that third) for just a basic edit (spelling, grammar, punctuation) but he knew he was making an investment in ensuring the book was the best version of his story it could be.

So write for free and read for free but pay an editor for services required. That way there’ll be editors around in the future when you need one instead of them all having upped stumps and become health care workers or marketing assistants or teachers where there’s no chance of anyone expecting them to work for free.

How Long Should a Paragraph Be?

I’ve previously addressed chapters, novels and blurbs and here’s another instalment in the “How long should it be?” series: paragraphs. As with every “How long should it be?”, the answer is always, “How long is a piece of string?” But here are a few things to consider.

One Word

It’s perfectly acceptable to have a one-word paragraph. But, of course, you can’t have too many of them and especially not all in a row. The one-word paragraph is great for emphasis, drawing attention to something in isolation, or for giving the reader a moment to pause and reflect on something big that has just happened in the story, particularly if it’s unexpected.

The sorts of words commonly used in one-word paragraphs include:

*Yes!

*No!

*What?

*The various swear words ranging from mild intensity to things you hope your children never learn

It is important not to overuse the one-word paragraph otherwise it tends to lose its impact but the occasional use – every now and then in just the right place – can be exactly what a story needs.

One Sentence

The one-sentence paragraph works in fundamentally the same way as the one-word paragraph but needs a few more words to get the message through, particularly in the case of short sentences. The longer the sentence, the less it works like a one-word paragraph and the more it seems like a short multi-sentence paragraph.

One sentence paragraphs are terrific for the beginning and the end of a section or a chapter. The beginning one sentence paragraph sets up the scenario. From chapter two of Will Grayson, Will Grayson (in which the two Will Graysons narrate alternate chapters so chapter two is the first chapter of the second Will Grayson), the opening paragraph is, “I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.” It’s a perfect one-sentence paragraph.

And then the end one-sentence paragraph delivers the punchline. From chapter two of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, the closing paragraph is, “God, I am so in love.” All the paragraphs in between get the story from Will wanting to kill himself to Will declaring his passionate feelings but those one-sentence paragraphs really pack a punch.

Short

The majority of paragraphs fall into either the short or medium category. A short paragraph is a few sentences strung together to convey a moment, a feeling, an action that propels the story along. Knowing where to break your short paragraphs can be a bit of an art and there aren’t always definitive answers – two different people might choose to break paragraphs in completely different spots and yet the result is just as good in both versions.

I use a lot of short and medium paragraphs in both my fiction and non-fiction (which you’ll notice as you read through it), mostly because I find it easier to arrange my thoughts this way. I’m a bullet pointer from way back and they tend to evolve into short thoughts. Perhaps if I wrote philosophical musings my thoughts would be longer; perhaps not.

Medium

There isn’t a huge amount of difference between short and medium length paragraphs. It’s usually just that the things you are exploring in a medium length paragraph need a few more sentences than a short paragraph to be completely expressed.

If you don’t have any medium length paragraphs in your writing, you should think about whether the transitions from short paragraphs to long paragraphs are working in your favour. If they are, great. But really think about it. Too many short paragraphs can make your writing feel staccato. Too many long paragraphs can seem like really hard work. A medium paragraph in between can restore the flow.

Long

While long paragraphs are appropriate in some circumstances, just like the one-word paragraph, it’s important that they aren’t overused. A paragraph break allows the reader a short but useful moment to absorb what they’ve previously read and prepare to absorb more. Yes, it’s a fraction of a second but it’s amazing what the human brain can do in a fraction of a second. However, reading huge paragraphs without paragraph breaks for long periods of time isn’t one of the things that the human brain enjoys.

If you want to use long paragraphs, make sure that there is at least one paragraph break on each page of text. If you come across a page that has no paragraph breaks, try to find a place where it feels natural to pause the text. You’ll be doing a favour for your readers and for yourself – most people won’t persevere with a book that is physically difficult to read, no matter how good the story is.

Dialogue

Dialogue is a great way to break up larger paragraphs and while there are several approaches, the most common is to break the paragraph every time one person stops speaking and another starts. Apart from helping the reader to know who’s talking (along with the use of attributes – he said, she said, etc), dialogue provides a break from heavy prose. Even if prose is in shorter and medium length paragraphs, dialogue is great to help mix it up and offer a relief from a more intensive reading experience.

“Is this what you mean, Louise?” the reader asks.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” I reply. “Every time someone different speaks.”

“Every time?”

“Yep, every time. Because the breaks are more frequent, there is plenty of white space on the page. And white space is a really important component of a comfortable reading experience.”

*****

The most important thing is to use a combination of all types of paragraphs to get the best structure for your writing and for the paragraph type you choose to suit what you are trying to achieve in each block of text. The more you write, the more your paragraph breaks will occur naturally as you go. And remember, you can always go back and adjust the position of your paragraph breaks as part of the editing process.

Book Review: Kat Jumps the Shark by Melinda Houston

Oh, with a title like that, Melinda Houston was just begging for poor book reviews to come rolling in!

For anyone who doesn’t know it (although surely everyone does by now), the Fonz jumped a shark while water-skiing in a latter season of Happy Days and it is considered to be the point at which pretty much everyone realised the show had its best times long behind it.

This book suffers from a pretty common problem – it’s a novel about the television industry written by someone who has worked in the television industry. Just like those novels written by actresses about an actress trying to make it in Hollywood. There’s a common saying to “write what you know” but often these types of books become inside jokes – only the people on the inside get it. And I suspect that’s the case here. Certainly the quote on the front cover from Kat Stewart, the well-known Australian actress, seems to suggest this. She calls it, “An irresistible cocktail of intrigue, egos and insider information.” Take out the word “irresistible” and I might agree.

So for a very small demographic, this might be the most wonderful book they’ve ever read. For the rest of us, that’s just not the case.

Kat is a location scout for a reality television show. It starts out as a social experiment, dropping a bunch of middle-class Australians into the centre of Melbourne and filming them as they attempt to live as homeless people – I think it’s called poverty porn. It somehow morphs into Survivor: CBD with a famous ex-footballer brought in to host and a tribal council set up around a couple of old sofas and a fire drum in the middle for warmth while the contestants huddle under pieces of cardboard.

As the disasters unfold around her, from a first day suicide interrupting filming to laundry settings that aren’t green enough (then are too green), from relationship break-ups to arrogant bosses, from nepotistic staff appointments to contestants pushed so far they resort to crime, Kat’s life spirals out of control. The problem is that the story itself jumps the shark almost straight away. I’m not sure when the best times of this book were but they don’t appear in the book itself.

All the characters are described by their resemblance to real-life actors and television personalities, although not super famous ones, mostly people who are from Melbourne as the author herself is, meaning that even though I read this book only two years after its release, it already felt dated, cemented to a very particular moment and location in time. The characters are then judged worthy or unworthy based on the television shows they like. Miles, Kat’s boyfriend, only rates ABC dramas. Big thumbs down apparently. Wilson, a potential love interest, is a fan of Deadwood. Big tick in Kat’s eyes.

Kat spends an inordinately long amount of time driving around in her car, which isn’t all that interesting (anyone who has ever spent time driving in Melbourne will know it’s a “tear-your-hair-out” sort of activity just being in traffic – why we’d want to read about it is beyond me). And there’s an entire chapter towards the end of the book that she spends contemplating her own suicide, even though she’s reasonably self-absorbed enough for the reader to know she’d never go through with, especially given it’s not that kind of book. I’d call it chick lit if I didn’t think that was doing a disservice to chick lit.

I’ve listened to Melinda Houston on the radio plenty of times talking about television and the industry. That familiarity is really the only reason I picked up the book and bought it. But she’s a better TV critic than she is novelist. At least at this stage of her career.

And according to the inner front page info, the book was written with the assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Federal Government’s arts funding and advisory body. Wouldn’t it have been great if this funding had gone to a great book written by an unknown rather than a less than good book written by someone who already had a public profile?

My advice: make the effort to search out the unknown and read that book instead.

2 stars

*First published on Goodreads 10 July 2016