Dwayne’s Comments (group member since Apr 01, 2017)

Dwayne’s comments from the Support for Indie Authors group.

Destiny wrote: "I have heard of how important the first chapter is, but never the 7th or 13th chapter. There is a lot of information about writing the second act of a novel, so maybe you read one writer's specific..."

Could be that I only saw it in one source. It would have been back in the days that I studied writing using library books, so probably in the mid-nineties to the early 2000s. I just feel I've seen it more than once. Could be that it's an outdated notion, too.

Tomas wrote: "I'll take a wild guess, but I'd guess it was some kind of made-up standard by traditional publishers for pacing purposes. If books followed some structure and had roughly similar chapter count, the..."

You could be right. I was wondering as I am working on my novel today and going over the thirteenth chapter and trying to recall why it's supposed to be so important.

I try to make every chapter significant in some way. Yeah, I have heard the first 10% thing, too, which is always tough for my writing style. I like to start with small ideas in the beginning and build and build as I go along. Doesn't really fit the Amazon mold.

Er, uh, *picking nose* I don't know what folder to put this in, so, uh, if it's in the wrong spot *wiping finger on shirt* the mods can move it...

Anyhoo.

Happy New Year.

I have a weird question.

I swear to all I hold holy that years ago I read, in numerous sources, that when writing a novel, the seventh and thirteenth chapters were considered highly important. For some reason. I cannot recall why. I cannot recall where I saw this, either. I can't seem to find anything about it in my Google searches.

Has anyone else heard this? If so, what is so magically delicious about the seventh and thirteenth chapter that can't go into, say, chapter five or twelve?

Or did I dream this?

Or is it a Mandela Effect?

They're all very sketchy. It's hard to tell until we see the finished cover. Also, please delete the blurb from the post. Thanks.

Ian wrote: "My view is internal monologue has its place, but like anything else, it is how well it is done that counts. And that is a matter of opinion, and as others have hinted, don't expect to please everyo..."

Agreed upon every word here, Ian. It's not how much or how little we do internal monologues, or anything really, it's the quality of it that counts. Like anything, if the internal monologue is serving a real purpose to the story, good. If it's fluff and filler, bad.

Happy New Year to all you weird little word-tamers.

Yeah, since we're talking about your actual writing, I'll say I didn't find any of it all that confusing. I can see how waves can crash, yet a land remains peaceful and calm.

The only criticism I have is it reads more like a travelogue than a novel. Bring it to life. Don't tell us what the kingdom is like, show us.

Rowling is "flowery"? Really? Huh.

It's perfectly fine to show samples of your writing if you're asking for help. Which you are. And the appropriate place to ask is in the Writers Workshop folder, which is greatly unused and vastly ignored most days.

So, I moved your topic.

Share away.

M.L. wrote: "With that in mind, this is just my take on shortening (knife is a placeholder)"

My take on your take...

The good: It is tighter than the one I recently presented. I'll try to use it as a guideline of sorts. It doesn't match the actual story at all. (And why should it?) Hannah is a ghost hunter, for instance. And there's no indication that the scarecrow is only interested in attacking ghost hunters.

The best thing about your blurb is you mentioned the missing children. That really should be in mine somewhere. I left it out because I'm trying to focus on the early parts of the novel and they don't really learn about the missing kids until later.

HOWEVER!

There's no reason that can't be changed. There is an exchange in chapter five between one of the ghost hunters and the old woman who sees the scarecrow. He learns she used to work in FairyTale Village. He already knows about some of the myths and mysteries surrounding the park and I could have him already know about the missing kids and mention it to her to find out what her take on it is.

Ann wrote: "It's an intriguing blurb, but I'd tighten up the beginning a bit by getting rid of 'nervous and timid'."

Yeah, it needs some tightening. I just read it over again and I can see it needs some fixin'.

B.A. wrote: "Like the blurb. Ready to read the book and I understand the getting behind in getting things published."

Not so much getting behind, but electing to take the time needed to make sure the book works.

Phyllis wrote: "Good writing! I like where you're going with this. Let us know when you're there, so we can read the whole story."

It's taking a while. It's a complicated story and it's taking a lot more smoothing out than I anticipated.

Foreshadowing.

The good news about blurbs is there's probably ten billion ways to write a great one. The bad news is there's about ten trillion ways to write a poor one.

Without seeing your blurb, I'm not sure how to advise you on what works and what does not, so here's some general advice we seem to give fairly often around here:

*Let us know who the main character(s) are. Do not overload us with too many characters. Focus on the most important. One or two is generally enough.

*Who is the antagonist or what is the main problem being faced.

*What is at stake?

*Don't tell us the whole story. Tell us enough to make us want to open the book and read the first page.

* Try to keep it under one hundred fifty words.

* Try to avoid any superfluous words. They can be fine in creative writing, if done sparingly, but in blurbs they tend to slow the flow. You want it to be snappy.

There's probably bunches more, but that's the stuff that I thought of off the top of my head.

Well. It's the last day of fall and my prediction was way, way off.

The book is far from ready, yet.

I'm still trying to come up with a decent cover and blurb, too.

Here's something I came up with today:

Nervous and timid English teacher and part-time paranormal investigator Solomon Gallo has been contacted to investigate a home that is said to be haunted by something resembling a scarecrow. To Solomon and his crew, this feels like another routine ghost chase, assuming they’ll come away with little more than blurry photos and maybe a questionable EVP recording. However, when Hannah Pickett, the youngest in the crew, is attacked by the Scarecrow, it becomes evident that this is not going to be their usual case.

Strange things are happening. A flower shop owner says a witch is scaring off his customers. A postal employee says he’s hearing strange laughter and bizarre music in the woods near his house. Everything seems to be pointing to an abandoned kiddie park called FairyTale Village.

Investigating further brings up more questions than answers, and evidence begins to mount that the truth behind FairyTale Village is far more sinister than Solomon or his crew ever suspected.

Tony wrote: "Anna, a teen genius, inventor and Russian terror is in a race against time to rescue her parents and others taken hostage by a dangerous person ???. But to free the hostages Anna, with Jake as her helper, must first use her skills in carrying out the ??? plan of the hostage taker.... "

I vote against these changes. In the original ones, the story was much more clear. This is so rushed and cramped. It reads as if Anna is the Russian terrorist, which makes it all so confusing. She has to invent something to save her parents from herself? I don't get it. Jake is just tossed in there like we already know who he is. And the repetitive question marks are sloppy.

Dianne wrote: "Debra wrote: "Two Twitter questions to throw into the mix. Would love to hear from you.
1) I used to work in news. Posting was obvious. Getting followers was easy. As a new indie author, I'm strugg..."

No links. Thanks.

Sean wrote: "Could y'all delete my "Cover Help - Magical Realism" Topic please? Thanks!"

Done. You're welcome.

It's a bit long and overburdened with names and details that don't seem that important as you keep glossing over them to the next bullet point in your story. "His original plan to travel by boat goes awry." So, why mention it in the blurb? A good deal of it is nothing but a list of people Increase Mathews goes to visit. The reader probably has no idea who any of these people are and after a short while, it becomes dull.

The whole thing reads like a shopping list and by the end all I know is there's a doctor that goes wandering around for some reason and visits a bunch of relatives. Why would the reader care about this? Why is the doctor wandering around so much? What is his goal? What does he stand to lose?

Terry wrote: "Again, how many authors must have thought about this very concept?
"

Terry, without mentioning the "concept" you're proposing, let me say the answer is this: Too many. If even two authors do what you're talking about, the answer is: Too many.

What you're talking about only brings about things like dishonest reviews, bitter reviews, poor reviews and does nothing but tarnish the name of Indie authors. In other words, legit readers don't deserve or want dishonest reviews. Indie authors already have a piss-poor reputation and this is a good deal of why.

I'm removing your post. Talking about reviews is forbidden here as it is and specifically talking about what you're proposing is strictly forbidden. See our rules. Feel free to message me if you have any questions about this. Thanks.