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

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

B.A. wrote: "The word I despise is 'smirk'. When I see it more than a couple of times in a book, it ruins the book for me. ..."

Crosses B.A.'s name off a list of potential beta readers for my work in progress... hee hee...

Someone brought this up in a Facebook group I'm in and I thought it was a fun topic.

List a word or a few, or a phrase or a few, that you're tired of hearing. This can be words and phrases that have gotten popular to the point that they've become too commonplace, phrases or words people constantly use wrong, etc. The only thing I ask is do not call out specific people and if you're tired of seeing certain words and phrases in books, don't give the name or title.

Also, please only attack the poorly used words, etc. Don't use this as a platform to mock others for political ideas and so on. Thanks.

Here are a few of my current pet peeves:

Literally - Often misused or an unimportant filler word.

"Kids today would never understand..." - Usually spoken by people my age and generally implies that there's absolutely no way anyone younger could learn something about things in the past.

In these unprecedented times / In these uncertain times / We're all in this together / The new normal - 'Nuff said.

Awesome - This one has been on my nerves for decades, now.

I'm guessing it's the shirtless mimbo that makes people think it's a "chick" book. To me it just looks cluttered and confusing. It almost seems that the space ship is flying out of his crotch and half his head is hidden by the title. It's not a fun cover to look at.

I need more. It's all vague. Example: "Now Emily must unmask a murderer while wearing a mask herself, resisting a growing temptation that could ruin her newfound family."

Why does she need to wear a mask? What temptation? What family? The elf, vampire, etc?

Roxie wrote: "Hi—a question for those who used review groups here on Goodreads—what’s the protocol on that? Just barge in and ..."

I'll second Tomas on this one. As moderators, we're not fond of people barging into this group and doing things willy nilly without getting familiar with the group, or at least reading over the rules, first. And we're the nice guys. Except for me. Tomas is a nice guy. I'm a jerk.

Melanie wrote: "I have used Booksprout and ProlificWorks. Both are super easy and ProlificWorks has no limits for downloads that I have seen.
Also, here's a whole bunch of links even though the rules say not to do it..."

Please read the rules of the group. Thanks.

Tomas wrote: "If your book is not published yet (and thus it's not listed on Goodreads), you'll need to upload your cover elsewhere - "

When I have a cover to put into the workshop, I upload it into the photos section of my profile here on Goodreads. I've edited my comment to make that clearer.

Upload your cover image to Goodreads (you can do this in the photo section of your profile).

View your image.

Right click on it and it will bring up a menu. Click on "copy image address".

Go to the cover workshop folder and start a new topic with the heading "Cover Help - [title]/[genre]"

In the body of your post, you'll type any necessary text, along with this (sans asterisks) "<*img src="***"/>

Instead of the three asterisks, you'll put in the image address.

It should start with:
https://images.gr-assets.com/authors

S.J. wrote: "Dear Goodreads Author community"

Speaking of don't do this, at Support for Indie Authors, we don't allow links and we frown on author shaming.

To sum up, S.J. joined the community to publicly shame another author for, from what I can gather, reviewing their own book. I agree. It's tacky to review your own book. It's also tacky to make such a fuss over another author for doing so. Adding to it, S.J.'s profile is set to private and the link and original comment have been posted on several other Goodreads boards. All of this is pretty tacky.

The thread is locked and the original post is gone.

Viola wrote: "You don't have to write "say." Mix the dialogue with action. For instance, Julian crushed the cigarette under his foot. "I wish I could stop smoking."

This action shows the dialogue belongs to Julian."

I do a lot of this. It also adds some action to the scene, so you don't have a couple of talking heads floating around.

Viola wrote: "The girl's age is not determined. She could be a teen or young woman."

Works for me. At age fifteen, she's in that moment of life where she's tired of people thinking she's just a kid and wants to prove herself.

If I go with this cover, I have considered trying to paint a few things into the background, such as a cottage with candy on it or a large wolf lurking around or something.

And thanks for your help, Laura. It seems you're interpreting it pretty much the way I was hoping people would.

Thanks Laura,

1. It's not meant to be YA/MG, but it's not meant to be not for YA/MG, either. I don't really write for specific age groups. I write what I like and hope someone out there likes it, too.

2. There is a little graphic horror and violence in parts, but a good deal of it is mystery.

3. One of the protagonists is a fifteen year old girl. She is the central character.

4. Most of it is set in modern times.

5. I agree. It's off-putting. That's what I like about it. I want it to feel unsettling having these words kinda floating around back there. Maybe it's too unsettling.

6. Yeah, the cloak should look old-fashioned. When we get to the part of the book where Hannah lives in a deep forest, she wears a cloak very much like this. I didn't see her wearing an apron, but I like that it's there as early on we see she's a bit of a servant to her step-family (Cinderella).

There are characters in the novel who believe Hannah is a witch and it's one of the things that kinda remains a mystery for a while, so I'm okay with readers thinking she might be something other than a "normal" teenager.

Kathleen wrote: "I hope this is a proper place to post it:"

Sort of like speeding through a red light while holding a beer in your lap and hoping you're not breaking any laws, isn't it?

This thread is for discussing the results of promotions, not for posting promotions. Please read the group guidelines and the rules for the folders before posting and hoping you're doing it right.

I actually did test a blurb a few weeks ago in the blurb workshop.

I'm kind of creating my own barriers. It's not you. With the cover and the blurb both, I'm still early enough in the writing process I haven't quite discovered what this book is truly about. I have ideas, but I don't want to force it. It will come to me eventually. That said, it's hard to come up with a cover and a blurb when I really only know the story, but not what it's truly about.

At the same time, I want to get attention on this thing. I don't generally dabble in genre fiction and so I don't expect my other stuff to get much attention. I think this one has a chance, but it is going to need a super blurb and great cover. So, it makes me want to start on the process early so I have plenty of time to mess around with different ideas.

"Hello," Casey said.
"Hey," Peewee said. "How's it going?"
"Nothing much," Casey said. "And you?"
"I am practicing how to eat chewing gum and walk at the same time," Peewee said.

Agreed. The word "said" is overdone. When there are only two characters talking, I find it works to drop the "said" immediately after its established who is involved in the conversation. If it goes on a while, its good to toss another "said" in there now and then to remind the reader who is speaking. This is overdone. Worse, the dialogue is absolutely dull. Something better spark in the next line or two or I'm done.

“That… that was a trick… He escaped…?” Arnold mutters.
“You… You did it! You saved me!” Caroline exclaims while running to me, her voice a maelstrom of dissonant tones.
“Go home…” I muse.

I don' t mind an occasional "muttered" or "mused" but when it's used in every line, it gets distracting and takes away from the dialogue, which is the real meat of the scene. The dialogue should be the focus, not the tags. It's not terrible, but if all the dialogue in the book were like this, I would probably give up after a while. Magnus's reworking works better for me.

In the end, there are no hard set rules and every reader and every writer will be different. I lean toward agreeing with Elmore Leonard about using "said". I also agree with Magnus that sometimes you can leave the tags off and have the character doing some kind of action instead. There are two good reasons for doing that. First, it keeps the writing from being a hotbed of dialogue tags, and it gives the reader something to picture while the characters are talking, so they don't come across as just two people standing rigidly and doing nothing but talking. It doesn't have to be a big action. It can be as small as a character scratching their nose or maybe their eye twitches a little or they lick their lips.

Haru wrote: "The first half is about the heroine's struggles and no erotica at all. Do you think I could make a better cover with that?"

For me, it's all about finding one image that tells as much of the story as possible. I haven't read any of your work yet, but if it's anything like mine, the struggle to find that one image is tough. My novels tend to be pretty complex.

Depending on the novel, I think a cover giving us a glimpse of the main characters struggles would be compelling. My second novel was some-hundreds of pages long but the image I landed on was a young boy with a black eye and a bloody nose to indicate this thing is about how cruel the world is and how even the innocent suffer.

Comment deleted. This is not the place to announce your free books. Any self-promotion is against the group rules. Thanks

I need more masks. I had three, now I have one. I think someone got into my car and stole two of them.

M.L. wrote: "I thought of that, hmm, but since it's a mystery, the girl could be the protagonist or one of the missing children. It sort of sets up, well, a mystery. :) It's a fun idea. I like your original cover. I love the idea of different fonts and what they convey."

There is a part, fairly early on, when they first enter FairyTale Village to investigate and one of the team talks about how he visited this place many times as a child and how he had a crush on Little Red Riding Hood. The reader might assume that the girl in the picture is one of the several girls that played Red in the park years ago. It could add to the mystery a bit, yes.