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

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

Christopher wrote: "However, when it comes to the technical and editing part, I worry that I’m robbing them of the inspiring and joy of writing."

Have they suggested they don't care for this part? As a teen, I do recall I hated editing. Now it's my favorite part. It's where the magic happens. It's where you take a jumble of poorly written sentences and work and work it into something enjoyable. It takes a deep love of words and language to learn to enjoy editing.

Maybe show them the magic of using better words and phrasing to take a bland sentence like, "The girl had brown eyes, brown hair, and a brown dress" and turn it into something like, "A shock of auburn hair dropped over her glinting eye, the same color as her dress, which resembled rich, flowing chocolate." <-- And, no, I realize that second sentence is still nothing to be proud of.

Maybe make a game out of how stupid sentences sound if they have poorly constructed grammar.

Perform a short play with stiff and bland dialogue to demonstrate how important real dialogue is?

Jason wrote: "Could I get some feed back..."

Go to the Writers Workshop folder and start a thread. Don't hijack someone else's post, please.

M.L. wrote: "One more thing. If they want to write something other than teen fiction, as mentioned above, have them write what they want to."

THIS!!!

Speaking from my own experiences as a teen taking a writing course, we had NO restrictions, other than word count. I don't think there was such a thing as "teen fiction" back then, and had there been, I doubt I would have wanted to write it.

A few gut reactions to this:

First, I'm having a hard time knowing how to read this. The quotes around every few words make it seem as if you're trying to be ironic, sarcastic, or you have reservations, yet aside from this, you seem sincere. So, I'm not quite sure how to respond.

Second, (if I'm understanding you) short story writing, in some ways, can be equally challenging as novel writing. In some ways it can actually be more challenging. The story must be tighter, the cast is generally smaller, and there's not a lot of room to expand on secondary plot lines or themes. The only way that I can think that short stories are less challenging is they take far less time to write.

To be a writer takes more than creativity. Everyone is creative. Not everyone wants an outlet for their creativity. And if one does want to express oneself, there are many ways to do it besides writing. There's sculpture, painting, dance, theater, stand-up comedy, singing, songwriting, magic, building furniture, designing clothing, designing houses, etc. Having skills is great, but that won't make them into great writers. Do your students have a passion for writing? This, I think, is the key to doing anything well. If you have no passion for something, you likely won't be good at it. And writing takes a great deal of passion, as it is a solitary (usually) occupation and if you can't motivate yourself, no one can. It can take months, even years, to write a novel. If you don't have the passion for it, it probably isn't going to happen. You indicate they find the novel writing process to be tiresome and disengaging and you're afraid you're going to bore them. Maybe writing simply isn't for them. It isn't for everyone.

Maybe someone else will respond with a more positive message and some ideas. I just can't imagine how to get a group of children to care about writing if they have no real passion for it to begin with.

Mehmet wrote: "However, one crucial consideration for Amazon to improve this situation, in my humble opinion, is to remove the stars and allow only qualitative comments on the value of the book. These stars confuse the consumers and the stars don't necessarily reflect the reality most of the times. "

Well, what is the reality of a book? There really is none. A book is nothing but a bunch of pieces of paper or electronic "pages" with a lot of funny little symbols all over it. We writers put those funny little symbols all over and the reader interprets them. Every reader is going to interpret those words differently from what we intended. I might write, "A girl is holding an apple". That put an image in your mind. Is it the image I see? Likely not. What color is her hair? What is she wearing? Is the apple a real piece of fruit? Is it wax? Is it rotten? Has she taken a bite? Is she handing it to you? How old is the girl? Where is she standing?

For everything we write, there will be bunches of things the reader will insert out of their own imagination. Readers will bring in their own world ideas and their own personal experiences and mingle it with our words.

The story they read will not, in their minds, resemble the story we've written except at the very basest of levels.

The review will be based mostly on how our book made them feel. Our goal is, of course, to control the feelings of the reader, but we won't always meet our goal. Every reader is different.

One reviewer might give a favorable review because our main character reminded her of her favorite uncle. Another might give an unfavorable review simply because we misspelled five words and he's a stickler for proper spelling.

Reviews, like star ratings, are not held to any specific criteria and only speak to the experience of the reviewer. If Amazon was to give serious consideration to getting rid of the star system because readers don't all use the system the same way, they might as well do away with reviews, too.

I think if I ever decide to do a series in the sense most people mean series these days, I'd probably study a couple of popular series to see how the author handled the second book, third book, etc.

Dave (David) wrote: "I just would like to know if this is a common thing for other newer authors?"

Yes. This seems to be, by far, the most common question asked in this group. It is common for newer authors to see low sales and few reviews. You're new. You're a new rain drop that just fell into a vast ocean of authors. Since this kind of topic seems to come up so much, I'm going to freeze this post. Discussion of reviews is actually against our policy here. I allow it to a point, but we already have one very active thread going about reviews. No need to have another.

Frankly, I don't really know why authors are so much more interested in reviews than anything else connected to writing, anyway.

To be honest, I don't really know anymore who can and cannot leave reviews. A few years ago, pretty much anyone could review a book on Amazon. Thanks to people gaming the system, they've made it harder and harder. I have heard you have to have a purchase through Amazon and I've heard you have to have spent at least fifty dollars at Amazon. I don't know if that's still the case. It may have gotten tougher. I can't blame Amazon for making it tougher. I really can't. They want solid, honest reviews and many authors have tried sneaking in fake reviews, so Amazon has to keep tightening things up.

The beta readers will definitely help you determine if you have too much "info dumping" or not enough. I would suggest finding at least two more.

Also, if you're concerned that the info dumping might put off those who have read your first book and don't really need to be reminded of everything that happened, you could write it all up in a synopsis that could be skipped at the reader's discretion.

As you're working on the book, ask yourself, "Do I really need to re-explain this? Am I putting in too much detail about that?"

You could also spread out the info through the novel, bringing up events from the first when it's absolutely necessary to know about it, rather than cramming it all into one place.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head. I don't do series or sequels (not in the way they're usually done), so hopefully you'll get some more advice from those who have been there.

Shailja wrote: "Yes, that is true all Reviews are not coming online. A friend of mine had posted a review for my book and it is over a week now but it has not yet appeared."

Amazon has been clear for some time that they're not crazy about us letting friends and family review our books. Your customers aren't concerned if your friends like your books or not, as there's going to be a bias there. They want to know what other customers think.

Emily wrote: "Should I contact Amazon and ask if reviews for my book has been blocked? Surely they won't do that?"

You've gotten a lot of reviews in a short time and nearly all of them are five stars. It's possible Amazon is reviewing them and trying to determine if they are legit or not. Some of the reviews do contain phrasing that often shows up in fake reviews. If you're not gaming the system, relax and get some writing done.

It's possible your reviews have simply slowed down. You have a ton of reviews in a short period of time. Most of us do not see that many reviews on one book in a year. Be thankful for what you have and don't let the tapering off of reviews get to you.

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom, Writer, Hugger) wrote: "I was born in and have always lived in Massachusetts, USA..."

Been there! (briefly) I spent a few hours in Boston once. It was nice, what I saw of it. Which was, basically, just the bus station. Still, it was one of the nicer bus stations I've ever seen.

And Sam? We know it's been tough for you to get your writing done. You will get it when you're able. No need to apologize.

I'm from Iowa, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the United States. No, we're not the potato state.

I live in Cedar Rapids currently, which is the second largest city in the state and the largest city I've ever lived in. I grew up in a tiny little place called Huxley (not named for Aldous).

Iowa has had a huge impact on my writing, as I tend to write general fiction and a good portion of it is based on actual events from my life, or at least on things I've witnessed. I don't always write about Iowa, but when I don't it's usually about some other place in the Midwest (currently working on a story set in Chicago). So, being an Iowan for fifty-three years (except three months when I lived in Vermont) has helped me get a strong feel for the people of this state, the culture, etc.

The Fun folder has been kinda dead for a little while, so I'm going to try to come up with some topics to get it moving again. It is, I'll admit, my favorite part of the SIA forums.

So, this one is simple. I'm asking where you're from. I want your full address and a photo of your house, a detailed description of when you'll be gone and where you hide all your keys. (Also, if you have dogs, do they tend not to attack people, if said people give them a steak).

Seriously? No.

I'm just curious where everyone is from. Country of origin is enough, but if you want to narrow it down to state / city, great.

Also, do you think where you're from has any impact at all on your writing? Do you like to write about the place(s) you (have) live(d)? (Even though this is a fun topic, please refrain from bookwhacking - talk about your writing, but don't try to sell us your books and no links, please).

I expect everyone to have this completed by Friday at 5 pm.

GO!

Thank you, Maggie! I hope you'll stick around and get some use out of the group.

bill wrote: "I didn't realize that I was still in this group, which frankly I don't find useful for authors."

Bill, you've made it abundantly clear over the past two or three years that you don't find anything useful in this group and you've stated numerous times you're leaving. I'm not sure why you're not gone yet. Why not... just an idea... why not go start your own group and make it everything you find lacking in this one? I know. Nutty idea, right? It's easier to keep reminding us we're not here to suit your specific wants.

What that refers to is, we have a folder called Writers Workshop, where you can ask advice on how to write a scene you're having trouble with, asking advice on naming characters, whether or not to title your chapters, that kind of thing. Reviews are a whole different animal and exist solely as an aid to readers, not writers.

If you need to know how to delete a whole thread, archive, close a thread down, etc. just let me know.

Tickle that little button there.

Eliza wrote: "I am making a good salary from home $1200-$2500/week , which is amazing, under a year back I was jobless in a horrible economy..."

Uh huh. Sure. Stop it.