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

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

Jason wrote: "I started using..."

Sounds like nothing but review swapping and we don't discuss that here. Also, no links.

Reading over the responses to this underscores to me, again, how we're all so different in our approaches to this craft. I get the feeling not many authors give a lot of thought to names. And that's fine. I'm not complaining. Maybe I give too much thought to them.

Some years ago when I was taking a literature course in college, the professor went on and on about the significance of the name Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Because of that, and stuff I picked up here and there since, I've always put a great deal of thought into my character names. I like to use the name to reveal a bit of the character, something about their heritage or a hint into what kind of person they are.

Could be because I mostly read and study literary fiction. Maybe this kind of thing isn't done in genre fiction. Or maybe it's an old-fashioned idea that isn't done by today's authors.

Laura wrote: "I am sorry about the link violation> the rules do not disallow legitimate review groups and there are several on Goodreads that have been running for years without problems because they are not dir..."

Swapping is swapping. If Amazon finds out, you could lose your account. It doesn't matter how long a group has been around or if you think they're "legitimate". Again, discussing reviews is against the code of conduct and this is why. Thread like this always lead to review swapping. I will close this thread if we can't move away from pretending review swapping isn't a dishonest way to get reviews. It is.

A few things to keep in mind on this thread:

We aren't here to discuss reviews in the first place. At this point, I'll allow the thread to continue but please no further discussions of review swapping or groups that do this. Also, no links. This is all in the code of conduct.

Thanks.

Gail wrote: "...the two main characters do refer to each other playfully by each other's full names at different times, though."

That's cute. I like it.

Xanxa wrote: "Family names (last names) are of great significance in my fantasy series. I usually mention them when a new character appears for the first time and also during the course of dialogue if a character introduces themselves or makes reference to their family. Also, if it's a minor character who hasn't made an appearance for a long time in the story, I might use their full name as a reminder."

That's similar to what I do. I don't write fantasy, per se (although my current work in progress has elements of fantasy in it). My books are all set in the "real world". Still, I often use last names to indicate ancestry.

Hey guys,

This's something I've always been curious about. How often do you drop your character's / characters' last name(s)?

I know there are no actual rules about this and it all comes down to your style and the flow of the book and all that. I'm just curious.

Personally, I tend to toss in the last name when the character hasn't been in the book a while or whenever someone is addressing them by their full name or last name, if appropriate to the conversation.

Eldon wrote: "Regional dialects have caught out many a writer. They can be very tricky to master."

That's why I set most of my stories in Iowa. I know how people talk around here.

Valerie wrote: "Me too!"

I find it adds a level of realism to characters to let them talk like ordinary people. When I don't give characters a bit of dialect or let them drop a g now and then, etc. they come across sounding robotic and stiff.

Gail wrote: "It isn't specific words I hate--its a writer who constantly injects dialect into a book..."

I do that all time time!

Phillip wrote: "I thought “funny” in the subject meant we realized these fears weren’t very rationale."

Exactly.

Jay wrote: "So what?"

So, it sucks to work hard on an idea only to have someone take the exact same idea and turn it into their own book. If they beat us to the punch, then we could be accused of plagiarism.

I am not talking about the basic plot, as you assume in your lecture. Since Phillip said "exact idea" he's probably not talking about the basic plot, either. True, you can give a thousand people a vague direction like, "Write a story about people kissing" and you're going to get a thousand different stories.

The bare bones plot of my novel is: A teenage girl discovers she has magical powers and must defeat powerful enemy. Yep. Stripped naked, it's Harry Potter with a girl instead of a boy as the main character. It's been done before countless times. It's all in the details, the subplots, the twists, the characters, the dialogue, and many other things that make it its own story. That's the stuff I don't want borrowed.

Back in the 90s before the superhero craze really exploded, I was working on a series of novels about superheroes. I was pretty well into the series when I noticed a big comic book company had a character very, very much like one of my main characters. Then they came up with another. Every time they came up with a character or big idea that mirrored mine too close, I'd have to go change things. It got to the point where I had to give up the project. No, I do not believe the big comic book companies were deliberately taking my ideas. I don't know how they would! It was all coincidence, I'm sure. But, had I published the work with all the ideas I had in it originally, how could I prove in a court of law I had the ideas first?

It's not about how well the book is written. It's not about if the reader gets to page three. If someone puts out a book with a story too close to mine, I will look like I plagiarized. I will have spent hundreds of hours on a book that looks like a rip off.

What are the actual odds of this happening? Probably extremely slim. Probably far less than .001%. But, that's why this is in the fun folder. That's why it has the heading "Funny Li'l Fears". We're just venting to have some giggles.

So, that's "so what".

Fame has nothing to do with it. It's the difference between writing something formal and stiff vs. writing something casual and entertaining. A lot of books I've read on writing stated perfect and proper grammar is not necessary in fiction writing. It was discussed in my college writing courses and Writer's Digest has done articles about it. Even in my high school writing course the teacher forgave a number of grammatical mistakes, as long as the story was interesting and the meaning was clear enough.

This isn't to say all writers need to be loose and casual with grammar. We can determine how rigid or how carefree we want to be. As long as the meaning of our words isn't lost when the grammar becomes too loose, it's all good.

I doubt you're older than me, Gail. But, yeah, I hear ya. I had to learn not to worry about grammar. It helped when many of my literary heroes broke grammatical rules left and right.

Gail wrote: "...wouldn't a flashback need to reflect a time prior to that?"

The phrase "Not long ago" should be enough to indicate that we're about to go further into the past.

Gail wrote: "Wouldn't you also have to make sure that each of the flashback sentences were written in past tense?"

I seldom write in present tense, anyway, so it's not been an issue. "Bumped" and "started" are already in past tense. I try not to stick "had" in there more than necessary. To be grammatically correct, yeah, it would need at least one "had" in there. I don't worry about perfect grammar in fiction writing.

It gets tricky. You have to say, "Okay, here's a flashback" without saying, "Okay, here's a flashback" and sometimes the transitions feel a bit sudden, especially transitioning back the characters' present time. But, it can be worked out in the revisions / rewrites / editing part of the process.

Usually I will just introduce it in the text. "Not long ago, Bobby had a chance meeting with an old flame. They bumped elbows in a Starbucks and started chatting..."

Phillip wrote: "My fear is that everyone else is working on the exact idea of my work in progress."

Yep. I have the same fear. I am not hiding the fact that I'm working on a novel about a group of paranormal investigators checking out an abandoned theme park. That much can be copied. I'm pretty sure that much has been done before, anyway. There's a lot more to the novel, though, and I want to keep it guarded until the book is done.

Debra wrote: ""The Eclectic Author.""

Seems redundant. All authors are eclectic.