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

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

G.R. wrote: "I used to flip through an old phone book for ideas but now, where can you even find one?"

Drive through a cemetery. If you're on Facebook, start searching through friends of your friends. Pull names from the sports page. Scroll through comments on any social media discussion. Watch the end credits of movies. There's tons of places you can find names to use.

Fair enough, but how do you entertain if you don't learn how to write, first? I've had a number of beginning authors send stories to read. Nearly all of them spent little to no amount of time studying the art of writing and nearly all the stories were about as unentertaining as you can imagine. They're writing stuff that makes sense to them, but confusing to the reader. They put no real emotion into it. They don't know how to construct an interesting character. They think writing is a way to make an easy buck and aren't willing to put any real work into it. Is it possible to sit down and write a good story without learning how first? Probably. They say if you give a million monkeys a million typewriters...

I believe good writers know the rules. Great writers know when and how to break them.

I try to keep passive voice out of my writing, which is weird, because, like you I see it in all kinds of books and passive voice is the way I write naturally, so it's a lot of work to eliminate it. However, when I read it, it doesn't excite me. So, yeah, I spend a lot of time trying to undo a habit that bores me to death.

It is interesting how often we're told "write like this" or "write like that", then run across a famous novel that doesn't follow the rules. I've been rereading MASH by Richard Hooker. I read it many years ago before I really learned how to write and I loved it. Now I read it and I find it's pretty much all telling and very little showing, which everyone says is a big no-no. Yet, here is a book that did pretty well on its own, then was made into a major motion picture and inspired a TV series.

I have seen it said in this forum, and I think this might be the best rule of writing, "Learn the rules, only so you know how to break them."

Phillip wrote: "I always find it odd that people try to avoid smiles/frowns/scowls/etc. Trying to write fancier ways seems to come across too pretentious for my tastes. Nobody worries too much that the word "said" is used hundreds of times per book."

Repeated words can become distracting or monotonous. "Said" used to be one of the most debated words amongst readers and writers. Maybe that's not the case anymore. I haven't seen it in a while. Some feel the word "said" is the only tag that should be used to denote speech, some feel it's okay to mix in a few "shouted"s, "yelled"s, "muttered"s, or any other speech tag now and then. And some feel "said" should be avoided completely. I fall into that second camp.

Even so, it's good to leave "said" out whenever possible. If you have a conversation going between two characters, you can drop the "said" after a few lines. The reader should be able to follow the dialogue without being constantly reminded who is speaking. Or, it's possible to denote the speaker without a word tag at all. (Brenda folded her arms and glared. "Don't lie to me, Maynard. I saw you with my sister at the bar last night.")

Roughly half the characters in my second novel were based on kids I rogued with in the eighties or knew from school. The one adult in the book, Larry, is very much based on a man I rogued with. His name was Larry. He was an odd enough duck I didn't have to change much about him.

S. wrote: "Why do you think that is?"

Having seen well over a hundred blurbs come through here and commenting / helping with over half of them, I can condense the biggest problem into one sentence: Authors are close to the work. That doesn't mean the author can't write a great blurb, but frequently when blurbs come in that do not work, it falls into one of two reasons: The author is giving away too much about the book or the author is not giving away enough. In the former, the author is so enamored with and excited about their work (and they should be) that they want to give away too much about the book and end up going on and on and on and on. In the latter, the author is afraid giving up too much of the story, trying to avoid giving away secrets and spoilers (which is respectable) and end up with a blurb that is far too vague to be interesting. Another common mistake I see in many blurbs is the author assuming the reader is going to understand things in the blurb that there is no way they'll understand, having not read the book in question, yet.

All of these point to one thing: The author is close to their work and it makes it difficult to know what to put into a blurb and what to leave out.

Yep. I'm guilty of smiles, frowns, laughs, etc. There just aren't enough other words that one can use without sounding corny. A quick look at a thesaurus suggests "all smiles" or "grinning from ear to ear", both of which are a) cliched and b) stupid sounding. Yet, you can't just write, "Bob was happy" because that's telling. I do my best to limit "smile", "laugh" and the rest, but it gets tough.

I agree, Eileen. It is overused and unnecessary. Of course things change or there would be no story. I have my doubts, too, that literally (an overused word I hate but it fits) EVERYTHING changed.

Along those lines I hate when a blurb starts out, "Billy was a normal boy" or "Gretchen was an average housewife". Average and normal are not exciting words and only prepare me for a dull character.

"Cringe" is become way too popular.

Lately, I've been hearing people use the word "minute" when they mean a much longer period of time. "I was out of work for a minute..." I guess I don't hate this so much, it just confuses me when people say it.

John wrote: "quite defensive"

I don't see where S.U. is being defensive at all. They explained the blurb a bit better, yes. Now they need to take that stuff and incorporate it into the blurb. It's actually a common mistake to want to withhold info in the blurb and end up withholding too much.

Gonna break this down, line by line.

The one thing that could free him could be his undoing. Vague. Not particularly interesting.

As the prince of Aegea, Troy is the envy of his peers. Okay.

For the slaves that serve him, he’ll never know what it’s like to go hungry nor what it’s like to be bought and sold like a new pair of sandals. Clumsy sentence. I had to read it a couple of times to get it.

But they didn’t know that being at the top comes at a cost. I'm not feeling anything for him, yet. You got me empathetic for his slaves. Now I'm waiting for reason to care about this guy.

That he’s not truly free. Poor thing.

From the education, he receives to the dormice he had for supper everything is carefully planned. And... you're comparing this to being sold like a sandal or going hungry. Again, I'm not feeling a thing for this guy.

Just like his future role as Mediator, even though he feels anything but prepared for the role. Clumsy. I don't know what you're trying to say here.

Nor is he prepared to face the anniversary of the Quake that took the one person he loved the most. I don't know who or what the Quake is or who the person was he loved the most. I know you're wanting me to care about this guy, but so far I'm not.

He’s ready to lose himself to be the son his father always wanted. I don't know what that means. What kind of son does his father want and why isn't this guy the son his father wants? Since his entire life is planned out for him, can't the father change some stuff and make him the son he wants? Can't the kid change if he wants to be the son his father wants? I'm really not getting it.

To forget the pain that still haunts him. Again, you're dancing around some vague pain or loss, but not giving us a chance to feel it.

Then something unexpected happened. Unexpected things happen all the time.

He sees it first. Vague. Feels completely unnecessary.

Hiding in his family’s villa is a mysterious dog that appears seemingly out of nowhere. So... if the dog is hiding, how does this kid know it "appeared" seemingly out of nowhere? What makes the dog "mysterious"?

He doesn’t know how or why it came for him but he knows that the two share an unexplainable bond. At this point, I feel like you're teasing that there is probably a story here somewhere, but you're not going to tell us what it is. A kid finds a dog and they have a bond. That happens. What is so special about this dog?

But the dog is not safe in his possession and if he stays, his life is in jeopardy. BUT, WHY? Again, you probably have a story here, and it might be a good one, but what is it? Why is the dog "not safe"? Why is its life "in jeopardy"? From who or what?

Now everything Troy was taught to believe is quickly crumbling as he’s confronted with conflicting loyalties. WHY? Why is he so conflicted? He found a dog. He bonded with the dog. Why is this so special and so dangerous?

He must choose between honor vs. dishonor. Conformity vs. individuality. Lies vs. truth. Grief vs. joy. Safety vs. freedom. You're killing the blurb by trying to be artsy instead of telling us what's going on. You know the story. I don't. Why does he have to make all these choices just because he found a dog?

What he chooses, in the end, could shock his family…and himself. You know what that means. You're the only one. To everyone else, it makes no sense.

In this thought-provoking coming-of-age tale discover the power of friendship, life after loss, and finding your voice. What is at stake? What is this person questing? Why should we care about him? He wants freedom. He wants to be a good son. He finds a dog. He has to make a lot of choices. He might shock everyone. There has to be something more to the book!

I swear I've told this story here before, but doing a search, I can't find it. So, here goes.

Some many years ago I was really into horror. I bought this little novel called The Funhouse by Owen West. I hated it. Some years later I bought another novel of the same name, this one by Dean Koontz. I guess I didn't notice the disclaimer stating it's the same novel, or there wasn't one. I can't recall. Anyway. I hated it again and I haven't bought a Dean Koontz novel since. I felt a bit swindled into wasting my money twice on the same crap novel.

So. I'm not a fan of authors changing the names of their novels or changing their name to a pseudonym or vice versa.

What is the reason you want to do this? You say the reason is clear, but I'm not seeing it.

I assume by "slump" you mean you've lost the spark to write?

It happens.

Some tips:

1. Don't fret it. If you're meant to write, you will write again. If you are not meant to write, you'll stop worrying about the slump and find something you do enjoy.

2. Maybe you're bored with whatever your current work in progress is. Try writing something else for a while, even if it's a bunch of nonsense no one will ever see but you.

3. Read over your current work in progress and look for the spot where you lose interest. Delete everything after that and start fresh.

4. Challenge yourself to write for fifteen minutes a day until the slump goes away.

Jay wrote: "Were you to hire a pro to write a blurb, and it worked, what good would it do if it directed the reader to less than pro level writing?"

I was with you up to this point. I do agree that if one can learn to write fiction, one can learn to write a decent blurb. However, if one hires a professional to write a blurb for them instead of learning to do it for themselves, this does not mean their level of fiction writing would be "less than pro".

Rita wrote: "No links. No self-promotion."

Lou wrote: "Hello,
New to the group with a question."

Sure. Just don't include links.

M.L. wrote: "Any chance it will be published by Halloween?"

Came back to respond to this in particular as I'm considering changing the book to happening in October / November. As it is, it takes place in the spring. There's so much imagery that would fit right into a Halloween time setting: There are witches, a scarecrow, a big pumpkin, creatures that sort of resemble black cats...

Yesterday is a great example of what writing is like for me, now. I had a meeting at the office at 11 am that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, then had to be at the house* at 2pm. So, I went to a coffee shop near the house and had about two hours to write.

I had not been to that coffee shop in quite a long time and my computer did not automatically connect to the Wi-Fi. I chose not to connect and in doing so focused on my writing for two solid hours. In my previous position, when I had about six or seven hours to write, I did get some solid writing here and there, but I would also spend large clumps of time letting myself be distracted.

Writing every day is helping me to remember little details and it's helped in clearing up a lot of inconsistencies in my story. Not major stuff, so much, but a character has a blue dress on and suddenly she's in jeans. It's not a big deal, but it can be distracting to the reader.

*Some of you might know, but I have been working in various companies and positions with the special needs community for about a decade now. The 9-5 / Monday-Friday gig was working in a day hab. I recently made a move over to housing with the same company and promoted to supervisor. So, yeah, it's a sixty+ hour a week gig and a position I've been coveting for years.

M.L. wrote: "Any chance it will be published by Halloween? Sounds perfect for this time of year."

No. This book is taking far longer than I thought it would. There's still tons of stuff I'm ironing out - inconsistencies and what-not. It's told in six parts. The first three are fairly solid. The fourth is a bit dicey in places and still needs some work, but overall not too bad. The fifth is pretty choppy and the sixth still feels like a rough draft.

I did recently have a change in occupation. This is the weird part. When I was working my previous position, it was basically a 9-5 Monday-Friday kind of thing. Yet, I didn't have much writing time except the weekends. My new position I'm putting in a lot more hours, yet I am able to write nearly every day. It's amazing how much more writing I get in with only two or three hours a day vs. six or seven hours two days a week.

Jay wrote: "Seems to me, that in a forum like this, it’s best to gather multiple views, without condemnation or argument, and let the one requesting the help decide what works best for them."

Oh. Brother.

Jay, I wasn't condemning you or arguing. In my initial post here, I was giving Chris the "multiple view" you're talking about. You believe a blurb shouldn't mention the setting of the novel. I believe it can. That's all. I disagree with you on one point.

My second comment, the one directed at you, was mostly answering questions you asked, not arguing.

I do understand what "on the street" means. I am at least that intelligent. I find your comment condescending and won't bother responding to the rest of it.