Some Writing Thoughts -- Making Your Writing Better

Am really putzing. Like I'm not making much progress with my word counts.  One problem: I try to edit as I write. Slows you down, but I like the results better than encountering an embarrassing mess the next day.

Not doing much marketing either. Read Facebook but haven't contributed anything ... not even about the rioting roses and clematis. Even have slacked off on Twitter. Did read six of the early Anita Blake novels in front of the fan-enhanced A/C. In fact, I recommend the early Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton. Better than anyone else I can remember off-hand, she weaves two-three plot lines with finesse ... without the romance/erotic stuff which adds other complications and distractions.

Are you editing yet?. Better yet, do you want to memorize some words that'll make your writing leaner so your storyline reads faster? Lauren Spieller has some suggestions for you: Words to Eliminate from Your Writing.  --

One of the ways I check for "flabby" words is to use the "find" in my toolbar. For "to-be" forms I seach for "ing" since it usually happens using "to-be"

While you play with ideas, do you also play with titles? What do you think of Emily Veinglory's comments on adding "xxx: a novel" to the end of your title? -- 

Titles are always hard for me. Like my current title for the opening to my Half-Elven series is 'Forbidden Fruit'. Don't like it but it sums up the situation. And, no. It isn't a 'romance' even though relationships are central to the plot line. And, yeah. I added "A Tale of the Half-Elven" to the title "The Foiling of Gorsfeld". [free at my author website]

Coming up with new, unused, or beaten-to-death situations is another problem for writers.  Susan Vittitow Mark wrote a blog at The Writing Bug about Making Big, Messy Art.   Bottom line: Mark writes about journaling to create a mine where you can dig for ideas. The opening is a gas. Won't do a spoiler here. Just go look at the pictures.

Then there's procrastination. There was a great article on the differences on being a writer 20-30 years ago. I didn't capture the url and paste it here for further use. In the meantime my computer and the phones died. Short version: Being a mid-list for major publishers has become a version of "hell". 

Oh, the computer -- I'm learning how to type on a new laptop computer. Don't have all the files finessed ... but it looks like I haven't lost any in the transfer.

Gargolye news. Have a tentative publication date for April 2014.  I'm waiting for the second edits on There Be Demons which should be done when I get back from visiting family in July. Oh, it is July. Well I'll be gone for a couple weeks.

And Pat, the Pet will come out in February or March. The delay here has been the artwork edits. Think we have an artist for the work -- both for the short-vowel stories and the unpublished long vowel ones. May do another set on dipthongs/letter combinations but the editor hasn't decided what. -- Actually, she's making noises about chapter books, and that scares me.

Enjoy ... and don't melt in the heat.

Cliched Characters

Writerly Fantasy Review:

Lee Child: Worth Dying For.   Yeah, I consider Lee Child a fantasy writer ... with thriller elements ... but really, just how realistic is the series?  Reacher dodges bullets better than Superman.

In this book Reacher is creaking [badly in need of aspirin] along after escaping from the inferno at the end of the last book.  Found this book disappointing, though.  I thought he was moving towards more emotional involvement with people, but this book was just more of the same: Reacher seeking justice for a girl that had disappeared years before -- with help of the gang who controls the town.

Child trots his well-drawn complications [villains] across the canvas.  The brutalized citizens cower convincingly -- with good reasons.  There's even a cowardly drunken doctor with a heart of gold.  Did I mention cliches here?  Doesn't matter, really.  The book's a good, fast-moving read with well-drawn characters worth studying how he places the details ... if somewhat unsatisfying.

Is there such a thing as internal cliches.  Of course, there is.  I think writers get into habits ... not always bad, but human brains tend to run in ruts.  It takes concentrated effort to jump on the verge and go wandering.  The more bushes concealing things, the better.  No, I won't demand my money back because of the recycled plot pattern. 

Social Networking Web Stuff:

I'm beginning to understand social networking.  [I'm a slow learner.]  It's simple.  You're damn if you do ... and damned if you don't.  I think Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware lifted my lid and looked inside my head.  She posted about how she spent too much time on the web even though lots of it was work related.  Ditto here even though I don't have the excuse.  She does.

Then there's the other side of argument with a critique contest.

Which side of the coin do you fall on? Pro or anti or in-between?

Do you remember the brouhaha the Wall Street Journal article raised about distopian YA books?  Well, Rob Brunner in his blog EW Shelf Life gives support to the opposite position.  He interviews author Jay Asher about how his book, Thirteen Reasons Why, is saving lives.

Thought I'd give another person a chance to wade in on effective social media.  Connor Dempsey does just that at on his blog.  Of course, I mostly agree with him.  --  I think I'm looking for support on cutting back on social media.  Still, he makes some good points.  What do you think?

I'm looking at the first pages for two of the WIPs sitting in my files as I snatch revising time here and there.  Brooke Favero writing about what happened last week in the writing world for The Writing Bug linked to Katia Lief's discussion of the 3 "Cs" of Writing which gives the basics of what your first pages should do.  If your manuscript isn't hooking anyone, you might take a look.

Thought I had this wrapped up when I discovered Eric's blog, "The Long and Short of It",  at Pimp My Novel.  He gives a nice strategy for getting published.  Great ... unless your ideas always metathesizes into something longer ... and longer. 

Writing Lesson:

Writing a series has other pitfalls than cliched characters.  How about keeping everything straight?  This problem has been nagging me since last week when I started creating seriously again.  

Backstory:  Once I wrote a 400,000+ word story about the Far Isle Half-Elven.  Somewhere around 200,000 words, I had a harder and harder time keeping everything straight.  I solved the problem by keeping a log of features, personality traits, place names, special terms, etc.  Later, I discovered many writers call this a bible.  Not the Bible, but the go to source when you try not to make mistakes in your own writing.  Like being able to edit the mistakes before anyone else notices them.

Then, Taking Vengeance was published, and I find I need to write more in the Half-Elven world to support the ebook's sales.  [Thus, the reason why I self-published Cavern Between Worlds.]  

Now, I'm writing a subsequential of Vengeance.  It's an idea that's been bubbling to the surface of my mind for at least two-three years, but always sank again.  Now, I'm 2000 words into the thing, and I'm rather intrigued by the unfolding plot since the main villain isn't one of the Felds.  I think they'll end up being the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend this time around.  It'll be interesting to see how the story develops after having taken some fiction writing classes and doing critiques.

Main change:  I'm having to revise the chaotic Half-Elven bible. [Watch Kay's eyes cross.... especially since she's trying to keep her characters from becoming cliches.]

Do you have a bible for your world, series, or whatever you're writing?  Have you found that one helps if you only plan to write one book in your world?

Trivia:

My cheapness bit me ... again.  Thought I'd try to save money on toilet paper by buying it at Big Lots.  Not only was the roll short by an inch, but the paper was so thin you can almost see through it.  Back to the supermarket.

Giving Up Early

The Read (or Watch?):  Tried to watch more episodes of Witchblade last night.  My son warned me it sort of fizzled in the middle, but I found I couldn't make myself listen to the bombastic opening again -- and the DVD won't let me fast-forward.  Besides, they jumped into an alternative reality where they seem to be repeating the previous episodes with different endings.  Didn't stay around to be sure.  --  Jane Haddam's Living Witness was calling.  Read a chapter of that and went to bed early (ie: before 11:30 PM).

The structure of Living Witness follows the same pattern as Cheating at Solitaire- prologue, part 1, part 2, part 3, epilogue, .  I can't remember how long she's been doing this, and I'd endanger my life if I tried to find her previous books on my bookshelves to find out.  (Have I mentioned I gotta weed the shelves as well as the boxes under the bed?)  

The conflict this time is between the Darwinists and evangelical religionists.  --  One of my favorite rants concerns the differences between the acceptance of faith and fact.  (In case you're wondering:  I think they're two different levels of experience.)  Of course, at least a couple people will get murdered, but I haven't gotten there yet.  For some reason, Gregor Demarkian has been called into the case before the murders begin.

Are you thinking that Haddam writes mysteries not fantasy.  I'd disagree.  Her Cavanaugh Street is as good as fantasy gets with a permanent cast of interesting characters.  With the preparations for Gregor's marriage to Bennis looming on the horizon, I'm prepared to enjoy all sorts of series regular in-jokes along the way.

Progress?:  Emma is scarfing up my time ... except for this morning when I've been fiddling my life away online.  Seems I decided to change my italics for underlining.  Of course, nothing is ever that simple.  Am finding all sorts of "was" constructions, "as"es, and adverbs.  Not many, but enough to slow me down.

Worse.  I'm finding superfluous phrases like "on the table" or "for them" when its obvious from the previous text.  Result?  Feeling hopeless ... if I was that kind of person.

Trivia:  We're getting dustings of snow, but not enough cold to kill the bugs.  At least it's melting on the street.

Promotion:  The Northern Colorado Writers blog The Writing Bug is doing some sort of blog fest.  The members write on a number of different subjects you might enjoy.  Check:  http://tinyurl.com/yc74gmn 

On Being a Bad Girl

Trivia:  The director of the Northern Colorado Writers has written a pertinent blog on focusing.  [http://the-writing-bug.blogspot.com/]  I even agree with her.  Strongly agree, in fact.

So, what am I doing?  You got it.  Unfocusing.  

I'm supposed to be finishing Yasmine Galenorn's Legend of the Jade Dragon, a beautiful little mystery I'm enjoying a lot.  So, on Saturday night, I started re-reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Burnt Offerings, an Anita Blake novel before the ardour (sp) reared its sexy head.  I was just going to check the opening ... to see how she placed her "hook".  It's Monday, and I'm still reading.  Still reading Galenorn too.

In the meantime, I skimmed through a "thesis" of a sort on medieval interpretations of out of body experiences.  Purpose:  to see if it  held any pertinent ideas for my interpretations of elves and fairies.  It didn't.

Writing Lessons:  While Hamilton's opening with the comparison of battle scars hooked me the first time I read the book,  this time, I glomed  onto another aspect of her writing -- her incorporating her descriptions in the course of the dialog.  Galenorn does it well too.

Random Hamliton (Anita Blake as narrator):

"'I'm so glad you've come,' he said.  'I tried to take care of them, but I couldn't. ...'  His shoulder had healed enough that he covered his eyes with his hand so we couldn't see him cry, but his voice was thick with tears, as well as blood."

"Zerbrowski met me on the steps leading into the squad room.  'If that dress was slit any higher, it'd be a shirt,' he said." 

Random Galenorn (Emerald O'Brien as narrator):

"'What a pretty box.'  I could feel a wave of emotion wash off Horvald as I spoke." 

"She pumped my hand like she was trying to jack up a car.  'Pleased to meet you.  Cathy Sutton. ...'"

Then there was: [Galenorn, again]

"'Oh, yes it can"  I told her about the two times we'd caught it in action.  'I was going to wait until we reached the resort to tell you about the visions, but I might as well tell you now.'  I detailed the two scenarios I'd witnessed while holding the statue."  

-- [I thought the above was a clever way of bringing another character up to speed without dragging in a lot of explanation.] 

Progress:  I did a re-review of a chapter of Tangled and submitted it to its critique group, but not much else.

Emma.  Ditto, except it was two chapters since they are so short.  I'm now working on Emma more than Tangled.  I'm tasting the end.

Now for the bad girl part:  I decided to revise a short story I had out for submission.  It's gathered some nice editorial comments, but no check.  

So, I went back and looked at it.   Aaargh!  While I try to write dialog like the above.  The first couple pages had several examples of showing the action, then telling what I showed.  Granted it wasn't as bad as the stuff I'm removing from Tangled, but still ....  You'd think I'd've learned to notice the fault the first edit around by now.