Amy knew she was late. (Bad) Never use know unless it can't be avoided. In most cases you can just delete it. Amy was late. (Better) Most often after it's deleted the only verb in the sentence is "was." When your characters know you are telling not showing. Telling can be useful. His hair was black. But for the most part, the transition achieved with was, can also be achieved with an active sentence. Amy raced up the stairs and burst into the office twenty minutes late. (Best) Know in every form is a weak verb. It doesn't have the same action that "raced" and "burst" have. Bobby Johnson knew the bully was about to hit him so he ducked. Even when used in conjunction with a stronger verb such as "ducked" knew is the primary action. It saps the excitement out of a scene. While it should almost never be used, it NEVER belongs in an action sequence. The only way to deal with it in an action sequence is to reorder the ideas. Start with who did the action first. The bully's fist flew at Bobby Johnson. He ducked.... Mike Roberson knew he was going to win the lottery... Knew is the past tense form of know. But even though it is past tense it makes a prediction which may or may not be true. Thus there is really only one situation in which it really does belong. When your character can predict the future. Mike Roberson knew he was going to win the lottery a year before he bought the ticket. But I'm still telling you about Mike, not showing. This is a good example of when you can tell and not show. This diatribe on "know" was sponsored by Book X. Book X started off fantastic hoowever by chapter ten hardly a paragraph when by without a character knowing something. Sometimes they knew things two and three times a sentence. I love books. I rarely complain about anything I read and I almost never put a book down. I'm not saying I'm immune to imperfections. Every writer does things I'd rather they didn't but as long as I'm entertained it doesn't matter to me. However, the characters knew so much that I ceased to be entertained. Reading the story became painful as early as chapter four. I gave up at chapter ten. I just couldn't take one more "know." So please, your character should know anything, but if they must know something, then make sure they don't know much. Jane Doe was a writer. She sat in her office chair, the one with the extra cushion so her butt won't get so sore. The left arm of that chair is extra because she likes to lean lazy on it while she clicks the mouse when play solitaire or doing any of the multitudes the internet has to offer. Liken an writer Jane Doe is great at wasting time. But she's not today. Today she is plugged in to her story. The keyboard makes a gentle and furious tap, tap, tap as her fingers flash across the keys and words, glorious words, seemed to jump on screen. She was so plugged she didn't notice that sometimes her sentences came ou t un fromed. Outside, the weather was warm. A great day to spend at the beach. Jane's skin was the white pasty color of an author determined to breakthrough and of late her social life was suffering. When her friends called, she said to them , "I'm sorry, I can't. I have to write." At first her friends had been understanding but of late, they didn't always invite her to do things. By noon Jain had 1500 new words. She took a lunch break and stat down again, reveling in this moment, cherishing. She felt that life often got in the way of her writing. She was also a little high at the moment. Not on pot. No, no. Writers do not need pot. They can get high off the act of putting words on the screen. In this state of euphoria, Jane was certain that the thoughts she poured to her fingers and consequently into the file labeled "My Freekin' Awesome Novel"were best-seller material. People would flock to the stores to read them. During her break, Jane went online and read some tips about writing and landed on the blog of M.R. Jordan. Written there was her story.Written there was also this: Print out your story. Print out ten pages, print out twenty pages, print that section that's nagging you. Hell print the whole dame thing out. Put some pages in your bag, purse, pack pack, tote, whatever. Now go to the beach. Go to the mountains. Go somewhere with someone. Get distracted. After you've been properly distracted and then come upon a quiet moment-- you might be in a taxi unexpectedly drunk thanks to lunch that somehow turned into coffee and tea, then dinner and finally bar hopping. Whatever happened, you are now alone and you pull out those ten pages or so and take a red pen to it. Even drunk you notice things you didn't before. But when you're not drunk, looking at the pages this way, you have sudden insights, the kind that used to take hours staring at the blank wall of your apartment. Despite being exhausted, you rush home to put those insights into your file. Then you fell into bed knowing it was a good day, a day that included friends and writing. After reading this words, Jane went back wasting time on the internet. She was planning to write some more but time kind of got away from her. When her friend called to see if Jane wanted to have dinner together, Jane thought about all the writing she had planned to do but had yet to finish. She almost said "No, I'm writing." Instead she printed out ten pages of a section she was having trouble with and joined her friend for dinner. After she and her friend parted and she was on her way home, she remembered the pages. That was pointless, she thought as she came to the bus stop. I didn't have any time to look at them. She sat down to wait for the bus, thinking of those papers. Shrugging, she pulled them out and began reading. She saw things, dozens of typos that just jumped out at her. She got up, forgoing the bus for the park around the corner and sat under a tree with her pages. All around her was the murmur of people enjoying a warm evening in the park. Kids laughed and shouted. Bugs buzzed. Leaves rustled. Lovers walked hand in hand, talking close and intimately. Removed from herself, Jane saw her words as others might seem them. She had perspective and because of that, she solved a major plot plot and discovered a logical "inconvenience" large enough to drive a Fifth-wheeler through. Thanks for submitting "The Slave" for our consideration, and for your interest in LORE. While I enjoyed aspects of this tale, we are going to pass on this particular effort -- narrowly. This was good, to be sure. I hope we shall see something more from you in the future. Good luck in your ongoing endeavors.
First, I want to point out I've never posted a rejection online before. I can't say it won't every happen again, but I don't do it for a thousand reason, the biggest one being that this was a private conversation. I have the utmost respect for Rod Heather over at Lore and not just because he sent me this very nice rejection. Lore Magazine is chock full of fantastic fiction that I'd be proud to be part of. There's a reason why I put this here and posted my reviews from Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award. (Vine 1, Vine 2, Reader's Weekly.) Nor is it easy for me to put up my reviews for you to see my warts -- you'll notice I allowed my pride (footnotes in Meathead) to shoot myself in the foot. I'd been told before to delete them. But I ignored that advice and annoyed the reviewer. I'm also embarrsed by the comments about editing as well. Moving on. I've been wanting to write about the nature of selling fiction for a while. I had hopped to have made another sale by now for one thing. I was feeling pretty high on the hog after my sale to One Buck Horror. A pro sale meant... means a lot less than you'd expect. When you haven't sold anything, when you're querying and getting nothing but rejections, your first personalized rejection is a milestone and a Pro sale the holy grail. This could be my 5oth personal rejection. I stopped counting. That doesn't mean it isn't meaningful. I really appreciate it when an editor takes the time to give me a few kind words. When I feel low, I pull them up and read through them. I let them wash over me and remind myself that it takes years and years for an overnight success-- not every writer is an overnight success. But I think you know what I mean. So I have two pieces of advice: Enjoy your milestones. I mean really, really enjoy them. Exalt yourself, your skill, your creativity, the genius that makes up all of you. Daydream about the big sale. Let your ego off it's leash. (Don't worry, there's a rejection around the corner that will put it back in check.) But most of all, celebrate your perseverance. Without it there would be no milestones, which all too soon they become part of the landscape. Don't fret. Just write. I haven't sold anything in a long time and I'd be lying to say that isn't eating at me, but fretting over it isn't productive. I have to keep circulation the stories I've finished and keep writing new things. And maybe you haven't sold anything. Maybe you don't get personalized rejections yet. Don't fret. Keep writing new things and you will. I've been on vacation for the past three weeks. I'm an American but I haven't been back to the states for four years. Hence the lack of posts.
I got back just shy of midnight on Wednesday. State side this would be around 11 P.M. Tuesday. Due to a combination of sleep deprivation (insomnia respects time zones not) jet lag and time differences, all of Thursday involved sleep. I tried to get up, I swear. Friday involved unpacking. Today involved lunch with Lana and her friend Daniel. This turned into debauchery at some bars. I wore a pretty black dress with pink flowers, plenty of cleavage as this is one of my assets. Both Lana and Daniel are skinnier than me but as long as the guys are comparing the ladies and not at our waistlines, the I have a leg up on the playing field. The first bar was warm up drinks and meeting up lots of people I didn't know. Any good debauchery starts with plenty of alcohol. I 'm not a drinker-- my friends laugh at me because, as writer, my drinking habits are pitiful. I like to write with a glass of cold diet coke. Anyway, after two tequila sunrises and Jager Bomb, I ordered a round of Bacardi Rum shots. Not what you expected right? In all fairness I didn't know that Bacardi was rum. The night was off to a good start and as we wobbled over to the Blue Monkey for more drinks and dancing. The music kind of sucked but I fixed that with a request for Pit Bull and the three of us took to the empty dance floor. I wouldn't call my friends and I trend setters but soon the floor began to fill up and this seemed to put the DJ in the mood for better song choices. Also, I soon had a handsome dance partner. By this time I was also drinking water. I don't drink often but I've discovered significant tolerance. I could have had a few more safely. Probably my family's German genetics. Even so, I've never been much more than buzzed-- why would anyone want to go home puking? Exactly. So there we were dancing, having a good time. "Can I come home?" Mr. Handsome asked. "What?" "I want to stay with you tonight." "No." Look, I'm not coming from some place of moral conduct or religious virtue. But here's the thing about one stands. They suck. This applies to men as well as women. They almost always involved too much alcohol. Drunken sex? Oh, Baby, gotta get me some of that. (Insert eye roll.) But it's more than the guarantee of bad sex. Are you throw away? Disposable? What about the person you're with? I'm knot talking about the act of sex, but the act of choosing how will are willing to be treated or to treat others. I have friends who have ended up dating their one-nighters, but the relationships never work. Is it no wonder when their very first social contract involved at least one person thinking the other person was disposable. Believe it or not first impression set the tone for how you're willing to be treated. Skinny, fat, short, tall. It doesn't matter. People treat you how you let them treat you. Maybe you're thinking "you don't know what I'm talking about." The line in Apocalypse, (Midday Musings) about being punched by students in front of the teacher is not entirely fictional. I was picked on relentlessly and it took me the longest time to realize how much of it was actually a result of accepting the way I as being treated. At the time it didn't seem that way. In case it isn't clear, I'm not really talking about one night stands-- that too, but use it as a metaphor for whatever you like and remember you are not disposable. You are valuable. You're contribution to the world, whether it be telling story, or rescuing dogs, or raising your kids. This is true of parents, spouses. friends, and strangers as well. Some women have a fetish for shoes. Some for hats. I have a fetish for trying software. If I've learned one thing, it's that companies have all kinds of tricks to sell software that sucks.
Buy it now! And you can try it for 30 days with a money guarantee. This is like going to look at a car. The owner of said car makes you a deal. You can try after you buy it. If you're not happy then, they'll give you your money back. They'll even have a good reason like "insurance." Because I suffer for typo-syndrome, I actually bought White Smoke and the sinker that came with it. (Hangs head in shame.) The program came with a virus, pop up ads to upgrade to the newest version, and a program that used all my system resources. I requested a refund a mere 8 hours later and three days later, and five days later. Promises to refund by x date which came and passed. I paid via Pay Pal so I did get my refund, but not with out some work on my part. The moral of the story is, don't buy a car without test driving it and don't buy software you can't test drive either. 7 day trial! Whoowhooo! This is like buying a horse. You arrive, the owner shows you how nice the horse walks on a lead, how well he ties. You're very excited. You can't wait to try this horse. "I don't have a saddle," the owner says. "You want me to ride bareback?" You ask. "It's up to you." Unless, you're a fairly good at riding bareback, you can't put a horse through all his paces. With seven day trials there are usually key features missing, ones standard in similar programs. The developers aren't giving you the standard 30 day trial for a reason. For the average person, seven days is just enough time to like a program enough to buy it, but not put it through it's paces. We're number one, rah, rah, rah! (We have adds everywhere, too!) This is like Best of Show at a dog show. If a hundred dogs enter, the title is meaningful. However, when there are only five entrants or the judge was paid or the judge is your mother, it is meaningless. What inspired this diatribe? I recently downloaded Microsoft Office 2010 trial. I already the 2007 version. I was just curious about new features. My first impression was, bah, there's not much new. I won't upgrade. WRONG! There are lots of new features I love and old features I just discovered what they're for. So, yes, before my 60 day trial is over I'm going to fork over the dough to upgrade. Note the 60 day trial. Scrivener is also indispensable to my writing life and comes with a 30 days trial. But there's also a note writers should take away from this, especially those who self-publish. Don't use schemes, ploys, or lies to get people to buy your work. If your writing is strong, you don't need your mother's five star review. You don't have to connive for people to like your work. Everybody is talking about potential lawsuit by the DOJ against six of the ten top publishing houses. Everybody is talking about self-publishing versus traditional route. I'm not really too concerned with what happens-- it's a gonna happen with our without me. So I don't really have a dog in this fight other than to say, I'm glad I have the option of self-publishing. Still, I can't help but speculate a little. I think it comes with the nature of writing. Today, I sat down and made ppt. about my speculations for the future of publishing. ( It took about 45 minutes. ) See the file below. So, what do you speculate the future publishing industry will look like? Do you have a dog in this fight?
If you follow American Idol, you already know that that the top 13 have been chosen. One of these 13 will win and it isn't necessarily the most talented.
Contests like American Idol or Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award offer a lot of exposure in a very short time. This makes it that much easier for an artist to sell their product to people. But despite TV's attempts to make it seem like they KNOW what's popular, they cannot actually predict whether the winner of said contest is ever going to land on the A list. For every hit show like American Idol there are thousands of failed pilots, hundreds of C list shows, dozens of B list shows, and handfuls of A list shows. American Idol is an A list show, but the idea that the producers could actually see into the future and predict how popular it was going to be is all smoke and mirrors. Creative Genius is an after the fact title. This is why it's ever so important for writers to write a lot of different things. But, be careful there is a cliff. When I was in first grade I got a bird's eye view of this cliff. I drew a whale in art class. Before I drew whales, I drew horses. My horse's never got a prize but my whale won me second place in our schools art show. After winning the prize ,I drew whales. I drew so many whales my art teacher said I drew too many whales. You see contestants on reality TV do this all the time. They get positive feedback and they repeat the same thing, seeking that positive feedback, bang their heads against a wall when they don't get it. Of course sometimes they do themselves too and fail. But at least that was an authentic failure. There really is no better way to fail. I'm gonna sound like a broken record here, but the only answer is just to do you. When you are you, you are authentic. You may not be the most popular kid on the block. But hey, the A list is really just an accident anyway. An if you accidentally trip over it while being you, just pretend like that's what you intended. This is how you become a creative genius. First the Write While You Wait Contest runs until the 29th of February so you still have time to enter. It's free.
Moving on. I like TV. I like reality TV even though it's so far removed from reality .... it's like calling a bullet a missile. Nonetheless, I find watching reality TV as pleasurable as chocolate ice cream and peanut-butter. (Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, that's all I'm saying.) On American Idol the judges are always on the contestants to "show America who you are as an artist." On Project Runway, the judges always encourage contestants to be true to their point of view. Last seasons on America's Top Model it was all about branding. They use different slogans, but it really amounts down to one thing. Figure out what box you belong in and stay there. Boxes don't have to be a bad thing. When I discovered that I wanted to write horror, it was so freeing. I finally had a box I belonged in. I set about exploring it, reading the authors in the box, discovering that made the box. Despite years of writing horror, I didn't know that was what I was doing. So at first, this box was a big wonderful place to play. But I also discovered other boxes my writing fit into along the way. Maybe because I am naive, I continue to expand my all my boxes. Here's the thing. There is a huge difference, a monumental difference, between knowing who you are and playing to your strengths, and allowing someone -- fans, family, friends, agents, bosses-- to define the boxes for you. This is why I think advice like "brand yourself" is bad. Be you. Not some version you think people will like. This is one reason why the Indy Revolution is totally awesome. You are free to be yourself. You don't have to fit into another person's box. Ain't nobody can stop you except.... You. I'm not an idiot-- Okay. So that's not entirely true. But on most occasions I can be counted on to know the date and time of a specific event. I got a notice this morning-- if you don't live in Korea, you probably got it yesterday afternoon-- the second round winners for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest were posted. This was a surprise to me because I had thought the news wouldn't come until the 28th. I set my own contest dates for the 29th, a day after the second round results from Amazon's contest would be announced. I even checked the dates before I posted. What probably happened is a little thing called biased. I don't know whether I saw it was the 23rd and forgot, or simply saw what I had expected to see. The brain is funny that way. Any author who has tried to edit their own manuscript can attest to how easy to miss errors because you see what you think you wrote, not efewth.
This got me to think about biases. I've always be intrigued bias. You cannot have an intelligent discussion with a truly biased individual. Bias plays a huge role in a reader's relationship with writers. Previously, I wrote that I trusted readers to know what they want. Hence, I'm putting out both a horror and literary collection side by side. But this bias thing got me to thinking. How often have I picked up a book because I know an author rights the kind of story I'm in the mood for? If I go any deeper, this post is going to be really long so I'll just end it here by saying that I think it's much easier for a writer to define themselves as x, y, and z, than redefine themselves after years of being only z. Here's a wiki link to a long list of biases in case your board and don't forget that thanks to my on biases the Write While You Wait Contest runs until the 29th of February. I think just about everybody knows what of Yin and Yang. They were two guys who walked into a bar... Just kidding.
Yin yang is the Chinese concept of opposites being interconnected. I was thinking about that today in relationship to writing. I write in several different genres, most often horror and humor. I wouldn't say that horror and humor are opposites because I see how they intersect. But my eclectic tastes as a writer has left me wondering, should I split into multiple identities-- one that writes only horror, one that only writes science fiction, you get the point-- so I won't confuse people? Conventional logic says, yes, it's a way to lose readers. I wonder how solid this logic is? Publishers have long been deciding what will and won't sell. ( Read last week's round up over on Nathan Bransford's blog to get a better grasp on all the hullabaloo.) I've decided that answer is no. In part because I feel that, for me at least, there's more of a continuum than division going on. The other thing is and think this is really important. Authors should trust readers make their own choices. To me it's that simple. Sure I've read books I didn't particularly like by authors I adore. And I continue to devour their books. Why? Because for the most part, I like what they write. So my next project(s) are a bit of an experiment. ( I always have multiple projects going on, so this too is a continuum.) I'm going to release two collections of short stories. One will be a collection of literary fiction. The other is a collection of horror and humor. I don't know if I'll release them together-- probably not. There's a lot that goes into prepping something for publication. But the releases will be close together. Sink or swim, this is just what I'm gonna do. |
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