This is an interesting article called How to End a Novel With a Punch. James V. Smith Jr. claims “Your closer is the most important incident in the novel, bar none. Yes, the opener is critical, but only second in importance to the climax…. What readers say after they put your book down matters more for your sales than what they say when they pick it up.”
Free membership to the San Francisco Writer’s Conference Feb. 16-18. See this post on the give-away.
A shorten version of the above url is http://tinyurl.com/wd-free-sfconference-ticket.
I know I haven’t been posting much recently. Took two writing courses from Stanford and have a whole new version of the first 4.5 chapters.
10 Simple Tests to do on Your Novel. Here are some points made in this article:
21 Tips to Get Out of the Slush Pile
February 11, 2010
by James Plath (from Writer’s Digest)
Lots of tips that not only help you with agents and publishers but just to help you make your story better.
Writer’s Digest Tip of the Day - “First Aid for Scenes” from Writers Online Workshops:
…when writing a scene, first you must concentrate only on the elements that make that scene work on its own as an isolated mini-story. But eventually you must judge each individual scene’s effectiveness according to how much it contributes to the work as a whole.
Can’t decide whether or not the scene you’ve just written belongs in your story? A scene should do two or more of these four things:
1) advance the plot
2) develop the character(s)
3) illustrate the theme
4) contribute to suspense (which in turn advances the plot).
The strengths of Rowling’s prose read like a summary of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”:
- varied sentences, both in length and structure
- use of the active voice
- limited use of “to be” verbs and related constructs (“there were,” “it was,” “she was”)
- balanced use of rare verbs (slam, snatch, swagger) with more common ones (close, take, walk)
- a preference for concrete nouns that appeal to the five senses
- carefully selected modifiers
- use of more specific transitional words and phrases (because, though, which) rather than relying entirely upon “and,” “but,” and “then”
The Potter prose isn’t afraid to use adverbs (including adverbs in dialogue tags), for which all writers should be grateful.
Eight Questions for Writers from the Blood Red Pencil
1) Who is your main character (MC)?
2) What does the MC want?
3) What’s the main conflict that keeps the MC from getting that want?
4) What’s the event/situation that sets the MC in motion to achieve the want?
5) What are the obstacles the MC encounters, keeping him/her from the want? (Obstacles should escalate, building tension)
6) What’s the event/situation that makes the MC go “All-or-Nothing” to win the want? (This is a moment in which there is no turning back)
7) Does the MC win or lose?
8) What’s the effect of the win or loss on the MC?
from moonrat, a recovering editorial assistant, posted Friday, January 02, 2009.
The thing about your overwriting…. It’s just boring. It’s going to be the thing that makes people put your book down and never buy it. I know that in your mind, this language was a good idea. You clearly put a lot of time into stringing together as many adjectives, adverbs, and “replacement” nouns that struck you as interesting. So I’m gonna need you to try to be honest with yourself and flexible with me here.
“techniques to make your book one readers won’t be able to put down.”
- PLOT FROM THE GUT.
- THE “Heart-Clutching Moments” PLOTTING METHOD:
- What are HCM?
• Love at first sight…
• A huge moral lapse…
• Murder…
• Death by other means…
• A refusal of grace…
• Nature gone wild…
• Someone standing up to corruption…
• A change of heart, for good or ill…
• An act of depraved violence…
• Betrayal…
• Forgiveness…
• A revelation…
HCMs can be active, whole scenes:
• A lifesaving attempt
• A chase
• A battle
• A seduction
• A caper- Make a list of Heart-Clutching Moments and put them on index cards in rough order. Then you can build an outline
From Nathan Bransford, literary agent.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
More from the above site:
I broke my arm and typing is difficult.
Writers Digest has an excerpt from Write Like the Masters: Emulating the Best of Hemingway, Faulkner, Salinger, and Others by William Cane from Writer’s Digest. This Excerpt discusses how Hemingway wrote to make it read faster. Not just short sentences but taking out commas, etc.
SENTENCE SPEED
One of Hemingway’s most recognizable stylistic traits is a fast sentence speed. A writer’s sentence speed refers to how quickly his sentences can be read, either aloud or silently. It’s as if Hemingway’s prose flies along at a rapid clip while the writing of other authors putters slowly in comparison.
…He uses two methods, the first of which involves choosing shorter words for simpler diction…. The second method is to omit commas. — read the Excerpt
What Agents Hate (published by Writer’s Digest). Here is just a taste. Read the full comments to understand what they mean:
PROLOGUES
“Most agents hate prologues….”
—Andrea Brown, Andrea Brown Literary Agency“Prologues are usually a lazy way to give back-story chunks to the reader….”
—Laurie McLean, Larsen-Pomada Literary AgentsDESCRIPTION
“I dislike endless ‘laundry list’ character descriptions…. Who cares! Work it into the story.”
—Laurie McLean, Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents“Slow writing with a lot of description puts me off very quickly……”
—Andrea Hurst, Andrea Hurst Literary Management“Avoid any description of the weather.”
—Denise Marcil, Denise Marcil Literary Agency“In romance, I can’t stand this scenario: A woman is awakened to find a strange man in her bedroom—and then automatically finds him attractive..”
—Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary AgencyVOICE AND POINT OF VIEW
“A pet peeve of mine is ragged, fuzzy point of view. …”
—Cricket Freeman, The August Agency“An opening that’s predictable won’t hook me in….”
—Debbie Carter, Muse Literary Management“Avoid the opening line: ‘My name is … .’ ”
—Michelle Andelman, Andrea Brown Literary AgencyACTION
“…I dislike a Chapter 1 in which nothing happens.”
—Jessica Regel, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency“ ‘The weather’ is always a problem…”
—Elizabeth Pomada, Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents“…there’s a fine line between an intriguing hook and one that’s just silly.
—Daniel Lazar, Writers HouseCLICHÉS AND FALSE BEGINNINGS
“…a dream….”
—Mollie Glick, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency“…anyone sleeping, dreaming, waking up or staring….”
—Ellen Pepus, Ellen Pepus Literary Agency“I don’t like it when the main character dies at the end of Chapter 1…..”
—Cricket Freeman, The August AgencyCHARACTERS AND BACKSTORY
“I don’t like descriptions of the characters where writers make them too perfect…. ”
—Laura Bradford, Bradford Literary Agency“[I dislike] inauthentic dialogue to tell the reader who the characters are….”
—Jennifer Cayea, Avenue A Literary““To paraphrase Bruno Bettelheim: ‘The more the character in a fairy tale is described, the less the audience will identify with him. … The less the character is characterized and described, the more likely the reader is to identify with him.’ ”
—Adam Chromy, Artists and Artisans“…a story that opens on the protagonist’s mental reflection of their situation is a red flag.”
—Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management“Getting to know characters in a story is like getting to know people in real life. You find out their personality and details of their life over time.”
—Rachelle Gardner, WordServe Literary
Reasons Why Your Manuscript Got Rejected by Inkygirl on August 17, 2009
“At the SCBWI conference… Wendy Loggia’s keynote speech… focused on reasons she rejected manuscripts that were almost accepted but not quite ready.
“Wendy[,] executive editor of Delacorte Press… went through her binder of rejection letters and found that pretty much all the rejection reasons boiled down to seven points:
“1. Nice writing but no story. The characters are at the same emotional place at the end of the book as they were in the beginning. Wendy found that this was a common problem with authors’ first books. She says that having a good plot is essential. Ask yourself, ‘Why would a bookstore customer choose and buy this book?.
“2. The mss is too similar to other novels that the editor has worked on. Wendy warns authors against submitting books that are very similar to others on the editor’s list; you may be setting yourself up for a negative comparison, especially if the other book is very good. Even worse if the other book didn’t sell well.
“3. Your readership isn’t clear. Who will want to read your book? Your book is too ‘quiet’ or doesn’t have enough commercial appeal….”
—read more—
I had been needing a way to show my main character’s intellectual problems with not having been to school when yesterday I heard someone say that 9/11 wasn’t the worst intelligence failure since Peral Harbor, it was the worst intelligence failure since The Trojan Horse! I loved the line and it started seeping into my mind and I thought of a way to use that as something she should know but didn’t because of the lack of schooling!
Added it to the conversation with Cleere about Rommel in Chapter 2.
Wish I could remember who said it. I think it was from Book TV this weekend. Book TV on CSpan 2 every weekend is fantastic and has exposed me to many books I knew nothing about.
Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do)
1) Repeats (each writer has his/her “crutch” word)
2) Flat Writing
3) Empty Adverbs
4) Phony Adverbs
5) No-Good Suffice
6) The “To Be” ver
7) Lists
8) Show, Don’t tell
9) Awakward Phrasing
10) Commas
For details, check out the link.
Talking about Talking from the Novel Doctor. A couple of things in his August 6, 09 post about dialog
- Think rhythmically. Dialogue is a dance. Sometimes it’s a waltz. Sometimes it’s a tarantella. Sometimes it’s ordered, sometimes its a reckless improvisation. Usually, it’s a blend of many different steps. The quickest way to kill dialogue is to have line after line of the same droll drone. Mix it up. If it’s fun to read aloud, it’s probably fun to read silently….
- Allow characters to speak colloquially (according to their character and the time-period or culture of the novel’s setting). Unless the character is meant to sound like a British aristocrat, allow him to use contractions and sentence fragments and even to screw up his grammar now and then. Imperfections and mistakes help give characters unique personalities.