greenkeys

Amazon Names Best Books for the First Half of 2009

2009-07-06T09:41:00.001-07:00

(From Publishers Marketplace)

Not waiting for the end-of-year list season, Amazon is highlight an eclectic selection of their "best books of 2009...so far." The Top 10 overall comprise:

Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
Fordlandia by Greg Grandin
The City & The City by China Mieville
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
The Gamble by Thomas Ricks
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
and even Starbucks pick Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad, and one-time Borders "make book" The Lost City of Z by David Grann

Separate lists offer top tens for fiction, nonfiction, children's and "hidden gems." And each list appends 5 forthcoming fall favorites, including:

Fiction
Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain
Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

Nonfiction
The Big Burn by Timothy Egan
American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson
Hope for Animals and Their World by Jane Goodall
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser
The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons

Best of 2009 so far

Backspace November conference

2009-07-04T18:20:00.001-07:00

Go!

http://www.backspacewritersconference.com/

Sales resource for self-published writers

2009-06-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

I can't vouch for this service, but it is new, and it is free--which means that if you have a self-published book, you have little to lose. Basically the site is a database that gathers information on your book and its sales record. The idea is that traditional publishers seeking to buy the rights to a "proven" title (i.e., they don't need to invest as much money in creating a buzz) can search the database, find your book, and make an offer to you for the rights.

From their website:

The Publetariat Vault provides a new kind of service to self-published authors: the opportunity to get your indie book in front of the publishers and producers who are seeking proven books for low-risk acquisitions. Publishers can:

Find independent literary material that is already proven in the marketplace

See actual sales data, and know if the work already has traction

See reader reviews from bookseller sites, reader communities like Goodreads, blogs and elsewhere

Search by genre, topic, keyword, recommended reading level and more to find the kind of content you want to acquire

See author platform pieces, buzz, publicity and more, and know if the author will be an active partner in promotion

Write pathetically

2009-06-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

When I think about writing, I usually think about it in terms of the hale Aristotelian triad of pathos-logos-ethos (I blogged about this a little while ago). In other words, writing that works well appeals to your audience’s hearts, minds, and sensibility. When we care about a character, that means the writer has done a good job with writing pathos into the scene. Which means that the most exciting battle scene in the world will never be a good one if every character in it remains anonymous.

This also means that the most important element in the opening pages of a novel is not really action, then, but character. A character gives meaning to the actions on the page. For instance, how much do we care about a child throwing a tantrum in the cereal aisle? How much more do we care if that scene is told from the mother’s point of view, when the tantrum is interspersed with someone telling her that she’s a crappy mom? As always, it depends on the writing, but the second situation would compel me to read on at least a bit further. I’d want to know how the mother responded, both to the tantrum and the criticism.

This is why good action scenes begin with attention to people–to point of view, character, and the who-what-how-and-why of a given person’s response to a situation. So I guess you could say that good writing is pathethic writing.

What I learned at the conference will help you: Part I

2009-06-01T12:29:00.001-07:00

I already knew, but had to learn again, that agents are humans. They are humans with overtaxed brains who get anywhere from 50 to 700 queries per week, who buy iPhones so that they can read your letter in subway on their way home, after spending 10-12 hours on everything else that agents have to do.

Therefore, if you plan to find an agent rather than self-publish your work, your query letter better sing. You already know that. You'd also better research the agent on AgentQuery.com and PublishersMarketplace.com, so that you can find someone who is right for your work, and mention their work in your letter. Don't take shortcuts here, any more than you would stick any old key in the ignition of your car. Only one key is a useful fit.

Do:

Actually read the books you mention in the letter. One agent said she received a query from a writer that referenced a book that was not due to be released until next spring. Oops.
Follow the query formula: start with a concise opening that contains title, genre (i.e., where your book would be shelved at the store), and word count. Follow with a three-paragraph pitch that covers character, problem, and story question. Conclude with a bio.
"Lead with your best," said Jennifer DeChiara. If your work has won awards or been published in The New Yorker, go ahead and put it in the first line.
Proofread. Every last period should be perfect.
Use the agent's name in the salutation, and spell it correctly.

Don't:

E-query a slew of agents at once and put them all in the "To" field. Agents know one another, and will ignore your letter but exchange amused e-mails among themselves all day.
Requery an agent, even if you have revised (unless the agent specifically invites you to in his or her rejection letter). Jenny Bent was the only agent who confessed to having a short term memory about these things.
Send cover art for your book with the letter, even if you are a graphic designer.
Tell any kind of lie or exaggeration in any shape or form in your letter. As Colleen Lindsay said, "We will Google the heck out of you." If you get caught in a lie, you're out.
Ignore submission guidelines.

The conference was fascinating, and I will post again in the coming days about how to make your publicity efforts sing, how the old stigma on self-publishing has finally worn off, what changes will improve your query and first manuscript pages the most, and more.

200 words the English language can do without...

2009-03-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

...according to the UK's Local Government Association. I don't see these in literary writing, but I see them all the time in e-mails, and hear otherwise bright people use them when they feel the need to sound more type-A. Next time you hear "going forward" and "facilitate" and "outcome" coming out of your mouth, brush your teeth and say ten Hail George Orwells.

http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1716341

Beware of spam

2009-03-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

APB to writers: I just got this bit of spam in my inbox today. No, Dr. Michael J. Duckett is not interested in your book. I know, because wherever he got my business e-mail address, it had nothing to do with my personal writing. Save yourself time and money, and just hit DELETE.

___

Dear Author: [Flag #1, impersonal solicitation]

We are interested to speak with you about the possibility of publishing or distributing your book.

Only a select number of authors are called upon [Flag #2, publishers don't solicit authors in such a vague way] each year to submit their work for Hyper Publishing Company's consideration. Your book has been recently brought to our attention and we would like to open a discussion for publication or distribution of this work.

Please click here for submission guidelines or go directly to our website http://hyperpublishing.org and click on the Submission link.

You have ten days to complete the submission package and mail to our office. [Flag #3 with fireworks, an "Act now!" offer.]

We look forward to receiving your submission package and communicating with you in the near future.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. Michael J. Duckett
President/CEO [Flag #4, this is a businessman asking you. Not an editor or an agent. He's probably the CFO, board president, secretary, janitor, and pizza boy, too.]
Hyper Publishing Company

Top 10 errors you can fix in your own manuscript in 10 minutes or less...

2009-03-17T12:24:00.000-07:00

...and not make your editor regret drinking that third cup of coffee, because her nerves are getting seriously frayed.

Microsoft Word's find-and-replace feature is a writer's friend. Find it under the Edit menu, as "Replace..." or just hit Control-F and click on the "Replace" tab. At the bottom of the window you'll see a button to expand the window and view advanced features, which will help you make global changes with one click of the mouse.

Searching for these top 10 errors will save me time (and therefore, you money) as I edit your manuscript for publication or review by a literary agent.

1. Misplaced periods and commas around dialogue. EXAMPLE: ...third cup of coffee". OR ...third cup of coffee",

2. Unnecessarily capitalizing dialogue tags. EXAMPLE ...third cup of coffee," She said.

3. You only need one space between sentences. Yep, it's true. Believe me, or else believe the Chicago Manual of Style.

4. Don't use hyphens instead of dashes. EXAMPLE: I wonder- and it's pure speculation... OR: I wonder - and it's pure speculation... The correct dash is an em-dash—and it looks like that. You'll find it under the "special characters" menu in the "replace" menu.

5. Rampant ellipses. An ellipsis is three dots only. It is a punctuation mark used only to indicate an incomplete sentence, not to indicate a pause, and certainly not to mark the length a pause by the number of dots. EXAMPLE: She paused... and said... OR She paused for a really long time............ and said...

6. Common misspellings. EXAMPLE: waive instead of wave, pubic instead of public, lead instead of led (past tense of to lead). Or whatever your own favorite misspellings are.

7. Its vs. it's. EXAMPLE: Its mine. OR Wash it's fur. Both of these examples are wrong. It's is a contraction of it is, and if you take two seconds and mentally substitute it is in your sentence, you will know which one to use. Run a search on both, and double-check.

8. Other common usage errors. EXAMPLE: everyday instead of every day (everyday is an adjective only, like "my everyday shoes"), for awhile instead of for a while, peeked instead of piqued (you peek with your eyes, feel piqued when you're tired, and have your interest piqued).

9. Double periods and commas. EXAMPLE: He told me.. OR Slowly,, he told me.

10. Wild card. If you've been writing long enough to finish a draft of something, you know what errors you make. Always double check for missing words and your own favorite misspellings before sending out the draft.

You'll always miss something. That's human. But be a professional and make a reasonable attempt to send a clean draft.

Writers Conference in May

2009-02-22T19:04:00.000-08:00

I just registered for the Backspace Writers Conference on May 28-30 in New York City, and especially look forward to its intensive pitch and query workshops. At the helm are top literary agents and publicists, and I can't wait to bring all that knowledge home to my clients.

http://backspacewritersconference.com/

Not least of all I hope to find a home for my own manuscript. If you're a writer with a polished book, there is no better place to meet agents, editors, and authors. The pros go to cons to meet new talent. Understandably, that attitude is a far sight more receptive than what the weekly stack of queries gets.

Conferences are expensive, but a deal for what you get--even if you don't go home with a contract (or a hangover).

How to plot a novel

2009-01-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

Part of my job is helping writers find plot; the other part of it is creating one myself. Since finishing my own novel this year I have had many conversations about choosing and building plots that work, and while I claim no absolutes, I thought some readers of this blog might find the bare bones of this conversation helpful.

1. Start with story arc. Aristotle says you need a beginning, middle, and end. He even gives us a helpful arc to visualize the escalation of events through those three phases to a climax. (And if you are wondering what the little boxes are, we'll cover that in Step 5.)

2. Decide on your theme. A professor once pointed out that Aristotle's arc looks like the top of a fish; the fish's back should represent what happens, and its belly should represent theme. Theme is not a synonym for moral. It's more like an open question. It evolves in parallel to the plot, under the surface of the story. The beginning events introduce the idea. The middle tests the idea in multiple ways. The end should demonstrate the idea's truth or falseness.

3. Get ready for an art project. OK great. Get your materials. Butcher paper, pen, marker, index cards or stickies.

4. Draw the fish on the butcher paper. Divide it in three and label it, as in the picture. You should have a big empty length of paper that looks like the image in Step 2.

5. Gather your scenes. If you've been wondering what the little boxes were in the first two pictures, they're your scenes. Whether you're starting the novel from scratch or revising what you already have, you need a way to see what you've got (if you are a visual thinker like me). On your index cards or stickies, write down every scene you have, need, or think you need to show a logical escalation of events. All the events should be relevant to your theme.

6. Organize your scenes. When you have all your cards, start organizing them along an escalating series of causes and effects. Start thinking about what might fall into a chapter together. Think of chapters as mini-arcs, each with a beginning, middle, and end. Your butcher paper will be covered in cards and very messy, but it will slowly start to look like this.

7. Expect to think hard. Expect your head to hurt. Expect this to take a few weeks. Be logical and patient, even if you are temperamental and emotional at heart, like me. Trust that when you finish organizing all the cards, you will have planned a whole NOVEL. When you're done, the plot will look like this. (The green stickies are chapter summaries. The blue stickies are the spots I know are still a little problematic, but I'll solve them either while I'm writing the synopsis, or when I am actually writing the novel.)

8. Synopsis first, novel second. If you're wondering if you read that correctly, you did: Write the synopsis before you write the novel. Translate your work into narrative--about 10 pages double-spaced explaining what happens. You should start to feel the energy of story as you write; related events progress, and in doing so, indicate the theme. It should feel interesting and engaging, like a little story unto itself. Again, take your time. Work on it every day for a week or two. Share it with a trusted reader when you're done, invite his or her questions, and revise for clarity.

9. Begin. Open a blank Word document. Start writing your novel. Work on it every day.

Writing and books in 2009

2009-01-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

I am cat-sitting for a friend. Today, when the litter box was scooped and the water replaced and the kibble dispensed, as is my wont, I inspected the bookshelf. I am always curious what books people buy and keep. On this particular Ikea BILLY system there were bike maintenance guides, a guide for homeopathic medicine, a guide for feeding your pet a natural diet, and a guide, even, for getting it on--next to a guide for healing a broken heart. The collection reminded me of my penchant, when I am in an especially bleak mood, for Googling "why am i here?" Somewhere among those 330,000,000 hits there ought to be an answer.

As I scanned the titles, I looked for the novels. Which stories were worth keeping, dog-earing, sharing, re-reading? I have so many fond piles around my office--Alice Munro, Philip Pullman, Ursula Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, John Irving--most of which I have not read for years but cannot bear to resell. Most of my friends keep similar piles. But for whatever reason, I discovered that my cat-owning friend buys only nonfiction. How-to books. That makes her a pretty good representative of the average bookbuyer, and the publishing industry's buying trend.

After all, nonfiction is easier to sell than fiction. You buy it, knowing what you need and what you're getting. Novels, however, ask the reader to make an uncomfortable first step--onto an invisible bridge over a chasm. The bridge crosses into an unknown place, where single words can yawn with mystery. The road leads you through familiar cities that are suddenly strange, and you find yourself wearing a stranger's skin as easily as your own. If you are a publisher, it's difficult to trust a busy, over-scheduled, fatigued, generally worried population of book-buyers to go cavorting around in somebody else's skin at the end of a long day. But there will always be many among them who need a book about plumbing repair, about naturopathy, about bike maintenance, about getting it on.

Since October, book professionals have seen too much bad news: the firing and departure of senior editors, acquisition freezes, bookstore closures, and a cascade of other losses. This news falls on top of more of the same; a dwindling number of book reviews in newspapers, an industry model that does not encourage writers' creative risk, ingenuity, or long-term success. So. If you are a practical writer, you will now sweep your novel-in-progress off to a corner of your hard drive and start afresh, "writing what you know," literally, and as instructively as possible. Slap "How to" in front of your subject matter, and dash off a proposal to your agent. How expedient of you.

How depressing. I'll make you a deal. If you keep writing your novel, I will keep working on mine.

The good news for both of us is: you are. Last year was the busiest year of my editing business, and I read e-mails from clients every day who are finishing novels and beginning new ones, and who can recommend a dozen brilliant novels for me as fast as I can say "Roget's." You all inspire me. You remind me every day that we are human and that good stories feed us, and that good food is abundant. So, in 2009, let's step onto that invisible bridge and do cartwheels on it.

And on my friend's kitchen counter, where I will leave her key and a welcome-home note this afternoon, I will also leave a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita--the best cat novel I own.

On Powell's, and holiday gifts

2008-12-13T13:12:00.000-08:00

A little bird tells me that Powell's City of Books is among the many booksellers who have suffered from the 20 percent drop in book sales this autumn. While the big-box booksellers like B&N and Borders may have gotten what's coming to them for their meat-market business practices, the independents like Powell's serve their communities by keeping the profits local.

When you're buying holiday gifts this year, think of supporting your local bookseller--in fact, Portlanders, go to Powell's TODAY--and buy some books. Aunt Frieda got a lame tin of popcorn from you last year, and your expensive friend Michael can pick out his own tea towels. And you can tell your sweetie that books are better than sex, anyway.

Not sure what to buy? Look no further than Editorial Ass's recommendations.

Words matter.

2008-12-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

Here's an example of what I sometimes call "familiar text" or "received text" my editing.

I often hear "compassionate detachment." I wouldn't say it's a cliche. Yet drop "compassionate detachment" into a conversation and you're more than likely to get a sage nod from your listener. It's often said as though it's a directive, or a goal. It got me thinking. What does it mean, really? Is the inverse true, i.e., can you feel chilly attachment? Is "friendly distance" a synonym? Either one is a bit absurd, so outside of a Buddhist koan, the original phrase is suspect.

Compassion is an emotion you feel toward the suffering and helplessness of another person. Feelings are spontaneous. You have to actually feel compassion first, and then show it if you can. To say compassion is a directive or a goal is emotionally dishonest--the word to use is mercy, or piety. You don't have to feel anything to do a merciful act, nor to behave dutifully.

And there is the danger. To be merciful or pious is to set yourself above the person who is suffering, and claim certain powers--to grant the mercy, to perform righteously (or self-righteously). The phrase cloaks and condones a sense of superiority, or egotism at the very least, in a situation where egotism can do harm.

Words matter. Looking for the right one matters. So does being suspicious of the pieces of language that come prepackaged.

When editors work too hard...

2008-11-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

...this becomes funny.
Pardon the long silence on this blog. I've been up to my eyes in work, and will get back to the blog in the next few weeks. In the meantime, read good books, and write often.

Virginia Woolf's wild, roving words

2008-10-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

In the only surviving recording of her voice, Virginia Woolf talks about the wild nature of the English language.

A reminder to...

2008-10-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

In Oregon, we mail in our ballots. Having just completed the only task expected of female US citizens, I marked the act by re-reading George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

If one gets rid of these habits [of slovenly writing] one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter

2008-10-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

A question!

There is a story I would like to tell but I am missing an important name. The name in itself has become somewhat of a block to me. I have researched names, I have tried to think of my own, but nothing fits!

Names are important, but don't let them keep you from writing. To be honest, I start stories and change names halfway through. And the most important name of all--the title of the book--is almost always unknown to me until the end. If you feel so strongly about your story, just get your hands dirty and see what you dig up. I solve as many "story problems" while writing as I do in the initial outline. Keep your eye on the goal of making progress.

That said, to search for your name, feel it out. Look at the keys of your keyboard. What letters "feel like" they belong in the name, and which ones don't? Make a list of all the words that "feel like" your character (no matter how out-there), such as, say, ocean, grass, echo, nutmeg, jazz (whatever), and then brainstorm outward from there, listing other words by free association. The goal is to keep your hand moving and loosen up your mind, and give your creative brain room to make both good and bad suggestions.

Looking for your character's name is a useful writing exercise, and not something to fear. It gives you practice in listening to the quiet voice whose suggestions differentiate good writing from great writing.

(Post title: credit is due to Tom Stoppard's wit, not mine. Alas.)

Rhetorical stance in narrative

2008-08-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

I have the brilliant members of my critique group to thank for a helpful new way of thinking about narrators. Rhetorical stance, or simply stance, refers to where your narrator stands in relation to its audience, its own authority, and what it is saying. Reading your draft with an eye to stance can help you diagnose and fix a range of problems. For example:

Your narrator speaks over your audience's heads. That indicates a problem with stance in relation to audience. To fix it, you would seek to tone down the bluster or jargon, and build a better rapport with your readers. What do they know? What are they not expected to know? Where might they get lost?
Sentimentality. A sentimental narrator is working too hard to appeal to the audience. As a result, readers feel manipulated and the writing sounds forced. To fix it, give your audience some breathing room, and see if you can engage our minds instead by focusing on detail and action (i.e., simple information), and using plainer language.
Inconsistent narrator. If your readers begin to lose their suspension of disbelief--or if for some subtle reason they just aren't buying your story anymore--then you may need to get a clearer grasp of your narrator. I'm not sure how to best describe the problem other than that things start getting muddy. I see it in a lot of drafts. A supposedly ingenious character's point of view reads as though a fifteen-year-old wrote it. A historical novel is told in the easygoing language of a Christmas letter. The tone of one section is solemn and the next is breezy, for no apparent reason.

Remember that your storyteller is a character, too. It's worth your while to develop a consistent voice appropriate to the subject matter, and make sure that any deviation from it happens for a good reason. When you reach a well-balanced rhetorical stance, your narrator is believable, inviting, and has a thorough knowledge of the story--even the parts that don't make it on the page.

Wayne C. Booth wrote about the subject fifty years ago. Read more examples in his seven-page essay here: http://tinyurl.com/62a444

The tonic chord

2008-08-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

In music theory, songs start with a "tonic" chord and venture far away from it, and then in later returning, give the listener pleasure and satisfaction. Ursula K. LeGuin is my tonic chord. From a list of inspirational quotes about writing:

“Writers have to get used to launching something beautiful and watching it crash and burn. They also have to learn when to let go control, when the work takes off on its own and flies, farther than they ever planned or imagined, to places they didn’t know they knew. All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.”

Enjoy others quotes by Hemingway, Whitman, White--and in the same breath, Atwood, Lamott, and Goldman--here. http://theadventurouswriter.com/blogwriting/archives/62

Essential research

2008-08-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

Orthodox advice to writers is to query only agents who represent your genre. The best way to do this is to read Publishers Weekly for six months in advance of querying and note who reps what you write.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/Community/Deals/47146.html

The magazine is online, and recent deals are posted every Monday. Use the search function if you want to find any article or review in your subject area. For example, if I search for "magical realism," "Palestine," and "folklore," I will come up with dozens of options. Then I'd go to AgentQuery.com or PublishersMarketplace.com to follow up on the information--and finally to the library to make sure that my book really is similar to the ones I've found.

Good hunting.

On the other side of the Internet curtain

2008-08-18T14:01:00.000-07:00

When a writer sends me an e-mail for the first time, asking for a free sample edit, I am delighted. One of the things I love about my job is the unpredictability. Writers find me from the other side of the Internet curtain, and one day, while I'm hip-deep in a novel about Amsterdam, a memoir about modeling shows up in my inbox.

That's to say, the Internet curtain unveils many good surprises. But like many editors who offer sample edits, I have a pet peeve: writers who disappear behind the curtain with their sample edit never to be heard from again. Part of my job is the hour-plus time investment of a sample edit--getting into a new voice, thinking about a writer's strengths and weaknesses, line-editing the sample, and making predictions about a 300+ page draft I haven't yet seen. In return, I don't expect that every writer will hire me, but I do expect the courtesy of a thank-you. Hey, it's an hour that I give to you whenever you ask, no matter what day of the week, no matter how many projects are due in three days. I am a professional, and like most book professionals, I can take the bad news in stride and wish you luck with another editor. Easy.

I will edge farther out on this limb for a moment, and say that most of the editing, publishing (traditional or POD), and publicity work for a book happens online. Developing better habits of online communication can't be a bad thing for a writer. Even though e-mail is in many ways an anonymous medium, certain absences do speak louder than words.

Amazon.com's Kindle e-Book Reader

2008-06-22T11:51:00.001-07:00

Never mind that its name brings a flaming pile of books to mind. Amazon's $400 e-book reader might not replace the real thing any time soon.

Among my bibliophile friends, however, my first argument against it is not the durable pleasure of opening a paper book and turning its pages. Nor are my reservations my final word: I think e-books could be the best thing to happen to the book industry since the mass market paperback.

But first, a word on the Kindle. You can read its screen in sunlight, and it is easy on the eyes. It has a tiny QWERTY keyboard that allows you to annotate as you read. It stores about two hundred books. Its battery lasts several days. It has a built-in wireless connection that works like a cell phone, allowing you to buy and download Kindle files from Amazon.com, read blogs, and receive the daily newspaper. You can upload Word files. Kindle books are sold in Amazon's proprietary file format and cost $3-$10.

It's a start. As someone who reads a lot for her job, I find it convenient to do my work on a computer screen. My barrier to change is low. In fact, I really like the idea of having an electronic library of my lesser-read volumes, because they weigh a lot less in a cardboard box. But here's my chief beef: I don't like to spend money on books. I borrow them from the library first, and if I think I have learned something worth remembering, I will find a cheap used version in the range of $4-$12. I can't borrow electronic books from the Multnomah County Library, comprehensive though it is.

Amazon's pricing isn't an issue, but the proprietary file format is. I can only acquire books that Amazon has decided are popular enough to convert to a .azw file, or which already exist in a .txt or .pdf file. That rules out a lot of the obscure, hard-to-remember academic texts like Mikail Bakhtin's Dialogic Imagination, which I rarely need to reference but are helpful and venerable titles on my shelf. Finally, Amazon allows you to preview the first chapter of books, but for patient readers like me, I need one or two hundred pages to know if I care about a book or not.

Absent these issues I would love to introduce an e-reader into my reading habits. I would love to download e-books from the library for free, and buy the e-book only if I like it, or buy the hard copy book only if I REALLY like it. In short, to consign all my less-important reading to a paperless existence.

Besides being a boon to the environment, it would be a boon to publishers and authors, too. The cost of producing and distributing an e-book is much lower, theoretically allowing publishers to take more chances on new and experimental novelists, and niche nonfiction authors. Publishers must realize the benefit to their profits, because despite e-books accounting for an abysmally tiny portion of their book catalogs, they are pushing e-books hard. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was the keynote speaker at this summer's Book Expo conference in LA.

Kindle, however, in its current incarnation, is reminiscent of the Palm Pilot. I bought one in college, and diligently created to-do lists and a monumental address book. My weekly schedule had nary a chink. Last week I was doing some spring cleaning, and in the bottom of a shoebox, next to a half-used bottle of perfume, a hair clip, and some creased photographs, was my Palm Pilot. I'd forgotten I'd ever owned one.

A Copyeditor's Worst Nightmare

2008-05-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

Forgive the gossip. But the Princeton University Press last week recalled a book because an "inexperienced copyeditor" allowed it to reach the shelves with over ninety errors in its first few chapters.

I'm not sure if Princeton UP meant that their "inexperienced" editor would have done better work if he or she had five more years on the job, or if "inexperienced" is just a nice way of saying "inept." But besides being an embarrassment to the press and the author, the story illustrates what is often overlooked. Editing is both a skilled trade and an aptitude.

The author, Peter Moskos, had an interesting response to the story. "Certainly I tried to find errors… and failed (and my spelling does suck—embarrassingly so). And while I do think I’m pretty good at proofing other people’s writing, it’s nearly impossible to proof any writing if you already know what it is supposed to say. Even after some errors were pointed out to me with the specific line in the text marked, I still could not find about a quarter of the errors. The mind sees what it wants to see."

Editor's Recommendation

2008-04-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

You don't know what you don't know. It's that premise that drives what may become the new gold standard for books about writing: Elizabeth Lyon's Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore.

As a freelance editor, I hope every one of my clients reads this book before hiring me. I see writers trip over the same hurdles time and again--stylistic tics, POV writing that is too stiff to carry the characters' emotional development, and plots that unfold chunkily, if they unfold at all. Editors do their best work when presented with a close-to-publishable draft. Those dozens of hours of work are never wasted, but they are far better spent teasing out a novel's themes and bringing out the full strength of a writer's voice. Grammatical mistakes and common writing challenges are comparatively easy to address on one's own.

I have surveyed many books about the craft, and find that they fall into one of two categories: (1) They condescend to the writer, and are therefore not worth reading; or (2) they address the writer as a legitimate student and creator. Of these latter books, what distinguishes Manuscript Makeover is its thoroughness and its intuitive organization. It contains many checklists, but it's more than a mechanical how-to manual on self-editing. It covers literally every problem I've ever encountered in a client's manuscript, from style to story structure, and gives the writer ways to fix them. It also contains a helpful redux on query letters and marketing, condensed from Lyon's more comprehensive books about manuscript submission.

From now on, it sits on my shelf next to William Zinsser's On Writing Well and Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Whether you are just beginning to fill your shelves or already have filled them with some published titles of your own, Manuscript Makeover should be an essential book in your collection.

The Heavy Novel

2008-04-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

As I pack my suitcase and write the final e-mails before taking off for Rockaway Beach, I can hardly get my car loaded fast enough. Five days away from e-mail. Five days with no phone, no chance of dashing off for a few extra groceries, no responsibilities but writing. On these retreats, I get so much writing done. I have been writing a novel for five years and am producing what will likely be the final draft, thanks to a burst of clarity in February. I never thought the pieces would come together so well, and to finish it, finally finish it, all I need is the time to write.

A long time ago I read in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that the subconscious already knows the story. All the writer needs is to get free of the blocks, and write. The idea didn't inspire me at the time, but it lodged in my head somewhere. I carried it with me all these years, through high school, college, moving, the years in Portland -- kind of like that funny-looking tool that somebody gives you for Christmas. You never think you need it, but it looks potentially useful, and it travels from junk closet to junk closet. Something like that. Anyway, the idea returned to me in February, when I realized I knew my novel's story all along.

I told a good friend this morning, our novels are already complete. They are in our subconscious, and they are very, very heavy. Our responsibility is to get enough sleep, make time to write, and allow our minds to play. Our work is to be energetic enough to haul up our novel, bucketful by bucketful.

Better late than never.

2008-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00

Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death... in 1974. I'm reading it for the first time, partly to research some ideas about death, partly because I am always looking for a perfectly reasoned argument for why the humanities should be funded, why reading fiction isn't a frivolous waste of time, why we don't all get degrees in chemistry or computer science and work for Intel.

Anyway, back to Becker. He argues that "hero stories" are intrinsic to human culture. They're intrinsic to the individual--that I want to be a "hero" because a "hero" is assured the best of the gene pool, the biggest piece of meat, the safest shelter. (I'm simplifying here, but...) The more willing we are to admit to and accept our inbuilt quest for heroism as a matter of dignity, the less likely we are to shuffle along, heads down, toward a flawed or ignoble heroism: such as "the viciously destructive heroics of Hitler's Germany or the plain debasing and silly heroics of the acquisition and display of consumer goods, the piling up of money and privileges."

It seems to me that writing is an act of dignified self-interest. In creating a story or poem, the author is at the top--the author is the organizing principle in a system of meaning, and accepts that role joyfully and voluntarily. And in being aware of this power, as creator, as hero, the author may become even more powerful yet:

If everyone honestly admitted his urge to be a hero it would be a devastating release of truth. It would make men demand that culture give them their due--a primary sense of human value as unique contributors to cosmic life. How would our modern societies contrive to satisfy such an honest demand, without being shaken to their foundations?

So, keep writing, save the world.

Writers reading, writing, and thinking

2008-02-19T10:26:00.000-08:00

We live in a country where less than half the educated population has read a novel or poetry chapbook since leaving college. Yet I'm surprised when a writer tells me he doesn't read. "I have my own style. I don't want to be influenced by anyone." Or: "I know what gets published. I can write better than that."

I read two books a week outside of work, sometimes more if I am doing research, and still I feel I don't read enough. But I will give up reading forever if one of these aliterate writers produces a manuscript that isn't unintentionally unoriginal.

There is a symbiotic relationship between language and thought. We limit or broaden our thinking by exposure to language that is either dull or crisp, cliche or fresh. If a writer engages with ideas only through conversations, news reports, ad copy, and campaign speeches, her or her source of thought is a small, muddy one indeed (no matter the quality of the mind absorbing it). And it will show up in the writing.

Over sixty years ago, George Orwell described two writing problems that evolved from this small source. "The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not."

An editor is only helpful when the writer's ideas are already sound. I can tune a piano that already exists, but I can't build one out of spaghetti. Reading is a writer's responsibility--and a pleasure, muse, friend, and teacher.

The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. --Malcom X

Someone will eat your words.

2007-12-20T22:16:00.000-08:00

Test your vocabulary in support of the United Nations World Food Program. For every word you get right, 20 grains of rice are paid for by the site's advertisers and donated to feed the hungry.

Click the banner to play.

Perhaps this will help.

Playtime for the inner child.

2007-12-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heromachine/classic.asp

Call it research for your graphic novel.

He Exuded, She Proffered – And Other Dialogue Stranglers

2007-12-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

Your main character pulls himself up to the counter at his favorite diner. He sips his coffee, looks around. At the far end of the counter, under an autographed photo of Elvis Presley, sits that woman again – the one who started coming in last week, who places pictures of her son on the counter and stares at them while she eats her toast. She’s pretty.

This could be the start of something. Your main character checks his tie for coffee drips, picks up his mug and moves to the stool next to her.

“Excuse me, what a handsome little boy. I have a son, myself, but he’s in daycare down the street right now, and his mother, well, that’s a long story,” he exuded.

She proffered, “My son isn’t with us anymore.”

“What do you mean?” John questioned, sipping his coffee as he looked into her eyes with concern.

YIKES! Any interesting information in this scene gets mangled with the dialogue. If your writing droops whenever your characters open their mouths, read further. Here are some quick clean-ups that will tighten conversations and help your dialogue scenes hold readers’ attention.

1. Keep it simple.

Stick to he said, she said – or if it’s a question, she asked. Just because Roget’s Thesaurus can give you thirty adjectives for “said” doesn’t mean you should use them all. Anything but “said” and “asked” can distract your reader from your characters’ words.

2. Use names sparingly.

In most scenes – and especially in scenes between a man and a woman – it is enough to use the characters’ names once at the beginning, and then use “he” and “she” the rest of the way through, and only when “he” and “she” are absolutely necessary to clarify who is speaking. Your readers are interested in the dialogue, NOT the dialogue tags.

3. Let the words speak for themselves...

...And beware of stage directions. For example, “…sipping his coffee as he looked into her eyes with concern.” Action is important in some dialogue scenes, but as a rule of thumb, focus on the spoken word. When you must convey action, do it cleanly. For instance:

"What do you mean?” he asked. He took a sip of his coffee and looked into her eyes.

You’ll see that his concern is still apparent in the fact that he’s even asking for clarification, and also that he meets her eyes. The dialogue tag is short and unobtrusive, giving the reader closure on the dialogue before moving on to describe his action.

4. Indirect communication: bad for relationships, good for dialogue scenes.

Use indirect dialogue to add tension and cover ground. One thing that this exchange does correctly is that it allows the woman to respond indirectly to the man’s opening statement. The jump moves us to the important information (that her son is gone, for reasons unknown), and saves us from the boredom of watching a Q&A-type dialogue unfold.

5. "Put," she said earnestly, "your dialogue tags where they don't distract."

Indicate the speaker at the beginning of the dialogue, or after the first, short phrase of dialogue. Otherwise, the dialogue tag becomes a distraction.

YES: He glanced over his shoulder. “Darn right.”
YES: She told him, “I want you to finish your dinner, first.”
YES: “Darn right,” he said. “If that’s what you really believe, I mean.”
NO: “Darn right. If that’s what you really believe, I mean,” he said.
NO: "If that's," he said, "what you really believe."

In general, dialogue scenes should move along at a good clip and present challenges to your characters. When you can trust that your readers are interested in what the characters are saying, you can concentrate on telling the story, rather than the tilt of John Q.'s eyebrows as he asks the woman of his dreams for a date.

Second editions and the self-published author

2007-11-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

A client recently self-published her first book, a short coaching guide that she takes with her to her seminars and workshops. While thrilled to have a book, she wasn't thrilled with her POD company's work. But if you know much about publishing -- POD or otherwise -- you know that once the book is typeset, small changes add up to big bucks. How can you make the most of this expensive process?

There's an important similarity between POD nonfiction books (like self-help, business, and academic books) and, say, the textbook industry. In the textbook industry, authors make their money by writing a book and then revising it every two years and selling the new editions. One book may go through nine editions or more. And the same is true of your POD book.

Something you'd like to change about the cover? Do you have testimonials or new examples you'd like to add, based on reader feedback? Has your subject matter become more newsworthy? Once you've published your first edition, start a file of everything you'd like to add or change. Keep track of who buys your book. Wait 18 months, then revise to your heart's content. Write a new introduction. Tweak the cover design. Now you have a second edition, and probably an even better book -- and because you've kept track of who's buying your book, your new edition has a built-in audience.

And the best news for my client? As a self-published author, she still owns the rights to her work, and can select a different printing or POD company the next time around.

Believable cruelty

2007-11-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

Often I encounter writers struggling with how to portray a violent, cruel, abusive, or drug-addicted character in a human and believable way. There are so few messages or stories in mainstream culture that adequately explain why real human beings do bad things.

How do we get to the root of something we may not intuitively understand? We run the risk of judging our characters on one hand, or on the other, exonerating them. A good narrator will do neither -- readers will be suspicious of either an apologist or moralist for a narrator.

The best book I've encountered on the subject so far is FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, by Alice Miller. The book is, unfortunately, out of print, but there are many copies available through Amazon.com, AbeBooks.com and Alibris.com. Try to find the 3rd edition or later if you can.

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-08-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

In my critiques, I often advise writers to pay closer attention to how they use point-of-view (POV). Until I saw Pan's Labyrinth a second time a few weekends ago, it didn't occur to me to use a movie to explain a writing concept.

If you're writing in third person, the narrator zooms in and out to pace the story. John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, calls this concept psychic distance, or basically how close your narrator is to your POV character's innermost experience of the world. A common mistake is to hold the same psychic distance for too long, creating either a story that moves too slowly (the plot drags) or too quickly (we might as well be reading a plot summary).

This film, were it a novel, would be written in third-person. Since Ofelia is the main character, the closest psychic distance is reserved for her, but we get other POVs later in the film that give the story its depth and richness. In the crucial first 20 minutes, however, we move through three stages of psychic distance in Ofelia's POV. A full walk-through is beyond the scope of this little blog entry, but briefly:

1. When Ofelia finds the stone in the road that releases the fairy, the viewer is alone with her. We know very little about her other than that she reads fairy tales (her mother just scolded her for it), and this moment gives both her and us a sense of wonder. The psychic distance is very close.

2. Once Ofelia arrives at the old mill/military outpost, we meet two new characters--the captain and Mercedes--and as the viewer, we're in the midst of a lot of activity. We're observing the interaction between the captain and Ofelia's mother. There's dialogue between Ofelia and the new characters. The psychic distance is moderate.

3. There's a hinge point right after Ofelia discovers the labyrinth--Mercedes guides her away from it, but the camera stays with the labyrinth; specifically, the fairy appears at the top of the threshold and watches Ofelia and Mercedes walk away. We've broken from Ofelia's POV, and the subsequent scenes are free move to other characters' POVs. The psychic distance zooms completely out for this transition.

Thanks to the slowly increasing psychic distance, we can easily adjust to the changing POVs that come after these opening scenes: Something to consider as you're switching between POVs in your novel.

Status

2007-08-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

Work is slow at Threepenny -- the typical summer slump. In July, I finished a critique, two manuscript editing projects, and several sample edits. I put in some good, hard work on a ghostwriting project. I saved my personal website from peril (thanks to the Registerfly.com sellout), and raced well in two big triathlons. I also tried to save the Earth; or at least I put more miles on my bike than on my '93 Saturn.

Portland summers are sweet, and there's nothing like closing the laptop at 5 p.m. sharp and pedaling to the top of Mt. Tabor Park, sitting in the grass with friends, watching the bicycle races, and waiting for the sun to set behind the city. A slow month on the P&L doesn't mean hard times.

More on gotchas

2007-08-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

I posted last week about the dozen or so London publishers that rejected "Pride and Prejudice." The buzz on my editors guild board has finally produced a few optimistic notes, mainly this one on the Making Light blog, a group blog written by editors and writers who have been working in book publishing for decades.

Quick reference: The Tongue Untied

2007-07-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Why did your editor flinch when you commented on the enormity of her skill? I ran across this site earlier today, which is a nice showcase of how subtle differences in word choice make ALL the difference.

The free OED

2007-07-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

Once again, my library card made my week. Thanks to a helpful post on the Northwest Independent Editors Guild website, we now know that most libraries subscribe to the online Oxford English Dictionary, and anyone with a card can access it for free. Word geeks, rejoice with me.

Second and third thoughts on the previous post

2007-07-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

As someone who follows The Rejecter , Pub Rants , and formerly, Miss Snark's blog , I read the Guardian article with a sick feeling in my stomach. The reason isn't a particularly acute attack of cynicism; it's that anyone who reads and learns from publishing blogs knows exactly why Jane Austen couldn't make it past the 27-year-old know-it-all who opens your agent's mail.

I have to remind myself to stop wasting time--wasting time worrying about the formula-touting assistant with a letter-opener, and wasting time second guessing my writing goals. I have a stack of books next to my chair that need to be read as research (mostly folklore), as well as two academic books (Bakhtin, and a lit crit anthology) that have been bookmarked for months, and a novel to write.

Write well, keep the faith, and when the time comes to go out with the manuscript, you will make it happen. In the meantime, learn all you can and take any formulaic approach to fiction with a grain of salt. Good books get published all the time.

Not like the world needs more cynicism, but this gem deserves a look.

2007-07-21T18:37:00.001-07:00

"The author and the Austen plot that exposed publishers' pride and prejudice"

· Rejection slips for slightly amended literary classics
· Most failed to identify novelist's celebrated work

Steven Morris
Thursday July 19, 2007
The Guardian

Her work has endured for two centuries, sold in its millions and inspired countless film and television adaptations. But would Jane Austen be able to find a publisher and an agent today? A cheeky experiment by an Austen enthusiast suggests not.

David Lassman, the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath decided to find out what sort of reception the writer might get if she approached publishers and agents in the age of Harry Potter and the airport blockbuster.

After making only minor changes, he sent off opening chapters and plot synopses to 18 of the UK's biggest publishers and agents. He was amazed when they all sent the manuscripts back with polite but firm "no-thank-you's" and almost all failed to spot that he was ripping off one of the world's most famous literary figures.

Mr Lassman said: "I was staggered. Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, with her oeuvre securely fixed in the English canon and yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work."

Mr Lassman admits that personal disappointment as well as academic interest prompted his experiment. A little like Austen, who initially struggled to find a publisher, he has been unable to find someone to champion his book, a thriller called Freedom's Temple, a modern take on the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. "I know it isn't a masterpiece but I think it is publishable. Yet nobody wanted it. I was talking with some friends and we wondered if Jane would find a publisher or agent if she were around today."

So, styling himself Alison Laydee - a play on Austen's nom de plume A Lady - he typed up chapters from three of her most famous books. First he sent off Northanger Abbey, calling it "Susan" - a title Austen had used for an early draft - and changing the name of the heroine from Catherine Morland to Susan Maldorn.

Mr Lassman expected to be branded a fraud. But he was surprised when publishers and agents failed to spot they had been sent the work of Austen. Bloomsbury, publisher of the Harry Potter books, for instance, suggested the chapters had been read "with interest" but were not "suited to our list".

Still, Northanger Abbey is not seen as one of Austen's great books, so next he sent off Persuasion, under the title The Watsons. Again the letters of rejection flooded in. JK Rowling's agents, Christopher Little, were among those who turned it down, saying they were "not confident" of being able to place it.

Then he played his trump card, sending off Pride and Prejudice, calling it First Impressions, again an early title Austen had used for it. The names of the main characters and places were changed, but with no great guile.

Mr Bennet became Mr Barnett while the estate Netherfield becomes Weatherfield, the fictional setting for the TV soap Coronation Street.

And he did not change the opening line, one of the most famous in world literature: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Still the deception was not spotted and the rejection letters thudded on to Mr Lassman's doormat, most notably one from Penguin. Its letter read: "Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book First Impressions. It seems like a really original and interesting read."

Only one person appeared to have spotted the deception, Alex Bowler, of Jonathan Cape. His reply read: "Thank-you for sending us the first two chapters of First Impressions; my first impression on reading these were ones of disbelief and mild annoyance, along, of course, with a moment's laughter.

"I suggest you reach for your copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I'd guess lives in close proximity to your typewriter, and make sure that your opening pages don't too closely mimic that book's opening."

David Baldock, director of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, said he was amused and disheartened by the experiment. He added: "It's interesting that there are these filters that stop work getting through. Clearly clerks and office staff are rejecting these manuscripts offhand."

Publishers and agents yesterday tried to explain what had gone wrong. A spokesman for Christopher Little said: "Our letter was a polite note declining representation and provided a standard response. Our internal notes did recognise similarities with existing published works and indeed there were even discussions about possible plagiarism."

A spokeswoman for Penguin pointed out that its letter had said only that it "seemed" original and interesting. "It would not have been read," she insisted.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE:

First Impressions, Alison Laydee

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

"My dear Mr Barnett," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Weatherfield Manor is let at last?"

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

"My dear Mr Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"

Lazarus

2007-07-21T18:33:00.000-07:00

I've been busy? Kidnapped? At any rate I haven't posted since February. But I'm back, with apologies to anyone who has visited this blog and been disappointed to find nothing here for months.

Editors, and editing nonfiction

2007-02-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

Just a heads-up. If you are thinking of writing a work of nonfiction*, plan it first. Write only the first chapter. Hire an editor to make that chapter and proposal sparkle, and start shopping for an agent. If you get a publishing contract, then you can finish the book. This is the safest way to approach your project, unless you already have a guaranteed audience.

Unless you are planning to self-publish or go POD, you will set yourself up for a lot of heartache and expense if you write the thing and hire an editor, only to find out that no agent will represent it, and no publisher will publish it.

There are some great books on writing nonfiction proposals. Google it, or here are a few:

Write the Perfect Book Proposal, by Jeff Herman and Deborah Levine Herman
Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, by Elizabeth Lyon

Also, the Gotham Writers' Workshop offers excellent, respected online courses for aspiring nonfiction authors and freelance feature writers.

* This advice doesn't apply to memoirs.

English is not just a first-person language.

2007-02-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

Tom Spanbauer teaches a workshop in Portland -- it's great, it's helpful, insert all due praise here -- BUT whenever I talk to any of his students, they're all writing novels in first person and one of them even said to me that third person is not welcome around Tom's table. Now that's interesting.

Why? I wondered. Well, supposedly the working assumption is that English is a first-person language. Tom Spanbauer writes brilliantly in first person, but still, why teach writers to believe they can only write in first person? The dogma around Tom's table favors the hot, close, me-to-you language that fits perfectly in the small privacy of a reader's attention. Anything else, they say, is distancing -- a narrator is a faceless entity that tells us what to believe about the novel's characters.

The dogma isn't unfounded. There's also something to be said about "I" in our culture. We're concerned with identity, with how we represent and present and signify ourselves to everybody else, and part of how we do that is with language.

However, third person gives us access to many points of view without having to use the obvious conceit of multiple "I's" for different story lines. It doesn't forfeit the power of an anonymous narrator, allowing the author to play with all kinds of voices. For example, a novel is a great place to explore the zone of contact between "internally persuasive" language, i.e., the voice in our heads, and the "authoritative discourse" of media, politics, ethics, whatever types of speaking are part of our culture's power structures. (Jose Saramago's Seeing is a good example.)

The novel can be so much more than language gymnastics. Poetry, when conscripted into long-form prose, is more interesting as a tool than as an end unto itself. We write novels because we have a story to tell about how humans live in the world, and much as it's possible to believe otherwise, the world is not always about "I."

Or, you can just write in first person AND third person. Dana Spiotta rocks.

What is a story?

2007-01-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

A story leaves you speechless for a few moments or a few hours, because there aren't any few words that sum up in your mind what you just read. And that's exactly it: a story is an emotion that takes exactly the number of words in the story to convey what it is.

It can be very long or very short. A story can be six words. In fact, here are dozens of six-word stories:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

These stories are also a lesson in trusting your reader to fill in the blanks. Some examples from Wired, Issue 14.11:

I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
- Stephen Baxter

I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
- Neil Gaiman

Easy. Just touch the match to
- Ursula K. Le Guin

...and Ernest Hemingway's famous one:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Chapter 1... and its unregarded little sister

2007-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Much advice is given on the novel's first chapter. For instance, Hilary Masters teaches a whole class on it. His suggestion is that the novel should be contained in it -- the characters, the core conflict, the nuance of theme, and setup for the story's most important images. That's a lot of work for 7,500 or so words to manage, but I agree. Chapter 1 is a handshake. Readers' expectations are based on it. Unless your main character is a demolitions expert, it better be more than a few big booms.

Many agents will ask for your first 50 pages -- another reason to have a brilliant first chapter. You get rejected, you tinker with your letter and go over Chapter 1 again, and submit some more. Repeat.

But wait... 50 pages? Oh yes, there's that's second child; what did we call her? Oh, right of course -- Chapter 2. Lately I've been reading manuscripts where the second chapter falls through like a trap door. In this one little sample set, the issue seems to be with pacing. How the novel is paced depends on the story, but no matter the genre I want to take a breather and have the fabulous Chapter 1 put into perspective for me before the plot unfolds any more. I want to know that the story is big enough for the remaining 300 pages. In short, I want to know about character.

Speaking of Hilary Masters, he teaches a cookbook formula for pacing in his short story classes that applies here.

1) Scene,
2) summary,
3) scene.

Give us the action. Then tell us why it matters to the character whose POV encountered the action. Then give us a scene that shows us how the character tries to resolve the problem that arose in #1, based on what we learned about him/her in #2. A chapter can unfold along these lines, and so can a novel. If you handle the pacing well, the chapters will live together in one big happy family.

75-cent words for hoi polloi

2007-01-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

We all have our writer-personalities that come out on the page when we don't know what we're really trying to say. One of those personalities is a moody 15-year-old who calls herself Jude, and she slouches to the rescue with too many syllables and too much vocabulary and gets way too serious and abstract.

If you find yourself needing to prune syllables, but also love your OED, here are some fun, clipped, 75-cent words that may satisfy both urges.

Fizgig:A flirty, frivolous girl.
Os:A mouth or an orifice.
Jimjams:Extreme nervousness; jitters
Pencel: A small flag at the end of a lance.
Swot:One who studies hard, especially to the exclusion of other interests.
Skosh:A small amount; a little bit.
Quaggy:Marshy; flabby; spongy.
Guttle:To eat voraciously; to devour greedily.
Ret:To soak or expose to moisture (flax, hemp, etc.) to remove fiber from softened wood.
Looby:An awkward, clumsy, lazy fellow.
Palmy:Flourishing; prosperous.
Bevy:A group or collection.
Cark:To worry.

Mystery/thriller contest

2007-01-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

If your manuscript is finished: http://www.murderinthegrove.com/contest.htm. The winner gets a free manuscript evaluation from an agent or editor attending the conference.

POD book awards

2007-01-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

To the skeptics of print-on-demand (POD) technology, offering a POD book-of-the-year award may sound like either a hoax or a dubious honor, something like being named "worst dressed" at the Oscars. But slowly, slowly, the POD stigma is fading. In part, we have the excellent book reviewers at POD-dy Mouth and Glynn's Book Reviews to thank. There may also be more competition among POD companies themselves, a growing number of which are boutique companies like Plain White Press, run by an industry veteran who can offer everything from design to printing to experienced marketing. In short, the quality is going up, and all the believers are holding their breath. They're waiting for the tipping point: the day when the public finally catches on.

Writer's Digest is running a self-published book contest that one of my clients lauded. He says the judges rate and comment upon plot, grammar, character development and cover design in a way that suggests that entries are read with at least one eye open. (If you wonder where the critics of POD focus their wrath, look no further than the judging categories, i.e., grammar.) For a $15 entry fee, you have a shot at being published by Outskirts Press and flown to NY for an awards ceremony.

If you like free better, you can generate just as much good press for your POD book by submitting it to POD-dy Mouth's annual Needle Awards. The award is top props on a very popular blog. She's looking for nominees as of today, so I encourage you to submit.

Why This Blog Exists

2006-12-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

If success in selling is my primary interest, I am not primarily a writer, but a salesperson. If I teach success in selling as the writer's primary objective, I am not teaching writing; I'm teaching, or pretending to teach, the production and marketing of a commodity. (253)

- Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wave in the Mind (Shambhala 2004)

Writing with money in mind -- crass? If your gift is the ability to write well, practicing your talent as a trade is the highest form of fairness. It's fair to you, the artisan, to be supported for doing what you're best suited to do. It's fair to everybody else, because your work is done with integrity and done well. This concept has been around since Socrates.

Greenkeys treats money-for-writing as a natural consequence of doing good work. Good means three things: 1) you write what feels, deep down, to be true, 2) you allow your words to have a life of their own, and 3) you revise with your readers in mind. If you disagree, there are 999,999 other monkeys on the Internet, blogging, and one of them is saying what is helpful to you. On this blog, money is not a bright plastic trophy you win when you finish a piece. It is not payment for a commodity. It is a wage earned for practicing a craft.

And what a fussy craft it is. Every weekday and on some weekends, I am a freelance editor who works with all kinds of writers. The rest of the time, I am the writer, experiencing the same hopes and vulnerabilities. This blog carries the glad news that when we fuss with the writing enough, doing our good work, the stories we tell are salable. As both editor and writer, my faith is reinforced over and over again.

What you won't find here is much submission advice, even less marketing advice, and reference to publishing trends, hardly ever. A sisterhood of blogging literary agents is already covering that ground frequently and well.

You will find tips, advice and thoughts on how to achieve good writing, because good writing is what publishers buy. They also buy profit-motivated books whose subject matter ranges from the innocuous to the repugnant -- but that's irrelevant. Really. This blog is about doing good work. It can't turn you into a celebrity. The only thing it offers is advice on using what you have at this moment. And that's all you need.

Crab Orchard Review story now available

2006-12-01T13:58:00.001-08:00

My story "Hamsa" was published this month in Crab Orchard Review's Defining Family issue, Vol. 11, No. 2. To order a copy, mail $10 to:

CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW
Department of English
Faner Hall 2380 - Mail Code 4503
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
1000 Faner Drive
Carbondale, IL 62901

...with a request for the Defining Family issue. The journal isn't available in stores because, according to their FAQ page, The savings CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW experiences by not using a national distributor to place the magazine in bookstores allows us to continue to increase the amount we pay writers and keep our subscription price low... We would rather give free subscriptions to public and community college libraries across Illinois, send those issues to bookfairs across the country, and to find other worthwhile projects to distribute CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW to readers and underserved communities across the nation.