MY WRITING LIFE

Um . . . am I back?

2011-12-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.

Gotta admit, I never really expected to be back here. In fact it's been so long, I couldn't even remember the email address for this blog, much less the password.

But something strange happened.

Comments kept coming in, for which I'm very grateful and even touched. I started this blog originally as a way to help sort out points in my own head as I was revising my novel. As such, it was really more of a log or diary for myself, than an attempt to reach an audience. I was really trying to teach myself, not others. I'm thrilled that so many people have found my meandering missives to be of some value. So, thank you.

Because of your continued interest, I thought I'd give you some updates.

1) Since I started this blog, the publishing industry has been turned upside down, both for the good and the bad. With the introduction of e-readers, print publishers have ducked their head deep into the sand, terrified to sign new writers unless they are reasonably guaranteed a blockbuster. Big name. Big topic. Whatever. The days of the small novelist getting signed are gone. At least for a while, until the industry sorts itself out.

The flip side of this, is that its never been easier to self-publish, and with e-readers, you're guaranteed instantaneous distribution around the world.

This same series of events has happened to the music industry, where the major labels are losing money every day, but small bands can get their music released easier now than ever before.

The problem is getting attention to your book. But let's be honest, big publishers didn't really spend much effort in publicisizing new authors anyway. As I found out when our health book was published, we still had to hire a publicist and hit the pavement on our own.

2) As a corollary to #1, the novel never got published. I had an agent pick it up and start shopping, then drop out of contact. This was a "major" publisher at an established New York Agency. A name I'd heard for years. Turns out the younger agent at this house quit the business. The novel got pushed over from one agent to another but the enthusiasm was lost. Eventually, it just languished a painful, lonely existence.

3) As another corollary to #3, I'm going to self-publish the novel. I've been researching my options and I'd like to e-publish, but also with about 500 physical copies that I can sell at my office.

4) In the meantime, I've been very busy. The music writing site, The Ripple Effect, has really taken off, and now has 14 writers and millions of readers. One thing led to another, and my Ripple partner and I started a record label, Ripple Music, to release hard-driving, authentic 70's-infused rock music. It's been an amazing journey and a real kick in the tush.

Now a question for you:

I don't know if there are any readers out there who pop over here from time to time, but if there are, would you like me to write about my experiences with self-publishing?

I figure the self-publishing journey will be just as full of ups and downs and rights and wrongs and successes and mistakes as the original journey was. I'm happy to share these as I go through them, if you'd like me to.

Just let me know.

In the meantime . . . peace.

20 Tips on Query Letters

2009-10-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is another great post that came across the Guide to Literary Agents blog. Since we were talking about queries, I thought I'd share it.

Agent Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary Management gave an intensive workshop on queries at the South Carolina Writers Workshop. Here are 20 tips to writing an effective query, according to the Query Shark herself.

FOR STARTERS

• Be professional. It’s a business letter—not a personal letter.

1. Regarding salutation and tone, err on the side of caution because formality is never out of place.
2. “Dear Agent” or “To Whom It May Concern,” however, is too impersonal.
3. Pet peeve: If you’re querying an agent’s direct e-mail (i.e. “janet@” and you address the query “Dear Agent,” you don’t come across as being too smart.

• Be comfortable with computers. Publishing is moving toward the electronic age, so move with it.

1. Have an e-mail address with your name in it (e.g., SuziWriter@gmail.com). This shows her you are professional. How is she to take you seriously if your e-mail is cutiepiehoneyface@aol.com?
2. Have your own e-mail account—not one you share with a spouse.
3. Have a Gmail or Earthlink account. She says AOL is bad for queries because its spam filters sometimes eat e-mails without your knowledge, and you could be missing a reply.
4. Also, add the agents to your “safe senders” lists to ensure you receive their replies.

• Use a referral. Agents always move referrals to the top of the stack if someone they know vouches for the writer.

1. Do not, however, quote your rejection letters, friends, critique partners, paid editors, or conference critiques. These comments are not the same as referrals.

THE NITTY GRITTY

1. Don’t start with a rhetorical question. You’re talking to really sardonic people in New York City, and they’re not going to answer the question how you expect.
2. Get right to the main character—by name.
3. Tell who he/she is, and do it in as few words as possible.
4. Tell what happens to him or her—the initial point of conflict in the book.
5. Show two choices the main character faces as well as the consequences of those choices. The stakes must be high.

SUREFIRE QUERY KILLERS

1. “Fiction novel.” A novel is fiction, so when someone writes “fiction novel,” not only is it redundant, it makes the writer sound ignorant.
2. “Surefire bestseller.” Let the agent be the one to decide that. Declaring your work to be the next best thing shows you know little about the industry—and that you’re probably too arrogant for the agent to want to work with you.
3. “Film potential.” Janet says, “First of all, you don’t know shit.” (See arrogance comment above) Also, she’s not a film agent. She just wants to know what the book is about.

KEEP IT OUT

1. Inspiration. You only have 250 words, so don’t waste them. Stick to showing her what the book is about because how you came up with the idea does not interest agents in the query. “It’s the equivalent of making sausages,” she says. “I do not want to see you do it.”
2. Personal information. It doesn’t matter to agents where you live or how many cats you have.
3. Sometimes work information is relevant to you being the only person able to write a particular book; however, sometimes the worst people to write certain types of books are those who actually do those occupations (e.g., cops hate cop shows, doctors criticize medical dramas). They know the reality of the job too deeply, and it doesn’t make for good fiction.

TAKEAWAY

1. A query letter is the foundation upon which your publishing career rests, so remember: You can query too soon; you cannot query too late.

Janet Reid's publishing background includes 15 years in book publicity with clients both famous and infamous. She specializes in compelling fiction, particularly crime fiction, and narrative non-fiction, and she keeps a blog about agenting as well as a query critique blog.

Shameless Self-Promotion - First Review of my Novel

2009-10-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

I hope y'all don't mind, but I recently received the first professional, independent review of my album, Deadly Vision. The novel hasn't been published yet, but my editor sought out an independent editor to review the book prior to her accepting to represent it. Not only did this give her impetus to represent the novel but it also gave her a review to pass on to the publishers to help her sell it.

Now, of course, I was a bit psyched when this came in, so if you don't mind, I'd like to share it with you. Feel free to pass this on to any publishers you'd like. :)

Here's my first review! Please send your thoughts.

The reader has a front row seat as Severin leads you into the world of virtual reality medicine and a graphic journey into the life in ER trauma care. Add to that some very surprising twists, well developed and quirky characters and you have a first rate thriller.

Todd Severin's Deadly Vision is one of the best Techno-thrillers I have read. He may be the new and improved Michael Crichton. This fast paced novel smoothly combines the author's fluency in both the medical field and the science of computer technology to escort the reader into the expanding world of virtual reality. Add Machiavellian politics, corporate espionage and murder and you have a novel the reader doesn't want to put down. I was highly entertained.

As an editor, I would add that this manuscript is well written and will require a minimum amount of editing. I'm impressed. Thank you for the opportunity to review his work.

Cold Querying Still Works

2009-10-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

After locking myself away, secluded from society like the pictured monk, cold querying the entire state of New York and half the Atlantic Seaboard to find an agent to represent my medical thriller, I wondered how much trouble other writers had cold querying agents.

Then, like a streak of light, this was an interesting post that came across on the PubRants blog, which I found from the Guide to Literary Agents blog.

Guest blogger Megan Crewe, writing on agent Kristin Nelson's site, explains how she polled 270 successful fiction authors and asked them if they broke in with a referral (a personal connection with someone in the business) or whether they cold queried an agent with success.

The results came back and 62% of the authors got their agent with just a cold query. Pretty amazing - but more than that: encouraging! As agent Dan Lazar once saying that "A good query trumps all else - every time."

Don't know how good my query was, but I did get several requests to read the novel or for partials before I settled on the Bob DiForio Agency.

Now keep your fingers crossed on that sale!

So take hope!

One of my favorite writing blogs

2009-10-10T05:25:00.001-07:00

I only subscribe to two writing blogs, and this is one of them. As writers, we're all operating ont he borderline of desperate to get our books published. Desperate and gullible. That's where Writers Beware comes in. Constantly, there's a feed of information on scams, traps, gimmicks, and other unsavory stuff we don't want to get involved in.

Here's an example from their latest post. Check them out at http://accrispin.blogspot.com/

Here are eight words you never want to hear from a publisher that is considering your manuscript for publication:

"How many books are you planning to order?"

Many writers are aware that it's a major red flag when a publisher's contract includes a clause requiring authors to buy their own books, or to commit to some kind of sales guarantee. Since an outlay of cash is a condition of publication, this is vanity publishing--what we at Writer Beware call "back-end" vanity publishing, since you're buying into the end of the publication process (finished books) rather than the beginning (paying for the book to be produced).

Stealthier back-end vanity publishers rely on pressure and encouragement, rather than contract clauses, to get authors to purchase their own books. They may produce "author manuals" that extol self-purchases with promises of huge profits, or employ "publicists" whose sole job is convincing authors that buying their books for re-sale is essential to success, or offer frequent special deals and discounts (buy 50 books, get 10 free!) to make self-purchases as attractive as a sale on canned soup at the grocery store. Since inexperienced authors may not know a lot about how publishing is supposed to work, they can be easily ensnared by this kind of deception.

Still other publishers that focus on author self-purchases are well-intentioned amateur efforts run by people who have no professional publishing experience, little or no financing, and, often, no concrete business plan. Because of their lack of capitalization and marketing expertise, it's very tempting for such publishers to settle into a business model where they rely on their authors as their principal customer base and sales force. This creates a closed loop, in which published books are marketed mainly to the books' creators--all but eliminating the publisher’s risk, and even possibly, guaranteeing a small profit. It’s this kind of publisher that’s most likely to ask you the question with which I began this post, rather than surprising you with contractual purchase requirements or bombarding you with special offers post-publication--since its intentions are basically benign, and it's not consciously trying to deceive or screw you.

Intentions aside, the author is the loser in all three of these scenarios. A publisher that relies on its authors as a main or major source of income is considerably reducing--if not entirely removing--its incentive to market and distribute the books it publishes. Why should it bother trying to sell books to the public, when it can turn its authors into customers? Why should it expend money and effort on getting books into the hands of readers, when it can persuade writers to function as an unpaid sales force, buying their own books and then re-selling them?

In each case, the publisher is failing to do what publishers are supposed to do: get books out into the world. While it's certainly true that authors nowadays are expected to self-promote, the self-promotion an author can do and the marketing a publisher should do are two different things--and without your publisher's active marketing and distribution support (I'm not talking here about writing press releases or getting books listed on Amazon), you have very little platform on which to build your self-promotion efforts. You're likely to wind up in much the same position as if you'd self-published--except that you'll probably have a more restrictive contract, a less professional product, and, in the case of the more unscrupulous back-end vanities, a considerably smaller bank account.

So if a publisher asks you about your plans for buying your own book, be on your guard. Even if the publisher isn’t obviously a vanity, even if it assures you that it's only collecting preliminary data and declares that your answer will have no bearing on its decision, the mere fact that it's thinking about author self-purchases at this early stage of the game is reason enough to move on.

(This post, by the way, was inspired by a real example: Black Rose Writing, which recently moved from just asking about authors' purchase plans, to actually including a purchase requirement in its contract.)

Yes, go ahead and yell at me!

2009-10-02T07:07:00.001-07:00

Ok, ok, I know, once again I've been MIA for a while. I apologize.

Believe me, I'm not giving up on the writing affair, and I'm actually really touched (and flattered) when I logged in today and saw how many followers there are of this blog. It made me feel really guilty that I've been so poor in updating recently.

My novel is currently making the rounds in New York, handled by my agent at the Bob DiForio Literary Agency. I've heard rumors of nibbles, maybe even a few deep sniffs, but so far no one has devoured the complete dish. Please keep your fingers crossed.

This blog will explode in activity once a publisher takes a bite, because I plan on updating you with every issue, stumbling block, hurdle I have to jump through towards publication in an effort to try and help you avoid those same problems.

Also, this blog will explode in activity once I get started on my next novel, another medical thriller, that I'm currently researching. My outlining process is a little unique and really fun for me, so I can't wait to share it with you.

So why the dearth of posting of late? Because I'm slightly schizophrenic in my activities. Some of you may know that I also run a music site, The Ripple Effect, with my partner, the Pope. Well, one thing has lead to another and another, so now, in addition to our radio show on Blogtalkradio, we've just started our own record company, Ripple Music. We're currently working with 4 bands to get some really nice colored vinyl releases ready and out to the world. With that, we also formed a music publishing company, Ripple Songs.

So between it all, I haven't yet found the time to write.

But things are moving along well. Once the company is up and running, all the legal done, I'll have some free time and get back to writing and updating.

Thanks again, so much, for your support. I'm really flattered and appreciative.

I promise, regular updates will start again soon.

Writing the Query Letter - Key Point #1

2009-07-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

As promised, we're going to do a series of posts on writing the query letter, including examples of query's that worked. Eventually, I'll post my query as well and we can dissect it together.

To start with, there are tons of references on how to write a query, and I've read them all, but it never really seems to make it easier to write one. The problem is effectively summarizing the hook of your story, making it eye catching, without being overly flamboyant or non-professional. In fact, that word professional, is the key in writing your query. The agent wants to know that you are a serious writer, understand professional demands, and can adhere to them. We've all heard of the queries written on pink paper or with cursive font because the author wanted to "stand out." Unfortunately, those tricks will make the author stand out . . . in a bad way!

Key #1: Be professional at all times.

This excerpt comes from the Guide to Literary Agents Blog.

ON PROFESSIONALISM:

"The first thing to think about when you sit down to write a query letter is that, in a lot of ways, it’s similar to writing a cover letter for a job application. You’re addressing your letter to a person who’s never met you before, and who sorts through hundreds of such letters a day. This crucial first contact is your chance to demonstrate that you’re smart, professional, and interesting. The way to convey those traits is through the tone and content of your letter. The tone should be professional, specific and engaging—never general, overly familiar or abrasive. Make sure your letter is well written and grammatically correct. And make sure to include all of your contact information, including your mailing address, phone number and e-mail address.

"These suggestions may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many letters I get that leave out vital contact information, start out with 'Hi Mollie—' instead of 'Dear Ms. Glick:', or include unprofessional phrases such as, 'You’ll probably just throw this letter out like the other agents have.' Occasionally, I get a letter written in a lighter, more humorous tone, and that’s OK—as long as the letter reflects the kind of book the author is querying me about (i.e., a humorous nonfiction book or funny novel) and it still includes all the information I need to know. But if in doubt, stick with a professional tone, and include a one- or two-line quote from the book to give the agent a taste of its voice.

"Like a cover letter, your query letter should be no longer than a page. It should include your contact information, a salutation, a paragraph describing your book, and a paragraph explaining why you’re the perfect person to write that book. Lets take a closer look at each of these components."

- Excerpted from the article "Write a Killer Query Letter: How to Hook an Agent," by Mollie Glick, in the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents.

More coming as we examine this in depth. Having written several queries, some that worked, many that didn't, we'll look at my letters and examine for strengths and weaknesses.

Yup, You Knew One Day It Would Happen, I'm Back

2009-07-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Gotta admit, it's been so long since I logged on that I almost forgot my password. Two months, my how time flies.

I'd like to thank all of you who continue to support this blog. Your comments mean a lot to me.

So, why's it been so long since my last post?

Two reasons really. First, my writing has been on hold because the Ripple has been sucking away all my time. It's stunning how fast things have grown over there. Wonderful fun, yes, but a massive time sink. I'm going to have to do some major time budgeting between writing and rippling once I start on the next novel.

And secondly, in truth, I haven't had much to write about. My original idea for this blog was to use my experience revising, querying, selling, publishing my novel as a way to pass on tips that I'm learning to you. My thought was that maybe my experience could help you along the path with your own writing. Also, I wanted to share that experience so we all could be there together, learning the joys, pains, tribulations of this darned difficult path we've chosen.

Along those lines, I hadn't had much to write about. Once I finished the revision and went through the Ten Point Revision Strategy, not much was happening. A long time was spent searching for the right agent.

But now I have news to report. Deadly Vision is being handled by a great agency that seems very excited to work with it. Even better, they hired an independent outside editor to read the book and review it. I suspect they did this before they agreed to handle it, to get another opinion. I don't know if this is a common practice with agents, to hire outside editors as another opinion, but it's an interesting concept.

Anyways, the editor read the novel and . . . loved it. Actually called the book the work of the next "new and improved Michael Crichton." With that the novel has been sent to publishers and we'll see what happens.

If you all would like, I'll post that first review of the novel. It's an interesting concept, being reviewed before the book is sold, as an agent's guide and agent marketing tool.

So now I've got lots to write about, as the book moves through the publishing channels.

In the meantime, let's get back to queries. These seem to be the bane of most writers, including myself. My next several posts will be about how to write an effective query letter. I've got some great references to share, and we'll post actual successful query letters so you can see what works and what doesn't. I'll even post my query which resulted in my novel being read by several agencies and eventually landing me with my agent.

Stay tuned. I'll be back.

Promise.

What Agents Hate to See in the Slush Pile

2009-05-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

I found this interesting article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, an excellent writing resource, and one of the few blogs that I subscribe to. The topic was Agents and the Slushpile: Ten Reasons they Stop Reading, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Here are the top 10:

10. Overdone description that doesn’t move the story forward
9. Spoon-feeding the reader what the character is thinking
8. Having the characters address each other repeatedly by name, as in, “John, let’s go!”
7. Introducing a character with first and last name, as in, “John Smith entered the room.”
6. Beginning a story with dialogue
5. Opening with a cliché
4. Yanking the reader out of the action with backstory
3. Not giving the reader a sense of place or where the story is going
2. Characters are MIA until bottom of page 2
1. Telling instead of showing

Lots of these are items we've discussed in our Ten -Point Revision Strategy. Lots of great points we need to keep our eyes on.

Rewriting the novel - quotes from our peers

2009-05-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I'm kind of in writing stasis. The novel has been mailed out to agents, and I'm waiting for that special person to fall in love with it. I've done most of the research for the new novel, but haven't begun the actual writing process as I've been too busy taking care of other projects.

My father, with whom I wrote the TriEnergetics book (www.trienergetics.com) has formulated an idea for another book, so I need to write and prepare a non-fiction proposal. Very different than a fiction query. My Ripple Effect partner (www.ripplemusic.blogspot.com) and I are in the finalizing portion of forming a new business for the Ripple, so I need to write a business plan. And finally, I have some long lecture trips coming up this month, so I need to write and prepare some lectures.

All of which keeps me from writing.

But I'll get there. We'll write off May as a lost-writing month, but come June, I hope to be roaring back.

In the meantime, I found these quotes from your fellow writing peers on the internet and thought I'd share them with you, a way of sharing the anguish you feel about your rewrite. Let me know if any of these resonate with you, and also let me know how you're doing on your rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting.)

Tips on Rewriting From Your Peers

"At this point, it seems that no matter how far away I get from the work of rewriting (lawyering during the day, playing music at night, watching TV with my son, etc), I am always having thoughts and ideas about changing the bar room scene to this way or revising the dialogue between MC and chick #2 that way. Too often these flashes of utter brilliance would dissolve as quickly as they appeared. Unfortunately, they lack the manners to appear only when I am at the computer.
So I carry a tiny digital voice recorder at all times. After carrying it for a while, I've found it increasingly easier for my mind to summon chunks of text from the draft and to think through rewrites in my head, which I then articulate into the recorder. This has yielded some exhilarating results and improved my time management too."
- Peter

"A well-published author read an early ms of mine and gave me the best tip I've ever had. 'This is good,' he said, 'but more color, more smell.' "
- David

"I know one thing - revision is just that: a new vision. The story changes and grows during that process and there are many surprises for the writer. Another friend compared the revision process to a pop-bead necklace. You find the thread that runs through the book. Then you pick and choose what beads to string on that thread. Some you will put aside, some you will keep, sometimes you’ll have to find brand new beads not used before."
- Sharon

"From Stephen King's memoir On Writing: An editor wrote to him on a rejected manuscript: "2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%. Good luck." This has always helped me. In the first draft you simply write the story. Get it down and out and properly archived. Then go back later and operate. One last point, also from Master King, is to be sure and let your first draft rest after it's written. Save it on your thumb drive, your hard drive, and on paper and walk away from it. Don't even think about it for at least a month. Chronological and psychological distance are key to the revision process."
- Ted

"Don't look at (rewriting) as a daunting task. If you do, you will feel like you will never get it done - and I know people who don't. I am one of these writers who personally loves editing and this is why: I think of my end result. I can see just how great my story is going to be once all the polish is on and it's glossy and shiny."
- Madison

"When I'm ready to do a rewrite, I read the 'original' out loud and anywhere I stumble--that gets changed/rewritten/deleted or at the very least fixed so it can read more smoothly. And along this line, reading to a mirror (of what you think might be your last rewrite) helps you get used to reading to an audience (even if it's only an audience of one) and picks up even more rough spots."
- Dia

"My suggestions: 1) Don't rewrite until you've finished the first draft. 2) Take a break. This way, when you come back to it, you can get that lovely feeling of it being written by someone else - and therefore fair game for criticism and cutting! 3) Use a good thesaurus if you must, or really work at re-thinking what you want to communicate - this will bring up some great language, and improve your style."
- Drew

"It is in rewrites that love of language is expressed. First drafts are for inspiration, concept, and organization. Then the fun part comes - get the details right."
- Gene

"Once I have committed to write about the contents, it then becomes a part of my life. There of course is the initial composition. Then I put it aside for a month or two and perform a re-write. Put that re-write aside for the same period of time and do it again. Ad infinitum, until it's press time."
- Bob

ThrillerFest in July - Will You Be Going

2009-04-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

If you're writing a thriller, odds are you know about this already, but just in case you don't, here's a little update on ThrillerFest. I'm not sure yet if I'm going. My beautiful wife and I are working hard to see if we can fit it into our schedule. But if you're writing a thriller, you probably ought to give it a shot.

The place to be for thriller lovers is New York in July. It'll be hot outside but inside ... it'll be hot, too! Hot bestsellers, hot topics, hot authors. Better than going to the beach with your favorite new thriller book! You can mingle with your favorite thriller authors instead.

A preliminary schedule is available now at www.thrillerfest.org. CraftFest, held July 8-9, 2009, is devoted to writers of all levels, including aspiring writers working on their first books. AgentFest, on the afternoon of July 9th, will thrill you in a different fashion if you're looking for an agent. Over forty top agents will be available to hear your pitch.

Printing the Manuscript - Terror and Anguish Wrapped Up in One Hour and 15 Minutes

2009-04-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

Does anyone have the same anguish I have. The same fear and absolute dread I feel. The acidic pit boring through my stomach lining like battery acid through an unprotected cornea. The abject terror that I only experience when I'm doing one specific task. One thing that should be so simple, so painless, yet it's usually frustrating enough to make this grown man want to stand on his desk and smash his chair against the wall.

Yes, I'm talking about my absolute least favorite writing activity. . . printing the novel.

(Aarrrgggghhhhh! Run away in terrror)

It's amazing how much trepidation I feel when I know it's time to print the entire manuscript. It shouldn't be this hard, but it is, every time.

I'm not talking about insecurities, or worries that the manuscript isn't good enough or will be rejected. I can deal with those. That's all part of being a writer. What I can't deal with are technical problems that always seem to arise, like flies hoovering over a dumpster, during the printing process. And damn, if there doesn't always seem to be at least one.

Can anyone relate to this or is this my private burden?

I went out and bought the most reliable, fastest printer I could, hoping to ease the process, to no avail. Still, a mini-drama every time.

Twice this evening, the printing job stopped midway through for no apparent reason other than a micro-shift in the wind direction over lower Angola. When I restarted the job after the first stoppage, it did restart, at the beginning, reprinting the entire 258 pages that it had already printed before it stopped the first time. Leaving me searching for newer and more exciting swear words (perhaps in an exotic language) and wondering what to do with the half-finished, printed novel now lying in a heap on my floor.

I dare never leave the side of the printer, watching each and every page like a nursery school teacher watching her kids over recess. Checking to make sure the paper doesn't jam or the printer doesn't spit out one page of text over the length of two pages that were stuck together. Occasionally, the printer spits our blank pages for no apparent reason, these have to be fished out. Each page crawls out of the printer unleashing a Stephen King novel's worth of terrible possibilities.

As the job progresses, the printer gets so internally warm that the outgoing paper starts to curl. This, of course, makes it lie irregular on the receiving bed so the next page printed scrolls underneath the previous page. Or pushes it off the printer on to the floor. So I stand there, watching each page come out, tapping the paper down so it lines up properly. Page after page.

For one hour and fifteen minutes.

Wait. . . the paper's jammed. Got to start the whole thing over again.

Ah, the joys of publishing.

2009-04-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

An incredibly short post today, but an important one, one that I'm trying to integrate into my head, heart and soul. It's all based around a quote I heard recently, don't recall where. As I was going back to make a few changes to my opening chapter, searching to find the key sentences to make that chapter come alive, the quote jumped back into my head, and somehow, it all made sense.

Now I won't say that this simple quote solved all my problems with the chapter, but I do think it helped me to focus and what may have been missing.

Here's the quote:

Live Your Life Out Loud.

You may have seen this one before. I certainly won't claim credit for it. People use it refer to everything from creating the life you want to getting tattoos and nose piercings.

But for writing, it suddenly resonated with me. Don't be timid. Don't be afraid. Be big and bold and out there. Create big scenes and big characters and big situations. Not bombastic, but not withheld. Let go of the inner critic and just write. Or perhaps . . .

Write Your Novel Out Loud.

Don't be afraid. Just do it.

Hmmmm, words for thought. Time to get back to writing. Please send me your thoughts on this.

Best Blogs by Literary Agents

2009-04-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm knee deep in the Literary Agent quest. The novel is being reviewed by a few agents in New York, and I'm waiting to see where my future lies.

I need to get started on writing the next novel, but I keep tweaking the opening to the last book, constantly trying to find a way to make in unputdownable. (that's a word right, to not be able to be put down? Anyways, it is now.)

In the meantime, as I've been browsing so many agents pages, I thought I'd share with you this list that came from the Guide To Literary Agents site. It's a very informative, helpful list of insider information. Hope it helps you on your quest. This is the list of the Writer's Digest 5 best agent blog pages.

1. Pub Rants

Denver-based agent Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary has kept this blog up for several years, and has covered just about every topic - contracts, queries, book covers, you name it. It's one of the best all-around agent blogs out there.

2. Nathan Bransford

Sure he looks young, but Nathan, an agent at Curtis Brown in San Francisco, knows a lot about publishing, and his blog is wide in scope. He hosts small contests, talks queries, discusses the craft of writing, keeps writers' spirits up, and does it all blogging through the night. Each week, he has a roundup news post that links to dozens of stories and happenings in the publishing world.

3. Rachelle Gardner

Rachelle, at Wordserve, hasn't been agenting that long - just two years or so, and her blog was very new last year when it ended up on our 101 short list. So why did we include it last year? Because we saw potential and wisdom, and Rachelle has only upped the ante by blogging more and more. Although she specializes in Christian/inspirational works, her advice is universal and practical - dissecting book proposals and sharing query tips.

4. Query Shark

There are more "query critique" sites now, but this site was one of the first and still the best. Agent Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary invites writers to submit queries for dissection and criticism/praise. If you wonder what a query looks like - or, more so, what a good query looks like, just visit Query Shark.
The site isn't updated as often as the others on this list, but there's a reason for that. (See No. 5)

5. Janet Reid

That's right. Janet Reid runs not only the Query Shark blog but also her own blog about agenting and publishing. She talks about all things agenting and publishing, and her brutal-honesty style is like no other.

Although there was only room for five, there are several other great agent blogs to visit. Off the top of my head, I would encourage you to visit The Swivet (Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint), Dystel & Goderich (a community agent blog), and BookEnds.

2009-03-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Again, too much time has passed since I last posted. All for good reasons though. The research on my new novel is mostly completed and the outlining process has begun. I'm also in the process of forming a record label with my wife and "other brother from another mother." So my time has been sapped.

I've gone back and am re-evaluating my first few chapters of the prior manuscript, looking to see if I can make them even better.

Along those lines, I found this advice over Feed Blitz and thought I'd share it with you all.

This is titled, "Advice on Revising From Your Peers," and falls nicely in with my Ten Point Revision Strategy. Let me know your thoughts on these pearls and if you find this useful.

"As you work your way through each scene in a novel ask yourself:

What is happening in this scene?
Why is it important?
Is it believable?
What is the conflict? Who wants what, and who or what won’t let them have it?
What does this scene contribute specifically and integrally to the plot? How does it drive it?
Can it be cut, partially or completely, and not effect the plot?
Can the integral part of the scene be folded into another scene, and the rest eliminated?
When does the scene occur?
Would the plot be better served if you moved the scene to another place in the unfolding of the story?
From whose point of view is this scene experienced?
How does this character contribute to the plot? Can another character do it so you can eliminate this one, or combine the two into one character?
Where is this person?
What is the POV character in the scene doing?
What is he/she feeling emotionally about what’s happening in the scene?
What is he/she feeling emotionally about things outside the scene?
What is he/she seeing? Hearing? Touching? Even smelling and tasting?
Can you exchange “he said”s and “she said”s with action?
Can you exchange passive verbs with active ones?
Can you exchange adverbs (“ly” words) with action?
What does each paragraph within the scene contribute? Can it be eliminated?
What does each sentence within the scene contribute? Can it be eliminated?

How're You Doing with Your Writing?

2009-02-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

Busy, busy, busy.

Got lots of things popping around in the hopper right now.

The trick, I've found, is to stay obsessively organized when multiple projects are working.

My novel is currently being read by an agent in New York. Please cross your fingers for me, and I'll do the same for you when yours is ready.

I've done a lot of work on query letters, short synopsis, and full synopsis. We'll talk more about that stuff in later posts.

In the meantime, I've been outlining and researching the next novel. Love that part. More posts to come.

So, while I'm waiting to get to all that, how're you doing with your writing? I'd love it if everyone who pops on over to this blog, dropped a little comment on where you are in your writing, what's working and what's holding you up. We're all in this together!

Summing it Up - Writing the Novel Synopsis

2009-02-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a post today about the art of writing the novel synopsis, but then I came upon this eloquent article that just says it better than I ever could. I've taken this from FMWriters.com, which I've found to be an excellent source of information.

You can find them in my Resource Guide to the right, and a direct link to this original post is

http://fmwriters.com/Visionback/Issue%2015/workshop.htm

I hope you find this as helpful for you as it has been for me. And thank you Sheila Kelly for writing it.

We'll rejoin later and talk about the two page synopsis versus the longer, full-novel synopsis. You will definitely need them both when submitting to agents.

Facing the Facts - Dealing with Rejection

2009-02-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

I'd like this post to be more interactive than my last several posts. So to do that, I'd like to ask all of you a question.

How do you deal with rejection?

With my work currently making the rounds through New York, it's a fact of life that not everyone's going to love it. Lot's of form letters will come back, lot's of terse answers and lot's of rejection.

We all develop our own strategies for dealing with this. My preferred strategy is blissful denial and unbridled optimism. I've heard of writers who wallpaper their entire room with rejection letters. This, me to seems defeatist and bizarre. I handle my rejections differently. When a rejection note comes, I read it, trying to gleam any useful information that it may contain (if it is a personal letter with direct references to my work. Form letters are of no value) then I file the letter away in a file clearly labeled "Try Again."

Now, this might seem Pollyanna or sugar-coated to you, but I'll tell you it's a lot more positive and focused to get a letter, call it a try-again letter and file it accordingly. And truth is, I've gone back to the try-again file, pulled out a letter, contacted that person and had success at a later date. Persistence pays off. Never take "no" for an answer. Just keep pushing straight ahead.

As Robert Dugoni, the best writing teacher I've ever had says, "Be a bulldog."

So I'm a bulldog, and bulldog's don't accept rejection.

What's your strategy?

2009-02-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Very quick update today.

Two page synopsis is done. New cover letter/query is done.

Contacted my agent, who wants to see the book.

I'll start some posts about how I went about the query and the synopsis this week, but first, to the post office!

My dog is happy.

Formatting Issues

2009-01-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Now that the novel is finished, I have my most dreaded task still ahead; writing the two page summary. Honestly, I hate this part. What could be harder than summarizing your years of work into 2 short pages?

I'll have some tips and techniques for summaries coming soon, but before we get there, I wanted to clean up on final aspect of the Final Read: format.

I get asked lots of questions on word count for a thriller, font to use, etc. The basics of writing. The same stuff I had so many questions about. So in this post I wanted to clarify issues of page format, as taught to me by a New York agent. I wanted to do this in proper novel format, but blogger won't let me. Still, the information below is correct.

left margin: header: your last name/title

right margin page # at right, or in footer

(four or five lines)

Chapter Title (centered)

(two or three lines)

One tab indent (five spaces) --start first paragraph. Everything in a standard font, i.e. Times New Roman, or Courier. Always 12 point. DO NOT add an extra space after sentences. One space, that's it. Do not underline lieu of italics. Left justify only. Double space.

Indent each new paragraph with tab key.

Do not add extra double space between paragraphs, just indent.

One inch margins minimum.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Keep writing

Final Read and Final Changes

2009-01-23T12:30:00.000-08:00

I don't usually take space in this blog to talk about personal affairs, but I did promise in my sub-header text that I was going to share everything with you as this novel heads towards completion, publication and it's eventual Nobel Prize :)

Anyways, I'm happy to report that this morning I put the finishing touches on the final read through (and there was much rejoicing!) After going through the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, incorporating the extra few points, I can honestly say that this is the tightest version of the novel yet. My final act, other than one last spell check, was to use the search command to help me incorporate my last revision point; eliminating "feeling" words.

Setting the search for "felt" 95 entries came up where I used the word felt. Such as "he felt his heart begin to race," etc. After re-reading each entry, there were times when I wanted to keep the "feeling" word, whether for cadence, pausing, or an intentional distancing of the character from the act, ie., when one of my character's is dying and he can feel his oxygen content dropping in his blood. But about half the time, I rewrote the sentence to remove the word. "She felt her anger rising," became "her anger surged," or such.

Tomorrow, I write the cover letter and the book goes off to my agent. On the off chance, she is no longer interested, hates it or puts out a contract on my head, I'm going to write a new query as well. I imagine then, my next few posts will be on query writing, which is always a fun and challenging thing to do.

Moving forward feels so good.

Of Key Importance - Saving Your Work

2009-01-20T05:46:00.000-08:00

I used to have a dog named Sara (well, I have three of them right now, all Lhasa's, but what I'm talking about was many years ago.) Sara, a yellow lab mix, was a rescue, previously badly abused and terrified of men. For some reason, she bonded with me instantly, crawling across the lawn on her belly before placating herself at my feet at the doggie adoption day. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes as if to say, I know you're a nice man, please take me home. So, I did.

Sara was a wonderful dog, by my side every instant of every day. Her favorite place to hang out with me when I was writing was at my feet, underneath my desk. She'd lie down on my toes and patiently wait for about 2 hours of writing time, before she'd pop her head up onto my lap saying, "that's enough, let's go walk." I'd ignore her for a while, and she'd nudge me harder, and harder. Eventually, she'd jump her front paws onto my lap and start scratching me. "Let's go," she'd say. No more writing, let's play!"

It was a game we played every day, and I loved it.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post.

One morning, after a particularly inspired bit of writing, Sara started her routine. I'd cranked out 15 pages of beautifully (in my mind) written first draft, moving through some key scenes and solving some difficult problems. I was flying. It was the best nonstop run of writing I'd had in a long time.

Then it disappeared.

Sara, per her routine, moved to plop her head onto my lap and in doing so, her butt sat on the on/off button on my surge protector, shutting it off. My eyes gaped. My jaw dropped. But no amount of praying was going to solve this problem. I'd lost it all. Wanting to scream, instead, I looked down into the lovely brown eyes of my dog, smiled, and took her for a walk.

But I learned my lesson that day. Now, I'm compulsive about saving my work, and I'd like to encourage you, if you aren't already, to do the same.

When I'm writing, my hand instinctively guides the cursor to the save icon every page. Never, will I let more than one page be finished without saving. It's become an unconscious habit for me. At first, I thought that this repetitive stopping of writing to save the work would slow down my writing or inspiration. It doesn't. As I said, it's unconscious for me now, and perhaps the security it gives makes writing easier.

When I'm revising, rereading, I save my work after every single change. Each sentence that is modified, I hit the save icon. Every single time.

And it doesn't stop there. After each writing session, I back up all my work on a series of flash drives. I hope you're all doing this, but I didn't learn of it before too long ago, so maybe some of you haven't done this yet. Flash drives are now amazingly inexpensive, hold a tremendous amount of data, and can bring you a wealth of security. I have three flash drives that I save my novel onto after each morning session. One drive goes into my desk. One drive goes into my briefcase, which is always with me when I leave the house, and one drive is attached to my keyring, which always goes with me when I travel.

Flash drives can be fun, and you should have fun with it. Writing is fun, but it's also your love, your passion. Let the flash drive be a reflection of that fun, that love. Not that I'm into hamburgers or anything, but that picture sure makes me laugh.

It may sound strange, but I like having my novel with me at all times. In my pocket, in my case. That way, should anything ever happen to my home, the novel is safe.

Compulsive, I know. But I've worked too hard for too long on this to lose it now.

Besides, Sara would want it that way.

Revision Strategy - Choose the Right Words - Eliminate Feeling Words

2009-01-16T04:47:00.000-08:00

A nice little tidbit that I picked up the other day. I've always know this, seen it in my own writing, but never actually put it down as a strategy point before. So today we're going to rectify that.

Here's our new point to consider in our revision strategy.

Eliminate Feeling Words.

Now what does that mean? Quite simply, eliminate the words that we use to describe our senses, but not the words that describe the sensory experience. This process will tighten your writing, force you to choose better verbs, tighter sentences, better descriptors.

So what's an example? How about this?

He felt the cold barrel of the gun pressed against his temple.

Now remove the "sense" word, and it becomes. The cold barrel of the gun pressed against his temple.

Which one do you feel is tighter? Which one conveys more drama? Which one seems more sensory?

I'm back adding a paragraph here, based on the excellent comments this post has received, but the points brought up are too important to leave to a chance finding in the comment section.

By using the "feeling word," as a writer, you are distancing the reader from the character's POV by telling them what the character is feeling, rather than putting them inside the character's body and letting them feel it themselves. Saying, "he felt the . . . " takes away from the immediacy of the moment, creating a pause that pulls the reader back.

In other words, don't tell the reader what the character felt, describe the sensation. Again, the "cold barrel of the gun pressed against his temple," is much more immediate, sensory evocative, and threatening. It is what's happening.

Of course, there's always exceptions, and there are plenty of times when I may really want the "he felt," in the sentence, but I'm trying to really look at my sentences, my length, my tightness, and this can be a simple, powerful and effective tool.

What are your thoughts?

Writing the Novel - Which Font is Best?

2009-01-12T17:29:00.000-08:00

This is a question I get asked a lot, and as simple as it seems, it can create a lot of confusion.

What is the best font to use for my novel?

The simple answer is to use whatever works for you, is appealing to your eye, and most importantly, easy to read.

The more involved answer is that agents do have preferences. They don't want anything flashy or creative or flamboyant. Beginning writers often try to play with different fonts as a way to express their individuality or creativity. Nothing screams out amateur greater than this. The font is not where you will stand out to an agent, it's the writing. A flamboyant font is enough of a red flag for agents to toss your manuscript into the trash.

What agents want is a professional looking (and reading) manuscript that follows strict format. They also want a font that is easy to read.

Originally, I wrote in Courier because I was told it was the most neutral. I've since switched because the spacing between the letters creates too many pages for the word count. After speaking with Robert Dugoni, I now use exclusively, Times New Roman, and have since learned that this is a very commonly used, accepted font with professional writers.

Other basic fonts should be acceptable, but the beauty of Times New Roman is that the page count you'll get using this font is nearly identical to the page count for the finished product. In other words, my novel at 102,000 words is 454 pages, just as it will appear when printed (or close to it.)

Save the standing out for your writing. When it comes to font, it's best to blend in with the rest.

That All Important First Chapter - Six Tips to Getting it Right

2009-01-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

Nothing in your book will work if you don't get that all important first chapter off the ground. No agent will read it if you make mistakes right off the bat. So, as we're heading into our final revisions, here's somethings to watch out for to avoid that first chapter clunker.

1) Description: Don't start your book off with page after page, or even paragraph after paragraph of description. Not even sentence after sentence. Don't describe the characters in detail, or the setting, or the mood. There's time for all that later. Introduce the characters, preferably in action, at or just before a big moment. Then you'll get your story off the ground. Description can come later, but even then, with modulation. There's no room in today's writing for endlessly, long, leisurely descriptive passages. I skip over reading those. Don't you?

And no matter what else you do, don't start your book with descriptions of the weather.

2) POV: From the get-go, make sure your POV is tight and clear and your voice firm and strong. Don't be wishy washy, you'll lose the reader.

3) Action: As I said before, get the action going right away. There's no room for a chapter where nothing happens. Readers respond to scenes that start in media res.

4) Avoid Chiches and Cheesy Hooks: Draw the reader in naturally, with your story, not some prefab cheesy hook you think will get their attention. Avoid dream scenes, completely if possible, but certainly in the first chapter.

5) Backstory: We talked about this in the dreaded info dump. Don't launch into backstory on characters or place before you get into the plot. Readers don't care about your character until you make them care. You make them care by their actions, not their story.

6) Dialogue: Right from the start, make sure your dialogue is tight and strong. Again, don't be afraid to show strong voice. It's the only way.

More Editing Tips - Writer's Common Mistakes

2009-01-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

I found this article at On Writing, and felt it was very well done. Another nice set of tips to add to the Ten Point Revision Strategy.

More Common Mistakes Writer's Make. I'm guilty of quite a few of these myself.

1) Spelling. We all rely too much on the spell checker. Nothing cries out amateur more than gross misspellings in a submission. The spell checker only finds words that are misspelled from its vocabulary, which may have no relation to how they're used in your sentence. The misuse of there/their and they're is a great example. One I make too often.

2) Grammar. It's important to maintain consistency in your use of grammar. I tend to write with quite a few sentence fragments, which is my style. Others right with run-on sentences as a style. Neither is good or bad, just be aware of grammar rules. Break them only when you know them. The On Writing article stresses maintenance of tense also. Can't argue with that.

3) Homophones and similar looking words. Another item that your spell checker won't pick up. Pour or pore. You have to know which is which.

4) Punctuation. Not my forte, but always try to use the proper punctuation, proper use of commas, colons, semi's, etc. I've probably broken the rules ten times in this post alone.

5) Maintenance of Point of View. Old rules are changing. You can shift from one point of view to another in the same chapter now. Even in the same paragraph. But you must do it clearly and elegantly.

I'll keep my eye out for these errors as I'm finishing this final read.

More soon.

The Final Read Through

2009-01-04T06:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope you all find this year to be happy, healthy, and successful.

I'm back from my research trip and have volumes of material socked away in my mind for location, people, culture, texture. There's nothing like going someplace fully with the intention of researching for a novel to help you see all the little nuances you'd miss as a tourist.

Traveling has set me back a bit on writing here, which I plan to rectify this year. Look for an update at least once a week as my novel is completed, goes off to the agent, to the publisher and beyond. I'll keep you all posted on all the tricks and tips I learn along the way.

The other set back was on the goal of finishing the book by 12/31. I'm a touch off, but not too bad. Which brings me to the all-important subject of today's post: The Final Read Through.

After going through the whole novel, following the Ten Point Revision Strategy we've discussed, there's still one, immensely important task to do. The Final Read Through.

In order to do this, you must get some distance from the book. Many authors suggest putting the book into the desk drawer to let it cool. For me, the trip to Turkey was perfect. I didn't bring my computer, I didn't work on anything else. I didn't read novels or book or magazines on writing. I let my brain cool. With that, I knew that when I got home, I'd be able to re-approach the novel with fresh eyes.

The goal of this read is to really check for language flow. By this time, after completing the Ten Points, character should be solid. Premise should be like a rock. Major description, flow, pace, all of it should be where you want it. With this read, you're just trying to see how the book. . . reads.

I make little changes to sentences. One thing I really try to do is to limit the amount of times that I back into a sentence. An example:

Sitting on the back porch, Doug reached for his glass of wine.

That phraseology is called, backing into a sentence. the subject is Doug, the action is reaching for the wine, the first clause is purely descriptive.

Now there's nothing wrong with occasionally backing into a sentence. The grammer is ok, and it's nice to use this phraseology to break up the constant; subject-verb sequence. But it can be over done. Check your writing. Occasional is ok, too much is too much.

I also focus on length of sentences, which usually tend to be too long. For the most part, shorter is better. Keep the book moving along with well clipped sentences.

Word selection we've already gone over with the Ten Points, but here again is an opportunity to make sure each word is really working for you. Saying exactly what you want it to do, as powerfully as possible without the need for modifiers to strengthen it.

I'm on chapter 8 of this read. Hopefully I'll be done by next week.

Then it's off.

I'll keep you posted.

Traveling and Research

2008-12-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. To all of you who continue to write comments, thanks. I definitely haven't given up on the blog, in fact, soon I'll have a whole new bunch of posting ideas for us to discuss.

As far as the novel goes, I'm on track to finish the revision by my deadline of 12/31. I have one more minor change to make then truthfully, just the final read through. Soon it will go back to my agent.

Which brings us to the new and exciting stuff and why I've been gone so long. You've all heard the adage "write what you know." Well, in truth, the adage should be "write what you can learn about." We can't all write about what we know and make it interesting, but we can all do research and bring new and interesting ideas and information into our lives and writing. To that end, I intend to do several posts coming up on research, how, where, when and why.

As for me and why it's been so long between posts? I've been doing my own research, in Istanbul. My next medical thriller will take my hero there so I went away for a few weeks to live in the City and gather the vibe. Details, sights, sounds, smells, sensations. People, places, foods, drinks. Tourists and locals. I have detailed notes and images to lend veracity to the next novel.

That one, we'll write together.

The Eleventh Point - Kill the Clunkers

2008-11-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

As I'm finishing up this (hopefully) final revision of the book, another revision strategy point has come to mind so frequently that I've been tempted to add it as the eleventh point on our Ten Point Revision Strategy.

Unfortunately, it's so simple and basic, I'd be embarrassed to have to remind myself to do this.

Yet, time after time, reviewing the book that I'd worked on, slaved on for such a long time; woke up at 4 am daily to squeeze more hours out of my exhausting day; obsessed over in the waning hours of night, story ideas coming to me instead of dreams, I've realized I don't always do this one particular thing.

What is it you ask? What daunting discovery have I made that could have such magnitude that it deserves consideration as the 11th point of our strategy?

It's really very simple.

Write well.

Yes, that's it. The new 11th point of our revision strategy. Write Well. Or as I'll rename it and gussy it up; Kill the Clunkers.

It's stunning to think that after all the times I've gone through the novel, how many clunkers remain hidden in the text. What happens is that our eyes get immune to our own bad writing. When we re-read it, our brain nods "yes, that's what I wrote. That's what I intended to write," without ever realizing that what we wrote was bad.

Sometimes it takes an external eye, like a writing group, to help point out these bastards of the English language. If you don't have a group, then the best thing to do is to read your book out loud to yourself. Not in your mind or in a whisper, but out loud. Belt it out. Imagine you're giving a book reading in front of 1,000 of new, unfamiliar readers. Talk loud, with emphasis, and listen to your own words. See how they hang together in this context.

You may find a few clunkers.

What's a clunker? Simply a really badly written sentence. It may be cliche. Melodramatic. Flat. Overly reaching. Whatever, it clunks when it should purr. It's a clunker.

Since I've never been embarrassed to show the horror of some of my own writing, I'll offer a few examples of clunkers I found on this draft that somehow survived all my other reads.

1) What are you going to do?" she asked, drawing on her cigarette. (how can you ask something when you're sucking on a cigarette? You either ask, then suck, or suck then ask. Not at the same time.)

2) Malcomb's eyes widened like a terrified doe's. (that's just bad)

3) Memories he'd spent his entire life running away from were now chasing after him, like a rabid dog biting at his heels. (What? Doggy memories biting me? Ouch!)

4) A tear fell onto her cheek. (cliche)

Other things I've noticed is using the same word too many times in short bites of the book. For example, I have a character who has a "familiar toothless grin." Darn if I didn't write toothless three times in three paragraphs.

These are all clunkers. Examples of bad writing. I found them in my book. I killed them.

Now I'm hunting for more.

Getting Back to Revisions - Rewrite or Start Over

2008-10-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

Time to get back to revising.

Heard from my writing group in a fillet session, er. . . constructive criticism session. Actually, they were quite kind and actually very complimentary, which was unusual. Must have been the wine.

But their comments brought up one very important point that's worth discussing and getting your thoughts. Rewriting or Starting Over.

Before we get there, let me explain. My current novel is actually a revised version of a revised version of an earlier work. Essentially, I took concepts and basic plotlines from an earlier work and deconstructed the novel, re-concepted the plot and characters, wrote new story arcs for each character and wrote a new outline for the new story. I did however make one major mistake that has come back to haunt me over and over, which is the title of this post.

Whenever possible, in order to save time, energy and writing, I reused some of my old book parts. At the time, I thought I was being clever. If I could reuse a chapter here or a plot line there, make some minor changes, I'd make my writing faster. Turned out to be wrong.

Here's the problem. In reusing some of the old stuff, I ran into a few instances where the character motivation for doing a certain thing was actually no longer valid. Since I wanted to reuse the part, I simply changed the motivation in my current form, thinking it would solve the problem, but it didn't, it created new problems.

Let me give an example. In my first version of the book, after the police come to the lab and my hero and his research partner make a daring escape, they go back and meet at the hero's apartment. At the time, this was crucial, because my hero desperately needed to do something with their research project and time was of the esscence. It had to be done right then. Afterward, they went on the run before the police found them at the apartment. Are you following this?

In the new version, after they escape the police I decided they would still go back to the apartment and do the same repair of the research project. The problem is, the reason they desperately had to do it before, no longer existed. Now, they just did it, to which my entire writing group could only ask "why?" And my answer? Well, there really isn't one, is there. My characters did it because I was lazy and wanted to keep some old scenes rather than rewrite them. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I violoated one of my own ten immutable laws of revising: Know each character's motivation.

My advice then, when confronted with a similar situation in your rewriting, is not to reuse old scenes. Rather, it's always best to rewrite them. When you rewrite them in the flow of your current writing, the character's motivation is more organic from the story, not contrived by the author just to be able to reuse some segments. And this is the key lesson from this experience. Each action that the character performs, each motivation, has to be organic to the current book. If you're going to reuse some scenes, make sure that the motivation and action still makes sense in your current writing. If there's any question, it's probably best to just rewrite it.

I'm doing that now. Fortunately, I'm very near the end of the novel, and this is a quick fix for me, but I'm going through each line, making sure that any old vestiges from the last novel still make sense now, that the reasons are organically grown from the current state of the characters.

Then I'll be done and it's off to the agent!

We'll write about query's and synopses then.

I'm Back!

2008-10-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

Wow! Hard to believe so much time transpired since my last post. But it did.

In case you were wondering, I've been fine. In fact, your great comments of encouragement and the growing number of readers who've found some value from this blog keep me motivated to keep on going forward.

Over these last three weeks, I simply took a break. After completing the novel and waiting for my writing group to come back to me with their final recommendations (which will happen this Thursday) I decided to take some well-deserved time away from writing or writing about writing. Instead, I focused on The Ripple Effect, which has been incredibly busy of late.

But with my writing group meeting coming later this week, soon I'll be launching back into the novel. And with that, I'll begin updating here again as well.

I intend to finish our discussion of outlining. And with the novel just about ready to go back to my agent, I thought I'd write about the all-important query letter and the extremely difficult novel summary. Both essential topics if you hope to get published.

Please keep your comments coming. It's nice to know that all of my blabbering may actually be helping some body.

Back to the updating and novel after my meeting Thursday!

Revising the Novel - Performance Update

2008-09-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

I may not have been quite as sequestered as the monk in this photo, but it's been pretty darn close, hiding myself away, working feverishly to finish the revision of Deadly Vision. And, after about 6 months of mostly concentrated work, I'm thrilled to say, that I've finished! Yea! Much applause and fanfare (and hopefully some much needed sleep!)

Sunday, I went through the last chapters, made the final cuts and got the novel down to about 100,000 words, which was my goal. Without a doubt, this is the cleanest, tightest, most aggressive version of the novel ever.

Keeping the Ten-Point Revision Strategy on my desk the whole time, I found the points useful in constantly reminding me of what I needed to do. One thing that I realized is that during all of my previous revisions, I didn't really revise the book. instead, I would really just read the book. Sure, I'd make a few changes here or there to wording, expand a small scene to add more detail, fix a grammatical error, but that's about it. It's so easy to get into the pattern of reading our writing, not really revising our writing.

To that end, the Ten-Point Revision Strategy was really helpful.

Particularly:

1) With each chapter, I asked myself consciously, what are the character's motivations here. What does each character (not just my main hero) really want to happen? This brought up lots of previously unseen opportunities for conflict.

2) Does this scene move the story forward. Wow! That one was really powerful for me. I can't tell you how many times I read a scene that I really liked, but on close scrutiny, realized it wasn't necessary to move the story forward. Here's the latest example.

In one scene, my hero needs to use the internet to contact someone. He can't connect from the place he's hiding for fear of it being traced back to his location, so he has to go to the public library to use their computer. In that scene, I loved writing about the elderly librarian who ran the library since our hero was a school boy. I loved the descriptions of the library itself, really imparting the small town feel I was reaching for. I loved the tension, our hero felt by connecting from such a public place.

There was only one problem. None of it was necessary.

The Librarian never appears again. I'd already described the small town. Our hero has been nervous and in fear of being caught for the last several pages. In the end, the whole point of the scene was to mention that he connected with his lab partner to set up an important trial, then steps to the payphone and calls the police officer that's been chasing him. That's it. I wrote 3 or 4 pages to describe what I just wrote to you in one sentence.

So I cut it. All of it. Kill your babies, they say. Librarian, gone. Library in small town, mentioned in passing. The scene now starts with my hero stepping out of the library where he'd just connected with his lab partner and walking into the phone booth. I still have all the tension of him getting caught while he's standing there, fully exposed, making the phone call. I mention in brief back story, that he'd just connected with the lab. Now, I'm moving directly on to the conversation with the cop. Saved 4 pages. probably 700 words.

3) I really loved the "end each chapter earlier," point. I really recommend you try this one. Something so simple, often times had a really powerful effect of increasing tension and drama. Sometimes I just eliminated the last sentence of the chapter, sometimes the entire last paragraph. Either way, what I found was all those cut little pat endings I'd written, the final chapter summary or forced dramatic ending, were usually hampering the drama. By cutting them, and ending the chapter with an earlier sentence, I often felt there was actually more tension. More of a cliffhanger.

4) I paid lots of attention to word choice, avoiding overused words, and overall tightening my word selection. I eliminated writing "he paused," instead, creating the pause. And adverbs became an endangered species in my book. Or as Metallica once said, "Kill em all!"

5) Tightening dialog also worked well. In truth, we tend to never speak more than 3 sentences during a conversation before the other person interrupts us with a comment. Yet, when we write, we have no problem with one character going on for whole paragraphs. I've even seen some characters in books going on for a whole page, or more!!

This doesn't happen in real life, and shouldn't happen in your novel. Keep the dialog tight, brisk. It flows faster, the book flows faster and the dialog feels more natural, less forced.

So now, I just need to let my two writing groups catch up with me, give them a chance to destroy . . er, I mean critique my work, then one more final read through and it's back to my agent.

Just so you know, Warner Books and Bantam had both expressed an interest and both requested this revision, so hopefully we'll hear soon. Either way, I'll keep y'all posted of the developments as we move through this publishing experience together.

As always, you comments are most appreciated. They've kept me motivated to keep this blog going when I felt like stopping.

In the future, we're going to finish up outlining, move to query letters, novel summaries, plotting and other points. Let me know what you'd like read about.

Writing the Novel - Outlining Part 2

2008-09-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

Back to outlining.

A while back, when I started the first outlining post I answered the question, "Should I outline?" with a flippant, but honest answer.

Yes, if it works for you. No, if it doesn't.

In truth, very few people are capable of writing a successful novel without some sort of outline. Even the most free-flowing of us has some idea of what the novel is about. And even if they never commit this to paper, in their mind, if asked, they'll have an idea of where the story starts, who the characters are (at least some of them) and a vague idea as to what will happen in the book. Even if it's a totally vague idea, they'll at least know that their novel is a story about Mandy and Mike, growing up in a small town in Oklahoma, and they fall in love, but as economic hardship strikes their town, they break up and have to deal with the question of whether or not to have their unborn child or abort it. Etc.

This little sentence may be all the author knows about his/her book, and they may intentionally say, "I never outline because I want to be free to explore the story where ever it goes." But they're wrong. That little sentence is an outline. Even if it's only in their head, it's still an outline.

An outline is a basic structure for a story. A preconceived notion of a beginning and various events that will happen as the novel moves towards the end. Notice I didn't say that an outline includes an ending. It doesn't have to. If you really want to live the "mystery" of writing and see how the story ends for itself, that's fine. You've still outlined in your head how the story will go.

Let's look at that for a moment, as loose as this "outline" is.

There's a story start; characters and a location.
Story points are laid out; economic hardship, a romance, a break-up, a pregnancy.

That's an outline. Now to take this basic idea and turn it into a more structured outline, one that won't cramp your "creative freedom," all you need to do is add a timeline and vision the obligate scenes that are necessary to make these events happen.

In other words. The beginning. You may start by introducing the town, the characters, the economic setting, what have you. But you've identified your beginning.

At some point you must introduce the characters. So you will need obligatory introductory scenes to bring in Mandy and Mike.

They need to have a romance. It can be already started and we're catching it in the middle or we can watch it start and grow. It's up to you. But either way, there are some obligatory scenes you must have to show a romance growing or maintaining.

She becomes pregnant. Her discovery of this is a pretty obligate scene.

Economic hardship strikes. Another obligate scene (or several)

They breakup. Many obligate scenes here to show how the economy has affected their relationship.

They need to decide what to do about the baby.

Where you go from there is anybody's guess.

It may not seem like much, but you've just outlined the basis of your novel. Now, once you really start to think about this and add a timeline, you'll see that there are really several obligatory scenes that need to happen to connect these scenes. As you fill those in, the outline becomes more clear. And you haven't necessarily written anything yet.

Tess Gerristen, the best-selling author, states that she never outlines. But this isn't true. What she means is that she never commits an outline of her novel to paper. But she knows from before she starts writing at least some of the obligatory scenes she'll be telling. She's also already done a ton of research, which in and of itself, dictates some scenes. By the time she sits down, with all her research, she's ready to start writing. She may not know everything that will happen as the novel unfolds, but she certainly knows where the book will start, the major events that will happen, how the research will factor in, and the obligate scenes she'll need to have those events unfold.

That's an outline.

In truth, I'm a big fan of outlining. And I'll go over my outlining process next post.

Writing the Novel - Another List of Overused Words

2008-09-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone's writing is going well and that progress is being made. Again, I'd like to thank all those who've posted comments. Your thoughts are much appreciated and gives me motivation to keep this blog going when I really have so many other things I should be doing.

A while back, I posted a list of words that I'd jotted down during various writing courses. These were words to be avoided, poor modifiers, weak descriptors, over-used words. That post has turned out to be one of my favorites, as I go back to it often as I'm rewriting. As I'm nearing completion of my revision, each word it seems is taking on greater importance, and I find myself commonly go back to that list.

So for today's post, I wanted to update it and expand it. Some of you may remember that the reason I originally started this blog was to share all that I've learned over the years towards publishing, but also for myself. When I came up with my Ten-Point Revision Strategy, this blog served as a thinking pad for me to flesh those ideas out, help me to concentrate and focus in the important details. And I still find I'm doing that. Each time I post, what I write about is as much to help me understand the topics as it is to offer any insights to the readers. Hopefully, we'll both be able to learn and grow in our writing together.

This list has been modified from phschool.com

I present it here as a tool for all of us to remember those weak, overused words. If you'd like any further research on the topic, please visit their site.

Overused Words

about approximately, nearly, almost, approaching, close to

absolutely unconditionally, perfectly, completely, ideally, purely

activity action, movement, operation, labor, exertion, enterprise, project, pursuit, endeavor, job, assignment, pastime, scheme, task

add attach, affix, join, unite, append, increase, amplify

affect adjust, influence, transform, moderate, incline, motivate, prompt

amazing overwhelming, astonishing, startling, unexpected, stunning, dazzling, remarkable

awesome impressive, stupendous, fabulous, astonishing, outstanding

bad defective, inadequate, poor, unsatisfactory, disagreeable, offensive, repulsive, corrupt, wicked, naughty, harmful, injurious, unfavorable

basic essential, necessary, indispensable, vital, fundamental, elementary

beautiful attractive, appealing, alluring, exquisite, gorgeous, handsome, stunning

begin commence, found, initiate, introduce, launch, originate

better preferable, superior, worthier

big enormous, extensive, huge, immense, massive

boring commonplace, monotonous, tedious, tiresome

bring accompany, cause, convey, create, conduct, deliver, produce

cause origin, stimulus, inspiration, motive

certain unquestionable, incontrovertible, unmistakable, indubitable, assured, confident

change alter, transform, vary, replace, diversify

choose select, elect, nominate, prefer, identify

decent respectable, adequate, fair, suitable

definitely unquestionably, clearly, precisely, positively, inescapably

easy effortless, natural, comfortable, undemanding, pleasant, relaxed

effective powerful, successful

emphasize underscore, feature, accentuate

end limit, boundary, finish, conclusion, finale, resolution

energy vitality, vigor, force, dynamism

enjoy savor, relish, revel, benefit

entire complete, inclusive, unbroken, integral

excellent superior, remarkable, splendid, unsurpassed, superb, magnificent

exciting thrilling, stirring, rousing, dramatic

far distant, remote

fast swift, quick, fleet, hasty, instant, accelerated

fill occupy, suffuse, pervade, saturate, inflate, stock

finish complete, conclude, cease, achieve, exhaust, deplete, consume

funny comical, ludicrous, amusing, droll, entertaining, bizarre, unusual, uncommon

get obtain, receive, acquire, procure, achieve

give bestow, donate, supply, deliver, distribute, impart

go proceed, progress, advance, move

good satisfactory, serviceable, functional, competent, virtuous, striking

great tremendous, superior, remarkable, eminent, proficient, expert

happy pleased, joyous, elated, jubilant, cheerful, delighted

hard arduous, formidable, complex, complicated, rigorous, harsh

help assist, aid, support, sustain, serve

hurt injure, harm, damage, wound, impair

important significant, substantial, weighty, meaningful, critical, vital, notable

interesting absorbing, appealing, entertaining, fascinating, thought-provoking

job task, work, business, undertaking, occupation, vocation, chore, duty, assignment

keep retain, control, possess

kind type, variety, sort, form

know comprehend, understand, realize, perceive, discern

like (adj) similar, equivalent, parallel

like (verb) enjoy, relish, appreciate

main primary, foremost, dominant

make build, construct, produce, assemble, fashion, manufacture

mean plan, intend, suggest, propose, indicate

more supplementary, additional, replenishment

new recent, modern, current, novel

next subsequently, thereafter, successively

nice pleasant, satisfying, gracious, charming

old aged, mature, experienced, used, worn, former, previous

open unobstructed, accessible

part section, portion, segment, detail, element, component

perfect flawless, faultless, ideal, consummate

plan scheme, design, system, plot

pleasant agreeable, gratifying, refreshing, welcome

prove demonstrate, confirm, validate, verify, corroborate

quick brisk, prompt, responsive, rapid, nimble, hasty

really truly, genuinely, extremely, undeniably

regular standard, routine, customary, habitual

see regard, behold, witness, gaze, realize, notice

small diminutive, miniature, minor, insignificant, slight, trivial

sometimes occasionally, intermittently, sporadically, periodically

take grasp, capture, choose, select, tolerate, endure

terrific extraordinary, magnificent, marvelous

think conceive, imagine, ponder, reflect, contemplate

try attempt, endeavor, venture, test

use employ, operate, utilize

very unusually, extremely, deeply, exceedingly, profoundly

want desire, crave, yearn, long

Revising the Novel - Word Count

2008-09-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

Before we delve deeper into our subject of outlining, I wanted to share what I've learned about a very commonly asked question.

How long should my novel be?

The answer is not "long enough to tell the story." While that may be what we all would love to hear, the truth is publishers and agents have very specific guidelines for novel length depending upon the genre. As I've said before, my work is mainstream fiction, a medical thriller, so that's really all I'm qualified to talk about. If you're writing a romance, or horror, or sci-fi, or literary fiction, you should refer to a good reference book for the answer to that question, like the Writer's Guide. If you're writing a thriller or other mainstream fiction, this is what I've learned. Understand that my goal in writing is publishing and establishing a career, not a whimsical fairy tale of life as an author.

For a first time author, your book length should be 90,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 450 pages. Strict. No more, no less. While you may tell the world's greatest story in 175,000 words, and it may become a huge best-seller, it will be awfully hard, as a first-time writer, to get an agent to look at a book of that length. It may happen. If your writing is so undeniably fantastic, you may be able to hook that agent. And if you are an undeniable talent, your agent may be able to convince a Publishing House to buy your book. But the odds are stacked against you.

Publishing Houses do not like to take chances and invest big dollars into first-time authors. They're very conservative. So what you need to do is follow their guidelines, play their game. They're the ones setting the rules. Once you're as big as Ken Follett you can break the rules and unleash your 1000 page tome. Not now.

So how many pages is 100,000 words?

Obviously, that will depend upon the type and size of font you use. What I recommend, from what I've learned in discussions with agents, is Times New Roman font, 12 point size. Courier is also an accepted font by agents but Times New Roman is the best, and here's why.

The spacing of Courier font adds length to your manuscript. So while the word count may be acceptable, the number of pages is increased. With my manuscript, at 106,000 words (I know, I know, still too long, I'm working on it. Got the Ten-Point Revision Strategy at my side) the page count was 560 pages. With Times New Roman, it is 477 pages.

What this means is that with Times New Roman, your number of manuscript pages is approximately equal to the number of printed pages in an average book. This makes for an easy guide to determine your novel length.

In general, the formula comes down to the average text has 10 words per line, 25 lines per page for a total of 250 words per page. This is comparable to the word count of a published novel.

So while the romantic, walking through the garden, following your lovely muse response to the question would be; "write until the book is finished, not one word more or less." In reality, this just isn't true. It's fine, if you really don't care about publishing. But the honest, business-like, non-romantic, but infinitely more practical advice for a first-time writer, is follow the rules. 90,000-100,000 words for mainstream/thriller fiction. It shows professionalism on your part, writing skill, knowledge and will greatly increase your chances of actually getting your novel read.

Writing the Novel - To Outlne or Not to Outline

2008-09-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

Some debates can't be settled with the passage of time.

When it comes to writing, the question I'm asked more than any other is; do I outline?

And the truthful answer is, it doesn't matter whether I outline or not, what you really want to know is; should you outline?

It seems that very little can rile up as much contention, debate, anger and anxiety as this one very simple question. Should I outline?

And the answer to that can only be: Yes, if it works for you. No, if it doesn't.

How's that for a vague way to start a new series of posts?

For some reason, outlining seems to be this mysterious process, knowledge hidden by reclusive writing gurus, kept in secret, protected from the eyes of the rest of the world. Or else it seems to be this amazingly tedious, painful, arduous process, like a scientific experiment, that can only performed in one precise way to get the proper results. If done incorrectly. . . BOOM! The whole novel explodes in a silty smoke of disaster.

Neither of these perceptions are true. Outlining is simply that, outlining. A guide. A short "high points" guide to what the novel is about. A road map to where the novel is going. There is nothing mysterious or scientific about it. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It just is.

Good, now that we're past the philosophy of outlining, let's get down to the nitty gritty. The real deal. How to do it.

Of course, the answer to that last statement will be as varied as there are writer's, and that's important. You need to find a system that works for you. You may try several outlining systems before you find what works in your hands, with your brain. But eventually, you will find that system.

Or not.

Tess Gerristen, the best-selling author of ten billion books doesn't outline at all. She never has, never will. I've asked her about this and we'll talk about her views, my views and other views as we move along through this segment of posts.

We're going to explore all aspects of outlining. And we're going to do it without an outline.

Revising the Novel - Nearing Completion

2008-08-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

Autumn is almost upon us.

My favorite time of the year, I love it when the temperature cools, the leaves change, the sweaters come from storage.

And my novel is finished. Or will be.

My goal was to finish my final revision by the end of August. So far I'm near my target. I have, what, five days left. Hmmm, I'm on page 320 of 478 in the revision and I still need to remove 6,000 words or about 20 pages.

As I'm going through the book, I try to keep the Ten Point Revision Strategy in mind (for those who've asked, I have already written the Ten Point Revision Strategy as an article and submitted it to Writer's Digest and The Writer. I'll keep you posted on the results). Each day, before I write, I re-read the ten points, trying to concentrate on what each point really means in terms of what I need to accomplish. Character Motivation. Dialog tightening. Word Choice. And especially, Ending Chapters Earlier.

I continue to find the strategy to be useful for me, and as I get closer and closer to finally completing this draft, I'm taking the time to really focus in on each of these points.

I believe, in the end, the writing is sharper, tighter and more dramatic than ever. I hope you'll find that to be the case for you as well.

As always, please send me your feedback/thoughts on the Ten-Points.

I think we'll start an outlining section next.

Revising the Novel - Sex Scenes - the Final Hitchcockian Word

2008-08-21T14:02:00.001-07:00

We've had a few posts recently about writing that all important sex scene. Now, I'm not saying that every novel needs a sex scene, mine doesn't. But I have struggled over writing sex scenes before, so I wanted to bring it up here for discussion.

Previously, I've made two points about how to successfully navigate your way around this rather sticky subject.

1) Avoid cliche. Be very careful of cliche in every aspect of the scene, from the terms you use for male and female anatomy, to emotions, to setting, to tone. With so much bad daytime television and trashy novels, a sex scene will only work if it's novel.

2) Only introduce the scene if it a) doesn't interfere with the flow of the plot, and b) like all scenes, it must serve the story and move the plot forward.

So for our final discussion, I wanted to make one final point. Over at blogcatalog.com, I'd posted a thread in my favorite writing group, searching for opinions from fellow writers on how they handle this subject. After reading the responses, I was pleased that the general consensus matched my opinion and even gave me a great term to describe the best way to handle the scene.

Hitchcockian.

What I mean by this is that the best way to write a powerful, dramatic sex scene is to think like the famous director, Alfred Hitchcock. What made his movies so compelling was the tension in the scenes. The lead up to the violence. The implication of violence. He usually avoided showing the violence itself. Instead, the viewer was left to fill in the holes with their own imagination, which can often be far more frightening than anything Hitchcock could have put on the screen.

I believe a great way to handle a sex scene in your novel is to follow that same advice. Really, unless you're writing erotica, it's not the sex in the scene that will interest your readers. It's the implication. The build up. The tension.

And just as importantly, never forget the ramifications. The post-sex scenes can be just as powerful or more so than the pre-sex scene. You simply can't (or shouldn't) have two characters fall into bed together without their relationship and possibly lives being irrevocably changed. Unless the point of your story is to show how a character can have sex and remained totally unchanged, don't pass up this opportunity to explore your character's feelings after sex; the embarrassment, the confusion, the insecurity, the building romance/love.

The possibilities are endless.

So my final advice on writing a great sex scene is maybe you don't need to write the scene at all.

Revising the Novel - Intention

2008-08-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

When I first started this blog, my original intention was purely to get my thoughts on the revision process down on paper to help me with my current work. I wanted to use this as a think pad, a guide book, to direct and focus my thoughts on what I needed to do.

The results so far, based on your feedback, has been greater than I ever expected. Thanks to all who've written with your encouragement and thoughts.

Now the reason I mention all this is that my intention directed my actions, and those actions led to results, perhaps even results I didn't anticipate.

That's a powerful statement and one that needs to makes its way into our writing. Knowing the intentions of your characters, in each scene, can be a vital tool to drive the drama and power of your writing. I mentioned this earlier in the Ten-Point Revision Strategy under "Know your Character's Motivation," but it's worth exploring deeper.

I don't know about you, but when I write, I often like to get into the feel of writing, the cadence, the appearance of the words on the screen. I have scenes set that I know are necessary to move the story forward; plot oriented scenes that bring conflict and drama. But quite honestly, I don't often step back and ask myself a simple question, "What does each character want out of this interaction/situation?"

Think how powerful those words are. From the main character to a bit player, the story will change if you spend some serious thought on what each character really intends to happen in that scene.

Say you have a big scene happening in a restaurant, I don't know, a meeting between two lovers on the verge of divorce. This is their last stab at trying to stay together. They arrive in different cars and flip their keys over to the valet. Now, in this scene, the valet obviously has little importance in the lives of our characters. But say for example, that you wanted to have the valet say something, just a sentence in passing, to build the scene. How can this affect the story?

If the valet is miserable at his job, just wasting his time away, pissed off that his big audition at the Broadway musical was a bomb, his demeanor, body language and sentence may be very different than if he's had a brand new baby boy and his wife is home waiting for him.

A minor character for sure, but it's easy to see how his one sentence, based on his intentions, can have a dramatic impact on our lead characters, setting the scene for their meeting. Say the valet is a snippy twit, sarcastic and angry as he takes the car keys. Now compare that to a happy, bubbling new daddy, spreading joy and love with every word. How could that impact the moods of our main characters as they step into the restaurant?

Now, I've just described how a bit character's motivation can impact a scene, imagine if you spent the time to really think about each of the main character's motivations as they enter the restaurant. There's a big difference between the male lead dying to get back together with her because she's the love of his life, and just going through the motions because he's head over heals in love with a waitress at the very restaurant at which they're meeting.

Character Intention. Motivation. Spend the time as you're revising each scene to make sure that you know exactly where each character is coming from.

Novel revision update

2008-08-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments on this blog. I'll keep it, trying to publish 3 times a week until we all get our revisions done, and beyond.

Right now, however, I'm recovering from some abdominal surgery that has me laid up on the couch.

We'll get right back into the meat of our revision strategies next week, when I'm a little farther down the road of recovery.

In the meantime, please send me your suggestions on topics you'd like to see covered in the pages of this blog.

Upcoming topics include:

Plot structure
The heroic quest
outlining, yes or no
character arcs
story structure
how to research
theme
drive the story forward
querey letters
novel synopsis

Please send me your suggestions for topics you'd like covered.

Revising the Novel - Best Word Choice or Big Guts and Belly Fat

2008-08-02T05:29:00.001-07:00

Just finished a meeting of Mimi's Boys on Thursday night (don't worry, my bruises will heal) and a very important lesson came up.

Best word choice.

Now, I've already touched on this subject in the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, but it came up again in a way that was slightly different, and my writing was to blame.

In one scene, I have my character, the ER Department Chairman, a rather big man (or Jabba Browne as one of my group members calls him) lean back in his chair and rest his hand on his stomach. In that sentence I said something to the effect of "leans back and rests his hand on his large gut."

Doesn't necessarily seem like the that should be the focal point of a long discussion, but believe me, it was.

As we'd discussed before, each word, every single word, that we commit to paper (printer) has to be exactly what we wish it to be. It must convey exactly what we want it to convey. But more importantly than just conveying information, it has to be entertaining. After all, isn't that the point? To entertain? That's what reading is. Certainly reading a novel, particularly a thriller.

Les, one of Mimi's Boys, stated emphatically that we have to strive to make each sentence as entertaining as possible. That' right, our responsibility isn't just to write an entertaining book, but to make sure that each and every sentence in that book is entertaining in and of itself.

To be honest, I hadn't ever thought of it that way before. But he's right.

We can't rely on 2nd or 3rd tier adjectives or descriptors or cliches to finish our sentences. There are no "throw away" paragraphs, or sentences or words. Each word must count. And we need to make sure that each word conveys the information we need it to in as entertaining a way as possible.

Case in point, my large gut.

Sure it emphasizes Dr. Browne's large mass, but is it said in as entertaining a way as possible?

Les jumped all over that one, giving me his sly, one eyebrow raised look that states so clearly, "you can do better than this." And again, he's right. With effort, we can all remove these rather efficient but bland modifiers and interject some personality, some deeper level of description, some humor and some entertainment.

It's a lot of work. It means going back over the novel, word by word, sentence by sentence, and continually asking yourself, does this say what I need it to say? Is there someway I can write this better? More descriptive, more original, more entertaining?

In the margins, Les crossed out my large gut and interjected, "placed his hand on the roll of fat above his belt." Damn if that isn't better. More descriptive, certainly more original and even slightly humorous.

Do you agree? Do you feel that each and every word/sentence has to be polished as much as possible for maximal entertainment? Send me your thoughts.

Now I'm going back to work. I'll bet there's quite a few large guts in my novel that could stand being replaced by some rolls of belly fat.

Revising the Novel - Writing the Sex Scene part 3

2008-07-31T03:55:00.000-07:00

So then, the real question is; how much sex should one have in their novel?

The answer, of course, varies with the genre and style of writing, but in general terms, the title above says it all, sex sells. Now this doesn't mean peppering your legal thriller with scene after scene of hot doings in the jury box, but on the other hand, I have heard an agent say that if a book doesn't have sex, the implication of sex, or at least a strong romance, it won't sell.

People enjoy sex (not the physical act, well, yes the physical act, but also the story of sex). They enjoy both romantic sex and steamy sex. Sex that they'd do and sex they'd never dream of, as long as it's not offensive (a difficult line to draw, I know). They love the prelude to sex and the after effects.

And I do to. Particularly the character ramifications. There is very little you can do to affect a relatonship more between two of your characters than to put them in bed together. I love what happens to the characters during the act; the nervousness, the desire, the fear, the insecurities, the abandon, the neediness. It is a great way to explore character. But so is the character ramifications after the act and the way the characters see each other, grow with each other or apart. Trust me, sex can be very revealing.

The general rule that I follow is that there has to be a romance in a thriller. Even if it's not completely consumated, it has to be implied. In fact, just the tension of romance, the possibility that two characters will have sex, can be enough to up the drama in a scene or in the entire book. I can't ever see myself writing a story that doesn't involve love and romance. It just reveals so much of a character and is such a powerful motivator for character actions.

But that doesn't mean I'll always have sex. Again, following my rule, if I can fit a sex scene in, and it falls in a logical place (perhaps a surprising place) without disrupting the flow of the story, the pulse of the action, then by all means, I'll add it. But if the scene is added just to have a sex scene, if it feels unnatural or most importantly, if it slows down the action or disrupts the tension, then I won't have it. The main flow of the story always has to be most important.

So I guess I'm saying that sex is great, in the right time and place.

Hmmm, now I sound like a 10th grade health teacher.

Revising the Novel - Writing the Sex Scene part 2

2008-07-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Back on the subject of sex.

As I mentioned in the prior post, of utmost importance to me when writing a sex scene is to avoid cliche. There are only so many non-offensive euphemisms you can use for penis. Even fewer for a vagina. Most of these are so full of purple prose that I'm embarrassed any time I even think of using one.

Breasts are easy. The word "breasts" works fine. So does nipple. But when it comes to the male and female genitalia, "penis" and "vagina" seem far too clinical for our writing. So we improvise. That's how things like "pulsating member," get published. I've even read once about a "vibrating stinger." I'm still scared at the thought.

My advice on this sensitive topic is to use the real words, or the least of the purple prose euphemisms. It is unlikely that you'll come up with a term that hasn't been used before, or one that is so terrifically original that it will send your scene over the top. Usually, all that results is that you succeed in drawing attention to your poor word choice and away from the steamy sex happening on the page.

Just write it.

Use the words we're all familiar with. Concentrate on the action and whatever originality you can create in the scene. The mood, the background, the character's thoughts, their actions, unique fetishes, etc.

Don't get hung up on the words, or else a pulsating member may inadvertently make its way into your writing.

Revising the Novel - The Difficult Sex Scene

2008-07-23T04:21:00.001-07:00

No one can deny it, sex sells.

Most mainstream fiction today will have at least one romantic interlude. How far that goes towards an actual sex scene is, of course, up to the discretion of the writer. And it raises some interesting questions.

Some writers may relish the thought of writing a sex scene. I'm not talking erotica here, but mainstream fiction. Writing a sex scene can in some ways be liberating. A chance to explore fantasies, dreams, ideas that you'd never have the chance, or inclination, to explore in real life. A chance to let the hair (and pants) down and get animal.

For others, the sex scene is the absolute hardest scene to write. The constant editor sitting on your shoulder screams and moans with each word you put to paper. What if your mother reads this? What if my colleagues at work or the writing club read this? Will they think I'm strange? A pervert? A sex maniac? Doubts, worries and fears can rage into the brain like never before when it comes to writing about sex. In many ways, Freud was right about this baby. We got hang-ups on top of hang-ups.

But no matter what your own personal opinions of sex may be, if you're to be a successful mainstream fiction writer (I include the genre of thrillers, like my medical thriller, as mainstream fiction) at some point in time, the subject of sex will come up. And like it or not, it's a river that must be crossed.

I read somewhere in a list of things to do to break writer's block (which I don't believe in, by the way) that one way to ditch the block is to write a sex scene. That writer's opinion was that sex is fun and fun to write about. So if you're stuck, then darn it, take the clothes off your character, throw in a good bottle of wine and have them go at it. While I applaud the thought, I personally take the opposite opinion. I think sex is hard to write about. Not because of my Freudian repression, but because it's hard to avoid cliche.

So let's talk about sex. (Cue Salt and Peppa here)

1) Avoid cliche - It's not always easy to bring a fresh approach to sex (on paper, not in the bedroom. That's your own business and you won't find advice here.) We've all read or seen the extreme cliched version of a sex scene from smutty romance novels. There's a great scene near the beginning of the wonderful movie 10 Things I Hate About You (Heath Ledger's first film) were our heroine is called to the principle's office for discipline. Rather than reprimanding her, the principle is much more involved in writing her novel and it's steamy sex scene. The scene ends with our heroine suggesting the term "pulsating member," for our word-bare principle who's been struggling to find another juicy metaphor for penis.

That just ain't gonna work in most mainstream fiction.

In my writing group, there's a lot of sex going around (now, now. I mean in the writing, not the group.) It's been fun to watch each writer's varying approach to writing about sex, and believe me, the approaches are as varied as I'm sure the authors are in the bedroom. We'll talk about those approaches in the next few posts as well as more things to avoid and included in your sex scenes.

And always avoid the pulsating member.

As always, your comments, thoughts and suggestions about sex (writing about it) are always welcome.

Revising the Novel - Avoiding Overused Words

2008-07-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

I'm moving along with the revision. After several weeks, I finally have a grasp on the final tweak I needed to get my antagonist's motivation clearer and stronger. Again, a testament to the success of writing groups as it was the combination of thoughts from different writer's that led me to where I need to go.

In the meantime (as I'm writing away furiously) I'm going to post this helpful little list of overused words. i came upon this list several months ago, on a number of different sites, and felt that it could add value to all of our writing. As we discussed in the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, weak words need to be discovered, isolated and excised like skin cancer. Hopefully this list will help you find your own favorites, words that we habitually rely upon. These words are weak and as descriptive or powerful as we'd like to think they are.

amazing
awesome
awfully
bad
beautiful
big
fine
good
great
happy
interesting
look
nice
quite
really
so
very
well
then
began
felt
suddenly

And by suggestion:

actually

Any other words you'd like to add to the list? Let's make it grow of all those words we need to be careful of using.

Revising the Novel - Just an Update

2008-07-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

Just an update today, as I try to finish this revision of my novel. I can feel my agent's breath on the back of my neck, steaming up my computer screen, prodding me to get this done. Remember, part of my idea for this blog was to share what I've learned about writing, but also to share all the steps along the way of having this book published. The good and the ugly. Today counts as the ugly.

My momentum was great a little while back, but has been ebbing recently. Have any of you noticed this before? Sometimes, when you take a break from writing, even just a couple of days for travel or other reasons, it becomes very difficult to get back in to it? I haven't touched the book in over a week, maybe two. For no good reason, other than I stopped while I was traveling. Now it just sits there like a lump of coal waiting for me turn it into a diamond.

Part of my distraction is that the music site is doing so well and really taking off. (The Ripple Effect, www.ripplemusic.blogspot.com) I'm spending too much of my novel writing time instead working on music reviews or contacting bands. I'm being contacted by record labels, PR Firms and bands everyday, asking us to look at their new albums. We've even got our first internet radio show scheduled for tomorrow night. All of that of course is fun. (for those of you who like music but don't like hard rock/punk/metal, you may enjoy the Sounds of Summer Special we posted, songs for your summer bar-b-Q's) Working on the 101st revision of this novel sometimes isn't quite as much fun. Particularly when I've decided that the motivation of a major character needs a bit of tweaking, which means more revising.

The other portion of my distraction comes from the atrophy of writing muscle memory. I wrote about this before (Writing and the Muse). In order to be a successful writer, it requires discipline and practice. It becomes like being a great athlete. The more you do it, the better you get. The easier it is for the words to flow, but just as important, the easier it becomes to just do it. Get yourself in front of your computer (typewriter, pad of paper) and write. That's why I wrote about how important it is to write everyday. Choose a time, sit down and write. No distractions for that time period, and no excuses. Just write. With my travel, my writing time got disrupted and now those muscles have atrophied. They're lingering, twitching slowly.

But I can do it. I've got my Ten Point Revision Strategy positioned on my desk, I'm going to re-read my points to refresh my memory and then jump back in.

A more intelligent, hopefully helpful post will come next time when we start talking about outlining. Now off for some character tweaking.

Writing Groups - Final, Final Thoughts (no, really)

2008-07-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, today I'll give some details on how my second writer's group works. The first group, Mimi's Boys, is a local group where we meet once or twice a month. Those are easy to put together and easy to find. Around here, the SF Bay area, a quick look through Craig's List can turn up any number of groups looking for new authors. The bulletin board at local bookstores is another good source to find a group. Or you can do it my way and form a group from the students in one of your writing workshops.

My second group is very different, since we've only met each other once, haven't seen each other since, but have been actively working as a group for more than seven months now. This is my internet based group.

The group came about at the end of an intense two-day advanced writing workshop with Bob Dugoni in Chicago. In hindsight, the emergence of the group seems obvious. Throughout the course, Bob often referred to the writing of four of the participants to give examples of plot, writing technique etc. As the course progressed, these four writers (one of which was me) were also the most vocal in asking questions and making remarks. That night, I met up with two of the guys and had a few drinks in the bar with several other participants and realized that we all had good chemistry.

The next day, I asked the two guys, Jeff and Paul, if they'd like to form an internet group to read and give feedback on each other's writing. After setting a few ground rules, they agreed. We did approach the fourth writer, a woman with a beautiful, mystical Celtic writing style, but she was already in two groups of her own. (so we're still shy on the female input, hint hint to any wonderful women writer's out there.)

So here's how this group functions. At first, we set the goal for submissions every two weeks, but we've been more flexible than that depending upon people's schedules. When I submit, I send about 30 pages of my draft to both guys. In the email, I include a very brief, one or two sentence, reminder of where the story left off. They guys then respond with their comments, copying everyone on their emails. One of them likes to email back the draft with line edits as well.

Typically, we return about one page worth of comments, good and bad, focusing mainly on plotting, character and other larger issues. I don't line edit because I feel my strength is the bigger picture. By copying each other on the return emails, we stimulate conversation amongst ourselves and explore deeper issues.

I've found this group to also be very helpful. Each of these two guys are good writers with different viewpoints than the writers in Mimi's Boys. Their comments have helped me to broaden my view on the story and I'm just about to incorporate a very small, but potentially major change.

This group works because I trust their opinions and we're all committed. Now, I met these guys in person first, but internet groups can be joined or formed by meeting other writers through online writing forums, bulletin boards, and chat rooms. Be careful who you join with. Remember my first two posts about what to look for in a group. And if it isn't working for you, don't be afraid to say so, or to quit. Also, if the group is good but there's one bad seed, never be afraid to trust your own judgment and ignore that person's comments.

So whether in person or over the internet, there are a wide variety of ways to be involved in a writer's group. In the end, it never hurts to have as many trustworthy eyes as possible on your writing.

Writing Groups - Final Thoughts

2008-07-08T10:42:00.001-07:00

A few final thoughts on the subject of writing groups, and I'd like to thank Beth from Writer-in-Progress for her insights. If you haven't yet, you should check out her blog and her website, both are full of interesting tidbits.

As you can see from her comments (see last post) the decision to join a group isn't quite as straight forward as you may at first think. Unfortunately, the wrong group can probably do more harm than good for your writing.

Having said that, I'm in two groups right now.

The first group, I'll call "Mimi's Boys," came about after taking a UC Berkeley writing course with Skirts author, Mimi Albert. While the course itself was fun and useful, what struck me the most was the quality of the critique I heard from my fellow students. Having been in other classes, I know that usually students are either too hesitant to be honest in their critique or too angry/mean/arrogant to be of use. This class had just the right balance, honest, well-intentioned critique. As the course ended, I stood up, told the class how much I appreciated their critique and suggested forming the group. About 7 people joined at first and we lost five through attrition but gained two new ones, and have been going strong for almost ten years (with a couple of years off for personal reason's amongst members.)

The nice thing about Mimi's boys is that we all know each other very well. We all have different writing styles, reading patterns and genres. We also are all committed to becoming successful writers and assisting our partners. Each member has an area that I'd consider their specialty, whether it's someone who picks apart dialogue well, grammer and wording, etc. I know, for example, which sections of my writing Gregg might have trouble with, but Les will love and vice versa. Gabe happens to be a very technical guy which truly helps the science in my story. I consider myself a plot oriented kinda guys and work best in helping to move stories along.

We meet once a month, but currently every two weeks as we're helping Les get his materials ready for his agent before the Maui Writing Conference. That adaptability is also a great feature of Mimi's Boys. We truly are there to help each other. If there's one drawback to the group, it's that we lost all of our women over the years, usually to motherhood concerns. As such, we're sorely lacking a female perspective, which we desperately need. With the majority of readers being women, we can never discount that perspective. Gregg tells me that we have a new woman getting ready to join us soon. Let's hope so.

My second group was formed after attending Robert Dugoni's course in Chicago. Again, I approached the two guys who's stories fascinated me the most and seemed the most serious in writing. Since they live across the country, this is an internet only group, and its working beautifully.

Next post, I'll give you ideas on how to make an internet writing group a successful venture.

Revising the Novel - Writing Groups part 3

2008-06-28T06:32:00.001-07:00

In the last two posts, I wrote about what you need to be aware of before you decide to join a writing group. Understanding that a writing group that fits you well will be a tremendous asset to your writing, today I have to give the biggest warning of all.

I firmly believe that a writing group should be used with caution when you're writing a first draft. At this stage, you should be a burning cauldron of creativity. Your entire focus needs to be on getting the story out of your head. You don't want anyone or anything to squash that, particularly not the opinions of others. What you need to do is close the door, lock yourself in a nuclear bunker, and write, write, write. Get the draft done. Get your thoughts onto paper (computer?). Once that draft if done, you can unbarricade the door, readjust your eyes to the light of day, take a deep breath of fresh air, and let your group know you're ready.

You may disagree with me on this point, thinking that it'd be helpful for someone to give an opinion as you're writing so you'll know if you're off base or not. It isn't. All it does is stall your creativity. Finish the draft. Create your characters, follow your plot. Write your novel.

When you turn in first draft passages to the group one of two things inevitably happens.

1) The group focuses on the millions and millions of small mistakes you've made; grammar, punctuation, spelling, name inconsistencies, date inconsistencies etc. Those mistakes are supposed to be there, it's your first draft. But when you turn in a segment, looking for critique, and what comes back is a long list of grammatical errors, it drains your strength. Plus, invariably they haven't really tackled the big picture questions that you need to know, such as, does this make sense? The small errors become too much of a distraction.

Or even worse;

2) The group will offer their opinion on what they think you should be writing, where you should take a character, how a character should act, where the plot should go. While this sounds like it may be of some value, at this point it's really more of a hindrance. Until you've finished the book and you know where those points are going, the opinions of others are roadblocks. In the end, they will only confuse you, make you doubt your own story.

Both of these common responses from a writing group to your first draft will result in slowing your writing down, not helping it.

Finish the first draft. Pound it out. Get it done. Then, once the draft is finished, it's time to share it with the group. Use the writing group for revision.

That's where the value of the group lies. In the revision (hence the inclusion of writing groups in my Revising the Novel posts.) Once you're in the revision stage, then you want all those grammatical errors pointed out. Then you want to fix inconsistencies in character, plot, time and setting. Then you want to know, does this whole thing work?

And for these issues, a good writing group can be invaluable.

Revising the Novel - Writing Groups part 2

2008-06-24T06:04:00.001-07:00

Continuing on with our discussion of writing groups and a long answer to the simple question, should I join one?

5) Committment of members. It's not easy writing, reading, meeting. it requires time and dedication. We meet every month, but at times, like right now when a member is gearing up for the Maui Writing Conference, we meet every two weeks. Everyone must be committed to this. The goal is to help each other succeed.

6) Your writing. In addition to the writing group, you must commit yourself to learning your craft. You can't rely on the group to "turn" you into a writer, nor to make mediocre writing, spectacular. A group is a useful tool, a fine-tuning instrument to prepare your writing for broader readership. It isn't, in and of itself, a substitution for classes, courses, reading and studying. You still must learn your craft.

7) Your fragility. Writing is not a career for the fragile. You're not here for the ego strokes, so if you decide to really commit yourself to writing, park your sensitivity at the door. Good or bad, not everyone will like everything you write, sometimes they're wrong. More often than not they're right.

8) Your filter. Your job is to take the critique and filter it through the mesh of your own certainty. You're the only one who knows what you're trying to do. If two people read something and one likes it, one doesn't, it comes back to you to decide if it's good or not. Opinions vary. If you love it, have the balls to keep it. If it always bothered you a little, then cut it. But if you send it to your group, and everyone agrees that a certain part is weak, or trite, or cliched, or just plain dumb, odds are it is. Keeping then would be an act of egotism. If the group hates it, it probably needs to be redone.

Now, you may wonder why this post is filed under my Revising the Novel section. It doesn't appear to be as directly related to revising as the Ten Point Revision Strategy or the Know Your Theme posts. But it is.

We'll get there next time.

Revising the Novel - Writing Groups

2008-06-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

Often times, people ask whether or not they should be in a writing group.

Believe it or not, the answer isn't quite as straight foward as it may seem. The simple answer is 'yes.' Of course you should be in a writing group. You're a writer and the more people who read your stuff the better. You need the eyes on your material. You need the feedback.

But the simple answer isn't always the best.

In reality, the decision to join a writer's group is quite complex and depends upon a number of factors. Over the next two posts, I'm going to discuss the main issues that come to my mind, having been in a long-running writing group for about ten years. I'm basing this discussion on the premise that you're working your butt off writing with a goal to becoming published, not just wanting tea with some friends.

1) Who's in the group. What I mean by this is: is the group a serious group dedicated to writing and publishing or a casual group of repeat conference attendees who love the idea of being writers? If you yourself, are casual, by all means join the casual group, enjoy your tea. But if you're serious about your writing, you need to surround yourself with serious writers who'll get down to business, read your material and comment. The members don't all have to be writing the same type of fiction, in fact, I think it's better if they're not. While the idea of a "Romance Writers" writing group may sound good, I believe the conversation and critique may become a little self-contained and incestuous. It's good to have many writers from different genre's who'll push you to consider aspects of writing you may not normally consider. Such as a different view on character, conflict, or setting. Different genres use these differently, but we can all learn from each other.

2) The quality of critique. I'm sorry, but serious writers have no room in their life for pandering or hand holding. Critique, to be of any value, must be honest. If that is brutal, then fine. It doesn't do any one any good to hold back for fear of hurting feelings if there is a serious flaw in the writing . The best groups understand this. Rules should be set for how critique is delivered. It shouldn't be personal, teasing or patronizing, but honest. Flaws should be discussed not glossed over. Obviously, the group needs to be made up of people who's opinions you respect and trust, which you may not know at first. Mean spirited members should be asked to leave. But just as importantly, members who won't give negative comments for fear of hurting feelings should leave. We need direct, honest critique. What's good. What's bad. Now move on. This is a professional, not personal, endeavor.

3)The number of members. I think the optimal group size is four to five members. Six at the most. Otherwise, you won't be able to have a serious discussion about each member's writing at each meeting. Big groups are fun, but we're not there to have fun. We're not there to discuss upcoming wedding plans or weekends or car repairs. We're there to discuss writing. If that sounds anal, nonsocial and boring, then you don't need to be in a writing group, you need a social club. A real group knows how to say 'hello,' a few moments of small talk, then gets down to business. If you like each other, you can stay and socialize after the meeting or on weekends. Not when we're supposed to be writing.

4) The format of the group. Formats can take as many shapes as tigers have stripes (I almost wrote 'as lions have stripes.' Well, it is 4 am.) In my group, each member's material is reviewed at each session. Each writer sends out 20-30 pages to each member who then reads it, reviews it and writes comments. When we get together, we rotate who's material gets discussed first, then take turns talking about the submission. Everyone gets a chance to comment. The author is supposed to remain quiet, not defending, occasionally allowed to offer clarification. If that sounds rigid, then good. When you've published your book (or submitted it to an agent) you won't be standing there by the reader offering defense of your writing. Once you've submitted it, it has to stand on its own.

We rotate houses each meeting. The host used to provide some basic sustenence, but we've eliminated this as it started to become bigger and bigger, then we spent as much time eating as talking. Now, a bowl of nuts, some bottles of water and three hours of critique.

Not glamorous, but effective.

If you like this line of posting, let me know. I'll continue this thread in my next post. I'll be out of town on Thursday, so look for the next update on Saturday.

Thanks for reading, now get back to work. There's writing to do!

Revising the Novel - Theme to Story

2008-06-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

What comes first, the theme or the story?

That's a very fundamental question, and I'm sure many of you have your own opinions on this. We can follow this up with a later question, what comes first, character or plot? But for now will stick to one concept. One theme if you will.

In my hands, story came first. I had an idea of a research project, a twist on current science that I wanted to explore. Idea led to plot, plot led to characters, characters led to story, story led to theme. It was only after I'd finished the novel, and gone through a couple of revisions that the main theme of forgiveness became apparent. At first, it was just a story about a pretty ambitious guy driven to do his research. It was only after the story evolved, that my hero kept going back, despite horrible odds, that it began to tick in my brain as to why. Why would someone continue to fight and fight, when the whole world is against him, when his whole life has collapsed? The underlying motivation had to be more than just the satisfaction of finishing the project, or money or fame. It had to be a reason deeply wrapped into the fabric of who he is.

In my story, it was his need for forgiveness, for himself and for his family.

Once I saw that, suddenly the story clicked. And that's the value of theme. Once you know your theme, then the story takes on the light of relevance. Suddenly, you can see scenes that contradict your theme, and they go. New scenes get added that enhance the theme, set it up, draw it out.

For me, the whole book changed. It was no longer a standard medial thriller, good guy fighting against bad guy for his project that meant, oh so much for the world. It was now a story about one man and his quest to move beyond his past, find peace and find meaning in his life.

Now, don't get me wrong. It's a medial thriller. I got blood and guts and bodies and car chases and murder, even poison, but don't you think having all that action surrounding a story that is so deeply personal makes it more interesting?

Stephen King says on theme that if you start with the theme, the book will fail. You must start with story. I suppose he knows. Last I checked he's sold more books than me (So far. Look behind you Stephen, I'm coming up fast) And in my opinion, Stephen King should be placed on the list of the greatest 20-21st century writers. Not because his books sell or are made into movies, but because most of his books move beyond the story, deeply into theme, and this makes them memorable. (not to mention that he's one of the great character writers of all time). We tend to think of King as the writer of Cujo, or Christine or Pet Semetary but let's not forget, he's also the writer of The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, and The Green Mile. This man know's theme.

But even many of his horror books really delve into deeper topics, like The Shining, The Dead Zone, The Stand, even Carrie.

Still, I don't know if I entirely agree with his thought. Certainly, it is the way I wrote my book, story first then theme, but that doesn't mean its the only way. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this, particularly the thoughts of the Plot Whisperer. I believe that if the theme is compelling enough for you, you can write a successful book, even in this day and age. But you must quickly move beyond theme into rich character, plot and story. Theme should be subtle, not omnipresent. A tickling under the skin, not a flesh wound.

Your thoughts?

The New Kindle Reader - Your Thoughts?

2008-06-19T06:25:00.001-07:00

I wanted to take a break from my revision posting to talk about something interesting that happened to me this week.

In my office, so far this week, I've seen two people come in carrying the new Kindle reader. This is the first I've ever seen of it. I've always thought it was interesting technology, but I've never actually seen one before. Until now.

Both of these people were avid readers. Multiple books each month readers, the kind we'd all love to reach with our writing. One was in her 40's the other was in her mid-to-late 60's, so we're not talking about techno-gen X'ers here. These are mature adults who grew up in the pre-laptop generation.

Both praised the Kindle to no end. They loved the portability, the ability to go on vacation and carry many books at once, without carrying many books. They loved the lightness of the reader and the ease of use. Perhaps most impressive of all, the wireless technology allowed one woman to purchase a new book from Amazon and start reading it right there, in my office, while she was waiting to see me. Further, she let me know that lots of books that are beyond copyright are available for free download. She had 30 books on her reader.

Now, all of that sounds great, but the big question to me was, how does it read? If you're like me, the very process of reading on a screen is very different that reading a book. For some reason, the story just doesn't seem the same to me, even though they're the same words. She showed me the screen, which has a muted grey background so there's no glare, showed me how to flip pages, even change the font size for easier reading. In her view, after the first few minutes, she couldn't tell the difference between reading the Kindle or reading a book.

What are your thoughts? Will the Kindle become the next answer for reading? It is a nice, portable form of electronic reading and allows you to store a vast library at your fingertips. The thing I like about it is that, for now at least, the purchasing of books still allows electronic distribution with full recognition and royalties to the author, as opposed to file sharing of music mp3's.

Now the Kindle is a bit pricey, $399 originally, but I heard they dropped the price down to $349. Books are relatively reasonable, $9 apiece, billed directly to your Amazon account. Is it worth spending $349 for a gadget that allows you to read a book that's more costly than a paperback, yet not ever have the physical product?

Will this spell the demise of the book store as we all browse our Kindles and buy through the ethernet? Is this the future format of book distribution?

What are your thoughts?

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - In Action

2008-06-17T04:45:00.001-07:00

A little update post today.

As some of you may know, I came up with the Ten-Point Revision Strategy to help me complete the current revision of my novel, so what I'd like to do today is give you an idea of how well this strategy is working for me.

A touch of backstory. Before this revision started my novel, a medical thriller, was about 117,000 words. Not overbearing, but a little long for the genre. My agent, who's quite enthusiastic about the book, suggested I get it down to about 90-100,000 words. Now, think about that for a moment. I already told the story I wanted to tell, and it took me 117,000 words. How am I now supposed to keep that story intact and reduce it by roughly 20%. Daunting, to say the least.

Stephen King has shared a formula he learned from one of his mentors. Second draft = first draft - 10%. I like that formula, as it shows the type of editing we all need to do to tighten our stories. But I needed 20%, not 10. Ouch. To top it off, I tend to be an adder when I revise, not just a subtractor. I find scenes that I think need more embellishment, more sensory information, or movement, so I expand them, fill them out. So it isn't always a simple cutting action for me.

But still, one in every five words needed to go.

Hence, the Ten-Point Revision Strategy.

So far, I've been very happy with how the strategy has performed, guiding me along the path. Each point has worked as intended to help me focus on the core of the story, and the core of the writing; to trim, tighten and enhance.

I can't tell you how much I like point # 5 - End Each Chapter Earlier. Time and time again, I've used this, cutting out the last sentence, paragraph or even several paragraphs from each chapter, and always I've found it added to the drama. Clearly, I tended to overwrite the ends of my chapters, trying too hard to find a pat ending or a final summary. Not anymore. Cut em out. They're a vestigial organ and need to be removed. I can't encourage you enough to try adding this simple step to your own revision process.

I also tend to over-explain as I write. Since there is a lot of science in my novel, I found I spent quite a bit of time filling in research or simply explaining science to make my concept believable. Using rule #1 - Resist the Urge to Explain, I've cut this quite a bit. The science works best when I simply show it in action, having the characters talking about it as it's going along. Do you really need to know that in 1989 Dr. Demoisue ran into a horrible problem attempting to do something far simpler than what my hero is doing? Maybe. If I can bring it in in such a way that it enhances the drama. If it's just one big info dump, it's got to go. This applies equally to non-thrillers, particularly when introducing or working with character. Resist the Urge to Explain. Let the characters breathe on their own and reveal their past through their current actions and behaviors. Little details can be added, succinctly, then move on. Allow the character to reveal themselves, not the author.

Throughout this entire revision, I've been very conscious of movement, per point #8, and I'll never underestimate how much movement can help the flow of a story, particularly when the action is on pause.

And finally, I've been very happy with point #3 - Know Each Character's Motivation. Keeping this point in mind, I've been able to cut out several small scenes where it was apparent that the scene served the author (me) not necessarily the character. Nothing really happened, the characters didn't reveal anything new, or reveal new motivation or growth. The scenes were placeholders, separating other scenes, and nothing more. Now, they're gone.

Currently, I'm about 1/3 through the revision and I'm down to about 109,000 words. So I'm making progress. My original timeline was to finish by June 30. I may be a little bit off that goal, but the book is ending up tighter than I ever imagined.

In future posts, I'm going to start a block on character arcs and plotting, but for now, back to revising.

P.S. I'd like to thank Writer-in-Progress for her wonderful kind comments and very informative blog. The depth of writing resources available on the web today never fails to astound me.

Writing and the Muse

2008-06-13T04:40:00.001-07:00

Sorry, I was unable to post this week, but work required me to be out of town. As a general rule, my plan is to post every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so if I miss one, you know I'm probably traveling.

In the meantime, I'd like to thank all the great blogs out there that have been so supportive of me, especially the Plot Whisperer, Word Stumpet, the Writer's Mentor and Me, My Muse and I. If you don't already have those earmarked, your missing out on some sage advice.

All of which brings me today's topic. The Muse.

I may inflame some controversy with this, and I hope not to offend, but I've attended enough writing seminars to know that there are a large number of people in love with the thought of writing, but not the work of writing itself. You may have seen some them, women and men, wrapped up in a romantic fantasy about the life of a writer. Women sharing a Jane Austen fantasy, where they wear flowing gowns, walking leisurely through rose gardens, strolling until that beautiful moment when inspiration strikes, the muse arrives, and they're carried on a warm wind to their waiting pen and paper. The men tend to have more of a Papa Hemingway fantasy, reclusive and isolated, enmeshed in their world of hurt, until the muse helps them to express all the true sentiment in their hearts.

Most of these people will never become successful writers. Most will never complete a finished book. Some may, most won't.

Stories don't come on the wings of fairies, sprinkled into our ears with a trace of pixie dust. Writing can't wait until you feel inspired, or until the heart is bursting full to capacity.

Writing is work. Writing is a job. Writing is commitment.

As I'm typing this. It is 4:57 am. I've been up since 3:30. My agent wants this revision finished. My editor wants this revision finished. The publisher won't wait until I feel inspired or motivated to write. They want it now. And just as importantly, I want to give it to them now. Fortunately, early morning hours are good times for me. I wake up easily (three dogs that want breakfast at 4:00 am each morning see to that) but I don't wake up this early by choice. It's a commitment. I'm committed to being a writer, the best writer I can be. And more than inspiration, more than motivation, more than a muse, it requires time.

Since the first of my many $1 million checks hasn't arrived from the publisher or Hollywood yet, I have a day job. I also have a wife, a son and three Lhasa Apsos, and I love to spend time with all them. The only way I could squeeze all this into a 24 hour day was to give up something, and that was my mornings. So each day, saturday and sunday included, I get out of bed at 4:00 am, feed my doggies, make my coffee and head to my writing office. I try to get three hours in each weekday before the family awakes, 5 or 6 hours on the weekends. I bring my computer on work trips and family vacations. My schedule never changes.

Certainly, some mornings I'm more awake than others, or more productive. But it doesn't matter. Each day, I'm there. And that's important. To make that commitment to being at your writing desk, no matter where it is, each day. Some days it will flow, some days you'll struggle, but you'll be writing. And hopefully, you'll find, as I do, that the more you write, even when you don't want to, the easier writing becomes. It's as if you create some sort of writing "muscle memory," a reflex that kicks you into writing mode, even when the muse hasn't visited.

I'm not saying that what I do is the best way, or the only way. It may not even be sane. But it is the only way it works for me, to get in the necessary time, feeding the writing beast.

And to me, that's what writing is. It's not an enchanted forest where I run away to explore new worlds full of magical creatures, or a garden to stroll through in endless meditation. I create those places and worlds in my writing. No, the act of writing itself is a beast, a multi-headed monster that needs to be fed every day, rain or shine, whether you feel like feeding it or not. But don't worry, it is a beast that can be tamed, taught to do amazing tricks, return to you what you give it in multiples, but a beast nonetheless.

Writing is a job. A commitment. A necessity.

Writing is.

Revising the Novel - Back to Theme part 3

2008-06-07T04:56:00.000-07:00

I've been amazed at how powerful thematic thinking could be. To me, theme was always a nebulous term, something I searched for (or made up) in high school literature classes, trying to place meaning into a story that I didn't necessarily think had meaning. But now I've changed my mind completely. Theme is a powerful, provocative tool. Now don't get me wrong. If used incorrectly, too heavy-handed, didactic or pedantic, it will kill your story, slog it down with verbiage and your strong desire to "make a message." But used correctly, it can enhance your story, elevate it, give it substance or as Stephen King calls it, resonance.

Here's how theme can benefit your story:

1) Once you've identified your theme, which you'll usually find in the changes (or lack of changes) in your major character or characters throughout your novel, it gives you a powerful focus for your revision. My story is about a scientific/medical experiment, a cool one at that, but my theme is really the growth that happens in my hero. With this in mind, I now have a pinpoint focus on the story I need to tell. All extraneous scenes can be cut, scenes that don't move my story forward and lead to this conclusion. Maybe a few scenes need to be added, scenes that are necessary to properly set up the conflicts and changes my hero will go through. Again, I'm not talking heavy stuff here. The vehicle through which my hero's change occurs starts off as a subplot to his getting the experiment started. But as the story progresses, and he battles with forces trying to stop him etc, that subplot re-emerges and becomes crucial to the finale. A powerful demonstration of how his research has changed him, while showing him in action, using that very research project.

2) With your concept of theme in hand, you finally know what your novel is about. This is huge when you come to trying to sell your book. As I mentioned earlier, during my discussion with Robert Dugoni, when he asked me what my book was about, I stumbled on endlessly about minor plot points and incidental characters and complications. That is what my plot was about, but not my book. I can't tell you how much I struggled with this. When I was writing queries, I was near incoherent in trying to get across my story. How was I supposed to reduce 450 pages of boiling plot into two paragraphs that were interesting enough to get the agent's attention? Theme. That's the answer. Remember, you book isn't about your plot. Your plot is a vehicle to tell a story. Your story is your theme.

After babbling on to Robert for what seemed like hours (I do believe kingdoms rose and fell in the time it took me to stumble through my plot) Robert politely nodded and said, "So your story is about a doctor, driven by the suicide of his brother to complete a research project, only to find that in the end, it leads to his own redemption as he learns to forgive his past."

To which I could only reply, as intelligently as possible, "Um, yeah."

Now, how embarrassing is it to have a complete stranger, someone I've known for less than an hour, turn around in just a few moments, and tell me what my novel was about far more coherently than I ever could? Robert is exquisitely tuned into the concept of theme. As an expert story-teller, he can sift through the detritus of subplots and characters and drill down to the root of the story. That's what makes his writing so effective. That's why he's a best-seller.

So, now armed with Roberts digestion of my novel, I went back and took a deeper look. Suddenly, my book made sense to me. It wasn't about the research (as cool as it is) or the villains trying to stop it, or the murders, or the political intrigue, or the manhunt, it was about one lonely, self-isolated guy, living in a world of hurt, searching desperately for salvation, believing he'd find the answer locked in a musty old basement laboratory, when in reality, the answer always rested within his own family and forgiveness.

Sounds like a better story to me.

Revising the Novel - Back to Theme part 2

2008-06-05T05:54:00.001-07:00

So the real question then, is what is your book about?

You can write a story about a doctor who solves a mass murder case at her hospital, but underneath the story, if you look hard, you'll probably find a deeper message or idea running through. This is the theme, at least in the way I use the word.

Now, after you've finished your first draft, poured your heart and soul out onto the paper (or as I heard it referred to once,"breaking open the bones to find the marrow") it's time to take a look back at what you've done. Most authors recommend a cooling off period, which I agree with. Stephen King recommends six weeks, which seems about right. Finish the draft, put it away, clear your mind, meditate on a mountain and work on another project for a short while. A short story, a magazine article, your blog, whatever it takes to keep your fingers and mind writing, but not on your novel.

Then, when the grapes have fermented, bring the book back up and re-read it. The first revision (before you get to the Ten-Step Revision Strategy which is the final revision) is to look for major issues, character issues, plot, setting, time inconsistencies etc, and also theme.

During this revision, usually something will begin to stand out, at first maybe just a tickling at your brain, but with due diligence you'll see that beyond the thriller about the murder at the hospital, something else happened. This is usually revealed in one of the character arcs of your story, usually the hero. It may be as simple as how the events of the story changed her or altered her world view. It may be reflected in the change of her attitudes towards other characters or her work or her home. It may be hard to find at first, but it's usually there. Search for it, brush the dust off, sweep away the detritus, and you'll find it. Your theme.

Now, you may ask why is it important to find this, to know that deeper underlying story when, in reality, all you've set out to do was write about a murder at the hospital. My view on this is very simple. Knowing the theme can only make your book stronger. That theme, if portrayed properly, without too much emphasis, becomes the readers "Aha," moment. Their take home message. It's not a moral, just a lingering thought. It's what can make your book stand out above all the other hospital murder stories ever written. It's what makes your writing, yours.

Once you've identified the theme (perseverance against all odds, a young woman's struggle for success and independence, whatever) then when you're revising, it becomes very easy to add scenes or embellish scenes that help to bring this theme to the surface, or eliminate scenes that are contradictory or non-helpful.

The story is still about your story, but by bringing that theme to life, your story becomes about so much more.

This is what I've been doing recently with my book. I've finally identified the theme, and suddenly the whole story seems so much clearer to me.

More on that next time.

Revising the Novel - Back to Theme

2008-06-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Let's get back to our earlier conversation about theme.

There's an excellent discussion of theme in Steven King's book, On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, which I would recommend to anyone who's interested in writing novels. Considering that these are the words of one of the best-selling writers of all time, it's certainly worth paying attention to what he has to say. His take on theme is very similar to mine, or should I say, my take is very similar to his (as I'm certain his views on this topic came first.)

First of all, theme doesn't have to be big, overblown deal, and in fact, it shouldn't. To sit down and write a book about "X" theme, because you really want to make a moral or philosophical statement is usually a set-up for failure. In the days past, readers may have had patience for a dissertation on what the authors moral views of a subject were or their grand view on life, but not today. With the short-attention spans we're confronted with, any preaching you do as a writer is probably going to be all the excuse the reader needs to put the book down. No, in today's multi-media age, all that really matters is the story. Particularly with thrillers. Keep it engaging, keep it exciting and keep it moving.

But that doesn't mean your book may not make a grander statement than a simple shoot-em-up. In fact, the best thrillers will make a statement, or a leftover lingering thought, something to make the reader go "Hmmmm, so that's what this is about." The important thing is that the theme shouldn't (can't) overpower the story. Remember, story always comes first.

I didn't set out with a deliberate theme when I started my novel. I wanted to tell a story, based in science and medicine, about an experiment that goes horribly wrong and its consequences for my hero. As it turns out, this is the approach Stephen King recommends as well. Write your book, tell your story, then look back and see what your story is really about. It's probably not about the big gunfight, or in Stephen's case, the vampires haunting the New England town, it's about the people. And usually some very specific aspect of the people.

With this in mind, as I set out to follow the Ten-Point Strategy to revise my novel, I started thinking about what deeper story my book told. At first I thought it was a "David vs Goliath" type of story, but after my discussion with Robert Dugoni, I began to realize that it was something very different, and in truth, much more satisfying.

More on that next time.

Pick up Stephen King's On Writing here: On Writing

Revising the Novel - Use of the Ten-Point Revision Strategy

2008-05-31T04:55:00.000-07:00

Before we continue on with our discussion about theme in the novel, and how, with a little bit of time and thought, your discovery of the theme of your novel will sharpen and tighten your writing, I wanted to make two quick digressions.

First, I wanted to thank all the readers who've come over and left comments. Your response has been greater than I ever imagined. I created the Ten-Point Revision Strategy out of necessity to finish this (hopefully) final draft of my novel. My agent is waiting for it and I was struggling to get it done. I needed a guidepost, some freeway signs to get me moving in the right direction. I wanted to share with all interested writers this strategy as a suggested tool that may help your writing as well. So, thank you.

Secondly, I wanted to move back to an early point in the strategy, #5 End Chapter Earlier, and add an example. As I'm going through my revision, I've utilized this point at almost every opportunity, and I've been amazed at how much it can improve a chapter.

The goal here is very simple and follows the old axiom: Start after the beginning, end before the ending.

I'd found in my writing, I tended to end with neat little summaries or chapter tie-ups that I believed set up the next chapter or created a cliff hanger ending. After learning this tip from Robert Dugoni, I've rethought this part of my writing, and as I'm moving through this revision, I've tried cutting out at least the last paragraph, or more, of each chapter. And I think it works.

Here's an example from my novel, with the before and after point #5 revision. Please comment back on whether or not you think this simple strategy hasn't made the ending more interesting, less predictable and more ominous. I look forward to reading your responses.

Not much set-up is needed for this scene. The Senator is talking to a member of his inner circle, discussing a research project (our hero's) that has become a hot topic in the upcoming election. For reasons revealed in the novel, the Senator needs the project to fail to bolster his candidacy. The reader, by this time, knows something is up, some sabotage of the research is planned, but not what that plan is.

Here's before the use of point #5.

Roderick nodded. “But that’s not the issue here—“

“But it is,” the Senator said, holding up his hands. “Don't lose sight of that. The failure of Abrahms’s research will bring unprecedented exposure to this issue. The family connection makes it even stronger. We just need to play our cards right. Once his research fails my stock will soar. This will hand us the election.”

“What if he succeeds?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if—“

The Senator cut him off with a gaze so full of certainty it made Roderick shudder. “He won’t.”

Roderick nodded and rose to his feet. “I’ll keep the forces in check.” He turned and headed towards the Pennsylvania Street exit.

McIntyre watched Roderick walk by the Iraqis, then reached into his breast pocket, pulling out his iphone. With deft movements, he typed a message then launched it into cyberspace.

It’s time for action. . . immediately

He knew the recipient would know what the pre-planned course of action would be.

And now here's after.

Roderick nodded. “But that’s not the issue here—“

“But it is,” the Senator said, holding up his hands. “Don’t lose sight of that. The failure of Abrahms’s research will bring unprecedented exposure to this issue. The family connection makes it even stronger. We just need to play our cards right. Once his research fails my stock will soar. This will hand us the election.”

“What if he succeeds?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if—“

The Senator cut him off with a gaze so full of certainty it made Roderick shudder. “Don’t worry. He won’t.”

It's such a simple change. All I did was cut out that last little bit, a concluding action, but I think it makes the ending much stronger. What do you think?

If you like this idea, try it in your own writing and see if it doesn't help.

Revising your novel - Know Your Theme

2008-05-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

I had a very interesting experience recently in a conversation with Robert Dugoni. For those who don't know Robert, he's a very talented, quite successful writer, who first books have all been best-sellers.

As we were talking, he asked me what my novel was about. Now, I've been working on this book since before the dawn of time. I've been living with it, married to it, at times divorced from it. I know it inside and out. I already have an agent for it, and Warner Books has asked me for this final revision that I'm now working on, as they're considering it. In other words, I know this book.

But do you know what I said?

To paraphrase my babbling: "It's a story about a guy who is working on this amazing medical research project, and his family is dead, and his wife is the daughter of a senator, and there's this company in Silicon Valley, and there's this contract killer, and they want the project to stop, and it all goes wrong, and. . . and. . . and. . . "

In other words, I didn't have the slightest idea what my book was about. What was the core of the story? What was the through story, the magnet that would pull the reader from the beginning to the end? What was the payoff?

We're going to talk about theme for the next several posts, and I'm going to use the term loosely, probably not as academically as a writing professor would, because in this day and age, theme in a thriller is a loosely applied technique. But in the end, it still has to be there.

After you've written the first draft, after you've poured your heart out and bled your soul onto the blank page. Once you've begun the revision process through the Ten-Point Revision strategy, it's time to step back, take a good look at your book and ask yourself, "What is my book about?"

If you're like me, the answer may astound you. It turns out my book isn't about any of the and, and, ands, that I stuttered out to Robert.

It's so much more.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #10 Move the Story Forward

2008-05-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

In the end, this is what it's all about.

Move the Story Forward.

Everything we've discussed so far, each of the previous 9 points, have all been aimed at this goal. Keep the story moving, keep the reader involved, or to paraphrase, Elmore Leonard, cut out the parts that readers skip.

Sometimes, in order to be true to this principle, we have to be cruel. In this current revision, I've cut out two of my favorite scenes, what were in my mind grand displays of my writing, because quite honestly, they weren't necessary.

In one scene, my hero has just finished a grueling Grand Rounds conference to get his research approved. In this scene, I have him working with a nurse, Mary, repairing a head laceration on a construction foreman, while he and the nurse discuss the Rounds. I loved that scene. It showed my hero in action, being very competent in the ER. It showed Mary's enthusiasm, and therefore all the hospital's support staff's, for the project, and the construction guy's random comments added a quick touch of humor into a scene that normally wouldn't be funny. I loved that scene.

There was only one problem. It wasn't necessary.

I'd already shown my hero in action in the ER, in a much more tense, character revealing scene. Chapter One to be precise. I'd already alluded to the fact that the hospital was abuzz over this pending research project. And as cute as the construction guy was, he was not a part of the story. In the end, after careful analysis, I realized that the only new bit of information the scene revealed was that the research project was being sent to a Bioethics Committee meeting for another review. This meant that our hero only had 48 hours to show results of his project before the Bioethics committee would cut him off.

Now that's a big point. Adding a time deadline always adds drama and tension to the story. We've got to get something done and we've got to get it done now. But I didn't need a 5-page scene of my hero sewing up some guy's head laceration to show this.

So I cut it.

I took that one simple necessary paragraph and inserted it into a brief memory flash our hero has while he's speeding in his car to his lab. He's got to get his work done because. . . And now the car is in motion, describing through movement, so the story is launching forward while I reveal this one point.

I hated to do it, but I think you can see just from this description that it makes the story better. The reader doesn't want to see another ER scene, they want to see the experiment. The whole book so far has been leading up to the moment this research begins, why would I want to stick another chapter in there, acting as a roadblock to what the reader wants?

Move the story forward. Kill off your favorite writing if it isn't doing that. Cut out the parts the reader's skip.

P.S. For those interested, I've taken the Ten-Point Revision Strategy and created an article for Writer's Digest. I'll let you all know when it's published. But in the meantime, keep moving your story forward.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #9 Shorten as Tension Increases

2008-05-23T05:47:00.001-07:00

This little tip is a must for thriller writers.

Shorten as Tension Increases.

By shorten, I mean shorten the length of sentences, shorten the length of words used, shorten the paragraphs. Essentially, shorten anything that can be shortened.

This is a neat tip, because it's not just referring to the act of writing, but how that writing looks and is read on the printed page. Shortening the sentences as the tension is mounting creates a staccato feeling for the reader, a bop, bop, beat that automatically makes them read faster. Using shorter words and shorter paragraphs, intensifies this effect, so as you story is moving faster, so is the reader's eye and hopefully the reader's heart.

Here's a quick example from Robert Dugoni's best-selling The Jury Master. In this scene, our hero arrives home to find his house ransacked, his cat Bud running across the kitchen.

"Sloane looked down at the broken plate at his feet, which a moment earlier had been on the leaning stack amid the contents of his cupboards. Bud had apparently been standing on the stack, licking at a puddle of syrup that had overflowed the counter. That explained the shattered glass. It didn't explain the destruction. That thought came simultaneously with the sound.

Soft footsteps behind him.

Too slow to turn, Sloane felt something hard slam against the back of his head."

Notice the pacing. Two fairly long sentences, establishing scene, placing the hero. Then it gets fast. Shorter sentences. A one sentence paragraph, then POW, the violent conclusion.

Reading this passage, you can't help but get swept up in the pacing as the tension builds.

Shorten as the Tension increases. As I'm doing now.

To get back to writing.

My book.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #8 Describe Through Movement

2008-05-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

Another one of my favorite points on the Ten-Point Strategy and one that has had the biggest impact on my writing.

Describe Through Movement.

Back in the day of Melville and Dickens (before television, MTV and Youtube, when reading was the only form of entertainment) it was perfectly acceptable for authors to expound endlessly on the weather, the flow of grass across a hillside, the decor of a room, the fall of a woman's dress.

Not any more.

In today's world of short-attention span theater, things need to be speeded up, and particularly for thrillers, they need to be in constant motion. Now I don't mean a swirling maelstrom of nonstop action, and I don't mean to say that description and setting aren't important to a story, but never underestimate the power of movement as a technique to get a point across.

One of the simplest ways I incorporate this in my writing is in describing a new setting. Say my character Taylor enters a new room, like his lab for the first time. While I'd love to go into vivid description about the chaotic mess that is his basement laboratory, stressing certain details to show how bare-bones, low budget their funding is, in truth, I'd lose the reader right away. They don't want a long dissertation on the room, they want the story. Yet, some details need to be shared, to place the story, to set the tone and to show that these guys are broke. The way to do it is through movement.

Rather than having the narrator jump in and give a quick info dump on the room, I need to show Taylor walking through the room. Describe the furniture as he walks by it or trips over it. Describe the chaos as he steps over piles. Let his gaze shift to the crumbling plaster on the walls or brush the pile of chocolate wrappers off the desk. Subtle movements like this allow the author to include all the detail necessary to tell the story, without stopping the story to do it.

Since I've learned this technique, from Tess Gerritsen, I've gone back to quite a few of my static descriptions and simply put them into movement. And the results have been dramatic. Try it in your own story at any point of static description. When describing a person, have them in movement. When describing a setting, have someone or something moving in or through that setting. See if it doesn't make your writing more lively.

And that's the way I think of my novels today, one beautiful, flowing, moving story. Hopefully one where the movement will sweep the reader up and carry them along for the ride.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #7 Tighten Words

2008-05-21T05:45:00.001-07:00

This is where I really go over the manuscript with a surgeon's scalpel cutting out any unnecessary or ineffective words. This can be a fun process as it involves our creative use of the English language.

As I'm reading each sentence, I ask myself, "Does it relay exactly what I wish for it to relay?" Can I find a better word to describe what I need to describe? Can I find a better word to convey a sense of movement, of drama, of tension?

In the prologue of my novel, my character, a young boy, is staring at the ceiling, watching the interplay of light and shadows. Inside this spectral drama, he knows hides the dark spirits of his grandmother's tales. Yet, the word 'hides' while appropriate, doesn't quite convey the fear a young child would experience, alone in his room at night, searching for malevolent ghosts. Sure, the spirits may be hiding in the shadows on his ceiling, but the word, 'lurking' is much more chilling, much more full of the ominous presence that I needed for the scene.

Another little trick that I learned from John Hough Jr., that I like to include here has to do with a very common tendency of mine. Often I'll write, "he paused," or something similar. I use this to create a beat, to give the character time to think, to build tension. For example, "he stepped to the doorway and paused." John taught me that rather than use the word 'pause,' create the pause. Instead of stepping to the doorway and pausing, he should step to the door and give a backward glance at the photo on the table or such. This still creates the beat but is much more evocative, descriptive and revealing of character than simply pausing. Used effectively, I can turn what was once just a pause into a powerful moment for the story.

In truth, Tightening Words is a difficult step for me. Some authors have a tremendous command of the English language. I can barely remember the word 'hello' when someone approaches me on the street, so I really have to stretch my mind. But I do, using that scalpel, searching out the bad words and excising them.

In the end, my patient, the manuscript, will be healthier because of it.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #6 Kill Adverbs

2008-05-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

This is an easy one.

Kill adverbs.

You've all heard this before. Adverbs are, by and large, an unnecessary aspect of writing. They are the sign of a sloppy writer, too lazy to think of a more creative way to say something. And almost always, they are clumsy.

In an earlier post I mentioned Iris Johanson's use of the phrase, "she nodded her head jerkily," three times in the first sixth of one of her books. As a quick writing exercise, I bet we could all write down three ways that we could convey the same message more elegantly, more clearly, more creatively. Better yet, I bet we could think of three ways that the same information could be conveyed that do a better job of revealing character or moving the story forward with more drama or tension.

Yes, one little phrase can do all that, if we stretch our minds and think creatively.

One place that adverbs tend to creep in is as a dialogue tag. This is a practice we need to stop. People don't shout angrily. They shout. The anger should be conveyed in their choice of words, body language or action. Not with a clumsy tag.

At this point in my revision, all adverbs need to be removed. They served a purpose in the early drafts, holding space, telling me what I wanted to say. But now it's time. I am an adverb hunter. I simply put the search tool on --ly and search them all out and destroy them.

It is almost aways better to replace a weak verb/adverb combination with a stronger verb. Don't have your character walking quickly, have him rush. This conveys a better sense of action and movement.

Now, every once in a while, I'll find one adverb that I'll keep. In one scene, my character the Senator looks directly at the camera. I believe that adverb does reveal information on character and intent; it takes a certain type of person to look directly into the camera, rather than avoid its peering gaze. Besides, it's hard to have someone looking directly at the camera without using the word 'directly.'

But none of my characters will nod jerkily. I promise you that.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #5 End Chapter Earlier

2008-05-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is probably my favorite item on our ten-point list, because it's so simple and can be so effective. End Chapter Earlier.

This is a tip I picked up from Robert Dugoni, best-selling author of The Jury Master and a fantastic writing teacher. If you ever get a chance to take a course from him, do it. He's extremely talented, very enthusiastic and an incredibly nice guy. You can learn more about him www.robertdugoni.com.

End Chapter Earlier. We've all heard the axiom, "Start after the beginning and end before the end." While I find this to be a powerful truth for plotting the novel, I need to remember that this applies to each individual scene also. Often times, I find myself ending the chapters with what I think is an excellently written summary, detailing the heroes tension or fear, setting up for my big final sentence. It usually feels good when I'm writing it, but in revising, I've learned to cut it out.

Bob's advice was to go to each chapter and cut out the last paragraph. While that may sound frightening, especially after I've performed one of my beautiful summaries, he's right. It may not apply to every chapter, but more often than not, after I've gone through the chapter, I find that by simply cutting out that last paragraph, the scene ends better. More drama. More tension.

I encourage you to give it a try. Go to each chapter and cut out the last paragraph. Just do it. You can always put it back if it's not right for that scene, but try it. You just might find that it ends a little better.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #4 Tighten Dialogue

2008-05-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

Moving on down our list, today's entry is Tighten Dialogue.

Now, we're not going to do a whole, big dialogue entry today. Book's have been written on that; listening to how people speak, making sure each character has their own voice, etc. We're in revision mode remember. (By the way, I'm up to chapter 11 now. Had a great day yesterday. Plenty of time to write and got a lot of work done. Good work. You know the kind; when you finish you really feel like you accomplished something).

Back to the post. Tighten Dialogue.

To me, this means two things.

1) No direct answers. We do it all the time in our writing. Bill asks, "Did you see the paper yet?" and his boss replies, "No. Not yet." Technically, there's nothing wrong here, but it doesn't do anything either. To tighten dialogue, add tension and reveal character, try never to have your character answer a question directly. In real life, we rarely do. We're always to busy thinking about our own stuff to answer someone's question directly.

So how about if we change the above to:
"Did you see the paper yet?"
"That's what I pay you for."

Now we've got something. Bill's boss is revealing character here, impatience, domination, directness. How Bill responds can now really move the scene forward.

No direct answers.

2) Keep it short. Find the beat. Rarely, if ever have one character speak for more than three sentences. In real life, we can rarely get three sentences out (if we had that much to say) before the other person interrupts us with their own thoughts, a question, a burp, whatever.

Keep it short.

That's how I'm tightening my dialogue.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #3 Know Each Character's Motivation

2008-05-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Todays trip down the Ten-Point Revision Strategy lands us at Know Each Character's Motivation.

While this might seem incredibly basic, I find that at times, it's one of the hardest things to do. When we're writing a scene, we usually pay careful attention to our hero's point of view (or the POV of the main character in the scene) but we often ignore the fact that all those little secondary characters also have their own lives, ideas, desires and reasons to be in the scene.

For example. In my novel, Deadly Vision, the hero, Taylor, has many significant scenes in the lab with his research partner, Malcomb. In each scene, I know exactly what Taylor wants and why. His backstory is imprinted in my brain. And I think I know Malcomb as well. He's a little awkward, a brilliant scientist, and a touch of comic relief compared to the much more serious Taylor. But when they're in a scene together, do I really know what Malcomb wants? Or do I know how to make him say things that act as drama compared to what Taylor wants?

In order to really flesh out the novel at this point, I need the answer to be that I know Malcomb as backwards and forwards as Taylor. Sure, I've already created a character profile and history, and written Malcomb's story arc as it will evolve throughout the novel. But what I really need to focus on is that scene. What does Malcomb really want? Why? What is he afraid of?

Just because he's Taylor's partner, doesn't mean they want the same things. Even in the research, they have different reasons, goals, levels of commitment. Now, it's important that I don't drop a big info dump on the reader (see Ten-Point Strategy #1, RUE) to explain why Malcomb wants what he wants, but the point remains, he wants something. We all do. Each scene I write will be clearer if I, and therefore the reader, know what that something is.

Drama and tension comes from the conflict of two people wanting two very different things in the same situation. Not violence or anger. But desire. That is the real fuse for conflict.

Know each of your character's motivations. For each scene. Then let the drama unfold.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #2 Show Don't Tell

2008-05-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

This one is an axiom for all fiction writing, regardless of genre.

Show Don't Tell.

I fall into this trap more often than I'd like to admit, and it rears it's ugly heads in a number of ways.

Narrative exposition
Overuse of adverbs
Horrible dialogue tags

All of the above take the reader out of the story as the author insists they step in and make a point. At my writing group last night Les pointed out that three times on the first CD of the Iris Johansen book he was listening to she wrote, "She nodded her head jerkily."

I don't think I've ever nodded my head jerkily. That is lazy writing. That is the author (a mega-bestseller) not taking the time to show us an action, or create a visual through her use of action, and instead relying upon the most clumsy adverb I've ever seen.

Usually, Show Don't Tell, is a corollary to the first point of our Ten Point Revision Strategy; RUE, Resist the Urge to Explain. It is the author feeling that the reader is too stupid to understand why a character is behaving the way they are without first telling us why. It appears in situations like this.

Bill is an angry guy. He get's pissed off all the time, traffic lights, slow Starbucks lines, commercials on T.V. It's just the way he is. But rather than writing what I just did, the way to bring this into a story is to simply show Bill getting mad. It's much more effective at describing the character than telling me that he's an angry guy.

The trick for the good author is to create a situation where we can see Bill getting mad, through action or dialogue, that is actually a part of the story and moves the story forward.

In the end, that's the key to all ten points of our revision strategy. Move the story forward.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy - #1 RUE

2008-05-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

For the next few posts, I wanted to go through the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, point by point, try and highlight some basic concepts and throw the whole thing open to discussion. This is my strategy, created out of need to make my novel better, but that doesn't mean it's the only strategy or necessarily complete. I'm open to amending it, changing it, rearranging it. Whatever. The goal is simply to write the best fiction we can.

So once again, here's my current strategy, the one I'll be implementing as soon as I finish this post. (I'm on chapter 8 of the current re-write, by the way. I'll keep you posted of that progress also.) I want to emphasize that this applies most to the writing of thrillers and similar works, where story movement is key. Writer's of literary fiction may have different guidelines.

I write about this as much to help anyone who can benefit from all that I've learned as to help myself. By going through this strategy (or any other lesson) point-by-point, I help to cement that knowledge deeper into my own brain. Perhaps, if I cement it deep enough, it will finally stick.

So then, here's our first point.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy

1) Remove unnecessary exposition - RUE (resist urge to explain) - keep them guessing

2) Show don't tell

3) Know each character's motivation

4) Tighten dialogue - no direct answers

5) End chapter earlier - cut last paragraph

6) Kill adverbs

7) Tighten words

8) Describe through movement

9) Shorten as tension increases

10) Move story forward

Today's lesson is simple: RUE. Resist the Urge to Explain.

Write those letters on a piece of paper and tape it near your writing place. I have it in big letters, taped to my printer. RUE. Resist the Urge to Explain.

Nothing can kill a story faster than the author's perceived need to explain the story, or a character, or a motivation. Even a scientific point. The exposition literally stops the story in its tracks while the author jumps in. "In order to understand this, first let me explain why Jeff behaves this way. You see, as a child . . blah, blah, blah."

Don't do it. Writer's call this the dreaded Info Dump. Character backstory, character personality sketch. Scientific information.

What you need to do is show this information, not tell it. Create a way to show your character is a bitch, don't tell us she was mean to her friends in eighth grade. Show us the scientific process, describing it as it's happening. Don't simply drop a paragraph of stuff at us.

Sometimes, the best way to do this is through action or dialog. Other times, it helps to put the information you need to express into a character's thoughts. But briefly. We really don't soliloquize about this stuff.

Always the best way to present information is in the context of the story, with the story moving forward.

This is an area I need to work on. As a doctor, Professor and Lecturer, I'm used to explaining things. Writing scientific/medical fiction, the urge is to tell them the history of my science. Who did what, when, to try and establish scientific credibility. When what I need to do, is tell the story. Drop in the necessary facts, but show the science as it's happening. This makes it real. This makes it interesting.

Resist the Urge to Explain. RUE. Memorize it. It works.

Welcome to my Writing Life

2008-05-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to get things started.

What I hope to do here is pass along all the little tricks, strategies and lessons I've learned along the way of striving to be a professional writer. I've had some success on this path. I've published a health/wellness book, TriEnergetics: Balancing Nutrition, Exercise and Meditation for Lasting Wellness with New Harbinger Press that's in its second printing. I've published articles with Men's Fitness and Men's Health, penned some ten to fifteen cover features in various national magazines. Not a bad start.

But my main love is fiction.

On those lines, I've published about ten short stories in regional and national journals, but my passion is novels. Thrillers. I've got stories brimming in my head, dying to be put to page. Currently, I'm working on what I hope to be the final revisions of my medical/thriller Deadly Vision, and my plan is to pass onto you, various lessons I've learned as we go through this writing process together. In addition to writing tips and techniques, I'll share what I've learned about getting an agent, writing a query, promotions, publishing, as well as the tears and joys as we go along this path together. Just so you know, I already have an agent for this book, who's as eager as I am to see this revision completed.

Please comment as much as you care to, argue and debate. I'd love for this to become an open forum on the joys and sorrows of our writing lives. I expect this blog to help me as much as it may help any of you.

The first lesson I want to share is the process by which I'm working right now on revising. Importantly, this is the final revision. Early drafts had cleared up plot points, expanded character, added detail. Now, I'm trying to pare down to a desired length of 100,000 words.

At the side of my desk, on a big pad of paper, I keep this list visible at all times, to remind me of what is essential for me to do at this stage of revision.

The Ten-Point Revision Strategy

1) Remove unnecessary exposition - RUE (resist urge to explain) - keep them guessing

2) Show don't tell

3) Know each character's motivation

4) Tighten dialogue - no direct answers

5) End chapter earlier - cut last paragraph

6) Kill adverbs

7) Tighten words

8) Describe through movement

9) Shorten as tension increases

10) Move story forward

Most of these steps are self-explanatory, but I'll describe each one in depth in future posts.

For now, keep on writing.