Tagged: writing
Writing Pitfalls: Pacing
Unlike with some things like dialogue or grammar, pacing in a novel is not that easy to fix. Every author writes differently (obviously) so of course everyone is going to make different mistakes. The only tried-and-true method for working out pacing issues is getting a good developmental editor, but I’ve decided to write some tips to help you avoid the most common pitfalls when it comes to pacing.
Pitfall #1: Not enough/too much background information.
One of the problems that I most commonly encounter, particularly in fantasy and science fiction is that the writer is trying so hard to have a fast-paced story that they leave out information that could help the reader actually understand the story. In fantasy it’s important that you reveal information about your world and the rules therein to your reader or they’re really not going to care what’s happening. The same goes for science fiction, which also has the added difficulty of explaining science to both newbies to the genre and hardcore fans.
As a writer it’s hard to separate what information you’re imparting to the reader from what information you have up in your head that seems obvious to you, the creator. One of the best ways to figure out whether you have enough background is to get some beta readers. If they’re left with more questions than answers by the end of the novel you’ve got some more writing to do.
Conversely, if a reader doesn’t need to learn about every family’s bloodlines, motivations, hair colour, eye colour, etc. then you’ve got some rewriting to do to take out that irrelevant information. It’s important for the reader to be able to distinguish secondary characters from one another but if you as a writer really need to focus on making your main characters pop out. This not only helps the reader follow your story but helps with the plot so you don’t get too bogged down in secondary character subplots. Continue reading
Writing Pitfalls: Dialogue
I don’t claim to be a writer or even an expert on books in general, but I know what I like as a reader and what other people like to read in general. That’s why I’m writing this 10 part series to help writers, especially self-published writers, improve their writing.
I can’t tell you guys how many times I’ve wanted to throw my Kindle or my book at the wall because of bad dialogue. You could say I’m exaggerating but I’m being completely honest when I say that if your book has awesome characters, a fast-paced plot and solid world-building but has bad dialogue I will not be able to finish it. I have had to give up on more books than I care to admit because of wretched dialogue.
All of the mistakes with dialogue basically boil down to three main categories, which I’ll go into detail below.
Pitfall #1: Stiff dialogue.
Example: “Why hello Gerard! What a lovely day it is outside, is it not? I believe the chief meteorologist Jonathon Ziegelgansberger predicted a temperature of 90 degrees, which is 15 degrees above the seasonal average. In our little town of Cosmo our main industry is tourism, therefore I expect all of the businesses will see a 100% increase in sales this financial quarter.”
How to fix it:
I swear the example above is not an exaggeration of some of the dialogue I’ve read in books, both self-published and traditional. Dialogue is a tricky thing but the main problem I seem to see is that authors don’t read their dialogue aloud to themselves. They don’t consider whether the way they write is the way a person would actually speak in the real world. Authors: you need to make your dialogue flow naturally. I have two very simple tips below to help you:
1. Read it aloud to yourself. If you stumble over words or it sounds ridiculous to your ears, that’s a good hint that your dialogue is stiff.
2. Ask yourself if a person with the character’s socioeconomic status, upbringing, education level, etc. would speak that way in the real world.
These are some pretty simple steps to fixing stiff dialogue but very, very few authors even bother to do them and editors don’t seem to catch it. Continue reading
4 Lessons Writers Can Learn from Opera
Opera has a reputation as a rather dreary art form, full of over-complicated/ridiculous plots and fat women screeching. Nothing could be further than the truth in a lot of cases. And rather than mocking opera without even trying it, many people would do well to learn lessons from it. Writers especially because it may come as a shock to some, but opera imparts some very important lessons to us. The following are just some of them.
Lesson: Good characters can have terrible flaws.
As taught by: Tosca, Ernani, Aida and La Boeheme.
In Tosca, the title character (who is a notable singer within the opera) is the epitome of a wonderful person: she’s sincere in her faith, tries to do good in the world and her love for Cavaradossi (a notable painter and her lover) knows no bounds. Except that Tosca becomes wildly jealous when she sees that Cavaradossi has portrayed another woman as the Madonna in his painting in the church in Act 1. She is haunted by the woman’s eyes and they argue back and forth before Cavaradossi finally changes the Madonna’s blue eyes to black eyes like Tosca’s.
Normally I’d say that extreme jealousy like Tosca’s would make me hate a character, but it works in her case. She’s a good person but has a fatal flaw: her jealousy. The same is true in real life, as I’m sure we’ve all noticed. Even the best people in our lives can have horrible character traits and that’s something authors really need to recognize. Yes, even the main character of the novel has to have something unlikeable about them. That’s how real life is so why should fiction be any different? Continue reading
Guest Post: Not Your Standard Mythology
[The following blog post is by Linda Poitevin, whose books I was supposed to review for the Sins of the Lost Blog Tour. They haven’t come in the mail yet, but what Linda has to say about world-building is truly a fascinating read.]
Many writers of fantasy/urban fantasy pull from existing mythology as a basis for their stories. By giving an oft-told story a fresh twist, a writer can create a whole new world; make us see things in a whole new light. But when an author decides to rewrite Christian angel mythology, she can find herself treading a fine line between “fresh” and “blasphemous”…at least, according to her Catholic-raised husband. 😉
The Grigori Legacy series started out innocently enough, intended to be a single-title paranormal romance involving a female homicide detective and the really hot angel sent by heaven to protect her from a fallen angel. But in my search for motivation (why was the fallen angel after her?) and conflict (what was keeping the detective from falling in love with her protector?), I began uncovering a veritable treasure trove of new-to-me angel mythology: Lucifer as God’s best-loved angel before he fell; a half-human, half angel race known as the Nephilim; a choir of angels (the Grigori) whose purpose was to watch humanity but not interfere with it; and much, much more.
My writer’s “what-if” process couldn’t help but be triggered.
One of those what-ifs became a true game-changer. Lucifer had fallen from grace because of his jealousy of humankind, but what if, I wondered, God was a woman…and Lucifer’s love for her hadn’t been as simple as the love of an angel for a deity? The implications—and the possibilities resulting from those implications—were mind-boggling. (This would have also been the first accusation of blasphemy from my husband…but he’s since come around. J )
Once I’d embraced the idea of twisting some rather beloved mythology to suit my own nefarious needs, other pieces of a much greater story arc began to fall into place. A war between heaven and hell that had been ended by a peace pact; the inevitable demise of that accord; angels whose free will had been taken from them for their own protection; angelic hunters of the fallen ones who walked among mortals; the impact on humanity made by descendants of the Nephilim; even a “second coming” of sorts.
Some of my ideas gave me a moment’s pause, I must admit…particularly when it came to a certain event in Sins of the Lost. I was—and continue to be—hyper aware that I’m working with material that is regarded very seriously by some. Ultimately, however, it comes down to the fact that, whatever the mythology behind them, the Grigori Legacy books are works of fiction…
Although I still totally think God could be a woman. 😉
***
Linda Poitevin was born and raised in B.C., Canada’s westernmost province. Growing up in an era when writing was “a nice hobby, dear, but what are you going to do for a living?”, Linda worked at a variety of secretarial jobs before applying to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Due to an error in measurement, however, she was turned down when she didn’t meet the height requirement of that time. Undeterred, Linda became a civilian member in the force and was a dispatcher for two and a half years, during which time she met her husband, a police officer.
Following their transfer to Ottawa, Linda went on to become a real estate agent and then a human resources consultant before starting a family. She remained a stay-at-home mom, homeschooled her youngest daughter for nine years and, now that she has realized writing can be more than a nice hobby, she continues to live her dream of being a cop vicariously through her characters.
Linda currently lives near Ottawa with her husband, youngest of three daughters, one very large husky/shepherd/Great Dane-cross dog, two cats, a rabbit, and a bearded dragon lizard. When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found in her garden or walking her dog along the river or through the woods.
An Apology to Self-Published Writers
Remember one of my first articles I ever did? It was exactly one year ago to this day and it was called Self-Publishing: A Reviewer’s Perspective. While I didn’t exactly say self-publishing was a terrible thing that was ruining literature, my feelings about it were generally negative.
So, first off, let me say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for judging self-published writers before I really knew what self-publishing involved. I’m sorry for judging self-published writers based on my very limited experience reading self-published books and a few big media incidents. I’m sorry that I jumped to conclusions and pretty much lumped all self-published authors together.
You’ll probably be wondering how I came to my new perspective on self-publishing. Let me say it wasn’t easy and it’s certainly not easy to admit on your public blog that you screwed up. But it’s the right thing to do. So here’s sort of how I changed my mind:
1. I read some amazing self-published books.
Before I wrote my piece I had very few good experiences with self-publishing in general. From reading books with tons of mistakes to watching self-published authors explode at reviewers who gave them bad reviews, you could say I had only seen the ugly side of self-publishing. That’s why I didn’t exactly support, but didn’t exactly dismiss the possibility of self-publishing having a good side. I just didn’t have the experience necessary to see the good side.
In the past year I’ve started reading a lot more self-published books and I found some great ones. Prophecy of the Most Beautiful by Diantha Jones, There Comes a Prophet by David Litwack and Starlet’s Web by Carla J. Hanna, just to name a few. Part of what helped me come to this stage of acceptance was reading awesome, well proofread and well-written books like these. The other part is that I realized no publisher would have even considered publishing these. Some of them are too unique and have unconventional stories, others are books that don’t conveniently fit into one category and thus could never be marketed easily.
And you know what? It would have been a terrible shame not to read any of these simply because I lumped all self-published authors together.
2. I actually spoke to a wide variety of self-published authors.
In a psychology class I took I learned that one of the most effective ways to end prejudice towards certain groups is to expose the prejudiced person to that group more frequently. It’s hard to hate something if you put a face to it. That’s why it was so easy for me to completely dismiss self-publishing as an absolute last resort: I didn’t really know that many self-published authors.
But then I started interviewing self-published authors and saw the reasons why they self-published. Some of them submitted their books to every publisher in the entire country and others just wanted to have control over the entire process. As a blogger, I can completely understand that. Here on The Mad Reviewer, while I generally stick to my book mandate I do occasionally stray from it if I feel like it. I might do a post about my vacation or on my birthday every year I’ll rant about something I feel passionate about but isn’t book-related. I love being in control; I completely understand how authors might want to control what their book cover looks like because some traditionally published authors get horrible book covers. It’s just little things like that that it’s nice to have control over.
Talking to self-published authors and hearing that some of them had been trying to get published for 10 years before they decided to self-publish really changed my viewpoint. I mean, most of these authors were great writers who should have been published in the mainstream. I’d read their books and loved them, but publishers either didn’t see the value in them or didn’t see a market for them (not that the two are mutually exclusive).
3. I learned more about the self-publishing community.
I’ve had some really bad experiences with self-published writers, but 99% of my experiences have been good. Obviously not all self-published writers are crazy people that will attack you online if you give them a bad review.
What I didn’t realize for a while is that the self-publishing community really, really hates when one of their own presents a bad image to the media by acting out. One entitled writer attacking a reviewer reflects badly on the whole self-publishing community. I applied that to my own life: what if one person in Saskatchewan was an alcoholic and suddenly everyone in Saskatchewan was perceived as being alcoholics? That’s not even a very good comparison because there are far more self-published authors than there are people in Saskatchewan.
As a reading public, we need to stop judging self-published authors by the loose cannons. One person going crazy shouldn’t ruin it for a generally well-behaved and supportive community. That took a long time for me to realize, but I’m definitely glad I did. It’s absolutely not right to judge a whole group by a few people.
In general, I’d say that the reading public is starting (very subtly) to shift toward something like acceptance toward self-publishing. Will it ever be on the same level as traditional publishing? That’s hard to say. There will always be the lemons in the community that ruin it for everyone else, but I think self-publishing is getting better. By ‘better’, I mean that there are way more resources out there for self-published writers and far more ways for them to get the word out.
We’ll know self-published books are mostly accepted when self-published authors are able to submit their books into big name awards like the Nebula, Newberry or Booker Prize. Will the mainstream accept self-publishing? In time, perhaps. For now, although I’m a relatively small-scale reviewer, everyone out there in the self-publishing community should know that you have one convert. Maybe in the future there will be more.