Eh, It’s Not My Style

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One of my favorite things a high school writing teacher ever told me was that English classes in school are to teach you all the rules of the language so you’ll know which ones to break when you start writing creatively. Now, there are some “rules” you can’t get around using without sounding like you don’t speak English very well, but starting sentences with conjunctions, ending with prepositions, and split infinitives are all “rules” English classes teach that become less than important when writing a poem, short story, or a novel. As an editor, I know the correct use of who and whom, but if an author is writing dialogue for a character who doesn’t, I’m hardly going to force a “whom” into their mouths. In such cases, the overall style of the writing is more important than each and every (sometimes arbitrary) writing rule.

Now, this fact should not be taken as carte blanche to write however you want with the argument that it’s your style and therefore good writing. Style is about making conscious choices about how a character would speak (for example, it might be appropriate to have malapropisms for a character who’s trying to sound smarter than they are) not about excusing poor writing (if you have made an unintended malapropism, it’s probably for the best someone catches that before you start sending your manuscript out).

Note: It is also important to state that even if you have made an intentional style choice, it doesn’t necessarily make that style “good” writing. A stylistic choice is more subjective as to if it’s good or bad, but you can still have “bad” writing when you’ve made a conscious choice.

So, you’ve made it through your manuscript and consciously chosen which writing rules you want to use for each character and which ones you don’t.  Sarah’s character is exceedingly proper and uses every arbitrary grammar rule on the books. Her best friend, Jane, is much more colloquial. Awesome. You have some great characterization starting with just that jumping off point. But what about all those little writing rules you have never quite gotten an answer about? Will adding an extra ‘s’ in James’s look out of place with all of Sarah’s ‘whom’s and ‘am I not’s? Does James’ mean there’s more than one James? Has anyone actually given us an answer on that?

In fact, not really. Unlike being able to mark “he am” as an improper conjugation, all of the following “problems” don’t have one correct answer. So what should you do when it comes to some object belonging to a James? The trick is to simply be consistent. If you use James’ five times, don’t use James’s on the sixth.

Since consistency is the real issue here, groups that deal with a number of different writers/authors (such as newspapers or publishers) tend to follow one of a number of “style guides”. Instead of keeping a record of what is correct and incorrect grammatically, these style guides help writers remain consistent from one person to the next. So while there isn’t really a “right” answer when it comes to any of the following problems, there are some style guides writers can choose to follow in the hope of remaining consistent within their industry. While academic papers often use APA or MLA style guides, and journalists tend to use AP Style, most publishers I’ve come across use Chicago Manual Style (CMS) when combating all of these “style” issues. So, if you’re a creative writer and wish to follow a style guide, CMS is your best bet.

And so, here are some tips on what to do about some of the most common “I’ve heard it both ways” writing issues out there:

1. Serial Comma. Also called the Oxford or Harvard comma, serial commas come into play when you’re listing multiple items.

For example: I went to the store to get apples, oranges, peaches, and grapes. Now, if you can’t tell, that last comma in the list is bolded. Why? Because people can’t agree if that comma needs to be there or not. Personally, I use the serial comma (which is what CMS suggests, so most novels use them as well) but, grammatically, you don’t have to have a comma there. “I went to the store to get apples, oranges, peaches and grapes” is still just as grammatically correct.

Of course, serial commas can save you some trouble, as this internet meme shows us. For those not wanting to click off the site, it’s the classic: “We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin” example. With the comma, you have a list, without the comma, it possibly sounds like the strippers are JFK and Stalin. Just a little difference. Of course, it would be possible to clear that up with changing the sentence slightly rather than using a serial comma (We invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers), but personally I, and CMS, prefer not getting into that mess to start with.

What CMS Says: Use serial commas.

2. Periods in Abbreviations. Most recently, my friends and I got into a debate as to whether Los Angeles should be abbreviated “LA” or “L.A.” As with everything else on this list, both are “correct” (nobody is going to see LA or L.A. and immediately shake their head at what a poor editor your book must have had.

What CMS Says: Put a period after every abbreviated word (abbrev., Rev.) unless it is a technical abbreviation (cm for centimeters, etc.) and a period between each letter in an abbreviation that is comprised of multiple words (U.S.A. rather than USA and L.A. instead of LA)

3. Possessives ending with ‘s’. Always the quintessential “What should we do…?” question, the ‘s being singular and s’ being plural doesn’t quite work when you have a name that already ends with ‘s’. Most people tend to go with whichever they find less confusing/sounds better to them. In this case, it’s more important that you’re consistent between words rather than as a whole (you could have James’s and then Atlantis’ if you like, just don’t have James’s and then James’).

What CMS Says: Use ‘s if monosyllabic (James’s, Burns’s) but only an apostrophe if more than one syllable (Artemis’, Jesus’)
[UPDATE (9/13/14): CMS now says all singular possessives should have ‘s, so it would now be James’s and Artemis’s]

4. Writing out numbers. Numbers like making things so difficult. They come in English words (one, two, three…) and Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3…), and that’s not even mentioning other systems such as Roman numerals (I, II, III…). So are we supposed to write them out, use the Arabic numbers, or do something else entirely. It’s up to you and your style guide. Personally I tend to write numbers out when writing, but I see plenty of people use the Arabic numbers. (I haven’t seen anyone use Roman numerals in their writing [other than chapter headings] but that might just be a difficulty thing).

What CMS Says: Write out numbers 1 – 99 (one through ninety-nine) and then use Arabic numbers for anything larger than two digits (100, 4500, 5,430,458,302). Note: There are special rules for percentages and other special uses of numbers. Refer to your style guide if you aren’t sure one way or the other.

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5. British vs. American Spellings. When it comes to picking British or American spellings of words (colour vs color; programme vs. program) it’s generally best to stick to what you’re used to. Did you grow up in a country that taught “British English”? Then stick to that. Are you more comfortable with American spellings? Use those. The more you try to force yourself to use spellings that you aren’t used to, the more likely you are to start flopping between the two. And it’s correct to use either, even if your characters are British when you’re American, or American when you’re British. The main thing  to take away here, as always, is to be consistent. People worked to standardize spellings for a reason. It makes things easier/less distracting to read.

What CMS Says: Being an American-made guide (the “Chicago” in the name isn’t there by random chance) CMS suggests the American spelling of words (behavior, jeweled, etc.) however most publishers have an “in-house” style guide that will take precedence in this case. If they have no problem with whatever spelling you have used, they’ll leave it alone. If they do, their editors will change it. As long as you are consistent one way or the other, it won’t affect your submission chances.

6. Italicizing vs. Underlining. When it comes to emphasizing a word, people tend to either italicize it or underline it. Both obviously are ways of setting one word apart from the others in a sentence. Most style guides (including CMS) prefer italics to underlines when it comes to added emphasis (as they are less intrusive on a page while still adding emphasis when read) but I have met more than one publisher that prefers underlines, at least in manuscripts. Feel free to use whichever you prefer (I personally default to italics per CMS), just be careful if a publisher specifically asks for one over the other in a submission.

What CMS Says: Italicize when going for emphasis, but do so sparingly.

7. Double Spaces After Periods. Oh the flame wars about whether or not you need double spaces after periods. There have been a number of articles about whether or not people should keep doing so. Many older typists had the necessity of hitting the space bar twice after the end of each sentence drilled into them with no mercy. Some teachers still teach this. The fact is, while hitting space twice on a typewriter might have been useful, most word processing systems have an algorithm that makes for a little extra space after an end of a sentence anyway. Hitting the space bar twice only serves to make too large of a gap at the end of each sentence. Is it incorrect to add double spaces at the end of a sentence? Technically no. Is it unnecessary (or possibly hazardous) when typing on anything but a typewriter? It can be.

What CMS Says:  Their official line is, “There is no reason for two spaces after a period in published work.” They further go on to state their reasons as to saying “no” to double spaces: (1) it is inefficient, requiring an extra keystroke for every sentence; (2) even if a program is set to automatically [watch for] an extra space after a period, such automation is never foolproof; (3) there is no proof that an extra space actually improves readability (4) two spaces are harder to control for than one in electronic documents; and (5) two spaces can cause problems with line breaks in certain programs.

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Guest Post – Bernadette Marie: Why I Became a Publisher

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Today’s post comes to us from Bernadette Marie, Romance Author and founder of 5 Prince Publishing. Learn more about her here. 

Regular posts will resume Monday. In the meantime, you can also read my “Author Spotlight” Interview on World Lit Cafe live today here. 

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There are always ways to get to where you want to go. Look at an Internet map. Plug in your destination and you will get multiple routes. You chose the one best for you. Becoming a publisher was the best for me.

Let’s start with why I even bothered.

I did my foot work. I put in my time. I sent queries (and I’d done so since I was 16 years old.) I pitched, took classes, had the critique partners…and so on and so on. And like many aspiring authors I was shot down often.

I take everything as learning experience! A “no” is just a stepping stone to the next level. The hardest part knowing what you’re supposed to change to get better.

Self-promotion has always come easy for me. So I began to do so as soon as I decided I was a serious author. I was approached by a publisher who wanted me. What a thrill! Well, let me get that out of the way…publishers do not seek out authors. Authors seek out publishers. Needless to say it was a bad business move.

After years of basically having my books held hostage and no royalties paid, I had to move on. With my experience as an entrepreneur I knew I could do this myself. I was right.

The purpose of 5 Prince Publishing was to give me an actual business to publish under. Yes, in 2011, the independent publisher and author was still not a fully accepted method of publishing. Here we sit in 2013 and the format is the way to go.

What I quickly found out was authors wanted to embrace the smaller houses and have more control over their work.

I certainly wasn’t ready or thinking of publishing others. However, authors didn’t want to hear that. They liked my format for my business and they wanted me to publish them. So I began to accept other authors.

Taking my business seriously, as I was doing, to be a 5 Prince Publishing author, you had to be willing to have an understanding of how small my company was, work with me through the growing pains, and of course you had to write a good book.

I made some mistakes. I helped some friends and that didn’t go so well. Now I don’t accept the books, someone else with a fresh look at it does that. I have a great team of editors and line editors and the submissions just fly in. Our cover artist is amazing. Our authors interactive in the big picture, understanding that every little it helps when you help each other.

In January 2014 5 Prince Publishing will turn three years old and will have over 60 titles in its catalog. I can’t say I ever saw it coming. We have multiple bestselling authors and revenue grows as we continue to learn this new frontier of publishing.

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Die! Die!

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This past weekend, I finally caught up on Season 3 of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Yes, yes, I’m a little late to the party (or wedding, I suppose) but lacking HBO myself, I was entirely reliant on my good friend kindly opening up his home and TiVo for ten hours of sex and gore marathoning. And so over two evenings, we got me entirely caught up and ready for just as gory Season 4.

Quite the experience.

Ok, even having left off reading somewhere in the middle of Book 2, I had some idea what I was getting myself into. Though I had avoided the specifics, I was well aware of the basic principle of GoT, everyone dies. And so when Episode 9 happened, I was decidedly less than shocked. Honestly, as we headed into 2 a.m., my first thought was “How can George R.R. Martin manage to do that? I would be exhausted if I killed off so many of my characters at once.”

Now then, I’m the first to admit that I’m an author who grows attached to her characters (last time I killed off a Main Character in a story I was crying over my keyboard). Those around me are more than familiar with me talking about my characters as if they are real people, and I tend to be of the, “They’re the characters, they know what they should do better than I do,” school of writing. While all of that seems to work for my writing, it does make it difficult to do anything too, too horrible in story.

So the question is, is that a problem?

Personally, I believe it is a matter of degrees. Bad things happen in real life. People die. People get hurt. Depending on your setting, life might even take a note from Thomas Hobbes and become “nasty, brutish, and short” (especially true if your novel involves something like war). If you are reaching the point where you are unable to give your characters any struggles in their lives, that is definitely a problem. After all, wants and struggles are the heart of a good story. Completely contented people who have no hardships whatsoever do not make for compelling storytelling.

Does that mean you had to massacre/torture/jerk your characters around à la George R. R. Martin? Hardly. Should your story demand it/should you wish to none of those things are off the table, but they are also not needed to make a compelling story. Not every story has a happy ending, but stories with happy endings are in no way inherently less compelling than those with tragic ones.

And so, when it comes to writing, the means justifies the end. As long as you write a compelling story, and do what is necessary to keep that story true to itself, whether your characters end up happy or dead really is up to you. It’s just about finding what works for both your story and you.

Writing Through Writer’s Block

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As my twitter followers will know, this July I was convinced to take part in Camp NaNoWriMo (perhaps against my better judgment). An offshoot of the original National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), Camp NaNoWriMo aims to keep people writing through the summer by having two “sessions” (one in April, one in July) where “campers” can set word count goals they want to complete by the end of the month (unlike the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo, campers can set goals anywhere from a few hundred words to over 100,000 for the month of April or July).

Having hit a snag on the third book of a trilogy I’ve been writing, I was convinced to join Camp this year–after all, that’s what NaNoWriMo is about, giving a hard deadline as motivation to actually get some writing done. Figuring I could at least do 1,000 words a day, I set my word count goal at 31,000 for the month and started away.

As always, the month started out well. Freshly motivated, I had a number of productive days that put me a good week ahead of schedule. Newly confident, I even upped my goal to the standard 50,000. I churned out a few more scenes, full steam ahead…and then hit a writer’s block. Hard. I had some vague idea of where I wanted the story to go from where I was, but how to keep going came up at a blank. A couple of days staring at a blinking cursor, and all of a sudden I was dropping behind rather drastically. Either I’d have to write or drop out all together.

And so I set out to vanquish what my twitter follower and fellow Camper, Leigh (@spionchen), cleverly referred to as the Block-ness monster–which, as any writer will probably know, is easier said than done.

As with everything in writing, different things work for different people when it comes to how we get words down on the page. Some people even find it better to wait out a writer’s block until they’re inspired again. For those looking to blast their way through, however, here are a few tips:

1. Set a hard deadline. Some people thrive under pressure, some people don’t. If you’re the type who was never able to get a paper done in school until that due date was looming up ahead, think about setting a hard deadline. The lucky out there might have a publisher breathing down their necks for a manuscript (“We contracted you for a series! Where’s book three??”) but even you who don’t have a contract forcing you to write, you can still motivate yourself with deadlines. You can take part in a program like NaNoWriMo, can join a writing group/have a writing partner to whom you feel accountable, or even just set a goal yourself (assuming you’re able to keep yourself motivated with just that circle on the calendar). Would I have gotten through my writer’s block without Camp NaNoWriMo? At some point, yes. Would it have been this week? Probably not.

2. Avoid distractions. Some people write best with music playing, some in a coffee shop, some in complete silence. Finding what works best for you really comes down to trial and error. The important thing is to figure out what does and doesn’t allow you to write. Can you have a TV on in the background? Or do you start watching that instead of writing? Does having a wifi connection help with your research? Or does it mean you’re spending your “writing time” on Facebook or blogging (Man, if I could count the 600 words so far for Camp…) There are programs, such as Scrivener or Dark Room that provide “full screen” word processing (so you don’t see all the other tabs and applications you might rather be playing with) if you find yourself distracted on a computer, or it might just be as simple as putting on noise-cancelling headphones with some Vivaldi if that is what helps you focus. The main thing is to be aware and figure out what is distracting you from actually writing.

3. Bribe yourself. I’ve heard it said, “It works for kids, why wouldn’t it work for you?” Just like getting a child to sit still with the promise of a toy later on, rewards work really well when you’re in a slump and can’t seem to reach a goal (especially when you’re working on self-imposed deadlines). Some writers do this with the basics (Once I hit 20,000 I can eat/sleep/perform some other basic function required to stay alive), some writers bribe with food (500 more words and I get that piece of chocolate cake in the fridge), some writers bribe with things (If I finish this chapter tonight, I’ll buy myself that new pen I really wanted…) Whatever works for you, setting a reward can help give you that last little nudge you need to keep going.

4. Jump around. Whether or not this one works really varies from person to person. Some people need to write chronologically for their stories to make sense. Others, however, might find it helpful to write the scenes that excite them and then go back to fill in all the middle parts. As long as you can force yourself to go back and do the middle parts later, jumping around to the scenes you like can at least get you back into the flow of writing. Just make sure you keep track of the scenes you have already written so you can fit them together later. Some writing programs such as previously mentioned Scrivener and yWriter offer platforms which allow writers to write scenes in separate chunks and then rearrange them once all the scene are written (the more advanced version of index cards and a bulletin board) but it is also possible to do so with just a word processor if you don’t want to buy/download a special program (personally, I open two documents, one the actual manuscript, one for scenes, and then title each scene I will put in later in the second document [KYLE MEETS JOHN, JOHN AND MARY FIGHT ABOUT KYLE, etc.] As long as they are all clearly titled, it’s possible to fit them together into the first document with just a little more effort).

5. Just start writing. And when all else fails, there’s always just writing until it starts to make sense. Perhaps more a pantser thing than a plotter, this is finally what got me past my two-day writer’s block for Camp NaNoWriMo. Not finding anywhere to jump to, not able to bribe myself, as un-distracted as I was likely to get, the NaNo deadline at least motivated me to try putting words to paper–any words. While the first few hundred words were still like pulling teeth, and I’ll likely cut most of what turned into a rambling monologue by the main character about all the bad things that had happened to her, it at least got me into the flow of writing. I topped out the day at 2,000 words (400 more than needed to stay on par with a 50,000 word goal daily) and even losing those words later, I at least ended up writing a scene that not only actually could fit with the plot, but one that got me back on track for the scene after that, and the next after that. First drafts are meant to be sloppy (it’s why you don’t write something and go straight to publishing). Even if you end up writing drivel, at least you have written something, and that’s the first step to get past your writer’s block. As us tweeting campers will say #fixitlater.

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Just a Pretty Face

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As I’ve said before, I am a dialogue person. For whatever reason, dialogue is more fun (and plainly easier) for me to write than pretty much anything else. Of course, for novels, narrative, description, and all of that fun stuff is just as important, so my biggest challenge has always been slowing down enough to be sure to write down just exactly how these things I’m seeing in my head actual look (since for some reason, readers aren’t yet able to see exactly what I’m seeing when I write without me actually writing descriptions…odd that).

Of course, when trying to write description, it’s important to have a clear picture of characters and places in your head. There are only so many times you can give a character blond/brown/red hair and blue/brown/green eyes before even your own characters begin to lose shape in your head. When asked a while ago what a character from a book I wrote years ago looked like, I admit even I couldn’t remember. Not generally a good sign.

So while some characters might spring to mind very clearly, what do you do when you come up to a roadblock as to what a character looks like other than tall/short/average with X hair and X eyes?

I’m sure there are a number of solutions people have come up with, but mine, personally, is simple: Look at people. While the first things you might use to describe someone in real life might be the same things you already had for a character (height, weight, coloring) studying a face, a real face, will give you a better picture in your head as to what actually makes a person rather than a person-shaped blob (am I the only one with blobby characters to start with? maybe?)

As for finding faces for inspiration, there are three different ways to generally go about it:

1. Watch people around you. Assuming you don’t live in some remote cabin/underground/in the Australian outback, most people come into regular contact with other humans on a day-to-day basis. By watching the people you interact with, it’s possible to start compiling features that shape your character. The man at the bakery’s hair, the girl on the metro’s chin, looking at what makes a person unique will help you move past X hair and X eyes. Of course, the downside to this can be the creepy factor. Staring at someone next to you at the bank will no doubt make you look odd/suspicious. “I’m a writer” only works so many times as an excuse.

2. Look at celebrities. Since staring at people on the street can get you weird looks, a lot of my writer friends prefer this route. After all, you’re supposed to stare at TV and Movie stars for long chunks of time. Some writers even prefer to “cast” their novel as they go along (Jane would be played by Jennifer Lawrence, Sam by Ryan Reynolds, etc. etc.) By picturing the “movie” version of your novel, it makes it really simple get more about your characters than just hair and eye color (and can serve as some good motivation to keep going when you hit a crisis of confidence–who wouldn’t want to see their story on the big screen?). While I do use this tactic from time to time (one of the characters in my WIP would totally be Darren Criss in my head…) I personally find I still can’t use this solution that often. While you have more of a chance to study celebrities than people in your every day life, you also have more of a chance to get used to their personality (or at least the personality you see on camera). While you might not have meant it to be, basing a character off how Natalie Portman looks in Black Swan might end up giving you a character slightly more psychotic than you originally intended–simply because you start writing that character, not your own.

3. Use Google Image Search to look up headshots. And so we get to my personal favorite solution when it comes to finding faces for characters–using Google Images to look up pictures of random people. While you might still have a little bit of the creep factor (staring at random people online…? Okay…?) it isn’t quite as bad as staring at people on the street.  And while you can spend a long time studying the picture, you don’t also know who the person is and have that coloring your perception (added bonus, you can also find much more “average” people in these kinds of headshots than you can in Hollywood. Not everyone wants the “nerd” in their story to look like  Rachel Weisz in glasses). To use this method, you can just go to images.google.com, type in what you’re looking for (headshot girl red hair, headshot old man) and you will come up with pages of faces to look at without looking like a creep to anyone but the people at Google recording your searches (but if you’re a writer, they probably already think you’re a druggy serial killer based on those searches anyway, so who really cares?)

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Wishlists and Trends

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Last week, agents (and publishers) from all over posted to Twitter with types of stories they were currently looking for using the hashtag “#MSWL” (Manuscript Wishlist). A great (and very helpful) idea to help authors try to connect with agents/publishers who might be interested in the type of story they had written, it also turned out to be rather disheartening for authors who scrolled through not finding a single agent looking anything like their novels. Some accounts even went so far as to post things along the lines of, “I’m swamped with X, NO MORE STORIES WITH X.”

Pretty much there’s no way to react to that other than, “Ouch, harsh.”

So what do you do if you’re grouped in with the great “X” no agent seems to want? Scrap the novel you spent however long on and start on something it seems agents actually want? No and no.

The first thing all authors have to remember is publishing is a business. Our novels are our babies. Something creative that we see (most of the time) as great/worthy of being read. Publishers, sadly, don’t look at manuscripts with an eye towards what they think the world should read, they look at manuscripts trying to find something that will make them money. If that means thirty-thousand vampire novels or the same generic love story over and over again, that’s what they are going to pick up. Since agents only get paid when they sell your story to a publisher (or at least should only get paid when they sell your manuscript, if not get a new agent) they need to look for things they think publishers will think are going to sell. This is not to say publishers are some faceless, greedy, corrupt organizations–most people get into publishing because they love books–it’s simply if they can’t sell what they publish, everyone’s paycheck is going to bounce and they’ll soon be out of a job.

And so agents/publishers often end up buying on trends. A couple years back vampires were hot. Judging on new books I know are coming out/what many agents seemed to mention in #MSWL, time travel is the next thing on the rise (as far as fantasy goes).  Obviously these aren’t the only kind of stories that will be published during the life of the trend, but if they are what publishers are finding sell, they’re going to be easier to get published.

So you should set your other novel aside and get to work on a time travel novel, right?

Again…no. The tricky thing with trends is that they’re fleeting. They don’t all last the same amount of time, but each one always hits a point where it starts dying off and publishers stop buying them as much (if at all, depending on how saturated the market gets). And publishing takes time. First you have to write the book. Then you have to edit it. Then you have to make sure it’s polished. Then you have to submit it. An agent might take a couple of months to get back to you and ask for a full manuscript. Then they might take another month to let you know if they decide to take it. Then they may want to work with you to polish it even more. Even if you get through all of this and get to start shopping your manuscript while still at the height of a trend…you’re already too late. It’s taken you several months at this point after however long it took you to write the darn book in the first place, and it will take at least another year for it to come out (the publisher will send it through several rounds of edits, it has to go to layout, a cover has to be designed, you have to pre-market…publishing is a slow, slow beast). If publishers only start looking at your manuscript at the peak of the trend, they will probably assume the trend will be dying by the time your book gets out, and will be just as likely to pass on it as any other book at that point. Following the trend hasn’t given you quite the edge you were looking for.

So the only way to capitalize on a trend is to already have a completed book ready to shop when a trend hits. And since there’s no way to know when a trend is going to hit, what good does that do you? It just seems like dumb luck whether or not you have written a book that ends up being “on trend”.

And yes, yes it is. Like much else in publishing, hitting a trend or not is mostly just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

So why even bring this up? Just to be more depressing?

No, to make the simple point: Don’t force yourself to write a story just because it fits whatever’s big at the moment. Maybe you want to write a time travel story. Great, then go for it. If it’s a plot that interests you, you might do something amazing with it. If you’re only trying to capitalize on a trend, however, you’re likely to be disappointed. You forced yourself to write something you only sort of wanted just because it would sell–and now no one wants it because you’re too late to the party. Trying to find an agent and publisher can be frustrating enough as it is. No need to add to that frustration by making yourself miserable during the fun part (actually writing the thing).

And so, I think a tip @KMWeiland posted earlier today on Twitter fits the moral of the story perfectly:

“Don’t worry about what the world considers the perfect novel. Write your perfect novel, and let the world come to you.”

Who knows? Maybe by the time you’re finished, you just might catch the next trend.

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“Plot Device” Disorders

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Last year, for Mental Health Month, I touched on writing characters with mental disorders. As far as I can tell, mental problems have always been something writers have liked to use in their stories, and it makes sense. “Normal” is not what tends to make for a good story. A perfectly happy character who wakes up, goes to school/work every day, watches some TV, and then goes to bed is pretty boring. Stories are based around conflicts, desires, and the way characters overcome some sort of adversity. As mental disorders present their own sort of challenges, they can make for very interesting characters/stories.

Before I left off with some general advice about writing a character that has a mental disorder while not being insulting (namely doing your research and making sure your character isn’t one-dimensional/only their disorder). Today I’d like to retouch on the topic looking a little further into what I’ve come to call “plot device” disorders.

Now, there are many, many mental disorders in the world. The recently released DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition) contains 17 categories for various disorders–ranging from Anxiety Disorders to Sexual Dysfunction–with several different specific disorders inside each. While I’m sure it is possible to find stories using a full range, certain disorders are much more “en vogue” for use in fiction. For example, it is simple to list famous characters who are presented with disorders such as psychopathy (Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, Dexter Morgan from Dexter); DID (Norman Bates from Pyscho, Susannah Dean from The Dark Tower, the narrator from Fight Club); and OCD (Adrian Monk from Monk, Melvin Udall in As Good as it Gets) it’s a bit less common to see characters with pica, adjustment disorder, or central sleep apnea (all listed in DSM-V). While it might simply be more “fun” to write about certain disorders over others, it leads to certain issues for writing when a disorder becomes trendy to use in plots.

What brought me to this topic to start today was finding this post in a writing forum today:

“Could anybody just tell me more about it [dissociative identity disorder] in general? Because I know very little about it.”

While the question is generally pretty innocuous (they were provided with a link to WebMD with the basics) what worries me the most about seeing questions like this on writing sites is the sinking feeling that the author saw something that has a character with DID and decided “Hey, that’s a neat idea. I bet that would be a fun story,” and that was the end of that. Hopefully the asker of the question is planning on looking further into the disorder and (if s/he decides to proceed does a fair deal of research) but with different disorders so prevalent in fiction, it becomes so, so easy for writers to decide X disorder would be an awesome plot device and jump into using the movie/book/TV show’s portrayal as the basis for their entire character.

Why is that such a problem? Because often times works of fiction still get disorders wrong on a very basic level. And by taking that version of the disorder at face value to throw in your story you’re simply going to perpetuate all those issues. A bump on the head causing, and fixing, amnesia? Not going to happen. Not all psychopaths are going to be serial killers (or are even likely to be). PTSD doesn’t mean you’re going to be acting out flashbacks in real life. From a storytelling stand point, it makes sense why we see these things. It makes for easier or more hair-raising scenes, but that doesn’t make it anymore correct. And with the amount of misinformation surrounding mental disorders, it can be damaging to perpetuate these “facts”.

So, how do you keep from falling into these “plot device” traps?

1. Know movies/TV/novels often get it wrong. Watching a movie with a character with X disorder does not mean you suddenly are set to write about the same disorder. Some media does do a very good job of representing certain disorders (the beginning of Silver Linings Playbook is actually very well done in displaying a manic episode in bipolar, for example) but far too often, disorders (especially popular disorders) are incorrect. Look to real-life accounts rather than fiction for what living with a disorder is actually like (Dangerous Jam has a very in-depth account of one girl’s experience with PTSD and her tips for using it in fiction here. I highly recommend it if you intend to use PTSD in a story).

2. Figure out what the mental disorder is adding to your story. Perhaps one of the most amusing questions I find on this Mary Sue Test is:

Does your character have any of the following psychological disorders or conditions for the following reasons?

  1. Antisocial Personality Disorder – to explain your character’s Jerk Loner personality? 
  2. Split personality/multiple personalities – so your character can do “bad” stuff, yet still have a claim to innocence?

If your entire reason for using a mental disorder is for an excuse or because you intend to use it as a plot device, rethink and do more research. Because…

3. Think about how the disorder would affect your character outside the plot. As I stated before, people with mental disorders are not entirely defined by their disorder, but mental disorders do affect many things in everyday life when you are dealing with one. Pulling out a mental disorder just when convenient for an excuse or your plot will 99.99% of the time come off as incorrect and/or insulting. “Having X” is as much of a personality trait as “she doesn’t like apples” or “he’s hot headed”. Pulling a disorder out only when convenient or just for plot is as jarring as having a character gain or lose any other trait they have.

4. Research, research, research. Really, I can’t stress this enough. You don’t always have to “write what you know” but you should only write that which you are willing to learn about. At least if you don’t want to seem like you’re clueless or to stick your foot in your mouth. There are great resources for first-hand accounts, you can ask in a forum (many people are actually rather open with sharing their experiences if you ask, I find), and you can talk to mental health professionals. There are many great depictions of mental disorders in well-rounded characters out there, you just have to be willing to put in the legwork to get there.

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Character Flaws

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A little while back, I wrote a post about Mary Sues. For those who are not yet aware of this term, TV Tropes gives a pretty good definition:

“The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment. She’s exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She’s exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her “flaws” are obviously meant to be endearing.

“She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn’t love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal. She has some sort of especially close relationship to the author’s favorite canon character — their love interest, illegitimate child, never-before-mentioned sister, etc. Other than that, the canon characters are quickly reduced to awestruck cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as Mary Sue outstrips them in their areas of expertise and solves problems that have stymied them for the entire series. (See Common Mary Sue Traits for more detail on any of these cliches.)”

Mary Sues as a whole are dreaded in writing communities. There are litmus tests all over the place for people to test whether or not their character is one, people debate whether or not characters X and Y are Mary Sues (or their male equivalent, the Gary Stu or Marty Stu), and I don’t believe that’s going to go away any time soon.

You see, one of the reasons Mary Sue/Gary Stu are so dreaded by writers is because they are just so common. I have jokingly called being an author “multiple-personalities for control freaks” Perhaps we authors don’t actually have multiple personalities, but we do have complete control over a world when we’re writing. And that can go to your head a little sometimes. Especially when you’re just starting out.

Of course, building well-developed, non-Sue characters is something that you learn to do as you get better at writing (writing is a skill, after all, the more you do it, the better you get). But there is one way I often see authors (especially new authors) trying to stay away from Mary Sues that I don’t believe works 99 times out of 100. The “traits and flaws” list.

Before, I talked about how often times Mary Sues become Mary Sues because of how the world reacts around them. To be interesting, characters as a whole should react in ways that are realistic to realistic situations happening around them. The world should not bend its rules for them (anybody else would be expelled for this, but you’re special, so…on your way) and other characters shouldn’t change dramatically in response to them (Well, I’ve been an evil, misogynistic bas***d this entire book, but you are so special, and logical, and sweet, and [X characteristic] you have melted my heart in one well-done diatribe and I now see the error of my ways!) The world shaping itself around the character is part of what makes Sues so annoying.

Another part is how perfect Sues tend to be.

Everybody has flaws. It’s part of what makes us human. When you have a character that doesn’t, it makes them naturally unrealistic, and generally unlikable (especially when they then spend half the book complaining about things that aren’t flaws being awful for them: “I wish I weren’t so much prettier and more popular than the other girls…it’s so hard being me…”) So, you’re worried you have a Mary Sue (or someone told you they’re Sue-ish) what’s the logical thing to do? Give them flaws of course.

And so more than once, I’ve come across posts like this:

Is my character a Mary Sue?

She is intelligent/clever, funny, witty, friendly, adventurous yet responsible, free-spirited, optimistic, talkative, creative/artistic, and basically talented. For faults, she’s a non-domestic woman in the time where a  woman’s job was to be at home, and maybe she is intolerant towards people who are slower than her in brain power.

Now, always the answer to “Is my character a Mary Sue” almost always is ,”depends how you use her.” But in this situation, my Mary Sue sensors are seriously going. For one, look at how many positive traits there are (intelligent, funny, optimistic…). Then look at the “faults”. One basically boils down to “free-spirited and people are down on her for it” (not a character flaw as much as a situation). The other could be a flaw, but prefaced by “maybe” it does not seem overly likely this flaw will be general, but just pop out as a token “flaw” to prove that the character isn’t perfect. It’s much like making a character’s flaw be “clumsiness” tends to boil down to, “Look, she isn’t perfect! She just tripped and…awww, look how cute she is with all her clumsiness. It just makes people love her more!”

And so writing out “Good Traits” vs. “Flaws” lists don’t do much to help you with a building a well-rounded character. A character, like a person, is a personality that is made up of a bunch of traits, but is not only those traits. It is not important to balance “one good trait for one bad trait” in each of your characters, it’s important to really think about their traits as one larger personality. As one of the best pieces of advice I have seen in the NaNoWriMo forums lately  puts it:

“Usually, a person’s negative traits are the flip-side of their positives. For example, A person who’s unflinchingly honest may be tactless and over-blunt. A person who’s super dependable, who sees every task through to completion, may also be a person who doesn’t know how to admit he’s in over his head on some overambitious project.

“Your character is free-spirited and creative, among other things. What is the flip-side of that? Might your character tend to be impractical or a bit idealistic (naive) at times? And (this is a really important point) what are the consequences of being impractical, idealistic, or naive? How does this affect her actions, the other characters, and the development of the plot?

“If you can relate your character’s imperfections to her good qualities, and if  you can make her imperfections matter in some meaningful way, you will be well on your way to avoiding a Mary Sue.”

So, don’t worry yourself with “Good trait, bad trait” lists. Consider the character’s personality, and what that means to how they relate to the world (rather than how the world relates to them) you’ll be much better off than trying to decide whether or not your character is well-balanced by “here are her good traits, here are her flaws.”

You can’t write that!

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News Alert: The Bleeding Crowd is coming out August 27th, for those interested, from Melange Books. In the mean time, you can find my short story, In a Handbasket, available for free here through Boxfire Press. Please enjoy!

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A common theme I have been seeing on my favorite haunt, the NaNoWriMo forums, lately, are questions about what you are and are not allowed to write. The first time I saw this question, I was a little surprised, but now that I’ve seen it more than once, I figured I would take the chance to cover it here.

While the NaNoWriMo site came down for repairs before I could find the original thread (literally asking what you are and are not allowed to write), but today’s post which sparked this post includes this line:

“But since a character in my novel is a rapist (and yes, this is essential to the plot and the ending) there are some rape scenes…I heard that you can’t actually show the act happening (I think that’s a bit weird, considering how other acts of violence are considered totally fine) but whatever, it’s not that important.”

Ok, rape is a touchy subject, I don’t think anyone is going to argue it isn’t (especially not after all of the news stories out in the past couple of days). There are many, many people who have experienced some form of sexual assault in their lives (men and women) and there are several more who don’t care to read about things such as rape in their novels/short stories/etc. But does that mean you can’t write about it.

Honestly, my first reaction when reading that post was, “Where did you hear that you can’t write/show a rape happening in your story?” Part of me just really wanted to know if it was a passing comment the poster had picked up and internalized, or if someone in a creative writing class was teaching there are certain things that you can and can’t write about. Because honestly, when it comes to creative writing, there is very little you can’t write about.

This advice might be a little different in countries that are known to censor writing (there are a few out there where less-than-complementary writing about the government can end up with the writer in prison, I believe) but at least in the United States (and any other country with no state-sponsored censorship), the list of what you can’t write is pretty short:

1. You can’t plagiarise. That is, if someone has written something before you, you can’t take it word-for-word and call it your own. At least not without getting sued (same goes for things under copyright you haven’t gotten permission to use, even with proper credit given).

2. Libel. You can’t present something detrimental to someone’s character/life as true that is not. (This is more relevant in journalistic writing, but basically don’t write that your neighbor likes to kill people in his spare time and act like it’s true when it’s not [if it is true, you can write it, but please, call the police first]).

3. Child Pornography (if you’re in Australia or Canada). Both countries have laws banning cartoon, manga, or written child pornography. Outside of those countries, it isn’t illegal (though it is still rather icky, just saying).

And, well, that’s about it. There are a couple more things that aren’t protected under freedom of speech/the press that the Supreme Court has ruled on, but if you’re writing fiction, it more than likely doesn’t apply to you.

The long and the short of it is, there is no morality police who is going to swoop down on you for writing something that could be offensive. We don’t live in a police state. There is no Hays Code that prohibits, rape, drug use, swearing, graphic sex, blasphemy, or any other topic from being put into print. If you are ok writing it, you’re more than allowed to put it down on paper.

This does not mean, however, that people are required to give you a platform to distribute it. While you are allowed to write about something many people might find offensive/disgusting/reprehensible, publishers/distributors are more than allowed to not publish/distribute it on their site.

For example, for romance/erotica publishers, you will often find notices such as this on their submission page: “We  do not accept: scatological stories, incest/twincest, sexual content  involving anyone under the age of eighteen, snuff, rape or bestiality.”

You are more that allowed to write something incestual, you may even be incredible popular with it in your story (I’m looking at you George R. R. Martin), but that doesn’t mean you can demand that someone publish your book just because you wrote it.

Far too often, I come across someone who has had a post removed from a forum online, and they start railing about how the site is violating their First Amendment rights. I’ve said it once I’ll say it again, A private company/person/other private entity cannot infringe on any of your constitutional rights. The Bill of Rights protects you from the government. The government isn’t allowed to take down your blog. Someone hosting it for you, however, can. It’s their site, they can choose what they’d like to put out there. (Note that I don’t just say publishers, but distributors. Many right remember some controversy over Amazon.com pulling books and banning authors from selling on their site. If you violate their content guidelines, even as a self-published author, they have the right to remove you. You can read more about that here.)

So, can you write about touchy subjects? Sure. Should you? That’s a little trickier. Like everything with writing, it’s about trade offs. Think about what your goals are. Do you want to market to a wide audience/be able to pitch it to every publisher in your genre? Maybe you should second guess how detailed you’re going to be about that scene. You know the one I’m talking about. Are you writing a gritty, adult novel that will most likely find a home in a niche market? Have at it. If you’re willing to write it, no one is going to stop you.

And so, write what your story needs. Most likely the only thing limiting your writing is you.

Prior Works

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Submitting a novel can be a nerve-wracking experience. You’re putting your baby out there into the world, and knowing that it’s most likely going to be shot down over and over again. It can be especially bad for first-time novelists, especially when it comes to that part in the submission guidelines where agnets/publishers want to see a list of past works. This is your first novel, you don’t have any past works. What are you supposed to do? Do you have to have already been published to get published.

Short answer, no, whether you have never been published or a dozen times, a book still has to stand for itself. If you’ve written a good book, people will look at it.

So what do you do when people want a list of prior works? Or what do you put into that last paragraph in a query letter that’s supposed to be about you? There are a couple of different options:

1. Leave it out. If you don’t write that you have any prior works, most publishers/agents are going to assume you don’t have any and leave it at that.

2. Give other relevant credentials. Do you have an English degree? Feel free to throw that in to a query letter where you’d be listing works if you had them. Did you with an award for writing something unpublished? Put that in. Did you write a book about a farm? Maybe put in that you’ve worked on a farm all your life. You can fill in that empty spot with things that show you are qualified to write the book you have written instead of a list of prior novels you’ve had published.

But what if you don’t want to leave it out or don’t have any relevant credentials? What to do then?

Well, to start off, I’d like to strongly urge first time submitters to go with one of the above options. For those who will go with another choice, however, I at least offer some don’ts.

1. Don’t give credentials that aren’t relevant. Ok, you don’t have anything relevant to say in that last paragraph in a query letter, but you don’t want to tell the agent/publisher nothing about you. So let’s throw in that you were a computer science major in college, live with your three dogs on Long Island, really enjoy writing… It’s better than leaving the space blank, right? Actually, not really. Coming from working submissions, you never seem to be caught up. There’s a reason query letters should be kept to one page. Short and to the point is good. When you start cluttering put a letter with things that don’t show either a) You’re most likely a good writer or b) You’re qualified in some way to cover the books topic, it’s just more to wade through. Dogs, family, irrelevant hobbies, those should all be kept out of a query letter if you want to stay on the good side of a slush pile reader.

2. Don’t say this is your first novel. As I said above, by not saying anything about other novels, agents/publishers are 9 times out of 10 going to assume you haven’t published anything before. There is no reason to draw attention to your inexperience. Especially stay away from “This is my first novel, but…” statements (“This is my first novel, but I’ve been writing since I was three” “This is my first novel, but I’ve always loved science fiction” etc.) When you do that, you’re not only highlighting your inexperience, but sounding inexperienced and like someone who has something to prove. Not a good combination when trying to find someone easy to work with. You could have the best novel in the world and still get passed over if an agent/publisher doesn’t like your attitude in your query letter. Afterall, they know they’re going to be working with you for as long as the contract lasts.

3. Don’t talk up your self-published/vanity-published book. At least don’t if it isn’t wildly popular. If you self published a novel and it ended up on the best seller chart, but all means, mention it. If you self published a novel and your friends have read it, it’s at best a sign that you like writing, at worst, a sign you think you’re a much better writer than you actually are (a type of author people in submissions are loath to pass off to their editors). Vanity-published books are no better. The reason agents/publishers like to see prior publishing credits is because it tells them something about you are a writer. Someone else has read your stuff and at least thinks it’s good enough to publish, they’ve vetted/vouched for you. Perhaps have even shown how profitable you are. If you’ve paid someone to publish your book, that endorsement is moot. It’s no better than if you had self-published the book.

Trying to act like the vanity publisher is a reputable press is even worse. Working in publishing, you know the names of the big vanity publishers, thus having a book from one of them is discounted as basically self-published right away, and when I was in submissions, I’d check out any publishers I wasn’t familiar with. Indie presses I always liked to get to know, and vanity presses I liked to add to the list. (This is one more reason going through a vanity press really isn’t worth it. You aren’t “self published” but you’ve paid a ton of money for a name that means nothing along with editing/lay out services you could get cheaper from a freelancer). Trying to talk up a vanity-published novel is also a red flag to people in submissions as someone who possibly has something to prove and thus are not going to be fun to work with.

Long story short, it is best to not point out your inexperience, but not try to pretend to be something you aren’t either. After all, agents and publishers are looking for good, profitable stories and authors who won’t be a headache to work with.

So take a deep breath, and get those submissions out there. First, third, or fifteenth novel.