Category: News Alert

“Craigslist Agents”

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Note: Another short story of mine has been published, for those interested in reading it. You can find it online at http://20minutetales.com/ , or, if you happen to live in the DC Metro area, you can look for a paper copy of the new, local lit paper.

Note 2: Thank you Thomas Halvë (Writing with Water blogger) for the link on your site as a favorite blog (and thank you to all my new followers as a whole).

Now, on to the actual blog!

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Every once in a while I come across ads on Craigslist similar to this one today:

“I’m looking for a reputable book/literary agent. I have two book manuscripts that I believe are gold (but I’m also the writer). I need an agent who has experience working with the top publishing companies in the country and knows how to pitch and markert it well.”

Now, the first thing I always want to say to these posters is, “A reputable agent isn’t going to be looking for clients on Craigslist” let alone one who has experience working with top publishing companies (especially the big six: Hachette, HaperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster). In all honesty, any agent worth their salt more than likely isn’t going to be looking/advertising for clients at all.

Having worked as both an author and a publisher (or at least as an employee at a publishers) I can speak first hand as to what a disadvantage authors are at when it comes to getting published traditionally. Part of this comes down to the relatively common complaint I hear from people who work on the editing/publishing side of creative writing, “Everyone thinks they’re a writer.” Now, I talked earlier about my problem with people trying to separate novelists into writers and “real” writers, but I can understand the general sentiment for “Everyone thinks they’re a writer.” It takes a lot of work, but as a whole, it isn’t that hard to write a novel. Most people who have gone through grade school are capable of writing a generally understandable sentence in their native language (and perhaps non-native languages if they took those sorts of classes), so it’s just a matter of coming up with some idea for a plot and writing a bunch of those sentences over and over again, and sticking with it until you have a novel. The trick isn’t being able to write a novel, it’s about being able to write a good novel.

And one big problem in the writing community is the inability for authors to objectively judge their own novels. You put so much work into writing one, it’s your baby. Of course it’s amazing. You can see this in the Craigslist ad: “I have two book manuscripts that I believe are gold (but I’m also the writer).” I don’t blame the author at all for thinking that (lord knows I have some early manuscripts that are awful by my standards now that I thought were brilliant when I wrote them at sixteen), and hey, it’s even possible that they are amazing, even as a first novel (My former editing client, Allyson Marrs [@allymarrs] just recently got her first request for a full manuscript from an agent on her first novel, that’s further than my first novel ever got). It’s just really, really hard to judge your own work.

And so, there is a surplus of novels out there. Even taking out novels that I believe slush pile readers have every right to stop reading after a paragraph (my first novel, cough) authors still put out far more novels a year than even all the big and indie publishers combined could ever print. And thus, as authors, we are on the bum end of a supply vs. demand equation. Working in submissions, you can reject novels for a plot you aren’t interested in, typos, a writing style you don’t like, or even just because the author sounds like a diva in their cover letter. You don’t need more of a reason than any one of those. For every novel you reject there are three more that just landed in your inbox.

Now, that certainly doesn’t mean that you should just not try or bend over backwards for the first publisher or agent that sounds interested in your book. It does, however, mean that it’s important to understand where, as an author, you fall into the publishing hierarchy. You are the one who is going to be shopping your manuscript around. You are the one who is going to have to prove that your novel is better than the other hundred novels the agent/publisher got at the same time as yours. And that’s why you aren’t going to be able to advertise for an agent or publisher–at least not for one that’s any good. Sadly, authors are the ones applying for a job, not the ones hiring.

And so, for anyone just starting to look into trying to find an agent and/or publisher, here are some quick tips.

1. Don’t advertise for an agent/publisher. It might be tempting to save some time and have someone contact you rather than having to go around querying, but as I’ve stated above, reputable publishers and agents can have hundreds (if not thousands) of submissions each month from writers looking to be published/represented. There is no need for one of them to be browsing Craigslist or similar sites looking for clients. Advertising like that simply opens you up to getting contacted by people running vanity presses, people who are running scams, and “agents” with no experience/contacts in publishing.

1b. Not all agents are created equal. Simply having someone representing you isn’t a work around for a good lit agent. Working in submissions, every once in a while I would see a submission made by the author’s friend “working as their lit agent” who obviously had no more idea what they were doing than the author. “Agent” isn’t a magic word to get your submission ranked higher than other author-submitted manuscripts. If you aren’t working with an agent that is at least somewhat established, known to the press, or at least obviously is a professional with some experience in publishing, your submission is going into the slush pile with all the other submissions “agent” or not.

2. Be wary of “top agents” who are looking for clients on sites such as Craigslist. Now, there are some reputable agents/publishers who will let authors know they have an open submission period or are “actively growing their client base” (or something along those line). You don’t have to write someone off just because they have a post up saying they are accepting queries. What you should be wary of is agents who are looking for clients on general classified sites, especially ones that seem willing to accept any client (double points for any client without any sort of querying process).

3. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. If someone’s promising you something that seems too good to be true, be careful. No agent should promise they can get you published. Even top agents who do have a working relationship with the big six publishers can’t promise that those publishers will want your book. Sad fact is, even if you get an agent, it doesn’t necessarily mean your book is going to get published. It just means you have a much better chance than some other people in the slush pile. Pie in the sky promises should be a big red flag.

4. Always do your research. Big, well-established lit agencies are a good place to start when looking for a reputable agent. Also, agents which have a posted client list (especially one that lists books that have sold) are generally better than ones that have no track record of client sales. If something seems fishy about an agent’s website, be cautious. When in doubt, you can always look at sites such as Preditors and Editors which will list if the agent has any verified sales to publishers, if they are a member of a respected organization, and if other authors have not recommended them with a list of reasons (poor contract, unrealistic promises, etc.)

5. NEVER PAY SOMEONE TO REPRESENT/PUBLISH YOU. And, of course, the big one. Remember the general rule in publishing is money flows to the author, not from. Yes, authors are at a disadvantage when it comes to finding an agent/publisher, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to have to start shelling out big money to get one. No reputable agent will ask for money. They make their money by selling your story (generally around 15% of the final amount they get you from the publisher [e.g. $150 of a $1000 advance, etc.]) Likewise, reputable agents and publishers won’t ask for a “reading fee” (money to cover their time considering your query).

As author Holly Lisle puts it:

“Here is the unspoken translation to the agent’s reason for requiring a reading fee. ‘I absolutely suck as an agent. I cannot make as much money off of my sales of books for my clients as I can by ripping off naive writers who don’t know that my job as an agent should be to sell books and make money for my clients, and that my search for new clients should be part of my cost for doing business, just as the writer’s investment of time, talent, office supplies and postage is part of his. Furthermore, I have the ethics of the scum you scrape off the underside of a dead tree, and I’ve found that P.T. Barnum was right: There is a sucker born every minute. I’m out to milk my share of them’.”

You Don’t Say…

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Now, anyone who’s ever read my work knows I’m big fan of dialogue. As I’ve pointed out before, I’ve even gotten letters from my editors claiming some of my short stories to be 95% dialogue. While I’m not sure that’s completely fair, I am completely willing to admit you can often find my short stories in an anthology by flipping through it until you find one that has a huge chunk of dialogue in the middle of a page.

Now, is that a good thing? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I seem to have made it work for me. And I’d think it’s a good things too since dialogue is what I find easiest to write. My narrative may have been less than stellar with my first couple of novels (Mary Sues, wordiness, and info dumps abound, I promise) but going back now the dialogue’s actually not that bad.

For some people, though, I know dialogue is the hardest part. On the NaNoWriMo Forums we find:

“I always have a hard time writting dialogue so If someone could help me It would be appreciated.”

“I think good dialogue is very hard to write. So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it will require extra effort when it’s time to rewrite and revise… ”

“I’m about 1,000 words into my NaNo and for some reason I”m stuck on dialogue.  When I wrote out the beginning of this conversation it sounded fine in my head, however, on paper/screen, it looks horrendous.”

Struggling with narrative and struggling with dialogue are both bad things (they make for stilted/unnatural reading) but for right now I will focus on some tips for writing better dialogue.

1. Listen. Just like people develop an ear for notes when they’re musicians (my French Horn-playing brother can pick out a flat note from a mile away) writers tend to develop an ear for language. Some people are better at it naturally than others, but if someone writes well, somehow or another they’ve figured out what sounds right.  Developing that ear is part of what makes writing get better over time (practice makes perfect after all) and while reading good writing can definitely help with that, when working on writing better dialogue, simply sitting down and listening can be one of your greatest tools.

In acquisitions, you see people put down all sorts of credits on their query letters (past publications, degrees, having worked as a journalist/technical writer, etc.) and you learn very quickly which credits mean something. The reason spending 20 years as a technical writer for a company doesn’t mean much on a query letter is that creative writing is very different from formal writing. Being a technical writer means that (hopefully) you have good spelling and grammar, but it doesn’t say you can write a good novel. People talk in fragments, they use poor grammar, they use slang. Where you’d never (again hopefully) find a piece of business writing that says, “Me and my guys…” You may very well find a character in a novel saying it, and making it work.

The more you listen to those speaking around you, the more you will be able to write dialogue naturally.

2. Don’t be too formal. As I said up above, people don’t talk in completely proper English (some seem to barely speak it at all). One of the most common problems I see in novels I’m editing with stilted dialogue is that, for some reason, the author has gotten rid of most of their contractions. Perhaps it comes from years of teachers trying to get us not to use contractions in formal essays (I know my teachers did) but creative writing is a completely different animal from formal/technical writing (it’s why writing “This is my first novel, but I’ve been a technical writer for X years” isn’t so helpful on your query letters, FYI). Taking contractions out of your dialogue makes your character sound awkward. It’s actually, I’ve found, one of the best ways to make your character sound like a non-native speaker. People use slang, people use improper grammar, people slur words. Don’t over do it, but embrace it for more natural dialogue.

2b. Don’t use stereotypes/slang you don’t know. Side note to the last two sentences of number 2, people use slang/improper grammar, but they aren’t stereotypes. Don’t try to force in slang you aren’t familiar with to try to make a [enter ethnicity/nationality/age here] character sound “natural” A little might be ok, but making a character say “wicked” or “dawg” every other sentence will sound just as unnatural as overly proper dialogue (and has the added bonus of often coming off rather insulting).

3. Don’t be long-winded. Unless your character is supposed to be a blowhard (or a Bond villain) keep dialogue short and to the point. Contractions, nicknames, abbreviations, people tend take just about any short cut they can use to cut down on the length of what they’re saying. Long monologues with a lot of unnecessary words comes off as unnatural.

4. Use punctuation properly. One of the biggest problems with written dialogue is that you just have the words, not the intonation/cadence you have in actual speech. “Why did you do that” can be said a million different ways, but how it’s read is dependent on your reader. Use commas properly to show small pauses, Periods to show full stops, and if you need to use italics (sparingly) to show emphasis (“Why did you do that?”) Don’t worry if using a period every once in a while ends up with a sentence fragment (re: people don’t speak in proper English). If something is an afterthought, a period might best suit the sentence. For example:

“I really want a dog or a cat.”

reads differently than:

“I really want a dog, or a cat.”

reads differently than:

“I really want a dog. Or a cat.”

4b. Don’t overuse punctuation. My old editor used to joke that every book she edited was only allowed five exclamation marks (well half-joked). Overusing punctuation can be just as bad as under-using it.

“I don’t know!” Works, the person is upset.

“I don’t know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Makes it look like either the character is crazy or (at least to me) like it should be on a preteen’s MySpace page (do people still use MySpace?)

Punctuation is a fine balance, don’t be afraid to use it, but don’t go crazy with it (and please, please, please, DoN’t WrItE LiKe ThIs to show someone is drunk. Yes, I have seen that in a manuscript before. It was quickly edited out for “he slurred” and actions which showed he was drunk).

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How to Take a Critique

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Anyone who’s had a look around at some of my other blogs probably knows that I am in the process of having a couple of books come out this summer (one under my name, one under a pseudonym). Anyone who follows my Twitter account (or Facebook Fan Page) also probably knows I just sold a short story to a magazine that will be printed in the near future.  All of that, combined with the fact that I edit projects freelance means most of my time lately has been editing/reading edits/reworking edits… and the list goes on and on.

Now, I fully believe being a writer helps you be a good editor. The two don’t necessarily go together (I’ve met some editors who are awful writers and some writers who are awful editors) but part of both jobs is to have a good ear (eye?) for what sounds right on the page.

The other way around, though, I don’t think there’s quite as strong a connection. Great editors can be great writers, of course, but all the other little things that make for a good editor don’t necessary flip straight over to being a good writer. What being an editor does do for writing, however, is help you take critiques.

Luckily for my editor side, every author I have recently worked with has been great (thank you all if you’re reading) but I know very well how bad things can get when you’re editing something for someone who really just wanted a pat on the head to say how good their work is and for you to catch typos.

Now, the writer in me fully understands how hard it can be sometimes to have someone ripping apart your work. As much as I might not like something I’ve written, it seems to fall into a “no one can beat up my brother (erm, writing) but me!” situation when someone else starts pointing out flaws.

But, having been on both sides of the editing process, I also know how helpful editors can be (and not just for the typos). Looking at the most recent round of edits I got on one manuscript, I see my editor pointing out things here and there that I’ve pointed out as problems in manuscripts I’ve read. Obviously I agree that those things need to be changed, but I didn’t catch those problems when it was just me reading my own writing. It’s possible to be too close to your writing to see problems that are obvious for someone else, and thus I always suggest having other people look your writing over before moving on with plans (be it submitting to agents, publishers, or self publishing). It doesn’t have to be a professional editor if you don’t want to pay for one, but at least have a writing group or go through a novel swap with someone else.

To get the most out of editing/critiques though, you have to fight down that urge to automatically defend yourself, so, some important things you can do to make editing most helpful and least painful:

1. Listen silently. This is perhaps most important if you’re speaking with your critiquer/editor in person, but the same holds true any time you are reading a comment. Don’t start defending yourself before they’re done speaking. It’s hard–believe me, I know–but sit silently, listen to/read what they have to say, and then take a deep breath before going forward. It’s possible your reviewer/editor/critiquer has no idea what they’re talking about, but cutting them off to tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about (or not reading a comment because you disagree) won’t help you at all. Listen, absorb, then speak.

2. Just because the edit is “wrong” doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Ok, this of course doesn’t go for edits that make a sentence grammatically wrong, or that introduce typos (sometimes, especially with MS Word Track Changes, typos can appear based on where the program thinks you want something deleted. If you suddenly have “I hadd a boat” feel free to take off the extra ‘d’). This goes for an edit that reworks a sentence into something you didn’t mean. For example, in my recently edited manuscript, the editor changed this sentence:

“The girl stood outside, half-hidden under the overhang.”

to

“The girl stood, half-hiding on the overhang outside.”

Um, no. I didn’t mean the girl was hiding on top of the overhang, I meant the overhang was hiding her. (Someone on the second story can only see part of her past the overhang). Those sentences mean two very separate things, and I definitely didn’t mean the second one. Still, that doesn’t mean I automatically reject the change and move on. It is more helpful to go back, explain that’s not what you meant, and ask if there’s something that would make the sentence clearer. It’s possible the editor was reading too quickly, but it’s also possible that “under the overhang” was confusing the image in her head (sadly readers don’t automatically see exactly what us writers do).

3. Critiques/Reviews/Edits aren’t personal. All right, if the review is “Your writing sucks, your parents should be ashamed of having you as a child” or something along those lines, you’re more than welcome to think the reviewer is a jerk and ignore them. Most of the time, however, edits aren’t personal attacks on you, or even your writing style. A comment that says “This part is dragging, I’d be tempted to stop reading” or the like isn’t an attack. It’s an honest opinion that says that some of your readers might be getting bored and skip ahead (or worse, set the book down all together). Don’t be hurt by it, take it as a chance to rework the section so people love reading it.

4. It’s OK to disagree with your editor/reviewer/critiquer. Going along with not throwing out an idea just because it’s not what you mean, it’s also all right to completely disagree with your editor on some points. Editors aren’t perfect, it’s possible they’ve changed something that you know you had right (and have the grammar guide to back you up on). It’s possible they just aren’t familiar with a word and thus changed it to something that doesn’t quite mean what you meant. If they’re connected to your publisher, yes, you’ll have to work it out with them (often publishers have final say), but if it’s a friend or someone you’ve hired for an edit/critique it’s all just suggestions as to what they think would be best. You can take or leave any of the changes.

5. Figure out if you actually want a critique. While I fully believe all writing can only be completely at its best after some outside edits (be them from a friend, professional or publisher) some people really just don’t want them (see my point about people who want a pat on the head and typos taken out). If you don’t want to work on your story/don’t want anything changed, ask someone to go through and look for typos, and then move on. As a professional editor, I’ve had one or two cases of people who–while they are willing to pay a few hundred dollars for me to go over their work–don’t actually want me to tell them I’d suggest changes. For the most part, it just ends in several emails about how all my edits are wrong, and then me giving up and only pointing out typos and things that are blatantly wrong/confusing to keep them happy. If you want to pay me content edit prices for copy edit work, fine, I won’t stop you, but it would save money and headaches to just say you want a copy edit/proofreading*.

Edits (good ones at least) help make a story the best it can be, and as hard as it might be, not trying to defend yourself is going to be the best way to learn from them. Nobody is perfect, nobody’s writing is perfect. If you’re willing to hear that, even an imperfect editor can help make your writing that much better.

*Before hiring anyone to edit your work, it’s always good to get an editing sample–even if they’ve come very highly recommended–so you can see if how they edit is what you’re looking for. Offering a 5 page sample edit isn’t just how I prove myself, it’s how I make sure my clients would be happy with my in-depth edits. Edits should be helpful, not a headache.

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Too Much Dialogue

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Today’s News: Read an interview I did with An Innovative Pursuit here about writing, Grey Areas, and upcoming The Bleeding Crowd.

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Another topic courtesy of the NaNoWriMo forums: How much dialogue is too much dialogue in a novel/short story?

For anyone who’s read my work, you’re probably assuming that my answer is “there’s never too much dialogue.” I’ll be the first to admit that I am a huge fan of dialogue. In fact, regarding my last short story published (“Frankincense” for those of you who don’t want to pop over to my biography), the acceptance letter for the anthology literally started:

” Well…normally when I read a manuscript that consists of 95% dialogue, I stop reading after about two pages and prepare a decline letter.  Yours, however, kept me reading…which is what a good story should do.”

She went on to compare it to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, so I’ll take it overall as a compliment, but you know you write a lot of dialogue when someone accepting your work feels the need to point out that it’s nearly all dialogue (personally, I think 95% is overestimating, but still…)

Every author I know has a different take on dialogue. Personally, I find it the most interesting (and generally easiest) thing to write. Many people find it the hardest  (I’ve more than once heard people complaining about how poorly they do dialogue). Editing, I can see that. For some people, dialogue comes naturally. For some it sounds stilted and unnatural. Based on our skills/preferences, it’s completely understandable (at least to me) that we each lean one way or another. We write more dialogue or more narrative.

More and more, though, I hear people talking about being worried they’re using too much/not enough dialogue in their writing. For example, this post in the NaNoWriMo Forums this morning:

“So my novel is 75000 words and pretty much done.  Problem is, the last 1/3 is alot of dialogue…I dont think I can cut much of it without losing the vital information it posesses.  Is there something I can do to fix this problem?  I am trying to add alot of movement between words and descriptives to break it up but I still find myself worrying…HELP.”

And on the other side:

“Do you think it’s either bad style or very off-putting to readers if there are whole pages (or 2 or 3 pages at a time) with no dialogue? I often find I’m following events involving one person on their own, and I realise it’s been three pages since anyone actually SAID anything.”

Now, I admit I’ve been trying to put a little more narrative into my writing, but then, personally I don’t like reading too much narrative, so I probably (read: definitely) still lean on the dialogue-heavy side.

So, when should you worry that you have too much dialogue (or too much narrative)? Or should you even worry?

Based on the odd compliment for Frankincense, it seems too much dialogue could hurt you when it comes to submitting your work. Though I never had a problem with a ton of dialogue in submissions (it would be a bit hypocritical to…) I’m sure others in acquisitions and agents might dislike it. While that can come from just about any part of your writing style (it’s why you should expect those rejects I was talking about in yesterday’s post) you definitely don’t want to find yourself in the reject pile before the agent/publisher of your choice has actually had a chance to look at your work.

So, like everything else when it comes to writing, it comes down to weighing the pros and cons.

Dialogue Pro:

– Dialogue tends to move more quickly due to its quick back and forth nature. It’s simple to explain things without taking too much time and losing the reader’s attention

Narrative Pro:

– Narrative moves slowly (or more slowly than dialogue) and gives you a chance to really dig in to important things. People don’t tend to get into long intricate explanations (unless they’re Bond villains) and thus you can do things with narrative that will sound awkward in dialogue.

Dialogue Pro:

– Dialogue gives you a chance to develop multiple characters at once. One of the quickest ways to tell who someone is is to hear them talk. What kind of grammar does the character use? What words? Is he/she polite or swear like a sailor? A couple of lines and people can tell a ton without long-winded paragraphs about your character’s back story.

Narrative Pro:

– Narrative gives you a chance to see the world through your POV (Point of View) Character’s eyes. Of course this doesn’t work so well in omniscient third person, but as that style hasn’t been popular in the better part of a century, generally you’re relating the story, or at least each scene, through one character. This is especially true in first person. Dialogue has to be more truthful than narrative. You write what is said. How your POV character interprets things, however, shows up in narrative. Are they the type to take every little thing as sarcasm? Do they think the way their boss just winced means they’re getting fired? You can show how they react much better with narrative.

Dialogue Con:

It’s easy to get into “As you know, Bob” situations with dialogue. For those of you who don’t know/don’t want to risk the time black-hole that is TV Tropes, “As you know, Bob” is a term that describes those awkward bits of a dialogue where it’s obviously the author trying to get information in the reader needs to know, but what the characters would never be talking about, since they both know what’s going on. For example:

“How is Cathy, your sister, doing?”
“Just fine. As you know, she fell off a building lately, but fell on a circus tent and thus didn’t get as hurt as she could have.”

1) Why would the first speaker need to clarify that Cathy is the second’s sister? The second speaker knows that. And 2) Why would the second speaker need to explain something that the first speaker already knows (Cathy’s fall)? It’s awkward and could be taken care of with a line of narrative along the lines of “It had been three weeks since his sister, Cathy’s fall…”

Narrative Con:

It’s much easier to fall into “laundry lists” with narrative. For example:

“Tim and Nancy went to the store. It took about 15 minutes. They walked up and down the aisles. They found milk. Then they checked out…”

Now, part of that example’s problem is the repetitive sentence structure and what not, but hopefully you see where I’m going. There’s no need give a play-by-play account of what’s happening, but it’s so easy to do when writing narrative. Unless one of your characters is supposed to be long-winded and boring, it will just feel awkward for something along the lines of:

“How was your day?”
“Well, I went to the store. It took me about 15 minutes to get there. Then I walked through all the aisles…”

And the list goes on and on. Will I keep trying to add narrative to my writing? Sure. But I’m not going to worry about the proper ratio for it. At least in my opinion, the genre of your novel and the situation of each scene is going to dictate how much narrative is needed just as much as my preference for dialogue. Rather than worrying about a ratio, or if people aren’t going to be happy with this much narrative or that much dialogue, weigh the pros and cons of each for what you want to happen in the scene. After all, if Frankincense is any indication, good writing will come out above any ratio of dialogue to narrative. It’s just about getting it to be good.

Beginning Writer Problems

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Publishing Update: The contract for my new novel, The Bleeding Crowd, has been signed. Look for more updates as its August release date gets closer.

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As a freelance editor, I spend a good amount of time with other people’s not-quite finished masterpieces. Though I have edited for all manner of writers (from the first-time novelist to multiply-published) my three most recent jobs have been for either completely new novelists, or ones with only a little experience under their belts.

None have been especially bad (there are some novels I have gotten freelance which, I admit, have made me cringe) but I have seen some problems that seem to be a common theme. For all those aspiring novelists out there, here are a few things I’d suggest keeping an eye on.

1. “Very” abuse. I can understand it, the music at the club your characters have gone to isn’t just loud. Having gone to clubs, I know the particular level of loud club music is. “The music was very loud” is a “very” weak sentence though. Not only because of the “to be” verb (was) but because “very”, for the most part, just clutters up a sentence. There are such stronger words to use. “The music was deafening” or “my/his/her ears rang, the music shaking the walls” are both stronger (and more interesting).

2. Contractions. People speak with contractions. One of the easiest ways to make someone sounds stuffy/formal/like a non-native English speaker is to have them speak without contractions. Think about the people you talk to on a regular basis. Now think about which of these sounds more like what they would say: a) “I am going to go. He cannot now, so he will come when he is able.”  of b) “I’m going to go. He can’t now, so he’ll come when he’s able.”

3. If people are saying things, use dialogue. As with all of these suggestions, there are exceptions, but dialogue is one of the easiest ways to make your writing quick and engaging. Of course it has to be good dialogue, but even bad dialogue tends to be more interesting than, “he was telling me/him/her about this, and this, and this.”

4. You don’t need to account for every minute. It’s possible to skip time/stop when the interesting part of the scene is done. If you start every scene by a character waking up and end with them going to sleep (and it isn’t a conscious stylistic choice) take a closer look at the scene. Do you really just need the two main characters to meet? You can have “they looked at each other in the coffee shop” as the first line of the scene. It doesn’t have to be “she woke up, took a shower, thought about having breakfast, but then decided to just get a bagel at the coffee shop on the corner.” If it isn’t important/interesting, you can skip to the fun parts.

5. “To Be” verbs. I touched on this a bit before, but “to be” verbs (am, is, was, were…) are weak. Don’t worry about taking out every “to be” verb in your writing, but if it doesn’t need to be there, don’t use it. For example, it doesn’t have to be “The ball was falling.” “The ball fell” is better.

6. Adverbs. I’m hardly one of those editors who is against adverbs of any kind. If you’ve read any of my writing, you know I’m not against adverbs. Just like “very” abuse, the main problems with abusing adverbs is that often they’re used when a stronger word could be. It’s especially bad when coupled with “very” abuse. “He said very quietly.” What’s wrong with “He whispered.”? If you can say something in fewer words, it’s generally stronger.

7. Telling, not showing. Yeah, this saying is overused quite a big, but it does has its uses. It’s just not interesting reading “He was angry.” How is “he” feeling? Or if he isn’t the narrator, how does the narrator see “he” is mad? Is his pulse rising? Is his face turning red? Is he clenching his fists?

8. Vary sentence structure. If every sentence starts with the same word (generally “I” in first person or “He/She/[Character’s Name]” in third person, try to change up some sentences. Not everything has to be filtered though a character (to use an above example, it doesn’t have to be “I/He/She/[Character Name] saw the ball fall” it can just be “The ball fell.”) It’s also possible to change up complex sentences (“She started to walk down the dark street, her foot steps echoing on the walls.” can become “Her foot steps echoed on the wall as she…”)

9. Switching tenses. Something to just watch for, I see it far too often. You can write in present or past tense (there are plenty of debates over which is better, and past is more common, but it’s your choice). Just keep consistent. Few things seem more awkward than when you start a sentence in past tense and finish it in present.

As with anything else in creative writing, take what I say with a grain of salt. There’s a time and place for almost everything. It’s when you do things without thinking, without a reason for them, that it makes someone seem like a novice. All of the above are little things, easily correctable (I’m sure I did more than one of them when I was just starting to write). Writing, like anything else, is a skill. If it isn’t perfect to start, just keep practicing.

Even if something is the best thing you’ve ever written, it only is because you haven’t had the chance to write something even better.

Concerning Pseudonyms

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This morning I woke up to an always welcome sight in my inbox — a “You may have gotten however many rejections before on this manuscript, but this isn’t one. We’re interested in publishing your novel” letter.

They are currently working out a contract, so nothing’s signed (I won’t fully be excited until I’ve looked that over. No counting chickens before they’ve hatched), but it got me to thinking about one very important topic: pseudonyms.

Now, anyone who has ever gone over to glance at my biography page can see a list of published works. I didn’t use a pseudonym for any of them. Honestly, I never saw much of a need to/my name is awesome/I’m a little vain (if the previous slash didn’t get that across, I mean, Dall – beginning of the alphabet, easy to pronounce, generally pretty…)

This manuscript, however, is a little different. While I have never written anything like a memoir (see my “Write What You Know” post to see why. My life just isn’t that interesting) this manuscript is closer to being autobiographical than anything else I have written. And while I will neither confirm nor deny this, there might be some characters surprisingly close to people I know in my real life. None are those people, none are named to be those people, but there may more may not be some striking similarities.

I assure everyone in my life who is now wondering if her or she has told me anything incriminating, everything is completely fictional, and with each edit it has become more and more so (again, my life=boring, had to spice it up a little), but still…

And thus we find ourselves back where I started. Obviously a pseudonym would be handy in separating anything personal that is left in the work from me, and thus anyone who might feel they are unfavorably portrayed in a book that may or may not contain a likeness of someone potentially like them. Of course, I’m not talking about slander (note: pseudonyms do not protect you from being sued for slander), but it would add a little more privacy for everyone. And there are other benefits of course, as outlined in articles such as this, this, and this.

But then, there are the bad things, like what do you do about marketing? Obviously, having written under the name “Jessica Dall”, I have always marketed myself as such. Everything from my webpage (jessicadall.yolasite.com), to my Twitter account (@JessicaDall), to this blog are, quite noticeably, under Jessica Dall. People talk about “branding” in many articles about pseudonyms. This work would be a stark break with the “brand”.

And there’s the fact that everyone who might be in the book would probably know I had written it anyway. I would still have to market it, of course. And I’m not planning on undergoing any sort of identity-hiding plastic surgery just to separate myself from the novel. It is just a novel after all. (Though I bet doing all book signings with my head under a paper bag would be quite a marketing gimmick…)

So is a pseudonym worth it? I actually don’t know. When I sign something (assuming I actually sign something) I will have to come to a decision. But for now, I’m still rather up in the air. Truly, it seems to be a matter of personal preference. People chose to use, and not to use, pen names for any number of reasons. And so, I’ll actually have to figure out those reasons. Great.