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Creative Writing Tips: How to Watch Movies to Improve Your Storytelling

Early 20th century film projector with light on blue and black background. Creative writing tips for watching movies.

Sometimes, you just want to watch a movie for the fun of it. Sometimes, you want to watch a movie and learn from it. Specifically, if you want to spend some time enhancing your own creative writing skills by watching movies, I think there are a few ways that can be done.

Now of course, movies aren’t the same as books, but neither are TV shows, podcasts, or games. But they all have similarities, and although they employ different types of storytelling techniques, you will widen your own storytelling techniques by familiarizing (or at least, exposing) yourself to storytelling in different media. If you write creative fiction or nonfiction, here’s how you can watch movies in the same genre and critically analyze it to improve your writing.

(BTW: I also already wrote a blog on how to read fiction to improve your own writing.)

Take Notes!

I know, I’m spoiling the fun even more. But my suggestion is to take notes when you’re watching a movie that you want to learn from. It will help you write your best creative writing.

In your notes, it can be helpful to write down the timestamp of the moment in the movie you want to reference. For example, if there’s an example of really great dialogue, pause the movie and find out at what minute and second (for example, 12 minutes and 22 seconds into the movie would be 12:22, or 1 hour, 12 minutes and 22 seconds into the movie is 1:12:22) the scene takes place so you can easily go back to it. 

If you’re watching the film on DVD, you might be able to return to the “chapter” or “scene” using the menu options, so if you have that option and find that easier, use that method instead. 

Watch It Alone

This notetaking process of occasionally pausing the movie to take notes when your creativity or interest is sparked (or sometimes, even, to briefly interrupt watching for a creative writing spurt) will probably annoy other people if you’re attempting to watch the movie with a companion (or several). Opt for times when you can watch the movie alone and without judgment. 

Unless you find someone really supercool and awesome who is unbothered by this way of watching a movie. In that case, pop your popcorn for two. 

Creative Writing Tip 1: The Beginning and End

Of course you may have heard this advice in creative writing classes over the years, but it’s worth saying again.

The first line means something and the last line means something.

So when it comes to movies, there are two aspects of each end of the movie to consider: the visuals and the first line of narration or dialogue.

When it comes to a book, you can start anywhere—inside a character’s head, describing the setting, or giving expository information are only three of many potential methods.

However, movies must do two things at once: they must start with visuals that immediately begin the process of world-building, and they, at some point, include voiceover narration or character dialogue that begins to lay out information relevant to the plot.

Now those are two of the practical functions served by the earliest moments in the movie, but there are several other important establishing elements: time period, mood, intensity, pacing, etc.

Then, at the end of the movie, the concluding scene must do all of the same but in reverse: wrapping up the interactions and plot, character insight, history of the events in the story, mood resolutions, etc.

As you’re watching a beloved (or brand-new-to-you!) movie in the near future consider the following:

  • Who are the first characters seen on-screen? The last characters? Were they significant to the story and why?
  • What emotions did you experience in the opening scene? What about the end?
  • What color schemes were used and how did they set (or resolve) a mood? What built on that mood?
  • How would you have handled it differently if you’d been the lead creative writer?

Then as the movie reaches its conclusion, take note of the last line of the movie. As much as book writers love to obsess over the first and last lines in a movie, good film writers do too.

Even if the line is bad (cheesy etc.) consider if the writer was true to the character and did them justice in the end.

Creative Writing Tip 2: Expressions and Body Language

Acting is very physical. The best actors can (arguably) portray a range of emotions and embody realistic physical movements of a range of characters.

It can be easy to tell rather than show in your writing, but silent acting is pure showing. Watching movies can help you recognize moments where the actors are giving a genuine physical performance, showing their emotions in their facial expressions or their experiences through the movements of their body.

When you come across a scene with particularly great physicality, give yourself the writing exercise to pause the film and see how much you can describe based on purely what you see, without context.

For example, in the movie Red Dragon, I think there is particularly excellent physical acting from Ralph Fiennes. Of course, he’s excellent throughout the movie, but particularly, in the climactic scene where he (as the antgaonist) is facing off against the protagonist, played by Edward Norton. 

The scene begins with Fiennes’s character threatening the life of the teenage son of Norton’s character. At a distinct moment in the scene, without saying a word, Fiennes goes from being threatening toward the boy to being protective of him. And you can see it—in the way Fiennes tightens his arm around the boy, cradling the teenager to his chest; in the way his nostrils flare and eyes widen; in the way he starts to move his body in front of the boy’s, to shield him from harm—when he had been threatening to kill him not a moment before.

It’s a dramatic turn and incredibly well-executed by an actor who shows you what his character is feeling without having him speak a word.  

(Okay, in general, Ralph Fiennes is a fantastic physical actor. I know, I know, he’s Voldemort and all but…well, nobody’s perfect.)

Creative Writing Tip 3: Accents, Sounds, & Speech Patterns

Some stories, especially those set in a particular place and time, have a distinct soundscape. While this most obviously is important for your characters in terms of accents and voices it’s also important in terms of the sounds of the world you’re building.

When you’re setting a scene, it can be easy as a creative writer to focus on the characters themselves, or give a brief description of what a room or setting looks like. But, there is much more to a reader’s true depiction of a place, and one of the key elements is sound. 

Pay attention to how movies utilize sound to build tension, bring a setting to life, and affect mood. If there are animals in the scene, can you also hear them? If there are children, what sounds to they make and how do they contribute to the film? 

How are sound effects used? How can you pace your own writing like music? How can you interject comedy or dramatic delivery through use of sound in your settings? 

Here, I can give you one example of what not to do: in the TV show Gotham, which largely takes place in a police station, there was too much silence. I would notice how, in multiple episodes, entire scenes would take place at the police station, which would have no ringing phones in the background, no slamming doors, no shouting, no squeaking chairs. It would simply be a close-up of the characters, against a dramatically lit and silent background. Like a comic panel, not a TV show, and it ultimately became distracting for me as a viewer, who was used to seeing other cop TV shows where the stations were full of a lot of noise. 

If I’d been a writer on that show, I might have made that suggestion at some point. Perhaps one did, and their idea was rejected. Who knows? But I know that as a viewer, it was too quiet; and if I read a book with the same kind of “silence scenery,” I find it too quiet. 

Be Kind. Rewind.

Watching movies can be a lot of fun and inspiring to writers looking to enhance their creative writing. Some of the movies you find are excellent examples of your genre, you may need to re-watch multiple times and extract the elements you find most useful to you and your process.

But whatever you do, don’t get caught up in being a movie-viewer rather than a writer. Keep writing. 

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From “Writer” to “Author of a Book”: 4 Tips for Imposter Syndrome

Black and white image of hands coming together in fist bump. Encouragement for writers who want to author a book

There’s a mental shift for writers when they start calling themselves an author of a book. Many writers seem to find some magic in the term, some kind of promise in the word.

If you are among the group of authors with only one published book, there’s good news. That’s all it takes to call yourself an author. Technically, if you have published only one book, I’d recommend you call yourself an emerging author.

Difference Between a “Writer” and an “Author”

Some people (who risk sounding pretentious) might elaborate on subtle differences between the terms writer and author, but really it just comes down to: have you published a book yet? Fiction or nonfiction, any age genre (adult, YA, children); authors with only one published book are still the author of a book.

Now, there are many types of writers.

Screen writers are highly involved in your favorite TV shows and movies. Copywriters craft the ads, commercials, and most of the social media posts (and blogs!) that you see.

Poets are writers who specialize in poetry. A fiction writer might not necessarily be an author of a book. Many fiction writers are accomplished at short form and focus on flash fiction or short stories.

Nonfiction writers compose essays, magazine and website content, and online tutorials and articles.

Technical writers compose textbooks, guidebooks, and manuals.

You can make an excellent living, engage many interests, and master many forms and platforms as a writer, without ever becoming the author of a book.

But if you do finish that first draft of your manuscript, you’re one step closer to calling yourself an author. Now, all you have to do is publish.

Imposter Syndrome

Not to gloss over the sometimes-difficult, multistep process of publishing, but…

One of the challenges that can keep many people from making the transition from writer of a manuscript to author of a book is imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is a situation in which a person feels or states that they are not worthy of their achievements or of acclaim, despite evidence to the contrary. People who struggle with imposter syndrome report feeling like a “fraud” or like they’ve fooled others into thinking highly of them.

I think you can see why this is a mindset that might (sometimes) affect writers (even very talented ones.) I have worked with people who had run multiple successful companies, had raised incredible children, had lived through extreme and extraordinary circumstances who all told me that they weren’t sure they could be an author of a book because they weren’t sure that anyone would be interested in their stories or ideas.

Every book you’ve ever read, every author you ever admired, began as a writer who decided that, even if they weren’t sure anyone would be interested, they were going to publish their book anyway.

Funny cartoon from Science of People showing two pie charts. One blue and one yellow.
From The Science of People, “The 5 Types of Imposter Syndrome (and How to Overcome It!)”

Becoming a Successful Author of a Book

Now, that’s not to say that publishing a single book will let you live the life of your dreams. Authors with only one published book have a long road ahead of them. Being an author is not the same as being a successful author. Generally, emerging authors tend to publish about seven or eight books; those authors who earn $100K per year or more have an average of thirty-three books to their names.

It can be helpful to consider your definition of success. An annual income of $100K as a book author is one measure of success. You might consider what else are elements of your personal success story—a successful launch party; a successful book signing or public speaking engagement; a successful media tour; a successful establishment of a Facebook group or other social media space to connect with your readership.

There are many standards by which you can measure success once you’re the author of a book, and you can build on those successes.

Writing through Imposter Syndrome

But first, in order to complete that all-important initial step from writer to author, you have to get past the dreadful imposter syndrome. There are many different approaches, but here are a few of my favorites that I’ve seen work over the years for different authors working on their first book.

Talk Back to Negative Voices

You can do this out loud (if you’re in a comfortable environment), or you might type it up as a dialogue screen in a blank document. When a negative thought tells you that you should stop writing, shouldn’t tell your story, or that you’ll never be the author of a book, you respond back to the thought with either a question like, “Is that really true?” or a statement that conveys the idea that “Your opinion isn’t welcome here.”

I find it can be particularly helpful to get this all out at the beginning of a scheduled or impromptu writing session. If you have half an hour to write, spend the first two to three minutes telling your self-doubt to take a hike…at least for the next twenty-eight minutes.

Let Negative Thoughts Sputter Out

Along the same lines, if you don’t find that talking back to negative self-criticism or doubt is the right approach for you, instead, try to imagine those thoughts being said to you by an angry toddler—fragmented language and all. Then, spend two to three minutes writing up what the negative toddler–thoughts are saying. You might find that—very quickly and like a toddler—the negative self-talk will run out of steam. Or you might find yourself laughing if you’re very good at writing a toddler’s voice, and in that case, consider becoming the author of a book for children.

Lock Away Negative Voices

You can also manage negative self-talk from imposter syndrome using visualization techniques, including “shrinking” the source of this critical inner voice. Visualize the person (or people) whose voices embody the negative thoughts, then visualize that person shrinking, becoming small, small enough that you can drop them into a glass jar on which you tightly screw the lid, muting the voice. If you hear multiple voices or inner critics, repeat the process with each person/thought until they are all secured in these mental glass jars. Then, place all the jars in a mental cabinet, close the door, and physically lock it. Now, sit down to write.

Try the Mirror Technique with a Writerly Twist

You have probably heard of the motivational process/Law of Attraction of repeating positive mantras (or affirmations) to yourself in the mirror, daily, in order to boost confidence, increase self-compassion, and focus your mental energy—aka, the mirror technique. This is a great idea, of course, and there is some research showing that mirror affirmations may help support student achievement (in certain circumstances); so why not writers?

The basic mirror technique is simple: You spend at least 1 minute in front of the mirror repeating to yourself positive, self-affirming statements. (Some say you can simply think the statements, but I suggest speaking them aloud.) General recommendations include phrases like, “I can do anything I put my mind to” or “I am worthy.”

For writers, and specifically a writer who wants to become the author of a book, I recommend trying author-motivational phrases such as: 

  • “I am an author.”
  • “All it takes is one published book.”
  • “All of my favorite books started as ideas.”
  • “I am creative.”
  • “I can write my way out of any plothole.”
  • “You can edit a bad draft, but you can’t edit a blank page.”

If you have another writer-related motivational phrase, give it priority in your daily affirmation routine.

Image of a small cat looking in mirror at reflection of a lion with the caption "What matters most is how you see yourself." Encouragement for writers and author of a book.

If you don’t have a daily affirmation routine, you can always try this as a practice to pump yourself up before writing time. Give yourself a one-minute pep talk, then sit at your keyboard and let the imposter syndrome watch you work.

Whatever you need to do to become the author of a book that you want to be, keep writing.

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Random Writer Tool: 200 Years of Illustrated Women’s Fashion (Historical Fiction)

Illustration showing women clothing fashion examples from 1785-1970, used as a tool for writers of historical fiction
Illustration showing women clothing fashion examples from 1785-1970, used as a tool for writers of historical fiction

Random Writer Tools: Fashion in Historical Fiction

Writers of historical fiction: rejoice! 

As a writer, you never know what kind of random tools that you find online will come in handy, and this article from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”) is one such example! 

A team of researchers painstakingly reviewed fashion plates, dress patterns, images, and descriptions to compile this comprehensive illustrated timeline of women’s historical fashion from 1784-1970. 

The timeline includes an example of popular fashion (mostly dress designs) from every year.

Now, if you’re writing a story, book, or script of an event that takes place in the past 200 years or so, you can have a visual example.

The article also gives a brief description of the general fashion trends of each decade, including details like raised or lowered hem lines or waist lines, preference for long or short sleeve lengths, and a notation about hats, bonnets, and head fashion accessories.

Some Drawbacks...

While this illustrated timeline is helpful and certainly a lot of fun(!), it’s important to note that: 

  • This is limited to European and American fashions and does not include examples of fashion trends in other areas of the world.
  • This is also limited by class and most likely depicts the fashion trends of middle-class and upper-class women.
  • Because of that, all illustrations depict upper-middle-class White women.
  • The timeline ends in 1970, at which point, fashion photography and popular media make most fashion research easier.

This article also doesn’t touch on shoes or footwear! But, as this blog discusses, footwear is an important element of fashion in fiction. 

Use the Best Tools for the Best Writing

No matter what genre you write in, you will spend time researching to improve and enhance the accuracy, details, and believability of your writing. Historical fiction presents its own unique challenges, and many writers choose to specialize in one specific historical time period (and location) because of how overwhelming it can be to “live inside” the world you create as a writer. 

The best writers use the best tools, and you never know what will be useful. Hopefully, historical fiction writers find this illustrated fashion timeline one of the tools worth saving for later. 

Editor of Historical Fiction

Editor Cortni Merritt enjoys editing historical fiction from a variety of time periods! Interested in a beta read, line edit, or proofread for your historical fiction? Let’s talk! 

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Top 5 Books of 2022

Neon sign in purple, pink, and blue that reads "top 5" indicating top 5 books read and reviewed in 2022

The SRD Editor List of Favorite Books Read in 2022

As an avid reader, I’ve been on Goodreads for years. I love being able to track what books I read and share with others the ones I feel most strongly about. In 2022, I began listening to audiobooks that I borrow from my local library on the Libby by Overdrive app. I love it! I have a commute. I have to cook dinner. I can’t always be sitting with my nose in a book, but I can (almost) always be listening to a  book while doing something else. I’m hooked! 

So in 2022, I borrowed 68 audiobooks from my library. Although Goodreads shows I read 88 books, it counted some story or essay collections separately (Sherlock Holmes and Karl Marx, in particular). Plus, I also read a couple physical books that made their way into Goodreads. So I probably read about 75-ish total. 

Don’t ask me to pick a single favorite! I might blow a circuit trying to figure it out. 

But I have narrowed it down to a *few* of my top recommendations. 

After I finished these audiobooks last year, I posted about them to my personal Facebook circle. So below, you’ll find that original, casual review. But, as a bonus, because I professionally write book reviews as well, I’ve included a bit more of a comprehensive review in this blog. I also tag the books I read to keep track of genres, so I’ve included those below as well. 

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

These book reviews may contain some details that could affect your reading of the book. I’ve tried not to give away too much, however. 

Oh! And connect with me on Goodreads! I love to add to my “Want to Read” list when I see my connections recommend a book! 

This page contains affiliate links. SRD Editing Services may receive a commission if you purchase a product through one of our affiliate links. Thank you!

Little Fires Everywhere

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By: Celeste Ng
 
This started as a slow burn for me. Probably wasn’t really until the end of Chapter 2 before I was interested but I was hooked by the end of Chapter 10. I kind of always wanted to be Mia, but I was probably actually Izzy. But at least I never burned the house down. 🔥😁
 
This story is especially pertinent now, in the wake of over turning Roe v. Wade. 
Book cover for Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 It’s about mothering, motherhood, and who “qualifies” as a mother — which, mothering was central to my Master’s thesis, btw. If this book has been published when i was writing my thesis, i would have used it. It has so much to say.

It’s set in the 90s, just a couple years ahead of my own life and social development.

I remember pretty much everything mentioned but i remember it as a child. Reading about the events as an adult is different. Strikingly, painfully different now that i know what happened after 2001. The world can never be the way it was in the 90s. You can never go home again.
 
Especially after you’ve burned it to the ground. 🔥 Great job, Izzy. Well done.

Extended Review...

“Motherhood” is composed of many decisions, daily, and it presents in many different ways. This story gave an interesting analysis of different types of mothers, what “mothering” can look like, and what makes a truly excellent mother. There’s a contrast between the suburban, idyllic mother, who embodies many of the stereotypes sold on TV as ideal mothering, a birth-mother who gives up her daughter for adoption due to temporary struggles and the adoptive mother who doesn’t want to give the daughter back when the birth-mother asks for her, and a surrogate mother who, during pregnancy, realized she did not want to give up the chance to be a mother and who steals the baby from the couple she is surrogating for. All of these women are flawed; all of these women define themselves as mothers, although their priorities and approaches are vastly different. 

The definition and portrayals of mothers changed vastly in the 1990s, the time period for the story, and the book faces those challenges with grit and heart. In a decade when women were fighting to institute a more fair and truly family-friendly approach to motherhood, women seemed to also be fighting each other over who was entitled to those motherhood rights. Which is unfortunate, and perhaps the women of today’s generation can examine if, and how, gendered treatment of one another has changed. From “mean girls” to “mean moms,” how is today’s generation approaching the community of sorority differently? I’m not sure the book answers these questions, but to pose them for examination is one of the first challenges, and the story certainly makes a display of the importance of these ponderings. 

Tagged: women’s lit, 21st century lit, mom lit, movie

Readers should be aware of sensitive content including sexual activity in teenagers, destruction of property, and discussions of abortion. 

Kitchen Confidential

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By: Anthony Bourdain
Read by the author

Everyone should read this book. Everyone. If you’ve ever worked at a restaraunt, known someone who works in a kitchen, eaten at a restauraunt, or plan to eat at a restaurant. EVERYONE.

Foul-mouthed. Fast-paced. Full of life.

Book cover for Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Sure he talks a bit about his life. But what he regails in elegant prose and sharp-tongued truth is kitchen life. Who you’ll meet in a kitchen. How you’ll grow. And the grit it really takes to run a great restaurant.

Now, this book is old. Pre-food network glory days. But it’s destined to be a classic of nonfiction prose. One for the ages.

RIP. 💔

Extended Review...

As someone who worked in kitchens (fast food and delis) as a teenager, I felt a deep connection and identification with Bourdain’s content. And as a frequent reader of memoir, I found this to be a unique description more about the actions and lessons learned in his life than the events of it, which was not only refreshing but insightful and helpful thanks to his practical advice and world-wise perspective. 

Tagged: memoir, funny, 21st century lit, science

Readers should be aware of sensitive content including adult language and drug use. 

The Giver of Stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By: Jojo Moyes

5 glowing stars.

Excellent. A place I’ve never been before (Depression-era Kentucky), full of characters with unique voices, and a story I’ve never heard before. One in which gritty librarians are the heroes. Full of #girlpower. Honestly, I’m not sure if it gets better than this.

Book cover for The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. Shows an image of a mountainside in sunrise.

There’s a lot of debate in writer communities about prologues. Are they good? Bad? Necessary? Annoying?

To offer a little *spoiler*: I think the prologue in this book is crucial. 

You couldn’t cut it. It’d be an entirely different story. That’s all I’ll say about that. 🤐

I’ll be checking out more from this author. ❤️

Extended Review...

There’s always something I appreciate when reading about characters who are dirt poor. I mean, stuffing holes in the cracks in the wall to keep out the cold, no shoes in frozen ground, bathes once a year in a hot bath, seasons broth with tree bark, live off the land, dirt poor. It feels more real somehow, more urgent, than reading about characters whose lives are full of diamonds and satins and warm fires in gilded fireplaces. Maybe it just makes me appreciate living in moderate comfort in modern times, but it feels more approachable. 

In particular, I love to read about the lives of “everyday” or common women in the past. Even if they are fictitious. The lives of the rich and famous, the lives of aristocrats and social figures is nice and all — queens are certainly fabulous — but there’s something simultaneously sweet and raw in reading about peasant women whose lives didn’t have a huge impact but whose stories are larger than life. 

So maybe that’s why I loved this book so much. Because I love when I get to connect with women from the past and see all the ways in which their lives might be similar to my own. 

Tagged: historical lit, women’s lit, romance

Readers may need to be made aware of sensitive content including adult language, death/murder, and physical abuse of women/children.

Atomic Habits

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By: James Clear

I could give this 10 stars. Remarkable. Genuinely a book that I think everyone could benefit from. Clear breaks down some of the most useful and successful concepts in cognitive behavioral therapy into practical, applicable advice. Want to implement a good habit? There’s a trick for that. Want to break or replace a bad habit? There’s advice for that. Not too technical or full of jargon. An approachable self-help manual to improve any area of your life. I cannot recommend this book enough. I may actually buy a physical copy for myself and everyone i know. ❤️

Book cover for Atomic Habits by James Clear

Extended Review...

As someone who has read extensively into psychology topics, I love the idea of behavior modification through proven/easy-to-implement techniques. In particular, I love how simple Clear makes this. He doesn’t say it will be easy, but he does help readers make it as easy as possible. 

Some of these concepts I was familiar with and have used before, such as “habit stacking,” which is when you build on one habit by attaching another to it. For example, if you have a medication you need to take every morning, you attach it to something that’s part of your existing routine, like brushing your teeth. Brush your teeth. Take the medicine. Stack one habit on another to make your routine easier and optimize your habit building. 

Clear focuses on behaviors, and although he touches a bit on the “cognitive” part of cognitive behavioral therapy, he keeps the focus on the manageable actions. I think that’s best for most people. Some people need a deeper dive into their thoughts and changing their thought patterns to have better control over their behaviors, but most people mainly need the awareness of the behavior in the first place in order to initiate change. 

Clear makes the topic easy and guilt-free. It’s a solutions-first approach rather than heavy on analytical techniques or digging into the “why,” and that’s why I think it’s so successful and approachable for so many people. 

Tagged: self-help, psychology

There is no sensitive content readers should be aware of. 

Damned

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By Chuck Palahniuk

Alrighty then. Picture this if you will: A 13 year old girl with the personality of Tyler Durden has died of a marijuana overdose and gone to hell. 🔥 She becomes the weirdo freak character in a twisted version of the Breakfast Club and together, she and a group of fellow misfits relive a rendition of Dante’s Inferno, where she works a call center reminiscent of the Sorry to Bother You movie, then squares off against the most evil characters in world history to live the most wacky and triumphant afterlife imaginable. 😈

Cover of the novel "Damned" by Chuck Palahniuk. Shows a red devil face on a brown background.

This might be my favorite book I’ve listened to this year. Wild. Self-righteous. Zany. Completely unhinged. Disgusting. Hilarious. Sharp and sardonic. I don’t know how else to describe Palahniuk.

If you’ve never read any Palahniuk before, this isn’t the worst place to start. But just know, you may think you’re losing your mind, and you may also love every damned minute of it.

Extended Review...

Chuck Palahniuk has become synonymous with weird, building a legacy on his twisted tales that take the reader places they’ve likely never been before. And although male writers often err when writing female characters, Palahniuk has found a way to channel the sarcasm, biting critiques, and attitude of outraged angst so typical in his characters into a perfectly believable teenage girl. 

One of the elements that contributes to Palahniuk’s success in his craft is his ability to handle unreliable narrators. Here, the narrator either is insecure and embarrassed, lying to give a better impression while knowing she’s unreliable. Or, she starts off in denial of her situation, and it is only after she faces the unique and tragic circumstances that got her to hell can she be relied upon (either by the reader or other characters). I’ll let you be the judge. 

However, once she empowers herself with the truth, her redemption/revenge arc is an extraordinary adventure.

Tagged: 21st century lit, adventure, women’s lit, fantasy, funny, horror

Readers should be warned about sensitive content including adult language, self-harm and suicide, drug use, and sexual activity among teenagers.  

Honorable Mention

The Book Eaters
By Sunyi Dean
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tagged: adventure, women’s lit, 21st century lit, Mom lit, LGBTQ, horror, sci-fi

4.5 stars. In a world where some people consume and grow from literature and some people consume and grow from others’ minds, how does a mother protect and care for children who are seen as monsters and who can quickly become monsters? 📚

I loved this. Every minute of it. The prose is gripping and the plot takes several unexpected twists. Including how Lgbtqia+ this book is (it’s the first book I’ve read this year with a character who self-identifies as ace.)🏳️‍🌈

Part Handmaid’s Tale, part Frankenstein, mixed into a new nightmare. 🧟‍♀️

The ending isn’t what i expected either. And i liked that. It *doesnt* tie up with a nice bow, and what could be more true-to-life?

The audiobook ended with a lovely conversation between the author and the audiobook narrator, which was so interesting and different. As a publishing professional, i love that kind of industry insider content. 😊 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
By Taylor Jenkins Reid
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tagged: women’s lit, 21st century lit, LGBTQ, romance, funny, movie

If you’ve heard anything about this book, I think it will come as no surprise that I found it extraordinary. What a romance! I cried real tears. Simply heart wrenching and inspiring with an excellent twist at the end. 🙌

I know Evelyn is blonde, but I kept picturing her as Katherine Hepburn or Lauren Bacall. Maybe with a dash of Marilyn Monroe mixed in. Elegant and lovely. Sharp witted. Classy and poised like golden Hollywood always presented itself. A true icon. 👗👠

I can’t say i “liked” Evelyn. But i really loved her. And i won’t say that Celia was perfect, but she was damn sure close. And Harry! Who wouldn’t love Harry? ❤️

I loved the alternating between past and present timelines, with the occassional insert from the gossip columns so we could see how things looked from the outside.

I was on the wait list for this book. Twice. For a total of 5 months. And i devoured it in 2 days. It was well worth the wait and impossible to put down.

Netflix is making a movie, and I see people online concerned that Netflix will “sterilize” the story and focus on only Evelyn’s seven husbands and not her wife. I agree. I really, really hope they don’t do that. 😬

Run, don’t walk, to check this out for yourself.

The Last House on Needless Street
By Catriona Ward
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tagged: 21st century lit, LGBTQ, psychology, horror

It should be no surprise that a thriller with a blurb from Stephen King on the cover is very good. And this book is.

Although i want horror and spooky all month, what i *didnt* want was serial killers torturing victims, and I was a bit afraid when this story seemed to be heading in that direction. But it took a powerful and well-executed turn, and i think this will stick with me for a long time. 🐱

What really stuck with me is the idea that “monsters” very rarely look like what we expect them to. The weird guy you pass on the street? probably not a monster. But beware the nice looking, the people who seem to have no cracks in their outer presentation.

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like inside the mind of someone with disassociative identity disorder (aka, multiple personalities) i’d bet this book will give you a pretty clear picture. DID is pretty well always prompted by severe childhood trauma, so be forewarned that’s something that comes with the territory in this story. 💔

By Jack Cheng
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tagged: kid lit, adventure, mom lit, psychology, 21st century lit, funny, sci-fi
 
This funny, heartwarming adventure was an outstanding audiobook that my son and I enjoyed together. Almost-12-year-old Alex wants to launch his home built rocket into space and ends up launching himself into his own future. Alex is making a series of recordings for the aliens he thinks his rocket will encounter – a golden iPod to update alien life and build on what is contained in the golden record.
Charming. Smart. Thought-provoking. I loved it.
 
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My 9 year old son’s review: “Stunning. It got really deep. The author did a really good job on this one. Five and a half stars.”

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer 
By Fredrik Backman
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Tagged: 21st century lit, short story, psychology

It’s only an hour-long audiobook, and I bawled beginning at about minute 4 and continued throughout.

A man with Alzheimers recalls and recounts the precious moments of his life with his son, the ghost of his wife, and his grandson, Noah-Noah, whose name he likes twice as much as anyone else’s so he always says it twice (🥺😢😭 ).

It’s beautifully written and performed. It’ll hit home hard.

I do not recommend listening to it at work, where people can walk in your office and you have to explain that you’re fine but just listening to a sad book. Lol.

But i do recommend listening to it. ❤️

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Two Common (and Easy-to-Use) Semicolon Rules

Black examples of the semicolon in different fonts against a white background

Semicolons: Who Needs 'Em?

Black examples of the semicolon in different fonts against a white background

Oh! Semicolons. I, like many other editors, love them. But if you’re a writer who finds the semicolon *the worst, * you have options available to you.

One of those options is that you don’t have to use any semicolons at all if you don’t want to. I won’t pressure you.

But if you want to learn the most basic semicolon rules, here you go. There are only two common semicolon uses that writers may “need” to know. At least, two that are simple enough you won’t have to look them up to remember them.

Starting your round of self-edits with a self-editing checklist can make it easier to finalize your manuscript. If you find that you particularly struggle with semicolons, add them as an item to your personal self-editing checklist. 

Semicolon Rule 1: Compound Sentences without a Coordinating Conjunction

In Grammarian: When you’re joining two independent clauses into a compound sentence without a coordinating conjunction, use a semicolon.

In plain English: When you want to combine two sentences into one and you’re not using and/or/but, you can use a semicolon.

What it means: you never *have* to use a semicolon in this situation. You can separate it into two sentences, or use a comma with the appropriate coordinating conjunction.

When this can be especially useful: when using a pronoun such as it/this/that.

Example:

I ate the pizza. The pizza was delicious.

I ate the pizza, and the pizza was delicious.

I ate the pizza, and it was delicious.

I ate the pizza; it was delicious.

Now I know this is incredibly simple, but it is also clear. (Always start with a basic example when explaining something). You can easily see how we progressed from two sentences to a compound sentence that uses a coordinating conjunction and a comma, to a compound sentence that uses a semicolon and no conjunction.

Honestly, this rule applies even with compound subjects or predicates, with sentences that contain a lot of adjectives or adverbs, and even with sentences chock-full of prepositions.

Example:

I ate the wings and pizza; the wings made me sick, but the pizza was delicious.

I ate pizza and drank Coke; this combination made me sick to my stomach.

I ate pizza and got sick; that got me thinking.

I think the semicolon is particularly helpful in sentences with pronouns it/this//that because you can combine two thoughts that are connected, without having to repeat yourself, while maintaining clearly that the pronoun refers to the immediately preceding noun. Sometimes when the pronoun and the noun to which it refers are separated into two sentences, the meaning becomes unclear.

The process of self-editing your book can be long and tedious, so many people hire an editor instead. It can take a long time.

Now, “it” here *probably* refers to “the process of self-editing your book” but “it” could also refer to “hir[ing] an editor.” Do you see what I mean about ambiguity? Readers may become confused.

(If I came across this in a line edit, I would leave a comment with suggestions on how to rewrite this to ensure the meaning remains clear.)

The process of self-editing your book can be long and tedious, so many people hire an editor instead, which can take a long time. (Indicates hiring an editor takes a long time.)

The process of self-editing your book can be long and tedious, which takes a long time, so many people hire an editor instead. (Indicates self-editing your book takes a long time.)

Semicolon Rule 2: Use semicolons to Separate List Items when Lists Contain Lists

Think of it as “list-ception.”

If you have a list of three or more items, you separate each list item with a comma.

I went to the store and bought milk, eggs, and bread.

Simple enough.

But when one of your list items contains elements that would also be separated by commas, it would create confusion. So you separate the larger (external) list with semicolons and the shorter (internal) list with commas.

Yesterday I went to the post office, picked up groceries, and dropped off my dry cleaning. The groceries I picked up included milk, eggs, and bread.

As a single sentence:

Yesterday I went to the post office; dropped off my dry cleaning; and picked up groceries including eggs, milk, and bread.

Notice I changed the order of items so the contained list would be at the end. This was simply personal preference; I personally think it’s a bit grammatically neater. But it would also be acceptable to keep them in the original order.

Yesterday I went to the post office; picked up groceries including milk, eggs, and bread; and dropped off dry cleaning.

In this original order, it’s a bit easier to see what I mean by “external” and “internal” lists.

Semicolons: Simple as That!

And that’s it! The two most common and easy-to-follow semicolon rules.

Now, there’s different types of editing, which can vary even more depending on which genre the manuscript is or the type of writer you are. Finish your  developmental editing for creative concepts before jumping into your specific technical edits; your manuscript will benefit the most in the end. And your readers will love it! 

Want to learn more about semicolons? Check out this blog from Grammarly which guides you through 5 different ways to use semicolons. 

Happy writing! 

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Self-Editing Tips: Chicago Style Overview of Number Rules

Colorful blocks of different shapes with numbers. Self-editing tips for numbers in Chicago Style.
Colorful blocks of different shapes with numbers. Self-editing tips for numbers in Chicago Style.

Everyone comes to writing with a different background. Different instructors. Different books we’ve read over the years that influence us. Different advice we’ve been given and rules we’ve been told. But when it comes to writing for yourself as a self-published author or prepping a manuscript for traditional publication, you may need to go against the rules you thought you knew and adapt to one style guide or another. These self-editing tips focus on number rules and will help you understand how to follow one particular set of guidelines. 

What are style guides?

Style guides are standardized sets of rules that writers can follow to make their manuscripts consistent internally and with other books that may be their competition.

The most common style guide in commercial book publishing is the Chicago Manual of Style (which is currently in its 17th edition), but many publishers make their own in-house style guides that deviate from the general rules.

Getting Started Self-Editing Tips: What Style Guide Should I Use?

In most cases, whether you’re self-publishing or submitting for traditional publication, the CMoS guide is a great place to start. One of the best self-editing tips that self-publishing authors don’t realize is that if there’s a rule you don’t like and you’re self-publishing, you can make your own rule! Just be sure to apply the rule consistently throughout your writing and to let your editor know about your preference.

Deviating from the Style Guide

For example, CMoS typically defers to the Merriam-Webster dictionary for spellings of words, however, I recently edited for an author who preferred the lesser-used spelling of “advisor” instead of the M-W preference “adviser.” By making me aware of his preference, I was able to help him make sure that his preferred spelling was maintained.

Other examples of deviating from CMoS that I’ve seen include a preference for “healthcare” over “health care” and maintaining capitalization for holy and religious terms that CMoS defaults to downcase.

Self-Editing Tips for Numbers in CMoS

Every style guide starts with a general rule, then specifies more details depending on the specific use and situations a writer might find themselves in.

The General Rule

In CMoS, the general rule is to spell out numbers of one hundred or less. Hyphenate numbers that are two-word phrases.

Additionally, you use the numeral for 101 and higher.

Ex:

He is seven years old. 

We expect ninety-five visitors. 

After 112 years had passed, the house no longer stood tall. 

Self-Editing Tips for Numbers: Some Notable Exceptions

Numbers that begin a sentence

Spell out numbers that begin a sentence, even if it’s a year or large number you would normally use a numeral for. Do not begin sentences with numerals.

Ex: 

Eighteen seventy-five was a memorable year.

Two million dollars was the largest donation. 

To avoid this, if you’d rather use the numeral when self-editing, add wording to the start of the sentence.

Ex: 

Instead of “1875 was a memorable year,” rephrase to:

In 1875, memorable events occurred…

Large numbers

When writing whole numbers in the ten thousands, hundred thousands, millions, or billions, spell out the number

Ex:

We expect ten thousand people to attend the event. 

After one hundred and forty thousand years, the tectonic shifts made the area unrecognizable. 

No fewer than four million results were compiled. 

Money

When writing monetary amounts, use the dollar symbol ($) and the numeral, or a combination of numerals and spelled words in the case of large numbers, rather than writing out the number and the word “dollars.” There is no need to specify “USD.” If using another monetary denomination (euros, rupees, yen, etc.), use the appropriate symbol. If referring to a non-US monetary unit that also uses “dollars,” you may specify the country with a designation before the dollar symbol. 

For example, Canadian dollars are expressed as “C$”, and Australian dollars are expressed as “A$”.  

Ex:

“Hey!” I cried. “You owe me $5!”

On sale this week only for £999.

The average cost of a house in the city is $175,000. 

The facility is expected to generate more than C$2 million annually.

Time

For times, choose between either the specific “a.m.” or “p.m.” designation or a word phrase to describe time — such as “in the afternoon” or “o’clock.” 

For a.m. and p.m., use the numeral and with word phrases, spell out the number.

When precise time is required, use a.m. and p.m.

Ex: 

The package arrived at precisely 4:22 p.m.

The package arrived around four o’clock.

The package arrived at approximately four in the afternoon.

Measurements

OK, so this self-editing tip gets tricky: when using an abbreviation for the unit of measurement, use a numeral. But spell out numbers when measurements are spelled as words.

Ex:

We need a board that’s twenty-two inches long.

We need a board measuring 22 x 4 in.

Dates

You can pretty much always expect to use the numerals when including the entire date. When writing more narratively consider spelling out numbers, especially for ordinals.

Ex:

They will arrive on June 2, 2022.

They will arrive on June second.  

Percentages

In nontechnical manuscripts, CMoS prefers spelling out the word “percent” rather than using the percent symbol (%). 

Ex: 

This year’s turnout was twenty percent higher than last year.

There was an increase of 217 percent over last year.

I only scored forty-five percent on the exam. 

Self-Editing Tips for Number Correction

While writing your draft, chances are that you didn’t have all these number rules in mind. Even if you were mindful of being compliant with Chicago style, the best writers sometimes make mistakes. Once you are ready to put your manuscript through a self-editing checklist for authors, I suggest that one of those rounds of self-editing focus specifically on number rules. 

There are two main ways you can make mistakes with numbers while writing: either you used the numeral where you should have spelled out the word, or you used the word where you should have used the numeral. 

To correct numerals to words

Using CTRL+F, search for all the numerals in your text to confirm that they should be numerals. 

Self-editing tips: To search all numerals, put the following into your search bar: 

^#

This should highlight every numeral, and you can use the navigation panel on the left-hand side of the screen to check that each one is correct.

To correct words to numerals

This is a bit trickier but can still be completed using CTRL+F. 

You will need to search for each number-word individually, at least for one through twenty. (One, two, three, four…etc.) 

Once this is complete, search for the root denomination word of each count of ten. (Twenty, thirty, forty…etc.)

Correct "dollars" to $ and "%" to "percent"

Lastly, you can perform separate searches for the word “dollars” (or other monetary units) and for the percent symbol (%) to find any use of them in the text, then make corrections by spelling out the word instead of using the symbol. 

Nice work! You've successfully followed our self-editing tips for numbers in your manuscript!

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ANNOUNCING: SRD Editing Services Joins the Editorial Freelancers Association

Logo of the Editorial Freelancers Association

The team at SRD Editing Services is delighted to announce our membership in the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) just in time for the new year and our planned growth in 2023.

Since 1970 the EFA has provided training, networking, and contract opportunities to freelance editors in all areas of publishing. The association is dedicated to enhancing the quality of editorial standards and supporting highest quality publishing in all areas.

So far in 2022, Cortni Merritt, founder and editor in chief at SRD Editing Services, has attended EFA virtual seminars on contracting and streamlining business processes, as well as authenticity reader training, geared at providing a higher quality and more dedicated sensitivity reader services. Cortni plans to continue this trend in 2023, with attendance to workshops on editing memoirs, trans allyship and representation, and enhanced copy editing techniques.

The next in-person conference of the EFA is scheduled for August of 2023, in Virginia. SRD Editing Services would be delighted to attend, if circumstances allow.

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On Being a Lifelong Book Collector

A person (book collector) sitting on a stack of books, showing bare feet and jeans.

I went book shopping yesterday. I don’t know why I picked up anything. I already had 130 books on my TBR list, three of which were recent arrivals via my boyfriend that I wanted to check out. And I already had six or seven that I have been sitting around various places in the house, set aside from the last trip to the used book store. Two of them, I’ve started but haven’t finished, and the others are patiently collecting dust like the long-suffering forgotten treasures that I’ve (unfortunately) let them become.

So why did I pick up five more? Why did I jump at the opportunity to re-own a book I gave away once and never got back? Why did I snag one from an author I’ve never heard of, largely based on cover art and the back cover summary? (And its placement in the store.)

I do try to do that though. As a lifelong reader (and book collector), I’ve found that grabbing random books from unheard-of authors is how to discover new authors, new worlds, new adventures. I love to return to ones I know and cherish (who doesn’t?), but what joy there is in wandering the aisles and finding a gem.

The Japanese language has a word for book ownership like this: tsundoku

Literally translated as “to pile up reading,” the general meaning is the practice of buying books with the intention of reading them, but letting them pile up instead. Maybe you just never get around to it. Maybe you get distracted by something else. Maybe you just run out of time.

One popular meme discusses how the Old English word for a library was “bōchord”, which literally means “book hoard,” and this implies that librarians are dragons. Now, I’m no librarian, but I’ve had people exclaim, “Your house is like a library!” when they walk in. So, that sounds like a reasonable comparison to me. And I wouldn’t mind being a dragon.

I think part of the reason we (as people) do this is that we like to aspire. We like to see ourselves as someone different. New. Growing. Doing things in the future that we’re not doing now. It’s hopeful, isn’t it? It’s optimistic that we’ll be more someday than we are now.

Is it a stack of books, a list of recipes to try, a bucket list of places to travel that reminds us of who we want to become?

Is it the comfort of being surrounded by a collection of familiar objects? They don’t change. They simply are, simply existing, simply remaining, ready to be laughed at or change your life, at any moment. They’re so comfortable, those books in your collection, sitting in stacks and on shelves, just waiting for an excited mind of the book collector that cracks their spine and discovers what’s inside.  Even without being opened, they provide some sort of vital energy to a room, whispering secrets that you must be quiet enough and open-minded enough to hear.

A room without books is truly silent.

I guess if I ever want to become a better writer, I better become more than a mere book collector and actually get started reading.

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Improve Your Writing Process

improve-writing-process

The Outcome Can Terrorize You

If there’s a thousand ways to do something, there’s a thousand ways to do it right. And a thousand ways to muck it up. And the truth is — you’ll never find the writing process that works for you, without stumbling through a few of those.

In On Writing Well, by William Zinsser, he writes about “the tyranny of the final product.” This “tyranny” is the pressure that reigns over you as you try to create. It’s the expectation that you will produce something, that in the end, after all this effort, you will have a product.

Something marketable. Something worth selling.

Well, that can kind of take some of the fun out of writing, can’t it? And it can certainly raise the stakes. What are you doing all this for, if not to have some product at the end? If not to have produced something of value and use to the world?

But the steps that a writer must go through to produce that product. Ah, therein lies the journey.

It’s said that “Ordinary people focus on the outcome; extraordinary people focus on the process.”

Producing the book is one thing — you can get it done, come hell or high water, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you have to pour into it. But, why should it take blood, sweat, and tears? Might there not be an easier way?

The outcome of the book can be achieved, and you can pat yourself on the back once you achieve it, but might you not achieve it more easily? Isn’t there a better process, an easier way?

Well, of course, there probably is. You might have to spend some time finding it.

Improve Your Writing Process

When you want to do something better, you might ask experts and long-time successful people for their advice. Of course, every writer and every process is different, but here are some tips and tricks you might try.

Writing Process Tip #1: Write to a Soundtrack

While working on a single book, novel, or narrative theme, some writers find it very helpful to have a specific album, playlist, or musical artist to keep them in the same “mood.” This might be specific — such as having different playlists for each character who has a point of view in your novel — or it might be more general, such as “anytime I work on this novel, I’m going to listen to jazz.” You can also try nature sounds to background your writing time.

Whatever it is you’re using to fill the silence around you, just don’t let it distract you from putting words on the page.

(For a visual method, try using a mood board!)

Writing Process Tip #2: Try "Scribe" Writing

Most people talk faster than they type. While an accomplished typist might put down 80 to 100 words per minute on their screen, your average speaker can throw out 130 words per minute (in English). Easily, when speaking, you might tell a story twice as fast, with more detail, than sitting to write it. … So why are you trying to write with your hands? Do it with your mouth!

Thanks to transcription apps like otter.ai and Express Scribe, you can easily use the microphone on your phone or computer to record yourself talking through your book, and then the app will type it all up for you into an easy-to-edit text-based document. No more cramping wrists and tired fingers.

(NOTE: You can still use the “soundtrack” idea here as well! One renowned author, whose productivity level is as high as 10K words per day, attributes her success to audio transcriptions of her books. She says instead of music in the background, she will put a movie on mute when she is working on a specific book, and play only that movie when she works on that book until the book is finished. Magnificent!)

Writing Process Tip #3: The Carrot vs. the Stick

Anyone who has ever tried to negotiate with a child understands how useful bribes and incentives can be — both positive and negative ones. So, you have to find what motivates your own inner child.

What reward will you work especially hard for? What punishment will you work specifically hard to avoid?

Set yourself up for success! Promise yourself that after you finish the writing goal you set for yourself for the day, you will reward yourself with that walk in the park, or that brownie, or that self-care time. Treat yourself when you reach those goals!

And, on the other hand, promise someone else that if you don’t finish your writing goal for the day, you’ll be accountable for something unpleasant. You’ll do the dishes, or put a $1 in the “writing not done” jar, or forego your dessert, or whatever the un-fun thing that you’d rather avoid. A little bribery goes a long way.

Writing Process Tip #4: Be Flexible

It can be frustrating when you’re still settling into a process and finding what works for you.

You might be tempted to shrug off silly-sounding advice from others. You may be tempted to fall back into comfortable habits because they are easy and you already know how to do them. But, if your comfortable habits produced the level of productivity you wanted, you wouldn’t be looking to improve your process, right?

Try a few different approaches on for size. And not just for a single day. Some things, you might give three days and then re-evaluate how you feel about them. Some things, you might try for a whole week to see how they work for you. It takes between 14 and 21 days to form or break a habit, so when you find something you like and something that works, stick to it for a whole month. 

After you’ve made it a part of your routine for a month, you’ll be in a better position to determine if it’s something you should keep around.

Just Keep Writing!

No matter what you do to improve your writing process, the trick is to keep writing. You can’t say you’re improving if you’ve got only blank pages to show for it — that is one thing about being what you say you are.

If you are a writer, then you must write. 

You must produce written words, and once you find the right process to help you, nothing should stand in your way.

Need an Experienced Editor to Help?

Contact SRD Editing Services for help with developmental editing or line editing. 

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Creative Thinking & Writer’s Block: Oblique Strategies App

writers-block-app

There’s a bunch of apps out there to help you be a better writer. If you’re struggling with writer’s block, you may want to try a few to see what works for you.

May I recommend Oblique Strategies? It’s available for both Android (here) and Apple (here)

This sleek, straightforward app is designed to give you simple food for thought and a new perspective. At times, the quirky or out-of-the-box solutions might help you work through the peskiness of writer’s block. Maybe you’re struggling against a thorny plot point, maybe it’s some problem of character motivation, maybe it’s the general inability to string words together cohesively.

The Oblique Strategies app sort of reminds me of a Magic 8 ball. If you become frustrated, stop and open the app. Think of a question that encapsulates your current struggle. Swipe to see what happens.

As you scroll, (you can go either left or right), the randomized cards present you with single sentences that may come in from an angle you weren’t expecting.

I suggest you cut yourself off after three swipes. Of course, the first solutions might not be realistic for whatever reason. So try again, a couple of times. Then, stop yourself. It’s too easy to keep chasing the suggestion you want to hear instead of pushing yourself to try something new. After three swipes, choose one of the ideas or strategies presented to you and execute it to see how it affects your writer’s block. 

You may not prefer or like or have ever done the suggestions before, but that’s the idea! Push yourself from your comfort zone, because your comfort zone has given you this writer’s block. Get out from under it. Don’t be blocked. A different perspective or a new strategy is often the only way to find a solution.

Developmental Editing/Book Coaching to Break out of Writer’s Block

If you regularly struggle with writer’s block and are looking for a long-term solution, working with an SRD Editing Services editor for a developmental edit or book coaching might be just the thing. 

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The Importance of Charity

charity-writing-editing

I am learning to love giving. I am learning to love charity. 

It’s a difficult thing, a solid thing, a hard thing: to let go. To release. So much emotion tied up in the material. So many attachments to things in and around daily life.

Some people live in one town all their lives; some people even live in a single house. I have no hometown, no house that I “grew up in.” Semi-nomadic for as long as I can remember, my stuff has long been my home. Items that surround me hold in them the memories of where I’ve been and who was there and what we dreamed about.

The most recent times I’ve arranged my life into boxes and taken them to another building to rearrange my life inside new walls, I’ve realized: there is too much stuff. Too much for a single grown person (and a half-person) to justify.

Why hold on to notebooks from college? As if their weight demonstrates, somehow solidifies, all the knowledge contained in them that was once crammed into my skull. Now, the answer to any question is always right at the end of my fingertips. (But! some inner Junk Lady protests, these pages are in your own handwriting. Isn’t that better than Google, dearie?)

No matter where I’ve lived, the truth remains that we are all connected. When I make the decision to consume, someone, somewhere has produced it, and I can and am having an impact on the producer’s life. When I consume what I don’t need, or don’t consume what I do need because I don’t let go of what no longer fits my life, I also affect the producers. My consumption is active, fluid; decisions change the world.

Mindful Consumption + Charity

Mindfulness and self-reflection result in clarity. As I examine my life, my choices and their consequences, it becomes clearer which attachments bring me joy and which don’t contribute any value. Once it’s clear what doesn’t contribute, the possibility of letting go, of breaking those attachments, becomes reality.

Once I realize that I can let go of a particular thing, my perspective changes. When I can say, “I don’t need this thing,” I wonder why I keep what I don’t need, and what I need that I don’t have. I wonder what it will take for me to begin to embrace charity more in my day-to-day life. 

Donate, donate, donate ...

“They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing.”

This last year, I’ve gathered a few lessons on how to make giving an effortless, fully-integrated aspect of my life.

I’ve learned:

  • You can (and should!) donate to Goodwill or Salvation Army or your local homeless shelter clothes and shoes that you and your children have outgrown or no longer wear.
  • Donate to your local animal shelter all the toys, bedding, and accessories that your pets rejected or outgrew.
  • Donate books to libraries or shelters; donate toys your kids have outgrown to a daycare center or church.

Personal Charity Favorite:

Got an old gaming system that you can’t resell? Donate it to kids who are stuck in the hospital with cancer and other chronic illnesses. Visit Charity Nerds and make a kid’s day. (Good-bye Leap Frog Leap Pad that my son stopped playing with years ago).

Consume Responsibly ...

Thrift stores, consignment stores, used-furniture outlets, used-book stores*, pre-owned anything. There’s an entire world of apps, brick-and-mortar locations, and retail sites where you basically never have to pay full price and buy anything new, ever. This is especially useful when it comes to items like kids’ clothing.

Warning – I have found that buying shoes from thrift stores/pre-owned clothing stores (and websites) is a tricky process, often with disappointing results.

If and when you purchase new, purchase items from companies that represent your ethics (B-corps, certified fair trade, mission-focused businesses) and/or small business when possible. I love Etsy. With a passion. It’s a fantastic marketplace for unique, handmade items you can give as gifts for any occasion.

Personal Favorites:

I love Me to We, an amazing company that is making serious impacts on every continent. I do not remove the two rafikis I wear on my left wrist, as a reminder and reflection of the solidarity I feel with women around the world.

I also love 4Ocean, working to clean up ocean and shoreline pollution around the world. Each bracelet = cleanup of 1 lb. of trash. I wear one (the sea turtle design) on my right ankle.

I am addicted to Diet Coke. (No but like, it’s seriously a problem.) Coke offers the My Coke Rewards program (redeem the codes under the lids/on packaging for points you can trade for cheap merch), but I found that the “rewards” were about as exciting and long-lasting as the junk from the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese. Well, I wasn’t going to stop drinking Diet Coke, and my points kept expiring. Sad. Then, I found that you can “cash in” your rewards points as a donation to a school of your choice. Easy solution.

* They still exist, I promise. My personal favorite, in the Orlando area, is Best Used Books.

Automate Your Charity Giving

Use technology to do more, more easily. There are apps that make it easy for you to connect with those in need of charity in your area, or around the world. Donate time, donate resources, donate personally or from your business.

Personal Favorites:

Spend too much time on your phone? Ever use the Pomodoro technique to keep yourself focused? Forest is the app that lets you donate time off your phone toward planting a real tree somewhere on Earth. Because we will always need trees.

Run, walk, bike, hike, or swim with Charity Miles to have your mileage sponsored on your behalf. For every mile you clock, a corporate sponsor donates to the charity of your choice on your behalf. (I donate my miles to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, in honor of my brother’s fiance – a two-battle survivor of Leukemia.)

If you are in the food business – maybe you run a restaurant or catering service, maybe you manage a grocery or convenience store – you have dealt with spoilage, surplus, and other inventory issues. Donate extra food. (France made it a law that unspoiled food can’t be thrown out of grocery stores, it required to donate surplus food).

The solution that Philadelphia, Penn., has found is to connect food donors with local businesses, like homeless and domestic violence shelters, that need food. Use the Food Connect app to donate or receive – and leave the Food Connect team a message telling them you want Food Connect in YOUR city!

Charity Begins at Home

No matter how you choose to contribute to your larger community, remember to first and foremost contribute to those in your life who need it. Offer support, love, and compassion to the people you care about. This is an entire topic for conversation (for another blog), but, I firmly believe that if you take care of those you care for, there will literally be more love in the world.

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Self-editing Checklist for Authors

A pink piece of paper demonstrating a self-editing checklist for authors

Congratulations! You’ve finished the initial drafts of your manuscript. Maybe you even went through developmental edits or critique partners already. Now, you think you’re ready for content editing or line editing. Not so fast. You want everything to be as clean as possible—you want to save yourself the time and money of making editors do extra work. Here’s a handy self-editing checklist you can use to guide your final steps before you send it off to be marked up.

A Word on Style Guides:

While the big five publishers typically follow the guidelines in the Chicago Manual of Style, most independent book publishers have an in-house guide; as a self-published writer, the rules of style are yours to choose from.

Be prepared to discuss with your editor some specifics like Oxford comma, when to use italics, and whether you prefer “ok” or “okay” or “OK” or “O.K.”, “T-shirt” or “tee shirt” or “t-shirt”.

My advice: Pick one and use it consistently during your self-edit. If you and the editor decide to make a change later, it will be a smoother process.

Self-Editing Checklist for Writers

  • Chapter & section titles
  • Fact checking
  • Character & setting consistency
  • Punctuation consistency
  • Order of events /continuity
  • Basic font/formatting

Let’s go through these in some more detail. Edit your writing with these in mind, and you’ll feel good passing it on to beta readers or your editor.

Editing Chapter & Section Titles

Every chapter should be marked. You might not title them, but they need to at least have numbers. Every chapter should start on a new page.

Create a new page by inserting a page break at the end of the previous chapter. Click your cursor after your last line of text, hit Ctrl + Enter (or Command+Enter on a Mac) and voila! Your cursor will be at the top of the next page. Now use your “Delete” key to move the next chapter title into place.

According to Chicago style, spell out the words (“two” and “twenty”) rather than using Arabic or Roman numerals. My rule of thumb is to be consistent. I don’t care if you like it spelled out or use numbers — just pick one and go through all your chapters and make them the same.

self-editing checklist for writers, authors, and poets
It will all build on itself. Trust the self-editing and professional editing process …

Lastly, you don’t need to center the chapter title. You can if you want, but your designer will likely remove it anyway.

Now, cross this off your self-editing checklist. Well done. 

Editing for Facts

Fact: it’s super-easy to Google a business, brand, or person’s name and make sure it’s spelled, capitalized, and punctuated correctly. You can do this simple research yourself or you can pay someone else to do it, but it should be done.

Pop quiz: Is it “Pop-Tart” or “PopTarts” or “Pop Tarts”? What about “cleanex”? Is that correct? Does Frederick Douglas’ last name have two “s”es?

Answers: Pop-Tarts, Kleenex, and yes.

I will never forget being younger and reading a book from a renowned author, and noticing that the spelling of “Arrowsmith” appeared in the printed book. This was in pre-Google days but still… It haunts me.

Fact: it’s pretty easy to check the history of most things, and if you’re writing a historical novel, you must.

Don’t have your characters using technology that is invented after their time, dressing in clothing that doesn’t match the period, or unaware of information that was common knowledge in their day.

I once edited a novel set in the 1800s where the richest character showed off how rich he was because he was the only guy in town with a certain type of car… or any car for that matter, because they hadn’t been invented yet.

Fact: it’s a little harder to check the science on something if you’re a sci-fi writer, but you’d better do it. Otherwise, science lovers won’t want to read your stuff. Take the time to learn the basics of the science you’re writing about. You don’t have to get your PhD, but you do have to know at least enough to pass a 101 class.

This self-editing checklist item can take a bit more time, but it will be worth it in the end. 

Editing for Character & Setting Consistency

improve-writing-process
Your reader will go down a straight path from beginning to end. Take a look at it the way they do.

I’m assuming you didn’t sit to write the whole novel at once. So I’ll give you leniency and predict that some details probably changed. Maybe a character starts off brunette and ends up with black hair. Maybe the house starts off blue but ends up yellow. Maybe the scene starts off midday and suddenly shifts to sunset.

Inconsistencies happen.

If you’re a planner, you might have made a whole character description list and maps and who knows what else. They might come in handy at this point, but if you didn’t make one already, there’s no time like the present.

Start at the beginning. When a new character or setting is introduced, make a note of what details you included, including how you spelled the name that first time. If you spelled it wrong the first time, correct it and move on. But otherwise, I want you to read through and make sure every other use of that character’s name is spelled the same way as the first use.

Yes. This happens more than you would think. Writers change the spelling of character names. Sometimes the name itself will change or the character suddenly has a nickname—it happens all the time.

Your reader (and editor) will think: How was I supposed to know Kate and Katie were the same person?

Some writers might find it helpful to note the time of day or location at the beginning of each scene, then read through the entire scene and confirm consistency. After you know a certain scene, chapter, or section is consistent, you can remove the notes about it.

The trick is: Read through and note details that arise every time the character appears. Then, the next time the character is in the scene, check your notes. Make sure distinguishing features or idiomatic expressions remain true to the character you’ve already introduced.

Give this self-editing checklist item several rounds and perhaps break it into sub-list items if that is the right process for you. 

For consistency with self-editing numbers, take a look at this detailed blog about self-editing numbers in Chicago Manual of Style. 

Punctuation Consistency

This is another thing you can pay for if you want to, but with a little elbow grease, you can shape this up pretty good yourself. So roll up your sleeves and get to work.

The three biggest offenders here are probably dashes ( – vs. — ), use of parentheses, and punctuation in time.

Dashes — first: they’re not hyphens. Hyphens join two words to make a new one and don’t have a space on either side. There are two types of dashes (but this blog is long enough, no?), and my general rule is: if you want to make the reader follow you across a little “pause” or “jump” then put a space for them to jump over, two short dashes to land on — like this — and a space to let them jump back into the main sentence.

Just make all your dashes between words consistent.

Parentheses: if you open it, you must close it. Don’t leave any parenthesis hanging. If you start it, finish it too.

Don’t leave a random parenthesis hanging at the end of a sentence or paragraph if there wasn’t one earlier in the sentence or paragraph. It’s technically just a typo, but these things happen. And your reader will go back and look for the other one and lose their train of thought. You never want the reader to lose their train of thought.

self-edit, consistency, punctuation help
Make your message clear, and it will be timeless.

Punctuation in Time: I may be going against Chicago style here but I’ll say it anyway—minimize your use of colons, and use periods to your advantage. I suggest that if you’re mentioning an exact on-the-hour time, go ahead use the Arabic numeral without a :00 after it. If you’re using “a.m.” and “p.m.”, periods help make it clearer and are preferred by CMoS.

Don’t capitalize “AM” or “PM”, and I suggest that you never use “o’clock”, unless it’s accurate to the historical period or character’s voice. CMoS does allow for “o’clock.” 

For more about consistency with semicolons take a look at our blog with easy semicolon rules to help you check this off your self-editing checklist. 

Editing for Event Continuity

We’d all like to think that our scenes don’t contain any holes. But, we’re wrong. 

Continuity is easy to mess up—and even after you’ve edited for character and setting consistency, there’s one more type of consistency you should check for. 

Re-read scenes with an eye for consistency of smaller actions inside each event. Do your characters repeat actions or lines of dialogue? Are there gaps between actions in the scene—for example, does a character take off his jacket, but then in a couple lines, it’s back on again? 

This round of your consistency edits—specifically for continuity—is where you’re checking for internal consistency within scenes. Some editors will begin at the end of the book and work their way backward chapter by chapter, to make sure that the continuity within each scene is solid.  

As your self-editing checklist is getting shorter, your manuscript is getting better. Keep going! 

Editing for Basic Formatting

OK, you’re reaching the conclusion. You’ve edited and re-edited and revised and checked over everything. You might have even reached a point where you feel like your eyes will cross if you have to read it again. 

This round of editing doesn’t really require reading. Just attention to detail. 

The long and complicated explanation regarding formatting is that—oh boy—it largely depends on how you plan to publish. If you’re self-publishing, you’ll be sending your Word document to a professional designer for the internal formatting for your printed book. 

Don’t argue, don’t think you can cut corners or save yourself money by “formatting” your printed book yourself. You’ve put so much hard work into your manuscript, and if you’re going to print physical copies, don’t sell yourself short. Hire a pro. That being said, you will want to do some basic formatting before you send it to a designer. 

If you are planning to self-publish an ebook, there are specific formatting guidelines you will need to follow. But again, you’ll need to do some basics before you send it to an editor or your publishing team, or even before you convert the document into the appropriate file format. You can do this yourself, if you want to take the time to learn, or you can hire a pro. But either way, do the basic formatting. 

So what do I mean by “basic formatting”? 

Simple: 

  1. Make sure that all the body copy is in the same font and same spacing. Select all text, and make the font, font size, and paragraph spacing uniform. Don’t try to manipulate this stuff so that the MS Word document “looks right.” It’s more important to communicate to the designer how you want it to look than it is to make it look that way. 
  2. Make sure each chapter starts on a new page (see earlier checklist item). If you want to be really fancy, make sure that each chapter title is in bold, to identify it at a glance.
  3. Search the document for any double spaces. Remove them. No double spaces at the beginning of a new sentence. No double spaces at all. 
  4.  Put in your “front matter.” This includes the Title page, acknowledgments page, and copyright page. You *can* include a Table of Contents page, but do NOT (repeat: do NOT) bother to include the page numbers here. The page numbers will change throughout the formatting, and this page is best finalized as one of the last things. 

So four basic things that might take you an hour or so to complete and officially cross off your self-editing checklist. And if you don’t know how—ask! Whether you have an editor you can consult with, or if you check out some helpful tutorials on YouTube or Skillshare to improve your MS Word skills, there are plenty of places for you to find out what you need to know to make these simple formatting at home in your manuscript. 

Ebook formatting from SRD Editing Services | literary editor fiction & nonfiction | Orlando, FL

So that’s it! I know I said this wasn’t going to be a comprehensive self-editing checklist—and trust me, it isn’t—but hopefully, we’ve struck that balance between “that’s enough” and “too much”. This is definitely editing that most writers can manage themselves—no special training or extensive skills necessary—however, hopefully it’s not too advanced that you’ve gone cross-eyed. 

My Favorite Editing Shortcuts

Editing can be a long process. Here’s a few of my favorite shortcuts. Of course, these are for a PC, but I think on a Mac you just use the “Command” key instead of the Ctrl key.

  • Ctrl + A for select all
  • Ctrl + F to find
  • Ctrl + K to find and replace
  • Ctrl + Z for undo

You can also check out this blog about how to use CTRL + H when writing and as an addition to your self-editing checklist. 

Happy writing!

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How to Outline Your Novel or Nonfiction Book

Woman editing a stack of papers by hand to demonstrate how to outline your novel or nonfiction book.

In my years as a developmental editor, ghostwriter, and book reviewer, I’ve come across a few tricks to breaking down a good story, and a few tips for assembling one. Maybe you’ve been told before how to outline your novel or nonfiction book, but hopefully this blog will have some new information for you. 

In the discussion about different types of writers — “planners” vs. “pantsers” — I tend to come down closer on the side of “planner.” I look at it like having a road map that helps you know what direction you’re heading, but it doesn’t mean you can’t take detours or stops or double-back along the way. 

Writing is a journey, and here’s a few tips to help you get through it.

About Outline "Rules"

Many writers say to begin a plot or nonfiction book with an outline. You’ve probably done different kinds of outlines repeatedly since the seventh grade.

I wholeheartedly agree that you should outline your novel or nonfiction book, except two things:

First: You’re not in school, so don’t think your outline will be graded. It’s for you, to organize your thoughts. So don’t use Roman numerals or complicated tiered systems if they don’t work for you. Regular ol’ bullet points work just fine.

Second: Take a step back to something even more basic than the outline. First, take three blank pages and plot out your book’s beginning, then the end, and then figure out the middle. One page for each.

First Tip to Outline Your Novel or Nonfiction Book: Begin at the Beginning

The beginning is often the easiest to write. You have figured out where to start; you have a lot of information and world building and context to put in.

Limit yourself to only one page to summarize the most important points for the beginning of your outline. You will expand on it later. No doubt.

Answer Me These Questions Three

The beginning of your story should answer three questions, so you want to address them on the first page, and use them to build the first section of your outline.

  1. What’s the story about?
  2. What does the reader need to know to understand it?
  3. How much does the reader know already?

Your first two chapters should set up the context. Maybe a preface or introduction if you can squeeze it in. But really, you don’t have long to get the reader invested. When you want to outline your novel, include specific points and details about how and where you will hit these points in the narrative. 

Assume your back cover copy has gotten the reader to open to page 1. They’re primed for you to “wow” them. Use a barbed hook to pull them along through the opening pages. Show them that they made the right decision to crack the cover — because you’ve got something to say, you’ve got a story to tell, and you’re talking straight to them.

Getting them hooked is one thing. Interested is another. But really getting the reader to the point where they can say to someone “I’ve read a couple chapters, and I really like it so far” — that’s the first solid milestone.

Give Readers what They Need & Build to Outline Your Novel or Nonfiction

You want your book’s readers to understand the context for the book right away. Weigh in the first page they should clearly know the main theme of your book. Not the thesis statement of it, but what’s at the heart. They should be able to immediately see themselves living inside it for hours.

You want readers to figure out quickly that they have some idea of what’s going on. Don’t overload the beginning, keep them walking through the introduction to the topic or the characters’ world, and give them a few pages to put together familiar pieces. Connect with things similar to what readers have heard or seen before.

The beginning of your book can namedrop or allude to references, and it should convince the reader you know what you’re talking about. Both for fiction and nonfiction.

Keep the Reader Guessing

Although it will be tempting at the beginning, don’t reveal every secret. Don’t list off everything that makes your book different. Let your readers discover why your book is different and tell you when they’ve finished it. Instead, focus on letting them see how the knowledge they bring from their experience as a reader is going to pay off for them in your book.

Then, when they think they have a handle on the topic at hand and the world you’ve created for your characters, drop the first bomb on them. Shatter something the reader took for granted, something they thought they knew and understood. Put something familiar in a new light, and you’ll get them passed the beginning of the book and into its middle.

Second Tip to Outline Your Novel or Nonfiction Book: When You Get to the End, Stop

Next in the outline of your novel or nonfiction book, consider the end of your book. Your ending has to stick, if you want anyone to leave an online review or tell their friends about you. Too often I see writers really dig into the beginning and lose steam by the end. So, outline your book’s ending before its middle.

Use one of your three sheets of paper to brainstorm the answers to the three following questions. 

  1. Where does the reader end up?
  2. How do they feel?
  3. What should they do next?

If you plot the end of your book with clear intentions of the results you’re aiming for, you are more likely to hit them. Consider both issues of plot structure and resolution for character arcs, as well as the emotional ripples you’ll be sending through your readers’ souls. Do you want readers to be better prepared for something in the world? Do you want them to have an emotional reaction? 

Again, considering how your book’s outline functions like a road map, this is your general idea of the destination you want to reach and the welcome you expect on your arrival. 

Outline Your Novel to Avoid "The Curse of the Dragging Middle"

The middle of your book will likely comprise approximately 40 to 60% of your overall content, depending on how thorough you are with your first and final sections. And, I would reckon that “somewhere in the middle” is where 40 to 60% of readership lose interest.  

This is the “meat” in burger that is your book. So your outline can’t “yada yada” past this important section. It may be tempting to rush it, but take as much time considering how to avoid making your middle “drag” as you did with brainstorming how to engage the reader in the beginning. 

Avoid a sagging middle section in your book by addressing four questions:

  1. How do I get the reader from where they are to where I want them to go?
  2. What are the 3 most important things I have to tell them (in 2 sentences each)?
  3. What order should I release this important information?
  4. How can I capture readers’ hearts and minds?

Don’t underestimate the value of having a road map to get you through this important section. If you want people to finish your book, think ahead about the course you’ll guide them along. 

Of course, this first outline isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, and the draft will change. But you’ll know where you’re starting, where you want to end up, and have a vague way how to get there if you outline your novel or nonfiction book.

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Ad Copy & Poetry: Kissing Cousins

Depictions of billboards at a busy intersection to relate ad copy and poetry

In writing for businesses, I frequently hear marketing directors/executives/creative team leaders say something to the effect of “Make every word count. We want them to feel, not think. Lead their thoughts with your words.” This is at the heart of ad copy. 

It’s poetry, commercialized. (Oh, and dumbed down to the LCD). People marketing to you expect to you read, feel, and react at about the level of a thirteen year old. Don’t think they respect your intelligence. They think the buyer is “smart” and “savvy”, not knowledgeable.

In my most humblest of opinions.

So, what can we learn here, about this crucial fact of both genres of perhaps the least-read words on the planet? (Think about it: lower but more dedicated readership numbers for poetry vs. a widespread yet fickle audience in advertising.)

“Impact” and “retention” are the names of the games in both.

Impact is Instant in both Ad Copy & Poetry

Whether it’s poetry or sales copy, you need to land with an immediate impact. No, not immediate. Instant. Where in a novel, a reader may give you a whole page to sufficiently hook them, and in a short story the reader might allow you at least a paragraph to breathe magic into words, readers of ad copy and poetry give you about three words.

Three. Friggin. Words.

In no time flat, you have to trigger the reader into some kind of reaction. Get them through to the end of the sentence. That’s your first goal.

All the advice you’ve heard about eliminating adverbs? Now is the time.

You will find a difference in the use of adjectives in poetry vs. ads though. In poetry, you want sensory images and specifics that come with detailed nouns. In ad copy, adjectives can be useful to trigger emotions. You want the reader to be able to picture the product in their hand and their life.

With that being said, some of the same rules apply. Alliteration. Cacophony. The old school literary devices that you “need to know“, all show up in poetry and ad copy.

Retention Depends on Goals

Consider your end goal when writing. 

If you want readers to feel, perhaps reflect and think very deeply, then you’re writing poetry, and you probably can keep someone who reads the first line engaged enough to read the first stanza. From there, it’s up to you to keep them engaged in every line.

If you want the reader to feel something within three words and take action by the end of a single sentence, then you’re in ad-copy-land.

For either type of writing, thinking about the goal of your words will lead to retention of your readers. If your goal is to entertain and inspire, and you focus your words on that, not only can you engage the reader for the entire poem or advertisement, but you have a higher chance of grabbing their attention in future encounters.

Ad Copy & Poetry: Concise. Clear. Compelling.

It’s what both ad copy writing and poetry must be.

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Tips for Consistent Quality Writing

tips-quality-writing

There’s a problem with doing something well: Once is rarely enough. When you do something (like producing quality writing) well, two things can happen:

  1. Other people begin to expect more of you, and
  2. You begin to expect more of yourself

For a writer, this can be great. A well-done piece deserves the admiration it receives, and you should be proud when an article, poem, essay, story, or book comes together.

But unless you’re one among the rare breed of author — and I mean really, really rare — who can launch a career from one great piece, a single successful publication will not a sustainable income make.

Setting Unreasonable Standards

So after your first great piece, you sit down to write the next one. Immediately the demon of comparison shows up on your shoulder.

What if it’s not as good as your first published thing? What if you don’t live up to the expectations for quality writing you’ve set for yourself?

On some level, you try to tell yourself, “Everything will be okay if it’s not ‘perfect.'”

So you let something slide. Relax a little on your vigilance to push the quality to its extreme.

But if your first high-quality product was noticed by the public, you can bet that any dip in quality will be noticed, too. You set a high standard that others now expect to see in your work, and when they don’t see it, they will let you know.

Setting Reasonable Writing Expectations

What’s the lesson here? How do you keep yourself from being caught in an endless loop of writing better and pushing yourself to the limit every time?

Well, you don’t.

Some people think they can avoid this challenge by settling for a lower quality piece and set low expectations at the beginning. But ask yourself: Why would you expect to get readers if you lower your standards?

Readers have fairly low tolerance for writers who treat them like fools. If you’re offering mediocre or low quality, they won’t be back for more.

With lower quality writing, you’re less likely to engage as many people to begin with or bring back the ones you engage with the first time.

So what to do?

Quality Writing Tip #1: Do your best.

One man’s trash is another’s treasure and all that. If your prose is clean and error free, and your plot is well structured with thought-out character arcs and a solid narrative, readers may forgive historical inaccuracies, use of clichés or bland characters and world building.

Do your best, and be prepared to hear that your best wasn’t “perfect.”

Present the reader with a polished package, and they may overlook some areas where it could be improved. Or, at least you’ll receive feedback on what to improve for your next piece.

Quality Writing Tip #2: Use feedback.

Don’t just “receive” feedback, use it.

If you received praise from readers, and you want to know why they thought your book was high quality — ask!

This might take the form of social media polls, reading your reviews and comment threads, or sending out reader copies  of your work and asking for specific advice.

Use what your readers say to recognize at least four things your readers generally agree was high quality about your writing or the book in general, and identify at two areas where you can push the quality to higher levels in the next poem or manuscript.

Quality Writing Tip #3: Look for quality to emulate.

Maybe you really admire colorful metaphors or quirky descriptions and world building. Maybe tight and minimal sentences are what you strive for.

Read books from some of the great writers in your genre or historical time period and pick out examples of what you think makes their writing great.

Work to structure your sentences the same way, use metaphors or descriptors similarly, or mimic the dialogue style that you find engaging. Whatever it is that you enjoy about reading their work, use as a model for your own craft.

Quality Writing Tip #4: Be patient. Quality takes time.

Be prepared to tackle your manuscript in multiple revision iterations.

Maybe one day, you revise the entire thing with a focus on word choice. Then, the next day, you do a read-through and edit to focus on historical accuracy. Stay focused on the areas you’ve marked for improvement and special attention. Be patient.

You might be midway through your outline and realize you need to do additional research or watch a movie that people recommended as a reference. Do it.

Don’t let the pressure to put out a follow up to your first well-received work push you to a hasty release of the next piece.

If you’re honestly working to improve, you must work as hard as you did the first time, so you can reach the level of quality you’ve already set for yourself. Then, push at least 25% past that. Work harder than you’ve ever worked before; the improvement will show.

Once you become recognized for your skill, enjoy it. But don’t stop.

No one wants to be a one-trick pony, and compromising on your writing quality ensures you will be.

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On Intransitive Emotions: Emotional Writing Practice

Pink blooming flowers on the branch of the bush. To express emotional writing and intransitive verbs.

Where Do Emotions Go?

Do feelings have direct objects? Many do. Most of the time.

We do not feel an emotion like love if it is not directed toward some thing or someone. We don’t usually feel anger without a source, a thing that is the reason for our anger. Whether or not anger and love are ultimately directed toward the correct thing is a separate issue. But overall, they are not objectless. Not without an objective.

But what about gratitude? Or loneliness? Or freedom? Or even anxiety?

Some human emotions, like some verbs in the English language, may not need to act upon a direct object. Some things we, as humans, simply feel without it being directed toward a specific thing. Regardless of who caused the emotion or where it came from. Or what we plan to do with it.

I have heard it said that grief is love with nowhere to go. How beautifully tragic. You have so much love, but no object to direct it toward. You’ve lost someone or something you love, and what’s left is this love with no object to love. So it is transformed into grief. And then what do you do with it?

If you can learn to harness and develop your most emotional writing, you may be able to direct these emotions and express their universality to others.

Emotional Writing Is about Range

Consider: It is easy to write about emotions that come from an obvious person or can be directed easily outward or inward toward some manifestation. It is easy to show through emotional writing that a character is angry based on his or her reaction to the circumstances.

But your writing can grow from learning to express the intransitive actions and feelings of life. The things we all simply feel. The things we can’t necessarily explain or simply express.

Consider the sentence: He ran.

The verb does not need to act on anything. It stands alone. No object. This is what makes it an intransitive verb.

What emotions might your character have that run by themselves? What emotional state does your character default to? What might be some of the intransitive emotions that your character feels but which don’t have an object? 

How can you express something like a character’s gratitude for the wind on her face with emotional writing? Is the character grateful to someone or something for the wind, or does she simply feel the gratitude without having anywhere to put it? 

Does your character’s emotion need an object? It can have one, sure, but it may not be necessary. Just like he can run quickly. Or he can run on the pavement, your character can be grateful to someone or something. Even if it’s ineffable.

And if you, dear writer, can make your characters’ actions and intransitive emotions tangible, you will lead readers into a much richer world through the emotional writing that draws readers in and makes characters come to life.

This may be something to incorporate into your own self-editing and revision, as well as an item to address with your creative editor to ensure you’re working together to make your emotional writing as creative and expressive as possible. 

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Eye Care for Writers

eye-care-writers

Working indoors, sitting and staring at a computer for many hours per day, is not what humans evolved for throughout history. But our big brains have led us here, and we’ve developed a society where some people have to look at screens for many hours per day, which requires eye care. 

Studies have shown, and it is well documented in the research, that a sedentary lifestyle, including working at a computer, can have serious physical effects and can be harmful to a person’s body and their physical health. 

In particular, if you are like me—a writer or other professional who stares at a computer screen for hours on end—you need to know how this can affect your eyes.

Screens Kill Your Eyes

The results are in: The blue light from your computer, television, and mobile device screens is killing the cells in your eyes. 

Blue light contributes to macular degeneration, which means the breakdown of cells. Researchers also believe that an indoor lifestyle can contribute to a lack of vitamin D, another contributing factor to cellular degeneration. 

On top of this, people who naturally are a risk of lower levels of vitamin D, such as people with darker skin tones, who absorb less natural light, may be at a greater risk.

So if you have more melanin in your skin, work indoors, and stare at screens all day, you are at a higher risk of having your eyesight fail at a younger age. 

Blue-Light Filtering EyeGlasses—Do they help?

The results are still out: I don’t know. But, it seems, most of the results out there are anecdotal. Research isn’t required for eye wear, and the effect may very well be placebo. 

But, I was experiencing eye strain. Bluriness and bleariness. Difficulties reading and focusing after many hours on the screens. 

For months, I have kept the blue light filter mode set “On” at all times on my phone as basic, minimal eye care. This is part of the usual “night mode” settings that are often built in—reducing the blue light after a certain time to help offset the upset that screentime can have on a person’s Circadian rhythm. But for me, I’ve just had the blue filter “On” on my phone for months anyhow. 

I think it helps. I have thought it helped for months. Often, once my eyes get tired on my computer—which has a TV screen that doubles as my second monitor—I’ll switch to my phone because it’s easier on my eyes. 

My First Pair of Blue-Light Filter Glasses

So for Christmas 2019, I was excited to receive a pair of ICU Blue Light eye glasses. They’re cute, and easy enough to wear. I’ve never worn glasses for reading or general eye problem—only the sunglasses I need to protect my vampirism—so it’s a new experience for me to wear glasses indoors, as part of a normal eye care focused look.

Of course, the day after Christmas, it was back to work to push toward my end-of-the-year deadlines on projects, and I was doubly excited to give my new glasses a try. 

The results after only one day? The jury is still out. 

It was a long day—10+ hours looking at the TV, computer, and phone screens—but I do feel like the eye strain was less. There is a noticeable difference, looking at the screens with the glasses on vs. looking at them with the glasses off. When the glasses are off, I can see how much more blue the screens look. It’s a similar effect that I’m used to when I turn the blue light filter on and off on my phone. So, it’s nice to see that I can at least see a difference immediately when putting on the glasses. Expect an update and full review after a few weeks of trying them out. 

Writers—Eye Care & Eye Strain Tips

  • Give your eyes a break. Schedule yourself to look away from your screen at regular intervals. Consider using the Pomodoro technique to organize your day, and during your 5 minute eye care breaks, spend your time looking at something without a screen.
  • Hang a landscape picture. Looking at a “distant object” gives your eyes a break. If you are near a window, great! Every 20 minutes or so, look out the window for 30 seconds at something far in the distance. If you don’t have a window, hang a picture or image of a landscape, with a house, waterfall, or other object in the distance. By gazing at the picture for 30 seconds or so every 20 minutes, you can give your eyes the same relaxation from staring at something up-close for so long.
  • Genetic eye enhancements. Consider getting upgrades for your eyes from GeneCo., the leading dystopian sci-fi corporation that can provide you with tireless, mechanical eyes that never need eye care. Embrace the future, chase the morning. 

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29 Words to Cut from Your Novel

tips-words-novel

Each writer lives in a special, unique mind. Each can combine words into glorious chains, never before seen by human eyes. Yet, each writer is also a flawed human, who is liable to trip on the same rubble on the path to beautiful writing as every other writer. (And no writer wants to hear that there are words to cut from their writing…)

Now, first drafts are supposed to be messy. Second drafts, less so. But it’s not easy to clean up the first draft to turn it into the second. Nor is it simple to revise the second draft into the third. As an editor, I know. I’ve been there with my own writing and the writing of others.

Behold! A Video to Help!

Vivien Reis is a writer, editor, and YouTuber. 

I’ve had this video saved for a couple of years, and I keep referencing it when editing my clients’ fiction and nonfiction. 

When I thought about writing a blog on the topic of editing for word choice, I started to make my own list of words to cut. Then I realized: Why re-invent the wheel? Vivian’s done a spectacular job to begin with.

Instructions for Word Choice Edits & Which Words to Cut

Generally, I suggest writers do at least one edit through their manuscript for “word choice.” As you watch this video, take notes on which of these writing habits you’ve gotten yourself into, which of these words to cut you think might show up in your work. 

Then, open your manuscript. Let’s take a look at the current status. 

Do an automated search for the first word or phrase in question. In MS Word and Google Docs, you can Find specific words or phrases by pressing CTRL + F (or Command + F on Mac) on your keyboard. When you have the results, record the number of appearances in your notes. 

Search for all the words or phrases, without making any changes. First, you’re just gathering info. 

Making Changes

First, let me say: I do not advise that you use “Find + Replace All”.

I advise that you find all instances of a word or phrase, then examine each to determine the necessary action.

Yes. It is tedious. I understand. I have two points for you to consider: 

  1. Writing the book was tedious. You did that though. You can do this part.
  2. If you don’t do it, you can always pay your editor to edit these out for you. 

The reason I do not advocate that you simply “delete all” uses of a word or phrase, is that it will cause additional unintended effects. Trust me. Especially if what you Find & Replace can sometimes appear as part of another word. 

Instead, work your way through the words and phrases you’d like to cut or revise, search for each individually, then examine each occurrence and make a decision about how to handle each of them.

Some Words to Cut / "Big Offenders"

In the video, Vivian points out some of the biggest offenders that have become littered across contemporary writing. These are words — typically, adverbs — that can easily be removed, and generally when they are, your sentence will lose no meaning. 

Here is my “Big Offenders” list of words to cut. I commonly see each of these, and spend a significant amount of time and energy making sure to reduce their use.

  • very
  • just
  • that
  • “began” or “started”
  • “a bit,” “a little,” “a lot,” and other imprecise amounts
  • “kinda,” “sorta,” “almost,” and other hedging words
In particular, I see “just” frequently used, so I’ll pick on it as an example. Unless you’re discussing the concept of “justice,” limit the use of “just.” Just is just one of those words that just works itself into a sentence just about anywhere.

Bonus Thoughts on Words to Cut from Your Writing

What else do I look at when editing? Two other things I notice frequently that I suggest you examine in your manuscript: 

  1. “Parallel action”: You can find this by searching for the use of ‘as’ in your writing. It usually appears in dialogue tags, as in: she said as she walked or he thought while grabbing his hat. Of course, you will need to use this sometimes. Remember to vary your sentence structure.
  2. “Extreme hyperbole”: Examine your fight or action scenes. Do your characters often overexert themselves? I often see phrasing like as hard as she could or with the last of his strength, only to have the character continue to escalate the action after that phrase. Consider how to build tension Show the exertion, rather than tell about it.

Maybe these aren’t words to “cut,” but they are certainly things you want to be mindful of. 

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Using Personality “Tests” in Fiction

Depicting different colored wooden chess pieces to demonstrate how personality tests can be used in fiction writing to develop characters.

Understand Personality to Connect with Audience & Write Strong Fiction Characters

Who are your readers of fiction? Who are your characters in fiction?

How do you connect them?

In essence, this is the challenge of the fiction writer — replacing real people with believable ones, and then somehow making them real for the real ones.

The connections? Personality.

(Not even “humanity” because even non-human characters need to have a personality.)

Personality Is Not Persona

Let me distinguish here between personality and persona. The personality is the inside — the character’s core and true self. The persona is the outside — the reflection and projection of who the personality is in the exterior world. 

The personality may drive the fictional character to have an entirely different persona, and as the writer you must have a clear understanding of both. What’s even better is when you can give the reader the same clear connection. The same dual perspective. This is especially cool when executed well with a villain.

Personality Inventories

Real life personality inventories are often inaccurately called “tests.” Let’s distinguish here: tests are things you can pass and fail; they’re a scale of knowledge. There’s no such thing as a personality test, because no one can fail to have a personality, even characters in fiction.

Psychologists who study personality use inventories, which simply categorize and group types of people according to certain traits. Much like how, if you were the grocery store manager, you would organize your inventory according to food types — produce, meat and seafood, dairy, etc.

There are many theories of personality, its development, and how to understand people according to their basic types. Each of these has its flaws, and each can be useful for fiction writers in their own ways

Pace Pallette Personality Inventory

For more than 20 years, the Pace Palette Personality Inventory method of categorizing people by their communication styles has been used by sales and marketing companies, along with professionals in other industries, to better connect with their clientele.

For full details, order the kit, but the questionnaire reveals personality traits that group people into one of four color types/palettes: red, yellow, blue, and green.

Red people are high-energy, type-A, bottom-line-first, and action-oriented.

Yellow people value rules, structure, and routine. They are often community-oriented and generous, while also being highly regulated and strict with themselves.

Blue people are intuitive, free-spirited, and can be incredibly creative.

Green people are curious, analytical, and puzzle lovers.

While everyone has traits of one “type” or another, one color tends to dominate the palette and “color” the person’s understanding of the world. Use this as a general guideline for how your fiction world might be colored by different people.  

Sally Hogshead "How to Fascinate" Personality Test

Writer and motivator Sally Hogshead has developed a questionnaire called “How to Fascinate” that helps reveal to the taker what his or her personality “archetype” is, out of nearly 30 options. In particular, this system is touted as “understand how the world sees you” so that you can capitalize on your strengths through your interactions with other people.

As a self-promoting writer, you can use this to get your readers “fascinated” with you — help them understand your unique strengths, appeal across different personality types, and explore how to connect with others who are like and unlike you.

As a creative writer, you can use this to enhance your characters and their interactions. What makes your protagonist uniquely special? Why do you want your readers to be sucked into this or that character?

Understanding the unique fascinating aspects of different personality types can bring readers back to their favorite characters again and again — storylines and scenes they can’t get out of their heads. That’s what you want, isn’t it?

The Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory

The classic, yet somewhat controversial, Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory has gone through multiple iterations over the past 50 years. Based on a series of questions and scenarios, a person is rated across 4 personality categories, and the unique combination can reveal insight into how someone processes information and makes decisions, which is invaluable when building your fiction characters.

Meyers-Briggs Categories

Extroversion vs. Introversion

This scale describes someone’s “attitudes” and how much time they prefer to spend “inward facing” or “outward facing.” How much importance does someone place on their relationships with others vs. their relationship with themselves? Extroverted people draw energy from action, and introverted people draw energy from reflection and the internal world of ideas.

Sensing vs. Intuition

This scale describes how someone gathers information, how new information is understood and interpreted. Does the person seek out information about the world and other people in a logical, empirical sense, or by an intuitive gut instinct? How much emphasis does the person place on the importance of the source of information?

Thinking vs. Feeling

This scale describes how a person makes decisions. Does a person prefer to make decisions from a logical standpoint, or do they come to a decision by empathizing with the situation, looking at it “from the inside,” and considering the harmony of all involved? 

Judgments vs. Perception

This scale describes how the person combines and applies their other personality traits to the outside world and toward everyday life. People who have a “judging type” tend to show the world their preferences for judging, thinking, or feeling. They can come across as experts who “have matters settled.” It is important to them that others see them as knowledgeable and informed.

People with a “perception type” show the world their sensing or intuition and prefer to “keep decisions open” or leave opinions as “TBD,” dependent on more information. It is important to them that others see that they are open to learning about the world.

Fun fact: I’m an INTJ! It’s one of the rarest personality types, making up only about 2% of the population!  

Connecting with Fiction Readers

If you’re an established fiction writer who has a fan base already, you want to know who they are. Not just the age and location demographics — although that helps — but understanding their motivations and emotional reactions allows you to write in a way to connect with them on deep levels.

If you actively engage with your audience on social media, run a social psych experiment with them.

Look at the various inventories and think of creative ways to find out more about which categories your readers fall into. 

For example, on the Pace inventory, blue types are commonly animal lovers. Run a poll to ask your readers if they own a pet. Green personality types are highly curious, so ask your readers on a scale of 1-10 how bad it bothers them if they can’t find the answer to a question. Or, think of a character in literature who represents each personality type and poll your audience to find out which they love most. (Hint: Sherlock Holmes is green.)

Not only can you use these personality inventories to create characters in your own fiction, you can use the information within them to connect better with your readers, reaching them in deeply personal ways with characters and plot lines custom-tailored to their enjoyment. 

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Write like the Greats: Charles Bukowski

write-greats-bukowski
“Understand me.
I’m not like an ordinary world.
I have my madness,
I live in another dimension
and I do not have time for things
that have no soul.”

Writing like Bukowski

I don’t know much about Charles Bukowski. I know his reputation of being a … less-than-pleasant person. As Modest Mouse said, “God, who’d want to be such an asshole?“

But I know poetry (like ee cummings). I know good writing. Every now and then, I stumble across some writing from Bukowski, and it slaps me across the face. 

Bukowski’s writing is raw.

His style is known for being no-frills. Bare-bones. And somehow, as in this example, there is strength in his vulnerability. There is grit ground into his wounds that seem to have scarred over, but he has never forgotten. 

There is anger in these words. But is there not determination? And hope? And a promise for tomorrow? 

The Beginnings

Look at how he begins each line of this poem — as a bold statement about himself. A declaration of truth. 

First, he demands of the reader what they will do. An unapologetic demand that the reader do better, try something different — understanding. Then, he explains what he is (and is not) in a single line, and continues to tell the reader what he has and how he lives.

All these truths command the reader to follow his initial demand. You will understand the straightforwardness of his words, if nothing else. If you understand nothing of what he says, you know by the end what he thinks of you. 

The Last Word

Then, look at the last word of each line. Each thought ends on a noun. A thing. Something real that you can sink your teeth into. Each of these — me, world, madness, dimension, things — evokes an image. Evokes a texture, sound, or feeling. You can picture them in your mind, you could describe them to someone else if you needed to. 

And here is where Bukowski’s vulnerability comes to its head: he needs you to understand him. He needs you to hear what he has to say. Dismiss it when you’ve reached the end, if you want, but for a few sentences, he has made you do something different. He has made you think not only about him and what he is, but perhaps he has made you think about what and who you are as well. 

As tough as he may have appeared, Bukowski needed this connection. With you. He needed you to understand for a moment. And he does not ask this of you — he demands it. 

Bukowski Poetry Tip of the Day:

The heart of your poem (or even, your fiction) is what you’re demanding from your reader. Do not ask them for their attention — command it. Do not ask them to let you show your vulnerability, slice your heart open on the page and make it so they can’t look away. 

Because that is the soul of this poem, isn’t it? We all need to be understood. We all am things, have things, and live … but Bukowski reminds us that we do not have time. 

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On Drinking, Smoking, & Drugs in Fiction

drink-drugs-fiction

Writers: Make sure if your fictional character is doing these things (drinking, smoking, and drugs) the reader has some sense of how it affects them. What’s their experience level with the substance? How do we know? Writing drinking and drugs in fiction can be a challenge, but with a little planning, you can get it right. 

A reader considers themselves to be “a good judge of character.” He or she also (generally) considers him/herself to be intelligent, not easily fooled,  and a good judge of truth.

You can be the judge of your readers’ ability to judge. I’m not here to judge that.

That being said, readers will notice when a writer mentions that a character is drinking, smoking, or doing drugs, but the character is not acting as if he or she is actually doing those things. If a character is supposed to be experienced at trying certain substances, but doesn’t use the terms that users use, or can’t explain how to ingest the drug and what effects to expect to a new user, the reader will call bullshit before the end of the page.

Writing Tip of the Day: Be Prepared to Go Gonzo, a la Hunter S. Thompson

If your characters are going to drink, prepare to make them drunk dial. If your characters are going to get stoned, prepare to make them lose track of large chunks of time and consume mass quantities of chips. … Jokes aside: your readers need to be able to see themselves in your characters. There needs to be the realism that alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs in fiction all have a relatable effect on the characters.

If your character has knocked back multiple double whiskeys and isn’t slurring his words or stumbling over his feet, the reader will need a reason to understand how your character has such a high tolerance.

If your character is sparking up a cigarette in every scene, then immediately snuffing it out in the next paragraph, your readers who smoke will roll their eyes. “At least, if you’re going to have the character light the damn thing, incorporate it for a reason.”

If your character is trying different types of drugs that give different highs, someone who has chased one type of high or another in real life will know. (Drugs in fiction can be especially questionable or unrealistic.)

It’s part of what made Thompson so powerful: he lived the experiences. He could write about the life he was living.

Not that I’m advocating any single one of you pick up any of the lifestyle choices (drinking, smoking, drugs, etc.) mentioned here: simply that, if they are not a part of your lifestyle, you will need to talk to people who have lived it, you will need to research what it is like to actually live the lifestyle in order to accurately relate it.

You have to be prepared to take it to a Thompson-esque level for your character when incorporating drinking and drugs in fiction. You have to be ready to make the character’s experience believable for the reader. Or else, by the time your character “sobers up,” your reader will already be home and in bed with another book.

Photo credit: Antoine Douglas at Concrete Rose Films.

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Chance, Luck, & The Deus ex Machina in Fiction Writing

chance-luck-deus-ex-machina

Fiction writers: It’s easy to be lazy. When you’ve gotten your characters into a difficult situation, you might think you can quickly move them to another location or give them what they need by including “as luck would have it” or “by chance,” and that explains how your characters saved themselves. 

Don’t be lazy. Move the plot with character motivations, and use chance and luck in realistic ways, to make the story more engaging and believable for the reader. 

What is the difference between ‘chance’ and ‘luck’? 

Chance is when your characters are in the right place, at the right time. Luck is how the ‘magic’ of their world affects them when they’re in the right time, at right place.

Let’s dig a bit deeper: Many people believe there are forces that pull on people’s lives. Untraceable energies, but persistent, energies like tides that move a person through their destiny.

Many other people believe that there is a force inside a person that attracts or repels other forces, making each person a more active participant in their own destiny.

Many people believe in a combination of both.

Forgive my oversimplifications and bear with me. My point is:

If you, as a fiction writer, understand how the elements of chance and luck work in life, you’ll understand how to use them to move your story’s plot.

Your Characters, the Deux & Destiny

In a narrative, consider the distinction between chance and luck. Consider whether your characters take chances or make luck for themselves.

Your characters will need to be moved from one place to another. It may be convenient for you, as the writer, to have coincidences occur – chance meetings, moments where “as luck would have it” – the character is in the right place at the right time. Or has the right weapon. Or snatches up the dropped item in the nick of time.

None of these are chance or luck. They are you putting a God in the machine to ‘magic’ away a problem.

Tone back the chance and luck. Save it for the best moments. Don’t make things easy on your characters. People who luck their way out of everything don’t grow, and frankly, are boring.

Fiction Writing Analysis & Example: Sean of the Dead

Remember in Sean of the Dead when Sean and his group are heading to the pub, and they run into Sean’s ex and her group of friends? That was a chance meeting. Logically, smart people familiar with the area would use the same unpopular escape routes and happen to meet up with each other along the way.

No information that saved the day was exchanged. No sacred items were passed or last messages left or dramatic rendezvous planned. It just so happened, two people who knew each other — but didn’t influence each others’ stories much — ran into each other. A chance meeting.

On the other hand, luck is when something that Sean and his friends needed happened to be in the right place at the right time, right when they needed it. While there are several moments throughout the film that could qualify, one obvious moment is the working gun at the Winchester saloon. After some dialogue earlier in the film about the rifle, as luck would have it, it was a ready-to-use weapon, with ammunition within reach.

Here, that lucky advantage is offset by a series of hilarious circumstances that oppose the characters and prevent them from taking advantage of the luck. None of the characters are willing or able to shoot the rifle. And once they figure out a method, a bumble with the ammunition quickly renders useless the most valuable, luckiest weapon they’ve come across.

This film is an example of good fiction writing keeping chance and luck believable, even in the most extreme of zombi-pocalypse circumstances. The plot moved forward through luck, then the luck was undermined; luck didn’t come through to save the day either. Although the writers had a chance to give the characters an advantage, they didn’t. They balanced good luck with bad, which kept the tension high in every scene.

The God Who Distributes Luck When It’s Not Needed

Fiction writers have the ability to distribute luck and chance on their characters at will, and often, many default to a position where they throw a lucky bone at a character in a moment of need. It’s trite — when will the character’s luck run out? The reader may begin to expect that nothing will happen to the character, which means nothing will happen in the plot. An overly lucky, unbelievable moment can throw a reader into a shrug and frustrated grunt, as they close the book or turn off their e-reader. 

Instead, be a different kind of fiction writer. Be the god who distributes luck when it’s not needed. Not in a malicious way, but when the character thinks they’ve found a solution, the lucky alternative presents itself. Or when your character is not looking for the chance encounter, it passes them by, but the reader sees it and understands what has just happened. 

Creating this kind of surprise interaction keeps the plot moving in fresh ways, and challenges the reader to guess what’s going to happen next, to keep up with the fun ride you’re taking them on. 

Keep your characters always needing something, and every lucky chance that presents itself getting them closer but not quite there, and you’ll keep your readers longing for more of the story of their eventual success. 

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Writing Challenge: Include Sensations of Movement

writing-challenge-movement

Any time you complete a writing challenge, you encourage your own best writerly self. In today’s blog, let’s discuss the challenge of using action-oriented verbs to describe motion, movement, and physical sensations.

Movement Is Special

The universe is in constant motion. This is my understanding of its oh-so-important laws of physics. Movement is as natural and as important to the world condition as anything.

Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, it’s important to address your characters movements through space. How can you describe the movements of people in their mannerisms and daily life? And, how do you express the physical sensation of movement?

To get a sense of writing the physical sensation of movement, try this verb-oriented writing challenge.

Writing Challenge: Capturing & Embodying Movement

Write in a moving car, or on a train or bus ride. Or on a plane. The point is to focus on your body’s sensations during the motion. What is the sensation in your fingertips? On your skin? In your guts? Would you describe it as a rush? A crawl? A tingle? Dive into it.

* Note: Of course, if you have motion sickness or this makes you ill, don’t complete this or any writing challenge that will be detrimental to your health.

For most people, spending a few minutes honing into this sensation with a dedicated writing challenge focuses their active verb choice. Make your mind aware that motion is tied to sensation, and you’ll put the reader inside the characters’ skin.

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Year-Round Writing Challenge Bonus: National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo)

Are you the type of writer who’s up for a year-round series of writing challenges where you can partner and support fellow writers? If you’re not yet a member/participant, check out National Novel Writing Month (known as NanoWriMo). The official month-long writing challenge takes place in November, with mini-challenges that occur in March and July. Join editor Cortni’s writing group! 

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Reading for Fiction Writing

reading-fiction-writing

How to Be a Better Writer...

You’ve heard it before: the advice that says, “If you want to be a great writer, be an avid reader.” Reading, they say, will improve your writing, nearly guaranteed. 

Of course, it’s true. But it’s also sort of redundant. You don’t have to tell most writers to read; they already know.

Instead, you have to tell them how to read if you really want to help them.

Expanding High School English

Symbols. Themes. Context. Plot devices.

Wait! Don’t have a high-school-flashback-related panic attack. Come back. It’s easier than it sounds.

So, we were taught a lot of things about how to read and write in high school. These lessons may have served you well, or you may have dismissed them. Either way, if you have a few tricks left over from what you learned reading MacBeth, what you can definitely do is expand on them.

Reading for Vocabulary

One of the things about reading is the exposure you get to different ideas, cultures, lifestyles, and languages. If you’re reading challenging material — like, not Dr. Seuss — you should see words and phrases in your reading that you’ve never encountered before. It may seem remedial, but it’s worth remembering — look up new words.

Some writers love to show off their extensive knowledge by busting out the expensive, precise, and complicated language. If you run across an obscure word that sounds super-duper fancy-pants, look it up. Write it down. Make a note. Teach yourself a new word.

Personally, I recommend the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as my favorite, but realistically, use any dictionary that is convenient and works for you.

You might, if you’re so inclined, even look more into the root of the word and how it connects to other words in its language family. Want to dig into the etymology (i.e., “history” or “genealogy”) of the word? I recommend the user-friendly app, Etymology Explorer, which makes it easy to #wordnerd out no matter where you’re writing.

Reading for Quirky Ideas

Creativity is the ability to connect two unexpected ideas in a refreshing or insightful way.

One of the best things about reading widely and well is the ideas you stumble across that you never would have thought to make. The comparisons that strike you like a belly-flop, the fresh perspectives you would never have noticed.

When you read, keep notes to yourself of quirky ideas that come up. Does a line inspire you to think of a new character? Does a description of a setting make you want to write your own scenes there? What is it about the writing you read that makes you think, and what does it make you think about?

Reading for Plot Holes

Do you ever read or watch something and ask, “Why did the character do that?” or think, “I would have changed the dialogue here.”

Well, critical reader, put that critique to use. When you notice a way in which you would handle the action of a story differently, write it out. You may be surprised how adding ideas spawned of critiques can enhance your scrap pile.

You also likely notice, because of your highly trained critical eye, holes in the plot that the writer missed. A loose end that isn’t tied up. A break in the character or problems with the timeline.

Noticing these problems in other writers’ work is a key first step to identifying them in yours. When your reading includes an eye for plot holes, you will learn to spot and avoid the same holes in your own plots.

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The Importance of Food in Fiction

food-fiction

Now, I am not a great cook. I am not a chef. I cannot tell you how to fully integrate the text of cooking and food in fiction writing — although I can recommend to you a few enjoyable reads that can.

What I am writing to you about here is the idea of how important it is to remember the basics of food in your writing:

The kitchen as a space. Food as fuel. The experience of eating.

Food in Fiction #1: The Kitchen as a Space.

Things happen in the kitchen. Kitchens are a valuable space — physical, mental, emotional, social, and cultural space — in a home, and always have been. It bugs me to read a scene where characters simply stand around in the kitchen. It’s not just “a room” — it’s probably the most valuable room to show your characters’ true selves.

What are they doing in the kitchen? How can what they do show who they are? They should open cabinets, put away dishes, wash off plates and bowls, gather ingredients to make a smoothie, make noise but try to be quiet, get out the bread and butter for toast, complain about spilled water on the floor or ants on the counter. Rearrange the items on the shelves unnecessarily. Find the remote in the freezer and the crab legs freezerburned. Again. When incorporating food in fiction, it’s not just about the food itself, it’s about all the ways it takes up space in our lives, represented by the physical room, the kitchen. 

Food in Fiction #2: Characters Should Live in Their Kitchen

Remember to make your characters move in the kitchen space, interacting normally as you or someone else might in the kitchen. Have someone absentmindedly wiping the counter, polishing an invisible spot as they daydream. Have someone forget to put away the leftovers and have to throw them out the next day. If kitchens are the hearts of homes, remember to show your characters’ lives by the way they interact with others through the shared space of the kitchen.

Kitchens are also places of memory. People spend time in kitchens with people they love, people they may miss, and this makes kitchens prime settings for flashbacks. Memories of food are intricately intertwined with memories of people, as are dramatic events that may have happened in the kitchen in the past. Remember: kitchens are not only in homes. Consider how working in a restaurant kitchen for years may have affected a character, if that’s his or her backstory.

Picture of fresh-baked bread. Several loaves piled on each other on a red background. Food in fiction is important

Food as Fuel

Don’t forget that your characters need to eat. Unless you’re writing superhero stories — and even then, really — your characters must break the action of their narratives to have meals. There simply must be food in fiction. I appreciate this about film — Quentin Tarantino’s films often include characters stopping the events of their crazy lives to eat, like “normal” people, and the joke about Brad Pitt eating in every film is part of what makes him a likeable character actor. Relatable people munch, eat, shove food in their mouths when they get a chance. TV shows about cops are good at this, too. Your characters should be.

In real life, meals often include other people. Not always, I understand, but frequently. The meal doesn’t have to be an event; write what you know. If it’s a situation you don’t know, start where you do and expand. Meal times are perfect small moments with the potential to move the plot; a comment during conversation sparks an idea that pushes the protagonist toward a solution to their problem, or a piece of information learned during the meal clues in the protagonist to a new path in their story. 

Food in Fiction #3: The Experience of Eating

Food is the ideal opportunity to indulge all your senses. You know that you should describe food thoroughly — Hemingway is a prime example of how to do this. Everything he eats in Moveable Feast, he delights in, relishes, enjoys with pure gusto. (Okay, so that book is nonfiction, and I know we’re focusing on food in fiction, but still, that book is an excellent example.) 

Remember that for your characters, the experience of food is unique to each. Every person has preferences; everyone has their own food quirks. And those small customizations change the food experience. For example, your character might add cinnamon to her coffee, which not only changes the taste but the experience of drinking it. When she inhales it, her memories won’t be the same; that first breath on her tongue will have its own history and future.

Another character might flavor his water with lemon. Another character may cook his broccoli in fish oil. Another character may dip her fries in mayonnaise. These small personalizations of food in fiction show character, give your reader a richer, more realistic connection with your character’s experience in your novel’s world.

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