Tag: Fiction Writing (Page 4 of 4)

Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 1

July 11, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 4 Comments

Many writers fall into the trap of writing as they speak. For 99.943999876984% of us (I rounded it off), this is a bad idea. Why? Just listen to a conversation. I mean really listen.

How disjointed is it? How often do the speakers pause not as a function of proper English, but to gather their thoughts? When they resume, how often do they repeat themselves, drift down another track, or cut the logical thread completely? How many four-letter words do they use? How often do they toss in one of the worst four-letter words of all time: “like?”

Listen to anyone under the age of twenty-five, and you’ll likely hear them throwing around the L-bomb like monkeys in a poop fight. Many people toss in a “you know” every eight words or so, just to make sure that… well, you know. Lazy “fillers” function as bookmarks in speech—we save our spot so that, once our brains catch up with our mouths, we can pick up where we left off. Even then, we often get it “wrong” from a grammatical perspective—some of us more than others.

We also tend to speak in a tight, limited vocabulary—one that belies our knowledge of the language. We rarely stretch ourselves as speakers, yet we must stretch ourselves as writers. We must also not rely, as we do when speaking, on what I call the “3 R’s” of wordiness: rambling, repetition and redundancy.

A strong narrative is a tight narrative. Do not confuse lazy, meandering construction with a conversational style. Keeping it simple is fine… right up until you oversimplify.

This is just a primer for a couple of future posts (not a lot of time today), but I want to set the table because I’ve been seeing a bunch of—and I mean a TON of—wordy construction in my reading material lately.

Even seasoned pros have been guilty. Why? Are their editors afraid of offending their cash cows? Are the publishers taking too much for granted with respect to their superstar authors? I’m an editor, but I’m also a writer, and as a writer, I would want my editors to catch those pesky problems that slip past me. Otherwise, what’s the point of having an editor?

I’ll end for now with this one big hint: If you have a sentence structured like the one below (good grief, I’ve been seeing this a lot), tighten it up. Please.

There was an editor that missed many of the author’s wordy sentences.

Preferred: The author’s editor missed many wordy sentences.

I dropped it from 12 words to 7—a reduction of 42% in a single sentence. Your “TRIGGERS” (search your manuscript for these) are the following phrases: there was, there were, I/he/she/it was, they were. I’ll bet you a quarter to your nickel that a good number of those appear in wordy sentences just begging you to take a scalpel to them. Those that don’t are likely weak and blasé, screaming out for a stronger, evocative verb.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

And don’t miss these follow-up articles:

Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 2

Wordiness Is Not a Style – Part 3

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Quality Matters

July 3, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 5 Comments

As we’re kicking off our Evolved Publishing effort, I’ve been interested–and confused, and frustrated, and saddened–by several online discussions about the need for, and efficacy of, independent editing of an author’s manuscript.

As Kristine Rusch so often states (you should be following her KrisWrites blog, by the way), self-published authors need to think more like independent businesspeople—because that’s what we are.

Certain universal rules apply to business, and here’s one of the biggies: VALUE sells. The variable equation for VALUE, assuming a constant need or desire, is a simple Quality:Price ratio. The first variable in that equation is… well, the first part. Fail there, and the second part becomes irrelevant.

No matter how attractive your price, you, Dear Seller, will not persuade most potential buyers if your quality has not met at least minimum standards in a past sale, or if you’ve established a reputation for poor quality.

This applies when you sell a car, a refrigerator, a pair of shoes… or a book.

Sure, you may get customers to buy your product once, but disappoint them on your quality obligation, and those customers will never buy your product again. Authors make a living when they generate positive word-of-mouth and a steady stream of loyal book buyers (repeat customers). Fail to deliver quality, and your business is finished almost before it begins.

Many self-published authors say, “But I just can’t afford an editor.” Most such authors doom themselves to failure. Listen, if you, as an aspiring author, have no money to pay an editor the full fee up front, then work with them on a smaller up-front fee + commission basis, or on a larger, straight commission basis. Get creative, but be prepared to be generous to an editor (or cover artist, or anyone else who assists you on a commission basis) who is willing to assume that risk. And make no mistake: they’re taking a big gamble. If your piece doesn’t sell well, they just worked for nothing.

The evolutionary state of the publishing industry offers many challenges, to be sure, but also many opportunities. Be creative in your approach. Come on, you’re a writer, an artist! Draw on all that creativity when approaching the business aspect of your writing career. Don’t take the easy, cheap, lazy (or all of the above) way out. Don’t doom yourself to failure.

Do you need an editor for your book? Yes. Every writer needs an independent, objective pair of eyes to weed out their nasty little habits, those recurring bugaboos to which we’re psychologically blinded, even if we think we know what we’re doing.

Resist this temptation: “Hey, I’m a good writer. I’ve studied. I’ve learned. I can do it on my own.”

Your book will be the worse for it. I promise.

No business survives for long that does not offer VALUE (Quality:Price). A robust quality assurance program is essential to all businesses, and your business as a writer is not unique, not immune to that requirement.

We at Evolved Publishing are trying to work as a team, to assure first ourselves, and ultimately our readers, that we have produced a high quality, professional product. Perhaps we’re a good fit for you. Perhaps not.

But please… don’t dash your dreams on the rocks by clinging to the stubborn insistence that you can do it all on your own. A well-coordinated team always outperforms the individual. Always.

And quality matters. Always. Especially when you’re competing as a raindrop in a hurricane of options.

www.EvolvedPub.com

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

Self-Publishing – The “Quality” Dilemma

June 18, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 0 Comments

If I were going to offer a sub-title for this post, it would be this: Hire an editor, damn it! Pardon the language, but seriously….

DISCLOSURE: Yes, I am a freelance editor, among other things. HOWEVER: No, I am not accepting new clients for at least the foreseeable future. (I just needed to be clear that this post is not about me pushing my service.)

Self-publishing, traditionally referred to as the Vanity Press, languishes under a long-suffering reputation. For good reason. Most self-published material, at least historically, has been… well… terrible. Anyone with an adequate checking account or credit card could publish their work—no peer review was required, no editorial process, no professional guidelines or standards.

Thus, most self-published books were unworthy of readers’ hard-earned dollars. Not all of them, mind you (one could find an occasional gem in the rough), only 98-99% of them.

Now, with the eBook revolution gaining momentum, even the financial barriers to self-publishing are crumbling. The inevitable result is that poorly written swill, the so-called “white noise,” is flooding the marketplace.

This will make things extremely difficult for serious writers, those who hope to make writing a well-paying career—professional authors—who want to take advantage of these new eSelf-Publishing opportunities. (Is eSelf-Publishing a recognized word? It is now. :D)

Yet one beacon of hope remains, one stubborn truth: Cream rises to the top.

Look, traditional publishing has always been an extraordinarily tough nut to crack, and it’s even more daunting in the current economic and industry climates. eSelf-Publishing offers authors fantastic new possibilities, yet it presents its challenges.

Achieving a fair income-producing level of success will be as difficult, and as simple, as ever: You just have to be better than the rest.

The key driver in the new eBook market has already identified itself. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Word of Mouth, formerly of Prominent Shelf Space fame. If you want to succeed, you’ll have to rely on readers sending forth Word of Mouth. They must post positive reviews, an easy task in the new online environment. They’ll also need to spread the word everywhere they have a presence, which means not just the traditional real-world, tell-a-friend gossip, but also the new virtual-world, have-you-heard platforms. Social media—not just yours, but theirs—offers you great potential.

How do you coax your readers to participate in your marketing effort? You give them a well-written, professional-grade, enjoyable book. Plain and simple.

If you think you can do that without an editor, you are, if I may be blunt, sadly mistaken. Hey, I’m an editor, and I wouldn’t think of publishing my own book without an independent, objective editor first giving it a once-over.

ALL professional writers use editors; those who don’t remain amateurs. And in this new environment, freelance editors are popping up all over the place. Be creative in your dealings with them. Pay a flat, up-front fee for the service, or pay a commission of sales, or offer some combination of both. Surely, you’ll find someone who will work with you in an affordable, mutually beneficial way. (For more on how to choose between them, see this article: Freelance Editors: A Reemerging Profession.)

Now, as if it’s not bad enough having to compete for readers’ attention with writers who don’t dedicate the time and resources necessary to produce a professional product (the “white noise” generators), we must compete with spammers: Spam clogging Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing.

Dedicate yourself. Be a professional. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll achieve all your goals.

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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Re-Engaged

March 19, 2011 / Lane Diamond / 1 Comment

I’ve been working for the past week or so not just to establish this website, which is getting there, but also to update accordingly all of my other online presences. In the process of doing so, it has occurred to me just how disengaged I’ve been, at least at most of those sites, over the past year or so.

I was so distraught over the state of the publishing business—specifically, the old mainstream, brick and mortar publishing business—and the sheer folly of trying to break into that as a first-time author of thrillers, I just checked out. I told myself I would re-engage when the market recovered. Sure.

Now that I’ve concluded that the old mainstream market wallows in the throes of slow death, and now that I’ve decided to move forward in the e-Publishing arena, I feel positively reinvigorated.

Yes, I have re-engaged. Feels good.

I still have plenty of work to do, not the least of which is a final polish (I swear it’s my last one!) of my manuscript. I just wanted to take one last spin through, and should finish that by the end of April. I also have to finalize the plans I’m kicking around to develop a team, an e-Publishing Group, to maximize the likelihood of success. I’m a bit apprehensive, simply because this is a new arena, yet I’m fired-up for the same reason. I love putting on my troubleshooter’s cap and brainstorming new possibilities. Fun stuff.

I’m a couple weeks away from announcing my full plan (I should say our plan, as I’m working it out with my first teammate) to some select individuals, and possibly opening it up to potential participants (primarily writers with similar goals), but I can’t keep my brain from running a thousand miles per hour.

Man! I should have listened to my own advice, which I offer at the end of all my blog posts:

‘Til next time, and as always, remember: To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy (or discouraged).

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