Monthly Archives: January 2017

So you want to be a writer part 6

Part 6 – Writing your novel

The long awaited post…dun, dun, duuun…!

You followed my advice. You thought about an idea and found one you liked so much you wrote it down. Then, you wrote a few short stories, and all the while, you engaged people on social media. You talked about the latest action flick. You talked about what a buzzkill the latest book was. You praised the newest video game, and you told people you’re writing.

People came and peaked at your short stories. Some downloaded them. A few commented, for better or worse. You blogged, you connected, you even wrote a whole fanfiction novel. Maybe, you hired an editor or found some beta-readers. Maybe, you didn’t, but some people know you now, and some like you. Others don’t, but hey, you haven’t written that novel yet, so it’s no big deal. You even went back, and edited your earlier work, and re-released it. Maybe, you even hired a good cover artist.

Of late, all that swims through your mind is that story, that novel. You’ve even tried to get away from it, writing other, short stories, just wondering if you’re ready. You’ve asked yourself, can I do it? What is it gonna’ take? What if I can’t figure it out? What if people don’t like it?

Take a big breath and relax. Now, you are ready to write your novel. You have a feel for the process. You know you can do it because you did write, and you did release short stories. You even wrote an entire fanfiction, so yeah, you know you can do it.

You have the idea. You’ve thought about your novel so much, you can see the characters, hear the pitch of their voices. You know their mannerisms, and how they act in the world, react to the world, and interact with one another. You know the plot. You know the problems. You know the solution. Take a big breath, and start writing.

Writing is the easy part after all. Writing is just the process of transferring thoughts to paper (screen?). At this point, you know that you don’t have to worry about the fact that your beginning is shaky. You don’t need to worry that there’s no middle. You don’t need to worry that you have two or three different ideas for the ending.

At this point, you know that the only thing that matters is transferring your thoughts to paper. Write what you have. Don’t stop. Don’t fret. If you need to, go back, and read what you wrote to make certain you’re still on the same train of thought, but if you run into a roadblock, take a detour.

You have your introduction, but your dialogue is sketchy. Maybe, your dialogue is great, but you have a tough time writing action scenes; whatever the troubles are…well, they aren’t really a problem. Just write what you have, and if you need to, skip ahead. Your book is not etched in stone. It is not a published novel out for sale. Just write. Just keep writing.

Treat every chapter like a mini short story, and maybe, by the time you get to the middle, you see a different ending, but the beginning has to be changed. No biggie; you’re just writing. This is just a draft, and no one has even seen it yet.

Maybe, you can tell there isn’t much to say about the actual writing process. Contrary to what so many people believe, writing a novel is the easiest thing in the world. Nothing really matters; it’s just a draft, so draft away.

There are no rules in writing. None. There are certainly some very important rules when it comes to editing a story, but there are no rules involved in writing that story down. Did you know that you don’t even need to break a novel down into chapters? Nope, at least not until the editing process. You can just write, and write, and write until you have everything you want.

It’s a draft. It isn’t etched in stone. It isn’t a published product released to the public.

Write down absolutely everything you want to write. It doesn’t make any difference if it’s senseless, useless, crazy, boring, or even out of sequence. Just get as much down as you can. This is your time. This is the process you should be enjoying the most. While you’re writing the story, you are writing for you. You are writing something you want to read. You are unburdening your creative mind grapes and writing down all the things about your story that you want to experience.

This is certainly going to be a long process, and you will change almost everything you write by the time you’re ready to publish, so just don’t stress. Don’t worry about a routine. Nothing kills creativity like routine. Don’t turn writing your story into a job or a chore; enjoy the process. You want to write? Write! You don’t feel like writing one day? Don’t write!

Don’t ever worry about hitting a certain word goal every day. Don’t waste your time with writing exercises; they only help you do better at the exercise. That’s why you practice exercises before you write your novel. When it’s time to write your story, you just write the damned story down!

Go back. Read it. Read it again and again. You’ll see plot holes. You’ll find inconsistencies. You’ll laugh, cry, cringe, and cheer. Add everything you want to the story. Cut everything you don’t like. If it comes up short, it comes up short. If it comes out long, and it drags ass, cut the fluff out.

I’m telling you, writing the novel is the easiest part of the whole successful writer thing. All you gotta’ do is jot down what you’re thinking.

There will be times wherein you’re going to come across sections where you feel stuck. You’ll have point A and point C, but won’t know what point B is. So? Who cares? Nobody but you knows this. Just write down what you have and move on.

This is like the whole can’t see the forest for the trees thing, or maybe I have it backwards. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you cannot possibly know everything about your story until you’ve written it down.

Maybe, that sounds crazy or backwards, but I’m telling you, if you go into this process believing that you must know every, single, little, tiny detail, you’re out of your mind. You’re fooling yourself. This is precisely why people fail, or they succumb to fear; they think they must know every word, sentence, action, event, scene, whatever before writing the story.

Wrong.

Just get as much of your story down as possible, and when you get stuck, read what you have, and spend some more time thinking about the world, the characters; let the story tell itself. What you think your story is going to be is not what your story will choose for itself. If nothing comes to mind, jump ahead! Write the end then go back and re-read from the very beginning. So, you get stuck for a day, a week, a month, no big deal; go busy yourself with something else. That worked for Einstein.

I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you; just write. It’s that easy. It really, truly, is that simple. Anyone who writes an entire novel from start to finish in a month, two months, three, four, and then releases it is releasing crap. Now, that crap might sell. There are certainly people out there who like crap, but writing, releasing, and selling crap won’t lead to long term success.

Anyone who becomes a peddler of crap may be successful, very successful, at the onset of their career, but if they don’t begin releasing quality content, they won’t get very far, and at this point, if you’ve followed the advice in these posts, you’ve already set yourself up to sell your book, so you don’t want to release crap, and that means taking the time to write a great novel, but writing a great novel doesn’t entail doing it perfectly on your first attempt.

Again, just write what you have, what you know. Skip ahead if you must then, when you see more of your story developing, you can go back, and fill in the blanks; you can restructure, or you can even re-write the whole thing. It’s what the guy who wrote Jaws had to do. All that matters at this stage is that you have fun.

When The Godfather was submitted to the production company, the screen editors and directors thought the book was atrocious. The reviews on the Rambo books, you know the Rambo movies are based on books, right? Those reviews are pretty bad, because the books are terrible, so crap does sell, but it usually only sells after it gets turned into an awesome movie, and if it doesn’t become an awesome movie, who will buy it? What saving grace will there be?

As usual, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. You aren’t staking your entire life on one novel, but it is important to make your first novel great, not because it’s the only way to become successful, but because you want to start off the right way and save yourself the torment. You also care about your fans because they are paying you, and they are selling for you, so give them something they can enjoy.

Now, editing your novel is a totally different story, but you can’t edit or get feedback until the whole book is written, right? So get it all down then take a break because the hard part is about come up and blindside you.

Yup, before you know it, you’ve actually written down your whole novel. Yes, some parts are shaky. Yes, some transitions aren’t that great. Some of your chapters feel short and rushed. Other chapters feel long, and they tend to get boring before reaching the end. No big deal. Now, you will do one of the most important things you will ever do for your novel. You will leave it alone.

Get away from your novel. Forget all about it. Dive into something else. Write another short story. Play a new video game. Go back to playing DnD with your friends. Whatever you do, do your best to forget as much of your novel as you can. Spend at least two months away from your novel.

This is a great time to get back to everything you were doing before you wrote your novel. Get back on Google+ and Goodreads, and discuss other topics with your reader groups. Download some more short stories from Smashwords, and give ‘em a read through. Give your fans, the ones who dropped by your blog to read reviews, something new to read; a new review of a game, book, or movie.

Here’s why; you’ve been thinking, eating, breathing, living your novel for months, maybe even years. You know everything about it, all its intricacies, and you’ve done the best job you can to lay it bare for an audience, but an audience is not in your head, and there may be some thoughts, actions, or correlations that seem self evident and truthful to you, but to an audience, to a reader who has never been in your head, all of those ideas which seem logical and self evident may very well seem muddled and confusing.

This is the perfect time to do one or all three of the following:

One, post your whole book to your blogs one or two thousand words at a time two or three times a week, thus giving your fan base a chance to read it without a great commitment. Naturally, they’ll also be able to comment and discuss it. (You will eventually delete these posts before releasing the book.)

Two, kindly let people know that you are looking for beta-readers, people who are interested in reading a draft for the specific purpose of helping you better connect with your intended audience. (Assuming you are not releasing the entirety of your book to your blog. You may also do this after having released your book to your blog, gotten some feedback, edited, and then deleted those old posts.) Beta-readers are usually readers, though some are also writers, but the great thing about beta-readers is that they love rough drafts. There’s just something so much more personal, more intimate, about a draft; it’s bare; it’s the soul of the writer, but no one wants to spend money on a first draft, so do not release an unedited book to the public!

Three, hire an editor.

The first two suggestions are great, simple, easy, and free. Do not pay anyone for beta-reading. At this point, I also do not suggest peer editing with other writers anymore. This isn’t a matter of fearing intellectual theft; this is a matter of building your own, distinct voice. Teaming up with other writers is great before you write your first novel. After you’ve written it, it becomes imperative to distance yourself from other writers, so you’re better off with beta-readers, some of which will be other authors, but some are just readers and bloggers who love raw, indie work.

A lot of writers fail at this point in their careers. They’re so excited they’ve finished writing a book, and they show it to all their author buddies, and of course, being nice, supportive people, the author buddies praise the book. After all, they know the difficulty in finishing a novel, so they say it’s great, and then, the debut author releases an unedited, debut novel, and it tanks. Perhaps even worse, the book sells extremely well for two months, and then the scathing reviews come in, all of which point out the horrible typographical, grammatical, and punctuation errors—the slogging pace, the redundant information, the info dumps, the stale characters, etc. etc. Hire an editor before you release that book.

Another occurrence at this stage of the game involves the excited, debut novelist who turns to their author, support groups. Then, they get stuck trading reviews of each others’ books. That’s all well and good, but none of them are reaching readers. They’re all only reaching one another, tweeting, retweeting, or auto-tweeting, to one another. They are only promoting their books to other writers.

There are no readers in those groups. No readers, people actually looking for a new book to buy and read, have ever heard of any of those groups like ASMSG or IAN. Hundreds of thousands of indie writers have banded together, and that’s a great concept before writing your first novel, but these naïve folks have done this in an effort to find readers, but they are only finding each other. Some actually think that they can each bring a few hundred new readers to those groups, believing that if each person brings in a hundred new readers, there will be millions of people all buying the books; this is precisely what the mainstream publishers count on, but the mainstream publishers each have specific presses with specific authors with specific voices for specific genres, so yes, Penguin Random House counts on the authors published by Bantam to entice Bantam fans into buying Bantam books by other Bantam authors, but the indie, support groups aren’t following this business model. The indie groups have all kinds of writers of all qualities, genres, and voices.

It doesn’t work, not the way they’re doing it. First of all, so many of the members have no fans because they are either aspiring writers with no published books, or they are debut writers with one or two books out, and no sells or fans; they have not begun their career correctly. Second, some members write romance, others paranormal, some steam punk, so none of the steam punk readers are going to go searching for a group like ASMSG in the hopes of finding an indie, romance writer. So what happens? The group members just trade books with one another for reviews in the hopes of selling books via Amazon by way of a review bombardment. Lastly, what happens is they try to sell books to each other.

Think about it, though: if one author buys one of each book written by each author, and even if every other author does the same, in the end no money trades hands, right? If I buy all of your books, and then you buy all of mine, no money has been earned. No new fans have been found, so what do these groups do? They say stuff like: give an indie author a good review. Reviews sell books, and authors gotta’ eat, too. Well, that’s a dishonest practice.

Give a good review if the book is good. Give a bad review if the book is bad. Why? Because the review is not for the author. The review is not there to trick a reader into a buying a book. The reviews should only be given by a reader for readers. As a matter of fact, once you become a published author, you may want to stop reviewing books completely. Why? Because at that point, you’ll find yourself reviewing as a writer rather than a reader.

You know what happens then? An indie author begins racking up numerous, glowing reviews, and then a reader will buy the book only to find faults with it, and the problem then is that the skewed reviews anger the reader. They feel tricked, and so they feel compelled to provide a scathing review in order to exact vengeance, and here’s the thing; if those good reviews sell books, and the readers end up feeling shilled because of the skewed reviews, they are going to tell everyone to stay away from that book, and a book that will have started off selling well, suddenly starts losing sales, and then the writer begins to build notoriety for releasing terrible content. They lose credibility. It’s why “writers” like Gary Lindberg go around making fun of readers for posting bad reviews.

Fortunately, these posts have been designed to help you prevent such a thing. As a matter of fact, these posts are here for two reasons.

One, I personally love reading and writing so much that I want everyone with even an inkling of an idea to feel comfortable writing their idea down, and subsequently release a great book.

Two, I love readers so much that I want them to know that there is an alternative to the dreck spewed by the mainstream presses, but to that effect, what the indie writers release must not be dreck, and so it becomes imperative to teach indie writers the importance of editing, of hiring an editor, a competent editor, but indie writers must take it a step farther and start their careers off properly in order to counter act the fluff released by the mainstream press, and the fluff released by other, indie writers.

I want indie writers, or even new writers who want to go the mainstream route, to be successful, and not just sell well, but sell quality content often. It’s what the readers deserve. Are we not writing for them? Perhaps, it is more appropriate to say that we are trying to release quality content for them.

Please, please, please, even if you decide not to distance yourself from other writers, you must hire a competent editor because you are not writing and selling your books for the other writers, you are publishing for readers, and if you reach even one reader, and you turn them into a fan, they will tell others about your book, so if you’re going to find an editor, and you really do need to find one, do some work and find a competent editor, one who willingly explains and shows the editing process on a regular basis.

They are few and far between, and you might get burned once or twice, but do not let that frighten you. You need an editor, someone who understands how to read a book as a reader, someone who will look for plot holes, suspension of belief, inconsistencies, discrepancies, lack of character development, pacing issues, all kinds of stuff, and will help you to understand what those issues are and how to resolve them.

In the end, you might end up hiring a crappy editor. It happens to all writers who take the time and make the effort to hire an editor, but even a crappy editor can be helpful. If nothing else, they are a fresh pair of eyes, and when they edit your manuscript, they will pass on to you their new perspective; use it. Take what you like, and discard the rest. Then, go back, and re-read your book, and I promise, you’ll find all kinds of stuff that requires more attention.

You’ll find normal mistakes that your mind missed because it was reading what it was expecting; the mind does that; it formulates that which it already expects. You’ll find some sentences which will make you wonder just what it was that you were meaning to convey. You’ll find redundancies you hadn’t noticed before. You’ll notice that some sentences work better in a different order within the paragraph. You’ll find all kinds of stuff.

It’s very important to get away from your novel. It’s almost like making your eyes the fresh pair of eyes, and you will have to get away from your novel over and over. There should be no rush, though. As proud and excited as you are, and you should be, you must keep yourself in check. Do not release a crummy product to your audience like I did (four crummy products) because it will really hold you back.

Everything I’m telling you, no matter how crazy, I’m telling you for a reason. I absolutely want you to release a perfect product to your audience, so that they will start off loving your work. It is important to me that you are successful for a number of reasons, and you will come to understand those reasons more deeply as we progress, so you may need to step away from your novel a number of times, and you may need numerous beta-readers, and you may need to hire two or three different editors, and you may need to get away from your writer buddies, and you may well spend an arm and a leg throughout the process, but it will pay off.

Try to keep your end goal in mind. If you are striving to achieve major publication then you need to land a literary agent. To do that, you need to write a perfect query letter, and synopsis, and you can’t rush through those either; they are as important as your title, cover, and blurb. Then, if your presentation is accepted, the agent will want a part of, or the whole, manuscript. Then, if it’s up to snuff, and they think it’s marketable, they’ll help you to land a publisher. Just keep in mind that not all agents are cut from the same cloth.

If you intend to go the indie route, and you want someone like Baen or Rocking Horse Publishing to publish your work, you do not need an agent, but you still have to present your book in a professional manner. Regardless, these two avenues require a great deal of sitting, waiting around, and just going bonkers. They do not want you to submit your book to multiple publishers or agents, and they may never reply, or they may take a year to reply, and just to say, “Nah, we’re good, bruh.”

If you intend to self publish, and there are numerous reasons to do so, it’s up to you and you alone to produce a product of the highest quality. This does not mean that you cannot work with others—cover artists, proof readers, beta-readers, and editors—it just means that you are in charge of everything. The reason self publishing gets such a bad rap is because most self published authors don’t hire editors, or they hire crummy editors, and the number one complaint by readers is that the book read like a first draft.

No one wants to pay for a first draft.

This says nothing of the creativity, beauty, or complexity of the story, but you must come to understand something that’s been pointed out numerous times: if the mainstream publishers employ teams of editors to clean the works of King, Martin, and Rowling, doesn’t it stand to reason that you should also hire an editor?

Thanks for reading. I had said this was going to be the last post of this series, but I’m actually going to release one more, so stay tuned, and don’t forget to check out my Editing Services Tab.

Quora Q and A’s

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Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

This time, I’ll be showing a few questions with some short answers. All of the questions revolve around some facet of reading, writing, or editing, but if you find that you have some questions about the editing process, please ask right here or leave a comment.

Question 1:If I’m coining a phrase, should I put it in quote signs?

Addendum: I read that the phrase “coining a phrase” is hardly used anymore, but should I use it since I’m the one who is doing the coining?

Answer: I suggest single quotations or italics. The truth is that standard quotations work as well because people will perceive the information just that same as if it were being “qouted” by someone, however, in an effort to keep editing practices true, it is best to either italicize, such as: he’s the cat’s meow or use single quotations such as, he’s the ‘cat’s meow’.

One doesn’t generally see: he’s the “cat’s meow” unless it is a part of dialogue. At this point, it is important to remind writers and editors that punctuation is used to clarify information for readers, so that they aren’t forced to guess at the meaning of the information presented.

Question 2: Is there much of a difference or any between “few had shown real promise” or “few had shown any real promise”?

Answer: No. The first version is perhaps better suited for a written sentence where as the second version sounds more conversational, but in the end, they’re the same. I also believe that anyone who either reads or hears either version of that phrase will draw exactly the same conclusion.

In the end, this particular Q and A comes down to personal style. A writer must often ask him or her self: “how do I want to write this?” and only after having written the entirety of the article, novel, story, whatever, should that writer go back through, and try to make changes. Changes should be for two reasons; to maintain consistency and to clarify information for the reader.

Question 3: Do I need a comma before the word ‘where’ in the sentence in the details?

Addendum: They later moved to Sedona, Arizona, where Ernst constructed a small cottage by hand.

Answer: Yes because you are listing the city and state.

They later moved to Sedona where Ernst constructed a small cottage by hand.

In the above sentence, a comma is not required, though one might still use one. Commas are utilized to “break up” information and to clarify meaning. There’s a whole post on comma usage here.

Also, be sure to check out my Editing Services tab.

Less is More

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Less is more? How can less be more?

Last I checked, 4 oranges are less than 5, and that means….

Okay, hold on; let’s try it in a writing example.

He went to the store.

He went to the grocery store and bought milk, eggs, beer, and bread.

Nope; more is still more…or is it?

Let’s check out one more example.

Lucy told him that she didn’t like it when he fed the dog at seven because that was too early, and then the dog would be hungry again before four, which was when she got home. John looked at her, and his face contorted when he kind of squinted his eyes. His lips paled in color, and they grew tight; there was a mean flicker in his hard eyes and his jaw clenched.

That’s quite a bit. That must be great, right? It’s definitely more….

“Don’t feed Bella so early,” Lucy chastised. “She’ll get hungry before I get home at four.”

John returned her look, bearing an expression of indignation.

Uh-oh! That’s way less…but it shows way more, doesn’t it?

The whole less is more concept is intimately tied into showing versus telling, but it also engenders a great deal more. In the example above, both versions are providing the same story; one is a wordy way of telling a situation, and the other is a great way of providing an experience, but sometimes, it’s what a writer doesn’t say, show, or tell that makes or breaks a story.

Admittedly, when I first started writing, this was one of my greatest drawbacks; I used to state something in prose like just before it happened; a paragraph, a page, maybe two pages later, what I had alluded to occurred.

Foreshadowing is fine, but the following example explains it better.

John watched the cow as she gave birth to her little baby. A new life was dawning, but with life comes death; such is the way of the world. Things come and things go…and so do people, John thought.

And then, two paragraphs later, John was having to deal with the death of a loved one. That’s too close for foreshadowing; it’s foretelling, and needs to just be cut, so that as a whole, the story provided is less, but the experience is more. The easiest way to solve the above situation is to just cut the thought that John had. A more creative way is to have that scene as the story’s opener, that way, if John has to deal with death right away, it doesn’t affect the continuity, but that’s considered restructuring, and I’m not discussing that yet.

Let’s see another form of less is more.

The sun glistened off her sequins the way errant rays of gold illuminate stained glass during the brilliancy of early morning. Her radiant appeal was thwarted only by her grace and poise; the way she danced, like no one was watching; the way she laughed, like Beethoven’s sixth symphony, Pastoral. Simply watching her saunter down the stairs—a great banister of gold beheld only by the angels themselves—brought unto the heart the truest of emotions; the simplest; love, but true love, the kind of love only ever described by Greek Mythology, and never truly felt by a mere mortal human, until today…the day I saw her, my angel, Melody.

Boy…that’s right purdy’ writin’, and there’s certainly a place for it, but if the entirety of the story is written like this then…where is the story? What has happened in the example above? A man saw a woman come down the stairs and he fell in love with her, but what does she look like? Where are they? What are people doing? There’s nothing in the example except for pretty writing, flowery prose, and that isn’t good storytelling.

I’m gonna’ let you guys in on a little secret; creative writing courses are scams, and they are creativity killers.

Picture this: you see a cabin in the woods. It is old, a bit moldy, and you can see the crevices in the aged logs. The windows are obscured by grime. The door, which looks to have once been painted a vibrant green, is now a faded brown.

Certainly, the cabin can be beautified by placing a bed of red roses below the window. Now, imagine placing rows and rows of roses all around the cabin. Watch the roses surround the entirety of the structure; see them grow, and twist, and intertwine, until all that you can see is brambles and pretty, red flowers.

It’s just that—pretty, but now the substance is gone. The worn cabin is the story, and all that pretty writing just alienates your audience; it obscures the message, the reason for even telling the story. Writers, why are you telling your story? You have to be able to answer that.

Less is certainly more if the concept is employed correctly, which is why I’m explaining what it means.

Now, I’ll be the first to say; there are NO rules in writing, but there are numerous rules in editing, and it is imperative, paramount to good writing, to follow those rules, because no matter the story, the experience given is supposed to be for the reader, the audience, and they have been trained to glean information in a specific way, and all too often, writers and editors forget what it was like being just a reader without knowledge of crafting a book.

Less is certainly more especially when more entails repetition, and that’s the last thing I want to cover with this post.

Often times, a writer accidentally forgets that their audience isn’t comprised of a bunch on nincompoops. In other words, they relate the same information over and over again ad nauseam; yes, we get it; Jim loves his family, stop telling us. Yes, we get it, Ellie feels guilty for leaving her family behind. Yes, we get it; they fell in love from simply a look….

Writers; do try to avoid blatant repetition; what good is two pages worth of the same information written in a slightly different manner? Editors, when you see it, cut it! Cut the redundancies. Readers are bright people, and they may certainly need a reminder, a one liner, a piece of dialogue, or an internal thought to remind them of something important, but keep it concise.

What good is a one hundred thousand word book if only fifty thousand words are story and the rest is but pretty writing? A one hundred thousand page book must be at least eighty thousand words of actual story, and that doesn’t mean telling the reader what is happening. Conversations, character actions, reactions, interactions, world building, even descriptions are all part of the story IF THEY DRIVE THE PLOT ONWARDS. That’s why only what is absolutely pertinent must remain in the story, and everything else, no matter how much the writer likes it, must be cut.

There are few exceptions, and they deal with pacing, and I will cover pacing in the future.

Thanks for reading, and I appreciate that you have read what I wrote. On top of that, I’m grateful that many of you are looking over the information I provide, so I want you to know that it’s much obliged. Also, the fact that lot’s of people here are letting me know that they are being helped by my advice is just aces. Furthermore, it’s important for me to say thank you to all those who continue to share with others my helpful thoughts…I’m joking…did you get it?

Seriously, thanks, and if you have questions, comments, or concerns, you know where to find me. Also, check out my Editing Services tab.

So you want to be a writer part 5

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Part 5 – The early social media presence

Welcome back to this series of posts about becoming a successful writer. As always, the most important concept to consider is the consistent and continuous release of quality content, and we’ll talk about how to improve the quality of content as we progress, or if you prefer, you can just hire an editor.

The last post discussed building and selling your brand, something you do regardless of which publishing route you take. The question then becomes, how does one get people to notice a brand?

Remember, your brand is you; you are selling yourself, so go out and be yourself. The world today has opened the door for all of us to do just that. We can do live videos on FaceBook. We can upload YouTube videos. We can tweet, share content and comments on Google+ and LinkedIn, we can blog on our own sites, on Quora, Medium, write stories to Wattpad, Fanfcition, and Quotev. I mean, c’mon, the opportunities are endless, but as has been mentioned, it’s important to connect with readers. If all you’re doing is following, retweeting, and sharing with other writers, you are not connecting with readers.

This brings us to another big, big, mega, huge misconception. Just about every writer out there, who is not published by a mainstream publisher, thinks they can pool their resources with other writers. They think that they can give their fans to their fellow writers, and get fans from their fellow writers.

Wrong. Man, is that ever wrong.

Does Burger King share consumers with McDonald’s? No. They compete. Does Citgo share their consumers with Shell? No, they compete. Does George Martin hold a blog tour with J.K. Rowling? No! Not even their publishers set up such things. Why? It doesn’t work.

Don’t believe it? Go and follow the mainstream authors and publishers, and look at their tweets, posts, and updates. Go look at their websites. Regardless of whether or not you think their published content is any good, it is an undeniable fact that the mainstream publishers and writers sell, at least on average, better than indie or self published writers, which means that their business model works, and their business model does not involve banding together.

They compete, and they promote competition. Perhaps no quite so intensely as Nintendo and Sega did in the past, but Simon and Schuster is not trying to give fans to or get fans from Penguin Random House.

Here’s the deal; before you are published, you do want to work with other writers, not to try and share fans—thinking that if that writer sells books, you can get their fans to buy your books—you engage with other writers just to view writing from a different perspective. Look at their brand, read their voice, check out their book covers, blog formats, etc. There’s a ton of stuff you can get from other writers, but you are not trying to get their fans, or pool fans between one another. The consumer world just doesn’t work that way, and as a writer, you are also a businessman, and you have to understand business.

Another factor of business is social media. As was stated earlier, the world has opened itself up to social connections, but you have to be…wait for it…sociable.

Retweeting, and setting up auto tweets, and auto posts is the wrong approach. It is certainly a time saver, but you should not be spending the bulk of your time on social media, or even promoting your work, anyway; you should be spending the bulk of your time reading, writing, editing, and discussing topics—connecting with humans as a human.

Be sociable. Engage with other readers. Right now, before writing your novel, make an account on Goodreads, FaceBook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, Medium, and have your own blog. Go to where the people are discussing topics you like.

Maybe, you like The Elder Scrolls. I do. I went and conversed with people who enjoyed The Elder Scrolls, and I just talked about the video games. I did not immediately try to monopolize the posts by telling everyone to drop what they were doing and come read my Skyrim fanfiction. I acted like a human being, and I discussed whatever the particular topic was. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, I let people know that I enjoyed Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim so much, I went and wrote a fanfiction. I added that if anyone was interested, the link to the free book was available, and it worked; people came to read my story.

Maybe you like HarryPotter. Believe it; plenty of people are talking HarryPotter. Join groups dedicated to HarryPotter and discuss. Then, when the opportunity presents itself, you let people know you are also working on a HarryPotter fanfcition and would love some feedback.

This is how you benefit from social media. People think that they should use social media to send out an update from their blog, or send out a link to a buy page for a book. There are times to do that, but releasing those kinds of posts on a regular basis is not what sells books. It just doesn’t work that way.

Think about it. If a new, mainstream author emerged today, and you are on Twitter, and you see a retweet from someone you follow, which states: @JohnPWriter visit http://www.jpwriter.com for my new book: Mars Raiders, are you going to run out and buy the book? Why would you? Are you even going to click the link to see what the book is about?

Here’s the bigger question; what are the odds of you even seeing that tweet?

If you start your social media presence now, before writing your debut novel, you’re selling yourself, that’s all you’re trying to do. You are creating an online presence, and people will take you seriously because you are a real person who is interacting with other, likeminded people. Then, as you write your short stories or fanfiction, you can kindly, kindly, ask people to come look at your work, but only if the opportunity is there.

The great thing about a lot of social media sites is that you can ask the question. Something along the lines of the following makes for a great opener: I want to write a Harry Potter fanfiction, can someone provide me some feedback? Don’t expect everyone who likes HarryPotter to rush on over to your question and answer it, but don’t be surprised if people are interested either; everyone likes to talk about themselves and what they enjoy.

A great tweet might also read: @JohnPWriter I’m trying to finish my #HarryPotter #Fanfiction, all comments welcome visit http://www.jpwriter.com Thanks

Social media is extremely important, but 90% of writers are using it incorrectly. These posts, however, have not been designed to teach you the intricacies of using each social platform. There are numerous books written by numerous people, and everyone has their own take on how to optimize a Twitter presence, or a FaceBook author page, or a Google+ brand page. Feel free to buy those books, just be sure to check out the one and two star reviews, not only the five star reviews.

What needs to be considered is that, empirically speaking, if you send out a tweet, which has a shelf life of about six seconds, and that tweet states: http://www.jpwriter.com come check out my new #HarryPotter #fanfiction. No one is going to pay attention.

I can prove it.

Find your favorite, indie author who is claiming they’re earning a five figure income per month, and look at their tweets. Then, look at how many followers they have. They may have a million followers, but then look at the number of likes and retweets each tweet gets. For FaceBook and other platforms, look at how many likes, shares, and comments they have. In all likelihood, it’s very few.

On the rarest of occasion, you may come across the one person who is getting mass likes, retweets, shares, and comments, and if that’s the case, they have built their brand correctly, and in that case, you should scrutinize their tweets because the working formula is in there somewhere. Most people are trying to use social media to get people to view their book or website, when they should be using their book or website to get more followers. Most writers have it backwards.

I’ll be totally honest, I have few followers on Twitter, and I don’t use FaceBook; in the end, the numbers matter very little. Don’t believe that either? Go look at Penguin Random House’s Twitter account. Look at their tweets, and see how many likes and retweets they have. Look also at how many tweets they send out per day. Read their tweets carefully. You won’t see what you expect. They certainly sell books, though, don’t they? Social media numbers mean very little.

Here’s the math: if you send out a tweet with a shelf life of six seconds, very few people will see it unless it is consistently retweeted regardless of how many followers you have, but let’s assume that one million people see this magic tweet over the course of a day. Out of one million views, if no one retweets it—or even if it is the retweeting which garners this magic tweet one million views—out of those views, maybe 1% of people will be interested enough to click on the link. That means that only ten thousand people will view the linked page. If that page is a buy page on, say, Barnes and Noble, how many of those people, those ten thousand, will be readers, people looking to buy a book? How many will be people looking to buy a book of that genre, by you, a virtually unknown author?

How many people will be interested enough to look at the title, cover, and blurb? Maybe one percent? That means that of that ten thousand, one hundred people are likely to buy the book.

Hey, one hundred sales isn’t too bad, though, right?

Let me tell you; unless your tweet is magic, your tweet isn’t going to get a million views. Think about it. When you’re on Twitter, or which ever social media outlet you prefer, how many posts do you scrutinize? How many have links to pages? How many of those do you actually click? Where do you usually wind up? A website? A blog? How much scrutiny do you give then? Have you ever actually bought a book explicitly due to a Tweet? A mention on FaceBook? A post on LinkedIn?

Are you with me?

Social media is not used to sell books or even drive traffic to your site. Social media is used to engage, sociably, with likeminded people. King and Martin have a mess of followers on Twitter because people already know those guys exist. People—fans—will follow you after visiting your site, downloading your free, short story, reading your fanfiction, or purchasing your novel, not the other way around, so you have to understand what social media does; it gives people a chance to talk, to talk about what they enjoy, and if people enjoy reading the fantasy genre then talk to those people about the fantasy genre.

Yes, you do want to Tweet and post updates, which you have made to your blog or website, but if that’s all you do with social media, it won’t get you the results you’re expecting. Why would anyone want to retweet such a thing? What is there to entice someone to click on the link? Who cares that John P. Writer just released a new, blog post entitled: fat cash for fast cats?

Also, if other writers are consistently retweeting your tweets, won’t they be missing out on potential fans or sales? If you’re constantly retweeting other writers, won’t you be suffering the same? Well, yes and no; as was discussed, you aren’t getting sales from tweets anyway, but you’re definitely losing out on attention, so there will come a time to distance yourself from other writers, and we’ll dive into that a little bit more later on.

What is important to understand is that social media does not sell products, but it can certainly sell a brand. That brand is you, so be cute, be funny, be accessible, be present. You like cats? I love cats! Post cat memes, pictures, gifs, and videos to your social media accounts. Then, find a way to relate cats to your writing, book, blog, or site.

You can easily make a cat meme with your website on it. No, it won’t be a clickable hyperlink, but people will still see your website, or perhaps, the title of your book. Make a cat meme that says: Grumpy catwuvs Mars Raiders. Don’t you wuv grumpy cat?

Yes, it’s absolutely stupid, but it creates a mental link, a connection. People will associate something they know and love with something unfamiliar. After someone sees grumpy cat wuvving the title of your book or website a half a dozen times, they’re going to get curious.

Own a cat? Sweet! Snap a pic of your cat sleeping on your laptop, and make claims that Mrs. Whiskers if feeling left out because you’ve been writing so much.

Feel me?

This is business. This is marketing, and you can use social media to market your brand, but you cannot use social media to get new readers and sell books by simply auto tweeting: come check out my new #fantasy #adventure The Ring of Lords.

Yes, as with everything else, this is time consuming, and there are numerous variables, which you must calculate specifically for your title, audience, genre, etc. Social media is a powerful tool, but even the best Phillip’s head screwdriver is useless if all your screws are flatheads head, right? You have to use the proper tools properly, and I promise you, the number of followers you have on Twitter or any social media site does not equate to the number of visitors who will spend time on your site and subsequently buy your books.

So what sell books? Quality content and people. If people like you then they like your brand. If they like your brand they will discuss it with others through their social media accounts. This is why you haven’t written your novel yet. You are writing short stories and giving them away, so that you can learn what your audience likes. Then, you will write your fanfiction, and give that away, too. Then, when it’s time to write your novel, people will already be waiting for it. You will already have a better understanding on how to improve the quality of your writing, too.

It sounds like a great deal of effort. It is! It will pay off, though. Engage people who already enjoy what you enjoy. Build connections. Build your brand. Release quality content, and then people will sell your content for you.

You can’t possibly sell thousands of copies of your own books, but if you sell ten copies, and your fans talk about them, thus selling more copies, and then everyone is selling tens of copies of your books then suddenly everyone is buying your books. People, consumers, fans sell products, not social media.

Thanks, you guys have been great. I’m going to be releasing one more post in this series, so stay tuned. If you’re interested in learning how to improve your content, read any of my “Editing” posts. Also visit the Editing Services tab.

Questions From Quora Regarding Editing part 2

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Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

This time, I’ll be showing a few questions with some short answers. All of the questions revolve around some facet of editing, but if you find that you have some questions about the editing process, please ask right here or leave a comment.

Question 1: If I can omit the comma after “today,” can I do the same in “Fortunetly I don’t have work tomorrow.”?
Addendum: I’m able to omit the comma after “today” in the sentence, “Today I went to school,” but am I able to omit the comma after “fortunety” in the sentence, “Fortunetly I don’t have work tomorrow.”

Answer: You do not need the comma after fortunately. In this case, using the comma is optional, but make sure that you are consistent in your writing and punctuation. Also, be sure to correct spelling mistakes.

To expound a bit, the reason a comma may be placed after today, yesterday, at this time, fortunately, etc., is due to the fact that those kinds of words at the beginning of a sentence set up a sort of restriction.

For example: Today, the heat was excruciating.

The reader knows right away that the frame of reference is “today”, but there is no need for the comma because the frame of reference still exists without the comma.

Remember, commas do NOT indicate a pause in speech; they are used to clarify information, and if they are not clarifying the information they do not need to be there, but if they are used in such a manner, they must be used consistently.

So you want to be a writer part 4

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At this point, I’ve presented how to come up with an idea in order to begin writing. I’ve explained why short stories are important, and how they can help you build a fan base and credibility. I’ve also talked about fanfiction, a proven method by which a new writer can become well known. Now, instead of jumping right into writing your novel, I want to take some time and explain what sells a book, or any product, really.

You see, whether or not you choose to go the self published route or the mainstream route the principles of selling are the same; so, what sells a book?

There are four components upon which everything else is built; the title of your book, the cover art, the blurb, and networking. All of these together form your brand. You are not just trying to sell your book, you are trying to connect with readers; you are trying to sell yourself, your brand.

Kanye West once said something along the lines of: people love me or people hate me, but everybody knows me. That’s a great point to make. Kanye West the person is also Kanye West the brand, and in his case, it works. Will his brand work for you? Maybe, maybe not, but a successful writer must have their brand before the eyes of the public.

George Martin is certainly a popular and hot-selling author, but what is his brand? He doesn’t really have one, does he? No, not anymore, anyway, because he is already published by a major company, so the brand being sold is the brand of Bantam, (notice the little rooster? We’ll get back to that) which is an imprint of Random House, but did you know that he began writing A Song of Ice and Fire in 1991? Did you know the first book wasn’t published until 1996? He was perfecting his craft, creating a solid fan base, and ultimately solidifying his brand, which was picked up by Bantam.

Are you following me?

Now, for just a moment, think of yourself as a reader who is looking for a new book. You already know what you like and don’t like. You already know which authors you prefer, and which ones you dislike, and maybe you’ve only ever read books released by the mainstream publishers, but how did you know a new book was released? Are you subscribed to an e-mail list? Probably not. You probably already belong to a reading group, or you are following your favorite author or publisher on social media. Maybe, you just troll Barnes and Noble online, see what’s advertised, and follow the link.

Here’s the deal; mainstream publishers, be it Random House, Simon and Schuster, Roc Books, or whomever, regardless of the specific author or title, each publisher has a specific way of doing things, and all books released by Penguin, follow the Penguin formatting rules and guidelines; those Penguin specific editors all follow certain guidelines, too, so all the books, even if the writer, title, and voice are vastly dissimilar, still share some similarities, which probably bypass you—the style of the cover art, the lettering of titles, the blurbs, the little logo on the side of the book (remember the Bantam Rooster).

If you do get picked up by a literary agent, and you are published by a mainstream publisher, they will handle all of these factors on their own, but if you decide to go the indie route, or even before you get picked up, while you’re writing your short stories, it’s imperative to brand yourself, to present some form of consistency. For example, I only use the one cover artist, so even though the covers are as different as they can be, there is a hidden consistency.

Now, before you write your novel is the time to find your voice, your brand, and present it, consistently, to your fan base. Since you have not yet written and published your novel, this is a great time to experiment.

Let’s go back to being a reader looking for a book. First and foremost, you probably have an idea of what it is you want; someone either made a recommendation, or you know your favorite publisher or author has released something, or maybe you’re just trolling for something totally fresh. The first thing that will catch your eye is the title.

Honestly, the title won’t sell you the book, but it will make you interested enough to look closely at the cover. If the book in question is one written by your favorite author or publisher, the cover won’t really make or break your decision, but if the author is unknown to you, you will scrutinize the cover, and then, if it looks interesting, you’ll read the blurb.

The blurb is what sells a book. The blurb is the reason you buy the book we’re discussing. The blurb is the little description about the book, and it should match up with the title and the cover.

If you stumble across a book entitled: Mars Raiders, and the cover shows a cow munching on green grass, you’re probably going to pass on the blurb, right? If you don’t pass, and you do read the blurb, and the blurb says something along the lines of: Farmer John Batey falls in love with a famed actress. The ravishing beauty, Helen LaMonte, just came to L.A. to make a name for herself, but ran afoul a sexually perverse agent, and she has to do nasty things to land a part in the next, big movie, Mars Raiders; you’re probably going to pass on the book, especially if you were trying to find a new sci fi to read.

Do you see where I’m going? Everything has to match up. Yes, my example is supposed to be ridiculous, but I’m trying to show you what a brand is, how it’s constructed, and why it’s important.

Now, If you see the same title: Mars Raiders, and the cover has a one-eyed, gruff-looking bandit holding a laser rifle, and he’s crouched behind a red boulder while peeking at some smoldering, alien-looking colony in the background, the title and the cover match up, right? Then, if you read the blurb, and it’s something along the lines of: Former Major Cash McManus of Earth Army has been AWOL for nearly ten years. Now, at the edge of Mars colony, he alone fends off an onslaught of slimy, worm-like aliens, but can a single man, even one so brave as McManus, save the human colony from themselves?

It’s much more interesting, right? At this point, you might check the reviews, but we’ll talk about reviews later. The truth is that reviews or no, if you’re looking for this kind of sci fi, you’re very likely to buy the book. I also have to mention that blurbs are generally longer than what I presented, at least for full length novels, and we’ll dive into blurbs a little bit more, but first I want to talk more about the title and cover art.

A catchy title is certainly helpful, and a great cover goes a long way, and these are important concepts to remember before you write your debut novel. You need to think about the titles of your short stories. You need to find a cover artist you like. You also need to make sure that the lettering of your name and title are the right colors, the right font, and there’s really no way to be sure, unfortunately, but you can go look at popular books.

Go look at Harry Potter, also look at previous editions of Harry Potter; publishers often change covers and fonts when they release new editions. Why? Because times change. People change. Tastes change, and they have to keep up. Also, as they sell more and more books by the author, or by different authors of the same genre, or new authors, they see trends in what sells. At this point, look also at the blurbs employed by the hottest selling titles.

Start comparing and contrasting, titles, covers, and blurbs. These three components are the onset of your brand, and without them, no amount of networking and tweeting please look at my book will sell a book, or even result in a free download.

The title, cover, and blurb must work in unison to provide a complete idea, the idea of your story, to your intended audience, and you’ll have to learn about your audience, and what they enjoy, but by writing short stories with proper titles, cool covers, and smashing blurbs, you will learn all of this before releasing your debut novel. It’s a growing process, and a process you must undertake now, before writing your debut novel, or you will have a devil of a time growing your fan base with a book in which no one is interested.

All of my books have a consistency, perhaps a hidden consistency, when it comes to titles, covers, and blurbs, and it’s extremely difficult to outline what that consistency is, but let’s look at these titles; Losing Human, Raising Dead, and Expedition. All three are short stories. Now, let’s look at the covers.

There are some similarities, the fonts aren’t entirely different. All of the titles are both simple and mysterious, and all the covers, while exciting, aren’t overly fancy or flashy. Now, let’s look at the blurbs.

Losing Human: A man has a dream, a vision to see the world through eternal eyes. Dr. Heisler, roboticist, funds Project Human to advance the human race. After funding is diminished, he takes drastic measures and uploads a human awareness into a mobile robotic construct.

Raising Dead: An ancient necromancer seeks but one dream, the power of perfection, the power of immortality. What he finds leaves him speechless. Is he but chasing the wind?

Expedition: King Eidon of Ilteriel learns of a new island, far to the south. He sends an expedition in search of new resources, allies, and power. Jorunhaal, Ilteriel’s greatest warrior, is to lead the expedition. Upon setting foot on the island, one disaster after another occurs. The men battle small were-wolves, fall prey to a foul sickness in the air, and uncover demons….

Each of these short stories are also free. They have been free since I released them, and they have received numerous downloads, but the original blurbs were very different. The original blurbs, in fact, must have been what hindered downloads because the rate of downloads more than tripled after I changed the blurbs to what they are now. I can also tell you that these covers are not the original covers, but I didn’t see much change in reception from the new covers alone; I also had to update the blurbs.

I can tell you for fact, beyond doubt, that blurbs matter, probably more than anything else, with the exception of the story itself, of course.

In the end, the point to consider is that when people come across your work, they start to become acquainted with your brand; your titles, covers, and blurbs, and subsequently, your voice. If everything generates a download, and the reader enjoys the story, the reader is more likely to try another title, and when the reader is satisfied by the quality of most of the titles, the reader is more than willing to purchase your novels, which carry the same brand.

Now, here it is: you are not selling your book. I am not selling my book. Readers, fans, are selling our books. Fans, who are trolling sites for a new read, find something they like, and when they like something, they tell everyone. Why? Because when people find something they enjoy, it’s only natural to want to share that joy with friends and family. People want to belong, and they love to share and discuss similar topics, so fans of fantasy, who like your fantasy stories, will share those fantasy stories with friends and family, and bango; your fans sell your books, which are easily recognizable due to your brand’s consistency. This is the concept on which publishers count; they want fans to sell books. Otherwise, they would be releasing book trailers and commercials to television on a regular basis, but they aren’t, are they?

At this point, I truly wish I was able to tell you exactly how to title your story, and which cover is best for you, and what the perfect blurb should say, but that’s impossible. All of you are going to write different stories. All of you are going to have a different target audience. All of you are going to enjoy different methods, but hey, you haven’t written that debut novel yet, right? So, now is the time to experiment with titles, cover artists, and blurbs, now, while you’re writing and giving away free short stories, or perhaps even before you publish your short stories. Right now, while you’re building your brand, your fan base, and improving the quality of your product, you are selling yourself.

One thing you can do, which has been proven to lead to success is hire different cover artists to make different covers for a single title. Then, you can ask your fellow readers and writers to choose which cover they like. You can present numerous titles, varying blurbs, and ask readers and writers which they prefer for that one story.

Learn now, right now. Don’t get stuck on the idea of writing the perfect novel from start to finish without knowing, understanding, the basics, and what sells. Of course, in the end, since you are only writing short stories, you can always change the titles, covers, and blurbs even after they are published.

I changed the covers on all three of the titles I mentioned above. I changed the blurbs, too. I kept the titles for those particular stories, but I did change the title of another book.

A while back, I was published by a small press; I won’t go in to details at this point. I will say that the title I had chosen was rather poor in hindsight. It was an interesting title, but I hadn’t realized how much other stuff out there was called: Shadowman. After a return of rights, I employed my cover artist—so I changed the cover—changed the blurb, and even changed the title to: Otherside, which is much more fitting.

Now, these are things you can’t really do if you are picked up by a mainstream publisher, but then there’s no need to worry either. They throw all kinds of money into marketing—their brand into which you are signing—and they will help you along the way, but until you’re published by a major publisher, or if you decide against that route, you do have complete control over your content, however, if you release your debut novel today, and a year later you realize things aren’t working out for you, and you change everything, and you end up doing this for everything after you’ve already tried to establish your credibility as a writer, that credibility will vanish, and no one will take you seriously; you’ll be the writer who is always changing everything after publication, and that tells people that you don’t know what you’re doing. You won’t build a loyal fan base by consistently struggling to find your brand after you’ve already released books.

Learn what to do now. Learn what works and what doesn’t now, before you write your first novel. Learn while writing is just a hobby. Don’t wait to learn after trying to become a professional writer. Learn now before you start charging consumers for an actual product. Short stories are so good for this kind of practice, and if you really try to involve readers in the process, I promise; you will build a solid fan base.

In the end, when you do find your brand, the next key concept is the quality of your writing. If you’re just starting out, or if you’ve been writing for a while and other writers give you bangin’ reviews, but for some reason readers always give you bad reviews, it may because you need to hire an editor, or a better editor, and we’ll discuss editing more as we go along, but for now, you can check out my editing services.

Thanks for reading. As always, please share your thoughts.

Questions from Quora regarding editing

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Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

Question 1: Is “I am unlike he” or “I am unlike him” grammatically correct?

Addendum: My teacher says only “I am unlike he” and “They, unlike he are smarter…” as opposed to “I am unlike him” and “They, unlike him are smarter…”. I have always heard people say “I am unlike him”, so which is grammatically correct?

Answer: I am unlike him is correct, but it’s an awkward way to speak. More appropriately, one says: I am not like him, or I am not like he is, or I’m different than he is.

Similarly, one doesn’t normally say: I, unlike he, am smarter. One says: I, unlike him, am smart. I am smarter than he is. I am smarter than him. He is not as smart as me. He is not as smart as I am.

Question 2: Is this correct ” dealing and connecting with others demands some efforts” how can I improve ir[sic]?

Answer: Dealing and connecting with others demands some effort.

Effort is not plural in this case. It doesn’t really need improving, though. You might, nevertheless, try:

Dealing and connecting with others requires effort.

It requires effort to deal and connect with others.

It can be difficult to deal and connect with others.

Question 3: What’s another way of saying “in my opinion”?

Answer: There are numerous ways to “say” the same thing, and this is a great question because many times, what makes or breaks a story, a scene, or a chapter can boil down to the way something is phrased.

In this case, in my opinion, can be rephrased as:

What I think. What I believe. My thoughts are. I have heard. I have been taught. In my experience. It seems to me.

The list is practically endless, but I think you guys see where I’m going.

So that’s three little questions from Quora, and as you can see, editing is really a great deal more than correcting misspelled words, bad grammar, and incorrect punctuation.

Please visit my editing services tab for more information.

Also be sure to read through all my posts if you intend to become a better writer. Thanks, everyone, and stay tuned for more info.

How do writers practice writing?

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Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

Question: How do writers practice writing?

Addendum: I can’t wrap my mind around what this means. When I sit down at my desk to try and ‘practice’ writing I fumble over what that actual looks like. I have a lot of vague impressions on writing in general so it would be great for me to start improving.

Answer: There are numerous ways to practice writing, however, it depends on what specifically you’re trying to improve; scene setting, world building, character interaction?

Are you writing fiction or nonfiction?

Are these private thoughts or entertaining ideas for others?

If I may suggest, visit my Quora blog where I break down how to edit. Knowing the appropriate way to edit work is what actually improves one’s writing ability.

Anyone can jot down a sequential account of events; anyone can describe what something looks like, how it sounds, what takes place, but transforming those thoughts into a story requires editing. This is precisely why mainstream publishers employ their own editors. This is why the best writers have the best editors.

First and foremost, the best way to begin to practice writing is to just write short stories and focus on a single area to improve.

Short stories don’t require in depth world building, management of numerous characters, a great deal of versatile dialogue, or all the nuances, which make novels a work of art, which means you can just focus on a single concept and build your story around it, like an exercise rather than a title you intend to present to an audience.

Obviously, you can present short stories to an audience if that’s your wish, and there are many reasons to do so, but even short stories require editing.

Like anything else, or perhaps, like everything else, writing is best practiced through writing. A writer doesn’t have to keep everything they write. A writer doesn’t have to publish and present everything they write. Some writers spend a ton of time just writing simple thoughts, character descriptions, pieces of dialogue, they way an object looks or sounds; writing is writing, the transfer of a thought or observation from the mind to paper.

Naturally, the more one writes, the more comfortable one becomes, but being comfortable isn’t the same as improving one’s writing ability, so I go back to short stories as well as editing.

A writer, when writing a novel, essentially has to link together numerous, correlated, short stories in a sequential order. Then, the writer must edit, or hire an editor, in order to make certain that each word supports the sentence, each sentence unveils the idea within the paragraph, each paragraph sets the scene, and that overall, something is happening throughout the book, which drives the story forwards.

All in all, it is not a simple task to release a perfect book, and perhaps no amount of practice can prepare a writer for such a task, but hey, that’s why editors exist, and if you can hire a competent editor, one who understand what you need, you should also be ready to work with them and really dissect and understand both the writing process and the reading process.

Please also visit my Editing Services tab.

Do editors have to be better writers than writers?

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Since Quora likes to collapse my answers in an effort to keep me quiet, I’m copying and pasting some of the Quora Q and A’s in which I’ve participated. Here’s a question from Quora.

Question: Do editors have to be better writers than writers.

Answer: First of all, that’s a great question, but the answer is no, editors do not have to be better writers than writers.

It’s important to understand that editing and writing while complementary are two different skill sets.

A writer provides a sequential account of events. An editor transforms that dry account into a story. Generally, one cannot work without the other.

This is precisely the reason that all mainstream, publishing presses employ so many editors, and every editor ends up working with numerous authors. It’s also important to understand that there are different kinds of editors. There are copy editors, who basically proof the story or title to be sure there are no typographical, grammatical, or punctuation errors.

Yes, some errors still go unnoticed. I have never purchased a book from any press that has zero errors. Errors happen.

There are also editors who read the story, searching for the best use of words, proper sentence structure, creativity, character depth, plot holes, consistency, and just about everything readers try to find when they read; these editors are readers, basically, and their job is to help the author make sure they are providing their very best.

I have talked and blogged extensively about editing. You can certainly search this website, and just about every post that isn’t about one of my books is about how to properly edit a manuscript.

I strongly suggest that all writers, and even editors, search this site for hints, tips, and the proper way to edit a manuscript. I also recommend visiting the Editing Services tab.

Finally, I will add that one who possesses both skill sets–writing and editing–can go far. Both skills require a degree of creativity, but a writer has to create characters, a world, interactions, reactions, a plot, a twist; the editor just ensures that all of those concepts are provided in the most succinct, cogent, and entertaining forms.

This is kind of like saying that an artist who can both draw and animate has two, complementary, skill sets. One does not preclude the other, but neither is better than the other. An animator does not have to be a better artist than a penciler or inker. Feel me?

Stories by Dennis

Works by Aaron Dennis

Monthly Archives: January 2017

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