I’m not usually in the habit of posting items that will be invalid after a few days or weeks but this is too good not to let you know about.  Scrivener is offering a discount in honor of NaNoWriMo.  If you know me you also know I’m a huge fan of Scrivener.  I’ve posted about it a number of times in the past.  I just checked and the discount is valid.  Know also that this is in no way a paid advertisement for Scrivener nor do I receive anything from this.  I’m honestly a fan and would love for the good folks at Literature and Latte (the makers of Scrivener) to be around for a long time.  So if the rotten economy is preventing you from buying Scrivener hopefully this little extra off will help ease the pain.

December is almost here (really it is) and with it comes deadlines.  Not just work deadlines but writing competition deadlines.  Two that spring immediately to mind are those that will concern all of poets and short story writers out there.  Travel on over to the Writer’s Digest contest page for more information.  You still have some time to dust off those manuscripts and polish them up for submitting.

If December is too soon and you know you won’t have the time, don’t fret.  There are still many other opportunities out there.  I’ll try to keep you posted as I hear of them.

Well it’s here again.  The National Novel Writing Month begins November 1st.  For 30 days the goal is to write 50,000 words by midnight November 30th.  In honor of this, and for those Mac fans out there, Jason Snell over at Macworld has put together a short list and video review of writing tools to help get you on your way.  As always, my favorite writing tool Scrivener tops the list.  Go Scrivener!  If your a Windows fan (you have my sympathies) don’t let that stop you.  Travel over to NaNoWriMo and get started!

Here it is.  The moment you and your reader have been waiting for.  Your hero is about to pull the covers off his spectacular invention.  A shiny new time machine!  One that can move forward and backward in time as far as the imagination will take him.  He yanks the covers back… and begins to tell you how it works…

“Once the time/space continuum has been distorted or bent to the correct degree, I can then skim across its surface, jumping from wave to wave.  It is all very simple you see.  The rate of tachyon conversion allows me to slip across, at a quantum level, the very barrier presented by the following equations… here let me illustrate on this blackboard…”

Huh?  Can’t he just strap himself in, enter a date, and get on with it?  Well, he could, but the author wasn’t about to let all of those hours studying time travel theory go to waste now was he?  Of course not.  And you’re going to learn about it too.  When this chapter is done, and perhaps a bit of the next, you may just be able to build your own.  If you’re not sleeping that is.

Perhaps Mr. Time Traveler could have forgone the long explanation and simply said.  “I know you might want to know how I created this but does it matter?  It works.  And I’m about to show you doubting Thomas’ out there just how well it does.”

Then perhaps he could shoot back to a simpler time where all he had to worry about was avoiding a hungry dinosaur.

What if I told you your first draft stinks?

“What?!” you scream.  “How dare you….!”

Ok.  Maybe it doesn’t stink but who cares if it does or it doesn’t?  Its very name implies that it isn’t the final product.   It’s your first draft.  Nor is it the only draft.  If it were then it would be called “the Draft”. Being the first one means there will be second.  Perhaps even a third or *gasp* a fourth iteration before you can consider it a job well done.

I have no doubt that there is someone out there who says “Me?  More than one go at it?  I think not.  I’m a writer.  I know what I’m doing.”  Perhaps.  Then again, writing is work. Even the most creative, most talented, and even the laziest writer will admit that to create an articulate piece of work, be it fiction or a thesis on horizontal gene transfer, requires labor.

So forget about perfection.  You have a story to tell and it’s itching to get out.  So tell it.  Put your fingers to the keyboard and hop on for the ride with your arms in the air.  When the ride is over you can collect yourself and revisit the adventure you’ve just had.  That is where the labor comes in.  You can fix the spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and plot inconsistencies, later.

Except for me.  The previous three paragraphs make up my first draft.  I’ll tighten it all up later…

“Publishing is tough business…” it states at RockYour Writing.com.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  But there is help, and it comes in the name of Joe Nassise.  Joe is an international best-selling author whom I have mentioned on this site before.  It seems that Joe has taken the years of experience he has had in the publishing business and put it out there to help both new and established authors succeed.   He is offering a book  Jump Start Your Novel as well as an in depth , subscription based website at Rock Your Writing Career. I’d highly recommend both.

I am contemplating a couple of non-fiction book projects which may require substantial research.  I’m not exactly a subject matter expert on the subjects but I’m about half way there. I have quite a bit of work ahead of me no matter what project I decide to give my attention to.  It’s time to pitch the projects to my strongest critic…

Myself.

So in order to make an informed decision I need to answer a few questions about each project.

Are there other books on the subject? If there is it doesn’t mean my book won’t have a place of its own on the bookshelf.  What can I do that would differentiate my book from the others? What does the existing book (or books) lack that mine can provide?  I ran into this a couple of months ago with another research idea.  I discovered another author had written a similar book a year ago.  In reviewing the earlier work it was obvious that I had nothing to add at the moment. He had nailed the subject. Good thing I asked the question before starting huh?

Why am I qualified to write this book? That’s where the research comes in.  I have a passion for the subject, but that in no means makes me an expert. I need to do my homework first so that I sound like the expert I want to be.

Is there enough material on the subject? In other words – do I have enough “real” material to fill a book. Too often authors make up for their lack of expertise by filling their works with unneeded prose.  My job is to show that I can fill the pages of a book with relevant and meaningful material.

Is there a market for it? This can be tricky and requires its own effort in research.  Who would buy this book?  Is the market big enough for a publisher to take a chance on it? Who are the publishers that would take a chance on it?  You may find that a specialized niche publisher may be your ultimate target.

How does the competition do? For those books that are similar to yours in subject matter, how do they do?  Check out Publisher’s Weekly for insight and market analysis.

If you haven’t noticed already, by answering these questions of yourself before starting your project you will be better positioned to do the same when you pen your proposal to a publisher!

Gone are the days of the simple “he said” or “she said”.  Today’s writers often times feel the need to end their character’s dialogue with a descriptive tag.  While there is nothing inherently wrong in doing so, it does show a certain amount of laziness when taken to the extreme.  ”Laziness!?”.  I can see your eyebrows arched on that one.  You thought ending your dialogue with a simple “she said” was lazy didn’t you?  Nope.

Don’t believe me?

“Rick,” Sarah smiled sweetly.  ”Surely you are kidding?”

“Nope,” he grinned.

“But,” she frowned. “Using ’said’ at the end of every sentence is boring.”

“Not so,” he lectured. “Remember my golden rule ’show instead of tell’?  This falls into it.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Here we go again…”

Now let’s look at my exchange with Sarah in another way.

Sarah lips curled into a smile.  ”Rick.  Surely you are kidding?”

“Nope,” Rick said.  His grin widened.

Sarah’s smile faltered. “But,” she said. “Using ’said’ at the end of every sentence is boring.”

“Not so,” he said. “Remember my golden rule ’show instead of tell’? This falls into it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh,” she said. “Here we go again..”

By replacing your dialogue’s descriptive tags with a simple “he said, she said” you open up the opportunity to show instead of tell.  ”Sarah’s smile faltered” replaced a lazy “she frowned“. And by rolling her eyes she conveyed the same bit of attitude as “she groaned”.

I’m not saying “she groaned” or “he replied” doesn’t have their places in your writing.  They do as long as they don’t take over. You can help shed the stigma that “he said, she said” seems to suffer in dialogue writing these days.  

“It’s not so hard,” Sara said with smile…

It’s time to submit the short story you’ve labored over.  You’ve developed the characters, tightened the action, and created the perfect ending.  You love it and you’re sure your readers will love it.  So it’s time to get it in front of them.  The best way to do that is to have it published.  Time to start submitting to short story publications. That’s the simple part right?  Stick a stamp on it (or attach it to an email), send it out, and eventually it will find its way to print.  Right?

Not so fast grasshopper.  Are you forgetting anything?  Let’s see.  Have you…

1. Read the submission guidelines?  Make sure the magazine is looking for what you are sending them.  Often times they are very explicit in their wants and do-not-wants.  Submission guidelines are akin to the editor’s ten commandments.
2. Used “normal” fonts? Please don’t subject an editors eyes to an entire manuscripts typed in Desdemona.  Times New Roman or Courier are common fonts to use and are much easier on the eyes (not to mention sanity).  And stick to a font size of 12.
3. Checked for Typos and spelling errors? Ouch.  This should be a no-brainer.  Don’t trust spell-checker to find every mistake.  It doesn’t know the difference between “their” or “their”.  And it may accidentally replace “tuck” with a word you won’t be happy with.
4. Included your word count?  It’s a small thing but editors like to know what they are getting into. 
5. Put your name on the manuscript?  You’d think this would go without mentioning but you’d be surprised. And also remember to stick your name/title at the top of every page along with the page number.  Trust me, if they accidentally play “52 card pick-up” with your manuscript and you’ve neglected to number the pages the chances are you will lose.

All in all it boils down to common sense.  Make sure you’ve read the guidelines and follow the simple rules above and submit away.  Let me know how it goes!

I’ve written many prologues.  In classic literature they are abundant so I always thought “why not?”.  They look professional right?

Well….

Put it this way.  Prologue’s are beginning to have a very bad rap in fiction literature.  And this is probably justified. Too many times they are thrown in just for the sake of having one.  And I say this because I am guilty of it myself.  

So why stay away from them?  For one, they are probably unnecessary.  Look at your prologue if you have one.  Does it need to be a separate entity?  Why not include it in the body of your work?  If you’re good, most of the information you provide in a prologue can be scattered throughout your first chapter.  Some literary agents even view prologues as being lazy and distracting.  

But what if you really, really, really want to use one?  You can.  But make sure it satisfies a need.  Not your need but the story’s need.  If your prologue is separate from your story in both space and time it may be okay to swing.  One example of this would be a novel in which a specific event in the distant past caused the story to unfold.  Maybe the unjust execution of an innocent man started a chain of events that lead up to the story you are telling.  You want to show this execution taking place but it really won’t fit in your novel which is set in the present day.  Someone might argue that you can always reference the event in your novel but you feel it needs to be shown.  That might be the perfect candidate for a short prologue.  I stress the word short.  And if you use one then make it exciting.  Remember that you want to interest your reader.  The first sentence counts.  Don’t allow your prologue to simply be an “information dump” that is there to set up your real story.  If that’s the case then scratch it immediately.  Yo want to hit the ground running with your story and so doesn’t your reader.  A prologue is oftentimes seen as a speed bump.

You’re the writer.  If you feel the prologue sets your story up in an interesting way then keep it.  If you’re the least bit unsure then rethink it.  Make it part of the first chapter.  It might be the”zing” that your opening chapter needs.