A poem without a strong title is a missed opportunity. A good title can do a number of things:

* It can act like the first line of the poem and pull the reader in

* It can hook the reader’s interest

* It can add another element to the poem, of symbolism or metaphor, or other layers of meaning

* It can make the reader think, and lead to a re-reading of the poem

Yes, there are plenty of poems without good titles, and plenty of poems with label titles. But if your poem seems to be missing something, try revising the title first. Here are some ways to tackle this:

* Think about what your poem is really about (the theme, or what you really want to say) – if your poem needs a little more, try to write a title that brings in an element of theme. E.g. Billy Collins’s poem Forgetfulness is about much more than forgetting, it’s also about loss at a much deeper level, so the ironic title is pointing out we shouldn’t just dismiss a little forgetfulness.

* Conversely, if you have written about a deep subject with several layers of meaning, anything more than a simple label might be overkill. E.g. the language in Ted Kooser’s poem Dishwater is so full of imagery that we almost need the simple title to help us grasp the poem!

* A title that sets up a poem is doing double duty – can you take out your first line and revise it into a title? In Lucille Clifton’s poem here rests this is how it works.

* Can your title lead your reader into new ideas and set the poem up with an implied question (or even a real question)? Sylvia Plath does this with Lady Lazarus – we know who Lazarus was, rising from the dead, but we don’t know who Lady Lazarus is, so we want to read and find out.

One of the best ways to learn how to write good titles is to gather a few collections and choose poems based solely on their titles (or go to a website such as poets.org), then read each poem and work out how and what the title is adding to the poem. Many years ago I wrote a poem about driving home from Brighton to the other side of Melbourne, where I lived, and titled it Struck By An Urge to Live in Brighton. Even though it’s not a fabulous poem, everyone loves the title (especially Melbournites) and wants to read it. That’s a successful title!

I also wanted to know for my own benefit. I’ve written four verse novels (the fourth, Runaways, is coming out in 2013) but along the way, I’ve often felt I was flying blind. I have on my bookshelves more than a dozen how-to guides on writing for children and young adults, and a lot more on writing poetry. Not one talks about verse novels. Nobody talks about how to write a verse novel! So along with the critical analysis I did for my thesis, I decided I needed to work this out, if only for myself.

What did I come up with? A wishlist that developed from all the reading I did (of verse novels and literary commentary), one that gives me something more tangible to aim for than just “writing a story in poems”.

• Crafted language
• Keen attention to line breaks and stanzas
• Authentic voice and cadence
• Memorable storytelling
• Venturesome creativity
• The promise of more in re-readings
• Lyricism, power and originality

I had to read a lot of bad verse novels first, and then some terrific ones, to work out where the problems lie for writers. One of the most obvious to me is when someone who neither reads poetry nor writes much of it (if at all) decides they want to write a verse novel. I’m not sure why you would do this if you don’t know anything much about poetry. As a teacher, reading mountains of student writing over the past 20 years, I know that this kind of writer will have no understanding of figurative language and imagery, or how to use line breaks and stanzas. These are the basic, vital tools of a poet, and yet I see published verse novels without a single metaphor, let alone good imagery, and line breaks that destroy cadence and music.

An easy test is to type out a page from a verse novel and see how it reads. If it reads like prose, to me it fails as poetry. Line breaks create anticipation, double meanings, pauses, visual and auditory links and echoes. You ignore their power at your peril. Another key element of poetry is the use of white space – it’s where the reader dreams and imagines. If you describe everything, you are writing prose. I probably sound harsh, but I try to apply the same rigour to my own work. How else am I going to grow as a verse novelist unless I do? Of course, you also have to balance the elements of story and character, the challenge of keeping the plot moving forward, and creating an authentic, distinctive voice.

If you want to see what is possible in a verse novel, when a writer uses their poetic skills in “venturesome creativity”, look at Helen Frost’s work. She writes in sestinas and sonnets, and even creates her own forms. Try Diamond Willow, Keesha’s House and Crossing Stones. For a heftier read, try The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf.

As for that how-to guide (e-book) on writing verse novels, yes, it’s on the way. Can’t let all that reading and research go to waste, can I?

If you’d like up-to-date articles and information on writing and publishing, just sign up for my newsletter – top right!

(This article first published on monthofpoetry.)

Over the years, I’ve watched professional ballet classes, had a horse riding lesson, been on an old wooden sailing ship, visited many museums and taken dozens of photographs, as well as travelled to places that have appeared in my stories. Just this week, I had an archery lesson to understand and depict how it feels to use a bow and arrow. All the YouTube videos in the world couldn’t do that for me! and for my verse novel, Runaways, I spent time in Perth and South Australia, taking photos and notes to use in the story.

The internet has made research so much easier, and funnily enough, Wikipedia is even now considered to be a worthwhile starting point! (Except if you are a uni student.) Although most good researchers know to check the references and sources at the bottom of any entry to verify its value.

There are plenty of specialized resources as well. For example, here’s an interview with an FBI agent about gangs and La Cosa Nostra in today’s world: http://www.thebigthrill.org/2012/12/special-to-the-big-thrill-interview-with-fbi-agent-michael-plichta-by-kimberly-howe/

When I was a teenager, I learned an awful lot of British history from reading Mary Renault, Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Catherine Gaskin. I also learned about shipping dynasties and Cornwall mining from Winston Graham. I started reading fantasy based on the Arthurian story when I discovered Mary Stewart, and who wasn’t introduced to dragons via Anne McCaffrey? Of course, my passion for crime writing started early too. I had a teacher at high school who offloaded her old books onto me (thanks forever, Kay) and my early reading included Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain and Raymond Chandler.

These days, we are often expected to read nonfiction if we want “reliable” information, yet I know many fiction writers who research their material just as deeply as nonfiction writers do. William Dietrich (and others) write amazing historical novels about Attilla the Hun.  I’ve  read a “shopping mall” crime novel by Barry Maitland – Silvermeadow. It told me a huge amount about modern shopping centres or malls, how and why they are constructed (leading to demise of the high street shops) and the theory behind them.

Silvermeadow is a fictional shopping centre that could be any huge centre near you. There is quite a bit of information about the Gruen transfer theory, and the following is from Wikipedia:

In shopping mall design, the Gruen transfer refers to the moment when consumers respond to “scripted disorientation” cues in the environment. It is named for Austrian architect Victor Gruen (who disavowed such manipulative techniques) and lately popularized by Douglas Rushkoff.
The consumer’s decision-making consciousness subsides and he or she is more likely to make an impulse purchase because of unconscious influences of lighting, ambient sound and music, spatial choices, visual detail, mirrored and polished surfaces, climate control, and the sequence and order of interior storefronts, etc.
The effect is marked by a slower walking pace and glazed eyes.

Being a crime novel, of course there is a murder and a body found in the rubbish compactor at the back of the centre, but the information in there about how huge shopping centres are designed to be like little cities, with everything planned to lull people into a sense of well-being so that they give in to impulse buying … well, it sure made me think twice about what I do when I go into one! This is the kind of thing that fiction does so well. By creating characters you care about, you also become interested in the information they discover along the way.

As writers, we have to avoid info dumps and shovelling in huge dollops of the factual material we slaved so hard to discover in order to make our stories “real”. But by giving the info through the character, having a character who needs to find out this stuff, it makes the job easier.

(If you found this article useful (it first appeared in my December 12 newsletter), you might like to subscribe and get both the monthly writers’ newsletter and a free ebook – go to the top right and sign up. All email addresses used only for my newsletters, never revealed!)

Don’t be afraid – ask me a question!

Today, it’s your turn. Ask me a question about anything to do with writing, critiquing, editing or publishing!

If it’s straightforward to answer, I’ll compile some questions and answers and put them in a post. If the answer needs a whole blog post, I’ll do that, too. If you don’t want to post in the comments section here, feel free to email me at sherryl (at) ebooks4writers (dot) com.

Join in the discussion!

In other words, every fiction writer uses snippets in different ways. But when you write something that you turn directly into fiction, different rules apply. When I teach life writing classes, we talk about this a lot. “Real life” can hold you back – I’ve heard writers say many times, “but that was how it really happened”. Maybe so, but real life can ruin both plot and character if you hold to them too closely!

However, another issue that isn’t talked about much has arisen via the manuscripts I read. I call it “too much vs too little”. These are the two sides of it:

• Too much is where you feel compelled to write everything – every single moment, every action, every thought, every conversation. It’s as if you can’t step back far enough to make the same kind of judicious selecting that you do when it’s all fiction. The fact that you lived it, in your mind, means it all needs to be there to show the reader exactly what and how and why.
• Too little is where most of it stays in your head, because you already know the story so well that you think it is on the page when actually it isn’t. So you have characters talking in code, or taking great leaps into forward action with no justification, or doing things “just because”. You are unable to work out what bits the reader needs to know to keep the story cohesive in their minds.

Neither of these is unfixable, but both of them will take an immense amount of work and a good, critical reader who doesn’t know you. It will probably also mean you, as the writer, will have to take a long break from the work in order to help you get enough distance to see the issues for yourself.

Is it better to write too much rather than too little? Probably, because it’s easier to cut than to fill in, and if you have an editor working with you, they can’t really tell you what isn’t there! I would suggest if you have either of these problems, try working on a small piece to start with, with feedback from several different readers, and see how you go.

Rather than being an exercise about making you feel bad, this is intended to provide you with an idea that could lead to a powerful story, for what propels characters more than anything but a secret that must be kept at all costs, or a secret that destroys lives when revealed? The novel that always comes to mind when I think about the power of a secret is Atonement by Ian McEwan, but even the Harry Potter novels thrive on secrets and hidden information.

Recently, the Sunday Life magazine (in The Age) published a piece on secrets by Liane Moriarty. It begins:

When I was six, I had a secret. A big one. I remember the superior, impatient feeling it gave me. The way the words quivered at the back of my throat.

She writes about the thrill of knowing and not telling – it was “exhilarating, and also excruciating”. This is the thing with secrets – they have immense power, sometimes of life and death, and can lead to the most disastrous events if revealed. But one of the things Moriarty describes created an immediate response in me: NO! Not in fiction. Talking about being entrusted with a long-held secret, she says, “The words had barely left her mouth before I was dialling the number of a mutual friend. You couldn’t have paid me to keep that secret.”

But in fiction, one of the key things we strive for is tension. A secret so immediately told to another loses its power and tension, and your story would just dribble away to nothing. In fiction, the longer a secret is held, the bigger it grows and the more importance it has to the characters it affects. A great secret permeates every layer of a story, from backstory to dialogue/silence to deep emotions such as guilt, rage and revenge. If you have a secret in your hand, use it wisely in your novel – make the most of it – don’t let it out lightly!

How often have you read something and thought Hold on, that character couldn’t possibly have travelled so far in that time? Or Didn’t this story start on a Tuesday, but now it’s Monday? Or even This house is miles from anywhere so how are they on mains water? Our minds are pretty logical – after all, they have to be to deal with the dozens of everyday chores, details and appointments we endure. So glaring mistakes will get noticed. And if your readers are knowledgeable, specific mistakes (like the wrong kind of gun) will be noticed, too, and destroy your writer’s credibility.

What are some of the logistics you need to keep track of?

• Distance – how far apart places are, what lies in between, how long it will take your characters to travel, either on foot or by any kind of vehicle they use. I once needed to estimate how long it would take a 18^th century sailing ship to sail from Barbados to New York, but I eventually found the information I needed to work it out. Because that leads to our next element…
• Time – how long it takes characters to carry out actions, from driving a car into the desert to dispose of a body to feeding a fractious baby a plate of porridge. Could someone really hand-sew a quilt in a day? Or take apart a car engine and put it back together again? How long does it take to forge a sword?
• Weather – is your setting a place that experiences distinct seasons, and how? Snow? Searing heat? During which months? Do you need to know moon phases to show whether your characters could see by moonlight on a certain night? How will the temperature affect the actions they need to take? Is a summer thunderstorm usual?
• Money and the cost of things – if your characters are not rich, they can’t afford to buy a Humvee for their getaway. If they are very poor, they’re unlikely to eat truffles. You might need to know how much a coffee costs in Paris (and what kinds of coffee are on the menu), or whether you can buy bottled water in Zimbabwe. You might need to know how much it would cost to rent a house in San Francisco in a certain area, or whether you could buy a car for $200 in Mexico. Along with this goes wages – how much would a labourer earn in 1920?
• Dates of inventions – this is more  important in historical novels, but even something set ten years ago will have to be accurate. When were ballpoint pens first used? When did cell phones become commonly used? What did they look like? What kind of car would someone wealthy be driving in Melbourne in 1915? Even today, if your character travels to Kenya or Lima in Peru, will their cell phones still work?
• Tools and weapons – how did people harvest fields of crops in 1665? 1850? 1960? How did they cut down large trees in the 1800s? When did builders start using laser markers and gauges? How do you use an electric jigsaw? For what? For each job or profession your character engages in, do you know the tools they’d use? If you are writing crime or mystery fiction, you need to research guns and get those details correct, if they are part of your story.
• Geography – this is similar to distance but goes a lot further. It’s said that you can set a novel anywhere these days because you can research it (and virtually walk along streets on Google Earth), yet it’s the small details that count. What does that country pub smell like? What brands of beer do they sell on tap? How many lifts would a skyscraper have? Going to which floors? Where are the fire stairs?

Many of these elements tie in with the mechanics I talked about in a previous post, but they take it a step further. These are things that you need to know to “situate” the reader in the story and make them feel as though they are really there. When you read a novel by Michael Connelly, you know he knows Los Angeles inside out. You know when his characters get stuck on a certain freeway, he’s been there, too.

It’s why fantasy writers draw maps. It helps them to get the logistics (especially of distance, time and season/weather) right. If you have trouble keeping track of all of this kind of detail, try creating a “bible” for your novel, the same way that writers of TV series do. It’s so you can constantly keep track of the tiny details and build on them, making your fictional world more and more real. Between this and the maps and diagrams that keep your mechanics working, you can create a solid base from which your characters can do anything, and keep it logical!

Wherever you make a space for your writing, consider these things:

* Being able to really and truly shut the door, and not be interrupted.

* Creating a space that feels right to you, where you can daydream as well as you can write.

* You may want to include a comfy chair for reading. Keeping your reading and writing together helps.

* Thinking about a ritual of some kind to get you started when you go in there. It could be sharpening pencils! Or starting with ten minutes of journalling to clear your mind. Or reading over the pages you wrote yesterday as a “runway” back into your novel.

I also have a dream of a backyard writing room, out among the birds and trees. I love to collect pictures of my favourites, even if I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford one. If you don’t have a writing space, or one that works for you, maybe it’s time to dream and plan and see if you can create what you need? (Hint: just do a search for tiny backyard houses!)

So this is how you do it:

* Find at least one accountability partner. They don’t have to be a writer, although I think this helps. They can choose to do their 30 minutes as walking, or meditation, or practising the piano.

* Exchange email addresses. If you want to do this with a group, then the easiest way is for everyone to create a “group” in their address book and include all email addresses. I would suggest that you keep the group small – no more than 8, just for ease of communication.

* Set a starting day. Count forward 28 days. You might want to mark the Day Numbers on a calendar (it’s easy to forget what day you’re up to if you’re not starting on the 1st).

* Commit to the 28 days, no matter what. You will often write more than 30 minutes, but you must never write less, even if it’s 10 minutes at a time. Be serious about this commitment.

* Every day, when you have done your 30 minutes, email your accountability partner/s. You don’t need to explain. A simple “30 minutes done” is all that is required. It’s the checking in that counts.

* If something disastrous happens, and you miss a day, you can do two lots of 30 the next day. But try not to let this happen more than twice in your 28.

* When you have finished the 28 days, review what happened. Did it work for you? Did you write more than you expected? What benefits came out of it for you, and your writing? What did you learn about yourself?

* Now do it again! If you do three lots of 28 days, you will have created a strong writing habit that will stay with you.