I Write Like I Talk

Harry and I participated in an exciting business conference this past weekend. People came from the US and Canada. One man I met talked with me about his writing, and he said, “I write like I talk. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

Well, it’s neither good nor bad. It’s good if you write in your own voice. It’s bad if you write for ear and not the eye.

What do I mean by write for the eye? Listen to people and you’ll hear words said in ways that sound fine. Write those same words down exactly as said, and you’ll see gaps, mixed verb tenses, plural pronouns used with singular antecedents, etc. All of these are writing errors and you don’t want them published under your name.

Why do you think writers groups have someone read the writing out loud while the audience listens? Why do people attend readings by authors? We listen to writing to sample the writing. If the writing falters in beat, in word choice, in emotion, in visualization, chances are the reader will zone away from the writing and momentarily lose connection with it.

This happened to me in a writers group back in the 1980s. The author read aloud, but I lost connection and zoned away. During the oral critique of the writing, someone said, “I wasn’t terribly interested in your story until you mentioned the cook was naked.”

Well, I heard that! “What?” I said. “I didn’t hear anything about a naked cook in the story.”

Laughter.

The point was the author did lose me and almost lost another group member in the reading. That told the author to work some more on the story because readers weren’t engaged. Listening to the writing pointed that out.

It’s okay if you write like you talk, as long as your voice realizes the reader is reading with the eye and sometimes hearing your voice in the ear.

Happy writing!

 

A Question About Style

A couple weeks ago, one of my students asked what I meant by style. That gave me a good reminder that sometimes we just need to get back to basics before we attempt something advanced. (The class subject was about getting published in periodicals, and I asked students to analyze the style of the magazine they were approaching BEFORE they sent the query letter.)

So, what does style mean? Style pertains to how ideas are expressed. In case of periodicals, styles differ greatly across the spectrum. All you have to do is analyze Woman’s World Weekly, then Better Homes and  Garden, then Cosmopolitan. All are women’s magazines, but each has its own style.

Readers are attracted to a book because of the promised content (promised either by title or subtitle at a minimum). Too often, however, readers stop reading because of they don’t like the writer’s style.

What are some red flags that your style risks reader turn-off?

• Passive voice– Too many passive verbs–was, is, are, were, have, had, had, etc., which are all forms of “to be.”
• Sentences are pretty much the same length–If they’re all short, reader feels the staccato rhythm of a machine gun. If they all long or complex, reader has to work to hard to get your meaning. Mix it up!
• Starting every sentence the same way–Take a look at your writing and see how many sentences start with “the.”
• Overuse of cliche or trite phrases–Good writers express themselves in new ways to engage the reader.
• Overuse of favorite words–I edited a book last week and the favorite word was a–hole. Since this was a professional book written by an author showing expertise, I made a comment that not only was the word offensive, it implied a lack of vocabulary. Looking back, I could have been less direct, but at least the author understood and accepted my point.

Every author has his or her own style. I hope you’ll review your writing and tweak your style to keep your reader reading.

Happy writing!

Too Many Words Risk Reader Confusion

Last Friday morning, I had the honor of talking about editing to the Minnesota Chapter of the National Speakers Association. We did an editing exercise I’ve used in my classes for the past fourteen years. The exercise directions were to “cross out every unnecessary word and when you are finished, count the words remaining.”

Then I polled the audience asking for the number of words that remained. The original paragraph had 78 words and poll revealed the number of words remaining ranged from 45 to 5.

As I asked each speaker to read the paragraph he or she edited, it became clear some totally missed the point (main idea) of the paragraph (for they had crossed out the words that pertained to it).

That created a learning opportunity. Even though we love words, we need to be mindful that they can confuse our readers if we use more than we need to make our point.

Some in the audience claimed the answer (which is four words, so one speaker was close) lacked style and embellishment. But my response was the directions were to cross out every unnecesary word in that paragraph.

When you decide embellishment will make your writing more interesting, use it. But that’s another assignment.

I trust you’ll read your own writing with an increased awareness of whether or not any given word is necessary to conveying your point to your reader.  Don’t risk losing your reader. Instead give your reader your best effort. It’s much harder to write tight than to write verbose. Try it and see.

Happy writing!

Are you squandering your writing ability?

I’ve been teaching my “Writing for Fun and Profit” series at two different colleges this fall. As often happens, students take the series to help them decide if they really want to write as much as they think they do.

I’ve been doing this series since 1996 and have watched hundreds of students blossom as they realize they not only want to write, but they want to write in a variety of venues–from short pieces to full-length books.

One of the underlying issues many students bring to class is the discounting of what they have to offer–the squandering of their writing ability. Notice I didn’t say talent (although talent is a nice thing to have). Writing is both art and skill and skills can be learned, given ability.

Writers set high standards regarding what counts as writing–what personal experiences should be drawn upon, what emotions can be shared, and what thoughts deserve deeper exploration.

My response: human experiences should be drawn upon–when your reader can relate to what you’re writing about, you create fans who want to read more from you.

Emotions aren’t good or bad, they just are. It’s the behavior the emotions motivate that determines good from bad. Anger is often thought of as a negative emotion, but it got the founders of MADD to do something positive–work on reducing drunk driving fatalities. Love is often thought of a positive emotion, but when someone’s murdered, among the first people authorities look toward  is those who loved the person–spouse, lover, etc.

Thoughts create possibilites. If no one thought of word processing software, we’d still be creating manuscripts on typewriters. Before dismissing a thought too quickly, give it some time to ruminate,  then consider capturing it in your writing.

My point is don’t squander your writing ability by thinking everything you write has to be profound, world-shattering, or the next literary masterpiece. Write so your readers can relate to your words.  The old saying, “Writers are observers of life,” still holds true. Live your life, observe life around you, and capture what you experience, feel, and think in your writing!

Happy writing!

Advice from a Literary Agent

I was cleaning out old files this week and came across a tip sheet from a literary agent. Some of the tips are so obvious (use quality paper, write a clear letter, enclose SASE–self addressed, stamped envelope), but others are a bit less elementary.

When approaching a literary agent, do:

• Present one project at a time.
• Submit in standard manuscript format (double-spaced, one-inch margins, Times New Roman font, your name and page number on each page).
• Provide your project’s word count.
• List your published works.
• Provide pertinent information about yourself–experience, for example.
• Expect to wait up to 120 days for a response.

When approaching a literary agent, don’t:

• Offer an unprofessional presentation (no typos, spelling or puncutation or grammatical errors please).
• Send your only copy of your proposal.
• Use cliche characters when writing fiction–instead make them memorable.
• Use exclamation points or unusual fonts–let your writing create the excitement instead.
• Claim to be better than best-selling authors.
• Act paranoid that everyone’s out to steal your work.
• Use the opinions of those who love you (family and friends) as confirmation of your work.

Here are some things I’ll add to help you increase your chances of success.

• Follow the conventions of the kind of work you’re proposing (genre fiction is formulatic, so follow the formula).
• Do your research (both fiction and nonfiction writing require research). You also want to research your marketplace and find a literary agent who represents what you write.
• Read as much as you can in your field.
• Realize that publishing is business and if anyone says it’s about fulfilling your dream, run as fast as you can. There’s something not quite right going on.
• Join writers groups. Be mindful that any critiques you get aren’t very helpful unless the one giving them regularly reads the type of writing you do. For example, a critique on a romance isn’t worth much from someone who doesn’t read romances.
• Don’t take rejection personally. Publishing is business and rejection only means that what you’re offering isn’t a good match for what they’re needing.

You might want to print these tips off and keep them handy for future use.

Happy writing!

All Writing Has an Intended Readership

One of the things I keep reminding authors we work with is that the writer is one-on-one with the reader. Our society doesn’t have masses standing at the storefront window reading. Instead, writers are intimately connected to their readers–except readers can’t stop the dialogue to ask questions of the writer.

My header for this post implies everything is written for someone. Those who write private journals may question my point, but even that writing has a readership–the one doing the journaling often goes back and reads his or her own journal entries.

Every Wednesday we get a community newspaper, called The Shopper, and it’s filled with ads. Even that newspaper is written for an intended readership.

So, what about your writing? How much time do you spend thinking about your reader? Who is your intended reader? Male? Female? Young? Middle-age? Senior citizen? Education level? Expert? Novice? Somewhat informed? Professional? Parent? Married? Divorced? Single?

Once you know who you’re writing for, you’ll want to spend some time figuring out the answers to these questions:

• What’s my purpose in writing this work (article, story, book, etc.)?
• What does my reader already know?
• What does my reader want to know?
• What questions might my reader ask me if we were face-to-face?
• How well have I answered these questions in what I wrote?

You may have a different reader every time you write. That’s fine, but you still need to think about your reader for everything you writer. What’s the reader’s attention span? Sophistication level on this topic? Of course, we know no two readers are exact replicates of each other, but your writing will appeal to specific groups, and you’ll want to make sure you write with those groups in mind.

When possible, get another set of eyes, someone you trust to tell you the truth, if your writing accomplishes its purpose in a reader-friendly manner. If your reader has to plow through your purple prose to get to the nugget, you probably need to do some self-editing (see previous post).

Keep your readership in mind and you’ll enjoy your relationship with your readers for a long while to come. We all know people who can’t wait for the next book by (pick a name). Wouldn’t you love to have readers waiting for your next article or book? Get to know your reader well and make it happen.

Happy writing!

Can You Edit Your Own Writing?

One of the most commonly discussed issues in writing is whether or not writers can self-edit their writing.

While I truly believe writers need editors, I also believe writers can improve their writing by learning some self-editing techniques.

Your writing reflects you. You shouldn’t allow an editor to change your voice or your intent. And you should allow an editor to make you look good.

Here are some things to get you started in editing your own writing.

• Be honest about what your writing weaknesses are. If you know you go comma crazy, learn the rules for inserting commas (“because this is where I took a breath” is not a rule). If you know you’ve got spelling issues, use your spell checker but understand spell checkers don’t catch every error, which means you need a dictionary too.
• Put yourself in your reader’s position, then ask if what you wrote is clear to the reader. Ask if what you wrote clearly says what you intended the reader to know.
• Make sure you include only one idea per paragraph. I wrote on topic sentences in an earlier post, so won’t belabor the issue here.
• Look for redundancy. Check to see if you unnecessarily repeated yourself or if you overused a favorite word or phrase.
• Analyze your sentence structure. Do you have some short sentences and some compound sentences? Do you always start with I or The or do you vary how you begin your sentences?
• Look for parallel structure in your sentences. Here’s an example of parallel structure: Jimmy went skiing on Friday, swimming on Saturday, and sailing on Sunday. (All the verbs are “ing” verb.) Here’s an example of a sentence that doesn’t have parallel structure: Jimmy went skiing on Friday, to the beach on Saturday, and he decided to sleep all day Sunday.
• Buy and use a grammar book. Browse your writing reference section of your bookstore and find a grammar book that’s friendly to your preference of looking things up.  Since we’ve become PC (politically correct), we’ve made it harder to write with subject/verb agreement. That is, we use the gender neutral, plural subject (they, for example) with the singular verb. Every grammarian knows that’s incorrect English, but it’s easy, so writers do it anyway. There may be a time when it’s acceptable, but we’re not at that time yet. Better to rewrite the sentence and assure you have subject/verb agreement.

Can you edit your own writing? Yes, you can, but it’s a lot of work. It may be easier to get someone else who loves the language to help you. As always, you have a choice, so make it a good one.

Happy writing!

Midwest Booksellers Trade Show Revelations

Harry and I had our booth, as we always do, at the Midwest Booksellers Trade Show this past weekend. One of our authors signed her books and many booksellers and librarians talked with her about doing an event across the region. Expert Publishing doesn’t charge authors for the booth space, unlike many publishers, and we connected her with people who sell books. She keeps ALL the proceeds from sales. We don’t pretend to pay her royalties on books she’s already paid to publish. The books are hers and she gets to keep all the money when they sell.

While we’ve watched the show get smaller over the past few years, we were surprised to see how very much smaller it was this year.

Most of the major New York publishers weren’t there. Of those who came, some had booths the same modest size as ours. Others had booths half the size they had in years past.

Most notable to me was the absence of perennial exhibitors like Publishers Weekly magazine, Midwest Fiction Writers, and the University of Chicago (publishers of the Chicago Manual of Style, the book industry standard).

Of course, none of the puppy mill Internet presses were represented except Outskirts Press. There was one lady, an author who published with them, sitting there trying to sell her one book all day–it cost her almost $500.00 to be there (booth, association dues, parking,  etc.). I asked her about her experience with Outskirts Press and she said she paid for the book development, then whenever she sold a book, Outskirts paid her $1.00 a book. I said, “So, you’ll have to sell about 500 books to break even for being here today.” She lowered her eyes and shook her head “yes.”

I don’t understand why any author would pay to develop and print their book, then pay again every time a book is sold!

It was good to see so many of our author friends and our publishing colleagues–sort of like an “old home” weekend.  I boldly asked one of my royalty-published authors how sales were going on her children’s picture book and how her royalty publisher was helping in marketing.

“They don’t help at all,” she said. “I had to buy the books from them to show here today. I couldn’t even get a sell sheet from them. ” So I asked about her royalty and she responded, “My royalty is 36 cents a book.”

I read her story as a manuscript about four years ago. It took a year or so to find this publisher, then it took the publisher almost two years to get the book to the marketplace. The author’s willing to market it obviously, but can’t  get a sell sheet from the publisher to help her? Amazing.

I also have a success story to share. I’ve known Monica Ferris since the early 1990s. She wrote eleven royalty-published mysteries (under two other names) and never drew a royalty check (you have to pay back the advance first) before her agent sold Monica’s very successful needlework mystery series. Her latest, Blackwork, is also number thirteen in the series. It comes out in October in time for Halloween, but I got my signed copy Saturday!

Please forgive the long post. It’s important you know what’s going on in the book publishing industry if you want to be part of it. You get to decide how you want to participate–go with a royalty publisher, become a self-published author (which means YOU–Duh, “self”–own the publishing company), try a subsidy puppy mill Internet publisher, or work with an equity publisher. Choose wisely.

Happy writing!

Guide Your Reader with Puncutation: Dash It Anyway

Some writing teachers say dashes indicate sloppy writing. These teachers suggest good writers prefer commas, colons, or parentheses. If you got that message about dashes, dash it anyway.

Of course, I don’t want to you overusing dashes any more than I want to see you overusing exclamation points, but dashes can be very effective if you use them correctly.

Dashes do two things. They summarize (that’s a single dash) and they create a sharp break (that’s a pair of dashes). Commas create breaks too, but the break is softer. Parentheses create breaks too, a little stronger than commas, but not as strong as dashes do.

Your reader knows how dramatic your break is by the punctuation you select.

Here’s an example of dash showing summary. Serious writers do three things–observe, read, and write. (Summarizes what they do.)

Here’s an example of dash as a sharp break. What Jerry thought about his boss–if he thought about him at all–was unflattering. (Sharp break in sentence.)

Now that you know when to use a dash,  give some thought about formatting dashes.

Hyphens are those short lines that join words (two-year-old).

En dashes are the width of the letter n and are used between inclusive numbers (2009-2010).

Em dashes are the width of the letter m and are used between words (see above).

3-em dashes are used in bibliographies for successive works by the same author.  They are also used to show letters are  omitted from the text (example: It was reported that Mrs. O___ and Mr. B___ were seen in a compromising position.)

Notice there are no spaces either before for after the dashes.

The most popular word processing programs allow you to create a shortcut key for the em dash and the en dash. Some are programmed to have two hyphens automatically become an em dash. But it’s up to you to assure there are no spaces around the dashes.

Happy writing!

Guide Your Reader with Punctuation – Colon

It may help if you understand what impact the colon is supposed to have on your reader. Simply put, the colon is supposed to create a sense of anticipation.

Here’s how:

• Use the colon to introduce a list, a summary, a long quotation, or an explanation of what preceded the colon. NOTE: you capitalize the first word after the colon only if that first word begins a complete thought or quotation or if more than one sentence is required to finish the thought.

Some of you may remember Victor Borge, a comedian who put sound to punctuation. He said, “Santa Claus had the right idea: Visit people once a year.” His quote shows how to use a colon and capital.

• Use a colon with “as follows” or “the following.” Example: Every writer needs the following: a good dictionary, a thesaurus, and a grammar book.
• Use a colon with formal salutations (Dear Dr. Hyde:) and in ratios (3:2).
• Use colons in dialogue.

Ellen: I won’t go to that dumb old dance.

Mom: You will go and you will enjoy yourself.

• Use a colon to separate your book’s title from it’s subtitle. Example: Encouraging Your Heart: 15 Ways to See, Hear, and Know God Better.

One error I see too often is using a colon after a verb. Here’s an example of what not do. Things you need for camping are: a tent, lantern, sleeping bag, wood, and matches. Delete the colon.

Remember, the colon is supposed to set your reader up for anticipation. Use it the way it’s intended.

Happy writing!