Inspiration for this blog:
The Sometime Bride, written c. 1993, e-published in 2000 by Starlight Writer Publications, soon to be uploaded to Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Sony, Palm, etc.
As I plowed my way through The Sometime Bride, re-editing all 144,763 words of it, I made a mental list of things I now know not to do when writing a book. But the only things I actually changed were places where experience has given me a better insight into sentence structure. For example, making occasional sentences more active. I left all the other horrible beginner’s “mistakes”exactly as they were.
Why?
Because it’s still the best book I ever wrote.
What did I do “wrong”?
I wrote in the style of the books I had been reading for the previous forty years, not in the style dictated by romance how-to books (which I didn’t know existed).
The Sometime Bride is too long.
The heroine is too young.
Bride is too historical - it even offers historical news bulletins!
The hero and heroine are separated for long periods of time.
The hero and heroine have separate adventures.
Just about everybody has a point of view, which inevitably leads to head-hopping.
The hero commits adultery in the first few pages.
The hero takes the heroine to an herbalist for birth control information.
Foreign languages—Portuguese, Spanish & French—are not translated.
The expediency of war kicks romance to the gutter.
It’s still the best book I ever wrote - the true book of my heart.
I’m sure I’ve failed to mention other broken romance rules, but you get the idea. Bride is a long and challenging read. It’s also fun and fascinating, as we watch a young girl become a woman during the course of the Peninsular War. Cover & blurb will be featured on my next blog.
I hope to have The Sometime Bride ready for upload shortly after I get back from an RWA conference in St. Augustine. If I don’t get lost on the Ghost Tour!
Until then, enjoy the lovely month of October.
Showing posts with label writing romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing romance. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Rules for Romance?
SHOULD ROMANCE NOVELS HAVE RULES?
I started re-editing my very first book yesterday, and all the questions and doubts I’ve had about “rules” for romance came crashing back at me. I wrote The Sometime Bride when I knew nothing about rules. When I thought I was the only romance author on the Florida Gulf Coast. Beyond page numbering and double spacing, which I’d learned from typing manuscripts for my mother, a children’s book author, I knew nothing.
And yet, The Sometime Bride is the best book I ever wrote. Where did I learn, besides hearing about writing at my mother’s knee? I learned by reading, which is still the best writer’s primer around. And I learned from the disastrous novels I’d tried to write while my children were young. I simply couldn’t do it. (And I have great admiration for those who manage it!) They were so bad that even my loving mother suggested I might not be cut out to be an author. (And what a glorious moment a number of years later when she said, “You’re better than I ever was.”
And the book that followed, Tarleton’s Wife (with its own set of broken rules), is the second best book I ever wrote. After that . . . after that I began learning the “rules.” Not just by joining RWA, but by the harder lesson of Ballantine telling me they’d be interested in The Sometime Bride if the heroine age wasn’t fourteen. I refused (putting paid to a possibly glorious career), and I refused the same request from an e-publisher more than a decade later. I simply couldn’t do it. My heroine was who she was, a girl of fourteen who grows into a woman of twenty-one over the course of the Peninsular War.
Who published The Sometime Bride? In the early days of e-publishing a newly formed company, Starlight Writer Publications, requested Tarleton’s Wife, evidently after one of the editors read it as a contest judge. They also published Bride, not caring that it was 1) too long; 2) too historical; 3) a bit too literate; that 4) the heroine was fourteen; 5) there were too many POVs; 6) a touch of adultery; 7) head-hopping; and, oh yes, 8) continent hopping. Whatever heinous rule you can name, I broke it.
The Sometime Bride is still the best book I ever wrote. (Talk about the Book of my Heart!) But e-publishers have gone soft now. Who can blame them in this economy? No more chances on novels outside the box. No tolerance for anything but “He said, She said.” Just the romance, ma’am. That’s all we want. Told as simply as possible, but beef up the sex.
Yet the most amazing thing happened recently. A little book, set in the twelfth century, whose only recognition was a nomination for an Eppie, the “Oscar” of the e-book industry, suddenly blossomed when I changed its name and uploaded it to Kindle & Smashwords, being careful to list it under Historical as well as Historical Romance. The Captive Heiress has soared to #1 in two Kindle categories. It trails only The Temporary Earl as the most-downloaded of my nine indie-pubbed books. A true historical with many real characters. Heroine age nine at the beginning. No sex. Wow!
Encouraged by the sales of The Captive Heiress, I began re-editing The Sometime Bride for indie pub. Except I’m scarcely changing a word. It’s historical, it’s Regency, but a classic Regency Historical it’s defintely not. I simply shake my head as I read it and think, “Did I actually write that?” I hope to have it ready for upload as soon as I receive the cover art, promised for October. But it will still be the same book I wrote before I learned the rules, the book that works the way I wrote it. And would be ruined by imposing “rules” on it.
Career-wise, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d gone along with Ballantine’s request so many years ago. Who knows, I might be famous. And wealthy. But The Sometime Bride wouldn’t be the book I wrote way back in the early 90s. Did I cut off my nose to spite my face, as the saying goes? Very likely. And yet as I read it now, I know I was right. This is the way it was in Lisbon, London, and Paris from 1807 to 1815. And I thank indie publishing for giving me the opportunity to once again present Bride in its uncut, unadulterated form.
Your comments on your own experiences with—or opinions of—the “rules of romance” are greatly encouraged.
Grace
My books can be found on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Sony, Palm, and other e-readers. Please look for books by Blair Bancroft.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Writing 101 - the Final Steps
Welcome back to Writing 101. Today, in Self-editing, Part 2, we look at the “hard stuff.” Most of the problems below won’t jump out at you on your first edit. It takes time, tenacity, and an open mind to find them. That’s why there’s more to editing than checking each chapter as you go. How many times do you have to read the darn thing? Hopefully, until you’ve got it right. Most professional authors, I would estimate, average three edits per manuscript.
As for myself, I edit after each chapter. I edit again after every five chapters (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, etc.). And when I've finished the whole book, I go back to the beginning and read from the first word to the last. I’m still keeping an eye out for typos, continuity, etc., but primarily I’m looking for the “hard stuff,” the things mentioned below. And—sigh—if I make a lot of changes on this supposedly final edit (and sometimes that happens), I type in the revisions and go back and read the whole thing again to make sure it still flows smoothly with all the new additions and/or deletions.
Am I sick of it by then? Very likely. But I know I’m turning in the best possible manuscript I can provide without putting it away for a year and editing it again. Which I don’t do, or I’d never submit anything!
Attention: Contest Entrants. If you only have three chapters, you still need to go through all three editing steps: Easy, Harder, Hardest. (Easy & Harder can be found in "I ran Spell Check. I'm done, right?" (Self-Editing, Part 1) For the hardest things to look for, keep reading.
Plot. Have you made your plot clear? Or did you leave too many details in your head, causing the reader confusion about what is going on? This is very common, particularly with newbie writers. Please remember that readers never see a synopsis. Everything you want them to know must be in the pages of the manuscript itself.
Did you drop hints about your plot in the opening chapters? The primary plot line shouldn’t suddenly appear in Chapter 4 with no previous set-up. I have read contest entries where the pages I received (usually Chapters 1-3) seemed to have nothing to do with the plot outlined in the Synopsis. This is a no-no. There should be hints of the main plot from the very first chapter.
Do you have enough plot to carry your story? If you’re writing a simple 50,000-word boy-meets-girl category romance, you don’t need nearly as much plot as you do for a 100,000-word romantic suspense. For a longer book, you need sub-plots, a series of lesser goals, more action (which can range from a party to a high-speed car chase to murder).
Example of possible sub-plot: secondary characters have problems of their own.
Do you have so much plot that you’ve obscured the point of your story? Did you digress into too much history, into a side plot that does not move the story forward, perhaps into scenes that have clever dialogue, but again do not move the story forward. Do you have so many characters that the plot is lost behind a screen of talking heads?
Does your plot make sense, or did you throw a whole bucketful of events onto the pages, figuring something would make sense? Is your ending a downer, not acceptable in romance? Remember what you’re writing. Happily Ever After is a requirement.
Basically, your h/h need a major goal to achieve (not always the same goal). Readers must be able to understand why these goals are important to them (motivation). And there must be conflict that almost makes the goal(s) nearly impossible to reach.
Most importantly, never assume the readers know the story as well as you do. Make your plot clear, with enough hints early on that readers will understand the larger issues facing the hero and heroine.
Conflict. It’s all too easy to assume that bickering between the hero and heroine provides conflict. Not so. Yes, they can have surface conflict if it fits the story, but true conflict is much more serious. The hero and heroine need External conflict that keeps them apart. This is usually from outside forces that are trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do. (I recall one memorable book where the h/h feared to marry because madness ran in the heroine’s family.) External conflict can be as common as family pressure or something as serious as someone is trying to kill them. Whatever the External conflict, it should be strong, not simply banter between the h/h. Internal conflict is also very important. This is the angst suffered by both hero and heroine over some problem. For example, the separate reactions of both hero and heroine to the possibility of having to sacrifice something important so they can be together. In introspection (their private thoughts), they agonize over this problem. Or perhaps the Internal conflict is simply the heroine trying to decide between two men. Just keep in mind that books without true conflict don’t make it into print. Or e-pub.
Characterization. Did you give a physical description of your main characters and your important secondary characters? Did you identify them? (It’s so easy to forget readers don’t know these people the way you do.) Readers want to empathize with the main characters. They want you to get inside the hero’s and heroine’s heads and let them see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. They want to care about these characters. This is hard to do if you don’t give them enough description and background to go on. This can be done in just a few sentences, but when judging contests, I so often find that newbie writers forget that readers don’t know their characters the way they do. They simply don’t give us the information we need to understand and invest ourselves in these characters. It’s all right for the h/h to have flaws, but we need to get the feeling they are truly likable, and in the end they will learn to be better people.
Dialogue. Is your dialogue natural? Do your characters sound like real people? Do they sound like the individual characters you have created? Stilted dialogue stops a story dead. Each character should have his/her way of speaking and stick to that style. And, above all, do not write dialogue for the sake of dialogue or because it’s so much easier to write. Yes, dialogue can add color, but it needs to move the story forward, not wander off on a tangent unconnected with your main storyline. And have you punctuated the tags correctly? (No full sentences as dialogue tags.)
Narration. Have you added description and/or action to your dialogue? See example below from The Courtesan’s Letters by Blair Bancroft, showing the integration of narration into dialogue.
“That was the promise I made.” The Earl of Langley resumed his long strides toward Arbor Cottage.
Lunging forward, Captain Verney planted himself in his brother’s path. “But why?” he demanded.
Around them the woods shimmered in the late afternoon of one of summer’s longest days. Birds still twittered. Small creatures scurried through the underbrush, their passage marked only by a soft rustling of leaves and twigs. Jared Verney raised his pewter eyes to another set so like his own. “I’ve walked this path countless times,” he said. “I liked her. She was kind, generous, always willing to listen. Even after I was grown, I continued to visit. She was the one person who would listen—”
“Listen?” Is that what an old tart is reduced to? Listening?”
“It’s not a bad attribute,” Jared chided softly. “Looking back, I could have wished more of my chère amies had been so gifted.”
“Are your bones so ancient then, brother, that you’ve given up the muslin company?”
“Perhaps.” Jared took time to consider his reply. “I confess I found a certain ennui when looking over the fresh crop at Hetty Jamison’s establishment. As much, I dare say, as you found in the new bevy of maidens at Almack’s. And even if I could afford to stay in town, I could scarce sport the blunt to set up an opera dancer or even a ripe widow. So you may have the right of it. I am getting old.” Jared turned his back and strode off toward Arbor Cottage, leaving Myles to stare after him, wondering how his brotherly teasing had gone awry.
Abby’s feet seemed stuck to the shimmering pastels of the Persian carpet. At least, now that she was alone, she could openly gawk. The room was huge, with two pink marble fireplaces. Floor-to-ceiling windows, arched at the top in Gothic style, lit the far end of the room on three sides where the bedchamber extended beyond the confines of the main structure. The windowed area was set up as a sitting room, with furniture upholstered in cream brocade and accented by throw cushions in rose and palest pink. The occasional tables and chests were decorated with the finest marqueterie. The bed . . . Abby swallowed, felt a quiver of something quite strange flutter her insides. Got the old earl to buy her the best of everything, she did. Oh my, yes. The bed was big enough to accommodate a dozen earls. The tester bed was walnut, at least seven feet long and six across, both canopy and posts elaborately carved. The scalloped valance skirting the wooden canopy was of heavy raw silk embroidered in a crewel design, as was the matching quilt. Rose silk hangings were tied back at each of the four corners by graceful ropes of metallic gold. The room’s remaining furnishings, the chests and wardrobes were chinoiserie. Museum pieces, Abby speculated, each elaborately painted in fantastic designs of a quality only Boston’s most wealthy Brahmins could afford to purchase from the cargos of its world-traveling merchant fleet. She had come these thousands of miles, expecting little but the adventure of it. And because an unknown woman, now deceased, had wished her to. Now came the startling surprise. Obviously, Arbor Cottage was worth far more than she had expected.
The mystery deepened. Who was Miss Clarissa Bivens? Curiosity unglued Abby’s feet. She strode to the wall, pulled the cord on the silk curtain covering what Mrs. Deering had indicated was a painting of her former mistress. Dear God in heaven! Abby closed the curtains faster than she had opened them. She stood, quivering, fighting the good fight with a long array of Puritan and Pilgrim ancestors. Her father might have been born in England, but her mother’s forebears had stepped off the Mayflower itself.
Gingerly, she tugged on the cord, gradually reopening the pink silk curtain. Perhaps on second view it wouldn’t be so . . .
It was.
Style. Did you make the drama dramatic enough, the comedy, funny enough? Did you make the scary parts scary enough? The love scenes as sweet, tender, hot, or erotic enough, according to the sub-genre you’re writing? Or were you rushing when a big moment came and sloughed it off with no more than a couple of sentences?
Did you indulge in what I call Unintentional Mystery? This means that you failed to give readers information they needed to know in order to understand the story. For example, the hero’s or heroine’s background. Or plot information you put in the Synopsis but left out of the manuscript. Are there secondary characters you failed to introduce? (You knew who they were, but the readers haven’t a clue.) Or any other vital information readers need to understand what is going on.
Did you Show, not Tell? (Write an Active story or a Passive one?) If there is one thing that will kill a story fast, it’s writing in “storyteller” mode. You are not the narrator sitting around a campfire telling a story. You are a writer who must get inside her main characters’ heads and let readers see the action from their Point of View. A simple example of Show vs. Tell (Active vs. Passive):
Active: A daunting sight met her eyes.
Passive: The sight which met her eyes was daunting.
Example of Active ("Show") from The Courtesan’s Letters:
Miss Abigail Todd, far from the scrutiny of her pupils in Miss Todd’s Academy for Young Ladies in Boston, peered out the window of the post chaise with unabashed curiosity. Now that the city of London had been left behind, the countryside was remarkably familiar. New England had been aptly named, she decided. Although the fields here were smaller and laid out in a fantasy maze of uneven shapes framed in hedgerows, the overall feel of the land was so similar she might have been traveling the post road from Boston to Providence. There were fewer acres of towering trees in this much older country, she conceded, but that was a boon, surely, for highwaymen could shelter in heavy woods, lying in wait for two lone women traveling the road to Bath.
Enough! A woman of eight and twenty, owner and headmistress of her own school, had long since learned not to ask for trouble. She would leave the conjuring of bogeymen to her wide-eyed thirteen-year-olds.
“I cannot like it,” declared a voice beside Abby for perhaps the twentieth time in the past two days. Mrs. Hannah Greaves, a lady of imposing angular shape that belied a heart as soft as butter, had been pressed into service as Miss Abigail Todd’s companion for the long journey to England. “That man was surely hiding something,” Mrs. Greaves continued her complaint. “And I fear to know what. Here we are, off to some unknown spot in the English countryside, just the two of us—”
“But it’s an adventure,” Abby teased, her usually solemn features dancing into a grin. “With Mr. Smallwood making the arrangements, for all we know we could be headed for Gretna Green or some Gothic castle with dark dungeons—”
“Abigail Todd!” Forgetting her own doubts, the older woman was shocked. “You cannot truly suspect Mr. Smallwood of such ah—treachery.”
Abigail peered out the window of the post chaise. She was surprised to discover England looked so much like the countryside back home in New England. She was grateful, however, that this older country did not have so many woods that might shelter highwaymen. Foolishness, she thought. She was twenty-eight years old, headmistress of her own school. She would not let her imagination run away with her.
“I cannot like it,” Hannah said. “That man was surely hiding something.”
“But it’s an adventure,” Abby teased. “With Mr. Smallwood making the arrangements, we could end up anywhere, perhaps even some dark castle.”
“Surely not!” Hannah was shocked.
This is the last installment of Writing 101, at least for now. I am considering expanding and polishing these articles into book form and would really appreciate your comments. For example:
What did I leave out? (Obviously, a ton of stuff.)
What should I add?
What did I get wrong? If so, please explain.
Were there sections you found unclear? (Don’t forget to say which ones!)
Any other comments that pop into your mind.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by. The Courtesan’s Letters (formerly, The Indifferent Earl) will be available soon on Kindle and Smashwords, and c. a couple of weeks later on Nook, Sony, Palm, etc.
Come on back to Grace’s Mosaic Moments for some lighter fare next time around.
Grace
As for myself, I edit after each chapter. I edit again after every five chapters (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, etc.). And when I've finished the whole book, I go back to the beginning and read from the first word to the last. I’m still keeping an eye out for typos, continuity, etc., but primarily I’m looking for the “hard stuff,” the things mentioned below. And—sigh—if I make a lot of changes on this supposedly final edit (and sometimes that happens), I type in the revisions and go back and read the whole thing again to make sure it still flows smoothly with all the new additions and/or deletions.
Am I sick of it by then? Very likely. But I know I’m turning in the best possible manuscript I can provide without putting it away for a year and editing it again. Which I don’t do, or I’d never submit anything!
Attention: Contest Entrants. If you only have three chapters, you still need to go through all three editing steps: Easy, Harder, Hardest. (Easy & Harder can be found in "I ran Spell Check. I'm done, right?" (Self-Editing, Part 1) For the hardest things to look for, keep reading.
SELF-EDITING - THE HARD STUFF
Plot. Have you made your plot clear? Or did you leave too many details in your head, causing the reader confusion about what is going on? This is very common, particularly with newbie writers. Please remember that readers never see a synopsis. Everything you want them to know must be in the pages of the manuscript itself.
Did you drop hints about your plot in the opening chapters? The primary plot line shouldn’t suddenly appear in Chapter 4 with no previous set-up. I have read contest entries where the pages I received (usually Chapters 1-3) seemed to have nothing to do with the plot outlined in the Synopsis. This is a no-no. There should be hints of the main plot from the very first chapter.
Do you have enough plot to carry your story? If you’re writing a simple 50,000-word boy-meets-girl category romance, you don’t need nearly as much plot as you do for a 100,000-word romantic suspense. For a longer book, you need sub-plots, a series of lesser goals, more action (which can range from a party to a high-speed car chase to murder).
Example of possible sub-plot: secondary characters have problems of their own.
Do you have so much plot that you’ve obscured the point of your story? Did you digress into too much history, into a side plot that does not move the story forward, perhaps into scenes that have clever dialogue, but again do not move the story forward. Do you have so many characters that the plot is lost behind a screen of talking heads?
Does your plot make sense, or did you throw a whole bucketful of events onto the pages, figuring something would make sense? Is your ending a downer, not acceptable in romance? Remember what you’re writing. Happily Ever After is a requirement.
Basically, your h/h need a major goal to achieve (not always the same goal). Readers must be able to understand why these goals are important to them (motivation). And there must be conflict that almost makes the goal(s) nearly impossible to reach.
Most importantly, never assume the readers know the story as well as you do. Make your plot clear, with enough hints early on that readers will understand the larger issues facing the hero and heroine.
Conflict. It’s all too easy to assume that bickering between the hero and heroine provides conflict. Not so. Yes, they can have surface conflict if it fits the story, but true conflict is much more serious. The hero and heroine need External conflict that keeps them apart. This is usually from outside forces that are trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do. (I recall one memorable book where the h/h feared to marry because madness ran in the heroine’s family.) External conflict can be as common as family pressure or something as serious as someone is trying to kill them. Whatever the External conflict, it should be strong, not simply banter between the h/h. Internal conflict is also very important. This is the angst suffered by both hero and heroine over some problem. For example, the separate reactions of both hero and heroine to the possibility of having to sacrifice something important so they can be together. In introspection (their private thoughts), they agonize over this problem. Or perhaps the Internal conflict is simply the heroine trying to decide between two men. Just keep in mind that books without true conflict don’t make it into print. Or e-pub.
Characterization. Did you give a physical description of your main characters and your important secondary characters? Did you identify them? (It’s so easy to forget readers don’t know these people the way you do.) Readers want to empathize with the main characters. They want you to get inside the hero’s and heroine’s heads and let them see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel. They want to care about these characters. This is hard to do if you don’t give them enough description and background to go on. This can be done in just a few sentences, but when judging contests, I so often find that newbie writers forget that readers don’t know their characters the way they do. They simply don’t give us the information we need to understand and invest ourselves in these characters. It’s all right for the h/h to have flaws, but we need to get the feeling they are truly likable, and in the end they will learn to be better people.
Dialogue. Is your dialogue natural? Do your characters sound like real people? Do they sound like the individual characters you have created? Stilted dialogue stops a story dead. Each character should have his/her way of speaking and stick to that style. And, above all, do not write dialogue for the sake of dialogue or because it’s so much easier to write. Yes, dialogue can add color, but it needs to move the story forward, not wander off on a tangent unconnected with your main storyline. And have you punctuated the tags correctly? (No full sentences as dialogue tags.)
Narration. Have you added description and/or action to your dialogue? See example below from The Courtesan’s Letters by Blair Bancroft, showing the integration of narration into dialogue.
“That was the promise I made.” The Earl of Langley resumed his long strides toward Arbor Cottage.
Lunging forward, Captain Verney planted himself in his brother’s path. “But why?” he demanded.
Around them the woods shimmered in the late afternoon of one of summer’s longest days. Birds still twittered. Small creatures scurried through the underbrush, their passage marked only by a soft rustling of leaves and twigs. Jared Verney raised his pewter eyes to another set so like his own. “I’ve walked this path countless times,” he said. “I liked her. She was kind, generous, always willing to listen. Even after I was grown, I continued to visit. She was the one person who would listen—”
“Listen?” Is that what an old tart is reduced to? Listening?”
“It’s not a bad attribute,” Jared chided softly. “Looking back, I could have wished more of my chère amies had been so gifted.”
“Are your bones so ancient then, brother, that you’ve given up the muslin company?”
“Perhaps.” Jared took time to consider his reply. “I confess I found a certain ennui when looking over the fresh crop at Hetty Jamison’s establishment. As much, I dare say, as you found in the new bevy of maidens at Almack’s. And even if I could afford to stay in town, I could scarce sport the blunt to set up an opera dancer or even a ripe widow. So you may have the right of it. I am getting old.” Jared turned his back and strode off toward Arbor Cottage, leaving Myles to stare after him, wondering how his brotherly teasing had gone awry.
***
Have you included the thoughts (introspection) of the person whose viewpoint you’re in? Have you added color to your story by describing settings—locations, landscapes, room furnishings, etc.? Example below from The Courtesan’s Letters, illustrating setting and introspection.Abby’s feet seemed stuck to the shimmering pastels of the Persian carpet. At least, now that she was alone, she could openly gawk. The room was huge, with two pink marble fireplaces. Floor-to-ceiling windows, arched at the top in Gothic style, lit the far end of the room on three sides where the bedchamber extended beyond the confines of the main structure. The windowed area was set up as a sitting room, with furniture upholstered in cream brocade and accented by throw cushions in rose and palest pink. The occasional tables and chests were decorated with the finest marqueterie. The bed . . . Abby swallowed, felt a quiver of something quite strange flutter her insides. Got the old earl to buy her the best of everything, she did. Oh my, yes. The bed was big enough to accommodate a dozen earls. The tester bed was walnut, at least seven feet long and six across, both canopy and posts elaborately carved. The scalloped valance skirting the wooden canopy was of heavy raw silk embroidered in a crewel design, as was the matching quilt. Rose silk hangings were tied back at each of the four corners by graceful ropes of metallic gold. The room’s remaining furnishings, the chests and wardrobes were chinoiserie. Museum pieces, Abby speculated, each elaborately painted in fantastic designs of a quality only Boston’s most wealthy Brahmins could afford to purchase from the cargos of its world-traveling merchant fleet. She had come these thousands of miles, expecting little but the adventure of it. And because an unknown woman, now deceased, had wished her to. Now came the startling surprise. Obviously, Arbor Cottage was worth far more than she had expected.
The mystery deepened. Who was Miss Clarissa Bivens? Curiosity unglued Abby’s feet. She strode to the wall, pulled the cord on the silk curtain covering what Mrs. Deering had indicated was a painting of her former mistress. Dear God in heaven! Abby closed the curtains faster than she had opened them. She stood, quivering, fighting the good fight with a long array of Puritan and Pilgrim ancestors. Her father might have been born in England, but her mother’s forebears had stepped off the Mayflower itself.
Gingerly, she tugged on the cord, gradually reopening the pink silk curtain. Perhaps on second view it wouldn’t be so . . .
It was.
***
Setting. Did you put your characters against a well-described background (location, time, environment)? Or did you have them speaking & thinking against a blank canvas? Readers like to be able to picture scenes in their head. Be sure you give them something to go on. Are we in the city or country? New England or England? The Deep South or South Africa? Is it hot, cold, raining, snowing? Is it the nineteenth century or the twelfth? You’re the author; don’t leave the reader struggling to paint the backdrop for you.Style. Did you make the drama dramatic enough, the comedy, funny enough? Did you make the scary parts scary enough? The love scenes as sweet, tender, hot, or erotic enough, according to the sub-genre you’re writing? Or were you rushing when a big moment came and sloughed it off with no more than a couple of sentences?
Did you indulge in what I call Unintentional Mystery? This means that you failed to give readers information they needed to know in order to understand the story. For example, the hero’s or heroine’s background. Or plot information you put in the Synopsis but left out of the manuscript. Are there secondary characters you failed to introduce? (You knew who they were, but the readers haven’t a clue.) Or any other vital information readers need to understand what is going on.
Did you Show, not Tell? (Write an Active story or a Passive one?) If there is one thing that will kill a story fast, it’s writing in “storyteller” mode. You are not the narrator sitting around a campfire telling a story. You are a writer who must get inside her main characters’ heads and let readers see the action from their Point of View. A simple example of Show vs. Tell (Active vs. Passive):
Active: A daunting sight met her eyes.
Passive: The sight which met her eyes was daunting.
Example of Active ("Show") from The Courtesan’s Letters:
Miss Abigail Todd, far from the scrutiny of her pupils in Miss Todd’s Academy for Young Ladies in Boston, peered out the window of the post chaise with unabashed curiosity. Now that the city of London had been left behind, the countryside was remarkably familiar. New England had been aptly named, she decided. Although the fields here were smaller and laid out in a fantasy maze of uneven shapes framed in hedgerows, the overall feel of the land was so similar she might have been traveling the post road from Boston to Providence. There were fewer acres of towering trees in this much older country, she conceded, but that was a boon, surely, for highwaymen could shelter in heavy woods, lying in wait for two lone women traveling the road to Bath.
Enough! A woman of eight and twenty, owner and headmistress of her own school, had long since learned not to ask for trouble. She would leave the conjuring of bogeymen to her wide-eyed thirteen-year-olds.
“I cannot like it,” declared a voice beside Abby for perhaps the twentieth time in the past two days. Mrs. Hannah Greaves, a lady of imposing angular shape that belied a heart as soft as butter, had been pressed into service as Miss Abigail Todd’s companion for the long journey to England. “That man was surely hiding something,” Mrs. Greaves continued her complaint. “And I fear to know what. Here we are, off to some unknown spot in the English countryside, just the two of us—”
“But it’s an adventure,” Abby teased, her usually solemn features dancing into a grin. “With Mr. Smallwood making the arrangements, for all we know we could be headed for Gretna Green or some Gothic castle with dark dungeons—”
“Abigail Todd!” Forgetting her own doubts, the older woman was shocked. “You cannot truly suspect Mr. Smallwood of such ah—treachery.”
***
Example of Passive - The opening of The Courtesan’s Letters, restructured as an example of “Tell, not Show,” with a dash of “Unintentional Mystery,”and cliché. Note: This is an example of how NOT to write your opening scene.Abigail peered out the window of the post chaise. She was surprised to discover England looked so much like the countryside back home in New England. She was grateful, however, that this older country did not have so many woods that might shelter highwaymen. Foolishness, she thought. She was twenty-eight years old, headmistress of her own school. She would not let her imagination run away with her.
“I cannot like it,” Hannah said. “That man was surely hiding something.”
“But it’s an adventure,” Abby teased. “With Mr. Smallwood making the arrangements, we could end up anywhere, perhaps even some dark castle.”
“Surely not!” Hannah was shocked.
***
Overall Impression. Did you draw your h/h well enough that readers will be intrigued, no matter what they get up to? Did you truly say what you wanted to say, or are the best parts still in your head? Please remember that putting essential details into the Synopsis is not enough. Repeat: A reader never sees the synopsis. Everything you want the reader to know must be in the pages of the manuscript itself.* * ***
This is the last installment of Writing 101, at least for now. I am considering expanding and polishing these articles into book form and would really appreciate your comments. For example:
What did I leave out? (Obviously, a ton of stuff.)
What should I add?
What did I get wrong? If so, please explain.
Were there sections you found unclear? (Don’t forget to say which ones!)
Any other comments that pop into your mind.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by. The Courtesan’s Letters (formerly, The Indifferent Earl) will be available soon on Kindle and Smashwords, and c. a couple of weeks later on Nook, Sony, Palm, etc.
Come on back to Grace’s Mosaic Moments for some lighter fare next time around.
Grace
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts, Part 2
WELCOME to Part 2 of Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts, otherwise known as a short course in punctuation for writers of fiction
If you haven’t read Nuts & Bolts 1 or my blog on manuscript formatting, I hope you’ll take a look before leaving Grace’s Mosaic Moments.
Helpful Books. A quick repeat from Writing - Nuts & Bolts 1:
1. The “publisher’s bible” is The Chicago Manual of Style, a huge, expensive tome that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Punctuation. But it covers every last little detail.
2. The simplest punctuation and grammar book - Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.
3. The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus - an excellent book, although it occasionally assumes everyone uses MS Word!
DASTARDLY DUOS. Any good book on punctuation and grammar will have a great many more examples than the three below, particularly Straus’s Blue Book, but the mistakes below are ones I see so frequently in contest entries that I felt I had to mention them.
1. Its is a possessive pronoun. That means it tells us who or what owns something.
Example: Read this book. Within its covers you’ll find some great advice.
It’s is a contraction of It is. Its only meaning is: It is. If your sentence doesn’t read right if you read it’s as it is, then don’t use it. (Notice the correct possessive use of its without an apostrophe at the beginning of the second sentence.)
2. Who vs. That. This violation of good grammar is truly annoying. If you’re writing a clause about a person, use “who.” If you’re writing about an animal or an inanimate object, use “that.” Very simple, yet writers seem to be depersonalizing humans almost constantly these days.
Repeat: People are “who.” Animals and things are “that.”
Right: Devil take all Scots, particularly those who wanted a bridge where nature never intended a bridge to go.
Wrong: Devil take all Scots, particularly those that wanted a bridge where nature never intended a bridge to go.
3. I/me, he/him & she/her - Correct grammar in these cases has become a losing battle. If you use these pronouns correctly, everyone will think you’re wrong, or else they’ll think you’re being snooty. The choice of right or wrong is up to you.
Example: “It’s me,” instead of the correct: “It’s I.”
Example: The woman was older than her, maybe seventy. Instead of the correct: “than she.”
THE APOSTROPHE.
Check the punctuation books. Rules have not changed, though some contemporary publishers are dropping the extra s in possessives for names.
Example - Correct: Nicholas’s horse
Variation used by some publishers - Nicholas’ horse*
*Since that’s not what we actually say, I am a strong advocate of keeping the extra s. If you have doubts, sound it out. We say: “Nik-o-las-es horse,” not Nik-o-las horse.”
Special Note: Apostrophe in a contraction before a word: Example: ‘Tis, ‘is (for his), etc.
For ordinary submissions to publishers, the apostrophe, as seen above, is okay. You can let a copy editor change it. But if you are formatting for indie publishing, you need to use a closing apostrophe [’], not the opening apostrophe [‘]. To fix this, type two apostrophes, arrow back, Backspace to delete initial apostrophe. The same applies to closing quotes at the end of a dash (see below). Type two quotes, arrow back and delete the first one (giving you a closing quote instead of an opening quote).
Example: ’Tis the scandal of Lower Wyverne, and I’ve no doubt it’s spread over the whole county by now,” Lady Horatia continued, much aggrieved.
THE DASH
Note: there are rules for both Dashes and Ellipses where the Blue Book disagrees with The Chicago Manual of Style, particularly in assuming certain auto functions occur in all word processing programs, when they do not. So it may be necessary to work out your own compromise and allow your publisher’s style sheet to have the final word.
In general, I use an em dash almost exclusively, saving en dashes for occasional “stuttering style” responses. The difference is very easy. An em dash is the width of an “m.” An en dash is the width of an “n.” Em dashes are the ones most frequently seen in romance. In most word processing programs, if you type the old double hyphen you were taught in school, you’ll likely get an auto-switch to an en dash. If you want an em dash, that’s not going to do you much good. You can go into the Symbols menu, or—faster and easier—simply type Alt+0151 on your keypad, and voilà, you’ve got an em dash. For an en dash—if you want someone stumbling over their words and an em dash looks too dramatic, use Alt+0150 (see example below).
Example - Narrative insert in dialogue:
“As you may have noticed”—Jason paused, cleared his throat while cursing the pixies still pounding anvils in his head—“I did not expect you before tomorrow at the earliest.”
Example - at the end of an interrupted sentence:
“It’s not fair, I tell you. It’s just not—”
Example - in place of a colon:
Romance might be stalled, but one thing was now certain—Jeff’s goal stretched far beyond the confines of Ashley’s Choice.
Example - Stumbling speech (en dash)
“He–we–well, ’tis plain to see what’s happening here, Relia. We know you’re in deep mourning, but we–I–want you to know you have friends. You can count on us.”
ELLIPSES.
Ellipses have become a bone of contention in recent years. I use them more than most authors, possibly because of a theater background that makes me want to reproduce lines the way and actor might say them, with those infinitesimal pauses that make them more meaningful.
Academically, ellipses are used to indicate parts of quotes that have been deleted. We can completely ignore that in romance. Forgetaboutit!
How to write an ellipsis: The traditional ellipsis uses three periods with a space before, after, and in between each period. (See examples below.)
In recent years e-publishers and Harlequin have done away with the traditional ellipsis, substituting three periods in a row without any spaces. To my mind, this makes a pause so insignificant that we might as well not use it. Some now use the three periods with a space before and after [ ... ], which at least indicates more of a pause than just three periods [...] My advice: stick to the traditional ellipsis and let your copy editor change it to suit the publisher’s style sheet.
In fiction, particularly in romance, ellipses are used to indicate a slight pause, whether in dialogue or in introspection (what the POV character is thinking).
Example: It would take . . . it would take a Major Charles Tyrone.
Ellipses are also used when a person’s speech or thoughts simply trail away into silence.
Example: If he were Wyverne . . .
Please note the classic ellipsis spacing in the two examples above.
After a pause to blog about the latest resurrection on my backlist, The Harem Bride, I’ll be adding another blog to the Writing 101 series—essentially “Okay, I’ve run Spell Check. Am I Done?”
Thanks for stopping by. Grace, who writes as Blair Bancroft
Currently available on Kindle & Smashwords: Lady Silence, A Gamble on Love, A Season for Love, The Harem Bride. On Kindle: Steeplechase & Tarleton’s Wife
If you haven’t read Nuts & Bolts 1 or my blog on manuscript formatting, I hope you’ll take a look before leaving Grace’s Mosaic Moments.
Helpful Books. A quick repeat from Writing - Nuts & Bolts 1:
1. The “publisher’s bible” is The Chicago Manual of Style, a huge, expensive tome that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Punctuation. But it covers every last little detail.
2. The simplest punctuation and grammar book - Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.
3. The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus - an excellent book, although it occasionally assumes everyone uses MS Word!
DASTARDLY DUOS. Any good book on punctuation and grammar will have a great many more examples than the three below, particularly Straus’s Blue Book, but the mistakes below are ones I see so frequently in contest entries that I felt I had to mention them.
1. Its is a possessive pronoun. That means it tells us who or what owns something.
Example: Read this book. Within its covers you’ll find some great advice.
It’s is a contraction of It is. Its only meaning is: It is. If your sentence doesn’t read right if you read it’s as it is, then don’t use it. (Notice the correct possessive use of its without an apostrophe at the beginning of the second sentence.)
2. Who vs. That. This violation of good grammar is truly annoying. If you’re writing a clause about a person, use “who.” If you’re writing about an animal or an inanimate object, use “that.” Very simple, yet writers seem to be depersonalizing humans almost constantly these days.
Repeat: People are “who.” Animals and things are “that.”
Right: Devil take all Scots, particularly those who wanted a bridge where nature never intended a bridge to go.
Wrong: Devil take all Scots, particularly those that wanted a bridge where nature never intended a bridge to go.
3. I/me, he/him & she/her - Correct grammar in these cases has become a losing battle. If you use these pronouns correctly, everyone will think you’re wrong, or else they’ll think you’re being snooty. The choice of right or wrong is up to you.
Example: “It’s me,” instead of the correct: “It’s I.”
Example: The woman was older than her, maybe seventy. Instead of the correct: “than she.”
THE APOSTROPHE.
Check the punctuation books. Rules have not changed, though some contemporary publishers are dropping the extra s in possessives for names.
Example - Correct: Nicholas’s horse
Variation used by some publishers - Nicholas’ horse*
*Since that’s not what we actually say, I am a strong advocate of keeping the extra s. If you have doubts, sound it out. We say: “Nik-o-las-es horse,” not Nik-o-las horse.”
Special Note: Apostrophe in a contraction before a word: Example: ‘Tis, ‘is (for his), etc.
For ordinary submissions to publishers, the apostrophe, as seen above, is okay. You can let a copy editor change it. But if you are formatting for indie publishing, you need to use a closing apostrophe [’], not the opening apostrophe [‘]. To fix this, type two apostrophes, arrow back, Backspace to delete initial apostrophe. The same applies to closing quotes at the end of a dash (see below). Type two quotes, arrow back and delete the first one (giving you a closing quote instead of an opening quote).
Example: ’Tis the scandal of Lower Wyverne, and I’ve no doubt it’s spread over the whole county by now,” Lady Horatia continued, much aggrieved.
THE DASH
Note: there are rules for both Dashes and Ellipses where the Blue Book disagrees with The Chicago Manual of Style, particularly in assuming certain auto functions occur in all word processing programs, when they do not. So it may be necessary to work out your own compromise and allow your publisher’s style sheet to have the final word.
In general, I use an em dash almost exclusively, saving en dashes for occasional “stuttering style” responses. The difference is very easy. An em dash is the width of an “m.” An en dash is the width of an “n.” Em dashes are the ones most frequently seen in romance. In most word processing programs, if you type the old double hyphen you were taught in school, you’ll likely get an auto-switch to an en dash. If you want an em dash, that’s not going to do you much good. You can go into the Symbols menu, or—faster and easier—simply type Alt+0151 on your keypad, and voilà, you’ve got an em dash. For an en dash—if you want someone stumbling over their words and an em dash looks too dramatic, use Alt+0150 (see example below).
Example - Narrative insert in dialogue:
“As you may have noticed”—Jason paused, cleared his throat while cursing the pixies still pounding anvils in his head—“I did not expect you before tomorrow at the earliest.”
Example - at the end of an interrupted sentence:
“It’s not fair, I tell you. It’s just not—”
Example - in place of a colon:
Romance might be stalled, but one thing was now certain—Jeff’s goal stretched far beyond the confines of Ashley’s Choice.
Example - Stumbling speech (en dash)
“He–we–well, ’tis plain to see what’s happening here, Relia. We know you’re in deep mourning, but we–I–want you to know you have friends. You can count on us.”
ELLIPSES.
Ellipses have become a bone of contention in recent years. I use them more than most authors, possibly because of a theater background that makes me want to reproduce lines the way and actor might say them, with those infinitesimal pauses that make them more meaningful.
Academically, ellipses are used to indicate parts of quotes that have been deleted. We can completely ignore that in romance. Forgetaboutit!
How to write an ellipsis: The traditional ellipsis uses three periods with a space before, after, and in between each period. (See examples below.)
In recent years e-publishers and Harlequin have done away with the traditional ellipsis, substituting three periods in a row without any spaces. To my mind, this makes a pause so insignificant that we might as well not use it. Some now use the three periods with a space before and after [ ... ], which at least indicates more of a pause than just three periods [...] My advice: stick to the traditional ellipsis and let your copy editor change it to suit the publisher’s style sheet.
In fiction, particularly in romance, ellipses are used to indicate a slight pause, whether in dialogue or in introspection (what the POV character is thinking).
Example: It would take . . . it would take a Major Charles Tyrone.
Ellipses are also used when a person’s speech or thoughts simply trail away into silence.
Example: If he were Wyverne . . .
Please note the classic ellipsis spacing in the two examples above.
~ * ~
After a pause to blog about the latest resurrection on my backlist, The Harem Bride, I’ll be adding another blog to the Writing 101 series—essentially “Okay, I’ve run Spell Check. Am I Done?”
Thanks for stopping by. Grace, who writes as Blair Bancroft
Currently available on Kindle & Smashwords: Lady Silence, A Gamble on Love, A Season for Love, The Harem Bride. On Kindle: Steeplechase & Tarleton’s Wife
Monday, May 16, 2011
Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts, Part 1
Welcome to the second in my series, Writing 101. Please note I have added “How to Find the Word Count” to last week’s Writing 101 - Formatting. The subject came up in an exchange with one of my editing clients, and Formatting seemed the best, if slightly off-topic, place to put it.
Helpful Books. Every author should own at least one good book on punctuation and grammar, as the oddest things rear their ugly heads when writing fiction. Not to mention the simpler ones, like compound sentences needing a comma between the clauses!
The following books do not always agree with each other, but they are the best I have found so far. (Other recommendations will be much appreciated.) And certain publishers have veered away from the some of the rules in all three of them! But the fact remains that even if you were an A student in English, questions come up in writing fiction that were never covered in the classroom.
1. The “publisher’s bible” is The Chicago Manual of Style, a huge, expensive tome that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Punctuation. But it covers every last little detail.
2. The simplest punctuation and grammar book, the one you can walk into B&N and buy over the counter, is Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. It’s small, easy to read, and covers most of the rock-bottom basics.
3. I was very enthusiastic about The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus until I found some doubtful advice on dashes and ellipses. But these symbols are on the more esoteric end of punctuation, and it’s quite possible her PC keyboard can do things mine can’t. (Specifics later, under Dashes and Ellipses.) Nonetheless, there are many excellent things in this book, including explanations of words whose meanings continually baffle their users. For example, affect/effect, eminent/imminent, farther/further, etc. She also includes quizzes so you can test yourself.
A Brief Note on Style in Romance. Yes, writing romance has a few conventions you should consider when writing. Though not quite “nuts & bolts,” I ‘m including them here, as newbies should not start a book without being aware of them.
1. Keep paragraphs short. But also keep in mind that one-sentence paragraphs should be used for emphasis only. Do not write page after page of one-sentence paragraphs.
2. Run-on sentences, even when well-punctuated, are frequently confusing to the modern reader, who wants to absorb things fast, fast, fast. In certain sub-genres, such as traditional Regencies, a limited amount of run-on sentences are part of the style, but most readers tend to heave a book at the wall (or hit delete on their e-readers) if a book forces them to keep re-reading previous sentences because they didn’t quite catch it the first time around.
3. Run-on paragraphs, same comment as above, only even more obvious at a glance. It’s quite possible a potential reader will take one look at all those no-white-space pages while browsing the bookstore, or reading a sample on the Net, and never buy the book at all.
4. Repeat from Formatting blog: Avoid academic formatting, such as 3-space indents, block format, or semi-colons. An Author’s Note on your research and/or your other books may be included at the beginning or end of the book, but absolutely, positively, NO footnotes.
More on the “style” aspects of writing romance in a later chapter of Writing 101.
Note: The examples below come from my own books, some from my traditional Regencies, some from my Romantic Suspense novels and a Futuristic.
COLONS AND SEMI-COLONS. As a general rule, avoid them in romance, substituting a period, comma, or dash. If you are writing historicals, you can get away with an occasional semi-colon. Colons in romance, however, are almost non-existent. Primary reason, I presume: both punctuation marks are considered too academic.
Example: Romance might be stalled, but one thing was now certain—Jeff’s goal stretched far beyond the confines of Ashley’s Choice.
PARENTHESES. For some reason, parentheses are also rare in romance. In most cases, parenthetical remarks are set off by dashes.
Example: Eager passengers—insanely eager passengers, Cass thought—thrust their hands high above their heads as the car paused on the brink of the downward plunge, heightening the tension.
DIALOGUE. The best, and most pleasant, way to learn how to punctuate dialogue is to read a lot of books by successful romance authors, forcing yourself to take a good look at the punctuation as you go along. But most dialogue is punctuated like the sample below.
Note: because Blogspot doesn't seem to recognize tabs, I was forced to use an extra space to indicate a new paragraph.
Example:
“You trained at Nav as well as Tac, Kiolani. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.” A hint of animation crossed her piquant face. “Navigation is my primary interest, captain. I spent a great deal of my time in the Archives perfecting my knowledge, not only of this sector but of our whole quadrant. I memorized coordinates for jumpgates that aren’t on Fleet maps, the location of dangerous meteor fields, black holes—” Kass broke off mid-sentence. “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean to babble.”
Tal nodded, thinking fast . . .
General comments on writing dialogue:
1. Start a new paragraph for each person speaking (see above). Try not to start a new paragraph in the middle of a character’s speech. This makes it difficult for a reader to know who is speaking. Exception: sometimes, if the character is talking at length, including moments of introspection, you need to paragraph within the speech just to keep it from looking like “too much black stuff” on the page! (Like those 19th c. classics you had to read in school.) If so, you do NOT CLOSE quotes at the end of the first paragraph, but you do OPEN quotes at the beginning of the next, as long as that person’s speech is continuous.
2. It is better to establish who is talking by some action or description at the beginning of the paragraph than constantly attach the “tags” of said, asked, replied, responded, etc., to every statement.
Example: Tal blew out a breath. “You know I have to take him with us? You understand that?”
3. Warning: Do not use full, stand-alone sentences for dialogue tags.
Wrong: “I knew you must be very brave,” Caroline spoke quietly to Emily’s bent head.
Right: “I knew you must be very brave.” Caroline spoke quietly to Emily’s bent head.
4. Dialogue must sound natural and fit the character who is speaking. (Okay, this isn’t punctuation, but it’s advice that can’t be said too often!)
COMMAS. To explore all the situations where you use commas, I refer you to the three books above. Below, you’ll find samples of the abuses I see the most when judging contest entries.
Compound sentences. If a sentence has two separate clauses (complete sentences that could stand alone by themselves), you need to put a comma before and, but, as (etc.).
Example: They were about to pick up a major client, and she and Michael Dillon would no longer be ships that passed in the night.
Exception: If the two clauses are very short, the comma may be left out.
Example: They had a mission, he needed to remember that.
BUT if a sentence has only one subject and two verbs; i.e., one person doing two different things, leave the comma out.
Example: She threw open the door to the spacious estate room and came to an abrupt halt.
DIRECT ADDRESS. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been seeing a lot of manuscripts lately where only one of the two necessary commas is inserted around the name of the person being addressed. The samples below are correct.
Examples:
“Don’t you know me, Mrs. Jenks?”
“It is you, Caroline, is it not?”
SENTENCE FRAGMENTS. Sentence fragments—those bits lacking a proper subject and verb that your high school English teacher frowned upon—are common in romance. They are used for emphasis; also for keeping run-on sentences from being exactly that. As long as a sentence fragment fits with the full sentence before, there should be no problem.
Example: She could still hear Uncle Malcolm’s mocking words four years ago as he grudgingly granted her three small rooms at the far end of the corridor, overlooking the parking lot and the ugly industrial building next door. An organic foods subsidiary within the confines of Van Dyne Industries’ global food distribution business? Absurd.
Note: The words in green are the full sentence that sets up the fragments. The hot pink sentences are both fragments, even though one is much longer than the other.
Paragraphing for Emphasis (can be a complete sentence or a fragment).
Example:
His head screamed, his body moaned, as he forced himself to turn toward the door, toward the IV drip, the bank of monitors. There was a sign on the back of the door. Big letters. Letters that danced before his eyes. He squinted, focused, discovered they were gibberish. As were the letters on the monitor, the manufacturers’ names on the machines themselves.
If he didn’t feel so damn bad, he’d be scared.
QUOTE MARKS. (Absolute rule: Do not break it!) Single quotation marks are only used inside double quote marks. If you want quotes around a word in a narrative paragraph, use double quotes.
Example: “And then,” Martin told them, “the sailor cried, ‘Ahoy, maties!’”
(See also the expression “rule of thumb” in the paragraph below.)
QUOTATIONS—Quote Marks or Italics? A general “rule of thumb” (something not set in stone) is that if a quotation is longer than three lines, you should use italics instead of quote marks. This may be stretched to include even a very short letter, as with the salutation and signature, you’re almost always going to have more than three lines. Also, for longer quotations in italics, you should indent the margin on either side of the quotation, usually by five spaces.
MORE ON ITALICS. In general, use italics sparingly or they lose their impact. Italics are used for 1) emphasis; 2) direct thoughts; 3) long quotes, and 4) foreign words.
Example 1: “Plush breeches,” he reiterated in accents of loathing, “with rosettes, and a driving coat with buttons the size of butter plates.”
Example 2: Did the hulk’s blue eyes flicker when he learned Hugh was her brother? Probably nothing more than a reflection of the Florida sunshine. Concentrate on the good stuff, Cass. You saved a child, you’re being invited to meet an Arab prince. All part of a day’s work in the life of a WIS agent.
Note: At the beginning of the paragraph above, Cass is thinking in what’s called Introspection. No italics needed. But she switches to talking directly to herself in second person. If you are writing in third person and switch to first or second person, you must use italics.
Example 3 - a long quote - should be indented five spaces on each side.
My dear Abigail, After Mr. James Wetherby, I must grant you a simple task. Jeremy Tomkin, Viscount Granby, lives in Bath, an easy journey. He is a sweet, simple man from whom you have nothing to fear. (I trust James was not a problem, though you must now realize why I insist that Jared accompany you at all times.) Lord Granby and I share a secret, and I wish him to know I will take it to my grave.
Use italics for foreign words. For example, without italics, “ton” is just 2000 pounds.
Example 4: There were those who considered Viscount Frayne a useless fribble, nothing more than the topmost whorl in the tail of the ton’s array of strutting peacocks.”
Apostrophes, Dashes, and Ellipses will be included in Part 2 of Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts.
Come on back, and please pass this blog along to any newbies who could benefit.
Thanks for visiting Grace's Mosaic Moments!
Helpful Books. Every author should own at least one good book on punctuation and grammar, as the oddest things rear their ugly heads when writing fiction. Not to mention the simpler ones, like compound sentences needing a comma between the clauses!
The following books do not always agree with each other, but they are the best I have found so far. (Other recommendations will be much appreciated.) And certain publishers have veered away from the some of the rules in all three of them! But the fact remains that even if you were an A student in English, questions come up in writing fiction that were never covered in the classroom.
1. The “publisher’s bible” is The Chicago Manual of Style, a huge, expensive tome that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Punctuation. But it covers every last little detail.
2. The simplest punctuation and grammar book, the one you can walk into B&N and buy over the counter, is Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. It’s small, easy to read, and covers most of the rock-bottom basics.
3. I was very enthusiastic about The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation by Jane Straus until I found some doubtful advice on dashes and ellipses. But these symbols are on the more esoteric end of punctuation, and it’s quite possible her PC keyboard can do things mine can’t. (Specifics later, under Dashes and Ellipses.) Nonetheless, there are many excellent things in this book, including explanations of words whose meanings continually baffle their users. For example, affect/effect, eminent/imminent, farther/further, etc. She also includes quizzes so you can test yourself.
A Brief Note on Style in Romance. Yes, writing romance has a few conventions you should consider when writing. Though not quite “nuts & bolts,” I ‘m including them here, as newbies should not start a book without being aware of them.
1. Keep paragraphs short. But also keep in mind that one-sentence paragraphs should be used for emphasis only. Do not write page after page of one-sentence paragraphs.
2. Run-on sentences, even when well-punctuated, are frequently confusing to the modern reader, who wants to absorb things fast, fast, fast. In certain sub-genres, such as traditional Regencies, a limited amount of run-on sentences are part of the style, but most readers tend to heave a book at the wall (or hit delete on their e-readers) if a book forces them to keep re-reading previous sentences because they didn’t quite catch it the first time around.
3. Run-on paragraphs, same comment as above, only even more obvious at a glance. It’s quite possible a potential reader will take one look at all those no-white-space pages while browsing the bookstore, or reading a sample on the Net, and never buy the book at all.
4. Repeat from Formatting blog: Avoid academic formatting, such as 3-space indents, block format, or semi-colons. An Author’s Note on your research and/or your other books may be included at the beginning or end of the book, but absolutely, positively, NO footnotes.
More on the “style” aspects of writing romance in a later chapter of Writing 101.
* * *
PUNCTUATION IN ROMANCE
Note: The examples below come from my own books, some from my traditional Regencies, some from my Romantic Suspense novels and a Futuristic.
COLONS AND SEMI-COLONS. As a general rule, avoid them in romance, substituting a period, comma, or dash. If you are writing historicals, you can get away with an occasional semi-colon. Colons in romance, however, are almost non-existent. Primary reason, I presume: both punctuation marks are considered too academic.
Example: Romance might be stalled, but one thing was now certain—Jeff’s goal stretched far beyond the confines of Ashley’s Choice.
PARENTHESES. For some reason, parentheses are also rare in romance. In most cases, parenthetical remarks are set off by dashes.
Example: Eager passengers—insanely eager passengers, Cass thought—thrust their hands high above their heads as the car paused on the brink of the downward plunge, heightening the tension.
DIALOGUE. The best, and most pleasant, way to learn how to punctuate dialogue is to read a lot of books by successful romance authors, forcing yourself to take a good look at the punctuation as you go along. But most dialogue is punctuated like the sample below.
Note: because Blogspot doesn't seem to recognize tabs, I was forced to use an extra space to indicate a new paragraph.
Example:
“You trained at Nav as well as Tac, Kiolani. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.” A hint of animation crossed her piquant face. “Navigation is my primary interest, captain. I spent a great deal of my time in the Archives perfecting my knowledge, not only of this sector but of our whole quadrant. I memorized coordinates for jumpgates that aren’t on Fleet maps, the location of dangerous meteor fields, black holes—” Kass broke off mid-sentence. “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean to babble.”
Tal nodded, thinking fast . . .
General comments on writing dialogue:
1. Start a new paragraph for each person speaking (see above). Try not to start a new paragraph in the middle of a character’s speech. This makes it difficult for a reader to know who is speaking. Exception: sometimes, if the character is talking at length, including moments of introspection, you need to paragraph within the speech just to keep it from looking like “too much black stuff” on the page! (Like those 19th c. classics you had to read in school.) If so, you do NOT CLOSE quotes at the end of the first paragraph, but you do OPEN quotes at the beginning of the next, as long as that person’s speech is continuous.
2. It is better to establish who is talking by some action or description at the beginning of the paragraph than constantly attach the “tags” of said, asked, replied, responded, etc., to every statement.
Example: Tal blew out a breath. “You know I have to take him with us? You understand that?”
3. Warning: Do not use full, stand-alone sentences for dialogue tags.
Wrong: “I knew you must be very brave,” Caroline spoke quietly to Emily’s bent head.
Right: “I knew you must be very brave.” Caroline spoke quietly to Emily’s bent head.
4. Dialogue must sound natural and fit the character who is speaking. (Okay, this isn’t punctuation, but it’s advice that can’t be said too often!)
COMMAS. To explore all the situations where you use commas, I refer you to the three books above. Below, you’ll find samples of the abuses I see the most when judging contest entries.
Compound sentences. If a sentence has two separate clauses (complete sentences that could stand alone by themselves), you need to put a comma before and, but, as (etc.).
Example: They were about to pick up a major client, and she and Michael Dillon would no longer be ships that passed in the night.
Exception: If the two clauses are very short, the comma may be left out.
Example: They had a mission, he needed to remember that.
BUT if a sentence has only one subject and two verbs; i.e., one person doing two different things, leave the comma out.
Example: She threw open the door to the spacious estate room and came to an abrupt halt.
DIRECT ADDRESS. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been seeing a lot of manuscripts lately where only one of the two necessary commas is inserted around the name of the person being addressed. The samples below are correct.
Examples:
“Don’t you know me, Mrs. Jenks?”
“It is you, Caroline, is it not?”
SENTENCE FRAGMENTS. Sentence fragments—those bits lacking a proper subject and verb that your high school English teacher frowned upon—are common in romance. They are used for emphasis; also for keeping run-on sentences from being exactly that. As long as a sentence fragment fits with the full sentence before, there should be no problem.
Example: She could still hear Uncle Malcolm’s mocking words four years ago as he grudgingly granted her three small rooms at the far end of the corridor, overlooking the parking lot and the ugly industrial building next door. An organic foods subsidiary within the confines of Van Dyne Industries’ global food distribution business? Absurd.
Note: The words in green are the full sentence that sets up the fragments. The hot pink sentences are both fragments, even though one is much longer than the other.
Paragraphing for Emphasis (can be a complete sentence or a fragment).
Example:
His head screamed, his body moaned, as he forced himself to turn toward the door, toward the IV drip, the bank of monitors. There was a sign on the back of the door. Big letters. Letters that danced before his eyes. He squinted, focused, discovered they were gibberish. As were the letters on the monitor, the manufacturers’ names on the machines themselves.
If he didn’t feel so damn bad, he’d be scared.
QUOTE MARKS. (Absolute rule: Do not break it!) Single quotation marks are only used inside double quote marks. If you want quotes around a word in a narrative paragraph, use double quotes.
Example: “And then,” Martin told them, “the sailor cried, ‘Ahoy, maties!’”
(See also the expression “rule of thumb” in the paragraph below.)
QUOTATIONS—Quote Marks or Italics? A general “rule of thumb” (something not set in stone) is that if a quotation is longer than three lines, you should use italics instead of quote marks. This may be stretched to include even a very short letter, as with the salutation and signature, you’re almost always going to have more than three lines. Also, for longer quotations in italics, you should indent the margin on either side of the quotation, usually by five spaces.
MORE ON ITALICS. In general, use italics sparingly or they lose their impact. Italics are used for 1) emphasis; 2) direct thoughts; 3) long quotes, and 4) foreign words.
Example 1: “Plush breeches,” he reiterated in accents of loathing, “with rosettes, and a driving coat with buttons the size of butter plates.”
Example 2: Did the hulk’s blue eyes flicker when he learned Hugh was her brother? Probably nothing more than a reflection of the Florida sunshine. Concentrate on the good stuff, Cass. You saved a child, you’re being invited to meet an Arab prince. All part of a day’s work in the life of a WIS agent.
Note: At the beginning of the paragraph above, Cass is thinking in what’s called Introspection. No italics needed. But she switches to talking directly to herself in second person. If you are writing in third person and switch to first or second person, you must use italics.
Example 3 - a long quote - should be indented five spaces on each side.
My dear Abigail, After Mr. James Wetherby, I must grant you a simple task. Jeremy Tomkin, Viscount Granby, lives in Bath, an easy journey. He is a sweet, simple man from whom you have nothing to fear. (I trust James was not a problem, though you must now realize why I insist that Jared accompany you at all times.) Lord Granby and I share a secret, and I wish him to know I will take it to my grave.
Use italics for foreign words. For example, without italics, “ton” is just 2000 pounds.
Example 4: There were those who considered Viscount Frayne a useless fribble, nothing more than the topmost whorl in the tail of the ton’s array of strutting peacocks.”
* * *
Apostrophes, Dashes, and Ellipses will be included in Part 2 of Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts.
Come on back, and please pass this blog along to any newbies who could benefit.
Thanks for visiting Grace's Mosaic Moments!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Writing 101 - Formatting
Over the last fifteen years I have judged somewhere around four hundred contest entries for various chapters of the Romance Writers of America. I like to think I’m rather good at it. Unfortunately, in the past year I’ve noticed an abrupt decline in the presentation of the contest entries. No, I’m absolutely, positively, not one of those judges who believes you have to write in Courier at 25 lines to the page. Frankly, when I was entering contests twenty years ago, I always avoided those that specified anything so narrow. BUT, in order to put your best foot forward, you want to have an editor or agent absorbed in your story, not wincing over grammar, punctuation, spelling, or formatting. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by ignoring these aspects of crafting your manuscript.
Last fall, I encountered the results of an RWA chapter who decided that since most people were submitting to e-publishers, there was no need for formatting at all! (A shocking insult to e-pubs, by the way.) The results were entries with no headers, no page numbers, infinitesimal tab indents or block style, incorrect dialogue punctuation, etc. etc. Below is the article I attached to the score sheets of the entries I judged for that contest. Hopefully, other newbies will find it helpful.
More recently, I encountered a number of manuscripts that seemed to be first drafts - written but not edited by the author, and not proofread for errors the spell-checker can’t catch. My mind boggled. How could anyone who wanted to create a saleable manuscript be so careless? There will be more on editing in later chapters of Writing 101. Today’s blog deals almost exclusively with formatting.
Standard Manuscript Format
Although most print publishers, as well as e-publishers, are now accepting manuscripts via e-mail, it is essential that every author knows how to present a professional appearance. For example, formats used for college papers are not the impression you want to make. For the print market, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you do not present your work in traditional manuscript format. Even for the e-market—unless a publisher has specific guidelines to the contrary—you are still expected to use traditional format. With all the difficulties in getting someone to read your manuscript, don’t take any chances. (Picture a busy editor putting down the phone after a long call and not having a header on the page/screen to remind her what she was reading!) So . . .
Do NOT—repeat DO NOT—scream “Amateur” with the Editor/Agent’s first glance at your manuscript!
The “musts”
1. Set Top margin to .5
2. Set Left, Right & Bottom margins to 1"
3. Manuscript Title - set as Header, Flush Left
4. Set auto page number for Top Right margin
Note: Header & page number are usually set on “suppress” for the opening page.
5. Set line spacing to double (Some e-pubs allow 1.5, check guidelines)
6. Set auto indent to .5 (In both MS Word & Word Perfect - Format/Paragraph/Format)
7. Use Font 12 (or 14, if you prefer). Times New Roman is the new standard, with Courier (a 19th c. century font) finally beginning to fall by the wayside. But any clear font in 12- or 14-point is acceptable.
8. Italics may be used with TNR because they stand out clearly. So if you insist on using Courier, where italics are obscure, the old rules apply: use underline instead.
9. Center each Chapter Title 1/3 down the page. (Distance down can be less if you are submitting solely to e-publishers)
10. Hard Page End at the end of each chapter (Fastest method: Control+Enter)
11. Word Count. Knowing the correct word count of your manuscript is always important. To find the count in M S Word: File - Properties - Statistics. In Word Perfect: File - Properties - Word Count.
Warnings
1. Do not use the word “Page” with the page number
2. Do not center your book’s title on Page 1. The Title will appear in the Header (flush left)
2. Do not center Date & Location - these are set Flush Left & italicized (underlined in Courier)
(Highlight words to be set flush left, Format- Paragraph - Format - 0)
3. Do not fail to put in a Hard Page End at the end of a chapter.
4. EDIT YOUR WORK. (Most successful authors go over their mss 3-5 times before submitting)
5. PROOFREAD! We all make errors Spell Check can’t catch. You want readers to enjoy your work, not spend time puzzling over your mistakes.
Note: many agents require query excerpts to be included in the body of the e-mail. Read instructions carefully. When an attachment is allowed, be sure you send it in the requested format. Word Perfect users, in particular, need to be careful to Save your wpd doc in rtf. MS Word users - if the instructions are, “send in RTF,” then send in RTF, not DOC. It’s a simple switchover when you’re in the SAVE menu.
As someone who has judged close to 400 contest entries in the last fifteen years, I can guarantee that taking the above advice will let you present your manuscript in the best possible light.
Grace Kone, October 2010
May, 2011 - I will be adding more chapters to my series entitled, Writing 101.
Thanks for stopping by - and please come back. Comments and questions are always welcome.
Last fall, I encountered the results of an RWA chapter who decided that since most people were submitting to e-publishers, there was no need for formatting at all! (A shocking insult to e-pubs, by the way.) The results were entries with no headers, no page numbers, infinitesimal tab indents or block style, incorrect dialogue punctuation, etc. etc. Below is the article I attached to the score sheets of the entries I judged for that contest. Hopefully, other newbies will find it helpful.
More recently, I encountered a number of manuscripts that seemed to be first drafts - written but not edited by the author, and not proofread for errors the spell-checker can’t catch. My mind boggled. How could anyone who wanted to create a saleable manuscript be so careless? There will be more on editing in later chapters of Writing 101. Today’s blog deals almost exclusively with formatting.
Standard Manuscript Format
Although most print publishers, as well as e-publishers, are now accepting manuscripts via e-mail, it is essential that every author knows how to present a professional appearance. For example, formats used for college papers are not the impression you want to make. For the print market, you are shooting yourself in the foot if you do not present your work in traditional manuscript format. Even for the e-market—unless a publisher has specific guidelines to the contrary—you are still expected to use traditional format. With all the difficulties in getting someone to read your manuscript, don’t take any chances. (Picture a busy editor putting down the phone after a long call and not having a header on the page/screen to remind her what she was reading!) So . . .
Do NOT—repeat DO NOT—scream “Amateur” with the Editor/Agent’s first glance at your manuscript!
The “musts”
1. Set Top margin to .5
2. Set Left, Right & Bottom margins to 1"
3. Manuscript Title - set as Header, Flush Left
4. Set auto page number for Top Right margin
Note: Header & page number are usually set on “suppress” for the opening page.
5. Set line spacing to double (Some e-pubs allow 1.5, check guidelines)
6. Set auto indent to .5 (In both MS Word & Word Perfect - Format/Paragraph/Format)
7. Use Font 12 (or 14, if you prefer). Times New Roman is the new standard, with Courier (a 19th c. century font) finally beginning to fall by the wayside. But any clear font in 12- or 14-point is acceptable.
8. Italics may be used with TNR because they stand out clearly. So if you insist on using Courier, where italics are obscure, the old rules apply: use underline instead.
9. Center each Chapter Title 1/3 down the page. (Distance down can be less if you are submitting solely to e-publishers)
10. Hard Page End at the end of each chapter (Fastest method: Control+Enter)
11. Word Count. Knowing the correct word count of your manuscript is always important. To find the count in M S Word: File - Properties - Statistics. In Word Perfect: File - Properties - Word Count.
Warnings
1. Do not use the word “Page” with the page number
2. Do not center your book’s title on Page 1. The Title will appear in the Header (flush left)
2. Do not center Date & Location - these are set Flush Left & italicized (underlined in Courier)
(Highlight words to be set flush left, Format- Paragraph - Format - 0)
3. Do not fail to put in a Hard Page End at the end of a chapter.
4. EDIT YOUR WORK. (Most successful authors go over their mss 3-5 times before submitting)
5. PROOFREAD! We all make errors Spell Check can’t catch. You want readers to enjoy your work, not spend time puzzling over your mistakes.
Note: many agents require query excerpts to be included in the body of the e-mail. Read instructions carefully. When an attachment is allowed, be sure you send it in the requested format. Word Perfect users, in particular, need to be careful to Save your wpd doc in rtf. MS Word users - if the instructions are, “send in RTF,” then send in RTF, not DOC. It’s a simple switchover when you’re in the SAVE menu.
As someone who has judged close to 400 contest entries in the last fifteen years, I can guarantee that taking the above advice will let you present your manuscript in the best possible light.
Grace Kone, October 2010
* * *
May, 2011 - I will be adding more chapters to my series entitled, Writing 101.
Thanks for stopping by - and please come back. Comments and questions are always welcome.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Brave New World - Indie Publishing
WELCOME to the Brave New World of Independent Publishing! Below is a nutshell view of what I learned as I formatted and uploaded Lady Silence from my Signet backlist. Hopefully, it will be helpful to other authors who would like to take their backlist out of mothballs. And also help newbies who are asking themselves, "Should I?"
Independent publishing is sweeping through the Internet with the momentum of the seminal changes in the music industry. No sense arguing the pros and cons, because indie publishing is here to stay. It’s not going away.
Do I recommend it for an unpublished, unknown author? Only if you’re going to spend full-time marketing that one book on every media and social network available. (And most of us want to keep writing far too much to get trapped long-term in the whirlpool of marketing.)
But I heartily recommend that published authors with a backlist seriously consider independent publishing. The first book’s a bit of a chore, but as more and more of us take the plunge, there will be a growing list of “experts” willing to pass along their new-found knowledge. Which is what I’m attempting to begin with today’s blog.
Yes, you can offer your backlist to one of several royalty-paying e-publishers. (Been there, done that.) But when I heard how well a friend of mine had done with her backlist on Kindle - way better than my current e-royalties - I thought, “Well, heck, why not try it?” Only time will tell, of course, if I made the right decision. But at the moment it feels good. And my low-priced e-Regencies will, I hope, encourage people to consider buying the higher-priced ones from my e-publisher.
How to take the plunge.
First, be sure you have the rights to your book. If you don't, call your print publisher and the main switchboard will direct you to the correct person for rights reversion. For e-pubs, a simple e-mail will do. And then be patient. For Penguin Putnam, it took perhaps two months. For my e-pub, less than a week.
Re-editing is your decision. You can use your original manuscript, as is, or you can choose to re-read and revise, line by line. I chose the latter. I’ve now ploughed my way through three of my six Signet Regencies, making deletions and additions. The result: hopefully, a more polished book, based on what I’ve learned in the years since I wrote the originals.
To learn the ropes of formatting and uploading your manuscript, Smashwords is the place to begin, because Mark Coker’s Smashwords Style Guide gives detailed instructions on how to format your book to an MS Word doc that is acceptable not only to Smashwords, but to Kindle and Nook (even if their instructions don’t say so). I read the Style Guide on HTML. I e-mailed a Mobi version of it to my Kindle and read it again, taking copious notes. And when I finished all my formatting, I re-read the most pertinent parts for uploading again. Coker covers everything, including how to fill out the form so you can get paid! And once you’ve conquererd Smashwords, Kindle is relatively easy. Amazon’s Kindle mentions only HTML in its instructions, but you can use that same Word doc you formatted for Smashwords (minus the front page) for uploading to Kindle.
Warning Note: Do not copy the Smashwords License Agreement as it is laid out in the Style Guide. Not wanting to make any mistakes, I did exactly that, centering just as Mark Coker laid it out. And ten days later I was told I to revise the front page so that there were no Hard Page Ends within the body copy of the agreement (those page ends necessary to format the agreement exactly as Coker wrote it). Sigh.
Further Warning: There are dire warnings in the Style Guide about translating Word Perfect to MS Word for successful e-formatting. Needless to say, I was worried. For Word Perfect users who would like to know how I did it, please e-mail me at BlairGAK@aol.com.
ISBNs. I made the decision to buy a list of ten ISBNs, even though they are not required by Smashwords or Kindle. They are, however, required by Nook. It’s an expense, but I wanted to give Lady Silence every opportunity for distribution.
Nook’s PubIt will also accept an MS Word doc (according to their Support Center), but I found their instructions far less indie friendly than Smashwords or Kindle. At the moment, I admit, anyone wanting to read LADY SILENCE on Nook needs to download the EPub version at Smashwords. (For which Smashwords offers directions!)
An interesting sidenote: when I questioned PubIt’s requirement that biographical material be sent THREE MONTHS in advance, Support didn’t answer me, but the “three-months” instantly disappeared from the PubIt vendor requirements.)
Moral of this story: Am I still submitting original material to royalty-paying publishers and e-publishers? Absolutely. Will I continue to format my backlist for indie pub? Yes, yes, and yes. As fast as my fingers can format and I can get cover artists to do their thing. And, if all goes well, I may even consider uploading that book New York never quite understood. And the one that had too many points of view for a couple of e-publishers. Books of my heart, but not of the editor’s heart.
Important repeat: If your name is already known in the publishing world (p- or e-pub), your indie offering is more likely to have a decent chance of success. And your less expensive indie backlist may increase the sales of your more expensive works.
Brave New World
It’s all yours, so come join me and the other indie authors who have taken the plunge.
It’s all yours, so come join me and the other indie authors who have taken the plunge.
Thanks for stopping by. Comments are always welcome.
Grace Kone, writing as Blair Bancroft & Daryn Parke
P.S. I also offer editing, copy editing, and Beta reads at Best Foot Forward. For a brochure, e-mail me at editsbyBFF@aol.com
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