A Go-to Guide for Writers
Posted on 31. Aug, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Elizabeth Bauman
As an editor and a writer, there are a few online resources that I rely on to answer my questions and give me inspiration. Whether I’m struggling to remember a grammatical anomaly or seeking advice on how to overcome writer’s block, these are the resources I use the most:
Chicago Manual of Style (Online)
The ability to look up quirky citations without reaching for my hardcopy of the CMoS is essential during marathon copy editing sessions.
The Subversive Copy Editor Blog
Written by Carol Saller, a senior manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press, this blog is full of excellent tips and expert observations for writers and editors. Add her to your RSS feed and you’ll learn about language, grammar, and the exciting world of publishing – all with a hefty dose of wit and charm.
Presents “quick and dirty tips for better writing.” Check out her Twitter feed (@GrammarGirl), her podcast, and her book for fantastic advice that will change the way you write for the better.
The NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which occurs every November) host their own web forum which is full of helpful conversations for fiction writers looking to improve their craft. Whenever one of my fiction authors has writers block, I send them to the NaNoWriMo forums for tips and tricks to overcome it.
This Website and Twitter feed (@AdviceToWriters) is bursting with amazing advice and quotes for all sorts of writers. Add them to your RSS and follow them on Twitter: they never fail to inspire.
So, authors, what are your go-to resources?
Write Your Own Best-Selling Business Fable, Part II
Posted on 22. Jul, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Suzanne Murray
Two weeks ago, we offered three of our home-grown tips for writing a best-selling business fable. This week, we’ll continue the topic by bringing you some wisdom from classic fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut. (Think Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five.) In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut shares eight rules for writing fiction. Here are three of our favorite, which can help you continue to craft a business fable worthy of the best-sellers list.
Vonnegut’s Tip #3: “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”
Conflict drives stories. So ask yourself, what is the main problem that drives your fable and how will it ultimately be resolved? No one wants to read a book about a person having a picnic on a clear-skied day. But give your character a challenge to overcome, and you’ve got something to keep your audience’s interest. Add rain, wind or hail—add ants or a swarm of bees—and then your main character has a challenge to beat, while your book’s audience has a reason to read on. Give your characters a conflict to overcome—even if it is finding a glass of water—and readers will have a reason to stay with your story.
Vonnegut’s Tip #2: “Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.”
Great stories have villains and foes, but your fable also needs a leading character that readers can root for. This will give your audience a reason to care and a reason to stay invested in your story. The conflict itself (à la the quest for a glass of water) will provide fodder for your readers to care and root for a character. But the conflict alone will not be enough; the character also needs to be likable in some way. Giving your lead character quirks and idiosyncrasies will make her more realistic and relatable. Your readers aren’t perfect and they don’t want the characters in the books they read to be perfect either. When crafting your business fable, find ways to make your main character likable but realistic.
Vonnegut’s Tip #4: “Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.”
As the fable’s creator, you may have a vision for every detail and every event in the story’s unfolding and back story. The more detail you have about your characters and the events that shape them, the richer your story can become. Yet, readers do not need you to spell out every single detail—only those that matter. Once you have written the first draft of your fable, go back and reread it. Is all of the material you included needed? If a sentence does not reveal something relevant about one of your characters or does not help the drama of the story progress, delete it or revise it so that it does. Readers will stay with your fable—and recommend it to others—if you make every sentence count.
Write Your Own Best-Selling Business Fable
Posted on 30. Jun, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Suzanne Murray
Who Moved My Cheese? Our Iceberg Is Melting. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The classic fable format has been growing as a business-book genre since Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson first popularized the technique more than twenty years ago in their best-selling One-Minute Manager.
But turning your business knowledge into an instructive yet entertaining tale worthy of readers’ time and money takes practice, skill, and effort. Here are three useful tips to get you started.
1. Show, Don’t Tell
While nonfiction business and self-help books regularly tell the reader what to do and how to do it, business fables don’t have that luxury. The goal is to communicate wisdom through real-time action, character dialogue, sensory description, and plot development. So instead of telling the reader that Joe Smith hired Jane Doe for the job, describe how Joe extended his hand to Jane, gave a hearty handshake, and said, “Welcome to the team.” By using physical details and the nuances of how events unfold as symbols to convey meaning, you will be able to avoid directly telling the reader your business wisdom (a somewhat uninspiring prospect when one is hoping for a good read) and instead be able to show the reader through the way in which the story progresses and develops. This can be a far more engaging and entertaining mode of communication.
2. Be Mindful of Time
Many of the successful fables describe a tale that occurs over a relatively short period of time. To help you stay focused and to keep plot development tighter, look for a storyline that plays out over a year, a few months, or even a day. You can carry this principle right down to the level of the chapter as well. Although there will be times when you may want to zip the reader quickly through an event to get to another event or place and time, use such techniques consciously, saving them for well-placed transitions. This will help to ensure that you share the play-by-play advancing action that is happening in a given scene and avoid simply telling the reader what happened (helping with #1 as well).
3. Less Is More
In nonfiction business (or self-help) writing, more tends to be better. After all, you don’t want to simply introduce a concept and then leave the reader hanging. But in fables—as in film—less really is more. Most readers are intelligent and perceptive. Give them a hint, a symbol, a metaphor, or a short burst of powerful dialogue and they will catch your meaning and think you are clever in the process. Wax too philosophical or dwell too long on a particular symbol and the reader may feel like you are beating him or her over the head with the obvious.
Crafting a business fable that both engages and instructs is a delicate process. The trick is to take the reader through the journey of a very good story that “just happens” to convey wisdom in the process.
The Chapter Outline: Part I
Posted on 24. Jun, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Lauren Villagran
You’ve got a great book idea and 300 pages sprawling before you to fill. Now what?
Getting started on a book project can be overwhelming for even the most seasoned author. You can take a key first step to giving structure, form and organization to your book by creating a chapter outline. The outline will eventually serve as a roadmap to guide your writing, keeping you on track over months of work and ensuring your story retains its arc (in memoir or fiction) or your premise reaches its logical conclusion (in nonfiction).
If you dedicate time and energy to a detailed outline, the book will practically write itself. The thoughtful organization that is often the outcome of a well-developed outline is likely to make the book that much more engaging to the reader.
Take Dave Eggers’ What Is the What. This book is a novel – borderline nonfiction, actually, rooted in history – about a Sudanese boy’s 25-year journey through years of war and famine, refugee camps and refuge in the U.S. The saga covers much personal, political and historical ground, much of it unfamiliar to the American reader. While I don’t know if Eggers created an outline, it’s abundantly clear that he gave the book’s organization serious thought before he sat down to write. The story opens with a robbery in the present: the narrator is held hostage in his own home. As the narrator lives through this one terrible day, he recounts his harrowing journey from Africa to America to his captors and everyone he meets as the day progresses. This organization lets Eggers jump around in history without confusing the reader, who is always rooted in the events of a single day in the narrator’s life. And because the narrator is always speaking to some character he encounters on that one day in his life, the storytelling feels natural, even brilliant.
In Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert organizes her memoir first according to country – Italy, India, and Indonesia – then divides the three sections into 36 parts. This is not at all random; the sections add up to 108, the number of beads on a traditional yogi “rosary.” The number is a three digit multiple of three, which is a symbol of supreme balance – exactly what Gilbert was after when she set out on her journey.
So what is the thread that ties your story together? What type of structure best reflects the story you want to tell, or the message you want to convey? Writing stream of consciousness might have worked for Jack Kerouac in On the Road, but for most writers, a firm outline is the best first step.
Comma Usage 101
Posted on 16. Jun, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Emily Hadorn
Using punctuation correctly is important if you want your writing to appear professional and your readers to understand what you are trying to express. Of all the punctuation marks in the English language, the comma is perhaps the most troublesome. Omitting a comma when one is needed might completely change the meaning of a sentence, while using too many commas can be jarring and throw off the rhythm of your writing.
Many writers find themselves unsure of when to use this mark, but there are only a few rules to abide by. Consider the following scenarios that often trip up even the experienced writer.
Writing a list
Most people have little trouble remembering to separate items in a list with commas. For example:
The ribbons were green, orange, and fuchsia.
The difficulty arises with that final comma before “fuchsia.” Known as the Oxford comma or the serial comma, it is more common in the United States than in the United Kingdom. So when should you use it?
If you were to ask Strunk and White, they would say the serial comma is always correct except in company names without it. In addition, MLA prefers the serial comma, but APA and AP Style do not.
It is up to you to decide if you like the serial comma. If you are writing to a prescribed style, you don’t have a choice. Otherwise, whether you choose to use the serial comma or not, try to keep it consistent across the entire document.
Additionally, there is a time when you must use the serial comma. This is when one of the items in the list has an additional “and” in it—so, there is more than one “and” in the list. For example,
Beth bought salami, ham and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
If you remove the final comma—the serial comma—it becomes unclear what exactly Beth bought. Is it a ham and cheese and peanut butter sandwich? Or did someone put cheese on the PB&J? This is an example of a case where whether or not you include the serial comma matters a great deal.
Joining together two full sentences
If you are joining two sentences, you must be sure to also use a conjunction with the comma. Think of the comma as half of a period, and the conjunction as the other half. They work together to fully separate the two thoughts. If you only use the comma, you have a comma splice. Be careful here; the comma and the conjunction are not always together. Here are some examples of comma-conjunction coordination:
Judy went to work yesterday, but John went back to sleep.
When Judy went to work yesterday, John went back to sleep.
Judy went to work yesterday, while John went back to sleep.
Judy went to work yesterday, so John went back to sleep.
After Judy went to work yesterday, John went back to sleep.
Because John went back to sleep, Judy went to work yesterday.
BUT
Judy went to work yesterday because John went back to sleep.
This last one is a bit tricky. When the “because” statement goes after the “effect” statement, there is no comma.
Including “extra” information in the sentence
Read your sentence out loud several times. Try to strip it down. Could you take out some of the words? Do you, perhaps, have a clause or introductory word that is nonessential to the sentence? If so, it needs commas around it. This rule applies to a variety of comma usages, including introductory phrases (After lunch, Sam went…), interjections (Oh, this pasta is delicious), nonrestrictive clauses (my mother, who likes to knit, …), and nonrestrictive appositives (my friend, John, …).
The comma hugs the nonessential extra information, keeping it separate from the rest of the sentence while not completely shutting it out. Some people put parentheses around such statements (like this), but this is generally not correct. Parentheses are often skipped over by a reader’s eye, and if you have something to say, say it—don’t hide it. If commas hug words, then parentheses wrap them up completely. Don’t be afraid of showing your sentences in all their glory! Use commas instead.
Don’t always listen to the grammar police!
Finally, when writing a piece of work without a mandatory style (e.g., MLA, APA, AP Style), use the comma when it makes sense and feels most natural. You should always have a good reason for why you’re using the comma in a certain place, but you shouldn’t let a grammar rule hold you back from creating a truly great sentence. Follow the rules outlined above to a point, but in the end, does the rhythm of the sentence work better with an extra comma? Then stick it in there. It’s your writing!
If you find yourself needing additional help, there are some great websites online to go to with your grammar questions (my favorite is Grammar Girl).
RKXV9QP8N9RC
Show, Don’t Tell
Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Lauren Villagran
In a story called “German Inn-Keepers,” published in The Toronto Daily Star in 1922, Ernest Hemingway gives a traveler’s account of hunting for lodging in the Black Forest. Tired and hungry, he and a friend happen upon an isolated inn in the forest and find the owners at a table eating soup. A few lines of the desperate dialogue that ensued:
“Please can we get two double rooms?” Bill asked.
The proprietor’s wife started to answer and the proprietor glared at her while onion soup dribbled through his mustache.
“You can’t get any rooms here today or tomorrow or any other time, Auslaenders,” he snarled.
“Herr Trinckler in Triberg recommended us to come here for the fishing,” Bill said trying to mollify him.
“Trinckler?” His lower lip reached up and swept a ration of onion soup out of his mustache. “Trinckler, eh? Trinckler is not the man who runs this place.” He went back to the soup.
As a journalist, Hemingway was a master of “show, don’t tell” writing. At no point in the excerpt above does he tell us that the proprietor was a crotchety type, a curmudgeon; angry, stubborn or overbearing. And yet we know it. We get it all from a seemingly simple description of this guy’s relationship with his soup. Hemingway shows us the action, and as a result reveals his scene through such careful detail that we, the readers, feel as though we were right there in the room.
But that soup scene isn’t as simple as it looks. Let’s focus on one point in particular: the action. Hemingway chooses powerful verbs—glare, dribbled, snarled, swept—that say more than a handful of adjectives might convey. That’s an important lesson for all writers.
When writing—whether it’s fiction or nonfiction—rather than tell your readers how a character felt or appeared (e.g. “Andrea seemed stunned at the news”), show your readers and let them draw the conclusion on their own (e.g. “Andrea blinked once, slowly, and the tumbler of bourbon wobbled in her hand.”) Writing by “show, don’t tell” will always enhance your storytelling, give your reader a nut to crunch on and keep them reaching for more.
Fantastic First Lines
Posted on 27. May, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Lauren Villagran
I won’t judge a book by its cover, but I will by its first line. I’ve developed a habit. Open the book jacket, flip to the first chapter. If the first line is magical—if it transports, inspires or even just suprises—I’ll almost always buy the book. Or add it to my ever-growing “to read” list. Just like that. One line. A pocketful of words.
The first line of your book is crucial. Whether it’s a novel, a memoir or a business book, the first line will either hook your readers or turn them off. The first line can set the tone for the whole book and put readers in the right state of emotion or frame of mind. Truly great first lines don’t fade from memory when the last page is turned. Truly great first lines will call a reader back for a second or third turn with the book.
The best ones share similar grammatical and literary traits. They are often short and uncomplicated; use a strong subject-verb construction and rely on compelling imagery. Sometimes they use alliteration or other word play. Oftentimes they break rules. Below are some of my personal favorites and good examples of the above characteristics. I’ve listed some classics but have included—so as not to intimidate us working stiffs—some modern examples, too, including journalist and business books.
Take care with your first line. If a sentence gets a hold on you it will grip your readers as well.
A selection of 9 fantastic first lines:
1) The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and from all the rest of the world. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
2) Six years after the fact, Dr. Paul Edward Farmer reminded me, “We met because of a beheading, of all things.” Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
3) Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. Vladmir Nabokov, Lolita
4) Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
5) I have no reason not to answer the door so I answer the door. Dave Eggers, What Is the What
6) The first thing they do is attach electrodes to my fingers to see how much I sweat. Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
7) Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poinsonwood Bible
8) It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. George Orwell, 1984
9) You better not never tell nobody but God. Alice Walker, The Color Purple
How to Catch the Eye of a Publisher: All in a Day’s Query Letter
Posted on 25. May, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, Book Marketing, Business Writing, Getting Published, The Writing Coach
Suzanne Murray
You’ve got a great idea for a book. In fact, people have been telling you to write it for years. But you don’t want to write a full-length manuscript unless you’ve got a publisher, and you’re not sure where to start in finding one.
How do people get book contracts anyway? And how will you convince a publisher that your book is worth taking the risk? It’s the million-dollar question anyone with a book idea faces: how do you catch the attention of a publisher (or agent)?
If writing a book is a journey and the first step begins with an idea, the second step—for those who hope to secure a traditional publisher—is to write a short pitch to showcase the book to target publishers. It’s called the query letter.
A good query letter will typically have the following key components:
- explanation of the problem that the book solves or the need that the book fills
- insight into why you are the best person to write this book
- explanation as to why you’ve chosen to contact this particular publisher
First, why this particular book and why now? Aside from the entertainment value of some genres, such as fiction, memoir, and history, people tend to buy books because they address a need. A single parent wants advice on how to raise a teenage son, a baby boomer looking for a second career needs help figuring out her field of interest, or an individual recently diagnosed with diabetes wants to learn more about managing his condition. Every good query letter mentions the intended audience with a tease of information that shows a need for this particular book in the marketplace.
Second, why should the publisher select you to write the book? A good book idea alone is not enough to win a publisher’s attention. It needs to be clear that the person writing it can not only “deliver the goods” but promote them upon publication. The onus is on you to demonstrate why you are the best person to author that book. Are you an expert on parenting? Have you spent years as a career counselor working with job hunters? Have you discovered secret tips and tricks to managing your own diabetes? You don’t have to be the world’s preeminent expert on your book topic, but you do need to show why you have the credibility to write the book.
Third, why have you decided to reach out to this particular publisher? Although this is the least important of the three components, it helps to personalize a query letter to the particular publisher you are targeting. Publishers see it as a good sign that you’ve done your homework and they appreciate you putting in the effort to make sure you send the query to them only if there is potential for a good “marriage” between book idea and publisher. Publishers receive countless query letters each month; help them see right away why it is that your book idea fits well with their typical catalog.
A good query letter piques the publisher’s interest because it promises a book manuscript that is relevant, saleable, and engaging. A good query letter also conveys that the author has the kind of expertise and enthusiasm needed to move the book off the shelf and into people’s studies and living rooms. The author’s bio and “platform” help to catch the eye of a publisher as much as the book idea itself.
Beware the Red Pen: Seeing Your Edited Document for the First Time
Posted on 18. May, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Suzanne Murray
Your computer lets out a beep or a ping. You’ve got mail.
As you scan your inbox, you’re excited to see that the editor you hired has gotten back to you with that piece you sent for review and revision. Then you open the document, and everything changes. Send it back! Cancel the contract! You wanted help, but not that much help!
Opening an edited document for the first time can be a bit, well, overwhelming. Even though you knew your piece needed some work, seeing all those tracked changes and red comment bubbles in the margins can be off-putting. You may be wondering, “Is my writing really that bad? Or is this normal?”
Rest assured, a heavily marked up document is a normal part of the editing process and not necessarily related to writing quality. Even the best of writers benefit from editing.
If you find yourself feeling a little overwhelmed by the editing process, here are some tips to consider.
Make Your Document Pretty Again
The editor will have tracked changes so you can see which parts have been revised and how. But the tracking marks (usually some form of underlining and a different color of text, such as red or blue) can make it hard to review and assess your revised document.
On your first read through the document, you can hide the tracked revisions by switching to “Final” mode (from “Final Showing Markup”) on the Reviewing toolbar in Microsoft Word. This will make your document look normal once again and much easier to read.
Give It a Chance
The mere fact that someone has changed the work you have already spent so much time on can be off-putting, even though you are the one that initiated the help. This feeling of pride is normal and to be expected. This is your precious work after all!
Take a deep breath and try to read on with an open mind. This is still your piece and you have the power to reject any of the changes suggested by the editor. But keep in mind that the editor has a fresh perspective that may offer valuable insight.
If needed, take a break and come back to the paper in a few hours or the next day. Once you’ve mentally sorted through some of the comments, there is a good chance that you will like what you see more on your second read.
Keep What You Like, Fix What You Don’t
This is your piece: you get to have the say over the final product. An editor’s comments are meant to flag areas for possible revision; her revisions are done in good faith to improve the material. But you are still the content expert. The editor fully expects you to keep what you like, change what you don’t, and even revise any areas where the editor unintentionally altered your meaning. Two heads are almost always better than one when it comes to writing; editing should be a collaborative process in which the editor and author take turns polishing and finalizing a piece.
Editors can work magic on your piece, making average writing good and good prose great. If this is your first time working with an editor or you know you can be sensitive to critique, plan to give yourself some extra time to absorb the editor’s comments and revisions. Soon enough, all those red markings will be cleared away, and you will be left with a piece that shines.
Save That Sentence for a Rainy Day: The Shoebox Technique
Posted on 13. May, 2010 by admin in Author's Corner, The Writing Coach
Suzanne Murray
It’s an easy writing sin to commit—like eating too much ice cream because it’s yummy. I know I’ve been guilty of it from time to time over the years.
What am I referring to?
Keeping that “perfect” sentence somewhere on the page because, frankly, it’s just too damn good to cut.
If you’ve ever been in this situation, you know the kind of sentence I’m talking about—it’s long, it’s flowery. It’s delicate and beautiful like a fresh-picked rose or a spring daisy. It’s ridiculously clever, or masterfully engineered, with an impressive use of terminology or vocabulary.
But like the Buddhist convert who learns that attachment can be one’s worst enemy, the evolving writer soon discovers that attachment to a particular sentence can be a dangerous thing. Yes, there is an art to writing, and you may have created a masterpiece in twenty words or less. But clinging to any one sentence as new ideas percolate, as your context changes, and as revisions are made here and there can lead to text that doesn’t flow—or prose that no longer makes sense.
To turn this difficult situation into one that’s painless, I use a little technique that a marketing manager of mine, and Kellogg Business School graduate, taught me a few years out of college. Chop out that text that no longer belongs. Excise it without impunity. But don’t shed a tear. Instead, cut out those gems that no longer fit in your piece and paste them into a virtual “shoebox.”
Your shoebox can appear at the end of your text document or in another file altogether. Heck, you can wrap a real shoebox with wallpaper and carry it around in your briefcase if you want. But delight in the new freedom to save what you love and still move your piece forward.
Maybe you’ll paste it back in later. Perhaps you’ll tweak it and reuse in a new spot. Or maybe you’ll end up keeping it for you next piece, or completely deleting it.
Regardless of the approach, good writing tends to come a little bit easier and a little bit faster when you are willing to pull out the mismatched (if genius) sentences and save them for a rainy day.