Category Archives: Author Blogs

Afraid to Publish
by
Mary Deal

Two people I know have written books. One is a fiction, one a nonfiction. Both of these authors are afraid to publish.

People afraid to publish need to analyze their motivations for writing in the first place and then take a good look at what motivates them not to publish.

The reasons for hesitation could be many. Let’s look at some of these:

Unsure of the information you’ve included

If you’ve written nonfiction, all your facts must be accurate. Your publisher will verify the facts. If they cannot be verified, your book may not be published. If you’ve offended, your publisher may hesitate. However, without a publisher to gauge the accuracy of your work, it’s up to you. If you feel unsure for this reason, then you must do the verification yourself. Be sure your facts are correct. Be sure you are writing about something people need to know. Be sure you are not writing out of hate or anger, or simply to ease your own conscience. And most of all, once you have these assurances, publish that book before your news becomes outdated.

Unsure if you’ve told a unique tale

It is said only 20 real plots exist in fiction. All stories are derivatives of these twenty. What makes all stories difference are the story settings, the scenes that you create, your characters and so forth. Most of all, it’s your unique spin – your style, your voice. No one can write your story like you can. Simple.

Worry about errors

If you are afraid of having errors in your work, what type of errors? Whether fiction or nonfiction, if you feel you’ve said something wrong, change it. Write it a different way. If you’re worried about typos and grammar, follow sage advice and get your manuscript edited. This is the best way to know that you are truly ready to publish. A good editor could also tell you if your story truly hangs together. This is the best way to assure yourself. It puts your mind at ease.

Afraid of offending someone

In nonfiction, it’s easy to offend someone or anyone. If you’re written something offensive, all the more reason to be accurate in your facts. You might also consider if your information is something people want to read. Are you bashing someone simply to ease your own frustration? Are you writing about true experiences, exposing another person and playing like one of the powers-that-be? What is your motivation for doing this?

Nonfiction information tends to be timely and can get old quickly. Do what you must to help you feel rewarded that you’ve spent all those hours gathering facts and writing out your opinions. When you began your project, you had a reason for doing so.

Fiction requires a good tale told in an exciting way that doesn’t sound to the reader like they have already read something similar. Develop your voice and style.

These are but a few reasons why writers hesitate to publish or seek publication. Above all, for writers of any prose, if you’ve followed a certain set of rules that lead to good writing and editing, no reason exists not to publish. If after you’ve come this far and you still cannot bring yourself to present your work to the world, then I would suggest you begin to examine your psychological motivation as to why you delay your rewards.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

An Advantage of Self-Publishing
by
Mary Deal

As many know, I used to use a POD publisher. I was happy for a while, however, I found self-publishing to be to my advantage. It’s expensive to have your publisher re-publish your book when they and you do not catch all the errors.

If your publisher even begrudgingly re-publishes without charging you, jump for joy! Some POD publishers charge $300 and upwards just to pull the book, correct last errors and re-publish.

The beauty of self-publishing is that you perfect you book to the point you think you and your editor have caught all the errors. But once you publish, you find, perhaps, one glaring error overlooked after all. It’s not a missing comma or period, nothing that simple. It’s a big misspelling error that might make people shudder.

A case in point: In my latest thriller, The Howling Cliffs, A Sara Mason Mystery, I was sure we had caught all the typos. Once I pulled a copy to read on my Kindle, I found something that stuck out like a big red tomato in a lettuce patch.

The story takes place mostly on Kauai where I live. I included lots of local scenes and people. In the big car accident scene, HAZMAT was needed to clean the highway of the gas and diesel spills. However, as many times as I’ve seen that big red Fire Department truck around town, I never realized that in my story I spelled HAZMAT with an S instead of a Z. HAZMAT is short for hazardous materials. How could I have not put that together when writing the scene.

So an advantage of self-publishing is that I could go to Smashwords and Amazon and re-upload the corrected version. It’s a simple process. It’s free.

This is not to say we should publish first and then catch errors. As self-publishers, the total responsibility for perfecting our manuscripts falls on us. They should be perfect or as close to perfect as we can make them before we publish the first time.

I encourage all who self-publish to re-upload corrected versions of their manuscripts when errors are found. If you must re-upload, re-read your entire manuscript first and thoroughly for any other errors that might have been missed. Self-published books often contain more errors than others. The author should read the entire story again, after it’s published. When errors are found, they have a free option to re-publish.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

Elusive Endings
by
Mary Deal

If you have not yet read part one of the series, Magnetic Beginnings, be sure to check it out. Part two, The End of Sagging Middles, is also archived for your enjoyment.

When you set off for a vacation, do you plan ahead and know where you’ll end up? Narrowing down this concept, when you go grocery shopping, do you know where you will shop?

In creating a story, if you know what you wish to take your characters through – the plot and reason for writing the story – there can only be one, possibly two good endings.

If you write romance, your two lovers can only end up together or separated somehow.

If you write thrillers, your killer has to get his comeuppance.

Even if you write about everyday lives of some people, they will have to end up changed in a certain way. It’s called the character arc. These are but a few examples. The endings are almost standard and dictated for you if you know the genre of your story and have written it thoroughly. It’s up to you to write the ending scene(s) as exciting as possible.

What you might do is write out a few thoughts beforehand. Say you have a thriller with a serial killer who must be caught. Of course he gets caught. But if your story prior to the ending makes him out to be gruesome and evil, then his getting caught and punishment must carry the same caliber of excitement.

A gruesome psychopath cannot simply be caught when the police creep into his bedroom and wake him with guns drawn. It’s too easy. You must raise the ante and make him almost escape before he is, perhaps, wounded. Still he runs and becomes more elusive. So you write the chase and his capture and you throw in as much opportunity for him to escape before the police dogs tear him apart.

If you know your story and have written it toward what you consider an elusive ending that you can’t seem to pin down, you may have too many loose ends not tied up within the plot. There can only be one or two really good endings to any story. Then it’s up to you to use your imagination and make it exciting enough to fit the rest of the action, or exciting enough to make the ending the best of the story. Remember, only one or two endings exist to choose from. It’s a matter of reasoning it out in your mind.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

The End of Sagging Middles
by
Mary Deal

If you missed the first part of this series, you can read it here: Magnetic Beginnings.

Many books I’ve read start off with great beginnings and even end with surprisingly. However, their middles left me wondering why I should keep reading. Truth is, the beginning had set up a situation I wanted to see to completion, so I read to the end. But getting through the middle was nearly an arduous task.

You’ve heard the term sagging middles, right? Many books begin and end in a spectacular manner but the middles offer little. In order to keep your story from developing a sagging middle, you must keep the action going.

In a crime investigation, have some clues show up, only to be disproved. Or have the perpetrator almost caught but gets away.

In science fiction, when the hero flies to a distant planet to rescue his love, have him meet with landing bays locked down tight with no other access to the dying star which will eventually explode. He further meets resistance from ships guarding the planet who want it to fail.

In a romance, have two people falling in love, only to have one person come in contact with the person with whom they were previously involved in a obsessive and addictive affair.

The prescription for sagging middles in all genres is to bolster the action by keeping it going. Anything new can happen in the middle of a story as long as it follows the rest of the action and is written in such a manner as to not look contrived to hold the beginning and ending together. Whatever happens must be natural to what was offered in the beginning.

What action is included should serve to keep the conflict and great tension building throughout. By building in intensity, you not only hold interest through your story middle but set up a more dramatic ending.

Next week: Elusive Endings…!

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

Magnetic Beginnings
by
Mary Deal

I use the word magnetic because your story beginning should pull a reader in much like a magnet to metal. Readers look at the start of the first chapter as more than just a glimmer of what’s to come. Your first words, first sentence and first paragraph should give your prospective buyer a feeling of sinking deep into the story and being a part of the plot.

You cannot create this reaction with dead words, lackluster writing and non-descriptive verbiage that says little about the promise of the story.

You can avoid the above pitfalls by jumping smack into the middle of your plot right there at the beginning. Don’t tell how the weather was warm and breezy and no rain was expected. Open your story at a crime scene. Have the characters talk right away. Have the main characters present and also part of the dialogue.

In my novel, Down to the Needle, the story starts with the reader plunged into the middle a raging arson scene. The main characters show up after a few brief bits of desperate dialogue by firemen and police. You know who the main characters are – and they’re not the firemen and police who speak first – because I go on to describe their clothing at the first and insert bits of back-story about their experiences with fires.

For your story beginning, make the open scenes as exciting as possible. Also, make them apropos to the plot. In Down to the Needle, several more unexpected fires happen throughout the story. A fire scene is a great beginning. A person’s senses go on high alert. Adrenaline rushes as if the reader is present at the scene. You want your reader to sense those emotions, and feel the fright and also to share in what all of the characters experience.

In a romance, perhaps, you want your readers to feel the loneliness and longing of someone for the person they love. Or the reader might be made to feel the rejection of someone experiencing a broken relationship. Whatever that romance has to offer, the opening scene must get into the readers’ hearts.

In all genres, not only must your written word be magnetic, beyond being simply appealing, the setting in which the action takes place must grab immediate interest. Write the setting well. Write it to suit the action as well as the dialogue of any characters in the scene.

Beginnings must offer what the potential reader of that genre searches for. Understanding the genre in which you choose to write is the only way to make your openings work.

Next week: The End of Sagging Middles…don’t miss it!

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

Better Words
by
Mary Deal

Here’s something to ponder upon: There is always a way to say it better. These are some examples:

Afterward, she went on her way.

Ask yourself: How did she go? Instead of went, describe her movements or gait:

Afterward, she sauntered away.

Afterward, she walked away

Danced across the floor

Did a two-step across the floor

Waltzed across the floor

She felt around the floor of the car, trying to find the cell phone.

She groped around the seat and the floor of the car…

She slid her hand between the seats

The thought of dying came to mind.

The thought of bleeding to death came to mind.

The thought of succumbing to a coma and dying came to mind.

The above has two words to watch. We could have used….

The thought of slipping into a coma… instead, succumbing is more dramatic than gently slipping into a coma. Slipping hints at letting herself slip away. Succumbing tells us she put up a gallant fight to stay alive until more powerful forces overtook her. It’s more dramatic.

The fireman holding up her head managed to get his upper body through the open windshield space.

The fireman supporting her head managed to squeeze his upper body through the open windshield space.

Your prose must sing and dance off the page. Anytime you describe what a character does, always check to see if a more descriptive word might apply. Any word to help the reader see the detailed actions that your characters perform is better to use.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

Becoming Your Characters
by
Mary Deal

Several authors have asked why their characters do things they (the author) didn’t understand.

What I find is that you may know your character well, intellectually, as you have outlined in a character sketch or other notes. However, in order to understand the moves your character makes, you must BECOME that character.

In dialogue especially, stand in front of a mirror and talk to yourself as if you are the character talking to you. Notice the facial expressions and physical gestures. Include those in your descriptions. When you feel you are that character, you will understand why they suddenly do something in the story that you hadn’t expected. When you are the character, you will cut loose from any restrictive thinking. This will help you to move the plot or writing through the narrative as well.

In other words, you as the character – what would you do in the situation you have set up? Being the character, what you would do if you wanted to cut loose and respond to a situation in a totally off the wall manner? See where this is going? When you are the character, you understand everything that character does. It frees your thinking to take your story in unexpected directions.

An added plus is that you can and should become any and all of your characters. Once you get in the habit of seeing your story this way, your writing is freed up.

You won’t see your characters as if in a state of unexpected flux.

You won’t see your characters as people other than yourself.

You will see and understand their motives and moves – and they will makes those moves – as totally normal to their personalities.

If you cannot, at least to a tiny degree, become your character, how can you know what they might do? You are the characters you create and you’ve only to respond in a manner apropos to each of the personalities you’ve built.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →

A Little About Video Trailers
by
Mary Deal

A friend claimed video trailers don’t sell books. I tend to disagree, partially. That is… When my video trailers go live, I see an upsurge in sales and personal website hits. What the friend claims is that the only purpose of videos is to attract attention. Yes, they do. That’s what you want. And they get a potential reader interested in the story – if it’s a good video.

Trailers must contain great content in order to convince people to buy the book.

Video trailers will sell books if they tell – in an interesting, exciting way – what the story is about. They must also show what the reader will gain from reading the book. Therein lies the key.

If the reader is looking for nonfiction to learn something, what they will learn must be made clear, even if how they will learn is only hinted at as an enticement. If the potential reader thinks it will solve their problem or answer questions, they will buy from seeing a video. They will, at least, seek out the book and read the covers and blurbs. They will also go to Amazon and other sites and read the reviews.

In fiction, if a reader is looking for a good thriller, the video must offer excitement and the hint of a stunning ending.

Everything presented in a video must appeal to the genre and the content of the book.

In my experience, when my friends say their videos did nothing for them, I first view the video. In most of those cases, I end up asking myself, What exactly are they saying here? If the plot of the story is not covered well, and enticingly enough, of course, the video will leave any prospective buyer asking, Huh? Many videos are ho-hum. Many offer too much and are too long, yet say nothing. Many are too loud or too soft with the wrong music for the presentation. And on and on.

My opinion is that good videos rank up there with sample chapters, good reviews and word-of-mouth publicity. Videos are simply another means to grab attention. Like everything else, they must not let the reader down.

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre. Read More →