When you are writing, do you ever get stuck on how to move from one section to the next? This is a common problem, even for nonfiction writing. These “transitions” are widely misunderstood. It’s not only that the topic has changed, it is that your role as the author has changed. You need a new voice to suit the new material. How can you change your “voice” when you are writing – after all, you are the same person, aren’t you? Yes and no.
Read More
The annual state-of-the-industry predictions by Mark Coker, President of the e-book publisher Smashwords, are always interesting and almost guaranteed to trigger some controversy. The list of 14 predictions Coker offered in the Smashwords blog post 2014 Book Publishing Industry Predictions - Price Drops to Impact Competitive Dynamics were no exception.
Some of the more audacious elements of Coker’s list of prognostications were:
Big publishers will lower e-book prices to make their books more competitive.
E-book sales growth will slow.
E-book unit market share will grow.
The dollar value of e-book sales will decrease.
Price promotions will become less effective.
All authors will become indie authors.
There’s plenty there to chew on. But for authors, Coker’s advice was simple: concentrate on writing high quality books and write more of them.
Read More
If you are thinking about writing a memoir or family history or are just a lover of life writing, The You Tube video of the interview between novelist Salman Rushdie and Emory University Vice President Rosemary Magee recorded on February 27, 2011 as part of the university’s “Creativity Conversations” series is for you.
Rushdie, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses which earned him a flood of death threats including a fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini, and, one of my favorites, Shalimar the Clown was in the process of writing a memoir Joseph Anton at the time of the conversation.
He reflects on memory and writing memoir, nonfiction and history and how an author must draw upon the tools of fiction to produce a great memoir.
Read More
Writing a book is a long-term project and like any long-term project is best accomplished when you have a clear plan and stick to it.
Groundbreaking novelist and literary innovator Henry Miller discovered the same thing while writing his first novel Tropic of Cancer. The11 Writing Commandments he developed to guide his work in 1932-1933 which are preserved in his book Henry Miller On Writing were featured in a recent post on Media Bistros’s Galley Cat.
Five of the eleven focus on planning, organization and focus.
Read More
At the end of a tough day in the office I love to relax by binge watching TV spy shows on Netflix. I don’t usually choose the gritty realism characteristic of John Le Carre stories. I usually focus on the parts of the spectrum between Mission Impossible and Get Smart. (Alias and Chuck are current favorites.) One of the things I can count on is that in almost every episode someone will say, “That’s on a need to know basis,” and keep our hero from learning a key piece of information.
The phrase may have become a cliché, but it’s one that might help you handle the backstory for your novel.
Read More
It’s the end of National Novel Writing Month. You have a finished (or even almost finished) draft in hand (or on your hard drive). Congratulations! Celebrate your accomplishment. Relax for a couple of days, then take the next step in getting your book ready for publication.
If you’re like most of the people who met the NaNoWriMo challenge you’ve produced what Anne Lamott, in her book on writing Bird By Bird, calls a “shitty first draft.” How do you get from here to a version you want to send off to a printer or a literary agent?
Think about revision as a three step process.
Read More
We are happy to host today's guest post by author, creativity coach and commedian Bryan Cohen who is stopping by as part of the blog tour for his new book, 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2: More Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More. Welcome Bryan!
The invitation came through my freelance writing website. So many emails from that site are spam, it would've been easy to miss. The message came from North Wildwood, New Jersey. I'd never been there, but my upbringing in suburban Philadelphia gave me a vague understanding of the Jersey Shore's geography. Carolyn, the co-leader of the conference, had read through my work and extended an invitation to speak at the North Wildwood Beach Writer's Conference that June.
Read More
If you spend any time in the tech world you have no doubt bumped into discussions about the importance of the user experience. If you are writing a nonfiction book you would benefit from some similar thinking about the kind of reader experience your book will produce.
Begin by thinking about the audience you want to reach.
Read More
Should writers follow the rules? The website Galley Cat which covers the book publishing industry recently posed the question when it offered a link to a writer’s cheat sheet.
The Writing Tips, developed by novelist, gamer and technologist Mike Shea, include
• Strunk and White’s Principles of Composition from The Elements of Style
• Yale professor Edward Tufte’s Rules for Presentations
• George Orwell’s Questions
• Science fiction master Robert Heinlein’s Rules
• Lists of Evil Passive Verbs and Evil Metaphors and Phrases
They are all condensed onto a single page which a writer can keep on his desk as a quick reference.
Should you?
Read More
Nonfiction writers can learn a great deal about writing from Sherlock Holmes.
True, Holmes never wrote a word. Dr. Watson served as his Boswell, faithfully reporting the stories of the famous sleuth.
Think instead about what made Holmes the world’s most memorable detective? It was not his investigative skill. He didn’t gather a mountain of facts. What he did was to make brilliant deductions based on inferences from a few facts which allowed him to construct a narrative of the entire case.
Why is that important for a nonfiction writer? Because it represents a mindset almost totally opposite to the one most nonfiction authors adopt. They set out to gather all of the facts about a subject and then display them before their reader.
Read More
Rigid adherence to a chronological framework can be one of your greatest enemies when you are trying to write a memoir or family history that interests readers.
Using a chronological approach to help organize your book often leads to chapters of equal length with time periods homogenized so that all events seem to have equal importance and receive equal attention. Life, however, isn’t lived that way. Some times or events are pivotal. Understanding those turning points is the key to the story. Other segments of your life can be dealt with in a more summary fashion. Let’s face it, not everything that happens to us is all that interesting.
So, how does one avoid falling into a chronological trap?
Read More
Is it OK to take a long time? Yes. Writing a book is like a lasting friendship. If you don’t abandon it and periodically give it “quality time” your book will become stronger.
Over an extended period of time, you evolve, both as a writer and as a person. Writing itself makes you more skilled as an author. Not only should you consciously attempt to learn the craft, you will inevitably develop a greater sense of command and strengthen your voice. And, assuming you grow wiser as you age, your point of view toward your subject will shift, too.
What are the negative consequences to writing a book over a long period of time?
How can I benefit from taking more time, and do this right?
Should I go back to the beginning each time I’m away for a while?
What if I never revisit my earlier material, and resume writing where I left off?
How can I make my pieced-together book cohesive?
Read More
You are writing a memoir. You have an amazing story to tell. Your account of the remarkable experiences you’ve had is sure to captivate readers…
Hold on for a minute. Before you go any further, consider Douglas Crow’s comment on the Working Writers Blog:
Nobody cares about your book. What people TRULY want is to improve THEIR lives. The only reason someone may find your story interesting is how it relates to them. The old radio station, WIIFM (what’s in it for me) is the most popular thought on the planet.
The reason people read memoirs is to gather perspectives, insights and lessons that they can apply to their own experiences. The things which allow memoirists to connect with readers are universal themes viewed in a new or unique way. (See our post Writing a Memoir: Unless You’re a Celebrity It’s Not All About You)
To tap those themes you as a memoirist could use some guidance from your potential audience. As they read your story, what touches them?
How do you get that kind of feedback?
Read More
One of the first pieces of advice a novice writer is likely to hear is, “Show don’t tell.” But what does this really mean? Essentially it means learning how to use descriptive details to give your stories a sense of time and place and an emotional tone which will help readers feel what is going on in the story as you relate it. Let’s look at some ways to do that.
Read More
Working on a nonfiction book? How will storytelling help you make it one people will want to read?
The fact is that most nonfiction writers don’t think of themselves as storytellers. They’re reporters putting together factual commentary on information or events, or maybe analysts investigating problems, ideas, or policies. But storytellers, not no so much.
That’s too bad because a writer, whether producing a novel or a work of nonfiction faces the same challenge of grabbing a reader’s attention and keeping him engaged. Plunging the reader into a story works well for a novelist, but it may work equally well for a nonfiction writer.
Let’s take a look at how two gifted nonfiction writers use a narrative open to hook their readers attention and draw them into the topic they will then explore.
Read More
You have finished the first draft of your book. Congratulations! Celebrate your accomplishment, but realize that you are at a critical crossroads in your book’s development. Experienced writers realize that their manuscript has a long way to go before it's ready for print. Inexperienced writers often don’t. They are “finished” writing and believe their book needs only a quick copy edit to get the commas in the right place before it will be headed top spot on Amazon. That’s too bad because their book will probably fall far short of what it could have been. Inexperienced writers haven’t yet learned the iterative nature of their craft. A good finished product requires iterations of writing and revision. Revising well is an essential step in producing a quality book.
Let's look at how to do it well.
Read More
Readers have short attention spans and lots of choices. If your book doesn’t pique their interest quickly they’ll put it down and pick up another from the bookstore shelf or click away to another Amazon listing.
People writing for the internet understand the problem. BJP Copywriting warns, “From the first moment a customer arrives on your website, the clock is ticking…you’ve got an average of just 7 seconds to grab a reader’s attention and give them the information they want, before they leave your site.”
Potential reader may give your book a few seconds longer, but you need to have a sense of urgency about grabbing their attention.
Charles Dickens could get away with beginning David Copperfield with, “I am born,” when it was published in 1849, but you can’t. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, your book needs a hook.
Read More
Mark Twain once observed, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Writers would be well advised to understand that narrative and narrative summary present a similar problem.
Read More
You have just been through unique or dramatic events, overcome apparently overwhelming obstacles, or traveled to exotic places. These are all experiences which might be the stuff of a compelling memoir. Or, maybe friends tell you that you’ve had such an interesting life that others will be fascinated to read about it. All you need to do is get an account of your life into a book and you’ll have a best seller.
Before you start your first draft it might be a good idea to think about a recent comment made by British novelist Hilary Mantel, winner of consecutive Booker Prizes for her novels Wolf Hall and Bringing Up the Bodies set in Henry VIII’s England. Mantel, who in addition to her novels has also written a memoir, was asked for the NY Times Book Review, By the Book feature, “What Makes a Good Memoir?” She said:
“Memoir is not an easy form. It’s not for beginners, which is unfortunate, as it’s where many people do begin. It’s hard for beginners to accept that unmediated truth often sounds unlikely and unconvincing. If other people are to care about your life, art must intervene. The writer has to negotiate with her memories, and with her reader, and find a way, without interrupting the flow, to caution that this cannot be a true record: this is a version, seen from a single viewpoint. But she has to make it as true as she can. Writing a memoir is a process of facing yourself, so you must do it when you are ready.”
Read More
Every author wants her book to be a page turner. How can you make sure yours is?
The short answer is write great scenes.
Think about why readers read. They are looking for a powerful emotional experience. A romance reader gets the vicarious opportunity to fall in love. The mystery reader shares the detective’s sense of urgency; if he doesn’t succeed, someone will die. The sci-fi reader is literally out of this world. And it’s not only fiction readers who are drawn in by the emotional pull of the world you create for them. Readers look to biographies, memoirs, narrative and family histories to provide the same kind of drama a novel delivers.
Here are five things to do to create scenes that will make sure you deliver on your promise to the reader that she will have an emotional experience.
Read More