Tag Archives: Writing Dilemmas

The Satisfaction In Completing A Short Story

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Writing, Writing Short Stories

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I’ve been away for a few days quietly working.
No I don’t mean my usual paid copy writing work, but work on an actual short story, start to finish.

For too long I have been dabbling at being a writer: typing out a few more pages of my novel; discussing the plot between characters in my head; writing about the process here on this blog….

But none of that was actually doing anything – just trying to make me feel more like a writer, rather than a pretender to the writer’s throne.

Now, I am one of those people who detects charlatans a mile off. And I was beginning to detect myself as one!

It is no lie that I have some 50k words completed on my novel, but the whole process of writing something so long was beginning to drag me down (not to mention that many of those 50k words will probably be shredder material once the novel is actually finished and edited). So I decided to do something to prove to myself I could still write and get published.

So over the last five days I have written, edited, re-written and finally sent off a new short story.

The strange thing is, although I had many part-finished short stories stored away on my PC, this one was new from start to finish. I found a publisher asking for stories for a themed horror anthology and went for it.

The theme – creatures of the night (emphasis on actual creatures) – is not something I had considered before. My horror story writing is usually of the creepy ghost kind. The audience, Young Adult, was not something I had seriously considered before either. But letting the idea scurry around in my head produced a story, so I went for it.

The main drawback here was a seven day deadline from the date I found the call for submissions. This means that only I, my long-suffering husband and my friend up the road have read the story. So, even though I have been vicious in editing, strict on getting POV’s correct and have ensured that my use of adverbs is almost non-existent, I know deep down that asking for input from a beta reader would have helped make my story more suitable for publication. But I didn’t have the time.

So I will not be disappointed when I receive a rejection slip (ok, I’m lying. I will be disappointed, but I know it is likely to happen).

But the process of writing that short story, start to finish, was so satisfying I can hardly believe it.

After the experience of completing my short story, I now know I can write a story, sticking to publisher guidelines and following rules on ‘show don’t tell’, POV, etc, which had been getting me down. I also feel confident that the story will eventually sell, perhaps not in the form I submitted to the publisher, but close enough.

In other words, I have my confidence back.

Of course, this still doesn’t prove that I can produce a novel. As I said in my post Can a Writer Of Short Stories Write A Novel, those thoughts still concern me a little, but now at least I know that when time necessitates I can be disciplined in my approach to writing.

So all I need now is for a publisher to tell me that he or she wants my novel completed in six months time. That should do it. 🙂

Are You Prepared To Be Sociable To Promote Your Book?

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Book Promotion, Writing

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I was browsing my bookmarks today and found an old blog post by social media blogger, Chris Brogan. It is called An Author’s Plan For Social Media Efforts. The post is now two years old, but all but two of the links on it still work, so it’s definitely worth a look.

What I found interesting about this post is the amount of effort Brogan thinks the author of a new book needs to put in to cause interest across the social networking spectrum.

I’m not saying he is wrong, it is simply that my brain went into “don’t want to know” mode as I ploughed through the long list of things to do. However, as I had bookmarked this post, I guess I had thought I would come back to it in due course and maybe give the suggestions a go.

Brogan gives 21 different ways to promote a book and the comments (if you ignore the spam ones) give even more. Some of the advice is geared more towards those writing business books, but the advice is still pretty sound. And, as it turned out, I am already following some of his tips anyway.

Basically, you need to get out there and learn and use every aspect of social media to best effect.

Okay…so, let’s say I was intent on promoting my book (I’m not – I haven’t finished it yet!).

First of all I would need a website with a domain to fit the book (not hard to do as I already have hosting and am good at finding domains to use, so I can almost check that one), a blog (check), a Twitter account (check), a Facebook account (well, I guess my ‘keep in touch with family and friends site’ could do with a change of emphasis.. so… check).

I know how to use Google alerts, so I could easily set one up for my book (check), same with Google blog search so I can comment on other people’s blogs when they write about my book (check), I always try to be gracious to people commenting on my blogs (unless they are complete a’holes) because after all, they have not only read my post, but they taken the time to comment, so I can check that one too.

Writing guest posts on other blogs always seems like spamming to me, if you are only doing it to promote something of yours. That’s actually a shame, as I would (probably…) love to post on another person’s blog if they’d let me (and, of course, if I had something interesting to say!), so I can check that too without much worry.

No real problems so far.

But then things get a bit more technical.

I have no idea about setting up an email list and newsletters (apart from using Feedburner, which probably doesn’t count), so that would require a good bit of research and comparisons of best systems to use.

I had no clue what a ‘blogger outreach project’ was until I looked it up (I’m still working it out, but I think it concerns juggling a list of bloggers who review different parts of your book – but I could well be wrong!).

Making a YouTube video promoting my book seems like a great idea, but I would probably need help with that too (unless I want to look like a complete amateur – there again, that could be appealing in certain circumstances.. I guess…).

Then there is finding out how to arrange speaking trips and radio and TV appearances. I would assume that your publisher or agent would help with this, but it appears that a publisher’s promotional help is never enough and you should be doing most of your book promotion yourself, so… I would have to build networks with local media companies, perhaps book clubs, university literature groups, etc. Lots of hard work there, but worth the effort I would think…

That’s a précis of most of the tips. Others seem like common sense (to me, anyway), or like something you would work on in conjunction with your publisher (unless you are a self-publisher of course…).

But one thing I did notice with nearly all of these tips is…

An author needs to be very, very sociable.

I saw in the comments on this article that some assumed that writers were naturally sociable, gregarious beings – good speakers too. But are authors really like that?

It appears to me that many writers are far from gregarious. Spending your days alone, pounding out thousands of words onto your PC doesn’t give you much time for socialising (unless you give up in disgust and drown your sorrows at the local bar, of course).

Many writers also tend to be introverts, preferring to let others take the stage while they sit back and ‘people watch’. I would go as far as to say that being the darling of social media would appear as an almost insurmountable challenge to many writers, as the concept would be totally alien to them.

Taking that further, I would say that it isn’t so much the length of the ‘to do’ list that will faze a large number of authors, it is more that, after already producing a cast of believable characters for their book, they will now have to invent a ‘sociable’, outgoing character for themselves.

So, are you prepared to be sociable to promote your book?

And before you say an outright ‘No!’, think about all the blood, sweat and tears you have spent writing your masterpiece. And how much of your life has been invested in this moment, when your book has reached the publication stage.

I personally am sociable enough in that I like communicating with people, but I have to admit that it would take real effort on my part to be the life and soul of the party on and offline for days on end without let-up. But in this situation, I would not want to let my book down now by failing at ‘being sociable’. So, I guess I would have to grit my teeth, put on a suitable ‘sociable’ persona, and go for it! 🙂

Differences In Writing Styles

29 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Writing, Writing Styles

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Do you have the tendency to get your writing styles mixed up? I do.

My work is writing for websites, mainly advertising text which is descriptive. My readers here do not want to know about the inner workings of a character’s mind. These readers want to be told how the character struggled with a problem which the purchase of a particular item can solve (usually written in first person); how the character looks good and feels good in a particular garment; how they managed to find something at a great value price; is in the news again and why; or (for my adult audience), is really enjoying what is going on in a particular video…

In my work text I use exclamation marks galore, change font size regularly and sometimes highlight in eye-catching colours.

I also write the occasional non-fiction article for magazines (and have a book in the makings, hidden among a pile of other projects…). Here again I am descriptive. I am teaching a subject and providing information. I highlight a change of subject within the text in bold and important points with italics. I use bullet points and number indents. The idea here (as with the often garish layout of advertising text) is to guide the reader to the main learning points of the article. All of this is accepted in the layout of non-fiction.

Then there is blog writing. For this I use a much more chatty style. I write as I think and the grammar and punctuation styles I use reflect this. I couldn’t possibly write a blog post if I had to bother about getting my grammar exactly right, or thinking about how many commas, dashes and ellipses I use…. 🙂

Blogging, for me, is a way of clearing my mind. I find it relaxing, therefore I blog in a relaxed style.

Forum posting – for me, that will contain a few ‘lols!’, even more smileys than I use in blog posts, and again a relaxed approach (unless I am on a writing forum and am aware that others may be checking me out!).

Facebook – the less I say on FB the better. 🙂

Twitter – actually helps me get my writing down to the bare bones. Similar to texting I guess, without the text speak (if you see what I mean).

The problem here is, that with all these different writing styles come different writing personalities:

The salesperson overflowing with eagerness to extol the benefits of their product; the adult website writer extolling virtues of a different kind…; the blogger, eager to clear their head whilst getting a point across; the forum poster, eager to join in the conversation and say their bit; and the FB and Twitter poster, sometimes promoting their own stuff, but often using these platforms to post links to others of interest, or funny videos which have caught their eye (at least, that’s mainly what I use FB for 🙂 ).

But this discussion of using different writing styles according to what you are writing and where you are writing it, brings me now to writing Fiction, where you are faced with a whole new writing style:

Show not tell; characterization; point of view; not overusing adverbs or qualifiers; sticking to a defined punctuation formula; making sure you have action points, character interaction, specific speaking styles for different characters; etc, etc,…

I am finding more and more that I have to set aside a particular time to get my head in gear to write fiction. Otherwise I could end up with a chapter where the characters say ‘lol!’ rather than laughing, try to teach the reader something, or chat away to each other in forum and blog style, not to reach a resolution on anything, but just because they can. 🙂

Perhaps it is just me who has a problem with changing my writing style according to context, but there again, I really don’t think so. 🙂

The Problem Of Writing In Notebooks

28 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Writing, Writing Tools

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I have three different ways of writing. Most of the time I type my stories and notes straight onto my PC or netbook. At other times I pick up a ‘real’ notebook and write… and write…. and write!

My manuscripts have their home on my PC, organised in many folders and sub-folders according to type. When I am sitting at my PC I feel quite efficient. I have a small ‘workroom’ off our main living area, with desk, filing cabinets, and all those essential ‘office tools’ and this gives me the sense of actually working and (most of the time…) the attitude to go with it.

However, when I want to be a little more sociable (or it isn’t ‘work hours’), I have my netbook beside me, just in case something prompts me to take a note or two, or if I suddenly get the urge to go online and research something.

Of course, there are times when my ‘quick notes’ on the netbook turn into a full chapter or two, or a new character or plot outline. In this case, everything has to be copied to an external hard drive so that I can transfer it to a file in the right folder on my PC. No problem really, although a little frustrating if I forget to do this.

But sometimes I simply get the urge to write. You know, with a pen and using an actual paper notebook. 🙂

In fact, when I write in my notebooks, I can write for hours. Words come easily, plot outlines make sense, characters leap from the page… That sounds good, right?

Well… yes and no…

You see, I have cupboards full of notebooks, bursting to the brim with plots, characterizations, writing ideas… You name it, you may well find it in one of my notebooks.
The problem is, that I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one!

When I write in a notebook, ideas flow, but not necessarily in any type of order. I do try to be organised by starting a new page with a new idea, but at the speed I write when in ‘notebook mode’, by the end of a brainstorming session I could have spread those disparate ideas across a number of different books.

Of course, the ideal solution would be for me to take each new note, type it up on my PC and save it into an appropriate, well-defined folder. And occasionally I do this. But most times typing up those thoughts and ideas and actually organising them (and correcting spelling and grammar mistakes, etc…) seems to take away some of their power and originality.

Or it could be simple laziness….

The good thing about my many notebooks is that I always have a source of inspiration for a plot, whatever notebook I pick up. So this strange, mass collection of writing isn’t that bad. But it does seem to be very wasteful of my time and energy which could be better spent getting my work ready for publication.

What would be so much better is if I could find some type of tablet which recognises my scrawl and turns it into print. Then it would simply be the case of transferring all those random scribbles onto my PC. No typing out already-written notes. No fuss.
(And a new tech toy to play with… 😉 ).

There again, there may be a further problem. I’m left-handed and most of these apps appear to have been set up only for right-handed people. So it’ll take a great deal of browsing with my trusty netbook to find any tablets with handwriting recognition apps which truly allow for south paws.

Unless anyone out there has some suggestions?

I promise I’ll take notes. 🙂

Can A Writer Of Short Stories Write A Novel?

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in Writing, Writing Short Stories

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Up until now, my writing efforts (and publications) have been limited to writing short stories and readers letters.

True – I have also had some academic articles published, but, as these were a prerequisite of obtaining my doctorate and were for a very specific audience, I saw them more as a part of the education process, rather than as writing for publication in the ‘I am an author’ sense. So I’m not considering my academic work in this stream of thought. But anyway… back to the topic in hand. 🙂

I have always found writing short stories relatively easy. That’s not to say I haven’t struggled with the concept of getting a full story across to the reader in a very concise form, but the ‘shortness’ of the exercise seems to suit my frame of mind.

Likewise with writing ‘readers letters’ to magazines. I loved doing this. The ability to invent myself again and again as a different character was very appealing to me and it also meant that the subjects I commented on required only a minimum of research (after all, in readers letters opinions often matter much more than facts…). So, once in the flow of things, I could be several different people on the same day and discuss a whole range of subjects.

Sure, being many different people and writing for a vast number of magazines did require a very large filing cabinet and maintaining a very complex spreadsheet, plus several different email accounts. The writing, re-working and submission of my short stories also required similar organisation. But the process of writing involved did suit my butterfly mind.
(At this point, some may say that writing as many different people also shows signs of a very split personality, but that’s up to them. I’m as sane as the next person, whatever that means…. :))

But now I am in the throes of writing a novel…

At the moment, flitting from one subject to another isn’t a problem. If I get bored writing one scene, I can work on a character or on the finer points of the plot. I can also go off and do some more research.

But I am noticing that my research often takes me to places where I can procrastinate rather than actually research, and this leads me to different forums where I will join in with the conversation… or else something will switch on a light bulb in my head and I’ll feel obliged to tweet about it, or to write a blog post…

And as to working on characters and plot, I am finding that too much re-working is making my characters unable to fit the scenes I have designed for them. And, as I said when I wrote My Novel Is Turning Into From Dusk Till Dawn, the plot of my novel is moving to places I hadn’t envisaged.

So, I am beginning to get that sinking feeling that not only will this novel never reach the submission stage, but, even if I do complete the whole thing, putting all the (very) disparate parts together will be problematical to say the least!

There is also something else to consider…

While I am procrastinating as I write my novel, no short stories are being written (apart from an almost finished horror one…). That equals no (eventually) published works and therefore no payment for all this work I am putting in. I know that many will say that the writing process is not about payment but about writing itself, but I have bills to pay. 🙂

Nevertheless, I would love to be a published author of a novel, a large, ‘keep the reader interested to the bitter end’ type of novel, but I have yet to decide whether this is just about ego rather than about reality. And, as becoming that type of author will require much more self-discipline, I am still wondering whether this would actually hurt my writing style, or improve it (or is that simply my excuse…?).

However, as this has been more of a ‘write down your thoughts and see what turns up’ type of post, rather than a statement of a concrete decision, I am still undecided as to my next move.

Perhaps I’ll do some more research while I think on this… 🙂