gabric-writes

While you are worrying about whether beta readers will steal your ideas, there is a more genuine threat on the horizon.

When offered a publishing contract, please do all your research before you sign. There are a number of fakes and scammers out there, as well as good-intentioned amateurs that don’t know how to get your work to a wide audience. I won’t tell the heartbreaking stories here - there are too many.

Being published badly is worse than being never published.

It can destroy your career and your dreams.

The quick check is to google the publishing house name + scam or warning.

But, to be sure, check with these places first. They aren’t infallible (nothing is) but they can help you protect yourself. They are written and maintained by expereinced writers, editors, publishers and legal folks.

Absolute Write: Bewares and Background Checks

Preditors and editors

Writer Beware

and the WRITER BEWARE blog

Keep yourself and your work safe.

Equally important to know is that you can SELF-PUBLISH through a number of platforms these days. @ean-amhran and I used Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing to publish both of our books. No editors, no contracts, no finagling with publishers who want to change your materials. Just direct-to-market material.

(Granted, it means you’ve got to do a LOT more work yourself with editing and formatting and cover art, but it’s worth it to miss the headache of trying to bargain with publishing houses or avoid scams.)

It lays out how to neatly format an e-book in a wonderful step by step format, and you can get it free from Smashwords. Just leave off the couple of things that are (very obviously) Smashwords specific.

Writer Beware is a wonderful resource, and I highly recommend it. It’s both a good general guide to the scams people run/red flags to watch out for (such as giving up your copyright entirely as opposed to specific rights, or being charged to publish something or have it edited, when they’re trying to act like they’re a “normal” publisher), and a frequently-updated list of the latest specific known scammers, both in “fake agents” and fake/scammy publishers categories. (The company formerly known as Publish America is one of the most famous and egregious cases, but by far not the only one)

Also related to agents: Should you go this route and seek one, DO NOT PAY ONE DIME TO THEM upfront! A real agent only gets paid when he sells your book to a publisher! The average cut is about 10-15% of the first sale profits, if I remember right, with cuts of film and other rights maybe being more, when sold. At most, writers should only be responsible for the costs of phone calls and postage.

For more information see: How Literary Agents Get Paid. Standard Commission Practices and Payments for Literary Agents

Edited to Add: Some other great, highly respected resources for writing and getting published are:

Writer’s Digest

The Writer

oh god what did i do

I THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE

oh?

you’re shitting me

Freewrite.

It’s okay if you don’t know how you feel or what you want to convey. Write anything that comes to mind, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s getting anywhere. Writing is a process, and part of that process includes understanding the various emotions and developing what you want to say. If you’re “stuck on a feeling,” so to speak, the best thing you can do is just write a few sentences and see where it leads you.

Use your senses.

If you’re writing a story or poem with passionate feelings, rely more on senses than on emotion words like “sad” or “happy.” What is there to see? Hear? Smell? What reactions do you or your characters have to these sensory details? And so on.

That can help you define where these emotions are coming from and better define it.

Know your voice.

We all have a unique perspective, and it’s important to convey that perspective while writing so we can share it. Sometimes it’s tempting to go for a more “sophisticated” tone but using your own words creates writing that is more genuine and, inherently, more profound.

But don’t get too hung up on finding your voice that it becomes paralyzing. You already have it in you: it’s your words, your perceptions, your feelings. All this means is to avoid sounding like someone who could “tell it better” when really, only you can tell it in this way.

Write to relate, not isolate.

When writing, it’s easy to worry about telling something as nobody else has told it. This shouldn’t be taken too far. Why? Humans have been telling stories for thousands of years: it’s unlikely that you will write something that nobody else has felt before.

But this is a good thing. One of the best things about reading strong emotions is being able to identify with the characters. It helps us come to terms with our own feelings. Maybe we have never been lost at sea, but we have felt powerless in a confusing and sometimes chaotic world. Maybe we have never slain a dragon, but we have had to overcome our own personal demons.

When writing strong emotions, it’s not important to write them as nobody has before, but it is important to write them in a way that others can understand and relate to.

Don’t force meaning. Just write.

Because, again, writing is a process, you are limiting yourself if you go into a piece and shape it around one definite meaning. In some cases, we don’t really know what the meaning is until we jot things down.

I’ll try my best, but as a note: this is not a comprehensive list, and is pretty much all my own opinion.

Two-Dimensional Characters

No real personality traits or flaws. Probably ‘kind’ and ‘clumsy’*, with no voice or sense of self.

Very vague motivation, or a motivation that is tied to somebody else’s motivation (as in, ‘exactly the same as’**). They’re just ‘there’, and don’t really contribute to the story in any way.

‘Cut-and-paste’ background that has no real bearing on who they are or the decisions they make.

Few complex interactions with other characters in the cast, or few ‘challenges’ to the things the character wants/needs in order for the story to progress.

Very ‘cardboard’, ‘artificial’ feel where the character cannot be separated from the devices used to create them (for example: ‘Character X’s parents died in the beginning of the book, but it feels like the author did that just to get rid of the parents so they wouldn’t have to think anymore about them’).

* Your character can be ‘kind’ and ‘clumsy’, but if that’s the sum-total of their personality, then they are going to feel ‘flat’ and two-dimensional to the reader.

** Overall, it’s not a bad thing to have two or more characters with the same motivation. It comes across as ‘bad’ and ‘two-dimensional’ when you have two or more characters doing a job that one character could manage alone.

For example, two detectives. Naturally, both detectives want their case to be solved, but to have them go about it in exactly the same way, with no differences in personality, motivation or background could lead to one character ‘echoing’ the other, which is a bit pointless. Sherlock and Watson, for all they want the same result in a case, certainly don’t want the same things in life, nor do they have identical methods of investigation/understanding.

Example: Jake, from Alexandra Adornetto’s book Halo. Arguably the main antagonist (and subject of the ‘Dark Forces’ that are alluded to from the get-go), but doesn’t show up until two thirds into the story. Has next-to-no motivation for anything he does, other than ~Because I’m Evil~, and it is painfully obvious he was wedged into the book as an opponent to Xavier, Bethany’s boyfriend, to capitalise on the ‘love triangle’ theme most YA lit includes, because he has about as much personality and presence as a blade of grass.

I do want to say though… Adornetto was young when she wrote those books, so this is definitely not an attack on her as a writer in general. Prose-wise, Halo could have been worse, and I’ve not read anything else of hers to have an opinion one way or the other about her other writing.

Three-Dimensional Characters

Fleshed-out personality, with flaws that impact the story/relationships with other characters. ‘Who they are’ is recognisable, and even if not absent of common tropes/cliches, the character can still be identified as an individual by readers.

Clear motivation that conflicts with the motives of others and shapes their journey in the story.

Interesting backstory that relates to the character, and impacts on their personality. Again, even if it’s not ‘original’ (as very few things in fiction are), the reader gets a sense of how past experiences have affected the character.

Complex interactions with other characters, both positive and negative. Also faces challenges to their goal from various angles.

Dynamic and intriguing ‘feel’, where the reader almost sees them as a real person over a fictional character. Literary devices are well disguised as being ‘part’ of the story/character itself, so the reader is as much involved with the journey as the character is! (For example: ‘I can’t believe that plot twist! That Character X was a werewolf all along! I should have been able to guess back in Chapter Two when…’

Example: Harper from Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls. Just fantastic, and such a bastard. Antagonist done right…! Very clear motivation, in-depth backstory, brilliant contrast between his flaws and more positive traits, and just overall a well-written, three-dimensional character. 

I’m sure you can think of your own example to put here too!

You, or our followers may have very different ideas, or things to add via reblog/reply, so don’t take what I’ve written as gospel!

Still, I hope this clarifies it all a bit for you.

Hey guys! Sorry its been so inactive around here. I’m slowly but surely getting finished with my finals.

Anyway, I found this and thought I had to share. The way body language can tell how a person is really feeling is something that I consider very interesting. I think it would be a great way to show, in a subtle way, how a character is really feeing.

checks all spellings for you

checks if you’re over-using adverbs

picks out over-complicated sentences

suggests replacements for over-complicated phrases

picks out the passive voice

tells you how readable your text is (Grades/College level/etc)

calculates reading time

Do an outline, whatever way works best. Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.

Conflicts and obstacles. Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is hard to write.

Change the POV. Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor character, whatever.

Know the characters. You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you. Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.

Fill in holes. Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes, and add content and context.

Have flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency and uncertainty to the narrative.

Introduce a new mystery. If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.

Take something from your protagonist. A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.

Twists and betrayal. Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up and get it rolling again.

Secrets. If someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.

Kill someone. Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.

Ill-advised character actions. Tension is created when a character we love does something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.

Create cliff-hangers. Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really bring out your creativity.

Raise the stakes. Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder. Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an important choice.

Make the hero active. You can’t always wait for external influences on the characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not necessarily to be successful, but active and complicit in the narrative.

Different threat levels. Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be killed by a demon”), an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me, how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”).

Figure out an ending. If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you actually end up writing.

What if? What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When you write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the story will present itself.

Guns are ranged weapons.

No, really, people forget this one a lot. A gun, whether it’s a pistol, a rifle, or a gattling gun, is meant to be used at range. If the opposing person is within eight to ten feet from the person with the gun and the gun is still in its holster, they won’t have time to clear it before they’re reached. The advantage of the gun is distance. If your character is using their gun at close range, then they are making a mistake. If your character is pressing a semi-automatic pistol against another character’s body, then they are (usually) going to be disabling the pistol. On most semi-automatics, pressing the slide back will unseat the battery (the chamber that holds the bullet about to be fired), and it will temporarily disable the weapon.

This is actually one of the main issues with the gun as a self-defense weapon. Most self-defense situations happen within the eight foot range, usually within grabbing distance. Reaching for the gun first is a great way to get killed if they’re too close.

The gun is not some ultimate god weapon or instant win button. In all it’s types, they very effective and dangerous. However, like any weapon, they also come with disadvantages and situations where they don’t shine. This is the main reason for training with and carrying different kinds of guns, and also different kinds of weapons such as knives and training in hand to hand.

There are many different kinds of guns and they all come with their own quirks

“Guns” is a very broad term for a very large variety of weapons. When I say it, I usually think of semi-automatic pistols but really if you’re also thinking assault rifle, shotgun, black powder pistol, machine gun, or blunderbuss, you wouldn’t be wrong. This is long before we leave general categories and get into sub categories like compact, sub compact, automatic, semi-automatic, pump action, and different manufacturer. Many writers (including me when I’m lazy) will use terms like “gun”, “pistol”, or “rifle” to convey a general term and, you know, that works with characters how have no idea how to tell a Glock 17 from a Colt 1911 to a Smith & Wesson. However, if you’re writing a character who owns a gun, then they should probably know what it is.

There’s a wide range of variety amongst the different manufacturers. Not all pistols will carry the same amount of ammunition. Different manufacturers are popular in different areas of the country. While the Glocks are very popular amongst law enforcement groups in the United States, for example, each precinct has their own preferred standard. It varies, sometimes wildly.

So, do your homework.

You want to write about characters using guns, then you need to research them. Find out how they work, find out how to care for them, find out different scuttlebutt, research the different pistols you see characters using in movies and television shows. Research the history behind those weapons, see if the production staff has ever offered up any particular information on why they picked those particular ones and not others. You can use a character’s choice in their weapons to communicate character traits and their combat preferences. Source the real world information on it. That way, you can make executive decisions and you sound more like you know what you’re talking about. (You do!)

Besides, you’ll never know if you never look. One part of being a writer is the acceptance of being a student. Go through gun manuals at your library. Learn about the different kinds. Visit a gun range. Take a few lessons. You don’t ever have to like guns or approve of them, but you should make an effort to figure them out. (Yes, some handguns have a safety that’s a button, some have a switch, and some don’t have them at all.)

Never fire until it’s empty

Continuously firing until you run out of ammunition is a Hollywood trope and a mistake made by people who don’t know how guns work. You don’t drive your car until it runs out of gas. Don’t get caught trying to shoot someone with an empty gun. Also, save those magazines for later, don’t just toss them on the ground, bullets, and magazines, are expensive to replace.

Count your bullets

Your characters can’t really keep track of their enemy’s bullets (and if you’re writing from their perspective you shouldn’t either honestly, not having a full picture of what what the enemy is doing keeps them worrying and tension high), but they should try to keep in mind how many they have.

One bullet is not enough

If you’re going to shoot someone, then shoot them several times. This usually means three to five times to center mass, or until they stop moving. A single bullet is not a guarantee that they are out of the fight. People are durable, they can take quite a bit of punishment and keep going. Guns are not magic, neither are bullets. So, don’t get cocky.

The sign of skill is not in how few bullets a character needs to get their job done, it’s in how efficiently they work and how well they cover their ass. Their ability to close off alternate avenues, to lock their opponent into a predictable path, and finish them off at minimal risk to themselves. A character who is ignoring basic procedure because they think the rules don’t apply to them is an idiot. Yes, the rules still apply to them. Yes, they should probably shoot that guy or girl several times to make sure he’s/she’s down. If they aren’t doing that, then there should probably be consequences.

The bullets have to end up somewhere

So, where are they? Bullets will continue to travel until they hit something. A responsible shooter tries to ensure they don’t hit someone unintended in the process. Bullets go through walls, car doors, and plenty of other objects. Fire randomly into a crowd and you will hit someone, though probably not the one you wanted. Blow through and overpenetration are real issues. Shoot someone with the big ass hand cannon and you may end up hitting someone in the next room. It could be a friend, family member, or random stranger. Manslaughter is still manslaughter. If your character is going to shoot at a burglar, it’s best if they don’t accidentally murder the neighbor’s cat. (Or their neighbor.)

This is all a really fun way of saying: not only do accidents happen, there’s a element of random chance at play no matter who you are. As the writer try to keep track of ammunition spent and where it landed.

Don’t shoot into the sky

What goes up, must come down. Falling bullets can still kill you, protagonist or not, or anyone close to you. This is a real problem that affect real (stupid) gun owners in real life who have watched too many action movies.

If you must fire a warning shot then, please, aim at the ground. It’s safer. Shrapnel will still be a problem and the bullet could bounce, but at least your character has some idea of which direction it went.

Go to a gun range

I didn’t really become comfortable with writing guns until Starke took me shooting. Not until I actually held one (several, actually) in my hands. Practicing on different ones really hammers in the idea that they don’t all feel the same or fire the same, and how loud they are.

In the end, the best teacher is experience. Now, there may be extenuating circumstances for why you personally can’t do this but it’s something everyone should consider.

The best way to develop skill at writing about anything is to learn about it and go in with an open mind. Make an effort. You will be rewarded with knowledge.

I get many young writers begging for writing tips. Put these five basics into play, and your story will grow in maturity right before your eyes.

Destroy the Was Where logical, replace “to be” verbs with action verbs. Use the “Find” feature to seek out is, was, are, were, and other “to be” conjugated verbs. (”Whole words only” option if you’ve got it.) See if that was can be more exciting. Example: a) The sun was hot. / The sun blazed. b) His eyes were bright. / His eyes gleamed. c) There are many examples. / Examples abound.

There, Here, It If your sentence begins with one of these three, watch out! My bet is they are followed by a “to be” verb. Seek these out as well, while you’re at it. Oh, you’ll find them all over the place, definitely. Sometimes they’re needed. Sometimes … no. Seeking those three “grammar expletives“ (if we want to get technical) will make your writing cleaner and mature. Example: a) There are some writers who struggle. / Some writers struggle. b) Here is something to consider. / Consider this. c) It takes time to write. / Writing takes time.

Adverbs = EVIL! Adjectives = …Maybe Evil For a moment, forget what your middle school English teacher said about filling your writing with adverbs and adjectives. Adverbs are band-aids for poor verb choice. Adjectives can be strong or weak. Don’t hide weakness with flowery descriptives. Don’t feel everything must be described. Really, it doesn’t. a) Adverbs are plain evil. “She spoke loudly” can be “She shouted.” You don’t need to say “She shouted loudly.” I’ve never seen someone shout any other way. Better yet: “She bellowed, she roared, she howled.” Oooh, look at that! If you use good verbs to start, no embellishments are needed. b) Adjectives are trickier. Sometimes we really do need those descriptions. However, only go into detail on items that are important to your story. Maybe a door is blue, but if we’re never going to see that door again and it’s not blue for a damn good reason, we honestly don’t need to know its color. c) Very and Really are often added to this rule. Common advice is to eliminate “very” or “really” from writing and replace whatever it’s supporting with something better. Mark Twain said to replace “very” with “damn” so the editor cuts it out for you, but you’re smart; you can do that job yourself.

Watch Out for Commonly Confused Words You know the ones. You’re/your, accept/except, advice/advise, hoard/horde, lay/lie, it’s/its, past/passed, fast/quick, less/fewer. There are lists. You probably know which ones cause trouble. I sure do! When you know that word is coming up, just take a moment to make sure you got it write … I mean right.

© (c ) copyright 1990-2011 Rebecca Sinclair