Writing Advice

stack of books

Ask the CIA: How Do I Research Historical Fiction?

by • Ask the Career Indie Author, Research, Writing Advice

I’m thinking about writing a story set in the past, but I don’t know how to research historical fiction. How much research I need to do?. Do I need a fact-checker? That could be so intimidating.

I’ve written stories set in the Victorian age featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mark Twain, and the answer to “how much research do I need to do” is “until you feel comfortable writing the story.”

stack of books research historical fiction
stack of Old books on black surface
The first step involves general reading about the time period. Read several books on the subject. This will let you cross-check the major facts and pick up ideas for your story.

Next, find books that focus on the day-to-day details of people’s lives. Think locally. If your story is set in an area with newspapers and magazines, check them out on Google Books. You can find archives on New York Magazine, Life, and more.

If you’re looking for newspaper archives, I recommend the Library of Congress, the now hidden Google newspapers site, and the British Newspaper Archive. I’ve used all of them.

You need to get a general feeling for the times, manners, relationships, but wait until you’re getting the bare bones of the story down to do the specific research in those areas. That way, you don’t fall into the procrastination trap.
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When you’ve read enough, start writing. Don’t worry about getting all the details right. You might have to insert in square brackets notes about what you need to fill in.

When the draft is finished, go back and research whatever you need to flesh it out. Remember that you can’t rewrite a blank page.

Research Historical Fiction Workflow

The process becomes a cycle:

1. General reading

2. Write the story

3. Research what you need to fill in the blanks

4. Run through the cycle again until satisfied

5. Publish

Capture

An Easy To Use Excel Spreadsheet to Record Writers Expenses

by • Business and money

This is a quick short post offering an Excel spreadsheet to record writers expenses. I use it to track my business expenses for the year.

It’s a very basic one, but I added a few features to help me. For example, at the far right, it compares the amount you enter to the right of the name with the one you put in the particular category. If you did it right, it tells you immediately (“equal”). If it doesn’t, it’ll show “not equal”).

On the next tab can be found where to put your year-end income and expenses such as taxes.

On the third tab is a simple roster to keep track of what festivals and appearances you want to go to and if you paid and rented a hotel room for it.

That’s it. At the end of the year, I make sure all the figures are correct (compared to the 1099s I get from the sellers), and email it to my accountant, who turns it into tax returns.

I hope you find this useful.

keeping pen name secret

How can I keep my pen name secret?

by • Ask the Career Indie Author, Writing Advice

How can I keep my pen name secret?

There’s an old saying: “Two men can keep a secret, but only if one of them is dead.” If you want to write books that you don’t want anyone to know about, you need to keep that in mind.

On a forum recently, an author shared his success in writing. It was a substantial amount, easily six figures in a month. Naturally everybody wanted to know what kind of books he wrote, how he wrote them, what his covers look like and so on.

Using my Google-Fu, I learned his pen name, and mentioned what I did on the forum. I didn’t expect his reply: “that is incredibly invasive.” He also deleted the post.

I felt bad about this, but at the same time he left himself open to discovery. Since I can’t warn him that if I could find out his pen name others can as well, I decided to write this post to share what I did and how you can keep yourself safe as well.

Why keep my pen name secret?

Privacy. Authors have used pen names from the very beginning and for various reasons. Their work would offend important people. They are writing risque or obscene material. Or they are writing books in a genre that could embarrass publicly.

For example, “Eloisa James” is the pen name for a college professor who didn’t want her colleagues to know she was writing romances (very good romances, I highly recommend them). She has since come out of the shadows.

There are also writers working in one genre under their own name who want a pen name to separate those books from the new genre. British writer John Banville writes literary novels that have been shortlisted for major awards. He also has written seven novels in the Quirke mystery series as Benjamin Black. These are pseudonymous works, done not for privacy reasons but to separate these well-written mysteries from his literary work.

So what if you’re writing erotica and you don’t want anyone to know?

1. Don’t tell anyone. Remember the first rule of “Fight Club.” No matter how close you are to somebody, friend or relative, telling them a secret will tempt them into spreading it.

They can’t help themselves, especially if they don’t see any harm in doing so.

Suppose that you told your closest friend that you are involved in the Kennedy assassination. That’s a pretty important secret, and your friend will probably keep it because they know what would happen to you if it became known you were on the Grassy Knoll on Nov. 22. The consequences are obvious.

But what if the secret was that you were a popular author of science fiction romances involving tentacled aliens with knobby appendages and lonely young women kidnapped to be their wives? How could they not keep that a secret? It’s funny! And besides, they told only that one person, and they promised never to tell anybody either. Soon, the whole congregation knows, and your defrocked and looking for a new job.

There is also the risk that sometime down the road you and your friend will part ways. Or maybe you’ll have a falling out with your relative. If they are angry at you, you’ve given them the perfect weapon to get back at you.

So don’t tell anyone.

2. Keep your name separate from your pen name. This is what tripped up our unnamed author. For some reason, he had listed himself as publisher of one of his books on Amazon. Searching Amazon for his name brought up that book and revealed his pen name.

3. Don’t talk about your secret pen name on private forums. One reason why thought it didn’t hurt to search for his pen name was because he was discussing it under his real name. He also said he was no longer working at [major well-known company] and he was a full-time writer. He clearly was proud of his work and his success (as he should be).

The problem with talking about secrets on private forums is that it violates rule number one. Worse, you’re telling thousands of people what you’re doing, and any one of them can take a screenshot of your post and put it up on social media.

This is what happened to Journolist, a forum of reporters from national newspapers and cable channels. Started by Ezra Klein in 2007, nearly 400 reporters, academics, and authors gathered daily to trade rumors and discuss what stories should be highlighted and buried. This was collusion to set the news narrative at The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and other major news outlets.

The existence of the forum was revealed, and copies of the messages showed how the daily news was massaged. There was much embarrassment all around, but nobody lost their job, nobody apologized, and presumably they found another place to meet that was more secure.

But the point stands: Don’t talk about your secret pen name online or offline. Period.

(If you’d like an alternative view, here’s Anne R. Allen on why it’s a bad idea to write under a pen name. While her reasons are valid, they don’t take into account people who write erotica and more explicit books. They also don’t take into account how Amazon’s Also-Boughts handle authors who write books on widely different subjects. If you’re planning on relying on marketing your books to whale readers, a pen name is useful if you’re writing in widely disparate areas.)

Three Bits of Indie Publishing Advice

by • Publishing, Writing Advice

I had planned on writing about the best Amazon book page I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t finished in time. So here’s some indie publishing advice inspired by a post from Jane Friedman’s site.

While “Three Critical Things You Won’t Learn in an MFA Program,” by Susan DeFreitas addressed traditional publishing, her gems of wisdom also works, with some tweaking, for indie authors.

If you’re interested in MFA programs, DeFreitas’ post is worth reading. For indie writers with no intention of going near one, here’s how I rewrote her bullet points for indie authors:

1. Peers and mentors don’t read the same way readers do.

One big difference between indie and trad-published authors is in the use of beta readers. Indie authors love to rely on them, while trad authors probably treat them the way movie makers look at preview audiences and studio notes.

staking vampire
How directors wish they could handle test audiences

Having someone else look over your manuscript – whether they’re friends, members of your writers group, an editor-for-hire, or another writer – is a great way to get feedback on your work.

The thing to keep in mind, however, is that you’re in charge of the book. This doesn’t mean rejecting every suggestion or observation that doesn’t align with your vision of the book, but it doesn’t mean accepting every suggestion, either.

In the writers group I attend every month, we have a good range of readers, which means a wide range of responses. We have readers (like myself) who look for grammar and spelling errors. We have people who have expertise in particular subjects. And everyone reads and can lend their perspective as a pretty unbiased audience. The critique can be hard to take at times – I still shake when one person said my romantic hero looked and acted like Danny DeVito – but it’s never personal. And I made sure to DeVitolize my lead.

Having a number of people read your manuscript can also give you an idea of what observations and suggestions to follow up on. There may be one person who dislikes something; that you can ignore if you think you’re right. If everyone thinks that the fight scene was badly done, or dislike your hero, you might want to think hard about tweaking the character.

But no matter how much feedback you get, in the end, it’s your story. Learn from your critics, but don’t let them steer you wrong.

2. It’s a numbers game.

DeFreitas was talking about submitting manuscripts, with the idea that the more you do it, the greater the chance of succeeding.

This also applies to self-publishing. If you want to succeed in turning your passion for telling stories into a full-time job, you have to keep producing stories.

This seems obvious, but I’ve seen a number of first-time authors ask online what they can do to increase the sales on their sole publication. Yes, it’s possible to advertise. It’s possible to hop on social media and tell everyone about your book. You can even arrange for booksignings.

But the best way to sell books is to keep writing more, especially if you’re writing commercial fiction. In fact, next week’s post will show you someone who’s doing just that.

3. “Comps” aren’t just for the marketing department.

DeFreitas makes this point when dealing with agents and editors, so I’m just repeating what she advised authors to do.

“Comps” are a list of books that are in the same genre as yours, that are closer to your title than the majority of books in that genre.

For example, fantasy is not just fantasy. There’s high fantasy (“Lord of the Rings”), heroic fantasy (“Conan”), comic fantasy (Discworld), dragon fantasy (Anne McCaffrey), and dynastic power-struggle fantasy (“Dune” and “Game of Thrones”).

Where does your book fit in?

This can be a touchy subject. We’d like to think that our book is original, that it can’t be compared to anything that’s come before.

Hogwash.

All artists build on the work of previous artists. We can’t help it, and it’s useful to recognize and acknowledge it.

Comps are also useful when deciding what you want to write next. This is business-type thinking, and many authors are resistant to it. But it’s also realistic thinking. If you want your books to sell, if you are seriously about making money as a writer, then you have to understand what the market wants.

Put it another way: Every successful author knew the genre they were writing in. Stephen King knew horror. John Gresham knew legal thrillers. Nora Roberts knew romance. They knew the types of stories they wanted to tell. They knew what emotion effect they wanted to inspire in their readers.

How is knowing your book’s comp titles any different?

As you learn about the business of writing, you’ll find that this knowledge applies to the craft of writing. If your goal is to reach out to readers, you’ll need to make decisions about your plot and characters. Sometimes you may choose to adjust to the demands of the market; other times, you won’t. Getting a clearer picture in your mind of the risks and rewards will help you make decisions you can live with, and profit from.

hemingway immersive writing

Hemingway and Immersive Writing

by • Sentences • Tags:

I’ve been on a minor Hemingway kick lately. Last time this happened a few years ago, I reread “The Sun Also Rises” but in conjunction with “Reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.” The second book annotated the first, chapter by chapter, placing Hem’s book in its historical context, and sometimes lifting the metaphorical iceberg he wrote about to show what was going on underneath the words.

This year, I’m reading a new edition of “A Moveable Feast,” his memoir of Paris. This reedited version of a book Hem left unfinished, because of his suicide, restores material his last wife, Mary, had cut, and threw in other Paris sketches, incomplete drafts, and even alternative drafts.

Reading this edition was like sneaking into his writing space and rummaging among his papers. Seeing how he wrote could give you ideas about changing your processes.

For example, in the “Fragments” section, the editors printed Hem’s many attempts to write an introduction to “Feast.” None of them were used.

There are 11 attempts, ranging from three sentences to several paragraphs. All of them are variations of the “this book is fiction” theme. All of them want us to understand that Hadley (his first wife, who he dumped for a younger and richer model) was the “heroine” of the book and that he hopes she understands why he wrote this.

Sometimes, his train of thought took a different siding. He’ll talk about a subject grounded in fact, like the changes in skiing — “Nobody has to climb on seal skins anymore” — then turn mystical — “People break their legs and in the world some people still break their hearts. They come down faster and they drop like birds that know many secrets.”

These are snacks for Hemingway fans, but to writers who struggle with putting their thoughts down on the page, it’s comforting to see great writers struggle too. Hem fought back by being persistent. Instead of rewriting the same paragraph — he started from the beginning. Perhaps it was the best way to get his thoughts in order, to hear the music of the sentences.

In another example, he talked about F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was a long paragraph, and we can conclude that it went on too long about Fitzgerald and took the reader away from the purpose of the introduction. It’s a reminder to kill our darlings. It can be beautifully written, but if it doesn’t work, cut it out.

The Value of the Right Details

But that wasn’t what I’m here to talk about. But since I’m not Hem I’m going to leave it in.

In “Feast” there a sketch about writing called “Birth of A New School,” and my attention was arrested by the opening.

Writing teachers tell us that we should use all our senses in our work. We should put in details to help ground us in the story. Dean Wesley Smith talks about this in his class on writing with depth, and the example below seems to apply here.

Smith talks more about depth in this post about Dean Koontz.

I want to quote two paragraphs from the sketch to show what I mean. “Birth of A New School” opens with you, the writer, in a Paris café. It’s early morning and in the air hangs the smell of the new day and the sweeping and the mopping. You have your lucky charms (a horse chestnut and a rabbit’s foot, the fur worn down to muscle and sinew) in your coat pocket, two pencils, the blue-backed notebooks, and your luck scratching inside your pocket, reminding you that it’s there.

First sentence, second paragraph:—

“Some days it went so well that you could make the country so that you could walk into it through the timber to come out into the clearing and onto the high ground and see the hills beyond the arm of the lake.”

Plain description. Country … timber … clearing … high ground … hills … arm of the lake. It trusts the reader to fill in the details with their own experiences.

Some people wouldn’t get it. Perhaps they’ve never walked through the woods. Or they want to see the picture painted by the writer, like Bob Ross filling in one of his landscapes. This is still immersive writing.

Second sentence. Note how it shifts back to the writer, then shifts back into the scene. It’s a long sentence, but you never lose your way, so long as you read each word:—

“A pencil-lead might break off in the conical nose of the pencil sharpener and you would use the small blade of the pen knife to clear it or else sharpen the pencil carefully with the sharp blade and then slip your arm through the sweat-salted leather of your pack strap to lift the pack again, get the other arm through and feel the weight settle on your back and feel the pine needles under your moccasins as you started down for the lake.”

This caught my imagination. I’ve worn backpacks, so I could recall the feel of it on my back, and how you had to move the straps to support its weight. I can also remember and re-experience the moment when you fall into your story, when the words you’re putting on the page turn into memory and experience.

I also experienced this, so to give Hem a chance to tell it properly, I’ll back up a bit before running into the third paragraph:—

“… get the other arm through and feel the weight settle on your back and feel the pine needles under your moccasins as you started down for the lake.

“Then you hear someone say, “Hi, Hem. What are you trying to do? Write in a café?”

“Your luck had run out and you shut the notebook. …”

The rest of the sketch details the encounter between Hem and the intruder. It’s very funny, and I’ll leave you to discover it for yourself.

The lesson I’m learning is that to describe a place truly, choose the right words and only the right words. Descriptions are not necessary, but what the person inhabiting the space experiences is. What that person feels — the sweat-salted leather, the feel of pine needles, the weight of the pack — can mean more to the reader than what the person sees.

And the second lesson is to find a café where your friends can’t find you.

Are Book Marketing Programs Scams?

by • Business and money

The short answer is: Not all of them.

The better question is to ask “How can I tell the difference?”

I hope by the end of this article you’ll know enough to tell the scammers on sight, and learn a few critical thinking tools to help you sort through the rest.

Let’s start by setting out what book marketers do.

Generally, they’re the people who want to insert themselves between your manuscript and publication. They take several forms.

There are those who offer services for a fee. They’ll help shape your book for publication: editing, formatting the print and ebook versions, designing the cover, and writing the ad copy. They’ll offer marketing services. They’ll handle copyrighting it. They’ll even help you place your book with movie and TV producers.

They offer their services piecemeal, or as part of a package that can reach several thousand dollars.

Then there are those who offer to teach you how to do everything I listed above. Many of them promise to help you become a best-selling author. They give advice on what makes a kick-ass cover. They sell courses on using Amazon and Facebook ads. They teach you about social media, and how to write your blurbs and ad copy. They’ll sell you books, video courses, and even one-on-one consultations.

Now, these can be very useful products and services. These can also break your heart and empty your bank account, paying for services that you never receive, or don’t give you the results you want.

How can you tell the difference between the gold standard and fool’s gold?

By thinking critically, educating yourself, and doing a little research.

Let’s start by directing you to the Writer Beware site, run by Victoria Strauss. In particular, this post from a few days ago about book marketing scams run out of the Philippines.

If you’ve never heard of Writer Beware, then bookmark it and start reading it.

After you read that post, you’ll understand the first sign that you’ve encountered a scammy service:

They call you first.

Rule one: Never deal with any salesman who calls or emails you first.

Note I said salesman. Reject them out of hand. Everyone else, listen to their pitch, but keep in the back of your mind that chances are they’ll want money from you. But who know? You may hear from the local library wanting you to join their local author festival. A reporter may have heard about your book and want an interview. It could happen.

It could also be someone representing a sketchy “book festival” wanting you to pay to play. Or it could be someone offering you a slot on a “nationwide podcast,” but you need to fork over the bucks to participate.

Apart from those rare exceptions, it’ll be someone who is trying to sell you a service. You were put on their list because you just put up a website and recently published your first book.

They won’t just call, either. They look for author websites and send you an email offering their services. I get those pitches often. I don’t respond to them.

Your response is easy: hang up. Don’t engage with them. Don’t listen to their pitch, just hang up. Your time is limited.

The logic is simple: People who are good at their jobs are swamped with work. Good cover artists and editors with a reputation are booked months in advance. Good marketing and publicity services don’t need to blind call someone who self-published their first novel. They’ve got plenty of authors knocking on their doors to pick and choose.

So if someone calls offering a publishing package, or an introduction to a Hollywood producer, hang up.

Identifying the White Hats

If you are shopping for publishing or marketing services, you have to turn on your brain and think critically about the claims and advice you’ll hear.

Years ago, a book came out that took a critical look at Wall Street.

It was called “Where Are the Customer’s Yachts?” Fred Schwed Jr., a stockbroker himself, pointed out that of everyone involved in the stock market, the only ones who got consistently rich were the brokers and advisors.

Not the investors.

It was written in 1940, and the advice still holds true today. In fact, it’s been shown again and again that investing in an index fund that matches the ups and downs of the stock market will do better than investors picking their stocks.

And whether the stocks go up or down, the businesses in the middle always make money.

There’s a similar gold rush going on in indie publishing. It seems like for every person that tries to offer clear-eyed advice on how to write, publish, and market your books, there are a dozen who promise riches if only you buy their advice.

The question is: How can you tell the difference between them? This is where thinking critically comes into play.

Recently, I listened in on a pitch promoted by a well-known name in the book marketing field. The person, call him Mr. Greene, claimed to have had great success putting authors on the bestsellers list, and he promised to share what he learned with us.

Now, I knew Mr. Greene wasn’t going to tell us everything. He was offering his free lecture to sell us on his services. That’s fine.

But I listened critically to what he was saying. I also listened to and what he wasn’t saying.

Could he get me my yacht? Or was he the only one who was going to sail away?

Here’s what I learned:

What Are His Qualifications?

Who was Mr. Greene? Where did he learn his job? Where did he work?

I don’t know. He never said. I don’t know if he worked in the book industry, if he owned a marketing business, if he earned an MBA. Nothing.

He did say that he helped authors sell millions of dollars in books. He helped put books on the bestsellers list. And he promised to help you do the same.

That’s it.

Not a good start.

So I looked him up online and researched Mr. Greene. It turns out he did have experience in the publishing industry. He started a distribution company. He wrote a book.

In other words, his silence about his background was simply an oversight.

I looked at his book. Published a few years ago, it described the publishing and distribution process. Worthwhile if you’re looking to sell your books through bookstores, but pretty basic information.

I looked inside. In the introduction, he wrote that Mark Twain self-published his books because no one else would.

That made me frown. I had researched Mark Twain’s life for my book of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Mark Twain self-published his books because he wanted to make more money at it. As publisher, he would pocket the publisher’s profits as well as author royalties. Mr. Greene was wrong.

Oops.

The book has some reviews and a decent rating, but its high Amazon ranking indicated that it wasn’t selling and not much effort has been made in promoting it lately.

The lack of a successful book in Mr. Greene’s past is not an automatic disqualifier. There are a number of reputable teachers in a similar situation.

Robert McKee is considered a creditable teacher of screenwriting, despite never writing a good screenplay.

Authors praise John Truby’s “The Anatomy of Story,” even though his greatest success was writing three (3!) scripts for the “21 Jump Street” TV show (he was also story editor on the show). He claims he served as consultant on more than unnamed 1,000 scripts, and he has a few endorsements from screenwriters and producers.

There’s another author whose courses I’ve taken and learned from.

Some people are better at teaching than doing.

Let’s just say Mr. Greene is falling behind and leave it at that.

Show Me the Yachts

Another way to tell if a person offers a valuable service is to look at his results. If a person is promising to make you a success, then you need to see a fleet of customers’ yachts.

Listen for any verifiable claims. Follow them up. Are they successes? Do the authors have real careers?

Mr. Greene mentioned about a half-dozen authors. Most of them were attached to endorsements, thanking him for getting their books into libraries, or bookstores, or for getting their sales to climb.

Of the rest, two of them got their books mentioned in magazines.

Only one saw a book reach the top of a bestseller list, thanks in part to a Bookbub promotion. The book was traditionally published, so it already had some publisher support. Still you could give Mr. Greene credit for this one.

Looking up the authors who endorsed Mr. Greene’s work showed a variety of subjects: thrillers, business self-help, young adult, and political advocacy. The books look as good as anything put out by New York, but their sales ranks were not very high.

Conclusion: Mr. Greene was a legit book marketer, but the results I saw didn’t justify the price of his services.

Are There Good Marketers?

For a look at someone who seems to offer a good service, let’s look briefly at Mark Dawson’s courses.

(Note: I have no connection to him. I listen to his Self-Publishing Show podcast and am a member of his Facebook group. I’ve never taken any of his courses.)

First, Mark Dawson is a best-selling author, currently making easily a six-figure income each year (and apparently shooting for a seven-figure 2019).

Even if you don’t believe that (and you shouldn’t believe what anyone says online, really, as a general rule), you can look at his Amazon Author Rank and see he’s moving serious numbers.

mark dawson amazon rank

This is what I mean by critical thinking. I could claim I’m making a six-figure income. I can say anything. But if you look at my books, you’ll know instantly that I’m not a best-selling author. Mark is.

Mark offers several courses, in particular a basic one on publishing (Self Publishing 101, which costs about $500), and an in-depth one on online advertising (Ads for Authors, which I think runs about $750). They’re expensive, but far less than Mr. Greene’s service.

A quick look around online led me to this post about his Self Publishing 101 course. It’s a detailed and positive review.

I also looked at several promotional videos by authors who have taken his course, such as horror writer Christopher Coleman, historical saga writer Octavia Randolph, and romance novelist Maria Luis. Not only were they positive reviews, but they talked about how much they were earning after they took the course. A look at their books show hundreds of reviews, and Kindle ranks in about the 10,000 range (Luis’ latest novel is at #957. That’s for the entire store). Excellent results.

So that’s it. When shopping for services, look around, ask questions, think critically, and research any verifiable claims.

And write great books.

Build Style Sheets to Keep Track of Your World

by • Writing Advice

A Style Sheet is a useful thing to have handy. This is true whether you are writing a short story, a novel, or a 17-volume series.

How many books have you read where a character’s name is given incorrectly or changes halfway through the novel? A style sheet would have prevented that problem.

What is a style sheet? It’s a cheat-sheet for writing. They remember all those tedious dates and odd name spellings that are so easy to get wrong.

Your style sheet will remember for you, and it will also remember for your editor. Editor likes style sheets attached to the story they are editing since many questions come pre-answered, and they don’t have to stop their work and nag Writer (that’s you) to enlighten them.

This is one of those things that are easier to do than to describe, so let’s build one. Style sheets, by the way, are much easier to construct as you move forward with your story, rather than after the fact.

On a sheet of paper, make space for each letter of the alphabet, along with – if your story demands it – spaces for numbers and typographical characters. You can build your style sheet on paper or on your computer. If you build your style sheet on notebook paper, expect to rewrite it a few times as you add and change and correct.

On your computer, give yourself two columns, A to Z.

As you write the story, list every character’s name in the story. For given names and family names, you may want to list the name twice, once for the first name and then once for the last name. If your character is named “Pauline” list her twice. Under P list her as “Pauline (Whitman)” and under W, list her as “Whitman (Pauline)”.

It seems like overkill, but it makes it easy to tease apart multiple members of several families.

This dual-entry method also lets you identify characters by their relationships. Thus “Pamela (Pauline’s maiden aunt) (Abraxas)” provides you both the family relationship and the fact that “Pamela” doesn’t have the same last name as “Pauline”.

More importantly, having all your characters listed means that if you have to set the manuscript aside, when you return to it, you’ll know that your heroine’s name is “Pauline” and not “Penelope” or “Paulette”. It’s especially important with secondary characters, which are easier to forget.

Keep Characters Identifiable

Style sheets can also help reduce confusion with names. As you add names, you’ll see at a glance how many characters have names starting with “P”. This could confuse the reader. If you see ten names starting with “P” and no compelling reason to do so, your style sheet will nudge you to choose names from elsewhere in the alphabet. If you do have a compelling reason to have Peter, Paul, Paula, Patty, and Prince, you can make it clear in the story why you’re doing this – say, there’s a huge inheritance at stake if they were named that way and zero inheritance if they don’t — and you can select names that look as different as possible on the page while still starting with “P”.

All done?

You just got started.

Record Other Proper Nouns

Next, list all the street names, town names, country names, planet names, etc. If there are several towns with streets in each, list the names similarly.

That is, “Chocolate Avenue (Hershey)” under “C” and then under “H”, you list “Hershey (Chocolate Avenue)” followed by “Hershey (Cocoa Avenue), “Hershey (Granada Avenue)” and so forth.

Just as the overall list is in alphabetical order, the entries under each letter should be in alphabetical order.

Are you using specialty words? Foreign slang? Made-up words? Words used in an unusual way (i.e., a word normally not capitalized but you always use it with a capital letter to indicate it has a different meaning)? Do any of your words include accent marks over the letters? List those too.

Having your specialized vocabulary, foreign slang, and made-up words in a convenient list ensures consistency in your spelling and keep the Editor from harassing you because you need your characters to say “humuhumunukunukuāpua`a” instead of “Hawaiian Trigger Fish” (it’s true; look it up).

While you’re at it, throw in pets, species, named weapons, and anything else unique to your story.

After that come numbers and specialty characters. Is the dotcom venture capital firm that Pauline is investigating named “%Doom”? Are you writing about the band *NSYNC or country singer k.d. lang? Your style sheet needs a section for this too. Do your characters send text messages using emoticons? If they’re chatting via AOL with each other because your story is set back in 1995, you need to list what they use so Editor doesn’t change what you want into something incorrect for the story’s time period.

Your style sheet answers whatever questions could come up in the revision stage.

So that’s your style sheet for your short story or novel.

Style Sheets for Series

For a series, you may want to consider using two style sheets: a master sheet that cover all your books, and a style sheet for each book. Entries are created using the same format as above, but master style sheets are arranged differently so you can remember in exactly which book Penelope (Pauline’s secret twin sister) first appeared.

As with your novel sheet, start with two columns: from A to Z. Pauline will be listed twice: both as Pauline (Whitman) and as Whitman (Pauline). At this point, add the books this character appears in, such as “Pauline (Whitman) (Pauline’s First Peril)”.

Pauline is our major character so she won’t need much more. A minor character, like Penelope, needs a list of each appearance along with the book in which she becomes a major character. Thus, Penelope (Zimmerman) (Pauline’s First Peril) is followed by (Pauline and the Hideous Discovery). This title is the one where Penelope gets to shine in all her villainous glory. This is her main story, although Penelope, true to her nature, keeps coming back for more. She’s the mastermind behind so many other schemes, even if she doesn’t put in a personal appearance.

As you write your series, you’ll be constantly updating your master name style sheet.

Your series master style sheet will have a page just for locations. You know how to spell Paris? True! But your master style sheet will say Paris (Pauline’s First Peril) (Pauline and the Hideous Discovery) (Trapped in the Seraglio) etc., etc. Every time a location appears in the series, add that location name to the master style sheet with a notation as to which book it appeared in. Then, later on, when you insert new novels into your series, you’ll have a fighting chance of keeping track of the sleazy nightclubs and seedy bars that Pauline frequents. Readers notice continuity errors such as when “The Bearded Clam” dive bar which was located in Ocean City suddenly relocates to Kansas City.

This location master style sheet is critical for a huge fantasy or science-fiction series that ranges across space and time. Don’t count on remembering all those tiny details. Let your master style sheet do it for you.

Your series master style sheet, just like your individual novel style sheet, will also include pages for magic weapons, pets, mystical words, techno-babble jargon, and anything else specific to the series. As with names and locations, list the novels in which
each term appears, with a notation (if needed) as to first appearance.

Your style sheet is a living document. You’ll be updating it every time a new character makes an appearance or walks down a dark street in the seedy neighborhood or develops a new martial arts technique that needs a cool name. Each novel written in a series will add to your master style sheet. If you set aside your manuscript or your series for a few years, your style sheet will remember all those pesky details for you.

When you’re finished with your manuscript, check it over with your style sheet to ensure no character changed names in mid-stream by accident. This is also your last chance to decide you’ve used too many names starting with the letter “P”. Make your changes and corrections as necessary. Then, when you forward the clean manuscript to Editor, send your style sheet along with it.

Editor will thank you for your style sheet. You’ve made Editor’s job easier, just like you kept your manuscript clean of easily made but not always easily corrected errors.

Plotting Practice Using Movies

Practice Plotting Using Movies

by • Plotting

I’m not fond of “how-to-write” books which use movies as a teaching device. I understand that it’s an easy shortcut, and that more people are familiar with a popular movie as an example. It’s not just that they use the same movies (“Silence of the Lambs” is frequently used), it’s that it’s so limiting. It encourages small plots and small stories.

That’s because a 90-minute movie is actually the equivalent of a short story or a novella, not a novel. It’s one thing to learn how to write a screenplay starting with an epic novel like “Gone With the Wind,” but learning to plot a story going the other way around can be limiting.

Movies are good at compression, a form of visual and aural shorthand that conveys the meaning of a scene. I saw this recently in the “National Treasure” sequel, “The Book of Secrets.” The movie opens with an ancestor of our hero, Thomas Gates, being accused of participating in Lincoln’s assassination. In the next scene, we’re in the home of Gates’ father, and he’s searching through his crowded office muttering, “Maps to president’s houses … keys to locks that don’t exist … what’s the point? … what am I looking for … proof … proof … proof … what proof.”

national treasure book of secrets
Saying so much with so few words

The scene lasts only a few seconds, but we can intuitively tell several things:

a) He is upset at the revelation in the previous scene;
b) He’s searching his papers for any evidence to disprove it;
c) He can’t and he’s upset about that.

All this from a few seconds of a man roaming his office and moaning.

That’s compression. Wonderful for movies, terrible if you got to fill 300 pages.

But last night, while watching another movie, I realized that you can practice plotting using movies, but starting with a movie that showed promise, but didn’t quite get there.

The Great Buck Howard

We were watching “The Great Buck Howard,” a movie from 2009 starring John Malkovich portraying a character based in part on “The Amazing Kreskin,” a mentalist who was popular during my childhood. (I even owned “The Amazing Kreskin” boardgame that was not so much a game as a box for creating mentalist tricks such as card predicting and pendulum swings.

The movie was inspired by the writer/director’s experiences as Kreskin’s road manager. Since this movie was meant to tell a story, a plot had to be found to accompany it.

At the center of the story, there’s Troy Gable, a young man who gives up his father’s dream of law school so he can act as Howard’s assistant. Along the way, he runs into a young woman who will act as the love interest.

emily blunt

Assisting Buck, however, is not an easy job (we see him at the beginning of the movie driving off his assistant before Troy could settle into the job). Buck’s been in show business for 40 years and has fallen from being a frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” to playing small venues in the Midwest. He has two dreams: to play Vegas and to appear on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

The movie only runs 90 minutes, but it seems to move much faster. Troy settles into his job, encounters his father who wonders what happened to him, and meets and charms the girl. The majority of the screen time belongs to Buck, who blows his shot to get on the “Tonight Show” and – after a new stunt gets the media’s attention (after he collapses afterwards) – he appears in Vegas, where he fails to perform his signature trick successfully. At the end, Troy finds his way, makes up with his father, and he sees Buck – a little wiser and happier – doing the same little shows where he is appreciated.

Plotting Practice Using Movies
Insulting Donny Most was a good way to get you bounced from Jay Leno.

After the movie, my wife and I talked about the film. It was all right, but it seemed like there was something missing. We chewed over the scenes and tried to identify what was missing.

And then it occurred to us: Troy’s story and Buck’s story did not meet.

On one side, we had Troy. He tells us he wants to be a writer, but we never see him write anything. He needs to defy his law-school-demanding father, and he does … by saying he doesn’t want to go back to law school.

There’s one problem: There’s nothing in the story that shows him the way to do that, to give him the backbone to stand up to his father. He just does it.

That’s fine for real life. Children can be pretty good at defying their parents; just ask my daughter. For movies, we need to see the lever that forces Troy into action.

In other words, we want to see him struggle.

In fact, we don’t see Troy struggle with anything. He’s competent in his job, and when something happens that’s outside of his control, he takes a tongue-lashing from Buck, and he moves on. In one city, instead of the limo Troy ordered, Buck is picked up in an SUV. The horror!

Buck turns on Troy, and … he takes it.

Again, just like real life. But this is a movie.

The lack of struggle also plays into his relationship with Valerie, the media assistant Buck hires to get publicity for his new stunt. Being the only boy and girl of roughly the same age in the entire movie, it’s clear they’re supposed to fall into each others arms, and they do. At least long enough for them to get drunk and fall into bed (this is Hollywood, of course).

Again, no struggle.

All Right, Smarty Pants, How Would You Do It?

The solution was clear: there needed to be more conflict. With conflict comes emotion. With conflict comes things to try and fail.

Buck’s character arc in the movie was perfect. There’s nothing that needs changing here. What needed to happen was an acceleration of Troy’s journey toward being a writer, and he needs Buck’s help to do that.

In other words, instead of two parallel stories running side by side – Buck’s ambition of Vegas/Leno and Troy’s ambition to be a writer – we need to tie them together.

How can Buck help? How can he not help! He’s a mentalist, a hypnotist, and he sings and plays the piano as part of his act. Let him play Troy’s mentor.

* He can teach him the secrets of hypnotism so he can try them on his father, and maybe with Valerie (for laughs, of course).

* He can help him with his writing. Not with the nuts and bolts, but with the connection Troy needs to forge with his readers. The same kind of connection Buck forges with the audience.

There’s even the perfect subplot already in the movie that can shape this arc. Early in the movie, Buck is followed by a writer for “Entertainment Weekly.” He’s writing a profile of Buck, and when it comes out later, we see that it’s a hatchet job. The writer portrays Buck as a washed-up, out-of-date hacky entertainer.

Buck feels horrible about this, of course, but by this time Troy (who has come to feel some fondness for Buck) could be livid about it. He could be angry about it on Buck’s behalf. Maybe he could threaten to punch out the writer, or call up the magazine.

And here’s where Buck could stop him and say, “No, don’t do that. You’re going to be a writer, you’re going to face criticism like this yourself. You need to walk it off, keep doing what you’re doing. This is what entertainers do.” (And he would have the authority to say that, too. He must have gotten some bad notices after 40 years in the business.)

In other words, Buck could in his own way have acted as Troy’s mentor. He could even reveal that writers have to be entertainers in their own way, too. They can put on an act just like any performer.

Plotting Practice Using Movies
Enlisting Buck Howard’s help could help Troy win over his father.

(And this inspired another idea, a different way for Troy to handle his father. He could still stand his ground, but do it in an exaggerated way, a form of false bravado. Would Hemingway have let his father tell him to go to law school? Would Hunter S. Thompson? Jerry Lewis wouldn’t have put up with that, and neither did Buck.)

See what I mean? The structure of a mentor-type story was built into the structure of “The Great Buck Howard,” but it wasn’t used. Once I started looking for it, not only did I see how Troy’s story could be built up, but how Buck could play a role that would be meaningful and effective (I’m sure with further thought there would be something for Valerie to do here as well, which would base their relationship on something firmer than a mutual liking for each other.)

Not every movie can be improved, but by practice plotting using movies, you might be surprised what happens if you give it a try.

Build the Writing Habit

by • Writing Advice

Here’s a question I see often:

I haven’t put anything down in a long long time. It’s easy to write down ideas, but I haven’t been able to put down any words. I tell myself today will be the day I’ll start my book, but then it slips away and when it’s over, I hate myself. What can I do?

It sounds like you have trouble getting started. One possible fix lies in creating a frictionless way of beginning. This can consist of two tasks:

1. Reframe your problem. You’re not resisting writing, so much as that you haven’t gotten into the habit of writing.

We don’t have an automatic scheduling system hardwired into our brain. We react to stimuli. We work at a certain time because we’re fired if we don’t. We talk to our spouse because we’re supposed to. We diaper the baby because it’s whining and smells bad. If we don’t let the dog out in time … you can imagine the rest.

So you’re not writing. Not because you’re a bad person, or incompetent, or lacking spine. You haven’t built the habit of it into your day. You haven’t found the tool that works for you.

That’s important. You’ve heard of writers who seem to have a great work ethic? If you probe their life, you’ll find that there’s an origin point. They were punished by poverty. They escaped a terrible home life. They were worked by nuns bearing sharp, hard rulers.

That’s important to know, because your life is not their life. The easier your life is, the easier it is not to work. Anthropologists observing hunter-gatherer tribes estimate they spend only a few hours a day “working” to feed themselves. Farmers work hard all day, but their labor varies with the seasons. There’s less demand on them during the summer (when the crops are planted and growing) and the winter (when the fields lie fallow).

That’s not you; that’s humanity.

Authors face this problem when they become successes. Take Mickey Spillane. After he became a best-selling author, he’d spend his days on a beach in South Carolina, fishing or watching the waves. He’d think about writing, but nothing came up that satisfied him.

“Then one day I got a call from my accountant. ‘Mickey,’ he said, ‘it’s not desperate or anything, but the money’s starting to run low. It might be a good idea to generate some income.’

“So I thanked him and hung up the phone, and I took a walk on the beach, and bang! Just like that, I started getting ideas!”

So stop beating yourself up. You’re like a lot of writers.

2. Find a tactic that works for your needs. A typical tactic is to work early in the day. Or set your alarm for 30 minutes before you’re supposed to walk up. That has the added advantage of putting you under a time limit with a punishment if you fail: Don’t get the work done, berate yourself the rest of the day.

You’ll either knuckle down and work, or decide that Amway might be a good option after all.

If your schedule is fluid, give yourself a word count goal. Make it small (remember, frictionless). Fifty words of something, anything, but it HAS to be 50 words. More is better, but even if you have nothing, tell yourself that 50 words of anything is a success.

How hard is that? Piece of cake. And set a goal of doing it every day for a week. Start small.

The goal is not to accumulate words, but to force your mind to create a habitual act. There are studies out there that say it takes 21 days to establish a habit, but lately further studies have disproved that. In fact, it can take several months to integrate a task into your daily routine, to the point that when you stop doing it, you’ll miss it.

So take it slow at first: 50 words, 7 days. Establish in your head that you’ll do 50 words a day. You may even want to limit yourself: 50 words minimum, 300 words tops. You don’t want to write 3,000 words the first day, then take the week off. The goal here is consistency; consistent daily production of work.

When you feel comfortable, you can push on to drafting a story, or outlining a novel.

Third.

Wait a minute, what happened to “two things”?

I just thought of a third: Write down your daily production. A calendar page on the wall. A daily diary. Something you see that shows you’re making progress.

writing habit calendar

Now you have the third important component of building a habit: feedback.

It’s all about accountability and your ego. If you’re slacking, you’ll know it. If you tell your spouse or friend every day what you’re doing (or not), you’ll be motivated to keep going.

So those are the three elements I’ve found useful: reframing, frictionless goal, and feedback.

I’ll also throw in a fourth task.

What happened to three things? Quiet, you, I’m rolling.

Consequences. Give yourself a deadline with a reward to celebrate finishing something.

Whenever we publish a book, we go out to dinner. We don’t go to restaurants otherwise, so a trip to the Indian restaurant, or the crepe restaurant is a special occasion. Celebrate your finished books with something memorable, and you’ll be motivated to create more.

That’s the feedback loop of writing: schedule, goal, feedback, and reward.

Use Chapter Titles as a Marketing Tool for Long Fiction

by • Writing Advice

When you page through the opening pages of a novel, either online or in a real bookstore, you see the usual front matter: title page, copyright page, dedication, maybe some maps or charts. Sometimes, there’s an opening illustration. There may also be a list of other titles by Author, helpfully supplied by Publisher.

The purpose of this section is to inform Reader the basic facts about what he’s reading, who wrote it, and where the book came from. Informative, but it doesn’t do much to entice the Reader into wanting to read more.

There are sections of the book which fulfill that function, such as the title, the cover art, the back-jacket copy, and the book description.

There is also one more page which can do that. A page that is often ignored. This page can be your ally, luring the Reader into wanting to pay for the privilege of diving into your story right now.

This page is your table of contents.

Nonfiction always has chapter titles in its table of contents. Its function is informative, directing the reader to the section they need to read first.

Fiction has had a long and problematic relationship with chapter titles. Very old novels usually have titles for their chapters. They can be quite detailed, almost index-like in their complexity. Many modern novels don’t supply a table of contents at all, despite the fact that the book is divided up into chapters. The idea is that paper books don’t need them since Reader should start on page 1 and keep reading in he encounters “The End.”

Ebooks, unlike paper books, require a table of contents. Reader can’t just flip through a digital file. The table of contents lets Reader go directly to a specific chapter.

So here you have this valuable real estate, one that you must have for your ebook and what do I see most often?

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Even duller, you don’t even get the words, but:

1

2

3

4.

It’s functional, easy to do, and does the required job.

And it does absolutely nothing to draw in Reader.

How much more exciting it would be for Reader to browse the book, having been drawn in by your potent title, dramatic cover, vivid synopsis, and then open the book to see this:

1. Pauline discovers a body

2. Pauline is disinherited

3. Pauline meets a mysterious stranger

4. Pauline’s virtue is menaced by a cad

5. Pauline flees in the dead of night

And so on, until you reach the final chapter:

40. Pauline is triumphant

Or, you can devise a simpler set of chapter titles:

1. The body

2. Disinherited

3. The mysterious stranger

4. Menaced

5. Escape

And so on, until you reach the final chapter:

40: Triumph, or Virtue Rewarded

Which table of contents is most interesting to Reader? It won’t be the metronome of “chapter one, chapter two, chapter three ……”

Which table of contents will encourage Reader to open up her wallet, purchase your book, and then spend hours with your story? It will be the one that guarantees a good read.

Handling Divisions

In addition, your table of contents can help explain how your book is divided up. Does your book change time periods dramatically, moving from the past to the future and back again? Your table of contents can clarify that movement, making it easier for Reader to keep track of the narrative.

For example:

Part One: Scotland 2019

1. Pauline enters the circle of menhirs

2. Pauline performs the ritual

3. Pauline is interrupted by the laird, Jamie

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: Scotland 1019

10. Pauline is tried as a witch

11. The laird meets his double, Fergus

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: Scotland 1519

21. Pauline saves one laird, sacrificing the other

And so on, until we reach

Part Four: Scotland 1019 B.C.

26. Pauline is captured by druids

And so on, until we reach

Part Five: Scotland 2019

35: Pauline’s time machine malfunctions

And so on, until at last we reach

Part Six: Scotland 3019

40: Pauline, Jamie, and Fergus, reunited at last

Locations and settings

Thus, we see:

Part One: Manhattan

1. Pauline discovers the body

2. Pauline flees into the night

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: The holler in West Virginia

12. Pauline is kidnapped

13. Pauline meets a dangerous man

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: The Florida Gulf Coast

21. Pauline almost drowns in the hurricane

And then after much trauma

Part Four: Hollywood

31. Pauline and the casting couch

And then back to

Part Five: Manhattan

39. Pauline faces the court

40. Pauline’s decision

You can just as easily show how Pauline is zipping across the galaxy in her two-person space ship and the planets she visits.

If your book is in parts, whereby each part is narrated by a different character, your table of contents can make that clear.

Part One: Pauline

1. Pauline’s dreadful discovery

2. Pauline, accused

And so on, until we reach

Part Two: Harrison

5. Is she guilty?

6. If she is, she’s still damn hot

And so on, until we reach

Part Three: Pauline

11. Pauline vamps the prosecutor

12. Pauline finds evidence

And so on, until we reach

Part Four: Harrison

21. The evidence is damning

22. Her web of lies

And so on, until we reach

Part Five: Pauline

30. Pauline’s arrest

31. Pauline in prison

And so on, until we reach

Part Six: Harrison

35. Desperate measures

36. Disbarred

And so on, until at last

Part Seven: Reunited

40. Pauline and Harrison, or Virtue Triumphant

In every case, exciting chapter titles gives Reader far more reasons to pick up your book over someone else’s.

You can play with your chapter titles. They form a poem if read aloud. They can reveal the story from start to finish. Conversely, they can conceal what actually happens by focusing on a minor, but still interesting, event in the chapter. They can bring out other characters in the novel, letting Reader know that Pauline is accompanied by her sister, Penelope, also prone to peril.

The choice is yours.

The only disadvantage is that it takes time to write good chapter titles. As you write and rewrite, make notes on possible chapter titles. Revise as needed and then see how your list of chapter titles reads on the page. Revise again. Writing chapter titles is similar to choosing the title of your book or writing headlines. You are compressing a huge message into a few words. The difference is you don’t have to be as concise as a book title might need to be.

Your chapter titles can become another marketing tool; a subtle one that helps make the sale to Reader, when she’s deciding between your book and someone else’s. Your book has an exciting table of contents, whetting Reader’s appetite. The other book has that dreary list of chapter one, chapter two, chapter three and so on.

Be the book that Reader chooses.

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