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Your story’s opener is your one opportunity to capture an editor’s or agent’s attention. Learn how to avoid the critical mistakes (such as providing too much backstory) that lead to rejection and write a great beginning for your story. Today’s tip of the day, taken from Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers At Page One by Les Edgerton, illustrates the five wrong ways to start a story.
Opening With a Dream
Never, ever, ever begin a narrative with action and then reveal the character’s merely dreaming it all. Not unless you’d like your manuscript hurled across the room, accompanied by a series of curses. Followed by the insertion of a form rejection letter into your SASE and delivered by the minions of our illustrious postal service. Even though we’re dealing with beginnings here, it bears mentioning that you should never–and I never never–end a story by revealing that all that has gone on before was just a dream. Not unless you enjoy the prospect of strangers hunting you down and doing you bodily harm should such a story somehow find print.
Opening With an Alarm Clock Buzzing
Don’t open with your protagonist waking to an alarm clock ringing, or to someone shaking her awake, or to a cute little birdie chirping from her bedroom window, or to a blazing sun shining through the window.
This is always a groaner for the agent or editor–a beginning in which she’s introduced to the character waking up to an alarm clock ringing or to a clock radio announcing something important, such as the Martians have landed. Such an opening signals clearly to the agent or editor that the writer is about to take her through a tedious and thoroughly dull journey of the character waking, eating breakfast, greeting all the numbingly boring children in the house, and so on. It’s going to be hours before she gets the actual story. Hours she’s probably not going to invest.
The only thing worse than a story opening with a ringing alarm clock is when the character reaches over to turn it off and then exclaims, “I’m late!” I actually saw a movie in which that happened–wish I could remember the title so I could give it its deserved props. An intelligent reader will root for a cruel and unusual death for someone so irredeemably stupid as to set her alarm clock so she’ll be late and is then surprised when it goes off at the time she set it for may actually meet a person of the opposite sex who is equally brain damaged, and the scary thing is that they may have offspring. Resulting in progeny from the shallow end of the gene pool. Now, that’s a terrifying thought!
Being Unintentionally Funny
Don’t write sentences like: “Was she going to come in or stay out on the porch, he thought to himself.” It’s been fairly well verified down through the annals of history that when a human being thinks, he almost always does so to himself, and scarce
The path to becoming a published author is full of twists and turns. No matter what stage of the writing process you are in or how busy your schedule is, you should always strive to get better and leave room for improvement. Below, author Aine Greaney talks about the importance of writing daily and strengthening your writing skills. She also discusses three qualities every writer should possess in order to succeed in the writing world. Start building your writing stamina now!
Have the Desire to Write
For a writer, desire means you want to write as much as you want anything else in your life. In your life’s bucket list, writing is listed among the top three.
I’ve met some writers who have chosen to live alone, who have eschewed romantic relationships in order to have a writer’s solitude.
For you, this may sound a little drastic—and certainly a high price to pay to be a writer. But overall, what I’m talking about here is the act of getting tough on yourself. If you really want to be a writer, you must do what it takes. If you want it badly enough, you will have to make real sacrifices and give up other things, other activities, wealth, or ego trips.
All life changes require behavior modification—a process by which you are going to stop one habit or activity (whining, pining, procrastinating) and start and maintain another habit (regular, sustained writing).
Develop Self-Discipline
It’s such a grim old word, isn’t it? It conjures Dickensian punishments and town-square floggings. But self-discipline is key to writing. The simple fact is this: If you leave writing until “I feel like it,” or “I feel inspired,” or “I feel I have something significant to say,” then you will be doing just that—leaving writing.
In the cliché department, it’s an oldie but a goodie: Writing is half inspiration and half perspiration. It’s true. And it’s especially true for writers who are also holding down another career.
From making excuses about going to the gym to stealing that last chocolate-chip cookie, we are all capable of acting like five-year-olds. We’ll all push the envelope and spin our own excuses. Worse, we’ll even believe these excuses. Wag your finger at yourself. Become your own procrastination police.
Create a Daily Writing Habit
Some working nine-to-five writers will tell you that the workweek is simply too packed and exhausting to get any writing done. “I’ll just do it on the weekend,” they say. “I’ll devote the entire weekend to writing.” Sounds good, right? After all, you have two full, paid days to devote to your craft.
Hmmm … I’m going to way a finger here and act like your mother and say, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
First, I don’t believe those so-called weekend writers. Fine, they may not be actually sitting at their writing desks from Monday to Friday. But I’m going to be that they are, in some measure, visiting or revisiting their writing projects. As they drive to work or munch on their lunchtime sandwiches, they are imagining or reimagining that last scene they just wrote. Or they are taking time out to jot down lists of ideas, edits, and plot solutions. Then, come Saturday morning and their designated writing time, a portion of the work has already been done.
If you’re a beginner or even a beginner-to-intermediate writer, you need to write something—preferably a set, targeted amount—every day. By spending time—even if it’s just ten minutes—with your
No matter if you are just getting started or want to break into fiction writing, setting is a crucial element to any story. In order to create an imaginary world for your story, you’ll need to know the fundamental elements of setting first. Discover the basic elements of setting in a story from Between the Lines.
Fiction has three main elements: plotting, character, and place or setting. While writers spend countless hours plotting and creating characters and then imagining their character’s arcs and dilemmas, often too little attention is paid to place. This is a fatal mistake, since the place fiction is staged provides the backdrop against which your dramas ultimately play out.
But setting is more than a mere backdrop for action; it is an interactive aspect of your fictional world that saturates the story with mood, meaning, and thematic connotations. Broadly defined, setting is the location of the plot, including the region, geography, climate, neighborhood, buildings, and interiors. Setting, along with pacing, also suggests passage of time. Place is layered into every scene and flashback, built of elements such as weather, lighting, the season, and the hour.
The Fundamental Elements of Setting
Here is a list of the specific elements that setting encompasses:
- Locale. This relates to broad categories such as a country, state, region, city, and town, as well as to more specific locales, such as a neighborhood, street, house or school. Other locales can include shorelines, islands, farms, rural areas, etc.
- Time of year. The time of year is richly evocative and influential in fiction. Time of year includes the seasons, but also encompasses holidays, such as Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Halloween. Significant dates can also be used, such as the anniversary of a death of a character or real person, or the anniversary of a battle, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor.
- Time of day. Scenes need to play out during various times or periods during a day or night, such as dawn or dusk. Readers have clear associations with different periods of the day, making an easy way to create a visual orientation in a scene.
- Elapsed time. The minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months a story encompasses must be somehow accounted for or the reader will feel confused and the story will suffer from a lack of authenticity. While scenes unfold moment by moment, there is also time to account for between scenes, when a flashback is inserted, and when a character travels a long distance.
- Mood and atmosphere. Characters and events are influenced by weather, temperature, lighting, and other tangible factors, which in turn influence the emotional timbre, mood, and atmosphere of a scene.
- Climate. Climate is linked to the geography and topography of a place, and, as in our real world, can influence events and people. Ocean currents, prevailing winds and air masses, latitude, altitude, mountains, land masses, and large bodies of water all influence climate. It’s especially important when you write about a real setting to understand climatic influences. Harsh climates can make for grim lives, while tropical climates can create more carefree lifestyles.
- Geography. This refers to specific aspects of water, landforms, ecosystems, and topography in your setting.
One of the challenges writers face when writing a novel is balancing scene with summary. Today’s tip of the day focuses on what you should not include when summarizing a scene or event. Plus, try your hand at writing summary with a free exercise from Novel Shortcuts.
When To Write Summaries Versus Scenes
Writing summary does not mean starting at the moment the last scene ended and covering everything that happens up to the moment the next scene begins. You only need to include those things that are significant to [the story]. There is a lot the readers will assume.
5 Things You Don’t Need To Include When Writing Summaries
- Uneventful travel. People walking out of rooms or riding, walking, or flying to a new location. Unless there’s something important about the way they got to the next place, leave it out.
- Home-life maintenance. If you don’t say what happened the rest of the night, readers will assume that normal things took place: sleeping, reading, and watching television.
- Workday maintenance. We know that the lawyer will probably have meetings, take phone calls, and read briefs. We’ll assume the teacher will give lessons, grade papers, and have coffee in the staff lounge. No need to even skim over that stuff unless doing so helps your story.
- Relationship maintenance. If you skip how your hero kisses his wife and kids when he gets home, what he says to them, and the look on this face during dinner, readers will assume that his relationships are rolling along as before.
- Ongoing emotions already stated. If you describe your protagonist being depressed and skip telling us her frame of mind between breakfast and dinner, readers will assume she continued to act depressed. No need to repeat or fortify this idea unless it helps the story.
Try This: A Summary Writing Exercise
Take a year of your life and try summarizing it into one paragraph. See if you find the most significant aspects to highlight. What changed that year? What would someone need to know in order for the next year of your life to make sense? Read it to someone else and see if they get a sense of that shortened journey through time. If you have trouble with a year of your own life, try summarizing a year of someone else’s life, a season of your favorite TV drama or comedy, a season for your favorite sports team. Repeat until ease sets in.
This excerpt comes from Laura Whitcomb’s book, Novel Shortcuts. Learn more about her book on novel writing and read an exclusive author interview. Plus, don’t miss out on these online writing workshops that focus on the novel:
Pacing is a crucial component of fiction writing. After all, it’s important to keep your readers “hooked” throughout your story. Whether you are just getting started in writing or looking to break into fiction writing, you’ll need to know the basics of how to pace a novel. Read today’s tip of the day from Crafting Novels & Short Stories. In this excerpt written by Jessica Page Morrell, she explains what pacing is and seven ways to keep your story moving at the right pace.
What is Pacing in Fiction?
Pacing is a tool that controls the speed and rhythm at which a story is told and the readers are pulled through the events. It refers to how fast or slow events in a piece unfold and how much time elapses in a scene or story. Pacing can also be used to show characters aging and the effects of time on story events.
Pacing differs with the specific needs of a story. A far-reaching epic will often be told at a leisurely pace, though it will speed up from time to time during the most intense events. A short story or adventure novel might quickly jump into action and deliver drama.
Pacing is part structural choices and part word choices, and uses a variety of devices to control how fast the story unfolds. When driving a manual transmission car, you choose the most effective gear needed for driving uphill, maneuvering city streets, or cruising down a freeway. Similarly, when pacing your story, you need to choose the devices that move each scene along at the right speed.
Seven Literary Devices For Pacing Your Story
You need speed in the opening, middle, and climax of your story. Sure, you’ll slow down from time to time, especially to pause for significance and to express characters’ emotions, but those times will usually appear just before or aft er a joyride of skin-tightening speed.
There are lots of tools to hasten your story. Some are better suited for micropacing—that is, line by line—and some are better suited for macropacing—pacing the story as a whole. Let’s take a closer look at each device.
- ACTION. Action scenes are where you “show” what happens in a story, and, when written in short- and medium-length sentences, they move the story along. Action scenes contain few distractions, little description, and limited transitions. Omit or limit character thoughts, especially in the midst of danger or crisis, since during a crisis people focus solely on survival. To create poignancy, forgo long, descriptive passages and choose a few details that serve as emotionally charged props instead.
- CLIFF HANGERS. When the outcome of a scene or chapter is left hanging, the pace naturally picks up because the reader will turn the page to find out what happens next. Readers both love and hate uncertainty, and your job is to deliver plenty of unfinished actions, unfilled needs, and interruptions. Remember, cliff hangers don’t necessarily mean that you’re literally dangling your character from a rooftop as the scene ends. If your characters are in the midst of a conversation, end the scene with a revelation, threat, or challenge.
- DIALOGUE. Rapid-fire dialogue with little or no extraneous information is swift and captivating, and will invigorate any scene. The best dialogue for velocity is pared down, an abbreviated copy of real-life conversation that snaps and crackles with tension. It
At some point or another, all writers will struggle with their story’s characters. If you are hitting a brick wall when it comes to developing your characters or simply need inspiration for creating them–read today’s tip of the day from Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. You’ll learn about characterization and how the principles of human nature can be applied to fictitious characters.
The Human Nature of Character
Most writers didn’t major in human psychology in college. Which is a shame, really, because that’s one of the most important aspects of writing great stories. Our heroes and villains need to behave according to the known principles of human behavior, which may not be something you instinctively understand.
One way to grasp the rudimentary basics of how and why people do what they do is to watch Dr. Phil. Really. Or Oprah. Or, if you’d rather read about it, grab the latest pop psychology bestseller and take some notes. Or better yet, attend one of those seminars on how to get your life together. Because each of these self-imposed experiences will show you why people—characters—think what they think and do the things they do. And if it’s valid psychology in real life, it’ll be valid psychology in your stories, too.
Read Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs and pay attention to the psychology. Both Hannibal Lecter and “Buffalo Bill” are classic studies in human psychology of a very dark variety. Stephen King’s stuff, too, is mastery of human psychology at its best and worst. It isn’t as simple as having an alcoholic, disapproving father and a psychotic mother wielding a wire hanger or bringing a knife into the shower. The backstories that inform our worldview and burden us with issues are rarely straightforward or obvious, and yet they are almost always the genesis of your main character’s story arc.
When you can wrap your head around basic human psychology, recognize that you are working with issues of second dimension characterization in the process. What you need to understand about human behavior can be reduced into several real-world buckets, into which you can dump all the details you want.
People are driven by resentment.
Someone pisses you off. You may have forgiven him for it, but unless you’ve dealt with the issue, chances are you harbor some resentment toward him. Maybe for years.
We resist that which we resent. You will resist being completely kind and open with someone you resent, for whatever reason, at least until he does something to take away your resentment. Such as apologize. You will resist his ideas, his contributions, his very presence. This can manifest in subtle and insidious little ways, or it can come right out of your mouth. Or, it can never manifest at all, but it’s there in your head, festering like a slow cancer.
We resent that the president of Goodwill Industries made $800,000 a year. (That’s a true story, by the way.) So we resist giving our next garage full of junk to them, calling St. Vincent de Paul instead. A classic resentment-resistance dynamic, for which we lose not a minute of sleep.
You resent getting dumped by your old boyfriend. So you resist sending him a Christmas card every year, even though he sends one to you, which you burn without opening. Instead of thinking it’s sweet, it actually makes you angry or sad. Which only serves to deepen your resentment.
In the television series Men
Every writer knows crafting a great story revolves around plot–one of the essential elements of storytelling. But do you know what exactly plot is? In the following excerpt from The Nighttime Novelist, author Joseph Bates explains what plot is and gives examples of common plot problems.
What is Plot?
Plot begins with a big-picture arc that includes (1) want, (2) what stands in the way, and (3) eventual resolution and then becomes more complex as we find new ways to explore and complicate that arc: paralleling internal and external arcs, putting major and minor conflicts in the protagonist’s way, introducing secondary characters and subplots, and so on. And as we begin adding these new layers of complication—as our imaginations run more freely and our fingers fly across the keyboard—it can be easy for our novel, which started out tightly focused, to become cluttered, in a state of perpetual distraction.
Common Problems When Writing Plot
If you feel your novel has begun to lose its forward momentum as a result of a plot that’s got too much going on, you’ll want to do what you can to get it back on course, beginning with looking at the following common plot problems and seeing which might be affecting your storytelling:
- Mistaking inaction or digression for suspense. The suspense required of an effective plot is about teasing the reader, true. But an effective tease isn’t about intentional delay or digression, suggesting the character really needs to know something, or do something, and then having the character purposely not do or discover what’s needed. Every scene in the novel must be active, even if the action is primarily emotional or mental, and each scene must seem like an attempt to solve the problem or question at hand. If you’ve set up that what the character needs to do is discover who rented the car that was found by the side of the road, and what the character does instead is go eat waffles, then the only suspense you’ve created is directed back to the author … as in a reader wondering, “Why are we wasting time eating waffles?”
- Mistaking character quirks for character deepening. Quirks only feel real if they also feel relevant to the story in some way. It’s great that your police sergeant enjoys classical music as well as NASCAR, is addicted to reality television, builds model airplanes, was a cheerleader in college, and operates HAM radio on the weekends, but perhaps be should be more concerned with that homicide …
Buy The Nighttime Novelist now!
Read 10 solutions to
One of the most common plot problems writers face is mistaking minor characters and subplots for the main character and primary plot. In the following excerpt, Joseph Bates, author of The Nighttime Novelist, discusses overactive or inactive characters and subplots and how they can impact your story.
Overactive or Inactive Supporting Characters
If in the second act you find your novel veering off course either because a minor character has come in and tried to run the place, or because your minor characters seem to be doing nothing but sitting on your couch, eating your food, not really contributing, you should put them to the test: determine why they’re there, if they can be brought in line somehow, or, if not, how you might excise them from the novel.
Minor characters who become personal “darlings” for the author can be very hard to kill, and often a writer will find some way to justify keeping around an inactive but favorite minor character based on very thin reasoning, such as saying that the character adds comic relief (yes, but comic relief to your depressing post-apocalyptic Gothic revenge story?) or that the character adds a romantic element (yes, but does your chainsaw-murderer bipolar anti-hero really need a love interest?) or, or …
If an inactive supporting character does indeed seem to fulfill some function like this—but is otherwise inert—you might see if another and better-established supporting character might fulfill that role just as easily. Or you might consider streamlining several supporting characters into just one who does the trick.
Ultimately what stays and goes is not up to you as the author but up to your story. When in doubt, try to listen to what the story is telling you to do and follow that advice; it’s almost always going to be right. As for overactive secondary characters—those who seem intent on making their story the novel’s big one—see the section on overactive or inactive subplots [below] for tips on getting them under control.
Overactive or Inactive Subplots
Subplots exist to tell us something about your protagonist and his quest. They’re like a side mirror, offering a quick, new (and helpful) perspective and allowing the readers to keep moving forward unimpeded. Thus a subplot becomes problematic when that function breaks down, when it becomes either overactive—trying to take over the main plot and tell its own story instead—or inactive, meaning that it has no clear, compelling connection to the protagonist and the main arc; it’s simply there.
An overactive subplot behaves almost like a virus. Its ultimate goal is that it wants to live, like everything else on earth, but in order to do this it invades something healthy–your main plot–and tries to take it over. It might be that the subplot is auditioning for its own novel—it isn’t unheard of that a subplot becomes so alive that the author eventually decides to tell that story on its own—but it can’t be allowed to take over this one (unless, of course, you come to the realization that the subplot is the plot you actually wanted to explore all along, in which case, well, it’s back to the drawing board).
An inactive subplot isn’t nearly as aggressive; it’s not doing anything to take over your novel, or much to advance it, either. In fact it’s not doing much
It’s fairly simple–in order to write a novel or story, you must have a solid idea first. Most writers struggle at one time or another coming up with the right story idea. After all, you want an idea that can sustain an entire story. If you’re wondering where to find creative story ideas, read the following excerpt from The Nighttime Novelist.
Where to Find Ideas For Novels Or Short Stories
It’s true that good story ideas will come to you if you learn to pay attention to what’s going on around you and recognize those moments when your mind has begun to creatively wander. But there are also other ways, and places, you might look for inspiration when you need a boost.
First Lines. Sometimes a compelling story idea comes not from any conversation overheard, or anything
you catch a glimpse of, but from a little voice that whispers a strange, interesting line in your ear … say, “I
have always had an irrational fear of first kisses” or “Her husband had become hooked on daytime soaps” or “For as long as I’d known her, Jenny claimed that her dream was to become the ninth Mrs. Larry King.” A good first line begins to suggest character, conflict, plot, tone, and theme the same way a compelling initial idea or image does. For example, what do you see present or suggested in the following first lines?
In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together. (Carson McCullers, The Heart
Is a Lonely Hunter)
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I can’t be sure. (Albert Camus, The Stranger)
Something is wrong in the house. (Kathryn Davis, Hell)
Headlines. A well-written headline contains enough possibility to get our imaginations working in the right direction (since the headline writer wants us to be intrigued enough to wonder about the story behind the headline and read it). For the fiction writer, we need not read the piece that goes along with a good headline—and in fact we probably shouldn’t. Instead, the headline will make us want to know the story behind it and begin writing it. What really happened isn’t as important to us as what might happen.
Here are a few real-world examples to consider, any one of which might suggest a sustainable story idea:
- 17 Burn At Same Time To Break Record
- S.C. Cheerleader Hunts, Kills 10-Foot-Long Alligator
- Game Show Looks to Convert Atheists
- Jedi Thrown Out of Grocery Store
Already I can picture this poor middle-aged master Jedi, five days of stubble on his face, holding onto his box of Captain Crunch for life. “You don’t want to throw me out,” wiggling his fingers in the manager’s
face as he’s pushed out the door. “You don’t want to throw me out …”
Titles. Sometimes inspiration for a book will begin before you’ve even hit the first chapter, with a title that starts you thinking. I suspect the reason for this is that good titles are often difficult to come up with, so when a good one comes along, it suggests possibilities immediately. Keep a page in your notebook just for title ideas. One of them might bring a story along with it.
Learn what a memoir is and how to create memories with today’s tip of the day taken from Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach, with Kristen Keckler.
What is a memoir?
Memoir is rendering of a lived life, as filtered through memory and the wider net of the needs of narrative. Memoir just tells the story, no explicit thesis here. Memoir examines a life, a self, and does so through a period of time, say early childhood or the month you spent with Grandpa in France. Like novels and short stories, memoirs tend to operate in time and space, tend to have a story arc, rising action leading to climax, a balance of scene and summary. A reflective voice might tell the story, might analyze events, but it tends to stay in the background, tends to let the action do the work. Research can support the storytelling, but the point isn’t a display of facts or information. A memoir lays out the evidence of a life, lets the reader make the conclusions. The mode ranges from pure, plain storytelling to reflective storytelling. Some memoirs get so reflective and analytical that they move close to and overlap with the personal essay. A few pages, a book, a few volumes, memoir is an expansible form. Examples of book-length memoir: The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison; The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls; Minor Characters, by Joyce Johnson.
Realistic Ways to Achieve Good Writing
Good writing is, among other things, an illusion. The primary illusion is of ease. We read a beautifully constructed book with pleasure and admiration, forgetting that the writer had to sit down day after day for a year or two years or more (often many more) to do the job. We forget—because it’s the writer’s job to make us forget—all the drafting, all the false starts, all the seamlessly incorporated suggestions and corrections of editors and other readers, all the self-doubt, all the projects started and never finished, all the manuscripts in drawers, all the learning, all the patience, all the study, all the practice: the apprenticeship. So, we read the book and feel cowed. How’d she do this? And worse, we get the idea that we ought to be able to sit down and write a beauty on the first try.
Good writing occurs not in bursts of inspiration (although inspiration can’t hurt) but in time so slow it feels like geologic time. Ten thousand years is nothing, a moment. A million years is but a day. That some good writers write terrific drafts fast is a function of experience, of many years’ hard work in preparation, and rarely of raw talent.
Polishing Your Memoir
Polishing is insidious. You polish up your essay—put a finish on it—and the surface gets so bright you can’t (and don’t want to) delve beneath the surface. Your prose becomes reflective, a mirror. You see yourself in it. You actually begin to confuse the writing with yourself. And now there’s no way to cut into that writing, no way to smash that veneer, no way to see clearly beneath it.
Polishing is a form of tinkering, and tinkering–for too many new writers–is what revision amounts to. You can spend days adjusting sentences in a first paragraph that ought to be cut altogether. You can spend months moving paragraphs around in a piece that out to be shelved forever—honorably, of course—perhaps seen as a study for work to come.
Real revision—it’s right there in the word—is re-seeing.
Learn what it takes to achieve success in children’s book publishing as well as essential information about the publishing industry from You Can Write Children’s Books by Tracey E. Dils. Read on to discover some of the misconceptions about writing a children’s book.
Misconceptions About Writing for Children
Let’s start with what you think you know about children’s book publishing. Most writers who are considering writing children’s books have some preconceived notions about the genre. Many of these ideas are probably right on. Others are misconceptions that we’ll want to clear up before we go any further.
- Writing children’s books is easier than writing for the adult market because the books are shorter. Because of the special nature of this audience and the competitive nature of the market, most writers find that writing for children is as challenging as, or even more challenging than, writing for other audiences. Writing for children, for instance, requires knowledge of how children develop emotionally and how they acquire reading skills.
- Stories for children need to teach a moral lesson. While many of the stories we remember from childhood suggested lessons about right and wrong, today’s publishers are looking for stories that suggest hopeful messages subtly, depict a “slice of life,” or offer a humorous or unusual look at the child’s world. Moreover, young readers are more sophisticated than you may think. They are turned off by heavy-handed morals. They can figure out a story’s implications for themselves, without having the morals spelled out for them.
- Because my kids love the stories that I tell them at bedtime, I’m sure they are good enough to be published. While your own kids—and even their friends—probably love your stories, this small sample of children is probably not an indication of the market as a whole. It’s a good start, of course, but an editor is going to expect that your story ideas have broad and commercial appeal.
- I’ll need to find an illustrator to create the images for my story. This is probably the biggest misconception about writing picture books. Publishers—not authors—almost always find and work with the illustrators of the book they publish. In fact, most publishing companies prefer to work this way.
- Kids can think abstractly. While some young readers can think abstractly, most children (especially younger children) understand fiction quite literally. That means you have to be careful about what you suggest to them. Perhaps you have a story idea about a little girl who is lonely. Suddenly a magical man arrives and takes her away on a fantastic adventure. That may be a solid story idea, but your reader might also take that story line literally and believe that it’s okay to go on an adventure with a stranger.
- Kids are fairly unsophisticated consumers. Today’s kids are selective and sophisticated consumers of everything from athletic shoes to online entertainment to their own reading material. Text messaging, e-mail, and interactive social networks, such as Facebook allow kids to share ideas about new products and trends much sooner than they ever did before. Do not underestimate how discerning children are.
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Today’s Tip of the Day comes from Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript by Chuck Sambuchino and the WD Editors. The following excerpt teaches you how to submit short stories and gives tips on formatting a query letter.
Fiction short story markets are mostly in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, and some online websites. And, like novels, they can run the gamut of literature from genre tales to children’s stories. The main difference between short stories and novels is length—short stories run anywhere from 1,000 to 20,000 words, whereas novels generally fall between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Short stories are a medium all of their own, and require a specific format and submission policy. Read on to learn how to submit your short stories to print and electronic publications.
What You Need to Submit
Submitting short stories is relatively simple. Unlike with novels where you typically need to submit a query letter as well as a few sample chapters and a synopsis, with a short story you only need to send a cover letter and the story in its entirety.
Submitting a Short Story Manuscript
Establish yourself as a professional by following the correct short story format. A separate cover or title page is not necessary. Don’t submit any materials that have handwritten notes on them. As with all parts of your submission, make sure your work is revised and proofread.
The Specifics of the Short Story Format
- Use a 1” margin on all sides.
- Do not number the first page.
- Put your name and contact information at the top, centered, on the first page.
- Put the word count and rights offered in the top right corner.
- Put the story’s title, centered in all caps, approximately one-third of the way down the page from the top margin.
- Skip a line and write “by” in lowercase, then skip another line and put your name in all caps. (If using a pseudonym, put that name in all caps, and then on the next line put your real name in parentheses.)
- Drop four lines, indent, and begin your story.
- Double-space the entire text of the story.
- Put a header at the top of every page (except the first) including the title, your last name, and page number).
- Optional: Type “THE END” in all caps when your story is finished. (Some editors like this because it closes the story; others do not. It’s your call.)
More Tips on Submitting Query Letters
- Do use a paper clip in the top left corner to attach pages together (butterfly clamps work well for stories longer than ten pages).
- Do keep an original copy of the story for yourself.
- Don’t put your social security number on the manuscript.
- Don’t use a separate cover or title page.
- Don’t justify the text or align the right margin. Ragged right is fine.
- Don’t put a copyright notice on the manuscript. It’s copyrighted as soon as you write it.
- Don’t include your story on a disk or CD unless the editor asks for it.
- Don’t use unusual fonts. A simple Times New Roman, Arial, or Courier is fine.
- Don’t email or fax your story to a publication unless you have permission from the editor or if their submission guidelines state it is acceptable.
It’s essential these days for authors to have a clear understanding of writing platforms. Learn what an author’s platform is and ways to build a writing platform from today’s tip of the day, taken from the book The Productive Writer by Sage Cohen.
What is an Author Platform?
Platform is the turf you claim and name as your area of expertise in your writing life, and it’s everything you do to make that expertise visible. Just as a thesis is the foundation of a term paper around which its argument is built, a platform is an organizing principle around which a writer’s many expressions of work revolve. A platform says to both the writer and the world, “I am an expert in [fill in the blank with your specialty]! Yours should be a topic or craft or theme or audience that has energy and curiosity for you: one that you know about and want to invest a whole lot more time knowing a whole lot more about.
With such clarity of purpose, over time you will likely publish, teach, lead, and share wisdom in ways that express, explore, and give shape to your expertise. And as this happens, you will start to become recognized as an authority in your chosen realm.
Platform is both the destination and the path. You build it as you go. It keeps you moving forward, tells you where forward is, and is the measure against which you decide if you’re getting there.
Using a Writing Platform & Publishing Your Work
Which came first, the publishing or the platform? This seems to be a topic of some confusion for folks. So let’s break it down.
Platform is about becoming a recognizable expert. The book publishing ideal is to first build a platform, and then leverage that platform to pitch, sell, and write the book. But there are many stages of publishing (articles, essays, poems, stories) along the way that precede becoming an author and contribute to growing a platform. And for many writers, those early stages of publishing can be slow going.
The good news is that there are many ways to grow your visibility as an expert in your field that are available to you right now. So while you’re waiting, for example, for your next short story to find a safe landing in just the right literary journal, there is much you could be doing to develop your platform, including:
- Teach what you know.
- Self-publish: Write and sell instructional e-books or publish print-on-demand collections of your creative writing (only if you are not seeking “mainstream” publication for this work).
- Offer tips, insights, articles, and links via a blog, Twitter, Facebook, or Squidoo.
- Read your work publicly as much as possible.
- Start your own online community to explore your topic.
- Offer coaching, consulting, or editing in your field.
- Create a subscription publication, such as an e-zine or newsletter.
- Join organizations in your field that allow you to gather and share ideas and opportunities with like-minded others.
- Publish magazine or newspaper articles on your topic or expertise.
- Share content with business or organizations that serve people in your area of expertise. (For example, if your platform is dog training, maybe local pet stores would want to feature a Q&A with you on their websites or as part of their monthly newsletters.)
Buy Th
One key element in writing fiction is creating characters with which readers can identify. Today’s tip of the day is taken from Plot Versus Character by Jeff Gerke. The excerpt below, from chapter five, explains the inner journey of a character and why a character’s transformation can make or break your story.
Learn Why Character Transformation Matters
The best fiction is about a character who changes in some significant way.
The selfish brute learns to put others first. The woman marrying for money decides to marry for love. The career ladder climber learns to cut back on his hours to enjoy his family. The bitter old crone learns to let others in. The independent pilot of the Millennium Falcon learns to care about a cause. The owner of Rick’s Café American decides he will stick his neck out for somebody after all.
We love to see characters transformed–mainly because we are being transformed. We know the painful but liberating feeling of ceasing to be one way and beginning to be another, especially if the new way results in more success in relationships or other areas of life we value.
Most of the time, main characters in fiction are changing for the better. It’s uplifting to see someone make good choices and improve as a person. It’s like that your book will be about a character who changes for the best.
But there’s room for characters who change for the worse. Indeed, though they may lead to depressing, poor-selling books if given the lead role, these tragic characters are fascinating to watch. Before our very eyes, Roger in Lord of the Flies, Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast, and Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars saga all devolve into villains. It’s terrible and we want them stop. But part of us doesn’t want them to stop.
Perhaps the most intriguing of all is a “bad” character who flirts for awhile with the idea of being good, then decides that his true self is on the dark side of the street. Gollum/Sméagol in The Lord of the Rings is a famous example.
Not every story has to be about a character who changes. Certainly we don’t expect much change from Indiana Jones. He simply is who he is. There are wonderful stories about characters who don’t change at all, whose character is so complete at the beginning of the tale that everyone else must change around her. Anne of Green Gables is a terrific example of this. Anne is out of step with everyone. She doesn’t fit in. And yet as those around her try to change her to conform, they discover that it is they who are in need of becoming a bit more like Anne. Forrest Gump, WALL-E, Don Quixote, and even Jesus Christ are the agents of change though they themselves do not transform.
But these characters are difficult to write well, and the needs of that type of story structure aren’t the focus of what we’re doing in this book.
Since we are starting from scratch with your character and book, we’re going to create a main character who changes. Whether her ultimate decision is to turn toward or away from the light will be up to you, but we’re definitely going to give her a journey in which she is transformed.
Buy Plot Versus Character now!
Did you enjoy this excerpt? If so, check out our other writing tips.
Today’s tip of the day comes from Write Great Fiction: Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell, in which he discusses the importance of setting and description, and explains how including sensory details within a story can not only benefit your writing but also engage your readers.
What to Avoid When Writing Description
It’s important to remember that setting is where your story takes place. What is description? Description is how you bring setting and its characters to life. Writing description can be challenging especially for beginning writers. Here are two tips on what to avoid when writing description:
- Don’t over do it. Sure, you’ve spent a bunch of time perfecting your setting and researching. But just because you have multiple pages of detailed notes, doesn’t mean you have to use all of those details in your description or setting. You don’t want to confuse the reader, so keep it simple.
- Giving all the information at once. Your goal is to keep your reader engaged. If you lump your description all into one page, you’re bound to either confuse the reader with all of the details or lose their attention. Instead, ” … put the description in the character’s point of view and use the details to add to the mood.”
Using Imagination to Create Mood in Writing
Using mood can help to deepen the feelings in the reader. One way to create mood in writing is by using your imagination. Author James Scott Bell suggests a technique to help you capture mood in your story by closing your eyes and letting your imagination dictate what you see. Once you have a clear picture, write down the details and then edit to create the mood you are looking for. Remember, using mood and senses in writing can add relevant details to your story and help keep your readers’ attention.
The Importance of Setting & Details in Writing
You want to create a world that is believable, yet fascinating, which is why finding the right setting for your story is crucial. One way to create a setting in writing a story and practice your hand at observing details is by doing some of your own “hands on” research. For example, if you are setting your story in a small seaside town on the East Coast, go to an actual town near the ocean in the East. Make note of the details you see, smell, hear, touch, and taste, and what the vibe of the town is. Then use those notes along with the sensory details of your experience to create a setting that will invite the reader to come along on the journey with the story’s characters. After all, even the most minute details in writing your story can help a setting come alive to the reader.
Need some examples of setting? Some examples of settings in writing include: the Overlook Hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining, and the city of Los Angeles in 1921 from Bell’s historical novel Glimpses of Paradise, and a small town set in winter in Sol Stein’s The Magician.
No matter if you are an aspiring writer or a published author, it’s essential these days to have a writer platform. Learn what an author’s platform is, why an audience of readers … Read more
Whether you are seeking inspiration for writing or want to know how to get motivation to write, today’s tip, provided by The Productive Writer, will give you effective writing techniques to be … Read more
