Discuss writing, including writing tips & tricks, writing philosophy, writer's block, etc. If you have grammar questions, marketing questions, or if you want feedback on a poem or short story you wrote, please use the corresponding forum below.
Featured Topic: How to Get Your Book Published
Norma_Rudolph wrote:Some good advice here. You might also consider finding other sets of eyes to read your words and point out where you can improve. Writer's groups, both face to face and online, have helped me hone my craft immensely. Also if you are serious and able to afford it there are conferences where you can attend classes and learn from some of the best around. Got to study with Brandon Sanderson last spring and truly loved that. Don't ever feel that you are alone.
My latest novel is under consideration with a publisher as we speak. I'm so excited!
Keep writing, you only get better.
Wow, that's awesome! Good luck to you!
Meanwhile, I am writing nonsense, but it is nowhere close to being finished yet. At least, the current one anyway.
Have confidence! You've got to believe that your writing is good enough. There will always be critics, but why can't you be the next JK Rawling?
I've heard that everyone who writes should read Stephen King's book On Writing. I have not read it, but I bet it's good.
One thing I do is that when I discover an editing issue, I try to list it for future reference.
Also, you might benefit from a good dictionary/thesaurus set. I have the ... OK, I don't know where they are right now. Hold on.. gotta go. I'll be back.
-- 10 Mar 2015, 16:16 --
Well, I have the Merriam-Webster's Intermediate Dictionary and Thesaurus set. It's for middle schoolers, but I like it.
Re. getting others to read and evaluate your book -- maybe an okay idea but realize that if you're writing your own stuff, nobody can do it better than you. If your name is Janet Piersen then you're the BEST Janet Piersen out there and your Janet Piersen books are the best she can create. Sometimes friends my want you to write a different story or tell it differently. So be careful or you'll be following false leads forever.
Best to let others comment on the book like this: I write modern American private detective novels (2 sold and published, the 3rd recently finished, the 4th in progress) and so because my stories are meant to be realistic and not fanciful, I've asked friends "Was there a place at which you said Huh? when reading?" in that you didn't "believe" what happened or thought that it made zero sense. Or "Were you bored, and if so, where?"
General questions like that are valuable but be careful to not let friends' opinions make you pursue the writing that the friend wants instead of what you want.
And yes, FINISH the book first! By finishing I mean proofread and revise and re-revise till you're blue in the face. Get it perfect as you can and then you're ready to submit it to an agent or publisher.
Thank you for that advise Moderntimes. A few family and friends know I'm working on writing a novel and have asked if they could read it. After relenting to my sister's request, she had lots of ideas about how I should finish the story! Needless to say, I have not let anyone else read as I write, they can wait until the novel is complete.
Latest Review: "From The Killer's Eyes" by Morgan C. Amos
Letting others read what you've written is fine. Just don't be twisted off your pathway. I had a pal send me a few chapters of his new book. I thought the story was superb but his typography was terrible. I marked up maybe 5 pages and sent it back to him. None of the markings were thematic -- all were mechanical errors, like bad punctuation and misspellings. He wanted me to proofread the whole book but I told him no thanks, I was hard at work finishing my new novel at the time. He did however put his book through a total rewrite and fixed all the errors. His original story itself was terrific.
Ask for "general" advice and take that advice only: "Did you find a lot of typos or other mechanical errors?" "Did the characters seem real?" "Were the conversations realistic or were they too stiff?" "Assuming the scope of the story -- maybe it's a tale about wizards for example -- then did the wizards seem real or too unbelievable?" (even a fantasy book has to be "realistic" within its own scope) -- for example, when I've read some YA fantasy, which I usually dislike, the characters are all making speeches instead of having a "real" conversation. Even wizards and trolls and whatever would speak "normally" to each other, and so on.
Your story has to be coherent and make sense, and you can't have any crazy surprises that destroy the fabric of the plot. For example, if you're watching NCIS and suddenly they discover a "real" vampire or werewolf or maybe a space alien. That would totally blow the "world view" of the show and break the rules. Likewise in my very realistic private detective story if I were to suddenly have my PI use a jet pack to escape the bad guys, like in a bad James Bond movie. You just can't do that, and having someone check for such breaks in plot sensibility is helpful.
But don't take all their advice, however do be receptive to it and hear them out. They might actually point out something that needs fixing.
When my novels were purchased and professionally edited, I received feedback from the editors about plot themes and character behavior, suggestions on tweaking a conversation or such. And the advice was good and very professional. I agreed w about 2/3 of the suggestions and stood my ground on about 1/3 but nevertheless the advice was helpful. And no, for those who are wondering, an editor does NOT force you to change a theme or conversation after your book is purchased -- if it wasn't good to start, they wouldn't buy it in the first place. They will however insist on fixing typos and mechanical errors. But this idea that a "real" publisher will bully you and therefore you need to self-publish is just so much BS. I can personally attest to this and I'm in no way a famous writer.
