Category Archives: Writing

Articles I Like: How To Create A Killer Opening For Your Science Fiction Short Story

PolyWogg.ca
November 29 2018

On the rare days that I allow myself to dream that I will eventually make the time to write some more fiction, I dabble in reading interesting tidbits that resonate with me in terms of what I want to do as a writer. Not always “writing advice”, sometimes it is just about the industry, publishing, etc. Rarely do I find much in the way of real writing advice that I think, “Yes, that’s good stuff right there. I should bookmark that!”.

Way back in 2014, one of my regular feeds, The Passive Voice, shared excerpts from Gizmodo’s sub-website “i09” about science fiction writing entitled How To Create A Killer Opening For Your Science Fiction Short Story. Most of the time, I wouldn’t even bother to click on a title like that…too clickbait-y, and honestly, rarely does it live up to the premise. Often the writer will include examples of their own work, and the author isn’t usually that well-known. But the excerpt was intriguing, so why not? It was a slow day.

The article was awesome, perhaps for two reasons. First, the author, Charlie Jane Anders, put a fair amount of analytical thought into the piece. I’m an analyst by nature and profession and I recognize a good framework when I see one.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Should you write under a pseudonym?

PolyWogg.ca
May 2 2018

When people talk about creating a pseudonym for their writing, most existing writers fall into two camps…the “no, never” camp that thinks it’s better for people to find you as easily as possible and the “well, what if you write in different genres” camp where people are afraid your reader will pick up your book expecting your traditional Western and get your erotic thriller instead, and presumably be unhappy. Or vica versa. (As an aside, there’s something strangely amusing about the reader looking for an erotic thriller and getting a Western instead while thinking, “What’s going to happen with the horse?”, but I digress.)

I confess that on occasion I have thought of pushing out some fiction under a different name. Mostly because I love the idea of writing anonymously for fiction. It would feel a bit subversive to me, almost clandestine. I have this illusion of seeing someone I know reading my book but having no idea that I wrote it. But that’s just a fanciful dream, at least until I ever get around to finishing anything fiction-related. But when ThePassiveVoice shared an article from Nail Your Novel, I had to click.

The article runs through the basics early on:

  • The “pseudo-excitement’ of using initials;
  • Gender-specific names depending on the genre;
  • Trying to sound like a specific nationality (or alternatively not);
  • Having multiple identities for separate markets (like genres or fiction/non-fiction);
  • Separating writing from other employment roles;

It talks though too about the ability to keep your real name separate (with a good link to Kristen Lamb’s post too):

But these days… is there anywhere to hide?

… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Focus on the Fight: Writing Action Scenes That Land the Punch

PolyWogg.ca
May 1 2018

Often when I read writing tips, there is very little sense of balance. Most of them come down to a single form: “Do X, not Y”, with the small caveat that you can do Y if you do it well. The classic “Show, don’t tell” is a perfect example…except in some cases, a simple exposition deals with an info gap to get people to the next plot point. In that case, a little exposition can go a long way to avoiding stopping the action, jumping somewhere else to “show it”. Another classic used to be “Don’t use multiple points-of-view”. And then someone comes out with a fantastic book where they use multiple POV to great success. Because they did it right. Which means, often the real advice is “Do X, not Y unless you’re better than average and can actually do Y well, but know that it often doesn’t work for a lot of writers”. On the other hand, there are more advanced tomes by Lawrence Block or Stephen King that avoid that problem and give you the straight goods.

In this case, Diana Gill is an executive editor with views on how to write fight scenes (well, actually, action scenes in general).… Read the rest

Articles I Like: 13 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier

PolyWogg.ca
November 13 2017

Let’s be honest — one of the biggest challenges for people when writing isn’t the actual writing. It’s editing. So much so that some newbie writers think editing is something done by someone else. But long before it gets to that “editor” at Publisher Inc., you have to do your own editing. Virginia Ripple is a writer, and she has a website called “Writer on a Shoestring Budget”. Catchy. And one of the big writing tip websites leveraged a reprint of an earlier version of a post about editing, but her main website has an updated version (13 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier).

Mostly what I like about her post is the initial main thrust:

No matter what you do, if you want to be read and have those readers give you great reviews, spread the word and buy your other books, you have to face the red pen. You must edit your manuscript.

Self-publishing or traditional publishing, you need to edit. So she published a list of 13 resources to help with editing. Not all the links are created equal, and some are dead now, but I liked A Perfectionist’s Guide to Editing: 4 Stages by Jami Gold as she breaks down the stages into finishing, editing and polishing, with tips on which questions to ask in which stage.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Indie Author: 6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid

PolyWogg.ca
November 12 2017

I’ve been going through some of my saved/bookmarked pages, and I came across this one from April Hamilton from back in July 2011. It’s a great summary of some problems that newbie writers (like me) have with dialogue (Indie Author: 6 Dialogue Traps To Avoid).

So it mentions that newbies often have the characters talking the same way i.e. with the same “voice”, which doesn’t happen in real life and is really boring to read. I’m not sure I like her examples of fixing it, as it starts to sound a bit cliché to have 20-somethings or ex-military people talk like caricatures, but it can give flavour to their voice. Equally, newbies often go for melodramatic scenes that are tripe for soap operas, or heavy on the exposition dump. And I like the overall premise of “when in doubt, read it out loud”. If it sounds wrong, it probably is.

However, I’m not sold on the third trap related to newbies not differentiating enough between men and women. Here’s the excerpt:

In the masculine, words are used to accomplish some goal. The goal is usually imparting necessary—and that word, “necessary”, is key here—information, but it can also be to quickly size up a person or situation, or to establish or reinforce the pecking order (e.g.,

… Read the rest

Reading Lawrence Block on writing: Part 1

PolyWogg.ca
March 25 2016

As part of my reading challenge for the year, I added Lawrence Block’s “Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel”, an updated book from a version he did back in the 70s. Reading books on writing is a lot like the classic quote of dancing about architecture, but I’m reading more to see his thoughts and experiences than looking for a specific technique or tool.

I even love his preface where he talks about reading a book about how to write a book, and what the “method” was that was recommended:

What you did if you wanted to write a novel, I was given to understand, was to trot down to the nearest stationery store and pick up several packs of three-by-five file cards.

(Block, Lawrence (2016). Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel: Expanded and Updated! (p. 4). LB Productions. Kindle Edition.)

Many would-be writers have seen that storyboard technique used, with heavy methodology on small scenes on each card, notes for the emotional intent of the scene, sub-stories, plot points being advanced, etc. When Block read that, he just about threw up his hands because it wouldn’t work for him. Nor did it work for me when I tried it.… Read the rest

Konrath’s resolutions for writers

PolyWogg.ca
June 3 2012

For those who read the rest of my blog, and not just the posts about writing, you know that I have a anally obsessively compulsive rigorous process for setting goals and tracking them — think of it as like setting New Year’s resolutions but on steroids. But there are some areas where “goals” are great, yet they only work if you can break them down in to digestible — and achievable — smaller chunks.

So let’s assume you have a big goal of being an author. Under traditional publishing, the ultimate end was outside your control — in theory, you could hammer away at agents and editors with proposal after proposal and never “succeed”. Your digestible “bits” were process stuff, not a measure of your ultimate outcome. With e-publishing, and self-publishing more specifically, coming of age in recent years (if not months), you can change your goal into something that is actually achievable i.e. even if no one “accepts” your MS for traditional publishing, you can bypass them and publish yourself.

Yet, you might still want to have larger writing goals. Konrath’s website, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, included a sample of his writer’s resolutions from 2006 to 2012, and I wanted to highlight a bunch that I think are worthy of emulation because they are not all about process…note, with apologies to the master, that the headings are mine, as are the groupings:

  1. Process
    • I will start/finish the damn book
    • I will finish every story I start
    • I’ll quit procrastinating in the form of research, outlines, synopses, taking classes, reading how-to books, talking about writing, and actually write something
  2. Improvement
    • I will listen to criticism
    • I will always remember where I came from
    • If you’re a writer, you must be a reader.
… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Konrath on the Mystery Writers of America

PolyWogg.ca
May 3 2012

There are very few windmills that I feel strongly enough to tilt at…stupid people is one. Bullies are another. People pretending they understand policy and government, and being condescending towards others’ views — although that tends to combine both of the first two. But I have a pretty strong respect for the importance of human rights, freedom of association, etc. when they are used as swords to advance legitimate causes or shields to prevent oppression. Where the heck is this idea going? Membership in a society that basically holds itself out as representing an industry but then turning around and barring people from the industry who don’t meet their standards.

If you look back to some lovely research published in the 1980s and 90s by the Harvard Business Review, everybody thinks their job qualifies as a profession. Janitors think they’re a “profession”. Taxi drivers another. And when people of like mind and employment get together, and talk about their profession, they frequently start saying things like “Hey, that person isn’t any good, we should really have standards and block these yahoos. They’re not ‘professional’ like we are. Our ‘profession’ is slipping.”

This makes sense in some quarters where professional certification can and should be required.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Share, don’t tell your way to marketing

PolyWogg.ca
February 16 2012

I confess that I’m a bit of a Blog ‘Ho — I’ll read just about any blogger that has something interesting to say that resonates with me. Click here, press add there, and I’ll follow their RSS feed pretty fast. If over time they start to fade, I can click and drop just as easily. Both for work purposes and my personal interest in writing, or an interest combining the two (writing about HR), I really enjoy the Harvard Business Review’s site various feeds. One of them is their feed on Technology (which often co-links itself to talking about innovation).

Today’s feed includes an article by Nilofer Merchant (Rules for the Social Era — note link may expire). An excerpt from her post appears below…she talks mainly in her article about lots of big companies are not adjusting to the new social era of supply-chain production that is more about being lean, rather than big and talking to your customers in a way that is integrated in product design, delivery, etc. rather than just market research. But, on the writing and publishing front, the best “shift” for me is the third one:

Sharing, not telling. When companies think of social media, they hope to get consumers to “like” them or “fan” them, as if that increased connection is meaningful.

… Read the rest

Writer’s Block, Time Management, and Other Unicorns

PolyWogg.ca
September 30 2011

Hi, my name is PolyWogg and I’m an ‘writing RSS/newsletter’ addict.

There, I’ve admitted it. My first step in, umm, a 12-step program for sharing? Oh wait, I’m not planning to change. Particularly when I get golden nuggets of information like I did earlier this week.

One of the feeds I read is C.J. Lyon’s site called “No Rules, Just Write”. I don’t always agree with everything she writes, or find it completely applicable to me, but it is always interesting. This week’s freebie was a link to an ebook called “20 Creative Blocks And How To Break Through Them” (link expired) by Mark McGuinness and Marelisa Fábrega.

It’s interesting to wander around the web looking at various writer’s sites and see what they have to say about writer’s block. There are decidedly three camps — first there’s the group that says there’s no such thing as writer’s block. I call this the Nike group — they say you should just sit your butt down and write. It may not be fantastic writing, but you’ll write. Something. Dean Wesley Smith is definitely of this variety — arguing that professional writers write, only amateurs get something called writer’s block. By contrast, there are the members of the Passion group at the other end of the spectrum — the group that argues that if you are blocked, it’s because you are not really following your passion.… Read the rest