Tag: how to

Fantasy? Nah, My Neighborhood

Leave a comment
[found on terribleminds.com; by Chuck Wendig]

“ROOTED IN THE REAL

Reality is fantasy’s best friend. We, the audience, and you, the writer, all live in reality. The problems we understand are real problems. Genuine conflicts. True drama. The drama of families, of lost loves, of financial woes. Cruel neighbors and callow bullies and loved ones dead.

This is the nature of write what you know, and the fantasy writer’s version of that is, write what’s real. Which sounds like very bad advice, because last time I checked, none of us were plagued by dragons or sentient fungal cities or old gods come back to haunt us. But that’s not the point — the point is, you use the fantasy to highlight the reality.

The dragon is the callow bully. The lease on your fungal apartment is up and your financial woes puts you in tithe to the old gods who in turn make for very bad neighbors. You grab the core essence of a true problem and swaddle it in the mad glittery ribbons of fantasy — and therein you find glorious new permutations of conflict. Reality expressed in mind-boggling ways. Reach for fantasy. Find the reality.”

For more tips on writing fantasy from Chuck Wendig, click here.

[found on http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2012/06/19/25-things-you-should-know-about-writing-fantasyzzz]

Poetry Styles

Leave a comment

To see the (more) complete list, with a further seventy-four types of poetry, click here.

[found on poetryfoundation.org]

“Acrostic

A poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word, name, or phrase when read vertically. See Lewis Carroll’s “A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky.”

Alexandrine

In English, a 12-syllable iambic line adapted from French heroic verse. The last line of each stanza in Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark” is an alexandrine.

Anagram

A word spelled out by rearranging the letters of another word; for example, “The teacher gapes at the mounds of exam pages lying before her.”

Aubade

A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn. The form originated in medieval France. See John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” and Louise Bogan’s “Leave-Taking.” Browse more aubade poems.”

[found on http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types]

How to: Nonfiction Proposal

Leave a comment
[found on bradfordlit.com; by ]

“How To Write A Non-Fiction Proposal

Most non-fiction books are sold on the basis of a book proposal, often with one or more sample chapters rather than on a completed manuscript. While every agency and editor may have a slightly different opinion on the mechanics of writing a winning non-fiction proposal, most successful proposals have the following elements in common:

  1. Overview
    This is an introduction that summarizes the book’s contents and tells why the book should be published. In essence, this is your main selling statement. Concisely address all that is the most exciting, interesting, introspective and unique about your book. Make it clear that you are the best and most qualified person to write this wonderful and very necessary piece of non-fiction, as well as make a persuasive case for your intended market.
  2. Competition
    Understand and present how your book will fit in the marketplace. Select 4-6 of your major competing titles and compare them to your own. How is your book different and unique? The point here is not to denigrate other works (which may very well be beloved by your audience), but to highlight how your book successfully fills a gap in the market. Be honest but always keep in mind that each component of the proposal is to help you SELL your book, and showing how your project is at the head of the class is an excellent way to do so. It is not advisable to state that your book is “like no other” and decline to cite any comparative titles.
  3. Market
    Who is your intended audience? Who will relate to your book and rush to buy it? In this section, illustrate how the market for this book not only exists, but is a large, robust, book-buying section of the general public. It is unrealistic to make a statement that everyone will buy your book, so be mindful of exactly who your subject will appeal to. If there are any special markets that you can tap through any of your own personal connections this would be the place to mention it. An editor needs to see how your market translates to bottom-line sales.
  4. Biography
    This is your space for telling the editor a little more about yourself, specifically about how your experiences relate to this book. For example, if you are writing a cookbook, you’ll want to tell the editor about your experience working under the tutelage of Jacques Pepin. Be sure to mention your publishing history, if applicable. Keep this section as concise and professional as possible.
  5. Publicity
    If there are built-in publicity opportunities for your project, address them here. Any ideas for marketing or promotions you may have, especially if you have personal connections or direct access to likely prospects, should be mentioned. Make sure you let the editor know if you have any previous publicity experience.
  6. Chapter Outline
    This is one of the most critical sections of your proposal. List each chapter, with chapter title and give a brief description of the material covered. The style in which you deliver the description should be informed by the type of non-fiction book you are selling. A how-to book chapter description would necessarily be quite different from a travel narrative chapter description.
  7. Projected length and date of delivery
    Estimate the number of months you expect to take writing the book from signing to contract until completion. Give either a projected manuscript page length (use the standard of 250 words per page) or word count.
  8. Sample Chapters
    Sample chapters may or may not be necessary if you have written a complete and compelling proposal. If you have a track record of previous publications, you may not need to include sample chapters. If, however, you do elect to write a sample, you should draft the chapter that “puts your best foot forward” so to speak. Write the section that is the most interesting, the most compelling and the one that you feel most passionate about.”

For more tips on writing from Bradford Literary Agency, click here.

[found on http://www.bradfordlit.com/how-to-write-a-non-fiction-proposal]

Make Your Readers Worry, And They Will Be Loyal

Leave a comment
[found on writersdigest.com]

“Predictability

Readers like to worry about characters in crisis. They want to tremble about what’s around the next corner (whether it’s emotional or physical). If a reader knows what’s coming, and then it does in fact come, the worry factor is blown. Your novel no longer conveys a fictive dream but a dull ride down familiar streets.

The fix is simple: Put something unexpected in every scene. Doing this one thing keeps the reader on edge.

So how do you come up with the unexpected? Try making lists. Pause and ask yourself what might happen next, and list the possibilities, centering on three primary areas: description, action and dialogue. For each one, don’t choose the first thing that comes to mind (which usually amounts to cliches). Force yourself to list at least five alternatives.

Description: Dump generic details for ones unique to the character’s perceptions. How might he see a room where someone died? What’s one surprising thing about the wallpaper? The bed? The closet?

Action: Close your eyes and watch your scene unfold. Let the characters improvise. What are some outlandish things that could result? If something looks interesting, find a way to justify it.

Dialogue: Don’t always use “on-the-nose” exchanges. How might characters say things that put other characters (and thus, readers) off balance? Consider Clarice Starling’s first conversation with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Clarice begins:

“I think you’ve been destructive. For me it’s the same thing.”

“Evil’s just destructive? Then storms are evil, if it’s just that simple. And we have fire, and then there’s hail. Underwriters lump it all under ‘Acts of God.’”

“Deliberate––”

“I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily?”

You can make these lists in your planning stages, just before writing a scene, and/or when you revise. Either way, the unexpected elements that result will perceptibly elevate the quality of your story.”

For more tips on writing from , click here.

[found on http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-5-biggest-fiction-writing-mistakes-how-to-fix-them]

Writing Can Not Be Tone Deaf

Leave a comment
[found on writersdigest.com]

“If you find yourself having a difficult time sustaining one tone over a long work, try these three tricks.

1. Find a paragraph that sounds exactly the way you want to sound for this work, and tape it to your computer so that it’s always in front of you.

2. Each time you’re about to return to the piece, spend 20 minutes reading the work of an author who writes in the tone you’re after.

We’re natural mimics. You might try taking this a step further by more closely examining the sentence rhythms and word choices and looking for ways to make them your own. John Lukacs once said, “Style begins the way fashion begins: Somebody admires how the other man dresses and adapts it for himself.”

3. Starts and finishes are especially important to tone.

When revising your work, try moving some of your best sentences, the ones with energy and just the right tone, up to the top of your document: “I’m so looking forward to Christmas this year. It will be the only day in December not entirely consumed by children’s theater performances.” Could the piece begin this way? Experiment with moving equally strong sentences to the conclusion of your piece, for a cohesive ending.”

For more tips on writing from Writer’s Digest, click here.

[found on http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/3-tips-for-consistent-tone-2]

Painting Poetic Pictures

Leave a comment
[found on writing.ie; by Maggie Smith Hurt]

“Beginning to write poetry is about beginning to think about moments, stories, memories as their complete selves and then finding the right way to make those things lean, to amp up the right words to convey the tension, ambiguity and softness.

It’s a task a bit like painting a horse on a grain of rice….all the right things in the right place but the space is smaller and so the subject, all the more significant in its purest form, becomes the whole thing, the little nugget of art- the whole picture.”

For more great tips on poetry from Maggie Smith Hurt, click here.

[found on http://www.writing.ie/resources/writing-poetry-where-to-start]

Keep Your Story Fresh, Or Be Lost

Leave a comment
[found on matthewdunnbooks.com; by Matthew Dunn]

“Make Sure Your Story is Fresh in 5 Years Time.

If you choose to set your story at a point in history, then your book won’t age for obvious reasons. But, most thriller readers like their stories to be contemporary which on the one hand is great for writers because it doesn’t mean we have to do painful extra research on e.g. what clothes a man would have worn in 1934.

On the other hand, there are pitfalls. Your book can take over a year to be written and edited, many years to get an agent and a publishing deal, and another year or two to become a finished published novel. Want to write a spy novel featuring the rogue state of Iran? If so, you need to be confident that Iran is still a rogue state in at least 5 years’ time.

The Western world applauded the collapse of communism but I guarantee you there were a large number of spy writers who tore up their draft manuscripts in disgust when the USSR fragmented, because their stories were supposed to be contemporary yet featured the Cold War and the Soviet Union.”

For more tips on writing from Matthew Dunn, click here.

[found on http://www.matthewdunnbooks.com/writing-a-thriller-novel-10-tips]

Flashbacks and Foreshadowing

Leave a comment
[found on inspirationforwriters.com]

“Flashbacks and foreshadowing are tools that we can use to add dimension to our writing. Flashbacks give us the ability to see into a character’s past in real time. Foreshadowing drops hints of what may happen in the future. Are either one required in order to tell an effective story? No. However, there are times when they can add depth to our characters or suspense to our plot, and trust me, we can use whatever help we can get.

Flashbacks interrupt the current action of the story to show a scene from the past. As such, we must always weigh the advantages to the disadvantages. Are the benefits we receive worth leaving our characters dangling in time while we go into the past? If so, don’t hesitate to use a flashback. If not, continue with your story line and find other ways, such as exposition, discussion, etc. to entwine the past with the present.

If you choose to use a flashback, you must tip the reader that you are leaving the present. This can be done with a transition statement such as, “John remembered the day his father died.” Then, use past perfect (“had”) two or three times to complete the clue that we are entering real time in the past. And you are in the past. Act out your scene with action and dialogue, and when you are finished, clue the reader that you are returning to the present by using past perfect once or twice, and, if necessary, another transition sentence (“But that was then and this was now, and John had to let the past stay in the past.”).”

For more tips from Inspiration For Writers, click here.

[found on http://www.inspirationforwriters.com/techniques/flashbacks.html]

Comparison Jokes Are Gold

Leave a comment
[found on darkcargo.com; by Alex Shvartsman]

“Comparison Joke is Your Best Friend

Comedy is hard, but some aspects of it are easier than others. Arguably there is nothing easier than a Comparison Joke. They are effective, and reasonably easy to come up with. Comparison joke can be a well-placed and unexpected metaphor, or simply comparing a thing to another thing for comedic effect. Here’s one of my favorite examples, source unknown:

Game of Thrones is a lot like Twitter: There are 140 characters and terrible things are constantly happening.

This joke is asking a lot of its audience. You must be familiar with both Game of Thrones and Twitter in order to appreciate it. But if you happen to be a part of that target audience, you might find this hilarious. You will nod sagely, recognizing that the Game of Thrones book and/or TV series has an unwieldy cast of characters and something terribly unpleasant is happening to most of them at any given time. You won’t even stop to ponder whether terrible things are actually happening on Twitter. You won’t dissect it, chuckling at the comparison instead, because the joke works.

You can always spice up your description of absolutely anything with a comparison joke. Take care not to over-rely this tactic. Like everything else in life (with possible exceptions of coffee and chocolate), it is best used in moderation.”

[found on http://darkcargo.com/2013/04/29/five-practical-tips-on-writing-humor-by-alex-shvartsman]

Sight Is Not the Only Sense

4 Comments
[found on thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com; by ]

“Remember to use more than SIGHT to describe.

Sight is only one way to get an image across. The other senses like smells, sounds or touching can also reveal a lot about a character and create intimacy ties between the character and the reader through recognition. Use them to characterize! Our pal Melvin would probably steer clear of heavy scents, careful to always consider both his guests sensitivity to strong colognes and to maintain his background role. Yet I could imagine standing next to him in the elevator and catching a whiff of clean soap, or perhaps a touch of aloe from his hair gel.”

For more writing tips from Angela Ackerman, click here.

[found on http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2010/04/writers-bane-describing-characters.html]