Monthly Archives: February 2020

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

(Try to) Buck up, Bucko

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Every writer has been there. At least every writer that’s ever suffered though a project for a considerable amount of time. You spiff and you clean up and you nip and tuck, finally whipping your ms. into shape (or what you think is in shape), and find out it has to be edited and and cut and tweaked some more. You think that when you finally reach the point of being published, multiple times even, that you actually know what you’re doing. That you know how to pluck out the perfect word, how to weave an effective turn of phrase, have the craft of goal, motivation, and conflict down to a science, skilled in creating realistic and interesting characters, that when you’re ready to send something out into the world, the world will be holding open its arms. So what to do when instead of a hearty hello, you’re gifted with a cut direct?

Now, I’m not talking about a rejection from a publisher. That’s a whole different level of angst. What I’m talking about is the next level up, the gatekeepers, so to speak. The ones who stand between you and the ones who cut the royalty checks. Think of them as the filter in your air cleaner, the spaghetti strainers, the iron that flattens the wrinkles from your shirt. We have them in all levels of writing: from the beta reader to the agent to the editor. They’re the ones who hold up the Stop Sign and say, just a minute — you’re not ready. I have questions –comments –notes — suggestions — changes — additions, etc., etc., etc. They’re the pinch to the fuse that keeps you from launching into the world, yanks the keys from your ignition, locking the door just as you grab your coat on the way out. They’re the ones we gnash out teeth at and yell — What are you doing?!

You asked, so I’m going to tell you. As painful as it it to realize, they’re the ones that make us see our better selves. They make us slow down, take another look, consider. They are our third set of eyes. They see things we’re blind to because we’re up too close. In many cases, they know the world (the publishing one, at least) better than we do. They keep us from making fools of ourselves. They make us better writers.

So as frustrating as it is to be told to go back to the keyboard, in the end they are what helps us get published. It’s not easy to have our critiquers that our work needs just a few more tweaks before it’s ready for the world. But it much harder to have it sent out there too soon and be summarily sent back. Truly.

Non Sequitorial

We have rules for these things you know

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12744646_1726122334274166_7638752836448943458_nSorry, but I’m a firm believer in not only the Oxford Comma, as well as all forms of grammar rigidity, especially since living among the absence of such is hastening my eventual decline into ridiculousness. Call me petty, but that’s the way it is for someone who spends their days dealing with the open defiance of all rules of written language usage. Then again, who cares as long as we’re communicatin’? I mean, honestly, DILLIGAS?

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

If you don’t go, you’ll never know

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Take that first step to your dream of becoming a published author at the 11th Annual Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference! Already published? Improve your craft, business, or promotional skills with one of our wonderful workshops and information from our keynote speaker Mark Leslie Lefebvre. Mark’s industry experience includes being the President of the Canadian Booksellers Association, Board Member of BookNet Canada, Director of Author Relations and Self-Publishing for Rakuten Kobo, Director of Business Development for Draft2Digital and Professional Advisor for Sheridan College’s Creative Writing and Publishing Honours Program He will be presenting a workshop on why there’s no better time to be a writer. For more information, please visit http://www.libertystatesfictionwriters.com/conference/.

Unsolicited Writing Advice!

Tips from the MFA Pit, Part 8 – Read to Write

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Remember, dear readers, I’m an instructor in an MFA program, so outside of my lovely  college freshmen, I also mentor grad students in the craft of writing. One of the subjects I guide them through is Reading for Writers, where we look at the student’s chosen genre and study its practitioners in depth.

But if one is a writer, do they also need to be a reader? I find Francine Prose’s book, Reading Like a Writer valuable as one of the first things you hear when you attempt writing is you must be a reader. Why is that? Well, if you’re going to be a doctor, don’t you need to see sick people? Observe broken-down cars if you’re going to be a mechanic? Taste food if you want to know how to cook it? In the same vein, if you want to write you need to become familiar with what’ll be the end result of your work, and how others view what it should be.

Because of that, I believe it’s important to read more than what you’re accustomed to. Of course, everyone has their favorite genres (mine being anything political and historical fiction and non-fiction), but like an old sweater it’s important to reach beyond what you’re comfortable with. Stretching outside our genre opens us up to new methods of approaching the craft, and reading the classics shows us why those books have lasted the test of time.

You mentioned a few of the classic authors, and I can’t tell you how much I learned from them. Austen, with her divine wit, Orwell, with his command of metaphor and symbolism, Warton, with her period mastery of detail. As a student of humor, I’ve learned a lot from the more current authors, such as Carl Hiaasen’s master use of dialogue, and David Sedaris’ hilarious use of the short-form essays. When we vary our reading, when we stretch into other forms that we’re not as familiar with, the lessons from their techniques leach into our writing psyche like osmosis, and we can’t help coming out better writers at the end. The more you expose yourself to, the more cosmopolitan your writing becomes. You just can’t help it.

So, what’s your favorite readers? Are they what you write? Sometimes they are, as I read scads and scads of literary fiction, but never attempted to write it. Then again, what is literary fiction? Charles Dickens in his day was writing for the everyday masses. Hm…could that be what my own writing will be one day? I can only hope!