2012 September | Best Fantasy Novel

How To Write A Series – 02 – Why Write A Series?

Chances are, you already have a good idea if you want to write a series or not.

But let’s say you don’t.

Let’s say you have a bright, shiny idea for a story, but no idea how BIG this idea is — is this an idea that can last a series, or is it the right size for a book, or is really just a short story?

Ideas stretch. So this is kinda a trick question.

It’s less about the idea itself and more about your enthusiasm. I can think of a lot of good ideas for series that I know would bore me after one or two chapters, never mind books or episodes.

by Tara Maya

When Should You Read Literary Novels?

Puddlepaws, the Gratuitously Adorable Kitten, from The Initiate

None of this post will apply if you regularly read (or write) in the literary genre.

I love literary writing…in small dribbles. There are are certain gorgeous books, with such exquisite sentences and turns of phrase that they seduce my inner logophile into rapturous sighs of bliss. I can usually make it half-way through such a book before I realize I’m…bored.

The rest of the journey is a slog. Often, I’ll find that the true power of the story doesn’t hit until the end. So it’s worth it to push through that boring part. It’s not like the boring part of a badly written story, which you’d be better off without. It’s drawing you in to the character’s world or mind, making you love this person against all logic and expectation.

Literary novels revolve around people who aren’t admirable doing things that aren’t interesting. The literary writer’s job is to write so beautifully that you don’t notice. Also this brings us to the rule of thumb: You can write about dull things in an exciting way and you can write about exciting things in a dull way, and some bastards can even write about exciting things in an exciting way, but if you write about dull things in a dull way, no one will read your book.

I have found, however, the perfect time to read a literary novel, or short story collection, is when I am editing.

Plot pushes my stories around, piling up activities for the characters, the way a mom in a supermarket grabs boxed cereals for the next month of breakfasts. My characters engage in all sorts of angst and drama, but sometimes my dialogue is too “on the nose,” as they say in screenwriting, rather than subtle and realistic.

Reading some exquisite crown of word-jewels during the editing reminds me that sentences can be beautiful, they can be complex, they can be unexpected. This helps me polish my prose, dial back the obvious where it was slamming the reader in the face, put on a shirt and shoes to go eat in the restaurant and not stomp around like a barbarian.

The time I try to avoid reading literary works is while I am brainstorming, outlining and drafting the manuscript (i.e. most of the time). What I read inspires what I write, so if I read literary novels while brainstorming a new book, I start to delude myself this time I’ll write a literary book. Mustn’t have that! Also, I start trying to Me Rite Purty too soon.

Trying to write beautiful sentences before I have the plot and the character arcs worked out would be deadly for the kind of story I want to write. It would risk it becoming…boring.

Have you noticed what an offensive post this is? I’ve managed to insult both literary and genre writing. This is what happens when I’m in Editing Mindset.

by Tara Maya

One Ridiculously Easy Way To Improve Your Manuscript

So you want your writing not to suck. There’s a ridiculously effective way to improve it. It’s easy–once you know how:

Put your manuscript on a diet!

I have a guest post from writing coach extraordinaire, Rayne Hall, with some tips.

Check out all Rayne Hall’s books!

SLIM YOUR WRITING STYLE FOR THE NEW YEAR

Does your writing style have bulges and saggy bits? Dr Rayne’s Word Loss Diet helps you to trim, slim, tighten and tone your manuscript.

In thirty years as an editor, I’ve found the same fatty words bloat the style of many authors.

Here is a notorius, fattening, calorie-rich word: ‘could’. If you cut it from your diet your writing style will be come sharper and tighter.

Beginner writers are prone to overusing it. Experienced authors may use it a lot in their drafts, but edit it out in the final version.

Instead of telling us that the heroine could see, could hear, could smell or could feel something, let her see, hear, smell, taste, feel it. Simply cut the word ‘could’.

‘Could see’ becomes ‘saw’, ‘Could hear’ becomes ‘heard’, ‘could smell’ becomes ‘smelled’, ‘ could taste’ becomes ‘tasted’, ‘could feel’ becomes ‘felt’.

Better still: cut ‘see/hear/smell/taste/feel’ as well. If you have established the point of view of your story, you don’t need to say that your PoV hears the sounds, smells the smells and sees the visions.

Obese version (before diet)

He could hear footsteps clanking down the stairs.