A question that probably arises more than any other on my forum is how to set out a manuscript for a publisher.
I was going to write a post about this myself, but then I discovered this excellent article by Moira Allen, the editor of WritingWorld.com, which says everything I would have said and more.
Helpfully, Moira's article covers submitting to both US and UK publishers. I also like the way she takes a sensible, straightforward approach to some issues that cause writers to agonize unnecessarily. Here she is talking about fonts and formats:
Amazingly, people get into heated discussions over what types of fonts editors prefer. Some folks claim that all editors want manuscripts in Courier (the font that looks like your typewriter font). Lately, some editors and writers have come to prefer Arial. So what do editors really want?
The truth is, most editors really don't care, as long as the font is readable. (I can state this with confidence, having done a survey of about 500 editors; 90% expressed "no preference" with regard to font.) Very few editors will reject your manuscript because it happens to be in New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, or Times Roman. Generally, it's best to use a 12-point font size, and to choose a font that doesn't "squinch" letters together too closely.
If you're thinking of submitting a book to a publisher, I strongly recommend giving Moira's article a read. She even covers electronic submissions as well!
I thought perhaps you might be interested in checking out this mini-article I wrote recently for Melissa Jones's WEbook blog.
As you'll see, it's a tip that's relevant mainly to fiction writers, though there's no reason why non-fiction authors can't use it as well. Not long ago I ran a workshop on this topic for the Lichfield & District Writers, and their members were impressed by the improvement that applying this one piece of advice made to their work.
The article also gives me the opportunity to highlight WEbook again. WEbook is a collaborative writing project that gives authors the chance to work together in a wide range of writing projects centred around the WEbook website. You can read all about it in this article by Melissa Jones which I published a few weeks ago on my blog. And yes, they are still very much open to new members.
I'd also like to give a quick plug for the book I used as an example in my piece for the WEbook blog. Painter Man is the first novel by my old friend and sometime collaborator Jeff Phelps. You can hear Jeff being interviewed about his book on WritersFM, and read my blog post about it here.
Painter Man, like What Was Lost which I raved about recently in this post, is published by Tindal Street Press, a small, Birmingham-based publishing house which regularly punches above its weight in literary awards. Painter Man is quite different from What Was Lost, but both books are well observed and beautifully written, and I'm disappointed that Painter Man has not (yet) received the recognition it deserves.
Anyway, I've included links to Painter Man on Amazon (com/uk) below, in case you're interested in finding out more about this excellent novel. As ever, if you're receiving this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the image links.
Today I'm pleased to welcome a new guest author to my blog, Ruth Barringham.
Ruth is a prolific and successful author and publisher, and I'm also very pleased to count her as a friend and collaborator. Here she offers some good advice for everyone - which includes me on occasion - who claims that they don't have time to write.
Stop Making Excuses! - by Ruth Barringham
The biggest complaint of most would-be freelance writers and authors is that they don't have time to write.
Wrong!
Everyone has time to write. We all have the same 24 hours in every day. The difference between us all is how we spend our time.
Some people do actually manage to squeeze in a couple of hours to write during their busy day. But instead of focusing on their work, they waste their time reading unimportant emails or online articles that are irrelevant to what they should be doing.
Does this sound like you?
Well, don't worry, you're not alone.
Most writers are the same. We all say we love to write and will even spend all day thinking about it. Yet when it comes to actually sitting down and beginning to write, we'll look for other things to distract us.
But to be a successful writer you need to be able to write quickly and be as productive as possible, and you won't be able to do this if you constantly allow your attention to be diverted when you should be writing.
So here's a word that is the most important to anyone who wants to be successful in anything and everything they do. Knowing this word and having a complete understanding of its meaning can change you from a reluctant writer into a hard working and profitable writer.
And that word is - FOCUS.
When you know you should be writing, focus on it. Force yourself to apply bum-to-chair. Once you're sitting comfortably, begin the task of writing immediately. Don't check your emails or surf the net. Just sit down and begin working.
It will help you stay focused if you know exactly what you have to do. So at the end of every day make a list of the writing tasks you have to do tomorrow. That way, when you sit down you just have to check your list and you'll know where to begin.
If you find you work better in the mornings, then get up early and write. If you work better in the evening, work late when the house is quiet and the rest of the family is asleep.
Just make sure you allocate a portion of every day to write. Then focus, and don't let your mind be distracted by anything else.
Once you get into a routine of writing regularly, you'll find that focusing and writing becomes extremely easy, and will be a habit you never want to break.
Today I have a guest article for you from Mywriterscircle.com member John Craggs, also known (and not only on the forum) as Gyppo. John/Gyppo describes himself as a writer, adult tutor, storyteller and all-round rogue!
Be that as it may, he is a highly experienced freelance writer, and gives his advice and support generously to other members of the forum. I particularly liked this article - which he posted last week - and thought it deserved a wider readership.
IMAGINATION & INSPIRATION
"I've just got no imagination."
Every creative writing class has one student who issues this challenge, daring the tutor to prove him wrong.
Which they obviously are. If they couldn't imagine themselves as a writer - whatever their image of a writer may be - they wouldn't be in your class.
The more timid ones hesitantly admit to a 'lack of inspiration'.
The following addresses both problems, and although it may not work for everyone I've known it produce excellent results.
If you rely on inspiration as the driving force behind your writing then you'd better learn to make yourself inspired!
Did I hear you say no-one can be inspired to order?
This isn't strictly true.
OBSERVATION STARTS AT HOME
Become your own study object. Observe yourself throughout the day as you would observe someone else if you were planning to write about them.
Take note, mentally or on paper, of the things that trigger your imagination. The things that catch at your curiosity like a ragged fingernail on cloth.
Scraps of overheard conversation on a bus perhaps.
Music. I personally find music a great source of inspiration. Though the mental images rarely seem to have any direct connection with the tune.
Pictures. Some people will find great inspiration in a handful of photographs, or an art gallery.
People. Real people - despite all disclaimers to the contrary - are the raw material of so much writing. A stranger seen in a crowd can provide the basis for a character who then spawns a whole novel of supporting characters.
For example, I once saw a three year old girl, with an unearthly blonde beauty, and the blackest coldest eyes I have ever seen in my life.
The question that sprung into my subconscious was 'what will she grow up like'?
I saw an assassin, sunbathing on a rooftop until it was time to do her grisly job. A horror oriented writer may have seen her as a child of the devil.
Another writer may have seen her as the victim of some childhood trauma. Possibly leading to a psychological thriller about child abuse and its possible consequences.
Actively look for inspiration. Once you get into the habit of seeing everything about you in terms of possibilities, rather than a simple fact, you will never be short of ideas again.
Another example? You see a man leaning on a wall. So far this is just a simple recordable fact. But why is he leaning?
Is he just tired, ill, or lazy? Or perhaps clawing himself back upright after a mugging?
On a more gentle note, is he waiting for someone, or something? His wife, mistress, old flame, or a terribly mundane bus. And if the latter, where is the bus going? Is it taking him to somewhere/someone, or away from an untenable situation?.
How about an offbeat surreal view? Maybe he really is holding up the wall, instead of vice versa. (Reversing your perception of everyday events like this can be quite productive at times.)
WRITERS SHOULD ALWAYS ASK 'WHAT IF'
What if he misses the bus? Will he go back and resolve his problem, or just stand there indecisively? Will his failure to arrive on time lead to further misunderstandings and more twists in the emerging plot? (If not, you're not trying hard enough!)
On the surreal note, if he really was supporting the wall (and by now you should have asked yourself why), will it fall down if he catches the bus, and if so, what will it reveal? Was that wall the empty facade of a previous life, now exposed as the sham it truly was?
Turning those ideas into stories/articles may be another set of problems, but without those initial building blocks you will not even get started.
NO SUCH THING
I accept the existence of people with no sense of humour - I've worked with a few - but I sincerely believe that there is no such thing as a complete lack of imagination. It may have atrophied since childhood, but it's there in everyone.
Imagination can be compared to a motorcycle. If well maintained and regularly used it bursts into life at the first kick. But if neglected and abused half an hour's vigorous kicking will get you nowhere until you do a little repair work.
So give your imagination a service. It'll work a lot better afterwards.
*
If you enjoyed this article, you might like to subscribe to Gyppo's free fortnightly humour newsletter by e-mailing gyppo1-at-ntlworld.com with 'MSD SUB' as subject (in the e-mail address, of course, change the -at- to the usual @ sign). You could also check out his three e-books, 'A Hamper of Havoc', 'British Bike Bodgers Booklet', and his latest, 'The Flying Ferret', available for sale at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1175168. Gyppo says he will even pop them onto a CD for anyone who doesn't like downloads. Contact the 'gyppo1' e-mail address if you would prefer this.
Thanks again to Gyppo for allowing me to reprint his article here.
Today I'm pleased to publish a guest post by my friend and colleague Dr Suzanne Harris. A little while ago I wrote an article on Suzie's blog about five things I wish I'd known when I was starting out as a freelance writer. Suzie's article, below, is a good example of two of the things I mentioned in particular. One of these is the value to a freelance of specializing and becoming an 'expert' in your field. And the other is the importance of enthusiasm, a quality that Suzie has in abundance! I hope you enjoy reading her piece...
When I started out as a freelance writer, some seven years ago now, I had no idea what to actually write about. I had the passion and the drive, but I didn't think I knew enough to write a full length book. Frustrated, I sat down with a pen and paper and brainstormed. After around half an hour I had a pretty impressive list of things I knew something about, or could research. Top of my list was health. As a long-term sufferer of a debilitating illness, I knew more than most about coping with chronic pain, prescription medication, alternative therapies and other methods of fighting the ill effects of nature-gone-bad. A health writer was born.
Steadily, I created the persona I needed to sell articles and, ultimately, my book. I was so excited to be the author of a real how-to book on alternative health and I really felt as though I could make a difference. But as time passed I became restless in my niche. However, it was to be another four years before I finally found the courage to reinvent myself. I knew the importance of specialising; I already had a lucrative career as an alternative health writer, making it hard to decide to change direction. Then, quite by accident, I started to get work come to me in the form of finance writing. I almost turned it away thinking it was beyond my knowledge, but I didn't and I found I was comfortable working with the topic.
After doing a few paid jobs I decided I would like to be a finance writer alongside my health writing - after all, two specialties are better than one. It sounds easy, but specialising is actually a challenge. Before people accept you as a writer on a topic you need to be viewed as an 'expert' and to be an expert you need experience; the good old catch22 had reared its ugly head. Not to be put off, I asked a few colleagues, Nick being one of them, about how to go about establishing myself in another area. The advice I got from them proved to be sound and soon I had deleted all my old blogs, set up new ones to reflect my change of attitude, and approached some companies with ideas. Before long the work was pouring in. I secured a regular column with a B2B print magazine, creating content on Bankruptcy for pts.com and negotiating with a finance publisher on a number of book ideas. In a short space of time I managed to become an expert.
Achieving these new positions wasn't easy and a few times I had to rely on charm and a few exaggerations of the truth, but in the end it paid off. Most of them asked what experience I had. Luckily running my own writing consultancy gave me a heads-up, and I also dropped into emails that my book idea, The 30 Day Money Diet for Women: The Only Book That Helps You Gain Pounds!, was under consideration by a publisher (and still is). From there, as the odd job came in, I simply added it to the list I gave to prospective employers, so that by the time I approached some of the bigger companies my experience list was impressive. Now all I have to do is write it all!
To keep up with me and what I'm up to you can always check out my blog or find me on My Writers Circle.
Before I go there is one piece of advice I want to share that was given to me when I started out and that is to believe in yourself even when the rejection letters are flooding in because one day someone will say yes. And it's true. If someone had told me ten years ago I would end up as a published author and freelance writer I would have laughed, but through perseverance and hard work that's exactly what I am doing. And to prove anything is possible, I trained my husband, Mark, to be a freelance writer, and he is now successful in his own right. He now works for the New York Times company about.com as their MP3 guide !
On my recent holiday in Cyprus I found myself watching Sky News quite a bit. I'm not a regular viewer of this station normally, but it was one of the few English language channels available on the TV in our hotel room.
While it was nice to have a lifeline to what was going on in the world over Christmas, one thing that quite surprised me was the number of grammatical errors made by Sky's presenters. Here's just one example I jotted down:
"The future of democratic elections hang in the balance..."
The story in question concerned the appalling assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and in no way do I wish to trivialise this. But hearing the presenter mangle the sentence in this way did succeed in distracting me from the story itself.
Of course, 'hang' in this sentence should be 'hangs'. The subject of the sentence is 'the future'. This is a singular noun and therefore requires a singular verb.
What seems to have happened is that the presenter - or whoever wrote his script - was distracted by the plural noun 'elections' directly preceding the verb, and therefore assumed that a plural verb was needed. 'Elections' is NOT the subject of the sentence, however. It is simply part of the adjectival phrase 'of democratic elections'. This is therefore an example of faulty subject-verb agreement.
I might excuse this if it was an isolated mistake, but in fact it was one of a number of such errors I heard. In addition, because Sky News is a rolling news channel, stories get repeated every twenty minutes or so. I waited hopefully for someone to have a word in the presenter's ear and get him to correct the mistake, but sad to say it didn't happen while I was viewing!
Anyway, I don't suppose the bosses at Sky News will lose too much sleep over this, but I'm afraid it diminished their channel's authority in my eyes. I was left with the feeling that if their presenters couldn't get their basic grammar right, how much faith could I have in their reporting of the facts? Perhaps it's time Sky News appointed a grammar czar? In the meantime, I've gone back to BBC News - where I've never heard this particular error committed at least - with some relief!
* Just in case you're interested, there is a whole module on subject-verb agreement in my brand new course Essential English for Authors.
One of those queries that crops up regularly on my forum is how you should represent a character's thoughts in fiction. Here's my take on the subject...
First of all, this is a stylistic matter, not one of grammar. There is no single "correct" way to punctuate or otherwise represent a character's thoughts. Some authors put them in quotation marks, others use italics. I've even seen thoughts put in parentheses or ALL CAPS, though I certainly don't recommend that!
In fact, the most common approach nowadays is to avoid using any special punctuation or formatting to represent thoughts, and that is the style I would strongly recommend.
A crucial point here is that most stories today are written in scenes portrayed through the eyes of a single viewpoint character, whether first person (I) or third person (he/she). In such cases there is no need for any extra punctuation to signify a character's thoughts. The whole scene is, in effect, the thoughts and perceptions of the 'viewpoint' character. The example below - written in a third-person limited viewpoint - may illustrate why extra punctuation for thoughts is usually unnecessary.
"What time is it?" Julia asked. That's the third time you've asked me in the last twenty minutes, John thought. Still, he checked his watch. "Five to eight," he said. "Why aren't they here?" Julia asked. She stared at him. "Do you think they've been in an accident?" "I doubt it," John replied. "Probably they just got held up in the traffic." Unless Pete's car has broken down again, he thought to himself.
If you tried putting quotation marks around the thoughts in this passage, you would end up with almost everything in quotes, and total confusion over whether the character was speaking or thinking. In general, the problem with using inverted commas around a character's thoughts is (a) it makes the text look cluttered, and (b) it invites confusion with speech.
So what about the alternative of using italics for thoughts? Yes, you can do this, but as mentioned above, when a scene is written from a limited viewpoint anyway (as is usually the case in modern fiction), there is no need to represent thoughts any differently from the rest of the text. And if it's unnecessary, why do it?
Using italics to represent thoughts also has a number of drawbacks. You are likely to waste a lot of time agonising over whether a particular line is a thought or a description. You will end up with much of your text in italics, which looks ugly and distracting. And finally, you will lose the option of using italics when, for some dramatic reason, extra emphasis is required.
So my advice is clear. NEVER use quotation marks for thoughts. If it's absolutely necessary to indicate thoughts in a special way, use italics (but mostly this shouldn't be required). And keep italics for their proper purpose, which is providing extra emphasis.
Don't forget - there's much more advice on grammar, punctuation and spelling in my brand new course Essential English for Authors!
I'm delighted to reveal that my latest downloadable course for writers, Essential English for Authors, has just been launched by my publishers, WCCL.
As the name indicates, Essential English for Authors is intended for anyone who would like to write for publication but fears their written English might let them down.
As regular members of my forum will know, grammar and punctuation are something of a passion of mine. It's a subject I often post about in the forum in response to member queries, and I've really enjoyed having this opportunity to put all my advice together in a single, modestly priced guide.
In twelve concise but information-packed modules, Essential English for Authors takes you through all the common problem areas for new writers: from the basics of grammatical sentence and paragraph construction, through the principles of capitalization and punctuation, to "minefield" topics such as subject/verb agreement and how to set out and punctuate dialogue. I have tried to explain everything in simple, easy-to-grasp terms, with lots of examples to illustrate the points made.
It's not just the basics, however. A long module titled "Putting on the Style" covers a range of matters that, while they may not all be essential to achieving publication, will help bring your written English up to the highest professional standards. The topics discussed in this module include parallel construction, active v. passive voice, use of the subjunctive in modern English, when to use "who" or "whom", and many more. There are also self-study tests you can complete to check your understanding of the material covered.
The course assumes no previous knowledge (beyond a basic familiarity with English), and is ideal for beginners and people for whom English is not their first language. It is, however, equally suitable for established writers who want to brush up on their knowledge of grammar, spelling and punctuation. And for aspiring self-publishers - especially if they won't be engaging a professional editor - it's an essential reference to ensure that your book isn't laughed out of court by critics and reviewers.
And even if you don't aspire to write for publication but just want to bring your written English up to the best possible standard in the shortest possible time, Essential English for Authors is ideal for you too!
Essential English for Authors is intended to be suitable for anyone in the world. It's written in US English, but British English is referred to throughout (I'm a Brit myself, of course).
For more information and to order Essential English for Authors, just click any of the links in this post to go through to my publisher's sales page. Alternatively, if you would like to read a short extract from the course first, please click here to go to the relevant page on my website.
Finally, I should mention that Essential English for Authors is currently on offer at a low launch price. After the launch period is over, this will certainly rise - so if you'd like to take advantage of the current special offer, please don't hesitate too long.
...That's the title of an article I saw the other day on The Positivity Blog by Henrik Edberg, a 26 year old student from Sweden.
In his article, Henrik has set out seven pieces of advice for writers gleaned from horror writer Stephen King's book On Writing- which I highly recommend, by the way. Here's the first (and shortest) of the seven items:
1. Get to the point.
Don't waste your reader's time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
The other tips in this article on The Positivity Blog are all well worth reading too. OK, none are Earth-shattering, but it's all solid stuff, and relevant to all types of writing, not just novels and short stories. Check it out!
Apostrophes are an endless source of confusion for writers. So I thought you might enjoy watching this short video on the subject from the popular Videojug website:
If you have received this post by email, you will need to visit my blog to see the video. Incidentally, if you click on 'How to Use Apostrophes' directly under the video player, it will take you to the relevant Videojug web page, where there is a complete transcript of the script as well.
The article concerns the decline in recent years in the use of hyphens. Apparently the new, sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has knocked the hyphens out of 16,000 words, many of them two-word compound nouns. According to the article, "Fig-leaf is now fig leaf, pot-belly is now pot belly, pigeon-hole has finally achieved one word status as pigeonhole and leap-frog is feeling whole again as leapfrog."
It's interesting to see some of the other words that have lost their hyphens in the latest edition of this widely respected reference guide. The following are now shown as two separate words: fig leaf, hobby horse, ice cream, pin money, pot belly, test tube. By contrast, the following, which previously contained hyphens, are now shown as single words: bumblebee, chickpea, crybaby, leapfrog, logjam.
The article suggests that the Internet may be partly responsible for the decline of the hyphen, with people rushing to send their e-mails (or, more likely nowadays, emails), and rejecting hyphens as just too time consuming.
In any event, one thing the article does illustrate is that the English language is constantly changing, and no-one can afford to be too dogmatic about whether hyphens are or are not required in any particular case. The best that writers and editors can hope to achieve is consistency, and this is often best achieved by referring to a reference book such as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary or the The Chicago Manual of Style and following its recommendations. Many publishers nowadays produce their own house style guides, or require editors to follow a particular guide such as those mentioned above. Again, this is done not to ensure grammatical correctness (there is no final arbiter on what is "correct" in the English language) but consistency.
On a totally different note, thank you to those readers who have expressed concern that this blog hasn't been updated for a while. No, I wasn't ill, just enjoying a much-needed holiday in Greece. Normal service - as normal as it ever gets - will now be resumed!
OK, I do mean just a dollar more than the standard version! But that still makes for a very substantial discount on the normal price for the Creative Writing version of WhiteSmoke (which is definitely the one that any serious writer should have). The discount is available until Sunday 26 August under WhiteSmoke's special 'Back to School' promotion.
To remind you, WhiteSmoke is a program that aims to help its users produce better-written documents. It does this by analyzing the spelling, punctuation and grammar in any document, and then suggesting corrections and possible improvements. If you missed it, you can read my full review of WhiteSmoke's software here (though note that this does not mention some of the new features added recently, such as the built-in dictionary).
For more info, or to order, click on the banner below or in my review, and click on the 'Back to School' banner on the WhiteSmoke website. As mentioned, this special promotion only goes on till Sunday, so don't leave it too long to order if you are interested.
GOOD NEWS! WhiteSmoke have just announced that the 'Back to School' promotion is being extended to Sunday September 2nd.
An interesting question cropped up on my forum the other day. In this thread a member wrote:
I'm trying to write the following sentence, but I'm not sure how to punctuate it.
Have we displeased the gods, Eysha thought.
Should I have a question mark after gods, or even at all?
Here's an expanded version of the answer I gave...
There is no one correct answer to this. Personally I prefer the sentence as written:
Have we displeased the gods, Eysha thought.
An alternative (suggested by another member) would be to put the first part of the sentence in italics and give it a question mark:
Have we displeased the gods? Eysha thought.
I'm not a big fan of this approach, though. For one thing you can get into problems if your novel includes lots of thoughts, which it will if (as in most modern novels) you are writing in scenes portrayed from a single character's viewpoint. You don't want to end up with half your novel in italics and the other half in normal type. I would only use this method in a short story (and probably not even then).
Similar objections apply to the suggestion of using inverted commas (quotation marks) for thoughts:
'Have we displeased the gods?' Eysha thought.
One problem here is that we assume that a character is speaking, and it is only when we get to the end of the sentence we realise that they are actually thinking. Using inverted commas for thoughts also makes the text look cluttered. This approach was quite popular in the past, but nowadays it is seldom used by good writers.
Some writers would simply put a question mark after gods:
Have we displeased the gods? Eysha thought.
This isn't wrong - a question mark can serve as either a comma or a full stop. To most people's eyes, however, putting a question mark in mid-sentence - without any other punctuation - looks a little odd. In this case, also, there is a risk that the reader will think that 'Eysha thought' marks the start of a new sentence. I wouldn't write it that way myself, therefore.
One thing that would definitely be wrong is putting a question mark at the end of the sentence.
Have we displeased the gods, Eysha thought?
This sentence taken as a whole is not a question, so it cannot end with a question mark.
In summary, question marks in mid-sentence are a contentious area. Of course, where you have a spoken question followed by a speech tag, it's no problem:
"What shall we do now?" he asked.
But when you are writing a character's thoughts, there is probably no ideal solution in these cases, apart from rewriting the sentence so that the problem doesn't arise!
In case you haven't worked it out, the title of this post comes from a line of business advice, "Never assume. ASSUME makes an ASS of U and ME." I first saw this quoted by a character in Stephen King's novel Cell, but since then I have seen it reproduced in various places.
In any event, I think it's very good advice for writers, or indeed anyone who is self-employed. Assuming that you know what your client wants without checking is fraught with peril.
I've been in this writing business for a long time now, but I still fall into this trap myself from time to time. Most recently, I was commissioned by my regular publishers WCCL to write some articles to help promote their range of self-help software. The articles, as you might expect, were to include links to the products and services in question. These tend to follow a similar pattern - so, for example, the website for WCCL's Subliminal Studio software, which enables users to create their own subliminal CDs, is at http://www.subliminal-studio.com/.
I was actually writing about another WCCL self-development product. I won't say which one it was, as it's not relevant to this story. But I assumed the website URL would follow the usual pattern, so I entered the product name separated by hyphens and with a .com suffix into my browser to check. Sure enough, the familiar WCCL product web page appeared, so I assumed the URL must be correct without further checking and entered it into my article.
It was only when I heard back from my client that I realised I'd got it wrong. The domain in question actually belonged to an affiliate of WCCL, who had set it up so that visitors were automatically forwarded to the correct WCCL site with his affiliate link (thus generating sales commission for himself). Of course, the affiliate hadn't done anything wrong, but if my article had been published as it stood, all sales arising from it would have generated 40% commission for that affiliate (and cost WCCL a good deal of money).
Anyway, my client was very good about it, but it was an embarrassing slip to make. Not least, I was afraid it might appear that I had been trying to boost my fee by sneaking my own (or an associate's) affiliate links into the article! As it happens, because I've done a lot of work with WCCL over the years, they understood that it was a genuine mistake. But if it had been a new client, it could have been an expensive slip-up for me. And all because I assumed that a URL was correct without checking properly with my client.
The 'never assume' principle is a very important one. I regularly get emails from new and new-ish writers who have been given a commission and aren't sure about some aspect of it. The instructions they've received from their client aren't clear, and they want my advice on how they ought to approach the job.
My answer is always the same - get back to your client and ask them to clarify. No client should be offended by this (if they are, you don't want to be working for them, trust me). On the contrary, they will be impressed by your professionalism in ensuring that every aspect of the job meets their needs.
The worst thing you can do is ASSUME you know what your client wants and go ahead on that basis. The chances are your assumptions will be wrong. You will then have wasted your time and effort, and the client will be annoyed because he hasn't got what he required. In the best case, you will have to revisit the job, making it less profitable for you. In the worst case, the client will go elsewhere, and your chances of getting paid for the work done (or getting any more work from that source in future) will be minuscule.
Never assume, then. If in any doubt, ASK. And never, ever believe that just because a particular URL leads to your client's website, it is automatically the correct one!
A question that arises quite regularly on my forum is whether it's OK for writers to use trademarked terms in novels and short stories. In this topic posted the other day a member wanted to know if it would be OK to use the term Frisbee in her novel.
Meaning no disrespect to forum members, I have to say it's absurd to suggest that writers can never use trademarked terms. If that was the case, spies could never drive Aston Martins - they would have to use sports convertibles. And you could never have your hero popping into his local Macdonalds - it would have to be the Happy Burger Emporium, or some other made-up name.
Of course, I'm no lawyer. But if you look at some publishers' guidelines, you can gauge their views on the matter. To begin, here's a quote from the guidelines of Pearson Education:
"Use of a trademark in the text of a book that discusses or describes the product sold under the mark is considered a form of fair use and permission is not required." Source: http://tinyurl.com/25794v
And here's a quote from the University of Colorado Style Guide:
"Many words and names are legally trademarked and should appear with initial capitals to acknowledge that fact. Also owners of such trademarks have a legal right to restrict the use of those trademarked terms to their specific product. As a result, avoid using trademarked names, like Kleenex and Xerox, as generic terms. Instead, use facial tissue and photocopier, unless you intend to refer to the trademarked brand name. A good dictionary will tell you whether commonly used words are trademarked and will also indicate if a trademarked term should be capitalized." Source: http://tinyurl.com/2dd5pw
As these quotes indicate, there is generally no objection to using a trademarked term to describe an item in your book. You would need to give it an initial capital, and not use the term generically (e.g. in the case of Frisbee, mentioned earlier, as though it describes any flying plastic disk). As the first of the quotes above states, simply using a trademarked term descriptively in this way is regarded legally as "fair use".
Of course, if you are speaking disparagingly about a particular product or service, you may need to take care that you do not fall foul of the libel laws. However, in most instances that is unlikely, and if you do need to describe a badly designed product (say) in your novel, it might be prudent to give it an imaginary name or keep the manufacturer vague. Even so, a novel is quite different from a non-fiction book. If it is essential to your artistic vision for your hero to suffer a bout of food poisoning after visiting his local Macdonalds, you should not be afraid of writing it this way.
This matter of trademarks seems to worry many new authors, but in my view it's really not such a big deal. I can't think of a single actual case where an author has been prosecuted just for using a trademarked term. Bear in mind, too, that publishers have editors and legal departments whose job it is to worry about these matters. If they think there is a serious concern with what you have written, they will tell you (and ask for changes). And in the highly unlikely event that the company in question decides to sue, they will target the publisher rather than the author (they know most authors don't have any money!).
As writers, I believe it's important that we portray the world as realistically as possible. Part of that involves giving sharp, precise descriptions, and using trademarked terms is sometimes necessary to achieve this. As long as it is done in that spirit and the basic guidelines I have mentioned above are followed, I think it is highly unlikely you will encounter any problems.
Finally, if you want an example of a novel where the author uses trademarked terms with total abandon, take a look at Jennifer Government by the Australian author Max Barry. In this satirical, dystopian science fiction novel, the world is in the control of large corporations such as Adidas, and workers take on the surnames of the company that employs them. One of the key characters in the book, Hack Nike, is told by his employer that as part of his job he must shoot a number of teenagers, to generate hysterical news coverage about the company's new line of trainers.
OK, I am still faintly amazed that Barry and his publishers got away with this, but he has a nice disclaimer at the start of the book which concludes, "Any resemblance to actual people is coincidental and the use of real company and product names is for literary effect only and definitely without permission." So that's all right then!
One thing all fiction writers try to achieve is a sense in the reader that the events described are taking place as he or she reads about them.
So it's a bit of a paradox that most novels and short stories are written in the past rather than the present tense. And yet, for reasons that go back to the origins of storytelling, past tense sounds more natural to us when reading or listening to a story. We don't notice the tense and - with a well-written tale - simply become immersed in the events unfolding.
You can, of course, write a story in the present tense. Because this is less familiar to readers, however, they may feel less comfortable with it, and there is a risk they will notice the unusual style rather than becoming engrossed in your story. Stories written in the present tense can also look mannered and self-conscious.
Of course, good writers can and do write short stories, and even novels, in the present tense. The US writer Alison Lurie's novel Foreign Affairs begins as follows:
On a cold, blowy February morning a woman is boarding the ten a.m. flight to London, followed by an invisible dog. The woman's name is Virginia Miner: she is fifty-four years old, small, plain and unmarried - the sort of person that no one ever notices, though she is an Ivy League college professor who has published several books and has a well-established reputation in the expanding field of children's literature.
And the whole novel continues in the present tense. It's an unusual approach, yet as a reader you quickly get used to it (it helps that Ms Lurie is a highly accomplished author, of course). I'd be hard put to say exactly why the author chose to write the book in the present tense or whether it would be any the worse if written more conventionally in the past. It does certainly give the novel a distinctive "voice", however.
Even so, I'd always advise a new writer, and especially a new novelist, to write in the past tense. Apart from anything else it's what publishers are accustomed to, and if you write in the present tense you are giving yourself an additional obstacle to overcome to get your work accepted.
Another problem with writing in the present tense is that it's fatally easy to stray into the past tense by accident. As I mentioned above, we're all so used to past tense narration, it's easy to fall into it without even noticing. A story that switches to past tense in the middle (unless for a very good reason) then switches back to the present again is likely to be returned to the author in short order.
And finally, if you write in the present tense, you need to be very careful when referring to events that occurred in the characters' past. In ordinary, past-tense narration, we use the pluperfect tense to introduce such "flashbacks":
Mary smiled and sipped her tea, remembering when they first met. It had been a cold November morning...
If using the present tense, however, you need to use the simple past tense instead:
Mary sighs and sips her tea, remembering when they first met. It was a cold November morning...
It would be perilously easy to write "It had been" in the second example as well, yet this would be incorrect, or at least very poor style. If you are writing in the present tense, when referring to events in your characters' past, you should use the simple past tense rather than the pluperfect (past participle with "had").
To sum up, then, I highly recommend sticking to the past tense in your fiction. But if you want to experiment with writing in the present tense, be very careful you don't switch to the wrong tense at some point in the narrative. It's possible to make this mistake when writing in the past tense, of course, but it's much, much easier to get your tenses in a twist when writing in the present!
The apostrophe - whether and where to use it - is a topic that seems to cause endless confusion. I've even had publishers phoning me up for advice about it!
I did write a while ago in this blog about a rule taught to me by my old English teacher Mr Sanders, which is great for checking where you should put the apostrophe in possessive expressions such as the children's ward and the boys' bedroom. However, I admit it doesn't cover every possible use of apostrophes.
So I was pleased to discover the other day a very useful Squidoo website (or lens, to use the Squidoo jargon) on this subject. It's called The Care and Feeding of Apostrophes, and it covers the correct use of apostrophes in (1) contractions, (2) possessive nouns, and (3) nested quotations (i.e. quotes within quotes). Personally I wouldn't really regard the latter as apostrophes - in my view they are single inverted commas or quotation marks - but I suppose they do look the same as apostrophes!
The site also discusses two common scenarios where apostrophes are NOT required but often get used incorrectly. These are plural nouns (e.g. potato's and banana's) and possessive pronouns such as its (which when used in the possessive sense does NOT take an apostrophe). Even experienced writers sometimes slip up here.
One thing I particularly like about The Care and Feeding of Apostrophes is the use of illustrations to support the points made. There are also some entertaining "What's wrong with this picture?" quizzes. These depict shop signs or menus where an apostrophe has been incorrectly used or omitted. You can check the answer by hovering your cursor over the photo or scrolling down to the foot of the page. Some of the mistakes are actually a bit hard to see, but that's just a problem with reproducing the photos and not really the site creator's fault.
There is also a gallery where you can submit your own photograph of incorrectly used apostrophes, and links to an interactive quiz about apostrophes on the website of Lynne Truss (the author of the best-selling guide to punctuation Eats, Shoots and Leaves ).
Overall, The Care and Feeding of Apostrophes is an informative and entertaining site, and a useful resource if you are ever in any doubt about this punctuation mark. It's also a good example of how anyone can create their own attractive website on Squidoo without necessarily knowing anything about HTML. See my recent post about Squidoo for more information about this, including links to a couple of Squidoo sites (not as good as the one described in this post) that I've created myself!
The articles are written by Roy Peter Clark from the Poynter Institute. They are aimed primarily at journalists, but any writer could benefit from studying them, and many are relevant to fiction writers as well. To give you some idea of the quality, here's an extract from Writing Tool #6: Play With Words:
Play with words, even in serious stories. Choose words the average writer avoids but the average reader understands.
Just as the sculptor works with clay, the writer shapes a world with words. In fact, the earliest English poets were called "shapers," artists who molded the stuff of language to create stories the way that God, the Great Shaper, formed heaven and earth.
Good writers play with language, even when the topic is about death:
"Do not go gentle into that good night," wrote Welsh poet Dylan Thomas to his dying father, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Play and death may seem at odds, but the writer finds the path that connects them. To express his grief, the poet fiddles with language, prefers 'gentle' to 'gently,' chooses 'night' to rhyme with 'light,' and repeats the word 'rage.' Later in the poem, he will even pun about those "grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight." The double meaning of 'grave men' leads straight to the oxymoron 'blinding sight.' Word-play.
One thing I particularly like about Fifty Tools Which Can Help You in Writing is the way that every 'tool' is illustrated with good examples of its use. I'll be surprised if you don't find something here that can help improve your own writing.
Incidentally, as mentioned above, I discovered this site with the help of the StumbleUpon toolbar, which I started using quite recently. This is a free toolbar you can download for the Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers. Once you have the toolbar installed, you can vote up sites you like and vote down sites you don't. You can also click on the Stumble icon and will be taken to a random website others have voted for, and which - based on how you have voted in the past - you are likely to enjoy.
I recommend StumbleUpon as a great way of discovering new and interesting websites. If you install the toolbar, don't forget to vote for this blog and my forum, to help spread the word among other writers!
Copywriting for the Web is a new mini-guide by professional copywriter Mario De la Cruz. It is one of the growing number of low-price $7 guides that has hit the web recently, largely as a result of Jonathan Leger's Seven Dollar Secrets e-book and script that I reviewed in this blog a few months ago.
Copywriting for the Web is a 39-page e-book in the standard PDF format. You can download it immediately from the website. The content is divided into 15 short chapters, as follows:
Chapter 1 - Why Writing Copy for the Web is Different Chapter 2 - Visitors Are Important to You Chapter 3 - Plan in Order to Succeed Chapter 4 - How to Write Effective Copy for theWeb Chapter 5 - How to Find Effective Keywords and Keyword Phrases Chapter 6 - Keep it Short and Sweet Chapter 7 - Other Essential Components for GoodCopywriting Chapter 8 - Get a Headline that Grabs Chapter 9 - How to Go About Writing a Headline Chapter 10 - Test the Tone of Your Headlines Chapter 11 - Make Your Text Links Look
