Category — Advice for New Writers

Two things happened over the weekend that illustrate the ups and downs of freelance fortunes -- especially if your freelance writing involves doing much business on the Internet.

First, I got "Google slapped" as it's become known: The Google Page Ranking of one of my blogs dropped to zero. That's a big "0" -- as in zilch, nada. As it happens, that particular blog is a "moneymaker" for me on which I do paid blog posting. It represents a significant source of income. Now that the Google Page Rank has tanked, the opportunities for paid blogging have fallen also.

Secondly, we're currently going through a serious ice storm where I'm living, and my Internet access is pretty iffy with a lot of ice coming down and thunder booming around (what a privilege to live in the Ozarks). Well, what can I say? Even things like the space program and airline departures suffer from the outrageous changes in the weather.

It has been a real learning experience for me this past weekend, with Google slapping me down and with the threat of ice knocking out the power even as I type this. My best advice for you would be this: Don't rely solely on writing for the Internet for your income. Keep the day job, or at least open up a number of streams of income.

Now if I could just persuade Google to lift that Page Rank back up ...

Technorati Tags: Internet writing, paid blogging, Google Page Rank, weather, advice for new writers, writing tips for garyspeer.com

Do you draw? Do you have a talent for sketching? Or are you like me and have problems getting stick people to even look like stick people?

A great technique to help you with a story idea is to try sketching what you're thinking about a character, a location, actual motion or movements within the scene, even what the weather and geography is. The beauty of this method is that it helps you focus your thinking even if no one else can appreciate or understand what you've sketched.

I got that simple tip from a friend who offers another tip I've posted about before -- creative "power" naps where you lay down in a comfortable place and let your story and characters sort of come to your mind and observe what they're doing as you drift off for a nap. I'm not sure how effective the power naps are, though they're restful, but I've had some fun with the sketching idea. It really helps me visualize characters, think about locations and seasons, and even move the story action forward.

Another writer friend says she uses a large blank piece of paper or sketch pad to create the topography of her fantasy story locations. She sometimes begins a fantasy novel by first sketching out a large land mass with a coast or coasts, some mountains, a couple of rivers, and then pinpoints some small villages, cities, volcanoes, etc. As the terrain and geography of that particular fantasy "world" progresses, she comes up with characters, ethnic groups, and customs that eventually turn into a full blown world -- even a fantasy series.

Next time you get stuck with words, pull out some blank paper, some pens or pencils, and sketch your way to writing success.

Technorati Tags: sketching for story ideas, creating story lines, creating characters, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, chances are you have to do at least a little bit of research. Is research something you enjoy doing? Where do you do most of your research?

The good old Internet has changed a lot of the options writers have for doing research. Some of the information which used to require phone calls, faxes, even extensive travel, is now available to me as I sit here in the recliner with my good old laptop and Tablemate. When I first started kicking the idea around for the Western novel I excerpted here, I made a trip to Denver, Colorado, and spent a couple of days researching in their Western History Collection -- one of the best such collection in the world, by the way.

Today, I went to the Denver Public Library website, went to their Western History Collection, and found some of the materials I worked with back then -- only they were at my nimble (?) fingertips here at home now.

But the title I've put on this post asks another question: Are you happier doing research or doing the actual writing. Personally, I can easily spend days even weeks researching the historical setting or technical background for a story rather than getting on the keyboard and writing the story. I've often wished I had pursued a career track that led to being a librarian, or perhaps an archivist.

I have friends who go nuts doing ANY research and would rather make things up completely as they go along, based on light reading and conversations with other friends to sketch in whatever details they need. I envy them, in many ways, because pulling the trigger on research and firing those shots of written words is much easier for them than for me.

But what about you? Does your writing demand detailed research? Do you enjoy research or not? Tell us about your experiences and your preferences. We'd like to hear.

Technorati Tags: research, writing, Internet writing, Internet research, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Do you know off the top of your head -- what color were Adolph Hitler's eyes? I ask because, until a few years ago, I didn't know either.

The answer is they were blue.

The question came up several years ago when I was reading a novel that made reference to Hitler's "intense stare with his piercing black eyes." It happened that earlier the same day, I was editing a manuscript for the magazine where I was working. A widely respected "religious celebrity" person had written an article and made an off-hand reference in the article to "Hitler's icy blue eyes."

Icy blue or piercing black?? Unless he were part Australian Shepherd dog, he probably didn't have one blue eye and one black eye. This bit of research took place in pre-Internet days, so I didn't have a resource as quick and able as Google. I've forgotten how where I found the answer, but I did discover Hitler's eyes were blue.

Would you call such an error in writing an anachronism? No. It had nothing to do with facts out of historic or chronological sequence. It was that simple writing goof up I like to call "an error."

The novelist got it wrong. (I can't even remember th e novel now, nor who wrote it. I recall it was on a best-seller list at the time.) My advice to you as a writer would be similar to what I said earlier about anachronisms: Be very careful when you create characters, describe clothing, create physical settings, come up with plot ideas, and do all the other "mechanics" needed to write your novel. Because, assuming you get it published, there'll always be someone somewhere out there who DOES know what color Hitler's eyes were. You can bet he'll read your book take great delight in letting you know about your error.

Don't make mistakes. Write everything perfectly. Okay, well, then do your best and settle for that. But make sure to do your best. Now get busy and write something to make us all proud of you.

Technorati Tags: Hitler's eye color, writing errors, attention to detail, accuracy in writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

In previous posts I've encouraged those of you who write fiction to remember your creative edge: If you don't know something, you have the liberty of making it up. I also have mentioned the need for realism in fiction.

Which brings up two related matters: Beware of anachronisms and be very careful with literary license.

I just finished a nice thriller-adventure novel by David Baldacci, "Stone Cold." I've read most of Baldacci's novels. I consider his first two or three to be the best written, although this one comes close. (My favorite of his novels is probably "The Winner.")

Near the beginning of the novel "Stone Cold," Baldacci has a character walking down a street "into the Edsel deli, going strong since 1954, the sign over the door says, making it far more popular than the dismal car after which it was named." Baldacci's opinion of the Edsel aside, he's got the timeline wrong. A small bit of Google research actually took me to a page devoted to the Edsel (which, by the way, was NOT that bad of a car), which tells me the first full-sized clay mockup of the Edsel was unveiled in August 1955, the car's official name was announced in November 1956, and the first 14 "pre-production" cars were actually built in 1957. Full-scale production of the Edsel's first model year -- 1958 -- began July 15, 1957.

You get my point here? Baldacci's comment about the deli name was an anachronism -- using an event, person, item, or name in a way it couldn't have existed. There were no Edsels in 1954 to be used in the deli's name.

But let's suppose, since the novel deals with top-secret CIA stuff and international intrigue ranging between the days of the Cold War and the present, that Baldacci made reference elsewhere to some top secret drug treatment used by one of the villains, and we were to discover the drug in question hadn't been invented until after the Cold War.

Would that be an anachronism or just "literary license," i.e., the author's right to make stuff up as he goes along. That would depend, of course, on how it was done. Since we're dealing with supposedly top-secret CIA stuff, it would be very easy to use the drug treatment reference and simply explain it as something CIA knew and did before the public found out about it.

But that doesn't exactly work with the naming of a deli in 1954 after a car not produced until 1957. My guess is this anachronism slipped into the manuscript simply through ignorance on Baldacci's part and carelessness or ignorance by the editorial staff at the publishing house. (Don't get me started on that. Mistakes happen, but many of those editorial people are getting paid really good money to catch those mistakes so they DON'T happen. My strictly unscientific opinion is that they are missing more stuff all the time at the editorial stage.)

I was intrigued by a page at the end of the novel. I won't give away anything about it, but it's a note by the author explaining his intentional use of literary license regarding part of the novel's timeline as it relates to "real" history. Hooray for Mr. Baldacci on that one.

So be careful when you're creating your characters, plots, and the physical settings of your novels. It's especially easy to get caught up in a good story and miss such anachronisms as Baldacci's Edsel deli. Unfortunately, if the editors miss 'em too, that only leaves us grumpy curmudgeons as your last line of defense.

Technorati Tags: anachronisms, literary license, accuracy in writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Five or six years ago, Stephen King came out with a combination memoir/instruction book he titled "On Writing." If you haven't read it yet, you really should. I also would recommend it as a source of inspiration and some good "how-to" knowledge about writing novels. At the very least, it's a "how-to" of how Stephen King SAYS he writes novels.

I've always been a bit skeptical about writing advice from King or the other "horror/fantasy" genre giant of our day, Dean Koontz. I mean, come on, no one can put out that much published copy in one lifetime and be only human, can they? Both those guys are obviously in league with the Dark One to be able to crank out that many words for that many years.

But back to King's "On Writing." It's been awhile since I read it, but I think the single biggest revelation he made there was the fact that he relies little if at all on plotting and outlines. I don't have the book handy to look up the details, but I think he sort of makes a "true confession" about it: He has always gone along with conventional wisdom and urged aspiring fiction writers to develop plots and outline them. But in "real life," he almost never writes that way. Instead, and I'm doing this from memory so I may not get it right, he finds an odd event or odd character, asks himself something like, "what if ..." and tears into the writing. He sort of learns what the story is and what the people are doing as he goes along.

That's great comfort for me. I'm generally too undisciplined or downright lazy to do exhaustive outlining. Now if I only had the King-like (or Koontz-like) skill to pull it off ...

I urge you to pick up a copy of King's book. I pull mine out and read through it again every year or two. Hopefully I'll learn something from it again this year.

Technorati Tags: writing tips, Stephen King, book recommendation, writing tips at garyspeer.com

When your plot bogs down and your characters have started to ignore you and you have nothing in particular to write for the middle of that story, you might try this little trick. It works for me:

I hear a sudden, urgent banging on the front door, bedroom door or window, basement stairwell, whatever entrance or exit my characters are near. With a feeling of fear, or anticipation, or wonder -- whatever mood strikes me or seems like what my characters are experiencing at the time -- I open the door, look out the window, climb up or down the stairwell, or whatever.

That banging, knocking noise was caused by someone -- or SOMETHING?? -- and finding out who or what that is often moves my story to the next step.

Don't know whether that's useful for you, but it has worked for me in the past, sometimes leading to a whole new plot twist. Try it.

And if/when you do try it, or if it's something you already do -- come back and tell us about how it works for you.

Technorati Tags: writing techniques, advice for new writers, plotting devices, character development, writing tips at garyspeer.com

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This may be the very last "recovered" or "re-run" post I make on this blog. After one more serious search through my hard drive, I found one more blog post from before the Terrible Server Crash of '07, and I want to re-post it to share my shining words of wisdom with those of you out there who haven't seen this particular post before. Or something like that. As far as I can tell from the few records I keep about such things, this was originally posted in early August 2007.)

At last, I'm going to reveal my secret cure for writer's block. I won't charge you a cent for this. I thought about turning this advice into an "ebook" and selling it on the Internet for $79.95-and-worth-every-dime-of-it. But, nah, I'll give it away. It's absolutely free. BUT -- it's for writers only.

Let me clarify that: My cure for writer's block ONLY works for writers. I don't care what you write -- fiction, history, essays, novels, poems. I don't care whether you've been writing for five years, 50 years, or 15 minutes. I'm giving this to you and you're perfectly free to make what you want of it.

Yes, my friends, step right up. Get your absolutely free and 100% guaranteed secret cure for writer's block.

All right. You ready? Come closer to your computer monitor, that's right. Turn up the volume on your speakers/headset/whatever. I don't want you to miss this. Sure you're ready? All right. Here it is:

Start writing right now.

Put your behind in the chair (or stand up if you enjoy that more and it works for you), put your fingers on the keyboard (or use a pencil/pen and paper if that works for you), and WRITE.

No, no, no. This isn't a cheap trick. (Heck, it's not cheap -- it's free. But it's no trick anyway.) This isn't some sort of silly stunt. I want you to take this as seriously, echoing the old cliche, as a heart attack. Because I'm totally serious about this.

Start writing right now.

Don't think about writing. Don't struggle with what to write or how to write it. Don't let that nasty little editor who looks over your shoulder -- the one living inside your head -- hinder you or distract you.

Write.

Now get busy and DO some writing. Come back tomorrow and I'll try to have some suggestions that will help. But do the basics and I promise you my secret cure for writer's block will work every time.

Write.

Technorati Tags: writer's block, writer's block cure, secret to writing, writing tips, advice for new writers, writing tips at garyspeer.com

When I was in high school, my best buddy and I found Lewis Carroll's poem about the Jabberwock absolutely hilarious. We would often pass each other in the halls, or walk together into classrooms eloquently reciting parts of it in unison:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Jabberwocks and Bandersnatches aside, my purpose here isn't to exegete (jargon?) Carroll's fun poem. My purpose is to warn you about the dangers of using jargon in your writing. I started thinking about jargon after reading a reference to a pickup truck that spoke about a special deal I could get if I wanted to buy a tonneau cover for it.

Tonneau cover?? For a pickup truck? And, of course, "tonneau cover" obviously make me think of the phrase "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ..." and all the rest of Carroll's wonderful nonsense. I say "obviously," but maybe that's just the way my mind works. The point, though, is this -- Lewis Carroll wrote his nonsense poem as entertainment; the tonneau cover people actually want to communicate a special sale on some merchandise for pickup owners.

But how many of you have pickups? And how many of you with pickups know what a tonneau cover might be? I've seen many pickups -- though I've never owned one -- and having researched the term, I cannot understand why the devices aren't called "pickup bed covers." Because, as far as I understand it, a tonneau cover is just that -- a cover for a pickup bed.

In this case, "tonneau cover" would qualify as jargon: terminology which relates to a specific activity, profession, or group and which is not readily understood outside that activity, profession, or group. (Somebody post a comment and help me out here: Do pickup owners themselves ever use the term "tonneau cover" or understand what it means?)

Don't use jargon in your writing. Never assume a word that means something simple to you will communicate to people reading your writing, unless they are people in the same profession, business, whatever, who use the same jargon to practice their profession or do their business.

It isn't easy to eliminate jargon. As part of your writing or rewriting process, you must make an effort to think about the words you're using and how well the average reader understands those words. It isn't easy, but it has to be done if you are going to succeed as a writer.

Oh, and as far as the Lewis Carroll nonsense poem -- I just read an interesting article about it at Wikipedia which actually explains the jargon in the poem. At least some of those words actually mean something. If you're a word person, and writers ARE word people, you'll find it interesting.

Technorati Tags: Jabberwocky, pickup trucks, tonneau covers, avoiding jargon, writing tips at garyspeer.com

How do you tackle large writing projects? Obviously, the answer would be word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence. How do you tackle that large writing project if it's something really tedious that has to be done whether you like it or not? I suppose step-by-step would again be the answer.

Last year at this time I had a large, very tedious writing project. The good news is that it paid pretty well and it was something I felt committed to. The bad news is, well, it was a large and tedious project. So I approached it one sentence and one lesson at a time. (It involved writing some study questions for some Bible study correspondence lessons.)

I got the project completed on deadline, and I was truly happy to be done with it.

The experience also reminded me of a really terrific writing book. I mentioned the book here at the time, but that particular blog post was lost in the Great Server Crash of recent weeks. The book is the one I've referenced in the title -- "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life," by Anne Lamott. If you don't yet own the book, it's worth whatever you have to pay to get a copy. (Check Amazon and eBay.) That little book told a story which focuses on the lesson of tackling writing projects or any other work you face one step at a time.

The story in the book had to do with her father advising her then-10-year-old brother about an overwhelming school project he had put aside until the last minute. It involved doing reports on birds. As the youngster sat in front of assorted bird books and pictures, too overwhelmed to even start work, his father sat down, put his arms around the kid's shoulders and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

In our hearts, we know that's excellent advice. It isn't always easy for those of us who write quickly and impatiently, because it demands focus and attention to detail. But it's still excellent advice: Do your writing or whatever work is at hand "bird by bird."

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How do you know what your blog or website is worth? How do you value your entire writing "business"? Have you ever thought about putting a price tag on your writing?

Those are special questions you may someday need to answer if you develop a successful blog, or create a financially successful website. Maybe you do no writing online, but create manuscripts to submit to editors, take writing assignments from publications, do freelance writing for businesses -- all those things add up to a writing career. Whether online or offline, all those things are part of what gives value to your writing business.

Small business valuation is sort of an art and a science, as I understand it. Small businesses are valued for tangibles (shelves, file cabinets, desks, widgets, etc.) and intangibles (staff and management personnel, intellectual properties, etc.). Your writing career, your writing business, also involves tangibles and intangibles. But most likely, especially if you're just starting out writing for money, your business value is focused almost completely on one asset: YOU.

So what are you worth? What is your writing business worth? Do you have a blog or website, and if so, how do you value that? I hope you've thought about some of those things and arrived at some concrete answers. Knowing where you are, where you want to be, and how you get there are crucial to your writing success.

Know this also: You won't succeed as a professional writer if you treat your writing as a hobby or a recreation -- you must treat it as a business.

Technorati Tags: writing as a business, value of your writing, making money as a writer, writing career, writing tips at garyspeer.com

Which do you enjoy most, fiction with quiet, calm characters or fiction with swashbucklers and quirky rogues?

Be honest about your answer now. No hedging, no hum-hawing around.

Yeah, that's what I thought. If you're like most people, I suspect you want the quirky characters with an air of danger, a dash of charm, and a sense of humor. That's been true with popular fiction since well before the days of television soap operas, or Johnny Depp pirate movies. I recall reading that fans of Charles Dickens would gather along the wharves in New York City's harbor eagerly waiting for the latest installments of Chuck's tales. Believe me, they didn't do it to contemplate the depth of his prose narratives. They did it to see what his rascals were up to.

Build your characters as you'd choose to recreate your duller friends, and you'll be okay. Indeed, good friend who mean a lot to you may well end up in much of your fiction. If you're like most of us, you picked up friends because you first fought with them on school playgrounds when you were kids, or you competed against them in college, or you lost a business deal to them or beat them out of a business deal. Human beings are cantankerous creatures, and often someone needs to "whack" us metaphorically to get our complete attention -- hence, friendships often form best amid conflict. But I digress.

Perhaps you have a special friend who caught your eye with a smile across a crowded room and now holds the center place in your life? If so, congratulations. (That's how I met St. Shirl and we've been happily married now for more than 40 years. She's still first and foremost my best friend.)

Now get out there and create, or re-create, your friends and enemies the way you really would like them to be -- strong, edgy, fiercely committed. Write all that down and you have a set of characters. Put those characters together at a party, on an airliner, a cruise ship, whatever, and see how they act and react to each other.

You do that, writing down quickly everything that happens, and you've got yourself the beginnings of an Interesting Story.

Technorati Tags: writing tips, advise for new writers, create characters, creating stories, popular writing, writing tips at garyspeer.com

One of the most interesting things to me as a professional writer is that comment many folks make which goes something like this:

"Oh, I'm a writer of course, but I really don't care whether my stuff gets read. Just writing it is satisfaction enough for me."

Fair enough, I guess. I understand people who write diaries, journals, private "sketch books" and outlines, recipe cards, and on and on -- documents they are doing privately and never expect them to be read. Indeed, every professional/published writer does such things, and may often use these efforts as inspiration or background for published writing.

But I truly don't understand people who express a desire to write, yet feel no need to have readers. Or at least, I've known such people who certainly would NEVER make an effort on their own to go out and bring readers to their work.

The beauty of the Internet is that many, many people who desire to write can do so at little or no cost. The next step, however, must take place if you wish to write and to have others read what you've written: You must make an effort to get your writing read. That's called MARKETING.

Nothing wrong, that I can see, with marketing your writing. On the high end, you may actually make some money from your writing, which is why we use terms like "professional" for successfully published writers: They write, they publish, and they earn money from the publication of their writing.

On the low end, a bit of marketing at the very least will gain some audience for what you've written. You may not make a dime from the writing, but you will know that something you put into "print" (or blog) made a connection to someone else.

One of the current means of marketing websites involves what has become known as "social bookmarking." I'm just coming to social bookmarking, and I hope personally that it will gain me more readers. As I learn more about it and more about doing it, I'll keep you posted.

Now get busy and write something today that will make us all proud.

Technorati Tags: advice for new writers, writing tips, publishing, professional writing, marketing, social bookmarking, writing tips at garyspeer.com

It amazes me the number of truly literate writers who use the word "then," when they really meant to use the word "than." You know what I'm talking about: "I would rather run screaming from the room then see that misuse again."

I'm guessing from the frequency with which it happens that many people really don't understand the difference between "then" and "than."

The correct usage in that sample sentence should be:

"I would rather run screaming from the room THAN see that misuse again."

Using "then" instead of "than" happens so often that many people think it's correct, standard English usage. But it's not. Why not? Because one is a conjunction, the other is an adverb. They are NOT just variant spellings or pronunciations of the same word.

THAN is the conjunction and it is used in clauses of comparison:

"He wrote 1,000 more words today than he did yesterday."

THEN is an adverb of time:

"He then celebrated such great writing with an extra cookie and a long nap."

Got it? See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

And, yes, I really would rather run screaming from the room than see that misuse again -- but I know I will.

Technorati Tags: grammar, spelling, writing tips, adverbs, conjunctions, English usage, language, writing tips at garyspeer.com

If you think about it, the best part about writing is the joy of rewriting.

Oh, I know rewriting can be very hard. As hard as it might be to get something written down on the page -- whether a paper page or virtual page -- it can become downright harsh trying to turn it into coherent content when you rewrite. Some of us are too impatient ("Lord, give me patience -- and give it to me NOW.") to really enjoy the experience. Some of us just sort of cringe when we read what we've written, making it hard to rewrite.

If any of that reflects your experience, try looking at rewriting from a different perspective: When you are doing public speaking, debate, etc., what comes out of your mouth is out there "live" for everyone to hear; when you write, you have the opportunity to rewrite your goofs and blunders BEFORE they go live.

Personally, I quickly discovered in my career that I'm much better as a writer than I ever was as a speaker or teacher (or in my case, preacher) for that very reason. I have the luxury of being able to look at what I've written, sharpen it, and "correct" it where needed. I rarely had that chance when I was speaking/teaching/preaching.

So keep up the good fight. Strive to put those words down and get the message out. And enjoy the luxury you have of being able to rewrite.

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