Editor, Joshua Essoe

April has been a great month of posts from a bunch of awesome people who work in all the nooks and crannies of the book production process—illustrators, cartographers, designers, typographers, and, of course writers. We’ve had posts on the process from concept to completion, how to collaborate with other writers, and, of course, editing, editing, editing. Obviously a subject close to my heart.

I’d like to close out the month with some of the most frequently asked questions I get from writers, and most frequent issues I see in my day to day work as a full time editor.

So without further ado, let’s just jump into it!

• What is industry standard formatting?

This is the standard manuscript formatting that will be generally accepted anywhere you want to submit. It is the formatting standard by which I work as well. If a market or agent or editor needs something that differs from this, then it will be in their submission guidelines. Always go with the specifics they require and make sure to check. If they don’t specify, feel safe going with the old standard.

Specs for Industry standard: (in Word) 12 point New Courier, spaced “exactly 25 point” (not double spaced!) with widow control off; one inch margins all the way around; half inch first-line indent, header and footer; zero indentation and spacing; titles on seventh line down; and  name/title/pg# in the right-side header.

• Should I use double spaces or a single space between sentences?

This is hot-button issue. If you don’t believe me, just bring it up the next time you’re around a bunch of writers. I’ll prepare for the hate mail now because inevitably this answer is going to make someone turn into a giant green rage monster.

The reason double spaces were used between sentences is because when people were using typewriters, editors needed a strong, definitive break between sentences. The monospaced font typewriters used didn’t create that, so two spaces were inserted. It isn’t necessary with word processors.

Whether you use one or two spaces these days comes down to a style issue. Some editors prefer one, some prefer two, however most style guides advise you use only one. As I understand it, page designers beg the use of just one to avoid the unsightly blocks of space that using two will litter a document with. If your MS is at that step, they’ll just have to remove all the double spaces anyway.

So forget the double spacing. I always recommend using just one.

Excuse me while I go lock my doors.

• What the heck is passive voice?

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.

For example: “The next few hours were consumed with preparations for the journey.”

What is doing the action in this sentence? The preparations; however, the preparations are not in the spot where you would expect the grammatical subject to be—the hours are. So, to make this sentence active, rearrange it thusly: “Preparations for the journey consumed the next few hours.”

Look for forms of “to be” (is, are, am, was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. The past participle is a form of the verb that typically, but not always, ends in “-ed.” Some exceptions to the “-ed” rule are words like “paid” and “driven.”

So here’s the formula for spotting passive voice: form of “to be” + past participle = passive voice.

I will sometimes call things out as passive storytelling that aren’t technically passive verbs or passive voice. I’ll mark both progressive and pluperfect tenses passive at times—note, I don’t mark them as passive verbs. When I do this, it means that there is a more dynamic way to write the passage I’ve highlighted. It could be made stronger and more vibrant with a different, more active verb. Progressive and pluperfect often present as good an opportunity as a passive verb to make your text more interesting.

Unless it is the most effective way to put something, try never to start a story off with something passive sounding. These kinds of things will often amount to personal preference. When I spot something like this, I’ll call it out so the author can decide what’s best for their story. Personally, I like active storytelling—I find it both more engaging and better able to draw pictures in my head. Most readers do.

• How do I properly punctuate dialogue?

In dialogue, the only time you use a comma is when you are continuing a sentence after or before a tag. Note that when a comma is used, it indicates that the sentence is not over, so use lowercase when inserting a tag. Always put the comma inside the quotation marks if a tag follows the dialogue, and at the end of the tag if a tag precedes the dialogue. Use a period for everything that is not a tag.

For example:

1. I guided her to my chair. “Sit here.”
   Not: I guided her to my chair, “Sit here.”
   
2. “We need to get out of here.” His whisper sounded like a hiss of air.
   Not: “We need to get out of here,” his whisper sounded like a hiss of air.
3. “We need to get out of here,” he whispered.
   Not: “We need to get out of here.” He whispered.
4. She squealed, “Like, ohmygod!”
   Not: She squealed. “Like, ohmygod!” (Unless the squeal was a separate utterance.)

• Do I write out numbers, or just use numerals? What about percentages and times?

This is one of those questions where if you ask a dozen different people, you’ll get a dozen different answers. Here is what I tell my clients.

For fiction, write out any number under 101, and numbers easily expressed in words like “one thousand.” This is the easiest rule of thumb to go by, and then let your publisher or editor make any in-house style changes they need.

As long as the number can be spelled out and still be easily understood without looking ridiculous, then spell it out.

If you’re writing dialogue, spell out all the numbers. Of course, even here The Chicago Manual of Style notes that you should use numerals “if words begin to look silly.” But the idea is that you should lean toward using words in dialogue.

All percentages and decimal fractions should be written in numerals. The only exception is for the beginning of a sentence, where the numeral would be spelled out. The Chicago Manual of Style’s general rule is to spell out zero through one hundred. Use the word “percent” for humanistic copy and the “%” symbol for scientific and statistical copy.

Normally, spell out the time of day, even with half and quarter hours. With “o’clock,” the number is always spelled out.

Use numerals, however, when exact times are being emphasized, or when using A.M. or P.M., but use “noon” and “midnight” rather than 12:00 P.M. and 12:00 A.M.

Bonus trivia—you can write “a.m.” and “p.m.” as lowercase letters with periods, or as small capitals without periods. Either way, there should be a space between the time and the “a.m.” or “p.m.” that follows. It’s more common to see lowercase letters followed by periods.

Also, when following an exact time with either, the time should be written as a numeral unless it is dialogue.

• When do I use “which” and when do I use “that”?

Use “that” before a restrictive clause, and “which” before everything else. A restrictive clause is part of a sentence that you can’t get rid of because it specifically restricts some other part of the sentence.

For example: “Jewels that glow are worth more money.”

“That glow” restricts what kind of jewels we’re talking about, so you can’t get rid of it without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Nonrestrictive clauses include a part that can be left off without a change in meaning.

For example: “Jewels, which may glow, are worth a lot of money.”

Note that when you use a nonrestrictive clause it is set apart by commas.

• Are there three or four dots in an ellipsis? Which do I use when a character stutters?

Use three dots when the ellipsis follows an incomplete thought; but include a period as normal, before the ellipsis, when following a complete thought.

When using an ellipsis, make sure that there is a space between it and the word it follows and/or precedes, and between each ellipsis point.

As for the second question, there is a difference between stammering and stuttering and, usually, I find the author means stammering. For that, the ellipsis is the better way to go. Em dashes are used to represent an interruption or break in thought, whereas ellipses are for trailing off, or pausing.

So, for example:

“Where is your sword—wait, you didn’t give it to them, did you?”

That shows a clean, abrupt break in the thought. If you replace with an ellipsis:

“Where is your sword . . .? You didn’t give it to them, did you?

This shows trailing off in thought before the beginning of a new thought.
If you combine you may get:

“Where is your sword . . . wait, you didn’t give it to them, did you?”

That is incorrect because you should finish and punctuate your first thought before going on to the next.

So, “I . . . I don’t know.” is the way to go for a stammer. “I” is a whole word, and thus should be treated as any other whole word.

If you were going for a stutter, you would use a hyphen thusly:

“I . . . I d-don’t know.”

The hyphen shows that the character utters the same sound multiple times while trying to get out a single word. (Since “I” is a whole word, that fact takes precedence over it also being a single sound.)

I’m quite out of room, so hopefully that answered some of your questions . . . and hopefully no rage monsters are now beating out responses with two spaces before each sentence.

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Artist, Jonathan Roberts

Guest Post by Jonathan Roberts

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now.

A map shouldn’t be pretty.

I know what you’re thinking – those posters of Middle Earth are gorgeous. Of course a map should be beautiful! But for worldbuilding purposes a pretty map is a Very Bad Thing. Beautiful things are precious, and we tend to want to leave precious things pristine and untouched. When we’re building worlds we need to break things, and often. So, out with any thoughts that we’re making a pretty map. We’ll be making a functional map. In fact we’ll be making many maps, one after the other. In exactly the same way that your notes are not the final manuscript, a map isn’t the final world. It’s a visual notepad, and you should be crossing things out, erasing sections and rebuilding from scratch as you go along.

So we won’t be needing photoshop today, we need a pad of scratch paper and a pencil. Ready? Right, let’s build a world.

First of all, think about the world you need to build. In many cases this is a defined area that’s much smaller than the planet you’re on. Very few stories truly span a globe, so let’s begin by cutting down to the area that the story explores. This keeps the work focused on a reasonable area, and means there will always be distant and mysterious lands to explore down the line.

In your tale there will be nations, city states or power centers of some form. Start by making a note of their relationships to one another. Are they at war? Are they aloof? Do they feud over resources or are they closely allied? Think over the things that make them stand out. Are they famous for their expansive grain fields? Their iron? Their navy? I’m sure you can see the theme here. Nations are defined by the geography they inhabit as much as we define the geography by the nation. A nation with a large navy needs sea access, but it should also have natural defenses like a mountain range that allows the nation to neglect other military forces in favor of its navy. Two countries at war need to be close, and need to have a means of attacking one another.

Focus on major terrain at this point–how much coastline and mountain range. Make notes about other terrain that comes to mind–the tulip fields of Alak’tor, the salt mines of Keshel. Those will come in useful later.

It’s now time to start our map. Grab a pencil and faintly draw in circles where your nations are. Nations that are allies or at war should be close. Those that rarely interact should be farther away, or have an insurmountable natural barrier between them. Drawing circles on a map may sound easy, but this stage can take a few tries to get the relationships right.

Stage 1: Circles. Yes, these are 6 interconnected nations!

But circles aren’t really a map. Let’s draw some coastlines. Think about which of your nations need large coastlines and which should be landlocked. Then let your pen wander. Really – avoid straight lines. Coastlines are jagged and broken things. If your line doesn’t look like it was plotted by a drunken ant, you’re doing it wrong.

Step 2: The coastlines. Keep them broken and randomized.

Now let’s lay in some mountains. Mountains tend to form ridges. Avoid the temptation to fill in whole blocks of land with mountains. Instead, lay them out in wavy lines. They often follow the edge of a coastline (think the Andes). From a story point of view, they form obstacles for your heroes and they create natural boundaries between nations, or between nations and the great unknown. Mountains also create boundaries between climates. So if you need a desert in one area and a jungle in the other, you’d better place a mountain range between them to stop the rain from the jungle getting to the desert.

Step 3: Mountains – they shouldn’t be pretty, inverted triangles do the job just fine.

Next up, we have rivers. Rain falls on mountains and runs downhill to the sea. It always flows to the lowest point – and there’s always one lowest point. This means that rivers don’t branch as they flow to the sea, they only join. So – no rivers going from coast to coast. At some point that requires water to flow uphill. No lakes that have two separate rivers leading to the sea – remember, only one lowest point leading out. Think of a river like a tree. There’s one trunk where it enters the sea, but a panoply of branches reaching towards the mountains.

Rivers are also strategically important. There’s hardly a river mouth in the world without a town on it and most great cities lie on a river. If you know where your cities are going to be, make sure there’s a decent sized river flowing through them. Equally, rivers make great defenses. It’s hard to build a wall all the way along your nation’s border, but it’s almost as hard to get an army over a well-defended river as it is to have them scale a wall.

Step 4: As rivers run to the coast they only join, they never branch.

Add some hills to the edge of your mountain ranges. Lay in some forest and see how it looks. Remember, don’t be precious. If you don’t like it, start on a new sheet of paper. Sketch another coastline. Turn it upside down.

When you’re happy with the terrain, go over the pencil lines with pen, and erase the pencil–including your nation boundaries. Scan and photocopy the map. Go away and have some food.

When you come back, try the following experiment. Ignore your previous nations. Look at the virgin world with a new eye. If you were founding a country in the world, where would you start? What would be the key strategic choke points? Look at the world as if you were playing Civ. Where are the resources you need to defend, what lands would you try to annex? Use some colored pencils to sketch in different nations and boundaries. Edit the rivers if you need to, move things around. You’ve got lots of copies of the map–experiment.

Once you have a layout you like, we’ll add cities.

Step 5: Hills and Forests, add them wherever you see fit. These are easily moved.

Cities are where they are for a reason. They don’t just appear up in the middle of nowhere. Population centers need food, water, trade and security. Rivers can provide all of  these, which is why towns and cities tend to spring up at river mouths. Locate your capitals in places that are easily defended and that have good transport connections to the rest of the nation. Place smaller cities in key locations, whether that’s in the heart of a mining community on the edge of a mountain range, at a key strategic river crossing, or a market town in the middle of leagues of prime cattle-ranching land. At this point, also mark in major fortifications.

Step 6: Place cities, towns and fortifications.

With these indicated it’s a simple matter to place the roads. These will connect the major cities, the main food producing regions, and any other major trade routes.

You now have a perfectly functional map! But remember, nothing is set in stone. Each time you run through this process your map will be better. Each time you sketch the map you’ll have new ideas. As you continue to write about your world you’ll come up with new thoughts on what terrain you should have, how two countries relate across their border, where a great wilderness needs to be. Redraw the map – it’s there for you. Both your map drawing and your text will be better for the relationship between map and story.

And when your manuscript is ready to go from draft to final, your map will be ready to go from sketch to illustration. But that’s a post for another day.

Step 7: Colored and finished!

If you want to learn about the art of mapmaking, then check out the Cartographers’ Guild, or my own tutorials.

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Three years ago my life changed.

Before dismissing that statement as being melodramatic, just hear me out.

It was 2010 and I was thinking that I might actually be interested in maybe someday pursuing a writing career. I was receiving Dave Farland’s Daily Kicks, and he mentioned he was putting together this seminar-thing (okay, he was far more eloquent than that) with a bunch of other top-notched and top-selling fantasy writers about everything you needed to know about the publishing industry, but no one was willing to tell you. The other instructors–Kevin J. Anderson, Eric Flint, Rebecca Moesta and James Owen–all have equally impressive resumes. The seminar-thingy was the Superstars Writing Seminar. I figured what the heck, I’d been going to “skills” seminars for about five years now, maybe it was time to get an insider’s look at the industry I wanted to be part of.

Best (professional) decision of my life.

Why?

The information and insight into the publishing market, including the self-publishing v. traditional publishing debate, was invaluable. Knowing the risks inherent for a publisher in taking on a new writer, I understood (and could work to circumvent) the barriers to publishing.

The time with the instructors was unprecedented. Remember that I said I’d been attending seminars for five years. Even with instructor-intense workshops, there wasn’t a whole lot of out-of-class time with the instructors. Superstars blew that distance out of the water. We went to lunch with the instructors. We went out drinking with Kevin Anderson. If you wanted a few minutes of their time, all of them where happy to oblige.

The instructor time ties in with a very important point.  They are some of the nicest and most open people you could ever want to meet. They genuinely want to help other writers succeed. They are invested in helping them do so. They have a wealth of information on many disparate topics and are more than happy to share that knowledge, whether it’s publishing, queries, hiking, micro-brew beers, mafia, European history or whatever.  For the price of asking, they gave us hours of their time to help us Superstars attendees move forward in our careers. And the guest speakers are just as open and wonderful as the regular instructors.

Then, of course, there’s the connections you form with the other attendees. The Superstars attendees are as amazing as the instructors. A group of the 2010 Superstars alums formed the writing group that grew into Fictorians. The picture to the right is of some of us at World Fantasy 2012. In addition to Fictorians, Superstars alums have an active Facebook group. We encourage and commiserate with each other. We are our own best cheerleaders. That network of people going through exactly what you are going through is invaluable. It’s also how I found my publisher.

Most of all, what Superstars did for me was give me the confidence to say, “I am going to be a professional writer.” It’s not a crazy dream. It’s a goal. Superstars gave me an understanding of the business side of the industry that I couldn’t get anywhere else.

Seriously folks, if you are interested in a writing career or maybe you’re already pursuing one, you are doing yourself a disservice by not attending Superstars. I highly recommend you attend Superstars Writing Seminar, which will be held May 14-16, 2014 in Colorado Springs, Colorado this year. Prices go up on  May 1, 2013, so sign up now.

I hope to see you there.

If you’re still on the fence, check out another great posts on this site about the Superstars Experience:

Q&A with the Superstars: Part I

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In Part 1, I talked about why we write and why receiving a critique can be so difficult and in Part 2 we discussed what a critique is.

I’ve seen critiques gone bad – so bad that when the author tried to incorporate everyone’s suggestions, he ruined his own story and in another instance, the writer gave up writing for a while. Sometimes it’s hard to find the right group of people or even one person, who understands that observations and comments that help strengthen your work do not need to include wholesale shredding,

So, how to avoid a critique disaster?

What you can do to prepare yourself:

1) The most important thing for you, the author, to remember is that the critique helps you to switch hats – from the creative to the editorial. Remember that creative ALWAYS needs editorial and creative is usually scared to death of editorial. That is why some authors put their stories away for a while before embarking on the editorial journey – to give their creative sides time away from the work so that they can approach the revision and editing process more objectively.

2) Submit your best work and understand what type of critique you are looking for: a reader’s critique, a line by line critique or both? A reader’s critique is one in which the reader tells you what is working and what isn’t, where she was engaged and what threw her out of the story. The points listed at the end of this article can help guide the reader on what to look for.  A line by line critique happens when all the other elements of the story are working well and the manuscript is is reviewed for consistency in language, metaphors, grammar, excess wording, etc. Generally, good critiquers will not give you a line by line critique unless they know this is more than a first draft. They can tell that by how strongly your story holds together in terms of plot, consistency, style, character and setting. Only then will they focus on line-by-line edits to polish the story.

2) Understand that some people can’t help but shred, rewrite and go beyond what is asked for. Take what you need and leave the rest but for goodness sake, don’t take it personally! Have confidence in your work and move on. Know that you can’t and don’t have to use everyone’s suggestions.

3) Know you may disagree with someone’s comments but do not take issue or become defensive. Instead become curious as to why they made those comments. Was there a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of some sort? If so, the reason for the comments may need to be addressed. Sometimes a person’s comments may simply be wrong. They may offer bad or unwelcome suggestions or see problems where they don’t exist or miss existing problems. Ultimately, you must choose the feedback that works for you.

4) Understand who is critiquing. Not everyone may be familiar with the nuances of the genre you are writing in or the age level you are targeting and that may pose problems. Short story writers and novelists may have different views on pacing, description, speed of character or plot development. You need to understand the person who is responding to your work to give their comments appropriate context.

5) Above all, be respectful and gracious. This person took time from their other activities to help you.

What you can do to prepare others:

1) Tell them what stage this is in. First draft? Final draft needing polishing before submission? This should include information about the intended market such as Writers of the Future submission, YA novel, adult historical fantasy, etc.

2) Be clear about what you are looking for – first draft I always ask for a reader’s critique. What is working? What keeps you in the story? What isn’t working? What throws you out? Do the character’s actions ring true?

3) It’s good to tell others where you have concerns. For example, 1) I’ve rewritten the beginning several times and am not happy with it. What’s working or not working? Is this the right place to start the story? 2) Does the science make sense? Is the world I’ve created consistent and credible?

Here are some points used by writers and in critique groups that I belong to. Use them to help focus the questions you want answered, or if you’re looking at someone’s work, use them as guidelines of things to look for. Some will use this as a template, while others may only touch upon pertinent points.

General impressions: An overview of what worked and what didn’t; critiquer’s theory of theme, premise & plot summary; first impressions on title, emotional response, stumbles, questions and expectations; if the story is satisfying; and  how well does the title work?

Plot:
It the problem clearly stated?
Is there a full story arc?
Does the opening/hook work?
Is there rising action & a climax?
Is the resolution complete?
Did something change?
Are there plot holes?
Does each scene work?
Is there appropriate revelation throughout the story?

Consistency:
Are there places where suspension of disbelief fails?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Does the narrative flow with proper pacing, rhythm?
Is there sufficient conflict (of all types)?

Style:
Is the style of writing appropriate?
Is an appropriate narrative tone used?
Is dialogue stilted or otherwise out-of-place?
Is there a proper balance of narrative and dialogue?
Is there appropriate narrative tension?
Is Point of View consistent? The best choice or mix?
Is tense consistent?

Character:
Sufficiently developed & distinct?
Do they speak with distinct voices?
Do they change?
Do they have believable motivations & behaviors?
Are there too many characters?
Do they have appropriate names?
Do they have strengths & weaknesses?
Are the interesting?
Is at least one character sympathetic?

Setting:
Is it complete or full of holes?
If a character, is it fully developed?

Technique summary:
Are there technical problems? (its vs it’s?)

Remember that the purpose of the critique is to help us polish the gem of our story until it sparkles in its brilliance. So, keep your eye on the prize, have confidence in what you’re doing, revise, polish and above all, submit your work!

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Feeling Tense:  2 of a 2-part series

Part 2:  Third person

Third person omniscient

“Cora felt uneasy as she stepped into the cave’s gaping maw.  Tina, on the other hand, was thrilled at the opportunity to explore.”

The narrator is God, looking down on Her characters.  Since the narrator is omniscient, the writer has the freedom to reveal what any character is feeling, thinking, or doing, at any time.  If characters are keeping secrets from one another, the omniscient narrator knows, and can share those secrets with the readers.  If a storyline is complex, an omniscient narrator can make sure the readers find out what they need to know to follow the story.

This technique has its drawbacks.  Third person makes it easy for the writer to preach:  to tell the readers how they should feel about the characters, or whether a character’s decision was “right” or “good,” instead of letting the readers draw their own conclusions about the characters’ thoughts and actions.  It is also somewhat impersonal in that the characters are held at a certain remove from the reader (we’re watching them, rather than seeing through their eyes);  a novelist wants to avoid the dry tone of a history book.

One of my English professors once suggested to me that the narrator was also a “character” of sorts.  The narrator affects the reader’s interpretation of the story’s events by the use of judgmental language–descriptions can include value judgments about characters or actions–and by describing certain events in detail while glossing over others.  The omniscient narrator may not be a neutral one.  When writing this tense, be aware that how you describe things, and what you choose to dwell on or leave out, may skew the way your readers look at your characters and plot.

Tight third person

“Cora looked around the inside of the cave, shivering in the disgusting dampness, wishing she was anywhere but here.  She shot a glance at Tina, hoping to ask if they could leave, but Tina was too busy gawking at the cave’s ceiling.”

If first person is a view from behind the narrator’s eyes, and standard third person is the God’s-eye view, tight third person can be described as a view over the narrator’s shoulder.  In the above example, although it is third person, since it is seen from Cora’s viewpoint, she does not know that Tina likes the cave.  All she knows is that Tina seems to want to look around, while all she cares about is getting out as soon as she can.  Similarly, while the omniscient point of view allows the narrator to outright tell the reader that Tina’s excited to do some exploring, the tight third person viewpoint requires the narrator to drop hints which will allow the readers to guess at Tina’s mindset, whether or not Cora ever figures it out.

From Tina’s point of view, this same scene might look like this:

“Tina looked around the inside of the cave, fascinated by the beautiful limestone stalactites tumbling from the ceiling.  Unfortunately, Cora didn’t seem as entranced.  Tina couldn’t imagine why not, but she wasn’t going to let her friend’s reluctance get in her way.”

Is the cave disgusting, or beautiful?  In this case, it very much depends on which character is doing the looking.

In real life, different people might have different interpretations of the same event.  Tight third person also allows for the narrator to get right inside the thoughts and feelings of his characters, but also provides the possibility of showing multiple points of view.  This viewpoint is tricky, since the “narrator as character” is muted, and it is imperative that the writer describe events in a manner consistent with the beliefs of the character, as opposed to colouring them with her own experiences.  It can be uncomfortable to see through the eyes of a villainous character—a bigot, a thug or a self-serving sleazeball—and present their point of view as rational, even natural.  However, it allows for a fascinating insight into the way different characters think.

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We’ve all done it. We finish our manuscript, think we’ve done our self-editing, followed submission guidelines, we hit Send, and then…oops. We should have done__________.

I had a completely different post written out for today. One with lots of links to books, and workshops, and what to do and not to do, and it sounded patronizing–not the customer kind, but the looking down your nose kind. I mean, let’s be real. I think I’m a good writer, maybe even a great writer someday, but I’m no editor. Every time I go to send a query, send out my next novel, or write up a series synopses, I think I’m going to hyperventilate. Why? Because, I almost always forget something. I have an editing checklist, but it’s changed over the last couple of years, improved, and yet I’m realizing right now, I’ve never actually updated it. Most of the checklist is in my head and for me, that’s not the safest nor the most reliable location. So for my sake, and I hope this helps someone else, here’s a revised self-editing checklist. This is my list for end-of-the-line editing, not the content editing or even the full line-editing list. Maybe we can do those another time, but it’ll be a much longer post.

Basic Formatting:

• One-inch margins
• 12-pt Times New Roman font
• Double-spaced
• No spaces before or after paragraphs (check to be sure)
• first-line indent
• Header with last name/title/page #
• Correct title page with contact information, Word count, and title done correctly
• Chapter Heading one-third down the page with page breaks between chapters (but no blank pages)

My Particular problems:

• No extra spaces between words/before paragraphs
• Search and replace or delete over-used favorite words, like “just”
• Check for improper usage of past and past-perfect tense.  (This became an issue when I read a lot of YA books with this problem, so now I especially check to make sure it doesn’t seep into my own writing–Thank you David Farland for pointing this out.)

Problems to watch for, learned from David Farland’s workshops:

• forward and toward, not forwards and towards (That’s American English vs. British English)
• Check usage of  ”and, then, finally, felt, saw, look, that”  Get rid of them whenever possible
• Use spell-check
• Check “-ly” adverbs–There should be few, if any
• Have I read the manuscript out loud, at least once?
• Did I change the font and read the manuscript in order to catch less-noticeable errors?

And a few extra:

• A basic spell-check
• Re-read the publisher’s or agent’s specific requirements
• Include appropriate letters (query, cover letter, synopsis)
• correct postage for snail mail
• proper formatting for electronic submissions
• If I cut and pasted from another submission, change editor/agent name, word count, work’s title, name of magazine/agency, and all other details.

And NOW, it might be ready. This seems like a lot, but I think I’ve forgotten almost all the points on this list, or have almost forgotten them, at least once when sending to agents and publishers. I wish I’d put this together years ago, but then I don’t think I knew half the items on this list years ago. I hope this helps someone, and I’d love to add anything I’ve forgotten, so if you think of something please leave a comment.

Happy Writing!

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There was a time when romance was mostly identified as housewife porn and bodice-rippers.  Those days are long gone, let me tell ya. Romance has evolved and is more popular than ever.

Nowadays, there are many sub-genre’s within romance. To name just a few:

• contemporary
• multicultural
• suspense
• action
• religious – which could include Christian, Amish… maybe Druid (I saw a guest post that had a Druid book albeit not romance, but what the heck.)
• the paranormal / fantasy range – which could include vampires, witchcraft, shape-shifters, time travel, mythology, futuristic  and sci-fi
• historical – which could be western, regency, medieval and specific to regions like Scotland, England, Ireland… even Rome and Greece are starting to make appearances
• young adult
• the clean / not-sexed up variety – not to say these aren’t fraught with chemistry and  tension, but any sex would happen behind closed doors and the reader is not privy to it
• erotic – which could include BDSM, all manner of gender pairings and threesomes plus (although, please do not confuse this with erotica… it’s a pet peeve and others can disagree with me, but IMHO Erotic Romance is about the romance and happens to have explicit sex scenes while Erotica is primarily about the sex. One is not better or worse, they just have a different focus.)

So, with all the sub-genre options out there, how does one know it’s a romance rather than a (Pick your genre) with romantic elements?  Well, it’s not just sex. There are rules to follow and elements that can’t be ignored.

First, as L.L. Muir mentioned in her post on YA Romance, a romance needs to be at least 51% about the relationship and its journey to a Happy-Ever-After (HEA).  The other stuff (like action, history, sex, etc..) is nice but in a romance, you should be able to take those elements out and still have your basic story of persons meet, persons fall for each other, persons have bumps along the way to HEA.

Last month, I talked about the characters and their traits that go into a romance: the hero, the heroine, the sidekick and the antagonist or villain.  We need them, we need to love them, we need to root for them to get together.

We also need conflict. Internal and external.  Our lovers need to have internal issues that keep them from having successful relationships, thus far.  Issues they will resolve or come to grips with in order to be with each other.  Maybe our hero has trust issues, maybe our heroine can’t commit.  They’ll realize through their journey that the other is worth the effort to overcome these personal problems and they’ll be better people for having each other in their life.

The external conflict may be that they have diametrically opposed goals and one of them is going to have to change something in order to overcome this barrier.  Think You’ve Got Mail. Meg Ryan wants her little bookstore to continue, but can’t in light of Tom Hank’s big box book store opening around the corner.  This is a problem.  How will they overcome it?  That’s the journey.  We have no doubt they will (cuz it’s a romance), we just don’t know how.

Which brings us to that HEA.  Yes, we know the persons in question will end up together. We take great satisfaction in that.  We crave that happy ending.  What we also crave is the optimism that comes along with it.  Sure, they struggle.  Sure, they may even hate each other at some point, but love and hate are a very thin line apart. Sure, they have ups and downs and bumps and bruises. But – and it’s an important ‘but’ – we know when we turn that last page, they will be together, love will triumph and Happy-Ever-After is achievable.

I know that optimism, that hope, feeds me. I can relate. I can believe that despite my own dubious history of relationships that love can conquer all. I just haven’t found Mr. Right … yet J

Love is, after all, universal.

What did I neglect to mention?  Or what about romance appeals to you?

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Guest Post by Gregory D. Little

So what genre do you write in?

I always inwardly cringe at this question. Genre is an inescapable part of fiction, and for good reason. It’s a useful tool. Necessary, even. Trying to talk about fiction without touching on genre would be like trying to describe the color red. The fact is that the human brain is hard-wired to simplify and categorize. It’s a necessary short-cut, one that keeps us from burning excess energy trying to remember too much detail.

Genre is just another means to that end. It’s a time-saver, a chaos-reducer. We all have limited time and money. Will I like this book? Well, it’s an epic fantasy, and I’ve liked other epic fantasies. Automatically your bet is safer. You pick up a book, quickly discern its genre, and are comforted. You can even tailor your decision to your mood. A mystery when you want to be thrilled. An epic fantasy when you want to feel wonder. Erotica when you want … well, you know.

So the genre of a story tells us what to expect. More than that, the tropes inherent in each genre know the shortest paths to evoking feeling. Every trope that exists does so because it’s tried and true. On some level, it works. When you select your fiction by genre, you are investing your money and time in that sense of certainty.

Yet the same part of our brains that excels in categorization short-cuts can lead us to prejudice and bigotry. And the certainty and safety of genre can quickly become a prison for the unwary writer. Must all noir begin with a mysterious woman entering the shabby office of a hard-bitten detective? Must epic fantasy always sprawl across many volumes and feature a world overflowing with detail? You’d be forgiven if you sometimes thought so.

Even more confusing, most genres have fluid definitions. Is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy? It has space travel, laser swords and aliens, but also magic. Most people would describe it as space opera, but I’ve also heard it referred to as a fantasy set in space. So it turns out the definitions of the various genres can’t even be agreed upon.

Yet fluid or no, the pressure to conform your writing to those genre labels is still there. Publishers love such labels. Categories make marketing easier, which makes selling things easier. Think how many times you’ve heard “If you liked X, you’ll love Y! It’s basically X with a new twist!” I think a lot of new writers feel compelled force-fit their writing into rigidly defined genres for the purposes of pitching and selling. I know I’ve felt that way.

Yet as I’ve started writing more frequently and regularly, I’ve begun to feel stifled if I try to color only within genre lines. It began with a shift in my reading habits. I still read plenty of works that fit comfortably within genre lines. But the books that really get me excited are the books that cross genres, blur the lines between them, or even actively subvert and reject them.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville is a good example of what I’m talking about. Is it steampunk? Secondary world fantasy? Extra-dimensional horror? It could be all of these or none. All I know is that it blew me away when I read it.

Finding and reading such works is one thing. Writing them can be another. The tracks that familiar tropes wear into your mind over time are often so deep they are hard to notice. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find yourself tending to slouch lazily into those tropes even when you don’t mean to. Breaking out of them at all can be difficult. You’ll have to cultivate a healthy mistrust of your own brain, shooting down first, second, third ideas, anything that feels too comfortable. Because the brain will naturally default to ideas it’s seen and liked in the past. Learning when to trust such instincts and when not to takes practice.

Even if you succeed, there are pitfalls. Crossing genres in the wrong way can create problems with mixed tones. Avoiding or subverting too many tropes can undermine the emotional core of the work. If you tap into too few emotional shortcuts, the story will fail to satisfy the reader at all. It’s a balancing act, but in this writer’s opinion, it’s worth the risk. Because when those genre-busting stories work, there is—by definition—nothing else like them. And because the only thing more fun than reading such stories is writing them.

So by all means, experiment. Strike out in unexpected directions with plot, setting or character. Abandon your story’s genre entirely. Or if that thought leaves you too far adrift, pick out your genre’s more useful elements and lay them within your story’s foundation. Keep that foundation below ground. Then try to build something amazing atop it, something beautiful for its strangeness, something so different it worries you. Even frightens you. Follow your story wherever it takes you, even if that’s out across trackless ground.

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Guest Post by L.L. Muir

Romance is the most popular genre and is growing exponentially in YA audiences.

What must one be aware of when writing YA romance? I know there are a lot of writers who are moving into New Adult (college age) romance so they can have more sexually explicit material. I think if people are looking to appeal to the widest YA audience, they need to be careful. You want your readers to be able to carry your books around like their latest obsession, which will grow your audience, instead of hiding it in a backpack where new readers will never see it. I think that’s where BEAUTIFUL CREATURES got it right. Those books were show-off-gorgeous and a girl could recommend it to anyone and everyone, even her own mother. Now they have a huge adult readership as well. Of course it’s a fantastic read. Stunning, actually. Sometimes the writing’s so lovely I had to pause to absorb it all. That series was the impetus that pushed me to write SOMEWHERE OVER THE FREAKING RAINBOW.

How far do/can you delve into the romance? By definition, it has to be 51% about the relationship or it’s not technically a romance. Besides, young people’s lives revolve around who they like or what to wear to impress, or who they might be able to cling to so they don’t end up walking into the future alone. Alone is a horrible word. If you want to get a young reader to get emotionally involved with your characters, you have to write about the romance as much as you can without losing the plot.

What makes it work or not work? You know, I often go to the local bookstore and lurk in the YA section. When I see a few young people browsing, I tell them I’m a writer and I’m interested in what they would like to see more of in their YA romances. EVERY girl will tell you she wants to see more kissing. When I was a teenager, my life revolved around the next kiss. What can I say? So I will add kissing whenever it’s believable. My characters never complain.

What should a writer do or avoid? Don’t dumb it down. Give your readers a lot of credit. You don’t have to spell everything out for them. Chances are, they’re just as clever as you are. If you write for you, you’ll be writing for them.

What is it about the character, setting, writing style, tropes, etc that readers expect? Honesty, plain and simple. You have to write straight from your hip, and your characters have to be believable. You really cannot bullshit these people and earn their love. Your paranormal worlds have to be so well constructed that they WANT to believe it’s all true. They want to suspend their disbelief and dive in. If they see wires and last minute miracles to wrap up your plots and save your hero’s ass, they’ll never forgive you. It’s just like adult romance. Let your heroes do something heroic. Let your heroines get themselves out of trouble. Give your readers a character whose skin they’d like to wear, if only for a few hours.

 ***

L.L. Muir lives in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains and writes fiction between bowls of cereal.   You can find out more about L.L. Muir here:   http://llmuir.weebly.com/

Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow

Jamison is crushing on the new girl next door. Bad news—the neighbors are Somerled cult-members killing off their own. Worse news—she’s next in line for sacrifice. Jamison will have to rise above the coward he thinks he is to get to the bottom of it all.

Something is terribly wrong with Skye. She’s experiencing emotions like the mortal teenager she’s pretending to be. When she finally asks the right questions, she finds answers that will rock the Somerled world…

…and none of her options include the boy who has stolen the heart she was never meant to have.

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Guest Post by Barbara Galler-Smith

I love history. I love perusing artifacts in museums. I love reading books and news bites of cool archaeological discoveries. You name it–if it’s old I am probably interested in it whether it be an old crumbling bit of textile, a 1500 year old castle, or ruins and petroglyphs of a long-gone people. It all has something to say. Most of all, I love trying to puzzle out in some Sherlock Holmesian manner just what it means in terms of people’s lives.

So, when writing a novel, getting ready to write by doing research is half the fun. Some novels require a little research and others a lot. Historical novels usually require a lot.

Only two real “rules” apply to writing historical fiction of any kind, whether it be science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, mainstream, or romantic: Get the history right whenever possible, and use common sense when making up the rest.

Of course you don’t have to build a world–it’s already there just waiting for you to put your characters in it.

Getting the history right isn’t just checking a couple of links on Wikipedia–though that is a start. Good research is complicated and time-consuming. Visit large libraries, especially academic ones which have significant collections of books, research journals, and other support materials. Take advantage of interlibrary loans. Talk to fans of the era. Talk to experts. Experts, in fact, usually love to talk about their subjects, and they are often kind and forthcoming with little known and fascinating facts that almost never make it into the history books.

If you possibly can, go to the place you are writing about. If that’s not possible or practical, look at modern and historic maps. Your local college or university may have a map library that will fill in all those geographical holes for you. Also pick your friends’ brains–someone you know will have been right where you want to place your scene or chapter. Once you get the geography right, you may have to bend it a little to fit the story, but that’s all right–you’re writing a novel, not a factual academic treatise.

Look at old photographs or paintings from the period you are writing about. The style of dress of the people in medieval or renaissance paintings is the style of the times. Note the foods, how the houses are represented, even what the animals look like. Those paintings are a slice of life provided free and detailed by the artist.

In our historical fantasy trilogy, The Druids Saga (Druids, Captives, Warriors), Josh Langston and I had extra problems. We had three cultures to research, one well-documented, the others not. After weeks of investigation on what Romans were like: clothing and footwear, what they ate and drank, their social, economic, political structures, religion(s) and family life, and even their bathing habits–we had to do it all over again, this time for the Celts in non-Roman areas, and then compare and contract that with “civilized” Celts and Celt-Iberians who had been Romanized for over a hundred years.

Then we had to make up the religion practised by the druids of Europe in the 1st century BC. Since we don’t really know exactly what the Gauls believed, we first examined what outsiders like Julius Caesar said about them and what modern archaeology tells us. Then, and most importantly, we looked at ancient practices still alive today, and the rites and rituals that go hand in hand with them. We made one big assumption–people haven’t changed much in 2000 years. Ancient ways remain in areas isolated from the modern world. We reasoned backwards–that if people do certain things now, then it’s likely they did similar things then.

We are still a superstitious and fearful lot. Spirits, ghosts, otherworldly creatures were real to many people back then, too. So, we looked at superstitions. We looked at symbols, signs, and even tattoos. We looked at coming of age ceremonies around the world noting that coming to womanhood and manhood are deeply important moments in a person’s life, and thus throughout history have had many rituals and rites associated with them.

All that research went into a big pot of information which we mined sometimes liberally but more often barely skimmed the surface of it to only add flavour to the narrative. We tried to encompass a broad spectrum of social behaviours, sometimes for colour but mostly to enhance the overall story and make it seem “true”. It all has to seem plausible.

You must do the same. Characters shouldn’t do what is not normal for real people to do.

If you decide to use real events and real people, there is some dispute over whether you can put words in historical figures’ mouths. While others have disagreed and called it disrespectful of the real person, I say go ahead. Just make sure you don’t change what they are known to have said, or make them speak in uncharacteristic ways.

In “Druids”, the first of our trilogy, we lucked out with Quintus Sertorius, a real Roman general. His character and life were outlined neatly for us by the Roman historian Plutarch. Sertorius’ life in Iberia provided a rough outline of how our heroine’s story would go set amidst the unrest at the beginning of the 1st C. BC.

One word of caution, our world view today has changed in ways nearly unimaginable to people who have not been exposed to concepts like civil rights, the sanctity of life, or environmental conservation. Today’s readers would be horrified at “real” history-its filth, superstition, disease, and cost in terms of human suffering. We have only to look at places in the world right now in which brutality is the meal of the day. Right now, enslavement or murder of one ethnic group is only a short airplane ride away–not a millennium or two ago. Fiction, especially genre fiction, set in brutal times or places may not be popular unless filtered through modern sensibilities and made more palatable. Verisimilitude is important. Sticking to the absolute truth in every horrid detail can be too much.

And one last word–we all suffer for our art, but please do not inflict your months of suffering research on unsuspecting readers. They’re just looking for a good story.

“Druids”, “Captives”, and “Warriors” (coming in august 2013) are published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. They are available in both paper and electronic versions. http://www.edgewebsite.com/

***

Barbara Galler-Smith lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  She’s an award winner author, a long-time member of Edmonton’s largest speculative fiction writers group, The Cult of Pain, and co-founder of a group designed for emerging speculative fiction writers called The Scruffies.  She’s also a Fiction Editor for On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic. Along with US writer Josh Langston, she’s the author of The Druids Saga– an historical fantasy epic trilogy: Druids (2009), Captives (2011), Warriors (coming August 2013).

Yes, that is a TARDIS on my necklace.

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Guest Post by Julie Ann Avila

Julie Ann and her garden gargoyle Argyle

So, you’ve decided to dip you quill into the ink pot and try a fairy tale. Now, where the wicked step-mother to start? Ah, at the beginning…

What are fairy tales? Fairy tales are a genre of literature, steeped in the traditions of oral story telling. They are fictional stories with elements of folklore, magic, and fanciful plot courses. Similar fairy tales are found across many cultures, but they tend to take on the unique seasoning of the particular culture in which they are written. Originally, fairy tales were targeted for adults, then children, and now enjoy an audience of both. Fairy tales tend to be more elaborate than fable and more enchanted than parables. And most importantly of all, fairy tales need not feature a fairy.

Why have fairy tales endured?  The answer depends on who is doing the interpreting. Some believe fairy tales have staying power because the principle characters are strong Jungian archetypes with adventures dipping into our strongest desires, deepest fears, and shared experiences. Feminists look to fairy tales as a way of understanding gender inequalities, and historians see the tales as ways of preserving a cultural heritage, through custom and legend.

What are the elements common to fairy tales? Ten elements occur throughout classic fairytaledom. Let’s take a look at each one:

1)      Special opening and closing words are often found in fairy tales. Beginning with “Once upon a time…” and ending with “…and they lived happily ever after” are common to the genre, but occasionally there are surprise endings.

2)      A Goodie is one of the principle characters.  This character may be kind, innocent, brave, and/or clever. He or she often helps or is helped by others during the story. The character is often poverty stricken, trying to eke out a living or in the roll of a servant.

3)      A Baddie is another principle character.  The character may be the wicked step-mother, an evil queen, a witch, a ravenous animal, or someone consumed by greed or power. This character usually loses in the end.

4)      A Universal Truth runs through the story.  This often relate to common experiences (growing up), shared hopes (to have enough of something vital: food, shelter, love), or universal questions (good versus evil, origin stories).

5)      The plot is focused on a problem that needs to be solved. The problem can be a conflict between characters, values, or a quest.

6)      The resolution of the problem often demonstrates a value or teaches a lesson. The outcome is important to the culture in which the tale was written. Some examples include kindness over cruelty, humility over pride and simplicity over greed.

7)      Magic, enchanted objects (wands, spinning wheels, beans), magical creatures (giants, goblins, trolls) and words (remember Bippity boppity boo?), and talking animals (wolves, pigs, bears) are essential elements to a fairy tale. Magic may be a positive or negative element in the tale.

8)      Royalty is another common element to classical fairy tales.  Castles, Queens, Kings, Princesses, and Princes are plentiful.

9)      Repeated numbers or patterns of events abound. The numbers 3 and 7 are common to many fairy tales; 7 dwarves, 3 pigs, 3 bears, 3 attempts.

10)   Common motifs run through many fairy tales. These include tricksters, journeys, riddles, monsters, guardians, quests, sleep states, helper characters, and a setting usually in the past.

Is your quill hovering over the ink pot? Are you wondering if you should bother? Yes, give it a dip! Writing fairy tales is fun, fun, fun! Because we live in a wondrous age far beyond the dreams of Perrault, Andersen, and those grim Grimm Brothers, we NEED modern fairy tales to reflect our cultural reality.

How do go about writing a modern fairy tale? It easy! Let your imagination off its leash and fiddle with all the classical elements. Try a new magical opening and ending. A favorite opening in my fairy tales has been “Once upon a twist in time…”Flip a goodie into a baddie and vice versa. That sweet little girl wasn’t really so innocent.

Look to lesser featured truths. What is the cost of security? Invent new magical systems, enchanted objects, words, and go beyond the talking animal. Technology would be a fun place to investigate. While royalty may be rare, the royal status of celebrity, athletes, and entrepreneurs is quite the cultural rage. Give another number a try. Personally, I love the number five.

While the past was historic, the present is amazing, and the future? Well, the future is anything you can imagine. So, don’t be afraid to leap into a unique setting. A line from one of mine, “Every time the old grey cat meowed, Matilda T. Bartholomew was transported fifty five seconds into the future. It wasn’t until he purred that she could restore her missing time, and PG Grey tips was a very crabby cat.”

What can you add to the collection of common motifs of the genre? I can hardly wait to find out!

 ***

Julie Ann Avila writes across many genres, but her favorite genre is that of the fairy tale. Her fairy tales have featured time travel, visiting aliens, the Loch Ness Monster, and at least one hundred and five other permutations (even a fairy or two). She lives in Kirkland, Washington with her husband, three children, a very smart dog, a less than interested cat, two chickens, and an upside down goldfish. Life is never dull.

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Guest Post by Tristan Brand

Magic has been a part of our stories since pretty much the beginning.

Homer wrote The Odyssey, a tale full of magical creatures, sorceresses, and vengeful gods, nearly three millennia ago. The Arthurian legend, featuring the great wizard Merlin and King Arthur’s magical sword Excalibur, originated in the dark ages. Five hundred years ago, Shakespeare incorporated magic into plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Magic made an appearance in Wagner’s famous opera Der rings des Nibelungen, a story of a magical ring that drew from the same sources which, a century later, inspired Tolkien to write his masterpiece Lord of the Rings.

Magic’s a powerful tool when it comes to storytelling. When a writer decides to include magic in his story, he needs to understand the implications of whatever type of magic they include. Of course, that’s easier said than done, as there are essentially infinite ways to approach magic.

We can make this infinite sea of possibility a bit more manageable by dividing magic into two categories. In the first category, the laws of magic are as well understood as the laws of physics. In the second category, magic is a mystery; its rules, laws, limitations are left unknown.

Both categories carry their own advantages and potential pitfalls. Fortunately, there are a number of excellent stories representing each category that can be used as examples of how the strongest storytellers use magic.

Brandon Sanderson is a great example of an author whose magic falls into the first category.  In his Mistborn series, people called allomancers burn metals within their bodies to give themselves abilities ranging from pulling their bodies towards pieces of metal to affecting the flow of time. Sanderson carefully weaves in information about allomancy into the narrative so that the reader learns its capabilities and limitations, while taking care not to bog the story down with excessive detail.

In crafting allomancy, Sanderson made use of a couple principles (which he often terms his first and second law of magic.) The first is that the author’s ability to use magic to solve conflicts is directly proportional to the reader’s understanding of said magic. The second is that magic must have significant draw-backs to those that use it.

The first law demonstrates the key advantage to using well-understood magic. It allows that magic to become a tool in the author’s tool-box. The second law offers a cautionary point. If the writer creates a magic system that’s too powerful, the reader may at some point wonder why the hero is going through all this trouble

Vin, the protagonist in Mistborn, is a powerful allomancy who routinely uses her ability to solve problems. If the reader didn’t understand allomancy, Vin’s constant use of it to escape danger would seem cheap. If allomancy did not have significant limitations, the reader might wonder why Vin was letting herself get into so much trouble in the first place.

The magic in George R. R. Martin’s epic series  A Song of Ice and Fire falls into the second category. Magic appears directly on the page far less than in most fantasy novels, though it’s always lurking in the edges. Undead monsters rise in the North.  A summoned shadow assassinates a would-be king. A crippled boy can project his mind into the body of his pet wolf.

If there’s an underlying logic, a set of principles governing what can and cannot happen, Martin keeps it well-hidden from the reader. A key reason this works is that Martin’s magic is just as mysterious to the viewpoint characters as it is to the reader. The mysteriousness of his magic is not an arbitrary choice but rather a consequence of the world he’s created. In this world, the characters fear magic – and the reader learns to fear it as well.

One pitfall to Martin’s approach is that he is far less able to use magic to solve conflicts, a consequence of Sanderson’s first law. But Martin doesn’t need to. The magic in his world serves a different purpose than the magic in Sanderson’s world.

The trait that both Sanderson and Martin’s approaches share is consistency. Magic might break the rules of nature, but it cannot escape logic and consequence entirely. Adding magic into a world irrevocably changes it. Cities, cultures, politics, wars, everything, will be affected in some way. Regardless which approach is chosen, its success will likely be determined by how consistent the author is with their magic’s effect on the world.

Most authors fall in between the two categories. Patrick Rothfuss uses magic called sympathy in his Kingkiller Chronicles, and though the reader is given some rules there are clearly parts left unexplained. The same is true of weaving in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time or the magic in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files.

Magic may exist only in our minds, but that doesn’t make it any less real. It’s in our stories, and our stories are part of who we are. They reflect our culture, our history. Through stories, even those about dragons and wizards and talking dogs, allomancers and undead hordes, we constantly explore what it means to be human. By allowing the impossible to play out on the page, we can find insights that considering only the possible would have left undiscovered.

***

Tristan Brand is an aspiring fantasy author and technical writer. When he’s not obsessively checking the mail for his long-overdue invitation to wizarding school, he can be found playing StarCraft II, practicing classical piano, or reading a good book. He keeps a blog at www.TristanDBrand.com, does a web-show with his friend called Why We Like It (http://day9.tv/d/b/why-we-like-it/), and can be found on twitter as @TristanDBrand.

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Guest Post by Sarah A. Hoyt

So you’ve written a novel – but do you know in what genre?

According to Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, whom I have no reason to doubt, you probably don’t.  The reason for this is simple.  We writers tend to work from the idea out.  If we have – say – this neat idea where you use a machine to perform magic, we go ahead and write it that way.  And then we send it out to agents or editors who are likely to run in circles, screaming.  (Well, mine did, when I did just that.)

Genre is largely a marketing category.  This means that no story fits it exactly.  Take the story idea above, and throw in a hot magical engineer and the girl who loves him.  Then have her father murdered for trying to market the machine.

Is that novel science fiction, fantasy, mystery or romance?

The answer is “yes.”

In general all novels, no matter how much they are science fiction have a hint of mystery and some romance.  (Okay, some novels from the pulp era didn’t.)  There is something that must be solved, and someone the character is attracted to.

What used to happen – in the bad old days when your only choice for publication was traditional houses mostly via agents – is that you’d take the book to your agent, and after she ran in circles, screaming, she might tell you “Look, you’re known as a fantasy writer.  Knock off with the machine stuff, and emphasize the magic more.”  Or “You’re a romance writer, just pump up the romance and wooing scenes and we’ll sell it as a quirky futuristic romance.”

Of course, sometimes they told you they just didn’t know what to do with it.  Or they’d tell you what you thought was military SF was actually YA SF, because at the time it was easier to sell as YA and your character was seventeen.

What about now?  Well, now it’s all about the tags.  One of the things I’ve noticed, when I put up my back list short stories, is that those I can possibly tag romance (not all shorts have a romance element strong enough to mention!) sell better.  But the idea is to tag them or list them with all the genres you think you can get away with.  Oh, by all means, tag it for the main idea.  For instance, the one above I’d class as fantasy, but then in the description and the tags include the other genres.

As for writing…  Well, I tend to write stories as I read them, and I started reading long before I was aware of genres or the idea of genre.  I gravitated, mostly, to science fiction and fantasy – but I also read a good bit of mystery because my dad belonged to a mystery book club and it was my sworn duty (I thought) to read every book that came in the house.

I didn’t read Romance until I was in my thirties.  Not unless you consider my cousin’s collection of romances, which was in the house and therefore must be read.  But those were Portuguese Romances (I was born in Portugal and lived there till 22.  My family still lives there.  English is my third language, and if you heard me speak you’d believe it.  Or maybe not.  You’d probably think I was Russian.  No I don’t know why.  Stop being nosy.)  Portuguese Romances all seem to be based on Romeo and Juliet.  In the perfect Romance, both die for love, but if you’re very lucky, the girl survives and mourns her boyfriend forever.

Anyway, so by the time I read Romance, I was aware of genre conventions, and how they work, so the book didn’t go against the wall the first time.

See, the thing you have to be aware of, when writing any genre, or tagging the story as a genre, is “genre conventions.”

These are normally invisible to the fan of any given genre, but you do know when they’re violated.  They’re simply “the way things are done.”  What they do in most cases is get around the awkwardness of telling the story.  You know that new machine, in your sf story?  You might know how everything works, but you don’t describe it in detail over 40 pages.  That’s not the story.  You tell us about things it does/is that are relevant to the story.  In a Romance, you don’t spend half the book making sure the characters REALLY know one another, before they fall in love.  You show instant attraction (usually.  Or its polar opposite) and then hints that there’s more in it.  In a Mystery, you don’t have the character go “yeah, okay, he’s dead.  Big deal.  Now, this machine—” not your main character, at least.

So before you write cross-genre, you need to be aware of what readers of each genre expect.  This is best achieved by reading both (all three?) genres you’re crossing, so you’re aware of what the readers expect from each.  And hey, once you’re aware of it, you can give the readers special “genre cookies” which will make each of them very happy.  For instance, my Darkship Thieves, winner of the Prometheus Award for 2011, has science fiction, romance, and definitely a mystery element.  It also happens to be told in the style of Urban Fantasy.  The fans of each of these will swear it belongs solely to them.  While the Urban Fantasy elements are somewhat mitigated in Darkship Renegades and A Few Good Men, the sequel and not-so-sequel (it’s complicated) it’s still there.

In fact, at this point, I have so many fans from different genres, I have to make sure to put in cookies for all genres every single time.

***

Sarah A. Hoyt has sold over 23 novels and 100 short stories in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, horror and romance. She not only couldn’t confine herself to a single genre, but trying might break her permanently. Her science fiction — the Darkship series and the Earth Revolution sister series — and her Shifter series are published by Baen books. Her mystery, historic mystery, romance, historical fantasy, or whatever she might take in her head to write tomorrow, will be available from Goldport Press or Naked Reader Press (mostly and for now).

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Guest Post by Bob Stallworthy

I can hear you all now, “What does a poet know about writing fiction?” At one time I might have agreed with you. However, I’ve begun to wonder whether the lines that divide fiction from poetry are more blurred than I thought they were.

Let’s start with the obvious: poets and fiction writers both use words to get their information, images, impressions, across to the reader. I have often heard fiction writers say, “Yes, a poet has to be so careful with word choice. Poetry is harder to write.”

American poet, essayist, non-fiction writer, Robert Bly, once told an audience of young writers that fiction entered the body through the ear and poetry entered through the heart. Before you stomp off in a huff, let’s think about this for a minute. How often have you read a poem or heard one read, and before you are really conscious of hearing it, you have reacted to it? As if something shadow soft had passed over and then through you. Then you begin to think about the words you heard. And, how often have you read a good piece of fiction and found yourself relishing the words and then the images and emotions they have created? My question then is, aren’t the fiction writers being just as careful about their word choices? If they aren’t they should be. Good fiction, just like good poetry, has a lot to do with using precisely the right word in the right place in the line. And, speaking of the right place in the line and in the right line, when we get this right we get the image we want that makes the reader say, “Wow! I never thought of it like that before.” Isn’t that what we, as writers, want?

Part of what will make the reader’s eyes go wide open and whisper that wished for line is an interesting use of rhythm. Oh sure, it is really important in poetry, you say. And, yes it is. I used to say that free verse poetry had no rhythm and no rhyme. I was only partially correct. It often has no rhyme. It does have rhythm – the rhythm of the language. It is there in fiction too.  As a fiction writer you can use that rhythm to your advantage.

Rhythm may be obvious in a poem and not so obvious when it comes to fiction. How do you hear the rhythm when writing fiction? The same way one does when writing poetry. Read the piece out loud. Get into the habit of doing this. Look for the ebb and flow. If you do, it will help to carry the reader away on your words. By the way, it will help you with your public performances.

Rhythm is just one component that goes into a poem or a piece of fiction. As a fiction writer you already know what the other elements are that must be in your fiction – plot, setting, character, crisis, resolution, etc. But, the question which comes at some point is, whether you write fiction or poetry, “Is this any good?”

First of all, I would like to suggest that the use of the terms good and bad, works or doesn’t work, get dropped from the vocabulary. These are value judgements which sidetrack the discussion into the realm of personal taste. You can spend a lot of time in that realm and get no useful information about the writing.

Years ago, I found a hierarchy created by American writer and critic, James Dickey. The hierarchy is based on his reaction as a reader to a piece of poetry. I suggest that these statements apply equally well to fiction:

Lowest level: This probably isn’t true and even if it is, I couldn’t care less.
Next level up: This is probably true, and therefore I react to it differently than I did the first level.

Third level: This is probably true, but so what –

Best level: Not only is this true, but it is with a truth I would not have reached on my own had I not read this piece of writing.

Some writers dislike the idea of a hierarchy when it comes to assessing writing. Perhaps you would prefer to consider a number of questions which are used to illicit the reaction of the reader. I encountered these questions as a member of a poetry group facilitated by poet, essayist, professor, Richard Harrison. The following questions are adapted from Writing with Power, Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process by Peter Elbow. Within our poetry group, the poet presents his/her poem and then asks the group members some or all of the following depending on what the poet wants to know:

-  what did you notice?
-  what connections did you make?
-  what questions were you left with after you finished reading?
-  were there places where you left? i.e. your mind wandered
-  where did you stop reading?
-  were there places where you agreed, disagreed, argued?

I can’t help wondering if these questions apply equally well to fiction. For example, “Where did you stop reading?” translates into “Where did you close the book and put it back on the shelf or in the box for the book sale?”

Whether you write fiction or poetry, there is always the pesky question of, “How do I know this is done?” I leave you with some thoughts that, again, I have learned in Harrison’s poetry group:

-  a poem is the dramatization of a single voice
-  a short story is the dramatization of a character
-  a novel is the dramatization of a world

If the above is so, then a poem is complete when the voice has said all there is to say that will add to the understanding of the reader/listener.

A short story and a novel are similarly finished when nothing is left that the reader/listener needs to know in order to understand the character or the world.

Can fiction writers and poets learn from one another? I certainly hope so. I have been doing so for most of my writing career. Thank you to Ace Jordyn for inviting me to put some of my thoughts together for this blog. I hope the ideas are of some help.

***

Bob Stallworthy has four books of poetry published and one non-fiction e-book, In Silhouette: Profiles of Alberta Writers,  which is hosted on the Frontenac House website. His latest book of poetry, Things that Matter Now, Frontenac House, 2009 is in its second printing.  Bob’s poetry has been short-listed for the W.O.Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize twice and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry once. He is co-recipient of the 2002 Calgary Freedom of Expression Award. He is also a Lifetime member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.

Link on Frontenac House website: http://frontenachouse.com/?s=Stallworthy&submit=Search+Site

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Sixteen-year-old me dried off after a long summer evening languishing in the family hot tub with one of my best friends from high school. The discussion that evening had been scintillating. With the tangy scent of chlorine still hugging me like a toxic cloud, I opened the patio door and stepped into the house, my damp feet sinking into the now-soggy carpet. I draped the towel over my shoulders and made my way towards the living room, where my friend was already spread out on the couch. I was pleased he hadn’t gone straight home; true, it was well after midnight, but I was awake. I wanted to converse. I wanted to think!

My friend Troy and I spent many late nights deep in conversation while the rest of the house slept, but this particular night in 1998 was the granddaddy of them all. I don’t think we went our separate ways until 5:00 a.m. In the intervening hours, for some unbeknownst reason (I may never recall the exact circumstances that inspired this), we took out a pad of paper and began to sketch out a history of the coming hundred years or so. What would be the defining events of the twenty-first century? Would mankind colonize space? How about the moon? Mars? Perhaps other, more exotic locales? How would we get there? What technologies would we use? How long would it take us to develop them? How would politics contribute to these endeavors? And perhaps more importantly, how might politics hinder them?

We weren’t interested in wild flights of fancy. This was a sober-minded effort to gauge the direction our society was moving in and extrapolate it to its most probable outcomes. And perhaps the oddest part of all is that there was no inherent “story.” No, this was an undiluted act of futurism. We were thinking on a grand scale, laying out the broad strokes of history, albeit a future history. It wasn’t until the following October that I zeroed in on a particular timeframe in our nascent world and decided to set a story there.

On the subject of future studies, Wikipedia says there “is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science.” Now, I understand that Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable research venue, but that statement really hits the nail on the head. You see, I was an artist and Troy was a scientist. All these years later, I’m releasing my first novels and he’s a globetrotting geophysicist—but that artist/scientist partnership is crucial. I need the balance it provides. Not that I don’t do my own research (I do a lot!), but it’s helpful to have a watchful eye appraising the more outlandish ideas in my first and second drafts.

This might sound limiting—and I’ll grant that in many ways it is limiting. But as a hard science fiction writer, I love those limits. Placing limitations on the way the world functions on a practical scale, forcing myself to find ways to work within the confines of occasionally unyielding science, often forces me to explore more interesting story possibilities than I ever would have been able to uncover if I had allowed myself to play against a completely open canvas.

What kind of limits am I talking about? They’re mostly in the realm of physics. A big one is gravity. In Star Trek, for example, technological hand-waving allows for the existence of artificial gravity, simplifying ship design and scene mechanics (believe me when I say that having characters float around in unpressurized compartments presents huge scene-blocking challenges… especially if they have to fight to the death). Warp speed allows ships and characters to gallivant from planet to planet the same way we move around in cars today. For space opera, these conventions are accepted and welcome. But what kind of story develops when you embrace the fact that it could take years (or decades) to get to one’s destination? What kind of story develops when you embrace the realities of living in space or on another planet, right down to the nitty-gritty, inconvenient details?

The answer is the kind of stories I like to read. In my experience, scientific inconvenience breeds creativity. I’m constantly asking myself, how does a space elevator work? What kind of propulsion are we likely to use to get to Mars a hundred years from now? What kind of spacecraft might we design for the purposes of traveling into deep space? What kind of fuel might it require, and where might that fuel come from? What kind of resources will be valuable, and how will we access them? These questions lead invariably to conflict, and from those conflicts are born all manner of plots that resonate with me (and hopefully readers) because of their firm basis in probability and reality.

And then I run my ideas past someone who’s smarter than me (in Troy’s case, much smarter than me). That’s a human resource no writer should ever go without.

Not that there’s anything wrong with writing a story about a moon-sized Death Star (that might cost 850 quadrillion dollars to build, by the way). There’s room for everyone under the sci-fi umbrella!

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