Cat Editing

My cat helped me with my novel a few weeks ago. This was the line he fixed: Worry tightened inside him. What if it wa/////////////////////////       sdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddy7uuuuuu776ts his house?

Can you imagine how horrendous that line was before he edited it?

In order to make your book the best it can possibly be, you’ll need someone to help. Not that you aren’t awesome and can’t improve it on your own, but sometimes editing requires an extra pair of eyes and an extra brain. (I never would have thought to use a t between the 6 and s—my cat is a genius).

Where can you get good feedback?

(Sorry guys, my cat isn’t starting an editing service anytime soon).

Help can be found in critique groups. Or in writing websites. Or professional editors. There are pros and cons to each area. I’ll dedicate a blog entry to each of them. I’ll talk about how to find them, what to look out for, and how to have the best experience.

So stay tuned for more.

Happy Writing

Writing Lessons from Angry birds: Opponents

Every good book has a villain, antagonist, something that is working against the main character. It can be a person, a monster, the weather, pretty much anything that stands in their way.

One of the keys to a great story is the level of skill that something exhibits. They must be very difficult to beat, but not impossible.

Like in Angry Birds. If no matter where you pointed the birds the pigs were destroyed, how long would you keep playing? Would you mindlessly keep swiping the screen, beating level after level easy peasy? I’d probably be bored after the second level. (Okay maybe it’d take me five levels—watching those birds fly is pretty entertaining).

Too easy is no fun.

On the flip-side, what if a level was so difficult it was nearly impossible? Yeah, there are some tricky levels, but I’m talking, precise angles and the bird must land in the exact spot. The-don’t-succeed-the-first-fifty-times hard. How long would you keep trying without getting frustrated?

The same goes for your villain. If the main character wins with no sweat, then things are too easy. If the villain is an absolute power and cannot be defeated ever, it will frustrate the reader.

How do you get around this?

First, include at least three try-fail cycles. If the reader sees the main character thwarted in their efforts, they know that the villain isn’t super easy to defeat. (Note: the at least three try-fail cycles does not apply to Angry Birds)

Second, give your hero small victories. Do this even if their victories turn out to not be so victories. (Example: Have the hero succeed in stealing the map from your villain, but it turns out to be blank). This will instill in the reader a hope that everything will turn out okay. It gives them a reason to keep cheering your hero on.

What do you think is a good balance of strength for a villain?

Happy writing!

Book Review: Turning Pages by Tristi Pinkston

Blurb:

With his pride and her prejudice, what could possibly go wrong?
When the arrogant Blake Hansen steals Addie Preston's promotion at the library, he pretty much rubs her nose in it. But Addie, who dreams of being a full-fledged librarian, decides to stick it out. She loves surrounding herself with books and keeping her father's memory alive in the building where they spent so much time together.
Soon, Addie learns that her beloved library will be torn down to make room for a larger facility, and she has to make a choice. Fight, or let go?
To complicate things, she finds herself attracted to Blake, who is engaged to someone else. Will Blake and Addie ever resolve their differences?

My review:

Contemporary novels normally aren’t my genre. I live, breathe, write, and absorb fantasy novels. But I loved Turning Pages. This was such a cute story with very real, awesome characters. I have read it twice now and will read it again. (Making it on to my shelf of re-readers is a very high award.) Some books I love. Other books I love enough to read them a million times.

Why was this particular book so good?

The characters. Particularly one character: Blake.

He’s so dreadfully annoying in an awesome, cute sort of way. In a sense, he is the perfect character. He is someone that I want to learn more about. Someone that I get annoyed at, but still adore.

Not that he wasn’t the only awesome character. Addie was great too. The story was from her point of view. Point of view characters have to be superb. They have to be someone the reader wants to be with for two hundred or so pages.

Addie, like Blake, isn’t a perfect person. She tends to be a bit dramatic, but her imperfections are what make her great.

How on earth do imperfections make a character awesome?

It makes them real. Real enough to come off the page. When I was reading Turning Pages, I wasn’t reading about some place and some people that an author made up. I was reading about Addie and Blake and the library. All very real people in a very real setting.

And that is what elevates a book to the read-a-million-times status.

Excellent book. I recommend it.

If you want to learn more about the author, here is the like to her website (she's awesome): http://www.tristipinkston.blogspot.com/

No Pressure, but it has to be Perfect

As writers, we tend to strive for perfection. I can’t send my query until it is absolutely perfect. I can’t show this story until it is flawless.

That puts a lot of pressure on our already-stressed-from-lack-of-sleep minds.

My advice: Relax!

Not saying that you shouldn’t make your story the best that it can be. You most certainly should do that. You must grow and stretch yourself with every draft.

But don’t stress about making it perfect.

Here’s the big secret: It will never be exactly perfect.

No matter how much you tweak it and polish it, someone somewhere will find something wrong with it.

Don’t believe me? Go to Amazon or Goodreads or any other book-selling website and read the reviews of your favorite book.

It will surprise you how much people loath what you find to be awesome. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a book on this planet that everyone will love.

So when you are feeling the pressure to achieve perfection, take a step back (and perhaps a deep breath) and focus on what you’re doing right. Plan how to make it better and don’t be discouraged.

Awesome and perfection are not the same thing. Write an awesome book, not a perfect one.

Happy writing!

Oh I See

I’ve heard it said that you should vary your sentence structures. When I first heard that advice, I thought, “Oh I do that.”

Not so much.

Word has a handy feature that lets you change the color of your words. If you want to see how varied your sentence structure is color all of one particular structured sentence blue and another red and another green.

Once it’s done, it’s a fast way to determine if your story is balanced. For example, if you see three pages of solid blue, maybe change it up.

Changing the color of the sentences can also be very helpful to see other patterns in your writing. Try highlighting all of the dialog one color, all of the descriptions another color, and all of the action another color. Change the color of every sentence that starts with she or every sentence with an m-dash or that trails off.

By using colors, you can visualize areas of weakness (and strength) in your writing.

Happy writing!