Month: November 2020

Author Spotlight: Jason Gilbert

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

People I am thankful to know includes Jason Gilbert. This author is about a diametrically opposed to me as you can get. He writes steampunk (which is not in my skill set): The Rifle Chronicles and Gaslit Insurrection, just to name two. He is integral to many of the local film festivals in the Charlotte area such as ConCarolinas. This grew out of love of bad movies, for which he wrote the book – Bad Movie Beware!: 100 Movies No Human Being Should Ever Watch. And he also publishes Urban Fantasy through Falstaff with The Coldstone Files.

His day job is teaching.

He can also loves heavy metal music and can lug books like a fork lift when at cons.

He’s great fun to know if every now and again our non-overlapping interests make conversation a little surreal with the explanations required.

Flash: The Rain Never Stopped

Erin Penn

Photo 193338178 © Andrey Nasonov | Dreamstime.com

The rain never stopped. Poseidon was a hell-hole planet, whose unique flora had thousands of pharmaceutical applications. All one had to do was tolerate the climate.

Depression and rotting skin were just a couple things mentioned by the recruiter; he wouldn’t get paid if the recruit cuts out before the year is out. Atesh signed up anyway because of the pay. Four months later, he was cursing his choice as he waited for the next group of recruits to arrive. Yes, his bank account was ten times fatter than it had ever been. But he would spend it all on a pair of dry socks.

After two months of harvesting, one can move into any other open position. Based on his skill set, or lack thereof, Atesh got Greeter. He welcomed new people, set up their rooms, and showed them the ropes. Only half his day was spent in the rain now; the rest of the time was in environmentally “controlled” facilities unable to keep up with the humidity. Hell, it rained in his room when the temperature dropped in the evening.

Three people shakily disembarked from the drop crate. Immediately the construction crew started moving it to the second cafeteria site. Two more crates, expected tomorrow, will provide enough material to seal the backup food area.

“Fucking wet slop.” The cultured voice was at odds with the surrounding environment, and the second-rate garments all new recruits were provided hung differently on the tall, young male.

Atesh suppressed his immediate interest in the new arrival. Rules said four days before newcomers could be integrated into the social activities, and it was his job to enforce the regulation. He smiled at the group and gestured to a small container half-buried under the vegetation which had grown since this morning’s pruning. All of them made haste to the stand-alone shelter, likely thinking being out of the rain would get them out of the wet too.

(words 323; first published 12/14/2020)

Editing Rant: Clean Up #3 – Chapter Headings

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

What to Clean Up before Sending Your Manuscript to Your Editor #3 – Chapter Headings

First – Numbering

Verify all your chapters are numbered right. Please – no missing chapters, no double chapters. The one I am editing has two chapter 18s.

About 10 to 15% of the books I have edited have chapter counting errors. This issue is common enough it is on my check every time list. If you are paying me for my time and writing out the problems with the manuscript, do you want to be paying me for telling you there are two chapter 18s? I know, yes, if it is the case, but I’m sure you rather have caught that before you sent it for a professional read.

Second – Titles

Get the capitalization right for the titles – or at least consistent. Also the punctuation. Don’t capitalize all the words in one chapter title and then have a full sentence with a period for the next. Your editor usually won’t care what you choose, so long as it is consistent. You don’t even need chapter titles at all – but if you do have one chapter with a title, they all have to have it.

Three – Returns after Chapter Header

Do you have one or two line returns between the Chapter Header and the start of the document? Be consistent. Your editor usually won’t care what you choose, so long as it is consistent.

Four – New Page Start

Most publishers want chapters to start on a new page. Put a hard page break in there, not a dozen returns until it’s at the top of a new page. Your publisher might have different printer settings, and the pages may change by one line each, destroying the manually created page returns. For Microsoft Word, go to the Insert Tab, then Pages section, Page Break. Check on the submission page if you have a question – and even if you don’t. Always check the submission page in case the rules change. You never know when a publisher will have a software upgrade or downgrade.

Five – Formatting

Many people work each chapter in a separate file – to prevent massive data loss and also because the bigger the file, the longer saves take. They then need to assemble everything into one file for sending the manuscript out. This leads to inconsistent formatting including, but not limited to: font size changes, font changes, margin adjustments, and paragraph indenting variations.

In this case, your editor does care what the formatting is – it needs to be consistent with the publisher’s submission guidelines – in every.single.chapter.

If you have to strip the formatting and redo it, that is better than getting your submission rejected because your margins changed in width from one inch to two inches then went to half an inch before returning to one inch. While you might not like dealing with the formatting errors, your publisher REALLY doesn’t want to deal with it while uploading to three different types of eBooks, plus juggling the paperback and hardback printing. Which is why manuscripts with this type of problem get rejected early in the submission process. Don’t be in that statistic.

Other posts in the Clean Up series
#1 – Commas
#2 – Double Spaces
#3 – Chapter Headings

Flash: Oopsie

Erin Penn

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash


Oopsie.

Danielle studied the most recent disaster. Maybe her dad should have left her at the school, but when a random earthquake happened during her testing, he pulled her out quick as a wink and hugged her tight.

Random earthquake … right.

She knew her test results. Everyone who knew her knew that the paper slip would turn pink on her sixteenth birthday as soon as her blood dropped on it. They should have taken her out much sooner.

Well, at least the truck driver wouldn’t be picking up people to rape anymore.

She started scrambling down the landslide to get to the semi and her backpack, the body behind her little better than a smear.

*** and ick. Let’s try that again, but with action and dialog.

Version 2

“Hey, why are we stopping?” Danielle asked the trucker who picked her up at the Washington-Oregon border as he pulled over at a wide spot in the deserted two-lane highway through deep woods.

The man, who had introduced himself as Colin and up till now acted like a kindly uncle, sneered. “Toll time.”

Danielle’s adrenaline spiked. “What do you mean?” she asked calmly, ignoring the rumbling in her ears.

“Oh, you know.” Colin pivoted in his seat once the rig came to a complete stop and he thumbed off the engine. “I see what’s under that pretty blue jacket and if it is nice enough, you show me more.”

Scooting away from him on the pleather seat, Danielle pulled her backpack up to put between him and her. “Um, how about no?”

“How about yes.” The driver leaned over, snatching and shoving the backpack into the back of the cab. “It ain’t no big thing, just the toll of the road. Get used to it sweetheart, if you want to get to the southern border.”

Danielle twisted her body to face the door, grabbing the handle and pulling frantically at it as he laughed and, outside the vehicle, thunder rolled in the hills. No, no no. No!

“Come on, little changeling. It’s not like you are human anymore.” His meaty hands grabbed at her jacket as she twisted and fought. His adult strength won out, and he pulled her outside the cab onto the asphalt after he unlocked the doors, throwing her down on her butt, her hands scraped against the gravel on the side of the road. “Stay down and don’t run. Now get out of that jacket.”

“You think I’m a changeling.” Danielle panted, trembling. “Aren’t you scared?”

The man snorted. “Of a sixteen-year-old foundling? If you were anything, they would have hunted you down the instant your powers emerged.” Unwinding his belt from his pants, he wrapped it around one hand. “All you kids made a dash for the border. They just let you get so far then scoop you up. You may as well enjoy this.” Colin said, kicking off his pants. “No need to die a virgin, am I right?”

He snapped his belt at her, startling her, destroying the last of her control and the trembles roared out like they had at the school when they came at her with the needle.

Dad wasn’t here to pick her out of the rubble, but this time there was no roof to cave in, only a road.

Danielle walked to the edge of the landslide, stepping over the bloody streak where she had pushed the trucker away from her, into his semi, and over the edge.

Her bag was down there, inside the cab, with all her money, all her dad’s money, and the phone numbers she never memorized but dad wouldn’t let her take her phone because he said they could trace it. The trucker likely had food in his living space.

Sighing, Danielle started leveraging herself down the slabs of asphalt. If she wasn’t being hunted before, she would be hunted now. Three dead so far because of her.

(words – first version 117, second version 525, first published 4/25/2023 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

By a Landslide Series
Sixteen years (10/11/2020)
Oopsie (11/8/2020)