Category: Magical Words

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words March 6, 2013

Erin Penn

Figure Lying Down Reading Book Stock Art

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To Review or Not To Review

Happy holidays. What is on your wish list?

Mine is Books. Lots and lots of books.

The question is what do you do after you read them? Most writers and editors, if you are also in the business, will say put them on your shelf and move on. But writers NEED reviews; Amazon algorithms to sell their products are run on reviews. Other distributors use similar means of deciding what to advertise. If you don’t write a review for the book you love, you doing a disservice to the author and other readers.

And if you provide a good review on the good books, is it honest to avoid creating reviews on the bad books? What is the author “returns the favor” by giving you a bad review too? In the small business of publishing, the author can easily find out who you are.

Faith Hunter (and lots of commentators) on Magical Words provides the “Dos and Don’ts of Reviewing”. You should definitely read the comment section. Again the link is here: http://www.magicalwords.net/faith-hunter/dos-and-donts-of-reviewing/

As for me, a couple years ago I started requiring myself to review every book I completed. I used the technique to learn what I liked about books, try to pinpoint the problems with books, and figure out where the errors started from (writing, editing, etc). I hoped it would make me a better writer. You can find my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and I copied some of the best to the blog in 2016 and think I will continue the practice in 2017.

WRITING EXERCISE: Go back to one of your old stories, at least five years old if possible, and write a review about it based on you reading it today.

READING EXERCISE: Write a review for the most recent book you finished reading.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words June 25, 2012

Erin Penn

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Image courtesy of DigitalArt at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Helpful Advice in Editing

If everything is going as I hope it will (I am writing this in June), I am elbows deep in NaNo again. I wanted all the blog postings prepped so I can concentrate on writing, therefore I went through the Magical Words archives. There I ran across Carrie Ryan’s obscurely titled post “Not that … but that”.

It’s on editing. The very thing I am trying really hard not to do. It’s a NaNo no-no during November…and my biggest weakness to meet the word counts.

When editing others, I’ve made a lot of tough calls. Should I provide another possible word or just tell the author to find a new word? Do I say information seems to be missing or do specifically state what I want added? If there is a hole, do I point out the hole (example: primary love interest is passive) or provide the author the shovel to fix the hole (example: add another love interest to fight)? In one case, I may be stepping on the author’s voice and creativity, and, in the other case, I work with a lot of new authors who are having enough headaches being edited I find giving vague solutions is more of a problem than a help. Should I provide both then – but editing is always on a tight schedule, most of the time I can only write one line and move on.

I love the “a-ha” moment Ms. Ryan shares on her first editing feedback. The editor tells her to add something which ended up sounding really strange to her, until she asked the editor “What problem does <making this change> fix?” Once she knew what the problem was, she was able to fix the issue her own way.

If you attend critique groups as a participant, receive editing feedback, or review beta reads, (as reader, editor, or writer) I highly recommend this blog. Again the link is here: http://www.magicalwords.net/carrie-ryan/not-that-but-that/

Second takeaway from the blog – don’t be afraid to ask for clarification. Stand up for yourself. That is not to say fight your editor, but remember to be a participant in the partnership to make your book better.

And if you are participating in NaNo – good luck!

WRITING EXERCISE: Specifically approach someone you trust to be honest and ask them to beta read, critique, or edit something you wrote (at least 500 words and no more than 3,000), letting them know you are using this for practice of the editing process. After taking a day or two to look over their responses and get over the grief stage (see blog here on critique grief), practice asking for clarification without confrontation. Once completing the clarification portion, ask for feedback from your reviewer on how you did.

READING EXERCISE: Read a short story and write a critique or edit the story. Set it aside for two days. Come back and now pretend to be the author. Where do you think the author would like clarification on your critique.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words November 27, 2012

Erin Penn

Child Coloring Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of Tuomas_Lehtinen at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Perfection Myth

“I have to get this right.” How many times you have told yourself this as you revise your manuscript the 15th hundredth time? And we are just talking about the first page. You still haven’t written the second page.

Lucienne Diver gives some excellent advice on Magical Words of “Giving up on Perfect”.

Me. I like things right. A lot.

Learning having a thing “good enough to be right” does not mean “perfection” is still an ongoing lesson for me to master. As in perfect. Sigh.

At some point during our childhood we learn to color only inside the lines. Maybe Ms. Diver’s words can help you learn this lesson a bit faster than my long-time struggle. Link here: http://www.magicalwords.net/lucienne-diver/giving-up-on-perfect/

Other Cool Blogs: SFWA April 19, 2016

Erin Penn

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Image Courtesy of Toa55 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Synopsis

I admit it. I’ve been avoiding posting anything on the subject of Synopsis creation. I think partially from the subconscious avoidance of the subject. But also because I haven’t found a good set of instructions I identified with. Sure, taking my outline (since I am a pantser I got outlines galore) and turning it into a couple pages of prose seems straight forward but it really doesn’t explain why I am doing it, how I am doing it. It doesn’t explain the ART.

For a  Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) post, Curtis C. Chen masters the dilemma by comparing the process of paring a novel down to a synopsis to the cooking process of reducing a soup to gravy in “Special Synopsis Sauce“. This is exactly what I have been looking for. I actually “get” his explanation.

You can find the full recipe here: http://www.sfwa.org/2016/04/special-synopsis-sauce/

Another “Write-by-number” recipe has been created by Kalayna and posted at the Magical Word website on 5/11/2011 here: http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/write-by-number-synopsis-recipe/

WRITING EXERCISE: For your present WIP, write a three-paragraph synopsis (if a novel) or three-sentence synopsis (if a short story). Remember this is different from an elevator pitch where you are selling your product; this is the synopsis to show an agent or publisher who is already interested in the product. … Next the hard part, … show it to someone and ask if it could be shorter or if it needs to be more active.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words May 1, 2012

Erin Penn
Mannequin Head Stock PhotoImage Courtesy of siraphat FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Lazy Writing

Another treasure from the Magical Words trove, this time written by Carrie Ryan, a blog entry she entitled” The Difference between faux and real mysteries”. What struck me once she defined faux and real mysteries, is faux mysteries are just lazy writing. Basically I, as the lazy writer, don’t want to take the time to craft tension and suspense into the plot so I am just going to just not tell the reader the information needed until later.

What do you think? Does Ms. Ryan’s definition of a faux mystery hit home to you? It defined something I knew deep down I didn’t like, but never put my finger on. An epiphany or a whatever?

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene (500 words or less) with a faux mystery as defined by Ms. Ryan. Rewrite the scene this time without the faux mystery; how does the tension change?

READING EXERCISE: Think about a previous Read which had a faux mystery. Did it bother you? Was it necessary for the tension in the book to keep you reading or could the Reveal have happened sooner?

(PS I love the comments where one of the blog readers says she wrote a story where the POV character is deliberately not thinking about something very important and asks the MagicalWords hive mind what they thought. One response, two sentence change later, and the faux mystery goes away. Cool comment exchange from Laura.)