characters

The Query Letter

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

As promised, I read about query letters in several sources this week. Here’s what I learned. All in one place.

Note: you can send a query letter in an email -OR- standard letter. Put QUERY in the subject line, if using an email.

Use a professional font. Nothing quirky. No color. No cartoons or pictures. Your writing—and only your writing—should be used to make your query stand out amongst others. 

Include your personal contact information in a header (if using a standard letter) or at the end (if submitting by email).

Create a strong hook and place it in the first sentence of the first paragraph. Its purpose is to get the reader’s attention and inspire them to keep reading. 

This should be followed by a synopsis, or overview of the storyline or main points and key elements of your book. This may include setting, characters, style, and genre.

The synopsis should be followed by the addition of your credentials: List your published works, including publications, websites, short stories, and so on. If you have educational achievements, add those, also—especially if your book and your achievements are related. 

Close your letter with a statement of gratitude for the person taking the time to read your letter. 

A physical letter should have a place for your signature.

Suggestions: Address to a specific agent and use the agent’s name throughout (not: Dear Agent). Use block formatting. Double-space between paragraphs; single space within. Left-justify. 12 point.

Use your real name, even if you publish under a pen name.

Hope this is enough to get you started, but not so much as to be overwhelming! 

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Olympians Do It, Too!

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

I hope you have been watching the Olympics. Besides seeing them compete, I enjoy hearing hundreds of stories about the awesome athletes and their families.

I especially liked a commentary about one of the snowboarders. The reporter said this young lady’s practice was to spend hours a day visualizing herself on the snow, as she executed whatever she would be performing the following day. A video accompanied the story in which I could see this girl, standing at the gate, eyes closed, going through the twists and turns of her upcoming runs in her mind.

Our writing needs to help our readers visualize our setting and our characters—what they look like, how they move, and so on.

And we can only achieve that if we visualize these for ourselves, as we write. A rich vocabulary (or a handy Thesaurus) is essential to make our writing come alive for our reading audience.

Additionally, we must be capable of visualizing our story as it unfolds. From beginning to end, we must continually step back and look at the big picture, asking ourselves if each scene leads us closer and closer to that satisfying end.

Finally, on days your writing is difficult and you wonder if you will ever finish your book, try visualizing it—amazing cover and all—in your hands or on a bookstore shelf. 

Closing my eyes, right now, I am visualizing a sea of writers standing shoulder to shoulder, newly published books held high and smiles on our faces.

Accomplishment feels good, doesn’t it? And, by the way, your covers look awesome!

Four Things to Include in Your Reviews

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

As writers, we are well aware of how necessary reviews are to our success. That’s why it’s important that we don’t just ask for them, but we write them every time we get to THE END.

There are four main things to know about writing reviews: 

  1. Make them short and to the point. Too long or wordy and people won’t read them.
  2. Be honest, but not hurtful. Some people only write reviews for books they like. This doesn’t help the writer to improve and it isn’t helpful to the potential reader when they are looking for an enjoyable book to purchase.
  3. People read fiction, first and foremost, to hear the stories of characters, so be sure to say if you felt the characters were engaging, intriguing, real, etc.
  4. Make your comments genre-specific. If the book you are reviewing is a Romance Novel, give some indication as to whether it actually was romantic, or perhaps erotic. (Yikes!) If it is a Mystery, share whether it had you on the edge of your seat and so on.

Don’t forget to use your own good writing skills. You never know when someone will read your review and “GOOGLE” you!!!

Writing Suspense

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

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Last week’s blog was about writing FANTASY. This week, we turn to Suspense…

As the story unfolds, the main character attempts to evade potential harm.

Suspense is considered the king of genres. It gets the reader’s pulse going and takes  them on the ride of their life as the worry and angst deepen at every turn.

In suspense, the threat must be clear and present throughout the entire story. The villain pursues the hero (although it can be more than one person) and it is up to the hero(s) to figure out who is trying to get to them, why they are after them, and how they can be stopped.

Most suspense writers aim to include five key aspects:

  1.  Mysterious atmosphere with underlying tension
  2.  Varied pacing and numerous twists
  3.  Likable characters
  4.  Life or death situation
  5. Chapters end in cliffhangers to keep the reader turning the pages and moving       from one chapter to the next.

       TIP: Use time constraints. For example, Has four hours to…

Mary Higgins Clark, Brandilyn Collins, Joy Fielding , and Thomas Perry are just a few popular suspense authors.

These books may be helpful for novice writers:  Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot by Jane Cleland and Hallie Ephron; Suspense Thriller by Paul Tomlinson.

Mystery and thriller are genres that are often confused with suspense. (I will talk about them next week).

Put Your Legos to Good Use

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

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I am sure you have seen scale models of subdivisions in offices of new housing developments. These usually depict lots available for building, green belts, water features, even planned schools and businesses.

While writing a chapter in my “upcoming” book last week, I needed to describe, in detail,  the street on which a character lived. Since this is a book in a series, I recalled doing a similar description in an earlier book a couple of years ago.

It would have made my job so much easier if I had actually sketched the street layout, much like a map, and kept it in a file to refer to at a later time.

And, now that time had come.

But, since I didn’t do that, I had to reread that portion of my previous book and draw the neighborhood, including streets, which characters lived where, and the location in which certain scenes took place. 

No, I will not be building a full-scale model of the neighborhood. (I will leave that task to you overachievers.) But I guarantee that I will save it so that I can refer to it when writing future books in the series. 

Models and/or maps are good reminders—as are notes of characters’ descriptions, facts about their lives–even as detailed as ages, eye color, and so on.

The more information you retain in your files NOW, the more time it will save you in the long run.

Stand-Alones, Series, or Both?

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

8271351214_7c6f31f870I know of a guy who wrote a Letter to the Editor. His writing was so good that he was offered a position with the newspaper writing his own column.

He started out writing a letter and found himself doing something much more than what he originally intended.

I relate to that guy. 

I started out to write “stand-alone” books.

However, readers liked my characters. They wanted to read more. I was soon hoodwinked into writing a second book—and now a third.

I’m not complaining, though. I’m glad people want to read more about Marcus, Simon, and the others.

An author has choices when writing a series. 

First choice: build successive books on the previous ones and simply continue the story. In this case, the reader would need to read from Book 1 through the entire series for the progressive story to be understandable.

Second choice: continue with the original characters in Book 1, but be careful to use epilogues and/or prologues—and effective beginning chapters—to make sure important information from previous book(s) is passed along throughout the series. Essentially, books like these can be read as stand-alones.    

Each book can be devoted to a different character, keeping them in the same setting (Ex. On the farm).

Or, each book in the series can focus on the same main character, but in different settings. (Think Gulliver’s Travels).

Or, change the characters, but keep the ongoing theme. (Stories about near-death experiences or angel sightings…)

The possibilities are probably endless. You just have to find that common thread and begin to weave it throughout your series.

In the series I am writing, currently, each book is based on a childhood game, thus the titles Simon Says, Truth or Dare, Tug of War, and so on.

The commonality isn’t just found in the games, but—more importantly—in  the way they make their life choices, the result of those choices, and how each one affects their future.

Surveys tell us that readers latch onto a series or a particular author and will follow them until they become tired or disappointed.

So, writing a series can be an effective way for an author to gain a following—and keep them following—if you give each book your very best effort.

Then—and only then—will they keep coming back for more.

Drafting Can Be Rough

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

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Drafting is the next step in the writing process. Whether you use a computer or a steno pad, whether you write with a pencil or pen, call it a “sloppy copy” or use another form of reference, you cannot escape this step in the writing process.

Using what you’ve accomplished so far in the prewriting process, drafting is the actual writing, chapter by chapter, of your book.

With a few tweaks here and there, all writers vary this stage of writing to end up with what works for them. Whether it is a program, such as Scrivener, or your own version of something else you’ve seen out there, now’s the time to get the old creative juices going. You can use a combination of approaches. After five books, I am still changing mine. 

What I am going to share, now, is how I approach the drafting stage of writing. If it is helpful as a whole, or only in part, use what makes sense according to your writing style, your organizational methods, and so on.

I use my computer at home almost 100% of the time. I found, early on, that using Mac’s “Pages” wasn’t the universally accepted format. You’ll need WORD. You can purchase WORD for Mac from the internet or Apple store, if you, too, own a MAC.

After closing my office door to insure quiet, I consult what I accomplished in my prewriting. I used to use giant Post-it’s of about 18” by 30” or so to keep my timeline,  characters and their descriptions straight. I have recently found it just as effective to use a spiral notebook and list these important details chapter by chapter. Clutter on my walls tended to make me nervous, whereas a simple notebook can be closed and stored in the closet for the next writing day.

Next I write … and write … and write …

I may finish and entire chapter or not, depending on the amount of time I have allotted. But, here is where I differ from most writers. After taking a short break for lunch or even overnight, I re-read my chapter, doing a quick edit of anything that stands out to me. These may be typos, mistakes in point-of-view, changes in scene order, or even sometimes deleting entire sections. These pre-edits serve two purposes: 1) Reading through the chapter gets my head back into the story so that I can continue my writing and 2) Just like the Post-its that previously cluttered my walls, it is a way of reducing what isn’t needed and getting down to story basics. 

(Most writers will tell you to keep writing all the way to the end of the book before going back to tackle any kind of editing. That would be ideal, if I could do it, but I just cannot…sorry, my mind just won’t get going unless everything else is cleared up, first).

Although I might do a little revising in the drafting stage, I find that it is wise to wait to do anything major until I have finished the entire book. Too many things can happen in the course of writing that might seem wise to revise early on; however, lots of difficulties will work themselves out in the course of writing. Save yourself a lot to time and work by sticking to your outline closely. Let your story “simmer” for awhile.

Before closing, I want to mention that I give my book, chapter by chapter, to my critique group. I rely on their comments heavily when editing. If there is something that these other writers do not understand (or like), then I am certain that my readers will not, either.

Next week- revising.

Think About It

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

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One of the things that makes our writing strong is sharing our character’s thoughts with the reader. This is done in two main ways: by indirect and direct thoughts.

Thoughts are simply a character talking to themselves. We show this inner speech by using italics instead of quotation marks.

For example,

Indirect: He thought his friend’s remark was funny.

Direct: Now, that’s funny!

Most narrative writing is in the past tense.

But, characters’ inner thoughts are written in the present tense.

Here is an example:

Indirect:  He refused to give up.  (This comes from the narrator. Past tense- third person.)

Direct: I refuse to give up.  (This thought comes directly from the character. Present tense- first person.)

So, when should you use indirect thoughts and when should you choose to include direct thoughts?

Ask yourself two questions:

1) Does it feel like it’s in third or first person?

2) Does it feel like the character is saying this?

It’s just that simple. 

Or, at least I think so…

The Plot Beneath

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

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I was experiencing plot problems.

I went back to the Prologue and reread my manuscript. Yep, all the way to Chapter 14.

I had to think of something. Rearranging scenes was a possibility to consider. Still…

I went to the internet for help. I read several articles. Could the answer to my difficulties really be as simple as adding a subplot? 

A subplot is a story strand that runs alongside the main plot and supports it. It mirrors the main plot, but is shorter than the main story.

To accomplish the creation of a subplot, the writer must create and separate story and connect it, at two or three points, to the main plot.

The purpose of a subplot isn’t to cause the author additional work. It’s to strengthen, or enhance, the main story. It can make it more exciting, add tension, as well as increase the overall length of the book.

With good planning, creating a subplot is so much easier to do when you are just beginning to write your book. If you wait (like I did) you will find it can be a tedious task of weaving characters in, adding conversation and action, and finding just the right places to interject these things.

Adding a subplot can be done—and it may be worth the time and effort to do so.

Writing Flash Fiction

Posted on by Brenda Poulos

 

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My last blog post talked about Flash Fiction and got us ready to address the “How-To-Write-It.”

So, here we go with what I’ve learned about writing Flash Fiction from a real-life pro, David Gaffney:                                                                                                                                      1. Start your story in the middle of the action. You don’t have time in this very short form to set scenes and build character.

 2.  Don’t use too many characters. Excess names and places eat up your word count.

 3. Make sure the ending isn’t at the end. (What?) Give almost all of the information in the first few lines, using the next few paragraphs to take the reader on a journey beneath the surface. This will help you avoid stories with punch-line- type endings. 

4. Make your title short and sweet. Give it punch.

5. Make your last line ring. Remember, it’s not the ending. – but it should make the reader continue to think about the ideas in the story and speculate about what it all meant.

6. Write long, then whittle your story down to the essentials. When you edit, don’t decrease the impact of the story. Choose your words carefully and sparingly. Make each one count!

Next week’s blog post: Flash Fiction Tips.