Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday. How are you celebrating? Are you reading a great book? More importantly, are you writing something fabulous?
I've got a stack of books waiting to be read and I'm polishing up the last of the HAUNTED WOMEN OF THE APPALACHIANS stories. Will the edits never end? Maybe the Hemmingway method wasn't such a great idea after all. (I jest.)
Let me know your plans in the comments section, and check in next week when I share my birthday gift to myself: Six Terrifying Things I'll Try in 2016.
A couple of days ago, I read an NPR article about the word girl in book titles. The article discussed how publishers promote books by comparing them to other books. While they were talking about the title, comparing books is a tactic authors should consider using when shopping their books around to agents and publishers.
Jane Friedman, Co-Founder and Editor at The Hot Sheet, Columnist at Publishers Weekly and Instructor, Media Studies at University of Virginia, agrees when it comes to comparing your books to other authors in a query letter, "This can be helpful as long as you do it tastefully, and without self-aggrandizement. It’s usually best to compare the work in terms of style, voice, or theme, rather than in terms of sales, success, or quality."
As you can see, the list covers a wide range of genres including, but certainly not limited to, cozy mystery, horror, historical fiction, and young adult. The use of 'girl' in the title is hardly a new trend (Pioneer Girl, anyone?), so why does it work?
"I have talked to other crime writers that have been urged by various professional people in their life to put the world girl in their title," Crime novelist Megan Abbott said in the NPR interview. She went on to say the use of 'girl' in the title isn't about the content, but instead is a kind of shorthand letting others know what to expect.
Maybe it's because, as Cyndi Lauper said, Girls Just Want to Have Fun?
Over the weekend I revamped one of the stories in my largely unpublished short story collection, Haunted Women of the Appalachians, which is still in an editing loop the size of the High Roller Ferris Wheel in Las Vegas, for the WV Writers annual writing contest. The NPR title has me rethinking the story's title. Maybe I should add "girl" to it and see what happens.
What do you think? I'd love to hear your theories in the comments section, below.
Every writer I know wants to be a better writer. Who wouldn't want to write perfectly polished first drafts that go straight from manuscript form to the New York Times bestseller list? It would save a lot of time and heartache.
Unfortunately that is not the case. Whether you're a seasoned pro with a bookshelf of bestsellers or a budding author struggling to finish your inaugural first draft, there is still room for improvement because, like people, our language is always changing.
You don't have to go back to college or attend an online class to improve your writing. Achieving this is rather easy, but it takes discipline and a willingness to follow through. Here are some easy ways to improve your writing, regardless of your skill level.
1. Own Your Style - Grammar and spelling are the two things readers nitpick the most when reading your work. Some contemporary literary types will tell you it's okay to start a sentence with the word "and" or "but" and end a sentence with a preposition such as "for" or "at".
While the narrator in my Treasure Pines series might state something like "And for the most part, it was true.", you will never, ever hear, "But she wasn't sure where she put it at." The only time you should use these things in your novel is in dialogue.
2. Ditch the Passive Voice - Passive voice weakens literary writing. (It also fills it with zombies.) While passive voice is more accepted in conversational writing, like dialogue or blog posts, try to keep it out of your book. A lot of people don't know when they're using passive voice, but this video helps you learn how to recognize it. Don't let the zombies win!
3. Read - The best writers are also readers. Reading helps you know what you want in your own writing. More importantly, it helps you know what you want to avoid.
4. Join a Writing Group - Look for a group on a site like Meetup or search on your social media network of choice. Put the word out there that you're looking for other writers. You could even start your own group. Trust me. If you build a writing group, writers will join.
5. Do You Plot or Pants? - During a Facebook conversation with Chris Bohjalian, New York Times bestselling author of Midwives, I asked him about his outline process. He said he doesn't use one. He's a total "pantser", writing by the seat of his pants from Page 1 until The End. It's okay to be a pantser and for some, like Chris Bohjalian, it works great.
Other authors prefer to outline. I'm one of these people. While I've pants'ed every short story I've ever written (and don't see that changing), I'm a die hard plotter when it comes to writing anything over a couple of thousand words. J. K. Rowling is also a plotter.
If you're a die-hard plotter, change things up and try pantsing. And if you're a pantser, then try a loose outline, such as a mind map or a timeline. You don't have to stick with it, but trying something new can take your writing to the next level.
6. Find an Editor - Finish your first draft and put it through a site like After the Deadline to get initial feedback on your writing. Accept that your first draft is probably 35% total crap that's never going to make it to the final version that goes to print, and find yourself an editor. HAUNTED WOMEN OF THE APPALACHIANS would never have reached the beta reading stage without the help of Sheila from Sage Editing.
7. Ditch Your Laptop - Silence your phone. Go somewhere with horrible cell service and no WiFi. Take a notebook and a couple of ink pens, and write. Write whatever pops into your head. Make lists. Write about what you see, hear, and smell. You'll be surprised at what detail you can add to your writing by doing this. As much as I love my laptop, this is one of my favorite things to do.
What other methods to improve your writing would you add to this list? Is there any you disagree with? I'd love to hear what you have to say in the comments!
You don't have to be a writer to think, "Someday I'd like to...." Well stop putting it off! There's no time like the New Year to make resolutions that you have a chance to keep.
Stop smoking? Lose weight? Find your soul mate? Pfft. If you want a real challenge, check out my Top 5 Resolutions for Writers in 2016.
1. Write a book. I don't mean start writing a book. Anyone can start. Write a full book from start to finish. NaNoWriMo is a great place to start. Don't wait for November. They have camps in both April and July that can help you kick off your next novel.
2. Join a writing group. This will help a lot with the first resolution in this list. My writing group not only helps me stay on track with my writing goals, but they also challenge me to write outside my comfort zone which improves my writing. Check on sites like Meetup, or if all else fails start your own.
3. Attend a conference. If possible, attend with members of your writing group. You will learn a lot and it will give you something to bond over at future meetings. You will also get the opportunity to network with other people (both authors and readers) in the writing industry. Two of my favorites are the MAFWI conference and Bouchercon, which is geared toward the mystery genre.
4. Build your social networking platform. If you're not ready to go public with a Facebook author page, then consider building up your Twitter followers. Develop a routine of following 10 new authors or publishers per day. If 10% of the these people follow you back, then by this time next year you'll have over 350 new followers! And when you are ready to develop your Facebook account, then you can link it so your posts also show up on Twitter.
5. Hire an editor. It's the best thing I ever could have done and my first book, a collection of short stories titled HAUNTED WOMEN OF THE APPALACHIANS is so much better for it. What you pay an editor is an investment. Learn more about my editor, Sheila Haab, on her website.
Here's to a New Year filled with lots of literary progress!
What are your writing resolutions for 2016? I'd love to hear about them in the comments section!
Where do you get the ideas for your books?
It's something people ask writers all the time. The answers, in its most simplest form, is anywhere and everywhere. Most of the time ideas happen when we are not even looking for them.
From Mystery Lights to Short Story Collection
For example, on an early fall morning in 2013, I scrolled through my emails while waiting for my husband. He was undergoing physical therapy for a shoulder injury that ultimately ended his firefighter career.
One of those emails was a newsletter from The Moonlit Road, a website that tells "ghost stories, folktales, myths and legends from the dark backroads of the American South." This particular newsletter featured a story about the Brown Mountain Lights which led to this train of thought:
My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Brown.
Those Browns hailed from North Carolina.
What if this mountain was named for someone in that family?
What if the lights are ghost-related?
What if I wrote about it?
What if I wrote a story for each state in the Appalachians?
Sometimes the inspiration is much more literal, which is what happened to me just a couple of months ago. I was in Baltimore, Maryland to adopt a rescued gecko when I pulled over at a fast food restaurant to double check my GPS.
I noticed a zucchini vine trailing out from beneath the fence separating the parking lot from the residents next door. This sent the author neurons in my brain into overdrive. I wondered:
Who owns the zucchini who grow on the opposite side of the fence?
Is it the fast food company, because the gourds are on their property?
Is it the private residence, since the vine originated on their property?
What if someone entered a wayward zucchini in a contest and won?
What if the property owner lost the same contest because of it?
What if the deviant entrant wound up murdered as a result?
The next thing I knew, I was plotting out my next book: ONE SQUASHED VICTORY. It's my 2015 NaNoWriMo attempt. Follow Becky Muth Author Page on Facebook so you can keep keep up with my progress during the entire month of November.
If you're a reader, then I'm happy to answer your questions. And if you're a writer, then I'd love to hear where you find inspiration.
In the meantime check out this video about the Brown Mountain lights during a National Geographic shoot. Creepy isn't it?
