Character Sketches

One skill I find very difficult is describing characters. Especially minor characters who grab center stage for a very brief time. A waitress, for example, who occupies the main character in a brief conversation or the next door neighbor who pops in and out of chapters but never sticks around longer than a paragraph or so.

Part of the challenge, I think, is balance. A writer wants to offer enough of a description so that the reader has a basic picture of who this character is and what she's like. But at the same time, the description shouldn't clutter up the narrative with a lot of unnecessary details. The last thing a writer wants is for his readers to silently say, "Enough already! I've got the picture."

To help myself improve this skill, I've started doing what I think of as 'word caricatures' of people. I'm sure you've all seen caricaturists: artists who set up shop at carnivals and shopping malls and draw cartoonish likenesses of their customers. They pick out a few distinguishing details of their subjects and then drawing them at lightening speed. (My husband and I once had one done at a bar and the result was funny yet amazingly recognizable.)

I work on my caricatures as I'm waiting in line in the grocery store or the bank or wherever. I watch the other people and attempt to mentally describe one or two specific details that set them apart from the crowd. (Please note, that I never intend to be cruel or judgmental. I simply try to capture what I see.)

For example, last week, while I was helping out in my daughter's elementary school, I saw two little girls with long-sleeved black shirts. Both girls had long, gray streaks of dried mucus on their sleeves where they had used their shirts as tissues to wipe their runny noses. This, I think, is a very arresting detail that would work well to implant a minor character in the reader's mind.

Another example came today when I was at the gas station. The elderly man behind me in line walked with a cane. The attendant was a teenager with jeans that sagged well below the waistband of his boxers. When the elderly man stepped up to the window to pay for his gas, the teenager grinned widely and said, "Hey, Mr. X. How's my yo' boy?"

Again, these are very brief examples of people, but brevity is what's needed. You don't want to flood your readers with a lot of details; you want to keep them focused. But because minor characters often play important parts in the narrative, they deserve some sparkle, too.

News from the Slushpile Front

Here's one editor's take on slushpile at Mundania LLC.

The Word Economy

Whenever I look at short story markets, I tend to cringe at their limits on word count. I am seldom able to keep my stories under 5,500 words; even 6k can seem a bit snug. Yet many of the short markets demand word counts of 4k and less and, of course, in the flash fiction

But, over the years, I've come to see that learning to write within these limits can be a very important exercise. Like a pianist practicing scales, writing shorter fiction makes a writer more disciplined. It makes him pay attention to what words he uses and how those words are used. Novel writers, it seems to me, can be too proliferate with their words; they're like millionaires handing out pennies. But we short story writers need to be smarter with our language. We need to dole it out carefully, paying attention to how it's spent.

So how is that done?

One major waste of words is the infodump. Sometimes called 'backstory', an infodump occurs whenever a narrator gives a lengthy account of everything he thinks the reader needs to know. This might be the history of a certain place or the background of a character's love life or even a detailed description of a certain activity. These kinds of things will bog down the plot like a heavy backpack will slow down a runner. In a short story, you want your plot to fly!

A skillful writer doesn't need to rely on infodumps. Instead, he can weave important bits of information seamlessly into a story. A paragraph on Susan's benighted lovelife can be condensed into a sentence that simply says, "Susan had never been lucky in love" or "Susan knew that, just like her other relationships, this one was doomed as well."

Using well-chosen words and combinations of words can also bring down a word count. Instead of writing, "The boy ran very quickly up the hill", why not try, "The boy sprinted uphill." Sprinted, of course, is much more incisive than ran very quickly. Lessening a word count by a two might not seem like a lot, but not only will several of these changes bring the overall number of words down, using more precise words will strengthen your writing.

Almost always, when I go back to edit a story I've written months earlier, I find that I need to trim the fat. If a piece is 7,000 words, I try to bring it down to 6,500 or 6,000. If a story is 6,000, I'll back it up to 5,500 or fewer. The important part of writing fiction (any fiction) is the impact of your words, not the number of them. After all, the shortest verse in the Christian Bible, "Jesus wept", is perhaps the most poignant.

Recently, Jason Sanford in the online zine, The Fix, also commented noted how writing short stories can discipline a writer. Short story writers, he said, "learn to balance description, narrative, plot, characterization, and insight against the need for the story to both make sense and be beautifully told. To do otherwise is to guarantee that a short story will fail."

Novel writers may have the ability to use words more freely than the short story writer. But many times, just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should.
markets, the restrictions are even greater.

Mrs. Quent and the Magicians

Sometimes I worry that good storytelling is dead.

So often, I find that gimmicks have replaced well-crafted plots, and that characters all display the bland plasticity of Ken and Barbie Doll. But then I read Galen Beckett's wonderful novel, The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.

Although it takes place in an alternate world, Mrs. Quent is written with a Victorian flourish. Characters such as Ivy, Mr. Rafferdy, and Mr. Quent might well have stepped directly from the pages of a Bronte novel. The language and dialogue are delightful, full of those sensibilities that made readers like myself fall in love with Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Not that this book is simply a magical retelling of those novels. No, Mrs. Quent is definitely its own story set in its own peculiar world. The plot is intricate, weaving together three narratives from three main characters. And though the novel's social structure is reminiscent of Victorian England, Altania (the country in which the novel takes place) is as unique as Narnia.

Although the book doesn't shy away from the grimmer aspects of its plot, it manages to remain genteel throughout. For someone like me who does not enjoy reading about brutality and torture, Mrs. Quent offers a refreshing change. The book is engrossing enough for an adult to read, but mild enough for a preteen to enjoy.

If I have any quibbles with this novel, it is with its pacing. The book is divided into thirds with the first and final sections written in third person. The middle portion, written as a letter from the main character, Ivy, to her mentally ill father is interesting enough, but it chops up the narrative so much that the impact of the book's final chapters is significantly lessened. (Think of reading the first half of Sense and Sensibility, then switching to the Turn of the Screw, and finally finishing up the Austen novel.)

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent is one of those wonderful novels in which the reader can plunge herself into a whole new world and befriend the characters she finds there. I am rarely an on-the-edge-of-my-seat kind of reader, but I couldn't put this book down.

Yes, Mrs. Quent harks back to the days of the Victorian novel, and I have a feeling that - somewhere - the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen are smiling.

And I'm smiling, too.

Second Person

One day, my twelve-year-old son told me that his junior high English teacher had been explaining the difference between first person and third person points of view. When my son asked about second person, she said that there was no such thing (much to his outrage).

Yes, the rumors are true...there is a second person voice.

It reads something like this:

You opened the refrigerator and saw that your roommate had once again drunk all of your beer. Outraged, you pounded on his bedroom door, demanding an explanation. He kept his eyes on the video game he was playing and refused to answer. You stormed away, hating him.

Sounds weird, doesn't it? But while this type of writing defies convention, there are some writers who use it. One notable example is A Prayer for the Dying by Stuart O'Nan. This book is not only written in second person, it is also written in present tense which is doubly strange. Although I believe that this voice would be difficult to tolerate in a long work, A Prayer for the Dying is short. Additionally, the second-person present tense gives the story a powerful impact that it might not otherwise have had. If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. (Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney is another example. I have yet to read that one, though.)

In the book Story Matters by Margaret-love Denman and Barbara Shoup, second person POV is also discussed. Story Matters, an outstanding resource for writers, quotes writer Pam Houston who says, "[A second-person] point of view is always about a 'narrator who's ashamed of herself, afraid to say I'." Story Matters goes on to say, "Using the second person washes a layer of shame over the story without the narrator ever having to admit it."

After reading that, I decided to try writing a story from the second-person POV. My story, The Scarlet Wristband, involved a young, teen aged boy who had to choose between telling the truth and saving his mother. Although the piece was successfully published in All Possible Worlds, when it was reviewed, my use of the second-person POV was criticized because it placed too much distance between the reader.

Personally, I enjoy reading the second-person POV (in small amounts). I think it can lend some interesting angles to a narrative. But it can also fail miserably. Like so many unique narrative structures (such as diary entries), however, second-person POV is another tool in the writer's kit.

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion

My story, Family Tree, is now available online at Afterburn SF. I'm so excited!

Have a happy Easter, everyone!

Who's Your Narrator?

Many years ago, I had a professor ask me this question. At the time, I had no idea what he meant. Who's my narrator? Sure, I understood that story or novel written in first person had a narrator. But what about one written in third person?

Consider the following example:

I didn't wasn't planning to steal anything when I went into the store. But when I stood in the checkout line, my hand darted out of my pocket, and my fingers closed around a pack of gum. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, my hand was safely back in my pocket again, the gum tucked away like it had a right to be there. And when the checkout girl didn't notice, I understood that this was a game. Just like my mother had always said.

This bit was written in first person (that is, from the point of view of the shoplifter). Here, the narrator is easy to identify. Who's telling the story? The woman, of course. But take a look at this example:

Carol wasn't planning on stealing anything when she went into the store. But when she stood in the checkout line, her hand darted out ofher pocket, and her fingers closed around a pack of gum. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, her hand was safely back in her pocket again, the gum tucked away like it had a right to be there. And when the checkout girl didn't notice, Carol understood that this was a game. Just like her mother had always said.

This was written in third person. So who is telling the story? Who is making the reader understand that Carol wasn't consciously thinking of shoplifting? Who is giving that little glimpse into Carol's mind when she thinks of this as a game? Again, it's the narrator.

Even if your story is not written in first person, there is a narrator. There is that invisible person who is describing the scene, giving insight into the characters' minds, and putting a spin on the entire story.

Yes, a spin. In the previous bit, the narrator might have added some incendiary comment ("Just like her mother, the thief, had always said.") Or perhaps some words to make Carol a more sympathetic person ("Carol understood this was a game. And, after what she'd gone through, who could blame her?")

The narrator decides what will be said. She (or he) will determine what details the reader is meant to notice. She will be the one who looks into the character's minds and records what he sees. In any story, understanding your narrator is extremely important.

A few years ago, long after I first heard about the narrator, I had the pleasure of hearing a lecture by children's author, Gary Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt said that he always asks his students to consider their narrator when they begin to write. It was his belief that, until a writer knows who the narrator is, the book will lack focus. I have to agree with him; understanding your narrator is as important as understanding your characters.

Don't Set Your Stories in the Kitchen

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from a forum post written by an editor of a small magazine. She was discussing her slush pile and said that if she had to read another story that took place in a kitchen, she just might have to tear her hair out. "Do writers know how many stories begin in kitchens?" she asked, clearly annoyed. "And do those writers realize how boring that is?" (I truly wish I knew who said this because I 'd love to give her credit for the terrific insight; however, I don't even remember which forum it was.)

After reading that post, I went through all of my stories and - much to my chagrin - 90% of them took place in kitchens. Or living rooms. Or they began in a bedroom with the main character waking up (which, according to this same forum post, was even worse than beginning a story in a kitchen).

So what's wrong with writing about a kitchen. After all, interesting things can happen in a kitchen, can't they? Well, yes and no. Consider the following scenario:

Greg and Kate are having an arguement. They've been married for a year, but Greg thinks that the shine has already come off their relationship because Kate is so focused on her goal to have a baby that she's scheduled thier love making, thus taking all the fun and sponteniety out of their intimacy.

Okay, now take this scenario and put it into one of the following settings:

a) a 50th anniversary party for Greg's parents which is being held in an exclusive country club

b) a kitchen

Which of the settings makes the story more interesting?

If you are writing this argument in a kitchen in which the only two characters present are Greg and Kate, you are missing some opportunities to create tension. At the party, Greg and Kate are in a public place. Now their flaring tempers are put under even more pressure because they will probably want to remain civil to one another in order to not embarrass the family or themselves. Maybe one or both of them has been drinking too much. Maybe they have begun to argue in the cloakroom only to be interrupted by great aunt Myrtle or cousin Fred...

So you see, just by changing the setting, you are able to rachet the tension up and make the argument much more interesting.

I'm sad to say that, many times, I still opt for the safety of a kitchen or living room setting. I think this is because I am a lazy writer at heart. Kitchens are much easier to write about than restaurants. The kitchen is a very confined space; you don't have to think about the placement of the doors and tables or worry about describing the other customers or the waitstaff. It's much easier to write about a kitchen. But it is, as the editor rightly noted, it is also much more boring.

New Look

I've already changed my layout once this year, but apprently that layout wasn't allowing anyone to post comments. And I do love comments! So welcome to the new blog.

The Red Room

The Internet never seems to run out of places to explore!

My newest discovery is called the Red Room. Have you heard of it? It's a place for readers and writers to connect with eachother. Kind of a like a literary FaceBook.

Anyone can join and post a profile. Writers who have not self-published are welcome to become Red Room authors. Becoming a Red Room author allows you to create an author page listing your works. Additionally, the Red Room offers blog space, places to write book reviews, and snippets of news from Publisher's Weekly.

The authors posting at the Red Room range from the extremely famous, such as Maya Angelou and John Stewart, to the extremely obscure (uh, I guess that would be me!). And every kind of genre imaginable is represented: romance, graphic novels, Manga, fantasy, children's, Asian-American studies...just to name a few.

If you haven't visited the Red Room, I advise checking it out. And if you go, stop by and say 'hi'! My page is located here.

Speech Tags

Speech tags are those bits of description attached to dialogue. For example:

"You underestimate me, Paul," Sarah said, lifting her chin.

or

As Anne Marie ran down the stairs, she looked over her shoulder and shouted, "You can't catch me!"

Once you begin to notice speech tags when you read, you'll never stop. They're everywhere. Sometimes, the speech tag is an adverb that is used to describe how a character actually sounds when she says something:

"You underestimate me, Paul," Sarah said loftily.

These adverbs (generally, words ending in -ly) can become quite silly if used too often. In fact, there is even a term for them: Tom Swifty. A 'Tom Swifty' is a pun, such as:

"I'm on fire," he said hotly.

or

"Anyone can do that," she said easily.

Using too many speech tags can make your writing appear clumsy or childish. Your characters should be able to express themselves with their actions rather than rely on you, the author, to tell the readers what is going on. For example:

Andrew frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. "It's not fair," he said.

is better than:

"It's not fair," Andrew said huffily.

Another way to correct speech tags is to turn them into independent sentences of their own. For example:

"I hate you," Gwynneth said and covered her face with her hands.

Change this to:

"I hate you," Gwynneth said. She covered her face with her hands.

Some writers will even go so far as to say that a writer should never use speech tags other than 'said' when writing. While I think that 90% of speech tags can be effectively written out of a dialogue, I do think that an occasional one is fine. Stephen King is one author who, in his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft said that speech tags should be eliminated, yet, if you read his work, you will see that he still uses them. I would suggest that if you see that your writing has more than one speech tag per page (other than a simple, 'said'), you need to do some editing.

A final thing to notice about speech tags is that, other than said, there are a few words that be used when your characters give voice. For example:

"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"I'm sorry," she shouted.
"I'm sorry," she admitted.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

Please notice that 'smiled' is not among these words! Someone cannot smile something. She can smile and say something, but she cannot just smile it.

E-Piracy

Now that e-books are becoming more and more popular, writers face a new concern: e-piracy.

This evening, NPR's "All Things Considered" aired a story about DRM (digital rights management) technology, comparing what is going on now to what has happened in the world of music. A few years ago, websites like Napster allowed users to download music for free. Is the world of e-books doomed to follow in the same footsteps? Will pirated e-books become as easily available as bootlegged copies of "Paint it Black" by the Stones?

I have to wonder if these concerns are really valid. After all, free fiction is already available in abundance. Websites such as Afterburn SF and Aberrant Dreams already offer quality stories and poetry for free. Yard sales, used book sales, and church rummage sales are all sources for cheap fiction. Friends and relatives trade books like kids trade baseball cards. And libraries, the worst 'offenders', are a government-subsidized way for readers to read books for free.

For myself, I've bought books by authors after taking a book of theirs out of the library just like I've purchased CD's after listening to a formerly unknown artist's song on Slacker. Sometimes, getting something for free can lead to name recognition and more sales.

I'm not alone in thinking this way. In the NPR story, author Naomi Novik stated, "The biggest danger to most authors, to most storytellers, is not that somebody is going to steal your work and pass it along — it is that nobody is ever going to see your work." I have to agree.

In my opinion, the worst crime that one can commit is not to get something for nothing, but to claim an author's work as his own. That, my friends, is the true crime. One I hope none of us ever has to deal with.

Why Editors Don't Give Detailed Rejections

Note: the following post was written by the very talented Skyla Dawn Cameron and originally appeared on The Mundania Press Blog. Ms. Cameron has written several novels and is the senior editor at Mundania Press, LLC.

Whenever I send out a batch of rejection letters, I inevitably get a "Why?" response back from at least one author.

I completely understand why. Authors put a lot into their work. They wait and wait and wait for a response. And then it comes...and it's a mere form letter.

We all (well, probably not all, but many of us) want to improve our writing. Feedback is wonderful. So why did this editor not tell you what's wrong with your book? It couldn't take more than a few minutes, right?

Here is the reality:

1. You're not the only author in slush. There are, literally, hundreds of novels being evaluated. I *don't* have time to give everyone a detailed rejection letter.

2. Rejection letters aren't sent immediately after a book has been rejected. For Mundania, readers turn in their slush decisions at different times.* I wait a week or so and send off ten to twenty letters at a time. This means that I don't immediately remember the reasons why the book was rejected, and I don't have the time to look it up for every letter.

3. Sometimes (a lot of the time?) a book really, truly is bad. If I told the author exactly what the editorial panel thought of the book...it would not go over well, and with good reason. I don't want to be cruel with anyone, therefore a form letter rejection is the kindest thing I often can give.

4. Feedback used to be given in the past (when the company was smaller), and nine times out of ten, authors sent back angry emails about how the editor was stupid and didn't know anything. That really discourage the practice.

It's *not* a vast conspiracy. I know a lot of people like to think this...the book is actually good, but the evil editors are trying to keep people down by being the gateway to publication. Um, no. But publishers act as a filter, and that's a good thing. If a book is rejected, it's not because we're trying to keep new authors out--often it's because either the book just isn't good, it doesn't fit with the catalogue, or it's good but just not good enough. But that's a whole other rant...

All this being said, I do, occasionally, send back a bit of feedback. Sometimes we want to see the book rewritten/tweaked a bit. Other times we just didn't feel the genre fits, but would love to see future works. If you get that kind of feedback from an editor (not necessarily me, but anyone), please try not to snark back. A personalized rejection letter is gold in this business. It's something to be really proud of.

Finally, if you ever, ever feel compelled to write back to an editor who rejected your work, *please* do nothing but thank them politely. Burning bridges = future queryfail, kids.

(I'm bringing this up because my readers are whittling through September/October slush right now and I'll be sending out the final letters *hopefully* by the end of this month. Everyone will be notified with either a rejection letter, or a full read notice.)

*If you're wondering why I don't send rejections immediately, it's basically because slush isn't my only responsibility, and therefore isn't my priority. Dealing with already contracted authors/books is. Another harsh reality I've mentioned before.

Back it Up

Always keep an extra copy of your work. Always.

You would think that this piece of advice is so obvious that it needn't even be mentioned; however, I have to admit that I have often neglected to do this.

A few years ago, I received a long-awaited letter from a publisher that I had queried asking for a complete manuscript. Of course, I was ecstatic and wanted to send the novel back to them as quickly as possible. When I went to print the pages, however, I couldn't find the final two chapters. Panicked, I searched the hard-drive of my computer, the disks that I'd saved to (okay, it was more than a few years ago!), and even the hard copies that I'd printed off earlier. Nothing. So I had to scramble to reconstruct the final pages of the book. Because a year had elapsed since the initial query and the request for the complete manuscript, I had forgotten much of what I had originally written, and I had to improvise. That is a week I hope that I never have to relive!

I wish I could say that was my only experience with not properly backing up my work, but it wasn't. I've made the same mistake again (with the same results!) But I'm hoping that you learn from my mistakes. Back up frequently.

Backing up data can be deceptively simple. After all, what's easier than plugging a junk drive into your computer and then dragging the files from your desktop onto the junk drive? And yet, this is how mistakes get made. Replacing one file with another of the same name is a sure-fire way to get yourself into trouble. Not only may you unwittingly erase the file you intended to save but, more commonly, you will end up deleting your writing history. That is, you erase the trail of edits that you've made from your original story to your current document.

For example...
Let's say that you are working on the story, "Mary in the Snow". On Monday, you write three pages. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you write nothing. Then the next five days, you work some more on your story, changing the introduction, the names of the characters, and so forth. Now another week elapses, and you're having second thoughts. Should you have made the changes to the characters' names? Should you have changed the introduction? If you've simply saved one copy of the story over and over again, you can't go back to read what you initially wrote. That information is lost.

My recommendation is to save the story each time you work on it, using a different name to mark your progress. For example, "MarySnow_3-21-09" and "MarySnow_3-22-09" and so forth. This way, if you want to look back at something you wrote, you can easily do so.

The downside to this is that it takes up a lot of space on your hard drive (or junk drive). But, unless you are 100% confident that you will never be needing those earlier pieces, backing up in this fashion is the best way to go.

Learn from my mistakes! Back up your work. Use a junk drive to keep your files and keep a second junk drive in a secure location (I have a fire-proof safe that I use). Sound paranoid? It just might be. But isn't it worth keeping all of those hours worth of work safe?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back up my files.

Writing Contests

Back when I was first beginning to write, I entered a short story contest sponsored by The Writer magazine. I paid the fee, mailed my story, and waited for my prize. Yes, I was just that green and that vain to think that my work would actually win. Needless to say, it didn't. The story, I now realize, was terrible in the way that only first stories can be; however, since that time, I've never entered another contest.

But I have been curious about them. Many times, after reading the bio of an author who has won a prize, I've wondered if I should enter a contest again. Certainly the credentials of winning a contest gives an author's credentials a boost. And in some instances, prize-winning entries are printed in anthologies.

Part of the problem with contests, however, is trying to find them. Usually, you run across information on a contest after the deadline has passed. Additionally, it is easy to get sucked into scams posing as competitions in which writers are pressured into buying an anthology of the contest's 'winners'. That's where Moira Allen's, Writing to Win: the Colossal Guide to Writing Contests enters in.

Generally, it is my philosophy to not pay for what you can get for free. That is why, in previous posts, I've recommended visiting online sources for market information as opposed to subscribing to a magazine or buying a book. However, I have yet to find an online compendium of writing contests that compares to the one compiled by Ms. Allen. Because its listing are organized by writing type (poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, books, scripts and screenplays) and also by deadline (so that the author knows when to submit her work), Writing to Win is easy to use. And, with over three-hundred pages of listings, the book is probably as close to comprehensive as any resource like this can be.

Writing to Win isn't just about listing contests; it offers plenty of good advice about how to prepare a story for submission as well pointers on how to determine whether a competition is legitimate or not. The book doesn't claim to offer writers a 100% guaranteed way to win (I wouldn't recommend it if it did!), but what it does do is shed some light on how contests work and how writers can best present their work. If you are at all interested in entering writing competitions, then I recommend this book.

___________

Writing to Win: the Colossal Guide to Writing Contests by Moira Allen, is published by Vinegar Hill Press, copyright 2008. The book retails for $16.95 and can be purchased by visiting CreateSpace.com at
https://www.createspace.com/3364376 or from Amazon.com
(http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Win-Colossal-Guide-Contests/dp/1441404759/)

The Watchmen

My good friend the Film Nut asked me to do a guest piece on the movie, The Watchmen. You can view it here.

Beta Readers - A Final Word

Maybe one of the biggest challenges regarding beta readers is where to find them. If you are one of those people who do not know any other writers, or if the writers you do know don't like the type of fiction that you write, finding a beta can be difficult.

For those who are in that situation, let me offer you two websites where you can find betas. For free!

The first is an organization called the Critters Writers Workshop. Run by Dr. Andrew Burt, science fiction author and former president of the SFWA, Critters is an online forum for science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers who are looking to have their fiction peer-edited by other writers. Many, although not all, of the writers have had their work published. A few are considered 'professional'; that is, they meet the standards of professionals as outlined by the the SFWA or the HWA.

Critters uses very strict guidelines on how this exchange of critiques takes place. Writers must critique a certain number of stories (generally, one per week) in order to have their own work reviewed. Additionally, there are rules on behavior and conduct.

I've used Critters for years and have found it to be an extremely helpful resource. I highly recommend it.

Another source for finding beta readers is at the Absolute Write Water Cooler. The advantage of Absolute Write is that it covers all types of writing, not just the speculative fiction markets. Also, those looking to have their writing reviewed are not compelled to write critiques in return. The arrangements for beta reading are worked out by the authors themselves.

Whether you are a newbie or a grizzled writing veteran, beta readers offer an invaluable service in making your writing as good as it can possibly be. I encourage everyone to look into what beta readers offer.

Beta Readers: Part Two

I'm sure that everyone understand the importance of having a beta reader look over your work. Now I want to discuss the importance of being a beta reader.

Making comments on someone else's work will help you improve your own writing. Why? Well, by critically reading another's work, you are forced to pay attention to details that you might otherwise gloss over. Most of us read for pleasure, but reading as a beta goes much deeper than that. Beta reading forces you to consider the craft of writing by analyzing things such as style, plot, setting, dialogue and character.

Even if you are so new to writing that you haven't even sharpened your way through your first pencil, you should consider becoming a beta reader. If you are unsure how to begin, here are some suggestions that may help:

- Never be rude or condescending! Even if you are pointing out flaws in another's writing, you can do so in a polite, constructive manner. It doesn't matter how many years you have been writing or how many publishing credits you have; we are all in the process of learning the craft. Ruthlessly tearing down another writer's work is unforgivable.

- Be sure to give praise as well as criticism. Every bit of fiction has at least one good thing in it. If you can't find something to compliment, then you didn't look hard enough.

- Read the work several times, giving yourself time between readings to think about the story.

- Learn from other writers' mistakes. If you see something that the writer did terribly wrong, make sure to avoid that mistake in your own writing. Similarly, if you really did like something, try to figure out what made it work and then apply that skill to your work.

- Make your comments specific. No writer was ever helped by a criticism that simply said, "I didn't like your main character." Ask yourself why didn't you like that character? How might he be improved?

Over the years, I have learned as much from being a beta reader as I have from having a beta reader look over my work. Having the eye of an editor is crucial for any writer. Becoming a beta reader is one step towards that skill

Beta Readers: Part One

First off, what - exactly - is a beta reader?

A beta reader is simply a person who is willing to carefully read an unpublished work of fiction and offer constructive criticism. In writing, the beta fiction is what lies between the rough draft (the alpha manuscript) and the finished product that is submitted to the publisher. When submitting a work to a beta reader, it is the writer's responsibility to polish her manuscript as much as she can. The beta reader should be reading a complete work (that is, there should be an ending!)

Beta readers are very valuable people. Often, they can point out plot holes that you've missed or catch a misplaced or missing word. They can tell you if your characters seem realistic and if your dialogue sounds natural. Almost always, beta readers are writers themselves, so they are accustomed to thinking about such things as plot, setting, voice, and tension. They can correctly use terms like, 'speech tags' and 'protagonist'. You might have a family member or close, supportive friend who is willing to read your work, but oftentimes they do not make the best beta readers. Not only will they want to spare your feelings by telling you that your work is 'good' (even if it isn't), but they might not know exactly how you should improve your story.

My husband, for example, is an avid reader and a thoughtful, intelligent person. However, he is not a writer and is therefore a terrible beta reader; he simply can't tell me what the problems in my stories are. Having him try to advise me on writing would be like me trying to advise an auto mechanic on how to fix my car. Since I know nothing about cars, all I can do is tell them that I hear a clunking sound or feel a hesitation when I step on the gas. I certainly can't tell them were to start looking for the problem or how to fix it!

So, if you aren't already doing this, I strongly suggest that you find a beta reader. In my next post, I will tell you of some excellent online sources for beta readers as well as give advice on how to become a beta reader yourself.

Creating Tension in Your Plot

One of the best bits of writing advice I've ever gotten (not personally, mind you!) was from a scriptwriter for the 70's television show M*A*S*H. Remember M*A*S*H? Based very loosely on Robert Altman's movie of the same title, and even more loosely on Joseph Heller's novel, Catch 22, M*A*S*H portrayed the life of doctors in a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War.

The show's writer, and I really wish I could remember his name, said that the best way to create tension in a plot was to take a character and put him in the place he least wants to be. Then you, the writer, sit back and watch what happens.

In the television show M*A*S*H, that meant placing the irascible, anti-establishment, pacifist surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in the highly regimented US army, far away from his beloved Crabapple Cove, Maine. Many of the show's episodes revolved around Hawkeye's rebellion against authority, his frustration over army regulations, and his struggle to remain sane in an insane environment.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is to not make your characters too comfortable. The unfortunate truth is that fiction without conflict is not very interesting. I doubt that a television show about a man sitting in an easy chair drinking lemonade and reading the newspaper would have won fourteen Emmys and ran for eleven years.