Writing 101: No So, Ands or Buts?

Writers have to follow a lot of rules in self-publishing. You have to be careful about using brand names, avoid common mistakes that could screw up your formatting, properly separate your chapters and scenes. But should you be adhering to the common rules of writing as well?

The Rules of Writing

Ever worked with a professional editor, or tried to submit an article or story to a magazine? If you have, you might know that they strictly follow certain writing rules. And frankly, they follow a lot of them. But for the purposes of this particular lesson, we're only going to be talking about one: paragraph beginnings.

Editors are trained to gnash their teeth when they find a paragraph that begins with the words so, and or but. Try to submit an article using these words at the start of a new paragraph, and they're likely to mark up your work with their famous red pens. They don't even like it when you begin a regular sentence with these words.

BUT, you aren't writing an article that has to pass muster with a professional editor. You're writing a book that you're publishing yourself. Are the rules still the same?


The Way We Write

If you start looking, you'll find countless examples of books containing sentences and paragraphs that begin with and, but, so, because and all those other words that English teachers say you shouldn't use in this position -- in fact, you can even find it in the Bible (the best-selling book of all time). Using a conjunction can even make your story flow better at times, linking different paragraphs and sentences smoothly with each other.

Using common conjunctions and linking words can bring a certain informality to your writing, and that's important for fiction novelists because your main goal is to entertain the reader. Stiff, formal language often comes across as stilted, and that might make your reader uncomfortable.

However, if you do it a lot your writing is going to read as choppy.You also have to avoid writing sentence fragments, as opposed to whole sentences. Unless you're using it as a specific literary device for some higher reason, your book should only contain whole sentences and you should always avoid sentence fragments. A sentence fragment is an incomplete thought, and it can throw off the tone of your book.

Because she'd woken up late, she had been ten minutes behind all day long. And she was in a hurry.

She had been ten minutes behind all day long. Because she'd woken up late. And she was in a hurry. 

Can you spot the sentence fragment? She's in a hurry, and even with the "and" sort of throwing the sentence off, it's still a complete thought. "Because she'd woken up late" is not. There's an easy way to spot sentence fragments in your own work. Read each sentence separately, isolating it from all the sentences that surround it. If it doesn't make any sense at all, you've got yourself a fragment.

Playing by the Rules

BUT, you can still adhere to all the traditional rules of formal writing if you like. To avoid starting sentences and paragraphs with conjunctions, use words that mean the same thing. Instead of writing and, try using moreover or furthermore. So can be replaced with hence or therefore. Replace but with however. Your writing will immediately take on a more formal tone when you use these words, but that may suit the story you're telling.

When it's your book, you're the one who makes the rules. If it reads well to you and conveys what you want it to convey, forget about grammar rules and tradition. Most of the great writers completely ignored the rules whenever they wanted to, so there's no reason you can't do the same.

Writing 101: Which Genre Do You Claim?

I talk a lot about formatting books for ereaders, proper punctuation, grammar and all the blood, sweat and tears that go into writing an ebook. But the truth is, once everything's said and done and you're good and finished with all the little details you can still find yourself running smack into a brick wall (metaphorically speaking, of course). Because once you've got the perfect blurb and that gorgeous cover and that must-read book all put together, you've still got work to do. You still have to figure out exactly where your book fits into the whole massive world of ebooks -- and it's really not very easy.

Which Genre?

Before you can publish your ebook in any online store, you're going to be asked a very important question: where does it go? You're going to have to sort your book into multiple categories and figure out exactly what it is you've written. Otherwise, it just can't be sold.

Age Group 

 The first choice you have to make is which age group your book fits into best. In the main, online bookstores have only a few categories from which you'll need to pick, and your book is going to have to be put into one of them.

• Children's books are written for youths under the age of 12. 
• Young adult books are written for children aged 12 to 18 (primarily, however the YA genre is appealing to many age groups). However, you cannot call a book a YA book because you want to. The subject matter in your book must be geared toward the YA age group, and cannot contain any material which would be considered adult in nature. Think of it this way: if your book was a movie, it should be rated PG-13. If it would get an R rating, you didn't write a YA book. 
• Adult books are written for people over the age of 18. Even if your book doesn't contain overtly adult themes (sex, violence, four-letter words) if your protagonist is an adult then you can safely assume you've written an adult book. 
•  Mature books contain very overt adult themes. Often, this genre is reserved for erotica novels or those that have intense violence and extreme language. 

Fiction/Nonfiction
This one should be pretty easy to answer. Have you written a completely factual book that's true in every way? If so, your work belongs in the nonfiction category. If you've created an original story that you invented inside your mind, you've got a fiction book on your hands.

And All the Rest

But all of that is the easy part. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty of picking a genre for your book, things can get very complicated and confusing. Online bookstores have genres within genres, categories within categories, and that makes it incredibly hard to choose where you should place your work. First, you've got to decide the basic genre, or genres, where your book should go. Happily, many online bookstores allow you to put your book in up to three different genres so you can attract a wider base of readers.

Even after you've picked that basic genre, you might have to choose sub-genres...and there are a lot. Some of these genres are fairly self-explanatory (obviously, if you've written a cookbook then you should put it in Cooking) so I'm going to skip some of them.

• Action & Adventure books, as you might expect, usually follow a hero who has embarked on some sort of quest. Generally the hero must face peril, and prevail, in order to accomplish his or her noble feat. Action and adventure books are packed with death-defying events, which generally occur at a very fast pace.
• Coming of Age books tell the tale of someone who is becoming an adult, usually through a series of tragic events, and making a very poignant transition from childhood.
• Drama books might not be what you think they are. In literary genres, a drama is presented in play or script form.
• Fantasy novels are set in a world that does not exist, and may take place in any time period. Often, fantasy novels contain fantastic creatures such as elves, gnomes, trolls, and so forth. Magic commonly features in fantasy tales.
• Historical novels take place in the past as determined by when they are written. The novels written by Dickens hundreds of years ago were contemporary to his time, so even though today they read like historical novels technically they are not.
• Mystery novels are quite popular, and for this reason there are many sub-genres of mystery books. The most common are hard-boiled, historical, police procedural and women sleuths. Hard-boiled mysteries very unflinchingly depict sex, violence and other adult themes. Police procedural mysteries usually revolve around a professional investigator of some sort whose job it is to examine evidence and use this to solve the crime (the mystery in question). Mysteries that feature women sleuths obviously revolve around a female protagonist. 
• Romance books are also divided into many different sub-genres. Contemporary romances take place in the present day, in the author's own time, whereas historical romances occur in the past. There are additional categories within the historical romance genre, as determined by time. Regency romances, for example, take place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Erotica romance novels are very sex-driven, quite overtly so.
• Suspense novels are filled with tension, usually to create a fearful effect for the reader and the protagonist. Most books contain some element of suspense (the reader wonders what's going to happen), but when a book is built around this theme it is considered a suspense novel.
• Thrillers also use suspense as a device, but often employ elements of horror and excitement as well. Thrillers stimulate the reader greatly to incite fear, and often they contain a good deal of action and mystery.
  
• Westerns take place in the American Old West (most commonly, between the years 1860 and 1900) and only in the American Old West.

The Indie Author Month Event

Tomorrow marks the first day of Indie Author Month, an exciting event that's being sponsored by the Aside From Writing book blog. Up to 30 ebooks will be given away during the event, and a new writer will be featured every day all May long. I'm one of them! Check Aside toward the end of the month to see my feature and find out how you can win books from the Deck of Lies series.

Each day, a new indie book will be featured on the blog. The daily posts will also include a small interview with each indie author. Month-long and daily ebook giveaways will also feature heavily in the month-long event. To enjoy all the action and find out what makes indie writers tick, you'll have to check Aside From Writing every day in May!

Writing 101: Colons, Semicolons and Ellipsis

Is it okay to use semicolons? What does it mean when you add an ellipsis to your story? Do colons have a place in prose? These are the questions that writers have been debating for many years, and some have some very strong opinions. When it comes to the punctuation rules of fiction...well, what are they?

The Semicolon

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." These were the words of Kurt Vonnegut, a well-known master of the literary arts. Writers are often opinionated -- occupational hazard -- but does that mean Mr. Vonnegut is right, or just passionate about his own style of prose? Other writers have waxed poetic about the meaning one of the semicolon; one well-known writer even likened it to God. 

Book 3 Update

A lot of readers have been asking me about Book 3 in the Deck of Lies series, and I can now report that the first draft is nearly done! I put in a lot of hours this past week and through the weekend, and I'm now working on some of the final scenes in the book. So far, so good -- right now, I don't see any reason why I won't be able to release the book this summer as planned. When I'm feeling a bit more confident about it, and after I've talked to my lovely cover designer, I'll tell you the exact date you can expect to find the book on Amazon.

If you've been to my official site, you may already know you can read the blurb for Death (Deck of Lies, #3) there, but I've also included it below just to help you get excited about the ongoing family saga of lies and secrets. The story will continue this summer with all-new surprises, twists, turns...and romance.



All In

I never wanted to get in this deep, but I did go looking for the truth before I was prepared to handle it. But how do you close the lid on Pandora’s box? You can’t unlearn something, or forget a dark secret once it’s been revealed.

I have no choice but to do my part to bury the truth again -- this time, someplace no one will ever be able to find it. But that’s the problem with lies. Once you start pulling threads, everything unravels.

No one is who they seem to be…not even me.

Writing 101: Dialogue

Dialogue is an important element in any story, but many writers struggle with creating believable conversation. What's the secret to great dialogue? If you don't already know, you'd better figure it out before you publish your work. Bad dialogue can ruin any story, and will make readers stop turning pages.

Speech

Speaking is a basic part of the human condition, and it's likely that your story is mostly populated by speaking people. Less commonly, you might be writing about non-speaking characters who are deaf, mute or both, but even in this case they will be using some form of communication. It may not be speech in the traditional sense of the word, but you will still be using some form of dialogue so your characters may interact with each other. There's a certain formula to crafting great dialogue. Learn it, and your story will be much richer and more believable.

Participants

In every conversation, there are characters involved. No matter how many there may be, make sure there's a logical reason for the dialogue that's taking place. Few people stand alone in rooms and speak their thoughts out loud to themselves, yet this is a vehicle that is often used by writers. If you're going to do it, write it so it makes sense. When multiple characters are speaking, note what they're doing and where they're standing. This can help you avoid repeating "he said, she said" one hundred times during an exchange. Sometimes, you can skip the identifier entirely -- but make sure it's always clear to the reader who is speaking.

Know where your participants are and what they're doing, but also find multiple ways to label them. Pronouns are proper names are only so interesting. Throw in a description here and there (for example, the youngest child Clara might be called "the baby of the family," or the wizened grandmother "the matriarch) to keep things interesting.

Inconsistency

Don't always use "says or said." Use other words to denote speech. Characters can do all sorts of things with their speaking parts. Instead of making them say their words, have them respond, cry, scream, shout, whisper, reply, answer, and break out the thesaurus any time you want to find more words. When you're writing dialogue, inconsistency is great. Otherwise, your dialogue will become monotonous and boring. You can even do this when your characters are asking questions -- she queried, he questioned, they asked.

You should also be inconsistent in other ways when you're writing dialogue. Instead of following a specific pattern (for example, "Hello," she said; "Hi," he answered) try putting the speaker first and then the speech (ex: She said, "hello;" "Hi," he answered).


Break It Up

Don't just create a bunch of one-line dialogue to fill up a chapter. Add description and observation in-between the dialogue. Give the readers an insight into a character's thoughts or actions in the middle of a dialogue-rich scene to add interest and include something different and interesting. Remember that, above all, a good book is meant to entertain.

So be entertaining.

The Tower: An Excerpt

The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2) has just been released this month -- and to celebrate, I'm releasing a selective excerpt. The piece of the scene you're about to read takes place in Chapter 5. Some names have been hidden to protect the dead (and the spoilers from Book 1!).

   I was taken aback by his interruption, and the way he’d honed in on my true feelings. “I…I wouldn’t say I hated her, exactly, but I-”
   “Where were you on the morning of March 29?”
   “What?”
   “March 29, Rain. It was barely two weeks ago. Surely you can remember where you were on the day that your fellow student disappeared?” His voice was low and gentle, almost chant-like.
   “I…” And I racked my brain for a moment before the memory clicked into place. Of course. March 29. That was the day I went to school to find that my locker had been completely trashed by Carsyn. I felt my cheeks flame just thinking about it. “I was at school.”
   “And before that?” He pressed.
   “Before that I was at home,” I answered hotly. Maybe it was that horrible memory of seeing Carsyn’s angry red lipstick smeared all over my personal space, but I was suddenly furious at Lieutenant Edwards. Why was he dredging all this up? And why were we sitting in this tiny room?
   “Did anyone see you leave that morning? Did you eat breakfast with your family? Can anyone verify your whereabouts before you walked into Sloane Academy that Monday morning? When did you first see the suspect that day? Were you with him in the canyons, Rain?” His tone had dramatically changed from singsong to rapid-fire, each word hurtled at me like a bullet.
   His hard expression, his unrelenting questions, the plain little room…I suddenly realized I’d seen this all before. On TV. And that’s when I understood that I was being interrogated by the police. I spun around in my chair to stare at the mirror, and cold dread washed over me when I thought that another police officer was probably staring at me from the other side.
   My mind started to spin madly. The note he’d asked me to copy. The receipt he’d pulled out of his pocket. Dread settled in my stomach, and for a few horrifying seconds I was certain I was going to throw up. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “A Fendi purse purchased on March 28. She was killed with a leather strap. Do you think -- do you mean --” I couldn’t even finish the question. I leapt out of the plastic seat, not at all surprised to find that my legs felt wobbly when I forced them straight. “Was she murdered with a purse strap?” I didn’t mean to halfway scream the question, but waves of shock were rolling over me now. I felt like I was caught inside a storm. “Then why have you been holding the suspect? Because his name was on the note? Where did you find that note? Did you find that note on her…on her?” I couldn’t say “body.” It was just too gruesome.
   Edwards was standing now, too. “Where were you on Monday morning, Rain?”
   “I’m a suspect?” It came out half-question, half-accusation. “Am I your new suspect?”







The Tower is now available at Amazon, on B&N and Smashwords. Read Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) to get caught up on all the backstory, or just dive right in to this installment of the ongoing saga of family deceit and secrets!

Writing 101: Justify My Interest

 You spent all that time crafting an exciting book, filled with humor or romance or mystery (or whatever you write about). You wrote a blurb that garnered my interest, designed a cover that got me all fired up. So I bought your book. And now, I wish I hadn't...because you didn't even justify it properly. It's one of the simplest steps, and one of the most overlooked. Justify my interest in your work, and show all your readers that you actually give a crap about it. Take a few extra seconds to set your justification. Otherwise, you might look like an amateur.

 Justification

 Go to any shelf, pull out any book and open it to any page. You'll always see the same thing: neat, even edges on either side. There will be a few indents where paragraphs begin and end, but the overall look is still clean and straight.

You can create the same look with an ebook, and you should. Electronic books should absolutely look like print books, because everyone is familiar with how print books look and that's what readers expect to see.  Otherwise, one side of the ebook will have a ragged, unattractive edge. It looks lazy, it looks incorrect and it immediately aggravates readers.

 There are only four different ways to justify documents, and when you open up a brand-new blank document and start tying, your justification is automatically set. In most cases, it's automatically set to the wrong option.

• Left. The default justification for most word processing software, left justification creates a clean, even edge down the left side of the page. The right side ends up looking jagged and uneven, because spacing between each letter and word will be perfectly even between each line. Words will end at different points all down the right edge as a result. 

• Right. The opposite of left-side justification, right justification creates a neat, even edge down the right side of the page. This justification rarely appears in any work, and should only be used on selected text and images for stylistic purposes; you will not find any books where right justification is used throughout. 

• Center. When the text is set to center justification, it will be symmetrically arranged down the midline of the document. Center justification is often used for chapter headings and titles. It may be used in poetry, but standard prose should never appear in center justification. 

• Full. The only acceptable format for books, full justification creates neat, even edges on both sides of the page. 

 Here's the thing: Kindle will automatically change your justification. A lot of indie writers know that, so a lot of indie writers don't mess with the justification in their documents. But when you don't set the justification properly, you could get errors in your book's HTML code. The errors could create formatting errors that screw with the automatic justification...so that means you've got to manually set it anyway. Kindle is supposed to adjust the justification automatically, but the system isn't perfect -- and I know it to be true because I've read plenty of books with incorrect justification. So set it on your own before you ever publish your book, and avoid a silly error that could alienate your readers and make you look lazy.