Writing 101: All About Poetry

I do a lot of writing about prose, but many writers who write it have also tried their hand at poetry at some point -- including me. So if you've ever scribbled a sonnet, composed an ode or created a song (or wanted to), this post's for you.

Are There Rules in Poetry?

Anyone who's ever read Lewis Carroll may think that poetry is a genre that knows no rules, but this isn't actually the case. Depending on the type of poem you're writing, there are specific and distinct rules you're required to follow.

For example, a sonnet almost always has 14 lines of text and a very specific rhyming pattern. If you're writing a traditional English sonnet, Shakespearean fashion, it must have 14 lines and it must be written in iambic pentameter. In the iambic pentameter style of poetry, an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable; the pattern is repeated five times. If it sounds complicated, that's because it is. Sonnets are celebrated because they're terribly difficult to write; if they come out sounding great, it's truly an artistic masterpiece. In a traditional English sonnet, the rhyming pattern is: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.


If you're determined to follow rules in poetry, try something a little simpler -- maybe a haiku, a form of short Japanese poetry. Or is it simpler? In traditional haiku writing, two separate ideas are juxtaposed with a cutting word between them to show the line of separation. There are three lines of text in a haiku: 5, 7, 5. It's a common misconception that a haiku contains 17 syllables. This is not true. A haiku contains 17 on, which is a word sound. For example, there are three syllables in the word Tokyo, but there are four on (to-o-kyo-o). In modern haiku poetry, it's not necessary to follow the 17 on rule -- but the juxtaposition of ideas remains a very basic mainstay of this particular type of poetry.

In ballad poetry, the words are usually used to tell a story and often these types of poems contain a repeated refrain. Songwriting is a form of ballad poetry. There are literally dozens of different kinds of poetry, some that are built around certain themes, some around certain rhyming patterns, some that have both. But if you want to chuck all the rules and go your own way, you absolutely can.


One of the great things about poetry is that it doesn't have to follow any rules to be great -- just ask Emily Dickinson (clearly, that's just an expression). Weird punctuation, unpatterned rhymes, no rhymes at all; poets are free to do whatever they want if that's what they desire. But if you want to write a specific type of poem, make sure you do your research and follow all of the rules.

Bookluvrs Review Justice!

 "The plot twists completely caught me off guard...and I LOVED IT!" Read the full review from Erin, Bookluvrs blogger.

Writing 101: Putting Your Book in Print

Electronic books could become the norm in a few short years. More and more people own ereaders, and the traditional publishing industry is paying serious attention. But the world is full of purists, too, and really nothing can compare to the solid weight of a book in hand and the joy of flipping another page. Cast a wider net, and reach more readers, by putting your book in print.

Turning an eBook into a Print Book

Even in self-publishing, it's possible to create a print version of your book with a full-color cover, interesting blurb and an actual bar code. The best part: you can do it without spending money.

Writing 101: How to Use Commas

Seems a little silly, doesn't it? Using commas is as basic as learning the alphabet, and every writer has peppered them into their work at some point. But honestly, I'm not trying to waste your time. I'm trying to help, because in the vast majority of indie books I've read I have learned something: many indie writers don't know how to use commas correctly. You might think you've got a firm grasp on them, roll your eyes at today's lesson and move on to greener tip-giving pastures. I beg you not to do so, especially if you know that I've read your book in the past. Because chances are, you've already made more than one unforgivable error in your ebook.

What Role Do Commas Play?

If you're going to use commas, you ought to know what they represent. You can't just shake up a bag of commas and throw them into your work at will. They're used to create natural separation and pauses in the middle of sentences, and they're an important part of speech. I'm using them now to link related thoughts and split up different phrases, because otherwise everything I'm writing might read as flat and monotone. 

Speaking Names

There seems to be some confusion about where to include commas when one character is speaking to another. Let's clear that up. Any time any character addresses any other by name -- and it can be a nickname, a proper name, a pet name, any kind of name -- that name must be prefaced and ended with a comma unless the name starts the sentence or ends a sentence. Examples:

"Susan, did you get that book?"


"Did you get that book, Susan?" 


"About that book, Susan, did you get it?"

Commas before and after, every single time unless the name starts or ends the sentence. You do not need to follow this rule if the character is talking about another character, only if they are talking to the character. Examples:

"Did Susan get that book?"


"That book I told her about, did Susan get it?"

Serial Commas

It's easy to get confused when using serial commas. In the traditional AP style guide and in most journalism, serial commas are used in a very specific way -- they are not used before the word and. Examples:

The mugger was tall, thin and grey-haired. 


She was wearing a pink, ripped and baggy pair of overalls. 

However, you are writing a book. You are not writing in traditional AP style (and you should not be if you are, because prose is different). Therefore, you can use serial commas before and if that is your desire. In book-writing, either way is correct. You can also eliminate and entirely if the sentence still reads well without it. Examples:

The mugger was tall, thin, and grey-haired. 


She was wearing a pink, ripped, baggy pair of overalls.

Conjunctions

It's a little tricky to know where to put your commas when using conjunctions (linking words). What's a conjunction? Glad you asked: among others, they include for, and, but, or, because. In most cases when you're using basic conjunctions, the comma goes before the conjunction. Examples:

She asked me to move, and then scooted around the chair. 


He was smiling at me, but it didn't look very sincere.


Either I was crazy, or the commas were totally in the wrong places.


Mastering Commas

Once you learn the specific rules of comma usage, your book will flow more smoothly and look much better -- and you'll actually look like you know what you're doing to your readers. There are lots of ways to use commas, and these are only a few of them. Always read over what you've written, commas and all, and "say" the words to yourself in your mind. Pause at every comma, just for half a second or so, and "listen" to the sound of those words. If you're pausing in the wrong place, or the writing sounds jerky, you've got your commas in the wrong places. Fix them!

Writing 101: Why Alot Isn't a Word, and Forever Shouldn't Be

"What is THIS?" Her eyebrows knit together in an angry scowl as she viewed the offending paper on her desk. A pair of bespectacled eyes, sparkling with rage, lifted to gaze around at the faces gathered in the room. "I told all of you not to do this!" One weathered hand disappeared into the desk, only to emerge with an item that made each of the thirty students quake with fear: a red pen. A collective shiver passed through the crowd as she lowered the tool to the page that had drawn her ire. "I warned you," she intoned ominously, then set to furiously applying pen to page. Back and forth, over and over, with furious strokes she eradicated the single word that had so offended her, then cackled with maniacal glee as the red pen bled through the page to damage a total of eleven more school papers. Every student watched as she counted them, every one, her laughter growing more chilling as she observed the damage she had wrought.

I was in the seventh grade, and I will never forget it. That's right: the story you see above is true, and it happened to me. I was not the student who made my English teacher lose her cool, but I will tell you this: never, on any day since that event, have I ever used the word alot in any piece of writing...until this one.


Because it isn't a word, and thanks to this particular traumatic experience I vow that I will never forget it. But since we're talking about non-words, I would be remiss if I didn't call attention to another bastardization that has absolutely no place whatsoever in the English language: forever. Today, we're going to talk about words that aren't words, and words that shouldn't be given the dignity of being called words: alot and forever. I am pleading with you, as one writer to another, never to use them -- and not just because I still have frightening visions of red pens.

A Lot

I've seen plenty of mistakes in my never-ending quest to find great new indie reads, but none bother me more than improper use of the word lot. All by itself, the word lot means a big bunch of something (just don't check that with the OED, they phrase things quite a bit more poetically than I). If you've read the Harry Potter books, or for that matter any other books written by a British person, you'll see the word quite a bit. "You lot," is a common expression in England, and it means the same thing as its southern United States counterpart "y'all" (which I personally use). It's just another way of saying a bunch, and it's become common to see the word paired with "a" to become the phrase "a lot."

It's also become common in bad writing the world over to bastardize this into alot, which is not a word in any proper dictionary whatsoever. Nor should it be, because it is not a word. You cannot randomly shove two unrelated words together to form a new word. Doing so does not make you a brilliant writing pioneer.

It makes you a hack without a spellchecker. It's not acceptable to write athought or awalk or abadbook, so why should it be okay to completely nullify a space between two very distinctly different words? There's only one answer: it is not. It's two tiny words, but it's a big mistake, and one that's very easily avoided. Use your "find and replace" function in your word processor to seek out and destroy any occurrences of "alot" in your work. Using it won't make you a maverick. It just shows that you have an improper command of language.

For Ever

I actually went toe-to-toe with an editor over the word forever, and in the heated argument that ensued I quite frankly stated that I would not, under any circumstances, attach my name to any piece of writing in which this word appears -- yes, even at the risk of losing my job.

She was completely befuddled by this hard-headed stance, and I admit that she had a right to her confusion. Look up forever in Merriam-Webster, and you'll find it. To paraphrase, the word means an infinite amount of time, though in the common vernacular it more frequently refers to a long time. According to the online etymology dictionary, this word has been in use since the 17th century.

Even back then, it was clearly a bastardization of the two separate words for and ever. Considering my knee-jerk, deep-seated hatred of the word alot (which, again, is not a word), it should come as no surprise that I'll turn my nose straight up into the air upon seeing the word forever. And I'm going to tell you why.

It clearly doesn't deserve to be a word. Ever already denotes a length of time even when it stands on its own, and frequently it does. For is a preposition that denotes support or favor, or a conjunction that serves as a synonym for because or since. When used separately, the phrase for ever means the exact same thing as its bastard cousin forever.

So why in the hell should the word forever exist? Once again, I maintain that it should not. If for no other reason, it's because of this one:

Waiting for forever. Is that not the dumbest line you've ever read in your life? Does it not sound utterly atrocious when you bring yourself to murmur it aloud (if you even can)? You cannot do something for forever. You can do something for ever, if you like, but it reads terribly if you're trying to do it for forever. So, don't. I can't pull out my red pen when I see it, or lambast you for using it, because the dictionary has chosen to recognize it. But the dictionary has also chosen to recognize ridiculous words like truthiness, so let us not use this as an end-all authority on words.

Words, an Ongoing Love Affair

Writers should be the end-all authority on words, because that is our job. When you put it in print, it represents you and it becomes a part of the world for (space) ever. Words are beautiful, they are powerful and they should, at all times, be treated with dignity and respect. So please, don't do alot of anything for forever. Because if you do, you're setting a terrible example and a potentially dangerous precedent. If forever can be accepted into canon, alot may not be too far behind. And if you don't love words enough to protect them from this sort of sullying, why are you calling yourself a writer?

Review: The Cold Pools

I was invited to read The Cold Pools during a free promotion by the author. I like free stuff, so I went ahead and downloaded this short story to my Kindle. I had no idea what I was getting into. The story starts out with a happy couple, very much in love, on their way to a luxurious vacation retreat. In a few short pages, it ends in a very different place.

I'd hate to give away any of the surprising twists or shocking turns this story takes, so I won't. Suffice it to say this is no ordinary vacation for the couple, and they don't live in a world that any of us have experienced firsthand. What's interesting about Cold Pools is the future it describes -- and the horrific possibilities therein. It's a sad story, and it's a fiction story, but it could very easily become real. Maybe that's why this short story is so chilling, and why it's still lingering in my mind despite the fact that I've already started reading something new.

I downloaded it for free, but I would happily pay to read it again. Chris Ward is a very promising writer, and for anyone who's interested he's included the first chapter of his novel at the end of Cold Pools. If his full-length story is anything like this short, terribly beautiful tale, I'm sure I'll enjoy it very much.

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.