Writing 101: Offensive and Adult Subject Matter

Have you ever been to a book burning? To this day, people still protest against some of the material in Mark Twain's books. Schools around the world ban Catcher in the Rye, written way back in 1951. When you're writing from the heart, and writing something that's going to resonate, creating a real world using nothing but your words, you might end up stepping on a few toes. Offensive and adult subject matter might creep in, and sometimes touchy subjects have to be included in a work to create the powerful effect the author wants. But when you start stepping on toes, you've got to be prepared to get kicked right in the pants.

Let's Write About Sex

Dare you to sit through just one hour of television without finding some reference to sex, either overt or well-hidden. It's in the beer commercials where the women run around braless, it's in the dating commercials where the two mildly attractive people lock eyes and stare suggestively at each other. It's even in the sitcoms, when sex becomes a joke (because everything's a joke). It's even in the car commercials. It's everywhere, because sex sells. And if you've ever walked through the book aisle of a grocery store, you know good and well it sells books, too. Even one of the Twilight books (and movies) had a sex scene, and those are primarily marketed to teenagers.

Sex is, quite frankly, part of living. Everyone who is alive would never have been so without sex. Whether you're writing a romance, love story, comedy or tragedy, sex might happen. It's definitely going to happen in some cases, and it's your job as a writer to figure out exactly how you need to handle it.

There's a thin line between writing erotica and writing romance novels. Both kinds of books have sex scenes, but one is much more explicit than the other (can you guess which?). Erotica novels are built around sex and sexual encounters; by contrast, romance novels focus on love (with sex sprinkled in). It's confusing, because you can write very sexy, very erotic scenes into a romance novel and still not be writing erotica. Romance writer Jennie Bryant summed it up succinctly in her blog, where she wrote that the sex in romance novels is built around feelings, with mild euphemisms used to describe the action (you'll find pleasant-sounding words for the male anatomy, like "member," and sweet words for the female's, like "mound"). In erotica, the sex is far more graphic and vivid -- and much more present throughout the book. The words and descriptions are more in-your-face, and the sex is present throughout. If you are writing a romance or an erotica novel, always stick to the basic rules.

Why? Because you don't want to alienate your readers. Many women are drawn to romance novels because they want all that gooey love junk, and explicit sex scenes more akin to erotica novels will feel, to them, like a bit of a betrayal.

Sex might happen even if you aren't writing within the safe confines of a sex-specific genre, however. If it can happen in Twilight, it can happen anywhere. Love and sex are often present in many books, from mysteries to teen fiction, because (once again) it's a basic part of life. But sex scenes in these off-genre novels shouldn't read anything at all like sex in romance novels. Forget all the stuff you learned about vivid imagery and descriptive writing. Be vague while still getting the point across. It's tempting, and sort of easy, to spice up any novel with a thrilling sex scene -- but a sex scene can still be good without giving readers a full blow-by-blow. If your readers don't expect it, they may not like it...and that's when you start moving into offensive territory. Once you've been branded with that label and started to piss off your readers, you might find yourself getting burned by the flames. Take a gentle hand when writing sex scenes into off-genre novels, and avoid alienating your readers.


Other Offensive Material

Religion. Politics. Racism. Even if you aren't writing about sex, there are plenty of land mines to navigate. Faith, political convictions and certain belief systems are part of the world, and they may become part of your story. Writing a passionately political character can be very exciting, and creating a villain with racist tendencies is a good way to illustrate some of the uglier aspects of human nature.

But it's dangerous. You could easily upset religious groups, parental groups, activists -- you could even piss PETA off if you've got a character who lives inside fur and leather goods. For realism's sake, and for the sake of the story you need to tell, you can't always skip the offensive parts of life. It's out there, and it may be a very necessary part of your story.

If you're going to include anything offensive or potentially incendiary, you've got to write carefully. Many writers find a way to introduce this subject matter and skirt the line of decency without actually crossing it. There are many literary tricks you can try to help balance out your work. If one character is an extremist, for example, you might create an additional character to serve as a counterpoint -- someone to introduce the opposite point of view. You've got to be sensitive to all sides when you're dancing around a potentially offensive subject; often, writers will have offensive characters come to ill ends in their books to include a moral lesson or commentary on their behavior. Be careful about how you use racial slurs and other offensive material in your writing. It can be effective, but at times it can be too effective for getting your readers fired up and passionate. If there's something in your work that gives you pause, test the story out on a beta reader or two before you release it to the public. A second opinion can provide valuable insight and help you more safely steer through the waters of offensive writing.

Writing 101: Why You Need to Know HTML

Being a wordsmith is just plain hard. Writers have to face daily challenges like the affect/effect conundrum, the dreaded compliment/complement crisis and the altogether horrifying further/farther battlefield. Tackle all that and you've still got to think about dangling prepositions, misplaced modifiers and whether or not a semicolon is viable punctuation (for the record, I'm a firm believer that it is). But if you think knowing words is hard, just try learning HTML. Because you're going to have to, you know -- it goes hand-in-hand with being an indie author.

It's Raining Internet Code

Internet language is everywhere, though we rarely see it. HTML is the invisible force that drives every Tweet, every blog, every singly little thing on Facebook. It's also behind every ebook, and that's why it's relevant to you. You can't simply take your manuscript, convert it into an ebook and call it a day. Why? Because of HTML. Don't know it? You're going to have to learn.

You may not realize it, but you've been writing with HTML the whole you've been writing your book. It's invisible, but this code drives every word processing document you've ever created, too. And when you convert that document into something an eReader can use, you're playing with fiery Internet code. Try not to get burned.

No matter what conversion software you use, you're going to have to open up your ebook's HTML file and have a look. And you're probably going to have to remove a bunch of junk code from it, and add new code to it, and generally check the whole bloody thing line-by-line. It's a hassle, sure, but remember that your readers are going to be looking at it line-by-line so it's really the least you can do. Depending on how much formatting you actually have in your book, you might have a lot of crap to clean up. Every time you put a word in italics, or bold, or change the font you're creating all sorts of different HTML code -- so you'd better figure out what all that junk means.

Blank lines not showing up? Page breaks not appearing? It's not necessarily something you've done incorrectly in your document -- it's a problem with the HTML code itself. That's why you've got to use conversion software that allows you to play with that code (personally, I use Mobipocket Creator). Get to know basic HTML codes used in ebooks to get the look you want. You'll probably have to add your own blank lines (<br>) and add your own page breaks (<mbp:pagebreak />), depending on the program you're using. Once you know what to look for, it's easy enough to see the story instead of focusing on how strange the HTML looks. Without HTML, you can't add a Table of Contents, images or any of those fancy little extras that help ebooks stand out.

And if you don't take the time to figure it out, you've got a great chance of ending up with funny-looking formatting once the ebook conversion process is complete. Readers want perfection, and they deserve perfection. Don't deliver it, and they'll have an excuse not to tell others about how much they liked your book. 

On the Other Hand...

 I do know a shortcut if you'd like to skip all that HTML editing. Writers have to find little ways to save time. If you publish your book through Smashwords, they'll cleanly convert your book through their processing -- but you've got to make sure the document you submit adheres to their strict style standards. If you can beat the Smashwords autovetting system, you'll probably end up with a great-looking ebook. Be sure to select the option that converts your book in Kindle-friendly and Nook-friendly file formats. Then, you can simply download these versions and upload them to the bookselling sites of your choice. Because many authors use Amazon KDP, this isn't an option for everybody -- but it is a pretty sweet shortcut if you want to bypass all that Internet code.

An Interview with Jade

Where did I come up with the idea for the Deck of Lies series? Who in my real life inspired an important character in Rain's life? And which one of my characters would I bring to life if I could? I answer all of these questions and more in my latest interview, conducted by Books Books & More Books.

But if you skip all my answers, you'll get to the really interesting part: I'm giving away books! Sign up to win a free copy of Justice, and try to find the truth in the Deck of Lies.

Writing 101: Affect and Effect

It happens to the best of us, and no matter how we try to avoid them they still have a way of sneaking up on us. They're called homonyms, and they are the scourge of the English language. But if you think you can get through an entire book without getting wrapped up in them, you're wrong. Today, we're going to discuss a dastardly pair that's sure to strike even the most brilliant grammarians: affect and effect. Yes, they are evil. But don't worry; I know how to defeat them.

Affect vs. Effect

If you use the word effect improperly, it's definitely going to affect your work. To be honest, there are plenty of readers who plain won't notice the difference...but there are those who will. In the interest of perfection (isn't that what we're all chasing?), it's important to know exactly why affect and effect are totally different words, even though only one vowel separates them.

I'm willing to come clean: I still have to look up the difference between these two words all the time. It's easy to forget why they're different, and to put the wrong one in place of the other. But I stop, and I go look them up anytime I feel even a little unsure of myself -- and sometimes even when I don't. Once you get on a writing roll, it's really hard to stop suddenly to pull out the dictionary. It can totally take you out of the zone and disrupt your flow.

The thing is, your readers are going to feel the same way if they suddenly stumble across the wrong word. So always take the time to stop, look it up, and double-check your words.

Affect describes something that is happening to something else. Her judgment was newly affected by his most recent betrayal. The affect is happening to her judgement.

Effect, on the other hand, describes a result. His most recent betrayal had a negative effect on her judgment. 

Affect may also be used in a slightly different way. Have you heard of someone affecting an accent? It's a fancy way of saying they're faking it. Someone may use an affectation to convey something about themselves, usually false. In this usage of the word, they're trying to affect others by giving them some sort of impression. 

It gets confusing, because the meaning of the words are similar. Try remembrance tricks to help you distinguish between the two of them. For example, I like to remember sound effects scare squirrels. It's a funny little phrase. Flip it around, and you get the other meaning of the words. Scared squirrels affect sound. The first phrase means, basically, loud noises are frightening to those nut-loving rodents. The second phrase means they make a noise when they're frightened.

Or if you something a little simpler, try substituting the two words for their meanings. When you see affect, replace it with happens to (or happened to, as the case may be) and see if the sentence still makes since. Replace effect with result or results. If you feel like you're reading gibberish, maybe you're using one for the other where you shouldn't be. 

Find your own way to remember the difference between affect and effect, or keep a grammar cheat sheet handy. Even great writers can get confused and hung up on words like this terrible, warring pair, so if you find yourself looking it up frequently don't think it's a reflection on your writing skills -- if anything, it's a reflection that you're a hard worker who cares about what you're writing. Looking up the meanings and figuring out the homonyms is never, ever a waste of time.

Writing 101: It's Raining Thats

There's a word that many writer overuse, and that's that. Every time that they should be using who to describe a human, I find that they're using that instead. Instead of which, we get that -- and that's a real problem that needs fixing.

That Which Makes Us Look Bad

Make a copy of your book document, and store it in a different file. Now, access the "Find and Replace" function and replace every single occurrence of the word that with * instead. Now, read your book in that new file. If you're like many indie writers, you'll find that most of the times you use the word that, it's totally unnecessary.

Not just unnecessary -- it makes your book clunky and in some cases comes across as very poor writing. You'll notice that I've stressed every single occurrence of the word that in this post, and you'll also notice that I've added many unnecessary uses of the word. But I find that I'm full of examples today, so here's more:

"I didn't know that Ella used to date Mark!" Claire exclaimed, wide-eyed, an expression that made her look a little comical. 

Krista nodded. "The boy that wears the red hat told me," she twirled her fingers around the necklace that her father gave her (that she'd never liked) as she answered.

How many of the thats in that example can I eliminate? If you answered all of them, you're right. There isn't a single occurrence of that in the above text that I can't remove if I want -- and, I do.

"I didn't know Ella used to date Mark!" Claire exclaimed, wide-eyed, an expression which made her look a little comical. 

Krista nodded. "The boy who wears the red hat told me," she twirled her fingers around the necklace her father gave her (which she'd never liked) as she answered.

 That, Which, Who

Many times, that can be eliminated in sentences entirely -- but sometimes, writers are using it improperly in place of who and which. Learning when to use that and when to use which is actually pretty tricky stuff, but you know you should be using who when you're talking about a person (so that one's easy).

According to the rules of writing, you're supposed to be using which instead of that when you're writing non-restrictive clauses. See? It's already tricky. Here's what you need to know, in brief:

The word that is used to point to something specific in the sentence: that necklace, that expression. Eliminate the word that points to in the sentence. Does it still make sense? In the example above, is that expression the main focus -- or is it Claire's comical face? When you're writing about the necklace, are her feelings the most important part of the sentence?

That is only used when it's pointing toward a specific word or phrase the sentence just can't do without. That boy in the red hat, That table is really unsteady. You wouldn't say which unless you were asking, right? If you find that you can substitute which for that and lose absolutely nothing in the translation, it's safe to assume which is supposed to be there anyway.

Over use of that makes writing very, very bad, and I've found that the word can be eliminated more often than not. To prove it, keep reading to get a complete version of this post with all that unnecessary junk removed, and you'll see the difference.

Writing 101: Quotation Punctuation

Without quotations, you can't have dialogue. It seems simple enough -- every time a character speaks, just wrap quotation marks around every word they say. But where do the commas go? How should the periods be placed? There's nothing simple about using quotations in a story, because you've always got to add extra punctuation along with them. Are you doing it the right way?

The US vs. The UK

There are different styles of using quotation marks around the world, and therein lies the confusion. But on either side of the Atlantic, there are specific rules to follow -- and I love having specific rules to follow. Always embrace the rules of writing, because they're your friend.

Writing 101: Getting Rejected

The publishing industry is a traditional world institution, and it's an open secret that book sellers and literary agents are looking for certain qualities in the authors and books they choose to support. Many writers turn to self-publishing to avoid all those rejection letters and bad feelings, and some indies who have thumbed their noses at the traditional publishers are laughing all the way to the bank. But if you think that self-publishing is going to save you from getting rejected, you're wrong.

Rejection Letters

As an indie writer who self-publishes, you aren't going to be receiving those rejection letters and emails anymore. However, you're exposing yourself to something that hurts just as much: public reader reviews. If you thought those form letters were bad, you haven't seen anything yet.

Reader Reviews

Indie writers still get rejected, and frequently, by the general reading public. It takes very little effort to access a link, click a button and write "this sucks" on someone's hard work, and indie forums are filled with writers who have been struck with seemingly mean-spirited one-star reviews. These comments can be much more painful than receiving rejection letters, because these comments are from people who actually read and even purchased your work. Your job, as a self-published author, is to take in those comments and truly attempt to understand what the readers are telling you...no matter how much it hurts.

Admittedly, if a reader has nothing more to say than "you suck," it's going to be rather difficult to know where exactly you went wrong in their eyes. But the majority of readers who bother to leave a review do have something worthwhile to say, especially if that "something worthwhile" is negative. We would all love to receive nothing but 5-star reviews that praise our work in superlatives, but that's not very likely -- nor is it at all helpful. Only through criticism do writers get better, and no one is so amazing at their craft that every single reader responds with gushing, glowing praise (no one). 

You have to learn how to look at your reviews, and each comment therein, objectively. A negative review may feel like a punch in the gut, but most of the time it is neither a personal attack nor hateful criticism. In many cases, even negative reviews have honest feedback to offer, and you do yourself a disservice if you don't pay attention. Look at the reviews, read each word, and try to figure out what your readers are saying.

Readers aren't always easy to understand, so you may have to read carefully and think about what they're saying to you. If a reader says the book doesn't flow well or that it's slow-paced, look at your novel and try to locate points when the plot slows down or stands still altogether. Sometimes, very lengthy descriptions can slow down a book's pace. Try spreading those descriptions out a bit, breaking them up with action and dialogue, to make the book feel a little faster and more interesting. If the reader says your dialogue is stiff or stilted, take the time to read spoken passages out loud to yourself. Always ask yourself if this is really how people sound. When you hear the words out loud, you may find there are many little changes you can make.

If a reader complains about your formatting, justification or spelling, there's no reason to leave those mistakes in place. Edit and re-edit -- and re-edit again -- as many times as needed until you know you're presenting a visually stunning, technically perfect work. Don't allow your book to get bad reviews for something that's so simple to fix...especially justification (because I cannot stress this to you other indies enough, and I can never expound enough on how ugly left justification looks on the Kindle).

Now, if your reader says something about your personally ("this writer smells bad," "this writer is ugly," "I think this writer is a Republican") then you have grounds for dismissal. Clearly you don't need to pay attention to these personal comments, and you are well within your rights to flag the review and ask Amazon (or whoever) to remove it. But don't confuse criticism and feedback with a personal attack. If someone says, for example, "this writer isn't a very good writer," that is a real criticism. You might try looking at your other reviews, and re-reading your work, to find out why someone might make such a hurtful statement.

Because here's the best part of being an indie: you're in control, so you always have the option of changing and improving  your book. Those traditional guys? They put their stuff on paper, and then it's practically set in stone. While their books never change, yours can always continue to get better and better. Bad reviews are really just a first offer; you can change your content, and start turning those negatives into glowing positives if you really pay attention and keep an open mind. Your book is your baby if you're like most writers, but it isn't perfect and neither are you. If you can't take negative feedback and respond to it in a professional manner, get out of the industry.

Rejection is always everywhere when you're a writer, and that's a fact you've got to face...or you've got to leave.

Writing 101: How to Use Parentheses

No, it's not a typo -- parentheses is the plural of parenthesis. The first rule of using them is that there should always, always be two, but thanks to their natural shape it shouldn't be too hard to keep track of that. The rest of the rules of using parentheses may not be so easy to remember.

  When Are They Used? 

 The parenthesis doesn't appear a whole lot in fiction writing, but it can be an effective tool when it's added rarely. In fiction, parentheses most often indicate an aside, or an extra bit of information, that the author is giving to the reader or reminding the reader about. In most all situations, parentheses won't appear inside dialogue. When they do appear in dialogue, parentheses usually denote something that has not been spoken aloud by the speaker; rather, they are used to express the speaker's thoughts or provide some extra information. Using parentheses inside dialogue is very rare, and shouldn't be added just for the heck of it. 

How Are They Used? 

Parentheses quite literally isolate a single phrase, sentence or thought from the rest of the words around it -- and you don't have to use any special punctuation before or after using a parenthesis. The parenthesis by itself is a punctuation, so you don't want to double up unless you're ending the sentence directly after the parentheses are closed. With the exception of separate thoughts and sentences within the parentheses, no punctuation should appear inside the parentheses. If you're ending a sentence immediately after the parenthetical text ends, always put the period outside the parenthesis. Some examples might make it easier to understand: 

Johnny and Anne appeared to be in love (though they'd broken up about a dozen times in the past).

Notice the period placement in the above sentence. If the period were to appear before the final parenthesis, it would be woefully incorrect. However, punctuation may sometimes be necessary even inside parentheses. Example: 

Johnny and Anne were fighting again, and everyone was holding their breath to see what would happen next (and save their wind for the rush toward the nearest exits, an exodus that would surely begin once the argument escalated).

Without the comma that appears in the middle of the parenthetical text, that phrase isn't going to look pleasant or read correctly. However, you'll notice that the period of the sentence still appears outside the parentheses. Remember, only punctuate inside them if it's relevant to the specific phrase that's being isolated -- normal punctuation rules still apply to the sentence as a whole. 

When used sparingly, parentheses can be a powerful tool for making text stand out and getting points across to the reader. Like every other kind of special punctuation, however, overuse of parentheses will have a negative effect on the entire book.