Writing 101: Review Tips You Need to Know

I've written posts about getting reviews, swapping reviews and writing reviews, but I'm still learning new things all the time. In my admittedly brief experience with reviewing other authors, I've figured out a few things the hard way. To help you avoid some of the mess I've struggled with, I'm offering up some tips that you need to know if you're going to open yourself up to doing reviews. 

Review Tips

At this point, you might be thinking but you don't do reviews. I know I give that illusion; I haven't posted a new review in over a month. This is quite deceptive, however. In spite of what it looks like, I've been working on reading a book I'm committed to review this entire time. And that brings us straight to what I now believe is the most important review tip: 

• Check the length. Every new ebook is a mystery. Unless the author has also published a print version of their book, you probably won't find a helpful little page count on the book's official Amazon page. But no matter what, there are ways to check the length -- and you absolutely should (unless you want to spend over a month reading the same book and you're not even halfway through it yet). Even ebooks have a giveaway: file size. Usually, this is a 3-digit number followed by the letters KB. For example, my book Justice is 364 KB. But if you want to know what the heck that means, just ask the author for their estimated word count before you agree to a review. A 60,000 word book is nothing massive; Justice, which is right around this word length, is only 154 printed pages long. But find a way to check the length, because you don't want to agree to read a book and find out that it's colossal after the fact. 
• Set a limit. You don't have to overwhelm yourself. Give yourself a firm cutoff so you don't wind up with a review list that's 10 pages long. Your cutoff might be 5 books or 50 books, but figure out this limit. Once you have reached that book limit, politely respond to new requests that you just can't accept any new books. It's hard to say no, and I personally struggle with it, but it's also hard to maintain your sanity when you have 20 ebooks chasing you through your nightmares. 
• View samples. Always go and look at the sample of the book before you agree to review it. Read the first few lines and make sure it's something you a) understand and b) like. Why? Because what if you agree to review a book based on a great blurb, and then you discover it's an unreadable mess? Either you have to torture yourself through the next umpteen thousand words, or you've got to go back to the author and tell them you made an error. Any which way it goes, it's bad.
• Schedule reading time. Some books compel us to read, calling out to us during all hours of the day. Other books...aren't so compelling. Define a scheduled reading time and decide on a reading quota to make sure you're getting it done and making progress on your review commitments. For instance, I read two chapters a day. It's not a lot, and that's what keeps it manageable and possible. Don't set a limit that's difficult to reach, because then you're just setting yourself up for failure. Give yourself a limit that's easy to meet; if you end up reading way beyond it, more's the better. 

Reviewing Fearlessly

Once you agree to review a book, you have a responsibility to complete. It's important to take all responsibilities seriously, and everyone knows that. If you agree to do something, you should do it. But at the same time, you don't have to punish yourself. If you agree to review a book that winds up being offensive or otherwise godawful, don't be afraid to go back to the author and tell them you just can't finish the thing. Be polite, be succinct and be honest: I can't review this book because I cannot finish it. I cannot finish it because _____. I am sorry I must dissolve our review agreement, and I wish you the best of luck in all your writing endeavors. Yours truly, Book Reviewer. I have not followed this advice in the past, I admit; I'm not always fearless about these sorts of things. Honesty is usually the best policy, but if all else fails just write a polite, breezy email explaining that you over-estimated the time you have available for reading and reviewing, at this time you're going to have to back out of your previous agreement (and you're sorry, saying you're sorry helps).

Don't be afraid to be very specific about your reviewing needs and what you want from the authors who solicit you for reviews. Don't be afraid to tell them no. And don't be afraid to let yourself off the hook if a book is unreadable or intolerable. Everyone's life is limited to a certain amount of reading time (excluding vampires and other immortal beings, of course), and you don't have to spend it trapped inside books you just plain don't like. Review fearlessly, and draw the line wherever you need to draw it. After all, it's your time and you get to spend it however you like.

From the Trenches: It's a Jungle Out There

"You just don't know how to use the English language." Many authors who receive a cruel rejection such as this one might throw away their dictionaries, burn their thesaurus and develop a deep hatred of the literary world. The author who received this letter ended up writing one of the world's most beloved books instead, a story so good that Disney couldn't wait to get their hands on it 75 years later. 

Rudyard Kipling received the quote above in a rejection letter from an editor at the San Francisco Examiner. To his credit, the editor prefaced the quote with "I'm sorry," though any author knows this small courtesy probably didn't do much to ease the sting.  

 Inner Strength

Kipling lived an interesting life. He was born in 1865 in Bombay and was immersed in the world of the arts early, spending time around painters and sculptors. He didn't find his love of words until he was a college student in north Devon 13 years later. He began working as a journalist and editor in 1882 after returning home to India, but didn't get anything of his own published until 1886. Kipling followed up on his poetry with a volume of short stories a year later, and began to publish prolifically over the next few years. By 1892, Kipling was a huge success.

But before he found success, he was getting rejection letters like the one quoted at the top of this post. Rudyard Kipling didn't have an easy childhood. He spent time in a foster home and later, had bad experiences in boarding school because he was bullied and teased mercilessly. Cruel rejection letters belittling his ability could have easily dampened his love of the written word and made him doubt his own talent. 

Luckily, it didn't. Rudyard Kipling was a prolific writer, and a resilient one, and he kept on scribbling away anyway. During his lifetime, Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature and published more than 15 books that included poetry, short story collections and full-length novels. He is best known for The Jungle Book, published in 1894, a story that's still well-beloved today.

Rudyard Kipling wrote in the writing trenches in spite of rejection, even when he was told he had no idea what he was doing. He believed in himself, and in his work, and he went on to prove that silly editor wrong millions of bestselling copies over.

Writing 101: Skipping Around

Many stories are told in a linear fashion (first this happened, then this happened), but you don't have to write your books that way. Skipping around is a time-honored writing tradition that can help you get past tricky scenes, writer's block and plot problems. When your book just isn't behaving itself, try skipping to a different part of the story -- you might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

 Skipping Around

I have to stay pretty organized when I write, because I get distracted easily by little details. If I don't have a path to follow, I'll end up wandering off into the weeds. So usually, I write my books from beginning to end and that's that. But sometimes, skipping around is the only possible solution to a tricky writing problem -- and I had to face it myself. I'm currently working on Judgment, the last book in the Deck of Lies series, and so far I've been all over the place story-wise. What I've learned is that sometimes, skipping around is necessary. 

• Can't stop. I'm a big advocate of doing the proper research to make your book believable, but you can't always stop to look something up when you're in the fiction zone. If words are flowing freely and you're truly feeling inspired, you may not want to stop to check facts. Skip around the parts you need to research to keep the prose going, but make sure you write a note to yourself within the manuscript so you know what you skipped. I put my notes in different colors from the rest of the text, so they stand out. You can also use capital letters and symbols to distinguish notes that you need to see. 
•  Stuck. Not all scenes are created equal. You might need to kill a character, write a love scene or create something extremely dramatic on the page -- and it's hard. If you're good and stuck on something specific, skip ahead to the next scene and see how it goes. Once your words are flowing again and you get yourself loosened up, re-visit that difficult scene and it might be easier to write.
• Flashbacks and out-of-time moments. There are lots of reasons you might need to write scenes out of order. A character might experience an in-depth flashback or a long memory. You might write half a scene in an early chapter of your book, then conclude the scene in a later chapter. If it's easier for you to skip ahead and get these scenes written before you would naturally get to them when writing your book, do it! 
• Plot. Writers don't always have all the answers, not even when it comes to their own books. I like to plot things out before I start writing, but some writers prefer to see where the story takes them. If you're having a plot problem that you just can't figure out, try skipping ahead to see what happens. The simple act of writing and getting back into the story may spark something and help you plug in that plot hole.

Skipping around and writing scenes out of order can help you get your book written if not more efficiently than at least more beautifully, but there's a danger there, too. Always read your book in a linear fashion, from beginning to end, the way readers will be enjoying it. Make sure the scenes you wrote out of order don't deviate from the flow of your book. They must make sense, fit in and read like every other part of the book. The danger of skipping around is writing jerky, disjointed scenes and pieces of prose that just don't seem to fit. Make sure this doesn't happen with solid re-reading, and edit as needed to keep your tone consistent throughout.

Writing 101: Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers are an effective writing trick, and fans of the Deck of Lies series know I love using them. But there's a dark side to using cliffhangers in fiction. Don't let it take you by surprise, or lull you into using cliffhangers indiscriminately.

What Goes Up...

At the end of a chapter, a cliffhanger leaves the reader hungry for more -- and it compels them to keep reading when they might decide to close the book otherwise. Readers want to be thrilled, they want to feel suspense, they want the tension and the drama. Cliffhangers are a very suitable way to give them all of that, but like all good things cliffhangers have to be used in moderation...and sometimes, they shouldn't be used at all. 

It's important to include some natural stopping points in any book, because no one can read all the time. Ideally, your readers will read your story all the way through without putting it down once...but that's not always possible. Natural pauses and stopping points aren't just convenient, they help to relieve the tension you've been creating. 

You've always got to relieve the tension, even if you wait until the sequel to do it. Every reader, every person, has a breaking point. If you keep them hanging out on a cliff and leave them with their tension for too long, they're going to snap. Usually, they'll just get frustrated and stop reading your book. But even if they do finish it, they aren't going to be satisfied with anything from that point on; that's what a breaking point is. Too much tension and too much waiting will force a snap, and it's in those moments that bad opinions are formed. You can't overcome that, even if the writing that follows is phenomenal. 

Cliffhanger Endings

Ending chapters on cliffhangers is common, and it's a good way to keep compelling your readers along through the book. Relieve the tension in the next chapter, either quickly or after you've drawn the suspense out a little, to keep the story moving and keep the reader happily engaged in the tale. 

Ending entire books with cliffhangers is a little bit trickier. 

The cliffhanger ending is immediately frustrating to any reader, because everyone wants a complete story when they sit down with a book. However, when it's done well the cliffhanger ending is also enticing and thrilling, rife with the promise that another book (and more of the story) is on the way.

So make sure you're ready to write the next book. You don't want to keep your readers on the hook for too long waiting for a cliffhanger to resolve. If the cliffhanger isn't resolved in the next book (if, for example, you're writing a multi-book series), you've got to make certain that some sort of progress is made. Readers want answers, so give them some even if you aren't giving them the main answer they want. Dragging a cliffhanger out too long can seriously dampen enjoyment of any story, and leaving too many unanswered questions is like shooting yourself in the foot. If you let it go on too long and drop too many hints, your readers are going to figure it out before you're ready and then there's no reason to keep reading.

Books on Film: The Shining

Some books on film become so monumental in the movie industry, it's easy to forget that once upon a time, the story existed only on a printed page. The Shining is so iconic that Jack Nicholson is still famous for it 30 years later, and it's still one of the most frightening films ever made. But as a novel, Stephen King's famous book tells a very different tale. 

The Book

The Shining is one of Stephen King's earliest novels, and one of his most beloved. The book was a turning point in his career, solidifying him as a top-notch horror author -- a reputation he still holds today. The famous film version of the book focuses on Jack Torrance, but the novel is more oriented on his young son, Danny, who has an unusual talent. 

Danny is the only child for either of his parents, who are trapped in a bad marriage. He's often haunted by the dark thoughts he senses swirling in his father's head, thoughts of suicide and divorce. Jack Torrance is an aspirin addict and a drinker with a bad temper. He broke Danny's arm in a drunken rage, an event that brought Jack back to sobriety -- though not soon enough to save his prestigious prep school job. Out of work and struggling to make good on his responsibilities, Jack accepts a job at a Colorado establishment named the Overlook Hotel working as a winter caretaker. 

The long winter will give him time to work on his play, his pet project, and spend more time with his wife and son. In the book, Danny is 5 years old and incredibly gifted, speaking and thinking like a boy much older and wiser. Danny meets the hotel chef Dick Hallorann soon after their arrival a the Overlook, and they engage in a secret mental conversation.

Soon, Danny becomes haunted by frightening images and ghosts inside the Overlook. The longer he spends in the hotel, the more dangerous it becomes; the building is feeding off of his abilities. It begins to use Jack to get to Danny, slowly driving him into madness. Jack finds the hotel bar miraculously stocked with liquor after a fight with his wife Wendy and falls off the wagon. The hotel begins to tell him to kill them both

Jack and Wendy have a vicious fight after she learns that he's disabled their transportation and communication. He beats her savagely with a mallet and she delivers a mortal stab to him with a butcher knife. She locks herself in a bathroom, and Jack tries to smash the door open with the mallet before he simply unlocks it. By this time, Dick Hallorann has heard Danny's mental call for help and makes his way back to the hotel. But Jack finds Dick first and brutally attacks him before he goes after Danny. 

Jack beats his own face in, so Danny won't recognize him, but the trick doesn't work because the kid can read minds. Danny convinces Jack to go look after the hotel's boiler system. Wendy and Danny find each other, then Dick, and leave the hotel together. Jack is left alone in the basement with the boiler, which explodes. The Overlook, and Jack, are both destroyed. Danny and Wendy end up in (where else?) Maine with Dick Hallorann.

The Film

The film version of The Shining was released only three years after the book hit the shelves. The players and the setting are all the same in the film: Jack, Wendy and Danny are still a family on the outs and still isolated at the eerie Overlook.

This time, the story is more focused on Jack and his descent into madness. Jack falls off the wagon, just like he does in the book, and begins to see the ghosts that populate the hotel. In the film, Hallorann begins to sense what's going on and starts to make his way to the hotel all on his own. Danny begins to freak out visibly, screaming out "redrum" and talking about himself as someone named "Tony."

Wendy discovers that the play Jack has been working on is little more than gibberish, something which does not happen in the book. In the book, Wendy reads Jack's play after he's already dead and it's not altogether bad. She ends up attacking Jack with a bat and locking him in a pantry, from which he is freed by the ghost of the hotel's former caretaker.

Jack goes after his family, breaking through the door with an axe in the movie's most famous scene -- a scene which happens rather differently in the book. In the film, Jack kills Hallorann when he arrives and begins chasing his wife and son around the hotel. Wendy and Danny escape on a snowmobile, leaving Jack to freeze to death in the hotel's hedge maze. The hotel is never destroyed, and its ghost-riddled presence remains intact...with Jack Torrance now happily among them.

What Got Adapted? 

There are so many little differences between the book and movie version of The Shining, I could drive myself crazy trying to list them all. Some big changes were made, some of which seem pretty inexplicable. In the movie, Tony is inside of Danny -- an extension of himself, perhaps. In the novel, Tony exists outside of Danny, and Danny can actually see him. 

It's Danny, not Wendy, who locks Jack up in the book. Danny's character is greatly changed in the film adaptation of the book. In the novel, he's a very precocious 5-year-old child with an extensive vocabulary. On film, he's 7 and fairly normal -- except for the psychic thing, of course. But in the film, his psychic abilities are toned down somewhat. Danny can actually read minds and can find out whatever his parents are thinking when he wants too.

The hedge maze is added for the movie. Instead, there's a topiary garden full of animals that end up coming alive and terrorizing Jack. By the way, Jack doesn't ever use an ax in the book.

The book reveals who Tony actually is. Tony is a very important character in the book, and he's changed thoroughly (and in my opinion, badly) for the film. The finger-talking nonsense is fabricated for film as well, and frankly makes light of Tony's true power and intentions. I've never been one to defend Stephen King (that's right, I'll say it: I'm not a fan), but I do think he deserved a bit better. However, at the end of the day, the film version of The Shining is iconic, and terrifying, and it gives us an incredibly fine performance from Jack Nicholson. Kubrick got a lot of stuff wrong, and many of the changes were just silly (not to mention, I actually root for Jack to kill Wendy in the movie because she's tortuously annoying), but tell me that The Shining is on cable and I'm going to flip to that channel anyway.

Second Time Aroud: The Odyssey

Some stories are so ancient and so popular, they don't just come back once. Some of them keep coming back through the years, sometimes in the same medium and sometimes in brand-new ones. Homer's The Odyssey is required reading for many, considered to be a can't-miss by some...and literally older than Christianity itself. 

The Original

Scholars believe The Odyssey was written by Homer, somewhere in the Greek coastal region of Anatolia, perhaps near the end of the 8th century BC. It's so old, it's hard to know exactly where or when it came from, but it seems to be a continuation of the story Homer began in The Iliad. It's an epic poem, a form of writing that used to be popular many years ago, and it's been read by a great many people who attended school...because they're made to do so.

The story revolves around Odysseus, who is trying to return to his home at the end of the Trojan War, which has lasted for 10 years. He has been fighting in the war for a decade, and his journey home has taken him 10 more years. In his absence, his wife Penelope believes him dead and is contending with several suitors who are vying for her hand.

The gods on Mount Olympus are interested in him, and attempt to help his family learn the truth that he is still alive and seeking them. Much happens here, but it's all quite convoluted and involves the journey of Odysseus's son.

Odysseus, meanwhile, has been trapped by the witch Calypso. She's in love with him, but he's not that into her. It's not until Hermes, messenger of the gods, arrives to persuade her that she releases him. Odysseus escapes in a raft, but the sea god Poseidon discovers his escape and wrecks the small craft. Odysseus swims alone, naked, to the island of Sherie. He finds help thanks to a girl named Nausicaa. During dinner, the famous tale of the Trojan Horse is told, and Odysseus admits his real identity and his leading part in this well-known ploy. 

A long telling of his various adventures follows, including the incident where the witch Circe turns most of his men into pigs. He avoided the deadly sirens by having his men lash him to the mast of his ship, so he could hear their song but would not drown himself in the sea in trying to reach them. His ship was wrecked when his men offend Zeus, and eventually he fell into Calypso's hands.

His tragic tale convinces his newfound friends to help him get home. They take him at night to a harbor on Ithaca, where he disguises himself as a beggar to spy upon his own household. His son arrives back home, but of course does not recognize his father (because he's only 20, and Odysseus has been gone 20 years). Odysseus is eventually found out by a maid who recognizes a scar upon his foot, but he swears her to secrecy so he can continue spying upon his wife, Penelope, and her many suitors.

At a competition among all the suitors the next day, Odysseus wins. He celebrates by killing all of the suitors, hanging 12 of his household maids and mutilating a man who once mocked him. The land at peace, the couple reunited, the story ends...but not for long.

Centuries later, other writers would take Homer's well-known story and re-write it in their own way.

The Remake

Famed Irish author James Joyce tackled the same subject matter in his famous work, Ulysses. First published in entirety in 1922, this book details the story of Leopold Bloom through the city of Dublin. Though it sounds far-removed from the shores of Ithaca, the story very closely parallels The Odyssey, something Joyce intended when he wrote it. His hope for the book was that it would become "immortal."

And it is. 

Told in 18 parts, or episodes, Ulysses is very humorous, stuffed with puns, parodies and unique writing techniques that make Joyce a hot subject of study even today. It's considered, to this day, to be one of the best English-language novels ever written. Each one of the episodes of the books corresponds to something from The Odyssey, but it takes place in what was then-modern Ireland and uses recognizable names, like Stephen and Haines. It's laid out precisely to follow Homer's epic poem, and each episode is given a title that corresponds to a character or event in the original. The hero Leopold does quite normal things, like go to the pub to have a sandwich and wine, and visits the museum to look at statues of Greek goddesses.

At the end of the story, Leopold (Odysseus) and Molly (Penelope) are together and she remembers the day he originally proposed to her.

The Third Time Around? 

The 1920s happened a long time ago, and the world has changed again and again. The Odyssey isn't a tale that can appear in just one century, or two. It's appeared in fiction books much more recently as Cold Mountain. 

The story itself takes place during the American Civil War, but it was written only 15 years ago. This time, the hero is Confederate deserter W.P. Inman, who is wounded and sick of war. He attempts for months to return to Ada Monroe, his lady love. The book tells both their stories through alternating chapters. Though the two hardly knew each other before the war, Ada is Inman's driving ambition as he struggles to get back home to Cold Mountain. Throughout the book, Homer-style, flashbacks of their past are shown to the reader.

Like Odysseus, Inman must face many perils. He overcomes terrible weather (which might have been sent by Poseidon), starvation, harassment and dangerous people who know no laws. Like Odysseus, he is helped at intervals by strangers and eventually does find his way back to Ada's side. The book was turned into a movie starring Jude Law, Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman. You can see another version of the The Odyssey on film thanks to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which is admittedly somewhat loosely based on the original epic poem.

New Review: The Addictive Power of Justice

"I was not able to stop myself reading on, I told myself one more chapter and ended up reading six instead."

"I would recommend this book to anyone and can't wait to read 'The Tower'"

Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) has been reviewed at Lost to Books! Read the entire review to find out why the reader never wanted to start the book in first place...and why she's glad she did. 

Writing 101: You Are Always an Author

I saw an author trying to creatively promote themselves on Goodreads the other day with an interesting, funny little forum post. Here's the rub: the post was riddled with grammatical errors. A thought popped into my head, unbidden: Sure I'll buy your book. Just as soon as you can string together two intelligent sentences. 

I immediately felt bad, of course. I don't want to have mean thoughts, or anything, and this guy's just trying to sell some books. But it did get me to thinking (not just mean things, either) about the image of an author. Whether you're an indie or someone with a famous name, you are always an author. 

And I'm always going to expect you to write like it.

An Author's Image

An author's image matters, and when you're presenting yourself on social media sites, your blog or anywhere else as your author persona, you've got to remember something very important: you are always an author. 

When you're presenting yourself as an author -- anywhere and everywhere -- you should always be writing like it. Your Tweets, your Facebook update, your every piece of writing should be punctuated well, grammatically correct and written like you have some idea of what you're doing. Why? 

Because you are always an author, that's why. Even if you can mix it up on Twitter with the best of them and you know what all the anagrams mean, I don't want you to use them. You can't expect people to take you seriously as an author unless you're presenting yourself in that way, and even one sloppy forum post is going to make some reader, somewhere, roll their eyes (considering my knee-jerk judgmental responses, it's probably going to be me). If you're an indie author, you can't afford to alienate even one potential fan. 

 Presenting Yourself

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. You want to present yourself as an author who knows how to write, but the world's an imperfect place. Don't be too rigid to fit into it, even if you're doing it in the name of good English. 

• Quotes. If you're quoting one of your reviewers, you're not really allowed to clean up their quotes. There are tricks you can use to better them (such as adding an ellipsis and bracketed words), but you may run into bad grammar and poorly-written phrases that are still highly complimentary of your work. Don't misquote; just clean it up as best as you're allowed, grit your teeth and feel proud that you actually have some reviews. 
• Space. There are times when you're going to be working against yourself. Space is limited on Twitter, which is a great platform for promotion. When space is limited, so are your words -- and that's torturous for any writer. Self-edit as best you can to keep your tweets reasonable, and when absolutely necessary resort to the most common shortening methods (abbreviations, swapping in numerals, etc.). Just don't create an entire tweet using nothing but abbreviations and acronyms, because you won't look at all like you understand words. 
• Mistakes. You're only human, and you're bound to make some errors. You should always give your tweets, forum posts and other writings, no matter how glib or small, a good once-over before you hit that "submit" button. But if some mistakes do fall through the cracks, don't berate yourself. If you're being careful, you'll end up being perfect most of the time -- but no one can be perfect all of the time. 

Presenting yourself well as an author doesn't mean you have to be stiff and formal. There's a way to write casually and conversationally, and still write within the basic rules of grammar and correct punctuation. I know that's true because humor novels exist. But if writing correct prose all the time is too heavy, you can always get creative and throw in some poetry every now and again. Poetry knows very few rules, particularly if you're just writing free-form verse.