Writing 101: The Joy of Templates

I've made it clear that I'm a big fan of staying organized during the writing process. I create outlines, character sheets, the whole ball of wax. But sometimes, you need something more than the standard blank document to keep your plot organized and all your thoughts straight. I'm talking about the joy of templates. 

Let's Hear it for Templates!

I've advocated using templates to keep your manuscript properly formatted; this will save you a ton of frustration and time when you convert your work into an ebook-ready format. But templates serve another important function: they can help you keep all your book notes organized. 

Plots can get pretty complex, particularly if you've got a lot of characters interacting or a big event happening. I'm usually pretty straightforward when it comes to writing outlines for my stories; in the past, a blank Word document has always been good enough for me. But lately I've been working on a novel that's extremely involved. There's a special event going on over multiple weeks that involves all sorts of information and characters, and frankly it's incredibly confusing. 

To keep the days of the event straight, I pulled up a calendar template that fits right onto my computer screen. It's possible to set the calendar to any year and month, so for me it worked out perfectly. I used another template to keep some very extensive notes organized and categorized (it's basically a list of objects with brief descriptions, and information about who's bringing each object -- sort of). 

The point is, I'm pretty sure my book would be an utter mess without these templates. When I need to know something specific, I can just glance at a single document to find what I need. Otherwise, I'd have to crawl back through the book to find out what I want to know (and I don't need that kind of hassle). 

There are dozens and dozens of templates available for a variety of word processing software. Microsoft Word, by far one of the most commonly-used processors, makes it incredibly easy to find templates. There's a built-in list of what's available, and if that isn't good enough you can always type something in the search bar to seek out the proper template online. MS Word will find the template and allow you to download it without ever leaving the program. Other word processing programs offer similar features, so you should never hesitate to look for a template if you want to get all your important notes and information well-organized.

Writers need tricks, help and props to survive, because writing is hard. Create as many documents as you like and write all the notes you need to keep your plot, characters and other pertinent information organized. The more organized you keep all your information, the less editing and re-writing you'll end up doing later.

Going Inside The Tower

"Rain's life only becomes more and more turbid, more tangled, more mysterious...an excelent sequel."

"Jade Varden has created another EXCELLENT book...with drama, mystery, friendship, self-discovery, redemption and one of my favorite characters."

The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2) has been awarded 5/5 stars at Reading...Dreaming. The review is spoiler-free, so feel free to read it at will.

Writing 101: Parts of Speech

Webster's Dictionary (the standard for American English) contains more than 400,000 entries. That's a whole lot of words for writers to try and track, and it's one of the reasons grammar is so difficult to master. Knowing which word goes where is pretty much impossible -- unless you memorize everything about all 400,000 of those words (including the correct spelling). Know your parts of speech instead, and you'll have an easier time making perfect sentences that won't confuse your readers. 

Articles 

Technically, there are just two articles in the entire English language: a and the. Sometimes, a turns into an, but they're considered to be the same word (vowels like to confuse everyone). Articles are only used with nouns. A sentence using an article with no noun would look something like this: The blue wandered past. Somewhere inside your head, a voice ought to be screaming the blue what? That's how you know there's a missing noun.

 Nouns

Remember the classic English lesson? Nouns are persons, places and things. Sally and Herbert are both nouns; so are balloon and Luxembourg. You can't make a sentence without a noun. Articles and adjectives cannot possibly function without them, and you'd have a pretty tough time using verbs, too.

Nouns are a big part of speech; there are a lot of words that fall into this category. But this part of speech is not without its confusion. Jade is noun...but she isn't. She is a pronoun.

Pronouns

She, he, her and we are all pronouns. A pronoun is simply a word that replaces a noun, and it's absolutely a necessary part of speech for a certain writing trick that everyone uses. If you write a sentence like Emma stared between Roger and Henry, Emma's green eyes lit with an angry fire as Roger reached to take Emma's hand. How repetitive and ugly is that sentence? You absolutely need the word her to avoid this type of redundancy, so hold your pronouns close to you at night.

Conjunctions

It's incredibly difficult to write descriptive sentences without conjunctions. Also known as linking words, the conjunctions include, and are not limited to, for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so. You can't even describe the holiday season without a conjunction -- unless you know another way to write red and green. Conjunctions link sentence parts together and link words within the sentence together. Robb wanted to go to the movies, but I wanted to visit the museum. The Monet was red and blue. In order to properly use conjunctions all the time, you've got to know how to use commas.

Verbs

Verbs are action words. You need them to walk, run, think or even just sit. All derivatives of be and do are considered verbs, so even if something just is you're using a verb. Traditionally, verbs are used with nouns. You can write To run through the park, but it doesn't make much sense and there's no narrative. Tell me that Molly runs through the park, and I understand what the heck is going on. Even when you put the verb in the sentence first, it's still describing a noun: Coughing and sputtering, the car climbed up the hill. The verbs in that sentence are cough, sputter and climb, and every single one of them is used with the noun car. If you can't find the noun in your sentence but you can find verbs, you might have a grammar problem.

Adverbs

Like the name suggests, adverbs have something to do with verbs. In fact, they're completely dependent upon them. Whether you know it or not, you probably use a certain adverb a lot: it's very. Adverbs are used to modify verbs. A proper sentence containing a verb and an adverb would look something like this: She carefully wrote the blog post. Obviously, to write is the verb in this sentence. The adverb carefully modifies the verb by helping to describe it. How did she write? Carefully, that's how.  

Almost all adverbs end in ly. An example of one that doesn't is always. You can't always something unless there's a verb involved - you can always love grammar blog posts, because love is a verb. But you can never always blue car, because that's totally nonsensical.

Adjectives

No writer could effectively write without adjectives. All colors are adjectives, as are most feelings. Adjectives are otherwise known as descriptive words, because that's the purpose they serve. They describe. I can tell you that The wheelbarrow was sitting in the yard. But if I tell you that The rusted, brown wheelbarrow was sitting in the yard you can picture it a whole lot better, right? Adjectives are the writer's best friend, so use them well. 

You cannot have an adjective without a noun or a pronoun. I can tell you blue, worn and ugly, but if you don't know what's blue, worn and ugly then you aren't going to care.

Prepositions

The easy answer for prepositions is that they are words describing anywhere a mouse can go. They're so confusing, I wrote an entire post about prepositions in the past. They're simply used to link pronouns and nouns, usually to each other, and I ignore all rules of preposition usage. Prepositions include words like to, under, over, with, up, toward and between, to name just a few. If you're between a rock and a hard place, you're properly using your preposition to link nouns. Prepositions, like many other parts of speech, can appear pretty much anywhere in a sentence -- even at the very beginning or the very end. Usually, but not always, prepositions are immediately followed by a noun or a pronoun.

Interjections

Truly the most under-appreciate part of speech, interjections are great fun to insert into any sentence -- and they can go anywhere. Really, words that are classified as interjections have been given this label because they don't belong anywhere else. Wow! Oh! Yikes! and oops are all interjections, and no you don't always have to use them with an exclamation point (I just like exclamation points). Using them very occasionally can draw attention to a specific moment in your writing: And oh! He'd hurt me terribly that day. Wow, he's really changed.

Parts of Speech

Knowing the basic parts of speech will help you craft strong, grammatically-correct sentences. However, many words can be multiple parts of speech -- it just depends on where you put them in the sentence. If the leather is soft and smooth, the word leather is a noun. If the leather purse is soft and smooth, the word leather becomes an adjective. It's usually easiest to identify nouns and verbs first, so once you figure out where these guys are at you can often sort out all the rest.

Death Comes to the Page

Death (Deck of Lies, #3) is now available in print! You'll get a full cover and 206 lovely paper pages filled with lies, secrets and conspiracies when you order your copy from Amazon.

Praise for Death

"Rain continues her quest for the truth - but what truth that is continues to change: her hunt for her identity led to a murder, her hunt for a murderer led her to more of her own secrets... Death delivers a good dose of reflection on the previous rollercoaster of events from Books 1 and 2, whilst continuing to throw up more surprises....

"Deck of Lies is a fantastic YA mystery series, with plenty of twists and fans of soaps like Dallas, Days of Our Lives and Sunset Beach, will love the mad hookups and random family relationship relevations. Jade's writing is style is vivid and concise, helping you to completely immerse yourself in her stories."

-author Melanie Cusick-Jones 

"Once again I wasn't able to put the series down. I love the detail Jade Varden writes in, the family history has obviously been thought about a lot and it is easy to follow. I'm not going to say too much about the storyline other than, Rain once again finds her life being turned upside down and herself being put in difficult situations, as the unpredictability of the book is what makes it so great."

-Sienna Logan, Lost to Books

Still haven't started reading the Deck of Lies? Look to the left to find out where you can get Justice (Deck of Lies, #1) and The Tower (Deck of Lies, #2), and see if you can find the truth beneath all the lies.

Writing 101: The Truth About KDP Select

Most indie authors head straight for Amazon's KDP program when they want to self-publish a book, and for good reason. Amazon is the leader in the ebook market, and their system is incredibly user-friendly. Personally, I don't advocate this -- for formatting reasons, I always advise going to Smashwords first. Some indie authors can't go to Smashwords first, or at all, because of KDP Select. Some indie authors swear by KDP Select; they think it's great. Before you sign up for it, learn the truth about KDP Select, and make sure you know what you're getting into. 

What's KDP Select?

When you go to Amazon to present your ebook to the world, you're going to find something called KDP Select. This is a special program for indie authors that allows you to run free promotions on your books, and if you spend any amount of time on the Kindle forums you'll learn that many indies love it. 

The program certainly has its merits. Listing your book on Amazon's free list is a great way to get a whole lot of downloads (not sales, because you can't earn any money on free). This means you're potentially getting a whole lot of readers, and this is why so many self-published authors sign up for the program. 

Free Promotions

The best thing KDP Select has going for it is the free promotions. It's a good incentive, I'll admit, especially for indie authors who really want to spread the word about their work. But free promotions have a dark side, too. Kindles, Nooks and other ereaders hold a whole lot of books. Plenty of ereader owners download books because they're free. How long are those free books going to sit on those readers before they get a second or even a first glance? No one knows. Maybe it won't ever get looked at. 

Yes, you're going to get downloads from running free promotions, but this doesn't necessarily translate into readers. Once the free promotion is over, the majority of indie authors find that their book sales go right back to where they were prior to the promotion. Sales rankings change quickly in Amazon, and a brief spike is commonly accompanied by a quick fall. 

KDP Select isn't the only way to fun a free promotion, either. You can generate coupon codes on Smashwords to give books away for free, and you can even create special promotions to give your books away for free on your own blog.

The Dark Side

There's one huge drawback to KDP Select that makes it a deal-breaker for lots of indies: it's an exclusive arrangement. Once you list your book with the program, you cannot sell your book anywhere else until you pull it from the program. This means you can't sell it at B&N, Goodreads, Kobo, Apple or another other online ebookstore. Amazon does have the biggest chunk of the ebook market...but they don't have the whole pie. Once you enroll a book in KDP Select, you're automatically limiting yourself  and shutting yourself off from a wide group of potential readers because you're only selling your book in one place. Is it really a good idea for indie authors to limit themselves...in any way?

Writing 101: Their, There and They're

Some words are so common, we never think twice about using them -- and that's a big problem. Three of the most common words are mixed up and misplaced very often in writing. It's time for that to stop. There's a way to master using their, there and they're, and once you do your grammar will instantly improve. 

Their

Their is probably the most difficult word in this homonym set, and that's why it's the first one of the group that writers have to master. Right out of the gate, their is hard to spell. It's an ugly word, and defies all spelling logic. In a proper word world, the i would come before the e, the way it ought, and everyone would be happy.

Not possible. Their is actually a form of the word they (as if the group wasn't confusing enough), therefore it's got to be spelled with the e first -- according to expert grammarians. The word their is possessive, which means it's always used to denote ownership. It belongs in the same word family as his and hers and ours. Something belongs to their when it's not yours or mine, but someone else's.

By the rules of language, their is the possessive of they. If their didn't exist, we would end up writing stuff like this: I can't take Muffy and Fluffy out for they's afternoon walk because I misplaced they's leash. Because that's how the possessive form of they would look otherwise. But their does exist, so instead I would write that I can't take Muffy and Fluffy out for their afternoon walk because I misplaced their leash.

Their is used to show possession, and that's the only time it's used. The word isn't necessarily used to indicate more than one person, but most commonly this is the case. That's the other reason this word is so horribly confusing: because they're also exists. 

They're

They're has an apostrophe in it, so right away you know there are some letters missing. They're is actually they are, and those two words always have a specific meaning. They are going to the store. They are reading stuff online. They are looking for grammar mistakes. It means that more than one person or thing is doing something -- maybe just existing (They are.) if no new verb is added. They can be people, or animals, or plants (they are wilting in the drought) or whatever -- as long as it's more than one. When you accidentally use they're someplace where there or their ought to be, you're changing things around considerably.

They're isn't anyplace to go in this town.

I saw someone standing in the shadows over they're.  

You're also changing the meaning of your words if you neglect to put they're in the right place.

Their looking at me funny, and I'm uncomfortable. 

So I'm telling this joke, and there laughing about it. 

Always remember the apostrophe. They're is always they are no matter what, and it always involves more than one -- more than one word, more than one person or thing, more than one opportunity to make the wrong grammar decision.

There

There is problematic because it's used in all sorts of different ways. Sometimes, it refers to a physical place that you can reach out and touch: Sandy stood there in the hallway. I found it in the chair, just there. It can also refer to a point in time. She paused there to smile at her audience. You can also use it to draw attention to something: There it is! Or use it for agreement: I agree with you there. 

That's a lot of different ways to use a word. Technically speaking, there very simply means in that place. It sort of means the same thing as here, except when something's there it's not quite as close to you.

This word gets confusing because it's common to use the words there's and theirs. Start throwing the letter s around, and you're getting into all sorts of sticky grammar situations. There's an easy way to solve the problem. Their is possessive. Add an s and it's still possessive. When something is theirs, they own it. 

You only use the word there's when you're pointing something out. Because of the apostrophe, you know it actually represents there is -- and that's not possessive at all. There is a good reason to learn proper grammar! When you're using there's, you're pointing something out. When you're using theirs, you're showing that something belongs to them. 

There is no such word as theres. It doesn't exist, so if you've got an e and an s next to each other with no apostrophe, it's bad! The s only joins the party when it's dating r. You can't add s to they're, either, so it's an easy rule to remember to keep your grammar guest list straight.

Love and Justice

 "Justice is full of mystery, problems, and drama."

"There was always something happening and there is still a lot that needs to be solved."

Justice has been reviewed at Pages of Forbidden Love, and I love the review! Go and read the whole thing. Get your free copy of Justice after you enter the giveaway -- just look to the left to find the link!

From the Trenches: Late Bloomer

Some writers find their calling at a young age, and begin scribbling on pages as soon as they can hold a pen. Other writers get that urge, and don't follow it -- maybe because they're afraid, or they're busy, or it just feels too hard to try. One famous writer found that she couldn't ignore the urge any longer, and began writing children's books when other women her age were grandmothers. Good thing she did, or else re-runs would be seriously lacking some seriously good period TV.

Laura Ingalls Wilder probably never thought of having her own career. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a pioneer...and none of it left very much time for writing. But she felt the itch that all writers feel, and when she saw her daughter, Rose, making a go of writing Wilder decided she would try it herself. And so she did, and the entire world fell in love with a family that lived in a Little House.

Little House, Big Dreams

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was born in the wilds of Wisconsin in 1867 to father Charles and mother Caroline. She had an older sister Mary, who went blind, and two younger sisters named Caroline and Grace. They were true pioneers, who settled on the frontier in what's now known as Kansas. Laura's father had a wandering urge, an they moved from frontier to frontier for several years before settling in South Dakota, where they saw an entire town spring up around them.

She began teaching school at age 16 to help with the family finances even though she was still attending school herself, not to mention working for a local dressmaker. All of this stopped, however, when she married a farmer named Almanzo Wilder at age 18. She joined him on his homestead and had a baby girl, Rose, shortly thereafter. Another son was born, but he died shortly after being born in 1889.

Disaster struck, and struck, and struck. Just before her baby boy died, Almanzo (whom she called "Manly") suffered illness that left him partially paralyzed for life. A fire destroyed their home and their barn, and then drought swept through the land and lasted for years. They left South Dakota and moved to Florida, which had a warm climate. This didn't last long. They moved back to South Dakota and each took jobs to support their small family. In 1894, they moved to Missouri where the land was still wild and undeveloped. Here, they built Rocky Ridge Farm. Eking out a living was tough. Almanzo cleared the property and sold cartloads of firewood for 50 cents in town. But as the land was cleared, the fields were tilled. Over the next two decades Rocky Ridge turned into a sprawling, 200-acre farm producing poultry, fruit and dairy products.

Meanwhile, Rose was growing up and dreaming of being a writer. She began to enjoy some success and earn some money at the task, and her mother took notice. Laura decided to follow her own writing itch, and penned an article for the Missouri Ruralist. It was great, and they gave her a permanent position as a columnist as a result. The Wilders began to work their own land less and less, hiring help to toil in the fields instead, and this gave Laura more time to write. Daughter Rose Wilder Lane enjoyed some success as a national freelance writer, and though her finances suffered in the crash of '29 she earned enough to get through the Great Depression.

Her parents were not so lucky. The stock market crash and resulting financial collapse hit them hard, leaving Rose to assume financial responsibility for them. But Laura Ingalls Wilder was still writing. She penned a biographical story about her childhood on the frontier following the death of her mother and her sister. It was called Pioneer Girl.

The publishers and Rose's agent didn't like it. Laura Ingalls Wilder, who had already experienced death, drought, catastrophe and even depression, wasn't about to give up that easily. She changed the autobiographical work into a story instead. "I" became "Laura" and the focus of the book became more for young girls Laura's age. The story became The Little House in the Big Woods instead, and in 1932 it was accepted for publication. Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 years old when it hit the shelves.

It was the beginning of a dynasty. While Rose wrote more adult fare, Laura Ingalls Wilder was thinking about her childhood -- and she wrote about it. Wilder's career as a novelist continued with Little House on the Prairie and a whole host of children's books that followed. Since the first Big Woods book was published in 1931, Wilder's novels have never been out of print.

Her first royalty check came in 1932 in the amount of $500 USD. In 1938, The Saturday Evening Post gave her $30,000 to serialize her book Free Land. She was a huge success as an author, and her writing brought in steady income -- not to mention fan mail. The next few years were filled with writing, and Wilder produced 8 Little House books. They fairly flew off store shelves.

Almanzo died in 1949 at age 93 at Rocky Ridge, where carloads of fans stopped nearly every day to meet the real-life Laura of the Little House books. She lived alone at the farm until 1957, and died just three days before she would have turned 90. She's buried, with Rose and Manly, in the nearby town cemetery.

You can still visit Rocky Ridge Farmhouse today if you like. The townspeople got together to buy the house and grounds, which they turned into a museum. Rose Wilder Lane gave them some of the funds they needed to complete the sale, and donated a portion of her earnings to its continued upkeep.

Years after Wilder's death, the Little House books became a television series on NBC. It ran for 8 years, from 1974 to 1982, and has rarely been out of syndication since. If you've got a TV, you've probably seen Little House on the Prairie at least once. Laura Ingalls Wilder couldn't possibly live long enough to see her book become a beloved and long-running TV show, but it probably would have delighted her. She once said that she wrote the Little House books because she wanted girls to see how much, and how quickly, America changed in her own lifetime. 

She got more out of her one lifetime than some people could get with five. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a late bloomer in the world of writing, because she wasn't afraid to try something new -- not even when she was what we would call a senior citizen. She wrote from the trenches in rugged circumstances, in times of financial trouble, because she had a story she just had to share. And for my part, I'm really, really happy she found a way to share it.