Writing 101: Staying Organized

Creativity is chaotic by nature. Inspiration may strike at any time, even when it's inconvenient, and you may think of the ending for a book long before you come up with a viable beginning. Sometimes, a setting might strike you first and you end up building a story around it. No matter what your process might be, staying organized is the only way you're going to write a book without making yourself completely crazy (or turning your book into a big mess). 

How to Do It

Ideas don't arrive in a neat, orderly fashion, and all the pieces of a book probably aren't going to come together in order. That means you have to make notes as they come to you, and figure out how all of them come to together while you're writing. If you're unorganized, you're going to lose your great ideas. You're going to have trouble finding all your notes and remembering all your information, and wind up wasting a bunch of time looking back through your book to figure it all out. The more time you spend looking for some bit of information or note, the less time you spend writing. Organize your book materials neatly, and you'll end up with a much more cohesive story.

• People, places and things. Before you ever start writing, it's a good idea to create separate files for your outline and character sheet. I'm a firm believer in the pre-plotted outline, but lots of authors like to fly by the seat of their pants. Whichever way you want to do it, create an outline anyway. Once you're done with a chapter, start filling in the outline with the main events. Why do this? If you need to know what happens when, it's a lot quicker to look at the outline than to scroll through your manuscript in an attempt to find it. The character sheet will help you keep track of everyone's names, likenesses and pertinent information -- and it's invaluable.
• Filing. Where on your hard drive are you storing your book files? If they're spread out across different directories, you're just making more work for yourself. Put all your files together, both text- and image-based, in a single folder. The folder's title? The name of the book! It sounds simple, but lots of people store their text and image files separately. When it comes to your book, just keep everything together and save yourself a lot of stress and clicking around. 
• The manuscript. Don't store your manuscript in a bunch of different files. I used to open a new file for each and every chapter, and it was a horrifically bad idea. The first few books I wrote had titled chapters, so guess what I ended up with? That's right: a folder full of document files with delightfully random names. Searching for specific scenes was a nightmare. Use just one file for the whole manuscript; this will make ebook formatting and writing much, much easier.
• Physical materials. Just in case you're not confined to your laptop like I am and you actually put together some physical items for your book, you're going to want to put your hands on them easily. You might have handwritten notes, printed images -- I don't know what you've got. But if it's attached to your book, you've got to keep it organized wisely where you can get to it. Where? In a folder, of course! They don't just exist electronically. Put all that stuff together in a folder or a binder, and keep it close to your writing space so you can access it any time. Don't keep anything else in the folder or binder but the stuff for your book. When you start a new book, get a new folder! Write the name of the book on the outside with marker (or use a label if you're fancy) and you're ready to write. 
• Time to write. Staying organized means making time to actually write the book, too. Lots of indie authors have families, full-time jobs, responsibilities and social lives. Squeezing time in to write can be difficult (and I struggle with it all the time). Set aside a couple of hours every day, or a full day each week, that's just for writing time. Organize your schedule to make it work, and try to pay attention to when you're feeling most creative and when you get your best writing done. Make writing one of your scheduled responsibilities. 
• Stay neat. Keep your writing area neat and organized overall, and make sure the files and folders on your computer are sensibly organized as well. Your space has to have order to it as well. A chaotic environment isn't the best space for being creative, because it's distracting. If you're going to write, you need to be able to access all your materials quickly and you can't do that in a messy space. I'm not telling you to dust and disinfect every day, but at least try to keep everything in manageable piles to maintain some semblance of order. It will be much easier to get work done, you'll see! 

Control the chaos, and it's much easier to create. Your mind and your ideas are probably going to be chaotic. When you stay organized about it, you're in a much better position to do something wonderful with them.

Another Reviewer Falls in Love with Justice

"I LOVED every minute of it!!"

"The plot itself was utterly gripping. There’s a lot of mystery at every turn."

Justice has just been reviewed at BookAThonFreak! Visit the blog to read the whole thing, and don't forget that the book is available free from Smashwords for just a few more days. If you haven't already got your copy, get it before the July release celebration for Death is over! 

Writing 101: That That

If you spend any significant amount of time writing, the question is going to come up: when is it okay to consecutively repeat words? Most often, this question will arise in sentences where the word that appears. It might sounds silly at first blush -- who would write a sentence with that that in it? -- but I've seen it...a lot. And under any and all circumstances, no matter which big-selling author does it in their bestselling book, it is wrong. At times it may feel unavoidable, but it never is.

Repetition

I've blogged about over-use of the word that in the past, but it bears repeating. What doesn't need to be repeated is words. Always remember this: twice in a row is too many. 

Scoff if you will, but that that actually crops up more often than you might think. In fact, when I went looking for examples of the dreaded that that, I found too many: 

"I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon... you know, 'cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time."

-George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander), Seinfeld

"If I said yes, that would then suggest that that might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone."
-Donald Rumsfeld

"It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most."
-Walter Lippmann

The quotes above could easily give a reader pause; when you hear the words spoken in the cadence of dialogue, they do make perfect sense. But chances are pretty good that I'm not reading your book out loud -- and as an author, you've got to use a bit better grammar than this. So if a team of authors (or just one) cleaned up the quotes above to eliminate the dreaded that that, what might they look like? 

I'm so glad you asked: 

• I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that sort of thing is frowned upon... you know, 'cause I've worked in a lot of offices, and I tell you, people do that all the time.

Sometimes, you can simply eliminate one of the thats and find that the sentence still makes perfect sense. It's also cleaner and, most importantly, grammatically correct.

• If I said yes, that would then suggest that it might be the only place where it might be done which would not be accurate, necessarily accurate. It might also not be inaccurate, but I'm disinclined to mislead anyone.
• It is perfectly true that a government is best which governs least. It is equally true that a government is best which provides most.

In some cases, that simply needs to be replaced with another word; which, who and it are often your best options.

But it's not always so easy. When the repeated words end and start two separate sentences, or contractions get involved, the grammar rules start to get a bit blurred:

"I guess I still feel that I'm a comedian; if I had to pick one thing that I feel like I could do, it would be that. That doesn't mean that I like it, but I feel that's what I am."
-Larry David

"We can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about."
-Allen West

Iffy, right? When the same word ends one sentence and begins the very next sentence, you aren't technically breaking any grammar rules -- but you should see if you can tweak your sentences so the two don't end up running up against each other. And in the case of using that that's, usually the first that can be eliminated and you won't lose any of the sentence's meaning. When the writing gets tricky, read it several times and play with your words. See if you can make sensible substitutions and eliminations to clean it up; if you think it sounds better with repeated words, leave it in.

And the Exception...

Of course, there are exceptions to just about every rule of grammar, and that's that. In this case, literally. The phrase that's that is extremely common, and technically it doesn't break any rules. The contraction that's is really just a shorter way of writing that is, so when someone says that's that they're actually saying that is that -- so no words are being repeated.

Writing 101: Learn How to Summarize

It's important to write rich and descriptive text, a fact I've expounded upon more than once, but you also have to learn how to edit out all the uninteresting details, too. In any book, there are several plot points you need to hit to make your story work. All of those scenes should be vivid and embellished, so the readers can see all the events unfolding in their mind's eye. But there are always additional moments that happen in-between the action...and I really don't want to know a whole lot about them. If you're going to write books, you'd better learn how to summarize the boring moments and skip ahead in the narrative. 

Details, Details, Details

Lots of readers love long books, and I used to. Half of the enjoyment of the later Harry Potter books lies in the fact that they're massive. But no one wants to read a whole bunch of nothing. Some details aren't important. 

Your characters live a life on the page...but let's face it, every moment of that life can't possibly be interesting. Maybe your character spends a Sunday just hanging around the house in sweatpants eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. What I really don't need is a long, descriptive post about the making of the aforementioned sandwiches. I know what it's like to sit around and do nothing, and most people are sure to be fairly familiar with the mechanics of a good old PB and J. Every hour isn't enticing, and every day isn't exciting. So you're going to have to learn how to skip them -- and still let me know that they happened, because you don't want a bunch of lost time in your book. 

It's not easy to summarize non-events, to skip ahead in a character's life to get to the more interesting parts. But if you don't, and you end up writing hugely detailed passages in which almost nothing whatsoever happens, people are going to skip your books.

Summarizing the Gaps

You can't have a bunch of time gaps in your book (Tuesday we went to the mall and... The next Friday we were at the movies when...), but you also can't have a bunch of useless scenes of daily life where nothing much goes on. Every scene should be relevant to the plot of the story, or offer up some needed information. If it doesn't, it's useless. Sometimes, you've got to skip over the spaces in-between.

The secret to doing so lies in summarizing. It's easy to skip past a night of sleep. You put the character to bed, and the next scene begins with something like "When I woke up..." Skipping quickly through entire days, weeks or months when there's not a lot going on is a bit trickier -- but it can be done with a single sentence. I saw it done once with an entire year. To paraphrase, it went something like Another year passed, in the same manner as the first. This is always an option. Monday and Tuesday dragged by uneventfully. There are a million ways to write it.

But it's not always so easy. You might still need to provide the reader with some information. Something might happen that's not all that interesting, but you've still got to let people know about it. I saw Sheila again on Friday, but once again she walked past me without saying a word. By the time Monday came back around... Again, the secret is in the summary. 

Writers tend to be long-winded. That's because five minutes might take 10 pages to pass in a book. So for many, summarizing doesn't come easy. Here's how to make it happen: think about the main points you need to convey; think about how much time needs to pass; write just that information. These bridges between gaps don't have to be flowery, they just need to be simple and succinct. Every sentence doesn't need to be fancy, just like every detail doesn't need to be shared.

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.