Long or Short?

Kaye George

We all hope to fool our readers, don’t we? We want them to breeze through our deathless prose and think it was easy to write that. After all, we dash these things off all the time, right?

Upsplash green chameleon

Once you try it, you’re not fooled, though. The writing that looks simple, reads easy, is the hardest to do. Then there’s the type of writing. Journalists don’t find it easy to write fiction. Novelists don’t find it easy to write short stories. And short story writers don’t find novels very easy, either. Poets generally just write poetry. Then there’s non-fiction. Whole ‘nother animal.

Thick Books Upsplash morgan harris

It’s hard for me to write a novel, but, I admit, much easier to write a short story. Many writers are the exact opposite. Novels are fun and short stories are hard work. Well, it’s all hard work, sometimes. (Except for those rare instances when The Muse dictates a story to you, fully formed, and you need only copy down the dictation. I think I’ve had that happen twice.) I really do think that the best novels and stories make it look easy. That takes skill! 

Preferring to write novels or short stories may be due to the difference between our own basic tendencies. I tend to write “short,” which means that when I write a novel, it comes in way under the required word count and I must go through my edits, keeping in mind that I need a lot more words. I learned to write lean through doing flash fiction. A 1000-word story doesn’t leave space for extra words. A 100-word story, even worse. I consider flash fiction excellent training for short story writing.

Thin Book Upsplash kelley sikkema

I know many writers tend to write “long.” They end up way over their word count on the first draft and have to cut, cut, cut.

Sometimes I wish I could HAVE those cut words for MY novel. Yeah, they probably wouldn’t go with the rest of the story.

Word count is usually dictated by the publisher. My required word counts for my novels are in my contracts. I’ll admit, I’ve turned some in that are a bit shy of the requirement, but you’re allowed to round your word count. No one said I couldn’t round it up.

If you’re a writer, do you prefer writing long or short? If you’re a reader, does it look easy to write a novel or a short story?

Novels...and Other Lies

by Connie Berry

I've always been a story-teller. A good thing, right?

Well, not when you're a child and the stories you tell are actually fibs (lies, if you insist on accuracy). I loved making things up—not to get out of trouble or cover some misdeed, but to get a little excitement going, to embellish the truth just enough to make the story wonderful. 

In department stores, I would slip away from my mother so I could tell a friendly sales clerk I was lost. This created loads of excitement and fun things like dramatic announcements over the loud speaker. And sometimes candy. Frequently when my mother's friends would gather for a coffee morning (women did stuff like that then), I would announce she had a baby in her tummy. She didn't, but wouldn't it have been wonderful?

I told my Sunday School teacher once that my father had broken his leg that morning. When the story made it around to my grandmother, who had her whole Bible class praying for him, I knew I was in trouble.

Another time I insisted I'd seen a tiny elf-like man peek out of a miniature door hidden in the base of a tree near my house. I wrote a story about that one, which my parents must have considered a step in the right direction.

To encourage me toward truthfulness, my mother bought me a
book, The Most Wonderful Doll in the World by Phyllis McGinley. The story is about Dulcy, a little girl whose memory of a lost doll becomes more wonderful and exaggerated each time she tells about it. Like me, Dulcy was a child with a run-away imagination and a nature that found it "hard to be satisfied with Things As They Are." My mother was right. I was always wondering "what would happen if…?" Adding in a few extra details made Things As They Are so much more interesting.

Now I'm all grown up. I know the difference between telling lies and creating fiction. But the love of stories has never left me. In fact, possessing an over-active imagination is an asset to a writer. I can make up as many tales as I like, and asking "what would happen if…" leads to some great plot twists. One of the things I love best about writing mystery stories is the freedom to create new worlds, populated by interesting characters in unusual settings who find themselves facing unlikely situations. 

We make it all up and call it a novel.

Are you a storyteller? What aspects of your childhood predisposed you to reading or writing fiction?

           

On Reading Novels

by James M. Jackson

“Novels are excluded from serious reading…not that novels are not serious…the reason is that bad novels ought not be read and that good novels never demand any appreciable mental application on the part of the reader. A good novel rushes you like a skiff down a stream, and you arrive at the end perhaps breathless but unexhausted.”

~ from How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett

Most of my nonfiction reading relates to history, science and nature, or writing. I do sometimes wander beyond those areas. Family gives me books for birthdays and Christmas; sometimes a friend recommends a book; sometimes I immerse myself in learning something more deeply (hence the current collection of books on writing); and sometimes a title calls out to me. “You should read this,” it says as I browse a bookstore or check out the you-might-also-like-this recommendations Amazon provides.

Over decades, I’ve come to realize those random choices are often my subconscious grabbing my attention: “Yo! Jim,” says the repressed me. “You got a problem, man. Read this book and see if you can fix yourself.”

I don’t remember the exact circumstances of my deciding to download How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett. I have a vague recollection of hearing about it from an article or blog or maybe a TED talk. In any event, it’s free on Amazon, and I downloaded and read it in early 2014.

I suspect I was not happy about how I was spending my time. [Note this was well before the recent election cycle, about which I admitted in a previous blog that I had become obsessed with the perpetual news (and non-news) cycle. As interesting as the book may have been, it clearly didn’t inoculate me from screwing up again.] I know to concentrate my attention on the available minutes of the day, not the ones over which I have no control. I also know to challenge myself to recognize which things I do not have control over and concentrate only on those I do.

But, I’ve digressed. When I read the book thirty months ago, I kept the Bennett quotation tucked in a separate Word document. Today I will reply to the long dead Mr. Bennett (1867 - 1931).

On this thinking, Mr. Bennett, you have fallen into a left-brained trap, positing that without effort, there can be no measurable change. If there is no measurable change, then no change has occurred. If no change has occurred, you have wasted your time. As time cannot be replenished, wasting it is not a good thing. Therefore, you conclude, reading novels should not be encouraged.

Mr. Bennett seems to suggest people should concentrate their efforts in accumulating left-brain-pleasing experiences. He misses the importance that novels can and do leaving lasting impressions—even deeply embedded feelings—that one cannot experience from reading history.

I have had to stop reading a well-written novel long enough to wipe tears from my eyes. I’ve felt furious at the mistreatment of fictional characters. Seeing the world through fictional characters’ eyes has provided me a better insight into worlds I cannot experience as a white male in the United States. I don’t believe I am alone in this, and you can inform me in the comments if I am wrong.

Mr. Bennett misses another key point by focusing on exhaustion as his measure of success. Athletes know that to strengthen muscles they must push them past a comfort zone and then allow them rest and recovery. Many scientists, inventors, and creative types know that they often gain key insights by allowing their brains rest from working on a problem. Is there any reason reading a thriller or romance or fantasy is less beneficial than other ways of taking a break?

Not for me. I’m interested in what y’all think.

Advice About Publishing Your Novel

Linda Rodriguez wrote this blog three years ago. It contains vital information for all new writers or those who are trying to get published. For the benefit of our community of writers, we are happy to republish today.                     E. B. Davis

I receive emails regularly from people who’ve read one of my novels, such as Every Hidden Fear, or have even just read about them, in which they ask me how to get their own novels published. Usually, they know just about nothing of the business of publishing, which surprises me. If you took a year or so to write a book that you hoped to publish and sell, wouldn’t you owe it to yourself to research and learn something about the business of publishing that you hope to join?

I always try to answer with a detailed listing of things they can do to educate themselves about the business and to begin to connect with the professional literary community. I have posted information on my own blog about various such resources and contests for unpublished manuscripts, but since I know we have a number of aspiring writers, many of them Guppies, reading Writers Who Kill, I’ve decided to write this blog post.

I would hope that most of those who’ve been involved with Sisters in Crime and their Guppies chapter would have learned most of this information, but I’m constantly surprised to find people whom I thought would have this information who don’t. The world of mystery writers is much more welcoming than other literary worlds, I know, but even here I think it can be easy for those of us who have been around for a while to assume that our aspiring writer friends know more than they do. And it’s hard for someone to ask even generous friends about something they’ve never heard of. So if this is all stuff you know, congratulations. This post is for those who may not have had as much chance to learn about the business as you have.

Here’s my resource guide to publishing a novel. It won’t get you published, but it will give you a good foundation in the business of publishing/being a professional novelist and get you started in the right direction.

Pitching a novel to a major publisher today can be very difficult without an agent. Most of the New York trade publishers won’t look at novels unless they’re represented by an agent. Smaller specialized presses, literary presses, and university presses will take unagented queries during their open submissions period, if they have one. Often they can be the best bet for a first novel that’s not necessarily a commercial or genre novel. Poets & Writers has a database of small, literary, and university presses.

http://www.pw.org/small_presses?perpage=* 

Many of these won’t do novels, so you’ll have to sort through them.

Here’s a list of 16 small presses that do novels. 

https://www.thebalance.com/small-and-independent-press-profiles-1277429

You can also do an internet search for small presses that specialize in your particular genre of novel, if you write in one of the genres.

For agents, I would suggest that you check the website of the Association of Author’s Representatives. http://aaronline.org/    

This is the professional association of reputable agents. It’s very easy to get involved with folks who call themselves agents and are really running scams to part authors from their money. Members of AAR have sworn not to do this stuff and are kicked out if they do, so you can trust them.

Another good site to educate yourself and protect yourself from scammers is Writer Beware. http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/http://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/  

This is a site provided by the SFWA, with support from MWA, as a service for all authors, science fiction, mystery, or not.

But the first thing you want to do is to get current copies of Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer magazines. These magazines often talk about which publishers are looking for what kinds of books at the moment. P&W focuses more on the academic and literary writer, while WD focuses more on the commercial or freelance writer. If your library has them, also read back issues of P&W, The Writer, and WD. You’ll learn a lot about the business that way.

Look for professional authors groups to join. There are groups for children’s writers, mystery writers, romance writers, sf/fantasy writers, etc. These groups are usually tremendously helpful in learning the publishing business and making useful contacts. If there is a chapter of a professional writer’s organization near you and it’s not your kind of writing, it can still be useful to you in learning the business. I once belonged to the local chapter of RWA, Romance Writers of America, though I didn’t write romance. I learned about agents, what editors want, what is and is not acceptable behavior in the publishing world, what are and are not good contracts, and tons of other things that became useful to me. Now, we have a chapter of Sisters in Crime here, and I’m active in it, but that time in RWA laid a very good foundation for me. The same goes for SFWA or any of the others. The purposes of these organizations are to help their members with the business of publishing and being a professional—and that’s very similar across the boards.

A book I always recommend to students and aspiring writers is Carolyn See’s Making a Literary Life. I’ve written about this book before on this blog.

http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2012/05/visualizing-success-as-writer.html 

It’s the best book I’ve seen for looking at how to be a professional writer and work on getting published, how to get established within the literary community, how to make a career as a writer without living in NYC, and much else.

If I were you, friend with a book manuscript under your arm, I’d start with these resources. I’d also go to every writer’s appearance/reading/event that occurs in your town if it’s a small one or a good selection if you live in a big city with an active literary community. Buy a book, if you can. Introduce yourself to the writer. Follow up with emails or mailed notes talking about what you liked about their reading or book—not asking for help with your own. Friend writers on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter. Don’t spam them about your own book. What you’re doing is building relationships within the community of writers. These are the folks who can answer questions for you or later (if you’ve built a good, real relationship) give blurbs that will help your book sell. Basically, my advice is to educate yourself about publishing and become a contributing member of the community. Getting a novel published is a long, hard haul, so arm yourself with information and allies.

The best single piece of advice I could give, however, is this—make sure you write a good novel. Get professional feedback and revise, revise, revise until it shines before you ever try to send it out. I suspect that a certain number of folks who are looking for a publisher for their novel have never had anyone professional look at it and haven’t done much with revision. (I know that’s not the case with our Guppies readers, fortunately.) Writing is an art and a profession. Learn about publishing, the business, while you learn about writing, the art and craft. Editors and agents have long memories. They know each other and talk to each other. Don’t stick out in their memories or get your reputation from sending an amateurish manuscript out. Make sure that what you send is the very best it can be, submitted in the most knowledgeable and professional way you can.

Best of luck!