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Challenge yourself to write ‘dramables’

In the hands of a gifted writer, stories become extended parables, layered with symbolism and meaning that examine the many questions of human existence. While maintaining the best qualities of escapist literature, such stories transcend escapism in quality.

I call them dramables – or dramatic parables – and have read them in many genres…science fiction, historical fiction, westerns, mysteries, even romance. The author merely must choose not to write to the lowest common denominator by believing that a space battle, political machinations, a violent fight, solving a murder, or a torrid romance will be satisfactory enough.

Indeed, a space battle might become the event in which a young pilot tussles over issues of cowardice and sacrifice. Political machinations set in ancient Rome could explore the ethics of modern American politics. A violent fight between two Old West ranch families offers a young deputy the chance to learn how hatred whirls from a spark to an uncontrollable firestorm. A murder could be the basis for examining the nature of perception and reality. A torrid romance allows the characters to examine the issues of loyalty and duty and its affect on society.

Writers should not pen dramables simply because they are more “artful” or more “intellectual” but because doing so fulfills the promise that writing can fulfill. Why be satisfied producing chocolate box art when you can do so much more?

Genre stories that lack any deeper meaning than escapism at their best are overly sentimental and inoffensive; at their worse, they are bland and cliché. That’s not the kind of novel or short story you want to write. Your writing talent deserves more respect than that.

And so does your reader.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Improve book sales by answering readers’ emails

Among the best ways to sell more books is to make a personal connection with readers. This can be done in a number of ways, but perhaps the easiest is to simply answer any email from fans.

This simple courteous act will net you a fan with an even deeper admiration for you. He will appreciate that you took the time to answer. You’ve also just netted a buyer of your next book. More importantly, you’ve helped spread a little cheer in the world.

And when people do good, good tends to come back to them. The fan almost certainly will tell his friends and any social media followers, netting you free publicity. Almost certainly some of those people will check out your website, blog or Amazon.com landing page. As friends tend to share similar reading interests, your books likely appeal to their tastes, resulting in additional sales of your current if not your previous books and your next one.

In addition, these fans will come to your rescue when you’re criticized. Unfortunately, there are plenty of trolls out there who will post unfairly negative reviews and cutting commentary. While you as the author ought to ignore such nastiness, you’ll be pleasantly surprised when fast fans don’t.

So what should you write to a fan?

First, acknowledge that their letter was appreciated. It can be as simple as Thank you for taking the time to write; I always enjoy hearing from readers.

Next, use their name. It adds a personalized touch that shows you really did look at the letter. The above sentence could be as simple as Thank you for taking the time to write, Jane; I always enjoy hearing from readers.

Then, answer any questions they might have. The answer ought to be brief or you’ll unwittingly encourage a reply to your response, resulting in a correspondence that takes you away from writing the books your fan wants to read. You also may want to cut and paste the question and your answer into a file; often readers ask the same questions, so you can improve upon and not have to write from scratch your answers in other emails. The Q&A later might even be compiled into a blog entry or page for your website.

Whatever you do, DON’T promo your upcoming book (unless the reader asks when it’s coming out). That turns your response into an advertisement and undercuts the positive effect your could have have from replying a reader. So no Hope you pick up my next book, “Raze and Ruin,” when it comes out Dec. 1!

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Best outcome: Ensure vs. Assure vs. Insure

If there’s one thing for certain, and let me dispel any doubts you may have about it – in fact, I’d even take out a policy knowing I’d get paid out – it’s that someone will mix up these three words.

Although each of these three words involves an “outcome,” they’re not synonymous with one another.

Ensure means that you will make something certain, as in Jane will ensure that cups are brought to the party.

Assure means to promise or to say confidently, like Melissa assured us that her parents would be out of town the night of the party.

Insure means to protect against risk by taking out an insurance policy, to wit Tara said she needed to insure her car before driving it to the party.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Four writing prompts: Deceit

Good stories center on the clashing of characters’ goals and motivations. Sometimes a character’s goals and motivations arise when lies are told and identities disguised. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on deceit.

Man vs. nature
While in the wilderness, a man finds himself engaged in a chess-like match with a long-time rival who wants him dead. Why are they rivals? Forced to utilize the materials in their surroundings, which one can employ the right amount if misdirection to overcome the other?

Man vs. man
What if our main character realizes he’s a pawn in someone’s game, being manipulated to serve another person’s ends? What is the manipulator’s goal and why would he choose our protagonist for this role? How does the main character turn the tables on the manipulator?

Man vs. society
An organization frames our main character. How does he escape the capture of authorities as finding proof of his innocence? Why did this organization set up our main character (Was he just an expendable fall guy or something more?)?

Man vs. himself
Given the opportunity of a lifetime, a man is asked to ghostwrite for a famous author. But when the man sees his words only bring more fame and respect to the author, he begins to wonder if he can carry on this deceit. Do the riches the author lavishes upon our main character outweigh the demands of pride that he be recognized for his talents?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

When to use first-person minor in stories

Among the lesser used yet most powerful of point of views is first-person minor. This point of view occurs when the narrator is in the story but is not the protagonist. It can be identified by the use of I/me. It sometimes is referred to as first-person peripheral.

Several famous novels and stories have been told in first-person minor. Perhaps among the most famous of them are Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

First-person minor ought to be used whenever the author wants to:
• Provide a clear perspective about what has occurred because the protagonist is incapable of doing so. This usually is the case when the protagonist doesn’t grow or develop over the course of the story, though the narrator does or the reader will.
• Hide what’s going on inside the character’s head. This usually is done to keep some secret about him or to create an aura of coolness.
• Utilize a protagonist that is difficult for readers to relate to. This would be the case with an extremely alien character in a science fiction story.
• Kill the protagonist at the end of the story. Because of this, the main character can’t narrate what occurred as he’s dead, unless the story is written in present tense.

Of course, there are many instances when the author wouldn’t want to use first-person minor:
• When the protagonist grows and develops, getting inside his heads allows the reader to join him on that journey.
• If an intimate experience with the protagonist is required of the reader, then a minor viewpoint diminishes it. This is particularly true when the main character bucks society’s cherished values; intimacy can help the reader better understand why he takes that position and the resulting decisions he makes.
• Should the story be theme-oriented, then experiencing the world through the protagonist could help drive home that message. This sometimes is done in science fiction and fantasy tales.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Five Great Quotations about Students of Writing

“I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.” - English Professor (Name Unknown), Ohio University

“Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” - Flannery O’Connor

“I don’t know much about creative writing programs. But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.” - Doris Lessing

“I don’t think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don’t know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it - you can’t teach it.” - William Faulkner

“Giving these students, teenagers, any form of power over the use of their own words, allowing them to turn everyday raw material into some form of beauty, is a gift beyond measure.” - Gloria Ng

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Be a better writer by empowering your reader

When you empower your reader, you become a better writer.

To empower your reader means respecting his intelligence. You don’t need to explain what was just obviously said in the dialogue or to elaborate on the obvious moral of the story in a “You see, Timmy” moment. When you include that extra wordage, you reduce the punch and drama of your story, and the reader feels cheated.

Empowering means trusting the reader to grasp your inferences and symbolism, of not spelling out via exposition what is meant. When you explain a simile, metaphor or allusion, you drain its evocative power. If you fear the reader won’t get the metaphor unless you go in detail about it, then maybe the metaphor isn’t that good to begin with.

Empowering means sharing the important information of a story with readers rather than holding it all back or burying it in sentence after sentence of irrelevancies. Your writing should be succinct and tight, meaning no mime conversations and here-to-there action. Ensure that every word actually centers on conflict and moves the story forward.

Empowering means utilizing an easy to follow, albeit subtle, framework for your story so that readers are not confused about what is occurring or what is the protagonist’s goal. Readers want to be surprised by but accept as plausible the characters’ decisions not spend page after page trying to guess why an action was taken.

Writers who do not empower their readers show not just a lack of confidence in anyone picking up their book but in their own writing abilities. Empowering readers requires a lot of thought and revising to get it just right; taking the easy approach only tells readers that you don’t believe you can handle that challenge.

When you do write the many drafts necessary to empower your reader, however, your skills and talents grow. Perhaps slowly but always surely, you’ll find that writing respectful of your reader becomes easier and easier…and your readers will show their appreciation by picking up more and more of your titles.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

What is an ASIN (and other useful things to know)

Writers new to self-publishing often run into the abbreviation ASIN and find themselves confused. Is it the same as an International Standard Book Number (ISBN)? Does one need an ISBN if you have an ASIN?

ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number, a 10-character alphanumeric identifier used by Amazon.com and some of its partners. Amazon.com assigns every book (actually, every product sold at its website) a unique ASIN.

For the most part, the ASIN is not the same as the ISBN. Paperbacks published in the Untied States, for example, need an ISBN to be published and afterward are assigned an ASIN. Ebooks do not require an ISBN but if sold on Amazon.com via KindleDP will receive an ASIN. The 10-digit ISBN for international paperbacks, however, does match the ASIN.

A single product need not have the same ASIN. Sometimes a book will have a different ASIN when sold on a different country’s Amazon.com sites. In addition, the ebook version and a paperback of the same title and content have different ASINs; a digital book is considered a different product than a trade hard copy.

You never need to pay for an ASIN, so be aware of scams trying to convince you to that you need to do so.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

Writers can choose between bookkeeping systems

When writers run a small business centered on their books, they need to spend some time handling the accounting. When doing so, they can choose between one of the two bookkeeping systems – single-entry or double-entry.

Both simple and practical, the single-entry system usually is the best option for authors new to the business world. The flow of income and expenses is recorded through two simple documents – a daily summary of cash receipts (income) and a monthly summary of cash receipts and disbursements (expenses). So long as disbursements is a smaller amount that cash receipts, you’ve made a profit.

As your business grows larger to include appearances, paid classes, and merchandise in addition to books, you likely will want to use the double-entry system. This bookkeeping system involves entering transactions in a journal and then posting them to ledger accounts, which show not just income and expenses but also assets (your business property), liabilities (your business debts), and net worth (which are your assets minus your liabilities). It’s called a double-entry system because on old accounting paper debits would be recorded on the left and credits on the right in columns next to one another.

Fortunately, you don’t have do any of the accounting by hand as bookkeeping software is available. Such programs generally are easy to use and usually take the math out of it for you, ensuring that so long as you’ve entered the correct numbers in the correct spots, you’ll have accurate records. You can find this fairly inexpensive software at any number of retail stores or even download it from online vendors.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.

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When writing, watch for pronoun agreement

Whenever using a pronoun, it must refer to something previously mentioned in the sentence, paragraph, or story. For example, in the previous sentence, it refers to pronoun.

You’ll also notice that I used it rather than he or they. That’s because a pronoun also must agree with the number, gender and type of the word it refers to (The word referred to is called an antecedent). A pronoun isn’t a male but a genderless object, or an it. A pronoun also means a lone word not a plurality of them and so it (which is singular) is used rather than they (which means more than one).

Using the correct pronoun that refers to a word is called pronoun agreement.

Often in casual conversation, we’re a bit sloppy with agreement; that often is all right, as the listener who can hear inflections in a speaking voice usually knows what you mean – though if too sloppy, you can sound uneducated. In writing, however, lack of pronoun agreement really stands out, as it creates confusion. For example, Jane sat on the sofa while Alice poured her wine. Is Alice pouring wine for herself or for Jane? Or did the writer something entirely different, as in Jane sat on the sofa while Alice poured their wine? Simply put, by getting the agreement right, the reader can understand what you really mean.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.