Monthly Archive for February, 2010

Five Quick Tips for Writing Better Dialogue

Posted February 25, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

1. Real people speaking in real conversations, especially in one-on-one situations, don’t use the name of the person they’re speaking to very often. They don’t need to. They might use them sparingly for emphasis, but they don’t do it in every sentence — they don’t need to. Be careful not to overuse names in your dialogue. It makes it feel unrealistic.

2. Real people speaking in real conversations use contractions. When modern characters speak more stiffly than modern people would speak, it can come across as stilted and, again, unrealistic. Unless you’re writing period fiction or employing a device to highlight the formality or alienness of a single character, let your characters use contractions. It will help the dialogue flow more realistically for the reader.

3. Think about your placement of commas. I find that commas are often underutilized in dialogue. If a phrase is set apart by a pause when you speak it, it should be set apart by a pause when you write it.

4. People use vocalizations and verbal devices to stall for time. People from different cultures and different native languages use different words: Um, er, eh… These are all a chance to add a little more color and character to your characters.

5.Try to represent a dialect or accent with clever use of patterns of speech instead of with overuse of creative spelling. A lot of heavy dialect spelling or a hefty sprinkling of apostrophes become tiresome to read very quickly. Use your devices wisely and thoughtfully, and don’t let them get in the way of your words.

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Solomon’s Grave on the Bram Stoker Final Ballot

Posted February 22, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

SOLOMON’S GRAVE by Dan Keohane (Dragon Moon Press) is a finalist for the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. It was a pleasure to work with Dan on the book, and Dragon Moon and I wish him the best of luck.

Congrats, Dan!

A couple other notes:

Erik Buchanan shares his experience and insight with Michell Plested in a great interview on the latest “Get Published”, in advance of the release of COLD MAGICS, Erik’s second book with Dragon Moon Press.

Reminder: The Boom Effect auction for Tee Morris and his daughter is in just five days. Visit the site to see the lots up for auction and to get details about how to drop in and participate next Saturday!

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The “Said” Trap

Posted February 18, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , , .

What’s the most common ‘mistake’ that you see writers make when attributing dialogue?

The biggest challenge with written dialogue as compared to spoken dialogue is this: When you (as a reader) can’t hear the words for yourself, you have no way to know who’s speaking, or how they’re speaking.

It’s easy (as a writer) to convey both of these things either too heavy-handedly, or too minimally. It’s tricky to get them right. It’s up to the writer to make these two bits of information clear, either explicitly or implicitly, so that the reader can follow along without getting confused or distracted from the story.

Done right, the word “said” becomes invisible to the reader. It gives them the information they need without getting in the way. It doesn’t interrupt a powerful moment or break the flow, it just helps the reader keep track of the speaker. It isn’t needed on every line, but there’s no strict technical rule that says you have to insert it every three lines, or every five lines. There’s no quota per page. Attribution should be as minimal as it can be without creating confusion and as frequent as it needs to be without getting in the way.

Sometimes a beat of action can serve as an attribution and impart the same information more smoothly and just as effectively, but it’s not good to go overboard with actions to identify speakers, either. They’re great to keep things moving during dialogue-heavy scenes, but a person doesn’t nod or smile or do something with his hands with every line, nor should we. If someone’s pouring a drink or putting a letter in an envelope, we don’t need to see every single step of the process, one bit at a time, each time they say a line. We just need the highlights. Overused, that sort of thing becomes just as unpolished and distracting as an overuse of “said.”

As to the word “said” itself, there are two schools of thought. One insists that “said” should be the only verb of utterance you ever use. The other focuses on avoiding it as much as possible and using more expressive words instead. Personally, I prefer a middle ground. I favor using “said” enough that it becomes invisible, but not clinging to it when another word is a better fit. I think “said” looks awkward after a question, or after an emphatic exclamation. I think “whispered” is cleaner than “she said in a whisper.” Said is a good default, but I think it isn’t always appropriate.

This leads to the second challenge of writing dialogue. In addition to telling the reader who’s speaking, it’s important to relate how they’re speaking, and it’s tricky to find that comfortable middle ground between over-telling and not conveying enough.

As a general rule, you shouldn’t need to resort to an adverb to tell the reader how a character feels. The word choice within the dialogue and the actions surrounding it should make it clear.

Look through your writing. If you see any adverbs in your attributions (like “she said anxiously”), circle or highlight them, and then go back about a page and start reading. That should give you enough to get into the moment. When you get to your circled adverb, think about what your character is doing that clues into that emotion. It’s an opportunity to show characterization, and it’s there to be taken advantage of. Does she have trouble keeping her gaze on the person she’s talking to? Does she fidget with her hands or shift her weight from foot to foot? There are plenty of different ways to show anxiety and everyone handles it slightly differently. Every character can, too.

Don’t think you can cheat your way out of adverbs by switching parts of speech. There’s no difference, for our purposes, between “she said anxiously” and “she was anxious”, “she felt anxious”, “I could tell she was anxious”, or “she was obviously anxious.” The root problem is the same: a missed opportunity to create a fuller picture for your reader. The last example is the most guilty of them all — it begs the question: What makes it obvious?

Keeping your verbs honest is just as important as keeping your adverbs honest. Verbs of utterance, also called verbs of attribution, are the verbs that actually convey ways of speaking. You can whisper, yell, groan or hiss a sentence, but you can’t laugh, smile, walk or headshake one. You can do those things before you speak, as you speak, or after you speak, but watch out for a tendency to make those actions interchangeable with “said.” They’re not. They’re a beat of action.

Paying careful attention to your writing and using actions, adverbs and verbs of utterance appropriately will make your writing more polished and will help your attribution flow more naturally.

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Your Five Minutes Start… Now!

Posted February 15, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , , , .

Thanks to the wonderful Laurie McLean and the rest of the Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency, I had the fortune to spend my weekend at the San Francisco Writers Conference as an independent editor. For two days, my job was to advise writers in one-on-one sessions.

The catch? The sessions were only five minutes long.

Sign-up sheets were posted with each editor’s name and genre, and each attendee could sign up for a session with the editor of their choice. They could use the time to get a critique on their pitch, to get a critique on their first page, to ask questions… however they wanted to make the best use of their time.

For an extra $50, attendees could register for Sunday’s “speed-dating with the agents” session. That meant that their pitches had to be as refined as possible before Sunday. The five-minute sessions on Friday and Saturday were largely preparation for that. Writers had five minutes with us, but they only had three minutes with each agent. With just three minutes to get someone hooked, every moment counts.

I spoke with about twenty writers on Friday, and about thirty on Saturday. It was a whirlwind. It was dizzying. It was also incredibly rewarding.

I was the first editor to arrive, being the compulsively early type that I am, so I staked out the window table with the great view. It also happened to be the table in direct view of the door. My sign-in sheet said “YA, Fantasy, SF” but I also ended up speaking to writers of women’s lit, literary fiction, children’s fiction, short fiction, non-fiction essays… and each session was equally constructive, regardless of genre.

I could tell you fifty stories, one from each of those fifty quick sessions, and about forty of them would involve that amazing click of pieces falling into place. Some of them would involve even more rewarding epiphanies. A few might make their way into future blog posts (with the writers’ permissions), so stay tuned.

Most of the writers wanted to refine their pitches. Some of them had something already written and just needed feedback and a couple of word-choice recommendations. Some of them spent two or three minutes telling me what they had written about, in rambling, meandering language, and then I helped them pull out the most important points from what they’d just said. Three-minute explanations were quickly honed into thirty-second pitches: intriguing ideas expressed with powerful, evocative words.

A woman who sat down with a concern about how to market a collection of short stories with no cohesive theme, stood up five minutes later awed by the realization that there had been a linking thread between her stories all along — and a strong, intriguing one, at that.

Some of the writers wanted to know which genre or market I thought their manuscripts would best fit. Many asked me about the difference between middle grade and young adult. I drew heavily on this post by author Adrienne Kress, recommended reading for anyone else who might be curious about the answer.

For questions about the other edge of YA, I found myself referring writers to Scholastic’s Push imprint. Push prints some of the edgiest YA I’ve read — harsh, gritty, unapologetic and real. Murder, drug use, homelessness, pyromania, self-injury, sexual abuse… If you want to see how rough YA can get, read a few Push novels. I personally recommend starting with anything by my former colleague Brian James (gratuitous link to a review of his book DIRTY LIAR) and going from there.

Many asked me if I thought their concepts were viable. If the ideas sounded like a tough sell, we discussed how to slant the pitch or revise the content to make it more compelling.

I critiqued several first pages. I pointed out improbable simultaneous action, awkward dialogue, shifting perspective, punctuation, grammar and spelling issues; I discussed character voice, tone, age-appropriate vocabulary levels and whether the first line and choice of opening scene were compelling.

I discussed the “rules” of writing and when — and how — it’s acceptable to break them.

I loved the challenge of it, and the thrill of each success. But the real reward was the feedback. It felt great to be able to provide so much constructive advice to writers, especially in such a short time, and hear them tell me how helpful our few minutes of conversation had been. They were all so passionate, so focused and so ambitious that their energy was contagious and cumulative. By the end of each day I was exhausted and drained, but I still wanted to do more.

I had Sunday free to wander, so I checked back with some of the writers I’d spoken to. All of them reported nibbles; some reported larger bites. All of them were confident about their pitches and pleased with how the sessions had gone.

If you’re at a stage where you’re ready to show your writing to people in high places, and if you have the financial means to attend, I strongly recommend adding SFWC to your plans for 2011.

In addition to the agent and editor consultations, there are presentations and group sessions on a wide range of helpful topics. There are amazing networking opportunities and there’s time to explore some of the beauty and history of San Francisco. Space is limited and the conference sells out quickly, so if it’s the sort of opportunity that you think might benefit you, start thinking about it now.

And don’t think that this is a “mainstream fiction only” sort of event. It isn’t! Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, how-to, travel, romance, fantasy, science fiction, children’s, suspense, poetry… and I know for a fact that SF/F will be even more strongly represented next year. No matter your genre, if you’re ready to be published, there are people here who are ready to meet you.

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Reflections in the Stacks

Posted February 11, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: .

I’m sitting in a cozy chair in a bookstore down the street from where I live, as I’m writing this. It’s my first attempt to blog from my phone and we’ll see how it goes.

Walking in, I was struck pretty quickly by just how long it’s been since I wandered into a real, physical bookstore with time to kill, just to browse.

I go to bookstores fairly often. Borderlands, here in San Francisco, hosts lots of readings, signings and other events, and it’s become my “local” the way some people have a local pub. But I’m always going there with a purpose. To listen to a reading, see the cats, to meet clients or colleagues, to buy something specific or to escort an out-of-town guest who wants to buy a book for the trip home. But just to browse? Not very often at all.

Walking in, I was struck also by just how many books there are. That seems like a silly sort of epiphany to have in a bookstore, I suppose, especially if you’re in the book making business. Or maybe it might not seem so strange at all.

I’m surrounded by books all the time, in a way. I spend my days (and often my evenings, and my weekends…) with files that are destined to be books, and files that hope to be books. I write to people about books. I advise them and promote them and remind them to send their acknowledgements and dedications and blurbs. I keep up with the whole ebook debacle, and maybe spend more time reading about Agency Models and DRM than I should. I sleep and breathe books. It’s not the same, though, as walking through row after row of the finished product.

There’s a certain energy to it, probably because there’s a certain habit of working so intently with the raw materials that we lose sight of the finished product.

How do you feel when you walk through rows of books? Envious of their authors? Curious about their advances, or what specific obstacles were defeated to get each book where it is? Do you feel a renewed sense of determination and ambition? Do you look for the places on the shelves where your books would be filed? Do bookstores frustrate you, or inspire you?

Immersing yourself in the process and the work it takes to get there is a good thing, but stepping back and looking at the goal is a good thing, too. Books are what we’re all about. Take some time to appreciate them, what goes into them, how many of them there are… and what a fantastic thing it is–or will someday be–to see yours among them.

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Ten Tips for Formatting Your Electronic Submission

Posted February 8, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

When you’re sending a manuscript file electronically, there are some formatting decisions you have to make.

Some of the advice on formatting is fairly standard and easy to find. Most editors, publishers or agents will tell you to double-space between lines and single-space after a period, some will tell you what text font or size they prefer.

Standard wisdom, and I’ve said this myself, is that if there’s a guideline that isn’t mentioned, you don’t have to sweat it. It means that a little variation doesn’t matter. However, that’s not always true. Some standards are assumed and taken for granted. Others might impact the manuscript further down the line in ways you might not expect, or might just be extra work for you or someone else.

I thought I’d take a step back and cover some of the “unwritten” basics that you’re expected to already know.

    1. Don’t send your manuscript as a .pdf file. I saw a topic on a writers’ forum recently where someone asked whether publishers and editors prefer .pdf to .doc because it minimizes the risk of virus transmission. To me, .pdfs also minimize the risk of editing. A publisher isn’t going to take your document and make a book out of it as-is. They’re going to send it to the copyeditor, then to the layout/design staff. It needs to be in a format that takes up as little disk space as possible, and is as flexible as possible. I prefer MS Word-compatible .doc because it accepts tracked changes, and I use the “track changes” function to do line edits and margin comments.

    2. Don’t password-protect your file. See #1. Especially don’t password-protect your file and then neglect to pass along the password. Thank you for this nice lump of virtual coal, wish we could read it!

    3. Include your name, title, and e-mail address in the body of the file. Attachments are meant to detach. If a manuscript gets separated from that vital information, it’s just as devastating as if you leave off page numbers from your hardcopy manuscript and the pages meet someone’s floor. Good luck getting it all back where it belongs! Your title page is a good place for all that stuff, and putting last name / title / page number in the header of the document (so that it shows on every page) is good practice, too.

    4. Use the automated page number insertion tool, by the way. Don’t waste your time manually numbering every page. It’s too time-consuming and too unreliable — pagination can be shifted around too easily, by too many factors. Even a simple change in font can mess up all that work.

    5. Plain black text, on plain white background. Not gray, not off-black, not switching back and forth randomly, or for emphasis. Simple, boring, easy-on-the-eyes black text. Please.

    6. Tradition calls for emphasized words to be underlined in a manuscript instead of italicized, even though italics will be used in the final book. Historically, this was because typewriters didn’t have an italics setting. They might have had a separate italics flywheel that could be substituted in and out, but seriously… what a pain. It was easier just to backspace and underline, and then those instances of emphasis stood out clearly for the editors and typesetters. These days, underlining still makes those instances stand out more clearly, and it’s just one simple click in InDesign to convert them to italics in the final layout. Opinion will vary on this point, but I’d recommend doing it the old fashioned way unless instructed otherwise. Underlines do stand out more boldly to overworked eyes.

    7. For section breaks within chapters, a single hash mark (number sign (#)) centered on a new line is the standard. I advise against using a plain blank line because it’s too easy for that extra blank space to go away during the layout process. Remember that the symbol is there to signal the section break to the typesetter.

    You can get a little fancy with this and use three asterisks instead (* * *), but don’t get too fancy. There’s no need to pull out the dingbat fonts or make cute little ascii designs or anything like that. At worst, you’ll pick a font that your recipient doesn’t have and all they’ll see is a placeholder box or some messed up formatting. Even at best, that extra work is just going to go away when the manuscript goes to layout.

    8. Look at your hidden characters.

    The “show/hide all characters” option is usually indicated by a little paragraph-symbol character somewhere in the menu structure of your word processor. On mine, it looks like this:

    Activating this option will show spaces as dots, will show paragraph markings, and tabs, and page breaks, and all sorts of formatting goodness. It’s like looking at the back of a piece of needlepoint and seeing how evenly the stitches were made. If you make unusual formatting choices, “show all” will give you away. See #9 and #10, below.

    9. Indent your paragraphs with a single tab, or by going to the “format paragraph” menu and choosing to indent the first line by 0.5. Whichever you choose, make it standard throughout the manuscript. I’ve seen manuscripts indented with five spaces, like you might do on a typewriter. (Even on a typewriter, tab is more efficient!)

    Indenting by space bar feels sloppy to me, and I think it increases the risk of formatting error later in the layout process. Plus, it’s extra work for you. Just use tab, or set a global preference once and ignore it. Then, hitting return will automatically indent your next line.

    10. Since the word processor isn’t a typewriter, you also don’t need a carriage return at the end of every line. I just got a submission that did this. Every line was a fixed length with a “return” at the end of it. That’s fine for a set page width in Microsoft Word, but what happens if I change the font, or the text size? What happens if the copyeditor finds and corrects a repeated word on one line? What happens when the text is flowed into the layout program and changed in all sorts of ways, and now those paragraphs don’t look pristine and cohesive anymore? Letting your paragraphs flow will save time for you and for others down the line.

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The Last-Glance Editing Checklist

Posted February 4, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Consistency is a big part of polish. Manuscripts with inconsistency issues will look sloppy and careless no matter how well they’re written. Not only do they make more work for a publisher, but they also suggest to publishers and agents that you aren’t serious enough to pay careful attention to your writing.

I recommend doing a quick “find” for these common issues before you send your manuscript out the door. I don’t recommend a global, automatic “find/replace all” — it’s quick enough to do a “find” on the one you don’t want and fix the few instances that come up. That way you can be confident that you’re not changing anything you don’t intend to change.

Spelling:

It’s common to see these spellings used interchangeably within the same manuscript. In the interest of polishing your work, pick the one appropriate for your region and make sure it’s used consistently.

* gray (US English) / grey (UK English)

* all right (US English) / alright (UK English)

* toward (US English) / towards (UK English)

* practice (noun and verb) (US English) / practice (noun) and practise (verb) (UK English)

* Out loud / aloud. The former is more common in the US, the latter is more common in the UK. I tend to make my recommendation based on time period, too — for something medieval in flavor I’ll recommend aloud because it sounds more formal; for something modern-day I’ll recommend out loud. Either way, I recommend choosing one to use consistently through the book. The only exception is in dialogue, and then only in a case where one character speaks notably more formally/informally than the rest.

* Compound words. Is it innkeeper, inn-keeper or inn keeper? Voicemail, voice-mail or voice mail? Be aware of your usage and make it consistent. Even better, take a moment to look these up instead of guessing.

* Add your character names, place names and invented “foreign” words to your word processor’s dictionary so that misspellings will stand out to you, then run a spellcheck.

* Also be alert for these words to watch out for, from a previous post. From studying and editing your own writing, you will quickly get a sense of which of these common misspellings you fall prey to, so that you know what to watch for in the future.

Mechanics:

* Standardize dashes. Whether you use em dashes or double hyphens, whether there are spaces around them or not, pick a standard and stick with it.

(Em dashes at the beginning or end of dialogue can confuse your quotation marks and make curly or “smart” quotes curl the wrong way. While you’re checking your dashes, keep an eye out for this, too.)

* Capitalization can sometimes depend on context. Titles like Mother, Father, Captain, King, Mayor, etc. are captialized when they’re used in place of (or with) someone’s name, but not when they refer to someone by their position (my mother, your father, the captain).

* Some words are trademarks or based on places and should always be capitalized, like Dumpster and Technicolor, and the O in Oxford shirt.

* Original places and concepts are often capitalized irregularly. If you’ve got a Great Hall or Dreamwalking or anything like that, make sure you’re consistent with it, too. And likewise if you use italics for original concepts.

* Make sure your manuscript doesn’t shift font or color. Especially make sure that it doesn’t do this several times. “Select all”, and then you can set a font and size and set the ink to black.

Last, But Not Least

This is very important. Start at the beginning of your document and do a find for the word “Chapter.” Make sure all your chapter numbers are in order, with no repetition and no skips. If you haven’t used the word “chapter” to denote your chapters, this will take a little more doing and concentration, but it’s still just as vital. If you’ve skipped a number, duplicated, or otherwise gotten out of sync, or if you reached “eight” and stopped breaking out new chapters altogether, it’s better if you find it than if someone else does.

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Promoted to Associate Publisher

Posted February 2, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: .

Breaking News: Dragon Moon Press Announcement

FEB 01, 2010—Dragon Moon Press, publisher of science fiction and fantasy, announced the promotion of editor-in-charge Gabrielle Harbowy to associate publisher.

“Gabrielle has been an asset to Dragon Moon Press since her hire in 2006. She consistently, and with a sense of humour, edits our manuscripts into great works, and interacts with our authors graciously and with deftness,” said publisher Gwen Gades. “Gabrielle will continue her editorial responsibilities, and she will also begin to take a larger role in the operations end of Dragon Moon Press.”

Gabrielle Harbowy joined Dragon Moon Press as a freelance editor in 2006. She was promoted to Editor-in-Charge in 2008, and currently oversees submissions and editing in addition to her ongoing freelance work. She is a vocal resource for writers via her blog (www.gabrielle-edits.com), her connections to the podcast fiction community, and her appearance as a panel participant at various genre and industry conventions and conferences.

Dragon Moon Press has exciting releases lined up for 2010, including works by more great new authors and award-nominated authors of podcast fiction, and anticipated sequels. Catch Dragon Moon authors and representatives at Ad Astra (Toronto, Ontario, April 9-11), Balticon (Baltimore, Maryland, May 28-31), AussieCon4 (Melbourne, Australia, Sept 2-6) and at other conventions and events around the world.

For more information, contact Gabrielle Harbowy at eic@dragonmoonpress.com

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Because the answer can be no

Posted February 1, 2010 by Gabrielle Tags: , .

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you found out that you were a wizard?

What about if you learned that the evil overlord was actually your father?

Have you ever thought about leaving everything you know behind and going out into space to search for alien races and cultures?

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you sent a query that started with a sentence like the ones above, and the agent/editor’s answer was no?

It happens more often than not.

At BookEnds, Agent Jessica Faust concludes that if her answer is no, she knows she isn’t going to be interested in what the book is about and doesn’t have to read any further.

Agent Nathan Bransford calls rhetorical questions “a powerful force for evil.”

And Book Bark demonstrates how rhetorical questions could ruin even Harry Potter’s chances:

Imagine what it might be like to live in a closet beneath the stairs and be treated like a second rate citizen by your only family. What if all that changed and you were suddenly thrown into a fantastic world of witchcraft and oddities? What if you were the hero of this world? How would it change you? And what if, overnight, you learned that you had a powerful mortal enemy plotting your destruction?

Many agents and editors don’t like rhetorical questions because they reflect laziness: they beg the reader to do all the thinking and imagining, instead of actively creating a hook to draw the reader in.

Rhetorical questions can also lead people in the wrong direction: instead of thinking about your hook, your question may lead our own imaginations somewhere else entirely. That creates more work for you — now you have to reel us back from wherever your question has taken us before you can even start getting us interested in where you intended it to go.

What if we liked our answer better? Oops!

Don’t ask us (the editors, agents, and even the readers) what we think would happen, tell us what happens and show us what makes your treatment of what could happen different and better than anyone else’s.

While some agents and editors are indifferent to the rhetorical question, so many hate it vehemently that it’s a very risky tactic to use. Unless you know the person you’re querying and you know that they’re receptive to it, I recommend not taking the chance. Don’t ever leave the “Do you wonder…?” question open, when the answer could well be no… or worse.

Since ridicule is often the best medicine, if none of these other experts and professionals have convinced you to avoid the dreaded rhetorical question, visit The Rejectionist, where rhetorical questions receive the answers for which they beg. Don’t query with rhetorical questions — don’t let this happen to you.

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