KL Wagoner

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Revising Fiction: Is it Show? How can you Tell?

Posted on January 5, 2016 by

by Kirt Hickman

You’ve heard it before: Never tell something you can show. This is a difficult concept for many new writers, but it’s crucial. It lurks beneath a multitude of self editing sins: problems ranging from passive voice to information dumps and narrative summary, to absence of tension, and others. Telling the story, rather than showing it, gives it the detached feel of a news article. It keeps the reader from experiencing it as though she is the viewpoint character. It leeches the importance—the very life—out of the events.

What is Tell?

How do you know if you’re showing or telling? My rule of thumb is simple.

You may state facts:

Gerri threw the contract onto the floor, snatched up her coat and stormed from the room.Don’t draw conclusions for your reader¹:

Gerri was angry.In the first sentence, you see Gerri’s actions and are allowed to draw your own conclusion that she’s angry. This is show. In the second, I’ve drawn the conclusion for you. This is tell. Decide for yourself which is more compelling to read.

Consider these examples from a critique submission.² The scene is written from the viewpoint of a teenage boy.

Tell: There was someone breaking into the house.Show: The trapdoor burst down and Ian jumped backwards. Dust showered the cardboard boxes that cluttered the closet floor. As soon as the ladder thunked down, a black boot stepped onto the top rung, followed by another.This example is the next sentence of the same submission.

Tell: [Ian’s] first thought was that he should probably get help, but he was much too distracted.Show: Before [Ian] could run for help, the shapely legs of the woman in the boots arrested him.Ian fails to move because of the intruder’s shapely legs. This shows that he’s distracted without saying, “He was distracted.” The phrase “before he could run for help” shows Ian’s thoughts without saying, “He thought he should get help.”

Here’s an example in which the same author did a delightful job of showing:

[Rhiannon] leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the artery that had begun to pulse faster as she leaned close to it.This is a great line. It shows the emotions of both characters. Rhiannon, whom you’ve surmised is a vampire, leans forward with her eyes fixed on Ian’s pulsing vein. It’s absolutely clear what she wants, and the author never said, “Rhiannon was hungry for blood.” Ian’s artery pulsing faster shows his fear without saying, “He was afraid,” or “He was excited.” Context will establish which emotion he’s actually feeling.

How to Show

Rewrite any sections in which you’ve told something. To find a way to show it, ask yourself this question: What can the viewpoint character see, hear, feel, smell, taste, or recall, that allows him to draw the conclusions that you’ve told instead of shown? In other words: How does he know this? If you’ve drawn a conclusion for the reader, the viewpoint character must also have drawn this conclusion. On what is his conclusion based?

If the viewpoint character has nothing upon which to base the conclusion, no way to know the thing you’ve told, then the section of tell constitutes a viewpoint violation. Delete it or find some other place in your manuscript to reveal the information. Keep in mind, though, that if you move it, it’s still tell. You must still convert it to show.

Be particularly attentive to dialog tags that tell emotion, as in this example:

“Herrera was on board.”“On the Phoenix?” Chase said, surprised. “What was he doing there?”You may have shown the emotion well enough through the actions, thoughts, and dialog of the character. If you have, that’s good. If not, find a way to do so. Either way, delete the part of the tag that tells emotion.

Below, I offer three ways to correct the passage above. I show Chase’s surprise through his actions, thoughts, and dialog, respectively.

“On the Phoenix?” Chase glanced at the central hologram, as if it could somehow confirm the news. “What was he doing there?”“On the Phoenix?” He couldn’t be. “What was he doing there?“On the Phoenix?” Chase said. “What the hell was he doing there?”If finding ways to effectively show your characters’ emotions is difficult for you, you’re not alone. For help, read my series “13 Ways to Show Character Emotions” beginning with part one.

¹Noah Lukeman. The First Five Pages. Simon & Schuster. 2000.
²Excerpts from critique submissions are reprinted with the permission of the original author.

Kirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the May 2008 issue of SouthWest Sage, and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Best Writing Advice from SWW Authors

Posted on December 31, 2015 by

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
~ Emerson

What better writing advice than that given by a published author?

In the course of interviewing SouthWest Writers’ authors for this website, one of the questions I asked was, “What advice would you give to beginning or discouraged writers?” Here are the answers compiled from ten of the interviews posted in 2015.

The publishing world is competitive, but writing shouldn’t be. No two writers will ever tell a story exactly the same way. Don’t be afraid to help those around you, or to learn from others. If you’re not improving and having fun as a writer, you may as well move on to something else. One of my characters once told me, “If you ain’t havin’ fun, you’re just wastin’ space.” That has become my motto. ~ Sarah Baker

Bumblebee physiology is inconsistent with flight, so instead of flapping their wings up and down like a bird, they wave them in a figure eight pattern. Unwilling to walk from flower to flower, they achieve their goal by working with the laws of physics to find a way to fly. It’s the same with writing: if one avenue doesn’t pan out, find another. ~ Olive Balla

Writing can be a box with rigid structures that are demanding and restrictive to one’s creative nature. On the other hand, writing can be as fluid as the ink that flows unto the paper. It can become a vehicle that opens up doors to new worlds of possibility and to dreams that have never been expressed. My hope is that every writer who feels the need for more freedom chooses the latter. ~ S.S. Bazinet

Don’t wait until it’s perfect, because it’ll never happen. Obviously, it’s necessary to do a thorough job editing, but it’s too easy to get hung up on minor things and never get the job done. ~ Susan C. Cooper

Just begin. Trust yourself and your words. Forget many of the things you learned about “rules.” As Mark David Gerson suggests in The Voice of the Muse, there are 13 rules. The first is: There are no rules. The story exists and you are the vehicle which carries it. ~ Elizabeth Ann Galligan

Discouragement is part of the writing game. So is perseverance. And perseverance will eventually win (think Thomas Edison). My advice: Keep honing your craft. Join a critique group and learn to take criticism; after all, they’re readers, and writers need readers. Realize your writing isn’t sacred and not to be changed in any way; remember, you can’t see mistakes in your own writing—you’re too close. ~ Larry Greenly

Don’t give up. Find publishers who’ve issued books similar to yours. Develop a great query to send them, one that will get their interest enough that they’ll even read your submission. Create a first page that grabs them. ~ Joyce Hertzoff

People who write are called writers. People who wait are called waiters. I’d advise you to write every day, if only for the sheer pleasure of it. Don’t worry about the Great American Novel, etc. Enjoy what you do! Or find something else to do, life is too short. ~ Robert Kidera

Learn to reject rejection. Get used to the idea that there is going to be a lot of rejection along the way. The secret is to never give up. If one person tells you no, ask someone else. Someone, somewhere, sometime will say yes. Move on to the next person. Someone is waiting to say yes. ~ Gale O’Brien

Set both weekly and monthly goals/deadlines for yourself. Write them down and work diligently toward achieving them. Buy an appointment book and schedule time for writing, rewriting and research. Your “great expectations” will be easier to achieve when you have established in writing what they are. ~ Shirley Raye Redmond

KLWagoner150_2 KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.

Image “Light at End of Tunnel” courtesy of lkunl / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Magazine Writing: Bagging Your First Assignment

Posted on December 29, 2015 by

by Melody Groves

And why aren’t you writing for magazines? I can list the reasons if you can’t come up with your own. No new ideas. Don’t know which magazine would take my article. No clue how to begin. And for cryin’ out loud, I’m a fiction writer!

These are excuses, not reasons. I’m here to tell you that you can and should write for magazines. With over 9,000 published annually, there is at least one that will publish your article. But wait! In addition to a plethora of magazines (both print and online), the question then is: why should I want to? I’ll tell you why.

1. Relatively short turnaround time. Generally, you get assigned a story with a deadline anywhere from a week to three months down the road. It’s published shortly after that, maybe a month or two later. It’s so much quicker than novels that have to go through editing, formatting, more editorial, layout, editorial, cover design, final editorial and then publishing. We won’t even mention distribution and marketing. No marketing involved in your magazine article. (On the plus side, your weekends are now free. On the down side, you have nothing to sign—although I did sign an article I wrote for New Mexico Magazine for my mail carrier!)

2. A little bit goes a long way. That research you did for your novel (you did do research, didn’t you?), use it for magazine articles. Take the same information, change it around, put the focus on a different aspect and voilà! Article number two. Why not write as many articles as you can for as many publications as you can using the same research? Why not, indeed?

Here’s how it’s done. Say you wrote a novel where the murderer is somewhat of a snobbish wine connoisseur who lives in New Zealand. Well, there you go. One article about the types of wine produced in New Zealand (yes, they do); another article about traveling there to tour the wineries; a third article about how the Kiwis (the native population) use wine in their celebrations. I don’t know about you, but I can think of about 30 more articles based on New Zealand wine.

And it’s a huge plus if the editor knows you have a book with this information in it. He’ll let you plug your book down in the bio section at the end of the article. Definitely an ego-boosting thing to do.

3. First North American Serial Rights. A way cool writer-friendly law that says once your article is published and the magazine is off the shelf, then the rights revert back to you and you can sell that puppy as is again—for less money, of course. A word of caution: some magazines do not accept reprints. Some love them (such as Readers Digest). Check with the website and/or editor to be sure. You’ve got to be professional. If they don’t take reprints, don’t try to fool them. If, however, it’s been 10 years, tell them, and there’s a chance they’ll say yes.

4. And the clincher (insert drum roll here): Writing for magazines pays. Okay, you probably can’t count on selling one article and then taking your long-awaited trip to Hawaii on that paycheck alone. Magazines pay anywhere from nothing up to $2 a word. That’s right. Per Word. Who wouldn’t want to earn $2 for typing the word “the”? Sign me up. The average is 30 cents a word with some regional publications offering less. The good news: the more often you write for the same editor, the more he pays. Generally. So, since they publish fairly soon after you submit the article, you don’t have to wait forever to get that check. Most times they’ll pay after acceptance. And most times they pay with a 50 percent kill fee.* Look carefully at the contract. It’ll say in there. If not, ask the editor to include it.

And usually, they pay extra for photos. Check their submission guidelines or call their office. If you can offer photo services (it’s so much cheaper to take them yourself), it’s a Bigfoot foot in the door.

Do some quick arithmetic with me: Say 750 words at 20 cents per word: $150. Not shabby. If you do that once a week, that’s…let’s see…carry the one… $600 a month. Within a year you could be sailing to Hawaii. Don’t forget sunscreen. Swimsuits are optional.

*A “kill fee” means that after you submit your article and they accept it, and for some reason totally out of your control they decide not to run it, they’ll give you half of the agreed upon rate. At this point, you can shop that article around without rewriting it at all. Kind of a win-win deal. Kind of.

Seven-time award-winner Melody Groves is the author of four historical fiction novels, three non-fiction books, and dozens of magazine articles. Past-president of SouthWest Writers, she’s also a member of Western Writers of America. And when not writing, she plays rhythm guitar in the Jammy Time Band. Visit her at MelodyGroves.net.

This article was originally published in the August 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Parris Afton Bonds

Posted on December 24, 2015 by

Parris Afton Bonds is the cofounder and first vice president of Romance Writers of America, as well as a cofounder of SouthWest Writers. A New York Times best-selling author, she has published over 40 novels and volunteers to teach creative writing to grade school students and female inmates. Indian Affairs (Paradise Publishing, 2013) is one of her most recent novels. You can find Parris on LinkedIn, Facebook, and her website at ParrisAftonBonds.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Indian Affairs?
Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Washington socialite Alessandra O’Quinn and Indian shaman Manuel Mondragon, defy time and space and politics and families to come together in the sweeping canvas of the 1920’s outpost of Taos, New Mexico. But can they defy Destiny to stay together?

Tell us about your main protagonists, their flaws and strengths, and the hurdles they’re trying to overcome.
Physical hurdles, such as tuberculosis, and the emotional/psychological ones like submissiveness in the face of male/military domination actually compel Alessandra to take on the U. S. government in defense of the peaceful Taos people. And for Man, the assumption that he has only one destiny—to lead his people in the peaceful way of the heart—is challenged by his confrontation with the outside world in the form of Alessandra.

Why did you decide to use Taos, New Mexico as the setting for the book?
Since I was five or six years old, during a visit to Carlsbad Caverns, I instinctively knew that the desert Southwest was where I belong. It was like a tsunami of a metaphysical impact. Taos Puebloan history—its peaceful battle for its sacred Blue Lake—provided the perfect setting for the story I wanted to tell. In Indians Affairs (originally titled When the Heart Is Right(, I included this quote that I feel is a perfect summation for my novel: “La Querencia, that was it. The soul’s comfort, the heart’s joy. Where one was drawn by an attraction without logic, yet with an undeniable force. La Querencia. That was Man and northern New Mexico.”

Will those who know you recognize you in your main protagonist?
Yes, my characters are compelled, despite their flaws and fears, to create a meaningful life.

Is there a scene in your book that you’d love to see play out in a movie?
Naturally, I would be dancing on sunshine if the entire story of Indian Affairs was made into a movie, but if I had to pick one scene, it would be the Senate confrontation where Man presents his impassioned testimony for this people’s right to their homeland. Homeland. For me, the word says so much.

What makes this novel unique in the historical romance market?
I think Indians Affairs possesses one unique and strong element that makes it different from other novels in the historical romance market: its metaphysical approach to the combined dynamics of history and romance.

What sparked the story idea?
I actually moved from Texas to northern New Mexico and spent two years there researching. I dedicated Indian Affairs to a phenomenal person and writer, a Southwest Writers Workshop member, Hana Norton, whose beautiful spirit led the way to this story. It was she who gave me the germ of the basis for my novel.

Do you have a message or a theme that recurs in your writing?
Yes, that sacrifice for the sake of a large issue is always worthy of a reward.

When did you first know you were a writer?
I wrote my first story (actually typed it on an old Remington) when I was five years old. My mom saved the story, and I have it packed away somewhere. I have always written. But it wasn’t until I moved to Mexico City, that I actively began to write professionally. My first sale netted me $85 for a piece I did for Modern Secretary about a U.S. Embassy secretary. (I loved getting patted down by the handsome Marine guard). That was 43 years ago, and I am still obsessed/possessed by the writing demon/angel—a curse and a blessing.

You’ve written several series (Midsummer Madness; Kingdom Come; Blue Bayou; Janet Lomayestewa, Tracker). What are the challenges in writing a series? Who is your favorite character from one of your series?
Writing a series has its benefits in that you know the character as well as you know the lines in the palm of your hand. However, that is also its drawback—the challenge to create and explore is somewhat mitigated. I have to guard against this laziness when writing a series. Most likely, my favorite character is Janet Lomayestewa, Hopi Indian, because she is so human. She has such inner demons to fight, and she fiercely (but not fearlessly) takes them on: “All right,” she mutters, as I find myself doing sometimes, “bring it on. ”

Of all the stories you’ve written, which one did you enjoy writing the most?
I had the most fun writing Blue Moon. It just seemed to have a will of its own and wrote itself. I merely looked on, mouth open, as magic took over.

Who are your favorite authors?
I love the Old Guard authors: Edna Ferber, Frank Yerby, Rafael Sabatini, Thomas Costain, and Dale Van Every. I was weaned on them. But there are also many present-day, talented writers I enjoy as well, among them Ken Follett. Mitch Albom, and John Grisham.

What are your strengths as a writer, and what do you do to overcome your weaknesses?
My weakness is I tend to overwrite. My strength is my perseverance to create the best story of which I am capable. That means rewrite, rewrite, rewrite—and read, read, read. Everything. Every day.

What percentage of your time is spent writing, and what percent is spent on the business-side of writing?
I tend to take care of the business-side of writing the first hour or so in the morning. Doing so paves the way for the commitment to the creative aspect of my writing, which usually takes anywhere from six to twelve hours, depending if I am on a roll in my writing.

What are the hardest kinds of scenes for you to write?
I find the most difficult scenes to write are those that demand I dig deep into the character’s psyche. If I have to struggle to find the kernel that chafes my character, then I have to acknowledge I don’t really know my character. Deeper drilling to the core is necessary. For me, this is a real angst.

What advice do you have for beginning or discouraged writers?
I offer two pieces of advice for beginning or discouraged writers: (1) write for yourself—what others think of your soul’s outpouring is none of your business; and (2) the cliché to never give up—it is a powerful elixir (see my answer to the last interview question).

What are you working on now?
Currently, I am finishing up the 5th book (The Banshees) in The Texican series, a historical (not historical romance), which begins in 1835. Book five takes The Texican’s Paladín family through 1963. This will be the first time I have collaborated on a book, and my partner in crime is my former agent, Chuck Neighbors, another Texan.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Like some people believe in ghosts, I believe in magic. And I believe if you never, never, never give up, your magic is given its chance to work.

Taking Notes (or Something) in Mexico

Posted on December 22, 2015 by

by Betsy James

I carry a journal with me, always. Especially in Mexico.

We drove out of Ciudad Oaxaca in an old Nissan pickup with no seat belts: myself, another American, and three Mexican teachers intent on providing reading material for indigenous students.

The state of Oaxaca speaks at least fifteen languages. Like the children of minorities in the United States, indigenous kids start school handicapped by an ignorance of the language of instruction—in this case, Spanish. The schools had made little provision for them, and their teachers had begun to make one-off picture books for them in Zapotec, Mixe-Zoquean, Chocholteco. I’d been invited to Oaxaca to observe in a few schools—that’s what the truck trip was about—and later, when we got back to the capital, to give a workshop in grassroots picture book design.

At the teachers’ meeting I’d held up my journal and explained, in my own unreliable Spanish, that I always take notes—in Spanish, fichas—as I go along.

They looked worried.

“It’s just for me,” I said. “I’m a writer.”

They looked alarmed. Well, my own mother had been alarmed at her daughter’s choice of profession.

Five of us squashed into the little truck and climbed out of the cactus flats of the dry interior into the Sierras, on a highway called a highway only because everything else was dirt. We switchbacked through darkening pines, passed women hauling firewood with hempen tump lines, and crested the high, piney ridge just at dusk. Looked east. Stopped the truck.

Beneath us an ocean of cloud rolled to the horizon, vast and shadowy and blue with night. The world had sunk away, and only this endless sea was left: dim, chill, perfectly still except, deep within it, the echoing calls of monkeys and some unknown bird.

“My journal….” It was in my pack, stuffed in a cloth duffel. I yanked out of the duffel…not the journal, but a pair of pink bikini briefs.

“That’s not a journal!” said Ofelia. “That’s your monkey cage!”

Mi jaula de changos. I wrote it down. I take notes, it’s what writers do.

The teacherage in Santa María Tiltepec was a clutch of adobe shacks, patchily lined with plastic sheeting. From the kitchen ceiling hung one bare light bulb and the hammock where a plump grub of a baby slept, stuffed into six layers of poly-knit. Mauricio, the lisping three-year-old who had outgrown the hammock, told us his name was Mowicio, and thus the adults addressed him, gravely: Mowicio. Supper was stale bread and weak, milky, boiling-hot coffee served in bowls the size of two hands. I got out my journal. Explained about how I’m always taking fichas, notes: ando fichando.

They looked concerned. I thought, Dang, they’ve pegged me for an anthropologist. Writers are misunderstood.

Outside, a familiar smell of roast corn, chile, woodsmoke. And bad drains: that rural Mexico thing of letting funky water run anywhere, mixed with garbage and rotting fruit. The crude outhouse had a hand-sawn seat, the hole chopped with an axe. Smell of excrement—pig, dog, human—mixed with smoke and clear, pine-scented wind.

We slept in our clothes, on grass mats laid on the floor of the fifth grade classroom. It was cold. I wore everything I had. Even my monkey cage.

For breakfast, thick corn tortillas and a caldo of green beans and egg, guacamole, smoky chile and fava beans flavored with an herb I didn’t know and didn’t like. I took notes. We walked to the tiny school. In the playground a flock of girls lit around me, gaping and smiling and touching my hair. They said, “What’s your name?”

“Betsy.”

“Madre de Diós!” and they were gone in a rush, like sparrows. The headmaster, after a polite cough, explained that in Zapotec betsi means “head louse.”

Possibly I could have remembered that without writing it down. But life passes so quickly, I told the teachers, waving my journal. One forgets things. That’s why it’s so important to go along taking fichas.

They looked appalled. But why should they believe somebody named Head Louse?

I took notes on the school. The preschoolers had painted a mural of their steep village, all canyonside, a strip of blue sky at the top. Two boys had a right fistfight on the floor. Third grade was painful, the panicked teacher as shy as the students. I asked the kids what they would like to write about. Their faces shone. In one voice they shouted, “Lions!”

“Keep a journal,” I said. “Write stories.”

The fifth graders, like preteens anywhere, hid their writing with their bodies. They had been seated boy-girl-boy-girl; they stayed calmer that way, said their teacher, because at this age, in this culture, boys and girls don’t talk to each other. They asked my name. “Elizabeth,” I said.

I explained about my fichas. They looked uneasy. Horrified, in fact.

We crammed into the pickup and headed back to the city. “Journaling is so important for writers,” I said, “but everybody looks at me like I’m nuts. I’m not going to say anything more about taking notes.”

“Best not,” said Ramón. Politely, of course. “Ando fichando means ‘I go around picking up men.’”

ListeningAtTheGate150 Betsy James is the author-illustrator of sixteen books and many stories for adults, teens, and children. Her latest novel, Listening at the Gate, is a Tiptree Award Honor Book and a New York Times Best Book for the Teen Age. Forthcoming: Roadsouls, her next fantasy, will be available in 2016 from Aqueduct Press. Visit her at BetsyJames.com and ListeningAtTheGate.com.

This article was originally published in the June 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Embracing Writer Fatigue

Posted on December 17, 2015 by

by Olive Balla

Listen. Hear that? It’s the non-sound of laptops and word processors sitting on desks and collecting dust. It’s the white noise of writers everywhere giving up, of promising writers being sucked into the black hole of Writer Fatigue.

Webster defines fatigue as weariness or exhaustion from labor. The thesaurus offers burnout as one synonym. Fatigue. Burnout. Such innocuous words to describe the miserable state into which nearly every writer falls at some point.

I recently spoke to a woman in her sixties who has been writing since college. Throughout her school years she received kudos on her style and creativity. No one was surprised when she began to write in earnest. So, for the past twenty years she’s written romance novels. But none have been published. The woman decided to throw out all her manuscripts rather than leave them for her progeny to deal with. She wondered what happened to the promise that if one never quits writing, success will eventually come.

I don’t have a sure-fire answer for that. But I do have a couple of ideas.

Someone said the definition of “crazy” is to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Other than wanting to be someone who has written rather than someone who writes, I believe many writers lose that loving feeling for the craft when their expectation of speedy publication isn’t met. Convinced that all they have to do is just more of what they’ve been doing—only harder—they grow jaded as time marches on and no agent picks them up. Some, blessed with a more entrepreneurial spirit and less vulnerability to the purist’s litany of reasons not to do so, finally opt to self-publish.

I’m not making light of the virtues of tenacity and determination. But getting ahead in today’s publishing world apparently takes more than that. It requires the ability to change with the times.

But (my inner Jane Austen retorts), the long-dead Agatha Christie is still selling like hot cakes. True. And so is the Bible. But until your name becomes a household word, you’re going to have to offer something that sets you apart from what every other writer is offering. To quote one agent I recently heard speak at a writers conference, “Please, do not send me even one more vampire novel.”

Which brings us back to the need for change. The Chinese even generated a book on the subject. The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is purported to have been written over five thousand years ago. Change, irony intended, is here to stay.

What’s a writer to do? Besides not throwing in the towel, one way to keep up is to embrace current publishing reality and make shifts in one’s own writing style.

Basics do still count. Never really good with grammar, syntax, or modifier placement? Go to owl.english.purdue.edu/owl for Purdue University’s free online writing lab. Audit a continuing education class in creative writing. Join a writing organization (such as SouthWest Writers) and connect with the published and as yet unpublished. Join a critique group. Subscribe to writing magazines or E-zines to remain current on what’s happening in publications. Enter contests.

And every How-To now sitting in my bookcase includes a section on the importance of making time to write. Some successful writers commit to writing a specific number of pages daily, while others suggest setting aside certain hours of each day to do nothing but write. Either choice is apparently not as important as is the consistency with which one practices it. Pick whatever fits your lifestyle, and stick with it.

And according to Stephen King, one of the most important things for writers to do is read. Read at the doctor’s office, read while waiting for a flight, read in the john. Mr. King says stuffing our heads with the works of others, besides giving insight into what’s selling, will feed our creativity and help shape our styles. Reading someone else’s work energizes our own.

Science tells us black holes are not the empty spaces they appear to be. They are so dense and their pull so powerful, even light cannot escape. Stephen Hawking says black holes slowly give off bits of radiation until they explode in a supernova of energy. They aren’t just sitting in the void, waiting for Godot. They’re working toward a goal, absorbing stray stars, planets, and cosmic trash. They’re changing, getting ready to become something else entirely. Revising themselves.

So, I’m off to Barnes & Noble, where I plan to gorge myself on anything that looks interesting. I’ve decided to embrace my Writer Fatigue and make it work for me. You’re welcome to come along. A latte, soft chair, and an endless supply of the hottest-selling reading material seem to be in order. Onward.

Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the July 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Writing Life: Basic Principles from Dear Abby

Posted on December 15, 2015 by

by Sherri Burr

In a “Dear Abby” column appearing in local newspapers on September 10, 2013, the famed advice columnist received this query:

…I’m wondering if there is a basic principle you abide by in order to help guide you when giving advice. ~ Curious Reader

She responded:

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose it’s something like this: Show up for work ready to put forth my best effort. Be honest enough to admit that not everyone agrees with me or that I’m sometimes wrong. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Don’t pull any punches, don’t preach and always try to be succinct.

Reading her response, it occurred to me this advice applies to the writing life.

First, writers need to work in a disciplined manner at a home office or designated area. Phil Jackson, a retired jockey who penned the memoir On a Fast Track, writes from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the week in his home office. Western author Melody Groves, a retired school teacher, writes Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. When Groves taught, she wrote between 4:45 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. She views writing as a job to be taken seriously, as if paid hourly.

Others who have full-time jobs may write in the mornings before the rest of their home crew awakes, or in the evening after their family sleeps. As a university professor, Kathy Kitts wrote nonfiction from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and fiction from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Personally, I write in 90-minute blocks throughout the day. I read a New York Times article that praised the virtues of taking breaks after each 90-minute session.

Whenever you choose to write, show up, ready to put fingers to keyboard, pen to paper, or voice into a device of your choice.

Doing your best may vary from day to day. Sometimes, you arrive at your designated writing space with ideas flowing and ready to produce. Other times, your mental processes struggle. For those moments, consider playing Mozart, Vivaldi, or other music in the background or through your ear buds to stimulate your brain. In his book The Mozart Effect, Don Campbell extolled the ability of music to stimulate creativity. He subtitled his work “Tapping the power of music to heal the body, strengthen the mind, and unlock the creative spirit.”

Dear Abby’s next piece of advice admonishes to be honest enough to admit not everyone agrees with you or you’re sometimes wrong. This is important when seeking feedback from critique groups. Not everyone is going to consider that the words you put on paper proclaim you to be the next Shakespeare. It’s important for writers to be open to receiving criticism and admit editing is necessary.

When Dear Abby wrote, “Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” she was quoting the oath administered to witnesses in legal proceedings.

This oath applies whether writers pen nonfiction or fiction. With nonfiction, because the reader expects the words to be true, the author should so deliver. Memoirists who shade the truth to make their stories more dramatic have been immensely criticized, and publishers have sometimes pulled their work from the market. With fiction there must be truth in the emotions of the characters, even if the words are products of an author’s imagination.

Years ago, I took a Dramatic Writing course at the University of New Mexico with famed professor Digby Wolfe who had written for Laugh In. An important exercise called “Truth or Fiction” required each student to write and stage a short play for class. Then the audience had to guess whether it was truth or fiction. Wolfe urged his students to produce both their nonfiction and fiction with emotional richness.

Dear Abby’s final point is: don’t pull punches, don’t preach, and always try to be succinct. For writers, the first maxim relates to not softening the emotional blows of your words. Let the characters go for broke, no matter how hard the story may be for the reader to consume. If told effectively, the reader will obtain the moral without needing to be preached its ethical underpinnings. Being succinct requires not wasting words. For example, Melody Groves is fond of eliminating the word “that” from work she critiques. She finds “that” often unnecessary and once the writer thinks about it, he or she agrees.

To summarize, writers must show up to produce their best work. Be honest, be succinct, and don’t pull punches or preach.

Sherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the December 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Keith Pyeatt, Part 1

Posted on December 10, 2015 by

Keith Pyeatt is an engineer turned novelist who writes paranormal thrillers with a psychological twist that he calls “horror with heart.” Living for ten years in an isolated cabin in Vermont may have influenced his choice of genre, but his empathetic nature is what helps him create a variety of characters — “likeable, despicable, tortured, and those ‘gray’ characters you can’t quite decide whether to love or hate.” Keith has four published standalone novels including Struck, Dark Knowledge, and Above Haldis Notch, with Daeva (October, 2015) being his most recent. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and his website KeithPyeatt.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Daeva?
Daeva pits supernatural manipulation against human devotion when a powerful demon with a grudge against mankind stands ready to gain access to the world.

What sparked the initial story idea for the book?
My working title was Imagination, and my plan was to write a novel that showed how a strong paranormal influence would change different characters over the years. I decided a young boy would receive what appeared to be a great gift: a friendly entity who lived inside the boy’s mind and could grant him the power to make things happen. The boy accesses the power by using his imagination, which is fun and exhilarating at first, but the “gift” is actually a demon with his own agenda. The storyline expanded quickly as I wrote the first draft and developed the different characters’ motivations. The initial idea that sparked the novel is still there, but it became a launching point for a much more intricate plot.

Tell us about your main protagonist, his flaws and strengths, and the hurdles he tries to overcome.
Chris was raised to host a demon in his head, an upbringing which gave him some interesting personality defects. He’s inherently a good guy, and his sister Sharon helps pull out his best side, but he keeps many secrets and doesn’t allow anyone to get too close, partly out of need, partly out of habit. Unfortunately for Chris, even a lifelong commitment to being fair and strong can become a character flaw when a demon knows your every thought, desire, and need. And this particular demon has thousands of years of experience manipulating men, and he can dangle a mighty big carrot in front of his host to help lead him astray.

Why did you decide to use the particular setting(s) you chose?
For the macro-settings, Connecticut gave me elements I needed for a general location, and the time period seemed to take care of itself. I went into the past to set up a history for the daeva and moved forward from there. About three-quarters of the novel takes place in late 1992 and early 1993.

The micro-settings were really the key to creating atmosphere in Daeva. Minnie’s cabin in the woods gave me a combination of beauty and eeriness as well as the atmosphere of cold isolation and loneliness that I needed in Part 1. Rowena’s cluttered little house became the next important setting. It helped create the right atmosphere while characters frantically worked to piece together information and plot a course of action. A rural wooden bridge spanning a stream added an atmosphere of danger and mystery to the ending.

Of the four novels you’ve published, which one did you enjoy writing the most? Who is your favorite character?
I liked editing Daeva the most (good thing!), but I enjoyed writing the first draft of Dark Knowledge the most. It just poured out of me, and it showed me how fun it is to create complicated and engaging “gray characters,” the ones you can’t quite hate and can’t quite love. Lydia is my favorite character in that novel, and if there ever was a gray character, it’s her. She comes across as completely despicable initially, and she definitely enjoys her evil moments throughout, but there’s more to her than is shown in those early chapters. A great joy I have is when someone finishes reading the novel and tells me, almost reluctantly (as if they expect me to be disappointed) that they don’t hate Lydia. A little voice inside me yells WooHoo!

What is your writing routine like? What is your writing process like?
I write in long stretches. Ideally, I like to write every day, but sometimes reality interferes with creating fiction. My process is to start by creating some primary characters and a rough outline (with an ending). I write a first draft that’s loose and sloppy. It will wander. There will be repetition, inconsistencies, time frame problems, and gaping plot holes. There will be a huge number of typos, weak sentences, clichés, and vague notes like “fill in details” or “modify motive” or “fix time frame.” Sometimes I back up and change something to keep the first draft moving toward the ending (or revised ending) I have in my head, but I try to keep moving forward. I keep notes as I write so I’ll have an outline of what I actually wrote that’ll be more accurate than the outline of what I had planned to write.

I always edit novels start to finish, then I begin again. First edits are slow, with a lot of fresh writing and rewriting and deleting chunks of text. Successive edits tighten things up, and after several edits, they start going faster, which is important to get a good feel for the novel as a reader. I keep editing until I’m happy. Then I go away for a while, come back, and find myself shocked with the number of new things I find to fix and old problems that still need attention. When I can leave the novel alone for a while, come back, and still feel good about it, I’m getting near the end. Only a few dozen more edits to go. *smile*

If you suffer from writer’s block, how do you break through?
I’m of the mindset that you don’t wait for inspiration; you go after it…with a club. When writing a first draft, I generally muscle through a “block.” I’m not afraid to write something I’ll later delete or rewrite. It’s important to me to keep the process going, and I’ll usually stumble onto something that works if I keep hammering away. In editing, if I just can’t seem to make a paragraph or section flow and convey what I want, I’ll take a break for a few hours to workout, run, hike, play with the dogs, read, or do some project around the house.

What advice do you have for beginning or discouraged writers?
Write what you enjoy writing (which is probably what you enjoy reading), even if it’s not currently a hot-selling genre.

To learn more about Keith and his writing, including what he’s working on now, go to Part 2 of “An Interview with Author Keith Pyeatt” on klwagoner.com.

Preparation, Poison and Pitfalls: A Follow Up to NaNoWriMo

Posted on December 8, 2015 by

by Bentley Clark

Since writing the article “Are You Ready to Write a Novel in November?” regarding National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), much—or, as you will read, little—has happened.

In October, I was overcome with enthusiasm for writing fiction: the planning, the wordsmithing, the self-congratulating. I even read all of my back issues of Writer’s Digest. Oh, October was a gloriously productive month!

As November 1 approached and the 50,000 word goal loomed on the horizon, I bolstered my courage—as I do every year—with the mantra, “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. After all, I am a novelist.”

But I never crossed the 50,000 word finish line. So, what exactly happened? In an attempt to uncover what went wrong, I examined my writing process. Surely it is no different from a million other writers’ and, in many circumstances, these very steps yield New York Times Bestsellers:

Step 1: Prepare
I hit the ground running with this year’s NaNo novel. A compelling main character marched out of the detritus of my brain and demanded to have her story written. Alexandra was flawed and passionate and went about the business of murder with determination and devotion.

In preparation for telling Alexandra’s peculiar story, I devoured books about edible poisons. Mealtime conversations began and ended with me regaling my husband with the innumerable ways I could kill him with carefully concocted culinary delicacies. I cataloged the poisons, made color-coded notecards and pinned them to my bulletin board with care and shiny, silver pushpins. Then, I drafted the outline: the victims, the motives, and the murders.

With my cohesive outline and new-found expertise in killing a man with roots, flowers and berries, I was convinced this would be my best NaNo novel yet. After my meticulous preparation, my magnum opus of obsession and retribution would well-nigh write itself.

Step 2: Acquire the Proper Tools
No magnum opus is self-written without the proper tools. This particular book demanded a package of blue BIC Triumph 537R Rollerball pens, a new Moleskine notebook, Scrivener writing software and a dark, gothic Pandora station. (The book also requested Red Vines and chocolate-orange Piroulines, but I had to draw the line somewhere.)

Step 3: Brag About Your Derring-Do
If you are going to do something as ridiculous as writing a novel in a month, you might as well invite those around you to gawk. To that end, I told my husband and my parents that I was participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. But, in light of my brilliant, self-writing novel-to-be, I also took my braggadocio a few steps further by telling my boss and my work colleague. And then I wrote an article about it.

Making these sorts of announcements holds a writer’s feet to the fire: write a novel or eat crow.

Step 4: Brew Many, Many Pots of Tea and Stare Off into the Middle Distance
PG Tips tea is absolutely essential for this step. And a well-chosen writing soundtrack can prove indispensable for world-class, award-winning middle-distance staring. (See Step 2.)

Step 5: Sit Down and Write
While Steps 1-4 are optional, Step 5 is not.

On November 1, I sat down with my pens, my Moleskine, my Scrivener and my Pandora station and began to write. I managed to knock out the requisite 1,667 words a day for the first week or so. Then life came knocking on my home office door. Illness and family crises forced my novel into the back seat. And my enthusiasm went with it. Copious pots of tea were consumed and the middle distance was masterfully stared off into, but the story stalled at 17,000 words.

Alas, in 2015, I was many things. A novelist was not one of them. However, in my 17,000 words, I set the scene for two murders, wrote the backstory of two unfortunate but likable victims and discovered the tragic reasons for Alexandra’s murderous predilections. The magnum opus was neither magnum nor opus. But it was, ultimately, a start. A fantastic 17,000 word start. And there’s something to be said for that.

Step 6: Bake a Crow Pie
Know any good recipes?

BentleyClark125 Bentley Clark hopes to one day make a career of drinking tea, staring into the middle distance, and using phrases such as “derring-do.”

This article was originally published in the January 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Image “Out Of One’s Head, Relax The Brain” courtesy of thaikrit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Making the Most of Writing Markets

Posted on December 3, 2015 by

by Chris Eboch

You’ve heard about the enormous slush piles at publishing houses. And no doubt you’ve heard what’s in those piles—90 percent inappropriate submissions. These can be outrageous mistakes, such as sending fiction to a publisher that only does nonfiction, or even erotica to a children’s book publisher.

You would never make such a beginner mistake. You understand the importance of market research. But are you doing the best possible job with it?

Many editors report “close but not quite” submissions. Marileta Robinson, Senior Editor at Highlights for Children, says, “The majority of submissions we see are in the ballpark of meeting our guidelines. That’s not to say that the majority are right for Highlights. Tone, length, writing quality, age appropriateness, and subject matter have a great deal to do with a manuscript’s chances of success.”

Digging Deeper
2016 market guides are coming out in time for the new year. These are a great place to start your research. They list hundreds of publishers, with details about what the editors want. Most include a category index, which can help you narrow your selections. The listings then give detailed writers’ guidelines.

Don’t stop there, though. Most publishers now post their catalogs online. These help you understand what the market guide listings mean, and identify differences between a publisher’s imprints. Websites may also offer more detailed and up-to-date writers’ guidelines. The final step is to read some of the publisher’s offerings.

Robinson suggests, “Reading the guidelines and current needs posted on our website and studying several issues of the magazine can help a writer learn what we are and are not looking for.”

Molly Blaisdell, author of the picture book, Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs, starts market research with “a reader’s approach. I learn about books all over—networking at conferences, going to bookstores, chatting with folks online.” She keeps a journal that lists each book’s title, publisher and editor, plus notes about the editor, and any personal contact.

After gathering this information, Blaisdell keeps it organized with a submission spreadsheet. “I start a new line every time I learn the name of a new house or editor that I am interested in. After some research I will add the title of my book that I think best connects with that house. I gather hard concrete evidence about what these editors and agents like: books, genres, etc. That stuff goes in the comments.”

Once you have all the market information, you can use it in your queries to show the editor that you understand her needs. “My queries are always specific,” Blaisdell says. “I met you at the XYZ conference. I read about you on XYZ blog. You edited XYZ book. I love that book and feel a connection to my work because of XYZ. I’m sending to you because you like XYZ. If the editor or agent that you are interested in has a blog, you need to become a faithful reader and post on it sometimes.”

The payoff? Blaisdell says, “If I glance down my spreadsheet, my last 20 submissions all led to personal responses [such as] requested manuscripts or a wish to see more work.”

Time Well Spent
All this research sounds like a lot of work, but, Blaisdell says, “You have to be pretty lazy these days to not target houses. Just Google the editor’s name! Don’t know the editor? Google ‘editor’ and the book title and the author’s name.”

With all the information available, beware of getting carried away by market research. “The tricky thing is not wasting your time,” Blaisdell says. “You should be working toward creating a list of targeted editors. Do not collect any information about anyone that is not a real connection. Do not put a name in your spreadsheet without a reason!”

Writers’ conferences can also provide insight to an editor’s taste. A critique or pitch session can also help you jump over the slush pile, or reach editors who aren’t generally open to submissions. Make sure you have a suitable manuscript before submitting, though. At one conference, I met an editor and we got along well. But I was writing historical fiction and fantasy at the time, the two genres he dislikes. Later, I developed an original paperback series—just what he published. I sent him the proposal and first manuscript. A month later, he called to express his interest in the Haunted series, and we contracted for three books, The Ghost on the Stairs, The Riverboat Phantom and The Knight in the Shadows. Networking paid off—but only because I paid attention to my market research and waited until I had something he wanted.

Go ahead and grab a new market guide as a holiday present to yourself. But know that your marketing journey is just beginning. Researching markets and making connections is a year-round process—one that’s worthwhile when it leads to the gift of publication!

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the December 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.