This week, I’m going to do a little bragging. I help to Admin a small on-line writing group. Last October, we initiated a new feature in that group that we call the Friday Flash Fiction Challenge. It began with a specific weekly challenge to write a 500-word story on an assigned theme, from a specific point of view, etc. Stories were due the following Thursday at noon and the winner received their choice of a writing related Amazon eBook from a list we provided. A consolation prize of a professional edit of their story was also offered to another entry. Members wishing to participate must adhere to Shunn Short Story manuscript formatting, must stay within the allowed word count and write a story with a beginning, middle and end. They may submit at any time during the challenge by attaching their story to a PM to any of the admins. The stories are then rated by each admin on a 20-point scale with 5 points each for format, meeting the challenge, grammar/punctuation and overall story quality. Using the scores, we determine a winner and runner-up. We then send out acceptance and rejection slips to each entrant, keeping to the format of a standard rejection or acceptance letter as seen in the industry. Each entry gets feedback from the admins as well. Our idea was to help our members get over the fear of submitting their work, encourage them to write regularly, and give them the closest approximation to the actual writing/submitting process that we could. Our little project has evolved over time based on the needs of the group and the admins. We now allow 750 words to give more space for a complete story and two weeks between challenge and deadline. We average six or seven submissions per challenge. Over the last nine months, the average scores awarded by each admin have steadily risen from an average of 15 or 16 to high 18s and 19s. Our most recent challenge resulted in 8 entries and the combined score from four admins for the top 5 stories covered only a 3-point spread. In the first nine months of our little challenge, no less than 3 stories have been accepted for publication or published in traditional magazines and e-zines. The point to all this bragging? Practice really does make perfect, and short or flash fiction is an incredibly fast way to improve your writing skills. Think about this. A novelist will write an average 100,000-word book with a single beginning, middle and end and will spend anywhere from a month to several years on it. A writer who writes flash fiction, will do all of that in less than 1,000 words and can, if they wish, complete several each week. They learn to tighten their writing, choose each word with care, develop a cohesive and complete plot, characters and setting. There’s no room for fat, so they learn to gleefully kill those darlings with no remorse. Many writers will tell you that the best way to become a professional writer is to write. That may, in fact, be true. But what one writes can greatly speed the process. Even for experienced writers, whipping out a flash fiction piece between chapters in their main work can be excellent practice and a nice break.
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SPECIAL BLOG EDITION
Today I want to do something completely different with my blog. Why today? Because today marks the birthday of a man who I, in my self-proclaimed learned opinion, consider to be one of the finest American humorists of our times. Richard Armour was born on this date in 1906 in San Pedro, California. He attended Pomona College, likely because he had the foresight to realize that I would later be born in Pomona. After completing his studies there, he went on to obtain his doctoral degree from Harvard in English philology. Really. Look it up. He taught English at both Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School and wrote several scholarly pieces on Bryan Waller Proctor and Samuel Coleridge. He also wrote multiple volumes of light verse. What he is best known for are his multiple volumes of fractured history where he takes a light-hearted look at various historical themes and offers a somewhat twisted yet mostly truthful look at them. Some examples are: “It All Started with Eve” a look at famous women in history in which Napoleon writes to Josephine, “Do you miss me? I hope the enemy artillery does.” “It All Started with Stones and Clubs” his history of warfare, and “It All Started with Marx” his history of communism where he has Lenin remarking “The tsar is a tsap.” So, to celebrate, here’s what I’m going to do: CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT I’m announcing a contest, the object of which is to write a Flash Fiction Story (up to 1,000 words) in the irreverent style of Dr. Armour. The topic can be anything in history or nature which should be addressed seriously but with a definite tongue-in-cheek style. Facts may be generously embellished or exaggerated at the author’s discretion, but the narrative should take the overall tone of a serious academic approach. Footnotes are welcome and may be created in whole or in part from the author’s imagination. Such footnotes will not count to your overall word count. This contest will run until midnight PST on August 18, 2017. I regret to inform you that entries will be limited to residents of the United States because – postage for the prize. However, entries from outside the U.S. will be read and, hopefully, laughed over. Entries should be in TNR 12pt or Courier New 12pt type with one-inch margins, page numbering in Shunn format at the top right corner of 2d and succeeding pages. Feel free to retain or omit your name from the body of your entry. Our panel of scholarly judges will pay no attention either way. Trust us. Entries should be emailed to dwdoty1951@aol.com by the deadline of the contest, or later if you don’t want them considered. PRIZES: At last, we come to the important part. One winner, chosen by scientific, occult operations of an extraordinarily random nature will receive a precious volume of Dr. Armour’s work. Good luck. As some of you may have guessed, I’ve been super busy during the last couple of weeks. Much of my time has been devoted to editing jobs of various lengths and genres. I thought that this week I would discuss some of the recurring problems I find in many manuscripts. To be clear, this is not taken from any one or two works I’ve edited, but is rather a synopsis of items I’ve found in multiple manuscripts form multiple authors. I hope that you will find it helpful in self-editing your work. The bane of many writers seems to be the lowly comma. Maybe this is because most works will have a lot of them. This is in no way meant to be a representation of all or even most cases where a comma is required, but rather a few of the places where they are most commonly missing. Commas in Direct Address: “A comma is used to set off names or words used in direct address and informal correspondence…” CMOS 6.38 Most of us, when we write a letter, are pretty good at remembering the comma after the salutation. “Dear Milly(comma)” comes naturally, but this is not the only time this rule comes into play. Let me give a few examples of where it might appear in dialog: “Yes, sir.” In this case “sir” is direct address and needs the comma. “I’ll be right there, John.” John is being directly addressed, so we need a comma. “If you will follow me, gentlemen, I’ll see you right in.” Even though it is in the middle of the sentence, we still need the comma, but we need one on each side of the direct address to completely set it apart. “Darlene, do you have those reports ready?” “Why do the elves dislike us so, Grandfather?” In formal correspondence, the comma after the salutation is usually replaced with a colon. “Dear Mister Secretary:” or simply “Secretary Mattis:” Commas with Appositives “A word, abbreviation, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to a noun (i.e., provides an explanatory equivalent) is normally set off by commas if it is nonrestrictive—that is, if it can be omitted without obscuring the identity of the noun to which is refers.” CMOS 6.23 Wow! What a mouthful! Obviously, we need some examples to understand this one. “Your editor, Mr. Menefee, did a wonderful job with this manuscript.” Mr. Menefee could be omitted from this sentence and it would still make perfect sense and retain its meaning. Therefore, we need to surround him with commas. Think of it like this. If Mr. Menefee wandered off and got lost, this sentence would still be complete and we probably wouldn’t miss him. So we put a corral around him with our commas to keep him where he belongs. “My prize pig, Mister Ziggy, won a blue ribbon at the fair.” Again, we need to put a corral around Mister Ziggy so he doesn’t become someone else’s bacon. “Debbie’s husband, Mike, is a writer.” Do I even need to explain that no one wants their husband wandering off? “Our president, Donald Trump, is…” I’ll let you fill in the rest, but we still want him to stay where we put him. Now for the tricky part. If “the word or phrase is restrictive—that is, provides essential information about the noun (or nouns) to which it refers—no commas should appear.” CMOS 6.23. Here are some examples: Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is a literary classic. In this example, Hemingway’s novel could refer to any of his works, so the title provides essential information to understanding the sentence. Zayat Stables’ horse American Pharoah is the most recent Triple Crown winner. Again, Ahmed Zayat owns a lot of horses so the name is essential and gets no commas. Comma After an Introductory Word or Phrase This is where there is an introductory word or phrase beginning a sentence. Common examples would be Yes, No, Well, However, Well then, By the way, and Nevertheless. “Yes, sir.” “No, I don’t think so.” “Well, you might say that he’s all hat and no cattle.” “However, we will not take responsibility for any injuries resulting from misuse.” “Well then, why should we care?” “By the way, what did you say your name was?” Helpful hint: Never use this at the end of a date. “Nevertheless, we shall expect payment promptly.” Yes, your editor should and will catch these common mistakes. However, he or she will charge you either by the hour or an equivalent amount by the word. Do you really want to pay for work that you could have easily done yourself? Even the best editor will miss something occasionally. The more cluttered your manuscript is with these simple corrections, the more likely they will be to miss something else. Every correction they make, makes it harder to spot the ones they haven’t made. Every editor I know, adjusts their rates depending on how difficult or easy the edit is expected to be, so having your manuscript in the best possible shape beforehand, makes it more likely that you will benefit on the rate and that your editor will want to work with you again. #writing, #fictionwriting, #editing PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Today, as both a writer and freelance editor, I want to talk about professional development, and to get the really painful part out of the way, let’s start with grammar. Yes, I know. Your editor is supposed to fix that. It’s why you hired them. NO. You hired them “to make your story or novel the very best representation of your work that it can be”. Write that down. The function of an editor is “to make your story or novel the very best representation of your work that it can be”. Did you notice what it does not say. It doesn’t say anything about them being your personal grammar nazi. “But I’m a creative genius, not a mechanic!” Of course, you are, bless your heart. You’ve done the hard work of writing a first draft. You’ve taken the time and spent those tedious hours making all the corrections suggested by Spellcheck and grammar checker programs. You’ve even puzzled over those solid blue and squiggly red lines under certain words and figured out how to make most of them go away. Hopefully, you’ve had the wisdom to run it past a couple of beta readers and apply their feedback. You’re right. At this point, you have done more than at least seventy-five percent of the writers out there. It is obvious that you care about your work and your professional reputation. So, with a sense of pride, you send it off to your editor and wait for those final polishing touches. Good job. A few days or weeks later, you get an email from your editor with your edited manuscript attached. Eagerly, you open it to see if he/she found anything to correct. Horror of horrors, your baby has so much red ink dripping from it that it looks like a scene from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. What could possibly have caused this? You did. I know that seems harsh, but it’s true. Sure, Spellcheck picked up the obvious misspellings. What it didn’t pick up were the wrong word choices. You know the ones. “Their were dozens of floral displays around the ornate casket.” Nope. Spellcheck didn’t catch that one because it is a real word. Take heart. Your grammar checker probably did. But it didn’t catch “Madison was breathless after dancing the real.” Your grammar checker doesn’t know that it should be a reel, not a real. This requires knowing that “reel” is a noun and “real” is an adjective. And, it is to be expected that a writer would know that. Some writers may have a Master’s Degree in English and be able to avoid most of these pitfalls. They put in the work for their degree and are rewarded with less grammar errors and, quite possibly, lower costs to edit their work. They have their own challenges, but we will save those for another time. Most writers fall into the group that has an Associate or Bachelor Degree or possibly only a high school diploma. They may recall the lessons from their English teachers or professors, but they probably haven’t had the practice to really ingrain those lessons. They need to work harder at it. Whether you are the holder of an advanced degree or a high school GED certificate, you need to be continuing your education as a writer. No one succeeds or rises to the top of their profession without study. My brother, started out years ago as a sprinkler-fitter. For those who don’t know, those are the people who install the fire suppression systems in buildings. Because he had the drive to succeed and to search out what areas of knowledge he lacked, he rose rather quickly. When he wasn’t working, he was studying areas in the industry he wasn’t familiar with. Soon, he owned his own company. Nowadays, he still owns a much bigger company doing all the jobs he used to do, but he is also in demand as a lecturer. He is one of less than a half-dozen people in the U.S. qualified to do certain types of suppression systems and to train others on those systems. People come from as far away as Germany to attend his seminars and he is paid very well for his knowledge. He rose to that level by studying his trade, reading everything he could get his hands on, and always asking questions. A writer who can’t be bothered with learning grammar, is a bit like a sprinkler fitter who doesn’t want to learn the names of the tools or the sizes of pipe used in his job. Sure, he can get by for a while asking his boss, “Do you want the skinny pipe or the fat pipe?”, but he’s never going to make journeyman that way and he will inevitably be let go the minute business slows. Learning all the tools of the trade and staying up with your continuing education is a crucial part of being a professional. A couple of months ago, I wrote a two-part blog about the importance of reading. Not only is it important to read both in and outside of your writing genre, it is also important to read about the craft of writing. You should be reading books and articles about plotting, character arcs, dialog, book blurbs and synopses, point of view, setting, marketing, and … wait for it … grammar. The above topics are just a partial sampling from my personal library which is filled with titles by the likes of Rayne Hall, Jenny Baranick, Renni Browne and Dave King, Donald Maass, Anne Lamott, and K. M. Weiland. If you don’t recognize these names or the titles of their works, then your continuing education as a professional writer is sadly lacking. SUGGESTED READING: “Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares” by Jenny Baranick “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers” by Renni Browne and Dave King “Writing Vivid Characters” by Rayne Hall “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott “How to Write Short Stories and Use Them to Further Your Writing Career” by James Scott Bell “Writing Vivid Settings” by Rayne Hall “Writing About Villains” by Rayne Hall “Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story” by K. M. Weiland “27 Fiction Writing Blunders – And How Not to Make Them” by James Scott Bell “Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot and Character Development” by K. M. Weiland “Writing the Breakout Novel” by Donald Maass Anything by any of these authors is well worth your time and money. Happy reading. PREDATORY CONTRACTS
By Dennis Doty As usual this week’s blog is about something that crossed my desk, er, computer screen this week. I’m going to talk about predatory contracts, what they are and how to recognize them. A predatory contract is one which attempts to take advantage of the author through various means. These means can include deception, unreasonable demands, or fees. Let’s examine fees first because it is relatively simple and straight forward. Writers DO NOT PAY to be published. The publisher should pay for editing, formatting or typesetting, proofreading, printing, distribution, marketing and promotion. This doesn’t mean that they won’t expect you to promote your own book through your website, blog and author page. They will and should. You should be willing to write about it, talk about it, do interviews about it and attend book signings or other promotional events at least in your area. But, you should not have to pay for these services. Deceptive practices can take many forms, but some of the most common are advertisements and offers of FREE publication. Legitimate publishers don’t tell you it’s free because they know you shouldn’t be expected to pay. Free publication is invariably a come-on to get you interested and excited about seeing your book in print. Then they hit you with all the extras, kind of like asking if you want meat and condiments on that burger you ordered. Your book needs to be edited for a small one-time fee of only WAY MORE than the going rate. You’re going to need a good cover for your book and we have just the artist who can provide it for WAY MORE than the going rate. If you sign up for our super deluxe package we will distribute your book to reviewers and bloggers to get your name out there. A legitimate publisher will do this anyway for free because it’s good business, and they will have far better contacts to send it to. Finally, let’s consider unreasonable demands. Again, these can take many forms, but let me use some examples from the contract I was offered this week. “The Author grants to the Publisher the non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce and distribute the Work in all formats in English throughout the world (‘the Territory”) for the full term of the copyright…” There are a couple of things wrong with this clause. First is the “all formats”. The publisher is offering to put my story in an anthology, yet they want print, electronic, audio and motion picture rights as well. Why? So that they can either use or sell them now or in the future. The second thing wrong here is world-wide rights. Are they marketing in Australia, New Zealand, England, South Africa, Rhodesia, and all other countries where English is the primary language, or only in the U.S. and Canada? The final and worst thing wrong here is “for the full term of the copyright”. That means, for the natural life of the author plus 70 years. Do they really think that their anthology is going to join the ranks of the immortals? A standard anthology contract will ask for first English-language print rights for a short period of time. This is usually no more than three months from publication or six months from acceptance and never more than twelve months. If they publish their anthologies in e-book form as well, they will ask for short-term exclusive electronic rights and the non-exclusive right to continue to maintain that platform for a longer period of time because, once something is released electronically, it is always out there. “The Publisher shall publish edition(s) of the Work in such format, style, and manner as the Publisher deems appropriate within one year from the date of the Publisher’s acceptance of the manuscript.” This seemingly innocuous passage allows the publisher to not only publish my story in the anthology, but to publish it separately or in a separate anthology if they so desire. My concern is with them publishing it separately because of the payment structure discussed elsewhere. I’m not too worried about a separate anthology because that would be competing with themselves and unlikely.
15% of the list price of each copy of the anthology that is sold direct to consumer with the author’s discount code being used. For all sales not sold with a coupon code (retail outlets, direct to consumer and the like) 10% of the list price (if sold from our website) or wholesale price (if sold to or through a retail outlet), will go into a collective account and distributed evenly amongst all authors in that given anthology. (ie. If the account equals $100.00 and there are 100 authors, each author will be paid a $1.00 royalty from that account) If an ebook is eventually released, the royalty will be paid in accordance with sales made without a coupon code and funds will be added to the collective account. Several problems here, as well. First off, the use of the discount code forces all sales to go through the publisher so I can’t sell autographed copies to my friends, family and fans directly. Nor can I very well do book signings or other author events. The second problem is that they will, no doubt, ask $4.95 or more for the ebook which puts them in the range to collect 60% royalties or $2.97 per copy. Less than 30 cents of that will be paid out to the authors to divide equally, presumably around one cent each. Worse, this is how I would be paid if they choose to put my story out as an individual short story. The publisher will collect 60% and I would be paid a penny or so per copy as would dozens of authors who had nothing to do with my story if the publisher was honest enough to actually divide the 10%, but more likely, based on this contract he would simply pocket that 29 cents as well and correctly assume that they would never think to see if someone else’s story had earned them anything. The Author agrees to cooperate, and to be available, in connection with the Publisher’s requirements regarding the promotion, publicly, and advertising of the Work. This clause seems reasonable on the surface but is too vague. It could be remedied by inserting the word “reasonably” before available, but that word isn’t there. This means that the publisher could call me and say, “You have to be in London tomorrow for a promotional event, and I am obligated to jump on an airplane and be there with no compensation or even reasonable travel expenses.” Obviously, I did not sign and return this contract. I did, email them promptly withdrawing my story from consideration for their anthology and enumerating the multiple reasons why in the unlikely event that they wished to make corrections to their contract. I don’t expect to hear from them again. There are all kinds of ways for unethical and predatory individuals and companies to take advantage of the unwary writer. I hope that this blog will help you avoid some of them. |