How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

Paragraphs:

Steinbeck wrote in short, simple, declarative sentences.

John Norman could fill multiple pages with one boring paragraph. Some of his sentences rambled on forever.

Steinbeck won a Pulitzer prize. Norman didn’t.

There are no clear-cut rules as to how long a sentence or paragraph should be. A sentence should cover one thought only. A paragraph should cover one subject only.

If you find yourself using semi-colons (;) instead of periods, you may have a problem. (more…)

by Al Kalar

Last week we learned about keeping your viewpoint consistent (1^st person, 3^rd person, omniscient).

Now we’ll delve into “tense”. There are a number of different tenses: present, future, past, and past perfect to name the four most encountered. (more…)

by Al Kalar

There are three viewpoints of most novels that are part of the author’s “voice”: first person, third person, omniscient. Once you pick one, stick to it; don’t change part way through OR (horrors) from chapter to chapter.

First person: The story is told from the viewpoint of a character.

“I did this.

I saw that.

I remember back when . . .”. (more…)

by Al Kalar

As an editor, I see a number of problems that either spell “rejection” or “more work for me - sigh”. This is the first of a series on those problems.

The problem of “voice” is actually a two-part problem:

1. The author’s voice
2. Character voice.

The author’s “voice”

The sum of how s/he writes non-dialog prose (or poetry). Word choices, sentence structure, slang, contractions, and unique ways of expressing things.

If you write your prose to exactly follow the rules of English, you can overdo it and end up sounding like the Queen of England, rather than a “regular person”. There is a pretty wide range of language use that the average reader will find to be acceptable, but if you go outside that range, you may alienate your audience. (more…)

by Victory Crayne

If you have difficulty selling your novel, I suggest you ask someone in your critique group, your editor, or someone who can analyze your writing if your manuscript is shy on any of these three key ingredients.

Study what the bestselling novelists are doing. You will find that all bestselling novels are different from each other, but they have three things in common that are often missing in other novels.

1.  Well developed characters

Well developed means showing or telling aspects of their personal lives or personalities. Yes, this is a place where telling can be useful. Does your tale reveal your protagonist as a “real” person with a “real” life, going beyond the “bare bones” needed to move the story along? This takes extra time in designing the main characters. Most beginning writers are reluctant to spend that time. Instead they want to rush into the fun part–writing scenes.

For those authors who have characters recurring in different novels, this is critical. When you see a new book out by a favorite author and the protagonist is one you’ve read about before, are (more…)