Writing and Publishing News

I’ve been writing for publication for over 40 years and I’m aware of the importance of fresh writing. That is, using a variety of words and phrases in your descriptions, explanations, etc. But this has never been as challenging an issue for me until I started writing fiction.

Do you spend a lot of time making sure that your writing is fresh—that you’re not repeating the same old phrases and terms? Or does originality come naturally to you? I’m guessing that many fiction writers approach their stories much as I do. I write the story using many instances of filler words and phrases just to get the story down—place holders. Then the editing begins. If you’re like me, you edit numerous times before your manuscript goes to the proofreader or hired editor. You edit for clarity in the story events as well as for flow and readability. You make sure the storyline is pure—cohesive—consistent. Then you begin nitpicking words and phrases. Have I overused a term? How can I say the same thing in a more unique or creative way?

I’m on book 16 of my Klepto Cat Mystery series and I’ve decided to create a Key Phrase List to help with this phase of my editing. While it was rather time-consuming to create, I believe it will be a time-saver as I attempt to develop my stories in the future. What did I include in my Key Phrase List? Terms, phrases, expressions, descriptive words that I might use in my story descriptions and dialog. And I imagine I’ll continue adding to it with each story that I write.

Now how will I use this list? I don’t know about you, but my memory is only so long. I might get a sense, when reading through my manuscript for the umpteenth time, that I’ve overused a word or a term, but I don’t know to what extent until I do a word search—which I often do. With this alphabetized list, I’ll note each instance of certain phrases and terms as I read through the manuscript and I’ll be able to see which ones are overused and get ideas for replacing them.

Sure, I’ve thought about the potential dangers—that my writing will appear mechanical or stilted. I had concerns that the creativity would diminish once I began manipulating the portrayals and action. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. After all, the story is written by the time I start working with these important details. All I’m manipulating is some of the language and the way it’s presented.

Why go to the trouble to create your own list of phrases when others have done it for you? Because you have a different way of approaching a story and the dialog and description within it. There are readers who like your style—your way of approaching a story, developing your characters, etc. You may not know it, but you have a certain way of telling a story that is unique to you and you use certain words and phrases. So it makes sense that you create your own list, at least to start with. Because these are the terms you use most comfortably.

For additional help in making your stories read fresher, here are a few sites you might visit.

http://boostblogtraffic.com/power-words/

http://awritersguidetowords.com/

http://www.word-mart.com/html/glossary.html

Happy writing!

Yesterday I promised I’d talk about how I come up with the plots and characters for my Klepto Cat Mysteries. I was asked just recently if I plan the story and the ending before I start writing it.

For the most part, I have a place setting and possibly the outline of a theme in my head when I start jotting down ideas. I might write two pages of basic scenarios and then pick one to use as the beginning of my story. From there I start writing and the story develops as I move from scene to scene and page to page. Several of my stories start with a shocker—a frightening, stressful, questionable, precarious, tantalizing stunner designed to make the reader keep reading, eager to discover how the main characters found themselves in this dilemma and how they escaped it.

From there, for me, the story just evolves as if by magic as I write it chronologically. When I introduce a new character, there are typically no storyboards or character logs. I simply develop the character as I create the story—the character develops along with the storyline.

Sometimes it’s as if I have a room full of story-writers in my head collaborating to bring a scene or a character to life.

Once the story is pretty well set, I begin the process of fact-checking, reviewing the time-line so it works, making sure the story rings true, and so forth. This is the longest and most tedious part of the process for me, but I enjoy it. I spend a lot of time checking to make sure I introduced the character properly and at the right point in the story—you don’t want to all of a sudden mention a character who hasn’t been properly introduced. It doesn’t matter that he is familiar in the other books in the series. Someone’s apt to be reading book 10 before reading the others. So it’s important to make your stories stand alone, which means you need to reintroduce characters in each book. But that doesn’t mean you must bore those who have read books 1 through 9 by giving the character’s complete history. It takes some finesse to bring old (and new) characters into a story or a scene so that the story flows for any reader.

As for the ending—that’s up for grabs. Rarely, when I start writing a new story do I know how it will end. Sometimes it becomes obvious as the story winds down. Other times I struggle to bring the story to a close and to end it with the reader feeling satisfied, but still wanting more.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m the author of the Klepto Cat Mystery series—cozy mysteries with cats. The main cat character is Rags, an ordinary cat with some extraordinary habits. Rags has entertained readers through 13 books so far, and counting. The latest book is “A Picture-Purrfect Christmas.” The Kindle and print versions available here: http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Purrfect-Christmas-Klepto-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B016BBY2GY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448629276&sr=1-1&keywords=a+picture-purrfect+christmas Or order it from me and receive an autographed copy AND a bookmark. http://www.matilijapress.com/Klepto-Cat-Mysteries/Picture-Purrfect-Christmas.html

Please, if you’d like more detail about my techniques or you have a comment, send it to PLFry620@yahoo.com.

I just finished the first draft of another Klepto Cat Mystery novel. It took me about two months to write the book and an additional two weeks to settle on a title…maybe. I mean, I have a title I think works—but the book isn’t published yet, so the title could change AGAIN.

Why is it so easy to write fifty-thousand words and so dang difficult to come up with a title? Maybe because the title is so important. And, someone who needs fifty-thousand words to tell a story probably isn’t very good at condensing that story into a few meaningful words.

When choosing a title, you want it to reflect the story (or the scope and purpose of a nonfiction book). For a novel, you might want a provocative title—one that attracts readers of cozy mysteries, crime stories, thrillers, etc. If the title is memorable, all the better. You want people talking about your book and referring to it by the title.

Some authors go for catchy titles or they rely on clichés. Some titles are downright descriptive—even for novels. And some are just plain confusing and seem to have nothing to do with the content of the story or nonfiction book.

How do you choose a title? I never had much trouble when I wrote only nonfiction. I always thought first of my readers. I wanted them to know exactly what the book featured or focused on so they were getting what they wanted/needed. Some of my nonfiction titles are, “The Mainland Luau, How to Capture the Flavor of Hawaii in Your Own Backyard,” “Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author,” and “Creative Grandparenting Across the Miles.” Those titles are fairly succinct, don’t you think?

Fiction is a whole different animal. For some of the books in my Klepto Cat Mystery series, I created the title even before writing the book. I kind of like doing that because I, then, make sure to write the story to fit the promise of the title. For some of the other books, I struggled with the title after writing it. One technique, if a title doesn’t come easily, is to jot down words reflecting things in the story. Robber, burglary, stalker, rage, attack, lending a helping hand, a rescue, solving a puzzle, resolving a long-standing disagreement, cupcakes, a misunderstanding, a celebration, etc. Okay, so all of these things were part of your story, but what was the main theme? Perhaps, a rift in a family and the slow healing and reconciliation. A side-story might be that one of the family members has been targeted for some reason and is in danger. The estranged family member comes to his/her rescue and that’s how they reunite. If this is the core of the story, you’d want to create a title around this theme—“Family Hate,” for example. Now take the word “hate” and run it through your thesaurus—what other intriguing word could you use in place of “hate?” or “rage?” How about “Fury?” or “Stormy.” Perhaps one of these words could be worked into a title with the term “Family” or “Familia” or “Kinship.” Maybe the healing of the relationship came through an unusual means, such as baking. Consider “The Cupcake Resolution,” or “A Peace of Peach Pie.” These titles might work for a light story. For a serious crime story or thriller, you’d go with something more terrifying and shocking.

Choosing titles is an interesting part of authorship and publishing. I’d love to hear some of your techniques.

Klepto Cat Mystery Update

The blog tour starts Monday at Catscapades—my own blog site. Be sure to stop in and get your invitation and map to the other blog stopovers for the rest of the week. It’s going to be a fun and revealing tour. Don’t miss a day of it. Oh, and there will be giveaways. Be sure to sign up at the designated stops. The entire calendar is posted at Catscapades in my March 3, 2015 post. http://www.matilijapress.com/catscapades

I seemed destined to write nonfiction. The article fascinated me—how could so many different writers treat the same topic in so many different ways? My desire—my dream—was to write articles for magazines. And I did for many years. That’s how I made my living.

Over the years, I continued writing nonfiction books and articles on subjects I knew and those I wanted to research. Until one day, the fiction bug niggled at me. Many of you know I’ve been writing and publishing light mysteries (revved up cozy mysteries) now for two years. The sixth in the Klepto Cat Mystery series will debut soon. The seventh is completed and will go to the proofreader Monday. And yesterday I plotted out number eight.

I did the plotting a little differently this time. Usually I just start writing and watch the story unfold and the characters develop. This time, the complete story seemed to be whirling around in my head wanting to come out all at once. My writing was a bit stilted because the story was racing to be told and I couldn’t organize it in my mind fast enough to adequately tell it. What to do?

Yesterday, I sat down and outlined the plot in 45 segments—organizing my thoughts representing the progressive storyline. This exercise used up four and a half typewritten pages. Now I will refer to each section of the plot outline to guide me in writing the book. Now I can see what happens and what should happen next, and on and on. I can write in the details and nuances as I go—or later, if I decide to create the shell of the story first. Knowing my style, I will probably do a lot of fleshing out as I go along during the creation of the first draft. I generally wind up with 50,000 to 60,000 words after my first go-through.

How many times do I ultimately “go through” one of my fiction books? I should keep count because this is one of many questions I’m frequently asked. But I’d say no fewer than a dozen.

As a professional writer of nonfiction, I taught myself a process where I will self-edit numerous times for different purposes—focusing on different aspects each time. Once I feel the story is set, I’ll go over the manuscript again focusing mainly on punctuation—did I close all of the quotes and appropriately use commas, for example. I’ll go through checking for overuse of certain words and repeated words, as well as making sure certain slang and habitual words are attributed to certain characters. (You can’t have everyone using the same pet slang.) I might use one go-through concentrating mainly on character credibility. Is this the way that character would act/speak? Then I reread the story through a reader’s eyes—does it make sense, does it flow, can the reader visualize what I had in mind when I wrote it, is there just enough description/explanation, is the story told through action and dialog or am I putting too much of me in there?

I can write a novel in two months. My flow seems to be three and a half months per book and that’s with life’s flow and obligations—those things that interrupt your writing.

One thing I notice I don’t do is plan for future plots. I didn’t start thinking about the plot for the current book I’m working on—book eight—until I was halfway through with the editing for book seven. And I think that was because it was so hot. That’s when I decided that my little fictional family and their pet menagerie should spend some time on the coast. Then I had the task of trying to make this transition realistic.

I have to tell you, there’s power in storytelling—story-creation… I used to exert that power as a nonfiction writer. I could make readers think. I could change minds, even cause conflict and tension. As a writer of fiction, I can change a character’s mind, develop a new character, kill off a character, etc. at the strike of a key. And I can arouse a chuckle, a tear, even anger in my readers. That’s the power of the written word.

Six years ago, I wrote this? “Perhaps your dream is to support yourself by writing stories for your favorite romance magazines. Or maybe you’d like to become a novelist. It is extremely difficult to break in as a career writer of fiction. If fiction is your writing bag, I strongly urge you to set that dream aside for now and pursue a mode of writing that is more likely to produce the monetary results you are seeking.”

Things have changed with e-Readers. Millions of people are using e-readers such as Kindle, Nook, etc. And most of them are reading fiction. Novelists are finally starting to make a little money writing fiction. Collecting enough royalties to sustain or, at least, help to support a fiction writing career is no longer only a pipedream, that is if the author will spend time, energy and creativity in promoting his or her books.

Well, it’s not quite that easy. You must have written a book worth reading—one that is error-free, interesting and that is being promoted to the right readership.

If you have written a novel, consider Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Program. If there are others reading this who have an opinion about this or any other e-reader program, we’d sure like to hear from you. Leave a comment here or email me at PLFry620@yahoo.com