All Blog Posts Tagged 'authors' (181)

In the Mood for...What?

I mentioned last week that I'd read a friend's manuscript and enjoyed it a lot. One reason is that it was different from my usual reading. In other words, not a mystery.

I love mysteries. I read them, write them, even think them. Items on the evening news revolve in my head and I start figuring out how that could be a plot for the next project. It usually doesn't happen, because I have way more plots than I have time to write them. (Probably a good thing.) I may have reached a kind… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on November 19, 2008 at 10:17pm — No Comments

Character & Plot: Working Together

Did you ever notice that as you write, you see where a character has to go in order to make the plot work? And did you ever notice that as you write, the plot has to respond to what a character would or would not do? Holy Holistics, Batgirl!

It's bad when a character says or does something inappropriate, something that it's obvious the writer needs in the story at that moment in time. A perfectly nice girl throws a fit in public that in reality would make her never leave home again.… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on November 6, 2008 at 11:00pm — No Comments

Books That Pull You Along

A very talented friend gave me a manuscript to read, and I'm hooked. After half a century of reading (OMG!) I find that most books are time-passers, not reading adventures. I know the plotline after a few pages, and if the author surprises, it's with invented devices, incidents meant to be funny, or characters that are grotesquely unusual. I read to the end, but I never feel the "what's going to happen?" question forming in my head. With this one, I want to find that out.

A good… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on November 4, 2008 at 10:45pm — No Comments

Loud Reading

It's not easy to explain, but the best way to write well is to read, and the best way to read is aloud. I don't know why it works, but reading your work aloud allows you to step away from being the writer and be a listener. As such, you'll hear repetitive phrases, awkward constructions, and even plot hitches that silent reading as the author doesn't give you, I suppose because you know the work too well.

One tendency I have is to use my characters' names too often. When I read aloud,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on October 30, 2008 at 9:03pm — No Comments

London Calling

I’m off to the Society of Authors AGM in London today. I’ve been a member for almost ten years and although I don’t get to attend every meeting or function I have used the society’s extremely helpful service on publishing copyright and contracts. The SOA has (as its web site declares) been serving the interests of professional writers for more than a century, and has more than 8,500 members writing in all areas of the profession. These include novelists, textbook writers, ghost writers,… Continue

Added by Pauline Rowson on October 6, 2008 at 8:32pm — No Comments

The Whole Blurb Thing

My wildest dream right now is that a famous author, a highly regarded reviewer, and a national newspaper will all call me within the next month and say, "We hear you have a book coming out. Can we please, please, please write a blurb for it?"

Blurbs seem to be an essential these days, but if you don't know anybody with a big name in the industry, it's hard to ask for one. I know lots of writers, but very few who write what I write. So does a historical murder author use an… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 25, 2008 at 10:30pm — No Comments

Where Do You Fit in the Writing Spectrum?

There is in every aspect of life a continuum, and we all fit on it somewhere. I once read an article that told of asking people where they fit on the range between ugly and beautiful. Most felt they were on the plus side of center, and yet on any scale, 50% have to be below and 50 above. So a bunch of homely people are deluding themselves about how scary they look.

I suspect it's true for writers as well. I've never met anyone in the business who admitted to being a below-average… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 17, 2008 at 10:49pm — No Comments

Variety (R)

As I read through the posts on several writer/reader forums I've joined, it strikes me that we're different. Now isn't that profound?

Different means that a book I like, for example, Craig Johnson's A Cold Dish, made a reader post that she'd given up on it because it took too long to tell the story, and a book I find corny and in fact irritating is someone else's "brilliant read." If you've read earlier posts you can guess which authors I don't care for in the mystery genre, and my… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 15, 2008 at 10:30pm — No Comments

What Makes a Page-turner?

Start with honesty: I don't know. Something in the character/plot/style mix, but setting, pacing, and vocabulary help, too. To misquote, I don't know what (the) art is, but I know it when I read it.

I started two books this morning (Don't ask; it's how I do things) and both sucked me in immediately. One isn't even a book yet; it's an unpublished MS that the author let go of with great reluctance over lunch the other day. She doesn't think it's ready; I can't believe I only got a… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on August 18, 2008 at 10:21pm — No Comments

It's Hard to Say Good-bye

It's getting close, that time when I have to officially proclaim that I've done everything I can to make a manuscript into a book. I have to turn it over to editors and typesetters and publishers, who will lay it before the world and ask that someone plunk down hard-earned (or even inherited) money for it. But what if there's a mistake?

Saying you're finished with a book is a little like saying you're done raising a child. You are judged by what the public sees, and you can't go back… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on August 11, 2008 at 9:55pm — No Comments

Merry, Merry Second Calling

Just got word that my second book has been accepted by my publisher, and of course I have to analyze that feeling.

I doubt if I'm quite as excited as the first time. First, nothing beats the initial feeling of vindication and support a writer gets with publication with a traditional house. It's knowing that it isn't just you, or you and your spouse, who believe in your work. It's success on the best level.

In addition, at the second call you know how much work you're in… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 30, 2008 at 9:56pm — No Comments

Authors With Egos

Most of the people I've met in the writing profession are wonderful: intelligent, helpful and fun to be around. But there's a minority who amuse and sometimes irritate: those who believe they wrote the only book(s) that will ever matter.

Most of us recognize that we're in a business where tastes vary. Along with those who love my book, I've met people who damned it with faint praise or dismissed it altogether. One woman told me recently that it was too much work to read a historical… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 21, 2008 at 11:08pm — No Comments

Serious Editing

If you read my blog very often, you've read this before: the first step in editing is time. When your first draft is done, you get a feeling of relief. There. It's down on paper. It's done. However great that feeling may be, don't let it lead you to the mailbox. This is NOT the time to send your work to an editor, an agent, or even a friend. First it needs to sit for a while.

Walking away from a piece of writing is essential. I'm not sure how long it takes to be able to look at it… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 17, 2008 at 10:41pm — No Comments

Atmosphere (R)

How is it that some authors grab you by the sleeve and won't let you go, while others only provide a pleasant diversion that can be set down at any moment to do something more pressing?

Laura Lippman does it; Barry Eisler too. It could be in Lippman's case that she writes as I think, pulling up details that seem like they came from my own brain, but in Eisler's work I have no frame of reference, being neither Asian nor a hired assassin. So it must be something else, and I call it… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 16, 2008 at 9:53pm — No Comments

Read This or Else! (R)

My writing career has changed how I judge a book. One reader of my blog commented that we must keep reading, both to learn and to refuel. I certainly agree. Reading is key to writing. Extending that thought, both reading and writing are key to thinking, and we as a nation lose ground with each non-reader who graduates high school. By non-readers I don't mean people who can't read; I mean people who consistenly choose to do something else.

It's hard for teachers today to decide what… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 15, 2008 at 10:17pm — 2 Comments

Shameful Secrets: Who Do You Like?

It's just like junior high. You have a crush, but it's embarrassing to admit it. You promise yourself you won't tell anyone, but somehow it comes out.

So I'll confess first. I like George Michael. I know, I know! Can't help it; love his music, think he's cute. Now what has that got to do with reading?

Some are embarrassed to admit they read romances and mysteries, as if they should be reading "better" stuff. I have two arguments: first, even serious readers need to gear… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on July 9, 2008 at 10:37pm — No Comments

Writing What We Love (R)

Should you write what you like or what will sell? I find that among my works, I can't say which is better or best; I love whichever one I'm working on right now. I can't imagine being told what to write, and I guess that taking the creativity out of a person's work is what makes a writer a hack. Although I understand the need for editorial intervention once I'm done, before that point I have to write my story. It is this that makes me reluctant to join critique groups that exchange… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 27, 2008 at 11:05pm — No Comments

Writers Need Readers

There is some concern in the publishing industry about the fact that every year there are fewer readers in this country. We all know why, and I'm not here to argue that it's wrong, wrong, wrong, even though it is.

The question is what can build interest in reading? Those factors need to be cultivated. For one thing, there's the popularity of certain books among young people. Once a kid has developed an interest in Potter or Goosebumps or Chillermania, chances are he will understand… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on June 19, 2008 at 10:37pm — No Comments

Get It Into Your Thick Head!

I'm a member of several chat groups, and I find them helpful. I learn who is doing interesting stuff, who will be where, and who likes what type of reading--sometimes ad infinitum.

How many adages do we have that speak of differing tastes? We know there are wide variances among people, and yet we spend time and energy trying to make them read what we read. Someone says he doesn't like police procedurals. Immediately there are multiple responses detailing why the police… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on May 5, 2008 at 10:55pm — No Comments

That Boat We're All In (R)

As I read posts and talk with writers, I find striking similarities in the need for outside affirmation. We all write because we're driven to write, but there is beyond that a step that we cannot take by ourselves. In order to be comfortable with calling ourselves writers, we have to be accepted by Others, be it agents, editors, or readers. Just writing isn't enough, at least not for long.

When I started writing, it was for myself. I wanted to tell a story, not an important one, but… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on March 19, 2008 at 11:39pm — No Comments