Rules, Rules, Rules by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

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Ever since I began writing I have been told how to do it. There are rules on how to begin the story, what to have in the story, how to end the story. So I have listed some of the rules I have found.

Here are a few Don’ts.

Don’t assume there is any single path or playbook writers need to follow. Don’t try to write like your favorite writer. Don’t worry about whether you should outline or not, whether you should write what you know, whether you should edit as you go along or at the end. Don’t ever get complacent about the basics: good spelling, healthy mechanics, sound grammar. Don’t ever write to satisfy a market trend or make a quick buck. By the time such a book is ready to go, the trend will likely have passed. Don't try to follow some set plot formula. Don't put in a lot of fluffy, unimportant stuff that the reader is going to skip. Don’t ever assume it will be easy. Don’t ever stop reading. Don’t be afraid to give up … on your present manuscript. Sometimes, a story just doesn’t work. But, don’t ever give up writing. Writers write. It’s what we do. It’s what we have to do.

Here are some Do's.

Do grab the reader's attention at the beginning by establishing the protagonist, the setting, and the mood. Do have everything in a story caused by the action or event that precedes it. Do have the story about a person who wants something but cannot get it. Do have a vulnerable character, the right setting, and meaningful choices. Tension is at the heart of story and unmet desire is at the heart of tension. Do create more and more tension as the story continues by having setbacks, crises, and antagonism. You won't have a story until something goes wrong. Do have the protagonist making a discovery that will change his life by the end of the story. Do the writing first then worry about inserting breaks and chapters.

Here are some rules on the personal side.

Don’t spend your time waiting to hear back from an agent or publisher. Get to work on your next book or idea while you’re querying. Don’t get mad at someone for the feedback they give you. No piece of writing is perfect. Don’t forget to get out once in a while and enjoy the other parts of your life.

Here are a few dubious rules, which I have seen broken in many best sellers.

Don't open your book with weather. Don’t have a prologue. Don’t use any other word other than said to carry dialogue. (I personally find it very boring to read said all the time. How does the reader know if the character is angry if he says 'said' instead of 'shouted'? "Get out of here." can be said softly, said through clenched teeth, said angrily, shouted). You need to show emotion. Don’t use an adverb to modify the word said. (see last statement) Keep exclamation points to a minimum. (Again see above). Avoid detailed description of characters, settings and objects.

And now some quotes about writing from famous writers.

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”—Philip Roth

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” —George Orwell

 “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”—Ernest Hemingway

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”—Virginia Woolf

 “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”—Samuel Johnson

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”—Elmore Leonard

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”—Larry L. King

 “There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”—Doris Lessing

“Style means the right word. The rest matters little.”—Jules Renard

“Style is to forget all styles.”—Jules Renard

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”—Tom Clancy

 “Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”—Leslie Gordon Barnard

 “Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”—Leigh Brackett, WD

“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.”—Joyce Carol Oates

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”—Stephen King

 “You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop—H₂O. The reader will get it.”—George Singleton

“When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”—Margaret Laurence

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”—Mark Twain

“People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”—R.L. Stine

  “Beware of advice—even this.”—Carl Sandburg

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Buy West To The Bay

West to the bay

 Gold Fever

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Illegally Dead

The Only Shadow In The House

Whistler's Murder

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The rise of reading for pleasure, especially for women, in Georgian England, by Diane Scott Lewis

Women, deemed not worth educating, except for sewing and cooking, came into their own with reading in the eighteenth century (though many men still thought it disordered their feeble little minds) This century witnessed a huge boom in book reading. Between the 1500’s and the mid-eighteenth century, male literacy grew from ten to sixty per cent. Women, naturally with less opportunity, lagged behind, ranging from one to forty percent, but still an improvement. Female literacy grew the fastest in London, probably with the rise of the middle, merchant, class.

The elite—the aristocratic, noble and rich merchant males—were almost totally literate by 1600.

Obviously, as literacy grew so did the desire for books. A spurt in publishing—due to the relaxation of the crown and conservatism—started in the late seventeenth century to meet those needs.

Books in the past were rare, usually of a religious bent, and treated as sacred. Cookery and herbal books were found in many households. Sermons and poetry were the most widely published literary forms in this era. History books were national or Eurocentric, with an emphasis on understanding France (and do we yet understand the French?).

But now the populace wanted to read for pleasure as well as learning.

Books became widely available from lending libraries, booksellers, and even itinerant peddlers sold abbreviated versions of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, or Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones.

Periodicals, such as the Gentleman’s Magazine, advertised what new novels were available to order and purchase from the booksellers. These books could also be borrowed for a nominal fee.

Library at Margate

The large circulating libraries offered places where patrons could browse, gossip, flirt, or actually read a book. These establishments promoted learning and leisure. Novels, tales, and romances were the most checked-out books. History remained popular, such as Captain Cook’s voyages, and William Robertson’s History of the Americas in two volumes (1777). Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets were also well-borrowed.

The fee of three shillings a quarter, kept the poorer people at bay. But libraries were still a bargain because books weren’t cheap. By the third quarter of the century one novel could cost three shillings.

Unfortunately, libraries earned the reputation as places full of fictional pap served up for rich ladies with nothing better to do than read romantic nonsense. Though men remained the majority subscribers, visiting to read or discuss religious and political controversy.

Church libraries offered books to the poorer in the parish, though probably not the variety.

Coffee houses maintained collections of books for their patrons, which had to be read on the premises. Any man, merchant or laborer, could wander in, order a glass of punch, and read a newspaper—a sign of English liberty.

Even the illiterate were encouraged to buy books so their more literate friends could read to them. People read aloud in taverns for the enjoyment of the less educated.

Well-appointed homes had private libraries for the use of family and guests. In 1650 few country houses had a room set aside for books and reading, while in the late eighteenth century a house without a library was unthinkable.

Books became icons. In paintings, the depiction of a man with books became as common as with his spouse or dog. And though men would never admit it, the frivolous novel reader was as much male as female.

With this wider reading public, more women romantic writers emerged, such as Fanny Burney (Evelina, 1778; Cecilia, 1782) and Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794). But men also wrote romantic novels: Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, 1749; Amelia by Henry Fielding, 1751.

Nevertheless, women read critically to lift the mind from sensation to intellect as well as their male counterparts.

Everyone profited from increased literacy, education and the availability of the written word to broaden the mind in the sciences, philosophy, history, and of course, those romantic novels for pleasure.

　

Source: The Pleasures of the Imagination, by John Brewer, 1997

Diane Scott Lewis writes historical fiction with romantic elements. Visit her website:

http://www.dianescottlewis.org

　

Part One: From Quill... by Victoria Chatham

I think I’m slipping into retro mode and I blame it on technology.  I appreciate the convenience of my Kindle when I travel, and the laptop on which I write but if my thoughts don’t flow quite as easily as I’d like when I write, I revert to paper and pen. A spiral notebook that is and often a fountain pen.  But from where did these materials originate?

My earliest recollections of school was the stone wall around our playground the dry, chalky  atmosphere of the classroom. At first we were only allowed to use pencils for writing. I was so proud of my pencil box with the rose printed on its sliding lid. I was even more proud when I progressed to a real pen and ink, carefully dribbled out from a ceramic jug into the inkwell in the corner of my desk by the ink monitor of that week. The honor of that, along with milk monitor and classroom monitor, was bestowed and withdrawn based on good or bad behaviour.

I find it strange that many school districts no longer teach cursive writing. In the great scheme of things, what if there wasn’t just a power outage but a power stoppage? How many young people today would know how to communicate without the technology that seems to be in their DNA? I loved the feel of the nib running over a clean sheet of white paper, the art in the curve or an S or the clean cut of the V.

 

We practiced hand writing on a daily basis. Back then my handwriting was almost Victorian copperplate and later I learnt the art of calligraphy. My favorite pen today is my gold Schaeffer, a 40^th birthday gift from my daughter, much easier to use than the earliest known reservoir pen dating back to the 10^th century.

Fatimid, Caliph of Egypt, wanted a pen that wouldn’t stain his hands and clothes with ink. The mechanism for this pen is unknown. Not so the pen developed by Daniel Schwenter in 1636. He used two quills, one being a reservoir for the other. In 1663 Samuel Pepys, he of the famous diary, referred to a metal pen in which to carry ink and in 1809 Bartholomew Folsch patented a pen with its own reservoir.

By the 1850s more than 50% of the steel-nib pens in the world were manufactured in Birmingham, in the UK. During this time there was also a steady stream of fountain pen patents but it wasn’t until the invention of the iridium-tipped gold-nib, hard rubber and free flowing ink that fountain pens gained popularity.

During the 1870s Canadian Duncan MacKinnon, living in New York City and Alonzo T. Cross from Providence, Rhode Island, created stylographic pens which are now mostly used for drafting and technical drawing. The 1880s were dominated by the mass production of pens from Waterman, also of New York City, and Wirt in Bloomsbury, Pennsylvania. Walter A. Schaeffer’s lever filler in 1912 and Parker’s button filler of about the same time changed fountain pens forever. Along with those names already mentioned, add Montblanc, Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels and Pelikan.

The development in the 40s and 50s of ballpoint pens looked to oust the fountain pen but in May 2012 Steven Brocklehurst, writing for the BBC News Magazine, reported that sales of fountain pens were rising and who knew that the first Friday of November every year is World Fountain Pen Day? Along with Cross, Waterman and Schaeffer, fountain pen aficionados will recognize  the names Montblanc, Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels and Pelikan, all makers of exceptionally fine pens. As part of its branding program Montblanc, in January 2014, appointed the actor Hugh Jackman as their non-US ambassador.

Montblanc, with its distinctive white star on the end of the cap and the numbers 4810, the height in metres of the famous European mountain, also produces the Writers Edition line. Each year Montblanc commemorates the life of a particular writer with their signature engraved in the cap of the edition. Who would like the Dostoevsky pen at $950 USD on Ebay, or the Daniel Defoe 2014 edition at $1,110 USD? Track down the Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie or Oscar Wilde.

Mark Twain is reputed to be the first author to write a manuscript on a typewriter, but consider that other most prolific 19^th Century author, Rudyard Kipling. All his newspaper articles, short stories, books and poems were written in longhand. Try writing Mowgli or Bagheera or Baloo in longhand. The feel for the character becomes more so as you envision it from the ink flowing across the page.

As an ex-colleague of Kipling’s stated. . . ."he never knew such a fellow for ink—he simply revelled in it, filling up his pen viciously, and then throwing the contents all over the office, so that it was almost dangerous to approach him”. The anecdote continues: “In the hot weather, when he (Kipling) wore only white trousers and a thin vest, he is said to have resembled a Dalmatian dog more than a human being, for he was spotted all over with ink in every direction”.

            A fountain pen today is something of an anomaly. Often used for show or signing important contracts and documents, there is something quite special about a quality fountain pen. Whether you own one, choose to use one, or simply collect them for the works of art they are, there is nothing like a good fountain pen.  

More about Victoria Chatham at;

www.bookswelove.com/chatham.php
            www.twitter.com/@VChathamAuthor
            www.amazon.com/author/victoriachatham
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Hey There's A Weasel Eating My Editor

Hey, There's A Weasel Eating My Editor

It's been mentioned that in the art of writing a novel only five percent of the work is the actual writing. The other (I see everyone caught off guard except for those income tax gurus who do numbers in their sheep, reaching wildly for their calculators) ninety-five percent is editing. Okay I meant sleep, but even the sheep jumping over the fence don't get any breaks from the taxman. I know, I got busted for declaring three stamps purchased for personal use.

            Okay back to the serious side of writing. It is true that what a lot of writers don't realize is that the bulk of time in writing a novel is indeed editing, re-editing and after setting the novel aside for a while, another read through and usually more editing. Then off it goes to a publisher where they usually go through another couple of rounds of ....

... well it ain't washing laundry. More editing. I've been told a thorough editing job is like washing your clothes after you've been out hiking in the backcountry for two weeks. Which for some of us writers is what writing a novel is like; disappearing for weeks on end, scribbling like mad or pounding away on a keyboard. Before returning to the real world of hungry cats and a very cranky ignored wife or hubby.  Next step is digging out the bible of all editors everywhere, that thin little book, Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style'. I can say my copy has suffered some ignoble fates, like being hung from trees dipped in birdseed, so Crows and Steller's Jays could peck at it. I've counted how many flushes it could take before separating from its bindings (surprisingly, thirty-eight).

            So, as you might have gathered, editing, for writers, is like taking showers when you're a kid. I remember the time when I was eight and we'd been camping for about two weeks. My mom said, "You need to take a shower at least once before we go home. Your feet are smelling so bad, you'll attract wild animals from miles around, maybe even a bear. They can smell a dead animal carcass from across a valley." I promised I would.

            In the middle of the night I awoke to a rustling noise. I peeked bravely out of my pup tent, armed with a bag of marshmallows, my beanie cap with a twirling propeller and my water pistol, only to watch a weasel gnawing away at my heel of my shoe. The next morning I hobbled humbly into the showers cringing in my shoe and a half. I hated those showers in the campsites. Usually getting one that either released a mere trickle, that couldn't drown a housefly, or one that produced cascades that could replicate the Niagara Falls.  Or the one I picked, screaming as the ice water hit me and yelling fifteen minutes later, when the hot water finally kicked in. All fifteen minutes of it, as if built up behind some pressure valve and scalding me to near the consistency of boiled potato.

            But I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life limping around with one shoe half eaten by gangs of weasels armed with plastic forks and knives (I hear they have this allergic reaction to metal forks and knives).

            So when the publisher sends back your manuscript for another editing go around, remember this positive affirmation if you don't want them or yourself being attacked by wild gangs of prowling rodents. "I'm a Writer, I Love Writing. I'm a Writer, I Love Writing." Repeat about twenty times behind gritted teeth before getting out the old Strunk and White and getting on with it.

Buy Raven's Lament

I Wish I'd Taken A Parenting Class By Sandy Semerad

A woman handed me a flier with the headline, “May is for Mom’s.” It advertised a class for parents, “who desire a healthy future for their children.”

I wish I’d taken this class when my daughters were babies. My main source of instruction came from Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care.

I have made plenty of parenting mistakes, no doubt. A major boo-boo was trying to raise my daughters differently from how I’d been brought up.

Looking back now, I’m grateful for my upbringing, although I deeply regret losing my dad when I was seven. A heart attack killed him.

After Dad died, I worried about Mom. Alice Larson Hodges was eccentric and talented, adventuresome and unpredictable.

She paraded around Geneva, Alabama in bright clothes, big hats and jewelry. “Gossips be damned.”

She wore loud bracelets. They clanged as she played the piano at the First Baptist church. She often sang louder than the choir.

 She took me and my sister out of school in the middle of the year and drove to New Mexico from Alabama to see the Caverns in New Mexico. During the summer, she stuck us in camp while she studied art.

She was the oldest daughter of Norwegian immigrants and once told me she married Daddy because he promised to buy her a piano and teach her to drive. After Daddy died, she never married again.

She loved water and painted beautiful pictures of water, but never learned to swim. Yet, she encouraged me and Alice Kay to become good swimmers.

She raised two daughters alone while preaching: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness. A stitch in time saves nine. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a woman health wealthy and wise. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. You won’t like most of what you do every day, but if you do one thing you like, you should be happy.”

She seemed fearless.

She single handedly drove us to New York City to see the musical “My Fair Lady.” During our trip, we toured the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

When we arrived in New York, in the middle of the night, Alice Kay and I were asleep in the back seat. At the Brooklyn Bridge, she awakened us, shouting, “Wake up, girls, New York City.”

I could go on and on about her. How she filmed us as if we were movie stars. Thank God, we were able to salvage the rolls of film.

Alice Kay had some of the film spliced together, chronicling our lives as children, teenagers, young adults and mothers. In the beginning of the video, Mother is young and beautiful, smiling for the camera. My father is dapper and handsome, puffing on a cigarette.

One thing’s for sure, Mother never failed to surprise me. She seemed to embrace spontaneity.

I’m a little spontaneous, too, along with having a highly developed imagination. I escaped reality by making up stories in my head, which eventually culminated in writing novels. But the novel writing began years after she suffered a stroke and was in a coma.

The doctors offered little hope of her recovery. Refusing to accept this diagnosis, I kept talking to her.

She eventually opened her eyes and said, “I’m so proud of you.”

Mother is no longer on this earth, but I feel her spirit every day, and I know she did her best, without the benefit of child-rearing classes.

And I’m grateful I had an exciting mother. She taught me, by example, how to live outside my comfort zone. I might not have learned to take risks if Mother had been overprotective and fearful.

I never doubted her love, although she seldom said the words, I love you. I suppose that’s why I never miss an opportunity to tell my daughters, Rene and Andrea, and granddaughter Cody how much I love them and how proud I am of them. They’re extraordinary, despite my lack of parenting lessons.

For more information, visit my website: Sandy Semerad 

And here's my latest novel, A MESSAGE IN THE ROSES, only .99 today:

A Message in the Roses