Publishing Journals

I have been learning a little about publishing journals lately through some classes I’m taking in Creative Nonfiction and Poetry. I want to write down some of the things I have found out about them, in case any reader-wanna-be-writers out there can benefit from the information.

-          Most journals require you (the author) to pay them something when you send in your piece. It ranges in price depending on how well-known the journal is. I’ve heard as little as 3$ to as much as hundreds.

-          Do your research on the journal:  you don’t want to build a bad reputation by having been published by a not-so-good journal.

-          You don’t get paid for getting published in a journal. But most of them run contests, so if you’re very good you can win as much as $1000. Also, you’re usually given a few complimentary copies of the journal that you get published in.

-          There are submission dates, deadlines, and guidelines that you will need to follow.

-          Keep your audience in mind: many journals are based out of Universities, and are edited by Grad students there.

-          Careful what you sign: some journals have you hand over the rights to your piece, or give the journal the right to edit your piece at their discretion.

-          However, most journals give you back the rights to your piece once it’s finished being published.

-          Every journal has its own “image”. Check into the types of pieces they’re publishing- are they edgy? Political? Happy-endings? Don’t waste your time sending your work to a journal that doesn’t typically publish your style.

-          Journals (if they accept you) want “first rights” to your piece – they want to be the first journal to publish you because if you get famous that will reflect well on them.

-          It could take the journal months to respond to your submission. In the meanwhile, see below

-          You’re apparently not supposed to send your piece to more than one journal at a time. Meaning, while you’re waiting for Journal X to get back to you, you can’t send your submission to Journal Y. If Journal Y accepts your piece, then Journal X wants to accept your piece too, Journal X will be angry at you and possibly tarnish your name amongst the publishing journal community.

That last one is what surprised me the most. I was thinking about sending my pieces out, but I don’t want to wait several months between attempts.

Originality

I want to talk about originality. Not because I have some conclusive statement on it, but because it’s an important topic.

The Hunger Games movie is coming out in March, and I’m quite excited. I thought that the first two books were very good – fast paced, pretty good characters, sufficient complicity of plot. (we will not mention the third book. I am trying to ignore its existence). However, my younger sister is constantly pointing out that the books’ idea is not original. There was a book/movie (With Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Dawson!) called The Running Man. This has some basic things in common with the Hunger Games: future post-apocalyptic U.S., evil government, put people in a televised competition to the death as a way of subduing the rebellious. There was another book before that which she mentioned, that again has the same plot features.

I’m perturbed over this. I believe in the old adage “nothing is new under the sun”. So, loosely speaking, I think that some themes and ideas will come up again and again.

Does time make any difference? The Running Man came out in 1982. Since most younger people are unfamiliar with it, is that why the Hunger games can get away with a very similar storyline? I’ve also heard that the Aragorn books are pretty similar to the Lord of the Rings. I’m just curious about what circumstances decide what things are too similar and what things can get away with it.

Making Dialogue natural

Realistic Conversations

Let’s keep talking about what makes good dialogue. As I worked on the last blog, I started to realize that a big theme of making good dialogue is making realistic dialogue. Basically, anything strange, awkward, or unnatural will cause the reader to stumble.  We have to make a choice to ignore the fact that the conversation is weird, and just take from it what we can. Don’t do this to your reader.

 Most people think that when things are written you need to use a formal writing voice all the time. There are many exceptions to this rule, and one of the biggest is dialogue. Dialogue should sound natural, the way real people talk. Granted, the topics of their conversations might be a little wild, hence the story, but no one wants to read a conversation that they can’t imagine themselves into.

My suggestion: Listen. Listen to real life conversations. Develop an ear for peoples’ styles. Give your characters voice styles too. Listen to what idioms are used. Listen to what sounds natural, and what grabs your attention.

 I’ve noticed many idioms that have gone out of use just in the last 10 years. Pay attention to these things.  Out of date idioms are corny.

There is one big difference between talking in real life and the talking that happens in a story. In real life, people talk all the time. Most of it is unnecessary. We do it because we’re social being s and we like to interact with others.

I’ve been told that in writing, everything needs to have a purpose. Dialogue should be used to further the plot. I don’t know if I agree. Dialogue is a great opportunity to communicate things to the reader. However, I find it very annoying when this is obvious. Some passages you can just point to and realize that the author only put it in to convey something to the reader; it’s not a conversation that would happen naturally. Be subtle.  

On Dialogue (post for week 11/13-19)

One thing that I wanted to write about was dialogue. Some authors are very good at it, while others make the dialogue seem awkward and obvious.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a topic I have paid much attention to independently, so I can’t think of any specific examples of authors who are better at creating dialogue than others. Still, there are some generalizations that authors should keep in mind.

-          Variety o f sentence structure is good, but at the end of the day, the author will need to write “He said” and  “she said” more often than they want to. The truth is, readers skim over these things. Repeating sentence patterns, at least when it comes to dialogue, is a necessary evil.

-          That being said, there is still plenty of room for creativity. If ‘said’ is in every single line of a long conversation, we will notice. Use stronger words that will convey more meaning where appropriate. Just don’t overdo these alternate words. What makes them special and effective is when they’re used sparingly.

-          Mix up the sentence pattern. Put the speaker’s name at the beginning, end, middle, or not at all.

-          I get annoyed when reading long conversations that don’t give any physical references. Perhaps it’s because I’m a visual person, but I like to be reminded of what the scene looks like. What are the body postures of the characters? Do their faces look intense, pensive, listless? Are they sitting or standing? Shift their positions a bit- no real person stands still that long. There are endless opportunities to add helpful information within a scene of dialogue to give it more life.

-          Be REALISTIC! I’m going to write my whole next blog on this topic, because it’s so important. Conversations that sound…like a book… don’t sound like people. And like I said earlier, we want characters that we can relate to. Characters that we feel like we can interact with. If their conversation is strained and obvious, this connection from character to reader is broken.

Pacing a plot

I think one quality of good writing, which often goes unnoticed, is pacing. Right now there’s a trend that tells writers to “start with a bang” and continue at a high pace right from the beginning of the story. I guess with today’s fast-paced society, we don’t want to read books that take very long to get going. Nevertheless, I will point out that that’s a trend. Older books don’t start like that because it wasn’t necessary.
There is a balance needed when it comes to pacing. One extreme is the story that starts so suddenly that it never allows the reader to catch their breath. They read it very quickly, hoping things will make sense a little further on, but eventually discover that the author has no intention of explaining himself. I don’t think this is good. Although it may feel cliché to fill the first couple chapters with a lot of details and explaining, it is necessary. The reader needs to build their confidence in your story, you can’t assume their confidence. That’s a delicate process.
The other extreme is the kind of story that is long and drawn out. The reader feels like it takes as much as half of the book to explain things before the story gets going. Little hints of the plot may be given along the way, but the reader can sense the lack of momentum. To me, it feels like these authors have wasted my time.
Personally, I feel that the best books are those that balance out these extremes. The reader is drawn in, enticed in. Not forced in. The book balances mystery and fact so that the reader is never too confused but never too knowledgeable. It’s just enough so that we’ll want to keep reading. Usually something big needs to happen to get the story off its feet, otherwise, its not much of a story. But the “big” things need to keep happening, with increasing frequency, drama, and importance as the story progresses. Until you reach the climax.
Although, I have to note that the desire for a single, grand climax is probably a personal preference. I have read books that conclude with a series of small and interesting climaxes, and I think these are good too. They are just not as common. Personally, I love the stories that build to something epic. I love that feeling of passing the point of no return, knowing that the characters I’ve grown to love will never be the same after what happens next.

Throwing us off

I like to read books. There’s a calming effect to the casual glance along the pages. There is also an emotional exchange. The reader chooses to suspend their disbelief so that they can follow the story. The reader makes a mental commitment to follow the storyline. Because of this, I get annoyed when authors do things that jolt readers out of that mental state.

There are a few things that could cause this result. One, words that don’t fit the surrounding world of the story. For example, an overly fanciful name for an average character in today’s world.

Another thing that could “lose” the reader is inconsistency. Surprises can be great for your story, but not if they come unexpectedly and leave no mark on the rest of it. For example, a character who has been mostly timid and unsure of themselves should not have a bold confrontation with their boss, then return to being timid without any explanation to the reader about this sudden uncharacteristic shift. It’s different if the character grows from or towards that experience, but not good if it just suddenly happens.

A sudden reference to the “real world” can be very jarring if it’s not done tastefully. References like this are usually intended to be humorous. Perhaps the author is poking fun at another author. Or they simply want to make us laugh by letting our characters experience something that we the reader have experienced. These references need to be subtle to work. And of course, you’d need to refer to something that most people are going to get.

Unrealistic characters and circumstances will also exhaust our suspense of disbelief. Characters and situations should be cool, yes, but if it’s so over-the-top that the reader is constantly comparing the them to reality and saying “this could never happen” then the reader isn’t plugged in anymore.

Of course, a lot of this will depend on the reader themselves. Some readers are more cynical. Some become absorbed in the story more easily than others. Some are more forgiving than others.

4 books

Tonight I can't sleep, so I'm going to blog a little randomly. (Trying to distract myself. Not sleeping really makes me annoyed)

I have 4 books out at my bedstand right now. It's a little strange for me; I usually finish one then start another. But different things came up so I now have four going. The first one I started out of a campaign to read all the unread books on my bookshelf. They're aren't many, I only buy books that I truly love. So the unread books are all hand-me-downs. It's a spiritual book about overcoming negative self-image. I guess it was boring me because I'm not having major problems with my self-image right now.

The second one I started is the autobiography of Harpo Marx. My family and I LOVE the Marx brothers movies. I read a biography about the whole family a couple years ago called “Monkey business” (A stolen title from one of their movies). I've never enjoyed a nonfiction book so much. This autobiography though got a little boring once Harpo got past describing his childhood. I'm sure I'll come back to this; both of my parents said it's a very good book. Maybe I got bored because I already read a biography of their lives.

The third one I started because I was visiting home from college, and had forgotten the Harpo Marx book at my apartment. “The Outcast of Redwall” My sisters and I grew up on the Redwall series; it was our first great passion in reading. My older sister used to read outloud to us younger two during car rides. I haven't read the Outcast for myself before in fact. Brian Jacques (RIP, sniff) was a great writer. But like I mentioned before, he tends to use all the same characters with new names, and all the same plot elements with slight variation. I don't think I'll get around to reading all 17 of them. My favorite is Mariel of Redwall. (I had a copy of this one. My mom sold it by mistake)

The fourth book I actually haven't started yet. My roommate suggested it and I want to read it before she gets annoyed. “Emotional Purity” I've read some about the concept before in other books but I haven't read it in a book on it's own. It's short. Should be good.

My expected route:

Finish “Outcast”, go to “Emotional Purity”, back for Harpo Marx, and (maybe) finish Negative Self-image.

Characters: quirks & personalities

So. Characters. What makes them so special?

I've noticed a trend lately. The “howcanImakethischaractercool?” trend. Where authors give their characters unique and important traits so that they stand out.

Now, first my disclaimer. There's a balance needed here. Like I said in the last post, no one wants to read about Plain Jane going through the same stuff in every book. We turn to stories, especially fiction, so we can live out something that is unlikely to happen in real life. We like to see characters who become better versions of us.

However, please don't throw around unique traits just to make your character stand out. Normal people in real life are all unique and interesting once you get to know them. It should be the same with characters. If you have to convince us of their uniqueness I will doubt your ability as a writer.

Has anyone read the Bloody Jack series?

I have to admit, the first book was good. Orphan girl (Jacky) pretends to be cabin boy and goes on highseas adventures. She's a good liar. She small and agile. And she gets abandoned on an island. Okay. A little over-done and farfetched, but still. It was a good, well-made story. One of my favorites, in fact.

Then the sequels started coming out, and like the proverbial downhill snowball, number of the character traits and speed with which they're gained boggles the mind.

She can paint beautifully. She can sing. She can play violin. She can dance. EVERY boy character falls in love with her. She can fight. She can race horses. She can lead armies. She can start riots. She can learn languages. The king wants her head. She meets Napoleon. Gets kidnapped by pirates.

It just goes on. She gains enough personality traits that we start wondering if she's even one person or if she has multiple personality disorder.

It's too much. We don't believe in this girl. She's superman. Not like me at all. I can't relate, I can't “go there” with her.

Sometimes there's a different problem. The characters don't have too many quirks. Its just that the “unique things” are kind of obvious.

I used to do Role Playing Games. Okay admit it, most aspiring young writers used to write on forums, back in the days before blogging.

One of the forums I frequented did fanfiction of the Redwall series. (Those books are great, by the way). The world of the book involves mice, hedgehogs, otters, and other woodland creatures instead of people. They go on adventures and there's usually an epic battle at the end.

In the RPGs, each writer would first introduce their character. Every person inevitably included atleast one of these traits:

the tallest, the shortest, the youngest, all black, albino, a creature never before used in Redwall, carries an unusual weapon, has a strange accent, strange markings, scars, or missing ear.

Not one RPG writer could create a “unique” character without these overly used traits.

Creativity, my friends. Where has it gone?

To grow in our lives

Let's keep going on the topic of characters, because they are interesting. It's important to have good characters because, by and large, characters are the reason that readers read books. We feel we have a connection with these people, unreal as they might be. Like a friend, we seek to seek their companionship, hope for their welfare, agonize in their struggles, and watch their development.

Development is a very important part of good characters. If the main character has not changed, for better or for worse, by the end of the story, then essentially the reader has gained nothing. It's also unrealistic, because life is full of changes. So unless you are writing a story that's about the character's unwillingness to change while the world changes around them, then we'd like to see some progress.

Readers want to see change because it reflects the reality of our own lives. We change, the world changes around us. Most people have a natural, innate hope that they are growing and improving, that they are gaining things as they progress through their lives. We want to know that we aren't just “going through the motions” everyday, that there is something more to it. Consequently, we would like to see the same thing in our books. In fact, you might say that that's the greatest thing that a fiction book could offer: the chance for us to see in a snapshot the growth in a life, for our own edification.

Only poorly made characters will not have any flaws. (We don't like to see perfection; it doesn't reflect us or our reality either). The essential flaws of the characters should be worked on throughout the book, resulting in the character either overcoming, or failing to overcome them. In either case there is a conclusion: happy or sad.

The best antagonists will often deal with change too; they usually become better people or worse people by the end of the story. Their flaws may lead them to become “better” bad people. Again, the reader likes to see this because it indicates progress. We have gotten somewhere by reading.

Naming your Character

Characters. They are the heart and soul of a book. They are what brings readers back and attaches them to the book. The reader should feel that the main character(s) is a close friend, or an extension of themselves.

The beginning of this relationship is when the reader first “meets” the character. First impressions are just as crucial as in real life. What is the character doing that day? What are they wearing? What are they thinking? These details will help the reader make judgments on the character that will guide their understanding of the rest of the book.

Of course, the first thing the reader will see is the character's name. There's something going on these days where authors are fighting hard to find new and interesting names. Out with the old, in with the new. Away with the commonplace!

This is leading to some problems.

Mellimeldisiel stepped out of her bedroom and yawned. She called her friend Aphaderuiondur so they could gossip about Maidhfinden before school.

Names like this trip up a reader. Just as it doesn't flow off the tongue nicely, it doesn't flow from the brain easily either. It slows down the reading.

Worse yet are the names with the crazy symbols.

Voronwë

T 'ealc

Sh-kyn'dra

If you're going to put in a crazy name, or one that uses a phonetic pattern unlike English, please explain how it should be pronounced. Trying to read an entire book without knowing how to pronounce a name is like repeatedly tripping over a brick.

One final point is that character's names should fit them. Personalities go with names, exemplify names, embody names. They should go together.

In the books The Hunger Games, the main character is Katniss Everdeen. This name sounds soft, quiet, sweet. But the character, we find out, is supposed to be tough, independent, and bad-ass. The contradiction is a constant annoyance.

Choosing a story

I want to say a few things about the author's choice of book topic (meaning the story or the plot). There aren't many things I can say about this, because obviously, different genres and content will appeal to different audiences. That's why authors are told to write with their “audience in mind”.

Well, actually I'm going to follow that tangent first. I've never really cared for the idea of gearing a book towards a particular audience. Obviously, when dealing with children's literature or with professional audiences, the author does need to monitor what they write in relation to who is going to read it. But I feel that if a reader finds something good and approachable, that's outside of their normal preferences, then the author has succeeded. The author should feel the freedom to write what they want. As long as it's being read and enjoyed, it's working.

One of the author's major goals should be to write something well. But another important thing is to write something that people are going to read.

A topic should not:

• be so complicated that it's unapproachable (many science fiction books fit in here)
• be so broad that it's covered shallowly. We would rather read a sequel and have both be well-written.
• be about teens with the emotional range of a teaspoon
• be an obvious copy of another book. Eragon is said to be awfully similar to LOTR for example. It can be hard not to copy, because some ideas are intrinsic to every story. And some topics, such as vampires, are “trendy” topics that readers want to see more of. Let's just say that it can't be an obvious and blatant copy.

Some readers don't like the idea of “trendy” topics altogether. Books shouldn't be made just to make “fans” happy, but should be written for their own sake as literature.

A topic should:

• be unique in some way. If you're covering something common (Plain Jane enters high school, deals with all the typical high school stuff, “finds herself” by the end) then you need to do something that will help the reader identify this book as different than, therefore better than, the masses of similar stories. (Give Jane super powers. Have her high school blow up. Form a romance between her and a student with disabilities.)
• be understandable. Unique enough that the reader isn't bored, yes, but with enough common ground that the reader isn't totally lost throughout the whole thing.
• be tantalizing. Try to induce that desperate, page-turning, mustreadthisnow feel from the moment the reader picks up the book. Don't have “a must read” on the back, prove it.

Judging a book by its cover

Let’s start where most readers start – that moment when you pick up a new book for the first time. What are the things you look at? What makes you decide to read it?

There are a few things, most of them subtle details, that are part of this exterior experience.

Book thickness is one of the first things you may notice. The thickness should correspond to the type of story within. If the book appears too thick or too thin compared to the proposed plot line, the reader will surmise that the story is covered with either too much or too little detail, both of which will discourage them from reading. A book should only be as long as is necessary to tell the story well.

The physical interior matters too. Small or strange fonts will dissuade many, as well as overly thin pages. I myself am a fan of good paper quality: a little thicker than average with sheared edges. Some people prefer pictures, others don’t.

Now, let’s talk about cover design. This is a big deal. Many, especially visually-oriented people, will, in fact, judge the book by its cover. So publishers know that the exterior look will affect how many and what type of people will choose to read it. Some readers will insist that it’s the content that matters more, and prefer a clean cut look. Others say that the more information offered on the outside, the better.

The argument is based on a very important question: what is the purpose of a book? 

If the purpose is to sell lots of copies and make the author and publisher successful, then the exterior of the book is basically a commercial, meant to promote itself.

If the purpose is to produce good, well written, enjoyable literature, then the exterior should only offer enough to encourage the reader to believe that it is just that, and worth their time to read.

Some final points I would like to throw in:

                     - The author’s name should never be larger than the book’s title.

                    - I despise those book reviews on the back that say “Thrilling!” and “A must read!” These offer me zero incentive to read the book and take up valuable space that could be giving me a description of the story. As if someone would review “You should read this eventually”

                 -If I can’t find even a brief summary of the story, on the back or on the inside cover, it is very unlikely that I will read that book. How on earth am I supposed to know if the story is something I’d like?  Unless the readers get a good reference from a friend, or enjoy reading something unexpected, they will probably not read it.

Let me know what you think about these things. What physical traits make you choose a particular book?

Ahh writing. A sacred art. The power of the written word. Many have, at one time or another, made a grab at that elusive title of “Author”. Yet few, very few, have succeeded.

Why is that? What is it about particular a book that makes it more successful than the others? Who gets a say in what succeeds anyways?

Any person who has aspired to be a writer has heard this story before:

(Spoken in a crochety old person’s voice) “You need to get used to rejection. You’ll have to send your work to dozens of publishers, no doubt. You’ll need to build up some thick skin. I received ___ (ridiculous number) of rejection letters back in the day, and look at me now!”

I’m not saying that this story isn’t true. Classic underdog stories abound. However, I want to point out something. It may seem a little obvious, but seeing as no one has said it before…

Who exactly is working in these publishing companies?

I mean, if their only job is to spot talent and siphon out the “unchosen” it doesn’t sound like they are doing this very well.

So let’s throw away the official definitions of good writing. Find your textbooks and your “How to Get Published for Dummies” book and chuck them to the back of your closet. Lets talk about what works, and what doesn’t work, for real people.

Everyone has read a book before; most of us do so frequently. We have all had that moment when we just stop reading, look at the book in our hand with raised eyebrows, and simply put it down, never to finish it. There are specific things that we, the readers, like to see in a book. So let’s talk about them.

One more note for you. Because I myself read mostly fiction, and I am writing a fiction book, you should expect me talk mostly about writing as it relates to fiction. However, if you consider yourself a nonfiction expert, or if you don’t know anything but you have an opinion (most people fall under this category), please feel free to chime in and add some dimension to our discussion.