Advanced Fiction Writing Blog

Shortly after my last blog post last Wednesday, the hard drive on my laptop began showing signs of distress. I ran Disk Utility on it and found that it was in the early stages of failing. The utility told me to get the hard drive replaced. I made sure that my backups were up to date and then took it in to the Apple store.

The Apple folks were great. They made their own backup of the entire machine, replaced the hard drive, and restored all my data. No charge, because the machine is still under warranty. I got my machine back late on Friday, and am thankful that everything is back to normal.

If you don’t have a good system of backups, the best time to do so is before things start going kablooey. You can buy a huge external hard drive for under $100. Apple’s Time Machine software (on either Leopard or Snow Leopard) is fast and brain-dead easy to use. I’m not a Windows guy, but undoubtedly Windows has excellent backup faciilities built-in (I don’t know the name of the Windows tool, or I’d name it here). Use these tools. Don’t leave your data at risk.

I missed a couple of days of blogging because my normal blog time was spent driving. Today is my day to write my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, so I’ll be back to normal blogging mode tomorrow.

In the meantime, I thought I’d point you to a new blog I just discovered: Slushpile Hell. This is the work of an anonymous “grumpy literary agent” who regularly posts quotations from query letters he or she receives from clueless writers, along with a snide comment from the agent. This blog is short — sometimes fewer than 30 words — and it’s hilarious. If you read it every day, you’ll learn hundreds of stupid things NOT to say to an agent. And that can be gold.

The other blog I’ll point you to is freelance editor Meredith Efken’s blog at Fiction Fixit Shop. I have a serious backlog of questions asked by my Loyal Blog Readers. My commitment is to answer all questions in the order they come in, but I’m now about 10 weeks behind. So I asked Meredith to help out.

Today, Meredith tackles the gnarly question of how much a novelist can expect to earn. The answer to this question is so long that she’s breaking it into two parts.

I’m Xtremely pleased with the terrific job Meredith is doing in answering questions. She explains things thoroughly and well. (That’s why I pay her to review my own fiction before I send it to my editor or agent.)

Davalynn posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

What happened to the tagline workshop we were all working on a few months ago? I’ve been super busy - like you and others - so I may have just missed it after the first two or three. If so, my apologies. However, I learn a great deal from your critiques and from comments of other reader/writers.

Randy sez: Critiquing one-sentence Storylines has been an immensely popular exercise that we do on my blog from time to time. I’ve found that it’s hard to keep track of the posted Storylines. When I put out a call for Storylines, I’ll typically see several dozen loyal blog readers post their Storylines as comments all in one day. Then we’ll start working through them one by one, and within a couple of weeks, the original set of Storylines becomes older and older on the list of blog entries and harder and harder to find. So I don’t think a blog is the right tool to use for running this kind of an ongoing clinic.

I really enjoy critiquing these Storylines. I think that a great one-sentence Storyline is critical to the success of a novel. However, I’m still looking for a solution to the administrative problem.

I think that the best solution may be to create an online forum just for doing critiques like that. There could be a different section in the forum for one-sentence Storylines, another for Three Act Structures, and others for dealing with other aspects of the craft.

I will be looking into this once I finish finalizing the next upgrade of Snowflake Pro. (I’m almost done with version 1.1. It’ll have some new features that are the most-requested features by my current set of users. Today, I’ll be finishing revisions to the Help files. The only other task on the list is to make sure the audio files are still up to date and then to do a final round of internal testing. I hope to send the new upgrade to my team of alpha testers for external testing next week.)

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

I’ve been feeling lately like I’ve blogged about everything on the subject of writing. However, I still get lots of e-mail all the time on all sorts of questions, many of which I think would be of interest to my loyal blog readers. But I’m too busy answering e-mail to have time to blog, and I’ve been hesitant to answer e-mail on a public blog without asking permission.

So it struck me today that maybe I should ask you all for your questions on writing. What’s a burning issue for you? What do you need to know in order to move forward in your writing?

Post your question on my “Ask a Question For My Blog” page and I’ll answer you right here on this blog. That way, I’ll know for sure that I’m blogging about things that matter to you, and you’ll be asking a question that will benefit all my blog readers. Everybody wins that way. You’ll just need to check the little check-box that gives me permission to answer you in public.

If you include a link to your web site or blog, I’ll even include your link in my answer, which will give you a bit of link glory.

Of course, you can always ask me private questions on my Contact page on this web site. But if it’s a question that can possibly be answered in public, then please do so and I’ll give you a bit of fame to go along with my answer.

We have been critiquing first paragraphs of novels that my loyal blog readers have submitted over the last couple of weeks. Are you getting tired of this, or shall we continue a bit longer? If you want to switch, what topic is burning in you right now? What shall we talk about next?

I am coming up on a major deadline and have had to skip blogging the last couple of days, but hope to get time to blog tonight.

Hi All:

Just a quick house-keeping note on my blogging schedule. I normally post blogs just before midnight so they’ll show up the next day. In the past, I’ve blogged Sunday night through Thursday night so the blogs appear Monday through Friday.

For the future, I’m going to shift this just slightly. I prefer to blog Monday night through Friday night, so the blogs will appear Tuesday through Saturday.

I’ll post a real blog entry tonight and pick up where we left off our discussion from last week.

See ya then!

A quick note to say that I’ve been working all day on my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine and it is sent out now. If those pesky spam filters are preventing you from getting it, all issues are archived here.

We’ll return tomorrow with some closing thoughts from Jeff Gerke on marketing.

It’s almost midnight on Sunday and I’m ready to get rolling for this week! I spent most of Friday doing last-minute work to get ready for a conference. I spent all day Saturday at the conference.

The big question of the day: What shall we talk about next? Last week, many of you submitted questions for things to talk about. Some of those were easy to answer. Others are going to take some substantial time.

Let’s vote. Which of the following topics most interests you? Leave a comment here and I’ll look for a pattern:

1. How do you design a novel?
2. How do you construct a character?
3. How do you research a given place or time?
4. How do you write a proposal?
5. How do you find an agent?
6. How do you settle a disagreement with your editor?
7. How do you develop your voice?
8. How do you choose what facet of writing to work on next?
9. How do you promote your novel?
10. How do balance the rules versus creativity?
11. How do you increase your daily word count?
12. How do you use your writing time efficiently?
13. How do you cut a book that’s too long?
14. How do you develop your own personal style?
15. How do create mystery without confusing your reader?
16. How do you choose a writing conference?
17. How do you behave at a writing conference?
18. How do you keep track of all the story details?
19. How do you teach a theme without being didactic?
20. How do you develop story ideas before you’re ready to Snowflake it?
21. How do find the ending?
22. How do you layer in elements in your novel?
23. How do you strengthen a weak plot?
24. How do you find high concept stories?
25. How do you turn a concept into a plot?
26. How do you edit yourself effectively?
27. How do you find a great title?
28. How do you balance plot and character?
29. How do you make a strong villain without cloning Darth Vader?
30. How do you find the right beginning?
31. How do you write an action scene?

I’m reading the list of questions you all posted in the comments today. Wow, these are great! It’s going to take months to work through all these, but that’s OK, right?

I’m cataloging your questions now. If you’ve got more, keep them coming. I’ll try to put some order on these and create a new page that’ll archive the answers.

The best form for a question is: “How do I __________________?” The blank should be something fairly specific but not too specific.

It’s been a long day, and it’s almost midnight, and I’m frazzed, so I’m going to bed now. Tomorrow, I’ll pick a question and we’ll start working on it.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to start a new page on this web site that catalogs what I’ll call “Best Practices” in fiction writing. More on that in a minute. First, I want to answer one comment from my last blog entry:

Sarah wrote:

Randy- I must admit, I thought the treleseminars would be more about the anxiety of speaking, esp. since you talked so much about overcoming your own panic. I looked up toastmasters in my area and there are abut 50 groups- I guess I’ll just have to take the plunge. I’m fine in a group if I’m part of the group and not “apart” from the group- so maybe I can learn to feel like I’m just one of the group even if I’m standing up front…if that makes sense!

Randy sez: No, the info page spells out exactly what we’ll talk about. It will NOT be possible to talk about speaking anxiety, since this is a psychological issue with many different causes. Neither Mary nor I are qualified to talk about that. Toastmasters is excellent for dealing with the normal levels of fear of public speaking that most people have. Those folks who suffer from genuine anxiety disorders or panic disorder will need help from a qualified counselor or psychiatrist to solve their problems. (I had both a counselor and a psychiatrist to help me deal with mine and I’m glad I did, because they were both extremely helpful.)

If you haven’t signed up for the teleseminars on public speaking that I’ll be doing with Mary Byers, don’t fergit! They start Monday, October 15. For all the info, click here.

Now back to “Best Practices:”

I’ve done quite a bit of software engineering in my short life (I spent quite a few years as a computational physicist, and to this day I still do a bit of consulting in scientific software). Software people talk about “best practices” in software analysis, design, and implementation. A “best practice” is a technique that is known to produce superior results to solve a particular problem. It sometimes happens that there is more than one “best practice” for a given type of problem, and in that case, you get to choose among them. But you definitely want to stay away from “worst practices”.

There are many different kinds of problems we face in writing fiction:
* How do you design a novel?
* How do you construct a character?
* How do you research a given place or time?
* How do you write a proposal?
* How do you find an agent?
* How do you settle a disagreement with your editor?
* How do you develop your voice?
* How do you choose what facet of writing to work on next?
* How do you promote your novel?

What I would like to find out from you, my loyal blog readers, is what problems you face. Post a comment here with one or more questions of the type I gave above. (No need to repeat those above. I’ve got them on my list.)

What I’ll do is collate all your questions and start finding the “best practice” answer to each one of them. I’ll discuss them here on my blog and then I’ll add an entry on my “Best Practices” page on my web site. In time, we’ll have a resource that answers a ton of questions.

Sound good? Start your comments!

Several of you have noticed that the FeedBlitz emails are no longer being sent out when I post to this blog. I suspect that the new FeedBurner plugin that I installed the other day is causing problems, so I’ve disabled that. If you’ve subscribed via FeedBurner, it should still work. But what I’ve turned off is a WordPress plugin that sends ALL feeds (including FeedBlitz) through FeedBurner.

If we all get a FeedBlitz email for this blog post, then the problem is solved. If not, I’ll look into it more.