The Insecure Writer and Lessons Learned

Today is July's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an Insecure Writer this month?

Worrying that my vacation this week isn't going to be long enough. So this month I'll settle for answering the question of the month.

What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

That's a hard one for me. I've learned so much over the years, there are too many to choose from. Here's my short list: 

1.  One of my first lessons had to do with showing and telling. I had no clue what "telling" was back at the beginning, and it took me years of practice before I could recognize it with regularity. Yay! Then, after a couple of years, I learned it was possible to show too much and eased back on it a little. 

2.  I used to think mortals like me could never dream up enough words to fill a 300 page book. Now I've learned the importance of cutting back and tightening my writing so my stories don't balloon into magnum opuses. 

3.  I used to be so obsessed with the rules of writing that I put off finding a critique partner for years because I was positive they'd be horrified with all the rules I broke, many of them without realizing it. These days, I understand the rules are more like guidelines. Heck, sometimes I break the rules just to see how my critique partners react. 

So when it comes down to it, I guess my most valuable lesson learned was the importance of having critique partners. With their guidance, my writing has grown tremendously over the years.  If you don't have a critique partner yet, get one. Reading books on craft and attending conferences help, but nowhere near as much as having another set of eyes on your work. You don't know what you don't know.   

If I had to do it all over again, I'd find a critique partner as soon as possible.

How about you? Are any of you still looking for critique partners?

ChemistKen

The Guilty Pleasures of Fan Fiction

If you’ve read my bio, you might know I tumbled into writing somewhat accidentally. While speculating how J.K. Rowling might go about starting up another series based on the Harry Potter universe, I discovered how much fun it was to write fantasy. So for the last six years, I’ve been working on my Hogwarts story, learning everything I could about writing to make the story the best it could be. Six years may seem like a long time for a book, but I had a LOT to learn, and each new rule I discovered often meant a major rewrite. And a couple of years ago I decided I should also start working on my own stories, so my time has been split between multiple manuscripts.

To be honest, working on my Hogwarts story often feels like a guilty pleasure. Rowling didn’t worry overmuch about telling vs showing, employed a distant narrator who knew things Harry sometimes didn’t, and seasoned her story with plenty of colorful dialogue tags. (All supposed no-nos in writing) And since I made the decision to match her style of writing in my fan fiction, I don’t obsess too much over these rules, which means the writing comes naturally.

But when I work on my own stories, the feeling is completely different. Rowling might be able to break the rules and be successful, but that doesn’t mean I can get away with it, so I’ve made it a point to follow the rules as best I can. So I cut back on my telling, shifted to a closer POV, resisted the urge to explain, and tried to follow every rule I've read.

And it’s like slogging through molasses.

I often spend more time worrying about the rules than I do on the story itself. Heck, it often feels as though someone is staring over my shoulder while I write, prepared to make rude noises whenever I break a rule. As you might expect, this puts a real damper on my creativity. And based on my CP’s comments, some of which I’ve mentioned here over the past two months, my chapters have been a disaster. I’m so afraid of telling, I leave out information the reader needs to have, often confusing them. My characters seem like robots and the words don’t flow. Arg!

The good news is that I’m slowly figuring this all out, and next week I’m going to tell you about a new strategy I’ve come up with to solve the problem.

At least I hope it does!

ChemistKen

How Important is Deep POV? Really?

Last week, Angela Quarles posted about deep POV and the problems that can occur when using the words “before” and “until.” In many cases, these words tell instead of show, which often distance the reader from the character. She presented three passages from her latest WIP where she’d used those words and then explained how she’d fixed them up to keep the reader in deep POV. All good stuff.

Except for the fact that in all three cases, I preferred the original version.

Now I admit I’m not an expert on deep POV. Heck, I still struggle with showing and telling. I don’t read many romance novels (where deep POV is most widely used) and the fantasy stories I read rarely utilize deep POV. To be honest, my reader’s palate may simply too immature at this stage of my writing career to fully grasp the concept.

Let me give you an example from her post.

Before: He angled up toward Dauphin Street, and she waited until he disappeared around the corner before she set off after him. She peeked around the corner. His tall form weaved through a light crowd.

After: He angled up toward Dauphin Street, and disappeared around the corner. She scurried to the corner and peeked around. His tall form weaved through a light crowd.

I understand the first version is a little telling, but personally I don’t have much of a problem with that. In fact, I preferred the telling version because it gave me a better understanding of her interior thoughts and motives during the sequence of events, as opposed to the second version, which seemed more like a formal recitation of the events.

Now I’m sure Angela’s fans enjoy her writing style and will love the changes. But I suspect my stories will always tend more toward the first version. It's what I'm most comfortable with.

So is there any hope for me as a fantasy writer?

Do you write scared?

As writers, we become accustomed to dealing with fear and uncertainty on a daily basis. What if no one likes our story? What if this story isn’t as good as the last one? What if we can't find an agent? The list is endless.

However, most of these fears come after we’ve written and edited our words. We face them when we're ready to send our chapters off to our critique partners or our editors, or when we're about to upload our precious manuscript to Amazon. But what about the fears we face when we’re in the middle of writing?

In my case, I’ve come to the conclusion that, for the past couple of years, I’ve been writing scared.

It wasn’t always that way. When I first began writing six years ago, it didn’t occur to me to be scared. I wrote what made me happy, blissfully ignorant of the rules of writing. But then I learned about showing versus telling and story structure and active versus passive sentences—and everything changed.

Some of the writing blogs I visited back then would nitpick over the smallest hint of “telling” or deride any use of the word “was.” These writers/editors convinced me that allowing these problems to remain in my manuscript would be a sure fire way to brand myself a newbie and render me unworthy of consideration by an agent. So it’s no surprise that whenever I sat down to write, I concentrated more on avoiding these kinds of mistakes than I did on the story itself.

It's the main reason I waited so long before searching for a critique partner. Based on what I’d read, I was under the impression that any CP worth their salt would be horrified if they came across a telling line or two and wouldn’t want to waste any further time reading my manuscript.

But now, after two long years, I’ve learned most CPs (and readers in general) aren't nearly as worried about the “rules” as I thought. They’re much more interested in whether the story is entertaining, makes sense, and is easy to read. Don’t get me wrong. I still try to “show” as much as possible and weed out passive sentences whenever I can, but I no longer feel as if my CPs pull out their hair while reading my chapters. And since I don't fret over the rules so much, my writing moves more quickly now.

It feels great to no longer be writing scared.

P.S. I’m saving my fears for when the story is finished. :)

Friday Links -- Volume 38

I spent most of the week on vacation, so not much progress on the writing front. You'd think that having all that time away from work would mean lots of writing time, but it never works out that way, no matter how many computers and writing pads I drag along with me.  I'm guessing I only managed about an hour of writing in six days. Almost makes me glad I'm back to work.

At least the week is ending well. We returned from our vacation to find that the family computer wouldn't start, no matter how many times we kicked it. Turned out the power supply was fried, so I picked up another one at a local store and now everything is back to normal. I wasn't too worried about my manuscripts. They're backed up on multiple computers as well as Dropbox, but every minute I spent getting the computer back up and running was one less minute I could spend writing.

Does anyone have any scary computer stories to tell?

Have a great weekend and enjoy the links!

ChemistKen


Having Trouble Plotting Forward? Try Plotting Backward

Hidden Emotions: How To Tell Readers What Characters Don’t Want To Show

Are You Showing or Telling Your Internalization?

How to build better relationships with your readers using Goodreads’ “Ask the Author” feature

Navigating the Next Frontier in Digital Publishing: Audiobooks

Mark Coker's Tips On How To Sell More Books

New Authors, Should You Self Publish or Seek a Traditional Publishing Deal?

The Insecure Writer and Losing Your Voice

Today is July's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.




Why am I an Insecure Writer this month? 

Because I seem to have lost my voice.

 I don’t mean from yelling during the World Cup. I’m referring to my writing voice. That little piece of you that goes into everything you write, whether you realize it or not.

Voice is one of those hard to describe things, but I like to think of it as the sum of all those choices you make when you write. It’s the kind of humor you use (or don't use). It’s how close or distant you make your POV. It’s the ratio of showing vs. telling that feels right for the story. In other words, it's the things that makes your story different from all the other stories out there with the same plot as yours. It’s what agents and editors look for when they read your manuscript.

My voice borders on the whimsical, which is probably why I liked the Harry Potter series so much. But I spent this past week looking back over earlier chapters of my story and my voice seems to be missing. It's there in the earlier drafts, but it's been steadily disappearing with each subsequent draft. Turns out I'd tried so hard to follow the rules, I'd driven the voice right out of my story. Not good.

So my new goal is to make sure my voice comes through loud and clear in each new draft. I can’t guarantee anyone will like it, but at least it won’t sound like everyone else's stories.

Is Voice Determined By How Closely The Author Follows The Rules Of Writing?

One of the most common pieces of advice I see on the web is that a writer needs to understand the rules of writing before he can break them. Unfortunately, the second most common piece of advice is that the only rule of writing is “there are no rules.” Is it any wonder newbie writers bang their heads against the keyboard and scream? Or is that just me?

The more I learn about writing, the more I believe the first rule should be re-written as “a writer needs to understand the rules of writing in order to decide how and when they should be applied."  In other words, I distrust the notion that “following all the rules” should be the default position and that every step away from that position is fraught with danger. For one thing, not every writer agrees on what the rules are. And too much worrying about rules tends to drive the author’s voice right out of the story. Not good.

Two weeks ago I discussed how the difference between showing and telling is often in the eye of the beholder. And after spending the past couple of weeks studying Mary Buckman’s book, Writing Setting, I’m beginning to feel the same way about settings and descriptions. While I learned quite a bit about strengthening my descriptions of settings (thank you, Mary), I couldn’t help noticing that many of the examples she provided of “good” descriptions didn’t strike me as any better than some of the “bad” ones. In my opinion, some of the “good” descriptions went on for too long, or slowed the pacing too much, or just struck me as boring. Of course, not everyone would agree with me, and that’s perfectly fine, but I probably wouldn’t buy many books from authors who used such lengthy descriptions in their stories.

And then it dawned on me. Much of what makes up an author’s voice is in the way the author chooses to follow (or not follow) the so-called rules. Some authors prefer writing in deep POV, some don’t. Neither is right or wrong (despite what some deep POV zealots might argue); it’s just their preference. Some writers enjoy lots of showing, some prefer more of a balance. Some writers feel that if you aren’t specific enough with your details, you’re forcing the reader to work too hard to imagine your world, while other writers think if you paint too specific an image you leave the reader no room for using their own imagination. It’s not a matter of rules; it’s a matter of style. And based on the books I read every day, most of the styles I see involve breaking lots of rules.

As a writer, you have to make your own decisions as to how closely you follow the rules, no matter what the experts say. Learn the rules, yes. Understand the rules, definitely. But don’t feel as though you’re locked into them.

And how will you know if you’ve made the right choices? Listen to your critique partners. Pay attention to your beta-readers. If they say you’re doing too much telling, heed their advice. If they say you’re doing too much showing, heed that advice too. And most of all, listen to the readers who buy (or don’t buy) your books. Because ultimately, they are the ones whose decisions matter most. Readers don’t care about rules. All they care about is whether or not they enjoy your style of writing.

Opinions, anyone?

Showing and Telling -- In the Eye of the Beholder?

Showing and telling. Three words that send shivers of dread down the spines of new writers. Writers like me. The number of writing concepts I have yet to master is still daunting (setting, characterizations, dialogue, etc.), but at least those concepts make enough sense I know I’ll get them eventually. But showing and telling… Arg! Every time I think I’m beginning to grasp the concept, I come across another post or writing book with an example of telling that I don’t understand at all. For me, grasping the concept of showing is like grabbing a piece of fog. Very frustrating.

Lately, I’ve been reading Show Don’t Tell by Robyn Parnell, and while I’m certainly learning more about showing, I’m also beginning to understand why not all writers agree on what’s telling. Here’s an example from the book.

It was stormy. 

Why is this telling? Because, according to Robyn, it’s not specific enough. Too generic. It's a conclusion by the writer.  What does stormy mean? Where’s the proof? Each reader might interpret “stormy” differently. So Robyn offers up a showing alternative:

He looked out the kitchen window. Rain splattered against the glass and drilled a staccato beat on the iron roof. Thunder crashed overhead. His dog whined. 

Okay, not bad. I think I see her point. Not sure I would have spotted “stormy” as telling on my own, but it’s a start. But then Robyn quotes a showing example from Frankenstein: City of Night by Dean Koontz and I get confused again.

Showered, feeling pretty in a summery dress of yellow silk, Erika left the master suite to explore the mansion.

Robyn explains why this is showing. “We probably all know what a summery dress looks like and therefore can imagine a summery dress made from yellow silk.” Hmmm….. I think I can imagine what “stormy” looks like just as well as I can a summery dress. Perhaps even more so. So why is “summery” not telling? It seems to me that it's just as much of a conclusion by Koontz as “stormy.” As Robyn would say, “Where’s the proof?"   Are the shoulders bare? Is the dress covered with floral designs? How was the dress cut?  I know the dress was made out of silk, but I’ve seen plenty of silk dresses that would not be considered at all summery.

So why isn’t “summery” just as telling as “stormy?” The short answer is: it is just as telling. Then why does Robyn consider one showing and the other telling? I suspect it has to do with Robyn’s perspective. She’s probably seen “stormy”so often it’s almost a cliché, while “summery” is unusual enough that it just feels more like showing.

I’m not saying Robyn is right or wrong. But I am beginning to understand why showing (and telling) is often in the eye of the beholder.

If anyone disagrees with me on this or has anything to add, please share your thoughts.  I'd be most grateful. Everything I learn about showing and telling is worth its weight in gold.

Showing and Telling -- ARGGGGGGGHHHHH!

I’ve been thinking about showing vs. telling a lot this week, mostly due to a pairof blog posts by Janice Hardy  and Jami Gold. Janice wrote a nice post describing the differences between telling and showing, including several “before” and “after” versions of the same passage. Good information, and I suggest you stop by and read it. However, some of the “before” passages, the ones with more telling, sounded pretty darn good to me.  And it would never have occurred to me that they required fixing. Was I clueless or what? After some back and forth comments, we agreed that the "before" versions weren’t all that bad. Janice was just demonstrating how to make the wording even better.

Still, I wonder if I’m ever going to grasp the concept of showing in any meaningful way. I understand the basics – don’t tell us character emotions, show us through their actions. Don’t tell us their motivations, let us figure it out based on what you have the character do. I get that. But anything more subtle than that? Forget about it. I can’t see it. And even when someone else points out my sentences are telling, I’m often at a loss as to how to fix it – at least without turning my sentences into a wallowing, stinking mess.

Sigh….

I suspect part of my problem stems from my personality. I’ve always been a “just the facts, ma’am” kind of guy. Tell the reader what’s happening and get on with the story already. And to be honest, I find books that have a fair amount of telling to be much more readable. Too much showing often leaves me with the impression the writer is either trying to pad his word count or trying to avoid telling me what’s going on—like a politician giving a speech—hinting at what’s happening instead of coming right out and telling us in plain speech.

Maybe that’s why I’m not published yet. Well, that and the fact that I haven’t finished my book.

What we need are some good books dedicated to the art of showing.


P.S. My 3 month old silver Ford Focus was side-swiped this morning by a driver pulling out of a fast food parking lot without looking. I am sad. (Hmmm… I guess that’s telling, isn’t it?)

Everybody Can't Be Right All The Time

A couple of days ago, Jami Gold had a nice post describing her experiences at WanaCon. One of the things she discussed was how to know who to believe when you have receive conflicting opinions about your story—or about writing in general.

As a newbie who has yet to finish his first story, I’m certainly not the most knowledgeable of writers. I still have much to learn, and suspect that will still be the case in twenty years, but after spending the last 3+ years reading books on craft along with writing blogs (a quick check reveals I have over 1300 bookmarked links on writing alone, most of which I’ll probably never get around to rereading), I think I’ve got a bit of a handle on the subject.

And one of the most important things I’ve learned is that not everyone in the world of writing knows what they are talking about. Some bloggers present their personal preferences as rules of writing, despite the plethora of well-received books that ignore these so-called rules. The trick is to listen as much as you can to everyone’s advice and then sit back and decide what works for you.

The following four topics are areas that I find cause the most confusion.

1. Story structure. Very important subject, although I notice a lot of confusion amongst bloggers on the differences between the Hook, the Inciting Incident, and the First Plot Point—all of which are different and all of which have very specific purposes.
Hook – Meant to grab your attention long enough for you to get involved in the story. Example (Star Wars - THE ORIGINAL): The opening sequence. Space battles. Really big ships. Droids. You have no idea what the story is about yet, but you’re willing to wait long enough to find out.
Inciting Incident – The point at which the story or character leaves the “normal world.” May or may not have much to do with the eventual story problem. Example: when R2-D2 convinces Luke to remove a restraining bolt and then runs off, prompting Luke to chase after the little bugger. You still don’t know what the overall story is about yet, but this is definitely not a normal day for Luke.
First Plot Point – Happens at the 25% point in the story. A point of no return where the character either makes a decision or is forced into a decision. Either way, nothing is the same after that point. Example: When Luke returns to find his aunt and uncle dead, and decides he’s going to leave everything behind and join the rebellion.

2. Passive voice versus passive sentences. We’re talking pet peeve here, so bear with me. Passive voice is when the subject of the sentence is being acted upon instead of doing the acting. That’s it. No more, no less.

Example: "The ball was thrown by the boy."

The ball isn’t doing the throwing; the boy is, so this is passive voice. No argument there.

How about: "The ball was rolling down the street."

This is not passive voice, no matter how many people will try and tell you it is. The ball is performing the action so it is active voice. Period. End of story. That’s not to say the sentence construction isn’t passive (read: boring). It would be better written as "The ball rolled down the street." But that’s the difference between passive voice and passive sentences.

How about: "The present was unwrapped."

Passive voice or active voice? The answer is: it depends. If the author meant that the present is being unwrapped as in “The present was unwrapped by the boy,” then it is passive voice. If the author is describing a state of being, as in “the present was dusty” or “the pizza was cold,” then it is not considered passive voice, at least according to Strunk and White. Of course, state of being verbs are also considered a sign of passive sentence construction and should be avoided when possible.

Am I nitpicking here? Perhaps, but I’ve seen so many bloggers confuse passive sentences and passive voice, I just had to say something. And ranting is good for the soul.

3. Showing vs telling. Some authors like to show everything and preach that everyone else should do the same. My advice is to thank them for their advice and then ignore them. Whenever I read a book where the author shows everything, I tend to throw the book across the room long before the end. (Well, not so much now that I have a Kindle) And I know other readers who feel the same way. Don’t believe me? Do a Google search for blog posts discussing why telling isn’t so bad (there are more of them out there than you might think) and scan the comments. You’ll find all sorts of comments about how much of a slog it is to get through “too showy” books.

Showing, within reason, is good. Telling, in moderation, is good too. Too much showing makes you sound like a politician, always skirting around what you’re trying to say instead of just coming out and telling us what’s going on.

4. Deep POV. Some authors swear by it. And that’s fine—as long as they (and you) understand that deep POV is a personal preference and not a rule of writing. I’ve come across far too many blogs and books that suggest if you aren’t using deep POV, you’re doing it wrong. Perhaps that’s true in certain genres, (although I doubt it) but certainly not in sci-fi and fantasy, where deep POV is more the rarity. It’s hard enough to describe the fantasy world you’ve created without handicapping yourself with the use of deep POV. So if you don’t enjoy writing in deep POV, disregard anyone who attempts to convince you otherwise.

Edit:  After reading a nice post on deep POV, it occurred to me to be a bit more specific.  I'm all for getting rid of filter words like felt, thought, and heard; or limiting the instances in which the character thinks of himself by name, along with the other tricks that move the POV deeper inside a character's head.  But not all writers have the same definition of deep POV. Some writers would consider:  "The principal shook his hand." as an example of being too distant to be considered deep POV and would replace it with "  The principal's hand enveloped his." because that's how the character would supposedly experience it.  That's when I have a problem with deep POV.

Of course, these are all just my personal opinions, which means you’re free to pick and choose what you agree with.

And that’s the whole point of this post.

What aspects of writing do you find to have the most conflicting advice?  I'd been interested to know.



BTW, if you know anyone else who feels as confused as I do about all the conflicting information we writers receive, feel free to pass this post on to them.

Showing and Telling in a Nutshell

I'm always on the lookout for books dealing with the concept of "showing versus telling," so when I discovered  Jessica Bell's new book, Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing, I volunteered to post some information about the book on my blog.

I purchased the e-book for my Kindle last week, and after pouring through the pages for a few days, I find myself able to recommend the book, although that recommendation comes with two caveats. 

First, the title suggests the book will show examples of "telling scenes" being converted to "showing scenes" - which isn't exactly true.  The "telling scenes" aren't really scenes at all.  They're synopses of scenes - four or five sentences describing what will happen in the scene, similar to what a writer might jot down on an index card.  This might sound like nitpicking, but I believe it's an important distinction.  Writers who have trouble with telling (like me) rarely jump right into a scene and start showing.  Typically we only get around to fixing (or trying to fix) the telling after the scene has been fleshed out.  So for us, starting out with a fully realized scene and transforming some of that telling into showing is where we need the most help.

Second, no explanations or discussions accompany the converted scenes, nothing to explain the author's rational for how and why she wrote the scene as she did.  I understand this might raise the price of the book, but in my opinion, such discussions would be worth their weight in gold for those of us struggling with telling.  It's easy to look at a scene (written by someone else) that "shows" and agree that it's good.  It's much harder to figure out how to write it yourself, which is what I struggle with every single day.    

Anyway, if you're interested in fixing all that telling you've been doing, keep reading the blurb below and consider buying Jessica's book.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click to add me to Goodreads!

Have you been told there's a little too much telling in your novel? Want to remedy it? Then this is the book for you!

In Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing you will find sixteen real scenes depicting a variety of situations, emotions, and characteristics which clearly demonstrate how to turn telling into showing. Dispersed throughout, and at the back of the book, are blank pages to take notes as you read. A few short writing prompts are also provided.

Not only is this pocket guide an excellent learning tool for aspiring writers, but it is a light, convenient, and easy solution to honing your craft no matter how broad your writing experience. Keep it in the side pocket of your school bag, throw it in your purse, or even carry it around in the pocket of your jeans or jacket, to enhance your skills, keep notes, and jot down story ideas, anywhere, anytime.

If you purchase the e-book, you will be armed with the convenient hyper-linked Contents Page, where you can toggle backward and forward from different scenes with ease. Use your e-reader's highlighting and note-taking tools to keep notes instead.

The author, Jessica Bell, also welcomes questions via email, concerning the content of this book, or about showing vs. telling in general, at showandtellinanutshell@gmail.com

Reviews:

“Jessica Bell addresses one of the most common yet elusive pieces of writing advice—show, don't tell—in a uniquely user-friendly and effective way: by example. By studying the sixteen scenes she converts from “telling” into “showing,” not only will you clearly understand the difference; you will be inspired by her vivid imagery and dialogue to pour through your drafts and do the same.” ~Jenny Baranick, College English Teacher, Author of Missed Periods and Other Grammar Scares

“A practical, no-nonsense resource that will help new and experienced writers alike deal with that dreaded piece of advice: show, don’t tell. I wish Bell’s book had been around when I started writing!” ~Talli Roland, bestselling author

Purchase the paperback:
$4.40 on Amazon US
£3.99 on Amazon UK

Purchase the e-book:
$1.99 on Amazon US
£1.99 on Amazon UK
$1.99 on Kobo

About the Author:
The Australian-native contemporary fiction author and poet, Jessica Bell, also makes a living as an editor and writer for global ELT publishers (English Language Teaching), such as Pearson Education, HarperCollins, Macmillan Education, Education First and Cengage Learning.

She is the Co-Publishing Editor of Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and co-hosts the Homeric Writers’ Retreat & Workshop on the Greek Isle of Ithaca, with Chuck Sambuchino of Writer’s Digest.

For more information about Jessica Bell, please visit: 
Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook

The Insecure Writer and Not Having a Clue

Today is September's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.




What makes me insecure as a writer this month? The fact that I have no clue as to what makes a book successful.

What helps relieve some of this insecurity? The fact that, as far as I can tell, no one else has a clue either.

The standard answer is that if you want your book to be a success, write the very best book you can. Sound advice, but I’m sure we can all think of good books we’ve read that never seem to gain any traction on Amazon while lesser books make the best seller lists. Agents and editors tell us that sometimes the stars have to be aligned just right for a book to succeed – which I think is another way of saying they don’t have a clue either. So how is a beginning writer such as myself to know if his or her manuscript has a chance to be a success?

I don’t know. And that's the problem.

I can follow all the rules of writing I've learned over the past few years, but will that lead to success? Perhaps, but it seems the books I enjoy most break many of those rules. Consider Harry Potter. Rowling broke tons of rules - lots of telling, more adverbs than you can shake a stick at, imaginative dialogue tags, a first chapter that could well have been a prologue, very little character arc for her MC (I’m talking the first book here, not the overall series), and the occasional drift into a distant omniscient narrator (supposedly a dying POV) - and I think her book did reasonably well. Apparently readers care less about the rules of writing than do writers.

Hmmm. What about social media? If I suddenly became social media savvy and developed an army of followers, would that help make my story a success? Perhaps, but for me, the learning curve for social media is even higher than it is for writing fiction. (Hey, I’ve tweeted three times this month already! That’s progress, right?)

So, in the end, all I can do is write the best book I can, get the word out there as much as possible, and hope for the stars to align.

And people make a living doing this?

Scary.

Even My Twelve Year Old Daughter Knows About Showing vs. Telling

All I can say is OMG!

Today I let my twelve-year-old daughter read the first chapter of my story to get her opinion on its current state. Since she loves anything having to do with Harry Potter, I wasn't expecting much in the way of criticism. (She thinks any YouTube video set to the music of the Benny Hill theme song is awesome, so her bar of excellence isn't set too high).

So I asked her about the very first paragraph, and she told me that it would be better if I showed more instead of telling. I kid you not! Once I picked myself off the floor, I asked where she had heard the terms "Showing" and "Telling", and she replied, "her sixth grade English class."

I'd only heard about Showing and Telling two years ago. Man, they're teaching kids a lot faster these days.

The Two Blogs I Enjoy Most

I've finally gotten around to adding a blogroll. Considering that I'm tracking over 100 blogs on the subject of writing -- no wonder it's taking me so long to write my book -- it's embarrassing that I haven't gotten around to listing some of my favorites.

The first two blogs I'm adding today are the blogs I enjoy reading the most. The first is Janice Hardy's blog, The Other Side of the Story, which I've been reading for nearly a year now and her posts are the one I bookmark most often. She explains concepts well and gives lots of examples, which I find VERY useful. And although she does caution against telling, she allows that it's sometimes okay to tell, as long as it's in moderate doses. As someone who is firmly in the "you need a good mix of showing AND telling to keep your readers hooked" camp, I find this to be a breath of fresh air. Many writing sites view ANY telling as the work of the devil.

I discovered the second blog less than a month ago, but it's already one of my favorites. It's Harry Potter for Writers and the goal of the site is to use the Harry Potter books as a guide for learning how to write fiction. Susan Sipal analyzes the techniques Rowling used in her stories and shows how to weave them into our own. Since I'm trying to match Rowling's style in my book, it's the perfect website for me.

I'll be adding more blogs in the future. Stay tuned.

Diagnosis: Is It Showing or Telling?

Lately, I've run across quite a few articles on showing vs telling and I'd like to share two of the best ones with you.  One of the posts is from April, which tells you just how far behind I am in updating this blog, but both of them come from Janice Hardy.  I read her blog every day and highly recommend it. I follow the feeds of nearly 50 blogs (no wonder I can't get any writing done!) and Janice's posts are the ones I bookmark most often.

In both posts, Janice describes some methods she uses to distinguish between showing and telling.  In the first article, she explains how POV can be used to distinguish between the two.  In the second article she demonstrates a another trick she uses to tell the difference.  She writes:      

One trick I use to show and not tell is to imagine myself acting out whatever it is my characters are doing. If I can do what they do, I'm showing. If not, I'm telling.

Be sure to check them out.  I'm still struggling with being able to spot the difference between showing vs telling, but with all these wonderful writing blogs out there, I'll get it sooner or later. 

I hope.

Showing Vs Telling: Whom Should I Believe?

Maybe it's just me, but lately it seems everyone is blogging about "showing vs. telling." And for this I wish to thank the blogosphere. "Showing" has been one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp as a writer, and even after working on my story for nearly two years, I'm still struggling with the concept.

Now I do understand it well enough to catch the more obvious cases. For example, I realize

Everyone in the room was nervous.

is telling. And I know it's better to "show" that everyone was nervous.

Jane paced around the room in circles while George kept wringing his hands. (Lame I know, but whatever. I'm writing this during lunch.)

It's with the less obvious examples that I run into trouble and part of this confusion stems from the fact that not everyone agrees on what constitutes telling. It's easy to find conflicting views scattered across the myriad of writing blogs available. Even worse, writers often can't even agree on the amount of telling that should be allowed. On one end of the spectrum, I'll hear experts say that you should "always" show, whereas other writers will acknowledge that some telling is okay, perhaps even necessary at times, in order to keep the reader's attention. After all, showing often involves describing things to the reader in a less direct manner than telling, which requires more work on the reader's part to translate. This extra work is what makes the reader more emotionally involved -- one of the reasons for showing -- but too much showing will wear them out.

BTW, I'm firmly in the latter camp. Unless the author is very, very good, I find books that strive too hard to avoid telling often sound too writerly, and I usually put them down, unable to get into the story. On the other hand, I loved the Harry Potter books and there was a lot of telling mixed in there with the showing.

I recently came across a post by Victoria Mixon in which she discusses exposition and whether or not it should be in your story. She writes:

"Now, when you write in exposition—when you tell your story instead of showing it—you’re putting yourself in front of your characters and interpreting what they go through for your readers.

Readers don’t like that. It’s talking down to them. They really prefer to interpret for themselves."

Now, Victoria dispenses a lot of excellent advice on the art of writing, and I would strongly encourage you to read her blog, but on this point I have to respectfully disagree. Sure, poorly written exposition that's stuck into the story to make things easier for the writer is not a good thing, but for me, well written exposition can be just as enjoyable to read as dialogue. It pulls me into the world, not out of it. Just ask fans of JK Rowling or Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Neither of them made me feel as though I was being talked down to, despite long sections of exposition. IMHO, a good dose of well written, enjoyable, and sometimes humorous exposition can be a good thing.

Now I admit that I'm still an amateur and there are plenty of things I don't know, but the Harry Potter books were rather successful, and this leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. Here I am, reading books and blogs, trying to learn how to write well, so that an agent might take me seriously someday, but at the same time I'm practicing my craft by writing a story set in Rowling's world, in Rowling's style; a style that broke a lot of the so-called rules of writing (exposition, narrator intrusion, a multitude of adverbs, unusual dialogue tags, etc.)

Who should I listen to?

Perhaps you can argue that the Harry Potter books, at least the early ones, were MG, so the rules don't apply as much, but I have no idea. If that is the reason, I suspect my first real book will no doubt be MG.