Question Corner - February 2016

Lorraine Mace answers a plea for reassurance

George from Somerset sent in the following plea for reassurance: I have been writing for a few years, but have never managed to get anything published. The only people who read my stories are friends and family. They all say they enjoy them, but if they really are any good, why can’t I get them published? I started writing a novel last year, but feel so disheartened I don’t think I’ll ever get round to finishing it. I often feel like giving up, but I really enjoy writing, so don’t want to do that. How can I get my stories published so that I’m not just writing for people who know me?

I receive similar emails every month. So many writers worry they will never be published and hover on the brink of giving up. Some do, of course, but the majority continue because they cannot imagine a life where they no longer write.

In your case, you at least have family and friends who read your work and encourage you to continue. Some writers don’t even have that kind of support system. I know that doesn’t answer your question, but I wanted to make the point that true writers never give up and the fact that you have sent in your email shows you are a long way from throwing in the towel – even if you think you’re close to doing so!

The most important point in your email was that you enjoy writing. So why not take a moment to look at why you write. We all want to be published and strive to fit publishers’ guidelines, but ironically we are more likely to be successful if we write what makes us happy – prose or poetry that makes our own hearts sing stands a better chance of being chosen than something written to conform to rules.

So, having accepted you are not going to give up, what can you do to ensure a greater audience than family and friends?

Be self-critical

You are getting despondent because you haven’t yet had success and fear you’re not good enough, but are you sending out work too soon? How many times do you rewrite your stories before submission? No matter how good a writer you are, first, second or even third drafts are unlikely to be polished enough to win prizes or be picked for a magazine.

Put your work away for at least a week between drafts and edit from a hard copy, not on the computer. It is much easier to spot clunky sentences, repetitions and plot holes on paper than when reading on a screen.

Get critical feedback

One of the problems with friends and family is that they are unlikely to tell you the truth about things they don’t like and will only mention the good points. This is not helpful in the long term. Are you a member of a group where you receive feedback from other writers?

If there isn’t a group in your area, or the timing doesn’t work for you, join an online group. If only one person mentions a problem it’s still worth thinking about it, but probably not something to worry too much about. However, if several mention the same issue, you need to find a way to correct the flaw.

Read, read, read

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to read the works of others. I don’t mean to copy their style or content, but simply to immerse yourself in good writing. If you read well-written books, you will subconsciously absorb the things that make the writing stand out for all the right reasons.

Start a blog

Pick a subject that interests you and write a short piece on it each week. You may not have many readers at first, but if you pick up even twenty followers, that is twenty more readers than you currently have.

Try to word the ending of each post so that you invite comments. Imagine how thrilled you will be when perfect strangers engage you in conversation about something you have written.

Invest in yourself as a writer

If success remains elusive, it could be that you are not yet ready to be published.

Read books, blogs and magazines on writing. Think about taking a writing course – either online or in the real world. Attend a few writing events where you get to listen to established authors giving the benefit of their experiences. Go to festivals where agents and publishers are talking about what excites them.

Never give up

The important point is that you should never give up. Many authors achieve success after years of rejections. Imagine where some of the best-known names in literature would be today if they allowed a few rejections to put them off?

Real writers never give up and your cry for reassurance puts you firmly into the real writer category. Good luck!

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, short story and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, has now been followed by the second in the trilogy, Vlad’s Quest (LRP).

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of four crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason (Crooked Cat Publishing).

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner

Lorraine Mace answers questions on writing plot outlines – and just getting down to writing!

Nigel from Edinburgh is getting grief from his online writing group because he writes from the seat of his pants. I am the only one of my group who admits to not having a plan for my novel. I started it with an idea and a character and sort of know how I want it to end, but haven’t a clue what’s going to happen from one chapter to the next. Everyone says that’s the wrong way to write a novel, but really, how necessary is it to have an outline for each chapter? Also, if it is something I really need to do, could you give an idea of what should go into an outline?

Writers come in two basic categories (although there are probably hundreds of subcategories) – plotters and pantsters – and both believe their way is the right way. In point of fact, in writing there is no one size fits all. What works for one will be the literary kiss of death for another.

For my crime novels, I tend to have the characters in place, know what the crime is and who commits it and can visualise the ending. As I work through the first draft, I write outlines, but only for what is coming up in the next chapter. If my characters take over and do things I hadn’t planned, I update my chapter outline to reflect that. So I suppose that puts me in the subcategory of panster with control freak tendencies.

If you want to work with an outline from start to finish, there are a few things you need to decide upfront:

• Decide if you want to write the story in first or third person
• Which characters (in addition to the main ones) are going to appear in each chapter?
• Create a list of characters to fill these places
• Know exactly how you want the story to end, so that you have a goal to work towards

This is the minimum you need before you start. The more you know about the story you want to write, the easier it is to compose chapter by chapter outlines. In each chapter you should have a beginning (the hook), a middle (story development) and an end (a cliff hanger to make readers turn the page).

Chapter outlines will help you to remember scenes, without having to read through everything you’ve written so far to find out where and when you last mentioned someone or something.

As you write, you’ll probably move things around, so will need to update your notes, but I find my outlines invaluable as the novel progresses. (I know, I’m writing the outlines at the same time as I’m writing the novel, but I did say there was no one size fits all.)

Here are some pros and cons of outlining the complete novel before writing it.

The Pros

• You will always know what to write. With a plan in place, every time you open the file you will know where your characters are going and what they need to do.
• You can easily spot flaws and plot holes and fix them before they rear their ugly heads.
• If you come up with a brilliant idea, you can slot it into the relevant chapters fairly easily because you will know where and when to insert additional scenes. This is much harder to do if you’ve been writing without planning, or noting what happens in each chapter.
• You’ll get the first draft written much faster than if you didn’t have an outline to follow.

The Cons

• It can (for some writers) take away the creative fun. If you are one of those, why not give my way a try? You can be creative, but also organise notes as you go along.
• You might spend hours, days, weeks, or even months, meticulously planning a novel and then realise it isn’t what you want to write after all.
• It cramps your writing style – you simply want your brain to free flow the novel into being.

Bottom line? Use whatever works for you and ignore any well-meaning advice (including mine) if it doesn’t chime with how you want to write.

Felicia from Sutton is finding it hard to knuckle down. She writes: I know it’s a cliché to say I have a book in me, but it’s true. I have all the ideas, know exactly what I want to write, have even written out a plan of the novel, but just can’t seem to get down to writing it. Setting aside time to write is almost like asking my brain to go on strike. I am so overwhelmed by the thought of having to write 90,000 words that I can’t even start.

The answer to this is simple. You don’t need to write 90,000 words all in one go. Why not break the task down into smaller chunks? I’m quite sure you could write 500 words without feeling overwhelmed. If you did that every day for six months, you would go over your target by 1,250 words. If you wanted to keep weekends as writing-free zones, it would still only take 36 weeks to reach your target by writing 500 words a day Monday to Friday.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, short story and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, has now been followed by the second in the trilogy, Vlad’s Quest (LRP).

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of four crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason (Crooked Cat Publishing).

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner

Lorraine Mace provides answers to three common writing problems.

Carl from Milton Mowbray sent in the following email asking for help dealing with his confusion over hyphens: I never know when I should use hyphens to join two words together. I’ve tried to work it out from examples in books and magazines, but just get even more confused because sometimes the same two words have a hyphen to join them and sometimes they don’t. Please help!

The easy way to decide whether or not to use a hyphen is to look at where the two words come in the sentence. If they come before a noun to act as a modifier, they need to be joined, but not if they follow a noun or stand alone.

A ten-year-old boy came into the room.

The boy who came into the room was ten years old.

The often-quoted professor of economics faced the crowd.

The professor of economics facing the crowd was often quoted.

Michael from Tayside is suffering from a common complaint – getting that important first paragraph down: I sit at my computer and panic whenever I need to start a new piece of work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or an article. I’ve read so many times how important it is that the opening paragraph grabs readers, but knowing that makes my brain freeze. Any idea how to create the perfect opening paragraph every time?

This is something most writers have agonised over at some point in their writing careers. The answer is a simple one – don’t try to write a perfect opening. Don’t even worry about starting in exactly the right place.

Write anything in that opening paragraph. It doesn’t have to be crucial to the story or article. What you are doing is creating a first draft. This is something that is going to be rewritten a few times anyway. At least, it should be rewritten a few times before you consider it ready to be seen by the wider world.

Why not put down a paragraph setting out what the story or article is about? Then get on with the main body of the piece. When you’ve finished, you’ll have a much better idea of where and how to start. You might not even use any of the words, but that doesn’t matter. The paragraph is just there to get you into the flow of writing.

You could even start with some scene setting: Where are the events taking place? What’s the weather like? Who is in the room? What time of day/night is it? Simply jotting down the answers to these questions gives you an introduction to the story.

The correct idea for the opening paragraph/s will come to you as you write the rest and you can perfect it later.

Susannah from Cape Town likes to use big words and is fed up with her writing friends telling her to dumb down her writing: I love the English language and can’t understand why many writers are scared to use unusual or long words. I belong to a writing group, but everything I read out there is criticised because of my choice of vocabulary. Am I wrong to want to educate my readers?

Although I sympathise, even if you are writing as an educator, your main task as an author is to make sure your readers understand what you have to say.

If you use a little known word, or a longer than usual one, but the meaning is clear from context, I cannot see a problem with your choices. However, if you are using such words and your readers need to resort to a dictionary to understand what is written, then there is a definite problem.

The moment someone is unable to understand an unfamiliar word from context, you lose that reader’s attention while he or she struggles to guess the meaning. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, the importance of holding the reader’s interest cannot be overestimated.

If you are writing for an audience who will grasp the subject matter without question, use whatever vocabulary you feel is right. If, however, you are writing for the general public (be it fiction or non-fiction) then you risk losing your readers by showing off your own impressive vocabulary at the expense of their enjoyment.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, short story and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, has now been followed by the second in the trilogy, Vlad’s Quest (LRP).

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of four crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason (Crooked Cat Publishing).

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner

Lorraine Mace answers readers’ queries.

Alicia from Estepona, Spain, wants to query magazines, but isn’t sure what she should put in the email. She writes: I’ve seen on websites and in magazines that freelancers should query before submitting articles. I’ve sent lots of emails asking editors if I can write for them, but only one replied and that was to say I had to be more specific about what I had to offer the magazine. Does that mean sending my work CV?

No, not at all. Sending a query is not the same as applying for a job. A magazine editor has certain slots that are written in-house by permanent employees. There are other slots that are written by freelancers, but the same writer will fill that column every issue. What you are looking to fill is one of the many slots supplied by freelance writers that are not allocated to a specific writer.

First things first – you need to know that what you want to write fits the magazine you are going to query. This means reading several back issues to get a feel for style, word length, tone and content.

Assuming you’ve done that and have an idea for an article that will absolutely fit with the magazine’s readership, the next thing to do (before writing the article) is to send a query to the editor.

You need to treat this as a business email. Editors are busy people, usually with inboxes overflowing with unsolicited emails. This means you need to make the subject line striking enough to stand out from the rest – more on this later.

What is a query?

This is simply a one page email outlining the article’s content and gives reasons why the editor should commission you to write it.

To whom and from whom?

Always address the editor by name and use Dear Whoever. Once you have built a relationship with an editor you can switch to Hi, Hello, or any other friendlier form of address.

Make sure you have your full contact details in (or after) your signature.

What to say after the greeting

The opening paragraph is crucial – this is where you will make or break your query. If it’s a strong opening the editor will read on. If it isn’t, he or she will move on to the next query. Below are some ideas for strong opening paragraphs.

The first line of your planned article – provided it is attention grabbing!

A quote from someone you have interviewed for the article

A shocking statistic

A relevant newspaper headline

Follow this up with a short description of how you intend to deal with the subject matter – including mentions of interviewees (if any).

Why You?

Having outlined the article, you need to say why you are the right person to write it. Give relevant details of your personal history that promotes your credibility and/or professionalism (as related to the subject matter). If you’ve been a chef in a top restaurant and want to give an insider’s view, mention the work background. However, if you intend to write on global warming, telling the editor how hot it was in the kitchen is not going to influence a decision in your favour.

And lastly

Mention any relevant writing credits if you have any and say you can produce clips (copies of previously published work) if wanted. If you have not yet had any success, simply leave this part out.

Subject heading for the email

Only decide what to put in the subject line after you’ve written the email. By the time you’ve reached the end you should have a better idea of what angle you can take. It needs to be to the point and eye-catching. A play on words or the punchline to a joke can work, as can a short, sharp statement. You need to tailor the hook in the heading to the subject matter of your proposed article.

Good luck!

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, has now been followed by the second in the trilogy, Vlad’s Quest.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of four crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes, Call It Pretending and Looking for a Reason by Crooked Cat Publishing.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner

Lorraine Mace answers readers’ queries.

I received this plea for layout/punctuation clarification: Please could you clarify punctuation rules for dialogue by e-mail, which separates it from any spoken dialogue in the same piece? I would prefer this question not to be posted in your magazine, unless my contact details are suppressed. You may not need all of the sample, as the problem is really defined in the last paragraph, but I leave that to you.

This is the sample which accompanied the query:

Just then Joe’s phone rang.

‘We need to get together this afternoon,’ Sandra said. ‘Can you come over?’

‘Yes, sure,’ Joe answered. ‘What time?’

‘Three suit you?’

‘OK, see you then!’ Joe hung up, swore, and returned to his e-mail to Mike: “I have to see Megabrain at 4.30pm. She loves making me work late. I’ll get to Mario’s as soon as I can.”

There isn’t a definitive way of showing this, as it could be done in a few different styles. However, the main point to bear in mind is that the reader has to instantly realise what is spoken and what is written, without intrusive explanations.

As convention dictates that only the spoken word requires quote marks, I would advise against using them for the email exchange. It has been made clear Joe is communicating with Mike via email, so you could simply remove the quote marks.

Joe hung up, swore, and returned to his e-mail to Mike: I have to see Megabrain at 4.30pm. She loves making me work late. I’ll get to Mario’s as soon as I can.

If you wished, for added clarity, you could use italics.

Joe hung up, swore, and returned to his e-mail to Mike: I have to see Megabrain at 4.30pm. She loves making me work late. I’ll get to Mario’s as soon as I can.

Whichever style you choose, the two Cs should be in the forefront of your mind: clarity and consistency. Make sure it’s clear to the reader and be consistent in your usage. If you use italics for the email exchanges on one page, but not on another, the reader will get confused (and irritated).

Margaret from Exeter is having trouble with the pluperfect (even if she may not realise that’s where the problem lies): I’ve been told my flashbacks are clunky to read because I use too many hads, but if I’m already using the past tense for the main story, how else am I going to show that I’ve gone even further back? Is there another way to show that other than using had?

Let’s look at the definition of pluperfect in English: It denotes an action completed prior to some past point of time specified or implied, formed by using had and the past participle, as in he had wanted to meet her, but she had already left.

As a flashback shows action completed prior to the time she is writing about using the past tense, this definitely qualifies as a reason to use the pluperfect. So, Margaret is absolutely right in using it, but her friends are also right: overuse can be clunky and distancing to read.

 If we look at this short passage, you’ll see what I mean.

Michael had wanted to see for himself that Janet was meeting another man. He had sat at a corner table of the pub where he had been certain he could not be seen and had waited for over an hour before Janet had appeared. She had been alone when she came in. She had gone straight to the bar. As she had sipped her drink, a man had come in and had stood next to her.

When going into flashback it is important to signal it so that the reader is aware of what is happening, so using the pluperfect in the opening sentence is fine. However, to avoid the clunky feel, you should switch to the simple past tense as soon as possible.

Michael had wanted to see for himself that Janet was meeting another man. He sat at a corner table where he couldn’t be seen and waited for over an hour before Janet appeared. She was alone when she came in and went straight to the bar. As she sipped her drink, a man came in and stood next to her.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and head competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending

The fourth in the series, Looking for a Reason, was recently released by Crooked Cat Publishing.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner with Lorraine Mace

Lorraine Mace gives some punctuation and grammar tips in response to readers’ queries.

Niall from Luton gets confused about quote marks and asked for some advice: I see some people use quote marks like these ‘ ’ and others use the ones that look like this “ ”. How can I find out which ones to use and does it matter?

As you’ve shown in your email, there are two different types of quotation marks: single and double. Double quotation marks are now used less than they were in the past, but some magazines and publishers still favour them over the single marks.

The best way to decide which to use is to check the house style of your target market to see which they prefer. If you’re planning to approach a magazine, finding out which they use is as simple as opening a recent copy and looking at the content.

However, if you are planning to submit a manuscript to a publisher or agent, very often they will have their desired formatting style on the submissions pages of their websites. If the guidelines don’t stipulate one or the other, I would simply use the style with which you feel most comfortable.

Do bear in mind that whichever marks you use for direct speech, you would then use the opposite quotation marks to quote 'speech within speech'.

Example:

‘I’m praying Jack hasn’t started drinking again. When he left this morning he said, “I’m going to the supermarket.” That was hours ago and he should have returned by now.’

The double quotation marks show that someone is being quoted word for word. If you use double quotation marks for the main speech, use singles for the ‘speech within speech’.

Other uses for quotation marks:

Idiomatic expressions, for example: He was always referred to as a ‘pain in the neck’. Note that when quotation marks are used in this manner the full stop or comma comes outside the marks, but if quotation marks are used for dialogue the full stop or comma comes inside the marks.

When quoting the title of a magazine article: ‘The Generation Game’ in Spanish Magazine, March 2007.

(The above answer was partly taken from The Writer’s ABC Checklist)

Michaela from Huddersfield has sent in an interesting question about using natural sounding speech: I recently had a short story critiqued and the person who commented on my writing said I was making a mistake when I wrote my character was sat at the bar. I don’t see what’s wrong with that – it’s how the character speaks. In fact, he didn’t pick up on almost the same words in dialogue, so I’m now even more confused.

This is a case of narrative versus dialogue grammar usage. In dialogue, we can use all sorts of incorrect grammar, because it is, as you pointed out, how the characters speak. However, in narrative (where no one is speaking) using exactly the same construction would, in most cases, be incorrect.

I’ll use your query term in the following example.

Dan sighed. “I don’t know why Jane got so upset. I was sat at the bar minding my own business and her mate came on to me. I didn’t start it.”

In the above paragraph, it’s fine to say I was sat because it is in direct speech and is in keeping with Dan’s character.

However, if we change things around a bit, so that we only have narrative, we cannot use the same construction because it is grammatically incorrect. We can only use Dan was sitting or Dan sat.

Dan was sitting at the bar…

Or

Dan sat at the bar…

To summarise: in dialogue you can use incorrect grammar, as long as it is in keeping with the way the character would speak, but in narrative you have to ensure the grammar is correct.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller novels featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending

The fourth in the series, Looking for a Reason, was released by Crooked Cat Publishing on 28^th October.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Question Corner with Lorraine Mace

A reader from Huddersfield, who asked not to be named, was recently long listed in an international competition, but she wasn’t sure if it was something she should celebrate. She writes: when I saw my name on a long list for a flash fiction competition, I was really excited, but one of my writing friends said that was probably just the list of all those who’d entered. Is that the way competitions work?

Obviously, I cannot answer for every competition around the world, but it is generally accepted that a long list is made up of the best of the entries after the first (and sometimes second) round of judging.

As I know which competition you entered and were long listed for, I can categorically state that the long list was decided by a team of readers who waded through hundreds and hundreds of entries before picking a long list of stories to put forward for the next stage of judging.

I think, possibly, your writing friend might be suffering a little from the green-eyed monster. Celebrate your appearance on the long list – it is hard to get through the initial stages of judging in any competition. To do so in one where the entry count is so high is an achievement indeed.

The following question has been sent in by so many different writers in varying forms that I’ve decided to answer without attributing it to anyone in particular. Is an online presence really necessary for writers? I can understand anyone who self-publishes would need to be active online, but I want to go down the traditional publishing route. Surely my job is to write and it’s up to the publishers to do the marketing and promotional work?

If only life were that simple! To assume that traditionally published authors do nothing to help market their books is a little naïve, I’m sorry to say. Many agents specify a strong online platform before they will even open your file – in other words, a great book with fabulous characters won’t make the cut unless the author already has an online following. Ridiculous, I know, but it is increasingly the way of the world.

Fortunately, not all agents work like that. However, even if you sign up with the agent of your dreams, when he or she submits your manuscript to a publishing house and the editor falls in love with it, the marketing department will expect you to do everything possible to assist with sales – and that doesn’t just mean turning up looking earnest and intelligent for book signings!

Why should you have to do their job for them? Because if you don’t, your book probably won’t sell. Publishing houses have hundreds, probably thousands, of books to promote. They will devote time and resources to the ones that produce the best return on money spent. It’s simple economics. And this is where having an online presence is essential. The bigger the online platform, the greater the author’s potential audience, the higher sales are likely to be. The more marketing you do to increase sales, the more your publisher’s marketing department is likely to do for you.

For those who do not yet have an online presence and still need to set up in cyberspace, here is a great blog post by author Matthew Kadish: ranking the social networks

Another blog post I stumbled across recently gives some excellent advice on what not to do: 5 DUMB THINGS SMART AUTHORS DO

Good luck!

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer's ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending

The fourth in the series, Looking for a Reason, is due for release by Crooked Cat Publishing on 28^th October.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

www.francesdiplino.com

Capitals in titles, professional societies and word counts – Lorraine Mace answers your questions

Sean from Brighton sent in a formatting question: I never know when to use capitals in titles. I see sometimes there are words in the middle without caps, but I don’t know why. Also, should the title of a story have a full stop at the end?

I’ll answer the last question first, as it will be the short part of my answer. No, titles shouldn’t have a full stop at the end as they are not sentences. However, if the title forms a question, you should use a question mark or, if it is necessary to show shock, surprise or a similar emotion, an exclamation mark.

Question: Far from the Madding Crowd?

Exclamation: Far from the Madding Crowd!

Straight title: Far from the Madding Crowd

As you can see from the title I’ve borrowed in the explanation above, some of the words are in lower case. What I’ve used is called title case.

This is because capital letters are used only for the first word and the principal words.

So, you would use capitals for all words which are not articles (a/an/the), conjunctions (any joining word such as and/but/or) and prepositions (such as on/in/with/from).

If a title starts with an article, conjunction or preposition, that would be capitalised, but only in that case.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix does not have the conjunction, articles or preposition capitalised. However, if the book title hadn’t included Harry’s name, the first article would need to be capitalised as it would be the first word in the title: The Order of the Phoenix

Alice from Tenby wants to join a professional association, but has been turned down by the Society of Authors: I’ve self-published my first novel and I think it’s going to do really well, but when I tried to join the Society of Authors, I was told I didn’t qualify because I’m self-published and haven’t yet sold enough books. I know from an author friend who is a member that the Society offers authors lots of help and advice with legal matters. Is there something similar for self-published authors I could join?

Yes, what you’re looking for is ALLi (The Alliance of Independent Authors), a non-profit association of author-publishers. On their website it states: We offer connection and collaboration, advice and education. And we campaign for, and further the interests of, self-publishing writers everywhere. I’m sure you will find everything you need on their website. The address is: http://allianceindependentauthors.org/

Veronica from Marbella has a problem with her novel being too long: I’ve been told by many people (and seen it on countless websites) that publishers won’t look at debut novels that are too long. I’ve been told mine, a story set in the days of the French Resistance, should be between 70,000 and 90,000 words. I’m only about two-thirds of the way into it and it’s already over 85,000 words. What should I do? Should I cut out one of the characters? Change the plot slightly? Take out one of the subplots? Please help, because I can’t bear the thought of spending all this time writing a book and then being told it’s too long to be published.

First of all, the thing to bear in mind about word count guidelines is that is all they are – guidelines. If a stunning novel landed on an agent or publisher’s desk that they simply couldn’t put down, there is no way it would be rejected as being too long, even if it was well over the standard word count!

Secondly, you have said yourself that you haven’t even finished the book yet, so there is no way of knowing what should be cut, if anything.

A first draft is just a way of getting your thoughts and ideas down on paper. When you go through your first rewrite you will automatically cut sentences, paragraphs, maybe even entire scenes, because they don’t fit. You may find that you have two or three minor players who could be morphed into one stronger character, which again would affect the word count.

On second, third, fourth and fifth drafts, you’ll tighten dialogue, cut out all the padding and unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.

By the time your novel is ready to be sent anywhere, it will be a much smoother, sleeker beast than the one you are currently wrestling with. Get the words down and leave the worries about length and publishing needs until you’ve polished your baby so that it gleams. If it does that, no one will care if it’s a few thousand words more than the guidelines say it should be.

If you have a question for Lorraine, email lorraine@quinnpublications.co.uk

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer's ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

Frances di Plino

Question Corner with Lorraine Mace

Unblocking the Blockage

Gerard Young is suffering from something many writers have faced. He writes: I have a problem and I need some advice. I have a crippling writer's block that I can't get rid of. I have some ideas for stories but when it comes to writing the story, nothing. What should I do? Would enrolling in a writing course help in any way?

Enrolling in a writing course might well be the answer to your problem, but I doubt it. If you have ideas already, but can’t bring yourself to write them, being on a course might add to your woes, rather than easing them.

There are as many reasons for writer’s block occurring as there are suggested ways of dealing with it. As I don’t know you on a personal level, I will have to put forward several things for you to try. I hope one or more of the following will do the trick for you.

Have a set time to write

Whether it’s first thing in the morning, an hour when you get home from work, half an hour during your lunch break, set aside the same time every day. It doesn’t matter what you write. The important thing here is to train your mind to accept that this part of the day is writing time.

Another trick under this heading is changing the time you’ve set aside to write. If you have already made the decision that mornings are your writing time, but it no longer works for you, change the time. Write in the evening instead.

Relax and stop looking for perfection

Don’t read what you’ve written so far. Just get on with the next bit. Turn off your internal editor. Many people stop writing because they cannot produce perfect prose in a first draft. Nobody can! Don’t allow the fear of imperfection to get between you and your writing. There will always be time to polish that imperfect prose. Get it written and edit it later – much later!

Don’t write

Sounds like a contradiction, I know, but maybe your brain needs time to formulate the ideas properly before you settle down to write. You might have so many ideas in your head that you aren’t able to decide which one you want to develop. Go for a walk. Take a train journey. Spend an evening with friends. Forget about writing for a while. You’ll come back to it refreshed and raring to go.

Read more

Reading helps the creative juices to flow. I find reading in a different genre to the one I write in is beneficial, but you might find you get better results if you read material similar to that you want to write.

Set deadlines with a writing buddy

Find a friend, online or in real life, who also wants to get back into writing on a regular basis. This works well if you lay out some ground rules first. Decide how many words per day, week or month you will each write. Then set deadlines for exchange of material. It’s a bit like running with a friend, or going to the gym. It’s easy to backslide when you’re on your own, but much harder to drop out if you’ve committed yourself to a word count and deadline with someone else.

Work on more than one book, story, article or poem at a time

This doesn’t work for everyone, but some writers find it easier to switch between works, depending on what moves them for that day.

Writing exercises

I’ll be honest, writing exercises for the sake of it isn’t something that would work for me, but I have been told that many writers swear by it as a way to overcome writer’s block.

However, there is one thing that I do, which could be considered a writing exercise. Try interviewing the characters you want to write about. Put together a series of questions and then write up the answers as if you were the character. I find characters come to life if I allow them to answer for themselves. Believe me, once that happens, your characters will live in your head, nagging nonstop until you write their story.

Make sure your writing space works for you

Is your desk covered in scraps of paper? Do you feel hemmed in and uncomfortable? If your work area doesn’t make you feel creative, it will stifle the urge to write. Spend a bit of time making your writing area somewhere you want to be.

Remember that writing is fun!

This is the biggie, for me. Most of us write for pleasure. It’s fun. We create worlds and people to populate those worlds. Then we make life difficult for them so that they have to overcome obstacles in order to succeed in whatever we have decided they should do. We have the power to make them fall in love, fall out of love, go to war, lose a battle, find a friend, betray a colleague, become a saint, sup with the devil, rise like a star, fall into despair. How can we not enjoy ourselves?

Let go of your inhibitions – write and have some fun.

If you have a question for Lorraine, comment here or email lorraine@quinnpublications.co.uk

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer's ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, was published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

Frances di Plino

Question Corner with Lorraine Mace - Answers to questions on that, which and where

Seb from Inverness sent in a question over when to use that and when to use which. I know this is something that vexes many writers, so hope the answer helps.

Seb says: I’m not a novice writer by any means, but I can never decide what the rule is over that and which. Is there a simple way to remember?

Okay, the basic rule is this: if the sentence doesn’t need the clause (it makes sense without) you use which. If the sentence does need the clause you use that.

The car, which is green, has a manual gearbox.

The car that is green has a manual gearbox.

The two sentences look identical at first, but the meanings are not the same.

The car, which is green, has a manual gearbox. This tells us there is only one car and it has a manual gearbox. The clause (the words inside the two commas) isn’t necessary to illustrate the meaning. It is additional information and doesn’t affect the fact there is only one car and it has a manual gearbox.

The car that is green has a manual gearbox. This sentence suggests there is more than one car, but it is the car that is green that has the manual gearbox. The phrase ‘that is green’ is necessary to show clearly of all the cars on the forecourt, it is the green one that has the manual gearbox.

The proper phrase for it is a restrictive clause because another part of the sentence depends on it. You can’t remove that clause (that is green) without changing the meaning of the sentence.

Nancy, who is currently living in Barcelona, is doing a non-fiction writing course. As she says: living abroad, it’s not always easy to carry out research. Do you know of any good reference sites?

As I wasn’t sure what topic or categories would be of benefit, I’ve collected a range of online reference sites, all of which are useful for those of us who have limited access to English language libraries and museums, but are equally useful to readers who aren’t resident abroad.

Dictionaries

Ask Oxford has built a database on grammar, usage and words, as well as giving a quote of the week, word of the day, spelling help and origins of words and phrases. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

Cambridge dictionary is useful: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

Merriam Webster www.merriam-webster.com/ is another good online dictionary and http://thesaurus.reference.com/ is useful when an alternative word is needed.

Quotes and Sayings

www.quotesandsayings.com/ is a wonderful site to find quotes by subject or author, excerpts from speeches and poetry, and a good selection of proverbs and sayings. The site also provides the full text of several books by Arthur Conan Doyle and the following works by Shakespeare: All's Well that Ends Well, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and his Sonnets.

Museums

www.24hourmuseum.org.uk is a gateway to various UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions.

www.britishmuseum.org/ provides access to a database of about 5,000 artefacts from the British Museum's collections.

www.cornucopia.org.uk/ produced by the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council, this is an online database of more than 6,000 collections in the UK's museums, galleries, archives and libraries. 

www.iwm.org.uk/ The Imperial War Museum covers conflicts from the First World War to the present day.

www.museumspot.com/ is an American site that provides information on museums and galleries worldwide.

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ the National Gallery Search allows you to explore by artist, subject, theme or title. 

www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/ the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television gives details of the collections which include the world's first negative and the earliest television footage.

www.npg.org.uk/live/index.asp the National Portrait Gallery lists collections by name of artist or sitter, by medium, or by subject. 

www.nhm.ac.uk/ the Natural History Museum has details of the museum's collections, information about research, details of services and access to the catalogue. 

www.tate.org.uk/ the Tate Online gives access to works in the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. 

Fee-paying sites

The British Library http://www.bl.uk/ gives online access to this incredible resource and offers copies of documents for a fee.

www.britannica.com/ is the online version of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a competition judge for Writers’ Forum. She is a former tutor for the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam of The Writer's ABC Checklist (Accent Press). Lorraine runs a private critique service for writers (link below). She is the founder of the Flash 500 competitions covering flash fiction, humour verse and novel openings.

Her debut novel for children, Vlad the Inhaler, will be published in the USA on 2^nd April 2014.

Writing as Frances di Plino, she is the author of the crime/thriller series featuring Detective Inspector Paolo Storey: Bad Moon Rising, Someday Never Comes and Call It Pretending.

Writing Critique Service

www.lorrainemace.com

www.flash500.com

Frances di Plino