You finished your book. Wrong! This is when the real work starts.

1-Read your book out loud. This will help you to catch repetitions, weird punctuation and awkward sentences. 

2-Have a program read your book to you. I only do this for certain sentences. I tend to read the way I know a sentence should be read, which is not helpful. On scrivener you can select any section of your book, right click, select speech and start speaking. It will read that portion out to you and if it sounds mighty weird you have to work on your punctuation.

3-Look at autocorrect, but don’t trust it over your knowledge! Check any underlined words. If you are unsure double check. You can google grammar rules and spelling. Don’t accept corrections blindly and do not ignore suggestions.

4-Cut down adverbs and the use of very. See this very nice post about using the most appropriate word.

5-For my first book I used a simple program called My Word Count. I paid around $14 to download it. It looks primitive, but it scans your manuscript and finds words you repeated several times so that you can change them. It also analyzes sentence patterns. For a manuscript to read well, in most cases, you need short sentences intercalated with long ones and you might want to avoid sentences that are too long. This program will find them for you. After my first book I got a sense for my narrative rhythm and words to avoid and did not use the program anymore.

6-Reread your book till you’re satisfied with it and find only minor typos. Now you’re ready for step 7.

7-Go to a writers’ group. Start reading parts of your manuscript and get peer review and response. Listen to all criticism and take nothing personally. If more than one person feels strongly about something, you might want to listen! I LOVE my writers’ group. I tried three before finding the one that was a good fit for me. I will write a separate post on writers’ groups later.

8-Find out if you need professional editing. Most editing companies online will edit a sample for free. Does it come back butchered? If yes, you might want to consider professional help editing your manuscript.

9-If you think you are done editing and your book is ready, move on to the next project. Don’t make that face. You’re a writer, that’s what you do. Let your book sit for one or two months then read it again. Yes, you wrote that c*rp. Start again from point one. If instead you find your book enthralling, funny, moving, original, if you can’t wait to shout every word out loud to the entire world…maybe your book is done! 

10-Send the book out to a couple of beta-readers (friends are okay, but if you can find people who don’t know you is better, e.g. on tumblr). If their feedback is terrific go for  couple more. If their feedback is horrific don’t blame it on them. Sit down and start editing and crafting again. 

If beta readers are elated you can now start to think about publishing ^_^ 

Oh, man! I’m so proud of you!

Dialogue is one of the hardest things to master. It has to seem realistic when in fact it’s not realistic at all…Let me explain.

1-Every piece of dialogue in fiction needs a reason to exist. It either moves the plot forward or it gives us information about characters and the dynamic between them. Avoid fillers that are actually 40% of real dialogue (excessive greeting, small talk, hesitation unless necessary etc…) 

2-Avoid overusing “he said” and “she said” and all their permutations (whispered, yelled, retorted etc…) You can make clear who’s speaking (most of the times) by mixing in a bit of narration which will help your story have more emotion as well.

Bad dialogue example:

    Jon said, “I hate you!”
    Mary answered, “I love you too.”

Why is this bad? First of all if there are only two characters in the scene it’s superfluous to add “Mary answered” the change of line tells us that the character changed. See previous post on formatting. Second we read the words, but feel nothing.

     Better dialogue example:

    Jon stormed into the room, his eyes wide. He stopped right in front of Mary, his hand holding back the hair that would have fallen allover his forehead. “God, I freaking hate you!”
     Mary smiled, staring right back at him. “I love you too.”

See what I mean?

3-Who’s speaking has to be clear! Either you just finished to describe an action or a thought by the character you want to have speak or you have to add that they are speaking! 

      Bad dialogue example:

      Jon and Mary stared at each other. “I can’t be with you anymore.”

Who the heck said it? This kicks the reader out of the movie you were creating in their head and have them stare at your written words. Don’t do that!

4-Proper dialogue formatting. Direct speech is in quotes. I said, “direct speech is in quotes!”  If the verb preceding the quotes means that the words were uttered (say, yell, whisper, mumble etc…) you need a comma before the quotes, otherwise you need a period. The first word inside the quotes is always capitalized.

      For example:

      Jon mumbled, “I had no idea.”

But you would write:

      Jon laughed out loud. “No way!”

That's it for now. Thank for reading and happy writing ^_^

GBA

Formatting is essential. If your formatting is off you might look like a rookie and be discarded as unprofessional and unprepared. Worse, your writing might not be as clear as you thought. Do your research!

1-Different outputs have different requirements. If you want to self-publish research how to make your kindle book or paper back look professional. Most writers first have their work as a manuscript. A manuscript is a version of your work easy to share with agents, publishers and other writers for peer review.

2-General manuscript format. Times New Roman, type 12, double spaced, 1 inch page margins. A title page including your real name, address, e-mail and phone number, the word counts of your work, the name and number of your agent (if you have one!) The title of your manuscript.  A header on each page of the manuscript that looks like this AUTHORLASTNAME/TITLE/PAGENUMBER for example AMMAN/AN ITALIAN ADVENTURE/1. The title page should not be numbered or included in your page count. Check out the guidelines from the writer’s digest.

 I know you love your funky handwriting type, but your manuscript needs to conform unless a specific agent or publisher asks otherwise (like size 14 in place of 12). Agents, writers and publishers spend their days reading. Show respect! They need easy to read types that won’t make their eyes fall off their sockets. Don’t give them a reason to trash your manuscript before even starting to read it.

3-Paragraphs. Rookies leave white spaces everywhere. You should not. Change paragraph (new line) when:


    -A new character speaks

    -You start a new thought

    -You change scene (see below)

I personally love short paragraphs (two or three lines). These look like a third of a page on a kindle and I like to avoid big blocks of text. If you start a new paragraph you either leave a white space (uncommon) or you start the new paragraph 0.5 inches to the right.

Example: 

4-Scenes. A change of scene is necessary if the narration moves to a different place or if a good amount of time goes by. In this case you need to leave a white line or more commonly a white line with the # symbol centered on it. When the book will be published this will be replaced with prettier symbols.

5-Trailing white spaces and lines. You need a space after every word. There used to be a time when two spaces where required after a period, that time is gone. Get rid of extra spaces. Scrivener will do that for you.

6-Thoughts. If your narration has a first person POW (see post 7) you need to differentiate between narration, the things your main character says in “quotes”, and the things your character thinks. This will be italicized. 

Example:

I entered the room and saw Ugly Face Chuck rummaging through my schoolbag. “Back off!” Scumbag.

         Narration, “said” thought

7-Foreign words will also be italicized.

8-Words that you want to stress because said with emphasis or with an ironic tone will be italicized or more commonly underlined in a manuscript format.

9-Footnotes are to be avoided at all cost in fiction. Integrate the essential information into the text, unless you’re James Joyce, then go right ahead.

10-Covers and illustrations. If you are thinking to self-publish (I will have a different post on self publishing versus traditional publishing) you will have to find an artist to draw your illustrations or provide them yourself, but if you are looking for an agent or publisher do not provide a cover or an illustration! Very likely they will want to choose them for you. If they are interested in your work this will be a conversation for later. Do not send illustrations with your manuscript unless they are an integral part of your work.

11-Title. This is a tough one. The title has to convey the mood and genre of your story, be catchy and unique. Possibly the title will reveal a second meaning midway through the book. A perfect title is “I’ll give you the sun” it sounds like a bit of romance, whimsical, intense and midway through the book…well, I’ll let you find out. Short title are easier to remember. That said the “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is one of my favorite books, but every time I want to write the title down I have to google it.

12-Commas. According to grammar, commas go in a lot of places and you should learn all the proper rules of placement by doing your research. That said, the latest trend is to use as few commas as possible (this will depend on your taste and the taste of the readers of course) and I agree. Commas should ease reading not be in the way. If you don’t know what an Oxford comma is, you need to research punctuation more ;)

That’s it for now! Thank you for reading and happy writing ^_^

You have your draft (see blog post 3, how do you write a draft?) and you rearranged it so that you are holding in your and the next amazing page turner (see post 5 on reshaping your draft) YAY! Now you have to make your draft beautiful, which is my favorite part. Let’s start with descriptions.

1-Limit exposition. It’s important to describe the setting right at the beginning of a scene, so your reader can imagine the characters in place. Writing a book is like directing a movie in somebody else’s brain, but don’t overdo it! Don’t bore your reader to death! How? Mix exposition and dialogue (I will have a separate blog on dialogue).

2-Use all five senses. What does it look like? Any sounds? Smells? Taste will be more rare. Any rough surfaces or touch impressions?

3-Limit adjectives. The rule is to never use more than three adjectives to describe a noun. My rule is to never use more than one adjective only if you have to, they distract the reader. Give them enough to set up the canvas, but let the reader paint. Pick the one adjective that is more informative and conveys a better sense of the place.

4-Choose verbs nouns carefully. More specific can be powerful in conveying a mood! Read a lot and help yourself with thesaurus, but before you use some ass-backward archaic word that does not jive with your narration do your research! Not all synonyms are created equal, get the flavor of a word, read it in context, google it. 

5-Avoid adverbs. Most of the time there’s a better verb to describe what you’re trying to say. Don’t walk slowly, crawl. Don’t say loudly, yell.

6-Show don’t tell. This is more useful for characters, but rather than saying that Annie was annoyed, let the reader infer that from a roll of her eyes. Rather than saying Jenny was beautiful, have someone blush and lower their gaze when they see her. Convey descriptions through gestures and emotions.

In the following example I only made up one character, which is harder, because I can’t have dialogue to help me. So I put in Italic her thoughts, to break the narration :)

Bad description- Annie walked slowly in the tall, gray deserted building. The floor was ruined and uneven, littered with garbage and debris. She was scared. She had never been there before. The musty walls were covered in musk and felt like they were closing in. She knew there were fifteen floors above hear head and she had to climb them all on an old, rusty stair that missed several steps. She walked toward it faster. Blah blah blah.

This description is jarring. As I read it I feel like every sentence is a piece of a puzzle building the scene in my brain. I am trying to see Annie and her location and the description keeps getting in the way of me becoming Annie. Bad, bad, bad!

Better description- Annie crawled into the deserted building, her heart racing. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light she was overpowered by the dank smell dripping from the walls. Oh, god, are they closing in? She took a deep breath and stalked to the rickety stairs. Fifteen floors, and several missing steps. I can do it. I can do it.

I am Annie. I know what she thinks, what she feels, smells, sees. I want Annie to be ok. I want to keep reading.

Thank you for reading and happy writing ^_^

GBA