Writing with Jennifer

  This article from No Film School is about using outlines in writing screenplays, but I'd make the argument that it applies to all kinds of writing. I love the point he makes about knowing what happens next. This is always a big source of stress, and there is a sense of freedom once you get the question answered. 

When I work on a manuscript for a client, the dialogue is almost always something that needs attention. Why is it so hard to write what a character is saying? Why does it rarely sound natural? Here are some dialogue mistakes I see often.  1. Using dialogue as description Save the flowery language and floaty wording for the stuff in between the dialogue. When your characters are speaking, let them speak like regular people. Regular people do not describe the stuff around them out loud. They might use their voices to provide clues about the setting or to foreshadow some fantastical upcoming event, but don't give your characters the burden on having to set the whole stage.  "Look at that adorable dog," said Amy. "He is sitting quietly by the tree with his whispy fur blowing softly around his face. The tree is old if the large circumference of the trunk is any clue. Its leaves are the color of jade. What a nice tree, and what a nice dog." Poor Amy. You can almost fe...

Something happened several months ago when I was happily living my life. I got sick. Really sick. I spent 6 weeks in the hospital rethinking all I thought I knew about what I was doing every day. I couldn't work for 6 months. I had to turn away clients. It hurt physically, financially, and mentally.  Now I've returned and I'm slowly gathering my strength. Thankfully I had 2 clients who were willing to wait for me to be ready. I'm back to coaching writers, ghostwriting, and now blogging.  My advice for today is and isn't about writing. It's don't put things off, and don't take life for granted. Love people extra hard. 

Check out this article from Berkeley News.  It's about a study that showed how conservatives and liberals had emotional reactions when they heard certain "hot button" words.  I love this. Why didn't I get a Ph.D. in rhetoric? (It's because I'm kind of lazy and also I had children) If you've studied persuasive writing at all, you know that there are buzz words you can include to make the reader think, and ultimately do, what you want. Certain words compel people to take action, especially to get out their wallets. In that same way, you can play upon people's natural leanings with your choice of words. That's one reason it's critical to know your audience.  Now there is that overlapping area between compelling and lying (using the words "sale" and "quality" are great ways of getting attention but they might be completely false... words like "quality," "terrific," "best" are particularly useful if ...

Don't we all dream of a month in a little cabin away from it all in the woods or by the sea where we can sit and write all day, taking short breaks only to walk along the shore or enjoy the homemade soup that our unseen care-taker brings to the door just when we are ready for it?  That's how I could do NaNoWriMo. Instead, I am in a too-small house with beloved, but needy, pets (no comma) and children who demand my time. I have a cell phone, a television, and a reliable connection to the time-wasting black hole that is the holy internet.  What could go wrong?  We all face different types of distractions. Mine fall into 4 basic categories.  1. Frustrating Surprises I hate surprise distractions. It is completely unnerving to me to be all set to work and then have something sprung upon m me that I cannot come up with a plan to make go away.  Example: My children have the task of keeping our little box clean. I noticed that one of the cats decided to ignore the litte...

Now that NaNoWriMo has fully begun (what election?), the art of the outline has likely come into play.  Many writers use outlines when tackling a big project like a 50,000-word novel or another significant piece of writing. It's helpful to have a roadmap to keep the big picture in your head and give you a resource to turn to when you run into a brick wall and are trying to figure out what comes next.  Some writers don't do an outline at all. They prefer to just write and see where the story takes them. They may or may not have an end game or landmarks in mind. This is a great approach where creativity rules supreme but in my experience, it reduces the chances of the whole thing actually coming together as a whole.  On the other end of the spectrum is being too rigid with your structure. Every fiction writer knows that sometimes a character hijacks a story, and the author is just along for the ride. It's almost always best to ride that wave as far as you can because that c...

  Aspiring novel writers have a love-hate relationship with November, and it's not because of all the facial hair. November is NaNoWriMo, the time of year when we challenge ourselves to write, or at least get a good start on, that novel we've been putting off our whole lives.  This fabulously high-pressure movement started in San Francisco way back in 1999, but it really caught fire just a few years ago. Now you can find groups and contests and all kinds of activities related to the subject. In fact, you can use these diversions to procrastinate even further if you're so inclined.  There are some tips and tricks to getting the most out of the month.  1.Take a Break from Time Killers Think of November as lent for writers. You need to temporarily dump the stuff that wastes your time. No, I'm not talking about your spouse and children... although, if you could get away to a quiet retreat for the month, it definitely wouldn't hurt. But I'm really talking about socia...

Much of my paid work has been ghostwriting. It's something I enjoy, especially when it comes to children's books. But it does present some challenges you don't encounter when writing a book of your own.  Ghostwriting articles or short pieces tends to be easy because in most cases you are dealing with clients who don't really care about writing. They want the articles to make sense, of course, and usually to have the right SEO content to collect all the clicks. But they aren't going to argue with you about creative choices.  Book authors are different. These are people who have nurtured an idea for a long time and have a strong connection to the process and the result. Children's book authors in need of ghostwriters are often artists who have done their own illustrations and know the story they want to tell but don't have the writing skills to make it happen in a way that can put the book on the shelf next to professionally written titles.  Occasionally, peop...

When I was working for a small publishing company, one of my jobs was to build relationships with bookstore owners. That way I could get information about what they liked to see, and I could try to sell them the books we were publishing. I learned a lot that way about what bookstores want to buy.  One of the things that often came up was size. I had no idea before talking to bookstore owners that size was such an issue. It used to be that you could only publish books in certain sizes because that's what the presses could print. A typical trade paperback is either 5.5 by 8.5 or 6 by 9. Mass market paperbacks tend to be 6.75 by 4.25.  Non-fiction books are printed in different sizes with certain genres or subjects conforming to a standard. Non-fiction books are often published in hardback, and those are usually  Today you can self-publish books in any size, but using the wrong size will make your book stand out as self-published. Bookstores don't like that, and you will hav...

Writing is the kind of activity that sometimes requires outside motivation. Writers need a partner, but this can be hard to find. You've got to have somebody in your corner who  1. understands writing 2. understands the writing brain Some writers have successfully filled this gap by hiring a writing coach.  The job of being a writing coach doesn't have a specific definition. There are lots of different ways of coaching writers. The project and the person determine the needs. To further complicate the situation, some people will do some kinds of coaching and not others.  So what can you expect from a writing coach?  Motivation This is in the form of contacts through texts, emails, or phone calls where the coach asks how it's going and reminds you to write. It's something like an accountability partner in exercise. Your coach is the person who is going to ask you how many words you wrote today, and you want to be able to report that you wrote a lot. I suppose you could...

There are different kinds of writer's block, but it's something most of us - maybe all of us? - experience from time to time. Sometimes it's having an idea in mind, but staring at the screen unsure how to begin. A similar theme is being stuck in the middle of a project - having completed section A, knowing everything about section C, but completely lacking section B.  Often for me, it just feels like I've turned on the faucet but the water just won't flow.  There are a couple of different approaches to writer's block. Your success will depend on what kind of block you're dealing with and your personality. To further complicate things, what works for you one day may not work the next.  Approach #1: Push Through Just do it. It's like eating your brussels sprouts. Tell yourself firmly that you're just going to sit down at your desk and not get up until you have 2000 words or a completed chapter or 3 hours have passed or whatever the goal is.  I've h...

I get asked this question a lot. And the answer is a resounding, sure.  You can make money writing. You can make a lot of money writing. Ask Stephen King and JK Rowling. With that out of the way, the question becomes whether it is a reasonable goal to make a living as a writer.  It is. But in most cases, you have to be willing to branch out and try some new things. You have to be okay with writing some boring stuff and spending time client-hunting. Most of all, you have to be willing to put in the work.  For many people, writing is a compulsion. That kind of writing tends to be about expressing creativity, putting words into the world that burst with meaning. You don't do that for the money. You do that because you fall into a hole of crazy when you don't - or maybe you fall further than your normal. For most of us, the kind of writing that brings in money is work. It's boring words on paper, and it usually involves writing compelling web copy about how great some service...

I met with a zany, creative, wonderful client today. She took me into her living room and showed me her coffee table. It was covered with notebooks, tablets, and mockup booklets. This was her writing, and she wanted me to tell her how to publish it.  I think this disorganization represents a lot of us. Creative types tend to have brains that don't always connect in a linear way. We are notebook carriers. We jot down ideas on napkins. We will scribble down a few lines on any surface that will take ink.  I have a few (read "20") notebooks myself, but not the piles that this particular writer has accumulated. But I still have a dirty little disorganizational secret, and it's in the form of about forty thumb drives stuck in the drawer of a side table in my bedroom. My laptop files aren't exactly pristine either, although I do my best to at least keep each project in a particular folder.  Getting organized is hard, but it is a necessary step onto the bridge leading fro...

  It's no secret that writers have historically struggled with mental health. Actually, can you think of a writer who does not or did not have depression, drug addiction, or at least a general uneasiness about life and how impossible it is to handle with any kind of grace or competence?   Or maybe I'm just talking about me now.  So maybe everyone has these challenges. Or maybe every artist does. Or maybe there is something very specific about writers and the world inside our heads.  I'm just rambling here because that's the kind of mood I'm in, but I've often wondered if irregular brain chemistry drives the urge to write... or could writing somehow contribute to the hiccups in our cerebral areas?  We know that writing exercises can help improve depression and anxiety. More than one mental health professional (oh yes, there have been many more than one) has suggested to me that writing will help me organize and understand my feelings. And it's true. I have f...

So I was reading this inspiring article today from The Cut, and it struck a chord.  Many people have asked me how a writer goes about getting an agent, and I tell them what I know. You query. And you make connections. You join submission parties on social media (not that kind... although you could say writing is a habit of masochists). Maybe you pray. One day the magic happens with a spark and then a flame. Or maybe it doesn't.  You've got to find joy in the writing itself. Some successful authors aren't published until they're dead. Every author you've ever heard of has wallpapered a bathroom with rejection letters. Blah blah blah.  Maybe you just have to be lucky. 

You've written a book. Maybe it's a great book. But no one is going to bother reading it if it doesn't have an engaging cover.  It's a harsh reality, yes, but important if you want to sell books. And why create a book and then not give it the best chance possible to sell?  Covers matter a lot when it comes to  getting your book into a bookstore convincing readers to buy your book sending the message that your book is professionally created In fact, the whole graphic design of a physical book is very important. I talk about it a little bit in this post a about what I learned while working for a publisher.  If you are self-publishing or using a cooperative-style publisher, you want to be sure that your book has a professional look. This almost always means that it was professionally designed both inside and out.  What are the important aspects of a great cover? Besides not looking photoshopped (that is absolutely the worst thing you can do) here are some things t...

I recently had some content stolen.  So sadly, I'm writing a post about how to avoid this happening and what to do once it does happen. I'm currently in the process of dealing with it and would welcome advice.  One thing I've learned is that it makes sense to use a couple of tools.  1. Google Alerts Pop your content into Google Alerts to get reports when that content is picked up on the web. You should do this with any work you're posting for sale.  It can also let you know when work you've legitimately sold is published, so that's a good side benefit.  2. Plagiarism Checker Grammarly has one, and I love Grammarly but I'm all about free stuff. People like Scribbr, but they charge a fee too.  I found this one  and it seems to be okay.   I'm definitely open to (read begging for) recommendations.  I've also discovered that plagiarism is one of those words I never learned how to spell.  I still haven't heard back from the site that curr...

The world of fiction has always been a little bit less than rigid when it comes to distinguishing categories of books for non-adults.  Once there was only fiction for children and fiction for adults. And even this was a bit bewildering. Little Women , for example, was considered a work for children, but the length and some of the themes are more fit for adults. I would argue that one of my favorite children's books, Alice in Wonderland , is strictly for adults. What child could appreciate Lewis Carrol's trippy imagery or sharp humor?  In more modern times we have had children's books, which included picture books and slightly longer books with chapters ( Ramona the Pest ) and young adult books ( Jacob Have I Loved ) with YA being a genre targeted toward teens. Then YA absolutely exploded,, and plenty of adults started reading these too. I know many fully adult readers, including myself, who find young adult fiction as mesmerizing as work created for adults. The YA label use...

 Okay, so I was dumb. I mean, I know that things can easily be stolen online. But I didn't think it was going to happen to me.  And today it did. It didn't cost me much in terms of money, but it cost me something. And I'm pretty upset about the whole thing.  I had posted an article on Constant Content several years ago. I thought it was a damn good article, but no one bought it. So today I decided to take it off Constant Content and try it on Content Gather.  Big mistake.  It turned out that the article was stolen! Content Gather ran its plagiarism check, and there it was posted on some company's blog. I've contacted the owners of that blog to find out where they got my content, but I haven't had a response.  THIS IS THE CRAZY PART: Do you know that part of Content Gather's terms of use state that you aren't supposed to upload content that was written for ANY OTHER SITE OR ANY OTHER PURPOSE?  For me - and lots of other writers - Content Gather is a pla...

So who out there uses Friverr for freelance writing gigs?  I've seen Fiverr recommended so many times that I decided to give it a go. I'm trying to increase my presence on the great web - hence this blog - and set up a Fiverr account. But nothing.  I read some articles on making the most of your Fiverr account and tried some strategies like pricing some gigs very low.  Nothing.  This is Fiverr. This is me on Fiverr. Any ideas?  So far I'm finding far more clients on job boards and through previously made connections. I wonder if Friverr is just too saturated with writers and editors... or perhaps there's something about the site that clients don't trust?