Writing Romance with Mette Harrison

Here’s our second interview with Mette Harrison, YA fantasy author of Mira Mirror, The Princess and the Hound, Tris and Izzie, and more. Listen to learn how she met and left a lasting impression on Orson Scott Card, who later became one of her mentors. She talks about some of her favorite romance books such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Emma; and Shards of Honor, by Lois Bujold. We also discuss “annoying romance tropes” and “destructive love myths.” And don’t forget to comment on one of her interview for a chance to win her book Tris and Izzie!

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Podcast: Introducing Author Mette Harrison

In this, our first in a series of interviews with YA fantasy author Mette Harrison, she discusses how she became an author and some of the books she’s written, including her very first story ever in kindergarten about a rainbow colored dragon. Comment on any of Mette’s interviews for the chance to win her newest book, Tris and Izzie.

(Our own Alice Beesley with Mette Harrison)

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Editing Basics

I recently ran into myself at an online critique site. A weird experience, yes, but informative. A friend asked me for a critique of her writing. I hope she wasn’t emotionally shattered after what I gave her, but it showed me in stark detail how much I have learned in two short years with the Snippeters.

It also put me in mind of an article I recently read on LDSPublisher, written by author and editor (and home-schooling Mommy and headless chicken) Tristi Pinkston. The article, “Before You Send Your Manuscript Out to Readers (or Publishers)” goes through four steps that will make your manuscript more readable from the beginning. I wish I’d read this article two years ago. Or ten. Or Twenty. It would have saved me a lot of time and headache.

I had finished two novels and started three more before my first writing group made me aware of a little something called “passive voice”. Tristi’s rule #1: Do a search for the word “was”. Not only does this little word add unnecessary verbiage, it also puts distance between the subject of the sentence, and the action: “Herbert was running from the knife-wielding madman” vs. “Herbert ran from the knife-wielding madman”. Or, kicking it up a notch, “Herbert fled through the darkness, the panting of his breath echoing the steps of the madman at his back…” But I digress. Just having fun with excess verbiage. A tell-tale sign of passive construction: “was ____-ing”. Was saying=said. Was running=ran.

Tristi’s second rule: Search for the word “that”: Until I read the article, I didn’t know that I could overuse the word:

“He remembered little but her eyes, golden and cat-like, thinking that she had somehow looked on his soul and found it pleasing.”

Rule three: Check your punctuation. Sometimes when you remove a word or a phrase, the punctuation gets deleted with it.

And fourth: “Take out fully ¾ of your adverbs.” Seriously, do a search for “ly”. You’ll be surprised how polka-dotted your manuscript appears. Find other words or other ways to say what you want to say. Beware of “He/She said ____-ly”. “He said shyly” could become “…He said, scuffing his toe in the dust like an embarrassed boy…” Or, “She said angrily” becomes, “…She shrieked, white with fury…”

And finally, a rule of my own: Don’t feel that you must follow any rule 100%. Adverbs can be a savory dash of salt to your writing, and you can’t write without using “that” and “was”, but use them in moderation. Learn to refrain and rephrase.

Oh, and my personal favorite: “Never think you know it all.” There is always more to learn.

You can find Tristi Pinkston’s article at

http://www.ldspublisher.com/2012/04/before-you-send-your-manuscript-out-tristi-pinkston/

By Ava Mylne

Writing and Publishing Around the Web: April 2012

Here’s the monthly round up of some favorite articles on writing and publishing on the web this April.

Author Janice Hardy shares a genre breakdown to help you figure out where your story fits in, and talks about times when your characters make misleading assumptions. She also outlines a helpful method for analyzing first drafts before revising.

Author Bryan Thomas Schmidt shares 8 Copyediting Tips For Writers.

Author Anne R. Allen tells us Why You Should Be Writing Short Fiction.

In a related article, author Angie Smilbert tells how how to submit a short story.

Agent Rachelle Gardner gives us 6 Reasons Authors Self-Publish, and follows up with 6 Reasons Authors Still Want Publishers. She also shares great tips for How to Cut Thousands of Words Without Shedding a Tear.

Author Carrie Ryan talks about Distinguishing Between Plot and Premise.

Author Misty Massey provides a helpful rundown of Tenses and Persons.

Author Nathan Bransford lists Ten Commandments for Editing Someone’s Work. He also gives us the Top 5 Social Media Blunders You Shouldn’t Make.

Author Elana Johnson tells us to Market Smarter, Not Harder.

Author James Alan Gardner gives us Fight Scene Basics.

Author Patricia C. Wrede gives tips for what to do when you feel like you’re Out of Ideas, and discusses differentiating your characters through dialog.

Author Kate Fall provides a handy review of Punctuating Dialog Tags.

Agent Kristin Nelson offers up The Criterion For Evaluating An Agent, and answers the question: How Do You Know If An Agent is A Good Agent?

In an interview, author Ash Krafton talks about How To Approach Publishers Directly.

Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch talks about what it really means to have an Audience in the business of writing.

Author Gail Carson Levine talks about how, when and why to incorporate Backstory.

Winner of Heather Moore Contest

We have a winner of our contest to win the LDS historical novel Abinadi by author Heather Moore.

The winner is:

Elizabeth Mueller

Please email us at writingsnippets@gmail.com with your shipping information, and we’ll send you your signed copy of Abinadi. Thanks for listening and commenting.

Showing Emotions in your writing, with Heather Moore

In our third interview with author/editor Heather Moore, we talk about how to show emotion in your writing, something that’s sometimes difficult to do but one of the best ways to draw readers into your story. She mentions the Poisonwood Bible, and Jeff Savage, Carol Lynch Williams, James Dashner, and Ally Condie’s novels as good examples of how to show emotion. She also mentions some strategies you can use to deepen the emotion in a scene, such as:

-Describing internal and physical reactions
-Hiding emotions
-Using the senses and looking at scene analytically
-How different age groups and genders show emotions in different ways
-Making sure your characters have flaws
-Focusing on common emotions like fear, anger, grief, love, etc…
-Avoiding clichés like “their chests tighten” or “a cold tingle down the spine”
-Through dialogue, objects and metaphor

Be sure to comment on this podcast for a chance to win Heather’s latest LDS fiction book, Abinadi! The contest will end Wednesday, April 18th.

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On Editing, with Heather Moore

In our second interview with author/editor Heather Moore, she shares her insights on editing. Listen to learn about the qualifications for editors that work for her Precision Editing Group and how to self-edit your own and other people’s manuscripts. Find out where to place hooks, how to determine chapter length and pacing, and how to choose which characters’ viewpoint to use for each scene, as well as common mistakes writers make. If you struggle with viewpoint, as a lot of writers do, Heather mentions examples of books to read such as Orson Scott Card’s “Characters & Viewpoint.” For good examples of omniscient view point, which is one of the hardest viewpoints to write, Heather suggests reading Lemony Snicket; Alcatraz, by Brandon Sanderson; The Book Thief; and Jennifer A. Nielson’s middle grade series. She discusses the differences between editing for content and line editing and common plot problems she sees in the books she edits.

Comment to enter a contest to win Heather’s LDS fiction novel, Abinadi. Contest will end one week after we post our final Heather Moore interview.

Download here

Writing Prompt: Spicy with a chance of indigestion.

Bullying. We hear a lot about it. We’re all against it. And more than likely, most of us participate in it. Me? Not me. I’m educated. I’m civilized. I’m a good person! And yet . . . if you’re being completely honest with yourself, you may just be a bully. Even on a minor scale.

In this exercise we’re going to downplay the act of “bullying” and call it “social conditioning.” Now before you start sending me hate mail, let me state my official opinion: I am strongly opposed to bullying. I don’t know how I made it to the ripe old age of . . . ahem, 25 (hehe) without the safety and protection of the anti-bullying bubble. HOWEVER, somehow I survived the isolated incidences that might have been considered bullying by today’s standards. Back then we called it . . . wait, we didn’t call it anything. We just had to deal with it.

“Social conditioning” is a necessary part of life. Whether we like it or not, it ensures people conform to social norms. Rules. Expectations. Standards. You want to go a week without bathing? Too bad. You WILL get shunned. You want to monopolize every conversation by bragging about all your accomplishments? Go ahead. You WILL be loathed. You want to wear a suit made out of fur? Real fur? You MAY instigate a demonstration. Sure, all you really want is to “be yourself.” That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But the truth of the matter is, without social conditioning there would be way too many freaky people out there.

Your job: Take the stance I’ve just developed and run with it. Put your protagonist in a difficult situation and force him to face and/or reveal his tolerance, his support of “social conditioning” —through action and dialog, of course.

Done? Surprised? I thought so.

By Nichole Jarnagin

Leap Into Books Giveaway Winner!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by and started following–we’re excited to have you on board.
Now for the big moment.

The winner of our $15 Amazon gift card is:

Lily!

We’ll contact you to verify your email, and then send you your e-gift card.

Thanks for coming by!

By Hook or by Crook part 2

I’ve got a thing for hooks right now. I pulled a bunch of books off a shelf at random and looked for hooks in the first page, filling in the “who-what-when-where-why-how” and paying close attention to when my focus wandered or was piqued. This is what I found:

In “Pebble in the Sky” by Isaac Asimov, the hook is the implied disappearance. He uses the phrases, “two minutes before he disappeared”, and “the face of the world he knew”. The why and how are left as questions, or hooks, in the reader’s mind.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s “A Fistful of Sky” used a hook that surprised me. The word “We” is used repeatedly, giving a sense of unity against outsiders, against ominous forces: “the force we supported each other against was right in the house with us”, implying a currently unseen—and imminent– threat. “I” is not used until the last paragraph of the first page.

Mary Higgins Clark’s “Pretend You Don’t See Her” and Anne McCaffery’s “Renegades of Pern” had no strong hooks, no risk, no questions raised without an immediate answer. These two authors being the names they are, I wondered if they were relying on their already substantial readership to sell the books. A simple evidence of this was the fact that I also looked at Anne McCaffery’s “Dragonflight”, (one of my personal favorites). This is one of McCaffery’s first published books, and the hooks were obvious: “Lessa woke cold.” This is a cryptic question that lends to the atmosphere of discomfort and fear, foreshadowing the recurrence of a familiar terror. The cold of the early morning is only the beginning.

All in all, these are some of the hooks I found:

*Mood: recognition of danger, sense of fear or threat, mystery and unanswered questions. In every case, the “why” and “how” went unanswered.

*Implied danger to the family or society.

*Implied social difference: “Special child destined for greatness”; a misfit or underdog in society.

*Humor or personality in the authorial voice or the characters.

*Repetition of an emotionally evocative idea, as in “the reaping” in “Hunger Games”, and the “We” in “A Fistful of Sky”.

What are some of the hook techniques you like to use? Or ones that stand out to you when you read?

By Ava Mylne

In two weeks Lauren will be posting a blog on why we read what we read, and asking for your input in a poll. Here are some of the questions ahead of her article. Be ready to tell us what you think!

1. Would you buy more books if you didn’t have to worry about your children / siblings / nieces and nephews finding them on your book-case?

2. Do you buy e-books because you can lock (or hide) your e-reader?