Saturday, November 12, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #20

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
—Edwin Schlossberg

Getting Published in Anthologies

Helping You Get Published: Getting Published in Anthologies: I am always telling my HelpingYouGetPublished.com book authors that it is in their best interest to build publication credentials by publis...

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #19

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.
—William Zinsser

Inspiration for Book Authors

Helping You Get Published: Inspiration for Book Authors: In my business, HelpingYouGetPublished.com, most of my author clients come to me with completed first drafts of their books. We then focus...

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Book-Editing Fallacies & Facts

All about Book Editing

Helping You Get Published: All about Book Editing: Anyone who writes a book and gets it conventionally published will encounter at least one editor, and typically two or more, during the prod...

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Latest from HelpingYouGetPublished.com

Autumn 2011 update at HelpingYouGetPublished.com with new features, books, editorial services, and resources for writing and publishing... http://www.helpingyougetpublished.com/new.html

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #18

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
—Sylvia Plath

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Point of View Pointers for Fiction Writers

Helping You Get Published: Point of View Pointers for Fiction Writers: The more that I assess fiction, the more I am convinced that point of view (POV) is at the heart of successfully managing some of the most c...

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Book Blast from the Past...

Helping You Get Published: Book Blast from the Past...: Some of the items on the list described below are recent but most, for me, are a trip down literary memory lane. 50 Most Influential Bo...

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #17

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.
—Winston Churchill

Better Books through Collaboration--Notes on the P...

Helping You Get Published: Better Books through Collaboration--Notes on the P...: Good manuscripts and books are not made in heaven. They come from a less comfortable place... Read the article...

Friday, August 26, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #16

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.
—Matthew Arnold

Friday, August 12, 2011

My New, Old Website

I just launched HelpingYouGetPublished.ca, which bears a more-than-coincidental resemblance to my longstanding dotcom site of the same name. The difference is that the new site is abbreviated for more immediate access to all the Helping You Get Published information and resources. 

Check it out using the links below:

Participle Phrases: The Sort-of Good and the Really Bad and Ugly

A participle phrase is a type of modifier associated with a noun or pronoun. The phrase consists of a participle, typically an "-ing" word, and any accompanying words needed for sense and clarity.  Below are sample sentences containing "-ing" participle phrases (underlined), with explanations of why, at best, they are only sort-of good and can turn bad and ugly if the writer is not careful.

Sort-of Good

Standing at the window, he contemplated the view.

This is a grammatically correct sentence and, on occasion, such a construction is useful. In particular, it can sometimes be the briefest way to portray two actions that occur simultaneously. Contemporary stylists advise against overuse because the participle form is a less direct way of expressing action than are the simple past and present tenses. In fiction, especially, overuse of the participle phrase can have the effect of distancing the reader from the action, and a distanced reader will soon lose interest in the story and characters. A subject-verb-verb construction is often the best choice: He stood at the window and contemplated the view.

Really Bad and Ugly

Apart from possibly distancing your reader, unrestrained use of participle phrases can lead you astray into false simultaneity: Standing at the window, he contemplated the view and went out for a breath of fresh air. He can stand and contemplate simultaneously, but he cannot both stand and go outside at the same time. To take another example: Rising from the sofa, she left the room. These two actions can only occur sequentially, unless the sofa is wedged in the doorway. There are numerous possible corrections, such as: She rose from the sofa, said her good-byes, and left the room.

Overuse of participle phrases also courts the dreaded dangling participle, which dangles because it has lost what it is supposed to modify: Standing at the window, the view made him feel contemplative. Though we know what this means, it is wrong because he, and not the view, is standing at the window.

And finally, a really ugly dangler: Driving along the highway, a sign pointed north. But even this can be cleaned up and made more attractive:  Driving along the highway, he saw a sign that pointed north. Or: As John drove along the highway, he saw a sign pointing north.

Now, how about going through your manuscript and making over your own less-than-attractive participle phrases?

For more articles on writing, go to: http://www.helpingyougetpublished.com/update.html

Friday, August 5, 2011

Stronger, Cleaner Writing

On the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, an article by C. J. Cherryh (1995) offers timeless tips for avoiding the pitfalls that weaken your writing and detract from your story. Check out "Writerisms and Other Sins: A Writer's Shortcut to Stronger Writing"

My own article "Good Manuscript Housekeeping" is in the same spirit and offers "tips for immaculate prose" to help you tidy up your writing for greater impact. People now stage their houses to boost their appeal to buyers. No less effort should go into "staging" your manuscript to maximize your chances of selling it to a publisher. Take a look at the article or watch the video version:

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Copyright 101

Confused about copyright? Brad Templeton's "10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained" clarifies the basics of copyright and such related concepts as public domain and fair use.

See also my article "Copyright and You--FAQs about Protecting Creative Work" on the Helping You Get Published website.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #15

I have always regarded fiction as an essentially rhetorical art—that is to say, the novelist or short-story writer persuades us to share a certain view of the world for the duration of the reading experience, effecting, when sucessful...rapt immersion in an imagined reality.
—David Lodge

The Risky Business of Querying Agents & Publishers

Writing a query letter in an attempt to get an agent or publisher to read your manuscript is like negotiating a minefield—one  false step and it's all over.

The best approach is to be brief and businesslike. Open with a hook, summarize what the book is about, state the genre and word count, identify the market, say a few words about yourself and what qualifies you to write this book, and indicate whether the manuscript is complete. Note that for novels and literary nonfiction, a finished manuscript is required—it is a waste of your own time and that of others to shop around an idea or partial manuscript.

To avoid making the worst kinds of querying mistakes, take note of the practical advice at: http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2011/07/query-letters-dissected.html and  http://behlerblog.com/writing-a-query-and-a-synopsis/.

For my own spin on the same theme, see "How to Be Rejected by Agents & Publishers" or watch the video version...

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Favorite Literary & Writing Quote #14

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
—George Orwell

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Latest Book Trailer

Conversations with Spirits, by Mitchell Kynock. Trailer by http://www.helpingyougetpublished.com/
"This extraordinary book takes you on a challenging and compelling journey...unusual...refreshing...engaging." —Kirkus Indie Review

Welcome to Writing Words...

Writing Words offers my favorite literary quotes and my own reflections on writing for publication, based on my experience helping emerging book authors get published.

I am not setting any particular limits on the literary subject matter I might cover, but I suspect that some topics will be especially prominent. For example, I often like to remind authors that "less is more" and to offer advice on applying this principle when writing and self-editing. To my mind, the novel is the most challenging of all literary forms, and I will further provide tips on how, and how not to, write a novel. I have also edited a lot of autobiographical works and have thoughts on the memoir, which is another genre that makes more demands than the uninitiated often realize.

Other topics that interest me have to do with selling a manuscript and, from time to time, I will reflect on book proposal writing and the pitfalls of querying. A related new interest of mine is the book trailer, examples of which some of my clients and I have been producing. Finally, I am also making short how-to videos on writing and publishing. I will announce new trailers and videos here, as well as on my website http://www.helpingyougetpublished.com/.

This blog is a briefer, more informal extension of my original information series for authors, Writing for Publication. For more detailed information about agents, editors, and publishers; book marketing and promotion; publishing and the book trade; and writing life and style, go to http://www.helpingyougetpublished.com/update.html to view a list of articles and links.