EASY READING IS DAMN HARD WRITING_SAMUEL CLEMENS, GHOST, ON EDITING AND WRITING

(I have entered the SIXTH LUCKY AGENT CONTEST for Urban Fantasy :
http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Sixth+Dear+Lucky+Agent+Contest+Paranormal+Romance+Urban+Fantasy.aspx

Wish me luck. Go visit the site yourself to see if you want to enter.)


{"Do not put statements in the negative form.

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you re-read your work, you will find on re-reading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"}

Samuel Clemens, ghost, here to give you a few more lights on the dark path of becoming a writer :

1.) WALK IN YOUR SHOES AND NOT SOMEONE ELSE'S.

Someone walks for you, and your legs never get strong enough to support you alone :

Critique friends can point out something you're too close to see for yourself. But editing is not writing. You have to edit your own work yourself.

Your critique friends can tell you how to write your novel THEIR way. But, children, ain't it YOUR novel? Only you can write it YOUR way.

2.) LIP-SYNC (and yes, I know the word : ghosts get around you know) IS FAKE.

Why do all those fool singers get into so much trouble when they lip-sync? Because they're not entertaining with their own voice, that's why.

And if you mold yourself after the style of a critique friend, neither are you. How you edit determines your voice. And your voice is the soul of your novel.

You want a living novel or a zombie of one?

3.) STEP BACK/ LOOK FRESH.

As a writer, you want to draw the reader in. As an editor, you want to step back from your book and look at it with fresh eyes.

When I was writing TOM SAWYER, I mired down right in the middle of the thing. I couldn't come up with a firefly of an idea. I had to set it aside.

Three years passed, and I went back to it. In that time, the dark of my mind had been chewing away at it so that when I put pen to paper, I couldn't write fast enough.

Now, I don't say put your novel away for three years, but do what I started to do. Write two novels at the same time.

When you get mired down in one, start writing on the other with the ideas the dark of your mind has been polishing. It may take you two years to do them both.

Still, both will sparkle and shine.

4.) YOU NEED THUNDER IN THE DISTANCE.

You know how you look off into the distance and see the boiling clouds and hear the dim rumble of the angry thunder? You just know a bad storm is coming. You just don't know when.

Yesterday, I told you how narrative summations were bad. Well, like the contrary cuss I am, I am now telling you :

sometimes narrative summaries can be good ... to build up tension, don't you know. Put the ominous events or hoodoo's off-stage to build tension in between scenes of action.

Then, when you finally do bring the mysterious stranger on-stage, the scene will have real impact.

5.) SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO HIT THAT MULE WITH THE TWO BY FOUR.

Sometimes you just got to tell the reader something to get it across. But when you are forced to, do it with humor :

"Rev. Smug was never a man to let his religion get in the way of his love life."

But most times in your novel, unlike Rev. Smug, you just got to resist the temptation.

6.) TRUST YOUR READER/TRUST YOURSELF.

If you find yourself having to explain an emotion in a scene -- rewrite the scene. For instance :

"I was terribly down on my luck." ( You're explaining.)

"As I walked for my job interview, I didn't quite miss the puddle, and the water oozed up through the holes in my shoe soles." (You're unfolding.)

7.) DON'T MAKE YOUR NOVEL A BUMPY MEXICAN BUS RIDE.

Ever ridden on a Mexican bus? You haven't? Well, you don't know what you're missing. And are you lucky.

A ride on a Mexican bus is bumpy, wild, too fast, and filled with unexpected twists and turns at the worst possible spots.

Don't make your novel read like that :

Too many short action scenes or endless spurts of terse, short dialogue can plumb wear your readers out, distancing them from the flow of the novel.

The flow feels unnatural.

Slow down the pace with a bit of description to draw the readers into the mood of the piece. Add depth to the canvas of your book with brief brushstrokes of narrative summaries.

The chapter will "feel" like life. The reader will find comfort in passing through hours, perhaps days with the scene instead of a frantic, hectic few minutes.

*) Finally, every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction,

perhaps illusory,

that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.

I hope I have strung a rope or two across that chasm for you.

And steel yourself, children.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves.

Every time you compose a book, your composition of yourself is at stake.
***