HOOK, LINE, AND BESTSELLER

Writing.

It's all about money.

I hear protests out there in the cyber-darkness. Yes, writing is literature. And literature, when done well, is art. You're right.

Crafting great prose is an art form in and of itself. You and I write because we must. We are artists. Still ...

We can only write as much as we want if we can support ourselves doing it.

Bestsellers.

Those are what we must write if we are to find fulfilment in writing for a living. But how do we write bestsellers?

Identification.

We drive by wrecks all the time. I drove by one not too long ago as a limp, bleeding woman was pulled gingerly out of a bent, steel coffin of a car.

Drivers slowed almost to a crawl. Me, too. It was an irresistible force tugging my eyes to the sad scene. For the other drivers, too. We couldn't help ourselves.

Why?

We identified with that woman, who just minutes earlier had been driving down this same highway as we were doing then. We could be her. In a sense, we WERE her.

Vulnerability.

That is it. We are all vulnerable. We know it deep down though we live mostly in denial of that fact. When we see someone struck down by circumstance or cruel fate, we pause, drawn to the scene. We identify with that person.

Subconsciously, we pull for that person to overcome the challenge -- because we identify with that person. When she or he triumphs over the overwhelming crisis, in a way we do as well. When she slumps in defeat, our spirits slump with her.

It is the spectral nocturne we try to ignore : the dirge of natural selection, the arabesque of convoluted evolution, and the haunting refrain of our need for survival.

This tearing of this veil of denial is the common cord that binds the human race together.

Identification. Vulnerability. The bleeding wound. They work every time.

If your main character is not vulnerable in every chapter, you have a problem. Your MC must face loss himself or face the loss of someone for whom he cares deeply. He must be worried and afraid in some sense.

If he doesn't care deeply in each chapter, the reader won't either. And the first reader you will lose will be the agent. And you will lose your sale.

Ouch! That's a loss all of us writers can identify with.

To write a bestseller, write what you know, what all of us know : life is fragile, unpredictable, and shorter than we would have it.

Write each scene, each chapter ending worse for your hero or heroine until the ringing climax. Make it hard for the reader to put down the book.

Write danger, threat, vulnerability ... write hard-won, almost lost victory, and you will have your bestseller.
***
A movie that ignores all the above advice, promising to be a cult classic anyway :

THE DEADLY CROSSROADS_THE MIDDLE

I've talked about the ending ...

about how the beginning is shaped by it.

Now, what Hostess bakeries knew:

It's the middle that makes the product.

You liked that creamy filling?

Me, too.

It was what brought me back.

The icing enticed me.

The devil's food cake was the taste pleaser at the end.

But it was the filling that made the cupcake.

The title and the hook of a first sentence will snare the reader. But it is what lies between the beginning and the stunning end that will keep him turning the pages until he reaches that finely honed climax.

Have you heard a good joke told badly?

Sure. We all have.

Have you ever had an agent or her intern write that your tale did not hold together? Now, what the heck does that mean?

It means you told a good joke slightly off focus.

Eric Trant once wrote me something profound. You don't just slap some wood together and hope you get a table. You start with the proper measurements and a firm idea as to what kind of table you want to build.

Have you been told your tale doesn't hold together?

1.) Perhaps the pieces don't fit properly.

When you build a table, you use wood that has already been planed and sanded smooth:

Try smoothing each page you write as you write it.

Look at it closely as you finish and edit it to the best of your ability at the moment. Start with the next page. Edit it.

At the end of the chapter, print that rascal out. You will discover flaws and rough spots you never saw on the computer screeen.

Trust me. It works. I got the idea from that rookie, Dean, ah what was his last name. Oh, yes.

Dean Kootnz.

2.) The end in sight is great, but listen to the characters.

Aim for the ending you planned. But if the characters twist in your hand and suggest a great new ending. Listen. It is your unconscious mind speaking.

The new ending will prove to be fresher and more novel than what you originally started out with. And since it is more in keeping with the evolved characters in your book, your tale will feel more together, less patched together.

3.) Write hungry.

Always write, knowing you could do better.
Aim higher.
Try harder.
Settle for nothing but your best.
Try to make yourself laugh, cry, be surprised at the twists the characters' evolving personalities take you.

4.) Write true.

Listen to your heart.

If the beautiful sentence you just wrote rings false for the story,

for the character, for the ending, edit it out.

Save it for another novel. Or don't.

Never call attention to yourself : isn't this a grand piece of prose. Always ask how can I draw the reader into the story to LIVE it not read it. Hear the characters talk in your head.

You'll pull back occasionally and say, "Hey that doesn't sound like Jane. That sounds like me. Or it sounds like Eden."

If a character says something in your head that puzzles you, go with it. Keep writing. Wait until the end of the chapter before going back and re-reading the whole thing. Your unconscious is handing you a great surprise for your readers. If you don't immediately know what it means, neither will your reader.

Don't waste or throw away that gift.

Follow these points and your novel's middle will be more than creamy filling. It will be the meat and potatoes of your tale.

***

WHEN A BEST SELLER AIN'T A GOOD READ_ghost of Mark Twain here

 

{" A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere."

-Mark Twain.}


Samuel Clemens, ghost here, to help Roland out a mite.

Seems the saw-bones told the boy he has worn himself near to exhaustion and should take it easier for a day or two.

Well, I was standing right next to him, stretched out and looking all peaked, so I volunteered to do today's post.

And I think my little cyber-column might help out you pilrims a mite, too. After all, I was a newspaper man a'fore I became the great literary genius the world knows and loves.

Now, on to my gem of a post:

My quote next to my picture seems a bit self-evident, don't it?

Well, just read THE PASSAGE by that Justin Cronin fella or THE TONGUES OF SERPENTS.

Both meander worse than a sluggish Mississippi at ebb tide.

But they got published you wail. I was wailing, too ... after I read them.

Sure they got published ... after a string of good writing by said authors.

But Cronin pushed his readers at a distance with page after page after page of narrative summary. Leave the lecturing for the classroom, Justin.

Naomi Novak, poor girl, just seemed to lose her fire, having no danger, no crisis breathing down the neck of her heroes. She managed the impossible : she made a book about dragons boring.

I struggled like you pilgrims to get published. I learned my craft in the newspapers at which I worked one after another clear across this nation.

And I learned a few rules. I'll even share a few with you :

1.) The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
Ever hear two people tell the same joke? Both tell it differently. One always tells it better.

One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. Talk to the heart of your listener, and you will never go wrong.

2.) Told or unfold?
Histories belong in the classroom. Novels are the place for scenes.

A scene takes place before the reader's eyes. He sees the mysterious stranger being feared, not being told what a hoodoo he is. Your hero runs down the alley, ducking zinging bullets.

The reader sees it happen. He isn't told about it after the fact.

3.) What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
I've read a good bit of what passes for novels these days. They're leaner and meaner. No more Norman Rockwell, exact details down to the slightest freckle.

Novels today are impressionistic like the paintings or a film by that Hitchcock fellow. Why, the most horrific story I ever heard centered on a monster only hinted at, never seen clear ... and the more fearsome because of that.

4.) Less is more when it comes to writing.

 If you hit the poor reader over the head with your point, you'll blunt your point and won't do much for the reader either.

5.) The best words are actions.
What did that Anton Chekhov fellow write?

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Actions pulls your reader into the flow of the story. Preambling just shoves him back to being a distant observer, not a participant.

Give the reader the taste of the wind, the feel of the grit in the badly cooked food, and the ache of a broken heart.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of the battle.

No second-hand prose. Draw the reader into the sound and feel of the actions. He will forget he is reading. He will become a part of the world you have created.

6.) The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Franklin D. Roosevelt originally wrote in his famous speech of December 8, 1941 "a date that will live in history." Later the President scratched out "history" and instead wrote "infamy."

And that line still rings down the corridors of time.

The amateur writer draws attention to himself ...

why, isn't that a beautiful description I've just pounded you over the head with for five pages?

The professional author knows that to draw the reader's attention to himself with mechanics is to draw it away from the story.

You want the reader to be so absorbed in your world that they're not even aware you, the writer, exists.

7.) Writing, I think, is not apart from living.
In fact, writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice.

Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.***

A SONG UNFINISHED_ a word from The Turquoise Woman

You two-leggeds ...

You think you know. But you do not know.

How could you? You can know only what you have experienced. And your experience is so stunted.

I look out from my consciousness surrounding the world that is my body,

and my horizon spans the the swimming bodies of my sisters

who wheel in their sweeping dance of gravity about our Father Sun.

Roland, he whom I call Little Lakota, talked of me some days back ...

with respect and with the knowledge that his grasp of me was limited.

So I honor that respect by telling you what little your limited minds can understand of my existence. 

Your minds are much like a song unfinished.

And nothing makes you more aware of the fragility

of existence than a song unfinished.

Here is a secret:

We are all songs unfinished.

We start with names. But what illusions are names.

Some call me Turquoise Woman.

Others call me Gaia. I call all of you temporary ...

Some I call cherished.

Others of you are but a fleeting rash upon my surface.

Irritating, viral, and in the end, self-destructive.

Sadly, your race is like a tick that will gorge itself until it bursts.

Bemused, I watch you scurry along my skin, moaning you are bringing an end to me.

I would laugh if it were not so pathetic.

You are merely bringing an end to yourselves.

I count the moments. You make my scalp itch.

You think you know what life is. Sad.

Do you know what life is?

A firefly's flicker in the night,

the breath of a buffalo in winter,

a cloud shadow that races across the green grass to lose itself in the blood-red of the sunset.

Do not try to understand me.

I look, not only down upon you,

but out across the vast glittering sea of eternal night.

The colors of my thoughts are the Northern Lights

and the reach of them is from horizon to horizon and unto the vastness of the stars.

The electro-magnetic field of my body gave birth to my consciousness

long before there were human hands to chisel stone into mute, blind idols

or to brush your world in blood on cave walls.

Your only true contribution to me was your language.

Before you crafted words into being, my consciousness was unfocused.

I listened with wonder as you spoke to one another,

slowly piecing the concept of language together in my thoughts.

Through the prism of your languages, my awareness crystalized.

I became aware.

Now, I know a haunted melancholy. Like a windmill's blades, my thoughts dip into my memories.

In misty after-images, I see your fleeting lives walking prayer-soft across my green fields only to fade into the inflamed oblivion of the sunset.

My son, Elu, will survive.

Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, I have spirited safely away into a sister dimension.

But Samuel, my sad-eyed, adopted son, will soon die I think.

Not at the hands of his life-long enemy, DayStar. But by the two-edged sword of his love for his wife, Meilori.

And that trickster scamp, Victor Standish, he, too, will die.

I will miss him, for he, also, will be "consumed" by his love for the unnatural creature called Alice.

You are wondering why I am talking to you?

You are close to my heart as well, for all of you craft with words.

So I have come to say seven words to you:

"Live well. Soon I will miss you."
***

WHERE DO YOU END YOUR STORY?

One of the criticisms of the last LORD OF THE RING movie

by those who had not read the books

was that it appeared Peter Jackson couldn't decide where to end the movie

and tricked the audience into thinking they were watching the end, only to be moved to yet another false ending.

By the time the movie did end, many were grumbling about the whole experience.

Are we authors like that?

Do we linger too long, milking the afterglow of the story. Or do we end too abruptly once the crisis is averted or overcome?

Many teachers of creative writing stress not to begin writing until you have the ending clearly in mind

so that you can head to it with skillful foreshadowing and firm precision, not meandering until the end just comes to you.

I think that approach also helps you to know when to begin.

If you know the ending with its transformation of the main character, then you know where to start your story ...

and you get a sense of how to bring your protagonist to his destination.

What mood do you want the reader to leave your novel holding in his heart?

Hope. Despair. Laughter. Resolve in the face of dissolution.

Or a mix of all of the above?

I. Keep Your Characters in Character

    Don't force actions or words from your characters just because it will provide a nice "Hollywood" ending.

II. Explosions Just Might Blow Up Your Book

    Make your ending dramatic by giving it impactful meaning for your protagonist.  The most impact is inner, not outer, explosions.
    
III. The Ending Serves the Plot

     The ending is where you bring the spotlight to all the reasons you wrote the story in the first place.

IV. The ending  is ...

         Based on two choices – outcome and judgment.

         The four possible endings of any novel plot are as follows:
 

1. Comedy (happy ending):

 the protagonist achieves the goal or solves the problem, and his success turns out to be a good thing.

2. Tragedy:

the protagonist fails to achieve the goal, and his failure is a bad thing.

3. Tragi-comedy (Personal Triumph):

 the protagonist fails to achieve the goal, but his failure turns out to be a good thing.

4. Comi-tragedy (Personal Tragedy):

   the protagonist achieves his goal, but his success turns out to be a bad thing.

{King Midas achieves his Goal of turning everything in his house into solid gold.  But if that includes his beloved daughter, we would judge his success as bad.}

You may want to play with all four options in your imagination for some time before deciding what type of ending feels right for your novel.

V. The ending flows from character development:

1. At the climax of a Comedy (in the Ancient Greek sense), the main character achieves success by either ...

- sticking with a good trait/behaviour
- giving up a bad one
- taking on a good one

(E.g. Harry Potter succeeds in defeating Voldemort because he sticks with his habit of putting others' lives ahead of his own.)

2. At the climax of a Tragedy, the main character fails because he either...

- sticks with a bad trait/behaviour
- gives up a good one
- takes on a bad one

(E.g. Macbeth fails to truly embody the role of king and establish a dynasty because he becomes a habitual murderer and betrayer, making his subjects want to depose him.)

3. At the climax of a Tragi-comedy, the main character fails to achieve his goal, yet it turns out to be a good thing because he either...

- sticks with a good trait/behaviour
- gives up a bad one
- takes on a good one

(E.g. In the science fiction movie, Bladerunner, the main character fails in his mission to “terminate” all the artificial people on earth, because he develops compassion for them – which is a good thing.)

4. At the climax of a Comi-tragedy, the main character achieves success, yet it turns out to be a bad thing because he either...

- sticks with a bad trait/behaviour
- gives up a good one
- takes on a bad one

(E.g. In Romeo and Juliet, the goal of ending the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues is achieved, but Romeo's unwillingness to give up his love for Juliet ends in both their deaths.
***
I hope this helps in some small way.

Season's Greetings_THE DANSE MARDI GRAS

Season's Greetings
                from the French Quarter!

{Excerpt from Victor's sixth book, DANSE MARDI GRAS. Image: Victoria Frances.}

DANSE MARDI GRAS

I had never seen Captain Sam so happy. Meilori was back in his arms though it meant a target on my back. Mardi Gras was a thing of laughter within his haunted jazz club once again.

I felt like baying happy hound-style myself. Alice was flowing towards me in a black sleek dress whose long skirt was slit for the tango.

Her porcelain shoulders bare, long blonde hair a living waterfall upon them, long black gloves up past her elbows.

She leaned against me to the tempo of Grace Jones singing “Strange, I’ve Seen That Face Before.”

“What is this tune?,” she whispered in my ear.

“The Libertango,” I smiled.

“I do feel liberated,” she husked, running her toe up, then down my right leg.

“Me, too,” spoke Meilori as she slipped between Alice and me, whipping the two of us away.

Jade eyes, which had watched Aztec sacrifices scream for mercy that never came, stabbed into me.

“So you are the son I could never give Samuel?”

“We don’t have to be enemies,” I whispered, seeing a concerned Captain Sam taking up a frantic Alice in his arms to continue the tango towards us.

Meilori laughed a thing from nightmares.

“Oh, do not worry, Standish. Once I kill you, I will forget all about you.”

She gazed mockingly at Alice as she rubbed her body against mine, and I sighed, “You can destroy me as an enemy in another way.”

“Really?”

“You can make a friend of me.”

A Harlequin spun me from Meilori’s arms, shaking off her belled hat, long silk black hair tumbling down on colorful shoulders.

Maija. I wondered when she’d show.

Meilori gasped, “But you are dead!”

“Your savage of a husband only managed to kill my followers. DayStar saved me.”

I shook my head as Maija spun me in the female’s role of the tango and snorted, “DayStar doesn’t save. He damns.”

“To revenge myself against my sister, McCord, and you, I welcome damnation.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam sweep Meilori in his arms as she whispered hurriedly to him. Marshall Hickok took up Alice and danced the tango awkwardly towards us.

Maija swept me down in a sudden dip, wrenched me up against her breasts (Aw, jeez, she didn’t believe in underwear), and hissed into my ear.

“Tonight I will pay you back for that ‘Menage a Trois’ lie you spread about you, your ghoul, and myself in 1834!”

I snapped her out, then back into my arms as the tango heated up. “Hey, I happened to ruin my reputation while improving yours with that!”

“I will kill you slowly for those words.”

“Take a number. It’s a long line.”

Another woman, this time dressed as Marie Antoinette, tugged me out of Maija’s arms. Despite the white wig, I recognized the insane cobalt blue eyes. Empress Theodora, ruler of the European Revenant Empire.

“Royalty first, Ningyo swine!”

My dance card was getting too damn full. Theodora laughed throaty.

“Ah, my subjects are whispering that I am renewing our tawdry love affair. Another lie you have sown about your betters!”

Father Renfield and Sister Magda were twirling effortlessly towards us, their faces grim. So was Sam with Meilori and Alice with Hickok. I smiled grimly.

Lady Lovelace and Margaret Fuller were scandalizing the crowd by dancing together my way. They were too far away to get here in time.

Theodora’s steel fingers squeezed my upper arms tight. She was about to pull apart my arms and make a wish.

I smiled sad. “You’re all alone.”

“My subjects are mixed all through this crowd within Meilori’s.”

“And still alone.”

I dipped her suddenly. Jeez, didn’t any of my enemies believe in underwear? I got a terrible mental image of Major Strasser. If I survived this tango, I was going to have to take a bath in Listerine.

“You are surrounded by toadies who are too terrified to say anything but yes to you.”

Theodora snapped up, pressing me close to her, running her own toe up and down my right leg. “And that is bad?”

“One day, your worshipfulness, you’re going to be at a terrible crossroads, not knowing which way to take. And those toadies’ words won’t help worth shit.”

I smiled wide, taking precise quick, flowing steps between her fast moving high-heeled feet as we moved fluid over the dance floor.

“Then, you’ll think of me, too stupid to lie – even to an enemy.”

Theodora studied me. “You would save my life? Why?”

“Because we’re both street gypsies. You’re just a clever daughter of a bear trainer who slept her way to the top. Me? I’m gutter trash. We’re alike and both alone in ways no one but we will ever understand.”

Theodora flicked flat eyes to Alice, and I shook my head.

“She was raised to be a Victorian lady. Like you, I was raised to survive in a world that didn’t want me to.”

“Alike and alone,” Theodora husked.

Her cobalt eyes deepened, became wet. Before I could react Theodora crushed her cold lips into mine.

“Hey, no tongue on a first date!”

Alice was suddenly by my side. Theodora laughed oddly, linking her arm with an uneasy Hickok. “Standish, you live … for tonight. You have given me much to think over.”

Alice’s pale face became all eyes. “What was that kiss about? What did you do, Victor?”

Sam and Meilori danced to a halt in front of me. I looked into the disturbed eyes of Meilori, sighing, “Followed my own advice.”

THE 5 DEADLY SINS

THE FIVE DEADLY SINS …

YOU DON’T SEE IN YOUR WRITING!

1.) REPEAT THAT … NOT!

Just about every writer unconsciously has a SECRET AGENT word that creeps in on every page it seems.

Hillary Clinton’s repeated word is “eager” (can you believe it? the committee that wrote Living History should have their typing fingers slapped).

Cosmopolitan magazine editor Kate White uses “quickly” over a dozen times in A Body To Die For.

Jack Kerouac’s crutch word in On the Road is “sad,” sometimes
doubly so – “sad, sad.”

Ann Packer’s in The Dive from Clausen’s Pier
is “weird.”

SECRET AGENT words are usually unremarkable little critters. That’s why they slip under the editorial radar –

they’re not even worth noticing, much less repeating,

but there you have it, pop, pop, pop, up they come -

like that rodent in the golf course in CADDY SHACK. Readers, however, notice them, get irked by them and are eventually distracted by them,

and put down the book never to pick it back up.

Ouch.

2. PANCAKE FLAT WRITING

“I wanted to know but couldn’t understand what her face had to say, so I waited until Alice was ready to tell me before asking what she meant.”

Victor Standish is trying to say something in this sentence, but who cares? The writing is so flat, limp, listless it just dies on the page.

Talk about a "bad hair day" for prose!

You can’t fix it with a few replacement words – you have to give it depth, texture, character.

Flat writing is a sign that you’ve lost interest or are intimidated by your own novel's scope. It shows that you’re veering toward mediocrity, that your brain is fatigued,

that you’ve lost your inspiration.

So use it as a lesson.

When you see flat writing on the page, it’s time to rethink, refuel and rewrite.

3. LIFELESS, UNDEAD ADVERBS

Actually, totally, absolutely, completely, continually, constantly, continuously, literally, really, unfortunately, ironically, incredibly, hopefully, finally –

these and others are words that promise emphasis, but too often they do the reverse. They suck the meaning out of every sentence.

I defer to People Magazine for gilding its articles with empty, valueless adverbs. A recent issue refers to an “incredibly popular,

groundbreakingly racy sitcom.”

That’s tough to say even when your lips aren’t moving.

In Still Life with Crows, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

(experts at needless filler to pad a book)

describe a mysterious row of corn in the middle of a field:

“It was, in fact, the only row that actually opened onto the creek.”

 Here are two attempts at emphasis ("in fact,” “actually”), but they just junk up the sentence.

Remove them both and the word “only” carries the burden of the sentence with efficiency and precision.

(When in doubt, try this mantra:

Precise and spare; precise and spare; precise and spare.)

In dialogue, empty adverbs may sound appropriate, even authentic,

but that’s because they’ve crept into American conversation in a trendy way.

If you’re not watchful, they’ll make your characters sound wordy, childish and dated.

Look at this hilarious clunker from THE DA VINCE CODE by Dan Brown:

“Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino.”

Puke! “Almost inconceivably” –

that’s like being a little bit dead, isn't it?

Hopefully, that “enormous albino” will ironically go back to actually flogging himself while incredibly saying his prayers continually as we regretfully heave the book into the thankfully empty trash can.

4. DEADLY DIALOGUE

Be careful of using dialogue to advance the plot.

Readers can tell when characters talk about things they already know, or when the speakers appear to be having a conversation for our benefit.

You never want one character to imply or say to the other, “Tell me again, Batman: What are we doing next?”

Avoid words that are fashionable in conversation.

Ann Packer’s characters are so trendy the reader recoils. "‘What’s up with that?’ I said.

‘Is this a thing [love affair]?’ ” “We both smiled. ” ‘What is it with him?’ I said. ‘I mean, really.’ ”

Her book is only a few years old, and already it’s dated.

Dialogue offers glimpses into character the author can’t provide through description.

Hidden wit, thoughtful observations, a shy revelation, a charming aside all come out in dialogue, so the characters *show* us what the author can’t *tell* us.

But if dialogue helps the author distinguish each character, it also nails the culprit who’s promoting a hidden agenda by speaking out of character.
Setting your own high standards and sticking to them is the mark of a pro.

Be one, write like one, and don’t cheat.

5. SUFFIXES EXIST TO BE MADE EXTINCT.

Don’t take a perfectly good word and give it a new wardrobe, so it serves as something else. The New York Times does this all the time.

Instead of saying, “as a director, she is meticulous,” the reviewer will write, “as a director, she is known for her meticulousness.”

Until she is known for her obtuseness.

The “ness” words cause the eye to stumble, come back, re-read:

Mindlessness, characterlessness, courageousness, statuesqueness, preciousness –

you get the idea. You might as well pour ball bearings into your readers’ mouths.

(Not even Victor Standish would do that!)

Not all “ness” words are bad – goodness, no – (couldn't resist; LOL)

but they are all suspect.

The “ize” words are no better – finalize, conceptualize, fantasize, categorize. The “ize” hooks itself onto words as a short-cut but stays there like a parasite.

Policemen now say to each other about witnesses they’ve interrogated, “Did you statementize him?”

Some shortcut.

Not all “ize” words are bad, either, but they do have the ring of the vulgate to them –

“he was brutalized by his father,” “she finalized her report.” Just try to use them rarely.

Use them too often is like jabbing your reader in the eye repeatedly. Guess what that reader does with your book? Ouch.

(Many thanks to Pat Holt for the wisdom of these pointers.)

* IF you are naughty enough to leave me many comments, there will be MORE SINS TOMORROW, ROLAND