Art and craft

Writing is both an art and a craft.  Associating with other writers gives opportunities to practice the art and learn about the craft.  Writing groups often bring in successful writers, agents and editors to speak on a variety of topics concerning writing and publishing.  Join a group that balances art and craft with opportunities for learning about both. 

Business

Writing is also a business. A writing group allows you to network with others in the business, as well as with editors, agents and publishers.  Choose a group with a varied representation of many genres and experience levels for the best opportunities to network with other writers.  Who better to explain the points of a contract, how to work with an editor, what remainders are than other writers?  You can learn from books, or you can learn from people who have experienced the real publishing world.

Outreach

What are you doing to help others?  There can be opportunities within a writing group for give-and-take in critiquing the works of other writers, in presenting workshops and discussing books on writing.  Participate in as many of these events as you can to further your growth as a writer.  Helping others reach their goals helps you as well. Getting your name and work into the public eye is a must for every writer.  A writing group allows a safe haven to practice presentation skills, and sell a few books to friends before trying to make sales to strangers. 

Sharing success and pain

Writing groups are the perfect place to share the success of acceptance and the pain of rejection.  Family and friends may not give you a realistic appraisal of your work because of their feelings for you.  Your writing group, on the other hand, can be honest, and hopefully tactful about your work.  Other writers also better understand the ups and downs of the publishing world. When you receive a rejection, the group can help you evaluate it, put it into perspective and move on to either fix it or submit elsewhere.

Joining a writing group may be the most important decision of your writing career. Choose one that meets your needs as a writer, artist and business person, while also encouraging you to grow as a person and a writer.  Choose one that gives you opportunities as well to contribute to the successes of other writers.

Related posts:

1. The ABC’s of Writing
2. How to work with a critique group
3. The Role of Talent in Writing

There are pros and cons to each type of group.  When you are a young writer, being among other writers in your genre can teach you the unwritten rules of that genre.  However, being in a mixed group protects you from working with plot lines or characters that might be too similar to your work.  Mixed groups can give you a more varied critique of your work.

Ask about the format the group employs.  Do you bring work and read and critique it at the meeting, take others’ work home to critique between meetings, or exchange work by email or online.  How much work should you bring to the group at one time?  How often does the group meet and how much time is allotted to each member’s work? 

Participate fully.  When you ask someone to critique your work, you must be willing to look at theirs.  You can always ask whether you can visit for several meetings before sharing your work if you are nervous about being new to the group.  But once you become familiar with the format and flow of the group, you should submit your work.  Do not be concerned about someone “stealing” your idea.  It is far more likely you will gain new ideas than lose any.

Consider your expectations of the experience.  Do you want line-by-line critiques, or a general review?  Are you looking for help with plot, characterization or grammar?  Ask for what you need.  And, don’t become discouraged by what you get.  “Going easy” does not do you any favors because you want to have the perfect submission ready for an editor or agent. 

The object of receiving or giving a critique is to correct and polish the writing, not wound the writer.  Try to be honest and tactful, and give encouragement and praise whenever appropriate.  Trust your critiques to be the same, sincere and helpful, always keeping in mind that a critique is one person’s opinion.  You are still the owner and author of the work, and you can always reject the critiquer’s comments.  If you do receive a critique you don’t agree with, don’t be quick to defend your work.  Let the dust settle first, wait a few days and re-consider the comments.  If you still don’t agree, you can choose to ignore them.  However, if more than one reviewer makes the same comments, you should probably consider incorporating some changes in the work.

Working with a critique group can be a positive, growing experience helping you to perfect your work and improve as a writer.

Related posts:

1. Working with Critique Partners
2. Critique Groups
3. Advantages of joining a writing group

Florida is a land of contrasts and conflict is both its geography and its cultures.  Consider how newcomers (and most of us are transplants) arrive: one may have come in a cadillac from New Jersey while his neighbor arrived on a boat from Cuba. 

Florida settings can be ethnic, urban, subtropical, rural, metropolitan, coastal, swamp or highland.  There is constant change, a transient population, and lifestyle impact from the weather and climate.  The architecture and colors are different than anywhere in the world. 

Unique settings include:

• Miami, the Hong Kong of this hemisphere
• Everglades
• Tarpon Springs
• Sebring
• the Space Coast, the Treasure Coast and the Panhandle
• the Keys
• Daytona 500
• Orlando theme parks
• St. Augustine

 Unique events and characters include:

• plume hunters of the early 1900’s and the Audubon Society naturalists tying to preserve the nation’s first endangered species
• conflict involving the Indian River and the gill net fishing ban
• Greek sponge divers of Tarpon Springs
• indigenous Floridians
• citrus groves and ties to the Boston Irish Mafia
• shipwrecks
• Spanish explorers
• Civil War battles
• hurricanes

 Florida is a land where cultures, characters and climate conflict with plenty of room and opportunities for writers.

Related posts:

1. Writing conflict
2. 18 Tips for Writing a Successful Synopsis
3. What is setting in fiction writing?

What is the most important thing I want to accomplish this year?

What virtue do I want to develop this year?

What do I want to write this year?

What will I sell this year?

What concrete steps will I take to get my name “out there?”

What aspects of the business am I most unfamiliar with and plan to master this year?

What aspect of the craft of writing will I study and practice?  (Theme, character, plotting, pacing, style)

What book(s) will I read this year? 

What am I doing to help others toward their goals?

Related posts:

1. Goal-Setting for Writers
2. The Role of Talent in Writing
3. 6 Reasons Fiction Writers Should Write Non-Fiction

B—business.  Develop a business plan for your writing career, concentrating on present a professional product with each submission, meeting deadlines, returning calls, and operating as a business person.

C—craft.  Writing is both a business and a craft.  Make a commitment to grow as a writer by studying the craft.

D—dollar word.  Don’t use a dollar word when a nickel will do.  Studies have shown that most people read at an 8^th grade level.  Unless you are writing for academia, use simple language.

E—editor.  It is easy to think of the editor as the opponent, when you should approach an editor as a best friend, and your first customer.

F—free writing.  Free writing gets the creative juices flowing when you are facing writer’s block, and can be used as daily exercise to strengthen your writing muscles.

G—grammar.  Every business has rules and unwritten laws.  Writers have grammar.  If yours is rusty, buy a book or two for reference.

H—hardware.  Be sure you have a plan for hardware crashes and a system for regular backups.  

I—intended audience.  Identify your audience, the readers and buyers of your works in every proposal.

J—journal.  Writing in a journal can actually help keep you on target.  Use your journal to plan the day’s work, dispose of stray thoughts about the next project, and handle those doubts and fears that might interfere with your productivity.

K—keep on.  Keep on writing even when the words don’t come as fast as the rejections. 

L—literary agent.  Getting an agent can be helpful to your career, but if your agent is working out for you, having no agent can be better than having an ineffective one.

M—media. Make the most of every marketing opportunity social media has to offer.  Become a presence on Facebook, Twitter, U Tube, WordPress and Blogger.

N—network.  Network with other writers for support, encouragement and education.  Don’t let writing isolate you.

O—outline.  Create your own system of outlining a project to help you organize and direct your writing.

P—pitch.  Develop a 1-3 sentence pitch for your project and print it on the back of your business cards.

Q—query.  A query letter is first, and foremost, a business letter.  Be sure it is addressed to the correct person. Be professional, succinct and thorough.

R—rejection.  Rejections are a business decision, not a judgment on your worth as a person or a writer.  Learn from it, rework, rewrite and resubmit.

S—success. Define success for your writing career.  Do you want to write only for yourself and your family, or do you want to become the next best-seller?

T—time.  The hours don’t matter, the commitment does.  When writing becomes your priority, you will create enough time for it.

U—update. Keep your writing bio, part of your marketing plan, updated and unique to each project. 

V—voice.  Develop your writing voice, but don’t get so hung up on voice that you cannot write.  Voice is like gray hairs.  At some point, you stop plucking at it and begin embracing it as a unique part of you.

W—workshops. You can almost always find some new thought, advice or encouragement at a writing workshop.  Treat yourself to at least one per year.

X—x marks the spot.  The first rule of writing is to apply your bottom to the seat of your chair. 

Y—yesterday.  Let go of yesterday and begin fresh each day.  Grow as a writer by writing everyday.

Z—zest.  Find zest in your writing career by imagining that you will someday receive fan letters, be nominated for awards, and have an opportunity to thank your high school language arts teacher.

Related posts:

1. 6 Reasons Fiction Writers Should Write Non-Fiction
2. The ABC’s of Writing
3. 10 Tips for Succeeding as a Writer

The second great secret of writers is: it doesn’t matter whether you write fiction, non-fiction, juvenile or children’s books, magazine articles, poetry, op-eds, plays, ads, sports, greeting cards, catalogue prose or even obits.  Writing is writing.

Who you write for matters the most.  First, you must write for yourself.  You must have the same affection for your writing as for your baby, with enough business sense that you can wean the manuscript and send it into the publishing world.  You must also understand that you are writing primarily for editors, although they are not the purchasers of the works.  Editors work for publishers who supply the funds to publish your work. 

Both editors and publishers are looking for books they think will sell enough to make them money.  They are also looking for a writer who can deliver a solid product on a deadline, over and over again.  They are much more likely to hire someone with a track record of finishing a project and selling it.

You can stack the odds in your favor by establishing a professional attitude that says writing is your job.  Perhaps not your day job, primary job or even a money-making job, but a job with regular hours, a commitment to excellence and an acknowledgment that you are in it for the long haul.  Introduce yourself to others as a writer.  Make business cards and a professional, business-like heading on your letters.  Call yourself an author, or writer, and avoid cutesy titles “wordsmith.”

Be a stickler for grammar, presentation, and spelling.  You only have one opportunity to make a first impression so be sure everything you submit is your best, well-polished, professional work.  Partner with another writer to critique and edit each other’s work. Study the market; know both the publishers and the readers.  Develop a business plan for each project and a proposal for each submission.

Along the road to becoming a published writer, don’t lose sight of your customers, readers.  When you have studied the market, know what publishers are buying and readers are reading, deliver on the promise you have made to them.  There is nothing more frustrating than buying a book from your favorite author only to find it is a rehash of a previous novel, poorly written, not up to the standards of his or her other works.  Don’t slack off once you have made a name for yourself.  You have an unwritten contract with your readers to deliver each book as a fresh, new adventure in reading.

When you have mastered these lessons, you will look in the mirror one day and recognize that you have what it takes and you are indeed a writer.

Related posts:

1. On Being a Writer
2. The ABC’s of Writing
3. A Writing Business Plan

1.  Examine your goals. Goals must be specific, achievable, realistic, measurable, and timely.  You must also have some control over the outcome.  Are your writing goals realistic? Do they incorporate deadlines to keep you focused on outcomes, rather than on satisfying someone else’s deadline?  

Goals remain pipe dreams unless you have strategies to accomplish them.  Just like goals, action plans must be specific, achievable, realistic, measurable, and timely.  Goal-setting requires a commitment to change, and studies have shown making or breaking a habit requires twenty-one days. 

To readjust goals or outcomes, ask yourself why you want to be published.  Are you hoping to gain fame, make money, be able to quit your day job?  Are you building a career in writing and in it for the long haul? 

2.  Check your priorities.  There are times in every writer’s life when writing must take a back seat because of other demands on your time, energy, emotions or finances.  But, if you consistently put off writing, invent other activities to take the place of writing, fill your time with other priorities, you may need to re-order your goals and life. 

You must invest time, energy and commitment if changes are to be made in your life to have time for writing.  Time management is actually managing your workload, yourself, your goals, your priorities and your schedule.  Writing cannot take up what’s “leftover” of your day.  If you want to be a writer, you must write.  Every day.  Whether you feel like it or not.  You must treat writing as a paying job.  Work regular hours, make a commitment, try to avoid “sick days.”  Make a date with yourself, schedule regular time for writing.  

3.  Don’t allow rejections to slow you down.  Rejections are part of the business of writing, and an opportunity to change directions, improve your product, and re-submit your best effort.  Remind yourself that rejections represent a business decision about your product, not an evaluation of you as a person or as a writer.  Continue to write, change focus, work on a new project, but stay in the game.  Hemingway received more rejections than you have.

4.  Join a group of writers.  Find a support group, critique partners, a writers’ organization, or online writing buddies.  Make a pact to motivate each other, as well as holding each other accountable for completing projects, meeting deadlines and continuing to work on your writing career.  Remember, you must be present to win.  You must be present in the moment, in your business and career.  Learn to motivate yourself, then share words of encouragement with other writers.

Related posts:

1. Goal-Setting for Writers
2. Advantages of joining a writing group
3. How-to: Make Changes in Yourself

• a character’s goal,
• conflict between characters, or between a character and an external element in the plot, such as the environment or and event,
• disaster, jeopardy or risk.

A scene may be written in one paragraph, but more often, can require several pages or even an entire chapter of the book. Usually, there are no more than three scenes in a chapter. 

We have all read stories in which a scene was out of place.  Oftentimes this occurs when the first rule of scenes is broken.  A scene must advance the plot and move the story forward.  This could mean introducing a goal or conflict which interferes with the goal, then making the problems worse for the character.  

Conflict always works to move the story forward.  Conflict may occur between characters, or between a character and his environment or a character and time.  By setting up a clicking-clock, or some sort of deadline, each scene becomes crucial in beating the clock.

Use a carefully crafted scene to introduce each major character, but not too many of them in one scene.  Along with introducing a character, a writer can use a scene to develop the character’s positive characteristics and personality flaws.

A scene creates suspense that keeps the reader’s interest, and the pages turning. Give information in small bites, just enough to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy the reader.  Try to weave information into a scene so that the reader has the necessary background of the story, but never more than is needed to make sense of the current scene.  Too much backstory is an info dump that distracts from the story.

Pay attention to creating atmosphere in the scene by using the setting, weather and time, to create the desired mood.  For example, a thunderstorm may ratchet up risk or suspense;  move the clock forward to the middle of the night, and put the characters on a sailboat when the thunderstorm arises.  The scene is completely different.

Scenes are followed by a sequel scene that involves:

• showing (not telling) a character’s reaction to the scene;
• a dilemma that forces the character to choose an option, or the least bad choice, when there are several options;
• a decision that leads to both a new goal, and a new risk;

 Every scene needs to have a purpose in the story as a whole.  That purpose must be sufficient to justify the space the scene takes, otherwise, it will drag down the story and possibly lose the reader.  If a scene has no purpose, cut it out.

Related posts:

1. Template: Conflict Chart
2. Template: Creating a Scene
3. Writing conflict

1. Who is the center of the action?
2. Who has the most at risk?
3. Whose struggle toward a specific goal fuels the action of this scene?
4. Who will be most changed or moved by the outcome of this scene?

Break down the scene with this chart; uses phrases and words, rather than sentences and paragraphs.

Related posts:

1. What is a Scene?
2. Template: Conflict Chart
3. Storyboards

 NAME:                                                                                                                                         WIP Title

 THEME:

Character’s POV: (How does she see him/herself and the world around him/her)

Internal

External

Character Growth Arc:  (What change takes place within the character throughout story?)

What is the character’s Strongest trait?

Character flaw or Imperfection?

What are character’s life values?

What does he/she do when alone?

What is the most traumatic thing ever happened to the character?

Biggest Secret?

Most poignant moment?

Hobbies?

Special Abilities?

Deepest Fear?

Kind of underwear does he/she wear?

What is the worst thing that could happen to this character?

Best thing?

What is the character doing tonight?

Related posts:

1. Template: Conflict Chart
2. Template: Character Chart
3. Conflict Template