I Dare You To ...

Be honest today. About yourself. No holding back.

Be honest to others, using tact as needed.

I've said this before, and I'll probably keep saying it forever. I'm an author, a blogger, a copy editor. Communication is key. Honest communication is the best. How can we make an informed decision if we don't have all the details? How can we have a truly healthy and rewarding relationship (whether as friends or as coworkers or as parents or as spouses) if both parties are withholding key elements about themselves?

Granted, even when our hearts are in the right place and even when we communicate honestly, our message can be totally distorted on both the giving end (wrong choice of words maybe?) and on the receiving end (hot buttons pushed maybe?). Hopefully further communication can clear up that disconnect. But also remember: their response is more telling about them and their beliefs than it is about you and what you said.

Talk about a tell. That will give you further insight into that person. Use that information wisely.

Welcome to My World, Readers and Authors, Where Every Day Is a Saturday

Denise Barker
Freelance US Copy Editor
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=denise+barker
https://www.deniseannbarker.com

Fifty-Three Ways to Strengthen Your Writing

I found a similar article of fifty-two ways to change your life, torn from a 1996 magazine and, although all but one had already been incorporated into my years, I kept that single page on my desk.  Tempting me.  Calling me.

So this post is where it led me. At first, while only at item twentyish, I was wondering if I would make a full list of fifty-two points so that my readers could take one to focus on weekly--even out of order or repeating a beloved one for several weeks.  But, being the novelist that I am and not a flash-fiction author, I made it one beyond, to number fifty-three.  Enjoy!

53 Ways to Strengthen Your Writing

1. Study poetry, Rumi, Mother Goose, Psalms, song lyrics, whatever your predilection. It teaches tight writing.
2. Study Shakespeare.  He understood human failings. Great for plots, drama, conflict. Plus he had humor and fantasy woven in, to remind us about the lighter things in life.
3. Study the Bible. I maintain all the plot variations are found therein. On the flip side, don't feel you have to steal from a soap opera and have every malady and mishap known to man happen to your poor heroine.  Look at Nora Roberts.  She writes about everyday people, living everyday lives, for the most part. Unless you ARE writing a soap opera.  Or a spoof of a soap opera.  Then go right ahead.
4. Study the masters. Get out your old high-school recommended reading list and set out to read at least ten this year. Better yet, read one every week.
5. Study your mentors, your heroes.  Nora Roberts aka J.D. Robb is one of mine. It is so very hard for me to disconnect from her storytelling long enough to study her art of writing behind it. I found two short stories of hers for free on her website and, since they are only four or five pages long, maybe I can be objective enough with them. For now, I'm just assigning emotions to each paragraph. How I feel when I read her words, and specifically which ones evoked which reaction.
6. Study another language. Nothing gets your understanding of root words so well . . . rooted (sorry!) than a look at Latin.
7. Subscribe to receive a word-of-the-day email.  Or just read a new one in the dictionary. It helps us authors with our fresh writing to find that unique word and implement it.  Gets us away from the stale and hackneyed.  The cliché.
8. Study the thesaurus as well.  Granted those wonderful words I find other authors using are never found within synonyms in the dictionary or the thesaurus. 
9. Keep a list of these great words.  Study them.  Are they nouns made into verbs?  Are they a great updated twist on an old phrase? Do you prefer similes and metaphors to other rhetorical devices? Find those literary tricks and locate your particular faves.
10. Study rhetorical devices. I still do not know their names, but I know one when I see one. It adds a certain literary depth to the work.
11. Take writing classes.  Online. At your local community college.  At FunEd.  Or just via reading one of the many good writing books (I've recommended several on this blog in earlier posts). Take good notes. Type them up.  Distill them to the Top 10. Keep them handy on your writing desk.
12. Like Tony Robbins said, he tries to find one good thing from every seminar he attends, and I presume book he reads and people he meets.  Do the same.  Keep track of that one great thing you learned. Add it to your Best of the Best notebook.
13. People-watch.  Wherever. The mall. The coffee shop.  In line at the market. I've overheard some great conversations that are stockpiled to be scenes in future books.  Plus you get exposed to the rhythm of different speakers.
14. Speaking of rhythm, play one of your all-time favorite songs.  Close your eyes.  Without retyping the lyrics, write what you feel.  Define the emotions that song ignites.
15. While your eyes are closed, sit, evaluate.  What do you smell? What do you hear? Underneath those layers, what else is there to smell and hear that you are so accustomed to that you overwrite those images as "old" and "already noted"? Touch the items on your desk. Note the feel of familiar items. Taste your coffee.  Really taste your water. Take notes.
16. Change locations.  Maybe sit outside.  Note the main thing you see, hear, feel, taste, touch. What emotion pulls at you as you focus on these five things?  I'm a true believer of intuition. So be sure to add this sixth sense to your writing where needed, too.
17. Make a list of foods that evoke "home" to you.
18. Make a similar list of smells.  Like cinnamon on the peach cobbler in the oven.  Or the smell of potpourri simmering on the stove. Or maybe just a chicken roasting, or steaks on the grill. It could be the wonderful smells of coffee and bacon being cooked outside on a campfire.
19. From memories or old pictures or magazine pages or Pinterest boards (yours and others), gather a selection of homes that immediately bring a story to your mind--one you feel compelled to share.
20. Repeat the preceding item but focused on people--characters you want to live in your future books. They can be actors or famous people of old or that conglomeration in your mind.  Find pictures that best match your mental image. Name them. Set them up on a Pinterest board.
21. Do nonwriting things you enjoy.  Gotta fill your reservoir with a variety of data to pull from as you write. Plus gives your life balance.
22. Take a day trip.  Get out of your normal environment.  Mix things up.  Especially if you are butt-in-chair hours upon hours for days upon days.
23. Enjoy other art forms.  Go to a museum. If you find a particular painting speaking to you, whispering a secret to be shared, go home, print it out to remind you.  Set it by your computer.
24. Take a painting class. It gives you insight into how an artist would see a place, a person, a thing. Should help you, the author, in expressing same on the white page.
25. Attend to the comfort of your workspace.  If you are at all like me, comfort does not rate high on your daily radar either.  Yet, again, if you are at all like me, and tied for hours to your computer, then we should address that matter.  I particularly like my keyboard tilted via the little prongs at the back and placed squarely in front of my screen.  Do y'all remember that cute scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love. where the son is at work with the mother and she's typing at a ninety-degree position away from her monitor?  Who does that?  Just seems weird to me.  But if it works for you, set up your station that way.  I'm just saying, pay attention.  Fix it.  You're the boss now. Don't do it the way it was always done back there at those corporate 9-to-5 jobs.  Do it better.  Do it personally.
26. Do what you love. Write the genre you read on your days off or at night to unwind.
27. I cannot work in a cluttered environment.  Or let me reword that:  I prefer not to work in a cluttered environment.  (I am tending to all that, just in fifteen-minute increments.) Make your office a haven, a place you feel relaxed and yet encouraged.  Soothed and still suffused.
28. Research. Doesn't need to entail actual travel for those of us still money-challenged. This can be via books alone or simply the internet (just carefully choose the more authorized site to cull your intel from). Select topics that interest you.  Make a list.  Keep one by your computer.  Add a subject matter that smiles at your heart as you are reading through blogs during the day or your emails or from whatever source.
29. Keep lists. Aside from Pinterest boards or dream boards or white boards or spreadsheets or software programs, I like hard-copy lists. A backup for when the internet is down or the electricity is off. Make one for people--list archetypes you prefer to write about. Further characterize them.  These adjectives will help you not only describe them in your next book, but can be used like pepper on white sauce to further enhance your story, to perpetuate your theme of the bad-boy-gone-good hero or the wrong-side-of-the-tracks misunderstood rebel.
30. Still within the People subject, make a list of careers.  I am particularly bored with the lawyer and doctor themes still found in romances even today.  Since I'm a Nora fan, I love her use of unusual careers for her main characters in  her books.  Like in Chasing Fire, there is this one scene that is branded into my memory about "shake and bake." It will never be about hamburger anymore to me.
31. While still on the career angle, add an array of adjectives that describe the job.  The good.  The bad. The minute. You can use those descriptors to not only define the main character's workspace, but him and his life. Like Nora Roberts did with one of her books about a magician.  I detected the "magic" theme coloring a lot of her choices in adjectives.
32. Character sheets.  I'm not into all that history-taking-notes mind-set about where they went to high school and their hobbies.  Unless this IS a story about them attending high school and their after-school hobbies further the plot. I'm more into emotions and themes, so I gravitate toward the mind-mapping exercise, labeling our characters with four/five words as to what archetype they represent, what major emotion they portray within this particular story, etc.  (See previous posting about Mind Mapping--it's just great.)
33. Places.  Again, make a list of spots you'd love to see first-hand. Search the Net. Gather info, tidbits, details. Attach some wonderful scenes to a Pinterest board for handy reference. On your written sheet, maybe add in what words come to mind when you think of each place.  Like Paris may evoke love. Italy, food. France, wines, farmers' markets.  Whatever it is, spell it out.  Use it to add color and depth to your tale.
34. Concrete nouns. Yes, use "Corvette" instead of "car" to seat the correct vision into your reader's mind.  If you use "car" but are thinking "Corvette" and your fan is thinking "sedan," miscommunications will follow.  Like for instance, why the hero cannot give a lift to two buddies.  It is not that he is rude or insensitive or uncaring or selfish.  There is simply no room for three grown men in a hardtop Vette. 
35. Active verbs.  Make yourself a note to watch for is, was, and other forms of To Be verbs. Rework the sentence to delete them whenever possible.
36. Watch for useless words.  Example: he strolled leisurely . . . 
37. Watch for repetitive words.  You know what yours are.  (Two of mine are so, just.)
38. Listen to your CP group.  Find your weak area and particularly watch for it.  Now this does NOT mean incorporating every change they suggest into your writing.  It is still YOUR writing and should reflect that.  Like me, for instance. I write conversationally. Therefore, a lot of my "sentences" are not fully formed but are truly phrases.  I'm not changing that.  Now I will change it when I start too many with "And" or "But." 
39. Know when to break the rules--but not so that you lose your reader. With each story, you are in effect writing a term paper, selling your reader on following--and agreeing--with each progressive step. You make an illogical leap and your readers are no longer "your readers" but "your debaters" having put down your book to go consult an encyclopedia on a point or to rant to their spouse. Not that you cannot propose an alternate viewpoint.  You just better make dang sure that your point is both valid and believable, or you knock your reader so far out of  your story that they don't come back.  Have no desire to. Ever.
40. KISS.  Yes.  Keep it simple, sweetie.  Make your sentences clear.  I'm not talking about writing to an eighth-grade level either.  I don't care what the statistics may show on that front.  Look at the J.K. Rowling fanatics.  In a news spot showing her readers waiting for one of her final releases in the Harry Potter saga, I saw three-year-olds reading her book.  So don't tell me to dumb-down my writing. You can use big words and even rarely used ones in such a way that, in context, you will effectively communicate with your reader.
41. As both an author and a freelance copy editor, I know the difference between infer and imply.  As an author, you should too.  You are called a "wordsmith" for a reason.  Words are your tools.  Use them wisely.
42. Grammar rules help your reader to fully receive the vision in your mind.  Follow them.  I find that most blog errors (yes, posted by authors) fail to properly communicate because the bloggers do not understand the why and how of punctuation marks. Each one serves a much-needed purpose.
43. List of themes (like "love conquers all" and "good wins out over evil" or just standing up for the underdog or being honest, etc.). Decide on yours for each novel and as you create each scene. Again, go with what interests you.  You aren't out to make every person on the planet your reader.  I firmly believe that each author has their own following.  It's just a matter of waiting long enough for the two to connect.
44. List of great first lines. Find them--at the library, at the bookstore, in your own personal collection. Write them down.  Study them.  See if there is a pattern to them that calls out to you.  Then take that pattern and tweak it for your use.  In your books.
45. List of great hooks that ended chapters. Study them. See what would work in your particular chapter.  NO PLAGIARISM WHATSOEVER ALLOWED!
46. List of taglines/loglines that move you.  This is my newest focus in the marketing arena.  It's free.  Surely us creative types can come up with a twenty-five-words-or-less slogan to describe our tome.
47. List of all-time favorite movies.  Find out what they share in common.  That's your writing niche.
48. Study favorite movies and make a list of the 120 beats, or 90 or however long corresponds with the length of the movie.  I find some movies are more cohesive than the books they started with.  Plus I'm a NaNoWriMo winner and I begin my process by basically writing down dialogue and actions--the mainstay of a screenplay.  With later versions, I add in a little description.  (I'm not a description fan.  In J.D. Robb's futuristic police series--where it is necessary that she detail this made-up world for us--she doesn't use a whole paragraph to describe her NYC of 2058.  I don't think she uses a whole sentence without adding in some activity. Atlas Shrugged, which has got to be my number one favorite novel of all time, has that forty-page-or-so monologue toward the end of the book.  With my ten readings or more, I have never read that portion completely. Never will. Now if you want to summarize it for me, giving me the highlights on one page or in one paragraph, I may read that.)
49. Make a list of your favorite people.  Break them down into a series of qualities about them that you love.  Incorporate some into your hero/heroine.
50. Conversely, make a list of the people who repeatedly push your hot buttons.  Jot down the qualities that irritate you endlessly, forever, without fail. Use a little of this for your contagonist.  Use a lot for your villain.
51. Study archetypes. They can help you label your characters so each one has representation.  I read somewhere that we humans are all the eight archetypes combined in our various and unique ways.  Which explains why in some things/areas we'll take the lead, while in others we procrastinate.
52. Study Campbell's twelve-step hero's journey.  I'm not a plotter.  But as my most recent CPs have convinced me, I may be a hybrid.  I have nothing written down, but yet I already have a scene in mind for probably six or seven of the main plot points.  Now, they may change as I begin to write.  But you gotta start somewhere, you know?  
53. START.  I feel I write better today than in my twenties.  It is like anything.  You cook more, you are bound to become a better cook.  So . . . write.  Keep on writing.  Even J.K. Rowling's world-famous series is said to show a progression in her writing skills from book one to book seven.  You do the best you can at that moment.  Tell the story of your heart.  Write for you.  THAT you can control.  You cannot control your readers.  The people who don't like your stuff are not your intended audience.

As always, take what resonates, toss the rest and keep on writing! Love you, guys!

Denise Barker, author + blogger +

Freelance Copy Editor, http://bit.ly/freelanceCE

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About These Grammar Lessons . . .

I am a freelance copy editor for a large New York City publishing house and have been for more than three years and one-hundred-and-three manuscripts.  I have grown in my knowledge with almost each project because there are over a gazillion possible sentence constructions which stretch the application of the grammar rules as set forth in the nearly one-thousand-page Chicago Manual of Style aka the CMS.

So if my lessons within this blog post seem rudimentary, they are.  In my decades of reading books, I've found wonderful stories that were marred by simple words being misspelled or the failure to get across a thought or the meaning within its sentences that led to reader confusion.  Each detracts from the pure beauty of the storytelling.

A couple points come to mind at this juncture.  One, I believe it was Michael Jordan who practiced the basics of basketball for hours, even after he was setting new records in the sport.  Two, I read somewhere that our writing (whether commercial or corporate, I do not remember) should be addressed to an eighth-grade comprehension level.  That's sad in my opinion.  How true it is, I do not know.   But both of these examples show the need to look at the basics of our communication.

Thus my recent grammar lessons.

Plus, we have a flux of Indie-publishing authors and I want to simplify our complex grammar rules for them.  Hey, if I had had someone who could reduce the 956-page CMS to the usable nuts and bolts, I would have loved it!  I've learned through copyediting, which sees the minute details, amid a novel's story world, which sees the big picture.  Those little things help explain the larger message for a particular piece of fiction.  That is where I began to notice things that were not necessarily spelled out within the rules but were put into practice each time.

It is all about communication.  Getting the author's thoughts down into words which convey the right mental image within their reader's mind.  It is harder than you think.  Telling someone seems so much easier, what with our hand gestures, our facial expressions, our tone of voice, a laugh here and there.  Translating that to paper is tough, as any writer knows.

So maybe this is one of my life's purposes--to be able to encapsulate our convoluted English language setup so that it makes sense and is easy to remember and works within all those various reincarnations (those exceptions I mentioned above).  To make what may seem dull and boring, and with so many rules, into something fun and interesting and understandable.  To share my love of words and my love of the written word with others.  That is my goal.

The Dreaded "Final Edit"

As I stated in an earlier post, I am doing a Final Edit on my debut novel.  Being a workaholic and a perfectionist, I want my book to be the best it can be.  In light of the current changes in publishing, I want my book to be the best it can be--especially since I will be releasing it as an Indie-published e-book.  As an author, I want my book to be the best it can be because it carries not only my name but also my words, my thoughts, my philosophy on life.

But I was having no fun editing with all this pressure.

I had to remind myself of a very famous writer with her seven-book series whose later books show her growth as an author.

We should all show our growth as authors.

Yet, her books were published and enjoyed by millions before she reached increased levels of perfection.

Kind of like a physician's practice (emphasis on the word "practice") connotes a lifetime of learning his art, so does it with us creators using our imagination and words to tell a tale with the art of written communication.

Plus, isn't this daily road trip on my way to my goals supposed to be fun?

Here's the distillation of these random musings.  I am not perfect (Gasp!) and should relax a little--hard for us workaholics to do.  Instead of waiting to publish when I have studied and learned all that is out there, not to mention implementing the entirety of that knowledge, I have realized that I would never be published in my lifetime.  No one would with that criteria.  Obviously, this does not mean putting up slop to sell.  I take great pride in my work. 

Besides there are those brilliant authors who break the rules and win over the readers and critics alike, all the while presenting their storytelling in such a way so as to effectively share it with us all.

So why take decades to study these "rules" if you can be persuasive with the written word without them?  I'm reminded of that oft repeated axiom to stop the research, stop the studying, and just act.  Good advice.

I'm taking it.

Again, I'm not advocating to ignore the Web11 spellings and definitions of words, nor the standard English grammar usages that encourage the art of successful communication.  I am saying there is no "perfect" time and I will yet to be perfect myself, so we should take the sum of our knowledge AT THIS POINT and use it wisely.  Go for it!
 
And for those who are interested, I'm enjoying my process so much more now.  With my new improved mind-set (yes, this is the Webster's 11th Edition way to spell it), I have worked through the first fifty-four pages of my two-hundred-twenty-page novel.  I'm not sure how many rounds I will need to polish my work, but I'm feeling my way to finding out.  For this book.  I'm sure each one poses its own set of guidelines and needs.

After all, I am a work in progress myself, just like my books. 

Writing and Dating Should Be All This and More

First, it is all about effective communication.

Second, it should be based on the internal guidance system within us, not our outward beauty, money, position in life, career, clothes, car, etc.

Third, we should be having fun--without intentionally hurting someone else--while engaged in both.

Communication.  We communicate with so much more than our words.  Our accent can tell where we were born perhaps.  Our clothes tell whether we are the staid, serious type or more flamboyant.  Whether we are blue collar or white collar--Duh!  Our body language may contradict our words.  Our actions may contradict our words.  Yet both opposing factors tell their own story.  We haven't even gotten into the underlying implications surrounding wordplay, tone, pitch, overall delivery.

Successful writing depends on the author effectively communicating with the reader.  Successful dating depending on the parties effectively communicating with each other.

Values.  As for the outward versus inward qualities that we all possess, the rules we live by (the internal compass) can cause so many divorces from marriages based on good looks, or money, or whatever gets ranked in magazines (the external container and circumstances).  Like the man who thinks it is okay to cheat on his wife, yet hides it from her.  If it were truly alright with wifey, why not be upfront?  Even if I were married to the Most Beautiful Person of 2011 or the Sexiest Person Alive, it would be over the nanosecond after I heard of any adultery.

These attitudes deliver a punch within our writing too.  Instead of finding that audience based on age or income, find them based on mutual mores.  Fidelity, honesty, hard-working, loving, sharing.  Or if you write about the world of drugs and human trafficking, obviously justice, the law, maybe even revenge are the shared values.  Work them to find the audience craving these stories.

Joy.  And finally, yes, we should all be having more fun (but not at the expense of others).  Our days should be filled with more joy.

So don't be so hard and critical of yourself and your writing.  I am a FLYLady subscriber (see www.FLYLady.net and sign up for her daily digest of inspirational messages and instructions) which is a free website devoted deep down to self-confidence, self-respect.  It also will help you get your house clean and organized in baby steps.  One thing she advocates is to work in fifteen-minute spurts:  kitchen, bathroom, office, for example.  The final fifteen minutes is for you.  What a great idea!

If you are of the puritan work ethic I was raised in, the thought But I can't play until the work is done still shouts at me in my brain.  It is getting weaker though, and I'm learning to ignore it more.  After all, with my workaholic tendencies and drive to accomplish and succeed, there is always more work to be done.  However, I take time to play more now.  My career change allowed that in grand part.  My new attitude encourages it in a smaller fashion.  Together:  I definitely have more joy and happiness in my days.

So should you.