One of the things that I really enjoy, every year, is shopping for Christmas gifts. It’s a challenge to find the ‘perfect gift’ for as many people as possible, without blowing the budget. Once, I used to allocate a certain $$ amount per person, and spend up to that amount. If I found a terrific bargain, they were lucky – they got two gifts! Sometimes, the ‘perfect gift’ was a tad over budget – or even a LOT over budget. Every year, we found we were spending more on Christmas than we wanted to.

I’ve changed that now: I work on an overall budget, and focus just on getting it as right as possible for each recipient. Some gifts will be exactly right for the person, but not cost much at all… others will be more expensive. It all balances out over time.

I was thinking of the way I shop, and the way most people shop, when I wrote a recent article on Christmas gifts for writers. While I like nothing better than for a Christmas gift to be a surprise, if I know someone really, really wants something, I’ll work with them to make sure it’s just what they want – the right colour, the right size, or in the case of a writer, the right reference book or even a sign-up to a conference!

Every Christmas, people give gifts such as tickets to a popular stage show along with weekend accommodation. It’s a high-ticket item, but usually very welcome. However, many writers would prefer a ticket to a writers’ seminar or conference, along with the accommodation. Now THAT’S a gift that shows that the giver really understands the ‘wow’ factor.

Of course, not everyone can afford a gift like this. In the article I wrote, I talk about gifts that cost virtually nothing (like searching for and burning to a CD free software for writers); low-cost gifts (a writers’ market guide) and high-end gifts (a conference or new computer).

If you are giving a gift to a writer, there might be something here to spark an idea. If you ARE a writer, then why not get in early and actually TELL people that you’d love something to help you along in your writing career? At this time of year, when they’re trying to shop for a dozen or more people, friends and family are often only too glad of a helpful suggestion!

Here are the links to two related articles: one on gifts for writers, and one on some useful free software for writers.

Christmas Gift Ideas for Writers

Best Free Software for Writers

Cheers

Marg

Tags: christmas gifts for writers,free software for writers,Gifts for Writers
Categories: General Tips, Gifts for Writers, Writers Resources
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I can still remember how outraged I was when I read The Horse Whisperer and the author killed off Tom Booker. OK: in real life, heroes die; anyone can die. But I have to admit, I hate it when it happens to one of the characters I’ve identified with in a book!

This week, I read Simon Kernick’s TARGET. (Spoiler coming up here for Kernick fans who haven’t yet read the book.) This fast-paced novel had me engrossed all the way through, with the main character’s dogged efforts to find an old friend who had been kidnapped from her apartment while he was present. The book was written in the first person, so of course the reader was deep in Rob Fallon’s point of view.

I was gobsmacked when he was actually murdered by the bad guys. Yes, in the situation he found himself in, it was most unlikely that he wouldn’t have been shot. (He’d already had more narrow escapes than the average cat.) But… hey, this was the HERO. This was the first-person-viewpoint guy! The whole book had been based on his search for the people who abducted his old friend, Jenny. And the death happened several chapters before the end of the book.

But I read on anyway. Why? Because by this time, I had also identified with Tina Boyd, a maverick cop who was breaking rules right left and center to help Fallon in his quest. Tina had also been captured and was in desperate straits… I had to read on and find out how things turned out for her.

After I finished the book (since I can’t help reading like a writer) I thought about how the author made this work. Yes, I was upset that Rob Fallon was killed off… but I cared about Tina’s fate, too, so I kept reading.

The author pulled this off because he had woven in chapters from other viewpoints throughout the book (the prologue is in third person viewpoint: a corrupt businessman). The scenes for all viewpoint characters except for Tom Fallon were written in the third person.

Kernick wastes no time introducing Tina, who has problems of her own, so we’re interested in her story too.

It’s a good model for authors to follow if they MUST kill off a major character – one that readers will like. Ensure that you have one or two other characters that the reader cares enough about to keep reading – and to forgive you for the death they didn’t want!

Marg

Tags: killing main character,main character death
Categories: Plotting Your Story, characters
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Over the years, I’ve written in many different spots around the house.

For a while I had a table set up in my bedroom, with a typewriter set up on it. The table was flimsy; the typewriter was large and noisy, and the whole setup shook as I typed. But… it was a space away from the rest of the world.

Then I simply tried getting up early and writing (with pen and paper) at the kitchen table. This worked well, since (a) I’m a morning person and (b) I preferred to write my first drafts by hand at that stage, and do the first edit when I was typing up the day’s work.

Then we added an extension to the house, and I had my first office. It was tiny – barely room for a desk and a chair. It was pretty much the size of a walk-in closet – but it was mine: equipped with files and a computer.

Next came a bigger house and a parent retreat. Well, actually, it never WAS used as a parent retreat: it was a writing space right from the start. Luxury: a whole room all to myself!

That lasted a few years, until our business grew bigger and both my husband and myself were working from home. His office was in one room of the house (a spare bedroom, after one of the kids left home) and my office was still the aforementioned parent retreat. Meanwhile, the garage had never housed the car – it was a shambles. So we had a chat, restored the spare bedroom to being a spare bedroom… and converted the garage into a huge office, equipped with three computers and four workstations. That’s where I’m writing now.

Most writers have a problem at some stage finding writing space of their own. I heard someone talking about it just the other day, and that’s what prompted my most recent article on Suite101: Find a Nook to Write a Book. Now I’m looking forward to my NEXT ‘writing nook’ – which will be a workstation built into our new caravan! Yep, a writer’s nook on the road… now that should be different!

Cheers

Marg

Categories: Home Office & Organisation
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A couple of days ago, I received the latest edition of one of the writers’ magazines to which I subscribe. It’s still sitting there in its plastic wrapper, and it will probably stay in it for a few months before I throw it out, unread.

Why? Because this particular writers’ mag has themed issues. Every month, another issue comes out… and most of the content is aimed at one particular genre or aspect of writing. The problem with that is that if it is not relevant to my writing life, I feel as though it’s money wasted.

The themes might be writing for children, or indigenous writers, or romance fiction, or mysteries and crime… (these are just examples) yet it’s rare for a writer to have an interest in all of these things.

I prefer a writing magazine that has evergreen articles in each issue (such as advice on dialogue, or creating tension, or developing characters, or structuring a self-help article) that most writers can apply to their fiction or articles.

That’s why I don’t think I’ll be re-subscribing to this particular mag… not when I have to make decisions about how to divide up the money I have to invest in my writing career. There are too many other things that need to be bought (or subscribed to).

Not everyone feels this way, I know… but I have a feeling I’m not the only one who thinks like this…

Marg

Tags: Money Issues
Categories: Money - Earning it and Paying it Out
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A few weeks ago I had a chance to review someone’s work… and found that it had significant problems with pacing.

What problems? The scene simply didn’t flow. The reason was obvious: it was a scene from early in the book, and the writer was busy setting the scene – and this involved filling in lots of backstory.

Most writers are familiar with this term, but if you’re not… “backstory” is the process of filling in various details from the past. These details can pertain to the plot or the viewpoint character. The writer feels that it’s important that the reader has these details to understand where the characters are now.

Usually, it’s not nearly as important to get these details in as the writer imagines. It’s far better to ‘drip’ in details that are absolutely necessary than to ‘dump’ them all in at once.

I decided to address this in an article about backstory: How To Weave Backstory Into a Novel. You might find it handy if you’re struggling with this issue.

Marg

Tags: Pacing
Categories: General Tips, Technique
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Are you one of those writers who finds that the problem is not so much getting ideas, but keeping them at arm’s length so you can keep working on the current novel?

If you have two or three novels going at the same time (plus maybe a number of smaller projects) here are some tips:

1. Keep an ideas/characters notebook handy, or a computer file that sits on your desktop. If you suddenly get a great idea, make a note of it so you know it won’t get away, then go back to the work in progress.
2. If you have several novels on the go, then pick one to focus on. (The other one – or others – aren’t going anywhere. If you have a ‘dry day’ on the main novel, you can take a break by going back to the others – but set a time limit. Tell yourself you can only do this for a day, or two days. Then you have to go back and solve any existing problems with the first one.
3. If the problems on the first novel become a major roadblock, organise a session with some other writers to talk over the problem, or send it to a critique partner online. If necessary (and if you are REALLY committed to finishing it) then pay for a professional critique.

Whatever you do, resist dumping one novel to start another just because you hit a rocky patch. That happens with every novel, and it will happen with the bright sparkling new ones too… before too long, they will become ‘old’. There’s a real danger here of never actually finishing a book… and therefore never getting published.

Marg

Categories: General Tips, Plotting Your Story, Uncategorized
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Over the years I’ve found that one of the things that trips up many writers is the punctuation of dialogue. This involves not only the basic punctuation (which symbols to put before the final quotation marks; where the speech tags go; which bits go inside the quotation marks and which bits go outside) but other issues like how to show the reader the rhythm of speech.

I’ve written an article on this for Suite101- 5 Tips on Punctuation for Dialogue – and I plan to follow it up with more in a series on punctuation of dialogue – the more subtle aspects.

Let me know if you have any particular problems with this aspect of writing!

Marg

Tags: grammar and punctuation,punctuating dialogue
Categories: grammar and punctuation
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The past few weeks I’ve been busier than ever – partly because I’m trying some new opportunities on for size; partly because we’ve had three family birthdays within a week and part of the clan visiting from interstate.

All in all… it’s hard to get some of the writing done. I think most writers feel more natural WRITING rather than dictating, but I know that some writers have seen their productivity soar when they started to use a speech recognition program. Dragon Naturally Speaking seems to be the one that is streets ahead of anyone else (I tried the version that came with Vista and even after some ‘training’ of the software, the results were laughable.)

However, Dragon Naturally Speaking is supposed to work with a high degree of accuracy straight out of the box, and even better if you put in the recommended 20 minutes to train the software for your voice patterns. I have seen some disagreement over what kind of microphone is best to use.

In this case, I’d love some feedback from anyone who HAS used it (even better, is using it on a regular basis). Care to share the benefits and pitfalls, if any?

Marg

Tags: speech recognition software
Categories: Home Office & Organisation
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Quite often, when I’ve searched for information on a certain topic, I’ve found an answer on Suite 101. Last time I was there (on a topic completely unrelated to writing) I stopped for a while and took another look at their site… and discovered that it’s not a bad way to (a) get some writing credits and (b) earn an income.

If you want to earn money as a freelance writer, you can work full-time for sites like guru.com and elance.com – but the hardest part is starting out, when you have no writing credits. With a bit of perseverance and willingness to take a few low-paying jobs to start with, you can soon overcome this problem; but it certainly helps if you can point clients to previously published articles on a site like Suite 101.

Here’s a quote from the site, in response to the question: “How Much Money Will I Make?” 

“It’s difficult to provide static figures about how much revenue writers earn at Suite101; there are a number of variables that can affect your earnings. To give you an idea of the revenue range, some top writers earn over $1000/month. Other writers may earn $30/month but it depends on the popularity of your articles and their searchability online.  Suite101 provides tips, tricks and education tools for better search engine (SEO) results. Write well, write often – that’s the secret to success at Suite101.

Be professional, be patient and be productive; it can take time to generate the income levels you are expecting. Keep in mind, too, that if you were to write 100 articles for Suite101 and you never wrote an article for us again, you would continue to earn residual income from those articles.”

If this interests you, you can find out more at Suite101 Freelance Writing Jobs

Cheers
Marg

Tags: earn money writing,freelance writing jobs,Suite101
Categories: Freelance Writing, e-Publishing
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While I don’t advocate overt spying on other people, I’ve often said that you can gain a lot from eavesdropping on conversations in a public place. This can give you an insight into the rhythms of speech and character quirks.

Here are three snippets of conversation that I’ve overheard in the past few days, whilst holidaying in the tropics:

1. Overheard on the wharf at a large marina (a young man in his twenties, astride a bicycle, had stopped to talk to a barefoot woman in shorts): He said: “… so I thought: maybe I’m not the no-talent monster I thought I was…”

2. Overheard at the Sunday markets (a family group was sitting behind the canopy that sheltered the racks of clothes I was browsing). A male voice said: “He’s just lost his wife, so he’ll need some time to grieve. We’ll give him about six months and then we’ll find him a girlfriend.”

3. Overheard at our holiday apartment. We were sitting at a table in a small outdoor area, accessed through sliding doors from our room, and separated from similar outdoor areas by a half-wall. Outside the next-door unit, a man was talking loudly (and at length) on his mobile phone. Suddenly there came an irritated female voice from the outdoor area on our OTHER side: “To the man using the mobile phone: could you be QUIET, please?”

(Gulp. Phone rage! We sat there tensely wondering if he’d appear at our table ready to throw the phone at us… )

All three of those overheard snippets had me wondering what could have happened leading up to the conversation or what might have happened afterwards.

If you carry a notebook with you (as I do!) capture these snippets. You may never use them – but on the other hand, you might find them useful for a scene in your novel, or for a writing exercise.

Categories: General Tips
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