BLOG
Sound-off Saturday: Salt City Steamfest
BY PENNY FREEMAN
We’ve just returned from Salt City Steamfest, where the X-team provided two panels. Our authors, Scott E. Tarbet, Alyson Grauer, Candace J. Thomas, Sarah Hunter Hyatt, and Jay Barnson, presented “Writing Steampunk: Tropes and Tips” to a standing-room-only crowd.
The following day, Management (consisting of Penny Freeman and McKenna Gardner), backed by the above authors, in addition to Sarah Seeley, presented “Steaming Into Print: How to Get Your Fiction Published”.
Final verdict: great fun was had by all, we met lots of fantastic Steampunk folk, and even sold a few books. This was a great warm-up for Teslacon in November.
Next up:
Scott Tarbet will sit on several panels on A Steampunk Convention with a Twist in Grand Junction, Colorado, September 26-28, 2014. They will include “Victorian vs Wild West”, “Steampunk in Other Lands”, “More Human Than: Cyborgs and Robots”, “Small Press vs Big Five”, and “Making Combat Realistic.”
Teslacon in Madison, WI, November 6-8, 2014, where The X will present “Incredible Journey: Surviving the Editorial Process”. Tweet That In addition to providing a sneak peek of her upcoming novel On the Isle of Sound and Wonder, Alyson Grauer will present “Sound & Wonder: Steampunking Shakespeare In Fiction”.
Finally, Steamathon I in Las Vegas, sponsored by Doc Phineas T. Kastle, February 6-8, 2015. This one promises to be lots of fun, with the biggest gathering of X-Team members ever. Watch our blog and Facebook for more details.
Editor’s Notes: Betas Wanted
BY JESSICA SHEN
How to Choose Good Beta Readers.
First, what exactly is a beta reader? A beta reader is typically a non-professional reader who assists you in polishing your manuscript before you submit it for publication. You could consider them your first line of defense. They will typically look for spelling and grammatical errors, plot holes, etc. Think, editor-lite.
A good beta reader can be an invaluable resource; they can help you catch glaring errors before you pass them on to a potential publisher, errors that could mean the difference between acceptance and rejection.
Now that we’ve got that covered, let’s discuss some qualities you should look for in a good beta reader. In no particular order:
- They should be someone in your target audience. Failing that, they should at least be familiar enough with the target audience enough to know what they like.
- In a similar vein, they should be someone who reads the genre you’re writing.
- They are not afraid to give their opinion. A beta reader exists to help you polish your manuscript—what help are they if all they will tell you is how great your story is, without giving any meaningful critique? And yes, every first draft will have SOMETHING wrong with it.
- They are writers. Writers understand writers, and will usually have some experience with you’re going through.
- Conversely, they are regular readers/non-writers! They just plain enjoy a good story for what it is, without necessarily worrying about voice or theme or symbolism.
- They’ve never read your manuscript before. The point of having a beta reader is to give you crucial outside perspective—if they’re already familiar with your work, some part of that outside perspective is already lost.
- They have some familiarity with the publishing industry. This will most likely be the most difficult quality to find, but can be very important. Someone who has worked in publishing before can give you an idea of what publishers are looking for, and what they’re not interested in.
If your story relies on some specialized experience—for example, a foreign language, a foreign location, deals with any kind of science, etc.—it can be very helpful to have a reader who is familiar with any of these things, and can give you guidance as to whether or not your usage is realistic.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should give you an idea of the type of person that you want to look for. There is obviously some conflicting advice in the list above, but ideally, you will have more than one beta reader. The more people you have looking at your manuscript, the better—but be discerning about your choices. Two to four solid beta readers with different combinations of the above qualities will do you a world of good.
Now, let’s talk about who NOT to ask to be a beta reader. You may have the immediate inclination to ask your friends, relatives, or coworkers—and they won’t necessarily be bad choices. However, one of the most important aspects of the beta reader is their ability to give you an honest critique—without worrying about damaging their personal relationship with you. To that end, first look outside of your inner circle.
If you are really unable to find someone, only then should you turn to people who are close to you, and make sure they are someone who not only has the ability to give you that honest critique, but who you can accept an honest critique from.
If you have decided to look outside of your immediate personal network—good for you! But where should you start? Check in with any local writers groups, or perhaps attendees from a writing class or seminar you’ve attended. You can also find readers on Facebook or Twitter (or even LinkedIn) by checking out fan groups for authors who write in the same genre as you. And, of course, writers’ forums can be a great resource. It also helps if you offer to be a beta reader in return!
So now, let’s fast forward. You’ve chosen your fabulous beta readers, they’ve provided you with invaluable critiques, and consequently, your manuscript has been accepted for publication! Woo! But wait—let’s take a quick breather, first.
Your beta readers have served their purpose—they’ve helped you get your foot in the door. But your manuscript is by no means completed. You may have written and rewritten your story many times before submitting it, but this is the first time that your publisher/editor has read it before—which effectively makes it your first draft. You’ve jumped the first hurdle, your beta readers giving you that extra boost along the way. Now, it’s time to pass the torch to your editors, who will really help make your story shine.
Jessica Shen lives, works, and edits from her home in northern California. Kingdom City: Resurrection by Ben Ireland, was released in February 2014. Her latest project, Vanguard Legacy: Reflected by Joanne Kershaw, was released in March 2014.
Jessica’s next project, On The Isle of Sound and Wonder, a Steampunk fantasy by Alyson Grauer, is slated for release in November 2014.
Editor’s Notes: We know. You could care less.
BY MERILYN OBLAD
All right friends, it’s time to pull up a chair and listen to some tough love for writers. I’m going to talk about the problem with dismissing mistakes and constructive criticism too easily. Mistakes jar a reader out of a story, whether they’re small errors like typos or the wrong homonym, or large mistakes like faulty plot construction or poor character development. What this boils down to is either lazy or bad writing.
An author’s job is to tell a story in such a way that they draw the reader in, keep them there for the duration of the story, and give them something to take away from the story once it’s done. Mistakes (careless, accidental, or blindly stubborn) cause a reader to stop and mentally step away from the story. Frequent mistakes make it hard for the reader to continue to follow the story. Some of these are purely accidental (typos and such), some are just careless writing (not following grammar rules when you should), and some are sheer stubbornness (insisting that parts of the story are strong when they’re really weak and calling it “voice” or “artistic interpretation”).
Accidents you just have to deal with. Read carefully, get someone else to read carefully, make sure your grammar- and spellchecks haven’t been disabled, and if you’re really worried about it, go old school on yourself and read the story out loud like you’re in first grade again, following along with your finger. You’ll be surprised how well this works. If you can’t make a sentence make sense when spoken out loud, you can be sure it doesn’t make sense while being read internally. Reading aloud also helps you puzzle out how to improve a passage. Go forth and try.
The stubbornness factor (a.k.a. bad writing or big mistakes) you need to work out with your editor. Try it their way. See if their advice and direction doesn’t make for a stronger story. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t, but do give their guidance a try before you dismiss it because they “just aren’t getting” your story. Swallow your pride and don’t automatically assume your editor doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
If you don’t have an editor, then find yourself a friend or acquaintance who will give you an honest opinion and not just support you because they want to be nice and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Nice is nice, but it won’t help you get published if your story’s weak. Let constructive criticism help you grow as a writer, because that’s what it’s intended to do for you.
That leaves careless mistakes (a.k.a. lazy writing). You’re busy trying to weave your story and you’re not paying attention to details, substituting words that are homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently), ignoring basic rules of grammar that shouldn’t be ignored, or repeating yourself too much. Now, breaking grammar rules can be quite (not quiet!) effective (not affective!), but you have to know them before you can break them.
Here are some of my grammatical and writing pet peeves:
- misuse of apostrophes
- intermixing there, their, and they’re
- substituting words that look similar but are wildly different like definitely and defiantly
- constructing an impossible timeline
- and the one that makes me want to beg for a fork so I can jab my eye out: using “could care less” when you actually mean “couldn’t care less”
I have to stop and explain the last one. If you could care less, that means you care to some degree, great or small. It might only be a little bit of caring, but it still exists. If you couldn’t care less, that means you are out of caring. Your care-o’-meter is flat-out empty. There is nothing left to even remotely register your interest or concern. So don’t tell me you could care less when you clearly couldn’t.
Here are some other quick fixes: nix the double hads and thats. If you’re really stuck on two hads or two thats and just can’t see your way around not phrasing it that way, then put that section of story away and come back to it later. You’ll probably see that one had or that works great. (Sometimes you really do need two, but this is rarer than you might think.) And avoid “off of,” please. You don’t need the “of.” At all. So drop it. Just put the phrase down and walk away, because it’s wrong.
Why am I issuing all this blunt advice? Because I want you authors to succeed and grow in the craft of writing. Mistakes mean fewer sales. Seriously. The more you drive a reader from the story, the less likely it is that same reader will want to come back and give your stories another try. Plus, they’re less likely to recommend your books to their friends. In fact, they’re likely to actively NOT recommend your books.
So please don’t stomp off in an offended huff, just go back and fix the mistakes. Make your stories memorable for the amazing tales they are and not because you messed up the telling. Well-written stories will entrance your readers and keep them coming back for more.
Want an example? Look at Katherine Kurtz. Her first few books were okay, but lacked depth and detail. Her characters were flat and hard to relate to, but she had a great idea for a story. She just wasn’t telling it as well as she could. Fast forward through her career and you see her abilities as a writer grow exponentially until a fellow author gave the highest compliment I’ve ever seen of any one writer’s work: “ an incredible historical tapestry of a world that never was and of immensely vital people who ought to be.” What higher praise can be offered an author than that he or she created so rich and detailed a world and characters that they should be real? That’s what we’re aiming for here: immensely vital characters in compelling stories. This is what happens when you weed out the mistakes.
Or, to put it another way:
Thank you, Mr. Yankovic, for putting it so succinctly.
A lover of all things historical, MeriLyn Oblad (pronounced Mary Lynn) has both a BA and MA in History, the former from the University of Nevada, Reno and the latter from Brigham Young University. She brings more than a decade of document analysis, an eye for fine detail, and seven years of writing local histories to the Xchyler table.
MeriLyn currently proofs our 2014 paranormal anthology, slated for release in September, and will start plowing through fantasy short story submissions in a couple of weeks.
Editor’s Notes: Boot Camp Inspiration
BY MEGAN OLIPHANT
Maybe I should have written this blog post BEFORE the Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, because my mind is so full of all the information, it will take several days for it all to gel into something coherent in my mind. So much good information. But right now, my brain is a little bit mushy, more than usual.
I’ve been to writer’s conferences before, taken individual classes, listened to agents and authors tell me everything from how to write queries to basic novel structure. But I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Six days of my whole brain function taken up with learning and writing and learning some more.
I have to say, though, it was worth every penny, every tear shed, every second of staring at the computer screen thinking “I’m so tired, I can’t type another word.” (Okay, I didn’t really cry, but I did think several times that I couldn’t possibly put two more words together. And I did think about crying.)
The tools I came away with will be priceless for my writing. It was a whole new way to look at how to write, how to rewrite, and whether I should edit or start all over. That seems dramatic, I know, but having listened to him teach about it all week, it is clear to me what the difference is.
According to OSC, there is only a first draft. Doing a “second draft” is the way to kill the heart of your story. If you are having problems or writer’s block, it’s because your subconscious is trying desperately to tell you that something isn’t working, that you need to stop and figure it out. It usually resolves by adding more to the story, like a new character. But where writers go wrong is when they get that far, figuring out what needs to be fixed, instead of starting from the beginning and writing fresh, they try to go back and insert the addition piecemeal, like trying to weave a ribbon into a braid when the braid is already done and tied off.
Does that mean we don’t edit? Of course not. There will always be a need for that. But editing is for clarity, not drafting your novel to death.
This was so mind blowing to me. I’m thrilled to be able to start afresh on some of these stories I have that have stalled. I can’t worry about the perfect prose or the great scene I’ve already written. It’s about taking all that old information and rewriting from the beginning, but now those scenes and characters will be fuller, richer, more real.
And that is what will suck our readers in and make them want to take up residence in the universes we create.
Megan Oliphant has studied creative writing since college, taking classes from the founder of LTUE, Marion K. “Doc” Smith at BYU and attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in late June. Her primary interests are in fantasy, ranging from dark urban to high epic, but she’s a sucker for a good mystery that she can’t guess the ending to before she gets there. She divides her time between reading, writing, and “familying” with her husband and five children in North Carolina.
Megan joined The X Team in May of 2014. Her first project, Accidental Apprentice, by Anika Arrington, is slated for release in September of 2014. She is project lead on Darkness Rising, a young adult fantasy by Elizabeth Lunyou, slated for release in 2015.
Editor’s Notes: Making Beautiful Music Together
BY KRISTINA HARRIS
I’ve been playing the violin for over twenty years. As someone who is comfortable with my instrument, and music in general, I can hear musical pitch pretty well and can tune any violin quite easily using just one note from a piano: the sound of an A. Often, I don’t even need that.
I actually own more than one violin. There is incredible beauty in the variety of sounds created by the different styles that can be found. For instance, my first ever instrument, which I still own, is a copy of a Stradivarius, and belts out a wonderful concert-hall richness.
My second violin was found at an auction in a small town; I bought it for twenty dollars. Nobody there understood the treasure they had, thinking it to be a broken piece of junk. It merely needed to be restrung and was actually made by a master named Jacob Stainer. The sound it makes is much softer and sweeter than my first. Yet, they are both violins.
So how does this relate to writing and editing?
Each story that we read comes from the same source: an author. But, just like my violins, each author has a different voice. One voice might be more suited to a certain style or genre than another, just as my Stainer is more suited to certain styles of music, and my Strad to others. Editing is not about the desire to fit that voice into some sort of technical, grammar-book box, but rather to help a writer preserve the best parts of their voice, while also helping their story be highly developed and look as professional as possible.
Being an editor is much like being a musician: you don’t go into a manuscript, stomping around, determined to make everything one note, looking all the same. If that’s the kind of editing job for you, look into technical writing.
Just as when a musician reads a musical piece, an editor must get a feel for a story to understand what the author is trying to convey. The goal is to help the author polish it up so that when the reader is forced to put it down—to go to work, or sleep, or visit the store—he or she still has it stuck in their head, like a well-known melody. (Beethoven’s 5th, anyone?)
That is how editors and authors work together to make beautiful music.
Kristina has made reading and writing a focal point in her life. No matter how busy her life is, she has always found relaxation in books and editing. She started her published career in her high school newspaper by submitting short stories.
Now, she has edited three published works: two adult novels and one children’s book, and has written and edited for numerous national specialty magazines. She also holds a degree in business administration, has been a model for a nationally recognized talent agency, and leads the way in her household, managing a husband, three sons, two dogs, two cats, a guinea pig, and a lizard!
Kristina’s first X project is the fall paranormal anthology, slated for release in September 2014.