HELPING WRITERS
One way that you can help writers is to pre-order their books. If a book is available for pre-order on Amazon, your card won’t be charged until the day of delivery. How this helps the author is that their sales are calculated based on the date that the books are delivered. If an author gets a lot of sales on that date, their Amazon sales rank gets a boost which encourages others (even people who have never heard of the author) to buy the book. So if you are going to buy a book from a particular author, please go ahead and pre-order the book instead of waiting until after the availability date. (Of course, if you do miss the pre-order period, the author still appreciates it when you buy their book.)
WHAT DO YOU DO ABOUT WRITER’S BLOCK?
I write. I may think I have come up against a brick wall, but I keep writing anyway. That gives me a chance to get past the wall and back into territory where it is easier to compose my thoughts. After a couple of days, I revisit that “brick wall.” Sometimes what I have written is pure gold. Other times it is pure garbage–but garbage can be edited. If you follow this simple formula, you will find that there is no such thing as “writer’s block.”
THEN
The word “then” should be used sparingly. Example of what not to do:
Bob opened the door and then stepped inside. Then Bob turned on the light. Then Bob searched the room for a clue to the murder. Then, when Bob had completed his search, he sat on the sofa. Then Bob lit a cigarette.
I’m sure that you don’t use “then” as often as I did in the above paragraph, but you can easily see how tedious the word can become. While the word explicitly indicates that events unfold in a certain order, readers normally assume that the events occur in the order that they are written, with or without the word “then.”
There is no need to eliminate all occurrences of the word. There are many places where it improves the flow of your story. While you edit, if you encounter “then,” read the sentence and determine if the story would be improved without it. Then make the decision whether to remove the word or allow it to stay.
I JUST DON’T LIKE THAT WORD. ISN’T THERE A BETTER ONE THAT I CAN USE?
Probably. What you need is a Thesaurus. Fortunately, https://www.thesaurus.com/ is just a click away.
WHO OR WHOM?
When should you use “who” and when should you use “whom?” “Who” is subjective while “Whom” is objective. Examples: Who is at the door? You bought that book for whom?
An easy way to determine which word to use is to replace who and whom with he and him (or she and her.) He is at the door. You bought the book for him.
Of course, when writing dialogue or when writing in the first person we often throw rules of grammar out the window. If your characters are like most people, they may rarely (or never) use the word “whom.”
500 WORDS
Do you think that you can’t write a book? Can you write 500 words in a day? 500 words is a flash fiction story. If you write 500 words per day for a week you have written a 3500-word short story. 500 words a day for a month equals 15,000 words–that’s a novelette. In two months, you can have a 30,000-word novella. In three months, you can write a 45,000-word short novel. In six months, you have a 90,000-word full-length novel. If you write 500 words a day, at the end of a year, you will have written 182,500 words. Unless you are Stephen King, a publisher will probably tell you that you will have to split your novel into two or three books and make it into a series. If you think you can’t be a writer, just ask yourself, “Can I write 500 words a day?”
CAN YOU HEAR IT?
Editing your work is difficult because you so familiar with the words on your computer screen (or phone or tablet or paper.) While the words may seem absolutely golden when you silently read them, those same words may not flow as smoothly to someone who has never read that passage before. What if, someday, you are fortunate enough to be invited to read from your newly completed novel? Would the words flow just as smoothly when read aloud? Try it. Read a chapter out loud. The words in your head often sound entirely different when they are coming out of your mouth. Our brains are like computers. They only run one process while you are reading silently. When you read aloud, two other processes come online. You read, you speak, and you listen. Reading your work out loud is a valuable tool that can greatly improve your writing.
WRITERS HELPING WRITERS (CRITIQUE GROUPS)
Are you acquainted with other writers who live near you? Or have you met other writers through social media? If you don’t already belong to a critique group, create one. A good size for a critique group would be four to six writers. Don’t allow the group to become too large; you won’t have time to actually write. Share a chapter or two each month with every member of the group and invite comments. If you share a printed copy, double-space to allow room for comments. Or you can share digitally, and if your word processor allows, use the “suggesting” feature. (It’s possible that you can share online and all the members of the group can collaborate on the same document.) Don’t make changes to the other writers’ documents, suggest changes. It IS their document; they can either accept or reject your suggestions. As you read what the other members have written, watch for spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. Can the story be improved by adding or deleting a sentence. Should parts of the story be rearranged? A critique group is an excellent method of improving your story while helping others to improve theirs.
I CAN’T THINK OF THE RIGHT WORD
www.thesaurus.com