I know I talked about this only a couple of months ago, and yes, you guessed it. This is my 7th Deadly Sin of Writing. As an editor, I found that I kept correcting the same blunders over and over and yeah…over. The mistakes were so universal among new writers that I finally put together my Seven Deadly Sins of Writing so that these issues could be corrected ahead of time. This, then, would leave me more time to comment on the actual story instead of taking valuable time slashing through these common oopses. Feel free to ignore any of the Sins, but I will tell you that editors don’t sit up all night thinking of ways to make your lives miserable….we only stay up until ten doing that :D.

Editors are like engineers. We look at a writer’s  race car (the manuscript) and look for parts that will cause drag, slow down momentum, or cause so much friction that a fiery crash or a dead engine is inevitable. The Seven Deadly Sins are designed to make sure your plot is sleek, fast and unstoppable until the finish line.

I would wager that most of us do not sit up all night thinking of ways to treat our readers like they’re stupid.  Yet, it is a common problem, especially with newer writers who are still learning the craft. All of us can slip into these nasty habits, if we aren’t mindful. It’s as if we get so wrapped up in our story that we mentally stumble in that brief span from synapse to keyboard, and inadvertently end up treating our readers like they need a drool cup. So today, I put together a list of bad habits to make it easier for you guys to spot when you are coaching the reader.

Offender #1—Adverb Abuse

Here is a news flash. Not all adverbs are evil…just most of them. One of the reasons I am such a Nazi when it comes to adverbs it that they are notorious culprits for stating the obvious. “She smiled happily.” Um, yeah. “He yelled loudly.” As opposed to yelling softly? To be blunt, most adverbs are superfluous and weaken the writing. Find the strongest verb and then leave it alone.

The ONLY time an adverb is acceptable is when it is there to denote some essence that is not inherent in the verb.

For example: She whispered quietly. Okay, as opposed to whispering loudly?

Quietly is implied in the verb choice. Ah, but what if you want her to whisper conspiratorially? The adverb conspiratorially tells us of a very specific type of whisper, and is not a quality that is necessarily implied by the verb.

Offender #2—Qualifiers

It is really unnecessary to qualify. We get it. Using qualifiers is similar to adding in needless adverbs. If we have just written a scene about a heated argument, trust me, our characters don’t need to “slam the door in frustration” (yep…got it) or “scowl with disapproval” (uh-huh) or “cry in bitter disappointment” (gimme a break).

The qualifiers add nothing but a cluster of extra words that bogs down the prose.  If someone slams the door right after a heated scene of arguing, the reader gets that the character is angry, frustrated, upset. We don’t need to spell it out.

Like adverbs, it is perfectly okay to use qualifiers, but it’s best to employ them very sparingly (and only ones that are super awesome). Allow your writing to carry the scene. Dialogue and narrative should be enough for the reader to ascertain if a character is angry, hurt, happy, etc. If it isn’t, then forget the qualifiers and work on the strength of the scene.

Offender #3—Punctuation & Font as Props

You are allowed three exclamation points every 50,000 words—just so your editor can cut them and then laugh at you for using exclamation points in the first place.  Hey, a little editor humor :). 99% of the time exclamation points are not necessary if the prose is strong.

“Get the kids out of the house!” he yelled. (Yep)

I recently read a non-fiction book where the writer used an exclamation point on every single sentence. I felt like I was learning marketing from Billy Mays. At best, the guy was shouting at me for page after page. At worst, he was monotone, because when we emphasize everything, we emphasize nothing.

Ellipses do not make a scene more dramatic, just…make…the…writing…more…annoying. Ellipses can be used but, again, very sparingly.

In fiction, bold font and italics are almost never acceptable. Again, if the prose is well written, the reader will stress the word(s) in his head. Trust me. We don’t need to hold our reader’s hand, or brain, or whatever.

Is it ever okay to use bold font and italics? Sure, if you write non-fiction. In non-fiction we are teaching, so certain key words or points need to stand out.

In the world of fiction?

No bold font. That is the tool of an amateur. And italics? We can use it, just not very often or we run the risk of insulting our reader’s intelligence. If you come to a point where you believe it is absolutely necessary to use italics, I suggest trying to strengthen the scene first.

Everyone who has ever argued this point with me was wrong. I don’t say this to sound like a jerk, I say it because if you are using all these props, you don’t need them. Have confidence. Your writing is stronger than you believe. I have read the writing samples sent to me by huffy writers who thought they were robbing the reader of some experience by removing the bold and/or italics, and guess what? I still found the bold and italics annoying and distracting. We readers really are smart. Really. We can figure out what should be stressed. Lose the prose training wheels to race with the big boys and girls.

And as far as italics for internal dialogue? Yes, that is technically correct, but internal dialogue should be used VERY sparingly. Too much internal dialogue, to me the editor, is a major red flag of an author not yet strong enough to maintain POV and keep the flow of narrative. Switching a reader from a third limited perspective to a first-person internal dialogue is jarring. Do you mind being jarred once in a while? No. But every five minutes? It gets tedious.

Offender #4—Telling Instead of Showing

Most of us have been beaten over the head with the saying, “Show. Don’t tell.” There is a good reason for that. Telling is a lazy method of characterization. Most readers are pretty sharp and like figuring things out on their own. Thus, if we spoon-feed information that should be given via the story, we risk turning off the reader.

New writers are almost always guilty of telling instead of showing. Why? Simple. They’re still learning techniques that are going to take time and practice to develop. Yet, all of us, regardless our skill level need to be wary of this narrative crutch. To be blunt, telling is far less taxing on the brain, so our lazy nature will try to take shortcuts if we aren’t careful.

Actions speak louder than words. Yeah, it is easy to just tell the reader our antagonist is a real jerk, but it is better to show our antagonist doing things that make the reader decide this for himself. We accomplish this by creating an antagonist who simply does things jerks do.

Good writers don’t tell readers a character is ticked off. Good writers show she is ticked off. Crossed arms. No eye contact. Clenched jaw. Slamming doors. Remember that over 95% of communication is non-verbal. Use this to your writing advantage. When creating characters, think about what actions will define your character’s nature or mood universally.

For a character’s nature: If you want to create a cad, think what actions cads do that would make everyone in a room label him the same way—checking out every woman who walks by, openly flirting with other women, using breath spray every 5 minutes, telling sexist jokes, etc.

For a character’s mood/mental state: Regardless of culture, we can tell if someone is mad, hurt, sad, or happy by body language. Make a list of all the body language cues for the mood you wish to create. A book on body language can be extremely helpful for the more subtle stuff. For instance, people who lie often rub a body part (wringing hands) or tap. Why? Unless people are sociopathic, it usually causes mental stress to lie, so the rubbing or tapping is a sign of energy displacement.  See, these are the sort of details that make good writing into much better writing.

What are your thoughts? Are there some other pet peeves you guys have that I missed? What makes you put down a book? What methods transport you? What makes you hurl the book across the room?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of September, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

Okay, I am behind on announcing winners due to family drama, so catching up today.

Last Week of August’s Winner–Diana Stevan

First Week of September’s Winner–Donna Amis Davis

Please send 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.

Winner of fifteen pages of critique for the month of August is Susie Lindau

Please send 3750 word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of September I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

Until next time…

The post Deadly Sin of Writing #7–Treating the Reader Like a Moron appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Years ago, I left my career in sales. Why? Well, I was quite possibly the worst salesperson on the planet, so I figured most any other job would be a vast improvement. I loved writing and decided to pursue my passion. I actually got my start as a copy editor, and years of proofreading and editing have given me a different set of eyes that detect details often unseen by the rest of the world.

Wait. Let me clarify.

Just because something is unseen, in no way means it has gone unnoticed. To the untrained, small mistakes can collect in the subconscious. A reader might put a book down and never know exactly why she couldn’t get engaged, or why she felt the text was too confusing, or why she simply just gave up.

Well, as they say, the devil is in the details.

These days I spend a lot of time focusing on the big picture–structure. Why? Structure is where most writers need training. High school and college English does NOT train us how to write a work spanning 60-100,000 words. Don’t believe me? How many novels did you turn in for a grade in college English? Exactly.

Knowing something in theory is a heck of a lot different than the actual execution. Even though I prefer to talk about big picture stuff, today we are going to zoom in and have a refresher on the small stuff.

Years ago, when I ran a traditional critique group, I would see the same mistakes over and over and, yeah, over. These oopses won’t keep us from being published (especially nowadays), but they can be highly distracting for readers. If left uncorrected, our story could become a projectile hurled with great force by a frustrated reader.

I saw these mistakes so many times in critique, I finally made a list and called them my Deadly Sins of Writing. The Deadly Sins are often the first professional hurdle for writers who want to up their game and play with the big boys and girls of fiction. Why? Because formal English classes (high school and college), are there to teach command of the English language, not prepare us for publication in NY.

I’m in no way picking on teachers. It is incumbent upon any writer to learn her craft. To believe college English constitutes proper schooling for commercial fiction is like saying Home Economics is proper training to become a premiere chef. Yet, many new writers believe that because they made good grades in English, they know how to write (Yeah, I’ll confess. I was one of them).

So after a couple of years critiquing fiction, I began to notice a pattern of common errors. These flubs were so distracting that I often found I couldn’t even GET to critiquing plot, character, or voice. Thus, I wrote out my Deadly Sins as a reference. I believe that if a writer can eradicate most or all of these types of errors, then he will leave the reader with a clearer view of the story.

Today we are only going to go over three. Why? Because most of us haven’t had formal grammar since that awful experience with sentence diagramming back in the eighth grade. And while I could just list the Sins, I believe it will be more helpful if you understand WHY these errors can be so detrimental to even the best of stories.

Deadly Sin #1

Was Clusters— There is nothing wrong with using being verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been, —Remember them?). But, they do tend to have a nasty habit of flocking together. A couple of being verbs are all right. But, if there are 42 on one page? You might have a problem…or an infestation.

Was often acts as a screaming beacon directing me, the editor, to places where the writing could be tightened. Was can also lead you, the writer, into dangerous passive voice waters so beware.

The door was kicked in by the officers. (Passive)

The officers kicked in the door. (Active)

Passive voice will confuse a reader, so make sure your writing is as active as possible.

Deadly Sin #2

Overuse of “ing” Whether as Gerunds or Participles—First, a quick review for those of us who have slept since our last grammar class. A gerund is a verb used as a noun—i.e. reading glasses. Participles are often used with a helping verb to show progression (also called progressive verbs)—i.e. I am walking to the car.

***I have left Point A and have not quite reached Point B. Therefore the action is in progress, ergo the term progressive.

There is nothing wrong with using either, but like was, these critters also tend to cluster together. When they do so, they tend to:

a. Create a monotonous pattern

b. Signal places the writing could be made more active.

Joe was walking to the car while smoking a cigarette and thinking about his day. He was wondering if it was all worth the effort. Tired, he pulled out a set of reading glasses. He was scanning the Dear John letter one last time before driving home when a car came barreling out of nowhere heading straight for him.

Don’t laugh. I have seen more than my fair share of similar passages. Technically, nothing is incorrect. Yet, the pattern of ing ing ing ing ing creates a monotony that can diminish the literary effect.

Deadly Sin #3

Modifier overload.  Ever heard the term less is more? The same holds true in writing. Why? WHEN YOU MODIFY EVERYTHING YOU MODIFY NOTHING (Yes, I was being a smarty pants with the all caps). The reader can get so bogged down in lovely similes and metaphors that he forgets the original point of the story, and that is bad.

Have you ever been to a lecture where the speaker’s voice is flat, and nothing is emphasized? Think of Ben Stein, the guy who does the eye drop commercials.

Monotone.

Now think of Billy Mays, the guy who made Oxy Clean famous. HE STRESSED ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!!!! By the end of the commercial, the audience needed a nap…or a drink.

Again, monotone.

Modifiers can make beautiful writing that transports us and makes us part of an entirely different world.

Or…

It can make us feel like we’re trapped in that nightmare where we never really graduated high school, and have been forced to repeat Sophomore-Level English if we want our college degree to be valid. Jane Eyre. Enough said.

Just remember some simple rules of thumb. Adverbs are almost always a no-no. Why use window dressing on an inferior verb if there is a superior verb that can take its place?

He walked quickly across the room.

He strode across the room.

She jumped quickly. Hmm….as opposed to jumping slowly?

Are all adverbs evil? No. Just the redundant ones. If we want to denote a quality that is NOT inherent in the verb’s definition, then adverbs can be wonderful.

She whispered conspiratorially.

As far as adjectives, similes, and metaphors? Use good judgment. Don’t be the Oxy Clean guy. Have a fellow writer look at your work and see which ones might be weakening your story. Or, take a highlighter and strike through all the modifiers, and see how many there are, and how many can go. Heck, if they are really good, you can use them later. I promise.

Grammar is not a whole lot of fun for most people, but it is necessary to understand it as part of understanding the craft. And you are going to make mistakes. These lessons are a critical part of learning. Good writing comes from wisdom, and wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from writing some real crap. Sloppy technique, bad grammar, and poor sentence construction can cling to your writing like a dirty film that obscures story and characters. Clean up your writing so your stories can shine.

What are some of your pet peeves? What will make you toss a book across the room? Do you love a lot of detail or very little detail? Why?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

Last Week’s Winner–Paul Anthony Shortt

Please send 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of August I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post The Devil is in the Details–3 Ways to Make Your Writing Shine appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Sugar addiction is dangerous.

When I started writing fiction years ago, I didn’t know anything. There wasn’t an adverb, adjective, metaphor or simile I didn’t adore. The problem, however, is when we emphazise everything, we in effect emphasize nothing. My writing was bloated, and I had to learn to trim the fat. I had joined a writing group that, on more than one occasion, left me in tears vowing to go back to sales and forget this foolishiness of wanting to write.

But, once I could get my ego out of the way, I realized that yes, a handful of the critiquers were nasty human beings who would never say anything nice. Yet, that didn’t mean that I should ignore everything they had to say. When I finally calmed down, I was open to suggestions.

One of the strongest writers in our group regularly submitted pieces of what was called flash fiction. Flash fiction are short works of fiction. Some are 500 words or less, 300 words or less, 150, and even 100 words or less.

I figured if I had a strict word count limit, that might force me to go on an Atkin’s Diet for Writers. I would cut out all carbohydrates modifiers, in hopes I could break my addiction to them. I started writing flash fiction in hopes I could make my prose leaner and more powerful.

If you are like I once was, and you regularly indulge in sweet metaphors until your brain is euphoric from a sugary writing high, I recommend trying your hand at flash fiction. Sugar addictions are bad in eating as well as writing (and this parallel allowed me to use the Girl Scout image above–ROFL).

Since some of you guys on Twitter and FB expressed interest in my fiction, here is a flash fiction story I wrote in 2004, and it was my very first contest win. There was a picture of an old Chevy Bel Air as a writing prompt for a story that could be a max of 500 words.

Deep in the Heart

A thin finger of Texas highway shimmers with heat, and rows of cacti whir by in a blur of green. Wind snaps the ends of my grandmother’s hair across her cheek and her head turns toward the haze of plateaus along the horizon. Her scarf tries to tangle in a smile that has spread like a sunbeam across her eighty-year-old cheeks.

Sitting next to her, my heart flutters with happiness. I begin to believe that love, hate, fear, and wonder are passed from one generation to the next, floating along the same genetic tributaries as brown hair or green eyes.

When I was a year out of college, my grandmother, a product of the Great Depression, greeted me, and my 1956 Chevy Bel Air convertible, with a concerned scowl. I knew she worried about me. Truthfully, at the time, I worried about me. Though the car was a dream I’d carried to adulthood, I wondered if I would have the funds and the patience to restore the rusted, creaky disaster to her former glory.

My grandmother grew up desperately poor and, even now, her face is painted with shades of hardship that mark her generation as different. When I was little, she told me stories about the time she had to stay home from school six months because she had no shoes and how her older brother, now dead, carried her to and from church to protect her feet from angry barbs of West Texas goat heads. A lifetime later, long after the days of walls papered with old newsprint to keep out the cold, she still clips coupons and saves every spare cent . . . just in case.

I’d grown up watching old movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, my grandmother next to me, her lap dusted with popcorn from my greedy fingers. I would sit, enthralled by Marilyn Monroe’s beauty or Audrey Hepburn’s class and dream that one day, I too, would be glamorous. I recall how I’d glance to the lovely, patrician woman by my side and wonder if she felt the same.

Now an adult, I tilt my rear-view mirror to study her reflection. I watch her grin against the sun and marvel how joy has melted the disquiet from her face. We glide across the desert on white-wall tires, our hair wrapped in bright scarves that flutter and wave flirtatiously to the truckers behind us.

Our final destination is a quaint South Texas town known for strange green lights and artistic flair— Marfa. We’ll stay at a family-owned hotel, and I’ll make jokes about being abducted by aliens. At night, I will drive us out of town and park beneath a sparkling canopy of stars in hopes the famous Marfa Lights might come out and grace us with an appearance. Like college girlfriends, rather than grandmother and grandchild, we’ll lean against the massive hood of the car that made it possible for both of us, at least for a moment, to be glamorous.

***

The coolest part about this story is that, aside from the car and the trip to Marfa, everything is true. This was my very first contest win and my first piece of published fiction. I gave my grandmother a copy of the book with this story printed in it. She started crying when she read it.

Anyway, do you guys suffer from a writing “sugar” addiction? Have any tips, tools or suggestions?

I love hearing from you! And to prove it and show my love, for the month of July, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

Last Week’s Winner–Gloria Oliver

Please send 1250 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org.

Month of July’s Winner–Leo Godin

Please send your 3750 word Word document to kristen at kristen lamb dot org

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of August I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: I am keeping all the names for a final GRAND, GRAND PRIZE of 30 Pages (To be announced) OR a blog diagnostic. I look at your blog and give feedback to improve it. For now, I will draw weekly for 5 page edit, monthly for 15 page edit.

In the meantime, I hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

Now an adult, I tilt my rear-view mirror to study her reflection. I watch her grin against the sun and marvel how joy has melted the disquiet from her face. We glide across the desert on white-wall tires our hair wrapped in silk scarves that flutter and wave flirtatiously to the truckers behind us.

Our final destination is a quaint South Texas town known for strange green lights and artistic flair— Marfa. We’ll stay at a family-owned hotel, and I’ll make jokes about being abducted by aliens. At night, I will drive us out of town and park beneath a sparkling canopy of stars in hopes the famous Marfa Lights might come out and grace us with an appearance. Like college girlfriends, rather than grandmother and grandchild, we’ll lean against the massive hood of the car that made it possible for both of us, at least for a moment, to be glamorous.

The post Beating the "Sugar" Addiction–Tightening the Writing appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

The journey from baby writer to mature author is fraught with peril. Today we are going to begin a series addressing common pitfalls that can jeopardize our growth.

Years ago, I got this brilliant idea that I was going to attend law school. While studying for the LSAT, one of the largest segments happened to be logic problems. We, as dutiful wanna-be lawyers, were supposed to hone our skills in pulling apart logic problems and learn to quickly hone in on what are called “logical fallacies” (also called inductive fallacies).

There are a number of logical fallacies that are dangerous to a writer’s growth. If you have slept since your school days, a logical fallacy (or inductive fallacy) is a fallacy in an argument that mistakenly seeks to establish a causal connection when dissimilar objects or events are compared as if the same.

Huh? Yeah. Got ya on that.

Put simpler.

All apples are fruits. An orange is a fruit ergo an orange is an apple.

Uh…no.

Which got me to thinking, why does everyone think it is so easy to write fiction? That anyone can do it? I believe that there is a MASSIVE inductive fallacy that can ruin any writer’s progress.

Dangerous Fallacy #1—Prose and Fiction are the Same Thing

All fiction is prose, ergo all prose is fiction. Yeah…no.

According to the Encarta dictionary:

Prose— 1. language that is not poetry: writing or speech in its normal continuous form, without the rhythmic or visual line structure of poetry.

2. ordinary style of expression: writing or speech that is ordinary or matter-of-fact, without embellishment.

There is a hugely mistaken notion that the ability to write prose automatically translates into the ability to write fiction, and that prose and fiction are the same things. WRONG! WRONG! WROOOOONG!

Prose is merely one component of a hugely complex structure (fiction).

Just because a writer writes beautiful prose, in no way means she can carry off a story structure strong enough to sustain 100,000 words. Fiction, especially in reference to novels, is a highly intricate composite of many layers—characterization, dialogue, perspective, pacing, conflict, voice, setting, symbolism, arcs, themes, plot, scenes & sequels, and on and on. The skill and training required to write fiction well can be mind-blowing.

Are there some people who naturally sit down and write great novels? Sure. But Amadeus Mozart wrote his first symphony at the same age most of us were fighting over the sharp Crayons and looking under rocks for doodle bugs. Does that mean that there is something wrong with a doodle bug-hunting five-year-old? Uh, no. That is what most five-year-olds do.

Yet, when it comes to writing great fiction, we all want to be rare geniuses. We want to sit down and write our first manuscript and it be a NY Times best-selling-runaway-success. Hey, I feel you. I even had my chalet in the Riviera picked out. We are so afraid of being laughed at or failing, that we bluster ahead and don’t get a chance to enjoy the journey of going from baby writer to mature author.

We believe that because we made As on all our English papers, that we have the right makings for being the next JK Rowling or Sandra Brown. The thing is…likely we do. We are that one five-year-old in the church choir who doesn’t sound like a cat caught in a screen door. We have potential, passion and talent, but we aren’t quite ready to win American Idol.

But this logical fallacy that prose and fiction are synonymous can get us into big trouble with our pride if we aren’t careful.

In my opinion, the ability to write fine prose is like the ability to carry a tune. Intonation is a critical building block for learning to be a great music performer much like the ability to craft brilliant prose is a fundamental to becoming a great author. But carrying a tune and crafting prose are not the be-all and end-all. There are many, many more layers to learn and develop through years of struggle and practice and failure. I feel that is sometimes why agents get frustrated with many writers.

My favorite part of American Idol is the try-outs in the beginning. It’s sick, but I’m being honest. Yet how many young people show up thinking they are going to have their own record label simply because they have a “look”? Yes, “look” is important, but can you sing? Many feel that because they sing in the high school choir, that they are ready to take LA by storm. They quickly learn from the panel of judges that being a music performer is a lot harder than they bargained for.

Writing can be the same way.

But here is where we have a choice. We can puff up in pride and storm off like a diva, convinced that “Simon Cowell” (agent) doesn’t know great “singing” (writing) when he hears it. Or…we can take the constructive criticism, evaluate what we know and don’t know and where we can improve and focus on learning the craft…and then try again, and again and again. To one day grow into mature authors, we need thick skins…not skulls. LEARN from these experiences.

I think that is far easier to take criticism when we understand that prose and fiction are not the same thing. What the world views as one seamless entity, we can now see for all of its intricacies. Now we have the freedom to be baby writers and enjoy the journey to adulthood. Will some of you be protégés? Perhaps. I certainly wasn’t one. But once I realized that becoming a career author was a lot harder than pretty prose, I began to enjoy my “writer childhood.” We can enjoy the school musicals and our bit parts in My Fair Lady holding a basket of flowers because now we see them as progressive steps to a larger goal. Writers, enjoy critique. Enjoy contests and reading novels. Enjoy the landmarks along the road to publishing success. Give yourself permission to be flawed and then dust off and strive for greater. It’s okay to be a kid!

Remember, all authors are writers. Not all writers are authors, ;).

Keep on keeping on!

Happy writing!

Until next time…

Recommended Reading:

My book, of course, :D. We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. It is never too soon to start building your platform. Social media can be a time suck or a huge investment in a successful future. Nielson states that the average book published in the US sells fewer than 250 copies a year and less than 3,000 overall. Ack! I know. How can you bet the odds? With proper planning and preparation.

Also, every writer needs to run out today (unless you already subscribe) and buy the September Issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine. It’s the Big Ten Issue and probably the BEST issue of Writer’s Digest I have read in years (not that the others weren’t terrific :D). I read this magazine front to back yesterday and highlighted it until it looked like my own personal coloring book. It is colored, dog-eared and filled with sticky notes. Great, great, super terrific articles. Yeah, I am a tad excited. So go buy it. You will thank me.

And speaking of Writer’s Digest, Editor Jane Friedman has posted her weekly round-up of the best. How can I compete? So, I won’t. I will humbly defer to an expert and give my mash-ups later in the week.

The post It’s Okay to be a Kid—Pitfalls that Can Stunt a Writer’s Growth Part I appeared first on Kristen Lamb.