The Story Grid: Shawn Doesn't Know Youth Fiction

I've heard a lot about Shawn Coyne and  The Story Grid over the last year or so, and I've been aware of Shawn for longer thanks to his occasional appearances on Steven Pressfield's blog and their collaborations. I watched the video series where Shawn goes through Silence of the Lambs and uses it to explain the Story Grid. Impressive stuff all.

So when I finally got around to listening to The Story Grid podcast, I expected great things. And it really is a great podcast, particularly for newer writers who don't know the craft or the business and who are trying to find their writing legs in the first place.

But (you could hear that coming, right?) a couple of things Shawn insists on are flat-out wrong. Not about editing or story structure in and of themselves. The problem is that he's trying to teach someone to write youth fiction when he has zero experience in the youth fiction market. In fact, he took Tim's idea for a story and practically shoved it into being middle-grade.

Shawn has a ton of experience in thriller, suspense, mystery, and nonfiction. And you can tell. Much of what he knows can be applied to a ton of stories and genres. I listened to over a year's worth of weekly episodes in just over a month, and when I reached the point where Shawn's giving advice on the supposed youth fiction genre, I found myself yelling at Shawn in my car because he was getting some things wrong.

That's where this post came from. I'll probably do other posts about some other beefs I have, but let's start with this one:

How Shawn Coyne Is Wrong about Youth Fiction

This may seem odd coming from a professed women's fiction and romance writer, and at first glance, you might think I'm utterly unqualified to talk about youth fiction.

You'd be wrong.

Here's the deal: I live in the youth fiction capital of the planet. Seriously. Some of the biggest youth fiction authors of our time live near enough to me that we could do lunch. (And in many cases, we have!) We attend the same conferences, rub shoulders at other events, and more. I call many of them friends.

To make my point, below are a few of the bigger names of local writers. I could have gone on and on with other youth fiction writers I'm friends with who aren't quite as big as these ones (all but a couple of these are New York Times bestsellers, for starters), but the list isn't the point of this post:

• James Dashner (The first chapters of The Maze Runner were read at a critique meeting around my kitchen table. We first met at a book signing in 2004.)
• Jessica Day George (We've hung out in hotel rooms at conferences late into the night. I've dropped by her house and chatted for hours. We started a Scandinavian book club. She's a ginger, just like my three daughters, so she automatically rocks.)
• Ally Condie (We shared a book signing, and a few years later were later on the same panel at a conference. Love her.)
• Shannon Hale (I spoke at a conference she arranged.)
• Brandon Sanderson (I got to be part of the anthology he edited and published to raise money for a family in need. We have tons of mutual friends, and we live minutes apart. Pretty sure he knows who I am but probably wouldn't consider me a friend.) (He's one of the massive superstars who doesn't primarily write youth fiction. He's an epic fantasy novelist, but yes, he does have some middle-grade fiction too.)
• Chad Morris (He's won national awards for middle-grade science fiction. We've been part of the same events. And oh, I edited his first book.)
• Dan Wells and Robison Wells (Brothers who are successful writers, and they're both friends.)
• Sara B. Larson (We've been at the same write-ins late at night at a mutual friend's house and other writing events, including a big launch, where we both performed.)
• Jennifer A. Nielsen (We've taught back-to-back at workshops and been part of the same promotional events. One of the sweetest people.)
• Brandon Mull (We've been at many of the same events, even sitting at the same table at an awards gala, but he never remembers who I am. That's fine. I can go hang out with Jessica and talk about Vikings!)

Many theories float around as to why the Wasatch Front in Utah has such a huge concentration of rock-star-level youth fiction writers. I'm sure a big part of it is the fact that Utah has a lot of Mormons, Mormons have a lot of children, and Mormons read TO their children a lot. Ergo, many parents (and therefore prospective writers) here are more exposed to youth fiction than anywhere else.

The writing community here is also massive, with conferences and organizations everywhere. And writing community has become very much focused on youth fiction and speculative fiction (meaning science fiction, fantasy, etc.), to the point that if you don't write youth fiction, then you'd better write spec, or you aren't really part of the "in" club. (See Sanderson, above.)

I've lived and breathed so much about the youth fiction market from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade to young adult that I know a lot more than others in the industry. I've seen friends snag big-name agents. I've seen them sell. I've seen them not sell. I've celebrated with them at launch parties. I've heard them teach at conferences. I've heard them discuss issues about their market on panels.

And on and on and on.

Hopefully you see what I mean. I am surrounded by youth fiction on all sides, to the point that it's easy to feel like the weirdo who writes for grown-ups.

OKAY. All of that said, here's the biggest thing Shawn doesn't get:

YOUTH FICTION IS A MARKET, NOT A GENRE.

That may not seem like a big deal to someone who isn't deep in the industry, but trust me; it's a huge distinction.

A genre refers to the type of story you're telling. Here are a couple of massively oversimplified descriptions two common genres:

• Romance: A couple gets together, falls apart, and somehow get back together. 
• Mystery: A detective (or some other individual, such as a PI, journalist, or doctor) solves a murder, figures out who did it, and the bad guy gets captured.

Both of those genres have a lot more to them than that, but essentially, that's what those genres are about, right? Other genres include adventures, quests, thrillers, suspense, love stories (which differ from romance), and so forth.

One classic story type/genre is the coming-of-age story, where the main character's growth arc moves from innocence to maturity, to having their eyes opened to the realities of life. That often means realizing that not everyone is good or trustworthy, having to grow up faster than expected, and so on, so they become a bit jaded.

Coming-of-age is a legitimate genre. Absolutely. Many classics fall into this category, including Great Expectations, Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and more. 

Now, notice that the books I just listed were never intended to be read by ten-year-olds. In fact, many high schools today still require parent permission for a student to read Rye because of content and profanity concerns. I'm quite sure that J. D. Salinger didn't imagine his audience as a bunch of 16-year-olds. 

Yet Shawn says that any story with a young protagonist must, by its very nature, have a coming-of-age story as its global genre. 

NOT SO. 

Plenty of youth fiction has nothing do with coming-of-age as the core arc. Some level of growing up and losing innocence might happen along the way (as, frankly, happens in almost any novel, even for adults). 

But I can guarantee that developing a coming-of-age arc was the thing farthest from James Dashner's mind when he wrote The Maze Runner. I've talked to him about how he wrote the book and what his inspiration was. His focus was on making the coolest, most exciting story he could come up with. 

He wrote a thriller. 

Any other story type that happened to show up is secondary (it can arguably be called dystopian). Or tirtiary (science fiction, maybe). Or even farther down the list.

If you go by Shawn's statements, then all publishers of youth fiction put out one coming-of-age story after another, and that's all they do. The books may look a little different, but at their core, ALL of their books are coming-of-age stories. Again, if you go by Shawn's definition.

But that's not true at all. Remember, youth fiction is a MARKET, not a genre. 

Market vs. Genre

Plenty of publishers specialize in a specific genre. Harlequin is probably the best-known romance publisher, for example. No matter the content (language, amount of sex, etc.), no matter the age of the protagonists, all of their books are romances. They have specific imprints for various types of romance, but the publisher is, at its core, a publisher of the romance genre.

Similarly, St. Martin's Press is one of the most famous publishers of mysteries. 

Both of those publishers serve the adult MARKET while publishing in a specific GENRE. 

Youth fiction is the same in that it specializes in a variety of genres for a youth audience, or market. 

They know what younger readers enjoy reading. They know how to sell to those readers (and to their parents, who are often the ones buying the books). 

Within a youth publisher, specific imprints (and even more often, specific editors) focus on different GENRES. One may focus on science fiction (such as Dan Wells' Bluescreen), while others focus fantasy (including popular fairy tale re-tellings, like Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball), and still others are currently booming with the resurgence of contemporary youth fiction, like Amy Finnegan's Not in the Script.

Youth Readers Read UP

Industry experts know that kids read UP in age, meaning that a 12-year-old doesn't want to read stories about a fellow 12-year-old. They'd prefer to read about characters who are older, say 14 or so. Kids wants to be older, more grown up, and reading puts readers into a position of putting on the persona of the main character. Kids don't want to escape into their same situation. They want to experience being older vicariously.

So middle-grade books tend to have main characters who are a bit older than the target readership of 9 to 12 years. 

Likewise, a 14-year-old protagonist won't appeal to 14-year-old readers, who are instead looking for stories about 16- or 17-year-old characters. So novels targeted at the YA market tend to be about older high schoolers, even though the majority of kids reading them are finishing junior high or just starting high school.

I can confirm this after watching my own kids reading. My four children range from age 14 to 21. I've been watching them read, reading to them, and tracking youth fiction trends along with my colleagues for a LONG time. Frankly, about as long as Shawn's been an editor, I've been a writer. And did I mention I'm also an editor with about 15 years of experience? Yeah.

Trends in Youth Fiction

Industry trends are incredibly influential. Insiders know that the stuff flying off shelves now is not what will be flying off shelves two years from now. In fact, youth publishers in New York have already pegged the next big thing, and alas, dystopian fiction has already had its heyday. 

For a few years now, I've been hearing many agents (and editors) say as much, that no matter how good the story is, they just can't sell a dystopian because that ship has sailed. (That ship may also return at some point; trends often resurface eventually. But for the moment, any dystopian attempt will be dead in the water.)

Other trends: Five years ago, contemporary youth fiction was almost nonexistent. Now it's flourishing. Middle-grade fiction has exploded too. The effects are clear in the Whitney Awards, where I've been a committee member several times and recently served as president: contemporary YA used to be a very small category, but it's been growing bigger every year, and so has middle-grade. YA spec is still huge, but it's not quite as big as it used to be.

Note that the Whitney Awards are split into two market segments (adult fiction and youth fiction), which are then split into eight genre categories (five for adult fiction and three for youth fiction). Market and genre are not the same thing.

If I had to peg the coming-of-age global genre, I'd probably put it into the adult market, where it shows up primarily in literary, upmarket, and book-club titles. Not usually ones aimed at youth.

Targeting Your Audience

It should go without saying that industry insiders are very aware that adults also read youth fiction, but that's a relatively new phenomenon, and it's almost entirely thanks to the crossover readership of Harry Potter, which was then followed by the crossover readership of Twilight, and then The Hunger Games.

But the point stands: 

***Adults are not the primary audience of youth fiction.*** 

Just as Shawn wisely told Tim to remember that more than half of adult readers are women, he should also remember the demographics of who primarily reads youth fiction.

That would be YOUTH. 

And remember how young readers read UP in age? 

Let's talk about the book Tim's writing that Shawn is mentoring him with. The 12-year-old protagonist is simply too young for teen readers to care about. She's too young even for many middle-grade readers. The typical age of a reader picking up a book with a twelve-year-old protagonist will be around ten. 

Content is another big issue here. Tim's story so far (based on the discussion on the podcast; I haven't read any of it) is far too mature for a kid that age. It's a way cool story but NOT something kids who are ten or so will enjoy, fully understand, or appreciate. Yet that's the age he's writing to by picking a twelve-year-old protagonist.

That's aside from whether the story would be appropriate for that age, which I can guarantee it won't be. Tim's said outright that he wants to write the kind of book he enjoys reading (wise decision, of course!), and that includes having pretty intense violence, gore, swearing, etc. All well and good, but NOT in a middle-grade novel, which is the kind of book tucked into students' backpacks on book orders.

The age the publisher decides to market the book toward determines the content that can be in the book. 

One of my rock-star writer friends (listed above, but I won't name them directly) had their first book deemed MG instead of YA by the publisher, and therefore some content had to be changed. Nothing like violence, language, or gore, however. Oh, no. The author had to remove references to alcohol and a buxom woman's chest because those things don't belong in a MG book, only in a YA. I'm not kidding.

Other things that make a book YA: if a character faces a possible marriage situation, it's automatically YA. I've had this told to me directly by agents. It often applies to stories like fairy tales, where a marriage on the horizon is very common. Graphic violence automatically makes a book YA rather than MG. So does language. So does romance of any kind beyond maybe a boy or girl having a tiny minor beginning of a crush in a MG book. Any actual kissing (or more), and it's not MG.

The Harry Potter series began as MG. The fact that he was only eleven in the first book could very well be a big reason why it was rejected out of hand by many publishers at first. (And no, don't think you're the Rowling exception to the rule.) 

As Harry aged, so did the thematic content, moving the series from MG into YA territory. The Dumbledore we see in book one, making silly puns on the first gathering at Hogwarts, isn't the same strong, serious wizard battling evil that we see in the later books.

Kids Want Many Genres

Then there's the very obvious fact that kids and teens don't want to read coming-of-age stories and nothing else. They want thrillers, adventures, mysteries, and (for YA readers) romance. Occasionally, a book may have a coming-of-age theme in the background, but most youth fiction doesn't. 

Really.

And that's because youth fiction isn't a genre. It's a market.

Publishers of youth fiction aren't filling their lines with one type of story. Their readers would get ridiculously sick and tired of it if that were the case. That would be like every publisher of adult fiction putting out one genre only.

(I mentioned the idea of all YA books being coming-of-age stories to my 14-year-old, and she about gagged.)

Industry Shifts in the Definition of YA and MG

The way the industry views and defines youth fiction has changed dramatically over the last twenty or thirty years. There was a time when a young protagonist could show up in a book intended for adults, and no one thought anything of it. Case in point: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. 

Fast forward to today, in a post-Harry, post-Bella, post-Katniss publishing world, and publishers eager to buy and market youth fiction now see any story with a younger cast as automatically being youth fiction. 

One of my closest friends has several good friends of her own who work at the top of New York publishing. When she asked for suggestions on who to submit her adult paranormal thriller to, they all shrugged and gave her the bad news: even though her novel wasn't written for teenagers, the main characters were older teens, and in the current publishing climate, the book would automatically be seen as a YA title. 

Yet it read like an adult book. Which it was. Except for the ages of the main characters. 

Rock. Hard place.

The pendulum will likely swing the other direction at some point, but for now, here's the prevailing belief: 

• Young characters = youth fiction
• The dystopian ship has sailed (So sorry, Tim!) 
• The only place you'll find a twelve-year-old protagonist is in middle-grade fiction (Not gonna work, Tim.)
• Middle-grade fiction cannot have intense violence (Sorry again!)
• Middle-grade fiction needs a protagonist who is older than the target audience (Twelve is just too young . . .)

If Tim were writing his story in the mid-80s, right around the time Ender's Game came out, it would be a totally different situation. 

As I'm sure you know, Ender's Game is not intended for eight-year-old readers, even if Ender is a little kid for a good chunk of the book. He's what, only six or so when it opens? By today's industry standards, that would make Ender's Game an early reader book for kindergartners. 

Yeah, no.

Differences in Markets by Country

An interesting thing to note is that the industry shift in viewing age as defining the market is largely an American one. Take Dan Wells' I Am Not a Serial Killer series. It's horror, and the protagonist is sixteen. But it's not intended to be a kids' book. 

See the challenge? 

Yup.

In the U.S. it's largely marketed as a YA series.

But in the UK and elsewhere, it's marketed as an adult novel, which Dan always intended it to be. No surprise, it sells like hotcakes in markets outside the U.S. For whatever reason, American publishers and readers have a narrower view of what youth fiction is.

I'd still caution Tim away from having a twelve-year-old protagonist even if he's counting on international markets to eat up the story as one intended for adults. Dan Wells wouldn't have had his sociopathic protagonist, John, be as young as twelve. That wouldn't have worked even outside the U.S.

Why? A character on the cusp of adulthood is much easier to sell to a broader scope of readers. That's one of several reasons why Twilight and The Hunger Games had such a big crossover readership. Remember that Harry Potter didn't explode in crossover readership until the the fourth book, when Harry was fifteen and closer to adulthood.

(Side note: Contrary to what Shawn said in one episode of the podcast, Twilight isn't horror. It's YA paranormal romance.)

All of this supports the main point of this whole post, which I'll repeat: 

Youth fiction is a market, not a genre.

So What's My  Advice for Tim?

In Tim's shoes, I'd age the protagonist so she's more of a Katniss figure in her upper teens. Or make her an adult and have the story be a full-blown adult novel as he originally imagined.

That would make the most sense, seeing as Tim is clearly more familiar with the adult market anyway, and Shawn is completely unfamiliar with the youth market. I think Shawn would do a better job mentoring Tim's project as an adult book. 

Tim may well be self-publishing this novel when it's ready. If so, he won't need an agent or a New York editor currently working in the youth fiction market, so some of the industry expectations won't necessarily apply. 

Except that reader expectations have largely formed industry expectations, and that will make marketing and selling the book trickier if we have a twelve-year-old main character in an adult-themed book. And in the self-publishing e-book world, adults do most of the buying. Kids don't have as many e-readers (yet), so selling youth fiction in e-book format is harder than adult fiction.

In addition, readers tire of trends, and currently, they're dystopian-ed out. I'd suggest that Tim make sure the story feels more futuristic so it reads like science fiction rather than dystopian.

Most of all, I'd insist he learn that youth fiction with a primary/global genre of coming-of-age is in the minority. Youth fiction readers expect so much more than coming-of-age stories. I'd tell him to read lots of speculative youth fiction to get a feel for what's out there and especially what's new in the market so he's aware of what the current trends are. Heck, I could suggest a bunch.

I can guarantee that if you do read a lot of youth speculative fiction, you won't find a ton of global coming-of-age stories. Look for the other GENRES within the youth fiction MARKET!

(Am I beating a dead horse yet?)

More Advice for Tim: Content Issues

Readers of youth fiction (and their parents) expect a certain kind of content to NOT be in youth fiction. On one hand, YA has more flexibility on content than the younger markets. You'll find YA novels dealing with sex, drugs, and many other more mature issues, and YA books can also have some language, etc. Middle-grade, though, is still pretty conservative, and a twelve-year-old protagonist screams MG or even early chapter reader. Not YA or adult. 

A book with content not in line with a MG market will be really tough to sell to readers who typically pick up a book with that age of a protagonist. And older readers probably won't pick it up because they'll think it's a little kid book. That is, unless the marketing power of the podcast gets an adult readership behind him from the get go, which I suppose is possible. But in his shoes, I wouldn't bank on it.

Why Tim Should Listen to Me

I've laid out some strong opinions and beliefs about youth fiction from a women's fiction and romance writer who happens to be intimately connected with a ton of youth fiction industry insiders. Not just writers, either. Did I mention I know several editors of youth fiction and agents who rep it? And that I've edited many novels of youth fiction? I've also read more youth fiction than most fellow middle-aged people, and I've been in the writing industry for twenty-two years.

And I've been an editor for about for about half that time. 

Oh, and here's a fun post with Dan Wells and James Dashner from a little over a year ago. Because they're hilarious and awesome. 

(And because in case you're wondering, yes, I really do know them both personally.) 

What's Wrong with Using "THERE"?

Over the years, I've often done recap posts after the annual spring LDStorymakers Writers Conference, which is always a highlight of my year. In my opinion, it's THE best conference in Utah, and likely well beyond. That's saying something, because Utah has an unusually strong writing community that puts on a lot of conferences.

I hope to do a full recap at some point, but today I want to talk about something I posted on Instagram during the awesome Chris Crowe's 2-hour intensive class about micro-revision.

For those who haven't followed me and my blog ramblings over the years (or as a refresher, seeing as I'm not here as often as I once was), I've been editing professionally almost as long as I've been writing professionally. I've worked on books ranging from first attempts by beginners to pros' books that went on to win awards and become best-sellers. (I could totally name drop but won't; you'll just have to trust me on that one.)

Whenever I'd had returning clients, they mention how much they learned from the previous edit. That is hugely satisfying! It also means that their next book is better than the last one because they've learned new skills, and in turn, that means that my edit can take that next book to an even higher level.

(Important side note here: I'm not taking on new clients right now. I have a few friends and one old client I'll still work for, but typically, if you ask me to do an edit for you, I'll probably have to refer you to someone else. It's a matter of time, balance, and priorities. First and foremost, I'm a writer, but I reached a point where I was an editor who sometimes managed to sneak in a little writing, and I had to change that!)

Above you'll see a slightly cropped version of the picture I posted, which shows a portion of Dr. Crowe's class handout.

The responses to my post varied from those who cheered Dr. Crowe's advice to those who were genuinely confused as to what the problem is with using THERE. And thus this post was born.

The most important thing to keep in mind about writing is that there are no hard and fast rules. For every so-called rule, you can find exceptions. If someone ever says ALWAYS do this or NEVER do that, you can safely assume that they're wrong at least part of the time.

About the only guiding rule I follow as a writer is this: 

Anything that separates my reader from the deep experience of being immersed in my story—anything that holds them at a distance, pulls them out, or otherwise reminds them at they're reading a book—defeats my goal.

In my two-plus decades of professional experience, stronger sentences are one of the best ways to reach that goal. Words and sentences are the tools we use to create a story world and make it come so alive that it immerses the reader.

For those wondering about my passion for grammar and how that fits in, consider this: 

A big part of creating stronger sentences includes all of my grammar, usage, and punctuation rants from Word Nerd Wednesdays.

Why? Clunky, ungrammatical, ambiguous, and otherwise troublesome writing automatically makes for weak and confusing writing that pulls the reader out, making for a shallow reading experience.

All of that leads to my main point: 

The vast majority of the time (note I didn't say always), sentences beginning with THERE WAS, THERE WERE, and variations, are weak. Such sentences tend to TELL instead of SHOW. Other times, they end up wordy and redundant. They may even have a strong verb, but it's buried inside the sentence.

The Good News Is Two Fold: 

• You can easily do a search for phrases like there were and there was to find those weak sentences.
• Strengthening those weak sentences is almost as easy as finding them.

There Were: Weak Examples

I made these up on the spot, and I make no claims about their brilliance, but they should do the job:

• There was the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom. 
• There were many streets leading to the cemetery.
• There were dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.

None of those sentences is grammatically incorrect. None is wrong from a technical standpoint. But none is great, either. They could all certainly be stronger, and stronger writing should be every writer's goal.

Okay, so we've figured out how to identify the weak constructions. Now what?

STEP ONE: DELETE THE OFFENDING WORDS

Just cut off THERE WAS/WERE from the front of each sentence. Using the example sentences above, let's see what we have left:

• . . . the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom. 
• . . . many streets leading to the cemetery.
• . . . dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.

Check it out: Each sentence already has a strong noun we can use as the subject instead of the weak THERE. Plus, the verbs are already a whole lot stronger than WAS or WERE: 

• teacher lecturing
• streets leading
• couples waltzing

So if we already have strong subjects and verbs, why on earth would we want to fall back on something that will water down the image? The phrase there were is so bland on its own that it literally requires an explanation to be understood.

Yet chances are good that the explanation already following the THERE opening is pretty strong. In which case, simply cut the dead wood before the explanation and let it stand alone.

To show just how weak THERE can be, try this: Imagine your eyes are closed and you hear someone begin a story with, "There was . . . "

The storyteller pauses. What do you picture?

I'd wager that your mind would be blank. You couldn't picturing anything, because those words don't tell us anything. We have to wait to hear more before becoming part of the story. We've started with garbage words. They do nothing.

Just Cut to the Chase

Let's take the strong subjects and verbs we already have. The only real other change needed is tweaking the verb so it makes sense, and that's easy:

There was the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom

BECOMES

The teacher lectured at the front of the classroom. 

BOOM. See how we're immediately in the classroom, listening to a lecture? Before, we were being held at arm's length as someone else points out what we're supposed to notice. (Over there is a classroom . . .)

We can then expand on the image and experience, building the rest of the scene with other writing building blocks.

Here's another take on that same sentence: Flip the order and start with the location to orient the reader right away: 

At the front of the classroom, the teacher lectured.

Depending on the context, tone, pacing, and other factors of the scene, that might work even better.

You could come up with a hundred other ways to change it up, and almost all of them would be stronger than starting with THERE WAS or THERE WERE.

Another One of Our Example Sentences: 

Original: There were many streets leading to the cemetery.
Deleting first two words: . . . many streets leading to the cemetery.
Changing the verb tense as needed: Many streets led to the cemetery.

See? So easy, it's almost like a game. Let's Fix the Third Sentence: 

Original: There were dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.
Deleting the first two words: . . . dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.
Changing the verb as needed: Dozens of couples waltzed around the dance floor.

Tada! 

This kind of revision is one of my favorites to make: it's very effective and oh-so-easy to implement! 

Tightening sentences by cutting the dead wood such as THERE makes a huge difference, especially when you're talking about a novel-length work.

Don't make your reader slog through wordy, meandering sentences. Experiment with cutting THERE, then see how much stronger your scenes become.

Arm Yourself Against Data Loss

They say there are two types of writers: 

1) Those who have lost work

and 

2) those who will. 

That's the truth. And that's why I'm writing this post, as a plea to protect your work. I'm writing this now because in the last six months, I've had three friends who are professional writers and/or publishing professional s lose or almost lose huge amounts of data because they didn't have the proper safeguards in place. 

In one case, everything the writer had worked on for decades was on his laptop. He needed some kind of service on it requiring the hard drive to be wiped, so he backed up the entire thing on an external hard drive. So far, so good. But the backup failed. The data wasn't retrievable after all. He was absolutely sick over losing his life's work until a tech support person was able to dig deep enough to realize that this writer had installed a backup service, and that it was backing up his entire computer remotely all along without the writer being aware of it. He ended up losing only a week or so of work instead of decades's worth. 

In another case, the writer did make occasional backups, but it's easy to forget and put off doing a backup, from a day to a week, to months. And that's the situation she found herself in when her laptop was stolen at an airport. She lost a year's worth of work (hundreds of thousands of words) as well as priceless and irreplaceable family photos. 

The third case also involved a robbery, this time when thieves broke into her home, taking her laptop along with many other items. The other things can be replaced. Her personal creative work cannot. 

Each time I heard the news of a friend losing data, I ached inside. Having your creative work taken from you forever is soul-crushing. 

It's even worse when you know that you could have done something to prevent it. 

I know of what I speak of. I'm not talking about losing a page of two if the power goes out or the time when my son was a baby and he crawled over to the computer tower, turned it off, and I lost a chapter or so.

I've experienced worse, and I refuse to ever again. Think you're immune? You're not. 

As a preteen, I wrote a fantasy novel. Rather, I wrote most of a fantasy novel, and I typed it as in, on an actual typewriter. Because I'm that old. Writing that book was my happy place. 

The fall I entered 8th grade, Dad ended up helping a tech company with a side job using his linguistics background, and as part of that, a computer entered our house for the first time. 

Recognizing the future when I saw it, I promptly started transferring my (still unfinished, but sizable) fantasy novel into the computer. In the process, I revised and expanded what was on the page. Day after day after, I came home from the misery of junior high and slipped into the zone of my happy place. 

As I finished typing up each page of my original typewriter draft, I happily threw it away, an act that felt like an accomplishment in some way. 

Shortly after I finished getting it all written and saved in digital format, and before I finished the story, someone suggested that I get a backup copy of the file because you never knew. It was always a good idea to have a backup, just in case. 

Dad agreed, and he promised to get a floppy disk (again, yes, I'm that old), and we'd make a copy. He came home from work one day with the promised floppy disk. But my file had somehow become corrupted. Out of probably 60,000 words, I had 14 measly lines left. 

14 LINES.

I stared at the screen. That couldn't be right. Murphy isn't that cruel with his stupid law, is he?

The techie guy working on my dad's project thought he might be able to find the rest of the file or figure out what had happened. He tried. He failed. 

And then the reality sank in. What amounted to my life's work (at the age of almost 14) was gone. Erased. Wiped out of existence. I hadn't even saved the typed rough draft pages. How could I not have at least saved the pages until I got the file onto a floppy disk? 

Ever since, I've been almost maniacal about having backup copies. I used to print out hard copies of all of my manuscripts too, just in case. 

Marrying a computer scientist turned out to be particularly helpful in my quest to never lose large amounts of work ever again. This is the man who got me an e-mail address before I really grasped what the Internet was, when I asked, "Why will I ever want this?" to which he replied, "Trust me." (He was right, of course.) 

He kept me well stocked with floppy disks, followed by zip drives and other backups as technology developed. 

Today I have a external hard drive that's a copy of an old computer, but what I rely on most is an off-site backup service. 

External hard drives can be helpful, but they can also fail. If your house burns down, or there's flooding, an external drive will do you absolutely no good. 

Thumb drives are notorious for failing. They're great for transferring files from place to place. I use them a lot when speaking at conferences in case my laptop won't connect to a projector. I can always plug the thumb drive into another laptop. But I won't rely on one of those things as my primary backup. No way. 

Here Are Four Ways to Cover Your Bases:

Have your computer automatically back up every few minutes. 

You can tell Word and Scrivener how often to do that; in Scrivener, you can make it a matter of every few seconds. 

Use E-mail as a Backup.

I know many writers who e-mail themselves their own files; some do so after each work day, some less often. Either way, your files are in a safe place in your computer fails. 

Use a Cloud Service.

You've probably heard of Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. They (and others) offer free accounts with a limited amount of space (but plenty of room for text documents, if you're a writer). In many cases, you can work offline, and the file syncs next time you're online. They're a great FREE resource with an easy user interface, and even if you fill up your space, you can pay a small amount for more. 

Have an Automated Backup System. 

As long as your computer is connected to the Internet, these systems will make a copy of any change in your computer, and do so daily without your ever having to remember to do it. They keep a month's worth of copies, so you can drill down to any version of a file you need form the last 30 days to find the exact one you're looking for. If your laptop is stolen, dies with a gasp, gets taken over by a virus, or whatever, you can download everything to a brand new laptop, including your programs and directories. At most, you'll only ever lose changes since the last backup, which is always within the last 24 hours. (Another reason why using e-mail or something like Dropbox is a good idea on top of this.)

Because these services are so thorough, the first backup can take days, but it works in the background, and you can still use your computer like you would any other day. After that, a backup is quick and again, always in the background. 

We used Mozy for years and recently switched to Backblaze, which we found to be more intuitive and more affordable. They have backup systems of their own, so your data is pretty darn safe.

I never worry anymore that I've lost data because I haven't. It's always retrievable. And I know that because I've had to retrieve files from the backups, several times. 

My Plea

Whatever you do, don't rely entirely on your own computer's internal backup or on an external drive. 

With so many cloud services, including free ones, and with free e-mail services, you have no excuse to not have backups of your work. 

I guarantee that the ones and zeroes that make up your writing are incredibly fragile. Something will happen to them at some point, whether that's a virus or something else. You will lose some work. We can hope it'll be a only a few hundred words, but what if it's an entire novel? 

When you lose data (because you will), be sure you can restore it. 

And in the meantime, you can rest (and write) easy, knowing that even if hardware fails, even if thieves ruin your day, even if you get a Trojan horse, you'll always be able to get your work back. 

NEWS: 

An Unexpected Proposal, my first novella to ever come out with the Timeless Romance Anthology series, is now available as a single for 99 cents. 

And my second novella, Chasing Tess, from the TRA Spring Collection, is up for pre-order as a single, also for only 99 cents. Order it now, and it'll download to your device on Christmas day! 

I have other novellas that will be going live soon, plus a really fun project coming in January that you'll want to keep your eyes open for! 

Where I Get My Inspiration

Note: My Timeless Romance Anthology is now available! Get it HERE for Amazon or HERE for iTunes. Other purchase links below.

Inspiration is like a pile of Lego blocks.

Recently on Facebook, someone (I’m forgetting who, unfortunately) tagged me and several other writers to ask where we find our inspiration.

I wasn’t sure how to answer because the term inspiration can be defined in so many ways. Did she mean how do I find ideas? How do I find the inspired rush that drives me to the keyboard? Something else?

I never did get around to answering the question when it was posted, but it’s been tumbling around in my head for some time, so I thought I’d tackle it here from the perspective my 20+ years of writing seriously (plus another 15 of dabbling in it).

INSPIRATION AS AN IDEA GENERATOR

Finding things to write about is one type of inspiration. Finding ideas isn’t the hard part; they’re everywhere. Finding good ideas with a fresh angle that are interesting and worth pursuing is a big trickier. In my experience, the good ideas are the ones where at least two very different things suddenly come together in your head in a new way.

The trick is making yourself open to absorbing all kinds of input and then letting your brain play with the resulting stack of Lego idea bricks to see what kind of thing you can make with the new blocks you found.

The magic of a shiny new idea, at least for me, often happens when my brain takes two pieces of information that seem utterly unconnected, clicks them together like Lego pieces, and I suddenly have a shiny new “what if” scenario that gets me so excited I can’t stop thinking about it. 

And you can’t plan for the kind of sudden click (or collision, however you look at it) of ideas. It happens unexpectedly, unpredictably. That’s part of the magic of the creative process. 

So if you can’t pencil in that you’ll have a flash of brilliance at 1:34 PM on Tuesday when you need an idea, how exactly do you make sure you’ll have great ideas when you need them and that you won’t run out of them?

(1) Constantly Fill Your Well

Be aware of what’s around you. Soak it all in. Keep up with current events where you live and abroad. Read up on weird trivia. Read a lot: novels in your genre and outside it, nonfiction, magazines, and more. I’m not a fast reader, but I do read regularly and a wide variety of .

People watch then think of ways to describe that mannerism the man over there made. Or come up with a good (non-cliché) metaphor to describe the way the lake looks right now. This mental kind of game is especially big when I travel to a new place. I go out of my way to notice colors, smells, and sounds. I pay attention to how people behave. What the food is like. And so on. My creative inner child have fun with the building blocks. I have no way of knowing which details will eventually show up in a story, so I drink it all in. The more that’s in the well, the more variety of Lego blocks my mind has to play with and land on an unexpected combination.

When I’m in a new place, I take pictures to trigger my memory. I take notes that day but often after the fact rather than in the moment so I don’t miss noticing anything, and so I can immerse myself in an experience.

By filling your well up with outside stimuli, you’re giving your creative subconscious the Lego blocks it needs if it’s going to build something cool. Be sure to give it plenty of supplies for the job. 

Other ideas: Read and watch the news and imagine scenarios from the victims’ perspective and from the perpetrator’s. Law enforcement’s, too. Watch news magazine shows and imagine what really went on in those people’s lives. Sometimes I get ideas from songs, but that’s usually on road trips when I’m listening to the same album over and over because a child insists on it, and because the long hours of open road let my mind wander.

Mental wandering, I’ve found, is key to landing on great ideas. Mundane chores and activities are fabulous for letting the creative mind meander through the creative well so it will come back with ideas. That kind of wandering rarely yields fruit if you’re stressed out and trying to force it. 

I’ve had ideas (and even solutions to big plot problems) pop into my head while mowing the lawn, doing dishes, vacuuming, sorting laundry, drying my hair, taking a shower, and (as mentioned already) driving long distances. Note that in all of those activities, chances are, I am in a relaxed state, and in many of them I am physically moving. For me, those elements are often key for the best brainstorming.

In contrast, the more I try to force an idea to show up RIGHT NOW, the more likely my creative brain will panic and retreat. 

(2) Make Yourself a Small Box and Get Inside It.

A completely different way of being inspired with new ideas came about for me after I joined forces with Heather B. Moore and Sarah M. Eden with the Timeless Romance Anthology series. Each story I write for the series has a specific theme on top of being either historical or contemporary (very different animals themselves). We’ve consistently put out 3 to 4 collections a year for some time now, so I always have another novella deadline around the corner.

That sounds pretty terrifying, but as it turns out, the thematic requirements haven’t been restrictive; they’ve been utterly freeing. 

It reminds me of a board game that some family members were chosen to be beta testers for. They brought it to a family dinner, and we all played. The game had cards with abstract shapes and lines all over them, and depending on how things went, sometimes you could get points for finding any object on a card, or you had to find objects belonging to a specific category (fruits, vehicles, school supplies). At first, we assumed that the free-for-all turns would be easier because no object was off limits. But without exception, the free-for-all turns were when we all choked, unable to see much of anything. 

But give us a specific category, and we could spot pictures everywhere (Look! Grapes! That’s a pineapple. I found an apple, orange, and strawberry. Ooh, a pear!) And on it went. The more specific the requirement, the easier it was for our minds to see patterns.

My experience with the anthologies has been similar: If someone were to tell me to write a short story or novella about anything at all, in any genre, right now, that could be tricky. But give me clear parameters (e.g. a paranormal historical romance set during Halloween, like our next Timeless collection will be), and suddenly, ideas start popping up all over the place. 

Case in point: A few months ago, knowing I needed to write my All Hallows’ Eve story, I drove past a cool old church at night. I noticed a light on above a door, coming through the window above it. Immediately, I thought of how cool it would be if there were a ghost in the building, and I was seeing its light through the window. 

As I drove on (likely to pick up a child from some activity), I knew I’d landed on the seed of the story that will be in that collection. The story itself didn’t show up until later, after I toured the church and another local historic site, but I knew the story would involve a ghost and that church window. (See the news below about when to expect that collection!)

Quite often, the smaller the box you must work inside, the easier the ideas come to fill it. If you don’t have a box given to you from an outside source, create one. Look online for writing prompts to create a box. You may find a new book idea, or you may have fun with a writing exercise. Either way, it’s worth your time. 

INSPIRATION TO ACTUALLY WRITE

This is another way of defining inspiration, and it’s a different ball of wax entirely. I’d go so far as to say that for the most part, it’s a myth.

Sure, writers all have moments of feeling drawn to the keyboard, and those moments are probably what first lit the excitement inside us about writing in the first place. But those moments are usually fleeting and spaced far apart. 

Life gets in the way (so does the internet and so many other things), and then the writing doesn’t happen. If you write only when inspiration strikes, it’ll take you fifteen years (or more) to finish the first draft a project. Along the way, you’ll probably take several detours by starting ten other shiny new projects . . . without finishing any of them, either.

A truth: Often getting a writing session started is the hardest part. The muse, the inspiration, simply isn’t there. Even after writing for as long as I have, getting down to work can be a battle. I know that if I force myself to start pounding out words, and especially if I give myself permission to have those words be garbage instead of feeling the pressure to make them all perfect, then within fifteen minutes, I will almost certainly slip into the magic of flow. The inspiration will show up, and the writing session will become productive and even fun.

The order of those events is key: Before inspiration to write strikes, you have to start writing without it.

I have to work without out any inspiration or excitement, at least at first. I have to force myself to write, knowing that the only way out is through. Sometimes I’ve put in the work, and every word was dragged out of my fingers kicking and screaming. That can happens for days or weeks or months at a time, so I start thinking that I really do suck at this thing, and I’ll never feel the creative rush again.

But if I keep showing up and producing words, the inspiration eventually does show up, and suddenly, I never I remember why I do this crazy thing, and I never want to leave the keyboard.

That feeling is pretty darn amazing. But it’s not something I can sit around waiting for. It won’t come that way. You show up first. The muse will eventually see that you really do take your writing seriously. As a result, it will start to show up at a certain time because she knows she can count on you to already be there.

For more on inspiration and writing, I highly recommend Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on the subject. I’ve watched it several times over the years, and I get something new from it every time.

  

THREE PIECES OF EXCITING NEWS! 

FIRST: On August 3, watch for the release of the All Hallows’ Eve collection from Timeless Romance Anthologies, featuring guest contributors Elana Johnson, Jordan McCollum, and Lisa Mangum, in addition the three of us who appear in each volume (Heather B. Moore, Sarah M. Eden, and yours truly). Find its beautiful and creepy cover HERE. This is where my ghost story will published!

SECOND: The next volume after that celebrates the Christmas season: Under the Mistletoe will be released mid-October, in time for readers to enjoy it in the weeks leading up to the holiday season. Here's the link to the cover reveal. We have some great guest authors on board for it!

THIRD, AND FOR THE MOMENT, MOST IMPORANTLY:

The Annette Lyon Collection from Timeless Romance Anthologies is LIVE, and the reviews are starting to come in. Snag it now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or iTunes, and watch for the blog tour later this month.

WNW: Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips Book Review

As long-time readers know, this isn't a review blog. The only reviews I post are about books I have handpicked, and they're usually nonfiction titles I want to pass along to fellow readers and writers. I think the last book I reviewed was Mignon Fogarty's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know.

Truth be told, shortly after that post, I meant to post a second review of another book by Fogarty (also known as Grammar Girl, from the podcast of the same name), but after reading the other book, I promptly misplaced it in one of those cases of "I'll keep it in a very safe place so I won't lose it" and, of course, I promptly forgot the safe place.

I didn't want to post a review without having the book beside me because, as I do with so many reference books, I wrote in the margins and wanted to be able to refer to my notes.

For this week's Word Nerd Wednesday, the first bit of good news is that the book is found and at my side! Hooray! Now we can discuss Grammar Girls' Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

The second piece of news is that I had a great time rereading my notes and then going over the passages they refer to, and I found the book as delightful as I did when I first read it a few years ago. I found stars, underlined passages, and smiley faces all over the place.

Best of all, the author and I share many of the same stylistic peeves, which made me like her even more. Seriously, I couldn't stop grinning over to try and versus to try to on page 45, something I rant talk about on page 90 of my own grammar book. Beside her discussion of another of my peeves, the weak there is/are way of beginning a sentence, on page 81, I'd written, "Yay!"

Grammar Girl is known for her conversational, accessible style, and this book is no exception. It's laid out in an easy-to-read format, with clear headers and fun examples, as well as text boxes with background and other additional information, often fun trivia related to language. (Yes, fun and language can exist in the same sentence.)

The book goes over many common problems in writing, from grammar to punctuation to style issues. She even discusses why the rule of two spaces after a period has changed in the computer era (page 85). (See this post for my explanation, which agrees entirely with her.)

The final chapter is short, and while it won't be one you turn to regularly to remember a rule, it's helpful for writers of all kinds. It talks about breaking through blocks, finding writing groups, revising, proofreading, and more.

At the end of the book, you'll find appendices with lists of commonly confused words and other great references.

I can't cover all of the great parts of a book with more than 200 pages, but here are a few highlights I particularly enjoyed:

• Squinty modifiers. (Page 65.) Great name for an easy error to make with modifiers, with a clear explanation and a great example.
• The semicolon splicer image to help remember how to use the mark (page 75).
• Properly punctuating indirect questions. (Page 89.) I've seen this issue a lot in my editing work, and agree with Fogarty so entirely that in that margin, I wrote "For the love!" because people need to learn this!
• How to properly use a colon. (Pages 92 to 96.) A much-needed explanation.
• The Oxford comma. (She favors it! Woohoo!) 
• The title of chapter six: "Prozac for Pronouns: Getting the Stuntmen of Language Under Control." (Page 139.) LOVE IT.

And this gem on page 96: "Using a hyphen in place of a dash can cause your copy editor to have a mild fit."

Amen and amen.

The book is a quick read, and it's one you'll want to keep on hand as a reference for a long time. 

My only complaint is tiny: A few things have changed since the book's publication in 2008, such as how long Facebook status updates can be. Like I said, very small things. Considering how fast technology changes, I'm impressed how on top of technology she is, and that I noted only a couple of spots where things are different in 2014. 

Get a copy for yourself and another for the writer in your life. (Hint: That's everyone in today's society. We all need to know how to write clearly.) Here's the link again to make it really easy for you. And if you haven't gotten my book, here's that link too.

SOME BIG NEWS IS COMING SOON!

Stay tuned for the announcement of two projects I'm working on with Luisa Perkins. We'll roll out the first one in a few weeks, and the second one a few weeks after that. 

You won't want to miss out on them! 

UPDATE
Coincidentally, right now, Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) is raising money to fund an awesome card game called Peeve Wars. I've chipped in; I hope you will too. The campaign has just 10 days left to reach its goal. Learn more about Peeve Wars and donation rewards HERE. If you have personal grammar and usage peeves (and you know you do), you'll want this game.

Guest Post: Ali Luke on Why Editing Matters

Self-editing must be in the water . . . last week I posted on the Precision Editing Group blog about how I do it, answering questions from TJ, and today my readers get a treat: a guest post by Ali Luke that digs deeper in to the whys and wherefores of self-editing.

Ali is a personal writing coach. She's written books about freelance blogging, and now she's also a novelist. Today she addresses what's behind self-editing.

In short: It matters, and here's why.

Why Editing Matters . . . and How to Stay Motivated to Do It Well

by Ali Luke

Whatever sort of writing you do– whether you’re working on a blog post, a book, or just a short piece for your church newsletter—you’re going to need to edit.

Sometimes, that editing might take just a few minutes. You’ll be looking for typos, smoothing awkward sentences, and making sure that you’ve included everything you wanted to say.

With bigger projects, though, the editing phase needs to take a correspondingly bigger chunk of your writing time. If you’re working on a non-fiction book or a novel, you may well find that you spent as long on the editing as on the first draft (and quite possibly longer).

If the creative bit of writing is what excites you—seeing a blank page fill up with new words and thoughts—then editing may feel uninspiring. You may be very tempted to just call it “done” and publish your blog post or send off your book manuscript as-is.

But here’s why editing matters...

Editing Shows Your Respect for Your Work . . . and Your Reader

It’s very, very tough to produce a perfect first draft. You might manage it on a short blog post (though even then, you’ll almost certainly find at least a word or two you want to change). With anything much longer, you’re likely to have all sorts of first draft problems. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your writing, or with you; it’s just part of the writing process.

First drafts often have:

·        Missing information—sections, chapters or scenes that you realize need to be added in for a sense of completeness.

·         Superfluous information—tangents and digressions that you might have needed to write through . . . but that are now making your work lopsided.

·         Badly ordered information—perhaps chapter 10 would make more sense as chapter 5.

·         Repetitive information—maybe you’ve been working on your project for years, and you didn’t realize that chapter 20 covers rather similar ground to chapter 12.

·         Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, poor punctuation, typos—all of these will distract, confuse and annoy your reader; thankfully, they’re easy to fix.

Careful editing means taking your work seriously. It means respecting the time that you’ve already put into the writing, and the time that you’re going to be spending on publishing, promoting, or sharing this piece with others.

Your editing also shows respect for your reader. Yes, of course the reader can still gain value from a piece of writing that has a few typos, or that’s badly organized—but when they’re investing their time and energy in reading your work, you want to deliver something that’s as good as you can make it.

Staying Motivated to Edit: Start to End

One of the best ways to be motivated is to split editing into several stages: don’t try to do everything at once, and definitely don’t try to edit while you’re writing the first draft. If you find yourself going back to restart every sentence before you’ve finished it, you won’t make much progress.

Whatever you’re editing—from a novel to a blog post—here’s a simple structure you can use:

Step #1: Let Your Work Sit

If you’ve written something short, leaving it alone over lunch might give your mind enough space to come back afresh. If you’ve written a whole novel, leaving it for at least a couple of weeks should help clear your head. While you’re away from your work, your subconscious will keep on mulling over ideas—and you may be surprised what comes up when you dig in on the editing.

Motivation Boost: Often, taking some time out can make you feel much more eager to get back to work! You might want to plan a vacation or a retreat so that you can rest while your writing is resting.

Step #2: Read Through the Whole Thing

Go through your whole post, article, or book in a short space of time—ideally, one day. Jot down any brief notes as you’re going along, if you’re worried about forgetting something. At this point, you’re just trying to get a sense of the shape of the work (something that’s tough to do when you’ve been writing for days, weeks, or months).

Motivation Boost: You’ll almost certainly come across some great passages in your work that you’ve completely forgotten writing. You may find that it’s better than you expected. And even though you’ll notice some problems, you’ll also start thinking of ways to fix it.

Step #3: Edit the Big Picture

This is the stage that I often call “revision”—making substantial changes to a work-in-progress. You’ll find yourself cutting, adding, or rearranging whole sections. If you’re working on a non-fiction book, you might change the direction entirely; if you’re writing a novel, you may add a subplot or cut a character.

Motivation Boost: You can make fast, visible progress at this stage, cutting through swathes of words at a time. You’ll see your book (or post, or article) coming into shape.

Step #4: Get Feedback

Once you’ve gone through step #3, it’s a great idea to get feedback on your piece, especially if you’ve written something in-depth like a book. Ask some trusted friends or fellow-writers to act as your “beta-readers,” testing out your work and giving feedback on what’s good and what might need some further improvement.

Note: Depending on the feedback you get, you might need to repeat step #3 and make some further big-picture changes.

Motivation Boost: Having readers feels great, especially if they get excited about your book. You’ll also get lots of new ideas and suggestions, which can be really encouraging, especially if you were starting to feel a bit stale.

Step #5: Edit the Details

By this point, your piece should be in good shape. If it’s a blog post or an article, all the paragraphs should be in the right order; if it’s a book, all the chapters and scenes should be firmly in place. Now, you can deal with all those little things like grammatical slips, spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, and so on.

Motivation Boost: This stage isn’t very creative, but it can be immensely satisfying to get things right. If it feels like there’s a lot of work before you, try splitting your project into sections; make a chart, and check each off as you complete it.

So, is editing really worth all that work? I was wondering that myself when I got to Draft 5 of my novel, Lycopolis: I sent the draft to a freelance editor, the lovely and honest Lorna Fergusson from fictionfire, and she recommended some substantial changes. I’d hoped for just a few minor corrections . . .  but I took her advice on board, and I cut the novel’s manuscript from 135,000 to 85,000 words.

It definitely was worth the work: the lovely reviews, tweets, and emails that I’ve had confirm that! So if you’re staring at a first draft right now—or even a fifth draft—then don’t be afraid to dig in once again, if that’s what your beta-reader (or your editor) is suggesting.

But once you’ve got that article or post or book as good as you can, let it go. Put it out into the world . . . and trust that the great editing job you’ve done will be enough that your work can really shine.



About the Author:
Ali Luke is currently on a virtual book tour for her novel Lycopolis, a fast-paced supernatural thriller centered on a group of online role players who summon a demon into their game . . . and into the world. Described by readers as “a fast and furious, addictive piece of escapism” and “absolutely gripping,” Lycopolis is available in print and e-book form. Find out more at www.lycopolis.co.uk.