Jozette's Desk

What You Should Know About
Being a Commercial Author

Rob Parnell

This week a writer asked me a great question - something I take so much for granted that I realised I don't talk about it much!

The question was simple:

"I love what you teach, Rob, but can you give me the names of any popular novels that exemplify and reflect your teaching?"

Where to start?

First, take a look at the top 100 bestselling novels out there at any one time! All of them contain the elements I teach. All of them.

You name a successful author, and I can tell you exactly what they do that makes them commercial and popular.

Anyone from Jeffrey Archer to Poppy Z Brite.

The Fact Is...

I have made it my business over the last twenty five years to study all kinds of popular fiction - in all kinds of commercial genres: thrillers, romance, mystery, fantasy, horror and science fiction - hence, my expertise and my ability to teach these genres.

I have made similar studies in popular film making - hence, I would have to say, our recent successes is screenplay writing. 

And just for good measure, I was a pop star once, which gave me huge access to the art of composing and songwriting techniques. 

I'm actually a bit of geek when it comes to popular culture. I know lots of trivia too about films, books and music of the 20th century - so much so that in days gone past I was always the guy chosen to answer those questions in local quiz nights!

More important - the thing that makes me different I would guess - is my ability to not just enjoy art and craftsmanship in fiction, movies and music - but to also be able to assimilate, dissect and understand exactly what goes into creating commercial 'art'.

More than that, I can teach exactly HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO.

I know this because people tell me all the time - daily, and have done for more years than I care to ponder.

I don't know how I picked up this ability - or what it's really for - I just know that if it is a gift, then I should use it - not only to help further my own 'artistic' career - but to help other people achieve their dreams too.

I like to think that's what I do.

If I thought I wasn't teaching people to become successful, confident and motivated artists, I would stop doing this tomorrow!

There would be no point, would there?

Anyway...

Here's a FREE Breakdown of My BEST Advice

1. Choose the direction you want to go in

This may be the hardest part for many - to know with certainty the genre or the road on which you want to travel. Many artists and writers may spend decades discovering the kind of stories they want to write - and the kind of writer they want to be.

But unless you're some kind of polymath, then specialization is the key to success. Choose one area in which you wish to excel and focus on that alone.

If you're not sure, choose something related to what you love already. If you love romance, write romance, study it, learn the genre requirements and live the life of a romance writer. 

Don't fight the genre requirements, God no, not yet, absorb them, understand them and write to show publishers you get it.

This advice is true for any artistic pursuit.

Being different is okay once you're there - but if you don't show people you know what you're doing first, then you're never going to get to the point where you can experiment.

This holds true for all great authors - from Stephen King to JK Rowling, from James Patterson to Patricia Cornwell: they proved they can handle their genre first, then put their own stamp on it.

2. Find Out Everything You Need to Know

Read anything and everything related or connected to that genre or direction you'd like to focus on.

Become an expert on your genre. Study its authors.

Learn how the greats have done it. Work out exactly how writers structure their sentences, their paragraphs, their chapters, their entire novels - it's not that hard to do.

Even if there are authors that you're not crazy about, and yet they are successful and popular, study them too. Work out why their writing is effective to their fans. 

3. Constantly Improve Your Technique

Make it a lifelong goal to improve your writing - to get better.

Study the basics often. Study all you can about spelling, grammar, style, writing technique, planning and all of the myriad advice around regarding fiction and creative writing.

You can never hear good advice too many times. 

And to think you are above the basics is to kid yourself - there is no such thing as a writer who does not find all of the nuances of writing - including the most trivial - absolutely fascinating.

If you don't, then take up gardening. It will probably be more rewarding for you!

And I've saved the best advice for last:

4. When it comes to telling stories, develop the concept fully.

The modern world of commercial writing is not primarily focussed on creating or even acknowledging good writers. You can be the most fabulous writer in your community BUT if you can't tell a half decent story, you will struggle to become a successful author.

Look at all of the bestselling authors of the 20th and 21st centuries - what do you see?

Not the writers. No, their characters, their worlds, their STORIES are what stand out. 

Think about James Bond or Sherlock Holmes. Think about Harry Potter, Twilight, Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code.

It's the concepts that sold these stories to millions of readers.

You don't even have to be a great literary writer.

Once they had a good idea that was well thought out, all of the most successful authors of the last 100 years had to do was immerse themselves so fully into their concepts that they were merely recording their worlds for others to share.

That, my friend, is all you need to 'get' if you really want to be a commercial bestselling author.

That's my best advice (for what it's worth!)

Thanks for letting me rant.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell

http://www.easywaytowrite.com

 

  If In Doubt, Leave It Out

Rob Parnell

You probably won't be surprised to learn I read a lot of unpublished manuscripts. I also read a lot of published work. Are there some glaring differences between the two? You betcha.

The fact is most beginning writers write too much. That's okay for the first draft but when it comes to editing, you need to give that delete key a thorough work out!

Good writing is about pacing, about taking the reader on a journey and keeping in step with them along the way.

If you get the pacing wrong, the reader will stumble and begin to lose interest because it will seem you are more interested in writing the words than telling the story or relaying the information.

Here's some tips on how to cut down on unnecessary verbiage!

The Art of Description

With the advent of global communication and visual media, we all know what most things and even most places look like. It's no longer necessary to spend more than a couple of sentences establishing what things are, where scenes are set and what the weather is like, if that's important for mood.

Many readers nowadays will actually skip descriptive passages because they find them dull and interrupt the flow of the text. So don't beat yourself up over getting all the details across - that's what the reader's imagination is for!

Qualify That

Sometimes we write scenes etc. we're not sure the reader will understand - so we add extra words to explain ourselves, resulting in more confusion than clarity. For instance, look at this:

"With the divorce weighing on his mind, and his fears about losing his job, John was having difficulty deciding what to do with himself. Could he face going out, knowing that Pete would probably spend the evening ribbing him over his his inability to get along with his boss and his problems with his estranged wife?"

Clearly this is clumsy and confusing to read. Much better to remove the qualifiers and simplify:

"The divorce was weighing on his mind - and his job. Did he want to go out? John wasn't sure. Pete would probably just want to rib him."

In the above version, even though the propositions are only loosely defined - the reader still gets it. You don't always need to explain every little nuance to get a point or two across. Quite the opposite in fact.

Room to Breathe?

When you write you make a contract with your reader - whom you must regard as your equal. Not someone who is slow to understand and needs to be carefully led, shown everything and generally talked down to.

It's perfectly okay to leave out obvious - and therefore redundant - details. You don't always have to explain exactly who said what, what happened where, why and how long.

Too many new writers clog up their stories with unnecessary backstory, linking scenes, plot justifications and long complicated explanations of things the reader already regards as clear.

If you write with honesty and intelligence, your reader knows what and who you mean - when you over explain, you insult the reader. Don't do it.

Direction

Quite often writing suffers because the reader doesn't know where you're going. They wonder why you're focussing on certain characters and details - especially when you haven't first hinted at the 'point' of your story.

When you open a piece, you need a big 'sign' that tells the reader you're going THIS WAY - so that the reader knows what to expect along the way. You need to define your objectives - your purpose - in some way on the first page.

For instance, if you're writing a murder mystery, don't spend the first chapter following the protagonist around doing her laundry. Get on with the story and as soon as you can, show us the body!

Play By The Rules

Especially in genre fiction, you have to adhere to certain rules, because that's what the reader wants. Horror stories need to be at least a little horrific - right from the start. Romance requires that you have lovers at odds with each other by page two. Science fiction and Fantasy require the elements of their genres too.

Publishers often say that, though many writers are good, they often write themselves outside of any given genre in their desire to be different or original - thereby, alas, disqualifying themselves from publication!

Of course it's important to be original - but if you can do that within the confines your reader expects, your chances of publication skyrocket.

Focus

What you're looking for is sharp writing that relays the facts. When you go back and edit for sense, go for simplicity rather than exposition. If you waffle on about the intricacies of conflicting thought processes or meander through long descriptions of the countryside, you lose all sense of tension.

Pick up any popular novel. The best ones have no words that are about writing. They're all about story. However concise.

Speech tags

Okay. Speech tags - you know all the 'he said, she cried, they exclaimed blah de blah' - I'll keep this advice simple and precise. Unless you're writing children's fiction, lose them. As many as you can. It's the way of the modern writer.

The way to do it is to use other, more subtle ways of suggesting who is saying what. It's easily done, it just requires a little thought.

You can refer to character's actions just before or after dialogue, or use different styles to suggest different people.

Just as an experiment, try editing out all of the speech tags from your next MS. I think you'll be surprised and...master this technique and publishers will love you for it!

Adverbs

Yep - we all know we're not supposed to use them, especially after a speech tag. They really are mostly redundant and add nothing to the story. Repeat to yourself three times before bedtime: I will try to edit out every word that ends in 'ly'! (I just noticed there are two in this paragraph - oops!)

Well I could go on like this for hours - 'do this, do that, don't do that' etc. - I take writing very seriously, as I'm sure you've guessed. But I hope these few tips will help you the next time you edit your final draft.

The general rule, by the way, is that at least 20% of your MS is probably surplus to requirements! And that goes for all of us!

Best regards and keep writing!

 

How to Write About Sex

Rob Parnell

Sex scenes are difficult for most writers, whatever their skill level.

First attempts at writing about physical love often result in what is called 'purple prose' - because of its tendency towards the over-wordy, the liberal use of pretentious metaphors and almost laughable similes at times.

It's tricky to draw the line between erotica, soft porn and literary ineptitude. I think the problem stems from writers confusing two fundamental issues. 

One is the actual sex event and the other, the affect of those sex events on the characters. Writers often plump for describing the subjective mental sensations associated with sex, instead of focusing on what is actually happening during the sex act.

Of course we don't want our love scenes to come across as dry medical texts - describing every anatomical feature with its proper name, or gratuitously mentioning bodily fluids and every physical gyration, bump and grind.

However we also don't want to write scenes that come across as false and unwittingly crass or even funny.

Writing Sex Scenes 101 

Let's face it, the first time we try to write sex scenes, it can be  mildly titillating, a fact that gets in the way of the writing. Plus, our own embarrassment or prudishness, our own sense of decorum can interrupt the writing process and force us into writing words we would never use to describe anything else - like eating or swimming for instance, which, after all, are both equally pleasurable experiences.

As we all know, sex is nothing more than a physical act unless it's combined with and expressed through love. The problem is that, in our attempts to make sex seem more meaningful in our writing, we often end up using adjectives and adverbs that are anathema to good writing.

Worse, we find that seeking the most effective way of describing pleasurable sensations, we end up making the writing ineffective. 

I think the trick is to separate the various notions you might have about sex writing and break them down. Then, having discovered where your own strengths and weaknesses lie, try to rebuild your skills at sex writing from the ground up.

(You'll notice I resisted the temptation to say 'bottom up'!)

If you write romance especially, you will eventually be judged by how you in particular handle sex scenes. Alas, there is no 'right' way to write sex scenes - only many, many 'wrong' ways to go! 

Here are some tips and techniques you might employ to help you learn how to write sex scenes with flair:

Get it Out of Your System

In order to write sex scenes with any kind of integrity, you need to get used to doing them. Make a commitment now to write five new sex scenes that you will NEVER show anyone.

(Some romance writers use this technique on a weekly basis!)

Be as graphic as you can. Use the filthiest language you can think of. Be offensive. Be gross. Be disgusting. The fact is, these are personal, relative terms - but you need to know where your boundaries lie.

And by knowing what you could write, but choose not to, in your own fiction, is part of improving how you handle sex scenes.

Change Your Point of View

Often we make the mistake of assuming we know how everyone else feels about sex. Sure, we can have some idea how it feels physically - we're all built the same after all.

But how we feel about love is very personal - and not always a shared experience - as much as we might want to believe it is.

The trick here is to be aware of a character's perspective and understand that each of them will have a different way of feeling the experience of love. In fact keeping in character is one of the main ways to make your love scenes convincing. 

Often writers go into raptures over sexual emotions that are their own - rather than the character's - which makes them doubly embarrassing to write - and read!

As an exercise, write one sex scene from multiple points of view. 

Her viewpoint in first and third person, then his viewpoint, first and third person. Then, for good measure, write from the POV of an objective observer. 

Remember that in the final version, you can't describe what's happening in the participants' heads. Describe only what you see.

Use Your Own Experience

Memory is notoriously unreliable.

Part of the sex act's power lies in that all the clumsiness and fumbling are conveniently forgotten after the moment of climax. The afterglow is most definitely rose-colored.

Unfortunately this can interfere with our memory of what is actually going on during the sex act - even emotionally. As a writer you need to analyze what actually happens in your body and mind during sex - and describe that.

Don't fall into the habit of using other writers well worn words and phrases to describe sex. You have to be honest. Anything that smacks of sounding borrowed or second hand will not be convincing. Editors have heard it all before.

Don't color your memory with verbs and adjectives - just write down the facts.

Now, you're getting close to writing good sex scenes.

Don't Be Afraid

Too often we are reluctant to use the right words for body parts, as though there's some unwritten law that says we can't mention them. Hence we end up with sometimes ludicrous metaphors and similes.

You know the ones. 'His manhood', the 'core of her being', etc.

These similes are dumb and unnecessary.

We also describe the human orgasm in a variety of absurd ways - 'rising passion', 'urgency' and references to all kinds of explosions being the more common ones.

This is to be avoided. What you really need to do is analyze your own physical sensations with accuracy and veracity. Only then will your writing be convincing. 

Next Time You Have Sex, Take a Notebook

Seriously, the next time you have sex, you need to slightly detach yourself and work out exactly what is going on.

All the time that you're in heavenly rapture, you're not really able to use your 'writerly mind' to unravel how you might describe real sex, as opposed to literary or Hollywood sex, which doesn't really exist - but is what I call 'aspirational sex'. 

This is something that we would all aspire to experience but given the reality of shoelaces, bra straps and ungainly performance techniques is usually somewhat beyond us!

In order to write good romantic sex, you probably need to find the right balance between 'aspirational sex' and reality.

And I think in good fiction, what you need to do in convincing sex scenes is to use a combination of honesty, reality and, above all, total empathy for your characters.

Only then can you come close to writing scenes that don't jar or bring an unwanted smile to the face of your reader.

As with all great writing, aspire to sincerity, write from the heart, without affectation, and you'll do well.

'Til next time,

Keep Writing!

Rob@easywaytowrite.com
Your Success is My Concern
http://easywaytowrite.com

 

                   Writing Matters 

                        by Rob Parnell

What happens when you can't think of anything to write?

It's funny because I've noticed this is quite a common problem - for the newbie and the professional alike, but usually for different reasons.

Often the newbie will be flushed with the conviction that she's a writer. She feels it, she knows it in her bones. And yet when it comes to sitting down in her writing space, she wonders what she should say - exactly what should she focus on? What should she communicate - or at least commit to paper?

The professional writer too can get stuck. He may have exhausted his current topics of interest and want to start on something fresh. Like the newbie, the professional may ask himself, what can I say that is of interest to my editor, my publishers or my fans?

Both the newbie and the professional may get stuck on what to write NEXT.

                                    Create You Own Emergency

Deadlines and external pressure work for the professional. Often working writers have no choice but to slog along on their writing projects because at some point in the past they promised to do a piece for another person.

There's nothing like the imagined feel of a producer or publisher's breath on the back of your neck to get you, if not motivated, then at least pumping out words.

But what if there's no pressure?

In 'Becoming a Writer', the great Dorothea Brande pointed out that writers create their own emergencies. They alone decide that a piece of writing must be done.

They have to. In reality, there's no need for yet another piece of writing. The world won't care whether you don't write. Nobody misses the bestsellers that never were.

That's the irony of writing. Writers become successful for writing things nobody realized they were missing - until they read them.

Writers need to create first and foremost for themselves. They need to feel a compulsion to record something in words that is important only to their own conscience.

Here, I think we're getting to the heart of 'reasons to write'.

Because once you establish your reasons - or, for the professional, re-establish your reasons, then the issue of what to write about can fall into place.

Find Your Passion and Embrace it

I once read a column written by Stephen Fry. He's famous for being an actor mostly but is surprisingly adept at stringing a few words together. (Of course his one time comedy partner, Hugh Laurie, is now much more famous - as the gorgeous Doctor House.)

But in the article, Stephen examined the problems associated with having no ideas - and what it meant to the writer.

His conclusions were vague (as you'd probably expect) but I gleaned that the artist in him was satisfied that he had created something - after he had finished the article. From nothing, he had created something of - at least - curiosity. 

And that's the way it is for writers sometimes.

Even when we sit down with no particular ideas, we can create something of value. Not because of the topic or the story necessarily, but because we have a particular way of writing - or creating, even thinking, that brings something unique into existence.

From watching would-be writers' careers for all this time, I've become convinced that it's those writers who maintain a conviction that what they write is important - at least to themselves - that eventually succeed.

And finding what's important to you is the key to inspiration.

Examine Your Reactions

What makes you mad? What gets you going? What do you want to change? 

At conferences, you will often see successful writers talk about what they didn't like about other writers, other books, other TV shows and movies.

Their dissatisfaction compelled them to write.

They felt that an issue was not being given sufficient space - or that a common view was being given too much credence.

They write to redress the balance - and give their own take on issues.

Often too, you will hear writers say, "I write to find out what I think about things."

Writing has a way of clarifying thoughts, concepts and arguments. That's the very least of its functions but no less powerful for that.

More importantly, writing is a way of revealing truth. In stories, screenplays and in non fiction, writing gives answers, it examines and illuminates, often the mundane, but also the profound.

If you're having trouble wondering what to write about, look inside of you. 

Think about the things you care about - the things you have seen and experienced that have moved you - the issues you feel need further examination - especially if they bug you!

Then start writing, even without a plan or an agenda...

And see what happens.

You may be surprised by the result.

Best regards and keep writing!  

Rob@easywaytowrite.com
Your Success is My Concern
http://easywaytowrite.com

                 Writing Matters

                     Rob Parnell

People take writing for granted nowadays. It's everywhere: the Net, newspapers, magazines, books, novels. You can't go anywhere or do anything without coming across words - and the images, even industries they spawn. It's easy to forget that everything starts with a writer.

Writers are often taken for granted too. The news is apparently more important than the journalist who records it. Movies are often regarded as more important than the screenwriters who craft them. Publishers frequently bemoan authors for being the most irritating aspect of their jobs. Even some websites today become far more influential than the scribes who put them together.

But without writers, nothing much out there would exist!

Everything starts with writing - and a writer, just like you.

You Gotta Start Somewhere

I've been helping writers online for about seven years now - and one thing I've noticed is that at various stages of their careers, all writers beat themselves up. They're plagued with self doubt and often lack confidence in their work.

This is bad news if you want to be productive and successful - in many cases it can even stop you from writing at all.

But the good news - if you like to call it that - is that self doubt never quite goes away. No matter how good you get, or how long you write for, you never lose that side of yourself that questions your ability, or your talent - even your sanity sometimes.

Why is this good, you ask?

Well, it's good because it's your self doubt that actually makes you better at what you do. You internal commentator - you know that guy? - is the critical faculty in your brain that forces you to perfect every word, every line, every piece until it's as effective as it should be.

To me, there's nothing worse than writers who are totally satisfied with the first thing they put down - and will not change it! No, it's writers who are obsessed with perfection that impress me - and whose careers inevitably transcend all the others.

Flexibility is Control

It's hard sometimes, I know, to murder your darlings, those pieces of prose you love so much.

It's hard to change characters because they're not working in your story. 

It's hard to incorporate publisher's suggestions into your work.

But in all these situations, you have to.

You need the strength of character to understand that your writing lives on the outside of you, not just on the inside.

When your writing is on paper, it's fair game, so the thinking goes.

That's why the journalist is forgotten, that's why the screenwriter is used only as a starting block in Hollywood. That's why publishers tend to treat newbie authors with such contempt. And it's why websites take on a significance way beyond their creator's copy.

But this too is good. It's part of the process. Writing creates 'things'. The writing is the piece of clay that creates an idea or an object that editors, publishers and producers want to mold and shape into something everyone can use and enjoy.

Your own writing has the power to inspire.

Don't be afraid of changing your writing, honing and perfecting your skill, to make your writing better. Over and over if necessary.  

There's no shame in that - quite the opposite is true.

A Writer's Time is Never Wasted

Being a writer is about having a certain mindset - a different way of looking at the world. Where a normal person sees life and and accepts it with fatalism, a writer sees the world as a place filled with opportunities to create and improve on reality.

That's why the world needs writers so much - to offer escapism or solutions, to make sense of everything and make life more meaningful.

Writing is a noble profession. We are creators.

It doesn't matter how long we take to get things on paper - or perfect what we do. A writer's life is organic, it feeds off experience and we improve, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, depending on our needs and our desire to learn.

Even when not writing, the true writer is gathering information, sensations and stimuli that will eventually find their way into the writing. It's all good. It's all purposeful.

Writing matters too much to let our self doubt get the better of us. 

Don't let your inner demon grind you down.

Don't ignore the voice that makes you doubt yourself. 

Make friends with your inner commentator. 

Be buddies.

The two of you have important work to do.

Keep Writing!  

Rob@easywaytowrite.com
Your Success is My Concern
http://easywaytowrite.com