This post was first published on June 11, 2009 My knowledge of all things punctuation-y is flimsy. In the past, I’ve thought- “Okay now I’ve got it” but, sadly, I didn’t, and when someone pointed it out I felt a bit embarrassed about my proclamation made firmly from Dunderhead Land. I bought Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (ESL) and somehow feel I’ve made a breakthrough. I think I now understand the scariest punctuation mark of them all: the semicolon. Before ESL, I avoided the semicolon. I just accepted it was a punctuation mark out of my league. It was for writers who really got it; people who know what a non-defining participle clause is, for example. Those people do not include me. I just accepted that I would make my way through the writing world with the comma and the full stop. I would manage. If I needed more, I might resort to a dash, but that was moving toward shaky ground. It was okay. It was a smaller life, but still a life. But after ESL, I feel I can now use the semicolo...

This post first ran here on November 8, 2008. ~~~~~~~~ I was asked to help compile an anthology of short stories for a South African publisher. I’d never done anything like it before so was very excited. As the process got underway, I realized quite quickly that I was about to learn a lot more than I expected I would, and I thought now that the process is over I might share some of my insights with you in a list of the 10 Things Not To Do When Submitting Your Short Story. 1. Leave all contact details off of your story. In the occasional blind contest the guidelines might instruct you to do this, but otherwise don’t. I downloaded all the stories from the gmail account we used so that I could read them off line. I was shocked when I realized some stories had no name or contact details. When it came time to get back to the writer it was a serious slog to find the information. 2. Go with the first thing in your head Our anthology had a theme. Themes are good and bad. It’s bad if...

Please welcome Lauri Kubuitsile back to The Blood-Red Pencil on her blog book tour for her Kate Gomolemo Mysteries series. My first published book was The Fatal Payout , the first book in my Kate Gomolemo Mysteries series. The entire process, from writing to getting published, was a textbook case of “How-not-to-be-a-Writer”. In my thirties, I found myself owning a small printing company that published our local newspaper. I never really thought about being a writer although I wrote articles and an editorial each fortnight for the paper. But then we were changing formats and were afraid we’d get lost in the crowd and I had the idea that I would write a serialised novel, a thousand words each issue, to try and hook our readership to pick up the free paper. I’d never written a novel before, I hadn’t even written a short story, but I was undeterred. I didn’t know enough to know I didn’t know enough. There was no plot plan, no character sketches. In most instances, the Thursday night ...

Botswana’s Copyright Law and How it’s Killing Writers By Lauri Kubuitsile I got a message from someone that a school had photocopied one of my books for their students. I called the Copyright Society of Botswana (COSBOTS) and the helpful lady there told me that they couldn’t do much for me even if they had started registering members (which they haven’t yet) because the law allows the photocopying of books for educational purposes. The copyright law in Botswana is relatively new, passed in 2000, and COSBOTS only set up last year. The part of the new law on photocopying of books for educational purposes is shockingly vague. Basically it says they can, it does not include any parameters. This is the problem. Botswana is a small country, 1.8 million people. In Botswana, there are no trade publishers. All of the publishers in Botswana are educational publishers. There are a handful of locally owned publishers who must fight it out with the big internationals. Before the establishment ...

Last year author Lauri Kubuitsile spent a month in Egypt on a writers’ residency. I asked her to tell Blood-Red Pencil readers about her decision to apply for the residency and her experiences in Egypt. Lauri says, "I'd never thought of going on a residency before, I thought they were more for academic type writers, not an in-the-trenches, working writer like me. A friend of mine posted the El Gouna Residence on Facebook. I took a look and thought I’d try my luck, I mean who doesn’t want to go to Egypt, right? It was a huge surprise when I was chosen." Lauri made certain she was well-prepared beforehand in order to get the most she could out of her residency: "I had a project I wanted to work on while I was there, a new novel. Before I went I made sure all of my pre-work was done: character bibles, a plot map, chapter outlines. I also got about halfway through the rough draft before leaving. My plan was to complete the rough draft of the novel while in Egypt a...

If I write your name in all capital letters do I love you more? If I start a word with a capital letter does it make it more important? Does it show my adoration more explicitly? These seem to be questions people inexplicably have begun to ask themselves to determine when certain words need a capital or small case letter. Mother, father, mom, dad, and government seem to be words that drive normal, grammatically correct people over the edge. The emotion around these words seems to mix people up. They start throwing capital letters around as if they are darts with suction cups on the end- but can I warn you- all darts can put an eye out. Did your mother teach you nothing? Some people (including my child’s English teacher- unfortunately) have attempted to impose a false structure with bizarre rules like -all of them are always capitalized. (What? Have you gone mad?) I think part of that is misappropriated love. Yes, I love my mother. Yes, I love my father. Yes, I love my government. BUT c...

No, this is not going to be a post about dialogue in soap operas, so if that’s what you were looking for you better move along. This is a post about when to use who , that , and which . According to The Macmillan Good English Handbook , we use who with people. An example: Creek, who married Fern’s ex-husband and then poisoned him, cried into her third glass of Merlot and wondered if she was becoming an alcoholic. We use which, on the other hand, for things. An example: The poison, which Creek used to kill Cliff, was not found during the autopsy, but Detective Smith still had his suspicions. Okay that’s the easy part. So what about which and that ? Those are the tricky ones right? Grammar Girl makes it very simple. If the phrase must remain in the sentence or the sentence will no longer mean the same thing, you must use that . (This is a restrictive clause, if you must. I try to avoid grammatical terms. They give me a rash) If the phrase can be taken out of the sentence and the se...

I was recently at a brainstorming meeting for a new television drama series my writing partner and I will be starting. Throughout the meeting, she and I and another woman who is part of the production team on this project, but is also a scriptwriter, kept referring to TV shows we watched, saying things like, “Did you see that on The Lab?” or “Something like the episode of Rhythm City the other night”. After some time one of the men at the meeting asked, “Gosh when do you have time to watch TV? I never have time to watch TV.” My writing partner and I looked at each other and said, “It’s research!” I’ve never met a good novelist who wasn’t a lover of novels or a film director who didn’t watch movies. Why should television scriptwriters be any different? If you want to understand television you must watch TV. The key is to watch it from a learning angle. Here are some pointers: 1. Keep notes about what works and what doesn’t. If it’s a comedy, where did you laugh, where did the joke fall...

Can you offer any tips on how to show passage of time when the narration is in first person present tense? Thanks for your help. Betsy Rosenthal My House Is Singing  It's Not Worth Making a Tzimmes Over! www.BetsyRosenthal.com The sound of the rooster nudged at the edge of my consciousness, I reached across the bed--he had still not returned. The scent of the cooking fires drifted through the golden light of the sun falling under the western horizon and I knew I’d not find Refilwe today. Ding-ding-ding. That was it then, she said 2:00, I guess it means she isn’t interested. There are numerous ways to show passage of time in your writing. In most cases, time passing is a transition from this time to that one, so the most important thing is to give the reader clues as to what time of day it is. One way is with sounds. Depending on where your characters are, the sounds around them can reveal a lot about the time of day. For example, in a rural setting, or even an urban s...

Last month I said I would write some posts about my own grammar challenges with the hope that I help a few writers who suffer the same fate. Today I thought I’d look at the troublesome words affect and effect . For years I had no clue about these words. To be honest, I just used them haphazardly. At one point, I put all of my bets on effect, and banned affect from my writing completely, and hoped that at least half of the time I’d be right. I write science textbooks. I’ve never done any research on it, but I believe that science textbooks use the words effect and affect at least 50% more than any other type of writing, so you can imagine the headache I became for my publisher. I’d looked up the words many times trying to get a handle on their use, but one day in my searching, I realised the thing that sorted it out forever for me. Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun. AHA!! Now I could say such things as- The effect of sulphuric acid on your hand is not something that you’re going to ...

I have had books published by both large, international publishers and small, local publishers and I’ve found each have their advantages and disadvantages. Deciding who to go with will depend on what you want as a writer. Of course I’m operating from Botswana where we don’t have agents and approach publishing houses ourselves ( Gasp!) so some of what I’m about to say may be mitigated a bit by a committed agent who will hide the ugly side from you. First the Big Guys. Big guys have a lot of ammo at their disposal. They have clout. They have money for marketing and good editors. The have a well oiled machine in place that will take your tattered manuscript and turn it into a sexy new book. Also as a writer it’s nice to have a few of the big publishers on your list. But the Big Guys also have a lot of writers. You become just another one. Also big publishers have set procedures and set contracts, often with little wiggle room unless you too are a Big Guy. It’s often take it or leave it. A...

This post was first published here on February 14, 2009. ~~~~~~~~~~ I am a full time published writer and yet there are still loads of grammar rules that I just do not understand. Living in Botswana is worse still, since sometimes I need to know American grammar rules and sometimes British grammar rules and also which of the other countries I write for falls under which grammar system. I thought, as a way to sort out my grammatically challenged mind, I would do a bit of research and teach you folks hoping that along the way I would solve my own problem. At the very least, my publisher is going to appreciate this. So today I looked at one of my worst grammar dilemmas - lay, lie, laid . I’ve pulled out my trusty Good English Handbook by Godfrey Howard and ducked over to Grammar Girl’s site and this is what I’ve got. Let’s start with present tense. The most important question to ask here is - is the word followed by an object? If there is an object following the verb, then yo...

Early on, I realised if I was to be a success at this writing game I needed to find a way to deal with rejection. The easiest is a rant. I read the rejection and shout back at it. Then I throw it away and move on. It works for me; I suggest you find a similar method. I’ve never trusted this collecting of them; the growing pile can’t bode well for future self confidence, but then again that may be my own psychosis. All writers get rejections. I like reminding myself of the list of rejections Stephen King’s Carrie received or the bitter rejection of Rudyard Kipling’s writing by the The San Francisco Examiner who advised Mr Kipling he was clueless regarding the English language. Sylvia Plath, George Orwell, Mary Higgins Clark, Jack Kerouac, Ayn Rand- all rejected at one time or another, some quite bitterly. If nothing else, when that rejection arrives know that you are in excellent company. Rejections are sent for many reasons. Here are a few. 1. You’re a crappy writer Most writers jump ...

To be a full time writer, you need to understand the rights that you are selling to publishers. Ignorance can be very costly. In the first part of this article, I discussed the situations that you should try to avoid. In this part, I will discuss the way to sell your writing that will allow you to make the most from each piece. First Rights The best case is to sell First Rights which is sometimes called First Serial Rights. What that means is that the publisher is buying the right to be the first one in that country to publish your piece. You can sell first rights in many places. You might sell first Australian rights, first North American rights, and First Japanese rights- all for the same piece of writing. That means three pay cheques. Doesn't that sound so much nicer than one pay cheque for all rights? In this case, the publication gets to publish your piece first in that area, but you retain all rights to the work. Most publications are buying first rights. If it is not written...

In the next two posts I’d like to start the discussion on selling rights to your writing. If you are a full time writer, you've likely realized that to make a living from writing, your work must be published as many times as possible. You must sell it to a publication and then be able to sell it as a reprint to other publications as many times as you like. In this way a story, article, or poem can be earning you an income while you are busy with new work. For this to happen, you need to pay strict attention to who you submit to and what rights they are buying. Selling a piece of writing to a publisher who demands 'all rights' is like cutting your legs off. Your work is gone and unless the money the publisher is offering is enough to set you up for life, or as near to that as possible, you'd rather give it a miss. Let's take a quick look at the various options for the rights that publishers can buy from you. Let's start with the worst case scenarios: All rights W...

When I was on the airplane to the Capetown Book Fair, the man next to me asked why I was going to Capetown. I told him and he said, “A fair for books? Hmmm. Well, it takes all kinds” . He obviously didn’t see the use of book fairs and, unfortunately, there are still many writers who feel the same; I am not one of them. Book fairs have so many positive attributes, if I had my way I’d attend every one I could. Let’s take a closer look at how attending book fairs can help you. 1. Rub elbows with the Big Guys. Most book fairs have one or two big names on their list. They will often be scheduled for talks and book signings. This is an opportunity to ask them the questions you’ve been dying to get answers to. They have gone through it already; why not tap into their resources? 2. Get free stuff Definitely you will come home with a ton of cool bookmarks. Often you can get free books, magazines, bags, pens, post cards, calendars, writing pads, and pencils. I love free stuff and take everything...

Did you know that in the United States alone 30 million trees are cut down annually to produce virgin paper used in making books? Trees are very important to the health of our planet; they provide much needed oxygen, eat up the carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere daily, prevent soil erosion, and play a vital role in the water cycle. As an author, how do you feel about the fact that with each book you sell you may be contributing to the deforestation of our fragile planet? Well, you needn’t worry anymore because Eco-Libris has the answer. Eco-Libris is an environmental organisation setting out to balance the effect of book publishing on our environment. They have a special programme where they work with authors and publishers so that when a book is sold a tree is planted mitigating the effect on the environment. If your book is signed up for this programme (there is a reduced rate for authors and publishers, by the way) you can put the Eco-Libris logo on the cover (“One tree was ...

I have writing friends who meet a roadblock in a short story they’re writing and sit for days struggling with how to get through to the end and I always wonder - why? Why waste all of that time looking at a blank page? This doesn’t happen to me because I believe either a story has legs or it doesn’t. Why would you force a legless story to walk? It doesn’t make sense. I might start a story with a perfect sentence that developed in my head over night, or the most fantastic paragraph ever put down on paper, and then nothing. Nothing. There is nothing else I can write. Many writers might stop there, clean the page with the press of ‘delete’, and start over. Again I ask - why? Why waste those bits of good writing? When it comes to my words - I’m a saver. If I get to a point in a story where I can go no further, I immediately stop and save what I’ve done. I give it a name and place it in a folder called ‘story stems’. Then I go on to another idea. If I get to the end of that one, the story h...

Writing for the radio, in some ways, is very similar to writing for the page, but there are also integral ways that writing a radio script is very different. Let’s start with the way that a good radio play, for example, is similar to a good short story. 1. Short stories and radio plays need strong, compelling characters that the audience cares about. 2. Active verbs make the writing more interesting in both short stories and radio plays. 3. A good short story, like a radio play, starts right in the action. There is no meandering around, going on about back story or the setting in too much detail. The writer must hook the audience straight away; in radio even more so since one turn of the dial and the story is gone. 4. Telling the audience what to think and feel will kill a radio script just as quickly as it kills a short story. Let the audience be active in the story. 5. A good radio drama like a good short story is ‘lean and mean’. Get to the conflict quickly; introduce the protagonis...