Over the years I have worked as an editor, I’ve encountered many authors reluctant to hire or work with editors because they've previously suffered truly awful ordeals during the editing process. As a writer, I survived a few of those myself, so I know firsthand how upsetting a bad edit can be. Bad editors create new problems in manuscripts and often do nothing to resolve existing issues that beg for improvement. I am often asked how authors can tell a good editor from a bad editor. While there’s no guaranteed way to do this, I can offer a few suggestions that might help authors find an editor who will not only do a great job but will also be a good fit for their personality and writing style. Keep in mind I am speaking of developmental editing in this column, not just a copyedit that corrects typos and grammatical errors. Look for an editor who offers to edit your first ten pages free of charge Almost every confident professional developmental editor is more than ...

It’s October— the nights are getting longer and colder, and thoughts turn to ghosts, pumpkins (pies or Jack-o-Lanterns or headless horsemen ), and the great beyond. If you are looking for a season-appropriate book to snuggle up with on Halloween, keep reading for places to start your exploration. Online mystery lists are a great place to find Halloween-themed stories, from the cozy end of the spectrum to the dark and devious: The Mystery Fanfare blog , run by mystery aficionado Janet Rudolph, offers a looooooong list of Halloween crime fiction (what is it about mystery writers and Halloween, I wonder?). Head over to the not-entirely-cozy Cozy Mystery List to find Halloween-themed mysteries to fit your mood , from BEDEVILED EGGS by Laura Childs and VAMPIRES, BONES, AND TREACLE SCONES by Kaitlyn Dunnett, to THE WITCHFINDER by Loren D. Estleman and TRICKS (87th PRECINCT) by Ed McBain. Nightstand Book Reviews offers up a list of 55 Halloween mysteries , some brand new and some c...

In September, I decided I didn’t like the book I was working on. I had written almost 30,000 unimaginative and dull words. Depression hit me like a body slam. World events had me reeling, breaking my concentration, but I couldn’t blame that for a crappy story. I put the book aside, hoping I’d find the trigger to motivate me with fresh ideas at a later date. I’ve covered a lot of ground in my books, from a prisoner wrongly accused, rape, stalking, Nazis, crooked televangelists, baby kidnapping, and vigilantes to name a few. Coming up with a fresh idea was straining my overloaded brain. And there it was: 34,000 words sitting in my computer, minding its own business. I had started the book way back in 2015, and it has one of the best opening chapters I’d ever written. Suspenseful and twisty. Intriguing enough to make a reader turn the page. My opinion, of course. The book was my first and only foray into a political novel, and international politics at that. I touch on political t...

In keeping with the October theme here at The Blood-Red-Pencil, loosely connected to Halloween and fears and all that, I thought I'd pop in with something that has bothered me for some time now, and that is the proliferation of writing rules that can leave a new writer's head spinning. I got the idea after reading a blog post over at the Author's Community site, about rules of writing . A lot of rules have popped up over the years I've been writing, and more and more they are matters of opinion, often contradictory, hence the head-spinning and all that. Some of the more popular rules that are cited on the blog post I read, and elsewhere, are Elmore Leonard's famous rules that include: Never open a book with weather:  If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. Instead of "never" that would be a good guideline if it suggested ...

Typically, when facts and fiction are mentioned together, it is as fact or fiction. Yet another application of the two words has a very different meaning: facts in fiction. Why is this important to writers and readers alike? Making sure a story is factually accurate when appropriate grounds that story and allows the reader to suspend disbelief. When I retired from teaching elementary school, I began my second career—writing fiction. My first stories centered on my interest in dance. Seventeen years of lessons and performances throughout the Pacific Northwest provided fodder to keep my fiction real. Still, my experience alone didn't seem quite enough, so I researched professional dancers and read ballet stories. Then I sent Marta and Lynne, my two seventeen-year-old dancers, off to join a ballet company set in Billings, Montana, in the late fifties. My original intent to write a single young adult story grew into a trilogy, 84 Ribbons ; When the Music Stops—Dance on ; and L...

The Journey , Volume II of the Viana Memoirs, follows the lives of the three Viana daughters in Victorian era England. Rich in the activities and lifestyles of the time, this fascinating story pulls the reader in to experience the ups and downs of Alexandra Viana as she is pursued by the less-than-gallant Roman Winterfield. However, there may be hope for him. When he unexpectedly joins her family and his on holiday in France, Alexandra notes some significant changes in the man she and her sisters once dubbed "The Ogre." Sadly, his distasteful qualities resurface in all their revolting grandeur, and Alexandra is perplexed when he nonetheless appears to win the approval of her family. Her fascination turns to distress upon her return to England to spend the summer as the guest of Roman's sister, Catherine. Much to her dismay, Catherine is courting one man while falling in love with another—a servant of her father! Catherine chooses to keep both romances a secret, and Al...

Photo by HTO [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons Writers. We’re talking about the folks who create sci fi novels and don’t flinch when confronted with hostile aliens. And horror writers who deal with vampires, zombies, and werewolves (and worse yet, evil humans) without breaking a sweat. And romance writers who create tales of love and sex, the scariest experiences some people face during their lifetimes. If a writer can handle vicious crimes, terrifying cartels, human trafficking, other tragedies of modern life, and even love, why aren’t they fearless in all things writing-related? I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you what turns me into a squishy doubter of my abilities and ideas. 1. The sneaking suspicion I don’t know what I’m doing. In spite of reading hundreds of books and taking many classes and workshops on writing craft, including plot development, point of view, dialogue, and common mistakes, I still screw up. A lot. Like my last manuscript in which...

Truth—or lack thereof—and controversy seem to hang over us like a thermal inversion in a windless desert valley, where the smog of dissension and division dictate the behavior of distressed residents. Normally calm, rational people react to this toxic environment with unprecedented anger as they spew forth vile language and violent demonstrations against what they perceive to be a threat to their belief systems and lifestyles. Is that threat real? Only time will tell. Will vocal and physical resistance stem the tide of unwanted change? Again, time holds the answer. Can writers weave the growing unrest into the fabric of their stories? Of course, but beware. Unwarranted assumption and words quoted out of context can send misleading or false messages to the reader and incite an ugly retaliatory response. The war of words is then on, and the battle rages. Newspapers, magazines, television programs, and documentaries report truths, half-truths, unverified stories, and personal opini...

As the mists of October roll in, there is no better time to curl up with a good Steampunk novel. My love of steampunk started with Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel series, continued with Susan Kaye Quinn's bollypunk Sisters of Dharia series, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, and the Lady of Devices by Shelly Adina to name a few. I have added to my toppling to be purchased list with these titles from Best Sci Fi Books.com . Initially a combination of Victorian steam age and futuristic mechanics, the genre has expanded to cowboy punk, spacepunk, cyberpunk, bollypunk, elfpunk, mythpunk, and atompunk. The story skeletons are firmly rooted in Science Fiction and Fantasy, sometimes with a little Romance thrown in. Westerns also get a retool with cowboy punk. Some could be considered alternate history. Others have a literary feel. In steampunk, world building is a unique mixing of old and new worlds in the costuming, settings, vehicles, and props. The only limi...

I had been working on a series of posts about worldbuilding when I read this wonderful debut YA Fantasy novel by Tomi Adeyemi , Children of Blood and Bone . Drawing on her Nigerian heritage, Adeyemi weaves the story of Zélie Adebola who sets out to restore magic in the country of Orïsha. The story is told by three shifting first person points of view: protagonist Zélie, an escaped Princess Ameri, and her brother Prince Inan. The setting never really came alive for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story world presented and the plot kept me turning pages. Let's take a look at some of the worldbuilding choices. Names:  Zélie, Tzain, Ameri, Jailin, Baba, Mama, Inan, Lekan Olamilekan, Kwame, Mother Oya, Saran (king), Roën, Nailain, Kaea, Zulaika,Folake, and Zu. Language: Adeyemi draws from West African Yoruba (eg. sún èmí okàn sùn, sùn sùn èmí okàn sùn). Exclamations: Oh my gods. Thank the skies. Maggot is an insult. Clothes: dashiki, ipélè, and a jeweled headdress fo...

Slang is so much fun! When used correctly in historical fiction it can add to the feel of the time period. But slang is also slippery. A phrase that “sounds” historical can be a lot more recent that you think. So, unless you like getting tetchy notes from readers, it pays to check your slang. A word as simple as “okay,” for instance, can take you down the rabbit hole of etymological research and confusion. Okay sounds so… modern, right? Well, it depends how you spell it. According to Oxford Dictionary online , the first use of this word (spelled OK) appeared in the 1830s, perhaps originating as an abbreviation of orl korrek t—“a jokey misspelling of 'all correct' which was current in the US in the 1830s.” So, if your fictional setting is firmly planted in late 19th century U.S. (as mine is), OK is okay! But—guess what!— okay is not! It didn’t appear until 1929, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary . Another useful tool for chasing down the time frame of period s...

In the early 2000s when I wrote Mind Games , the first book in the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, I had no idea it would become a series. I was never interested in writing a series. Getting locked into the same characters for years didn’t appeal to me. There were too many stories to tell, and I wanted the freedom to write them. Ultimately, I did both. Many writers claim they’ve written stories since they were kids. Not me. I drew pictures. I knew I wanted to go to art school at a young age, and that’s what I did. Writing books never entered my mind. Fast forward to the year 2000. I’d been an illustrator for years, ran an import business, and owned a store. Maybe I was bored, ready for my fourth career, so when I read a mediocre book, I thought I could do better. (Hubris, anyone?) Little did I know. I wrote what I thought was a good story, but I knew it needed technical work. I found an editor online who had ghostwritten forty-two books, many about famous people. I sent ...

Write for Kids Please see the 2019 update to this post. I first learned about Write for Kids at a writing conference in Northern Colorado. The talented agent, editor, and teacher Laura Backes and her partner husband Jon have worked diligently to offer multiple ways for an aspiring writer of children’s books to learn and to succeed. By visiting the Write for Kids website and becoming part of the Write for Kids and Children’s Book Insider networks, a beginner can find answers to all those questions that often discourage an aspiring author from even starting a project. From the Write for Kids site, you’ll find a link to the free Dream Launcher Pack for Beginners that includes a recent copy of Children’s Book Insider. The website notes this is a limited time offer, so if you’re ready to start writing a book for kids, you might want to check out this free introduction right away. I’ve been especially interested in this resource because I hope to write children’s or middle-grad...

Q: What are you sharing on the blog today? A: How I write murder mystery events. Q: Why? A: People seem curious as to what’s involved. Q: In writing one? A. Yes. Not in attending one. Geesh. Q: Don’t be snippy. How will you describe the writing process? A: That it’s an odd mixture of writing a detailed book synopsis and a play. Q: Why do you describe it as a detailed book synopsis? A: Because you need a very detailed plot and setting. The characters/suspects must ring true as each of them has to have a believable motive for murder. Q: Why do you describe it as a play? A: Because I write all the questions and the answers. Each suspect has to answer the question in a voice which is different to all the others employing a different rhythm with a different vocabulary. However, unlike a play, I have no idea which answer is going to follow which. So setting up jokes can be tricky. I have to make the jokes in the one suspect’s speech…or over a number of speeches. Hurra...