Ready to Publish?

March 24, 2015 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 13 Comments

The life of a mystery writer is full of twists and turns. Some good. Some not. But here’s a twist that lands in the good category. I’ve signed a two-book publishing contract with Imajin Books for DESCENT and BURNT.

When I began writing my novels, I loved reading blogs about the writing process, about how to write, about how to publish, and about anything else to do with writing. And I still do. Now it’s time to return the favour. Over the next few months (or years), I’ll blog about the publishing experience. I’ll do my best to share what I learn. To give you an idea of what’s coming, here are my first baby steps in working with a publisher.

Step one: Re-launch my website and give it a cleaner look. This is a work in progress, and the updates will keep coming as I go through the publishing process.

Step two: Decide if working titles for DESCENT and BURNT are the final titles.

Step three: It’s a mystery.

Stay tuned . . .

And as usual, thanks for reading.

Before You Submit: As If Versus Like

February 2, 2015February 1, 2015 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Do you have a draft of your novel or short story and are thinking of submitting to an agent, publisher or writing contest? My series called Before You Submit might help. This series contains hints and tips I’ve received from professionals in the publishing industry. Each week I’ll share a new tip.

This week I’ll write about As if versus like.

Learn the difference between ‘as if’ and ‘like’. That was the clear message from an editor. 2008 was the year, and wow, did I have a lot to learn. How embarrassing that my very first draft was full of errors when it came to using ‘like’.

I’ll give you an example:

On his way out the door, Darren turned back to me. He looked like he might say something …

Really, what it should have been was:

On his way out the door, Darren turned back to me. He looked as if he might say something …

I found a clear definition of ‘Like versus as if’ on Clifford Garstang’s blog, Tips for Writers. You can also check out GrammarErrors.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: What a Character Sees

January 12, 2015January 12, 2015 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

This week I’ll write about What a Character Sees.

The advice I received is not to write that a character saw something. Just describe whatever ‘that something’ is. The reader knows you are in a character’s point of view and that the character ‘sees’ what you are describing. For example:

Kendra walked toward the office door and peeked inside. She saw her new boss throwing his phone against the wall.

The recommended change to the sentence was:

Kendra stood in the open doorway to her boss’s office. Her new boss threw his phone against the wall.

This not only shortens the sentence, thereby not wasting the reader’s time with boring details, the change gets rid of stating what the character saw.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Paragraph Breaks and Dialogue

January 5, 2015January 4, 2015 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

This week I’ll write about Paragraph Breaks and Dialogue.

I was reading through an editor’s notes on an early draft of my novel and had to laugh at my mistake.

The editor’s advice:

Start a new paragraph for each speaker.

This is simple advice and something I don’t think about now. It comes naturally, but when I started writing, it was one more skill I needed to learn. The skill of paragraphs breaks.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Tighten Your Sentences

December 22, 2014December 19, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

This week I’ll write about Sentence Tightening.

The sentence I’d written in my manuscript was:

A dense wooded area lined both sides of the ski run.

The editor changed the sentence to:

Dense woods lined both sides of the ski run.

The meaning is the same, but of course, uses fewer words. This type of change must be done carefully. In Before You Submit: Sentence Length I wrote about varying sentence lengths. Your change has to be made in context with the sentences around it. You want to ensure your writing still flows.

Just to illustrate at little more, the second sentence to be changed was:

The roar of the avalanche swallowed a scream that escaped from his lips.

The editor suggested the following:

The roar of the avalanche swallowed his scream.

Of course it’s his scream, and where would it come from but his lips? The first sentence didn’t even make sense, and now it uses fewer words.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Questions in Dialogue

December 15, 2014December 9, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 1 Comment

This week’s topic is Questions Within Dialogue Tags.

The advice:

Don’t end a sentence containing a question within dialogue with said. Use asked. A kind editor pointed out this easy fix to me. For example:

“He’s blaming me?” Kendra said

Should be

“He’s blaming me?” Kendra asked.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Time Qualifiers

December 8, 2014December 2, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

This week I’ll write about Time Qualifiers.

The question is: do you need a time qualifier or not? You might want to use a qualifier for style, but you might not need it for clarity. The choice is up to you. I’m only giving you something to think about.

The following sentence includes the time qualifier, At that moment.

At that moment, Kendra heard rustling in the bunk above her. A pair of bloodshot eyes appeared over the edge of the mattress and peered at her.

Of course, this is happening at the moment. When else would it be happening? The easy fix . . .

Kendra heard rustling in the bunk above her. A pair of bloodshot eyes appeared over the edge of the mattress and peered at her.

In the example, I think the writing is faster and more interesting without the qualifier, so I chose to remove the first three words. Of course, I can’t take credit for the change. The editor suggested tightening the sentence and I agreed.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Job Titles

December 1, 2014December 1, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

This week I’ll write about Capitalizing Job Titles.

Until a professional edited my work, I hadn’t thought about job titles and whether I should capitalize them or not.

An editor corrected a sentence by changing the first letter of a job title to lower case. Hmm? I used my handy Chicago Manual of Style to check the rule. It’s hard to know what to check if you don’t even know you should check something. This is where an editor comes in.

The rules for capitalizing job titles (and this is me summarizing so check a grammar manual for details):

If the job title is part of the name, then use a capital.

President Stanley likes grammar rules.

I decided I should be the president in this example 🙂

If ‘the’ is written before the job title or the job title follows the person’s name, then don’t use a capital.

Ms. Stanley, the president, likes grammar rules.

It’s not a hard rule. Job titles are sometimes capitalized for style or emphasis within an organization, and so we get used the look even though it’s incorrect. All I needed was an editor to point out my error, and I’ll never make it again. I can dream, can’t I?

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . .

Before You Submit: Sentence Length

November 24, 2014November 25, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 5 Comments

This week I’ll write about Sentence Length.

My editor wrote: Simple declarative sentences are powerful but tend to lose power if repeated too often. If all your sentences are the same length, the writing can come across as dull, and I’m going to guess none of us want to create a dull novel.

There are software programs that provide a graph of your sentence lengths. Autocrit and ProWritingAid are two of them. I haven’t reviewed either product fully, so this is not a product plug. If you don’t want to use another software program, you can take a section of your text, hit return after each sentence and “see” the sentence lengths on the page. This will give you an idea if you vary your sentence lengths.

If the text is shaped like a rectangle, your sentence lengths are too similar.

If all your sentences are short, try joining two sentences with a conjunction making a longer sentence. You can leave in or take our the subject if the subject is the same in both original sentences. This is a subjective choice. Just make sure you get the comma right.

If all your sentences are long, try breaking a sentence into two or even three sentences.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Dialogue Tags

November 17, 2014November 8, 2014 ~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

This week I’ll write about dialogue tags.

Are you using too many dialogue tags? Does he said/she said sound repetitive? Here’s a tip on how to reduce the number of tags you are using.

Try using a character’s action to indicate who’s speaking. The following sentence uses a dialogue tag: Kendra said.

“You dropped this,” Kendra said. She held a crumpled piece of paper in her outstretched hand.

The editor recommended I rewrite the sentence as follows:

Kendra held a crumpled piece of paper in her outstretched hand. “You dropped this.”

By moving the character action to the beginning of the sentence, it’s clear Kendra is speaking. There is no need for the dialogue tag. When you remove a dialogue tag, you must update the punctuation. Don’t forget to change the comma to a period inside the dialogue quotes.

I hope this helps improve your writing.

See Before You Submit:Likeable Characters for the first blog in this series and an introduction the benefits of submitting even if you get a rejection letter.

Thanks for reading . . .