writing

Before You Submit: Hyphenated Adjectives

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 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 Hyphenated Adjectives.

If you’ve been reading Before You Submit, you’ll know I love getting feedback from an editor. Some of the tips I’m presenting are from the  early days of my writing career, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit I made these mistakes. I say almost, because we all have to learn, and not all of us remember everything we learned in grade school.

The editor corrected the following sentence:

Young people living in a dorm type facility . . .

to:

Young people living in a dorm-type facility . . .

Instead of trying to describe the nuances around hyphenated adjectives, I’m going to refer you to Grammar Girl for an explanation. If you don’t know about Grammar Girl, it’s an excellent site to look up grammar rules. The hyphen is a tiny mark on the page, but one that will show an acquiring editor you are serious about your trade if you get it right, or you have homework to do if you get it wrong. The lack of a hyphen when you need one could throw your novel back into the slush pile, especially if it’s on the first page.

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: Point of View Goal

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

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. The series contains hints and tips I’ve learned from professionals in the publishing industry that I’d like to share.

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.

This week I’ll give you questions to ask yourself for each scene in your novel when you are thinking about your Point of View (POV) character. The POV may be the same throughout the novel, change per scene, or change within a scene. However you structure your novel, the following questions can help ensure you POV character is active and interesting.

  1. What is the goal of the scene POV?
  2. What hinders the goal?
  3. How is the goal important to the overall story?
  4. How does the goal move the story forward?
  5. What happens if the POV character doesn’t succeed?
By answering the questions you might surprise yourself and come up with new ideas for your plot. You may find areas where you can deepen the character, intensify the action, or dare I say it, cut a scene.
 
Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Scene Opening and Closing

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 1 Comment

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. The series contains hints and tips I’ve learned from professionals in the publishing industry that I’d like to share.

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.

This week I’ll write about how to start and end scenes throughout a novel without being monotonous.

Sometimes it’s easy to get into a habit and open or close scenes in the same manner.

A dramatic line of dialogue is a great way to hook the reader and keep them reading. But what if you do this every scene? The dramatic tension will decrease. The same goes for other ways to start a scene.

Here are your options for opening and closing a scene.

  1. Dialogue
  2. Narrative
  3. Action
  4. Thought

When you are reviewing your manuscript prior to submitting, make a list of how you enter and exit scenes. I do this in excel so I can graph how many scenes start or finish in each way. The result gives me an idea of whether I’ve used one technique to often or not.

Entering and exiting scenes in a balanced and thought out approach will make your writing more interesting and keep the dramatic tension flowing.

If you have any tips on entering and exiting scenes, please share.

Thanks for reading . . .

Before You Submit: Likeable Characters

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 22 Comments

Do you have a draft of your novel or short story and are thinking of submitting to an agent, publisher or writing contest?

This is a scary prospect, right? Ignore the night demon who tells you to hide your work in a drawer and prepare your story for submission. Besides signing an agent, getting your work published, or winning a contest, there are other benefits to submitting.

Submitting your work is a great way to get feedback from a professional in the industry. We all know this is hard to get, but if you’re lucky, valuable pieces of advice will end up in your inbox.

There are contests, the Debut Dagger hosted by The Crime Writers’ Association is one of them, that will provide feedback on your entry if you are short listed. There are also agents, who when queried, will give you feedback. You might even get comments back from a publisher or editor.

I thought I’d share a bit of what I’ve learned this last year from people in the industry.

The week I’ll talk about liking the main protagonist.

Many writing books declare the reader must like your main character. This doesn’t mean everything about your character should be likeable. No one likes a perfect person. On the flip side, even if your character is nasty, is there at least one characteristic your reader can relate to, like or admire? If not, you might create something.

In a novel, giving your reader someone to cheer for and follow for 300 or so pages might make the difference between the reader dropping your book on the coffee table after chapter one to staying awake late into the night reading until the climax satisfies their need to know what happened to the character.

When I started writing, I struggled with how to make a character likeable. Thinking about what made me like people in real life was difficult to translate into the pages of a novel. How was I to get a reader to like my character?

The Crime Writers’ Association honoured me by shortlisting my novel, Burnt. The comment I received from one Debut Dagger judge on the topic of likeable characters was:

“The thread with the dog is a clever way of engaging interest and building suspense right from the start, while telling the reader something appealing about Kalin.”

Kalin is the main protagonist in Burnt.  In the opening scene, on the run and separated from her dog in a forest fire, Kalin fights for her life. The suspense part: Will she be able to save herself and her dog?  The likeable part: Her concern for her dog.

What I learned from this comment: The actions of your characters can show the reader a likeable trait. There is no need to describe the trait by telling the reader Kalin cares about animals.

I hope this helps you review your draft and get it ready for submission. In the coming months, I’ll post a series on what I’ve learned from the mysterious publishing industry.

Thanks for reading . . .

Click here for a look at my proofreading and copyediting series.

The Golden Leaves of British Columbia

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Spending a large part of my youth in Ontario, I’m used the reds, oranges and yellows of fall. The forest of British Columbia have a different look and feel to them. Just as beautiful, but not the same.

BC Yelloe

The mountains are an inspiration to me when I think about writing. As I stopped and took in the scenery, I thought of the importance of getting details correct when writing a novel. Before living in BC, I might have assumed all forests transformed into a multitude of colours in the fall. There is nothing like seeing your imagined setting in real life.

Now, I’m not saying you have to visit every place you write about, although, if you’re lucky, maybe you get to, because with today’s technology, you can see the places without ever going there. Google Earth is a wonderful way to explore a setting, getting familiar with an area before putting words to a page.

Online videos, photos and travel blogs are also a good source to travel from the comfort of your back porch.

Every day the forest of the Purcell  Mountains inspire me to be a better writer. And now that I’m used to seeing only yellow leaves, I find them just as beautiful as the multicoloured trees of the east.

Thanks for reading. . .

Writing in the Mountains

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Does your location help you write?

I’ve recently moved from living on the ocean to living in the mountains. I’ve gone from warmth all year round, to 0 degrees Celsius in September.

The crisp air, the endless hiking, the deer – luckily no other wildlife – the scenery all make me feel uplifted.

Mountains

Inspiring? Yup, I think so. I’ve spend many hours writing in the last few days, many of those spent on my back porch listing to the forest tell me its secrets. Maybe those secrets will make their way into my novels. I’ll  let you know.

 

Thanks for reading . . .

Backing Up Your Novel

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

Do you back up  your novel?

Last night, I was out for dinner and a friend asked me if I kept printed copies of my novels. Since I’ve spent the last five years living on a sailboat, my answer was no.

My friend was incredulous.

Of course, I had to start thinking about it – at three in the morning – when the worry fairy comes to visit.

I back up to an external hard drive.

I email a copy to my dad for safe keeping. While we were living on the boat, I worried a lightning strike would take out all out electronics, so even it my back up was on a separate hard drive, I thought it wasn’t enough.

The question is: do I need a paper copy too?

Thanks for reading . . .

The Writing Process Blog Hop

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 8 Comments

Calgarian Garry Ryan, author of the Detective Lane mystery series and the Blackbirds Trilogy, asked me to be part of the blog hop. Of course I said yes to Garry. You may have heard of the Crime Writers of Canada. When Garry was the president, I was lucky enough to have him as my mentor as part of the CWC mentorship program. Garry worked by my on my Manuscript, Burnt, which has since been nominated for the Debut Dagger by the Crime Writers Association in the UK. How could I not be excited to follow Garry in the blog hop?

This is your chance to get a looking inside a writer’s  mind, or in this case many minds if you follow the blog hop.

I have tagged two author friends to take part in the blog hop. The bio’s are listed below. Please check out their blogs too 🙂

Now to the reason for the blog hop:

What Am I Working On?

I read somewhere that life as a writer means having homework for the rest of your life. There is aways something to work on, whether it is writing, researching, social networking, learning, editing or proofreading. Then there is the query letter, blurb or synopsis to be written. Now add in my blog. All are part of being a writer and all can be very engaging tasks.

On the writing scene, I currently drafting the fourth novel in the Stone Mountain mystery series. The series takes place in a fictitious ski resort located in the depth of the Purcell Mountain Range in British Columbia, Canada.  The protagonist, Kalin Thompson, is the director of security and human resources at the resort in continually finds herself torn between running investigations and her friends who live in the small community. She can’t look for suspects without looking at one of her friends.

For editing, I am working on Look the Other Way. The novel takes place in the Bahamas and is a spin off from the Stone Mountain mystery series.

How Does My Work Differ From Others in It’s Genre?

Drugs and the drug industry gets a lot of focus in the BC press. i try to stay away from the topic. There are many great books by BC novelists that delve into this area. I’ve chosen other crimes, typically the type committed by an every day individual who has been pushed beyond their limits. I try to make wilderness living and wildlife interaction a character within my books.

Why Do I Write What I Do?

One night, while I was living in Germany, I tried to go to bed early. A company driver was to pick me up at 4 a.m. to take me to the airport. I was nervous about a presentation I was to make in London, England and wanted a good night sleep. Here’s where a small decision I made changed my future path. I picked up a novel, Moonlight Becomes You, by Marry Higgins Clark. It starts out with a woman trapped in a coffin. Now how could I put that down before finding out how she got out of the coffin. I read through the night until my car arrived. Exhausted, but excited, I knew I wanted to write something that would keep a person from going to sleep, even when they knew they needed to be their best for the coming day.

I write about the Purcell Mountain range because it’s a magical place. I write about human resources and security at a ski resort because I have experience in the field. My job at a ski resort was the best job of my life and writing about the industry is a way for me to keep it with me.

How Does My Writing Process Work?

Variety. That’s the key for me. Morning’s are usually better for me if I want to get more words on the page. By the end of the day, I’m better at researching or working on my online platform. I like to write without interruption, as I’m sure most of us do, but I’m pretty good a tuning out the world around me if I can’t find a quiet place. Mostly I write on a computer, but sometimes a pen a paper get my creativity moving.

To create a first draft, I decide on a crime and start writing. I develop my characters as I go. By the end of the first draft, I usually know who committed the crime, but that might change in a later draft. Once the draft is done, I create a spreadsheet and start a detailed analysis of each scene. This is where I look for the empty stage, errors in timing, too much or too little of something and so on. Once I’ve written several, okay many, drafts, I send the manuscript to my favourite readers. At this stage I ask for them for notes on when they think they know who committed the crime, if they skim any sections, if something is unclear, and if they feel connected to the characters. i don’t ask for proofreading at this stage. That comes later before I’m about to submit to my agent.

As soon as I submit to my agent, I start on my next novel. The writing business is slow, and this is a good time to focus on new work and not agonize about the words I’ve sent out.

 

Fellow author friends are:

Charlotte Morganti will post on July 28th:

Charlotte Morganti has been a burger flipper, beer slinger, lawyer, and seasonal chef de tourtière. And, always, a stringer-together-of-words. Her first novel, The Snow Job, was a finalist for Crime Writers of Canada’s Unhanged Arthur award in 2014 for the best unpublished crime novel. You can find out more about Charlotte’s fiction at www.charlottemorganti.com.

Brenda Chapman will post on August 11th.

Brenda Chapman began her writing career with the Jennifer Bannon mysteries for young adults. More recently, she writes the Stonechild and Rouleau police procedural series – Cold Mourning was released from Dundurn in 2014 and Butterfly Kills will be on the shelves in early 2015. Brenda also writes the Anna Sweet mystery novellas for Grass Roots Press, with My Sister’s Keeper shortlisted for a 2014 Arthur Ellis Award. Brenda is a former teacher and currently works as a senior communciations advisor in Ottawa.
Brenda’s blog link:  http://brendachapman.blogspot.ca/

Thanks for reading . . .

 

 

RePost of Capital Crime Writers Audrey Jessup Announcement.

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 1 Comment

Thank you to Capital Crime Writers for hosting the Audrey Jessup short story contest.  Also thanks to the judges who took the time to read all of the entries and thanks for the lovely evening out.

The photo is me looking surprised and happy 🙂

This is the blog they posted on Monday.

Congratulations to our Audrey Jessop Short Story Prize winner!

 

Kristina Stanley Audrey Jessup

 

Kristina Stanley walked away with the 2014 Audrey Jessop Short Story prize for her submission, “When a Friendship Fails”.

The awards dinner at The Heart & Crown in the Byward Market capped off a Capital Crime Writers’ mayhem-filled year.

A huge thanks to our judges and all participants. And it’s never too early to start working on your submission for next year.

Here’s the complete list of prize winners and honourable mentions:

FIRST PRIZE:   ‘When a Friendship Fails’ by Kristina Stanley

SECOND PRIZE:  ’The Moment It Fell’ by Wynn Quon

THIRD PRIZE:  ’The Ride Home’ by Linda Standing

HONOURABLE MENTION:  ’Act the Part’ by Jennifer Jorgensen

HONOURABLE MENTION:  ’Scapegoat’ by Nicholas Ashton

How to Make the Most of a Writer’s Conference

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 1 Comment

Thinking of attending a writer’s conference?

You can learn a lot, make contacts and have fun, but how do you make the most of your time?

Here are a few tips:

  • Read the program before attending and decide who you want to meet. If there is a photo of the person/people you want to meet, it will help you pick them out of the crowd.
  • Ask yourself why you want to meet this person and prepare your questions ahead of time. You might only get a few minutes in a hallway, so make the most of it.
  • Often there are several presentations at the same time, so read the synopsis and choose what’s best for you.
  • Bring business cards. If you have any publications or writing awards, print these on the back of your card. You may get the chance to hand your card to and agent or a publisher and this will help them remember who you are. Maybe your card will stand out from the crowd.
  • Don’t be shy. Everyone is there to make contacts, so walk up to  groups of people you don’t know, introduce yourself. Ask what they write as an icebreaker. Who doesn’t like talking about their work?
  • If there is a way to volunteer, do so. It’s an easy way to meet people if you are shy. Sitting at a booth means other people come and talk to you. Working with other people gives you the chance to get to know them.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for reading . . .