Storybites Blog

Lately several people have commented on the site, generally positively — nice site, good job, etc. — but I wasn’t able to post their comments because they included a) a link to something offensive, irrelevant, or nonexistent; or b) a string of random keywords that were clearly inserted in the post just to serve the business interests of the poster. Now, I don’t mind if, as part of your commentary on my post, you include a link that my readers might find useful as they become better writers, or even better human beings. But please don’t assume my readers share your more esoteric interests. And as you’ve probably noticed by now, I really do moderate each of my comments individually. (I greatly doubt that most of the people who actually read my blog are the offenders here — I know I’m preaching to the choir — but it merited saying, anyway.)

BTW– I’ve got two stories online right now! If you go to www.boundoff.com, you can hear me reading “Hurricane,” a short story I wrote (yes, that’s actually what I sound like). And if you go to http://www.haruah.com/index.html and scroll about halfway down the page, you’ll get to a story I wrote called “Fixed and Wandering Stars.” I hope you enjoy them!

Over the last fifteen years, I’ve worked with many people who have self-published their books. In some cases, I’ve done the page layout; in other cases, I’ve done various levels of editing, ranging from light proofreading to extensive rewrites. Once in a while, I’ve just consulted. But out of all those authors who have spent their own money to have their book published, I only know of one who has sold a lot of books.

One.

Does that mean I think you’d be nuts to self-publish a book? No, not necessarily. I just think you should have a very clear idea of what you plan to do with the skids of beautifully-printed copies you paid for.

Possibly, for example, you’re printing a very limited edition of a book that will have strictly local or family appeal – a history of your village, for example, or a genealogy. If that’s the case – and it’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong — take orders for the copies you plan to sell, print about 10%-20% more, and distribute them as planned, reserving the extra copies for unexpected orders or posterity.

But what if a limited edition isn’t your intent at all? What if your goal is to write the next bestseller?  If you expect to see your book on the shelves at the big bookstore chains all over the country, you really, really need to find out where those chains get their books. (Hint: normally, they don’t buy them from self-publishers.) Your local bookstore may buy a few copies of your book to put in a “local writers” section, but you aren’t going to get rich that way.

You also need to find out where schools and libraries get their books. (Hint: I’m a librarian, and I buy most of my books through a distributor who doesn’t generally purchase books from self-publishers, either.) I usually buy one copy of books published by a local writer – but just one copy.

You may sell a few copies every time you do a book signing or a TV or radio interview, but only a few – and how many signings and interviews can you possibly do? Within a month or so, everyone in your area who wants an autographed copy will have one.

 A friend tried to sell her book by doing a direct mail blitz of all the smaller, specialty bookstores within 200 miles of her home. To the best of my knowledge, she didn’t sell a single copy that way. Another client managed to get interviewed on public radio and several early morning TV shows. This resulted in a few sales, but not many.

And don’t get all excited because Amazon or one of the other online booksellers agrees to list your book. That’s only as useful as the number of people who know the book exists and have a reason to search for it.

So why is that one guy – the successful one – selling so many books? Because the focus of his business isn’t his book. He’s a professional motivational speaker and storyteller, and he sells his books at the venues where he speaks, as well as on his website. He’s never even bothered trying to sell his books in bookstores, although there are some “new and used” copies on Amazon. His book goes along with his presentations, and although it works perfectly well as a standalone product, he doesn’t focus on marketing it that way.
 
Will this approach work for your romance novel? Probably not. Should you self-publish your romance novel? Probably not. Not unless you want a garage full of shrink-wrapped copies – and I have a feeling you don’t. Make your novel the very best it can be – get a copy of the latest Writer’s Market and scope out agents and publishers who handle the type of work you’ve written – and keep sending your work out until it sells.

I want to thank those of you who have registered as subscribers of my site. I also want to thank you for your nice comments. But feel free to suggest a topic you’d like me to chat about. This is your site too!

In the meantime, though, I’ll rant about one of my other editorial pet peeves – dialogue tags. “What’s a dialogue tag?” you ask quizzically. Well, that was one — “You ask quizzically.” A dialogue tag is a phrase that describes 1) who is talking, and often 2) how they make the remark.  Dialogue tags are such a common part of fiction that we assume that every spoken line needs one. Right? I mean, how else would you know who’s speaking — and how?

Let me introduce you to Tom Swift.

Tom Swift is a character in a series of juvenile novels that were very popular in the first half of the twentieth century. Tom’s author (actually a series of authors) went to absurd lengths to avoid the use of the phrase “he said” followed by a mere period. Tom never just “said” anything. He retorted angrily, sang out cheerfully, pleaded earnestly… you get the picture. Today, Tom Swift is probably best known for a particular type of dialogue tag in which the tag is either a pun on the remark or upon itself.

Examples:
“Hurry!” Tom urged swiftly.
“It’s a frog!” Tom croaked.
“I can’t see!” Tom gasped blindly.

Few authors deliberately write in Tom Swifties, but many DO seem to feel that every remark needs to be followed by the speaker’s name, a colorful verb describing the speaker’s action, and an adverb describing how the action was done. None of those things are true. Consider the following. 

Mary picked up the grocery receipt. “You’ve been to the store, I see.”
“Yesterday.” Bob’s head was buried in the refrigerator.
“The date says today.”
“Fine, maybe it was today! How do you expect me to remember stuff like that?”

Without dialogue tags of any kind, you can sense tension between Bob and Mary, as well as the possibility that Bob is deceiving Mary and she suspects it. Contrast this:

“You’ve been to the store?” Mary asked in surprise.
“Yesterday,” Bob mumbled guiltily.
“The date says today,” Mary said suspiciously as she looked at the receipt.
“Fine, maybe it was today!” Bob exploded furiously. “How do you expect me to remember stuff like that?”

Nothing subtle about that – and not particularly good writing, either.

I’m not advising you to avoid dialogue tags altogether. But when you use them, consider the humble “said” and “asked,” without adverbial decoration, and use your character’s remarks and actions to tell the story.

How many points of view can you have in a novel? That’s up to you, but personally, I think less is generally more. It also depends on the kind of novel you’re writing. Is your novel centered around a unique character? Tell the whole story from a single point of view if the protagonist’s impressions of his world are critical to understanding the book. A good example here is Mark Haddon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.” The protagonist, an autistic teenager named Christopher, solves a mystery in a way no one else could, because no one else thinks quite the way he does. Sharing the narration with Christopher’s neighbor or his social worker would have diluted the power of the story.

But there may be reasons to use more than one point of view. You may want to alternate a husband’s point of view with his wife’s to show there are two ways of looking at an issue. This technique normally works in novels in which the theme is more important than characterization. And in a more plot-centered novel, you may want to write successive chapters in different points of view.  This allows the reader the broadest view of the story, but there’s a catch – it also distances the reader from feeling personally involved with the characters.

Whatever route you choose, however, keep the same point of view throughout an entire chapter. This means if Johnny is telling the story from his point of view in Chapter One, the author can’t tell us what Marcia thinks, feels, suspects, or believes. Johnny can tell us how he thinks Marcia may feel, but not how she really does feel, because he’s not Marcia! And nothing can happen in that chapter that Johnny doesn’t know. What if you need to tell us something Johnny doesn’t know, or tell us how Marcia really does feel? The simplest solution is to start a new chapter and change point of view.  You may be able to think of a better solution, though, that is consistent with the kind of book you’re trying to write.

Wow, it seems like this blog has been a long time coming. You probably know that I’ve got a site — www.storybites.com/storybites — that reviews short stories. And you probably also know that I do freelance writing and editing as well. I’ve noticed for quite a while that many of my editing clients have the same problems — the same trouble with point of view, the same difficulties with dialogue tags. And I don’t know HOW many times people have emailed me to ask how to cite a Storybites article in MLA format! So I decided that a blog would be the perfect way for you to ask ME your questions, and for me to share the answers over a wider readership — with your permission, of course!

Unfortunately, I assumed that designing a blog was just like designing a website. Well, sure, if baking an apple pie is just like writing a book. I had to learn a whole new technology, and trust me, I have not learned it yet. Letting this site go live is a leap of faith. But I trust my readers to be patient with me; I’ll get better, don’t worry, and there will be fewer glitches as we go along.

So this is the beginning of a great adventure (for me, anyway). Please feel free to post any writing problems you may have, and I’ll try and suggest a solution. Similarly, if there’s a book you don’t understand, let’s talk about it; I haven’t read every book in the world (far from it), but maybe I can help. I invite other people to write in with suggestions and opinions, too. Just keep your posts clean and kind.

By the way — there are a lot of mean people on the internet, but you won’t read their posts here because I moderate the blog. (Ah, censorship rears its ugly head!) Scoff if you will, but we’re less likely to bare our souls if we think someone is going to put us down. Life puts us down enough; you will only get help and encouragement here.