- Agents
- Author News, Deals
- Awards
- Bad Poetry
- Blog News
- Books
- Career
- CBA
- Collaborating and Ghosting
- Conferences
- Current Affairs
- Deep Thoughts
- Favorite Books
- Featured
- Film
- Marketing and Platforms
- Proposals
- Publishing
- Questions from Beginners
- Quick Tips
- Religion
- Resources for Writing
- Self-Publishing
- Social Media Critique
- The Business of Writing
- The Writing Craft
- Thursdays with Amanda
- Trends
- Uncategorized
- Web/Tech
Category : The Writing Craft
-
Continue Reading "Thinking about Writing: Effective Dialogue, Part 3 (Realistic vs. Natural Dialogue)"Thinking about Writing: Effective Dialogue, Part 3 (Realistic vs. Natural Dialogue)
Today I’m continuing my ongoing conversation on dialogue and discussing the difference between realistic and natural dialogue, and the way each can strengthen or sabotage a story.Realistic dialogue is conversation that occurs exactly the way people talk in real life, complete with hems and haws, boring filler/minutiae, mundane back-and-forth, sound effects, etc. The small talk and discussions over where to go for dinner that really do populate our everyday conversations usually serve next-to-no purpose in fiction, unless your purpose is to put your reader in “skim” mode for the rest of the book. I read all too many manuscripts where the author seems to have painstakingly transcribed real-life conversations directly onto the page in places where I have no need (or desire) to hear them. The pleasant small-talk at the beginning and end of a phone conversation, the back-and-forth between a husband and wife over breakfast, the dialogue with a waitress at a restaurant– these are all exchanges of dialogue that happen on a daily basis, but who wants to open a rom-com novel, get to the big date, and have to sit through the waitress listing the specials? Those exchanges don’t drive the story, and they usually slow it down. Unless an exchange like this reveals something important about a character– the main character’s date is incredibly rude to the waitress, or he orders four rare steaks and that’s when she first suspects he’s a werewolf, etc.– this sort of dialogue can be culled from a story and will never be missed.
Also falling into the realistic-dialogue category is dialogue punctuated with sound effects/hems and haws. The only thing more awkward than a character running into an ex while on a date with someone new is having to read their conversation in which every line starts with “uh” or “er.” You can communicate that a character is uncomfortable much more effectively (and cleanly) by telling the reader that
-
Continue Reading "8 Common Usage Errors, or: How to Make Me Judge You, part 2."8 Common Usage Errors, or: How to Make Me Judge You, part 2.
Erin again, just trying to confuse you by posting my picture right under Amanda’s name. Last time, I started to share some of the common mistakes I see in manuscripts and why such seemingly minor usage errors can incur such harsh and swift judgment on my part. (The short version is: agents are cranky. Usually because we’re hungry.) Several readers commented to add their own pet peeves, and as it turns out, agents aren’t the only ones who are judging you for your grammar and punctuation mistakes. Felicia and Rick are judging you for apostrophizing your plurals (here are your menu’s, the Smith’s live in this house, etc.), Ted can’t stand when you use “I” as an objective pronoun (she went to the park with Kim and I), and April, Brian, and Sally judged ME for not proofreading the blog I typed on a touchscreen the size of a postage stamp in the gol’ dang middle of the night after a 16-hour day at Disneyland, and are henceforth banned from this blog. (Okay, fine. This is an equal-opportunity judging zone. Consider yourselves on probation.)Several folks commented on it’s/its confusion, your/you’re transposition, and the there/they’re/their problem, and I thought it was worth mentioning that those are probably the three most common mistakes I see, but strangely, they don’t bother me as much as some of the other errors I cited, maybe because I’ve become desensitized to them from overexposure, or because I assume that, nine times out of ten, the offenders really could use each correctly if they were to think about it long enough and are just writing lazy. Laziness doesn’t bother me as much as ignorance, apparently. The mistakes I selected for my list (using a painstaking scientific ranking process in which I wrote down the first eight things that popped into my head) aren’t much more confusing or complicated than the more common problems, but I read
-
Continue Reading "8 Common Usage Errors, or: How to Make Me Judge You, part 1."
8 Common Usage Errors, or: How to Make Me Judge You, part 1.
Erin here again today, while Chip is sunning himself in Hawaii (and I’m still working on getting my own blog credentials so I can stop using Amanda’s.) Okay, listen: I have a superpower. Most agents do, actually. It’s not terribly useful unless you’re trying to decide whether or not to stake a large amount of time and energy on a person’s potential as a writer, but it comes in real handy in that situation. My superpower, which I share with many agents and editors, is this: I can pass judgement on a person’s writing after reading just a few pages. A few paragraphs, in some cases. Heck, I’ve read some opening sentences that have deterred me from reading any further (see Tuesday’s post for the discussion on effective opening lines), and generally, the criteria that make it easiest to say no to a project are recurring errors in how words are used or spelled and a complete “spray and pray” approach to punctuation (in which the author loads a machine gun with commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks, sprays the manuscript with them, and prays everything lands in approximately the right place). That doesn’t seem fair, the general public may cry, my writing gets really good in chapter two! Or, my story is so compelling, you won’t even notice the mistakes once you get hooked.
People, people.
I got my degree in English. In case you don’t know, English majors basically do two things in college: read and write. This means that we not only become very familiar with the rules of grammar and mechanics that some of the rest of the world forgets after middle school, but we SEE those rules in action in book after assigned book, and the main result of that language-based education is an inability to read anything– books, cereal boxes, instruction manuals, the birth announcement for our best friend’s baby (“Its a boy?” Really?)– -
Continue Reading "Thinking about writing: What makes a great first line?"
Thinking about writing: What makes a great first line?
If you’re not familiar with me from my previous blog posts here (I stopped months ago) or my wildly popular Twitter account (where I’ve tweeted exactly six times in the past two years), my name is Erin Buterbaugh and I was an agent at MacGregor Literary working out of beautiful Denver, Colorado. My favorite piece of the agenting process, apart from the vast cash payouts, of course, was the editing/story development aspect of the job—I loved helping my authors make sure their manuscripts were in the best possible shape for showing, so the craft/mechanics side of writing seemed like the perfect area to focus some of my blog efforts on.First lesson—never end a sentence with a preposition, the way I just did. (Second lesson—once you know the rules, do whatever the heck you want, the way I just did!) So with Chip on vacation and taking a bit of time away, I’m going to share a series I did on his blog a while back. I’ll try to split my time pretty evenly between the mechanics side and the story/writing side of things so this doesn’t become “just” a grammar series, but until people stop sending me submissions in which the commas are outside of the quotation marks, I’m going to carry on reminding people of the rules Miss Stinson tried to teach them in 9th grade.
Since this is the first post of my new blog presence, I thought it would be fitting to look at what makes a great first line of a book. I’m sure you’ve read the same lists I have on Buzzfeed of the “21 Greatest First Lines in Fiction” or “The 100 Best Opening Lines of All Time,” etc., so rather than re-print all of those tired old “It is a truth universally acknowledged that it was the best of times and the clocks were striking thirteen” lines that everybody picks for
-
Continue Reading "Ask the Agent: How can I create great memoir?"
Ask the Agent: How can I create great memoir?
For a month now I’ve been doing “Ask the Agent” — your chance to ask anything you want of a literary agent. We had one person write in to say, “A memoir is a deeply personal story covering many avenues of thought. My tell-all of escaping the mental imprisionment of American Fundamental Extremism (having been inadvertently exiled because I admitted to being gay) is hard to pigeonhole. How do I determine how to present it to its broadest advantage, and find an agent who can appreciate the scope of its message?”
Yeah, that’s too long. (The fact is, the comment was actually much longer, and meandered a bit.) But what you’re basically asking is, “How do I write a great memoir?” And the secret of success with memoir is to write it like a novel. A memoir isn’t an autobiography — who reads autobiography these days? An autobiography is a careful retelling of everything that occurred, so you’ll be spending a lot of time researching sources, and making sure each date is correct. A memoir is a reminiscence — the stories and themes that capture a place, a time, an event, a lesson, a life. So instead of writing it like a history textbook, you write it like a novel.
That means you’re going to need to create a story arc. Not all the details will fit. You figure out which details we need in order to see your story. And the story will reveal to you where to start, and where to end, what stories will be told, and what will be left out. There will be an inciting incident, and decisions that lead to changes, because that’s what creates a story. It will have characters, whom we care about, and they’ll say and do things that matter in some way. You’ll not just talk about what you did, and what it was like, but what you
-
Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: John Steinbeck and the Art of Writing What You Know"
Thursdays with Amanda: John Steinbeck and the Art of Writing What You Know
His grave site wasn’t even under the Steinbeck name—that’s the first thing I noticed.The stone obelisk that loomed over John Steinbeck’s final resting place read Hamilton.
And rightly so. Hamilton was his mother’s name. A name that, I was told, meant many generations of wealth and affluence in the town of Salinas. And yet to me, a fan of Steinbeck, it felt unfair.
Below the obelisk was a large concrete slab inlaid with small, flat markers. Most of the markers were for various Hamiltons … one passing as recently as ten years go. But the one on the middle right was for John.
It held his name. His birth year and death. That’s it.
I’m one of those people who loves to visit old towns and walk in the footsteps of those long gone. I’ve visited James Dean’s gravesite and walked his family’s farm, and I’ve seen where F. Scott Fitzgerald was born, where he lived when he first got word that his book was going to be published, and where his daughter was born.
And it’s always funny how real it all gets when you see where these famous names came from and how those places and people shaped who they became.
For Steinbeck, I was blown away by this. In Salinas and in Monterey and in the strawberry farms and cattle ranches in between it was as if I had been transported to a world that I’d always thought of as fake. And yet there it was—real. It had been modernized, no doubt. But the winding coastal streets, the smell of the ocean, the whales in the bay, the ever-pressing presence of the distant ranges surrounding the Salinas Valley were real. And they were just as he had written.
This is the power of writing what you know. Of taking something that may seem ordinary and plain and boring to you and describing it with such
-
Continue Reading "Literary Devices for the Real World: Point of View"
Literary Devices for the Real World: Point of View
Continuing my series on using literary devices outside of the literature classroom, I’m talking today about point of view– what it is, how it’s classified, and how to use it effectively.
In what may be one of the least necessary definitions in this series, point of view can be defined as the perspective from which a story is told, or the set of knowledge out of which the narrator is speaking. Point of view is most commonly expressed in first person or third person narration (see below) and an author may choose to use multiple points of view within the same novel (IF he’s careful– more to follow). In case you need a refresher, here’s a quick overview of several different points of view.
First Person (singular): The story is told by a single person using first-person pronouns (I, Me) to refer to himself. This person serves as the narrator and relates the events of the story as he experienced them firsthand, complete with inner dialogue/personal opinions/thoughts.
Pros: A story told in the first person can engage the reader deeply due to the personal, intimate connection created when she hears the story firsthand from someone who was there. The personality of the narrator can influence the tone of the story, and author voice is often displayed nicely by a first-person narrator.
Cons: It can be difficult to avoid combining the first-person narrator with your own all-knowing author persona– if not handled with finesse, a first-person narrator can turn into a two-dimensional puppet for you, the author, moralizing and manipulating the reader’s experience of the story (not to be confused with situations in which your first-person narrator character is a manipulative sociopath and you WANT him to come across as preachy and controlling).
Third Person Omniscient: The story is told by an all-knowing narrator using third-person pronouns (he, she, him, her, they). The narrator (not usually an actual character involved
-
Continue Reading "Literary Devices for the Real World: Deus Ex Machina"
Literary Devices for the Real World: Deus Ex Machina
Continuing my series on literary devices, I’m talking less today about how to use a specific literary device and more about how to avoid using one, specifically an often-criticized device known as “deus ex machina.”
Deus ex machina is probably one of those literary devices that ring a vague bell from your high school literature class. Literally translated as “the god in the machine” (or “the god from the machine”), deus ex machina refers to a plot device or development that serves to almost supernaturally resolve tangled conflict or rescue characters when all hope seems lost and no other solution seems possible. Its name comes from the days of ancient Greek theater when a divine character would be lowered into the middle of the climax by a crane or similar “machine” to right all the wrongs, punish the bad, reward the good, and straighten out what otherwise appeared to be a hopelessly complicated plot. And from its first uses, deus ex machina has been criticized as the crutch used by lazy or unskilled authors who either don’t care enough to figure out a realistic solution to their characters’ problems or who failed to construct a plot that can be resolved believably (in the universe of the story).
In modern literature, deus ex machina occurs when an author brings in a completely unlooked-for solution to what seems like an otherwise hopeless problem or plot tangle. For example, the main character in a suspense novel is backed into a corner at gunpoint in a concrete bunker 100 feet underground, the police don’t know where he is, the bad guy is about to pull the trigger– and an earthquake occurs, knocking the bad guy to his feet and unconscious, breaking down the concrete door, and making a clear path to the exit. The word “earthquake” has never been used before this point in the novel, no one has mentioned fault lines or cave-ins,
-
Continue Reading "Literary Devices for the Real World: Voice"
Literary Devices for the Real World: Voice
Welcome back (after a short hiatus) to my series on using literary devices in the real world. After my post on tone, reader Laurie brought up the subject of voice– “Voice is something, like tone, that has always felt a little elusive to me.” Based on the number of questions we at the blog get about voice, Laurie’s not alone! I understand the frustration some authors have with the mystique that sometimes surrounds the concept of “voice” in writing – I’m as guilty as the next agent or editor who rhapsodizes about a “great writing voice” or fantasizes about finding the next great “voice” without spending a lot of time talking about this seemingly indefinable quality. That’s probably because author voice is a tricky quality to talk about without being too prescriptive. My favorite definition of voice is “the personality of the author as revealed through the writing.” That said, it’s hard for an agent to give specific advice about voice without sounding like we’re suggesting you change your personality/writing style, or without sounding as if we’re dictating what that should be. In reality, all we really want is for your voice to present more clearly and strongly on the page.
In my last post, I talked about tone, tone being the author’s attitude towards his subject, whether that’s flippant, derisive, sentimental, etc. Because tone is a quality that can be very personal/distinctive, it’s often confused with voice– tone contributes to voice, certainly, but it’s just one of the many ways an author reveals his personality on the page. When it’s done well, voice tells me in the first couple of paragraphs what the author’s style of humor is, how intellectual his writing is, what tone he’s taking, how seriously she takes herself, what she’s “rated–” PG or R?– etc. Regardless of the type of book being written, the answers to these questions about the author’s personality can
-
Continue Reading "Literary Devices for the Real World: Tone"
Literary Devices for the Real World: Tone
Welcome back to my series on literary devices and how to use them to your best advantage this side of your college lit classroom. This week, we’re talking about tone: what it is, how to identify it in your own writing, and how to harness it to create the atmosphere you want to create in your writing.Tone 101
Let’s start with the technical definition: tone is the attitude adopted by the author toward the events of the story. Tone is revealed through the author’s word choice, commentary, and syntax, and is on display whenever the author uses these elements to reveal his bias toward certain characters, themes, or incidents occurring in the story.
The (arguably) most effective tool an author has at her disposal when creating tone is her word choice. Just about every word in the English language has a whole set of baggage attached to it based on the books you’ve read, the conversations you’ve had, even the region you grew up in, and while this baggage varies slightly from reader to reader because of the unique background of each one, most English-speaking US readers have approximately the same response to 85% (completely made-up statistic) of the words an author could use to describe a character– tell us a character is “crafty,” or his movements are “shifty,” and we know you’re telling us you don’t believe the character is very trustworthy. Tell us someone “walks with a swagger” and we know you think they’re arrogant.
This subtle (or sometimes not) indication of his bias on the part of the author can reveal a whole host of inferences– word choice tells the reader whether the author believes a character is to be pitied, admired, patronized, snubbed, whether a setting is pleasant, boring, tasteful, or ugly, whether an incident is tragic, deserved, funny, or insignificant, etc. People generally classify “bias” as a bad thing, accusing news sources of
