All posts by Jordan

Reading

TBR Tuesday: High school reads

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In high school, the cool thing to do is complain about your assigned texts. I didn’t always enjoy them, but I usually didn’t complain just because we were assigned Hawthorne, Dickens or Shakespeare. I mean, hey, it might seem a bit archaic (though you’re talking to somebody who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, so archaic doesn’t always mean unintelligible), but we get to read fiction for school!

Also, I was a lit geek. Aside from being in the International Baccalaureate (read: “AP isn’t AP enough for us”), my extracurriculars included running the literary magazine. Yeeeah. (Hm. This may be a lot closer to “nerd” than “geek.”)

So here are a few of the text I was assigned to read in high school that—don’t tell anyone—I actually enjoyed.

The Scarlet Letter Ethan Frome Romeo and Juliet
I liked seeing the strictures of Puritan society in action and reading about a woman who refused to be defined by her past sins, and I loved the tragic irony. Made me an Edith Wharton fan ‘Nuff said, amiright?
 
Macbeth Heart of Darkness The Great Gatsby
Hey, who doesn’t like to see a jerk get his comeuppance? I loved the justice of the man who hated the taint of death in a lie lying when the truth was too dark, too dark altogether. Favorite. Book. Ever. Love the tragedy of selling one’s soul for a dream that’s already long dead.

Hm . . . I’d say the universal theme of tragedy here has something to do with being a melodramatic teenager . . . except that I’m pretty sure my tastes haven’t changed. And yet I’ve never written a tragedy. Strange.

What do you think? Did you enjoy anything you read in high school? What are you reading now? Did you know you could add I, Spy to your Goodreads TBR? Come share what you’re reading!

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Publishing, Writing Life

The truth about how I feel about going indie

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This entry is part 13 of 14 in the series My writing journey

Friday I got to reveal the cover of my first published novel, and last week in my writing journey I talked about quitting writing and getting an offer of publication. The timing of those blog posts is coincidental—in fact, there’s a much bigger leap between those two steps than it would seem.

That offer was not for I, Spy. I’m actually publishing I, Spy under my own imprint, Durham Crest Books.

The decision to go indie

Independence, OR, signIt’s definitely not easy to decide to “go indie” in publishing. It’s much, much easier to let someone else take all the financial risk. And for a while I was very tempted to let someone else take that on. However, it’s also much, much easier to go indie than it is to get an agent and a trade publishing contract at a large house.

Small publishers are definitely another option, but for me, going indie is what I want. Every author has to think through this decision for his/her career and comfort level, but here’s what helped me make this decision:

  • The book itself—often, if a book isn’t something that fits neatly under a genre & marketing label, or it doesn’t have a big hook (or if people just don’t seem to see it!), agents and editors can be more hesitant about taking on that kind of risk. (Smaller presses may be an exception.) That doesn’t mean no one will buy it or there’s no audience.
  • To me, it seems that most (not all) small presses have such a limited reach that it’s not substantially better than self-publishing—especially considering how much bookstores seem to be struggling, and knowing that small presses would have a very hard time getting placement, co-op, etc.
  • Unless you are a BIG NAME or a BIG BOOK (and at a BIG HOUSE with a BIG BUDGET), 99% of the time, the vast majority of marketing falls to the author, no matter who pays for printing.
  • I’ve been running a very small business online for several years, and have very few expenses—meaning I have the capital to invest in self-publishing.
  • I have friends who’ve been there and done that, and models for success (that are attainable, I hope!). I’m part of a writers’ support group and there are dozens of successful self-publishers there who are selling thousands of books every month. I can see it happening to people I know, and I can pick their brains for advice.
  • The biggest issue for me: keeping control of my book, both creatively and legally. I know I can get exactly what I want. Some publishers are better about rights, author input, control, etc., than others, but it’s a huge weight off my mind not to have to worry about getting stuck in a crazy contract, or with a cover or a compulsory editorial “suggestion” I don’t like. (I mean, heck, I get to choose whether I use serial commas or not! [Not.])

There are drawbacks, of course. I have total control, but I also have total responsibility. If I can’t think of a title, I’m stuck. (Well, partially true—I always have my friends who are eager to help!) I’m assuming the full risk, financial, emotional (very real), etc.

Going indie vs. self publishing

There’s no codified definition of “indie publishing,” and everyone from small publishers to self-publishers use the term. To me, the difference between plain old “self-publishing” and “indie publishing” is all about the outlook.

So why do I consider myself “indie”?

  • I’m willing to invest in money and time to produce the best possible product.
  • I set up an entire business to support this venture.
  • But most of all, I’m in this for the long haul. I’m not self-publishing hoping that I’ll sell a bajillion copies of this one book and have New York banging down my door to buy this book and everything else I ever write. I don’t believe for a minute that indie publishing is a fast track to a contract or any other form of success. It’s work, and I’m willing to put in that work.

I’m not going to rule out trade publishing. Sometimes as I’m sitting here hyphenating my entire book by hand, I do wish I had someone else to handle this stuff for me. But for right now, I’m making multi-year projections for publishing in at least two series. The prevailing wisdom is that most indie publishers don’t really see great success until they have multiple books on the market, so I’m planning for that. (My planning calendar goes into 2016 and includes books that have been sitting around collecting dust as well as books I haven’t even written yet!)

What about my publisher?

Things are on hold with my publisher for now. One day I might be ready to talk about why. We’ll see.

The truth about how I feel about going indie

fireworksTwo years ago, I would never have expected to self-publish. It’s a hard decision to go indie, and to be honest, I do still second guess the choice. Despite the money I’ve put into editing and covers and ISBNs, it’s not too late to pull the plug and run and hide.

It’s very scary to put yourself out there, and there is still a bit of a stigma associated with self-publishing. There are certain avenues that are simply not open to an independently published person, no matter how professional and talented and successful, that are open to any trade publisher, no matter how unprofessional or feckless or unsuccessful. In some ways, I’m letting part of my dream go as I do this. Sometimes, even though I’m doing everything right and crossing every t and dotting every i, I feel like I must be cheating, that this is less legit.

But in the end, I think I’m reaching for the larger dream. No, I don’t have a high-powered agent or an eleven-figure advance or PW and Kirkus banging down my door for a review. I probably wouldn’t say no to any of those things (depending on the strings with that advance 😉 ).But I’m not going to let the lack of those things hold me back from the real goal—reaching readers. Getting my books out there. Making something I’m proud of.

And as one wise friend (who I totally can’t remember who it was, sorry!) pointed out, having the backing of a trade publisher usually entails less financial risk, but in the end, it doesn’t guarantee success. You can fail either way, and putting yourself out there is always scary. I won’t let that fear win.

What do you think? What publishing path are you pursuing now? How did you decide what’s right for you? Come share your writing journey!

Photo credits: Independence—Doug Kerr, fireworks—Joel

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Works, News & Contests

Announcing I, Spy!

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My first novel is coming June 5, 2013!

Yes, I’m excited to announce that my first novel will be published in just a few short weeks. (In fact, keep your eyes peeled—it may be available early!) If you already want to read it, please add I, Spy on Goodreads.

Today, I’m especially excited to reveal my cover! But first, a little more about the book.

About the Book

Canada is probably the last place you’d expect to find an American spy. But even idyllic Ottawa has its deadly secrets—and so does CIA operative Talia Reynolds. She can climb through ventilation shafts, blend in at the occasional diplomatic function, even scale buildings (small ones). But there’s one thing she can’t do: tell her aerospace engineer boyfriend Danny about her Top Secret occupation.

It worked for a year, keeping Danny in the dark, keeping him away from danger, keeping her secrets. And then Talia finally catches a hot case: Fyodor Timofeyev. Russian. Aerospace executive. Possible spy?

She can make this work, too—until Danny needs her at the same time her country does. And when Fyodor targets Danny? Suddenly her schedule isn’t the only thing suffering. Now to save her secrets and her country, Talia must sacrifice the man she loves.

Read an excerpt from the first chapter

And now for the cover!

More about I, Spy | Add I, Spy to your Goodreads to-read list!
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Advance praise

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m completely biased about this book. 🙂 I loved, loved, LOVED the TV show Alias, and this story follows in Sydney Bristow’s footsteps. Like the Alias TV show, I, Spy features a fantastic, likeable spy heroine who’s trying to juggle her personal life with her work life. Talia Reynolds struggles with doing the right thing while under pressure to catch the bad guys.

The edge-of-my-seat undercover operations kept me turning pages, and just when I thought the story would go one way, plot twists sent it down another path. Thrilling, adventurous, and romantic, this book has it all for an Alias fan.

— Jami Gold, award-winning author

 

 

Jordan McCollum’s debut novel is a delightful combination of mystery, action, and romance. Talia’s CIA training and almost OCD caution feed her quirky humor while exposing her very human fears and insecurities. Add in her boyfriend Danny, and it’s enough to twist your heart.

— Donna K. Weaver, author of A Change of Plans

 

 

Clever, suspenseful, and charged with political intrigue and romance, I, Spy is the perfect combination for a fun and captivating read!

— Michelle Davidson Argyle, author of Monarch

 

Read an excerpt from the first chapter

More about I, Spy | Add I, Spy on Goodreads today!
Join my mailing list for a chance to get a review copy!

Many thanks to everyone helping out with this cover reveal: Michelle Davidson Argyle, Deana Barnhart, Julie Coulter Bellon, Stephanie Black, Emily Gray Clawson, Heather Justesen and Donna K. Weaver.

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Mechanics

Secret sauce: those stinking participial phrases

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This entry is part 13 of 16 in the series Spilling the secret sauce

Okay, so participial phrases at the beginning of sentences have become one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind them when they’re well done, but unless you’re pretty handy with a clause, you might want to avoid them. This might seem like just one of those silly arbitrary rules that are just made up to help us prove we’ve read up on the latest so-called rules for writing, which will change in another ten years.

But present participial phrases are not just a magical hoop editors want us to jump through to prove that we’re familiar with industry bywords. It’s mainly an issue of grammar (and to a lesser extent, style, but that’s because they’re overused). Complaining about strictures against present participial phrases is almost like complaining about commas. There are correct places and times for using commas, and incorrect ones, and I suspect that most of the time, if we carefully look at a book, we’ll see that most of the commas are used right and perhaps not as often as we thought.

I really came to understand this by reading the posts on present participial phrases at EditTorrent, a blog by two editors. But if you don’t feel like clicking through, I’m happy to summarize the anti-present participial phrase arguments.

First, to clarify, these are not gerunds. Gerunds are typically not a problem. Gerunds are the -ing form (present participle) of the verb used as a noun:

I enjoy writing.
Writing is fun.

For the most part, this isn’t going to be a problem in a sentence, since they’re on the rare side. (I.e. beginning each sentence with a gerund would also be a problem, especially in the midst of too many present participial phrases, but the occasional correct usage of a gerund isn’t going to hurt anybody.)

What we’re talking about here are present participial phrases:

Running to the door, I called out my son’s name.
Writing out the prescription, the doctor didn’t bother looking up.

I think you can probably see how this is already becoming a problem.

Now that we’ve got that straight, on to the primary argument: Present participial phrases are, to put it mildly, evil.

The vast majority of the time in amateur usage, these phrases appear too often, are often misused, create other grammatical problems, don’t reflect how real people think—and I’m just getting started.

A: Present participial phrases are overused, especially by amateur writers.

Not to say that any of us here are amateurs, but too many present participial phrases are a mark of an amateur. Frankly, more than one per page (YES, per page) jumps out at me. Three on a page don’t just jump; they scream. People who aren’t really aware of this grammatical construct can inadvertently begin almost every other sentence with a present participial phrase. Seriously. I’ve critiqued *good* writers who still almost made my eyes bleed. This happens exceedingly rarely in the published books I read.

Important note: this standard seems to be very different for UK & Canadian publishers. Whatevs. TMMV.

B: Present participial phrases are frequently misused.

The grammatical construct of a present participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence ALWAYS means that the action in that phrase and the action in the main part of the sentence are simultaneous. Always. (There’s sometimes a bit more leeway when the present participial phrase appears after the main part of the sentence, though technically speaking there shouldn’t be.)

So, these would be not only grammatically incorrect, but physically impossible:

Chomping down on her food, she stuck her tongue out. (Ouch.)
Sneezing, he sang an aria.

However, there are lots of things you can do simultaneously:

Smiling, she walked down the aisle.

An important note here is that reading is a very linear activity—we read one word and then the next—and these phrases can make it easy to misunderstand or just slow us down as we try to figure out the order of the actions and picture them. This is so important it could warrant its own letter, but I don’t think I really need to explain this more.

C: Present participial phrases frequently cause misplaced modifiers.

The action or state described in a present participial phrase must ALWAYS describe/be done by the subject of the sentence. If not, you get a misplaced/dangling modifier:

Running to the car, the cat darted between his ankles.

The only grammatically correct way to understand this sentence is that the CAT was running to the car. At best, this sentence is ambiguous—we really can’t assume that it means the man was running. If I want to say the man was running to the car and the cat darted between his ankles, I’d be much safer to say THAT.

Walking down the street, a bat bit the man on the thumb.

Grammatically speaking, this sentence says a bat was walking down the street and bit a man on the thumb. Paraphrased from a famously bad police report.

D: If we’re supposed to be writing in our character’s thoughts and minds, present participial phrases would appear sparingly at best.

People rarely think that way. Really, think about how you think. Okay, generally we think in pictures, but when you do use words, is that how your thoughts go? If we’re seeking to replicate our characters’ voices and internal thoughts, then, would they use them?

Varying sentence structure isn’t a good enough reason for these either. As editor/author Alicia Rasley points out, varying sentences isn’t an end to itself: it’s an intermediate goal to create a smooth read.

Since these constructions do stick out if used incorrectly or awkwardly or too frequently, and so many first drafts contain so many present participial phrases that you can’t construe their usage as actually varying the default sentence structure anyway. Again, important enough to get its own letter, but I don’t want to beat you over the head with this.

To conclude:

Okay, maybe present participial phrases aren’t exactly evil, but just like commas, but we have to be VERY careful about how we use them (or we’ll end up with something ungrammatical or bizarre) and very judicious about when we use them.

In my opinion (formed by the careful tutelage of the editors I mentioned above), the best use of a participial phrase is for something that describes the state of the subject of the sentence, NOT an action:

Hoping she wasn’t too late, she dashed into the room.

Her emotional state in this sentence is one of hoping.

Yes, sometimes published and unpublished authors use present participial phrases. I invite you to find a book published in your target market or by your target publisher, flip to any page and count the number of sentences that begin with present participial phrases. I was amazed when I did this: books that were decades old or only a few months both yielded very few.

What do you think? How often do you really use present participial phrases? What did you find when you opened a book in your target market? Come share!

Photo by Bird Eye

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Reading

TBR Tuesday: Maternity leave reads & reviews

What are you reading? Here are a few of the books I’ve been reading while not sleeping. (Yay, newbornhood.)

First up, I recently read Band of Sisters: Coming Home by Annette Lyon, a birthday present to myself. The sequel to Band of Sisters, Coming Home follows the same five National Guard wives as their soldiers return home (or don’t), following the problems of re-entry. Some of the storylines that were left hanging a little bit in the first novel (especially Jessie’s!) are more fully resolved in the sequel. And, of course, I cried many times, like you’re supposed to with any good women’s fiction novel 😉 .

In case you’ve missed it, I’ve spent the last year reading nonfiction about the CIA. I really wanted to see the movie Argo, but I’m not so big on violence. When I saw that there was also a book version of Argo by Tony Mendez & Matt Baglio, I jumped on it.

If you missed the movie trailers, in 1979, Iranian “students” overran the American embassy. They held the staffers there hostage for 444 days. But six Americans escaped from the embassy and became “houseguests” of Canadian diplomats. Argo tells the story of the audacious rescue mission: turning the minor diplomatic officials into a movie crew for a fake movie to get them out of Iran safely.

If you’ve read Tony Mendez’s first book, The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA (currently <$4 on Kindle), there’s a lot of repeated information from Mendez’s POV. However, this book does add a more in-depth account from the houseguests’ point of view. Even having read Master of Disguise, I enjoyed this account.

I read almost everything my best friend recommends to me. I’d heard some praise for Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein before she recommended it, but once she said she enjoyed it, I put a hold on it at the library that day.

So. Worth. It.

Code Name Verity is the “confession” of a captured Scottish spy, a teenage girl, in World War II. But it’s not just a story about the war. It’s the story of two friends, the spy and her pilot Maddie, and the sacrifices they make for one another—and the true price of friendship. I bawled. Okay, I read this the same week I had the baby, so it’s not like it’s hard to make me cry, but still.

What are you reading? When is the last time a book made you cry?

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Publishing, Writing Life

The best of times, the worst of times

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This entry is part 12 of 14 in the series My writing journey

After I got my teeth kicked in, I put that novel through the wringer! Over the course of another nine months, I sent most of the novel to another critique group. I had friends who were published by this publisher critique it. I sent it (the entire thing on one chunk) to yet another critique group. I revised and revised until I just couldn’t see the words anymore.

Oh, and somewhere in here, I wrote a beautiful, poignant and inherently broken novel. Which I still don’t know how to fix.

And then, finally, I hit send on the novel I’d been working on for almost two and a half years.

And tried to forget. By this time, the editor who lovingly kicked my teeth in was no longer with the publisher, so I was submitting to the third editor at the same house (which is small enough that they only have 2-3 editors to begin with!).

f_logoI have to admit: I kinda Facebook stalked this latest editor. (I’d never met her! I had to do it!) In her public pictures, I found someone I’d known as a teenager back home. Turns out they were good friends! Small world.

A few weeks later, about two months after I’d submitted, I happened to run into this woman who I’d known as a teenager. I struck up a conversation and mentioned seeing her pictures on Facebook. That . . . was kinda weird . . . She asked how I’d come across them, and I told her, “Well, I submitted a book to [editor]. . . .”

My friend pointed at the friend who was with her, helping her manage her kids.

Yeeeeah, it was the editor. Who I basically just admitted to Facebook stalking.

Fortunately, this didn’t seem to negatively influence her 😉 . We talked a bit about the book, and bumped into each other a couple more times around town and the writing community. She let me know my book had passed the first round of evaluation, which it didn’t the first time, and was sitting in the queue to go to the final decision-making committee. So still I was waiting.

Meanwhile, I tried to work on the inherently broken novel, but it was inherently broken, and that’s a problem. I worked on it so hard and continued to fail so hard that I actually quit writing for a few months. And then a tragic death in my family made this whole imaginary worlds thing seem pretty pointless for a while.

But I still had that one novel out on submission. So maybe I’d pick up my writing when life wasn’t quite so terrible.

The first word

Just over seven months after I submitted the novel the second time, I got an email. You know. THE email. The heart-stopping, clammy-palms, instant-tears email. But it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Your manuscript, Saints and Spies, has completed the evaluation process, and we took a great deal of time this week in our committee meeting to discuss it after reviewing all the feedback we had received.

Ah, crap. Rejection. Right? I forced myself to read each word carefully.

We love this story, and are captivated by its imaginative twists and its unique plot! Our overall impression was very positive.

Oh. Oh? Oh! But . . . they’ll probably still say no. I mean, everybody gets rejected. A lot. And this was only my third submission ever (I subbed to another publisher in there; quick rejection).

Read more:

We have just one reservation: having an undercover agent who is LDS officiate in any Catholic church ceremonies seems troublesome.

The managing editor went on to explain the trouble, but I totally understood.

And that was why they had to reject me. Right?

If you can come up with a way to appropriately address this concern that would be acceptable to you, please let me know. We will then take it to the board at [parent company] and get your solution cleared with the board members there.

Oh. Okay. I could definitely draft out a solution. Still, this email wasn’t really a “let’s clear this one little issue up and get you your offer” though. No guarantees at all.

The first person I told happened to be my mother-in-law, who was visiting. (My husband and father-in-law were at the store, so I called next.)

I wrote back right away to say that I’d definitely look at that. I hurried to email a friend who’d had a book accepted by this publisher after they’d requested big changes. I took the weekend to reread the novel for all the scenes where my LDS FBI agent undercover as a Catholic priest has to do priestly things. I knew going in that I might have to modify or cut some of these scenes, and I’d already decided I was willing to cut those parts if an editor asked me to. By Tuesday, I had a document outlining these scenes and events and my proposed changes.

And then I waited again. I waited past the third anniversary of starting the book (and second anniversary of submitting it). I decided to do a real Nano for the first time. I started Nano. I went to a writers’ retreat where I had 0 Internet access, but I could read my email on my marginally intelligent phone. Although the very first editor I met and submitted to was coming to give a presentation at lunch, I still hadn’t heard another word from the publisher.

Until Friday morning. An email from the managing editor popped up on my stupidphone.

I’m feeling a little baffled . . .

Oh. Gotcha. I could just tell, the committee rejected the book and she didn’t know why.

But being a glutton for punishment, I read on:

I don’t know if anyone communicated to you that we have officially accepted Saints and Spies for publication!

AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING (and maybe a cartwheel or two)!!! I immediately got to share the news with good friends in person. I had to call my husband to tell him, and he was happy for me, but didn’t sound overly excited. (When I got home two days later, I found out he’d been laid out by food poisoning the entire time I was gone, and our five-year-old had to feed the family on hot dogs and toast. So DH had mustered as much enthusiasm as he could, and didn’t distract from my writing by telling me all this.) Then I called both of my parents, my grandparents, my sisters and one of my aunts.

Yeah, didn’t get a whole lot of writing done that morning. Fortunately, I did get almost 28,000 words that weekend—and I unquit writing. And it felt so good to be back! In the end, though, I’m glad that it was the love of writing that brought me back to it, and not the offer. Because as wonderful as it is to be published and have that outside validation, I write because I love it.

And that’s how it pays off.

Have you ever had to “quit” writing for your sanity? How would/did you celebrate your first offer of publication? Come share!

Photo by Angela

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Publishing

What does a book look like?

I know, rectangular, opens on the right, has pages—a big DUH, right? But when you really think about it, can you tell me off the top of your head which elements on the spine are vertical and which are horizontal on a “standard” book? Where do the page numbers go? How big the paragraph indents are? How big the book itself is?

The size of the thing

There are “standard” trim sizes, as they’re called, for published novels. But grab a dozen books off your shelf (unless you sort books by size, I guess . . . what? My husband does it!) and you’ll probably end up with at least 5 different sizes of books.

The “standard” sizes are mass market and trade paperbacks, and then your hardcovers. While mass market paperbacks are a fairly consistent size, you might be amazed at how much variation you really see in trade paperback sizes.

And that goes for the text layout, as well. The margins, the number of lines per page, even where you stick the page numbers and what else goes in the headers & footers—they can be all over the place.

If you’re hoping for an industry standard . . . keep hoping.

I grabbed 8 novels off my shelves and set about measuring them with probably excessive precision—and no two books are alike. Here’s a spreadsheet of what I found:

Link to the full spreadsheet

Explanatory notes:

  • All measurements are in inches
  • Format: “perfect” = perfect bound, where pages are glued into a paper cover of the same size
  • Spine matter: listed from top to bottom. “Vertical” orientation means that if the book’s sitting upright on a shelf, you might have to turn your head to read it.
  • Top margin or bottom margin: yellow highlight means there was a header or footer not included in this measurement.
  • Running head/feet: whether they use a header or footer on each page
  • Head/feet content: FONT = an important font in the book, such as the font of the title on the cover. font = some other font, neither the body font nor the cover font. pg# outside means that the page numbers are on the outside corners of the page. v = verso (left-hand page). r = recto (right-hand page).
  • Head/feet format: ctr = centered. TITLE = all caps title. title = mixed case or lower case title.
  • New chapter pages: the format of the first page of a new chapter. sm cap = small caps. Number = Seventeen. Chapter Number = Chapter Eleven. # = 15. Drop cap = a large letter (often in a decorative font) as the first letter of the first paragraph of text (not indented), where the letter “cuts into” the first paragraph, forcing the first 2-3 lines of text over. Non-drop cap = a large letter (often in a decorative font) as the first letter of the first paragraph of text (not indented), where the letter does not “cut into” the paragraph, but sits on the same baseline as the regular text.

Some observations

As you can see, pretty much nothing is “standard” in a “standard” trade paperback or hardcover. Some interesting notes:

Half the books used the author’s first and last name, and half used the surname only. Most of them put the author’s name first. Most used some sort of graphic element, often a carry over or straight-up repeat of the cover. The publisher is always at the bottom of the spine.

The four YA titles all had fewer than 30 lines per page. They looked almost double spaced at times—especially after looking at the ones with closer to 40 lines per page!

Heads and feet were where we came closest to a standard. Five books had running heads, and four had running feet. If you’re going to put the author name and book title on the pages, author name goes on the verso (left side) and book title on the recto (right side). Generally, you use some sort of special font for these. You may or may not put the page numbers in a special font. If you don’t have the author name & title at the top, page numbers seem to be more comfortable centered at the bottom of the page.

New chapter pages are just fun! Graphic elements—from flourishes to themed clip art to a repeat of the cover graphic—are very popular, as is using special fonts. Several books also used grayscale in text or images here. Go crazy!

How do book designers do it?

I’d never given much thought to book design—not the interior, anyway. But man, there are so many choices to make, it’s a little mind-boggling! Every time I thought I’d finished my spreadsheet, I’d remember another dimension I should measure. In fact, I kind of want to add whether the new chapter pages had a page number at all . . .

The takeaway

Seeing is believing. Try this out for yourself with several of your books, from different publishers. If you want to design your own book interior, find what you like best through observation. Look at what sizes feel most comfortable in your hands, whether the text is too cramped, or too spaced out, whether the margins are kind of freakishly large or ridiculously narrow. Determine what you like by looking at what other people have done, and you’ll be able to design a book (hopefully!) exactly how you want it.

What do you think? Have you ever noticed a book’s interior design? Come join the conversation!

Photo by muellermartin

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Technique

Secret sauce: the obsession with being a “writer”

This entry is part 12 of 16 in the series Spilling the secret sauce

I’m probably not the only one who for some strange reason envisioned himself or herself the author of the Next Great American Novel. Literary fiction is the only “real” type of writing, right?

(Um, no! Duh! Somehow, I still fall into this trap sometimes!)

So, sometimes . . . as “me active compensatory feature” (thank you, Ringo), I’d try maybe just a little too hard to sound like a “real” writer. You know the symptoms, right?

Sounding “writerly”

I absolutely love how author/former literary agent Nathan Bransford defined the difference between writing and being writerly (emphasis mine):

Writers describe. They illuminate and clarify. When you’re writing you’re painting the proverbial picture in the proverbial reader’s head.

When you’re being writerly, your writing is making things less clear with clever word play.

It isn’t just contrived sentence structure or imagery that hurts you. Diction—word choice—can be used to look like a “good” writer. Instead, you just end up sounding writerly. Or as agent Ann Collette tweeted in her Today’s Twelve roundup of queries:

And what does that mean? Ann elaborated a little:

Get it? Get it?

The “right” word

Just knowing the “right” word doesn’t necessary make it the right word (tautology FTW!). When we look up an obscure term for our research in our setting, it might be right in the sense that it describes it accurately—but even if it’s right in that sense, if your audience doesn’t know the term, it won’t help them visualize it. Then is it “right”?

In a day of instant information, readers really do put down books to look stuff up. I even documented a time I did that here on the blog: a novel I was reading named an obscure medical device, as if that would be enough for us to picture it being used as a weapon. It was not, I opined, the right word because I couldn’t visualize the pivotal weapon throughout the scene and, frustrated, put the book down to hop on the Internet. (And being me, it was some time before I got back to it, most likely.)

As a writer, I went through this with the word “inveigle” in one manuscript (okay, since we’re confessing: I’ve been through it a lot in pretty much every manuscript, but this is one of those stories). I found it in a thesaurus and the definition looked right.

I decided to ignore the fact that pretty much everyone I had read it—intelligent, college-educated people who really like me—tripped over that word and pointed it out. It was Capital-R-Right and nobody was going to convince me otherwise. After all, isn’t reading how we grow our vocabularies? Didn’t I see, like, one blog comment once where someone said they liked a book to teach them some new words??

If the logic sounds tenuous, it was. Finally, after yet another friend mentioned that word, I went on a hunt for that word in the wild. This is something you should always do with new words. (Google, how I love you.)

And what did I find? It seemed to have a connotation I definitely didn’t want there. It hurt, but I cut that word—because it wasn’t as right as I thought. And since then, I’ve cut a few more words that might send readers running for their dictionaries—because I don’t want to pull them out of the story, but mostly because they weren’t in the characters’ voices anyway.

Not being writerly

Fortunately, Nathan Bransford also offers guidelines on avoiding “writerliness.”

Whenever you’re unsure about including a metaphor or an evocative description, ask yourself: Does this make the scene clearer? Or am I including it because it’s clever/original/was fun to write?

Different writers have different tastes, but count me down in camp clarity.

Me too. That isn’t to say your writing, even in genre fiction, shouldn’t be clever, original or fun to write. Of course it should! But again, if it becomes harder for the reader to understand, take a hard look at the passage.

The right word, phrase, or image:

  • is clear!
  • has the right definition (denotation)—real editors absolutely DO use dictionaries, even when they don’t really doubt the definition or usage.
  • is as vivid, powerful and succinct as the context needs
  • carries the right connotation
  • is right for the character’s voice
  • is right for the genre/book: you absolutely can have “art prose” in “genre fiction,” but it must be consistent with the tone, subject, character, etc.—and it needs to be consistent through that book (or POV)
  • is right for the general reader, carrying him or her along with the story instead of pulling him/her out

You can get away with breaking maaaybe one of those axioms with a word or phrase, and even then, you shouldn’t do that too frequently—so choose carefully. And remember that every time your reader has to set your book down to look up an obscure term or reread a sentence to try to picture what you’re writing, there’s a better and better chance that he won’t continue reading, frustrated that you keep talking over his head.

Make your reader forget that he’s staring at black marks on a page and get him visualizing your story instead!

What do you think? What’s “writerly” to you?

Photo credits: quill—Charles Stanford; dictionary—Harry

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