Does your novel need to go on a diet?

Everyone likes big books, you can't lie... yeah, I went there. Seriously though, an author tends to write on the 'meaty' side of things during the first draft phase. We write with a ton of adverbs, repetitive nouns, prepositions, verbs, its, and and, the list goes on.

All that makes for a chubby novel. One that needs a hand to cut those extras from it's diet and trim down to a sexier sized manuscript. Yes, I know your novel isn't going to sport an itty bitty yellow polka dot bikini at the beach, but, it is going to go to publishers, editors, and readers hands.

Why should your care if your writing is a little on the husky side? Just like bon bons too much of a good thing can be damaging to your figure, or in this case it can muddle the picture you want to create for your reader. Over description can be boring, too many adverbs or pronouns can get confusing and mess with tenses.

Too many of those little connector words such as  and, it, that, this, like, or as (or is one too!) can clutter your sentences. You want your writing be create a clear and concise.

Don't worry you don't have to squeeze your novel into those skinny jeans hanging in your closet. Here are a few tips to help tip the scale in your favor.

Channel Mark Twain, he is one of my favorites and gave great writing advice. He once said, "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should."

It really is a good idea. The first step is to determine which words you tend to over use. Once your bad habit words are determined substitute damn in its place or just dashes. When edit read the segment in question without the habit word and with it.

Doing this will help you decide if  you actually need to use the habit words and where you can drop them from your diet. Just like eating less carbs or Heaven forbid cutting out chocolate in your real diet.

How do you determine what words your novel tends to over eat? There are tools in Word or most word processing programs have the option to search and count a certain word throughout the book. Yeah, that can be a lot of work and you can miss leg day (a habit word) and end up with thunder thighs in chapter six.

The easy way to do the deed is to use an editing aid such as Grammarly, Ginger. These products have free options as well as paid subscriptions to their services and tons of features and tools to make your novel strut the runway with it's fit and trim body. My personal favorite is to take a trip over to The Writer's Diet webpage.

The Writer's Diet is also a fabulous book by Helen Sword that helps you trim your writing without sending it to the Biggest Looser. You can even test your writing fitness level right on the site under the Test tab. Just copy paste no more than one thousand words and click Run the Test.

You will get a rainbow colored page that highlights your habit words and shows if you need to put that book on the treadmill. It will also tell you if you're dieting too much. (Your book, not you. Put down that cookie!) Now, this is just a feedback tool. It won't tell you if your writing is good, bad or needs cheese.... everything is better with a little cheese on top. It will help you determine those high calorie words that possibly need to be nixed.

Play with it and try different samples of your writing, if nothing else it's like that cake over there; pretty to look at just like that big slice of cake with the pretty piped rose on top.... 

*takes a bite of cake and sighs happily.... Oh well, so much for that New Year's resolution. Maybe my novel will look good in those skinny jeans.

Getting visible for authors and their books

The hardest part of being an author isn’t writing the novel or even publishing. The hardest part is getting visible. In the not really so distant past authors had to depend on road trips to different bookstores and venues to grab attention. If they were really lucky, someone would land a TV or radio spot. Possibly get reviews from newspapers and magazines.

Those venues are still there and can be successful in reaching readers, but they can also be expensive and possibly limited to local areas. In today’s digital age authors can reach not just one city but the entire globe. All from their computer and often in their pajamas.

Why yes, I am wearing my comfiest jams right now, complete with fuzzy slippers. So don’t judge. ;o) Now let’s get back on topic…

The problem with this global reach is… well, it’s global, global is huge. The ways to reach out and grab your audience in that vast sea of readers is huge too. So how does one author and their books become visible? Create your internet platform with two kinds of sites. Listings/Profiles and Social Media.

We all know about social media like G+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.… Those sites take constant checking and maintaining in order for them to work properly for the author. All that checking, posting and commenting can take a lot of time.

That’s where listing sites come in. There are many sites out there that allow you to sign in and list your profile and books then leave. You just have to come back every so often to make sure your page is updated and working properly.  Just dropping off a profile doesn’t sound very effective, but there are more of these sites than there are social media.

There are sites for every kind of genre, niche or just general book and author listings. People browse these

sites to find something new or interesting that goes with their interests, making it very easy to stumble upon your author page. Giving you the chance to snare a new reader, they may even share your page on their social sites brining more possible readers.

I know, I know your social media takes up so much time, how can you add one more place? The most time you’ll spend on a listing pages will be during the first time you sign up and create your profile. After that five minutes max every few months on on a need to do basis to update your page is worth the possibility of hooking more readers isn’t it?

Almost every niche you can think of has at least one listing site where you can put up a profile and gain more exposure. There’s another benefit to an author spreading themselves around the web, it adds more chances of the author’s name or book title being picked up by search engines. We all know that’s a plus.

Here are a few good listing sites to get started.

AuthorsdB

Maniac Readers

Literary Addicts

Author’s Den

And many more, so go find your niche and get visible.

Do you use any other listing sites you would like to share?

For the A to Z Blog Challenge for the letter G

Alternative Words

Geeze louise there's a lot of ways to swear!

Writers have a tendency to get hooked on certain words. You find them speckled too often amongst our work and we need to find a different way of saying it. 

We also look for word substitutes. A word to use instead of said or a different way to describe a smell or action other than the over used versions.  Maybe you don’t want to use a swear word? You could try one of the alternative swear words on the list pictured. If not it will at least give you a chuckle or two by golly.

I have found a love for some old words. One of my all-time favorite resource websites is The Phrontistery. This amazing archive homes a dictionary of obscure words and lost words. It also has lists for almost anything a writer might need. It’s a ton of fun to just sit back with a cuppa and browse.  

An alternative source to find lists of substitutions (see what I did there?) would be Pinterest. You can Goggle of course but Pinterest is more fun and you can save the lists to one board for quick reference. Here’s a ton of them for you to save to your Pinterest.

Now drop those common boring repetitive words and go find an alternative to play with! 

This post for the letter A in the A to Z Blogging Challenge 2018. Click on the badge below to find other awesome blogs to read and follow or visit the site listed on the badge to find out how to join in the A to Z fun! 

Music to write by

Music can be a powerful tool for a writer. No, we can’t put it in the pages of our books, (unless it’s an audio book :) but, we can use it as a guide for how we write.

Some writers use music to help them keep focused and avoid some of the distractions that occur around us. It can also be used to set the writer’s mental mood as they write a scene or maybe as a pacing tool. Play some upbeat tunes and start typing a short paragraph or two. You’ll find that your fingers move to the rhythm of the music. A good upbeat playlist can really help the words fly onto paper.

It’s a combination of those things for me, but mostly a key to helping me set the scene. Soundtracks are fantastic for settings. Some of my favorites for action are the 3:10 to Yuma Soundtrack and the Tokyo Drift Soundtrack. There aren’t any lyrics to distract and plenty of intense tracks to help build tension and burst into the action of a scene.

I have a strange, eclectic collection of music from movie soundtracks, opera, oldies, big band, strings, flamenco, rock, pop, blues, jazz… you name it it’s probably in my collection somewhere. A wide musical taste just like a wide variety of genres in reading can be beneficial to a writer. Each musical genre brings a different picture to mind as much as any other sense.

If your ears have never had the experience of listening to Cajun zydeco, big band, Irish pipes and drums, or even a mix of country and rap. Head over to Youtube, Pandora or Spotify and try them out. A new kind of music can inspire the muse.

I’m jumping into my 8^th NaNoWriMo in November writing a paranormal noir. I love the dark settings and the intensity of some noir scenes. I’ve got some music set aside to help the mood of those pages along. Tokyo Drift of course, but also Apocalyptica: Worlds Collide, Nickleback: Dark Horse, and some Korn.

Since this novel is also going to be set in 1940s Florida, I’ve created some oldies playlists. Songs by Glenn Miller, Dean Martin, Patti Page, Dave Pell, Duke Ellington and other fantastic musicians and performers of the time.

Music is a tool for us just as our favorite writing program or pen and notebook. It can inspire us and the characters we write adding a bit more life to them and their story.

Do you have a favorite playlist or album to write to? Do you tailor a music list just for the novel your writing or make just a general set that will get your muse dancing? 

Editing and chocolate, lots of chocolate

I have been hard at work on the last edit of Don’t Touch in preparation for its March ebook re-launch. Editing for me is hellish. I’ve never been very grammatical, it just doesn’t come naturally to me. So, some days it’s a struggle as to which tense is proper or is that a hanging practiciple on the end of that sentence? *pulls out hair and grabs some dark chocolate to sooth the nerves.

Thank goodness for the discovery of a few awesome helpers along the way to boost my weak spot, and dark chocolate to ease the fried nerves.

Ginger
My Sis found this one while working on a research paper. Thank you Sis!!! Ginger is useable online or you can download it onto your system. It has a spell and grammar check. The grammar check is a bit more detailed than the one that comes in Word. Ginger works directly from your document you don’t have to open and import into an external program. Best of all it’s free!

This is the diagnosis for HALF. 

The Writer's Diet Test 
This handy site lets you see where you need to do some tightening on your manuscripts. Your novels fitness depends on the amount of adverbs, adjectives.. etc… that the writing contains.

Copy pasting a few thousand words into this online tool lets you know where you need to do some tightening and shaving pounds off your book. If only it was that easy to that chocolate cake off my hips.

Hopefully with the aid of my handy author tool box and a bag of dark chocolate edits will soon be at an end and the final formatting can begin so Don’t Touch can get its tush on the virtual shelves.

My ROW80 goals for this week are focused on getting her done and getting ready for my big event Authors in the Park.
1. Finish the re-edits on Don’t Touch
2. Start on e formatting of Don’t Touch
3. Start on preparations for materials for AIP on March 30^th. (OMG That’s less than 30 days away!!!!)
4. Write one article
5. Take a breath, have a chocolate and try not to panic 


For more details about the March 30^th festival of books and art go here Authors in the Park.

How are your goals shaping up? Do you have any editing tricks or tips you like to use?