Week of Sept. 22 , 2013 – Book Review: “Body Count” by PD Martin

By Joan Whetzel

 

“Body Count” tells the story of FBI agent Sophie Anderson – recently transplanted from Australia – in one of her early cases with the Bureau. In this case, a series of women go missing and end up dead. Several key similarities suggest the killer’s signature. The killer’s signature becomes more evident when the Washington DC cases are connected to similar murders in Arizona, Michigan, Chicago, and Florida. But the whole case blows into high gear when one of their own agents, and Sophie’s best friend, is kidnapped by their killer.

 

I almost put this book down, never to be picked up again. Ms. Martin committed 2 writer’s sins – at least in my book. Her first sin is starting out the first chapter with the close of Sophie's last case then just sitting around for 3 chapters introducing characters, and not moving the plot at all. I, personally, hate books that take so long to introduce a plot. I much prefer a story that jumps right in with both feet, or at least gets it started within the first few pages.

 

Martin’s second sin is her propensity for stopping the story – frequently – to explain things to the audience, like the readers are too dense to figure out these things for themselves. It’s the oldest known writer’s error of telling instead of showing. The one thing that any writer’s course – in any genre of writing – drums into future writers is to “show; don’t tell.” But Martin breaks this rule repeatedly, and I found it extremely annoying. The plot starts gets exciting, and suddenly she stops it to have Sophie give a sidebar explanation of basic FBI procedures and forensics. Then she jumps back into the story. What makes it disturbing for me is that it interrupts my train of thought, so that I have to go back and find out where I was in the plot and jump back to the story a paragraph or three down the page to pick up the story again.

I know, I know, I’m jaded by all the forensics-rich TV shows that have been so popular lately. But I don’t want my writers to keep stopping the action to give me a forensics 101 course every few pages. It interrupts the action so much, it’s hard for me to keep on track with the story.

 

About half way through the book, Martin finally lets up with the interruptions and keeps the plot going. But it was really hard getting into the book and staying with it. I’ll give PD Martin a break though. “Body Count”, which came out in 2005, is her first book. I know she’s got at least one other book, though I haven’t located that book or any others by PD Martin. So I don’t know if she’s going to continue with the slow starts and constant interruptions.

 

If you’re looking for a new author, don’t let my gripes talk you out of reading PD Martin’s books. Despite my gripes about the slow start and the unnecessary explanations – the telling rather than showing – I still anticipate that she will develop her skills and come out with some good stories. So I’ll tell you to give her a try and see what you think for yourself.

Week of Sept. 15, 2013 - Blurbs

By: Joan Whetzel

 

We’ve all seen them, those blurbs on the back cover of a paperback, on the inside dust jacket of a hard cover book. Those few words are what draw in readers, makes them want to buy the book and take it home to read. Blurbs can also be written to entice readers to pick up a magazine to read a specific article, or continue to a website to read their online content.

 

Blurbs Defined

Yes, blurbs can also be written to describe any product – especially those sold in catalogs and online stores – to entice buyers to fork over their hard earned money. But since this is a blog dedicated to writing,  we’ll stick to the writer’s definition of a blurb. The word “blurb” was invented during  the 1907 American Booksellers Association meeting, allegedly by illustrator and humorist Gelett Burgess, to describe a brief advertisement or announcement. These ads and announcements are generally congratulatory in nature, a short summary intended to excite readers.

 

Blurb History

It seems, Mr. Burgess had recently published a book, but it wasn’t selling well.  So, he took the opportunity to present members of the American Booksellers Association  with copies of his book with  specially designed bookplates showing the picture of a young lady – Belinda Blurb -  singing the praises of his book. The name blurb appealed to the booksellers and publishers, as did the idea of singing the praises of their books to rope in the readers, and so the word “blub” stuck and became a stable of the publishing industry ever since.

 

Writing Blurbs

To write blurbs about your books and articles – or products –

1.                  Keep it short, but don’t tell them everything.

2.                  Give your audience just enough information to intrigue them or tease them, but don’t spoil the movie for them.

3.                  Use juicy, compelling verbs and nouns in your descriptions.

4.                  Write for the correct audience – after all you’re not going to sell an “R” rated book to a pre-teen. So know who your wrote the book or article for and write the blurb to that audience as well.

 

Blurbing is easy, once you do it a few times. The more you do it, the easier it gets. If you're really not sure if your blurbs sound quite right, though, first compare them to blurbs written by other authors. Then try reading your blurbs aloud, and tweak them as necessary.

5 Things Lazy or Poor Writers Do

By Joan Whetzel

 

I've written a lot of articles, books, and blogs - most of them good, some of them less than stellar. I have read far more articles, books and blogs than I have written. Most of them good, some of them less than stellar. There are 5 things these authors do that drive me crazy as a reader.

 

1)      Not Enough Research

            It doesn't matter whether the writer is creating fiction or nonfiction pieces, if something committed to the page smacks of not having done the research, it's not only bad writing, it's laziness. When writer's commit one lack-of-research error I, as a reader, might forgive him or her. But if it happens repeatedly, I will put down the book or magazine, or navigate away from the website in search of a better writer.

 

2)      Stopping Mid-Story to Explain Things

The opposite of number one, is the writer who does the research, and feels the overwhelming need to stop and explain things to the reader, as if we readers are too stupid to figure it out. Quit explaining stuff to me, and tell me the story. This is a show, don't tell moment. Show me what's going on, but please rein in that urge to explain things that I probably already know, or can infer from the writing - so long as it's good writing. I've been trying to read a novel by a writer who suffers from this condition. If I can get through the book, I'll write you  a review.

 

3)      Rambling Roses

This sin is particularly bad with nonfiction writers, for some reason. They dance around the point without ever finding it. I want to scream at them to "Just get to the point already!"  Then follow up by sending them recommendations to a couple of good editing classes.

 

4)      Grammar and Spelling Errors

There's no excuse for failing to run grammar and spell checks. I've failed on this one a time or two, to my own shame. The corollary to this one, is choosing a word that sounds like the word you're looking for, but is spelled differently. Those one's are the writing tricksters that have gotten many a writer into trouble.

 

5)      Rewriting the Same Story - Over and Over Again.

Okay, most writers will take an old story and rewrite it, or give a new spin, or update it with more recent examples. No harm in doing that. I've done it a time or two myself. Where the problem occurs, is when a writer hooks on one set of facts and pieces of information, and just keeps writing the story, and writing the story, and writing the story, until the world is sick of hearing it. It's like the writer is saying he or she can't be bother to learn about anything else.

Bo-o-oring! It's not going to take very long for readers to figure out that this writer is a one-trick-pony - aka a one-hit-wonder - and go looking for other authors.

 

If you find yourself in one of these categories, see what you can do to re-write your writing skills. You may just find your readers coming back to you, and bringing a few other readers with them. It's well worth the effort of ridding yourself of these lazy writing habits.

The Week of September 1, 2013 - Creepy

By Joan Whetzel

With Halloween right around the corner – lol 2 months away – it’s a good time to start thinking about words like “creepy” and the things that creep us out. Like the fact that the month of September has a Friday the 13th.

 

Creepy Defined

Creepy is frequently defined as producing the sensation of uneasiness or fear, the sensation of your skin crawling, chills running down your spine, your stomach tied in knots, or being annoyingly unpleasant or repulsive. A creep can be anyone who acts sexually inappropriate or perverted, or using dishonorable means in an attempt to derive sexual gratification.

 

Creepy Synonyms

·                     Spooky, eerie, weird

·                     Bad, awful, dreadful, ghastly, unpleasant, evil, wicked, unscrupulous

·                     Sinister, menacing, ominous, disturbing

·                     Frightening, scary, terrifying, alarming, fear-provoking

·                     Eerie, strange, unnatural, ghostly, spine-chilling, hair-raising, sinister

·                     Disturbing, troubling, disquieting

·                     Spine-chilling, bloodcurdling, petrifying

·                     Weird, odd, storage, bizarre

·                     Unsettling, anxiety provoking, upsetting, causing discomfort, creating tension, putting on edge, making someone jumpy

 

How the Creeps and Creepiness Affect Us

We may experience the creeps when get the feeling when

·                     We get the feeling we are being watched.

·                     We unconsciously or subconsciously pick up something in another person’s subtle but negative energy and ill-intentioned signals.

·                     We perceive that someone may not be telling us the truth or is withholding information.

·                     When someone is making unwanted sexual advances or dropping sexual innuendos.

 

At some level, you are picking up on the energy the other person is putting out. Your intuition is alerting you to what’s going on around you. Thank God, or your lucky stars, that your intuition, your red flags, or your gut are functioning properly. Pay attention to what’s going on, try to respond positively (as much as possible), and take time to consider the situation and what needs to be done about it, once you are away from the situation so that you can figure out the ramifications of your actions and reactions without emotions clouding your judgment. Of course, if it’s Halloween events that are the cause of the creepiness, then there may be no need to do anything except sit back and experience the fear and enjoy the “creeps” engendered by the occasion.

Week of Aug. 25, 2013 - 5 Research Papers Tips for Inexperienced Writers

By Joan Whetzel

 

For those high school and college students who are beginning the fall school year, guess what? It’s time for research papers too. If you haven’t done one before, or haven’t done that many, then you may need a few pointers to help you get started. If you’ve done them, but it’s been awhile, then use this information as sort of a refresher course. There are five main things you should keep in mind when writing research papers.

 

1)      Understand Your Teacher's Requirements
·         Your high school teacher or college professor will give you the requirements for this paper when it is assigned. Most commonly, they will require 12pt. Times New Roman font, with one inch borders all around, and typed double-spaced. Of course, you should check with the teacher first, but the teacher states no preference, then this is a good place to start.

 ·         Another requirement will be topic. Most of the time, your teacher will assign a specific topic or a specific set of materials to write about. There are some teachers, though,  that ask students to choose a topic related to the course they’re teaching. For those that have you choose your own topic, you will probably be required to run it by the teacher first to get his or her approval. If the teacher doesn’t say one way or the other, it might be a good idea to run it past him or her anyway, just to make sure you’re on the right track.

 ·         The final requirement will be the due date. The teacher may or may not require a rough draft, outline, or a list of your proposed resources ahead of time. If not, don’t worry about this one. Otherwise, just make sure you know when the final draft is due. And be aware that once you get to college, the professors are very strict about this due date. Every professor I had in college that required a term paper, made a major portion of the final grade (40 to 60%) and would deduct one whole grade point for every day that it was late. So if my final term paper grade would have been a 90 (A-) it would have been 80 (B-) if I had turned it in 1 day late, 70 (C-) if it was 2 days late, and 60 (D-) if it was 3 days late. Anything beyond that and it’s an F. So you can see how not following the due date requirement could actually cause you to fail the course.

 2)      Choose a Topic That Is Relevant to the Class

Like I pointed out in the previous point, many teachers will assign a topic, others will not. Just make sure your topic and your resources are relevant to the course you are taking. If you’re not sure, always run it by the teacher. Teachers are always happy to help you tweak your topic and resources and to steer you in the right direction. The very fact that you’re asking for clarification may act in your favor because it shows that you're serious about the class and interested in writing the best paper possible.

3)      Do Your Research - Redundant Research and Relevant Resources

Some teachers will assign specific materials to write your term paper about. My Lit class in college was just such a class. Of course, in that class there was a great number of materials that we had to read, then write about. The final paper, though was one where we had to choose a book, a set of stories, or an author and write a paper about that person. Most of my college papers, however, the teacher either gave us a few resources that they considered important and left the rest to us or let us choose our own resources.

Make sure you do the research and that your resources are good ones. If the information is questionable or you are uncertain about the validity of the information, do further research. If you can find more than one source providing the same or similar information (redundant research), then it’s probably okay to use in the paper (you can always run it past the teacher). If the information is questionable, and you can’t back it up, you have to choices. Either leave it out, or add it with a qualification. Something the following: “I found this anecdotal piece of information that, while questionable, still adds an interesting twist to the discussion on this topic. If  [anecdotal information] were proved true, then it could be argued that [fill in your argument].” It might just gain you a few extra points for thinking outside the box and displaying good argumentation.

 

4)      Organize and Write

Once you’ve got all your research and notes taken care of, you should have a good general idea where you want to go with the paper. First organize it with a basic outline. Use the Roman Numeral Headings as Subheadings for your paper as a way of organizing your paper and breaking down the material to make it easier for your teacher to read. Then write the rough draft of the paper. Just make sure you start this process early enough in the semester that you have to time to write and edit it before the due date. Writing it the night before is not a good idea.

 

5)      Edit and Proofread

Let the rough draft sit for at least an hour or up to a few days. Come back and re-read it. Make any corrections to help the writing flow better. Let it rest again, then come back and re-read it. Tweak the words, sentences, and paragraphs if necessary and run a spell and grammar check. Re-read it for typos and correct choice of words (two/to/too, where/ware/wear).

 

This is not meant to be a be-all and end-all guide, just the basics. There’s enough room here to tweak this to your own style of doing things. My only absolute rule would be that you should always start early in the semester. Spreading out over the semester gives you time to get the research and writing done. It also gives you a chance to make any course corrections if you need to.

Week of August 18, 2013 - Strength as a Character Trait

By Joan Whetzel

Strength is a trait that many characters have, while others seem to lack but are surprised to find out that they have when they need it. How much strength would it take for a seemingly weak character to overcome the challenges and fallout brought on by the death or disappearance of the key person in their life? The key person could be a family member, someone at work who is important to the character’s career, or a friend who is important the character’s self esteem and self image.

The Turbulence Caused by the Key Person’s Absence

No doubt about it. When someone important to a person’s life is no longer there, there will be turbulence. There will be days when that turbulence corrodes situations, relationships, or a set of circumstances and sends stress levels soaring to the breaking point. Maybe these are the areas of your character’s life that were already shaky to begin with and maybe these are the areas that needed re-examining.

Other days that turbulence will energize your character, becoming the driving force for making the necessary changes in his or her life. The character will begin clearing out the things that are no longer working and replacing them with the dreams, physical items, and people that make your character happy. The thing is to use the turbulence to develop your character’s- well, character.

Strength Defined

Strength has many definitions:

·                     The state of being strong.

·                     The power to resist strain, stress, a force, or an attack.

·                     Durability.

·                     A degree of potency or concentration

·                     The capacity for effective action.

·                     A source of power.

Strength Synonyms

Strength synonyms include: strength, power, might, potency, strong point, forte, strong suit, asset, intensity, concentration, depth, control, influence, ability, capacity, potential, faculty, effectiveness, energy, skill, talent, focus, and deliberation.

Strength Character Traits

So how can a writer use these definitions and synonyms to show their seemingly weak character’s true strength? First you need to decide which character strengths that “weak” character possesses or develops through the turbulence that has suddenly been dropped into his or her lap. By developing these traits, your character will find ways to turn life’s dissatisfactions in to a satisfying life. Character strengths include:

·                     Kindness and compassion, especially when your character doesn’t feel particularly kind and compassionate.

·                     Confidence

·                     The ability to admit when one has made a mistake or done something wrong

·                     Perseverance

·                     Prudence

·                     Diligence

·                     Honesty

·                     Integrity

·                     Faith in oneself

·                     Religious faith

·                     A sense of ownership, a feeling of “this is me”

·                     A rapid learning curve that develops strength through one’s life’s circumstances

·                     Continuing to learn new ways of behaving and using the newly developing strength

·                     The yearning to act in accordance with one’s newly found strength

·                     The feeling that it’s inevitable that your character will use his or her new found strength

·                     Your character discovers that he or she owns strength is an epiphany to your character

·                     Being energized by the use of the strength, not exhausted by using the new found strength

·                     Feeling motivated to use that new strength

One thing’s for sure. When your character first starts gaining strength, he or she won’t feel strong at all. In fact if people point out how strong your character is becoming, he or she will deny it. In fact, he or she will probably just feel exhausted from the efforts getting through all the life changes, all the other troubles that have occurred as a result of the key person’s death or disappearance, all the secrets that are revealed since the person left. The character won’t start seeing that strength till sometime down the road, and only then on hindsight.

Week of August 11, 2013 - How to Manage Your Reputation as an Expert Author

By Joan Whetzel

With the importance of the online environment for building a reputation as a writer, the environment can also provide ample temptations to ruin it – cyber bullying, making unkind comments and replies to other writers’ articles and blogs, heated discussions online that ruin relationships, vitriolic humor, profanity, outright disrespect for other people, companies, or groups, writing articles and blogs that are of questionable taste, writing negative content. In this case, the best way to manage your reputation as an author means “if you haven’t got anything nice to say” don’t write it, and by all means don’t make it public for all the world to see. Behaving in these ways will mar your reputation rather than helping it.

                                      

Don’t get me wrong. If you have a strong opinion on some issue, and that opinion may be contrary to what some others are saying, it’s okay to state those opinions, as long as nobody gets hurt in the process. No libel or slander allowed here. State your opinion in such a way that it shows what you value and what’s important to you. It’s a way of branding yourself as a writer, in the best light possible. But there are other ways to manage your reputation as a writer and show your expertise to the world.

Building Your Expert Reputation

Building your expertise takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight, with one article, book, or blog. IT requires writing and publishing regularly over many months and years. It involves publishing in more than one place – books, magazines, multiple online sites. It means having a profile in numerous places like LinkdIn, Twitter, and Facebook for starters, as well as having your own blog and your own website. Writing is your business, and these tools are your advertising. They also provide the opportunity for readers to share your stories with others, as well as to get your photo and your profile out there so your readers can find you.

Strategizing

Periodically you need to stand back and observe the results of your efforts. Read responses to your articles. Lots of good responses means you’re doing something right. An abundance of bad responses means you need to stand up and take notice. If there’s a recurring theme to the responses then you have an idea of what you need to change to make things better.

Sometimes you’ll get responses that are derogatory, ill-intentioned, or just mean spirited. How you deal with these can make or break you. In some cases it’s a good idea to make the responses public, and see what happens, In most cases, though, it’s probably a better idea to delete the replies s they are not constructive and only intended to be malicious. if

Finding Topic Areas and Venues Where You Can Be Successful

Social media sites, writing websites, personal blogs, and countless opportunities for freelance writing and technical writing for any company that needs a few pieces written for them. As for topics, anything that interests you can provide an opportunity for success. It helps to have more than one area that interests you and to try your hand at areas that you’ve never considered before. I recently began writing blogs for a real estate company. It’s an area  I’ve not had a great deal of experience with, but I find I am learning a lot, which is another way to become a successful expert, to be open to the possibility of learning something new.

Having a Plan and Executing It

It helps to have a plan for the places you wish to write for and the topic areas you wish to cover. But simply having a plan won’t do anything unless you take action. Part of the execution process requires leaving room for new writing opportunities and taking advantage of them and being open to learning new things.

The execution process also involves avoiding all those things that have the potential for ruining your reputation. One stray comment is all it takes to bring down a well built reputation. No matter how badly you’re tempted to reply to an negative comment about something you’ve written, stop and ask yourself if it’s worth the risk of ruining the name you’ve built for yourself. If someone leaves you such an irreverent comment, post it – or not – but don’t reply to it. It is far nobler to just let the commenter have his or her say, and leave it be. The only person who gets a bad reputation is the person who made the negative comment.  That should be the most important part of your plan. Either finding the best things to say, or saying nothing at all.