For instance, if your book is ranked 100,000 then that many titles on Amazon have sold more copies than your book. Keep in mind that Amazon carries around 6,000,000 titles; so, your book has sold more copies than 5,900,000 other titles. That’s pretty cool. 

Remember that the ranking provides a relative figure, not an absolute figure. It compares your sales to others on a scale of from 1 to their highest number (around 6,000,000).

Of course, you will likely not see a rank of 6,000,000 because books that haven’t sold any copies are not ranked and there are apparently many sitting on the shelves of Amazon’s virtual bookstore that have yet to sell. This is why when a book first sells, its rank may leap significantly, ahead of those books that haven’t sold yet.

So, why does your rank fluctuate so much and what does it mean? One minute it’s 1,000,000 and the next it’s 500,000. When it jumps up, it simply means that you’ve sold more books over that time period than the titles you were behind. It could mean that you sold 2 and they sold none or you sold 25 and they sold 6. The corollary is true of the reverse.

Dog Ear Publishing recommends that the best use of Amazon sales rank is to check the progress of your marketing efforts over time: how your book is doing in relation to its competitors.

Amazon Sales Rank Calculations

Morris Resenthal at Foner Books described to the best of his knowledge how Amazon sales rank is calculated:

Amazon’s sales rank is calculated as a rolling figure. It’s based on sales over a recent period. I can’t remember if the period is 60 or 90 days, though. It is, however, weighted by overall total sales (they put this back in after having dropped it for a couple of years), keeping long-term big sellers afloat even after their sharp sales peaks have leveled out.

Not all books are recalculated with the same frequency. The top 1,000 are recalculated hourly. The next block (up to 100,000, I think) are recalculated weekly, while the rest get checked monthly. However, a sudden burst in sales is enough to force an immediate recalculation on a 100,000+ book. This is probably based on a percentage of overall sales, but that’s just a guess.

Amazon Rankings Translated into Estimated Sales

Because the Amazon sales rank is comparative, it does not directly translate into actual book sales. Having said that, the general character of sales can and have been approximated by several publishers and marketers. Some have tried to correlate the rank into actual sales, based on an actual sale to rank comparison over a set time period. As you might have guessed, the estimates vary and therefore do not hold much significance.  However, I know you are curious, so here they are:

Wildfire Marketing published these results in 2008:

Ranking = Estimated Sales per week

• 10,000 = 30 books
• 100,000 = 6 books
• 1,000,000 = less than 1 book

Dog Ear Publishing published these weekly estimates around the same time:

Ranking = Estimated Sales per week

• 1,000 = 90 books
• 10,000 =  60 books
• 100,000 = 16 books
• 300,000 = 12 books
• 500,000 = 1 book
• 1,000,000 = 1 book per month

The Amazon sales rank is good to watch because it helps you to see the progress of your book in relation to others, based on your marketing efforts and other events that may affect sales of your book. I know many authors who daily check and fret over the rank of their book. I used to. Wheatmark suggests that you treat it like weight loss: average out your observations over several days, smoothing out both peaks and valleys to get a more realistic picture.

And focus on the super fact that you are selling your book despite the competition of six million other books on Amazon.

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Setting as Character...

Setting provides an “emotional landscape” upon which a character’s own temperament may play counterpoint or may resonate in a wonderful symphony

—Nina Munteanu (The Fiction Writer)

In my online writing classes and workshops I cover several common pitfalls of beginning writers. One common pitfall is to forget the importance of setting in story. Think of Frodo in Lord of the Rings without his beloved Shire. And what about wayward Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz without her dear home in Kansas and the contrasting Land of Oz…

Setting includes time, place and circumstance. Without a place there is, in fact, no story. In the examples I gave you, place plays a principle role in defining major and minor characters. Like the force in Star Wars, setting provides a landscape that binds everything into context and meaning. For author Richard Russo, it goes beyond place; he suggests that “If you’re not writing stories that occur in a specific place (my emphasis), you’re missing an opportunity to add depth and character to your writing.” He describes some of his students’ responses to his challenge, “where does the story take place?”: it doesn’t really matter, they say; it’s really more about the people. The irony is that we do want to know and, oddly enough, the more specific you get, the more universal your truth becomes. It’s one of those wonderful paradoxes in life that writers need to embrace.

I’ll go even further: settings can not only have character; they can be a character in their own right. A novelist, when portraying several characters, may often find herself painting a portrait of “place”. This is setting being “character”. The setting functions as a catalyst, and molds the more traditional characters that animate a story. The central character is often really the place, which is often linked to the main protagonist (e.g., Scarlet O’Hara and Georgia in the 1860s in Gone With the Wind; Eustacia Vye and Egdon Heath of Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native; Paul Atriades and the planet Arakis in Dune). In each example I gave, the main character comes to symbolize the setting and vice versa. Setting ultimately portrays what lies at the heart of the story.

In fact, D.H. Lawrence, in commenting about Hardy’s book Return of the Native, suggested that Egdon Heath was the most important character of the story:

Egdon, whose dark soil was strong and crude and organic as the body of a beast.

How you portray setting and place, then, becomes an integral part of the story itself. You can significantly increase metaphoric meaning in your story with a richly textured setting. You can use setting to amplify a character’s emotions or contradict them, depending on the circumstance of the character, her mood, disposition, tendencies, and observational skills. Either way, setting provides an “emotional landscape” upon which a character’s own temperament may play counterpoint or may resonate in a wonderful symphony.

Here are some suggestions that can help every fiction writer create vivid, memorable and meaningful settings:

• Choose your setting purposefully; make it an integral part of the story with meaning (e.g., linking it to your main characters)
• Describe setting selectively, through integration in “scene” rather than exposition.
• Be specific (e.g., beat up Chevy, not car; old clapboard cottage, not house.
• Use similes, metaphors, and personification to breathe life into setting.
• Use the senses like sight, sound, smell, taste, feel.
• Show, don’t tell (e.g., instead of saying the time is the 1920s; show the cars and dresses. Instead of telling the reader it’s raining; show them by describing the dripping trees, etc.)
• Don’t describe setting all at once in the beginning; work it in slowly throughout the story; let it unfold as the story and the characters do.

You can find more about “Setting” in Chapter H in my writing guidebook, The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! by Starfire World Syndicate (available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other quality bookstores).

I discuss “setting” in my workshop, “The Writer’s Toolkit”, a workshop that I give throughout North America. This comprehensive writer’s workshop will be launched on DVD soon and will be available at Amazon as well as online here and on www.NinaMunteanu.com.

tags: online writing courses, online writing classes, The Writer’s Toolkit, fiction writing, becoming a writer, creative writing online, book writing, writing stories, setting in fiction, nina munteanu, The Fiction Writer Get Published Write Now

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Nina and a student have fun learning

Nina recently gave three substantial workshops for aspiring writers in the South Shore area of Nova Scotia, based on her Aurora Award-nominated writing guidebook, “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now“. Held at the Bridgewater Library, Nina engaged and challenged students in an actively participated workshop to hone their skills as successful writers. Students participated in writing exercises, and had their stories, query letters and ”elevator pitches” critiqued.  

Her workshops, covered by Vernon Oikle in the South Shore Now, included:

Workshop No. 1, which was titled “Getting Started … and Finishing”. In this session, Nina shared the strategies and techniques she used to write, finish and successfully publish while serving as a full-time scientist, teacher and mother. The workshop reviewed common misconceptions in the writing and publishing industry and provided practical strategies to help aspiring authors succeed.

 Workshop No. 2, “The Art and Science of Craft”, covered several models of storytelling, and examined the interrelationship of plot and theme, setting and character in a book’s overall story arc. Nina explored the language of page-turning writing with examples on the use of the five senses, power verbs, use of dialogue and other writing techniques that will transform your page into a compelling read.

Workshop No 3, “The Science and Magic of Marketing”, focused on a different but critically necessary creative process in an author’s writing and publishing career – revision, marketing and promotion.

Response to Nina’s workshops was very positive. Here are some of the things students had to say about Nina and her workshops:

“Nina was engaging and inspiring in a low-key way, no hype, practical, good humour. This was a really pleasant and helpful experience. I was able to use specifics that were discussed to immediately improve my writing.”–Susie Buck
 
“Nina was very knowledgable, relaxed, personable, unpretentious.”
 
“I enjoyed it. I was intrigued. Nina put her heart into her workshop.”–Darlene Tong
 
“I found what I had been searching for a long time.”–Candice Croft 
  
“What you’ve done for me, Nina, is you’ve just opened up a whole new world. You’ve shown me how to put soul into my books … You’ve transformed me from what I considered an oddball to somebody special and for that it’s worth a fortune.”–Hectorine Roy

The series of workshops were filmed as part of “The Writers Toolkit” series and will be available for sale shortly. Go to www.ninamunteanu.com or here for news on availability and how you can get a great deal on the 3 DVD set.

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Blu-ray Edge – Blu-ray movies, players, news, and more.

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“The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!”

ANY CANADIAN or permanent resident of Canada can nominate a work for the Aurora Awards. The top five works in each category with the most nominations will be short listed on the final ballot.

There is no fee to nominate and selections are given equal weight. A full list of all eligible works for the Aurora can be found here: http://canadiansf.com/node/42

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There is something terrifyingly daunting about writing and sending a succinct and compelling summary of your novel packaged in just a few pages. I had a right to be terrified. In some ways the synopsis is the hardest thing for a novelist to write. Yet it is the first thing most publishers and agents want (and have time) to see of your cherished project (aside from those sample chapters, of course). Every fiction writer who wants to sell in the current market must know how to write a synopsis because that’s what an editor wants to see first. Most editors (if they’re good) are overworked with scarce enough time to answer their phones, much less their mail.

There are several reasons to write that dreaded synopsis, and way before you finish your book, too. First of all, I’d like to dispel some common misconceptions about synopses:

A synopsis is NOT an outline. Both are useful to the writer, yet each serves a very different purpose. An outline is a tool (usually just for the writer) that sketches plot items of a book. It provides a skeleton or framework of people, places and their relationships to the storyline that permits the writer to ultimately gauge scene, setting, and character depth or even determine whether a character is required (every character must have a reason to be in the book, usually to move the plot). For writers just beginning, this is an excellent tool to keep the narrative spare and compelling and to remove superfluous characters and other things (a common beginning writer inclination). A synopsis, on the other hand, is an in-depth summary of the entire book that weaves in thematic elements with plot to portray a compelling often multi-level story arc. This is usually what an editor wants to see, although I have seen them request an outline as well. To put it basically, the outline describes what happens when and to whom, while the synopsis includes the “why” part.

There is no such thing as a “Killer Synopsis”; a synopsis that is so good it will sell the book outright. However, stories of such “fairy-tale” occurrences do continue to abound, like the myth of an “overnight success” (in which the author’s hard work in areas related are somehow overlooked). No publisher chooses to buy a book on the basis of a synopsis only. Such an event could only result from a combination of serendipitous factors, one of the most important ones being timing (luck) and what an editor is currently looking for in an imprint.

“Killer synopsis” aside, what a synopsis does (along with the sample chapters and extremely important query letter) is get your manuscript read by an editor. That’s the real purpose of a synopsis. An editor makes his/her decision to look at your manuscript based on these three items: query letter (intro to you), sample chapters, and synopsis. Ultimately, their decision resides with whether your project fits their own imprint at the time.

If that isn’t reason enough to write a synopsis of your novel, here are two others:

A synopsis of your novel goes beyond the outline to help polish elements of story arc, characterization with plot and setting with story. The synopsis can answer questions perplexing the author, stuck on a scene or plot item. It helps you weave your novel’s elements into a well-integrated story that is compelling at many levels. For this reason, it makes sense to write drafts of your synopsis as you go along in the novel; that way it’s useful to both you and to the editor and then it’s more or less written when you need to submit it along with sample chapters…and not quite as daunting a task either.

Lastly, your well-written synopsis is often used internally by the publishing house staff (e.g., by artist, copywriter, and sales department) once your novel is accepted.

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The Ultimate Rejection

Enduring and surviving rejection is part of every writer’s successful career. Rejection letters can be part of a writer’s toolkit to success. This comes from objectively perceiving them as opportunities in a long process of relationship-building and the business of writing and publishing.

Writers often witness an evolution in rejection letters as they learn more about their craft and about their markets. The ability to recognize the evolutionary steps can be useful in determining your next move in that particular market.

Below I describe one sequence of a manuscript’s evolutionary path. These don’t necessarily follow a chronological path for any particular manuscript; nor am I suggesting that your personal writer’s path will follow this particular pattern. Take these for what they may represent to you for any particular manuscript’s journey to success.

• Lowest form: the form-letter, with no name or signature—you get no information from this except that they’re probably swamped with submissions. File the letter and try them again with another story; you can even play a game of it to see how many submissions it takes to get “recognized”. Meantime send the rejected story elsewhere.

• Next lowest form: Personalized form letter with your name on it and a name and signature on it. Congratulations! You are now a person. And you will likely be remembered when you submit another story here.

• Higher on the Evolutionary Path: a form letter that includes a personalized note about your work and why it was rejected (often with an added comment about the story or your writing). You have made a mark. Try them again!

• Even Higher on the Evolutionary Path: a personalized letter that explains why your story was rejected—this says as much about the editor as it does about how they felt about your story; that they are taking the time to write to you and give you suggests means you are worth their valuable time. You have an opportunity to begin a relationship with this editor. Play fair.

• Highest on the Path: a personalized, perhaps even handwritten, note that specifies why they rejected your piece with suggestions for revision (and resubmission) or invitation to submit another piece. Congratulations! This is the beginning of a relationship. Revise and resubmit.

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A story’s ending should conclude the story’s plot and theme satisfactorily to the reader. The last thing you want to do is create an ending or dénouement that struggles in its conclusions. The kind of ending you choose for your story will depend on the kind of story you are telling: one that rises to a climax or one that returns home.

According to Ansen Dibell, author of Elements of Fiction Writing: Plot, successful endings come in two basic shapes: 1) circular and 2) linear.

Circular Endings

This is where beginning and ending connect in a circular story. In such a story, the end and the beginning are much more alike than they are to the middle. This is because the end reflects the promise of the beginning. Framed stories use the same technique, except the beginning and end “frame” are more like bookends, supporting the story from the outside and made of a visibly different structure (e.g., often portrayed in prologue and epilogue fashion and often in different POV, tense, style, etc.).

Circular endings, and their circular stories, are often used in quest-adventure stories. The “Hero’s Journey” is a common plot approach. The main character sets out on a quest to find or learn or accomplish something, passes through trials, and finally succeeds in his mission and returns home with his prize to share (often insight or wisdom). Ultimately, the protagonist grows/changes/achieves then brings that wealth back home to alter his pre-existing everyday life. Beginning and end mirror and contrast one another.

Circular endings must do the job of showing the hero’s “homecoming”, how she is changed through the turning point in the middle of the story, and what she has brought to the ordinary world to change it.

Linear Endings

Linear stories and their endings run more like a marathon up a hill, with slides, diversions and hard climbs, until they reach the summit and climax (the highest point of conflict—and resolution). Once the result of the conflict is achieved, the story is at an end. Most straight adventure stories are of this type.

Reflective vs. Narrative Ending

Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, reflects that “great endings bring back the whole story.” He cites the “reflective ending” of The Great Gatsby, in which the narrator reflects back, pulling together the important narrative threads like a master weaver, to make meaningful conclusions.

“A powerful alternative,” adds Clark, “is the ‘narrative ending’, a final scene that crowns the action.” Both types of ending work when masterfully handled. The former is essentially “telling” and the latter is essentially “showing”. You choose. Both work.

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Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey, describes a 12-stage journey based on the three-act storyline of the Greeks. It is also based on Joseph Campbell’s 8-step transformation model.

The twelve steps fall within the three Acts, which consist of:

• Separation: ordinary world; call to adventure; refusal of the call; meeting with the mentor; and crossing the threshold
• Initiation & Transformation: tests, allies and enemies; approach to the inmost cave; ordeal (abyss); reward/seizing the sword (transformation & revelation)
• Return: the road block; resurrection/atonement; return with the elixir

Below, I describe each step and provide an example from the popular fantasy movie, Star Wars.

ACT ONE: SEPARATION

Ordinary World: Describes the Hero’s world with its problems and how the hero may or may not quite fit in.

Call to Adventure: the herald presents the hero with a problem, challenge and/or adventure; irrevocably changing the ordinary world—in STAR WARS this is when Obi Wan approaches Luke to join him on his mission to Aldaraan.

Refusal of the Call: Our reluctant hero balks at the threshold of adventure. In STARWARS Luke refuses at first until he finds his relatives killed.

Meeting with the Mentor: The mentor provides the hero with a gift to help her through the threshold. In STAR WARS Obi Wan gives Luke his light saber.

Crossing the Threshold: The hero commits to the adventure and enters the Special World. In STAR WARS this happens when Luke returns to Obi Wan after seeing his relatives brutally killed.

ACT TWO: INITIATION & TRANSFORMATION

Tests, Allies, Enemies: The hero must face tests, makes allies and enemies and begins to learn the rules of the Special World. In STAR WARS Luke is initiated into his special world by Obi Wan in A New Hope.

Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero reaches the edge of the most dangerous place, often where the object of her quest resides. In STAR WARS this is the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke willingly enters the trap set for him and confronts Vader in Cloud City.

Ordeal (the Abyss): Our hero hits bottom, where she faces “death” and is on the brink of battle with the most powerful hostile force. In STAR WARS Luke steps into the abyss, choosing almost certain death when forced to surrender at his father’s bidding to the dark side in Cloud City.

Reward/seizing the sword (Transformation & Revelation): Having survived “death” (of fear or ignorance) our hero—and the reader—receives a reward or elixir in the form of an epiphany and transforms. In STAR WARS, Luke returns in Return of the Jedi transformed and mature with new powers.

ACT THREE: THE RETURN

The Road Block: Our hero must deal with the consequences of confronting the dark forces of the Ordeal (e.g., often the chase scene). In STAR WARS this is when Luke is forced to fight his father on board the Death Star, overseen by the evil Emperor.

Resurrection/Atonement: The hero is transformed in this climactic moment through her experience and seeks atonement with her reborn self, now in harmony with the “new” world; the imbalance which sent her on her journey, mostly corrected or path made clear. In STAR WARS this is when Luke makes the choice not to kill his father, is almost destroyed by the emperor but for Vader’s intervention and Luke reconciles with his father.

Return with the Elixir: Our hero returns to the Ordinary World with some elixir, treasure, or lesson from the Special World. In STAR WARS the last scenes with Luke and his Jedi “family” suggest a new life rich in lessons.

This article is an excerpt from Nina Munteanu’s The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate)

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The world of fairy tales and myth is peopled with recurring character types and relationships. Heroes on a quest, heralds and wise old men or women who provide them with “gifts”, shady fellow-travelers—threshold guardians—who may “block” the path, tricksters who confuse and complicate things and evil villains who simply want to destroy our hero. Joseph Campbell called them archetypes. In psychology, an archetype is a model of a person, personality or behavior. For instance, a mother-figure is an archetype. Archetypes are found in nearly all forms of literature, with their motifs being predominantly rooted in folklore.

Assigning an archetype to a character allows you to clarify that character’s role in the story as well as to determine the overall theme of the story itself. Archetypes are therefore an important tool in the universal language of storytelling, just as myth serves the overall purpose of supplying “the symbols that carry the human spirit forward.” (Joseph Campbell). Campbell even described the archetype as something expressed biologically and wired into every human being.

An archetype need not be fixed; that is, a particular character may evolve and function through several archetypes. This makes characters more real, interesting and less allegorical. The seven most useful archetypes for the writer according to Christopher Vogler (author of A Writer’s Journey) are:

· Hero
· Mentor
· Herald
· Threshold guardian
· Shape shifter
· Shadow
· Trickster

The Hero

A hero is someone willing to sacrifice his own needs for others. Vogler says that the hero archetype “represents the ego’s search for identity and wholeness.” The hero provides a character for us to identify with. She is usually the principal POV character in a story and has qualities most readers can (or want to) identify with. This means someone with flaws like you and me (not a cardboard cutout of infinite virtue). The function of the hero is to grow and change through her journey as she encounters other archetypes. Every hero is on a quest, a mission, or a journey, whether it is an actual physical journey or (and usually combined with) a psychological journey toward “home” (salvation or redemption) through sacrifice. “The true mark of the hero, says Vogler, is in the act of sacrifice, “the hero’s willingness to give up something of value, perhaps even her own life, on behalf of an ideal or a group,” and ultimately for the greater good. A hero is a true altruist.

Heroes may be willing or unwilling. Some can be described as anti-heroes, who are usually notably flawed characters that must grow significantly to achieve the status of true hero. Often the anti-hero starts off behaving more like a villain, like the character Crais in Farscape. The wounded anti-hero may be a “heroic knight in tarnished armor, a loner who has rejected society or been rejected by it,” according to Vogler. Examples include Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause or Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. The catalyst hero provides an exception to the rule of hero undergoing the most change. This type of hero shows less of a character arc but precipitates significant change or transformation in other protagonists. A good example is the character, David Adams, in Ben Bova’s Colony.

The Mentor

The mentor is usually a positive figure who aids or trains the hero. The mentor often possesses divine wisdom and has faith in the hero and shows great enthusiasm, as a result. The word “enthusiasm” itself means god-inspired or having a god in you. The mentor represents the “Self”, the god within us, says Vogler; a higher Self that is wiser, nobler and more godlike.

The mentor often gives the hero a “gift”—once the hero has earned it, that is. The gift is usually something important for the hero’s use on his journey; either a weapon to destroy a “monster” or a “talisman” to enlighten the hero in deciding the path of her journey. A good example of this is in Star Wars, when Luke’s mentor, Obi Wan, provides him with his father’s light saber (Luke’s magic talisman).

The mentor also serves as inventor, the hero’s conscience, as motivator, or information-provider. In love stories the mentor may function in the role of initiation. Vogler describes many types of mentor from fallen mentors to dark mentors, shamans, and comics.

The Herald

Heralds announce the coming of significant change, whether the hero likes it or not (and usually they don’t). In Act One, we usually find the hero struggling, getting by in her Ordinary World; yearning, like Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, for “more”. Often not even realizing it. The herald is a new energy that enters the story and makes it impossible for the hero to remain in status quo. The herald tips the scales. This could be in the form of a person, an event, a condition or just information that shifts the hero’s balance and changes her world, as a result. Nothing will ever be the same.

The herald delivers the call to adventure. In Star Wars, Ben Kenobi, who also serves as Luke Skywalker’s mentor, issues the call when he invites Luke to join him on his mission to Alderaan. The herald also provides the hero with motivation.

The Threshold Guardian

As his title aptly describes, this archetype guards the threshold of “Separation from the Ordinary World” on the hero’s journey to attain his “prize” and achieve his destiny. Threshold guardians are usually not the main antagonist. In the Harry Potter series, this role may be fulfilled by Malfoy, Snape or Filch, even; while the main antagonist is provided, of course, by the character of Voldemort.

Threshold guardians spice up the story by providing obstacles the hero must overcome. They help to round-out the hero’s journey and develop his character arc. In many cases, they may even be more interesting than the main villain. In rare cases, the threshold guardian may, in fact, be a secret helper, placed in the hero’s path to test his ability and commitment to his journey. Ultimately, this is the role of the threshold guardian: to test the hero on her path.

A hero succeeds when she recognizes a threshold guardian as providing an opportunity to strengthen her powers, or resolve her will. Threshold guardians aren’t defeated so much as incorporated by the hero, as she learns their tricks, absorbs them and goes on. “Ultimately”, says Vogler, “fully evolved heroes feel compassion for their apparent enemies and transcend rather than destroy them.”

The Shape Shifter

The shape shifter archetype adds dramatic tension to the story and provides the hero with a puzzle to solve. This archetype serves as “a catalyst for change and a symbol of the psychological urge to transform”, according to Vogler. The shape shifter can seem one thing and in fact be another. They are often mendacious and crafty.

The shape shifter brings doubt and suspense to the story and tests the hero’s abilities to discern her path. The hero often evolves through her interactions with this slippery character. The character of the Palpatine in Star Wars appears good and is really evil. Even the character Yoda in Star Wars, is a shape shifter, initially masking his ancient wisdom with a foolish childlike appearance when Luke first encounters him.

The Shadow
The monster under the bed, repressed feelings, deep trauma, a festering guilt; these all possess the dark energy of the shadow. This is the dark force of the unexpressed, unrealized, rejected, feared aspects of the hero and represented by the main antagonist or villain. The shadow challenges the hero in ways far more powerful than the threshold guardian. Voldermort in the Harry Potter series; Darth Vader in Star Wars; the aliens in War of the Worlds. These are all shadows and worthy opponents for the hero, bringing out the best in her and usually demanding the ultimate in self-sacrifice (the hero’s destiny).

The Trickster

Practically every Shakespearian play contains a jester or fool, who not only serves as comic relief but as commentator. This is because tricksters are often witty and clever. The comedy of most successful comedians touches upon the pulse of a culture by offering commentary that is truism.

This article is an excerpt from The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!” Starfire World Syndicate), May 2009 (Chapter J).

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Before you submit your “science fiction” short story to a magazine that publishes science fiction, it’s wise for you to know what the science fiction genre is. And what it isn’t. Richard Treitel provides us with a pretty good definition of science fiction: fiction set in a world that differs from our everyday world in a way that importantly involves science or technology. http://www.treitel.org/Richard/sf/sf.html . The following 5 points describe the genre of science fiction. Does your story embrace them?

1. Science fiction is the literature of change according to Hugo- and Nebula-award winning SF author Robert J. Sawyer. Usually something significant happens or is discovered that is science-based and has profound effects on the world.  John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids and Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children are good examples of this.
2. SF literature is about ideas.  “What if” is a frequent premise that sets an often largely character-driven story toward resolving some deeper question about humanity, social behavior and evolution. “Good SF,” says Sawyer, “is usually about something very profound, such as whether or not God exists”—see Sawyer’s Calculating God, for instance.
3. SF is about something large. In keeping with “what ifs” and the deeper questions, science fiction— whether set on Earth, outer space or some other planet, dimension or universe—is usually multilayered and metaphorically portrays a large concept through a whole world.  World-building (and setting too), when done well, not only follows good science (see point number 4) but also encompasses theme and provides plot-issues to convey your theme.  In other words, the “world” you build is a main character. Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed provides an excellent example of this. So does Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris.
4. Science Fiction and Fantasy  are very different, antithetical genres, says Sawyer. SF stories are often created from a scientific premise; you can usually get there from here by following a premise based on some current scientific thought (albeit imaginatively). Fantasy is based not on science but on the fantastical (usually magic). It’s important to know what you’re writing.
5. SF literature must portray science accurately. Most science fiction readers expect that you will have done your research on how that gizmo works or that you carried out a logical extrapolation of the theory of relativity when using it in your SF story.

Okay, now go out and write!

Recommended Reading:

Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY. 5-18pp

Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY. 71-79pp

Sawyer, Robert J. 2003. “Breaking into the Science-Fiction Marketplace”. In: The Canadian Writer’s Guide. Official Handbook of the Canadian Authors Association, 13^th Edition. 2003.

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“Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost.” — Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy)

“Summoned or not, the god will come.” — Motto over the door of Carl Jung’s house

According to Christopher Vogler (author of The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers) “all stories consist of a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies. They are known collectively as The Hero’s Journey.”

The Hero’s Journey is essentially the three-act structure of the ancient Greek play, handed down to us thousands of years ago and consisting of Beginning, Middle, and End (also known as Opening, Development, Conclusion or “the decision to act”, “the action”, and “the consequences of the action”).

Dating from before history, the Hero’s Journey duplicates the steps of the “Rite of Passage” and is a process of self-discovery and self-integration. The Hero’s Journey is a concept drawn from the depth psychology of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the scholar and mythologist Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Jung proposed that symbols appear to us when there is a need to express what thought cannot think or what is only divined or felt. Jung discovered reoccurring symbols among differing peoples and cultures, unaffected by time and space. He described these shared symbols as archetypes which are irrepressible, unconscious, pre-existing forms of the inherited structure of the psyche and manifested themselves spontaneously anywhere, anytime. Campbell suggested that these mythic images lay at the depth of the unconscious where humans are no longer distinct individuals, where our minds widen and merge into the mind of humankind. Where we are all the same.

Campbell articulated the life principles embedded in the structure of stories. He recognized that myths weren’t just abstract theories or quaint ancient beliefs but practical models for understanding how to live. Ultimately, the hero’s journey is the soul’s search for home. It is a long and tortuous journey of the soul seeking enlightenment-redemption-salvation only to find it by returning “home” (though, often not the home they’d previously envisioned). It is a journey we all take, in some form.

Heroes are agents of change. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell defines the hero as “the champion not of things to become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo.” The hero’s task has always been to bring new life to an ailing culture, says Carol S. Pearson, author of The Hero Within. Julia Cameron reiterates this in her book, The Artist’s Way, when she describes the concept of art as a healing journey (not just for the individual but for a culture). This is because the writer/artist changes society by changing themselves.

In The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Christopher Vogler tells writers that we are “storytellers.” He says that “the best of them have utilized the principles of myth to create masterful stories that are dramatic, entertaining, and psychologically true.” Vogler goes on to say that “the Hero’s Journey is not an invention, but an observation. Vogler suggests “that the Hero’s Journey is nothing less than a handbook for life, a complete instruction manual in the art of being human.” This is why the Hero’s Journey model for writing is so relevant; because it appeals to all readers. We are all on a journey.

In some versions of the Holy Grail story, relates Pearson, the hero reaches a huge chasm with no apparent way to get across to the Grail castle. The space is too great for him to jump across. Then he remembers the Grail teaching that instructs him to step out in faith. As he puts one foot out into the abyss, a bridge magically appears and he is saved.

Anyone who has left a job, school, or a relationship has stepped out into that abyss, separating them from the familiar world they’ve known.

Just as “the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table set off to seek the Holy Grail,” says Mary Henderson, author of Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, “the great figures of every major religion have each gone on a ‘vision quest’, from Moses’ journey to the mountain, to Jesus’ time in the desert, Muhammad’s mediations in the mountain cave, and Buddha’s search for enlightenment that ended under the Bodhi tree.”

The journey, and the abyss, is often not a physical adventure, adds Henderson, but a spiritual one, “as the hero moves from ignorance and innocence to experience and enlightenment.”

This article is an excerpt from Nina Munteanu’s The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate)

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Apart from having a compelling story to tell, the next important thing you need to do is tell it well. While the first part of this equation is up to your imaginative powers, the second part is easily learned and skills easily acquired. Quite simply, this is done using powerful words. Every single word counts. Period.

In an inspirational lecture some years ago, Ray Bradbury told me that everything, EVERYTHING you write is metaphor. He meant every word. Think of it. Think of how every element of your writing illuminates your story. How does your setting help illuminate your characters or their conflicts? How does a character’s speech illuminate his/her background or lifestyle? How does a description create mood or affect pace?

So, how do you do that? Make every word count?

This is accomplished in many ways. Here are ten tips on word wizarding that will help:

1. Use “power verbs”—I don’t just mean active vs. passive (e.g., stay away from was, am, is, were, being, have; is believed, was seen)…I’m talking about finding a verb that scintillates and compels, a verb that captures exactly the mood, scene, action (e.g., instead of “he put his hand in his pocket, you could say his hand dove into his pocket or dug into his pocket or slid or fumbled or…get it? This tells us so much more about HOW he felt in his action). Verbs best convey the mood and the action. Using a power verb also prevents the need for superlative modifiers (e.g., adverbs or adjectives, can almost always be replaced with a powerful verb).

2. Try to remove as many adverbs and adjectives as you can and replace with powerful verbs, particularly where you want the pace and tension to heighten.

3. Avoid weak sentence starts (e.g., nothing is going on: “He walked into the room” instead of, say, “Leisha stormed into the lounge, eyes searching for a victim”) and end each sentence with a strength (i.e., the important thing you are conveying should appear at the end of the sentence as opposed to some added on detail that often “dangles” at the end; this weakens the whole sentence).

4. Be aware of cadence and vary it and sentence length within a paragraph (reading your stuff out loud often helps).

5. Remove filler words…e.g. Jimmy paid more for (the) rent (that he accrued) because Sam hated him. Avoid unnecessary modifiers and additions (e.g., “in the case of”, “of…something”, “degree of”, “of the fact that”, etc. Less is more.

6. Watch for and remove redundancies (e.g., general consensus, on first entering, totally devoid of, first introduced, flawless perfection, etc.). Use repetition sparingly, only to make a point (when used this way it can be very effective). Check for two sentences saying the same thing (even if in a different way) in a paragraph.

7. Take out “in” phrases (e.g. “in color”, “in size”, “in shape”, etc.).

8. Look for and remove clichés.

9. Use lots of dialogue and remember to break up your text into fairly short paragraphs for reader ease.

10. Use metaphors, similes and alliteration. These help to give description a double purpose by describing something but also ascribing it a mood and quality in keeping with the POV character.

If you use any of these techniques, I guarantee that your writing will improve.

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Think of the title to your story as the ultimate headline. It’s the first thing an editor reads of your work. Titles are often used by one reader to describe the story to another reader. According to Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, author of The Crystal Rose, “titles can determine whether a story is read, in what spirit its read, and whether it’s remembered by name or forgotten.” Choose it wisely.

Three Cardinal Rules for Title Selection

When choosing a title for your story ensure that it’s these three things: 1) original; 2) easy to read; and 3) appropriate to your story.

Make your title original (like your story) and preferably unusual in some way. It’s best to use something that is different enough to stand out but not so different that it will be difficult to remember. It should “role” off the tongue with ease. Titles are best if they are short and not difficult to pronounce. One way to check this is to read it out loud. Some publicists have suggested that a title should be short enough (and therefore large enough) to be read from across a room. One or two word titles are often chosen for that reason. Lastly, your title should reflect the subject of your story, but without giving it away. A title should be the ultimate tease, the ultimate promise. Titles, says Bohnhoff “can be like store windows that offer a tantalizing glimpse of what’s inside, or they can give away the entire inventory.”

Types of Titles

The best titles are those that grow naturally out of the subject matter and capture the emotion and heart of the story. A title can be a play on words (e.g., You Only Live Twice) or convey several meanings at once (e.g., Darwin’s Paradox). A title could be the name of a place, thing of person (e.g., Doctor Zhivago). Titles can be metaphors or provide contradiction or irony (e.g., Calculating God). They can be a popular expression or harbor a hidden meaning that unfolds in the story (e.g., Pale Fire). They can also be a portion of a famous line (e.g., Brave New World).

Some Titles Are Better Than Others

I chose the title, Collision with Paradise for my science fiction romantic thriller to convey the paradox of the act of colliding with the quest for well-being (paradise) that reflected my lead character’s own conflict. The two juxtaposed as oxymoron made the title provocative and readers became naturally curious. What made it particularly tantalizing—and me somewhat smug—was that the cover and the setting and premise/plot all resonated with the abstract theme. The plot involved the real collision of a spaceship with hotshot pilot on a planet with a jungle paradise. So, even though the title very accurately conveyed the overall theme, it didn’t give it away; the reader still had to tease it out through the subtext and subplots of the story.

Whatever title you select, remember the three rules and keep it simple and relevant. Think of some titles of your favorite stories. Think of what the title conveys and what it quietly implies, given your knowledge of the story. Here are some to ponder: A Tale of Two Cities; Gone With the Wind; White Oleander; Lady Chatterley’s Lover; The Blue Sword; Return of the Native; Lord of the Flies.

This article is an adapted excerpt from The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate) by Nina Munteanu, available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Chapters and other quality bookstores.

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The North American preoccupation with visual and auditory input has left readers depleted of the subtle senses. Taste, smell and touch are often neglected in our own overt observations and in writing. That’s a shame because writers, unlike filmmakers, are in the unique position of providing their readers with a rich spectrum of sensual information that goes far beyond the audiovisual meal of a motion picture. The sweet, boggy fragrance of a maple-beech forest after a rainstorm. The complex burst of flavor as you bite into a sultry-sweet chocolate-dipped strawberry. The bracing coolness of rain on your skin… Readers don’t just “watch” a character in a book; they enter that character’s body and “feel”.

 Slanted Metaphor

The most compelling fiction arises when “truth” is portrayed obliquely, when objects or scenes are described through impression rather than through literal description. Go in at an angle. Like the slanted light through a window, this reveals the topography of a scene or object. Metaphor adds a dimension of emotion, tone and direction.

Sinful Synesthesia

Using one sense to describe another portrays a feeling in a fresh way that is ultimately more evocative. Sol Stein, author of “Stein on Writing”, provides the following example of switching a sense to heighten a feeling: “Zalatnick led me into the shop not as if I was a fellow looking for a job but as if I was a friend of a friend. I was sure the men in the shop could smell the difference.” Switching the sense from seeing to smelling created a more powerful metaphor because it describes the feeling in a fresh way.

Senses With Attitude

How a sense is interpreted by your character relies on her emotional state and her memories. Using a coat as an example, you can describe it literally as warm, brown, itchy. Or you can use synesthesia, such as “feels rich.” Moving on to the psychological element, take an attitude on that texture: bright, friendly, dependable. Try a different attitude: powerful, loud, easy.  

One uses a sense-impression based on memory or emotional experience pinned on that smell to create an entire sensation. This reveals a great deal about the character in a seamless and powerful way, while establishing a rich setting to the story.

You can find more about “Writing Sensually” in Chapter S in my writing guidebook, The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! by Starfire World Syndicate (available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other quality bookstores).

I discuss “setting” in my workshop, “The Writer’s Toolkit”, a workshop that I give throughout North America, based on The Fiction Writer. This comprehensive writer’s workshop will be launched on DVD soon and will be available at Amazon as well as online here and on www.NinaMunteanu.com.

There are several ways a writer may satisfy the reader’s need to experience the senses fully in a story. The obvious is through description. But how cold is cold? What does snow really smell like? How do you describe the taste of wine to a teetotaler?

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When you sign a contract with a publisher you are granting them the rights to publish your work in one or many formats. These include print formats, film, television, audio, CD, and DVD rights, not to mention regional and language rights. It isn’t wise to sell your rights all at once (called “All Rights”), unless you’re going to be very well compensated for this. Because, once you’ve sold all your rights the work is no longer yours to do anything with.

“The grant of rights clause in a publishing contract is one of the most important clauses because it enumerates the specific rights granted to the publisher by the author,” says the Publishing Law Centre. http://www.publaw.com/subsidiary.html “Negotiation of this clause has become even more important in today’s world where increasingly more uses are being developed for literary content.”

In my recent contract with Dragon Moon Press, I granted them “First World Rights” to publish my novel, Angel of Chaos, for the first time anywhere in the world (often the rights you sell will be more regionally specific, like First North American Rights, particularly if it’s a short story to a magazine). Of itself, the First World Rights does not include the right to reprint an excerpt of my work in another format, such as an anthology, or as an ebook or audio book, or in another language—unless additionally specified in the contract, which Dragon Moon did.

According to the Publishing Law Centre rights negotiated in a book contract fall into two main categories: Primary Rights and Secondary or Subsidiary Rights. Primary rights include only those rights the publisher specifically intends to use. For the print publisher these rights normally include the book publication right for the original hard or soft cover edition and paperback reprint rights, and possibly foreign translation rights, serialization rights, book club rights, and the rights for special editions. Subsidiary rights are those rights that are, as the name suggests, subsidiary to the right of publishing the literary work in book form and include electronic rights, motion picture and television rights, audio book rights, audiovisual rights, merchandizing rights and dramatic or performance rights. Publishers typically ask for several of these in a contract and keep them in their pocket “for a rainy day”.

According to “Publishing Explained” a typical publishing contract will contain the following things:

• details of the book: format, print run, etc.
• obtaining ISBN and listings in national catalogue
• period the contract holds (years or copies sold)
• what happens after contract expires
• supply of galley proofs to author
• copyright issues: who is responsible for checking (often author)
• royalties to author depending on seller (author, publisher through bookstores, bookclubs, subsidiaries, etc.)
• when and how royalties are paid
• terms applying to author for copies (no. of free copies, discounts thereafter)
• advances (commonly 1/3 at contract signing, 1/3 on submission of galley proofs and 1/3 on return of proofs)—many publishing houses do not offer an advance these days
  how MS is submitted to publisher
• cost of unauthorized author changes to galleys ($/hour)
• responsibility for libel, copyright infringement (commonly author, who indemnifies publisher)
• any guarantees regarding copies printed or sold (generally none)
• what the publisher will do towards marketing
• what the author will do towards marketing

Subsidiary rights may be licensed to a third party, where you will get a share of the licensing fees. The matter is complicated, and you may want to reserve subsidiary rights until you get an agent, or have some experience working with the publisher.

According to several sources, including the Independent Book Publishers Association in Californa, the author “typically” receives:

• 80% from the First Serialization Rights (newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication prior to book publication); translation rights; and foreign language publishing rights
• 80% from Second Serialization Rights (newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication after book publication); syndication rights; photocopying and other reprographics rights, anthology, abridgement or excerpt rights
• 75-80% to translate a book into various foreign languages (Foreign Language Rights)
• 50% from any license to a book club (Book Club Rights)
• 50% for the publisher to develop an audiobook or to license to an audiobook publisher (Audio Rights)
• 50% for the publisher to license electronic book rights (Electronic Rights). According to IBPA the industry norm is that the publisher is entitled to create its own electronic version of the book (e.g., an e-book) and to license others the right to do so, but that interactive multimedia rights, which could be used to produce a CD-ROM, for example, are often reserved by the author
• 50-70% on the right to make non-book products such as posters, toys, games and other merchandise (Commercial / Merchandising Rights)
• 50% of the proceeds of any license granted to another publisher to bring out a reprint or other edition of the work such as hardcover version, anthology, large-print version, etc.
  90% of any proceeds from a television or movie, live theatre or other theatrical production, DVD, etc. (Performance Rights)

Something to keep in mind is that these percentages are only what’s “typical” according to several sources and they are also usually based on net receipts to the author. 100% of subsidiary rights licensing proceeds are credited against the royalty advance—in other words, the author only starts getting a percentage share once her advance has earned itself out.

According to “Publishing Explained” many book contracts now:

• Do not ensure publication: you consign your earning ability to another, and your book does not appear, even the modest advance being clawed back if the book is sold on to another publisher
• Stipulate that your next MS must be offered, completed, to the same publisher, who need not consider it immediately, can turn it down subsequently, and even change his mind if another publisher takes an interest
• Allow royalties (commonly only 8%) to be cut by half if the publisher sells through a big distributor
• Ditto if the publisher sells the rights to an affiliate
• Dispense with royalties if the publisher decides to make the book into a give-away ebook for publicity purposes
• Require the author bear the costs of any libel suits, whoever is at fault, which the publisher can settle without consulting the author
• Allow that option to be consigned to third parties, who need not defend the action
  removing last vestiges of author control.

Bear this in mind when you read that first contract. Take your time with it; show it to someone whose opinion you respect and don’t be afraid to negotiate terms with your publisher. Don’t forget that this first step establishes your relationship with your publisher; if you’re a push-over in this matter, they’ll expect you to be one in others too, like the book cover, marketing, etc.

Pretty well most book publishing contract start out something like this:

AGREEMENT dated ___________ between Joe Shmo (“Author”) and Bingo Press (“Publisher”) for a work by the Author now entitled: Joey Goes to Town. (“The Work”).
In consideration of the covenants and conditions contained in this agreement, the Author and Publisher agree as follows:

…then follow an average of 10 to 15 numbered agreements that include the items summarized above.

More information on publisher’s contracts, author’s rights and current trends in author-publisher relationships can be found below in my Recommended Reading section.

Recommended Reading:

National Writers Union. Provide a Guide to book contracts.
Author’s Guild. Advice on the book (and other) contracts.
What Writers Should Know About All-Rights. ASJA article.
Rights: What They Mean and Why They’re Important. Writing World article.
Electronic Publishing and the Potential Loss of First Serial Rights. One of many excellent articles on this lawyer’s site.
Publishing Tools. Includes example of author contract.
Society of Academic Authors. Their boilerplate contract.
Contract Issues: Books Published Online. NWU article.
Writers Forum. Many points of interest discussed.
Never Release Your Rights To Anyone. One of many WritersNet articles.
The “Standard” Book Contract: An Antitrust Lawsuit Waiting To Happen. Author difficulties.
Publishing without Borders: Strategies for Successful International Publishing. International rights issues: $25.
How To Be Your Own Literary Agent : An Insider’s Guide to Getting Your Book Published . Continually revised since 1983 printing.
Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published. Third edition of this popular series: covers the basics well.

Labels: copyright, manuscript contracts, writing, writing contracts, writing fiction, writing tips

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Seashore by Oleg Ershov

We have five major senses and several minor ones we aren’t even consciously aware of. The major ones include sight, hearing, smelling, touch, and taste.

In the April 2000 issue of Fiction Writer Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander, tells us that we are biologically and psychologically designed “for intense experience in a richly sensual world. But we find ourselves in a senses-depleted world, a world limited largely to visuals, and ersatz ones at that.” She suggests that our readers are starving for sensual information.

“For fiction writers, the senses are not only a window onto external reality, but also the gateway into the inner realms.”

As writers we are in a unique position (at least for now) to describe what the visual media can’t (yet). We can provide our readers with a rich spectrum of sensuality such as what a place smells like, the texture of an object, the taste of a food, as well as the nuances of light and sound. Readers don’t just “watch” a character in a book; they enter the character’s body and “feel”.

So, how do writers satisfy the reader’s need to experience the senses fully? Description, yes. But how cold is cold? What does snow really smell like? What color is that sunset? How do you describe the taste of wine to a teetotaler?

Ultimately, literal description doesn’t quite cut it. To have the sense really sink in and linger with the reader, the sense should be linked to the emotions and memories of the character experiencing it. By doing this, you are achieving several things at the same time:
· You are describing the sense as the character is experiencing it—emotionally;
· You are revealing additional information on the character through his/her reaction; and,
· You are likely creating a more compelling link for the reader’s own experience of the sense.

How is this done? There are several tools a writer may use to achieve this. Here are a few:
· Use metaphor to describe the sense
· Link the sense to memories
· Use synesthesia (cross-sensory metaphor) to describe the sense
· Link the sense psychologically to an emotion or attitude
· Relate to the sense in a different way (e.g., a visual scene from the point of view of a painter)

Metaphor

The most compelling fiction arises when “truth” is portrayed obliquely, when objects or scenes are described through “impression”, or what I call truth-interpreted, rather than through literal description. Janet Fitch recommends that you “come in at an angle, obliquely, the way you approach all things evanescent.” This is where metaphor plays an important role. Of course, it goes without saying that for this to work, the writer must use appropriate metaphors.

The use of metaphor does several things when used to describe an object or place through one or several senses: it adds a dimension of emotion, tone and direction.

Janet Fitch (in Fiction Writer, April 2000) provides a good example of use of metaphor to describe the sky. The richest, most vivid words, she says, are words that use more than one sense at a time. She compares the term “yellow sky”, which provides one sense (vision) to a “lemon sky”, which gives you not only a visual sense but suggests taste, smell and even texture. The metaphor of “lemon” suggests an emotional as well as a vivid sensual description.

Smell and Memory

While all five of our senses can be linked to memories, two of them stand out. Smell and taste let us sample the chemicals around us for information. According to the California Institute of Technology, smell is generally considered the sense tied most closely to human memory, profoundly influencing people’s ability to recall past events and experiences. “Memory lies coiled within us like a magician’s trick handkerchief, and a simple smell or taste can pluck the tiniest corner and pull out the world,” says Janet Fitch.

“Smell is different from all the other senses in a very special way. A smell from your distant past can unleash a flood of memories that are so intense and striking that they seem real,” says Dr. Karl (Kruszelnicki), author of Great Moments in Science (1984) and science host of ABC Radio (Australia). “This kind of memory, where an unexpected re-encounter with a scent from the distant past [that] brings back a rush of memories, is called a ‘Proustian Memory’ ”, based on Marcel Proust’s sensual description of the smell of a madeleine cake dipped into a lime-blossom tea in his book Swan’s Way.

The sense of smell was no doubt one of the first senses to evolve in living creatures; it told us what was safe to eat. The sense of smell also affects behavior, such as finding a mate, synchronizing menstrual cycles, and communicating with the other animals in your group. Dr. Karl tells us that “women can tell (by the smell of swabs taken from the armpit) who has been watching happy or sad movies (men are not so good at this). A breast-feeding baby can differentiate the smell of his or her mother, from any other nursing mother. Dogs and horses can smell fear in humans.”

Ironically, smell, along with taste, is often neglected in our own overt observations and in writing. By consciously attending to these two senses alone, the writer is assured of engaging the reader’s more deeply rooted sensuality.

It might be useful to list some of your favorite or most powerful smells that you can remember. Here are some that my family members and I came up with over the dinner table:
· Freshly cut grass
· My lover’s neck
· Cold snow
· The interior of a new car
· Baking bread
· Wood burning fireplace
· Forest just after a rainstorm
· Freshly shampooed hair
· My own pillow
· My cat when he just comes in from outside

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is the use of one sense to describe another. It is a powerful tool in the hands of a skillful writer and at the root of compelling and imaginative metaphor. Also called cross-sensory metaphors, examples include “loud shirt”, “bitter wind”, or “prickly laugh”.

In her article in Fiction Writer (April, 2000), Janet Fitch suggests an excellent example of synesthesia: wine reviews. I admit that I like the “foxy nose” of a King David Concord, the “crisp laughing notes” of a zinfandel, the “rich buttery bouquet” of a C Blanc du Castel, the “silky richness of caramel” and “exotic layers of burnt sugar” of a 40-year old Taylor Fladgate tawny port.

Psychology & Attitude

How a sense is interpreted by your protagonist relies on his/her emotional state, memories associated with that sense and their current attitude.

Using baby powder as an example, Fitch suggests that you can “describe it literally: sweet, chalky, talcy, dusty, sneezy; or you can use synesthesias: smells pastel, smells tender; then move to the psychological element. Take an attitude on that smell: insipid, cloying, stultifying, like diaper rash, airless. Try a different attitude: sad, lost, vulnerable, hopeless.” You get the picture; we are using a sense-impression based on a memory or emotional experience pinned on that smell to create an entire sensation. What this does, of course, is reveal a great deal about the character in a seamless and powerful way, while establishing a rich setting to the story.

Different Point of View

Again, Fitch provides some good advice on this with the example of how to view objects. She suggests “seeing” through the lens of a photographer or the palette of a painter. What this does is several things:
· It evokes the use of different vocabulary, and metaphoric language (always richer than literal description)
· It avoids the static nature of a literal physical description
· It provides additional revelation on character and tone of the scene

Fitch recommends reading books on art for vocabulary. Because light “flows”, using it to describe something visually gives motion to the description too. Light moves like water: it “streams across a room”; it “bathes a landscape in russet tones”; it “plays chiaroscuro notes on her face”. Fitch describes light metaphorically as a painter or sculptor: it strokes, it daubs, it burnishes…

This article is an excerpt from The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! (Starfire World Syndicate) by Nina Munteanu

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I often get asked how and where I draw my inspiration from. How do I find my muse? And how do I keep it? (i.e.,, how do I defeat “writer’s block”?).

The Muses, in Greek mythology, are a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance. The Muses are water nymphs associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris (from which they are sometimes called the Pierides). According to Hesiod’s Theogony (7th century BC), they are the daughters of Zeus (king of the gods) and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory).

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1. Voice: This is the feel and tone that applies to the overall book (narrative voice) and to each character. The overall voice is dictated by your audience, who you’re writing for: youth, adults, etc. It’s important to give each character a distinctive “voice” (including use of distinct vernacular, use of specific expressions or phrases, etc.). This is one way a reader can identify a character and find them likeable—or not. In a manuscript I recently reviewed, I noticed that the characters spoke in a mixture of formal and casual speech. This confuses the reader and bumps them out of the “fictive dream”. Consistency is very important for readers. They will abandon a story whose writing is not consistent. So, my advice to this writer was to pick one style for each character and stick to it. Voice includes what a character says. It incorporates language (both speech and body movements), philosophy, humor. How a character looks, walks, talks, laughs, is all part of this. Let’s take laughter for instance: does your character tend to giggle, titter, chortle, guffaw, belly-laugh? Do any of your characters have conflicts with one another? Either through differences in opinions, agendas, fears, ambitions… etc. One learns so much from the kind of interaction a character has with his/her surroundings (whether it’s another character or a scene).

2. Point of View (POV): Many beginner’s novels are often told through no particular POV. Many first manuscripts often start in the omniscient POV (that of the narrator) and ever so often may lapse into one of the character’s POV briefly. This makes for very “telling vs showing” type of writing (not to mention being inconsistent again). 90% of writers do not write this way because it tends to be off-putting, it distances the reader from the characters, and is very difficult to achieve and be consistent with. Most writers prefer to use limited third person POV (told from one or a few key characters; that is, you get into the head and thoughts of only a few people: all the observations are told through their observations, what they see, feel and think). This bonds the reader to your characters and makes for much more compelling reading. I would highly suggest you adopt this style. That’s not to say that you can’t use several POVs… just not at the same time; it is the norm to use chapter or section breaks to change a POV.

3. Passive vs. Active Verbs: beginners often use a lot of passive verbs (e.g., were, was, being, etc.). Some use too may modifiers. Try to find more active verbs. Many writers fall into the pattern of using verbs that are weak and passive (and then adding a modifier to strengthen it…it doesn’t). Actively look for strong, vivid verbs. This is a key to good writing. I can’t emphasize this enough. For instance, which version is more compelling: ‘she walked quickly into the room’ or ‘she stormed into the room’?

4. Show, Don’t Tell: this is partly a function of POV and use of active verbs. Once you change to 3rd person, much of this will naturally resolve itself. An example of telling vs. showing is this: [He was in a rage and felt betrayed. "You lied, Clara," he said angrily, grabbing her hand.] instead, you could show it: [His face smoldered. "You lied, Clara," he roared, lunging for her.] Telling also includes large sections of exposition, either in dialogue or in narrative. This happens a lot in beginning writer’s stories. It takes courage and confidence to say less and let the reader figure it out. Exposition needs to be broken up and appear in the right place as part of the story. Story is paramount. “Telling” is one of the things beginning writers do most and editors will know you for one right away. Think of the story as a journey for both writer and reader. The writer makes a promise to the reader that s/he will provide a rip-roaring story and the reader comes on side, all excited. This is done through a confident tease in the beginning and slow revelation throughout the story to keep it compelling. Exposition needs to be very sparingly used, dealt out in small portions.

5. Unclutter your Writing: There is a Mennonite adage that applies to writing: “less is more”. Sentences in early works tend to be full of extra words (e.g., using “ing” verbs, add-ons like “he started to think” instead of simply “he thought”). Cut down the words in your paragraphs (often in the intro chapters) by at least 20%. Be merciless; you won’t miss them, believe me, and you will add others later in your second round of edits.

This article is an adapted excerpt from The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!

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So, I’d like to share what I’ve learned over the years (some of the very same comments that have been made of my work, I am sharing back with you). I’ll be providing you my advice in three parts: 1) characters; 2) language; and 3) structure.

Let’s start with characters, since they are in my opinion, the most important part of a novel:

Characters carry the theme of the book. Each character needs to have a role in advancing the plot and/or theme; each character needs a reason to be there. A character therefore needs to be distinctive and usually shows some character development (as story arc) from beginning to end of story. Your characters are the most important part of your book (more so than the plot or premise). Through them your book lives and breathes. Through them your premise, your plot (which is essentially just a way to create problems for your characters to live out their development) and story come alive. Through them you achieve empathy and commitment from the reader and his/her willingness to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next: if the reader doesn’t invest in the characters, they won’t really care what happens next.

Characters need to be real. They come to life by giving them individual traits and real weaknesses and heroic qualities that are consistent and have qualities readers can recognize and empathize with. You play these against each other to achieve drama. For instance, a man who is afraid of heights but who must climb a mountain to save his love is far more compelling than one who is not; a military man who fears responsibility but must lead his team into battle; a scientist who is afraid of failure; etc.

Characters of beginning writers often suffer from lack of distinction, or purpose, and often simply clutter up a story. For a character to “come alive” their “voice” must be distinctive, unique. Give them distinctive body movements, dress, facial features and expressions that reveal character, inner feelings, emotions, fears, motivations, etc. Then keep them consistent. There are several techniques writers use to increase empathy for a character and distinctiveness. This includes use of third person POV, keeping the story with focus on fewer rather than many characters, creating character dossiers and keeping them consistent, providing each character a distinctive “voice” (figuratively), as in how they behave, say, react, etc. I’ll talk about these further down. Another way to make your characters distinct (and works to also tie into plot and theme) is to make your characters not get along. Make them argue, disagree (at least!), have suspicions, betray one another, laugh and ridicule, etc. By doing this you increase tension, conflict (two things every book requires) and you enlighten the reader into each of the characters involved. Make them fight or argue over what they believe in – or not. You need to describe your characters in effective brief but vivid language as the reader encounters them.

Here are some questions you need to ask about your characters:

1. if I can remove the character, will the book fall apart? (if not, you don’t need that character; they aren’t fulfilling a role in the book);

2. how does the character portray the major or minor theme of the book? (that’s what characters are there for)

3. what is the role of the character? (e.g., protagonist, antagonist, mentor, catalyst, etc.)

4. what is the story arc of the character? Does he or she develop, change, do they learn something by the end? If not, they will be two-dimensional and less interesting

5. what major obstacle(s) must the character overcome?

6. who are your major protagonist(s) (the main character who changes the most)?

7. who are your major antagonist(s) (those who provide trouble for your protagonists, the source of conflict, tension, the obstacle: one of their own?

8. what’s at stake: for the world (plot); for each individual (Theme) and how do these tie together? Every character has a role to fulfill in the plot and to other characters. Don’t be afraid to totally remove characters if they do not fulfill a role.

To summarize, each character is there for a purpose and this needs to be made apparent to the reader (intuitively through characterization, their failings, weaknesses, etc.). Make them bleed, hurt, cry, feel. This needs to be clear to the reader, who wants to empathize with some of them and hate others. How characters interact with their surroundings and each other creates tension, a key element to good storytelling. Tension, of course builds further with the additional conflict of protagonist with antagonists. But, in truth, it’s more fun to read about the tension from WITHIN a group that’s supposed to be together. Think of Harry Potter and what was juicy there… It wasn’t really Voldemort … it was what went on at Hogwarts between Harry and his friends and not-so-friends. That is what makes a story memorable; that is what makes a story something you can’t put down until you’ve finished it.

This is an adapted excerpt from The Alien’s Practical Guide to Cool Writing(Pixl Press), available through this site or through www.pixlpresscanada.com.

To be continued…

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Nina Munteanu

“Discover the Writing Magic…where passion and skill collide. During my live coaching programs I was overwhelmed by the number of people seeking guidance on getting their own books published.  I’ve created a coaching and training program designed specifically for people who are serious about becoming “published authors”—Nina Munteanu, author of The Fiction Writer

Email Nina at thepassionatewriter@gmail.com or nina.sfgirl@gmail.com (subject: coaching) to book a personal coaching session or group workshop. Coaching may include:

• manuscript readings, editing and consultations
• language and grammar
• storyboarding and idea generation
• focus issuees and writer’s block
• synopsis and query letters
• marketing
• promotion

Workshops have successfully included “hotseat” panels and “hotseat” manuscript assessment/critique.  

To receive Nina’s informative NEWSLETTER (packed with writing advice from her many consultations) and to browse through awesome writer’s resources, be sure to sign up for her free coaching club. Praise for her coaching and workshops continues:

“Nina was warm and encouraging.  I felt free to share my fears and ask questions that exposed my ignorance.  She was extremely knowledgeable and gracious and honest…  I felt as though she really wanted me to succeed as a writer, and was a mentor sent to provide guidance and inspiration.”— Zoe M. Hicks, author of The Women’s Estate Planning Guide and Dream Catcher, the Power of Faith

“Nina shares her expertise with endless enthusiasm.  I always go away with double the energy than when I came!”—Krista Fogel, coordinator of Calliope Network, UBC

“As a hopeful author, I found Nina’s words inspiring. I thank Nina for sharing her acquired knowledge.”—Amanda Lott, writing student, Scribblers Writers’ Retreat, GA

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