The Importance of Commas, Meter, and Reading Aloud for the Fiction Writer

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: How your writing sounds is just as important as how it reads. Dario Ciriello discusses how rhythm and meter work to create memorable writing.

I recently completed an edit for a client, Cordia Pearson¹, whom I’d gently persuaded to let me introduce Oxford commas into her list phrases. The reasoning for this is that using the Oxford (aka serial) comma never does any harm, and can prevent serious confusion. Consider the sentence,

My parents, Jesus, and Lady Gaga taught me all I know.

If you remove the serial comma after Jesus, the meaning changes, and not for the better.

Writing: When Things Get Tough

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: No job is perfect, and being a writer has its bad days. Dario Ciriello discusses the darker times writers face, and why we still keep writing.

Sometimes writing is so difficult that all you can do is laugh. The laugh is not one of humor, but more like that of Holmes as he goes over the Reichenbach falls, or perhaps one of Lovecraft’s characters as he fully realizes the depth of the unspeakable cosmic horror which is about to devour his soul.

Every seasoned writer is, I think, deeply mistrustful of anyone who claims to love the process—I mean the entire process, especially the in-the-trenches bayonet-work, when you’re locked in a life-and-death struggle with yourself and every fiber of your being screams give up, surrender, you can’t win, because each sentence you craft, each line of dialogue, is worthless, stilted nonsense. At these times there’s nothing to love about the process, and to hell with inspirational quotes and touchy-feely nonsense. All you have is will and determination, and it had better be up to the task.

Why Self-Editing Your Novel Doesn't Really Work

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The Indie Author Series

JH: It takes a sharp eye to edit a novel, and familiarity with the work dulls that eye. Dario Ciriello shares why writers shouldn't rely on only themselves when editing their novel. 

I once found myself reassuring an author on Twitter. The author had shown someone their final novel draft, which they’d gone through countless times, and the reader found a number of mistakes in just the first ten pages.

This isn’t in the least unusual. And although there’s currently a rash of books and blog posts on how to self-edit, the reality is that you’re not — unless you’re already a seasoned pro, and even then — going to catch the majority of issues with your own work. It’s impossible.

How Do You Write a Great Story? Go Hot, Go Deep

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The How They Do It Series

JH: Skimming the surface of your story might work for an early brainstorming session, but it won't get you the novel you really want. Dario Ciriello shares tips on how to dig deeper for a strong novel. 

Many years ago, the legendary, multiple award-winning editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Gardner Dozois, was telling my Clarion West class about the magazine’s slushpile. Once you got rid of the garbage, he said, you were left with quite a few publishable stories. The challenge then was finding the one that stood out from all the “not bad” ones, the story that achieved greatness and would resonate with readers. A few years later, when I had my own slushpile for the Panverse series of SFF novella anthologies I edited and published, I discovered he was absolutely right. And in the several years since, working as a freelance editor/copyeditor, I find the same to be true.

The Best Writing Tool You’ve Never Heard Of

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: If you're looking for a way to be productive without distractions, Dario Ciriello shares his experience with the Alphasmart Neo. 

I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago and bemoaning my recent complete inability — or should I say lack of interest — in getting words on paper. Beyond the usual procrastination and displacement activity common to us all, I tried to defend my laziness with a number of pathetic excuses.

First, working as a freelance editor exacerbates my already dire tendency to edit as I write.

When I do try to write, everything from names to esoteric technology demands a quick detour onto the Internet, which I confess I enjoy a great deal more than writing.

Harsh Does Not Equal Honest: Pick Your Beta Readers Carefully

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 

Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: Feedback doesn't have to be mean to be useful. Dario Ciriello shares thoughts on dealing with beta readers, tough crits, and the struggles of new authors just trying to get help. 

I’ve seen more than one new author crushed by tactless or even downright mean feedback from beta readers, and I don’t like it. So a couple of weeks ago, I tweeted the following as a simple PSA:

Too many writers upset by overly harsh feedback from betas. PICK YOUR BETAS CAREFULLY. They should be people you know well, who get your genre, whom you trust, and who are experienced, secure writers. Don't just let anyone read your draft.

Surprisingly, this got pushback from a few people who insisted they wanted and welcomed harsh feedback, didn’t want to be coddled, didn’t want to use people they knew as betas because they wouldn’t give honest feedback, wanted people who didn’t read their genre because that would let them appeal to a wider audience, and yada yada.

Wrong.

What’s a Chapter? And How Long Should it Be?

By Dario Ciriello, @Dario_Ciriello 
Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Chapters are the typical way writers break up a novel, but what's the right way to handle them? Dario Ciriello shares thoughts and tips on handling your novel's chapters. 

I was recently asked by a writer how long a chapter should be, and how do you know where to end it. My first reaction was to smile and quote the old English saying, how long is a piece of string? In fiction, there really no rule, which set me thinking on what exactly a chapter is. Is it an organizing principle, or simply a device of convenience?

Chapters in fiction became common in the mid-eighteenth century. Novelist Henry Fielding, in 1742, gave a lovely description of the divisions between chapters as “an Inn or Resting-Place, where he may stop and take a Glass, or any other Refreshment, as it pleases him.” At the time, the average chapter was quite brief, perhaps 1,800 words, and typically encumbered with a mini-index listing its contents, such as, say,

CHAPTER TWELVE: Mr. Stevens woos the chambermaid, with interesting results

Or more – much more. Some nineteenth-century chapters in particular could contain several sentences in a list divided by semicolons.

When Not to Kill Your Darlings: Exposing Another Awful Writing “Rule”

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Kill Your Darlings has been a writing-advice staple forever, but there are times when we shouldn't follow that advice. Dario Ciriello is back this month with his thoughts on the topic.

Recently, In the course of beta reading a long Epic Fantasy novel by a very skilled and highly-acclaimed author friend, I came across a single major issue: a subplot and its characters, fascinating and well-written and full of wonder and wisdom, had grown so large it threatened to hijack and overshadow the core narrative.

I could see three main ways to fix this. These were: (i) pare that entire subplot down by at least a third; (ii) break it up further still with interspersed scenes happening elsewhere; (iii) reassure the reader, using brazen foreshadowing, and more than once, that all the events taking place in this subplot were relevant to and would tie back into the core plot.

The Budrys Rule: Three Writerly Sins, One of them Cardinal

By Dario Ciriello

Part of The How They Do It Series 

JH: Dario Ciriello returns to the lecture hall today with three "rules" writers should never break. And for once, these rules are ones writers really should live by.

As an editor/copyeditor who reads a lot of manuscripts, I see many potentially fine, well-written novels with believable characters, rollicking plots, and crisp dialogue fail because they fell short of what I call The Budrys Rule.

The late Algis Budrys was a famous science fiction author, editor, teacher, and critic. He taught for many years at the Clarion Writers Workshop, and worked as a book editor for Playboy magazine. In his fine little 1994 craft manual, Writing to the Point, Budrys gives one of the clearest and best pieces of advice to authors I’ve ever read, and does it so succinctly it works as a simple mnemonic.

So Many Books, So Little Heart: Thoughts on Writers’ Reading Habits

By Dario Ciriello

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: Getting readers to care about our characters is something every writer should strive for—but do they? Dario Ciriello is back again this month, with thoughts on writing, reading, and why we care.

A new client said something yesterday that got me thinking about the reading habits of writers, and how they change over time. She mentioned having bought two of my books prior to hiring me to edit her work, and that she’d read my book on writing but only the beginning of the other, a memoir. Of course, it flashed through my mind that she may not have cared for the other work; as a picky reader myself, I understand how different each reader is, and don’t feel in the slightest offended if someone isn’t enamored of one of my books.

“You see,” she went on, “I daren’t allow myself to read a book while I’m writing.”

The Guilty Pleasures of Procrastination

By Dario Ciriello

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: Writers procrastinate—especially when the writing isn’t flowing. Although we don’t get a lot of word written n those days, the little breaks can be useful. Dario Ciriello is back this month with tips on making the most of your procrastination.

When it comes to procrastination, nobody beats a writer.

There’s a popular saying that nobody’s house is cleaner than that of a writer on a deadline. Cleaning is indeed one strategy, if you enjoy that sort of thing. But the ways to stave off actual writing are limited only by the writer’s imagination.

In truth, writers are enormously creative when it comes to finding displacement activities. The late, great Douglas Adams was known for taking endless baths as his agent fretted and tried to talk him into delivering a manuscript. “I love deadlines,” said Adams, “I love the whooshing sound they make as they go past.”

Rising Above the Average as a Writer: Regression Toward the Mean

By Dario Ciriello

Part of The Writer’s Life Series

JH: So much of publishing success is blind luck, and getting lucky twice (or more) can be harder than getting published in the first place. Dario Ciriello is back at the podium today to share thoughts on keeping success going.

We all want to succeed at our writing and produce that breakout book that hits big. And it is possible, for all of us. But it’s also necessary to understand success comes with its own challenges.

Not at first, of course. Faced with a sudden, maybe unanticipated hit, a writer, musician, or other creative will be overjoyed and exuberant. Recognition, validation, even money: what’s not to like?

But once the wave crests and the initial happy surprise gives way to considering the next project, that’s when apprehension can set in, and with good reason: how do you do it again?

Solo vs. Group Effort: the Indie Author Collective

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Authors series

“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
― Winston Churchill

A little over a year ago, after a decade of writing and publishing as an indie, a local library event brought me into contact with three other L.A. area indie authors.

The personal chemistry felt terrific and all of us were writing at a pro level. Most importantly, each of us brought different and complimentary sets of skills to the table—graphic design, video trailer production, print formatting skills, copyediting, proofreading, and that rarest of indie author talents, marketing.

The Vexing Conundrum of Amazon

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Authors Series

At some point or other, any indie author must wonder how they really feel about Amazon.

I freely confess I’ve been all over the board with my attitude towards this extraordinary organization.

Some few of us will remember that Amazon began as a bookstore, and just a bookstore: music, video, and software followed soon after. Twenty-four years after its founding, Amazon’s dominance of the book space is such that no indie author stands a chance of attaining any significant visibility, let alone success, without them.

Discriminating Against Quality: the New Low of Traditional Publishing

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Author Series

In the last few months I’ve had the good fortune to see two extraordinary manuscripts.

One of these was a developmental edit on a novel I’d critiqued the opening chapters of last year. The work is an intensely dark suspense novel set in a remote tavern in the Northeast at the time of the Revolutionary War. The piece is saturated in atmosphere, the narrative and character voices terse and spare. It’s as startling a novel as I’ve ever come across, the sort of thing agents and editors at publishing houses claim to live for. I had been impressed by the chapters I’d critiqued initially; now, weeks after returning the edited manuscript, I find myself still thinking about it.

Indie in the Time of Distraction

By Dario Ciriello 

Part of the Indie Author Series

I read a fascinating and chilling article the other day about the way the so-called “attention economy” is changing society and fracturing our attention spans—literally rewiring our brain through the phenomenon of neuroplasticity. This has become so acute that some of the very tech leaders who started this ball rolling have begun to disconnect, adopting smart phone-free periods for themselves and their families and putting up firebreaks between themselves and the net in order to reclaim their lives and their fragmented mental space.

Writers Are Competitive

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Authors series

A chance comment by a friend on Facebook today got me thinking on the 2011 Woody Allen film, Midnight in Paris. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll surely remember the wonderful scene in which Hemingway’s character tells the protagonist, a young writer transported back in time,that “writers are competitive.” (For those of you’ve not seen this gem, I’ve linked the scene here.)

My friend, who had just joined a writers-helping-writers group on Facebook, wrote, “It has been a while since I've read entry level stuff.”

What Makes an Indie Novel a Success?

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Authors Series

The roads to success in both indie and traditional publishing seem limited.

All things being equal, I see four principal ways in which an indie book can be a success:

1. You painstakingly build your fan base, always staying within one genre, possibly writing series works, and releasing books frequently and predictably. Somewhere after book three or four, maybe, things take off.

The Persistent Taint of Self-Publishing

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Authors Series

One of the signs of Napoleon's greatness is the fact that he once had a publisher shot.
—Siegfried Unseld1

It's ten years since Amazon launched Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and changed the face of publishing forever.

Today, indie/self-published books make up around 40% of the total US eBook market. Authors who started off as indies—Amanda Hocking, Andy Weir, and Hugh Howey, to name just a few—have sold books well into the millions and are close to household names. Although numbers are hard to come by, there’s definitely a sizeable “middle class” of probably a few thousand indie authors who make a comfortable living upwards of $50,000 a year. I know several myself.

Book Launches: How Things Change

By Dario Ciriello

Part of the Indie Author Series

As I prepare to release my new nonfiction work on July 4, no less, I find myself looking back at prior book launches and realize how different this one is.

In the past, I’ve had the greatest difficulty getting any real traction or interest in book launches. Oh, there’s always been the supportive family-and-friends core of a few dozen people. But interest from publications, bloggers, or reviewers, beyond one or two who are fellow writers and close friends? Zilch, zip, nada.