Finding your voice

Voice can be a stumbling block for many writers. It’s a concept that’s somewhat difficult to describe, but it’s easy to see when a piece of writing has it, or doesn’t. Voice is the way writing sounds on the page. It's comprised of several aspects: word choice, sentence structure, rhythm, etc. One of these aspects involves being able to connect with the reader's emotions through the words you write. Today we’re going to talk about this aspect of voice and practice injecting it into your writing.

We can’t all be Stephen King or Harper Lee, so don't try to be a carbon copy. You have your own voice. You just need to let it out. Here's one way to begin: Write something. Read it aloud. Listen to how it sounds. Can you feel the tone, the mood, the emotion in the words? Does it have a rhythm or a flow to it? If it seems wooden or stilted, try writing it again. Have someone else read it to you. Keep doing it until you find the right combination. Think about the feeling, the emotion you’re trying to convey. If you can find that aspect, the words will practically write themselves.

There's much more that can be said on this subject, but learning by doing may provide more value in this case. So, let's do an exercise. I’d like you to write a paragraph for the story I’m about to describe. One paragraph. Try to keep it under 150 words. Get that inner voice speaking and make your words powerful enough to convey what’s going on. I’m not going to play Big Brother on this one, so if you go over 150 words, well, you go over. But aim for 150 or less. Your first draft may contain a lot more than that. If so, pare it down to its essence. Start off with an attention-getting first sentence and go from there.

You will write your paragraph in first person POV. And just for kicks, let's write it in the present tense. If you're not certain about the conventions of that style, check out The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, or Lost in the Bayou, by Cornell DeVille (shameless plug). If you've never written in present tense, you might find it enjoyable and fun.

The setting is a small chapel. The sky is dark. Thunder is rumbling. It's raining. You are twelve years old, sitting on a wooden pew. At the front of the room is a casket containing the body of your mother. Or your father. Or your grandmother or grandfather. Or your brother or sister. Or your best friend. You decide.

What I'd like you to do is put us inside that twelve-year-old's head. What thoughts and emotions are filling your mind and heart? Memories? Sadness? Anger? Shock? Numbness? Confusion? Relief that the suffering is over? Are there other people in the chapel? What are they doing? Is your hair wet from the rain? Can you feel a water droplet trickling down your neck? Are you cold? Is someone playing the organ? Are there flowers? Can you smell them? Use whatever words you wish to convey the emotions you’re feeling, but keep in mind that a ten-year-old isn’t going to use the same words or speech patterns an adult would. And those questions above are just ideas to spark your imagination. You don't necessarily need to address those.

Your objective is to connect the reader to this situation by the words you choose and the way you arrange them. Draw the reader in so they’re experiencing it with you as they read it. The words should go into their head and straight down to their heart. Make them feel, really feel, what you’re feeling. Use your imagination on this one, and get that voice of yours into it. I know it’s inside you. Let it out. When you finish, if it doesn't make you cry when you read it, rewrite it. Keep revising until your heart breaks and your voice cracks when you try to read it aloud. When that happens, that's the voice you've been keeping inside. That's the voice that will connect with the reader.

In order to keep things organized, when you post your comment, start out with a TITLE. If you don’t wish to participate, feel free to comment on any of the other examples, and use the title so the writers will know which one you’re commenting on. This subject may be too emotional to get a lot of participants, but I hope you’ll give it a try. It's a great exercise, and you may be surprised by the results.

The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart — Helen Keller.

New YouTube Channel for Writers

Hey, my faithful followers and fellow writers!

I have just completed and uploaded a Welcome Video for my new YouTube channel. As the video indicates, this is another outlet for informative information and commentary related to writing, editing, publishing, and promotion. I hope you will take a moment to view it, and I hope you will hit that "SUBSCRIBE" button so that you'll be alerted when I post another one of these videos on YouTube.

Also, if you like what you see, don't hesitate to click on that thumbs up "LIKE" button.

So, here it is. If you'd like to leave a comment, please do. I truly enjoy reading what you have to say. Spread the word, because when we get 50 subscribers, we're going to have a subscriber appreciation giveaway. Enjoy!

I Cut My Thumb Off Today

Not really, but I wanted to get your attention. Keep reading. It will all make sense by the time you finish this paragraph. This article is about opening lines, and how very important they are. When we’re looking for something to read, we want the words to fly off the page and grab our attention from that very first sentence. If they don’t do that, we may put the book down and continue our search for something else.

As writers, we sometimes don’t give our stories the best beginnings. Capturing a reader’s attention and creating an interest for the story we’re telling has to start early if we plan on keeping the reader with us until the end. The first page is important. The first paragraph is very important. The first sentence is critical. Either your opening line will impact the reader and hold their interest for several pages while they’re getting into the story, or it will leave them unimpressed enough to finish the first page.

A few examples can provide us with a better understanding, so I've listed below the opening lines from some familiar novels. I consider these to be extraordinary beginnings and more than sufficient to engage the reader.

Let’s begin with James Barrie’s opening line from Peter Pan: All children, except one, grow up. There’s no question that you have to keep reading to find out about this one, special child.

In 1984, George Orwell captures our attention by painting a strange picture with his opening line: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. That line is going to put a question mark in the reader’s mind and force them to read on and find out what kind of strange world they’ve stepped into.

In The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman gives us a wonderful opening line and a beautifully written sentence that is simple, shocking and enticing: There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. No reader is going to be able to close the cover on that sentence. They simply must continue reading.

Finally, Anthony Horowitz gives us a fabulous opening line in Stormbreaker: When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news. You can’t argue with that logic, and you can’t put the book down until you find out who’s ringing the doorbell and why they’re doing it at this hour.

And there you have a brief look at a few examples of really well written opening lines. Now that we’ve covered that, it’s time for you to take a look at your current WIP and read that first line once again. After you read it, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does it entice you to read on?

2. Does it place you in a curious situation that makes you want to know more?

3. If you close the book now, will you want to open it again to find out what happens next?

If your answer to those questions was no, then you need to take another look at that opening paragraph and, especially, your opening line. That’s your one and only chance to make a great first impression. You need to create a compelling sentence that will draw the reader in and make them want to know more about your story. It needs to be so powerful that there is no way the reader can put the book down without reading at least the following sentence, or the rest of the first paragraph. A good opening sentence that places a question in the reader’s head can hold them through the first hundred pages or more while you continue to work your magic and spin the tale around that perfect opening line.

So, there’s your assignment. Create the very best opening line for your story. When you come up with that absolutely perfect first sentence, share it with the rest of us by typing it into the comment section below. If you’re having some trouble getting it perfect, type it in and ask for suggestions on how to improve it.

And keep writing, because the story needs to be told.

Marketing and Promotion

A while back, I wrote a blog post regarding your author platform and your author press kit. One of things I failed to include in those articles was the importance of a unique graphic element or logo that can be associated with you, your writing, and your products. In today's iconic environment, it's important to create a consistent image for yourself.

So, with that idea in mind, I've created a simple icon for my writing endeavors. It's something I can use on my website, my blog, and my YouTube videos. It's something that's easily created, and something you might want to consider for your own image.

Feel free to leave a comment. We'd enjoy reading about your efforts in this regard and what you're doing to market your own writing.

Who is this Cordelia Dinsmore?

I keep running into her name. I did some research and learned that she is a new author at Musa Publishing. I've also noticed that she's been popping up and leaving comments at various blogs that I visit and read. More than a few times a day, her name comes up, either in a blogpost on Triberr or in a comment on another author's blog.

I don't know if she's an international spy, a figment of my imagination, or if there's some type of magnetic attraction that's moving us on a parallel path. What's going on?

HERE IS HER BLOG in case you want to read it. She is a very good writer, by the way. You should spend some time reading, because she has some really interesting posts.

Who is this Cordelia Dinsmore anyway?

And the winner is...

Here's your winner for the contest. 

Watch for her blog post coming soom and her book cover on the right sidebar. 

So exciting. So exciting!

Writing the Perfect Query Letter

It's been a while since we've done this. But we have so many new visitors that it's time once again. We're going to talk about the bane of all writers, the horror of horrors in the world of writing, the DESPICABLE QUERY LETTER.

Oh, we hate them. Yes. We do. But they are a necessary part in the wooing of an agent or publisher. So, since they are so important, we need to be able to do them well. We need to be able to do them so well, in fact, that the agent or publisher simply MUST request a sample of our work.

This is not virgin ground we're covering—not by any stretch of your so-very-creative imagination. There are tons of resources on the web dealing with how to write a query. And, for the most part, they all seem to regurgitate pretty much the same lecture and repeat that there are specific formats and rules for content that writers need to follow. And if the neophyte writer should carelessly wander off that straight-and-narrow path, they better have a really good reason for doing so.

So, let's take a quick look, once again, at the query letter. We'll break it down to the skeleton and start with that. Here's a shopping list of all the items you need to include:

Salutation.

Make sure to say "Dear" and make doubly certain you have the agent's name spelled correctly. Failure in this initial area can result in an instant trip to the circular file, regardless of how well the rest of it is written.

Introduction.

This is where you tell the agent the genre, the word count and the title. Here's an example.

Since you have an interest in middle grade fantasy, "Parry Hotter and the Half-Baked Prints" should be right up your alley. It is complete at 1,000,000 words.

Any creativity you can add to this section without over-reaching and ending up too cutesy can help encourage the agent to read on.

Body.

This is the meat and potatoes. This is where you really need to get the agent's attention. Even though you mention supporting characters, this section needs to be centered around the main character. All events should relate to that character. Also, keep the stages of THE HERO'S JOURNEY in mind as you write this part. (Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, Martyr). For a more descriptive explanation of that, check a previous blog post HERE.

As Steven King said, "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." Keep that in mind and don't overuse them in the query, just as you don't overuse them in your writing. Avoid cliches, too. An agent can spot those as if they were printed in red ink, in bold type, italicized and underlined. Also, since the query isn't a synopsis that lays everything on the table, you want to end with a cliffhanger of sorts so that the agent simply MUST find out what happens next. That will encourage a request for a sample, which is the sole purpose of the query.

Credits.

If you are published or have other notable accomplishments, this is the area to list that information.s.

Closing.

This is where you hurry away by simply saying thank you and that you will be happy to send a partial or a full at their request. Then you say "Sincerely" and type your name. You're done.

BUT DO NOT HIT THE SEND BUTTON YET!

Go fix yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea. Have a Dove bar or a Ferero Rocher, a Ghiradeli square, or a Lindor Truffle. Wait five minutes or so and then go back to that document and read it from beginning to end. Correct any typos, grammar, phrasing, order of sentences, adverbs, cliches, punctuation, word choices, whatever you need to fix to make it The Perfect Query Letter.

Once it's perfect, check the word count. If you're over 250 words, you need to compress things a bit. Total word count for a query is typically around 250 words. If your novel is over 70,000 words, you can expand on that number a bit, but 300 words is typically the point of no return.

After fixing everything and making it absolutely perfect, do not send it to the agent of choice. At least not yet. Send this version to a writerly friend, or post it on Absolute Write for other writers to pick apart. Whatever you do, don't be in a rush to send it until it has been given the seal of approval by at least two or three other writers. Then you can send it. But check it again before you do and run that spellchecker program on it one last time.

And that's a summary of How To Write a Query Letter.

Feel free to leave a comment below. And speaking of below, don't forget to enter our contest to have your book featured on this blog at the top sidebar position for the rest of the month. Scroll down to check it out.