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Adjectives and Adverbs
The Rules
Adjectives and adverbs are best used sparingly, and for these reasons:
1. They make your prose seem insubstantial and overqualified:
Wearily, her face wearing a sad look of puzzled dejection, she sat down and opened her bag.
is probably better cut to:
She sat down wearily, and opened her bag.
2. Their power falls off with the number employed.
With a sad gesture of tiredness, her uncombed hair flopping untidily over her face, she sat down to read the address book I gave her.
will be more forceful as:
Tired and distraught, she sat down to read the address book I gave her.
If, however, you want something more subtle, which helps build the character, then use unexpected combinations:
With a sad, practiced and weary amusement, hair flopping over the face, she sat down to read the address book I gave her.
3. They hold up the action. In place of:
With a sad gesture of tiredness, her uncombed hair flopping untidily over her face, she sat down to read the address book I’d given her.
consider:
She glanced at the address book, and closed it. ‘I’ve always known he had others.’
4. More time-wasting are qualifiers: rather, very perhaps, a bit, somewhat. If there’s uncertainty, then point your reader to that. In place of:
With a rather sad gesture of tiredness, her largely uncombed hair flopping untidily in places over her face, she sat down to read the address book I’d given her.
try:
Seeming tired, she sat down to read the address book I gave her.
5. They draw unnecessary attention to the he/she of dialogue. The ‘angrily’ is not needed in:
‘That’s enough from you,’ she said angrily.
but the ‘softly’ is saying something else here:
‘That’s enough from you,’ she said softly.
If you’re heroically doing without dialogue qualifiers altogether, then add an action:
‘That’s enough from you,’ she said, and kissed me.
Breaking the Rules
Nonetheless, as point 2 suggests, adjectives can be used to set atmosphere and tone. There is a world of difference between these descriptions of the crooked lawyer warning off the hero:
‘I would not advise that,’ he said.
‘I would not advise that,’ he said menacingly.
‘I would not advise that,’ he said pleasantly.
‘I would not advise that,’ he said with a pleasant menace to the voice.
If the contrast is between the well-heeled world of crime, and the impoverished protagonist, then:
‘I would not advise that,’ he said with a pleasant menace to the voice. The smile flashed a diamond, I noticed, set in one of the expensively maintained teeth.
Or we want to show a lamentable bravado in our hero:
‘I would not advise that,’ he said with a pleasant menace in the voice as I picked up the metal paperweight.
‘No?’ I said. ‘But things happen, don’t they?’ The paperweight fell with a sharp sound on the table, sending a long crack through the glass, but the smile was still steady. A mistake, I thought, as the door opened and a burly man appeared.
read more . . .Novel Reading Lists
Unless you’re a failed novelist turned commercial, the usual advice is to write what you enjoy reading. It’s difficult to slum, or pretend you live on heights you’ve never scaled, and the effort will probably show, readers being canny creatures. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t widen your reading matter, however, and anyone attending a novel-writing course will probably be given homework like the following: ‘this week’s assignment is so-and-so: explain how the tension is built up, and the denouement is so unexpected but satisfying.’ Those not attending a writing course can be more leisurely, but here are some reading lists that may prove useful. You can find more through Internet searches specifying particular genres or periods.
All Time 100 Novels. Time’s selection: mixed bag, with reviews.
The Most Influential Novels and Books. Several listings, with religious affiliations.
The Big Read. BBC’s listing: popular, with emphasis on the latest read.
English Authors and Books. SwissEd’s list, mostly contemporary, many for school class reading.
College Bound Reading List. As the name suggests: somewhat worthy, but divided into several categories.
Business Week. Mostly business studies, but some surprises.
Libraries and You. American Library Association’s yearly booklists.
The Classics. In case your education’s been neglected.
My Reading List. Science fiction: a personal selection.
Teen Reads. Includes reviews and samples.
Mac McCool. Illustrated children’s books and comics.
Great Books Lists. A list of lists, wide-ranging.
Modern Novels: the 99 Best. Anthony Burgess’s 1984 list.
Books on the Canon Wars. Consider before drawing up your lifetime reading plan.
British Women’s Novels: A Reading List, 1775-1818. Covers a short period, but fascinating, with the compiler’s comments.
read more . . .
Credible Characters
Of course your novel needs credible characters. People that are more real than those you meet every day in the office or supermarket. People that act as anyone would in their situation. People that represent characters your readers would like to be, so they can warm to and identify with them. You have these resources:
1. Descriptions
Characters used to be introduced with lengthy descriptions:
‘Visitors to O’Connell’s Ice-cream Parlor in the early summer of 1964 would have noticed the appearance, every morning at eleven, of a strikingly elegant young woman with tightly-curled blonde hair and eyes so large, candid and blue that regulars would say, ‘here comes summer on the prairies again.’ She was dressed in . . . and the small waist was even more tightly pinched by . . . Everything was immaculate, even to the stockings, which were silk, as the better class of customer was aware—and O’Connell’s did have the better class of customer in those days. If you had the money to pay their prices, and idle your time away in this prosperous end of town, you had joined the arbiters of good society. Into this group the woman had arrived, and in a style that made our good citizens sit up and take notice, but where from? She never spoke beyond ordering . . . but sat in the corner seat by the window, looking placidly out, watching . . .. She would take off her gloves, which were of the best quality, as the waitresses affirmed, and flex those soft gray eyebrows . . .’
And so on. Still useful for short stories, but something of a burden on the reader who has to remember these details. Who is noticing all this, and is it relevant? No doubt police officers and portrait artists do make mental notes of passing strangers, but most of us take in only what we need to get through our busy lives. You may do better to build your character slowly, giving your reader just what is necessary scene by scene to explain the narrative. ‘She wasn’t pretty, but there was something about the manner, he thought: pleasing, a little girlish even, though she was in her thirties, he realized, dismissing the matter. He brought out his cell-phone, and was making his third call of the morning, when he noticed she was looking at him. . . . Too old to be wearing that short dress, he said to himself, as though he had some claim on her life. . . ’
Two last points: professional novelists often keep a ‘casting book’, where they jot down descriptions of characters dreamt up or met in real life. Into this large book they dip when the need appears for a character in their work. Detailed descriptions are also restricting, and many excellent novelists (Austen, James, Fromentin, etc.) keep them simple and vague for that reason. Readers like to create them in their imagination.
2. Dialogue
We covered dialogue in a previous post, but more important here is what others say to and of the character you’re building. If they call him spineless or calculating or a decent sort that those descriptions will be one aspect of his character. Those aspects may not be accurate—they’re acting as unreliable narrators, or seeing matters too much through their own perspective—but character need not be presented all at once, but grow slowly in the reader’s consciousness as the plot evolves.
3. Reactions of other characters to them.
Nothing works in advertising like the personal recommendation from someone we trust, and the same technique is open to the novelist. It may be direct as in popular fiction:
Reabus rubbed his chin. ‘Well, the only guy who’s going to measure up to that is Rayner,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Cost us, though.’
‘Red Rayner?’ said Gonzalez. ‘The guy the CIA ran out of Guatemala?’
‘They ran him out of Peru and Mexico, and every other trouble spot in Latin America. Only he’s still there, and the CIA still use him, because he’s the only operative the guerillas respect. The Marxists had him holed up in Cochabamba in ‘94, but that mean son-of-a-bitch took them out, one by one. . .’
Or more oblique, as in literary fiction:
Devlin was the impish figure that I’d met in my first day, and still someone who got things done by sinking into the background, only reemerging with an affable modesty when credits were handed out, but that crinkled face and air of bafflement he met each disaster with were no less fabrications than the reports he submitted to management, reports in which my supposed shortcomings were now being pored over. I’d misjudged that bland deviousness, and the first battle had gone to him.
4. Plot.
We learn more (and believe more) from watching people in action than listening to what they tell us about themselves. The novel is no different. Villains behave badly. Good guys do creditable things. If that good guy is also your viewpoint, you can enrich his character with thoughts, interior monologue and flashback. The reader knows the mainsprings of action, and what fears and difficulties had to be overcome. If the good guy is not the viewpoint, then other characters can comment on the action, tell each other how it contrasts with expectations, etc.
Heroes make things happen, but they’re not miracle workers. If yours rescues the girl from the frozen lake, make sure that you’ve shown your reader that he’s a skating ace, and courageous, well before that scene. Explanations inserted at the climax to a story look contrived, and are unforgivable when the word processor allows easy modification of the script. Likewise coincidences. The boy needs to meet girl several times, and in ways that seem natural, before the romance blossoms. The reader has suspected their involvement, but delaying the moment gives you time to flesh out their characters more, and builds suspense.
read more . . .Citation
Whether you write for the web, or publish in traditional books and magazines, you’ll be using other people’s ideas, phrases and information. That’s inevitable: you can’t personally have done all the spade work that lies behind your words. Unless the material is for a general and/or popular audience, you should quote sources whenever you:
use quotes
paraphrase
use an idea that lacks general currency
make specific reference to another’s work
develop someone else’s ideas further.
Academic publications have strict rules to avoid plagiarism, but citation also helps to:
give credit where credit is due
make your own contributions more apparent
indicate the amount of research you’ve done
provide support for your ideas
Citation should include information about: the author, the title of the work, the name and location of the company that published your copy of the source, the date your copy was published, the page numbers of the material you are borrowing, the date you accessed the material (in the case of websites). How this information is presented depends on the publication: use other articles as a template if there’s not a ‘guide to authors’ in the publication concerned. Unfortunately, publishers also have their own house rules, and their are marked differences between countries and languages. If you write for many outlets, it may pay you to a. use citation software and b. purchase a proper handbook: detailed citation can be complicated. Make a habit of recording citations properly at the time, of course, and at least use the APA or MLA systems failing all else.
You’ll find a lot of material on the Internet, but these may help:
read more . . .Dialogue
Dialogue
After plot, nothing gives novelists so much trouble as dialogue. It never seems perfect, and editing—tightening, shaping, recasting—only creates more possibilities. Are there general principles, and when do you stop tinkering?
First: dialogue is part of your novel, and increasingly important part in mainstream work, but still only part. If the plot doesn’t hold up, or the characters are unbelievable, then no dialogue brilliance will save the work. Listen to the scripts of good films: many are surprisingly flat and cliché-ridden, giving no hint of personality to their characters, but the stars breathe life into the hackneyed words. Or get an actor friend to read a page of your work, or anything else: you’ll be surprised what a trained voice can do. Be a little wary, therefore, of the ‘reading aloud test’: that your dialogue isn’t convincing may lie more with your acting skills than the dialogue as such. Nonetheless, a dialogue should serve one or more of the following. It:
1. discloses the speaker’s personality, background and motivations.
2. carries the plot, often creating a climax and/or decisive twists in the story.
3. heightens tension or conflict between the speakers.
4. continually and subtly changes the relationship between the speakers.
5. reminds the reader of what may have been forgotten.
6. foreshadows events or personality aspects.
7. establishes mood or tone.
8. stimulates the reader’s curiosity.
9. breaks up long stretches of text.
Dialogue is not a transcript of actual speech, as you can tell by listening to the radio: you’ll know within a few minutes whether it’s a recording or a play. Dialogue is a carefully crafted and distilled version of actual speech, employing conventions that vary with genre and the author’s intentions. In contrast, actual speech is more spasmodic and untidy: full of run-ons, repetitions and throwaway phrases (actually, perhaps, right, like, I mean . . most of which can be removed from dialogue unless acting as speech markers.) Real speech also rather static: back and forth go remark and response. Dialogue generally needs to be indirect. In place of the boring:
He: Have a good weekend?
She: Yes thanks, and you?
He: Got the garden sorted, at long last.
She: Expect it needed doing.
It will go more as:
He: Have a good weekend?
She: David got around to fixing the shed. Fell off and injured himself.
He: Seriously?
She: No. We’ll have to think of something else.
Characters don’t necessarily play ball:
She: When are you going to get that shed fixed?
He: After the holiday. I thought we could try Spain.
She: You said that last year.
He: We went to Italy, remember. Your choice, and we got food poisoning.
She: Richard, listen a moment, will you? Dewar’s will deliver the roofing material. You just have to give up one Saturday.
He: Well, you do it then. Someone’s got to plan the holiday properly.
Or even answer each other:
She: When are you going to get that shed fixed?
He: Is that the time?
She: Dewar’s will deliver the roofing material. You just have to give up one Saturday.
He: Darling, you do whatever you want. Expect there’s a hammer in the basement somewhere.
She: If you’re really going to do it.
He: Did you know the bank’s cancelled the overdraft facility? Yep, can’t even use the credit cards.
Characters don’t generally address one another with their names, even in group discussion, and you’ll have to find other ways of indicating who is speaking. Commonly this is done with he said / I said, he said said / she said, character1 said / character2 said etc. speech tags, but a richer approach is through speech markers. Consider:
Vocabulary specific to the character: I always think, I mean it’s kinda gross, And Bob’s your uncle again, etc.,
Speech that’s unusually tight: Sort it! Got that? Tuesday without fail, etc.
Speech that’s unusually loose: I wonder if I could ask you, Which means all things considered if you follow my thread of course that, etc.
Words specific to a profession: Abrasions to the right temporal lobe, Interpersonal relationship skills, etc.
Sarcasm: You can read, can’t you? Running the company, are we now? etc.
Run-on sentences: So there I was . . . and you’d have thought . . but no, not for his highness . . . and that’s always the way with these . . . isn’t it? I mean . . . etc.
Grammar: If I was you, Because he nice man, So me I think big, etc.
Omit words: So I think myself, When I was boy, etc.
Indicate class or ethnicity: May I know your name? Now my dear boy, Get lost, etc.
Characteristic throwaway phrases: Look here old sport, Know what I mean? Like we’re old friends, aren’t we? etc.
Vocabulary inappropriate to the background of context: I mean like albeit
that you’re a big-shot, Are you the perpetrator of this particular foul-up? etc.
Dialect (just the odd word): Just a wee bairn, So I says to the old sugar and strife, etc.
None of this should be overdone, or make difficulties for the reader who generally reads by sight, not by enunciating each word of the dialogue. Feelings drive novels, and dialogue is no exception. Only use words that seem natural to character and situation, therefore, but cut even these when emotion goes off the boil.
read more . . .
Employing Flashbacks
Flashbacks take your reader into a scene that happened before the present. Because that interrupts the narrative, and endangers the illusion of scenes passing before the reader’s gaze, flashbacks need to be used carefully and sparingly.
In general, a flashback should:
1. add materially to the present scene: provide motivation, richness of character, suspense.
2. introduce an immediate scene and not offstage narrative.
3. move immediately from the present to the flashback.
4. start with an arresting sentence.
A problem arises immediately with ‘had’. Since most stories are written in the past tense, the logical tense for flashbacks would be the pluperfect. That destroys the continuity and immediacy of the scene, however, and it’s better to quickly signal a flashback and then continue in the simple past tense. Instead of:
I was always in trouble at school. Even on rare good days I had had the distinct impression that the girls were laughing at me . . .
Consider:
I was always in trouble at school. Even on good days I knew the girls were laughing at me . . .
Dialogue is useful. You can introduce a flashback with dialogue:
‘Truth is, Sue, I wasn’t exactly a hotshot at school.’
An understatement. How many times was Roberts standing in the corner . . . ?
Or go direct into dialogue from a flashback.
I was not good at school.
‘Roberts are you the most singularly dull and obtuse boy in this class? Stand up. . .’
To conclude a flashback you can simply leave a blank line and pick up the previous scene. Or you can refer to the flashback in some way:
But that was then. Today’s Chairman wasn’t giving anything away.
Then I moved to Baltimore, and everything changed.
I was still thinking of those humiliations when I saw Delmot’s eyes come off my face.
Flashbacks can even generate suspense:
‘Go on, little man.’
I thought of the doctor’s advice.
‘You talk fancy. Put your fists up.’
Don’t get into a scrap, or heated. Your heart won’t take it. He took off his glasses to stare at me, and I knew it was serious.
‘Thought you wouldn’t. Try this for size’, he said, giving me a sharp prod in the stomach. . .
read more . . .Openers
Openings
No doubt nonfiction is easier. Your prospective purchasers can glance at the cover and turn to the review snippets on the back cover, which will be sensible and reliable. Then they’ll note the contents to see what’s covered, start on a chapter heading or two to see what depth the work goes into, and look at the references to check how thoroughly the research has been done. Finally, if sensible, they’ll open the book at random and ensure that the style appeals, that you can can impart what they need to know in a clear, friendly and engrossing matter. You’d expect no less.
Fiction is another matter. The cover needs to look professional, but readers have long ago discounted such glowing phrases as ‘a hard-hitting follow-up to the award-winning’, ‘unputdownable’, ‘knows how to tell a good story brilliantly’, and the like. Unless you’re already a favourite author, they’ll flip through to the opening paragraph, perhaps read the first page, in very rare cases read the first three pages, but that’s about it. You have a few minutes only to make your sale.
Nonfiction readers look for information. Fiction readers look for emotion. An obvious point, but sometimes overlooked by would-be novelists. Readers want a world created that is far more more real, engrossing and significant than the one they live in. Created: evoked, conjured up, built by sustained craft and inspiration into something they can happily inhabit and return to for subsequent rereading. Created does not therefore mean reported on. Nor are novels a means of self-expression, real or imagined.
Nineteenth-century novels moved slowly. Whole pages were devoted to setting the scene, and to carefully delineating the characters as one by one they stepped on-stage. Except perhaps in literary novels, or the superior historical romance, no one today has patience with such slow openings. Films are the preferred model, and by looking carefully at what appears every night on your TV screen you’ll begin to understand how it’s done. Many start some exciting point in the story. A spectacular bank heist. A drugs swap in a seedy nightclub. The schoolchild reluctantly going up the stairs to her stepmother’s flat. The wedding party where the guests are already a little drunk. The body being weighted and dropped into the canal. The forties Packard crunching up the gravel to the big house. The farewell party at the corporate headquarters. The oily water reflecting the derelict unloading facilities. Etc. All are telling the viewer something that needs to be known: the genre, the period, the setting, the preferred audience. Equally, all are setting up expectations that will be developed and realized as the story unfolds. There are standard novel openings taught in writing schools, and a host of books on the subject, but the easiest and most enjoyable way of starting your novel is often to imagine it filmed. In this way you can sketch in quickly what the opening scene must depict, and avoid that dreaded stumbling block: the opening sentence. Forget about it. Just write, condense, and then remove the dross. Most writing is rewriting, and the most effective tool remains blue pencil.
Novels take a long time to read. If you’re in a hurry to find opening sentences then you may do worse than consult short stories, which are more to the point, and where every word must count. We know immediately what to expect with: The revolver felt heavy, but the trigger was well-oiled. . . Whatever else could be said of him, Hubert Dreaver was a responsible man. . . When I think of Aunt Jayne’s house, across the foothills of memory, and go up the unpainted steps. . . Bernstein was my best friend. . . Open Day is not a favourite on any Head Teacher’s calendar, and . .
read more . . .Novel Writing: Point Of View
Point of view is the character whose eyes are observing what is happening. Partly this is convention (what readers expect) and partly commonsense (you can’t portray what your point of view can’t observe). You have a choice of first, second or third person, and the pros and cons of each point of view are easily grasped:
Third Person Narrative
Narrative in the third person is told as though someone were recounting it, facing an audience. In the twentieth century, this point of view is often limited to what one person could theoretically see, though that view may include outward aspects of personality the characters are not aware of. In previous centuries, the “third person omniscient” perspective was more popular, and here the storyteller held all the cards, including what the characters thought, felt or planned to do. An intermediate point of view is the “third person objective”, which allows the novelist to present all the characters, wherever they may be, but not to know their inner thoughts: the "fly on the wall" approach. Other variations are possible: readers may be given access to the inner motivations of some characters but not to others, leaving those unknown quantities as intriguing or threatening aspects of the landscape.
The third person narrative is the most flexible point of view but generally places some distance between reader and character. Even if inner motivations are given readers, it is difficult to identify fully with a long cast of characters, however engagingly drawn.
Second Person Narrative
The second person, where the reader is addressed as "you" throughout, is difficult to manage, though experimental fiction sometimes takes the reader by the hand, like a Virgil guiding Dante through a strange world. The present tense is more often used, and that separation between reader and narrator can operate as the tension in good dialogue.
First Person Narrative
The first person point of view sacrifices omniscience for a greater intimacy with one character: the readers see the world through his or her eyes, feel as that person feels, and share his or her motivations and dreams. That character is commonly the protagonist, but may be a close friend or wise elder. The author speaks through the narrator, which brings intensity but also the danger of losing what novels need in terms of plot, dialogue, balance and overall shape. Occasionally, the narrator may directly address the reader, but this breaks the tacit understanding, and imparts a distance or unreality to events: it is rarely done in modern fiction. In autobiographical fiction, the narrator is clearly the author, and may or may not be reliable.
Further Points
Controlling the point of view is essential for the intensity of a story, but the matter can be subtler than the above suggests. The third person is much used for action novels and commercial fiction, as the narrator can go anywhere, tightening the subplots, and adding to the suspense as characters come up against obstacles the reader is expecting. The difficulty is keeping the reader engaged with the characters, not as devices of plot but as breathing people whose aims readers sympathize with. What they experience, even simple observations, has to be real and important to the characters, and not third person observations from a neutral perspective.
It is possible to mix first-person points of view, but this is rarely successful within a scene, and even changes between chapters must have some reason if readers are not to become confused. Naturally, since the narrator has clearly survived, the first person point of view is rarely used for thrillers, and there are also problems with the narrator’s ego. If he comes over as too introspective he may seem weak, and so forfeit the reader’s interest. If, on the other hand, he continually kicks his way through life, or presents his views too strongly, he may come over as a braggart, and be equally a turn off. It’s usually better for readers to build their own sense of character from the varied response of others in the novel, having the narrator’s self perspective recast by what others say to or of him. More depth is created this way, though the narrator is not then entirely reliable. Finally, whatever point of view is adopted, the author must care for his characters, emotionally live their lives, dreams and setbacks, or the reader will simply close the book.
read more . . .Novel Writing: Plot or Character-Driven?
Should your novel be plot-driven, or operate through the motivations of its characters? Your novel will end up being both, of course, necessarily: a plot to keep readers turning the pages, and the characters that are believable. More than believable: your novel must have characters your readers identify with, share their excitement and hopes, feel that their goals are worthy, and that failure to reach them is too awful to contemplate. You’ll need to intermesh plot and character so completely that one automatically conjures up the other.
Here lies the failure of many literary novels. Brilliantly written, but falling over on the very first test: sympathetic characters. If we don’t care about the suspicions of the neurotic invalid on the ground floor of the decaying tenement, or feel the world will end if junior doesn’t make it to Harvard, or that the return of missing Modigliani will be a triumph at the local art gallery, or a thousand and one such contrivances, then the novel fails. On the world stage, none of these things matters, but they must to the characters, and we must be drawn into their lives sufficiently that they do to us.
Nonetheless, if good novel are strong on both aspects, there are still important differences in writing them. Commercial novels, those giving their authors a living wage, are more likely to be initially constructed as plot-driven, because such novels are more quickly written, particularly with software now available. The main story line is devised, characters found to act the parts, and then the setbacks and advances with subplots are woven in. When everything has been thought through, right down to what each scene must achieve, then the sentences can go to work, essentially joining up the dots. Both planning and writing are time-consuming, but months don’t need to be set aside for the characters to mature and interact with each other, when all too often they will refuse to cooperate, creating only dead-ends or yawing gaps. Character-driven writing is more usual in literary novels, but the typical sales of a few thousand copies annually will not keep the wolf from the door, even when supplemented by reviewing and late night appearances.
Many genres are hybrids. If the author has struck gold with his detective hero, then another mystery in the series is quickly plotted without sacrificing the initial appeal. Heroes may indeed grow as the series develops, just as most novels require. We don’t want pages of description before the marionettes are wound up, nor could we absorb the details. We expect characters to divulge their personalities and motivations through action, usually in conflict created by the plot, with sufficient description to send them forth as real people. Once again, software can help to introduce actions and character details at the appropriate moment, or to remind the reader of what’s passed some chapters back. No doubt too much detail prevents the reader imagining properly, but some matters do need to be brought out. The senseless murder, the bank robbery on an empty vault, the hero who throws it all away without reason are not only baffling but unsatisfactory. Life is fragmentary and confusing, but novels are generally expected to make good or explore some of those deficiencies.
To categorize novels as essentially plot- or character-driven is also to overlook their larger dimensions. Novels have explored issues of conscience (Dostoevsky), social reform (Dickens), class barriers (Austen) and racial issues (Baldwin). Novels have explore the human heart in love (Turgenev) consumed by ambition (Balzac) by jealousy (Proust) or by class interest (Lampedusa). Some novels have no real plot (Bunin) and some have no real characters (Kafka). Many carry the innermost hopes and feelings of their creators, which is why authors are advised to write the novels they actually enjoy reading. Intellectual slumming is quickly detected, and literary novels cannot be createdl with the crude (though effective) devices of the successful thriller.
read more . . .Dealing with Printing Companies
After your spats with editors, writers and other thin-skinned and sometimes difficult types, dealing with printing companies should be a doddle. Nonetheless, even today, printing is a highly complex industry, where professionals naturally prefer to work with other professionals. If you’re not fully conversant with the business, then you may want to consult the books listed below. Or find someone who will act as middleman: many book cover designers will act for you, ringing round for quotes, and seeing the book through the press: they’re often happier by being enabled to see their work come out as intended. Or you may want to take a standard printing package: not very flexible perhaps, but generally safe. And if you’re suddenly charged with seeing your company’s annual report through the press, then it may be wise not to change printers but work through the individual who’s familiar with your needs.
Printers want a steady, trouble-free flow of work through their machines, and an equally steady flow of cheques from satisfied companies. Business largely comes from repeat orders and word of mouth recommendations. Anything that interrupts the workflow harms their reputation, and costs management time to sort out. Often it’s a loss-loss situation, leaving both parties aggrieved. If your book is printed without the title-page, and that title-page was in the original file sent them, the printing company will reprint at their expense. If it’s the third appendix that’s missing, and the file was sent under separate cover because you were working on some last minute corrections, then blame is less clear. Even if email drew attention to the fact that the appendix would be sent in a few days, the information may have been missed, or not added to the job number properly. The printer will probably pay some compensation, but may not reprint unless you’re HarperCollins, or yours is an account they particularly want. Make sure both you and the printer understand what’s being requested. Explore anything unclear, including the prepress cost of corrections. Even if it’s a repeat order it does no harm to spell out the requirements: the employee normally handling your account may be on sick-leave, or have moved on.
The price quoted is based on the information you provide, and this information should specify:
Deadline: when you need to have it.
Quantity: how many pieces you need.
Paper stock: how you want your job to look.
Coating: whether you need varnish, lamination, etc.
Extra charges that may apply for corrections, new file submissions, additional proofing or short deadline issues.
Delivery needs or warehousing.
The printer will tell you what file types are accepted, but particular settings are often needed for PDF submissions, which your printer will advise on, often through his website. Files are generally sent by email if under 2MB, and FTP if larger. Again enquire. Get several quotes.
Printers are craftsmen, a very different mentality to literary types, and, like all good craftsman, they take a professional pride in their work. For most of the time, commonly over 99% of jobs, work comes out at an acceptable standard, often superbly so. Common areas of trouble are colour reproduction and laminated covers. You’ll get a proof, and the printer will do his best to match that proof, but the match is generally not perfect with CMYK printing. If colour is critical—perhaps for your company logo—they you may want to consider spot colour, expensive though it is with several colours. Your printer will advise if you put him in the picture. Again with lamination: covers do curl, as you can see in your local bookshop, and the printer cannot produce better than his equipment will allow. Be fair and realistic. It’s a long-term relationship you want with your printer, and the more you understand his business the smoother that relationship will be.
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Designing Book Covers
Like everything else in the arts, design is a personal matter, but some book covers do attract the right customer, and many do not. If you’ve written your publisher’s proposal correctly, then you’ll know what market sector selling into, and what covers here typically look like. The Practical Guide to Pet Health is not a sober academic treatise, and a novel will indicate not only the subject matter but the genre and level of readership. A major publisher will have worked out those aspects by the first few paragraphs of your manuscript, and there may be little you can do when the cover design is presented. If you’re publishing yourself, or working with a smaller and more flexible publishing house, then the following may help:
1. Identify the market you’re selling into— i.e. not simply crime but what sub-genre: thrillers, exotic, highbrow, police detective, etc. Who are your favourite authors in this genre, and what do their covers look like? Match the contents but also be original.
2. Who are your targeted readers? You should have a good picture of their tastes, income, hobbies and preferred reading matter (newspapers and magazines as well as books). Books are bought as much for show as reading: would your book cover sit gracefully in their Texas ranch, suburban house, town apartment?
3. Get advice from fellow authors at book fairs, workshops and Internet sites. What worked for them, and what didn’t?
4. Look at covers in your market sector, dozens of them, and work out which you like and why. Consider amalgamating the best into a template for your own work. You’ll need some design skills, but even a rough mockup will assist a professional illustrator if you decide to hand over (the illustrator will also scan the market sector, or should do).
5. Ensure your design scales properly for reproduction in magazines, Amazon and other outlets.
6. Proof and double, double check the cover before going to print. Everything. Get feedback from folk in the publishing business.
7. Test your cover’s pulling power. As marketers say: there are companies that continually test, and those which go out of business. Consider placing alternative designs on your website, and monitoring results carefully with split testing. Change the cover that appears on Amazon, and see how sales are affected. Experiment with friends: what do they think of the various possibilities?
read more . . .Colour with Publish on Demand
Yes, colour-printing is possible with POD (print on demand). The technology exists, and more companies are offering the facility. Before ordering something from your favourite cover illustrator, however, you need to understand the limitations of Lightning Source technology still used by most POD companies.
Colour printing is a skilled craft which requires—besides experience and design flair—close control of all steps in the process. These must be set properly: 1. the colour monitor, 2. the background lighting conditions of the designer’s studio, 3. the colour management system by which the document is converted into an PDF file, and 4. the printing machine that will be employed. Steps 3 and 4 are especially technical, and a lot can clearly go wrong, though the attractive colour magazine that regularly accompanies your Sunday paper demonstrates just what a superb job is done by professionals nowadays. Naturally, if your cover is being designed by one of these professionals, all these aspects will be looked after, and you can simply await the sample copy to arrive on your desk.
Or possibly so. Most POD companies in fact offer a set of cover templates and/or have a list of recommended cover designers, who understand that Lightning Source is not standard CMYK offset printing, but in fact 1. uses a low resolution of 300 pixels per inch, and 2. converts the submitted file to a screened image. That means that curves and diagonals can have jagged edges, and many typefaces may look fuzzy. What’s to be done? Order a book from the POD company to check. If you use your own illustrator, get him or her to contact the POD company, and design accordingly. A cover for offset printing may not serve for POD, just as trade paperbacks will use more sophisticated cover designs than are feasible with mass market paperbacks.
If you’re designing your own covers, these suggestions may help:
1. Calibrate your monitor: probably to around 6500 K. Consult the documentation that came with the monitor and/or the references below.
2. Work in some area of subdued and constant lighting source.
3. Master the colour separation aspects of whatever programs you are using: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign or Xpress.
4. Check by creating colour profiles.
5. Use simple designs and more basic typefaces.
6. Be especially careful of bar-codes, which sometimes come out less sharp than they should be. Consider having them added professionally, or designing the back cover in simple black and white. You can also buy adhesive bar-codes.
7. Talk to the POD company about the Colour Management System settings they require. For simple black and white printing you can convert your MS Word file with something like Cute PDF and submit to the POD company with a fair chance of everything being fine. Colour is another matter: check.
8. Technology is improving rapidly. Consider waiting a couple of years for better presses to become available and/or more widely used.
9. Rough out the cover yourself, but hand over to a professional illustrator for the final product.
read more . . .Dealing With Editors
Editors are people. Many are among the most helpful and charming you’d ever hope to meet. Others, putting matters mildly, are self-opinionated, ignorant, ill-bred and/or plain daft. All who get their work much into print will have their own lists.
How do you turn the last group into people you enjoy associating with? Probably you can’t, since they’ve been pushed to the brink of madness years ago, but you can save yourself a doctor’s prescription and the time wasted in drafting incendiary ripostes, by being soberly effective and professional.
From my various bouts as editor over the years, I’d list these as things to avoid:
1. Paying no attention to the publication’s guidelines: not taking the trouble to read a few issues, and/or slant work accordingly in content, style, word length, tone, etc.
2. Pestering with phone calls, emails, letters, manuscript revisions and explanations well before the stated evaluation period is up.
3. Submitting work at quite the wrong time: magazines general like to put their Christmas edition to bed by July, etc.
4. Changing everything when only small changes have been requested, not making changes clear, not making the changes at all or on time.
5. Not addressing the editor by name in proposals, or briefly acknowledging courtesies, help or advice given.
In the non-commercial field—experimental fiction, academic articles, poetry—matters are much, much worse. If ever I think of launching a new publication, common sense intervenes and tells me what I face: a spasmodic and smiling amateurism that places the burden of work squarely on my shoulders: rescheduling for delays, correcting, rewriting, holding the space while ever more bewildering changes and improvements come in. ‘What do you mean you can’t typeset the whole magazine again now?’ All editors have their horror stories, hilarious only in retrospect.
As a writer, you’re selling something into a hopelessly over-subscribed market, where everyone’s too busy to give advice, or read beyond a few sentences if the proposal isn’t coming good. That also applies to online publications. Strange to say, an editor does not want to put in an half an hour’s work on your behalf if you haven’t bothered to spend five minutes clicking through his site. In most cases he won’t. Life is short, and the occasional kindness can descend into a well-meaning but infuriatingly myopic correspondence, one that leaves both parties feeling confused and hard done by.
read more . . .Typesetting with Microsoft Word
General
Most sites will tell you to never use Microsoft Word for typesetting, but Quark Xpress or, preferably, InDesign. They’re wrong. Simple documents can be typeset to a near-professional standard with Word, but you must use the full facilities of the program—far more than the average user is familiar with.
Certainly there are many situations where Word will fail dismally, e.g. graphics-heavy documents like glossy magazines and flyers. Word allows line spacing in increments only down to 0.5 pt, where a DTP will offer 0.1 pt. There is no word spacing per se (only kerning), and you cannot easily flow text round pre-positioned graphics. Colour separations are another limitation. Most important of all, InDesign will typeset to better colour (evenness of spacing) than Word: a small difference that the average reader won’t notice but printers and booksellers may. You can see what’s entailed by looking at the Aeonix page, but note that the Word example is not a fair one: the ‘rivers’ and text looseness can be corrected with the typesetting tips given below.
On the plus side, Word is much better at producing footnotes and indexes than Xpress or InDesign, though not up to the standard of Framemaker or Corel Ventura, which you should consider for long technical manuals and the like.
There are many versions of Word. Window programs are generally better than Mac ones. Later versions offer more features but are not so customizable. Jack Lyons prefers Word 95, and then Word 2000. Menus differ slightly between the versions, and the menu steps below apply to Word 2000, which we use.
Document Preparation
Start by setting up the document logically. Jack Lyon’s articles will guide you, but briefly:
1. Compile chapters into a single document.
2. Set the page size: File>Page Setup>Paper Size.
3. Set up columns and margins: File>Page Setup>Margins.
4. Set headers and footers: Layout>Header
5. Insert page breaks at chapter ends, turning off “Link to previous” for both headers and footers: Insert>Break.
6. Set “Section start” to “New page: Layout>Section Layout.
7. Insert page numbers: Insert>Page Numbers.
8. Use the "Show next" to go to the next header: Layout>Header>Show Next.
9. Turn off automatic repagination: Insert>Page Numbers>Format.
10. Check, if you delete a page break, that headers and footers have not been messed up.
11. Check the text spreads look good; View>Print Layout.
12. Tick "Do full justification like WordPerfect 6x for Windows" in the Preferences menu: Tools>Options>Compatibility.
13. Choose the typeface and set the size from the dropdown list, adding a .5 manually if desired: Format>Font.
14. Set the leading or line spacing: Format>Paragraph>Indents and Spacing: set Line spacing to Exactly, and enter value.
15. Set Page and Line Breaks: Format>Paragraph: Line spacing.
16. Create, test and modify Styles: Format>Style.
read more . . .Academic Publishing
If packaging sells products, no one seems to have told the academic book industry. When I look at my own library, put together over many years in many countries, with volumes I use daily, and wouldn’t be without, I find only one constant in all the confusing layouts and book sizes — a complete lack of imagination. Few covers can have taken more than a day to create, and typography is equally skimped. As Highet remarked: {1} ‘Even the format of most classical books is ugly. The essential Teubner series, containing practically every Greek and Latin work, with Latin prefaces and a list of manuscript variations and conjectures, is hideous. The Oxford Classical Texts and the Budé series is better, but they scarcely attract the reader. Why is it one can buy an edition of Donne or Goethe which is a pleasure to handle, and can hardly find a Juvenal or Euripides which does not look like a medical text-book?’
That was written sixty years ago, and medical text-books have vastly improved in the interval, as indeed have most books in the sciences and technology — helpful illustrations, decent layout, a touch of humour. But scholarly works? I pick up Roy Lewis’s On Reading French Verse, {2} which is perhaps the most useful general study of the subject, and find everything wrong. The cover displays white text on dark blue: nothing more, with no attempt even to choose an appropriate typeface or font size. Clarendon Press have set it with narrow interior margins, and with a line spacing that makes its long paragraphs almost impossible to read. Cheapskate it looks, and cheapskate it is when paper accounts for only a few percent of costs. Equally repellent are the old Faber and Faber poets series, with their wretched ff motive on the covers, and the layout looking as though set on the office typewriter. {3} Worse even, if that is possible, is the Dramatists Play Service Inc.’s paperback edition of Richard Wilbur’s Phaedra, {4}which has the flimsy look of a parish magazine, but solemnly insists on ‘Racines’ (sic) PHAEDRA English verse translation by RICHARD WILBUR’ appearing on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the play.
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