Category Archives: General Writing Tips

Rekindling your writing mojo after taking an unplanned hiatus

Posted on December 8, 2015 | 2 comments

I’m a stickler for goals. I love them.

I love achieving them more.

But sometimes life gets in the way, and goals need to be realigned.

I’m currently 70,000 words into a 50,000 words YA science fiction novel. Yup, that was right – 20,000 words over goal, and I probably need another 15-20,000 to finish.

This was problem #1: I carefully planned out when I needed to finish my novel before my edits came back for ASHES IN THE SKY. Yes, I achieved my 50,000 words on time… but when I got there, my story wasn’t finished. So I kept writing—Even took a writer’s weekend in hopes of finishing the book before I needed to start editing again… but even that only got me smack up against the beginning of the climax, where my main character is staring down at her worst nightmare come true.

A very BAD place to stop writing.

At the most important place in my novel to KEEP WRITING, I was forced to stop for a two-week marathon run of editing, which in of itself would have been fine. But then life problem #2 happened. A huge project at my day job had me working through my precious lunch breaks, and even far into the evenings, leaving my precious characters stagnant, facing horrible trauma and impending doom for an additional two weeks.

An entire month without writing something new

It was a month to the day when I finally got back to my story, and I sighed seeing where I had left my characters. So I did the only thing I really could do.

I opened up to page one, and I did an editing run.

You should always finish your book before editing! Yes, this is true, but after being away for so long, I needed to re-familiarize myself with the characters, the plot, the tone, and the voice (Especially since I had spent a few week’s back in Jess Martinez’s quirky head)

The deep edit on those 70,000 words took about a week, and even then, I found myself at a loss when I came to the end.

Was this book still inside me? With the kind of tension build I created over all those chapters, would I be able to deliver the goods in the climax?

I knew I had to shake it off, but instead, I kept going back to earlier chapters and revising something else.

Then, finally, I got back to the last scene that I’d written a month ago. That first sentence was the hardest sentence that I’ve ever written. It took me about an hour to type 100 words. Horrible.

Welcome back, muse!

But then the magic muse finally took hold. The characters reignited in my brain. I jumped back on the rollercoaster, ready to sprint to the finish line with them.

Yes, I am excited about this story again. I’m excited to get it out in the world.

All I had to do, was force myself through those pesky 100 words to get myself started.

Yup, feels good to be hanging out with imaginary people again.

You can find Fire in the Woods at all these awesome bookish places!

Catch up with me on social media!

2 Comments

Posted in Author Advice, General Writing Tips

Tagged ashes in the sky, Cable, editing, Fire in the Woods book 2, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, writing, writing slump

Writing (or not writing) in Omnipotent POV (Or is that Head Hopping?)

Posted on September 18, 2015 | 10 comments

I recently was contacted by a friend who I did a beta read for, asking for help.

She wrote her manuscript from an “omnipotent” point of view, which means you are inside every character’s head, and hear all their thoughts.

Apparently I was not the only one who cautioned her against this. She asked for tips on how to fix her manuscript to not make it sound like “head hopping”.

As I typed up my lengthy response, I figured it might be beneficial to others as well. Hope this helps … and before anyone starts yelling, remember that SEVERAL beta readers had told her that the head hopping in her manuscript was jarring.

This was my response:

Omnipotent POV is very hard these days. In my opinion, it is a very “old” kind of writing. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Many classics are written in this fashion. The problem with omnipotent in contemporary writing is that readers have become accustomed to a deeper experience. And from what I’ve seen, the deeper the better. This can only be done effectively with one POV per scene. More than that and the reader gets confused, and it is harder for them to immerse themselves in the story.

When I was trying to defend my own Omnipotent manuscript a few years ago, (a mutual friend) recommended a romance novel to me, written by a best selling author that had sold a gazillion copies. I read it, but to be honest, even though she was trying to help me defend omnipotent, it made me completely change my mind. The “head hopping” was far more distracting than I ever thought it would be reading a professional book.

All this to say… that most (not all) publishers will be more comfortable with third person or first person POV, and having only one POV per chapter (or a scene break, but I personally prefer one per chapter

Has omnipotent been done? Of course. Has it sold? Yup. Is it as good as deep POV from a single character? – debatable, and depends on what you think is good. From what I have seen, It looks like the people doing it are well established, and publishers (and readers) will buy their books no matter what.

For newbies like us, you might want to be cautious.

However, if you love the omnipotent, and think you NEED it, go for it! It might end up excellent. You could start a new trend.

(Note: I did show her in her novel that almost every scene cold have easily been written in one character’s POV, or switching up with a scene break)

Just do so with caution, knowing that it could potentially be an instant deal breaker for some pubs and agents. (As any POV could be, but more so than the more accepted methods these days.)

I did read an article written by an agent last year (cannot remember who is was, sorry) that said that omnipotent was “lazy writing” and put it out there in the category of manuscripts with show verses tell issues

Will everyone think that way? No, of course not.

Again, this is just to make you realize what you might be up against. If you do choose to do omnipotent, it needs to flow fluidly from one character to another so it is not jarring. I think this is something that will just take a lot of practice until you get it right

Best of luck whatever you decide!

Catch up with me on social media!

10 Comments

Posted in Author Advice, General Writing Tips

Tagged Head hopping, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, narrator, omnipotent point of view, POV

Get Your Manuscript Past the Gatekeeper #8: Character Development Part 2

Posted on August 3, 2015 | 3 comments

Based on personal experience as a first-reader intern for a literary agency, I’m sharing what can get your manuscript past the gatekeeper (the intern!) and into the hands of the agent.

Here are some notes Donna presented to the agent after reading a manuscript:

“The reader should have felt sympathy for the character. But we spend so much time in his head, and not enough time watching him act or react. He is always telling us what he wants, thinks, hopes for, and the same thing over and over, perhaps expressed differently, but the same idea or concept. Therefore, he often comes across as whiny and not all that capable. We need to see him go from hapless tween to reluctant hero to hero.”

Could your characters be one-dimensional?

Ask yourself:

Are your characters people we are being told about? We need to get a sense of their personality or what they fear, or what they are capable of from an emotional or physical standpoint. We can’t see this if mostly the narrator tells us.

TIPS: *The kinds of characters that have a history, actions, and reactions are the most well-developed – and the most enjoyable to read. Using the senses to show character is a great way to do this.
*Is your main character always having one emotion or the other? Like being shown as either angry or super sad. How else can he feel? Show him feeling other things. Look for repetitive sections where he is telling us what he feels and change to action. SHOW him reacting vs. TELLING us what’s in his head.

*Ground the reader in the beginning to a character’s description. When a new character enters the story describe them most richly upon entrance.

*Do a global search for your characters actions. Is your character always throwing their hair back? Snapping their fingers? Tapping their feet? Chewing their lip? You need to mix it up a little bit.

Now go. Work on building characters to care about! It may help you get past the gatekeeper.

About Donna: Donna Galanti is the author of A Human Element and A Hidden Element (Imajin Books), the first two award-winning, bestselling books in the paranormal suspense Element Trilogy, and the middle grade fantasy adventure series Joshua and The Lightning Road (Month9Books). Donna is a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers the Big Thrill magazine and blogs at Project Mayhem. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family in an old farmhouse. Visit her at www.donnagalanti.com.

About Joshua and the Lightning Road:

Twelve-year-old Joshua Cooper learns the hard way that lightning never strikes by chance when a bolt strikes his house and whisks away his best friend—possibly forever. To get him back, Joshua must travel the Lightning Road to a dark world where stolen human kids are work slaves ruled by the frustrated heirs of the Greek Olympians who come to see Joshua as the hero prophesied to restore their lost powers. New friends come to Joshua’s aid and while battling beasts and bandits and fending off the Child Collector, Joshua’s mission quickly becomes more than a search for his friend—it becomes the battle of his life.

3 Comments

Posted in Author Advice, General Writing Tips

Tagged agent, Donna Galanti, editing, gatekeeper, how to get out of the slush pile, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, Joshua and the Lightning Road, Manuscript, Slush pile

Get Your Manuscript Past the Gatekeeper #3: Those pesky Unnecessary words

Posted on June 22, 2015 | 7 comments

Based on personal experience as a first-reader intern for a literary agency, I’m sharing what can get your manuscript past the gatekeeper (the intern!) and into the hands of the agent.

Okay, so, necessary words?

How can a word be unnecessary?

I mean, I wouldn’t have typed it if it weren’t necessary, right?

Here are some questions every writer should be asking themselves:

Is your narrative bogged down with adverbs?

Could dialogue or action could be used instead of multiple adverbs?

Does your writing feel cumbersome with lots of –ing words?

Here’s a bogged down example from my First Reader notes:

“Joan was a hot looking, strawberry blonde sophomore, with a singsong voice, and a phony air-headed attitude.”

TIPS:

Look to remove unnecessary internal dialogue that slows the pace down.
Make a list of repetitive words then go back and search and replace.
Do not report on every physical response. This can weigh the story down. Trust the reader to fill in the blanks with their own imagination.
Use one word that has the most meaning instead of several to describe something.
Do a global search for adverbs and point-of-view filter words (realized, noticed, saw, etc.)

Let it Resonate

Put the word conveying your most important concept at the end of the sentence or paragraph. The space after the period lets this word resonate for a deeper impact on the reader.
Examples

Before: “The creek raced along like a roaring monster in the rain.”

Compare that to this: “The creek raced along like a roaring monster.”

Before: We were supposed to work on our fort today, but because of the storm it was a muddy wasteland out back.

Compare that to this: We were supposed to work out back on our fort today, but because of the storm it was a muddy wasteland.

Oooh. “Muddy wasteland”. Much stronger, right? Keep this in mind as you end each sentence and paragraph. It strengthens your story.

TIP: Look for paragraphs or sentences where the important concept or heightened emotion is hidden in the middle then rearrange your sentences and/or words for the most powerful effect and polished narrative flow.

Now go. Polish your flow! It may help you get past the gatekeeper.

Don’t forget, Donna will be popping in to answer questions. This is a rare opportunity to ask someone that’s been inside the trenches, so please take advantage while I have her ~~all tied up~~ graciously offering her assistance for the good of all.

About Joshua and the Lightning Road:

7 Comments

Posted in General Writing Tips, Get past the gatekeeper

Tagged agent, Donna Galanti, editing, gatekeeper, intern, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, Joshua and the Lightning Road, manusctipt, writing

Get Your Manuscript Past the Gatekeeper #2: Uneven Narrative Flow

Posted on June 15, 2015 | 2 comments

Hi! I’m still feeling pink. So pink is me!

Today we’re going to talk about something almost everyone needs to deal with. This is one of those topics that has to do with “art”. Writing a novel isn’t about just slapping words on a page. You need to create a scene and inject mood with only words. Let’s looks at this a bit…

Based on personal experience as a first-reader intern for a literary agency, I’m sharing what can get your manuscript past the gatekeeper (the intern!) and into the hands of the agent.

My First Reader Notes on Uneven Narrative Flow :

“The manuscript needs a careful eye to look for run-on sentences. Many sentences could also be re-arranged to smooth out the narrative flow by moving the end to the beginning and vice versa. And the writer needs to vary sentence type. This manuscript is filled with chunks of punchy, short sentences (making for a “jabby” read) and then chunks of long sentences. Overall, it was clunky to read.”

Is your prose “jabby?” Do you notice that you have too many punchy sentences in a row? Look to intermix them with longer sentences to give the reader a chance to breathe.

This might be hard for some people to pick out. In general, don’t use a lot of short and choppy unless you are trying to heighten the speed/action/ or tenseness of a story. Long sentences slow things down.

In general paragraphs, you should switch up a lot between long and short sentences. There are some programs out there that will scan your manuscripts to tell you when there are too many long and/or to many short sentences. You can use these to help you spot them until you are comfortable enough to “feel” the sentence structure on your own.

Sound good?

Now go and rock those sentences!

About Joshua and the Lightning Road:

2 Comments

Posted in General Writing Tips, Get past the gatekeeper, Road to Publication

Tagged agent, Donna Galanti, editing, inter, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, Joshua and the lightening road, Manuscript, submission

Get Your Manuscript Past the Gatekeeper #1: World Building

Posted on June 8, 2015 | 13 comments

Woo-hoo! As promised, here is the first of a running series of posts to help you “get past the gatekeeper” and have your submission read by the actual agent/editor you sent your baby to, and not just the intern. I’ll be popping in with my own comments. I’ll be in pink, because I feel totally pink today.

Are ya ready? Well, here we goooooo…

Based on personal experience as a first-reader intern for a literary agency, I’m sharing what can get your manuscript past the gatekeeper (the intern!) and into the hands of the agent.

Mistake number one:

ADDRESS WORLD BUILDING ISSUES

Note from Jennifer: World building! We’ve talked about this! We need to ground our readers in the setting, right? Well, that’s not just me yapping. Here it is coming from a lady who REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS for this very reason! Read on, fine folks, read on!

This was Donna’s feedback to the agent on the very first manuscript she read:

My First Reader Notes To The Agent: “The writer began with wonderful descriptive details drawing on all senses and then she just stopped – and I stopped reading. She stopped grounding us in the world of her story.”

Okay, stop here guys. Think this over a minute. And I mean be serious with yourself…

Could there be a richness missing in your manuscript? Answer questions like these: Where are we? Another town? A different world? Are these places what we know, but different? What are the differences?

We also need to ground the reader in the story, otherwise they are lost. Where are your characters in the scene?

EXAMPLES:

Are they outside? “The earth was all gravel beneath my feet.”

Are they in a tunnel? “The stale air threatened to choke me.”

Through dialogue you can show time and distance.

EXAMPLE: “Tom’s house was two miles away…takes a day’s walk to get there…I hadn’t been back since last fall.”

All stories happen somewhere. Whether you write fantasy, science fiction, or even about the “real world,” world building is key to creating a meaningful story. World building is so that your characters have a backdrop to live, work, and engage! Your favorite books, movies, and TV shows all involve world building. Putting the time into it will improve your writing and enrich your story. No need to give all the details…readers love to fill in the blanks with their imagination. One detailed street in a town can give us the entire town’s flavor.

World building is just as important for a contemporary teen story set in Wisconsin as it in an alien universe. Why? Because life in a Wisconsin small town is foreign to someone who grew up in the big city of L.A. or NYC. If your character puts cheese on his pie, we may understand that’s part of the world of his Wisconsin town, not L.A.

World building is more than “setting,” it covers everything in that world. Money, clothing, land boundaries, tribal customs, building materials, transportation, sex, food and more.

Remember, you’re not writing an encyclopedia but a story with flesh and blood characters put through challenges. Story comes first. World building supports the story.

WORLD BUILDING TIPS:

Create a story bible of the elements and details in your story.
Build as you go.
Inspiration? Use photos/cut-out collages.
Make sure your details are relevant and have meaning.
Not sure what to cut? Ask yourself when adding in world building elements to your story: does it move the plot along? Does it connect to the theme? Does it support the growth of the characters?
Draw a map to ground yourself and your readers, even if your story occurs in one place.
Build worlds that interest you.
World building supports mood, theme, conflict, character, culture, and setting.

Now go. Build your world! It may help you get past the gatekeeper.

Great stuff, huh? Donna will be popping in to answer questions. This is a rare opportunity to ask someone that’s been inside the trenches, so please take advantage while I have her ~~all tied up~~ graciously offering her assistance for the good of all.

About Joshua and the Lightning Road:

13 Comments

Posted in Author Advice, Biggest Mistakes New Writers Make, General Writing Tips, Gold Mine Manuscript, Road to Publication

Tagged Donna Galanti, gatekeeper, getting an agent, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, Joshua and the Lightning Road, polishing a manuscript, submitting

Finding the helpfulness in fun things. AKA: Fun and easy ways to improve your writing

Posted on May 1, 2015 | 11 comments

About four years ago I posted about a cool website called Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/) that will make a cloud of words from the most used words in your manuscript.

The words that you’ve used the most (AKA the words you may be overusing) will appear the biggest.

.
I don’t know what made me think of this suddenly, but I decided to drop the novel I am currently editing with my Month9Book editor into the program.

This is what spit out.

I guess I am not alone in struggling with overused words. I think everyone does to some extent. But I found this very enlightening.

.
The largest word is the word that appears the most frequently in the novel.
“David” was not a surprise. The novel is in first person, and Jess spends most of the novel with David.

Runners up

The runners up, though, are cause for concern. “Eyes” “Like” “Back” and “Dad” all appear equally high, tying for the number two position.

I used search and replace to see how frequently they appeared.

“Eyes=322” “Like=356”

“Back=406” and “Dad=390”

“Dad”, like “David”, is probably not a concern, but 300-400 instances of Eyes, Like, and Back certainly are a concern. “Pulled” and “Just” are pretty high up there as well. I will definitely be looking at those, too.

.
While word clouds are, for the most part, just fun, you can also use them to point out stuff like this.

.
I’d missed this during my own editing before turning in the manuscript. “Back” wasn’t even on my radar screen.

It is now.

Try dropping your current WIP into a word cloud generator. You might be surprised what you find.

11 Comments

Posted in General Writing Tips, Senseless Ranting

Tagged ashes in the sky, editing, finding overused words, fire in the woods, how to use wordle, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, overused words, word cloud, Wordle

Finding editing help in unexpected places. AKA: Social Media Rocks!

Posted on April 17, 2015 | 4 comments

Last week I faced a little bit of a pickle.

I had a very short (147 word) scene that included a little bit of Spanish, and a line of French.

I had an A+ in Spanish in high school, but I haven’t practiced in years. I was reasonably certain that I “had it right”, but after seeing quite a few reviews lately where people blasted authors for using non-English languages incorrectly, I was stressing over it.

I don’t have the money to run it by a translator, and everyone I know is in the same boat as me (Rusty high school Spanish)

Sooooo… I thought I’d give something a try.

I took to social media, and asked my fans for help.

View this post on Instagram

I'd prefer two people who speak Spanish as a first or second language. It's been too many years since I spoke Spanish. I don't want to make a silly mistake.

A post shared by Jennifer M. Eaton (@jennifermeaton) on Mar 29, 2015 at 8:38am PDT

I found that having a mostly international fan-base helped in ways I never expected. Not only do I have a treasure trove of languages following me, they are all fans of my work, and are tickled pink to be the first people to see an excerpt.

I didn’t just get translating advice… I got advice from native speakers, Spanish as a second language, and people from several different Spanish-speaking countries, as well as one of these kids’ parents that provided insight into the way I learned Spanish that didn’t even occur to me.

Yes, I found, I was speaking correctly, but I was speaking TOO CORRECTLY. Book learning, and the real world, are apparently very different.

So, that’s my thought for this week. When you get your work out there, make friends with your readers. It’s ten tons of fun. And when you need a little help, you might just be surprised at their enthusiasm.

4 Comments

Posted in General Writing Tips, Marketing Madness

Tagged ashes in the sky, fire in the woods, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton, making friends, Social media, translating, using social media

Two novels in nine months. Wow. Taking stock, and taking notes

Posted on April 3, 2015 | 13 comments

For the first time in my life, typing “The End” felt like a huge relief rather than an epic accomplishment.

I just fulfilled my third contracted novel in the FIRE IN THE WOODS series in record time (at least for me) but still late, after asking for a one-month extension.

Looking back, I have to appreciate what an incredible personal accomplishment this was. A year ago today, I was checking my email daily, waiting for responses on my submissions while working on a dystopian novel (that is still only in fourth draft form)

It wasn’t until June 9, 2014 that I received the offer from Month9Books, with a three book deal attached. SWEET! But I looked at the tight deadlines with a shudder.

They wanted me to come up with two more novels, write, edit, and submit within eight months; while working at a break-neck speed to release and market book one in a “window of opportunity”.

If you’ve been here a long time, you know I rarely balk at a challenge.

Looking back, though, I think if I am ever faced with such an offer again, I might try to push out the dates to five or six months for each book.

Can I write a clean book in four months?

Yes. This little adventure has proven that. But I’d rather have more time than I need, and submit early, than hit a bump in the road (like I did in the middle of book three) and have to ask for an extension.

Yeah, I may be dreaming, because I am a little fish in a big ocean, and some publishers won’t budge. But at least now I will know what I am getting myself into.

Would I do it again?

Yes. In a heartbeat. Like I said, a year ago my debut novel was sitting in query cues, and still getting rejections. Now that same book that I was considering “shelving” is a three book series, with decent sales and great reviews on book one.

Yep. I have to admit: It feels good.

But I still need a vacation.

13 Comments

Posted in General Writing Tips

Tagged fire in the woods, jennifer eaton, jennifer M. Eaton

The huge sigh of relief after typing “The End”

Posted on October 10, 2014 | 11 comments

“The End.” Aren’t they wonderful words?

About four months ago while polishing up my dystopian novel, I got the surprise of my life…

a contract offer for my YA Scifi FIRE IN THE WOODS.

And not just any contract, but a three-book deal.

Surprise!

Suddenly, I needed to come up with two more novels continuing a story that I had already typed “The End” on in my mind. That’s right… no planned sequels.

But never to be thwarted, I accepted the challenge, despite what looked like impossible-to-meet deadlines for getting the sequels out. I had a light outline of a concept, and I hit the ground running.

Now, I would be lying to say that I wasn’t pantsing ASHES IN THE SKY to begin with. I started off simply re-kindling my love for the voice and characters of FIRE IN THE WOODS, but within a few chapters I was able to scroll out a decent outline.

Here I am today, with a clean, completed rough draft of the novel. I have five weeks to edit the story, send it to beta readers, and make it sparkle before it is due in my editor’s hands.

So I am here to say: It can be done. Now I move on to editing, which is actually one of my favorite parts. Now is the time to add the little extra zing that will make my characters pop, and the explosions… well… explode.

For all you stats lovers: Here are the numbers…

Started writing June 18^th

Finished CLEAN* first draft September 26^th

Total time from start to finish=98 days

Total number of those days actually spent writing=60 days

One three-day weekend dedicated two writing = 10,392 words

Average words per day = 1,114, but the actual words per day ranged from 249 to 3,366

Let the editing begin!

*Clean just means that I didn’t write NANO-style. I corrected my typos and spelling as I went along, and re-read each chapter at least once and edited whatever did not work before I started the next chapter.