Category: tips

Okay, look… tomorrow’s my birthday, and I ended up spending a lot more time than I thought I would at the DMV today. But—as I have in the past—I wanted to offer some thoughts that were less about writing-the-art and a bit more about writing-the-overall-sphere-of-community-and-career.

So at the risk of shooting myself in the foot… let’s talk a bit about writing advice.

Really, the whole reason I started scribbling out these little rants soooo many years back (my hair was still rich and full and dark back then) was because of writing advice. All I ever saw on various writing forums (novel and screenplay) was what I called “after advice.” It was all tips on how to get an agent interested, how to get your script in front of producers or actors, how to build word of mouth, and so on. Very, very little of that advice was about the big step that came before all of those.

Y’know… actually writing the damned thing.

But as social media became a thing, I noticed more and more people offering writing advice. As in, advice about the actual act of writing. Often in short, bite-sized, very catchy phrases.

And also… a lot of it very scattered.

I think we can all agree people write for a lot of different reasons. Some folks enjoy crafting stories. Some like elaborate wordplay. Some folks want to make some money, while others want to make a whole career out of it. There are people who just enjoy the act of creation. Writing can even be therapeutic in some cases, like a great purge, or maybe a way to relax, like sliding into a hot bath at the end of a long day.

And to be very clear, all of these are good, solid, completely valid reasons to write. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. If all I want to do is write Mandalorian fan fic… cool. If it’s what you want to write, write it! Done.

People write in a lot of different formats, too. We can do first person or third person omniscient or third person limited or even the often-elusive-but-goddamn-beautiful-when-done-well second person. We can write books, short stories, comics, stage plays, narrative podcasts, screenplays for film or broadcast television or streaming television. These are all great, with their own challenges and rewards.

Again, anyone who tries to tell you television writing is all schlock or comics are stupid, just… look, don’t resort to violence, but know that they’re wrong. Very wrong.

Now… one of the big problems that happens a lot with writing advice is survivorship bias. If you’re not familiar, it’s when we only look at people who succeed at a task rather than everyone who attempted the task. Which means it’s tough to recognize how many elements of that success were skill vs inherent talent vs surrounding circumstances vs just, y’know, sheer luck. I actually talked about this a bit on a previous birthday post, although I didn’t mention it by name– just because Jennifer Lawrence moved from Kentucky and became a Hollywood megastar doesn’t mean every young woman who moves from Kentucky to Hollywood will become a megastar. Which sounds kinda silly to say out loud, right? But survivorship bias is kinda silly when you point it out.

And sometimes folks don’t recognize their own survivorship bias. They don’t recognize that outside elements were a big part of their success. So their advice is, well, a bit off. Not deliberately, mind you. They’re saying “I did this and it worked for me, I achieved my goal, therefore this is the method that works.” Which clearly isn’t wrong—they are successful after all—but it’s also not exactly right. It’s not considering other factors that maybe can’t be replicated by the people receiving said advice.

Using myself as an example… yeah, a good part of my success comes from writing and studying writing (in many different forms) for most of my life. But having an agent definitely was a big factor. And in all fairness I only have an agent because a bunch of sheer-luck things happened to line up in my favor. And sad to say, yeah, but the fact that I’m a white guy probably helped too. I couldn’t tell you exactly when or how, but I’m definitely not going to discount it. This is part of the reason I give big disclaimers on most of my writing advice. My path to success was unique. I can offer some suggestions on how to duplicate parts of it, but a lot of it was completely out of my hands.

Another thing some folks don’t grasp is that a lot of advice isn’t good for every situation. I can tell you the best dryer setting is permanent press because it’s a good balance of speed, temperature, and gentle motion that will get things done in a reasonable amount of time but also not be too rough on colors and most fabrics. But… this is lousy advice if you were asking how to dry your phone because you accidentally dropped it in the pool.

And this is true of writing advice, too. Like I mentioned up above, people can write for a lot of different reasons, and if I’m just writing for the joy of artistic expression (again, nothing wrong with that) my advice might not be that helpful if you’re trying to write as a great psychological purge at the end of a bad week. I’ve mentioned before how some people will offer advice on structure, but they’re trying to apply television script structure advice to a novel’s narrative structure. Likewise, most of my writing advice here on the ranty blog is geared around the idea of starting a fiction writing career, so it’s probably going to seem very contrary to a person who’s much more interested in writing as an art. The kind of writing we’re doing is going to affect the advice we’re giving and the advice we’re looking for. There’s some stuff that’s universal, absolutely, but there’s also stuff that

When I’m getting some writing advice, I need to think about all of this. I want to consider that another writer’s advice may have bias. I should be aware that they’re offering me advice about this kind of writing when I want to do that kind of writing.

Speaking of which, one final thing. I know this may sound obvious but… maybe don’t take writing advice from people who don’t actually write? If they can’t point to some notable level of writing output related to the advice they’re giving… I’m just saying, maybe their “advice” is coming from a different place.

And that’s all I’ve got for you on this fine pre-birthday afternoon. Sorry again for the lack of posts here, but I’m hoping to be better in the coming months.

Of course, I’m saying that but I’m probably going to miss next week. Editing.

But after that… redemption. Finally.

Until then, go write.

I know I said I was going to talk about the first time I met Yakko Warner, but then Bryce asked a question in the comments and I thought, hey, that’s a fantastic idea for a topic. Let’s do that instead.

Bryce wanted to know…

As someone who has had numerous Audible exclusives, can you speak on the difference (if one even exists) between writing something intended to be read silently in your head versus writing something intended to be read aloud? Obviously any book can be read aloud. But when you know or expect that most of your audience will be listening to a narrator tell the story, recorded onto mp3’s, coming through little speakers we shove in our ears, how does that change the storytelling?

So let’s talk about this a bit.

I guess the first thing would be establishing what counts as an Audible Exclusive. Weirdly enough, somebody asked me about this on Bluesky the other day, and it’s a bit of a tricky question because Audible likes to slap that label on a lot of things. For example, I did two books– Dead Moon and Terminus— that were exclusive to Audible in the sense that, for six months, the only place you could get them was through Audible. No ebook. No print. No foreign editions. Nothing else. But after that six months… they spread to other formats.

But there are also Audible exclusives where “exclusive’ just means the audiobook isn’t available anywhere except Audible. For example, The Broken Room and Paradox Bound both had print and ebook versions (from Blackstone and Crown, respectively) that came out the same day as the audiobook. But Audible is sort of a one-stop place, so if they produce an audiobook you’re not going to see it show up on other sites.

Does all of that make sense? Cool. I just wanted to be clear on that moving forward, because it kind of addresses one aspect of the overall question. There’s a lot of storytelling out there that’s always aimed at audio only (a narrative podcast, for example), but it’s kind of rare to be writing a book that’s just for audio. They tend to reach other formats.

So here’s some things I’ve learned that can make my writing better in either text or audio format.

And, as always, these aren’t hard fast rules. They’re more like guidelines. There’s always going to be an exception, a time they don’t apply. But if I’m mostly finding exceptions… maybe I should take another look.

I’ve mentioned repetition here before. It can be a powerful tool, but as I’ve said if I’m not careful repetition can go from clever to annoying really fast. And because our brains don’t process listening and reading the same way, I’d guess in audio format I can reach that tipping point… maybe ten-fifteen percent faster? Like anything artistic, there’s going to be a degree of personal taste/ tolerance in there. But something that’s pushing that line in text will probably step right over it in audio. Which should make me ask, hey, why am I right up against the “annoying” line, anyway?

On a similar note… I’ve become aware of words that rhyme. Talking about the lair over there. Yakko said he was dead. Within sentences or between sentences. Sometimes these rhymes can unintentionally create a weird rhythm, so I tend to look for those and nix them. Unless, y’know, I was trying to create that rhythm. And again, it’ll be just that little bit more in audio. If it’s questionable in text, it’ll definitely stand out when we hear it.

Similar-but-different thing…I also keep an eye out for sound-alike words. There’s words we’d pass over without a second thought in text because they’re spelled differently, but when we’re just hearing them… they can hit a little differently. For example, there was a place in God’s Junk Drawer where I’d used gate and gait in the same sentence without thinking about it. I think it was on my second pass with the editor when I realized how—out loud—this could create a little mental stumble because we’d be hearing the same thing twice. It’s repetition and rhyming combined. Also, this is probably the most “audio only” thing I’m going to mention.

Another thing I’ve become aware is how long sentences can get, and how awkward they are as they get longer. In audio and text, somebody has to read all this. And keep track of it. And actually remember the beginning by the time they get to the end. That sounds a bit silly, I know, but I’ve seen people pride themselves for page-long, grammatically correct sentences (and some that are even longer). Every time my reader has to re-read something (or back up to hear it again) they’re getting knocked out of the story and it’s becoming less immersive.

And let’s talk about a big one. Dialogue. To be specific, dialogue tags. I’ve said before that I‘m a big, big believer in said, and that’s still true. Said is borderline invisible in text. Readers will absorb it and move past it without a thought.

But… when we’re in audio format, this isn’t quite as true. Again, our brains don’t process listening and reading the same way, so hearing said again and again can become repetitive and distracting.

Now, this isn’t to say audio is a good place for all those other dialogue tags. Quite the opposite. I think they might be more distracting in audiobooks because now we have to deal with the aspect of performance. Someone’s actually saying this dialogue out loud, so there’s going to be a slight disconnect if they don’t hiss, shout, exclaim, chortle, whisper, gasp, and so on. How weird would it be for be to say Yakko mumbled when the narrator just… read it? Because a big part of the narrator’s job is making everything clear and understandable.

But y’know what? When I got to work with an audiobook editor, it made me think about how often I need dialogue tags at all. And not just when I’m writing for audio. For text, too.

Y’see Timmy, one thing I became aware of is how often dialogue is a binary, going back and forth between two characters. Back and forth, back and forth. Which means I usually only need one or two dialogue tags at the start and then we’ll be able to follow the conversation. I talked about this at length a while back so I won’t take up too much time on it here, but if anyone wants an update or a refresher, just let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

Another thing I became aware of was ways to tag dialogue without, well, dialogue tags. If a character has a minor action, I tend to group it into the same paragraph as their dialogue. Something like this…
—————–
Kyle shrugged. “No, but I need to earn a few points with Hideko. She owed Barnes a favor, he needed people who knew the telescopes and the camera rigs to make sure some dumb undergrad didn’t destroy them.”
—————-
See? It’s very clear Kyle’s the one talking, right? Even though technically none of the dialogue is attributed to him.

Also, congratulations! You just got to read part of God’s Junk Drawer nine months early!

To wrap up, you may notice, a lot of these tips/ guidelines come down to breaking the flow. I think flow’s very important in a book, and possibly more so in an audiobook. We’ve introduced a new element—the narrator—between me and the audience, which is one more chance for somebody to pause or trip up and get knocked out of the story. And every time my reader’s knocked out of the story, it’s a chance for them to remember something else they should be doing. Like folding laundry. Or taking out the recycling.

And that’s not a good thing.

Hey, speaking of God’s Junk Drawer… you can preorder it now! Go down to your local bookporium and ask them to reserve a copy for you. Maybe two, just to be safe. If you’re ordering online, get at least three.

On a related note, this Saturday the 15th (tomorrow, as I write this) at 1:00pm I’m going to be at Mysterious Galaxy with a few other authors from Combat Monsters. We’ll be answering questions and scribbling in books. So come by and… y’know, ask questions. Get books scribbled in.

Next time, barring reader requests, I’ll be talking about the first time I met Yakko Warner.

Until then, go write.

Well, here we are in the far flung sci-fi future year of 2025. The year of Pacific Rim, as I mentioned in the newsletter the other day. What? You’re still not subbed to the newsletter? Well, there’s your first thing to do this year.

Anyway, first ranty blog post of the year (and already running late). What to write about? I’ve already planned out a lot of my year, writing-wise, and maybe so have you. Or maybe not. No worries there, either way. This is my job, so I’ve got to schedule things to some extent. You may have a lot more leeway. Heck, writing might be your zero-stress after work cool-down thing. If that’s how you like to do it, that’s great. What works for you works for you.

I’ve had a couple possible topics bouncing around in my head for two weeks now. And in that time I’ve seen a lot of other folks offering their own start-of-the-year advice nuggets. And that got me thinking even more…

So, look, some of you may be thinking of finally writing that novel. 2025 is the year we’re getting it done. Maybe we’re starting from scratch. Could be we’ve had a few false starts. Maybe some of it’s already done and this is the year we finish it.

And it’s possible, as I mentioned above, that you’re seeing all sorts of advice and encouragement from different folks.

They’ll tell you not to worry about how much you write every day. Don’t worry about how often you write. And don’t worry about spelling. Don’t worry about grammar, either. Don’t worry about structure. Don’t worry about getting the facts right. None of that matters! What matters is the writing! Which, uh, you don’t have to do today.

And it may cross your mind after some of this, well, hang on. What the heck am I doing? If none of this stuff matters… I mean, what am I supposed to do? Seriously?

This is a little tricky to understand because technically all of this is true, but it’s true at different points in the process and in different ways. If I apply all of these rules (or lack of rules, I guess) evenly throughout my whole process, I can be doing more harm than good.

For example, I’ve talked about first drafts and forward motion—just getting it done. That’s how I tend to write. I won’t worry about spelling or formatting and it’s really common for me to leave notes to myself about checking if this is correct and how that actually works. So at this point in the process… yeah, don’t worry about any of that stuff.

But this doesn’t mean I never worry about these things. It’s more a question of when I worry about them. Personally, I tend to clean most of this up in my second draft, and I’m usually still adjusting it in my third. Because these things matter. No, really, they do.

A lot of this is going to boil down to what I want to do with my writing. What are my end goals, so to speak. Is it my after-work cool down? A personal project? Maybe something I want to share on a Reddit thread or Wattpad. Am I going to self-publish it? Am I hoping a traditional press will pick this up?

Y’see Timmy, the truth is when I’m at home, the park, the office, the library, on the train, or wherever it is that I do most of my writing… I can do whatever I want. Seriously. When it’s just me and my keyboard, absolutely no rules apply. Whatever I want, however I want, for as long as I want. That’s my process, and nobody can say my process is wrong or weird or whatever.

But…

If I want to send something out into the world, to put it in front of other people’s eyes—especially people I’m hoping will give me money—I need to start seriously thinking about all of this stuff. That’s when I do need to worry about spelling. I definitely want to double check my grammar. And triple-check my facts. And if I’ve got a deadline, I absolutely need to be considering how much I’m writing and how often I’m writing. Because these things will matter to other people. They’ll matter to different degrees for different people, but they will matter.

And the more chances I give people to say “that’s wrong” are more chances they’re going to set my story aside and move on to something else.

So, yeah, write freely. Don’t be concerned about things. Just write.

But be aware we’re just deferring that concern till later. Not saying goodbye to it forever.

Next time…

Well, heck, like I was saying. Start of the year. new projects and new goals all around. Is there anything specific I could cover for anyone? Something that’s been gnawing at you, a topic where you’d really like some kind of advice or tips or encouragement? Let me know down in the comments and I’ll make that happen for you.

And until then… go write.

Hey! I’m here encouraging you! FEEL ENCOURAGED!!!

Well, as I’m writing this we just passed the halfway point for the month, which means we’re halfway through The Writing Exercise That Used To be Known As NaNoWriMo (I’m working on a good acronym).

Hopefully you’re still going. Working on any project starts out fun. It’s great at the beginning, when we can just sort of be a firehose of ideas. We can spray clever dialogue and cool action beats and creepy moments everywhere. Cool thing, cool thing. cool thing, damn writing is easy!

Of course, the tough thing is then at some point—weirdly enough, often right around that halfway mark—all this stuff needs to start tying together somehow. I’ve got to take all those clever/ cool/ creepy ideas and make something coherent out of them. And that means this just became work! And work sucks! I’m pretty sure at least one of you is reading this thinking “I wanted to be a writer so I wouldn’t have to work!”

Plus, NaNoWriMo was this sort of group activity, and without it suddenly we’re all just… y’know, sitting alone in our rooms typing for no real reason. There’s no prize. No actual deadline. It’s easy to miss a day or two, think about how much work it’d be to get back into it, and just say “Ehhhhh… I’m done.”

But you don’t want to give up now. We’re on the downhill slope now. It’s half done. Yeah, it is. You don’t need to hit any set word count, you just need to keep at it. Again, this is more about doing it—sitting down and writing as much as you can, as often as you can—for the course of the month.

And yes… it’s going to feel like work sometimes. I wish I could tell you it doesn’t, that there’s a point when it’s going to be nonstop fun. But I’m not going to lie to you. Somedays you just have to sit there and glare at the screen and pound the keyboard until you figure out how Ashley believably ends up with the canopic jar when Devon didn’t’ know how to do it. But the cool thing is, it’s your work. You’re doing it for you. For your story. And nobody can write this story except you.

Also… this is supposed to be a first draft. Don’t worry about too many things lining up. First drafts can be gloriously messy things. Heck, my most recent first draft had a blank page with <KILL FRED HERE> on it. That’s it.

For now, just keep going. You’re more than halfway there. You, as the kids say, have got this.

And hey—my offer from last time still stands. For November, this is your writing community space. Post your achievements, frustrations, questions here and I promise you I’ll respond within the day with a high five, a commiseration, an answer, or some kind of encouragement to keep writing. I’ll check in every day. Maybe more often if I’m trying to avoid work. And you can respond to each other, too.

Next time… well, next time’s just in a couple of days. But since I just turned in edits on one book and I’m working through the third draft of another, I figure I’d talk about drafts and revisions.

Until then, go write!