I just wrote a shapeshifting werewolf dolphin western inter-racial ménage adventure

Long, long ago authors risked their livelihood by writing cross-genre stories. Editors wouldn’t accept them because publishers wouldn’t buy them because bookstores arranged books by one single genre. If you wrote a historical paranormal story they wouldn’t know where to shelve it, so no one would buy it. End of story.

Then came digital publishing with this thing called links, and writers pulled their cross genre stories out from the box under the bed, dusted them off, and epublishers happily bought them. Digital books can be filed under a dozen different genres at once and buyers can find them a dozen different ways.

Writing cross genre books took off.  Want to write a cowboy dragon time-travel novel? No worries. Go for it! Freed from being chained to specific genres authors’ imaginations went wild. The paranormal genre really took off. Urban fantasy grew tremendously, steampunk hit the shelves at a flat sprint, and it’s rare now to find a book that is strictly one genre.

Want to submit a vampire historical rubenesque steampunk novel? Go for it!

 Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Animals in romance stories

36% of Australian households own a dog and 23% of households own a cat. In addition, there are approximately 18.4 million fish, 8.1 million birds and over 1 million other pets including horses, rabbits, guinea pigs and other small animals. Australia's pet ownership is significantly behind the US where 40% of households own a dog and 33% own a cat.

Maybe that’s why some authors insist on giving the hero and/or heroine, a companion animal. But there are books I’ve read with a pet introduced in chapter one and never mentioned again in the story. I’m always left wondering, “What happened to the pet when the lovers hooked up? Is the companion animal going to get an HEA?

Many animals offer their human endless love, trust and companionship. They don’t fuss about unwashed blankets or unironed clothing. They adore being petted and at least pretend to listen when you talk to them. But does this uncomplaining attitude then make the hero or heroine look bad when they’re upset at how their lover is treating them?

I think, for authors, it comes down to the old saying “write what you know”. If you adore animals it will show in how you write them and the reader will love to meet animal characters that are every bit as vivid as the humans. If you consider the horse as just something that needs to be brushed from bite to kick, it’s better to avoid putting that in your novel. And readers respond to this. They love to read about genuine animal characters and their relationship with the hero and heroine. But the heroine’s pet that only appears in chapter one as a quick-fix solution to move the plot along—the reader sees right through that and feels cheated. 

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Cultural Differences

When I was a young child, many of the books in Australia were from Britain. The publishers had divided up the world as to who could sell books where, and Australia was under the control of the UK, not the US. So I found myself highly puzzled that the little heroine would wear an anorak (a what?), to the seaside (where?), and paddle in rock pools. To me the idea of wearing a coat in summer was unheard of. We went to the beach, and all we needed was a sunhat. And we swam—not paddled—in surf, not rock pools.

Of course the publishers still have divided the world up between them, but Australians got tired of popular book titles being released here six months after they were released overseas, and at hugely inflated prices as well. We now order whatever we want online and often get free shipping as well. A fact booksellers are becoming more and more aware of. In response, one very popular recent release went live worldwide at 9am on a certain date, and because where I live is sixteen hours ahead of the US East Coast, I’d finished reading the book before they could even get their copy!

Australians watch a lot of US and UK TV, so nowadays kids know a jersey (UK) or sweater (US) is actually a jumper, that a portmanteau is a suitcase, a lorry (UK) or 18-wheeler (US) is a B-double, and that flip-flops are thongs (plural) and go on your feet, not a thong (singular) which is underwear.

Although each time I visit the US someone manages to totally confuse me with a word I’ve never heard before. However, I did have to teach them what budgie smugglers were.

What words from other countries make you laugh, or have non-plussed you?

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Spelling Explained

If English spelling obays its major rules, then almost every spelling pattern* has no mor than two possibl pronunciations and almost every sound no mor than two possibl spelling patterns.

Then the task of literacy is dramaticly less.

Dictionaries would include spellings that aplied these rules among thair thousands of alredy permitted alturnativ spellings for wurds. The French ar alredy duing this for 6000 French wurds.

Pronunciation kees in dictionaries would use the basic sound-spelling relationships that beginners would lern in lerning to read.

Children’s introduction to education would include thinking in lerning to read, not unexplaind rote lerning of what seems silly to them. Spellers could reason out how to spell, and be permitted to use eny of the rule-based patterns to spell a wurd ‘correctly’.

There would still be a standard spelling for fast composition and fast reading, but it would include a narro range of alturnativs. Since it was so easy to lern and use, it would hold the international spoken English language mor closely together and mor mutually comprehensibl than is happening at present, when so meny English-users remain illiterat or almost so.

Lerners would hav very few choices to make in decoding. Visual familliarity would consolidate these choices in the spelling of words, unlike the present plethora of unpredictabls.

Spellcheckers can allow the alternativ choices in spelling, since thay ar so few.

* Spelling pattern - a relationship of letters to sounds. This can vairy acording to place in a wurd and gramattical function of the wurd.

For the full spelling rules check out: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/sprules1p.htm

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Help for Shy Writers

First the bad news. If you don’t promote your book, people won’t know about it, therefore it won’t sell as well as if you’d promoted it.

Now the good news. The number one thing that will make your book sell is by writing a second book.

However, you do need to make some efforts to tell people about your book. In today’s world you absolutely must have a website. There are very simple free ones you can manage yourself, or you can get a prettier one with a web person to manage it for you.

Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Google+ and all those other social networking sites help too. But remember the whole point of social networking sites is that you have to connect with people. Tell them about your wonderful, brilliant, amazing book. But also tell them about your garden, your cat, and whatever else interests you. Personally, I’d steer clear of photos of my children, or constantly naming them on the web. Many authors call them by an initial, or terms such as “Firstborn”, or “Boychild”.

You do need to watch that too much of your writing time doesn’t get sucked into social networking, but building links with your readers and potential readers is vital.

Guest blogging and blog hops are also good ways to meet readers, and blog hops have the advantage of other people helping you to drive readers to the promotion. Another advantage for shy writers is that you can prepare it all in advance and just have to go back on the day to answer comments, instead of sitting in a chatroom for hours on end generating conversation.

Finally remember that anything posted on the internet is there forever, so be sure to be in your “author” frame of mind when you post. Being rude to readers is something they may never forget, and you may never live down.

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Crazy things authors do in the name of research

Over the years as an editor, I’ve had to ask various authors if what they’ve said in their books is accurate. The internet is a wonderful place for an author to begin their research, but it’s not necessarily completely correct.

I know of several authors who had to check whether certain buildings were still in various towns. Google Maps is a good place to start, but Google Earth is even better. Best of all is a friend living in that town who can do the leg work for the author.

I know of several authors who’ve been on a police program where they travel with officers on their daily/nightly duties. That really gives immediacy to the writing.

I’ve previously mentioned the well-known erotic romance author who freely confesses to having broken arms and legs off some of her Barbie and Ken dolls while researching her sex scenes. But it’s good to know what finally gets in her book works.

Then there was the author who wanted her heroine to escape from a certain model of car. Not owning that type of vehicle herself, she went down to the local car sales yard and asked to view one. I’m not too sure what the salesman thought as she practiced climbing in and out of the trunk, but hey, I knew her heroine could do it!

One of my favorite stories is the author whose heroine needed to escape from a villain during a romantic scene. Her husband came home from work one night to find candles on the table and an unopened bottle of champagne. He was really happy until she explained that she was going to hit him over the head with the full bottle, and see if she could drag his unconscious body down the hallway as her heroine would need to do. Her husband just looked at her and said, “Can’t I drink all the champagne and get unconscious that way instead?”

You may already have read of Anny Cook’s research into making acorns into food. An entire chat loop of authors was waiting with bated breath for each new step of this adventure. It ended up as a great blog, but the actual book she was using it for went in a different direction from the one she was expecting and her hero and heroine never had to cook the acorns.

But maybe one day in a future book….

The acorn story is here: http://annycook.blogspot.com.au/p/great-acorn-hunt.html

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

Companion animals in stories

36% of Australian households own a dog; and 23% of households own a cat. In addition, there are approximately 18.4 million fish, 8.1 million birds and over 1 million other pets including horses, rabbits, guinea pigs and other small animals. Australia's pet ownership is significantly behind the US where 40% of households own a dog and 33% own a cat.

Maybe that’s why some authors insist on giving the hero and/or heroine, a companion animal. But there are books I’ve read with a pet introduced in chapter one and never mentioned again in the story. I’m always left wondering, “What happened to the pet when the lovers hooked up? Is the companion animal going to get an HEA?

Many animals offer their human endless love, trust and companionship. They don’t fuss about unwashed blankets or unironed clothing. They adore being petted and at least pretend to listen when you talk to them. But does this uncomplaining attitude then make the hero or heroine look bad when they’re upset at how their lover is treating them?

I think, for authors, it comes down to the old saying “write what you know”. If you adore animals it will show in how you write them and the reader will love to meet animal characters that are every bit as vivid as the humans. If you consider the horse as just something that needs to be brushed from bite to kick, it’s better to avoid putting that in your novel. And readers respond to this. They love to read about genuine animal characters and their relationship with the hero and heroine. But the heroine’s pet that only appears in chapter one as a quick-fix solution to move the plot along—the reader sees right through that and feels cheated. 

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.

101 best books of all time as voted by Australians

More than 15,000 readers who patronize Dymocks book stores throughout Australia have voted on their top 101 books of all time. Here’s their list.

Dymocks 101 best books list

1. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
9. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
10. The Lord of the Rings (Books 1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
11.The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
12. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
13. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
14. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
15. The Bible
16. A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
18. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
19. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
20. Atonement by Ian McEwan
21. The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do
22. Persuasion by Jane Austen
23. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
24. Red Dog by Louis de Bernières
25. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
26. The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
27. Breath by Tim Winton
28. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
29. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
30. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
31. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
32. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
33. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
35. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
36. The Earth's Children series by Jean M. Auel
37. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
38. Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
39. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
40. The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris
41. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
42. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
43. Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
44. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
45. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
46. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
47. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien
48. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
49. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
50. The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
51. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
52. Marley and Me by John Grogan
53. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré
54. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
55. A Simpler Time by Peter FitzSimons
56. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
57. A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute
58. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
59. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
60. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson
61. The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman
62. Dirt Music by Tim Winton
63. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
64. Room by Emma Donoghue
65. The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester
66. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
67. My Booky Wook by Russell Brand
68. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
69. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
70. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
71. One Day by David Nicholls
72. Bereft by Chris Womersley
73. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
74. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
75. Magician by Raymond E. Feist
76. Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan
77. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
78. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
79. The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
80. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
81. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
82. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
83. Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
84. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
85. Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves by Matthew Reilly
86. Mawson by Peter FitzSimons
87. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
88. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
89. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
90. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
91. The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton
92. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
93. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
94. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
95. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
96. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
97. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
98. Bossypants by Tina Fey
99. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
100. The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
101. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

You can read the entire article here: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/books/dymocks-annual-list-of-the-101-best-books-as-voted-by-the-australian-public-is-out/story-fn9412vp-1226347409706#ixzz1twcjJoKG

Helen Woodall

Clichés that make me groan

Why is it that in every movie when the hero or heroine goes shopping they come back with either a breadstick or celery or both, sticking out of their shopping bag? Are movie goers so stupid they don’t recognize a brown paper bag full of food without the breadstick and/or celery?

There are clichés just like this in books too.

The heroine who has red hair and green eyes and a temper to match her hair color. Note to authors: More than 70% of people have brown eyes. Blue eyes are 2% of the population and green is said to be more rare than blue.

The kitchen, which always has granite counter tops. Actually, most kitchens don’t have granite counter tops.

The epilogue where the hero and heroine, with their son aged three and daughter aged two, are playing with the dog on the lawn of their house. The average age difference between siblings in the US is 2.5 years. The children could be boy, boy; girl, girl; girl, boy; or boy, girl. So only one time in four will it be that way.

Then there are the clichéd phrases guaranteed to make the reader grind her teeth.

According to a survey, the most annoying phrases uttered in Australia include “at the end of the day”, “let’s do lunch”, “it’s not rocket science” and “24/7”. At work, “push the envelope”, “110 per cent” and “think outside the square” put us “on the same page”.

For a list of clichés to “avoid like the plague” see: http://clichesite.com/alpha_list.asp?which=lett+1

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.