The Authors' Red Room

I have a page over at The Authors' Red Room, where I list the types of editing I offer. I provide a full editing service, line and content editing, POV, consistency, and advice for authors.
http://www.theauthorsredroom.com/featured-indie-service-rooms/helen-woodall/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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Chasing popularity

For authors who are endlessly trying to mould their book to fit the latest fad, switching from genre to genre, theme to theme, in the hope of huge sales, I have just three simple words for you. It doesn’t work.

When male/male romance first became popular, hundred of authors hastily changed their Sam and Samantha book into Sam and Stan. It didn’t work. It was very obvious what had happened and won the author no friends whatsoever. Men react and think differently from women. A tweak here and there doesn’t make the genre fit or a heroine into a gay hero.

Then vampires became the big sellers and the hero suddenly couldn’t go out in daylight without sunglasses. Once again, it didn’t work. Where is the mythos, the world building?

If you want to write a book in the latest fad genre, go ahead, do it. But start by planning your world building, make your characters fit, do all the background work. Only then will you have a chance of your book becoming a success.

Cramming a square book into a round hole never works. Readers are discerning. They know instantly that the author has been lazy. Writing is a tough profession. It takes hard work. So begin with research. Never ever tweak and hope it’ll work. Because it won’t.

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Suck it up, Princess #2

It seems like every couple of months an author receives a bad review and vents her feelings all over the blogosphere.

Believe me, I understand that it hurts if your book is given a bad review, especially when the reader gives a reason like, “It was short”, and the promo material said it was 20 pages. Twenty pages is, by definition, short, so why was the reader upset?

But that does not excuse the behavior of the author. Authors, if you receive a bad review you are free to scream, cry, throw things, and eat chocolate. But only with the internet turned off. Never never NEVER express your sadness, disappointment, anger or anything other than pure professionalism, in public. The internet never forgets. That post will be found by every publisher or agent you submit to in future, and will probably ensure your next book is rejected.

A review is one person’s opinion. Every person is entitled to their opinion, even if it is clearly stupid.

An author should always act professionally. DO NOT respond to a bad review. In particular do not respond when you are upset. Even more importantly, do not respond pretending to be someone else. Blogger tracking will reveal your actions and you’ll be in even more trouble than you were already.

Switch the internet off and leave it off until you’ve recovered from the hurt, anger, and other emotions. But still do not reply to the review.

Suck it up, princess. Pull up your big girl panties. Tie a knot and go on. Your writing career is far more important than one bad review.

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Kick-ass heroines

These days, a heroine who sits on a silken cushion, weeping gently into a lace handkerchief, her tears sparkling in her eyes, her nose never becoming red, while she waits patiently for chapter after chapter until the hero overcomes all ills and rescues her, is frowned upon.

So are long, run-on sentences like the one above. Both sentences like the above one, and heroines as described therein, used to be the mainstay of romance. No longer.

Today’s heroine is permitted to have red eyes and a nose to rival Rudolph’s if she cries. But more importantly, she is expected to be digging her way out of the dungeon with a spoon, while pretending to sit on her silken cushion. Or even better, slapping her guard upside the head with a brick inside in the cushion and escaping all by herself.

Women are no longer a man’s property, and part of that empowerment means the heroine is expected to be an active leader in the story. The hero is still Alpha, but the heroine is no doormat, or piece of property. She makes him work for everything she permits him to have and is right beside him, as they save the world together.

So answer me this riddle? Why is it so rare to have a female werewolf or vampire who turns the Alpha human male? Why do male vampires and werewolves still turn human heroines?

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

Apostrophes

A huge Australian store put up seven-storey-high banners across Australia that included a misplaced apostrophe. Grammarians may bemoan the level of literacy of the average Australian, but from Myer’s point of view, far too many people saw the gaffe and Twitter exploded with tweets about it.

For writers, and anyone anticipating a career in retail, here is how it works:

Possessives: My dad’s hat. Thomas’ hat. (some older and more traditional publishers still accept Thomas’s hat). The Joneses’ hat.

Plurals: No apostrophe. Cats, hats, the Joneses. (And in this case "gets".)

Plural and possessive: the cats’ hats, the scissors’ blades.

See, easy!

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com

The Grammar Guru Speaks

In dialogue, common usage (as distinct from actual bad grammar) is fine. But in narrative, it doesn’t matter whether “everyone says that”, if it’s wrong, authors shouldn’t be using it. The author needs to obey the rules of grammar.

“To boldly go” may be a catchy line in a movie, but split infinitives are incorrect.

Never say “different than”. It’s “different from”.

If you have two daughters you have an older daughter and a younger daughter. You don’t have an oldest (or eldest) daughter until there are three or more of them.

Fewer is if you can count them. Otherwise use less. Fewer chocolates in the box, but less coffee in the pot.

There is no such thing as a half a sudden, so you can’t have “all of a sudden”. The word is “suddenly”.

Outside of/inside of “She licked the inside of her lips” is correct. But she didn’t go “inside of” the house. She simply went “inside the house”.

Subject and verb must agree. A group noun takes a singular verb. “The flock of sheep is grazing”, “the crowd was waiting”.

These are rules. Don’t yell at me if you don’t like them. Look them up yourself in the Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html then obey them.

Helen Woodall

helen.woodall@gmail.com