Accepting Criticism for Authors and Readers

No matter how good the book you write is, sooner or later there will be someone who doesn’t like it. I’m not just talking about trolls who get their fun from being nasty to authors. There are people like that everywhere and they are best ignored. Never engage in dialogue with a troll because that just feeds their sense of importance.

I’m talking about a genuine reader/editor/critic who doesn’t like your book. Maybe they only like short books and yours is long. Maybe they hate historical books which yours is. Or perhaps the characters who were so real for you didn’t gel with them. Whatever the reason, accept their criticism, cry in private if necessary, and then read their comments carefully and see if there is something you can do in future to improve your writing.

A good writer can turn anything into a learning experience and/or plot point.

Never do what Richard Brittain author of “The World Rose” did, which was stalk the person who gave him a one star review and hit her over the head with a bottle of wine. He’s in jail now. It would have been much smarter of him to drink the wine, cry a little, and then get over it.

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

Rejected Book Titles

Some authors find choosing a title the most difficult part of writing the book.
Even when they finally settle on one they like, sometimes the publishing company insists on changing it as it is too similar to an existing book title. I clearly recall meeting a well-known Harlequin author who confessed that sometimes she had to read the back-cover blurb on her own books to know which book it was as the title was nothing like what she had originally called her story.

Writer’s Circle has chosen five book titles which are quite different from the final title. They challenge readers to guess the book.

None of them are my personal favorite name change, “Gone with the Wind”. That was going to be called “Tomorrow is Another Day”.

Writer’s Circle chose, “The Kingdom by the Sea”, “Among Ash-heaps and Millionaires”, “The Last Man in Europe”, “Fiesta”, and “Something that Happened”. To find out which books they are, and their stories, go to: http://writerscircle.com/top-five-best-rejected-titles/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

Business Musings: What Market?

Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch has written a very long, detailed, and thought-provoking article about the market for fiction stories.

The key point she makes is that there is “no” market. By the time a genre or style or interest is discernible to the average person, the peak has passed.

Historically speaking the big print publishers decided what readers wanted to read and that was what they produced. For those who weren’t interested in reading such books it was simply too bad. No one actually surveyed readers and asked them what they wanted. Even today if a particular genre is selling well publishers buy more and more books in that genre until readers are sick of it and sales taper off. But because of the long time lag in print publishing, dozens of books will still be in production and coming along after readers have tired of that genre. Those authors, who submitted as instructed, and wrote what they were told to, are unlikely to make much money.

There are no gatekeepers in indie publishing, no one telling authors what genre they should write. Writers who try to copy the “market” might make some money, but are unlikely to strike it rich or really enjoy themselves.

I have ALWAYS advised writers to write what their passion is. That way their love will shine through in their writing.

Ms. Rusch says the same thing. “…what makes a book unique and different isn’t the plot or the subgenre…It’s the writer himself. His perspective. His voice. His take on something that the writer—the writer—loves. The books that breakout, the ones that become memorable breakouts, the books that everyone else is chasing—those books are written from the heart, not from some cynical analysis of a market that no one understands.”

So write what you want to write. Maybe you’ll make some money and maybe you won’t. But at least you’ll be having fun, not getting burned out.

Ms. Rusch’s comprehensive article is here: http://kriswrites.com/2015/11/25/business-musings-what-market/

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

Misspelled and Misused words

In his latest book, The Sense of Style, Harvard cognitive scientist and linguist Steven Pinker explores the most common words and phrases that people stumble over.
It is reminiscent of Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style, but is based on linguistics and updated for the 21st century.
Pinker has identified the 51 most commonly misused words and phrases from his book and among them are Adverse, Depreciate, Flaunt (a lot of authors get this one wrong), Literally, and Staunch.

For the entire story go here: http://www.theage.com.au/world/our-51-most-commonly-misused-words-and-phrases-20151202-gldkqf.html

To test yourself on commonly misspelled and misused words try these two games:
http://bitecharge.com/play/grammartricky/h3
http://bitechargemedia.com/play/misspelled/h7

I got them all right. How about you?

Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

The worst typos in the Bible

An extremely rare and valuable edition of the bible went on sale late in 2015. It’s the Sinner’s Bible, the edition brought out by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas in 1631. It included several typos, but the most famous is the omission of the word *not* before the word *adultery* in the Ten Commandments.
The correct wording of Exodus 20: 14 is “You shall not commit adultery.”

There is also a 1682 edition of the bible nicknamed “The Cannibal’s Bible” because of a typo that said, “If the latter husband ate her” in Deuteronomy 24:3, which is meant to read: “If the latter husband hate her.”

All of which is proof, I suppose, that no matter how careful writers and editors might be, there’s always one error that slips through.


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

Gender Neutral words

Every now and then writers tie themselves in knots over the issue of gender specific terms.

“Suffragette”, for instance, has historic imagery tied to it of women fighting for the right to be allowed to vote. Google it and you’ll find all sorts of cartoons and stories explaining why women were considered not physically or mentally capable of deciding which political candidate to choose. So when a writer uses the word “suffragette” readers get a visual of a specific time in history and all the baggage that went with it.

(Just as an aside here, women first attained the right to vote in South Australia in 1895, and all Australian states permitted it by 1908, a long time before the USA – 1920).

Other female word forms, however, such as Chaucer’s herdess and charmeress, and Shakespeare’s soldieress, have long gone.

Even “waitress” and “stewardess” along with “executrix” mostly disappeared in the 1970s.

My advice would be always to use gender neutral terms, unless you are aiming to give the reader a particular image, such as those of the suffragettes.


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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

The world’s costliest typos

Typos can be a lot more than just embarrassing.

Mental Floss has compiled a list of possibly the most expensive typos in the world.
This is why it’s important for everyone to proofread any important document or email before hitting send.

My personal favorite story is the missing hyphen in the coding of NASA’s Mariner I space probe. Five minutes after launch the Mariner had to be recalled because of that missing hyphen which had the spacecraft veering off course. That cost around $80 million. (http://www.wired.com/2009/07/dayintech_0722/)

Then there was the car dealership that mailed out 50,000 scratch tickets, one of which was supposed to be worth $1000. Instead ALL of them were winners. That made a total of $50 million which the car dealership, not surprisingly, was unable to pay.

In a typo costing half a million dollars, New York City’s Transportation Authority had to recall 160,000 maps and posters that announced the recent hike for the minimum amount put on pay-per-ride cards from $4.50 to $5.00. The only problem was they said the new price was $4.50.

You can read more typo stories here (http://mentalfloss.com/article/49935/10-very-costly-typos). But to avoid starring in one of them yourself, always proofread your documents!


Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com

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