Fact-Checking for Writers

 

When you're writing a story or a personal essay or a memoir piece that takes place a long time ago, you'd better not guess at what life was like then. It's far better to do a fact check so that you are sure that what you state is correct. 

People who write historical pieces need to do some research about the time period, including the well-known people of the time should you want to make a reference. Research takes time, but it also insures that your information is correct.If anyone questions what you wrote, you can defend yourself with the facts. 

Research can also bring information you had not known before. That's one of the joys of research. I knew a writer who once said that she loved doing research for her books so much, that she often took far too long to get back to the actual writing. 

If you're stating an amount of money an organization spent or donated in an article, be sure you have the correct figure. If you're wrong, some reader will surely call you on it. Journalists need to be strong fact checkers.

Clothing of an era figures in some stories. Don't put a young girl of the 1920s in a poodle skirt, popular in the 50s. Don't let your farm boy of the 1930s wear a hat with the Royals World Series prominent on it. Those are extremes, of course, but the point is to keep your characters dressed in the proper way for the time in which they lived. 

It's the same for the slang expressions. What was popular in the 60s doesn't work for union picketers in the 20s. Aristocratic people in the 1890s spoke more formally and more precisely than the working class did. Do some fact checking on the ways people spoke. If your story takes place in the UK, don't let your characters speak with American expressions. Find out what the Brits would say.

Is your character eating a plant based burger? If so, he/she had better be living in the present day. If you're writing a story set in the Depression era, make the foods fit the times, as well. More research for the writer. 

Novelists are more prone to doing research than those who pen short stories. It's just as important for the short story writer to check facts as it is for someone writing a book.

The time you take to research will pay off when you're writing your story or essay. It will make your writing believable and true. It can also save you a lot of grief later. Don't guess, check the facts.

Stinkin' Rejections!

 

Writers deal with many situations. Rejections of writing they have submitted for publication is only one, but it's pretty large in stature. A few synonyms for rejection are: decline, repudiate, refuse, and spurn. snub, turn down, disapproval and several more. It doesn't matter what word you use, it's still a rejection of your work. A stinkin' rejection!

One very important thought to remember is that a rejection of writing you submitted is not disapproval of you, the writer. It is an editor declining to publish your submission. Our first thought when a rejection arrives may be: He hates it! That is possible, but not necessarily probable There are many reasons an editor does not accept what you sent. He/she may have recently published a piece that was very similar or on the same topic. He/she may have an abundance of stories or essays and needs to slow down on the acceptances. He/she might like it, but not well enough to accept and have to do a large editing job. Maybe your submission was not right for that publication, which means you need to be more careful in selecting a market. So, hating it, is far from the only reason you received a rejection.

Should you feel hurt or angry when a rejection arrives? It's only being human to feel that way at first. Disappointment figures in, too. What do you do when a rejection arrives, often after waiting a long time to hear about your submission? We all react differently. Some will be deeply disappointed. Others will be angry to the point of throwing a few things or stomping around the house shouting. Others will be  so hurt by the rejection that they'll crawl into a quiet spot to nurse their wounds. Go ahead and react whatever way feels best to you. The rule here should be that you can react, but only for a short time. Don't let the rejection rule your writing world. 

Is there a lesson to be learned from rejections? Sometimes, there is. It may not be sitting there for us to see immediately. Wait a while before you attempt to figure it out.

Deal with the rejection for a day or two, then move on. Once you've calmed down, read your submission as objectively as you can. Do you see where you might improve it? If you're happy with the piece as is, start looking for another publication where you can submit again. If you see places where you can add or delete, work on it. Most rejections come with only a No, not a reason why. There are editors, however, who will send a note to let you know why your word was not accepted. Feel blessed if that is the case. 

Stinkin' rejections! Right? They are, but also a part of our writing journey. We've all read about famous authors whose work received multiple rejections before being accepted. Why should you and I be any different. The part we need to focus on is a lesson learned and to continue growing as a writer. 

Writers and Anthologies

 

Many of you know that I have multiple stories in the Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies. I still check their website for the books that need stories. Right now, they have calls for eleven books. Eleven! Check the Possible Book Topics page to see what they are.

Chicken Soup is one of the best known anthologies, but there are many more, but it's up to you, the writer, to find them. That takes a bit of work, but it's well worth the effort if you find a few that fit your kind of writing. 

Facebook has a group that is a boon for writers. They have calls for anthologies but also other publications. The page is Call for Submissions. Find it by searching on your home page for the group. Other writing group pages on Facebook sometimes have calls for submissions to both anthologies and other types of publications, too. 

If writing for anthologies is your aim, do a search on your favorite search engine. Then try a different search engine, where you may find some duplicates, but also some different places where you can submit. There are many to choose from. Some of the top ones are:

Google

Bing

Duck, Duck Go

Yahoo

Baidu

Yandex

Ask.com

When you search, you may be surprised by the number of anthologies and also how specialized some of them are. Some want only horror or dark stories, while others might seek holiday stories, and still others are looking for mystery stories. There are poetry anthologies and anthologies that feature stories about cooking. Guideposts puts out lovely anthology books. Theirs is one of the nicest quality, I think. I once had a story in an anthology that used reading as the theme.

Some of the former anthologies have come and gone. A Cup of Comfort was quite popular for a while, and then it vanished. Another was Not Your Mothers... But it had a short duration. Why? Maybe the quality of the stories was not up to par. Maybe the editor didn't put enough time and effort into advertising. Or perhaps the editor moved on to other things. 

Be sure when you are searching for anthologies to check the date the calls were put out. I noted one recently that sounded interesting, but it was from 2008. A waste of your time. When you put your keywords in a search engine, it might not hurt to add 2022.

Why bother to write for anthologies? They pay, some better than others. Chicken Soup for the Soul is the highest that I am aware of. You'll get a check for $200 and 10 free copies of the book in which your story appears. Others pay $50 or $25 or maybe with a copy of the book. A second reason is that it is a good addition to your list of publications. A third is that some are easier to bring a successful submission than some other publications. Not all, but some of the smaller ones are not as choosy. Chicken Soup for the Soul, being the Queen Bee, has rigid guidelines and great competition. 

If you want to write for anthologies, find some of those lesser ones to start with. Move on up when you feel confident about the stories you're writing for the various anthologies. 

One of the most important things you should do is to study the guidelines. You will find books that have minimal guidelines all the way up to Chicken Soup for the Soul which has lengthy and rigid ones. Pay attention, no matter which anthology where you want to submit your work. 

Last, but not least, read a variety of anthologies to help you get an idea of the kind of story or poems they publish. It helps you get a feel for what you should keep in mind when writing and submitting your own stories or poems. 

Writer's Markets--Paying or Non-Paying?

Writer counting his money

I have a small rant today. It has to do with an age-old argument about submitting to paying markets vs ones that give you nothing but recognition. We'll deal with that argument a little later in the post. 

What bothers me, irks me, or rubs me the wrong way is when a market you find says that they are non-paying, but then they make it very clear that they want only the very best writing. Top-quality is all they propose to publish. A noble thought perhaps. Wouldn't everyone like to publish only the A-1 quality?

My feeling is that, if you want only the very best writers, then you should be willing to compensate them in some manner. I understand that they are fearful that every beginning writer in the USA is going to submit to them since they are non-paying, but they need to balance the scale a bit. No, I don't expect them to publish really poor writing, but to state that they want only the best is a little short-sighted. No matter what kind of submissions they receive, they still have to sort through and see which are worthy for their particular publication.

Now, on to the argument of paying vs non-paying markets. The first question is why would anyone submit to a non-paying market? If you have very few published pieces or none, you're hungry enough to have something published that you'll agree to write for free. That, of course, is what you're doing. Is it wrong? Certainly not. If this is a way to get your work recognized and to be able to build a resume of publications, it's fine. It's also alright to write for free when you're giving your work to a charitable cause. There should be no shame nor guilt involved.

Some writers submit their work to paying markets only. They feel they deserve monetary recognition for the hard work they've put in. Let's face it--we all feel we deserve to be paid, but some writers are adamant about it. They would rather have fewer publications but receive payment. That's perfectly understandable. I suppose there are writers who set a limit as to how much they are willing to accept. There are publications that pay $10. If that feels like an insult to you, move on to higher-paying markets. 

Writers who are making their living with the printed word must look at paying markets only, and high-paying ones most of the time. They are naturally going to have a different outlook than someone who is a part-time writer or a hobbyist writer.

This old argument of paying vs non-paying markets doesn't have a set answer or solution. It's a personal choice. Maybe it also depends on how stubborn you are. If you've set a goal and are working toward it, you're to be admired, but be willing to bend a bit now and then. 

A Fiction Writing No-No

There are a lot of little no-nos in fiction writing. One of them that is most irritating to a reader is the Information Dump. The reader is skipping merrily along in a story when she/he hits an information dump. Suddenly, the author has put in several paragraphs of information he/she thinks will be most interesting to the reader. 

But it isn't. It stops the progression of the story and could be a "who cares?" moment to the reader. 

For instance, if I'm writing an espionage story that takes place in Paris, a city I love, I might want the readers to see, through my eyes, the beauty of this city on the Seine. I might want them to know the history of the many wonderful buildings and museums and oh, so many things. So, as my protagonist is walking through Paris with a colleague, I might have them stop in front of the Louvre. The protagonist tells the other man the complete history of this famous museum and what he will find inside. Fine, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the story in which these two men are involved.

Let's go a bit further. The two men chase their spy to Brugge, Belgium where they trace him to a small house. Brugge is known for lovely handmade lace. Let's say the men knock on the door and a woman answers. She invites them in and offers them a seat, then picks up her lacemaking which she had been doing when the knock came. One man comments that the lace she is working on is lovely, and all of a sudden as if a switch had been thrown, the woman goes into a long commentary on the history of lace-making in Brugge. Again, it has nothing to do with the story. The reader is getting antsy by this time. The reader wants the men to look around the room for signs that their man had been there, or to suddenly hear a noise on the upper level of the house. The history of lace-making might be interesting but has nothing at all to do with the story. And again, it interrupts the pacing.

Another way an author gives us an information dump is to suddenly include a large chunk of backstory, taking the reader away from what was happening. It might be of some importance to the story and its outcome, but rather than take a timeout to give it to the reader, the author can feed the information in bits and pieces. It's much easier for the reader to digest, and don't worry, they'll 'get it.' 

If an author does this little no-no on a regular basis throughout a book, he/she will lose the readers very quickly. But, if the info about the Louvre in my first example is going to be important to what happens later, it's alright to use it, but not in huge chunks. Make a reference to this or that, but don't go off like a tour guide. 

That goes for the woman making lace, as well. If what she is doing bears importance to finding the spy, by all means, use it but not as if she was teaching a class on lace-making. Again, a few references are all that you need.

Why do some authors do this? I think it often has to do with someplace or something they like very much and want to share with others. If that's the case, fine, but write a nonfiction book about those places, don't dump it into your novel. 

Use information if it adds to your story or if it has a bearing on the outcome. Just remember to do it in small amounts. Don't deluge the reader with the history of the Eiffel Tower all at once. 

This Writing Game

When you keep submitting your work and getting rejections, it can be disheartening. Change that 'can be' to 'is.' With each rejection, you feel like the wind has gone out of your sails. You're sad--or mad--and you ask yourself if you should just chuck the whole idea of being a published writer. 

Change the 'you' words above to 'we' because you're definitely not in this alone. You have plenty of company in that feeling down after a rejection. We write, we submit, we receive a rejection, we feel crummy for a few hours. 

After that, we need to do some analyzing. Why was our work rejected? Did we choose the wrong kind of publication, one where our work didn't fit? Did we send a clean submission with no spelling errors, correct punctuation etc? Could we have used more sensory details? Did we make things clear? Do we need to do some revising before submitting to another editor? Answer those questions honestly. We know by then that we have some work to do. 

If you feel your writing is the best it can be, then find another place to submit. Editors are individuals. What one likes, another might detest. As writers, we need to find the right fit, and that's not always easily done.  I had that happen this week. I submitted a story yesterday afternoon in response to a call for submissions. This morning, I received an acceptance from the editor. The original call said the editor would choose one or two of the best stories to publish in December. It's seldom that an acceptance comes that quickly. More often, we wait and wait and wait and...  When it does happen this fast, it certainly boosts the ego. I also think about the many submissions that got rejected by an editor or the ones that ended up floating in writer space with no response whatsoever. 

Our poster today has some good advice. It's those small efforts we make day after day that help us reach success. We may not think that those writing exercises do us any good. We might get fed up with revising and editing our work. We might feel depressed that we get more rejections than acceptances. (Very few writers have the majority of their work accepted.) 

Once again, those two keywords, patience and perseverance come into the picture. If we have the patience to continue with those small efforts and the passion for writing that results in perseverance, we're going to come out alright. We're going to find some successes along with those rejections. 

We have to make up our minds that we're in this game for the long haul. Those small efforts must be made on a daily basis.

This And That In My Writing World--And Yours

Yesterday's post, Why Bother? received a lot of attention and some comments. It confirmed my premise that we have all asked that to ourself at some time or another in our writing life. 

Michelle Monet has started a new site for Memoir writers called Women Writing Memoir. She features articles that pertain to memoir writing. I received an invitation to submit an article, so, since I write short memoir, I wrote an essay on the same and sent it to her. It was published today. You can read How About Only A Wee Bit Of Memoir here. Note there is a place on the left side to share or to clap if you like the essay. If you read it, can you clap for me? It would be appreciated. It appears you can clap as many times as you like. Easy enough to stuff the ballot box!

I received notice of a need for new stories for a new Chicken Soup for the Soul book titled Think Positive, Live Happy. An earlier book with the same theme was so popular that they are planning another. Go to the Possible Books page to read more about the kind of stories they are seeking. There are six books listed with this latest one being at the very end of the page. I like that they give a list of possible topics to give you some inspiration or to trigger a memory. I study that list pretty carefully and hope a memory pops up or an inspiration appears like lightning on a stormy day. The deadline date is not until April 30, 2019, so you have plenty of time to write and submit a story. (And also edit and revise a few times!)

My local newspaper did a story about me this week. The publicists from Chicken Soup for the Soul notify the local media of the writers in the latest book. A reporter called and asked if he could interview me. We spent a half hour together and he wrote a very nice article which appeared on the front page of our local newspaper.

As writers, we should be able to write good book reviews on Amazon or GoodReads or for your local newspaper. When we read a book we enjoyed, do we always take the time to write a review? I think there will be lots of answers like Sometimes, Never, Occasionally. We tend to write a review for a fellow writer who hopes we'll give a 'gushingly good' review. They're hoping to sell books, so why wouldn't they want that kind of review? When I review a book for a writer I know, I always tell them that I will be completely honest. I absolutely cannot give 5 stars to a book that I don't feel merits that number. You can help the writers you know and other readers by writing a review. If I hate a book, there is no way I will bother with it. It's not in my nature to hurt others in any way. If interested in writing reviews, take a look at this article.

Have you done anything about joining a writers' group of some kind? I have gained a lot of knowledge and made some contacts with other writers, some of whom I now call 'good friend.' Don't tell me that you are doing just fine without belonging to any writing organization or writing critique group. I might accept that you are doing alright without them, but I think you'll do even better with them in your writing life.

There are a lot of links for you to check out in today's post. I put them there to give you some tips and encourage you to think about your own writing life, too.

The Beginnings Of A Writer

From laughloveliveitall.wordpress

Yes, 'real writers' have a constant itch to be writing something. Even when they experience writer's block, that itch is there. The problem then is that they can't seem to be able to scratch it!

Do you remember when you first wanted to write or when you took step one to becoming a writer?

For some of you, those days were a very long time ago but others may be in initial days of their writing journey here and now.

Do we get hit like lightning with a thought that we should try writing? Does the desire to write come on gradually? Do we act on our first thoughts about writing? Or do we wait an interminably long time before taking step one? I imagine there would be yes answers to each of those questions if we polled a group of writers. 

I wanted to become a writer for many years before I actually tried. When I had to deal with a double tragedy in my early married life, one of my first thoughts was that I needed to write about the experience to help others. That's as far as it went--a thought. It took 30 more years of living for me to be able to write about that time in my life. Maybe that's alright. Who knows for sure? Perhaps I wasn't ready to share until all those years had passed. 

I do know that I could have (should have) started my writing journey much sooner than I did. Even though the desire to write burned within, I made excuses for not acting on my feelings. I couldn't be a writer while raising children or doing lots of volunteer work in our community. There was not enough time, or so I told myself. That was a pretty poor reason since there are many writers who hold down full-time jobs and run a household but still find time to put words on paper. Obviously, their passion is greater than mine was. 

I also know now that the excuses we make for not having time to write or a life where writing doesn't fit are exactly that--excuses! It's a big part of that self-doubt problem many of us have, especially in the early days of being a writer. Fear is a monster that seems to grow if we cower in the corner instead of facing it head-on. The longer we wait, the bigger he becomes.

Do I wish I'd started to write earlier than I did? Absolutely! My writing path has never been one that leads to supporting myself with writing. I am a hobbyist writer who has also had the great joy of being published many times. Besides that, the old teacher in me wanted to start a blog about writing to help other writers with tips and encouragement. It's why this blog was birthed and why I continue with it. 

How about you?

•  When did you begin writing?
•  How long did you wait from the time you wanted to write until you actually did it? 
• What kept you from starting sooner? 
• If you had it to do over again, would you follow the same path or a different one?
• What advice would you give someone who expresses the desire to write?
• Do you depend on writing income?
• Are you a hobbyist writer or a professional?

I do know one thing. I have no regrets in putting my foot on the path to the writing world, even if it was later than I wanted it to happen. The passion-for-writing embers grew into full flame once I put words together to create a piece of writing. I can now say I am a real writer who, like today's poster says, has to write.

Grammar/Haiku For You

A friend sent me the following and I found it to be most interesting and amusing so wanted to share it with you. I checked the links about National Grammar Day, Mark Allen, and Allen's blog. He is a journalist and former editor who has an interest in promoting grammar and word usage--something we, as writers, should pay attention to so you might want to check out his blog.

I found it interesting that the contest was done through twitter. I resisted having a twitter account for a long time, but a writer friend encouraged me to try it. I don't use it several times a day like some people do, but I do post the blog topics and it's brought more traffic.

The results of the grammar.haiku  contest are posted below. Some are very clever. The one that made me laugh is the second place winner. You might try writing one of these yourself. If you do, post it in the comments section.




March 4th was National Grammar Day, and one of the events held to celebrate the occasion was a Grammar Haiku Contest, overseen by editor Mark Allen. Language lovers were asked to post grammar- or usage-based haikus on Twitter, and nearly 200 entries were submitted. Herewith, from Allen's blog, the winning haiku and the runners-up, as determined by a distinguished panel of judges.
First place:

Being a dangler,
Jane knew it would have to come
out of the sentence— Larry Kunz, @larry_kunz

Second place:

Tiny hyphen mark
marries words, charms editor.
Turns out to be lint.
— @APvsChicago

Third place:

Tree in full word bloom
falling across the blackboard
sentence diagram
— Bob Schroeder, @BobSchroeder5

Fourth place:

If I were to say
I missed you, oh subjunctive,
would that set the mood?
— Michelle Baker, @corpwritingpro

Fifth place:

My word, your syntax
stirs the imperative mood:
Let's coordinate
— Stan Carey, @StanCarey (Visual Thesaurus contributor!)

Honorable mentions:

After a sentence
be like Obi-Wan and just
hit the space bar once.— Holly Ashworth, @ActuallyHolly
First person: I love.
Second person: You love me.
Third person: Uh, oh.— Rachel Cooper, @RachelCooper_NS
Dangling oddly
I conjured absurdities
With modifiers.— Tom Freeman, @SnoozeInBrief
Loose rhymes with moose and
lose with booze, which I want to
drink when they're confused— @shaunarum
Judge me not grammar
I have memorized your rules
they shatter like glass— Gerri Berendzen, @gerrrib
Wanted: one pronoun,
To take the place of he/she
"They" need not apply— Charlie MacFadyen, @csmacf
People shouldn't say
"I could care less" when they mean
"I could care fewer"— Tom Freeman, @SnoozeInBrief

Christmas Letter Or A Trigger?

The Christmas letters are coming in at a rapid pace. Several days ago, I gave a few guidelines in writing a Christmas letter to enclose in your greeting cards to old friends and far-away family. 

As I read a letter yesterday, something occurred to me. The person who sent the letter had been a neighbor when my children were growing up. She had two girls who were close friends of my daughter, so the girls were back and forth between houses all the time. We had other things in common, as well. 

Reading about her family and what she's doing now triggered a lot of old memories.

I thought about the many times those three little girls played Little House On The Prairie. For hours! Or how they made clothes for their Barbie dolls, helped me bake cookies and squealed with delight while playing a game. 

Memories! They're what you need for some of those Chicken Soup or other creative nonfiction stories. It's far too busy to write the stories now, but you can keep a list of those memories triggered by what you find in the Christmas letters. Then, in January, you can start workiong on those stories. It's the perfect inspiration. Don't pass up this golden opportunity. 

Use Color in Your Writing

We've talked a number of times about the importance of using sensory details in our writing. Color isn't a sense like touch, smell or taste, but it's still a detail that can add some great visual images to your stories.

Our lives are filled with color, so why not incorporate that into your writing, as well. When I first began going to movie theaters, the films were mostly black and white. Only the musicals were done in full, blazing color. And what a glorious thing it was, too

Look at the following two passages that might come from a piece of fiction:

1.  Paul pinned the flowers onto her lapel. She grasped his hand and squeezed it gently. Paul's heart beat faster, and .....

3.  Paul pinned the violets onto her lapel. The deep purple of the flowers were a perfect match for her eyes. She grasped his hand and squeezed it gently. Paul's heart beat faster, and .....

The second example gives us a little more in our visual image than the first one does. It also tells us something we may not have known about the woman--the color of her eyes. (Wasn't Elizabeth Taylor known for her violet eyes, among other things!)

You can paint a spectacular word picture with color when describing things like a sunset, a mountain, a lake.

Saying that Johnny picked up a ball. is OK, but saying Johnny picked up the blue and yellow striped ball.gives us an even better mental picture of what the boy is doing.  You don't have to describe everything with colors but adding it here and there will perk up your writing, let the reader see more.

When you proofread your work, check for those important sensory details, but also look to see if you have color mentioned in any way. Find the spots where it might add something for the reader.