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Are you continuously seeking out new information, updated techniques and writing styles so that you can remain up to date in the industry? Being unwilling to learn, adapt and change can be a setback for both beginning and existing novelists. Whether you've been writing for three minutes or 30 years, there's still more to learn. I've been writing for more than 30 years, and I still learn something new every day. Most recently, it finally dawned on me that there's a difference between 'sat' and 'set' when writing in third-person past tense.
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Sat - Past tense and past participle of sit (Dictionary.com)
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Set - To put something or someone in a particular place (Dictionary.com)
I've been using those words interchangeably forever. When did it finally dawn on me that they were different? After writing my ninth book. If there ever was a forehead-slapping moment, that qualifies.
Other Things I've Learned Over the Years
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This is not correct dialogue punctuation - "I'm going to the store." Bob said.
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This is correct dialogue punctuation - "I'm going to the store," Bob said.
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Using anything but said and asked is frowned upon for dialogue tags.
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The Oxford comma is no longer required and fading from existence.
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Using two spaces after a period, exclamation point, question mark or any ending punctuation mark is no longer done.
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There are rules in fiction.
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Publishing a book that opens with dialogue is frowned upon.
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Publishing a book that opens with a character waking up is frowned upon.
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Self-publishing no longer carries the stigma of being a less-than author.
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The worst-case scenarios for getting a traditional publishing book contract are still the best case scenarios if the story ends with - I got a book deal and an advance.
But You Can't Tell Me Nothing I Don't Already Know!
I'm right there in the boat with ya, buddy! I am stubborn. I am hard-headed. I am absolutely set in my ways, and there is not a damned thing you could tell me that I don't already know or will immediately classify as bullshit. Welcome to the club, and here's the truth. I don't know everything. I doubt I've even scratched the surface of everything I need to know about fiction writing, and you haven't put a dent in that surface either. It would take lifetimes to learn everything about fiction writing. This is why there are thousands of writing books on the market. Every author has experienced something different. Every author has different advice, or they put it into a different format. I would venture to guess that even if you stacked all those books together, including this one, there's still more to learn.
It is this hard-headed, closed-minded thinking, however, that will slaughter your forward momentum and negatively affect your improvement and growth as an author. You have to open your mind to new ideas. You have to read. You have to continuously learn more about your craft, because other authors are going to learn the new techniques. They are going to purchase and buy those writing books, and if you are standing still, you are falling behind.
If You’re Not Growing, You’re Shrinking
The cliche'd advice in business is that if you are maintaining and not growing, you are falling behind. This is because your competition is looking at new ways to grow and expand. You can think of it like the evolution of TV and media. In the 80s, everyone had VCRs. In the 90's, everyone had DVD players.
Today, all that stuff is stored on your harddrive or delivered to you digitally. The companies that did not move forward with the times to develop and build DVD players and then move forward to provide streaming services are out of business, and you will be too if you stop learning and stop growing your authorpreneurship.
What does this mean? It means that you, like myself, have to open your mind every once in a while to new ideas and new thought processes and new writing techniques, and yes, even knew writing software in order to stay up with the times and improve your writing and your business. After all, how many authors do you know that are still using a typewriter and white-out to create their final drafts for submission to agents and publishers?
Being an author or any type of business person means that you must be willing to continuously learn, grow, adapt and change.
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A writing coach is a person that helps you through the process of writing and revisng your novel, according to your goals. This person may or may not be a writer, editor or author, but they should have experience in the industry, preferably on how to write, edit and publish novels. It's important to note that most writing coaches are authors.
What Does a Writing Coach Do?
You can think of your writing coach as the life coach for your novel. This person will take you through every stage of the novel planning and writing process until you complete your novel and are either ready to find an agent or publisher or are ready to self-publish your book.
They Help You Set a Writing Schedule, Including a Completion Date
One of the biggest things a writing coach does is help you set a schedule for writing your novel. One of the biggest problems many new and established authors have is finding time to write. A writing coach can help evaluate your current schedule and lifestyle as well as your writing goals in order to help you find a novel completion timeline that works for you.
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When you’re writing a new novel, you can choose to do all the writing, drafting, editing, proofreading, polishing and formatting yourself, or you can choose to work with an editor. What you decide will depend on your budget and whether or not you feel editing services are something you want to utilize.
1. The Developmental Edit
Developmental edits are designed to find large flaws in your manuscript. This is typically where the editor goes through and points out things that are missing and things are unclear. It could be description. It could be a dropped main plot of a dropped subplot or a scene, section or chapter that you forgot to finish. When it comes to developmental edits, you want to get them done fairly early in the process. I recommend no later than after draft three. At this stage, your plots and subplots should be in and any description you're going to add should also be in the manuscript. I recommend getting developmental edits done at drafts two and three because you should be about halfway finished with the writing process, but you shouldn’t be so far along that major changes really send you into a tailspin and delay the publication of your work. It’s worth noting that these are one of the most expensive types of edits, but they can save you months when they are performed correctly and utilized correctly.
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If you have two books that you want to release at roughly the same time or two book ideas, you may be tempted to write them at the same time. While there are some good reasons to do this, there are also some downsides. Read more to learn if working on two books at the same time would be right for you.
Pros of Working on Two Books at the Same Time
There are a couple very valid reasons for working on two books at the same time. The biggest reason is that you’ll be able to control your release dates. If you want to release a book every two or three months, you can do that once you have multiple books finished, assuming you are self-publishing.
Read more: Pros and Cons Of Working on 2 Books at the Same Time
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If you’re like every other writer I’ve met, you get random ideas for novels that you know would be great and well-received by readers, but it’s not always convenient to start working on a new novel, especially if you’re already working on a single title or the next book in your series. So, what’s the best way to handle all these ideas?
How to Get the Ideas Down so You Can Write Them Later
The biggest problem with being a very prolific author is the number of ideas that you may have for various novels. Thankfully, you can efficiently handle these ideas so that you can work on them after you finish your current manuscript.
