Why the Black Wolf?

Novel Word Counts by the Genre

We’re coming up to competition season. As such, there seems to be an increase in the number of questions and discussions online about the accepted word count range for novels.

In a previous post, I discussed the limitations that word counts can have on short stories. In a recent post, I briefly outlined what the differences were between a short story, novella and a novel. Today, we’re going to compile into one list what the current accepted ranges are for debut writers heading down traditional publication roads.

The Importance of Press Kits—Even for the Debut Writer

Some years ago, I encountered a post that spoke about the importance of having a press kit on your website, even if you were a debut writer. By a press kit, they meant having downloadable pictures and copies of your bio of various formats, and of course, information about your new book. The press kit could be used by anyone for almost any purpose, but it was a form of advertising.

I have no idea on what blog I saw that post on all those years ago, but I remember getting my A into G and putting together a press kit page on my personal website, complete with information about the book that was being released at the time. Since then, I have updated the page to focus on more recent publications, and I keep updating it.

However, in the last week, I have discovered how important having the press kit page really is.Read More→

The Long or the Short of a Story

The length of a story has more impact on the nature of a story than people realize. In a previous post, I wrote about how there is a minimum number of words necessary to do a story justice. This is particularly the case when working in the short story form. However, what many writers don’t realize is that the length of the story will help to define the expectations of a reader when it comes to world building, character development and pacing. There will also be a literary expectation imposed by word counts.

With the publishing industry, you have six broad categories for story length: flash fiction, short stories, novelette, novella, short novel and long novel.

It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty and explain the difference between these different categories and the reader expectations involved.

Is your profile a turnoff?

Publishing has always been a business, and writers are expected to build brands, which consists not only of the books they write, but also of their social media and online presence. Our non-writing activities have always been a part of this whole marketing thing, and how we handle that message is just part of the game. However, the internet has added a "now" component to the marketing equation that wasn't there before, and disaster is waiting to happen.

Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog (and my personal blog) will know that I'm a big fan of protecting oneself on the internet, protecting one's physical and cyber security, as well as one's reputation. But there could be aspects with what you are doing that could be a massive turnoff... and you don't even know it.

I'm talking about the overall message behind what it is that you're posting. I'm talking about your profile as a whole: the bio, the photos, and the individual messages. I'm talking about the public face that you present to the world.

And it all boils down to two things: politics and religion. They are both incredibly sensitive topics, but they also have their fingers wrapped around almost everything that we do.

Let me explain further.

Trick from the Editor’s Hat: The Top-and-Tail Edit

It doesn't matter how you look at it, editing is a BIG job. Any little tricks to help make things flow are always handy to have.

Here is just one of the many tricks that I employ when editing both my own and clients' writing, giving me a way to examine story flow.

The Top-and-Tail Edit

The idea behind a top-and-tail edit is that you examine the transitions between chapter and sections, looking at the last paragraph(s) of one chapter and reading the first paragraph(s) of the next. Everything in the middle is ignored. This is only looking at the transitions.

This particular idea is highly effective with the development of the cliff-hanger endings.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: A Literary Term Defined

A Classic Story with a Classic Writing Flaw

Dialogue forms a fundamental part of fiction writing. It's how the characters talk to one another—or how they don't talk—that provides insight into what is going on within a scene and what the characters might think about it. It's through dialogue that we can get the actual thoughts of other characters, not just the POV character. So much story often revolves around the dialogue.

However, when writing dialogue, many writers still new to the craft will fall back into an excessive use of dialogue tags. I have written about this some years ago, in the post Billy said... Diana said... In that post, I spoke about how it's not just the use of the word said that causes the issue. It's the over-excessive use of dialogue tags in general that can disrupt the flow of a story.

There are many writers and editors out there who will argue that using the word said isn't a problem. Even Stephen King says this. They rightly argue that our brains are trained to overlook the word said and move on. If you shift to the other dialogue tags (e.g., cried, shouted, bellowed, hissed, growled), our eyes are drawn to them, and we notice them.

This is all true, but the publishing industry as a whole is shifting away from the printed form (and I'm including eBooks as a printed form for this discussion). Audio books are taking a hold, giving people the ability to check out the latest book from their favorite author while they're out walking the dog. Whatever is on that printed page is directly translated to audio form, and the two ARE NOT the same.

Punctuation has a direct impact on this, bringing into question within editors' circles about how rigid we need to be with the punctuation rules. Whereas issues like the he-said-she-said fest become so obvious when read aloud.

Is my story too short?

Normally, when I have a conversation with someone about story length, it's because the writer has written an opus that needs to be trimmed down. This is often the result of too much backstory or unnecessary word building and character description that only distracts from the story as a whole. Trimming a story down is where I'm the queen. (Okay, I'll admit it... I overwrite my own stories in early drafts. I've developed the skills and techniques needed to trim word counts quickly, bringing a story back in line with where it should be.)

However, occasionally, I find myself having a conversation about how a story is actually too short based on the elements presented. There might be too many named characters. Or the setting plays too big of a role for the word real estate available. Or perhaps, there were too many twists and turns and not all the threads were adequately explored.

This is more often seen in shorter story forms, like short stories and novellas, and trying to explain the minimum word count needed to do a story justice is not an easy concept to fathom.

In episode 12.27 of the podcast Writing Excuses, Mary Robinette Kowal introduced an equation that she uses to work out how long a story should be based on the number of characters, number of locations and the number of MICE elements (and NO, I'm not talking about those little things that go squeak, squeak, or those devices that we click repeatedly when the computer refuses to respond). So, let's get to it and break the mathematics down.

Do you need to hire a developmental editor?

Once again, I have found myself privy to a debate about the merits of hiring editors. This time the focus was on developmental editors, and some of the comments... You have no idea how hard it was to bite my tongue and not go mental on social media.

Before I get too far down the track with this argument, I should remind my readers that a developmental editor looks at the story aspect of your manuscript. They will examine the structure, the character and plot development, the narrative voice, concepts of show vs tell, and all the nitty-gritty that goes with it. If you are looking at nonfiction (and not just creative nonfiction), a developmental editor still looks at structure, but they will examine the flow of information and the level of detail provided. Developmental editing is a huge job and the most important editing phase.

I have written about the stages of editing before, on numerous occasions, and still, I read far too many books that are lacking on the developmental editing front — both fiction and nonfiction. But I digress...

So... The comment that really got me riled up...

I quote:

"I was in a workshop with a literary agent ... she said she believed “all freelance editors were charlatins.” No joke. She wasn’t including copy editors in that group."

Okay, we'll ignore the fact that charlatans is spelled incorrectly. It was a comment made on social media, and even my phone spellchecker has failed me on numerous occasions. (Stupid autocorrect!) But the commenter in question also recommended that the writer who posed the original question about hiring developmental editors should seek an editor from Fiverr for all the good it would do them.

OMG, my eyes saw red. I so wanted to rip a new hole into the commenter for such remarks, but I would never do that on public social media. Nope, I turn such debates into a blog post instead. (Hmm... This could be a problem, but I'm doing it anyway.)

It's time to dispel some myths about what it is like working with developmental editors (myself included), and why I have made the decision to always hire a developmental editor for my personal writing projects.