3 Advanced

Discussions at an Advanced level

Pomodoro Technique

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Today we are going to explain how to use a timing system to increase your productivity. This process was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s and is named for the Italian word for tomato…because that’s what the timer looked like that he used as he was creating the process.

Timing

We use a modified version of the official technique that lasts a total of two and a half hours. It seems to be the best combination for our tasks.

  • Step 0: Plan—5 minutes—Plan what you are going to do in this round
  • Step 1: Research—25 minutes—Gather info directly related to the task
    • Rest: 5 minutes—Get away from the task (escape from the keyboard)
  • Step 2: Write—25 minutes—Combine and record info collected
    • Rest: 5 minutes—Get away from the task (escape from the keyboard)
  • Step 3: Flow—25 minutes—Do initial clean-up of work produced
    • Rest: 5 minutes—Get away from the task (escape from the keyboard)
  • Step 4: Edit—25 minutes—Edit, close, and backup files
    • Rest: 30 minutes—Get out of the office (take a real break)
  • Loop: Go back to plan the next task

We have found that by doing a couple Loops each day, one early and one later in the day, helps us keep focused on tasks and increases useable output. (The rest of the day we spend resolving the interruptions we’ve set aside—usually just putting out fires.)

How We Use It

We have an agreement here at Turner Editing…if we see someone with a timer running or a “Do Not Disturb” sign posted, we just leave a note on the corner of their desk. We know they’ll get to it as soon as they finish a loop.

Sometimes there are urgent issues that can’t wait. In that case, we are forced to pause the timer and set aside the current task, take care of the intrusion, then restart the same 25 minute Step when returning. Depending on where the interruption came in the Step, that Step may end up getting almost double the time, but with the distraction, it may take all of that extra time to refocus and complete the Step.

If you feel you’ve completed an individual Step but there’s still time left in that Step, you can review what you’ve done so far, lean back and consider what you’ve learned from the process and seek to improve it, or review upcoming tasks to let your subconscious start working on them. There is no stopping early—use the full allotted time to your advantage before moving on to the next Step.

Online Timers

As expected, there are a bunch of different online options to help with this. We’ll list a few and give some pointers.

  • Pomofocus has some settings that you can adjust in the free version and more that require the paid version, but you can’t change the sound at all (a ringing alarm clock). Also the volume is so low that you might miss it if you have a heavy hand when you’re typing.
  • Tomato Timers has a very nice chime as the end of step sound as well as a pause and reset button.
  • Marinara Timer has very big numbers and a choice of interesting sounds.
  • Pomodoro Tracker has a choice of sounds as well as some ticking sounds during each step—a bit intrusive. It does have an option to notify you when there’s only one minute left.
  • The Pomodoro timer in Online Timers seems to be programmable for a variety of timing situations, but it’s too complicated for common use.
  • Eggtimer is fairly straightforward and even has a one-step Pomodoro timer. (If you are daring enough, check out the HTML source and build an entire Pomodoro Loop!)
  • My Tomatoes requires a login just to get started, so we didn’t bother to test it.
  • Online Stopwatch has too many pushy adverts to be useful.

We find that the Tomato Timer is about as basic as it can get…just a timer, no task tracking, no adverts, few options, but we like it the best just for those reasons. The default settings don’t match our timing, so the first thing we do is change the Long Break to 30 minutes, then adjust the sound and volume. We prefer the Doorbell sound as it isn’t too intrusive—we don’t want to get startled out of a deep concentration by a fire siren!

Physical Timers

Of course, if you want to go with the real thing, plenty of timers are available…some of which even look similar to the original tomato timer! If you prefer a physical timer sitting on your desk, we have to recommend any of the Time Cube timers. They come with pre-set times, so you have to pick the one that has the times you need. We like the purple one, even though it doesn’t have a 25 minute setting. We just use a 20 minute plus a 5 minute stretch, so we’ve got a warning that time is running low. Some of our editors prefer the red one that does have a 25…just no 30, so they take their long break with a 20+10. The Time Cube company even has some lovely cubes made of bamboo for a more natural look.

Chekhov’s Gun

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An important principle in writing is that anything the author mentions needs to be significant. If you tell us, then we believe it and look forward to finding out why. The same thing applies to details when describing things. If you tell us some particular piece of information, then we know it must be important…either to the story or to developing the characters. You can’t just fill your book with random items and descriptions. Readers will come away still trying to make sense of it all.

So Why is it Chekhov’s Gun?

Anton Chekhov was a Russian who wrote plays and short stories in Russian during the late 19th century. Although a physician first and a writer second (He himself said, “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress.”), Anton supported his family with his writing. He has also been listed as one of the most influential writers of all time. He claimed that artists were to ask questions…not answer them, so as his writing matured, he experimented with his style, and those changes have shaped the modern short story.

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
—Anton Chekhov

He is well known for a variety of things, but the one that interests us here is his quote about what you put into your story (see box to the right). His intent was to ensure that any item mentioned in a story actually had relevance—make certain that everything you put in needs to be there. You aren’t allowed to mention anything, even as small as a flower outside the window…unless that flower becomes relevant to either the story or the development of the character. If you point out something, your readers will go with it…and wait to see how it applies to the story later on. If it never does, they can be disappointed. (And we don’t want disappointed readers, do we?)

Descriptions Count, Too

In a similar vein, you can’t mislead readers by very carefully describing a room…unless that description reveals some piece of information that makes a difference to the story or the characters. (A general description is fine…and necessary.) Also, if you mention some product-specific detail when describing an item, make certain that it’s necessary. When introducing a fast car, just say, “a red, two-door, sports car”—not “a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 with headers and a spoiler.” The reader can picture whatever kind of car seems to fit. Same with firearms. Just say, “an automatic pistol”—not “an Israeli-made Jericho 941F 9mm with Cherrywood, cross-ground grips.” A can of soda is just a can of soda—not “a can of Coke with the classic logo on it, dented on one side.”

Of course, if the specific make, model, colour, or condition really is important to the story, then, yes, go ahead and include it, but make certain that it is absolutely needed. Irrelevant details tend to distract from the action.

Who is Your Target Reader?

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Before you get too far in writing, it is a good idea to identify your Target Reader. That’s the person (singular) you have in mind when telling your story. It’s always easier to picture one individual as your reader…and you can just sit down and tell them what you want to tell the whole world. That’s what you write…just as if you were face to face with them…keep it casual and don’t try to impress them with your vocabulary. For the first few stories I wrote down, I pictured my kids. Of course, those stories started off as bedtime stories to those kids, so it was easy to keep them in mind as I put it all down on paper.

Who is Your Target Market?

There are a LOT of people out there…and some of them don’t care to read what you’ve written, but there’s a fragment of them that would dearly love to read your stuff…so how do you find them? In the marketing world, a differentiation is made between a Target Market and a Target Audience. I’ll try to explain the difference…and why it’s important.

Your Target Market are folks who might be interested in your product (your book). They tend to share attributes that you can identify: age, location, interests, available time, etc. If you’ve written a book about the origins of the street names in Sacramento, then you’d be aiming for 40-60 year olds, living in or around Sacramento, with an interest in history, who have plenty of spare time to go exploring the city. On the other hand, if you’ve written a Sci-Fi adventure book, your market would include 15-30 year olds, living anywhere in the US, who find escape in reading, and have time during a commute to read a chapter a day.

You probably are included in your own Target Market…because you’re writing what you like to read, right?

Who is Your Target Audience?

Your Target Audience are the folks that you can send your message to. You couldn’t possibly tell all the folks in your Target Market about your book…you only have so many resources. Most first-time authors (especially self-published ones) are likely to do their own marketing, so they have to use the methods available to them. (Yes, you could hire a company to blanket the world, but could you really afford it at this point? And what would the payoff be?)

Using social networking to share info about your book is a typical approach. You could even set up an author page (besides your personal page) to focus your efforts. Other ideas include bookmarks or info cards that you could drop off at local libraries or bookstores. If you manage to join in a multi-author book signing or have a big release party for you book, you might want to invest in a full-sized poster to stand next to your table.

Any way you get the message out will help with sales.

The Overlap

Those sales come from the overlap between your Market and your Audience. When you send out your adverts, you’ll be aiming for your Audience, but there will be some folks in your Market who won’t get the message…and there will be others, in your Audience, who will get your message but aren’t in your Market. Your objective is to widen your Audience enough to encompass as much of your Market as you can.

Analysing your Market and your Audience may be tough, but once you start getting sales, you can check to see how accurate your predictions are…and adjusting either could result in more sales…always a good thing!

Author Intrusion

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  • This is a long and involved topic. If you’re unhappy about the length, please let us know. We’ll try to keep future discussions a bit shorter. Thanks!

First time writers (as well as a few seasoned authors) are likely to insert their opinions into their writing…whether they are aware of it or not, and that’s just the trouble. You need to know when it’s your characters talking or your narrator telling the story…and not you lecturing the reader. New writers need to remember that the story is intended to be viewed through the characters in a fictional world.

Readers are here for the character’s story…not the author’s opinion on things. They want to imagine that the world you’ve created is real. Any intrusions can distract or confuse readers when it upsets the flow, and it’s annoying, too. Readers will be disappointed that they’ve been kicked out of the story by the interruption.

Now, it’s perfectly fine for characters to have opinions…it adds to their personality, but it needs to fit in the story. The problem is that the author has to create all the characters…including the protagonist…he just has to be careful to not inadvertently create a copy of himself. As much as you may want to, you don’t get to live in your story world vicariously through your creations. Yes, they are your creations, and you are the god of this world, but although they may be made in your image, they are not you. You are the author, not a character in the story. Escapism is one thing, but you can’t get there from here.

On the other hand, using personal experience is not intrusion. If you’ve lived through a car crash, then having your characters succumb to the same physical and emotional trauma you experienced is perfectly fine. The feelings you had, when felt by your characters, helps make your world seem real.

Examples

There are a few different places where Author Intrusion shows up. We are going to address two main areas, but there are others, so keep an eye out for them.

Politics

Some intrusions come about due to trying to be politically correct. If your antagonist really is a bad guy, then he should think and talk like one, no holds barred. There is no need to comment on his badness.

  • “Those weirdos from Mars should all be rounded up and dumped on an island,” Paul said. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but that’s how he felt.

It’s obviously not Paul who thinks it isn’t right…that’s the author letting us know that he doesn’t think it’s right. On the other hand, Paul does think it’s right. In his mind, that’s what needs to be done—he’s a bad guy, through and through, but that’s fine, as antagonists often are. You need to remember that the characters you create are not you. They can be, and often are, very different from you, the author. If the readers can’t figure out that Paul is in the wrong, then it isn’t your job to tell them.

An author’s personal opinions shouldn’t come out of the mouths of characters who obviously don’t feel that way.

  • Erik knelt and placed his spear point down, in deference to the untouched maiden in front of him.

Virginity may be a Judeo-Christian concept held in high esteem, but to the Vikings, it wasn’t even considered. Be careful to avoid writing into your story notions that don’t fit in with the time, locale, or civilisations you are depicting.

Knowledge

Frequently concepts that should be foreign to the characters…but obviously not to the author or readers…somehow get mentioned.

  • William hefted his sword, blocking the sunlight glaring off his opponent’s shield, desperately in need of a good pair of sunglasses.

Hello? The medieval knight wants sunglasses? Not likely. The author would want them in that situation, and any reader would understand the need, but the character shouldn’t be thinking that. You need to keep modern thoughts out of your historical character’s minds…unless William is a time traveller! That would make all the difference.

Knowledge common to readers and authors…but not to characters…can slip in if you’re not careful. Also any research you’ve done can influence your knowledge, but unless the characters have access to the same source of information, they can’t comment on it.

  • “Watson, come here. I need you,” Bell said into the first functional telephone, not knowing that in the future everyone would carry one in their pockets.

If he doesn’t know it, then it shouldn’t be here.

Research done by the author to add a semblance of reality needs to be suppressed if the characters wouldn’t know it.

  • Mike leaned over and whispered, “You mean it will go boom, like when U-235 is impacted by a neutron and splits into Krypton, a noble gas, and Barium, an alkaline earth metal?”

No one actually talks like that, not even an expert in the field of atomic fission, but an author who has over-researched the topic might feel he has to share what he’s learned…and instead of telling us in narrative, he forces one of his characters to spout the nonsense, thinking he can then blame the character for it.

Let the characters speak for themselves.

Avoiding Intrusion

Try to picture the story from the viewpoint of your characters. If you’ve created full characters, not flat ones, they will know what they want to say and do, so let them. Step back from your writing, as you’re writing it…and afterwards. Put it on a shelf for a couple weeks, then read it over again. If anything seems out of place, it probably is. There’s nothing wrong with general knowledge and familiarity with how things work, but the details need to be left up to experts, not your commonplace characters.

Your Beta Readers and Critique Partners will often point out places where it sounds like you talking, not the characters. If you can’t see it, they will. Take their advice and clean it up. If there are certain words that you use in normal life, watch out for your characters using them, too. You may be an expert in some field, but are your characters? Let them go consult an expert in the story, not have all the knowledge they need right at hand.

When you try to balance things out by putting in a character who has a different opinion than you do, but then make him look stupid for that, then you are revealing how you really feel about the topic. Each character should have his or her own personality, different from each other and you. If the reader stops to question the motivation of a character, there is something wrong.

Don’t worry if your Beta Readers or Critique Partners don’t catch it…your editor should, but do you really want to rely on the skills of others? Or would you rather just do it right the first time?

Intentional Intrusion

There are times when you may want to include Author Intrusion as a literary device. That’s fine to do, just make certain that your readers know that’s what you are doing. Many famous authors have done so with impunity. If you feel you can follow in the footsteps of great authors, you are welcome to try, just consider the techniques of the successful ones first. In theatre and movies, this practice is known as breaking the fourth wall…the wall separating the audience from the action. If a character or the narrator turns and speaks directly to the audience, it won’t confuse your reader, just jump right in and say it.

Examples

Isaac Asimov was great for this, as he would often address the reader directly with “Dear Reader”. You knew he, as the author, was talking directly to you, as a reader, and it seemed so casual and direct that you welcomed the discussion he was having with you.

Of course, in non-fiction, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see the author as a teacher addressing students. In fiction, it could be a bit of a distraction to have the author step in and talk to the reader. You’re there for the action and excitement of the story…not a sit-down with someone who will be teaching you something, but it has been done…and can work quite well.

Charlotte Brontë speaks directly to the reader in setting up a scene. For example, consider this extract from Jane Eyre: “A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inns have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantle-piece…”

Think about The Princess Bride…the author is telling us about having a story read to him by his father but written by someone else completely. That frees up Goldman to talk to the reader about the inner story being read. (Known as a Frame Story, it is a literary device all on its own.)

If you do decide to try your hand at intentional intrusion, be careful, as it can appear, if not done well, to be lazy writing. It is best used in satire or where the intrusion is obviously ironic. Good luck!

Punctuation and Quotes, Logical or Not?

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This topic falls just shy of the Oxford Comma in raising intense discussion amongst editors: Where does the punctuation go relative to quote marks? Yet another issue where the US and the rest of the world differ. Fortunately, it only affects commas and full stops (periods). Everyone agrees with how colons, semi-colons, and dashes are placed, and question and exclamation marks are fine, so we’re going to only touch on those, then tackle the tough stuff.

Everything Except Commas and Periods

As rare as colons, semi-colons, and dashes are, they always* go outside the quotes:

  • Alan loved to quote from the TV show “Star Trek”: “That’s not logical.”
  • Betty’s favourite poem was “The Jabberwocky”; she spent weeks memorising it.
  • Carolyn leaned out of the treehouse and said, “It’s sturdy enough”—right before the branch creaked.

Question and exclamation marks go where they belong—if part of the quote, then inside. If part of the whole sentence and not the quote, then outside:

  • David whined, “Can I have an ice cream now?”
  • Mom waved her wooden spoon at him. “Not right before dinner!”
  • The professor opened the lecture with a question: Who said, “I came, I saw, I conquered”?
  • You have got to see the show “Alien Artefacts”!
  • You actually like the show “Mystery Hunter”?

Fairly straightforward—no problems here.

Logical Punctuation

In the US style, commas and periods always goes inside—a simple rule but less logical. In the British style (also known as Logical Quotation), they go where they belong (same as question and exclamation marks)—inside if part, outside if not, similar to many other languages.

It’s that simple.

Of course, there’s a big exception to the US style: If the quoted material is technical, then the punctuation goes outside (same as the Logical style).

  • My user name is “All.for.it”. (final period not part)
  • Did you use the password “it,is.a;BIG!1”? (question mark not part)
  • To put a non-breaking space in HTML, use “ ”. (period not part)

So Why Do We Do It?

Some of the arguments for why we’d want punctuation inside the quote mark are based on a quote from The Elements of Style: “typographical usage dictates the comma be inside the marks, though logically it seems not to belong there”—to avoid an unsightly gap? These days, with digital fonts, it isn’t needed.

Another contention, also based on typographic issues but a physical one, says that the small pieces of metal were delicate and could break. That may have been true at one time, but the British switched over when they wanted to make it more logical and less mechanical.

Either way, the typographic reasons no longer apply, so we are free to put punctuation in the logical place.

*When I say “always”, please keep in mind that there are exceptions to every rule, but the exceptions in this case are so rare, that I can’t think of any, so I feel justified in using that term. As we’ve noted, there are two words you should always remember to never use: always and never.

Font Choice

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There has been much discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of various fonts since the printing industry began. Researchers have written entire books on the topic, following months and even years of research at various institutes of higher learning. If you ask the experts, they will generally agree…at least that there’s a difference—the details are still a matter of debate.

For a fuller discussion of Typography in detail, consider reading Matthew Butterick’s online book: Practical Typography. If you have the time and inclination, it’s an excellent explanation of how things work. We’re not going to go into that much detail here—rather we’ll be pointing out a few helpful ideas of font choice.

Two Types

We will focus on two different types of fonts: Serif and Sans-serif. There are also Script and Decorative (including Fancy, Stencil and Handwritten), but typically they aren’t used in books. We also aren’t going to spend much time on monospaced fonts. Looking as if they were typed on an old typewriter, they are almost exclusively used to highlight computer coding examples, so if you’re writing a book about that, you probably already know how to format your illustrations.

Serif fonts are amongst the oldest fonts created, based on Roman carvings. The serifs are the extra tails that extend from the ends of each stroke of the letters. The serifs ease the identifying of letters and guide the reader’s eye along the lines of text, and so help make reading easier and more pleasurable. (We don’t want a good story to be ruined by a poor reading experience.)

Sans-Serif fonts don’t have those tails, ending with flat or square lines. Usually used in headings or titles to help them stand out, they keep your reader oriented in your wealth of information—an important objective. You’ll also see plenty of sans-serif fonts used in books aimed for a younger audience…think about those early readers where the kids are still sounding out each letter.

Which to use where

The general suggestion these days is to use a clear serif font for the body of the book. We recommend Century Supra or Equity (both at mbtype.com), Charter (practicaltypography.com/charter.html), or Source Serif Pro (github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif-pro). For headings and chapter titles, a complementary sans-serif font works well. For that we suggest Advocate (all caps) or Concourse (both at mbtype.com), Fira Sans (bboxtype.com/typefaces/FiraSans), or IBM Plex (www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/ibm-plex). Of course, because the titles of the chapters are usually short, some folks prefer to use a fancy font there, just to attract attention, so if that’s your preference please avoid Papyrus, Office Scripts, and of course Comic Sans.

Whatever you do, don’t use more than a few fonts in any one document…advert posters included! Once you start searching out new and different fonts, the more likely it will be that you catch font-itus.

Special Characters

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Sometimes you need to insert special characters into your ms, but these aren’t like the Symbols we discussed before…these are mostly invisible. Yes, invisible, yet very important.

Note: If you haven’t made non-printing characters visible yet, now would be a good time to do so. Remember, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl-Shift-* and you’ll see the pilcrow highlighted in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

The first character is one that you’ve used hundreds of time but probably never thought about: The Paragraph Break. You get this invisible character by simply hitting the Enter key, which you do at the end of every paragraph. With non-printing characters visible, it looks just like the pilcrow on the button above: ¶ (Note: Stored inside this one character is a bunch of formatting info.)

Next is the Line Break. It is used when you want to end a line, but not start a new paragraph. It looks like a small arrow with a hook: ↵ and you enter it with Shift-Enter.

Then there’s the Column Break. Useful if you have a multi-column section and the text in the columns doesn’t break where you want. It shows as a bunch of dots with the words Column Break in the middle. You can enter it by typing Ctrl-Shift-Enter.

Finally, there is the Page Break. It forces the next text onto a new page. It looks similar to the Column Break, but the dots are a bit tighter. You can put it in your document with Ctrl-Enter.

Three more: first another invisible one, then one that’s half visible, and finally a fully visible one.

The invisible one is a space…but it’s a special kind of space: a Non-breaking Space. You’d use it between a title and a name, such as “Dr. Smith”, so it stays together, not coming apart if it falls near the end of a line. It shows as a small circle instead of the regular dot used for a normal space, and you type it with Ctrl-Shift-Space.

Now the half visible one. It’s an Optional Hyphen. If you have a word that might break in the wrong place at the end of a line, you can tell Word exactly where you want the word to break. In the first example to the right, the word “elements” breaks in a strange place, so we put an Optional Hyphen right before the ‘m’ as shown in the second example. In the third, you can see the Optional Hyphen before the ‘m’ because it’s not being used, so it shows as ¬ and is entered with Ctrl-Hyphen.

Finally the fully visible character we promised. This one combines the Non-breaking Space and the Optional Hyphen, creating a Non-breaking Hyphen! If you have a hyphenated word that you want to keep together, not allowing it to break at all when near the end of a line, then you’d use a non-breaking hyphen. When you have non-printing characters turned on, it looks like a skinny dash, but just a normal hyphen when off—entered by Ctrl-Shift-Hyphen.

That covers all the special characters we are going to do this time…we’ll get to Dashes later.

Story Elements (Setting)

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Where your story takes place is sometimes just as important as who is in it. In fact, some folks say that your setting is just another character, but remember, the where includes not only the location, but also the time and environment. Location can include the room they are in, the town, the region, the country, and in some cases, the entire world. Time involves time of day as well as time of year. When you consider the environment, remember to take into account the geography, culture, society, and weather.

We’ll tackle each of these now:

Location

Does the story take place in a small town or a large city? Is it a place we already know or will you have to describe everything?

Picking the right spot can affect the mood of the whole story. Consider the difference between a small, dark mining town, under the domination of a harsh taskmaster and a bright, airy townhouse in a skyscraper.

Time

Midnight in the middle of winter is different from morning in early spring but so is dinner on a fall evening. A story in 500 BC is going to be poles apart from one in the 19th century…and how different will the 23rd century be?

Again, the mood will change depending on time…early colonialism compared with interstellar exploration. What technologies will you be allowed to use, or even mention? Cell phones? Quill pens?

Also consider the passing of time throughout the story. Do we start in the Industrial Age and progress to visiting other planets? Or does the entire story take place in one afternoon? It makes a difference.

Environment

Are we on a beach? Or at the top of a mountain? Is it rainy or hot and dry? Do folks congregate socially? Or does the upper-class insist that the peons remain in their homes unless working?

How many folks live in this area? Are multiple families crammed into small apartments? Or do the children have to play with their siblings as the nearest neighbour is hundreds of miles away?

Do the characters hail from displaced natives? Or are they part of the conquering hoard?

World Building

If your story isn’t in a time or place that we all know, you may need to give descriptions that are more detailed. If your story takes place in a new and exciting world, one straight from your imagination, then you will need to spend some time fabricating everything before you even get started on the story (or stories!). Building a whole world can involve creating a new planet, a new city, a new society, even a new language. Maybe you will have to rewrite some laws of physics to make your story work.

Whatever it takes, spend some time creating a setting for your readers to enjoy.

Correlative Conjunctions

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As we have seen before, conjunctions connect things (con=with, junction=to join). We had previously discussed Coordinating and Subordinating Conjunctions, but now we are going to address a third conjunction: Correlative (co=together, relative=connected). Very similar to Coordinating conjunctions connecting ideas that are equal in emphasis, but whereas Coordinating conjunctions are a single word, Correlative ones come in pairs, and one part of each pair goes with each idea being considered.

As with Coordinating Conjunctions the ideas being connected can be as simple as a single word (noun, verb, etc.), as involved as a phrase, or as complicated as a whole clause (sentence). As complicated as conjunctions can be, we really want to use them to connect ideas, establishing relationships between them.

Examples

  • Both/and
    • Both Amy and Bill are going to the store. (connecting subjects)
    • Amy is going to both the store and the library. (connecting objects)
  • Either/or
    • You are going to either do your homework, or fail maths. (connecting phrases)
    • Either you are going to stop singing or I am going to go insane. (connecting clauses)
  • Neither/nor
    • I will neither join your group nor follow you on FB. (connecting phrases)
    • You will neither have your cake, nor eat it, too. (connecting phrases)
  • Not only/but also
    • Not only will I play chess, but I will also eat crisps all day. (connecting clauses, note the inverted sub/verb and split “but also”)
    • You are not only dumb, but also (connecting objects)
  • Whether/or
    • Whether it is raining or snowing, I care not. (connecting complete clause to incomplete)
    • I will care for you whether you care for me or not. (connecting complete clause to incomplete)

As you can see, using conjunctions makes it clear how ideas are connected, and it improves the flow, one idea leading into another with a specific relationship.

From First Idea to Printed Book

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It’s well past time to address this topic…after all, we put the graphic below on our Home page, hinting at the process, so we really should explain how it all works. It starts off with an idea—someone somewhere has to have an idea…not even a fully formed idea yet…just a glimmer, but that’s enough to get started. Thinking about the idea is good, but trying to tell the story to someone else is better (writing it down will come later). You don’t even have to tell it to anyone in particular…some of my earliest stories were told at bedtime…to children. We can’t edit a blank page, so having an idea is just the start.

Tell It, then Write It

For non-fiction, this is when you’d hire a Developmental Editor, but for fiction, hold off on that for now. Just work on getting the basic details refined. This is the step where you are allowed to paint yourself into a corner, in fact, encouraged to do so…then, in a panic, retreat and rewrite (or retell) that section to fix it.

Once you have the basic story in mind, it’s time to commit it to paper. If you can find a group of fellow writers, they can help identify some of the less obvious problems you might encounter, and if you’re lucky enough to join a Critique Group, as they read your story—chapter by chapter—you’ll be reading theirs, learning by finding problems in their stories (which you can then avoid!).

Ready for Edit

After a few back and forths (sometimes quite a few) with your mini-audience, you should now have a complete story…on paper—that’s your manuscript. You are now ready for your first edit: the Line Edit. The story is done, but it needs a bit of polishing. At this point the written and spoken versions should be identical…you are just getting the flow smoothed out. Then it’s back to the author to do final clean up, and it’s ready for the second level edit: Copy Edit. This is a more in-depth look at the mechanics, the grammar, the usage…if you have a particular style, here is where it will become obvious.

The author doesn’t sit back and wait whilst the ms is being edited either…now is when the Front and Back Matter should be created—all the stuff that isn’t the story. Finding a good cover artist is important, too. (We can recommend a few…ask us.)

Put it together

After the Copy Edit is done, the formatting and layout steps are done and a temporary cover is slapped on, so Advance Reader Copies can be printed. Marketing should have started already, but now you have something physical to hand out to reviewers. The final edit step is now upon us: Proofreading—actually reading the proof copy of the book. Involving yet another set of editing standards, we are now building an experience for the reader to enjoy.

The last step is to add the final cover and have a release party. Be certain to invite us! We love a good release party.