From the Editor's Desk
Hi and
welcome once again to Fiction Factor! And, as always,
welcome to our new subscribers.
 Happy Halloween!
It's Friday night here and I've been inundated with enthusiastic
trick-or-treaters all this evening - which has made completing this
issue and getting my own costume ready at the same time very difficult!
I'm supposed to have been at a huge Halloween party an hour ago, so I'm
sitting here in my office dressed like Morticia Addams from The Addams
Family as I type this.
It's my own fault - I really
should have completed this portion of the newsletter yesterday when I
was working on the rest of the formatting, but I've also been swamped
with crazy deadlines from publishers who believe I should only need 48
hours instead of the usual 7 working days to get things done. That's one
of the benefits of being a financial writer during a credit crisis -
there's always plenty of work for a writer!
I guess I can't complain
about being busy, but I can complain about really short deadlines!
During the last month, the
lovely Mayra Calvani interviewed me for the Halloween issue of
Blogcritics Magazine. You can read the interview here:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/10/17/084911.php or you can see
the same interview on the Dark Phantom blog:
http://thedarkphantom.wordpress.com/
Anyway - I'm off to have
some fun at my Halloween party with my accompanying
Pirate-of-the-Caribbean. I hope you enjoy this issue!
We have a huge issue for you this month, so let's get straight
into the writing stuff!
This issue Holly Lisle's "Bring Your Novel To
Life" series continues as she looks at planning a heart-stopping
story. Steve Dempster delves into short story writing and why not to
waste your words on wasted words and Lucia Zimmitti creates vivid,
memorable characters to breathe life into your fictional people.
It's time now to grab a beverage of choice, sit back, and
enjoy this issue of Fiction Factor!
Lee Masterson
Editor-in-Chief
http://www.fictionfactor.com
"A professional writer is an amateur who didn't
quit."
-- Richard Bach
 Turn Your Book into a
Best-Seller!
- Learn to write a GREAT novel from start to
finish
- Find out what editors and agents want
-- 100's of promotion and marketing ideas
PLUS - you'll also get "Write
Here, Write Now" - the hugely popular
motivational ebook co-written by Tina Morgan and
Lee Masterson
Order Now and Receive BOTH best-selling ebooks
for the price of one: http://www.fictionfactor.com/order.html
|
 Create A Character
Clinic
Can you create a great character that editors
can't turn down?
Holly Lisle can and she can show you how too!
Did you know that starting with a name and a character
description will KILL your character?
You can learn to bring all your characters to life with
sparkle - from an author of more than 30
published novels!
Click here for bring your characters
to life today:
http://tinyurl.com/yqqawa
|
Planning a Heart-Stopping Story
by Holly Lisle
Part VII of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO
LIFE Series
If you missed the first five articles in this
series, you can find them here: Part I Does Your Novel
Have a Heartbeat, Part II Does Your Novel
Have a Pulse Part III Burying Your
Novel's Message Part IV Playing Chicken
With Your Novel Part V
Dig Deeper With
Your Novel's SubThemes
Part VI
Interweaving Your Novel's Themes & Subthemes
Over the last six lessons, you've figured out your theme, and you've
worked out at least one and possibly several subthemes. You've learned
how to use blended scenes, intercuts, and cliffhangers to work both
themes and subthemes into your work. You have great conflict waiting to
happen. What do you do next?
All of our discussion of themes and subthemes comes down to this. It's
time to figure out how your story is going to go.
After more than 17 years of writing novels as my full-time job, I've
tried every method I could find for getting my stories into order
without so overworking them during the outline process that I no longer
wanted to write the book. This is the method I currently use, and am
still refining. It's simple, it's quick, and it's flexible---all three
advantages which make writing more fun, and keep your work fresher for
you. This is going to seem like the strangest imaginable way to get a
passionate, compelling, suspenseful story on the page...but it
completely blows away waiting for your Muse to inspire you in terms of
effectiveness.
I am a heavy user of plot cards---3x5 index cards or the software
equivalent--upon which I write one single sentence for each scene. That
sentence outlines the characters and the conflict that will occur in
that scene.
(Don't understand scenes? The Scene Creation Workshop will help you get
the hang of them. http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/scene-workshop.html
)
To write your novel, you'll need to know:
• How many plot cards/ scenes you'll need for your book,
• Which theme or subtheme (or blend) you'll be dealing with for each
scene,
• Which characters will be in each scene,
• Who the POV (Point Of View) character---the person through whose eyes
the story is told---will be.
You'll start with basic arithmetic plus your themes and subthemes to do
this to figure out how many scenes you'll need.
An average first novel in the current market is around 90,000 words long
(if you're writing for the adult, not children's or YA markets).
• So we'll start with 90,000 words as our target length.
For this example, we're going to assume that you have one main theme and
two subthemes that you've decided will each run the complete length of
the book.
• Theme: HEROINE sets out to win a writing contest and prove to her
dubious husband that her dream of being a writer is not a waste of time.
• Subtheme #1: HEROINE meets man at work who encourages her writing, and
her pursuit of fulfillment, leading her to consider leaving her current
relationship.
• Subtheme #2: HUSBAND watches his wife's life change as she pursues her
dreams, and he starts wondering what happened to his own dreams.
Let's further say that you've decided your scenes will average a
thousand words each, so you'll need about ninety of them to get a
full-length novel. (In real life, the math is rarely this easy--mine
scenes generally average 1500 to 1750 words each, but every book and
every scene is different.)
• Target Length of Book ÷ Average Length of Scene = Number Of Scenes
• 90,000 ÷ 1000 = 90 scenes for the book (PLEASE NOTE: This is an
APPROXIMATION. Books are not so cut and dried that you'll end up with
exactly ninety scenes, nor will they each be a thousand words long.)
You want to give a lot of the story over to your main theme. We'll
figure 50% because it's a nice, easy number, but it could just as easily
be 60%. Or 73.8%, if you like to make things complicated. Let's not go
there, though.
• 50% for the heroine's main story.
Then we'll divvy up the other half of the book between Subtheme #1 and
Subtheme #2. Say you decide that you want the heroine to dump her
husband for the man at work. You'll probably want to give #1 more time
and space than #2. If you want her current relationship to grow stronger
because her pursuit of her own dreams has inspired her husband to pursue
his, then you'll want to put more work into #2. And if you want to keep
the reader in suspense about which way she's going to jump, split them
down the middle.
You can
read the rest of this article here:
http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/planning.html
 Mystery, Romance, Science
Fiction, Fantasy, Memoirs, Screen-Plays ...
You CAN Write Any Book
in Under 28 Days
Best Selling Author Nick Daws has written 30
books in 3 years. He can show you how too!
It's easier than you think!
Click here for more details:
http://www.fictionfactor.com/bookstore/28days.html
|
 Create-A-Culture
Clinic
Have you ever wanted to create your own
realistic worlds?
Best-selling author of more than 30 novels shows
you how to create religions, philosophies,
governments and lifestyles that will make your
fiction story feel real!
Click here for more details: http://tinyurl.com/26uy95
|
Short Story Writing - Don't Waste Your Words on Wasted Words
by Steve Dempster
The short story
market often demands tight word counts from the writer. Here are some
tips on how to keep that word count under control!
Short stories written specifically for inclusion in weekly or monthly
magazines are a lucrative source of income for any writer. The pay rate
per word is often high and the returns are good for the length of time
devoted to any one story.
Yet this market has its own disciplines and one cardinal rule that
aspiring writers must obey is the word count. This is the required
number of words demanded by magazine editors for any story submitted
and, whilst there may be some leeway, it generally isn't great. For
'five minute fiction' type stories it may be as little as fifty words.
This discipline is often found by new writers to be one of the hardest
to master. They write a story - and it may be a very good story - then
find it is two or three hundred words 'heavy'. I've done this myself
many times when I started writing fiction and articles. It can be very
disheartening to complete a story, sit back in satisfaction and hit the
word count button only to see it ring up several hundred words 'over the
limit.'
How, I asked myself at the time, can I possibly reduce my story by that
sort of length? Let's face it, a 'five minute fiction' type story may
only have a word length requirement of 1,000 words - to try and cut
1,300 down to 1,000 seemed to me, at that time in my writing career, a
stark impossibility. How to do it?
That's when I began to learn about things like wasted words. Although in
this article I certainly don't have space to discuss every aspect of
this subject, at least I can list some of the worst culprits that new
writers seem to use time and time again - like I did!
Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these
whenever you can. A very short list of some of these offenders:
Quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover, it can be seen that, it
has been indicated that, basically, essentially, totally, completely,
therefore, it should be remembered that, it should be noted that, thus,
it is imperative that, at the present moment in time.
These are fine in their place, but they often find their way into your
writing with the sinister purpose of tempting you into the sin of
padding your sentences.
I am convinced that the habit of padding sentences has at its root
academic and, in particular, bureaucratic writing. Never have I seen one
of these types of prose without the most outlandish and rambling
sentences included - you probably know the sort of thing I mean. Such
horrors as 'It should continuously be remembered that' and 'Morover and
not withstanding anything to the contrary, it has been previously
indicated' abound.
Since such letters are read by people in our ever-freer reading society,
the tendency is to think that they are not only correct but also
desirable within any sort of writing. Rubbish. Unless for effect, they
should be excluded. Short stories are lean and fit, not bloated and
slow.
You can see
the rest of this article here:
http://short.fictionfactor.com/articles/wastedwords.html
(this
link will take you to Short-Fiction Factor)
 How To Write Page-Turning
Scenes
Let Holly Lisle, author of more than 30
novels, teach you how to write page-turning
scenes that keep your readers up long past their
bedtimes.
You can create characters and you
can plot like a fiend - but if you can't create page-turning
scenes your book is dead in the water.
Learn how to set up
great conflict and sustain suspense that will keep readers on
the edge of their seats - and have editors begging for more!
Click here for more details: http://tinyurl.com/492sx5
|
 Create A Plot
Clinic
Have you ever lost interest in your story only 20
pages from the start and not know how to get it
going again?
Best Selling Author of more than 30 novels, Holly
Lisle, can show you exactly how to structure your
story for maximum effect. Learn to fix problem
plotting while you write!
Learn to create plots that get readers addicted to your story
and make editors beg for more.
Jump Start your novel today: http://tinyurl.com/2z3ant
|
Create Vivid,
Memorable Characters
Breathe Life into Your Fictional People
By Lucia Zimmitti
If your readers don't care
about your characters, you're sunk. Readers don't necessarily have to
like all of your characters, but they have to care about what happens to
your main character, or there's no reason for them to keep reading.
Which means you have to care about your characters, and you have to
know them, maybe even better than you know yourself. To create
characters that live and breathe on the page, you must first create
characters that live in breathe in your psyche. This is why you need to
know much more about them than you'll ever have to include in your
completed story.
One way to achieve this authentic character history is to put your main
character(s) in as many real-life situations as possible. And because
thinking is only the first stage and can only get you so far, write
these situations out, considering all sorts of details.
When you can imagine your character in different places and with
different people, beyond people and places your story requires, you make
your fictional people exponentially more realistic within the confines
of your own story.
Start by deciding on the basics: your main character's date of birth
and favorite things (such as food, color, activity, place, song, movie,
book, friend, family member, possession, game, animal/pet, amusement
park ride, season). Remember: these are details you'll want to work out,
even though they may never need to be discussed in your story.
The basics is great place to start, but to create the most vivid,
memorable characters, you'll need to stretch your imagination and go
beyond the basics.
You can see the rest of this article here:
http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/characters.html
 The Slippery Art
of Book Reviewing
Book reviewers are always in demand - but can you write reviews
that sell?
This excellent resource was written not only with the aspiring
reviewer in mind, but for the established reviewer who needs a
bit of refreshing and also for anybody-be they author,
publisher, reader, bookseller, librarian or publicist-who wants
to become more informed about the value, purpose and
effectiveness of reviews.
Click here to learn more:
http://www.slipperybookreview.wordpress.com
|
 The
Best-Seller Secret
You can become a best-selling author!
Did you know that you really can get your book to
the top of the Amazon Best-Seller list?
There is a specific formula that will make your
book rise to the top of Amazon's best-seller list
- do you want to know what it is?
Click here for more details: http://tinyurl.com/44cynt
|
~ "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug
used by mankind." -- Rudyard Kipling ~
Writing Courses
You can see the full list
of available courses here: http://www.fictionfactor.com/courses.html
Fantasy
Writing Course
Fantasy is all about
the strange, the fantastic, the beautiful and the
amazing. Here is your chance to delve into creating a
great fantasy novel. This intensive course looks at
everything from world building to creating races and
cultures, from plotting to characterization, from
questing to role playing – you name it, if it’s
Fantasy related, we’ll be looking at it, in depth,
up close and personal.
http://fantasy.fictionfactor.com/course.html
Thriller
Writing Course.
Learn how some of the masters of the modern thriller get
readers' spines tingling. Masters like John Grisham,
Michael Crichton, James Paterson, Patricia Cornwell and
more. Join our thriller course today and get your
thriller career up and running.
http://www.fictionfactor.com/thriller.html
Romance Writing Course
Increase your chances of writing a great romance
manuscript and having it accepted for publication. Join
our romance course today and launch your romance writing
career!
http://romance.fictionfactor.com/course.html - (this link will take you to Romance Factor)
 Writers Wanted!
Great Pay Quick Jobs
Best Selling Author Nick Daws exposes
little-known writing markets willing to pay great
rates for writers willing to work now!
You could be earning great money from your writing with as
little as 5 minutes work per day!
Click here for more details: http://tinyurl.com/tr2ga
|
 How to Beat
Writer's Block
Writer's Block isn't just about being stuck
wordless - it's the thought of all the hard work
ahead of you bringing you down
But you can bring back the thrill of creating
stories easily with Holly Lisle's audio course on
beating writer's block for good!
Click Here to jump start your writing again: http://tinyurl.com/5b9b39
|
Paying Market Listings
You can find the complete
Market Index here: http://www.fictionfactor.com/markets.html
Happy Market Hunting!
(Disclaimer: Mention of a market/ contest in Fiction
Factor is not necessarily an endorsement. Check all
guidelines in full before submitting)
Shine Anthology
http://shineanthology.wordpress.com/category/guidelines/
SHINE is an anthology of optimistic near-future SF, published by Solaris
Books. Stories should be under 10,000 words and should be set up to 50
years into the future. Payment is 5 cents per word on publication.
Please read guidelines before submitting.
Submission Guidelines:
http://shineanthology.wordpress.com/category/guidelines/
Silly Western Anthology
http://residentialaliens.blogspot.com/2008/10/silly-western-antho-call-for.html
CyberAliens Press are looking for short stories from 500 to 3500
words in length, as well as poems, jokes, puns, limericks, artwork, and
general silliness. All submissions must express one of the following
themes:
+ American Wild West
+ Steampunk
+ Prairie Romance
or some mixture of the above.
Submission Guidelines:
http://residentialaliens.blogspot.com/2008/10/silly-western-antho-call-for.html
ClockWork
Phoenix 2 - Tales of Beauty & Strangeness
http://www.clockworkphoenix.com/
Seeking stories under 10,000 words for annual print
anthology to be published by Norilana Baooks in July
2009. Editor Mike Allen says: "CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2
is a home for stories that sidestep expectations in
beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their
settings and startle with the ways they cross genre
boundaries, that aren't afraid to experiment with
storytelling techniques.
"The stories should contain elements of the
fantastic, be it science fiction, fantasy, horror or some
combination thereof. A straight psychological horror
story is unlikely to make the cut unless it's truly scary
and truly bizarre. The same applies to a straight
adventure fantasy or unremarkable space opera —
bring something new and genuine to the equation, whether
it's a touch of literary erudition, playful whimsy,
extravagant style, or mind-blowing philosophical
speculation and insight.
Deadline: November 16, 2008
Payment 2 cents per word plus one
contributor copy.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.clockworkphoenix.com/#guidelines
Dark Jesters:
An Anthology of Humorous Horror
http://www.novellopublishers.com
Deadline: November 30th 2008
Novello Publishers is seeking 10 hysterical stories to
fill their first trade paperback humorous horror
anthology.
Word count is not to exceed 2,000, NO EXCEPTIONS. The
shortest accepted piece will be 1,500, but closer to the
2,000 mark is ideal for this project.
Stories must be horror-oriented-no scifi unless in the
vein of "Alien." Stories will be selected
(mainly) on their humor content: the harder you make the
editors laugh the better chance your story will be
picked. Any story that insults the horror genre will not
be selected; "humorous horror" does not mean we
want to "make fun" of the genre. We want to see
"real" horror stories with a humorous angle.
Whether your story deals with classic monsters (such as
vampires), the apocalypse, serial killers, ghosts, or
(you fill in the blank), we want the readers to laugh
'till it hurts.
Payment: $40.00 and one contributor
copy.
NO REPRINTS.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.novellopublishers.com/guidelines.html
The Phantom
Queen Awakes - a Dark Celtic Anthology
http://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=120
The Phantom Queen Awakes, will focus on Morrígan’s
tripartite nature. We want stories set in the ancient
world of the Celts (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celt
for some information), that talk of Morrígan. She does
not have to be a central figure (although she must appear
at least once in the tale), however we would prefer it if
she was.
Mark and Amanda are looking for stories that push the
boundaries, for tales that resound with the reader long
after they’ve been put down. Supernatural creatures
are allowed, although they must be in tune with Celtic
mythology. We do not want gratuitous violence or sex
scenes. The editors would prefer stories of a darker
nature, and are much more likely to take well written
stories with this in mind.
Word Count: up to 6,000 words
Deadline: 1st December 2008
Payment 1 cent per word, no reprints
Submission Guidelines: http://www.morriganbooks.com/?page_id=120
Potter's Field
3
http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/pottersfield.htm
Deadline: 31st December 2008
A print anthology of tales from the graveyard. Stories
should be between 2,000-8,000 words. We do not want gore,
blood, splatter, slice-and-dice. Sure, it might be good
fun to make balloon animals out of someone's intestines,
or find out how long the heart will continue to beat
after it has been ripped from the body with a runcible
spoon. But that's not what we want. We want stories that
will scare readers, not stories that will make them gag.
This is not to say that someone in your story cannot
bleed, or die. Just put a lid on the icky stuff.
Submission Guidelines: http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/pottersfield.htm
|
