Tag: Craft

So you got a bad review . . .

Whatevs…

Five emoticons showing a range of angry to happy faces

Bad reviews suck. Big time. But if you’re going to be a writer—or a singer or an actor or a knife-juggler—you’re probably going to get them. Name me one Pulitzer Prize winner or Nobel Laureate who never got a thrashing in the press. You need to understand that once you’re in the public eye, you’re opening yourself up to analysis, critique and commentary.

Not all of it’s gonna be good.

It’s wonderful to have your ego massaged by squeals of You’re the best! And When’s your next book? But what do you do when the comments get ugly?

Ask yourself whether it’s justified

I’ve had—ahem—a few negative reviews in my time. My instinct was to cry buckets of tears. They hate me! Waaahhhh! Then I began to ponder. Was any of it justified?

Some oui, some non. Some people said that one of my books (Mesmerized, if you really wanna know) focused too much on the side story and not enough on the romance, which should always be central and shine out above all. “Where was the love?” one reviewer asked. Was she right? I’ll admit it: Yes, she was.

One of my novels featured a hero who got a concussion from a bomb blast, and yet still managed to bounce out of bed in a few days, running around and boinking my heroine. “He should be cloned,” one reviewer said nastily. Kinda mean . . . but she had a point.

I remember the ones that were right, and took those lessons to heart. They made me a better writer.

What if they’re wrong?

I’ve also had reviews that were way off the mark. One person presented a bizarre theory that my characters’ names echoed their personalities almost verbatim: Mattie because she was a doormat and Dominic because he was demonic.

Uh . . . no. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.

One book club wrote me to tell me they were blacklisting me because my book didn’t have enough sex in it. Huh? How much sex is enough? The sex fits in the plot line, the characters, and the situation, and that’s all the sex you need.

When reviews are off the mark, spiteful, or dead wrong, forget ‘em. Chalk them up to misguidedness, jealousy, or a mean spirit. Fire up your keyboard and go on.

Ask for clarification

Now, I don’t advise you to email the chief reviewer of the Times, but if you get some hazy feedback from someone you’re actually in contact with, like “Meh, I just didn’t like it,” you’re well within your rights to ask what exactly they didn’t like, so you can try to fix it.

Poll the crowd

One person’s opinion may not hold a lot of weight, but if several people say the same thing, there might be something to it. Ask around. Give or lend a few copies to some trusted friends (maybe not close family members who’d die rather than hurt your feelings) and ask for feedback.

Don’t pad the comments section

For God’s sake, don’t make up a bunch of fake identities and proceed to give yourself godlike five-star reviews. You’re gonna get caught out and trust me, it’s humiliating. Also, don’t shoot back, get nasty, or attack the reviewer online or off. Maintain your grace and dignity. Your image is everything. Remember the Streisand Effect. Small things only get bigger if you call attention to them.

Get expert advice

Ask a professional editor or writing coach—like *cough* me—for their opinion. Although it’s best to do this before you publish, even after it’s out there, some solid pointers might help you avoid the same mistakes next time.

Treat yourself

Okay, so you got a bad review. Cry your tears if you must, but pick yourself up and dust off your knees. You’re a writer, dammit. Writers write, and to hell with other people’s sucky opinions. And to help you get into the mood, treat yourself to something sinful. My poison of choice is one crushed Oreo cookie and a large scoop of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, all drowning in Baileys Irish Cream.

But you have whatever suits you, honey. Bottoms up!

Any ‘bad review’ stories to tell? Any advice to share? Comment and let us know.

Why You Need an Editor

The printer’s devil hates you.

Cartoon of a printer with devil's horns.

A while ago I had a conversation with a client who approached me to proofread a major financial document. I agreed, but soon they came back to tell me that higher-ups had vetoed the idea, saying that several people had approved it, so it was okay to print as it was.

Um . . . mebbe, mebbe not.

Now, what I’m about to say might sound arrogant and self-serving, but I don’t mean it as such. Believe me when I say that if any document is meant for public consumption, it’s a really, REALLY good idea to have a professional editor or proofreader look it over.

Here’s why.   

An editor’s eye is different

Yes, yes, we’re all educated people here. We can all put together a decent memo or report. But thinking that a document is fine because management has looked it over might be a mistake. When professionals proofread, we examine every single sentence. We check every single punctuation mark. We debate agonisingly over every bulleted list. Periods at the end of each item or no? Indented or flush? We’re by no means infallible, but I can promise you that when you pass your document through the hands of a good editor, it’ll be better for it.

You need someone to double-check your facts

You say the time in Ghana is three hours ahead of Trinidad and Tobago . . . but are you sure? Maybe I can run a quick check on that for you? (Yeah, it’s actually four hours.) Have you correctly spelled the name of your Minister of Parliament? (And do you want them to forever hold you in their craw if you haven’t?) Is the person you’re writing about called Jennifer or Gennifer? I’ll find out for you.

People might actually understand what you’re trying to say

Have you ever had to read something three or four times to be able to understand what the hell it’s saying? *eye roll. If some corporate writers got paid by the number of letters in each word, they could retire and open a coconut ice cream stand in Malibu.

A good editor will help you break down dense copy into easily digestible bites. So your reader doesn’t give up halfway and use your publication to line their hamster cage.

The printer’s devil hates you

Photos printed upside down. No captions. Page numbers screwed up. An entire column in a story says ‘lorem ipsum’ over and over. You notice too late that someone in the background of your cover photo is flashing their boobs. Oops.

Reprints are expensive

You know what’s painful? Getting your booklet back from the printer only to discover a handful of minor typos—or a major, catastrophic one. Which will leave your company with egg on its face, and you stammering before your superiors about how you let it slip past you.

You like to sleep at night

In short, hiring an editor to edit or proofread will give you peace of mind. Someone has taken the time to pick and poke at your valuable document and then stitch it back up again. Feels good, doesn’t it?

Wait! You aren’t leaving without leaving a comment, are you?

How To Name Your Characters

Because Engelbert Humperdinck was already taken.

My name is . . . what? Slim Shady!

So we’ve gone through a couple of pitfalls to avoid when coming up with character names. Now you know what not to do. But how do you come up with the perfect handle for your hero—or the shopkeeper on the corner?

Here are a few ways I do it.

Dust off the phone book

Or at least, open the phone book app. I’ve spent yours flipping through lists of names with a notepad at my side, jotting down what appeals to me. I speak them out loud and decide if I like the way they sound.

I search like this for both first and last names, sometimes opening the book at random, sometimes making my way through a whole letter. One caveat: never take both a first name and a last name from one person. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Throw a baby shower

Or at least visit a baby naming site or invest in a baby naming book. The advantage of this tactic is that you can also check out the ethnic origin and meanings of the name. Does it suit your character? If it’s a foreign name, how would someone from that culture react to it? And just as with naming a real life baby, make sure the name can’t be twisted into something obscene or insulting. A mean or crappy nickname is a hard thing to shake, even if you’re fictional.

Make stuff up

Because why not? It’s your book. Come up with something that sounds good and appeals to the eye. Read it out loud and see if it sounds right. It’s an especially good trick if you write fantasy or sci-fi. I seriously doubt a three-armed sub-lieutenant from beyond the Crab Nebula would have an Earthy sounding name.

Have a laugh

Amuse yourself with a whacky and entertaining name, especially for a walk-on character who won’t be around long enough to be annoying. Let it be your little joke. Because writing should be fun.

Use an online name generator

A good name generator will ask questions about your character’s gender, religion, ethnicity/origins and personality and then attempt to come up with a list of names you can use. It’s not only useful; it’s addictive.

I just tried to find a name for my Jewish female Afgan zombie of Trinidadian parentage (born in my birth year), and it came back with some gems, including Yuk Lozano and Yulia Lawrie. How could you not love that?

Use anagrams

Some people love finding Easter eggs in their books; hidden treasures that bring them a gasp of pleasure when they’re uncovered. Wouldn’t you love your reader to discover that your character’s name contains a hidden meaning?

Give them just one name

Hey, Cher and Elvis didn’t invent it, and you have to admit that having just one name makes your character look cool as hell. Or sinister. Or commanding. Or godlike. Make them feel like a legend!

Forget names entirely

Hot skater dude. Pink Mini-Skirt. The Bread Lady. Anything that brings a vivid image to your reader’s eye and remains in their mind after they’ve read your story.

Slip a notable characteristic in there

Yeah, yeah, in my last post, How Not to Name Your Characters, I may have suggested this wasn’t a good idea. But it’s too irresistible not to try at least once. Pick one characteristic and play with it; you’d be surprised how appealing your reader will find it, especially if the nickname is bestowed upon them by another character.

Bug-eyes Malone. Legs Maraj. Twitch.

Oh, just have fun. If you do, we will too. I promise.

How Not to Name Your Characters

Awful character names are everywhere. Avoid the crime so you don’t have to do the time.

Naming your characters can be a pain in the butt. You want your readers to be able to tell them apart, of course, but you also try to convey some sense of identity, some element of their personality, through their name. The same image certainly doesn’t come to mind when you hear Beulah or Anastasia, does it? What about Count Dracul versus Muffy?

Just like a person’s name, a character’s name can influence how others see them, even shape their destiny. So when you’re brainstorming. here are a couple of pitfalls you might want to avoid:

Double-letter dullness

We were all raised on Sammy the Snake and Wanda the Witch (Sesame Street kids know what I’m talking about). It’s tempting to use alliteration, especially when naming animals or characters in children’s books. But Barry the Badger and Barnabas the Billy Goat becomes boring.

Lazy characterisation

Lewis Carrol and Charles Dickens were great at conveying the physical and personal characteristics of their people using their names, but in a modern setting it seems lazy. You can name a character Nicholas One-Eye to comic or ironic effect, but otherwise . . . really?

Janet and Jane

For the sake of my eyes and my tired, confused brain, please don’t give two characters such similar names that I wind up getting their plotlines and character arcs confused. Was Alice the bank robber or Alison?

Alphabet soup

Does your character’s name really have to have five consonants in a row? Unless she’s Welsh, I’d guess not. I know it’s all the rage to come up with fancy names, with unusual spellings and a half-dozen punctuation marks thrown in, but most of us hear a voice in our head as we read. So the next time you make me stumble over a character named Vercingetorix Llewellyn Berggren, I’m going to throw the book at you.

Twisted timelines

I’m sure there are kids running around these days named Beyoncé or Daenerys. But remember the time frame your story is set in. Please don’t inflict them on a kid born in behind enemy lines in WWII. Many names are peculiar to their timelines. Probably why there’s nobody out there under 75 named Mildred.

Tripping on their roots

Kunta Kinta resisted being called Toby until they beat it out of him. Why? Because his name was part of his self image. It was one of the last things he could hold on to from his motherland. It helped remind him of who he was.

Names are our identity, often entrenched in our ethnic roots, our gender, our homeland and our parents’ dreams for us. You character’s names should reflect who they are . . . without descending into insulting cliché, of course.

As always, it’s your book and you can name your characters anything you want. You can name your guy Phineas J. Finklebottom. You can call your heroine A. You can break any of these guidelines to achieve the effect you want. Many great authors have done it.

But I’m just sayin’ . . . .

What’s the best or worst character name you’ve ever seen? Tell us in the comments.

Eschew Obfuscation*

*Try not to confuse anyone

Poster stuck to wall. It says Rodent Control Device.

One of my father’s favourite bits of advice was “eschew obfuscation”, which, of course, was obfuscating in its own right.

I happened across this sign recently. Rodent Control Device, it said. Not Rat Trap. And yes, it does go on to list a number of devices that they might be using, but it did make me chuckle.

It got me to thinking of how many times documents cross my desk swollen with $20 words when a couple of 15-cent words would do just fine. The urge to show off your vocabulary is almost irresistible, that’s for sure. Just listen to our politicians speak.

But when we write, we write to be understood, not to impress others with the fabulousness of our expansive and sagacious verbosity. At least, I hope not! We write to communicate.

So keep it simple. Ask yourself, what’s the easiest way I can put this? How do I get my reader to understand what I want to say without reaching for a dictionary? Do I really need to construct elaborate sentences with multiple subordinate clauses? How long do those paragraphs have to be? Is there a new law against white space? And unless you’re being paid by the word—well, even if you’re being paid by the word—try to curb your enthusiasm. I know a blank page can be daunting, and anxiety propels us to fill it, but it’s better it be half-filled with something of value than full of sound and fury, signifying . . . well, you know.

One tool I find useful is the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tool in Word. You’ll find it under File – Options – Proofing. It helps you check the readability of what you’ve written using a sophisticated algorithm and gives you the relevant scores.

The Flesch-Kincaid score corresponds to the reading age or US grade level a person would need to read your piece. The Flesch score tells you the percentage of people who you can expect to easily read it. You want to keep your piece at around Grade 8, or age 14 or so, and around 60% or more, or you’ll start losing us as readers. The tool also gives you helpful info like number of words per sentence, sentences per paragraph, and the percentage of passive sentences.

What it boils down to is this: Use shorter words in shorter sentences. Obfuscation represents a lack of self-control . . . or an over-abundance of vanity. Neither is a good thing. Learn to throttle yourself back—and call a rat trap a rat trap

For more about the Flesch and Flesch-Kincaid scales, check out these websites here and here.

Excited to hear your point of view. Please leave a comment below.

Only Having Fun

Red and white poster with the words Dispose of Toilet Tissue Only in the Toilet.

I love the word ‘only’. You can have so much fun with it, depending on where you place it in a sentence. Take this poster.

Think about how the sentence would change if you moved the word ‘only’ around. For example:

 

  • Only dispose of toilet tissue in the toilet: are they using it for something else?
  • Dispose of only toilet tissue in the toilet: are they putting other stuff in there?
  • Dispose of toilet tissue in the toilet only: are they putting it somewhere else?

You can get yourself in a pickle if you don’t use ‘only’ right. Think of how it would affect your relationship if you used it like this: Only I love you. I only love you. I love only you. I love you only.

Think of how your relationship could turn out with these different declarations:

  • Only I love you.
  • I only love you.
  • I love only you.
  • I love you only.

If you love words and have nothing better to do, you can have a lot of fun.

Please comment below and let us know what you think.

Don’t Decorate Your Copy

Time to put on our big-girl panties.

To                    :           All Writers, Everywhere

From               :           A Beleaguered Editor

Subject            :           Overenthusiastic Decoration of Copy

Clip art image of elaborate decorative letters.

If you’re a 12-year-old girl, please feel free to decorate your copy with fancy fonts, different coloured text, watermarks, random stolen images, unicorns, pixies, emoticons and LOLs.

If you are not a 12-year-old girl, but a professional writer or a student, and you want to be taken seriously, please curb your enthusiasm. Use a simple font, such as Times, Calibri, or any of the crap MS Word defaults to. Use black ink, not lilac. Keep watermarks to a minimum, and when you use them, insert only data such as page number, heading, author, etc. I do not need to see your collection of My Little Pony fan art.

If you do unleash your inner graphic artist all over the page, not only will you come across as a rank amateur, but you will also waste my precious time (for which I am billing you by the hour) and piss me off. And editors are the Incredible Hulks of the literary world. You won’t like us when we’re angry.

Comments and questions, guys. Let’s talk it through!

I Hate my Boobs.

Well, not really. But I got your attention, didn’t I.

At present, I’m not happy with my boobs, so presently I will be checking myself in for a lil’ nip and tuck.

April Fool! My boobs are just fine, thanks. In fact, I’ve been told they’re spectacular. I just wanted to demonstrate the difference between ‘at present’ and ‘presently’, which is so easy to understand and yet many people get them confused, including mainstream media and major publishers.

It’s simple: ‘at present’ deals with the now. This very moment. ‘Presently’ deals with the future, stuff that will happen soon but hasn’t started yet. So, “At present I am enjoying a cold brew or two” = “I ‘m knocking back a half-case of Carib beer over here.” and, “I shall be with you presently” = “Relax, man! I’ll be there soon!”

Wanna talk about it? Please leave a comment below.

Working in My Jammies!

When I started working from home, the thing I looked forward to every day was sitting around in my everyday clothes and scratching my butt. Well, technically, that’s not true. I discovered quite quickly that I was at my most productive when I dressed for work, even when nobody was around to see me. I was less tempted to fall back into bed and drool the day away.

Cartoon of woman working in the lotus position wearing casual clothing. A cup of coffee is next to her and she's working on her laptop.

But I simply wanted to demonstrate the difference between “everyday” and “every day”. It’s staggeringly simple, but many people get it confused, even large corporations in their ads and publications. “We give quality service everyday!” I saw it on a billboard this week and my head steamed so badly my hair went straight.

“Everyday” —one word—means ordinary, blah, dull as dust.

“Every day”—two words—refers to the length of time determined by the solar cycle; the rising and setting of the sun.

Easy peasy. So even though my everyday wear consists of an old T-shirt, a saggy pair of men’s boxers, and a pair of flip-flops, every day God brings I open my eyes and give praise.

Excited to hear your point of view. Leave a comment below.

Feeling Sorry for Satan

Nobody’s 100% anything. Not even the bad guys.

We all love a good villain. But too often writers try so hard to make the antagonist come across like a bad guy that they forget to make them human. They forget to add nuance and texture to their characters.

Remember that most bad guys don’t think they’re bad. They see themselves as the good guys. They believe their fight is just. A good, memorable, well-written villain isn’t pure evil; leave that for Saturday morning cartoons.

Insurgents believe they are fighting a just war. They think they’ve been wronged. They retaliate.

Sympathetic traits give your villain dimension. They make him relatable. Now, note that you don’t have to like a villain, or root for him, for him to be sympathetic. He simply has to have strong human traits that you can identify with. No matter how atrocious the acts he commits are, he believes he is justified. In spite of yourself, you recognise his humanity.


Hannibal Lecter was erudite, charming, and learned—and he spared Jodie Foster’s life. Ra’s Al Ghul believed that Gotham was inherently corrupt and hypocritical, and needed to be cleansed. Satan got his feelings hurt.


Say what, now? Yes, THAT Satan. He wanted to be the most beloved, and he was not. He wanted to be top dawg, but simply didn’t have what it took. He was cast out of heaven, and when he hit the ground, he hit hard. It hurt. So he retaliated.
Poor guy.


Sit down and think of three good reasons to feel sorry for Satan. If you can do that, you’re well on your way to developing the sensitivity that breeds great, three-dimensional characters.

Please comment below and let us know what you think.