Tips for Writers
Q. I'm still in school, but would love to be a writer. Do you have any books to recommend?
A. Here are some you can check out:
Q. I want to be a writer. What should I do?
A. Here are my top tips:
Q. Can you read my short story or book? Can you tell me how to get published?
A. No. I'm juggling multiple deadlines myself. As for getting published, check out: https://www.janefriedman.com/start-here-how-to-get-your-book-published/
Q. I am a teen writer. Are there places where I can publish my work?
A. Yes. Check out these links.
Swoon Reads. In this online community, writers submit manuscripts directly to the publisher, and readers participate in the publishing process by reading, rating, and commenting on submissions. The manuscripts that receive the highest ratings by readers and the Swoon Reads editorial board are published in print and e-book editions, with additional community input on cover design and marketing plans. Covers all genres of YA.
Rookie. A magazine for teen girls that publishes essay and short stories, among other things.
Figment. Figment is a community to share writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors.
Alliance for Young Artists and Writers (includes information on the PUSH Novel Contest open to students in grades 7 through 12).
Underlined. A community (chat, groups and forums) to share writing, connect with other writers, and discover new stories and authors.
Merlyn's Pen. This site has fiction, essays and poems from teens.
Teen Ink. An e-zine written for teens by teens. It also has information about contests for teens.
Wattpad. A writing community in which users are able to post articles, stories, fan fiction, and poems. Unpublished writers and some published ones use the site. Users can comment, like stories, and join groups.
YARN. YARN publishes outstanding original short fiction, poetry, and essays for Young Adult readers, written by established writers, as well as fresh new voices...including teens.
Q. How can I be more productive?
A. The trick to regularly having books published is to have a regular routine for writing them. When I was working full time, I just fit in my writing when I could, at about the same time each day. I tried to write 45 minutes a day, usually after work. Sometimes it was less. Sometimes a lot less. But somehow it added up, just doing it day after day after day. I wrote about a book a year that way.
Now I work full time at home. When I first quit my day job, I thought I could write eight hours a day. After all, I had worked eight hours a day, right? Well, on second thought, maybe not. Not when you take out meetings, chatting with co-workers, checking the headlines online, and getting coffee refills. Plus, even at my job (which was writing non-fiction), I was not creative 60 minutes an hour, eight hours a day.
A few things that have helped my productivity: the Pomodoro Technique and Freedom. The pomodoro technique is a way of working in concentrated bursts with short breaks in-between. Author Randy Ingermanson describes it here. And Freedom is a program that shuts you off the Internet. I use it with the Pomodoro Technique.
Routines lead to creativity
"I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning." - William Faulkner
"I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well." - Arthur Hailey
"All through my career I've written 1,000 words a day--even if I've got a hangover. You've got to discipline yourself if you're professional. There's no other way." - J.G. Ballard
Q. What are your favorite and least favorite things about being a writer?
A. I spent 18 years working in corporate communications. Now I get paid to tell myself stories. That's the best. Tight deadlines (especially when they overlap) can be very tough.
Q. You used to work full time while writing a book a year and being a mom. How can a person write and still have a life?
A. There were times I was an inattentive mother, a cook who relied on canned goods, a less-than-creative writer, a messy housekeeper, and a runner who walked more than she ran. I tried to rotate my areas of poor performance, so that no one area was crappy all the time.
Some tips on juggling life/creative process:
Q: What is the best advice you would give another writer?
A: Write every day even if it is just a paragraph. And remember that tenacity is as important as talent.
Q. What writing advice do you give yourself?
A. I keep a virtual sticky note on my computer that says:
- Slow it down
- Show!
- Emotion, emotion, emotion
- Be dialog happy
- Take the second right answer
- Surprise me now
Q. What writing advice of Annie Proulx's do you like?
A. Annie Proulx was in town in 2011 for the Portland Arts and Lecture series. She had a lot of writing tips, which included:
- Read your work aloud to yourself.
- Use "waiting situations" -- in airports, in line, etc. -- to work on descriptions of people.
- Listen carefully to regional dialects and everyday speech.
- Drawing or sketching a landscape can preserve it in memory.
- If you have a character that isn't working, try changing their sex. It can be useful, and "at the very least, it's amusing."
Q. Is it important to do research? Why can't I just rely on what I've learned from movies, TV, or other books?
A. You can't rely on secondary sources, because they often get the facts wrong.
Take firearms, for example.
Everyone who writes books or for movies or TV loves the idea of a safety on a gun. Taking it off ratchets up the suspense. You know you're one step closer to someone dying. But if you write that a character is switching off the safety, do yourself a favor and make sure the gun you are writing about actually has one. This is what I've seen in just the last week. Neither of these guns has a safety. I do not own a gun. I would never own a gun. I also don't know a lot about guns. But sometimes I write about characters for whom the reverse of all these things is true. That's where research comes in.
I have fired weapons on an FBI gun range. I have done firearms simulation training (FATS) at the FBI, at the Writers Police Academy, and at Tualatin's excellent Threat Dynamics (one of the few places like it open to civilians).
If you don't know about something, do as much reading as you can. Start with the Internet, then maybe progress to textbooks for professionals. (Although there are a few photos in Practical Homicide Investigation I wish I could unsee.) See if you can have a real-life experience.
After that try to have someone who is an expert in the field vet what you write.
For The Night She Disappeared, one of the experts I interviewed was a person who worked on a sheriff's dive team.
For The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die, I had an expert in bioweapons read what I had written about hanta virus and bioweapons. I had done as much research on my own as I could, but we all know that can only take you so far.
I am sure I still make errors. But I try really hard not to.
In the examples from published books below, neither gun has a safety.
A. Here are some you can check out:
- Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine
- No Rules, Just Write by Walter Dean Meyers
- Cliffhanger Writing Prompts: 30 One-Page Story Starters That Fire Up Kids' Imaginations and Help Them Develop Strong Narrative Writing Skills byTeresa Klepinger
- Story Starters: Helping Children Write Like They've Never Written Before by Karen Andreola
Q. I want to be a writer. What should I do?
A. Here are my top tips:
- Read, read, read.
- Write regularly. Write every day, or every weekend. Start by keeping a journal or doing the exercises in Writing Down the Bones. Make writing a habit. Don't wait for inspiration. Once you are published, you'll need to make deadlines.
- Go to readings at bookstores. You'll learn something from every writer you hear.
- Get some distance from your writing. Once you think you're done, try to put a piece aside for at least two weeks. Then when you do pick it up again, read it aloud while imagining that you are reading it to an editor at a publishing house. What works and what doesn't? Truman Capote was right when he said, "Good writing is rewriting."
- Buy a book of baby names. Great for naming your next character.
- Keep a journal. Get in the writing habit.
- Keep a file folder full of fodder. Need an interesting trait to give a character? Need your dialog to sound better? Pull out your file folder full of ideas, newspaper clippings, articles about writing, and interviews with novelists you admire. Include photos of interesting people or places.
- Subscribe to free weekday e-mails from Publishers Weekly at publishersweekly.com. Subscribe to free weekday e-mails from Publishers Lunch (publisherslunch.com). Has much of the same information as Publishers Weekly (although sometimes a different spin), but also has information on which literary agents have recently closed deals for which books, with a ballpark reference to the advance. For a fee, you can join Publishers Marketplace (producers of Publishers Lunch) and search their data base of agents. You can also find some of the same information for free on agentquery.com. Avoid agents who want to charge you a reading fee, or refer you an editorial service - they may be making most of their money in reading fees or kickbacks from the editorial service.
- You don't have to write what you know. Write what you want to know—and then do your research to get it right.
- Once you have a finished book that's in the best shape you can make it, the next step is to get an agent. Find more information about how to get an agent here.
Q. Can you read my short story or book? Can you tell me how to get published?
A. No. I'm juggling multiple deadlines myself. As for getting published, check out: https://www.janefriedman.com/start-here-how-to-get-your-book-published/
Q. I am a teen writer. Are there places where I can publish my work?
A. Yes. Check out these links.
Swoon Reads. In this online community, writers submit manuscripts directly to the publisher, and readers participate in the publishing process by reading, rating, and commenting on submissions. The manuscripts that receive the highest ratings by readers and the Swoon Reads editorial board are published in print and e-book editions, with additional community input on cover design and marketing plans. Covers all genres of YA.
Rookie. A magazine for teen girls that publishes essay and short stories, among other things.
Figment. Figment is a community to share writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors.
Alliance for Young Artists and Writers (includes information on the PUSH Novel Contest open to students in grades 7 through 12).
Underlined. A community (chat, groups and forums) to share writing, connect with other writers, and discover new stories and authors.
Merlyn's Pen. This site has fiction, essays and poems from teens.
Teen Ink. An e-zine written for teens by teens. It also has information about contests for teens.
Wattpad. A writing community in which users are able to post articles, stories, fan fiction, and poems. Unpublished writers and some published ones use the site. Users can comment, like stories, and join groups.
YARN. YARN publishes outstanding original short fiction, poetry, and essays for Young Adult readers, written by established writers, as well as fresh new voices...including teens.
Q. How can I be more productive?
A. The trick to regularly having books published is to have a regular routine for writing them. When I was working full time, I just fit in my writing when I could, at about the same time each day. I tried to write 45 minutes a day, usually after work. Sometimes it was less. Sometimes a lot less. But somehow it added up, just doing it day after day after day. I wrote about a book a year that way.
Now I work full time at home. When I first quit my day job, I thought I could write eight hours a day. After all, I had worked eight hours a day, right? Well, on second thought, maybe not. Not when you take out meetings, chatting with co-workers, checking the headlines online, and getting coffee refills. Plus, even at my job (which was writing non-fiction), I was not creative 60 minutes an hour, eight hours a day.
A few things that have helped my productivity: the Pomodoro Technique and Freedom. The pomodoro technique is a way of working in concentrated bursts with short breaks in-between. Author Randy Ingermanson describes it here. And Freedom is a program that shuts you off the Internet. I use it with the Pomodoro Technique.
Routines lead to creativity
"I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning." - William Faulkner
"I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well." - Arthur Hailey
"All through my career I've written 1,000 words a day--even if I've got a hangover. You've got to discipline yourself if you're professional. There's no other way." - J.G. Ballard
Q. What are your favorite and least favorite things about being a writer?
A. I spent 18 years working in corporate communications. Now I get paid to tell myself stories. That's the best. Tight deadlines (especially when they overlap) can be very tough.
Q. You used to work full time while writing a book a year and being a mom. How can a person write and still have a life?
A. There were times I was an inattentive mother, a cook who relied on canned goods, a less-than-creative writer, a messy housekeeper, and a runner who walked more than she ran. I tried to rotate my areas of poor performance, so that no one area was crappy all the time.
Some tips on juggling life/creative process:
- Get up early.
- Wait until everyone is in bed.
- Change your work hours to work late or work early.
- Find 15 minutes to write. Can't swing that? Then 10, or 5. You can always find something.
- Write on your lunch hour.
- Write during boring meetings (sneakily, like you're making notes).
- Write on weekends, like Phil Margolin (he wrote 7-11 just on Saturdays and Sundays for a long time).
- Give up something.
- Enlist your family to help out.
- Write regularly every day. Just one page a day and you'll have the first half of a book at the end of the year.
- Turn off your internal editor. Give yourself permission to write badly. You can always edit something that's bad. You can't edit nothing.
- Tenacity is as important as talent.
Q: What is the best advice you would give another writer?
A: Write every day even if it is just a paragraph. And remember that tenacity is as important as talent.
Q. What writing advice do you give yourself?
A. I keep a virtual sticky note on my computer that says:
- Slow it down
- Show!
- Emotion, emotion, emotion
- Be dialog happy
- Take the second right answer
- Surprise me now
Q. What writing advice of Annie Proulx's do you like?
A. Annie Proulx was in town in 2011 for the Portland Arts and Lecture series. She had a lot of writing tips, which included:
- Read your work aloud to yourself.
- Use "waiting situations" -- in airports, in line, etc. -- to work on descriptions of people.
- Listen carefully to regional dialects and everyday speech.
- Drawing or sketching a landscape can preserve it in memory.
- If you have a character that isn't working, try changing their sex. It can be useful, and "at the very least, it's amusing."
Q. Is it important to do research? Why can't I just rely on what I've learned from movies, TV, or other books?
A. You can't rely on secondary sources, because they often get the facts wrong.
Take firearms, for example.
Everyone who writes books or for movies or TV loves the idea of a safety on a gun. Taking it off ratchets up the suspense. You know you're one step closer to someone dying. But if you write that a character is switching off the safety, do yourself a favor and make sure the gun you are writing about actually has one. This is what I've seen in just the last week. Neither of these guns has a safety. I do not own a gun. I would never own a gun. I also don't know a lot about guns. But sometimes I write about characters for whom the reverse of all these things is true. That's where research comes in.
I have fired weapons on an FBI gun range. I have done firearms simulation training (FATS) at the FBI, at the Writers Police Academy, and at Tualatin's excellent Threat Dynamics (one of the few places like it open to civilians).
If you don't know about something, do as much reading as you can. Start with the Internet, then maybe progress to textbooks for professionals. (Although there are a few photos in Practical Homicide Investigation I wish I could unsee.) See if you can have a real-life experience.
After that try to have someone who is an expert in the field vet what you write.
For The Night She Disappeared, one of the experts I interviewed was a person who worked on a sheriff's dive team.
For The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die, I had an expert in bioweapons read what I had written about hanta virus and bioweapons. I had done as much research on my own as I could, but we all know that can only take you so far.
I am sure I still make errors. But I try really hard not to.
In the examples from published books below, neither gun has a safety.
