Critiquing Fiction: Part 2: How?

Part 1 of this subject discussed why critiquing our fiction is a good idea. So now that everyone has checked their egos at the door and arrived with open minds, what next? How do we go about tackling this beast?

Firstly, it’s worth looking at the format of the feedback session. With online critiques/workshops, you don’t have much choice – text is the way to go. But in face-to-face meetings, there’s more scope for variation. Having been through a number of these, as well as running my own, here are my recommendations:

• Don’t read out the pieces. Unless you’re doing performance poetry (which is a whole different ballgame), I find this counter-productive. It it generally terrifying for the writer, even (and sometimes especially) among friends. Also, reading a piece aloud colours the listeners’ reactions to it, because the speaker is injecting their interpretation into the performance. This is heightened by having the writer read it out, because they know what they intended for it to say. For example, how they read could gloss over areas that other readers might struggle with, or add emphases others might not pick up. I prefer to get feedback on how someone read my work, rather than their reaction to someone else’s reading of it.
• Send the pieces out before the meeting. Give everyone a chance to read and digest the piece before the feedback session. Give them enough time to fit in a thorough reading before the discussion, without sucking up half of the meeting itself; it frees up more time for discussion. Failing this, five or ten minutes of quiet directly before the workshopping of each piece to read will have to do. It’s still preferable to having it read out!
• Don’t prompt responses before reading. When giving a piece to someone to read, don’t tell them what it’s about, what you’re trying to achieve with it, or any other such feature. Anything that might colour the way a person reads a piece will affect their responses; if you want honest, authentic reactions, let the critiquers read it cold. Share extra information after they have read the piece!

The most important thing for everyone to bear in mind is that offering a piece for critiquing is not easy. This is a creation of someone’s mind and heart, into which they have poured pieces of their self. Inviting criticism of their baby is nerve-wracking because you never know what someone will say. Approaching a workshop session with your piece in hand is uncomfortable at best, and panic-attack-inducing for some.

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t criticise the baby – after all, that is why we’re here. But there are ways to make it easy on the writer, so that they don’t feel under attack with the floodgates open. (I’ve seen writers sit there like deer in headlights, trapped in the middle of a highway. It’s not fun!)

So, some tips about how to approach giving feedback:

• Positive AND negative. It is easy to forget the first one of these! Positive feedback is just as important as negative: writers need to know what they’re doing right, just as much as they need to know what to work on. Being able to point out to the group, “Hey, this bit here is awesome, I love the way the colours reflect the emotions in the scene,” helps everyone to pick up tips and skills to use (not just what to avoid!).
  It also helps the writer not to feel bombarded by a lot of negativity. I know writers who have come out of a critique session with the firm impression that they are terrible writers, they can’t join two words together successfully, and should just give up (one woman joined my writing group after being put off writing for 20 years by a critique group!). Look for the merits in a piece and communicate them to the writer, even if you’re also pointing out a lot of areas for improvement.
  Some groups formalise this by having a ‘shit sandwich’ approach: positive comment – negative comment – positive comment. It’s a valid approach but can wind up a forced if you’re not careful. I prefer not to use restrictive, fixed structures. As long as critiquers make the effort to point out what’s good about the piece, I’m happy!
• Constructive. Yes, I know this is bandied about a lot. But what does it really mean? To me, it means more than just pointing out something as good or bad: you need to say why. What is it about a phrase that jars for you? What is it about an image that makes it powerful? Why does that action seem out of place for that character? The more context you can give for your feedback, the more useful it is to the writer. Go into detail!
  Sometimes, you may not know the reason. That’s okay, but make sure you say that! Be aware that just saying, “That word doesn’t work for me,” is of limited value to the writer. Without an idea about why it doesn’t work for you, the writer can’t know how to fix it. Often, in this case, I find throwing it out to the group for discussion is a good way to find the ‘why’, even if I don’t know it myself.
• Solutions. That should always be the focus of your feedback. This builds on the point about making your feedback constructive: you are there to help a writer improve his or her work, so do it! Offer suggestions, solutions, or maybe just options. Don’t just think about the problems: think about ways you might solve them. This will help with your own writing, as well as give the writer lots of tools to take home.
• Subjective. There is no black and white in writing: your feedback is always subjective. You are giving your opinions and viewpoints on the piece, and your phrasing should reflect that. “This is wrong,” isn’t a phrase that should be heard in a workshopping session. “I think this is wrong,” or “This doesn’t work for me,” are better ways to approach it (followed by “because…” and your reason, of course!). You are one reader, and it’s not unusual for a group to completely disagree about what works and what doesn’t in a piece. No word is law (except the writer’s).
  The exception to this might be grammar, of course, which does have very strict rules. Bear in mind that that the writer might be violating rules on purpose, as part of the style of the piece or for a specific effect. Make sure that it is being done on purpose and is effective!
• Bias. This is an extension on the ‘subjective’ point above. Everyone has their own viewpoint and opinions about things, and it’s often useful to know where these opinions spring from: namely, what your bias is. Do you prefer high-action sequences? Do you despise limp-willed protagonists? Do you love plot twists that have no warning or preparation? What genres do you prefer, and which ones aren’t your cup of tea? All of these things colour how you read and react to a piece.
  Being aware of this and telling the writer will help put your comments into perspective. This is not to say that it is an excuse for the writer to ignore your feedback – far from it. “I read lots of romances, and I find this very dull,” can mean different things depending on the genre of the piece or if it is a romantic scene!
• Offering. You’re not there to impose your will on your fellow writers. You are there to make observations and suggestions. Offer your opinions, knowledge, and experience to the group, and be prepared to be overruled. The writer may have many reasons for not acting on your feedback (see below). Consider your feedback to be a gift (as should the writer!), and offer it without expectations.

Got all that? Good. It looks like a long list, but it’s actually pretty easy to achieve! For group critiques, it helps to have a leader able to push towards that approach, encouraging positive comments, discussions about problems and solutions, and so on.

So, as a writer, what do you do with this deluge of helpful information? You’ve got piles of notes, possibly some copies of your piece with writing all over them, and a head buzzing with ideas. Here are some things you should keep in mind:

• You went to the critique group for a reason. Keep this in mind! Even if the feedback and rewriting is daunting, believe that it will be worth it.
• You are the writer. Just because someone has suggested a change, that doesn’t mean that you have to make it. It is your piece and should always stay and sound that way. Don’t let comments knock your confidence; they’re intended to help you improve. Even successful, professional writers constantly seek to improve their craft!
• You can’t please everyone. Trying to satisfy each and every critiquer’s wishes is a futile enterprise. That’s okay. A good rule of thumb is to try to please the majority, but be aware that you’ll always have people who just don’t fall within the bounds of what you’re trying to achieve.
• Every critiquer is biased. Try to know where they’re coming from with their comments and put them in perspective. Work out if they are your target audience or not. That will help give their comments context and help you formulate a response.
• Always have a reason for rejecting a change. It is tempting to disagree with (negative) criticism and reject it, because your baby is just fine as it is, lopsided ears and everything. If this is true, why take it to be workshopped in the first place? At the same time, don’t feel obliged to apply every change you get from a workshopping session. So where do you draw the line?
  A good rule of thumb is to articulate your reason for rejecting a change. If you can articulate it (to yourself is fine; you don’t have to tell the critiquer!), then you probably have a good reason for rejecting it. Note: ‘I don’t like it’ is not usually a good reason. The critiquer took the time to read your piece and give feedback, so the least you can do is to have a solid reason for rejecting it.
  Working out a reason is often a good analytical process to go through, as well. Why is that image important to you? Is that word really as vital as you first believed it to be? Is there another, better way to do this that might tick both boxes?
  Another thing to do is to ask others’ opinions on the same subject. In group critiques, you can usually get this in the session. If the feedback is one person out of five, it’s probably an isolated case. If it’s three or four out of five, then it’s well worth looking into and addressing.
• There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ piece. Give a piece to a critique group, and someone will find something to say about it, no matter how polished it is. Remember the third point in this list. Don’t try to make a piece perfect: make it better. That, at least, is achievable!

Phew. So once you’ve got this far, you should have an improved piece of writing, and hopefully more confidence when you next take a piece for discussion.

Having a piece critiqued or workshopped should be a valuable experience. I hope that all writers can experience it this way, and that these guidelines can help with that.

Good luck with your writing and your road to self-improvement!

Critiquing Fiction: Part 1: Why?

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of critiquing of fiction, from both sides of the fence: I’ve given feedback on others’ work, and given my work up to be considered. I know what I like and what I don’t like when it comes to the process. What works and what doesn’t. So here are my thoughts and philosophy on how to get the best out of a critique.

First of all, I don’t like calling it ‘critiquing’ (I have used it here only because it’s the term most often used for it). The word carries negative connotations, and this should not be a negative process. When I run feedback sessions in my writing groups, I tend to call it ‘workshopping’, because it is a closer reflection of how I like the process to run.

Many advice pieces on critiquing (workshopping!) fiction will say that the criticism should be constructive. This is good advice! I would like to go further than that, however, and break it down into a lot more detail.

Why do we do it?

This may seem like an obvious question, but I think it bears some examination. Let’s look at it from both sides of the process: the writer and those giving feedback.

Firstly, why does a writer bring a piece to be workshopped? What is it that a writer is looking to get out of it? It’s good to be clear about why you are asking others to workshop your writing, both for your own sake and to help get the kind of feedback you’re looking for.

There could be many reasons for asking for feedback, not all of which are good ways to approach the process.

Some bad reasons to bring a piece to be workshopped are:

• Acclaim. If what you’re looking for is a pat on the back and a thumbs-up, you’re not looking for a critique. You’re bound to either be disappointed or heartbroken, possibly both. There are plenty of back-patting societies around if that’s what you’re looking for.
• Confidence. Be very careful of trying to gain confidence through having your writing workshopped – that is not the point of the exercise. People will question what you’ve done. They’ll point out errors, disagree with things you think are perfect, and so on. You need to be prepared for that. At the end of the process, you may end up more confident in your writing, but you need to be able to get through it first! I have seen people driven away from writing entirely by a single experience with critiquing. If what you’re looking for is a way to gain confidence, see the bullet point above.
• Confirmation of perfection. There is no such thing as a perfect piece of writing; there is always someone out there who will find fault with it. Also, if you think a piece is perfect, what the hell are you doing bringing it in for critique? See the first bullet point. (I have seen people do this. It never ends well.)

Avoiding those, here are some of the positive, useful reasons to have a piece workshopped:

• Improvement of the piece. This is the crucial point of the process, and should be the focus of every critique comment given and received. More on this later.
• Improvement of writing. This could be any facet of the writing: style, grammar, plotting, structure, etc. There’s a lot of scope for comment here, so if there’s something specific you’re looking for feedback on, be up-front about it. There’s no point getting line edits on a piece when you’re still working on the structure and characterisation.
• Beta reading. Does what has been written make sense to a reader? Do the images and metaphors work? Is the reader picked up and carried along by the story? How does it feel? Is there anything that might trip a reader up or throw them out of the story? Early reader reactions can be very eye-opening and important when polishing a piece.
• Problem solving. If there is a particular part of the piece that isn’t working, perhaps throwing it out to others for ideas will help you find a solution. It can be a great way of getting past a hurdle you’re struggling with.

Ultimately, be honest with yourself about your goals and motives. Make sure that a critique is what you are looking for. Approach workshopping with the expectation that your work will be questioned, errors will be pointed out, and you may have to revisit things you thought were great already. Just remember that it’s intended to improve the piece!

Next, let’s look at why a person would be motivated to give feedback on a piece. Again, I’ll break it down into good and bad reasons.

I have seen a lot of people approach workshopping in a wrong or unhelpful way. Here are some of the factors in that:

• Competition. Writing is not a competition. Selling books/stories/pieces can be, but that’s not what workshopping is for. This isn’t about putting down someone else’s work to make yours look better. Workshopping isn’t about comparing the piece in front of you to anything else: judge it on its own merits. (One to be careful of if swapping feedback is one of your goals – it’s not a competition to see who can get the most/least comments, either.)
• Expounding knowledge. Workshopping isn’t about showing how much you know. Again, it’s not a competition; there are no winners or losers, and it’s not about telling the writer how terrible and stupid they are. Keep it relevant and useful, and note that ‘educating’ and ‘expounding’ are two different things. Also remember that you don’t know everything.
• Look at me. This covers both of the above, but also other situations where feedback is particularly slanted to allow the critiquer to show off. This shouldn’t be a factor for the writer or the reviewer. Workshopping is not about egos – please check yours at the door.
• Everyone should write like me. Hell no. That is not what workshopping is about. You are there to support and improve someone else’s writing, not shape their piece to look like one of yours. You may not even be the target reader for the piece. Be prepared to be ignored if your feedback isn’t relevant and don’t try to impose your opinions on others – offer them, don’t force them.

But there’s a surprising amount of good stuff you can get out of giving feedback. Here’s my top list of why giving feedback is a great thing to do:

• Support fellow writers. Depending on the setup, these writers may be friends, acquaintances, or just names on a website. Sometimes it may even be anonymous! I’ve found writing to be an incredibly supportive community, and the fact that there are critique groups around proves that. Every writer should strive to improve, and I think it’s great to be able to help them do that. It’s especially great when more experienced writers can help the less experienced.
• Learn how to critique your own work. Looking at other people’s writing in a critical way helps you to develop skills that you can then apply to your own writing. It will help you to look at your writing in new ways, and show you things you hadn’t previously realised you were doing. By examining others’ work, you’ll become more aware of what kind of reader you are, what you look for, and what works for you. This will naturally feed into your own writing, and you will improve as a result.
• Learn more about writing. Workshopping others’ writing will expose you to different styles. As with the point above, you can gain a deeper understanding of what works for you, as well as what works in general. On top of that, the kinds of comments made by the group will also feed into this: others will comment on things you hadn’t thought about or been aware of before. It all expands your knowledge and toolset.
• Receive critiques of your own work. It’s only fair that, if you want to get feedback on your work, you give feedback in return. It helps to motivate good and useful feedback from all parties involved. This can create a wonderful supportive environment if handled correctly. Unfortunately, that ‘if’ can be a big one – check the list above to see some of the pitfalls in this approach. Just remember to keep it supportive!

Lots of great reasons to get involved in workshopping or critiquing! Arriving with the right expectations is half the battle, and the better prepared you are, the smoother it will go.

So you’re all prepped and ready to go. Now what? Check out: Critiquing Fiction: Part 2: How?

Review: 10 Rules of Writing

10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard

Anyone who has talked to me – or heard me talk – about writing books knows that I always start with one piece of advice: if you’re going to read one writing book, read three. Then I usually go on to say: there are lots of ways to write, and you need to find what’s best for you.

If I was going to recommend some writing books, Elmore Leonard’s wouldn’t be in the list. I had to think long and hard about this, but ultimately, there are many more useful places for you to spend your time and money.

I read it because a friend had borrowed it from the library and I could get through it in a lunchtime at work before she had to take it back. This is because of the first issue I have with the book: it’s very short. Yes, you get the ten rules of writing, but they’re a sentence or two each, and there is rarely any explanation given for why these are good rules to follow. There are some interesting pictures used to fill up the pages, but little substance.

I can nod and agree and fill in the gaps myself, but I’ve been studying writing for most of my life. Honestly, I’m not sure who this book is aimed at. Beginner writers are in danger of being bewildered by the statements and will wind up following them blindly, if at all. Experienced writers aren’t likely to find them of much value because they’re just surface rules.

And because there’s no notion about why they’re good to follow, there’s no hint about when or why it might be good to break them. As always with writing, breaking rules is just as important as following them, but you can only do that if you understand them first.

So, then we move on to the rules themselves. I will say that it is all good, solid advice. There are a couple of points that I don’t agree with (as hard and fast rules – with some explanation, context, or caveats, they would be fine). For example, Mr Leonard says not to use detailed descriptions. Some genres and styles of writing have this as a norm, so I don’t think you can apply this rule universally. In some writing, it fits the flow of the story rather than breaks it.

Context is king.

The rules themselves also overlap in a few cases. Take the description one – that’s actually two rules, one for characters and one for places and objects. Why split them up? Then there’s the last rule, the one we’ve stuck with the book long enough to reach: “Leave out parts the readers tend to skip.” Well, that covers several other rules which could have been rolled up into a single bundle.

So what you actually get is about 6 or 7 rules of writing.

Once you’ve got that far – to the end of Rule 10 – you should be at the end of the book. Right? Wrong. There’s more! At the back of the book there’s a whole splurge of information and advice about writing. It’s good stuff too, and explained better than most of the ‘rules’. Why these points weren’t made into rules, I don’t know. It’s great to have in there, but bewildering considering the construction of the book and its information.

I feel like somewhere in those pages, there is a good writing book hiding. Replace the pretty pictures with some explanatory text and you might just find it. Sadly, that isn’t what was produced.

Overall, I would advise you save your money rather than spend it on this book (I’ve only seen it in hardcover and therefore not cheap!). Borrow it from a library if you’re desperate to read it, but you’ll find many more useful writing books out there.

Video: novelling talk

I think I have managed to make this work! Here’s the video of my novelling talk, all 45mins of it. I believe the sound is crappy, but make of it what you will. 

If you want to see the presentation I was using, you can download it here (warning: in Office 2007 format).

Novelling talk

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook will know, I gave a talk on novelling at my work recently. The kind lady who organised it emailed me a few days before to ask ‘do I mind if she videos the talk’? Caught flat-footed, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say ‘HELL NO’ like I wanted to, and now there is proof.

The talk went well! I had well over 30 people come along, and lots of questions. It was more fun than I was expecting, but about as terrifying as I thought it would be. Especially when the head of my entire department came along to sit in. They’re all good people, so I was fine once I got into it. Public speaking is not exactly my forte.

The video is huge – 200MB – and 45 minutes long. YouTube apparently doesn’t like anything over 10 minutes and flickr doesn’t like anything over 8MB. I am looking into self-hosting the thing, and will link to it on here as soon as it is ready. Apparently the sound isn’t so good, but I’ll let you make of it what you will.

Will post again when the video is all uploaded and good to go, hopefully with happy embedding/links.

Paper vs e-books

I came across this link on Twitter today, and thought it worth nailing down. It’s an interesting summary of the paper vs e-book battle, with some curious statistics. One worth keeping in mind when you’re thinking about which way to go to publish a book.

Books vs e-books

Reactions wanted!

I’ve often said that I’m a feedback-whore – I love hearing from readers. It makes me happy.

I try to keep as many avenues for feedback open as possible, and am always on the lookout for new ones. With the Apocalypse Blog, it was emails from readers. With Starwalker, it’s comments on the blog, and then the forum. On the weekend, I added a new way for readers to give feedback to Starwalker.

First, let me explain how I got there. I was doing my semi-regular poke around the Web Fiction Guide forums, when I came across a thread that started out discussing weblit and traditional publishing, and wound up pondering the familiar question: why don’t more readers comment?

As it happens, one weblit author did a survey into exactly that, and her results are interesting. Not entirely unexpected, but it does have some great insights – I recommend that any weblit authors take a look.

It’s also worth taking a skim over the comments on that page, as that’s where I found the suggestion to add reaction buttons. Thanks to another helpful weblit author, I discovered that there is a handy WordPress plugin that adds reaction buttons to posts.

Commenting takes time and effort on the part of the reader. There might be many reasons why someone chooses not to comment: some readers don’t want to take or have the time to do that; others may be looking just to be entertained; and others may simply have nothing to say. That’s all fine! I know I’m often too busy to fill out a comment form when I’m going through blogs, and most of the time I wouldn’t have anything particularly interesting to say beyond ‘I agree/like this’. Sometimes I make the effort, but often I don’t.

Having a button to click is much easier. One click and there, feedback given. You can indicate an opinion without filling out a form or trying to formulate actual words. Quick and easy, so even a busy person won’t feel held up by it.

It’s not intended to replace comments at all – I still love and encourage comments. I do adore it when readers cheer on my characters, just let me know they’re reading, and all the other fun stuff I get in comments. Keep it coming! But now you can click when you’re not feeling so chatty.

I had a bit of a headache over what to put on the buttons. This particular plugin is very configurable – you can have as many buttons as you like with any labels on them. Awesome! Wait. What do I want people to click on, now? Um.

I wanted a negative-reaction button, because it feels weird to me not to give someone the chance to give negative feedback. I struggled with finding a label, though – I started with ‘sucks’, and then downgraded to ‘needs work’, and gave up because I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t troll-bait. So right now, there is no negative option (though there’s always the comments!). I might rectify this if people want it and I can think of something to put on it.

So, there you have it. A new avenue for feedback – click away! Tell me what you think! Suggestions for more/different buttons welcome. And the buttons are on every post, so readers can go back and click on favourite ones if they want!

Have fun!

Kylie Chan and being published

As I mentioned recently, Kylie Chan came to talk to my writing group this month. I’ve been lax in updating here when this stuff happens, but I’m trying to get better at posting this kind of thing!

First, it might be useful to have a little bit about Kylie Chan. She’s a bestselling author in the Australian fantasy market, with four books published in her Dark Heavens series so far and the fifth one out later this year. She’s published with Harper Collins’ Voyager imprint, who are dragging their feet about publishing her overseas (in the US and UK markets), but she hopes to be released in at least one of those markets by early next year.

She writes modern fantasy (or contemporary fantasy, if you prefer) based in Chinese mythology and set in Hong Kong. It’s interesting stuff – I’ll review the first book of the series if I get the chance.

The meeting was a relaxed affair – we asked her questions and she chatted to us in a very open, honest way. I love it when guests feel comfortable enough to do that, as I generally try to foster a relaxed atmosphere in the group. We wound up running way over time, partly because traffic delayed people getting there and because it was really hard to stop talking! (Eventually, we got hungry enough to break for dinner, and that was it.)

We got lots of interesting and useful information out of the talk. We talked about the different ways to approach writing – ‘planners vs pantsers’, and the middle ground. Personally, I tend towards a ‘stepping stone’ approach, but the group is made up of a variety of planners and discovery writers. Everyone has their own way! It was nice to have a writer encourage us to write however it was best for us.

Kylie also talked about what it’s like to be edited, and was very frank about her experiences with getting and being published, which is better than hedging and trying not to put people off. (To be clear: this is talking about the traditional paper publishing industry, not self- or e-publishing.)

Let’s face it: getting published is hard. And once you’ve crested that hurdle, being published is not all it’s cracked up to be (unless you’re a rare shiny thing like JK Rowling or, heaven forfend, Stephanie Meyer). Startling worldwide success aside, when someone tells you ‘don’t give up your day job’, they are not necessarily insulting your talent; they might just be aware of how hard it is for a writer to earn a living from traditional publication.

Royalties are small and are only paid after they have covered your advance. From what I understand, it’s not uncommon for a book not to earn back its advance, and royalties tend to return little to the author.

There are ways to maximise what you earn from your work. Being published in as many territories as possible is one way, though you won’t get the same percentage from foreign market sales as you do from the book’s home market (which is, I believe, the first market it is published in, not necessarily where the author is). There are other ways, but this topic is what a lot of the talk revolved around.

For an unpublished author, negotiating that first contract can be a losing battle; you don’t have any cards to play, being an unproven risk for the publisher, and you usually don’t know what pitfalls to look for. You’re asked to sign away a lot of your publishing rights. On the plus side, you’re being published and on your way to being a known, successful writer. Future contracts will be easier to negotiate.

For writers in Australia, it’s tricky because while the Australian market is good, it’s not that big, especially when compared to countries like the UK and US. If your Australian publisher has the international rights to your book and chooses not to publish you overseas, then you can’t take advantage of those markets. That’s a lot of revenue to miss out on.

So what can we do about this? The most direct way is to go through an American or UK agent/publisher (there is no reason why you can’t do this) and be published in one of those countries first. It’s quite common for authors to do this, particularly genre or niche writers – I know a British horror writer who got published in the US, because it was so difficult to get horror published in the UK.

Another hurdle for Aussie writers selling overseas is writing about Aussie things. Kylie’s series involves an Australian main character, which is seen as a barrier to publishing in other markets (particularly the US). On the plus side, her books are set in Hong Kong and you don’t have to be Australian to read them (the Australian flavour to the book is subtle and unobtrusive, in my opinion), so hopefully this won’t be a big problem for her. I just hope the publishers agree and take the chance to find out!

Kylie also recommended a couple of books that helped her to prepare her books for publication. They were:

• Self Editing for Fiction Writers – Browne & King
• The First Five Pages – Noah Lukeman

I think I’ve babbled on enough. That doesn’t cover everything we talked about, but no-one wants a blow-by-blow. Right?

Hope you all find it helpful. I know I did!

Web Fiction Links & Resources

Over the past nine months, I have picked up a number of useful links for registering online fiction, communities, and other resources. Partly for my own sanity, here’s a list of them for reference – I know some of you out there are thinking about starting your own online fiction, if you haven’t already!

Directories

Web Fiction Guide – a great directory of web fiction, with good-quality reviews and a helpful community in the attached forums. Lots of good resources there.

Muse’s Success – again, focussed on web fiction and offers a rate and review function.

Web Fiction Directory – another directory focussed on web fiction. 

Free Fiction Online – blog listing all kinds of online fiction available for free. Also runs polls on fiction popularity. The lovely lady who runs it also has a Twitter account and tweets links and ads continuously. Worth getting on her list!

EpiGuide – web entertainment directory. Still getting to grips with this, but they do have some interesting features.

Technorati – blog directory, social networking thingy, uses ‘blogosphere’ a lot.

BlogCatalog – another blog directory. My entry is still awaiting approval, so I have no idea how good/not it is.

Communities

Accentuate Writers’ Forum – very friendly forum full of largely professional writers. Good advice and resources to be had, and very welcoming to newcomers. Competitions, freelance writing leads, and publication opportunities found here.

MobileRead Forums – forum for users of e-readers. Lots of good info about e-readers and full of readers of e-books. Not so great for an ongoing serial like mine, but they will help with making that available to e-readers, too. Friendly crowd!

Post Apocalyptic Media – forum and resources for anything post apocalyptic. Good for information and reaching out to an audience into this stuff.

Writing Resources

Blog Fiction – lots of advice and info for blogficcers. Also runs a widget that others can put on their sites that lists all the latest posts on active blogfics.

Writing Excuses – weekly podcasts by writers for writers. Solid advice, very encouraging, hilarious and only 15 minutes long. Love it (and am way behind, oops).

Advertising

Entrecard – free blog-linking advertising, requires a widget on your blog. Good for generating hits, but the quality of those hits is questionable – the Entrecard system encourages its users to visit sites to ‘drop cards’ and then move on again. Hard to say if it generates any actual readers (though it’s possible that advertising through it might).

Project Wonderful – get paid to host ads, and pay to place ads. If you do both, it should be self-sustaining. I haven’t actually tried this yet, but it is on my list of opportunities to look at. I have heard only good things about it so far. Payments are dependent on ad showing time, not clicks.

Google Adsense/Adwords – get paid to host ads. Payments are based on click-throughs, but only for ‘genuine’ clicks. I’ve heard that the classification of ‘genuine’ clicks is too narrow, which has made advertisers unhappy (and poorer). Won’t generate a lot of money. On the other side, I don’t know what kind of hit-rate you get by advertising through Adwords – I have a voucher somewhere that I should use. Again, haven’t used this one at all.

If anyone has any additions, suggestions or comments, let me know! Always happy to expand my list. 🙂 If this winds up morphing into a big beastie, I’ll probably move it to its own page here on the blog.

Killing characters

Those of you who read the Apocalypse Blog (and are up-to-date with it, I know there’s a lot to get through if you’re new) will have noticed that mortality has been a feature recently. So much so, I decided to call a recent post ‘Attrition’. It wasn’t my original intention to put two major characters’ deaths so close together, and that presented me with some tough choices. Killing off main characters isn’t something I do lightly.

I have firm views about killing off major characters. For me, violence and death should follow similar rules to sex in fiction:

• Avoid gratuitous occurrences.
• Detail should only be included if it is important or there is some reason for it.
• It should have some effect on the story or characters.
• Give it the attention it deserves.

The second and third points are all really related to the first one – avoid gratuitousness at all costs. The third point is the most helpful in deciding whether the death of the character is gratuitous or not. Does it progress the plot? Does it affect character development? If the answer is ‘no’, then why are you really doing it?

If you’re going to put it in, make it mean something. And I don’t just mean ‘let’s upset the readers’ – that’s not a good reason for doing something on its own (and your readers will hate you for it). Much like throwing a random sex scene in because you think the readers might like some sticky hotness, randomly killing off main characters is cheap and ultimately annoying.

The last point on the list is one that often doesn’t get enough consideration. Too often, major characters are killed off-screen, or off-handedly, and the audience is only given a fleeting mention of it. I’ve heard that the last Harry Potter book is rife with this sort of thing (it’s one of the major complaints I hear about the series). If your readers – or viewers, as this applies as much to TV shows or movies as it does to written fiction – have spent the time getting involved with your characters, then do them the courtesy of acknowledging that. Don’t leave them feeling flat and discarded – do the character and your audience justice. When you take away someone they are attached to, make it a feature, not a footnote.

On the other hand, lingering over a character’s death too long can also be annoying (and often slides into melodrama, which leaves me eye-rolling and flipping pages). Trinity’s (second) death in the Matrix movies is a good example of this – you know it goes on too long when you’re wishing that a main character would hurry up and expire already, so we can get on with things. We don’t necessarily need to see every last gasping breath. Make it a feature, acknowledge that something important has just happened, and move on with the story.

It’s not an easy balance to strike, and opinions about that appropriate spot in the middle will undoubtedly vary. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to find it.

More coming soon about the latest events in the Apocalypse Blog. Hopefully that’s some food for thought in the meantime!