Getting There...

Let's see, since I last posted, here are a few of my highlights:

I'm starting on my 10th week of school, which means I'm about 2/3 through with the school year.

I bought a guitar and have been learning how to play with an online program.

I experienced some chest pains and had the college clinic check it out. Turns out I started a workout too fast, which sounded good when I was thinking about the possibility of an impending heart attack or something.

I walked into an office to apply for an assistant marketing position (hearing from someone who applied for the job, it's a bunch of writing so I figured I could handle it). I new the position had been filled, but I wanted the lady to remember me for the next time it opens up...so I ended up talking to the lady right in front of the guy who's job I was talking about! Talk about feeling a spot getting burned in the back of my head! lol

Making some break throughs with kids at House of Faith. One kid actually listened to me the other day when I gave him advice.

I bought a gun (10-.22 Ruger)

I went spot lighting the other night and shot a cotton tail rabbit (does that make me a meany? haha) That was a lot of fun. Spot lighting is where you drive around with a truck and a stand in the bed of the truck and some of the people you're wit have spot lights they shine everywhere.

When you see a pair of animal eyes staring back at you, you shoot between them.

Here are some pics of the week.














Been doing some thinking about the trip to Africa this summer. I believe God is calling me to be a missionary, but I want to make sure this missions trip is what he has in mind for me. I have a couple friends who might go along with me, but I'm fine going alone as well.

Whatever I decide, as usual, I want my motivations to be right and to be able to walk straight into it without an ounce of doubt so I can put energy behind it.

That's about all that's been happening to me, on top of work, writing for the newspaper (been doing a bunch of assignments from them) and getting to know people.

Normal...Kinda (I'll come up with better titles some day)

Alright, the week went pretty well. I'm just about half way through this semester, and I still have energy. Wait till Rodeo hits, I keep telling myself.

Speaking of rodeo, there's a small rodeo coming into town and I'm going to see if I can cover it for the newspaper. I might get to go interview a bunch of bull riders or something.

I put in about 38-39 hours at work.

I bought a camera, so pictures will be coming in future updates :)

First real picture



I also went to a church to cover that for the newspaper....that's the first time I ever dropped an article volentarily.

The reason I write articles about churches in my area is because I felt God tell me one day in church, "be a voice for my people."

I already put a significant amount of time and energy into putting it together, but once I went to the church to interview the people in the church that had split, I just didn't feel right about it. There are too many hurt people there right now. I would be causing a lot more damage if I did write it. So, that's over.

On to cherier news, I had a funny thing happen to me today. I've been meaning to talk to a man at my church named Jim Farmer at my church (CCSA) about going on a missions trip to Africa next summer.

I went to the paintball course today to interview people there about another article (seeing a trend in my updates? lol) and did my work, was about to leave, when I felt God telling me to stick around a bit. I did.

When I turned around after a few minutes, I saw Jim Farmer, of all people, sitting at a table and getting ready to play soft air! I talked to him about the trip, and learned a few things.

I went to a friend's house in the afternoon to target practise. I also did some welding (or cutting, was exactly what I was doing)

This is him when I walked up.


I wanted to know how it worked



Me shooting (notice the scope FAR from my face. Also, Jared, I got an Alaskan belt buckle just to upset the natives in Texas ;)



Both of us shooting (don't worry. there's not a single bullet between all 4 guns :)


Some sunset/moon shots I took on the way back from Ballinger.

Article

This is an article I wrote for a college class I'm taking. Thought some of you guys might like it...



My first writing conference left me scarred for life. I’m a homeschooler, used to a small world in which things happen in a very controlled, predictable manner. I had to be prepared for anything.

I remember walking along with the crowd, I have idea where we were going and I doubt they knew, brooding a little over the day’s outcome.

(Me talking to an editor)


I’d come to the conference with a proposal for my first book and samples of my second I planned to write. None of the editors I’d been interviewed by seemed interested beyond the usual, “Send your manuscript to me and I’ll have a look.”

Suddenly one of the teachers of a workshop I’d attended, Lissa Halls Johnson, stood in front of me and said “Jamin, I want to have a look at your manuscript.”

My hands trembled as I fumbled to open my notebook and I pulled out the neat envelope I’d brought samples of my book in. We sat down on a couch; I opened the envelope, thrust my hand in, and gripped empty space.

Mrs. Johnson laughed as I searched the dark corners of the envelope. “Well, you’re a concise writer!”

I ran to my rental car and managed to have her look at my writing for a few minutes, but I lost time in that meeting by not being prepared. I didn’t take full advantage of that occasion.

Mrs. Johnson was a good sport, and she gave excellent feedback, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been prepared in a different setting.

Suppose a gang member walked up to me and asked why I believe in Jesus. Would I be ready with an answer?

I Peter 3:15a says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

Even though I’ve never been cornered with that question by a gang member, the Bible commands me to be ready. I’ll prepare for someone asking me a question like that by staying in contact with God by praying, reading the Bible, and hanging out with friends who draw me closer to Christ.

I can’t say I’ll have all the answers or I’ll be able to spark a revival with an eloquent speech, but I will be prepared to tell the person why I believe in Jesus. At the very least I won’t reach into an envelope and touch empty space.

I'm Going to Submit Something without Doing a Thing!

I'm a student in the Jerry Jenkins Writers Guild as you all probably know.

My mentor (or instructor, I suppose would be a more accurate word) has been telling me my work is great. I wasn't going to argue with that (I mean that in the humblest way ;) but I don't really have time for the research and submitting to magazines right now.

So, my mentor gave me the option to rework an article I sent her and she would submit it to Encounter, a magazine that accepts no freelance writers.

You bet I took her up on that! Getting a line that says I've published in a place like that looks great when I submit somewhere else.

Now she wants to submit another one of my articles.

I just might not get published once, but twice in a no-freelance publication!

Have any of you ever read Encounter? I've heard of it before, but I thought it was something of a curriculum.

The Future

Seems like I need to post something. How long has it been since I've written?

I've been struggling with whether or not to become a missionary or a full time writer. I've decided to go with being a missionary. Where I'm going, I don't know yet. I've thought about maybe Russia or the Middle East. However, I also want to write more books.

Short and sweet: I can write more of what I want by making writing a part time deal. Kinda funny how that works.

Be praying for me these coming months. I'm trying to work up to 80 hours a week to afford the college I want to attend. Seems like a prime time to snap!

Conflict to the Divine level

Have you ever wondered as a fantasy writer how you're going to have conflict within a story if one of your characters represents God? After all, this person has the power to remove all the problems in the story with a wave of the hand.

How do you maintain conflict and make the story realistic?

I struggled with this for years, till I realized something about stories with Jesus; typically, even after he resolved the problem in the scenario, he set up another conflict.

Yes, you heard me right. Think about it.

He told the man posssesed by demons to go and tell people what God had done for him. I can't remember His exact words so call me out if I'm wrong. Time out. These people knew him as the terror of the region. How do you think that character handled people's skepticism, fear, and maybe near hatred for him at times? Was he tempted to go back to his old life?

Even a story with an omnipotent character can be packed with conflict, though it is a tricky balance at times.


I thought about applying for a newspaper route today. I was prepared to get up at about 3-4 a.m., but they said I had to be at the meeting place by 2! I work till 10 or 11 every night, so you can imagine what job I won't be taking. Oh well. I can't wait till I get a job like a fishing charter in Alaska.

Helpful website!

Here's a website a friend of mine developed for teen writers. I thought I wouldn't be selfish and let you all know about it. http://www.todaysteenwriter.com/

My older brother went skydiving the other day...I am so going in May!

It's been FOREVER since I've posted! Here's why...

I had to write a research paper over the holiday break. I thought I'd post it, because I cover a lot of novel writing techniques that someone might find useful.

On a sidenote, be praying for me. I'm feeling called to be a missionary, but I don't know if it's final, if you know what I mean. :) Pray I make the right decision for the right reason, and I don't kill myself with overwork this summer! Also, a car would be nice...a Ford Ranger.

Anyway, here it is...




Novel writers use many techniques to evoke emotion, inspire, motivate, and inform readers that many people are not aware of. These techniques, used in the proper doses, make a book more rewarding for readers and increase the beauty of the story.

The best thing any writer can do to further his craft is to write well. Without a high-quality writing style, a novice writer can expect little, if any, response from an audience. Perhaps the best thing a writer can do for his audience to “show, not tell” his story. This phrase has made itself familiar in the writing industry, and essentially it means to use powerful descriptions and characters’ actions to reveal personality.

For example, this is showing: “Joe’s fingers clawed into the cracks in the cliff as sweat coursed down his face and the wind tried ripping him off into dizzying space.”
This is telling: “Joe held onto the cliff as the wind blew him around.”

Noah Lukeman in his book The First Five Pages, page 119, says, “It is the writer’s job to show us what his characters are like, not by what he says about them, but by their actions. A writer can spend a page telling his character is a crook, or he can show it in one sentence, by simply describing him taking a twenty-dollar bill from someone’s pocket, and letting the reader judge [the character] for himself.”

Another characteristic of strong writing entails using powerful verbs. Weak verbs include: is, are, was, were, etc. A weak verb posses in its letters the venom to slow your work and sap the life from your pages. Suppose you write a 300-page book. Assume you place at least one weak verb in every other sentence. By the time your victimized reader closes the manuscript, how many pages of fluff do you think the reader choked on?

A strong verb, on the other hand, takes control of the subject, works it over, and hurls it at the reader with such force that they want to keep reading. Searching for the right verb, the one that rings in a reader’s ears, is guaranteed to pay off.

Fewer adverbs and adjectives will go a long way towards putting life in a story as well. Lukeman says on page 31 of his book, “Most people who come to writing for the first time think they bring their nouns and verbs to life by piling on adjectives and adverbs, that by describing a day as ‘hot, dry, bright and dusty’ they make it more vivid. Almost always the opposite is true.”

Using as few adjectives and adverbs as possible forces the writer to use stronger nouns and verbs. Instead of describing a house as “small, old, and dangerous” a writer can simply say “shack” and show the main character’s reactions as floorboards creak under his feet and he dusts aside cobwebs.

As a writer the importance of varying sentence structure can’t be underestimated. In a workshop given by Bob Hostetler at the Writing for the Soul conference, Hostetler says, “You need a variation in [sentence] length. So stride for variety and length, but also strive for variety (scan it! I don’t know any way to do it other than to scan it.) for structure as well. Sprinkling the simple sentences in among the complex [sentences].”

After hurdling over the writing style aspect of writing, a novice novelist is ready to go deeper into his story, particularly with characterization. Developing a character’s traits often proves the most strenuous, and rewarding. Without a solid grasp on character-building the reader won’t captivate the reader.

Writers need to remember to build the character’s foundation and not become fixated on details. Basic questions of where the person was born, height, weight, what his job is, etc., are all things the writer needs to know.

However, writers should look to inner qualities more than outward appearances. Brandilyn Collins says in Getting into Character, page 14, “Her [the character being created] appearance may attract you, but her inner values are what will make her compelling.”

Understanding what the character really wants above all else will give you a good feel for the person you are creating. Pretend you are interviewing your character and ask questions like why he acts so tough? Is it something that happened in his past? Is he trying to prove something to someone? When he seems mad, is he mad at others or at himself?

Nancy Kress says in Dynamic Characters, page 159, “What constitutes as a conflict should grow out of what your character values, what he struggles for, what matters to him individually. For some characters, leaving home (physically, emotionally) is an immense struggle. Others just pack and go.”

The important thing to remember is to keep delving deeper and deeper until you have an intriguing character. Like a prince who strives to save his father’s kingdom after it was conquered, even though he hates his father.

After developing characters to their maximum depth, it’s time for tryouts. It’s time to choose which character to narrate the story through and will ultimately become what novelists call the “view point character.”

This might be one of the most critical decisions you will make in the whole book. Your character will either carry your story to infinity and beyond, or he’ll drag your work to the ground. From this character will decide the ultimate texture of your work. Can you imagine what the Lord of the Rings would be like if it had been told from Saruman’s perspective instead of Frodo’s?

You have to decide which character brings the most interesting perspective to the story, who the readers will like or at least admire for the duration of the book. As Sol Stein says in Stein on Writing, page 136, “…be sure to choose for each scene the character who is most affected by the events of that scene.”

Different styles of point of view (POV) exist at the writer’s disposal. No matter what form of POV you choose, you must stay in one person’s perspective throughout the chapter or scene. Throughout the duration of a book use only three POV characters or else it becomes hard for the reader to follow the story.

Third person narration makes itself the prominent choice in modern writing. It looks like this, “Bob turned the corner and bumped into Suzan.”

First person, another popular POV, sounds as though the character himself is telling the story. “I turned the corner and bumped into Suzan.”

Second person POV is essentially trying to make the reader think he is the character. “You turned the corner and bumped into Suzan.”

This form of POV doesn’t see much action, and Stein says of it in his book on page 130, “Forget it.”

Finally, there is omniscient POV. This perspective offers a wide view on the scene. This gives the writer the ability to skip from view point to view point in the same scene. New writers need to be wary of choosing this technique just because it seems to involve less discipline than the other methods, as Stein says on page 137 of Stein on Writing, “The omniscient POV lacks discipline. Because the author can stray into anyone’s head, it is hard to gain credibility and even harder to gain close emotional rapport with the readers.”

A good character comes alive in a believable setting. There are different kinds of settings, but the general ones are where, when, and what culture the story takes place in. All these have an effect on the story’s outcome.

Dave Lambert said in a workshop given in the Writing for the Soul conference, “Not only does place and time affect each other, but then together they affect the characters and the development of the story.”

The geographical background is the kind of setting writers think about when they consider setting. Every geographical settings affect the reader in different ways. Can you imagine watching The Black Knight set in Oklahoma? The feeling of the city of Gotham, and the physiological impact a city entails, made a perfect setting for Batman.

Using time properly also can enhance a writer’s material. Different epochs in history have different effects on readers, just as the geographical setting does. A story written about a painter during the Renaissance will have a different effect than a story about the same character during WWII.

Even a writer of modern stories needs to consider time. If he knows what period he will be writing in, it’s time to consider the time of year, the day of the week, and the time of day. Each of these choices will put the reader in a different world.

The cultural setting also plays a large role in the story. A writer in choosing a setting does well when he considers what culture it will be in, or what culture it will mirror. Making this distinction puts the story’s main character in a position where he develops. He must decide if he will stand out, conform, or contribute to the culture.

Scene setting from scene to scene requires some practice, but knowing a few things helps. Using good details, details that say something specifically about a setting, goes a long way in making a setting readers will be sucked into. A baseball bat during a baseball game means something different than someone walking into a gas station with a bat, and it prepares the readers for what they should expect.

Now, after mastering these things, it is time to move onto some more complex techniques novel writers use to make a story more dramatic.

When you walk into a room you can see what is happening. You know what is happening now, but you want to know what happened before you walked onto the scene. That is what novel writers call back story.

A reader enters the world you’ve created and sees your characters acting, but he wants to know what made them that way. Writers can tantalize writers by giving little hints at what happened in the past, till the reader is engrossed not only in the future of the story, but in its past as well.

Flashbacks also enhance a reader’s experience. They are instances in the story where the main character remembers something fairly dramatic about his past. These scenes let the reader know what happened in the past, and also they develop the main character. Many editors don’t like flashbacks, however, because they have the risk of pulling the reader out of the world that’s been created.

Stein says on page 144 of his book, “A good flashback is a scene that is depicted exactly as it would be in the present story except for how it is introduced and how the present story is joined.”

It’s important to resist slipping into a past tense when writing these, and the reader needs a concrete way to know when the flashback starts and when it ends. For instance, the main character at a stoplight may have a flashback about a car hitting his mother at an intersection. The flashback could end when someone behind him hunks for him to go.

Many writers experience a phase in their book when the tension in the story relaxes. This is dangerous and should be avoided.

Stein says on page 97 of Stein on Writing, “Your predecessor, a storyteller of many centuries ago, recited his stories around a fire. If he failed to arouse his listener’s anticipation and droned on, or if his audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.”

One technique in keeping tension in a story is to adopt more than one viewpoint. Now the writer can end a chapter with a character at gunpoint, spend a chapter showing the actions of another person, end that chapter with a character hanging from a cliff, and start up with another character in another place. Thrill writers utilize this technique most, but it is still effective in other genres.

Writers work hard at their craft. All the aspects of writing a novel make up a story, and a writer who invests the time and effort into mastering them will have a solid chance of enthralling his readers and impacting them with his message.







Works Cited

Collins, Brandilyn. Getting Into Character. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
Hostetler, Bob. In a workshop given during the 2008 Writing for the Soul Conference.
Kress, Nancy. Dynamic Characters. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1998.
Lambert, Dave. In a workshop given during the 2008 Writing for the Soul Conference.
Lukeman, Noah. The First Five Pages. New York: Fireside, 2000.
Stein, Sol. Stein on Writing. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Trends

Trends can set you ahead of other writers if you pay attention. I'm not talking about copying other writers' work; I'm talking about surveying the public mood to see what people want/expect.

For example, following 9/11, portraying an antagonist with the characteristics of a terrorist would have struck a chord with readers.

Again, think about the Left Behind series. Jerry Jenkins didn't know it, but the public anticipation of the end of the world around 2000 accelerated the sales on the first book.

Now, try applying stuff like that to feel for how you should write to fit the public mood. What do people expect from a hero? How do people perceive the world around them?

As depressing as some of those answers can be, keeping the radar up for changes will help you pitch your work.


I have to go through all 350 pages of my second book to change the sentence length and structure. I need to have it finished before February. This might be a hectic Christmas season!

Hey, by the way, do any of you have Facebook?

Side-Kicks (is that spelled right?)

Secondary characters. Every story needs them.

Unfortunately, the primary character can suck up all the writer's energy and imagination, which leaves the rest of the cast out on a limb.

I often spend about as much time thinking of ways to make secondary characters intrigueing as I do with the main character...sometimes I wish the characters could swap roles!

Secondary characters add A LOT to a story. For instance, can you imagine the Pirates of the Caribean without those two pirates (one of them has a glass eye)? How about Prince Caspian without Repecheep (now I know I've misspelled that)?


Sorry I haven't been able to post a lot lately! What I thought would be an easy Senior year blew up in my face.

The Power of Silence

Do you think you're dialogue soars above expectations? Well, sad to say, that might be a bad thing.

There are times in fiction when silence between characters packs a better punch than a string of dialogue. Have you ever experience that in life? Where what your feelings couldn't be expressed anymore?

Silence, according to Dave Lambert (an editor who worked at Zondervan for a while), can be way more powerful than dialogue.

Take this scene from Kung Fu Panda:

Po (the panda protagonist)is argueing with a kung fu master, saying the master can't train Po in time for a great fight.

"But I can train you! I can make you the Dragon Warrior," says the master.

"Oh please! How are you going to turn this," points at his bulging stomach, "into the Dragon Warrior?"

The master's pupils shrink, and he avoids eye contact as his mouth drops open. None of the characters say anything for a whole 5 seconds or so.

"How!" Po says.

"I don't know how!"

When no one is sure what to say, that is when the emotion of the situation catches the reader off guard a little. If you can't find the words for a certain scene, maybe that's a good thing.


Be nice to fast food workers on Black Friday. I'll be one of them. I'm the only where I work, who is not a manager, who is working 12 hours that day. This aught to be fun!

The case for non-fiction

I know, I know, a lot of people hate writing non-fiction. The fact of the matter is it feels like a school report when we have to sit down and write non-fiction instead of a great story. So why do it?

There are a lot of $$$ involved with non-fiction.

It's sad, but fiction doesn't pay well a lot of the time. Also, in times of recession, non-fiction takes less of a hit from consumers than fiction. People want to read fiction, but they need what the how-to book is saying.

Most people will buy what they need and not what they want.

So maybe we should quit fiction. Yeah right! Truth be told, fiction is the only writing a lot of us enjoy 100%. I personally think of non-fiction as a job, and fiction as the fun part of my job.

I hope to hit the jackpot someday so I won't have to write non-fiction, but till then I'll smile and keep writing about events at schools and churches.



My local newspaper published one of my articles on the front page the other day!

Voice

Voice alludes definition for a lot of writers. It's something we all use, but few of us have a complete grasp on.

Essentially, voice, in relation to a story, is how someone's writing sounds like. Hemingway had a different voice than Dickens, and Falkner had a different voice than Tolkien.

There are a few things that contribute to voice.

Prose
How you describe things. Do you use figurative language, or a cut-and-dry style? What voice do you use to fill in the gap for your reader when the characters aren't talking?

Dialogue
How do the characters talk? This will contribute to the overall voice of the story and individual passages as well.

Monologue
Sometimes, voice can be extended to what is going on in someone's head.

Experiment with voices. Some sound grating on people's senses when they read it, some sound so complicated people are afraid to read it, but others nearly have a poetic ring.

Try using a different voice for every POV character you use. For a book I wrote, I wrote from the protagonist's POV with a voice that was simple, straight forward, and with a limited vocabulary. For the protagonist's father I used a larger vocabulary and artistic elements to make that character "sound" more sophisticated.

For the antagonist, I decided I would try a straight forward approach, but I would try to make a lot of sentences about the same length in places. The idea was to make the reader feel abused by the antagonist every time they read that character's POV.

You can do stuff like that to. Experiment, just like you would with view point characters.

Research your topic (P.S. Someone shot at me the other day)

Research is something of a pain for fiction writers. "I'm making it up! No one will notice because I'll make things up."

I used to think that way. Then I read The Runelords (not particularly recommended). It was obvious the author had done his research! I put the book down feeling like I would be prepared to live in the medieval ages if I got warped back in time. He imparted that much info.

I was living the fiction dream every time I picked up that book.

Anything can be researched. If you're writing a scene modeled after a day at the Roman Coliseum, a little research will help. Even if you think you know everything about a subject, go a little further.

I knew I couldn't write from a girl's perspective a little while ago. But after some research (I read a book alright...chill) I think I have a general idea of how the mindset works. But I know there are other areas I could delve into. A reader notices every researched detail.



I love paintball. It was nice on Sunday to get out onto a dirt lot and blast through four hours of adrenaline. The highlights of my day was peering through a short tube that ran through a hill, and THEN seeing a bad guy on the other side. That kinda hurt.

My favorite part was slipping through a wooded area in complete silence. That was new, considering my tactic is usually to charge like a guy on crack. Anyway, my prey came waltzing down the path and didn't see me till it was too late. Oh so, so, late...

Can You Killy My Interest Any Faster?

I hate sitting down reading a book, and realizing the author has told me the same thing twice. This can be a subtle mistake, but it comes back to a cornerstone in writing; don't bore people.

It's easy to stumble into it, however.

"Todd was strong. He ripped a door off its hinges."

Do I need to mention Todd's strong? After hearing he's ripped the door off its hinges, I think anyone can figure out he's strong.

Another thing that's easy to mess up is laying out the future of the plot through the characters' planning. Warrant, every now and then the characters need to come together and have some kind of focus for the plot.

But once I wrote a rescue scene. Instead of having a scene where the characters discuss their complex scheme, I simply had them do it. I think it brought more tension to the story, and I didn't' have to write what they were going to do and then show them doing it. Who wants to read that?


I need to start listening to the radio when it's on at work. I'm usually so focused on the job at hand that I don't hear anything around me. My boss walked up to me and said, "You do know this song is about a cannibalistic serial killer, don't you?"

"What!"

Of imitators and shin-splits

A lot of people think there is a specific formula for getting published.

"If I write this way I'm sure to hit the jackpot!"

Wrong. It's easy to look at popular writers and try to mimick them, but editors aren't really interested in another Ted Dekker or Jerry Jenkins. That's because they have the best people in the world to write that style and it's Ted Dekker and Jerry Jenkins.

Editors are looking for new voices, new writers with their own style of writing. You have a superpower whether or not you know it. There is no in the world who can tell a story like you.

That uniqueness, at times your greatest asset, can be ruined when you try imitating other writers too much. Should we not learn from the masters?

I think we should take advise and examine succesful techniques, but remember who's doing the writing.


I took the ACT today. THAT was fun. This is the third time I've taken it, and I'm hoping I can score better than I did the other times. I went to work after testing and worked for about seven hours.

I've been fighting shin-splits for a while, but tonight they really kicked in. It hurt to stand, not to mention move around. There's my whine for the day. Anyone else? Who's got the biggest whine?

Use a rifle, not a shotgun

After completing your manuscript, where do you submit it?

Will any agent or publisher take it?

You know the answer to that. Completing the book was only half the work, and now you have to start the other half.

Narrow down your publishing options. Read books that a house has published. Get their guidelines or mission statement if you can find it.

Believe me, just looking at a list of publishers that accepts your genre/topic of writing and throwing the same proposal at each won't work. Just as you narrowed the target audience of you manuscript, so you have to narrow the publishers down.

In short, to quote someone though I don't know who, "Use a rifle, not a shotgun when you're looking for a publisher."


My younger brother freaks me out sometimes. I was sleeping on a couch when he woke me up by bumping my leg. My eyelids shot open and I nearly decked the figure standing over me till I realized it was my brother.

"Go away!"

He nodded and laid on the floor. The next morning, he didn't remember anything from this incident!

The mistake you DON'T want to make

Have you ever thought writing was easy, slow-paced, and required no participation with the outside world?

That's not the case when you're writing for a newspaper. You have to know about your community, pick out a suitable writing topic, research, pitch it to the editor, interview people, verify facts, actually write it, and submit the final draft...sometimes that can all take place within a few days.

One thing I learned recently about interviews is this; always, ALWAYS get parental consent before interviewing a minor. Even if you're a minor, the parents must consent to their children being interviewed.

I interviewed an acquaintance about her trip to a court over missing school, and then I remembered that rule. I told her to make sure being interviewed was alright with her parents. She said they'd have no problem with it.

About a week later, when the editor wanted the story and I'd set up an interview with her school's Principal, I gave her an update about what was happening and asked if she had asked for permission from her parents. After a little talking, it was obvious she hadn't even told her parents about the interview. Not only that, but she was acting as though I'd kept her in the dark all along about what was happening.

I called the story off. I didn't get in trouble (the story wasn't published), but the idea of having a furious parent waving my newspaper article in my face and threatening to sue sends chills down my spine.

Short and sweet of this episode is simple; make sure you ask a minor's parents if it's alright for you interview their child, and then go ahead.

Creating the Special Scene

Have you ever watched a movie where you're nearly entranced for a few seconds?

There was a scene the first X-Men where a young woman is riding with a tough guy who she knows has the ability to produce claws from his fists.

She looked at his knuckles and said, "Do they hurt when they come out?"

The man sighed and stared ahead. "Every time."

Those two words epitomized the loneliness of that guy. It had an emotional impact.

Writers can do that too. Give some thought to scenes you plan will leave a mark on the reader's memory. Pay attention to setting, character development, and the condition of the plot.

Be wary about just slapping it down. If it's one of those golden scenes, take some time to think it out.


I trained someone at work on Saturday. I noticed a scar on her wrist, obviously a result of a failed slicing. One of the jobs involved cutting lemons.

"Be careful you don't cut yourself." I said.

You idiot, I thought as soon as I said it.

Here's a hot topic you could cover

Have you been wishing for some idea that would sell easily to places you submit it?

Well here's one!

Write about monetary issues (saving money, spending money, investing, creative ways to earn it, etc.).

With the economy as it is, people are wanting to know everything they can about this topic. It's usually an easy article theme to sell, but it's even easier now. I'd recommend interviewing someone (check out your local college; all you need is a "Professor so and so" to get in the door most the time) and aiming at small magazines.

It's funny, but this economy problem actually puts money in writers pockets.