Learning New Tricks

There is a drawback to waiting for retirement before starting a new career as an author. These days, you are expected to do your own marketing. And, in this Age of the Internet, a lot of that marketing is in cyberspace. I’ve read enough marketing articles to figure that out.

In my first career, I worked my way up to secretary, which meant I knew grammar and punctuation, and when to ask for clarification when doing an assignment. On a computer, I knew Office Word and Office Excel, and was actively discouraged from using the internet at work. Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

I thought I was. Catching up. I started - years ago - with MySpace. Does anybody use that anymore? No, I don’t, either.

Eventually, I got on Facebook with a personal page. Now those articles tell me I need a fan page. They are full of reasons for having a fan page, but they don’t explain HOW to set up a fan page. And I still don’t know how to post pictures to my personal page. Guess I’ll have to take an afternoon see if I can figure it out.

Twitter is another big ‘must be on’ to do marketing. MoonPhaze has an account, but the thought of only having 140 characters sends me into a tizzy fit. Remember when I set out to write a 6,000 word short, and ended up with 15,000 words? Yeah, I tend to run off at the keyboard, as I’ve said many times. I don’t suppose half-sentences will do the trick, huh?

And Pinterest. I have some ideas for that, actually, but I’m not an artist. And I don’t want to surf the net for hours, looking for one perfect picture. Chances are, I won’t find it. And if I do, how does the licensing for that picture work when you just want to pin it?

And always, those articles encourage using photos and inforgraphtics. Right.

I got Photoshop installed on my desktop today. I took a couple Continuing Education classes for it, but the program was on the old computer, and I haven’t been able to play with it recently. I have done basic drawings in Paint. I know how to fill an area with a color in Paint. It’s nowhere near the same in Photoshop.

The more I learn about Marketing, the more questions I have, the more things get put on my To-Do list. And most of the things getting put on my list involve a long learning curve. We’ll see if this old dog can learn any new tricks.

The Mechanics of Writing

I have the honor of being trusted enough to edit other people's manuscripts from time to time. Occasionally, I find myself giving mini-lessons in the mechanics of writing as I do so. Here are some examples:

In fiction, dialogue does not go on a separate line just because it's dialogue.

When one character is speaking for several paragraphs, do not put end quotes at the end of each paragraph, save them for the very end of that person's dialogue. Do, however, start each paragraph with opening quotes. This is a subtle indication to the reader that the same character is speaking these paragraphs.

Generally, past tense verbs are preferred over present tense verbs. Whichever tense you choose to write in, stick with that tense. Don't flip between present and past tenses.

If you are writing from Character A's point of view, he cannot tell the reader things he does not know. If B & C secretly meet to discuss something, A must overhear them - or be told about the meeting - in order to tell the reader about it.

'I' is for the subject. 'Me' is for the object of the verb. If you lump yourself with another person, and can't decide if you've chosen the correct pronoun for yourself, try reading the sentence without that other person. 'Mother and me went to the park.' = 'Me went to the park.' I don't know about you, but that grates on my brain. It should be 'I went to the park,' therefore, 'Mother and I went to the park.'

The best source I have found for learning some of these mechanics is the book, Elements of Style by Strunk & White. It is a whopping 85 pages long. It is clear and concise, without a lot of fluff to clutter it up. I try to read it every couple of years, just to remind myself of things.

This book, however, is not written with fiction in mind, so sometimes, a punctuation question comes up that is not addressed in its pages. This past month, I have discovered a blog by 'Grammar Gal', which has answered a couple punctuation questions I had. She seems to know her stuff, and explains it clearly. She has joined my 'resource' list as well.

My dad used to say, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." I have to agree. So if you want to write, brush up on your grammar rules. It makes it much easier on the editor, who can then concentrate on finding any plot holes you might have missed.

Even if you aren't writing books, just emails to friends and family, being aware of the grammar rules will make those emails easier for them to read.

Practice What You Preach

I read a lot of e-newsletters. Some give me tips on how to write better, some give me clues about markets I might submit to, and some try to tell me how to market my work, once it gets published. Most of them I can read fairly quickly. But one of them I read this week... !

I don't remember which newsletter I was reading, possibly one on marketing, because the article seemed to be on what type of website to make announcements, timing and the type of announcement. After almost every website type/announcement type that it listed, the author expanded by saying you should edit, edit, edit everything before you sent it off into the world. The reasoning was that if you make an impression on potential readers with poor grammar, spelling and punctuation, they aren't likely to look up your book and buy a copy.

I have to agree with that sentiment.

A lot of people never learned these things in school well enough to know how to follow the rules, and therefore, they don't think it's really important. Texting, when it required hitting the same button a number of times to get one letter, further eroded people's ability to spell, it seems. But as long as the idea gets across, anything goes these days, right?

No, I can't agree with that sentiment.

I have re-worked and proofread and edited enough to be pretty familiar with most of the rules of the English language. It doesn't bother me to get a text on my phone with 'u' for 'you' and 'ur' for 'your'. I consider that a kind of slang.

But when I'm reading something that purports to be informative and professional, I expect it to be well edited. This particular article in this newsletter was NOT. Here it was, expounding on the idea that everything you put out there should be edited, and the author did not appear to know the difference between [its] and [it's], or where commas belong, or how to spell.

Now I'm left in a dilemma. Do I believe this author was knowledgeable in the field and take the advice offered? Or write the article off as a waste of time because the author couldn't be bothered to take his/her own advice?