Interrobang – The Exclamatory Interrogative of Nonstandard Punctuation

Tell me — am I the only writer who was unaware of the interrobang?  That’s it over there on the right.  It is a nonstandard punctuation mark (something else I didn’t know existed) that is used to mark an exclamatory interrogative.  You know like “What the heck,” only my seventeen-year-old did not say heck.

It was created in 1962 by Martin Speckter, editor the magazine Type Talks. He dreamed it up for advertising copywriters who needed it for those rhetorical questions they like to write into ads (“What?! Whiter than White?!”).  It is to be used in those instances when neither an exclamation point nor a question mark alone convey the full meaning.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a word nerd but I think this is pretty cool.  I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a Frindle moment.  In Frindle by Andrew Clements, fifth grader Nick Allen decides to change the English language by getting everyone in his class to call an ink pen a Frindle.  His teacher thinks it is nonsense but soon it has spread beyond his class and other people in their town are asking for frindle when they need to sign their name.  I have to admit, this is my absolute favorite Clement book.

Now I can only participate in the interrobang revolution if I can figure out how to type one.  Fortunately, I’m a researcher so I found out how.  I use a Windows driven PC so I hold down ALT and type  8253 and up pops this — ‽.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go interrobang some unsuspecting soul…

–SueBE

 

Not Right for My List

“Not right for my list.” That’s one of those phrases that writers hate to see on a rejection letter.  It just seems to subjective.  What does it really mean? This week I read an interesting blog post on this by agent Janet Reid.  She pointed out that we all have a list.  Most of us just call it our reading list.

That made a lot of sense to me.  I’m not a huge fan of adult contemporary fiction.  Except for the Don Tillman series by Graeme Simsion.  I love those books!

And I love, love, love action books especially if they’re espionage.  Except for the one that I tried to listen to today.  I’m not going to pan an author by name but I wasn’t thrilled with the book but decided to give it one more try.  Ugh.  Not a rape scene!  And the rape of a teen yet.  Back in the library bag it went.  Maybe I should be more specific — I really like Suzanne Brockmann.

Urban fantasy?  Love it!   As long as it’s something like Jim Butcher’s Dresden files.  Unless it starts with sex.  Puh-lease.  Give me story and characters.  Not porn.  (And, yes, this would be another book that went back into the library bag.)

No matter what broad categories we love — I’m all for mysteries, sf, fantasy, adventure, spies and historical fiction — there are things we just don’t want to see.  You have to work really hard to hook me with anything about World War II because I’ve already read so much.  I love fantasy but I’m not a huge fan of faeries.  Never have been.  Snark, dark humor and sass are all good.  I don’t care what brand of shoes your character wears or where they play golf/yacht/summer.  I just don’t care.  Horse books — love ’em.  Dog stories?  Not as much.

I’m just a reader but if I was an editor or agent, this would be the literary baggage that I brought to my list.  Thanks to Janet Reid for helping me get a handle on “Not Right for My List.”

–SueBE

Editors: You’re on the Same Team

I have to admit — I just don’t understand how some writers view editors.  Some see them as mysterious powers on high.  Mmm.  No.  They’re just people although some of them amaze me with their talent.  (I can be irritatingly egalitarian, sorry.)

Then there are the writers who see them as The Enemy.  Every interaction with an editor is approached with caution and/or dread.  Again, no.  Still people and they have, astonishingly enough, the same goals that you have.

Whoa!   What?  The same goals?

That’s right.  They aren’t trying to mess with you.  They don’t want to destroy your voice, steal your ideas, or mess with your vision.

Seriously.  They don’t.

They just want to make your work sing.  That want this, because when it sings it will be that much more likely to find its way into the hands of eager readers.  So keep the following things in mind when you interact with editors.

They are people.  That means that they are quirky, flawed and fabulous just like you.

They have likes and dislikes just like other people.  This part can be tricky because when an editor tells me that she likes quirky — wooo-who!  I can do quirky.  Oh, wait. That’s what you call quirky?  Cause that seems pretty vanilla to me.  Don’t just go by whan an editor says that they want.  Tastes vary.  Read what they publish.  Learn what funny, quirky and character driven mean to them.

They love children’s literature.  This isn’t an easy field.  No one is going to do it because they think they are going to strike rich. They do it because they love it.

They want to publish the best work for their readers.  They know what they’re readers like.  This means that if they reject your piece, it simply isn’t right for their readers.  It doesn’t mean that its bad.  And if the editor says something upsetting (and some of them will), remember that they are just people.

They aren’t super-villains. They’re editors.  For more on how an editor is your greatest ally, check out Editor: Ally or Adversary today at the Muffin.

–SueBE

 

Inner Dialogue: The window to your character’s thoughts and feelings

“I have no idea what your character is feeling?”  “Give me more of your character’s thoughts.”

Character emotion and thoughts are two things that I have trouble balancing.  I’ll think I have it right and my critique group disagrees.  So I rewrite it and then it looks, to me, like way too much. I think I may have stumbled on a solution when I read Mary Kate’s post on character stance.

Basically, what it boils down to is this, instead of giving straight up details on setting and other characters, let the reader know what your character thinks or feels.  Its a great way to work in backstory, emotion and inner dialogue without it being quite so obvious.  I decided to take a look at the page that I roughed out yesterday.

• Clem spotted an expanse of enormous, fuzzy leaves.  She shifted a few to look beneath and finally found several round green fruit, one here, one there, not clustered.  “Pumpkins.  Not ripe. But this is the right area.  Keep looking.”

What could I do with this?  I could let the reader know whether or not Clem likes pumpkin, how she likes pumpkin or what she wishes they’d found.  Any of these would give a bit more information about my character and help the reader feel that much closer to her.

• “It’s something but is it something we can eat?” asked Clem.  “Pinch one of the leaves and tell me what it smells like.”
  Gabe gave it a tweak and sniffed at his fingers, wrinkling up his nose.  “Pee-ew.  Onions.”

This one is a touch better.  We know that Gabe doesn’t like onion but why?  How does Clem feel about onion?  Maybe the smell reminds him of someone or someplace else.

• Gabe nodded and they kept looking.  In a clear, grassy patch where the sun shone, Clem fingered a lacy flower.  “Queen Anne’s Lace.  Mama’s favorite.  If we’d caught ‘em before they flowered, we could eat ‘em.”

I can’t help but feel that I did a little bit better with this one because I worked in some backstory.  This is Mom’s favorite.  Hmm. Maybe I should have had each of the children pick a sprig.

Small details can tell us about the character’s past, what she loves and the things that are running through her mind.

–SueBE

How Soon Do You Share Your Work?

I know people who won’t bring a manuscript to critique group until it is polished.  Me?  I’ll bring a much earlier draft.  After all, I’m less interested in line edits than I am in knowing if the plot works.

Then I read a blog post from a writer who won’t even discuss a manuscript until she’s completed a fairly polished draft.  She claimed that if she talks about her idea with other people, the need to actually write it down dissipates.  Seriously?  I just didn’t buy it.

But then I noticed something.  I came up with an idea for a fiction novel.  I immediately discussed it with the friend who inspired it.  And I discussed it with my husband as I started doing the research — its historic fiction so there will be a lot of research.  And I blogged about it.  Before too long I realized that some of that enthusiasm had waned.  Had talking about it consumed some of the energy that would have driven me to write it?  I honestly don’t know.

But about the time the enthusiasm for one project was waning, I read a couple of tweets by agents.  One wanted X.  Another wanted Y.  My imagination made a leap and combined X and Y to create my own idea.  I’m not sure why but this time I decided to do something a bit different.  I’ve blogged a bit about doing setting research but that’s been it. I haven’t told anyone what I’m working on beyond the fact that it is early middle grade science fiction.  What inspired it?  I’m keeping that to myself because I don’t want anyone to read it with those bits of inspiration in mind.  They were there and if they come through great.  If they don’t, they still sparked the story.  What matters is whether or not it works.

I knew that finding time to work on this would be tricky, because I’m also writing a book for Red Line. In spite of the Red Line book and teaching a class, I’ve been working on this fiction project for about a month now.  I can’t say that I’ve made an astonishing amount of progress.  I have about 21 pages.  But 21 pages on this story is a lot more than I’ve managed on the other.

Did talking about the project sap the energy?  I really can’t say.

–SueBE

 

Is your setting real enough?

My new project was humming merrily along as, each evening, I added two new pages. They’d fled, evading capture, and headed off up the mountain. Then, as they approached the area where they would make camp, the story ground to a halt.

I dutifully kept my butt in my chair, adding a sentence, deleting a sentence and generally annoying myself.  Why couldn’t I get them as far as the deserted mansion?  Maybe, said the tart voice in my head, it’s because you can’t envision your setting?

Oh.  I’d been trying to write about the wreckage of an old estate and although I’ve been through abandoned forts and deserted mining settlements, ramshackle mansions have not been a part of my past. I typed “deserted mansion” into a Google image search and found myself clicking through sprawling stone estates in Europe, ante-bellum disasters, and a towering urban structures standing shoulder-to-shoulder with equally deserted neighbors.  Then I saw it. Red brick. Three stories.  In the middle of a field.  There were even interior shots.  As soon as I had my setting in sight, the words flowed.  You can find my r

When you find yourself unable to write your characters through a scene, give some thought to the setting.  If you can’t see it in your mind’s eye, get online and do some looking around.  Not that you should stop with the visuals.  You need to know what it sounds like when a door screeches open, how a long empty house smells, and the feel of spongy half rotten wood underfoot.

Staring with photos and a picture in your mind allows you to write with the level of detail that is essential in creating realtic writing that draws your reader into the story.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some research on general stores.  Check out my image research here on Pinterest.

–SueBE

Characterization: Do Your Characters Engage in Group Think?

Monument to Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Alton, Il. No changes made to original. Click to view. 

Earlier this week I read a blog post about historical fiction.  The blogger was encouraging us to keep our characters true to their time.  Then he said something that set me free.  He was discussing the British class sytem and how much the lower classes must have resented cruel masters.  “But it never would have occurred to them to question the hierarchical system . . .”

 

Ugh!   If no one ever questioned “the way things are,” they would still be the same.  That goes for the class system, slavery, indentured servents, the Colonial system and whether or not only white men who owned land could be citizens.

I’m not saying that the this questioning/challenging attitude is common in history but it does happen.  When it does, it is frequently very poorly received.  That’s why a mob chunked Elijah Parish Lovejoy’s printing press off the bluff and into the river on November 7, 1837 in Alton, Illinois.  (Google it!)

When you write historical fiction, do make your characters true to their time.  People haven’t always known about viruses, DNA or finger prints.  Yes, there have been times when certain groups of people were not considered fully human but if you listen carefully you will still hear those things today.  I don’t agree with people who think and say things like that but I bet that I wouldn’t have agreed with everyone 100 years ago either.  Or 200 years ago.  Or even 498 years ago.

I’m not certain why some people want all historic characters to think X and only X.  It isn’t realistic.  But if your character is going to think Y, then you need to document Y.  That way you can show your editor that, although your character is not engaging in group think, they are still true to their time.

–SueBE

 

 

We Have a Winner

Periodically I mention a post that I’ve written for The Muffin. That’s the blog over at WOW! Women on Writing.  There are a team of us who blog there and we just got some great news.  We won placement in the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites award again for 2016!   Woo-hoo!  

Check it out and you’ll find a wide variety of posts on writing.

Margo Dill recently wrote about her path to becoming a children’s writer (here).

Guest blogger Karen Cioffi blogged about the tiny steps we can all take to promote our platforms.

Renee Roberson shared 4 Tips on using Instagram as a writer.

And we have a full range of writers.  Some of us write novels.  Some of us write nonfiction.  We publish traditionally and self-publish.  We write for children and adults.  Because of this, we have a wide ranging audience.

Between the list of regular bloggers and guest bloggers, you’ll find a new post every day.  The great things about blogging as part of a group is that the pressure isn’t all on one person to create a consistently amazing blog.  And if you have an emergency, someone on the crew can step forward and post on your day so that you have the break you need to deal with whatever happened.

If you don’t want to maintain your own blog, look for a group blog.  Find out how they select their writers.  You could also team up with a friend or two and create a new group blog.  Writing is such a solitary experience that it is especially rewarding when you find a group of like minded souls.

–SueBE

 

Reader Expectations

Hand me a book and tell me that it is a mystery set in a major art museum and I’m going to expect two things.

1.  A mystery.  I may not know on page one if this is going to be about a theft, a murder, or a forgery but you told me it was a mystery and you had better come through. That said, I know it can take some time to set up a mystery so I’m willing to be a little patient.  A little.  Not a lot.
2. Art. Remember, this is a mystery set in an art museum, so I’m going to expect art.  I’m an open-minded person.  It could be sculpture or paintings.  I’d be okay with photographs or ceramics. You could even give me a little bit of all of the above and a few more things besides.  But I want art.  Before page 50.

That’s the thing about reader expectation.  Tell the reader that the book is about X and they are going to expect X.  You can give them other things as well, but X had better be front and center and if it isn’t you had better have a really good reason why.

Recently, I picked up a book set in a major, big name museum.  45 pages in and we finally had something about art but not much.  A few names had been dropped (oh, look at me, I’ve done my research) and the character had taken us into the museum but . . . she didn’t do anything there other than overhear a conversation.

We know which co-workers she doesn’t like and which she adores.  We know the brand of her favorite chair.  We know her best friend’s favorite jeweler. Even skin care products are named.  Art?  Don’t worry.  We’ll get to it.  Eventually.

I’m sorry.  I’m just not that patient.  If you tell me that a book is set at Churchill Downs, I expect horses.  Set a book in the Grand Canyon and I better see big spaces, steep drops, rocks and a lot of blue sky.  A carpenter had better interact with wood and quite likely a saw of some kind or a planer and sandpaper.

But it isn’t just the setting that creates expectations.  Science fiction is techy.  Fantasy has magic.  A romance means that two characters are trying to get together.  Historical fiction is set in the past.

Readers have expectations and if they aren’t met?  You had better be spinning a top-notch tale or they may not be your readers for much longer.

–SueBE

The Downside of Audio Books

Writers should listen to audiobooks.  It’s one of those things that I firmly believe will help you learn about pacing and the poetry of language.  If you want more detail on this, take a look at my post on The Muffin.

As necessary as audio books are, I have to admit that sometimes, just sometimes, they can be embarrassing.

Recently, I was listening to a Holly Black book.  Yeah, I know.  Holly Black.  If you’re going to listen to a Holly Black book, you better go into it with a certain set of expectations.  I’ve listened to several of her books so I thought I knew what to expect, but as I listened to Tithe two of the female characters chatted about whether or not they’d seen a circumcised penis before and how much they’d be willing to pay “hot male teen” to give ’em a look.

Of course, this is when my husband walked into the room.  He didn’t say boo, he never does, but he gave me the look.  You know, the “what the heck” look.

Those moments are significantly more common when I’m listening to an adult novel but YA novels also have special moments like this.  I’m not saying that these parts should be cut or that the books are bad or inappropriate but . . . really?  Was that necessary in front of other people?

–SueBE