I was recently invited to “Liquid Lunch” a program on That Channel in Toronto, Ontario, to discuss the writing process and my new book on water, “Water Is…” with Hugh Reilly and Hildegard Gmeiner:
Hugh Reilly
Hildegard Gmeiner
Nina Munteanu
“Water Is…” is due for release early 2016. Below is the final cover by Aurora finalist Costi Gurgu (more on the book and the cover later):
The Seine, Paris (photo by Nina Munteanu)
I’m a writer and an editor. I’ve written and published novels, short stories and non-fiction books with traditional publishing houses and indie publishers, and I’ve self-published. As editor, I serve as in-house copy-editor for a publishing house in the United States and have acted as acquisition editor for several anthologies put out by a local indie publisher. I also coach novice writers to publication and edit in that capacity. So, you could say, I know the industry from many angles and perspectives. That’s been good for me, because this industry is a moving target and it’s good to triangulate on a moving object. The entire publishing industry is evolving and it’s a slippery evolution.
Even the words we use are slippery. Indie. Hybrid. Publisher.
Many people, like award-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch, when they use the terms indie-writer and indie-publishing include what some call self-publishing in their definitions of indie, “because so many [professional] writers who are not with traditional publishers have started their own presses. It’s not accurate to lump all writers who are not following the traditional route into the self-publishing basket any longer.” According to Rusch, an indie publisher, then, is anyone who is not a traditional publisher. For the sake of this article, I’ve adopted Rusch’s definition to provide the full range of expectations for editors working with writers in the indie field. I define a traditional publisher as an established and often larger publishing house or press that: 1) follows traditional submission criteria; 2) does not charge writers; 3) pays out royalties; and 4) employs in-house editors.
Indie writing and publishing can then be described in several ways depending on where the writer submits, by what mechanism and what model they use. All of these will affect a writer’s needs and perceptions for an editor and, in turn, an editor’s expectations as well.
I overview five major models of indie writing and publishing in Table 1, below.
| Table 1: Types of Indie Writing / Publishing Models: | ||
| 1. | Small Independent Press
(not writer’s) |
Author submits to a small press that does not require author to pay for publishing costs; house may pay small royalties; acceptance criteria limit submissions; there may or may not be formal distribution |
| 2. | Small Independent Press
(not writer’s) |
Author submits to a small press that may require author to pay for part of publishing costs; house typically does not pay royalties but may provide complementary copies and/or author’s rate for copies; acceptance criteria may still apply to submissions; distributor tends to be Ingram/Amazon model |
| 3. | Small Independent Press
(writer as sole proprietor or part of a consortium; also called self-publishing by some) |
Author can pretty well write and publish as she pleases; costs of publication are born solely by the writer(s) and royalties come straight from profit; no acceptance criteria apply; distribution typically Ingram/Amazon model |
| 4. | Service “Publisher”
(e.g., iUniverse, Friessen, etc.); this is self-publishing, even though the “publisher” name appears on the work |
Author can pretty well write and publish as she pleases; all publication costs born by writer; service will include various services, including: copy-editing, layout, cover design, printing, some distribution, some promotion—all at cost (based on service package); distribution typically Ingram/Amazon model |
| 5. | Self-Publishing
(e.g., the publication is in the author’s name) |
Author can pretty well write and publish as she pleases; author uses a la carte style of self-publishing in which she hires various experts—or herself does—the production of the work (e.g. editing, layout, cover, printing, distribution, and promotion). |
Depending on which model an author uses for their work, their perceived need and actual need for an editor prior to submission and publication will be affected. I make the distinction between “perceived” and “actual” because, unfortunately, in many cases these diverge: an author may not think they need a certain kind of editing for their work when they do. The opposite is more rare: the author thinking she needs an editor when she doesn’t. I will talk more about this in a later article.
The availability of these models and their hybrid cousins has provided writers with a cornucopia of often confusing choices. In many cases, I am finding—particularly with my clients—that writers don’t even know which choice is best for them. Part of the reason for this is that writers carry forward ideas from the old model and create a misconception of expectation. Unfortunately, this often translates into misconceived ideas about and expectations of editors. That’s another article too.
For editors, it’s important to recognize these different models and what they, in turn, provide and expect from authors. A savvy editor translates into a savvy author. Your advice, if driven from a place of publishing industry knowledge, will be invaluable to authors seeking your services. And they will come to rely on this as much as, if not more than, your actual editing.
Eiffel Tower, Paris (photo by Nina Munteanu)
By its very nature, indie publishing has given the freelance editor an opportunity to take on a new role—a service that agents used to and still do provide many traditionally-published authors: that of industry consultant. In the traditional model, an author would seek an agent who would then not only sell their work to a publisher but also provide advice on what to expect in the market as well as help with career-longevity choices (which include “branding”); questions many novice authors haven’t even considered, never mind answered sufficiently. Most indie authors will not engage an agent; but most will (should) hire an editor. So, instead of an agent, the freelance editor becomes the first stop in the publishing industry for an indie author. This has become one of my primary roles as editor and writing coach. And this is again because most writers, when they start out, do not know what direction they want to go—mainly because they aren’t familiar enough with what is available to them and the ramifications to their careers.
Here’s an example: one client, working on her first novel, wanted my advice on whether she should try with a traditional publisher or just forgo and self-publish. An editor, if possessing savvy knowledge of the industry and now knowing something of the author’s work and ambitions, can bring informed and constructive advice to the author.
The ramifications on how I handle and edit a story directly follows which route the author has decided to follow. This is every bit as relevant to an author publishing with a traditional publishing house, an indie press, or self-publishing. Style—whether it is that of a publishing house or the author’s brand—relies on consistent application of voice and tone. Just as publishing houses embrace different and unique styles, so do authors. In fact, if they are self-publishing, this is even more important.
The editor plays a crucial role in helping an author establish their “voice” and “style”, and ultimately their “brand.” And, perhaps, this becomes one of the principle differences between traditional and indie publishing. While voice and style is pre-determined to some extent by traditional publishing houses (hence they employ their own editors to impose a style in some cases), it is left to the author—and her freelance editor—to determine this in the indie scene. The structure of traditional publishing is both more orderly and more confining. Indie publishing—particularly self-publishing—is an infinite melting pot of creativity. Some view it as one big mess. In fact, it is a chaos of astonishing opportunity. It is a chance for intimate collaboration that demands mutual respect. Freelance editors are poised as both gatekeepers and enabling wizards of the indie world.
Table 2, below, describes a freelance editor’s focus in the five indie models I described in Table 1.
| Table 2: Editing for Different Indie Models: | ||
| 1. | Small Independent Press
(with submission criteria similar to a traditional model) |
Authors often think they don’t need a freelance editor if they are submitting to a press with in-house editor; this is incorrect. Those who have had their work edited prior to submission to a press—even a small press—will have a much higher chance of being accepted. The freelance editor’s job, then, will include attending to the style of the publishing house. |
| 2. | Small Independent Press
(without submission criteria) |
While authors may not recognize the need for an editor in submitting to an indie publisher without submission criteria, the need for editing remains—particularly because many of these presses do not employ or have sufficiently qualified editors. Excellence in presentation and nurturing a strong author voice are the freelance editor’s responsibility. |
| 3. | Small Independent Press
(writer’s own press) |
Given that the author has pretty well carte blanche on what to write and publish, a freelance editor’s role in recognizing, harmonizing with and helping to establish a genuine and strong author’s “voice” becomes most important. |
| 4. | Service “Publisher” | Authors have misconceptions about service “publishers” and particularly their editors. I have had several clients come to me after recognizing that their works were not well represented by the provider’s in-house editor. Service “publisher” in-house editors do not represent a particular style, voice or brand (given that most are underpaid students and there is no style identity); the freelance editor role is as with #3. |
| 5. | Self-Publishing | The same criteria exist here as for model #3. |
Paris street (photo by Nina Munteanu)
The take home is that freelance editors can flourish in the indie writing and publishing field by: 1) establishing their expertise in the industry and what it requires (taking on the role of consultant, which agents normally provide in the traditional model); 2) recognizing a need for strong authorial voices and helping to foster them; 3) promoting point #2 with consistency in style, tone, etc.
Hope this helps. Let me know.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
I’m back at George Brown College in Toronto, teaching my 12-week long writing course on how to write science fiction. “Creating Science Fiction” is now part of George Brown’s Creative Writing Certificate.
The 12-week course starts SEPTEMBER 22 (TUESDAY) and runs until DECEMBER 8th. See the description below:
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
Mountain cabin, Switzerland (photo by Nina Munteanu)
It is quite possible … that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology —Naom Chomsky
In the 1920s, physicist Niels Bohr struggled to re-imagine the structure of matter. He rejected the current hegemony of a fractal “solar system” model and sought a new metaphor. “When it comes to atoms,” said Bohr, “language can only be used as poetry.”
Bohr compared the invisible world of atoms and electrons to cubist art because, according to Jonah Lehrer in an article in SeedMagazine.com, it “revealed the fissures in everything, turning the solidity of matter into a surreal blur.” In 1923 deBroglie had determined that electrons could exist as particles or waves. Bohr maintained that the form they took depended on how you looked at them: by simply observing, you determined their nature.
Many of us believe that while art can be profound, it does not solve practical challenges of reality; only scientific knowledge, which progresses on a linear ascent toward greater understanding, resolve the serious challenges of our world and will one day solve everything.
This is, of course a matter of belief. Novelist Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, “the greater one’s science, the deeper the sense of mystery.” The traditional elements of science have used a reductionist approach to understand the whole, looking at the parts and reconstructing the causal pathways. Take the synapse, for instance. Neuroscientists now know that 100 billion electrical cells occupy a human brain, that every cubic millimeter of the cerebral cortex contains a billion synapses involved in the neurotransmission of electrical impulses in perception and thought. Yet, as Novelist Richard Powers challenged, ‘If we knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?”
“The paradox of neuroscience,” said Lehrer, “is that its astonishing progress has exposed the limitations of its paradigm … Neuroscience has yet to capture [the] first-person perspective. Artists … distill the details of real life into prose and plot … They capture a layer of reality that reductionism cannot … and provide science with a glimpse into its blind spots … Sometimes the whole is better understood in terms of the whole … No scientific model of the mind will be complete unless it includes what can’t be reduced.”
Logical minds will reject art as too incoherent and imprecise to contribute to the knowledge base provided by scientific process. They will maintain that Beauty isn’t Truth, that the novel is just a work of fiction, and abstract art the arcane expression of a micro-culture.
But what of paradox? Critic Randall Jarrell contended that, “it is the contradictions of works of art which make them able to represent us — as logical and methodical generalizations cannot — our world and our selves, which are also full of contradictions.” The cultural hypotheses of artists can inspire the questions that stimulate important new scientific answers, adds Lehrer.
The irony of modern physics is that it seeks reality in its most fundamental form, and yet we are incapable of comprehending these fundamentals beyond the math we use to represent them. The only way to know the universe is through analogy.
Douglas fir, Vancouver (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Richard Feynman said, “Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.”
While artists rely on imagination, much of modern physics exceeds the imagination: dark matter, quarks and neutrinos, black holes, multiple dimensions and folded space. To venture beyond the regular confines of our “ordinary world” where matter is certain, time flows forward and there are only three dimensions, we must resort to metaphor. “Metaphor in science serves not just as a pedagogical device,” wrote physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, “but also as an aid to scientific discovery.” Einstein came up with relativity while thinking about moving trains; Arthur Eddington compared the expansion of the universe to an inflated balloon; James Clerk Maxwell visualized magnetic fields as little whirlpools in space. String theory is often imagined as garden hoses.
The greatest physicists of the 20th century thought metaphorically. String theorist Brian Greene wrote that the arts have the ability to “give a vigorous shake to our sense of what’s real.” Picasso never understood the equations, says Lehrer: “he picked up the non-Euclidian geometry via the zeitgeist.” A century later some scientists still use his fragmented images to symbolize their ideas. “Novelists can stimulate the latest theories of consciousness through their fiction … Painters can explore new theories about the visual cortex … Dancers can help untangle the mysterious connection between the body and emotion.”
Both science and art benefit from exchange. By inviting art to participate in its conversation, science provides art with the opportunity to add science to its repertoire. And through its interpretation of scientific ideas and theories, art offers science a new lens through which to see itself.
Karl Popper exhorts us to “give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes.”
Window in University College, UofT (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Both science and art benefit from exchange. By inviting art to participate in its conversation, science provides art with the opportunity to add science to its repertoire. And through its interpretation of scientific ideas and theories, art offers science a new lens through which to see itself.
Karl Popper exhorts us to “give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, and our hopes.”
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
I recently attended the inaugural festival of the Limestone Genre Expo (July 25, 2015) for writers in Kingston, Ontario. The festival gets its name from the city’s moniker, based on the many heritage buildings constructed there using local limestone.
It would have been a very long trip from my digs in Nova Scotia; but I’m currently in Toronto, teaching writing at UofT and George Brown College. I still had to get up earlier than I normally do to get to the 1-day festival that started at ten in the morning.
It was worth it.
Organizers Liz Strange, Barry King, Delina MacDonald and Marlene Smith nailed everything right. Being the first of hopefully many more, this writers’ festival wisely started small. But, like the good Doctor’s tardis, the venue belied its size by being dense with quality and diversity.
Alison Sinclair
The Ongwandada Resource Centre, where the festival was held, had lots of parking with a friendly well-lit ambience inside under an atrium with tables and chairs for gathering and several rooms for panels and workshops.
The festival covered several of the major genres such as fantasy, science fiction, horror, romance and mystery, with representation by well-known authors in each. Organizers offered a triple track program from 10 am to 5 pm that included panels, informative workshops, readings, novel pitch sessions with CZP
Sandra Kasturi of CZP
and Bundoran Press and first page critiques with Caro Soles. Festival organizers populated their program with well-established writers from their own communities. Readers of genre fiction and writers looking to learn and network were given the opportunity to meet some of the top genre writers in the region. The venue included a book fair, box lunches and a snack stand. The only thing missing was a primo coffee bar.
Marie Bilodeau
The small venue provided an intimate setting for great networking. I had a chance to meet many of my old friends and to make new ones. Marie Bilodeau, an Ottawa fantasy writer, gave an exquisite reading of her new series “Nigh”. Alison Sinclair, recently moved to Ottawa, beamed as she showed me the new release of her Eyre series, “Contagion” by Bundoran Press. Aurora-winning short story author Douglas Smith gave
Doug Smith
an informative workshop on how to market and sell your short stories. His excellent guidebook “Playing the Short Game” sold for a special festival price. I caught Derek Newman-Stille sitting in the lounge over a box lunch and discussed his radio show in Peterborough and traded stories with Hayden Trenholm, publisher of Bundoran Press and aurora-winning author of the Steeles Chronicles. Other writers who I had a chance to visit
Alyssa Cooper
with and meet included Caro Soles, Sandra Kasturi (of Chizine), Alyssa Cooper, Eve Langlais, Matt Moore, Nancy Kilpatrick, Matthew Johnson, and Violette Malan.
The organizers—themselves published genre writers (Strange writes fantasy, horror and mystery and just released her first science fiction novel, “Erased”; King writes science fiction)—started the festival in response to an observed need to showcase genre writers in the Kingston area, otherwise rich in non-genre writing festivals. “Kingston is in an interesting position because we do have so many writers and we do have the WritersFest and so on,” explained King to Peter Hendra of the Kingston Whig-Standard. King felt there was room to showcase this literature in Kingston and the surrounding area.
Derek Newman-Stille
“I find that genre fiction can sometimes be seen on a lower status as ‘literary fiction’, and that stings,” Strange confided to me. “I thought [the LGE] would succeed because there are not that many festivals of this sort, and after we put feelers out to see who might be interested in attending the positive responses were overwhelming.”
Caro Soles
Strange added that “nerd culture” these days is more mainstream than in the past, thanks to George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Strange concluded that this is a good thing for writers of romance, sci-fi, horror, mystery and fantasy and observed that genres are blending a lot more (e.g., historical fantasy, paranormal romance, etc.). I personally write mostly blended genres: science fiction thrillers; SF eco-fiction; historical fantasy and romantic SF.
Violette Malan
I asked Strange for her opinion on whether the festival was a success and what the organizers plan to do for next year. She gave a resounding yes; they had double the numbers they’d hoped for and didn’t lose money (a common challenge with writing festivals). With most events tending to be in spring or fall, they chose summer, which worked well and showed off Kingston.
Liz Strange, Marlene Smith, Barry King, Delina MacDonald
Based on the feedback and success of the con, it looks like the festival next year will run two days.
Now that’s great news!
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Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
What do Simon & Schuster, Hay House, Barnes and Noble and Reader’s Digest have in common? Each of these reputable and famous names in publishing has forged a partnership with Author Solutions. What is significant about that? Well…In a detailed article written in April of 2015, author David Gaughran tells us why this is distressing news to authors and I discuss this further below.
Many beginning authors wishing to “self-publish” are looking for a service that will easily and painlessly “publish” their cherished creative as well as help them get it out into the reading world. Naive about what it takes to “get out into the reading world”, many authors are signing up with service-publishers who will “publish” anything so long as the author is willing to pay. You know who they are; I mention some of them below. Although the Internet is populated with excellent book-publishing services by freelance editors, cover artists, layout specialists and various accompanying software and apps, many authors are unwilling to go the a la carte route of experts. Instead, they look for an easy and convenient solution: a one-stop shop to sell their book. The “expertise” and “services” are usually anonymous and nameless, hidden behind the company name. I’ve seen some horrid examples of extremely poor editing in books that had presumably been professionally edited by a service-publisher for which a writer had paid good money. The writer was himself/herself clueless of the poor quality (for some of them, English is not their first language), and couldn’t tell me who had edited their work. When I did some digging into two of these service-publishers, I finally found, in the fine print, that the service-publisher used students. Another client of mine complained bitterly about how he had not received the services promised in the package that he’d paid dearly for. This sort of thing is rampant in the “self-publishing” industry right now.
As with all short cuts, there are hidden costs. Let’s take Author Solutions as a good example.
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The “Anti-Solution”
Author Solutions provides a “publishing” service to any writer willing to pay. Typical of virtually all the vanity publishers, Author Solutions and its many affiliates (likely the company you are using) offers several packages for the author, from basic printing services to the deluxe package with promised media coverage and excellent PR. Unfortunately, what they promise and what they deliver can be two different things. Far from providing solutions to an author, Author Solutions operates “more like a telemarketing company whose customer base is the authors themselves,” write plaintiffs Wheeler and Heightsman as part of their 2015 class action law suit against the firm. Some of Author Solutions’ long-standing issues faced by customers include:
“Despite Author Solutions’ mounting legal troubles and an unending stream of complaints against the company from both its own customers and a whole host of writers’ organizers and campaigners, companies are still queuing up to partner with Author solutions,” writes Gaughran. Is it because its corporate parent is Penguin Random House? Some “Partner Imprints” (in brackets) run by Author Solutions as a self-publishing service for the partner publishing house include:
Many authors aren’t aware that these “Partner Imprints” are all run by the same company; or that Author Solutions’ own in-house imprints include iUniverse, Trafford, Palibrio, AuthorHouse, BookTango, and Xlibris. According to Gaughran, this came about as a “solution” for traditional publishing houses to monetize their slush pile. That’s the pile of unsolicited works most beginning writers send to publishing houses that end up in a huge heap in some room that in the past was relegated to new underling editors to cut their teeth on. Now the manuscripts simply go to a company only interested in making money from writers willing to pay for their largely unedited works. Books that would never have been accepted by these traditional publishing houses are now finding a “home”. But what kind of “home” is it and what does the writer really achieve for her many dollars spent? According to Gaughran’s sources at Penguin, the primary directive of Author Solutions is to sell (to the author) the most expensive publishing package they can and encourage authors to buy their own books. When depositions were made public, they revealed that two thirds of Author Solutions revenue comes from selling publishing and marketing packages and one third from selling books—with a vast majority of those book sales coming from authors buying their own books. What about the cool opportunities for book signings at literary events, book displays, advertising space, TV and reviews that they promised? Gaughran provides a staggering list that includes Publishers Weekly, New York Times, Kirkus and the New York Review of Books, and my personal favorite Word on the Street Festival Toronto. “These partnerships don’t provide any real value to Author Solutions customers,” says Gaughran. In an earlier class action lawsuit against Author Solutions by law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart representing three authors, Publishers Weekly wrote:
The suit, which seeks class action status, alleges that Author Solutions misrepresents itself, luring authors in with claims that its books can compete with “traditional publishers,” offering “greater speed, higher royalties, and more control for its authors.” The company then profits from “fraudulent” practices, the complaint alleges, including “delaying publication, publishing manuscripts with errors to generate fees, and selling worthless services, or services that fail to accomplish what they promise.” The suit also alleges that Author Solutions fails to pay its authors the royalties they are due.
According to the law firm representing the authors:
“Author Solutions preys upon the dreams of authors by selling them expensive services that sound exciting but do not actually sell any books. Their defense: They aren’t being deceptive because they aren’t trying to sell books. Of course, for nearly 200,000 authors who have paid thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars to buy expensive services that promised to promote their books, Author Solutions’s indifference to book sales comes as more than a bit of a surprise.”
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The Solution—But You May Not Like It…
So, what’s the solution? For those of you starting out, it’s important to know that firstly there are a lot of genuinely good publishing houses out there potentially interested in your book and willing to work with you in partnership toward a successful book that will sell. And they don’t want your money; they want quality. The book publishing industry is booming in many different ways. And while the predatory arm of the mercenary would like to seduce you with glamour and unrealistic dreams—so long as you pay—a whole cadre of small presses are growing who are producing high quality works by emerging writers. These local Indie publishing houses are worth seeking out and submitting to. But they don’t want to see your book until it is ready. Reader ready. This puts the responsibility back on you, the writer, to produce the very best you can. I tell my writing students at the University of Toronto and George Brown College that if you want to publish, you need to:
If you decide to self-publish, find a reputable printing house and learn what it takes to create a book. Find someone who does layout and covers professionally. There are good ones out there; I know—I use them myself. Learn some marketing skills or find a marketing specialist or PR specialist who has a sound track record and you can trust. The book industry was and still is based on sound relationships. Writers with editors; publishers with marketers and distributors; writers with readers; and so on.
In the end, it’s up to you. Take charge of your career and bring the “self” back into self-publishing.
In Part 2, I discuss the significance of first impressions and “branding” in self-publishing. Of course with examples.
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Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
Walking the path along the Credit River, Ontario (photo by Nina Munteanu)
In fiction, exposition breaks away from the ongoing action of a scene to give information. It can be a paragraph or go on for several pages. Exposition often provides contextual information critical for the reader to buy-in to character-motivation or the ideas promoted in the story. It gives a story its perspective and larger meaning by linking the reader with the thematic elements. If scene is action and plot, exposition feeds reflection and theme. Exposition can appear in the form of background, setting, back story, or overview. It is most often expressed through a POV character’s reflection and observation.
There are points in almost every story where exposition is necessary. Most stories would suffer without information that adds past, context and overview.
Ward Island, Ontario (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Exposition in writing lets you:
You need to balance the show and tell part of your narrative and to maintain a rhythm in your pace and tone. This means doing several things, including:
Now, go and have fun exposing!
For more writing tips on writing fiction (and non-fiction or memoir) check out “The Alien Guidebook Series” on writing.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
Spalted log (photo by Nina Munteanu)
During my recent reread of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”, this little book yielded more good advice that I wish to share with you.
“The shape of our language is not rigid,” they tell us. “We have no lawgiver whose word is final.” This is because language is fluid and ever-evolving as the artist’s tool of communication. The artist interprets the world; the writer interprets the language to reflect it.
And yet, a basic structural design underlies every kind of writing. To be effective, Strunk and White assert, “writing must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which those thoughts occur.”
In some cases the best design is no design at all (as in a love letter or a casual essay, which is an acceptable stream of conscious flow). But, in most cases—particularly in “storytelling”—planning helps. The first principle of composition is “to determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape.”
Jack Bickham, author of Elements of Writing Fiction: Scene and Structure reminds us that, “a thorough understanding and use of fiction’s classic structural patterns frees the writer from having to worry about the wrong things and allows her to concentrate her imagination on characters and events.” Structure, explains Bickham, is the internal part of the story, like the braces of your house; while form is external, what you do with the structure. Structure and form link to construct “story” in a series of scenes that “interconnect in a very clear way to form a long narrative with linear development form posing the story question at the outset to the answering of that question at the climax.”
Strunk and White discuss twenty-two elementary principles of basic composition. Here are a few choice ones.
The 14th Elementary Principle: Use the Active Voice
The active voice is often more direct and vigorous than the passive. Strunk and White note that activating a sentence not only makes it stronger but shorter. “Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor,” they say. Here’s one of their examples:
Passive: My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me.
Passive, indefinite: My first visit to Boston will always be remembered.
Active: I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.
Activating the verb breathes life into the sentence, gives it motion and direction, and empowers both subject and object.
The 15th Elementary Principle: Put Statements in Positive Form
Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating and noncommittal language. “Use the word ‘not’ as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.” Here are a few examples:
| Negative | Positive |
| He was not very often on time. | He usually came late. |
| She did not think that studying Latin was a sensible way to use one’s time. | She thought the study of Latin a waste of time. |
The 16th Elementary Principle: Use Definite, Specific, Concrete Language
Prefer “the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract,” they say. The surest way to arouse and hold the reader’s attention is by being specific, definite and concrete. The greatest writers use words that call up pictures. The key is to know what details matter.
Author Jordan Rosenfeld describes your novel as a world in which your reader enters and wants to stay in for a while. You make it easy for the reader by adding concrete details for her to envision and relate to. Ground your readers in vivid setting, rich but unobtrusive detail. Don’t abandon your characters to a generic, vague and prosaic setting, drinking “beverages” and driving “vehicles” on “roads”; instead, brighten up their lives by having them speed along Highway 66 in a 1959 red Corvette, sipping a Pinot Noir.
The 17th Elementary Principle: Omit Needless Words
“Vigorous writing is concise,” Strunk and White tell us. Ray Bradbury once told me that “every word counts” in a story, from the name of your character to the verb you use to activate and give direction to your sentence. “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts,” say Strunk and White. Activating your verbs is one excellent way to invigorate your sentences. Strunk and White provide several common expressions that violate concise writing.
| Original | Just use… | |
| The question as to whether | Whether | |
| There is no doubt but that | No doubt | |
| Used for fuel purposes | Used for fuel | |
| In a hasty manner | Hastily | |
| The reason why is that | Because | |
| Her story is a strange one | Her story is strange | |
How about the term the fact that? Strunk and White go into some detail with this rather pesky term. Here are a few examples:
| · I was unaware of the fact that | · I was unaware that |
| · Call your attention to the fact that | · Notify you |
| · In spite of the fact that | · Although |
| · The fact that he had not succeeded | · His failure |
For more writing tips on writing fiction (and non-fiction or memoir) check out “The Alien Guidebook Series” on writing.
Bickham, Jack. 1993. Elements of Fiction Writing: Scene and Structure. Writer’s Digest Books. Cincinnati, Ohio.
Strunk, William Jr. and E.B. White. 2000. The Elements of Style. Fourth ed. Longman. New York, NY. 105pp.
Munteanu, Nina. 2009. The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now! Starfire World Syndicate. Louisville, KY. 166pp.
Rosenfeld, Jordan E. 2008. “Novel Revision for the Faint of Heart”. In: Writer’s Digest. February, 2008.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
Cheryl Antao Xavier
“Her passion for giving voice to non-mainstream writers has inspired her to swim against the tide in these harsh economic times,” says Desi News (Issue 31; December 2014) of Cheryl Antao-Xavier, publisher of In Our Words, Inc. (IOWI) in Mississauga, Ontario.
I met Cheryl a few years ago at a writer’s event when she introduced herself during a break as I was helping myself to my third samosa. We’ve since collaborated on several projects. The most recent is a literary anthology on what it means to live in Canada and be a Canadian. The call for submissions has just recently been made, so if you’re interested in submitting, check out Cheryl’s website here: http://inourwords.ca/the-literary-connection-volume-ii.html
Born of Goan parents, Cheryl grew up in Bahrain and then Karachi, where books were a rare treat. Cheryl shares the story of her aunt who taught knitting to women in a banking family from whom she borrowed books—Enid Blyton, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Nancy Drew and comics—for her book-thirsty nieces, who “would devour the books in no time!” says Antao-Xavier.
Quality books were a luxury, even at the university she attended. Cheryl recalls how the Karachi University library had a “chained book” on display. John Stuart Mill’s book was required reading for students of economics but there was only one copy in the KU library. It sat on a wooden stand with a chain running through its spine under a librarian’s guard and you had to book time with the book and wait long hours for a few minutes to make hasty notes.
Cheryl Antao Xavier
When Cheryl immigrated to Canada in 1988, she found “book heaven” in the second-hand bookstores and libraries. Reading and owning books became an obsession that has endured to this day.
Cheryl worked for several publishing houses before creating her own publishing house In Our Words Inc. (IOWI). IOWI publishes a good variety of works, including literary fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and children’s stories from both emerging and established writers.
About the work IOWI publishes, Cheryl told Desi News, “I delight in new and fresh voices; language with imagery; twists on the conventional; historical backgrounds with the angst of displaced or marginalized people. For writers with emotional ties to a heritage radically different from the Canadian experience, writing is a cathartic process. There are writers who have lived through cataclysmic events, whose stories are fascinating chips in the mosaic of Canadian literature.”
I recently whisked Cheryl off in Benny, my sentient ship, and settled her to a million dollar view in the aft deck as we circled the planet. I asked her about how she is managing with the industry doing virtual summersaults (as opposed to somersaults–well, it IS summer, eh?) these days. Here’s what went back and forth:
Nina: I was so intrigued by your story, I just have to start by asking you this: what’s your favourite book of all time and why?
Cheryl: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Read it umpteen times, saw both movie versions, have the Colin Firth series in my video collection. I looooove period fiction drama. Dickens, the Brontes, Hardy, to the more recent Forsythe Saga, Downton Abbey, etc. etc. My Dad had the full collection of Perry Mason and Zane Grey books. So of course I read them all. I love murder-mysteries from Agatha Christie to the present day forensic science stuff.
Nina: You have excellent taste! … What is your assessment of what is happening with print books vs ebooks vs audio books and such? Do you see one format winning over the other and how will that affect your own publishing model?
Cheryl: Print books should be around for as long as our generation who love holding a paper book survive. But ebooks are increasingly popular and have undeniable environmental merits. Publishing companies like mine have to do what you aptly call ‘virtual somersaults’ to stay current and cut costs to stay viable. Rather than publishing formats, what worries me more is poor quality books being published and the potential for declining readership in general. The tragedy of do-it-yourself print-on-demand software, freely available, is that anybody with passable tech skills can become a ‘published author.’ Books with flashy covers but no creative merit vie for reader attention and diminishing discretionary incomes. Also, media entertainment continues to steal leisure time.
Nina: Can you share some candid thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages for writers starting out in choosing the traditional publishing model vs alternative models such as indie or self-publishing.
Cheryl: The lines between traditional and indie/self-pub have blurred even more with the proliferation of print-on-demand options. Production costs have consequently plummeted. So the financial investment in an author/book has less of a risk. I would say, do your research. Make your manuscript super-strong, that means get it professionally edited, and then try the traditional route. Read publishers’ responses to your queries very carefully. It’s an opportunity to learn. If there are no takers, then research indie publishers and call, discuss contracts and options and make an informed decision. Make doubly sure that the traditional pre-production steps of editing, proofreading and professional design are not bypassed. Sometimes good content is smothered by verbosity and needs a good professional edit. Basic POD ‘template’ designs SCREAM amateur-DIY when they are set with no real imagination in big blocks of text, riddled with typos.
Nina: Do you see any specific roles for indie and/or self-publishing in helping to define artistic expression in Canada?
Cheryl: Definitely. The traditional big publishing houses can accept just so many manuscripts. So obviously they’ll go for the ones that are a sure bet. That’s where the diamonds in the rough can be missed out. Indie publishers who have the resources to work with authors to polish the content to its best possible advantage are ideally placed to bring new or even established voices to the mainstream.
Nina: What in your opinion is the major impact (both negative and positive) of the growing self-publishing model adopted by many writers over both traditional and indie publishing?
Cheryl: Occasionally I read and recommend self-published books for membership in a major professional writer’s organization. I also attend book launches and local literary events looking at books, particularly by self-published authors. The good thing is that these authors went that extra step to raise their voices in the literate world. They feel the satisfaction of being ‘published authors.’ The down side is that once something is in print, and particularly if it has not been professionally edited and designed, that book can end up being an embarrassment and a waste of time and money. Typos jump out at the reader and lower the credibility of the work and its creator. Ultimately, it comes down to what the writer wants to achieve by publishing.
Nina: What major change do you foresee in the book industry and the readership that will affect us? How and why will that affect IOWI?
Cheryl: Everybody loves a good story, and finds it worth their while to read well-articulated text. So the successful writers will be the ones who manage to engage their readers no matter what the genre. The challenge is also for a good book to stand out from the proliferation of new titles vying for attention in virtual and brick-and-mortar stores. I see social media, forums like Goodreads, and book tours/festivals being key arbiters in what bookworms find and opt to read. IOWI will continue to offer an indie publishing option that stresses putting out a good book. Something that both author and publisher can be proud of.
Nina: Tell us about your current projects and why they excite you.
Cheryl: IOWI is working on two anthologies currently, with a couple more in the planning stage. A Mississauga youth group is publishing their third anthology through IOWI. It is so exciting to see the writing and photography talent this group has attracted. We are so proud to be their publisher. IOWI has its own anthology The Literary Connection Volume II, with a theme of ‘My Canada’ due to be published by November this year. The call for submissions is already out and closes end-July. I am also working on pulling together a collection of plays by Canadian playwrights. It’s going to be awesome. My aim is to have writers meet with a professional writing coach, yourself Nina, to workshop their submissions into amazing work. I want these anthologies to be a credible contribution to CanLit.
Then another pet project is The Red Bench Project, which seeks to promote reading and literacy at the family and community levels. We must encourage the habit of reading for enjoyment. Bringing authors and public together is part of this project.
Nina: What three pieces of advice do you have for a new writer wishing to get published?
Cheryl: Write every day. Then spend some time editing and rewriting past work. Learn to write well through courses, mentorship or self-study.
Read voraciously and discerningly. Keep clippings or books of your favourite writers handy. Before writing, read a selection from these writers. It influences your own voice and jumpstarts your creativity.
Botanical Beach, BC (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Be guided by your need to publish your super-amazing manuscript. Not by your need to see your name on a book. If the content is not up to par, that novelty morphs into the proverbial albatross that haunts a fledgling writing career. If you are a serious writer: DON’T PUBLISH TILL YOU ARE READY!
Nina: Great advice, Cheryl! Thanks so much for joining me here and I do promise to get you back on the ground… Don’t the Great Lakes look beautiful from 36,000 km?
Cheryl: Thank YOU for the ride, Nina. Be well.
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Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
The seventh class of my 12-week Creating Science Fiction course that I teach at George Brown College is all about short story writing. I’m by nature a progressive—and an itinerant explorer; so, I am updating materials for my students and sharing them with you. Embedded in this “sharing” I promise a very cool deal too; just keep reading
One resource I’m eager to introduce to my students is Canadian SF short story writer Douglas Smith’s recent guidebook, Playing the Short Game: How to Market & Sell Short Fiction. Smith’s guidebook is a Tardis-style smallish yet comprehensive guide on what it takes to be a successful short story writer from starting & finishing to marketing & publishing to leveraging & promotion.
Smith is an accomplished short story writer and marketer, who has always
openly shared his treasures of acquired wisdom with others. His stories have appeared in thirty countries and 25 languages. He’s won three awards and has three acclaimed collections—so far. For years, his Foreign Market List has helped writers—including me—sell their work all over the world. To date, I have sold short stories (mostly reprints) to markets in Greece, Poland, Romania, Israel, and Italy—thanks to his list.
Why Short Fiction?
Smith gives seven excellent reasons for writing short fiction, even if you are ultimately a novel writer, like me. Writing short stories:
Know What You’re Writing
A short story only has 7,000 or less words to get your tale across while a novel has over ten times that many words to do the same. It follows then that the short story format is a simpler one. This does not necessarily mean easier.
Novels provide a sense of change, growth and solutions to problems and conflicts. “The short story doesn’t have the luxury of depicting change; the closest it can come is awareness,” writes Shelley Lowenkopf in her 2007 article “Telling Tales” in The Portable Writer’s Conference: Your Guide to Getting Published by Quill Driver Books.
She goes on to describe the short story as a close-up to a novel’s landscape. The short story is, therefore, often more intense and powerful. A short story, more than a novel, has the power to transport, disturb and enlighten.
Renowned short story authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Somerset Maugham, emphasize the importance of striving for one effect when writing a short story: the single effect you wish to leave with the reader at the end. This is accomplished by selecting events or situations that build quickly into a combustible response. Even Alice Munro, who is known for cramming long timeframes into her short stories, focuses framing time through a single event: a meal, family gathering, wedding or funeral, for instance.
Jack Bickham, in his book, Elements of Fiction Writing: Scene and Structure by Writer’s Digest Books (1993) writes that, “story length, author intention, traditional expectations of the audience, and all sorts of things may affect the form a story may take.” Choosing the appropriate length to tell your story relies on the complexity of your premise and theme.
Understanding the Short Story Format
Here are seven tips toward writing a compelling and memorable short story:
Selling Your Short Story
Smith’s guidebook provides several chapters of excellent advice in logical steps toward a successful career.
Here are just a few gems that I will be sharing with my students.
First of all, remember that you are not selling your story; you’re licensing a particular set of rights for someone to do something with that story. Before you do anything else, do your homework: know the rights you’re selling; and which ones to keep. Smith describes five major types of rights: media; language; geography (less and less relevant); occurrence; and time.
Media rights include print rights, electronic rights and audio rights. Markets include magazines, anthologies and collections for short stories. Language and geography rights are pretty self-explanatory. Occurrence rights relate to whether the publisher is buying first or second and onward rights (otherwise known as reprints). Most publishers prefer to pay for the right to publish your work for the first time in that particular format (e.g., in print and in English, for instance). Having said that, I’ve had a lucrative history of selling reprints to some of my more popular short stories. I’ve furthered gone on to selling other rights, such as foreign language rights and audiobook and e-book rights. I’ve also sold two short story collections, one to an Italian publisher (coming out this year) and shorts in several anthologies. No movies yet… But I did have a serious discussion with a writer/producer on one of my shorts. Recall how many Philip K. Dick short stories have been adapted to movies (e.g., Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau, Paycheck, Minority Report, and Blade Runner).
Heinlein’s Five Rules of Writing
Smith invokes SF writer Robert J Heinlein’s 5 rules of writing to succeed as a short story writer (as any kind of writer, actually). These are:
I know… Number 3 sounds pretty suspicious, or arrogant at the very least. As Robert J. Sawyer concludes on his site in reference to the five rules, number 3 is open to reasonable interpretation. Of course, it must mean AFTER you’ve finished and edited the story with some level of confidence that you’re happy with it—never mind what other people think of it.
Nina’s Bus-Terminal Model
In my writing guide The Fiction Writer, Chapter L (for “Long or Short?”), I talk about how I launched my own successful short story writing career. I’d been writing short stories for a few years without much success (I was getting interesting rejection letters, so I knew I was getting close); then I settled into a kind of model/routine. I call it The Bus Terminal Approach. As Smith attests—several times—it’s a numbers game. That’s how I played it. It starts with one story and relies on you not waiting until you write the next, and the next and the next. Here’s how it works:
Remember to keep track of what you send where and when and what happens to it. It can become a very confusing bus terminal otherwise, with someone ending up in Seattle when they are headed to Toronto! What happens with this approach is several things: you begin to treat the whole marketing/publishing process as a business (which it is) and because you have so many “buses” out there coming and going, the rejections don’t hurt quite as much and instead become part of the learning process, which they should be. You adopt a more business-like approach, which translates into your relationship with editors and publishers. A win-win situation results. Believe me; this works. Once I fell into this method, my sales increased by over 70%.
I mentioned a cool deal in the beginning. Here it is: you can purchase Smith’s e-guidebook, along with several other excellent writing guides on the Write Stuff StoryBundle as a promotional bundle. Here’s the Write Stuff StoryBundle Site. The offer runs until June 4th 2015.
My own guidebook, The Fiction Writer, can be purchased in various online and onsite bookstores, including Amazon, Kobo, Chapters Online, Barnes & Noble, and several others even I don’t know about.
Natural Selection, my short story collection published by Pixl Press in 2013 is also available at several bookstores.
“Written with flare and a conscience…Munteanu shines a light on human evolution and how the choices we do or don’t make today, may impact our planet and future generations.”—J.P. McLean, author of The Gift Legacy
“Nina Munteanu is a gifted writer. Each story surprises and delights.”—Allan Stanleigh, co-author of USNA and The Caretakers
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 